Chelsey does Europe 2006

London Baby

2006-07-05T14:08:00.000-07:00

Carolyn and I spent 6 days in London. I heart London. We had already seen most of the sights the first time but we still walked around the whole city and saw more. We went to all the museums..but spent record time there. 45mins for the Britsh Musuem..saw the egypt exhibition and left. There was an unidentified bag in the hall so they blocked off a huge area and got the police in. We saw many bomb threats in London. We met up with Julia and Trish and 2 other friends and saw Stomp one night! Our seats were really good! If you haven't seen it...go!! We went to Kensington Palace, the Princess Diana memorial, and lots of other places. It was nice and warm in London..the tube got really yucky and hot!

There were 2 Canada days in London! The first was on the 30th and they had concerts and stands set up in Trafalgar Square. The next day on July first there was a huge part at the Maple Leaf. Usually there is a block party but this year it got cancelled cause England was playing football and it was also Europride day. We had fun there and at lots of good healthy Canadian food: Poutine, Burgers, Nachos..yumm. Made it to the plane the next morning with a fun trek on the tube with my heavy heavy bags! Now I am in Vancouver. Call me!!

THE END

6 cities 7 days

2006-06-27T01:25:00.000-07:00

Six cities in seven days. I started the whirlwind tour in Athens. Julia and I spent 3 hours in the afternoon doing agressive sightseeing. We saw everything there is to see. The Acropolis, the Agoras, the Theatres, Temples and the Olympic Stadium which is in really good condition. Athens isnt as bad as I had previously thought, the city centre is actually pretty clean. We spent the day with our Kiwi friend and had a nice dinner..then we all parted ways...tear.

City number 2: Milano
Or as Carolyn and I like to call it..the city of Models. Everyone is over 6 feet tall and is beautiful, even the males. I actually felt short and stout..hah not really but we were enjoying looking at everybody's clothes. Besides the people there isn't much to see in Milano..I huge fortress was cool and a huge Duomo. You only need the afternoon and thats what I had. The next morning we were on the next train to SWITZERLAND

City number 3: Zurich
Zurich is such a cute city. And very very humid. Carolyn and I toured around the city and saw all the clokctowers..man there are a lot here. We befriended our hostel roomies and went out for drinks both nights. We were there for the game 7 of the stanley cup and looked all over for a bar that would play the game. No one would since it was on at 2 am and they were weirded out by us watching hockey in the summer. We met two guys from Edmomton and they were going crazy..we couldnt even find a 24 hour internet to listen to the game.
The next day we rented bikes with a bunch of peeps and went on a beast 35km bike ride around the lake. Went by the Lindt chocolate factory and stocked up.

City number 4: Lucerne
We just spent a day and night here. It was really cute right on the lake like every other city in Swiss land. It was soo hot that sightseeing was slow paced. We saw lots of old bridges, clock towers and a fortress. Switzerland reminds me a lot of B.C. Lots of mountains and lakes and trees. I love it.

City number 5: Interlaken
Interlaken was awesome. It is in the mountains and in between 2 lakes. There are so many extreme sports to do but since it was at the end of our trip and we only had a day and a bit we didn't have time to do any. We met some cool girls there from Michigan who might come and visit us in Van this summer. We did a hike which turned out to be a paved path for a couple hours. The scenery was still nice though. The hostel had a bar underneath which was good cause everyone went down to watch the football games. We have gotten into the world cup fever and watch all the games we can now. But becareful about cheering too loud in Interlaken..they have a 10pm noise curfew and the bouncers will bounce you if you are loud outside. It happened quite a lot to us. But still goodtimes allround

City number 6: Geneva
Geneva was our last stop before London. It was a cute city as well...on a lake! Surprise. We went to the UN and got a tour of the building..it was huge and it made me want to work there. We also went to the Red Cross Museum and went around that. We were staying at a weird hostel with some very odd people.
We met this lady who was like 40 and was in Geneva for the arms conferences. She was a little crazy and told us she was an ex CIA spy and was a child spy in Russia during the cold war. Next she told us that Dick Cheyney asked her to go to Iran to treat children (she apparently is a doctor) and a man will run up to here and say he knows where the weapons of mass destruction. Then the film crews would finish it in hollywood. It only gets better... then she said no and so she got kidnapped and tourted by Dick Cheyneys right hand man. She was buried alive and drowned and mock killed. I was trying so hard not to laugh and Carolyn and I were totally egging her on to hear more. Our Aussie friends we met up with were not impressed by her and left the room laughing. We have her card and website if anyone wants to hear more about her. What a WEIRDO!

