Jacqui.ch

Greece Pics

2006-07-18T00:45:00.000+02:00

Me and Adrienn having an eclectic meal on our way to Greece

Running on the track at Olympia

Adrienn surrounded by the splendor of Olympia

The beautiful water of Methoni

Adrienn looking thoughtful at Methoni fortress

To infinity....

We have to go all the way up there? (Mystreas)

Top of the world

I can see Sparta!

Tomb at Mycene

Adrienn testing out the awesome echo power of the tomb

The wonderful town of Napflio (we had such a chill time here that we hardly took any pictures, haha)

The impressive theater at Epidaurus

View of Athens from the Acropolis

The Parthenon! I wish we had a picture of it at night....wow!

Looking over the Agora to the Acropolis

Temple of Olympian Zeus... look how small Adrienn is in comparison!

Us with our Austrian friends (Danijel and Markus). We all look pretty ragged since we just missed a bus to Delphi after rushing from the hostel

Me and Evan at the glorious sight of Delphi!

Check out the amazing surrounding scenery beyond the theater

Another race, this one less fair

Overwhelmed with worship

The Tholos at Delphi

Adrienn presenting our very lovely apartment in Santorini!

Cruising inside the caldera on our way to the volcano

Knife vs. Pretzel

Adrienn exploring the volcano

View of the main island from the volcano

Evan feeling the wind

Walking back to the boat

Adrienn leading the way on her donkey

Evan being hardcore on his donkey (notice how Adrienn got a huge animal while evan got a small one...lol)

Cool, a windmill!

Church at Oia (also the square where we napped)

Me and the town of Oia

Classic Santorini view

And another one

Evan and me watching the sunset at dinner

None of the pictures really capture it, but the view was awesome

All of us about to have a wicked dinner

Me and Adrienn riding Sasha and Scooter

Evan showing off his quad skillz

It's windy up here!!!!!!!

Cute little cafe

We found the red beach!

Sunset on our last night in Santorini

Having some good times in our beach hut on Mykonos (check out our fan!) (and the patched slash mark in the screen.... hmmm...)

Striking a pose on the beach

Me and Adrienn enjoying our lounge chairs

The party on the beach. Yes that is a guy in a thong (just be happy we didn't get a picture of the front...)

My travel buddies sleeping off the hangover while waiting for the ferry (this was supposed to be a shocker pic, but the person took it too soon!)

Croatia Pics

2006-07-17T23:15:00.000+02:00

I finally got pictures from Adrienn from our trip! Enjoy :)

Well...I guess we're in Croatia! Zagreb is rainy...

Plitvice National Park. Was wet and rainy so we invested in ponchos!

Too bad they don't cover our feet... (you can't really tell in the pic, but our feet are soaked)

Nice view of the largest waterfall in the park, and some others

It's me! And some other random dude...

Adrienn in Zadar

The accordion steps in Zadar

The beautiful island of Hvar

Me checking out the Hvar dock from the fortress

Me and Adrienn on our way ou to the Hvar castle

Aftermath of hail! Not that huge, but suprising anyways!

Split! I think I should mail this to the Lonely Planet

Dramatic sky over Split

Adrienn getting her statue on

Nice sunset we watched on the bus ride to Sievnik

Adrienn at Krka National Park (not as rainy this time!!!)

Another impressive waterfall park

Enjoying a cappuccino in Dubrovnik

Adrienn and the main street in Dubrovnik old town

View from the city walls (looking out)

Me on the walls in Dubrovnik. I love all the red roofs!

Adrienn and me with a really nice painter that we met. He showed us all his work and we each bought something.

This roof is a bit older I guess....lots of funky colours :)

Wow that's a long way down!

Us and Mama Maria

Ferry to Italy / Chaco sandal add ;)

Mykonos - what Ibiza never was

2006-06-28T20:45:00.000+02:00

Let me create a scene in your mind:

First, get a non-stop techno beat going in the background of you mind. It varies based on the time of day, but never fully ceases. You should be so accustomed to this beat that if ever by chance there is complete silence you feel suddenly uneasy, and must rush back to the safety of paradise beach.

Next, clutter the scene with tanned/burned beach-goers. If it's early in the day (aka, noon-4) they will be lazing on the beach, wearing some variable level of clothing trying to tan off the hangover from the night before. Later in the afternoon, they will migrate to the bars (that are directly on the beach of course) and proceed to party, get drunk, and dance on the bars. I have never seen such a cool beach party vibe, everyone was having a great time moving to the beat, enjoying the late afternoon sun! The highlight of the party will either be the gang of big-spender guys buying bottle after bottle of champagne for their girls of the day, or the elephant-thong clad dj dancing at the center of attention.

In the early night, the beach will be deserted except for a few party-goers trying to predrink for the bar. Everyone else will be at home resting and getting dolled up for the clubs, which get going around 1. On our last night there we went to a foam party, haha, it was sweet! And nicely complemented by the dip in the club swimming pool right after.

Depending on what club you are at, things will end sometime in the morning. We went to a party at Cavo Paradisio, which is a super popular afterhours club near paradise beach. The location is awesome, the big openair venue overlooks the sea, and there are various areas to dance and lounge and you watch the sun rise. Things ended around 7-8am, and we wandered back down the road for some breakfast, and to crash in our beach hut.

Oh ya, the beach huts. They deserve their own paragraph. We decided to stay right on paradise beach where all the action is. You can rent beach huts for only 12 euro a night, and that buys you a little canvas-covered wooden frame with a couple beds. It was actually really sweet, despite the supre ghettoness of it. If only we could split the cost of rent with all the various insects sharing the tent with us. Our first day we invested in a fan, which was the best idea ever, since it kept the stifelling morning heat to a minimum, and we were even able to sell it on our last day (had somewhat of an auction at dinner, haha). The shared bathrooms and showers were pretty decent, and it was only a minute away from the beach and all the main partying!

One of the most interesting stories was on our way to Cavo Paradiso...we're walking down a dark dirt road, and pass a guy saying weird things on the street. Adrienn and I turn on our defensive skills and walk quickly past, but Evan, being a less dangered tall threatening guy, stops to ask the guy if he is ok. Turns out it's an American military guy who was drunk, and had cut his foot and needed some assistance. We help him to the bar, where the bouncers are jerks and won't even give us basic medical supplies to clean off the guy's foot. A few drinks and military secrets later, we make do with some gauze and tape from the nearby resturant. Trig (the guy) is doing a lot better, and we don't see much of him for the rest of the night.

Fast forward to the next day. We're at the foam party, and I notice a familiar looking guy (actually, I recognized his sandals). We ask him if he hurt his foot the night before...and it's the same guy! He's totally greatful for our help, which he called the appearance of gaurdian angels, haha. We met his friends and partied with them a bunch.

So that was Mykonos, our days filled with beaching, partying, and more partying (though Evan actually made it to the ancient island of Delos one day, kudos dude). It was an awesome way to wind up the trip for me, and we met lots of fun people. The trip home after that wasn't too eventful... we all took a ferry back to Athens and then I bid farewell too Adrienn and Evan and they continued on to Turkey. I flew to Berlin, and after a nice, familiar sleep in the Berlin airport, returned back to Switzerland!

This trip was the best possible way I could wrap up my year in Europe. I had such a great time, and can't wait to see the pics from Adrienn and Evan's camera, which I will post some of.

Jacqui :)

P.S. Our final day in Santorini we ended up getting quads instead of scooters, based on some drivers licence difficulties. Was a wicked time though, we cruised all over the island and explored all the corners and peaks, it was a thrill! And I still named mine Sasha ;)

Greetings from Sunny Santorini

2006-06-21T17:32:00.000+02:00

We're on the Greek islands! Santorini to be more specific, it's a 10ish hour ferry ride away from Athens, down south right before crete. The island is beautiful, it was created by a series of volcanos, so there is a big ridge surrounding the crecent-shaped, sea-filled creator. We managed to find a 3-person apartment (Evan is with us now!) for pretty cheap, and it has a kitchen and everything...and no bug infestations! It's super sunny and hot here, and we have been taking full advantage. Yesterday, after arriving on the overnight ferry (slept outside on the deck, pretty nice actually!) we hit the beach for the whole day. Well, Evan decided to hike up a mountain, but Adrienn and I opted for lazyness instead :) Because of the volcano, the beach is all black sand, well, more like little pebbles. It's awsome! They are small enough to be comfertable, but not sooooo sandish-small that they get everywhere. Not to far away from the beach there are some rocks that you can swim to, they are perfect for laying out on because the wind helps with the otherwise unbearable heat. And what a wind! The swim was pretty nuts, waves crashing into my face, ewwww salllllttttty.

Today we took a boat tour around the inside of the calandra, starting with over to the volcano. We walked up the still semi-active volcano, you can even see steam coming out from the ground (but the pamphlet insured that they would have a warning before it erupts again, haha). Next we jumped off the boat into a part of the ocean warmed by the sulfur from the volcano. It was nice and warm, but the water was pretty orangy-sulfury, not super clear like the rest of the island. We went to another island that was part of the original calandra rim, and walked up the ridge and had lunch. Actually, Evan and Adreinn rode donkeys up! Hehe. I figured my allergies might not approve of that, so I opted for walking instead. Our final boat stop was another town on the mainland, where we walked up the cliff, again. It was so hot by the top that we just collapsed on a bench in the shade and had a nap, haha, it was just what I needed. Now we're just killing time before going for dinner and watching the beautiful sunset!

Greece just continues to be amazing every day. Athens was way cooler than I expected (everyone has said it's a bit of a hole). Our first night there we walked up near the Parthenon and sat on some rocks overlooking the city. It was so beautiful, especially seeing the Parthenon all lit up! I signed up for a day tour, which was about 6 hours and covered all the main sights in Athens, and there are sure a lot of them! It was a walking-intensive day, in the heat, but pretty sweet. The acropolis was quite impressive, but I think it looks better from afar. It was cool hearing about some of the history of the city though, so the tour was really good. Afterwards I headed straight for the National Archiological Museum, where there are artifacts from all over the country held. It was just amazing, some of the scluptures are really impressive. I stayed there until my energy gave out, and then went back to the hostel for a much needed shower. I met up with the others (we all had different Athens days) and we went out for dinner with a nice view of the Acropolis.

Monday morning we had planned to wake up early to visit Delphi (3 hours away), but unfortunatly overslept. We rushed super-fast to the bus station, but missed our bus by like a minute (sure, the ONE time a bus in Greece leaves on time!). Instead we just caught a later bus, and still had enough time to visit the site and return to Athens for our night ferry. Delphi was really cool, one of the best preserved stadiums in Greece and some beautiful temples (aka, ruins of).

We have one more day in Santorini, and the current plan is to rent scooters! I'm going to name mine Sasha, and nothing makes me happier than riding her through puddles after it rains.

I'm home in a week! I can't believe it. It will be sad to leave Europe, especially with how awesome this last trip is, but I also look forwards to seeing everyone! And wearing fully clean clothes! And sleep in my real bed!

Well, I have no idea when my internet time runs out. We're at the EasyJet Internet Cafe, and you pre-purchase time for 3 euro, but there is no guarentee about how long it lasts. Typical EasyJet, hahahaha...

Over and out
Jacqui :)

Greece - the new Italy

2006-06-17T19:51:00.000+02:00

The title of this post comes from the inefficient Greek transportation system. Adrienn and I were discussing if it is actually worse than Italy... In Greece it's hard to find out information, but that also means you are not finding out incorrect information (as in Italy)... cept sometimes you are. Who knows...

Anyways, onto more important matters, as I try to finish this post in the 7 min I have remaining on my internet purchase.

Currently in Athens, just arrived tonight and we are finally staying in a decent hostel, with no bug infestation of any kind... so far. Tomorrow we will check out the city, maybe on a walking tour, that will be a hardcore day of trying to see all the sights in on day! Evan also arrives tonight, so we will meet up with him in a few hours, and he will join us on the rest of our travels (Delphi and the Greek Islands).

We just came from 3 days in the town of Napflio. That is probably spelt wrong... It was the first time on our travels that we have stayed in the same place for more than one night, and it was really nice to finally settle a bit. The town was a good place to base ourselves to see some nearby sights: we saw the ancient ruins of Mycene and Ephidoros (once again, spelling, sigh...), and also spend a day in Napflio seeing the big fortress up on the hill and doing some quality beaching (sometimes you just have to relax a bit!). Mycene is your typical ruins, but one cool thing was some tombs that were shaped in such a way that if you stand in the center and make a small noise, the sound echos back to you way louder than the original sound! There was a similar effect at the theater at Ephidoros, it's acoustically designed so that standing on the stage projects your voice to the whole theater. Personally, I thought the tomb was cooler for that (despite how much Ephidoros is advertised), but the theater was still very impressive to see.

Prior to that we spent some time in a small town on the the west coast of a southern peninsula of the Peloponese. It was a really small place, but nice to get away from the hustle bustle a bit.

We also spent a night in Sparta, which was a cool city, despite what I have heard. We chilled out in a cafe and played backgammeon, haha, Adrienn taught me the game, it was fun. The next morning we took the bus to Mystreas, a big fortress on a hill (that was a long walk up in the sun!). It is not as ancient as some of the other things we have seen, so there was a lot intact.

A bit about greek food: WOW. We have eaten out a few nights and had some amazing things. The yougurt here is crazy, really thick and rich. A true test for a seasoned yogurt-lover as myself...I think I have finally met my match. Baklava is awesome too...so gooey and sweet, mmmmm.

Well, I failed the quick blog posting, and had to buy internet time. Oh well, I do what I have to to keep my faithful blog fans with their semi-weekly fix, hahaha.

Jacqui :)

Croatia to Greece - a tale of 2 ferries

2006-06-11T21:08:00.000+02:00

This is Jacqui, reporting liiiiive from Olympia!
Ok, sorry, my crazyness on this post can be mostly blamed on the loud super cheesy dance remix music being played by the internet cafe I'm in. Ice, ice baby....I love it of course, haha.

I've been waiting to visit Greece ever since grade 6, when we learned about the gods, Trojan war, etc. Then taking a Greek mythologyy class in 1st year only fueled my excitement! And now I'm finally here!

Let me back track a bit...last I posted, we were waiting to take the bus to Dubrovnik in Croatia. The bus was uneventful, one of the non-occuring events being sleep, haha. We arrived super early and trekked around searching for the hostel...finally we found it, and a few meters away we were intercepted by Mama Maria an older, very sweet Croatian woman. She convinced us to stay in her private accomidation, boasting a better breakfast and cheaper prices. It ended up being a good decision, though, the room wasn't that great. She ended up doing our laundry for us somehow, haha, and helped us cook dinner in her kitchen. It was like visiting some distant relative, haha, I'm glad we stayed with her.

Dubrovnik was very interesting, the whole old town is surrounded by high walls to protect it from attack. We spent most of the afternoon walking around the walls, which give an amazign view of the city. It ended off with having a beer with some guys from Vancouver at a cafe right below the walls by the sea. That night we went out and partied with a crew on a kontiki tour, they provided some good drunk entertainment, haha. I can only imagine that this is what the praktikants seem like to other travellers, hahaha.

The next day we took a ferry to Bari, Italy. It took most of the afternoon, which was nice because we got some good sunbathing in on the ferry deck. Unfortuantly, I was a bit hasty in applying sunscreen, and missed some spots, resulting in a bit of a burn. It's already fading into a tan though, so yay. Man, I'm gonna be so tanned when I get back to Calgary! Mwah ha ha...

After an uneventful night and day in Bari, we boarded the 17 hour, overnight ferry to Patras, Greece. Of course, we are too cheap to get anything better than on deck, so the first task upon boarding was to find an awesome sleeping corner. We scored some couches, and claimed them with our sleeping bags, and then spent the evening reading, and playing cards. We had a awesome picnic dinner of tuna and veggies, and even classes it up with a bottle of wine! The waiter befriended us, and gave us a free shot and offered to share another bottle of wine with us, haha. He was nice, but early into the night he got busted by his boss, who yelled at him to go to bed, so we were left alone, haha.

