The Seven Hills campsite was one of my favourites, it had the awesome showers in the cabins that had the full body sprays. Although, camping was crazy as the ground was very rocky and hard to put the pegs on.
One difference about this site over others is that you have to use these pre-loaded cards to buy stuff. Now, this seems all in well however on the night you leave most of the people I knew would empty the cards at the super-amazing bar, and Rome is one of the heavier drinking spots that I have been to.
Interesting enough the article also goes on to state, “Contiki said the tour group had continued to Venice.” Now although Rome is a heavy drinking spot. The Fusina Bar at Camping Fucina in Venice is more so. They have the Amnesia drinks for about 8 Euro that go down way to easy.
It must be really hard on the Contiki staff to actually lose a camper in this manner. Usually, people just get left behind when they partied too hard.
This week not only once but twice I found myself on foot crossing the Reversing Falls Bridge. (Well only one of the two times was my first.) i have always considered the “falls” to be something to get the tourists to see.
I have seen the rapids from Fallsview Park many times but as you stand there on the middle of the bridge looking down the first thing that came to my mind was, “Crap that’s a long way down”. The second thought was this rail is shaking too much. Then I went to the east side of the bridge and went under it. Now that the signs of fear were gone. I really admired the natural beauty of the Falls and can understand why people come and look at the very unusual rock formations.
The most amazing thing though was the sun set over the hills. It is a shame that not enough people get to see calmness of the sunset.
Fun fact I’ve only been in Saint John on this date 26 of the last 35 years. The ones in YFC, LHR, FCO, and AMS are the ones I remember best.
Oktoberfest be like Where’s Waldo/Where’s Wally? #noregrets
One of my favourite Contiki memories. #drinkupstatue #eurotrip2010 #contiki #noregrets
This photo was from September 16, 2010. The 1st time I ever seen this legendary wall. As of today February 5, 2017 this wall has been down as long as it was up. #bringdownthewall #berlinwall
So today has been freaking crazy. I woke up this morning pumped and excited to start the journey. I had a shower. The only reason I mention it was the fact that the hot water was broken and would not turn off, leaving me with a steam room.
Then I caught the bus to the ferry in Dover. The three most notable thing about Dover was the castle on the hill, that I missed a good 35sec window to get a picture of. Second was the famous White Cliffs.
I always thought of the white cliffs as a tourist trap like the reversing falls but it was actually unbelievably amazing like seeing the Statue of Liberty for the first time.
The third amazing thing was this is where I learn that people actually pay for packets of ketchup. Later on I came to a McDonalds in Belgium or the Netherlands (it was near the boarder) that had a guy taking payment for the public washroom. Now I am in Amsterdam. This city is awesome just walked down the street drinking a Heineken. Beer is actually cheeper here than water.
Also avoid the Greek Mac at McDonalds it is really crap.
On the Contilki website it lists the travel from Canada day as day 1. As such I will start my travel log with today.
So this morning I started packing and then when fitting stuff in the suitcase I realized 2 things. 1. I have never packed myself for a 3 week trip before. 2. There is no way this is all going to fit. (possible 3. I should not have procrastinated it to 1 hour before having to call a taxi to the airport.)
Well then next, I called a taxi to the airport. As the taxi arrived I realized I was missing my shirt and belt and did not have everything 100% packed. It was a quick ride to the airport except we hit a piece of firewood on Loch Lomond Rd. near Lakewood. (I wonder if it is still there?)
Then I flew to Toronto, I love the seseme seed dessert things that Air Canada Jazz serves. Then I headed downtown for a bit. I ran into 2 types of crowds the September 11th “educators” and movie fans. (I love movies)
Then after hanging around 10 Dundas East and the Eaton Center , I headed back on the TTC to Pearson where I am typing this now waiting for the boarding call that is now 17 minutes late. TTYL.
After twelve and a half long hours on a bus I have arrived in Montreal for WordCamp Montreal. This is my 5th WordCamp which I will do a post about sometime later.
I took a walk earlier today and walked through the historic McGill University campus. One sweet sign that the orientation for the new students coming to university this year will have a better orientation than the three I’ve go to is the size of the beer tent. There must have been thousands of bottles of Boreale Beer and lots of kegs too. Anyone who has been to Montreal knows that is good beer.
I have been trying to post a lot more lately. But one thing that greatly concerns me us the lack of good comments lately.
Practically everything on this site is open to commenting even the photos and the albums. What’s better is that if you see someone in a photo that you recognize you can even tag them, and they get a custom album automatically about them.
