The last leg - london round 2
Our first day back in london was spent pretty low key as we had a
early afternoon flight from Dublin. We checked into the same hostel as
our first go around and dropped off our packs. We headed into
liecester square and got some chinese, 40 lbs per person so $80
american each. but it was good! after that we were all pretty beat so
we decided to go see spiderman 3 at this really cool theatre in the
square. That was pretty much it for that day as the trip had been
starting to take it's toll on us.
The next day we got up really early thinking we had to get picked up
at this hotel about a mile away for our tour of bath, Stone henge and
windsor castle. As it turns out they were scheduled to pick us up at
our hostel so we luckily discoverd that early enough to get back to
meet up with our driver. This was an all day tour with
lots of long drives on a small van/bus. It took over an hour to reach
our first stop of stone henge. Our luck of good weather was still
with us as even though it was cloudy it didnt rain. The area around
stone henge was very, very green! kinda the way we expected it to be
in Ireland. The whole ride out was filled with really nice rolling
hills. We did a walking tour when we got there and took pictures of
the area. It was alot smaller then we expected but still a pretty cool
place, not much is really known for what it's actual purpose was besides being a possible calender. Everything else in the tour was
mere speculation. From there we got back in the vans for another hour-plus ride to the city of Bath. Bath is a city built around Hot
springs. It was very cool place and the ruins there were from the
Romans. It was amazing to see just how advanced the Romans were in the
design of the Buildings which had plumbing and heated floors. The
water from the spring was said to have healing properties and we were
able to drink a galss full. It did not taste good! After the walk
through we were able to chill out in the surrounding town. The area
was particularly beutiful, even comparing to parts of paris. The
whole city was in a valley and the buildings stacked in rows higher
and higher along the hill side. From there we jumped back into the
vans and headed to Windsor Castle. The Castle is one of the largest in
the world and had a really cool feel to it. It looked more like an old
fortress from braveheart or something, from the outside. The inside
was very rich, decorated with lavish art and such. After our tour was over we
stayed in downtown London until it got dark. We took a ride on the
London eye, which is a huge ferris wheel structure that has pods that
hold around 20 people or so. It was a half hour ride all the way
around and gave us a pretty cool view of london. After our ride we
waited for it to get darker and then took alot of night pictures of
Big-Ben, Parliment, and the Eye. It was our last night in London so we
went back, got cleaned up and spent the rest of the night at a Bar not
far from the hostel. It was actually very crowded,
especially for a sunday night. Good times.
We are currently at the airport waiting to get on our flight. Thanks
for checking the blog when you could and sorry for not posting every
day as we would have liked. CHEERS! See you soon, sooooooo many pics
to show! - John

some pics

Dublin day 2

Glendalough Adventure! - Dublin Day 2
Today we had a day trip to Glendalough. The trip was on a large bus and filled with a good mix of older and young people. The tour guide was great, awesome sense of humor. He told us about Dublin as we picked people up and then we headed towards Glendalough. The first stop was at the edge of Dublin and it was a place where some of the Irish people swim year round. There were some swimmers there that day but the temperature was a lot warmer than what it is like in January when they also swim. He said a lot of these people live very long lives and he thinks it has to do with the fact they swim everyday all year round. The next stop on the trip was on the edge of Glendalough, the Guiness Gardens. We mainly stopped there for coffee and cake but John and I had a an excellent brunch. In fact, the food was so good that we would have expected that type of food in Paris but we ended up finding in a random Irish tourist stop. The ride through Glendalough was amazing. The green and brown hills were quite beautiful. We stopped at a couple places on the side of the road to take pictures. One of the places was Guiness Lake. They call it Guiness Lake because the white beach at the top of the lake mixes with the black water and it looks like a spilled pint of Guiness. There was also a really cool estate that was part of the lake and apparently Michael Jackson stayed there for quite a while. The last stop on the trip we saw an old church and some celtic crosses before taking a walk down a trail. We talked with some of the young people on the walk and met some cool people from Canada and Portugal. Before we got on the bus the tour guide broke out a bottle of Jameson and we all took shots before we got on the bus. On the way home the tour guide borrowed my iPod and everyone listened to U2 while we drove back to Dublin. That night in Dublin we went out to dinner and ended up at a bar right next to Trinity College that was filled with college students. They played good music and we just chilled and took shots of Jameson.