The next morning we awoke from our semi-comfertable couch sleep and quickly (we arrived earlier than we thought!) packed up our bags and stepped into Greece! We wanted to make it to Olympia that day, so after a few bus rides we were ready to check out Ancient Olympia. The ruins were awesome, though, most of everything got destroyed in an earthquake. It still is amazing how much is still visable, and how they let you just walk right around in everything! We raced on the sprinting track, and wandered amidst the temples of Hera and Zeus. Many statues were preserved in the nearby museum, so we saw some of the sculptures from the site, they were really cool.

It was an exciting, yet exhausting day, and I am happy to finally be showered and clean. Tonight we stay in Olympia, and tomorow we're heading to the southern coast for some beaching (I'll be more careful with the sunscreen this time!)

Cheers,
Jacqui :)

Croatia #2 - killing time in Sievnik

2006-06-07T19:22:00.000+02:00

I'm currently chilling in an internet cafe in Sievnik, waiting around until midnight for our bus to Dubrovnik. Today was fun, we went to the Krka National Park, and saw more waterfalls! It was a bit chilly, so we didn't take the oppurtunity to swim, but we walked around the park a bit and I did some drawing. Once again, public drawing led to people watching what I was doing...why do people assume that if you're drawing in public you must be really talented and worth watching? Haha...

The last few days we have been hanging around near Split. We checked out the city, which ended up being exciting because there was a huge rainstorm! There was also some crazy weather on the island of Hvar, we awoke one morning to a thundering hail storm! It was pretty exciting, and cleared up quickly so that was nice too. We spent one really nice sunny day on Hvar, walked up to the fortress and then relaxed on the beach all afternoon. In the evening we actually splurged and had dinner in a resturant (as opposed to the grocery store / swiss army knife experience of most nights), and then went to a couple bars. We met 2 American guys and hung out with them, and drank some wine near the harbour.

Tonight we are heading to Dubrovnik, and will arrive there at 5:45 am, eep! After a day or 2 there we're moving on to Greece!

Jacqui :)

Croatia - post #1

2006-06-04T14:52:00.000+02:00

Hello from Croatia!

Adrienn and I arrived off the night train in Zagreb on June 2. We were one day behind schedule after a time mix-up resulting in us missing our train on May 31, oops! It worked out alright though, and we had time to sort out a few more things before taking the train the net day.

We're in Zadar right now, the layout of the city is really cool, I like how the old town is all out on a little peninsula. We had a nice picnic lunch on the accordion steps, and spent a good while pondering how they work, and wondering if the sound is actually acoustically produced from the waves. Might have to hit up Wikipedia.

This morning I had a pleasant suprise of discovering that my backpack was infested with ants. This may have been related to a pesto leak that occurred the day before, haha, it was actually kind of nice to have the smell of pesto following me around though. Adrienn helped me rid my stuff of the ant plague, and I gave everything a good clean and repacked all my food in bags, haha.

We went to the waterfall park yesterday, wowwwwwwwww!!!! It was totally thrilling to stand under the huge one, especially since we thought we had already seen the largest one until we turned the final corner. The mist was spraying down all over us, it was cool. Unfortunately, the experience of the park was somewhat hindered by the fact that is was pouring rain and we were soaked. On the way up, the bus driver told us there was a marathon so he had to drop us off down the road. We trekked through the rain through puddles with all our gear to the entrance, and were wet up to our thighs already. Really, there would have been no hope unless we had rain boots, instead of small sneakers, oh well. It was still a nice walk, but we ended up only doing the lower falls since by the end we were freezing.

Tonight we are headed to Split, where we plan to spend a few days and check out some of the surrounding area and islands. I'll try to post again soon!

Jacqui :)

Blog Updates

2006-05-31T09:37:00.000+02:00

Ok, so I know I'm very behind on my blog. I have a few posts lined up to finish, but I don't think I'll have time in the next while to get them all done. I'm finishing work and leaving for Croatia and Greece this wednesday. I'm travelling for a month, and then back in Calgary on June 29. Sometime after that I'll try and catch up completely.

Here's a partial list of what you can look forward too

Scotland - done!
Istanbul - done!
Belgium - done!
Lausanne/Geneva - done!
Ponte Brolla - done!
Cinque Terre

************************************

Also, one quick update:

White Trash Party updated link to fireworks video

Cinque Terre

2006-05-29T12:13:00.000+02:00

This post is long overdue, but I am finally armed with all the time, pics and enthusiasm necessary to write it! However, I am not armed with a memory awesome enough to remember all the details, so I will just try my best.

Cinque Terre! It was the first trip for many of the new praktikants, and Adrienn and I were eager to teach them the tricks of the trade. One of these included how to underbook accomidation, thus becoming cheaper for everyone! Of course, that means that there has to be a bunch of bed sharing...but who doesn't love spooning! Haha....

Adrienn, Sean, Tammy and I arrived on wednesday evening as the first wave. We got settled into our tiny 2-person room (4 people sharing 2 single beds....eep!) and went out for the first of many awesome dinners. Later on that evening Evan and his mom arrived... by sheer coincidence they were staying in the same place as us, but on the other side where the higher class rooms were. Aka, they each got their own bed, haha.

On Thursday the 5 of us went on a hike in the higher ground away from the coast. We were in forest most of the time, but occasionly got a nice glimps of the water. It was a farily strenuous hike that took most of the day. The final stretch was trekking down some ruggard ground that got pretty sketchy at times. We made it though, and took the train back to Monterosso. The only fiasco was the mint slush I decided to try....ew.

View looking back towards Monterosso

I think we're trying to end up down there...

Taking a snack break: Evan's mom, Evan, Adrienn, Sean and Tammy

"Are you sure this is a path?" (It was)

Adrienn, me and Evan (and two random people) relax at the end of the hike

I guess I should explain a but about Cinque Terre. It is a stretch of 5 towns (Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarola and Riomaggiore) along the northish west coast of Italy. We were staying in Monterosso, the northern most town (and one of the larger ones). It is a great region for hiking, beaching, awesome eating and gelato! Also, there was a lemon festival the weekend before, so there was plenty of awesome lemons around (lemon gelato....mmmm!)

Thursday evening the rest of the praktikant clan arrived at the train station where Adrienn and I met them. The group consisted of: Brandon, Paul, Mike, Andy, Paul, Darren, Taryn, Brian Cox, Krispen, Brian Boldt and Louise. We escourted them back to the apartment and checked them in (a tricky manuver since a bunch of people had to hide while the management was showing us the room, haha). They got a pretty sweet full apartment with a kitchen and everything. By the end of the weekend it was basically a beach...complete with sand and water that leaked from the sink, hehe.

The apartment.... near the end of the weekend I think

We searched around for a place to eat where the was room for all of us (memories of Prague came flooding back...), and eventually found somewhere good by the water. I got pesto gnocci, yum! Apparently pesto comes from that region, so I made the right call :)

We met up with Evan, bought some wine and hit the beach for some serious chillaxing. This was basically our activity every night in Cinque Terre, it was fun just talking and joking around. We also got some jackpot frisbee going a few times, that was a bit of an adventure.

Louise, me, Brandon, Adrienn, Darren and Mike having some wine on the beach

Evan, Andy and Brian Cox enjoying the beach at night

Friday was the day for the big group hike through all 5 towns. This is the most popular hike in Cinque Terre, and varies in difficulty. We set out in a big group, and even managed to stay together most of the time. At least there is only one path, so worst case we could meet up when we reached each town. It was a beautiful walk, and we stopped for gelato, snacks and swimming along the way in all the towns :)

Excited about sun protection

Dramatic cliffs... check out that beautiful water

One last view of Monterosso before we set forwards

"Look at THAT!"

Me, Krispen, Brandon, Brian Boldt on the hike

Walking past some terraces

A lemon tree!

Darren, Adrienn and I rock a bridge

Lathering on some more sunscreen, haha

Me lovin the awesome view

Adrienn and me, with the town of Vernazza in the background

Stopped for some beaching in Vernazza

Darren, on the way to Corniglia, which is high up from the water

Pat, Krispen, Mike, Adrienn, Evan, Darren and Brian Cox waiting for the group at Corniglia

Group pic in Corniglia (blurry, too bad)

Brandon, Mike, Andy, Brian Boldt, Evan
Adrienn, me, Louise

Mmmmmm, I love gelato!

Manarola! So cool looking

Scandelous picture from above post-swimming

Walking back from swimming in Manarola

The home stretch to Riomaggiore

Brandon capturing the view

Searching for a reasturant in Riomaggiore

We ended in Riomaggorie and had another amazing dinner. Then we took the train back, cleaned up, grabbed some wine and hit the beach for some more fun times (hmm, this sounds familiar). After awhile it got chilly, so we went back the big apartment and hung out there.

Adrienn, Krispin, Darren, me, Mike and Paul enjoying dinner in Riomaggiore

Brian Cox, Pat, Louise, Brian Boldt and Taryn at dinner

Darren devouring some calamari...look at it's tentacles!

Krispin, Brandon and Mike waiting for the train home

Saturday some of the more ambitious people went on a day trip to Pisa. The rest of us lazy bums hit the beach for a day of relaxing in the sun. It was nice to have a chill day to check out the town a bit more, and get my daily foccacia, pizza and gelato fix, mmmmmm!

The lovely beach in Monterosso

That night we went out to dinner at a place reccomended by Evan and his mom. Some of us (myself included) just got standard yummy meals, but a couple tables went for the seafood feast. Basically, they bring out this big urn and upend it into a giant dish that has been placed on the table. Mussles, squid and various other sea creatures some splashing out. The waiter gives the urn a bit of a shake, and an entire octupus slides out next, as though it had been born from this clay pot. Everyone is amazed, but it seems it's not over....it sounds like something is stuck in side. The waiter uses his pro waiter skillz and gives the urn a violent shake and out comes the remaining dinner item, a whole lobster. I watched this in amazement from one table over, just happy that I don't have to partake in the devouring of the dish of creatures (I am not quite that ambitious yet) . The seafood feast is designed for 2 people, but two groups of 3 found it was quite enough food for them.

Paul, Darren and Adrienn about to chow down on some sea creatures

Brian Boldt, Louise and Mike prepare to tackle their freakish dinner

After the giant meal there was only one thing to to....get wine and go to the beach! We sat there for awhile, and then decided to walk up the big hill dividing different parts of the town. There is a big graveyard at the top, which was pretty creepy. What's even cooler though, is that on the walk up you are surrounded by lightning bugs! Honestly, it was one of the coolest parts of the weekend for me...having little points of light floating by in the darkness (as long as they don't land on me!). We were high enough up that we could only hear faint noises from the town below, that was all illuminated in light, pretty cool atmosphere.

Beach party!

Monterosso down below

Oh ya, that night was also Andy's birthday, so we presented him with a gift of olive oil and balsamic vinegar (he loves the stuff).

Happy birthday Andy!

The next day we had a few hours to kill before our train ride home. It was filled with some final gelato, picture taking, souviner buying. And of course a game of human chess on the giant board near the water. We all also each bought a pizza for the train ride....haha.

Adrienn and her lemon

For me and a few others, the 8 hour train ride was mostly filled with card game after card game. I taught a bunch of them how to play kaiser and got a nice fix that I had been missing in my life, haha.

And that was the trip! It was cool to get a chance to hang out with some of the new praktikants, and their first-trip excitement was totally contagious. I was also happy to have a chance to enjoy all the things I love about Italy (mainly, the food) one last time. AND, Adrienn and I got a nice base tan for Croatia/Greece!

Ponte Brolla

2006-05-23T12:13:00.000+02:00

On Saturday a group of us went to Ponte Brolla (near Locarno, in the Italian region of Switzerland) to swim and cliff jump (guess which one of the two I was doing, haha). We all took the train down early in the morning and then spent the afternoon walking over rocks near the river and swimming. The water was freeeeezing... I didn't spend that much time in the water. Unfortunatly the weather wasn't great either, so only a few people ended up swimming.

Ponte Brolla

Vance, after a mud fiasco

Me rocking out on the rocks (oh ya...)

Our group clambers down the rocks

Checking out the area a bit

Tiger face that has been painted into the rocks

The main highlight of the trip was watching some guys that we didn't know dive off the cliffs into the river. They were doing flips and twists of cliffs as high as 19m, it was nuts! We found out later that they were professional divers though. One guy showed Shane and Devon how to climb up to the 12m cliff, and they jumped off that. They were contenplating the 19m, but after some scary stories involving water in not-so-nice places decided against it.

Shane and Devon getting ready to huck the 10m (easy stuff)

Other dudes diving off the 19m as we watch in awe below

It started to rain, so most of us went back to Locarno. Adrienn, Louise and I walked around and had gelato and I bought a swiss army knife (finally!) and some other souvineers. After a near train-meeting-time fiasco, we all took the train back home. The only casualty that day was Mike's camera, which got lost on a train. I feel your pain Mike, I feel your pain... I don't know if I have mentioned this already, but my camera (yup, the one I bought in Jan!) got lost during a night in Zurich a few weeks ago. I'm making-do with sharing pics with other people for now, since I seem to be having bad luck with them I probably won't buy another for the rest of the year.

Me and Louise having some gelato

Lake Locarno

Lausanne and Geneva weekend

2006-05-17T00:18:00.000+02:00

Finally the time has come to visit Geneva! I was getting worried that I would run out of weekends before I made it to one of Switzerland's most famous cities. Since one really only needs one day in Geneva, we decided to spend saturday in Lausanne. I'd already been there, but I wanted to see the Olympics Museum, and we made plans to meet up with Charles (old praktikant from Luxembourg), who goes to uni there!

The group was me, Adrienn, Lindsey, Richard, Travis, Evan, and Evan's friend Travis (it was a double Travis trip!!!) Darren joined in at the last minute, which was cool. I only realized that he was coming when we all got off the train in Lausanne, haha.

Group pic in Lausanne
back: Darren, (Baden) Travis, Richard, Evan, (visiting) Travis
front: Lindsey, me, Adrienn

We arrived in Lausanne mid-afternoon. The trip had gotten off to a late start, since most of us were out late in Zurich the night before. Evan, Travis (non-Baden Travis) and I had attended the Thrice concert, it was awesome! The venue was pretty small but there was still a decent crowd getting pretty into the music. Afterwards a whole bunch more praktikants showed up at the club, and we had a bit of a mosh pit going to the rock-style music that was playing. It was lots of fun, and we caught the morning train back to Baden to catch a few zzz's before Lausanne.

After checking into our (awesome) hostel and buying food, we walked down to the lake and the Olympics Museum. There they had exhibits about all the various sports and cities involved in both the summer and winter games. We watched a couple films, and there was a weird artsy section devoted to the good and bad aspects associated with competition. It was a really cool museum, very much worth going to.

Sometimes you have to just stop and smell the flowers

Adrienn and Lake Geneva

Olympic record high jump....Linds, me and Adrienn can't even touch it!

Weird brain synapsesque room with headphones and randomness.

Fencing stuff! This is for you Alex :)

TV's on the roof, suuuure

After a nice cooked hostel dinner we went to a bar to meet Charles. He brought lots of his friends, and it was awesome partying with them and catching up with Charles. After the bar we went to a "nearby" club. It was a fun place and we stayed there dancing awhile before returning to the hostel.

Adrienn and I at the club

The only picture that Charles made it in to that night. Captures the party atmosphere I guess, haha.

The next morning was pretty uneventful (unless you count showering), and we slowly got ready and headed to Geneva. It was a beautiful sunny day (yay for weather predictions being wrong!) so we had a nice walk through the park to the Red Cross Museum. On the way we passed the United Nations buildings, but decided not to go inside. The museum calmed our silly moods with some intense stories about the history of the Red Cross.

