Slow Times in Vienna

June 8, 2013 by sheeniebeanie

Viennese Parliament

Like many places we have visited, we went to Vienna with no idea what to expect. We had heard that it was beautiful, and that drinking coffee in a cafe was a must. While Vienna was one of the most beautiful cities we had been to it was definitely the most uninteresting.

We booked our stay at Wombats Naschmarkt. We chose the Naschmarkt location because the Naschmarkt is a huge foreign street market and we love tasting foreign foods.

When we arrived at our hostel, the guy checking us in couldn’t find our reservation. He asked if we booked at one of the other Wombats locations. We were exhausted from a 5 hour train ride from Prague and using two underground train lines to find the hostel. If we had shown up at the wrong hostel we were not excited to get back on the trains and start again. After awkwardly watching the front desk guy fumble for 20 minutes, trying to explain that our reservation was lost and that unfortunately the hostel was full and he wasn’t sure what he could do for us….his manager showed up and told him he was looking at the booking from one of the other two locations and our reservation popped right up. The front desk guy apologized profusely and gave us four free drinks at the bar and two free breakfast vouchers. We expressed no hard feelings and happily checked into our room.

The hostel itself was the nicest one we had ever been to. It was built in the last year and reminded us of living in the dorms in university. Our room was clean and huge. There were two bunk beds in the large space. Most hostels would have tried to fit at least three bunk beds in the room. We also had an ensuite bathroom which is a luxury when you are backpacking.

We decided to go to dinner and try some authentic on current customers – probably hard to find officially Schnitzel. We went to a restaurant and were left waiting in our seats for 15 minutes before even getting a menu. In Europe customer service is not as highly prized as in North America, while in most places we visited customer service was adequate, a lot of times we would sit in a restaurant and wait up to 20 minutes for anyone to even acknowledge us. After reading the menu, Gavin ordered classic Vienner schnitzel and I ordered a Cordon Bleu Schnitzel. Despite the wait and the warm soda, the Vienner Schnitzel was amazing, the best I had ever had. My Cordon Bleu was delicious ( although the ham was a bit salty).

After our meal we casually strolled to the local grocery store. There were three grocery stores right next to our Hostel. Our Hostel had a nice kitchen so we wanted to pick up some food for the following day. To our surprise all three stores were closed at 7pm. We thought nothing of the early closure and hung out in our hostel. We looked into possible free tours that we could do but shockingly there was none in Vienna. Our hostel offered free tours, but only on Monday Wednesday Friday and Saturday. We had unfortunately arrived late on Saturday so we couldn’t do the tour until Monday.

The next day we woke up bright and early to go to the grocery store. The strange thing was all three grocery stores were closed. We discovered that Vienna had very strict laws stating that no stores be open on Sundays, only restaurants. Gavin and I were dumbfounded. No tour, no stores, was there anything to do in Vienna on a Sunday other than go to a coffee shop and eat? It’s safe to say that we had an in day.

The following day we woke up bright and early to do our free tour! The best tour we had ever done was with Ozzy in Munich. Ozzy worked exclusively for Wombats so we expected good things from this tour. The tour started at ten but we weren’t too concerned about time because every tour we had ever done started ten minutes later than they said it would. So at 10:02 when we noticed our tour group was gone, once again we were dumbfounded. We managed to catch up to the tour guide a quarter of a block away.

Our tour guide was elderly and did not relate to the travellers she was guiding. She spoke softly and stopped at a really inconvenient corners where there was a lot of traffic. She never waited for her group to completely gather before speaking and among other things, lacked the charisma, vibrance, and excitement that a tour guide should have. Within minutes we knew that this was the absolute worst tour we had ever been on. This was confirmed by a few people in our group who quickly lost interest when our guide spoke. Gavin and I took this as our cue to leave. We had never been so dissatisfied with a tour before and found ourselves bored and unsure of what to do.

The Naschtmarkt

We wandered around the Naschmarkt for a bit before we used our guide map to find the museum quarter. The museum quarter had five huge museums in former palaces. While the museums would have been interesting to visit we were not too interested in having to spend hours listening to an audio guide because everything was in German. After walking around the museum quarter we walked around to some beautiful local parks. The parks all had really beautiful fountains with tons of benches and chairs. We walked towards the canal and walked through the main shopping district. During our walk we went by the Viennese Parliament and noticed a bizarre protest. The protest had about 7 people with a pre-recorded tape poorly playing their chant on a loop. After a long day of walking we went back to the Naschmarkt and bought some Turkish Delight. Unfortunately the Turkish Delights were terrible and we realized that unless you are in Turkey don’t ever buy Turkish Delights. We ate at another local restaurant and enjoyed more delicious Vienner Schnitzel.

Vienna was very beautiful, so much incredible architecture, museums, music, operas, and more parks and green space than we had ever seen in a city centre. I’m sure that if there was an opera or a musical to see we would have truly enjoyed ourselves. However as it stands, we did not enjoy our time in Vienna and found it difficult to immerse ourselves in the city and culture due to a lack of tour guides and anything to do.

Adventures in Prague

June 8, 2013 by sheeniebeanie

Astronomical clock

A recurring theme in our adventure is our desire to go to cities we’ve heard of, but as soon as we arrive we have no idea what to do once we are there. The only thing we knew about Prague was that everyone says ‘it’s so beautiful’. We checked into our hostel, Hostel One Prague, we stayed with the Hostel One group in Barcelona. Our room was fantastic. We had a full kitchen and a loft with two extra beds, we had so much space to ourselves and it was a welcomed change from the usual hostel rooms we’ve stayed in.

Our first night we decided we would have some local Czech cuisine and went to a local restaurant. We had some roast beef medallions topped with some berried jam, with gravy and bread dumplings. The meal was amazing and super cheap, about 100 Czech Crowns which is 5 dollars Canadian. We went back to our hostel and thought to ourselves, ‘how could we stay in such an amazing room with such cheap food for only three nights’? We immediately changed our booking to stay an extra night and changed our next booking in Vienna.

