Central Park was the first stop for our day. The first thing we saw in Central Park was a frozen lake! It was brilliant, testing out how thick it was and gazing at it (give us a break, we hadn't seen one before) while all the locals stared at us.
Next to the lake was what we thought was a huge pile of snow, but a guy walking past told us it was where they dump the shaving from the ice rink next door, but it was snow to us :)
Central Park didn't look so good because there were no leaves on the trees, but it was nice to be able to walk though a place with no traffic noise and lots of trees and bushes and things.
Esther wanted to look at some design related museums, but in the end we only made it into one of them because one didn't exist, one only had one exhibit on (which they let us see for free) and the other was being refurbished.
We spent quite a while looking through FAO Schwartz as it was a pretty great toy store. Esther bought herself a toy kitten because her father won't let her have a real one (apparently he's "allergic" or something, whatever Geoff!).
Running out of time to do typical New York things, we bought some tasty big pretzels from a street cart that Esther didn't like and I loved, bought a HUGE piece of cheesecake (when I say huge, Esther and I just ate the thing between the two of us) from a shop who's name I can't remember right now but lots of famous people go there for food, and then took a look around Grand Central Station. On the way to the station some dude hit me with his newspaper and wanted to fight me, which was a bit weird.
The station was really nice. The inside was all decorated and adorned by a HUGE USA flag (the yanks love their flags, I spied 19 on one short bit of street alone!). Some dude with a camera started talking at us because he was a 'professional' photographer and we were taking photos. He gave us his card and after checking online we found he wasn't that good.
That night we had to repack because the next day was Salt Lake City.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Monday, January 28, 2008
New York part 2
Hooray, it was Australia Day!
We spent the day walking around New York just taking in all the sights and seeing a few things I never thought I'd see.
Esther and I met up with the other guys and went to the WTC site again. This time we looked into the church across the road from the site. Even though it was right next to the buildings, it didn't get damaged when they fell. Here they helped look after the workers who cleaned up the site by feeding them, giving them somewhere to sleep, having someone to talk to and just simply helping them recuperate.
Next we walked to a street called 'Canal Street'. Basically what the street is is a place where, to put it bluntly, you can buy anything and almost all of it is "hot" (i.e. stolen) goods. When you first enter the street, you're acosted by tall black men trying to sell you Rolex watches, while other people try and sell you stolen Louis Vuitton Bags. Its also PACKED with people. There was even a guy selling "half price gold and silver jewellery". As you walk down the street, all you can hear are guys going "rolex rolex rolex" softly under their breath to try and get people to buy them off them, while other people try and push you into their shop. It was amazing to watch/see/hear. I even pulled out my audio recorder to record the sound of this place. Part the way through recording one of the guys in the street yelled out "watch out" to his pals because he saw my recorder and what they're doing, while very blazen, is highly illegal. I got out of there quick smart.
Jon decided to see where they got these watches from, so when one guy asked Jon to come and have a look at some of the watches, I went for a walk with him. The guy took us around the corner to the back alley where some other guys were sitting on boxes. After the first guy gave his signal, they pulled out a small box with different watches in it for Jon to look at. At this moment we left, but the guy hassled Jon because he didn't buy anything. In the end, it was really scary, but really weird/interesting.
On the way out of there there were guys standing on the street with blankets with clothes and things they'd obviously stolen from peoples houses and they were trying to sell them. So crazy.
We then set out to go to find dinner as it was getting pretty late. Because it was Australia Day, we went to the Outback Steakhouse for dinner. The food was pretty good and I even got to have a Coopers.
After dinner we went to the Rockefeller Center to see that, which was alright because it looked nice at night and reminded me of the Home Alone movies. They had an ice skating rink set up in the middle and everything. It was pretty cool.
Next was to FAO Swartz which was shut, so we went to the Apple Store instead to surf the web and warm up.
At the end of the night we had to say goodbye to Sarah because she was going home early in the morning. That was sad but the end we had a good night because of all th fun times we all had.
Today Esther and I stood outside Cold Stone for 1 hour in the cold while the others showed up. We proceeded to have ice cream (so tasty), but then it was time to say goodbye to Kevin too! More hugs and goodbyes were had at the bus station. Bye Kevin!
Jon, his girlfriend Marion, Esther and I went to the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). Here we saw any more paintings my Van Gogh, Picasso, Monet and many other artists. Ther was a whole bunch of design stuff that Esther enjoyed too.
For dinner we at pizza and had the biggest slices of pizza EVER! They were huge! They were also very tasty. Good call Jon!
After dinner it was goodbye Jon and Marion time, where we made them promise to come to Australia. More hugs and goodbyes were had, and then it was just me and Esther again. We decided to just catch the train back to the hostel to sleep. A good call.
We spent the day walking around New York just taking in all the sights and seeing a few things I never thought I'd see.
Esther and I met up with the other guys and went to the WTC site again. This time we looked into the church across the road from the site. Even though it was right next to the buildings, it didn't get damaged when they fell. Here they helped look after the workers who cleaned up the site by feeding them, giving them somewhere to sleep, having someone to talk to and just simply helping them recuperate.
Next we walked to a street called 'Canal Street'. Basically what the street is is a place where, to put it bluntly, you can buy anything and almost all of it is "hot" (i.e. stolen) goods. When you first enter the street, you're acosted by tall black men trying to sell you Rolex watches, while other people try and sell you stolen Louis Vuitton Bags. Its also PACKED with people. There was even a guy selling "half price gold and silver jewellery". As you walk down the street, all you can hear are guys going "rolex rolex rolex" softly under their breath to try and get people to buy them off them, while other people try and push you into their shop. It was amazing to watch/see/hear. I even pulled out my audio recorder to record the sound of this place. Part the way through recording one of the guys in the street yelled out "watch out" to his pals because he saw my recorder and what they're doing, while very blazen, is highly illegal. I got out of there quick smart.
Jon decided to see where they got these watches from, so when one guy asked Jon to come and have a look at some of the watches, I went for a walk with him. The guy took us around the corner to the back alley where some other guys were sitting on boxes. After the first guy gave his signal, they pulled out a small box with different watches in it for Jon to look at. At this moment we left, but the guy hassled Jon because he didn't buy anything. In the end, it was really scary, but really weird/interesting.
On the way out of there there were guys standing on the street with blankets with clothes and things they'd obviously stolen from peoples houses and they were trying to sell them. So crazy.
We then set out to go to find dinner as it was getting pretty late. Because it was Australia Day, we went to the Outback Steakhouse for dinner. The food was pretty good and I even got to have a Coopers.
After dinner we went to the Rockefeller Center to see that, which was alright because it looked nice at night and reminded me of the Home Alone movies. They had an ice skating rink set up in the middle and everything. It was pretty cool.
