londonderry bridge is falling down? ;o)

well i certainly hope not! i gotta drive over that thing tomorrow! hehehe

so when we were in paris, my internet time ran out and so i had to stop midsentence. so now i am in northern ireland, which is actually mucho better to write on cause the keyboards are not french weird ones!

woot!

so budapest was cool, public baths and then merrily getting on the train before realizing that oops! oiur bags were in the left luggage spot, and that we better go get them or else we'd be hooped! so we ran (which was quite the effort) to get them and then back to the train and made it to vienna in one piece.

a bottle of wine and some laundry done, we hunkered down for a night in austria. the next day was cold again, but only windy and kinda raining, not snowing like munich.

apparently vienna is a very popular place for italians, and, like we couldnt get a train to there from italy, we couldnt get a train from there to italy. so. what did we do? go to zurich of course!! overnight train to zurich (where i scored a free bottle of austrian wine for helping the wine maker make his bed on the train) and then a wee walk around there ( in the frigid frigid snow) had coffee that was sooooooo expensive - switzerland is expensive, the swiss frank is worse than the euro, almost as bad as the pound. so our two coffee's were equivalent to something ridiculous like $18 CND or something. ridiculous.

but, as jake always says, marginal utility. better to have $18 coffee than no coffee at all when its zero degrees and you got no sleep. true story.

after our jaunt in central europe, it was back to more temperate climates in italy. venice, the cinque terra and florence, each for two nights. venice was nice, very touristy, but st marks was beautiful, and we managed to skip the 2 hour line - oh yeah! hiking in the beautiful cinque terra was great, so scenic, and busy enough in off season. then florence, where we couldnt get a train to bordeaux, so we stayed two nights instead of one. and . . . we went horseback riding! in the pouring pouring rain. it was expensive, 95 euro each, but two hours on a horse, and a true italian meal (complete with chianti wines) in a 13th century castle, and then a cappuccino in a little town that im sure will come back to my brain one day! since it was so rainy, they only took us horsebackriding for one hour. jake especially was MAD, so we got 25 euro back each, which was excellent.

then it was a mad dash to the train station for the overnight to nice, and the full day on the train to bordeaux.

bordeaux!!! with ali and lisa and audrey!!!! how fun! we went to a real french party, and then saw the beach with the biggest sand sunes in the world, and then had a real french lunch with bordeaux wine, and then a real french dinner as well! a totally great couple of days. then we saw bordeaux the next day and took the train to paris.

ahhh paris. what an amazing city! we were so fortunate to have the use of jake's friends step dad's apartment on ile st louis. our own little place, with a kitchen. unfortunately, my allergies and the cold id been fighting kicked into super high, and i got really sick, but because of our amazing place, we were able to stay for a week and recover - most excellent.

we did and saw so much in paris, and had such a great time, that it would take hours and pages to describe . . . . *sigh*

after paris we went to amsterdam, and spent a couple of days there before taking the bus to london, where we stayed for the night before taking the bus to bath.

bath was great, right when we arrived, we were lucky enough to get on another bus to stonehenge! so we saw stonehenge, on our anniversary! thats right! april 12th was me and jake's one year anniversary :o) was a totally great day. stonehenge and bath, and a great english pub for dinner :o) wonderful!

saw bath the next day and took a bus to bristol, and then the following day to cardiff, and from cardiff the train to fishguard, and now we are in ireland!

we rented a car yesterday and drove from dublin, through tynan town!!! to armagh, and now we're in derry, after seeing giants causeway.

free internet at this hostel (which is kick ass by the by, tell me if you're coming to derry and i will recommend!) but jake wants to get on too, we are alternating while watching the green mile and eating uber good pizza that we made by sprucing up 88p tesco cheese and tomato pizza :o)

yup yuppero, so thats me for a while, not all details, but enough hopefully!

we've been travelling for 7 weeks and one day, and have 18 days left, most excellent indeed. having a wonderful time, still in love, and loving life :o)

en Paris!

sooooooo, i actually did write something when we were in munich, but then i didnt have time to post it, and then i just deleted it - sucky.

so yeah, it has been forever since i posted anything, and i know that at least some ppl are worried, so here i am, all safe and sound.

we have been in paris since monday evening, and will be here till monday morning - a full week! the longest we have been anywhere! we will miss our late morning leisurely breakfasts and our slow pace, but be assured, we still know how to see a city in a day!

so much has happened i dont know where to begin . . . after athens we went to delphi for the day, which was great, really cool to see all that. then to patra the next day for the ferry to bari, italy. we slept on the floor of the ferry cause 'deck' really does mean DECK yah, EW that sucked, but then we got to sit on a train, and then a bus (for 5 hours!) and then another train, as we made our way to pompeii via taranto and naples. slept in the shadow of mount vesuvius, and then saw the ruins all day. what an amazing place! i definitely reccommend it!

