After a blog hiatus of several months, I’m back! We just did a five year wedding anniversary trip to Malaysia and I felt the need to write about it. Plus, I had several blogs from our travels during our last four months in Europe which we had neglected to post. They are all now posted below, thus completing a full recap of our trips while living in London.
Malaysia – October 2008
After 17 hours of flying, an overnight in Singapore and then one more quick flight, I arrived in Kuala Lumpur. I had mentally prepared myself for the long journey, so it didn’t bother me. It helped that I was so excited to be joining John on one of his trips.
KL was sunny and hot, so when I arrived at the hotel I went straight to the pool and ordered a drink. Heaven! I started reading The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (thanks Jess) on the plane and I couldn’t put it down. I have never read one of Atwood’s books before; I was very impressed by this one and I’m still thinking about it. I was forced inside around 5:00 when it started to rain (and when I say rain, I mean torrential downpour, usually accompanied by thunder and lightning). Like in Camelot, where “the rain may never fall till after sundown”, it rained every night; it would start around 5:00 in KL but not until 10:00 when we were on Langkawi.
It was such a treat to be staying in nice hotels (and for about the same price as
the not so nice hotels we stayed in while travelling Europe). From our room at the Westin in KL, we had a great view of the city and the lightning storms as they rolled in. John was still working at the Routes conference so checked out the huge neighbouring mall. I was in awe of its six floors of stores, although it would seem I could buy the same things at Club Monaco, the Gap, etc in Canada as I can in Malaysia (and likely everywhere else in the world). I enjoyed dinner in the extensive food court offering an almost infinite variety of different Asian foods. It would seem that like the Canadians the Malaysians have an affinity for donuts, however, they do a better job of covering the donuts with interesting toppings.
I ventured out to explore KL on my second day. First thing, I lined up for tickets up the Petronas Towers’ sky bridge, and then I hopped on the city’s ‘hop on, hop off’ bus. My first stop was at the bustling markets in Chinatown. I wandered there for ages and then made my way over to the Indian markets. My next stop on the tour around town was the city’s green belt and the national monument. From there I went to a butterfly park and walked past a huge bird sanctuary. It was so hot and humid, my body was constantly covered in a layer of sweat.
My last stop was back at the Petronas Towers for my trip up to the sky bridge on the 41st floor, which conn
ects between the two twin buildings, about halfway up. I’m rather scared of heights but I hadn’t really thought about the bridge being scary so for the first five minutes I happily snapped pictures as I walked along the bridge. When I got to the middle of the bridge, I mistakenly looked down and realized I was suspended between the two buildings. That’s when the blood drained from my face and I had a bit of a panic attack. I managed to retreat off the bridge to the comfort of one of the towers without looking too crazy.
That evening, I joined John and several of his aviation colleagues for fun dinner. The jet lag affected me in an ideal way – I would hit a wall around 10:00 and it would feel like someone drugged me. I wouldn’t be able to keep my eyes open. It made for a great sleep and I’d be awake and raring to go by 8:00 in the morning. Too bad all jet lag can’t be like that (like on the way home). On Wednesday morning, we departed on Air Asia (Asia’s Ryan Air equivalent) for Langkawi, a resort island in northern Malaysia, near Thailand.
Langkawi was a perfect spot for us to spend the next few days. There were lots of neat things to see and do around the jungle island, or we could relax at the beach. We spent our first afternoon lounging in the sun at the beach and pool at our resort. I went for a swim in the ocean and it was like a bath tub it was so warm! We got into our room, which was like a little cabin, later in the afternoon and the first thing I did was open up the balcony doors to warm the place up from the extreme air conditioning. After unpacking, I walked out the balcony door just in time to catch a monkey and her baby walking up the stairs of our deck! I was grateful for the timing of that because I certainly didn’t want a monkey in our room. We also noticed large lizards wandering the area, so the balcony door stayed shut from then on.
Lots of people from the Routes conference headed to Langkawi for a holiday after it was over. We ran into one of John’s clients at dinner on Wednesday night and she joined us. That day she had rented a scooter and explored the island. It sounded like so much fun that we decided to do the same thing on Thursday. Neither of us had driven a scooter before; John picked it up right away, while I on other hand did not. For some reason, my natural instinct when panicking was to rev the motor as opposed to just letting go and hitting the brake. This resulted in me crashing the scooter in the rocky rain ditch in the resort’s driveway! The bike was okay but I still have the bruises to show for it.
After that little incident, we decided to only take one scooter. I rode on the back behind John, which was way more fun anyway. It took me a while to get over my initial jitters (and fear of getting road rash up my legs, or worse) but eventually I let John accelerate over 30 km/h (we made it up to 60 at a few points). I shouldn’t have been quite so nervous because we played it pretty safe. Comparatively, we saw a local driving his motorbike with one hand (the other was holding a cigarette), no helmet, and his kid sitting between his legs. I think our biggest danger was hitting one of those big lizards running across the road. John’s colleague had squished one and we narrowly avoided one in the afternoon. I loved riding the scooter around the island. I felt like we were on a travel show, cruising through the jungle and all the little Malaysian towns. It was so hot that all we wanted to do was drive because the wind cooled us off.
Our first stop was at Seven Wells Waterfall. First we checked out the beautiful waterf
all from the bottom. There was a big crew of people and TV cameras doing some zip line stunts over the river for an Asian fear factor show. Then, we hiked to the top of the waterfall to enjoy swimming in the Seven Wells (pools of water). The hike felt like the Grouse Grind but it wasn’t nearly as long, I think the heat made it hard. We were drenched in sweat at the bottom so you can imagine our state by the time we reached the top. The view from there was amazing and the cool water in the pools felt like heaven! We had fun sliding down the natural waterslides that had formed between the pools. This was a definite trip highlight.
We drove around the island in search of a good beach to stretch out on and found one at the north-easterly point. The beach was practically empty, the water was gorgeously green and our view was of several small rocky islands and a sailboat. It looked like what you see in the movies. We baked for a while and tried to fend off a few pesky birds that wanted some of our food. When we got up to go for a swim, they went straight for our towels looking for food. When they didn’t find any food they left, but not before leaving an unpleasant deposit on John’s towel as payback.
We made our way around the other side of the island and then had a bit of an “amazing race” panic moment. We started the day with half a tank of gas, the first half of which got us around 3/4s of the island. We thought we wouldn’t have to fill up but then the last quarter tank burned off in about five minutes! We were on a side road with no prospect of a gas station in sight and I was having visions of us walking for miles in the, drenched in sweat, in order to find one if we ran out of gas. I couldn’t pry my eyes away from the gas gauge and we continued on and I prayed that we would find a place to fill up. Thankfully, we did, and for a whopping $2 we were back to half a tank.
On Friday, we went on the snorkelling excursion that I’m sure everyone visiting Langkawi does. John’s colleague from Sweden, Petra, and her boyfriend joined us on the trip. It took about an hour by boat to get to the preserved snorkelling island (renowned for its coral). We had to pay a preservation fee to visit, but I’m afraid the non-stop brown smoke being emitted from our boat on the way there and back would more than reverse any good the fee does.
We had a great time snorkelling through the clear blue waters and watching the brightly coloured fish. There were a few big, mean looking fish that I steered very clear of. After lunch we watched a mini shark feeding at a nearby beach and then went for another snorkel back in our area. We saw one of the little sharks which was my cue to get out of the water (John stayed in for ages). I enjoyed the rest of the afternoon on the sun deck reading and watching four eagles soar about the island.
We met up with John’s colleague from Denver airport at a local restaurant for dinner on Friday. It was our best dinner of the trip! Mango chicken, vegetable curry and bbq king prawns. For dessert we all tried fried ice cream cake and it was awesome!
