The Travelling Gran!!!

France and Spain

erica_kennedy — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 19:00:00 GMT

I have so far been to France and Spain. Today I am also off to Amsterdam. I met up with my friends Alex, Jacques, Annabel and Cynthia under the Eiffel Tower in Paris on the 12th July. We went to the Chateau of Versaille the next day and after waiting a couple of hours in the line we finally made it into the massive palace. It really is so extravagent and exuberant it's unbelievable! We laid about in the gardens outside Marie Antoinette's personal mansion and the choofed off back to Paris. The next day we went to Nice in the south of France and went to the markets there and the little hilltop town of St Paul de Vence which was spectacular. Next we went off to Spain. Arriving in Barcelona and staying there then moving on to Seville and Ronda, another clifftop village that is the home of modern bull fighting. We stayed with Flora, one of the language assistants at Jacques' school and went out for tapas; a divine meal that is made up of many small dishes and is really cheap and yummy. Next we went to Granada and stayed in a nice family hostel with a swimming pool, right next to L'Alhambra, a huge palace builts by the Moers when they came to France from Arabia and Northern Africa. Every wall in the Palace was carved and full of inate sculptures of Sultans and Princes. The gardens in the palace were beautiful and tranquil, full of water fountains, birds, flowers and stone seats. The next day we went to the markets in Granada and spent the day wandering the narrow streets full of small shops. We hopped on an overnight train to Barcelona, we had our first experience of sleepers which gave us a suprisingly good night's rest. In Barcelona the next morning we checked our luggage into some lockers and went sightseeing around the city. We saw the famous Sagrada Fammilia, a modern cathedral that started being built in the 1880's and is still not finished, although it was interrupted by the Spanish Civil War. We also went to a famous sculpture park and attempted to find a labrynth park but it was nowhere to be seen. We walked down the famous street - la rambla and were going to go to Barcelonetta - the waterfront suburb but we ran out of time. We went back to the train station, collected our bags and boarded the overnight train to Tours in northern France, changing at Cerbere on the boarder onto a train with crazy reclinable seats. We arrived in Paris then hoped on the train to tours and arrived in the morning. We went to a chateaux where Leonado Da Vinci sayed in his time in France and where he died. We then checked into our hostel in Tours and had some well needed showers. That night we went to an internet cafè and at midnight cracked open some bottles of champagne to celebrate Cynthia's 18th birthday. The next day we had to make our way to Pontorson to see St. Mont Michel, a monastry that is on an island in the sea. It was built because legend has it that the Archangel Michael appeared on the hill over a thousand years ago. We stayed in a beautiful little hostel that had lovely beds and was very homely. We had breakfast this morning and caught a bus to Rennes where I am now. In an hour or so i am getting on a train to Lille then Brussels then Amsterdam where we are for a few days then it's off to Germany.

Having a wonderful time, and seeing so many things. xoxo Erica

Ardèche

erica_kennedy — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 02:10:00 GMT

i spent a week in the ardèche on the yr7 and 8 camp. the kids did heaps of outdoor activities which i also took part in and had a great time. the highlight of the camp was definately the two day descent down the ardèche river, which winds through massive gorges and some spectacular scenery. i slept under the stars and saw a huge wild boar. got a lift to the train station and then went to paris and met up with jacques, alex, annabel and cynthia. went to versaille which was amazing and now sitting in dijon at an internet cafè. going to lyon and then nice tonight. will do a post in a fez days. xoxo erica

Gallery: Easter in Germany

erica_kennedy — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 21:30:00 GMT

A world away

Gallery: Easter

erica_kennedy — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 20:36:00 GMT

Photos from Germany

With Fränzi

erica_kennedy — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 12:33:00 GMT

I began my Easter holidays with a bad start. Cynthia and I had booked train tickets to London Euston on the weekend and had to collect them at a ticket machine, however, when we got there the machine said that we had already collected them. We had paid seperately and only my email had a booking reference, so we had a fair amount of trouble getting our tickets, but we were determined not to have to buy new ones. Our determination paid off, 2.5 hours later we were given special authority tickets and were finally on the train. We stayed at Jacques for two nights and met Fränzi at the airport. Jacques and Cynthia went on an earlier flight to Fran and I. We struck the most evil of evil security ladies and consequently had a fight with her, all because I left my mobile and some coins in my pocket. "The UK is under serious terrorist threat" she kept on saying, i would reply with my bitchiest tone "Yeah well guess what, so is Australia, and there, forgetting to take something out of your pocket is not something to make a scene out of!" She made Fran strip down to just about a bra infront of about 200 people because the lady thought Fran's top was a jumper and so she had to remove it. The other security guards agreed with us, that the psychotic cow was in the wrong. Gah!

