Saturday, November 29, 2008
Interlude...
Well, there's much to say about my travels, but I'm not going to say them now. This is a short interlude as suggested by the title! We've arrived in Ukraine where we were surprised and blessed to spend Thanksgiving with the Lynches. We're having a great time here and are enjoying the many people we meet! Our trip is winding down now...one more week here, then two weeks in eastern Europe. After that, we will spend a week with our family in Germany for Christmas, then two more weeks in England before flying home. In many ways the time has gone by so quickly, and in other ways I feel that I've been gone for years. I'm excited to see my family and all of my friends, but it will be strange to be home. Only about six weeks left...we'll be home on January 15th. And by the way, Aubrey, if you're reading this, I'm in desperate need of a shopping trip! I'm so sick of my clothes now and they're sick of me! Well, that's all for now, folks. I have news of our travels and pictures to share, but those will have to wait as I'm very tired and am about to go to bed!!!
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Slovenia to Greece
Well, the last week or so has been an adventure. We stayed a couple of nights in Lake Bled, Slovenia, where we enjoyed the view of yet another castle, walked around the lake, rented a row boat and headed out to an island, and enjoyed the hospitality of the hostel owners. Damien drove us into town and back, and they had an amazing 6 euro dinner which turned out to be a four course meal! After leaving Lake Bled, we spent one night in the capital, Ljubljana (pronounced Lubliana, although I called it Libblejibble before I knew that...)
After reviewing several options on getting to Greece, we finally decided on taking the train from Slovenia back into Croatia, then on through Serbia, Macedonia, and then into Greece. That meant we had to go through immigration eight times...each time we left a country and each time we entered another one. That gets really annoying! We had about four hours in Serbia during which time we visited a local fast food restaurant and got some delicious burgers. After that we met a guy named Marco who we chatted with for a while before finding our beds. (It was an overnight train, so we got beds...fortunately for us, we had the little room to ourselves.) Marco was an interesting character. Our train car didn't open up until right before we left, so we sat in another part of the train talking about things like jobs and politics. Ugh...I'm sick of people asking me about U.S. politics! Anyway, he was pretty nice, but in Serbia there aren't really any non-smoking areas so after a while we had to politely excuse ourselves from the small cabin with limited air flow where he was continually blowing smoke in our faces. I tried to put up with it as long as I could, but I already had a headache and I do have my limits...
After the very long train ride to Thessaloniki, we arrived at our hotel and went out around the city for a few hours before bed. The next day we took a bus to Mount Olympus where we hiked for a while. It was a beautiful area and again, nice to be out of the city...oh, and lots of cats for Rebecca to play with!
From Thessaloniki we took an overnight train to Athens...and for anyone who might consider doing such a thing in the future, don't! Or at least, take the later train and make sure to get a bed or couchette! It would have been worth paying a little extra. That was the most miserable train ride ever! But that's enough of that...we don't wish to discuss miserable things!
Athens...Athens...well, our hostel was really nice. After the miserable train ride, they kindly let us check in really early (7 am) and we slept until noon before heading out into the city. As for the city...it's a city! The ruins are amazing and the area is great for its historical importance, but overall, I didn't love Athens. It's huge, dirty, and a typical big city I guess. Anyway, we spent three full days in the area, but the second day we took a day trip to Delphi where we saw more ancient ruins. This time, though, they were away from the city. It was really nice. Most of our last day in Athens was spent making arrangements for our ferry travel and ultimate arrival in Turkey. We will be visiting a few islands before taking a ferry to Turkey.
Picture Explanations...
1. Temple of Athena in Delphi.
2. The stadium in Delphi.
3. Parthenon
4. This is a panoramic view of the sprawling city of Athens. We were at the Acropolis when I took this photo.
5. Mount Olympus (or around there)
6. The White Tower in Thessaloniki.
7. This is the island in the middle of Lake Bled.
8. And this is the Bled castle, up on the hill, overlooking the lake.
After reviewing several options on getting to Greece, we finally decided on taking the train from Slovenia back into Croatia, then on through Serbia, Macedonia, and then into Greece. That meant we had to go through immigration eight times...each time we left a country and each time we entered another one. That gets really annoying! We had about four hours in Serbia during which time we visited a local fast food restaurant and got some delicious burgers. After that we met a guy named Marco who we chatted with for a while before finding our beds. (It was an overnight train, so we got beds...fortunately for us, we had the little room to ourselves.) Marco was an interesting character. Our train car didn't open up until right before we left, so we sat in another part of the train talking about things like jobs and politics. Ugh...I'm sick of people asking me about U.S. politics! Anyway, he was pretty nice, but in Serbia there aren't really any non-smoking areas so after a while we had to politely excuse ourselves from the small cabin with limited air flow where he was continually blowing smoke in our faces. I tried to put up with it as long as I could, but I already had a headache and I do have my limits...