Saturday was our last full day on Langkawi and we had a terrible time trying to decide what to do. We wanted to go scootering again but we didn’t want to tempt fate, plus we figured it was going to rain. There was an island hopping boat trip but we weren’t super keen on th
at. We tried to go abseiling through the rainforest but we couldn’t find enough people to join us in order to meet the minimum numbers. So we thought we’d play some tennis and play it by ear. As we approached the fitness centre to rent rackets we found our answer – bicycles! We got two bikes from the resort and rode off for a leisurely tour of the villages close by. It was a great way to explore some of the back roads and see real life on Langkawi. It was also the perfect duration, leaving us the whole afternoon to lounge by the pool, read and sip on lime slushies. John was a bit more active than me and he managed a windsurf.
We hated to leave Langkawi but at least we had one more day of vacation. We flew to Singapore on Sunday and arrived later in the afternoon. We had a plan all set out: 1) Singapore Flyer (big Ferris Wheel like the London Eye) 2) Dinner at Clarke Quay and 3) Night Safari. Unfortunately, as we left the hotel and got on the metro for downtown, it started to monsoon! Alas, best laid plans...we were gratefully surprised that the rain had stopped by the time we arrived down town, the clouds even started to clear a bit. So, we got to do the Singapore Flyer and take in the views of the impressive skyline and harbour. Then we made it to Clark Quay for a lovely dinner. The skies were still clear so we thought we would attempt the night safari. We managed to stay awake and boy, was it ever worth it! It was really cool making our way through all of the different habitats in the dark and seeing the animals lit up under dim light. There were elephants, tigers, leopards, rhinos, hippos, and a whole whack of animals we’d never seen or heard of before. We got to see a hyena, which we didn’t get to see when we were on safari in South Africa. Plus, we lucked out as we passed the male lion habitat and one of them started to bellow. It was SO loud – I wouldn’t want to be out in the wild and hear that! They say you can hear a lion’s roar from up to 60 kms away.
This was my first trip to Asia and I loved it! It was a really awesome five year anniversary trip. Thanks John. Love you!
June 2008 – London and Nice
Our last few weeks in London seem like a blur now. We were both really busy with work, trying to finish everything off, but on top of that we had both organized events for the first week of June. I had helped organize a presentation for some of our customers and John arranged and ran a full day workshop for airport directors from around Europe. Needless to say, we were both stressed out. Luckily, both were successful.
John’s workshop was June 6th and on the morning of Saturday the 7th, we drove a car full of people down to Brighton for an Ultimate Frisbee tournament, part of Britain’s summer tour. There were 40 teams (pretty much all the teams in Britain, compared to 200 in our league in Vancouver alone), it was situated in a beautiful setting, the weather was sunny and it was very well run. We were seeded 20th and worked our way up to 14th by the end of weekend. Our coach, Villi, was well chuffed (Brit expression meaning happy). We stayed overnight in Brighton, which is a picturesque town on a pebble beach. On a Saturday night though, it was crawling with Hen and Stag parties. Sitting outside a dinner, we saw 10 different groups of girls on hen nights parading around all dressed up. What scene!
The song of the weekend was Love in this Club, by Usher. So bad, but so good … we had non stop laughs blasting that in the car as we drove to and from the fields.
On Friday the 13th, with work, I got to go to see some horse races. One more Brit experience to tick off the list. I wasn’t in a posh frock or a hat, nor did I shout “move your blooming arse!” but I did have a fun time betting on the races and cheering on my horses. I managed to come out a few pounds ahead. I won 20 pounds on the first race and then burned through my winnings on all the others.
Nice
We were up one final time at 3:30 on Sunday morning to go to the airport for our last jaunt over to Europe. We flew to Nice, France with Andrew and Jess.
We really wanted to go back to the South of France and I wanted one more swim in th
e Med. We hadn’t been to that area since our honeymoon five years before, and as it was our last trip, we were going to treat ourselves.
The forecast for the days we were going to be there was threatening rain. It was sunny when we arrived so we went straight to the beach to take advantage of it. We splurged and rented chairs at a private part of the beach. That is SO the way to go. Comfy chairs, towels, umbrellas, change rooms, waiters bringing food … We were all relaxed and in heaven!
Going back several years, John and I had a 20 Euro note which we put on our fridge as motivation to move to/visit Europe. We brought it over to London with us and it stayed on our fridge there. On this last trip to Nice, we decided to spend it on pre-dinner drinks with A&J (the drinks actually cost EUR 26 though). In honour of spending the fridge EUR20, A&J gave us an AUS$20 to put on our fridge as motivation to visit them there.
We had an excellent Mediterranean dinner that night. What a treat it was to sit outside over delicious food and wine with good friends, in the South of France. We tried not to think that in a week we wouldn’t
be able to do that any more.
On Tuesday we tried to go to Cannes, to sit on the sandy beach there but after waiting 1.5 hours in the station for a train due to delays going west, we gave up and took a train to Monaco instead. We stopped at Eze sur la Mer enroute and had a swim, then we took a bus up to Eze (on the cliff) for some lunch and to take in spectacular views of the Med.
Once in Monaco, we walked the harbour checking out all the massive yachts – the whole harbour just oozed wealth. We walked up to the Casinos and then had a drink on the water before catching a train back to Nice for dinner.
We were feeling so tired and stressed from the hectic travel pace of Sunday and Monday (note my sarcasm), we decided to sit on the private beach again on Tuesday. Heaven, again! We sat there all day and I got in one more swim before the rain clouds rolled in. As we walked back to the hotel to get our stuff the skies opened and chucked down the rain. We sure were lucky that it held off until then. It was a good thing we had stuck to the beach that day too, as opposed to doing more sight seeing, because there was a national strike and all of the trains and buses weren’t running.
What a nice time in Nice! A great last trip! Thanks A&J – we are going to miss your company. You have been wonderful travel companions and our trips wouldn’t have been the same without you.
It was a fitting return to London for our last trip – the plane was late and we had a long wait in the customs queue at Luton airport. We didn’t get home until 2:00 am. I got pretty good at forgetting about being tired when I was at work the days after weekends away. Being able to do a quick jaunt to Europe was worth it to suffer at work for a day.
May 2008 – Ireland and Denmark
Ireland
On the first bank holiday weekend in May, John and I flew to Dublin, Ireland. We got into the customs line up at the airport and it was curiously taking a long time, despite not that many people being in the queue. We then realized it was because the friendly border guards were chatting up everyone as they went through, in their adorable, lilting Irish accents. Once we finally got to the front of the line, we got the standard questions and then the border guard asked what John’s job was. John replied, “airport consultant”, and the quick witted guard fired back with, “you sure f&cked up T5!” It was priceless! I’ve never left a customs line up laughing before. (Note: T5 is the new terminal at Heathrow and there were terrible problems when it opened a few months ago.)
After being in the Cotswolds the weekend before, we were itching for more ‘country’, so we immediately headed south in our rental car. It turned out to be a driving weekend and we covered a lot of ground. The first area we drove through was as we had pictured Ireland – green rolling fields. I loved how the fields were littered with crumbling old castles, churches and towers. Our first stop was the Rock of Cashel, one such crumbling castle with a beautiful neighbouring church in ruins. It was a great site and we had a nice walk in the sunshine.
We continued on to popular Killarney and the rain started. The traffic to get into Killarney was backed up 4kms outside the town, so we pulled the plug on seeing it and instead drove into the hills on some back roads to get to our B&B. Killarney is on a National Park and the edge of the popular Ring of Kerry. It was very busy due to the long weekend and due to the car rally planned through the National Park (we didn’t know before hand).
