Edinburgh and Oban

I'm now back in Canada, and have been putting off finishing this for too long.

Back to Edinburgh after our trip, Gillian immersed herself in her studies while I slept for days and watched a lot of tv, attempting to get over my illness. By Saturday I was feeling okay, and bored of sleeping all week, so we joined Rory and Isla and went off to a party. You know a party is good when you are hanging out with 19 and 20 year olds, and they feel old.

Sunday we cooked our £4 chicken and had a delicious feast before heading out to see Duncan's band, Crow Road, play at Maggie's Chamber. It has been forever since I have been to a gig and it brought me back to my highschool days. And they are actually really good!


On Monday I took the train to Oban, to meet my Dads relatives, Jane and Colin. I spent all week there, reading, eating fantastic food and sleeping a lot. Oban is absolutely beautiful.. a touristy getaway in northern Scotland. My dad described it as the Banff of Scotland, and he was pretty spot-on.

The Atlantic from Colin and Jane's house

Friday night I headed back to Edinburgh, with one day to spare before going to Manchester for my $49 flight back to Canada on Sunday.


Gill and I wandered around Edinburgh on Saturday, trying to pick up some last minute souvenirs before going on a ghost tour. Since I don't believe in ghosts, it was more of a tour of the underground city of Edinburgh. 

The tunnels of Edinburgh

Which in itself is still pretty cool. I was really surprised that out of our group of over 20 people, there was only about 3 people who didn't believe in ghosts. 


We cooked some shephards pie for dinner before heading to Potterrow. Apparently the way you go to this bar is by lining up at 9, getting a wristband and a stamp, then going to the bar nextdoor for cheap drinks until everyone is drunk enough to dance. Seriously everybody turned around the minute they got in the door to get their stamps. Bizzare. 

Potterrow.

We got home at 4:30, just enough time for me to pack the rest of my things, and get in a taxi to the bus station to catch my 5:10 bus to Manchester. 


The 5 hour bus was terrible, as I couldn't find my pillow before I left, and had put my bag with everything I could have used as a pillow in it, under the bus. I managed to drunkenly pass out with my head on the window for a bit during the ride, and everytime we turned or stopped I would curse buses and wished there was a train that I could have taken. At 10:30 I arrived in Manchester  and I was starting to feel hungover and disgusting as I didn't wash my face or brush my teeth before leaving Edinburgh. So there I was, some random bus station in Manchester where it was raining cats and dogs, and I had only 4 hours until my flight took off. After finally finding some directions I waited for the tram that would take me to the train station to find a train that I could take to get to the airport. After about 20 minutes of waiting for the tram I really started to panic that I would miss my flight. I had forgotten it was Sunday and transit is shit on Sundays. 

At the train station I got a ticket to the airport, and got on a proper train, with no idea how long the train ride would be. Half an hour later, we arrived at the airport, and I am really starting to freak out since I now only have about a half an hour before check in closes. Getting from the train station part of the airport to my actual terminal was terrible too, for some reason they only have elevators to get there. Why no stairs?! So everybody from the train is trying to squeeze into the elevators with their suitcases and since there were so many people everyone assumed someone else would press the buttons and uugh, it was just terrible and all I wanted to do was eat some food and brush my teeth. 


To make a long story shorter, my flight was delayed and I made my flight. After an hour and a half wait to get through customs in Calgary I was finally reunited with my folks and happy to be home. 


And for the wrap up I'll just say that the trip was unbelievably awesome and it was really sad to leave Edinburgh. Thanks to Duncan, Rory, James and especially Gillian for letting me stay with you for so long.

One Night in Paris

We arrived bright and early in Paris off the night train from Munich. Stocking up on medicine and chocolate croissants we hit the metro to our hotel. Unfortunately we couldn't check in (or shower) so we dropped our bags, changed and went off to see the city.


Our first order of business was the Eiffel Tower. You can't go to Paris and not go up it right?

Eiffel Tower

We walked a million stairs up to the second level to avoid waiting in the ridiculous lineup for the elevator. After some confusion on the second level, we finally got into the right lineup and got on the elevator for the top. There were some signs warning us of 'possible congestion at top' but getting off the elevator at the top was ridiculous. There was no room to stand inside and everyone is trying to get outside, but that is full too and its just an insane amount of people in a tiny area. Not to mention my newfound dislike for heights.

