And more photos.....

Finally got the photos from Annie's camera up on photobucket (http://photobucket.com/jennyjaxn). From Barcelona onwards, through Scotland (Edinburgh and St. Andrew's) and in Lewes.
Annie's enjoying Paris, and her French is rapidly returning and improving. Jenny is 2 and a half weeks into Kent; still jobless but enjoying the countryside and seeing more of her family.
Will try to do more thorough updates (London, Lewes, Kent, Paris) again soon.

New Photos!!

Uploaded a new batch of photos from Jenny's (Granny's) camera onto the photobucket site (http://photobucket.com/jennyjaxn). Not in the right order cause I messed up in the uploading process, but they're there. Hopefully will upload Annie's within the week.

If the Metro in Barcelona doesn't operate from 2-5am, what else is there to do except party?

In Greece I met a girl named Tash and we decided to go to Barcelona. So we booked into a hostel a couple metro stops away from the city center, Placa de Catalunya and the famous Las Ramblas. I arrived in early and met up with Tash and we decided to get something to eat. We found this little Romanian place near our hostel where the woman attempted to speak English and mostly just got angry at us if we asked for anything in the egg omlet. We came to the conclusion that we should just eat what she told us to and not ask questions.

So the site seeing began. We went to Sagrada Familia (mind spelling) which is this big church designed by Anton Guadi like, over a hundred years. The cool thing about it is that it is still being built. It won't be finished for a while yet. We toured around and saw various other Gaudi monuments on the hop on hop off bus, then came back and prepared to party. But there was a small issue: the only way to get to the good clubs was by metro, and the metro doesn't run between 2-5am. needless to say taking a cab was not in our budget. But we decided to brave it anyway. We started out at the local clubs where apparently if you are a) young, b) a girl and c) moderately attractive, you don't pay cover and you get a free drink. So we stumbled through a million different clubs, my favourite being one where they were playing the Grease soundtrack, and then moved on to a somewhat classier club (ie guys didn't hit on you AS much). There is some weird thing I found in clubs in Barcelona though, there  are random men (usually old and not so attractive) walking around in clubs handing out roses to the girls. They basically lurk you until you take one. You don't pay or anything, they just give them to you. I never really figured out what that was about. So after a lot of drinking and dancing we finally could catch the metro back and we arrived back around 6:30 just as it was getting light.

I had decided by this point I was a little bit partied out, having had enough of it in Greece as well (see pictures). So we spent the next few days doing touristy things. I went to the aquarium, because I have a not-so-secret obsession with them. It was pretty good. I learned that there is a shark that has to swim continuously or it will drown. We also went shopping and walked down Las Ramblas. For those unfamiliar with this street, it is basically a long street that extends from the city centre (placa de catalunya) right down to the water. On it, beside hundreds of people, are vendors selling every imaginable thing. and I do mean everything. I saw booths with everything from cactuses to baby chicks. They also have street performers who are dressed as really strange things. My favourite was when I saw satan smoking a cigarette.

Pretty well we saw many interesting things, and had a really good time hanging out. Our favourite hang out came to be the hard rock cafe, which was in the plaza. We took a bunch of epic pictures, and hopefully I will be able to post them at some point. 

Tash and I then said our good byes and then I headed off to Scotland!

Haggis, Whisky and Target Practice

After a few days in London, and a quick trip down to Kent to see Granny and have Sunday brunch with the Akenheads, I took a long bus ride up to Castle Douglas (Scotland) to visit Uncle Peter and Auntie Janet. I spent a few days with them in the country, away from big cities like London and Athens. Janet and I went shopping one day and visited a few of the surrounding towns; everything is really pretty around there. I went horseback riding one crisp morning for an hour, and Uncle Peter taught me how to shoot the day I left for Edinburgh. It was great to see them again, and their place would be well worth another visit. :)

I met up with Annie again not long after arriving in Edinburgh and she led the way to our hostel. It was located literally right below Edinburgh Castle, and not far from the Royal Mile (the main street in the older part of the city) and Grassmarket (a main area for food and some shops).