Next was to FAO Swartz which was shut, so we went to the Apple Store instead to surf the web and warm up.
At the end of the night we had to say goodbye to Sarah because she was going home early in the morning. That was sad but the end we had a good night because of all th fun times we all had.
Today Esther and I stood outside Cold Stone for 1 hour in the cold while the others showed up. We proceeded to have ice cream (so tasty), but then it was time to say goodbye to Kevin too! More hugs and goodbyes were had at the bus station. Bye Kevin!
Jon, his girlfriend Marion, Esther and I went to the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA). Here we saw any more paintings my Van Gogh, Picasso, Monet and many other artists. Ther was a whole bunch of design stuff that Esther enjoyed too.
For dinner we at pizza and had the biggest slices of pizza EVER! They were huge! They were also very tasty. Good call Jon!
After dinner it was goodbye Jon and Marion time, where we made them promise to come to Australia. More hugs and goodbyes were had, and then it was just me and Esther again. We decided to just catch the train back to the hostel to sleep. A good call.
Friday, January 25, 2008
New York part 1
We got up at 4am to catch the bus to Heathrow. Not so fun.
Our flight was 8 hours long and kinda sucked. We flew with United airlines and they weren't the best airline we'd flown on.
What was amazing though was the view from the window of the plane. As we got close to Canada (you need to fly over Canada to get there) Esther looked out the window and went "Oh, Owen look!". I looked down and discovered that the ocean had frozen over! It was one big sheet of ice with cracks in it where you could see the water. It was great.
Customs in Washington was really easy (even though I still had my departure card from my last trip there still in it), so it meant we had lots of time to get to our flight to New York. That flight we went in what was easily the smallest place I've ever been in. It only seats 60 people.
Our first reactions to New York was a bit fun. We were driven to our hostel and on arrival found fire engines and police in the street and lots of kids hanging around, making the place look really shifty. Turns out there had been a fire in a building nearby and school had just been let out, so all was good in the end.
We went into town and took a good look at Time Square with all it's lights and things. It was a lot bigger than I thought, which was a nice surprise.
We wandered into the Toys R Us store, had a look around in there then went outside again. While we'd been in the store it had gotten very dark, but the lights from all the billboards were so bright that if you didn't look up at the sky you'd never realise it was night. Crazy times.
On our first full day in New York, we got up nice and early for our free breakfast of bagels and jelly. Setting out we first went to the Empire State Building. On the way up we were constantly hounded by people trying to get us to buy maps, go on extra rides, buy a photo of ourselves and blah. It was crazy! All we wanted to do was go up to the roof. Up on the roof though the view was brilliant. Because I live in Sydney, the height of the building didn't phase me so much, but the view from the top was awesome. Esther and I took heaps of photos up there.
Next stop was to CBGB's, and old punk venue that unfortunately got shut down before I got a chance to see it in real life. It's where bands such as The Ramones and Blondie started out. It was sad to see it shut and up for sale. The old sign out the front has even gone.
Next stop was up the street a bit to see a mural painted for Joe Strummer when he died. It was featured in the 'Redemption Song' video clip. That was pretty sad too as he is my favourite musician and he died before I got a chance to see him play. He even toured Australia 6 months before I turned 18 and only played 18+ shows. But yeah, seeing the mural was very sad, but very cool.
Catching the train downtown, we hopped off at the Brooklyn Bridge and went for a walk across it. It was pretty good too and we took lots of photos. We didn't walk all the way across because after getting half way and very cold, we figured that the other half would be the same, so we just walked back.
The World Trade Centre site was the next place we stopped by. It was really strange to see where they stood, especially after seeing them on TV so much. I stood there for quite a while imagining the buildings there and all the events that had happened. Pretty sad stuff, but totally worth going and visiting. We don't have any photos of that, its really just now a construction site as they've taken down all the memorials now.
Today we went on the Staten Island Ferry so we could see The Statue Of Liberty nice and close without having to pay. It was very small, but pretty cool to see with our own eyes. On the way to the ferry we walked via Wall Street and saw the Stock exchange. There was also a man outside it with a VERY big gun incase someone tried to attack the building. Crazy stuff.
After a long adventure that involved getting Library Cards for the New York State Library, we met up with all of Esther's American friends that she made in Manchester who were all on exchange too. There was Kevin from Boston, Sarah from South Dakota and Jon from upstate NY. We ended up in Time Square again looking in all the different shops such as the M&M's shop, Hershey's Chocolates Shop, the Virgin Megastore and other assorted places.
Sarah had gotten us all tickets to see a Broadway Stand Up Comedy show. We turned up at the place got seated and sat through the most unfunny comedians I've ever heard. The host even tried to have a go at me because I wasn't laughing, and when he got no response from me got even more annoyed, so that was brilliant. I was pretty bored by the end and didn't like it, but I'm glad I at least went to see something.
Our flight was 8 hours long and kinda sucked. We flew with United airlines and they weren't the best airline we'd flown on.
What was amazing though was the view from the window of the plane. As we got close to Canada (you need to fly over Canada to get there) Esther looked out the window and went "Oh, Owen look!". I looked down and discovered that the ocean had frozen over! It was one big sheet of ice with cracks in it where you could see the water. It was great.
Customs in Washington was really easy (even though I still had my departure card from my last trip there still in it), so it meant we had lots of time to get to our flight to New York. That flight we went in what was easily the smallest place I've ever been in. It only seats 60 people.
Our first reactions to New York was a bit fun. We were driven to our hostel and on arrival found fire engines and police in the street and lots of kids hanging around, making the place look really shifty. Turns out there had been a fire in a building nearby and school had just been let out, so all was good in the end.
We went into town and took a good look at Time Square with all it's lights and things. It was a lot bigger than I thought, which was a nice surprise.
We wandered into the Toys R Us store, had a look around in there then went outside again. While we'd been in the store it had gotten very dark, but the lights from all the billboards were so bright that if you didn't look up at the sky you'd never realise it was night. Crazy times.
On our first full day in New York, we got up nice and early for our free breakfast of bagels and jelly. Setting out we first went to the Empire State Building. On the way up we were constantly hounded by people trying to get us to buy maps, go on extra rides, buy a photo of ourselves and blah. It was crazy! All we wanted to do was go up to the roof. Up on the roof though the view was brilliant. Because I live in Sydney, the height of the building didn't phase me so much, but the view from the top was awesome. Esther and I took heaps of photos up there.
Next stop was to CBGB's, and old punk venue that unfortunately got shut down before I got a chance to see it in real life. It's where bands such as The Ramones and Blondie started out. It was sad to see it shut and up for sale. The old sign out the front has even gone.
Next stop was up the street a bit to see a mural painted for Joe Strummer when he died. It was featured in the 'Redemption Song' video clip. That was pretty sad too as he is my favourite musician and he died before I got a chance to see him play. He even toured Australia 6 months before I turned 18 and only played 18+ shows. But yeah, seeing the mural was very sad, but very cool.
