Now that we're back in Perth

Now that we're all back in Perth and about to start the year in earnest, I'm just going to be using this site to upload pholiday ics from time to time, perhaps with a little caption, perhaps not.


This is me, Dino and Nessie.

Catchup #2: Florence

Eugh... I knew I should have written this much much earlier... Now I can hardly remember what we did in Florence. Let me get out my itinerary...

My one abiding memory of Florence is that it is a really gorgeous place. I can see why people in the Renaissance would have wanted to go there to be inspired and make beautiful art, music and literature.

On our first day there we went to the Musei Accademia, which is famous for holding Michelangelo's statue of David. And I have to say, the statue is truly amazing. Photos don't do it justice really - the way Michelangelo sculpted it - it looks like David's about to step down off that pedestal and whoop more Goliath ass, should he feel like it. And it's huge - about 20m tall, so's you can see it for some distance away and get nervous with anticipation as you get closer. Definitely a Florence highlight.

Now I can't remember exactly where it was, it might have been part of that museum or another, but there was this ehibit we saw at around that time that showed the evolution of muscial instruments. The exhibition itself was really cool, but the best thing about it was that we were all about 5cm away from a Stradivarius violin (jealous Paul and Chong?). Granted, it was through a plane of plexi-glass, but still...

Other things we did were to visit the famous Ponte Vecchio, the bridge of lovers. This bridge is often depicted in Shakespeare, and has heaps of padlocks attached to it, presumably from lovers who want to 'lock' away their love and throw the key off the bridge into the river below. How romantic! ;) [I couldn't find any spare padlocks Sa!]

Anyway, we also visited the Uffizi gallery, which holds so many famous works of art it's unbelievable. If you look into any encyclopedia and look up the term 'painting', it's likely you'll see several works that are from the Uffizi gallery. The most famous work here is Boticelli's 'Birth of Venus'.



After that we went to the Garden of Michelangelo, which overlooks the city and even more beautiful pictures of the landscape as the sun set.

Back home in Perth - catchup #1: Venice

Phew! We're all back home in Perth, with Belgian chocs in hand (thanks to the nice blokes at customs). Since that last update in Nice, things have been pretty hectic. And no, they don't sell Nice biscuits in Nice.

We caught the night train from Nice to Venice, which was an interesting experience to say the least. Me, Dino and Duy were all stuck together in this tiny room, about the size of a parking bay (if not smaller). There was absolutely no room to do anything, and our beds consisted of three bunks, each piled on top of each other. As you can imagine, the sleep we got that night wasn't the greatest, especially as we arrived in Venice at about 7am.

The girls had it just as bad, if not worse - since there were only two of them, they had to bunk with this random French woman (we think her name was Luigi or something, not sure). Anyway - it was an experience, all right - but not something I want to do again soon.

Venice is cool. The map of the islands that make up the city kind of looks like two heads trying to eat each other. There is one main canal, called the Grand Canal, and is more like a river than a road, being about 100m wide at some points.

As many of you know, there are no cars in Venice. The transport system is a joke though - with the equivalent of a bus, called the Vapporetto taking an absolute eternity to get anywhere. If you don't have luggage, it's probably better to walk.

It's a real tourist town, Venice is. Almost every store there sells glassware. But this is no ordinary glassware - this is Murano glassware, a Venetian specialty. The name comes from the small island off the coast of Venice which is supposed to be the best place on earth for the stuff, but more on that later. There are probably a thousand of these shops in Venice, each with varying quality of work - you need to look pretty carefully to get the good stuff. Unfortunately with time, your judgement decreases, as every piece starts looking like the rest. And you end up not buying anything because you're sick of it. Anyway, you realise it's quite nice stuff when you get back to Perth and haven't seen it for a few weeks.

Gondola is a dirty word. Gondola equates to being ripped off. Understand this!

As we were doing our glassware shopping we were accosted by this gondola dude, who tried his best to con us into getting into his boat. 70 euro, he offered. We considered - there were five of us, so the cost wasn't too great. And Venice is famous for it's gondolas, so we felt we had to go on it. The pilots or whatever they're called all work for this one company which charges a flat rate. They wear the most ridiculous hats, which led to the christening of our gondola man: 'Little Bo Peep'.