Prague

The next day we took the tram to the old square to do our free tour. On the tour we saw the Astronomical Clock (the third most disappointing tourist attraction in Europe), The Charles Bridge (a beautiful large bridge lined with statues), the Old Jewish Quarter with the Jewish Cemetery, and many facts about the city and its history. The Old Jewish Cemetery was very interesting because we had just seen the Holocaust memorial in Berlin. When looking at the cemetery you could see the influence it had on the memorial. The cemetery was one and a half stories high with so many headstones jammed into one space. It looked so cluttered and depressing. The reason for the cluttering and the height was because back in the 15^th to 18^th Century the Jewish people in Prague could only bury their loved ones in one space, and when they ran out of space they added soil to the existing graves, removed the tombstones and placed the tombstones on top of the new layer of soil resulting in 12 layers of graves with over 12,000 tomb stones visible.

Midway through our tour our tour guide took a 30 minute break. Gavin and I wandered over to the Old Square to get some street meat. Gavin had been excited to go to the Czech Republic because they were historically linked to Bavaria, the land of Pork Knuckle. We found some ham and potato salad at a wooden stall. The potato salad was sold by weight, 30 crowns per 100 grams. But when the woman put it into the bowl it was definitely more than 100 grams. When we were given a huge hunk of ham (which was mostly fat), the price came to 880 Crowns. At first we didn’t completely get the conversion until we sat and thought about it. One Canadian dollar is 20 Crowns, which meant for a hunk of ham and some potato salad we paid 44 Canadian dollars!!!!

Following the tour we did a beer tour with our tour guide Bara. She was really smart and knew a lot about beer. We first went to a beer museum with over 30 different kinds of beer. Gavin ordered a beer taster of a stout, a chocolate, a cherry, and a couple of dark ales. The chocolate beer was very strong and not great tasting. We went to a few more places followed a place where Gavin and I ordered a Czech specialty of half a duck and some potato dumplings with red cabbage. It was very delicious. The last place Bara took us to was an old communist bar called Vodka Bar. The bar was covered in communist propaganda posters and had specialty flavoured Vodka like Honey Thyme, Jalapeño, Mars Bar, Green Tea, Coffee, and Saffron. We had a single beer and quickly left the bar after our tour guide had left. The majority of the people on our tour followed.

The following morning we wandered the city. We ended up making our way to the Prague Castle which was on the other side of the river and up a large hill. This day may not have sounded that exciting but there was a lot of beautiful architecture that we walked by. That night Gavin did a beer tour with our hostel and I stayed behind and read.

Sedlec Ossuary in Kutna Hora

The next day we did a day tour to Kutna Hora, a town about an hour outside of Prague. Kutna Hora was historically a town that minted the silver for most of Europe hundreds of years ago. The town was also the home of a bone chapel, The Sedlec Ossuary. Since we missed the Paris Catacombs we really wanted to see the chapel. When we arrived in the town we learned the bus from the train station left every 30 minutes. We decided that instead of waiting 20 minutes for the bus we would walk the kilometre and a half to the bone chapel. The walk was long and hot, but

We figured we would catch the bus from the bone chapel to the town so 20 minutes in the sun was no big deal. When we arrived at the bone chapel the building was so cold and dark. The Ossuary was decorated with the bones of 40,000 to 70,000 people. The human remains took the form of chandeliers (which contains at least one of every bone from the human body), and coats of arms. After the chapel we had just missed the bus into town. We decided that waiting 30 minutes for another one would be silly so we walked the remaining 3.5km into town. It was about 34 degrees and boiling hot. A walk that normally would have been no big deal was suddenly uncomfortable and heat stroke inducing. We both had headaches from lack of water. When we finally reached the town we went to the local museum and signed up for the tour of the silver mine.

Inside the Hradek Mine

The ancient underground silver mine, Hradek dates back to the 1300’s. The tour was all in Czech, but they gave us a pamphlet with english translation so we could understand most of it. They showed us a replica of the old wheelhouses, great machines powered by 6 pairs of horses that would draw up great leather satchels that would hold the ore. Afterwards, they gave us robes that were replicas of what the miners once wore and we descended down a staircase to one of the shallowest tunnels. It was extremely cramped and damp, with low ceilings and suffocatingly narrow corridors. There were other tunnels smaller still that one would have to crawl through in order to get to. We were told some of the tunnels went 600m deep, which seems incredible for the technology of the time. After we emerged into the sunlight again, they had replicas of the forges and coin striking processes the mined silver would undergo after it had been brought up. It was a really neat experience.

Following our tour of the silver mine we promptly walked back to the train station. The walk wasn’t so bad this time ( it wasn’t noon and we had water). We took the train back to Prague. We spent the evening hanging out in the Hostel bar.

The bartenders were very fun and had a great energy. The only draw back was that in Prague you can still smoke in bars, and this bar was in a basement with no ventilation which resulted in our clothing reeking of smoke. Smoke aside we had a great time with this bunch and reluctantly packed our bags for Vienna.

Ich bin ein Berliner!

May 6, 2013 by sheeniebeanie

The train from Amsterdam to Berlin was about 5 hours long. When we arrived in Berlin we found our way to my Uncle Klaus’ apartment. Klaus was letting us stay with him while we were in Berlin. We were really excited because after being in so many hostels for so long it was nice to stay in a home. We were also excited because Klaus drove tour buses and knew all of the best tourist stops away from the downtown tourist districts. Klaus said he would take us out on Sunday so we had all day Saturday to wander on our own.

Holocaust Memorial

Saturday afternoon we went to the Brandenburg Gate to start our free tour. We were shocked to see our Irish friend Amanda whom we had met in Brussels a week before. It was a complete fluke that we ran into her for the tour. Our tour guide was really cool, but unfortunately due to the large volume of people on our tour ( forty people) we felt we couldn’t really get to know him or his personal insights which was unfortunate. We saw German Parliament which had a giant clear dome that you could watch people walking inside of. The clear dome was supposed to represent the transparency of government after Hitler’s dictatorship. Our next stop was the controversial Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe. The memorial was almost 5 acres of 2,711 rectangular concrete slabs arranged on a grid. The memorial was based on a Jewish Cemetery ( which we later see in Prague). The concrete slabs ranged from a few centimetres to 2meters in height. The memorial made you feel so many different things depending on your own personal views and interpretations. I felt like I was staring at physical bar graphs of murder while Gavin saw rows of concentration camp barracks. Afterwards we went to a plain parking lot which had a simple information sign telling the reader that it was the location of Hitler’s Bunker. After the bunker we went onto see a preserved section of the Berlin Wall, behind which were the preserved foundations of the former Gestapo headquarters.

