A blog detailing the ongoing slobberpalooza that is the life of those with both a baby and a boxer.
After we left Valemount, we crossed the border from British Columbia to Alberta, and also officially entered the Rocky Mountains.
From here, just when we thought it was impossible, the scenery dial was given another tweak.
Our first stop of the morning (after coffee of course) was to view Mt Robson, the tallest mountain in the Rockies, weighing in at a smidge under 4000m. Unfortunately when we got there, it was clouded in, so it didn't look that speccy.
Never mind though, we went for a nice long hike for a few hours in the National Park, and by the time we got back the clouds had cleared and we had and almost uninterrupted view of the Majestic peak. There is a photo up on the photo page if you care for a look.
From here we went for a look at Maligne canyon, which was a nice walk along, well you guessed it, a canyon. It's not quite the grand canyon, but it is still pretty amazing to see what running water can do to rock given enough time. It is worth noting that by this time, most of us on the tour were starting to get a bit ancey to see a moose. Ironically, while he didn't actually see a Moose, our bus driver saw a sizable buck elk in the car park while he was waiting for us to come back from our walk, in the bush where you think elk would hang out. Never mind.
That night we stayed in a hostel at Athabasca falls, which was pretty unique. At $13 each, it was the cheapest place we stayed, but this wasn't why it was notable. It was notable because it was 3 log cabins, right in the middle of no where. It was basically a group of log cabin in the forest with no running water. Some people found the absolute pitch darkness and deadly silence disturbing, but I enjoyed not only because I got a great nights sleep, but because for the first time on our whole holiday I had a good clear view of the northern hemisphere stars.
Refreshed from the good sleep in the wilderness, we then embarked on what was definitely one of the highlight days of the whole trip. The scenery dial was wound up to 11, and we saw places that are about as pretty as its possible to get.
We started the day with a squizz at Athabasca falls, which was of course another waterfall. Even though by this stage waterfalls were starting to be less interesting for us since we had seen so many, this one was really good! Not only was there a whole shit load of water coming down a 12 odd meter rockface, but the surrounding scenery really made the scene.
From here, we headed into a really cool place, if you will pardon the pun, the Columbia Icefield.
What made this so special, aside of course from the massive snow capped mountains, was the fact we walked on a glacier and got snowed on!
Yes, soft white flakes of snow were falling on us as we struggled up the glacier and proceeded to have a snowball fight. Karen started it of course, but ended up coping a snowball in the back of the head which stayed perched there until we got back on the bus. Most people couldn't understand why it was exciting to have snow falling on us, but I guess we don't understand people's fascination with kangaroos.
I was a little disappointed though, because since I was standing at the top of a big snowy slope, I decided to conduct a little experiment. At the top I made a snowball, and rolled it down the hill to see what would happen. I was hoping the snowball would 'snowball' and be absolutely massive by the time it got to the bottom of the hill. Not the case - it just got a little bit bigger and then bogged down in the snow under its own weight. Perhaps I didn't roll it hard enough or something.
After stopping off at a few more points to look at thescenery and getting snowed on some more, we left the Columbia icefield, which incidently is the largest ice cap outside of the artic circle and went for a look at some glacial lakes.
The first was the very famous Lake Louise, which apparently is the most photographed lake in the world. It's easy to see why, it is a magnificent cobalt blue lake, surrounded with trees and snow capped mountains. There is also a hideously large hotel right next to it, and the best view of the lake is of course from the top floor of the hotel which commands up to $2000 a night for a room in peak season.
There was a bit of a bus challenge to see who could get to the top floor without being noticed to take a photo of the view without being rejected by the staff. Having spent many days of my life in fancy hotels, it was all a bit easy for me, I just found some lary american tourists (who just got out of, and I kid you not, stretch pickup trucks) and followed them into the elevator.
After Lake Louise, we went to Peyto Lake. Bing! We have a winner! Best scenery of all time. Just amazing. I will post one of my own pictures here later, but in the meantime click here for a squizz.
Wow!
From here, just when we thought it was impossible, the scenery dial was given another tweak.
Our first stop of the morning (after coffee of course) was to view Mt Robson, the tallest mountain in the Rockies, weighing in at a smidge under 4000m. Unfortunately when we got there, it was clouded in, so it didn't look that speccy.
Never mind though, we went for a nice long hike for a few hours in the National Park, and by the time we got back the clouds had cleared and we had and almost uninterrupted view of the Majestic peak. There is a photo up on the photo page if you care for a look.
From here we went for a look at Maligne canyon, which was a nice walk along, well you guessed it, a canyon. It's not quite the grand canyon, but it is still pretty amazing to see what running water can do to rock given enough time. It is worth noting that by this time, most of us on the tour were starting to get a bit ancey to see a moose. Ironically, while he didn't actually see a Moose, our bus driver saw a sizable buck elk in the car park while he was waiting for us to come back from our walk, in the bush where you think elk would hang out. Never mind.
That night we stayed in a hostel at Athabasca falls, which was pretty unique. At $13 each, it was the cheapest place we stayed, but this wasn't why it was notable. It was notable because it was 3 log cabins, right in the middle of no where. It was basically a group of log cabin in the forest with no running water. Some people found the absolute pitch darkness and deadly silence disturbing, but I enjoyed not only because I got a great nights sleep, but because for the first time on our whole holiday I had a good clear view of the northern hemisphere stars.
Refreshed from the good sleep in the wilderness, we then embarked on what was definitely one of the highlight days of the whole trip. The scenery dial was wound up to 11, and we saw places that are about as pretty as its possible to get.
We started the day with a squizz at Athabasca falls, which was of course another waterfall. Even though by this stage waterfalls were starting to be less interesting for us since we had seen so many, this one was really good! Not only was there a whole shit load of water coming down a 12 odd meter rockface, but the surrounding scenery really made the scene.
From here, we headed into a really cool place, if you will pardon the pun, the Columbia Icefield.
What made this so special, aside of course from the massive snow capped mountains, was the fact we walked on a glacier and got snowed on!
Yes, soft white flakes of snow were falling on us as we struggled up the glacier and proceeded to have a snowball fight. Karen started it of course, but ended up coping a snowball in the back of the head which stayed perched there until we got back on the bus. Most people couldn't understand why it was exciting to have snow falling on us, but I guess we don't understand people's fascination with kangaroos.
I was a little disappointed though, because since I was standing at the top of a big snowy slope, I decided to conduct a little experiment. At the top I made a snowball, and rolled it down the hill to see what would happen. I was hoping the snowball would 'snowball' and be absolutely massive by the time it got to the bottom of the hill. Not the case - it just got a little bit bigger and then bogged down in the snow under its own weight. Perhaps I didn't roll it hard enough or something.
After stopping off at a few more points to look at the
The first was the very famous Lake Louise, which apparently is the most photographed lake in the world. It's easy to see why, it is a magnificent cobalt blue lake, surrounded with trees and snow capped mountains. There is also a hideously large hotel right next to it, and the best view of the lake is of course from the top floor of the hotel which commands up to $2000 a night for a room in peak season.
There was a bit of a bus challenge to see who could get to the top floor without being noticed to take a photo of the view without being rejected by the staff. Having spent many days of my life in fancy hotels, it was all a bit easy for me, I just found some lary american tourists (who just got out of, and I kid you not, stretch pickup trucks) and followed them into the elevator.
After Lake Louise, we went to Peyto Lake. Bing! We have a winner! Best scenery of all time. Just amazing. I will post one of my own pictures here later, but in the meantime click here for a squizz.
Wow!
We left Kamloops early in the morning, so that we would have plenty of time at our next destination, Valemount.
Valemount is a tiny little mountain town, conveniently located at the intersection of 3 mountain ranges, The Caribee, Monashee and the Rockie mountains all meet here.
The hostel here was nothing short of magnificent! Nestled amongst the forest, it featured beautifully appointed log cabins with an outdoor hot tub to boot. The one we stayed in featured a big screen teev, pool table, comfy lounges and a wireless internet terminal. Not bad for $22 a night, but like Whistler, in winter the bunk beds come out and it turns into a ski chalet and the price sky rockets.
The official Moose activity for the afternoon was horse riding, which Karen and I gave the meh reaction do.
Karen spent the afternoon lazing around the chalet writing emails and enjoying the view off of the back porch, and I teamed up with my buddy Marco from the tour and went mountain biking for the afternoon.
We headed out to the back of town to do one of the recommended rides through the forest, a scenic one that follows a little fire road up and down one of the smaller mountains. Let me tell you, there was a lot of up. A lot. Seriously, I struggled to keep up with Marco, since he has 5 years and 20 kilos on me, and also lives in the very mountainous Switzerland.
One of the concerning things about the Canadian wilderness is bears. Sure, they look cute and cuddly, but they will rip your head clean from your body if threatened. It wasn't so bad in Whistler, since there is guys tearing around those trails on bikes all day everyday. The Valemount trail on the other hand was a deserted fire trail that might get used once a day if your lucky.
My concern cranked up a notch before the ride, when the guy hiring the bike said "you'll need these" as he handed us cans of bear sized mace. Hmmm. I wasn't that concerned though, I mean I never walk around the Australian bushland worried about the deadly snakes or swim at Australian beach worrying about sharks.
So there we were struggling up this massive mountain, Marco ahead, me trailing about 20 meters or so behind. I was rooted, but we were nearly at the top so it was all good. Marco stopped to muck around with his chain, and I went ahead and rounded a bend in the road. It was at this time I saw what I now know to be an adolescent black bear bolt off of the road into the forest. Cue messy undies.
I stopped dead. Marco wanted to go a bit further to catch a glimpse, but I wasn't having a bar of that. I find it funny that no one who comes to Australia wants to see a crocodile or great white shark in the wild, but everyone who comes here wants to see a bear. I moose I can understand, but you wanna see a bear? Go to the bloody zoo, those bastards are dangerous.
Anyway, it didn't take Marco long to see reason and we headed back down that hill like the wind.
Back at the chalet, I was happy to gloat about seeing a bear though.
We had a good fun night, playing pool, watching teev and drinking. One of the funny things about the chalet was that number 10 on the list of rules on the wall was "no drinking games", so when our tour guide organized a group game later in the evening, it was a game that probably would have been better alcohol free.
Sadly though, it wasn't. The drunken olympics featured three events, which were sort of complicated and I won't bother to explain right now, but all you really need to know is that they all required balance, coordination, upper body strength and flexibility. We all had a country to represent and I had Australia.
Unlike the real olympics, there was no "gold, gold, gold for Australia!" here. As a matter of fact, in two out of the three events, good old Oz came stone motherless last.
Valemount is a tiny little mountain town, conveniently located at the intersection of 3 mountain ranges, The Caribee, Monashee and the Rockie mountains all meet here.
The hostel here was nothing short of magnificent! Nestled amongst the forest, it featured beautifully appointed log cabins with an outdoor hot tub to boot. The one we stayed in featured a big screen teev, pool table, comfy lounges and a wireless internet terminal. Not bad for $22 a night, but like Whistler, in winter the bunk beds come out and it turns into a ski chalet and the price sky rockets.
The official Moose activity for the afternoon was horse riding, which Karen and I gave the meh reaction do.
Karen spent the afternoon lazing around the chalet writing emails and enjoying the view off of the back porch, and I teamed up with my buddy Marco from the tour and went mountain biking for the afternoon.
We headed out to the back of town to do one of the recommended rides through the forest, a scenic one that follows a little fire road up and down one of the smaller mountains. Let me tell you, there was a lot of up. A lot. Seriously, I struggled to keep up with Marco, since he has 5 years and 20 kilos on me, and also lives in the very mountainous Switzerland.
One of the concerning things about the Canadian wilderness is bears. Sure, they look cute and cuddly, but they will rip your head clean from your body if threatened. It wasn't so bad in Whistler, since there is guys tearing around those trails on bikes all day everyday. The Valemount trail on the other hand was a deserted fire trail that might get used once a day if your lucky.
My concern cranked up a notch before the ride, when the guy hiring the bike said "you'll need these" as he handed us cans of bear sized mace. Hmmm. I wasn't that concerned though, I mean I never walk around the Australian bushland worried about the deadly snakes or swim at Australian beach worrying about sharks.
So there we were struggling up this massive mountain, Marco ahead, me trailing about 20 meters or so behind. I was rooted, but we were nearly at the top so it was all good. Marco stopped to muck around with his chain, and I went ahead and rounded a bend in the road. It was at this time I saw what I now know to be an adolescent black bear bolt off of the road into the forest. Cue messy undies.
I stopped dead. Marco wanted to go a bit further to catch a glimpse, but I wasn't having a bar of that. I find it funny that no one who comes to Australia wants to see a crocodile or great white shark in the wild, but everyone who comes here wants to see a bear. I moose I can understand, but you wanna see a bear? Go to the bloody zoo, those bastards are dangerous.
Anyway, it didn't take Marco long to see reason and we headed back down that hill like the wind.
Back at the chalet, I was happy to gloat about seeing a bear though.
We had a good fun night, playing pool, watching teev and drinking. One of the funny things about the chalet was that number 10 on the list of rules on the wall was "no drinking games", so when our tour guide organized a group game later in the evening, it was a game that probably would have been better alcohol free.
Sadly though, it wasn't. The drunken olympics featured three events, which were sort of complicated and I won't bother to explain right now, but all you really need to know is that they all required balance, coordination, upper body strength and flexibility. We all had a country to represent and I had Australia.
Unlike the real olympics, there was no "gold, gold, gold for Australia!" here. As a matter of fact, in two out of the three events, good old Oz came stone motherless last.
After a couple of fantastic days in Whistler, which I forgot to mention is already a major construction zone getting ready for the 2010 Winter Olympics. we had a long day of driving on the bus to the interior city of Kamloops.
Aside from the scenery, which I am just fresh out of superlatives for now, it just keeps getting better and better, there were a few points of note along the way.
The first was we visited Lillouet, which the Canadians call a semi arid desert. Pah! Sure they have amazing mountains, lakes and waterfalls, but as a desert this was positively piss weak! They should come to Moomba if they want to see a desert.
We also saw a few of the pretty blue glacial lakes, and another waterfall.
Kamloops itself is a medium sized city, with logging and the railway as the big industries in town. We stayed in a pretty interesting hostel, which was in the old town courthouse. It was kind of fun eating breakfast in an old courtroom.
