Sunday, September 27, 2009

Cinque Terre, Venice, and Rome

This is Vernazza, which is probably the most picturesque of the five towns. Monterosso was our favorite though. These each had their own little special thing about them though. We just liked the beach.

Vernazza, which is the town closest to where we stayed in Monterosso. We were able to take this picture on one of our hikes, looking back down on the town.


This is Manorola, we didnt spend much time in this small town




We took a boat ride from Monterosso to Riomaggoire the other end at Sunset. It was a quick, only about 20 minutes, but beautiful ride.










We got into Venice in the evening. We took a boat across from where we were staying. There are so many cannels in Venice.





This is one of the largest cannels in Venice. This is where the larger boat taxis travel. They would not fit in some of the smaller cannels.








Sorry a little blurry.








We checked out of our hostel and headed back to the city. We had to carry our back because there was no place to put our bags for a short time because the lines were too long. We then headed off to Rome.








After going to Vatican city we were walking around seeing other churches. This area on the hill had the best view of the city.











Day 49, Rome, Italy

The dumb (kaylee had to edit this word Simon used more explicit language) Computer!!! I spent 30 minutes writing up our days spent in Gimmelwald and as I was pressing the publish button the computer reset itself. Needless to say that ended our stay at that internet cafe. We are now back in a cafe that we used yesterday, we talked that other guy down in price a bit after his computer wasted our time and left. So I will try to recreate the elloquent verbage that I once created.

Since the last time we blogged we have been in Gimmelwald, Switzerland; Nice, France; The Cinque Terre, Italy; Venice, Italy; and now are on our second night in Rome, Italy.

Our first evening in Gimmelwald was spent exploring the small mountain town , located 4,000 feet up the Alps near Interlaken, searching for the Alps among the thick, quickly moving clouds. Apology in advance, there won't be any pictures from Gimmelwald because we don't have the right memory card with us at the moment. We spent our first night in the mountains making dinner in the Mountain Hostel kitchen. We made a pizza using their challenging oven. Not only was it in celscius but it also only had one temperature remaining on the broken knob so we had no way of knowing which way was up and which way was down. While we were eating we met a few people: Meradith, from Hawaii, who we road up to Gimmelwald with on the Gondola and Jim and Alecia, from Seattle.

Sorry, this will have to be continued tommorow night because Blogger is acting up and only publishing when it feels like it so rather than waste any more of our time with the stupid (once again word choice much different) computer we will try again later.

Simon and Kaylee

Day 49, Rome, Italy

We bow before Andy and Kelsey's blogging prowess! Sorry it has been so long.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009






























































































































































































































































Day 38, Gimmelwald, Switzerland

It has been many days since we last wrote, we are sorry about that. The last couple of weeks have been very fun but also very busy. Since we last wrote we have covered 5 new countries and we are now in our 6th.

Country 1- Sweden
We took the night train from Trondheim, Norway to Stockholm, Sweden. We ended up getting to Sweden at about 6:30 in the morning. We only spent one night there. It was also very epensive just like Norway.

Country 2- Denmark
We spent two nights in Copenhagen. I think it was one of our favorite big cities. We spent the evening walking around Copenhagen. The weather was good to us. We were lucky with our accomidations in Copenhagen. We stayed at the Wake up hotel. It was only three days old when we moved in for a few nights. The prices were cheap, we figured they would be going for atleast twice as much as soon as the building was completely up and running. The next two days in never stopped raining.

Country 3- Germany(Berlin)
Our first stop in Germany was Berlin. Berlin is huge. We spent 11 hours walking and still didnt (sorry punctuation doesnt not all ways work out, I can never find it on the keyboard because each country is different) cover all of the city. We tried some real German food. Simon had a brotwurst with a roll plus saurkrot, not so good it was really sweet. I had Döner (meat thing with other stuff mixed in) on like a pita with lettuce, simon ended up eatting it also, not a fan. We saw the Berlin wall, Reichstag (capital building), and many other attractions on our all day walk.

Contry 4- Czech Republic
We then spent two nights in Prague. Kelsey and Andy recommended the Hostel Bridge, we ended up staying there it was in a perfect location, right next to the Charles Bridge. This was the first place that we had been that the weather stayed beautiful the entire time we were there. We loved walking the streets in Prague becasue there was always so much activity going on. We also went to a black light show. It was a lot of fun and great comedy.

Country 5- Austria
We then headed on to Salzburg, it was a little bit smaller of a city but still lots to see. We went for a hike, where you could over look the entire city. We also went to a beautiful fortress. It would have been an amazing view, but a storm decided to roll through. We had some thunder and lightning to spice up our excursion. This ended up being one of our favorite hostels so far. We shared a room with 2 other people. It was a recently remodeled hostel. We had a ton of fun hanging out in the bar because we ended up meeting 10+ people from Australia. It was really nice to talk to people that were native english speakers.

County 3- Germany
We then headed back to Munich, to meet up with some of Simons relatives (Dearys Cousin). We enjoyed our time very much with them. Terry took us to Dachau the first full day, it was definiatly a good experience. After words she took as to one of her favorite German Biergartens. I didnt realize that some beer gardens you were still allowed to bring your own food, they all started out that way. Monday morning we woke up to Rainer, who was cooking us a traditional German breakfast, White sausage, sweet mustard, pretzel, and a cold Weiss beer. Very good. Rainer then showed us around the city. Took us to the Alliance arena (Bayer Munchen stadium), showed us a local market (it was huge, made me hungry), and then took us to the Hofbrahaus. We there enjoyed a few Liters of beer (so much beer but it was soo good and I dont love beer that much). We enjoyed our beer with the most local of the locals. They were dressed in a German outfit. These men are the leaders of the parade that starts the oktober festival off. We felt like we were someone special.

Country 6- Switzerland
We are now in Switzerland. Yesterday we took the train into Interlaken, and then the bus to a small town called Iseltwald. Our hostel was great. It was right on the lake. We had a private balcony that over looked the alps and the beautiful lake. We have now just got to Gimmelwald, which is located up in the Swiss alps. Yep it is raining and we are just waiting to check in.

I hope everything is going good at home. We are having a great trip so far. I think today is the half way mark. We have seen so much but still have a ton to see.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Day 23 Movie from the Lighthouse were we went fishing.

Day 23 Pictures from Tronheim

Simon and Ole
The fish we caught, my fish is on the bottom, we think its name translates to Cod.

German gun emplacment near the lighthouse.











For those of you interested in fashion I am modeling authentic Norwegian military rain gear, thanks to Ole. If I understood correctly the military threw this set away new, maybe what we would call surplus.





Ole, Kaylee, and I fishing near the light house.














My first and only Norwegian catch, and the biggest I have ever caught, about 1 kilo.








Kaylee and Ingrid




















After fishing in the pouring rain for over an hour the weather broke and a giant double rainbow was visible for more than ten minutes.






































It was sunny all day until we were halfway into our one hour trip to the fishing spot...then it started pouring! It was still a lot of fun!