Sunday, June 25, 2006

Polish Potatos

Hello! As you can see we are in Poland right now. Weather is still hot, sunny but a bit of wind here which is beautiful. When we were in St Petersburg it didn't get dark at all which kept it pretty hot there but here it's dark by 10, 10:30 latest. Which is a relief. We’ve been sleeping better too which is a massive relief. So the group we are with is great except a very grumpy old English pom. Grr everyone is not enjoying him. We have done so much touring, walking, sweating, drinking alot of water. We have seen some beautiful sites. St Petersburg was so different to Moscow in that it is alot newer, like only 200 years old where as Moscow was founded in 1147a.d. The highlight of St Petersburg was the summer palace 45 min boat ride out of hectic hot town. It was soo crazy decadent, glitzy gold, water fountains the size of my house, and statues galore. But fun to look at. We caught an over night 14 hour train ride to Vilnius, Lithuania (through Latvia, yes we got a stamp in our passports) that was an interesting ride....Like I said in previous post Vilnius is beautiful. the old part anyway but the whole city was much quieter and relaxed then crazy, weird Russia where all the woman are skinny and everyone is sort of higher and mightier than thou. Now we are in Warsaw, Poland after a painful 8 hour bus ride. We got here late yesterday afternoon. Unfortunately I found out that an old friend of mine was killed in a tractor accident (Steve Hamblin for those who might know) and that's put a bit of a dampener on the place for me. Today I didn't feel like doing much so we went to the top of the 8th sister (buildings build by Stalin, this one was a present from Stalin) and then relaxed in the beautiful gardens. Chopin is from Warsaw and there was a concert in the gardens which we enjoyed. Tomorrow we are off to Krakow bright and early. I'm REALLY looking forward to the happy times of Auschwitz the worst concentration camp apparently. Also the salt mines where a whole 'palace' is built underground in salt.

Gotta go and eat some more potatoes!

Sal and Lacxx


In the old town of Warsaw, nice and full of tourists
In Warsaw, Poland only an hour after I found out my old friend died

This photo always makes me giggle.
We were in a park i Warsaw listening to a maestro playing Chopin.
One of the Stalin's seven sister style buildings

Auschwitz-Birkenau - The Nazi Death Camp

Lachie and i in the back of another group being cheeky brats sitting in on their group photo. This was in the salt mines in Poland. None of our other photos turned out very well in here.


Thursday, June 22, 2006

From camel toe, with love...

As ya'll probably can see we are in Lithuania, Vilnius. Let me just ask...has anyone who's reading this blog been or know anyone who's been to this country? It's so gorgeous! I'm loving my time here so much. Especially after Russia which was really chaotic, hot, busy. So much to see and so many photos in Russia. The tour is good. The people are all lovely. Good mix.
The 14 hour train ride here was certainly an experience. Lets just say 2 litres of beer and then a massive shot of vodka landed Lachie and I in the bathroom very acquainted with the loo. (Especially me eek!)
Re: the title of blog. All the women here wear really tight little clothes. Perhaps because they don't get to show off their bodies for much of the year. They all seem so sexual. Lacs been having a fantastic perv fest!
We are learning lots experiencing lots.
Right now I feel more alive and more in love then I have in my whole life! Living for the moment with the love of my life. So happy but so content.
Will update more later. Just wanted to touch base with some that I don't have time to email. Feeling really homesick today. So LOVE you all!
xxx


Lachie in Vilinus, Lithuania on a beautiful warm wind kind of day



This was the first train ride/bonding experience with group/most embarrassing time between Russia and Lithuania. We had 4 border crossings and lachie and i had been 'expelling' from too much beer and dirty vodka

Sunday, June 18, 2006

Russia, here we are...

I can't seem to get over the fact that we are in Russia! That massive country that looks so far away and impossible. Our tour officially starts tonight. We got here yesterday. We have done a TON of wondering around trying to find stuff ie.food, Lenin’s tomb, the 'worlds most famous ballet', red square. Well we did find food (took about 2 hours) and we did find red square and we did find Lenin’s tomb but it was closed! We were only 5 mins too late dammit! They are closed on Mondays so we've missed the opportunity to see a dead leader. Ohhh well! So now we are sitting in reception waiting for the Australian soccer game to come on. Obviously, soccer is EVERYWHERE we've been. Gives the place a great vibe. What do we think of Moscow so far?