We spent a good few hours in the local Kamloops sports bar, drinking beer and watching the ice hockey world cup final. It ended up being a pretty good afternoon, since Canada won the cup over Finland in a close game. However, it was a bittersweet victory for Canadian hockey fans, since while they can celebrate the fact that they are again the world champs, they are facing a winter without a hockey league due to a player strike over the proposed introduction of a salary cap.
Following the bar we did the official moose activity, which was a visit to the local rock climbing gym. I was surprised to find that I actually didn't suck at it as much as I thought I would. It was bloody tiring though, lugging this enormous mass I have accumulated up and down walls.
All day long on the bus, our fearless leader Des had been promising a surprise with the rock climbing activity. Exciting....
So when we were all shagged from climbing, it was surprise time. The climbing instructor asked for a volunteer, and of course I was the one to foolishly oblige. My harness was then hooked up to two ropes from either corner of the building, and I was hoisted high up to the ceiling.
And then dropped!
It was pretty cool, swinging in my harness like a trapeze. Unfortunately I was a little too fat and slow to be able to execute the full flip at the end of each swing, but if you look at the photos you can see I gave it a red hot go!
Aside from the scenery, which I am just fresh out of superlatives for now, it just keeps getting better and better, there were a few points of note along the way.
The first was we visited Lillouet, which the Canadians call a semi arid desert. Pah! Sure they have amazing mountains, lakes and waterfalls, but as a desert this was positively piss weak! They should come to Moomba if they want to see a desert.
We also saw a few of the pretty blue glacial lakes, and another waterfall.
Kamloops itself is a medium sized city, with logging and the railway as the big industries in town. We stayed in a pretty interesting hostel, which was in the old town courthouse. It was kind of fun eating breakfast in an old courtroom.
We spent a good few hours in the local Kamloops sports bar, drinking beer and watching the ice hockey world cup final. It ended up being a pretty good afternoon, since Canada won the cup over Finland in a close game. However, it was a bittersweet victory for Canadian hockey fans, since while they can celebrate the fact that they are again the world champs, they are facing a winter without a hockey league due to a player strike over the proposed introduction of a salary cap.
Following the bar we did the official moose activity, which was a visit to the local rock climbing gym. I was surprised to find that I actually didn't suck at it as much as I thought I would. It was bloody tiring though, lugging this enormous mass I have accumulated up and down walls.
All day long on the bus, our fearless leader Des had been promising a surprise with the rock climbing activity. Exciting....
So when we were all shagged from climbing, it was surprise time. The climbing instructor asked for a volunteer, and of course I was the one to foolishly oblige. My harness was then hooked up to two ropes from either corner of the building, and I was hoisted high up to the ceiling.
And then dropped!
It was pretty cool, swinging in my harness like a trapeze. Unfortunately I was a little too fat and slow to be able to execute the full flip at the end of each swing, but if you look at the photos you can see I gave it a red hot go!
On the day we arrived in Vancouver we basically did nothing, so I won't really go on too much, except that I can't believe how many sex shops there are. We spent most of the afternoon relaxing at the local bar, and just unwinding from the frenzy of sightseeing that was New York.
The next morning we embarked on our Moose tour of the Rocky Mountains. We knew the guy picking us up was the right guy, since he had a hat with moose horns attached. This was going to be a fun trip, that was apparent from the outset.
We headed out of Vancouver and our first stop was a lookout on Cypress Mountain, which commands amazing views of the city of Vancouver as well as Vancouver Island. From here we headed further up the to Shannon Falls.
The locals call Vancouver "Hollywood North", due to the burgeoning film and TV industry there. On our way up to Shannon falls, we passed the hole on the golf course that was home to the scene in "Happy Gilmour" where Gilmour has a fight with Bob Barker. Pretty cool, and we also passed the abandoned mine that was used in several episodes of the X-files.
Shannon falls are the 3rd highest in Canada, at 355m, which obviously makes them pretty spectacular. After scoffing a bit of lunch here, we were back on the road and cruised past Stawamus chief, a hunk of granite second only in size to the rock of Gibraltar. It is a bit of a rock climbing mecca, and was apparently used in that woefully ordinary film "Cliffhanger".
The next stop of the afternoon was Brandywine falls, which is just about Shannon falls, and weighing in at 66m. We went on a pretty nice long walk through the national park, all the while sticking together and talking to ensure against company from Bears, because they might look cuddly, but you wouldn't want to meet one. Seriously. Anyway, the final destination of the walk was a suspension bridge above a deep gorge where some of the nutters from our trip (including the tour leader, Des) went bungy jumping.
After the hour or so hike back, we made the short trip to Whistler. Whistler is supposed to be the number 1 ski area in North America, and the town itself is, as you can imagine, pretty commercial. We stayed in the gorgeous Alta Vista inn, which is a high priced ski resort in Winter and a $25/ night hostel in summer. It was a great place, complete with Spa, ensuites and comfy couches galore.
Whistler is a ski town in winter, but in summer it turns into mountain bike Nirvana. It is home to the Whistler mountain bike park, where crazy guys with dreadlocks pilot their basically engineless trailbikes down impossibly steep slopes. It also has plenty to offer the cross country mountain biker, with over 130 trails easily reachable from the town.
Des, our tour leader and the sort of guy you see on that show "Planet X", took a few of the more keen mountain bikers in our group (myself included) for a trip on his favorite trails.
In a nutshell, it was wild. You probably need to be a mountain biker to understand, but the trails are amazing! They had it all, tricky singletrack, tight switchbacks, many obstacles and eye popping scenery. I know I have crapped on about the scenery a fair bit in different places of the world, but let me tell you the Rocky Mountains is the champ. I have posted the photos, have a look for yourself.
Unfortunately though, this was where 8 weeks off of the bike and on the good holiday food really started to show for me. Des is a pretty fit guy, and riding with him on those trails was bloody hard work. My legs were screaming by the time we got back, but sitting in the spa with a few rums looking at the snow capped mountains went a long way to make them better.
On our second night in Whistler, we went to check out the local nightlife, and visited a couple of the pubs in the Village. It wasn't a late one though, after all, its been a while since I did 5 hours on a pushbike.
The next morning we embarked on our Moose tour of the Rocky Mountains. We knew the guy picking us up was the right guy, since he had a hat with moose horns attached. This was going to be a fun trip, that was apparent from the outset.
We headed out of Vancouver and our first stop was a lookout on Cypress Mountain, which commands amazing views of the city of Vancouver as well as Vancouver Island. From here we headed further up the to Shannon Falls.
The locals call Vancouver "Hollywood North", due to the burgeoning film and TV industry there. On our way up to Shannon falls, we passed the hole on the golf course that was home to the scene in "Happy Gilmour" where Gilmour has a fight with Bob Barker. Pretty cool, and we also passed the abandoned mine that was used in several episodes of the X-files.
Shannon falls are the 3rd highest in Canada, at 355m, which obviously makes them pretty spectacular. After scoffing a bit of lunch here, we were back on the road and cruised past Stawamus chief, a hunk of granite second only in size to the rock of Gibraltar. It is a bit of a rock climbing mecca, and was apparently used in that woefully ordinary film "Cliffhanger".
The next stop of the afternoon was Brandywine falls, which is just about Shannon falls, and weighing in at 66m. We went on a pretty nice long walk through the national park, all the while sticking together and talking to ensure against company from Bears, because they might look cuddly, but you wouldn't want to meet one. Seriously. Anyway, the final destination of the walk was a suspension bridge above a deep gorge where some of the nutters from our trip (including the tour leader, Des) went bungy jumping.
After the hour or so hike back, we made the short trip to Whistler. Whistler is supposed to be the number 1 ski area in North America, and the town itself is, as you can imagine, pretty commercial. We stayed in the gorgeous Alta Vista inn, which is a high priced ski resort in Winter and a $25/ night hostel in summer. It was a great place, complete with Spa, ensuites and comfy couches galore.
Whistler is a ski town in winter, but in summer it turns into mountain bike Nirvana. It is home to the Whistler mountain bike park, where crazy guys with dreadlocks pilot their basically engineless trailbikes down impossibly steep slopes. It also has plenty to offer the cross country mountain biker, with over 130 trails easily reachable from the town.
Des, our tour leader and the sort of guy you see on that show "Planet X", took a few of the more keen mountain bikers in our group (myself included) for a trip on his favorite trails.
In a nutshell, it was wild. You probably need to be a mountain biker to understand, but the trails are amazing! They had it all, tricky singletrack, tight switchbacks, many obstacles and eye popping scenery. I know I have crapped on about the scenery a fair bit in different places of the world, but let me tell you the Rocky Mountains is the champ. I have posted the photos, have a look for yourself.
Unfortunately though, this was where 8 weeks off of the bike and on the good holiday food really started to show for me. Des is a pretty fit guy, and riding with him on those trails was bloody hard work. My legs were screaming by the time we got back, but sitting in the spa with a few rums looking at the snow capped mountains went a long way to make them better.
On our second night in Whistler, we went to check out the local nightlife, and visited a couple of the pubs in the Village. It wasn't a late one though, after all, its been a while since I did 5 hours on a pushbike.
We left New York city on Saturday, September 11.
After our other experiences with flying in North America, this one was remarkably easy. We caught the airport shuttle at some ungodly hour of the morning, and cruising around the streets of NYC in the early hours of the morning, I realized how remarkably well the game "Grand Theft Auto 3" is. Since I have probably put more than 100 hours of my life into that game, the streets all looked eerily familiar.
JFK is actually a pretty good airport, set out into several small terminals, so as long as you get to the right bit, it is pretty easy to negotiate with only 10 or so gates in each one. Even if you got the wrong one, there is a monorail that zips around between all of the terminals.
There was an armed guard on every door, and checking in was quick and efficient. You got the sense they wanted you in and out of there as quickly as possible. The security screening was as vigorous as you might imagine, but other than that it was plain sailing.
We knew it was September 11th when we got to Vancouver and opened our bags though, because there was a friendly note in there from the US government to say that its agents had checked through our belongings and that they hoped we didn't mind. It was for our safety after all...
After our other experiences with flying in North America, this one was remarkably easy. We caught the airport shuttle at some ungodly hour of the morning, and cruising around the streets of NYC in the early hours of the morning, I realized how remarkably well the game "Grand Theft Auto 3" is. Since I have probably put more than 100 hours of my life into that game, the streets all looked eerily familiar.
JFK is actually a pretty good airport, set out into several small terminals, so as long as you get to the right bit, it is pretty easy to negotiate with only 10 or so gates in each one. Even if you got the wrong one, there is a monorail that zips around between all of the terminals.
There was an armed guard on every door, and checking in was quick and efficient. You got the sense they wanted you in and out of there as quickly as possible. The security screening was as vigorous as you might imagine, but other than that it was plain sailing.
We knew it was September 11th when we got to Vancouver and opened our bags though, because there was a friendly note in there from the US government to say that its agents had checked through our belongings and that they hoped we didn't mind. It was for our safety after all...
Before I get going, you should all note there is new photos on the photo page! Check em out...
On our third day in NYC, the weather was kind to us. We were treated to a gorgeous, sunny day which allowed us to do some serious exploring.
We started the day by visiting the amazing American Musuem of Natural History, after a bagel for breakfast of course. This is an enormous museum consisting of two major sections, the Natural History museum, and the Rose Center for Earth and Space.
Our visit to the museum started in the Natural History section. I must admit we went by a lot of it fairly quickly, because I just wanted to get to the famous dinosaur hall. All I can say for that is WOW! There is a complete Brontosaurus, as well as one of the only complete Tyrannosaurus Rex's in the world. They are enormous I am here to tell you. As well as these two "headline" specimens, there is also all manners of other dinosaurs. Check the photo page, I took photos of a lot of the really cool one.
From here, we headed downstairs to the Space Center. The centerpiece of this is an enormous planetarium, which puts on an amazing show. We managed to catch the "Big Bang" simulation in there, which was an all engulfing experience for the senses, with the spherical screen completely filling your field of vision, and a sound system that could rattle the fillings out of your teeth.
When we were all spaced out, so to speak, we cut back across central park to make for the Empire State building. It was such a good clear day we decided to brave the lines and make the journey to the top of the monolithic office block. From the top, you get a great view of Manhattan and all the famous landmarks, and I guess by now you have seen the photos so I won't reel them off.
We rounded our last day off with a quiet dinner with Anthony at the local Thai restaurant. It was a pretty low budget joint, but we had to cue for about 15 minutes for a table. Apparently this is nothing for New York on a Friday night!
New Yorkers in general do absolutely nothing for themselves. There is a laundry service on every corner, and people in general live on "take-out". You see dog walkers patrolling the street walking 4 or 5 dogs at a time, and it is almost unheard of to eat breakfast at home. Real estate is funny as well, the quality of the lobby in any apartment building has just as much to do with the price of a place as the quality of the actual apartment. You have made it in the big apple if you can afford to live in a building with a doorman.
On our third day in NYC, the weather was kind to us. We were treated to a gorgeous, sunny day which allowed us to do some serious exploring.
We started the day by visiting the amazing American Musuem of Natural History, after a bagel for breakfast of course. This is an enormous museum consisting of two major sections, the Natural History museum, and the Rose Center for Earth and Space.
Our visit to the museum started in the Natural History section. I must admit we went by a lot of it fairly quickly, because I just wanted to get to the famous dinosaur hall. All I can say for that is WOW! There is a complete Brontosaurus, as well as one of the only complete Tyrannosaurus Rex's in the world. They are enormous I am here to tell you. As well as these two "headline" specimens, there is also all manners of other dinosaurs. Check the photo page, I took photos of a lot of the really cool one.
From here, we headed downstairs to the Space Center. The centerpiece of this is an enormous planetarium, which puts on an amazing show. We managed to catch the "Big Bang" simulation in there, which was an all engulfing experience for the senses, with the spherical screen completely filling your field of vision, and a sound system that could rattle the fillings out of your teeth.
When we were all spaced out, so to speak, we cut back across central park to make for the Empire State building. It was such a good clear day we decided to brave the lines and make the journey to the top of the monolithic office block. From the top, you get a great view of Manhattan and all the famous landmarks, and I guess by now you have seen the photos so I won't reel them off.
We rounded our last day off with a quiet dinner with Anthony at the local Thai restaurant. It was a pretty low budget joint, but we had to cue for about 15 minutes for a table. Apparently this is nothing for New York on a Friday night!
New Yorkers in general do absolutely nothing for themselves. There is a laundry service on every corner, and people in general live on "take-out". You see dog walkers patrolling the street walking 4 or 5 dogs at a time, and it is almost unheard of to eat breakfast at home. Real estate is funny as well, the quality of the lobby in any apartment building has just as much to do with the price of a place as the quality of the actual apartment. You have made it in the big apple if you can afford to live in a building with a doorman.
