Love London 2007

We have spent a couple of days in London now. Keeping busy and enjoying the city. It's been great to hear from everyone! I think we are both starting to look forward to getting home.



The last few days in Amsterdam we spent in a caming spot about 20 mins out of central station. Wow did it rain. It was wet wet wet (did you know they are celebrating 20 years of awesome music making?) It was basically a tent field full of french post highschool kids in those hoop tents. We were glad Erik has such a reliable tent. We would go into town during the day to escape the rain but we were glad to move on I think. Overall we really enjoyed Amsterdam.

Now we've come into London we are staying at a 3 star hotel in Earl's Court. It is cute. We aren't in the room much so some things can be overlooked. Endless supply of tea!! (and the discovery channel). The first night we were in we took it easy eating sandwiches from the supermarket. I believe that all of Europe runs off of Sandwiches and caffinated beverages. The next day we were off to Westminster to see Parliament...probably one of the most impressive structures since Prague, Big Ben, West Minster Abbey and then to Trafalgar square where we were greeted with a warm Canadian hello. Yup. June 29th London celebrating Canada Day!! There were booths from all provinces soliciting tourist attractions, street hockey, bogus bison burgers (we tried...we know) and beer. And.....a huge concert platform where we returned to watch some Canadian artists including none other than Sam Roberts (we took a video for you Jill). We also went to the very impressive National Gallery...I think we will have to make another day of it. It was quite the day!

Yesterday we ventured to Greenwich. A very cute marine area of London. We went to the Greenwich mean and explored the Royal Observatory. It is very impressive how most of london's museums are free and very well kept, tended and displayed. We walked around the park there and then headed to the Cutty Sark. Unfortunately it was under repair so we were out of luck. We headed onto the tube again to the new O2 entertainment complex. This place is like a giant spiked oyster from space. It houses an very large arena where Barbara Stzzzn and PRINCE!! are to perform soon. They also have a whole promenade of restaraunts (we had sushi fo rthe 3rd day in arow) and a cinema. We went to go see ocean's 13 for the weekend kick off price of £5. Another sucessful day.

Today is sunday and a little slower after getting shut down for breakfast. Now we figured we had better update our correspondence after causing some Canadian Embassy contacts. Jk. Thank you all for caring about us so much! Honeslty we are thinking of everyone a lot and can't wait to swap some stories. I think we are going to try for some pictures this time so hold on to your knickers!!

Note about the terrorist attacks: Not sure if you heard over the news the 2 potential car bombs near Trafalgar square on the weekend or the storming of the glasgow arrivals gate...although they have upped security levels things are still running as usual here. Don't worry!

Lots of love,

erin and erik

Rainy in Amsterdam

Hi Everyone! We made it from Slovenia to Amsterdam successfully. We ended up departing Bled a few hours later then expected, after I struggled to find the only ATM that was working in Bled. Other then that initial struggle, the rest of the traveling (plane, bus, train, & tram) was quite easy.

Amsterdam is a wonderful city. Its been really intersting to see how different the transit system is from what we have at home. Here, you find special bike lanes that cover the entire downtown. We rented a couple "city bikes" for three days, and they helped to explore the city.

I'm down to the last minuite of internet time, so we'll have to update you again later..

Love,
Erin & Erik

Bled sled

We are here in Slovenia as we have been for the past 5 days. It has definately been one of my favorite places. We are staying in Bled which is about 2 hours out of the capital Ljubljana (the js are like ys as we have found out). There is a cute litlle town on a beautiful lake. We are stazing in the nicest camping site I have ever seen. We have been burning by the water. Swimming in the perfectly blue lake, hiking through the small yet modern mountainside towns, anwatching the 52nd international rowing regatta and strolling through the town of Bled. We hiked up to the old castle for dinner one night and learned a bit about slovenian history. Lots to see and do at a relaxed pace...I love it! We have had the chance to speak to some locals (under aged drinking party on the bleachers) and talke with some people in our camp ground. Tomorrow we are off to the city and then to amsterdam. Our computer here is ridiculously slow. I am watching the characters reveil themselves one second t a time. Plus the weeather is beautiful and erik has some more burning to do. Just kidding. I am keeping him slathered. Erik is wussing out of writing this time. Sorry all. He will have lots to say in amsterdam.

