Round the world in 7 months

Gallery: Whistler

ang_and_abe — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 17:40:00 GMT

Gallery: Alberta & British Columbia

ang_and_abe — Tue, 4 Aug 2009 14:30:00 GMT

Montreal & Ottawa

ang_and_abe — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 03:50:00 GMT

On the 11^th of July we said goodbye to Rachel, our lovely host in London, and set off for Heathrow to catch a flight to Montreal. After an uneventful 7 hour flight on British Airways (during which, shock-horror, the entertainment system went down for our entire row!) and a long wait to get through immigration in Montreal, we were met by Steve Webber, who Abe and I worked with at Beta Hunt mine in Kambalda. Steve and his wife Sue and their 9 year old son Cullen had offered to put us up for the week that we are in Montreal – thanks heaps guys!

Our time in Montreal was great, our hosts took us to see a whole lot of interesting sites like the downtown shopping area, Mount Royal Park (where we got some awesome views of the city), Old Montreal and the Old Port on the St Lawrence River, and I even managed to fit in some shopping along Mont Royal Avenue, which has some great boutique and factory outlet stores. We also met some of the Webber’s friends, including Phillippe & Paole and their 3 kids (Phillippe is from Montreal and works with Steve, Paole is from Chile and cooked us delicious tacos one night! I am stealing her recipe for guacamole), Bruno (who works with Steve), and Pam & Dave (an awesome couple in their late 70’s who live up the road from the Webber’s). Throughout the week beer and wine flowed in abundance, and the food we had was exceptional thanks to the cooking of Sue and Paole! On our last night we went to an Egyptian restaurant in the Webber’s old neighbourhood that had delicious food. One thing we noticed is that everyone is very health conscious in Montreal. People just generally get out and do lots of exercise, and there is lots of healthy food around to choose from.

During the week we also spent 2 nights in Ottawa, the capital of Canada and about a 2 hour drive away, as the Webber’s have friends with an apartment there. Ottawa was really nice, and reminded us a little of Canberra – quite clean with lots of parks and cycleways. We went to Parliament Hill to admire the architecture and did a free tour inside the buildings, hired bikes and rode along the Riddeau Canal (very pretty!), went to the Byward Market, and again had some great food served by really friendly and helpful Canadian people! The Ottawa Bluesfest also happened to be on while we were there. It goes for about 10 days and has some big names play over that time. Kiss played on the first night we were there, and according to the papers they were excellent, but we didn’t make it to that one. We went on the 2^nd night instead and saw Busta Rhymes and LIVE. Busta Rhymes was a bit of a disappointment, after being an hour late he played for only 25 minutes, holding up LIVE in the process (they alternate the stages due to sound interference). LIVE were really good and played some of their classics from the Throwing Copper days when I saw them play in Wellington in 1997. We unfortunately missed Xavier Rudd (who played a few days earlier) and Green Day (who were due to play the day after we left).

All in all our first experience of Canada has been a great one, the people are so friendly! Our next stop is Calgary where we’ll hopefully get to experience a totally different Canadian culture of cowboys, big steaks and big cars!

Gallery: Montreal

ang_and_abe — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 03:44:00 GMT

Ireland

ang_and_abe — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 03:33:00 GMT

In our last week in this part of the world we had booked a 3 day trip to Ireland – yay for cheap flights! We few into Shannon in the west of Ireland and stayed the night in a B&B nearby. The couple who owned it were awesome and served us a full Irish breakfast the next morning… cereal, toast, yoghurt, fruit, and a plate of bacon, eggs, sausages and tomatoes – yum! The following day we hired a car, which ended up being WAY easier than expected, we didn’t even have international drivers licences! We headed up towards Galway via the western coast to see the Cliffs of Moher, which are comprised of alternating mudstone/siltstone/sandstone layers (geeky geology stuff), and an area called The Burren, which is all limestone. The scenery was spectacular, and we really enjoyed the freedom of having our own wheels! For lunch we went to a little Irish pub in Kilfenora and had local smoked salmon and the most divine Irish stew! Oh, and a Guinness J We stayed that night in Galway City, which is a great little place with beautiful architecture and lively restaurants and bars, we even listened to a bit of Irish music.