We looked around the city, got our typical tourist photo at the top and then waited in another line for a half hour or so until we could get back down.

Our lame self portrait at the top.

While in line they had the distances from the Eiffel Tower to most major cities. Although they did not have Calgary, they did have Tirana! This is for you Linda!

Distance from the Eiffel Tower

Back at the bottom we decided to sit on the grass for awhile and just chill out before heading to Notre Dame.

Another typical tourist photo!

Pleasantly surprised that entrance the the Notre Dame Cathedral was free, we wandered with the masses through the beautiful cathedral.

Notre Dame Cathedral

From the cathedral we wandered over to The Louvre. We didn't have nearly enough time to go in, and I wouldn't call myself a huge art fan, so we just sat in the courtyard.

Pyramids at The Louvre

We wandered around the nearby gardens for a bit before going back to the hotel. We were happy that we ended up in a two person room with private bath after booking a 10 person shared dorm.


Dinner was entertaining... being from Canada people expect us to know French, but we definitely don't. But what we do know is most foods, having the french words written all over the packaging. So we ordered a pizza assuming what we knew was on it, but there was one that I didn't know, and one that I read wrong (fever must have got to my head) but we ended up with a pizza that had baby pickles and slices of potatoes on it. Really bizzare if you ask me. And I don't like pickles.

Fortunately (or unfortunately), I was feeling sick so didn't have much of an appetite anyway. We chatted with a nice American guy for awhile, bought the most expensive lemon ever, and then headed back to the hotel to pack. We payed for an extra bag since we were pretty sure we were each carrying around more than 10kilos and so we spent the evening trying to guess how much each bag weighed.

After the worst night's sleep possible we got up at 5 to begin the journey to the airport. Now I have no idea why this airport is even called a Paris airport, because it took us 40 minutes by metro to get to this bus station, where we boarded this Ryanair bus to take us to the airport. An hour and a half later, we are at the airport. That's like flying out of friggen Red Deer and calling it a Calgary airport! But when our flights cost us next to nothing (Gillian got her flight for £1.99, and I got mine for £11.99!) you can't really complain. We got our bags weighed, and both bags were pretty much exactly, but not over, what they were required to be. Our flight was then delayed due to the fog, but eventually we made it back to Edinburgh where I immediately crashed and slept the next few days away.

Fussen

We headed to Fussen to check out some castles after Oktoberfest. Arriving in Fussen late at night, the place felt very much like Banff, or some other fancy ski resort town, due to the massive amounts of fancy hotels and cafes. We found our hostel, which was a really old house turned into a hostel. The keys were massive and fancy, and the doors on the bathrooms had to be locked using similar massive keys. Our bunkmates were already in bed by the time we arrive (at 9:20) and I was so relieved, as I was sick and tired and as soon as I lay down I fell asleep. 

We ate a quick breakfast at the only place open in town on a Sunday and then grabbed a bus to take us to the Neuschwanstein and Hohenschwangau castles. We first visited the Hohenschwangau Castle, which was the childhood home of King Ludwig II of Bavaria. The map said it would take us 20 minutes to walk up to the castle from the town, and since our entry time was just 20 minutes from when we bought our tickets, we hurried up the hill, arriving at the castle out of breath and sweaty, no more than 5 minutes later. 

Hohenschwangau Castle, taken from Neuschwanstein

Unfortunately the castles can only been seen on a tour, so we were forced to follow around 40 other tourists through the castles. The castles are quite exquisite, with no bare walls, and all sorts of fancy artifacts. Unfortunately they don't let you take photos in the castles.

Hohenschwangau Castle

 

 

 

 

From there we walked to the Neuschwanstein Castle, which took only 15 minutes instead of the recommended 40. We lurked at the gift shops to waste time until our tour time, and bought a bratwurst that had ketchup on it that tasted like tikka masala. 


The Neuschwanstein Castle is often referred to as the Walt Disney Castle, since it is the inspiration for most of Walt Disney's Castles. It is also a lot easier to pronounce. The Hohenschwangau is sometimes referred to as 'the yellow castle' since it is also impossible for us foreigners to pronounce. 