I’m working on integrating twitter feeds at the moment with these custom albums. Also I have run into a big hiccup with a problem in WordPress 3 that breaks the paging of an album. It is almost as if they did something that taxonomy pages only work for a post type rather than an attachment.
I have also decided that I will be going to WordCamp Montreal again this year. I was thinking that I could show off how I was able to pull of my photo album in an advanced theming tutorial.
That is one thing that I found dry about technical lectures at past WordCamps where they show off code but not put it together, to demonstrate something new. I think I would call it “Media and your Theme… Where can you take it!”
As we progress into the year 2010, the only New Year’s resolution that I haven’t broken yet is my vow to only see 100 movies in the theatre this year (yet) I’m currently at number 10 as we speak, and I have my annual Toronto trip ahead of me next month, and the beautiful AMC Theatre on Dundas Square.
While on the topic of travels, my first ever passport arrived by courier two weeks ago. I can now leave the country again and am so excited about the upcoming plans. Before I announce where I must point out that despite my love for History in university non-Canadian History seemed somewhat less interesting. The more I reflect on the topic, it may be just that it seems so distant, therefore why not going to see it in person. This is where I announce that in September I am travelling to Europe. I’ve decided to go on a guided tour with Contiki Tours. Now I just have to decide on the exact date and trip. Currently, I am leaning to the European Whirl from September 11th – 30th, but that may change after discussing with a Travel agent.
If you notice this is the first post in the new Travel category, this will become my Travelogue however you don’t have to wait until September, next up next month is Toronto.
At long last I have finally arrived in Victoria. Five hours on a plane is really long much longer that I had really imagined. During the longest lag of the journey I got to see “My Sister’s Keeper” for the first time. I found it to be really an enjoyable movie, in the respect that you did not know who to feel sad for. Then it throws a huge twist that make the plot even more intriguing.
Upon first impression of Victoria is that it has an appearance of a fairy tile that has come to life especially now that its the holidays and the lights of colour in and on everything.
Over the weekend I rented a car and took my aunt Rena out to King’s Landing. While I was there I took this picture of the water pouring from a horse water feeder. This has got to be one of the best depth of field close-up pictures I have ever taken.
I really like King’s Landing there is gust something about history, especially social history that just totally fascinates me.
Again on the way, we stopped at the Boyce Market in Fredericton. The absolute best feature of the market is the German bakers. There is absolutely no better makers of really good foods than the Germans.
Getting here to Montreal, I had decided to get the bus. (Orleans Express/Acadian Lines) Thus it presents this opportunity to write this long detailed encounter as I have the remainder of the 13 hour bus trip to finish.
After arriving here in Montreal I took a nice stroll down Ste-Catherine to the train station. It was on this trip through the eerily quite streets of the jazz festival site that I ran across the first image. Although to is common to think of those in the financial services industry as “wanks” someone thought it would be a great idea to draw one on the two sided of the corner of the building.
After the fist day of sessions at word camp there was this crazy man that started yelling at me in french, I think he though I took a picture or something. The funny part that is so not like me is the fact that I started yelling back at him in English and he did not seem to understand me at all. That make id kind of funny then he ran off and I went off to catch the subway to the hotel.
The subway in Montreal seemed to be quite different than Toronto. Especially the automated stalls after paying the guy handed me a little card, and I did not get originally how the doors opened, then he started yelling the what I think are the instruction in French. After looking further at the stalls I give the yelling guy the “I have no clue what you are saying look. Then he explains the put the card in the slot in English. I then proceeded to the hotel.
On the way in one of the Subway stations there was a sign in French only that part of the platform was closed for constriction bit it was graffitied with “Montreal is supposed to be Bilingual” to which some one wrote; “We wish!”
Me at the after party. Eva Blue Photo.
I thought it was amusing. One can tell mush about a society by the appearance of the graffiti. Especially, considering the prior instance of “art.”
One great thing about my iPhone is the fact that it really saved me from the being lost. Well kind of. The Google walking and transit directions are really good for Montreal. It was still a difficult city to find things in. I missed the first subway stop without realizing, thankfully my GPS on the iPhone found me the next one just in time.
The last tale before I finish is the tale of the pigeon. After the final sessions of WordCamp, we went to an outdoor patio bar that had some of the most amazing natural and architectural design of any patio bar. While standing outside talking to some interesting people like Kim Valee this word pigeon was doing a bizarre dance on the windowsill across the street and everyone mentioned the crazy pidgin was about to top itself as the guy pass is the bird flies into the bar right behind them and everyone starts chasing after the bird. Classic comedy movie scene.
