Travel Adventures

This is one blog you will not see on Maria's web site

2006-12-14T17:16:00.000-07:00

My family is crazy!

I love them to death, but seriously, I'm living in a soap opera with the cast switched on hyper mode. Let's take my youngest sister, for example - very pretty, but does she really need to wear skirts so short I'm not even sure Eve would have worn before she took a bite from the sacred apple. I took a ride with her up to the dry cleaners, car all pimped out, radio blasting and seats laid back so far you have to do a constant crunch to see out the window. I felt like Puff Daddy was going to step out on to the side walk and let loose a few rounds at us. Take no offence Sis, I'm probably just getting too old.

Unrelated to my family, I'm freezing my ass here! It's summer and I have never been so cold. I forgot that it's basically like living in a desert - warm days and freezing cold nights, but I'm sure I'll be melting when the heat wave comes.

It is good to be back though. Doesn't feel like home yet but I've been away so long I'm sure it will take a while to sink in. My family may be crazy but they are great for a laugh; I don't think I have stopped since I got here :)

Accepting appointments :)

2006-11-11T06:01:00.000-07:00

After 30 hours of thumb aching massage and 2 examinations Maria and I are now certified to give 1.5 hour Thai massage. Now I know what you are thinking and NO I don't give a Thai happy ending to my massage.

I was however constantly getting in trouble from my teacher as she would often slap my hand while I was practicing and yell "No, no, impolite, hand too close to mountain!" As soon as her supervisor was not looking though she was wiggling her bum at me and sarcastically saying "Sorry, sorry, I didn't know" but it was all in good fun.

The course itself was a grueling 5 days. I had to get up and attend class everyday from 9 AM to 4 PM with only a one and half hour lunch break and one afternoon ice cream break. They did provide a really good free vegetarian lunch though and I got to buy a fresh coconut everyday for my drink :) I don't know how I'm going to handle a job ever again.

If there are any single guys out there interested in the hippy/granola type then I recommend you enroll in one of these classes as the ratio for men to women is 1:20. They are not all granola but there is a large majority... always getting you to try feel their chi and crap. There were actually quite a lot of masseuses and masseurs studying there from all over the world but god forbid you actually call them that as they consider themselves "therapists". I personally had enough and wanted to tell them to go suck on their herbal ball. Saying that we were lucky enough to have all awesome people in our class.

PS CanSis, you are no longer the only one to have been straddled by a therapist while receiving a massage!

Family tree

2006-10-28T10:19:00.000-07:00

It turns out I come from the Goh family not the Soon family! My great grand father who was a Goh had many many sons, his family was very close friends with the Soon family. One day they had a conversation that went something like this:

Real Great Grand Father Goh: I have so many sons!

Great Grand Father Soon: I have no sons only daughters :(

Real Great Grand Father Goh: We are good friends, here have my youngest son :)

However ludicrous this sounds they tell me it’s exactly how it happened. The kicker is the two families stayed very close and my grand father (now a Soon) had too many sons and the new generation of the Goh family had only daughters so my grand father gave his youngest son to the Goh family. This means my youngest uncle has blood from the Goh family but born into the Soon family and then given back to the Goh family!

Malaysian haircut

2006-10-24T09:35:00.000-07:00

I had enough of cutting my own hair so I thought I would go for a bit of a trim in Malaysia while I have the locals around to recommend a hairdresser. My dad sent me to his “barber” in Penang so I went along thinking if worse comes to worse I can always just chop off my hair again. So we head to this barber which is run by an East Indian chap who seemed to love singing along with the local Indian radio station and was at the time I walked in trimming some hairy dudes beard and then turning to my dad to try and do up the top button of his pants because his stomach had popped it open, what had I got myself into?

After about 15 minutes of scissors snipping all over my head (90% of the time the scissor blades were 3 inches from my actual hair, I think he just liked the sound of the scissors snipping) and one of those old school razors which I kept thinking to my self please don’t cut me as he worked expert precision around my neck and ears it was finished or so I thought. He was brushing me down and I was ready to get out of the chair when suddenly wrapped both hands around my head so I was in a headlock position and he cracked my neck in both directions! I got out of the chair all dizzy and paid him the requested 10 ringget (4 bucks) and walked out of the shop not believing what he just did and wondering if my neck would untie itself from one big knot in the next 4 hours. I was halfway down the street when my dad finally walked out with 2 extra ringget which he had bargained off the guy after I had already paid him!

