Hello,
Some of you will have received a mix christmas cd from me but without any tracklisting because I didn't have time to make a bunch of cd covers. So I have posted the tracklisting below. I hope you like it.
1. Sufjan Stevens - Get Behind Me, Santa!
2. Mavis Staples - Christmas Vacation
3. Sufjan Stevens - Put The Lights On The Tree
4. The Ravonettes - The Christmas Song
5. Ciao Bella - Christmas Time
6. Sufjan Stevens - Hey Guys! It's Christmas Time!
7. The Eels - Everything's Gonna Be Cool This Christmas
8. Wham - Last Christmas
9. Sufjan Stevens - Did I Make You Cry On Christmas? (Well, You Deserved It)
10. Bright Eyes - Blue Christmas
11. Calexico - Gift X-change
12. The Handsome Family - So Much Wine
13. Sufjan Stevens - Come On! Let's Boogey to the Elf Dance!
14. John & Yoko - Happy Xmas (War Is Over)
15. The Lucksmiths - The Thought That Counts
My favourites are all the Sufjan Stevens songs, and also track 15. Hope you like them.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Sunday, November 16, 2008
My world tour of Libraries!
Our trip is only a few months from the end so I thought I'd put together a little blog of all the libraries we have visited throughout our travels. This blog will take you through photos of many of the libraries we have seen.
This library charged people to go in so we didn't stay too long. We got as far as the part where you needed to have tickets and then left. We got in for a second though before we were asked for our tickets that we didn't have. I got a sneaky photo of it but it is out of focus so I didn't put it up here. The photo above though was before the main part of the library so we were allowed there. To see how great it is inside, have a look here - you will need quicktime installed to see this properly.
The library in Berlin was undergoing renovations, or some sort of work that required a big banner to be put up in front of it that shows what it would look like if it had a huge ad covering most of it. I really didn't see the point. But the interesting thing about this photo is the courtyard. This is where many many books were burned during the war. I can't remember if this is the Berlin Library, or a University library, or if it only used to be. But it definitely held a lot of books during the war. The library below may be the proper Berlin Library.
#5 Staatsbibliothek (State Library) Berlin, Germany
We didn't spend too much time in this library. Had a quick look at the catalogue but couldn't understand much of it due to my not knowing any German.
This was a really nice little library. In fact it was a really nice little town in general. This library had RFID in action and it was the first time I'd seen it being used. Looked very interesting and I can't wait to see it happening back home. They also had other ideas that I liked. I stole a bunch of flyers from this library so I could steal/borrow some of their ideas.
We were in only in Glasgow for a weekend so this library was closed. Looked nice though. Around the corner was this...
This library was closed also. Didn't look as nice or as interesting as the Mitchell Library, just a door in the wall.
We only popped into this library for a minute to check if they had free internet, which they didn't. But around the corner we found...
Library Street! Our hostel was on this street and down the end of this street was the...
Library Bar! The night we went to the library bar it was pretty much empty except for us. In fact most of Belfast seemed empty (and also closed) the whole time we were there. I thought the library bar would be full of rowdy librarians, but there was nothing! I hope their libraries aren't this quiet!
This small library was in the middle of the hidden away part of the music festival we went to. They had some good books here, and they somehow survived the rain on the first night.
What better place to start than the Alexandria library in Egypt!
#1 Alexandria Library, Egypt
We went to Alexandria for two days. This library was huge and very interesting to explore.
The library is designed in such a way that the windows are angled so there is never direct sunlight shining through them, but there is still plenty of light. The outside of the building is supposed to symbolise a rising sun, with the planetarium (top picture, left) symboling the earth. The planetarium was closed when we were there.
We went to Alexandria for two days. This library was huge and very interesting to explore.The library is designed in such a way that the windows are angled so there is never direct sunlight shining through them, but there is still plenty of light. The outside of the building is supposed to symbolise a rising sun, with the planetarium (top picture, left) symboling the earth. The planetarium was closed when we were there.#2 Austrian National Library, Vienna
This library charged people to go in so we didn't stay too long. We got as far as the part where you needed to have tickets and then left. We got in for a second though before we were asked for our tickets that we didn't have. I got a sneaky photo of it but it is out of focus so I didn't put it up here. The photo above though was before the main part of the library so we were allowed there. To see how great it is inside, have a look here - you will need quicktime installed to see this properly.#3 Prague Library, Czech Republic.
We visited the Prague Library on our last day it Prague. It felt quite uninviting to me and was hard to find (which is why we didn't go till the last day). I liked the statues at the fountain though.
#4 Berlin Library, Germany
The library in Berlin was undergoing renovations, or some sort of work that required a big banner to be put up in front of it that shows what it would look like if it had a huge ad covering most of it. I really didn't see the point. But the interesting thing about this photo is the courtyard. This is where many many books were burned during the war. I can't remember if this is the Berlin Library, or a University library, or if it only used to be. But it definitely held a lot of books during the war. The library below may be the proper Berlin Library.#5 Staatsbibliothek (State Library) Berlin, Germany
We didn't spend too much time in this library. Had a quick look at the catalogue but couldn't understand much of it due to my not knowing any German.#6 Small local library, Berlin, Germany
This was our hostel located between a library and a record store, which you'd think would be great. But it was a terrible, terrible hostel. Great library though. I didn't get any photos inside. But they had board games! What a great idea!
#7. Amsterdam Library.
This library is easily my favourite so far of my world tour of libraries. We spent a lot of time here as Liz was applying for a job in Scotland and was making use of the free internet quite a bit. You didn't have to sign up or book in to use the computers so that was handy. This library had more dvds than a dvd store, more cds than a cd store, and I think they had some books too! They also had so many computers that no one ever had to wait. More than I have seen in university libraries. They also had a nice little cafe with newspapers from all over the world, and any magazine you'd ever want to read (but the coffee was not that great).
#8. British Library, London.
Yes, it was a little windy on this day. This was a pretty awesome place to visit, inside they have original and handwritten writings from all sorts of people from history- Shakespeare, Charles Darwin, Captain Cook, old maps, and even some Beatles lyrics written on the back of coasters and plenty more interesting stuff to check out. To get into the proper part of the library you need to be a member, to be a member you need to be researching something.
#9 Salisbury Library, England.
#10. The Mitchell Library, Glasgow, Scotland
We were in only in Glasgow for a weekend so this library was closed. Looked nice though. Around the corner was this...#11. Anderston Library, Glasgow, Scotland
This library was closed also. Didn't look as nice or as interesting as the Mitchell Library, just a door in the wall. #12. Library inside random Highlands castle, Scotland.
We stayed in a haunted castle during our tour of the Highlands. There was a small library in the castle. Didn't find many good books there though, didn't find any ghosts either.
#13. National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh.
We didn't go inside this library. We didn't have a lot of time in Edinburgh. Although, we did get a chance to see the place the first Harry Potter book was written and some of the places that inspired it. We also saw Dolly the sheep in the museum, and the Military Tattoo at Edinburgh Castle.
We didn't go inside this library. We didn't have a lot of time in Edinburgh. Although, we did get a chance to see the place the first Harry Potter book was written and some of the places that inspired it. We also saw Dolly the sheep in the museum, and the Military Tattoo at Edinburgh Castle. #14. Belfast Central Library, Northern Ireland.
We only popped into this library for a minute to check if they had free internet, which they didn't. But around the corner we found... Library Street! Our hostel was on this street and down the end of this street was the...Library Bar! The night we went to the library bar it was pretty much empty except for us. In fact most of Belfast seemed empty (and also closed) the whole time we were there. I thought the library bar would be full of rowdy librarians, but there was nothing! I hope their libraries aren't this quiet! #15. Trinity College Library, Dublin, Ireland.