Ok, The big apple day 2.
We started the day again with a delicious bagel and cawfee, and caught the subway down to battery park to catch the Staten Island ferry. The most striking thing about battery park is the big gold sphere from the World Trade Centre plaza which was salvaged from the rubble and moved there. It is quite battered and scratched up as you can imagine, but is largely in tact and stands in front of an eternal flame as a memorial to those who lost their lives on that fateful September day.
We caught the free ferry not because we wanted to visit Staten Island, but because the ferry sails straight past the big lady herself, the Statue of Liberty. There is no point these days in spending the $10 to visit the island, since you can't get inside her anyway (that sounds a bit rude!) anyway. The general consensus around the city is that she is too valuable and would be too symbolic of a target for terrorists for people to ever be allowed to make the climb up.
You get a grand view from the ferry anyway, and let me tell you, she is BIG! I mean really big, her nose is something like 1.5 meters long and she stands at about 93m..
After we got off of the ferry, we strolled around the financial district a bit, grabbed another cawfee, and wandered down Wall street. The strange thing about NYC is that even though we had never been there, the place was strangely familiar. I guess all those episodes of Seinfield, Sex in the City, Friends and countless Scorcese films give you a good idea what the place looks like.
Anyway, from wall street we walked over to ground zero. Let me tell you, no matter how many times you have seen it on TV, nothing prepares you for how big that hole is. They are currently rebuilding number 7 World trade centre, which fell down from consequential damage at 5 pm on 11/9/2001. No one outside of NY has really heard of it, yet it is 34 storeys, 3 storeys bigger than Adelaide's tallest building.
As you can imagine, it is an amazingly sad and moving place. There is two people that stand out the front, and they are just reading their way through a description of the life and times of each victim aloud. I don't know how long they have been at it, but they seemed to be about half way through when we were there. Meanwhile there are other people there that will hand you photo albums showing what the place used to look like while you are standing there. Sure puts a lump in your throat.
Serious part of the day over, it was time to catch the subway over to the Ed Sullivan theatre to catch the Letterman show. The subway ride in itself was exciting, because as we were changing trains, we saw some real life break dancers doin' thair thang in the station. They were amazing, and they had one serious beat box. I wasn't as moved by the experience as I might have been as a 10 year old when I was watching "Beat Street" over and over, but still very cool.
We made it to the Ed Sullivan, got our tickets and then had about an hour to kill before the show started. We had a bit of lunch, but I wasted most of it in the CBS shop, picking out which bit of cool "Survivor" merchandise to buy.
Once we were inside the theatre, the first thing you notice is how cold it is in there. Because of all the lights, the stage is obviously very hot. Ol' Dave is a superstar though, and needs to be cool so the result is that the audience area is like a fridge. As for the show, it was bloody amazing. A little more slick a production than XFM live and exposed. Dave is of course very funny, and the guests he had on were Ray Romano (of Everybody Loves Raymond fame) and that talentless Canadian, Avril Lavigne.
Once we were done with Dave, it was off to the US open. We managed to get some tickets to the quarter final and were hoping to see Lleyton Hewitt play. Unfortunately, they don't actually schedule the games until the last minute (depends on TV ratings) so we missed Lleyton's game, but got to watch his future brother in law, Johachim Johannson beat local boy Andy Roddick in 5 sets. It was a great night out, Arthur Ashe is one big tennis stadium, with good views from almost every seat.
The security there though was insane. You weren't allowed in there with an opaque bag of any type whatsoever. You had to pay $5 to check your bag and be given a clear plastic bag to tote your belongings with, which was searched before you went in anyway. I felt sorry for the people at the check in desk, because they were coping a fair bit of abuse from the notoriously impatient New York natives about having to take their $5.
We started the day again with a delicious bagel and cawfee, and caught the subway down to battery park to catch the Staten Island ferry. The most striking thing about battery park is the big gold sphere from the World Trade Centre plaza which was salvaged from the rubble and moved there. It is quite battered and scratched up as you can imagine, but is largely in tact and stands in front of an eternal flame as a memorial to those who lost their lives on that fateful September day.
We caught the free ferry not because we wanted to visit Staten Island, but because the ferry sails straight past the big lady herself, the Statue of Liberty. There is no point these days in spending the $10 to visit the island, since you can't get inside her anyway (that sounds a bit rude!) anyway. The general consensus around the city is that she is too valuable and would be too symbolic of a target for terrorists for people to ever be allowed to make the climb up.
You get a grand view from the ferry anyway, and let me tell you, she is BIG! I mean really big, her nose is something like 1.5 meters long and she stands at about 93m..
After we got off of the ferry, we strolled around the financial district a bit, grabbed another cawfee, and wandered down Wall street. The strange thing about NYC is that even though we had never been there, the place was strangely familiar. I guess all those episodes of Seinfield, Sex in the City, Friends and countless Scorcese films give you a good idea what the place looks like.
Anyway, from wall street we walked over to ground zero. Let me tell you, no matter how many times you have seen it on TV, nothing prepares you for how big that hole is. They are currently rebuilding number 7 World trade centre, which fell down from consequential damage at 5 pm on 11/9/2001. No one outside of NY has really heard of it, yet it is 34 storeys, 3 storeys bigger than Adelaide's tallest building.
As you can imagine, it is an amazingly sad and moving place. There is two people that stand out the front, and they are just reading their way through a description of the life and times of each victim aloud. I don't know how long they have been at it, but they seemed to be about half way through when we were there. Meanwhile there are other people there that will hand you photo albums showing what the place used to look like while you are standing there. Sure puts a lump in your throat.
Serious part of the day over, it was time to catch the subway over to the Ed Sullivan theatre to catch the Letterman show. The subway ride in itself was exciting, because as we were changing trains, we saw some real life break dancers doin' thair thang in the station. They were amazing, and they had one serious beat box. I wasn't as moved by the experience as I might have been as a 10 year old when I was watching "Beat Street" over and over, but still very cool.
We made it to the Ed Sullivan, got our tickets and then had about an hour to kill before the show started. We had a bit of lunch, but I wasted most of it in the CBS shop, picking out which bit of cool "Survivor" merchandise to buy.
Once we were inside the theatre, the first thing you notice is how cold it is in there. Because of all the lights, the stage is obviously very hot. Ol' Dave is a superstar though, and needs to be cool so the result is that the audience area is like a fridge. As for the show, it was bloody amazing. A little more slick a production than XFM live and exposed. Dave is of course very funny, and the guests he had on were Ray Romano (of Everybody Loves Raymond fame) and that talentless Canadian, Avril Lavigne.
Once we were done with Dave, it was off to the US open. We managed to get some tickets to the quarter final and were hoping to see Lleyton Hewitt play. Unfortunately, they don't actually schedule the games until the last minute (depends on TV ratings) so we missed Lleyton's game, but got to watch his future brother in law, Johachim Johannson beat local boy Andy Roddick in 5 sets. It was a great night out, Arthur Ashe is one big tennis stadium, with good views from almost every seat.
The security there though was insane. You weren't allowed in there with an opaque bag of any type whatsoever. You had to pay $5 to check your bag and be given a clear plastic bag to tote your belongings with, which was searched before you went in anyway. I felt sorry for the people at the check in desk, because they were coping a fair bit of abuse from the notoriously impatient New York natives about having to take their $5.
From the time our luggage turned up, our holiday took a massive turn for the better after the whole homesick lonely in Toronto in big hotel just like the movie "Lost in Translation" thing.
New York City Rules!
There is just something about the Big Apple that just makes it great. There is probably nothing I can say that hasn't already been said about the world's most famous city, but it does have that "magic" that you hear about.
Before I go too much further we must give props at this point to our friends Anthony and Elisa who were kind enough to let us stay in thier very conviently located Manhatten appartment. Thanks Guys!
Our first day was a blast, despite the pouring rain. We started the day New York style with a delicious cream cheese bagel and a coffee each and made for the Guggenheim Museum. This is a pretty famous art gallery, full of great modern art, including works by famous guys such as Kadinsky and Picasso, and is unique in that the actual building itself is renowned as a great work of art (or architecture if you want to split hairs).
From here we went for a stroll through Central Park, and went for a look at the Chrysler building and the Empire State building. Sadly since the weather was so sucky, the top half of both buildings was fogged in so we had to reschedule them until later in the week. By this time it was lunchtime, so we grabbed a bite and headed for Times Square.
Oh my god, so much neon! Seriously there is neon signs and big screens everywhere. Times square is also home to some very cool shops, such as the Toy's R Us with a ferris wheel inside, the MTV shop, and the 4 storey Virgin Megastore.
But the best thing about times square is that Karen and I were standing outside the MTV shop, consulting the map when we were approached by a guy with worldwide pants t-shirt and a Letterman show credential around his neck.
"Do you want to come and see the taping of the Letterman show tommorrow night?"
Whoah! Do I? Shit yeah!!!!!
He actually took a while to convince me that he was for real, and I didn't actually believe that it was true until we were queing to get into the Ed Sullivan theatre with tickets in my hand. By this time it was almost 5 and we decided that our day just couldn't get any better, so we fought the masses on the subways and went back to Anthony and Elisa's flat.
That night we took Anthony and Elisa out for dinner, to repay thier kind hospitality, at a bar and grill in Greenwich village. The rain held of long enough for us to enjoy our meal Al Fresco and started as we were settling the tab. We decided to head inside to the bar, and we were standing there enjoying our beer when two very burley men with little ear radios walked in, escorting two very non-burley A-list celebreties. Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen!! I kid you not! Those two little imps from Full House who have grown up to be anorexic ultra millionaires were in the same bar as us. Cool.
From here we jumped in a cab (our second cab, and neither driver wore a hawaain shirt or talked like Travis from "Taxi Driver") and headed to the oldest bar in NYC, McSorleys. Rustic is probably the best word for the place, but it was cool because they brew their own beer, and you can only buy it two glasses at a time. This was a formula for disaster really, but at least we didn't have to go to work like our hosts.
New York City Rules!
There is just something about the Big Apple that just makes it great. There is probably nothing I can say that hasn't already been said about the world's most famous city, but it does have that "magic" that you hear about.
Before I go too much further we must give props at this point to our friends Anthony and Elisa who were kind enough to let us stay in thier very conviently located Manhatten appartment. Thanks Guys!
Our first day was a blast, despite the pouring rain. We started the day New York style with a delicious cream cheese bagel and a coffee each and made for the Guggenheim Museum. This is a pretty famous art gallery, full of great modern art, including works by famous guys such as Kadinsky and Picasso, and is unique in that the actual building itself is renowned as a great work of art (or architecture if you want to split hairs).
From here we went for a stroll through Central Park, and went for a look at the Chrysler building and the Empire State building. Sadly since the weather was so sucky, the top half of both buildings was fogged in so we had to reschedule them until later in the week. By this time it was lunchtime, so we grabbed a bite and headed for Times Square.
Oh my god, so much neon! Seriously there is neon signs and big screens everywhere. Times square is also home to some very cool shops, such as the Toy's R Us with a ferris wheel inside, the MTV shop, and the 4 storey Virgin Megastore.
But the best thing about times square is that Karen and I were standing outside the MTV shop, consulting the map when we were approached by a guy with worldwide pants t-shirt and a Letterman show credential around his neck.
"Do you want to come and see the taping of the Letterman show tommorrow night?"
Whoah! Do I? Shit yeah!!!!!
He actually took a while to convince me that he was for real, and I didn't actually believe that it was true until we were queing to get into the Ed Sullivan theatre with tickets in my hand. By this time it was almost 5 and we decided that our day just couldn't get any better, so we fought the masses on the subways and went back to Anthony and Elisa's flat.
That night we took Anthony and Elisa out for dinner, to repay thier kind hospitality, at a bar and grill in Greenwich village. The rain held of long enough for us to enjoy our meal Al Fresco and started as we were settling the tab. We decided to head inside to the bar, and we were standing there enjoying our beer when two very burley men with little ear radios walked in, escorting two very non-burley A-list celebreties. Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen!! I kid you not! Those two little imps from Full House who have grown up to be anorexic ultra millionaires were in the same bar as us. Cool.
From here we jumped in a cab (our second cab, and neither driver wore a hawaain shirt or talked like Travis from "Taxi Driver") and headed to the oldest bar in NYC, McSorleys. Rustic is probably the best word for the place, but it was cool because they brew their own beer, and you can only buy it two glasses at a time. This was a formula for disaster really, but at least we didn't have to go to work like our hosts.
... but it was a walk in the park compared to the absolute bloody schemozle that was Toronto - New York.
Our flight was at 9.15, which means that you have to be at the airport at 7.15. Admittedly we had a bit of stuffing around returning the hire car, so we weren't actually in the line to check in until 7.25. And what a line it was!
Before I go too much further, you should know the following factiod. Air Canada is bankrupt, and is being propped up by the Canadian government, being there national carrier and all, so it is what I call a "bones of your arse airline".
Anyway, the cue. Enormous, and only two operators checking people in, so it was 8.15 before we got our boarding passes. Which would normally be no problem, except that you have to clear US customs in Canada before you are allowed on the plane. Remember, this was Tuesday morning after the long weekend, so then we were confronted with the biggest line I have ever seen.
It took us another hour to get somewhere near the front of the cue. At this point they were expediting people through who had flights to get on. So we skipped the cue, only to find out that the silly cow who checked us in only gave us one of the two required forms, so we had to get out of the line to fill out this form which wasted another 10 minutes. Interestingly, you don't get asked how much liquor you are carrying when you fly into the US from Canada.
We still had this fantasy that we were going to make the flight, so we bolted for the security, but a major stuff up on my part extinguished the dream. Way back in London, I bought the coolest letter opener, a 6" replica claymore sword. Anyway, we resorted our luggage, and the claymore ended up in hand luggage.
Whoops!
Who'd of thought you wouldn't be able to board a plane to New York city, 4 days before September 11 with a sword in your bag? So you mean the movie Kill Bill is not real? She got on a plane with a Katana....
Anyway, so we finally got to the gate to find we had missed the flight by 10 minutes. The next flight we could be confirmed on was 4.15!!, but we could be wait listed on the 2:15 and 3:15. So we got comfortable in the bar and cranked through a few games of Scrabble, on the nifty Travel Scrabble set we picked up in Montreal and had a few rums. We discovered a brand of rum from Jamaica, Appleton Estate, which is a very acceptable substitute when you can't get Bundy.