Love
erik and erin

Croatia

After our two night stay in the nice hostel in Budapest we had to go to another one because the room was booked. We went to the Down Town Hostel which was quite close to ours...a nice bonus when lugging around bags. We came in and dropped our bags. The guy seemed nice and right away we were off. We spent the day at the thermal baths in Pest. It was a huge building. It has at least 12 different pools. Two big ones outside (one with a whirlpool) and bunches of ones inside with all different temperatures. There were even special "medicinal" baths. We took full advantage of the saunas they had. We would spend as long as we could stand in the sauna and then take a plunge in the 16 degree pool. After we felt as if we were detached from our bodies. Threw our temperature sensors way out of wack. This was our second day at the thermal baths...we had gone later in the evening the day before. Budapest is know for its thermal baths and has many throughout the city. Unfortunately, this was the only one which allowed men and women to enjoy the pools together. Still it was very nice to spend the day hanging out there. The night before we had had a nice dinner at a jazz club that had a live latin band playing. The food was great and the entertainment was very good as well. This night we just headed back to the hostel...got lost but made it. The next morning, looking forward to a shower, I encountered a moth on the shower head. Erik tried to flick it off but it just dropped down, suspended by a sticky white trail. This was after we found the showers to be ice cold. We said "to heck with this" went to our room and packed all our stuff up. The hostel was a dump the kitchen was disgusting and the rooms were pretty aweful themselves...the showers were the last straw. We planned to look for a last hostel for our last night in Budapest. No one in charge was anywhere to be found, nor were they the night before (they didn't give us sheets for the beds either) so we were planning a million ways to skip out. But we still had booking and stuff to do on the computer so we could organize our Croatia leg of the journey. So the computer was open just before we were going to walk out. I guess that calmed us down enough and we decided to stay for our last night to avoid further hassles.
This was the day we also changed our plans entirely. We chose to opt out of Estonia since we were having troubles figuring out how to get up there and decided that we wanted to spend some more time in London. Erik had been anxious to show me his findings from when he was in London with work and I had always wanted to see London so we were able to change our ticket with Easyjet with relatively no problems...just a $40 fee. So now, after we go camping in Slovenia, we will fly up to amsterdam for some more camping and city seeing and then off to London for about a week. It has changed our plans quite a bit but I think both of us are very excited to go (and also be somewhere where they speak English). Tomorrow we will head up to Slovenia to go to Bled. It is supposed to be a beautiful lake with an amazing camping ground and lots to do. We also cut out part of Croatia...the coast part because it takes a day to get down there and after research we decided it would be hard to do it justice with our new flight plan. Now it just means we will have to come back and do the beach thing...maybe tied in to greece or something.
Zagreb has been great these past couple of days. Our hostel is brand new (a stark change from our last) and the weather has been beautiful, excluding today. We have been walking around, going to some restaurants and watching street performer bands...we came at a good time!
Hope all is well back at home!!
Love,
Erin and Erik
we forgot the camera cable so we aren't able to put up pictures this time. Sorry!!

Kemping Monstar

We made it to Slovakia and out in one piece. We found a great camping site by a lake just 7km from the town centre. We stayed there for two nights and just relaxed by the beach and shopped at Tesco three times a day. ahha. I'll explain that....

The train to Bratislava was fine. Our car had a bunch of Czech 8th graders on some sort of trip so they were squealing as they do....Lucas you remember that time right....but otherwise the ride was good..another stamp on the passport.

It took us a good while to figure out how to get from the train station to the camping site as our tour book seemed to be a bit out of date. Finally we enlisted the help of a man who had tried to convince us to stay at his hostel. He spoke english so he was a likely target. We thanked him by falsely saying we would try to come to his hostel.