The next day we went wandering around the city, did some shopping, had dinner with some of our dorm mates, and did some general scoping out of the area. We met up with Riley and met more of his Herstmonceux friends that evening (I think they were on a midterm trip). We went of a free walking tour of Edinburgh the next morning for a few hours, and saw and heard lots, including the original inspiration for Hogwarts and the Burke & Hare body snatchers story. We went to Edinburgh Castle after the tour for a couple hours and walked back in the rain (not surprising, I guess). We met up with some Herstmonceux people again, for dinner this time, and some of them went clubbing afterwards (Annie included). A lot of sleeping in was done the next morning. We wandered around Edinburgh with several people, and bought some souvenirs. There is no lack of tartan everything in that city, that's for sure. We went on a ghost/graveyard tour at the same time as what seemed like half the students from Herstmonceux, which wasn't as cheesy as expected, but didn't successfully scare most of us. We went out to a pub (that we'd found the day before) after a classy Italian dinner with wine, and eventually found our way back to beds  - the Herstmonceux group was leaving around 9 the next morning, and Annie and I hadn't packed up to head to St. Andrew's yet. :)

At some point haggis was tried (by most of us), whisky names were listed, lots of aimless walking was done, lots of pictures were taken, eventually an ATM was found, and lots of laughing occurred.

We can't find the camera connector cord right now, so no more pictures are uploaded yet, but hopefully we'll be able to put them up soon.

New Photos

Uploaded some more photos to http://photobucket.com/jennyjaxn today. Done in 2 batches so some aren't in the right order, but have a look anyway. There are some from Ireland, Italy, and Greece.

Greece was great, we had good weather and met fun people on the Contiki tour. We saw the Parthenon in Athens, learned some Greek on a bus (to the tune of the Brady Bunch theme), went to a toga party on Mykonos, cruised on a "pirate ship" near Ios, and went donkey riding up a cliff in Santorini. We also did some shopping, sung karaoke in the "Fun Pub", went to a few good bars and clubs, ate lots of Greek food, and enjoyed the beaches and sunsets.

We both have Canadian and British passports again, as well as backpacks and some other things from home (big thank yous to our parents).

Jenny's in London and will be going to Scotland in the next week; Annie's just flown off to Barcelona this morning to meet up with a girl we met on our trip in Greece. We'll be meeting up again in Edinburgh on the 18th and going to visit Dani in St. Andrew's on the 22nd before coming back to London by the end of the month.

how do you say "your trousers are amazing" in Italian?

So we're in london right? we've just finished watching dirty dancing twice in a 24 hour period and we're thinking, this is great. We're going to be going to Italy, sitting by the pool, drinking wine, tanning, what could possibly go wrong? So we get on the plane and before we know it we're in sunny italy. We got up after a nice sleep and went to sit by the pool. That's when the relaxation ended. Jenny's aunt Liz fell and broke her back. This event led to many back and forth journeys from possibly the sketchiest hospital I've ever seen. Not that I can honestly say that I've seen many (knock on wood, throw salt over shoulder, etc.). Eventually, everyone got somewhat okay with that fact as Liz seemed to be somewhat well taken care of, minus the food, which included one rather unfortunate incedent with a hamburger that looked like it was soup.

So what we do? We went out to dinner. A lovely dinner I might add. Then we get back to the Villa and see that the door is ajar. Now the place we are staying is quite a nice place and is located in a rather...rural part of Italy. You wouldn't think there would be any crime. As we ran in we saw that the door had been jimmied. We were rather upset to put it mildly, and ran about looking to see what had been stolen. In terms of our valuables, Our passports, my ipod, Jen's camera and all my documents had been stolen. In terms of non-valuable, they stole my socks, Jen's underwear, my wash kit, and Jen's cousin ellie's tampax bag. Oh, and they left four other ipods on the kitchen counter. I think the only appropriate response to that is WTF?!

We called the police and they arrived in good time, i think it only took them an hour or two. At that point tea had been brewed and drinks had been poured, and everyone was slightly less freaked out. We had calmed down enough to notice the fact that the Italian police wear VERY tight pants. I mean, not much left to the imagination if you know what I mean. So they take our names and such and things that have been stolen and we spend a rather sleepless night in bed.

Next morning we contacted our parents and they arranged for a package to be sent to the Villa via FedEx. It had a couple backpacks, my british passport, jen's bank card, some clothes and some make up. Nothing overly offensive, right? WRONG. While we were waiting for the package to arrive, Jen went to Rome with Iso and actually managed to get another Britsh passport within 24 hours. It was amazing. But then we get a phone call.

The package was being held at italian customs, because apparently you have to pay duty on cosmetics. So we phone them and they say we have to pay the fee. So we ask if we can pay via credit card over the phone, and they so no, it is impossible. They say the only way to pay is to do a bank transfer which will take 4-5 days. Jen and I were leaving for greece in 3 days. We ask them if there was any way to do it faster they say, no, it is impossible. We ask if we could drive 9 hours to Milan and hand them the cash and they say, no, it is impossible.

