WT09

Photos: PERU and BOLIVIA

vivienne_and_iona — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 14:09:00 GMT

eating for cheap and risking our personal safety (once more) in the world's highest capital city

vivienne_and_iona — Tue, 8 Dec 2009 07:24:00 GMT

vivienne and i were not feeling particularly intrepid when we dragged our sick and half-starved selves onto an aerosur flight from cusco to la paz, having opted for a 50-minute flight over an 18-hour bus ride and keen to escape reminders that we had missed the exciting nightlife of cusco having spent the past 4 days in bed (the inca trail having nearly killed us, for those who haven't read the last blog).

ANYWAY, we rolled up in la paz to discover that one more day in bed resulted in a score of NASTY ILLNESS 0, VIVIENNE AND IONA 1 (although it was a very prolonged battle). we could finally stop feeling sorry for ourselves and get out to see a new town.

a few delicious meals later (there's nothing nicer than the taste of food after a few days on bread and water) we did a fantastic trip to chacaltaya, a mountain next to the paramount pictures mountain (you know the one at the start of movies? who even knew that was in bolivia?) where we skidded across a glacier in converses (they managed the inca trail, they could definitely handle a glacier), saw a really nice view for about 3 seconds before the clouds came over, and went to a field called the valley of the moon which, as the name suggests, basically looks like you're on the surface of the moon. snazzy!

after the excitement of seeing a man in a jacket that said IONA across the back and having a really good meal for 25c each (saltena is where it's at, if you're ever in bolivia), disaster struck when vivienne realised some sneaky thief had stolen her camera, the faithful friend that despite the occasional lens error had happily snapped photos across the world. upset and annoyed we spent the afternoon shopping for a new camera, which was delightful as V discovered she had payed less than half the aussie price for a great new nikon. alas, it wouldn't bring back the photos on the stolen camera but it definitely made the loss hurt a bit less.

determined to celebrate our return to full health, we decided (as one does) to mountain bike down the world's most dangerous road- a windy track that saw so many fatalities each week that the media gave up reporting them, but has calmed down a bit since a new road was built around the other side of the mountain and is now populated by enthusiastic mountain-bikers and locals too stingy to pay the toll on the new road. slightly nervous about returning home with some difficult explanations about new injuries to make, we were reassured by the fantastic safety gear the company decked us out in and made it down the road with just a few sore spots and having managed to not fall off. nice.

the bolivian presidential election fast approaching (bolivia being a country that prevents people from voting twice by banning all motorised transport, rather than checking their names off on a piece of paper like everyone else), and la paz on the point of coming to a complete standstill, we got out of there ASAP (although not because we hadn't enjoyed ourselves, we definitely had!) and jumped on a flight to buenos aires. low altitude was just a few hours away!

about a million years and a very expensive departure tax later, we turned up in BA to sadly discover it wasn't as hot as we were expecting, but that we were at last in a city where we could breathe easily, drink good coffee and get irretrievably lost all at once (because it's a big city, obviously, not because we're retarded).

but vivienne can tell you about that one.

x iona

pretending to be part of an ancient civilisation on the INCA TRAIL

vivienne_and_iona — Mon, 7 Dec 2009 06:43:00 GMT

after an epic journey from rio involving 3 planes, 2 changes and 2 lost bags (cool - nice try, TAM and LAN) we arrived in the very very high town of Cusco, and our experience that was PERU began...

The lost bags were an obvious first hurdle, which was then made higher and higher as both airlines we flew with demonstrated that they couldn't photocopy, stay in the office during working hours, read emails, enlarge picture attachments or generally come good on promises to have our bags with us the following day. if it sounds like i am bitter about this, it's because i am. the 2.5 days with one change of clothes, no towels and no soap were not amongst the highlights of the trip.

ANYWAY, after much hassling, we managed to have our stuff returned on the morning of the trek, leaving us no time to wash anything (whoo) and having to catch up with the rest of the group because the plane got in after we should have left!

despite this somewhat rocky start, once we actually hit the start of the famous inca trail, we practically forgot about the previous days and got stuck into some serious 4 days of walking, which was definitely more difficult than our only previous experience with hiking, being D of E...

our group of 15 was loads of fun. even though the trail was so hard and everyone got sick at some point (including us, unfortunately - combination of the 4200m altitude, all day hikes and cold weather is not ideal for our delicate constitutions (ha)), everyone kept smiling, and no one complained!

the views from the trail were incredible, even if sometimes we couldn't see them because we were above the clouds! the inca ruins were really good to see and seeing machu picchu for the first time from the sun gate made everything worth it. there were no clouds so we got a clear view down to what is hands-down the most famous and most impressive of the ancient inca ruins.

we had a wander around machu picchu that morning (having beaten the day tourists by getting up in the dark at 3:50am - foolproof) which was amazing - probably once in a lifetime experience - and had a final lunch and a much needed massage in the town before taking a long trip back to cusco and collapsing into bed.

this is where we stayed for the next 3 or 4 days, still sick and very very tired. i won't bore (or disgust, really) you with the details of our last few days in cusco, which really did only involve bed and nothing very exciting at all.

much much love to one and all.

vivienne (and iona)

xoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Photos: BRAZIL

vivienne_and_iona — Tue, 1 Dec 2009 00:46:00 GMT

Photos: amsterdam & london

vivienne_and_iona — Tue, 1 Dec 2009 00:45:00 GMT

sunburn, capirhinias and statewide blackouts in BRAZIL

vivienne_and_iona — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 08:48:00 GMT

we were a bit torn about leaving europe, mostly because south america represented the final and shortest third of our trip (i realise that's not very mathematical but you know what i mean), so we set off from heathrow on the first sunday in november with that nasty sense of fun soon coming to an end.

