Yiamis!

Well, we've moved on from Italy (for now) to Greece. We took an overnight train from Rome to Brindisi, and got in around 8am. After that we found our way to the ferry port and caught an 11:30 ferry to Corfu, getting us in just after 7pm Greek time. A Pink Palace bus was waiting for us and took us to the hotel where would spend the next three nights.


The long ferry we took from Brindisi to Corfu.

When we checked in we were given a free shot of Ouzo (the local Greek liquor which tastes like Sambucca), and taught how to say cheers in Greek ("Yiamis!").

Dinner was included at the Pink Palace and it was quite good. It's not exactly busy season, so tons of the tables are empty and the bar isn't as busy as it would be in July or August.

At night we went to the night club at the hotel and had a few drinks and had some much needed sleep.

The next day we woke up relatively early to do laundry, and signed up for the quad safari tour of Corfu. It took us to a few great lookout points at the tops of mountains, a beach to swim at, some off roading, and several bars for a few drinks.All in all, it was a good way to see Corfu.


One of the lookout points.


Ryan at another lookout point.


The last lookout point, where you can kind of see the area where the Pink Palace is.

After the quad safari we had some dinner, drank a cheap bottle of Vodka and headed to the hotel bar again.


Some of the people on our quad safari that we hung out with at the bar.

We drank way too much and slept in until 2pm and didn't leave the room until 4pm for lunch. It was a rough morning. Unfortunately, we had to get ready to do it again as Saturday night was the Toga Party. We picked up our Togas and headed down to the bar again after dinner.

We realized that we look ridiculous, but so did everybody else.


Us in our Togas.

Around 1am there was a big Ouzo circle where everyone sat on the dance floor, and they poured you Ouzo shots and smashed plates on your heads.

The night was a bit less messy than the night before, but we had to get up early to checkout by 9am. We finally found a bus that would get us to the ferry terminal at 1:45, and headed down there not sure where we were going next. There were no ferries to Patras (to get to Zakynthos), but we found one to Igoumenitsa, and that's where we are now.


Arriving in Igoumenitsa.

We've got an 8:45pm bus to Athens that will get us there in about 8 hours (we think), so now we're just killing some time before we leave. We plan on spending a couple of days in Athens, and doing a day trip or two to some of the Cyclades (Islands) nearby. After that, we have to make our way back to Italy to see Venice, before heading to Oktoberfest!

Hangin' with the Pope

As we told you yesterday we were going to see the Pope today. However, before I get to that here are a couple pictures we took yesterday as we strolled the streets of Rome...


This is the Pantheon, it is apperantly the best preserved ancient Roman building, it is also a marvel of ancient architecture and resting place of the great artist Raphael.


These are the Spanish steps, to be quite honest I don't know anything about them...


Here is me eating some yummy gelato on the Spanish steps. Directly opposite these stairs are some of the best (and most expensive) streets to shop on. Jordan splurged a little and bought a t-shirt.


Now back to the Pope...here he is! We got to the Vatican around 10am just in time to see Pope Benedict XVI fly over head in his private helicopter. About 15 minutes later he appeared on a cart that was towed through the crowds so that he could wave at everyone, this was the closest he came to us. From here he was towed to the front where we gave a short speech (in seven different languages), led a hymn, and blessed us. This blessing was also extended to our family and loved ones...hopefully you now all feel a little more religious, we certainly do.


After our divine meeting with the Pope we decided to take a stroll down the street and check out his castle (seen above). It wasn't quite as impressive as we thought it would be so we opted not to pay the 6 euro admission fee.


Now we were at a loss for what to do; we've seen all the tourist attractions we wanted to see, we've checked out of our hostel and our train isn't for another 8 hours. So, we decided to try and find an English movie to see (easier said than done). We wanted to see "Super Bad" which as you can see above is called "Suxbad" here in Italy. Unfortunately it wasn't in English and not even released yet.
Then seemingly out of no where the 3 main starts from this movie climb out of two nearby Hummers and walk past us!


The guy in the white here is the one on the far right of the poster (Jordan was excited to see him because he is in Arrested Development).