Now we are in London..I will put up photos later..left my cord somewhere along my travels, woops.

Our last island get-away

2006-06-16T08:21:00.000-07:00

We spent 3 nights on the island of Mykonos. Our last island stop on our travels..it is a little sad. It is pretty here. We are staying right on the beach again in a ghetto little "beach hut" which is pretty much a tin shack with bugs and beds. Its fine though cause we have met up with a bunch of cool people. There is good beaches and food so we can't really complain.

The first day here we rented ATVs
and drove around the island a little bit. It was a lot of fun but a bit scary at first since everyone here drives so crazy. Of course we were the only ones ever to wear our helmets on a 4 wheeler but better safe than sorry!haha. Our ATV had a flag on the back..the kind that people put on the handy dart scooters..they must have seen us coming. We went to a couple really nice beaches and looked aroun the town which is really cute! They have a bunch of windmills and a little area called "little venice" which is right on the water.
The next day we went on a day trip to the island of Delos which is an histori site. It was pretty cool to see and we hiked up a "mountain" which was 100m high and got a good view of all the islands around it. We got a bunch of people to go so it was a nice to have a big group. We only stayed there for a couple hours because it was so hot!

Now we have to leave and go to Athens and do some agressive sight seeing. We have 1 more full day together..very sad. Then off to Switzerland which should be interesting. We met a bunch of people from Sweden in Ios. I asked them where they were from and they said they were Swedish..so then I say "oh I'm going to Switzerland next week!!" woops.

bar hopping to "Love Generation"

2006-06-15T08:49:00.000-07:00

We stayed at the nicest place in Ios called the "Far Out Beach Club". We had our own room with a bathroom, tv, fridge, patio and AC. It was awesome. The place also had 3 pools and was right beside the beach! Since it was so nice we extended our stay to 5 nights total. Our friend Kelsey and Carolyn were there as well and we met them randomly there. We also had 2 other girls we met at the Pink Palace there for a couple nights.
Can't say we did a lot in Ios. We went out for dinner a couple times and layed on the beach or by the pool all day. The town is really cute and there is a lot of good shopping which is trouble. We got into a good routine of getting up, going to the beach and taking a nap and then going for dinner around 9ish. The last bus from our place went to the town at around 11. Everyone got on that bus...the only problem was that the driver was a booze nazi. He wouldn't let anything on the bus. So Julia and I found a drug mule the first night and snuck it in her purse. She gave it back to me and this girl started talking so I told her about our drug mule. Big mistake...she was a spy for the bus and took away my wine!! But we did get it back in the end. It was a lot of fun going out in Ios. We formed team Canada on the bus and hung out with them. We all belted out 'O Canada' at one point. When we got rowdy we just chanted 'USA USA USA'. haha.
There was one place that had life size Jenga!! It was a lot of fun playing and obviously I never lost once! All the bars are around a square and you just bar hop to the songs you like. So of course we bar hopped to "Love Generation" and the Shakira song. By the end of our stay the all seemed to remember us. We even danced on the bars and tables. I gave it up after I was getting down and fell flat on my back in front of everyone..very embarrassing. Everyone stays out so late until like 7 or 8 but since we are old we never managed to make it that late.

We went on a kyayk safari which was awesome..it included cliff jumping, snorkling and a bbq. I didn't cliff jump..I was trained at a young age that I would break my neck so I couldn't get the courage to do it. Ios was amazing and we didn't want to leave but it is time for another island! I really wanted to go on this pirate ship I'll post a pic.

