After our most wonderful stay at that small cottage in the Killarney country side, we made our way to a tiny village named Anascaul on the Dingle Peninsula..it was quite small..really just a strip of houses and pubs with one very green bar/hostel called "The Randy Leprechaun". It was alright, we just had a spider issue in our room, which Liz bravely and heroicly fixed with her left shoe. For the two days we were in Anascaul we took the bus to the town of Dingle, a small harbour village famous for it's Dolphin named 'Fungie' (how dumb) Anyway, that's why tourist's go there..we didn't go looking for the fish. We did our usual amount of toodling until the last bus came at 4:00pm to take us back to our little hostel.
We made friends with so many dogs..yes, literal dogs..they just kept coming up to us and following us down the street and trying to play fetch with us. Hopefully that doesn't make us sound like super losers..there we're really any people around in that town ok?!
On our last night there we went down to the bar for our last Irish pint of Guiness. And what do you know they started setting up for a little bit of Karaoke. So, I gathered my courage and sung a little U2 'elevation' (I sang part of the song very wrong because I forgot how it went.awkward) It was good fun though because I've always wanted to do Karaoke and finally got my chance in jolly old Ireland.
The next morning we made our way to a short one night stop in a place called 'Sixmilebridge' (It was close to the Shannon Airport) And in the morning took a flight to Edinburgh.
So here we are now in a very grand city indeed, rich in history, and handsome to behold. We're staying with another school friend of ours named Heidi and are really enjoying ourselves thus far!
Well, hopefully write in a couple of days on Edinburgh happenings! OH! But before I go, I must say that I tried Haggis today and it was deeeeelicious! Stupid rumours that it tastes awful...it was just like a really good meatloaf! ..anyway..bye!
Monday, November 24, 2008
Saturday, November 15, 2008
So much to recap..
Sorry about the lack of posts..it has been a while hasn't it? I don't wanna go home in 3 weeks!!!
So after Lisbon we took a rediculously long train ride to Paris..from Lisbon..check out a map..it's far. We arrived in Paris for the sole purpose of going to Disneyland..and that we did. It truly was magical pretending to be a child again. It was fun. We got a stupidly annoying fine on the metro though, wasn't even our fault..it was only 25 euros, but it was inconveniant still.
From Paris, we travelled to Cherbourg to catch our ferry over to Ireland. Worst ferry ride ever. EVER. 22 hours of storm on the Atlantic. I never want to do that again. It wasn't so bad when we were sleeping because we just layed on the ground and slept to the rocking of the boat, but as soon as I got up in the morning...ugh...I felt so sick. I, in the past, have been quite proud of my sea-legs, but obviously they failed me because I was sick. I didn't throw up, but I have to sit outside in the freezing rain and wind to try and escape the feeling of death welling up inside. Needless to say I was overjoyed at our landing in Ireland, not just because I hated the ship, but also because I've been looking forward to coming here for so long. It really is something else.
Anyway..yes, we arrived in Rosslare at the ferry terminal and got wisked into passport control to get our passports stamped, then we went on orur way to Dubin.
In Dublin we had a grand time. We stayed with a very popular person in the couchsurfing world (we only found that out after staying with her) and she was so funny, actually Dot if you're reading this she reminded me a lot of you, hilare..anyway. We went shopping and went to the Guiness brewery at St. Jame's gate and I painted a bit, it was really great.
We then were on our way to Cork. It was so so so cool. I really liked it. As soon as we arrived we were looking at a map and a nice old chap came up to us and asked if we needed some help. We did and he sure helped us, gave us specific details and everything, he even went to his office (he worked at the station) and got a map for us. So nice. We chatted with him for a bit and then said goodbye only to get more hlep on the street when we pulled out our map..everyone was so friendly! We couchsurfed there too with a very nice guy named Sebastian, he showed us all around the city that night and he was a great host! We also took a small trip to Blarney to kiss the blarney stone..cool, but I already felt lucky to be here before I kissed the thing.
We're now in Killarney in the most amazing little farm house in the country. We're couchsurfing yet again with a girl named Silke and her little 14 month old daughter Emily. Oh and not to mention the 6 puppies, dog, and 2 cats. I am so jealous..it is so beautiful here. So lush and green. Tomorrow we're off for a nice long hike through one of the many parks in county Kerry with Sebastian and a couple other couch surfers. I'm so happy!
Well, Liz is waiting for the computer so I'd better go..sorry for the lack of detail, but it was a lot to remember.
Until the next time...
So after Lisbon we took a rediculously long train ride to Paris..from Lisbon..check out a map..it's far. We arrived in Paris for the sole purpose of going to Disneyland..and that we did. It truly was magical pretending to be a child again. It was fun. We got a stupidly annoying fine on the metro though, wasn't even our fault..it was only 25 euros, but it was inconveniant still.