Catching the train downtown, we hopped off at the Brooklyn Bridge and went for a walk across it. It was pretty good too and we took lots of photos. We didn't walk all the way across because after getting half way and very cold, we figured that the other half would be the same, so we just walked back.
The World Trade Centre site was the next place we stopped by. It was really strange to see where they stood, especially after seeing them on TV so much. I stood there for quite a while imagining the buildings there and all the events that had happened. Pretty sad stuff, but totally worth going and visiting. We don't have any photos of that, its really just now a construction site as they've taken down all the memorials now.
Today we went on the Staten Island Ferry so we could see The Statue Of Liberty nice and close without having to pay. It was very small, but pretty cool to see with our own eyes. On the way to the ferry we walked via Wall Street and saw the Stock exchange. There was also a man outside it with a VERY big gun incase someone tried to attack the building. Crazy stuff.
After a long adventure that involved getting Library Cards for the New York State Library, we met up with all of Esther's American friends that she made in Manchester who were all on exchange too. There was Kevin from Boston, Sarah from South Dakota and Jon from upstate NY. We ended up in Time Square again looking in all the different shops such as the M&M's shop, Hershey's Chocolates Shop, the Virgin Megastore and other assorted places.
Sarah had gotten us all tickets to see a Broadway Stand Up Comedy show. We turned up at the place got seated and sat through the most unfunny comedians I've ever heard. The host even tried to have a go at me because I wasn't laughing, and when he got no response from me got even more annoyed, so that was brilliant. I was pretty bored by the end and didn't like it, but I'm glad I at least went to see something.
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
London + Manchester again
In the morning we caught the train from Rotterdam to Brussels. In Brussels we ate Belgian Waffles and sat around for our next train back to London which was the Eurostar. What is the Eurostar? Basically it's one of the fastest trains in the world. It reaches speeds of up to 186mph or 300km/h. It also goes under the English Channel.
Trying to get on the train was amazingly hard. As you're going from mainland Europe to England, you need to go through passport control. First check was by the Belgian authorities that gave us a sweet stamp in our passport with a train on it. Next was the British passport control. They grilled us by asking us about every facet of our lives including "how did you get your money", to which the obvious answer was 'saved up'.
Once boarding the train (and taking some photos) we were on our way and I LOVED IT. Speeding along through the countryside, flying past cars on the freeways, it was brilliant. They announced things such as when we're entering the channel tunnel etc, which made the trip pretty exciting.
On arrival in London, we arrived at the new Eurostar terminal at St Pancras station. The station looks really nice, and with so many Eurostar trains there I was loving it.
Next stop (after dropping off our bags) was a pub near Robby and Cam's place called 'The Eagle'. It was Cam's birthday the next day so he was having birthday dinner with his friends. It was nice to be back in London again. I really like London, so it felt very comfortable to just sit around in the pub there and talk to everyone. It was a great time had by all, telling stories of our various trips and things.
The next day Esther and I got up and caught the train to Manchester to visit her friends one more time before we left. The train we went on to get there was called a 'Pendolino', and was a high speed tilt train. Again I loved it. This one didn't go quite as fast at only 225 km/h, as that is the fastest track speed in England. It was great to go on a tilt train though, flying through the countryside and banking deep into the sharp corners.
On arrival in Manchester we met up with Esther's mate Miranda walked around town a bit, then went back to the dorms for cooking adventures via visiting people from her course and getting things organised to mail home.
They ended up making a chocolate cake, which I made whipped cream for. It took ages but didn't end up being used!
That night we went out to a place called 'Font' and just hung out with all Esther's friends that were still in Manchester. I had a really good time chatting to people and just having a good laugh, while Esther had a huge grin on her face the whole time because she could see her friends again.
Before the night was over we had some kebabs from the local shop that made everyone feel really sick. Hooray!
Next day we said goodbye to everyone (Esther really did not want to do this, understandably) and caught the train back to London. Esther was pretty sad on the way back, so that wasn't so fun. She really loved Manchester.
We took a detour via Harrods upon reaching London because Mum wanted a bag (they don't have the paper ones anymore Mum!). That place is HUGE. All the rooms are so ornately decorated and everything in the shop is really high quality. Really high price tag too, but the stuff there is amazing.
We spent our last night in London sitting around, repacking bags for the plane and just generally saying goodbye to Europe. We had a really good time in Europe, especially England and Germany. We'll miss them both very much.
Trying to get on the train was amazingly hard. As you're going from mainland Europe to England, you need to go through passport control. First check was by the Belgian authorities that gave us a sweet stamp in our passport with a train on it. Next was the British passport control. They grilled us by asking us about every facet of our lives including "how did you get your money", to which the obvious answer was 'saved up'.
Once boarding the train (and taking some photos) we were on our way and I LOVED IT. Speeding along through the countryside, flying past cars on the freeways, it was brilliant. They announced things such as when we're entering the channel tunnel etc, which made the trip pretty exciting.
On arrival in London, we arrived at the new Eurostar terminal at St Pancras station. The station looks really nice, and with so many Eurostar trains there I was loving it.
Next stop (after dropping off our bags) was a pub near Robby and Cam's place called 'The Eagle'. It was Cam's birthday the next day so he was having birthday dinner with his friends. It was nice to be back in London again. I really like London, so it felt very comfortable to just sit around in the pub there and talk to everyone. It was a great time had by all, telling stories of our various trips and things.
The next day Esther and I got up and caught the train to Manchester to visit her friends one more time before we left. The train we went on to get there was called a 'Pendolino', and was a high speed tilt train. Again I loved it. This one didn't go quite as fast at only 225 km/h, as that is the fastest track speed in England. It was great to go on a tilt train though, flying through the countryside and banking deep into the sharp corners.
On arrival in Manchester we met up with Esther's mate Miranda walked around town a bit, then went back to the dorms for cooking adventures via visiting people from her course and getting things organised to mail home.
They ended up making a chocolate cake, which I made whipped cream for. It took ages but didn't end up being used!
That night we went out to a place called 'Font' and just hung out with all Esther's friends that were still in Manchester. I had a really good time chatting to people and just having a good laugh, while Esther had a huge grin on her face the whole time because she could see her friends again.
Before the night was over we had some kebabs from the local shop that made everyone feel really sick. Hooray!
Next day we said goodbye to everyone (Esther really did not want to do this, understandably) and caught the train back to London. Esther was pretty sad on the way back, so that wasn't so fun. She really loved Manchester.
We took a detour via Harrods upon reaching London because Mum wanted a bag (they don't have the paper ones anymore Mum!). That place is HUGE. All the rooms are so ornately decorated and everything in the shop is really high quality. Really high price tag too, but the stuff there is amazing.
