Christmas in London

We had a busy December after getting back from Prague.

John has a new InterVISTAS colleague in the UK; Ian and his wife Sarah, who joined us in Prague and live in Bristol. So for the InterVISTAS-EU Christmas party, John and I went to Bristol and we all went out for dinner at a bangers and mash restaurant (very English). We stayed overnight with Ian and Sarah and they toured us around Bristol the next day. Parts of the city are really beautiful and grand. It is on a breathtaking gorge and the old buildings took me back 100 years. Where were the horse drawn carriages and men in top hats? We also went to the British Empire & Commonwealth Museum and learned all about the good and bad of Britain taking over the world.

We froze our butts off playing in an Ultimate Frisbee tournament on Sunday the 9th, and then counteracted any benefits of the physical activity a week later with a big Christmas lunch with the team.John’s parents arrived on Dec 14th and his grandma and uncle four days later. They roamed around London and England at record pace. We have managed to cross a few London things off our list with them – the Natural History Museum, a historical walking tour of the square mile of the London City and the Museum of London.

A highlight for me was on Dec 23rd when Jess, Lindsay (John’s mom) and I went to St Paul’s Cathedral for a carol service. It was an incredible experience. The Cathedral is so impressive but not excessive. We lucked out and got seats up in a gallery so we could over look the proceedings. The boys choir paraded through in their traditional robes and sang with heavenly voices. It certainly wasn’t like carol services I had been to in the past; it was much more traditional. The carols were ancient, the program quoted composition dates hundreds of years old. The only carol we knew Hark the Herald Angels Sing. I knew the words to O Little Town of Bethlehem but the music was from the 1500s.

On Christmas Eve day, John’s parents and grandma kindly got to work for me in the kitchen – coffee cake, nuts and bolts, xmas dinner prep, xmas eve dinner. Thank you! What a treat!On Christmas morning we opened our stockings, beautifully made by John’s grandma, and ate a hearty breakfast. John’s family did a lot of shopping at the London markets and they found some really lovely gifts – I was impressed by what they found. Our friends Andrew and Jess brought the turkey over midday and we all went for a walk through the local parks. We spent the afternoon reading, playing games and visiting and then sat down for some more eating.

Thank you to all our guests for making it a special day. I was exhausted by the end of the day, and I had lots of food help. I have much more appreciation for all of our family members who have put on Christmas in the past.
John and his family were off early on Boxing Day to catch their flight to Portugal. I worked a few extra days and joining them on Saturday.

Photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/weatherills/sets/

Prague, Czech Republic

After going to the mother of all Christmas markets in Vienna last year, we decided to see what Prague had to offer this year. Prague's been on our to do list since we got to Europe, so we took a long weekend and checked out the city with Andrew & Jess and Ian & Sarah. Unfortunately Leah was pretty sick for the entire weekend, so she is getting a break from blog writing...

So the logistics planning for this particular trip turned out to be exceptional. We flew out of London City airport, which is a painless tube ride from Ealing, and more importantly, security processing takes about 12 seconds. LCY is pretty much a business airport to serve Canary Wharf and the City, so it was extra quick on Saturday morning. We flew on Swiss Air, which meant being treated far more humanely than we're used to with Ryanair & Co. Assigned seats, free beer and Swiss chocolates, what more could you ask for?

We arrived in Prague on Saturday evening and took the metro to the Hotel City Bell, which was a great find by Jess - huge rooms, a good buffet breakfast and walking distance to the city center. We dropped our bags and met up with Ian & Sarah at the pub across the street, and set about reducing our APB (average price per beer). The Czech Republic brews some excellent beer, and pints are about $1.75, compared to $6.50+ in London.

We headed over to the Christmas markets, which were closed for the evening except for the grog stand. We didn't know what grog was, but decided that everyone had to have one (except Sarah, who's pregnant). Turns out she was the lucky one. Grog is rum & hot water, and it's pretty nasty. We all gave up after a few sips, except Andrew, who easily won Grog. Andrew found us a great restaurant for dinner, we had a night cap at the pub next to the hotel, and then hit the sack.

Sunday we took a 4-hour(!) walking tour around Prague. The city is quite beautiful, particularly the architecture, and the Old Town is in excellent shape. The highlight of the tour was probably the guide, a student-looking guy whose habit of long-winded explanations was pleasantly offset by his general wierdness. His best move was reciting some obscure fact about Prague, and then saying "Yessss" with an arm pump as if he's just scored in sudden death overtime. "Czechs became disenchanted with the church after the 30 Years War, so we're mostly athiest now. Yessss" (arm pump). "Corpses legally belong to the City of Prague, so we can take your organs without your consent. Yessss" (arm pump). We spent our 20 minute lunch break at a traditional Czech restaurant called McDonald's, and then continued the tour up to Prague Castle and St. Vitus Cathedral, which look down over the city.