north to rome. the vatican was amazing. st pauls is beautiful, and we were the first people on top of the dome that morning, what a great moment. walked all through the museum twice before leaving. the sistine chapel is wicked, but the map room is almost as good, and totally adds to the whole experience. it was one of our favorites for sure.

next day was a walking day - trevi fountain, piazza novella, the park, piazza del popolo and the best gelato of my life. wondering why all the damn irish were wearing green????? oh yeah, it was st patricks day :oP hahaha, totally behind on that one! italy lost to ireland in six nations rugby in rome.

march 18 was colusseum, roman forum, palantine hill . . . all very cool old stuff. until paris, rome was bar none our favourite city. the clouds started coming in, so we headed back to our apartment and did more laundry and at more pasta :o)

next day was lazy'ish. chilled out, went to see an aquaduct, caught the train to munich, only cause there wasnt one to vienna.

next few days were a blur - - - rome (via overnight train) to munich (snow and twice to the beer halls). munich (via overnight train) to budapest (public baths

athens

so.

ha.

lots has happened, many sights seen :o) where to begin??

the overnight us ride sucked, as i suppose all overnight bus rides do. arrived at kusadasi at 8:30'ish, went to our 'hotel' (such a piece of crap, but it did have a hair dryer) to change and freshen up, and then back into a shuttle to start the tour. went to the temple of artemis (one of only two remaining seven wonders of the ancient world) and walked around. it was totally amazing, unexplainable really - how can you describe being in a place that has been around for thousand(s) of years!

then to ephesus, which at one time was a port city and home to over 250 000 people! it was remarkably intact, with shining white marble all around. it was quite warm that day, and our tiredness did not help, but it was still totally amazing. a full greecian and roman city, mostly there :o) very cool.

then lunch and a visit to the supposed house of the virgin mary, up in the hills beyond ephesus. was a very neat little building. lots of walking around that day, and seeing of sights.

next day was pamukkale. dont know if it was because it was sunday or what, but our guide slept the whole bus ride and then didnt tell us anything special, so that was a kick in the pants, but it was still a good day. we swam in some copper-filled thermal water baths, which felt wicked after all the sitting we'd been doing. the water was super warm, like a hot tub! then lunch and up to the terraces of pamukkale. the spring water is full of calcium, and about 37 degrees, and then as it trickles down the mountain it cools and deposits calcium, so the whole side of the mountain looks like it has been covered in ice. we walked in those as well, and saw some ruins of ancient hierapolis.

that night we arrived in marmaris, where we stayed for two days and had our first suntan beside the meditterranean (yeah i spelled that wrong) walked around the city, and saw a guy catch and octopus!

then it was goodbye turkey and to greece on a 'ferry' to rhodes. a great island, a great city. the old town was fantastic, and we stayed with this crazy guy named mike. walked around for hours, getting lost in the good way, and then another tan day by the sea.

then we got up at 3 am to catch a ferry to santorini. 18 hours on a boat - actually not as bad as it sounds. stayed in a nice hotel for a bargain price, and went hiking in the volcano and swimming in the 'thermal pools' (they were warm'ish) then back to the old port and WALKED UP 600 STEPS to the town of Fira.

the next day we rented a car (couldnt get a moped, grrrrr) with an american girl, carey, and drove to the black, red, and white beaches in the south of santorini, before boarding our boat to athens in the afternoon. what a ride that was. 7 hours on a heaving ferry, and i got so sea sick - totally sucky.

today being sunday, all the sights in athens were free!!!! so i went up to the acropolis, saw the parthenon, temple of nike, temple of hephaistus, the roman agora, the ancient agora, the original olympic stadium and more for the bargain price of $0!!! yay!!!

tomorrow is off to delphi for the day :o)

everyone should go to turkey, it rocks. and when you go on vacation, spend limited time in big cities - the smaller ones are best :o)

love ya all,

-michelle :o)

more turkey :o)

sunrise was totally worth it this morning :oD

then breakfast and packed up all our stuff . . . went to a travel agency to figure out how to get out of turkey - we are going to ephesus (lots of ruins including temple of artemis) via overnight bus tonight, then to kusadasi for one night (in a hotel!) and then to pamukkale to see some cool thermal pools, and then from there to marmaris for a night (in a dorm) and then the morning ferry to rhodes! from there we will catch another ferry to santorini (like, an 18 hour ferry!!)where we will spend a few days and then to athens.

we have planned (and paid) everything up to and including the ferry to rhodes. with much difficulty i might add. apparently, many travel agencies dont believe that any ferries are running right now, despite the fact that the internet and our travel agency guy says they are. so. we will see :o) we figure if all fails, we can take a bus back to istanbul, and then another bus to athens.

