Rovaniemi, Finland (Lapland)

Rovaniemi, Finland (Lapland)

December 6-8, 2009

Day 1

Snow, snow and more snow! It was early when we arrived. We got in around 7:50am. When we got off the train, there was at least 10cm of snow on the ground. This is pretty much the first time we saw this much snow the entire time we've been in Europe! It was funny how excited I was, since normally I hate snow. I guess I do like it around Christmas time. Trevor had planned that we would take a bus to our B&B, but once we got to the bus stop, we realized that our bus wasn't running today. Actually, most things wouldn't be open today because it was Finland's indepence day and apparently all the shops are closed this day. Anyway, we ended up taking a taxi and arrived in our very out-of-the-way B&B in the middle of a foresty area where we met the couple we would be living with. They were very nice and offered us tea and we were allowed into our room right away. Once we got all the info from them about where to go and what to see, we decided to head to Santa's Village. They were kind enough to take us into town where we caught the Santa Express bus #8 to Santa's Village. It was awesome. First we went inside the info place where they have the Arctic Circle line (though according to Trevor's GPS that wasn't true, but why ruin the fun) so we took pictures. Then we headed to Santa's workshop where we got in line to see Santa and take pictures (though we couldn't use our own cameras, and the pictures were way too expensive!) Then we headed to the Santa Post Office where we saw letters from kids all over the world. You could even buy envelopes from the letters as a donation to Unicef. It was really neat. You could also send postcards and letters from there and get the Arctic Circle stamp. It was awesome. Next we headed to a husky park where we got to walk around and pet some of the huskies. The "bigger than puppies, smaller than adults" ones were super adorable and super excitable. They were fun. Did I mention that daylight here is only 3 hours at this time of year and that we went to eat around 2 and by the time we came out it felt like 7p? It's crazy! We walked around a bit more and looked in all the gift shops and took more pictures and then eventually decided to catch the bus back into town. When we got there, Trevor went on a hunt for some wireless while I went looking through the little market stalls (which I was surprised to find open, though I guess any time is tourist time). We then struggled to figure out if we would be hungry before we got to our B&B and decided to order some food and head back. We decided to walk, now knowing where our B&B was relative to the town, but we didn't quite realize how far and after probably about 30-40 min (and a couple of wrong turns) we got back. We ate and headed to our room to read where I fell asleep around 9p! It was a fun day!

Day 2

13 hours later, I woke up!!! I couldn't believe I slept so long, but I guess when the sun doesn't rise until after 10am, it's hard to believe you need to get up. We decided to hang out mostly around the B&B today until our Reindeer Safari! We were to be picked up at 1:30p from our hotel so we hung out in the B&B and went for a short walk around the neighbourhood (to get at least a little Vitamin D). I hung out with our B & B's dog, Mori, for a bit too. Then our ride came taking us to downtown Rovaniemi to begin our adventure. I was really hoping to be at the Santa's Village again, because I had read they will stamp your passport with the Artic Circle stamp (until I was informed that it's probably not likely that it's the real passport they stamp since that's official documentation). When we arrived at the Erasetti main office, we were pretty much the only ones there. They provided the winter clothing for the safari, so you didn't have to remember your own stuff. We got into our one piece snowsuit and boots and waited. More people started showing up and then finally the bus came to pick us up. They drove us to the site where the reindeers were and the adventure began. Thankfully it had snowed the day before we got to Rovaniemi, because otherwise we might not have been able to go on this safari at all! We were introduced to our guides and then one showed us how to harness the reindeer and let us touch one of the reindeer (who shook every time people touched him; apparently they don't like being touched). Then we were put into sleighs and covered with blankets. Trevor and I shared a sleigh. It was very romantic! All the reindeer were basically linked. There was a leader reindeer, he had a sled and attached to that sled was another reindeer who also had a sled and so on. It wasn't a fast ride, by any means. The tour guides were leading the two lead reindeers, walking them along the track, so you can imagine how quick that would be. It was nice though. The reindeer that was suppose to be behind our sleigh kept wanting to lead so he was pretty much right next to us the entire time. His name was Beekie and ours was Blackleaf. It was a little scary having reindeer antlers in your face, but he was really cute (I'm sure it one of the antlers got too close, he would stop being cute.) We were riding pretty much in the dark as soon as we started, and as much as I would have liked it to be in daylight, the night ride made it much more romantic ; ). They took us to a wooden cabin where we sat around a fire on reindeer skins (that we took from our sleighs and Trevor and I made one of the ladies very angry that we were taking skins from her sleigh instead of ours. I tried to tell her that our guides told us to, but she was not pleased.) We had coffee, tea and cookies around the fire and I learned that it's rude to ask how many reindeer someone owned (apparently it's like asking how much money you have in you account). The same lady that got upset about the skins told the guides that clearly they didn't have a crisis there (as in "the recession"), since all the tours were booked solid! This lady was crazy! Then we got back in our sleigh and rode back. When we got back, our bus wasn't quite there yet, and again the crazy lady who yelled at me about the reindeer skins was super upset and taking it out on our guide because she was cold. It was only about -5C! She just kept yelling at the guide that she paid for the tour and wanted the bus right now! I felt so bad for him. Fortunately the bus did come and took us back to the main office. From here we decided to get some supper (an all you can eat pizza and pasta place, yeah!). Then, since we were downtown, we went to see some buildings built by some famous Finnish architect. We stopped into the library so that Trevor could understand why the Arctic Circle moves and where it's at now, then we headed back to the B&B. When we got back, Trevor decided to do the most ridiculous thing. He had calculated that he hadn't actually reached the Arctic Circle, so he decided to go on an 11km run to actually cross the circle!!! I was so worried about him. Thankfully he made it home alive! And he had made it! It even had a sign! I'm just glad he made it home.

Day 3

We decided for our last day, we would head to their major museum on the Arctic called Arktikum. Once we walked around for a bit we realized that it was not exactly the best museum we had ever been to. It was really expensive, too. It did mention Canada quite a bit, since I guess this is also a research centre for Arctic related things. There was also a section on the Sami people which was kind of interesting. After exploring most of the museum we went to grab something to eat from the café. I've always found it very trusting of people and restaurants where they feed you first and then ask you to pay. This situation proved why you should worry. We got all our food and when we went to pay with our Mastercard, the machine didn't work, and we had no more cash with us. They kept telling me to eat before the food got cold, but I just felt so silly going to eat something that I knew we couldn't pay for. Thankfully, they were absolutely okay with us going back to our B&B and getting money to pay them back. It's a good thing we're trustworthy, because we easily could have not paid for our meal. But, after walking back to our B&B, we told the cab to stop there before we headed for the airport. The airport had a lovely banner hanging saying Official Airport of Santa Claus! For our first flight (to Helsinki) we boarded with no boarding card and no assigned seating! That was a little weird. Once in Helsinki, we had to rush to our next gate and got told that our bags might not make it to Warsaw because there was very little time before take off. I figured it wouldn't matter much. Good thing I had that attitude, since it was my bag that didn't make it! Otherwise, the flights were good. My bag didn't actually make it until 3 days later! But, luckily, nothing was missing or damaged. All in all, a FANTASTIC trip!

