norway

for valentine's day, alex bought us plane tickets to norway during the easter holidays. hurrah! we spent 2 days in oslo and 1.5 days in a the coastal town sandefjord and half a day in stromstad, sweden.


View oslo in a larger map

it was like being on the west coast of canada. the scenery, the cleanliness, the friendliness of people, the taste-free drinking water straight from the tap, it was all very canadian feeling.

then there was the price. holy hell, norway (and scandinavia in general i gather) is shockingly expensive. i thought i was prepared for the expense, i had been warned but i didn't truly comprehend what people were telling me. alex and i spent £500 in 4 days and we were not being extravagant in any way. i have 4 pin badges and 2 post cards to show for my share and alex has 8 postcards and 1 flag badge to show for his share.

we shared a £10 basket of nachos (without cheese or other fixings besides a small ramiken of salsa) in a train station for lunch. we were forced to resort to eating a £7 fillet o'fish meal at mcdonalds. our guide book recommended a cheap pizza place that served us up a good sized pizza for £12 each. unfortunately the menu was in norwegian and i ended with an olive, shrimp, bacon and tuna pizza. it was surprisingly good. we longingly walked past a norwegian restaurant that served wonderful sounding food for £40 a head...main course only. we spent £1.50 for a chocolate bar.

*sigh* we went all the way to norway and didn't eat anything norwegian, it was pizza every day.

then there was the transport. £18 for the coach to oslo. £7 for a day pass around the city. £22 for the train to sandefjord. £4 for a train to the airport.

jeepers!

the museums were quite reasonably priced considering, £5 each for entry. the museums were also very unique and interesting and were the highlight of the trip for me.

the fram museum houses the huge arctic/anti-arctic exploration ship *fram*. the norwegians are very proud of their polar exploration exploits.

the kon-tiki museum houses 2 of the reed rafts that norwegian explorers used to prove that early civilizations could have sailed to each other and traded across large expanses of water. i cannot imagine spending months floating along on a reed boat across the pacific.

the viking ship museum was my favourite. i was hoping to learn more about the vikings while in norway but this seemed to be the only museum accessible to us.

we took the ferry from central oslo across the harbour to the suburbs to get the these museums. that was a nice trip.

sandefjord had lovely scenery to walk around and a whaling museum. that was pretty gross and i didn't so much enjoy learning how to catch, kill, and take apart a whale.

there was nothing to do in stromstad. literally nothing. everything was closed so we had to eat pizza at the only open restaurant. the 2.5hour ferry ride there and back was beautiful though.

when i'm a millionaire i will go back to scandinavia and live like a king and i will not eat pizza every day. i'm so used to travelling on the strong english pound, this trip was a shock to the system and bank balance.

scandinavia would be a wonderful place to live, but travelers beware.

check out flickr for all the photo glory.

back from the void

erin, i can't understand how you managed to keep us all updated during your european vacation. maybe it helps to be in places that have such a thing as internet. scotland is severely lacking.

my parents came over at the beginning of august and we all went to scotland after some furious tourism of the south west of england.

i have some photos but my camera is still packed.

my parents left yesterday. alex left for his research trip to peru yesterday (he's not back until christmas). i went back to work yesterday. i'm a little sad and lonely.

there will be pictures and more posts to come...

i also like road trips

not only do i enjoy creating things on my days off, i also like going places. alex and i ventured to glastonbury (not the music festival - the actualy town) a while back when we both had time off school. it was wonderful, i love somerset. i think i want to live there when i'm old and make cheese. glastonbury is an interesting mix of myth/legend/paganism/chirstianity/old english/and hippy. you should really read the wiki page.

for such a small town there is really alot to do.

glastonbury abbey is apparently the oldest chiristian church in all the world. joseph of arimathea took a young jesus to visit glastonbury and then returned with the holy grail 60 years after jesus' death and built the first church to house the relic. this is all that stands of the abbey now. after henry VIII and the dissolutionment of the monastries in the 1530's the lead roof was probably scavenged away leaving the wooden under-roof which would have rotted. without a roof the whole abbey was subject to the elements and simply crumbled away. in the above picture you can just see a small sign standing in the grass...that sign reads...

glastonbury was also arthur and guinevere's avalon. so paganism and chiristianity both have strong, old ties to glastonbury. there are pictures of the mists of avalon posted to 23 from my last trip to glastonbury for beltaine a couple years ago.

