Iceland Part Deux

Well this post took a little while. But I didn't want to add it until I had all the pictures from mine and Nory's camera. So pictures have now been added to the Photo Gallery
http://www.uncasvet.com/cgi-bin/emAlbum.cgi?cmd=show_thumbs&path=Iceland&tn=1

Day 3
So after staying in Arnes, we got up early the next morning and headed North towards the big attractions of the Golden Circle. First off we hit an old volcanic crater which was big and deep. The whole area is chock full of volcanoes and the land around it was very rocky with remnants of lava.

Then we headed up to Geysir. The original! All Geysirs were named after this one, the original in Iceland. Unfortunately it doesn't erupt nearly as often as in the old days. We actually never saw it blow it's top. But there was another one near it, that erupted about every 5 mins. Iceland has a hot and a warm geothermal area. The warm is a mere 100 degrees C, but this area of Geysirs is in the hot part, i.e. 250 degrees C. Little too warm for a bath.

After that we headed up to Gulfoss! The most famous waterfall in Iceland. 250m long with a 32m drop. It was magnificent! The path down to the waterfall was pretty icy, on the way down we sorta skated it, but the way back was tricky. I turned around and Nory was on the ground, half underneath the guide ropes trying to stop himself from rolling down the hill. But the view was sure amazing. Almost like a black and white photo due to all the snow and rock.

Then we headed to our hostel. The plan was to drop off our stuff and then take a short drive to Thingveller. But after we got to the hostel, we found out the shortcut road to Thingveller was in poor poor condition and travel was not recommended. So here we were, with nothing else to see for the day, stuck in a town of 2oo people at 3 in the afternoon. So we drove around....for 2 mins. The natural sauna was closed up, but luckily for us the swimming pool/rec center was open. So we swam and played some B-ball and wasted as much time as we could. Our hostel was pretty much empty except for two students who attended the local sports college. So Nori and I played chess most of the night and kept a lookout for Northern Lights although they never showed.

Day 4
Now we took the long route to Thingveller (it's actually spelled different in Iceland, it's gotta funny character that looks sorta like a P).
This is the place of great historical importance for Iceland. For a lot of reasons actually. Backtrack some millions of years, Iceland is actually made up of two plates. Half of Iceland is part of the North American plate and the other half is part of the Eurasian plate. And they meet right in the middle at Thingveller. So this is literally where Iceland came together, and actually where it's moving apart. 2cm each year, the plates are moving apart.

Not only that but this is the place where the people of Iceland came together from the 1100's. This is where they formed the government, made decisions, accepted Christianity, handed out punishment and much more. This truly was the center of history for Iceland. It was really cool!

Lastly we headed back to Reykjavik. We went and toured the amazing church and took the elevator to the top to get a great view of Reykjavik. After that we simply toured the center. Entering the little shops, buying souvenirs. After that we headed back to the hostel to drop off the rental car and then headed back to the center. After a really expensive dinner we headed back to the church. We bought tickets to a Christmas concert for that night! It was pretty cool, with a big church choir and that massive church organ, as well a famous Icelandic singer was there and she obviously quite a favorite in Iceland. The people just never stopped clapping. We got two encores out of it!!

And that was all she wrote. The next morning we got a bus ride to the airport and parted our ways. Nory going back to Denmark and me heading to London for one day to meet up with Sergi.
But it was an absolutely amazing trip, I'm so glad I got to do it. Thats it for me! Hopefully another post soon about life back at home!

Iceland

Ahhh beautiful Iceland! Well the first thing you have to do when you get to Iceland is check your calculator at the door, because if you start doing all the conversions to find out how much everything is actually costing...it will kill you.

So what have Nori and I done...

Day 1
Well after we got off the plane and got our car rented we decided to head to the famous Blue Lagoon. Even from the air we could see it...it is this hazy light blue color. As can be expected the smell of sulphur was pretty strong from the geothermal springs, but the water was gorgeous, especially since it was around plus 2 outsides, so the whole lake was enveloped in steam, you could hardly see 15m in front of you. Nori and I tried the silfra mud, caking it on our face...for that smooth sensous feel!

