So, a fair bit happened since our last post. We travlled to the airport Sunday around noon in Valencia and jumped on our flight to Ibiza that was a whole 30mins long! After this brief flight we landed and took a rather expensive cab ride across the island to San Antoni where our Hotel was. Ordinarily I would not have been very impressed with this hotel but it was a beautiful sight to us, private room, private bathroom, air conditioning, pool, sun, beach within a 5min walk...not much to complain about compared to where we have been staying! We were pleasantly suprised with the quality of the food in Ibiza and the fairly cheap price of it too. The beach was really nice and as I just metioned the weather was great. There were no clouds and the sky was pretty much all blue, but there was quite a bit of smog on the skyline (my guess is smoke coming from the major forest fires in Greece). We spent the majority of our time in Ibiza making the most of this beach but of cource we did indulge a little in the world famous Ibiza nightlife. Night one we went to club Eden and saw DJ Judge Jules (I havent heard of him but Jordan says he is good?), this was one of the supposive "good dj´s" so we had to pay 50 euro to get in! With prices like that we had to pre drink in the hotel and refrain from buying any booze at the bar. Night two we went to the other big club near our hotel called ES Paradise, it was another 33 euro to get in here and we had a pretty good time dancing like fools to techno music. Night 3 we took it pretty easy, went to an off night club that was cheap and had an earlier night since we had a flight to Barcelona at 2pm. Overall we had a pretty good time in Ibiza, we had a couple fun nights, some good times on the beach, but spent quite a bit....oh well....
Now we are in Barcelona at a Hostel that is waaay out of the downtown area (We are bascily staying in Surrey and visiting Vancouver on a daily basis distance wise). Last night we went to bed around 10pm and had a relaxing long sleep. Today we went into town and checked out Las Ramblas, the harbour, had some lunch, and headed back to the Hostel to cook some dinner. Now we are probably going to have another relatively early night and then catch a train at 8am to Nice, France where we have booked 4 nights at. We have some pictures to post but we will do that from Nice where we will have free interent.
Until then, bye...
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Spoke Too Soon
This is the Jesus statue atop a hill in San Sebastian that we hiked to. While up there we also saw an old English cemetery and some Spanish castle ruins. It was about a 1 hour round trip hike.
A photo of the surf beach from up top the hill. It was rainy.
While on the walking tour of Madrid we took a bunch of pictures. This statue is hollow on the front half so that it will balance properly. The mouth of the horse is now shut because birds were flying in there and dying.
Here is a view of the Madrid mountains and a cathedral that was build over the span of 100 years.
Gran Via st, the newest most modern street in Madrid - a popular shopping district.
The beach in Valencia, right before the last blog entry. We got here late and there was no time to go swimming but we took a look at the beaches anyways. We decided that in the morning we would get up early and head down for a beach day. We were both in bathing suits and sandals... and this is what happened:
The weather was bad, but we found a European beach volleyball tournament going on at the beach that we could watch. They gave us free ponchos, inflatable hands and Nestea! Germany won both of the matches we watched, even though we were cheering for Austria and Italy.
The Volleyball was good, but this is why we stayed in the rain. They are the Nestea (Pronounced "Nasty" by the announcer) Dance Girls.
We still have not had a chance to hang out at the beach, but we hope to do that in the next week or so. Tonight we are taking it easy because we went to the bar until 6am last night.
Tomorrow afternoon we are flying to Ibiza for 3 days. Not sure how much time we will have to update from the Hotel there (which will be a nice change) - but at the least we will update from Barcelona on Wednesday.
We leave you with an updated layout of the blog...
Thursday, August 23, 2007
We are still alive!
Well, I guess it is time for another blog entry seeing as many of you have concerns that we have gone awal. We did arrive in Madrid on the overnight train we last spoke about. Upon our arrival we checking into our hostel and wondered the streets for a while as we normally do in a new city. This hostel (cats) was a bit of a new experience for us as we were sharing a room with 8 other people. At first it didnt bother me too much as we had our own lockers to keep things safe; however, come night there was an orchestra of snores to keep us from sleeping for very long. There is also the issue of having to tip toe around the room while others are slumbering and then there are the keeners who wake at 8am and flip the lights on. All in all I think we will try and avoid the large shared rooms in the future when possible.
We found the city of Madrid to be quite bland as other backpackers had told us it would be, it had little to offer as far as entertainment and sightseeing. However, it was our first taste of some warm Spanish weather. We did take a walking tour of the city which showed us a few of the sights and tought us some of its history (pictures to come). Later we met with the same tour guides who took us out to a few of the local bars. Again, like the rest of the city the bars were not all that great. Granted I have little good to say about Madrid it was still a cool place to visit and at least now we can say we have been there!