Then it took us about 30 minutes to find the reception desk. You should see the GPS map for that trek! Finally we set up our tent and went to explore the lake. We found a lake side restaurant with a menu also printed in english and had a terrific meal for a good price. They had this crazy contraption on the lake to tow wake boarders. It was quite the site. We hung out in the hammock for awhile and then retired early. It rained in the morning but we got up eventually, went for some groceries and by the time we came back it was beautiful. We went straight to the lake to make a picnic lunch and put away a bottle of wine. The water was quite warm and the beach was pretty empty. We were amazed at how many restaurants and bars were on the camping site. So many shirtless men drinking beers all day.

Our adventure of the day was trying to get enough change to take the tram back to the train station for the next day. We went to Tesco three times until we accomplished our goal. Food for days, two bottles of wine and ice cream were the cost. No complaints!!

Our other adventure will be told by erik as he was immediately responsible....

So, after arriving at the camping site the first night, we quickly setup the tent, left our bags, and went for a swim. After dipping in the lake, we briefly explored the campsite before returning to the tent to change out of our swim wear. So, I've just finished taking off my swimming trunks and we hear children walking near our tent. I quickly cover myself up with a sleeping bag as they approach and Erin starts laughing at my concern. Sure enough, next thing I know, we've got three curious little kids looking into the window of our tent and trying to talk to us in a language we have no hope of understanding. My first thought was, "Haven't these kids ever heard of a little privacy? Who looks into someone elses tent?". I'm still naked. I start yelling back at the kids in an angry tone, trying to convey the fact that they should buzz off. Well, that was a big mistake, as I just peaked there curiosity with my foreign tongue. Now we've got three kids (I'd say age 4, 5, 6) running around the tent, mocking everything we say, peeking into the tent and making funny faces. At the time, it wasn't very funny to me. Next, I try scaring them by yelling and banging the tent. Again... big mistake. Now we've got 3 kids hitting my tent and screaming back at us in Slovak. Great! Finally, Erin opens the tent and walks outside. This scares the kids enough that they run away. Apparently, we just make our first Slovakian friends...

The next morning we walked down to the beach and had some breakfast. Afterwards, we crawled back into the tent and had a little nap... only to be awaken by our 3 little friends... Learning from our mistake the previous days, we just decide to ignore them. So, we lay in the tent, with three little heads poking inside watching us "sleep". Once they got bored of watching they decide to start making weird annoying "kid" noises. Eg. ooogahhh, na na ana, oooohhh, blaawww, etc... Thankfully, one of our motorhome neighbours finally yells at the kids (or so it seemed to us) and they left momentarily. We have our suspicions that the neighbour might have been related to the kids, but it was really hard to tell. This whole time, I'm thinking, "Whos kids are these? Didn't the parents teach them any manors?". I know, if I was a curious child and interested in someones tent, the sound of someone yelling at me in a language I didn't understand would probably scare the hell out of me... I guess apparently not these kids.

Finally, I give in to the dark side (although, I don't exactly remember making this decision) and in one swift motion, I flip over, unzip the tent and lunge at the kids. They take off running at screaming, but not before I'm able to pickup the youngest child and pick him up. Now, I basically freeze, not really knowing what to do now (I told you I didn't really think this through - it happened very fast). Now, I'm holding the kid in the air with two hands in front of me. The kid is looking back at me with a look of compete terror on his face. A look I'll never forget. And he starts crying... His two older sisters look on, from about 15 feet away and are also screaming. I put him down about as quickly as I picked him up. By this time (only a couple seconds before, I was laying down in the tent), a man come out of the moter home trailer and starts yelling at the kids again. I only wish I knew what he was saying, but I'm sure he understood our plight. Anyways, for the rest of our stay, the kids still showed an interest in us, but kept a fair distance. As we were packing up the tent, they came to wave goodbye to us, and I snapped this photo of them. They kinda ran and hid when I took out my camera, but you can see the boy and his oldest sister in the photo - the middle child is hiding behind her brother. I felt guilty for scaring them, but was glad to see they still found us quite entertaining.

