Both Monday and Tuesday were travel days.
Monday, we left the Loughridges around 10am and drove back down to Belfast where we caught a hopper flight to London that afternoon. The flight was uneventful and once we reached Heathrow, we waited for a bus to take us to a nearby hotel. I still wasn't feeling well, so I spent the afternoon relaxing in the hotel room that Steve and I shared. Our family ate an early dinner and I went back to my relaxing and tried to go to sleep early. Unfortunately, my sickness didn't allow me to sleep well and Stephen couldn't fall asleep for a long time so it wasn't the best night's sleep.
Tuesday morning, my parents and Peter went to a coffee shop nearby while Stephen and I slept in and got ready in time to meet them in the lobby at 9am. From there we took a bus, which took a very long scenic route, to the airport. We had a little trouble checking in, so a lady came to help us and eventually left to go finish the process at a different computer. We waited for quite awhile until the lady plus her manager came back with a bit of bad news. The flight we had booked was over-booked and they didn't have enough seats for all five of us. There was a later flight at 3:30 (about 5 hours later) that had enough room for us and they would compensate for the inconvenience with either a free round-trip ticket to anywhere or 40,000 mile points. After deliberation, we all chose the points, checked in to our later flight, and after going through security, found a starbucks to set up camp in. I didn't mind waiting a few hours for a free flight! :)
We eventually boarded our plane, which was then delayed 30 minutes, before finally taking off. In order to make a smoother transition to the time change, I decided to stay up the whole 11-hour flight and proceeded to do so by watching 5 movies and a TV episode. Our flight attendant was great but everytime he would come to give us food or drinks, Stephen (who was sitting next to me) would always have his head down or be asleep. At one point, I ordered him a coffee and sandwich so the flight attendant gave me the coffee for "my man." haha. Then at the end of the flight, when he was collecting headphones, he gave a concerned look at Stephen and asked me if he was alright. :) I reassured him that Steve was fine.
When LA came into view, I couldn't contain my excitement and couldn't wait for the plane to land!!! It's such an ugly city with so much smog, but it's home and holds so many people I love; and that is what makes it my favorite city in the world. :)
After collecting our baggage and making our way through customs and security, Mr. Martin was so kind as to pick us up outside the terminal. It was so good to see home, to see my room, and to see Joel who had been watching the house for us. It was so good to sleep in my own bed that night.
I am often asked what our favorite parts of the trip were. It's hard to choose a favorite city based on looks, but the cities we enjoyed the most were the cities in which we knew people. Spending a week in Germany, hanging out and helping with the wedding was such a blast. Spending time with the Glass family in Switzerland, Leanne in Scotland, and Andrew, his family, Adam and Gillian in Northern Ireland were also highlights of our trip.
As much fun as Europe was, 7 weeks was a long time to be away from home. It's interesting how you learn to appreciate things more when they are taken away for awhile. Things I appreciate more at home are:
-being able to speak the language
-having a car at my disposal at any time
-having a phone to call people with (altho it was nice to be away from it too)
-knowing what the culture expects from you
-my church
-my friends
-a routine
-my bed and pillow
-living in one place
-the CA sun
-and so much more.
Thank you for all the prayers and encouragement. I actually complete my goal of keeping a journal throughout the entire trip!! and that was mostly due to everyone's encouragement. :)
I am so thankful for such a wonderful experience, for such a wonderful brother who put up with me for 7 weeks (and if you are wondering, we are still friends and we still get along :) ), for a wonderful family who came to join us, and most of all, I am thankful for a loving, merciful God who provided for us, protected us, and blessed us with such a unique opportunity.
The other goal I had for this trip relates to my blog title. As we traveled onward through Europe, that we would also travel upward in our relationship with God, growing closer to Him and glorifying Him in our thoughts, relationships, and actions, and enjoying the world He has created.
Our trip through Europe has ended, but this goal doesn't stop here.
Wherever God takes me and whatever His plan holds, through trials and blessings, it will be my goal to glorify God as I live...Onward and Upward.
Required Jumping Photo
Monday, July 25, 2011
Monday, July 18, 2011
This Wind Could Blow a Dog off his Collar
Saturday:
All of us had a lie in (slept in) and awoke to clouds and rain. We had originally planned to visit the Giants Causeway, but after seeing the weather, we decided to try for tomorrow. For breakfast, Gillian and Adam cooked us an amazing, traditional Ulster fry. The spread included fried soda bread, fried potato bread, sausages, bacon (not American bacon, but thick bacon that looked more like ham), and fried eggs. It was absolutely delicious! Once our stomachs had settled, Gillian and I went into town to go shopping, Mom and Dad lounged, read, and watched TV, and Adam took Stephen, Peter, and his friend Cliff kayaking down a river to Coleraine (the same town Gillian and I were shopping in).
After visiting a few shops, Gillian and I went to a really cute coffee shop. The lower level is a shop with a few cute clothes, jewelry, books, home goods (like a mini Anthropologie), and stairs which lead to a coffee shop upstairs. We had a long chat while we had our coffee and scones during which the sun came out, bringing a little sunshine and warmth.
After tea, we finished shopping and Gillian tried to call Adam to see what they were doing. He didn't answer so we drove to the car park by the river to see if his van would be there. Sure enough, his very-hard-to-miss van was there. We had no idea when they would show up, but we decided to walk down onto the docks just to see if we could spot them. You couldn't really see too far up the river, so our timing would have to be impecable in order to catch them. Our timing was impecable. Sure enough, a minute after we'd walked onto the docks, we spotted a few specks of kayaks making their way toward us. Tired yet still having fun after kayaking for 5 miles, the boys landed (after tipping peter into the water first).
They decided to drive back upstream to ride the jet ski, so Gillian and I set off to visit a vacant parking lot. This is the parking lot I learned to drive their stick (you shift with your left hand) and surprised myself by actually doing quite well! I didn't stall and managed to switch gears pretty smoothly. The only time I did stall was when I stopped while the car was in second gear. I even drove awhile down their street on the wrong side of the road! There were two things I really wanted to do while in Northern Ireland: Jet ski and drive on the left side of the road. Check and check. :)
That evening, we had Chili con Carne over white rice and garlic bread for dinner. David McFarland came over as we were watching Top Gear, then Adam, Gillian, David, Stephen, and I drove into town to rent a movie. We picked one out, made a quick stop at Tesco's, then spent the rest of the night eating Bannoffee (really good dessert with banana and toffee) and watching our movie.
Sunday:
Since church's don't start until 11:30, we slept in again and awoke to pouring rain...even worse than yesterday! After church we came back to the house...still pouring rain. But rain or shine, I was determined to see Giants Causeway. Gillian and Adam, once again, made an amazing meal of pizza, mac n cheese, chips (fries), and garlic bread. We finished off the Bannoffee for dessert, then bundled up in our rain gear and headed out.
Giants Causeway was beautiful! It was quite a stormy day, but I think that just added a dramatic flair to the whole event. We walked down along the rocks, then up along the cliffs to get a better view. The wind was actually the craziest part! I think thats the strongest wind I've ever encountered. It was a struggle just to walk against it and you could almost "lean" against it. :) We found a little trail that led us back to our cars and we drove home.
It was at this point that I started to feel a little bit unwell. My ear was starting to bother me and I just felt tired so I excused myself from night church and went to bed. Unfortunately, it turned into a full-on earache (infection?) and even after medicine, my sleep wasn't the best last night. :(
Please pray for me over the next few days. We have two flights. The first flight is in a couple hours and will be a hopper flight from Belfast to London (but because of the pressure, it could be excruciatingly painful...) and tomorrow we leave London to fly directly to LA.
I'm really looking forward to landing in sunny California and seeing everyone again! :)
See you all soon!!!!!!!!!!!
PS. The title was a saying we heard a British commentator use during a golf match. lol
All of us had a lie in (slept in) and awoke to clouds and rain. We had originally planned to visit the Giants Causeway, but after seeing the weather, we decided to try for tomorrow. For breakfast, Gillian and Adam cooked us an amazing, traditional Ulster fry. The spread included fried soda bread, fried potato bread, sausages, bacon (not American bacon, but thick bacon that looked more like ham), and fried eggs. It was absolutely delicious! Once our stomachs had settled, Gillian and I went into town to go shopping, Mom and Dad lounged, read, and watched TV, and Adam took Stephen, Peter, and his friend Cliff kayaking down a river to Coleraine (the same town Gillian and I were shopping in).
After visiting a few shops, Gillian and I went to a really cute coffee shop. The lower level is a shop with a few cute clothes, jewelry, books, home goods (like a mini Anthropologie), and stairs which lead to a coffee shop upstairs. We had a long chat while we had our coffee and scones during which the sun came out, bringing a little sunshine and warmth.
After tea, we finished shopping and Gillian tried to call Adam to see what they were doing. He didn't answer so we drove to the car park by the river to see if his van would be there. Sure enough, his very-hard-to-miss van was there. We had no idea when they would show up, but we decided to walk down onto the docks just to see if we could spot them. You couldn't really see too far up the river, so our timing would have to be impecable in order to catch them. Our timing was impecable. Sure enough, a minute after we'd walked onto the docks, we spotted a few specks of kayaks making their way toward us. Tired yet still having fun after kayaking for 5 miles, the boys landed (after tipping peter into the water first).
They decided to drive back upstream to ride the jet ski, so Gillian and I set off to visit a vacant parking lot. This is the parking lot I learned to drive their stick (you shift with your left hand) and surprised myself by actually doing quite well! I didn't stall and managed to switch gears pretty smoothly. The only time I did stall was when I stopped while the car was in second gear. I even drove awhile down their street on the wrong side of the road! There were two things I really wanted to do while in Northern Ireland: Jet ski and drive on the left side of the road. Check and check. :)
That evening, we had Chili con Carne over white rice and garlic bread for dinner. David McFarland came over as we were watching Top Gear, then Adam, Gillian, David, Stephen, and I drove into town to rent a movie. We picked one out, made a quick stop at Tesco's, then spent the rest of the night eating Bannoffee (really good dessert with banana and toffee) and watching our movie.
Sunday:
Since church's don't start until 11:30, we slept in again and awoke to pouring rain...even worse than yesterday! After church we came back to the house...still pouring rain. But rain or shine, I was determined to see Giants Causeway. Gillian and Adam, once again, made an amazing meal of pizza, mac n cheese, chips (fries), and garlic bread. We finished off the Bannoffee for dessert, then bundled up in our rain gear and headed out.
Giants Causeway was beautiful! It was quite a stormy day, but I think that just added a dramatic flair to the whole event. We walked down along the rocks, then up along the cliffs to get a better view. The wind was actually the craziest part! I think thats the strongest wind I've ever encountered. It was a struggle just to walk against it and you could almost "lean" against it. :) We found a little trail that led us back to our cars and we drove home.
It was at this point that I started to feel a little bit unwell. My ear was starting to bother me and I just felt tired so I excused myself from night church and went to bed. Unfortunately, it turned into a full-on earache (infection?) and even after medicine, my sleep wasn't the best last night. :(
Please pray for me over the next few days. We have two flights. The first flight is in a couple hours and will be a hopper flight from Belfast to London (but because of the pressure, it could be excruciatingly painful...) and tomorrow we leave London to fly directly to LA.
I'm really looking forward to landing in sunny California and seeing everyone again! :)
See you all soon!!!!!!!!!!!
PS. The title was a saying we heard a British commentator use during a golf match. lol
Friday, July 15, 2011
Surfing and Skiing
Thursday:
Today was more of a "road trip." We packed up our belongings and left Lisbon at around noon. Half an hour later, we were meeting Andrew in Belfast to drop off his guitar that he'd let us borrow :) and a few movies we'd borrowed as well. Then we set off for the coast.
Starting from Larne, we drove along the ocean and through several coastal towns admiring the beautiful views and peaceful atmosphere. In one such coastal town, we took a wee break to grab a coffee and eat lunch at a park. I recently discovered that ice cream is popular here and so, in order to fit in with the culture :), we had ice cream for dessert. Once we'd reached Ballycastle (there are several cities that begin with Bally which means "place of"), we veered off the coastal road and wound our way through green hills to finally reach our destination, Ballymoney.
Adam and Gillian Loughridge, who stayed with us in LA for two weeks in May, generously opened their home to us. We found them situated in a rural setting with plenty of land filled with sheep and cows surrounding their abode. The inside of their house is just as nicely decorated and I was shown to my very own room! :)
The rest of the evening consisted of catching up with Adam and Gillian, eating a delicious dinner, watching the Tour de France (Dad's influence), and after my parents had gone to bed, us young-uns stayed up to watch Nacho Libre.
Friday:
Today was such a fun day!! Despite the bleak weather threatening to rain at any moment, we drove to the beach towing kayaks and a jet ski! Adam, Dad, Stephen, Peter, and I all squeezed into wetsuits and booties, grabbed a kayak or jet ski, and marched into the ocean. Mom sat on the beach and watched/read her book. Compared to California, the water wasn't too cold! Not warm by any means, but with a wetsuit on, the temperature was comfortable enough. The waves were perfect. They were just the right size to surf in a kayak but not too big to overpower the jet ski.
The Johns took the kayaks while Adam expertly drove the jet ski past the waves to calmer waters. This jet ski is probably not the kind of jet ski you're thinking of. This isn't the kind where you sit down and simply steer the vehicle. No no. This jet ski has you laying down at first, grabbing onto the handles, and once you've pulled the throttle to get it moving slowly forward, you pull yourself up into a kneeling position, balancing the jet ski as you bounce over the water and experiment with the throttle to adjust the speed. Then, when you've mastered the kneeling position, the next challenge is to stand up, pulling the handles up with you, which is much harder to balance. The turns are especially hard and were usually the point at which i fell, trying to hold on with all my might so as not to lose the jet ski.
The first ride was the hardest and most tiring because I was gripping the handles so tight that my hands tired quickly. We all took turns trying the jet ski as everyone else caught some waves on the kayaks. Eventually, we stopped for lunch and huddled inside adam's van trying to stay warm. Then we headed back out for round two! I tried the jet ski two more times, improving with each run. The second run, I stood up for longer periods of time, but still wasn't good at turning. The last time, I was standing up almost the whole time, feeling more comfortable at turning, and even caught a little air while going over a wave! Speeding fast over the waves was such a great feeling. I loved it.
At around 4:30 we returned to shore, dried off, and left the beach before the tide could claim our vehicles. Hot showers, hot chocolate, and take away Chinese food for dinner was a great finish to the day.
After dinner, dad watched Tour de France, we relaxed, Adam and mom had a sing-a-long by the piano, and we met David McFarland, who I had heard so many stories about and now have finally met. We mostly hung out, Adam entertained us with a small fire show, and the boys did a late night Tesco run for breakfast groceries, and now it's very much time for bed.
Time is flying and we'll be home soon...although, by the sounds of Carmageddon, which I just heard about today, I think I'm glad I won't be home for a little while longer. :)
Today was more of a "road trip." We packed up our belongings and left Lisbon at around noon. Half an hour later, we were meeting Andrew in Belfast to drop off his guitar that he'd let us borrow :) and a few movies we'd borrowed as well. Then we set off for the coast.
Starting from Larne, we drove along the ocean and through several coastal towns admiring the beautiful views and peaceful atmosphere. In one such coastal town, we took a wee break to grab a coffee and eat lunch at a park. I recently discovered that ice cream is popular here and so, in order to fit in with the culture :), we had ice cream for dessert. Once we'd reached Ballycastle (there are several cities that begin with Bally which means "place of"), we veered off the coastal road and wound our way through green hills to finally reach our destination, Ballymoney.
Adam and Gillian Loughridge, who stayed with us in LA for two weeks in May, generously opened their home to us. We found them situated in a rural setting with plenty of land filled with sheep and cows surrounding their abode. The inside of their house is just as nicely decorated and I was shown to my very own room! :)
The rest of the evening consisted of catching up with Adam and Gillian, eating a delicious dinner, watching the Tour de France (Dad's influence), and after my parents had gone to bed, us young-uns stayed up to watch Nacho Libre.
Friday:
Today was such a fun day!! Despite the bleak weather threatening to rain at any moment, we drove to the beach towing kayaks and a jet ski! Adam, Dad, Stephen, Peter, and I all squeezed into wetsuits and booties, grabbed a kayak or jet ski, and marched into the ocean. Mom sat on the beach and watched/read her book. Compared to California, the water wasn't too cold! Not warm by any means, but with a wetsuit on, the temperature was comfortable enough. The waves were perfect. They were just the right size to surf in a kayak but not too big to overpower the jet ski.
The Johns took the kayaks while Adam expertly drove the jet ski past the waves to calmer waters. This jet ski is probably not the kind of jet ski you're thinking of. This isn't the kind where you sit down and simply steer the vehicle. No no. This jet ski has you laying down at first, grabbing onto the handles, and once you've pulled the throttle to get it moving slowly forward, you pull yourself up into a kneeling position, balancing the jet ski as you bounce over the water and experiment with the throttle to adjust the speed. Then, when you've mastered the kneeling position, the next challenge is to stand up, pulling the handles up with you, which is much harder to balance. The turns are especially hard and were usually the point at which i fell, trying to hold on with all my might so as not to lose the jet ski.
The first ride was the hardest and most tiring because I was gripping the handles so tight that my hands tired quickly. We all took turns trying the jet ski as everyone else caught some waves on the kayaks. Eventually, we stopped for lunch and huddled inside adam's van trying to stay warm. Then we headed back out for round two! I tried the jet ski two more times, improving with each run. The second run, I stood up for longer periods of time, but still wasn't good at turning. The last time, I was standing up almost the whole time, feeling more comfortable at turning, and even caught a little air while going over a wave! Speeding fast over the waves was such a great feeling. I loved it.
At around 4:30 we returned to shore, dried off, and left the beach before the tide could claim our vehicles. Hot showers, hot chocolate, and take away Chinese food for dinner was a great finish to the day.
After dinner, dad watched Tour de France, we relaxed, Adam and mom had a sing-a-long by the piano, and we met David McFarland, who I had heard so many stories about and now have finally met. We mostly hung out, Adam entertained us with a small fire show, and the boys did a late night Tesco run for breakfast groceries, and now it's very much time for bed.
