We've been home for over a week now and we're officially back into the groove of things. Chris' first full day of school was today and I've already had one wedding this past weekend. So we're both very busy again. We had a great time in Europe but were ready to be back home after a month of being away. We came home to find that my parents had found a condo that they liked and were wanting to sell us their house. After finding a mortgage broker and seeing if we would be approved, we were and made it official yesterday. So as of the end of October we will be home-owner's! Yeah it was a little fast right after coming home but it seems now is the time to buy and who knows if my parents would ever find another place they liked like the place they found. Things will be a little busy around these parts for the next couple of months but we are excited.
Getting back to Europe....I'll do a brief synopsis of what we did in each country to give you a little idea of the adventures we had. Get ready for some reading...
We started off in Italy. We flew into Rome at around 9am and had the whole day ahead of us with no sleep. We did pretty good seeing major sights like the Colosseum, Palantine Hill and the Roman Forum. We were pretty exhausted by the end of that day. The next day we headed to the Vatican where we paid for our only tour of our trip because we didn't want to walk around mindlessly not knowing what anything was. There we saw some pretty amazing things like the Sistine Chapel and St.Peter's Basilica. That church was so huge it was crazy. After taking a break in St.Peter's square we walked to the Trevi Fountain, Pantheon and Spanish Steps. We had our first Italian pizza right behind the Pantheon but I have to admit, it's not as good as pizza at home. So that was our two day packed adventure in Rome. We also had two old ladies yell at us in Rome on each day for slighting bumping them when we walked past them, that was quite a scene...Onto Florence.
We spent one day in Florence. First thing we did was climbed the Duomo where we could see all of Florence. It was so hot climbing to the top and you're in this tiny little stairway going straight up but it was nice when we got to the top because there was a breeze. After the Duomo we walked down to the main square and went into the Uffizi Gallery where there are original paintings by people like Michaelangelo and all those artist guys. We're not too artsy so that was about as artsy as we got on our trip. In the evening we headed to Ponte Vecchio which is a bridge that has a bunch of shops that sell gold. We hung out there for quite a while watching the sunset and listening to a pretty good Italian singer who set up shop in the middle of the bridge. To end our night in Florence we of course bought some Fanta to refresh ourselves. That is one thing that will always remind me of Europe, Orange Fanta. I don't think we have it here in Canada.
The next three days in Italy we spent in Monterosso which is part of the Cinque Terre along the west coast of Italy. This was probably one of our favorite stops of our whole trip. On our way up there we stopped in Pisa for about an hour to quickly go see the leaning tower. Monterosso is a small little town with not much else to do but hike and relax at the beach. We were ready for some of that after days of running around trying to see so many things. The room we got was a patio room overlooking the whole town and beach which was pretty amazing. We would spend our nights on the patio playing cards and just relaxing eating our trail mix that we brought along. Our first full day in Monterosso we did the Cinque Terre trail which is about a 5 hour hike between the 5 towns of Cinque Terre along the coast. It was a great hike but very hot and harder than we thought it would be. Let's just say we were ready for our beach day the next day after that hike, we got very burnt and very sweaty. So as I said the next day we spent on the beach, we rented two umbrella chairs and dipped in the water and relaxed all day, with of course a stop for some gelato. Everyday we were in Italy we had gelato, maybe even twice a day. That stuff is delicious.
Our last stop in Italy was Venice. Our first night there we wandered the alleys and got caught in a downpour and thunderstorm but I got the best picture of our trip of lightning crossing over the grand canal. I was pretty excited about that. We phoned home that night and surprised everyone. Our next day in Venice we went to the Doge's Palace, which is where their king lived. We also took a trip on a Vaparetto which is the water taxi that people who live there take to get around in Venice. We didn't want to pay 100 Euros for a gondola so we took the taxi which was worth it because we got front row seats. The next day we walked around to the less touristy parts of Venice to where the parks are out on the edge of the island. We had a pasta supper that night and some more gelato. Although Venice was great to see I think that three nights was too much, we probably only needed two.