Enroute to our B&B we stopped in a cute town and had some Irish Guinness. It tastes better in Ireland. The B&B I had picked was in the middle of no
where on the edge of the National Park. We weren’t expecting the rugged landscape that it was situated in. It was a steep, windy, single land road down into the valley for about 10km to get to the B&B. We eventually made it and went for a walk in the pouring rain through a green oasis in the rugged valley – I kept thinking leprechauns or fairies would pop out from behind a tree. In the Cotswolds the weekend before, we had made friends with some lambs. On this walk, we tried to do the same thing – there were some lambs in a field close to a fence and we tried to get them to eat from our hands. Unfortunately, the ram, their father, was on our side of the fence. He started to give us a mean look and make his way towards us, so we bee lined out of there pretty quickly so as not to get ‘rammed’.
The next morning the sun came out and we wanted to drive out of the valley and do the Ring of Kerry. Little did we know that the car rally had been directed down into the valley, on the single lane road which we need to get out on. We sat in the car and waited as a steady line of cars went by. We eventually gave up, parked the car and went for an enjoyable hike up a hill where we could watch the line of cars make their way down into the valley. We figured it was about 300 cars.
Once we finally got out of the valley, we drove around about 2/3s of the Ring of Kerry, enjoying the beautiful ocean views from the cliffs. We took a little ferry over to a fishing village so that we could take a slightly different route back.
One of the things John wanted to do was see a hurling match (hurling is an Irish game, kind of like lacrosse).
On the radio, we heard about a match that was going on back in a town near Cashel where we were the day before. John had his heart set on seeing it, so he turned into a rally car driver and for three hours raced across the country. Of course, it took a lot longer than we were anticipating. By some miracle, we found our way to the sports complex, the parking lot was full but they let us park at the front, and we ran in to catch the last 10 minutes. The stands were packed with spectators and we enjoyed our brief glimpse into the hurling world.
That night we backtracked and stayed at a B&B in Blarney (known for the famous Blarney Stone and no, we didn’t kiss it). Our host was a funny and friendly guy who used to run a pub. He told us all about hurling – including telling us about a game that had been in Blarney that day (too bad we didn’t hear about that one on the radio). Turns out the Irish are quite loyal to their hurling teams and on the radio the next day there was news of three guys getting stabbed in a hurling related fight on the road our B&B was on!
On our last day there, we drove out to Kinsale Head, a windswept cliff on the edge of the ocean, and then we started the long drive back to Dublin. Ireland looked a lot more North American than British. The towns were quaint but in a far different way than British ones, newish houses all painted brightly in different colours. The cities reminded us of Calgary (Alberta) – brand new developments stretching outside the city limits. We finished the weekend off with a drive through Dublin, past the Guinness factory. Next time we’ll have to go to Northern Ireland – for a history trip as opposed to a scenery one.
Denmark
The second bank holiday was fast approaching and I still hadn’t booked a trip for it,
despite having booked some additional time off. We wanted to go to Bulgaria, or Romania or back to the South of France but everything was really expensive. A few days before the weekend, John did a flight search – the cheapest flights that weekend were to Arhus, Denmark. We rang up Carla and Poul, and luckily they weren’t doing anything, so we booked one more trip to up to see them. It was a beautiful sunny weekend on Fyn and we had a great time sharing a typical weekend with C&P.
John had to work on Saturday and Poul was working on a refurbishing a house, so Carla and I hung out. We went f
or a long walk through the countryside and then we watched a royal wedding on TV. We had fun doing our own commentary of the dresses as the ladies walked down the red carpet to the church.
In the afternoon, we went to work on the garden – pulling weeds and cutting grass. John was tempted away from his work by Carla’s riding lawn mower. He cut the whole yard and the orchard. He loved it so much that he said he would do it every weekend if we lived closer. We had a bon fire that night and ate outside. We finished the evening off watching the Eurovision final – that was an experience!
On Sunday, C&P kindly took us out on the Feel Good (their sail boat). We cruised d
own the coast to Poul’s sister’s summer cottage, where we anchored the boat and rowed a dingy to shore. After an hour of chatting and eating, we had to row the dingy back to the sailboat but unfortunately, the wind had picked. We couldn’t make it all in one trip together. I had to watch in fear as John rowed backed to shore to get Carla. The swells were so big I sometimes lost sight of them in the dinghy (not quite). Everyone made it back to the boat but with wet butts.
I’m really going to miss going to visit C&P. I love staying in their beautiful guest room; I always have the best sleeps. Carla always takes good care of us – stocking up her coffee cream and havarti cheese supply for us and feeding us big wholesome meals. One of the highlights for me on this trip was walking at 11:30 at night to hear the nightingales. Even at 11:30 it wasn’t completely dark, and the nightingales didn’t sound at all like what I was expecting. Thanks for all the hospitality you two. We’ll miss having you close by.
April 2008 – Budapest and Cotswolds with Carla
Cotswolds with Carla
We had one of our last visitors was here this past weekend – my Aunt Carla flew in from Denmark.
She arrived Thursday night and spent Friday exploring the V&A Museum and walking all over Kensington. That evening she treated us to a delicious ‘nibbly’ dinner of olives, bread,
artichoke, garlic veggies, meat, cheese and very yummy sauces. We sat around nibbling and chatting for ages. We loved hearing about all of her sailing adventures with husband Poul, their renovation projects of ancient Danish homes, their travels (including an interesting trip to Cuba) and life on the farm by the sea in Denmark.
We had a weekend of walking in the Cotswolds planned and we made our base an adorable town called Winchcombe. It only takes a few hours of driving west of London and you enter the picturesque countryside of the Cotswolds.
On the first part of our walk on Saturday we came across an abbey in ruins, originally ransacked by Henry the 8th. We stopped for lunch at a little restaurant on an orchard/farm. We tried their fresh apple juice; it was good but not quite as good as Carla’s home made apple juice she brought us from DK. After lunch we walked through more fields and made some friends with several lambs and a puppy. We walked through a little village called Farmcote which we all wanted to live in. The back part of the route took us through bright yellow canola fie
lds, past wise old oak trees and then by the Winchcombe castle. We had tea and then a little nap before taking Carla for a good long pub dinner.
Over the weekend, we saw several other walkers out and we had fun glimpsing into their world. ‘Expert’ walkers were identified by wearing gators and carrying an ordinance map in a clear plastic bag to prevent it from getting wet (plus they walked way faster than us). Walking poles (like ski poles) were common, but they don’t make you an expert. I think we were ‘good’ walkers but we need to practice some more before becoming ‘experts’.
Sunday, April 27th was Carla’s birthday! We tried to make it a special day for her by starting it off with balloons and champagne and orange juice. She got to have a full English breakfast at the B&B but it unfortunately came accompanied by one way conversations with one of the other guests and then some long winded stories from our hostess about her daughter’s wedding six years ago.
After listening to a little 50 Cent on the i-Pod to get pumped up (John did not partake), we left on our morning walk. We hiked up a big hill to an ancient burial mound (not so exciting for Carla who has one in her back yard). We stopped to catch our breath at a road in the woods just in time to see about 10 classic old cars drive by (they were having an old car rally in the area). After passing more quaint cottages and grand manor houses, we walked across a canola field into a little wood and found a mosaic tiled floor from Roman times! I had read about these and was thrilled to be able to see one! Winchcombe was a perfect location – castle, abbey, burial mound, Roman mosaic, quaint farms and stone cottages – all within walking distance! The rain held off too which was an added bonus.