This morning we checked out of our hostel and killed a couple hours by playing catch with a half bottle of water. After this riviting game we hopped on a train to Valencia where we are now. The weather is beautiful here (about 29 deg. and not a cloud in the sky) and we got our first look of the mediterranean sea. We are deffinatly happy to be here! The sun has gone down now for the day but tomorrow we are going to hit the beach and go for a swim. We plan to make our next 3 days here as inexpensive as possible by hanging out at the beach and making our own meals in the hostel kitchen.
We will keep you posted on what´s going on as often as we can but computers are not always easy to come by so if you don´t hear from us in a couple days don´t panic, there will be another blog entry soon!
bye for now...
We found the city of Madrid to be quite bland as other backpackers had told us it would be, it had little to offer as far as entertainment and sightseeing. However, it was our first taste of some warm Spanish weather. We did take a walking tour of the city which showed us a few of the sights and tought us some of its history (pictures to come). Later we met with the same tour guides who took us out to a few of the local bars. Again, like the rest of the city the bars were not all that great. Granted I have little good to say about Madrid it was still a cool place to visit and at least now we can say we have been there!
This morning we checked out of our hostel and killed a couple hours by playing catch with a half bottle of water. After this riviting game we hopped on a train to Valencia where we are now. The weather is beautiful here (about 29 deg. and not a cloud in the sky) and we got our first look of the mediterranean sea. We are deffinatly happy to be here! The sun has gone down now for the day but tomorrow we are going to hit the beach and go for a swim. We plan to make our next 3 days here as inexpensive as possible by hanging out at the beach and making our own meals in the hostel kitchen.
We will keep you posted on what´s going on as often as we can but computers are not always easy to come by so if you don´t hear from us in a couple days don´t panic, there will be another blog entry soon!
bye for now...
Monday, August 20, 2007
"Tapas", easy to find, hard to buy
Here are a couple of pictures from my camera that we didn't post last time:
3. Some fountain in Bordeaux.
Yesterday we left Bordeaux. The dinner we had was great, but the hostel was probably the worst place Ive ever stayed. The smell was horrible and Ryan killed some giant centipede in the morning.
We trained into San Sebastien and eventually figured out how to get to our new hostel, using bus maps as a guide. The city was nice but the weather was not welcoming. After we checked in, we decided it was time for lunch. We wandered the streets and there was hundreds of bars serving tapas, but no one spoke English so we had a hard time figuring out how it works. Eventually we came to the conclusion that you have to ask for a "plato" and fill it up, and pay afterwards. Tapas are nothing like what they serve at La Masia, but still pretty good once you finally get them.
4. Some rare sun in San Sebastien
5. Peek-a-boo, eye see you!
While looking for a place to eat dinner, we ran into some people playing drums and dancing in the rain in the middle of the street (we arrived at the end of some festival here).
6. People playing the drums.
We heard from some people in our hostel that there were fireworks at night, so we headed down to the beach to watch them. They definitely blew the Vancouver fireworks away. We were basically right under the fireworks, and the sparks were flying past our heads.
7. Fireworks in the streets.
8. More fireworks
9. And more fireworks...
After the fireworks we went to some bars to check out the San Sebastian nightlife. Beer was pretty cheap, and somehow we ended up in the middle of a spontaneous Spanish congo line.
Now we are going to hike up to see Jesus on a hill, and then find something for dinner. We have an overnight train to Madrid that leaves at about 10 30. We are under the suspicion that one of us got ripped off with the ticket prices.
1. Vodka shots in the alley for the pub crawl.
2. The Eiffel tower sparkles at midnight (sideways video here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cIBqaRMPTKc)
3. Some fountain in Bordeaux.
Yesterday we left Bordeaux. The dinner we had was great, but the hostel was probably the worst place Ive ever stayed. The smell was horrible and Ryan killed some giant centipede in the morning.
We trained into San Sebastien and eventually figured out how to get to our new hostel, using bus maps as a guide. The city was nice but the weather was not welcoming. After we checked in, we decided it was time for lunch. We wandered the streets and there was hundreds of bars serving tapas, but no one spoke English so we had a hard time figuring out how it works. Eventually we came to the conclusion that you have to ask for a "plato" and fill it up, and pay afterwards. Tapas are nothing like what they serve at La Masia, but still pretty good once you finally get them.
4. Some rare sun in San Sebastien
5. Peek-a-boo, eye see you!
While looking for a place to eat dinner, we ran into some people playing drums and dancing in the rain in the middle of the street (we arrived at the end of some festival here).