Got lost taking the tram the next day but made it in time for the train. We had a 6 person private car with 2 others which was a bit different from our first train. Beautiful scenery. On the hills of Hungary we saw many old structures.

Finding our hostel was another bit of navigation nonsense but when we found it we were pleased. It is a flat turned hostel so it is quite small and quiet. It is in a great location and we have a beautiful room...kind of messy right now but we will show you it later. (we had to hang up the tent to dry as it rained the morning we left). Last night we walked down to the Danube river from the Pest side to the Buda side where we walked up to the citadelle....a terrific monument with a fantastic view. It was a great time to go as there were less tourists and it wasn't' as hot.

Today we are taking out time getting out there...catching up on correspondence a bit and planning the next leg of our trip. We should have computer access for the next few days.

P.S. if you want a post card send us your address...we are on a mission in archaic communication styles...jk.

Update!

Hello all you lovely people!
Two days ago we went to Cesky Krumlov. It is about three hours south (west) of Prague. It is supposed to be the super tourist town in Czech. We saw why!
We got in at about 6 the night before. We went straight to our hostel Skippy. The hostel was run by a Roma women with a terrific personality. She was so kind and accomidating. I thought she wanted to have my shoes but I said whoooa lady...what would I wear?? jk. We slept in a 6 person room and chatted with 2 guys from Colorado for awhile. Very nice...snorers.
After we got in we went for a walk through the old town square. It was sooo cute. I wish we could upload pictures here. We went up to the castle that evening which was good timing as we learnt the next day. It was rather quiet. Beautiful views of the city. I pretended I was a princess looking down on my kingdom. *oh erin...says mom* The artwork in all the halls had been painted instead of chisled like in the prague castle but still very cute. I htink it had been restored in 1999. We found a very cheap but very good place to eat where we had soup, lamb and then butter rum ice cream for $10. Erik is still mmmmming.
The next morning we bought some groceries and had breakfast on the hostel deck right over the river. We got to watch bunches of people canoe over the mini dam. Quite the entertainment!! For the day we went back up to the castle to see the garden which was closed when we went the night before. The castle was swarming with tourists and cameras and people lacking space perception. But we rifled through there to the gardens with our $1 plastic bottle of March 2007 czech wine and sandwich stuff. Absolutely beautiful garden. Spent hours there and picniced. Got a little tipsy and headed to the bus due to leave at 5. The bus had no air conditioning (as our one there) and the isles ended up being packed with people too. I had to fan poor erik with our map of the town. What a prince. haha.
Got into our hostel around 9 after a metro excursion and then went for mcdonalds. It is entirely different...honest. Lies. I had a mcchicken meal and erik had a big mac.
Today we will stay in Prague for one more day. It has been rainy so we will head to the museum.
Tomorrow: Train to Bratislava, Slovakia for some camping and sights then off to Hungary in a couple of days.
Its nice to hear from all of you so keep it coming!!!
Love,
erik and erin

Prague

We made it to Prague on the plane from London. Very early in the morning (6:30) but erik and I still suffered from jet lag a bit I suppose and woke up around 2:30. At least we got to watch some tv and have a good breakfast.
When we arrived we struggled to find the hostel but we did it with the help of erik's gps. hahah. The hostel is quite cute. We have a room to ourselves which is nice. They are clean but a bit noisy as we are right by the road and rail.
We walked around the town and got some pizza...traditional Czech cuisine. We retired very early as we were pretty much slurring all of our words and tripping on the stone walk ways. Prague has amazing architecture. Unfortuanatly we can't load the pictures today.
Today we are off to go see the prague castle and tour around a bit more. Looks like a beautiful day here. We have one more day at the hostel and then we will head down to Cesky Krumlov.