sleeping in airports

All roads lead to Rome

Europe ~ Italy ~ Pisa, Florence & Rome

I don’t think I have ever been as exhausted as I was when we were standing there looking at the leaning tower of Pisa. Keen to save money on accommodation, we arrived in Italy after spending the night at the Girona Airport and the night before that on a bus from Madrid to Barcelona. Finding a hotel in Pisa turned out to be a little harder than expected, for some reason most of the hotels were full, mid week. We spent the morning seeing everything in Pisa – i.e. the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which was another great thing to see. What was even better was watching all the tourists standing on the lawn (right next to the sign saying ‘keep off the lawn’), with their hands in the air, trying to get the perfect photo of themselves ‘holding up the tower’. Of course I had to get out there and do it myself! After 19 hours of sleep we headed off for Florence…

Bobbi holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa

Bobbi holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa

Florence provided the first (but not the last) opportunity for us to indulge in gelati and pizza. Yum… We spent our time wandering about town, went to the Academy Gallery and spent over two hours in line to see David – it was worth it. I think. Very impressive statue, he stands over 4 metres tall. We considered going to see some other galleries, but decided we couldn’t hack any more lines. We instead spent our time wandering about town, getting lost down narrow alleyways and doing some general people watching.

Rome came with a shock – people. We thought we’d been clever, leaving the big city to the end, tourist season was supposed to end in September, but no, there were people EVERYWHERE!!! We visited all the big tourist sights, including the Colosseum, the Cappaccini Monk Crypt and St. Peter’s. For me, the Colosseum was the best of the lot – its so amazing to think that the structure has survived so much and is still surviving the latest test – tourists. We waited in line for absolutely ages (seems to be the norm for all tourist attractions in Italy), eventually got in and spent our time tagging along to different tour groups, so that we could hear about the Colosseum. One invention that we have noticed and not enjoyed on our recent travels is the tour group radio set. Nowadays, instead of the tour leader holding a microphone and shouting out to everyone in their group, they now talk into a mouthpiece, and the rest of the tour listens via headphones. Makes it really hard to overhear what they’re talking about!

Tash hanging out in the Colosseum

Tash hanging out in the Colosseum

They say all roads lead to Rome, and perhaps it is true, as Rome was the last stop for our travels in Continental Europe. Indeed, if you don’t count our last week in London, it was the last place that Tash and I will be traveling together. Next week we split up – Tash goes back to Edinburgh to make the most of her work visa, whilst I head home via Japan… It’s been a great trip together, but I guess it’s time to move on…
xoxo Bobs

Chomping on churros

Europe ~ Spain ~ Girona, Barcelona & Madrid

Getting here turned out to be harder than we thought… Cast your minds back to a week ago, when poor, exhausted Bobbi and Tash stumbled out of bed to catch the 4am bus to the airport. What really happened is we got to the bus station at 4.05am, consequently missing the bus. The next bus didn’t leave until 5.30am which meant we would have missed out flight. As there were no other busses or trains to the airport, we were just about to catch a taxi (would have been about $280 AUD) when… a Swedish girl rocked up to the bus station with her parents, to find out she’d missed the bus also. So, in return for the money we would have paid the bus driver, they offered us a ride to the airport, and we all caught our respective flights. Looked bleak for a moment there though…

Arrival in Spain went really well, considering how much trouble we had just getting to the airport in Sweden. We spent our first two days in Girona, a small town about an hour and a half north of Barcelona. We were lucky enough to find a bed at the first place we looked – a pension run by an motherly Spanish woman. A pension is basically a flat that the owner has opened up to guests – for a double room (with bathroom, yey yey yey) it turned out cheaper than a hostel would have been. We spent our first day seeing the sights of Girona (cathedrals, river, Arab baths) and our second day bathing in the beautiful Costa Brava – the Spanish sea. We lathered ourselves in sunscreen and ‘baked’ away for 5 minutes – and got sunburnt in the weirdest spots. I got burnt in two places on the small of my back, whilst Tash has bright red ankles.