Travis, Linds, Richard, me and Darren being excited about the park

Flags of all participating countries in front of the UN building... do you see Canada?

Red Cross and Crecent flags

By then we were ready for some relaxing in the sun, so we picking a nice spot by the lake in a park and chilled out. I slept and did some drawing, it was a nice way to spend an afternoon. We had time to take a walk along the lake and see the fountain and cathedral before catching the train back to Baden.

Relaxing in the sun

Travis soaking up some rays by Lake Geneva

Other Travis checking out the Geneva fountain

Adrienn, me and Richard walking through the streets of Geneva

New Praktikants and Beer Gardens

2006-05-05T11:35:00.000+02:00

New Calgarian praktikants are already starting to arrive!!! 3 new Kehl guys arrived on the weekend: Paul, Dieter and Brandon. They are already into the Baden lifestyle, and things at Kehl are working out well, though a bit crowded (Henry and Bernard are back in Calgary already...so at least it's not SUPER crowded....bye guys!!!).

In addition to the new praktikants, Olivier (old praktikant from Montreal) is visiting Baden for the week! It was great to see him again, and last night we got together for a jam session...Evan and Olivier played some awesome stuff as usual, while Pat and I tried to keep up.

Also visiting are 2 of Adrienn's friends from Calgary: Neil and Matt, so we had a huge crowd of people partying that night!

Last Wednesday after an awesome soccer game we all went out to the beer gardens for the first time this year! The weather was great, and everybody showed up. After last call we moved the party over to Pickwicks (which included some fountaining), and then to the Berg for the afterparty. I'd say it was a sucessful night of showing the new praktikants how to party in Baden :) Here's some pics, courtesy of me, Vance, Adrienn and Neil:

Party time!

Warren, Lindsey, Victor (and others) at the beer gardens

Richard and new praktikats: Pat, Darren, Brandon, and Paul

Travis welcomes Olivier back to Baden

Antonio and Adrienn

Andre, Torsten, Holgar, Alain and Jenny at the beer gardens

Adrienn's friends, Neil and Matt....aren't the darling?

Richard, Dieter (new Kehl praktikant), Dan, Nick, Kevin and Tommy having some beer.

Tommy, Rich, Naveen and Vance... not sure who took this one (wasn't me!), but I wonder if they ordered the 5-litre beer?

Neil pulls out the guns... Adrienn is amused

Evan and Travis jousting with some random poles on the way to Pickwicks, haha

Victor goes into the fountain!
Sometime around now Vance's glasses get mangled... he made his choice

Olivier get's his long-overdue fountain toss (we resisted the urge to throw him in when he left in December)

Neil also went in, for somer reason, haha. Pulls a Devon/Kevin camera move though... I'm pretty sure it still works (freshwater Linds, get it right next time!)

Afterparty at the Berg

Nicholas, Travis and Dan, either excited or scared, lol

Matt, Adrienn, Dieter and Darren

Krispin, Richard, Paul, me, Vance and Pat packed into the tiny Berg hallway

Apples are fun!

Brandon with Matt, who has already learned how to be Swiss!!!

Belguim road trip

2006-05-03T09:55:00.000+02:00

For the May 1 long weekend, Adrienn, Lindsey and I decided to do a girls road trip to Luxembourg and Belguim. Our goals were war memorials, museums and churches. Haha, ya right...or goals were Belgiun beer, waffles, chocolate, and mussels.

The trip started out semi-smoothly with getting lost leaving Zurich and a few other places on the way to Luxembourg. Luckily, we had a road atlas and two sets of printed directions, so we were able to get back on track every time. None of us was in a rush to get anywhere, so it worked out well and the driving wasn't very stressful.

We hadn't booked anything for friday night, so we looked for a place to renegade camp near Luxembourg. After a sketchy graveyard encounter, we finally found a forested area off a side road that was pretty out of the way. It was an alright sleep, though we had all forgotten how far north Luxembourg was from Switzerland and were all cold. Also, the tent was on a slant, so we kept sliding to the bottom of the tent, haha. Oh well, at least it was free :)

Our renegade camp spot

We drove into Luxembourg City and walked around looking at sights. It is a very beautiful place, with a big wall surrounding a nice little valley. We walked along the top of the valley and in the passages within the walls.

Luxembourg City

Adrienn and Lindsey in the passages

Lindsey and I walking along the top of the valley

Me, Adrienn and Lindsey in Luxembourg

Dramatic sky over the city of Luxembourg

Next Adrienn took the wheel and we drove to Bruges, a pretty little city in Belguim, without much incident. We found our hostel with ease (no renegade camping this night, haha), which was nice despite the sketchy balcony and/or fire escape and penitentiary-like showers.

It was a very lonely planetesque night: first we ate at a nice resturant reccomended by the book, and then went to t Brugs Beertje, a beer house with a wide selection of Belguin beer. It had a similar vibe to Bottlescrew Bill's, including an extensive menu showing which region each beer was from. We each tried a few kinds, and then moved on to another bar reccomended by the Lonely Planet. It was alright, though, too loud for talking so we just had one drink and headed home.

Road trippin!

Adreinn balanced precariously on our balcony

Nice snset in Bruges

Me and Linds by the canal

Me and Linds trying out some yummy Belguin beer at dinner

Adreinn, shortly before she accidentally inhaled cajan pepper from her dinner

On sunday we walked around Bruges, which is a nice little town. We saw all the standard sights and churches, and spent a good amout of time looking for the ideal place to get Belguin waffles! It was totally worth the search, they were amazing....mmmm.......

We saw windmills on our map, and wanted to check them out so we did a drive-by sighting on the way out of town (yay for cars!). Hooray, i have seen a real windmill now! They were cool.

Lindsey and Adrienn in Bruges

The city of Bruges

Adreinn checking out the city

Me and Adreinn getting our D&D on

Watching a woman make lace

Adreinn, me and Linds in Bruges

Really cool pic from Bruges

Eating Belgiun Waffles!

Belguin waffles.... mmm.....

Drive-by sighting of a windmill

We decided to stop by the town of Gent on our way to Brussles. It was a good idea, we were able to drive right into town (yay again for cars!), check out a few things and head out within a couple hours. Gent is a nice little town (I guess like most smaller cities in Belgium, lol)...not much else to say about it :)

The city of Gent

Me and Linds posing in front of the mobil-waffle truck. Oh, and a church or something

Linds and Adrienn doing a silly pose

Belguin beer!

We drove to Brussles next, and decided to find a hostel to stay at since we didn't want to camp in the cold. The first place we tried was full, but they directed us to another hostel that was really nice.

Sunday night we went out in Brussels to have mussels and other seafood. I ordered a seafood casserole, which ended up being a plate full of sea creatures in sauce. It took all my bravery, and Adreinn's coaching (and wine) to get through my meal, it was really yummy though. We got to know our waiter pretty well, and he ended up inviting us out with his cowokers to party that night. Oh the joy of an all girls trip, haha. We went out to a cool little bar where I tried a cherry beer and we all danced, it was really fun.

The next day we saw a couple sights in Brussels (that we had seen the night before we realized) and then started the journey home. On the way out of the city we did another drive-by sighting of the Atomium that was much cooler than I expected.

The Atomium in Brussels

"Pose for a picture Jacqui"
"But I'm driving!"

The drive home went well, though at one point we were taking a construction detour and ended up going through all sorts of small towns and back roads... not really ideal. It was a good road trip overall, nice and relazed. Belguim is a beautiful country and it was nice to see some of the scenery, and enjoy the quality eating and drinking!

The drive home

Pickwicks fountain marathon

2006-04-26T09:53:00.000+02:00

After watching the snowman explosion in Zurich, we returned to Baden and joined everyone at Pickwicks. To celebrate the last week in Baden for many praktikants, lots of people had met for all-you-can-eat ribs at pickwicks. Of course, ribs were just a prelude to the main event of the night: fountain tossing. It's a tradition amoung the praktikants here that before you leave you get thrown into the fountain at Pickwicks. Or if it's your birthday. Or sometimes for no good reason at all.

Vance did an awesome play-by-play of this night on his blog, so I won't go into too much detail. All you need to know is that by the end of the night every one of us was soaked and had been in the fountain at least once:

Wet Calgarian praktikants: Tommy, Travis, Mike, Richard, Evan, Felix, Vance, Lindsey, Bernard, Keegan, me, Devon, Shane, Kevin, Warren, Adrienn, Tyler, Henry

************************************************************

Here's how it all went down:

The night started off with some all-you-can eat ribs and cheery beer drinking at Pickwicks

Warren chows down on some ribs at Pickwicks

Mike and Tyler's last Pickwick's night!

Tyler decides to dress up for the occasion...

Myri (the Swiss girl that Tommy is dating), Tommy and Warren

One last party together as Kehlians!
Me, Bernard, Richard and Henry

Eventually Tommy had to leave to walk Myri to the train station, and fearing that this might eb the only chance, the fountain throwing started. Basically, Bernard, Henry and Tyler were leaving at the end of the week and deserved to go in. Shane, Devon, Mike and Tommy were pretty much finished work, so they went in because it might have been there last night at Pickwicks. Richard went in because in anticipation for the night he wore his swimsuit, and chose to announce it aloud (common rookie mistake).

Tommy impresses Myri by being the first to be dunked in the fountain

Mike goes next (gotta get the fast ones before they have a chance to run!)

Henry is nabbed from Pickwicks to be thrown in

Richard reveals his swimsuit underneath... it worked out I guess, but ironically had he not been wearing it he might not have needed it. What a paradox

Bernard faces his inevitable doom

The Kehl guys, post-fountain visit

Tyler puts up quite the stuggle, and an umbrella is almost destroyed in the process (but they got him in the end)

Devon takes a swim

Shane was lured down to Pickwicks saying we needed his help to toss people in... little did he know....

After that the excuses started wearing thin... thin as in non-existant. Evan happened to be too near the fountain, with a wet revenge-driven Devon and Shane lurking nearby, so he went in. Vance was loudly orchastrating the whole affair, so he was silenced by being tossed in. Things just went downhill from there...

Evan fights to the death

Vance gets a piece of his own medicine

After Vance went in, he went a wild rampage declaring that everyone must go in the fountain. His first target was Warren. Unfortuantly for Vance, nobody really rallied with him, and the one-on-one battle with Warren resulted with Vance ending up in the fountain for a second time. Berg loyalty came to the rescue though, and Tommy returned from the train station just in time to help Vance throw Warren in.

Vance tries despartly to get Warren in the fountain

Travis was next

Along with Felix

...Keegan...

And Kevin

Apparently Travis didn't get his head wet on his first fountain visit, so they threw him in again

And while we're at it, let's throw Vance in one more time for good measure

By this point Lindsey, Adrienn and I were becoming all too aware that every guy had been tossed in the fountain already, and we were probably next. My only defense was that every other guy had given me his wallet, watch, etc so it didn't get wet... so I quickly loaded up my pockets in anticipation.

First Lindsey was grabbed, and she went in. Adrienn took off running, but I realized that I probably couldn't outrun anybody so in a half-assed attempt to escape getting wet cried out "I have all your stuff!". Nobody cared. They totally called my bluff, and as I was dragged towards the fountain, (being the kind person that I am,) I emptied out my pockets onto the street. Evan lifted me up and my glasses came flying off, as usual, so I tossed them blindly back towards the crowd. I flailed as much as possible, but it was hopeless and I ended up in the fountain, as I knew I would.

Since I was taking pictures, there ended up being no pics of me or Adrienn, so I've created paint images in an attempt to capture the moment.

Only a few dry people left...uh-oh..

Lindsey is the first girl to get tossed in

Illustration of Evan throwing me into the fountain

Adrienn in the fountain (she managed to bite Mike's arm in the struggle)

Sechselauten - snowman burning event

2006-04-25T09:53:00.000+02:00

On Monday April 24 there was an event in Zurich know as Sechselauten. Bascially, all the old guilds gather and celebrate the spring festival. It's a huge event, and everyone in Zurich gets the afternoon off as a holiday, woo! There's a parade and some other things, but the big event is the burning of the Böögg - a giant snowman. They set him alight and wait to see how long it takes for his head to explode (which is filled with firecrackers). The faster it explodes, the warmer summer will be (kind of like a Swiss groundhog day I guess).

Only Evan and Richard were hardcore enough to come out for the event. We navigated through the crowded streets and found a good place to view the snowman burning. They set it alight, and then all the guilds rode around on horses (I was too short to see this part though, lol). There was a small explosion, and we were like, was that it? Nope...turns out there are firecrackers all through his body. Eventually thing started getting pretty dramatic, with large parts of the Böögg catching on fire and exploding outwards, showering the crowd in flaming snowman flesh. Finally the final explosion came and the whole head was demolished to the cheers of the crowd.

Afterwards everyone made piles of hot coals from the bonfire, and roasted their bratwursts. Evan and I (Richard had to catch a train home) came moderatly prepared with some budget sausages. We managed to join in on the fire of some swiss teenages (who I think felt sorry for us and our pathetic bbq supplies) and found roasting sticks and prepared to cook our food. Unfortuantly, the coals had cooled by that time, and we only got to have lukewarm sausages (there were pre-cooked hopefully...), but it was still a thrill to eat meat cooked (warmed?) on the burning corpse of a snowman.

Unfortunately, none of us had cameras that day, so I have no pics to post. You will have to use your imagination and my vivid storytelling to form your own impression of what it was like.

Basel - not just for EasyJet!

2006-04-24T09:52:00.000+02:00

My mom flew to London with EasyJet, so I accompanied her to Basel for the day before her flight. I'd only been there for EasyJet and carnival, so it was nice to have a chance to check out the city.

We went to Jean Tinguely Museum, which was a collection of the artist's work, which mostly fell under the category of kinetic art. There were lots of complex machines that would come to life when activated by foot pedal. They were all very facinating, though lots of the art was very morbid and dark.

After the museum we went on a hunt around the city for the Tinguely fountain (we had forgotten to bring our Basel map walking around, oops!). We finally found it just in time for my mom to catch her train to the airport...it was cool though, and well worth the search.

My mom and a super hardcore tree

Looking out over the river towards Basel

Walking through the park on the way to the museum

Large machine filling a main room of the museum (you can climb on this one!)

Hanging, whirling machines hanging at the entrance

My mom watching the machines at work (I took this pic from a top the largest machine!)

There was some cool story about this woman and how she watched out over the water, but I don't remember it

Creepy machines in the dark lower levels of the museum

Cool composition of my mom looking at some art

The other section of the museum had some art...crazy stuff

Creepy...

The Tinguely fountain, really cool, water flying every which way!

Rhine Falls

2006-04-23T09:52:00.000+02:00

I have been in Switzerland for almost a year, and it took me until the end of April to see the Rhine Falls! I went there with my parents, and a bunch of the praktikants came too. We checked out the town of Schaffhausen, and then walked to the falls. The falls were pretty impressive, largest in Europe (by volume of water I think), but probably not as impressive as Niagara Falls. It was a sunny day, for the most part, and a lot of fun to chill out in the park and throw around a frisbee. We checked out the falls, and then Shane and Dveon wanted to jump off the bridge into the river. They had done it before, but this time wanted to backflip. It was crazy (the bridge is about 13m high) but all went down sucessfully. I think my parents had fun watching this insanity, but my dad was definilty freaked out...he was ready on the shore to preform the rescue mission should need be. Later on my parents took us out for dinner (thanks!) and then we caught the train home.

I have no pics of the bridge jumping (I was taking pictures with Devon's camera), can somebody who was there please send me some? Thanks!

At the Schaffhausen Cathedral... my dad trying to read the Latin on the large bell in the chapel

Looking out over the town of Schaffhausen

Me and my mom at the Rhine Falls

Largest waterfalls in Europe

Nice view from the other side of the river

Less than Jake / Dropkick Murphys concert!

