Travelling with Girls

well, there is definitely some differences travelling with girls as opposed to guys now.

On the one hand, i visited more ´shops´in one day with Elandri and Elise then i did in a month with Cory and Damien

On the other hand making full use of our kitchen we went out and bought fresh break and fresh fish and fried them up with some oil, butter, garlic and basil. It was heavenly. I´ve been eating for practically nothing all week. It´s great! Finally my bank account can rest for a week!

We´ve day tripped to Malaga and saw the sights there as well to Fingurola a couple of times. Other then that we´ve just layed around the beach and pool.

This whole area is definitely resorty, the whole costa de sol cost is just a string of resorts. Which makes everything a little less....authentic i guess.

Sat we leave for Cordoba for one night before heading to Madrid for a couple.

Logan

onward to Malaga

So the 13hr train ride was pretty cool. I crashed for the first 4hrs after Sant Joan the night before. But then i was awake and mostly read.

However the scenery was fantastic. So much variety in Spain. I went from rolling hills, to high desert to huge huge olive tree plantations, to a canyon that looked very much like the grand canyon with the train cutting huge tunnels through the mountains.

eventually I got to Malaga at 9pm and then bused it down to the resort. I met up with Elandri and Elise and everything is set for the next little while as I figure out my next move.

It sure is nice to stay in a private room with a real shower, real kitchen facilitites. Although i was definitely having fun with the hostel life, this is a most welcome change.

We´re just going to day trip it around this Costa del Sol area before renting a car and driving to Madrid.

Sant Joan

So i stayed in Barcelona an extra couple days because I heard of this celebration called Sant Joan. Sorta of a celebration of the start of summer and Saint John the Baptist day.

It was the most unreal thing I´ve ever experienced!!

Let me try to visualize this for you. They only sell fireworks/firecrackers the two weeks leading up to this event. They sell them to everyone!!! from 7yrs olds to 70yr olds. From 10pm on ward the celebrations really began. Over 100,000 people partying and dancing on the beach, live DJ´s and bands all down the beach, fireworks going off literally every second, 5yr old kids throwing mini sticks of dynamite everywhere.....wow! Just unreal! It never stopped until 7am, although the fireworks slowed down to like one every 5 secs by 3am.

I was catching a 13hr train ride from Barcelona to Malaga at 8am the next morning, so i just didn´t go to bed. I partied on the beach straight until 7am, walked to my hostel, packed my bags and headed for the bus station across town.

Never again will i see something like that. I´m glad i stayed!!

Smashed in Barcelona

England till I die
England till I die
I know I am, I´m sure I am
I´m England till I die

So i was really debating whether or not to go on the infamous Smashed PubCrawl in Barcelona.But in the end i decided, why not, i´ll meet some people and will most likely have a good time. Well i´m glad i did!

It started off a little slow, all the little bars we went to were packed because of the Futball game. But then we got to a good ol rock bar and I somehow got talking to this Bachelorette party from England. There were here for the weekend for a good ol time and were all wearing bright pink ´Nearly a Virgin´sashes. When they found out I was on the pubcrawl bymyself, they took me in (luckily they didn´t have a extra pink sash)

They asked me who i was cheering for in the World Cup, i said Germany. WRONG ANSWER!!! England England England. As such i learned the cheer and they have me cheering for England as well.

If you go to a club in Barcelona at midnight you´ll be the only one there. No kidding. People don´t go to the clubs before 2am.So we hit some more bars and then ended with the clubs. The bride-to-be had an interesting night. But what happens in Barcelona stays in Barcelona. I love that saying, works everywhere:-)

By 5am there was only a couple of us still going, myself, a bachelorette by the name of Joanne, the Bride-to-be and some guy they met from London. So we left the club, and they hadn´t seen the beach yet. So we´re lying on the beach at 6am watching the sun come up, when some punk kid deftly walks by and grabs the brides purse. So luckily Joanne noticed and i ran after him ( i was sorta hoping he´d run, cause then i could like tackle him or something cool) but he just dropped it and kept on walking.

After that we said our goodbyes and I arrived back at the hostel at 7am for a good sleep.

Good times in Barcelona!

Game Seven / It´s a small world

So I´m pretty sure of two things. The Green Room is the only bar with a TV to stay open until 5am and two that every Canadian in Barcelona found it.

There was like 70 of us watching the game. We sang the anthem and cheered loud and proud from 2am until 5am. Sadly it wasn´t enough. I´m not sure what happened, we should have had the momentum coming back from 3-1. What a run though

On another note, i ran into three people I knew that night. Mike graduated Mech Eng with me a couple months ago, he´s been travelling since right after finals. Then i ran into Ali, my soccer goalie from under 13 soccer and finally i ran into Laney Chalmers, who was two years behind me in high school but i graduated high school with her brother and graduated Mech Eng with her other brother. CRAZY wierd!

Next Year Oilers!