Time is flying and we'll be home soon...although, by the sounds of Carmageddon, which I just heard about today, I think I'm glad I won't be home for a little while longer. :)
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Tour De...Northern Ireland?
Wednesday:
This morning promised to bring a wonderful day as indicated by the blue skies and bright sun! It was perfect weather for the activity we had planned: biking. Andrew met us at the bike store in Belfast and introduced us to our guide for the day: his brother Simon, who only just returned last night from a missions trip in Spain. Andrew had to prepare a sermon and wasn't able to ride with us so he told Simon that he would be riding with us. Typical older brother, I suppose...telling his siblings what to do. :) Fortunately, Simon was happy to do it, but initially intimidated because Andrew had told him that we were pretty much professional cyclists who ride 40 miles at a time! It's true about my parents (maybe not the professional part) but they were only expecting to ride leisurely today. As soon as we'd each received a bike, Simon led the way and took off...fast! I was the second rider and was peddalling fast just to keep up! Steve and Pete were close behind me and together we zoomed through the first section of the path. At one point, we stopped to wait for my parents who asked if we could slow down a bit. Lol. Yes, they normally rode fast, but today they just wanted to enjoy the view. The pace slowed and we enjoyed the rest of the bike trail which followed a river and showed us fields, forests, and plenty of various, colorful flora. The weather was perfect, maintaining sunny skies and a comfortable temperature.
After riding 11 miles, we arrived in Lisburn and ate lunch at a park. We then rode a little further to have coffee and ice cream at a cafe and sat for awhile talking and getting to know Simon better.
Hopping back on our bikes, we rode back to Belfast and arrived just in time because a dark cloud had slowly been approaching. It ended up looking more threatening than it actually was and only sprinkled a little bit once we were safely in our cars riding to Andrews house. As we drove back, Andrew took us on the scenic route to show us more of Belfast. We passed several murals painted on the buildings by different paramilitant groups and visited a monument of C. S. Lewis since he was actually from this town!
Andrew's family was gracious enough to invite us for tea (dinner) and we enjoyed a delicious meal of lasagna with salad and other various side dishes. Lemon flan and coffee completed the meal and we adjourned into the living room to keep talking and telling family stories. They are such a klass family and so much fun to talk to. :)
Then it was back to the house and off to bed (after a few more rounds of pool, that is).
This morning promised to bring a wonderful day as indicated by the blue skies and bright sun! It was perfect weather for the activity we had planned: biking. Andrew met us at the bike store in Belfast and introduced us to our guide for the day: his brother Simon, who only just returned last night from a missions trip in Spain. Andrew had to prepare a sermon and wasn't able to ride with us so he told Simon that he would be riding with us. Typical older brother, I suppose...telling his siblings what to do. :) Fortunately, Simon was happy to do it, but initially intimidated because Andrew had told him that we were pretty much professional cyclists who ride 40 miles at a time! It's true about my parents (maybe not the professional part) but they were only expecting to ride leisurely today. As soon as we'd each received a bike, Simon led the way and took off...fast! I was the second rider and was peddalling fast just to keep up! Steve and Pete were close behind me and together we zoomed through the first section of the path. At one point, we stopped to wait for my parents who asked if we could slow down a bit. Lol. Yes, they normally rode fast, but today they just wanted to enjoy the view. The pace slowed and we enjoyed the rest of the bike trail which followed a river and showed us fields, forests, and plenty of various, colorful flora. The weather was perfect, maintaining sunny skies and a comfortable temperature.
After riding 11 miles, we arrived in Lisburn and ate lunch at a park. We then rode a little further to have coffee and ice cream at a cafe and sat for awhile talking and getting to know Simon better.
Hopping back on our bikes, we rode back to Belfast and arrived just in time because a dark cloud had slowly been approaching. It ended up looking more threatening than it actually was and only sprinkled a little bit once we were safely in our cars riding to Andrews house. As we drove back, Andrew took us on the scenic route to show us more of Belfast. We passed several murals painted on the buildings by different paramilitant groups and visited a monument of C. S. Lewis since he was actually from this town!
Andrew's family was gracious enough to invite us for tea (dinner) and we enjoyed a delicious meal of lasagna with salad and other various side dishes. Lemon flan and coffee completed the meal and we adjourned into the living room to keep talking and telling family stories. They are such a klass family and so much fun to talk to. :)
Then it was back to the house and off to bed (after a few more rounds of pool, that is).
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Living life a couple centuries ago...
Tuesday:
What do the 12th of July, parades, traffic, and dangerous riots at night have to do with each other? Well, that is a holiday here in Northern Ireland. We tried to stay away from the raucous night, but we did see a parade while we sat in traffic. :)
The other main event of the day was visiting the Ulster Folk & Transport Museum! This is not your usual museum where you walk around a building while observing and reading about artifacts. Rather, a whole town has been recreated to show what it would've looked and felt like over 100 years ago. We met Andrew at the entrance, then with maps in hand, began our exploration. The town came first and we stepped in and out of apartments with small, bare bedrooms, a simple kitchen, and a small parlor with a coal burning fireplace. Other buildings included the candy shop, a shoemakers house, a bicycle shop, carpenter workshop, we played old children's games such as spinning a wheel with a stick, jump rope, stilt race, and a potato sack race. We visited a few churches (one with box pews that families would buy and use on Sunday), coal yard, a print shop, newsroom, post office, a bank, courthouse, a fancier house, one-room schoolhouse, a draper's shop where we saw the lady actually use the spinning wheel and loom to finish making cloth. In the rural area, we visited several country homes, a Corn mill, then took a shortcut to get to the flax mill, another school, a meeting hall, a forge where the guy was actually using the furnace and original tools to work with, and saw several animals such as chickens, a rooster, cows, sheep, pigs, goats, and geese.
The best part was when my mom woke up a chicken with her Tesco plastic bag. Once the chicken was up, it kept looking at the plastic bag and following my mom...even as we walked up the main road! It finally got distracted by other kids, but we couldn't stop laughing while it followed my mom! We then tried an experiment with the other animals. When we got to the goat section, mom would shake the plastic bag and you would not believe how fast those goats ran over! Even the pigs stopped eating and hustled over to the gate! We're thinking that maybe they feed the animals from plastic bags. :)
We also heard a story about the goats. The smaller goat's mom just died a couple weeks ago. It would constantly cry and run around looking for it's mom. The other goat used to live by itself and would always try to escape. It loved being around people and would try to get out of the field to follow them. Well, recently they brought the two goats together and they are now best friends and always stay with each other. (insert "awww" here)
We also saw the funniest looking chicken ever. It looked normal until the head, which had a large Afro of feathers encircling it's head. Literally an afro.
From there we walked to the transport section of the museum which was more of your typical museum except that you could walk on and play with all the trains, buses, trams, etc...that were exhibited.
Did you know that the Titanic was built in Belfast? I learned this fact since being here and the museum had a special exhibit called the Titanica which explains how it was built, how it sunk, and gives testimonies of people who were on it at the time. For about fifteen minutes, a lady "named" Violet Jessup (she was a real person at one time but this lady was acting to be her) recalled her experiences on the Titanic as well as the two other sister ships that also didn't meet happy endings (one crashed and had to be repaired, the other hit a mine and sank within one hour). Her Titanic experience was that she was a stewardess for the cabins in first class (and was only paid 2 pounds 10 pence per month!). When the Titanic hit the iceberg she was fortunate in that she was assigned to go on one of the last safety boats to leave the ship. As they were being lowered, the captain yelled for her attention and handed her an infant to take care of. She had to keep the baby warm all that night until the rescue ship came at 4am. Once they were on the boat and everyone was looking for their loved ones, she sat with the random baby until a woman came up to her, looked at the baby, looked at her, then took the baby and walked away. Violet wasn't sure if that was the mom, or if the lady couldn't speak English, but she just hoped he would be ok. Many, many years later when she was old and retired from working on ships (amazingly she went on to work on ships for another 40 years!) she was sitting in her cottage one night when she received a phone call. The person asked if she had been on the Titanic when it sunk. Then he asked if she had been given a baby to hold. She replied yes. The person then told her that he was that baby, and because of a storm outside the phone line was cut off, but at least she knew he was alright.
After walking around a little, we were all tired (I think mostly from yesterday's hike) so we decided to go home. We said goodbye to Andrew, shopped for groceries on the way home, had tacos for dinner, then watched Over the Hedge.
Ps. Now that we are all using one bathroom, I discovered that we brought five containers of toothpaste with us!! Granted, two are almost used up, and one is a mini one, but i thought it was so funny when I realized how many we had. :)
What do the 12th of July, parades, traffic, and dangerous riots at night have to do with each other? Well, that is a holiday here in Northern Ireland. We tried to stay away from the raucous night, but we did see a parade while we sat in traffic. :)
The other main event of the day was visiting the Ulster Folk & Transport Museum! This is not your usual museum where you walk around a building while observing and reading about artifacts. Rather, a whole town has been recreated to show what it would've looked and felt like over 100 years ago. We met Andrew at the entrance, then with maps in hand, began our exploration. The town came first and we stepped in and out of apartments with small, bare bedrooms, a simple kitchen, and a small parlor with a coal burning fireplace. Other buildings included the candy shop, a shoemakers house, a bicycle shop, carpenter workshop, we played old children's games such as spinning a wheel with a stick, jump rope, stilt race, and a potato sack race. We visited a few churches (one with box pews that families would buy and use on Sunday), coal yard, a print shop, newsroom, post office, a bank, courthouse, a fancier house, one-room schoolhouse, a draper's shop where we saw the lady actually use the spinning wheel and loom to finish making cloth. In the rural area, we visited several country homes, a Corn mill, then took a shortcut to get to the flax mill, another school, a meeting hall, a forge where the guy was actually using the furnace and original tools to work with, and saw several animals such as chickens, a rooster, cows, sheep, pigs, goats, and geese.
The best part was when my mom woke up a chicken with her Tesco plastic bag. Once the chicken was up, it kept looking at the plastic bag and following my mom...even as we walked up the main road! It finally got distracted by other kids, but we couldn't stop laughing while it followed my mom! We then tried an experiment with the other animals. When we got to the goat section, mom would shake the plastic bag and you would not believe how fast those goats ran over! Even the pigs stopped eating and hustled over to the gate! We're thinking that maybe they feed the animals from plastic bags. :)
We also heard a story about the goats. The smaller goat's mom just died a couple weeks ago. It would constantly cry and run around looking for it's mom. The other goat used to live by itself and would always try to escape. It loved being around people and would try to get out of the field to follow them. Well, recently they brought the two goats together and they are now best friends and always stay with each other. (insert "awww" here)
We also saw the funniest looking chicken ever. It looked normal until the head, which had a large Afro of feathers encircling it's head. Literally an afro.
From there we walked to the transport section of the museum which was more of your typical museum except that you could walk on and play with all the trains, buses, trams, etc...that were exhibited.
Did you know that the Titanic was built in Belfast? I learned this fact since being here and the museum had a special exhibit called the Titanica which explains how it was built, how it sunk, and gives testimonies of people who were on it at the time. For about fifteen minutes, a lady "named" Violet Jessup (she was a real person at one time but this lady was acting to be her) recalled her experiences on the Titanic as well as the two other sister ships that also didn't meet happy endings (one crashed and had to be repaired, the other hit a mine and sank within one hour). Her Titanic experience was that she was a stewardess for the cabins in first class (and was only paid 2 pounds 10 pence per month!). When the Titanic hit the iceberg she was fortunate in that she was assigned to go on one of the last safety boats to leave the ship. As they were being lowered, the captain yelled for her attention and handed her an infant to take care of. She had to keep the baby warm all that night until the rescue ship came at 4am. Once they were on the boat and everyone was looking for their loved ones, she sat with the random baby until a woman came up to her, looked at the baby, looked at her, then took the baby and walked away. Violet wasn't sure if that was the mom, or if the lady couldn't speak English, but she just hoped he would be ok. Many, many years later when she was old and retired from working on ships (amazingly she went on to work on ships for another 40 years!) she was sitting in her cottage one night when she received a phone call. The person asked if she had been on the Titanic when it sunk. Then he asked if she had been given a baby to hold. She replied yes. The person then told her that he was that baby, and because of a storm outside the phone line was cut off, but at least she knew he was alright.
After walking around a little, we were all tired (I think mostly from yesterday's hike) so we decided to go home. We said goodbye to Andrew, shopped for groceries on the way home, had tacos for dinner, then watched Over the Hedge.
Ps. Now that we are all using one bathroom, I discovered that we brought five containers of toothpaste with us!! Granted, two are almost used up, and one is a mini one, but i thought it was so funny when I realized how many we had. :)
Monday, July 11, 2011
Donaghadee and Donard
Sunday:
One thing I was excited to see on this trip was Andrew preaching in his home town. He is a busy guy, with many churches asking him to speak, so he gave us directions to the church he would be speaking at on this particular Sunday.
Churches start much later than at home, so we got to sleep in and take our time getting ready. The gps took us to the church which was located in a small coastal town called Donaghadee (hard to spell, fun to say). It was a very small congregation but they were all extremely friendly as most people are here in Northern Ireland. Andrew did a wonderful job preaching and I am really looking forward to hearing him more at biblestudy this year. After church, he invited us to his house for lunch (or dinner as they call it here) so I offered to ride with Andrew and my dad would follow in the rental car. I walked up to Andrew's car and was waiting for him to unlock it when Andrew just looked at me, shook his head, and said, "Jill." For a short second I was confused, but then looked down and noticed I was standing by the driver's door! We had a good laugh, switched sides so HE could drive the car, and went to his house for lunch.
Another thing I have really been looking forward to is meeting Andrew's family. I've heard so many stories about them and now I get to meet them in person. All three of his brothers are gone at the moment, but we had a lovely lunch with his mum and dad. :) They are both so friendly and hospitable and served us meat, potatoes, veggies, and Yorkshire pudding, with a delicious dessert (pecan something that tasted wonderful!). We adjourned back into their living room and kept talking over tea and coffee. Andrew's dad, also named Stephen, mentioned that he'd heard we sing! Everyone pointed at me and he asked if I would be willing to sing a song at their evening service. I haven't practiced or sung since Germany, but I've been dying to sing and didn't want to pass up this opportunity to help out. I decided to sing "O Great God" by Bob Kauflin (sovereign grace music) because it's a great song, I had sung the first verse as a solo at grace a couple months ago, and mom could figure out the accompaniment pretty easily.
We drove over to the church early so we could figure out and practice the song before church started at half six (their way of saying 6:30). The church building is very nice, with great acoustics, and modern technology. When people started showing up, they were so welcoming! Church began with some hymns and worship songs, a quick interview for a woman's biblestudy, then they did announcements, welcomed our family, and it was our turn to do special music. I was really nervous walking up to sing, not because the song was hard, but just because my voice isn't very strong at this point. I prayed, and since the song itself is a prayer, I was soon focusing on the words more than on my nervous thoughts. I loved singing in that church and thought it went well considering the circumstances. If you haven't heard the song before, you should look it up and listen to it because it's such a beautiful prayer.
We heard another wonderful sermon by Andrew's dad. This is really the first Sunday since leaving the US that we've heard anyone preach (in english anyway) and it was so spiritually refreshing!
After church, the Currys (Andrew's family) invited us back to their house for tea which turned out to be tea and coffee and supper (tea sandwiches and cookies). They are such a lovely family and we had a great time getting to know them. So after being fed, both physically and spiritually, we eventually said goodnight and headed back home.
Monday:
I slept in til 9:30 then decided to get the day started. Andrew came over at 10:30 just as I was beating Peter in a game of pool. While waiting for my dad, we decided to play team pool: Peter and Stephen against Andrew and I. Andrew and I took the lead at first but started missing a lot, and Stephen was making a lot, so we lost our lead. But just at the last minute, we managed to pull ahead and win the game!
By this time, everyone was ready so we took off toward the Mourne Mountains. We parked our cars at sea level in a town called Newcastle. Then we set off to climb Donard mountain which is the tallest mountain in Northern Ireland! About 1/3 of the way up is a stone igloo that looks kind of like a hobbit's house. We stopped for lunch while admiring the views and trying not to get bit by all the small bugs flying around (mission unsuccessful there, but they aren't big bites so that's good. In fact, I just checked my arm for the bites and they are already gone!). The rest of the hike was climbing lots and lots of steps. Just when you thought you were getting close, there was a bit more to climb. At the saddle, which is the are just between two mountains, runs a long stone wall. It looks like a random stone wall on a mountain, but apparently they run all along many of the mountains and were built to help navigate people through that particular territory. While the rest of us climbed next to the stone wall to the top of the highest mountain, Peter decided to climb up the mountain on top of the wall! :) he made it and so did we. There were beautiful views from the top!... at least the ones that weren't covered by clouds. We took some pictures, then started heading down by way of chasing the sheep on the side of the mountain. Peter really wanted to get close to one and it was quite comical to watch him try.
From the saddle, we met up with my mom who asked if we had seen dad! (we had sprinted ahead of them earlier on cuz they weren't feeling too well today and weren't sure how far they would make it.) We must have missed him while we were chasing sheep. Oops. He figured it out and came back down. From the saddle, we climbed back down the mountain, mostly jumping from rock to rock which gave your brain exercise too because you had to calculate where to jump to next. :)
Accomplished and tired we all reached the bottom and rewarded ourselves with ice cream. Apparently ice cream is popular here (people will grab an ice cream and coffee quite often) so Andrew took us nearby to a good ice cream shop where he told me I had to try the Pooh Bear flavor. It's "honey comb" (pooh's favorite flavor, of course) mixed with caramel and other goodness. It was delicious.
On our way back home, we ordered take away Fish and Chips to eat back at home. I have been craving this meal and it was the perfect dinner after our big hike! Sooooo yummy!
After dinner, Andrew left, Stephen, Dad, and I watched part of the 2nd Lord of the Rings, and Peter learned how to play rugby outside with the boys from the house right next to us.
Today was such a nice day! The weather held out for us and now I can say I've climbed the tallest mountain in Northern Ireland!! :)
One thing I was excited to see on this trip was Andrew preaching in his home town. He is a busy guy, with many churches asking him to speak, so he gave us directions to the church he would be speaking at on this particular Sunday.