This library was basically one long room that looked amazing! I would have loved to get a photo but couldn't so I bought a postcard instead. It's the first postcard of ever bought without the intention of sending it. I just needed a picture of the inside of this library. Oh, and the Book of Kells was interesting as well. It was quite awe inspring seeing the work that went into books made so long ago. So much tiny detail used and so much care taken.
#16. National Library of Ireland, Dublin.
We didn't actually go inside here because we were on our way to see the bog men in the archaeological museum but I had to get a photo of me here anyway.
#17. The Chester Beatty Library, Dublin, Ireland.
The Chester Beatty Library houses an amazing collection of writing, books and art from all over the world. The work on display encompasses many different regions and religions. All of it is very old and very very interesting. Well worth a visit if you're ever in Dublin. Unfortunately photos were not permitted. It also has a very nice roof top garden with nice views of the surrounding area.
#18. End of the Road Library, Larmer Tree Gardens, England.
The Chester Beatty Library houses an amazing collection of writing, books and art from all over the world. The work on display encompasses many different regions and religions. All of it is very old and very very interesting. Well worth a visit if you're ever in Dublin. Unfortunately photos were not permitted. It also has a very nice roof top garden with nice views of the surrounding area.#18. End of the Road Library, Larmer Tree Gardens, England.
This small library was in the middle of the hidden away part of the music festival we went to. They had some good books here, and they somehow survived the rain on the first night.#19. Liverpool Library.
The three pictures below are all from Liverpool, and are all the same building. Not sure if this library has 3 different names, or if it's 3 different libraries. It was all closed when we were there (a Sunday) so I guess I'll never know unless I go back.
#20. Xaghra Library, Gozo, Malta.
This library was only open about three days a week, in the mornings. I went back another day and checked it out. It was the most bland library I've ever seen. But it was great that this Village had a library at all. I wish I'd gotten a photo or two of the inside.
So that's all I've seen so far. Still have Africa to go though so I may see some more, but I'll be on a tour so I'm not sure if I'll get a chance to. I'd thought I'd finish with this last shot of me holding the hand of Demetrius Phalereus (350-280 B.C.) who was "The inspirer of the Foundation of the Ancient Library" - This photo was taken in the foyer of the Alexandria Library. I hope this blog wasn't too boring for you. I hope at least someone reads it.
Glenn 2.0
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Scotland and Ireland
Hi all, it's been a while since I've written a group email so here's one that Liz has written recently. It covers our Scotland and Ireland trip. Hopefully I will find the time to write my own version with some other stories and info. Hopefully this will be enough for now.
Glenn
Hello everyone, I know it has been a long long time. I have been meaning to send out an update on my whereabouts for the last 3 months, but there was so much to tell I never found the time to tell it, so you can imagine how the cycle went.
So ignoring that we spent a few months in mainland europe staying in hostels, living out of our backpacks, abandoning our daily hygeine routines, the regular backpacker thing, we are now living and working in London, and have also done much travelling about the Isles.
Most recently we spent 1 week each in Scotland and Ireland. In Scotland we started out in Glasgow for two days and one night where we visited the cathedral, which was so huge it was like 5 cathedrals in 1. One of them was called Blacader's Aisle, but all the signs pointing to it said Blackadder's Aisle, so that was funny. That seems to be the only attraction we deliberately visited, as the other highlights of our short stay there were, in keeping with the style of our whole trip really, accidents that we stumbled across. For example, our hostel was a little way out of the city, and we had to hang around there for a few hours early in the morning before we could check in, so we wandered around what we later realised was the nice part of the river (in the city centre it was pretty ugly), and found an old flint mill ruin. Then later we went to the botanical gardens which were pretty standard except there was one section on carnivorous plants and all the ways they trap their prey, and actually it was quite amazing.
From Glasgow we went to Edinburgh where we left on a 5 day tour of the Highlands. We did alot of stuff everyday, so I won't give you a day by day account, but highlights included visiting Culloden battlefield, where the last Jacobite rebellion was annihilated by the British. The morning we went it was very cold, and the whole place was covered in mist, which kind of helped to set the mood for hearing all the stories and seeing all the grave stones. I got totally lost, but luckily Glenn was able to keep his sense of direction and we made it out of there okay. Another highlight was the little cruise we took on Loch Ness, where the captain of the boat showed us some interesting photos and was surprisingly convincing in his stories about creature sightings. The night after that we stayed in a castle which was hard to get good photos of because it was surrounded by forest. Glenn and I tried to follow one of the walking tracks, and this time I got both of us lost, but in the end we found a beautiful, still, isolated loch with fish jumping in it (well, a fish, the rest was just Glenn throwing rocks to trick me), and it was lovely. The castle was supposed to be haunted, but the ghosts were not very mischievous.
We also spent an entire day on the Isle of Skye, where we did everything from stick our faces in the River of Youth and Beauty to climbing one of the Bens (spectacular views were had). The morning we left Glenn and I attempted to visit the ruins of a castle where a Viking Princess (allegedly she used to flash sailors so they wouldn't complain about the tolls) used to live, but we were thwarted by high tide, rain, and slippery rocks.
Returning to Edinburgh, we soaked up some of the Fringe festival atmosphere without actually paying to see a show. We climbed what we thought was Arthur's seat until we got to the top and saw the much bigger real Arthur's seat, so we climbed that too and got some incredible 360 views of Edinburgh and surrounds. Our last night in Scotland we went to the castle to watch the Military Tattoo, which, when described with words is nowhere near as cool as it actually was. As we have grown accustomed to saying alot on our holiday - "Could not wipe the smile off my face". It was basically 2 hours of bagpipes, dancing and marching, with the odd explosion of fireworks, but there was also something in the air. The main legion of tourists there seemed to be from other parts of Scotland and the UK, so there was lots of deep, scottish love about.
We nearly weren't allowed on the ferry to Belfast, because there was something wrong with our tickets (which we still don't really understand). Still, we looked innocent enough so the girl let us on. We arrived in Belfast on a late Sunday afternoon and there was therefore nothing to do. Up until now apart from from the odd bit of rain and mist, Scotland had been quite sunny (we could actually see the summit of Ben Nevis which is only visible 50 days every year), once we hit Belfast the weather turned teary. We still managed a Black cab tour which took us round two of the Protestant and Catholic neighbourhoods, and we saw murals, memorials and the "peace" wall which is the hugest fence I've ever seen, that separates the two areas. The gates used to be closed all the time, but now with the peace talks it's only closed at night.
That same day we took a boat ride around and saw all the places of interest to do with the Titanic and its sister ships. At night, faced again with the fact that everything was closed by 7pm, we sought out a few pubs. One had the most delicious pub food we had had in a while, as well as large statues of politicians. The other we had to be buzzed in by the barman, and inside we were met with a small room chocked full of Elvis memorabilia, and about 5 elderly patrons who got drunk and sang along to old rock and modern dance tunes alike. They spoke to us, but it was difficult to understand their drunken Irish accents. I think one of them asked if I was chinese!?!
We spent the next day getting rained on at the Antrim coast. We visited a rope bridge that fisherman used to use, but it is now tourist-ised so it is not scary or dangerous like it was advertised as being. The line was long but it meant we got to visit a small island for a while. We also visited the gift shop of a whiskey distillery before the main event which was the Giant's Causeway. We arrived there just in time for the rain.