The curly haired guy in the middle here is the main star of this movie.

So, even though there were no movies for us to watch we did get to see these guys which was kind of exciting....and completely random! I think they were doing some kind of promotional work but we didn't stick around to find out. We are now back at the hostel killing some time before we hop on our night train to Brindisi and ultimately our ferry to Greece...We will update you again from there.

Where is the Popemobile?

Here are some of the pictures Ryan promised last time:


A view of the Duomo in Florence from near our campsite.



Outside of the Colosseum.


Ryan on the lower level of the Colosseum. We both took souvenir pieces of brick from the ground here.


Me on the upper level of the Colosseum.


Part of Ancient Rome, near the Roman Forum. The top would be part of Palatine Hill, and in the bottom right is part of the senate where Caesar would have spoken.


The day we did the Colosseum we also went and saw the Trevi Fountain. Legend has it that if you throw one coin into the water, you are ensured a quick return to Rome. If you throw two - you are granted a wish. Naturally, I threw two.

Yesterday, we headed off to the Vatican City to have our 4 hour guided tour of the Vatican Museums. When we arrived the lineups were horrendously long - spanning almost a kilometer (we think). By the time our tour started the lineups were a lot smaller, and we got in relatively quickly. At the front of the lineup, Ryan hopped out of the line to grab us a couple of waters from a street vendor. When he tried to hop back in, the Vatican security guards would not let him back, and after some begging he was told to go to the back of the line. He eventually budged in front with some people who saw it happen and let him back, but the tour group was concerned...


Ryan outside the Vatican church.


Me with the Vatican Obelisk.


Apparently this is one of the 10 most famous statues in the world. They are not sure if it is the original, and part of an arm was discovered long after finding the statue.

At the end of the tour of the museum we made our way to Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel. There was a lot of buildup to it, and we learned about what each of the frames represent and when they were created. You are not supposed to take pictures inside, but we managed to get one of the ceiling.



Overall it was a very impressive tour, and the museum would not have been the same without the guide (we probably would have gotten lost). After the tour we went to the church and watched a bit of the 5pm mass, and saw a few more statues and things.

Our tour guide mentioned that the Pope makes an appearance Wednesdays at 10am in the Popemobile. We plan on seeing him tomorrow morning, hopefully we can get a picture or two, but it will probably be busy.

Today we are off to see the Spanish Steps, some shopping, and the Pantheon. Tomorrow we check out, but have the day to kill as we are catching a night train (around midnight) to Brindisi, where will catch a morning ferry to Corfu to start our Greece visit.

All roads lead to rome

Well, we survived our 2 nights camping in Florance and are now exploring Rome. Upon our arrival at the train station in Rome we followed the directions to our new hostel. This included a subway, an above ground train ride and a shuttle bus to our new campground! Yes, that's right, we are camping again...much to our surprise. However, we have upgraded to a small trailer at this campsite rather than the tent that we had at the last one (a slight improvement). Aside from the fact that we are spending our next few days camping again the park that we are at isn't all that bad. There is a pool, bar, market, and a pretty good restaurant at our disposal here.

Today we travelled into downtown Rome (about a 1hr journey from our accommodation) where we took a tour of the Colosseum and other Roman ruins. It was amazing to see what is essentially the start of civilization as we know it. The Colosseum was a thrill to walk through and imagine what it would have been like during it's hay day, packed with Romans watching gladiators battle to the death. After this we took a quick lunch break and then took another guided tour through the Roman Forum. Here we got to see the ruins of where the wealthy would have lived from the first century and onward. There were also churches, shrines, arches, senates, and much much more to see. In fact there is so much to see and so much information coming at us it was a little overwhelming at times. Again, it was quite amazing to think of what this area would have looked like during Rome's golden age under Caesar's rule. We got a little camera happy and took quite a few pictures so as usual we will be posting them up soon for your viewing pleasure.