Churches start much later than at home, so we got to sleep in and take our time getting ready. The gps took us to the church which was located in a small coastal town called Donaghadee (hard to spell, fun to say). It was a very small congregation but they were all extremely friendly as most people are here in Northern Ireland. Andrew did a wonderful job preaching and I am really looking forward to hearing him more at biblestudy this year. After church, he invited us to his house for lunch (or dinner as they call it here) so I offered to ride with Andrew and my dad would follow in the rental car. I walked up to Andrew's car and was waiting for him to unlock it when Andrew just looked at me, shook his head, and said, "Jill." For a short second I was confused, but then looked down and noticed I was standing by the driver's door! We had a good laugh, switched sides so HE could drive the car, and went to his house for lunch.
Another thing I have really been looking forward to is meeting Andrew's family. I've heard so many stories about them and now I get to meet them in person. All three of his brothers are gone at the moment, but we had a lovely lunch with his mum and dad. :) They are both so friendly and hospitable and served us meat, potatoes, veggies, and Yorkshire pudding, with a delicious dessert (pecan something that tasted wonderful!). We adjourned back into their living room and kept talking over tea and coffee. Andrew's dad, also named Stephen, mentioned that he'd heard we sing! Everyone pointed at me and he asked if I would be willing to sing a song at their evening service. I haven't practiced or sung since Germany, but I've been dying to sing and didn't want to pass up this opportunity to help out. I decided to sing "O Great God" by Bob Kauflin (sovereign grace music) because it's a great song, I had sung the first verse as a solo at grace a couple months ago, and mom could figure out the accompaniment pretty easily.
We drove over to the church early so we could figure out and practice the song before church started at half six (their way of saying 6:30). The church building is very nice, with great acoustics, and modern technology. When people started showing up, they were so welcoming! Church began with some hymns and worship songs, a quick interview for a woman's biblestudy, then they did announcements, welcomed our family, and it was our turn to do special music. I was really nervous walking up to sing, not because the song was hard, but just because my voice isn't very strong at this point. I prayed, and since the song itself is a prayer, I was soon focusing on the words more than on my nervous thoughts. I loved singing in that church and thought it went well considering the circumstances. If you haven't heard the song before, you should look it up and listen to it because it's such a beautiful prayer.
We heard another wonderful sermon by Andrew's dad. This is really the first Sunday since leaving the US that we've heard anyone preach (in english anyway) and it was so spiritually refreshing!
After church, the Currys (Andrew's family) invited us back to their house for tea which turned out to be tea and coffee and supper (tea sandwiches and cookies). They are such a lovely family and we had a great time getting to know them. So after being fed, both physically and spiritually, we eventually said goodnight and headed back home.
Monday:
I slept in til 9:30 then decided to get the day started. Andrew came over at 10:30 just as I was beating Peter in a game of pool. While waiting for my dad, we decided to play team pool: Peter and Stephen against Andrew and I. Andrew and I took the lead at first but started missing a lot, and Stephen was making a lot, so we lost our lead. But just at the last minute, we managed to pull ahead and win the game!
By this time, everyone was ready so we took off toward the Mourne Mountains. We parked our cars at sea level in a town called Newcastle. Then we set off to climb Donard mountain which is the tallest mountain in Northern Ireland! About 1/3 of the way up is a stone igloo that looks kind of like a hobbit's house. We stopped for lunch while admiring the views and trying not to get bit by all the small bugs flying around (mission unsuccessful there, but they aren't big bites so that's good. In fact, I just checked my arm for the bites and they are already gone!). The rest of the hike was climbing lots and lots of steps. Just when you thought you were getting close, there was a bit more to climb. At the saddle, which is the are just between two mountains, runs a long stone wall. It looks like a random stone wall on a mountain, but apparently they run all along many of the mountains and were built to help navigate people through that particular territory. While the rest of us climbed next to the stone wall to the top of the highest mountain, Peter decided to climb up the mountain on top of the wall! :) he made it and so did we. There were beautiful views from the top!... at least the ones that weren't covered by clouds. We took some pictures, then started heading down by way of chasing the sheep on the side of the mountain. Peter really wanted to get close to one and it was quite comical to watch him try.
From the saddle, we met up with my mom who asked if we had seen dad! (we had sprinted ahead of them earlier on cuz they weren't feeling too well today and weren't sure how far they would make it.) We must have missed him while we were chasing sheep. Oops. He figured it out and came back down. From the saddle, we climbed back down the mountain, mostly jumping from rock to rock which gave your brain exercise too because you had to calculate where to jump to next. :)
Accomplished and tired we all reached the bottom and rewarded ourselves with ice cream. Apparently ice cream is popular here (people will grab an ice cream and coffee quite often) so Andrew took us nearby to a good ice cream shop where he told me I had to try the Pooh Bear flavor. It's "honey comb" (pooh's favorite flavor, of course) mixed with caramel and other goodness. It was delicious.
On our way back home, we ordered take away Fish and Chips to eat back at home. I have been craving this meal and it was the perfect dinner after our big hike! Sooooo yummy!
After dinner, Andrew left, Stephen, Dad, and I watched part of the 2nd Lord of the Rings, and Peter learned how to play rugby outside with the boys from the house right next to us.
Today was such a nice day! The weather held out for us and now I can say I've climbed the tallest mountain in Northern Ireland!! :)
Sunday, July 10, 2011
From Nessie to Leprachons
Thursday:
Today was my cuddle-up-in-bed-and-watch-a-few-movies-while-drinking-tea day. Dad and stephen had arranged to play a round of golf at a local golf course in the afternoon so Peter, mom, and I were stranded without a car. Their summer weather has felt very much like our winter weather (cold and rainy) so I haven't been motivated to do much outside. There was a short period of time when the sun peaked it's head out so Peter and I ran out to the backyard before it could disappear. Our neighbor had graciously let Peter borrow an old golf club and golf balls so we played around with those briefly until the neighbor also brought out another game for us to play. It reminded me of tether ball except that you batted the ball with paddles. We weren't quite sure what the rules were and there was no rule book so we just made up our own game. Soon it began to rain again so we grabbed tea, hopped into my bed, and watched Narnia 3 on Peter's I-pad. Such a cute movie. When it was over, Peter left to go play somewhere but I didn't feel like getting up yet so I just watched another movie. :) Steve and dad came back just in time for dinner and we heard all about the good times they'd been having. Fortunately, the weather had mostly behaved for them and they'd been paired up with two older Scottish men who were very friendly. It wasn't quite St. Andrews but at least they can say they've golfed in Scotland. :)
Friday:
One place we had to visit before we left was Stirling Castle. Somewhere back in our family history was the Stirling family, so in the hopes of being somehow related to this castle, we had to check it out. This castle has just recently been renovated and we found out that two days prior, the queen herself had "cut the ribbon," taken the first tour, and it was officially open. This castle is different from the others because it has been redesigned to look like it would've looked in the olden days. One of the buildings has been painted a kings gold color (orangish yellow) which is the color that the whole castle would've been painted. This coat of paint was not only for decoration but also protected the stones from weather damages.
Inside the buildings were colorful and regally decorated with plenty of pictures of unicorns...which were said to have been living in the field outside. I saw plenty of sheep, but no unicorns. Inside the buildings were also people dressed in the costume of that time who would tell us all about who they were and what it was like during that time.
Another building held displays of old Scottish army memorabilia that explained the gradual progression of the army to what it is today. In the gift shop is a black and white photo of the front gate of the castle. The photographer had been alone that day, but in the photograph is a ghostly figure in a kilt, guarding the front gate! :)
We also visited a few other random rooms like the kitchens. After seeing the castle, the rain was starting to pick up so we drove back to Edinburgh and parked near the house the Leanne was housesitting at. We arrived earlier than her so we walked to the closest Starbucks to seek shelter and drinks. Once she had texted me saying she was home, we walked over to the cute little house and ordered Chinese take out for dinner. It was delicious! After dinner, the rest of my family watched tv and hung out in the living room while leanne and I sat in the kitchen talking and catching up from the last couple years. I may have convinced her to come visit us in California again which isn't hard after you mention sun! :)
Knowing we had to get up early in the morning, we said goodbye before it got too late, walked back to the car with Stephen and Peter chasing and hitting each other the whole time, then drove back to finish packing and went to bed.
Saturday:
This morning at the crack of dawn...or what normally is the crack of dawn in California but here it's been light for at least an hour...AKA 5:30am...we all woke up, ate breakfast, and packed all our suitcases/backpacks into the car saying goodbye to our cottage as we drove off to the airport. Now that we're with our parents, traveling is as easy as pie. No stress, no rushing, and we made the gate with time to grab a coffee. The plane ride was probably the shortest I have ever taken. It felt like we just went up, I read a few pages in my kindle, and we were preparing to land in Belfast. After collecting our baggage, we discovered that our rental car wouldn't be ready for awhile so we camped at the nearest cafe (since it had the comfy chairs) and waited for them to call us. Eventually we were given a car and we took off. A few miles down the road, we left the "city" and were driving down country roads with narrow streets that run between vast green fields filled with sheep and cows. Even though we'd been given directions from the airport to our new b&b, the boys decided to use my dad's bike gps which also had a Europe chip in it. We were doing fine until we stopped at a grocery store just a few miles before our destination. With groceries on our laps, we continued our journey and Stephen misread the directions thereby putting us on a highway going back to Belfast! He quickly realized his error but there wasn't an offramp for another 4 miles. When the gps had recalculated it's route and was starting to lead us down a random street, we decided to revert back to the written directions. As we followed the directions we started to see less and less of civilization and more and more of fields. It took us awhile to find the actual house because their driveway wasn't even marked and didn't have their address. We knew we were close so we called them and they quickly explained where they lived and we were only a few yards down the road. Our new b&b is a side apartment off of a family's house. They are really really nice and have two boys who are 11 and 13. The apartment has three bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living room with a huge tv and a pool table!
We claimed our rooms (poor Pete really wanted his own room, but being the girl of the family, I am guaranteed that privilege), unpacked, ate lunch, then started settling in. Stephen, Pete, and I played outside for awhile: the boys threw a ball at each other, then while Pete jumped on the trampoline, Steve and I took turns making goal kicks and being goalie. Too bad neither of us ever played soccer cuz we had to run after stray balls quite a few times.
Later that afternoon, I got a call from Andrew asking where our house was! I had thought we wouldn't see him until tomorrow but as I went out to open the gate, he pulled up in his car, ready to hang out. I was very impressed that he'd been so close to finding our house since it was down a random unmarked road!
We caught up for awhile, then played quite a few rounds of pool...all of which he beat me, but I came very close on several games. Even though he had a sermon to finish preparing for tomorrow, he agreed to stay for dinner since we were eating so early. And dinner was delicious!! Mom was a sport and cooked us salmon with broccoli, potatoes, and Irish bread we'd been given. Even though mom doesn't like fish, the salmon was wonderful! For dessert, Andrew contributed maltesers: a European sweet that are basically malt balls. They are so light that you can keep them up in the air just by blowing...like an air fountain, I suppose. It was fun trying. :)
After dinner we all did our own thing and went to bed early since we were tired from getting up so early.
Today was my cuddle-up-in-bed-and-watch-a-few-movies-while-drinking-tea day. Dad and stephen had arranged to play a round of golf at a local golf course in the afternoon so Peter, mom, and I were stranded without a car. Their summer weather has felt very much like our winter weather (cold and rainy) so I haven't been motivated to do much outside. There was a short period of time when the sun peaked it's head out so Peter and I ran out to the backyard before it could disappear. Our neighbor had graciously let Peter borrow an old golf club and golf balls so we played around with those briefly until the neighbor also brought out another game for us to play. It reminded me of tether ball except that you batted the ball with paddles. We weren't quite sure what the rules were and there was no rule book so we just made up our own game. Soon it began to rain again so we grabbed tea, hopped into my bed, and watched Narnia 3 on Peter's I-pad. Such a cute movie. When it was over, Peter left to go play somewhere but I didn't feel like getting up yet so I just watched another movie. :) Steve and dad came back just in time for dinner and we heard all about the good times they'd been having. Fortunately, the weather had mostly behaved for them and they'd been paired up with two older Scottish men who were very friendly. It wasn't quite St. Andrews but at least they can say they've golfed in Scotland. :)
Friday:
One place we had to visit before we left was Stirling Castle. Somewhere back in our family history was the Stirling family, so in the hopes of being somehow related to this castle, we had to check it out. This castle has just recently been renovated and we found out that two days prior, the queen herself had "cut the ribbon," taken the first tour, and it was officially open. This castle is different from the others because it has been redesigned to look like it would've looked in the olden days. One of the buildings has been painted a kings gold color (orangish yellow) which is the color that the whole castle would've been painted. This coat of paint was not only for decoration but also protected the stones from weather damages.
Inside the buildings were colorful and regally decorated with plenty of pictures of unicorns...which were said to have been living in the field outside. I saw plenty of sheep, but no unicorns. Inside the buildings were also people dressed in the costume of that time who would tell us all about who they were and what it was like during that time.
Another building held displays of old Scottish army memorabilia that explained the gradual progression of the army to what it is today. In the gift shop is a black and white photo of the front gate of the castle. The photographer had been alone that day, but in the photograph is a ghostly figure in a kilt, guarding the front gate! :)
We also visited a few other random rooms like the kitchens. After seeing the castle, the rain was starting to pick up so we drove back to Edinburgh and parked near the house the Leanne was housesitting at. We arrived earlier than her so we walked to the closest Starbucks to seek shelter and drinks. Once she had texted me saying she was home, we walked over to the cute little house and ordered Chinese take out for dinner. It was delicious! After dinner, the rest of my family watched tv and hung out in the living room while leanne and I sat in the kitchen talking and catching up from the last couple years. I may have convinced her to come visit us in California again which isn't hard after you mention sun! :)
Knowing we had to get up early in the morning, we said goodbye before it got too late, walked back to the car with Stephen and Peter chasing and hitting each other the whole time, then drove back to finish packing and went to bed.
Saturday:
This morning at the crack of dawn...or what normally is the crack of dawn in California but here it's been light for at least an hour...AKA 5:30am...we all woke up, ate breakfast, and packed all our suitcases/backpacks into the car saying goodbye to our cottage as we drove off to the airport. Now that we're with our parents, traveling is as easy as pie. No stress, no rushing, and we made the gate with time to grab a coffee. The plane ride was probably the shortest I have ever taken. It felt like we just went up, I read a few pages in my kindle, and we were preparing to land in Belfast. After collecting our baggage, we discovered that our rental car wouldn't be ready for awhile so we camped at the nearest cafe (since it had the comfy chairs) and waited for them to call us. Eventually we were given a car and we took off. A few miles down the road, we left the "city" and were driving down country roads with narrow streets that run between vast green fields filled with sheep and cows. Even though we'd been given directions from the airport to our new b&b, the boys decided to use my dad's bike gps which also had a Europe chip in it. We were doing fine until we stopped at a grocery store just a few miles before our destination. With groceries on our laps, we continued our journey and Stephen misread the directions thereby putting us on a highway going back to Belfast! He quickly realized his error but there wasn't an offramp for another 4 miles. When the gps had recalculated it's route and was starting to lead us down a random street, we decided to revert back to the written directions. As we followed the directions we started to see less and less of civilization and more and more of fields. It took us awhile to find the actual house because their driveway wasn't even marked and didn't have their address. We knew we were close so we called them and they quickly explained where they lived and we were only a few yards down the road. Our new b&b is a side apartment off of a family's house. They are really really nice and have two boys who are 11 and 13. The apartment has three bedrooms, a kitchen, and a living room with a huge tv and a pool table!
We claimed our rooms (poor Pete really wanted his own room, but being the girl of the family, I am guaranteed that privilege), unpacked, ate lunch, then started settling in. Stephen, Pete, and I played outside for awhile: the boys threw a ball at each other, then while Pete jumped on the trampoline, Steve and I took turns making goal kicks and being goalie. Too bad neither of us ever played soccer cuz we had to run after stray balls quite a few times.
Later that afternoon, I got a call from Andrew asking where our house was! I had thought we wouldn't see him until tomorrow but as I went out to open the gate, he pulled up in his car, ready to hang out. I was very impressed that he'd been so close to finding our house since it was down a random unmarked road!
We caught up for awhile, then played quite a few rounds of pool...all of which he beat me, but I came very close on several games. Even though he had a sermon to finish preparing for tomorrow, he agreed to stay for dinner since we were eating so early. And dinner was delicious!! Mom was a sport and cooked us salmon with broccoli, potatoes, and Irish bread we'd been given. Even though mom doesn't like fish, the salmon was wonderful! For dessert, Andrew contributed maltesers: a European sweet that are basically malt balls. They are so light that you can keep them up in the air just by blowing...like an air fountain, I suppose. It was fun trying. :)
After dinner we all did our own thing and went to bed early since we were tired from getting up so early.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Castles, Carrubers, and Caddies
Tuesday:
Our first morning with the whole family was quiet and relaxing. They were still shaking off the last effects of jet lag and Stephen and I were recovering from our traveling sprint. After a late breakfast, we piled in the car and drove to the town of St. Andrews. Having two avid golfers in the family, there was no doubt as to whether we'd visit the golf course. Unfortunately, it's expensive and a really long waiting list to actually play golf there, so we enjoyed (Steve and dad drooled) just watching everyone else play.
I knew the golf course would be fun to see but I had no idea the city would be interesting too! What I love about England and Scotland is all the stone or brick buildings. Living in earthquake-prone California, a stone or brick building isn't the best idea or investment, so the novelty of seeing so many old buildings accompanied by castles and cathedrals and surrounded by green terrain makes for such a picturesque backdrop. St. Andrews and much of Scotland is mostly made of stone and as we explored, we also found an old castle and further on an old cathedral with a large graveyard. Naturally, we explored both and took plenty of pictures.
