Out of the Alps

I've uploaded some photos from Paris and Barcelona for people to see if they're curious. We didn't get many pics from Barcelona because we spent most of our time on the beach, but I did take a bunch of the sites in Paris:

Paris: http://jarema.smugmug.com/gallery/185321/5/7595117
The highlight was probably the cheap wine. I do remember seeing some of the sites that we have pictures of :)

Barcelona: http://jarema.smugmug.com/gallery/199053/1/7594773
The last two here are of Danny trying to sleep on the train to Interlaken. Needless to say, it was a comfortable ride. I didn't mention before, but we did go see the Picasso museum while hungover (it was pretty interesting to see him go from a normal style to his 'cubism' style later on in his life, but I don't claim to understand art whatsoever), and we saw the aquarium (largest in Europe). In terms of partying, we ended up going to the same club all three of the nights we spent in Barcelona, a touristy type club called Fiesta, that played similar music to what we hear in Canada, along with some Ace of Base and other 'oldies' to get the older people pumped up.

So we left Thuringen yesterday. Martha and Sigfreid, our hosts, treated us like gold and made sure that we were never hungry or bored (thanks!). Two nights ago Danny and I went with a group of some of the young people from town up to Bregenz (on Lake Constance, north-west corner of Austria), to party on a boat on the lake. We arrived after the boat departed and so went into town to visit a bar instead, then returning to the harbour to hang out at the party boat afterwards. Then we went to a club (whereabouts unknown :) that was pretty similar to what we're used to in Toronto, except that they often through a song from the 50's/60's into the mix every half hour or so. Other than that, the music and crowd was what I'd expect at home.

Yesterday we stopped in Innsbruck for a short stay to walk through the Old Town and grab some food and drink. They have a building whose roof is made from gold. It was built by Maximillion to either prove to the town that he had an abundance of money or as a gift to his sweetheart... I'm not sure which, but in either case I wouldn't mind getting my hands on a little piece of it.

We're in Prague now and will be spending 3 days here before taking off to Berlin. Wish us luck in meeting some Czech girls. Here's a picture of our hostel:
http://jarema.smugmug.com/photos/7595148-M.jpg

And here's a pic I just took (so Mom and Dad know I'm still alive):
http://jarema.smugmug.com/photos/7595540-M.jpg

-- Mike

Travelling in the Alps

Hello again!

It´s been a little while since my last post, so naturally a ton of stuff has been happening.

We´ve moved on from Barcelona (which for us was basically four days on the beach), and have since visited Interlaken in Switzerland and Thürigen in Austria.

The train ride from Barcelona to Interlaken was hell (but still enjoyable :). We had 15 hours from departure to arrival, with 4 switchovers on the course of the trip. We planned it so that we´d leave around 10pm at night and arrive in Interlaken the next morning with one sleeper car on the way from 1am to 8am. Of course this train was 2 and a half hours late, so we had to sleep on the concrete train platform waiting for it (so we wouldn´t miss it) and ended up waking up every 15 minutes as high speed trains went blasting by. Fun stuff :)

Interlaken itself is an amazing place. I´m guessing that tourism is the largest industry there (it is a small town of 15000 people) with an emphasis on extreme sports. They have skydiving, paragliding, river rafting and canyoning, among other crazy sports, advertised at every street corner. During our stay we rented bikes to go for a 7 hour ride in the mountains along the Lauderbrunnen valley (going south of Interlaken) and we also tried canyoning. This is a crazy sport in which they get you dressed up in wetsuits and helmets, take you to a canyon with a glacier-fed river (very cold) and guide you down about 3 or 4 hundred meters of vertical drop along the length of the canyon to where it lets out into a lake. Along the way there are places where you have to jump off cliffs about 30-35 feet into small pools, repel down waterfalls and slide down "natural waterslides". These waterslides are crazy -- basically over the years the constant flow of the river has smoothed down the rocks in the canyon forming nice smooth rock faces that direct the flow of the water. These things get to be about 50 or 60 feet long, and are in general pretty damn steep (the water needs to be flowing fast to have any chance of smoothing out the rocks over the years). So the guides sned you flying down the waterslides, you get tossed around like a ragdoll doll and dumped into a small pool at the bottom, often getting a few bumps and bruises on the more difficult slides. I bought some pictures of our canyoning trip and will post them sometime. I´d recommend this for anyone who has any sense of adventure.