Portion of the Berlin Wall

We were then shown the site of the famous Checkpoint Charlie, where a tank standoff between West and East Berlin came precariously close to heating up the Cold War. It is now jokingly referred to as the Disneyland of Berlin, as an entirely fabricated replica of the checkpoint has been built, along with German actors in American uniforms you can take photos next to. The tour ended at Museum Island, an island in the middle of the city populated with, shockingly, many museums.

At the end of our walking tour, we bought tickets to the pub crawl that night with Amanda, and agreed to meet up later at the beginning of the tour. We took a short break back at Klaus’s place before heading to the club crawl. We went to four pubs and the Matrix nightclub, which was underneath a bridge. We had fun, especially when running into an old friend, but we decided that we had enough evidence to dismiss clubs all over the world as sweaty, expensive and obnoxious places not worth our time. We would rather go to a quiet place for a drink to get to know people than a loud expensive club. That being said we got home at 4am.

The next day, Klaus had time to show us around some of his favorite sites. He drove us to the impressive Olympic Grounds where we climbed up a large tower overlooking the nearby stadium which was hosting a soccer game. There was also an exhibit about the 1936 Olympics and naziism. Next, he showed us a great red clock tower, the Grunewaldtrum, dedicated to Wilheim I. Afterwards we ate lunch at a beer garden in the nice weather. We then toured the grounds of Potsdam, the city of German Kaisers and the home of their most famous palaces. Klaus was an excellent tour guide, and had plenty of amusing local anecdotes.
The next day we returned to where the walking tour had begun and explored some of the sites we had been shown during the tour in greater detail. Upon reaching Museum Island, we visited the Pergamon Museum. The museum had impressive permanent exhibits and collections from Greek and Middle Eastern antiquity, including structures and massive gateways rebuilt within the confines of the building. The most impressive exhibits were the gates of Ishtar and the fully reconstructed Pergamon Altar.
This marked our final day in Berlin. We said goodbye to Klaus, and boarded yet another train towards the city of Prague, which we had heard so much about from our fellow travellers.

I Amsterdam

May 5, 2013 by sheeniebeanie

Amsterdam is one of my favourite cities. To many Amsterdam is known for two things, marijuana and prostitutes; to me it is a warm and welcoming city with friendly people and beautiful infrastructure. I have been to Amsterdam twice before with my dad and loved every time I visited. This visit was my first without my dad and Gavin’s first visit ever.

When we arrived in Amsterdam like most places we have visited we really didn’t know what to do or where to begin. Since we were in the city for six days we decided to use our arrival day as a day to relax. The next day we planned on doing a free tour at 11am. Unfortunately it was pouring rain so we declined the tour but waited to do the 1pm tour. Unfortunately, Gavin and I were boneheads and tried to find the meeting place without a map and failed to find the location. We spent our first full day wandering the streets. Our second day in Amsterdam we were determined to finally go on our tour.

Our free tour was given by a peppy British girl named Stephanie. Stephanie was very informative and showed us the former headquarters of the Dutch East India Company, the infamous Red Light District, hidden Catholic Churches, the worlds first stock exchange, Multatuli’s giant head, Anne Frank’s House and the Jewish Quarter. We also saw the widest bridge and skinniest house. At the end of the tour we were invited to enjoy some local Dutch cuisine, Stampot, which is a sausage on top of mashed potatoes with cheese and carrot and gravy mixed in. From here we signed up for the Red Light District and bike tour. Gavin signed up for the Coffee shop tour.

With Our Tour Guide Lee

Later that day we went on our red light district tour. We were particularly interested in the tour because we wanted to learn the history of Amsterdam’s most controversial neighbourhood. Our tour guide Lee was amazing. The best tour guide we had in a long time. Lee lived in the Red Light District and knew a lot about the people and what was going on, so she was able to answer any and every question we had. As many of you know prostitution is legal in Amsterdam and treated as a freelancing business but is kept strictly in the red light district. The sex workers are able to work legally and have protection from police officers making the roles of pimps and drugs almost nonexistant.The strangest thing was that the main concept of the area was for the workers and their patrons to maintain a sort of anonymity yet the workers stood in windows under red lights posing in underwear. The most interesting thing about the area was that the European Union wanted the space to be gentrified so the Dutch government was paying up to €5 million Euros for a single building to display fashionable clothing in the window instead. It was educational to see such a controversial space especially with such an amazing guide. I think the best thing about Lee was that she took us to a pub and didn’t ditch us after she got commission like every other tour guide we had from Sandemans. We hung out with a couple of cool Australians and had a pretty good night.

Bike Tour

The next day we went on a bike tour with Lee. I really wanted to do a bike tour in Amsterdam because the Dutch are such avid bike riders. The bikes they ride in Amsterdam are generally heavy land cruisers which are much different from the light mountain bikes we ride at home. When Gavin and I got our bikes we wobbled a lot because we hadn’t ridden bikes in a long time and also because we were not used to the heavy cruising bikes.

The bike tour took us across the many canals and to parts of Amsterdam tourists don’t usually see. We rode our bikes through Amsterdam’s Central Park, Oosterpark, past the last windmill in the city, De Gooyer Windmill, the Amsterdam Zoo ( where we saw giraffes and zebras), the Rijksmuseum, and the Heineken Brewery. At the Rijksmuseum we wanted to take a picture in front of the famous “I AMsterdam” letters, but the sign had been moved apart during a royal celebration. After the bike tour we met up with our Australian friend from the night before and her friend Neil from Scotland and we had a double date.

On our last full day in Amsterdam we wanted to accomplish every tourist thing on our list. First we went to Reypenaer, a family owned cheese store, and did a wine and cheese tour. We sat at desks and learned about how cheese was aged, how different aged cheeses taste, and then we were able to try each of the five cheeses they aged. We discovered so much about different cheese it was tasty and awesome! My favourite was the Chèvre which is like goat cheese.

Gavin then got a straight edge shave from a barber down the road from the cheese place. After the shave Gavin went on to do the “coffee shop” tour and I went shopping.

Amsterdam

After Gavin’s tour we met up and did a one hour canal tour on a long boat. The tour was comfortable and informative with a prerecorded tape describing all of the sites supplemented by the driver giving us local details about the surroundings. We finished the canal tour in front of Anne Frank’s House, the last tourist stop we wanted to see. I had been to Anne Frank’s house before and every time it fills you with so much emotion. I haven’t read the book in 15 years but her hopes and dreams quickly rushed back as we walked through the house she went into hiding in. When we finished the tour our last night in Amsterdam came to an end.