We asked Bo Peep how long it would take - he replied, "Depends on my arm - there are no motors on this you know." The fact that we couldn't get a straight answer from him should have been a warning sign for us, but no matter.

The trip itself wasn't too bad. The water is disgusting, but gliding silently past all the old, sinking buildings was pretty cool. Only thing is, the trip lasted about 15 minutes. What a gyp. That's an enormous per minute rate.

Anyway, if you want to go to Venice, you must buy some glass, and also be ripped off by Little Bo Peep and his gondola homies.

It's nice in Nice

Hey everyone

We're in Nice now, the playground of the rich and famous, and home to one of the nicest biscuits in the world. We got here yesterday, after a marathon journey from Paris on the train, which took us to Marseilles on the way. In Paris we managed to do pretty much everything we wanted to do, including the Louvre (to see the Mona Lisa etc), the Eiffel Tower, the Champs Elysee (jealous, Chong?) and the arc de Triomphe. Of course the best thing was the highbrow entertainment of the Moulin Rouge! (heh)

Anyway, we're now in Nice where the weather is much warmer and the water is more blue than other places, of course. There are massive yachts and Mercedes taxis to boot.

Anyway, people want to use the computer, so more later! Next stop is Venice, then Florence and Rome.

Hello from Belgium!

Hi everyone!

I'm writing this from the internet cafe at the bottom of our hostel in Brugges, Belgium. Me and Sa left London this morning after watching the crappy-arse Arsenal lose to West Ham at Highbury last night. It was my first Arsenal game and it was a crappy performance, but at least I got to see the place before they tear the place down at the end of the season.

We did heaps in London - went to Westminster, Big ben, the parliament, Covent Gardens, the Globe theatre etc. It was great fun, and I'd like to come back later when I've got more time to do everything in more detail.

Brugges is a tiny tourist town, famous for choccies and the bikes that everyone seems to be riding around here. You hire them from a place in the middle of the city and then you can ride them all round the place. Like the rest of Europe, the people here drive on the right - which is really weird, especially when trying to look the right way cross the road.

Anyway, its off to Paris tomorrow! I've gotten heaps of nice choccies to take back and some lollies too. Didn't get the strawberry bonbons but I think I got something similar. The chocs will have to make up for it.

London part 2

We met up with Kim and Simon who are doing their electives here. We
also met up with Sa's cousin Maxine, who arranged to get Lion King
tickets for us, showed us around and also got tickets to watch the
Mousetrap (last night). Sorry this is totally out of order but its
hard blogging from a mobile. But thanks are in order to max. And also
dino's relatives for doing this stuff for us.

Anyway. There's heaps more that we did that i haven't mentioned due to
poor memory and a lack of general coherence but anyway. Oh yes. We
went on the London Eye. It was pretty good and i got some nice pics,
which i will share in future.

Until then, take care. Seeya!

--
Jinn and Sa in Edinburgh --> http://edinburghfun.blogspot.com

London!

We're finally here in London! The plane trip wasn't too bad
actually... Only 1 hour. But the taxi trip from Heathrow to Welling
took 1.5 hrs! The place we're living in isn't the best in terms of
appearance but it certainly is good enough for our purposes. The guy
who looks after the place for Dino's uncle is so nice- he wanted up to
in over to his place for dinner yesterday and he was so dismayed when
we told him we had other plans. The crazy thing is that we discovered
after getting back today that he left food behind in the fridge for us
to eat!

Happy new year! We spent the day celebrating chinese new year from
Soho and the other things going on in the city centre. There were lots
of things going on including fire crackers, dancing, singing etc ...

--
Jinn and Sa in Edinburgh --> http://edinburghfun.blogspot.com

Leaving Edinburgh

I'm writing this in Edinburgh airport from Sa's phone wap. My baggage
is over the limit of 20kgs... So i had to pay a little bit. :( anyway.
The plane will be leaving in 45 mins so i'll be in london soon! Very
sad to be leaving this place.. It's been a great time. European
adventures here we come! Happy Chinese New Year for tomorrow everyone!

--
Jinn and Sa in Edinburgh --> http://edinburghfun.blogspot.com