although, as vivienne rightly pointed out we still had 'six weeks in the most good-looking continent on earth' between us and our return to the real world.

and, as ever, vivienne was completely right.

our wishes were granted as we stepped off the plane in rio de janeiro to find it was about 20C warmer and that if the airport staff were anything to go by, the locals were indeed rather attractive.

we spent a great three days in rio- the motto on the brazilian flag is 'ordem et progresso', but it quickly became clear that neither order nor progress are considered to be of great importance in ipanema or copacabana- had 'skimpy clothes, attractive people and very loud samba music, preferably all at once' been the slogan across the flag, we would have had a much better idea of what we were in for.

we never managed to make it to the top of christ the redeemer (an activity known as 'climbing jesus' amongst the backpacker crowd), but we spent a few great afternoons on the beach (ipanema is apparently the new copacabana, for those in the know), organised our trip to the amazon for the next week (more on that in a sec), had a hilarious night out in leblon on the eve of a blackout affecting the entire state of rio (circa 100 million people, was a lot more impressive than a few lights out in 2065) and went on a really interesting tour of a couple of rio's favelas, or slums.

20% of rio's population live in these slums, although the situation is brushed under the carpet by the brazilian government- the favelas are run by drug cartels, so it's either do as they say or else, illustrated by the life expectancy of favela men being barely 30 years old.

the day before our favela tour we had seen madonna (the one and only) stepping out of a snazzy hotel and into a car (not much of a challenge given the hundreds of paparazzi around), apparently in rio on a crusade to improve the favela situation. perhaps considering that a night in her hotel is about what a favela inhabitant makes in 6 months might be a good place to start?

not quite finished with rio but feeling the thumb of time pressing on our shoulders, we then headed down the coast to a gorgeous little town called paraty, where we stayed in one of the best hostels of our trip (misti chill, if you're headed to the south coast of brazil any time soon) and had a really relaxing few days on the beach, at some gorgeous waterfalls and on a beautiful boat trip, the time we'd spent on the beach in rio having really taken it out of us.

so, to be honest, our paraty trip basically involved sun, sand, sunburn on an otherwise fantastic boat trip and many delicious capirhinias, a run-and-lime drink that brazil is apparently famous for (if it wasn't then it is now!). nice.

then, having agreed that despite the effort and expense, we really wanted to make it to the amazon rainforest before it's all turned into car tyres and cigarette papers, we headed back up to rio to catch a plane up to manaus, literally in the very heart of the amazon rainforest.

manaus is, to say the least, a pretty crap town, but after tracking down some malaria drugs (we're pretty sure that's what they were, the instructions were in portuguese but we're both still alive and don't appear to have malaria) and spending most of our day there in bed, we were ready to hit the jungle.

we did a really great 4-day, 3-night tour out of a lodge some 4 hours out of manaus (by taxi, boat, bus and boat), from where we saw and did all manner of cool things- went pirhana fishing, patted tarantulas, held a sloth and a baby cayman (a type of alligator) and swam with pink river dolphins!

our guide ruben was easily one of the most amazing and interesting people we have ever met- he was this funny little brazilian guy originally from a village 14 days' journey into the amazon (made 4 hours seem pretty tame!). we could never quite tell if he was joking or not, and so when on a trek through the jungle he spotted a huge snake high up in a tree and we jokingly suggested he go up and catch it for us, we were completely awestruck when he kicked off his thongs and came back down the tree 10 minutes later with a 2.5m boa constrictor wrapped around his arm!

we also spent a night camping in the jungle, which was great because we were out in hammocks (actually quite comfy) and could hear all the howler monkeys in the morning! we also went swimming in a kind of sludgy lake but quickly jumped back in the boat when ruben saw a cayman nearby- by his accounts it was 'medium sized' but he also described the snake as 'a baby' so we weren't taking any chances!

the flights to and from the amazon made it a pretty expensive week, but v and i agreed it's impossible to put a price on holding wild animals in a jungle that might not be there for our kids to see.

somewhat illogically (you should have established by now that logic is not our forte) we then flew back to rio, where we spent a couple more lovely sunny days and counted the fat women in g-string bikinis (worryingly, we quickly lost count) before flying via sao paolo and lima to cusco, peru.

but that's one for vivienne to tell.

much love.

I AMsterdam (and also london)

vivienne_and_iona — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:18:00 GMT

after a very long bus ride next to a quite unfriendly chain smoking french man, i finally completed the journey from london to paris where iona and i were REUNITED in the relatively unglamorous gallieni bus terminal.

for the next 2 days we hung out in paree gorging on croissants and bakery food (as usual) and also got very enthusiastic about a french halloween party which was made quite a lot easier by everyone's determination to practice their english!