We indulged in a pub lunch in Chipping Camden (another place we could live) before driving back to London. In the evening, we hadn’t had quite enough of being outside so we went to the local park and taught Carla how to through a Frisbee. She was a natural! Carla I hope you had a fun birthday. We sure had fun celebrating with you! Thanks for coming to visit – we always have so many laughs (YPP). See you at the WH.
Budapest
On April 19th we flew to Budapest, Hungary. Much like the Cotswolds, it was a weekend of walking. We exited the plane bracing ourselves to the biting cold air we’d grown accustomed to in London, Belgium and the Baltics, but to our surprise it was pleasantly warm! We didn’t have to wear our toques this trip!
We arrived early Saturday morning and checked into our deluxe hostel recommended
by A&J - it was a fully furnished, high end apartment! To stay awake and get a feel for the city, we did a long walking tour. Pest, on the east side of the Danube, is the newer side of the city and somewhat resembles Vienna. Buda, on the west side of the Danube, has older buildings and looks more like Prague. A lot of the buildings were ruined in the war and things fell into disrepair during the Soviet era. You can tell improvements have been made and are continuing. The leaves were out far ahead of London and lilacs were in bloom. The fresh greenness made the city look beautiful, especially along the river walk.
Sunday was too sunny for us to go into any museums so we just walked and walked and walked – along both sides of the river, past Parliament and the Cathedral, up the Castle hill and through several back roads. We ate lunch on a patio over looking the river. There was a bike rally/protest going on that day to promote additional bike lanes – the streets were teeming with riders! To end off our day of walking we went to the Baths (swimming pools, hot pools, steam rooms, saunas, massage rooms). We tried to figure out the etiquette and the lockers and eventually we made it into the soothing hot pools. Thank goodness we remembered flip flops!
On Monday, we took a tour to a Soviet statue park. The Soviets ‘liberated’ Hungary a
nd then stayed for 40 years. After they left, the citizens moved all of the Soviet era statues into this park. They were classic – big, muscular, blazing eyes, flag waving. It was nice to have a guide to interpret them for us and give us some insight to what it was like living in Hungary during communism. In the afternoon we explored the famous market in Pest and crossed another bridge over to Buda where we then hiked up to the citadel and the Statue of Liberty.
We will remember the sunny warmth of that weekend in Budapest and the beauty of the walks along the river.
Baltics, Bradford on Avon, and Bruges – March and April 2008
It's our first weekend home in four weeks and I'm very behind in my blogging. Time to catch up ...
Last weekend we went across the channel to Bruges, Belgium with Andrew and Jess. Bruges came highly recommended by anyone who has ever been there so it was a must see on our list. It was like a quaint Amsterdam - old buildings, town squares, cobblestones and canals. We wandered the streets, ate waffles, did a brewery tour, ate chocolate, drank some Belgian beer, ate mussels, caught the end of an Eagles Tribute band playing in the town square, saw the start of the Tour of Flanders bike race, and ate more waffles. We finished the weekend off driving through the Belgian country side and stopping at some Commonwealth WWI cemeteries and memorials. We lucked out with weather - it was snowing in London and we got a taste of it on the drive back.
The weekend before that, we went to visit friends Ian and Sarah in Bradford upon Avon. Sarah and Ian just moved into this great house, right on the Avon river and within a 5 minute walk to the centre of
town. It is a classic old town with beautiful stone buildings, a river walk, and lots of shops and restaurants. If we were going to live in England again, we'd want to live in a place like that. We had a nice relaxing weekend visiting with them. Sarah and Ian are expecting a baby within the next month - best wishes you two! We took our time on the drive back to London. Some paragliders on a caught our attention so we drove up into the hills to see if John could get a lesson. He didn't get to fly but he had a great chat with an expert while we watched the paragliders float around above us.
For Easter weekend, we went to Estonia and Latvia, again with our trusty travel companions, Andrew and Jess. We flew into Riga, Latvia where it was cold and snowy. Good Friday was our day to explore Riga and unfortunately some of the sights we wanted to see were closed (the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Museum and St Peter's Church). We walked through the snow covered parks in the town centre and then we managed to bargain a 1/2 price private walking tour which was informative but damn cold! The guide pointed out the gilded roosters on top of the churches to ward off the devil - I had never noticed these before but there were also roosters on churches in Bradford on Avon and Bruges. The interesting part about it being Good Friday was that we got to hear choir singing emanating from the churches and we saw Catholic procession make its way through the streets.
In the afternoon, we walked to the 'new market' and caught a bus to the reco
mmended Lido restaurant. It was self serve and the array of food was so vast it took me ages to choose what to eat. It was all sooo yum. Then we wandered the old town and the famous Art Nouveau street, and had drinks in the Skyline Bar which gave us great 360 degree views of the city at dusk. There are a lot of derelict buildings surrounding the old town - I found them interesting to look at, but I’m probably one of the few. We managed to find room in our bellies later for another traditional meal, and then A&J taught us a new card game, 500.
It snowed all day Saturday, which made the drive through the old Soviet states feel appropriately bleak. We picked up the rental car and started the drive up to Estonia with a detour through a Latvian National Park. We had read an article about an old Soviet nuclear bunker that you could do a tour of but the only thing we managed to find out about it online was that is was near a town called Ligatne. We made our way there, not knowing if we would find it or what to expect. Luckily there were signs to the Rehabilitiation Centre and Bunker, so we followed them into the woods ...
The Rehabilitation Centre was ‘wellness centre’ - but don't picture Westin Resort & Spa - picture 1960s run down apartment buildings in the middle of nowhere with an old Soviet nuclear bunker hidden underneath. We lucked out with timing because the only bunker tour that day was about to leave. We didn’t luck out on the language of the tour – it was in Latvian. The bunker was a base for Soviet warfare strategy, and was no longer classified as 'top secret' in 2003. The tour took us through the living quarters, communication rooms, power plant, map/strategy rooms and of course the communist propaganda room. It would have been a lot more interesting if we understood what the tour guide was saying.
We had lunch and walked around a crumbling castle in Cesis, Lativa's most Lativan town. Then we finished the four hour drive up to Tallin, Estonia.
Tallin didn't look that exciting until we drove into the old town (which you aren't supposed to do). After a great traditional dinner, we explored the beautiful old town on foot. This was a highlight for me - it was dark, the snow was falling, we walked on the castle walls and by churches and then tossed a frisbee in the empty town square.
We stayed in a hostel for the first time in ages. The accommodation was decent and we had private rooms but we were reminded of the benefit of private bathrooms when we all had to walk by a guy passed out on the cold hallway floor in the morning to get to the shared bathroom. He made it into the hostel, and got his key into the lock of his room door, but he didn't make it any further!
On Easter Sunday, we drove 45 minutes west along the coast to Paldiski, a recommended abandoned Soviet military town. There is still an inhabited town there, with rows of Soviet era apartment buildings (and some new ones built in the same style). We found the abandoned military offices and barracks, and trudged through the snow so that we could explore the different buildings. I saw an Easter bunny hopping through the snow. The guide books talked about there being a huge black building which used to be a submarine training centre, nicknamed the Soviet Pentagon. We looked everywhere for it but couldn't find it - after a few internet searches when we got home I found out it had been torn down.+on+the+Town+Swing.JPG)
In the afternoon, we went to an open air museum, a town of historical buildings. The best part of that, according to me, was the big town swing. If it wasn't so cold I could have stayed swinging for ages!
We had dinner at medieval restaurant, which we thought would be cheesy but turned to be okay. It was in a really old building with stone walls and dark beamed ceilings. We ate at wood tables on benches by pure candlelight. John didn't enjoy his honey beer (because it tasted like honey and not beer) but the rest of the food was excellent!