Donkeys and Detox

2006-06-12T02:03:00.000-07:00

We spent 3 nights and 2 days of Detox in Santorini. Since we didn't think you could fly from Corfu (duh I seemed to have lost my brains on this trip) the journey was LONG. We took the Athens bus from the Pink Palace which goes from 9-8am. So fun. You think you can sleep but no, you have to get off twice to get on the ferries. The second one was at 4 am! Once we got into Athens we had some culutre shock and we weren't ready for a city. So instead of sightseeing we went straight to the port and got a ticket for the ferry to Santorini. A 10 hour ferry ride and we arrived at 3am!
Santorini is beautiful.
The first day we rented a car and drove all around the island. We saw the black sand beaches, the red beaches all the cute buildings and a had really good time. We met these two girls on our journey from the Pink Palace and they came along with us.

The next day we went on a beast our. We first went to the Caldera by boat and hiked up it when it was like 35 degrees. It was really interesting to look at..but maybe thas just me since I like rocks. From there we went to a hot spring but I opted out since it kinda stained white and my bikini has white in it. Then we went to another little island and had a really good lunch. The village was on top of this hill/small mountain I like to say so instead of walking it we rented DONKEYS! The Donkeys were so much fun!! At first.
My Donkey of course was the smallest and from the minute I got on until I got off he was shaking...pretty sure I was breaking him. He looked like he was dying and had a scar on his back...so I named him Eeyore! When we headed up he took off and they have no reins to hold on it...apparently Donkeys do not repsond to "Donkey Stop" Not to worry it didn't last long...after 2 mins he was dying and tripping up the hill. The man behind us had a bunch of people tied together with they donkeys and was yelling at ours so loud. I was scared of him. He then started whipping Eeyore! I felt sooo bad for him. He got whipped like a million times because he was dying from my weight. Anyways we made it to the top in once piece.
We went to Oia which is on Santorini and saw the best sunset..well kinda. They were supposed to be nice but I guess I am a sunset snob cause I see better in Vancouver and in Perth. They buildings looked pink though.
Now we are in Ios...detox over. Carolyn and Kelsey from high school are randomly here too!

The Pink Palace...trouble

2006-06-06T03:32:00.000-07:00

The Pink Palace...
Julia and I just spend 6 nights/7 days at the Pink Palace in Corfu Greece. It was tons of fun and we met so many cool peeps. Getting there was hell and involved a long overnight ferry ride and trains and buses...in total 28 hours to arrive. It was well worth it. I like to call is a tropical beach resort on a small Canadian island...most of the place is filled with Canadians and then a few Yanks and Aussies.
We had a really tough life staying here. We layed on the beaches all day...rented kyayks once with our girls we met from the states. The booze cruise ran twice but both times we were a little to hung over from the night before. We were supposed to leave on Saturday to go to Athens to meet our american girls but at the last minute we got jealous of all the pink togas walking around and we checked back in!! (Lie #10 Really, I am leaving tomorrow...) Got a different room but it was worth it. The toga party was awesome! They do a little entertainment in the middle which included ouzo shots and plate smashes on your head. (Didn't quite enjoy the last part) I may have teared up a little...woops. By the end of our stay the staff seemed to remember us and commented on us STILL being there. Most of our friends we met left a little bit before us. But luckily we still had some of our Toronto boys around who had stayed a lot longer than us.
We are off to the other Greek Islands tomorrow!

Where are the lava bodies?

2006-06-03T01:11:00.001-07:00

I spent 3 nights in Sorrento...a small town outside of Napoli. We stayed at a campsite that was 11 Euros a night...very good deal. There were randomly some girls there who were from Vancity and one of them was my friend's sister. We keep running into people. From Sorrento we did day trips to Pompei and Capri. Pompei was HUGE. I didnt expect it to be so large. I woke up that morning and my eye was so swollen it looked like I had been punched in the face but without the bruises. So I had to wear my sunnies all day...and it was so HOT. Julia and I are now rocking the best sunglass tans on our noses. We didnt really know what we were looking at in Pompei since we forgot to get a map...and we didnt see any of the bodies. We were upset about that...but apparently they are there. People we talked to saw them...we just had no idea where to find them.

The next day we took a "sailboat" from our campsite with a bunch of Italains to Capri. It was really a over sized boat...no sails. Capri was very nice...very posh. We walked down the streets and found all of our favorite stores that we can't afford. We went up a chairlift to the top of the mountain. It was single seats and wooden...it was a fun ride. We didnt go swimming because there was so much garbage in the water it was gross. Everyone just throws their garbage in the water there...sick. But besides that it was very nice. Awesome views...clear blue water. The buses are crazy..they are mini and you are packed on like sardines. The roads are super narrow and they just wip around the corners...breaking when they see another bus. They get so close and passing we could reach out and touch the other bus. It was the best bus ride of the trip. I would definately like to go back to Capri one day.