We were pretty well frozen by the end of the tour, so we found a cafe in Wenceslas Square to warm up with a coffee. We then headed in to the Old Town Square to check out the Christmas market. It was absolutely packed, and didn't really have the same authentic types of crafts as in Vienna, but it was a really nice atmosphere. We picked up a couple of things, and tried the rolled up sugared bread (called trdelnik we think), before heading for dinner. Dinner was traditional Czech dumplings with meat, sauce, cranberries & cream. After dinner we picked up a few beers at the grocery store and played cards back at the hotel, where Ian destroyed us in his first ever game of Diminishing Whist.

Monday morning we went to the Museum of Communism, one of the attractions that didn't get a "skip it" from Arm Pump the tour guide. I thought this museum was actually really interesting, but I think my travel companions were less impressed. Favourite facts: a) the Prague memorial to Stalin took about 300,000 person days to build in 1955 before being demolished in 1962 after a collective change of heart towards Stalin, and b) the entire national hockey team was tried and imprisoned after the communist takeover (for what exactly, I'm not sure)...

Ian & Sarah had to head back to Bristol, so the rest of us had a leisurely lunch and a final cruise through the Christmas markets. We didn't get any snow unfortunately, but the rain held off until we were enroute to the airport. A few more Swiss chocolates later and we were back in London. All in all a successful trip - beautiful city and great company!

Bled, Slovenia

We still love Slovenia! We went to Slovenia the first time about a year ago and we wanted to go back so we could explore the Lake Bled area and the national park in the Julian Alps. Slovenia is “mini-Europe”. It has beaches on the Adriatic, old castles, historic cities, beautiful churches, caves, and the Alps, all crammed into its tiny borders, and the bonus is that it is still relatively undiscovered and great value for money.

We arrived midday Friday the 9th, and while John had a meeting with the airport I got my weekly Economist reading out of the way and continued devouring The Wolf of the Plains (a great new book about Genghis Khan).

We got to our destination of Bled later in the afternoon. Lake Bled has an island with a church on it and a castle high up on a cliffs of its shore. John found us this great hotel, outside of the town and right on the lake. We had a view of the castle, the church and all the rowers skimming across the water. The hotel was really good – clean, neat atmosphere and delicious local food. Friday evening we bundled up and walked around the lake. That worked up our appetites for a dinner of local food and then we hit the sack very early.

We spent Saturday exploring different sights in the national park, which consumes the northwest corner of the country. My friend Barb was the one that originally recommended hiking in Slovenia. First we went to the famous gorge, but unfortunately, the trail was closed, so we weren’t able to see much of it. The trail was mostly made up of boardwalks along the gorge walls but they were damaged in a big storm.

We took on a tiny gravel road through the park (non stop beautiful scenery) to a waterfall, which we hiked up to, and then we picnicked at the base of some stunning mountains. By mid afternoon, we were at the north end of the park and we thought we would take the only road that went across the park. It looked like a quick cut through, but our map didn’t show elevation. We started to go up and up and then we came across a sign that told us about the road. It is called the “Russian Road” as it was built by Russian prisoners of war in 1916. It goes through a very high mountain pass and it is closed during the winter. The sign advised of the road’s 50 hairpin turns (switchbacks), 25 on either side of the pass. The road, the turns and the spectacular mountain scenery took our breath away. So did the cold air and snow when we got out of the car at the top of the pass. The route certainly exceeded our expectations!

By the time we got to the bottom of the pass, the sun was setting. We flipped a coin to decide our route back to Bled, either around the north end or south end of the park (going back over the Russian Road was not considered). We chose the north route which took us through Italy. The Italian border crossing was really cool. It was at the top of another pass, lower than the Russian Road one, and it had fortresses in ruins on either side. We eventually made it back to our cozy hotel in Bled, where we enjoyed another great dinner and early to bed.

On Sunday, we drove to Bohinj Lake, another beautiful sight. We had the urge to do a bit more physical activity than the day before so we walked around the lake which took about 2.5 hours. The sun was shining, the lake was like a mirror, the air was crisp and the ground was covered in autumn leaves to kick our way through. At the end of the walk, we had a coffee on a café patio over looking the lake.

