Playing catch-up, AGAIN.

Looks like time for another picture-post.  There is, theoretically, actual content coming.  Seriously.  But..  I get verbose when I’m telling the stories of where I’ve been, and thus, you might have to wait until I’ve at least unpacked my bag for more than three days before all the tales come to the internet.  So far, the text document is at 4 pages, and I haven’t even caught up to the end of the last photo post.  So.  Here we go. (As usual, click on the photos for bigger versions, and other stuff I thought was photo-worthy)

Since I had no Paris photos to show last time, this is what it looked like while we were there.



From Paris, we went to Nice, where instead of pouring rain, it was 30-plus degrees and totally clear.



From Nice, as stated, we went to Strasbourg, which is just on the French side of the French-German border.  We didn’t stay there very long.  Instead, we went to Basel, Switzerland, and from there (over the course of the day) to Munich via Mannheim (which seems like an awfully lengthy “via” but it worked out) and since we only had 4 hours in Munich, we went for a swim.  At the Karl Mueller’sche Volksbad.  And…  It was pretty.



From Munich, we took the overnight to Venice.  (Finally.  It took 4 days of talking to ticket agents and trying to figure things out)  There were song lyrics stuck in my head all day but it was worth it.



The overnight from Venice to us to Vienna.  A friend of mine from the last Australian Rover Moot had the time to show us around for the day, and we spent the night at his place, having had NO luck with ticketing in the morning.  So we got our first shots of city-at-night since we started the whole train thing.



The morning after Vienna, we caught the train to Budapest.  It was… mostly falling apart, it seems.  There are new bits here and there that we saw, but mostly it was just cracked and faded, and not in a good way.  However, we learned that if you are looking for statues that are wearing pants, Budapest is the place to go.



After Budapest, it gets interesting.  Because we were starting to run out of days, pretty much.  We knew that we had to get back to Amsterdam (and the Utrecht) for the last day of the pass.  So.  We went back to Switzerland, because it seems that the SBB are pretty much rail wizards, and can book anywhere-to-anywhere tickets through the Interrail system, unlike most other rail companies, who can only book tickets originating (not even just terminating) in their own countries.  So we turned up in Zurich at about 0730 on a Saturday morning, and then, because we wanted to, and I had postcards to send (I bought stamps for them in Nice, but didn’t have a chance to send them) we went to Basel and from Basel to Mulhouse, France.  Nominally “for breakfast” and the novelty of saying “oh, we went to France for breakfast” but also to send postcards.  And breakfast was totally worth the travel time.  Plus Mulhouse is pretty, even at 9am on a Saturday before it’s properly awake. 



We did end up back in Zurich, and walked around the downtown bit and past the lake, where there were people diving off a tower by a bridge.  It was fun to watch.



In any case, SBB did not fail us, and set us up with the rest of our tickets, and that night we got on the train to Ljubljana, Slovenia.  And it was seriously pretty.  And there were cool dragons on one of the bridges.



I wish we’d had more time there, but alas, out train that night was leaving from Zagreb, Croatia.  So we got on the train in the afternoon, and after exiting the Schengen-area and entering Croatia, we acquired the Zagreb tourist map and did the walking tour suggested by it.  Encompassing, according to the guy at the tourist info place, “all the things you need to see in Zagreb.”  Total time spent walking?  About 2.5 hours, with packs on.  (So yes, normal people could also do it in 2.5 hours.)  There was some nifty tile-work, and a lot of yellow buildings.



The train from Croatia took us to Munich.  We had a quick train ride in the morning, due to Munich not being awake yet (I think it was about 0630) and the settled in for the day.  We were not-quite-accosted as we were leaving the train station with a “hey, you speak English!” by Lenny of Lenny’s Bike Tours, and he was convincing enough (and the price was right enough) to get us to store our stuff for the day and take a bike tour of Munich. 



We are glad we did.  Our tour guide was fun, and did a good job.  We saw the whole city.  And also (silly highlight of the day) I saw a lady selling those crazy “made in Germany” slicer things.  Like, the kind I’m used to seeing at the PNE. It was so unexpected I had to take a picture.



Munich’s overnight took us to Amsterdam.  We spent the day wandering around, as per usual, and found that a lot of Amsterdam seems to be under construction.  Also, the bikes there are crazy.  And their owners are worse than other cities’ bike couriers.  It was bad.