6. People playing the drums.
We heard from some people in our hostel that there were fireworks at night, so we headed down to the beach to watch them. They definitely blew the Vancouver fireworks away. We were basically right under the fireworks, and the sparks were flying past our heads.
7. Fireworks in the streets.
8. More fireworks
9. And more fireworks...
After the fireworks we went to some bars to check out the San Sebastian nightlife. Beer was pretty cheap, and somehow we ended up in the middle of a spontaneous Spanish congo line.
Now we are going to hike up to see Jesus on a hill, and then find something for dinner. We have an overnight train to Madrid that leaves at about 10 30. We are under the suspicion that one of us got ripped off with the ticket prices.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
Bordeaux
Well, we had our first encounter with the Euro rail today. We woke up fairly early, had a quick bite to eat and headed to the train station. We somehow fumbled our way onto the correct train which took us on a 3hr ride into Bordeaux (of which I slept most of). Now we took the advise of the hotel we were heading towards and hopped on the tram. This took us about 40ft in the span of about 15 mins and then abruptly broke down. Something was announced in French and we all got off the tram. So, now we were faced with almost an hour long hike with our heavy, heavy backpacks on which caused us to get lost a couple times. Along the way I also was coaxed into sticking my tounge out for a picture for some school kids scavenger hunt, at least thats what I gathered they were doing from there french babble. Finally, we came across our hotel and checked into our smelly room. Unfortunatly after all these delays we missedall the wine tours we came here for but it is still a beautiful city and I am sure we will find something to do. We leave early tomorrow for San Sebastien, Spain so we will have to take it easy on the wine and cheese tonight :)
Thank you all for your comments, please keep them coming!
Thank you all for your comments, please keep them coming!
Friday, August 17, 2007
Pictures
Today we went to the Louvre and Notre Dame.
We found an Internet cafe that will let us upload pictures, so here are a few:
1. Ryan happy to arrive at our 5 star hostel.
2. First beer in Paris.
3. First sight of the Tour Eiffel.
4. View from the top of the Eiffel tower.
5. Us at the top of the Eiffel tower.
6. Ryan enjoying some ancient company - piles of bones with skulls in between them at the Catacombs.
7. Two skulls at the catacombs.
8. Eiffel tower at night, minutes before sparkling.
9. Entering the Louvre...
10. MMmmmm... Gummi Venus De Milo.
11. A hard to get picture in front of the Mona Lisa.
12. The Arc de Triomphe.
13. More Arc De Triomphe.
14. 5 floors of over priced purses...
15. Lauras new suitcase.
16. Entrance to the Louvre.
17. Notre Dame cathedral.
More to come later... Tomorrow morning we're hopping on a train to Bordeaux!
We found an Internet cafe that will let us upload pictures, so here are a few:
1. Ryan happy to arrive at our 5 star hostel.
2. First beer in Paris.
3. First sight of the Tour Eiffel.
4. View from the top of the Eiffel tower.
5. Us at the top of the Eiffel tower.
6. Ryan enjoying some ancient company - piles of bones with skulls in between them at the Catacombs.
7. Two skulls at the catacombs.
8. Eiffel tower at night, minutes before sparkling.
9. Entering the Louvre...
10. MMmmmm... Gummi Venus De Milo.
11. A hard to get picture in front of the Mona Lisa.
12. The Arc de Triomphe.
13. More Arc De Triomphe.
14. 5 floors of over priced purses...
15. Lauras new suitcase.
16. Entrance to the Louvre.
17. Notre Dame cathedral.
More to come later... Tomorrow morning we're hopping on a train to Bordeaux!
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Day trois
Well, today started a little slow as both Jordan and I had a couple too many "free" orange and vodka shots on our booze cruise last night. However, it was a fun trip and probably worth the euros we wasted :) After finally hitting the streets of Paris we took the Metro to the Catacombs and stood in about a 1 hour line. Once inside we were treated to piles and piles of bones and skulls! Apparently back in the day they used the old mines as cemetaries, we took lots of pics but again we are still trying to find a computer that will allow us to upload them.
After hanging out with the dead people we tried to make our selves a dinner in the communal kitchen. All in all it turned out pretty good and saved us some cash, next time will be better though. Then it was off to the Eiffel tower to get some night pictures of it and catch the midnight sparkle show (strobe lights all over the tower), it was pretty good. And as most of our blogs end we are just sitting here in front of the computer now and getting ready for bed.