After the very long train ride to Thessaloniki, we arrived at our hotel and went out around the city for a few hours before bed. The next day we took a bus to Mount Olympus where we hiked for a while. It was a beautiful area and again, nice to be out of the city...oh, and lots of cats for Rebecca to play with!
From Thessaloniki we took an overnight train to Athens...and for anyone who might consider doing such a thing in the future, don't! Or at least, take the later train and make sure to get a bed or couchette! It would have been worth paying a little extra. That was the most miserable train ride ever! But that's enough of that...we don't wish to discuss miserable things!
Athens...Athens...well, our hostel was really nice. After the miserable train ride, they kindly let us check in really early (7 am) and we slept until noon before heading out into the city. As for the city...it's a city! The ruins are amazing and the area is great for its historical importance, but overall, I didn't love Athens. It's huge, dirty, and a typical big city I guess. Anyway, we spent three full days in the area, but the second day we took a day trip to Delphi where we saw more ancient ruins. This time, though, they were away from the city. It was really nice. Most of our last day in Athens was spent making arrangements for our ferry travel and ultimate arrival in Turkey. We will be visiting a few islands before taking a ferry to Turkey.
Picture Explanations...
1. Temple of Athena in Delphi.
2. The stadium in Delphi.
3. Parthenon
4. This is a panoramic view of the sprawling city of Athens. We were at the Acropolis when I took this photo.
5. Mount Olympus (or around there)
6. The White Tower in Thessaloniki.
7. This is the island in the middle of Lake Bled.
8. And this is the Bled castle, up on the hill, overlooking the lake.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
Questions
So I've had a couple of questions that I haven't answered. My dad asked if we had gone up in the Tower of Pisa, and the answer to that is no. While viewing it is free, they like to charge a lot of money to go inside, which makes everyone feel like they have to go inside. This is a very common trap which we have sadly fallen for a few times. Rebecca likes to call it the GUS Syndrome (Go Upstairs). I find that the outside of any given structure is most often more interesting than the inside, so unless we really want to go in somewhere, we tend to avoid the ridiculously priced fees. Maybe it would be cool, maybe not. I just get annoyed with how over priced things like that are, so we tend to avoid them.
Okay, next question about the Anne Frank tree. As far as I understand, it is still standing. There was a plan to take it down, but of course that was met with resistance and I think the protesters have won for the time being. The tree itself is enclosed in a courtyard that is not accessible to the public, so no, we didn't get to see it.
I think that's it for now...
Okay, next question about the Anne Frank tree. As far as I understand, it is still standing. There was a plan to take it down, but of course that was met with resistance and I think the protesters have won for the time being. The tree itself is enclosed in a courtyard that is not accessible to the public, so no, we didn't get to see it.
I think that's it for now...
Heidelberg and Plitvice
Yep, back to boring titles for now...sorry to disappoint!
With a couple of extra days we decided to spend some time in western Germany, in Heidelberg. We stayed in a hostel in the old city, which was beautiful. We actually took a day trip our first day there to Freiberg where we took a cable car through parts of the Black Forest. In reality, it’s just a forest, but it was pretty neat. We had the cable car to ourselves, and the change in the view as we rose in elevation was great. We began the trip with green trees at the bottom, fall colors soon dominating, until finally little patches of snow became a blanket of white everywhere. We enjoyed a brief walk at the top before sipping hot chocolate with rum at the restaurant.
Our second day in Heidelberg was spent at the Heidelberg castle. The castle itself was okay...the best part is the lovely location. On the castle grounds they had a museum about the history of pharmacy. If anyone can shed some light on that, I’d be interested.
An afternoon train took us to Munich where we boarded an overnight train to Zagreb, Croatia. We stored our luggage at the train station in Zagreb, picked up some maps at tourist information, and then did a short-ish walking tour through the city. Croatia is not yet a part of the EU, so they use a different currency, which is always inconvenient. It can be expensive to exchange money, so when we’re not using the euro, we have to try and calculate exactly how much we’ll need so that we come out as close to exact as possible.
Anyway, Zagreb was a nice city, but we were really anxious to get to Plitvice, where we planned to spend 3 nights near the National Park, spending one day in the park and the other doing as little as possible. We are so busy every day, we both felt like this would be a good time to relax and stay in, taking a break from being tourists.
The Plitvice Lakes were beautiful. There are 16 lakes in the park, and dozens and dozens of waterfalls. It’s amazing! We explored the park for the day, loving the lack of tourists at this time of year. There were only a few other people, which made for a quiet day! Marija, who runs the guesthouse we’re staying in, drove us to the park and picked us up again...she’s incredible!
We’re currently enjoying our day off, being as lazy as possible! Not much more to say at the moment. We head to Slovenia next...
Pics:
1-6. These are pictures of Plitvice Lakes. Number 6 is Cassie's fault...she started the whole hanging over rails thing and now Rebecca does it too and makes me nervous!
7-8. These are a couple of pictures of Zagreb.
9. This is a view of Heidelberg Castle. It's under renovation, which is the reason for the ugly scaffolding on the right. Other than that, it's beautiful!