The Causeway is an interesting geological feauture caused millions of years ago by cooling magma. The way that it cracked during the cooling looks like huge paving stones, and they descend in to the sea looking very cool. What is also interesting is that the only other place in the world where this has happened is on the coast of Scotland, so there is obviously a legend associated with it. The legend we were told in Scotland was that an Irish giant built it to go visit his Scottish girlfriend, whereas the Irish version says it was to fight another giant. Either way it was brilliant, and even though we got soaked through our raincoats it was fun and we even risked the longevity of my camera (but actually that got stolen just last weekend so it doesn't really matter anymore) by getting really great photos of it - photos are up on facebook (if you want to see them but are not a member ask me to email you the link), or you can wait until we get home to see it.
We left Northern Ireland the next day for Dublin. We had planned to visit the Western coast of Ireland first and see some of the places where my convict ancestors once lived, but public transport seemed determined to thwart us, so we headed into the Republic, where prices suddenly soared, but we were still glad that we went there anyway, as there was more than enough stuff to do there with our extra days.
We found lots to do in what I suspect is a very touristy but was still very charismatic area of town called Temple Bar. The pubs there were warm and cheery and they all had some form of live music playing every night. From Dublin we took a day out of town to visit Newgrange and Knowth, which are both huge Neolithic earthen monuments made out of stones and earth. Because of time, nature and continued occupation through later time periods, the mounds did not stay untouched for so long, but have been reconstructed. Newgrange is the more famous one, and seemingly more spectacular until the guide tells you that the stone pattern on the face of it is how the archaeologist "thought" it should look based on the amount of stone they found. Knowth was interesting and needed the least amount of reconstruction so was therefore the most authentic. Both mounds had tunnels built in to them to align with various solstices and equinoxes, similar to Stonehenge (which we did visit on the summer solstice, but that's another story). There was also a third monument nearby with a similar kind of thing, but they don't really know much about it because it is being "saved" for future archaeologists.
Back in Dublin, we tried our hand at getting lost once more before the end of our trip. We had bought tickets for the ferry from Dublin to Wales where we would get the train to London. Being as our tickets were virtually identical to our Belfast ones we were a bit worried, but our city map showed the ferry terminal as being quite close to our hostel so off we trundled to check our tickets in advance. 2 hours later we arrived, and the man did not even look at our tickets - just said, "they're fine". We forced him to look and he okayed them, then we found a bus to take us back to the city. It wasted an entire afternoon but the good news was that we now knew that the ferry was not a short walk away, and so the next morning we didn't try walking it with our backpacks on, but caught a cab instead.
We also visited Kilmainham Gaol, famous for its political prisoners, and has been in movies because it is a good example of the panoptican, 'we can see you but you can't see us' approach to correcting undesirable behaviour. It was very educational, and taught us a bit of Irish history but also put it into context because we got to see the cells, and the wall where people were executed. In the museum there they also had a section called "Last Words" which had letters and artefacts from some of the political prisoners that had been executed there. The handwriting of the letters was hard to read, but it was worth the effort to do. It added a lot to imagining what it would have been like in Dublin before the Republic.
I am sure we probably did other things too, but this email is already very long, so I will stop now and sign off. Congratulations if you made it this far in one go, please reward yourself by replying with your own indulgent account of how things have been going down your end. As much fun as it all is, and living in London is pretty neat, I miss home lots so would be good to know what's going on.
Cheers, Liz (and Glenn).
Below is a video of Liz at the Notting Hill carnival.
Glenn
Hello everyone, I know it has been a long long time. I have been meaning to send out an update on my whereabouts for the last 3 months, but there was so much to tell I never found the time to tell it, so you can imagine how the cycle went.
So ignoring that we spent a few months in mainland europe staying in hostels, living out of our backpacks, abandoning our daily hygeine routines, the regular backpacker thing, we are now living and working in London, and have also done much travelling about the Isles.
Most recently we spent 1 week each in Scotland and Ireland. In Scotland we started out in Glasgow for two days and one night where we visited the cathedral, which was so huge it was like 5 cathedrals in 1. One of them was called Blacader's Aisle, but all the signs pointing to it said Blackadder's Aisle, so that was funny. That seems to be the only attraction we deliberately visited, as the other highlights of our short stay there were, in keeping with the style of our whole trip really, accidents that we stumbled across. For example, our hostel was a little way out of the city, and we had to hang around there for a few hours early in the morning before we could check in, so we wandered around what we later realised was the nice part of the river (in the city centre it was pretty ugly), and found an old flint mill ruin. Then later we went to the botanical gardens which were pretty standard except there was one section on carnivorous plants and all the ways they trap their prey, and actually it was quite amazing.
From Glasgow we went to Edinburgh where we left on a 5 day tour of the Highlands. We did alot of stuff everyday, so I won't give you a day by day account, but highlights included visiting Culloden battlefield, where the last Jacobite rebellion was annihilated by the British. The morning we went it was very cold, and the whole place was covered in mist, which kind of helped to set the mood for hearing all the stories and seeing all the grave stones. I got totally lost, but luckily Glenn was able to keep his sense of direction and we made it out of there okay. Another highlight was the little cruise we took on Loch Ness, where the captain of the boat showed us some interesting photos and was surprisingly convincing in his stories about creature sightings. The night after that we stayed in a castle which was hard to get good photos of because it was surrounded by forest. Glenn and I tried to follow one of the walking tracks, and this time I got both of us lost, but in the end we found a beautiful, still, isolated loch with fish jumping in it (well, a fish, the rest was just Glenn throwing rocks to trick me), and it was lovely. The castle was supposed to be haunted, but the ghosts were not very mischievous.
We also spent an entire day on the Isle of Skye, where we did everything from stick our faces in the River of Youth and Beauty to climbing one of the Bens (spectacular views were had). The morning we left Glenn and I attempted to visit the ruins of a castle where a Viking Princess (allegedly she used to flash sailors so they wouldn't complain about the tolls) used to live, but we were thwarted by high tide, rain, and slippery rocks.
Returning to Edinburgh, we soaked up some of the Fringe festival atmosphere without actually paying to see a show. We climbed what we thought was Arthur's seat until we got to the top and saw the much bigger real Arthur's seat, so we climbed that too and got some incredible 360 views of Edinburgh and surrounds. Our last night in Scotland we went to the castle to watch the Military Tattoo, which, when described with words is nowhere near as cool as it actually was. As we have grown accustomed to saying alot on our holiday - "Could not wipe the smile off my face". It was basically 2 hours of bagpipes, dancing and marching, with the odd explosion of fireworks, but there was also something in the air. The main legion of tourists there seemed to be from other parts of Scotland and the UK, so there was lots of deep, scottish love about.
We nearly weren't allowed on the ferry to Belfast, because there was something wrong with our tickets (which we still don't really understand). Still, we looked innocent enough so the girl let us on. We arrived in Belfast on a late Sunday afternoon and there was therefore nothing to do. Up until now apart from from the odd bit of rain and mist, Scotland had been quite sunny (we could actually see the summit of Ben Nevis which is only visible 50 days every year), once we hit Belfast the weather turned teary. We still managed a Black cab tour which took us round two of the Protestant and Catholic neighbourhoods, and we saw murals, memorials and the "peace" wall which is the hugest fence I've ever seen, that separates the two areas. The gates used to be closed all the time, but now with the peace talks it's only closed at night.
That same day we took a boat ride around and saw all the places of interest to do with the Titanic and its sister ships. At night, faced again with the fact that everything was closed by 7pm, we sought out a few pubs. One had the most delicious pub food we had had in a while, as well as large statues of politicians. The other we had to be buzzed in by the barman, and inside we were met with a small room chocked full of Elvis memorabilia, and about 5 elderly patrons who got drunk and sang along to old rock and modern dance tunes alike. They spoke to us, but it was difficult to understand their drunken Irish accents. I think one of them asked if I was chinese!?!