It turns out they squeezed us on the 2:15. Now what sort of plane do you think they would run between Toronto (population 5 million) and New York City (population 8 million)? 747? Airbus A340? No. A 77 seat BAe 146, the same type of buzzbox that Santos flies to Moomba. Remember, they're bankrupt....
Fortunately it was only a short flight, and once we landed in NYC we had already done the whole customs caper so it should have been plain sailing from there. Should have been, if they sent our luggage!
That's right, the stupid asshats at Air Canada, despite the fact they had 6 hours to do it, didn't get around to loading our luggage onto the plane. Oh man, that was not good by any stretch of the imagination. So anyway, long story short, our first night in New York was spent sitting around watching TV waiting for our luggage, which turned up at 7 am the next morning.
The worst thing was, I had to tip the courier. I so wanted to say, "here's a tip, don't lose my luggage next time, nimrod" but as usual I didn't have the guts so I just gave him 5 bucks.
Our flight was at 9.15, which means that you have to be at the airport at 7.15. Admittedly we had a bit of stuffing around returning the hire car, so we weren't actually in the line to check in until 7.25. And what a line it was!
Before I go too much further, you should know the following factiod. Air Canada is bankrupt, and is being propped up by the Canadian government, being there national carrier and all, so it is what I call a "bones of your arse airline".
Anyway, the cue. Enormous, and only two operators checking people in, so it was 8.15 before we got our boarding passes. Which would normally be no problem, except that you have to clear US customs in Canada before you are allowed on the plane. Remember, this was Tuesday morning after the long weekend, so then we were confronted with the biggest line I have ever seen.
It took us another hour to get somewhere near the front of the cue. At this point they were expediting people through who had flights to get on. So we skipped the cue, only to find out that the silly cow who checked us in only gave us one of the two required forms, so we had to get out of the line to fill out this form which wasted another 10 minutes. Interestingly, you don't get asked how much liquor you are carrying when you fly into the US from Canada.
We still had this fantasy that we were going to make the flight, so we bolted for the security, but a major stuff up on my part extinguished the dream. Way back in London, I bought the coolest letter opener, a 6" replica claymore sword. Anyway, we resorted our luggage, and the claymore ended up in hand luggage.
Whoops!
Who'd of thought you wouldn't be able to board a plane to New York city, 4 days before September 11 with a sword in your bag? So you mean the movie Kill Bill is not real? She got on a plane with a Katana....
Anyway, so we finally got to the gate to find we had missed the flight by 10 minutes. The next flight we could be confirmed on was 4.15!!, but we could be wait listed on the 2:15 and 3:15. So we got comfortable in the bar and cranked through a few games of Scrabble, on the nifty Travel Scrabble set we picked up in Montreal and had a few rums. We discovered a brand of rum from Jamaica, Appleton Estate, which is a very acceptable substitute when you can't get Bundy.
It turns out they squeezed us on the 2:15. Now what sort of plane do you think they would run between Toronto (population 5 million) and New York City (population 8 million)? 747? Airbus A340? No. A 77 seat BAe 146, the same type of buzzbox that Santos flies to Moomba. Remember, they're bankrupt....
Fortunately it was only a short flight, and once we landed in NYC we had already done the whole customs caper so it should have been plain sailing from there. Should have been, if they sent our luggage!
That's right, the stupid asshats at Air Canada, despite the fact they had 6 hours to do it, didn't get around to loading our luggage onto the plane. Oh man, that was not good by any stretch of the imagination. So anyway, long story short, our first night in New York was spent sitting around watching TV waiting for our luggage, which turned up at 7 am the next morning.
The worst thing was, I had to tip the courier. I so wanted to say, "here's a tip, don't lose my luggage next time, nimrod" but as usual I didn't have the guts so I just gave him 5 bucks.
We have had these moments on the trip, where we have ticked life long ambitions off of the list as having now done. For example, visiting Green Gables was one of Karen's, and hanging out in the Scottish highlands was one of mine.
On our second day in Toronto, I added another tick, and that was to see Niagra Falls.
As I may have intimated on my last entry, we visited Toronto on the Labour day long weekend, which is the last long weekend of the summer in North America before the kiddies go back to school. So there was people everywhere, and Niagra was no exception.
On a normal day it would be about an hour cruise down the freeway from Toronto to the Falls. Of course we picked possibly the busiest day of the year to go, so it took us about 2 hours to get to the city limits. A city I hear you ask? Yes Niagra is a city. Maybe it's because I didn't read up properly, but I always imagined Niagra Falls to be in some kind of national park, amongst trees and wilderness.
Cue the game show ba - bow. Niagra is like the Gold Coast with streets and streets of casinos, bars and amusement parks, and that's just on the Canadian side fo the river - the same is repeated on the American side. Apparently it is honeymoon capital of North America. Who'd of thunk it?
So anyway, it took us a further hour to get from the city limits to the first carpark. When we got there, we were confronted with a parking cost of, wait for it, 18 be be be be bucks! Look in my wallet, only $14. Bugger. Do they take credit card? Of course not. Where is the ATM? Back in town past the traffic.Needless to say I said some rude words at this point.
As always, it didn't actually turn out that bad, because there was another carpark further down that was only $6.50, and was running a shuttle bus back to the falls.
The falls themselves are absolutely amazing. Nothing prepares you for the noise of all that water, and you get quite wet standing there having a look from the spray, or at least you would on a day where the whole street where you view the falls wasn't three deep with tourists. Anyway, we went and we saw, and we had Taco Bell for lunch.
There are several options for viewing the falls closer, you can get into one of the boats that goes right up to the base, or you can walk through the tunnel they have bored behind the falls. We thought option B seemed to be the way to go, and only $10 a ticket, it seemed reasonable. The cue to get tickets was remarkably short as well. When we got to the window at ten past 2, they told us we could expect to wait until 6 before we would get down there!
At this point we decided it was time to abandon ship and head for Niagra on the Lake, which is a winery district.
We went to three wineries and on the whole they weren't too bad. The most interesting thing to report is the very popular but horrendously expensive ($50 for a half bottle) ice wine. This is a dessert wine made by letting grapes freeze on the vine and then producing a sticky wine from it. I am not a wine expert, but the result is very similar to stickies we produce at home. The only difference is you can use any variety of grape since you are not relying on botrytis to do its work.
I am not going to bother with a seperate entry for Toronto day 3, because basically we were sick of the whole thing and did nothing. Karen spent half of the day in a spa being massaged and manicured, and I caught the subway out to the far suburbs to try to see I, Robot. Unfortunately I missed a connecting bus so I didn't get there in time to catch the film, so I just caught the train back into town and drank beer until Karen was finished.
On our second day in Toronto, I added another tick, and that was to see Niagra Falls.
As I may have intimated on my last entry, we visited Toronto on the Labour day long weekend, which is the last long weekend of the summer in North America before the kiddies go back to school. So there was people everywhere, and Niagra was no exception.
On a normal day it would be about an hour cruise down the freeway from Toronto to the Falls. Of course we picked possibly the busiest day of the year to go, so it took us about 2 hours to get to the city limits. A city I hear you ask? Yes Niagra is a city. Maybe it's because I didn't read up properly, but I always imagined Niagra Falls to be in some kind of national park, amongst trees and wilderness.
Cue the game show ba - bow. Niagra is like the Gold Coast with streets and streets of casinos, bars and amusement parks, and that's just on the Canadian side fo the river - the same is repeated on the American side. Apparently it is honeymoon capital of North America. Who'd of thunk it?
So anyway, it took us a further hour to get from the city limits to the first carpark. When we got there, we were confronted with a parking cost of, wait for it, 18 be be be be bucks! Look in my wallet, only $14. Bugger. Do they take credit card? Of course not. Where is the ATM? Back in town past the traffic.Needless to say I said some rude words at this point.
As always, it didn't actually turn out that bad, because there was another carpark further down that was only $6.50, and was running a shuttle bus back to the falls.
The falls themselves are absolutely amazing. Nothing prepares you for the noise of all that water, and you get quite wet standing there having a look from the spray, or at least you would on a day where the whole street where you view the falls wasn't three deep with tourists. Anyway, we went and we saw, and we had Taco Bell for lunch.
There are several options for viewing the falls closer, you can get into one of the boats that goes right up to the base, or you can walk through the tunnel they have bored behind the falls. We thought option B seemed to be the way to go, and only $10 a ticket, it seemed reasonable. The cue to get tickets was remarkably short as well. When we got to the window at ten past 2, they told us we could expect to wait until 6 before we would get down there!
At this point we decided it was time to abandon ship and head for Niagra on the Lake, which is a winery district.
We went to three wineries and on the whole they weren't too bad. The most interesting thing to report is the very popular but horrendously expensive ($50 for a half bottle) ice wine. This is a dessert wine made by letting grapes freeze on the vine and then producing a sticky wine from it. I am not a wine expert, but the result is very similar to stickies we produce at home. The only difference is you can use any variety of grape since you are not relying on botrytis to do its work.
I am not going to bother with a seperate entry for Toronto day 3, because basically we were sick of the whole thing and did nothing. Karen spent half of the day in a spa being massaged and manicured, and I caught the subway out to the far suburbs to try to see I, Robot. Unfortunately I missed a connecting bus so I didn't get there in time to catch the film, so I just caught the train back into town and drank beer until Karen was finished.
Hello all
I just saw a mouse! eeeekkkkk! He is sitting on top of the bin.
But anyway I didn't interrupt James' masterpiece to talk about a mouse. I am actually just here to say that our holiday has been everything and more and I still don't believe that I have visited half the places we have been to.
At the moment (James will go into more detail later, obviously) I am sitting in a beautiful large log cabin called Twin Peaks Resort over looking the Rockie Mountains on one side and the Caribou Mountains on the other. At the moment everyone else has gone for a horse ride and James and his mate Marco have gone mountain bike riding, I have not gone with them for the very fact that I would be the slowest and with their bike rental they were given bear spray!
Mouse, Bear - big difference still scared.......
This place just has the biggest scenery alert every where. Even when you sit on the toilet you just cant get away from the view. Some of the higher mountains are snow stained and hopefully by the time we get on our way back to Vancouver they are predicting snow lower in one of the valleys.
Ok so you can recommence normal viewing. James still has a bit to catch up on Niagara, New York and then you will nearly be living day by day with us again.
Ahhh but all too soon I know that I will have to live day by day with you....
big difference -but no place like home.
Love to all. See you all very soon
Karen
P.S Happy 30th Birthday Kylie you old bag!
Best wishes for you and kim for your birthdays.
Cheers I will just go and get a rum and coke now to celebrate!
I just saw a mouse! eeeekkkkk! He is sitting on top of the bin.
But anyway I didn't interrupt James' masterpiece to talk about a mouse. I am actually just here to say that our holiday has been everything and more and I still don't believe that I have visited half the places we have been to.
At the moment (James will go into more detail later, obviously) I am sitting in a beautiful large log cabin called Twin Peaks Resort over looking the Rockie Mountains on one side and the Caribou Mountains on the other. At the moment everyone else has gone for a horse ride and James and his mate Marco have gone mountain bike riding, I have not gone with them for the very fact that I would be the slowest and with their bike rental they were given bear spray!
Mouse, Bear - big difference still scared.......
This place just has the biggest scenery alert every where. Even when you sit on the toilet you just cant get away from the view. Some of the higher mountains are snow stained and hopefully by the time we get on our way back to Vancouver they are predicting snow lower in one of the valleys.
Ok so you can recommence normal viewing. James still has a bit to catch up on Niagara, New York and then you will nearly be living day by day with us again.
Ahhh but all too soon I know that I will have to live day by day with you....
big difference -but no place like home.
Love to all. See you all very soon
Karen
P.S Happy 30th Birthday Kylie you old bag!
Best wishes for you and kim for your birthdays.
Cheers I will just go and get a rum and coke now to celebrate!
Right then, Toronto.
Maybe it was the smog, or maybe it was because we were both a bit homesick, but in a nutshell, we didn't really like the place. That doesn't mean that I don't have some amusing anecdotes about the place though.
The first one involves the drive in. Montreal to Toronto is about 6 hours drive on the Freeway, so the plan was for Karen to drive for a while, and then me, and then when we got into the city (which is bigger than Sydney) Karen to drive and me to navigate.
Some information you need to know before I get too much further into this story is that in general I have noticed that Canadians are foolish drivers. They all travel at a good 20% over the speed limit and are prepared to take big risks.
Anyway, so all was going to plan, I was driving and it was approaching dusk. My glasses were packed away (I only really need them at night) and we were looking for a place to stop and change over. At this point we were on a reasonable sized freeway, 3 lanes each way.
Before we knew it however we were on the outskirts of town and the freeway grew somewhat. To 8 lanes each way! I kid you not. Basically what happens is there is 4 lanes each way of "express" freeway in the middle, so if you want to get off, you have to exit to the outer 4 lanes and then find your exit.
So here's the scene. We are in a left hand drive car, amongst 16 lanes of traffic, moving at about 120km/h, with trucks pushing us from behind. It has got dark and I don't have my glasses on, and Karen for all of her many skills can't read a map to save herself. Needless to say it was a little tense in the ol' grand am.
And then to spice things up, some dick in a Chevy Cavalier (Holden Camira) comes flying onto the freeway from the on ramp in front of us. Except he notices kind of late that there is a truck in the lane he chose, so he swerves back and gets himself into a fish tail.
It was then one of those time slows down kind of moments. This car in front of us was out of control, and was about to have the sort of accident featured in the freeway scene of the Matrix Reloaded. We were amongst trucks so had no where to go. Shit!
Fortunately, the hand of god intervened and somehow, despite the poor suspension engineering of the good people at Isuzu, he managed to straighten it up. Ok, stop the ride, I want to get off.
We were about to call the divorce lawyer after we missed the exit we were going for, but it turned out the next one was actually closer to the hotel anyway. Much ground kissing ensued when we finally pulled in to the hotel carpark and were out of the car.
We decided to spend the extra money and stay in a nice hotel for the nights in Toronto, partly because we got a good deal from expedia.com and partly because we needed a good bed to sleep in. It also had unlimited free internet, which was handy. It was like all big city hotels thought, impersonal and lonely and only made us feel homesick. We probably would have been better in a hostel amongst others, but not to worry.
Our first morning in Toronto was spent wandering around looking at the sites, including the CN tower and a few cool shops. We visited the city hall and park, and saw our first of real life squirrel! We also found a really good and cheap all you can eat indian joint for lunch which went down an absolute treat.