After that we headed into town and found our hostel...after a couple wrong turns. Then we headed into downtown Reykavik to check everything out. Although, the Friday night, nightlife in Reykavik is supposed to be pretty wild, we checked in early as we were getting up early for a long day of driving.

Day 2
We got up at 7am and started driving south. It was dark as we expected so we drove some, 8am, 9am...still pitch black....10am....yep still dark. Wow, I thought i was used to the mimimal daylight hours from Canada, but not getting light until 1030 or 11am...that is rough. Everything seems so dead.

Anyways, we headed down to south passing waterfall after waterfall...and taking pictures of waterfall after waterfall. Then we came to Skogar, the first big attraction. It was a massive waterfall, witha town of...50 people around it. Everything was dead, we never saw a single soul. So we hiked up and around the waterfall. Legend says there is a treasure of gold behind the waterfall, but I couldn´t convinve Nori to go for a swim and get it.

Then we kept on driving. We wanted to head inland to the tongue of one of the glaciers but the road was óffroad´which is prohibited by our rental car. Luckily...I didn´t read the rental contract...so we went anyways. At the glacier, I warned Nori how dangerous it can be to walk on the glacier because you could fall through a hole. So what does Logan do, walks on the ice...in front of the glacier. Underneath which, the water is melting and flowing. CRACK, the icebreaks!Lckily, with my catlike reflexes, I managed to scramble back to safety. Other then the wet pant leg and shoe, I was alright.

Then we did some more off road driving, this time to the coast where there we birds but the thousands and then some. Plus some magnificent rocky cliffs and black sand beaches.

Next we drove on to Vik. Not a lot there, but we found this really cool store that sold souviners. The cool part though, was that the actually had a mini factory in the back and made nearly all of the stuff. Especially all of the Icelandic Wool wear.

Finally we backtracked and headed inland to Arnes. When we got to the hostel we found that we were the only two staying there. Surprise surprise. We kept a lookout for the Northern lights, but they never showed.

Well 2 minutes left on the expensive internet. Guess our final two days will have to wait until i get home!

Cheers everybody! Miss you all in Denmark already!

Logan

Kjerag Hike

Hey guess what? I learned how to levitate!! Check it out

So i've added some more pictures from our hike to Kjerag. It was by far the most strenous hike i've done. The whole first kilometer of the hike we were mostly pulling ourselves up on chain hooked into the rock face. Then we just get to the top and we just have to decend into a valley and do it overagain on the next hill. But it was all worth it!

As you can see the main picture point is the rock wedged into the crevice. It was a little scary seeing as it was 400m straight down below that rock. The ledge i'm standing on is 1000m above sea, which didn't really seem like much till I thought 'hey that's 10 football fields' Staggering!

There was a guy doing a tightrope walk across, right behind the rock. It was a pretty windy day, and he fell once (caught by the safety rope of course) but made it on his second try. This is also a popular base jumping cliff, but far too windy on this day to try it.

All in all, we took 2hrs up and 1.5hrs back, with 3 hrs driving each way. Check out the road.

Tomorrow is my last day here and I'm sad to leave. Norway is so beautiful, the whole country seems like a post card. But i'm excited to get to Bergen, settle down in my own place and go to work.

I'll try and compile like a Best of / Worst of List from my travels and post it tomorrow. If you have any suggestions i.e. worst toiletpaper, best beer etc... let me know

Logan

August already

Time is sure flying right now. I've been gone over 9 weeks, hard to believe. Well here is my Norway update. I'm staying here with Anne, her husband Kurt, their daughter Åse and often her boyfriend Anders. If you wondering how I know Anne, well she stayed as an exchange student with my mother back when they were 18. Then her and Åse came to visit our family about 8 yrs ago. Pretty cool how they've stayed in touch.