2006-04-22T09:52:00.000+02:00

Adrienn, Evan, Vance, Lindsey, Ryan and I went to see Less Than Jake and Dropkick Murphys in concert!The show was a friday night in Zurich, so I met them all after work and we chilled out a but before going to the show. We had some time to kill, and somehow ended up in Claire's buying hair dye (temporary!). Adrienn, Evan and I used the mirror in the store to put it in, haha, we got some strange looks from people...

The show was totally awesome!!! First a band called Far From Finished played, they were pretty good. Less than Jake was up next... they are such an energetic band, it was so cool seeing them live. Ska music is so sweet, I love how the horns go so well with the music. I got up to the front with Lindsey, we had a great view of the band and were totally rocking out. They played most of my fav songs, except Screws Fall In, but all their music is so good that it didn't matter. I even got a pick from the bass guitarist! Thanks Evan :)

Dropkick Murphys was headlining (unexpected...we all figured Less than Jake was the bigger band, we it seems like Dropkick Murphys is way more famous here), and they went hard for the whole set. I really like their music, but I think I prefer the recorded stuff better. They played really well, but it was a bit too hard, and the guitars overpowered the other instrurments I thought. It was awesome though, because at the end they invited girls up to the stage for Kiss Me I'm Shitfaced. All 3 of us were up on stage with a whole bunch of others, and there was a pretty decent mosh pit going on. Then the let guys up to and things got totally nuts...I really don't know how the band kept playing it was insane up there! They never played Walk Away (my fav song) which was too bad, but other than that it was pretty sweet.

Here's a few pics from the night... Ryan was daring enough to bring his camera, thanks man! None of the main bands, those memories are saved for those who actually went to the concert :)
(aka, we have no pics of them)

Covert-op pics from Claire's that turned out really artsy

Dying our hair

Lindsey helps Evan with his hair

Oh ya, we are hardcore

Far From Finished played a good set

Riding the train home, sore, sweaty and tired.
Linds, Vance, me, Adrienn and Evan

Easter Dinner

2006-04-21T09:51:00.000+02:00

Since Thanksgiving Dinner worked out so well in the fall, we decided to do a similar thing for Easter. Everybody brought a potluck dish, and we had an amazing meal! As an added bonus, my parents were visiting at the time and were invited. It was cool that they got to meet everyone, and I think everyone had a great time.

Highlight of the evening: Back at the Christmas party, Evan had tricked Richard and gave him catfood as a gift (he gave him a real gift too). I guess Richard couldn't let this pass un-revenged... we got Tommy to put the cat food into a few of his wraps and managed to get only Evan (and Shane...that was just a bonus! Haha) to eat them at the dinner. When they found out later it was hilarious! Shane thought they still tasted good, haha...

Here's some pics:

Henry and my mom preparing fruit salad

Tyler's last minute contribution: pickles and chocolate

Lindsey, Tommy and Jenny at Easter dinner

Getting ready to eat

Look at all the great food!

Mwah ha ha, little does he know...

Happy Easter!
You can see almost everyone who was there

Mmmmm, dessert

Shane, me, and Walter: his homemade centerpiece (even better than the Turkey from Thanksgiving!)

Istanbul with my parents

2006-04-20T09:51:00.000+02:00

My parents came to visit over Easter, and we went on a 6 day trip to Istanbul. Originally we were going to visit more of Turkey, but for such a short visit we would have spent all our time travelling. Instead we stayed in Istanbul, and had a nice relaxing vacation.

My dad, me and my mom in front of the Blue Mosque

We stayed at a pretty cool hostel, and got to know the other guests and staff quite well over the week. I'm writing the post rather late, so I can't remember exactly which things we did on each day of the trip, or lots of name details, so here's a semi-accurate account:

Arrived in Istanbul and checked into the hostel. We met lots of other guests and hung out in the lounge area and had some dinner. There was a guitar that was missing the high E string, but some people still managed to play some good stuff and we had a bit of a sing-along, it was good times. I also broke out my new sketch book for the first time and did some drawing. Turns out this is the best conversation starter ever, haha, so I had to explain to lots of people that no, I wasn't a serious artist, just trying it out for the first time.

My dad chilling in the hostel room

My dad and mon eating dinner at the hostel, mmmmmm

The next day we set out to see some of the city. Or so the plan was...a little ways down the street we met Bill, a turkish businessman who was nice enough to show us some sights and tell us a little about the city. We weren't really such what was going on, but he was very nice so we walked and talked with Bill for awhile. Soon we arrived at a carpet shop, owned by Bill's cousin, wouldn't you know it! He invites us in for some tea and to learn a little about carpets. It sounds innocent enough (we were young and naive), so we go into the shop and meet the owner who proceeds to give us a presentation about the different kinds of carpets, and how they have evolved over the years and what different styles mean. Employees are dragging out heavy carpets from all over the shop and putting them on display for us. It was actually very interesting, and all the while we are drinking apple tea (mmmmm) and turkish tea and having a nice time.

At the end of the presentation, the owner now tells us he will begin taking away carpets, and we are to say yes or no about whether we like them. Suddenly alarm bells start to go off...wait a minute, since when are we purchasing carpets. I have a whispered conversation with my mom, and she says that she actually is interested in maybe buying one, so we play along. This process takes quite some time, and eventually we are down to 7 carpets that we like. The owner does some over-complicated math and shows us the amazing deal that he will give us if we buy all 7. We laugh and refuse, explaining that we would actually like to be able to afford our flight back to Switzerland.

After much awkward negotiating we end up buying 3 carpets for a decent price (we hope). The owner is satisfied, and invites us back later for some turkish dinner and to meet his friends. We of course fall for the trap again...dinner ends up turning into yet another round of attempted carpet selling (though we do get some nice food too). Eventually we managed to leave without buying the $16000 silk carpet that we didn't buy earlier, and return back to the hostel. Day 1 done, no sightseeing accomplished, lol. At least we got some nice carpets :)

My dad, mom and me in Istanbul in front of some cute houses

My mom in the carpet shop

Carpet buying.....eep!

The nice Kilim we bought

Wool carpet, embroidered with silk

Wool on wool, "Santa Claus" rug. Various symbols on the rug represent different religions.

The next day we checked out an Istanbul festival that was going on. There was some traditional dancing, which reminded me a lot of Irish dancing, and some drumming. We then went to the Topkapi Palace, which was very beautiful. Lastly, we headed down to the shore and checked out the spice bazaar, where all the locals buy spices and food. It was packed with people, but fun to look at all the crazy food for sale.

Turkish dancers

Yup, he's spinning the drum from his teeth

Gardens inside the palace

Visiting Topkapi Palace

Spices at the spice bazaar

That is one huge block of cheese

That night I went out partying with some of the other people from our hostel. We took a cab to Taksim and went to a club that had a turkish band playing, they were pretty decent. Everyone was really fun to hang out with, and we had a good time dancing and talking.

The next day (Easter!) I walked along the Marmara Sea coast with my parents. It was a nice sunny day (most of our days there were) and we watched people fish and bought food from various vendors. We went for dinner at a resturant near our hostel, where there was a Whirling Dervish performance, it was cool.

Cucumber salesman ...interesting

Some guys were snorkeling and fishing

My dad eats muscles

Whirling Dervish...hope I didn't distract him with the photo...oops

My parents in front of the Hagia Sophia at night

Monday we took a boat ride to the Princess Islands (group of islands south of Istanbul in the Sea of Marmara). It gave us a good view of the Istanbul coastline...I couldn't believe how far the city stretches! We walked around the largest island, and had some lunch (at the most expensive resturant on the island....sigh, long story...). In the evening we went to Taksim and shopped in stores and saw the Galata Tower. The original tower was a fire look-out tower...until it burnt down, haha.

The boat we rode on

Getting off the boat at the islands

View of Istanbul from the sea

Feeding seagulls that were flying behind the boat

Galata Tower in Taksim...didn't go up becuase it costs money, and all there is is a resturant at the top

The next day we did another boat ride...this time up the Bosphorus. We stopped at various docks on both sides of the river, and ended up nearly at the Black Sea, where the was a short walk up to a castle. We got a great view of different parts of Istanbul, and the 3rd longest bridge in Europe (or something like that...). It was here that I had my only kebap in Turkey, since I ate so many at the beginning of the year I unfortunatly exceeded my kebap quota before I even got to their origin country, lol.

On the way back to the hostel we went through the Grand Bazaar, which a covered area packed full of vendors and various stores. I didn't buy anything, but it was amazing to see all the different things for sale. The bazaar is divided up into different sections for different items, and it's so huge that you could easily get lost. All the surrounding streets are somewhat involved, so we had a bit of a hard time getting out, haha.

Cruising up the Bosphorus

One of the stops on the boat ride.

The scenic walk up to the castle at the last stop

The more scenic part of the walk

Castle, with Istanbul in the distance

My parents with the Bosphorus and the Black Sea in the background

Me and my mom on the boat ride back. We got given flowers from the resturant owner where we ate lunch.

The Grand Bazaar

On our last day in Istanbul, we finally went inside the Blue Mosque that we passed every day on the way too and from our hostel. It's still used as a mosque, so you can only go in during non-prayer times. The inside was beautiful, all decorated with blue and white tiles (that it is named after). Next we went to the Hagia Sophia. It was really cool because it used to be a church, but it got converted into a mosque. They've uncovered paintings of Jesus and Mary undernead the new walls.

That evening my mom and I went to a turkish bath. It was a crazy experiance, you go into the main room and they scrub, wash and massage you until you have never felt so clean. I would definilty reccomend it if you are ever in Turkey, though, I've heard that the men's ones can be quite harsh (one guy showed me bruises he got!)

Inside the Blue Mosque

The gardens in front of the Hagia Sophia

Inside the Hagia Sophia

Uncovered from when it was a church

The way home was pretty eventful, especially since I forgot my passport in the safe at the hostel and only remembered on the way to the airport! We somehow still made the plane...oh the shame though ;)

It was a fun and relaxing vacation with my parents. I'm glad that I was able to go on a trip with them while they visited me, it was definitly a different style of trip than what I'm used to, way less hectic!

Nerd crepes

2006-04-11T14:08:00.000+02:00

Well, D&D finished at the end of April. It was a fun time, but it was more of a winter activity, since it's better to be outside taking advantage of the nice weather than battling undead sea creatures and shadow monsters and evil monks in a fantasy world. I'm glad I got to try it out (thanks Vance!) but I don't think I'll continue in Calgary (haha, all my friends breath a sigh of relief...).

Most D&D sessions somebody would bring food, ususally something pretty awesome. Warren has made fondu and pizza, and there's been other various snacks and baking. Here's some pics from Richard's idea to have dessert crepes (he cooked, and we all brought various fruit...there was even a fresh pineapple!). They were delicious!

Richard making crepes (most of them turned out better than this one, haha)

Lots of toppings to choose from!

Creating our masterpieces

Yum!

Visiting in Scotland

2006-04-10T14:08:00.000+02:00

I have cousins on my Dad's side that live in Glasgow, so I decided to go visit them for a few days! I expected to be a solo trip, but Vance was also planning a trip to Scotland to see Loch Ness, so ended up going together. It was nice having somebody to sight-see and pary with, so it worked out well for both of us.

Min Yu and Yvonne have 3 kids: Emma (4 years old), Euan (2 years old) and Evie (3 months old). As you can imagine, it was pretty hectic staying with them! It was awesome to see them though, and I had a great visit. They really showed us a good time, and spoiled us so much that it will be hard to go back to hostels on trips! (haha, just kidding). Thanks!

Right now I only have my pictures posted, I will put up Vance's later (see some on his blog in the meantime)

Min Yu with Euan, me, Yvonne, Evie and Emma (who wasn't into picture taking that day, lol)

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After a stop-over in Amsterday, Vance and I arrived late Wednesday night in Glasgow. So far the trip was going smoothly, and we commended ourselves on our awesome two-person travel efficiency. Min Yu picked us up at the airport, and took us to their house, which was not too far away. They live in an apartment that is older than Canada! Haha, it is cool, it's taller than it is wide, with 3 stories, very old school European. That night was pretty chill, we just hung out and talked with my cousins, and made some plans for the visit.

Thrusday morning we woke up early to take the bus to Edinburgh. Emma was already up having breakfast, so we had a nice discussion about Cheerios before Vance and I left for the day.
The bus ride was beautiful, but I slept most of the way and missed a lot of the awesome Scottish countryside. We arrived and headed straight for Edinburgh Castle. I should take a minute now to say that I have been to Scotland before. I came on a big England/Scotland/Ireland trip with my family when I was 13, and we travelled a bunch around the countryside and saw lots of castles and chuches. Lots. So by the time we got to Edinburgh (near the end of the trip) my brother and I were like "no more castles!". So although I have been to Edinburgh before, I had never been in the castle.

We went to the castle on this trip though! It was well worth it too (young Jacqui didn't know what she was missing out on...), lots of cool displays and you got to explore the whole castle and grounds to see them. We managed to arrive at the cannons right in time for the daily firing, so that was cool (though startling).

By then it was around lunch, and we had already had every type of weather imaginable. I blame the high winds...the rains and clouds just rolls in and out.

For lunch we went to a pub (of course) and had burgars (mmmmm...) and beer (mmmm....). We decided to check out the whisky museum next, which included taking a tour where they let you sample some scotch whisky. I don't think I have yet aquired the taste for straight whisky, but it was still alright. It was interesting seeing how it was made too, though, the highlight was probably the ride at the end, haha.

In Edinburgh we also went on a mission of finding Vance's family tartan. After some unsucessful searching, we were advised to seach for the clan tartan instead, since the family tartans are not commonly sold in stores. We were able to find the tartan for the clan Vance's family belongs to, yay.

By then it was time for Vance to take the bus to Inverness (he was going to check out Loch Ness the next day), and I went back to my cousin's place in Glasgow. Once again I slept most of the way...I guess I am too trained to taking advantage of guarenteed sleep oppurtunities, haha.

Thursday night was pretty chill, we ate a nice supper at the house, hooray for home cooked meals! I discovered that when there are small childeren involved, eating supper is an evening activity in itself. You quickly rush to get everyone their proper meals, and then attempt to get them to eat the whole meal, and then try to finish your own food before everybody is running around too much that the room becomes a mad house. Haha, it was really fun actually, it's neat having kids around sometimes (thought I think the novelty would wear off after awhile). Don't worry! I'm not planning on having any anytime soon!

Emma's pro picture taking skills (once I learned to duck into the photo)

On Friday Yvonne, Emma, Evie and I had a girls day of shopping. We went to the local mall and browsed around the stores, and all bought a few things. I got some shirts from Mango, a cool store that I seem to only afford to shop at when I'm with my cousin, haha, she's a bad influence.

Emma doing some shopping

We went for lunch, where Min Yu met up with us, since he only had a half day of work. Before he came, I was holding Evie while Yvonne bought the food. She was hungry, and crying so much that somebody nearby offered an extra bottle, haha. I don't think I have the baby-soothing touch, this seemed to happen a lot over the weekend, lol.

Min Yu and Emma (and Evie) at the mall

Evie chillin in her stroller

We picked Vance up from the bus station, and were happy to see that he hadn't been consumed by Loch Ness. That night after dinner Vance and I went to The Arches, a club downtown that was having a music show that night. Our goal for the weekend was to see as much live music as possible, to get away from the regular clubbing, and since Glasgow is supposed to be a great city for live stuff.

After a drink in the lounge section, that may or may not have been a bright pink cocktail, we watched the band Trap_6 play their set. They were pretty sweet, especially for a random find. Typical type of band, kind of emoy and energy-fille. It would have been all the much better if the band members were good looking ;)

Vance loses one man card for this

Trap_6 rocking out at The Arches

On Saturday morning I got up early to go with Yvonne and Evie to Emma's dance class! (Vance opted for sleeping in instead, haha) The class was a weekly thing at the community center...basically a whole bunch of little girls in dance gear running around trying to mimic the teacher, hehe. It was super cute, they did a bit of balletish stuff, and the broke out the tap shoes for the second half. I was totally jelouse...