Helsinki, Finland

Helsinki, Finland

December 3-5, 2009

Day 1

Today we were up around 6:15 am so that we could check-in for our ferry by 7:10 am. We also tried to sneak in some breakfast before check-in which was interesting since breakfast didn't start until 7am. Luckily the ferry was across the street and the breakfast was set up 10 min early. We ate quickly and off we went to the ferry. I pretty much slept through the whole ride. Once in Helsinki, we figured out our ferry had docked in a different location than expected so it was a bit of a search to determine how to get to our hotel cheaply. Thank goodness Trevor is good at that kind of thing and he got us there with very little trouble. Since our room wasn't ready we headed out to do our exploring. Unfortunately, Helsinki does not have an Old Town, so there was no seeing medieval buildings. We followed the Lonely Planet walking tour and saw some nice churches including one built into rock! That was really cool. Of course I also wanted to see the beach here so we headed in that direction. Helsinki is the first city to show evidence of winter since we started this trip! There was frost on the ground and ice patches and once we got to the beach, the sand was frozen. We got to the beach around sunset so we got to see some beautiful colors in the sky. We then headed back to the hotel and realized we wanted to go out for supper so back out we went, into the chilly, humid air, had some Thai and then headed back to the room for the night. Helsinki is extremely modern compared to the other 3 cities we were in. There's also a lot of English everywhere, the buildings are all newer and the people here are much more relaxed with their fashion. It's interesting to see the differences between the countries. The prices here are also interesting to point out. The numbers are all pretty much on par when it comes to prices for items, compared to the Canadian dollar, you just have to remember they're talking in euros, 1.5 times the price. For example, we went to McDonald's for lunch and paid 9.75, which is the same as we would have paid back home, except when you convert, our meal actually cost around $15!

Day 2

First sign of real snow. It was all over the ground when we woke up this morning. We decided to go see the Suomenlinna Sea Fortress today. It is on an island about 15-20 min by ferry from Helsinki, but still Helsinki. I believe that the island was used as a defense system against people invading Helsinki. It was started by the Swedish when they owned Finland and then the Russias rebuilt it or something. Anyway, it was really cool. The ferry was fun. We saw many little islands with one house or two houses on them along the way. When we arrived on our island, there was a map showing us the basic path to take to get from one side to the other (but really it's 2 islands because you cross a bridge over water at the halfway mark.) On the first side there were pretty much just houses and information buildings (maybe museums too) but the second side was neat with hidden underground rooms and cannons everywhere. It reminded me of the movie Tristan and Isolde. Trevor enjoyed sticking his head into the cannons sayng that it was warmer in there. We climbed around took pictures, explored the rooms (some with water in them). It was fun. We then headed back to the ferry, and since it was to be another half hour, went inside and had a drink. Once back in Helsinki, we walked around downtown a bit and looked into some gift shops and then went to eat at a place called Zetor which was a very dark but very fun pub looking restaurant. They had tractors inside and chicken wire everywhere. It had a farm feel. They were suppose to serve Finnish food, that's why we came (and Trevor likes wacky décor). Trevor had sautéed reindeer with ligonberries and I had salmon with mushroom sauce. It was quite tasty. It was then back to the hotel for the night. It gets really dark really early and it's easy to forget it's 4 o'clock when it looks like 7 or 8.

Day 3

Part of our hostel cost included 3 hours in the morning when you could use the sauna. Saunas are really big in all the countries we visited on this trip. Figuring that I had to take part in this Finnish tradition, I woke up early to get to the sauna before 9:30am. It was a very pleasant way to wake up. I started with the sauna to myself, but soon there were 4 of us squished into the tiny sauna. The saunas are all gender specific (most people go naked). After my lovely relaxing morning I went back to the room to "waste" time until checkout. We had to be a little inventive today because we no longer had a tourist bus ticket. It would have been expensive purchasing a day ticket for the bus so we had to figure out where we were going to go to be long enough to take a whole day, but short enough that we wouldn't miss our train for Rovaniemi at 7:26p. Trevor wanted to go see the Sibelius monument (looked like frozen organ pipes from the picture) so we headed out there. We realized that we were really close to the monument when we had gone to the beach on day 1, but we hadn't known the Sibelius monument was going to be cool, so we never went. We headed over and along the way we saw more of Helsinki downtown. There was a ski sale happening. It took us about 30-40min to get there, but we made it. There was a large tour group there, getting in the pictures, so we waited patiently until they left, at which point we pretty much had the whole thing to ourselves (at least for 5 min) before another smaller group came. We took some cool pictures, and Trevor tried to climb inside the pipes and then we headed to the old Olympic stadium. My goal was to find the Olympic sign which took us walking around the entire complex (and after walking for quite some time, felt like forever). We then headed back to downtown where we decided to eat in the food court of the Forum shopping centre. This was unlike any food court I had ever been to before. It was like a restaurant. You order at the place you want food and then you sit down and they bring the food to you, dressed as waiters and waitresses. And, it was way cheaper than a real restaurant. Only problem was finding a place to sit. Otherwise, the food was great and cheap. It was back to the hotel to pick up our stuff so that we could walk back to downtown to catch the train. My feet were hurting, but we kept on walking. We made it to the train station with plenty of time and waited on a bench until it finally came. Our train was very nice and roomy. The seats went back really far. I ended up having a short nap (8-10p) at which time we headed to the restaurant car to have some drinks. We then went back to our car and went to sleep to await our early morning arrival in Rovaniemi.

Tallin, Estonia

Tallin, Estonia

December 1 and 2, 2009

Day 1

It was an early morning again, so that we could catch our 7 am bus ride over to Estonia. I made a friend waiting for the tram. It was a cat who made it appear as if he had been starved all his life and I would be the best person in the world if I gave him some food. He was super cute and fluffy and I couldn't resist (I know I shouldn't have, but you should have seen him begging). After a short tram ride, a bit of a wait and some tea, we were on the bus. Again, lots of leg room, very nice bus, this time with a "special seat" section for those willing to pay a little extra for even more leg room and for the ability to move your chair sideways as well as back! We cheaped out, who needs that stuff anyways? A 4.5 hour bus ride got us into Tallin, the most modern looking of the 3 countries. We walked to our hotel, which we found out was directly across from the ferry (made me very happy since we were to take the ferry 2 days later). Everyone was once again willing to speak English with no problems. Our room had a view of the Old Town (sort of. It was at quite a distance) which was cool. Now it was off to explore another Old Town. Third times the charm. We found a guide map to get us to all the important buildings. This Old Town seemed much more interested in telling tourists about its history. There were plaques on a lot of buildings with info on who had lived there during the medieval times. Very cool! We wandered around and got rained on as it started getting dark. We decided to have some groggi (hot wine) at the market and earlier I had seen a girl with a cup of melted chocolate, so I figured I might as well try it. Man, it was AWESOME! I love hot melted chocolate! The hot wine was interesting, though less appealing than the chocolate. After the warm drinks we went in search of some food and decided to eat at Hesburger, a burger place from Helsinki. They were pretty good at making their stuff taste McDonald's like. Then back to the hotel to do some reading, writing, watching TV and then bed time.