They are such a great family. Anne's father owned a lot of land here in Jørpeland from the mountain all the way down to the sea. So just a few years ago they sold their house farther up the mountain and built their dream home right on the sea, beside their 60ft fishing boat. It is a beautiful home in beautiful surroundings. The area here is very similar to the San Juan area around Vancouver island. Lots of little islands with mountainous, treed terrain all the way down to the sea.

So what have I done here.

Well Anne and I did the hike to Preikestolen (Pulpit Rock), one of the most famous hikes in Norway. Anne hikes a lot so with her leading the way we did the 2hr hike in 1hr 10mins. I've posted pictures in the photo gallery. The scenery is simply incredible, it was breath taking hiking over top of the hill and seeing the massive fjord. Viewing the fjords you can see how myths came about. It is like the glaciers had a 1000 fingers with a 1000 long fingernails and as they retreated they desperately dug their fingernails into the land to stop themselves. It also shows you why it is so hard to travel here. You either ferry across the fjord or burrow under it. If you've got Google Earth just type in Tau Norway to see what I mean.

We took a day trip to Stavanger (1\2 hr ferry ride) for the food festival and visited the Oil Museum. Despite my lack of interest in working in the oil industry in Alberta, I found the Oil Museum here really interesting. Stavanger is the oil capital of Norway the starting point for all of the Oil Rigs out in the North Sea.

I went out on Kurt and Anne's boat and did some fishing. Didn't catch too much but it was just nice to be out on the water enjoying the sea air and the sun.

I also got to go waterskiing which was amazing! I thought I wouldn't get to go at all this year, but I actually got to go twice. Kurt's brother had a boat so I went with them one day and then the next day I got to go again with one of Anders friend. Both times I dropped my ski and tried some Slalom. I was pretty out of shape though and didn't last long before I crashed, but it was fun all the same.

Other then that just some small 1-2 hr hikes around the area (they hike a lot here and why not they literally live in the mountains). I went out with Åse and Anders on Sat night to Stavanger and met a bunch of their friends. They are often shy to speak English at first because they don't think their english is good, but it doesn't take them long to open up and start speaking. And their English is great, far better than they think, better than a lot of Canadians I know :-)

Only three more days left. I leave Friday night for Denmark and will be in Aalborg Saturday around noon. My days of travelling are about over. But not yet. Tomorrow we are going to hike to Kjerag a 1000m peak further down the Lyse fjord. It will be a full day, 2 hrs driving each way interrupted by a 5 hr return hike to the peak. But it is the tallest peak in the area so I can't wait!

Hope everyone is doing well!

Logan

Craziest Train Ride

So this is probably one of those stories that won't be funny in print, so just imagine me retelling this story with all my hand animations and everything...

So I cheaped out and decided I wasn't going to pay the 50 odd dollars to have a couchette (a bed on the train) for my night train from Maria's town to Stockholm. I decided on just the reclining chair, should be fine right?

My first sign of the night to come was that the train allowed dogs on board...ok thats fine....turns out i'm sitting with two. I little fuzzy lap dog right beside me and a medium-large hound type dog. Grrrreat.... actually they turned out to be the least of my worries. So before I can go on need to describe the scene.

Doorway to next car

Hall - Bathroom

11 12 15 16

table table

13 14 17 18

squeaky door

some more seats

next car is the bar

So i was sitting in seat 14, beside me in seat 13 was an older lady with her lap dog and in seats 11 and 12 was the older lady's 20 something daughter and her larger hound type dog. Across in 15, 16, 17, 18 was 30 something girl and a family off three.

So it started off bad, being right beside the bathroom and the squeaky automatic door. But it was the proximity to the bar that made everything crazy that night. At first it was two crazy hippy types who kept staggering back and forth yelling at each other. Luckily they got off around 1am. Then there were these two guys who were drinking and smoking in the doorway to the next hall. Well, girl across from me in 12 decides to curse these guys out (I assume, it was all in Swedish but that seemed the gist of it) since the drinking and smoking is not allowed. Of course they aren't happy and are a little beligerant but not much else happens.