Dublin day 1

Guinness time! - Dublin Day 1After a difficult time navigating through the airport in Paris and dealing with some snooty french people we finally were on our way to Dublin. Paris was a really amazing experience but overall we just didnt digg the people there. It was a nice short flight over to Dublin and we got a cab over to our hostel next to Temple Bar. We got in a little early so instead of checking in we just dumped our packs off and started to walk around. Now the area we are in is next to trinity college so the majority of the streets were loaded with college students. This made the night life pretty awesome as well. We bought all day tour bus tickets that allow you to jump on and off these busses that take you to all the cool parts of town. Getting driven around and seeing Dublin we definatly all felt the most at home here. Over the last 5 years or so the said they have done alot to clean up the city and that coupled with the college town atmosphere made you feel like you were basically in america. We rode around on the bus for a bit but got off at St. Patricks cathedral to check it out. Now after the churches we saw in Paris, St. Pattys was kinda anti-climactic. It was still very beutiful of course and we were there at a perfect time of day when light hitting the stained glass windows streams down onto the pues so Tyler got some great pics. Next stop on the tour was the GUINNESS FACTORY!!!! We spent the rest of the day there, it was fantastic. At the top of the brewery is a bar with a 360 degree view of dublin so we just kinda chilled up there and had a few beers. we went back to the hostel after that and checked into our room. The rest of the night was spent at Temple Bar which is a very cool place. It had a pretty mixed crowd with alot of older locals but also a good mix from the college students and travelers.

Paris day 2

Today we had a Paris day tour. We ate breakfast at the hostel, bread and jam, then we got picked up for the tour. The tour was a small mini van with 4 other people and the driver/tour guide. There was a couple from Louisiana and French couple. Our first stop was Montmarte, church of the sacred heart and artist square. The church was really nice and the view of the city outside was really cool. The artisit square was also really cool but we were there so early and not many of the artists were there yet. Our next stop was Notre Dame Cathedral. The Cathedral was pretty cool but not as nice as the previous church or Westminster Abbey. After Notre Dame, we went to the Eifel Tower for lunch. The food was pretty good for a tourist restaurant. After the tower we took a boat ride down the river and learned about everything on handheld translators, very wierd. The tour dropped us off at the Opera metro station and we took the metro to the cemetary to visit Jim Morrison's grave. The cemetary was really cool, above ground caskets and really cool stonework. The cemetary was like a maze but we eventually found it. We were expecting a little more from the grave but we learned they cleaned it up a lot in 2001. There were flowers and candled on the stone, also a couple of pairs of dog tags. Very strangely, a cat came out of nowhere and sat next to us when we were there, hmmmmmmmmmmm. After the cemetary we headed down to the Latin District and ate dinner at an Italian restaurant on a cool winding road outside that tons of people were walking through. The restaurant looked tourist cheesy, serving Pizza and with English on the menu. Suprisingly, the food was rather excellent. I think that was the best parmesan style dish I have ever had. We hung out there for quite a while and John and I drank a couple of bottles of red wine. It didn't get dark until about 9 o'clock, pretty late for the sun to go down, we thought. We walked around after dinner and stopped at an internet cafe for a bit and then had some coffee and belgian waffles at a patisserie. Not much after that, talk to you soon.

paris day 1

Paris day 1- Today we took a train from amsterdam to paris. the ride was very relaxing but unfortunatly the view you get on a train ride doesnt usually show you the best area's of a country. When we arrived in Paris we took the subway to the wrong stop and ended up wandering through the streets sweating our butts off. It is definetly warmer here by a good amount. We finally checked into our hostel which was a tiny room, dropped our packs and went out for some lunch. We didnt really have an idea of what we wanted to see or where anything was located but Big T took command and we went to the center of the city near Notre Dame. We actually didnt find the church but instead ended up by the leuve which was totally amazing. The building is beautiful and we hung out there and got alot of cool pics. The museum itself was closed though so we did not get to see any of the famous works inside unfortunatly. After seeing the leuve and walking out and seeing the eiffel tower and the famous archs down the road we finally felt like we were in Paris. From there we just chilled and really started to take it in. It's an amazing place with so much history. Once we saw the eiffel tower we started to head in that direction to get some food and some cool night pics. We are gonna save most of them to show you all when we get back but Tyler took some incredible shots. After that we basically just went back to the hotel to crash.

France

we are alive. Our Hostle doesnt have internet. Check back tomrrow for update. FYI PARIS IS SICK!!!!!!!!!



-T


ps...... Tree there is 12 people playing wow at this internet cafe

Queens Day

Hello today was Queens day in Amsterdam. We got a really late start to the day sleeping until noon. We went to get some food and met up with about 60o,000 people walking in the street. It was pretty intense, the city transit was shut down as the streets are flooded by people and street vendors. Today we probably did the most walking of the whole trip and the days soundtrack was basically loud house music everywhere you went. The canals were loaded with boats and most everybody was wearing orange. It was very mardigras-esc with the floats in the streets being replaced by packed boats on the canals. If there wasn't hous music filling our ears it was cover bands or these 2 kickass jazz guitarists that we watched for awhile. They were pretty good. We ended up stopping at the same bakery from yesterday and got more of those cookies and this amazing waffle thing that had sugar in the middle of it. For dinner we had steaks with french fries and mayo (everything has massive amounts of mayo on it). At the end of the night the streets were filled with alot of trash.