After the game we slept from 5:30 till 7:30 before getting back up and heading out on an amazing kayak trip along the Costa Brava coast. Weather was crappy, but kayaking was good, a little tired.

Happy Fathers Day

Happy Fathers Day Dad and Dennis and Howard!!!

We´definitely wouldn´t be on a trip like this if it weren´t for you guys!!! We´ll try and call later today and hopefully get a hold of you guys!

If not, sorry we can´t be there, but THANK YOU for everything!!

Game Seven Baby!

So after much searching we found an Irish pub that stays open until 5am. We convinved them to show us the hockey game although they wouldn´t give in and give us sound, as there was a DJ playing.

However after 10mins, the lost there subscription to the channel. So they turned it to some music channel.

Lucky for us, though another big pack of Canadians had walked by and seen the hockey game was on and stayed. So all of us as a group went to the manager and said ´hey you´ve got 15 rabid Canadians who are going to sit here for the next 3 hrs and drink beer if the game is on, otherwise we´re all getting up and leaving right now´

Turns out that works! They found another channel that had it on!

GO OILERS GO! We´ll be back in the same bar monday night/tuesday morning 2-5am!

Logan

Sun Burnt

So we all figured Damien would be the first to burn, as I´m sure most of you did as well. well you´d be wrong. It was me, Logan.

The problem was I love going for a good ol swim in the ocean every half hour. Unfortunately that washes off all the sunscreen and we didn´t bring any extra out.

However I wasn´t all dumb. I decided I´d ask the pretty girls laying beside me if I could have some of there sunscreen. They were more then happy to share, turns out they are from Estonia. Never met anyone from there before. Problem was, i got to involved in the conversation and forgot to actually put much sunscreen on.....

So now i´m red. But not too bad...but i think i´ll leave the shirt on today

Logan

Sploush

Here is a new word for you. Some Irish girls in Amsterdam taught it to us. It´s called a sploush machine and it is for the pop or fountain dispensers you find at fast food restaurants. They call them Sploush machines because that is the sound they make when you press the button.

There you go!

Paris

Not a lot to say. We were only there 30hrs. we saw the main sites, the eiffel tower, the arc d´Triumph, the louve, the Great Canadian Pub!!

It was expensive, mostly for the drinks. a 500ml coke at a restaurant would cost you 10euro. No joke!!! the drink cost more thatn the meal on most occasions. if you were stingy you could get a jucie box sized 250ml for 4euro.

Short and sweet was Paris. But was a beautiful city

Logan

Train Problems

What would this trip have been if there were not train mishaps. We´ve not had a couple.

From Amsterdam we didn´t know you had to reserve the high speed trains to paris, so we missed that one, and so as such had to take a slow train to Belgium and then pay and reserve the high speed one to paris. Only lost a couple hourse on that one.

Then we booked our night train to Barcelona. The guy who sold us it never said anything. So we decided to get to the train station an hour early and maybe use the internet. Well we didn´t see our train on the departures list. Then our ticket said Paris Austerlitz....what is that. Turns out it another ´main´train station across town. This with 30 mins left.

But we made it...with 5 mins to spare. Good stuff.

Logan

The Hockey Game

So we met up with Adam one of my good buddies from Engineering. We gathered as many Canadians as we could, about 30 of them and convinced a bar to stay open for us and watch the game. It was unreal!! We all sang the national anthem and rocked out at 2am. Of course in order to show our appreciation for keeping the bar open, we had to keep buying beer...all the way until 5am.

A lot of the Canadians left after first period but there was 10 of us that stayed until 5am. That was game 4, which the Oilers lost. Booooo. But when we finally left it was light out already.

GO OILERS GO! YOUR BACK IN IT

P.S. That is also where we ran into Caylee the first time. She was following the Canadian crowd that Adam had rounded up wearing his Oilers jersey. Unfortunately her hostel had a curfew of 2am so they left. Then we ran into them on the street the next mornign as well, right before there were catchign a train to Belgium. Small world

Time Flies

So much to say, so little time. Amsterdam was interesting. Our hostel was really cool, had free internet so as such it was never available.

Amsterdam definitely felt like the oldest city, full of canals and all these old leaning houses. The houses are all built to lean forward and at the top of the house is a pulley hook. That way they can hoist items up to the top floor via the outside pulley and not have it bump against the house all the way up.

The red light district...well it is exactly that. A shopping district for women. A little crazy. Other then that not a lot else happened. We chilled a lot, resting our legs from all the walking in Berlin. Went to the sex museum...cause you can´t go to Amsterdam without seeing that. Took a canal cruise.

THe major thing was the heat!!!! Wow! Preparing us for Barcelona i guess. It was about 34 the last day there, and 31 the day before. Crazy hot.

Oh and BIKES!!! Bikes outnumber cars 5:1 no kidding. Everyone rides a bike everywhere. You´d be crazy to have a car. you can get all the way across town in 15 minutes by bike.

Great stuff!!