We arrived in Düsseldorf and met Fränzi's mother and younger half brother; Amelie and Alexander. That night we went to an 18th birthday party, it was very tame, just sitting around playing celebrity heads, i think we were all in a bit of shock at the surrealness of the situation. Throughout the next 8 days we did heaps of things. It was Easter Sunday the day after we arrived. We went to mass and on the way out were given dyed eggs which we ate on the way home. We had a big Easter egg hunt and had breakfast. Went to Fran's dad's house for lunch and went for a bike ride through the countryside. We went to Fran's grandmother's for dinner on monday night after we played in the fresh snow all afternoon. Her grandmother lives in a big mansion and has stables where she keeps her 7 golden retrievers which she breeds. We played 'hatze' (chasey) with all the little cousins. We went to Köln - Cologne, on tuesday and climbed the 600 odd steps of the Köln Dom (Cathedral) in the snow for a fantastic view of the city. Went to a chocolate museum and Lindt chocolate factory, and a walk around the streets. On Wednesday Fee (Fränzi's sister) took us to Düsseldorf where we went to a lovely fresh produce market where we all bought a punnet of delicious juicy strawberries.

On Thursday I took Cynthia and Jacques to the ski hall where I taught them to ski for the first time. Although very crowded, we still had a great day. On Friday we went to Fräanzi's grandfather's castle, cycling 60km to get there and back. We ate yummy home made soup and then on the way back we had spaghetti ice-cream, a specialty of Germany. On Friday night we went to a bizarre party. I don't quite know what was the nost amusing part: the softdrink bottle containing a foul alcoholic cocktail handed to Jacques for us to drink, the fact that everybody (including us)rode bikes to the party so that when we arrived at the house we could have mistaken it for an outdoor, night time bike shop, or the very intoxicated girl that was all over poor Jacques for the entire evening, completely embarrassing herself. All in all, it was a very memorable experience.

On Saturday we went to Venlo in Holland. It was really pretty, we had a good wander through the 'carless' streets, peering into almost every shop and at the end of the day ate some Poffertjes! Yum! On Sunday we had a full day going around the Eiffel region of Germany, planned by Fran's stepfather. We went to castles, churches, S.S. training facilities ad finally to a beautiful little town in the mountains called Monshau where there was an absolutely massive christmas decoration shop so I of course bought mum one and then went off to a nice restaurant where Fran's mum and stepfather shouted us lunch. We then, exhausted from such a big long day, went home. On Monday we went to Fraänzi's school which was interesting. None of the students listen to the teacher and just talk each other, apart from Fran and a couple of friends. In the afternoon we had a frantic post office experience ten went to Moers, a city very close to Fran's town, where we had yet more spaghetti ice-cream and had a look at the shops. On Tuesday I got up early and went to München - Munich on the fast train - 280km/h! Got off the train and was met by Julian, smiling and looking as happy as always!

Gallery: Spectacular Austria

erica_kennedy — Sun, 2 Mar 2008 23:40:00 GMT

Skiing in paradise

Ski Trip

erica_kennedy — Wed, 27 Feb 2008 13:39:00 GMT

50 students and staff set off from school in a luxurious coach at about 3:30pm on Friday 8th Feb on a 26 hr coach trip. oh joy. it wasn't that bad though. Nick - another gap student and i went along with various members of staff from the PE and other departments. we stopped every 3 or 4 hrs at service stations or food places, but the time in between was taken up quickly by movies, sleeping or reading. In no time at all we were down at Dover (where you get the ferry to France) and then we were in Belgium, then Luxembourg then Germany where we queued for about 45mins to get a yummy brekky and then on to Austria. It didn't take long before we were up in the alps and driving through snow covered landscape, arriving quickly at Aschau, a little town near kitzbuhel where we were staying. The group had a Gusthof (guesthouse?) all to ourselves which was great for late night singing sessions and drinking games. It was nice to attempt to speak some form of German and soak in the culture, not to mention eat austrian food - prepared each evening by our very own chef.