Standing in the entrance to our pension in Girona

Standing in the entrance to our pension in Girona

We rocked up to Barcelona with the intention of buying a ticket on the night bus to Madrid. Which we did. Kinda. Having brought the ticket, we spent the rest of the day wandering about, idly looking at hostels for when we returned to Barcelona later in the week. It wasn’t till about 8pm (our bus left at 11.30pm) that we looked at the tickets and realised the bus left the following night. Whoops. Rushed down to the station to attempt to change the tickets, but quickly realised there was no hope, so concentrated our efforts on finding somewhere to stay. Did I mention that Barcelona was in the middle of a fiesta (festival)? Luckily, we once again found a bed at the first place we looked, so it wasn’t all bad. We were able to spend the second day seeing the sights of Barcelona (mainly Gaudi’s cathedral – La Sagrada Familia and some of his other buildings), wandering along the main street of Barcelona and watching the going-ons of the festival.

We spent the better part of 3 days visiting our cousin, Katy, in Madrid. She’s over here improving her Spanish (not really sure how, it seems pretty fluent to our ears!) and is really living it up the Spanish way. She took us around town, showing us some of her favourite haunts. One night was spent in a hookah bar, where we used a giant pipe to smoke flavoured (in our case, apple) tobacco. Very laid back, cool atmosphere. Katy also took us to the big park in Madrid, where, on a Sunday, everyone congregates to dance, fire twirl and play bongo drums. Once again, fantastic atmosphere, everyone really gets into it. We went to the Sunday market (so many people, luckily our experiences in Asia taught us how to act in a crowd) and tried chocolate churros. Yum – you’re served a big plate of churros (long, Spanish donutty things) and a mug of thick hot chocolate, used to dip your churros in. Mmm.

Katy, Tash & I trying hookah

Katy, Tash & I trying hookah

We spent last night on a bus from Madrid to Barcelona, arriving here in Barcelona at 8am. Tonight we are camping out at the airport before our 6.30am flight to Italy. Traveling is fun, but I sure do appreciate a bed!!!
Take care peoples, let me know how you’re going,
luv bobs

Baguettes, baguettes, baguettes

Europe ~ France ~ Paris & Versailles

Well, everyone had better appreciate the trouble gone into writing this… It turns out that keyboards in France are different to those everywhere else. Just small differences (the letters ‘q’ and ‘a’ have swapped places, as have ‘;’ and ‘m’) but its enough to make the thought of typing an email horrendous. Anyway, enough complaining, we are in Paris, after all! Arrived after a very long night of sleeping in Glasgow airport – we were 3 of at least 100 other people who decided to make the smokers lounge our bed for the night. We were the odd ones out – we didn’t bring mattresses or sleeping bags, unlike the many others. Although it was nice and sunny in Scotland, Paris was windy and raining. So very typical of our luck!

We’ve been eating our way through all the delicacies of Paris – baguette with jam for brekky, baguette with cheeses for lunch and baguettes and snails for dinner. Well, at least that’s the way it seems. We also have nutella crepes for desert, accompanying each meal. Of course, if we get sick of all the cheese we can take a break and have a bottle of 2 euro wine instead…

Of course we’ve been seeing the sights as well as eating. Kinda. We make sure our sight-seeing fits around the eating, don’t want to miss a meal! A couple of nights ago, we climbed the Eiffel Tower. Alot of steps (not as many as the Yellow Mountains in China), but definitely worth it. The view across the city at night was fantastic. Last night we had a picnic in the gardens in front of the Eiffel Tower, thankfully the small children didn’t come near our area, we must have been scowling enough to keep them away. We’ve also gone and seen Le Sacré-Coeur, a really big churchy thing on the hill behind our hotel. The dome was amazing to see, all the tourists filing past, one-by-one was just hilarious. Notre Dame was similar – an spectacular building, but the amount of tourists around was just frightening.

The Eiffel Tower at night

The Eiffel Tower at night

The catacombs were great. A couple of hundred years ago, it was decided that the cemeteries were too full, so the French decided to dig up all the bodies and dump them in an abandoned mine. At some stage, the person in charge decided to do it decoratively, and so all the bones are lined up, using a combination of skulls and femurs to create patterns in the walls. The over-all effect is quite unique – eerie and intriguing all at the same time.