The Craic in Ireland

2006-10-12T12:27:00.000-07:00

It started with meeting my parents in a small little town that consisted of two main streets but it was good to just sit and relax after the constant sight seeing for the last few months. They were great as usual, never really seem to change although I get the feeling my mum is guilty of something because every time she came within arms reach she was shoving money in our pockets... not that I'm complaining ;)

Everything was so stereo typical and it was an absolute blast. We took a tour to check out the Celtic history and had a hilarious guide always yelling "Jesus, Mary and Joseph" and whenever he saw road workers would say to him self "oh Paddy and Seamus, slowly slowly". He pointed out slowly slowly was necessary as when a rush job was needed to convert the road signs from miles and hour to kilometers an hour road signs were erected that point to three separate directions for the same location on the one post or other signs that didn't contradict but were pointing in the totally wrong direction.

One thing they don't do slowly is drink. We decided to take some locals up for a drink on our last night and in the morning I woke up with a shocking head ache nauseous and a bad after taste of oyster in my mouth. Who would have thought the Oyster stout I ordered was actually brewed with Oysters! It had to be done though and we weren't about to let our 18, 19 and 20 year old hosts out drink us veterans..... yeah right :s

I did learn some Irish though. Here is a translation of a greeting (I'm not joking)

Hi, how you doing?
Irish:Well?

good
Irish:well (with a smile)

How are you doing?
Irish:well?

not so good
Irish:well (with a frown)

Patisserie Redemption

2006-10-05T12:53:00.000-07:00

A little bit of history, when I was 11 or 12 I had some good friends who were studying French. Every few months they would go on a field trip to a French patisserie store and come back gloating about the most amazing pastries. I wanted to switch from Indo to French just for those field trips but my language skills were really bad and even custard filled pasties couldn't persuade me to take on the work load of learning French.

Now I'm in Paris the pastries are coming left right and center. Of course my language skills are still no better so when I see Individualle Citrone Tarte I call "Maria! lemon tart, please love" or Millefenille Fraise "Maria! Vanilla slice, please love" and she would go ahead and order in French for me. It works out beautifully!

Nigel: This is backpackingMaria: This is hell!

2006-09-27T09:40:00.000-07:00

One shower, one change of clothes, two overnight ferries, one overnight train, a combination of 5 trains, buses and ferries, 9 hours of sleep and 57 hours later we arrived in Stromboli one of the most active volcanos in the world. It was just in time too since we had booked a guided trek up to the creator of the volcano leaving in 30 minutes time. We had no accommodation booked and took the first guy to approach us who hurried us away in his golf cart with us clinging one hand to the cart and one hand on our bags that were swinging wildly from the back. Once we got to the accommodation we checked in and started running to the trekking outfit that was twenty minutes away. Lucky for us our golf cart driver spotted us running down the street and caught up with us to give us a lift to the office. In no time we had our helmets and were starting our 1000 meter climb to the top of the volcano.

We watched the sun set from two thirds the way up the volcano and with amazing speed dark clouds surrounded us and reduced visibility to a few feet. With the wind howling we continued but got stuck just before the summit because there was too much methane in air all we could do was wait it out as it was too dangerous to go back the way we came in the dark.

Finally after a four hour climb we made it to the top. I was surprised we made it given the lack of sleep over the past few days since we where to cheep to buy couchettes on our overnight ferries and train. Maria was fairing worse than I was and curses were flying every few minutes and at one point there was a guy whistling at the top of the volcano at which she told me “I’m going to kill him! and I’ll listen to him whistle as he falls from the mountain.”

All in all it was definitely worth it. We sat at the top for an hour and waited for the clouds to part where we got to experience the deafening explosions in the cone and watch magma shooting out the top like fireworks while the guides would run up and down the line yelling DON’T LOOK INTO THE SKY! as ash was falling on our heads.