We spent the next day getting rained on at the Antrim coast. We visited a rope bridge that fisherman used to use, but it is now tourist-ised so it is not scary or dangerous like it was advertised as being. The line was long but it meant we got to visit a small island for a while. We also visited the gift shop of a whiskey distillery before the main event which was the Giant's Causeway. We arrived there just in time for the rain.
The Causeway is an interesting geological feauture caused millions of years ago by cooling magma. The way that it cracked during the cooling looks like huge paving stones, and they descend in to the sea looking very cool. What is also interesting is that the only other place in the world where this has happened is on the coast of Scotland, so there is obviously a legend associated with it. The legend we were told in Scotland was that an Irish giant built it to go visit his Scottish girlfriend, whereas the Irish version says it was to fight another giant. Either way it was brilliant, and even though we got soaked through our raincoats it was fun and we even risked the longevity of my camera (but actually that got stolen just last weekend so it doesn't really matter anymore) by getting really great photos of it - photos are up on facebook (if you want to see them but are not a member ask me to email you the link), or you can wait until we get home to see it.
We left Northern Ireland the next day for Dublin. We had planned to visit the Western coast of Ireland first and see some of the places where my convict ancestors once lived, but public transport seemed determined to thwart us, so we headed into the Republic, where prices suddenly soared, but we were still glad that we went there anyway, as there was more than enough stuff to do there with our extra days.
We found lots to do in what I suspect is a very touristy but was still very charismatic area of town called Temple Bar. The pubs there were warm and cheery and they all had some form of live music playing every night. From Dublin we took a day out of town to visit Newgrange and Knowth, which are both huge Neolithic earthen monuments made out of stones and earth. Because of time, nature and continued occupation through later time periods, the mounds did not stay untouched for so long, but have been reconstructed. Newgrange is the more famous one, and seemingly more spectacular until the guide tells you that the stone pattern on the face of it is how the archaeologist "thought" it should look based on the amount of stone they found. Knowth was interesting and needed the least amount of reconstruction so was therefore the most authentic. Both mounds had tunnels built in to them to align with various solstices and equinoxes, similar to Stonehenge (which we did visit on the summer solstice, but that's another story). There was also a third monument nearby with a similar kind of thing, but they don't really know much about it because it is being "saved" for future archaeologists.
Back in Dublin, we tried our hand at getting lost once more before the end of our trip. We had bought tickets for the ferry from Dublin to Wales where we would get the train to London. Being as our tickets were virtually identical to our Belfast ones we were a bit worried, but our city map showed the ferry terminal as being quite close to our hostel so off we trundled to check our tickets in advance. 2 hours later we arrived, and the man did not even look at our tickets - just said, "they're fine". We forced him to look and he okayed them, then we found a bus to take us back to the city. It wasted an entire afternoon but the good news was that we now knew that the ferry was not a short walk away, and so the next morning we didn't try walking it with our backpacks on, but caught a cab instead.
We also visited Kilmainham Gaol, famous for its political prisoners, and has been in movies because it is a good example of the panoptican, 'we can see you but you can't see us' approach to correcting undesirable behaviour. It was very educational, and taught us a bit of Irish history but also put it into context because we got to see the cells, and the wall where people were executed. In the museum there they also had a section called "Last Words" which had letters and artefacts from some of the political prisoners that had been executed there. The handwriting of the letters was hard to read, but it was worth the effort to do. It added a lot to imagining what it would have been like in Dublin before the Republic.
I am sure we probably did other things too, but this email is already very long, so I will stop now and sign off. Congratulations if you made it this far in one go, please reward yourself by replying with your own indulgent account of how things have been going down your end. As much fun as it all is, and living in London is pretty neat, I miss home lots so would be good to know what's going on.
Cheers, Liz (and Glenn).
Below is a video of Liz at the Notting Hill carnival.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Email: Berlin-Amsterdam-London
Wow! I haven't written a group email since Berlin! (Our favourite city). Since then we've been to Hannover for a day, Amsterdam for about 5 days and London for a month or so. Not too much has been happening, which is why I haven't written much. Our last days in Berlin were great, we enjoyed it very very much. We saw The Ladybug Transistor play and I recommend their music to everyone, we also saw Adam Green play on our last night there and he was worth staying the extra few days in Berlin for. Very entertaining, but seems like an odd guy.
Amsterdam library was great. I would love to work there, or just live close to it. More dvds than any video shop I've seen, more cds than Polyester Records (though probably not as good, though I did check to see if they had anything great and they actually did). The other highlight of Amsterdam was Anne Frank's house which was very sad and interesting, and there was no huge queue which I'd heard so much about so that was nice. We did a canal tour as well. Overall though we didn't like Amsterdam. It was booked out everywhere due to a special Queen's day thing or something and we had to stay in a hostel in the red light district. We had to walk through it every time we wanted to go somewhere and the novelty wore off fairly quickly. Another favourite time in Amsterdam was when we left! We caught the bus from London which Liz had booked. She had told me we would be driving to a ferry and going across the England on that. It turned out though that there was no ferry, and we drove through Belgium and France and then the tunnel to England. It's not everyday you end up going to a couple of countries you had no idea you'd be visiting when you woke up that day.
We were very excited when we got to London. (Some) People speak English as a first language here!! We stayed in a hostel in Kensall Green for a night while we got in contact with Kate (an old housemate) to organise to stay with her for a bit while we looked for something more permanent. The next day we random went into the city... or looked for the city, we walked near Westminster Abbey and saw a few streets that we recognised from the monopoly board, but didn't really see too much of London.
Since we've been here we haven't really done any tourist things. We've been staying in Acton, and looking for work and a place to live. We eventually found a nice place in Acton, close to Central Acton station, and if you disregard the 2 muggings that have happened to people we know very close to here (one with a gun), then it's a very nice area. It took a bit longer to find work. Liz has a nice job which she starts on Monday and I have been given a temporary (2 weeks) position as a finance officer for Octavia Housing. I've had 2 days "training" though apparently 2 weeks training would have been what the trainer would have preferred. On Monday I'll be on my own, with the person that trained me gone on maternity leave, and no one else there who knows her job very well so it should be interesting to see how I go. Basically my job involves handling invoices and things for 20 charity shops (I work in the "shops" division) and reconciling all the money from all the shops and making sure everything balances. It sounds easy when I fit my job into one sentence but it looked complicated when I was learning all the spreadsheets. My temp agency thinks I must know all about financing because I did well on the excel test I did?!
I will soon put up some photos onto facebook of our new house, and any other London photos I can find. Make sure you check out some of the other albums up there if your interested, I've put on quite a few (and comment on pictures occasionally, I like to know that people have actually been looking at them). If you've missed any of my previous emails you can check them on http://www.glenngreening.blogspot.com/ - and forward this on to anyone that would be interested. If I've missed anything that anyone wants to know, write back to me. If not, write back to me anyway.
Glenn (and Liz, but she's not actually here, she's on her way back from Wales)
Amsterdam library was great. I would love to work there, or just live close to it. More dvds than any video shop I've seen, more cds than Polyester Records (though probably not as good, though I did check to see if they had anything great and they actually did). The other highlight of Amsterdam was Anne Frank's house which was very sad and interesting, and there was no huge queue which I'd heard so much about so that was nice. We did a canal tour as well. Overall though we didn't like Amsterdam. It was booked out everywhere due to a special Queen's day thing or something and we had to stay in a hostel in the red light district. We had to walk through it every time we wanted to go somewhere and the novelty wore off fairly quickly. Another favourite time in Amsterdam was when we left! We caught the bus from London which Liz had booked. She had told me we would be driving to a ferry and going across the England on that. It turned out though that there was no ferry, and we drove through Belgium and France and then the tunnel to England. It's not everyday you end up going to a couple of countries you had no idea you'd be visiting when you woke up that day.