Day 2

We had some lovely breakfast at the hotel to start our morning. It was then off to find a bus to take us to Pirita beach. We found out that wasn't too difficult and found ourselves at the beach very quickly. The beach was separated from the road by a forest that looked like someone had planted rows of trees. It was a fun day walking on the beach, searching for shells, jumping over the little streams that formed. We even got to see the moon rise! It was beautiful. With not much else in mind, we headed back to the hotel and had a lovely supper. This was very much a quiet day.

Riga, Latvia

Riga, Latvia

November 29 and 30, 2009

Day 1

We got to Riga this morning. We walked to the bus station from the hotel in Vilnius and had a quick McDonald's breakfast (but they had no breakfast items so Trevor had a cheeseburger and I had a tea) and then off we went on our 4 hour bus ride. It was amazing how uncomfortable more leg space can be when you plan to sleep on the bus. Both busses so far have been very clean, very modern busses. This one had exceptionally big spaces between seats and it felt like you were slipping all the time because there was nowhere to catch yourself. I shouldn't complain, though. How often do you get more leg room than you ask for? The bus driver on this bus was good, too, and got us into town early. From there I made sure we took a cab, but it's ridiculous how expensive the Latvian currency is. It's 2.6 times American dollars! So, things that appear to be cheap (a 0.40 Ls bottle of water) isn't really all that cheap. We got to our hotel (Dodo) after driving through a very rundown old neighborhood and went off to start our exploring. First we walked to the mall near our hotel (5 min walk) that was out of place in the rundown neighborhood. The mall was very much like any nice mall in North America. Once we got our day tram tickets, we were off to the Old Town. It was pretty incredible, but really the first day in the Old Town was spent looking at cool buildings, but not really knowing what they were. It was still fun. In the middle of the Old Town was a beautiful Christmas market and good ol' St. Nick (he's got to make it back to Rovaniemi before we get there, I hope that works for him ;) ). We wandered until we got hungry and found a really cool medieval restaurant to eat at. It was awesome. It was in a basement of a medieval shack where the chairs and tables were solid wood and the walls were cement. The lighting was low and the waitresses had on medieval dresses. The menu even had explanations of what time period the food was from and who served it! It was a really cool (but expensive) experience. The drink I had was pretty cool too. It was apple juice with honey and mint leaves. Very interesting flavor. At this point it was getting dark and after a little more walking around we decided to head back to the hotel. Great day!

Day 2

We had a slow start to our morning, but once we got up we headed back to the Old Town with more of a purpose. We had found a map with points of interest for the Old Town and we planned to see all those places now knowing what they were. So once again we wandered around the Old Town (though I could really do that all day any day) and this time learned some interesting facts. This time, to stir things up, there was a protest going on because apparently they were going to tax motorcyclists, so there were a bunch of bikers and a bunch of regular and military police all over one edge of the Old Town. It was quite intimidating! It was a rather quite protest, but there were plenty of people there. After taking some pictures we headed to a park next to the Old Town with a canal and bridge. The bridge is called the Bridge of Love because married couples come and put locks on there with their names and date of marriage. It was neat. Then it was off to eat. We were in search of a place to eat called Lido. Once we found it (in the opposite direction than I thought it was) it was really cool. It was kind of an amusement park. It was all decorated in Christmas stuff. We took pictures near the really awesome giant Christmas tree and then went to eat in this cafeteria style establishment where food was much cheaper than the night before! After our lovely meal we decided to head to the skating rink and go skating. It was so much fun! I haven't skated in years! It was a very slow start for me (and it didn't speed up much by the end) but it was a ton of fun. The crazy thing is that the rink was open air, but it was definitely not cold enough for an open air rink. There was no snow or ice (or any evidence of either)anywhere in Riga. It was awesome. The temperature was great for skating! Trevor skated like crazy, so he was pretty sore after. We decided to head back to our hotel to get ready for the bus ride the next day. It was a really good day!

Vilnius, Lithuania

Vilnius, Lithuania

November 28, 2009

Hello everyone. Trevor and I decided that it was time to see what Europe has to offer. We took a bus that was suppose to take 10 hours (11pm-9a), but our bus driver was awesome and got us there in 8 hours. Our first stop on this crazy trip was Vilnius, Lithuania. So at 7am we decided to find our hotel in Vilnius by walking. It only took us 20min to get there and the lady at the hotel let us check in early (which was super sweet). Unfortunately we had a bit of a set back with my not feeling well, but after a couple of hours I was able to start our exploring. We decided to head to the Old Town and that's pretty much where we spent our day. We first saw the egg statue, that was slightly less impressive than the Vegreville one, and then proceeded to the Gates of Dawn, the only remaining original gates to the Old Town. The Old Town was cool, with cobble stone streets and beautiful Gothic churches. They were just incredible when you went inside. The ceilings were painted and they had beautiful statues everywhere. It was awesome. Searching for a cash exchange place was quite a struggle and after some time we decided that Trevor would run back to the bus station to exchange money. What a wonderful man! After some exploring we went to have some Lithuanian food at a restaurant called Cili Kaimas, where they had a pet rooster (that I was hoping wouldn't be what we were having for lunch). I opted for chickenless dishes and went with fish instead. It was very yummy. Next I wanted to go see the Museum of Genocide (apparently not to be missed). It was incredibly moving and creepy. In the basement is the original KGB prison (with execution chamber). This place was definitely more creepy than Alkatrez. After some debate we decided to hang around the Old Town some more and went to the Cathedral where there is apparently a miracle tile that if you find it (first) and stand on it and turn around clockwise your wish will come true. Luckily some girl found it for us (and it was clearly worn from people standing on it) because you really would have to look hard to find it. Trevor spun on tile now we wait to see if his wish comes true. We then went to Vilnius University which is pretty cool, but unfortunately it was dark at this point and difficult to see. We also stopped by St.Anne's church, which looks really gothic from the outside, and walked by Pilies gatve which is a road that has sunken into the ground due to the town being built on a swamp. Lots of cool stuff, really neat town. I'm hoping we'll have a chance to come back. We then headed back to the hotel to get ready for our trip to Riga the next day!

More to come!

