This is a little late but we’ve been busy with Costa Rica preperations and just a little lazy while enjoying our short time back home. I just wanted to post a few random facts from our trip along with a map of where we went. So here ya go:
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Hello everybody, sorry it has been a while since the last blog post. Steph, don’t knock siestas-I strongly believe we should adopt this custom in Canada! Also, for the past couple of weeks we have been on tour with Contiki, seeing some highlights of Europe at a faster pace than we were used to at the beginning of our trip. Being on a tour with a set itinerary has been great, but we are definitely ready to relax a bit starting in France tomorrow.
First things first – Many thanks to Pam and Chris! Wow, it has already been 19 days since our stay with you, but we still remember our visit to Manchester like it was yesterday. We had our first crumpets (I still laugh when I say the word) and true fish and chips – mushy peas included! Thank you for showing us your beautiful city and having us to stay at your flat. It was awesome to hang out with you both. You really gave us the true Manchester experience!
Next, thank you to Scott and Shanny for a great evening in Amsterdam. It was great to see you and check out your new place – awesome bathroom! Also, thanks for bringing us to Albert Heijn to load up on goodies for the next day on the bus – stroep (spelling?) waffles are the best! Please send more stroep waffles!!
Now to catch everybody up, here are some observations/highlights of each city we have visited with Contiki:
London – Two days is not enough to find the perfect handbag, let alone explore all the sites in this city! There is just so much – So much to see, eat, shop, explore and do! British National Museum is awesome!
Amsterdam – A lot more to offer than just “window” shopping. There are also coffee shops everywhere for the “coffee” lover, and stroep waffles – yummy! Why can you only find these delicious treats in the Netherlands? If we had only known, we would have loaded up!
Mmm, Stroep Waffle
Berlin – Cold would be a good way to describe this city. With remnants of the cold war and Nazi Germany, it was an interesting stop on our trip. We were reminded of the troubled history on an informative walking tour, and felt very fortunate to have grown up in Canada.
Dresden – A beautiful city in Eastern Germany that was completely destroyed by bombing in WWII. It has been rebuilt over the last 20 years, and was a lovely city to take an afternoon stroll through.
Prague – The “City of a Thousand Spires”. Another picturesque city. We had no idea what the cost of anything was, as the currency used is the Czech Crown (two coffees cost 190 CR). *Note: The Czech version of “Jason” is surprisingly, “Tiss”. Or maybe there was something lost in translation?
Barista: “What is your name?”
Jason: “Jason”
Barista: “Tiss?”
Jason: “No, Jason”.
Barista: “Oh, Tiss – you must be Swiss”.
Dacau – It was very surreal to walk through the bunkers of Germany’s first concentration camp. At one point, 60,000 people were held in this camp. Again, we were reminded of how lucky we are to be Canadian, and how important it is to remember the past.
Munich – Home to Hofbrahaus, the largest beer hall in the world. Where the pork knuckle is tasty, the pretzels salty and the beer plentiful. The true way to drink beer is out of a stein! *Tip – Ladies, beware of cute old men that look like Santa and are dressed in liederhosen. They may be kind of pervy.
Venice – Incomparable. Our day flew by while we explored the narrow streets and canals of one of the most beautiful cities in the world. It was fun to people watch and see all the people pass by in their elaborate Carneval costumes.
Rome – Jason was like a kid in a candy store – sooo excited, and he just couldn’t hide it! The highlights of the day were exploring the Roman Forum, Colosseum, and Vatican City. We also visited the crypt of the Capuchin monks. This tiny crypt is decorated in a unique way; wall art and even chandeliers are all created out of the bones of the Capuchin monks – creepy!
Us in the Colosseum
Pisa – A quick stop to see the famous leaning tower of Pisa, and to take some cheesy pictures. Also the highest concentration of counterfeit watch and handbag salesmen we have ever seen. *Tip – The salesmen do not seem to understand the word “No”, but make a ridiculously low offer, and they will leave you alone.
Florence – Home of the Renaissance, this city is heaven for art lovers. Our favorite was of course, Michaelangelo’s David – “WOW”, nuff said.
Lucerne – Our current location. We happen to be here on “Fat Tuesday”, the final day of Carneval. The city is filled with people dressed up in costumes, and there are bands playing everywhere, setting a very festive mood. Think Halloween meets Stampede – yeehaw!