THEN, as november started, so did amsterdam. or at least, so did our really really long trip to amsterdam, which saw us arrive in the pouring rain, in the dark, with our massive bags and no real clue as to what was going on. this was not assisted by the eurolines woman informing us that we were in a completely different spot on the map from where we actually were, and it took all our (ok fine, iona's) map reading ability to actually find where we needed to go.

our hostel was right in the middle of the red light district, aka right in the middle of the action, so to speak. it's a bit weird at first to walk through the area - for those of you who have never been, one of amsterdam's main attractions is it's sex industry, and the 'girls in the windows' but we did get used to it, and because there's so many people out at night, (parents, this is for you) it's actually quite a safe city.

something that we found quite astonishing was that for a city with such potential to be completely seedy, amsterdam is actually a really beautiful place - something that others who had been there before failed to mention. it's full of canals, museums (we went to the van gogh one which was really good), old, beautiful streets and buildings, and, as we learnt on a fateful 4 hour walking tour in the freezing cold rain, lots and lots of history.

we really enjoyed amsterdam, but as a place notorious for its party atmosphere, the 2 1/2 days we stayed there left us exhausted and quite happy to jet off to london, where we arrived (once again) in the middle of the night and curled up in out massive bed at the ritz.

no, you did not read that wrong, and i'm not making some sort of joke about the quality of london hostels - thanks to my lovely nana and papa (HI), our first 3 nights in london were spent feeling very snazzy and important at the ritz hotel. the staff even knew who we were and what room we were in, most likely because we were the only people there under the age of about 60, and therefore stuck out like 2 sore thumbs.

during the day we did all the touristy things (i know you've heard about them a thousand times so i won't bore you with too many details) like the london eye and buckingham palace, and we also got to see lucy and franny which was cool as well!

BUT the highlight of our daily activities was definitely the day that all four of us had afternoon tea at the ritz, where high tea was born. it was incredible and so so posh, so that just by being there we could almost forget we were backpacking, except that we were so excited it was obvous we weren't exactly there every day! we even ate gold (no, really. we did).

london is a great city - there's so much to see and do and i don't think you could ever get bored (we didn't, at least), especially not when there's all the monopoly places to spot! we even made a trip out to old kent road, to discover that there is definitely a reason why it's the cheapest place in monopoly...

after a fantastic 5 days in london it was time for the next phase of WT09 - SOUTH AMERICA. but, quite clearly, that's another story and so you will have to wait.

much much love,

vivienne (and iona)

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Gallery: belgium!

vivienne_and_iona — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 06:46:00 GMT

iona main eats a lot of waffles and drinks a lot of beer

vivienne_and_iona — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 08:11:00 GMT

and so, at last count, i was lurking around a slightly scruffy parisian hostel when a friendly danish guy offered me a lift to brussels. nice. love danish people.

as countless backpackers have discovered, free transport in europe (and probably anywhere) is basically non-existent unless you are in the back of a police car or have missed your bus/train/ferry stop, so the prospect of a free ride to a foreign country was one i gratefully accepted.

and, let's be honest, good-looking scandanavians are basically the icing on the cake.

the trip that would apparently take '2 or 3 hours' saw us pull up outside our brussels hostel at 11.50pm, almost 7 hours since we left our digs in paris (although to be fair that included a lot of messing around with the europcar people who seemed to speak neither french nor english, and definitely no danish). But, it quickly became clear (after a night's sleep in a room with a guy who snored like a bear and smelt like feet who made a hasty departure the following day, presumably out of embarrassment) that brussels was worth the effort, if not for the nice-but-not-that-exciting town centre then at least for the vast number of shops selling waffles, beer and chocolate, or a combination of the three.

in short, my kind of city.

two days in brussels was basically enough- it's really nice but there's not heaps to do, save perhaps for the tintin museum and the breweries (i will be honest and say that in my first day in belgium, i drank more beer than i had in my entire life up to that point) and after 48 hours of eating exclusively the above (plus a serve of hot chips with mayo) i was starting to think a new town and some nutritious food might be an idea.

i farewelled denmark (i believe i am one of a select few who can say they learnt some danish in belgium) and got on a train to bruges, an often-mocked town that features in a movie everybody but me seems to have seen, and quickly discovered for myself that despite the countless horse-drawn carriages and wooden canal boats carting american tourists around, it's actually a really cute little town.

my first stop was the chocolate museum, arguably the best 5 euro i have ever spent (it's up there with the donkey ride in santorini) if only for the chocolate statue of barack obama. nice.

i also managed to get hopelessly lost in the (very small) town, despite having a map, and finally admitted that maybe my sense of direction isn't quite as good as i have always claimed. but, in the process, i saw a vial of something claiming to be the blood of jesus (pretty cool if it's true but probably just a great revenue-raiser for an unremarkable little church) and ate an apple, which represented my attempted return to healthy eating.

seriously, if you can make it through belgium without succumbing to the delicious unhealthiness of the food, then you are not only a man of steel but you also can't have had any fun.

a very early wake-up and a bone-shatteringly expensive train ticket later (apparently second class was booked out, tchuh) i rolled back into paris's gare du nord with the satisfaction of knowing i had spent my week well.

belgium may indeed be the butt of all jokes, have it's only claim to fame being that it's the home of tintin, and the people may speak reeeeeally sloooowly, but it is also the home to some hilarious chocolate vendors, some incredible food and a lot of very, very good beer. not that i would know, parents, grandparents and other advocates of responsible drinking.

xoxo iona

ENGLAND (you'll have to imagine the witty title - sorry)

vivienne_and_iona — Fri, 6 Nov 2009 23:18:00 GMT

HELLO FRIENDS AND FAMILY

the time has come, the walrus said, for you to all finally know how on earth i survived a month without iona in the big (ok, small) bad country that is england.

to tell you the truth, i didn't quite know how i was going to do it myself, and it wasn't really looking good just after iona left when i had to buy a lot of lollies to calm myself down, but it did all turn out in the end. at the very least, i'm still alive, and mostly in one piece!