Lyon

April 18, 2013 by sheeniebeanie

Gavin and I had never heard of Lyon before but decided to stop there so that we wouldn’t have to make the 12 hour trek from Barcelona to Paris in one day. We also stopped there so we could take a break from all of the constant traveling we were doing (it also didn’t hurt that it was cheaper than Paris) When we made our reservations in Barcelona we had a bit of a problem. We were able to get reservations from Barcelona to Avignon but from Avignon to Lyon we only had 40 minutes to make a reservation for the high speed train when we arrived in Avignon.

Upon our arrival we raced to the ticket counter only to be told that only first class seats were available and that we would have to pay for the reservation as well as the difference between our 2nd class rail pass and the 1st class train ticket: €100. Or we could take a regional train that was three hours longer for free. We took the regional train.

When we boarded the regional train we were greeted with world famous French manners. Every single seat was taken. By taken I mean that one person would sit down then place their luggage on the seat next to them; even though there was plenty of space on the luggage rack above for their belongings.

Gavin and I travelled three train cars trying to find a seat until we gave up. We settled on sitting in two isle seats, one next to a woman who was occupying the seat next to her with her purse and one next to a man who was occupying the seat next to him with a small pack of cigarettes. We sat on the train for three uneventful hours.

When we arrived in Lyon we were bombarded by the busiest train station I had ever seen in my life. There was no place to even stop and think it was all so overwhelming. We needed to figure out where our hotel was but we were too overwhelmed to think. We finally found a place to sit and we used google maps to get instructions on how to get to our hotel. Unfortunately google didn’t have a proper map of the area (that’s something the city must submit apparently) and we knew how to get 90% of the way and we hoped we could figure out where the hotel was upon arrival. We took the local tram to Perrache and got off under a giant overpass that reeked of urine. We didn’t feel particularly safe under the underpass so we quickly ran out and into the sunlight. We walked two streets then looked up and saw our hotel. We didn’t like that it was by the underpass but it was close to transit so we weren’t going to complain.

After we checked into our hotel we were told the strangest thing: whenever we leave the building we have to surrender our key. A hotel has never asked us to surrender a key before it was definitely unusual. We walked into the elevator and we were shocked to see that it was so tiny there was barely enough room for us and our bags! We suffocated our way to the top floor and ran out of the elevator and into our room. The room was the tiniest hotel room I had ever been in. There was space for the bed and that was it. The bathroom was one meter by one meter and was so cramped that when you used the toilette your feet were in the shower. Despite its shortcomings we were happy to have our own space at least.

We travelled to the old town from our hotel (which was very close but forced us to go through that horrid underpass). We ventured for a short time because we we were starving and ended up at a British fish and chips restaurant. We chatted with the owner who knew english very well from living in South Africa. We watched him dip the cod in batter and fry our fish and fries with tears of joy. This was the first time in weeks that food was being made for us from scratch and not cooked from frozen. We grabbed the fish and chips (and a delicious chocolate brownie) and ran to our hotel. After eating we decided to catch up on sleep.

European Esspresso

The next day I woke up with a sore throat. Thinking nothing of it Gavin and I wandered off to find breakfast. Our hotel was offering a continental breakfast for €7 a person. We politely declined. Gavin bought an apple pastry and I had a giant raspberry macaron (which are apparently the regular size, the small ones are mini macarons, who knew!). We wandered further and found a cafe that gave us a sandwich, drink, desert and tea for €9. I got Quiche Lorraine instead of a sandwich, Orangina, lemon meringue pie and mint tea. Gavin got a sandwich, Orangina, a strawberry tart and French coffee. All of the food was made in house and we enjoyed every bite of it.

Afterwards we went to the train station and booked our reservation to Paris. Once again we found the high speed reservations a bit expensive so instead of two hours on a high speed train we booked the regional train that took 5 hours and left at 3pm.

By the time it was dinner time I had started to get very sick. I couldn’t breathe in smoke or perfume and I could barely speak. We wandered the old town and found a restaurant. Unfortunately in France the restaurants open at 7pm, not earlier so we had to wait 20 minutes before we could sit down and eat. I ordered tagliatelle in cream sauce with roasted tomatoes and bacon and Gavin had a large goat cheese salad.

After eating, my cold had gotten increasingly worse, so we asked the hotel if we could check out later. They extended our check out until 12pm. The next day after we checked out we had to kill 3 hours in Lyon, and I was still very sick. After getting some snacks for our train ride we went to McDonald’s and bought the McBaguette. I was tempted to buy macarons (because you know in European McDonald’s sells macarons). After two hours in McDonald’s we went to the train station and caught our train to Paris!

Barcelona part 3

April 15, 2013 by sheeniebeanie

After a fantastic two days in Port Aventura we begrudgingly went back to Barcelona. Up until this point Barcelona had been a port city for us. In total we probably spent a week in Barcelona but because we had been using it as a port to other places we never spent more than two days in the city at a time. It wasn’t until our third stay that we realized we hadn’t given the city a real chance and that maybe we had done our visit there all wrong.

We arrived at Barcelona Sound Hostel, a nice little place with an eccentric hostel manager. The hostel was located in kind of a red light district part of Barcelona, which was slightly sketchy but had cheap food so we weren’t too disappointed. The next morning we decided to go to Sagrada Familia and from there do a bus tour.

Sagrada Familia was astounding. We knew the building was so incredibly detailed and elaborate that it was taking 200 years to be built but for some reason we thought this detail only applied to the facade and not the inside of the building. The inside made you feel like you were inside a forest, with so many detailed pillars growing towards the high ceilings and branching off. The stained glass was beautiful and in the Gaudi style. Every single thing inside the cathedral was elaborate from the stair cases to the specially made confessionals. It had taken us only 30 minutes to see the completed portion of the cathedral (we didn’t go on the tower tour because the wait was too long). When we were about to leave we noticed a mini Gaudi museum about the church. The museum highlighted Gaudi’s influences from nature and how he re-designed the cathedral several times before he finally settled on its current facade. My favourite part of the museum was seeing the progress of the cathedral from the 1800’s and to see the future time line of the construction. Sagrada Familia was Gaudi’s masterpiece and I think it’s pretty cool that so many people believe in continuing to build his masterpiece for over 100 years after his death.