Logan, Cory and Damien

Amsterdam

Just got here. Looks like a pretty boring town. Wé'll probably just sit and read books most of the time we're here :-)

P.S. we'll post some 'dirt' later, but if you want post some of your dirt questions and we'lll answer them

Logan

Some pics

so this way of doing photos sort of worked but don't expect much. this took over and hour to upload these three pictures so.... sorry folks

Berlin

Berlin. Wow, what a city, so much history it literally floors you. After our day of travel we didn't do to much. Just found our hostel, met some Aussies and went to bed.

The next day we got up early and did the New Berlin free tour. Same company, same results. A wicked tour showing us a ton of stuff that i can't spell.

Then they gave us a coupon for the New Berlin pub crawl. Now i figured it'd be pretty touristy since it was a Wed night. WRONG! The pub crawl was awesome. We met Irish, Aussies, Americans, Spanish, Chinese and the list goes one. Tons of free shots, cheap specials, just fun, what can you say. The last bar was packed, it was called the Matrix. And not packed with tourists, with locals, these guys party every night. Oh yeah and the taxi ride home was like a roller coaster. That guy could weave and drive!

The next morning we made ourselves get up early, headache and all. We decided it was a good day for the zoo. The zoo with the most species in the world. Once again a pretty cool day. In the evening we hit up a free museum to get a little culture. Was pretty good. Then cashed it in at a decent time aka midnight since we were all beat.

Today we went out to a concentration camp. Was an eye opener to say the least. You've read it, you know it, but it's something different when youre there.

And thats about it. Sorry for everyone who has to read all this seeing as I blather a lot

Chow!

Cory, Logan and Damien

More Munich

wow, you don't write for a while and it's amazing how much has happened. i literally had to go back in the pictures to remember. i feel like i could write a book, but since a) i don't want to write it and b) you don't want to read it. here is the readers digest version

after our long night out with the bar with Jasmin we slept until 1pm again. after we got up we decided it was a good shopping day. so we all went and bought ourselves the one and only big present we wanted for ourselves. a Steiner aka a Bavarian Beer drinking mug. Since we're not going to carry those around we shipped them home (check the mail Uncas Vet Clinic)

We then met up with Jasmin and her boyfriend and they cooked us another dinnner. After which we strolled around Munich pointing out sites before ending up at an authentic (however empty, Beer Garden). We each had a steiner of beer aka 1L and had a good ol time.

The next day we got up early and went on the New Munich free walking tour. Awesome!! it's free in the sense that the guides ONLY get paid in tips. As such he was the most entertaining knowledgable guy ever. had no problem each giving him a five when that was over. We went to the most famous beer hall in the world the Hofbrauhaus which was really cool. Of course we had another 1L of beer.

After the tour we were close to the English gardens, a massive park in the middle of Munich. As we walked we came across another beer gardens, so we stopped for lunch an another 1L of beer (it's the smallest and only size they come in). Well then it started to poor and what else is there to do when it's raining, so we ordered another steiner. For those of you keeping track thats now 3L of beer within the last two hours. To make a long story shorts, we somehow stumbled home carrying each other....ok so Damien and Cory were carrying me...and were in bed by 7pm.

The next, our last day in Munich we signed up for a Bike Tour up to Neuschwanstein castle. The castle that inspired Disney. Once again i could write paragraphs on everything we did and how beautiful it was. but it wouldn't do it justice. you'll just have to listen and see the pics when we get back. AMAZING!!!

We spent our last night with Jasmin before getting some sleep before the 7hr train ride to Berline. I thought the train would be more fun than it was. Nope. A 7hr train ride is just as boring as a 7hr car ride. Ahh well

Berlin comes next!

Rhine and Munich

The tour down the Rhine was really cool, felt pretty posh riding down the Rhine in a fancy ferry, drinking beer and being waited on by servers. As expected castles everywhere, we blew our picture budget of 25 per day.

We stopped for the night in Overwessel. As we started trying to find our hostel we found ourselves walking up a steep road seemingly heading out of town. After asking for directions we kept on walking up the road until we saw a little path showing Jugdenherberge (Youth Hostel) up this little path up the side of the mountain. So with our packs we took off up this path for about 1km, felt like dying. Eventually we came out right on the top of the peak right beside the castle. Who knew?

The next day was a ton of train rides on the way to Munich. It was packed on the train and we stood for parts until we found seats seperated. Once in Munich we met up with Jasmin in her tiny little apartment and she fed us a traditional bavarian dish (Leeberkase). Her boyfriend got into town just after we did and all five of us headed out to a local club for Jasmin's med students 'Student Pass Out Party' The women of Germany are wunderschön (i'm not translating that) the most I've (just me, not Damien or Cory) seen thus far.

Today we just walked around Munich, did a little shopping and bought some Beer Steins we're going to ship home. Tomorrow a city tour along with some more beer, then hopefully a bike tour on Monday before Berlin.

Weather still sucks, but how can we complain....well Cory can, but we're here right.

GO OILERS GO

Damien, Cory and Logan