Skull and Crossbones at the Catacombs

Skull and Crossbones at the Catacombs

We’ve also seen the rest of the traditional sights, such as the Louvre (got to see the Mona Lisa, should have seen the tourists at that place!) and the Arc de Triomphe (huge huge round-about, so many cars). We also spent a great cuople of hours wandering around Versailles, enjoying the gardens and looking over King Louis XIII and his son, Louis XIV’s chateus. The rest of our time has been spent soaking up the atmosphere (whilst eating crepes) and enjoying our very own bathroom. Now we’re preparing for our week in Germany, should be a heap of fun, will swap from bread to snags… luv yas, bobs

Sleeping with ghosts

Europe ~ Republic of Ireland ~ Kilkenny, Waterford, Cork, Ventry, Galway

I stayed at the best hostel the other night. I stayed in a castle. With ghosts. And secret passageways. AND PUPPIES!!! Foulksrath Castle is just outside of Kilkenny, it was built in 1320 and modified in 1525. Since then its basically remained the same with very few modifications (although I’m happy to note that bathrooms and heating were two modifications I appreciated!). I rocked up on the last bus out to the castle (5.30pm, if you miss it you have to catch a taxi, expensive!), only to find no-one about. A couple of other travelers were hanging about, desperate to check in, but turns out that the caretaker, Jack, had decided to go fishing for the day. We amused ourselves until 8pm, when he rocked up, looked us over and said, “Right then, who’s for fish?”. Jack was happy to tell tales of the history of the castle over a whiskey or two, he told us about the tunnel that lead from the bottom of the dining room all the way down to the river (about a kilometre away) amongst other things. I didn’t hear or see any ghosts, but was more than happy to play with Jack’s dog’s puppies, cute little lab-cross-something-or-others.

Puppies fast asleep on my lap

Puppies fast asleep on my lap

While in Cork I took some time out to visit Blarney Castle. Arrived nice and early, I was one of about 8 people in the castle, which I’m told is unusual – when I got to the top I was the only one there, no lines at all. Kissed the Blarney Stone and had an absolutely horrid photo taken. I mean, really, how can you look half decent when you’re dangling umpteen thousand metres above the ground, over the side of the top of a castle, attempting to kiss a bloody rock whilst upside down? You can’t, although the models in the castle brochures do a pretty good attempt. People have been kissing the Blarney Stone for over 500 years, in the belief it will bestow the gift of eloquence on all those who kiss it. The grounds of Blarney castle are fantastic, boasting caves, fairy glades and even witches kitchens. It’d be awesome to be an 8 year old girl playing in these gardens, I know a certain 20 year old who had a blast.

The Witches Kitchen, in the rock gardens, at Blarney Castle

The Witches Kitchen, in the rock gardens, at Blarney Castle

Ventry was a heap of fun. I keep telling myself so I don’t notice the pain. From the beginning… I decided that the only way to really experience the Irish countryside was to go out to the middle of nowhere and hire a bike. Great in theory, not quite so good in practice. When I arrived at the cute little hostel late at night, it was pouring. My host tried to point out the sights as we drove into town, “that’s where the bay… usually is. And thats where the pub/grocery store/restaurant is”. Hmm. Luckily the next morning the rain had cleared up, so I borrowed one of the bikes and set off. The scenery was beautiful. I saw wild foxes, sheep grazing and heard the ocean crashing against the rocks. And then I came to the first small incline. They say you never forget how to ride a bike, but they fail to mention how hard it is if you try to do it after nearly 5 years of no riding. I pushed on, seeing all sorts of sights. I stopped at a Celtic museum, saw an old fort and watched a ferry come into dock in between huge cliffs and dangerous rocks. I nearly gave up, but then decided that I’d find a pub for lunch, have a pint, and all would be good. So I kept going and going and going. Unfortunately, there were no pubs. None. Eventually I gave up and rode back to town, stopping at the pub to have a well-deserved pint. The day after I had a 6 hour bus trip. Very. Painful.

Apart from all that I’ve just been seeing the beautiful Irish country-side. One fun-filled day was spent on a tour bus, a very full tour bus, going around the Burren and the Cliffs of Mohair (pronounced ‘More’). Although everyone proclaims that the cliffs are spectacular and breath-taking, I found it more breath-taking just watching the tourists climbing over the rails, standing on the edge of the cliffs, just to get that ‘perfect’ photo. The burren was amazing, an area completely covered in rock, completely in contrast to what Ireland is perceived to be. I also spent a day at the Waterford Crystal Factory, which was great fun watching the visitors spend upwards of 600 euro (about $1100) on glass vases. Well that’s it for this side of Europe. Now we are going to go camp out at Glasgow airport and next stop… Paris!
luv Bobs

Crazeee China!!!