Back away Gypsies

2006-05-25T10:22:00.000-07:00

I have spent 3 days in Roma now and it was fun! Everyone in Italy seems to think I am a local..and keep talking to me in Italian. Even when I am speaking english. I dont get it..I look like a tourist..a decent outfit ruined with runners and a big map in front of my face.You walk down the road and turn a corner and boom..there are some acient ruins hanging out in the middle of a block. It is so weird to walk around and see all these places in the middle of a city. They first day we went to the Collesium (so cant spell that) which was huge! We walked around it and went inside...and made a bad call by doing an English tour. It started late and ended early and we didnt learn one thing! I am not a fan of tour groups...and this did not help the cause. Julia and I call every big group we see together "Contiki" cause thats the only tour group name we know. They take up so much space and its hard to get by them. Anyways inside the Colleseum was worth checking out but the outside is more impressive. It is hard to imagine what id did look like though...they took away so much of it to build other objects. Thats what I learned on this trip...old sites were used at quarries for building materials for new sites...so thats why so many look like they are falling apart. Oh the one thing I learned from the tour was that the Romans didnt feed the Christians to the lions there..only prisnors...that would suck. All around that area are ruins and we spent the morning touring around. It was really cool.
Roma is very hot and very humid so its hard to do a lot of walking and site seeing. Cultural crap takes a lot out of one. We did catch all the famous sites over 3 days.
We went to the Trevi fountain and threw our coins in to return. Thats what you are supposed to do and another coin grants you a wish. We saw lots of other places but those two were the best. All the squares have fountains which are really lovely as well.
Now the gypsies in Italia are getting very annoying. They sometimes like to wear matching outfits and stick there hands out in your face for money. Julia and I are good at spotting them and always give a gypsy alert before we walk by them. Yesterday I was on the pay phone and one came up to me blabbling in italian..and I said no I dont speak italian..then she says " you give me money" it was weird. I was annoucing that there was an annoying gypsy in front of me and she spoke english...woops. Anyways I yelled at her to go away and that I only had a phone card if she wanted that. She didnt. Weird. Not a fan of the gypsies. The best part of Roma is that they have 1L juice box container style of wine for....98cents!! Cheaper than water and jucie!

All that cultural crap

2006-05-23T10:55:00.001-07:00

.We arrived in Florence a little sad to leave Cinque Terre...it is my favorite place right now. I wish I could go back. Right now we are in Roma but spent 3 days in Florence (too long) and a day and a half in Venice. Florence was fine, our hostel was huge and we ran into 2 people that went to high school with Julia...random. We went to the Galleria Dell Accademia and waited in line for 40 mins to see the statue David. Julia and I felt like we were in line at the club...the bouncer at the front wouldnt let us in even though we were at the front and kept letting in tour groups or the "vips" who had advance tickets. It was worth the wait cause it is amazing..a lot larger than I expected. Other than that the rest of the gallery was full of Jesus paintings and Ive seen so many now that they all look the same. We walked past the Duomo which is the 4th largest Catherdral in the world. It was very impressive and painted bright colors. We didnt go in cause the line up was HUGE. Thats what I learned about Florence there is a line up for everything! The best part of the time spent in Florence was going to the Palazzo Vecchio It was the original city hall and still is. We did a secret passages tour and got to find secret entrances and stairways that the old rulers used. They have an amazingly large room that is still used today for city hall and the ceiling has tons of huge paitings on it. We went in between the ceiling and roof to see how they held the heavy gold frames and the ceiling and roof up. It was actually quite interesting.

The next day Julia and I were feeling like we still needed some cultural crap (I like to call it that now) and wait almost 2 hours to get into this art gallery!! We got there at 830 in the morning! It was such a waste of time...we vowed to not go to any more art galleries for awhile. It was mostly Jesus paintings again...and then we thought the Angel painting from Rahphel were there but not. (False advertising) and I only recognized about 3 paintings. The "last supper" painting wasnt even there even though they had a DiVinci exhibit. .
After that we hiked up to the top of a hill and saw a great view of the city and enjoyed a healthy lunch of chips and beer while the gross pigeons kept trying to steal them away.