next to visit would be glastonbury tor. another site with pagan and christian roots. st. michael's tower sits atop the hill. the story goes that the christians built a church on top of the tor but the pagan hill would have none of it and swallowed the church whole leaving only the tower. unfortunately this isn't true. alex and i walked up the hill on a ferociously windy day and almost got blown off the side. that was thrilling.

the holy thorn is another thing to see, again related to joseph of arimathea. he apparently cast his staff into the ground upon reaching glastonbury and a hawthorn sprouted in the place to give all the travellers shade to rest under. this type of hawthorn is only found in glastonbury and the middle east. you can see the tor in the background of the above picture. there are many holy thorns in glastonbury and they all generally bloom at christmas and easter (weather depending).

lastly is my favourite place in the whole world - chalice well. the source of the water is unknown and has been unfailing for thousands of years. people have been coming to the iron rich healing waters for centuries to drink and bathe.

i highly recommend everyone visits glastonbury at least once in their life.

swanage: part 1

i'm all behind and out of touch with the world of blogging. i want to tell you all about my valentine's on the jurassic coast of england so step into my time machine and let's take a little trip back to the year 2008, february 2008. .:*{""}*:.
alex arranged for us to go to swanage for a few days. it is a beautiful seaside town on the south coast of england. the sun was shining, the wind was not too fierce, the temperate was unseasonably warm, everything was wonderful. can you guess why it's called the jurassic coast?



because of all the fossils! alex and i each found an ammonite in the soft, sandy beach. how exciting!










well we thought it was pretty exciting until we saw bowls of them in the shops on sale for 50p. that's how common they are.




coming tomorrow....the valentine's meal....

buda and pest

so i've finally gotten around to editing and uploading some of the budapest pictures to flickr and 23. have a little looksie.

hever castle is next on the list...

traveling doesn't leave much time for blogging

budapest was lovely, although after a week of nothing but delicious goulash and ragout and potato/pasta/gnocchi i was feeling a bit sickly (and exuding a distinctive paprika smell) with the lack of vitamins and minerals you can only get from vegetables.


alex my mum and i went to hever castle yesterday and we're off to canterbury today. i'll eventually get around to a proper blog and photo update.

bu-bye

i'm off to budapest with my mummy.

check back next weekend for a picture update.

an optical illusion

there's a magic strip of road in scotland, the electric brae, that will pull your car up hill.

you look out your windshield while your car is in neutral and you'll swear that you're facing a slight downward slope but your car will be naturally rolling up hill.

no one can explain what is going on.

i'm most certainly going to take a road trip up to scotland to check this out.

face the fear

i never told you about my adventure on the capilano suspension bridge with alex.


as some of you may know, i am dreadfully afraid of heights. alex, is not. he really wanted to go over the bridge and because i like him enough...i was willing to face my fear.

i was ok with the idea of the bridge. i kept reminding myself that it was no longer the original bridge constructed of hemp rope and cedar planks and that is now made of reinforced steel, safely anchored in 13 tons of concrete on either side of the canyon. i was ok with the bridge until i stepped onto the 5 stairs leading to it and the stairs started wobbling side to side. i promptly jogged back up the stairs and onto solid ground.





alex was not fussed and continued across the bridge, occasionally looking back and trying to wave me over. no bloody way. he even stopped in the middle to look over the edge and take pictures!





alex eventually came back over to be in the hopes of coaxing me across and i'm not sure how he did it, but it happened. i crossed the shaking, wobbling, rocking, narrow, bridge over the HUGE canyon. i would love to insert a lovely photograph of the view, but i can't. my eyes were clamped shut and i was breaking alex's fingers with a death grip as he led me across.

i slightly enjoyed the ewok villiage on the other side. those bridges were not nearly as high or wobbly. there were some nice trails and ponds around and about as well so it wasn't a complete scare fest. the only problem is that i had to cross the bridge a second time. you'd maybe think that since i did it once, i'd be alright...fear conquered! no, no, that wasn't the case. it was maybe a little worse the second time.

photomania

i love travelling, but i also love coming back home and sleeping in my own bed.

so many travelers tales, so little desire to type them out here. the way i figure it, all you people (in victoria and vancouver) need to start meeting the boy, and as the brits say...alex can talk for england...so i'll let him relay all our stories when we're together.

but what you can do is check out my pictures if you like...there are quite a few spread between picasa, flickr, and 23.

we've been to the space needle

 

we've seen the destruction of a volcano

 

we've walked the west coast trail

 

we've thought that going out in a rowboat on the ocean was a good idea

 

we've seen weird alien skin sandstone on hornby island

 

and we've seen beautiful waterfalls

 

i think i like journeying around in the autumn...sure the spring and summer have warm weather and blue skies...but autumn has atmospheric clouds and mist, and great fiery colours.

good times!