After the tour we went to the Sagrada Familia Gift shop where I bought a really cool salt and pepper shaker in 2009. My pepper shaker had broken and I wanted to replace it. Unfortunately the store no longer had the shakers so we wandered around the tourist area to find replacements. I didn’t find perfect replacements but they were close enough.

We then hopped on a bus tour to take us to all of the great architecture and see the sights of Barcelona. We were on the bus for 30 minutes when Gavin got over taken from exhaustion from Port Aventura. We went back to the hostel and got some terrible donairs and took a quick nap before going back on the tour bus.

Personally I enjoyed the bus tour because it was the only way to get around the entire city and see so many sites like where the Olympics were, the Agbar Tower, and the various different Gaudi buildings. I also got to learn about the urban development of Barcelona which I loved. Gavin on the other hand hated listening to a deadpan British woman on headphones as we passively sat on a bus in the pouring rain for five hours. It’s safe to say I don’t see us doing anymore bus tours.

After our bus tour we realized we were starving. We decided we would go to a grocery store to get some food. On the way to the store we stopped by a pub to get a €3 mojito. We ordered some Patate Bravas from the pub. Gavin and I joked that in Spain they tend to cook food from frozen and serve it to you. We laughed about how our Brava sauce was probably from the local market and if we were lucky they would add seasoning and pretend it was their own recipe. Sadly we weren’t far from the truth. When our Patate Bravas arrived they were wedges, not Patates. Then there was no brava sauce, which 3 minutes later was brought to us via No name brand bottle that we had to pour ourselves.
It was at this moment that we kind of missed Athens. The food was always amazing and made in house, served with a fantastic salad. By this point we knew it was time to leave Spain.

Port Aventura

April 10, 2013 by sheeniebeanie

Gavin went to Disneyland when he was a small child. I went to Disneyland Paris when I was 16. Every year we go to Playland in Vancouver, and sporadically both of us have been to Galaxy Land at the West Edmonton Mall. These experiences did not prepare us for Port Aventura.

Prior to the start of our journey we knew we wanted to go to an amusement park we just didn’t know of any in Europe. Disneyland in Paris was not very good in my opinion and we wanted to go on world record breakers. We looked up the top 50 roller coasters in the world and 3 of them were in Spain at Port Aventura.

When the train slowly rolled up to Port Aventura and we saw the twisted metal that belonged to two of the top the roller coasters in the world our hearts started pumping with anticipation. It was the day after a long weekend and there was not a cloud in sight, today was definitely the day to visit! We had decided to spend a night at the resort because we would get a better deal; one night stay included random suite with two day passes for each of us for €70 euros each. With a day pass going at €50 euros a piece and a stay anywhere else averaging €30 euros a piece, we were saving quite a bit.

Port Aventura was like no other amusement park we had been to. There was six separate sections, each themed after a different place: China, Mexico, Far West, Sesame Aventura, Polynesia, and Mediterrania. Each place was immaculately themed with buildings, music, restaurants and stores. All of the sections even had the local plants of the places they were imitating! China had the two biggest attractions Shambhala and Dragon Khan. You could walk along a miniature Great Wall of China to most of the attractions while Chinese music played all around you. The stores sold Chinese style gifts while the restaurants served Chinese styled foods. Mexico had El Diablo, a wooden roller coaster, Serpiente Emplumada, and the Hurakan Condor (the tallest drop tower in Europe). As with China, there was Mexican themed buildings, music and food. The Far West was western themed with American music and gold rush motifs. Strangely it made us think of home, probably because the buildings imitated the historic buildings from Fort Langley and Dawson City. The Far West was home to Stampida, the duelling wooden roller coaster and water rides the Grand Canyon Rapids and Silver River Flume . This section of the park served American food such as hot dogs, steak, ribs and hamburgers. The only music we heard was Bon Jovi’s ” Have a Nice Day” and CCR’s “Have You Ever Seen The Rain”. It was really interesting to see our culture (or a relatively similar one anyways) commodified and sold back to us. The next section, Sesame Aventura was the kids zone. We did not go there. All I can say is: Elmo, Cookie Monster, Woody Wood Pecker (who seemed to be the park mascot) Grover, Burt and Ernie walked around a lot. Polynesia was cool, it didn’t have many rides outside of Tutiki Splash but it held many shows like Birds of Paradise and the Sea Odyssey 4D Aquaride show. Lastly Mediterrania, this was the entrance to the park with shops, restaurants, and daily parades. Mediterrania featured Furios Baco, the fastest roller coaster in Europe!

After checking in we raced to the two coasters we were dying to try: Dragon Khan and Shambhala. The two roller coasters were located in China, the furthest section in the park. It took us almost thirty minutes to walk there from our hotel. We went in line for Shambhala first. Shambhala was the tallest roller coaster in Europe with downward slope speeds of 135km/h. We waited in line for an hour and watched people with express passes cut the line with jealousy. The ride was not working at full capacity due to harsh winds. Gavin and I didn’t care about wind we wanted to ride Shambhala. When we finally made it to the front of the line we sat down in the ride. The only support on our body was a plastic block that covered our legs like a seatbelt. Our upper bodies Were hanging free as we slowly climbed 80m into the sky. When you reach the top of the coaster there is a quick pause before the quick descent. Unfortunately we were hit by a strong gust of wind as well. The wind made the ride even more terrifying than it needed to be, I could understand why they wanted to shut the ride down. After riding Shambhala I was terrified and did not like the ride, Gavin loved it. I had tears on my face from being so terrified and Gavin screamed so much he lost his breath. When we finished the ride we went to a kiosk where we could see a video of our faces. You could see me pushing myself back against the seat trying to gain some more support, while Gavin looked like he was going to lose his mind from fear or excitement, we can’t be sure.

Immediately after the ride we ran to Dragon Khan. Dragon Khan was considered one of the best roller coasters in the world with 8 inversions (second most in the world). We waited in line for one and a half hours due to poor conditions (it was really windy). Finally we got to the front of the line and sat in our seats. The ride operators were reluctant to start the ride because the wind kept getting crazier. I refused to cut and run because we waited an hour and a half to ride Dragon Khan. Eventually the ride was shut down and I was in a foul mood.