SMILEJ
The Travelling Prentices

Poland-November 9, 2009

November 9, 2009

Trevor and I just had our 15 month anniversary (not that we really celebrated it, but it passed yesterday). Poland is feeling more and more like our home each day. It's funny though. There are days I step outside and, of course, know that I'm in a "foreign country", but I listen for a second to people talking and am surprised to realize that I understand what they are saying. It's such a strange feeling. In Edmonton I would get excited to hear someone talking in Polish because it would happen once in a blue moon. You hear Chinese and Arabic way more that you ever hear Polish back home. But here, I hear it all the time, see it on all the signs and posters and it's just plain weird. I like it but it's still taking some time to get use to. In the last little while Trevor and I have done some more exploring around Warsaw. We actually haven't done much, if any, exploring on our own. It has been mostly with my family. I have now met another family member and it wasn't really until this morning that I completely understood the relation. I've always thought of her as my mom's cousin because that's the way my mom quickly explained it to me. Really she's my mom's second cousin. It's my Ciocia Halina (ciocia meaning aunt because as we do back home, everyone is called aunt and uncle here). Her mom and my mom's mom (my grandma) were cousins. We had a lengthy chat about my grandma's family. We're trying to work out a family tree and we managed to add 100 people just last night! It's incredible! Anyways, she has been great, taking us to a couple of the big touristy spots in Warsaw. We went to two palaces now, one that literally translates to washrooms because of a new concept in bathrooms that was incorporated into the palace, and the other is Wilanow (from the combination of words meaning new village). They have both been pretty specatular, though I have to say the palace Lasienek was by far my favorite. Around this palace is an incredible park with free roaming peacocks and squirrels that will eat out of your hand and if you're good enough they'll even climb your leg for a little bit of food. The pigeons here are crazy about food too and you'll have about 20-30 pigeons surrounding you before you know it. The peacocks will also eat from your hand though they're a little bit less crazy. I would love to see all the places we've seen, in the summer time. I have been told they look incredible. Now that the leaves have all fallen, it's a bit less impressive, but I'm sure it's like our river valley. We have also been getting to know my other family more and more too. They have been incredibly generous, inviting us over to their house every few days. Trevor and I have had so much Polish food and it's been awesome. The last time I had this much Polish food was when my Grandpa was still cooking at home, maybe 10 years ago. It's been a long time. It's funny how when you have it, you don't really care for it. It's even funnier that I didn't really miss it until now when I'm having it every other day. Maybe it's because I never really thought of it as Polish food before. I always just figured that soup, or meat and potatoes were a common house food and didn't think anything of it. Now that I'm seeing that the recipes my Grandpa was using are almost the same as those that people here are using, I'm realizing that I was eating typical Polish food, not just typical home cooked food. It's fun to think about these things. More to come soon :D

Poland-November 4, 2009

We've made it and we're at least good for the next three months without anyone wondering what we are doing here. We have a house that we can always return to. We have a place to cook food and we have the most basic stuff, like a bed and some dishes and cutlery. It has been a very interesting week. We have met many people, eaten lots of Polish food, experienced a Polish holiday and visited an attraction. At the same time, I have had plenty of opportunity to do absolutely nothing. It's been pretty terrible, on the lazy front, but maybe it's good for me. Okay, let me tell you about how this week has gone.

The first night we learned how uncompatible our electrical devices are with their outlets because Trevor blew our fuse by putting the power bar into the wall without a transformer. No worries, my uncle is an electrician. We decided to wait until the next day (since we were going to sleep already). Day two in Poland we found out how far Centrum was, downtown. Our house is only 3 stops of the metro away from downtown. We walked around a bit, but it rained on us so we headed back and waited for our family to get off work. They were to come by to help us get a plan for Trevor's cell phone. When they arrived we told them about our lack of electricity (thank goodness for headlamps, because at this point the sun had set.) There was a bit of panic and very innovative uncle was able to fix the problem temporarily saying that we better not stick anything else into the outlets. There would be no need to fear. We headed out back to Centrum where we found out that had we walked South rather than North we would have seen a giant mall rather than just little shops. They also explained to us the Palac Kultury i Nauki (translated the Palace of Culture and Knowledge) that has within it 2 theatres, a pool, a museum and a movie theatre! That might not be all, but I'm not sure. We also found out where we would be getting internet for the next little while. They have a store called Empik (it looks like a Chapters) with wireless. We then headed back to their house for a little while and then headed back to ours. They are 1 metro stop away from us. Day 3 we went to Empik where Trevor got some work done. I actually went after him, staying at home to be lazy that day. We experienced the Polish McDonalds this day, which was actually almost identical if not even better than at home! This is going to be a good place ;) Anyways, I decided to return before Trevor because my uncle was coming over to fix our fuse. He came over and we had a chat and then he invited us over to their house again. So off I went and phoned Trevor to meet us there. It was a bit quiet over there. My cousin, or second cousin or whatever position he is at (my uncle is actually my mom's cousin) was there too. It's been a bit awkward with the new family, but nothing unexpected. Their English is incredible so when Trevor's over they tend to talk in English more. It's funny because both my uncle and Trevor are in the same position. Each only has one language, though understands the odd word in the other. Everyone else knows much more English and can converse. I have been labeled as a walking dictionary since I know more in both languages than anyone else, though I have failed the odd time because my Polish is good, but not that good. English though is starting to slip. My brain is definitely getting some exercise! This night was especially entertaining because my family got to experience a conversation between my mom and I. They thought it was absolutely hilarious how I spoke to my mom in English while she spoke to me in Polish. I'm sure some of you have found that hilarious too. The next day as a group we went to see This Is It. The theatre that we went to was a lot more flat than our theatres, but otherwise, not much different. This was the most exciting part of Halloween. Trevor missed Halloween back home. The following day was the day we had come for. All Saint's Day. Here, everyone goes to the cemeteries and goes to see the gravesites of their relatives on this day. It's a huge occasion. The cemeteries are packed and they sell candle holders and huge flowers leading up to the cemeteries. It was incredible to see. We went to my grandma's site first and then off to my Grandpa's parents. We met my Grandpa's brother and his wife. They are now filling in as my grandparents while we're in Poland. It was incredible how many people were there. The flowers that they bring are mostly chrysanthemums and they bring them in pots. The flowers are massive (two feet high and two feet wide). The gravesites are not like in Canada. They have tomb like structures that stick out of the ground. It looks like marble coffins everywhere. On these they place the massive flowers and candles. At night the candles look amazing. Here in Poland they believe it's extremely important to remember their dead. After our cemetery visit we were invited to late lunch at my aunt's mom's house. Here we met my aunt's siblings and their families and ate a traditional Polish meal. Included in this meal was tripe soup which I had always heard about but never tried. Reluctantly I tried it and it was very tasty. Trevor had no problem with eating intestines. After we had our fill here we ended up going over to my Grandpa's brother's house for another meal. The idea of losing weight was definitely lost this day. We looked at some pictures from 1966 of my mom, Grandpa and uncle. It was great. The next day was uneventful. The following day we spent time with my Grandpa's brother and his wife and we went over to the Stare Miasto (old town) to walk around, as well as visited my mom's old home and then back to their house for food. Homes here are mostly apartments and even the houses appear to be town houses. I think if you want to see a house, you have to get outside of Warsaw. I find Warsaw to be very Americanized. There are a lot of the typical stores like H&M, Sephora, and others and a lot of things you can buy here are American brand like soaps and shampoos. They only really big difference I see is that everything is written in Polish (which also makes my brain work because I can read but somewhere at a Grade 2 level where words are not yet familiar so I have to sound everything out. It's extremely tedious but good because after some time it will be faster.) I will write again soon.