And now, we are caught up! We’re off to Paris tomorrow, and after spending a few days there we will be traveling to Spain, and then home! See you all soon!
Also, there is a new development brewing in Hale land (some of you already know), and we will make an official announcement soon. Don’t get too excited, it has nothing to do with babies!!!!
Ciao!
Over the last couple of weeks we did not have any internet access but we still wrote several blog posts that you’ll now find posted according to the date they were wrote.
Volunteering in Northern Italy
The last 2 weeks we’ve been volunteering for Legambiente near a town called Brivio, north east of Milan. In Brivio we worked to help Legambiente maintain the swamp in Adda Nord Park. Our work included everything from cutting down reeds, vines and trees, to clearing small streams and waterways that feed the swamp, to painting bridges and observatories. The work was dirty and tiring but a lot of fun.
During our stay in Campesirago we lived with all the other volunteers from around the world. Everyone was a lot of fun and I’m glad to have met them all. It was very interesting how at anytime I could be hearing multiple conversations in Korean, German, French, Italian and English. I learned a few words in each language from the house mates but I’m sure I’ll forget most by the end of the tour.
Now for my records here’s who we stayed with:
Alice, France
Calum, Wales
Chris, South Korea
Johana, Germany
Manuella, Switzerland
Martial, France
Nadja, Germany
Simone, Italy
Yiseul, South Korea
Yeorim, South Korea
Cinque Terre and La Spezia
We left the work camp on Saturday, Jan. 31 and took a few trains to La Spezia via Milan. La Spezia is our base to explore the Cinque Terre. It is also the first place we’ve arrived without first having booked a hotel. This would not be a problem as this truly is the off season right now. After visiting a few we ended up choosing The Venezia which is 3 star hotel just a couple hundred meters from the train station. The rooms are clean, usually quiet and we have our own bathroom (this was a must after sharing 1 with 12 people for 2 weeks).
Yesterday was our first day in the Cinque Terre and we used it to visit 3 of the villages, Riomaggiore, Manarola and Monterosso. Unfortunately the main trail that we were hoping to hike between the villages is closed except for 1 section between Riomaggiore and Manarola. So we spent our day hiking around the villages and taking the train back and forth. This is when we discovered that almost everything is closed in the Cinque Terre at this time. The scenery is still beautiful though and I could imagine spending a week or more in these quant villages in the summer.
Today we awoke to rain. Not a light rain like we had the day before which was still fine to walk around in. This is a heavier rain that just makes exploring outside really wet and not much fun. But we still had 2 more villagers to see and I was hoping that the weather would clear so we could do a hike I planned later in the day.
Alas, it is now almost 3pm and I’m sitting in our hotel room in La Spezia writing this post. We did take the train to Vernazza this morning and walked around the village in the rain but we couldn’t really enjoy it and once again almost everything is closed. So now we’re taking an extended siesta and hoping we can visit the last village, Corniglia, this evening if the weather clears.
The day started like any other in Campsirago. Up around 7, put in a days works and we were all excited to head down to town and watch a play this evening.
So after dinner we prepared to leave for the play and we got the first sign that we shouldn’t leave, we couldn’t find the van keys.
Once we found the keys we where on our way, Several kilometers down the road on a narrow stretch (one car width) there was a bang coming from underneath the van. This followed by us stopping suddenly. Thinking we had a flat tire we all jumped out to have a look. We were quite surprised to find the front right axel had snapped and the tire was now more horizontal than vertical.
This turned out to be quite the predicament because of the small windy mountain road we were on combined with fog and dropping temperature. The weather made some prime conditions for icy roads as well. Did I mention that we didn’t have a phone?
Luckily for us a couple of cars followed us down the road shortly after the incident and one of the drivers turned out to be one of our neighbors in Campsirago. The nice neighbor man brought Nadja back to the camp where she called the police. The nice polizia game her another number to call for a tow service. But due to the icy roads no tow trucks where willing to head out in the current conditions, wasn’t that bad.
When Nadja returned we made the decision to hike back to Campsirago, fortunately I wore my dress shoes so I was read to hike up the icy roads. An indeterminate amount of time later we arrived in at camp and after waiting 2 hours we have just heard from Simone. He is with Martial and Nadja and they’re heading back to camp now.