The following day we headed west along Galway Bay into an area called Connemara. The scenery here was different again, but still really spectacular, with many small fishing villages to stop at along the way. One town called Carraroe has a beach made entirely of coral, very pretty! This area is also known as The Gaeltacht, where the Irish language is still spoken as a community language and often the signs are in Irish only. After another awesome lunch in Clifden (fish and chips for Abe and lamb with mint sauce for me) we headed north through the Twelve Pins and the towns of Letterfrack and Leenane (next to Killary Harbour, Ireland’s only fjiord) to Westport where we stayed the night. Westport was a lovely little town with pretty architecture, and we stayed in a hostel that used to be a stagecoach house.

On the last day we headed back towards Shannon, taking the scenic route and stopping at Limerick for lunch and then Bunratty Castle and Folk Park, which were really fun to explore. We had a Guinness at Mac’s pub in the Folk Park and also tried Mead, which is apparently made from “honey, fruit of the vine and selected herbs”. A random fact for you: in olden times the bride and groom drank Mead for one full moon after their wedding, hence the term “honeymoon”. Mead is believed to have magical powers of fertility and virility! A perfect end to a great 3 days, we loved Ireland and its friendly people!

Gallery: Ireland

ang_and_abe — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 03:30:00 GMT

Gallery: London

ang_and_abe — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 03:20:00 GMT

London

ang_and_abe — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 03:10:00 GMT

The following week in London was spent with my old school friend Rachel, and visiting a multitude of people. Abe called it “Ang’s tour of old school friends”, although we did meet with some people that Abe also knew! We caught up with Josh (a Vic Uni friend of both of us) for beers in Hammersmith, Emma (a friend from Melbourne) and Georgia, Gareth, Sasha & co at a bar in Soho (it was meant to be a pub crawl but we didn’t actually do any crawling!), Roby (this is where the old London school friends tour begins) at an awesome little café near Covent Garden, Judy and Matt at an Italian restaurant overlooking the Tower of London and Tower Bridge (and the bridge even opened to let a cruise ship through while we were there!), Katie and Joanna at a pub in Wimbledon, Zara for brunch in Southfields, and my uncle and his family for lunch at a quintessential English pub called The Swan out to the west of London near Reading.

As well as all this we managed to fit in a bit of sightseeing and shopping around central London, a walk through Wimbledon where I used to live (while the tennis was on!), and a trip to the Natural History Museum. Phew!

Glastonbury Festival

ang_and_abe — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 03:04:00 GMT

5 days, 200,000 people, dozens of music stages, hundreds of music acts, food and market stalls, and hours of other entertainment… on a farm in Somerset, England. This is Glastonbury, one of the biggest music festivals in the world, and this is our experience.

After catching the Eurostar from Brussels to London we met up with Georgia and went on a mission to find some key supplies for Glastonbury – airbeds, wellies and umbrellas! Tick on the airbeds and umbrellas but no luck on the wellies, apparently the whole of London was in short supply! With supplies in tow (and hoping we would be able to buy wellies at the festival), we headed for the festival!

After a 3 hour bus ride we arrived at the festival, had our tickets checked and were given a program, and then we set off in search of a campsite. Luck was on our side, and we got the perfect spot right near the Dance Village, close to but comfortably far enough away from the toilets and food stalls! The rest of the day ended up being a series of missions to find wellies and beer (tick and tick!), and a long walk to find out way around. It’s here I should say something about the size of the festival… it’s hard to comprehend the scale of the place when you’re there, and even harder when you’ve never been. Just believe me when I say it is truly enormous! On that first day we walked for a couple of hours and covered probably only half of the festival grounds.

The next 3 days ended up blurring into one fantastic party, so I’ll pick out the highlights...

Music:

You could probably go to Glastonbury and end up not really listening to much music at all, despite some of the huge names playing - - there is so much else to keep people occupied! But our main focus was the music, specifically BREAKBEAT! Seeing as most of our favourite breaks dj’s come from the UK, it was the perfect opportunity to see many of them in the same place. Dreadzone, Atomic Hooligan, Aquasky, Krafty Kuts, Stanton Warriors, Freq Nasty… a line-up like that in Oz would have breakbeat fans drooling and almost passing out from excitement! These guys all played awesome sets typical of their own style, I don’t think I’ve ever danced so much in my life! We also managed to catch snippets of a few other sets over the weekend, like Timo Maas, Pete Tong, Ben Sims, Leeroy Thornhill, Scratch Perverts and Beardyman (who was excellent!). The Dance Village had 4 main stages, plus a couple of other small areas, so there was always something to keep us entertained! We also managed to get to some of the other stages to see a couple of big names, like Dizzee Rascal (who played a wicked set!) and Tom Jones. Abe and I didn’t make it to Bruce Springsteen (he clashed with Stanton Warriors!) but Georgia and Gareth did, and were a bit disappointed that he played mainly new stuff that a lot of people weren’t familiar with. To top the weekend off, we saw The Prodigy on the Other Stage on Sunday night (we opted for them instead of Blur), which we were pretty excited about as despite listening to their music for over 15 years, ever since their album The Prodigy Experience came out, we still hadn’t seem them play live! We estimated that about 60,000 people crammed in around the stage, and The Prodigy didn’t disappoint – crazy, colourful and just what we expected, they played a mix of old and new, and it was a great way to end the festival.

Other stuff:

As well as music, the festival has so much else going on, it would be impossible to mention it all here. We walked through the Green Fields area a couple of times, which is full of stalls where you can learn about sustainable energy and the like. One area had a circus tent, there were movies showing in another tent, and endless kids activities. Quite simply, Glastonbury has it all!

Funny stuff:

Pitching one of our tents on top of the bag of pegs and guide ropes, having to buy replacement pegs from a camping store at the festival, and then not finding the original pegs until we packed up the tent
The chick passed out with a beer in her hand at the campsite next to us
The crowd chanting “one more tune” to the ice cream van on Sunday night after all the other music had stopped
We heard Dizzee Rascal’s track Bonkers played 5 times at the festival by different people
The girls behind me in the queue for water taps complaining about the people in front washing their hair and holding everyone else up… fair enough comment, but stop with the whingeing!!

Crazy stuff

The guy wearing the Borat mankini
Shangri-La area and the trippy Arcadia stage, which made you feel like you had just walked onto the set of Mad Max
The group of REALLY wasted people on the G Stage dancefloor on Saturday afternoon that were dressed in baby costumes, complete with nappies, dummies, bibs and bottles
Someone near us lighting a flare when The Prodigy played Firestarter and sitting on someone’s shoulders while holding it
The crowd trying to get to Rolf Harris on the Jazz World stage… we never made it anywhere near the place!
The crowd trying to get to Arcadia at 1am on Saturday night after all the other stages had closed down

Cool stuff

It rained! It wouldn’t be a true Glastonbury without rain… thank goodness we bought the gumboots (wellies for the English)
The burning lanterns being set off into the sky all night from everywhere, particularly the stone circle
Listening to Tom Jones tell the sound crew to turn up the volume on the Pyramid Stage, and then sing his old classics
The view of Glastonbury from the hill
The sand castle sculpture of Mt Rushmore
The amazing number of food and clothing stalls at the festival

Gallery: Glastonbury

ang_and_abe — Wed, 1 Jul 2009 02:16:00 GMT

Gallery: Amsterdam

ang_and_abe — Wed, 1 Jul 2009 02:03:00 GMT

Amsterdam

ang_and_abe — Wed, 1 Jul 2009 02:00:00 GMT

We spent only 2 nights in Amsterdam on the way from Berlin to London, which is a bit of a shame as it turned out to be one of our favourite cities in Europe! The weather was great so we rode bikes around, stopping in parks and taking photos along the way. The city is totally set up for bikes with cycle lanes everywhere, and cars actually STOP for bikes! Now this is our kinda city J Not like in Oz where car drivers tend to want to run you down. Oh, and helmets are not compulsory. We did the usual touristy stuff, like visiting coffee shops and the red light district, and generally had a pretty relaxed time! Amsterdam had a great vibe and everyone was really friendly, hopefully we can spend more time here one day! But we were on a mission: get to London and then on to Glastonbury!