SMILEJ
Amanda

Day 14 London to Warsaw

Day 14

Oct 28/09

Trevor took our Wicked Van back into town without me while I had to get all of our luggage into the main building of our hotel. For most of the day I wrote emails and did some other computer work until Trevor arrived. We then quickly bought some lunch at a nearby grocery store and it was off to the airport. When we had purchased our Aer Lingus flight to Poland we had understood that you could have one 20kg bag each and then each bag weighing up 20kg was an extra fee. We had automatically paid for an extra bag because I knew there was almost no way for me to have only one bag. Unfortunately we found out that in actual fact the TOTAL weight of the bags you bring can be 20kg! And, for every kg over it would cost us 9 pounds! We were 18kg over which would cost us 162 GBP or $320 ish!!! That was ridiculous! Thankfully the person we were talking to said that he would only charge us 15 pounds for being one bag over our 3 bags we had already told him about. That was a relief. The flight wasn't very eventful. It was neat that many people on board spoke Polish and that they played the instructions for flight safety and other announcements in Polish. It was once we landed that my nerves started going again. I was so scared. I didn't know who was going to pick us up or really what they looked like. I was just hoping that they would recognize us (we had sent them a picture earlier). Customs was ridiculously easy. They just stamped our passports and off we went. And finally the moment of truth arrived. The few pictures I had seen of my mom's cousin and his family were almost 20years old, but they only looked slightly older. Everyone came; my mom's cousin Grzegorz (Gregory), his wife Grazyna (Grace) and their two kids, Mateusz (Matthew) whose 19 and Ola whose 13. The meeting wasn't even too bad. We said our hellos and we realized that everyone but Grzegorz speaks a bit of English and they said my Polish isn't too bad. They drove us over to what will now be our home for the next (at least) 3 months. A cute little apartment, it has a small kitchen, a bathroom (with only a tub, no shower), a very tiny washing machine, closet space and a living room that works as both that and a bedroom. It's perfect. We also went over to their house for a bit where we saw how a typical Polish family normally lives. They too have a tiny apartment. They have 2 bedrooms (each of the kids has their own) a living room, a bathroom and kitchen. Their bathroom doubles as a laundry room (as does ours). Their apartment apparently just got renovated so it has a very modern look to it now. Ours looks like a typical older apartment building in Edmonton. We had a late supper with their family with tomato soup and sandwich type items and then we headed back on the metro to our apartment. They only live one stop away from us. That was enough excitement for one day. We would see what we would do the next day.

Day 13 Downe

Day 13

Oct 27/09

Today was another slow day. We visited Downe, a small town outside of London. Here, Charles Darwin and his family lived for 40 years. Because we started our day so early, we were too early to visit Charles Darwin's house so we sat on a bench and read and watch TV until 11a. The tour of Darwin's house and garden was really neat. It was an audio tour again and described how he used his children to help him with experiments and pretty much his whole house was a huge experiment. It talked about his wife (and how they were first cousins). It was really neat (not the first cousin thing). Apparently Darwin studied plants a lot and in the green house he had venus fly traps and other carnivorous plants. I thought it was an extremely interesting thing to take a look at Darwin lived and how he came to the conclusion that evolution existed. Once we finished with the tour we decided to drive to Gatwick to check in to our hotel and do a last minute clean up of our van. We wanted to make sure we were ready for our flight the next day. We did some internet stuff and went for supper and watched some TV (like British Who wants to be a Millionaire) in the lounge. It was a very nice and relaxing day until I had to call my Polish family. This was essentially the first contact that I would have with my family. I was to make a phone call to them letting them know that everything was going according to schedule and we would be there the next day. Man I was so nervous it was ridiculous. Thankfully the conversation was very quick and painless. Now for the meeting…

Day 12 Kelvedon Hatch

Day 12

Oct 26/09

Today would end up being very calm. Our only destination for the day would be the Secret Nuclear Bunker Kelvedon Hatch. We decided to take our time in the morning and didn't check out of our room until we had to at noon. Apparently this bunker had been ready to go at a moments notice only a few years back. They had built sometime after WWII in case of a nuclear attack. It could hold up to 600 people! It was really weird. The whole thing had an audio tour and the only contact with people that you would have on the tour is with other tourists. Otherwise, you paid at the end of the tour and they just kept telling you that you are on camera and you are not allowed to take pictures (on signs). The whole thing stunk, as if the air flow wasn't very good. They had mannequins set up everywhere to look "realistic" though people clearly played with them because their wigs were falling off. It was a 3 story bunker with only 200 beds so they way it worked was that you would sleep for 8 hours and then someone would take your bed. They had films all over talking about how to be safe in your own home in case of a nuclear attack. Every once in a while on the audio guide they would say "you'd die, but this was to help pass the time" or "you'd die, but this was to keep you busy until then" or messages like that. It was absolutely ridiculous! At the same time, it was a very interesting concept. Trevor is now all gung ho about creating our own bunker. We'll see… After our very interesting (and slightly creepy) tour, we made ourselves pasta as the sunset and watched Star Trek on the computer and then headed out to find our last parking spot for the rest of the trip. We had supper again at McDonald's ( I know I shouldn't but I couldn't help it. I have to try it in each country. Unfortunately we missed Scotland, but even for me, 3 X in 2 weeks is a little much). We ended up having to park in an actual parking spot. Luckily it didn't charge us until 8:30a so we set an alarm so we could leave before then. That was the end of that day.

Day 11 Cambridge

Day 11

Oct 25/09

Once again I woke up before Trevor and took a walk around the "wood" which turned out to be an area with lots of ferns and flat plants, and some trees around the outside, just beside a farmer's field. It also apparently was an area for people to walk their dogs because the only people that came in the area were those with dogs. We drove over to Cambridge and found ourselves a parking spot and then headed over to the many colleges that make up Cambridge University. This town was really neat. Everyone here seemed to ride their bikes everywhere and there were tons of bikes parked all over the sidewalks. The first stop was to the college where Stephen Hawking now teaches/researches, Gonville and Caius. In this college in the Great Hall is a series of stained glass windows made for the past professors of the college among those include Francis Crick, one of two men who discovered the DNA structure and John Venn, the man who invented the Venn diagram. It was then off to Trinity college to see Sir Isaac Newton's apple tree descendant. Some of the colleges charge entry fees, so we decided not to enter Trinity college to look around. Luckily the tree is just outside the college. Next geek atlas motivated destination was the Eagle pub where Watson and Crick had announced their discovery of the DNA structure. We had lunch there, where I had a traditional English Sunday roast. Next we went to the Mathematical bridge, a bridge claimed to have been built by Newton, but our geek atlas told us that it wasn't the case and it was just a nice wooden bridge. While there we watched some people punting boats down the little river. You could rent a little wooden boat and punt down the "canal" like in Italy. It was hilarious to watch as people almost fell into the water. Finishing up in Cambridge we try to seek out some free internet, to no avail, so we headed out of town to our next parking spot, as close to our next destination as we could. It was tough work and in the end I decided I wanted a shower so we headed to another Travelodge for the night.