After hanging out with the dead people we tried to make our selves a dinner in the communal kitchen. All in all it turned out pretty good and saved us some cash, next time will be better though. Then it was off to the Eiffel tower to get some night pictures of it and catch the midnight sparkle show (strobe lights all over the tower), it was pretty good. And as most of our blogs end we are just sitting here in front of the computer now and getting ready for bed.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
One night down...
Last night we wandered around looking for a bar and found nothing but drunk French men, so we called it a night.
We got up early today and had a free breakfast in what is best described as a dungeon. It was a decent croissant and bun and OJ. Later we went off on the Metro and got lost, but eventually made our way to the Eiffel tower. 3 hours later and after many stairs, we took some good pictures from the top.
We went to the Champs D'eleseeys (horrible spelling) after, and saw the Arc De Triomphe. Ryan purchasd a 34,000 euro suitcase at Louis Vuitton for Laura which should be arriving next week.
Now we're off for dinner and a pub crawl...
We got up early today and had a free breakfast in what is best described as a dungeon. It was a decent croissant and bun and OJ. Later we went off on the Metro and got lost, but eventually made our way to the Eiffel tower. 3 hours later and after many stairs, we took some good pictures from the top.
We went to the Champs D'eleseeys (horrible spelling) after, and saw the Arc De Triomphe. Ryan purchasd a 34,000 euro suitcase at Louis Vuitton for Laura which should be arriving next week.
Now we're off for dinner and a pub crawl...
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Finally Arrived!
Bonjour from Le Paris (We have quickly realized we suck at French!)
After many months of planning we have finally arrived in Europe!! It took us about 11 hrs to get from Vancouver to France but Zoom Air was suprisingly good. They served us a couple decent meals, gave us free wine, and played a couple decent movies. We also got to sit next to Shannon fom LOST (or at least her Frence twin), she was even making out with her brother like in the TV show...man the French are odd.
Upon arriving at the air port we confused the bus info girl with our English trying to find our hostel but eventually figured it out on our own. Once at the hostel we were upgraded to a free prvate room, but I use the term "upgraded" loosely. The room is actually ok, a little run down but a decent place to rest for our first couple nights (we will post pics when we get to a computer that will allow us to do so). After dropping our bags we went for a stroll and I attempted my broken French to order a couple beers and cheese sandwiches, it was a very poor attempt. After this snack we walked a bit more and returned to the hostel and now here we are...
We'll be off to find some dinner in a bit here and then probably have an early night. Tomorrow the plan is to see the Eiffel tower, Thursday the Louve, Friday the Catacombs and maybe Notre Dame. After that we'll see but there will be plenty of pics to come in the next couple days so stay tunned.
Miss you all, Au Revoirs!
After many months of planning we have finally arrived in Europe!! It took us about 11 hrs to get from Vancouver to France but Zoom Air was suprisingly good. They served us a couple decent meals, gave us free wine, and played a couple decent movies. We also got to sit next to Shannon fom LOST (or at least her Frence twin), she was even making out with her brother like in the TV show...man the French are odd.
Upon arriving at the air port we confused the bus info girl with our English trying to find our hostel but eventually figured it out on our own. Once at the hostel we were upgraded to a free prvate room, but I use the term "upgraded" loosely. The room is actually ok, a little run down but a decent place to rest for our first couple nights (we will post pics when we get to a computer that will allow us to do so). After dropping our bags we went for a stroll and I attempted my broken French to order a couple beers and cheese sandwiches, it was a very poor attempt. After this snack we walked a bit more and returned to the hostel and now here we are...
We'll be off to find some dinner in a bit here and then probably have an early night. Tomorrow the plan is to see the Eiffel tower, Thursday the Louve, Friday the Catacombs and maybe Notre Dame. After that we'll see but there will be plenty of pics to come in the next couple days so stay tunned.
Miss you all, Au Revoirs!
Wednesday, August 8, 2007
5 days and counting...
It's been a pretty boring blog so far, but that's all about to change in 5 days! (Well, 4 days, 19 hours, 38 minutes and 22 seconds according to the Countdown on Facebook).
Not much new has changed, other than most of the stuff we had to do before leaving is done! It's now into the packing & preparing, which is taking quite a while.
Friday is the last day of work, Saturday I'm moving out of my condo, and Monday @ 5:15 Zoom airlines takes us to Paris. The next few days are going to fly by...
Not much new has changed, other than most of the stuff we had to do before leaving is done! It's now into the packing & preparing, which is taking quite a while.
Friday is the last day of work, Saturday I'm moving out of my condo, and Monday @ 5:15 Zoom airlines takes us to Paris. The next few days are going to fly by...
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