We spent our last night in London sitting around, repacking bags for the plane and just generally saying goodbye to Europe. We had a really good time in Europe, especially England and Germany. We'll miss them both very much.
Saturday, January 19, 2008
Holland part 2
This day we woke up and it was raining. We didn't do too much because, well, Amsterdam is a very 'outside' kinda place. We found and internet cafe and did a whole lot of internetting to find out what was in Amsterdam to do. Ended up at the Van Gogh museum looking at a million Van Gogh paintings. After that, if I ever see another Van Gogh painting again I'll die a happy man! Haha. So now on the one holiday, I've seen 2/5 of the 'sunflower' paintings thanks to London and Amsterdam. We had a snooze in the afternoon because all the days of being out doing things had taken its toll, and after having done some dinner we went back to the pub we went to the night previous for tasty cider, free internet and the Liverpool vs Luton football match.
The net day after packing up our bags and holding our noses while eating what was meant to resemble breakfast, we caught the train to Moniques house, a friend of Esther's who she met in Manchester. On the way there I saw 9 windmills out of the train window and lots of dykes, so that pleased me. With Monique we got to ride to the shops (EVERYONE here owns a bike), got to post things home (family, watch your mailbox) and also got to go the supermarket where because Monique is Dutch, she can read and speak Dutch, so I asked her what EVERYTHING was and meant and why it was like that. Esther said I was like a 5yr old, but I didn't care because we finally had someone who could read all the signs!
More of Esther's Dutch friends, Maarten and Linda showed up. We had dinner, watched football, laughed at funny videos, had webcam chats with Kevin (more about him when we get to NY) and then went out to a "Beer Cafe". At this cafe, you sit down and you get this big leather book that has all their beers in it. Just like at a normal cafe, you order the beers (which have a photo and description of each beer in the menu) from the waiter who rings them to you at the table in glasses specially made for the beer you're drinking. It was brilliant. I got to try a few nice Belgian beers and a Dutch one too. These guys have tasty beer down pat. Australia, you lose, seriously.
Maarten and Linda both had to go home, so we said goodbye to them and Esther and I slept on Moniques floor (we had sleeping bags and things, no we were not drunk!)
Photos of Amsterdam and travels:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=26306&l=7209f&id=544876388
Monique had a brilliant idea for what to do the next day, so we went for it. We caught the train to Den Haag and went to this place called 'Modurodam'. Basically its Coccington Green in Canberra gone mental. It was scenes and buildings from across The Netherlands all built in miniature. The thing is that while the models were small, there were hundreds of them! The arena they were in was massive. They even had a model railway running right the way through and around the place to show off the typical Dutch trains. It was the biggest model railway of its size I've seen. Walking round there we got to see heaps of cool things from around Holland and have stacks of fun pretending to be giants smashing up the place.
Monique had to leave, so we said goodbye to her too. Alone again, Esther and I caught the tram to Den Haag's famous Pier. There we took our first look at the English Channel and ate Poffertjies and Pancakes. What was funny was that on the way there we saw a whole bunch of things that we'd seen as models in Modurodam, so that was very cool.
Slept for a few hours then went to this thing where they get movies and show them on the roof of this massive dome. We saw one about The Alps in Switzerland. It was great for many reasons: It felt like you were flying through the mountains, they backing music between the people talking was Queen ("can't stop me now" being played during mountaineers exercising was amazingly funny) and that the english translation (remember, everything here is in Dutch) that we had to listen to through plug in headphones was narrated by Michael Gambon who they named a corner on the Top Gear track after.
On the way back to the Hostel, we walked past a 'Snack Bar'. These places are pretty much Dutch kebab shops. We'd been told by Monique, Linda and Maarten that we HAD to try some things from one of these shops, so I did. IT WAS SO TASTY oh my it was good. I got this sausage thing that was covered in tomato and curry and onion (a little like the Bratwurst I had in Germany) and that was brilliant. The other thing I had was a chicken kebab, but with PIZZA BREAD! It was the usual filling of chicken, lettuce, tomato, onion and garlic sauce, but the bread had a layer of pizza sauce, meat and cheese already cooked onto it. Amazing. Someone somewhere MUST sell it, I know they must. Oh yum.
I really liked Den Haag. All the people were nice and the place just looked really nice. Like Amsterdam it had lots of canals and lots of old buildings to look at. It was great.
Photos of Den Haag:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=26311&l=0d6f2&id=544876388
Next place we went to was Rotterdam. Rotterdam, apart from being the site of a Jackie Chan movie I liked, has really weird Architecture (or Arch-hi-tetch-her as the woman in the tourist information pronounced it). The Germans bombed the pace flat during the second world war, so they has an entire new city to build. There are very few old buildings, one of which we saw today, everything else is brand spanking new with Architects going mental with designs. I'm not so keen on most of them, but Esther seemed to dig them.
Oh yeah, I think I lost the finger gloves I made out of the arms of a Thermal shirt I cut up to make a thermal T-shirt. I sure hope I haven't because I love those gloves.
We hired bikes! In Holland, everyone rides a bike, so they have dedicated bike lanes on all the roads. Riding around was thus easy! Well, not for Esther at first as the last time she'd ridden a bike was 10yrs ago. After getting the going forwards bit sorted, we quickly realised that she couldn't turn. This was evident after the first corner where Esther had run straight into the pole in front of her. She didn't fall off or hurt herself or anything, but it gave her a bit of a fright. Half way around the city and after riding through a few parks away from traffic she quickly got her confidence back up and things were fine from there on. We got to ride around most of the city and saw many weird buildings and things. I found it especially fun because I hadn't ridden a bike in so long and that because Holland is so flat, it meant NO hills to ride up and down.
We caught the tram across town after our biking trip, went to a place like Reverse Garbage back in Sydney called 'Scrap', then hung out at the hostel eating dinner and patting the hostel dog. Good times had by all :)
Photos of Rotterdam:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=26312&l=111b7&id=544876388
The net day after packing up our bags and holding our noses while eating what was meant to resemble breakfast, we caught the train to Moniques house, a friend of Esther's who she met in Manchester. On the way there I saw 9 windmills out of the train window and lots of dykes, so that pleased me. With Monique we got to ride to the shops (EVERYONE here owns a bike), got to post things home (family, watch your mailbox) and also got to go the supermarket where because Monique is Dutch, she can read and speak Dutch, so I asked her what EVERYTHING was and meant and why it was like that. Esther said I was like a 5yr old, but I didn't care because we finally had someone who could read all the signs!