We were very excited when we got to London. (Some) People speak English as a first language here!! We stayed in a hostel in Kensall Green for a night while we got in contact with Kate (an old housemate) to organise to stay with her for a bit while we looked for something more permanent. The next day we random went into the city... or looked for the city, we walked near Westminster Abbey and saw a few streets that we recognised from the monopoly board, but didn't really see too much of London.
Since we've been here we haven't really done any tourist things. We've been staying in Acton, and looking for work and a place to live. We eventually found a nice place in Acton, close to Central Acton station, and if you disregard the 2 muggings that have happened to people we know very close to here (one with a gun), then it's a very nice area. It took a bit longer to find work. Liz has a nice job which she starts on Monday and I have been given a temporary (2 weeks) position as a finance officer for Octavia Housing. I've had 2 days "training" though apparently 2 weeks training would have been what the trainer would have preferred. On Monday I'll be on my own, with the person that trained me gone on maternity leave, and no one else there who knows her job very well so it should be interesting to see how I go. Basically my job involves handling invoices and things for 20 charity shops (I work in the "shops" division) and reconciling all the money from all the shops and making sure everything balances. It sounds easy when I fit my job into one sentence but it looked complicated when I was learning all the spreadsheets. My temp agency thinks I must know all about financing because I did well on the excel test I did?!
I will soon put up some photos onto facebook of our new house, and any other London photos I can find. Make sure you check out some of the other albums up there if your interested, I've put on quite a few (and comment on pictures occasionally, I like to know that people have actually been looking at them). If you've missed any of my previous emails you can check them on http://www.glenngreening.blogspot.com/ - and forward this on to anyone that would be interested. If I've missed anything that anyone wants to know, write back to me. If not, write back to me anyway.
Glenn (and Liz, but she's not actually here, she's on her way back from Wales)
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Email - Prague-Krakow-Berlin
So it's been a while since I've sent out a group email. Sorry about that. We've been a little busy travelling about and having adventures. The last time I wrote I think was from Vienna. Since then we have spent a bit of time in Prague, went up to Poland for almost a week, back to Prague for a couple of days, and then to Berlin. We have been in Berlin for 8 days now and we leave to go to Amsterdam on Wednesday. We had to stay here a bit longer becausr there are some good bands playing here soon that we didn't want to miss. The Ladybug Transistor is playing tomorrow (Sunday) night, and Adam Green on Tuesday night. We then have booked 5 nights in Amsterdam in a pretty dodgey sounding place (everything else was booked) and then we head either to London to find a job, or maybe to Scotland if we haven't gone through too much money.
We found Prague a little boring, but we stayed there for a while. The highlight was probably when we went to vist the bone church at Kutna Hora. That was pretty amazing. If you're not on facebook and want to see the photos then let me know and I'll send you the link. We wandered around a lot and visited the castle and the astronomical clock and Charles Bridge. Charles Bridge would have been nice if it wasn't packed with tourists and people selling stuff to tourists. There was usually an entertaining band playing there though. Everything was old and pretty but I got over it after a couple of days.It was ok but not too exciting. We didn't go out much at night because we always were a bit tired. Towards the end of our time there we went out a little bit but didn't do anything to exciting. The people in Prague weren't as nice as the people in Vienna and they often tried to overcharge us at restaurants. It got quite annoying after a while. We have a lot of photos though. Oh and we managed to find the library which was nice.
We caught the overnight train to Krakow (after Liz dealt with very annoying, rude, unhelpful staff at the train station). We couldn't really read our tickets, and didn't know what we were doing, but we somehow managed to find our way to the right train. I woke up as we were approaching Krakow (and about 4 or 5 times in the hours before that) and loved Poland straight away. It was freezing cold, it was about 7am, and we were walking with heavy backpacks not really sure where we were going, but we found our hostel thanks to Liz's detailed directions she had written and then went to explore. The people in Krakow were much nicer than in Prague, and the hostel we stayed at was one of the best so far. We met a couple of English guys (from Doncaster) and went out with them a couple of times. We looked at the castle and wandered around the city looking for food and toilets. We went to Auschwitz which was an interesting experience (and the reason I wanted to go to Krakow in the first place) and I took lots of great photos but I haven't been able to upload them. I learnt a lot that I didn't already know from movies, and I can't believe that there are people that survived staying there at all. I also can't get my head around how it ever happened at all... I didn't know that 80-90% of every train load of people that arrived there were sent to the showers as soon as they arrived. It's also unbelievable when you see how big it is... Anyway, we also went to the salt mines which was quite interesting. I got some good photos there as well. It goes down a couple of hundred metres and there was a restaurant at the bottom which was a big room that had been carved out of the salt. I ate some food there and later was very sick because of it. I have a feeling it had been sitting there a while before they served it to me, it wasn't very nice. We also went to the archaeology museum which was interesting. Liz loves looking at stone tools, and we went to see a movie (Vantage Point) which wasn't too bad, it was nice to hear some english being spoken for a change.
After Krakow we went back to Prague for 2 days and then we went to Berlin. Berlin has been great. We originally only booked 4 nights but we're now up to 8 and staying for a few more. There is so much to do here, and we've finally been staying up late and actually going out at night. We met a couple of guys at the first hostel we stayed at who run the alternative berlin tour. We went on that and it was fairly interesting. We saw a lot of stuff that we would never have known about. They take you to the places that tourists don't know about, and probably wouldn't know about without this tour. They took us to a market, to an art gallery which was really good, and we looked at the closed off side of the berlin wall. We had to climb under a gate to get out. They sometimes go places that you're not exactly allowed to go. They also had a lot of interesting stories to tell about the city of Berlin. The next night we went on a pub crawl which was ok. We went to 5 places and got home at about 5am. We did a proper Berlin tour as well and it was great (and free!) All the places we have been recommended to go out to at night are for music that we don't like with thumping techno music or whatever but we managed to find a nice place that plays great music called Bang Bang Club. We went there the other night to see some UK bands and it was great. After not seeing live music in so long it was great to hear some really good loud music. We had a really fun night. It's a bit strange over here though because places don't open till about 10pm and the first band (of 3!) doesn't even start playing till 11:30!! So it ended up being a late night. But a very fun night. Last night we went and saw a movie called the Savages which was a bit depressing and we didn't really feel like going out after. It was after 10 when the movie finished but Bang Bang didn't open till 11pm last night so we just went home and read for a bit and then slept. We're staying at a terrible hostel at the moment (we had to change hostels when we extended our stay), you'd think it would be a great hostel since it is situated directly between a library and a record store but it's not. It really is a terrible place. It's very big, and full of big groups of kids who are annoying, loud, play terrible music, and always running between each others rooms. We're not there much though so I guess it's not that bad.
We've been missing a lot of the news these days as well. We're not sure what's really going on in the world. If there's anything interesting happening please let us know. Everything that happens over here happens in German. We stumbled accross a protest of some sort today with a lot of people waving Chinese flags about and chanting things but we weren't really sure what was going on. It seemed to be an opposite of a free tibet thing, very strange. We always seem to be in the right place at the right time in Berlin, everyday we find something happening. We find markets and events and various things happening with big crowds of people. There's always something happening. Beer is very cheap here. 1 euro gets you one bottle of becks.