During our visit, the sky had sprinkled rain intermittently and it was such a cooler temperature from the rest of our travels so a hot cup of coffee sounded grand. We walked around searching for a good place and even passed a coffee shop advertising that Will and Kate had met for coffee there :) I wanted to stop just for fun but it was closed. Further on, we hit a Starbucks and warmed up, then walked back to our car and returned to our cottage. Although it was deceptively light outside, the time was getting late so we ate dinner, read, and went to bed.
Wednesday:
Today was Edinburgh day. I came to this city three years ago on a missions trip so I know the city fairly well, but had never visited the Edinburgh Castle at the top of the Royal Mile which was our first stop of the day. We entered the castle just as a royal Scottish band was finishing it's morning fanfare. Normally, they don't do this but since the queen is in town (we seem to be following her since she was in London when we were there) they have to step up their game and pull out all the stops. :) We took a guided tour of the castle which was very informative and entertaining and gave us a good lay of the land. The next few hours were spent exploring the castle and it's different exhibits. Interesting fact: the cannons displayed were never meant to be fired from the castle. When Queen Victoria visited, she was unimpressed so they took naval cannons from their ships and "decorated" the castle to look more impressive. Some of the exhibits included a prison where the prisoners were given food rations, beer rations, a bunk, and health services. The Scottish took good care of their prisoners of war in case they ever needed to trade for their own men back. We also entered the armory mid-presentation with two costumed men whose accents we could barely understand, but they were still entertaining and let us take pictures with them. The last highlight of the castle was the 1:00 cannon. It has been a tradition for hundreds of years to set off this cannon at exactly 1:00 everyday, except Easter, Christmas, or Sundays, so that the sailors could keep time by it. A mass of people accompanied us by the cannon and we all jumped with surprise when cannon exploded with sound and smoke.
Our family exited the castle and made our way down the royal mile until we came to carrubers cafe. I love this cafe. Walking in brought back so many great memories from working there with the team for almost a whole week. Our pictures are even displayed on a wall above the employees table! The food is great and you can't beat the prices so we ordered lunch while waiting for my friend Leanne to come down.
It was so good to see her again! I introduced her to my family again and we all had lunch together, later joined by another friend from carrubers, Mairi! The food was just as good as before and we had a great time catching up. Too soon, Leanne had to go back to work, so we said goodbye...slowly, and kept walking down the royal mile, with Mairi keeping us company just a bit longer. On the way down, we stopped in a shop where Peter bought a kilt! :) Who knows if he'll ever wear it, but at least he can say he has one.
At the bottom of the mile, Mairi said goodbye and we decided to keep going and hike up Arthurs seat. Despite the warning that the right path was steeper, Stephen voted we go that way and we all followed him. You would think steeper would equal shorter, but not on this path because yes it's steep, but then goes back down again and follows this pattern until you come to the back of Arthurs seat where you climb a ton of "stairs" to finally reach the top. It was a beautiful view and the sky offered a beautiful contrast of fluffy white clouds in one direction and threatening black clouds in the other. The black clouds happened to be moving quickly in our direction so we headed back down the mountain...but this time the shorter/not as steep way down. Soon after we'd begun our descent, it started pouring down rain. Torrential downpours would come and go which left us pretty wet at the bottom. Well, it left me pretty wet as the others had umbrellas.:) we even saw lightening just as we'd reached the bottom.
On our way back up the mile, we stopped inside the two-story Starbucks to warm up with drinks. We then drove home, ate dinner, hung out, and went to bed.
Our first morning with the whole family was quiet and relaxing. They were still shaking off the last effects of jet lag and Stephen and I were recovering from our traveling sprint. After a late breakfast, we piled in the car and drove to the town of St. Andrews. Having two avid golfers in the family, there was no doubt as to whether we'd visit the golf course. Unfortunately, it's expensive and a really long waiting list to actually play golf there, so we enjoyed (Steve and dad drooled) just watching everyone else play.
I knew the golf course would be fun to see but I had no idea the city would be interesting too! What I love about England and Scotland is all the stone or brick buildings. Living in earthquake-prone California, a stone or brick building isn't the best idea or investment, so the novelty of seeing so many old buildings accompanied by castles and cathedrals and surrounded by green terrain makes for such a picturesque backdrop. St. Andrews and much of Scotland is mostly made of stone and as we explored, we also found an old castle and further on an old cathedral with a large graveyard. Naturally, we explored both and took plenty of pictures.
During our visit, the sky had sprinkled rain intermittently and it was such a cooler temperature from the rest of our travels so a hot cup of coffee sounded grand. We walked around searching for a good place and even passed a coffee shop advertising that Will and Kate had met for coffee there :) I wanted to stop just for fun but it was closed. Further on, we hit a Starbucks and warmed up, then walked back to our car and returned to our cottage. Although it was deceptively light outside, the time was getting late so we ate dinner, read, and went to bed.
Wednesday:
Today was Edinburgh day. I came to this city three years ago on a missions trip so I know the city fairly well, but had never visited the Edinburgh Castle at the top of the Royal Mile which was our first stop of the day. We entered the castle just as a royal Scottish band was finishing it's morning fanfare. Normally, they don't do this but since the queen is in town (we seem to be following her since she was in London when we were there) they have to step up their game and pull out all the stops. :) We took a guided tour of the castle which was very informative and entertaining and gave us a good lay of the land. The next few hours were spent exploring the castle and it's different exhibits. Interesting fact: the cannons displayed were never meant to be fired from the castle. When Queen Victoria visited, she was unimpressed so they took naval cannons from their ships and "decorated" the castle to look more impressive. Some of the exhibits included a prison where the prisoners were given food rations, beer rations, a bunk, and health services. The Scottish took good care of their prisoners of war in case they ever needed to trade for their own men back. We also entered the armory mid-presentation with two costumed men whose accents we could barely understand, but they were still entertaining and let us take pictures with them. The last highlight of the castle was the 1:00 cannon. It has been a tradition for hundreds of years to set off this cannon at exactly 1:00 everyday, except Easter, Christmas, or Sundays, so that the sailors could keep time by it. A mass of people accompanied us by the cannon and we all jumped with surprise when cannon exploded with sound and smoke.
Our family exited the castle and made our way down the royal mile until we came to carrubers cafe. I love this cafe. Walking in brought back so many great memories from working there with the team for almost a whole week. Our pictures are even displayed on a wall above the employees table! The food is great and you can't beat the prices so we ordered lunch while waiting for my friend Leanne to come down.
It was so good to see her again! I introduced her to my family again and we all had lunch together, later joined by another friend from carrubers, Mairi! The food was just as good as before and we had a great time catching up. Too soon, Leanne had to go back to work, so we said goodbye...slowly, and kept walking down the royal mile, with Mairi keeping us company just a bit longer. On the way down, we stopped in a shop where Peter bought a kilt! :) Who knows if he'll ever wear it, but at least he can say he has one.
At the bottom of the mile, Mairi said goodbye and we decided to keep going and hike up Arthurs seat. Despite the warning that the right path was steeper, Stephen voted we go that way and we all followed him. You would think steeper would equal shorter, but not on this path because yes it's steep, but then goes back down again and follows this pattern until you come to the back of Arthurs seat where you climb a ton of "stairs" to finally reach the top. It was a beautiful view and the sky offered a beautiful contrast of fluffy white clouds in one direction and threatening black clouds in the other. The black clouds happened to be moving quickly in our direction so we headed back down the mountain...but this time the shorter/not as steep way down. Soon after we'd begun our descent, it started pouring down rain. Torrential downpours would come and go which left us pretty wet at the bottom. Well, it left me pretty wet as the others had umbrellas.:) we even saw lightening just as we'd reached the bottom.
On our way back up the mile, we stopped inside the two-story Starbucks to warm up with drinks. We then drove home, ate dinner, hung out, and went to bed.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Reunited
Saturday:
Being so close to the Memorial, we were able to take our time in the morning, have breakfast, and leave our hotel at 9:30. A short walk brought us to the Memorial where we booked our tour for 1pm and also got a pass and audio tour of the Memorial itself. The audio tour was very well done and really interesting to follow. The Memorial itself is about World War II and thoroughly explains the cause, the chronological events, the conclusion, and the consequences of the war. It was interesting to learn about the war from the point of view of the French. In school, we read about the war in general or from an American point of view, but the tour showed us France's participation and the effects it had on the French people.
After the audio tour and a quick lunch, we met up for a tour of the Normandy beaches! A bus drove us to Point Du Hoc while our tour guide explained the background knowledge, gave a brief explanation at the site, then let us explore for about half an hour. We continued in this pattern for two more beaches. As we were headed to the fourth beach (of five), our bus decided to break down. Stephen and I simply pulled out our kindles and waited for another bus to pick us up. It took about an hour for the other bus to come and we were unable to finish our tour because it was getting late. There were several people on the tour who were going to miss their train if we didn't go straight there, so although it wasn't on the itinerary, we concluded our tour by dropping them off at the train station. In conclusion, we didn't get to see the British Normandy beaches and we arrived back at the Memorial an hour late, but they gave us half our money back which paid for another delicious dinner at the hotel.
Sunday:
Taking advantage of our dark, quiet hotel room, Stephen and I slept in and had a leisurely morning. We packed all our things and took the bus back to the train station. We arrived a few hours early so we ate breakfast at a cafe where Stephen got an omlette and I had quiche. We sat a long time eating and talking but still had about an hour till the train came so we simple walked down to the next cafe, ordered coffee and a cappuccino, and read our kindles (we were both reading extremely interesting books at the time so we didn't mind all the down time).
Even though the train station was literally just across the street we walked over early to find our platform and our last train ride of the trip went smoothly. A few hours later we arrived in Paris and easily found our hostel. After unloading our bags and checking emails, we ate dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant then set off to explore Paris just as the sun was beginning it's descent.
Our first and final stop for the evening was the Eiffel Tower. They were actually letting people ride to the top (sometimes the winds are too strong and they close it down) so we got in line. The whole affair felt like a ride at magic mountain because we waited for hours in several lines to take a brief ride up the elevator. But just as the thrill of roller coasters makes the wait bearable, the view at the top was worth it. We circled the top admiring all the lights of Paris and could even spot large landmarks such as the Louvre and Notre Dame. At midnight we were on our way down the elevator and soon back at our hostel, thrilled about our recent adventure but more than ready for bed.
Monday:
After packing, eating breakfast, and checking out, we set off to explore Paris one last time. The tram let us out at the Arc de Triumph lying in the center of the most dangerous roundabout in Europe (because it's so large and crowded). We weren't sure how to get to the Arc without the deathly trek through the roundabout (maybe that's why it's such a triumphal arc :) ), so we circled the roundabout and made almost a complete circle before spotting the underground path leading to the Arc. It's quite a grand structure that Stephen and I walked heroically through...well halfway through because a rope had blocked the rest of the path.
The next hour consisted of walking down Avenue Des Champs Elysees which is filled with large shopping stores. I haven't bought any souvenirs except for my shirt from Harrods so I decided to buy something from Paris. I don't really like buying trinkets anymore because I discovered that there was really no use for them when I got home, except to collect dust. So I like to buy souvenirs that I will use such as jewelry, clothes, etc... Continuing in this conviction, I bought a necklace from a really cute store called Naf Naf. We continued our journey down the street where it was supposed to end at the Louvre Museum. I suppose the street hasn't moved at all, but there was a great amount of construction as they prepare for the Tour De France and parts of the street were blocked off completely. Stephen expertly navigated us around the construction but we had to take quite a big detour. Except for the fact that I was dressed too warm for the hot day, I actually enjoyed the detour because we also got to see a palace, fancy buildings, and walked through the Tuileries Gardens. Eventually we saw the famous glass pyramids signifying we had reached our destination. I was really looking forward to spending a few hours in an air conditioned building but to my dismay, the line to enter the museum was hours long. We have officially hit the heavy tourism season and since we had a flight to catch, it wouldn't have been worth our time or money to wait that long in line. Oh well. It'll give me a good reason to go back to Paris someday. :)
We returned to the hostel to eat our usual grocery store lunch, then chose a cafe nearby to sip coffee while reading our kindles. When it was time to leave, we grabbed our backpacks and rode the tram one last time to arrive at a station which shuttles people to the airport. Our airport is 45 minutes from town but because our shuttle left around 6, we hit really bad traffic and didn't reach the airport until 7:45...and our flight was leaving at 8:50! Fortunately, everyone in the shuttle was on the same flight so I wasn't too worried. There was no need to worry anyway because we checked our bags and got through security pretty quickly but our plane didn't arrive to the airport until we were supposed to be taking off. Fifty minutes later we were finally taking off and would soon be reunited with the rest of our family.
The flight was a little over an hour, we quickly found our bags, had our passports stamped, and made our way to the common area to find our folks. The first person I saw was Peter in his bright yellow sweatshirt, ready to welcome us with hugs and all the latest news in his life. Our parents joined the hugging and once again, we were one big happy family.
They led us out to our very nice rental car and we watched as my dad focused on driving a stick on the wrong side of the road! I am pleased to note that so far he has done very well at staying on the left side of the road and not crashing in the roundabouts. :)
We arrived at our cottage in Dunfirmline and were shown to our very own rooms! Even though we'll be staying less than a week, I enjoyed unpacking all my things and placing them in drawers! What a luxury not to have to dig through my backpack each morning :). And a laundry machine! I am so thankful for laundry machines. That night I went to bed and rested well knowing that I no longer had to be in charge or run after another train. Not on the rest of this trip anyway.
Being so close to the Memorial, we were able to take our time in the morning, have breakfast, and leave our hotel at 9:30. A short walk brought us to the Memorial where we booked our tour for 1pm and also got a pass and audio tour of the Memorial itself. The audio tour was very well done and really interesting to follow. The Memorial itself is about World War II and thoroughly explains the cause, the chronological events, the conclusion, and the consequences of the war. It was interesting to learn about the war from the point of view of the French. In school, we read about the war in general or from an American point of view, but the tour showed us France's participation and the effects it had on the French people.
After the audio tour and a quick lunch, we met up for a tour of the Normandy beaches! A bus drove us to Point Du Hoc while our tour guide explained the background knowledge, gave a brief explanation at the site, then let us explore for about half an hour. We continued in this pattern for two more beaches. As we were headed to the fourth beach (of five), our bus decided to break down. Stephen and I simply pulled out our kindles and waited for another bus to pick us up. It took about an hour for the other bus to come and we were unable to finish our tour because it was getting late. There were several people on the tour who were going to miss their train if we didn't go straight there, so although it wasn't on the itinerary, we concluded our tour by dropping them off at the train station. In conclusion, we didn't get to see the British Normandy beaches and we arrived back at the Memorial an hour late, but they gave us half our money back which paid for another delicious dinner at the hotel.
Sunday:
Taking advantage of our dark, quiet hotel room, Stephen and I slept in and had a leisurely morning. We packed all our things and took the bus back to the train station. We arrived a few hours early so we ate breakfast at a cafe where Stephen got an omlette and I had quiche. We sat a long time eating and talking but still had about an hour till the train came so we simple walked down to the next cafe, ordered coffee and a cappuccino, and read our kindles (we were both reading extremely interesting books at the time so we didn't mind all the down time).
Even though the train station was literally just across the street we walked over early to find our platform and our last train ride of the trip went smoothly. A few hours later we arrived in Paris and easily found our hostel. After unloading our bags and checking emails, we ate dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant then set off to explore Paris just as the sun was beginning it's descent.
Our first and final stop for the evening was the Eiffel Tower. They were actually letting people ride to the top (sometimes the winds are too strong and they close it down) so we got in line. The whole affair felt like a ride at magic mountain because we waited for hours in several lines to take a brief ride up the elevator. But just as the thrill of roller coasters makes the wait bearable, the view at the top was worth it. We circled the top admiring all the lights of Paris and could even spot large landmarks such as the Louvre and Notre Dame. At midnight we were on our way down the elevator and soon back at our hostel, thrilled about our recent adventure but more than ready for bed.
Monday:
After packing, eating breakfast, and checking out, we set off to explore Paris one last time. The tram let us out at the Arc de Triumph lying in the center of the most dangerous roundabout in Europe (because it's so large and crowded). We weren't sure how to get to the Arc without the deathly trek through the roundabout (maybe that's why it's such a triumphal arc :) ), so we circled the roundabout and made almost a complete circle before spotting the underground path leading to the Arc. It's quite a grand structure that Stephen and I walked heroically through...well halfway through because a rope had blocked the rest of the path.
The next hour consisted of walking down Avenue Des Champs Elysees which is filled with large shopping stores. I haven't bought any souvenirs except for my shirt from Harrods so I decided to buy something from Paris. I don't really like buying trinkets anymore because I discovered that there was really no use for them when I got home, except to collect dust. So I like to buy souvenirs that I will use such as jewelry, clothes, etc... Continuing in this conviction, I bought a necklace from a really cute store called Naf Naf. We continued our journey down the street where it was supposed to end at the Louvre Museum. I suppose the street hasn't moved at all, but there was a great amount of construction as they prepare for the Tour De France and parts of the street were blocked off completely. Stephen expertly navigated us around the construction but we had to take quite a big detour. Except for the fact that I was dressed too warm for the hot day, I actually enjoyed the detour because we also got to see a palace, fancy buildings, and walked through the Tuileries Gardens. Eventually we saw the famous glass pyramids signifying we had reached our destination. I was really looking forward to spending a few hours in an air conditioned building but to my dismay, the line to enter the museum was hours long. We have officially hit the heavy tourism season and since we had a flight to catch, it wouldn't have been worth our time or money to wait that long in line. Oh well. It'll give me a good reason to go back to Paris someday. :)
We returned to the hostel to eat our usual grocery store lunch, then chose a cafe nearby to sip coffee while reading our kindles. When it was time to leave, we grabbed our backpacks and rode the tram one last time to arrive at a station which shuttles people to the airport. Our airport is 45 minutes from town but because our shuttle left around 6, we hit really bad traffic and didn't reach the airport until 7:45...and our flight was leaving at 8:50! Fortunately, everyone in the shuttle was on the same flight so I wasn't too worried. There was no need to worry anyway because we checked our bags and got through security pretty quickly but our plane didn't arrive to the airport until we were supposed to be taking off. Fifty minutes later we were finally taking off and would soon be reunited with the rest of our family.