On Monday, after one more quick walk of the town, in the sunshine for the first time, we drove back to Riga, and A&J headed to Helsinki, Finland (for more snow!).
Thanks for the fun weekends A&J and I&S.
Malaysia – October 2008
After 17 hours of flying, an overnight in Singapore and then one more quick flight, I arrived in Kuala Lumpur. I had mentally prepared myself for the long journey, so it didn’t bother me. It helped that I was so excited to be joining John on one of his trips.
KL was sunny and hot, so when I arrived at the hotel I went straight to the pool and ordered a drink. Heaven! I started reading The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (thanks Jess) on the plane and I couldn’t put it down. I have never read one of Atwood’s books before; I was very impressed by this one and I’m still thinking about it. I was forced inside around 5:00 when it started to rain (and when I say rain, I mean torrential downpour, usually accompanied by thunder and lightning). Like in Camelot, where “the rain may never fall till after sundown”, it rained every night; it would start around 5:00 in KL but not until 10:00 when we were on Langkawi.
It was such a treat to be staying in nice hotels (and for about the same price as
the not so nice hotels we stayed in while travelling Europe). From our room at the Westin in KL, we had a great view of the city and the lightning storms as they rolled in. John was still working at the Routes conference so checked out the huge neighbouring mall. I was in awe of its six floors of stores, although it would seem I could buy the same things at Club Monaco, the Gap, etc in Canada as I can in Malaysia (and likely everywhere else in the world). I enjoyed dinner in the extensive food court offering an almost infinite variety of different Asian foods. It would seem that like the Canadians the Malaysians have an affinity for donuts, however, they do a better job of covering the donuts with interesting toppings.I ventured out to explore KL on my second day. First thing, I lined up for tickets up the Petronas Towers’ sky bridge, and then I hopped on the city’s ‘hop on, hop off’ bus. My first stop was at the bustling markets in Chinatown. I wandered there for ages and then made my way over to the Indian markets. My next stop on the tour around town was the city’s green belt and the national monument. From there I went to a butterfly park and walked past a huge bird sanctuary. It was so hot and humid, my body was constantly covered in a layer of sweat.
My last stop was back at the Petronas Towers for my trip up to the sky bridge on the 41st floor, which conn
ects between the two twin buildings, about halfway up. I’m rather scared of heights but I hadn’t really thought about the bridge being scary so for the first five minutes I happily snapped pictures as I walked along the bridge. When I got to the middle of the bridge, I mistakenly looked down and realized I was suspended between the two buildings. That’s when the blood drained from my face and I had a bit of a panic attack. I managed to retreat off the bridge to the comfort of one of the towers without looking too crazy.That evening, I joined John and several of his aviation colleagues for fun dinner. The jet lag affected me in an ideal way – I would hit a wall around 10:00 and it would feel like someone drugged me. I wouldn’t be able to keep my eyes open. It made for a great sleep and I’d be awake and raring to go by 8:00 in the morning. Too bad all jet lag can’t be like that (like on the way home). On Wednesday morning, we departed on Air Asia (Asia’s Ryan Air equivalent) for Langkawi, a resort island in northern Malaysia, near Thailand.
Langkawi was a perfect spot for us to spend the next few days. There were lots of neat things to see and do around the jungle island, or we could relax at the beach. We spent our first afternoon lounging in the sun at the beach and pool at our resort. I went for a swim in the ocean and it was like a bath tub it was so warm! We got into our room, which was like a little cabin, later in the afternoon and the first thing I did was open up the balcony doors to warm the place up from the extreme air conditioning. After unpacking, I walked out the balcony door just in time to catch a monkey and her baby walking up the stairs of our deck! I was grateful for the timing of that because I certainly didn’t want a monkey in our room. We also noticed large lizards wandering the area, so the balcony door stayed shut from then on.
Lots of people from the Routes conference headed to Langkawi for a holiday after it was over. We ran into one of John’s clients at dinner on Wednesday night and she joined us. That day she had rented a scooter and explored the island. It sounded like so much fun that we decided to do the same thing on Thursday. Neither of us had driven a scooter before; John picked it up right away, while I on other hand did not. For some reason, my natural instinct when panicking was to rev the motor as opposed to just letting go and hitting the brake. This resulted in me crashing the scooter in the rocky rain ditch in the resort’s driveway! The bike was okay but I still have the bruises to show for it.
After that little incident, we decided to only take one scooter. I rode on the back behind John, which was way more fun anyway. It took me a while to get over my initial jitters (and fear of getting road rash up my legs, or worse) but eventually I let John accelerate over 30 km/h (we made it up to 60 at a few points). I shouldn’t have been quite so nervous because we played it pretty safe. Comparatively, we saw a local driving his motorbike with one hand (the other was holding a cigarette), no helmet, and his kid sitting between his legs. I think our biggest danger was hitting one of those big lizards running across the road. John’s colleague had squished one and we narrowly avoided one in the afternoon. I loved riding the scooter around the island. I felt like we were on a travel show, cruising through the jungle and all the little Malaysian towns. It was so hot that all we wanted to do was drive because the wind cooled us off.
Our first stop was at Seven Wells Waterfall. First we checked out the beautiful waterf
all from the bottom. There was a big crew of people and TV cameras doing some zip line stunts over the river for an Asian fear factor show. Then, we hiked to the top of the waterfall to enjoy swimming in the Seven Wells (pools of water). The hike felt like the Grouse Grind but it wasn’t nearly as long, I think the heat made it hard. We were drenched in sweat at the bottom so you can imagine our state by the time we reached the top. The view from there was amazing and the cool water in the pools felt like heaven! We had fun sliding down the natural waterslides that had formed between the pools. This was a definite trip highlight.We drove around the island in search of a good beach to stretch out on and found one at the north-easterly point. The beach was practically empty, the water was gorgeously green and our view was of several small rocky islands and a sailboat. It looked like what you see in the movies. We baked for a while and tried to fend off a few pesky birds that wanted some of our food. When we got up to go for a swim, they went straight for our towels looking for food. When they didn’t find any food they left, but not before leaving an unpleasant deposit on John’s towel as payback.
We made our way around the other side of the island and then had a bit of an “amazing race” panic moment. We started the day with half a tank of gas, the first half of which got us around 3/4s of the island. We thought we wouldn’t have to fill up but then the last quarter tank burned off in about five minutes! We were on a side road with no prospect of a gas station in sight and I was having visions of us walking for miles in the, drenched in sweat, in order to find one if we ran out of gas. I couldn’t pry my eyes away from the gas gauge and we continued on and I prayed that we would find a place to fill up. Thankfully, we did, and for a whopping $2 we were back to half a tank.
On Friday, we went on the snorkelling excursion that I’m sure everyone visiting Langkawi does. John’s colleague from Sweden, Petra, and her boyfriend joined us on the trip. It took about an hour by boat to get to the preserved snorkelling island (renowned for its coral). We had to pay a preservation fee to visit, but I’m afraid the non-stop brown smoke being emitted from our boat on the way there and back would more than reverse any good the fee does.
We had a great time snorkelling through the clear blue waters and watching the brightly coloured fish. There were a few big, mean looking fish that I steered very clear of. After lunch we watched a mini shark feeding at a nearby beach and then went for another snorkel back in our area. We saw one of the little sharks which was my cue to get out of the water (John stayed in for ages). I enjoyed the rest of the afternoon on the sun deck reading and watching four eagles soar about the island.
We met up with John’s colleague from Denver airport at a local restaurant for dinner on Friday. It was our best dinner of the trip! Mango chicken, vegetable curry and bbq king prawns. For dessert we all tried fried ice cream cake and it was awesome!
