Well...it's over

Back in Canada now after a great month of touring with 15kg packs. Backs feel good this morning since we don't have to shoulder all our possessions and yesterday was a looong day of travel.

Took off from London Gatwick after sitting on the tarmac for 1.5 hours and were conveniently seated in the perfect storm of 3 babies. Screaming began as soon as we boarded the plane and stopped only when the Gravol drugged the little buggers. Never thought I'd see the Hannah Montana movie, but when you fly Air Transat they apparently dig through the Bargain Shop movie bin for their feature films. A mere 9.5 hours later, we landed at Pearson where a little Barb (Halsall) picked us up.

We'd like to thank all those for following the blog throughout our adventures. Many more pictures to come and Calgary is in under a week now... we enjoy travelling apparently!

Guelph/London crowd - around next Wednesday?

Au revoir!

Last day being Europeans :(

Today we are in Bruge. We got here yesterday late afternoon and we were done exploring by early evening. We sat around at the bar in the hostel with some other Canadians and the guy that works here; it was quite entertaining. Also, somehow with the cheap prices and happy hour, we ended up getting 8 drinks for 9 euro: best place ever! Anywho, we are off to Brussels today to catch the chunnel train back to London and then we fly home tomorrow.

We will see you all very soon, once we are on Canadian soil again. Please take note of the picture of Graham as that is what he looks like now...give or take a couple pounds as we have been in the land of fries, waffles, and chocolate. Oh and please pick us up at the airport someone? We arrive shortly after 3pm.


Signing off,
Graham and Jess

We in Amsterdam, mon...

Hello in Dutch to you all,

We are safe and sound in Amsterdam after a busy day of travel yesterday followed by an evening of touring the city. Have 6 other roommates in our little room, so sleeping wasn't the smoothest in the world, but we woke up for a huge breakfast at the hostel.

Got out around 10:30 this morning for a tourist day in the city. Saw what the red light district looks like on Sunday mornings (ie. dead) so we'll make it back there tonight and see what we can see. Best idea of the day was a boat cruise through the canal/river system they have chopping through the city. Still coming down from our second-hand smoke highs and have just finished some ice cream as a result. Everything is pretty damn expensive in this city, yet the freaks of the world seem to assemble here (see pictures for more detail).

Off to Belgium tomorrow and ending up in Bruges eventually. We posted pictures of previous days so have a peek.

Happy hour, so bye!

An Irishman, an Aussie, a Dane and a Canadian are in a canoe...

Not really a canoe, but more of a hostel. We have hit the international motherlode of a hostel in Heidelberg and it is a great place to stay. Made some international friends who we will never see again. We also have the creepiest room mate possible (from Iowa, explains it) who is here on a pilgrimage for church music and Bach's life history. Other than him, things are cool in Heidelberg.

Climbed a 17% grade hill today to get to Schloß (castle) perched high above town. Rented bikes and rode around town and up and down the river bike path. Very bike friendly place with paths and bike lanes everywhere. Jess would like to mention the 'most important' event of today: hunting down two gummie bear shops right beside each other. We've already eaten an entire pack of these things and our chins are multiplying daily.

Heading out to show the Irish how to drink, then off to Amsterdam in the morning. We have some awesome pics and hope to post them once in the land of red lights and green plants.

Guten nacht!

One beer, two beer, three beer Graham is on the floor...

Hello all,
Just a quick note to report today. We made it to our hostel in Heidelberg and it is quite nice..mind you, we have yet to meet our two roommates so we will have more to report once that happens. We have free internet so we thought we would take some time to post pictures and a little note about the Haufbrauhaus. As you can tell by the title of this post that one of us may have had one too many litre beers last night. I will let you decide who that was, but seeing how I am the only one of us that can concentrate on a computer screen it is a pretty easy guess. The Germans are really to blame though, who serves litre beers and expects you to still be able to walk home in a straight line, or get home at all for that matter. We went last night at 7ish planning on staying for a couple hours and being home before all the crazies came out..unfortunately 4 litres of beer later Graham was one of the crazies...I'm not sure but Erich you can correct me, I think 4 litres of beer is more than 3 litres..am I right? That was a little note from Graham. I was a baby though and only had 2.5 litres.
All is well at this hostel. It was raining when we arrived so we went and did some laundry and sobered up. Now out on the town for a evening of sobriety.
Unfortunately see you all in less than a week.
Peace and Love.