Neuschwanstein Castle

The Neuschwanstein Castle was built as a fantasy castle by King Ludwig II of Bavaria, which was built in honour of Richard Wagner, a German composer known best for his many Operas. Each room in the castle is designed with a different one of Wagners Operas in mind, including one room that is built like a dingy old cave. The Castle is weird because work on it was stopped when the King died, so there are many many of the rooms (15 of the 200) unfinished. The Castle was opened to the public only 2 weeks after the Kings deaths to help pay off his debts. 

The main entry to the castle

After visiting the castles we made it back with no time to spare before catching our train back to Munich.


We had a 3 hour layover in the Munich train station before boarding our overnight train to Paris. If you have 3 hours to spend waiting for a train, there is no where better to spend it than the main train station in Munich on one of the evenings of the first weekend of the 200th anniversary of Oktoberfest. People-watching has never been more entertaining.

Oktoberfest - 200th Anniversary Edition

We took the 8:02 from Amsterdam to Munich, arriving in Munich just after 5pm. It is amazing how much I like trains. Spending 9 hours on a train is really relaxing.. I get to listen to my iPod, read Harry Potter and periodically take naps. After a few busy days in Amsterdam it felt really good to do nothing all day.

Arriving in Munich, we grabbed the tram to The Tent, our accommodation for the next couple of days. Due to over 6 million people flooding to Munich for Oktoberfest, it is near impossible to find anywhere to stay for under 100 Euros a night, so we found this campground where you can sleep on the floor of this massive tent for 11 Euros a night.

Checking in, the lady gave us each 5 blankets and this thin foamy to sleep on. We sat outside eating dinner from the cafeteria and it started getting really cold, and we regretted packing mostly bikinis and sundresses. As dark fell, they started a massive fire, and everyone sat around drinking beer and trying to stay warm.

Campfire at The Tent

Pretty much everyone staying at the tent is a young backpacker, so the company was quite good. The first night around the fire was Spanish night for us, as we ended up talking to some people from Madrid, and then later a group of guys from Argentina.

Sleeping on the floor with 50 other people was interesting... And the 5 blankets were almost enough to keep us warm.

We awoke and decided we needed to go buy warm clothes. We wandered down to the city centre and went shopping. The city centre is really beautiful... We randomly stumbled upon a few castles and markets. I bought a new winter coat and Gillian bought a hoodie.

The second night around the fire we met this group of people who live in Edinburgh and funnily enough, they worked with one of Gillians friends.

Throughout the evening we heard different rumors about what time to get up the next morning to ensure a spot in one of the beer tents. We went with one of the more moderate times of 630am, but come 5am, half of the tent had already gotten up, and by 530 we gave up trying to sleep through all the noise.

We go to get ready and the campground bathroom has about 30 girls all squeezed around 6 sinks and 2 outlets. I've got to say I've never felt so unattractive in a campground before.

We followed the crowd to the grounds and picked the smallest line to a tent to stand in. 2 hours later we were all informed we were all waiting at the wrong door, and a mass mob occurred as everyone raced for the right door. Another 20 minutes later we finally got into the beer tent, only to find all the tables already taken. An hour after asking every non-full table if we could join them, we couldn't handle any more rejection and we left the tent.

Our new edinburgh friends texted us, and jealous of their extra 3 hours of sleep we went to meet up with them.

We sat on the grass until the parade started at 11. The parade itself was one of the most mundane parades I've ever seen. They alternated marching bands with horse drawn carriages filled with people drinking beer, while all the spectators can't drink beer until noon when the mayor taps the first keg. The only thing that saved it for me was the incredibly good looking police officer situated directly in front of us.

At noon the Edinburgh boys ventured off to find a beer tent seat, and we sat on the grass because my sinuses were completely blocked and I had a wicked headache. The boys texted us that they found a seat and we went to find them. We met their other friends on the way, and once getting in the tent and finding no seats, we began the quest to find beer. After asking at the bar and getting rejected we asked some people with beer how they got theirs. Apparently if you aren't at a table you lurk the staff carrying 10 beer steins at once, and then pounce once they've set them down.