Around 2am the family of three gets off the train. A short time later, the same two drunk guys and a girl stagger down again and decide this is a good place to sit....guess they didn't actually reserve seats. So of course they were still drinking and partying, hence still no sleep for me. Girl across from me kept trying to figure out how to get her and her dog comfortable on the seats as well as getting up for every stop for a smoke. She must have had something else wrong because she literally went to the bathroom every 20mins all 8hrs of the train. Wierd.

So finally things sorta calm down around 4am. By this time drunk guy has passed out under his table with his legs across the aisle and under my seat. So now my leg room not only is contending with the dog but with drunk guys legs. On top of that drunk guy isn't feeling so well so he is rolling and moaning, occasionally kicking out....at me. So I didn't really sleep much.

6am is when the real action started. We hit a big stop. As such a ton of people got on the train, including some filipino ladies who's seats were where the drunk and friends are. So there is all these people trying to get on the train, stepping over the drunk guy in the aisle. His friends tried to wake him up but he just moaned and cursed, so they left him. The filipino girls sorta sat down, cross legged as they were scared of him, and everyone else just walked over top of him.

Eventually, in his kicking rolling he sorta kicked the dog underneath my seat. Well that was it, girl across from me already didn't like him, so she was started trying to wake him up, tell him to get out of there (once again i assume that's what was said). Eventually she was hitting him with a rolled up magazine in the leg. Well he snapped. Got up and a shouting fight ensued. It was craziness. I didn't know what to do as I couldn't understand anything. But the shouting went on for many minutes. Eventually he left, the train security came around and they were told about this guy. So they went to look for him. Somehow they missed him and he came back and there was more shouting. He put his hand toward the dog and they pulled it back screaming, feining as if he'd been bitten and then screaming how viscious the dog was. So that was about it, security finally came and took him away. Crazy.

Needless to say, once again I went a night without sleep. Good thing my body is used to it by now. I got a couple hours on the way to Oslo though.

To Norway!

Logan

Pictures

Finally! I have added pictures to the gallery. 241 pictures to be exact. I even categorized them for all the place I've been and made all thumbnails so you can preview them in small size.

Only took a couple hours and some downloaded programs to do all the resizing. Enjoy! Let me know what you think!

So just click on the Photo Gallery at the side or here
http://www.uncasvet.com/cgi-bin/emAlbum.cgi

Logan

Sweden Fun Facts

Ok, no big story here, just some tidbits of my time here in Sweden.