It was zee greatest beer in all zee world

Guten noon hour,

Had an adventurous day yesterday with some classy bus tour companions en route to two castles built by crazy King Ludwig some time ago. As the first and last bus tour ever, it was the only way to get into the mountains to see these places and it was well worth it.
Started with an 8am rendez vous across the street from our ho(s)tel. Naturally had 2 pastries and a cheese covered pretzel for breakfast and headed to Linderhof Castle. Quickly realized we were in the presence of THE token American tourists; talking about the Green Bay Packers and how they were totally going all the way this year.
Castle was great, Jess and I were the fastest walkers, and then headed up to an unpronounceable ski resort town for lunch. Had another cheese covered bread and sandwich. Off to Neuschwanstein and we needed to carb up on beer for the 1.5km uphill '40 min' hike. We nailed it in 16 minutes in 30' heat. Castle was awesome, the tour guide was off his rocker creepy, and we headed back to the bus for 4:20. Ended up sitting there for 30 more minutes because 2 people never showed and we left them behind in the end 2 hours away from Munich.
Headed out for supper where Jess downed 5 sausages and I had jagershnitzel. Lauenbrau all around.

Today we may rent some bikes and cruise the city. Evening will bring Hofbrauhaus which will likely bring an early morning for our departure to Heidelberg. That's all for now and thanks for reading!

Emma: I guess I deserved that. But those are lies.

Grahamhaus and Jessicaschnitzel

Beer Fest!

Hello all,

Last time we wrote we were about to go out to get some delicious dinner and boy did we! We had mega schnitzel for dinner....schnitzel as big as your head (and really your head not ours...our heads have grown three sizes because we have eaten so many delicious pastries and soon to be schnitzels. Anywho our second daz in Freiburg we went to the Shauinsland Cable Car...ascended 1300 vertical metres and walked around a scenic trail...and then of course had some black forest ham for a midday snack. For dinner this night we decided to forego the usual meat, potatoes, vegetables and just have ICE CREAM!! That's right mom's (Barbs) your kids had ice cream for dinner and then PIZZA for dessert....fat kids, fat kids, fat kids. If you would like to start donating to our two seats on our way back please send a little comment...we'll need the extra space! We also had our first translation error at a restaurant; while it was no egg lasagna I did accidentally order a tomato and onion salad. Only tomato and onion, nothing else; but that is what i get for trying to order cheap and healthy!

This morning we caught a train to Munich at 6:52, however it was 5 minutes late and we only had 8 minutes for a transfer....close call but we're here. We've had our schnitzel sandwich, beer, and now heading out for some more schnitzel and beer. Graham has also found DAS BOOT...for those who don't know, it's from Beer Fest (a movie)...that is what he will be bringing home as a souvenir/maybe he'll bring two for party pleasers.

We'd like to post pictures but cannot unfortunately. Tomorrow we're off to the Neuschwanstein castle tour to do some more walking. Hope you are all doing well. Please seriously start thinking about the money you can donate towards us being too fat to come home in two seats.

Gutentag.

Let's get sauer on some krauts

Gutentag friends,

Arrived safely in Freiburg and the rain gods greeted us kindly. Sun has finally poked through and weather is looking good for this evening's fun.

Strasbourg yesterday was under alot of water but we managed to tour for hours in the rain and pit stop for beer and warmth. Freiburg is great and we will be heading out shortly for some supper at the beer hall, or Markthall. Beer is cheap and food is abundant - kind of like a good dream.

Biking is off because the town shuts down for Sundays:( Off tomorrow to ascend 1000m up the local mountain into the Black Forest highlands via cable car or hiking.

Computer time is free and short, so there we are. Due to spontaneous planning, we struck out and are staying in a THREE STAR hotel! Having onlz known 2 stars for the past long time, internet for free is like schnitzel for free.