Spec'ing out a segway

2006-09-03T08:04:00.000-07:00

I'm soooo tired of walking. We must be doing at least 10km per day and it is driving me nuts. With some better planing I'm sure we would end up walking less as it seems we are always visiting the same spots over and over again because we left our passports at the hotel when we want to book a ferry or just plain have our accommodation very far away. It also doesn't help that we usually eat on the move and there are so many different foods to try plus there are always people telling us to get a specific food when we get to a country and my eyes are usually too big for my stomach. Figs for example, we go to a fruit market in Croatia and we are told we have to get some figs, now I don't what to just buy two figs from the little old lady who looks like it's going to be a life or death sale so I buy a dozen and after six figs for breakfast I'm not moving to fast for the next few hours.

We are now in Athens and have been doing all the usual tourist things. Maria was looking up accommodation before we got here and found a spot close to all the attractions. It wasn't until we were in our room that I picked up the book to read about the area she had chosen which basically said it was a great place to stay if you don't mind the junkies and prostitutes near by..... and I'm the one to get in trouble for wondering around the neighborhood determined to find our hotel without the map. Even the internet cafe we stepped down in is freaky... just guys all watching porn... weird.

Croatian Massage

2006-09-03T03:26:00.000-07:00

It's totally painful and absolutely free. It consists of placing your towel down and lying on "the beach" which is made up of large jagged rocks and baking under the sun for hours on end. It's amazing the angles people manage to balance themselves on these rocks with the risk of falling off into the water or worse falling onto bigger and sharper rocks below. Young and old are at the beach day in day out and there are some very old very large people who show amazing dexterity navigating the rocks. One in-particular was lunging between rocks displaying her ghostly white skin between upper thigh and bum next to otherwise deeply tanned leathery skin.....eeeee.

Croatia is a really beautiful place and other than the people in tourism the folks are really great. On the islands the sun never stops shining and I hear if it rains you get a discount on your hotel and if it snows you can stay for free!

Hiking in England

2006-08-20T12:18:00.000-07:00

Every english person we have run into has told us we must go to the Lake District when in England so on our way back from Scotland to York we decided to do a detour and see what this was all about. Once we got there it was nothing like I had imagined. I had brought my board shorts for some swimming but the lake was freezing and the activity all the locals go for is hiking. This really sucked as I had lugged my boots across all of Europe and then when I finally need them I had left them at my relatives house!

We still thought we should go for a hike regardless of leaving our gear behind and bought a trail guide from the tourist office. Once we got a few kilometers into the hike this is how the guide read “Look out for a less-than-obvious footpath which bears to the right to descend over a stile. Cross the stile and descend ten paces to a cairn. Take the left fork and follow a path curving around the fellside”...... what the hell is that?! Needless to say we got lost. After consulting some other lost hikers we found our path was about 200 meters away across some grasslands. Making our way back to the path I was warning Maria to watch where she stepped and as she looked at me disbelievingly she stepped into a crack in the earth almost a meter deep. For the rest of the walk people would look at Maria’s muddy knees and once passed us but still within earshot would ask their partner if they saw her knees. Serves her right for not believing me!

As for the Lake District I would have to agree with the Poms that it is something you definitely have to see. I do now understand why they lost their empire and I believe it is because they spent all their time building stone walls to keep the sheep in instead of looking after their colonies.

What I learnt from my last job

2006-07-17T05:54:00.000-07:00

Poker! Thanks to all those lunch time and friday night poker tournaments I was able to clean up on our cruise and take home the money :) It wasn't too much but it paid for our drinks over the 4 days. I feel like hitting a casino now but I know that's going to end badly so I'll stay away and wait for the next amateur night.

A room with a well!

2006-07-14T12:54:00.000-07:00

That's right, not a room with a view but a room with a 16th century well which pumps water and everything. Anna if you are reading this I know what you are thinking and no I didn't cheap out on the room again.... it's a feature! ;)

Turkish Hospitality

2006-07-14T04:34:00.000-07:00

The night ends with Maria and I running though Istanbul airport to catch a plane leaving for Fethiye on the Mediterranean coast in 10 minutes. I was half cut and airport security is snickering at me because my one hand not struggling with 60 pounds of baggage is carefully carrying a bottle of red for the trip over. As I sit down in the terminal with 2 minutes to spare I hear from the seat behind me "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie!", naturally I have to turnaround and respond with "Oi, Oi, Oi!". He was a merchant in the Grand Bazaar and sold Turkish Delight, Maria thought he was scoping us out and didn't believe a word of it but I think he just wanted a bit of a chat.