In the afternoon, we decided to jump on a streetcar (no it wasn't named desire) and head to what the Canadians call "The Ex", which is short for the Canadian National Exhibition. It is almost identical to our Royal show, which was kind of cool since at the time we were there the Show was on at home.
The exhibition hall is full of the same dodgy products, including everything from miracle mops, to massage chairs to the obligatory spa's. They don't have a showbag hall thought, the have a hall the same size, but full of every kind of junk food you can imagine. We felt a bit pissweak, but we actually ended up having a salad.
One highlight was the guy on the highwire who walked over the top of the whole thing for charity, check the photos for more details.
At night, we were presented with a dilemma, to go and see the Canadian Mounted Police do their display, or go and see the Eukanuba super dog display. For most people this would have been a pretty easy vote for the mounties, but for homesick people missing thier trusty hound, the dogs were the clear choice. It turned out to be really good, it was a million dollar type production with lights, music, and some very well trained dogs.
Once we had enough of the show, we headed back on the street car to the harbour front area of town. Toronto sits on the edge of Lake Ontario, and this really is the redeeming feature of the city. It is really well set up with markets, bars and restaurants, as well as a free concert stage complete with seating. All through the summer they have free concerts, and we actually spent two of our evenings in Toronto there in the outdoor mexican bar next door listening to the tunes and having beers and nachos.
Maybe it was the smog, or maybe it was because we were both a bit homesick, but in a nutshell, we didn't really like the place. That doesn't mean that I don't have some amusing anecdotes about the place though.
The first one involves the drive in. Montreal to Toronto is about 6 hours drive on the Freeway, so the plan was for Karen to drive for a while, and then me, and then when we got into the city (which is bigger than Sydney) Karen to drive and me to navigate.
Some information you need to know before I get too much further into this story is that in general I have noticed that Canadians are foolish drivers. They all travel at a good 20% over the speed limit and are prepared to take big risks.
Anyway, so all was going to plan, I was driving and it was approaching dusk. My glasses were packed away (I only really need them at night) and we were looking for a place to stop and change over. At this point we were on a reasonable sized freeway, 3 lanes each way.
Before we knew it however we were on the outskirts of town and the freeway grew somewhat. To 8 lanes each way! I kid you not. Basically what happens is there is 4 lanes each way of "express" freeway in the middle, so if you want to get off, you have to exit to the outer 4 lanes and then find your exit.
So here's the scene. We are in a left hand drive car, amongst 16 lanes of traffic, moving at about 120km/h, with trucks pushing us from behind. It has got dark and I don't have my glasses on, and Karen for all of her many skills can't read a map to save herself. Needless to say it was a little tense in the ol' grand am.
And then to spice things up, some dick in a Chevy Cavalier (Holden Camira) comes flying onto the freeway from the on ramp in front of us. Except he notices kind of late that there is a truck in the lane he chose, so he swerves back and gets himself into a fish tail.
It was then one of those time slows down kind of moments. This car in front of us was out of control, and was about to have the sort of accident featured in the freeway scene of the Matrix Reloaded. We were amongst trucks so had no where to go. Shit!
Fortunately, the hand of god intervened and somehow, despite the poor suspension engineering of the good people at Isuzu, he managed to straighten it up. Ok, stop the ride, I want to get off.
We were about to call the divorce lawyer after we missed the exit we were going for, but it turned out the next one was actually closer to the hotel anyway. Much ground kissing ensued when we finally pulled in to the hotel carpark and were out of the car.
We decided to spend the extra money and stay in a nice hotel for the nights in Toronto, partly because we got a good deal from expedia.com and partly because we needed a good bed to sleep in. It also had unlimited free internet, which was handy. It was like all big city hotels thought, impersonal and lonely and only made us feel homesick. We probably would have been better in a hostel amongst others, but not to worry.
Our first morning in Toronto was spent wandering around looking at the sites, including the CN tower and a few cool shops. We visited the city hall and park, and saw our first of real life squirrel! We also found a really good and cheap all you can eat indian joint for lunch which went down an absolute treat.
In the afternoon, we decided to jump on a streetcar (no it wasn't named desire) and head to what the Canadians call "The Ex", which is short for the Canadian National Exhibition. It is almost identical to our Royal show, which was kind of cool since at the time we were there the Show was on at home.
The exhibition hall is full of the same dodgy products, including everything from miracle mops, to massage chairs to the obligatory spa's. They don't have a showbag hall thought, the have a hall the same size, but full of every kind of junk food you can imagine. We felt a bit pissweak, but we actually ended up having a salad.
One highlight was the guy on the highwire who walked over the top of the whole thing for charity, check the photos for more details.
At night, we were presented with a dilemma, to go and see the Canadian Mounted Police do their display, or go and see the Eukanuba super dog display. For most people this would have been a pretty easy vote for the mounties, but for homesick people missing thier trusty hound, the dogs were the clear choice. It turned out to be really good, it was a million dollar type production with lights, music, and some very well trained dogs.
Once we had enough of the show, we headed back on the street car to the harbour front area of town. Toronto sits on the edge of Lake Ontario, and this really is the redeeming feature of the city. It is really well set up with markets, bars and restaurants, as well as a free concert stage complete with seating. All through the summer they have free concerts, and we actually spent two of our evenings in Toronto there in the outdoor mexican bar next door listening to the tunes and having beers and nachos.
After rain stopped play in Fundy National Park, we made a decision to do a big drive and try and make for Montreal.
As it turned out, it proved to be just a little too far, but no worries because we ended up in a quaint seaside Quebecois town called Riviere du Loup (pronounced Riveria de Loo). This was a nice little town, and Karen and I ended up having a nice stroll down the beach at sunset which was very nice, but what is worth noting is that out of everywhere we have been on this trip, this town had the lowest level of English, so I had to rely on my decidedly dodgy french more than ever.
It was refreshing though, because when you pose the question "Parle vous Anglias?" (do you speak english?) in France, you are usually greeted with rolled back eyeballs. Here , even though the answer was often "Non", or "a little", the people are generally pleased that you made an effort, and are often excited to be meeting a real life Australian. In Montreal, the answer is often a very North American sounding "yeah", but that's another story.
Anyway, like I said, the dodgy french got a work out. We had a good old fashioned take away Pizza for tea, and watched the American v. Canada world cup Ice hockey game (which Canada incidently won). So feeling confident after sucessfully boooking in to a hotel and getting a pizza, I took on the big task...
Ring up the Sorfadet.
Doesn't sound that hard, since our mate Sorfo has a pretty good command of English. He does however live with his parents, and neither of them speak english. It turned out when I rang, he had already gone to work, so I rate it as one of my great achievements that he actually got the message from his mum to ring me back (even though she knew numbers in english, but not much else, and my command of French doesn't go past 6 or 7 words).
So with that feather in my cap, we left the motél le shonké and headed for Montreal. OK, so I made that hotel name up for comedy reasons, but you get the idea of the sort of place it was.
I might just say from the outset that Montreal is a great city. It is also unique in that due to it's notoriously shit weather, way below zero in winter and hot and humid in summer, there is an airconditioned network of tunnels below the city. A city below the city if you like. It contains connections between all of the major buildings as well as several shopping malls and food courts. The whole network runs to some 33km apparently.
The shopping areas are just like any Westfield you might have been into, but the tunnels under the business areas of town were quite bizzare. There is no advertising in them! They are all very white and very sort of, oh I don't know, Matrixy perhaps.
So what did we do in Montreal? Strolled around the old town, visited the sports store "Roots" (tee hee) and its kidswear bretheren (wait for it) "Roots Kids". We also checked out the Science museum, the olympic park and wandered the tunnels.
There were two major highlights though.
The first was catching up with our X-FM brother in arms the Sorfadet for a few of Montreal's finest brews, which is Maudite, weighing in at a hefty 9% alcohol. It was great to sit around and chew the fat and share gossip for a while. Sorfo is working at resort quite a way out of town and drove some 200km after work to catch up with us, which was great.
The second highlight was the Montreal biodome, which is sort of like our Bicentennial conservatory but with animals in there. It is an enormous dome which has 4 seperate climates, in which the plants and animals are housed. Those of you who have browsed the photos I posted the other day will have a pretty good idea of what was in there, since I took a stack of pics, so I won't crap on too much about it except to say that I was pretty stoked to see a real life beaver!
As it turned out, it proved to be just a little too far, but no worries because we ended up in a quaint seaside Quebecois town called Riviere du Loup (pronounced Riveria de Loo). This was a nice little town, and Karen and I ended up having a nice stroll down the beach at sunset which was very nice, but what is worth noting is that out of everywhere we have been on this trip, this town had the lowest level of English, so I had to rely on my decidedly dodgy french more than ever.
It was refreshing though, because when you pose the question "Parle vous Anglias?" (do you speak english?) in France, you are usually greeted with rolled back eyeballs. Here , even though the answer was often "Non", or "a little", the people are generally pleased that you made an effort, and are often excited to be meeting a real life Australian. In Montreal, the answer is often a very North American sounding "yeah", but that's another story.
Anyway, like I said, the dodgy french got a work out. We had a good old fashioned take away Pizza for tea, and watched the American v. Canada world cup Ice hockey game (which Canada incidently won). So feeling confident after sucessfully boooking in to a hotel and getting a pizza, I took on the big task...
Ring up the Sorfadet.
Doesn't sound that hard, since our mate Sorfo has a pretty good command of English. He does however live with his parents, and neither of them speak english. It turned out when I rang, he had already gone to work, so I rate it as one of my great achievements that he actually got the message from his mum to ring me back (even though she knew numbers in english, but not much else, and my command of French doesn't go past 6 or 7 words).
So with that feather in my cap, we left the motél le shonké and headed for Montreal. OK, so I made that hotel name up for comedy reasons, but you get the idea of the sort of place it was.
I might just say from the outset that Montreal is a great city. It is also unique in that due to it's notoriously shit weather, way below zero in winter and hot and humid in summer, there is an airconditioned network of tunnels below the city. A city below the city if you like. It contains connections between all of the major buildings as well as several shopping malls and food courts. The whole network runs to some 33km apparently.
The shopping areas are just like any Westfield you might have been into, but the tunnels under the business areas of town were quite bizzare. There is no advertising in them! They are all very white and very sort of, oh I don't know, Matrixy perhaps.
So what did we do in Montreal? Strolled around the old town, visited the sports store "Roots" (tee hee) and its kidswear bretheren (wait for it) "Roots Kids". We also checked out the Science museum, the olympic park and wandered the tunnels.
There were two major highlights though.
The first was catching up with our X-FM brother in arms the Sorfadet for a few of Montreal's finest brews, which is Maudite, weighing in at a hefty 9% alcohol. It was great to sit around and chew the fat and share gossip for a while. Sorfo is working at resort quite a way out of town and drove some 200km after work to catch up with us, which was great.
The second highlight was the Montreal biodome, which is sort of like our Bicentennial conservatory but with animals in there. It is an enormous dome which has 4 seperate climates, in which the plants and animals are housed. Those of you who have browsed the photos I posted the other day will have a pretty good idea of what was in there, since I took a stack of pics, so I won't crap on too much about it except to say that I was pretty stoked to see a real life beaver!
After we had seen all of the Anne that we could possibly take (sadly we didn't have enough time on the island to wait around for the next performance of Anne the Musical!), we headed back across the very massive confederation bridge to New Brunswick.
Once we restocked with some more supplies, we headed for the Bay of Fundy national park for a look. The Bay of Fundy is famous for its absolutely massive tides, clocking in at some 9m per day! We were there at low tide so we walked around the bottom of the cliffs, marvelling at the water line so far above our heads. Apparently this place has been on Getaway, so it must have been good.
Following our visit, we made the short drive to our cabin which was actually in the National Park. It was really nice, and we used the little kitchen to make our own dinner which was bloody nice for a change. Karen crashed pretty early but I stayed awake and channel surfed taking in a mix of baseball and the comedy channel.
The next morning our plan was to do something outdoorsy in the park, maybe a hike or a bit of golf on the local course. However, a couple of inches of morning rain put paid to that idea! Never mind...
Once we restocked with some more supplies, we headed for the Bay of Fundy national park for a look. The Bay of Fundy is famous for its absolutely massive tides, clocking in at some 9m per day! We were there at low tide so we walked around the bottom of the cliffs, marvelling at the water line so far above our heads. Apparently this place has been on Getaway, so it must have been good.
Following our visit, we made the short drive to our cabin which was actually in the National Park. It was really nice, and we used the little kitchen to make our own dinner which was bloody nice for a change. Karen crashed pretty early but I stayed awake and channel surfed taking in a mix of baseball and the comedy channel.
The next morning our plan was to do something outdoorsy in the park, maybe a hike or a bit of golf on the local course. However, a couple of inches of morning rain put paid to that idea! Never mind...
Hey there.
Just a short one to let you know I have managed to get some more photos up!
Go nuts here!
Just a short one to let you know I have managed to get some more photos up!
Go nuts here!
And now the part of the holiday we have all been waiting for, the trip to Prince Edward Island, to visit Karen's own personal Mecca, Green Gables at Avonlea.
Let me say from the outset that P.E.I. is bloody magnificent. Great scenery, lovely people, delicious food and almost one golf course per person. The big claim to fame however, is L.M. Montgomery and her famous story, Anne of Green Gables. I am not saying they are milking this for all its worth, but there is a lot of Anne merchandise you can buy. Everything from an Anne pinafore to Anne red cordial.
We caught the ferry over from Nova Scotia, which was pretty cool, and the first place we went on the island after we got off of the ferry was to the Anne of Green Gables store, purveyors of all things Anne, to pick up some stuff. Karen was happy to finally snag all three movies on DVD, as well as the soundtrack on CD. It turns out that PEI is the only place in the world that sells the DVD's, and they are priced accordingly at $55 each. Ouch. I bought 15 DVD's for that sort of dosh in Thailand.
Anyway, after visiting the store and trying on the official Anne hat complete with red pigtails, we decided it was time for lunch, so it was off to Wendy's. No not the icecreamery, Wendy's is a hamburger chain here. North America has a whole shit load of fast food chains, and we have done our best to try to have as many of them as we can. Wendy's is just like McDonald's, except they use square rissoles.
North America also has a vast array of potato chip flavours, which again, all warrant tasting. On PEI, I got a bag of lobster flavoured chips. Pretty yummy, although not remarkably like lobster.
