Ro-MANIA!

hello!

we are in brasov at the moment....quaint little town with not much to do...but lots in the outskirts. yesterday we took a tour to a town called sinaia with the peles castle....unreal architecture. every room is done in a different style from baroque to roccoco(having fun saying all these names too!) and german to turkish! carolyn and i have decided that i will buy the peles castle and she will buy the hapsburg palace in vienna and we will split hungary down the middle so we can rule neighbouring countries!

then we went to rasnov which has the ruins of a castle turned fortress...now made into a museum. i accidentally stood over a skeleton(real one) and scared the crows out of myself! it had an amazing view of the city.

after that we did bran castle(aka. dracula's castle). nothing compared to peles, but still very interesting. pics everywhere of the queen and princess in the castle. the surrounding town was very touristy...selling a LOT of dracula souvenirs...(ie. met dracula in romania...let me whisper in your ear what he said).

today was a hike to the top of the mountain overlooking brasnov. took a while because of course we couldnt find the right path and ended up taking the vertical one! sort of sprained my ankle...i think....advil has done its job! wandered the town and saw the obligatory churches and towers. tonight we go bear sightseeing! if i dont publish another blog...you know what happened.

alright...thats it for now! next stop bucharest!

budapest...the best!

hey all!

well, budapest rocks! that pretty much sums it up but since that would be a lame blog here we go...

started with a night climb up the mountain to the citadel with a bunch of people from the hostel...including two canadians! ...very tiring but extremely worth it! and our reward was a turkish bath! super cool! mini pools from 28 degrees to 42 degrees and saunas up to 70 degrees! then we did all the tourist things...the castle, the house of terror(not like it sounds...a museum dedicated to the occupation of hungary by the nazi's and soviet's....oh and we got in free...how good are we?!), saw a random parade we just happened to stumble upon and walked the chain bridge. and to top it off we had the best ice cream in the city! a very upscale place where we did obviously not fit in but oh well!

the nightlife was crazy...in the middle of budapest was an island full of clubs...the one we picked was coincidentally playing stanley cup finals! carolyn was very excited! played frisbee in the park at night (lauren is teaching us the finer points...apparently frisbee isnt JUST throwing...who'd a thunk?)

thats all for now...adios!

however...the best part was caving! spaces where you only have an inch of leighway to get through and climbing up into holes holding yourself up with just your back and one foot! unreal! my elbows still hurt! i did get stuck at one point though! my helmet was too big to fit...though im glad it wasnt my butt that was too big! lol!

viennese carnival!

hello again.

well, we are now done with veinna and it was a great two days! the only real full day we had there was packed with things. of course we stayed true to rick steve's and did his self-guided tram tour. it didnt take very long but was a good way to see everything.

the palace was really cool...complete with 2 labyrinths and games as well as a strudel show!(free strudel)! then we had a choice between the viennese opera and the carnival...guess which one won! the carnival was excellent...haunted house for me and carolyn and crazy upside-down ride for lauren and carolyn. excellent food and our last chance for wurst of any kind...grillwurst is awesome! well, carolyn is bored now so i have to go...but vienna was cooler than i have done justice in this blog.

talk to you later.

cesky krumlov....extreme sporting

hi!

well...i think i am going to move to cesky krumlov permanently. its a small town in the south of the czech republic with a lazy atmosphere(right up my alley...just ask my parents!) and nothing to do but lay by the river. well, thats not entirely true seeing as we did some extreme river rafting...and by extreme i mean it got really hairy there for a minute when we couldnt open the free bottle of rum they gave us! we had to pull to the side of the river so carolyn could break the bottle on the rocks...sadly we lost about half the rum...so there are probably some very drunk squirrels along the vltava river!