The day began with a late start. It was Canada day and we thought we would hit the embassy and see what was happening. On the way there we stopped at a travel agency to see what this Blue Cruise was all about. Thirty minutes later after much wheeling and dealing we stepped out with flights and boats booked leaving that night and invitations later that evening to the owners hostel for drinks and a ride to the airport.

We killed the rest of the day sight seeing and after packing our bags headed over to Bullan's hostel to pay for the remainder of the cruise and get our ride to the airport. As we enter the hostel I handed Maria a wad of cash that was the money for our cruise and suddenly all the lights went out leaving the room pitch black. I could feel Maria go tense next to me and when I finally got the money back it was in a tightly crumpled sweaty ball that she had been hanging onto for dear life expecting the worst.

Bullan and his wife talked us into a drink and once served he promptly picked up his cell phone and started abusing the power company because the lights were still out. Good thing for the guy on the other end of the phone that the lights came back on because I thought the phone was going to shatter in his hand with how intense the call was.

We headed up to the terrace and Bullan kicked some of his patrons out of their prime seats who were waiting to watch the soccer so we could sit down, they didn't look very amused as nobody knew he was the owner, Maria was very apologetic. After another drink and lots of advice about marriage, which with the same breath he would turn to his wife and tell her to say the word and she could divorce him right now, he looked at his watch, swore a few times, and called his driver to come get us this instant or he will be in a lot of trouble. Within 5 minutes his driver was out the front and his cell phone was ringing. Bullan was ignoring it and his driver was so worried he started yelling from the street so the whole terrace knew it was time for us to leave. As we were going Bullan yells to another patron of his and told her to bring a bottle of wine from the bar which he handed over to us. We have invitations to go back in Sept and spend time with him and his wife on their boat ;)

How not to pick a present

2006-06-30T23:59:00.000-07:00

So after staying at a 50 euro a night hotel which was way above our budget we decided to check out a day early and find something that matched our budget better. We ended up finding a hotel across the street that had a big pool and was only 10 euro a night. I was a little skeptical at first as the owner reminded me of a used car sales man that was on vacation in Hawaii (little moustache and Bermuda shorts just to give you an idea).

That night Maria got really ill and we needed to get some help (don't worry she is doing much better now). My first instinct was to head to our original hotel and get someone to recommend a doctor. I arrive at the hotel and I can't find a single person working there that could speak english. This was very unusual as the days we were staying there we were hounded by "can I help you sir" and a concierge that was exactly like the butler from the movie Mr Deeds (very, very sneaky and turns up every where we go). So I head back to our new hotel and find the manager and explain our predicament. He tells me he has a "friend", just like every other person in this country that seems to be connected, and calls his doctor to come check Maria out.

By the end of the ordeal the manager had done a lot to help us and we ended up staying an extra 2 nights. As we were leaving the next morning I thought it would be good to leave him a little present so I left a bottle of wine for him at the front desk as we checked out. It wasn't until we were half way to the airport that I realised 99% of the population in Turkey is Muslim!......oops.

Guess my nationality.... Korean? Japanese? Brazilian?

2006-06-20T13:07:00.000-07:00

Guessing nationalities is one of the favorite pastimes of the shop keepers at the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul. As you my guess they have a pretty tough time guessing mine. It is just one of the many ways they get you talking and browsing their little shop.
We have made our way from Istanbul in the north west of turkey to the south west coast and are now pretty much in the dead center of the country.

Istanbul is a crazy place with some even crazier taxi drivers. So far we have had four taxis racing formula one style against each other to see who could get their patrons to the night club faster and a taxi driver that when I showed him the card to our hostel he told me he couldn't see! There was also the driver who had two cell phones, one for each of his girl friends so he wouldn't get them mixed up.

The coast is awesome but the interior is just plain bizarre. They have an area named Cappadocia which has a series of underground cities and man made caves cut into the rock. The underground cities are no longer in use but some of the caves are still being used and one of our hotels was using them as the rooms for guests... it was nice and cool but a little eerie.

We have another week here before we hit the Czech Rep. Not sure what the plan is just yet but it is back to Istanbul for now.