After the visit to the shop, the real pilgrimage began. We fired up the Grand Am and headed up to the township of Cavendish, taking in some stunning coastline along the way. Cavendish is the home of the author Lucy Montgomery, and also the site of Green Gables. We ducked in for a visit, and Karen marveled at looking around famous places from the story such as the cottage and Lovers Lane. I just walked around wishing the boys from home were with me so I could be playing the magnificent golf course next door.
We spent the night in the Green Gables Cabin park, which was lovely. We stayed in a quaint wooden cabin right in the heart of Anne country, and had a lobster supper for tea. As you may have gathered, this part of Canada has plenty of lobster. So much so that they used to use it for fertilizer! They are not quite that free with it now, but my whole lobster dinner and full salad bar only came to about $35.
The next day was the culmination of all things Anne for us, when we visited Avonlea, the Anne theme park! (code named PWW - refer to the late show if you don't get this). Sure enough it was a recreation of Avonlea from the story, with actors in costume to boot. I must admit that Karen probably enjoyed this more than I did, but I did draw some amusement from the fact that Anne Shirley, the mischievous rat bag that she is, hung shit on Karen for claiming that she flew to Canada from Australia.
Let me say from the outset that P.E.I. is bloody magnificent. Great scenery, lovely people, delicious food and almost one golf course per person. The big claim to fame however, is L.M. Montgomery and her famous story, Anne of Green Gables. I am not saying they are milking this for all its worth, but there is a lot of Anne merchandise you can buy. Everything from an Anne pinafore to Anne red cordial.
We caught the ferry over from Nova Scotia, which was pretty cool, and the first place we went on the island after we got off of the ferry was to the Anne of Green Gables store, purveyors of all things Anne, to pick up some stuff. Karen was happy to finally snag all three movies on DVD, as well as the soundtrack on CD. It turns out that PEI is the only place in the world that sells the DVD's, and they are priced accordingly at $55 each. Ouch. I bought 15 DVD's for that sort of dosh in Thailand.
Anyway, after visiting the store and trying on the official Anne hat complete with red pigtails, we decided it was time for lunch, so it was off to Wendy's. No not the icecreamery, Wendy's is a hamburger chain here. North America has a whole shit load of fast food chains, and we have done our best to try to have as many of them as we can. Wendy's is just like McDonald's, except they use square rissoles.
North America also has a vast array of potato chip flavours, which again, all warrant tasting. On PEI, I got a bag of lobster flavoured chips. Pretty yummy, although not remarkably like lobster.
After the visit to the shop, the real pilgrimage began. We fired up the Grand Am and headed up to the township of Cavendish, taking in some stunning coastline along the way. Cavendish is the home of the author Lucy Montgomery, and also the site of Green Gables. We ducked in for a visit, and Karen marveled at looking around famous places from the story such as the cottage and Lovers Lane. I just walked around wishing the boys from home were with me so I could be playing the magnificent golf course next door.
We spent the night in the Green Gables Cabin park, which was lovely. We stayed in a quaint wooden cabin right in the heart of Anne country, and had a lobster supper for tea. As you may have gathered, this part of Canada has plenty of lobster. So much so that they used to use it for fertilizer! They are not quite that free with it now, but my whole lobster dinner and full salad bar only came to about $35.
The next day was the culmination of all things Anne for us, when we visited Avonlea, the Anne theme park! (code named PWW - refer to the late show if you don't get this). Sure enough it was a recreation of Avonlea from the story, with actors in costume to boot. I must admit that Karen probably enjoyed this more than I did, but I did draw some amusement from the fact that Anne Shirley, the mischievous rat bag that she is, hung shit on Karen for claiming that she flew to Canada from Australia.
Having thoroughly explored Halifax, it was time to head north, and we made for a little town called Pictou, which is where the Prince Edward Island Leaves from.
Pictou is a quaint little harbour town, famous for being the first town settled by the Scottish pioneers of Nova Scotia. It was interesting, we stayed in the Pictou backpackers which was just some ladies house with 4 bedrooms that she rents out. That is not interesting in it self, far from it really, but what was interesting was that she took us on a bit of a history walking tour of the town. It amazes me that in the old days people were brave enough to just come to largely uninhabited areas on the other side of the globe from thier home and start fresh.
Other than that, there probably isn't a great deal to say about Pictou, and it probably wouldn't have waranted it's own post had I not run out of time while doing the last one, but there you go. When we got there there was a Country and Bluegrass music festival on, which I probably don't need to tell you we avoided like the plauge. We did have a magnificent seafood dinner in a restaurant overlooking the harbour, despite the fact they were out of lobster so I had to settle for clams.
Oh, and we discovered a new beer, Rickards Red and Rickards Pale Ale. Fantastic! They should serve it at the Earl of Liecester.
Pictou is a quaint little harbour town, famous for being the first town settled by the Scottish pioneers of Nova Scotia. It was interesting, we stayed in the Pictou backpackers which was just some ladies house with 4 bedrooms that she rents out. That is not interesting in it self, far from it really, but what was interesting was that she took us on a bit of a history walking tour of the town. It amazes me that in the old days people were brave enough to just come to largely uninhabited areas on the other side of the globe from thier home and start fresh.
Other than that, there probably isn't a great deal to say about Pictou, and it probably wouldn't have waranted it's own post had I not run out of time while doing the last one, but there you go. When we got there there was a Country and Bluegrass music festival on, which I probably don't need to tell you we avoided like the plauge. We did have a magnificent seafood dinner in a restaurant overlooking the harbour, despite the fact they were out of lobster so I had to settle for clams.
Oh, and we discovered a new beer, Rickards Red and Rickards Pale Ale. Fantastic! They should serve it at the Earl of Liecester.
We've been to old Scotland, now let's try New Scotland
Published Wednesday, September 08, 2004 by James.
Or as the locals call it, Nova Scotia!
We got to our hotel room, and you'd think that after the mammoth flight I would gone straight to sleep. Well I would have, if I didn't have 60 CHANNELS OF TV! Yeah baby! I channel surfed until I fell asleep with the remote still in my hand.
The next morning, we got up and went to Wal-Mart to get some supplies for our road trip, which included amongst other things another small suitcase for some of the stuff we have accumulated. We have seen a lot of 'biggest things' on this trip, and as Wal Mart is another. It is enormous. Just imagine your average size Big W, Coles and Target all put together and you get an idea.
Once we had the Pontiac loaded, we headed of to explore Halifax for the afternoon. Halifax is a very quaint, pretty city se upon quite a large harbour. We spent most of the afternoon wandering downthe harbour front, and there are a few things that rate a mention.
The first thing is we came across a shop called 'Rum Runners'. As you canimagine, we entered thisshop excitedly, but it turned out that they didn't actually sell rum, but rum cake. Absolutely deeelish! A Bundy flavoured cinammon cake is probably the best description I can come up with. We bought a big one in a tin to take away, but sadly there is now none left.
The second mention goes to Mountain Equipment Co-op. This placeis camping gear Nirvana! An enourmous shop over two levels, with prices about half of equivalent gear in Australia.
The third and final mention goes to McDonalds. Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island are famous for seafood, you can buy it just about everywhere (we went to a supermarket that had a lobster tank!) Not to be outdone, McDonald's has a McLobster on the menu! I kid you not! I didn't try one so I can't give you a report, after all there is way to much fresh seafood around to be going to Mc Donalds!
We got to our hotel room, and you'd think that after the mammoth flight I would gone straight to sleep. Well I would have, if I didn't have 60 CHANNELS OF TV! Yeah baby! I channel surfed until I fell asleep with the remote still in my hand.
The next morning, we got up and went to Wal-Mart to get some supplies for our road trip, which included amongst other things another small suitcase for some of the stuff we have accumulated. We have seen a lot of 'biggest things' on this trip, and as Wal Mart is another. It is enormous. Just imagine your average size Big W, Coles and Target all put together and you get an idea.
Once we had the Pontiac loaded, we headed of to explore Halifax for the afternoon. Halifax is a very quaint, pretty city se upon quite a large harbour. We spent most of the afternoon wandering downthe harbour front, and there are a few things that rate a mention.
The first thing is we came across a shop called 'Rum Runners'. As you canimagine, we entered thisshop excitedly, but it turned out that they didn't actually sell rum, but rum cake. Absolutely deeelish! A Bundy flavoured cinammon cake is probably the best description I can come up with. We bought a big one in a tin to take away, but sadly there is now none left.
The second mention goes to Mountain Equipment Co-op. This placeis camping gear Nirvana! An enourmous shop over two levels, with prices about half of equivalent gear in Australia.
The third and final mention goes to McDonalds. Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island are famous for seafood, you can buy it just about everywhere (we went to a supermarket that had a lobster tank!) Not to be outdone, McDonald's has a McLobster on the menu! I kid you not! I didn't try one so I can't give you a report, after all there is way to much fresh seafood around to be going to Mc Donalds!
Before I start detailing our trip to Canada, I have just got to tell you about the trip from Venice to Canada.
Our flight from Venice left at 6:30 am. Our travel agent, and the guy at the hotel, was dead set that you needed to be at the airport at least 2 hours before the flight. It turns out that the Venice airport doesn't even open until 5! I know its only 30 minutes, but at that time of morning it was a bitter pill to swallow.
But not the bitterest by a long shot. Did you know (this means you Thor Travel!) that Venice doesn't have taxi's that run between Midnight and 6? No busses either! Bugger! We thought we were pretty clever being in a hotel only 4 km from the airport, but without taxis the only option was to use the hotel shuttle. Like everything else in Venice, this was fairly priced at 35 euro (60 aussie dollars!). We were in the car less than 5 minutes, and to make matters worse, I gave the guy 40 euro in cash and I only got 2 in change, because he took his 3 euro tip as well. Like I said in the last entry, Venice has nice canals, but other than that it bites pretty hard.
Anyway we got on the plane to Frankfurt where we had to transfer for our flight to Montreal. Frankfurt is the biggest bloody airport ever. It is massive, it took us more than 25 minutes to get from one end to the other.
Despite being 10 hours, the flight from Germany to Canada was pretty easy, I had only had about 6 hours sleep in 2 days so I was in la la land for most of it. Karen is usually asleep any time she is sitting down so she was the same. When we got into Montreal and wanted to get to our flight to Halifax, that's when the real fun started.
I use the term fun loosely, more as a synonym for absolute pain in the derriere! The friendly gentleman in customs decided that we looked suspicious enough to warrant pulling all of our bags apart and checking every item. We were carrying 3 bottles of wine and 2 bottles of Scotch.
Those of you who have taken alcohol into Australia before know that between 2 people, this is stuff all. Not in Canada though, he originally presented us with a duty bill of $75! Karen managed to talk him down to $50, but I tell you what, that wine better not be corked!
It gets worse. While he was dicking around looking at our undies, we missed our connecting flight. No real problem, we'll just catch the next one 90 minutes later. But, what do you know, it was delayed by another 90 minutes. It ended up taking us nearly 20 hours to get from Italy to Canada!
When we got to Halifax things started to get much better. First of all, it turns out that the car hire place didn't have any small 4 cylinder cars like we paid for left. So they had to give us a V6 Pontiac Grand Am for the same price. Also, there is a very helpful information booth in the airport, and the lady there booked us a pretty close and yet pretty cheap hotel. We slept well that night I can assure you.
Our flight from Venice left at 6:30 am. Our travel agent, and the guy at the hotel, was dead set that you needed to be at the airport at least 2 hours before the flight. It turns out that the Venice airport doesn't even open until 5! I know its only 30 minutes, but at that time of morning it was a bitter pill to swallow.
But not the bitterest by a long shot. Did you know (this means you Thor Travel!) that Venice doesn't have taxi's that run between Midnight and 6? No busses either! Bugger! We thought we were pretty clever being in a hotel only 4 km from the airport, but without taxis the only option was to use the hotel shuttle. Like everything else in Venice, this was fairly priced at 35 euro (60 aussie dollars!). We were in the car less than 5 minutes, and to make matters worse, I gave the guy 40 euro in cash and I only got 2 in change, because he took his 3 euro tip as well. Like I said in the last entry, Venice has nice canals, but other than that it bites pretty hard.
Anyway we got on the plane to Frankfurt where we had to transfer for our flight to Montreal. Frankfurt is the biggest bloody airport ever. It is massive, it took us more than 25 minutes to get from one end to the other.
Despite being 10 hours, the flight from Germany to Canada was pretty easy, I had only had about 6 hours sleep in 2 days so I was in la la land for most of it. Karen is usually asleep any time she is sitting down so she was the same. When we got into Montreal and wanted to get to our flight to Halifax, that's when the real fun started.
I use the term fun loosely, more as a synonym for absolute pain in the derriere! The friendly gentleman in customs decided that we looked suspicious enough to warrant pulling all of our bags apart and checking every item. We were carrying 3 bottles of wine and 2 bottles of Scotch.
Those of you who have taken alcohol into Australia before know that between 2 people, this is stuff all. Not in Canada though, he originally presented us with a duty bill of $75! Karen managed to talk him down to $50, but I tell you what, that wine better not be corked!
It gets worse. While he was dicking around looking at our undies, we missed our connecting flight. No real problem, we'll just catch the next one 90 minutes later. But, what do you know, it was delayed by another 90 minutes. It ended up taking us nearly 20 hours to get from Italy to Canada!
When we got to Halifax things started to get much better. First of all, it turns out that the car hire place didn't have any small 4 cylinder cars like we paid for left. So they had to give us a V6 Pontiac Grand Am for the same price. Also, there is a very helpful information booth in the airport, and the lady there booked us a pretty close and yet pretty cheap hotel. We slept well that night I can assure you.
Ok, so that end's our trip to Europe. Here are some points in summary that I need to mention before we move on.
1. Gelati in Italy is really good. But for those back in Adelaide who just can't pop over to Italy to get one, don't fret, because Gelato Bello on Glynburn Road make it as good as any you can find in Italy (and believe me, I sampled a lot!)
2. Being able to take your dog everywhere is pretty cool.
3. The whole driving on the right thing is pretty hard to get used to as a pedestrian. Karen very nearly got killed in Rome when she stepped in front of a car because she was looking the wrong way.
4. This is pretty well known, but Europe can be amazingly expensive, especially in the tourist areas.
5. We in Australia really should get our acts together language wise, it is rare to come across a European with any kind of education that hasn't at least got a good grasp of two languages.
1. Gelati in Italy is really good. But for those back in Adelaide who just can't pop over to Italy to get one, don't fret, because Gelato Bello on Glynburn Road make it as good as any you can find in Italy (and believe me, I sampled a lot!)