Saturday was our last full day on Langkawi and we had a terrible time trying to decide what to do. We wanted to go scootering again but we didn’t want to tempt fate, plus we figured it was going to rain. There was an island hopping boat trip but we weren’t super keen on th
at. We tried to go abseiling through the rainforest but we couldn’t find enough people to join us in order to meet the minimum numbers. So we thought we’d play some tennis and play it by ear. As we approached the fitness centre to rent rackets we found our answer – bicycles! We got two bikes from the resort and rode off for a leisurely tour of the villages close by. It was a great way to explore some of the back roads and see real life on Langkawi. It was also the perfect duration, leaving us the whole afternoon to lounge by the pool, read and sip on lime slushies. John was a bit more active than me and he managed a windsurf.We hated to leave Langkawi but at least we had one more day of vacation. We flew to Singapore on Sunday and arrived later in the afternoon. We had a plan all set out: 1) Singapore Flyer (big Ferris Wheel like the London Eye) 2) Dinner at Clarke Quay and 3) Night Safari. Unfortunately, as we left the hotel and got on the metro for downtown, it started to monsoon! Alas, best laid plans...we were gratefully surprised that the rain had stopped by the time we arrived down town, the clouds even started to clear a bit. So, we got to do the Singapore Flyer and take in the views of the impressive skyline and harbour. Then we made it to Clark Quay for a lovely dinner. The skies were still clear so we thought we would attempt the night safari. We managed to stay awake and boy, was it ever worth it! It was really cool making our way through all of the different habitats in the dark and seeing the animals lit up under dim light. There were elephants, tigers, leopards, rhinos, hippos, and a whole whack of animals we’d never seen or heard of before. We got to see a hyena, which we didn’t get to see when we were on safari in South Africa. Plus, we lucked out as we passed the male lion habitat and one of them started to bellow. It was SO loud – I wouldn’t want to be out in the wild and hear that! They say you can hear a lion’s roar from up to 60 kms away.
This was my first trip to Asia and I loved it! It was a really awesome five year anniversary trip. Thanks John. Love you!
June 2008 – London and Nice
Our last few weeks in London seem like a blur now. We were both really busy with work, trying to finish everything off, but on top of that we had both organized events for the first week of June. I had helped organize a presentation for some of our customers and John arranged and ran a full day workshop for airport directors from around Europe. Needless to say, we were both stressed out. Luckily, both were successful.
John’s workshop was June 6th and on the morning of Saturday the 7th, we drove a car full of people down to Brighton for an Ultimate Frisbee tournament, part of Britain’s summer tour. There were 40 teams (pretty much all the teams in Britain, compared to 200 in our league in Vancouver alone), it was situated in a beautiful setting, the weather was sunny and it was very well run. We were seeded 20th and worked our way up to 14th by the end of weekend. Our coach, Villi, was well chuffed (Brit expression meaning happy). We stayed overnight in Brighton, which is a picturesque town on a pebble beach. On a Saturday night though, it was crawling with Hen and Stag parties. Sitting outside a dinner, we saw 10 different groups of girls on hen nights parading around all dressed up. What scene!
The song of the weekend was Love in this Club, by Usher. So bad, but so good … we had non stop laughs blasting that in the car as we drove to and from the fields.
On Friday the 13th, with work, I got to go to see some horse races. One more Brit experience to tick off the list. I wasn’t in a posh frock or a hat, nor did I shout “move your blooming arse!” but I did have a fun time betting on the races and cheering on my horses. I managed to come out a few pounds ahead. I won 20 pounds on the first race and then burned through my winnings on all the others.
Nice
We were up one final time at 3:30 on Sunday morning to go to the airport for our last jaunt over to Europe. We flew to Nice, France with Andrew and Jess.
We really wanted to go back to the South of France and I wanted one more swim in th
e Med. We hadn’t been to that area since our honeymoon five years before, and as it was our last trip, we were going to treat ourselves.The forecast for the days we were going to be there was threatening rain. It was sunny when we arrived so we went straight to the beach to take advantage of it. We splurged and rented chairs at a private part of the beach. That is SO the way to go. Comfy chairs, towels, umbrellas, change rooms, waiters bringing food … We were all relaxed and in heaven!
Going back several years, John and I had a 20 Euro note which we put on our fridge as motivation to move to/visit Europe. We brought it over to London with us and it stayed on our fridge there. On this last trip to Nice, we decided to spend it on pre-dinner drinks with A&J (the drinks actually cost EUR 26 though). In honour of spending the fridge EUR20, A&J gave us an AUS$20 to put on our fridge as motivation to visit them there.
We had an excellent Mediterranean dinner that night. What a treat it was to sit outside over delicious food and wine with good friends, in the South of France. We tried not to think that in a week we wouldn’t
be able to do that any more.On Tuesday we tried to go to Cannes, to sit on the sandy beach there but after waiting 1.5 hours in the station for a train due to delays going west, we gave up and took a train to Monaco instead. We stopped at Eze sur la Mer enroute and had a swim, then we took a bus up to Eze (on the cliff) for some lunch and to take in spectacular views of the Med.
Once in Monaco, we walked the harbour checking out all the massive yachts – the whole harbour just oozed wealth. We walked up to the Casinos and then had a drink on the water before catching a train back to Nice for dinner.
We were feeling so tired and stressed from the hectic travel pace of Sunday and Monday (note my sarcasm), we decided to sit on the private beach again on Tuesday. Heaven, again! We sat there all day and I got in one more swim before the rain clouds rolled in. As we walked back to the hotel to get our stuff the skies opened and chucked down the rain. We sure were lucky that it held off until then. It was a good thing we had stuck to the beach that day too, as opposed to doing more sight seeing, because there was a national strike and all of the trains and buses weren’t running.
What a nice time in Nice! A great last trip! Thanks A&J – we are going to miss your company. You have been wonderful travel companions and our trips wouldn’t have been the same without you.
It was a fitting return to London for our last trip – the plane was late and we had a long wait in the customs queue at Luton airport. We didn’t get home until 2:00 am. I got pretty good at forgetting about being tired when I was at work the days after weekends away. Being able to do a quick jaunt to Europe was worth it to suffer at work for a day.
May 2008 – Ireland and Denmark
Ireland
On the first bank holiday weekend in May, John and I flew to Dublin, Ireland. We got into the customs line up at the airport and it was curiously taking a long time, despite not that many people being in the queue. We then realized it was because the friendly border guards were chatting up everyone as they went through, in their adorable, lilting Irish accents. Once we finally got to the front of the line, we got the standard questions and then the border guard asked what John’s job was. John replied, “airport consultant”, and the quick witted guard fired back with, “you sure f&cked up T5!” It was priceless! I’ve never left a customs line up laughing before. (Note: T5 is the new terminal at Heathrow and there were terrible problems when it opened a few months ago.)
After being in the Cotswolds the weekend before, we were itching for more ‘country’, so we immediately headed south in our rental car. It turned out to be a driving weekend and we covered a lot of ground. The first area we drove through was as we had pictured Ireland – green rolling fields. I loved how the fields were littered with crumbling old castles, churches and towers. Our first stop was the Rock of Cashel, one such crumbling castle with a beautiful neighbouring church in ruins. It was a great site and we had a nice walk in the sunshine.
We continued on to popular Killarney and the rain started. The traffic to get into Killarney was backed up 4kms outside the town, so we pulled the plug on seeing it and instead drove into the hills on some back roads to get to our B&B. Killarney is on a National Park and the edge of the popular Ring of Kerry. It was very busy due to the long weekend and due to the car rally planned through the National Park (we didn’t know before hand).