More of Esther's Dutch friends, Maarten and Linda showed up. We had dinner, watched football, laughed at funny videos, had webcam chats with Kevin (more about him when we get to NY) and then went out to a "Beer Cafe". At this cafe, you sit down and you get this big leather book that has all their beers in it. Just like at a normal cafe, you order the beers (which have a photo and description of each beer in the menu) from the waiter who rings them to you at the table in glasses specially made for the beer you're drinking. It was brilliant. I got to try a few nice Belgian beers and a Dutch one too. These guys have tasty beer down pat. Australia, you lose, seriously.
Maarten and Linda both had to go home, so we said goodbye to them and Esther and I slept on Moniques floor (we had sleeping bags and things, no we were not drunk!)
Photos of Amsterdam and travels:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=26306&l=7209f&id=544876388
Monique had a brilliant idea for what to do the next day, so we went for it. We caught the train to Den Haag and went to this place called 'Modurodam'. Basically its Coccington Green in Canberra gone mental. It was scenes and buildings from across The Netherlands all built in miniature. The thing is that while the models were small, there were hundreds of them! The arena they were in was massive. They even had a model railway running right the way through and around the place to show off the typical Dutch trains. It was the biggest model railway of its size I've seen. Walking round there we got to see heaps of cool things from around Holland and have stacks of fun pretending to be giants smashing up the place.
Monique had to leave, so we said goodbye to her too. Alone again, Esther and I caught the tram to Den Haag's famous Pier. There we took our first look at the English Channel and ate Poffertjies and Pancakes. What was funny was that on the way there we saw a whole bunch of things that we'd seen as models in Modurodam, so that was very cool.
Slept for a few hours then went to this thing where they get movies and show them on the roof of this massive dome. We saw one about The Alps in Switzerland. It was great for many reasons: It felt like you were flying through the mountains, they backing music between the people talking was Queen ("can't stop me now" being played during mountaineers exercising was amazingly funny) and that the english translation (remember, everything here is in Dutch) that we had to listen to through plug in headphones was narrated by Michael Gambon who they named a corner on the Top Gear track after.
On the way back to the Hostel, we walked past a 'Snack Bar'. These places are pretty much Dutch kebab shops. We'd been told by Monique, Linda and Maarten that we HAD to try some things from one of these shops, so I did. IT WAS SO TASTY oh my it was good. I got this sausage thing that was covered in tomato and curry and onion (a little like the Bratwurst I had in Germany) and that was brilliant. The other thing I had was a chicken kebab, but with PIZZA BREAD! It was the usual filling of chicken, lettuce, tomato, onion and garlic sauce, but the bread had a layer of pizza sauce, meat and cheese already cooked onto it. Amazing. Someone somewhere MUST sell it, I know they must. Oh yum.
I really liked Den Haag. All the people were nice and the place just looked really nice. Like Amsterdam it had lots of canals and lots of old buildings to look at. It was great.
Photos of Den Haag:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=26311&l=0d6f2&id=544876388
Next place we went to was Rotterdam. Rotterdam, apart from being the site of a Jackie Chan movie I liked, has really weird Architecture (or Arch-hi-tetch-her as the woman in the tourist information pronounced it). The Germans bombed the pace flat during the second world war, so they has an entire new city to build. There are very few old buildings, one of which we saw today, everything else is brand spanking new with Architects going mental with designs. I'm not so keen on most of them, but Esther seemed to dig them.
Oh yeah, I think I lost the finger gloves I made out of the arms of a Thermal shirt I cut up to make a thermal T-shirt. I sure hope I haven't because I love those gloves.
We hired bikes! In Holland, everyone rides a bike, so they have dedicated bike lanes on all the roads. Riding around was thus easy! Well, not for Esther at first as the last time she'd ridden a bike was 10yrs ago. After getting the going forwards bit sorted, we quickly realised that she couldn't turn. This was evident after the first corner where Esther had run straight into the pole in front of her. She didn't fall off or hurt herself or anything, but it gave her a bit of a fright. Half way around the city and after riding through a few parks away from traffic she quickly got her confidence back up and things were fine from there on. We got to ride around most of the city and saw many weird buildings and things. I found it especially fun because I hadn't ridden a bike in so long and that because Holland is so flat, it meant NO hills to ride up and down.
We caught the tram across town after our biking trip, went to a place like Reverse Garbage back in Sydney called 'Scrap', then hung out at the hostel eating dinner and patting the hostel dog. Good times had by all :)
Photos of Rotterdam:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=26312&l=111b7&id=544876388
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Holland part 1
Amsterdam day! Yay! Esther and I were very keen to leave Brussels. We made it to Brussels Midi station, got tickets sorted and found our platform. While standing on the platform I noticed the destination of our train was clearly NOT Amsterdam. I asked a woman from the trains what was going on and she was like "Oh, trains for Amsterdam don't go from here, they go from Gare du Nord". I asked why the sign told us to go where we did and she said they changed things but hadn't updated the signs. Well done Belgium, another win for you.
Eventually we made it to our train and went to Amsterdam! Yes! On arrival, we easily found a tourist information, easily got a map and easily found out where to go. Amsterdam was winning over Brussels already. After hostel booking in and stuff, we went walking and discovered that EVERYONE rides a bicycle. When crossing some roads you need to cross: bike lane, road, tram, tram, road, bide lane. All of them are busy too. Amsterdam is a very nice looking place, with lots of old buildings and canals and things, I was sold straight away. Its really nice here. One thing I noted (being the audio person I am) is that because there are hardly any cars an everyone uses trams and bikes is that even in the city centre it is nice and quiet. Its really brilliant.
Tonight we went for a walk, ended up in the notorious 'red light district' where they have almost naked women standing in the windows of buildings and lots of seedy men walking around opening their doors asking how much they charge. What freaked us out the most about it was that it was just so strange. I know that this sort of thing, while I really don't condone it, has been happening for a long time, people standing in the windows in full view of the street is even weirder.
Eventually Esther and I found what we'd really wanted: a pub with football. Hooray!
Some not so nice things have been happening over the past few days at home. I wish I was there. I miss a lot of people right now and have at least one friend at home I wish I was with right now so I knew that everything was okay. Its weird being on the other side of the world and not being able to call people up when you really want to, or even drive over to where they are just to check up on them/look after them. Ever since I found out I've been praying pretty darn hard for him, as right now thats the most I can do.
In other news, my pet rabbit Warren died during the night at home. I loved that little guy.
Its been a weird day. Amsterdam is awesome, but sad news in a few different forms (friends, family and pet related) has made today a bit sour. I think I'll just go to bed, hopefully things will be a lot better in the morning.
I love you all and miss you all very much.
Eventually we made it to our train and went to Amsterdam! Yes! On arrival, we easily found a tourist information, easily got a map and easily found out where to go. Amsterdam was winning over Brussels already. After hostel booking in and stuff, we went walking and discovered that EVERYONE rides a bicycle. When crossing some roads you need to cross: bike lane, road, tram, tram, road, bide lane. All of them are busy too. Amsterdam is a very nice looking place, with lots of old buildings and canals and things, I was sold straight away. Its really nice here. One thing I noted (being the audio person I am) is that because there are hardly any cars an everyone uses trams and bikes is that even in the city centre it is nice and quiet. Its really brilliant.