Asia ~ China ~ Beijing

We’ve been in Beijing for *almost* a week now, and its amazing. So different to both India and Thailand… To start with, the flight(s) was hell. It took us 48 hours to get from Delhi to Beijing, which, if you were to fly direct would normally take about 6 hours. Our plane went from Delhi to Dubai, then Dubai to Hong Kong (with an hour stopover in Bangkok, something we didnt know about!). In Hong Kong we had a 10 hour stopover. We decided it wasnt worth finding a hotel, so we slept in the airport, highly recommended, very quiet, safe and comfortable airport!!! Anyway, woke up at 5.30am and checked in for the remainder of the flight, Hong Kong to Beijing. Arriving in Beijing was fantastic. We cautiously stepped out of the airport, expecting to be swamped by taxi drivers wanting to take us into the city for huge amounts, but there were only 7 or 8 of them. And, better yet, after telling them ‘no’ only twice, they backed off. Unheard of in Delhi… Instead of taking their taxi’s (they were asking for 200-300 yuan) we caught the bus and subway (about 50 yuan altogether).

Our hostel is fantastic. Right in the middle of town, walking distance to most things, and the subway is also really close, so if we cant walk there we can catch the subway. Many many international travellers here, all with very interesting travelling tales to tell. There is one guy here from the U.S., who is travelling the world, without flying. He caught a cargo ship from California to Singapore and is catching the train from China through Russia to Europe! We are sharing a room with a woman from Seattle, nice to hear some different opinions and ideas about what we are experiencing. The hostel has a cute little bar/dvd room where we all hang out, both dvds and beer are the cheapest things to buy over here, so u can imagine what we spend our evenings!!! A bottle of beer (big, about twice the size of a stubbie) costs under AUD$1 (I’m told its slightly expensive here!!!) DVD’s are about $1.50, I’ve already brought a heap!

Everyone is really friendly and ready to help. Not many people speak English though, which is proving to be difficult. The hardest thing is finding food for Tash, who’s vegetarian. We’re getting really good at pointing and gesturing and using sign language, so we should get by. This morning we wandered onto the street to find breakfast, we ended up with a long donutty type pastry and a spring onion pancake, both from the street vendors, cost us a total of 20 cents. Food in general is awesome, big change from the Indian food. Nice to be eating beef again. The other night we went to a night market, which sold lots of different foods, all on sticks. I got gyoza (fried dumplings) and Tash got fried strawberries covered in toffee on a stick. Yum. They had lots of other things tough, like grasshoppers on a stick, snake on a stick, etc etc. Am going to try them next time… really!!!

We’ve been seeing all the sites of Beijing, our first day of sightseeing took us to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden city. So many people flying kites in Tiananmen, we’ve been really tempted to buy some, an English guy went kite flying, thought it was great fun! The Forbidden city was really interesting, its the largest cluster of ancient buildings in China, home to two dynasties of emperors, the Ming and the Qing. The area was set up as a walled city, so that the emperors and all their families didnt hav to leave unless absolutley neccessary. It’s called the Forbidden City becaus it was off limits to visiters for 500 years, the buildings are absolutley awesome! Yesterday we climbed the Great Wall, we even have the T-Shirts to prove it!!! The climb was so hard, just up and up and up. My legs are screaming at me today! But we made it, the view from the top was pretty good, you could see the wall weaving up and down all the mountains. Back down at the bottom of the mountain we were ‘attacked’ by all the vendors who desperatly wanted to sell their merchandise, we brought some shirts, but managed to dodge everything else. We also went to Kung Fu the other night, which was interesting. It was more like a play, told the story of a young boy going through all his training. I had an American guy next to me, he wasn’t very interested, until they starting breaking boards over their heads, then he sat up straight in his chair and didnt move until the end of the show, after which he could stop talking bout how cool it was!

Weather is rather cold, it snowed in the mountains yesterday, we’re wearing ALL of our warm clothing. Getting ready to move onto Xi’an, to see the terricotta warriors. Its about a 13 hour train trip, so we really have to push ourselves to go! But it should be warmer as we go down south, which will be good. Hope all is well with everyone, xo BOBS!!!

Tash & I at the Great Wall, China

Tash & I at the Great Wall, China