• This is officially the farthest north I've ever been. Here in Ornsköldsvik I'm at latitude 63.3 which is farther north than Yellowknife or Anchorage, and almost the same as Fairbanks. Hence, my first week here it never got dark. It's not quite the midnight sun, but sunset was at 11pm and sunrise was at 3am so even at 1am you could still play sports outside! But the climate here is the same as Edmonton, due to the gulf stream coming up here. It's been high 20's my two weeks here with occasional rain.
• This whole area around Ornsköldsvik is a UNISCO World Heritage Site because it has the highest land rise in the world. In short, this area was the thickest part of the ice during the last ice age 20,000yrs ago, about 3km thick. The weight of the ice pushed all of this land 500m below sea level. Since the ice melted it has been rebounding ever since to it's position now 286m above sea level. And it's still rising at a rate of 8mm per year. http://www.highcoast.net/english/eng.html
• All this makes the landscape here amazing. Every turn in the road there is another big deep beautiful lake. There everywhere, a boaters paradise.
• Gas here is expensive!!! It is now at 13Kr / litre. The current exchange rate is 6.5Kr to the CAD dollar. So that is 2CAD / litre!! Which is probably why there isn't a ton of waterskiing and related sports around here, boats eat too much gas.
• Oh sports how I miss thee. Luckily Maria had me meet a friend of hers son who is 19 and just as much into sports as me. So we played Badminton (i lost), beach soccer which was crazy fun and tiring, and then a lot of beach volleyball. I even entered a beach volleyball tournament which I also lost but was tons of fun.
• As many of you know I've been staying with Maria here in Sweden. 17 years ago she was my nanny back in Canada when I was 6yrs old. Now I'm staying here with her husband and her 2yr old. Wow, 2yr olds are a lot of work. But they have been absolutely wonderful! I'm so glad I got to come here!
• If you work at a job in Sweden for 1 year you are entitled to 4 weeks holiday!
• As well when you have a child the mother gets 450 paid days off and the father gets 100 days.
• They have shop express at the supermarket, where you get your own scanner and just scan your items and pay. Pretty cool.
• This is Hockey Town Sweden. From this area came Peter Forsberg, Markus Naslund, the Sedin twins, Nicholas Lidstrom and more. This is also the home of MoDo the Swedish Elite team that some Oilers played for during the lockout if I recall.
• The Swedish language is hard! They make sounds I can't make!! I'm a little worried about Danish now.
• I think that's it. Two weeks has gone by incredibly quick and I've now been gone 8 full weeks. Crazy! Tonight I start my journey towards Norway. I have one night in Oslo on Saturday then off to Stavanger on Sunday to stay with Anne and her family.

Until next time! Leave comments please. They're fun for me to read!

Logan

Four Days Four Countries

Man, travel wears on you. In four days I went from

• Madrid to Basil Switzerland
• Slept 5 hours in Basil and caught the early train to Interlaken
• Spent the day and a rough rainy night in a tent in Interlaken
• Caught the train to Milan, took a two hour bus ride to the Milan airport
• Caught a 1hr delayed flight to Stockholm and arrived at 12:30am
• Took a bus into Stockholm and arrived at 1:30am
• Sat down and dozed outside the closed bus station until some wierd looking guy came to me and said "Do not go to sleep"
• Walked around Stockholm until 5am, my 8:30 train was full so i wandered some more until 12:30
• Then took a 3hr train to Sundsvall

So yeah. I'm glad to be staying here in Örnsköldsvik, Sweden with Maria for a couple weeks. Actually get to unpack my smelly backpack and sleep in a nice quiet room for a little while.

P.S. Sweden in beautiful, and the women are all tall, long blonde hair and blue eyes...ok not all, but most, the cliche's are true :-)

Logan

I've got that Interlaken feeling

So after consulting both my (or should i say Leslie's) guidebook and the girl sitting beside me on the plane, I decided if i had one day to see Switzerland it had to be in Interlaken.

Wow, it is the most beautiful place I've travelled so far (as well as the most expensive). I arrive there by train at about 9am. It's this teeny little town of 10,000 people situated between two massive lakes and along the river running between them. Surrounded on all sides by the towering Alps (10,000ft) which are majestic!!

So I completely blew my budget, I will now be in debt until at least Christmas. Interlaken is the adventure sport capital of Switzerland and Europe. And I talked myself into the whole your only hear once thing.

I really wanted to skydive but at 380fr (1 CAD = 1.10 SFR) it wasn't worth it. I can skydive back in Canada for much less and I'm not skydiving for the scenery. But I did decide on a little package deal.

At 11am I took a van ride up 2500ft up the mountain. Strapped myself to some guy named Bruno and a parachute and we ran off of this hill and Paraglided! It was beautiful. Not the big adrenaline rush, but just a amazing view and flight. I took a ton of pictures on the way down.

Then at 1pm I went canyoning. Seriously it was the coolest thing I've ever done. Strapped on a wetsuit, helmet and lifejacket and then came down a river gorge in the mountains. We had 25ft jumps into pools, rappeling down waterfalls, steep inclines where the water has carved a smooth path so it turns it into a massive slide. Unreal! So much fun. As soon as I was done I wanted to go back and do the full day trip.