The flight was a little over an hour, we quickly found our bags, had our passports stamped, and made our way to the common area to find our folks. The first person I saw was Peter in his bright yellow sweatshirt, ready to welcome us with hugs and all the latest news in his life. Our parents joined the hugging and once again, we were one big happy family.
They led us out to our very nice rental car and we watched as my dad focused on driving a stick on the wrong side of the road! I am pleased to note that so far he has done very well at staying on the left side of the road and not crashing in the roundabouts. :)
We arrived at our cottage in Dunfirmline and were shown to our very own rooms! Even though we'll be staying less than a week, I enjoyed unpacking all my things and placing them in drawers! What a luxury not to have to dig through my backpack each morning :). And a laundry machine! I am so thankful for laundry machines. That night I went to bed and rested well knowing that I no longer had to be in charge or run after another train. Not on the rest of this trip anyway.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Absolute peace to sudden panic
Thursday:
Even though we slept in a hostel room with four beds, we ended up being the only two in the room! It was so nice to have peace, quiet, and a dark room to sleep in. :) Despite these conveniences, the alarm pulled us from sleep too soon. But since our stay in Seville was so short, we wanted to get a few hours in the city.
We walked down the street to find a place to eat breakfast and found a place that actually served breakfast! Eggs and ham on rolls was a pleasant change from the usual cereal and toast served in hostels. In fact, we enjoyed our breakfast so much that we didn't realize that we were ten minutes late for the tour we'd planned on taking (very unusual for Stephen who is always punctual and has diligently kept time for us!). We ran to the hostel and asked the front desk where the first stop of the tour might be. She was incredibly helpful and showed us the first stop on that impossibly small black and white map. We quickly figured out our route and caught up to the tour just as he was mid-introduction.
While walking around the city, our tour guide took us to churches, the area where ship-builders lived and worked, across a very old bridge that was designed by the same guy who built the Eiffel tower, and told us stories and history of Seville. My favorite was the legend of why there are so many orange trees. A long time ago, a king of this region was very proud of his city until one of his wives (his favorite) claimed that it was only the second best city! It couldn't be the best because Granada had the advantage of snow. Seville is the hottest city in Europe (this is not legend and we experienced this truth while walking around in 40+ Celsius heat...record temperature was around 55 C!!) and consequently never snows. Not to be deterred, this King planted Orange trees all over Seville because on this tree blooms a small white flower. When these flowers are released from the trees, a blanket of "snow" covers the city.
Unfortunately, we had to leave the tour early so we could catch our afternoon train. The next journey covers a day and a half because we were traveling from the bottom of Spain to the top of France...but as usual, our journeys were not without excitement.
On the way to the train station we grabbed groceries for dinner, a later snack, and breakfast. Our first train ride was from Seville to Madrid which was uneventful and only lasted a couple hours. I was pleasantly surprised to be able to watch the movie! A previous train had played a movie...in Spanish. I assumed this movie would also be in Spanish until I looked at the screen and noticed the Spanish subtitles! As I plugged in my earphones, I was happy to discover the movie was playing in English! (Charlie St. Cloud) It's been awhile since we could just sit back and watch a movie.
Once we were in Madrid, we not only had to change trains, but train stations as well. Fortunately, the guy who had booked out tickets had decided to give us an hour and forty-five minutes, rather than just forty-five minutes. This turned out to be a very good choice. We found the station and platform without being rushed or stressed and also discovered that we would be sleeping in two separate sleeping cars. Steve had two guy roomies and I was in a room with two other girls from the US: one from Texas, the other from Cali (who was also traveling with her younger brother!). Both were friendly and we ended up talking and getting to know each other for the next few hours. Both brothers came to join us and we were having a great time until our door flew open to reveal an out of breath, wheezing, old lady who looked completely confused and surprised at the amount of people (and boys) in her room! We quickly began explaining that the boys were our brothers...and just visiting. A few minutes later, we moved our "party" to the dining car where it wasn't quite so awkward. I also brought our snacks (wine and cheese) to share with our new friends. We spent another hour or so talking and having a good time, then decided it was time for bed. For being train beds, they weren't too bad and we were rocked to sleep by the swaying of the train.
Friday:
This sleeping-on-a-train experience was much better than our last one. We actually woke up before our scheduled stop (Paris) and when we finally reached our destination an hour late, we said goodbye to our friends and started off to find coffee and explore the city of Paris. This wasn't our final destination , but our next train (to Caen) wasn't scheduled until 3:10pm and it was only 9:30am!
Naturally our first choice was Starbucks (ever wonder why?...because they actually serve you a full cup of coffee compared to the miniature European sizes :) ), but we had no idea where a store was. So we started walking. After half an hour we had resorted to any coffee shop that looked appealing and sure enough, Stephen spotted a Starbucks! I was just happy to put my heavy backpack down for awhile. Our next stop was Notre Dame. I was about to go inside until I saw the line and just resorted to admiring the exterior.
The next few hours were some of my favorite. After walking by St. Michaels fountain, and once we'd found Lexington gardens, we set down our backpacks, placed two chairs side by side, and just sat there. The weather was beautiful and the view was unforgettable. A grand palace stood before us surrounded by colorful gardens, fountains, trees, and winding dirt paths. Far off to my left I could spot the Eiffel Tower. All of this complemented with a very good book and I was in heaven. After awhile, we were also serenaded by a free concert in the park by a really good high school orchestra. I really didn't want to leave...ever, but we had a train to catch. And this is when the trouble began.
Our first problem was in taking a tram back to the train station we had arrived in. When we were only two stops from arriving, Stephen and I, separately but simultaneously, had thoughts of whether this was the right train station. He started to check the tickets and our fears were confirmed. We were headed to the wrong train station! Naturally, the stations were on opposite sides of the city and I began praying that we would make it in time. We turned around and literally ran through tram stations to get to connecting lines. One transition tested the limits of our relationship. Stephen is much faster than me and had made it in time to get on a tram but when he turned around, I wasn't there. A few seconds later the doors were about to shut and I still hadn't arrived so he was forced to exit. I came running around the corner just as the tram was exiting the station. I could tell he was frustrated and I wasn't too happy about being left in the dust, but being angry wasn't going to help anyone so we silently prayed, moved on, and waited for the next tram. We had two more trams to go and I literally counted the seconds of each stop to determine if we could make it. Every second was going to count.
When we arrived at the final tram station, we assumed we would easily see the train station. No such luck. With only 9 minutes until our train was to depart we frantically started looking around and asking people where the station was. One guy pointed down the street then pointed right and we ran as fast as we could. When we reached the place to turn right we saw no station at the end. A man standing on the corner asked us where we were trying to go and when we mentioned the station he pointed us back down the street we had just run up and then to the left. Ahhh!! Hoping this guy was right (the first guy obviously wasn't) we sprinted (as much as you can with so much weight bogging you down) back down the street and turned left. And there it was. With only 5 minutes till departure we ran up the steps, hoping our platform was close. By God's grace it was, but our seats were in the very last car of the train so we ran down the platform and collapsed into our seats just as the train was leaving. Praise the Lord we had made the train just in time!
A few hours later we arrived in Caen. This had been a difficult place to book a room because I could only find one hostel in the city so I had booked a hotel. It was located more on the outskirts of town which also meant we couldn't just walk there. We looked into renting a car, but since I can't drive stick (I am now determined to learn when I get home) it didn't work out. We found a bus line that ended close to our hotel so it ended up being an ideal location. It was just down the road from the Caen Memorial which also offered tours to the Normandy Beaches which was the whole reason Stephen and I had wanted to visit Caen in the first place.
Once you looked past the bright pink and green hallways, the hotel was clean, had a comfortable bed, and we had our own room which at this point was living in luxury! Conveniently, the hotel also had a restaurant because the wasn't too much around and would've taken us a long time to get anywhere without a car. The dinner was delicious! A minced chicken starter, followed by salmon and a veggie dish, and apple pie was a delicious end to the stressful day. We jumped into bed, read for awhile, then went to sleep.
Even though we slept in a hostel room with four beds, we ended up being the only two in the room! It was so nice to have peace, quiet, and a dark room to sleep in. :) Despite these conveniences, the alarm pulled us from sleep too soon. But since our stay in Seville was so short, we wanted to get a few hours in the city.
We walked down the street to find a place to eat breakfast and found a place that actually served breakfast! Eggs and ham on rolls was a pleasant change from the usual cereal and toast served in hostels. In fact, we enjoyed our breakfast so much that we didn't realize that we were ten minutes late for the tour we'd planned on taking (very unusual for Stephen who is always punctual and has diligently kept time for us!). We ran to the hostel and asked the front desk where the first stop of the tour might be. She was incredibly helpful and showed us the first stop on that impossibly small black and white map. We quickly figured out our route and caught up to the tour just as he was mid-introduction.
While walking around the city, our tour guide took us to churches, the area where ship-builders lived and worked, across a very old bridge that was designed by the same guy who built the Eiffel tower, and told us stories and history of Seville. My favorite was the legend of why there are so many orange trees. A long time ago, a king of this region was very proud of his city until one of his wives (his favorite) claimed that it was only the second best city! It couldn't be the best because Granada had the advantage of snow. Seville is the hottest city in Europe (this is not legend and we experienced this truth while walking around in 40+ Celsius heat...record temperature was around 55 C!!) and consequently never snows. Not to be deterred, this King planted Orange trees all over Seville because on this tree blooms a small white flower. When these flowers are released from the trees, a blanket of "snow" covers the city.
Unfortunately, we had to leave the tour early so we could catch our afternoon train. The next journey covers a day and a half because we were traveling from the bottom of Spain to the top of France...but as usual, our journeys were not without excitement.
On the way to the train station we grabbed groceries for dinner, a later snack, and breakfast. Our first train ride was from Seville to Madrid which was uneventful and only lasted a couple hours. I was pleasantly surprised to be able to watch the movie! A previous train had played a movie...in Spanish. I assumed this movie would also be in Spanish until I looked at the screen and noticed the Spanish subtitles! As I plugged in my earphones, I was happy to discover the movie was playing in English! (Charlie St. Cloud) It's been awhile since we could just sit back and watch a movie.
Once we were in Madrid, we not only had to change trains, but train stations as well. Fortunately, the guy who had booked out tickets had decided to give us an hour and forty-five minutes, rather than just forty-five minutes. This turned out to be a very good choice. We found the station and platform without being rushed or stressed and also discovered that we would be sleeping in two separate sleeping cars. Steve had two guy roomies and I was in a room with two other girls from the US: one from Texas, the other from Cali (who was also traveling with her younger brother!). Both were friendly and we ended up talking and getting to know each other for the next few hours. Both brothers came to join us and we were having a great time until our door flew open to reveal an out of breath, wheezing, old lady who looked completely confused and surprised at the amount of people (and boys) in her room! We quickly began explaining that the boys were our brothers...and just visiting. A few minutes later, we moved our "party" to the dining car where it wasn't quite so awkward. I also brought our snacks (wine and cheese) to share with our new friends. We spent another hour or so talking and having a good time, then decided it was time for bed. For being train beds, they weren't too bad and we were rocked to sleep by the swaying of the train.
Friday:
This sleeping-on-a-train experience was much better than our last one. We actually woke up before our scheduled stop (Paris) and when we finally reached our destination an hour late, we said goodbye to our friends and started off to find coffee and explore the city of Paris. This wasn't our final destination , but our next train (to Caen) wasn't scheduled until 3:10pm and it was only 9:30am!
Naturally our first choice was Starbucks (ever wonder why?...because they actually serve you a full cup of coffee compared to the miniature European sizes :) ), but we had no idea where a store was. So we started walking. After half an hour we had resorted to any coffee shop that looked appealing and sure enough, Stephen spotted a Starbucks! I was just happy to put my heavy backpack down for awhile. Our next stop was Notre Dame. I was about to go inside until I saw the line and just resorted to admiring the exterior.
The next few hours were some of my favorite. After walking by St. Michaels fountain, and once we'd found Lexington gardens, we set down our backpacks, placed two chairs side by side, and just sat there. The weather was beautiful and the view was unforgettable. A grand palace stood before us surrounded by colorful gardens, fountains, trees, and winding dirt paths. Far off to my left I could spot the Eiffel Tower. All of this complemented with a very good book and I was in heaven. After awhile, we were also serenaded by a free concert in the park by a really good high school orchestra. I really didn't want to leave...ever, but we had a train to catch. And this is when the trouble began.
Our first problem was in taking a tram back to the train station we had arrived in. When we were only two stops from arriving, Stephen and I, separately but simultaneously, had thoughts of whether this was the right train station. He started to check the tickets and our fears were confirmed. We were headed to the wrong train station! Naturally, the stations were on opposite sides of the city and I began praying that we would make it in time. We turned around and literally ran through tram stations to get to connecting lines. One transition tested the limits of our relationship. Stephen is much faster than me and had made it in time to get on a tram but when he turned around, I wasn't there. A few seconds later the doors were about to shut and I still hadn't arrived so he was forced to exit. I came running around the corner just as the tram was exiting the station. I could tell he was frustrated and I wasn't too happy about being left in the dust, but being angry wasn't going to help anyone so we silently prayed, moved on, and waited for the next tram. We had two more trams to go and I literally counted the seconds of each stop to determine if we could make it. Every second was going to count.
When we arrived at the final tram station, we assumed we would easily see the train station. No such luck. With only 9 minutes until our train was to depart we frantically started looking around and asking people where the station was. One guy pointed down the street then pointed right and we ran as fast as we could. When we reached the place to turn right we saw no station at the end. A man standing on the corner asked us where we were trying to go and when we mentioned the station he pointed us back down the street we had just run up and then to the left. Ahhh!! Hoping this guy was right (the first guy obviously wasn't) we sprinted (as much as you can with so much weight bogging you down) back down the street and turned left. And there it was. With only 5 minutes till departure we ran up the steps, hoping our platform was close. By God's grace it was, but our seats were in the very last car of the train so we ran down the platform and collapsed into our seats just as the train was leaving. Praise the Lord we had made the train just in time!
A few hours later we arrived in Caen. This had been a difficult place to book a room because I could only find one hostel in the city so I had booked a hotel. It was located more on the outskirts of town which also meant we couldn't just walk there. We looked into renting a car, but since I can't drive stick (I am now determined to learn when I get home) it didn't work out. We found a bus line that ended close to our hotel so it ended up being an ideal location. It was just down the road from the Caen Memorial which also offered tours to the Normandy Beaches which was the whole reason Stephen and I had wanted to visit Caen in the first place.
Once you looked past the bright pink and green hallways, the hotel was clean, had a comfortable bed, and we had our own room which at this point was living in luxury! Conveniently, the hotel also had a restaurant because the wasn't too much around and would've taken us a long time to get anywhere without a car. The dinner was delicious! A minced chicken starter, followed by salmon and a veggie dish, and apple pie was a delicious end to the stressful day. We jumped into bed, read for awhile, then went to sleep.
Monday, July 4, 2011
More to Follow..
Bonjour! we are still alive and doing well! We didn't have internet for a couple days and when I tried updating last night, the internet lost connection. :(
Today we are in Paris (last night we rode to the top of the Eiffel Tower!) and will fly to Scotland tonight to meet up with the rest of the fam.
I'll try updating the last few days when I have a good internet connection :)
Happy Fourth of July!!!! (its wierd not being in America for it...)
Today we are in Paris (last night we rode to the top of the Eiffel Tower!) and will fly to Scotland tonight to meet up with the rest of the fam.
I'll try updating the last few days when I have a good internet connection :)
Happy Fourth of July!!!! (its wierd not being in America for it...)
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
On the road (rails?) again...
Our hostel was much quieter last night and this morning so we took the opportunity to sleep in! :) When I woke up, I wanted to take a shower but our shower was being repaired. So far, I'd just been using the public bathroom on the ground floor (which is where we were stationed) but it doesn't have any showers. So...I continued my search to the first floor. There happened to be a room open, with nobody staying in it, so I made myself at home and took a shower. :) Apparently it was fine cuz no one ever said anything.
At 10:30 we left our hostel, quickly grabbed coffee frapps (much too hot for real coffee) and a small breakfast for the road. Quickly we walked to the train station and ended up having plenty of time before our train was due. Thinking ahead (we were going to be on the train most of the afternoon) we bought sandwiches for the road. At exactly the time our train was due to leave, it decided to show up. Finding our seats was easy and we settled in for the 8.5 hour ride.
Three and half hours later, our train stopped at a station and completely stopped...as in turned off its engine and sat for quite awhile. A couple people came onto the train, rambled off a sob story (completely in spanish) then walked around looking for change. At first, Stephen and I had no idea what was going on, but we soon figured it out when they asked for money. We sat on the train, as the air heated and became stuffy, wondering why it had now taken an hour for us to move anywhere. I still have no idea why we had to sit for so long, but the train soon started up again, turned on the air, and continued its journey through Spain. We both sat engrossed in our Kindles for the next few hours until I had finished my book and looked at my watch. We were supposed to have arrived in Seville at 17:55 (5:55pm) but my watch now read 6:30 pm. Uh oh. I started to wonder and worry that we had missed our stop! Steve had read a few stations but not all of them. I sat for a few more minutes, thinking about what we'd do if we'd missed our stop. Instead of worrying, I decided to ask someone. When I'd ordered food for dinner at a small cafe on the train, the employee had spoken very good English. I decided to ask him. I felt a bit pathetic asking him if we'd missed Seville so I asked him what the next stop was. To my delight and relief, he said we would be in Seville in 20 minutes. Phew!
I'm guessing the hour we sat in the train station was a delay, which in turn made us an hour late to Seville. Normally, I wouldn't have minded, but I had been hoping to get into Seville before the ticket offices closed in the train station because we needed to book our tickets for tomorrow night! Our next journey will be quite long so I definitely wanted to get those as soon as we arrived.
Even though we arrived an hour late, the ticket offices were still open! :) It ended up being expensive, but we booked our tickets for tomorrow. In hind's sight, we probably shoudn't have come to Seville because we will only be able to spend tomorrow morning in the city and are then scheduled to leave :( I didn't realize, we'd be here for such a short amount of time, but oh well. We're here, it's beautiful, and I'm enjoying my short stay anyway.
