I suppose our Norway experience didnt quite end where my last blog ended. We stopped In Olso for one night, we didnt do a whole lot there. It was nicer than I had expected. What would a Europe trip be like without seeing some hookers. Well it was our first ones in Olso, I dont think I have ever actually been close to one before, but we had to walk right by them to get to where we wanted to go. I tried to keep a straight face walking by, I failed... they didnt like it that much I dont think. For the next couple of days (including the one in Olso) they were mostly travel days. We had our next stop in Copenhagen, which was kind of nice I was glad I can say now I have been in Denmark. There was this crazy part of the city called Christiania. Its kind of a town within a city. The difference about this town was, there are no laws. From talking to one of our hostel roommates, it seemed like a place we had to go to. It was very sketchy area, not that I didnt think it was safe, but there was graffiti everywhere, I'm sure there we alot of drug deals going on as well. This place is basically a social experiment, they have an agreement with the city of Copenhagen. I'm not sure why they have it. But it was neat, garbage cans on fire for warm, people just hanging out and some playing music. I'm glad we stopped in. That night we had a few pints, and left for Berlin in the morning. This part of the trip was pretty much the first time we were worried about finding a place to stay. It had been very easy up till here because most of the stuff was already booked. Thank you Jack and Andrew. Lately we've been trying to book things online at internet cafes and we've been having trouble finding places. Maybe because the hostel online system is garbage, or maybe because we are waiting untill to late to book. I hope we learn our lesson though, but its difficult to learn when there havent been any real consequences, just scares. I think we are going to try and book things as soon as we know where we'll be and at what time. So far we haven't had to sleep in the train station... yet.

No Other Way

I didnt really know what I was getting into going to Norway, I didnt really know what we were going to see. But I wouldnt be able to do it any differently. We had our first over nighter train into Norway, this was after a flight from dublin to Oslo. Oslo seemed boring and we didn't hear of anything much to do. I'm glad we didnt stay. Our train ride was pretty good actually, we got to save a night on hostel bills, and did traveling that we would have to do anyways. We arrived exhausted though because we didnt sleep that well, and our hostel for the next night wasn't even open so we couldn't drop off our stuff. But we eventually made it. Our first day in Bergin, we didnt do a whole lot, just walking around and exploring the city, even had a little nap. Later in the day, with the help of a Bergin tourist information staff, we found a way to take a fjord tour, with using our eurail passes. saved us quite a bit of money. We went to a decent place to eat, which was cheap aswell (relatively speaking, Norway is one if not the most expensive place to live in europe). I had fish, which i assumed to be fresh because there were tons on fishing boats in the harbour. I got up the next morning not really knowing what to expect. A fjord is basically a river, I'd just learned that. It was even more beautiful than Ireland was. These 1.6 kilometer high mountains shot straight up right beside the water, and right beside our ferry. It was incredible, but it got better, we had an hour train ride that is said to be the best train ride in europe, and as far as I could tell, I would have to agree. The train took us right through the mountains, with waterfalls everywhere you look, huge rock faced cliffs and valleys with just a few houses in it. We would come out of a tunnel to an even more amazing view than the last valley. Then we were able to use our eurail pass to get back to bergen. I'm really glad we did it. We even climbed the mountain right next to bergen the next morning.

I had also expect more of a language barrier in Norway, everyone there seemed to speak pretty good (well). They were also very friendly, one guy went out of his way to help us find our hostel. I was half-expecting him to take us to a dark alley and rob us, but he just invited us to the cafe he worked at for a coffee or beer, and that was it(we never did end up going). It was really great there, the only downsides were its prices and the weather. One canadian dollar was about 6 Norwegen Krones. An average dinner there was about 200 krones, we did feel rich carrying around over a thousand krones tho... but felt very poor after we stayed there. Statiscally it rains about 270 times a year, it rained all four days of our stay.
We headed to Olso after, and that was it for Norway.

The Fighting Irish

When we first arrived in Ireland, I did not see the beauty that I hadheard about. We bussed in from the airport and got to see a fair amount of Dublin. Instead of beautiful, it seemed a little run down. We arrived kind of late, so we didn't get a lot done our first day, but we went out for an Irish pint. We did a few touristy things the next day, we checked out the Guinness Brewery Shop. Which was fairly entertaining, a little expensive for what you get, but we did get a free beer and a view of all of Dublin. We also checked out Trinity College which we heard was a beautiful campus. It was. Since we've been spending so much money lately we tried to keep it cheap by making cheap dinners while in Dublin. We still had five more days in Ireland, and we'd seen everything we really wanted to in Dublin, so we made a decision to take a three day tour! It turned out to be a very good decision.

At 8 a.m. our bus departed for our tour, and we didn't really know what to expect to get out of this. We definitely didn't expect the tour guide that we had. Authentic Irish character, he would sing over the P.A. system on the bus, he would say words like fick (which means to see in Gaelic) but he wouldn't use it in that context, so he was pretty much swearing over the p.a as well. There were people in there 60's at least on our bus as well. So it was interesting. He even made us switch seats every once and a while to ensure that we met everyone on our tour.
Despite his interesting and funny way of communicating with the passengers, he was quite informative as well. We learned so much about Irish history, and wars that I didn't even know occurred. I think i have discovered why they are called the Fighting Irish, they have been fighting the English for over 800 years! and they never gave up. I found the subject very interesting, mostly in that Britain seems to have kept it pretty quiet. Britain, in trying to take over Ireland, put the Irish through some pretty inhumane things, such as starvation, burnings and executions of the Irish people. There is still a lot of hate for England in some places of Ireland.