Driving to the airport on Sunday afternoon, we were talking about how it was such a perfect weekend -- fresh air, amazing scenery, long sleeps, yummy food, good value, and decent flight times. Of course, we jinxed ourselves and our flight was four hours late leaving. Aside from that, it was such a lovely weekend getting back to nature. Slovenia is definitely worth a visit!

Normandy, France

Our latest long weekend away (Nov 2-4) was a patriotic remembrance trip to the Normandy and Picardie regions of France: we visited Canadian World War I and II Memorials. The weekend objective was to cram in as much war history and pastry as possible.

We switched things up a bit transport wise and, we took an overnight ferry over to France, departing from Portsmouth to Caen. After a drink at the bar, we settled into our little cabin. Everything was compact; the upper bunk where I slept pulled out of the ceiling, but we had a private bathroom and shower.

John is ever the good driver, and once in France, he easily transitioned to driving on the right side of the road but from the right side of our English car. We drove to Deauville, a summer beach town for Parisians where John had a business meeting with the airport. The town had some amazing castle like houses. With all those roof angles, we kept thinking that they made construction much more difficult than it needed to be.

We drove south along the coast to Courseulles Sur Mer, better known to Canadians as Juno Beach, where the Canadian troops landed on D-Day to start the battle of Normandy. In the new historic centre on the beach, we learned about the invasion: the preparation, the strategy, how they learned from mistakes at Dieppe, the luck, the successes, the casualties. We learned about how the troops advanced farther into Europe and we gained appreciation for how “all consuming” the war was back in Canada. The little details and the personal stories hit home and made history come to life.

After Juno, we drove further south to the American cemetery at Ohama Beach, where about half of the American troops landed. The cemetery is in a stunning location overlooking the cliffs and the beach, and the sight of 11,000 white crosses marking graves is powerful.

Saturday was our “non war” day. We grabbed some croissants and coffee and started our drive up to the town of Arras. We stopped midday in the city of Rouen, which was where Joan of Arc was burned at the stake. We explored the town centre, which is home to several churches, a Cathedral and wall to wall half timbered buildings.

It was dark when we arrived in Arras and our first impressions that it was a bleak and industrial city. But, once we navigated our way to the centre of town, we were pleasantly surprised to find two large squares buzzing with activity and surrounded by well restored historical buildings. Our hotel was right on the main square.

The night before in Deauville, we got ripped off with a tourist meal for dinner. Feeling very upset about this rookie travel mistake, we bought a baguette, cheese, meat, tomatoes and olives and enjoyed a homemade dinner in our hotel room. We also bought four bottles of wine and beer because it was so cheap, and played a few games of crib.

Sunday we went to Vimy Ridge for the Canadian Remembrance Day ceremony. The formal ceremony took place in front of the impressive monument, with the bugle and bagpipes, veterans and dignitaries and laying of wreaths. Restoration of the monument was completed in the Spring of 2007, in time for the 90th year anniversary of the battle that took place on the ridge, when four Canadian divisions working together for the first time were successful in taking the ridge. Interesting fact - Hitler was at the inauguration of the Vimy Memorial in 1936. During WWII, he stationed guards at the site to protect it.

The Vimy memorial is 110 acres of land that the French gifted to Canada after WWI, and includes the memorial itself, two cemeteries, the trenches and tunnels, a museum and lots of forest. It is a beautiful plot of land with a great view and lots of maple tress. The ground is covered in bumps and craters from all the trenches and explosions. It looks like a mogul course on a ski hill. You can’t walk on most of it due to un-detonated explosives.

Canadian University students work at the site and run tours/provide info. We started talking to a student from Steinbach and he gave us a personal tour of the trenches – amazing that the Canadian and German front lines were only 25 metres apart. Trench warfare sounded grim but the tactics used were very interesting. We were able to tour the ten kms of tunnels run that under the Canadian trenches, which were used to bring troops to the front for the battle of Vimy.

After Vimy, we drove up to Calais and then took the quick ferry back over to England. My brief descriptions of the history of the events don’t do them justice. To visit these sites and learn more about what happened in the Wars was a very powerful experience. We really recommend it.

Venice, Italy

A year after doing our first weekend trip, to Carcassonne, France, we did our first day trip to Europe, to Venice. John found Ryanair flights for 4 pence all in (about 10 cents), so how could we not go? We took the first flight out in the morning and the last flight home at night.

It was such a treat to suddenly find myself, in the middle of the week when we would have normally been working, in a vaporetta (transit boat) going down the Grand Canal. The sun was shining, the water was sparkling and the buildings were stunning! I was pleasantly surprised by the magical feel to the city. What they say about Venice is true.