One funny thing that happened in Interlaken is the following -- the first day we were there we went looking for some food after we checked into the hostel. Of course it started pouring on us (they usually have afternoon/evening showers), so we had to find a place to sit down and eat. We ended up at the only Chinese restaurant in the town, Mr. Hong´s, and grabbed some eats. The guy who runs the place (Mr. Hong is his name, no surprise there) has hilarious, so we decided to get a picture with him. He ended up sitting us down and chatting with us for awhile and we found out that he was an 8th dan (8th degree blackbelt) in Hapkido. He gave us a small demonstration (slapped us around a bit) and offered a private lesson for another day. We thought this was a great idea so we went back and payed for the instruction. It was basically like paying $30 each to get beaten up for 45 minutes (eg. shots to the stomach, slaps to the face/balls hard enough to force you to sit down for a minute, but not hard enough to actually injure you) but we did learn some things. So if you do go to Interlaken, be sure not to mess with Mr. Hong :)

Also, we signed up for a beach volleyball tournament and ended up playing on the same team as two brothers from California. The "beach" was actually a fine gravel, so any diving resulted in scrapes and cuts, so you learned quickly to stay on your feet. Naturally we were there best team in the tournament :), but by some strange stroke of misfortune, we ended losing in the playoffs.

After Interlaken we spent a day biking around Bern (capital of Switzerland), then took a train out to Bludenz (small town in Austria). There we met my cousin Christina, aunt Nora and a bunch of family and friends who live in a village near Bludenz called Thüringen. We´ve been treated like kings here in terms of the food and accomedations and have done an extensive amount of hiking in the mountains. Yesterday we climbed to the top of a mountain in the area over the course of about 4 hours. The day before we had breakfast in the Alps and did another 2 and a half hours of hiking. We´ve also visited "Schnapps Franz", a guy in the village who spends his spare time making Schnapps (the alcoholic drink), and maintaining a small museum of the history of the town.

I hope evenyone´s summer is going well -- I´m looking forward to sharing more stories when I get back, and hearing about what everyone has been doing. However, another part of me would be content missing the plane in Amsterdam and just spending another year here :)

-- Mike

On to Barcelona & Pics from London

Hello!

Today is our last day in Paris, and we just took it easy. Right now we're doing some laundry -- I've run out of clean clothes and need something to wear :)

These are the things we've done in Paris so far:

The day we arrived we were a little delerious from a lack of sleep. We stayed overnight at the airport in London, arriving around 1am, and waking up at 3:45am to check in for our flight. We ended up spending about $75 CAD for a flight on Easyjet from London to Paris -- I was under the impression we would be flying in a small propeller plane, but the discount airlines use standard Boeing jets. We found a hostel near the Louvre for 25 euros/night including breakfast. That day we just wandered around the city to get acquainted, and we hung out on one of the bridges over the Siene at night.

Wednesday we met up with my brother to see the Louvre during the day, and took a boat tour of the city later on in the day. After that we met up with some Polish girls and walked around the city at night. They do a great job here of making the city look good at night -- the Louvre, Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, etc. are all very well lit up. After that, we wandered to the area of the city where my brother was staying, found a pool hall and played some "American pool" :)

Thursday we went up the Eiffel tower, the weather wasn't the greatest but the view was still amazing. Friday and today we've just taken some time to relax and walk around. Every summer the city sets up a beach along the river here where performers have shows and people tan and hang out. Last night we hung out with some of the performers who taught us how to spin a baton (they light the ends of it on fire). Its basically a stick that is about 4 feet long, and the movements that the performers do with it remind me of martial arts. We also spent some time watching some breakdancers near the Eiffel tower and some rollerbladers in front of Notre Dame.