Our last tour guide of the day was very informative and put on a pretty good show. So, tomorrow we plan to meet him around noon at the Vatican to take another tour with him. Apparently the Vatican museum and Sistine Chapel can be quite confusing to see alone so we feel it is in our best interest to invest some money into a guided tour here as well. Again we will take lots of pictures and report back to you all how it goes.

As for now my stomach is telling me it is time for dinner so I will leave it at that.

I think I am addicted to gelatto

We have not posted any pictures in a couple of weeks, so here are a few older ones, along with some new ones...

The museum of sciences and some other buildings in Valencia (similar to Science World in Vancouver).

Judgement Sundays at Eden in Ibiza... San Antonios busiest night.

Us drinking our 11 euro vodka sprites, nursing them very slowly.

Ryan and a cell phone at Eden. There was also a dancing suitcase and a Panda, but I think we mentioned that before.

The legendary sunsets at Cafe Del Mar in Ibiza. Right after this the sun disappeared into a layer of smog. Not quite as nice as other places, but still fun to see.

Me outside Cafe Del Mar before the sunset...

One of only two pictures of the Museu Picasso (Barcelona) that we were allowed to take.

The beach in Nice... Awesome looking water, but full of pebbles.

The last picture taken on Ryans camera. This is in Monaco after getting off the train. We bought the disposable camera after but havent had a chance to develop the pictures yet.

The day after Monaco, we did another day trip to Cannes, famous for the film festival. It was another expensive city like Monaco, reminding us how poor we are. It seemed to be a bit more welcoming than Monaco.

The theatre where the film screenings are done in Cannes.

Ryan compares hands with Bruce Willis.

Chuck Norris takes a break from round house kicks on Walker Texas Ranger to make his hand prints in Cannes.

Our last night we had a few drinks with a guy from Virgina and went to the same pub as a few nights earlier, this time with Carlsburg instead of nasty Kilkenny. It was a relatively early night (and this time Im not downplaying the drunken mayhem).

The next morning we tried to figure out where to go in Italy that day, as we were quite confused. Before we left, we tried to book a hostel in Cinque Terra (as we had heard good things about it from other travellers) but nothing was available. We decided we would catch a train to Genova and see what we could do from there, hopefully finding somewhere to stay. When we got to Genova, it was a quick train ride into Monterossa (the main town of the 5 in Cinque Terra), so we got on the next train and hoped for the best.

After an hour or two of banging on doors trying to find places to stay, and looking like fools, we were almost ready to get on a train out of there or camp on the beach. We continued to wonder the streets, when out of no where, some guy asked us if we wanted a room. He took us up some stairs into the "suite" of the building, which was actually quite nice. It had a kitchen, bathroom, etc, the things we are used to sharing with other people. We ended up paying 30 euro each for the first night, and 25 for the second night, which included some free wine and pesto tasting.

We had a good dinner (the best tortellini Ive ever had), and the best gellato we have ever had, and took a couple of pictures and went to bed.

View of Monterosso from out in the water.

The next morning we went on a hike through the 5 towns, which is supposed to take 5 hours if you do not stop in any of the towns, but we stopped a little in each. The second town after Monterosso (seen below) we had lunch and bought water..

The fourth town, we bought some gelatto and went swimming in this water...

After the hike we took a train back, cooked some dinner, and drank some cheap wine. Its starting to grow on us... A little.

The next morning we headed to Florence, but not without a quick stop over in Pisa. Upon arriving at the tower, we were treated to views of tons of people taking stupid pictures with their hands in the air trying to hold up or push down the tower. We laughed for a while, and decided to take some of our own.

If I wasnt here, lots of people would die.

Ryan cant push it over...

After a couple of hours in Pisa, we took a train to Florence, and tried to find our new accomodation. We spent a bit more in Cinque Terra than we had planned, so we found some budget 10 Euro a night campsite to go to. It is actually pretty good. It comes with a tent that has 3 beds, a bar, a market, a close restaraunt, a great view of the city, and many other things. It was difficult to find but its not bad for only two nights.

Today we headed into town after our first night freezing in the tent, and went to the Galleria dell Accademia. It is famous for having the statue of David. You are not suppossed to take pictures, but Ryan managed to sneak one in amidst the security guards yelling at us.