Venice was a lot nicer than Florence but unfortunatly has way more pigeons. I sort have developed a fear of them because there are CRAZY! They sell feed in the markets and dumb people go around feeding them. They fly anywhere and everywhere and dont care about taking people out so there is a lot of ducking involved when walking close to them. Besides the pigeons Venice was pretty. There were no cars around and the bus was a boat! We toured a couple glass showrooms and saw how they make it. They have really nice glass things We didnt do cultural crap but we did go to the Palazzo Ducale. It was the official residence of the Doges (the head leaders of Venice) We toured around their rooms....the Senate rooms and the Prison!! We walked over the bridge of sighs which was named from Cassanova from all the women sighing when he went to prison. I think. We took a boat around at night too and saw the city light up. The streets make no sense there but somehow we never got lost...even though we barely looked at a map. Randomly when we were trying to find our bus boat I ran into Nick Lepard, a friend from highschool. Next on to Roma!

Would you girls likea somea winea?

2006-05-18T11:10:00.000-07:00

My blog site is in Italian...im not even sure if i am posting this right now.

Julia and I spent 1.5 relaxing days in Cinque Terre. The train ride there definately was a tad stressful though the 100s of other Canadians waiting for the train helped. Everyone waiting was from Canada or the states..it was weird. I even bumped into Angela from UVIC and I havent seen her since end of exams last year! We met these 2 girls Tiffany and Karalee from Qualicum and they ended up missing their connection to Venice and coming to Cinque Terre with us! Our train was late and then it switched platforms and it wasnt announced so everyone was running down to the next platfrom. The train arrived and all the doors opened except for our car. There were a bunch of us just running and trying to get into another door when all the doors started shutting. A couple guys were trying to hold the doors open for us....eventually they closed all the doors and there were still people outside. They opened them 5 mins later... that was a stress.
Julia and I havent really mastered the language yet...even though I did take a semester of Italian at school. So we talka witha italia accents..so maybe the people willa understanda us. It must get very annoying for people around us. I went to the front desk and the man spoke no english and shoved the phone in my ear and I had to try to be a translater for him....i didnt do a good job and im pretty sure they people decided not to stay there..woops.

When we finally got to Cinque Terre is was beautiful! We stayed in the village called Monterosso which is on the end of the 5 fishing villages on along the water. We had a room to ourselves with a "double" bed which was 2 twins pushed together. We didnt have a bathroom..we had to share the one in the hall. However we did have a sink, a mirror and a ba-day (so have no idea how to spell those) right beside the sink. Kinda weird since it was pretty much beside the bed...dont really know who would use that if the other person was in the room..nowhere else to look if you were on it. Eww we did not take part of the culture. We got our first Italian Gelato which was sooo amazing.
I took a picture to document it.It was so good I got a second one..so far the count is 4 and ive been in Italy for 3 days. We went out for dinner for some good Italian pasta and wine! On our way back to the hostel-hotel a man came out of his house and said

"You girls wanta the winea. Comea to my cellar and youa buya mya winea."
We followed him into his wine cellar and we bought our most expensive bottle yet.. 7.50 Euros. (Usually we spend 2-3 on bottles)We went down to the beach with our girls and drank our wine. Except the Qualicum girls wine was corked and a little fizzy and ours smelt like rotten eggs. If you convinced yourself it was cheese it was easier to drink...it tasted fine and we already had a bottle before so we just drank our smelly wine! Afterwards we went to the local bar called "fast" and got another bottle of red wine...we were the only girls there so these 2 American guys saved us from the locals.