Yvonne getting Emma ready for dance class

Euan and Emma, shortly before the piece of bread got scattered all over the couch (oops!)

Me with Emma. Yvonne and Evie in the background

Vance shows Euan his mad lego skillz

Emma and me playing

The rest of the day Vance and I checked out various sights around Glasgow, and occasionaly met up with the others for lunch and dinner, etc. It worked out really well, we were able to get some efficient Vance-approved sight-seeing done and the others could take the 3 hour long lunch that's required for a family of kids of that age, haha. We visited the Glasgow Cathedral, the cemetery (eerie, but beautiful), Museum of Religious Art (which gave a cool overview of religions, with some neat displays) and also looked around the university. It was cool being in a university envoironment, it's amazing how easy it is to feel at home once you are around students (especially when they are speaking English!). At the university we saw the Hunterian museums (one art, and one random cool stuff).

Scenic pic of the cemetery

Vance had haggis at lunch, which I tried and was actually not that bad, kind of like ground beef with spices.

That night we went to a bar to see some more music. We showed up early to get a table, but I think we overshot because there were only a few people there (and we found out later they were all the bands that were playing later, haha). We chilled and had some beer, and eventually the music started up. The first band was pretty crazy, they had 2 drum sets going, but it only sounded like one (I haven't decided if this is a good thing or a bad thing).

The second band (Learn to Swim) was probably the coolest, they had a whole array of insturments: guitars, a drum set, a trombone, a xylophone and a cello. Their sound was really cool, it almost reminded me of Modest Mouse.

Learn to Swim and their awesome array of instruments

The last band (This Ain't Vegas) was pretty popular, from what I could tell. They were pretty awesome, definitly a bit more professional than the other bands, kind of screamo rock if I remember correctly (I'm writing this post wayyyy after the trip, for shame is me...).

After the show we headed over to the university bar, and caught the very tail end of a Pink Floyd Cover band that happened to be playing, it was cool. We arrived only seconds before last call...one minute we were buying beer, and the next time we turned around the bar was closed off with metal gates, haha. Luckily they were nice enough to let us chill out and finish.

On Sunday we checked out the Burrell Collection, which is basically a museum with a whole bunch of random stuff that Sir William Burrell collected and donated to the city. Honestly, we saw everything from pottery to tapastries to sculptures and more.

We also went to House for an Art Lover, which is only one of the things in Glasgow that was designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh. He is a really cool architect, and incorporates a lot of art and interior design into his work. We also saw the Mackintosh House, which is part of the Hunterian's Museum at the univeristy. I really enjoyed his design, it's filled with sharp contrast, but he incorporates soft touches, such as rose designs. It's simple and modern, and really striking to the eye.

Vance in some cool gardens

Inside House for an Art Lover

Outside the House for an Art Lover there was a really cool playground...sort of like fun meets art. We played there for a while with the kids, and then it was time to head to the airport.

Playing in the park outside House for an Art Lover

I was really happy that I got a chance to visit my relatives while I was in Europe, since I don't see them very often. It was fun to play with the kids, and the trip was a good mix of visiting and sight-seeing. I'd love to go back to Scotland for longer sometime, and maybe see more of the rest of the UK and Ireland too.

Oslo, Norway

2006-04-05T11:16:00.000+02:00

Alright, enough is enough. I need to catch up my blog, I'm in danger of being out-blogged by Vance (something that I can never allow to happen).

The first weekend in April was Tommy's birthday, and he decided he wanted to spend it in Oslo. A bunch of us also went with him (solo birthday's aren't really as fun): me, Adrienn, Evan, Vance, Lindsey, Richard, and Devon. Evan and Devon actually know a girl that lives in Oslo (Paige...she's from Alaska and they met her on a ski trip in France), so they got hooked up with a place to stay. The rest of us were forced to rough it in a hostel.

Being silly at our hostel:
back: Tommy the Birthday Boy, Vance, Evan, Devon, Richard
front: Lindsey, me, Adrienn

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We arrived Thursday evening, to find Tommy returning drunk from a day of sightseeing. Haha, it was hilarious because as we were checking in, he wandered past the windows and proceeded to wave and dance around, while we were trying to keep a straight face as we dealt with check-in business. We just chilled out at the hostel that night, and made a new friend in our hostel room: English guy named Paul. He was really cool, and ended up hanging out with us the whole weekend (a decision that he may have regretted, haha).

Richard, Vance, Adrienn and Tommy at our hostel

On Friday we headed to a Viking ship museum, which was really impressive. They had 3 giant preserved ships that had been restored, that filled up the whole place. There also lots of other artifacts that had been found with the ships (the ships were used as tombs!). We learned a lot about Viking culture... I was impressed to find out that the Vikings navigated with only the use of the stars!

Me with a Viking ship

Look how huge they are!!

Next door there was another random museum that we looked at. It included a movie about Norway, which would have been kind of boring except for the fact that it was shown on 5 screens that all lined up (or tried to...). Actually, it was still kind of boring, though we got to see a lot of nice scenery. I refrained from buying a copy of the dvd that they were selling in the gift shop (would you need 5 tvs lined up??!?!?!). I did, however, buy an awesome Norway toque :)

We wanted to go to the Kon-Tiki museum, but it was closed for renovations. I settled for getting a pic with the statue outside.

Which one is me!?!?!?!

Outside the museums

On our way to the next sight, we passed a electronic store with some aweosme robo-dog in the display case! We spent a great deal of time trying to play with it through the glass, and then finally went in and got a sales guy to show us how it worked. Unfortuantly, robo-dog was pretty tired (aka, batteries were not fully charged) so he didn't want to play. Eventually we snapped-to and realized that we should get going.

Robo-dog in action (kind of...). I want one!

Another cool random thing we saw. Not sure if it's actually somebody's bicycle.

Walking around Oslo

The Berg having a moment

Evan, Richard, Tommy, me, Lindsey, Adrienn and Devon in front of the Royal Palace

Next stop was Vigeland Park, which was basically a park with statues of naked people. Actually, it was really tasteful, and I enjoyed the art a lot. It managed to convey a lot of emotion in a way that was simple and very pleasing to the eye. Some of them were still pretty funny though, and we got some mandatory statue abuse pics.

The center of Vigeland Park

The Monolith... pillar of bodies arranged in a very Escher-esque way.

Beware of falling babies

Nice pic by Vance (he got a good series of pics from this park)

Another one

Tommy also enjoyed the park

"go away!"

Walking through Vigeland Park

Fountain in the park

After the park we met Paige and she took us to the university where there was some sort of mixer going on. Aka, free snacks and coffee... we were all in.

Devon, Adrienn and Paige at the student mixer

Enjoying some free snacks!

That night we all met at Paige's place, and pre-partied with her and some of her friends. It was awesome of her to invite us! We caught the bus to a club, which was pretty cool... minus Vance and Evan, who due to unfortuante circumstances missed it and spent the night trying to navigate through Oslo.

On the way to Paige's with our new friend Paul!

Playing drinking games before the club

Richard and Vance being goofy...haha, notice that we are using jars for glasses! Cool idea.

Tommy and the girls, quite the trick

Lindsey giving Tommy guff for something, I think it may have been hockey-related.

The next morning we checked out the miniture bottle museum! We had heard great reviews from Travis, but it still exceeded our expectations. The museum was very elaboratly decorated, and had attention-grabbing informative displays showing minuture bottles of every country, shape, size (well, all small I guess), category, etc. There was even a slide! We spent a long time here...so long in fact that Vance got impatienient (as Vance does) and went off on his own for some efficient solo sight-seeing, haha.

A glimps at the number of bottles this place had

These bottles were all in the shape of mucisians...you could press a button to play music and watch them dance (aka, move around on a track, haha)

Spirytus Rektyfikowany!! This was in the "danger!" sections, haha, oh and it should be!

Evan trying the slide head-first (Tommy tries to catch him, haha)

How did we get here?!?!?!

"Guess what there was in the bathroom?" (answer: hair gel, don't worry)

Probably the neatest bathroom I have ever been in, it was really fancy and girly. The guy's had a magnifying mirror at the urinal, haha.

Outside the bottle museum
"You know I'm a unicorn J. D."!

Next we went to meet Axel (guy we met in Zermatt) and Erland (guy Devon and Evan met randomly in Engelberg) who also live in Olso (I don't know how there happened to be so many people in this one city that we knew). We chilled out at a cafe near the water, and took in the nice weather (warmest day we were there, by far). Next Erland took us up to the Akershus Fortress for a nice view of the city. It was nice having a local show us around, he gave us all sorts of inside info, and was really fun to hang out with.

Akershus Fortress

Beatiful day!

Adrienn and a nice view of the harbour

Candy!

Chewy candy...

That night we went out to a big party to celebrate Tommy's birthday. They basically opened up 4 floors of the student center and turned it into a big club. Some floors had live music, and others had dj's, it was really awesome! Beforehand we partied at the hostel. Paul was not planning on coming, since he had an early flight the next morning, but we sucked him in!

We all lost each other at the club, which was unfortunate because not all of us had hostel keys. Evan and I got stranded outside the door, and huddled against the wall for warmth (it was cold and snowing) and waited for somebody to get back. We must have looked pretty pathetic, because a passer-byer gave us some change, haha.

Devon and Evan are upset about leaving Oslo soon

Tommy sporting a nice birthday "hat", enjoying his birthday

Paul, me, Lindsey, and Adrienn on the way to the party. I should take this

Adrienn and Lindsey at the club

The next day Vance went off on his own again (I think he saw about 10 times the things we did in Oslo) and the rest of us went to the National Gallery. There was a nice selection of art there, including The Scream by Edvard Munch, which was cool. By then it was time to head home (I guess we were ineffecient afterall... haha, Vance made his choice)

Linds and Vance with their morning supplies in personal sizes.

I haven't mentioned up until this point how amazingly expensive Oslo is. We brought our own liquor from home, and ate in grocery stores (after purchasing the food I mean) and still managed to spend quite a bit. It was good to finally visit a Scandanavian country though, and something I noticed about Oslo was that it reminded me a lot of Calgary. Maybe it was just the cold, haha.

Chocolate Factory visit

2006-03-29T17:05:00.000+02:00

No, there were no Oompa Loompas. Trust me, I was dissapointed too...

Jenny (and Vance) arranged for us to take a tour of Frey, a chocolate company that supplies all the chocolate for Migro's (the local supermarket that we all know and love). A huge group of us all took last tuesday morning off work and went to the factory. The tour was really great, and we even got all the free chocolate we could eat (something that you really shouldn't say to a poor, starving praktikant, haha).

First we had a nice welcome session with delicious, creamy hot chocolate, then watched a informative (though, very cheesey) video about the process of chocolate making. Next it was time for the actual tour, so we all had to suit up (to keep the factory clean), haha, we looked pretty funny.

The tour itself was really cool...I liked watching the various machines in sequence to create all the products. At the factory they go all the way from the raw cocoa beans to the finished, packaged process, so we got to see all the boxing and wrapping machines too (haha, they are fun to watch....awww, I'm a geek). We learnt about the different kinds of chocolate, and how it's made into differnt products.

Then of course there was the 5 tasting staations throuought the tour... we could have as much as we wanted but not take any (darn...). I can't really consume that much chocolate, but I still had lots....everyone else had even more I think. On the way home everyone was wired off the sugar, and feeling pretty sick, haha. There was a store at the end with discounted chocolate, I made sure to buy lots!!

Here's some pics (couldn't take any on the tour though, the mysteries of the chocolate making shall remain a secret):

Waiting for the tour to start

Me, Richard and Rebeca at the chocolate factory

Torsten, Keegan, Henry and Lindsey enjoying some hot chocolate

Bernard, Travis, Mike and Warren having breakfast

Tommy, Jenny, Vance and Tyler pumped for the tour

Our chocolate factory guides

Everyone about to get suited up...nice hat Adrienn

Tommy and me rocking some hairnets

Group pic of us about to start to the tour!
Back: Warren, Vance, Travis, Mike, Henry, Bernard, Tyler, Torsten, Tommy
Front: Keegan, Lindsey, Rebeca, Jenny, me, Adrienn, Richard

Check out our booties!

After the tour....Vance is destroyed by too much chocolate, lol.

Neuschwanstein Castle

2006-03-28T15:06:00.000+02:00

Or as I like to call it, Neunemberger Castle. Haha, crazy long German words...

Neuschwanstein Castle is the castle that Disney modelled Sleeping Beauty's Castle after (you can sort of see the resembelence...). The castle is located in Germany, so Pav (Polish praktikant that works in Adrienn's office) was nice enough to drive us there in his car last Saturday. The other's who went were Lukasz (another Polish praktikant), Adrienn, Vance and me.

We got up pretty early, since it's about a 3 hour drive. It actually took longer to get there, since there was some bad traffic (and we stopped for some food breaks).

Yay, we found the castle!! Time to go home...

When we got to the town we bought tickets for a tour (the only way you can go inside the castle) and then had some time to check out souvineer shops. I bought some postcards...though it was a little hard finding ones that hadn't been severely doctored with photoshop.

We walked up to the castle (about half an hour walk) and marvelled at the beauty of the surrounding scenery. The whole town is tucked away in some mountains, and there's another castle nearby making it a cool looking area.

The castle tour was about half an hour, and semi-informative. We learnt about King Ludwig, who died before the castle could ever be completed (was it muuuurrrrrder?!?!?!?). Only 16 or the 60 rooms were finished...they were quite impressive though. Everything seemed very new (the castle is only 120 years old....young...for a castle that is), and had a whimsical quality to it. All the walls were decorated with scenes from stories and fairy tales, I felt like I kinda was in Cindrella's castle. Unfortunatly we couldn't take any pictures inside, but there's some on the link above if you want to see what it's like.

After the castle we got kabob's (mmmm, it's been awhile...), stocked up on cheap German liquor (yay!) and drove home. It was a fun outing!

Neuschwan- stein Castle

Pav, Vance and Lukasz taking a break on the way up to the castle

Pav, Lukasz, Adrienn, me and Vance at Neuschwan- stein Castle

Me and the castle

View of the castle from one of it's windows (nice covert picture taking skills Vance!)

Lisbon

2006-03-27T15:06:00.000+02:00

The day after St. Patrick's day, we all dragged ourselves out of bed (hooray for afternoon flights!) and went to Lisbon! The group was me, Vance, Lindsey, Tommy, Richard, Bernard, and Evan (who had flown out the day before). I was excited for the trip because it was going to be the first warm destination of the year. Turns out we got a bit of rain (booerns) but overall the weather was nice and I felt the first vibe of summer travel, yay! Actually, keep an eye out for the rapid weather shifts through the pics....we had crazy weather all weekend.

I'd like to take a moment to say that I didn't pay a whole lot of attention to sightseeing details on this trip, so this post is severly lacking in that stuff, too bad for Jacqui being lazy.

Ooo, stole some nice Lisbon description fron Vance's blog:
"Lisbon is the capital of Portugal. Portugal is located to the west of Spain. It borders the Atlantic Ocean and is in the EU. Lisbon is located on the coast and has a population of about 2 million people. Lisbon was a surprising beautiful city. It had a real clash between old and new styles. Downtown, instead of having pavement, everything was made of tiles similar to a mosaic. That meant that all the bus rides were super bumpy. Lisbon also contains the sister bridge to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco (25 de Abril Bridge). Overlooking the city is a giant Jesus statue similar to the one in Brazil."

The Lisbon group: Richard, Evan, me, Bernard, Tommy, Vance, Lindsey

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The plane ride went smoothly, and we met Evan at our hostel around dinnertime. We went out to find food, and ended up eating at a pretty good seafood resturant. I had swordfish , it was pointy....haha, no, it was good. ("You know I'm a unicorn"...oh Scrubs, just too hilarious...)