Italy: August 4 - 13Our next stop was Innsbruck, Austria. We actually stayed in a little town called Absam which was about a 10 minute bus ride from Innsbruck. This was probably the nicest room we had on our trip. We had a long train ride through the Alps that day so by the time we got to our bed and breakfast all we had time for was a little stroll through Hall in Tirol which was a town next to Absam. The next day we saw lots. We got the Innsbruck card which covered all public transportation and entrance into all the major sights so we went to as many of them as we could. First we headed up to the ski jump that was used for the Olympics in 1964 and 1976. Then we went to the Schloss Ambras which was Ferdinand the II's castle. There were lots of stuffed animals and armory in there because I guess he liked hunting and weapons. Our next stop was the best stop in Innsbruck. We took three gondolas up the Alps and climbed the peak to get to the very top of the Alps. If we had spent more time in Innsbruck we definitely would have done some hiking around there. The view was amazing from up there, you could see all of Innsbruck and its surrounding towns and tonnes of other mountain peaks. The last thing we saw was the Alpine zoo which was built onto the mountain side and was basically a vertical zoo that you climbed paths to get to the next exhibit.
The other place in Austria that we went to was Salzburg. Salzburg is all about Mozart. There were bands on the streets playing Mozart and souvenirs with Mozart and lots of operas and musicals you could go to. We stuck to seeing the sights like the Dom (which is their big church), Mozart's house and where he was born, walked along the Salzach River and even saw a brothel. In the evening we headed up the hill to Hohensalzburg Castle which was a fortress that was never used because it was so big that enemies didn't attack it. From there we had a really good view of Salzburg. The next day in Salzburg we took a train out to a little town called Werfen. Then we took a bus up a mountain to the trail leading to the largest ice caves in the world, Eisriesenwelt. These caves have humongous ice formations and supposedly there's 40km of them but the tour only takes you on the first 1 km. A guide gives you lanterns to light up the cave and takes you up 300 steps which goes beside huge ice formations and then he lights up magnesium strips to light up the ice. It was so crazy to see these huge pieces of ice, a once in a lifetime experience for sure. On that trip we met a couple from Saskatoon, small world. Once we got back to Salzburg there was just enough time to get a Bosna (hotdog with curry and onions) and Kasekrainer (hotdog with cheese inside) to eat by the riverside.
Austria: August 13-17After Austria we went up the Eastern side of Germany with our first stop in Munich. The main thing about Munich is beer halls. There were quite a few in Munich and there would be hundreds of people at them drinking 1 liter beers. While we were there we had to stop at the most famous beer hall Hofbrauhaus to share a litre of beer. It was so loud in there with hundreds of people and the oompa music going in the background. It's definitely a different culture, beer is everywhere and you're allowed to drink it at age 16. We also went to the first concentration camp in Germany called Dachau. This was a very somber morning as we walked around and saw the barracks, bunker house, crematorium and pistol range. This camp was the only one to last for Hitler's full reign over Germany and over 35,000 people died here and over 200,000 were imprisoned. It was good to see but not something I ever need to see again. While in Munich we also rented bikes and tried to be like the locals. We stuck to park trails for the most part, not trusting ourselves on busy sidewalks. We went up to English Garden which is a huge park and biked around there for a bit before going to the beer hall. Munich was also one of our favorite places on our trip because although it is a big city it felt like a nice friendly town.
Going north, our next step was a medieval town called Rothenburg. If you've ever seen those little Christmas villages people have as decorations, this is what this town looked like. It is famous for its Christmas ornaments and their pie dough balls called schneballein. Our first night we had a tour with the "night watchman" who gave us some history of the town and showed us around. The next day we just relaxed, walked around the city wall, had some schneballein and bought some Christmas ornaments. It was a nice little town but not one that we needed to see for two days.
Next was Dresden on the far east side of Germany that was once communist and you could see the remains of communism in the block buildings around the city. This city was almost completely destroyed in WWII so much of it was rebuilt. They tried copying many of the buildings that used to be there but there were also many new buildings built too. Our first day there was kind of cloudy and rainy but nothing we couldn't walk around in. We went and saw the Zwinger Palace, parade of princes mural (which was one of the only things not destroyed in the war because it was made of porcelain), the Church of our Lady (the only Lutheran church we saw our whole trip) and we ate some bratwursts by the Elbe River. The next day we rode our first double decker train out to Saxony Switzerland National Park which is a park with huge sandstone outcroppings that come hundreds of feet straight up from the ground. If we were rock climbers we would have been in heaven. We spent the day there hiking way down and way back up hundreds of steps.