2. Being able to take your dog everywhere is pretty cool.
3. The whole driving on the right thing is pretty hard to get used to as a pedestrian. Karen very nearly got killed in Rome when she stepped in front of a car because she was looking the wrong way.
4. This is pretty well known, but Europe can be amazingly expensive, especially in the tourist areas.
5. We in Australia really should get our acts together language wise, it is rare to come across a European with any kind of education that hasn't at least got a good grasp of two languages.
Day two in Rome for us wasn't actually spent in Rome. It was spent in entirely a different country, Vatican city.
The first thing that grabs you about Vatican city is the Elite Swiss Guard that look after the place. Apparently Michaelangelo designed thier uniforms, and after seeing Dave, Sistene Chapel and the dome on St Peters Cathedral, they are far from his best work. I don't want to be culturally unsensitive, but to me they look like court jesters.
Anyhow, the first thing we did was wander through the Vatican museum towards the Sistene Chapel. 1500 years of Popes collecting stuff sure shows, with a mindblowing array of artifacts from ancient egypt today. Once you have seen all of this cool stuff, you enter into the corridors towards the actual Sistene Chapel.
Now I always thought the Sistene Chapel was just a free standing church with a cool painted ceiling. Not the case. There is actually a vast network of chapels and corridors, all intricately painted by other famous ninja turtles like Rafael and Donnatello, amongst others.
By the time you get to the actual Chapel, you have a sore neck from all of the looking up at all the cielings in the lead up. The big one is very good though, and its amazing to think that ol' Michealangelo had never painted in his life before he did it.
After another pizza lunch (it is nearly impossible to buy anything else in Rome, unless you want Pasta) we went back across the border to St Peter's cathedral. The best adjective I can come up with is Big. I mean really big. The top of the dome stands at a little over 130m, some 42 storeys, compared with the 31 storeys that Santos house stands at. It is said that they can jam 40,000 people inside the thing.
The catholics must have had some serious coin when they built it back in 1542, no wonder some people got crapped off and went and formed the Protestants. We have seen some big churches on our trip, but this one is the mother of all churches. As well as the gargantuan size, you have to marvel at how ornate it is inside, with works by famous artists all over the place. There is also a dead pope in there, looking in pretty good nick. Allegedly he is not embalmed, its just a miracle keeping him in tact. Apologies to any catholics, but I am skeptical.
We made the massive climb up the stairs to the top of the dome, which gives you an stunning view over all of Rome. You wouldn't want to be afraid of heights though I tell you what. The view downwards into the church is enough to give anyone vertigo.
As it turns out, there is a souvenier shop on the roof of St Peters, run by the nuns. Who'd of thunk it? I went in there hoping to find myself a good replica of the holy grail (again with the Monty Python), but they didn't have any in my sub $10 price range.
Back at the hotel, Karen and I just couldn't face anymore pizza or pasta, so we wen't to the supermarket across the road and bought some stuff to make salad. While we were there, we came across a stunning revelation, that the Italians don't have tax on alcohol. The six pack of Heinekin we bought came to about $7.50 australian. I also bought a bottle of The Glen Livet Scotch for about 28 Australian dollars (it costs about $60 at home). Wow. Like I said, Italy kicks ass.
The first thing that grabs you about Vatican city is the Elite Swiss Guard that look after the place. Apparently Michaelangelo designed thier uniforms, and after seeing Dave, Sistene Chapel and the dome on St Peters Cathedral, they are far from his best work. I don't want to be culturally unsensitive, but to me they look like court jesters.
Anyhow, the first thing we did was wander through the Vatican museum towards the Sistene Chapel. 1500 years of Popes collecting stuff sure shows, with a mindblowing array of artifacts from ancient egypt today. Once you have seen all of this cool stuff, you enter into the corridors towards the actual Sistene Chapel.
Now I always thought the Sistene Chapel was just a free standing church with a cool painted ceiling. Not the case. There is actually a vast network of chapels and corridors, all intricately painted by other famous ninja turtles like Rafael and Donnatello, amongst others.
By the time you get to the actual Chapel, you have a sore neck from all of the looking up at all the cielings in the lead up. The big one is very good though, and its amazing to think that ol' Michealangelo had never painted in his life before he did it.
After another pizza lunch (it is nearly impossible to buy anything else in Rome, unless you want Pasta) we went back across the border to St Peter's cathedral. The best adjective I can come up with is Big. I mean really big. The top of the dome stands at a little over 130m, some 42 storeys, compared with the 31 storeys that Santos house stands at. It is said that they can jam 40,000 people inside the thing.
The catholics must have had some serious coin when they built it back in 1542, no wonder some people got crapped off and went and formed the Protestants. We have seen some big churches on our trip, but this one is the mother of all churches. As well as the gargantuan size, you have to marvel at how ornate it is inside, with works by famous artists all over the place. There is also a dead pope in there, looking in pretty good nick. Allegedly he is not embalmed, its just a miracle keeping him in tact. Apologies to any catholics, but I am skeptical.
We made the massive climb up the stairs to the top of the dome, which gives you an stunning view over all of Rome. You wouldn't want to be afraid of heights though I tell you what. The view downwards into the church is enough to give anyone vertigo.
As it turns out, there is a souvenier shop on the roof of St Peters, run by the nuns. Who'd of thunk it? I went in there hoping to find myself a good replica of the holy grail (again with the Monty Python), but they didn't have any in my sub $10 price range.
Back at the hotel, Karen and I just couldn't face anymore pizza or pasta, so we wen't to the supermarket across the road and bought some stuff to make salad. While we were there, we came across a stunning revelation, that the Italians don't have tax on alcohol. The six pack of Heinekin we bought came to about $7.50 australian. I also bought a bottle of The Glen Livet Scotch for about 28 Australian dollars (it costs about $60 at home). Wow. Like I said, Italy kicks ass.
Our final stop in Italy was the very unique but very over run by pigeons city of Venice. Here's what went down.
It turns out that the hotel we were staying at in Venice (well actually in the nearby industrial town of Mestre, since Venice is the most ludicrously expensive place on earth) had a 70's disco. Fortunately, we were forewarned, and Brad, Anthony and myself stumbled across and op shop in Rome so we had some good duds to wear.
This was a night that we had been setting aside for the whole tour as the party night, and the fact that the dinner that night had complimentary wine didn't do the party any harm. Ok, I will get to the point. We put on silly clothes, drank a lot and went to bed very late.
The next morning, after everyone prized themselves out of bed and had 10 coffees, we headed into the famous city, set on 118 islands. I could go on and on about the uniqueness of Venice with its canals, but I am just not going to. Sure, they are nice, and the gondola ride we went on was probably one of the highlights of the trip, but despite that there is a whole lot of stuff not to like about Venice. It would be a lot more fun if they allowed jetski's though....
First of all, there is an absolutely hideous amount of pigeons, and it is made worse by the fact that street vendors sell bags of seeds to tourists to feed them. I am sure that some people enjoy them, but I just felt like I was in some Hitchcock film the whole time. You stand in the main square and the filthy disease ridden birds just flock all around you.
Secondly, Venice is horrendously expensive. Try $8A for a coffee, or to $35 per memory card to get your photos put on CD, it is just unbelievable. We went to a glass blowing demonstration (Venice is of course famous for glassware, which I will get to in a moment), and we saw a guy make a little horse. It was pretty cool, and in the shop afterwards they could sell you one for 22 euro. We saw exactly the same thing on of the other bajillion glass shops for 4 euros! Almost as shonky as Thailand.
In fairness, there is a lot of absolutely amazing glass art to be had in Venice. Seeing the guy make the horse piqued our interest a little bit on this art, so we thought we would like to see a master artist at work. So we got on a water bus to the isle of Murano where they all work. We got straight off of the bus/boat/whatever you want to call it and headed to one of the places to see an artist at work.
It turns out, that most people in Italy have their holidays in August. The master glass artists are now exception. We of course didn't find this out until after we saw an apprentice make another horse. It must be the first thing they teach you in glass blowing school.
And that was pretty much our day in Venice. Cruised the canals and watched some guys make little glass horses.
Dinner that night is worth a mention though. It was our last supper on the tour so to speak, so we went with a few friends we met on the tour to the little restaurant next door to the hotel. It, like every other place had pizza and pasta as the main fare, but also had an outside BBQ. I had a 400gm t-bone, which after being away from home for nearly a month was absolutely the best thing since sliced bread.
It turns out that the hotel we were staying at in Venice (well actually in the nearby industrial town of Mestre, since Venice is the most ludicrously expensive place on earth) had a 70's disco. Fortunately, we were forewarned, and Brad, Anthony and myself stumbled across and op shop in Rome so we had some good duds to wear.
This was a night that we had been setting aside for the whole tour as the party night, and the fact that the dinner that night had complimentary wine didn't do the party any harm. Ok, I will get to the point. We put on silly clothes, drank a lot and went to bed very late.
The next morning, after everyone prized themselves out of bed and had 10 coffees, we headed into the famous city, set on 118 islands. I could go on and on about the uniqueness of Venice with its canals, but I am just not going to. Sure, they are nice, and the gondola ride we went on was probably one of the highlights of the trip, but despite that there is a whole lot of stuff not to like about Venice. It would be a lot more fun if they allowed jetski's though....
First of all, there is an absolutely hideous amount of pigeons, and it is made worse by the fact that street vendors sell bags of seeds to tourists to feed them. I am sure that some people enjoy them, but I just felt like I was in some Hitchcock film the whole time. You stand in the main square and the filthy disease ridden birds just flock all around you.
Secondly, Venice is horrendously expensive. Try $8A for a coffee, or to $35 per memory card to get your photos put on CD, it is just unbelievable. We went to a glass blowing demonstration (Venice is of course famous for glassware, which I will get to in a moment), and we saw a guy make a little horse. It was pretty cool, and in the shop afterwards they could sell you one for 22 euro. We saw exactly the same thing on of the other bajillion glass shops for 4 euros! Almost as shonky as Thailand.
In fairness, there is a lot of absolutely amazing glass art to be had in Venice. Seeing the guy make the horse piqued our interest a little bit on this art, so we thought we would like to see a master artist at work. So we got on a water bus to the isle of Murano where they all work. We got straight off of the bus/boat/whatever you want to call it and headed to one of the places to see an artist at work.
It turns out, that most people in Italy have their holidays in August. The master glass artists are now exception. We of course didn't find this out until after we saw an apprentice make another horse. It must be the first thing they teach you in glass blowing school.
And that was pretty much our day in Venice. Cruised the canals and watched some guys make little glass horses.
Dinner that night is worth a mention though. It was our last supper on the tour so to speak, so we went with a few friends we met on the tour to the little restaurant next door to the hotel. It, like every other place had pizza and pasta as the main fare, but also had an outside BBQ. I had a 400gm t-bone, which after being away from home for nearly a month was absolutely the best thing since sliced bread.
Ah, Roma - grand and ancient city.
Actually, before we get to discussing Rome, there is one major thing that I forgot to mention, and that is Pisa. You may have heard of it, it's renowned for having one of the worlds shittest bits of civil engineering - the leaning tower of Pisa. Wow, it really is sunken on one side.
I am sure you all know what it looks like, but there are a couple of things worth mentioning. The first thing is that you would not believe the amount of tourists there trying to do the tricky photo showing themselves trying to hold up the tower. Without word of a lie, I reckon in the hour or so that we were there, I saw at least 15 couples trying to do variations on that photo. There must be a couple of hundred thousand photos of Pisa in the world showing people holding it up.
The other thing worth mentioning about Pisa is that we happened to be there on a day when the wind was blowing in the same direction as the lean. This was cool because you could stand at the bottom of the thing and look up, and the clouds flying over the top and the resulting optical illusion made it look like the tower was falling over towards you. That piss weak description probably doesn't do the experience justice, but hopefully you get the idea.
Anyway, like I was saying, Rome.
What a totally amazing city. Do you know there are at least 3 levels of Rome? Over the years they have just filled in the old cities with dirt and built on top. It bends your head. They only have 2 subway trains in Rome, because everytime they go to dig a new tunnel, they find more ruins.
We split our visit to the city of Rome over two days.
The first day was spent looking at the the popular sites. First stop was the very amazing colleseum. The thing is as big as AAMI stadium, and yet was built in 72-80AD. It sat 50,000 in it's hey day, and had facility to put up a thin linnen roof in Summer and a rain proof roof in Winter. Amazing. I was sitting in there and I just couldn't get Life of Brian out of my head "Are you the PFJ?" "Why do you want to be a woman, Stan?". Ahem.
The other thing is you know how half of it is now missing, its not because it has fallen down with age or poor building standards. It's just that when the Popes took over Rome, and they were looking for bits to build thier churches, the colleseum seemed to have everything they needed so they just flogged whatever they could.
After the colleseum, we headed up the road (a very old Roman road, with chariot tracks worn in) to the Forum of ancient rome, which must be one of the biggest archealogical digs in the world. It is amazing, and I have tons of photos which you will see soon I promise, but you walk around and feel like you are in ancient Rome. Pillars and remnants of ancient buidings everywhere.
As we were standing by the block that Marc Antony stood on to make his famous speech, the lady who was running the walking tour we were on asked if anyone knew who stood there and what he said. Being a smart ass like I am sometimes, I proudly said "Friends, Roman's, Countrymen, lend me your ears!". She then invited me to stand on the very block and repeat it for the rest of the 3 trillion tourists around the place, and having no shame I had to oblige. I guess you had to be there.
Feeling a bit ruined - out, so to speak we went to see a Roman wonder that was still standing, the Basilica. An amazing Pagan church, converted by the Vatican in the 4th century to a catholic church. It is famous for its perfectly spherical roof, with a big hole in the roof to let the sun in. It also lets the rain in, so the clever romans built drains in the floor that run into the aquaduct. You can also tell the time in there, by where the sun shines on the floor. Unfortunately it's an hour slow in daylight saving time.
That made it lunchtime. We had some pizza and gelati (hey, when in Rome....) and went on our way to see the Trevi fountain. On the way I managed to pick up a very cool reprint of the thatrical poster for the Godfather's Italian release, and Karen used her Thailand honed haggling skills to help our friend Sarah buy some genuine (wink, wink) Gucci handbags from a guy on the street.
We marvelled at the sculptures on the fountain, threw in a couple of coins each as per tradition, and headed for the Spanish Steps.
When we got there, the church which the steps lead to was covered in scaffolding, and there was no flowers since it was mid summer, so it didn't look as speccy as any of the photos that I have seen, but that's life I guess.
