Off to Gay Paris

Yes I know I've been extremely slack and haven't posted here is ages, in fact I'd be very surprised if anyone even bothers to check this site at all.

Just a quick note to let everyone know that yes, I am alive, and now that I have my passport back I'm doing a bit more travelling, especially with 2 long weekends in may.

Last year I had to get my visa renewed and it took a whole 5 months to get the darn thing back, and as I had to send every piece of ID that either Matt or I had it made everything really difficult. But now that I have it back its back to the touristing ☺

So Matt and I went to the south east of France over Easter for some skiing, but that’s a long story and I'll post all the details later.


We're of to Paris for the long weekend this weekend. Were going by the euro star so we get to go under the channel which I'm sure will be a new experience.

I want to check out all the usual sites, (eifel tower, arc de triump) as well as a few of the more unusual ones: the catacombs.
One of the things I really want to do is go to a hypermarche. I heard about them in French classes way back in high school.


So I found out during our trip to the three valleys that I seem to have remembered quite a bit of French from way back in high-school. I couldn’t remember any of the conjugation or the perfect and imperect stuff, but people did seem to understand what I was saying, which was really good.
I'll post a review and photos when i get back

z

Working in the summer

Well for those who don't yet know I scored a job. I'm working down in Peterborough in England. Its a small town thats an hour north of london (also an hour from everywhere else.)

Luckily for me the work is really interesting, and Matt and I just love Peterborough. It has a bit of a country feel to it. there are plenty of walking/ cycling paths and heaps of green spaces.
And yet the town centre is only a 20 minute walk from where we live (10 mins by the bus with a stopon our road:))

And we have already made some new friends which is nice. We have joined a games group that meets every month to play games. We have recently stated to go to a weekly pub meet too.

There is a Huge cathedral that really doesn't fit with the rest of the town (its way to big.) Its currently being restored, but I'll post some photos when I get round to seeing it again.

ireland

So matt and I decided to travel to the emerald isle before the weather got too bad.
There were 2 places that we really wanted to see in Ireland "Giants Causeway" and "Carik a reed". As public transport to these places was going to be mighty difficult, we went the route of the package tour. 11 days sharing a bus with a bunch of backpackers and a crazy driver.



Doing things this way meant that we saw alot of stuff that we normally wouldn't have. Matt and I now have the gift of the gab as we kissed the Blarney stone. and I tried my very first (and last Guiness)





We also saw some really cool stuff like a star fort






Of course we visted Giants causway which really was phenomenal. The rocks are just amazing !
And its quite close the carik-a- reed a very old rope bridge. Its actually quite scarry to be on the bridge. Especially when they are threatening to close it 'cos the weather is so bad. Apparently they used to hand fishing nets from the bridge to catch the fish as they swam past.

















We also went for a horse and carrige ride through the ring of kerry. And even though we tried our hardest we just couln't find any Leprecauns.

Scotland- the highlands

Before the weather turned into a proper winter Matt and I went on a tour of the Highlands and Orkneys.
The scenery there is really breathtaking and it’s very remote.

There is an amazing hanging valley carved out by glaciers thousands of years ago.


The highlight would have to have been Scara brae in the Orkneys.
Scara Brae is a 4500-year-old village with flushing toilets. (They used the tides to clean away the mess!)

It is extremely well preserved as it had been buried under sand until 1850, when a big storm unearthed it.







On the last night of the tour we stayed in a Castle, which was absolutely huge. (I kept getting lost.)

And on the last morning we went swimming in Loch Ness (lucky for us there were no monster sightings, though is was a pretty cold grey day.
We were so cold after our swim that we had to drop by a distillery and try some samples of Scotch to get the warmth back in.

Scotland- Glasgow and Edinburgh

The best thing about Scotland? That they speak a form of English. After 3 months of Europe it was really nice to hear people speak English.
We visited GOMA (the Glasgow Museum of Modern Art) which had some pretty cool stuff. We also just wandered around for a while before catching the train to Edinburgh, which is only 45 minutes away.



Edinburgh was a pleasant surprise, we had expected that as its so old, and made from dark grey bricks it would be very dark and gloomy. But, as the roads are very wide there is heaps of light and it looks really good. Although it gets full of tourist every single weekend it has heaps of pubs and clubs around and some great places to walk.

Rome 23rd -29th Sept

Hint for people traveling to Rome, If you are going to arrive on a weekend book in advance.
Matt and I didn’t so we ended up in this dodgy “hostel” that was really some extra rooms in this woman’s’ apartment that she rented out at €20 per bed (and she had 12 beds in 2 rooms) so a nice way to pay of the mortgage. Luckily we managed to move into a much better hostel after the weekend and were ecstatic to find the first form of self catering since Berlin.
Yes folks this hostels kitchen consisted of …a microwave! Never had I been so happy to have a supermarket soup in my life. (It’s the simple things in life that you miss when traveling.)


Rome the city is a pretty amazing place.(With possibly the worlds longest zebra crossing.) We had made a rough plan of what to see on Friday: St Ignatius (the church where they ran out of money and had to paint the dome on), Trevi fountain and the Spanish steps, but while we were walking back to our hostel we could see out of the corner of our eyes the colossuem and forum that we planned on seeing on Saturday.





Luckily for us on Saturday the colusseum was free so we could afford to do the guided tour, which was fairly informative, although the guide was very hard to understand.

I had read in my guidebook that the Vatican is free on the last Sunday of the month, which was pretty cool. So Sunday morning Matt, I and about a thousand other people queued up for 2 1/2 hours to see the Vatican museum. It’s strange that once inside a lot of people go straight to the Sistine Chapel and miss all the really cool stolen artifacts. Part of the Vatican is built from the bricks used to build the Colosseum.



Our favorite exhibit would have to be the micro mosaics room, which is right at the end and a lot of people miss it.
To be honest I was a little disappointed by the Sistene chapel, it could be ‘cos we just saw sooo much stolen art.






Monday we went to check out the castle, only to find that it’s closed on Mondays, then to Santa Maria della Concezione de Cappuccini where monks used the bones of friars to create art. It was a little bit disturbing but well worth seeing. Next we went to checkout a Pyramide, its only 37m high and surrounded by the city.






On Tuesday arvo Matt and I met up with my friend from Oz, Lisa. As we were asking how her flight was some people came back to the hostel and said that the Vatican was free again, so we quickly went down there and joined the queue and managed to get into the Vatican about 15 minutes before they stopped letting everyone in. It was a bit of a rush, as we got lost in an entire wing of stuff we had never seen before, and by the time we got back to the main track they were rushing people through and had closed off a lot of the side galleries.

On Wednesday, Matt, Lisa, Justin and I did a self made walking tour of Rome and managed to see most of the Major sites. It was heaps of fun, although it was very hot that day so we had to cool down by consuming massive amounts of Gelato.






On Thursday morning we did a free guided tour of St Peters Cathedral and boy is that place big. We learn’t so much stuff,. had a quick wander round and stopped by the train station for Pizza Cones, which are a brilliant idea. Pizza in a cone shape so they’re super easy to eat. I wish they had them everywhere.
In the evening Matt and I caught a super cheap flight to Glasgow Scotland.

Sicily 20th-22nd sept

Did you know that Sicily is rotating anticlockwise?
Neither did we until we got there. We went for a guided tour of Mt Etna which was really cool as the guide knew heaps about volcanoes.








Also hidden away in Catania is the best Gelattoria in Italy they had so many flavors, and while Matt and I were trying to decide what to get the guy behind the counter kept pushing samples at us, and they were all so good. I’m still not sure why the elephant has an obelisk on his back, but it does make a nice statue.