Tonight we went for a walk, ended up in the notorious 'red light district' where they have almost naked women standing in the windows of buildings and lots of seedy men walking around opening their doors asking how much they charge. What freaked us out the most about it was that it was just so strange. I know that this sort of thing, while I really don't condone it, has been happening for a long time, people standing in the windows in full view of the street is even weirder.
Eventually Esther and I found what we'd really wanted: a pub with football. Hooray!
Some not so nice things have been happening over the past few days at home. I wish I was there. I miss a lot of people right now and have at least one friend at home I wish I was with right now so I knew that everything was okay. Its weird being on the other side of the world and not being able to call people up when you really want to, or even drive over to where they are just to check up on them/look after them. Ever since I found out I've been praying pretty darn hard for him, as right now thats the most I can do.
In other news, my pet rabbit Warren died during the night at home. I loved that little guy.
Its been a weird day. Amsterdam is awesome, but sad news in a few different forms (friends, family and pet related) has made today a bit sour. I think I'll just go to bed, hopefully things will be a lot better in the morning.
I love you all and miss you all very much.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Brussels
Well, Brussels is a very confusing place. The first half of our day was spent trying to find the tourist information. People kept telling us to go to the 'Centrum'. All well and good, but little did we know that this Centrum was actually french for 'Centre' and that they called the entire city district the 'Centrum'. Eventually we found it on our own, got a sweet map, saw a Tintin shop (i almost cried, eveything is so expensive! i.e. a small Tintin figurine is 120 euro), ate Belgian Waffles and eventually found... The Comic Book Art museum! Hooray! This was the only place in Belgium I wanted to go because Belgium is the home of Tintin, who is pretty much my most favourite dude ever. The museum was fantastic and there were heaps of awesome comics there. I had such a good time. I even bought myself a small Snowy from the gift shop.
After that we had some tasty foods and went to a supermarket to buy some Belgian beer to try.
The next day was such a write off. Everything we did we ended up having trouble with. Buying wrong tickets for the bus/train, everything being shut, us being tired and irritable etc etc and so forth. We ended up just buying some chocolate and buying some more beer and going back to the hotel to eat/drink/sleep. Brussels, you're not so fun.
Photos of Brussels:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=25935&l=bed87&id=544876388
After that we had some tasty foods and went to a supermarket to buy some Belgian beer to try.
The next day was such a write off. Everything we did we ended up having trouble with. Buying wrong tickets for the bus/train, everything being shut, us being tired and irritable etc etc and so forth. We ended up just buying some chocolate and buying some more beer and going back to the hotel to eat/drink/sleep. Brussels, you're not so fun.
Photos of Brussels:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=25935&l=bed87&id=544876388
Saturday, January 12, 2008
Germany
This time its been awhile since my latest blog entry. I had so much fun in Germany that I forgot to post a blog! Lets start with our arrival in Berlin...
On arrival, we got our passports stamped, and tried to read all the new found German words in the airport. We had heaps of fun working out that 'ausgang' meant exit, and that walking on the right side of the path was a very good idea. Buying a train ticket wasn't so bad because we'd read up about it beforehand, but lots of people were having trouble. We were already having people talk to us in German and not have a clue what they were saying.
We found the hostel easily enough and after duping our gear and being handed a map, we headed into Alexanderplatz on the U-Bahn (the underground train) and went for a wander. After not knowing much German and thus being unable to read anything, we went to a sandwich shop that had sandwiches in the window that we could point at. This started us on our great european food journey. IT WAS SO TASTY! It was just a roll with salami, cheese and lettuce, but it was probably one of the best 'take-away' style foods I've ever had.
Next was on to the DDR museum. Here you could play with everything they had and learn about socialist Germany at the same time, so basically it was perfect for me! They even had a typical socialist house where you could go through all the drawers, open all the cupboards and see how they lived back then. It was really interesting.
We next ended up at the Brandenburg Gate. It was pretty impressive. We walked under it and around to the Reichstag, which is basically the German Parliament building. You can't actually look around the parliament, but they have a great viewing tower ontop of the building. The view of the city from there was pretty nice and well worth the 20min wait to get through security to see.
Dinner cost us 14 euro between the two of us, including a large beer for me. Compared to the UK and Ireland, thats extremely cheap, so we were ecstatic about that.
Photos of Germany day 1: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=25418&l=dab3f&id=544876388
2nd day in Germany, Esther and I decided to try and walk as much of where the Berlin Wall used to go as we could. We were armed with a map and a full belly of food. In the end, we didn't walk too far because the scale on the map was a little weird, but we did get to walk along Bernauer Strausse where the Reconciliation Church is situated, and near that is a reconstruction of the wall to show you how the layout of the wall was when it was up. There was about 10 different layers made up of fences and trenches and things. It felt very real looking at that, just imagining that all the way up the road.
It was starting to get dark, so we went to Checkpoint Charlie. All the stuff there, like the pieces of wall we'd seen, was all reconstruction stuff, so it was interesting to see, but didn't seem so fulfilling. We rounded the corner and finally found what we'd been looking for, the REAL Berlin Wall. There isn't much of it left, so seeing some of the original wall, not reconstructed from old pieces, but left to stay there was very very strange. All the graffiti that people wrote on it in 1989 still being on it and other assorted tags was really weird. A memorable experience, thats for sure.
3rd Day we dubbed 'Art Day'. This involved a trip to the East Side Gallery, a Martin Parr exhibition and going to the Bauhaus Museum. First stop was the East Side Gallery. The galley is a series of paintings by people from all around the world painted on the Berlin Wall. It was done in 1990, and because it is being preserved, it is now the largest section of the original wall left. It was really interesting to see how different artists went about painting the wall and it was also interesting to see how some of them had survived over time.
On the way to the Martin Parr exhibition we had our first real German Bratwurst. It was covered in tomato sauce and some curry powder, but it was SO TASTY. I loved it. That bratwurst goes out to the Collins' and the Halls.
The Martin Parr exhibit was pretty good and he had some funny photos up. The ones Esther and I liked were the 'Bored Couples' ones. After that we were conscious of us looking bored so for the next two hours we tried to look really interested all the time so we didn't get photographed!
We decided to walk to the Bauhaus, but as we walked, it got later and later and later, and as we turned up at the Siegessäule and decided to do the Bauhaus another day and just walk up it instead. It's a big tower in the middle of a major roundabout thats about 65m high. It took awhile to walk up all the steps, and as we went up it got narrower and narrower, but the view from it was fantastic. Totally worth going up.