I guess I better end this email. I can't think of what else we've done but I'm sure there's more. Hopefully it won't take me as long to write another email to you all. Hope everyone is doing great and hope to hear from you all soon. I'm not to homesick yet but I do sometimes miss working at the library, and I miss watching a dvd (or anything in english) I also miss just being able to walk up to people and speak English and know they understand me.
Please forward this to anyone I've missed or anyone else that's interested. I've only sent this to a few of you at the library so please forward it on.
Glenn
We found Prague a little boring, but we stayed there for a while. The highlight was probably when we went to vist the bone church at Kutna Hora. That was pretty amazing. If you're not on facebook and want to see the photos then let me know and I'll send you the link. We wandered around a lot and visited the castle and the astronomical clock and Charles Bridge. Charles Bridge would have been nice if it wasn't packed with tourists and people selling stuff to tourists. There was usually an entertaining band playing there though. Everything was old and pretty but I got over it after a couple of days.It was ok but not too exciting. We didn't go out much at night because we always were a bit tired. Towards the end of our time there we went out a little bit but didn't do anything to exciting. The people in Prague weren't as nice as the people in Vienna and they often tried to overcharge us at restaurants. It got quite annoying after a while. We have a lot of photos though. Oh and we managed to find the library which was nice.
We caught the overnight train to Krakow (after Liz dealt with very annoying, rude, unhelpful staff at the train station). We couldn't really read our tickets, and didn't know what we were doing, but we somehow managed to find our way to the right train. I woke up as we were approaching Krakow (and about 4 or 5 times in the hours before that) and loved Poland straight away. It was freezing cold, it was about 7am, and we were walking with heavy backpacks not really sure where we were going, but we found our hostel thanks to Liz's detailed directions she had written and then went to explore. The people in Krakow were much nicer than in Prague, and the hostel we stayed at was one of the best so far. We met a couple of English guys (from Doncaster) and went out with them a couple of times. We looked at the castle and wandered around the city looking for food and toilets. We went to Auschwitz which was an interesting experience (and the reason I wanted to go to Krakow in the first place) and I took lots of great photos but I haven't been able to upload them. I learnt a lot that I didn't already know from movies, and I can't believe that there are people that survived staying there at all. I also can't get my head around how it ever happened at all... I didn't know that 80-90% of every train load of people that arrived there were sent to the showers as soon as they arrived. It's also unbelievable when you see how big it is... Anyway, we also went to the salt mines which was quite interesting. I got some good photos there as well. It goes down a couple of hundred metres and there was a restaurant at the bottom which was a big room that had been carved out of the salt. I ate some food there and later was very sick because of it. I have a feeling it had been sitting there a while before they served it to me, it wasn't very nice. We also went to the archaeology museum which was interesting. Liz loves looking at stone tools, and we went to see a movie (Vantage Point) which wasn't too bad, it was nice to hear some english being spoken for a change.
After Krakow we went back to Prague for 2 days and then we went to Berlin. Berlin has been great. We originally only booked 4 nights but we're now up to 8 and staying for a few more. There is so much to do here, and we've finally been staying up late and actually going out at night. We met a couple of guys at the first hostel we stayed at who run the alternative berlin tour. We went on that and it was fairly interesting. We saw a lot of stuff that we would never have known about. They take you to the places that tourists don't know about, and probably wouldn't know about without this tour. They took us to a market, to an art gallery which was really good, and we looked at the closed off side of the berlin wall. We had to climb under a gate to get out. They sometimes go places that you're not exactly allowed to go. They also had a lot of interesting stories to tell about the city of Berlin. The next night we went on a pub crawl which was ok. We went to 5 places and got home at about 5am. We did a proper Berlin tour as well and it was great (and free!) All the places we have been recommended to go out to at night are for music that we don't like with thumping techno music or whatever but we managed to find a nice place that plays great music called Bang Bang Club. We went there the other night to see some UK bands and it was great. After not seeing live music in so long it was great to hear some really good loud music. We had a really fun night. It's a bit strange over here though because places don't open till about 10pm and the first band (of 3!) doesn't even start playing till 11:30!! So it ended up being a late night. But a very fun night. Last night we went and saw a movie called the Savages which was a bit depressing and we didn't really feel like going out after. It was after 10 when the movie finished but Bang Bang didn't open till 11pm last night so we just went home and read for a bit and then slept. We're staying at a terrible hostel at the moment (we had to change hostels when we extended our stay), you'd think it would be a great hostel since it is situated directly between a library and a record store but it's not. It really is a terrible place. It's very big, and full of big groups of kids who are annoying, loud, play terrible music, and always running between each others rooms. We're not there much though so I guess it's not that bad.
We've been missing a lot of the news these days as well. We're not sure what's really going on in the world. If there's anything interesting happening please let us know. Everything that happens over here happens in German. We stumbled accross a protest of some sort today with a lot of people waving Chinese flags about and chanting things but we weren't really sure what was going on. It seemed to be an opposite of a free tibet thing, very strange. We always seem to be in the right place at the right time in Berlin, everyday we find something happening. We find markets and events and various things happening with big crowds of people. There's always something happening. Beer is very cheap here. 1 euro gets you one bottle of becks.
I guess I better end this email. I can't think of what else we've done but I'm sure there's more. Hopefully it won't take me as long to write another email to you all. Hope everyone is doing great and hope to hear from you all soon. I'm not to homesick yet but I do sometimes miss working at the library, and I miss watching a dvd (or anything in english) I also miss just being able to walk up to people and speak English and know they understand me.
Please forward this to anyone I've missed or anyone else that's interested. I've only sent this to a few of you at the library so please forward it on.
Glenn
Email from March 23 - Vienna
sorry it's been so long between emails. There#s not really any net cafes in the sahara desert. Since I last wrote we've been on a 12 day tour around egypt. Starting with the pyramids. We would have liked to have a bit longer there cos they were quite interesting and liz was slowing things down by stopping every few steps to pick up rocks and examine them. Apparently they were, or used to be stone tools... at least that's what they looked like. We then went to the a papyrus museum which was a bit boring, then to the cairo museum where we could look at all of tutankamen's goodies. He had a lot of stuff, it would be interested to know how much stuff a pharoah that ruled for more than 10 years would have been buried with.
Next was the overnight train down to Aswan. Apparently the toilets on the train were the worst ever but fortunatly I didn't feel the need to go and look at them. We didn't sleep much on the overnight train. It's hard to remember all that we did because i don't have the itinerary here with me but we basically did all the tourist stuff, looked at way too many temples, went on a felucca for a nubian dinner and party which was a lot of fun, shopped in the bazaar which was quite frustrating after a while. The first time we went we just wanted to look and not buy anything. A guy offered up 2 outfits for 300 egyptian pounds. we didn't want them, we were ust looking and would buy something tomorrow, but then he said "ok ok ok.... 290 pounds" we would say we were just looking but thanks anyway" then he would say "ok ok ok, since you are very nice people i'll give them to you for special price 280" again we said no but he kept going down by 10 pounds. when he was around 200 pounds i said "you could tell us 10 pounds and i'll still say no, we're not buying anything today" but he wouldn't listen. He ended up going down to 70 pounds. We still didn't buy, but we had a good idea of what price to look for the next day.