Shout out to Emma and Erich for their luggage rentals and great help!

Gutenbye

Finally...last day in Rennes!

St Malo

Mont St. Michel

So first of all, thanks for the heads up Sarah I have not been able to enjoy a single ounce in Europe because of the worry! No but really thanks for being a messenger. Thank you to all our new followers too, makes us feel loved!

Now, today we went to Mont St. Michel and due to time contraints look it up to see what it was...view was spectacular...pictures to prove. Didn,t see any monks, lots of foreign tour buses, but I guess we were on one too. Yesterday we went to St. Malo which is a beach town that did not have warm water but we enjoyed the sun and the mussels et frites. We;re going to go enjoy our last beire in Rennes today and then we;re off to Strasbourg tomorrow. Because we can put ûp pictures I am going to be lame with the writing. Pictures are worth 1000 words so here are 6000 words...

Toodles!

Graham and Jess

Rennes and Stimpy

Allo mes amis!

After learning that yesterday is France;s birthday we also learned the transit schedule runs on a different time. Made it onto our train with two mins to spare and broke speed records for running with these packs on our backs. Easy train ride along the coast for a couple hours and arrived in time for another baguette on the day. Hotel Bretagne is right across from the train station and is an alright two star. Unfortunately due to Eurails amazing ability to screw us over we are here for two more days. Nobody told us - EMMA - that we had to book all our trains the second we touched down. Most trains are now booked and to get out of this damned city we spent two hours at the station with the newest employee they had.

All our trains are booked and we had to buy an extra ticket since Eurail seats were booked 2 weeks in advance - and no, you cannot do it online. Clearly we are riding the bitter bus typing away in this upstairs attic of a convenience store-turned cyber world. Might play dungeons and dragons after with the nerd downstairs.

Off to Mont St Michel tomorrow and off to Strasbourg on the 17th - home of Kronenbourg!! Might check out St Malo this afternoon if time permits - beach town about 30 mins away.

Emma - when did you stop being vegetarian. We have heard a different story than what you told us from David and Yvonne.
Barb and Rick - hello. are you still there! havent heard from you in a while.
Barb and Peter - bonjour. the cider here is revolting and I made the mistake of getting a bunch at once our first night. blech!
James and Caitlin - thanks for being our friends.

A bientot et bon journee!

Pictures have been updated!

Yes we Caen!

Allo encore,

We are sitting in a seedy internet cafe in Caen listening to the MJ Thriller album after a long days travel out to the D-Day beaches and the Juno Beach Centre. This is where a good Lloyd Brown - grandpa - landed in 1944 and a site has been built since 2002 - great building and tour offered by a group of Canadian students. We have decided that James ought to become a tour guide here in his third career; unless Discount drags him back in. Just kidding, you are not bilingue enough.

Had oysters as a snack today right off a fishing boat - biggest and tastiest I will ever have. Jess was feeling better until we strolled through the fish market but her sto,ach is now accustomed to Francais bottled water and second hand cigarettes. .. but she is feeling 110 French percent, which converts to about 100 Canadian percent.

The hotel we are at is fantastic. Google Hotel Crocus Caen Memorial for details - walls are pink and green fabric and the beer is cold and cheap in the lobby. Going to visit their restaurant tonight for some mussels au vin blanc and more vin blanc on the side.

Heading to Rennes tomorrow to party with some monks at Mont St Michel - google it too if you are unaware of the scale of this place. Thats all for now and hope the weather in Canadia is as good as here - 25 degrees and sun each day. We might apply for a status card upon return since we are so dark...

A bientot.

How the tables/stomachs have turned

The patient has become the typist; the nurse is now the patient.

Jess is down with the same stomach bug I suffered a couple days ago. For her, hot chocolate and croissant will be the lasting memory of Paris. However, the nasties didnt kick in until this afternoon so the morning was an enjoyable trip to the heart of gypsies, cheesy knick-knacks and Asian tour groups - the Eiffel Tower!