Day 10 Glasgow

Day 10

Oct 24/09

After Trevor woke up, it was off to the Hunterian Museum in Glasgow. This museum was a collection of items collected by William Hunter as well as other scientists that taught or worked at the University of Glasgow. There were some amazing items. William Hunter was an amazing collector and had and Egyptian mummy, Roman and Greek stones and all kinds of medical items. He had body parts in jars because he figured it was important for students to see first hand the items they will be looking at. Another scientist had his urine in a vial that apparently he had boiled and sealed off to see if it would stay sterile and apparently it had stayed clear for (I think) over 100 years! It was a really interesting museum. We also went to see the Hunterian Gallery where there were paintings from the 1500-1900's. Some really interesting paintings. After taking a look at the art gallery it was off to Cambridge where we would be hanging out the next day. It was another long drive today, all the way down to Cambridge. Parking again was a bit tricky but we found it (thankfully).

Day 9 Edinburgh to Glasgow

Day 9

Oct 23/09

Today we headed off to the National Museum of Scotland. Again free (I love free), it had really cool displays. It sort of doubles as a history museum and a science centre. In the science centre part they have THE Dolly, the first sheep that was cloned from an adult cell! They also have the original Gemini space capsule (or whatever it is). We also learned a little bit about Alexander Graham Bell in the phone section. It was then time to expore the Scottish history side of the museum. Once we were museum'd out we headed to lunch a cute little Italian restaurant in a rather touristy area and then headed back to our car to head out in the direction of Glasgow, our final stopping point that night. Just before we left Edinburgh, we drove by Alexander Graham Bell's home and took some pictures, then we were off. First we had to go see the Falkirk wheel (one of the Geek Atlas items.) It's a type of lock for boats, but it raises boats about 50m! It was kind of cool. It's hard to describe, but when I post pictures, you'll be able to see what I'm talking about. After this it was time to find parking. It was rather tricky finding a parking space this night. Edinburgh to Glasgow is only about 45 min and between the two is mostly bigger town/city so there weren't the typical blue P signs to indicate parking. It probably took us about 2.5 hours of driving to find a spot to park. Somehow we found one. It was in a cute little spot. It was away from the highway which was nice. It was now time for bed to get ready for the next day.

Day 8 Edinburgh, Scotland

Day 8

Oct 22/09

Edinburgh. Today was the day we would go see our first castle. First we needed breakfast, so off we went to find a restaurant that Trevor found on the internet called Toast. It took us a bit of time to find it, but we did. After we ate, we had a tricky experience trying to get our car out of where we parked. Trevor had commented earlier in the trip that he now understood the Austin Powers joke when he tries to turn around and has to move back and forth a bunch of times. I don't recall the part, but it is ridiculous to turn around on the roads. They are so narrow, and when you considered we are driving a car 1.5 times the length of any other car, we are definitely too wide to turn around. Trevor ended up having to back out of the alley for quite some time to get us out of our predicament. Next it was off to the castle. The castle sits on top of volcanic rock and overlooks the city. The views were amazing from there. We took a little tour and then looked at the Scottish crown jewels, which only have 3 items: crown, scepter, and sword. They are the oldest crown jewels in Western Europe and the second oldest in the world (the Hungarian crown jewels are older). They were nice but not as shiny as the English jewels. We also went into the War Memorial for WW1 and WW2 that is at the castle and Trevor believes he found his great-great uncle's name in the WW1 books!!! After we explored the castle I decided I wanted to see the beach so Trevor drove us over to the water and we walked up and down the beach. It was then time to find a hotel for the night (we hadn't showered for 3 days at this point and we weren't looking or feeling very wonderful). We ended up getting a room in the Travelodge (yup they have them here, but they're different here). We decided to eat at Ryan's pub that night which apparently is a very popular pub in Edinburgh, and then it was off to bed.

Day 7 Cardiff to Edinburgh

Day 7

Oct 21/09

I woke up to beautiful scenery of the lake the next morning. I went down to the lake for an early morning stroll while Trevor continued to sleep. This seems to be the way things are on the trip. I wake up early and do something (read, write, walk) for 20 ish min while Trevor sleeps and then we start driving. So off I went took some pictures and then it was time to drive. There wasn't much else that happened this day. We drove until we were just outside Edinburgh and then parked for the night. The drive between places in the UK is very minor (especially compared to our ridiculous road trip). Within the hour we would be in the next destination. The drive today was a much longer one. From Cardiff to Edinburgh was a 7 hour drive (still minor on the road trip scale). Very uneventful day.

Day 6 Cardiff, Wales

Day 6

Oct 20/09

This morning we went out and explored the stone circle. The stone circle here surrounds the village and you can walk right up the stones and touch them. It was a bit of a drizzly day, but that didn't stop us from taking a hour or so walk around the stones. It was really quite fascinating. They were placed essentially in farmer's fields with sheep grazing around them. I guess the stones weren't placed in farmers fields, more like the farmer's fields surround the stones. Well we walked around, enjoyed the sheep fields and stones and headed out to Bath. At Bath we walked around and saw the beautiful Roman style buildings. This was the place the Romans lived a few centuries ago. They also had this giant map on the ground where for just a moment I standing in Edmonton. We then saw the Roman baths from the outside and headed back to the car to continue driving to Cardiff, a city in Wales. We drove off and then remembered that we probably should have looked for a money exchange a little more seriously, but I figured we'd be able to find one in Cardiff. Not long after that thought we made it upon our first and only toll booth of the trip. We ended up having to pay for most of it in Canadian dollars. Crappy thing was, they would only accept foreign dollars in denominations of $10. Since $10 is about 5 pounds and the toll was 5.40 it meant if we had paid it in Canadian dollars, the toll would have cost us $20! Luckily we had 40p and were able to pay the $10 and then 40p (in British pence). Man oh man. But we had made it across to another country. We were now in Wales. You could tell we were in a different country, but it's hard to put it in words why. There were still fields of sheep and green rolling hills with lots of colorful trees, but it was different. Mind you the signs helped since they were written in both English and Welsh. When we got to Cardiff, there wasn't too much to see. We could have gone into the Castle, but right now we have to be smart with money and we knew we'd be seeing Edinburgh Castle shortly. When circumstances are unknown, it's best to err on the side of caution. We walked around a bit and of course as I usually need to do it, I had McDonald's in Wales. My Big Mac tasted drier than in Edmonton, but still same old Big Mac. So we walked around a bit more and took pictures and then it was back to the car to decide where to next. We decided that we would spend the night in the Black Mountain National Park. We drove over and found a cozy spot near a lake, Trevor cooked up some pasta and we went to bed.