We went on a 3 day cruise down the Nile which was a highlight of the trip. Beer and a pool with the occassional trip to a temple or two, it was a fun time. We also rode on donkeys to the valley of the kings from the nile (those photos are uploading onto my facebook right now), and we went in a hot air balloon over the valley of the kings, which was another highlight. We went out into the sahara for 5 days. The 12 of us went it 3 jeeps and camped under the stars for 3 night and stayed in a terrible "reed hut" that was made of concrete or something - probably the worst nights sleep i've ever had. But the desert camping was so so great. We all loved it and would go back without hesitation. We occassionally had police escorts which seemed strange and unnecessary. I thought the food was a bit average during the desert trip as well. We swam in a natural well and it was one of the strangest feelings I#ve had It was just water down to about the waist and after that it was like "swimming in wizz fizz" as one person described it. There was no ground, or bottom to it, but you couldn´t sink cos bubbles and air kept pushing you up... Actually, bubbles and air are probably the same thing so just ignore my stupidity in that last sentence. You could just into it from the high ledge and it went deep but pushed you straight back up. We all turned orange from that swim, it was quite funny. We also rode on camels for an hour to get to a campsite and probably did other fun stuff as well.
Getting back to Cairo was a bit sad cos we were back in traffic and bad smells but the hotel we thought was a dump at the beginning of the tour suddenly seemed very nice and i got to have my first proper shower in about 6 days.Some of the showers during the tour were like standing under a dripping tap.
And so now we're in Vienna. We had no accomodation planned cos it's supposedly only busy in the summer months. No one told us we'd be arriving the night before easter sunday though. We managed to book into one place for the night but were spending more than we would have liked. The next day we found a nice hostel but it was a bit out of town, we had to go to the end of the train/underground line and then on the bus. But it#s a good hostel and worth it when this morning we woke up to about 10 cm of snow on the ground!! I was quite shocked. I opened the curtain to check if the sky was blue and was pleasantly sueprised to see snow everywhere! Vienna is really easy to get around and we haven't had too many problems with the language yet. Just a couple of tiny ones. We haven#t really done anything exciting yet. Everything was closed yesterday (Easter sunday) and today as well. Highlight here so far was probably the snow this morning. If I don't run out of time i'll stick some photos of vienna up on facebook.
Glenn (and Liz but she's not actually here at the moment)
Next was the overnight train down to Aswan. Apparently the toilets on the train were the worst ever but fortunatly I didn't feel the need to go and look at them. We didn't sleep much on the overnight train. It's hard to remember all that we did because i don't have the itinerary here with me but we basically did all the tourist stuff, looked at way too many temples, went on a felucca for a nubian dinner and party which was a lot of fun, shopped in the bazaar which was quite frustrating after a while. The first time we went we just wanted to look and not buy anything. A guy offered up 2 outfits for 300 egyptian pounds. we didn't want them, we were ust looking and would buy something tomorrow, but then he said "ok ok ok.... 290 pounds" we would say we were just looking but thanks anyway" then he would say "ok ok ok, since you are very nice people i'll give them to you for special price 280" again we said no but he kept going down by 10 pounds. when he was around 200 pounds i said "you could tell us 10 pounds and i'll still say no, we're not buying anything today" but he wouldn't listen. He ended up going down to 70 pounds. We still didn't buy, but we had a good idea of what price to look for the next day.
We went on a 3 day cruise down the Nile which was a highlight of the trip. Beer and a pool with the occassional trip to a temple or two, it was a fun time. We also rode on donkeys to the valley of the kings from the nile (those photos are uploading onto my facebook right now), and we went in a hot air balloon over the valley of the kings, which was another highlight. We went out into the sahara for 5 days. The 12 of us went it 3 jeeps and camped under the stars for 3 night and stayed in a terrible "reed hut" that was made of concrete or something - probably the worst nights sleep i've ever had. But the desert camping was so so great. We all loved it and would go back without hesitation. We occassionally had police escorts which seemed strange and unnecessary. I thought the food was a bit average during the desert trip as well. We swam in a natural well and it was one of the strangest feelings I#ve had It was just water down to about the waist and after that it was like "swimming in wizz fizz" as one person described it. There was no ground, or bottom to it, but you couldn´t sink cos bubbles and air kept pushing you up... Actually, bubbles and air are probably the same thing so just ignore my stupidity in that last sentence. You could just into it from the high ledge and it went deep but pushed you straight back up. We all turned orange from that swim, it was quite funny. We also rode on camels for an hour to get to a campsite and probably did other fun stuff as well.
Getting back to Cairo was a bit sad cos we were back in traffic and bad smells but the hotel we thought was a dump at the beginning of the tour suddenly seemed very nice and i got to have my first proper shower in about 6 days.Some of the showers during the tour were like standing under a dripping tap.
And so now we're in Vienna. We had no accomodation planned cos it's supposedly only busy in the summer months. No one told us we'd be arriving the night before easter sunday though. We managed to book into one place for the night but were spending more than we would have liked. The next day we found a nice hostel but it was a bit out of town, we had to go to the end of the train/underground line and then on the bus. But it#s a good hostel and worth it when this morning we woke up to about 10 cm of snow on the ground!! I was quite shocked. I opened the curtain to check if the sky was blue and was pleasantly sueprised to see snow everywhere! Vienna is really easy to get around and we haven't had too many problems with the language yet. Just a couple of tiny ones. We haven#t really done anything exciting yet. Everything was closed yesterday (Easter sunday) and today as well. Highlight here so far was probably the snow this morning. If I don't run out of time i'll stick some photos of vienna up on facebook.
Glenn (and Liz but she's not actually here at the moment)
Email from March 11 - Cairo
Hi everyone.
Thought i'd send out a quick update about where i am and what i'm doing.
We're in Cairo and have just found an internet cafe close to where we are staying. The flight over was long 7.5 plus 10.5 with a 2 hour break in singapore. I watched 2 days in paris on the plane which made me not want to go to paris so much. Singapore airport was really nice and we would have liked to stay there longer and visit the actual city. The second flight was terrible because i wasn't able to put my seat back cos the guy behind me didn't like it. It was uncomfortable and hard to sleep.
When we got to egypt we were rushed here and there. i changed some money to egyptian pounds and then we were driven to our hotel through the craziest traffic i've ever seen (am used to it now though). We went straight to bed but it was hard to sleep after all the excitement. We only got 5 hours cos we had to get up to go to alexandria. We visited all the sights there with a tour guide and the next day we were on our own. We caught a tram to the fort which is where the light house used to be and walked around there taking photos. We had a policeman give us a tour. Saw lots of interesting things, we got a horse and his driver to take us to the library next which was very big and nice. I have a lot of photos of everything which i will get up somewhere soon. We then found a nice "expensive" restaurant and had a great meal. It's hard to find a good place to eat here, everything is so dirty and doesn't look healthy but the meal last night was great.
Today we come back to Cairo and went to look for food and met a local guy who spoke good english so we got him to take us to a nice place for lunch. we had a popular local meal then he took us to his cafe for egyptian tea. he was very nice and liked us cos it helped him practice his english. He then took us to his cousins shop who tried to sell us art, then his brothers shop who tried to sell us perfume. He was very nice though and we weren't bothered again and again when we said no to things. Unlike the taxi drivers and various others who don't give up on trying to take us places. It can get annoying and tiring. Better send this now because i don't have much more time here. Feel free to reply if you like. Not home sick yet though so not too bothered if you don't.
Glenn
Thought i'd send out a quick update about where i am and what i'm doing.
We're in Cairo and have just found an internet cafe close to where we are staying. The flight over was long 7.5 plus 10.5 with a 2 hour break in singapore. I watched 2 days in paris on the plane which made me not want to go to paris so much. Singapore airport was really nice and we would have liked to stay there longer and visit the actual city. The second flight was terrible because i wasn't able to put my seat back cos the guy behind me didn't like it. It was uncomfortable and hard to sleep.