We walked around the park until we saw a giant wooden roller coaster in the Mexico section. We rode El Diablo, unsatisfied that in Vancouver the wooden coaster was much better. We rode a couple small rides like the Chinese Tea Cups and Kontiki (a polynesian pirate ship) because the lines were short. Before long we were able to find out which hotel room we had gotten from the random draw. While at the front desk we discovered that because we were staying at the hotel we got a discount on the gold express passes for the park. Gavin and I had been thinking about the passes all morning but debated whether it was worth the price. But since we got a discount and the pass was good for our entire stay we jumped on it. We had waited almost 3 hours to ride two rides, but with the pass we could skip the lines and enjoy our short time in the park more efficiently.

We threw our luggage into our rooms and quickly ran back to the park to use our pass. Our first stop was Furios Baco. At 135km/h it was the fastest coaster in Europe. We skipped the 30+ minute wait and jumped into our seats. The Ride was so elaborately decorated. It took place above a real vineyard and there was a video about a scientist putting grapes under pressure, something goes wrong and the pressure sends us flying through the park. The force of the ride was so strong it sprained my shoulder. Not to be detoured I immediately wanted to ride more. We had heard that Dragon Khan was now operating so we ran to China. We skipped the line then rode Dragon Khan. It was my new favourite ride! Gavin loved it to but he was sure he preferred Shambhala. Rather than riding the same ride over and over ( we didn’t want the people waiting in line for an hour to notice and get mad because we got priority) we ran to Shambhala. For a while we ran back and forth between Shambhala and Dragon Khan before we went to ride Furios Baco one more time. Since we had the express pass we had time to enjoy the shows in the park so we went and watched the Birds of Paradise. The entire show was in Spanish and we could not understand anything or know where the birds were from but it was interesting to watch.

We wandered over to the Far West and found another roller coaster, Stampida. We walked into the line up and saw a confusing sign, “Choose wisely” with the colours red and blue painted. We decided on the red path and saw that there were two coasters to the roller coaster: a red coaster and blue coaster. We loaded the coasters at the same time and were launched at the same time. We watched our coasters move in sync with each other, one occasionally going faster than the other. At one point the coasters went opposing ways before the blue coaster won. Gavin and I were shocked, that coaster was way more amazing than the one at home and it was so fun.

We ended our evening going on Serpiente Emplumada as well as every other ride mentioned countless times until the park closed at 8pm. At 7:30 there was a parade through the park that we had missed followed by a song and dance essentially kicking us out of the park. The park had a series of its own songs playing on the PA saying Buenos Noches see you later etc. We went to our hotel room excited to go to sleep in our own private room and wake up in Port Aventura.

The next morning we woke up and checked our luggage away after we checked out of our room. Today we had a plan on how we were going to do all of the rides, this started with Furios Baco, going to the Far West to ride the Stampida, Mexico to ride Hurukan Condor, China to ride Dragon Khan and Shambhala then back to Furios Baco. We would ride any small rides between if we felt like it but the focus was really on the Hurukan Condor because that was the only ride we had to wait in line for. We also planned to ride the water rides at about noon.

Starting off with Furios Baco was like a kick in the face. We were pretty tired and we didn’t realize we were no longer used to the speed. Furios Baco woke us up better than any cup of coffee could.

While riding the important rides we also rode bumper buffaloes; saw a creepy singing vulture; saw a 4D adventure; and went into the most amazing hall of mirrors I had ever been to. Gavin rode Shambhala a few times on his own, once even at the very front. By the end of the day we had rode every ride at least half a dozen times each and sat in the front of all of the major rides. Before we knew it we had to catch our train out of Port Aventura and go back to real life–I mean, Barcelona.

Back to Barcelona

April 8, 2013 by sheeniebeanie

Font Mágica de Montjuïc, the Magic Fountain

On our first night back in Barcelona we decided to save money by buying food to make dinner. The hostel we were staying in had two kitchens side by side with two large fridges for food. We went to the local grocery store and bought some quick pasta with pesto, fajita mix, and some breakfast foods. We found some bacon that was kind of like home, except that it was in little cubic strips. We picked up the bacon and headed back to the hostel to make dinner. After some yummy fajitas we went to see the Font Mágica de Montjuïc, the Magic Fountain located at the former central pavilion of the World Fair in 1929. Leading to the fountain on both sides of the street there were mini fountains that were lit up for almost 200meters. Once you reached a set of stairs leading to the Fountain and more stairs leading to the former pavilion and current Museum of National Art. Between the steps leading up to the pavilion there was a waterfall of water with lights, it was so pretty and looked like diamonds falling in the water,

Neomudéjar bullring

The Fountain was quite large, about 15 meters across. When the show started an array of light and different water lit up and danced to music; it astounded us. Look up a YouTube video of it, Magic Fountain Barcelona, it was really cool! Afterwards we walked towards the Arenas de Barcelona which was a shopping mall that used to be a bull fighting arena called the Neomudéjar bullring, the facade of the building was preserved and the inside was gutted and made into the shopping mall. We took an elevator to the top of the building where there was a lookout surrounded by restaurants. The strangest thing about being on the rooftop was that all of restaurants were pretty inexpensive. We looked over the city; all of the important buildings in the city were illuminated: the Sagrada Familia, the Agbar Tower, and the Museum of National Art. We took in the night scenery and headed back to the hostel.

The first hostel we stayed in while we were in Barcelona, Hostel One, was cool but there was not enough space. The hostel we stayed in while we were in Madrid, 360 Hostel, was almost perfect in terms of spaciousness and sociableness. Instead of researching hostels we just went to the 360 hostel in Barcelona. This taught us to always research hostels because the two hostels shared the same name, they did not share the same experience.

Our new hostel was kind of downtown but difficult to get to. It was spacious to the point that it seemed almost wasteful. Our first night was spent in a private room with high ceilings and balcony access. I didn’t get much sleep because there was a restaurant downstairs that was banging and making a lot of noise followed by a bright light shinning through the skylight above the bedroom door. The next morning we switched to a different room. The second I walked into the next room my heart sank. The room reeked of sweat and body odour. There was a window in the room but you could not open it. Suddenly I was exasperated at the idea of having to spend another night sleeping with random people.

The Barcelonetta

Gavin coaxed me into leaving the hostel and seeing the Arch of Triumph. From the Arch of Triumph we walked down towards a beautiful park. From the park we found ourselves at the Barcelonetta, beach front. We ate crepes, tosta’s and drank Sangria while watching a mime and magic show on the beach in the sunshine. After a long day of wandering we found ourselves back at the hostel. I sadly crawled to bed to share a room with 6 smelly men and to a surround sound chorus of snoring. The only way to make the room not smell awful was to have the air conditioning on which was not pleasant.