BASICALLY, i stayed in edinburgh for a couple of days on my own, pretending to be a local (though i never quite mastered the accent..), and having the very exciting experience of being id-ed for the first time ever. unfortunately, because iona was in paris, i was out with people from the hostel, and they didn't understand the momentous occasion that this entailed. i got excited nonetheless.

after edinburgh, i headed to newcastle, where WT09 (the vivienne october edition) really began. i discovered that newcastle doesn't offer a great deal in the way of daytime activities, so highlights probably include seeing the bridge that is exactly like the harbour bridge, and a quite cool museum that i went to, as well as the nightlife, which is hilarious. essentially, newcastle is the bucks/hens night capital of england, and so everywhere you looked there were people wearing ridiculous costumes, rampaging around and shrieking.

after newcastle, i bussed it down to york, where i met up with claire! we had a really really good time squirrel spotting, directing people to things i had never heard of (sucked in annoying boys - i dont think they ever found the cinema...) and generally charging around the minster (absolutely incredible) and the student nights out. we met some friendly canadians at our hostel as well, and educated (or possibly bothered) them with our taste in music...

...until it was time for both of us to hit up manchester, which was really fun. once again, it sort of lacked daytime activities (somewhat of a trend in england, i've found) but we had a really really nice time first, just us 2, and then with some people claire had met earlier in the year at glastonbury (dan and tom) and their friends, who very kindly let us stay at their house and entertained us for a couple of days! needless to say we had a lot of fun, living in a student house for 2 nights, pretending to go to manchester uni and eating 2 pound pizzas. we also had the exciting experience of going to a comedy club, which i was quite sceptical about, but it was actually really funny. the only lowlight (unfortunately) was the australian comedian, which was a little bit embarassing...

because claire had plans already to go to scotland, i had to go thorough another sad goodbye as she headed for glasgow (land of the indecipherable accent) and i marched on towards liverpool, which was only a 2 pound bus ride away. yessssssss.

liverpool is, for those who dont know, the home of the beatles, and i had a lot of fun there with some cool people from the hostel, getting swept up (sort of) in 'beatle mania' and the like.

after liverpool, i braved the 6 hour bus ride (which i almost missed, thanks to me being at the wrong bus stop - i was saved by the friendly bus driver who ran down the road to make sure i wasnt meant to be on his bus - i was.) to london, which i really enjoyed! london's such a massive city which is a tiny bit overwhelming but theres so much cool stuff to do and see, and so many travellers to meet, that i had an awesome time. i rampaged around there for a little while, doing some of the touristy stuff and FINALLY sorting out my visa for brazil (the london embassy actually existed, which is always helpful), before i woke up one morning with absolutely no voice whatsoever - no idea how that happened - and decided to get away from the cities for a little bit.

so next stop was the beautiful bath, which was really really nice, though perhaps not quite as relaxing as i was expecting, being a university town and everything! i spent a realy nice few days wandering around the town (seeing the roman baths - incredible - among other things), and one day i went down to stonehenge! it wasn't as big as i was expecting but it was still really cool. i somehaow managed to resist the temptation to buy the tacky souveneirs (they were really really awful, that's how), so i felt pretty proud of myself after that.

after a few days in bath i wasn't really getting any better voice-wise (one person kindly informed me that i "sounded like darth vader") so i figured it was time to go somewhere that was actually quiet. that is how i chose reading. there is, as far as i was, and still am (having now been) aware, absolutely nothing to do there. which was perfect.

after that i headed back to london for a few more days, where i had a really good time with some awesome girls from england (and another vivian from australia!!) who i met at the hostel before the day finally came and i got up at 5 am (whoo) to head back to paris and BACK TO IONA!

but that is another story, this one is definitely already long enough...

much much love to one and all, and i'm sory this was such a long time coming,

vivienne

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Gallery: france take two

vivienne_and_iona — Tue, 3 Nov 2009 02:30:00 GMT

(minus vivienne)

fake IDs, green day and eiffel tower mania = 2 weeks in paris

vivienne_and_iona — Sun, 1 Nov 2009 22:26:00 GMT

my plan for october was to go to paris, quickly find an easy and well-paid job (something like sampling chocolate was what i had in mind) and spend the large part of the next month wandering around galleries, shopping and eating crepes.

well, it would seem i was perhaps a little optimistic, but in spite of my limited success in the parisian job market (although to be fair i was offered 2 jobs- one in a bar that meant walking 20km home at 4am each night, and the other was only offered 4 days before my planned departure), i have actually had an incredibly good time so far, with the only thing missing being that tall brunette girl who i seem to see everywhere (and apparently she's having a good time on the other side of the channel so i'm not too worried).

basically, the job-hunt consigned to the too-hard basket, i proceeded to catch up with a few friends lurking around (you know who you are), hang around in a lot of impressive galleries pretending i knew about art, and eat my own weight in nutella crepes. life was good.

i've been staying with arguably the world's most hospitable family friends, who had met me all of twice before i turned up at charles de gaulle requesting food and accommodation, and have very generously had me stay in their house on and off since my arrival. AND, on top of all that, they're really nice people.

jeremy, eldest son of family, 19 and pretty cool, gave me a good introduction to paris as on my first weekend he took me to two parties (if any australian girls are feeling unloved they should definitely give france a go), the green day concert (for which he wouldn't let me pay him back and where i actually had a really good time, despite being in the mosh pit and surrounded by sweaty french emos) and finally lent me his NaviGo card for when he doesn't need it, which is basically a glorified train pass that identifies me as Jeremy Watkins, 19-year-old blonde male, and so is essentially a fake ID that would have me laughed out of any club. but still.

i spent the next week sleeping in, hanging out with jesse treharne, lucy bowers or a combination of the two, seeing some of paris's sights that had previously escaped my notice (i don't know why people queue for hours for the louvre, the musée d'orsay was incredible and we saw a guy who looked just like justin timberlake from behind), and generally came to feel a little less like a tourist in this beautiful city.