This blog is rated PG

2006-06-17T01:05:00.000-07:00

"Real fucky fucky!" That' s one of the first greetings we got in Amsterdam as we made our way out of the hostel and into the red light district. After walking past a few more establishments (in succession) and getting a variety of pitches thrown our way "sucky and fucky only 30 euros", "Live fucky and sucky" and so on the shock factor wore thin pretty quickly.

As we arrived at the hostel front door to check in Maria turns to me and says "By the way this is a Christian youth hostel and there is at 2 AM curfew"..... What were you thinking Maria! We walk in and the receptionist was preaching to some girl that was checking out, I almost turned around to walk out, not that I'm against any religion but I hate having it forced on me. Once we got passed the staff the rest of the folks were pretty cool.

So we had 24 hours to make the most of Amsterdam. What better way to learn the city than by bike. We rented these cruisers with big curvy handle bars and hit the streets. These guys are totally nuts on their bikes, it was a race for pole position at the traffic lights against these blonde haired dutch girls that will run you over in a second with out giving it a second thought.

The rest of the day consisted of stomping the grounds of the red light district, hitting the coffee shop and taking in some theatre. For those details you will have to email me. Let me just say the gymnastics routine and banana eating at the theatre were a sight to see.

Morocco in summary

2006-06-14T06:25:00.000-07:00

Amazing place. I would definitely come back again, the people are very nice but be ruthless when haggling as they will try to rob you blind!

Cheap eats and hotels but what you save in money you sacrifice in hygiene. For instance in consequence for eating in the market for $2.50 with all the locals we were made to stay within 2 minutes hobbling distance from any toilet for 2 days. Also towards the end of our time in Marrakech I decided the $30 we were paying for accommodation was too high and found a place for $15 a night for both of us. I΄m not sure if it was the remnants of the food poisoning or the smell of that hotel room but it was not a good experience.... I΄ll save you the details.

Aside from being sick the Mountains and the desert are worth coming back for. I would also say the beach but women be warned I only saw two girls wearing swim suits while the rest were covered head to toe sitting on the sand in 40 degree heat.

Maria is an eating machine

2006-06-14T06:00:00.000-07:00

Since we left I have been out done by Maria when it comes to eating and as many of you may know it is a hard thing to accomplish. I can barely take a bite of my baguette when Maria is passing me the last bite of hers claiming she is too full to finish. She says it΄s because she used to eat small meals all day long and now that we only stop 3 times a day she is famished. I don΄t believe it though as the way she consumes the pastries and baguettes with out even looking up seems like she is enjoying them way too much.

Faux Guides

2006-06-07T11:44:00.000-07:00

When visiting Morocco beware of these "faux guides". We have had two of these approach us and we took one up on his offer. The first was a guy named Hassan, he approached me in the train station in Tangiers which is known for its dodgy people and drug tade. He insisted that my name in Morocco is Abdul and he wanted to take us on a 4 day trip into the desert for music and parties as his brother had just started up a touring company. Aparently there were only two spots left in the jeep and we were lucky enough to meet him as this is a once in a life time opportunity (I'm sure it would have been, stranded in the desert). Digging deeper I found out from other backpackers that he was going on a train to Marrakech but he told me he was bound for Casablanca and according to a traveller from Finland there was only one spot left in the jeep which was very lucky for him!

The second guide had a much better sales pitch. There was no questioning him he was going to be our guide whether we liked it or not. He was only 6 years old and the only english words he knew were "I'm your guide". He took us on an impressive tour of the town and when it was over I didn't know how much to pay him so I decided to pay him 1 dirham (10 cents) at a time until he was happy. After the first dirham he gave a small smile and was about to walk away when I give him a second dirham he had a huge smile then a third dirham and his eyes were like saucers and after a fourth dirham I thought he was going to passout. He quickly ran away after we had concluded our business (a total of 40 cents) and was showing all his friends how much money he had just made.

Turbo Daily

2006-06-07T11:09:00.000-07:00

No that is not the pace of life which actually seems to be more like low idle and that is a good thing. Turbo Daily is the model of the mini van that drove us out into the Sahara desert. Our driver made sure to make full use of this fact and was passing vehicles on blind corners with a 1000 foot cliff on one side. Only once did we nearly get run off the road by a semi but not to worry we were getting close finishing our crossing of the Atlas mountains and there was only a 200 foot drop next to us. Every other group we saw out in the desert had a big Land Rover 4x4 which was a little worrying once we lost the pavement.