It was a wild day. I stayed the night in Balmers tent village, which is exactly as it sounds. There was good fun and games there. Then that was it, I left early this morning on a train to Milan before catching my flight to Sweden. I arrived in Stockholm at midnight and here I am, at 4am not having slept waiting for the train station to open so I can train to Sundsvall to see Maria.

Cheers all!!

Logan

Oh budget airlines, where am I now??

Disclaimer: on this computer the y are in the z spot, but internet is expensive so i dont have time to slow down and fix it so deal with it. there is also no apostrophe

Ok so i alreadz wasnt happz with the budget flights as thez have me arriving past 11pm which means im sleeping in airports a couple times, but its budget flights so what can zou expect

Well im alreadz to go to Milan to sleep in the airport and then catch the earlz train to Cinque Terra. Waiting waiting, our flight isnt leaving. Tada zour flight is cancelled!!!

So that was at 2130. There were 200 angrz spanish and italians ahead of me in line for the easz jet customer representatives. each one takes min 10 to 20 mins to figure out how to rearrange flights. bz the time i got to the front it was 2am and thez told me i couldnt flz to milan for two full dazs. so i just said, i dont reallz care, im just backpacking can zou flz me anzwhere tomorrow? that made her happz as i didnt care if i got to milan

so where did i flz. Basil, Switzerland!!

it wasnt all bad though. thez put me up in a hotel......ok so not just a hotel. The biggest hotel in europe. Nô kidding. It was ginormous, 91,000 square meteres!! i got a free buffet dinner...at 3am then went up to mz king siye bed and washroom with that little butt washer in it. It was el primo. Got a free buffet breakie out of it as well and speant the whole daz sleeping until mz 7pm flight.

OK so one last thing about flying. Our flight was delazed leaving Madrid to Basil and then a bunch of thunderstorms popped up around swityerland. well in those conditions air traffic control onlz lets so manz planes through per hour. Well since we were delazed we missed our time slot as such thez said wed have to wait 2 hours for another time slot.

Luckilz easz jet called and reworked somethings and got a new time slot and we were onlz half an hour late.

Also luckilz i walked to a random hostel 20 mins before thez closed and thez had one bed left so i dint have to sleep in the train station. ZaZ!!

So no Cinque Terra for me which is sad, but im loving switzerland!!

Logan

I love Backpacking!

Ok, i am having so much fun visiting all these cities and seeing all these sights, but truly my favourite part of backpacking is the people. I have met so many people I can´t even imagine. I´ve met people from every continent on Earth (sans Antartica), every country in Western Europe, almost all 50 states, every province and territory in Canada (except the Maratimes, not sure why) it´s unreal!!!

It´s cool because right away you have one thing in common, your travelling. So starting a conversation is easy! Where you from? Where are you going? How long have you been gone? It´s unbeliveable.

We are at a wicked hostel in Madrid (called Mad Hostal) and I had the greatest day yesterday. Both Elandri and Elise are major art buffs which isn´t really me so we split up for the day. At breakfast I met some Americans and we went and saw all the sights then they left and I met another american and two mexican girls along with 3 americans stationed in Germany just here for the week. So we started playing Asshole (the card game) up on the roof of this hostal (yes the roof isn´t that cool) until it got dark. Then we went back downstairs to the huge common room and bar. And we just kept rounding up people. The beers were cheap (3euro for 1liter!!!) and by the end of it we had 15 people playing Asshole. We had Americans, south Africans, italians, a japanese girl, a jamaican, a brazilian, two mexicans it was the coolest thing ever. Then we just all got up and tried to find some local bar down the road until they closed. Just so cool.