(no pictures to go with the following, because my computer is being slow, and I really don't have the time to wait for it)
Our very last train was to Utrecht, where we had somewhere to stay with friends from JubJam.  We spent the next day and night in Utrecht, doing laundry and catching up on sleep (never underestimate having somewhere horizontal to stretch out) and basically gathering our wits for the next bit of the trip.

I say gathering our wits because the next day we went to the airport to fly to Thailand.  We landed in Bangkok mostly sleep-deprived but otherwise fine, and have spent the last few days here coping with it being hot and humid in between torrential downpours (there have been 2 that we know of).  We’ve been to the zoo, and the market, and the palatial complex and the temple.  We’ve been both in and away from the tourist-heavy parts of the city.  Tomorrow, we go to Malaysia.  We decided while in Utrecht that going overland was a bad idea, so we’re flying.  And in Malaysia?  That remains to be seen.

An Apology

I have to apologize, right now, for being a bad travel-blogger.  Finding the time to write has been tricky; I never know when I will have power, or internet (right now, I have both, luckily) and while I have been trying to keep people up to date, it's not always the easiest thing in the world.  For now, I can tell you where I've been, since the jamboree, and maybe some pictures?  I will write with more content soon, but for now, this will have to do.

First, there was a Jamboree.



From the Jamboree (in Roermond, the Netherlands) We got a ride to Winterthur, Switzerland.



And then we went to Nesslau, with some friends.  We stayed there over the weekend.



From Nesslau, we went to Geneva (via a complicated route that makes me seriously appreciate that Swiss trains are ALWAYS on time)


In Geneva, we bought EuRail passes.  And then it gets interesting.  Since we got the passes, we've been spending a day at a time in various cities, and taking night trains to get to the next potentially interesting destination.

So.  From Geneva (we spent the day there, and it was lovely) to Hamburg overnight.  Instead of staying in Hamburg, though, we jumped on another train, to Copenhagen.


From Copenhagen (where we did not have enough time, but that's life) we went to Stockholm.  Also pretty, but by this point, the kr (the krone, be it Danish, Swedish, or Norwegian, and they're ALL different) was starting to feel awfully expensive (or maybe it was just Stockholm?)


So.  From Stockholm, to Oslo (it was that, or Finland, and we weren't sure how to get back from Finland easily) where it was pouring rain and the locals were... not unfriendly, but not particularly welcoming, either. It got nice about an hour before we left.


From Oslo, we went back through Copenhagen to Hamburg.  We stayed in Hamburg this time, for a bit.  Took enough pictures to kill my camera battery...


From Hamburg, we went (the long, complicated, mostly sleepless way) to Paris.  Where, once again, it was pouring rain. I borrowed the baby camera and got some interesting pictures of Paris in the rain.  No time to grab them yet, though.

Today, we are in Nice.  Where it is such a far cry from yesterday that it's nuts.  It's 30° and there are palm trees.  It's very strange.  And very Mediterranean.  Tomorrow, we get to Strasboug, and from there...  well, it depends on what the ticketing agent says :)

Sorry, ik spreek geen Nederlands!

Ok, so as much as I would love to regale everyone with tales of travel around the UK, it would be a lot of text, and I don't want to type quite that much (nor do I have the time to)  Suffice to say that we went as far south as Portsmouth, as far west as Porthmadog, and as far north as Inverness.  Official rolling distance of 3000km ± 20km.  Longest amount of time spent doing one continuous thing?  About 3 hours, trying to get through London traffic, using Google's directions, and no street map (all the navigating during the trip was done by me, with a road atlas, which was generally sufficient.)

After getting back and dropping off Foxy (our awesome wheels, though a little battered by the rain) we spent one more night in London before heading out to Holland for the JubJam (though it's "yubyam" more often than not, here) in Roermond.  We crossed over the English Channel via Dover and Calais, and gathered another passport stamp, from France.  Nothing from Belgium or the Netherlands, though our bus drove through them, too.

After getting to Amstel (the bus depot in Amsterdam) we made our way to Roermond via train, in 1st class!  (it was totally worth the €1.40 extra) And then...  Well, we hadn't had internet for a few days.  Lots of travel, and apparently wireless is still a chargeable commodity.  So when we got to the train station, we weren't very sure where to go.  Luckily, the ways of the universe are immutable, and the repository of all knowledge is still the pub, even in Dutch.  Some helpful locals pointed us in the right direction, and off we went.  Innumerable steps later, we arrived at camp, to be sent forward and backward a few times before putting up tents and collecting meal cards.  And then it was lunch time.