The desert is amazing. There were sand dunes that were like small mountains but 100 times as hard to climb..... trust me we did it and got all red in the face like we had just finished a marathon, we were racing against the clock to catch the sunset. At the top you can access the other side of the dune which has not been wind blown and is as steep as any double black diamond run I've seen, if only we had a snowboard or crazy carpet!

See Maria's blog for photos of the desert.

Yalla Maroc (Let's go Morocco)

2006-05-30T10:48:00.000-07:00

3:20 AM Monday morning. The first call for prayer goes out from the central tower in Marrakech and the surrounding towers pipe up and follow suite. Ironically I was already on my knees head to the Berber carpet in our room praying for my stomach to stop cramping. 2 days later with lots of water and minimal food my prayers were answered. I think it was a combination of heat exhaustion and dodgy kefta (ground meat mixed with parsley).

To enjoy this wonderful experience we spent 32 hours traveling by train and ferry, swarmed by 6 or more Romanian gypsies in the middle of the night at a deserted train station, spent time with two young guys from the US who thought they could do a quick day trip from Spain into Morocco based on their hand drawn maps which were completely off scale and held up by Moroccan customs officers on the ferry because we missed getting a stamp in our passports somewhere along the way.

Aside from all these little annoyances Morocco is an amazing place. There is so much going on every day and just the music from the square which we can hear from our roof top terrace is worth the trip alone. We're off into the desert tomorrow so if you don't hear from us in a few days come looking and pack your shovels!

In need of a vacation!

2006-05-22T12:06:00.000-07:00

I spent the whole day today lying on the beach. I was in serious need of a vacation ;)

We started burning both ends of the candle 3 days ago when we hopped on a ferry from Barcelona to Mallorca (one of the islands off the coast of Spain). We ended up sharing a cabin with a guy and girl from the US. It was an over night ferry and we decided to get a night cap. So we shared a drink with Banashek and Jen and before we new it we only had 3 hours left to sleep before our ferry was going to land in port. We ended up spending a very enjoyable weekend with Banashek and Jen who by the way were just doing a quick weekend get away and even had less sleep than us as they missed their flight connection and drove from Madrid to Barcelona; these guys are machines!

The Spanish eat a big lunch around noon and then have a late dinner from around 9 - 10pm. For some reason we took this to the extreem while we were on the island and found ourselves looking for dinner around midnight every night which hurt in the morning since I wanted to be up at 8am to claim my free b´fast.

Yesterday we decided to rent a car (renault) and drive around the island. We saw some cool things like a necropolis with tombs in the shape of boats so their dead could be sent on to the next life and a walled in city. Banashek and I managed to swim out to a very small island off the coast and since we had no swimming planned for the day underwear had to do for bathers, Bana gave us all a good show in his tighty whities.... lol

We drove back to Palma later that evening to catch the fireworks. This was a show like I had never seen before. They were setup in this plaza and had three six foot ornaments that looked like they were designed in disneyland. Not far from the six foot ornaments there was a 25 foot clown that we had seen the day before while buying wine for 2 euro a bottle and thought it was a permanent statue. We had pulled up a table and started drinking wine and eating paella when all of a sudden one of these 6 foot ornaments started shooting fireworks and then going up in flames! The next two followed and it wasn´t long before we realised that they were going to burndown the clown. Before they got started on the clown we decided to move up to the bridge as we weren´t exactly feeling comfortable sitting 20 feet away from exloding statues. They burnt that clown to the ground while singing some Spanish song it was very surreal.

The actual fireworks started shortly after the burning of the statues. It was an amazing show. I had never been to close to fireworks in my life and you would never be able to get that close in Australia or Canada. There were times when I thought about ducking for cover behind the concrete bridge railing :s

Banashek, since you left us with four bottles of wine to drink in one night this photo is for you!

Where's my hostel

2006-05-16T16:02:00.000-07:00

I was cursing Maria under my breath on the way to our hostel in Barcelona. She did the booking for this one and swears it said "close to all attractions" but an hour later after leaving downtown we were still not at our bus stop for the hostel. After fighting though peek hour traffic between 7 and 8:30 PM we get off the bus a few stops too early just to see how we do at being lost in a foreign land and for some exercise with 40 pounds on our backs. Now after spending two nights I have had a change of heart. We have a room in a university settled in the hills and are staying with all the summer students. There is an amazing view from our room of the the city, coast and just off to the left you can see a huge Monastery built in the 11th century. Best of all there is a free buffet breakfast with chocolate filled pastries, fruit, eggs, donuts and sandwiches. If I was staying here any longer I would put on 20 pounds.... lucky for me we´re heading for a spot on the beach tomorrow.