The next morning we did the hike between the villages. It was so beautiful but a lot hard than I expected. The first leg too us just over an hour and was the hardest. It was like mini grouse grinds...and then going back down and then back up. The views were spectacular...you are either on little narrow paths along vineyards and trees or on the cliff side with the Sea crashing down below. The first village was cute and we stopped to have a snack and explore. The second leg wasnt as tough but still had a lot of steps going up up up. That took us just over an hour as well. The whole thing took about 5 hours including our stops. We had our first Italian pizza in the village...it was soo good. The water is so blue at our village so we went for a qucik dip. Well I dove in and got back out right away cause im a wimp with cold water. Shocking. We rented a paddle boat with a slide! We paddled around for an hour....a little sketch since they didnt give us lifejackets and it wasnt very calm. We survived.
We were going to save money and buy groceries but everything closes at 8 except the restaurants...so we just had to go out for pizza and pasta. It was tough...after we went to Fast and everyone was there...Angela and her boyfriend, and some American guys from Seattle who were really nice and were our age. After getting to bed late and waking up very early for our train..we have been very very slow today. We went to Pisa and took a picture. There was a big bike race or something going on so we bought matching pink shirts with a hat, and 2 key chains for 5 Euros. Apparently we looked like locals after we put on our hot outfits and everyone came up to us and started speaking Italian. It would have been good if I could remember how to say I dont speak Italian.
We are in Florence now...going to see many sights tomorrow.

Who packs a lunch for Monaco!

2006-05-15T11:33:00.000-07:00

Julia and I have been in Nice for 4 days now. We are leaving tomorrow morning. The south of France has been fun. Nice definately is not my favorite place, it looks a bit tatty. There is construction everywhere and we are staying right by the train station so its also in a bit of a dodgy area. Yesterday we did however discover the nicer area of Nice so its a bit nicer than I first saw. I was a little disappointed with the area but then we went to Monaco then Cannes and some other small areas that made up for Nice.

When we went to Monqco they were setting up the the Grand Prix so there were stands everywhere. Everything is crazy there. We went to the casino and every car in the parking lot was either a Bently or a Rolls Royce or we even saw some Lambroginis. I so cant spell that. We didnt go into the casino cause we werent high rollers but we walked around the foyer and it was so beautiful with paintings on the ceiling. We walked up to see the palace and the cute little streets around the area. After we sat on the beach and ate our packed lunch, looking very out of place. Who brings a packed lunch to Monaco!
Cannes is by far my favorite place. They are setting up for the film festival which starts tomorrow. It was very exciting to be there. There are tons of white tents set up along the beach that are being prepped for the parties. A couple of the beaches have big stages and lighting. Too bad we wont be there for it but it would be too busy I think. The beaches in Cannes are the best too they are sandy while Nice and Monaco are rocky. Julia and I walked around the harbour and stared at all the yachts. We saw this one ill add the pic and it said Roberto Cavalli
so we couldnt decide if it was his or if he disgned it. Eventually I felt like a creep staring at the huge yachts waiting to be invited on board so I walked away. I am sorry to say I didnt step foot on one. Tomorrow morning we are off to Italy!

France

2006-05-12T11:58:00.000-07:00

I am in Nice right now with Keeley and Julia. We arrived this afternoon from Paris. Paris was amazing. We saw the Eifel Tower and all the other famous sights. Ate lots of cheese and bread and drank really cheap wine! The first day we got there was on Julias birthday and we went the the Eifel Tower. We had a classy picnic under that involved all of us drinking wine out of the bottle and ripping bread and cheese. At night it was all light up and every hour in sparkled so when we were taking the elevator up it was sparkling. It was too late to clinb the stairs, they closed it off. On our last day there we did a tour of the Catachompes. It is an old mine that was used after to store the bones of all the dead people. The signs said they were placed in a decorative fashion. There were millions of bones and skulls piled along corriders that were 1.2 km long. It was really creepy. People could go down to pay their respects. I think it opened in 1750s. It was soo deep below the city. We went to the Le Louvre and a couple other museums. The Louvre is HUGE we did not even go to a whole wing of it. My french has been coming back to me very slowly but at least I can sort of understand what people are saying sometimes. This morning we caught a train to Nice. Its really nice here...we walked around and saw all the big yachts. I am still waiting for someone to invite me on theirs. Tomorrow we are going to Monacco which I am really excited about. They have casinos that are for high rollers only and we are gonna see if we can get in to get a picture.

testing

2006-04-20T01:06:00.000-07:00

I'm going to Europe in 2 weeks. I thought I would jump on the bloggers bandwagon. Didn't have one for OZ but watch out for mine when I hit Europe.