After relaxing into camp a bit, we realized that really, no matter what language they're speaking, camp is always fundamentally the same.  You find the same people, doing the same jobs, everywhere you go.  Sometimes they even look the same.  And sometimes, it doesn't matter that you can't talk to each other properly, because faces and tones (English and Dutch at least share intonations, which has made life a little easier) and hands (often waving wildly) get the meaning across.  Plus, "wow" sounds the same here, and "ow" and "I need to pee" look the same all over the world. 

Tomorrow our program starts properly, and I'm working at "Outdoor" which is a ton of stuff I love to do; climbing, abseiling, high ropes and zip lines.  We also have some artificial spelunking (which I saw, but haven't closely inspected yet) and hopefully it will stay dry enough to put the slackline up.  But I have a feeling that I will be saying a lot of "sorry, ik spreek geen nederlands!"

Today, the opening ceremony for the jamboree was held in three town squares simultaneously.  It was fun (and in the pre- and post-ceremony times, I did a lot of dancing around like a fool) but if there's one thing I miss, it's being able to understand what's going on around me in words, not just the feel of the action.   At Outdoor, there is always someone to translate for me, given the time, but I didn't find a translator for the ceremony.  I will have to see what I can do about that for the closing.  Anyways, I'm tired of sitting in the lounge tent (the computer needed charging, and I can't do that wirelessly, yet,) and there's a food festival going on in a subcamp that I've made friends with, so here ends another post!

Kit says Hi from the East

Whoops.  I suppose I'm meant to be updating more often, aren't I?  Since I haven't, and I'm sure that at least a couple of people are curious, here's how the first week went:

(Skip to the end for summaries, because this is about to get verbose.  Click on the pictures for bigger versions and more; please excuse the fact that my camera lens is scratched, and thus I have a smudge in the corner of all of my photos.)

Monday July 5: Say goodbye to everyone; got on a plane, flew to NEW (Newark), flew to DUB (Dublin)


Goodbye, Vancouver!  See you again.... sometime.

Tuesday, July 6: Got off the plan in DUB; waited for Gonzo to catch up (spent 1.5 hours in the airport hanging out).  Talked to the tourist information people in Dublin and picked up transit/tourist cards.  Went to the Dublin HI (awesome, but tricky to find.  I think it took us about an hour to get somewhere that turned out to be 10 minutes away) and then explored Dublin on the hop-on/off tourist bus.  Found dinner at a decent pub with friendly staff and then went back to get some much-needed SLEEP (but we made it to 2200, so I don't think we did too badly)

Wednesday, July 6: Played tourist in Dublin all day.  Went on a guided (walking) tour.  Went to Christchurch Cathedral


Christchurch Cathedral in Dublin.  Dublinia is housed in the synod hall off to the left.

and then Dublinia (essentially a "history of Dublin" museum) and then it was time for lunch.  We went to get cornish pasties from a shop we saw on the walking tour, and then hit up the Old Jameson Distillery (not bad; I might even drink it straight?), and went from there to the Guinness Storehouse (I'm not a fan; Guinness tastes like coffee to me; that sort of burnt flavour and I don't get along well.) Finally we went back "home" for the night, after a walk and some dinner, plus some ice cream.

Thusday, July 7: One more day playing tourist in Dublin.  We started at Croke Park, the home of the Gaelic Athletic Association for the Sports Nerd in the company (not me, but I had fun anyways).  For those not in the know, the GAA is in charge of four sports: Gaelic Football, Hurley, Rounders, and Gaelic Handball.  I'm not going to go into details on them because it'd take too long.  Suffice to say they're all brutal, and Croke Park is the National Stadium for them.  From CP we went off to the Wax Muesum plus, which was... disappointing would not be too strong a word.  After the disappointment for the wax museum, we needed cheering up, and headed over to the pasty shop again, for more tasty pasties, and were recognized by the guy at the counter, before getting ourselves over to Kilmainham Gaol.  We made the tour group in the nick of time, and then spent the next hour trying not to be bored, because while the place itself is interesting, our tour group was HUGE, and our guide didn't have the kind of projecting skills she needed.  Also, she sounded bored.  And there were an awfully large nuber of details that would have been interesting if I were Irish, and knew all the people involved, but as it was, I don't, and thus didn't know the context of the information.  And that was Thursday.