First: we went all the way to the top. Looking down from the second level - which we walked to to save about two hours of line ups for elevators at 9am- is pretty scary. Once at the top, looking out is pooping-your-pants scary Editors note: despite the jokes trotting around this site the past few days, nobody pooped their pants at the top of the tower. Cool fact for the day is that the young engineer who designed the tower in 1888 insisted his office be forever at the top, 330m above Paris, and it is still there today. Legend has it he died in his office and they never removed him. We called bullshit on that one pretty much off the bat. Got some etiquette lessons on how to properly cut lines from some Polish and Italian dinks - karma won in the end as they were informed they forgot to buy their ticket about 30 mins earlier in line. Let this be a lesson to all the Polish and Italian ginos out there.

Second, we hopped on a river cruise and took in the Parisian slum line - sorry, shore line. Interestingly, there are over 1200 churches in the city and we saw that many hobos along the river path in an hour. Paris is, and likely always will be, a vast public campground and urinal. Nonetheless, the cruise was great and we are back at the hostel. Jess is asleep whilst I munch on some baguette and Boursin cheese.

Off to Caen tomorrow morning and just searching for the ideal accommodations now. Hope to rent scooters to tour the beaches but more on that tomorrow.

Adios!

Que ce que la f**k

Hi everyone,

Well yesterday was quite eventful. Due to the hostel being full we had to leave at 9am and find somewhere else to stay. We found a hotel recommended by David and Yvonne that we stayed at for the night, close to the hostel and decent price. We could not get in there until 12, however, so we travelled around Notre Dame and the Latin Quarter with our packs on. And yes I carried most of my own stuff, only giving Graham the really heavy stuff. After our check in we got lunch and headed to Monmartre, saw Sacre Coeur and Moulin Rouge. Unfortunately lunch did not sit well with Graham and he was sick for the evening and this morning; not out his pants this time, actual sick. He is feeling better now but is turned off by pizza and fanta.
This afternoon when my little patient was feeling better we toured around the louvre and attempted eiffel tower. We will go back there in the morning when it is not quite as busy...to go all the way to the top.
We are back at our fantastic hostel for the next two nights and then off to Caen. That is all to report. Unfortunately we cannot access USB plugs so until then there are no pictures...although no one wants to see what fanta and pizza look like in the reverse order! Picture that tonight when you go to bed.

Toodles!

Happy Birthday to Erich!!

Bonjour mes amigos!

Bonjour from the land of idiotic computer keyboards that are backwards to most... that took about 1 min to type.

Many thanks to David & Yvonne for taking care of/putting up with us over the past while. Paris today via chunnel train was a smooth ride. Indian food last night in Kingswood was a great idea; way too much of it saw disastrous consequences for a day of travel today. Wine and brie on the train made everything better for both of us.

Going to check out the area we are in this afternoon. The hostel we are in is amazing, huge and clean; kind of like me. Report back later after stuffing bellies with paté and fromage. A bientot!

A trip to the countryside...

So the other day I posted something on our blog and of course I was trying to make people laugh while I was writing about our adventures. However, Graham stays up all night the other night and thinks all day (which is why we lapsed a day on our blog) so he could think of something funnier to out-do me. So I am going to win this by not trying to be funny. I will just tell you that today we took a train out to Sussex where we travelled around with a Queen's professor. This is a man that Graham met while working at Frontenac and still kept in touch with. He took us around the country side and show us all the historical and famously geographical sites...I know sounds boring, but really it was quite neat. We went to a little pub had some foreign beer and were off being tourists again. All in all it was a quiet day of being toured around by an elderly man (50ish..just kidding all you parents/grandparents reading this; he was just plain old). We came back to the house and had a grand dinner prepared for us.
Tomorrow we are off to London again. It's our last day in England so we're going to be taking the open-top/double decker bus tour tomorrow to see all the sights that we have walked and then out for dinner. On Wednesday we will be leaving our lavish lifestyle behind and trading it up for eating stale bread under bridges or hostels infested by bed begs....woooooo!
Hope you are all doing well. PS thanks for posting back to us it makes us feel like you haven't forgetten about us over here in poor old Europe. By the way Sarah, your Queen's bus pass has gotten me in as a student b/c it has a 2009 sticker, so thank you for saving me money!