then, WEEK 2.5 (my second whole week in paris), rupert saxton and his beloved fluffy blonde hair turned up at Gare Montparnasse for his last week in paris, where we stayed in a slightly scruffy but really friendly hostel called the 3 Ducks, 10 minutes from the Eiffel Tower. having both seen pretty much every landmark paris has to offer (and there are many), we felt little pressure to sightsee and so spent a large proportion of our time cooking up a storm in the hostel kitchen, making friends with the many cool people who passed through the hostel's doors (you, too, know who you are) and going on pub crawls pretending we were siblings- on one famous occasion rupert only bought one drink and i managed to somehow make €5, which had something to do with a kebab but we're not quite sure.

we also made the trip out to the Palace of Versailles, where the massive queue made us consider going home, but after lining up for 15 minutes we discovered that as members of the European Union (we both have a parent from sunny Great Britain) we were allowed to jump the queue, flash a passport and feel really clever all at once. the palace is really incredible, must have been awesome to live in, and the gardens are bigger than several parisian arrondisements put together. nice.

rupert and i basically ended the week with a few photos of versailles, a zillion of the eiffel tower with people walking through the picture and one of me in 'the batcave' (a doona cover with pictures of che guevara on it that would make the revolutionary turn in his grave). a good result.

on rupert's last day in paris, and my last day of having any plans, i was kind of mooching around the courtyard when a nice danish guy we'd met a few days earlier asked me why i looked so devo, and i explained that i was at the end of a pretty fun few weeks with no plans ahead, and he asked me if i wanted to come to belgium with him and a friend. that night.

and so, with no good reason to say no and previous research indicating that scandanavian people are all really nice, i accepted.

but you'll have to wait for that one.

edinburg(h)er*

vivienne_and_iona — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 22:51:00 GMT

* just for the record, we didn't actually call it that... i just thought of it then and thought it was funny... i'm pretty cool, i know.

ANYWAY. first thing first, sorry that this is ridiculously late, but, to be honest, since iona isn't here to remind me to do important things like the blog anymore, i pretty much just forget... clearly i am very organised.

SO, to the real story now. after saying a very sad goodbye to iona's lovely family, iona and i jetted off to edinburgh, and managed to arrive at a reasonable hour, somewhat unlike our last entry into scotland. for those who don't remember - good one - we managed to arrive in glasgow at the lovely time of 3am. thank you easyjet.

Edinburgh was absolutely gorgeous as far as big cities go - lots of old buildings and a really cool castle with a working cannon that fires every day. we were suitably impressed with the city already, especially when we discovered that we had managed to score a 6 bed dorm, empty except for ourselves! this might not exactly sound like cause for celebration, but it was a chance to spread our stuff around, and generally take up as many beds as it was possible for 2 people to occupy (all of them, as it turned out), which, after almost 5 months of sharing with people who are not always those we would have chosen, was very exciting indeed. and that was a very long sentence. sorry.

the day after we arrived, we split up for the morning so that i could sort out my compulsory (obviously) visa for brazil and iona could check out the sights of the city on a walking tour. this seemed like it would be a reasonably straightforward, extremely productive morning, but do not be fooled, dear readers, because:

a) iona discovered that her tour group was full of slow walkers, which, in the freezing scotland weather, rendered her so cold she had to concede defeat and go back to the hostel and;

b) i trailed around edinburgh for a few hours, looking for the brazilian consulate, which, i later discovered, did not exist. cool.

so, all in all, the morning was a pretty epic failure.

that afternoon we went for a wander, our super speedy walking pace (ha) a bit easier to cope with as far as the weather was concerned, and made use of posibly the 2 most useful things iona had learnt that morning - a shortcut between our hostel and the royal mile, and the suggestion that we try a deep fried mars bar. it was, as expected, disgusting and delicious at the same time, and probably would have killed us both courtesy of a heart attack had we not taken the sensible option and shared one. we also killed a few hours in topshop, obviously not shopping, but playing what will forevermore be known as 'the topshop game'. it can't really be fully described in words, but for an idea please just look at the following picture.

and that evening we caught up with one of iona's lovely cousins, helen, who goes to uni in edinburgh, for a drink and to marvel at the amazing student accommodation in scotland. i have seen student houses in sydney, and i have never ever seen one as nice as helen's!

the next day we went up to edinburgh castle, where we saw the cannon up close, learnt a bit of history and saw some of the crown jewels.

and then came the moment we'd been expecting, but also not quite expecting would actually come - saying goodbye to each other (only for a month, but still). iona headed off towards the airport and paris, and i stomped off to buy an enormous bag of lollies to cheer myself up, and work out what on earth to do now...

but that, as they say, is another story, so you'll probably have to wait until iona reminds me to do it to hear then next installment of WT09 (vivienne version).

BUT now that i have actually managed to complete this blog, iona can tell you all about her exciting adventures in paris... get excited!

much much love

vivienne (and iona)

xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Gallery: IRELAND

vivienne_and_iona — Sun, 4 Oct 2009 02:25:00 GMT

a whirlwind tour of ireland in more style than we're used to

vivienne_and_iona — Sun, 4 Oct 2009 01:45:00 GMT

so, historic tour of scotland over (with particular emphasis on all the places my dad has crashed vintage cars throughout the st andrews area during his university years), we wound up back in glasgow to send my sad little sister back to australia for school and ourselves jumped on a plane to belfast, northern ireland, and then into a hire car (fancy) to drive down to dublin. the WT09 party now including vivienne and i, obviously, and my parents- the ones we must thank for lifting the general standard of nutrition, transportation, cleanliness and accommodation of v and i from very low to quite good, really. at least for a week, anyway.

this journey from the highlands to dublin was made considerably less pleasant by the fact that i'd somehow contracted a vicious stomach bug, but i won't bore or disgust you with the details. anyway, vivienne and my parents got to know each other even better than they already did as i lay around and moaned.