Seville has beautiful architecture and several small windy streets. The directions to the hostel were great! and despite these small windy streets, we found our hostel easily. Although it was nearing 10:00, we dropped off our bags and set of to explore the city. The sun was ending its journey beyond the horizon which gave us a glimpse of Seville during the sunset. Darkness set in, but the city night life was just beginning and the streets were bright with activity. We stopped to eat outside in the (very) warm night air enjoying drinks and tappas. We also discovered that they bring you bread and olives...not for free. The servers drop them off at your table and if you don't ask for them to be taken away, you are automatically charged...fortunately not much. :) There was also a moment of panic when he told us how much our bill was. For a moment, I mistook the amount for $30 but after thinking and translating again, I realized it was just 13. need to work on my spanish a bit more...although i'm quite surprised at how much I remember from jr high and one year of high school.
The map our hostel gave us of Seville is black and white with impossibly small street names. Stephen took this as a challenge to not use the map and just find his way back (such a guy thing to do, right?) I am very impressed that he actually managed to do so with only one wrong turn. All the small streets start to look the same and I was soon confused and disoriented. Good thing for brothers.
We won't have internet tomorrow night since we'll be on the train so I'll try to update the next night.
Buenos Noches!
At 10:30 we left our hostel, quickly grabbed coffee frapps (much too hot for real coffee) and a small breakfast for the road. Quickly we walked to the train station and ended up having plenty of time before our train was due. Thinking ahead (we were going to be on the train most of the afternoon) we bought sandwiches for the road. At exactly the time our train was due to leave, it decided to show up. Finding our seats was easy and we settled in for the 8.5 hour ride.
Three and half hours later, our train stopped at a station and completely stopped...as in turned off its engine and sat for quite awhile. A couple people came onto the train, rambled off a sob story (completely in spanish) then walked around looking for change. At first, Stephen and I had no idea what was going on, but we soon figured it out when they asked for money. We sat on the train, as the air heated and became stuffy, wondering why it had now taken an hour for us to move anywhere. I still have no idea why we had to sit for so long, but the train soon started up again, turned on the air, and continued its journey through Spain. We both sat engrossed in our Kindles for the next few hours until I had finished my book and looked at my watch. We were supposed to have arrived in Seville at 17:55 (5:55pm) but my watch now read 6:30 pm. Uh oh. I started to wonder and worry that we had missed our stop! Steve had read a few stations but not all of them. I sat for a few more minutes, thinking about what we'd do if we'd missed our stop. Instead of worrying, I decided to ask someone. When I'd ordered food for dinner at a small cafe on the train, the employee had spoken very good English. I decided to ask him. I felt a bit pathetic asking him if we'd missed Seville so I asked him what the next stop was. To my delight and relief, he said we would be in Seville in 20 minutes. Phew!
I'm guessing the hour we sat in the train station was a delay, which in turn made us an hour late to Seville. Normally, I wouldn't have minded, but I had been hoping to get into Seville before the ticket offices closed in the train station because we needed to book our tickets for tomorrow night! Our next journey will be quite long so I definitely wanted to get those as soon as we arrived.
Even though we arrived an hour late, the ticket offices were still open! :) It ended up being expensive, but we booked our tickets for tomorrow. In hind's sight, we probably shoudn't have come to Seville because we will only be able to spend tomorrow morning in the city and are then scheduled to leave :( I didn't realize, we'd be here for such a short amount of time, but oh well. We're here, it's beautiful, and I'm enjoying my short stay anyway.
Seville has beautiful architecture and several small windy streets. The directions to the hostel were great! and despite these small windy streets, we found our hostel easily. Although it was nearing 10:00, we dropped off our bags and set of to explore the city. The sun was ending its journey beyond the horizon which gave us a glimpse of Seville during the sunset. Darkness set in, but the city night life was just beginning and the streets were bright with activity. We stopped to eat outside in the (very) warm night air enjoying drinks and tappas. We also discovered that they bring you bread and olives...not for free. The servers drop them off at your table and if you don't ask for them to be taken away, you are automatically charged...fortunately not much. :) There was also a moment of panic when he told us how much our bill was. For a moment, I mistook the amount for $30 but after thinking and translating again, I realized it was just 13. need to work on my spanish a bit more...although i'm quite surprised at how much I remember from jr high and one year of high school.
The map our hostel gave us of Seville is black and white with impossibly small street names. Stephen took this as a challenge to not use the map and just find his way back (such a guy thing to do, right?) I am very impressed that he actually managed to do so with only one wrong turn. All the small streets start to look the same and I was soon confused and disoriented. Good thing for brothers.
We won't have internet tomorrow night since we'll be on the train so I'll try to update the next night.
Buenos Noches!
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Valenthia (thats how they pronounce it here)...
Last night, we found a really nice wine bar that also served mini "sandwiches" and tapas to eat. You paid a set amount per tapas so we were able to choose whichever ones we thought would taste nice. We ate some that we knew would be good, and decided to try a few that we had no idea what they were. Stephen was rewarded with a good one...me, not so much :)
Our hostel is much nicer than the one in Barcelona, but we are also staying in a room with 12 beds, so as a result, we have to deal with noise at all hours of the night. A couple people came in late, but what really kept me up was someone´s snoring. This was no ordinary snoring, but rather it sounded like a hog in full snort...every time! I thought they must be hurting themselves, it was such a forceful sound! Fortunately, they eventually quieted down and I was able to fall asleep.
This morning, I decided to forgo the complementary breakfast of cereal and toast (the same at every place) and expanded my boundaries to the city of Valencia. Our hostel is a couple minutes walk from a Plaza with several places to eat and there was one particular place that had caught my eye as we walked in yesterday. Stephen was still sleeping, so I told him where I´d be then set off. It was nice to be on my own for a change, and I enjoyed watching the city start their day. Valencia is a smaller town (but still full of history) without the mass of tourists. This results in a more authentic atmosphere and a calmer setting. My relaxing breakfast consisted of tea, and a Spanish breakfast, which turned out to be two sandwiches: one was ham and cheese, the other a Spanish omelet (egg and potato). After eating, observing my surroundings, and reading my Kindle, I returned to the hostel to collect my brother. :)
Stephen had just finished showering and was ready to go so we set off to grab some Starbucks. We spent the next couple hours exploring the city, climbing a guard tower, walking through a park, and finally sitting on a bench in the shade to talk. At one point, we found a huge, grassy field with goal posts on either side. The map also showed a football (the American kind) so Stephen started to get really excited! Then I pointed out a sign that said Rugby and his excitement slipped away. Close, but not quite.
At 1:00 a free walking tour was scheduled to start. On the way, we stopped by a restaurant (one of the only food stores open during this siesta time) and quickly ate lunch. I don´t think the server had ever seen people come, eat, and leave so quickly. We then rushed to the meeting place and since we are in Spain, we arrived just in time.
The next couple of hours took us around Valencia, learning about its history (did you know it was once the capital?) and admiring its old architecture. Once we had finished, Stephen and I drank some of the best Horchata around and some fresh squeezed orange juice (so yummy!), then walked about half an hour through the park to the end which holds a set of futuristic looking buildings. It really did look like a scene from star wars with huge white buildings floating over large pools of crystal blue water. Hot, tired, and hungry, we ate dinner at a restaurant close by, then took a bus back to the hostel. We had a couple hours till our next activity so Stephen read while I took a nap.
Our next activity, took us to several places. We first met in the Plaza right next to our hostel. At first we didn´t know where to meet, but we soon spotted a few people from the tour earlier today. We joined the group and figured that we looked enough like tourists to be noticed by anyone looking for us. A group of 9 soon formed and eventually our tour guide appeared. The first three places produced a drink and Tapas and we all sat around, chatting, getting to know each other, and making jokes. Our last stop was the highlight of my night because it was a Flamanco Show! I´ve only seen Flamanco dancers in Riverdance and was so excited to see one up close! It really was up close too! The bar was packed with people, but I managed to find a spot on the floor at the very front just beyond the foot of the stage. At first a guitarist, two singers, and two random backup singers/clappers came out with a lady in a Flamanco dress standing at the side. For two or three songs, the guitarist played while the others clapped and the two men sang. But no dancing. I was starting to worry that this Flamanco "show" was just Flamanco music without the actual dancing! However, I was relieved when the lady started to step out and began her dance with the fastest steps I have ever seen! Really, I didn´t know someone could move their feet that fast and move around with such passion and command. Her every movement was executed with strength and precision, moving to the beat of the music. An hour and a half of music and dancing left us with our first Flamanco experience and one that I thoroughly enjoyed!
In our small group of 9, there was another pair of brother/sister traveling buddies. The brother wanted to keep enjoying the night, so we offered to walk the sister home, and another girl happened to be at our dorm so she walked with us as well.
Today, I briefly looked at some of the Resolved photos and was sad I couldn´t be there but excited to come home and listen to the sessions! I love traveling, meeting new people, getting to know Stephen even better, and meeting up with friends, but what I miss about home is my friends and family there, bed, consistency of a normal life, and Gcom. It´s interesting how change helps us to realize what we really appreciate and the blessings we so often take for granted.
I am loving this trip and will cherish this time with my bro, but I´m also thankful for a nice home to return to. Love and Miss you all!
Our hostel is much nicer than the one in Barcelona, but we are also staying in a room with 12 beds, so as a result, we have to deal with noise at all hours of the night. A couple people came in late, but what really kept me up was someone´s snoring. This was no ordinary snoring, but rather it sounded like a hog in full snort...every time! I thought they must be hurting themselves, it was such a forceful sound! Fortunately, they eventually quieted down and I was able to fall asleep.
This morning, I decided to forgo the complementary breakfast of cereal and toast (the same at every place) and expanded my boundaries to the city of Valencia. Our hostel is a couple minutes walk from a Plaza with several places to eat and there was one particular place that had caught my eye as we walked in yesterday. Stephen was still sleeping, so I told him where I´d be then set off. It was nice to be on my own for a change, and I enjoyed watching the city start their day. Valencia is a smaller town (but still full of history) without the mass of tourists. This results in a more authentic atmosphere and a calmer setting. My relaxing breakfast consisted of tea, and a Spanish breakfast, which turned out to be two sandwiches: one was ham and cheese, the other a Spanish omelet (egg and potato). After eating, observing my surroundings, and reading my Kindle, I returned to the hostel to collect my brother. :)
Stephen had just finished showering and was ready to go so we set off to grab some Starbucks. We spent the next couple hours exploring the city, climbing a guard tower, walking through a park, and finally sitting on a bench in the shade to talk. At one point, we found a huge, grassy field with goal posts on either side. The map also showed a football (the American kind) so Stephen started to get really excited! Then I pointed out a sign that said Rugby and his excitement slipped away. Close, but not quite.
At 1:00 a free walking tour was scheduled to start. On the way, we stopped by a restaurant (one of the only food stores open during this siesta time) and quickly ate lunch. I don´t think the server had ever seen people come, eat, and leave so quickly. We then rushed to the meeting place and since we are in Spain, we arrived just in time.
The next couple of hours took us around Valencia, learning about its history (did you know it was once the capital?) and admiring its old architecture. Once we had finished, Stephen and I drank some of the best Horchata around and some fresh squeezed orange juice (so yummy!), then walked about half an hour through the park to the end which holds a set of futuristic looking buildings. It really did look like a scene from star wars with huge white buildings floating over large pools of crystal blue water. Hot, tired, and hungry, we ate dinner at a restaurant close by, then took a bus back to the hostel. We had a couple hours till our next activity so Stephen read while I took a nap.
Our next activity, took us to several places. We first met in the Plaza right next to our hostel. At first we didn´t know where to meet, but we soon spotted a few people from the tour earlier today. We joined the group and figured that we looked enough like tourists to be noticed by anyone looking for us. A group of 9 soon formed and eventually our tour guide appeared. The first three places produced a drink and Tapas and we all sat around, chatting, getting to know each other, and making jokes. Our last stop was the highlight of my night because it was a Flamanco Show! I´ve only seen Flamanco dancers in Riverdance and was so excited to see one up close! It really was up close too! The bar was packed with people, but I managed to find a spot on the floor at the very front just beyond the foot of the stage. At first a guitarist, two singers, and two random backup singers/clappers came out with a lady in a Flamanco dress standing at the side. For two or three songs, the guitarist played while the others clapped and the two men sang. But no dancing. I was starting to worry that this Flamanco "show" was just Flamanco music without the actual dancing! However, I was relieved when the lady started to step out and began her dance with the fastest steps I have ever seen! Really, I didn´t know someone could move their feet that fast and move around with such passion and command. Her every movement was executed with strength and precision, moving to the beat of the music. An hour and a half of music and dancing left us with our first Flamanco experience and one that I thoroughly enjoyed!
In our small group of 9, there was another pair of brother/sister traveling buddies. The brother wanted to keep enjoying the night, so we offered to walk the sister home, and another girl happened to be at our dorm so she walked with us as well.
Today, I briefly looked at some of the Resolved photos and was sad I couldn´t be there but excited to come home and listen to the sessions! I love traveling, meeting new people, getting to know Stephen even better, and meeting up with friends, but what I miss about home is my friends and family there, bed, consistency of a normal life, and Gcom. It´s interesting how change helps us to realize what we really appreciate and the blessings we so often take for granted.
I am loving this trip and will cherish this time with my bro, but I´m also thankful for a nice home to return to. Love and Miss you all!
Monday, June 27, 2011
Ole' Ole'!!!
Hot and Humid!! Two very good words to describe the weather in Spain right now. But somehow this manages to fit the culture and Spanish experience. So does their time schedule. Stephen and I decided to go on a bike tour of Barcelona. The first tour started at 11, so we slept in, ate a meager breakfast of toast and jam (like I said, not big on their breakfasts), grabbed a Starbucks which was conveniently on the way, and arrived at the bike tour place half an hour early. All the shops were just starting to open and the tour place was closed so we decided to walk around for another 15 minutes. We arrived back at the tour place at 10:50...and still shut down. A couple minutes to 11, an official looking guy comes walking up and opens shop. He introduced himself to us (he was from Australia himself) and picked a couple bikes for us to ride then we waited about ten minutes longer to see if anyone else would show. No one came...so Steve and I got our own personal tour guide for the day!
We took off on our bikes and explored the city of Barcelona. Highlights from the 3 hour ride was the Christopher Columbus statue (which does not point East, even though they had intended it that way), the beaches, and several buildings designed by Goudi. This man was quite the architect. His buildings generally have no straight lines and relate to nature, they are very intricate, and somewhat abstract. I will post pictures later, but if you have time, look up the Segrada Familia which was only partially built by Goudi (and is actually still under construction 100+ years later) until he died. We also spent some time at a small wine shop, drinking wine, eating tapas (bread topped with tomato sauce, cheese, and meat), and talking to our tour guide. Because there was only two of us, he also showed us a couple other places that the tour doesn´t normally include. We cycled back into the shop at 3:30, thanked our tour guide, and went to find lunch.
Our guide had suggested a good place to eat, but after waiting in line for a good 20 minutes (must've been good, but they were also slow), we opted to look elsewhere. I grabbed an apple, almonds, and an avacado (an "A" quality meal...pun intended..) while Steve ordered his hamburger from McDonalds.
We had a something special planned at 6:30 so we walked around awhile, grabbed drinks (I made my own iced coffee cuz they don´t see it here), then walked to the Monumental. We found our seats at the very top of the stadium and at 7:00, we saw our first ever Bull Fight!!! You couldn´t help but hold your breath as a charging bull ran full force toward the Spaniard with his bright pink or red "cape." (excuse my lack of technical terms as i don´t know what they are...) Each time the bull charged, the crowd would chant "Ole!" and clap when the Spaniard had successfully evaded the bulls charges. They continued to tire him out, poke him with spears and swords until finally he lay down from exhaustion. I will spare you the bloody details, but in the end, the Spaniards defeated the bull. :) We stayed to watch four fights then walked downstairs to watch them skin and cut up the freshly killed bull. Steak anyone?
I wasn´t really hungry at this point, and my camera battery was dying, so we spent about 15 minutes at the hostel so I could charge my camera enough for the rest of the night. The Metro took us to the top of a mountain where we met a huge commotion and a massive crowd of people. We had heard that a fountain show would play every half an hour so we started searching for the fountain. It soon became apparent that the massive crowd of people were not there to see the fountain, but to watch a concert. Furthermore, it was a gay-"pride" concert. yikes. We pushed our way through the sea of people, observing quite a few odd sights, then finally emerged only to encountered a different show: this time the fountain show! :) It was a mixture of the Belagio and Disneyland. Music of all genres accompanied an impressive water show shooting water high in the air, creating mist, and changing colors throughout the show. It was so relaxing to sit on the steps of the castle and enjoy the night with a singing/dancing fountain as our entertainment.
We ended the night by sitting at a restaurant on Las Ramblas (the main street of Barcelona...reminded me of 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica), eating a late dinner, talking, and observing the people around us (including a hissing cat lady...).
The internet wasn´t working at our hostel, so we just went straight to bed.
Although, I wouldn´t mind staying longer in Barcelona, I was very happy to say good bye to our hostel. It was the dirtiest we´ve had, and very noisy at night. However, it was also a place to sleep and it served its purpose.
I was hoping the internet would work this morning because I needed to get directions to our hostel in Valencia...our next stop in Spain. But...no such luck. Maybe it would work later in the day. So we grabbed our coffee at Starbucks, shopped for our breakfast and lunch, and headed off to see a couple more sights before leaving. Our first destination was the Parc Guell. It was a community of houses that Goudi had built intending to sell it only to rich people; however, the rich people took one look at his odd designs and refused to live there. He was forced to open them to the public and people are now able to tour them. Some of the houses literally look like Gingerbread houses. As soon as we ented the community, we felt like we were at Disneyland or some sort of zoo. It felt very much like an amusement park..but without the rides. Despite the intense heat and humidity, we walked around the Parc, admiring Goudi´s unique architectural designs.
Our last stop in Barcelona was back to the castle...but with no concert this time. :) I´m actually not sure if its a castle, but thats what it looked like. It stands on the top of a hill, so after climbing multiple sets of stairs, we reached the top only to find out it´s closed on Mondays. Instead, we admired the superior view of Barcelona and only had a few minutes to walk around anyway. The gardens at both places were so beautiful with plenty of green and various colorful flowers.
