Sarah's ramblings about her trip to Europe March-July 2003
I got into Grad school!!!!! yay me! Just got the email from shelley, and i'm quite proud of myself, and very thankful for Shelley :-)
I've been wondering around cambridge for a couple of days now. Very interesting to see. Anthony, you are absolutely insane for not coming here. The campus is spead out over the whole town, and it's all beautiful. There's sooooo much history in this little town. I had lunch in the Eagle this afternoon, one of Watson and Crick's favourite drinking places :-) I'm such a geek! I thought about sneaking into the department of genetics, but thought better of it cuz there was someone sitting at the door...
Visiting with my cousin here has been lots of fun. He took me on a tour in some of the colleges this morning, and they are amazing! I wish i could study here...i can dream :-)
hi everyone, i'm in glasgow right now, about to fly to london in a couple of hours. Glasgow wasn't anything special, i liked edinburgh a lot better. Glasgow is too commercal, it could be any american/canadian city. It ended up being fun though cuz i met up with the Acapella group from Virginia that i met on the tour on saturday...they're called Academic Village People, and went out drinking with them last night. They were lots of fun to hang out with, includng hearing them sing at the bar while most of them had been drinking (some more than others:-) Anyhow, more later cuz this internet kiosk is expensive:-(
why is noone adding comments? i feel forgotten :-( i'm gonna go cry in my beer...oh wait i don't drink beer :-)
i'm still in edinburgh, too lazy to move again. I'm heading to Glasgow tomorrow, then Cambridge on Wednesday. Edinburgh is definitely growing on me, and i'd love to come here to work for a while..we'll see after i find out if i get into grad school or not...
I hiked up to a place called arthur's seat today, kinda like the grouse grind (in Vancouver). It had amazing views of edinburgh which was cool. I also really needed the exercise and the fresh air. I also finally got the sleep i needd last night...11 hours straight :-) And off to get more in about 5 minutes...
I really need to update this more...well here goes!
After Aix-en-provence i went to Biaritz, which is the south west coast of france. It was absolutely amazing. I met tons of really cool people which i partied with on the beach the 2 nights i was there. 5 litres of sangria, and many bottles of wine were shared among the group from the hostel i was staying at. I'll never forget walking along the beach in the middle of the night, drunk, watching the stars and the waves. I was hoping to get some surfing in, but the wind was really bad when i was there and so the waves weren't good. So i just lay on the beach and got a nice sunburn :-) The hostel i stayed in was so great. It was typical surfer hostel, with everyone being really friendly and laid-back. The co-ed bathrooms were interesting though. Then i took an overnight train to Paris, which sucked because the lady who made the reservation for me didn't book me into a girls only compartment. Turned out ok though, but still was kinda weird. Then i took a train to Brussels, which was cool, it was a high speed train so it got there in only an hour. I only had 1 night in Brussels though, due to me not follwing my plans and spending too many days in France. I just couldn't leave the beach.... Brussels was pretty cool though, not what i expected though. The hostel was full of 14-16 year olds who were soooo bloody loud all the time even at night. I met some cool londoners who made me promise to mention them on my webpage so here it is. Hi Sam and whatever your friends name was (i'm really bad with names!) I also met some americans from new orleans there and we went for dinner and then went and saw the matrix. Lucky for us the matrix was in english and ony subtitled in french and flemish. I thought it was really good, although i was so tired that i nearly fell asleep during it.
Then i flew out of brussels and into glasgow on the 22nd. I didn't stay in glasgow though, i went staight to edinburgh, where i am right now. I'm having a pretty good time here, although i'm not getting enough sleep at all. The first night i was here i went to a neighbourhood pub with some other canadians who are staying here, coincidentally one of them knows a cousin of mine in edmonton, small world! Second night i stayed at the hostel and drank with people here, but had to go to bed fairly early to get up to go on a bus tour. The bus tour was amazing. Turns out there was a group of 14 guys from Virginia that were part of an acapella group, so they entertained us with their singing the whole trip. The tour went through the highlands to loch ness, which was fun to see. We also drove by the set of the new harry potter movie, the castle where parts of Monty Python and the holy grail was filmed and various places braveheart was filmed. I thought it was wroth the hefty price, especially since i ended up hanging out with pratically everyone from the bus last night. We got pretty drunk, and went clubbing at this club called espionage, until about 3AM, then went back to their hostel to play pool. We watched the sun rise at 4:30, and then i walked back to my hostel once it was light enough. Got back here at about 5:30 and then slept for a couple of hours...the lack of sleep continues! I swear i haven't had a good nights sleep in 2 weeks. But i guess that's what happens on holidays! And today i think i'm gonna go wander around the free museums and art galleries around town because scotland is more expensive than i thought it was gonna be!
I hope people are still reading this...i feel forgotten cuz noone sends me emails, boohoo :-( Hahahaha Bye-bye!
I miss Southern France sooooo much, and i only left two days ago. I wanna stay on the beach and surf for the next 2 months. Instead i'm in brussels.... and it's raining. I fly to Scotland in a couple of hours though so that should be fun.