No-one seems to speak or want to speak English, they aren't very friendly, it's pretty dirty but it's old and interesting. I personally love seeing all the old babushkas (as it's the only word I know in Russian teehee) I bought an old war pin today with my lucky number 3 on it (from a pilot) so hopefully nothing bad or really scary will happen to us now that we have a lucky pilot pin...hmm

We quickly discovered the metro as the best/cheapest/quickest way to get around it's Very good, efficient etc. it's pretty hot here, sunny and the airs pretty good (despite it being FULL of cotton from the cotton trees which is pretty incredible, we've been getting them in our nose, mouth ears, EVERYWHERE sort of looks like its snowing. weird)

Better go and drink some Russian beer/vodka. Get into the games true Aussie style

Cheers from Ruski!

xxxxxxx


A few Ruksi's having a yarn
In Red square in front of St Basil

The other end of red square, really beautiful!
The Moscow subway - Московский метрополитен
An amazing church in the walls of parliament in Moscow
Enjoying the warm weather
SOS Mamushka!
Looking over towards Lenins tomb, we missed seeing a dead person
ZZzzzzzzzz.. at the summer palace

Swan lake in St Petersburg...sighh


A canal in St Petersburg

Friday, June 16, 2006

Our itinerary



june
russia
17th june: moscow
19th: St petersburg
lithuania
21st: vilnius
poland
24th: warsaw
26th: krakow (apparently polands most celebrated city)
czech republic
28th: prague (apparently one of the most beautiful and romantic in europe)
slovakia
30th: high tatras mountains (poprad)
july
hungary
1: budapest
romania
4: brasov
5: dracula's castle! (note:lots of garlic night before)
6: bucharest
turkey
8: istanbul
where this tour ends...
we will be spending 5 days here and then...


syria
15th: damascus
16th: aleppo
17th: hama
18th: palmyra
20th: damascus
jordon
22nd: amman
23rd: petra
24th: wadi rum
25th: camel trek-aqaba
where this tour ends...
we will spend two nights here and then...
we are not doing an organised tour for croatia (sailing with most of sally's family) but this give you a rough idea of where we'll be going. seems like we are really only doing a small part of the 'beautiful, amazing, wow!' country
croatia
27th: split
28th: sailing islands on 49ft yacht for 7 delightful days
4th: plitvice (great lakes)
5th: debrovnik
...
fly to germany on 12th
will spend perhaps a week or so there before flying back to london.

we would love any tips, advice, comments on the places we are going!

off to the land of SCARY

that's right...tomorrow we will be getting out of our comfort zones and into the adventure of our lives! moscow first stop via copenhagen (wish we could spend some cashed up days there). not sure how much we will be able to blog from now on (no doubt it won't be that hard anywhere there is travellers). we will make an effort to keep you informed anyhow!
i agree with leah (in our comments on our previous entry) about so many cities being so beautiful...not that I've been to them all but most that i've so far been to i've already decided that i'm going to live in them. i used to really really really want to live in paris...now i think 'bah, paris is SO cliche! der!'. i really really really want to live in AMSTERDAM!

anyway, there were a few things we really wanted to do before we left and we got them ticked off our list with a big sigh of satisfaction. everyone kept ranting and raving about how hard it would be to get bank accounts over here (the hardest place in the woooorld)...fortunately we went straight into the bank today told a few white lies (that we have jobs and are already renting) and walked out with bank accounts and credit cards! lachie has a mobile phone and i'm taking over an aussie girls old number as she's just moved back to australia. the 'true' motherland! so now all we have to do when we get back is simple stuff like finding jobs to support ourselves and an apartment that fits our inner prince and princess needs.

on a completely different note...it seems the 'older' generation are irking at our vocabularylyrl. (not pointing fingers at anyone...esp, our parents) SORRY! but you'll just have to put up with it...we are on holidays for goodness sakes! just take deep breaths and read on....

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

pass the dutch to the left hand side



hello!
We are back in london after 4 days in Amsterdam. Sal, Ali'o and Lac.