Our train was set to leave soon, so we returned to the hostel to grab bags and with fingers-crossed we asked if the internet was working. Nope. BUT we did find a solution. My Kindle happens to have internet and I was able to look up the hostel and gather directions! (Thank you Popsy!!!) And guess what? Stephen and I had been smart enough to buy tickets to Valencia yesterday and we had NO train complications!! woo hoo! We found our platform (it literally was a sauna down there), found the correct train and seats, and since we didn´t have to change trains, it took us straight to Valencia with no complications. phew! Once we arrived in Valencia, we actually remembered to get our next train reservations and we found a map of Valencia with good directions to our hostel as well. Such a good traveling day. :)
While walking to our hostel, we decided to stop for dinner. Stopping to eat was a good idea, but the place we decided to stop at, was not. We´d seen a few places called Pan & Company, so we tried it out. It was disgusting...and I´m not very picky to begin with. Stephen´s chicken was not cooked through and I know the pictures of meals always look nicer than the actual food, but if you had seen his sandwich and tried to find it on the board, you wouldn´t have even known which one it was. So far we´ve had really good food experiences so I suppose a bad one was bound to pop up sooner or later.
We continued our search for the hostel and found it with ease. Now we´ll probably go find something real to eat. :)
We took off on our bikes and explored the city of Barcelona. Highlights from the 3 hour ride was the Christopher Columbus statue (which does not point East, even though they had intended it that way), the beaches, and several buildings designed by Goudi. This man was quite the architect. His buildings generally have no straight lines and relate to nature, they are very intricate, and somewhat abstract. I will post pictures later, but if you have time, look up the Segrada Familia which was only partially built by Goudi (and is actually still under construction 100+ years later) until he died. We also spent some time at a small wine shop, drinking wine, eating tapas (bread topped with tomato sauce, cheese, and meat), and talking to our tour guide. Because there was only two of us, he also showed us a couple other places that the tour doesn´t normally include. We cycled back into the shop at 3:30, thanked our tour guide, and went to find lunch.
Our guide had suggested a good place to eat, but after waiting in line for a good 20 minutes (must've been good, but they were also slow), we opted to look elsewhere. I grabbed an apple, almonds, and an avacado (an "A" quality meal...pun intended..) while Steve ordered his hamburger from McDonalds.
We had a something special planned at 6:30 so we walked around awhile, grabbed drinks (I made my own iced coffee cuz they don´t see it here), then walked to the Monumental. We found our seats at the very top of the stadium and at 7:00, we saw our first ever Bull Fight!!! You couldn´t help but hold your breath as a charging bull ran full force toward the Spaniard with his bright pink or red "cape." (excuse my lack of technical terms as i don´t know what they are...) Each time the bull charged, the crowd would chant "Ole!" and clap when the Spaniard had successfully evaded the bulls charges. They continued to tire him out, poke him with spears and swords until finally he lay down from exhaustion. I will spare you the bloody details, but in the end, the Spaniards defeated the bull. :) We stayed to watch four fights then walked downstairs to watch them skin and cut up the freshly killed bull. Steak anyone?
I wasn´t really hungry at this point, and my camera battery was dying, so we spent about 15 minutes at the hostel so I could charge my camera enough for the rest of the night. The Metro took us to the top of a mountain where we met a huge commotion and a massive crowd of people. We had heard that a fountain show would play every half an hour so we started searching for the fountain. It soon became apparent that the massive crowd of people were not there to see the fountain, but to watch a concert. Furthermore, it was a gay-"pride" concert. yikes. We pushed our way through the sea of people, observing quite a few odd sights, then finally emerged only to encountered a different show: this time the fountain show! :) It was a mixture of the Belagio and Disneyland. Music of all genres accompanied an impressive water show shooting water high in the air, creating mist, and changing colors throughout the show. It was so relaxing to sit on the steps of the castle and enjoy the night with a singing/dancing fountain as our entertainment.
We ended the night by sitting at a restaurant on Las Ramblas (the main street of Barcelona...reminded me of 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica), eating a late dinner, talking, and observing the people around us (including a hissing cat lady...).
The internet wasn´t working at our hostel, so we just went straight to bed.
Although, I wouldn´t mind staying longer in Barcelona, I was very happy to say good bye to our hostel. It was the dirtiest we´ve had, and very noisy at night. However, it was also a place to sleep and it served its purpose.
I was hoping the internet would work this morning because I needed to get directions to our hostel in Valencia...our next stop in Spain. But...no such luck. Maybe it would work later in the day. So we grabbed our coffee at Starbucks, shopped for our breakfast and lunch, and headed off to see a couple more sights before leaving. Our first destination was the Parc Guell. It was a community of houses that Goudi had built intending to sell it only to rich people; however, the rich people took one look at his odd designs and refused to live there. He was forced to open them to the public and people are now able to tour them. Some of the houses literally look like Gingerbread houses. As soon as we ented the community, we felt like we were at Disneyland or some sort of zoo. It felt very much like an amusement park..but without the rides. Despite the intense heat and humidity, we walked around the Parc, admiring Goudi´s unique architectural designs.
Our last stop in Barcelona was back to the castle...but with no concert this time. :) I´m actually not sure if its a castle, but thats what it looked like. It stands on the top of a hill, so after climbing multiple sets of stairs, we reached the top only to find out it´s closed on Mondays. Instead, we admired the superior view of Barcelona and only had a few minutes to walk around anyway. The gardens at both places were so beautiful with plenty of green and various colorful flowers.
Our train was set to leave soon, so we returned to the hostel to grab bags and with fingers-crossed we asked if the internet was working. Nope. BUT we did find a solution. My Kindle happens to have internet and I was able to look up the hostel and gather directions! (Thank you Popsy!!!) And guess what? Stephen and I had been smart enough to buy tickets to Valencia yesterday and we had NO train complications!! woo hoo! We found our platform (it literally was a sauna down there), found the correct train and seats, and since we didn´t have to change trains, it took us straight to Valencia with no complications. phew! Once we arrived in Valencia, we actually remembered to get our next train reservations and we found a map of Valencia with good directions to our hostel as well. Such a good traveling day. :)
While walking to our hostel, we decided to stop for dinner. Stopping to eat was a good idea, but the place we decided to stop at, was not. We´d seen a few places called Pan & Company, so we tried it out. It was disgusting...and I´m not very picky to begin with. Stephen´s chicken was not cooked through and I know the pictures of meals always look nicer than the actual food, but if you had seen his sandwich and tried to find it on the board, you wouldn´t have even known which one it was. So far we´ve had really good food experiences so I suppose a bad one was bound to pop up sooner or later.
We continued our search for the hostel and found it with ease. Now we´ll probably go find something real to eat. :)
Saturday, June 25, 2011
Count of Monte Cristo
We are now in the midst of a whirlwind tour...spending only a few days at best in each place to briefly experience the major sights and experiences. Although we werent keen to spend much more time in Marseille, there were still a couple sights I wanted to see before leaving. Im sure you can guess our first order of business...yup, Starbucks! And then straight to the docks to catch a boat to the Chateau Dif. The wind had died down and was replaced by an unrelenting sun which accompanied us throughout the next few hours. The short boat ride also showed us several locals enjoying their weekends on their speedy yachts or lazy sailboats.
The Chateau Dif wasnt quite Alcatraz but it was still fun for me to run around and explore. The best part of our explorations was a series of pictures that illustrate MY version of escaping the Chateau. I wish I could post them, but i will just have to wait until i have a proper computer to do so. The Countess of North Hills will come to a blog near you at some point in the future :) (stephen has his own series as well...but a little more original). caution: certain to be cheesy :)
After running around the deserted prison, we road the boat back to Marseille and proceeded to climb the very steep streets to Notre Dame which overlooks the city, bay, and beyond. It is a prominant building capped by a golden statue that is visible from almost any point of Marseille. It was worth a quick look, so thats what we did. We didnt have much time to spare, so we walked in, around, and back down with just enough time to appreciate the art, views, and take a few pictures. One interesting note: This church is where many wives of sailors would go to pray. Apparently they had confidence in their husbands (or sons) abilities at sea so they would pray: Please protect my loved one while he is on land because i know he will be fine at sea. :) Being a place of prayer, I decided to send up a prayer on my own for all the military friends/acquaintances I know serving our country and for the US troops in general.
On our way back down, we stopped by our hostel, made sandwiches for lunch, then hurridly left for the train station. We had allowed ourselves a good hour and fifteen minutes to get there, get reservations, and find our platform. It only took us about 10 minutes to get there but when we asked for a reservation, the ticket-man told us the train was filled and wasnt taking any more reservations!!! I was a bit worried that we would be staying in Marseille another night...but without any reservations...until the ticket-man decided to try entering other routes to Barcelona. By Gods grace, he was thorough in his search and found an alternative route that added train changes, but would get us to Barcelona at the same time we had originally planned for. He quickly printed our tickets and pointed us to the platform that our train was to leave from in just a few minutes! We ran to the platform and immediately entered the train. At first we couldnt find our seats, but a conductor showed us that we were on the wrong train and needed to get on the train just behind this one! Once we were on the correct train, we found our seats and began our journey to Spain. After a train ride to a bus in Avignon, and connecting to two other trains, we arrived in Barcelona...and this time with much better instructions to our hostel than before. Its actually extremely close to the Metro and even though we arrived at 11:00pm, it is located just off a main street that was still bustling with activity, getting ready for another weekend night. Steve and I settled in (to much dirtier beds than we have had so far...should be interesting. at this point i am very glad we brought our silk liners!) and now im going to get some sleep so as to be awake for a tour of Barcelona!
The Chateau Dif wasnt quite Alcatraz but it was still fun for me to run around and explore. The best part of our explorations was a series of pictures that illustrate MY version of escaping the Chateau. I wish I could post them, but i will just have to wait until i have a proper computer to do so. The Countess of North Hills will come to a blog near you at some point in the future :) (stephen has his own series as well...but a little more original). caution: certain to be cheesy :)
After running around the deserted prison, we road the boat back to Marseille and proceeded to climb the very steep streets to Notre Dame which overlooks the city, bay, and beyond. It is a prominant building capped by a golden statue that is visible from almost any point of Marseille. It was worth a quick look, so thats what we did. We didnt have much time to spare, so we walked in, around, and back down with just enough time to appreciate the art, views, and take a few pictures. One interesting note: This church is where many wives of sailors would go to pray. Apparently they had confidence in their husbands (or sons) abilities at sea so they would pray: Please protect my loved one while he is on land because i know he will be fine at sea. :) Being a place of prayer, I decided to send up a prayer on my own for all the military friends/acquaintances I know serving our country and for the US troops in general.
On our way back down, we stopped by our hostel, made sandwiches for lunch, then hurridly left for the train station. We had allowed ourselves a good hour and fifteen minutes to get there, get reservations, and find our platform. It only took us about 10 minutes to get there but when we asked for a reservation, the ticket-man told us the train was filled and wasnt taking any more reservations!!! I was a bit worried that we would be staying in Marseille another night...but without any reservations...until the ticket-man decided to try entering other routes to Barcelona. By Gods grace, he was thorough in his search and found an alternative route that added train changes, but would get us to Barcelona at the same time we had originally planned for. He quickly printed our tickets and pointed us to the platform that our train was to leave from in just a few minutes! We ran to the platform and immediately entered the train. At first we couldnt find our seats, but a conductor showed us that we were on the wrong train and needed to get on the train just behind this one! Once we were on the correct train, we found our seats and began our journey to Spain. After a train ride to a bus in Avignon, and connecting to two other trains, we arrived in Barcelona...and this time with much better instructions to our hostel than before. Its actually extremely close to the Metro and even though we arrived at 11:00pm, it is located just off a main street that was still bustling with activity, getting ready for another weekend night. Steve and I settled in (to much dirtier beds than we have had so far...should be interesting. at this point i am very glad we brought our silk liners!) and now im going to get some sleep so as to be awake for a tour of Barcelona!
Friday, June 24, 2011
3 Hour Tour...
We had great roommates last night (from Canada!) who went to bed early with us and left quietly in the morning. This allowed us to get a great night's rest and sleep in :). Our first activity of the morning was to visit Starbucks and find some breakfast. One of the things we miss about home, is that no matter what time you get up, there will always be a breakfast place open. Europeans don't seem to care for breakfast so even during breakfast hours, we are often hard pressed to find a proper breakfast. But never fear, for the Johns will find a way!
Yesterday, while Stephen and I had been searching for Starbucks, I had seen and made a point to remember where a grocery store was located. Remembering this, I led him back to this location after we'd gotten our coffees and we bought Muesli, milk, and aluminum tins (to act as cereal bowls). While there we also bought bread, ham, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and apples for lunch. So cheap!
We had an hour before a boat tour of the Calanques Islands was to leave, and since our hostel is near the harbor, we walked back to our hostel, ate our cereal, made our sandwiches, and grabbed our jackets. The weather had been so hot yesterday that I'd assumed it would be hot today too. We soon experienced a different weather phenomenon of gusting winds. I was never cold, but not hot either and since we were going on a boat, I thought we should be prepared for even more winds!
Our boat left at 1:30 for a 3 hour tour of the Calanques. Steve and I chose a scenic view from the top deck and as soon as we'd sat down, he started singing "...a three hour tour, a three hour tour" (the theme song from Gilligan's Island. lol) Little did we realize, how true to reality it would become. No, we didn't crash on an island...but we did experience tumultuous waves that tossed us about and sprayed us until we were almost soaking wet. Fortunately, this didn't last the entire time, but the first half an hour was much more exciting than we'd anticipated!
The boat took us past the Chateu D'if, other barren islands, small fishing villages, and into bays with beautiful, clear, turquoise water. Although the Med is very salty, the water looked so inviting and refreshing! Unfortunately the tour didn't include swimming, but by the time we got back, it looked as if we had. When the water had dried, it had also left salty spots and designs on our skin and belongings.
As soon as we returned, we sat on the harbor to eat lunch. This also happened to be the moment that a large French Navy Ship was trying to dock. I'm sure there was a good reason for them to be taking so long, but Steve and I decided that they simply couldn't figure out how to get closer. It made for a comedic routine in our heads.
We discovered yesterday that the dinner culture here doesn't begin until 7 so we continued walking. We visited a regal Byzantine style Cathedral and then stumbled onto a simple church. A pleasant surprise awaited us inside the church in the form of musicians practicing for a concert that night. There was only three of them playing the organ, recorder, and a ukulele-type instrument. The organist also became the percussion section when he pulled out a drum. We enjoyed the music then headed back to our hostel to clean up.
On the way to our hostel, I had noticed several restaurants along the harbor, so once we were clean of salt, we returned to the restaurants and found a nice table by the boats. Our meals were delicious! I ordered a yummy salad while Stephen showed off with a large pot of mussels. The restaurant should've given us a discount because of all the customers we brought them. Every time someone walked by, they would see our table of food, decide to look at the menu (some who had walked on decided to come back and look!), and some would then decide to eat there! Good advertising strategy!
While walking back to our hostel we enjoyed a beautiful sunset. My favorite! :)
Yesterday, while Stephen and I had been searching for Starbucks, I had seen and made a point to remember where a grocery store was located. Remembering this, I led him back to this location after we'd gotten our coffees and we bought Muesli, milk, and aluminum tins (to act as cereal bowls). While there we also bought bread, ham, cheese, lettuce, tomato, and apples for lunch. So cheap!
We had an hour before a boat tour of the Calanques Islands was to leave, and since our hostel is near the harbor, we walked back to our hostel, ate our cereal, made our sandwiches, and grabbed our jackets. The weather had been so hot yesterday that I'd assumed it would be hot today too. We soon experienced a different weather phenomenon of gusting winds. I was never cold, but not hot either and since we were going on a boat, I thought we should be prepared for even more winds!
Our boat left at 1:30 for a 3 hour tour of the Calanques. Steve and I chose a scenic view from the top deck and as soon as we'd sat down, he started singing "...a three hour tour, a three hour tour" (the theme song from Gilligan's Island. lol) Little did we realize, how true to reality it would become. No, we didn't crash on an island...but we did experience tumultuous waves that tossed us about and sprayed us until we were almost soaking wet. Fortunately, this didn't last the entire time, but the first half an hour was much more exciting than we'd anticipated!
The boat took us past the Chateu D'if, other barren islands, small fishing villages, and into bays with beautiful, clear, turquoise water. Although the Med is very salty, the water looked so inviting and refreshing! Unfortunately the tour didn't include swimming, but by the time we got back, it looked as if we had. When the water had dried, it had also left salty spots and designs on our skin and belongings.
As soon as we returned, we sat on the harbor to eat lunch. This also happened to be the moment that a large French Navy Ship was trying to dock. I'm sure there was a good reason for them to be taking so long, but Steve and I decided that they simply couldn't figure out how to get closer. It made for a comedic routine in our heads.
We discovered yesterday that the dinner culture here doesn't begin until 7 so we continued walking. We visited a regal Byzantine style Cathedral and then stumbled onto a simple church. A pleasant surprise awaited us inside the church in the form of musicians practicing for a concert that night. There was only three of them playing the organ, recorder, and a ukulele-type instrument. The organist also became the percussion section when he pulled out a drum. We enjoyed the music then headed back to our hostel to clean up.
On the way to our hostel, I had noticed several restaurants along the harbor, so once we were clean of salt, we returned to the restaurants and found a nice table by the boats. Our meals were delicious! I ordered a yummy salad while Stephen showed off with a large pot of mussels. The restaurant should've given us a discount because of all the customers we brought them. Every time someone walked by, they would see our table of food, decide to look at the menu (some who had walked on decided to come back and look!), and some would then decide to eat there! Good advertising strategy!
While walking back to our hostel we enjoyed a beautiful sunset. My favorite! :)
Thursday, June 23, 2011
Parlez-vous Anglais?
...is a common phrase I now use, as well as "Merci Beaucoup."