This guy was on the street playing the game where you had to pick which container the ball was under given a choice of 3. He moves them around really fast... I´m sure you have all seen it played before. People where taking shots at 50 euro a go! I totally had it down but I didn´t have the balls to play as I was worried he would stab me in the back after I took all his money.

This is the photo where apparently I was about to be mugged. Maria wanted to get a photo of me and she made me stand in this alley. She started taking the photo and the suddenly turned and walked away. I caught up with her to see what was going on and she said this big guy and his mate were pointing at me at starting to walk towards me. Thanks for the heads up Maria :p

London on a shoestring.... or should I say platinum card

2006-05-14T16:44:00.000-07:00

Back in 2000 I was going to leave Australia and go to London to find work with only $500 in my pocket. Lucky I didn't because in the last 3 days I have blown through over $500 and I only have £21 pounds left in my pocket (the train back to the airport cost £19.60).

We did the usual tourist things, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, walked over London Bridge and the Tower Bridge. If you had to pick one then go over the Tower Bridge, I expected London Bridge to be spectacular since there is the children's song about it but it is really quite plain. The picture is of St Paul's Cathedral, can you tell what's wrong with it?

Beer is cheap (less than £2), you can buy Stella in the supermarket and Guinness is served cold to put any rumors to rest. We'll be back to explore England in more detail in July. For now it's off to Spain!

make any flight interesting, fly ZOOM

2006-05-13T12:03:00.000-07:00

8 hours behind schedule and we have finally made it to London. What an interesting start to the trip. The flight was initially delayed leaving Edmonton due to a tire change, then once we stopped in Winnipeg they somehow managed to bust the door on the plane which set us back another few hours. Good thing for us we had a friend at the airport who got us the “Premium” economy class seats ;)

I was getting some shut eye while the plane was stuck on the tarmac in Winnipeg and was abruptly awakened by this musician with huge hair, I had noticed him earlier as he was scoping out empty seats which I also had my eye on. He had made his way to a seat behind me and then woke me up by shouting across the plane for BEER as he was apparently a raging alcoholic. The second time I came out of consciousness on that flight was when I dreamed I was drowning in a big pool then woke myself up to find I was drowning... just in a pool of my own drool :s

I would have to say the most exciting part about the plan ride though was when we were rounding London and the plane decided to drop out of the air. It was pretty funny as there were all these people walking around the cabin while the seat belt light was on acting like god owed them something because there flight had been delayed 8 hours by now.... guess what? God doesn’t owe you anything.... hehehe

Finally we get to Gatwick airport but the fun hasn’t stopped yet. First the immigration officer decides to give us a hard time because Maria applied for a work visa but was denied and then decided to try enter the country anyway. Then I’m left standing at the luggage carousel watching a single red backpack go round and round but it wasn’t my red backpack! Some dude from Winnipeg decided to snatch my bag.... I guess it looked fancier. Luckily for me I had a baggage tag that said “WRONG: being mistaken or incorrect (as in: it’s wrong to take my bag)” and I think that got the better of him and he decided to turn it over.

The hostel is nice enough except for the luggage room which needs to be seen to believed.... let me just say if you need some underwear and you don’t care too much about personal hygiene then this is the room for you.

Goodbye CANADA!

2006-05-11T14:55:00.000-07:00

This is it. Only a few more hours until I board my plane and see what else this world has to offer :)

Man this world must be a dirty place. 8 injections later (3 for me and 5 for maria... hahaha) and a bucket full of pills and we are safe to go. Some of the more exciting items are:

Diarrhoea tablets; two kinds, each one for a specific purpose, one to make you stop and one to make you start

Gastrolyte sachets; for replenishing electrolytes lost when suffering diarrhoea

Antifungal cream; unless I plan to start a garden in my groin

I've have all my possesions in one bag and two small boxes (to ship to Oz). Whoever goes through my dumpster is going to think they won the lottery. Seriously this is all I have left and it actually feels pretty good.