SO. DUBLIN.

For those who have had the fortune to visit this lovely city, it's not full of drunken irish people as most would have you believe (there's still a few around, obviously, it probably depends where you hang out) but in fact lots of pretty buildings and double-decker buses in bright colours and friendly people with incomprehensible accents and welcoming-looking pubs and bars that sell nothing but guinness.

the fact that there must be hundreds of bars like this, all full of people and making money, is merely a testament to the irish love of guinness. as pretty much non-beer drinkers, vivienne, my mum and i all politely had a sip of the pints we were served at the end of our tour of the guinness factory and then watched my dad, a dedicated beer-drinker, happily devour everything we had failed to consume (this being the best part of 3 pints of guinness). all i can say is well played, andrew main.

in dublin we also saw the earliest copy of the bible still in existence, the book of kells (which for those who care was in fact written on the isle of iona, before being taken away when my violent norse ancestors turned up and ransacked the place in the 14th century). well played, ancestors. we also did lots of other fun stuff but in the interests of keeping things short(ish), i will let you be imaginative.

in short, dublin: big tick. go there.

from dublin we ended up in a place called Youghal, which promised us 'miles of golden beaches' and in fact was cold, windy and full of teenage mums, but was slightly improved by a really really incredible seafood restaurant, a nice hotel built before Captain Cook had even been born, let alone contemplated discovering Australia, and the fact that the town is pronounced Y'all.

then, we lurked around killarney while i attempted to re-apply to university (i'm still not 100 per cent sure the UAC even knows i exist), then headed to a beautiful place called Kells where my great-aunt used to live, in the very bottom-left corner of Ireland. alas her enormous old house was a bit lacking in the heating and hot water departments, but a fire was constructed and we all sat around being jolly and actually had quite a nice time.

from Kells we whizzed up through the countryside to a place called Carlingford Loch, which was nice but seemed to have a bit of a girl shortage judging by the ridiculous number of beeps we got wandering around in trackies, and then to the VERY FAR NORTH of Northern Ireland, to see the Giant's Causeway.

for those who don't know, the Giant's Causeway is a zillion-year-old series of rock formations on an incredibly beautiful coastline where my dad wandered around being friendly to spanish tourists and we enjoyed the view.

and, lastly, we headed once more to belfast to fly back to glasgow, our highly enjoyable family (vivienne replacing laura) holiday to ireland. my lovely parentals headed home to sydney, and v and i jumped on a bus to edinburgh.

but THAT, as they say, is ANOTHER STORY.

much love to all concerned x

the hilarity that is scottish dancing (and various other bits and pieces)

vivienne_and_iona — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 21:08:00 GMT

The wedding of iona's cousin ewen and his new wife annie was the main reason we came to scotland, and so when the day arrived, we were, safe to say, reasonably excited (and not only because of the scottish dancing we had been promised). we (being the main family and me - the self-proclaimed honorary member of the main family) drove up to aviemore in the somewhat miraculous sun and proceeded to spend the next 2 hours wandering around the hotel and getting ready. this was a fairly big occasion, considering i'm pretty sure it was the first time on this trip that both iona and i have looked clean and nice. quelle miracle.

the wedding itself was really really fun. neither of us have what you would call vast experience with weddings (i think we can count both of our appearances at these occasiona on one hand) but we had a lovely time. the bride looked gorgeous and everyone was having a good night! we also quickly decided that scottish weddings are much better than non-scottish ones - lots of people in kilts (SO much better than suits) and a reasonable amount of people falling over in the highly amusing and apparently highly dangerous highland dancing. we had a pretty good go at most of the dances, iona even attempting one which involved the guys spinning the girls in some sort of flying manouvre. i spent a large part of that one congratulating myself on sitting it out, but apparently it was really good. another one we tried was called the 51st, and it rendered both of us so confused we ended up being dragged around by the people on either side so that we didn't do too much of the wrong thing!

the day after the wedding we jetted off (in the car) to the town of st andrews, where iona's dad went to university. it was a really cute place, full of memories for iona's dad and full of little cafes and gift shop type places for the rest of us! we spent the afternoon playing golf on the course where golf was apparently invented (we actually played putt putt, but it was still at the same course so we felt pretty cool).

the next day we went to a strawberry farm to pick strawberries which was really good fun! we in fact got so carried away that we managed to leave with almost 4 kilos of strawberries - and that's not even including the ones we ate along the way! we then left the st andrews area and started to make our way back to ardgour, stopping to see stirling castle, which was really cool, but unfortunately located in a town which we concluded to be full of 'gross people, obese people, skinheads and tourists'. awesome.

we spent the next couple of days chilling with iona's more extended family again, and then iona, laura and i drove down to the islands of mull and (somewhat more importantly) iona. we rampaged around there for a couple of days, mavelling at the cuteness of tobermory's rainbow buildings and charging around the isle of iona with 2 main objectives:

1 to get as many photos of iona with iona signs as humanly possible and,

2 to purchase as much iona related merchandise as iona could lay her hands on!

now we're back in ardgour again for a couple of days, before we leave sunny scotland and head for ireland with iona's parents. but as we haven't done that yet, that story will have to wait for next time...