I didn't realize that different countries have such different keyboards until this trip! My first challenge came in Germany, but that was easily solved by borrowing someone's American Mac. Czech was slightly different as well as Switzerland, but this board is by far the most difficult. If I zqs typing the q,ericqn zqy this is zhqt it zould look like::: (translated: if I was typing the American way this is what it would look like...)
Anyways, this morning we woke up "early," or what has now become early for us :), gathered our belongings, and hitched a ride to the train station with John William. I had printed out our itinierary which was fortunate because we quickly realized that we were supposed to be looking for a bus and not a train. (we're improving somewhat in the transportation department) We then took a tram to the train station where we caught two trains to end up in Marseille! So far our travels have never been completely smooth, and this one also had a hiccup, but fortunately not a big one.
When I'd printed out our hostel reservations, there were always directions (some better than others) to the hostel. As we were nearing Marseille, I figured I should get out the directions to start figuring out where we'd go. Literally, this is what our "directions" said, "The Hostel is located in the Old Port area 5 minutes walking distance from the Metro Vieux-Port." and that was all...how detailed and helpful!...NOT.
I looked up at Stephen with a sheepish smile and read him the directions. poor guy...but now he just shakes his head and laughs.
This trip has certainly sharpened our map reading skills and our reasoning skills as is evidenced by the relatively short amount of time it took for us to find the hostel. We had no idea where Old Port is, but we followed the signs to the Metro and based on a map, we figured out which train to take. Our short ride dropped us off at Old Port and we only got slightly lost (we'd found Avenue Fort Notre Dame but not Rue Fort Notre Dome), so I asked someone if they knew where our street was. We were really close, so she pointed us in the right direction and we soon came to the correct address and thus our hostel.
Our room wasn't quite ready yet so we decided to explore the city of Marseille. It has a strong Mediteranean atmosphere and reminds me a lot of Israel. Unfortunately, the streets are dirty and it often smells, but there are also really cool buildings and views of the ocean. A prominent feature is a fortress built on a hill overlooking the ocean. We tried to get near it, but only succeeded in walking around it. We also found a good view of the Chà teau d'If (from Count of Monte Cristo!) and a few other churches.
The weather today was very hot so at one point we stopped to rest and order drinks. It was also around 5pm and we were both hungry for dinner, however we soon found out that nothing opens for dinner before 7pm. So to pass the time, we continued exploring and searched for the nearest Starbucks which Stephen had previously mapped out (very important! :) ). The atmosphere was so relaxing so we grabbed a couch, pulled out our Kindles, and read until 7. Dinner was eaten right by the harbour, then we walked to a different beach to the West to watch the sunset. Sunsets are absolutely my favorite part of creation and this was no exception. Before it got too dark, we found our way back to the hostel and since we didn't get much sleep last night, we'll try to get a good night's rest.
Bonjourné!
I didn't realize that different countries have such different keyboards until this trip! My first challenge came in Germany, but that was easily solved by borrowing someone's American Mac. Czech was slightly different as well as Switzerland, but this board is by far the most difficult. If I zqs typing the q,ericqn zqy this is zhqt it zould look like::: (translated: if I was typing the American way this is what it would look like...)
Anyways, this morning we woke up "early," or what has now become early for us :), gathered our belongings, and hitched a ride to the train station with John William. I had printed out our itinierary which was fortunate because we quickly realized that we were supposed to be looking for a bus and not a train. (we're improving somewhat in the transportation department) We then took a tram to the train station where we caught two trains to end up in Marseille! So far our travels have never been completely smooth, and this one also had a hiccup, but fortunately not a big one.
When I'd printed out our hostel reservations, there were always directions (some better than others) to the hostel. As we were nearing Marseille, I figured I should get out the directions to start figuring out where we'd go. Literally, this is what our "directions" said, "The Hostel is located in the Old Port area 5 minutes walking distance from the Metro Vieux-Port." and that was all...how detailed and helpful!...NOT.
I looked up at Stephen with a sheepish smile and read him the directions. poor guy...but now he just shakes his head and laughs.
This trip has certainly sharpened our map reading skills and our reasoning skills as is evidenced by the relatively short amount of time it took for us to find the hostel. We had no idea where Old Port is, but we followed the signs to the Metro and based on a map, we figured out which train to take. Our short ride dropped us off at Old Port and we only got slightly lost (we'd found Avenue Fort Notre Dame but not Rue Fort Notre Dome), so I asked someone if they knew where our street was. We were really close, so she pointed us in the right direction and we soon came to the correct address and thus our hostel.
Our room wasn't quite ready yet so we decided to explore the city of Marseille. It has a strong Mediteranean atmosphere and reminds me a lot of Israel. Unfortunately, the streets are dirty and it often smells, but there are also really cool buildings and views of the ocean. A prominent feature is a fortress built on a hill overlooking the ocean. We tried to get near it, but only succeeded in walking around it. We also found a good view of the Chà teau d'If (from Count of Monte Cristo!) and a few other churches.
The weather today was very hot so at one point we stopped to rest and order drinks. It was also around 5pm and we were both hungry for dinner, however we soon found out that nothing opens for dinner before 7pm. So to pass the time, we continued exploring and searched for the nearest Starbucks which Stephen had previously mapped out (very important! :) ). The atmosphere was so relaxing so we grabbed a couch, pulled out our Kindles, and read until 7. Dinner was eaten right by the harbour, then we walked to a different beach to the West to watch the sunset. Sunsets are absolutely my favorite part of creation and this was no exception. Before it got too dark, we found our way back to the hostel and since we didn't get much sleep last night, we'll try to get a good night's rest.
Bonjourné!
Days of Rest
We have now been traveling for 3 weeks. Touring and Exploring is so much fun, but it's also nice to just relax and experience a restful vacation as well. Yesterday and today fell into that category.
Tuesday:
We decided to let ourselves sleep in and catch up on rest, so...at 11:00 am we finally tumbled out of bed. :) We relaxed, ate breakfast with Kimberly, and talked to John William when he came home for his lunch break at 12:00. At about 1:30 we rode into town with John William and walked around, exploring the city a little more. We'd already seen most of the big sights, so we mostly wandered for wanderings sake. First, we grabbed Starbucks :) then walked down the main shopping street which holds some of the world's most expensive shops. At one point, we sat down at a table, talking and enjoying the atmosphere of Geneva.
Continuing on, we ended up in Old Town Geneva where we passed old buildings, a park, and a chess game. This chess game was no ordinary chess game. The board had been painted on the ground and the chess pieces were a couple feet high! We observed several old men lounging on the benches and challenging each other in chess.Classic.
We had scheduled to call Kimberly at 4 to see what she was up to, so we found a telephone nearby. It had also started to sprinkle at this point, so we arranged to meet her at the tram station by her house. (So this is how people used to live without cell phones!! lol) We met her 15 minutes later (although Stephen walked right past her without even knowing..) and she drove us back to their house. Resting some more, Stephen read while I blogged as we waited for John William to come home from work.
At around 7, we all jumped in the car, picked up a friend of John William, and headed to a fondue restaurant! Both Stephen and I had never had fondue and apparently, France has some of the best! The chef recognized John William and after chatting with us, sent over a free bottle of Chardonney. :) We all decided to get the fondue and also that I would be the one to order in French! I ordered correctly, but then she started asking me questions in French to which I referred her back to John William.
The food was absolutely delicious. The fondue was a mixture of three different cheeses and we used our long "pitch fork" utensils to dip bread or potatos into the cheese. Satisfied and very full, we left the restaurant content but also knowing we probably wouldn't eat cheese for at least a week. :)
As we drove back, John William took a back road to their house which also provided an amazing view of Geneva with a backdrop of the Alps lit by the sunset. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera, but the exceptional view is one I won't forget. God has created so many beautiful places and I am so blessed to be able to experience some of those places.
Even though it was almost dark, Kimberly and I took a short walk further up the mountain, enjoying the view and enjoying each others company. It was dark when we got back and the boys had just finished playing basketball so we all sat in the living room and watched Terminator 4 then went to bed.
i had planned to insert pictures here but never got the chance. i may not get a chance to for awhile so my narratives will just have to do for now... :)
Wednesday:
This was also a sleep-in day and once again we didn't get up until 11 and 12. Stephen and I were perfectly happy to relax at the Glass house. We had pondered trying to visit Montrix again, but as soon as we saw clouds and rain in the forcast, we decided it wouldnt be worth it. For most of the day, Stephen read while I finished booking hostels for the rest of our trip (its about time, no?) Shortly after lunch, the rain began, bringing bright flashes of lightening and booming thunder. I feel like its rained almost everyday we've traveled...and i should've known it would after assuring mom that i wouldn't need an umbrella. :)
Inside their cozy living room, Stephen and I made coffee and watched Transformers 2. Halfway through, we were joined by John William and Kimberly who also made and served Crepes for dinner! they were absolutely delicious!!!
That night we all hung out, played the french version of scattegories, I showed them the Scottish-influenced game of putting an After 8 mint on your forehead and they had to get it to their mouth without using their hands. (pictures and videos to follow when i have the opportunity...) Then we closed the night by watching Book of Eli, another movie I hadn't seen yet.
Updated Itinerary:
-June 23-25: Marseille
-June 25-27: Valencia, Spain
-June 27-29: Seville
-June 29-30: travel to Caen, France by train all night and day
-July1-3: Caen/Normandy Beaches
-July 3-4: Paris
from here we fly to Scottland to meet up with the rest of our family and we end in Northern Ireland...
Tuesday:
We decided to let ourselves sleep in and catch up on rest, so...at 11:00 am we finally tumbled out of bed. :) We relaxed, ate breakfast with Kimberly, and talked to John William when he came home for his lunch break at 12:00. At about 1:30 we rode into town with John William and walked around, exploring the city a little more. We'd already seen most of the big sights, so we mostly wandered for wanderings sake. First, we grabbed Starbucks :) then walked down the main shopping street which holds some of the world's most expensive shops. At one point, we sat down at a table, talking and enjoying the atmosphere of Geneva.
Continuing on, we ended up in Old Town Geneva where we passed old buildings, a park, and a chess game. This chess game was no ordinary chess game. The board had been painted on the ground and the chess pieces were a couple feet high! We observed several old men lounging on the benches and challenging each other in chess.Classic.
We had scheduled to call Kimberly at 4 to see what she was up to, so we found a telephone nearby. It had also started to sprinkle at this point, so we arranged to meet her at the tram station by her house. (So this is how people used to live without cell phones!! lol) We met her 15 minutes later (although Stephen walked right past her without even knowing..) and she drove us back to their house. Resting some more, Stephen read while I blogged as we waited for John William to come home from work.
At around 7, we all jumped in the car, picked up a friend of John William, and headed to a fondue restaurant! Both Stephen and I had never had fondue and apparently, France has some of the best! The chef recognized John William and after chatting with us, sent over a free bottle of Chardonney. :) We all decided to get the fondue and also that I would be the one to order in French! I ordered correctly, but then she started asking me questions in French to which I referred her back to John William.
The food was absolutely delicious. The fondue was a mixture of three different cheeses and we used our long "pitch fork" utensils to dip bread or potatos into the cheese. Satisfied and very full, we left the restaurant content but also knowing we probably wouldn't eat cheese for at least a week. :)
As we drove back, John William took a back road to their house which also provided an amazing view of Geneva with a backdrop of the Alps lit by the sunset. Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera, but the exceptional view is one I won't forget. God has created so many beautiful places and I am so blessed to be able to experience some of those places.
Even though it was almost dark, Kimberly and I took a short walk further up the mountain, enjoying the view and enjoying each others company. It was dark when we got back and the boys had just finished playing basketball so we all sat in the living room and watched Terminator 4 then went to bed.
i had planned to insert pictures here but never got the chance. i may not get a chance to for awhile so my narratives will just have to do for now... :)
Wednesday:
This was also a sleep-in day and once again we didn't get up until 11 and 12. Stephen and I were perfectly happy to relax at the Glass house. We had pondered trying to visit Montrix again, but as soon as we saw clouds and rain in the forcast, we decided it wouldnt be worth it. For most of the day, Stephen read while I finished booking hostels for the rest of our trip (its about time, no?) Shortly after lunch, the rain began, bringing bright flashes of lightening and booming thunder. I feel like its rained almost everyday we've traveled...and i should've known it would after assuring mom that i wouldn't need an umbrella. :)
Inside their cozy living room, Stephen and I made coffee and watched Transformers 2. Halfway through, we were joined by John William and Kimberly who also made and served Crepes for dinner! they were absolutely delicious!!!
That night we all hung out, played the french version of scattegories, I showed them the Scottish-influenced game of putting an After 8 mint on your forehead and they had to get it to their mouth without using their hands. (pictures and videos to follow when i have the opportunity...) Then we closed the night by watching Book of Eli, another movie I hadn't seen yet.
Updated Itinerary:
-June 23-25: Marseille
-June 25-27: Valencia, Spain
-June 27-29: Seville
-June 29-30: travel to Caen, France by train all night and day
-July1-3: Caen/Normandy Beaches
-July 3-4: Paris
from here we fly to Scottland to meet up with the rest of our family and we end in Northern Ireland...
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Proverbs 16:9
"The mind of man plans his way, But the Lord directs his steps."
-I feel like this is a good verse for our trip :) (and in life too, it's probably one of my favorites)Sunday:
Not only did we come to Geneva during a music festival, but the Glass'church had planned a retreat for this day! John William drove us to Crechet, which is about an hour and a half away, to a small town at the base of the Alps. We walked up to an old stone building surrounded by green hills and beautiful views. The church service was just about to start so we grabbed a few seats in the back. After worshipping in French, Stephen and I slipped out the back because we weren't going to understand any of the service. I really wanted to walk around and explore, but the weather was cold and we were both exhausted so we ended up laying down in the warm car and taking naps. About an hour and half later we woke up in time for lunch. I sat next to two families. The first family was originally from London and moved to France a year ago for work. The other family had just come back from a year long trip!!! The dad is a nurse and the mom a music teacher with three sons, 18, 16, and 11. They decided to take a year off work and school to travel the world. Because they were living out of their backpacks, they stayed in warm parts of the world (Australia, New Zealand, California, Tahiti, etc...) and survived by finding work (volunteering at different places for lodging and food). I was fascinated by their adventure!
After lunch, John William drove us another 30 minutes to a town called Montreux. The Glass family lives on one side of Lake Leman, and after driving about two hours, you arrive at the other side of the lake at Montreux. It is a quaint, rich town with a boardwalk that runs beside the lake. We walked along this path to reach the Chillon Castle where we toured its courtyard, cellars, prison, weapons room, "bathrooms", and towers. The views from the top overlooked the Lake with the Alps towering behind. It was fun to explore the different rooms, especially with Stephen and John William. :) We finished our stay by eating dinner at a Kebab shop (one of the only restaurants open on Sunday), then drove back to the Glass'. We began to watch a movie, but stopped it half way and everyone went to bed except for me. That's the night I blogged an entire update and lost it all...oh well.
Chillon Castle
They didn't like Stephen so much...
One of the views from the top tower
Monday:
Monday morning we were planning to take a trip up to Chamonix. It's at the top of the Alps and has amazing views, including several glaciers! The day was supposed to be sunny and clear, therefore the perfect day to go. It was hard to wake up since I hadn't slept much the last two nights, but I made a big cup of coffee and was ready to leave by 8. John William dropped us off at the train station at about 8:15 but the ticket booth was closed. We found a ticket machine but all its instructions were in French. We tried figuring it out and a lady behind us was nice enough to help. We figured out how to get the tickets, but when we tried to pay, it wouldn't take our credit cards! We needed to have a special chip in order to pay and there was no slot for money, so we decided to try paying the conductor after we got on the train (hoping they would understand and not fine us for not having tickets...). We had heard that the train would come on the other side of the tracks so thats where we waited for the train. At around 8:35 (about the time our train was supposed to arrive) a train came...but on the other side of the tracks. I assumed another train would come our way soon. But 15 minutes later, we came to the conclusion that we were supposed to be on the other train and had missed it. (what is it with us and trains?! lol) The ticket office opened precisely at this moment, so we inquired about the next train to Chamonix. The lady told us that the next train wasn't until 10:30 (confirming our suspicions of having missed the train) but wouldn't arrive in Chamonix until 4:40pm! (due to train changes). We didn't want to pay money to go for a loooong train ride only to return as soon as we got up there so we declined and walked away.
The Glass' thought we'd be gone the whole day so our next job was to find a phone booth so as to call them. There was a phone right outside the station, but because we were in France, the phone booths were different and wouldn't accept money or my swiss phone card. So....we needed to find a store that sold phone cards. The only problem was that we were in a very small town and had no idea where a store would be so we started walking. I actually enjoyed this hunt because when we'd enter a store, the people didn't speak English so we had to figure out how to communicate with the little French we know and with hand motions (kind of like Charades in real life). Eventually we found a store with calling cards and we were able to call the Glass'. Mr. Glass picked us up and took us into Geneva so we could tour the city for the day. He was very helpful in procuring a map, passes, and showing us where some great sites would be. So with our new agenda, we set off.
Our first stop was Starbucks, where we got energy, and then to Lake Geneva. Our passes included boat rides along the Lake. In the middle of the Lake is a "fountain"that actually looks more like a geyser. It shoots up super high and is quite fascinating to watch. The water in the lake is also beautiful because it's such a clear blue and looks so clean and refreshing! The boats we road zigzagged across the river and dropped us off at the Botanical Gardens. It was around noon, and I thought it so interesting to see several people running along the trails in the gardens. I wonder if its common to take a run on your lunch break in Geneva? If so, they had a beautiful place to do so.
Fountain
In the Botanical Gardens
She took us on a quick tour, showing us the Reformation Wall and Calvin's church, before taking us back to her house. The weather was so nice and warm so we all ate dinner on their back porch. From their yard, we spotted several people paragliding from the nearby mountains and laughed about all the different ways to fly through the air.
Reformation Wall
Calvin's Church
After dinner, we took a ride with Kimberly driving a stick! She's driven in the states, but in an automatic car and some of the street rules are different here so it was quite the adventure! She did great and didn't crash or stall, so we claimed it a success. We finished the movie from last night, I blogged, had a great chat with Kimberly, then happily went to bed. :)
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