10. This view is looking down on the city of Heidelberg, from the castle!
11-13. These photos are of the Black Forest. They show the various climate changes we experienced on our way up!!!
By the way, these pictures loaded backwards this time. It's different every time, which is why I gave up trying to make any sense out of it and just put the pictures up in one post and their explanation up in another post. Hopefully it's not too confusing for everyone!
With a couple of extra days we decided to spend some time in western Germany, in Heidelberg. We stayed in a hostel in the old city, which was beautiful. We actually took a day trip our first day there to Freiberg where we took a cable car through parts of the Black Forest. In reality, it’s just a forest, but it was pretty neat. We had the cable car to ourselves, and the change in the view as we rose in elevation was great. We began the trip with green trees at the bottom, fall colors soon dominating, until finally little patches of snow became a blanket of white everywhere. We enjoyed a brief walk at the top before sipping hot chocolate with rum at the restaurant.
Our second day in Heidelberg was spent at the Heidelberg castle. The castle itself was okay...the best part is the lovely location. On the castle grounds they had a museum about the history of pharmacy. If anyone can shed some light on that, I’d be interested.
An afternoon train took us to Munich where we boarded an overnight train to Zagreb, Croatia. We stored our luggage at the train station in Zagreb, picked up some maps at tourist information, and then did a short-ish walking tour through the city. Croatia is not yet a part of the EU, so they use a different currency, which is always inconvenient. It can be expensive to exchange money, so when we’re not using the euro, we have to try and calculate exactly how much we’ll need so that we come out as close to exact as possible.
Anyway, Zagreb was a nice city, but we were really anxious to get to Plitvice, where we planned to spend 3 nights near the National Park, spending one day in the park and the other doing as little as possible. We are so busy every day, we both felt like this would be a good time to relax and stay in, taking a break from being tourists.
The Plitvice Lakes were beautiful. There are 16 lakes in the park, and dozens and dozens of waterfalls. It’s amazing! We explored the park for the day, loving the lack of tourists at this time of year. There were only a few other people, which made for a quiet day! Marija, who runs the guesthouse we’re staying in, drove us to the park and picked us up again...she’s incredible!
We’re currently enjoying our day off, being as lazy as possible! Not much more to say at the moment. We head to Slovenia next...
Pics:
1-6. These are pictures of Plitvice Lakes. Number 6 is Cassie's fault...she started the whole hanging over rails thing and now Rebecca does it too and makes me nervous!
7-8. These are a couple of pictures of Zagreb.
9. This is a view of Heidelberg Castle. It's under renovation, which is the reason for the ugly scaffolding on the right. Other than that, it's beautiful!
10. This view is looking down on the city of Heidelberg, from the castle!
11-13. These photos are of the Black Forest. They show the various climate changes we experienced on our way up!!!
By the way, these pictures loaded backwards this time. It's different every time, which is why I gave up trying to make any sense out of it and just put the pictures up in one post and their explanation up in another post. Hopefully it's not too confusing for everyone!
Saturday, November 1, 2008
Corrections
I made a bad typo and spelled medieval terribly wrong...which has now been fixed...I hate it when I do that! Anyway, go back and read the whole blog now, because I’m sure that typo ruined the whole experience last time you read it...
Also, I forgot to mention two veryveryvery important events that took place while we were with the Garbers. The first occurred on October 18th. This marked the halfway point of our trip, and by halfway I mean, of course, that we had completed half of the trip and had half of it yet to go... We celebrated with Wolfgang and Julie in our hotel room with a glass of wine and later in the evening, a genuine German puppet show! And by genuine I mean nothing of the sort. This particular puppet show was...interesting...we’ll leave it at that. I will say that I will be laughing for years to come every time I think of it!
The second event took place on October 19th when we celebrated the birthday of my sister, Rebecca. She is now 22. And we are most happy. A couple of the neighbors came over and we had cake...Mmmm! Rebecca was also presented with a delightful birthday present (no, not the ring). It was an adorable mini Christmas carousel and I, because my birthday is in 7 months, got one as well! Even better!
Okay, moving on...you get a new post...lucky you!
Also, I forgot to mention two veryveryvery important events that took place while we were with the Garbers. The first occurred on October 18th. This marked the halfway point of our trip, and by halfway I mean, of course, that we had completed half of the trip and had half of it yet to go... We celebrated with Wolfgang and Julie in our hotel room with a glass of wine and later in the evening, a genuine German puppet show! And by genuine I mean nothing of the sort. This particular puppet show was...interesting...we’ll leave it at that. I will say that I will be laughing for years to come every time I think of it!
The second event took place on October 19th when we celebrated the birthday of my sister, Rebecca. She is now 22. And we are most happy. A couple of the neighbors came over and we had cake...Mmmm! Rebecca was also presented with a delightful birthday present (no, not the ring). It was an adorable mini Christmas carousel and I, because my birthday is in 7 months, got one as well! Even better!
Okay, moving on...you get a new post...lucky you!
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