Photos of Germany day 2+3: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=25422&l=6fd6c&id=544876388
4th Day. This day was a little weird as we went to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. It was the closest Concentration Camp to Berlin.
We had booked a tour of the place, but on arrival at the station we needed to be at, Esther realised that she had set the alarm for us to wake up on the phone she hadn't changed the time on for daylight savings and we'd missed the tour by 50mins. Bummer. We decided to catch the train out there anyway to hopefully catch up the tour people.
Initially it was fine, but after a while I started to overthink things and thought "hmn, we're in a train on the way to a concentration camp, weird". I told Esther of those thoughts, to which the stern response was "Uh, thanks Owen...".
Walking through the gates of the camp, it was very, very quiet. There was almost no people thee, so things were very calm. Imagining new interns for the camp walking through the gates was a horrible feeling.
The first thing we did was walk along inside the wall, where we saw some concrete blocks with smaller stones stuck on them. We took a look at them and I noted that the ground felt a bit funny, so maybe the remains of a building? As we walked away we saw a sign about the piece of ground we'd been standing on: "Mass Graves for Concentration Camp Victims". I almost threw up.
The next building we went into turned out to be the Doctors shed. Here they still had the original autopsy tables set up and below the mortuary where the kept all the people that died. It was pretty heavy stuff.
After that ordeal, we stumbled upon a Gas Chamber, Killing Trench and many more mass graves. It was a pretty intense day.
Concentration Camp Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=25931&l=f4def&id=544876388
5th Day. This was our last day in Germany. Both of us loved Germany and didn't want to leave. Definitely going back there again.
We went to the Bauhaus Museum where Esther got to geek out over design things, and after that we went up the 220m Tv Tower that looks over Berlin for sweet views of the city. It cost 9.50 euro to go up, but it was very worth it.
We caught the plane from the airport to Brussels and got to sleep in comfort in the 4 star hotel we'd booked for ourselves.
Photos of the last day in Germany: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=25934&l=15fbe&id=544876388
On arrival, we got our passports stamped, and tried to read all the new found German words in the airport. We had heaps of fun working out that 'ausgang' meant exit, and that walking on the right side of the path was a very good idea. Buying a train ticket wasn't so bad because we'd read up about it beforehand, but lots of people were having trouble. We were already having people talk to us in German and not have a clue what they were saying.
We found the hostel easily enough and after duping our gear and being handed a map, we headed into Alexanderplatz on the U-Bahn (the underground train) and went for a wander. After not knowing much German and thus being unable to read anything, we went to a sandwich shop that had sandwiches in the window that we could point at. This started us on our great european food journey. IT WAS SO TASTY! It was just a roll with salami, cheese and lettuce, but it was probably one of the best 'take-away' style foods I've ever had.
Next was on to the DDR museum. Here you could play with everything they had and learn about socialist Germany at the same time, so basically it was perfect for me! They even had a typical socialist house where you could go through all the drawers, open all the cupboards and see how they lived back then. It was really interesting.
We next ended up at the Brandenburg Gate. It was pretty impressive. We walked under it and around to the Reichstag, which is basically the German Parliament building. You can't actually look around the parliament, but they have a great viewing tower ontop of the building. The view of the city from there was pretty nice and well worth the 20min wait to get through security to see.
Dinner cost us 14 euro between the two of us, including a large beer for me. Compared to the UK and Ireland, thats extremely cheap, so we were ecstatic about that.
Photos of Germany day 1: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=25418&l=dab3f&id=544876388
2nd day in Germany, Esther and I decided to try and walk as much of where the Berlin Wall used to go as we could. We were armed with a map and a full belly of food. In the end, we didn't walk too far because the scale on the map was a little weird, but we did get to walk along Bernauer Strausse where the Reconciliation Church is situated, and near that is a reconstruction of the wall to show you how the layout of the wall was when it was up. There was about 10 different layers made up of fences and trenches and things. It felt very real looking at that, just imagining that all the way up the road.
It was starting to get dark, so we went to Checkpoint Charlie. All the stuff there, like the pieces of wall we'd seen, was all reconstruction stuff, so it was interesting to see, but didn't seem so fulfilling. We rounded the corner and finally found what we'd been looking for, the REAL Berlin Wall. There isn't much of it left, so seeing some of the original wall, not reconstructed from old pieces, but left to stay there was very very strange. All the graffiti that people wrote on it in 1989 still being on it and other assorted tags was really weird. A memorable experience, thats for sure.
3rd Day we dubbed 'Art Day'. This involved a trip to the East Side Gallery, a Martin Parr exhibition and going to the Bauhaus Museum. First stop was the East Side Gallery. The galley is a series of paintings by people from all around the world painted on the Berlin Wall. It was done in 1990, and because it is being preserved, it is now the largest section of the original wall left. It was really interesting to see how different artists went about painting the wall and it was also interesting to see how some of them had survived over time.
On the way to the Martin Parr exhibition we had our first real German Bratwurst. It was covered in tomato sauce and some curry powder, but it was SO TASTY. I loved it. That bratwurst goes out to the Collins' and the Halls.
The Martin Parr exhibit was pretty good and he had some funny photos up. The ones Esther and I liked were the 'Bored Couples' ones. After that we were conscious of us looking bored so for the next two hours we tried to look really interested all the time so we didn't get photographed!
We decided to walk to the Bauhaus, but as we walked, it got later and later and later, and as we turned up at the Siegessäule and decided to do the Bauhaus another day and just walk up it instead. It's a big tower in the middle of a major roundabout thats about 65m high. It took awhile to walk up all the steps, and as we went up it got narrower and narrower, but the view from it was fantastic. Totally worth going up.
Photos of Germany day 2+3: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=25422&l=6fd6c&id=544876388
4th Day. This day was a little weird as we went to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp. It was the closest Concentration Camp to Berlin.
We had booked a tour of the place, but on arrival at the station we needed to be at, Esther realised that she had set the alarm for us to wake up on the phone she hadn't changed the time on for daylight savings and we'd missed the tour by 50mins. Bummer. We decided to catch the train out there anyway to hopefully catch up the tour people.
Initially it was fine, but after a while I started to overthink things and thought "hmn, we're in a train on the way to a concentration camp, weird". I told Esther of those thoughts, to which the stern response was "Uh, thanks Owen...".
Walking through the gates of the camp, it was very, very quiet. There was almost no people thee, so things were very calm. Imagining new interns for the camp walking through the gates was a horrible feeling.
The first thing we did was walk along inside the wall, where we saw some concrete blocks with smaller stones stuck on them. We took a look at them and I noted that the ground felt a bit funny, so maybe the remains of a building? As we walked away we saw a sign about the piece of ground we'd been standing on: "Mass Graves for Concentration Camp Victims". I almost threw up.