We cruised down the Grand Canal taking in all the classic Venice sights. We ended up at Piazza San Marco, where we weaved our way through the crowds of people and pigeons, past the Doge’s palace and into the Basilica. The Basilica’s ceiling was covered in gold but what we found most fascinating was the floor. It was covered in intricate stone mosaics but due to subsidence it was extremely wavy. Next, we went up the bell tower which gave us a great view of the city and water.

To see as much of the city as possible we followed parts of three walking tours in our guide book. We walked along the big canals, through back streets and squares, past docks with gondolas departing full of passengers, into the shopping districts, and over big bridges and quaint bridges.

We sat at a café in a sunny square and enjoyed bicerin, a Venetian specialty drink of coffee, chocolate and very rich thick cream. The bill was EUR 13, which is cheaper than if we had had them in Piazza San Marco. We went to the old Jewish ghetto which used to house 4,000 people on an island the space of two city blocks. The buildings were the same height as buildings in the rest of the city but they had extra stories crammed into them. About four hours after the bicerin, we finally had enough room in our bellies for some Italian gelato. We strolled to the end of a canal with our gelato and sat and watched the sun set (how romantic). After stopping for a glass of prosecco at a bar we headed back to the Grand Canal and saw Venice lit up at night.

We had a lovely day in the magical city of Venice and we got everything done that we wanted to do – pics are posted on the website. The one day timing was perfect and it prevented us from spending an crazy amount of money, ‘cause Venice ain’t cheap baby!

Stockholm

This past weekend, we zipped over to Stockholm, Sweden, birthplace of Ikea, H&M, Pippy Long Stockings and half of the Vancouver Canucks. It was a quick trip for me, just Saturday and Sunday, but John stayed into the week for a conference. The conference was one excuse to go, the really cheap flights another, and the best reason was my good friend from growing up at West Hawk Lake, Caroline Hyslop, moved to Stockholm three months ago.

Given that we had got back from Canada on Monday, and my Mom and Grandpa were in town for a quick visit Thursday and Friday, we didn’t get to read the guide book so we had no expectations...

We had a 1.5 hour bus ride from the airport into Stockholm to check out the scenery. Forests, lakes, farms, cottages – were we back in Canada? It looked exactly like driving from WH to Kenora...

Right after we arrived at our hotel, Caroline and Pelle, her Swedish boyfriend, met us in the lobby. We walked through the shopping and financial district of downtown to get to their beautifully appointed apartment for drinks. Pelle chose traditional Swedish restaurant for dinner: it was a great place and he made delicious food recommendations. Over dinner we got to hear the full story of how they met and had a whirlwind romance in New Zealand before Caroline decided to make the big move.

After dinner, they walked us along the rest of the main harbour and through the old town. There was a wildlife photo exhibit open to the public which we meandered through. It had some amazing shots of African animals, eagles soaring, sharks hunting, and even polar bears from Churchill, Manitoba romping in the snow. Continuing on, we passed the opera house, parliament, a huge palace, grand museums, and quaint shops and cafes. We loved Stockholm instantly and couldn’t wait to go back in the daylight.

We met back up with Caroline and Pelle on Sunday. We lucked out with sunny weather, but it was crisp. We cruised the harbour by day and wow, was it ever beautiful! The leaves on the trees in the parks were turning orange, the water was sparkling in the sun, and attractive, colourful buildings surrounded the water’s edge. Any pictures we have, don’t do it justice. As we walked, Pelle told us great stories of Stockholm and Sweden’s history. We sure picked the right tour guide.

We enjoyed coffees on our walk which took us through a lovely park, before John left for his conference. Instead of walking back, he took a ferry through the water ways. Pelle, Caroline and I ate shrimp, egg and mayo sandwiches outside at a restaurant. The restaurants and cafes all had blankets in their outdoor seating areas, which I thought was a great idea. I’m so cold all the time, I need them in the restaurants. Pelle left us girls to chat and we walked through the old town and then hiked up the stairs of a look out tower to get a full view of the city.

It was a lovely weekend. Thanks Caroline and Pelle for the great visit and for touring us around Stockholm. Caroline, you sure picked a charming city to live in, and a charming man to share it with.

Canada

Our trip home to Canada…

John left England 1.5 weeks before me. In honour of our 4th anniversary on Aug. 23, John went to a stag party in Vegas with 10 other guys. So we delayed our celebration until the lake, and John had a great opportunity to catch up with Kristian and the guys.

I arrived in Winnipeg on September 1st. I took a cab from the airport to my sister’s house and enroute got in a four car minor accident, caused by the driver behind my cab looking at another four car accident on the side of the road. Once my shaking stopped, I laughed that one off.