So yep, life is buenos! I gotta run to catch my flight to Milan. I´ll write more about what i actually saw here in Madrid later

Logan

Language Difficulties / Cordoba

So there have definitely been language barriers all through Europe but the hardest has been Spain. Barcelona was fairly easy to communicate in as it is so touristy from what i read it was about 25% spoke fluent English. Malaga wasn´t bad only because the whole Costa del Sol area is a British hotspot so everywhere we go there was British people and bars. But then we hit the interior of Spain in Cordoba and Granada and i won´t lie it was hard. I´m guessing maybe 5% spoke partial English. At the train stations, the hostels, the restaurants it was hard to get around. Makes me want to learn spanish even more so now. I´m picking up things here and there but it makes you feel lonely in a town when you can´t talk to anyone. I was sitting watching the World Cup Game (Brazil and France) and this old man sitting beside me wanted to tell me stuff but i just couldn´t understand. He kept trying but it never worked, but at the end he still smiled and shook my hand on his way out. It would have been so fun to sit and talk with him.

Ok so Friday we day tripped to Granada which has the Alhambra palace which is gigantic. The saying is you have not truly lived until you visited the Alhambra.
http://www.alhambradegranada.org/historia/granadaOrigen_en.asp

The next day Saturday we left the resort and bussed to Cordoba which has a ton of history. When the Moors came over across the straight of Gilbraltar and conquered Spain they made Cordoba their capital in 711. As such Cordoba became the largest and most sophisticated city in all of Europe at the time. We visited the huge Mosque/Cathedral there. It was beautiful and disappointing at the same time. It was a incredible Mosque built starting in the 11 century and expanded on through the centuries. However when the Chrisitians came and conquered Spain they decided to convert the mosque into a Cathedral which in my mind ruined it. To be walking in this beautiful mosque and then see this massive cathedral placed in the middle was disgraceful in my opinion but hey who am i.

We just spent one day there and Sunday caught a bus to Madrid!!

Logan

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

Eifel Area

Monday was a long day of travel, after two hours of sleep we caught planes, trains and automobiles to Eschweiller, where Jasmin's parents live (the high speed train hit 290kmhr). It was great actually living the German life the last couple days. There were some language issues as Joseph speaks no English, Tanja speaks a little and Helga does speak some. Our first 3 hours were spent with just Joseph and Tanja, it was like charades. Turns out, eating is different here. Breakfast is bread and cheese and meat. Dinner is in the midday and a small lunch of bread and cheese and meat is had at around 7pm. But it has been really great staying here.

Tues we took a trip to Aachen, the western most German city. It was amazing, the old town is...well really old. The town hall and the Dom (catherdral) which are still in use were built in the 700's during Charlamagne reign who made Aachen his empire's center. All King's were crowned in Aachen for 600 years after that. It has been important ever since the roman times, where the romans made it a spa due to it's thermal hot springs (smell like sulphur, taste like rotten eggs).

Today (Wednesday) we went visiting castle's and small towns. The first was Munschau. Talk about stepping back in time 200 years. We were just giddy walking through there, the only way to describe the feeling is an 8yr old on Christmas day. Words cannot explain how beautiful Munschau was. In the bottom of a deep valley, along a raging river Run was a picturesque town of old style houses from the days when Munschau was a thriving textile industry village. On the top of the hill was a beautiful old castle. You'll just have to wait to see pictures to say any more.

We then visited another castle in Nidiggen. Another huge castle that has slowly been restored after 100's of years of neglect. It is still not quite up to it's previous glory but was still amazing.

This is our last night here with family Hanh. Tomorrow we head for a trip down the Rhine river before heading to Munich.

Until then

Logan, Cory and Damien

Pictures

We've added some pictures. Click the photo gallery link on the side. or click here
http://www.uncasvet.com/cgi-bin/emAlbum.cgi

London

Thoughts
At first we figured London was just a quick stopover on the way to the rest of the trip. We weren't expecting much from London. Turns out London was really really cool. The architecture is a great mix of old building mixed with modern, head turning styles. The touristy sites such as Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Tower Bridge are simply amazing. The transportation system is by far the best i've ever seen. You can get from anywhere to everywhere in no time, either by 'the underground' or by bus. Even coming out of the bar at 3am we were able to catch a bus within 10minutes that took us across town to within a block of our hostel. Incredible.