What a beautiful and cool city. You may think its the red light district and cafes, but it so not.

For starters we had the best weather, about 28/30 all weekend, they have the best beer in the world, the canals are like nothing we have seen, there is about a million bikes everywhere you look, the houses are 400+ years old and the country side is as flat as it could ever be. I could go on for ever about how beautiful the city is and how clean it is!
We stayed at a nice hotel called hotel Brian right on a canal on the side of the red light district, 27 euros a night so it was good for what it was.
We did so much-
van gough museum
had beer stops, everywhere
rijiks museum where we saw Rembrandt (sal was so inspired and blown away by his art!)
a big, day bike ride through the country side and back along the coast
tons of strolling around the canals, streets
plant growing museum
people watching, in parks
the original 'cafe pacifico'
paddled along the canals in a canal bike
flea markets
a windmill that is an original brewery
cheese/clog factory (edam)
drank lots and lots and lots oh and LOTS of beer (8-12%)
phew! what a weekend, that's how you do it in style!!

We couldn't forget the frites...

And there was something on called the world cup? We wouldn't of have noticed...


Words cant really describe the canals, picture perfect houses (not one house was straight!), people cruising the waterways in the nicest boats partying enjoying the weekend, everything!!
Do you get the point yet? is this the most beautiful city in Europe?!! It may well be, we'll tell you in 2 months time.
We start our big trip early saturday morning in moscow, Russia.
Enjoy
Lac and sal xox





Monday, June 05, 2006

richards on richards

for me, it was sad to say goodbye to my kelowna/vernon family. lachie may have been a little less sad to say good bye to all the babies. there really were alot of them. nevertheless onto our next adventure. my wish came true, we went to the coolest of cool clubs and danced our pants off to some hardcore drum and base. perfect combo sal-d&b. lac-hardcore.
sunday afternoon we ventured up to lynn falls at the base of the mountains. its a rainforest area and totally lush green and gorgeous. went for a bit of a thigh burn; i mean hike. teehee
then we went to this really cool restaurant called bugoos where they served stews and gumboo from the deep south. we all were happy at the end of that adventure! although a few nasty smells were left lying around afterwards...
today was a beautiful sunny day. we met my cousin troy at the sea bus in north van and headed up to grouse mountain (as in we had a grouse day at grouse mountain). we had so much fun up there. we saw grizzly bears, watched a bird show where they had hawks flying around to top gun music, eagles and owls (my totem) flying around to harry potter music. cheeseball!
we climbed another small mountain and slid down the front in snow. that was alot of fun!
we watched two lumber jacks which were surprisingly funny and talented (8x world champion trunk climber WOW!) and the most painful tourist video EVER.
later we went and thawed out by a beautiful lake in the sun and then went back to bugoos for more gumbo and beef stew.
click on pictures to enlarge.

Saturday, June 03, 2006

it's been two weeks....






hello! i wish that every time people logged on there was something new and exciting to look at. so i'm going to add a few more photos. we haven't really been up to a whole lot of REALLY WOW AMAZING stuff. but we have been having a really really nice time. down time. lachie is reading a book for the first time...ever? I've never seen him read a book that wasn't an 'evo' picture book. we went and saw the da vinci code the other night and the next day we went to costco and bought the picture book version (oh! that's why he's reading it...).
the weathers been quite humid, around 20 degrees. cloudy and a few rain showers. we've been into town a few times, had some beautiful dinners. i tried out the bean dish that i got from lisa in santa cruz. definitely wasn't as good as her's but still pretty yummy.
today is saturday and we are flying back to vancouver to stay at some more cousins house. all my cousins in canada have little babies and i can assure you you won't be seeing us with one of those anytime soon!
tonight we are planning on going out with one of my more 'crazy' cousins. he's lived in vancouver long enough to know all the cool underground clubs. last time i was here he took me to this wierd club that was full of every different stereotype under the sun-hardcore gothics, surfers, 'woggy', normal/boring, old hippies, grasshopper from goa type. it was an unreal night. so i'm hoping for something along those lines again tonight.
i secretly want lachie to love it here so much that he'll want to live here. i think it's working. or maybe not.......