The Sunday was our first day skiing, and boy had the alps turned it on for us! Blue skies, heaps of powder and relatively warm temperatures with no wind!!!!!!!!! We were treated with 5 days of perfect skiing conditions and the last day was foggy and cold, amazing to see how the weather can change so quickly.

The students on the tour were all 6th formers, lower 6th and upper 6th so that's year 11 and 12. It was really nice to get to know people of our own age and out of school, not that we have anything to do with them at school anyway. There were 4 skiing groups, split up into ability levels. I went with the second best group all week even though i could change whenever i wanted to, but i was suited to that level i thought. we had 4hrs of lessons a day, lunch in the middle and then at the end we had an hour of free skiing but we stayed in a big group anyway and hooned down a black run right the way to our hotel doorstep. it was unbelievable!!! by the end of the week we were doing warm up blacks in the morning! so much fun. i learnt a technique called 'carving' which i have no where near mastered but i can say that i did a few good carving turns. I couldn't believe how good everyone on the resort was at skiing! i don't think i saw more than 10 snow ploughs the whole time! I'd say it's cause the conditions are so good. There were massive amounts of powder everywhere off piste which we explored, sometimes skiing up to our waist deep in powder! the first time i went off piste i did a spectacular sommersault loosing all skis and poles and opened my eyes to find that my head was actually buried in the powder! It was so funny, and the powder is just so dry that you don't get soaking wet or anything. Anyway, by the end of the week we were doing jumps and moguls and lots of black runs. We went down the Hahnenkamm - famous ski race held on it, and i nearly took out the whole group. Just imagine. Erica, last as usual trying to go down the impossible moguls at the end of the run, almost to the bottom she decides to just go for it and goes straight. STRAIGHT TOWARDS THE GROUP!! she picks her gap in the middle of the group knowing she isn't going to stop in time and yells 'coming through'. the group freaks out as there is an out of control aussie skier heading their way and attemps to make the 30cm original gap into something more like 1m. Erica is next seen streaming through the group over the back or front of peoples skis and into the run, behind where the group was waiting. Looking and praying to make sure she doesn't take anyone out who is on the next run ( a main thoroughfare ) she goes over a little jump and skids to a halt over the other side of the run, breathing deeply and laughing at the situation just passed. The group is laughing (more in a nervous manner) at Erica and she recieves the 'most stupid person of the day' award (Wally award) later that evening. An award that she wins overall for the whole week, due to her blondness and general ability to be fooled on anything, but in particular that there were snow leopards on the resort.

In the evenings we had planned activities such as the pool, pub, quiz, pub, games night, drinking at the hotel night and a fondue/skittles evening which was great! My team won which was a highlight, although i believed that there was actually a little man pulling the strings that the skittles were attached to... another Wally nomination.

By the end of the week I was exhausted. i had no energy left at all. after stuffing all my clothes back into my bag and seeing it safely on the bus it was time to go home. i think i slept for the first 6 hrs or so, and then watched some movies and slept more. We got home really quickly, or so it felt. We had the next day off which was great, and then it was back to school. I still can't believe that we managed to fit so much into a week. Absolutely amazing. i had the time of my life and was constantly in awe of all that was around me, definately will be coming back!

Places I went to

erica_kennedy — Sun, 17 Feb 2008 07:13:00 GMT

went skiing in kitzbuhel for a week! stayed in Aschau. such an amazing experience. the best snow ever and we had perfect weather! couldn't have been more lucky. will be writing many stories to elaborate. must go now.

Gallery: The House and School

erica_kennedy — Tue, 5 Feb 2008 22:39:00 GMT

my new habitat

Gallery: Malvern Netball and Selly Manor

erica_kennedy — Tue, 5 Feb 2008 22:30:00 GMT

Away games for netball and Prep school excursion

Gallery: London

erica_kennedy — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 11:22:00 GMT

Australia Day

First week

erica_kennedy — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 05:07:00 GMT

Well I arrived in chilly enlgand on the 5th of jan. and that's about all the weather's been like. rain, wind, snow and cold. but a bit of sun every now and again. the house is great, people are lovely, school is really good and bromsgrove is a great town. I am going to a choral society tonight and lots of other musical and sporting things too. i am going on the senior school ski tour to kitzbuhel on the 8th feb for 8 days which will be amazing.