no pics for queens day. what happens in amsterdam stays in amsterdam

Amsterdam Day One

Hello everyone, good day to you. We got up real early to get to Gatwick Airport to fly to Amsterdam. On the train from Victoria Station to Gatwick we luckily went past the factory from the Animals album cover, John was very happy to say the least. We arrived in Amsterdam and we had no idea where to go. We eventually found out we needed to take a tram. By the way, Amsterdam has some of the most gorgeous women we have ever seen. That is probably why We couldn't focus very well on figuring out where to go in the first place.
We had lunch near Central Station and then took the tram near our hotel. We almost missed our stop because we had no idea what they were saying for the stops. We finally asked where to go and found our hotel. The hotel is pretty nice. There are 4 single beds in the room and we were happy to shower up and change our clothes. The temperature was about 75 degrees and lugging our bags around sucked, so you get the point.
We headed into the main part of the city and it was already crowded and Queensday isn't until tomorrow. Amsterdam is really cool, a bit dirty but the canals and cobble stone streets are unbelievable. We headed over to Anne Frank's House first. We waited on line for about an hour and a half. I always imagined it was just a big attic room but it was a series of rooms connected. It is really scary to think how they felt living there and always being afraid of getting caught. After the tour, we walked around the city more and ended up eating an early dinner at a cool little restaurant on a canal. We sat at an outside table and had unbelievable sandwich's and drank coffee. After dinner we stopped by this croissant bakery and Tyler got this Apple Turnover that he loved, he also got these almond cookies and when he ate those he practically was dancing in the streets. Tyler is very wierd by the way.
We went back to the hotel and napped for a couple of hours and then we headed out on the town. Tyler took some pictures while we were walking around and then we stopped at this outside Irish pub. The city was already starting to get a little crazy with circus acts and stages with outside concerts going on.

-B

Twas the day before amsterdam...

Hello all! Today we got to sleep in a bit, which we sorely needed. Luckily the canadien dudes left from the hostel and were replaced by fresh smelling and at least mildly attractive women. These women also brought the added bonus of not snooring so loud so happiness all around! Now we had a rock'n roll tour around 2pm so even though we got up around 11 we figured we had some time to kill. Unfortunatly for us we asked about three diffrent people directions to where the tour began and each person put us in a diffrent direction so we actually missed the begining! We were pretty set on going though so we called the tour group and the told us where to meet up with them. The tour was really cool as london is about as good as it gets as far as rock history goes. We saw where both jimmy hendrix and freddy mercury died and got to cross abbey road. Unfortuantly, and i am pissed for this, we missed the floyd part of the tour so we didnt get to see the factory that the used for the "animals" cover or the studio they recored their first singles and atom heart mother in..... :( The tour guide was pretty chill though and we got to see Camden where most of the music scene is and the younger crowd hangs out. The Rock tour was supposed to be followed by the phantom pub tour we had missed before. We waited again and again no tour! We are not sure if we are going in the wrong place or if this tour group just sucks but we made other plans instead. We ended up going back to camden for drinks and had a good time. A few local ladies took an interest in our boy T! He had to fight them off before they could get thier meathooks in'em! After the bar we decided to get a late dinner and hit up some indian food. It was self destruction.... - john

london day 2

So our first night has past. We didn't make it the whole day without taking a short nap, it helped. We went to dinner at the White Lion, which was right across from the real Nag's Head. Tyler ordered the mad cow burger. He asked for it medium and the waitress looked at him like he was suicidal. He ended up getting it well done. After dinner we went back to the hostel real quick and went to a pub and just chilled the rest of the night. When we were at the hostel we tested John's alarm clock and we couldn't get it to work, funny story about that later, we ended up buying another one at a convenience store. At the pub We had some Guiness, which we think had more alcohol in it then at home, John was complaining that he couldn't feel his teeth.

Sleeping at the hostel was interesting to say the least. There was 12 people in our room including us. The room stunk of BO and there was a harmony of snoring all night. None of us slept well, without the annoying atmosphere it was hard enough adjusting to the time difference. About an hour into sleeping an alarm starts going off. Everyone gets up and is looking around to see who was turning it off. A long minute or two later Tyler and I figured out it was John's broken alarm clock and we woke him up. He took it out and the screen was blank, the thing had a mind of it's own, that would only happen to John. By the way, our Pub tour was rescheduled to Saturday night, if you were wondering.

Today we did the London Tour. First we went to the tower of London, then a cruise down the river, Westminster Abbey and finally Buckingham palace. We learned a lot and saw many cool places. Right now Tyler and John are hacking in a London park while I am writing this on a bench. We are heading to dinner soon, we are thinking Indian or Thai. Tomorrow we have the rock and roll tour and the pub tour, we'll let you know how those go and if anything else crazy happens tonight.

London

Well, we caught an early flight to London. I think we got a grand total of 2 hours of sleep, if we were lucky. The underground was easy to follow but we got a little lost looking for the hostel. After walking in a huge circle we found it and dropped our packs off. We just walked around London, ate lunch in the street and are now having coffee to try and keep ourselves awake. We stil have a few hours to go until our Pub Tour tonight, stay tuned for more!

We would love to see your comments as well. Hope you enjoy the pictures.

This is where we will post or pics and vids from our trip