Friday, July 8: Got out of the city today.  We took a tour out to Glendalough, the Browne's Hill Dolmen stone, and Kilkenny.  Glendalough (Glen da Loch in Irish; valley of the two lakes) is the site of the ruins of a monastic village, as well as the place where the Book of Kells was found, kept safe from Viking raids because the tower it was in doesn't have a door at ground level.

 
That door is at least ten feet up.  We considered trying to climb up, but determined it would be inappropriate.

The views of the ruins and the valley were amazing.  Absolutely lovely.  From Glendalough we traveled on to the largest (discovered) dolmen stone in Ireland, weighing in at (speculated) 150 tonnes.  Pretty darn massive.  After that it was straight to Kilkenny, for the sake of the castle, and lunch.  It turns out that it's nigh on impossible to procure on-tap Kilkenny when IN Kilkenny, due to it apparently being crap.  The castle is...  another castle.  After a decent lunch we got back on the bus back to Dublin.  In which we arrived in time to find a postbox and then check in for our bus ride to London.  The bus-ferry-bus combination was pretty uneventful, though the ferry reminded us of the Spirit-class BC ferries, just bigger. 

 
See?  Spirit class ferry :)

And paying for things with a combination of Euros and Sterling was fun.

Saturday, July 9: arrive in London absolutely sleep-deprived (the trip from Holyhead to London was not really restful; two people trying to find their respective spaces on a bus when they're only used to their own company is interesting) and without somewhere to stay.  The latter was resolved without too much trouble after a large amount of walking (past Buckingham Palace, and the Canada Gate at Green Park, and Guide House) and then some more walking, but we ended up at Holland Park YHA, which is directly smack-dab in the middle of a city park.  After dropping off our stuff, we went off to enjoy the city.  Meaning we visited the National Gallery, and the National Portrait Gallery, and Trafalgar Square, and Picadilly Circus, and Leicester Square, and walked past Freed (but it was closed), and then came back to the hostel.  Where we bemoaned the exorbitant internet (£1 for 20 minutes; yikes!), did the necessary internet crap, and went to bed.  In the three-stacks of bunks.

Sunday, July 10: explore London a a bit. Wander about, a lot.  We started at Buckingham Palace, for the Changing of the Guard (one of those things that you have to see at least once). We also took in the Canada Gate


Canada Gate with Green Park behind.  Of course I had to share the one with the BC crest on it.

and the Australia Gate, and the "gift of New Zealand" statues and sculptures on the fountain. We also discovered the logic behind police hats and helmets, and the gender inequality inherent in the system ;) We went up to the Greenwich Observatory, and set our watches to GMT proper.  Stood with one foot on each side of 0°0'0" but no pictures.  Too many people.  From Greenwich, took the train a wee bit, and then walked to somewhere to see the Tower Bridge (didn't go all the way to the bridge, but took some nice pictures) and then walked to London Bridge, which was disappointingly boring.  

Continuing along the Thames, we, like the theatre nerds we are, made our way to the Globe theatre.  And asked about £5 tickets.  We were told that yes, they existed, and yes, they had some for that night, but we decided against staying; we'd missed the first 15 minutes of Henry IV (II), and the £5 tickets are for the groundlings.  And while standing for the show is authentic, it had been a long day (and no dinner yet) to spend 3 more hours on foot.  Instead, we walked over the Millenium Bridge, towards an unidentifiable dome which turned out to be St. Paul's Cathedral. 


Not your average cathedral shape in London.  No spiky turrets here.

Exploring on foot is great :)  From St Paul's, we wandered along back towards the touristy (and therefore open-on-Sunday-night) part of town.  We looked for a barbershop on Fleet Street, but there were none to be found.  One or two pie shops, though.  We also found the candy shop from the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory movie.  Seriously.


Can it get any better?  I mean, really.  It's on the corner and everything.

Anyways, we continued on from Trafalgar Square towards theatreland, all the while avoiding the rabid soccer fans (there was some kind of game on?  The Spanish and the Dutch, or something? :p).  Saw a couple of hostels that were better than the one we were in, and finally made it back to Holland Park at about 2230.  Dang, that was a long day.


So, the summaries.

In Dublin:
The HI/An Oige hostel is great.  Wonderful staff, clean, fairly cheap, free wireless, and breakfast included.  10 minutes walk from the main drag.