Cheerio! (oh and don't worry soon we'll stop typing in British accents and start typing in French...b/c you are all reading this with a British accent right?)

Are you guys American?

Sorry to miss catching up on the last couple days, so here we go:

- Hampton Court Palace is the most palacial set of buildings one will ever see. Huge former home of Henry VIII and his seven wives, most of whom he ended up beheading. Strange how this country has survived with centuries of messed up leaders. I guess the US is still chugging along, though.
- If you were to travel across the Atlantic, you'd likely hope to hit something unique. Trafalger Square is unique on its own. Thousands of people gay-priding is something beyond unique. Its a shame we can't post pictures yet, but the Indian wearing a leather thong and headdress was likely the highlight of it all. Wouldn't let Jess let go of my hand for fear of being fondled by the 6'6" transvestite. Trappers thought it had the best tranny in the world, but they aren't looking globally enough. This man was badass.
- Buckingham Palace was a little more tame and gave me the opportunity to try the Prince Harry entrance. It goes something like this:
Guard: You can't go in here
Me: It's OK, I'm Prince Harry
Guard: Are you American?
Me: No, Canadian. Can I come in?
Guard: Back to silence

- Harrods is a world famous department store. I've never heard of the brand Billionaire before, but they make somewhat Don Cherry-type suits and jackets. Price tag: £1200. Harrods is ridiculous, yet hobos are still allowed to yell at triple-guarded Mercedes outside.
- Covent Garden market is a busy place on the weekend. With buskers, performers, pickpockets and pubs, this was THE place to be. Hung around for about 3 hours and worked on our burn lines. Saw a man balance a 40lb. bicycle on his head for about 5 minutes. And apparently, eating a 5 foot long balloon is very common around the market; Patrick could learn something from these people.
- Yesterday was off to Oxford, home of the snooty scholar. A 2 hour bus ride was the low-light out of London's never-ending rush hour but all was worth it upon arrival. Castles and buildings from the 14th and 15th centuries dominated Oxford and most have been converted into a school of some form or another. To all those wondering, YES, we went to the White Horse Pub - home of filming for the British smash depresso-drama Inspector Morse! A couple of ales (and lager) later, Jess and I were mingling with the Brits explaining, once again, how we were not from the US.
- Moral of the story: We don't introduce ourselves to the Brits by asking, "Are you an asshole?" so why they insist on introducing themselves by asking, "Are you American?" is beyond us. Should have brought pieces of bacon or beaver pelt or something I guess.

All is well! Jess's neck is 95% back to normal. Ready to sling up those packs when we go to Paris on Wed.

Pip pip,

G&J

The beginning of ALOT of walking...

Today we were real Londonians; we took the train into the city and then rode the 'tube' all throughout London. We saw alot of the city through walking and taking the tube (for those of you non-Londonians the tube is what Canadians call the 'subway'). Anyway, just to name drop, we saw London bridge (which was not falling down), Tower bridge, the Tower of London (and all the crown jewels), the London Eye, Westminster Abby, Big Ben (the clock, not the horse..Perth still has that claim to fame), Buckingham Palace, St. Pauls Cathedral, and a ALOT of bad fashion styles. We slammed down some beer-battered fish and chips and rinsed our palates with some nice cold brewskies, bro. Graham has already been referred to as Prince Harry and he thinks he can milk that for a while.
Anywho, tomorrow we are off to King Henry VIII house to tour around then heading into London again to visit some Markets. All in all the day has been great, only a few blisters, some tired legs, some cloudy skies (no rain); but nothing a few beer/glasses of wine can't fix.
Blog soon,
Graham and Jess

PS we can't add pictures right now; they will come when possible (including the pictures of some incredible fashion statements)

A cup of tea?

Happy Thursday!

We have arrived in London and were welcomed warmly by our lovely David and Yvonne. Weather is beyond tropical and we are about to enjoy a lunch(eon) garden-side in the summer house.
Plane ride was fairly uneventful when they show two 'romantic comedies' back to back. Jess's's neck is feeling better for those who are wondering....
Pictures to follow.
Off to wine and dine!

G&J