Gallery: Berlin

ang_and_abe — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:14:00 GMT

Berlin

ang_and_abe — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:08:00 GMT

On Thursday we caught a train to Berlin where we were to stay with Ash & Nick for 4 nights. Funnily enough Georgia was also there for a few nights too staying with some friends of her dads! Ash & Nick live in a flat in Koppenplatz near Hackescher Markt, which turned out to be a great place to base ourselves for a few days of Berlin adventures. After a late start we met up with Georgia on Friday for some sightseeing (Ash & Nick opted out as they have seen it all a million times!). We managed to fit a number of sites into the afternoon, including the TV Tower (368m high) at Alexanderplatz which gave us great 360 degree views of Berlin as we ate cake and drank German beer in the revolving restaurant, Brandenberg Gate, Reichstag (Parliament, but we didn’t climb up the glass dome because the queue was too long) and nearby Tiergarten, the Holocaust Memorial (really interesting but very sombre), the site of Hitler’s bunker, Checkpoint Charlie, and finally Potsdamer Platz and the Sony Centre. After a tough day of sightseeing it was time for a beer, so we met Ash & Nick at Berliner Prater, a well known beer garden, and tasted some excellent wheat beer, pilsner and dark beer.

On Saturday Abe, Georgia & I started off at Gedenkstatte Berliner Mauer, where you can climb up a tower and see the Berlin Wall and a reconstructed no-mans land. It seemed very fitting that at that point in time the weather turned sour and it started raining heavily, which added to the sombre mood of the place. Afterwards we met up with Ash & Nick and spent the afternoon wandering around Museums Island and Unter den Linden, seeing some spectacular old buildings, and the book burning memorial at Bebelplatz. The afternoon ended with a Russian-style tea at Tadschikische Teestube, where we were served tea with various things to sweeten our tea (brown and white sugar, and jam of all things!), things to nibble on (tiny dried lime and orange cubes, raisins soaked in rum, sweets, and biscuits). Needless to say we were all pretty stuffed by the end of it!

On Sunday Georgia few off to London, and the rest of us started the day with a Berlin tradition, Sunday brunch! It turned out to be a buffet of cereal, yoghurt, wurst (sausages!), eggs, salad, cold meats and cheese, fruit and cake. Again we were stuffed, and around midday we headed for the Soviet Memorial, which was HUGE and quite impressive! In the evening Berlin was host to Fete de la Musik, where numerous places around the central city have music stages set up, and musicians play everything from dance music and hip hop to jazz and funk to rock and pop. We headed for one place around the corner and drank beer while listening to a dj playing chilled out trance, and a band, before continuing on to 2 other local bars.

We had a great time in Berlin, thanks to Ash & Nick’s extensive knowledge of the city! It really is an awesome place, with a great mix of old and new… the arts and music scenes are alive and kicking, bars and clubs are open late, the beer is cheap and really good, and you can’t go further than a couple of hundred metres without tripping over a place selling Wurst – what more could one ask for??

Prague

ang_and_abe — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 01:00:00 GMT

After Budapest Abe and I headed for Prague in the Czech Republic, where we were to spend 3 nights and 2 whole days. Prague is an exceptionally beautiful city, everywhere you look the architecture is stunning. We had an early first night so that we could arrive at Prague Castle early and try and beat the crowds, an idea that worked pretty well! We spent the morning at the castle visiting its many sights, including the massive St Vitus’s Cathedral, St George’s Basilica (smaller but was the location for a number of old graves) Old Royal Palace (where they also had displays detailing the history of the castle, very interesting!), and a couple of art galleries. I even surprised myself by enjoying some of the art! From there we wandered over Charles Bridge into Stare Mesto (Old Town), in particular Staromestske nam (the Old Town Square), which is very pretty. After a bit more wandering we ended up in Nove Mesto (New Town) and saw Wenceslas Square. The next day was much the same, except we also walked up the hill in Mala Strana and saw some great views of Prague. Our time in Prague was pretty relaxed, the hostel even had a pool so we went swimming a few times (good to be doing some exercise!). And of course we had to buy a bottle of Absinth… we didn’t see any green fairies but thanks to the 70% alcohol we did feel pretty happy!

Gallery: Prague

ang_and_abe — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 06:04:00 GMT

Budapest

ang_and_abe — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 06:00:00 GMT

We all managed to arrive within half an hour of each other on Thursday night, coming from all different parts of nearby Europe – Abe & I from Croatia, Georgia from Vienna and Ash & Nick from Berlin… the miracles of the European railway! Abe, Georgia and I were staying in a budget hotel near the train station, and Ash & Nick at a hostel nearby. Abe, Georgia and I encountered our first problem, the hotel reception was closed! I had emailed them to say we were going to arrive late but never got a reply. So we went out in search of a hostel to stay in and found one about 5 minutes later that was perfect, and then headed off on our 2^nd mission, beer! We went to the hotel the next day and they were very apologetic that no one had checked the emails, and said that of course we didn’t have to pay for that night!