The biggest beers and pretzels ever.

I don't think it's ever taken me so long to drink a beer. Feeling sick, combined with the shear volume of the beer, it literally took me 3 hours to drink it. And surprisingly it was still cold at the end! Halfway through our beers we snagged some seats with the boys, and completed our Oktoberfest wishlist.

The whole think is extremely similar to the stampede, with concession stands and rides everywhere except at Oktoberfest people dress in leiderhosen and traditional Bavarian dresses (I've never seen so much old woman cleavage) instead of cowboy attire, and drinking excessively is encouraged and you can bring your own beer and drink it as you walk around.

Oktoberfest Grounds

Apparently the amount of goat hair in your Tirolerhüte (Bavarian felt hat) is a direct relationship to how rich you are. Sometimes it can get a bit silly looking...

Considering I felt absolutely horrible, my Oktoberfest experience was amazing, and absolutely nothing like Kitcheners mini Oktoberfest.

Amsterdam

Our time spent in Amsterdam was interesting.
We had planned to check out the beach early Tuesday morning, but upon waking we gave that idea up since it was pissing rain. We took advantage of Jim and Julie's free Internet and printer and printed our boarding passes for our flight next week and other reservations.

Kat met us at Amsterdam Centraal and we took the tram to her shipping container. Due to the housing shortage in Amsterdam they stacked a bunch of old shipping containers and turned them into student residences. We dropped our stuff and headed out to explore the city. Unfortunately it was pouring rain so it was not that much fun to just wander around.

Of course we had to check out the red light district

We decided to grab lunch and sat marveling at how bizarre it is to see people smoking joints with their lunches in a restaurant. After lunch we got a city tour from Kat as we got more and  more drenched. Giving up on the tour we grabbed dinner supplies and went back to the shipping container to cook.

The problem with traveling to so many different countries is that in each country you feel you need to eat some food unique to that culture. In Holland that unique food is mainly pancakes and waffles. They have these snacks called stroopwafels that are basically two mini waffels pressed together with caramel. After eating copius amount of stroopwafels and Vla (a mousse type desert that comes in milk type containers) we felt so ill and obese.


We planned to go to an international students night with Kat, but after taking allergy pills that were not the non-drowsy variety and having a glass of wine we all felt very inclined to take an immediate nap.
We woke up an hour or so and decided that we would prefer to watch jersey shore instead of talking to international students about igloos and moose. Terrible, I know.

Kat woke early to attend class and Gillian and I just enjoyed having a nice bed, kitchen and Internet all to ourselves. When Kat finished class we all hopped on a canal tour, of which the highlight was definitely the houseboat for cats. Seriously.

We checked out the Anne Frank house, but didn't bother waiting in line to go inside. I haven't actually read Anne Frank so I didn't feel bad missing the inside of the house.

Typical Amsterdam Canal

Half a goat cheese and spinach pancake later, we wandered to find the Heineken Experience as Kat went to her second class of the day. Only one block later we decided we were too tired to do a brewery tour and we headed back to Kats shipping container. I think the couple sleep deprived days on the train finally caught up to us because we were exhausted the whole time spent in Amsterdam. Also out allergies were going crazy here which might be also part of why we were so tired. I slept for a good 3 hours in the evening before Kat got back from class and we started getting ready for our night out.

The 'Drunk Houses' along the canal

Along with Kats friend Jenny, we drank a few bottles of wine then hopped on the tram to go to some business school party opening. The night started out really fun but turned a bit sour as I met Lucy (gillians alter ego) and things got a bit heated.

I think so far Amsterdam has been my least favorite city.. Maybe because of the rain, allergies and fighting, but I think it is completely overrated. It it was too hectic and I constantly felt like I was going to be hit by a bicycle, car, tram, or motorcycle.

Den Haag and Delft

We awoke and spent the morning eating burritos which Julie had made for dinner and chatting with Jim. It felt awesome to sleep in and not worry about catching trains and such. After discussing with Jim what we should do we decided to catch the tram to Delft, a nearby medieval type city. Arriving in Delft was a nice surprise.. completely off the typical american backpacker route we had seemed to be following. We found a bookstore and I bought Harry Potter: The Deathly Hallows for 3 Euro and am super excited to finally have time to read it!