We also got to see some of the most beautiful sights I have ever seen. Since our bus took us out to the country and to the coast, we got to see things we would never have experienced in Dublin. We went to see ruins of a monastery with few high-crosses for gravestones. Only 70 still exist in the world today. Also we got to see the Cliffs of Moher, Which may be the most beautiful view i have ever seen. The cliffs looked to be about 300ft tall on the most western part of Europe. Everything out of the City had so many shades of greens. Greens I've never seen before, I don't think i have ever look at grass and been amazed but the colour was so brilliant that I couldn't help but be impressed. I think I will put up a picture because it is hard to describe. The best part about Ireland has been the views, we even went to ruins of a castle that is said to be the best view in Ireland, you could see for miles. I got a lot of pictures there too.

Ireland wouldn't be Ireland without having a few beers, so we had a few, then a few more. It was a good time and we got to meet several people from all over. Some Australians, some... Americans... some Germans and polish. It was quite an experience, it was just too bad to make some friends and then just say bye to them the next day.

We are now back in Dublin and our plane leaves tomorrow for Oslo, so we have been recovering from our lack of sleep. Last night we just watched a movie, that came out in Canada about a month ago. We felt like we were ahead of the times. It was 'Superbad', hilarious.
Time for me to fick off,

Jesus, Mary and Joseph (trying to sound Irish)
cheers

Water of Life

So its on to Country number two!

We left fairly early Wednesday morning to catch our train to Edinburgh. We arrived there at exactly 3:00, I'm not sure if it was coincidence or if British trains are always right on time. Scotland is very beautiful, and its way different than anywhere I've ever been before. The buildings architecture is quite a bit different, and the stone used is very unusually, it looks like they have been burnt. And the countryside was also different, rolling hills with hay fields, and I see where all the sheep and Scots jokes come from. Fields are full of them. It was interesting to see hay bails next to salt water.

Edinburgh was more of a compact city, at least as far as sightseeing goes. there hasn't been a need to take a bus anywhere, which is nice on the wallet. At first i found myself walking in the middle of the streets thinking they were walkways, but the roads are all stone. They aren't flat or smooth, i would guess it would be like constantly driving on the rumble strips.

On Thursday we had probably the best day so far. We had a nice day with a cool breeze, so we hiked up to see Arthur's Seat at the top of a huge hill (seemed more like a small mountain, took us over an hour). We could see everywhere and the landscape was amazing, it was worth the long hike for sure. After that we toured the nearby Castle, which is perched on the ledge of a cliff (no wonder they never lost a battle there). We also took the whiskey tour. We learned about scotch and took a few taste tests, we learned that whiskey(whisky here) comes from 'water of life'. I cant remember right now what Latin word it came from but you get the idea. So then we went out for dinner after and went on a pub crawl organized by the hostel. We got to meet a few people, a bunch of Canadians, (enough to sing the anthem loud enough for the whole bar to hear) I was slightly embarrassed... but what the hell, when if Rome right? I don't think i get that saying. But also with the pub crawl we got to experience several bars and several different kinds of beers. And thanks to a new friend who inherited a large sum of money some of our drinks were free!!! it was the most expensive day so far tho.

On Friday we took it easy, and spent very little to make up for the day before, but it was fun too. I am quickly learning that each hostel will have its own unique feel. I kind of assumed that they would be pretty much the same. But the atmosphere here is way different than London. Its like everyone here is a family, which wasn't that fun at first because we weren't part of the family. People stay in this hostel for months and months at a time. So its more of a permanent home for them. But they are friendly and once we had a few drinks in us we were all talking and having fun. We also had a fairly lucky coincidence, Jacks had friends who happened to be visiting as well and staying in the same hostel, which gave us some instafriends there too.
Edinburgh seems like a place that you could stay for a long time though, i see why this hostel is so tight.

That's about it for now,
cheers

Mind The Gap

I am going to try and keep this relatively short. I know i find it pretty hard to read too much of this kind of thing.

So its my third day overseas, and its great. I'm still in London but we leave tomorrow for Edinburgh. So far it has been a blast. Pretty much going nonstop. Barely even stopping for sleep, literally. Our flight arrived at around 4:30 London time. And we didn't get any sleep on the plain. That made for a very long day. We had a pretty long walk to the hostel, but on the way we happened to walk past Buckingham palace, and at 4:30 am, there was no one there. I don't think too many tourist get to see it like that. As the struggle to stay awake continued throughout the day, we got a fair amount done. We got to tour the British museum (several hours), had a traditional fish and chips dinner and explored a lot of the city. Settling down in the hostel took a bit too. But we all crashed pretty hard that night. We were pretty well rested for the next day so we decided to walk to see Big Ben to save on outrageous subway costs. Here they call it the underground, more commonly the tube. It's 4 pounds to ride it one way, which is about 8 bucks Canadian. Mostly we got to see the must sees. so we saw Big Ben, London Bridge, Westminster, Trafalgar square, tower of London and the London bridge. And yes i had the song stuck in my head.

I think see all the sites are neat, but i don't think they are all that interesting to read about. So i will try to stick to cultural differences. Mostly it was similar, i thought the music was going to be different but in the club the music was exactly what you would hear in Canada. Clubs are the only places to drink later in the night, so you cant do a late pub night here, its closes at 11pm. Also even as obvious as it seems it is difficult to cross the street. Habit dictates for me to look to the left first, then the right second. We haven't been too close getting hit yet, but i think we finally have it figured out... right as we are about to leave. Also everything is more technologically advanced here. well at least in common places. Like grocery stores have electronic voices that tell you what line you should go to, and when you should go there, make it so if you you were there first you will get helped first. and the underground and buses were the same. they tell you where every stop is and even little warning about the gap between the train and the platform. 'Mind the gap' it says,little too often actually. Gets kinda annoying, but its kind of our little joke now. Anyways i am out of Internet time! so I'll write in another few days
josh