So after i finally arrived in Aix-en-provence the hostel was really nice, newly renovated. I met a bunch of really nice people there, although i didn't bother going to the cannes film festival because it would have been way to crowded. Instead i just train hopped to a couple of nearby towns and did quick walking tours :-) Then on Saturday a group of people that i was staying in the hostel with decided to go on a little bus trip until we found out it costed 22 euro to take the bus to the city we wanted to go to. But luckily one of the guys had rented a car so we drove instead....6 people in a ford with Reid driving like a true Frenchman (even though he's from Florida). I tell ya there is no better way to bond with 5 practically complete strangers. We went to Avignon ( Sur le pont d'avignon on y danse, on y danse.... translation : on the bridge of avignon, we will dance, we will dance). We actually danced on the bridge too, we also went to this old palace which was fun as well cuz me and one of the guys got sick of listening to the audioguides so we made up our own tour:-) Then we drove to a place called le pont de gare, which is an ancient roman aqueduct. It was amazing to see. It was really big and really old. Then i caught a night train to Biaritz on the west coast of france, but that story will have to wait for the next time i find internet cuz i've got a plane to catch :-)
French trains suck!!!!! they went on stike on tuesday, but only for 1 day. i figured that by thursday things would be staighten out...and they kinda are. The stirke is over, but people can't remember where they left the bloody trains!!!!!! yeah i had a rough day today. i left zurich at 6:30 this morning, after only sleeping a few hours. i made it to geneva alright, but then i was told that my train to lyon was "missing". How do you misplace trains i ask? leave it to the french! so i was told to take a commuter train to a place called Bellegarde in France where there would be a bus waiting to whisk me away to lyon. Except there were about 100 of us and we didn't all fit on the bus...so i was stuck in this dinky little village for 2 hours while waiting for the next train. Thus missing my next train that i had a reservation for. I got to change the reservation though...to one i couldn't get before because of my eurail pass. Meaning i got up at 5:30 in the morning for nothing. that deserves a great big GGGGGRRRRRRRRR! Ok, enough of my complaining. I'm in the french riviera and tomorrow i'm going to cannes to check out the film festival there. Worst comes to worst, i lie on the beach all day :-)
I`m in Zurich right now, visiting a friend. I got here Saturday morning, and went out with my friend, her boyfriend, and one of their friends Saturday night. All I'll say is that i'm still recovering from that night. I drank a lot and i don't remember the taxi ride home all that much. It was fun :-)
Yesterday we went to Luzerne which was really nice, i'm definitely falling in love with switzerland. All i have to do is find a rich swiss boy....
Today i wandered around Zurich, visited some churches, did some shopping (bad Sarah), not too much cuz i'm still hurting from saturday night :-)
And Wednesday i'm off to Aix-en-provence in France....ahhhh to be lying on the beach on the french riviera.
Happy Birthday to me! Today’s my 22nd birthday. It’s the first birthday that I haven’t been home for, and I’m incredibly homesick. I miss everyone back home, especially you Christine! Don’t worry, we’ll have time to go hiking when I get back in August, but aren’t you actually getting to work on time now that I’m not there??? Hahahahaha :-)
So another 2 weeks has passed between updates (bad Sarah). Hmmm let me think about what has happened…
I went to a place called Brno in the Czech republic with one of my little brother 2 weekends ago. They had an exhibit at a museum that was all about Gregor Mendel (Pretty much invented genetics as we know it for all those of you who aren’t science geeks :-) )….turns out the exhibit was at the Abbey of St. Thomas. It was actually pretty cool to see (yeah I know I’m admitting my science geek side). It was a combination of some of his work, like lab books, calculations, and data sheets, and modern art that was inspired by his work. One of the coolest things they had was a family tree that was made out of different kinds of crystal. It was hanging from the ceiling and had like 4 generations, with different colours of crystal representing different characteristics from the family. They also were planting a garden just outside of where the exhibit is to show how he did his pea plant work. My little brother referred to the exhibit as “the place with the peas”, although I think he really liked it (he’s too smart, he said he actually understood the concept of dominance and recessive traits, and what happens when you cross plants!) Anyhow, the rest of the day we spent wondering around Brno, although because it was Saturday, all the stores closed at 12.
Last weekend my family all took a road trip to Prague. Prague is one of my favourite cities that I’ve seen so far. The whole downtown area is made up of old buildings, or new buildings built to look old. Although even though it was only the first week of May and it was packed with tourists, and boy were they pushy and rude! I took a ton of pictures though cuz everything looked so cool…I went through almost 2 rolls of film in 3 days. I wondered around the downtown area for a bit by myself on Friday, and in my wonderings I found an open-air market. It was pretty hot and so I was looking for a place to buy a bottle of water. Luckily I had been warned away from buying water from street vendors. As I was looking at the bottles of water they had at the open-air market, I realized they had already been opened, refilled and then glued shut. Talk about taking advantage of tourists! Later that day I met up with my family at a park in the city, where an architect had recreated the Eiffel tower. So we climbed all those stairs and were rewarded at the top with a complete view of the city. My stepmom was joking that that was my warm up for the real Eiffel tower! Then on Saturday we went to the Prague castle, which was neat, but way too crowded, really windy and cold. Then on Sunday we drove back to Bratislava. The drive was about 3.5 hours, but lucky for me my little brothers slept most of the time :-) I did manage to finish reading the 2 Towers though….
And now I’m getting ready to leave for the main part of my trip. On Friday night I take an overnight train to Zurich, starting my 2 month backpacking trip. I weighed my pack last night, it’s exactly 15 kg…too bad I’m not finished packing! Hahahah it can’t be more than that though cuz I’m flying from a couple of cities and the airline max is 15 kg, plus I don’t wanna carry more than that on my back for 2 months :-)! I’m excited about my trip, and all the places I’m gonna see and do, especially meeting up with shannon in Dublin the first week in June…that’ll be trouble I’m sure:-)
Ok, that’s it for now…hopefully it won’t be another 2 weeks before I update this again!