The next day I was rudely awoken with bright lights and loud chatter from the men in the other beds, who to my happiness were checking out that morning. After they left the room Gavin and I opened the bedroom door to try and air out the room. After making a yummy breakfast of Spanish bacon bits and eggs we headed off to the Park Güell.

Park Guell

The Park Güell was an urban park that was originally supposed to be a housing development. The famous architect Antonio Gaudi (he designed Sagrada Familia) had designed a home for the development and he lived there until his passing. The house is now a museum created in his honour. The park features a glorious entryway in Gaudi’s style with his famous dragon greeting you on the steps. We climbed to the top of the park where we could get a fantastic view of Barcelona.

When we returned to our hostel we were greeted by Australians in our hotel room. We were excited because up until this point anytime we met Australians we were greeted with an upbeat attitude and friendliness. This did not happen. Although thankfully the Australians were not smelly they were loud and obnoxious. We told them we were going to bed and they took this as a cue to leave….then come back and party. We were annoyed because we had a 6am wake up call for a train out of Barcelona. When we woke up the next morning we were so worn out from being with people we were excited to be off to Port Aventura.

Magical Madrid

April 5, 2013 by sheeniebeanie

The train ride from Barcelona to Madrid was 3 hours long. The train hit speeds of 300km/h, which was the fastest train we had ever been on. We arrived at our hostel which was at the centre of downtown Madrid, the best location possible. We were at the centre of everything. We wandered around town for a bit before joining our hostel for a tapas tour. The tour took us to three places. The first took us to a place known for the best croquetta’s, deep fried creamy potato ball things. The second tapas place had the best tapas with so many varieties and styles. I had a smoked salmon and gulas (not really sure what gulas is…) Gavin had meat in crispy rolls with egg on top. The last place we went to specialized in seafood tapas. We had a selection of mussels, calamari, octopus, potatoes and Sangria. When the tour was over we went to a nightclub where we paid €10 to have as much sangria or beer as we wanted in an hour. After an hour and a lot of Sangria we went to another bar which was fairly empty. At around 2am we decided to head back to the hostel and get some sleep.

The next day was probably one of the best days we’ve had so far in our trip. The previous night we had made a new friend, Grace. We bargained with her to come see the free walking tour with us and we would go to the Palace Real with her. Our day started off with free Churros from our hostel. These Churros were nothing like the ones at home, they didn’t have any sugar and wrapped up into a closed “U” shape. The Churros came with a thick chocolate dipping sauce. Breakfast Churros are a spanish custom, to help nurse a person back to health after a long night out. Grace had unfortunately missed out on some Churros so she disappeared upstairs while Gavin and I cleaned up our breakfast. Meanwhile our tour group had left without us so Gavin and I ran to find Grace and catch up with our tour.

Sparkles, The Wonderbeast

We raced to the Plaza Mayor and came to an abrupt stop when we noticed a man in sparkly goat costume. It was very bizarre and we had never seen anything like it before. We reached our walking tour and signed up. Somehow we couldn’t stop watching this magical goat thing. We took pictures with it and laughed as it played its little whistled tune and clapped. Every time we were in Plaza Mayor we made sure to stop by and see Sparkles.

Since the last free walking tour Gavin and I did was in Munich with Ozzy, we had high hopes for the Madrid free walking tour. Before long we realized that the tour we received in Munich was beyond exceptional and no other tour would match it. The walking tour of downtown Madrid was informative, but lacked the magic and the local dishes of Oz Tours.

Our tour started off at the Guiness book of world record holder of the oldest restaurant in the world: Restaurante Botìn, which opened in 1775 and has been operating ever since. We learned some history, saw the ugliest Cathedral in Europe (designed by three architects who all wanted glory, it took 100 years to build). We also went by a convent where nuns who aren’t allowed to see people outside of the convent baked sweets and sell them without being in the presence of the customer. They were out of sweets so we didn’t get a chance to see the nuns not see us.

Later we went to a Granville Island like market and I bought the biggest macaron I have ever seen, it was the size of a mini hamburger. It tasted fantastic but I can see why they don’t make them that large.

Gavin, Grace and I shared some Paella at a restaurant across from the Palace Real. Grace noted that he Paella tasted exactly the same as one she had in another restaurant. I noticed that this restaurant had 5 different menus for some reason, and that was when we noticed a trend. At least 75% of restaurants in Madrid sold the exact same Paella, frozen pre-made crap. Apparently the locals don’t even eat Paella. This revelation was disappointing to say the least.

After waiting for about an hour we finally got to go into Palace Real of Madrid. This was the most extravagant palace I had ever seen, we weren’t allowed photos, but everything was bigger and grander than any other palace I had seen. There was an entire room, floor to ceiling, made of porcelain and gold!

Gavin, Grace and I at Flamenco Show

Later that night we went to a Flamenco show. None of us had seen Flamenco before so we did not know what to expect. We sat down in a dark room and ordered Sangria and Tapas. Suddenly three men standing behind three women in chairs started clapping. Two guitarists started playing classical Spanish guitar. Everyone on stage started belting out loud passionate Spanish and each of the women and one of the men stood up one by one and dancing to the music. After the song was done, each dancer had their own solo, one more passionate and angrier than the last. The quick movement of their feet dazzled us, we had never seen anything like it before.

Catholic Procession

After the show the three of us wandered back to our hostel to find a large sum of about 5 thousand people had gathered in Plaza Del Sol. It was from what we thought a regular Wednesday night before Easter, and we saw a giant Virgin Mary surrounded by lit candles in altar being carried around the plaza with a band playing. We had remembered seeing some partitions near our hostel and realized that the partitions were for the Easter procession. We decided to run ahead of the Virgin Mary procession by taking a side street to our hostel. Instead we found ourselves faced with an equally elaborate Jesus altar being carried followed by an even bigger band. We were a bit bored of the procession until something caught our eye. Several people dressed in what looked purple and white KKK outfits. We had seen this image during other catholic processions in our travel book. It shocked us to see children and infants in these hooded costumes. The white capes and pointed purple hoods were shocking to us but had a different connotation in Spain. The procession was long and moved slowly, it stopped occasionally so the people carrying the altars could rest. It looked like each altar was carried by about 30 people all hidden beneath the altar. After the altars would pass, spectators joined the procession leaving the street sides empty. When the procession had ended the three of us were exhausted from a long day.