Enroute to our B&B we stopped in a cute town and had some Irish Guinness. It tastes better in Ireland. The B&B I had picked was in the middle of no
where on the edge of the National Park. We weren’t expecting the rugged landscape that it was situated in. It was a steep, windy, single land road down into the valley for about 10km to get to the B&B. We eventually made it and went for a walk in the pouring rain through a green oasis in the rugged valley – I kept thinking leprechauns or fairies would pop out from behind a tree. In the Cotswolds the weekend before, we had made friends with some lambs. On this walk, we tried to do the same thing – there were some lambs in a field close to a fence and we tried to get them to eat from our hands. Unfortunately, the ram, their father, was on our side of the fence. He started to give us a mean look and make his way towards us, so we bee lined out of there pretty quickly so as not to get ‘rammed’.The next morning the sun came out and we wanted to drive out of the valley and do the Ring of Kerry. Little did we know that the car rally had been directed down into the valley, on the single lane road which we need to get out on. We sat in the car and waited as a steady line of cars went by. We eventually gave up, parked the car and went for an enjoyable hike up a hill where we could watch the line of cars make their way down into the valley. We figured it was about 300 cars.
Once we finally got out of the valley, we drove around about 2/3s of the Ring of Kerry, enjoying the beautiful ocean views from the cliffs. We took a little ferry over to a fishing village so that we could take a slightly different route back.
One of the things John wanted to do was see a hurling match (hurling is an Irish game, kind of like lacrosse).
On the radio, we heard about a match that was going on back in a town near Cashel where we were the day before. John had his heart set on seeing it, so he turned into a rally car driver and for three hours raced across the country. Of course, it took a lot longer than we were anticipating. By some miracle, we found our way to the sports complex, the parking lot was full but they let us park at the front, and we ran in to catch the last 10 minutes. The stands were packed with spectators and we enjoyed our brief glimpse into the hurling world.That night we backtracked and stayed at a B&B in Blarney (known for the famous Blarney Stone and no, we didn’t kiss it). Our host was a funny and friendly guy who used to run a pub. He told us all about hurling – including telling us about a game that had been in Blarney that day (too bad we didn’t hear about that one on the radio). Turns out the Irish are quite loyal to their hurling teams and on the radio the next day there was news of three guys getting stabbed in a hurling related fight on the road our B&B was on!
On our last day there, we drove out to Kinsale Head, a windswept cliff on the edge of the ocean, and then we started the long drive back to Dublin. Ireland looked a lot more North American than British. The towns were quaint but in a far different way than British ones, newish houses all painted brightly in different colours. The cities reminded us of Calgary (Alberta) – brand new developments stretching outside the city limits. We finished the weekend off with a drive through Dublin, past the Guinness factory. Next time we’ll have to go to Northern Ireland – for a history trip as opposed to a scenery one.
Denmark
The second bank holiday was fast approaching and I still hadn’t booked a trip for it,
despite having booked some additional time off. We wanted to go to Bulgaria, or Romania or back to the South of France but everything was really expensive. A few days before the weekend, John did a flight search – the cheapest flights that weekend were to Arhus, Denmark. We rang up Carla and Poul, and luckily they weren’t doing anything, so we booked one more trip to up to see them. It was a beautiful sunny weekend on Fyn and we had a great time sharing a typical weekend with C&P.John had to work on Saturday and Poul was working on a refurbishing a house, so Carla and I hung out. We went f
or a long walk through the countryside and then we watched a royal wedding on TV. We had fun doing our own commentary of the dresses as the ladies walked down the red carpet to the church.In the afternoon, we went to work on the garden – pulling weeds and cutting grass. John was tempted away from his work by Carla’s riding lawn mower. He cut the whole yard and the orchard. He loved it so much that he said he would do it every weekend if we lived closer. We had a bon fire that night and ate outside. We finished the evening off watching the Eurovision final – that was an experience!
On Sunday, C&P kindly took us out on the Feel Good (their sail boat). We cruised d
own the coast to Poul’s sister’s summer cottage, where we anchored the boat and rowed a dingy to shore. After an hour of chatting and eating, we had to row the dingy back to the sailboat but unfortunately, the wind had picked. We couldn’t make it all in one trip together. I had to watch in fear as John rowed backed to shore to get Carla. The swells were so big I sometimes lost sight of them in the dinghy (not quite). Everyone made it back to the boat but with wet butts.I’m really going to miss going to visit C&P. I love staying in their beautiful guest room; I always have the best sleeps. Carla always takes good care of us – stocking up her coffee cream and havarti cheese supply for us and feeding us big wholesome meals. One of the highlights for me on this trip was walking at 11:30 at night to hear the nightingales. Even at 11:30 it wasn’t completely dark, and the nightingales didn’t sound at all like what I was expecting. Thanks for all the hospitality you two. We’ll miss having you close by.
April 2008 – Budapest and Cotswolds with Carla
Cotswolds with Carla
We had one of our last visitors was here this past weekend – my Aunt Carla flew in from Denmark.
She arrived Thursday night and spent Friday exploring the V&A Museum and walking all over Kensington. That evening she treated us to a delicious ‘nibbly’ dinner of olives, bread,
artichoke, garlic veggies, meat, cheese and very yummy sauces. We sat around nibbling and chatting for ages. We loved hearing about all of her sailing adventures with husband Poul, their renovation projects of ancient Danish homes, their travels (including an interesting trip to Cuba) and life on the farm by the sea in Denmark.We had a weekend of walking in the Cotswolds planned and we made our base an adorable town called Winchcombe. It only takes a few hours of driving west of London and you enter the picturesque countryside of the Cotswolds.
On the first part of our walk on Saturday we came across an abbey in ruins, originally ransacked by Henry the 8th. We stopped for lunch at a little restaurant on an orchard/farm. We tried their fresh apple juice; it was good but not quite as good as Carla’s home made apple juice she brought us from DK. After lunch we walked through more fields and made some friends with several lambs and a puppy. We walked through a little village called Farmcote which we all wanted to live in. The back part of the route took us through bright yellow canola fie
lds, past wise old oak trees and then by the Winchcombe castle. We had tea and then a little nap before taking Carla for a good long pub dinner.Over the weekend, we saw several other walkers out and we had fun glimpsing into their world. ‘Expert’ walkers were identified by wearing gators and carrying an ordinance map in a clear plastic bag to prevent it from getting wet (plus they walked way faster than us). Walking poles (like ski poles) were common, but they don’t make you an expert. I think we were ‘good’ walkers but we need to practice some more before becoming ‘experts’.
Sunday, April 27th was Carla’s birthday! We tried to make it a special day for her by starting it off with balloons and champagne and orange juice. She got to have a full English breakfast at the B&B but it unfortunately came accompanied by one way conversations with one of the other guests and then some long winded stories from our hostess about her daughter’s wedding six years ago.
After listening to a little 50 Cent on the i-Pod to get pumped up (John did not partake), we left on our morning walk. We hiked up a big hill to an ancient burial mound (not so exciting for Carla who has one in her back yard). We stopped to catch our breath at a road in the woods just in time to see about 10 classic old cars drive by (they were having an old car rally in the area). After passing more quaint cottages and grand manor houses, we walked across a canola field into a little wood and found a mosaic tiled floor from Roman times! I had read about these and was thrilled to be able to see one! Winchcombe was a perfect location – castle, abbey, burial mound, Roman mosaic, quaint farms and stone cottages – all within walking distance! The rain held off too which was an added bonus.
We indulged in a pub lunch in Chipping Camden (another place we could live) before driving back to London. In the evening, we hadn’t had quite enough of being outside so we went to the local park and taught Carla how to through a Frisbee. She was a natural! Carla I hope you had a fun birthday. We sure had fun celebrating with you! Thanks for coming to visit – we always have so many laughs (YPP). See you at the WH.