Sarah left a car for me at her house, my brother-in-law’s BMW. I had a sweet drive out to the lake with the tunes cranked. Before long I was at the Lake!!! It was hot and the cottage looked amazing. Mom had a new deck put in. I had fun exploring all the familiar parts of the cottage and seeing what was new.

Sarah and Kevin bought a new cottage this past winter, just down the bay from Mom’s. I called Sarah for a pick up. She hopped in her boat and about 15 seconds later was buzzing around the cliff, baby on her back. I was thrilled to see them, I had been so excited for the whole week before. Sarah and Kev’s new cabin is fantastic! They have done so much work on it and it looks amazing.

It was a big change going from densely populated London to the Canadian wilderness with no one around. I’d never been at the lake so late in the season. The leaves were holding their colour, the air temperature was still warm, but the lake was quite cool. I did manage four swims during the week though.

The first night jet lag kicked in and I woke up a few times. I was all alone in the “penthouse” of the new guest cabin and I had the windows and door to the screen porch wide open. The wind was howling. I was awakened the first time by some guys on the road behind the cabin shining their flash lights in my window. That scared the crap out of me. They went away when I turned my light on and hopefully they were just some of my brother’s friends. Then the wind started slamming the screen door, which I was too scared to get up and close, then chipmunks were walking through the forest scaring the crap out of me. Why couldn’t I just fall asleep! Where was John when I needed him?

On Sunday, as she did every morning at 8:00, Sarah called, to wake me up for our morning walk. She had been doing it every day in the summer with Mom and the other lake ladies, Cole on her back. We enjoyed the day in the sun on the dock and John arrived with his Grandma in the afternoon. John and Kev watched some football at Mark’s place and then S&K hosted a delicious dinner with a bunch of friends.

We had a perfect and relaxing week at the lake. A few cloudy days but most were nice and warm. We spent our days hanging out, doing lake things, playing with Cole, visiting with Sarah, hearing about her summer, playing cribbage. We had dinner one night over at John’s Grandma’s, we circumnavigated the lake in the boat, we tested out Mom’s cool new pedal kayak and we played a round of golf. It was just the down time we needed and we got our lake fix for the year.

After the lake, John flew back to Van and went to see his sister on Vancouver Island. Sarah, Cole and I flew to Calgary to see Mom and Stan. I couldn’t get enough of playing with Cole, he was so cute, especially on the plane ride. On the ride to Mom’s from the airport I was reminded of how magnificent the prairie skies are. It is so beautiful there; I love the rolling fields and hills and the white mountains on the horizon.

On Saturday, Sarah went horse back riding and helped Stan moved cows while Mom and I babysat Cole. We had a lovely day going to the farmer’s market in Cochrane, working in Mom’s beautiful garden, flower arranging, and making dinner for Mom’s birthday party that night. A big crew of family came over, which included lots of blond kids, four under six. That added a whole new dynamic to the evening. After a big walk through Church Ranches on Sunday, I flew to Vancouver. I left Mom on her birthday again: sorry Mom.

Vancouver was hot and sunny the whole week we were there – we sure lucked out. It was a busy week with lots of errands to run but did manage to fit in several hours in the sun in Lindsay’s exquisite garden. One day, John’s Mom and I spent an afternoon speed gardening at our house. It was so great back the blackberry bushes, tidying things up and seeing how much things had grown. I miss working in our garden.

One evening, I met my friend Vanessa for a walk on Kits Beach along my old walking route. As we approached the shore, the scene took by breath away! I had forgotten how stunning it was there. Mountains, water, city. What an incredible place to live.

We had a few nights enjoying long dinners and conversations with Ken and Lindsay, and we had a few nights visiting with friends at pre-wedding events, Joy’s girls night and the “out of towners” get together.

Joy and Kristian’s wedding was on Saturday night and it was amazing! Every detail was so beautiful, ingenious, and well planned. The dinner was delicious, the speeches were funny and sweet and the company was second to none. We were so happy we could be there to celebrate with them. Seeing all our friends having so much fun was the perfect way to cap off the trip.

Our departure on Sunday wasn’t too sad because we had staggered the goodbyes, and we would be seeing Mom and Gramps in a week and Lindsay and Ken at Christmas. It helped to know we would be arriving in a familiar place with jobs, friends and place to live, as opposed to last year.

What a wonderful visit back to Canada. We had such a feeling of home every place we went. Thank you to all our family and friends for your hospitality. We loved our visits with you and we miss you! Dan, sorry for the delay in getting this blog posted.