Cool pic Evan took on Saturday before we arrived

Walking to dinner on Friday night...I think that's some sort of Triumph Arch (come on, all the cool cities have them, you know you want one too!)

Our hostel lounge area, pretty snazzy

After dinner we went back to the hostel to get ready for the evening. Lindsey, Richard, Bernard and I had bought a bunch of port (we were in Portugal after all) to drink....unfortuantly, we discovered that port is really better drank in small quantities, since it's really sweet and after one glass becomes pretty overwhelming. Haha, oh well, it's all we had, so we powered through...

Richard, Lindsey and Bernard pre-drinking with some port

Our hostel room (th)s one was dark, but I did a pretty crappy job of touching it up)

Varying levels of hardcoreness

Not really sure what the arm-extension is all about Lindsey

We set off to the area where we figured all the best bars were, which was near the bridge. Unfortuantly, this was about a 45 minute walk from our hostel...but it was a nice night so the walk was enjoyable (for the most part). We made it to the area we wanted, and found a pretty decent club, it had a nice high ceiling that opened up to a semi-second story. Cover was free (except for Tommy somehow, aww, poor Tommy...) so we partied there for awhile. Got home pretty late (partly due to the long walk back, at least we didn't get lost!) but it was a pretty fun night.

The long walk to the bar area on Friday night

Wooo, Lisbon, let's party!

Dancing it up at at club

The next morning, Tommy and Bernard went off to do some sight-seeing while the rest of us hit the beach. It seemed pretty warm out, but when we got to the coast the cold ocean breeze made things somewhat chilly. Not to be detered by the cold, Vance and Evan went for a swim in the ocean (aka, tumbled around in the massive waves....they were huge!). They reported back that the water was freezing, and I was happy with my decision to stay warm and dry (or so I thought).

I had some nice tunes pumping, and decided to wander up and down the beach, enjoying the relaxing ocean vibe. After a bit of wading, I got caught up running away from the waves, and got pretty wet. By that point I was having way too much fun enjoying the beach to not go in the water, so I ran in as fast as I could before I changed my mind, and was instantly taken out by a wave, haha. The waves were crashing around with so much force it was hard to stay on my feet, and I had a pretty good flounder before suddenly the skies opened up and it was raining...time to leave the beach! We grabbed up our stuff (mine all soaking wet and sand covered....stupid sand, it gets everywhere...and it's so coarse...lol). After a soggy train rice back to the city center (the beach was further down the coast) we went back to the hostel to clean up and have a rest.

Beautiful pic...Evan and Vance about to hit the waves

Chillaxing (literally, brrr....) at the beach. This is pre-ocean madness for me

We wanted to check out the aquarium that day, so we took the metro to that part of the city. It was located in a really modern-styled area (I think a lot of it was constructed for Expo 98). There was lots of really cool architecture...it kind of reminded me of Barcelona (actually, the whole city kind of did).

In some square... not doing intensive research for this post, so you will have to live in wonder

Walking to the aquarium, enjoying the cool buildings

Funky fountain that would randomly errupt with water!

Funky statue (yes, I'm aware I already used that word to describe the fountain....tough)

The Lisbon Aquarium is supposedly the largest one in Europe, and we had a great time there. In the center of the building there was a huge tank representing the open ocean. Inside there was all sorts of cool creatures... I think the most impressive were the giant manta rays, way longer than my armspan. I didn't get any pics, I think there's some on Lindsey's camera that I intend to get eventually... (sort of complicated, keep reading to find out why!). Around the large tank were areas for the 4 different oceans, with lots of cute animals! (Except for the Indian Ocean...boo to boring fish, haha). Downstairs there were exhibits with fish and various other sea creatures (once again, I'll have to wait for some more pics).

Puffins! Too bad you couldn't see them too Mummy.

Penguins! I love watching them waddle around on land, and then pop in and out of the water, tee hee!

Otters playing in the water! Seeing them totally reminded me of a book I read as a child (nobody seemed to know what I was talking about), and I remembered how otters use rocks to break open clams to eat. Ah memories...

Evan being a sunfish, hahaha.

After the aqurium we went back to meet the others at the hostel so we could go out for dinner. After a bit of wandering we found a cool little resturant, that seemed to be entirely run by one guy. Luckily we weren't starving or in a hurry, because it took awhile to get food (understandable, I have nothing but respect for the owner of that place!). After some adventures trying to translate the menu, we had a delicious dinner. It was pretty relaxing, and we even stayed for dessert after.

Taking advantage of a cool blue tiled area with an artistic pose (not really sure what it's purpose was)

The Berg boys having a nice cozy nap

Being silly on the way to dinner

Richard, me and Vance at the resturant

Cheers!

Evan, Bernard, and Linds at dinner

Vance about to demolish his sundae

Across from the resturant, there was an internet cafe advertising free internet and cheap shots and beer. We couldn't not check it out, haha. Most people were pretty tired and decided to head home, but Evan and I got some shots and then had a nice drunken msn session. Pretty much the coolest night I've ever had, hahaha. Oh it gets better...when the place closed down for the night, we tagged along with the owners to another bar and hung out there for awhile. It was pretty dead, but there was a dj spinning some nice tracks so it was still fun. Hooray for more poor sleep amound decisions, lol.

Partying hard at the internet cafe, hahaha

The next morning we (sans Bernard and Tommy) went to check out the Belem Monestary. Unfortuantly it was closed that day (tsk tsk, F in touristness guys), so we only got to see the outside, which was really impressive. We walked around the area and looked at a cool tower

Cool pic of the monestary

Silly Vance and his speedy picture taking...I didn't even have time to smile!

Storm's a brewin'

Richard near the Discoveries Landmark

We chilled out by the edge of the water, on a odd stone embarkment that was about 45 degree slope (I measured with my protractor). It was a bit of a sketchy sitting area, and I guess Richard though so too because he manged to drop his (well...) camera down into the ocean! I think it just detached from his belt somehow. Anyways, he went to try and get it before it went all the way into the water, but slipped on the algea and fell into the water himself!

This is Richard's version at least. From what I saw, suddenly there was a camera tumbeling into the water and then SPLASH! Richard kamakazee dives into the water after it! Talk about a devoted photographer... (or tourist). Luckily it wasn't really a dangerous area (and he managed to recover the camera), but he got completely soaked.

Upon trying to get Richard sorted out, it came to our attention that it was actually Lindsey's camera which Richard had dropped, which sucks. We tried to dry it off (after rinsing off the saltwater...wow, my second voluntary camera rinsing experiance!) but word on the street now is that it is broken, booerns. Also, Richard had his ipod in his pocket, which broke too...double boorns....the ocean takes another ipod!! (The first was Devon's).

We moved away from the water and helped Richard dry off his stuff, the only other casualties were a couple sandwiches he had smuggled from the hostel breakfast, haha). Evan happened to have some board shorts in his back-pack, which he lent to Richard. This was humerous since a) there were waaaay too big (though, they ended up looking alright somehow) and b) he had to change into them in a semi-secluded corner, with Vance providing cover. They were gone for awhile. I contributed by lending Richard my longish coat to wear for the pants swap.

Evan saving Richard
Me laughing
Vance taking pictures
Lindsey mourning her camera (I assume)

Looking good Richard, haha....my coat actually fits him quite well

After getting Richard sorted out, we continuted to look around. We saw a cool castle thing (sigh, I really should find out what these are all called....maybe tomorrow...) and then after a bit of wandering continuted on to the Lisbon castle (after stopping briefly at the hostel for Richard to change properly, since it was on the way).

Beach castle thing (it's not made of sand, I checked)

Using Vance as a battering ram, mwah ha ha

Evan, Richard and Lindsey rocking some colourful shirt action (sorry Vance, maybe if you had dressed a little brighter...)

Fun with reflections

Fun times in front of the Monestary

To get up to the castle we took the tram. Prior to this we had been shopping for t-shirts (I bought one, yay it is cool) and saw lots with trams on them. We didn't really understand what was so special about the Lisbon trams... until we rode on one. These things are just pure adventure, I must have almost flown across the tram about 10 times before I got a secure enough hold. I don't know what it is, they just bump around every which was, it's aweosme!

The Lisbon adventure trams

Me taking a pic of myself on the tram, and some creepy guy in the background

More fun with reflections

Up at the Lisbon Castle we had a wicked view of the whole city. We spent lots of time just chilling and enjoying the view (you'll notice this was a common activity on this trip, haha). Then we walked up into the castle itself and had fun climbing up on the walls and pretending to be knights (maybe that was just me.....).

Lisbon from the castle

Evan destroying his cucumber

Chillin on the wall

Richard having a moment

Dramatic sky coolness

Me taking a break on the castle wall

The streets of Lisbon

Evan enjoying the sunshine

We had just enough time to check a cathedral before going back to the hostel to pick up our stuff. We took the bus to the airport, and actually ended up cutting it pretty close time-wise. Luckily, EasyJet was late (as usual), though this almost posed problems on the Swiss end of things, because we were catching the last train from Basel to Baden. It all worked out though, and we even had time for some late night waiting at the Basel train station!

Lisbon was a cool destintion, though it would have been better if it was bit hotter so we could hang out at the beach more. I pretty much felt like I was in Spain the whole time, like I said it was a very Barcelona-y vibe. Nice chill trip though, and a nice way to get into the spirit for summer travelling! (Too bad my next 2 destinations are cold places, haha.....)

Baby pic

2006-03-26T15:03:00.000+02:00

Haha, so I got this e-mail from my dad on the weekend:

"I scanned this off my picture in the office. Can you insert it on your blog next to the existing picture? - the expression is about the same."

He might have been joking, but here it is anyways :)

P.S. Happy birthday Mummy!!!

St. Patricks's Day

2006-03-23T12:45:00.000+01:00

For St. Patrick's Day (March 17) we all went down to Pickwicks to party. They had some bands playing Irish music, green beer, free hats, and drink deals on Guinness...it was good times :)

Here's some pics:

Warren and me sporting some festive hats

Richard, Vance and Tommy rocking their festive hats

Holgar and Shiraz being classy with their festive hats

Kevin not enjoying his festive hat (it's too small)

Alain, showing Rebecca that she too should be wearing a festive hat, for it would help her drink faster

Jenny, plotting to steal Travis's festive hat

Me and Holgar.

And our festive hats

Pickwicks was super crowded! Notice the general lack of festive hats, come on people!

One of the Irish bands that played, they were really awesome! (I would have donated my festive hat to them if I hadn't lost it by this time).

Kevin and Vance shotgunning Tell outside. This almost resulted in Vance making somebody's night on the street below a little too interesting. (Maybe the power of the festive hat saved him)

Guinness!!!!

.....festive hat (I couldn't have this be the only pic without that in the caption...)

London...again!

2006-03-16T16:19:00.000+01:00

Adrienn, Vance and I were in London last weekend for 3 nights. Adrienn and I had already done a trip to London, but we didn't spend much time in the actual city, since we stayed with Ed. That was more of a party / visit trip...this one we planned to see some museums and whatnot.

Thanks to Adrienn and Vance for pictures, as well as providing details about all the things I forgot. You'll also notice I went pretty hardcore on the Wikipedia links...do some extra learning!

We arrived in London on friday night, and got the full EasyJet London experiance (aka, 7ish hours of travel including an expensive train ride into the city). Vance spent some time freaking out about insane prices, but we quickly got him into the London mentality...just don't think about it and pretend all the prices you see in pounds are just Canadian dollars (actually a 2.5 conversion, eep!).

Out hostel was really awesome, the staff was friendly and had lots of good tips for getting places. Our plan for friday night was to see...Paul Van Dyke! While researching for the trip earlier in the week we discovered that he was spinning at Turnmills (a big club in London). Advanced tickets were already sold out, but we decided to show up early at the door and try and get in. Miraciously, this worked! And as a bonus we used our time in the line to get some quality pre-drinking in, so drinks for the night weren't too too expensive.

On the way to the club, making some phone calls (or pretending to, haha)

The club was really cool, and we had some time to chill before Paul Van Dyke's set started. We met Canadian and an Aussie and hung out with them for awhile, and then went to dance to the dj that was playing (that was really good music too). The place was packed, and the atmosphere was great, lots of excitement everywhere.

Adrienn and I with our new friends

Me, Vance and Adrienn ready to party

Paul Van Dyke was amazing...I am super happy that I got to see him, since I missed out in Ibiza. The set was filled with lots of energy, and everybody was really into the music. I danced lots, and we all had a really fun time. We even managed to leave as a group! Which was a good thing because getting home was a bit challanging since the tubes weren't running yet...it involved a cab, and then a night bus, which we got off at the wrong stop and then walked in the wrong direction. Eventually we made it back though, and had a good sleep.

Paul Van Dyke....great show

The next morning we got off to a slow start, and began the day with a walk through Hyde Park (which was right near our hostel). We made our way over to Buckingham Palace for some pictures, and then contiuned the walk through Green Park (basically the front lawn of Buckingham Palace) and then St. James's Park. It seems we were having a park day, haha, good times.

Red phone booth!!!

Hyde Park

Adrienn and me walking in Hyde Park

Hehe, Adrienn and I having fun...

Some random building. And a bus. Wow, it's a good thing I caption these pictures...

Buckingham Palace ...not really as awesome looking as you expect it to be....

Victoria Memorial in front of Buckingham Palace ...check out that dramatic sky!

Me, Vance and Adrienn in front of Buckingham Palace. Haha Adrienn was cold so Vance lent her the shell to his jacket

The road leading up to Buckingham Palace ....we couldn't figure out why there was Brazilian flags up everywhere!!! (We actually temporarily convinced ourself that it wasn't the Brazilian flag since it made no sense...)

Vance in Green Park (yup, it's green alright)

The ducks / other birds in St. James's Park. Mummy, you should have been there to help us identify them all!

Pelicans! (I told you they were pelicans Vance!!!!)

By then it was time for a tea/coffee break, so we went to a cafe called Paul's, that was reccomended to us by Jude (guy from London who works with Adrienn). I just wanted tea, but Adrienn and Vance had what they said were the creamyiest coffees ever, mmmm. Caffine breaks were really common on this trip...as a result I think we all got a bit addicted to caffine for awhile afterwards, lol.

Next we walked over to Harrods, a famous department store. The first thing that happened was that I wasn't allowed to bring my tea in, so I had to chug it outside, I guess I looked too much like a spill risk. We found out why though, Adrienn and I were looking around and we found a pair of super-expensive (and ironically, super-tacky) beaded pants, they cost 1939 pounds....that's about $5000!!!! We didn't spend a lot of time there, I spent most of my time looking at the stocking section, lol. Somehow Vance had enough time to check out the whole store....oh Vance and his efficient sightseeing ways, haha.

If that's what high class fashion looks like, I think I'll stick to H&M...

We walked through the Horse Garuds, which is a building where a bunch of Royal Guard hang out. I acually didn't know this it what is was called until writing this post... we kept referring to it as the Changing of the Guard (not the event, we were convinced that there was a building by the same name. Maybe the Lonely Planet led us astray). We had an interesting encounter here...since the once guard had crowds of tourists around him, we approached another one to take a picture. Only a few steps away, we passed some sort of invisible barrier, and he yelled out "Step away from the arches!!". We quickly backed off, and had a good laugh about getting in trouble from the Royal Gurad, and all the funny looks we got from people.

I bet we are the first people EVER to take this picture!!!

Next we went to take a look at Big Ben (did you know that is the name of the bell, not the clock itself. Ooooo, learning! I'm still gonna use that name for the tower though, so there). It's such a awesome looking clock tower, something about it is just so elegant. Side note: when I came to England with my family in 1998, we went to Legoland in Windsor. They had a replica of London there, and I remember how impressed I was with the mini Big Ben they build out of Lego!!!

Big Ben!