Day 5 London and Stonehenge England

Day 5

Oct 19/09

Trevor left after breakfast to pick up our Wicked Van. We decided that it would be cheaper if only one of us went. I stayed and carried all of our luggage down the narrow stairs to wait for Trevor's arrival. It was not an easy task since at least two pieces of luggage weigh over 40lbs and are not exactly the easiest thing to carry down stairs with little vision. Trevor arrived in our Tutti Fruitti van with fruit all over the sides and on the back the following message was written "Warning: the consumption of alcohol is the leading cause of inexplicable rug burns to the forehead and knees". I thought it was cute, Trevor was less impressed stating it wouldn't have been his first choice. We were off on another road trip. First destination, Greenwich to see the Prime Meridian. It was definitely not an easy task to get there because we learned that London's streets change names as you drive on them! But we made it and we stood on time 0. It wasn't anything overly exciting, but it was just neat to be on, to say we've seen the Prime Meridian. We also walked around the Royal observatory and then drove to our next destination; Stonehenge. On our way we stuggled to find somewhere to pull off quickly to eat and ended up spending the last bit of cash that I had exchanged. We made it to Stonehenge just as the sun was setting and that's when we learned that you can only go to the stones at set hours. Otherwise you had to be satisfied with Stonehenge from 50 m away (not that you can walk up to the stones anyways, because there is a rope around them and a trail you must follow. It was pretty neat to see Stonehenge, though not as exciting as I anticipated. We took a bunch of pictures and drove to Avebury, a village which is the site of the largest stone circle. Right before we got there we decided to stop into a grocery store where we learned that our mastercard was not necessarily going to work in small town grocery stores (because they don't take credit cards). We had to scramble to find some sort of cash (which we had thought we had run out of the day before). We somehow managed to find 6 pounds between the two of us and went off with our groceries. It was to be our mission to exchange money as soon as possible after this. For the night we parked in a parking lot of a pub in the village after asking permission, though not getting a clear Yes in response. Apparently to ask the proper people was to find another company that was in charge of the parking lot. But we took our chances and slept there the night.

Hello from England #2

Day 3

Oct 17/09

We decided to head down to Portobello Road, a market famous for it's antiques. Not too far of a walk, we decided to head there by foot. It was an extremely packed and extremely interesting market. Set on Portobello Rd, the area is awesome. The buildings are all colorful and the street isn't very wide, so when we encountered the garbage truck trying to get through, it was definitely a tight squeeze! The antiques were really neat. I never really had an appreciation for antiques, but this was a good way to start. We had a snack at the market and then headed to purchase a ticket for the Underground to get to our next destination. That destination would be the London Tower. This is a fortress in the middle of London that is from the 1200's! It was used as a residence for royalty as well as prison and a place of private execution. It was really neat. People still live there today. It looks like a fairytale. Unbelieveable that real life actually looked like the stories they tell. It also amazes me how London looks. Depending on where you are, you will find areas that look old, older than anything I'm used to with our modern day Edmonton. I think the closest thing we have in Canada to London is Quebec city (the old part) and even that doesn't look quite that old in comparison. It's crazy. So, we went around London Tower, saw the Crown Jewels of England, which I must say are very impressive, saw some graffiti from the early day prisoners and then we headed out. We also saw the London Tower Bridge and then went to see the London Bridge (I had to. The song kept playing in my head over and over.) We crossed over the London Bridge and walked over to the Shakespeare Globe which is a theatre rebuilt in the image of the original theatre that his plays took place on. We only looked at it from the outside. Again my feet were tired. It was time to go back home. I believe this was the day that jet lag hit me so hard that I fell asleep around 8p and woke up around 5a and had issues falling back asleep. Oh how I love jet lag.

Day 4

Oct 18/09

Today we again headed to the Underground, this time heading to St. Paul's Cathedral, the church that Princess Diana and Prince Charles got married in. We looked around and then we were off to the British Museum. The nice thing about most museums in Britain is that they're free. And they're really good ones too. The British Museum has incredible items from all around the world including Egypt, Greece, Rome, Mexico and others. They have the Rosetta Stone on display (that was pretty cool). They also had mummies, Greek and Roman statues and all kinds of other very museum like items. It was a quick trip here so that we could make it to the next two destinations in time. Next was the British Natural History museum. Trevor has been following his Geek Atlas which tells him all the geeky places to see all around the world. This was one of them. I was a little disappointed after seeing the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. Next it was off to the Science Museum next door. Now this was cool. Unfortunately my feet (again) were giving up on me, but I had a bit of strength left to see some of the amazing displays including a section on history of Medicine. Wow, the craziness of how modern medicine began! It's amazing. I also learned of William Hunter. I had heard of him before, but very little. He was a doctor of obstetrics and apparently an amazing one at that. There were some pretty things on display about him. They also had "the closest thing to Watson and Cricks original model of DNA" on display and a huge display on clocks. This was definitely a cool Science museum. We spent a bit more time at the pub next to our hotel after all the museums this day, this time having a traditional meat pie and Trevor had sausage and mash (better known as bangers and mash). We then went back to get ready to leave London the next day.

Day 2 London, England

Day 2

Oct 16/09

We decided to head to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guard. Instead of paying for the Underground, we decided to do the 45 min walk according to google from our hotel to the Palace. We walked through Hyde Park where we saw people riding horses and continued on to the Palace. At the end of the park we saw a procession of police on horses heading towards the Palace. We chased them for a bit to take pictures, but they were much faster than us. We arrived at the Palace 30 min before the changing and we stood with the crowd pressed up against the fence. Our view wasn't great but at least we were right up at the fence so we could see inside. It was an interesting ceremony for the changing of the guard with two marching bands and a lot of military commands being yelled, but near the end of it it was hard to focus. It was funny though that the marching band played ABBA music. I'm not sure if it was just to entertain, but it was funny to see the red coated black hat men playing Dancing Queen! Next we were off to see Big Ben. Only a couple of blocks away, we saw him took pictures and then moved on to West Minster Abbey where we thought it too expensive to go inside and continued on to the London Eye. Now we sort of regret not doing into the Abbey because one of Trevor's favorite scientists is buried in there (Sir Isaac Newton). We headed to the London Eye (a giant Ferris wheel like ride that takes 30min and you see views of London). It was a nice day so it was perfect for the ride. At this point my feet were not doing so well. Poor planning also meant I had no water and little to eat. We went on the ride and saw the amazing view. Next it was off to Trafalagar Square and the National Gallery. Inside the National Gallery we saw authentic paintings from Titian, Rembrandt, Raphael, Leonardo Da Vinci and Michaelangelo! Though most of it was of Mary and Jesus, it was really neat to see. We also went into the National Portrait Gallery where we saw a lot of photos of British celebrities and a sculpture of a man's head made of frozen blood! Gross! Finally we decided to head home. We walked (and at this point my feet were on fire!) On the way we stopped into the National Geographic Store which was super cool and we saw Picadilly Circus, an area that looks like a mini version of Time Square. We walked down the main shopping street which was fully of cool shops and tons of double decker busses. We finally made it home and decided to eat at a pub next to our hotel where I had the fish and chips (a must in Britain). Then it was off to bed for the next day!