The next day Grace had travelled on to Barcelona and the two of us hung around for a quiet day. We went and had some more Tapas at that amazing place we went to two nights before, we then stopped by the Chocolateria, this famous Churro place that made the best Churros in Europe and was visited by many celebrities. We then went to the Praggo Museum of Art and saw many local paintings. That night we had decided to stay an extra night in our hostel but unfortunately there was not very much space so we ended up in separate rooms on separate floors. My room was shared with two girls from Austria, Gavin shared a room with 9 other people.

Aquadect in Segovia

We woke up the next day to do a day trip in Segovia, a town 35 minutes away by high speed train. Segovia was home to an aqueduct that was an international historic civil engineering landmark. It was completed in the first century. It started pouring rain and we decided to get down to business; we walked up hill towards an elaborate Catholic Church. We toured the church to get out of the rain, then we jumped back into the pouring rain and walked to the Alcazar castle.

Alcazar Castle in Segovia

The castle was one of the most classic fantasy type fortresses we had ever seen. It is said to be one of the castles that inspired Walt Disney’s Cinderella castle, with pointed blue slate towers, a plummeting moat protecting the entrance, and a central rectangular keep accented by at least 8 circular towers along the top. It was all built on the edge of a hillside, with the rear protected by steep cliffs. We were able to tour part of the palace, including the old throne room, dining area, sleeping quarters and grand hall, with numerous balconies. Paying a bit extra allowed us to climb a tight winding stone stair up one of the corner towers to the top of the keep, allowing us to get a breathtaking view of the surrounding countryside. This fortress served as one of the worlds best artillery academies for about one hundred years from the mid 18th to 19th century, and so also had a museum dedicated to the science and manufacturing of cannons and mortars. It included many preserved weapons, scale models of manufacturing processes, preserved original textbooks and a small mineral collection thanks to the chemistry lab that was dedicated to improving gunpowder.

After touring the castle we caught a train back to Madrid. We spent one last night in Madrid before catching a train back to Barcelona.

Island Hopping in the Aegean Part 2

March 26, 2013 by sheeniebeanie

When I posted my last blog article I neglected to mention that we were in Patmos that afternoon after leaving Kusadasi. I also for lack of remembering names did not list any of the people on our Contiki tour:

Left to right: Lollie, me, Essy, Aliesha, Gavin, Elysia, Adam, Alex, Lauren, Sean, Victoria, Alyssa

Courtney, our Contiki tour manager from Australia (not pictured)
Adam & Alex, Brothers from South Africa
Sean, from London
Alyssa, from Toronto
Victoria from Calgary
Alicia from Terrace
Elysia and Lauren, cousins from Tasmania Australia
Lollie and Essy, friends from South Africa

Patmos was regrettably not as exciting as our previous islands so we decided to not do an excursion. Patmos held a religious importance to many in Greece. It is said that Patmos was where Saint John was sent into exile in a grotto. While he was there he wrote the Book of Revelation. At the highest point on the island is Saint John’s Monastery. We took a bus to the top of the mountain to see The Monastery then took a 40 minute hike down the mountain, past Saint John’s Grotto and back down to the Town.

Back on the boat we had a toga Karaoke party. Things got a little awkward when a guy ( who shall hence forth be referred to as our “+1″ ) sang a song dedicated to us Canadians, ” All by myself” by Celine Dion. For some back reference, our +1 had been around since day one but his presence in the blog up until this point was unnecessary. +1 was really just a weird guy who tried to tag onto our Contiki group and eaves drop on any information our tour manager gave us. It was awkward because clearly all the members of our group didn’t appreciate him taking advantage of the tour insights we all paid for, never mind he always made sure to make every moment he spent with us awkward and uncomfortable. Not to mention he spoke in the most monotonous serial killer voice this side of Hannibal Lector!

Anyways, I guess he was feeling neglected and decided to send us some passive aggressive message about how abandoned he felt by us….which you know was weird because we did not know this person and he was not a part of our Contiki group. Everyone always tried to be nice but then he would ALWAYS make things awkward…

Toga Party

Despite the awkward moment, our toga party went on without skipping a beat. The group divided into two groups and we had a karaoke battle! The other group sang Blink 182s ” all the small things” and we killed it with “Bohemian Rhapsody”. Then the entire group sang the theme song for our trip, “Summer of 69”, which we all got the magical score of 69 on! Later Gavin got roped into a traditional Greek dance and I sat back and laughed.

The next day we woke up in Rhodes. Gavin and I decided to not do the Rhodes Acropolis excursion because we had seen quite a bit of ruins at this point and preferred to sleep past the 6am departure time. Rhodes is considered a world heritage site, it has classic Hellenic ruins, medieval castles and a mosque. This was the only island where we spent the entire day at the dock.

Gavin and I wandered the town and found ourselves at a medieval castle. We hadn’t seen any castles on our trip yet so we decided we would check it out. Since it was early tourist season in Rhodes. The entire castle was empty so Gavin and I ran around having photo shoots and enjoying the freedom of wandering an entire castle on our own.

After touring the castle we walked from the old city to the new city, went to the part of the island where people could jump into the water and swim and saw a lone diving board about 300 meters into the ocean.

Later we saw the place where the “Colossus of Rhodes” once stood. The colossus was a giant statue that stood at the opening of the Rhodes bay. It is no longer there but ancient texts around the world talk about how massive this statue once was.

Later that night on the boat we had a fancy meet and greet with the captain of the cruise. We had to dress very well, I unfortunately had nothing nice to wear and neither did Gavin. We took a photo with the captain (which cost €10 so we did not buy it). Afterwards we sat for dinner and were approached By the cruise director. She needed a couple to take part in a ” rock and roll couples contest” Gavin and I were the only couple in the group so we were voluntold to do this mysterious contest after dinner at 9pm.

It turns out it was a Grease (yes the movie not the country) themed contest. Gavin and I were forced to dress up with two other couples! I was put into a crepe paper poodle skirt with pigtails and rouge, Gavin wore an Afro wig with drawn on moustache and side burns and a soul patch. We had to do the choreography to the song, “You’re The One That I Want”, Some crazy jumping dance moves with the help of the staff and do a huge random dance number where we ran across the lounge. It was embarrassing and exhausting to say the least…We did not win but we won a shot glass and a crappy hat.

Sheena Grant.com

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