Today, I made bread, from scratch. I was scheduled to work at the camp today and not the swamp so I took part in all of the cleaning and cooking while everyone else was supposed to be at the swamp. But due to the rain and snow coming down all night most of the day, work was cancelled.
Alore, back to the bread. With the help of Martial, we took half a bag of floor, a pack of yeast, some salt, sugar and almonds. I mixed that all together with some water, kneaded the dough and the we left it sit, covered on the radiator(a low heat source is needed) for several ours so the dough could rise. Then we worked the dough again and threw it in the oven on low (approximately 170C) for about 45 min. I’m quite proud of my bread and I plan on making it again when I get back home.
Tomorrow we may or may not be heading back to the swamp as it’s still raining on and off so there’s no telling what conditions may be like down there.
To Italy
Yesterday we got up early, returned our rental car and flew to Italy. Once we finally checked in for our flight and got on the plain we were informed that we had to wait for the plane to be deiced. This we were told should only take 10 or 15 minutes. Almost an hour and a half later, all while waiting on the tarmac, we were off to Italy.
Once we arrived in Milan it felt like Jenn and I were in the Amazing Race. First we had to catch the Star Fly shuttle to the Milano Central train station. From there we needed to take the underground metro for 2 stops to another train station where we were to take our final train to Brivio. Aside from walking past where to buy our tickets for the train to Brivio and not validating our ticket, didn’t know we had to, I thought we handled it like a couple of pros. We landed in Milan at 11:30, managed to collect our bags, take the shuttle, metro and train and arrive in Brivio for the scheduled meeting at 2:30.
To the Camp
In Brivio we met up with other Legambiente volunteers who drove us to are shared accommodations in Campesirago. This small village we are staying in is an old medieval village that was abandoned shortly after World War II. This was due to poor access to the village as it is high up on the side of the mountain. Since the year 2000 though the road up here has been paved, buildings are being renovated and people are moving back. Campesirago currently has 15 permanent residents!
The weather so far has not been too cooperative, lots of fog, rain and even a little snow. This has prevented us from enjoying many of the sights around this area but this morning the clouds were actually below the level of the town allowing us the see out over valley, filled with clouds and the tops of some of the other hills in the area. The sight was amazing, unfortunately we were off to work and I had no camera.
Our First Day at Work
Luckily for me the work camp has extra rubber boots I’m able to borrow while I’m here. The information sheet we got said waterproof hiking boots would be fine but with all the rain and snow they’ve had here lately there are lots of puddles we need to walk through along with lots of mud to contend with. The weather is also still not cooperating. Once we drove down into the valley this morning there was more fog and throughout the day we were met with rain, a little bit of sun and some snow on the way back to camp.
The work is hard, but rewarding. Today we cleared some observation decks jutting out into the swamp of the snow and debris that had accumulated and then we got down to the real work of the day. Cutting back the trees that were overgrowing the platforms. Because we are trying to be environmentally friendly this was all done with hand tools. I spent most of my day swinging what looked like a thick machete cutting up the larger branches into manageable chunks that we could carry out. Carrying the pieces of the trees out is very important because if we were to leave them there the trees would decompose and become soil. This would then make the swamp hard earth and hence, no swamp. This is bad.
Tomorrow I’m scheduled to stay at the camp while Jenn and most of the others head to the swamp to do some more work, weather permitting. It’ll be my duty to cook breakfast in the morning, clean up while everyone is gone and prepare dinner when everyone is back. At least I’ll be warm.
I’m currently sitting in Dublin airport, finally checked in for a flight to Milan. Just to let everyone know, when flying into Italy non EU residents need proof that you will be leaving the country before you can board the plane to Italy. We were unaware of this until checking into our flight this morning, which then sent me running around the airport for the next 20 minutes trying to get one of our ticket reservations printed. FUN!!
Also, we are down another pair of scissors. Don’t ask.
Early tomorrow morning we’re off to Italy. We’ll be volunteering north east of Milan in the Lombardio province. We don’t know what kinda of access we’ll have, if any, so don’t expect any posts from us the next couple of weeks. Adios!
Yesterday, as Jenn previously mentioned, we rented a car and headed to Northern Ireland. On the way we made a couple of stops, first New Grange and then at Loughbrickland.