 

i like to travel

just got back from seattle yesterday and now i'm off to ucluelet with alex.


rock out!

ps...erin...maybe email me all the fun things to do in ucluelet and hornby?

who is howard hillman?

i recently came across a fun new website. stumble upon. i found it through my mozilla updates/addons page and it adds another toolbar to your browser, which may be annoying for some but was ok with me, and as a result i have stumbled onto many interesting websites.

yesterday i stumbled upon hillman wonders of the world. i can't say why this guy is the world's leading travel authority, i would have given that crown to lonely planet, but i like his 100 wonders of the world list.

i've ticked off 20 of the 100, not too shabby. but seeing the other 80 has given me a thirst for travel.

i also stumbled upon a useful little timezone check. ever wanted to know what time it is in the novosibirsk, bangkok, jakarta timezone? well now you can find out with the flick of a mouse.

home, home on the range...

where the otters and the blue heron play...

yes, i'm home. back to the tap water that doesn't make me gag. back to roads that are wide enough for 3 cars when only 2 travel down. back to the smell of ocean and seaweed.

spending a hot, sunny week in parksville a few days after arriving did wonders for the jet lag! napping on the beach is the way forward. i've put up some pictures in my picasa web album...a new way to post my pictures to the web (link on the right, mum). if you have a digital camera i highly suggest using picasa for your organisational, storage, and emailing needs. it's free and from google.

my week in edinburgh was the most fun i've had in a long while, it may just be one of my favourite cities. the fringe is something everyone should do...check out the pictures on 23, if you like.

i've also finally posted some of the pictures from play on flickr.

holy hectic week batman!

first of all, cheers to ben for these 2 lovely photos! and happy summer solstice to you all...sorry it's a little late, but i've been a wee bit busy.

i went up to stonehenge for solstice with ben. it was good fun, staying up all night and driving into the early hours of the morning. once the rain stopped the sunrise was looking to be fantastically beautiful but unfortunately the clouds soon moved in and obscured the colours.
then last weekend, i went to shropshire (somewhere in the midlands) for play, a juggling/camping/festival. it was the best 2.5 days i've had in a while! i've learned how to hoop. and i don't just mean swinging it round your hips....which is a feat in itself, believe me...but hoop tricks that involve arms and necks and knees and thumbs. it's such fun and i have the bruises to prove it. i'll post some pictures of the festival soon.

and last night ben and i went to victoria park (my local ghetto park) for some opera. the marriage of figaro was beamed live (and free) from the royal opera house in covent garden to a large screen in the park. we had a picnic, wine, summer sun, and opera. how very civilized. we're going back for turandot on the 7th.

and the prelude to all this excitement of the past week? i met a boy...he accompanied me on my adventures...swoon. his name is alex.

it's officially official

tickets have been booked.

i pack up my life at the end of july.

i head up to edinburgh for fringe in early august.

i arrive in victoria sometime on the 9th of august. i'll probably be too tired from the jet lag to do much on my birthday, unless you want to party with me at 4am when i'm guaranteed to wake up. 27 is a lame birthday anyways. i almost had a little panic attack when i typed that....

i'll be in parksville with the family from the 12th to the 19th, then the family goes to hawaii for 2 weeks and leaves me in charge of the cats. nice!

so after the 20th of august i'm free and easy until christmas! please arrange your schedules accordingly.

i'm a pagan at heart really

monday was may day bank holiday and i was so lucky to be invited up to glastonbury by ben (robin's ex boyfriend) for the beltain festival.

it was a grand weekend! glastonbury is one of my favourite places. it reminds me a lot of victoria but it's much more hippy/pagan/yoga-fied. every other shop specializes in crystals or healing stones or tarot cards or wands or swords or incense. people freely walk the streets in celtic robes and the town is awash with earth tone clad, dread-locked, caped hippies or witches.

on sunday ben and i ventured to a barn dance at belham farm. it's a small farm that the city council wants to split up and sell off. well, this angered some local hippies and they decided to do something to stop the sale. a group of them began squatting and turned it into a fully functioning farm. they had yummy cider on tap and i bought a fantastic mixed lentil-rice soup mix.

then we went to a steam engine fair, as you do. we eventually capped off the day with a pint of bitter called tally-ho in an old pub (with original tudor beams and fireplace) with live blues playing in the background. nice!