Last stop in Germany was Berlin. Berlin was a great city to see, so much history and change has happened there. We stayed with my old roommate from Capernwray and her husband in a little town called Hermsdorf just outside of Berlin. Our first day there we went to Potsdam where all the Prussian kings had built their palaces and gardens. Our second day we spent touring the city of Berlin. We went on a free tour that lasted three hours and we got so much history out of it, it was definitely worth our 6 Euro tip. After our tour we went back to all the places we had briefly seen and took pictures and read more about them. We saw things like the Berlin wall, checkpoint charlie, Brandenburg gate, the Reichstag, the memorial to the murdered Jews and even the hotel where Micheal Jackson hung his baby out the window. It was crazy to see how thin the Berlin wall actually was and to hear stories about people trying to escape to West Germany. We ended our time in Berlin by going to the Reichstag which is like their parliament building. It had this huge mirror inside a glass dome that you could climb up and go to the outside to see all of Berlin. That was pretty cool. Berlin was another of our favorite stops.
Germany: August 17-25Getting to Denmark was quite the process. We took a ferry from Germany to Denmark and expected the train on the other side to wait for the ferry to cross but when we got to the train station one had just left. So we were stuck in the middle of nowhere for two hours waiting for the next train. Then when we were waiting for the next train the station people came out and told us the train was canceled. How can a train be canceled? We were given a taxi to get to the stop we were supposed to connect in but our driver took us to a different town. So then to get to where we needed from that place we were delayed even longer. We finally made it to Koge to see my family after 11 hours of traveling when it should have only taken half that time. We told them all our story and they just said "yeah that sounds like Denmark". I guess trains aren't as reliable in Denmark as everywhere else we had been. That was our only trouble with trains on our whole trip so I guess that is pretty good.
Our first two days in Denmark were spent with my dad's side of the family and my many cousins and their kids. We arrived to one of my cousins house on the beach and saw Danish and Canadian flags surrounding their yard. We felt pretty welcomed. One of my cousins kids is a chef and made all the food for that night which was delicious. We were also given a huge cake that said welcome to Denmark on it. We spent the evening catching up and talking. The next day we went with my cousin Cindie to tour the city of Koge. We met up with her mom and one of my other cousins and went to see a mini-town that these retired people had built of Koge in a 1:10 ratio using real bricks and building materials. It had taken them 20 years to build what they had and would take another 20 to finish. Then we all had lunch in the square and Chris and I headed off on our last train ever to my other cousin Jan on my mom's side.
Jan was there to pick us up at the train station with his little boy Marius but Marius was not too pleased to see us and cried the whole way home. He warmed up to us pretty quick and by that evening was showing us his new lunchbox and his tractors. We spent the next day in Copenhagen going to places like Nyhavn and Tivoli, which is an amusement park that I loved when I visited as a kid. We took Marius on a few rides that were my favorite but he was pretty scared, he liked the slower plane ride though. We had some huge ice cream cones while we were there and then Jan and Chris decided to go on the fastest new ride there that went so fast it made 5 G's. After Tivoli Jan took us to his running store called Kaiser Sport. He gave us the tour and even got us on the treadmill where he video taped our feet and analyzed our run to tell us what kind of shoes we needed to improve. It was a pretty cool store, nothing like I've seen anywhere else. Jan even gave me a pair of Birkenstock sandals and gave Chris two pairs of running shoes out of the 100 that he had at his house after testing them a few times. The next day at Jan's we meet our other cousin for the first time and her family. One of our Uncle's just died and she was in the will along with my mom and Jan but we had never met her before because her dad, my mom's brother, wasn't in her life very much. So we spent the afternoon listening to a lot of Danish and having Jan translate for us every now and then but it was good to meet her. That evening we went for a Danish supper where Chris tried a fried eel from Jan's plate and I ate a huge flounder. Then we came home and played some Settlers. We found out that a lot of the things we do in Canada, they do in Denmark so we had a really easy time having fun and doing things we all liked. We had such a great time with Jan and Rie and can't wait for them to come to Canada with the boys so we can show them everything here. The next day we left for the airport after I made some Kraft Dinner for the boys which I had carried with me the whole trip. It was worth it though because they had never had it before and they loved it. Our plane ride home was uneventful, we got home at night so it was perfect because we could just go home and go to bed instead of having a full day of trying to stay awake like we did when we got to Rome. The trip was great, a once in a lifetime thing and we're so glad that we did it.
Denmark: August 25-30After a week of being home we have adjusted to regular life. We've ordered a new bed for our new house and will slowly start preparing for the big move. It won't be such a big move for us but more for my parents because they have so much stuff and not as much room to put it all in in their new place. I'm waiting for phone call's for interviews to be a teacher on call so hopefully in this next week I'll be getting some jobs lined up. But while I wait for that I'll be editing more wedding pictures. So that was our summer, tonnes of fun and full of memories.