The park here are beautiful and seem to go on forever. We went walking in St. James park, then crossed the street into Hyde park and it went on forever. We walked for over an hour and never saw the end of it. Beautiful gardens, huge trees and monuments and statues, open fields where there is always a soccer game, huge manmade lakes to fish and boat on. They have everything and there was tons of people in it. Best parks i've ever been in.

Overall London was awesome. Much much more then i expected. A really great city despite the fact it was always cloudy.

What we Did

So what did we actually do.
Friday: we got to London and found our hostel after a little while. Put our bags down and just started walking. We walked to Buckingham Palace, Westminister Abbey and Big Ben. On the way home we stopped at a good ol English Pub called the Barley Mow. Tried a couple of the traditional ales, I had some good ol Fish and Chips. Was a good night. After that we bought some beers (6 tall cans for £5) and drank at the hostel. Cashed in fairly early around midnight.

Saturday: We get up early (9am) had the free (i.e. not much) breakfast at the hostel. Then we took off sightseeing. We rode the London Eye (the big slow ferris wheel) then walked for miles in the drizzle. Then we bought a day pass for the underground and went to King's Cross where platform is 9 3/4 is (Harry Potter fans know). We then weren't sure what to do, so we hopped a random bus to see where it'd go. We ended up at the Elephant and Castle pub which wasn't much. From there we hopped another bus to go to the Tower Bridge (most people think it's the London Bridge). That was also very cool. After that we headed back to the hostel to change into our clubbing clothes. We hit the Ministry of Sound one of the most famous night clubs in London. Other then the £15 cover charge, the club was actually pretty cool. It opens at 11am and closes at 6am. We didn't close the club down, but we stayed until 3am, met some folks from New York, who figured the £15 cover was just about right. I've never heard bass like that, all of my organs shook!! that was it for Saturday.

Sunday: We slept until 1pm, then just decided this was a good day to lounge in the Park. We threw the football around for a little bit then started walking....and walking....and walking. The parks went on forever. They were incredible as stated above. We thought about just coming back and going to bed... but then we met some girls from Edmonton, how about that. It was there first day so we took a little walk around London, then came back to the hostel and drank a couple more beers. Now i think i'll stop writing and get two hours sleep before we get up to go catch our plane to Frankfurt.

Cheers,

The Three Amigo's

well we made it. got a little lost on the way to the hostel, but eventually after some walking we found it. got to see a couple sights today including buckinham palace and big ben. also stopped by a good ol english pub. not much else to say

\cheers

Two Days Left

48 hrs is all that's left until we hop on a plane to Europe. All these plans I had for the month off, but I didn't get much done. Just way to busy. Oh well, maybe when I get back in 6 months. For those wondering here is the itinerary.

• May 25th - Leave for London
• - Spend 4 days touring London
• May 29th - Fly to Frankfurt - hop a train to Aachen
• -Spend about 3 days in Aachen
• Tour down the Rhine, either by ferry or train. Stay in a hostel that's actually an old castle.
• - June 3rd - Go to Munich for 4 or so days
• Head to Berlin for 4-5 days
• June 11 - Stay in Amsterdam for 3 days
• June 14 - Stay in Paris for a couple nights
• Head to Barcelona and stay there for 5 days
• Cory and Damien leave for home
• I go to Malaga in southern Spain and stay with a friend from school in a timeshare for 6 days
• I don't know. Left this part open. Maybe Italy, maybe Greece. We'll see
• July 5th - fly to Sweden and stay with an old friend for a couple weeks
• July 19th - train to Norway and stay with another old friend for a couple weeks

• August 10th - start work in Denmark
• December 2nd - Fly home

Thats it! So see you in 6 months