got to go now. off for dinner then to a choral society.

love always, erica xoxo

Dubai. From Camel's milk to dodgy t-shirts and muslim Barbie and Ken

erica_kennedy — Sat, 5 Jan 2008 16:30:00 GMT

Well. I arrived in Dubai early in the morning and was picked up by Daniel -my cousin at the airport. We sped around Dubai, seeing all the tourist sights at 180km/hr all on the wrong side of the road. And yes I did drive. A couple of times, not mounting the curb once! although there were a couple of near misses on round-a-bouts that have no lanes. in fact the whole of dubai and the UAE has no lanes, and indicating is a habit that you quickly discard and assimilate with the locals. most of whom are wealthy 'sheik' looking people or 'dirty pakkis' in people movers who don't know how to drive!

Daniel and i took a tour through the massive blocks of apartments where all the construction workers live. we really needed a drink so we stopped at a supermarket and bought a bar full of different drinks. ale, milk - from camels and cows, energy drinks, cordials, juices you name it. if one wasn't nice we disposed of it in Dubai fashion, chuck it out the window on the side of the road. or in our case, over our heads - ahh the beauty of a convertable. Camel milk was how you'd expect - disgusting. but i wanted to at least try it. the others were okay and were consumed throughout the day during visits to the beach and just driving around.

The first night we went to a Lebanese restaurant for dinner which was delicious, however there were these weird meatballs that we ordered and paid for later that night - both of us had food poisoning... moving on. I saw the Burj Al Arab - famous sail shaped hotel. The palm jumeriah which is getting built - palm shaped suburb in the ocean. Wanted to swim out to the world islands - also another residential suburb (shaped like a world map). Went skiing in the indoor ski slope which is part of the second biggest shopping mall in the world - Mall of the Emirates. Drove past countless palaces and attempted to drive to the other side of the UAE one afternoon but got stuck in a massive traffic jam on a 7 lane highway which lasted for about 2.5hrs, but it was kind of good in a way, i saw many crazy crazy sights. packs of pakkis as we calle them, 5 year old children playing cricket on the side of the motor way on which people were zooming along at up to 200km/hr! arabic graffiti. took heaps of photos of freaky arabs/pakkis staring at me in the car, i think one in particular thought i was in love with him because i looked at him in the eye for maybe 1/2 a sec. anyway, we got passed the jam and by then it was too dark to see anything so we stopped to have dinner. I got out of the car and was actually the only blonde person there and the only white person apart from Daniel. infact i was the only woman that had exposed something more than eyes, oh those sensual forearms of mine, not to mention my sexy knee caps. Daniel and i both agreed that i should buy a shirt to reduce some of the wandering eyes and luckily there was a clothes shop just down the road. I went in and it appeared they only sold male t-shirts, but any t-shirt was better than none. i found one and asked how much it was. "25d" the shop owner said. 'What! No way!' daniel protested for me and we got another shirt that said 'element' as in the skate brand for 15d which is about $5. the shirt was so funny because it had a completely different tag on the back, nothing to do with element. anyway i put it on and walked outside down towards the 'Gulf Gate Cafeteria' where we were going to have dinner, when my 1min old shirt split at the sides from no cause, wasn't too small, too big if anything but never the less it managed to split. We both burst out laughing and i could have taken it back but i thought it was such a good momento of the UAE, so i'll give it to patrick with that story. We headed down for dinner and although it was in a very dodgy place it looked clean and reasonably well regulated so we ate there - with success i might add. As a bit of dinner entertainment we watched in astonishment the 'drive through' system. an angry arab would park outside the restaurant in their flash SUV and honk the horn until a waiter went out and took their order. they would then wait patiently for 30secs and honk the horn until they got their food, making rude and angry hand gestures in the meantime. After dinner we turned around and went back to Dubai, this time i drove on the highway. speed cameras do exist in the uae but most of the time they're not on or don't work but just incase, you slow down to a safe 20kmph over the speed limit which is 120kmph, so 140kmph. i couldn't believe it when 160kmph felt slow. we got back to dubai and went to bed. the next day we drove to the other side of the UAE to Fujairah i think that's it. we drove through the desert mountains and got there in no time. we drove around for about 25mins looking for an invisible mc donalds (we were a bit cautious about our food) but had to settle for kfc. a sign out the front said 'all you can eat for 25d everyday but public holidays' (about $6.50) daniel was very keen but was disapointed when the manager said that it wasn't on today.......? so i went with a safe twister combo($2) and daniel got some giant meal pack but was ripped off as he got extra chips which tasted as though they had been refried about 10 times throughout the day, instead of coleslaw. and the chicken was anything but grande.