When we got to egypt we were rushed here and there. i changed some money to egyptian pounds and then we were driven to our hotel through the craziest traffic i've ever seen (am used to it now though). We went straight to bed but it was hard to sleep after all the excitement. We only got 5 hours cos we had to get up to go to alexandria. We visited all the sights there with a tour guide and the next day we were on our own. We caught a tram to the fort which is where the light house used to be and walked around there taking photos. We had a policeman give us a tour. Saw lots of interesting things, we got a horse and his driver to take us to the library next which was very big and nice. I have a lot of photos of everything which i will get up somewhere soon. We then found a nice "expensive" restaurant and had a great meal. It's hard to find a good place to eat here, everything is so dirty and doesn't look healthy but the meal last night was great.
Today we come back to Cairo and went to look for food and met a local guy who spoke good english so we got him to take us to a nice place for lunch. we had a popular local meal then he took us to his cafe for egyptian tea. he was very nice and liked us cos it helped him practice his english. He then took us to his cousins shop who tried to sell us art, then his brothers shop who tried to sell us perfume. He was very nice though and we weren't bothered again and again when we said no to things. Unlike the taxi drivers and various others who don't give up on trying to take us places. It can get annoying and tiring. Better send this now because i don't have much more time here. Feel free to reply if you like. Not home sick yet though so not too bothered if you don't.
Glenn
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Travel Blog No. 1 - Our Plans
So now that the learning 2.0 stuff is over this blog is now my travel blog. This is my first entry as a travel blog. We don't leave for 52 days and 22 hours. Let's just say 53 days... less than 2 months. Anyway, I thought I'd make this first entry about what our plans are and how they are going so far.
We leave on March 8th and fly to Singapore. We stop there for 2 or 3 hours and then fly to Egypt (Cairo). We'll be flying Singapore Airlines. There is only a few hours we have to wait at Singapore Airport so hopefully the flight from Melbourne isn't delayed too much. There are not many flights to Egypt and if we were to miss the connecting flight then we would miss the start of the tour we have booked in Egypt. We arrive in Egypt close to midnight, and will have someone waiting for us there to take us to our hotel (Hotel Pharaoh). We will then sleep and spend the next day wandering around Cairo and having no idea about anything, should be fun. Apparently Cairo has a population of about 16 million, a bit more than what I'm used to. Later that day we will meet up with our tour guide and will spend the night again at Hotel Pharaoh then head off to Alexandria the next morning. In Alexandria we plan to visit the library, and Liz wants to swim in the Mediterranean so we may do that as well. I'm sure we'll also find some other stuff to do. We stay there the night and head back to Cairo the next day.
After another night in Cairo our big adventure begins, starting with looking at places around Cairo and visiting pyramids and whatnot. That night we catch the overnight train to Aswan. In Aswan we do some more stuff, go on a boat, and a camel. The next day we go to Abu Simbel and check out our Nile cruise boat. The next few days we cruise up the Nile, stopping at places of interest and generally enjoying ourselves. Day 7 we ride some donkeys into the valley of the kings as the sun rises. Apparently it's a very nice experience, not sure how comfortable it is to ride a donkey though. Hopefully it won't be too hard to steer them. At the end of the day we head off to Baris and spend the night sleeping under the stars. The next day we do more stuff, see more stuff, travel further into the desert and spend the night in some reed huts! The next few days we do more stuff, travel through the desert some more and get back to Cairo at the end of day 11. We have one more night there and then we have a flight to Austria!!
We arrive in Vienna on the 22nd of March at 7pm. And that's all we've planned so far. We have no accommodation yet for Vienna. No idea about anything there really. I know Billy Joel has a song called Vienna though. Hopefully things will sort themselves out. We plan to buy a Eurail pass thingy which will allow us to travel about for a bit. We intend to go to Prague from Vienna and relax there for a bit and then we have no concrete plans. We'll travel west until we get to London. Then we'll find somewhere to stay for the next few months and work and earn money so we can afford to get to Africa before we come home. Liz is going to Africa a month or so before I do because she has an archaeology dig to work on. Once she's finished that then I'll go meet her and we'll probably have a tour around East/South Africa and see lions and things. Then we'll either stay in South Africa for a little bit before coming home or not, depending on our money situation I guess. So that's our plans... we don't even have a uk visa yet though. We sent the application (which cost $500) on Tuesday and hopefully we'll hear back from them soon.
Feel free to leave a comment below. Any travel tips or info that would be of help to us. Or anything interesting at all. I'll write again soon when I have something new to say, or perhaps when I have nothing new at all to say. If you're interested in our trip then check back here occasionally. I'll try and update it as much as I can. Thanks for reading.
We leave on March 8th and fly to Singapore. We stop there for 2 or 3 hours and then fly to Egypt (Cairo). We'll be flying Singapore Airlines. There is only a few hours we have to wait at Singapore Airport so hopefully the flight from Melbourne isn't delayed too much. There are not many flights to Egypt and if we were to miss the connecting flight then we would miss the start of the tour we have booked in Egypt. We arrive in Egypt close to midnight, and will have someone waiting for us there to take us to our hotel (Hotel Pharaoh). We will then sleep and spend the next day wandering around Cairo and having no idea about anything, should be fun. Apparently Cairo has a population of about 16 million, a bit more than what I'm used to. Later that day we will meet up with our tour guide and will spend the night again at Hotel Pharaoh then head off to Alexandria the next morning. In Alexandria we plan to visit the library, and Liz wants to swim in the Mediterranean so we may do that as well. I'm sure we'll also find some other stuff to do. We stay there the night and head back to Cairo the next day.
After another night in Cairo our big adventure begins, starting with looking at places around Cairo and visiting pyramids and whatnot. That night we catch the overnight train to Aswan. In Aswan we do some more stuff, go on a boat, and a camel. The next day we go to Abu Simbel and check out our Nile cruise boat. The next few days we cruise up the Nile, stopping at places of interest and generally enjoying ourselves. Day 7 we ride some donkeys into the valley of the kings as the sun rises. Apparently it's a very nice experience, not sure how comfortable it is to ride a donkey though. Hopefully it won't be too hard to steer them. At the end of the day we head off to Baris and spend the night sleeping under the stars. The next day we do more stuff, see more stuff, travel further into the desert and spend the night in some reed huts! The next few days we do more stuff, travel through the desert some more and get back to Cairo at the end of day 11. We have one more night there and then we have a flight to Austria!!
We arrive in Vienna on the 22nd of March at 7pm. And that's all we've planned so far. We have no accommodation yet for Vienna. No idea about anything there really. I know Billy Joel has a song called Vienna though. Hopefully things will sort themselves out. We plan to buy a Eurail pass thingy which will allow us to travel about for a bit. We intend to go to Prague from Vienna and relax there for a bit and then we have no concrete plans. We'll travel west until we get to London. Then we'll find somewhere to stay for the next few months and work and earn money so we can afford to get to Africa before we come home. Liz is going to Africa a month or so before I do because she has an archaeology dig to work on. Once she's finished that then I'll go meet her and we'll probably have a tour around East/South Africa and see lions and things. Then we'll either stay in South Africa for a little bit before coming home or not, depending on our money situation I guess. So that's our plans... we don't even have a uk visa yet though. We sent the application (which cost $500) on Tuesday and hopefully we'll hear back from them soon.
Feel free to leave a comment below. Any travel tips or info that would be of help to us. Or anything interesting at all. I'll write again soon when I have something new to say, or perhaps when I have nothing new at all to say. If you're interested in our trip then check back here occasionally. I'll try and update it as much as I can. Thanks for reading.
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