I've uploaded our pictures from London to my photo site, so you can click the following link to check them out:

http://jarema.smugmug.com/gallery/185317/1/7021721

The trip so far has been a blast, and constantly a learning experience (eg. don't bring dress pants if you are backpacking... especially ones that have to be dry-cleaned :). We've met tons of people so far from all over the continent, along with some people from Canada and the US.

- Mike

Stuck in Paris for another day

So our meeting with the Swiss girls failed last night due to a miscommunication about a phone number (eg. we do not know how to dial European numbers) but we did meet up with some others who are here on an international scholarship of sorts. The two who Danny and I were talking to were Amra and Elina, from Bosnia and Russia respectively, and we ended up chilling with them all night instead of heading out on the town.

Of course this implies that we slept in (and missed my brother's trip out to Tours -- sorry Jamie! I hope you left without waiting too long), but I believe it was for the best. Tours is a small town about 150km SW of Paris, and it would be hell trying to get a train ride out to Barcelona from there. Oh well! We tried to get a train for tonight but were unable to get a reservation, so we've booked for tomorrow. Our train takes us to the France/Spain border, and leaves us on our own from there.

I'll write from Barcelona! Wish us luck finding a hostel :) I'll send pictures when I find a cafe with USB.

- Mike

Paris -- quick comments!

Hello all,

We've been enjoying Paris and partying it up with some cheap wine ($2 CAD/bottle). I'll give an extensive overview of the events in a couple of days when we get to Barcelona. Keep the comments coming :)

We're about to head out with a couple of girls from Switzerland who don't speak English that we met in front of the Eiffel Tower... wish us luck!

- Mike

Off to Paris!

Hello Again,

Danny and I have finished our partying and site seeing in London and have just arrived in Paris. I think all of the late nights and busy days are catching up with us, so we're going to relax today and sort out some accomodations for the next couple of weeks.

London ended being a great city after accepting that it would make a huge dent in our pockets. The attitude towards alcohol is very relaxed vs. what we're used to in Canada. Beer is sold at convenience stores and drinking on the streets in tolerated. What that translated into for us was a cheap nights of drinking and a fun walk to the downtown area from our hostel. We went out last Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Weekend nights are crazy in an area called Soho, which is pretty much equivalent to Richmond and Adelaide streets, except that the number of people is multiplied by 10. We managed to make it into a club called Zoo Bar on Friday, and had to settle for hanging out at Burger King (which was still rammed with people!) on Saturday. Sunday nights are pretty quiet, so we ended up walking the streets, meeting some lesbians (it was gay pride weekend) and narrowly avoiding 'booty' night at a club called Rouge.

In terms of the sites, we saw everything. We did a self guided walking tour that went by St. Paul's cathedral (London's biggest church), the Millenium bridge, Tate Modern museum (I don't claim to understand modern art), the London Eye, Parliament, Big Ben, St James Park and Buckingham palace. We splurged and went on a tour of the palace and it was amazing. They give a free audio tour that describes the important aspects of each of the rooms, and plays a cool soundtrack that pumps you up as enter each room. It was well worht it. We also saw London Tower, crossed the Tower bridge and the Globe Theatre.

The crowd at our hostel mostly consisted of younger people in London to study English. They partied on the weekends but kept it low key on the week days. We met people from Mexico, US, Russia, Spain, Italy and Poland, and everyone had the same things to say about London -- expensive! But definitely worth it if you check out all of the sites, eat smart (get the most calories/dollar) and enjoy the privledge of drinking in public :)

Next is Paris! We'll be meeting up with my brother sometime this week, and we'll probably be taking a train to Barcelona on Thursday or Friday night. One regret is that we didn't fully plan this trip out (I know a few people who are thinking "told you so") but it makes it somewhat of an adventure. And plus crashing on a bed after wandering for a few hours with a 40 lb. backpack feels so good!

One more thing -- we're changing our plans. We'll be skipping Ibiza and going to Copenhagen, Denmark instead (after Berlin). I don't know the exact reasons for this but both Danny and I thought that it was a good decision. At the very least we'll be saving on travel costs and one day of travel.

-- Mike