the two days spent in the town were very relaxing and a great period to rejuvinate for the next leg of the trip. we wandered the small town meeting an unbelievable amount of canadians(toronto, calgary..everywhere). and found a place with the most amazing breakfasts...super cheap and huge portions! 1 omlette cost about 59 koruna(about 2 dollars) and came with a baguette, veggies and 2 rolls with jam and butter...free tea and coffe included! now do you see why i want to live there?!

anyway, i must go ....off to vienna we go!

prague...meh

hey everyone!

well, we are finished with prague and not a moment too soon! there was so much hype about this place that i was kinda disappointed. we still did see a lot of stuff though. lauren and carolyn hiked to the top of the astronomical tower. i was too chicken to go all the way to the top...especially after the suspension bridge at neuschweinstien castle...that was enough of heights for me for the whole trip! we looked around the prague castle but didnt go in...too expensive for our tastes! a lot of prague was very expensive because it is such a tourist destination so we stuck to super cheap things or free things!

definate highlight of prague...met rick steves! for those of you who dont kno who he is...you dont travel enough! he was very nice and chatted with us for a bit. we told him about the gorgeous(and cheap) place we were staying and he said he would check it out for his next revision of his prague travel book!

anyway, gotta go...post again soon!

CZECH ME OUT!

hello again!

just a note first...lauren has posted some of our pics on her blog so the address again http://laurenonthemove.blogspot.com ...some weird shots.

arrived in czech republic yesterday and toured the city a little. first country in which we are having minor troubles communicating...not too many english speakers other than tourists. carolyn and i found our patches for this country(which we have been collecting in each country to stick on our big backpacks later). walked the charles bridge and through the old town. our feet are definately sore from the cobblestone roads but its very picturesque. lots of gothic architecture.

yesterday was definately a slow day but two days left in prague and we have them planned down to the hour(don't make fun...it's necessary).


adios for now.

german world cup fever

hey guys!

just left germany and i miss it already. the amount of people was crazy and the sense of togetherness was awesome! lauren and carolyn and i had a beer at the world famous haufbrauhaus the night before the commotion started and it was unbelievable. chatted with some germans and australians who filled us in on the favourites to win and all that jazz seeing as canada is a hockey country. finally getting used to calling it football. bought a mexico world cup t shirt just to feel part of the crowd! has #5 on it! yes!

anyway, there were tons of sights to see in munich and the surrounding area. neuschweinstien was definately at the top of the list. it's the fairy tale disney castle that the crazy king ludwig II built for himself but never got to use because he was declared mentally ill and unfit to rule. he had an indoor cave built next to his bedroom! note to self...built a cave in my first house.

also took a daytrip to dachau. i don't even think i could describe it if i wanted to. too many emotions.

little tip to anyone thinking of going to munich....the duetsch museum blows bigtime! waste of the 3 euro we spent. we toughed it out for about and hour and a half and then succumbed to the ultimate boredom.

took our first night train to prague. not that bad but i feel we lucked out because the rest of our six car couchet was filled with girls our age from korea...no english spoken that night!

well, more later.

lost in brussels

hey all!
well, brussels rocks...totally thought that this country had very little to offer...turns out i suck. grand place is the most amazing site. and we got to see the manneken pis and janneken pis(yes pronounced piss)! met a really weird belgian who showed us around and lauren translated for us the whole time. kudos to lauren for the amazing use of high school french.

we have decided that none of us are qualified to read a map though. we found a cool little street market and thought it was grand place and read the map accordingly...no wonder we couldn't find anything!

that's all for now. off to germany today...WORLD CUP!

more later.

mind the gap...london

hey guys...london rocks...just set this up and i'm pretty computer illiterate so just testing it out. already emailed you so nothing new except that the whole mind the gap thing rocks(the voiceover on the subway so you don't fall down into the gap between the train and the platform when you step off). oh and also....got my picture taken at platform 9 3/4!!! how cool! go to lauren and carolyn's links for pic's cause i don't have a digital camera...http://laurenonthemove.blogspot.com or http://euroboundtraveller.blogspot.com. talk to you later