Day 1 London, England

October 15, 2009

Day 1

We have made it to our first destination, London, England. Our flight took us through Chicago, and was fortunately very uneventful. I'm not use to only 8 hr flights, so when they fed us supper and then with less than 2 hours sleep woke me up for breakfast, I wasn't too impressed. Saying good bye to family and friends was definitely difficult and I'm not eager to have homesickness set in (and around Christmas, I can see it being inevitable).

Getting our luggage to the hotel was a pain. I know I probably should have packed less and maybe had better luggage, but this was the only way to fit 40lbs of stuff (instead of 35 lbs with 5 lbs of suitcase). We took a train called Heathrow connect from the airport and then walked a couple of blocks to our hotel when we hit Paddington Station (as in the bear!) I waited in the train station until Trevor found the hotel because the luggage was so heavy (2 trips to get the bags in the hotel!) Our hotel is the Shakespeare Hotel and it's in an old Victorian building. The room is tiny, but at least we have an in suite bathroom. There is no elevator and the stairs are ridiculously steep once you get to the third floor (where of course we ended up) so dragging our bags was interesting.

Today was spent walking around our neighborhood and napping. I only meant to nap for 1 hour, but it turned into 5 hours. The weather was warm and sunny so I wish we had taken advantage, but I guess my body had no intention of functioning with only 2 hours of sleep. In our neighborhood there are a ton of double decker buses as well as fun red phone booths. We walked through Hyde park a bit (it's massive) and we'll try and see the Peter Pan Statue (the one from the movie Hook) tomorrow. We also walked around after supper and ended up in a very Egyptian part of town with tons of Shisha bars.

So far everything is great. We are 7 hours ahead of Edmonton so right now it's 10p as I write (3p Edmonton). That's all I have for now.

I'll talk to you all soon!

The Travelling Prentices

Hello from Montreal

September 21, 2009

Hello everyone,

A lot has happened since we last talked. We were heading to Rhode Island to meet up with Emanuela and Fil. We had a chance to get together with them and they took us on a tour of Brown University where Emanuela is doing her PhD. She walked through their traditional Van Winkle gates with Emma Watson (Hermione) and Bruce Willis’daughter Scout!!! Apparently she sees Emma Watson quite often! Wow! I was hoping for a glance, but no such luck. We stayed the night in their place, then it was off to Boston where we checked out the MIT museum. Very cool! The museum holds stuff that is/was made by people going to MIT. There were jumping robots and a robot named Kismet that responds appropriately to human speech intonations! So crazy! They also had these crazy art sculptures that would move with gears. Crazy stuff. We also stopped by Quincy market and had some atlantic lobster, clam chowder and Trevor had oysters and clams. Very yummy. I also managed to get us a parking ticket because I was parked too far from the curb! At least there wasn’t any face to face cop action happening with us. Laura, I know you warned us about how crazy Boston was, but it wasn’t until I was super angry with Trevor that I remembered you telling us! Next stop was crossing the border back to Canada!!! We were welcomed back by a very unenthusiastic and uncaring border officer. That was nice. Trevor found a lovely campground at 5 am atlantic time (we lost an hour crossing into the maritimes) that we parked at for the night in New Brunswick (though unfortunately I slept through the arrival, the park and most of the departure from the campground). We then stopped into Saint John where we had some breakfast and I felt a bit of nostalgia from being there back in 2002 for nationals. Then it was off to Nova Scotia to meet up with Moriah and Jared. Their place is AMAZING! They have a river in their backyard! Just insane. This is the kind of place I want to live in. Very cute house (small) with a netted back porch that looks out into the small yard and river flowing by. That river meets with the ocean only a few hundred meters away. You can walk about 2 min and swim in the ocean!!! Unbelievable! We celebrated Moriah’s birthday and went to bed for the night and the next day headed over to Peggy’s cove, a cute tiny village with randomly placed and randomly colored houses. Trevor and Jared jumped around on the huge boulders and Moriah and I took pictures of them and the lighthouse. We headed then into Halifax and walked the boardwalk (apparently the longest in somewhere…Canada maybe?) We stopped into a restaurant there to have oysters (well, Trevor had oysters and mussels, I had the chowder and the crab dip). You got to take advantage of the seafood while on the coast. That night we drove all the way to Charlottetown PEI! It was a cute small town and for some reason all the hotels were completely booked up but we managed to find a deal on Orbitz for this one hotel (that when asked inside told us all they had was suites that would cost $150). Turns out they were all booked, so through the deal on Orbitz we ended up getting a suite!! Very cool! It was a two story hotel room, very spacious with a microwave. The next day we went to their international shellfish festival where we indulged in mussels, Trevor had a ridiculous amount of oysters (some of them for free!) and clams and we both got to eat award winning chowder!!! They were having a competition and after the judges got served the chowder, everyone could go up and get a sample. We sampled 4 different kinds! We also got a free taste of a lobster dish that was being demo’d. We watched her cook it and then we ate it! How fabulous! And then we were off. Off to Quebec City. We made it 50km out from the city and parked in a rest area for the night. Today we walked the walled city and checked out all the cute little shops. It was like Europe (not that I’ve been, but I assume from the pictures I’ve seen). So very cute. We had crepes for breakfast and had poutine for lunch from chez ashton, apparently one of the restaurants claiming to have invented the poutine! We then drove to a chocolate museum (very small little chocolate store with a display) and then it was off to Montreal. We figured we wouldn’t do much in Montreal so we went to dinner and ate and were heading back to the hotel when a couple stopped us and offered us free tickets to the Canadien’s hockey game that had already started (because they had to leave early) so luckily our hotel is right outside the bell centre, so we went. We watched the Canadiens score 3 goals against Pittsburgh, and Pittsburgh score 1 on the Canadiens. It was very exciting! (The score was 4 vs 3 for the Canadiens, but we missed the first two of Pittsburgh and the first one from the Canadiens). Now we’re hanging out in the hotel. Tomorrow we are heading to Ottawa!

HOPE EVERYONE IS DOING GREAT!

SMILEJ
The Travelling Prentices