After the musem, we wandered the streets and saw the Duomo cathedral. Its a bit like Notre Dame, but not as impressive inside.

Thats all for now... Tomorrow morning sometime we are off to Rome for 4 nights before heading to Greece!

It's nice in Nice.

So, here we are again in completely new surroundings and trying our best to find our way around. As Jordan said in his last entry day one in Nice was pretty much a right off seeing as it was spent doing nothing but travelling. Day 2 (yesterday) we spent a relatively quiet day seeing what sights Nice has to offer near by. At first we were actually quite disappointed with what we saw but then realized that is just because our hostel is conveniently located in about the dirtiest, shadiest part of town. After a 15min walk we found the beautiful coast line of the French Rivera. There isn't much for sandy beaches here but the water is probably the nicest I have ever seen, crystal clear blue as far as you can see, lined with cliffs and small pebble beaches. After walking this coast line until our feet hurt we retreated back to the hostel to cook dinner and have a quick rest. From here we headed back to the coastal area to find a pub to have a couple drinks at. We ended up sitting down at an Irish pub and had a couple Kronenberg's (French beers). After these beers ran dry Jordan figured he would order us a couple Kilkenny's (dark Irish beer)....they were gross but at 6 euro a piece we were going to find a way to finish them. With the bitter taste of nasty beer in our mouth we walked back to the hostel and went to bed.

Today we took a short train to Monaco where we spent much of the day. After exiting the train station were instantly awe struck by the beautiful exotic cars, mansions and massive yachts. We snapped a quick pic of the boats in the harbour and then my brand new $450 camera stopped working! As of yet we have not been able to fix the problem but I am giving the battery a full charge right now so I hope that fixes the problem. Anyway, we can't visit Monaco and only take one picture so we were forced to purchase a disposable camera (not a planned part of our budget). So off we went armed with our new "enjoy" camera to see the Monte Carlo casino. We weren't prepared to pay the 10 euro cover per person to enter the Casino so we went to a neighbouring one to waste away another 5 euro on the slots (we figured we had to do at least a little bit of gambling while in Monaco). From the casino we just wondered the city taking pics of the exotic cars and beautiful scenery. Unfortunately before we can post any of these pictures we are going to have to find a store to develop our film and save them on CD for us. While in Monaco we also stopped for a quick panini and soda, we ended up having to pay 5.80 euro per soda! We sure are missing the $2 bottomless sodas at home right now.

We are now back in Nice where we just had dinner, ate gelato and watched some street performers. Now I think we are just going to head off to bed, get an early start tomorrow and head over to Cannes.

Goodnight from Nice!

Quick Update From Nice

Yesterday we started our trek to Nice. We woke up at 7am, and had a train schedule that was set to get us in just before 9pm (with 2 connections). That never happened..

We took the first train from Barcelona to Cerbere (on the France border) and just caught the train with minutes to spare. After arriving in Cerbere, we headed off to Avingon (also in France), expecting to make our connection to Nice (there was 30 minutes between trains). Halfway to Avingon, the train stopped, and they made some announcement about "security" in French, which we didn't understand. We were stuck for over 45 minutes, and by the time we finally got to Avingon the train had left.

After some difficult communication with the people there, we found a train to Marseille that left in 40 minutes or so and would have connections to Nice. We got on the Marseille train, but it was delayed 40 minutes, causing us to think we'd missed the Nice connection. Finally arriving in Marseille, we found the Nice train was delayed 1 hour 15 mins, so we could still make it, but it required reservations (and they could no longer issue them). We eventually talked to the controller of the train and she allowed us on, and we made it to Nice around midnight!

Our hostel thought they lost our reservation, so it was a bit of a disaster checking in so late. Either way, we're here now, for 3 more nights. The plan is to see some of Nice today, and day trip to Cannes and Monaco the next 2 days.

One thing we forgot to mention on the last entry is that in Barcelona, we went to the Picasso Musem. Couldn't take any pictures inside, but got a few outside. It was quite interesting...

Off to see Nice...