had a good day today. went to the grand bazaar and spent probably too much money, but i got some earings and jake got a really nice shirt. then went to suleyman's mosque, went inside and walked around, and then sat and had turkish tea while we listened to a call to prayer. then saw suleyman's tomb - which was freaky and cool all at the same time.

we just walked a lot today, which was great - i feel like i saw some of the real istanbul. i think that when you walk down a street and are the only tourists, then its the 'real' city or place. that happened to us today, a couple of times. scary because anything could happen, but exhilarating because its the real mccoy ;o)

so :o) we are tired today, a full day of walking, coupled with the threat that we may not be able to get out of turkey :oP, waking up at 5:40 to the first call to prayer, watching the sun rise, and being on uber-alert in the bazaar makes for a tiring day. but, bus tonight, which we will have hours to sleep. and then ruins tomorrow, in asia minor!

its so hard to describe what we are seeing here, its so different from home, and so incredible at the same time. as we were walking back to the hostel this afternoon, i was remarking on how old things are here, and how there are ruins everywhere, and how you never know how old things really are. like, those crumbling walls over there - are they seriously old (ancient times) old (15-16th century) or old'ish (18-19th century)??? even our building here: old, or oldish?? who knows? its cool to be surrounded by so much antiquity.

jake is sad at leaving the blue mosque behind. it *is* really amazing. i am sad at leaving it too. but i know that there are more things to come, and not to get too attached to one place, because, our time here is short :o) but will be good. we are on day 4 of our holiday today, 64 days to go. strange indeed. already we have been in three cities (vancouver, london, istanbul) and two continents (north america, europe) tomorrow we will add another two cities and another continent to our journey. when we found out yesterday before lunch that we might not be able to get out of turkey the way we wanted, we were a little shocked (we had thought our plan was foolproof), but then realized how lucky we were. i mean really, we could be stuck in turkey - poor us :oP kinda like when we were flying to london, some of the business class seats weren't working and they had to make us late - poor business class people :oP lol, haha.

i realize that this post may be (probably is) really jumpy, but thoughts just keep popping into my head, and i cant really stop them. im too tired to go back and read through and edit and move stuff, so you'll just have to deal :o)

ok, thanks for posting back, hope you are all well :o)

hope to get some pics on here soon!

-michelle :o)

greetings from turkey!!

ok! so i managed to sign in despite the fact that the homepage headers were not in english! yay!!

we arrived last night after a verrrrry long day of travelling. turkey is great, very eastern european thats for sure :o) but totally cool. apparently lines on the roads and speed limits don't matter much to the drivers here, especially our taxi driver! got to our hostel, which is right in old istanbul, called sultanhamet. from the roof terrace we can see the hagia sofia (church converted to mosque, built in 537AD) and the blue mosque, one of the most famous mosques in the world, probably 3rd on the list or something like that! we awoke to the sound of the first call to prayer at about 5:40 this morning, and managed to hear all five today. its an incredible sound. usually the blue mosque starts and then the other mosques join in until they are all chanting aroud the city, overlapping each other, its really hard to describe. tomorrow we are going to go up to the terrance and listen to it and watch the sun rise :o) its pretty chilly here, about 8 i'd say, but we were walking all day. ate some good turkish lunch (lamb kebab) and then had a nap. we might head out for a quick bite to eat before heading to bed - trying to ward off jet lag and tiredness. today we went to the blue mosque, the hagia sofia and topkapi palace - took a ton of pictures. its really different here than 'normal' europe, way more eastern influenced, very cool.

tomorrow we are going to go to the hippodrome and then the grand bazaar and probably take a night bus to the south east of istanbul (in asia!) to see some cool pool formations and ruins, on our way to marmaris from which we will catch a ferry to rhodes. had quite the scare today when one travel agency told us that there were no ferries running in greece at all right now. but then we checked with another place, so its allll good :o)

don't really know what else to say, having a great time so far, jake just kissed my ear - which is good, means he doesnt hate me :o) my travel book, though big, will prove invaluable, and i'm writing in my journal every day, and will try to get to the internet as much as possible.

so yeah, turkey is cool :o) i like europe, this will be a great trip!

jake found this on the ny times website: In Medieval Architecture, Signs of Advanced Math http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/27/science/27math.html?_r=1&ref=science&oref=slogin
pretty cool, eh? oh yeah, we saw that today!! woot!

so im not sure if anyone can comment on these posts, but would be great to hear from peoples!

pictures from shelia's wedding

more of a post to see how to post pics! :oP

We leave tomorrow!

ok so its 1:46 the day before jake and i leave to go to europe for 68 days :o) lots to do still, including a final shop, folding laundry, and then of course packing. 24 hours from now, we will be driving to the airport to start our adventure - will be good.

hopefully i/we can keep this updated so that people will know what we are doing, but we shall have to wait and see :o)

that has to be all for now, lunch and more pre-trip stuff calls!