So having had our fill of Italian beurocrats we called in the troops. By the end of the day we had my parents, Jen's uncle, several fedEx associates, one Vice president and a new aquaintence we made at the British embassy, all trying to get this package moving. Finally they said that the package would be delivered before we left. The next day however, we contacted them and they said that no, actually the package still hadn't cleared customs. So we decided, to hell with it, we would try to fly to Greece the next day, even though the only thing I had to fly with was the police report.

In order to get any sleep that night there was only one reasonable solution. Drink wine. Many, many bottles of wine. While we were doing that Jenny, Iso and I plotted ways to overthrow Italian customs. We thought that perhaps the most appropriate way was to light the very boozy Tiramisu that Ellie and I had made the night before on fire and throw large chunks of it at them. "You live by the dessert, you die by the dessert!"

The next day we woke up at 5:00 and drive to the airport, believing without a shadow of a doubt that there was no way we would get on this plane. After all, at this point we figured that somebody was punishing us for something terrible we did in a past life. I mused that in my past life as a goat I must have stolen my neighbours cheese. For once, we were wrong. They did let us on the plane and we found ourselves sweltering in Athens, tired, sweaty, but incredibly happy to be there.

More photos

You can find more of Jenny's photos (esp the geology ones!) at:
http://s78.photobucket.com/albums/j84/Jenny120390/

Leaving the country

We're heading off to London tomorrow for two nights, and then we're flying down to the heel of Italy for a week or so. :D I hope all of you starting school are having tons of fun, but don't do too much scandalous stuff during frosh week, etc.
Lisdoonvarna was good, nice and quiet, and generally sunny once we made it outside. Very windy though, especially near the cliffs.
We went to Newgrange (yes Heather, it looks almost the same as our gr. 7 project) and the Hill of Tara today, but it poured buckets all day. I think we had the most rain today of our whole trip so far, and we spent half of it outside. :S
We've been trying to upload pictures, but haven't had much luck with the hostel computers. Will try again this evening, but computer time is limited.
More later, but potentially not for a while because we don't know what the computer access will be like in Italy and Greece.

Heading off to Lisdoonvarna

So, we've now taken tons of pictures, walked 9 kilometres in the country to avoid paying bus fare (and for the nice walk :P), seen Giant's Causeway, eaten a full days worth of food in one breakfast sitting (the B&B served sooo much for b-fast), and probably lots more.
We're heading of to a little place called Lisdoonvarna for a matchmaking festival for the next 5 nights; it should be interesting.
Some main parts of our diet are apples & bananas, tea, toast, and the occasional meat or egg. No more guinness yet, but we have 8 months or more for that. It wasn't half bad though, considering.
Hope all of you going off to Uni are having fun.
More later.

the next two days

So...I'm not so great at the blog thing, but I'm going to attempt to inform you about our epic adventures in the last two days. We went to county Wicklow and saw some old ruins, we went to a museum in Dublin, took the dart to the festival of Cultures in Dun Laoghaire (pronounced Dun leery, go figure) and we both had our first glass of guiness. I actually finished mine, miracle of miracles. We met up with Anne Tyndall, Terry Harper's cousin, and met her nephew Stephen and went out for drinks with them. Currently we are a bit tired as the cheapest way of getting around is walking, and we have done A LOT of that. We will be heading up to Northern Ireland on Tuesday, so we probably won't write for a while.

Link to the photobucket site

The link to the photobucket site with trip pictures is:
http://photobucket.com/jennyjaxn

First 24 Hours in Dublin

In less than an hour, we will have spent 24 hours in Dublin. Woot!
The jet lag isn't too bad, but Annie says: "I'm tired..." We got about 10 hours of sleep last night, which was much needed.
We successfully made it to our hostel, found the tourist info centre, and bought dinner. Our hostel's in a good area of the city: not too sketchy, not too dull. Our roommates seem fairly nice, but we've still been carting around all of our valuables. We booked a 6-bed dorm to start with, but by the end of our time in Ireland, we will probably be in 12-16 bed ones. :S
We have free internet at this hostel, so we may be able to check email, etc. for the next few days, as well as the 29th of August (maybe), and the 4/5th of September. We'll try and keep the rest of you posted regularly, but we'll see when we get access to internet or not. :P
Attempting to upload the first small set of photos to photobucket.....

Missing everyone at home!

Victoria Airport

Jenny and Annie were seen off by a good crowd at Victoria Aiport, including sisters, parents, an aunt and the Buckinghams.

Bon Voyage!

Leaving Tomorrow

We'll be off on our adventure tomorrow morning, making our way to Dublin first. Today will probably be full of packing and panicking.
Next update should be from Dublin!