New Grange
New Grange is a Neolithic tomb estimated to be about 5200 years old. I could bore you with a bunch of details but suffice it to say, it’s really old and really cool. Just standing inside something that was built over 5000 years ago is amazing.
Loughbrickland
Loughbrickland is a small village in County Down, Northern Ireland. This is where my Great Grandfather once lived before moving over to Canada. By the time we arrived the sun was falling and we still had an hours drive ahead of us so we just took a quick walk around part of the village. Trying, and failing, to find some old places my dad showed me in photographs. Definitely well worth the stop and I’d love to come back with my dad some day.
Giants Causeway
This morning we went for a hike at the Giants Causeway. It’s located on the northern edge of Irelands coast and it was clear enough today we could see Scotland across the water in the distance. The causeway provides a beautiful hike and as there was a big storm about to blow over Ireland the large waves kept crashing into the stone formations making quite the site. Due to the incoming storm though it was quite windy while we were there and made the hike back up to the visitor center some good exercise. Fortunately we avoided the rain on our hike and were back on the road by the time the storm hit.
Jason and I were feeling a little bit iffy about taking on the driver and navigator roles while in Europe. Although I am writing from the safety of our intended destination, I must say I am thankful Ireland will be the only country we take the challenge up in.
We planned to depart from Dublin at 9:30 am, after a short 1.4 km walk from our hotel to the Budget car rental office. We did not anticipate the delay caused by strapping 30 and 20 pounds to our backs for an uphill walk. After we finally arrived at the car rental office, we were off (at 10:30 am)!
My job as navigator was simplified by the GPS graciously lent to us preloaded with European maps. Thanks Justin – your personally recorded voice instructions are a nice touch! Once Jason made it out of the parking lot in the surprisingly spacious Nissan Micra we rented, I hopped in and we headed out of the city with only one wrong turn. Newgrange here we come!
Yes, the previous bit of information (Newgrange here we come) would have been quite helpful during the first part of our trip. Little did I know, Jason had programmed the GPS with the destination being “some village that is supposed to be close to where we are going.” I discovered this fact after the wrinkles on Jason’s forehead grew increasingly pronounced. “Why aren’t you listening to the GPS lady,” I ask. “Well, the destination in the GPS is not exactly where we are going, and I think we were supposed to turn at one of those signs back there.” Me: “Why would you program the GPS with the wrong destination!?! — Pull over!” After we find a place to pull over on the tiny two lane highway and reprogram the GPS with the correct destination, we are once again ready to go. Newgrange here we come!
So, GPS lady now insists that we must turn back the way we came in order to get to Newgrange. Should be simple, right? The only concern is the tiny *tiny* highway, maybe also the cars whizzing by in both directions, okay maybe also that we are stopped around a ’somewhat’ concealed bend in the road. Not a problem. Jason seems to have caught on to this European driving thing no problem. “Watch how tight this thing turns!” I’m excited to be getting on our way once again, and so glad my hubby has experience driving a standard transmission car – I definitely wouldn’t be able to do it! We move forward and screech to a stop 10 feet ahead. “What’s that burning smell?” Angry muttering ensues on the driver’s side. “Just the clutch, no big deal.” Okay, just the clutch. That doesn’t sound important. So we try again. I watch on the left, Jason on the right for the perfect moment when there are no vehicles approaching on either side. We’re off! Okay, so we’ve lurched forward, and we’re sitting perpendicular to the road now. No problem…we’re only blocking both lanes of traffic. “Reverse, where’s reverse?!?!” Right, reverse. There we go! Now forwards. Oh, now reverse again…oh crap, there must be cars coming…oh good – we’re going forwards again. And we’re off! I feel a renewed sense of optimism as the funny burning smell dissipates behind us. **Jason’s version of events may differ slightly**
Overall, our drive through Ireland was exactly how I envisioned. Sheep decorate the Irish country-side like the cattle of Alberta’s prairies. Baaa!! After the morning’s driving adventure, we enjoyed an informative tour through Bru na Boinne World Heritage Site in Newgrange, a lovely stroll through Loughbrickland (where Jason’s Great-grandfather was from), and made good time to our small, but clean and comfortable hotel room in Antrim.