From Paris, we travelled to Cherbourg to catch our ferry over to Ireland. Worst ferry ride ever. EVER. 22 hours of storm on the Atlantic. I never want to do that again. It wasn't so bad when we were sleeping because we just layed on the ground and slept to the rocking of the boat, but as soon as I got up in the morning...ugh...I felt so sick. I, in the past, have been quite proud of my sea-legs, but obviously they failed me because I was sick. I didn't throw up, but I have to sit outside in the freezing rain and wind to try and escape the feeling of death welling up inside. Needless to say I was overjoyed at our landing in Ireland, not just because I hated the ship, but also because I've been looking forward to coming here for so long. It really is something else.
Anyway..yes, we arrived in Rosslare at the ferry terminal and got wisked into passport control to get our passports stamped, then we went on orur way to Dubin.
In Dublin we had a grand time. We stayed with a very popular person in the couchsurfing world (we only found that out after staying with her) and she was so funny, actually Dot if you're reading this she reminded me a lot of you, hilare..anyway. We went shopping and went to the Guiness brewery at St. Jame's gate and I painted a bit, it was really great.
We then were on our way to Cork. It was so so so cool. I really liked it. As soon as we arrived we were looking at a map and a nice old chap came up to us and asked if we needed some help. We did and he sure helped us, gave us specific details and everything, he even went to his office (he worked at the station) and got a map for us. So nice. We chatted with him for a bit and then said goodbye only to get more hlep on the street when we pulled out our map..everyone was so friendly! We couchsurfed there too with a very nice guy named Sebastian, he showed us all around the city that night and he was a great host! We also took a small trip to Blarney to kiss the blarney stone..cool, but I already felt lucky to be here before I kissed the thing.
We're now in Killarney in the most amazing little farm house in the country. We're couchsurfing yet again with a girl named Silke and her little 14 month old daughter Emily. Oh and not to mention the 6 puppies, dog, and 2 cats. I am so jealous..it is so beautiful here. So lush and green. Tomorrow we're off for a nice long hike through one of the many parks in county Kerry with Sebastian and a couple other couch surfers. I'm so happy!
Well, Liz is waiting for the computer so I'd better go..sorry for the lack of detail, but it was a lot to remember.
Until the next time...
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Lisboa, Portugal
Mmm loving Lisbon.
We´re just rounding off our last couple hours in Lisbon and I´m sad to go. It´s such a wonderful city, but it is so big and so chaulk full of monuments, delicious pastries, and kind people. I can´t belive we´re not spending more time here.
We stayed at the ´Black and White´ hostel which was amazing, partly because of the staff, partly because it was decorated really awesomely, and partly..just because we liked it a lot. We spent a lot of time chillin´here, Liz is sick and needs her rest along with a forced cup of tea (she hates tea but I swore it would make her feel better). We made friends with one of the staff members. Unfortunately we didn´t catch his name, but we had fun talking about random stuff because he wasn´t busy, being low season and all.
We walked for about 2 hours to the famous discovery monument, stopping along the way to look at other fantastic pieces of history. I didn´t know Lisbon had so many statues and monuments. On the way to the discovery monument we saw the massice bridge that looks like the golden gate bridge with a massive statue of Jesus at the other end of the bridge..it´s quite hard to describe. It was really cool. After going to the discovery monument in Belem (the district of Lisbon it´s in) we got some pastries, because Belem is famous for those. They were delicious.
Other than hanging around our hostel and walking for hours we didn´t do much. It was great to just relax after our hectic travel schedule through Italy and Spain. Now we move onto Paris yet again only this time all we´re doing is going to Disneyland! Yay! I´ve never been and Liz swears it´s magical, so exciting. Then it´s across the water to Ireland where we start our U.K. leg of our journey. Excellent.
Until next time,
Justine.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Spain and the rain..but mostly Spain.
Hey everyone!
So I left you talking about the rain in Barcelona..now off to more tales of adventure, partially in rain, in the small city of Malaga in the south of Spain.
Our first day in Malaga was beautiful. Blue skies, the ocean yet again. Shopping in tiny stores off a crowded street, absolutely wonderful. We walked to the small town called Torremolinos which, I´m guessing, is kind of like a district of Malaga. We were really just taking our time, enjoying the sun and warmth. We eventually made our way back to where we were staying, a YWAM base called Villa Isabel. They were so good to us. We felt right at home. We even helped some of the kids of a family who was visiting, make a happy birthday banner for one of the staff members. It was good fun. That night I slept very very well in my cozy little bed.
The next morning we got up and having originally planned to go to Gebraltar, decided not to because we were to tired to wake up early. So we slept a little bit, until breakfast, which was really big because it was a birthday breakfast for the afformentioned staff member. We ate a whole lot of delicious breakfast. We then decided, since we found out it was raining, that we would just go to the indoor shopping mall at the train station in Malaga. We had to walk from the villa to the metro, then take the metro to the covered train station. In the 30 or so minutes it took us to walk down the big hill where the villa was we became completely soaked. And I mean thoroughly drenched. Our jeans were stuck to us, our shoes made squishing noises, we watched as the road looked more like a river (seriously), it poured buckets. It was awesome.. So we got to the mall, very wet, and I tried to dry myself a little in one of those hand dryer things, but ended up looking like a little bit of a fool, plus my jeans were still very wet, so we continued on for a nice day of shopping. We got back to our villa (again drenched) and made ourselves some nice pesto pasta with chicken and steamed broccoli. T´was a good day.