So many bikes in Delft!

After getting many looks for eating a salad on a bench in the street, we checked out the two churches in town. I almost bailed on my face because the floor has all these fancy inscriptions on the floor and uneven tiles and Gillian yelled at me to be careful, then did the same thing herself moments later.

Inside the Old Church

At the 'New Church' we took Jim's advice and walked up the tower, and as soon as we entered the stairwell we regretted our decision to do to.

The New Church

The stairs were much worse then the stairs at Sagrada Familia, being old and crumbly cement, and then old, slanted wood planks which I felt were going to break at any moment. The spirals were again tiny and after hitting my head on the stairs above I increasingly got more and more claustrophobic. Gillian then smashed her head on another low stair hard enough to instantly start crying, and later she was picking pieces of cement out of her hair.

We made it to the top of the tower and out onto this really narrow balcony where the wind was so crazy we felt very unstable... but the views of the city were fantastic so we felt it was worth it.

We lurked at the top for a really long time, neither of us wanting to get back into the tight spiral staircase.

Carefully going back down the stairs.

We headed back to Den Haag and had a beer at the square as the sun went down. Being Monday most things were closed so we wandered around the town a bit then headed back to Jim and Julies and skyped our parents.

I apologize for the lack of photos.. I've been shooting in RAW this whole time and didn't realize I would need my canon software to publish them. I'm now going to attempt to take a few on my point and shoot for the blog, and then put my other photos in once we get back to Edinburgh on the 21st! So check back!

Dijon to Den Haag

After Plan A of getting from Barcelona to Brussels failed, Plan B was to get as far north as possible, then catch the first train to Paris then to Brussels in the morning. Spending the night in Dijon was a huge luxary.. we got a cheap hotel near the train station which had the most amazing beds ever and we washed our clothes in the sink. We got up at 6 to try to make reservations to Paris, and again were dissapointed when we were informed it was already fully booked.

Crazy Sunrise in Dijon

I don't know how people are supposed to travel without more than a days notice. The nice man at the ticket counter told us we could get to Brussels and then Den Haag via Luxembourg without any reservations, so we decided to follow his advice.

Excited for lunch?

After a train change to Metz, we landed in Luxembourg with 9 minutes to make our train connection. We quickly bought a sandwich and a postcard and hopped on our train to Brussels.

Luxembourg from the train

Three and a half hours later we arrived in Brussels, and having just missed our connection to what we think was an accident... our French is atrocious so we don't actually know, but we decided to still knock off our Brussels wish list, but instead of having 2 days to do it, we had 55 minutes until the next train to Den Haag.




We started off with tasting Belgian beer, then had a massive waffle covered in Haagen Daas.

Gill's Belgian Beer

Excited for my Belgian Waffle

After the waffle we felt like such shit that we quickly bought a box of Belgian chocolates and found our way to the train to sit down.

Gill, full after waffle

Luckily we did find the train early since it was really busy. The good thing about leaving France, Luxenbourg and Belgium is that they no longer expected tourists to know the language, and train announcements were repeated in English.

Happy to be on our last train of the day

We arrived in our fourth country of the day just after dark and attempted to follow the directions we were given by Jim (our dads friend) to his place. Turns out our directions were from Den Haag Centraal, but we were at Den Haag HS. The directions to go upstairs and catch the #6 tram made no sense, because we were in a train station, how can you go upstairs?

Gillian finally asked someone where the #6 was and that was when we realized we were at the wrong train station. We bought some strippenkarts and tried to figure out the tram system to make our way to Den Haag Centraal. Once there the upstairs directions made much more sense since there actually is an upstairs where you can catch trams, with the actual trains running underneath.

We got off the #6 at Hofzichtlaan and then attempted to follow the further directions of walking clockwise to the first apartment. We mused at what walking clockwise would entail, and then just started checking nearby apartments. The second apartment building we checked was theirs, and we headed up to meet Jim and Julie. Their place is fantastic.. so freaking nice, considering the outside of the apartment building looks really average. We were happy to sleep in a really nice bed for the second night in a row.