Madigan's on O'Connell St is excellent.  Share plates contain enough food for two people (the way they're supposed to) and the toffee pudding is excellent.  They have good tea, too.

Do get the (3-day) Freedom Pass.  It's an excellent deal, and it makes it easy to get around.  Plus, the on/off buses are good, and the live commentary ones are quite a lot of fun.

Don't bother with a Dublin Pass (multi-attraction pass) unless you have at least 2 days to use it in.  There's just not enough time in a day for the one-day pass to be worth it.  Also, don't bother with the Wax Museum Plus (it's just boring, even if you're only 10) or Kilmainham Gaol, unless you're REALLY into Irish history. 

In London:

Figure out how the Underground works.  Learn how to read the map.  It will do wonders for your sanity and your ability to get around quickly, especially when paired with a Zone 1/2 daypass, as long as you pay attention to the service updates.

Find somewhere to stay before you get there.  Especially during high season.

Don't stay at the Holland Park YHA unless it's absolutely the VERY LAST option you have.  It's expensive, and the dorms suck.  I have no desire to pay £20+ a night (after the HI member discount) for a bed in a 20-bed dorm.  The staff are snooty, and while the breakfast is excellent (full english style) the internet is slow, and a ripoff (50p for 10 minutes, £3 for an hour).  It's also annoying to get to, and the kitchen is badly provisioned (in terms of dishes)

Walk around as much as you can.  The best discoveries are made on foot.

At this point, I'm almost a week behind, and I'll try to get things on track soon, but I make no promises.  Even my (paper) journal has been neglected for a few days...  Oops.  Anyways, till next.

T-minus 13 hours and counting

It's funny.  After all the hubbub of the last few days (packing and moving and packing and moving and cleaning and moving) now that it's all done, I'm pretty sure it hasn't hit yet that I'm saying goodbye to a ton of people that I'm not going to see for probably a year.  I can't get my head around that, and as such, I seem to be ignoring it.  My guess is that the wall will come crashing down somewhere between here and Newark, likely over the central prairie section, but possibly before the Rockies.  I could, however, be wrong.  It might not hit until I land in Dublin.  I'm not sure.  All I know is that for the last few days, sleep has been elusive.  I'm not sure what to make of that.  I've been waking up in the middle of the night a lot, for no apparent reason.  Clearly my body is already trying to make a time change.  Or something like that.  In any case, this is probably the last North American post for quite a while.  I'll shout out from the other side of the Atlantic on Tuesday at the earliest.  Probably whining about being jetlagged and hungry :p

Getting along

Well, I'm almost there.

Actually, that's patently untrue.  I am not ready.  Or at least, I don't feel ready.  It's one of those Willy Wonka moments; so much to do, so little time (so of course, I'm writing a blog post.  Duh...)  I have a list on the wall in my apartment right now, of all the things I need to to to be ready.  It's complicated by the fact that I'm also packing up my entire life and putting it into storage, so there's a lot of sorting and making piles, of things to go to other (better) homes, and things that belog to other people, and things that I would like to keep.  I am packing everything into plastic bins.  I'm not a fan of cardboard.  The problem I've been running into is the lack of ease in keeping the weight down when packing.  It seems that I only have so many light, bulky, squashy things.

In any case, I've asked people to help me move things on Friday morning, so I suppose I'd best be ready by then.  I think the packing will be finished, or at least I hope it will be, and then all I have to do is clean.  There's a lot of that, too, but it seems less daunting than the packing part.  Somehow.  For whatever reason.  I'm not going to question it, I don't think.  It's just easier that way.  And maybe I can convince people to help me with that part, too.  You never know.

I'm probably not going to get a lot of sleep between here and Dublin.  Just a guess. 

I'm very much experiencing zugunruhe.  (I love that word.  So... concise.  It's German, and generally used for behavior in migratory birds, but applies here, too.  It means "unrest before a journey" which pretty much sums up my life.  I'm restless, and a little bit unable to settle to any given task.  It's not ADHD bad, yet, but it means I'm awake late, and then awake early, too)

Oh, what's this? More bloggery?

It comes to mind that since I'm not using the livejournal, I should have some way of keeping track of travels, trials, and tribulations not involving knitting. It would be a thought, right?  So, here follows the account of getting me, and maybe an Oggie, around the world, and perhaps even home (in time for supper, of course)