The next morning we got up early to catch our train to Madrid, from which we would catch our night train to Lisbon, Portugal. We ended up over shooting our times a bit, making our stay in the train station about 10 hours and November 1st is a holiday so no shops nearby were open..so we hung around for a long time. We had a bit of drama when we kept catching this random creepy guy taking photos of us..sooooooo creepy. The worst part is, he sucked at being subtle, so he has a lot of pictures of me staring right at him making ´what do you think you´re doing, I see you´ faces. He kept following us ´subtly´all around the station. Acting like he was just walking around a lot. So he had drawn the last straw when he came lurking again around us, taking pictures over some ledge. I stood up and I just stared at him with the most menacing glare I could muster. I just would´t stop staring intently at him. Obviously flustered, he made it look like he was just turning off his camera and putting it away, when I kept staring he started walking, I kept staring all the while he was walking and quickly glancing up at me, only to look back at his shoes again. Yeah, that´s right. We didn´t see him again. The ol´glare got him running. Haha. Yes. It was a long wait. Our train left at 11:00pm and got into Lisbon at 8:00am. Roughest train ride ever..seeing as we´re cheap, we bought seats in 2nd class instead of paying for beds..ugggh..it was smoking hot, especially where Liz was right by the window. The good thing was that we had empty seats facing us, which meant we could put our feet up. It was loud and rocky, but we made it..we´re here in Lisbon and it is really quite a jem. Seriously nice. There are a lot of huge monuments everywhere and the architecture is very interesting. I like, I like. Well, tomarrow we rent bikes and check out the bigger part of Lisbon. Awesome. I´m so excited!
Bye for now!
Justine.
So I left you talking about the rain in Barcelona..now off to more tales of adventure, partially in rain, in the small city of Malaga in the south of Spain.
Our first day in Malaga was beautiful. Blue skies, the ocean yet again. Shopping in tiny stores off a crowded street, absolutely wonderful. We walked to the small town called Torremolinos which, I´m guessing, is kind of like a district of Malaga. We were really just taking our time, enjoying the sun and warmth. We eventually made our way back to where we were staying, a YWAM base called Villa Isabel. They were so good to us. We felt right at home. We even helped some of the kids of a family who was visiting, make a happy birthday banner for one of the staff members. It was good fun. That night I slept very very well in my cozy little bed.
The next morning we got up and having originally planned to go to Gebraltar, decided not to because we were to tired to wake up early. So we slept a little bit, until breakfast, which was really big because it was a birthday breakfast for the afformentioned staff member. We ate a whole lot of delicious breakfast. We then decided, since we found out it was raining, that we would just go to the indoor shopping mall at the train station in Malaga. We had to walk from the villa to the metro, then take the metro to the covered train station. In the 30 or so minutes it took us to walk down the big hill where the villa was we became completely soaked. And I mean thoroughly drenched. Our jeans were stuck to us, our shoes made squishing noises, we watched as the road looked more like a river (seriously), it poured buckets. It was awesome.. So we got to the mall, very wet, and I tried to dry myself a little in one of those hand dryer things, but ended up looking like a little bit of a fool, plus my jeans were still very wet, so we continued on for a nice day of shopping. We got back to our villa (again drenched) and made ourselves some nice pesto pasta with chicken and steamed broccoli. T´was a good day.
The next morning we got up early to catch our train to Madrid, from which we would catch our night train to Lisbon, Portugal. We ended up over shooting our times a bit, making our stay in the train station about 10 hours and November 1st is a holiday so no shops nearby were open..so we hung around for a long time. We had a bit of drama when we kept catching this random creepy guy taking photos of us..sooooooo creepy. The worst part is, he sucked at being subtle, so he has a lot of pictures of me staring right at him making ´what do you think you´re doing, I see you´ faces. He kept following us ´subtly´all around the station. Acting like he was just walking around a lot. So he had drawn the last straw when he came lurking again around us, taking pictures over some ledge. I stood up and I just stared at him with the most menacing glare I could muster. I just would´t stop staring intently at him. Obviously flustered, he made it look like he was just turning off his camera and putting it away, when I kept staring he started walking, I kept staring all the while he was walking and quickly glancing up at me, only to look back at his shoes again. Yeah, that´s right. We didn´t see him again. The ol´glare got him running. Haha. Yes. It was a long wait. Our train left at 11:00pm and got into Lisbon at 8:00am. Roughest train ride ever..seeing as we´re cheap, we bought seats in 2nd class instead of paying for beds..ugggh..it was smoking hot, especially where Liz was right by the window. The good thing was that we had empty seats facing us, which meant we could put our feet up. It was loud and rocky, but we made it..we´re here in Lisbon and it is really quite a jem. Seriously nice. There are a lot of huge monuments everywhere and the architecture is very interesting. I like, I like. Well, tomarrow we rent bikes and check out the bigger part of Lisbon. Awesome. I´m so excited!
Bye for now!
Justine.
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