after a disgusting, fatty, and oily lunch we thought it would be nice to go for a swim at the beach. i needed to get changed into my togs (bathers) and found a toilet. well i wouldn't exactly say toilet, more an enclosed space filled with poo, urine, water bottles, mud, toilet paper and flies. yay for me! i got changed without touching the floor and wrapped myself in towels to shield myself from the increasing number of prying eyes. i think word had got out that there was a white girl at the beach because a crowd of pakkis and arabs were gathering. i ran down to the water and got in up to my knees before i saw all the crabs that were scuttling around my feet. daniel and i were manovering through the crabs with utter most concentration until daniel was pincered (if that's what you say) he jumped about 1m out of the water and i ran out back to the towels and bag. we decided that was enough and drove back to dubai where we went for a hot sauna and swim and then to the skiing. we bought two pairs of gloves for 1d each, that's about 30c and hit the slopes for 2hrs. i attempted to torment arabs who were trying to ski but they proved impossible to chase! all they did was go straight down the slope with there arms up in the air and poles flying everywhere until they crashed. and yes, they did still have their tea towels on. it was the funniest thing i have ever seen skiing. one in particular was funny, he was on the pommer and went off the track but insead of letting go he held on. he fell over let go of his poles but held on to the pommer being dragged up the last bit of the slope, legs going in opposite directions. it was hilarious, and that was skiing. After that we went into a department store much like K-Mart and had a wander. it was massive. I saw an arab man looking down the girls doll section, you know the isle that radiates pink! i thought i'd go have a look. looking along it was just the same as australia, not that i spend much time in those isles these days, until........... Muslim Barbie sat on the shelf staring at me! Hahah. it was fully dressed as a muslim woman - the black robe thingy and everything. the fake tatoos on her hand - haiku and everything else. Her name was something starting with J, i can't remember and on the box it had pictures of all her friends - all these other chraracters, even Ken was represented by an arab version with a tea towel wrapped around his head. So funny, i had to buy her, would have bought the ken version if he was there but must be quite popular because it was sold out. So Patrick has a little present coming to him wrapped in the dodgy t-shirt.

that night i stayed up and packed till about 2:30am and i had to get up at 3:45am. yes maybe not the wisest thing but whatever. We slept in past the alarm and although i was suppossed to be at the airport at 5 we left at 5 and got there with pleanty of time to spare. I managed to get in with 5x the amount of hand luggage allowed and said good bye to Daniel for my flight to Birmingham.

Dubai was truly an amazing place. the scale of the construction is unbelievable. disney land was asked to built there but they said no, so what did the sheik do? Begin building Dubailand, a massive theme park that goes for about 10km. everything is like that. so much money, and they don't make it from selling petrol there it is equivalent to about 7c a litre in some places or cheaper. the moto of dubai must be 'if it's not there naturally, just build it.'

Departing T'Ville

erica_kennedy — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 17:31:00 GMT

My family was farewelled from the townsville airport by Alex, Annabel, Brenda, Cynthia, Jacques, Karen, Raphael, Eva, Annette and Steve which was really nice. We were in Brisbane for about 20mins and in that time i saw Damien Leith (australian idol irish dude) with his wife and two kids which was kind of cool. We jumped on the plane to melbourne and i just slept the whole way. melbourne was really cold when we arrived and the weather is still cold - about 17 deg. I look quite out of place walking down the street in a jumper and long pants when everyone else is wearing summer dresses and thongs. Geelong hasn't changed much. it is actually quite a funky and hip place in some parts. pakington street is nice and there are endless chic cafes and restaurants. Darcy arrived yeaterday and was happy to see us after a week in a kennel in melb. the car is coming now and apart from that nothing much is happening. oh apart from my cute little grandpa saying "can i have a ciggie love?" haha. we're going to melbourne for shopping on thurs i think so that will be fun. beach looks freezing but i'll go down this arvo for a walk. keep in touch. i'll keep posting stories about what's happening.

love always erica xo