Budapest
On April 19th we flew to Budapest, Hungary. Much like the Cotswolds, it was a weekend of walking. We exited the plane bracing ourselves to the biting cold air we’d grown accustomed to in London, Belgium and the Baltics, but to our surprise it was pleasantly warm! We didn’t have to wear our toques this trip!
We arrived early Saturday morning and checked into our deluxe hostel recommended
by A&J - it was a fully furnished, high end apartment! To stay awake and get a feel for the city, we did a long walking tour. Pest, on the east side of the Danube, is the newer side of the city and somewhat resembles Vienna. Buda, on the west side of the Danube, has older buildings and looks more like Prague. A lot of the buildings were ruined in the war and things fell into disrepair during the Soviet era. You can tell improvements have been made and are continuing. The leaves were out far ahead of London and lilacs were in bloom. The fresh greenness made the city look beautiful, especially along the river walk.Sunday was too sunny for us to go into any museums so we just walked and walked and walked – along both sides of the river, past Parliament and the Cathedral, up the Castle hill and through several back roads. We ate lunch on a patio over looking the river. There was a bike rally/protest going on that day to promote additional bike lanes – the streets were teeming with riders! To end off our day of walking we went to the Baths (swimming pools, hot pools, steam rooms, saunas, massage rooms). We tried to figure out the etiquette and the lockers and eventually we made it into the soothing hot pools. Thank goodness we remembered flip flops!
On Monday, we took a tour to a Soviet statue park. The Soviets ‘liberated’ Hungary a
nd then stayed for 40 years. After they left, the citizens moved all of the Soviet era statues into this park. They were classic – big, muscular, blazing eyes, flag waving. It was nice to have a guide to interpret them for us and give us some insight to what it was like living in Hungary during communism. In the afternoon we explored the famous market in Pest and crossed another bridge over to Buda where we then hiked up to the citadel and the Statue of Liberty.We will remember the sunny warmth of that weekend in Budapest and the beauty of the walks along the river.
Baltics, Bradford on Avon, and Bruges – March and April 2008
It's our first weekend home in four weeks and I'm very behind in my blogging. Time to catch up ...
Last weekend we went across the channel to Bruges, Belgium with Andrew and Jess. Bruges came highly recommended by anyone who has ever been there so it was a must see on our list. It was like a quaint Amsterdam - old buildings, town squares, cobblestones and canals. We wandered the streets, ate waffles, did a brewery tour, ate chocolate, drank some Belgian beer, ate mussels, caught the end of an Eagles Tribute band playing in the town square, saw the start of the Tour of Flanders bike race, and ate more waffles. We finished the weekend off driving through the Belgian country side and stopping at some Commonwealth WWI cemeteries and memorials. We lucked out with weather - it was snowing in London and we got a taste of it on the drive back.
The weekend before that, we went to visit friends Ian and Sarah in Bradford upon Avon. Sarah and Ian just moved into this great house, right on the Avon river and within a 5 minute walk to the centre of
town. It is a classic old town with beautiful stone buildings, a river walk, and lots of shops and restaurants. If we were going to live in England again, we'd want to live in a place like that. We had a nice relaxing weekend visiting with them. Sarah and Ian are expecting a baby within the next month - best wishes you two! We took our time on the drive back to London. Some paragliders on a caught our attention so we drove up into the hills to see if John could get a lesson. He didn't get to fly but he had a great chat with an expert while we watched the paragliders float around above us.For Easter weekend, we went to Estonia and Latvia, again with our trusty travel companions, Andrew and Jess. We flew into Riga, Latvia where it was cold and snowy. Good Friday was our day to explore Riga and unfortunately some of the sights we wanted to see were closed (the Nazi and Soviet Occupation Museum and St Peter's Church). We walked through the snow covered parks in the town centre and then we managed to bargain a 1/2 price private walking tour which was informative but damn cold! The guide pointed out the gilded roosters on top of the churches to ward off the devil - I had never noticed these before but there were also roosters on churches in Bradford on Avon and Bruges. The interesting part about it being Good Friday was that we got to hear choir singing emanating from the churches and we saw Catholic procession make its way through the streets.
In the afternoon, we walked to the 'new market' and caught a bus to the reco
mmended Lido restaurant. It was self serve and the array of food was so vast it took me ages to choose what to eat. It was all sooo yum. Then we wandered the old town and the famous Art Nouveau street, and had drinks in the Skyline Bar which gave us great 360 degree views of the city at dusk. There are a lot of derelict buildings surrounding the old town - I found them interesting to look at, but I’m probably one of the few. We managed to find room in our bellies later for another traditional meal, and then A&J taught us a new card game, 500.It snowed all day Saturday, which made the drive through the old Soviet states feel appropriately bleak. We picked up the rental car and started the drive up to Estonia with a detour through a Latvian National Park. We had read an article about an old Soviet nuclear bunker that you could do a tour of but the only thing we managed to find out about it online was that is was near a town called Ligatne. We made our way there, not knowing if we would find it or what to expect. Luckily there were signs to the Rehabilitiation Centre and Bunker, so we followed them into the woods ...
The Rehabilitation Centre was ‘wellness centre’ - but don't picture Westin Resort & Spa - picture 1960s run down apartment buildings in the middle of nowhere with an old Soviet nuclear bunker hidden underneath. We lucked out with timing because the only bunker tour that day was about to leave. We didn’t luck out on the language of the tour – it was in Latvian. The bunker was a base for Soviet warfare strategy, and was no longer classified as 'top secret' in 2003. The tour took us through the living quarters, communication rooms, power plant, map/strategy rooms and of course the communist propaganda room. It would have been a lot more interesting if we understood what the tour guide was saying.
We had lunch and walked around a crumbling castle in Cesis, Lativa's most Lativan town. Then we finished the four hour drive up to Tallin, Estonia.
Tallin didn't look that exciting until we drove into the old town (which you aren't supposed to do). After a great traditional dinner, we explored the beautiful old town on foot. This was a highlight for me - it was dark, the snow was falling, we walked on the castle walls and by churches and then tossed a frisbee in the empty town square.
We stayed in a hostel for the first time in ages. The accommodation was decent and we had private rooms but we were reminded of the benefit of private bathrooms when we all had to walk by a guy passed out on the cold hallway floor in the morning to get to the shared bathroom. He made it into the hostel, and got his key into the lock of his room door, but he didn't make it any further!
On Easter Sunday, we drove 45 minutes west along the coast to Paldiski, a recommended abandoned Soviet military town. There is still an inhabited town there, with rows of Soviet era apartment buildings (and some new ones built in the same style). We found the abandoned military offices and barracks, and trudged through the snow so that we could explore the different buildings. I saw an Easter bunny hopping through the snow. The guide books talked about there being a huge black building which used to be a submarine training centre, nicknamed the Soviet Pentagon. We looked everywhere for it but couldn't find it - after a few internet searches when we got home I found out it had been torn down.
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In the afternoon, we went to an open air museum, a town of historical buildings. The best part of that, according to me, was the big town swing. If it wasn't so cold I could have stayed swinging for ages!
We had dinner at medieval restaurant, which we thought would be cheesy but turned to be okay. It was in a really old building with stone walls and dark beamed ceilings. We ate at wood tables on benches by pure candlelight. John didn't enjoy his honey beer (because it tasted like honey and not beer) but the rest of the food was excellent!
On Monday, after one more quick walk of the town, in the sunshine for the first time, we drove back to Riga, and A&J headed to Helsinki, Finland (for more snow!).
Thanks for the fun weekends A&J and I&S.