On Friday we met Ash & Nick for breakfast and then headed for Castle Hill in Buda (Budapest is separated into Buda and Pest, separated by the Danube River). The castle is pretty impressive, and we spent a few hours wandering around looking at the sights, including the neo-Gothic Matthias Church. After a beer and sausage stop we also checked out the Labyrinth, a series of underground tunnels that now have some really trippy displays (like cave paintings and statues, and a fountain that runs with wine, unfortunately not suitable for consumption, it smelt pretty vinegary!). After that we wandered along the river, getting spectacular views of Parliament on the Pest side, and had a beer at a bar on Margit-sziget (an island in the middle of the Danube), and caught a tram along the waterfront of Pest. We had a yummy dinner of pasta and pannini’s (with really crap service!) and a few more drinks at an Irish bar before calling it a night.

On Saturday Ash & Nick introduced us to Art Noveau, as we toured around Pest visiting interesting buildings and statues typical to that period. These sights were amazing, especially the pistachio coloured Bedo House, and things that you would probably walk right past if you didn’t know they were there. It was awesome to see the city from a completely different perspective, so thanks to Ash & Nick!

Ash & Nick headed back to Berlin on Sunday but Abe, Georgia and I still had one more day left. After a loooong sleep in we headed out to a hommus bar for lunch and had the most divine hommus plates with salads, chickpeas, mushrooms, pita bread… omg, SO yummy! The rest of the day was spent sleeping and then going out for dinner and more beer before watching a movie – a much needed rest day!

Croatia

ang_and_abe — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 05:56:00 GMT

Dubrovnik

After leaving Croatia we caught a flight to London and stayed overnight with my old school friend Rachel, and then caught another flight the following day to Dubrovnik in Croatia – it was the fastest way of getting from Istanbul to Dubrovnik!

Dubrovnik is a beautiful town on the coast, and has an old town surrounded by a huge wall. We spent a day there wandering through the old town and did the walk around the top of the wall, which was pretty interesting and also felt a little strange that you could see straight into peoples homes! Our accommodation was a room in the house of an old Croatian couple (quite common in this country). The couple were lovely and it was quite funny to try and speak with them, as they knew a few English words but we could not speak any Croatian – but it’s amazing how much you can understand with the odd word, body language and hand gestures!

After a day in Dubrovnik we had had enough of the tourists and inquired about getting out to one of the islands, and found there was a boat going the next day.

Korcula

The ferry to Korcula sailed along the Dalmatian Coast, and the views of the mainland were pretty spectacular. We arrived in Korcula Town and then caught a bus to Vela Luka at the other end of the island. The hostel was awesome, with a really friendly host called Mishael, a kitchen so Abe could make his daily espresso and we could save some money by cooking, and free Wifi. The town of Vela Luka was also really nice, small and situated in a cute bay – and nice and peaceful! We spent a couple of nights there, hired bikes and rode around to some beautiful beaches and swam in the crystal clear blue water of the Mediterranean – bliss!

Split

Another ferry ride and some awesome scenery later we arrived in Split on the mainland and stayed a couple of nights there. The main attraction is Diocletian’s Palace (a World Heritage site dating from the 3^rd century AD), which is an amazing site. The interior has little squares and narrow medieval streets which are really interesting to walk through.

We also decided to visit the beach, which was definitely an experience! We had images of the nice rocky/pebbly beaches we had been to on Korcula, but instead found concrete and an area of sand that had obviously been trucked in, and the occasional broken bottle and other washed up rubbish… in a word, horrible!! We now fully understand why Europeans love Australian beaches so much, oh to be sitting on one of WA’s many pristine white sandy beaches right now!

On Thursday we caught the train from Split to Zagreb (Croatia’s capital) and then it was on to Budapest to meet up with Ash (my old school friend from London) & Nick (her husband) and Georgia (again, we just can’t keep away from each other!).

Gallery: Budapest

ang_and_abe — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 04:02:00 GMT

Gallery: Croatia

ang_and_abe — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 03:46:00 GMT