By this time our throbbing feet couldn't take much more, but there was just one more thing I had to see before we caught the subway back to the hotel. The Circus Maximus.
The Circus Maximus was the chariot racing track. In itself it is just a big space with a worn track, but it was pretty cool to imagine ancient roman bogans at their equivalent of the speedway with mullets and skin tight black togas and wives with missing teeth passing them wine and grapes out of the esky.
Actually, before we get to discussing Rome, there is one major thing that I forgot to mention, and that is Pisa. You may have heard of it, it's renowned for having one of the worlds shittest bits of civil engineering - the leaning tower of Pisa. Wow, it really is sunken on one side.
I am sure you all know what it looks like, but there are a couple of things worth mentioning. The first thing is that you would not believe the amount of tourists there trying to do the tricky photo showing themselves trying to hold up the tower. Without word of a lie, I reckon in the hour or so that we were there, I saw at least 15 couples trying to do variations on that photo. There must be a couple of hundred thousand photos of Pisa in the world showing people holding it up.
The other thing worth mentioning about Pisa is that we happened to be there on a day when the wind was blowing in the same direction as the lean. This was cool because you could stand at the bottom of the thing and look up, and the clouds flying over the top and the resulting optical illusion made it look like the tower was falling over towards you. That piss weak description probably doesn't do the experience justice, but hopefully you get the idea.
Anyway, like I was saying, Rome.
What a totally amazing city. Do you know there are at least 3 levels of Rome? Over the years they have just filled in the old cities with dirt and built on top. It bends your head. They only have 2 subway trains in Rome, because everytime they go to dig a new tunnel, they find more ruins.
We split our visit to the city of Rome over two days.
The first day was spent looking at the the popular sites. First stop was the very amazing colleseum. The thing is as big as AAMI stadium, and yet was built in 72-80AD. It sat 50,000 in it's hey day, and had facility to put up a thin linnen roof in Summer and a rain proof roof in Winter. Amazing. I was sitting in there and I just couldn't get Life of Brian out of my head "Are you the PFJ?" "Why do you want to be a woman, Stan?". Ahem.
The other thing is you know how half of it is now missing, its not because it has fallen down with age or poor building standards. It's just that when the Popes took over Rome, and they were looking for bits to build thier churches, the colleseum seemed to have everything they needed so they just flogged whatever they could.
After the colleseum, we headed up the road (a very old Roman road, with chariot tracks worn in) to the Forum of ancient rome, which must be one of the biggest archealogical digs in the world. It is amazing, and I have tons of photos which you will see soon I promise, but you walk around and feel like you are in ancient Rome. Pillars and remnants of ancient buidings everywhere.
As we were standing by the block that Marc Antony stood on to make his famous speech, the lady who was running the walking tour we were on asked if anyone knew who stood there and what he said. Being a smart ass like I am sometimes, I proudly said "Friends, Roman's, Countrymen, lend me your ears!". She then invited me to stand on the very block and repeat it for the rest of the 3 trillion tourists around the place, and having no shame I had to oblige. I guess you had to be there.
Feeling a bit ruined - out, so to speak we went to see a Roman wonder that was still standing, the Basilica. An amazing Pagan church, converted by the Vatican in the 4th century to a catholic church. It is famous for its perfectly spherical roof, with a big hole in the roof to let the sun in. It also lets the rain in, so the clever romans built drains in the floor that run into the aquaduct. You can also tell the time in there, by where the sun shines on the floor. Unfortunately it's an hour slow in daylight saving time.
That made it lunchtime. We had some pizza and gelati (hey, when in Rome....) and went on our way to see the Trevi fountain. On the way I managed to pick up a very cool reprint of the thatrical poster for the Godfather's Italian release, and Karen used her Thailand honed haggling skills to help our friend Sarah buy some genuine (wink, wink) Gucci handbags from a guy on the street.
We marvelled at the sculptures on the fountain, threw in a couple of coins each as per tradition, and headed for the Spanish Steps.
When we got there, the church which the steps lead to was covered in scaffolding, and there was no flowers since it was mid summer, so it didn't look as speccy as any of the photos that I have seen, but that's life I guess.
By this time our throbbing feet couldn't take much more, but there was just one more thing I had to see before we caught the subway back to the hotel. The Circus Maximus.
The Circus Maximus was the chariot racing track. In itself it is just a big space with a worn track, but it was pretty cool to imagine ancient roman bogans at their equivalent of the speedway with mullets and skin tight black togas and wives with missing teeth passing them wine and grapes out of the esky.
Right then, the final country on our European agenda was Italy (we actually stopped in Germany for a couple of hours on the way out, but that doesn't really count).
After we left the French Riveara, we crossed the border to the Italian Riviera. There was one immediate noticeable difference as you crossed the border, that while the French build there roads over and around the mountains on the coast, the italians just like to go through them. We are so proud of our Heysen tunnels at home, and yet, on the way to our first stop, we went through no less than 156 tunnels.
Somewhere along the Freeway with 156 tunnels, we stopped at one of the many European mega service station/roadhouses that we have been to. (The biggest was in Switzerland, it had a full shopping mall built into the bridge across the freeway). The reason I mention this one, is because it was the first chance I got to use the phrase I that I would go on to use many many times over the next week - Uno espresso per favore (one short black please). It was great. Italians make great coffee, and you can get it anywhere. I had good coffee, even by my anal standards, in the servo, the train station, you name it, everywhere. They're lightning fast too, they can whip out a cappucino in what seems like seconds. I knew from this road stop that I was just going to love this country.
Our first two nights were spent in the beautiful town on Montecatini, in Tuscany. Tuscany is the italian home of food and wine, so I don't really need to let you know how happy we were there. On the first night we went to one of the local restaurant. It was a pizza and pasta joint (it turns out every restaurant in Italy is a pizza and pasta joint, but I will get to that later), and was simply divine. Real italian food is not like you get at home, it has 5 ingredients tops. It is more about the quality of the ingredients than making complicated dishes.
For example, no where in Italy could I find Puttanesca or a Ceaser Salad, and believe me, I looked. It's just not the sort of thing they eat. So anyway, back to the restaurant, we had a minamalist yet delicious pizza each and a bit of pasta, washed down with a bottle of Chianti and a bottle of Chianti Classico. I am not going to spend time going in to the difference now, you can google it if you want.
The next day we did a day trip to Florence. This is an amazing city, especially if you are into classic art. We spent a bit of time walking around, had a coffee, had some gelati, had a look at Dave (Michelangelo's David) and then headed off to the pub for the afternoon with some South Africans from our tour to relax, drink beer and watch the Tri Nations final. Australia lost, so I don't really need to expand any further...
Back in Montecatini, we freshend up and then decided to head out for dinner. At this point I think it is worthwhile to mention some friends we have made on the tour, Brad and Sarah, honeymooners from Melbourne. Anyway, like I said the four of us headed out for dinner. We were faced with a choice of going to the local (but very highly recommended) place around the corner, or walk a bit further and catch the gondola up to the top of the hill where the restaurant square is. I was keen on the later option, but, the other three were tired so I was out voted. Not to worry, we headed off.
When we got there, it seems that word had got around about the quality of this place, and just about everyone else from the tour was already there. We were faced with probably a 5 minute wait for a table. I was cool with that, but the other 3 were impatient and suggested we try elsewhere. Again I was outvoted, and developed the first stages of the sulks. We wandered around for a good 30 minutes, trying to find somewhere that looked as good and was as reasonably priced as the original place to no avail. By this time, my sulks were in the more advanced stages and I was muttering words to the effect of "no one ever listens to me...."
We decided then that it might be worth catching the gondola after all. Ok, lets find it. Hmmm no town map, lets ask a police officer. She speaks english, that's a good start. Does she know where the gondola is? No. Right then.....
By this time, I had cracked the sads. No one (except me, I have no shame) wanted to face the embarrassment of going back to the first place, but it seemed at this point we were fresh out of other options - So back we went.
We didn't get paid out too badly, but let me tell you, for someone like me who loves Italian restaurants, this place was the best. Starter was a buffet of antipasto, including delicious olives, cheeses, parma ham, salami and salted beef. I had veal scallopini for main, and then tiramisu and a machiato for desert. Oh man, my mouth is watering remembering it now. All washed down of course with local chiante.
The next day, we headed off for a local tuscan winery. Like French wine, don't believe what they tell you about italian wine. These guys really know how to make wine. I can't remember the name of the winery we went to, but we bought three bottles of the stuff so I will tell you when I get home. Anyway, back to wine tasting. Wine tasting here is not like at home. First off all, they give you a big glass full, and they also give you food to match. As it turned out, Karen and I sat on a table with the bus driver, and the 3 irish teenagers on the tour, none of whom liked wine.
Not letting any of it go to waste, I must confess to being a little tipsy when we left. The owner of the winery was very entertaining, and had a pretty wide knowledge of wines from all over the world. Here we had an interesting local dish, made of old breadcrumbs and black cabbage. It was quite delicious but apparently the recipe is a local secret so I can't tell you what else is in it. A cabbagy (is that a word?) porridge is probably the best description I can come up with.
On our way out we visited another amazing little tuscan town called San Gimignano. This is the tuscany you see in the postcards, steeped in history and with gorgeous foods and friendly locals. Whilst Karen wandered some of the local shops, I spent a bit of time in the local torture museum.
A one word description will do. Wrong. You'll notice that the website is called corkscrew balloon. This refers to one of the more popular exhibits, also called the pear. Check this, its the thing in the middle. You insert it you know where and.....
After we left the French Riveara, we crossed the border to the Italian Riviera. There was one immediate noticeable difference as you crossed the border, that while the French build there roads over and around the mountains on the coast, the italians just like to go through them. We are so proud of our Heysen tunnels at home, and yet, on the way to our first stop, we went through no less than 156 tunnels.
Somewhere along the Freeway with 156 tunnels, we stopped at one of the many European mega service station/roadhouses that we have been to. (The biggest was in Switzerland, it had a full shopping mall built into the bridge across the freeway). The reason I mention this one, is because it was the first chance I got to use the phrase I that I would go on to use many many times over the next week - Uno espresso per favore (one short black please). It was great. Italians make great coffee, and you can get it anywhere. I had good coffee, even by my anal standards, in the servo, the train station, you name it, everywhere. They're lightning fast too, they can whip out a cappucino in what seems like seconds. I knew from this road stop that I was just going to love this country.
Our first two nights were spent in the beautiful town on Montecatini, in Tuscany. Tuscany is the italian home of food and wine, so I don't really need to let you know how happy we were there. On the first night we went to one of the local restaurant. It was a pizza and pasta joint (it turns out every restaurant in Italy is a pizza and pasta joint, but I will get to that later), and was simply divine. Real italian food is not like you get at home, it has 5 ingredients tops. It is more about the quality of the ingredients than making complicated dishes.
For example, no where in Italy could I find Puttanesca or a Ceaser Salad, and believe me, I looked. It's just not the sort of thing they eat. So anyway, back to the restaurant, we had a minamalist yet delicious pizza each and a bit of pasta, washed down with a bottle of Chianti and a bottle of Chianti Classico. I am not going to spend time going in to the difference now, you can google it if you want.
The next day we did a day trip to Florence. This is an amazing city, especially if you are into classic art. We spent a bit of time walking around, had a coffee, had some gelati, had a look at Dave (Michelangelo's David) and then headed off to the pub for the afternoon with some South Africans from our tour to relax, drink beer and watch the Tri Nations final. Australia lost, so I don't really need to expand any further...
Back in Montecatini, we freshend up and then decided to head out for dinner. At this point I think it is worthwhile to mention some friends we have made on the tour, Brad and Sarah, honeymooners from Melbourne. Anyway, like I said the four of us headed out for dinner. We were faced with a choice of going to the local (but very highly recommended) place around the corner, or walk a bit further and catch the gondola up to the top of the hill where the restaurant square is. I was keen on the later option, but, the other three were tired so I was out voted. Not to worry, we headed off.
When we got there, it seems that word had got around about the quality of this place, and just about everyone else from the tour was already there. We were faced with probably a 5 minute wait for a table. I was cool with that, but the other 3 were impatient and suggested we try elsewhere. Again I was outvoted, and developed the first stages of the sulks. We wandered around for a good 30 minutes, trying to find somewhere that looked as good and was as reasonably priced as the original place to no avail. By this time, my sulks were in the more advanced stages and I was muttering words to the effect of "no one ever listens to me...."
We decided then that it might be worth catching the gondola after all. Ok, lets find it. Hmmm no town map, lets ask a police officer. She speaks english, that's a good start. Does she know where the gondola is? No. Right then.....
By this time, I had cracked the sads. No one (except me, I have no shame) wanted to face the embarrassment of going back to the first place, but it seemed at this point we were fresh out of other options - So back we went.
We didn't get paid out too badly, but let me tell you, for someone like me who loves Italian restaurants, this place was the best. Starter was a buffet of antipasto, including delicious olives, cheeses, parma ham, salami and salted beef. I had veal scallopini for main, and then tiramisu and a machiato for desert. Oh man, my mouth is watering remembering it now. All washed down of course with local chiante.
The next day, we headed off for a local tuscan winery. Like French wine, don't believe what they tell you about italian wine. These guys really know how to make wine. I can't remember the name of the winery we went to, but we bought three bottles of the stuff so I will tell you when I get home. Anyway, back to wine tasting. Wine tasting here is not like at home. First off all, they give you a big glass full, and they also give you food to match. As it turned out, Karen and I sat on a table with the bus driver, and the 3 irish teenagers on the tour, none of whom liked wine.
Not letting any of it go to waste, I must confess to being a little tipsy when we left. The owner of the winery was very entertaining, and had a pretty wide knowledge of wines from all over the world. Here we had an interesting local dish, made of old breadcrumbs and black cabbage. It was quite delicious but apparently the recipe is a local secret so I can't tell you what else is in it. A cabbagy (is that a word?) porridge is probably the best description I can come up with.
On our way out we visited another amazing little tuscan town called San Gimignano. This is the tuscany you see in the postcards, steeped in history and with gorgeous foods and friendly locals. Whilst Karen wandered some of the local shops, I spent a bit of time in the local torture museum.
A one word description will do. Wrong. You'll notice that the website is called corkscrew balloon. This refers to one of the more popular exhibits, also called the pear. Check this, its the thing in the middle. You insert it you know where and.....
About me
- I'm James
- From Adelaide, South Australia, Australia
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