much love,

vivienne (and iona)

xxxxxxxxxxxx

Gallery: the land of scot

vivienne_and_iona — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 19:30:00 GMT

glasgow and a somewhat wet arrival in the highlands

vivienne_and_iona — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 21:44:00 GMT

after arriving comically early at spain's alicante airport for our really cheap flight to glasgow (we thought we were clever by scoring a place in sleazyjet's 'boarding group B' until we found out that the boarding groups actually only extend to B) and having a slightly awkward smile-and-nod conversation with the friendly but completely incomprehensible glaswegian man in front of us, we touched down in glasgow. our arrival at 2am could be blamed on (arguably) the world's worst airline but alas the 13C weather was something that no amount of whingeing would correct (and believe me we tried).

a brief (and somewhat compulsory) taxi ride later, the public transport to and from the airport having long since closed, we were starting to worry that the language barrier was going to be even greater in scotland than it was in spain, as we had recently had several more complicated and confusing conversations with scottish people despite the fact that everybody was theoretically speaking english.

we became, that evening, the people in dorm hostel rooms that everybody hates as we turned up shortly before 3am and rustled around in the dark for the next half-hour before crashing into bed. although, we were slightly less hated than the girl who turned up after us, really drunk and apparently sleeping in a bed full of plastic bags.

basically, v and i were in scotland for my cousin's wedding further north the following weekend, and really just arrived in glasgow because we could get there cheaply. as one does. but, armed with thick jumpers and a scrawled list of 'things to do' from a cousin i hadn't met since i was 7, we decided we were pretty well-equipped to see glasgow.

our first morning in the grey, rainy but also quite likeable city was taken up with finding somewhere to get haircuts (we were both looking a bit like cousin it and were determined to not be the bogan australian cousins at the wedding) and discovering that vivienne needs to pay a visit to the brazilian consulate in edinburgh in order to legally travel into south america (i, however, am somehow exempt from getting a visa because i have a british passport. clearly).

we then went to the kelvingrove museum, where we ignored pretty much everything except the stuff that was actually about scotland, and were secretly quite pleased that it was completely free and really good. bargain.

that night we hit sauchiehall st with some of the girls from our dorm, sauchiehall being a nightspot my cousin had described as 'a sight to see', which i had foolishly assumed to mean 'good', when in fact we encountered more vomiting drunks than we'd seen in a while and were amazed at how little clothing glaswegian girls manage to wear considering the weather. despite all this we had a really good night, and the next morning wandered around the high st shops before trekking up the hill with all our stuff to the buchanan st bus station, where a bus would take us to a place called the corran ferry just south of fort william, in north-west scotland.

sans problemes we crossed the loch on the ferry to a town called ardgour, the closest civilisation to where the scottish branch of my family lives in one of the most beautiful parts of scotland.

vivienne and i basically spent the next few days sleeping, eating, watching movies, drinking tea and catching up with my lovely extended family (most of whom i basically hadn't seen since 1998).

it was a faint desire for exercise that led us to tackle a hike on one of the big hills surrounding ardgour, called kiel- a decision which we questioned somewhat as my uncle robin sent us off with two chocolate bars and the number of the helicopter rescue people. we actually made it most of the way up and back without too much drama, miraculously weren't really rained on and got some amazing views from the top.

then, it was with great excitement that my mum, dad and little sister turned up (my father apparently having driven like 'a madman' from glasgow airport) on wednesday, partly for my cousin ewen's wedding to a gorgeous girl called annie, and partly to bring vivienne and i all the things we'd forgotten and to take home the things we didn't need and more. such nice people, my family.

some scottish dancing practice last night in the kitchen (vivienne's excitement was second to none and she did better than the half-scottish members of the family) got us pretty geared up for the wedding tomorrow, but i'll let vivienne tell you about that. she is, after all, as excited as i am!

love to all xxx

being boiling hot

vivienne_and_iona — Tue, 8 Sep 2009 21:31:00 GMT

the next part of our spanish adventure was basically a combination of 2 things: a complete lack of knowledge about good places to go, and the realisation that we had a week left in spain and nothing planned to do... basically we hit up seville (where claire and campbell already were), to discover that the beautiful city was also the 'hottest in europe'. mm.

we arrived after a 9 hour train trip that seemed to take so long because the train would stop for about 15 minutes at every station so that passengers could get off and smoke. this would have been ok except that they also turned off the airconditioning and there was a man sitting across the aisle from us who found it funny to occasionally proclaim that he 'loooove'd us. so friendly.

when we finally got there we found that the reason it seemed so hot was because it was - one sign very nicely informed us that it was 37 degrees. at 9pm. and so we decided to be very brave and leapt onto a bus to huddle in the airconditioning.

we did have a lot of fun that night hanging at the hostel with claire and campbell and the days that followed essentially involved a lot of icecream, a few trips to the supermarket (it was airconditioned) and as much walking around the beautiful but boiling city as we could bear.

in case you're worried we spent the entire time complaining about the heat and not doing much else, i'm sorry to say you are partly right, although we did see sights as well, mostly thanks to a walking tour which took us pretty much everywhere in a couple of hours. we also climbed to the top of the cathedral, and saw the palace where the king stays 'when he's in town'. you know.

unfortunately, as you can probably tell, seville didnt quite capture our hearts as maybe it should have (a lot of people have raved about it), so we left a day earlier than we were meant to. this involved quite an exciting last minute bus change - we decided at 6pm that we wanted to leave that night, and then had to change our bus booking, cancel a night's accommmodation, book another night's accommodation at the next place, pack all of our stuff, have some dinner and get ourselves to the bus station in the space of about an hour and a half. this somewhat stupid and stressful plan actually worked so we felt pretty clever for a while after that.