Next stop was the British Museum, which had a neat layout of a big open room with a cirular building in the center. Vance and I discovered that the building was actually a reading room, and we spend some time in there chilling out and reading books. Before that though, we all went to look at the various exhibits, including the Rosetta Stone! I found that really exciting to see... it's just cool to think what a significant part it played in the history of language.

Inside the reading room at the British Museum... they had lots of cool books on everything you can imagine... I read one about stonehenge.

The Rosetta stone... actually, I think this the replica they had out that you could touch... you would have believed me though ;)

Vance and the discus guy statue that he was so desperate to see

By then it was getting near dinner time so we took the tube back to our hostel area. Oh ya, also at this time we called Ed (used to be a praktikant living in Baden, goes to school on the outskirts of London) for the second time that day (he was still sleeping the first time, at 2pm, haha, oh Ed) to see if he was going to meet us in London for the evening. Typical Ed style, he instead wanted us to come out to Uxbridge where he was and party with his friends. That would have been fun, but we wanted to stay in London, so we made plans for the next evening instead.

We spent some time deciding what to eat... we were eating in resturants often, since we discovered that it's pretty much the same price as grocery store. Not because they are especially cheap, but because groceries are expensive...haha, oh London.... We ended up having an English breakfast (yes, for dinner), it was really good though. Haha, reminded me or Ibiza...

We did got ready for the night, and then headed to the Notting Hill Arts Club, which was just a few blocks away from our hostel (yay, isn't that awesome it was so close Vance!?). They were having a reggae night, and thought it took a little while to get in, it was well worth it. The place wasn't that big, but there was a good crowd and the music was really cool. At one point the dj said happy birthday to somebody, and then commented on how his next birthday he was going to be 65. I though he was joking (the voice sounded like your typical rasta cool guy), but then later saw him and it was true! Haha, so awesome, the guy had obviously been in the business for years and wasn't tired of it yet! He was really good too!

We stayed there until it closed, and then the 3 of us had a nice, uneventful walk home. Well, exactly one part of that sentence was true...haha..... oh adventures for everyone :)

Me and Vance at the club

Adrienn and me at the club

Vance ang Adrienn at the club (haha, can you tell we were rotating around the camera?)

The 64 year old reggae dj!

The next morning we had another slow start (well, some of us did at least...). Our first stop of the day was the Tower of London. Vance was suprised to discover that this was actually a castle that you could tour around...tsk tsk, Vance, you fail the tourist test on that one. We went in and got a tour from a Yeomen Warder (aka, Beefeater...like the gin!!!!). It was a really good tour, he knew lots of interesting facts and stories, plus was pretty funny (and he kept making fun of Americans, haha). I guess a lot of people though he was a good tour guide, because our group ended up being ridiculously huge... luckily we scored places at the front.

We looked at the crown jewels, which were awesome, they have the biggest cut diamond in the world! I liked reading about how they found the diamonds and processed them...though, I wonder why they cut them at all, couldn't you have just one super-huge diamond? Hmm, oh well..

Adrienn and me in front of the Tower of London

Our Beefeater tour guide, deep into a story

The Tower Bridge (NOT the London Bridge!!!) from inside the Tower of London

Me, Vance, and Adrienn with the typical tourist shot in front of the tower bridge

Later in the afternoon we went to Camden, which is a funky shopping area of London. First we stopped for lunch in a pub, where Adrienn had a misfortunate Ketchup incident...she was shaking the bottle and the cap flew off, haha. Luckily, Vance and I escaped unscarred. We wandered around the cool shops, and the market, where I bough a few t-shirts, yay, shopping! Vance asked us if he was cool enough to pull off a Star Wars shirts.... I informed him that sadly, he probably wasn't. Poor Vance... too geeky for geek shirts.

Adrienn decides to decorate the pub

We went to meet Ed and Andy (his friend) at the tube station, on the way seeing Trafalgar Square, and the Canada House. It was awesome to see Ed again! We all went for dinner at a spanish tapas resturant (that Ed semi-sucessfully led us to, haha), and all ordered a bunch of appatzers, it was really good. Next we randomly stumbled upon a Canadian Bar!! Haha, it was decorated with flags and a black bear, they had Molsen and Richard's on tap, and were showing the hockey game! It was a pretty fun place, I think Ed and Andy got a kick out of the "Canadian experiance", lol.

Afterwards we said our good-bye's and caught the tube back to our hostel. We were pretty tired from the night before, so we took it easy and just went to bed. Unfortunatly, none of us really got a good sleep, a combo of a bunch of factors including the room being too hot. Oh well...

A little piece of home

Ed and me at dinner

Adrienn and Andy

A bigger piece of home! Canadian bar!

Andy, Adrienn, me and Ed having some beer (I don't think any of us got Canadian beer though, haha, Europe has shown us the way...)

Andy, me, Ed and Vance at the tube station

Monday morning we awoke and went to the Tate Modern, a modern art gallery. They had some really cool pieces there, and for once, the captions were in English! I enjoyed reading about the artist's interpretation of their work, I found it made me see the art differently once I had something specific to look for. One of my favorite ones reminded me of a craft we did back in school...where you colour a picture, coat it in black crayon, and then scrape off the black to make cool patterns. The artist commented on how it was just simple and fun about scraping off that top layer... I though it was pretty neat :)

The gallery had a cool gift shop too...Vance bought some books (after we had a frantic session of picking out the best ones, haha) explaining time and logic in a introdutrory way...they looked awesome, I'm gonna have to borrow them.

Me and Adrienn, on the way to the Tate Modern

Me on the balcony at the Tate Modern...you can see St. Paul's Cathedral and the Millenium Bridge in the background

Vance and me doing an artistic silloette pic

After the museum we didn't have much time to get back to our hostel, so we went quickly by St. Paul's Cathedral for some pics, and hopped on the tube. We got subway for dinner (mmmmmm...it's been awhile), where there was some panic because Adrienn almost lost her wallet!!! Not that it would have been a new and traumatic experiance....haha, jk ;)

St. Paul's Cathedral

After a quick 8 hour journey on the tube, train, bus, plane, bus, train and bus, we were home again! Oh EasyJet...

It was a really great trip, we managed to see lots, party lots, and meet up with Ed too! It was a good city to see with a small group, since we were constantly moving around and trying to get places. Adrienn, Vance and I make a good travel group...and I'm sure Vance throughouly enjoyed the a weekend of listening Adrienn and I chatter on about everything that popped into our head, haha. Actually, by the end of the trip he had a pretty good inner monologue going on too.... good to see we had a positive effect on him ;) Yay London!

Memories...

2006-03-14T11:25:00.000+01:00

This isn't a post about Europe, but I wanted to put it up anyways cause it's been on my mind a bunch lately.

Hmmm...kind of hard to get started....

Well, it's been almost a year since Lindsay died. For those that don't know she was a good friend who I grew up with, and she was killed in a car accident last year around this time. I'm not going to get into all the details of that...you can ask me some time if you want to know, I don't mind talking about it. Or there's some articles on Lindsay's website , with recent updates about the trial and stuff, and a guestbook. Here's a picture of her...she's one of the most beautiful people I know, she was a ballet dancer and so graceful. She loved every sort of dancing, and we went to our first raves together and discovered the world of trance music.

Anyways, this post is more because I wanted to put up some pictures of her and the rest of my friends growing up. We (me, my mom and my friend Aimee) made a scrapbook for her family...it was great to look through old pictures and remember all the fun times. Check it out:

Lindsay...I think this picture was from my 13th birthday party, shortly after a cake-eating contest, haha.

We grew up in the community of Woodlands, so this name kind of just evolved (there were the Woodlands Boys too, haha, our arch nemises ...for awhile at least ).

Pic from one of my birthday parties..murder mystery, haha, everybody got totally into dressing up for their character
back: Nikki, Karly, Vanessa
front: Linds, me, Morgan, Amy, Aimee

Various choir and band performances ...Clowns, Charlie Brown

At outdoor school in grade 6, that was an awesome week! Jenny Basie...oh you are were crazy one

Jr. High spring break school trip to Greece and Italy (I didn't go on this trip though...I think I'm making up for it this year!). They had an awesome time though, I was so jelouse

Random pics from around school.

Graduation!

Best buds (bottom left): me, Linds, Aimee and Morgan at grad. Lindsay made her own dress! My mom made mine :)

Various halloweens... party at Nikki's in grade 1 all the way up to halloween pub crawl a couple years ago. I think Lindsay made most of her later costumes, she was pretty awesome at sewing

Lots of fun moments in Girl Guides ...camps were always the best! That bridge at Camp Gardner was totally awesome, haha.

Even more fun that Girl Guides, basically all of our group of friends was in Pathfinders, so it was just bonus time for hanging out. Dressing up, camping, Stage West....good times :)

Kids Help Phone Bowl-a-thon that we volunteered at. We also had a team entered ...won the prize for loudest team, haha,
Lindsay, Desolie, Morgan, Aimee, me (top left)

One of Amy's music shows at Eau Claire

Various birthday parties at my house...one of them Lindsay decided to have food in her mouth for every picture (I think she suceeded, lol). She was always so happy and laughing all the time, guarenteed to make you smile :)

The time we tried to dye our hair with Kool-aid (totally unsucessful, lol, what a waste of time)

Birthday parties ...Lindsay and her funky style, I love how she can be such an individual and totally confident with herself

Amy, Morgan and Lindsay (bottom left), good friends :)

I'm glad to have so many awesome memories from growing up. Thinking about them is sad, but it's good to remember all the great time we had, and all the crazy fun. We miss you Lindsay, but you'll never be gone :)

Carnival in Basel

2006-03-09T10:52:00.000+01:00

I thought I had had enough of carnival, but then I heard about the Basel Faschnacht. It begins at 4am on monday morning (aka, Sunday night) on March 5 with a lantern parade. Some friends from work were planning to go (Kathryn, Samuela and her friend Nick), so I decided to come along.

I managed to round up a group from Baden to join in on the fun. Me, Richard, Adrienn, Vance, Tommy, Alain and Victor met at the Berg around midnight on sunday night to prep with some coffee and Bailey's. For those of you keeping track, this was the day after the birthday party (notice Lindsey not joining us in Basel, haha), which was the day after the Concert in Zurich. Needless to say, it was a full and intense weekend, and coffee was muchly required.

We hopped on the train to Zurich, and met up with my work friends, and then got on the 2am train to Basel. We had some beer on the train to keep us energized (lol) and then made our way through the crowded, snowy streets to a good parade watching location.

Right at 4am (gotta love Swiss punctuality!), all the lights went out on the streets, and we heard piccolos and drums off in the distance. Before long the streets were filled with a parade of musicians, all equipped with glowing lanterns on their heads, paper mache masks, and big lantern floats. All the various floats were satire's of current events in Basel....however, since none of us were up on the current events we didn't get the jokes of the parades (plus, most of us couldn’t read French/German). The effect was still beautiful though, the lanterns looked really cool. Something interesting about the parade was that it wasn't one single route...there seemed to be multiple starting points and people marching in streets all around us. It was cool, because the sound of the various drums and flutes all combined together into a neat layered effect.

After the parade had mostly passed us, us Baden folk decided to go to McDonalds to warm up/grab some food (which turned out to be a poor decision...McDonalds is never really a good food choice). We caught a morning train back home, and after a quality hour and a half train sleep I arrived in Zurich to go straight to work. Good times! I'm glad I got to enjoy another Swiss experience. It was a lot different vibe than the carnival in Luzern...not many people dressed up, different music styles, more watching than crazy dancing. I'm happy that I ended up seeing both, as they were totally different styles of carnival!

Pics from Kathryn and Victor (thanks!). They don't really capture the effect like being there, but it's better than nothing!:

Basel town hall (I think), near where we were watching the parade

Me, Kathryn and Samuela (Ralph's Angels! Haha.....)

Drummers with lanterns and cool masks

Some of the floats

Vance, Tommy and Victor at the parade

Another float

Even more floats!

Piccolo players with lanterns

I'm pretty sure this float was supposed to be on fire.....pretty sure...

Winter in Baden / Bye Javier!

2006-03-07T12:14:00.000+01:00

Last sunday (after the berg party) Adrienn and I went for a walk around Baden to enjoy the beautiful snowfall. It had been snowing hard for days, and we couldn't believe how deep the snow was! It caused lots of trouble with transportation, in Zurich the trams were all stuck and shut down. We had a few deep snow situations that we weren't prepared for, haha, but it was a fun afternoon, and I finally went up to the Baden castel (something I had been meaning to so for a long time)

Here's a couple pics...I'll put up more as soon as I get Adrienn's

The path down from Kehl, totally snow-covered

Baden Castle on the left, and part of the town on the right

Adrienn up at the Baden Castel, nice view of the town

In other Baden news, Javier went back to Peru! A few of us went out to Cheers to say good-bye, we'll miss you Javier. D&D just won't be the same without Lumar...

Javier, Vance and me.... bye Javier!

Yay for cool shirt colours ;)

Happy Birthday Lindsey and Vance

2006-03-06T10:51:00.000+01:00

Vance and Lindsey's birthdays are on March 5 and 6 (respectively), so the Berg had a party last Saturday for the occasion. That night fell in the middle of a giant snowfall Baden has been experiencing, so lots of the busses weren't running, but most people managed to make it anyways for a night of good times!

The party was really fun, and the cops didn't even show up. Highlights were a couple bottles of absinthe emerging, as well as the hacking of Vance's computer (and trust me, it wasn't for comics). Here's some pics from the night:

The Birthday Bergians

Mmmm, Polish Vodka...

Travs and Linds get the night started. Travis is wearing a visor in protest of winter still being here.

Alain (new praktikant from Calgary), Tommy and Warren

Phil, dj-ing it up

Tommy, Travis and Dan doing some classic Berg hallway standing

Travis sporting the double hat look

Vance with the Berg's very last Ankor

Nate caught drinking

Shotgunning with bottles, nice use of straws guys

Adrienn, Victor and me (being unimpressed with something)

Alain, Warren, Richard, Huw... Richard's got a hardcore look going on here

Oooo, fire....

"Absinthe tastes funny"

I agree

Something exciting on Vance's computer ...wonder what it could be?!?!?!?

Dan, Vance, Lindsey, Shane and Travis polish off the rest of the absinthe

Mike, Dan, Dan, Hwu...The Berg is filled to capacity

Tommy looks a little sketched out by something ...maybe the colour of his hair

I wonder which one of them noticed that a picture was being taken?

Classical Music Concert

2006-03-05T09:42:00.000+01:00

Last Friday night there was a classical music concert in Zurich, so a bunch of us went to it to try and get some contrast to our otherwise undignified lifestyles. Evan, Shane, Vance, Travis, Warren, Henry, Bernard and I all got pimped out in our formal attire and enjoyed an hour-long performance of music inspired by Shakespearian Love. It was cool, and we all really enjoyed ourselves. And don't worry, we made sure to hold true to the praktikant ways and be drunk and such for the show...haha. The main inspiration for this was because after the concert, the lobby area turned into a club (strange combination of events, lol). On one floor they had a dj, who was pretty decent and then on another floor they had 2 guys doing weird experimental music...they had these home made industrial instruments and all sorts of electronic equiptment...it was interesting, but weird (unfortunatly, I didn't get any pics of it, you will have to use your imagination).

We partied there for most of the night...Bernard, Henry and Warren left early enough to catch the last train back to Baden, but the rest of us missed it. We ended up walking through the pouring rain, and then sleeping a bit at the Zurich train station. It was cold and not so fun, especially when comboed with the walk home in Baden (no busses running yet). Oh well, fun night overall, and nice to get some culture for once!

Here's some pics....lots of them were taken without flash (we didn't want to disturb people) and ended up pitch black, so I tried to fix them up in photoshop...semi-sucessful.