The next building we went into turned out to be the Doctors shed. Here they still had the original autopsy tables set up and below the mortuary where the kept all the people that died. It was pretty heavy stuff.
After that ordeal, we stumbled upon a Gas Chamber, Killing Trench and many more mass graves. It was a pretty intense day.
Concentration Camp Photos: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=25931&l=f4def&id=544876388
5th Day. This was our last day in Germany. Both of us loved Germany and didn't want to leave. Definitely going back there again.
We went to the Bauhaus Museum where Esther got to geek out over design things, and after that we went up the 220m Tv Tower that looks over Berlin for sweet views of the city. It cost 9.50 euro to go up, but it was very worth it.
We caught the plane from the airport to Brussels and got to sleep in comfort in the 4 star hotel we'd booked for ourselves.
Photos of the last day in Germany: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=25934&l=15fbe&id=544876388
Sunday, January 6, 2008
Ireland Fun Times
Right now I'm in Dublin. Lots of things have happened as usual.
New Years Eve I went out to the London Transport Museum and looked at lots of sweet train things. Don't worry, I won't bore you with photos, I'll save them to show Dad when I get home. That night Esther and I were planning on going to the Thames to see the fireworks, but it started raining and there were heaps of people going, so we sat inside and watched Bill Bailey on YouTube. Hooray!
New Years Day Esther and I went to see Arsenal play!!! Yes!!! It was the best thing I've done since being away and I had the best time ever. Arsenal were playing against West Ham, a nice local London Derby, so the atmosphere was electric. Arsenal went on to win 2-0, so that made the day even better.
Photos of the Arsenal match: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=24781&l=ebb22&id=544876388
The next day we left London and flew to Belfast! We got up at mega early in the morning (like 4am) and arrived so early in Befast that we picked up our hire car and drove to the Giants Causeway, which was pretty darn awesome. I've seen pictures of that place, and had aleasy wanted to go there, and I got the chance to! On the way there we went via some cool coast, including finding an old castle on a hill overlooking the ocean that we decided to walk out to. It was a great day.
Photos of the Giants Causeway: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=24783&l=a94cb&id=544876388
The 3rd we went to Derry. This is the place where the 'Bloody Sunday' massacre happened that U2 wrote their song about. We looked at heaps of cool murals and went to a museum about the Bloody Sunday things that was situated right on the site that it happened on. We also got a tour of the 'Free Derry' area from a local guy, so it was all an interesting historical day.
Oh yeah, at the end of the day IT SNOWED!!! We had a sweet snowfight with some random Aussies we met at the hostel we were staying at and made a Snow Koala that Esther named 'Titface'. Yes, I know she can be weird at times :p
Photos of Derry: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=24789&l=1d24e&id=544876388
Photos of Snow: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=24791&l=2ba54&id=544876388
Yesterday we drove down to Dublin. On the way down there we got to stop at a church in a place called Newry which is where some of my relatives come from and got to have a look through their burial records for different things. It was good to see where my relatives come from, and now I have lots of interesting facts to tell my Mum and Granddad when I get home, as they're really into all this Family History stuff. That night Esther and I went out for dinner and had a grand old time. Hooray!
Today was spent looking around Dublin. We tried to get on a walking tour of Dublin, but missed it by 10mins, so we went into Trinity College and took a look at The Book Of Kells and some other books associated with it. There was lots of information relating to how the book came to be, so we ended up spending lots of time there. Upstairs from that is a library which is 65m long and had 200,000 books in it! It was massive. They have a deal where every book printed in the UK they are allowed to have a copy of it for free. Its pretty nuts.
Next was the Irish Museum of Decorative Arts where Alexander and I looked at heaps of old Irish war relics. It was alright, Al liked it heaps more than me and has decided to go back there tomorrow.
From there we raced across to the Guinness Factory! They had a comprehensive look at how it it made and at the end of the tour we got a free pint in their penthouse bar.
So thats me for now, I hope you're all doing well at home!
New Years Eve I went out to the London Transport Museum and looked at lots of sweet train things. Don't worry, I won't bore you with photos, I'll save them to show Dad when I get home. That night Esther and I were planning on going to the Thames to see the fireworks, but it started raining and there were heaps of people going, so we sat inside and watched Bill Bailey on YouTube. Hooray!
New Years Day Esther and I went to see Arsenal play!!! Yes!!! It was the best thing I've done since being away and I had the best time ever. Arsenal were playing against West Ham, a nice local London Derby, so the atmosphere was electric. Arsenal went on to win 2-0, so that made the day even better.
Photos of the Arsenal match: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=24781&l=ebb22&id=544876388
The next day we left London and flew to Belfast! We got up at mega early in the morning (like 4am) and arrived so early in Befast that we picked up our hire car and drove to the Giants Causeway, which was pretty darn awesome. I've seen pictures of that place, and had aleasy wanted to go there, and I got the chance to! On the way there we went via some cool coast, including finding an old castle on a hill overlooking the ocean that we decided to walk out to. It was a great day.
Photos of the Giants Causeway: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=24783&l=a94cb&id=544876388
The 3rd we went to Derry. This is the place where the 'Bloody Sunday' massacre happened that U2 wrote their song about. We looked at heaps of cool murals and went to a museum about the Bloody Sunday things that was situated right on the site that it happened on. We also got a tour of the 'Free Derry' area from a local guy, so it was all an interesting historical day.
Oh yeah, at the end of the day IT SNOWED!!! We had a sweet snowfight with some random Aussies we met at the hostel we were staying at and made a Snow Koala that Esther named 'Titface'. Yes, I know she can be weird at times :p
Photos of Derry: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=24789&l=1d24e&id=544876388
Photos of Snow: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=24791&l=2ba54&id=544876388
Yesterday we drove down to Dublin. On the way down there we got to stop at a church in a place called Newry which is where some of my relatives come from and got to have a look through their burial records for different things. It was good to see where my relatives come from, and now I have lots of interesting facts to tell my Mum and Granddad when I get home, as they're really into all this Family History stuff. That night Esther and I went out for dinner and had a grand old time. Hooray!
Today was spent looking around Dublin. We tried to get on a walking tour of Dublin, but missed it by 10mins, so we went into Trinity College and took a look at The Book Of Kells and some other books associated with it. There was lots of information relating to how the book came to be, so we ended up spending lots of time there. Upstairs from that is a library which is 65m long and had 200,000 books in it! It was massive. They have a deal where every book printed in the UK they are allowed to have a copy of it for free. Its pretty nuts.
Next was the Irish Museum of Decorative Arts where Alexander and I looked at heaps of old Irish war relics. It was alright, Al liked it heaps more than me and has decided to go back there tomorrow.
From there we raced across to the Guinness Factory! They had a comprehensive look at how it it made and at the end of the tour we got a free pint in their penthouse bar.
So thats me for now, I hope you're all doing well at home!
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