an overnight bus later we arrived in alicante, essentially a stopover to catch our flight to glasgow the next night. we discovered it was full of british people, by the beach and mercifully not nearly as hot as seville. we basically spent the day having a bit of a wander and lying on the beach, but i won't bore you with the details of our endless trips to the supermarket (seemingly our new hang zone, wherever we are. we're so cool.) because let's be honest, alicante was nice, but kind of boring. we were not all that sad to be getting out of spain.

much much love

vivienne (and iona)

xxxxxxxxxx

the real reason we came to spain...

vivienne_and_iona — Wed, 2 Sep 2009 01:07:00 GMT

...was not to embarrass ourselves with our terrible spanish, nor to drink a lot of sangria, nor to enjoy the almost laughably laid-back spanish lifestyle (siesta often begins around midday and continues until about 9 the following morning), although a lot of all of this happened. in fact, we came to spain for la tomatina- for those not in the know, a tomato fight held once a year in a town called buñol, near valencia, where people basically spend an hour hurling tomatoes at one another for a reason that nobody can remember (although theories apparently include a group of students who would annually pelt their least favourite teacher with tomatoes, which i doubt improved their marks but probably made them feel better).

vivienne and i had a conversation many months back that involved a picture of people covered in tomato and the realisation that we would be in france in august, and that the tomatina is in august, and that france isn't all that far from spain. that may sound like a bit of a leap but this is in fact the way we travel, which actually works a surprisingly large part of the time (i think this can be attributed to luck more than good planning).

and so, after getting a rather exciting lift from manon's auntie to barcelona and having a lovely rampage around with lucy and franny, we caught a train (in 'class turistica', what an honour) down to valencia to our hostel where vivienne and i would not be sleeping in the same room for the first time in almost 4 months- gasp! we'd agreed we would each pick a key and stick with our room no matter what, which worked in my favour as i was with some nice tasmanians and poor vivienne scored a bunch of people who either didn't know la tomatina was on (but were presumably wondering why their dorm bed was costing them €30 a night), didn't speak english, spent all their time sleeping or a combination of the three. mad.

that evening met up with clare, lucy, claire and campbell (clare lucy and claire being friends from school and campbell being a friend of claire's) for a paella at a really dodgy restaurant and a catch up on everybody's goss from the last several months of travel. lucy and clare also handed out our 'tomatina outfits' that they'd bought in madrid for the grand total of €4 per person, which consisted of a white hooded shirt that said 'aloha college girls' on it, and some red silky jogging shorts that were such an unflattering style that even gemma ward couldn't have pulled them off. i will attempt to find a photo of the outfit, i promise.

we caught the train (along with the other 45 000 people who apparently participated in la tomatina) out to buñol pretty early in the day to get a good spot, but found when we arrived at about 9am that the streets were already packed with people, an enormous proportion of whom were australian (for some reason australians get really into things like this) and the majority of whom were boredly standing around waiting for the tomato-throwing to start (the few who weren't bored were the thieves and the aggressive spaniards pegging knotted t-shirts at unsuspecting tourists). the day did not begin well as a nasty spanish person pickpocketed campbell's camera, which is why we have only memories and no photos, and as we struggled through the crowd i got squashed between the backs of two really big guys and kind of freaked out as i couldn't move or breathe properly (the streets of buñol are really pretty narrow and with the huge numbers of people packing them we are amazed that apparently nobody has ever been seriously hurt). anyway, a few elbows out later the 6 of us emerged into a side-street for some fresh air and to discover that we were actually in a really good spot, as we wouldn't get crushed by massive numbers of people but were really close to where the trucks with the tomatoes pass by!

at 11am, the trucks roll through the main street and locals in the back pour armfuls of tomatoes into the crowd, who then spend the next hour hurling them at each other. there are few words to describe seeing thousands of people mash tomato into one another's hair and clothing, but hilarious is definitely one! locals on balconies also hose water into the crowd, which means that the gutters quickly fill with watery tomato pulp, which then runs down into the streets below (presumably to the great disadvantage of the poor people who live there).

as we agreed when we unexpectedly copped a bucket of water from a balcony prior to the tomato-throwing starting, the town of buñol is a bit of a hole and throwing water onto tourists is probably the highlight of their year.

after about half an hour of truck after truck rolling past and tomatoes flying everywhere, things calmed down a bit and we walked down our little alleyway to the street below, where we discovered hundreds more people flinging the tomato pulp that had washed down the streets at anything that moved (and a lot of things that didn't).

we had such a good day, other than the obviously annoying loss of campbell's camera, and made it back to the train station at the top of the hill looking like we'd bathed in pasta sauce and smelling like we'd slept in a bin. but all in the name of fun. and fun it was!

that night we were all really tired and so had a picnic in a park in valencia, where i insulted a south african by asking him if he was from new zealand and we played photo challenge in the dark, before saying bye and heading home.

we hadn't really planned a lot for valencia other than la tomatina (let's be honest, we didn't really plan a lot for spain other than la tomatina), so we did a 'free' walking tour (they always ask for money at the end) but it was actually really good and we found out all this stuff about how the christians and the muslim moors just rampaged around spain throughout the 19th and 20th centuries burning down one another's religious buildings and constructing their own over the top. such cool people.

v and i thought valencia was pretty nice, there's heaps of lovely old buildings and fountains and stuff, although we had kind of done everything by the time we left and weren't sad to be moving on to the next place. we would, however, be sad when we realised that the temperature in our next destination rarely drops below 40C and there isn't much to do there other than sit in front of the airconditioning and eat icecream.

but i'll let vivienne tell you about that.