It's been a fun five and a half years and I'm going to miss all the people I got to know during that time.

See you in Australia, and thanks for all the foos!

The count down begins

2006-04-24T11:54:00.000-07:00

Only 10 days of work left!

It's starting to get hard to work with all the stuff going on right now but I have so much to do. I might have to pull an all nighter pretty soon, that'll bring back memories of the good old uni days.

Last weekend was a bit of a right off. There was a party for Maria on Friday which was a lot of fun. Maria likes to believe that she had to get all us drunk people home but I suspect she was just as drunk and doesn't like to admit it. One thing I did learn from that night was drinking doubles is a very bad thing.

Saturday was Brian's stag party (bucks night for you Aussies). We got him some interesting "presents", played paintball, went to the strippers and hit the bar. It's going to be fun when my friends start getting married as I'm learning some great stag gags, you guys better watch out :D

The last bar for the night was a Country bar. I had managed to avoid these places for the last 5 years I've been in Canada but unfortunately was dragged to this establishment Sat evening. It was the strangest thing, the bar had a lounge at the entrance which made me think it was going to be all ok, then as you pass though the lounge there is this HUGE open area with a dance floor in the middle surrounded by wooden railing which guys would lean up against drinking and checkin out all the dancing. There were also these big screen playing songs with instructional videos on how to do line dancing! It was all just too weird :p

Last trip to the Rockies

2006-04-06T15:47:00.000-07:00

We set off on our last trip to the Rockies before we leave in May. The plan was to do a bit of skiing but mostly take it easy and chill.

We were staying at the Banff Springs the first night. It looks cool from the outside but the rooms were so so, I have to say the pool area was very nice though. We got to the hotel in time for Sunday brunch and after four full plates plus desert I give it a thumbs up ;) The rest of Sunday was pretty much a write off..... I was in some serious stomach pain after all the food so it mainly consisted of drifting in and out of consciousness on our king size bed.

The next day we hit Sunshine Village for some skiing. I decided after spending 6 winters here and never skied I should give it a go. So we rented all the gear and hit the hill, all those skiers who keep telling me they would switch to snowboarding just for the comfy boots are all big whingers, ski boots are extremely comfortable! So we hit a green run to start with, it wasn't exactly what I expected but it wasn't too bad. I refused to snow plough because it looks so lame and I ended up doing these big sweeping turns cutting everybody off :) By the second green run I had stopping down so I was ready for a blue run. The blue run was more interesting, speed comes so easily when you are on skis, I could definitely see myself enjoying this. After about my 5th run without any major spills it was time to hit a black diamond. We dropped into one and there were moguls up to my armpits :s Traversing across I didn't find a line that looked any better so it was time to hit it. Turn 1..... KABOOM..... Skis go flying I go sliding on my back head first down the mountain. Eventually I come to a stop, my knee feels like I had taken a hammer to it and I sprained both my thumbs (don't ask), my skis however managed to still be up at that first turn. Maria navigates her way to my skis and decides I hadn't gone through enough pain so why not try and spear me with a flying ski! I made sure I was on my feet and running up the hill for my other ski before she could take aim a second time.

We made it down to Canmore and stayed at some spa for the next two days. We mainly chilled out and squeezed one quick hike in before we left. I had to convince Maria we didn't really need bear spray even though the sign told us to carry it on us.... I'm sure I can run faster than Maria ;)

Going once, going twice.... SOLD

2006-04-01T13:57:00.000-07:00

We sold our place after having it on the market for 2 weeks. We decided to sell it ourselves and not use a realtor which worked out really well, why pay the $12,000+ commission fee if you don't have to.

We ended up getting two offers on the same night! It made for some interesting negotiation..... lots of fun :) Maria didn't seem to think so though, she kept on kicking me under the table whenever I asked for more money.... what's up with that?

Tickets booked!

2006-04-01T13:02:00.000-07:00

Two one way tickets to England (London Gatwick) from Edmonton, Canada on May 11th! They only cost $379 per ticket, I couldn't believe it. We will have to stop in Winnipeg but I'm not complaining.

That is about all we have planed so far :s Most likely we will stop in with some relatives and drop off gear then head for Turkey. I should really get in touch with those relatives ;)