The concert hall before the show

Vance and Travis waiting for the show to start

Evan ready for a night of music

Me and Warren

Shane...haha, taking a short nap during the show

Travis following Shane's lead. Ah, I love embarassing photos

The club after the concert, pretty sweet

Some funky lighting

Me, Travis and Vance dancing it up

Shane's into the music

Nice couch relaxation area

Looking at the dance floor from the balcony above

Giant Lego man on the walk home!!! Help, he's grabbing me and Shane!

Travis, Vance, Shane and Evan enjoying the walk through the rain.

Carnival in Luzern

2006-03-03T11:25:00.000+01:00

We realized that we hadn't truely experianced Swiss Carnival, so Evan, Warren, Travis, Devon and I decided to head to Luzern (a city that hosts one of Switzerland's most famous Carnivals) for the last night of Carnival (Feb 28) and party it up Swiss style (wow, never thought I'd say that!)

Evan, Warren and I took the train up early Tuesday evening, armed with beer, red bull, vodka, face paint, glitter, tinfoil, tape and various secondhand robot costume leftovers (found at Ziegelhau). We didn't know exactly what we wanted to do for a costume, but after a bit of discussion somehow settled on roboty-aliens with a shape theme . I was circle, Evan was square and Warren was triangle. Together, we were the unstopable geometrons! (wtf...yes, we may have already been drunk at this point) We made quite a scene at the Luzern train station taping tinfoil to each other.

Geometrons ...unite!

We somehow got talking to some 15ish year old swiss boys, who were even drunker than we were. They had some sort of rap group, and gave us a demo while Evan beat boxed for them. It was a randomly strange and amusing encounter, lol.

Us with our new swiss rapper friends

Around 10:30 we met up with Travis and Devon who had taken a later train. We wanted to incorporate them into our robot tin foil theme, but couldn't be bothered to spend much more time on costumes so ended up just wrapping them with the remaining tin foil. Devon also got to wear the robot head.

Part of the tin foil squad (Warren, Travis and Devon). Hooray for budget costume making!

We headed out into the streets where everything was very much underway. Everywhere we turned there was a different marching bands playing, all with themed costumes and oversized paper mache heads.

We found a cool rhythm band that was playing some awesome stuff, and joined in the crowd dancing wildly to the music. Needless to say, our fragile tin foil costumes didn't survive that long...oh well, they were fun while they lasted.

Band with a dart hat theme...this was just one of many cool band themes we saw.

Me dancing up a storm

Evan, Warren and me, sans foil...

We spent the whole night wandering from band to band, dancing as hard as we could. The hting I really loved about the marching bands was how into the music all the musicians were, just having a great time. Really together too...often it seemed like somebody would just start playing a song, and everybody would just start joining in. Might have just been rehersed like that though...either way, pretty cool. There was also various floats that had speakers blaring more dance/trance music, which was a nice interlude between the marching bands.

Discoy "float"

Haha, best costume ever

Some guy randomly gave us a bunch of sausages. It was the sketchiest thing ever, but everyone was so hungry that they didn't care. Nobody died, so that was good.

Stairs area which was one of the better spots to watch bands. These guys were really good, and the conductor was so into everything, it was awesome.

We went hard until about 3:45am, and then headed back to the train station. We caught the 4:10 train back to Zurich, and I opted for heading straight to work. It was a tired day, but I actually ended up banking hours since I stuck it out until regular leaving time, woot.

To summerize, Swiss people know how to party, they just happen to save it all up for this annual event.

Old praktikants visit (and an explination of carnival)

2006-03-02T11:24:00.000+01:00

The last weekend in Feb some of last year's praktikants were back in Baden for saturday night. A bunch of them had been invited to something at a university in Germany (I have no idea what it was all about, whatever...) so it was cool that Jay, Haley and Gorana were able to swing through Baden on their way home.

We went out to Pickwicks, it was like old times (even though I hadn't really ever hung out with Haley and Gorana, I imagine it was similar to what old times were like). To make matters more intersting, carnival was going on in Baden that weekend, so the streets were filled with bands and costume-clad Badeners. Honesely, I think carnival time is the only time of the year that Swiss people let loose.

Maybe I'll take this time to explain what the whole deal with carnival is. The main concept is that it falls in the days leading up to lent, to give everyone one last chance to party before having to give up stuff they like. Or so I was told at least...here's Wikipedia's description of carnivals in various places: Carnival

Anyways, here's some pics from the evening:

Jay, Lindsey and Tommy at the Berg

Warren, me and Haley

Vance and Jay pre-drinking

Old praktikante return to Pickwicks! Haley, Gorana and Jay

Lindsey and Travis suffering from a confetti attack

Lindsey, me, Victor and Dirk

Felix, Tyler and Phil

Keegan, Victor, Lindsey and Nate at Pickwicks

Hayley, Tyler and Nate (can you tell I'm not feeling the picture caption creativity today?)

Carnival in full swing in Baden

Carnival in Venice

2006-02-25T15:59:00.000+01:00

After the madness of seeing the Olympics in Toriono, Adrienn and I headed over to Venice. We had planned this awhile ago, since we wanted to take advantage of the rest of the weekend. Much later we found out that it would be one of the weekends of Carnival, a huge event in Venice! As another bonus, various other praktikats were also planning on being in Venice that weekend (they were headed to the Olympics afterwards), so we had lots of people to party with.

Thanks to Vance and Adrienn for the pics...I might put up some of Richard's and Bernard's soon too, so check back.

The Venice crew

back: Richard, Mike, Travis, Bernard, Tommy, Kevin
front: Vance, me, Adrienn, Lindsey, Tyler

Adrienn and I arrived in Venice on friday afternoon, after a much-needed sleep on the train over (we had been up all night the night before, after the Canada-Germany hockey game). The hostel we were staying at wasn't in the main Venice area, but was very close to another main Venice train station, so we had easy access to Venice all weekend. This was amplified by the fact that when we checked in to our hostel the lady gave us a very comprehensive rundown of the various transportation, including times, locations and costs. It was awesome. Also awesome was our hostel room, well I guess it was a hotel, but it was still awesome. I said awesome a lot in those last few paragraphs (I should add at this point that I'm really tired as I write this post, see the upcoming Carnival in Basel post for more details).

So we checked into our hostel and mustered up the energy to go into main Venice. Carnival wasn't starting until the next day, but already various mask and souvineer vendors were scattered about the streets. Adrienn and I spent the evening wandering around, enjoying the intricate network of back streets and bridges over canals. It was cool because with all the crazy zigs and zags you would expect to get lost easily...actually it was a fairly easy city to navigate, you just had to keep a sense of the general direction you were headed. Also, major locations we really well marked with signs (this was actually probably the main factor in the easy navigation, lol).

Me outside the Venice train station, you can see the canal and some significant looking building in the background.

Adrienn in Venice

Mmmmm, piiiiiizzzza.

After a bit of searching we found a nice looking, reasonably priced restaurant (a constant battle for the praktikant traveller...). We shared some wine and each had pasta, it was a really nice meal. Afterwards we walked over to Piazza San Marco, where they seemed to be setting up a big stage. We asked around, and found out that these was a show planned for the next night...we made a mental note to return with everyone else tomorrow. The square was pretty, and dominated by a big Basilica that looked neat in the dark (but cooler in the day, we discovered).

By then we had satisfied our initial Venice curiosity, as well as the nagging feeling that we couldn't just stay home all evening. Pleased with our day, we caught the train back to the hostel and and gave in to the call of sleep. It was the first decent sleep we had gotten since well before Torino and was awesome.

The next morning we woke up at a decent hour and got ready to meet everyone else (Vance, Tommy, Lindsey, Richard, Bernard, Travis, Kevin, Mike, Tyler) who was arriving that morning after a night of minimal sleep for the purpose of train cheapness. Some of them were staying at the same place as us, other's weren't so fortunate and we staying at a hostel just down the street (we totally won the booking-the-best-place contest, oh ya!). We met up with everyone without trouble...except that Bernard had managed to not get off the train at the right stop, and was currently missing.

Lindsey and Richard, sleeping in the Chiasso train station on the way to Venice
(I wasn't here for this, I was warm and happy in a bed, mwah ha ha)

Kevin, me, Travis and Tyler at a cafe. You can't see in this picture, but Travis's hair is dyed bright red for Olympics (Tommy did his too...cept it ended up more pinkish, lol, still looked cool)

After grabbing some food everyone dropped off their stuff and we took the train to Venice. There we ran into Bernard, who was smart enough to stay put when he got off the train, figuring that we would show up eventually.

As predicted, 3 seconds after stepping into the street everyone had scattered to look at all the cool masks for sale, purchase novelty hats, and get their faces painted (the latter too were only Vance and Tommy actually). It was cool though, we weren't in any rush and it was neat to look at all the carnival stuff going on. We stopped often for pictures and coffee breaks and gelato (yes, even though it was cold out, who can resist gelato!??!)

Tommy and Vance in their new hats and face paint

One of many, many mask stores. They were cool though, so many really fancy (expensive) masks

This pic was taken to accompany a casual Tommy quote:
"Wow, it kinda makes you feel like a kid again"

Really, what part made you feel like that Tommy? Haha..

The streets of Venice

The canals of Venice

Adrienn and I contributed to the group disorganization by breaking off to buy cool stockings at one of the numerous stocking shops. They are so awesome! And on sale! We annoyed the shopkeeper by trying on the stockings in the store, she wasn't impressed, haha. I bought 4 pairs though, awesomeness...

Adrienn and me with our head bobbles

Nice canal pic from the Rialto Bridge

Eventually we made it to Piazza San Marco, and lined up to go inside the Basilica. It was pretty cool and Basilicay...I didn't bother going up to the top though. While waiting outside for the others, I took advantage of the free time and totally jazzed up my homemade carnival mask. Oh ya, Adrienn and I made masks prior to coming (and they actually survived through the first half of the trip!). We continuted with the Canada theme, and they looked pretty cool, though I decided that they needed an extra coating of glitter for super glittery awesomeness. We put on the masks, and our discount Coop head bobblies and were all carnivaled up.

Basilica at Piazza San Marco

Another view

Piazza San Marco from up inside the Basilica

Some people dressed up more fancily than we were (there were lots...)

By this point everyone was hungry, so we found a pizza place and had a pretty tastey meal (noticed I didn't comment on the cheapness this time? Grr...stupid Europe and sur-charges for everything). Next stop was mask purchasing for everyone that didn't have one. Hehe, it was cool how everybody's mask seemed to suit them so well.

Mike eating some yummy pizza (with an egg on it, crazy!)

After dinner we scouted around until we found a supermarket and proceeded to buy drinks for the night. We were momentarily slowed down when everybody stopped to ooo and ahh at a chocolate fountain in a window, but managed to buy everything we needed without too much trouble. We stationed ourselves at some fountainish thing, that appeared to be more popular as a garbage heap, and pretty much took it over for a drink mixing station. We stayed here for awhile, and talked to some teenage Americans who were everything you expect out of drunk American teenagers.

Us in our Carnival masks! (Bernard bought one later)
back: Vance, Tyler, Kevin
middle: Richard, Mike, Travis
front: me, Adrienn, Lindsey, Tommy

Pre-drinking at the fountain

Somewhere around this point it started raining, so we clustered under a covered area with all the rest of the crowds. I should point out that it was about 9pm, and due to our enthusiasm for drinking right away we were all well on our ways to really drunk. We hung around there until the rain stopped, then went back into the square where we mingled with some people and all sorts of hat and mask abuse took place.

After a bit of time we noticed a band has appeared nearby and was starting to play. We joined the crowd around them, and soon were part of a big mob, dancing excitedly to what we found out was a Swiss band. The band started marching around the square, and the crowd turned into a huge parade procession, all yelling and shouting to the music. It was amazingly fun, and everybody was so into it.

The awesome Swiss band

Adrienn made friends with some of the band members (they let her play their drums!)

Vance and I got lost from the group, but it was alright because we had all planned to meet up at the fountain at 11. Or so we thought...apparently this was one of those "suggested meeting times
"...in other words, nobody cares about us and I'm sad.

Tyler, Tommy, Lindsey, Travis and Kevin at the club they went to (after NOT meeting at the meeting spot)

Vance and I stopped in a bar for a little while, and then decided to start making our way home. This was the one time the Venice signs failed me...I think we had veered too far off the main path for signs to the train station to exist. Anyways, we ended up wandering around trying to get our barings for some time, but eventually ended up back at the bus stop where we caught a night bus back to the hostel (thanks again hostel lady for the heads up on the night buses!).

It was at this point that I realized that Adrienn had our room key...man, I should really stop leaving things in her hands when we go out drinking...lol, jk Adrienn, you are awesome :) Luckily the night manager found me camped out in the lobby and offered to let me into our room, yay! Adrienn showed up not too much later, and apoligized for not meeting up with us, which was good of her. (In case you haven't noticed, I'm bitter about this...I hate when people don't do somthing they already agreed too, arg...)

The next day we awoke and packed up our room. We also watched in amusement as Travis, Tyler and Kevin woke up 4 hours late and rushed and panicked to try and get out of there, since they were supposed to meet up with Nate in Torino. I think it all worked out in the end, but I imagine Nate wasn't too happy with the situation.

It didn't take me too long into this day to realize all the partying and non-sleeping had caught up with me, as I was feeling pretty crappy and sick. I made it through the day by relying on medication, but I was still feeling super lazy all day. This worked out pretty well actually, since the plan for the day was to ride on the boats in Venice (not the gondola's unfortuantly...a ride on one of those was a bit more pricy than our praktikant wallets could handle).

A boat like the one we road on...too big to travel down the little canals unfortunatly

A boat that we didn't ride on (gondola, to be more specific)

Rialto Bridge (from the boat)

Bernard and Mike on the boat

We cruised a bit on the boat, and then most of us opted for taking the boat ride to Murano island, where they have demonstrations of glass blowing. I was impressed with the ease of the visit, we just got off the boat and they pointed us to the factory and we got to watch everything for free! I guess they get you after the tour when they usher you into the store section and all the being impressed is focused into purchasing power. I bought myself a glass ring which I was happy with, it was worth it for the demo.

Afterwards we walked around a bit and then took the boat back. The boat ride was about an hour long, which was awesome because I slept both ways.

Me and Vance at Murano

Murano island, pretty place

Richard, Vance, Mike, Adrienn, Bernard and me, after checking out the glass-blowing

Bernard and Mike on a bridge

Adrienn and Vance against a cool sky

We split up for some shopping (or cafe sitting, in Adrienn and my's case) and then got together to find somewhere to eat. After being unimpressed with all the expensive resturants, Adrienn and I discussed just trying to find the place we had had dinner on our first night. After deciding that it was too much effort to find out where it was, we somehow randomly ended up in front of the exact resturant, it was crazy!

Everybody liked the place, and we were so happy to be sitting out of the cold that we milked it for all it was worth, and ended up lingering longer than the staff liked, lol. It was nice though, because we got to have full meals, complete with dessert. I had a frozon yogurty fruit thing, it was awesome.

At this point Adrienn and I said by to everyone and headed to the train station to catch our night train back to Switzerland (everyone else was leaving the next day, so they went to go party for their last night in Venice). We arrived very early for our train, but since were both feeling sick and energyless, we opted for sneaking into a random hotel lobby and relaxing in the warmth for an hour. It was pretty entertaining actually, since the lobby was also the meeting point for a group of students that were travelling from the States I think, and they were amusing to watch.

Finally it was train time...we crawled into our beds and greatfully slept until arriving in Zurich. I was at work for half a day before realizing I was way to sick to be there, so headed home to sleep. Worst thing about this: Adrienn and I had tickets to Death Cab for Cutie that night, and we both were too sick to go. Unfortunatly it was too short notice for anybody to take the tickets so they went to waste, sigh....it's the ultimite emo situation, lol.

Despite getting sick, Venice was a fun time and a great conclusion to the Italy Olympics trip. Venice is definitely up there with my favorite Italian cities, I really like the maze of little paths you take around the city. I think it would have been really nice to go there in the summer, but being able to be there for carnival was also really cool.