monday was beltain day. we were up at 4am to leave by half 4 and walked over hill and dale for a 5am start at chalice well. oh dear god. walking muddy-hilly tracks in the pre-dawn darkness getting scared by badgers running in your path is only slightly fun. oh yes, it was also pouring with rain. the entire weekend had been beautiful and sunny until that morning. ben was so kind as to lend me the best coat in the world. i was the only one who stayed warm and dry, but it came at a cost. the coat weighed about 20 pounds.

beltain celebrates the day between vernal equinox and summer solstice. it's basically the start of summer. a fair crowd gathered in the chalice gardens and we followed queen may and the green man by the holy thorn where we picked up flower offerings. we went through a small arch where we also picked up and lit a tealight and then we were cleansed by a sage smudge and sacred light. we left our offerings at the chalice well and waited for everyone to gather around.

we then participated in a group meditation. the theme of the contemplation were the things we wanted to grow within our lives. what seed did we want to nurture in the coming summer season? what wish did we have for ourselves, our friends, and the world? we were also encouraged to ask the rain to stop at the end of our mediation. poetry was then shared by various people.

the group processed through another archway to an open field where the beltain fire was lit. what happened when everyone entered the field? the rain stopped.

the bard of glastonbury then led his choir in traditional beltain-spring-summer folk songs while people jumped over the smaller beltain fire. once you jumped you went through the branch archway created by queen may and the green man thus cleansing yourself.

you can see ben jumping the fire in the last picture. yes, he has an antler (made from branches) and ivy head-dress on.

around 7am or so we left the festivities and walked up the tor to get a view of the newly sunny morning. we were home by 9am and in bed by 10. fantastic!

ben's house backs onto a farm and i pet one of the cows.

i want to live in glastonbury.

everyone should read into it's history, it's wonderful, i thoroughly enjoy every aspect of it - christian and pagan. glastonbury is avalon. i stood by king arthur's *supposed* grave at glastonbury abbey. chalice well is *supposedly* where joseph of arimathea dipped the chalice that caught jesus' blood. when jesus was a child he came to glastonbury *supposedly*. joseph also *supposedly* brought the holy thorn over from the east. although, there are 3 holy thorn sites and i can't say which is the original. i say supposedly....it's all myth and legend, but there is some sort of power in that area, a feeling in the air. it's enchanting. it's exciting that someone i know owns a house there.

i'll be posting many picutres on 23 and flickr....hopefully tonight, check 'em out if you have a minute.

country roads, take me home

hear ye! hear ye! it's official....i'm moving home.

well....i'm coming home for longer than the 3/4 weeks i've been averaging over the last 5 years.

i'll be in victoria around august time (hopefully before my birthday, so clear your schedules for the chin dig) and i'll stay for the entire season of autumn. i'll then hop a plane back to londontown for new year's eve and be ready to teach my new class in january.

maybe i'll find myself a nice little job in a bookshop or maybe i'll live like a bum at my parent's abode. either way, it'll be nice to take a short break from teaching, the burnout is starting to take hold.

so that's the plan thus far. and of course, it is all subject to change without notice.

thank you for your attention.

t'was a grand time!

in dublin's fair city,
where the girls are so pretty,
i first laid my eyes on sweet molly mollone.
she wheeled her wheelbarrow,
through streets long and narrow...
singing cockles and muscles,
alive! alive-o!

i went to dublin for st. paddy's weekend. it was messy and oh so much fun! there was wine. there was guiness. there was singing. and there was the accent. oh, how i adore the irish accent.

"but if i ran the zoo", said young gerald mcgrew, "i'd make a few changes, that's just what i'd do..."

i just woke up with the sunday morning bbc style show. it's a good program but doesn't have a website, so i can't share it with. it usually has environmental undertones and a green bias and today's show was about the 'fashionable safari'. the subject brought up all the moral and ethical issues of; fake fur, african safari, local endangered eco-systems, etc. one segment involved cameras following the keepers at paignton zoo in devon. what amused me was how much the keepers dislike the public.

i like the idea of conservation and research zoos on paper. but then i visit one, and i remember why caging up animals is terrible and feel guilty about supporting it.

but this zoo in devon has peaked my interest. is it the wide open spaces and natural atmosphere portrayed? probably not.

but, a weekend away to the devon/cornwall region could be good fun! devon has some of my favourite british countryside. and who isn't a fan of cream tea and cornish pasties?

and i could go back to the eden project. everyone should go there at least once. it's waste neutral!