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Sunday, October 31, 2010

EuroTrip 2.0 part 1

I just arrived yesterday from my 2nd trip to Europe. I know I haven't posted anything about the first one yet but this one just happened so Euro trip 1 will have to wait until it gets put into my archives of trips.

The purpose of this trip was to visit my friend who is studying in France at the moment, but it turned into so much more than that!

I have decided to separate this trip into four sections, one for each of the countries we visited (France, Germany, and the Netherlands) plus one section for my list of things I have learned on this trip.

So here it goes... I left last friday at 00:20 to get on a bus to Toronto, ON to catch the plane. By the time I got to the airport it was 06:30... my flight didn't leave until 17:30 which meant I had 11hours in the terminal to do nothing and since I didn't know anyone in Toronto it wasn't like I could just call them up and see if they wanted to do something while I waited for my plane... so airport it was... it wouldn't have been as bad if I would have been in terminal 1 but since I was flying Delta I was going to have to be in terminal 3... not even on the side with the Tim Hortons.

By the time my flight to Paris landed it was 11:30 and I was going to meet my friend Izzie in Rennes so I set up to take the train. When I got there we decided right away to go book all of our tickets for the trip.
The plan was that we were going to leave sunday to go to Berlin, but on sunday they were diffusing a WWII bomb in the train station (which apparently happens a lot in Europe) so we had to leave the same day, so no visiting Rennes for me and to Paris we go.

With that we had an extra day and a half to visit Paris, both of us have already seen all the main attractions in Paris so we decided to just walk about and explore the city. We got to see some really beautiful things, like St-Eustache church (which you can see in the first picture), some very curious things like giant piles of clothing in the middle of the street (if anyone can explain this please do). We also made sure to eat some delicious french pastries while we were there. Izzie is really enjoying her Macaron aux framboises in the picture to the left.



After our day of exploration we set up to leave for Berlin at 06:00 the next day.

But that story is for next time

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Future South American Road Trip

This is my future South American Road Trip, I got the idea from a couple who drove from Winnipeg to Rio following the american west coast, the mexican west coast than multiple countries in South America.

Well this is my version of it. I haven't decided if i'm going drive from here to Rio, see the van than get to Cuba and Jamaica by boat or plane before coming back to Ontario. Or fly to Jamaica, get to Cuba than to Rio buy a van there than do the trip.

In my head when I do this trip I will be camping the whole time and avoiding having to buy food at restaurant as much as possible. To do this trip I will buy an old van, here or in Rio, throw a mattress in the back after having taken out the seats and be on my way to the adventure of a lifetime.

I don't know how long this trip will take me or any details to date but I do know that it will let me visit about 15 countries in a very short amount of time, which would be wonderful. If anyone has any suggestions please throw them my way.

Hopefully I have inspired you to go on an adventure just like I was inspired. If you look at the map you can see how awesome it could be!

To dreams of trips to come I let you go!

P.S. just to point out the obvious the black is what I would be driving and the orange is what I would either be flying of boating.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Ixtapa Mexico

In 2008 my family and I decided to spend Christmas in Mexico.

We mostly stayed on our resort named Melia Azul for most of the time, only escaping to the flea market across the beach or the Island not far away to go snorkeling.

The resort itself was gorgeous, it had everything needed, it had multiple pools, a mini golf course, games, and a beautiful beach.

And FOOD! The food was wonderful, there were so many restaurants onsite some of them were buffets others were a la carte. Also there was food from all over the world not just Mexico, there was Italian, Chinese, American, Seafood, a grill and some fancier places.

With all these things to keep us busy it was a vacation and not a trip. For those who don't know the difference a trip is when you go to a foreign area and visit as many tourist attractions and you get very little rest. It's one of those things where you use a guide book and go to the tourist information centers and just go go go all the time. A vacation on the other hand is when you go somewhere with the plan just to relax, no plans, no guidebooks.

Our Mexico vacation was a Vacation we lounged and read most of the time, we went swimming in the ocean (the pools were too cold). we played volleyball, drank various blender drinks.

You get to see a crocodile here and it was down the beach not even a kilometer away it was "fenced" in with a big gaping hole in it so the crocs were known to occasionally get out of their area. Thankfully they are well fed so there haven't been any incidents.... or well that we knew of.

The people hanging upside-down are Mexicans doing a sunset salutation. This consists of 5 guys climbing this super tall pole tying a wound rope around their ankles and throwing themselves down this pole with one of the guys staying on top of the pole doing some drumming and throat singing while they come down in a spiral. It is quite wonderful to see, as well as mesmerizing how people have the guts to do this because this is not the safest equipment.


This last picture is the view from our hotel room, which was wonderful because all the rooms in the hotel had an ocean view. as well as a different animal on the bed. My favorite was the elephant with the fresh flowers. and that spot of land in the distance is where we went snorkeling and had an awesome Pina Colata served inside a carved pine apple with a face made of fruit on it. It was called Coral Island and rightfully got it's name with all the beautiful coral and fish that were there, plus they were attracted there because people were feeding bread to them allowing them to become very friendly with people and letting us get really close to them without them freaking.

It was a wonderful vacation, if anyone wants a good resort in Mexico, I haven't seen others but I loved this one plus they came to pick us up that the airport with Coronas for us to be dropped of at the Hotel.

With wishes of warmer days and the sound of a beautiful ocean this is where I finish!

Sunday, October 17, 2010

The list

Afghanistan
Albania
Algeria
Andorra
Angola
Antigua & Deps
Argentina
Armenia
Australia  (july-august 2005)
Austria
Azerbaijan
Bahamas
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Barbados
Belarus
Belgium(march 2008)
Belize
Benin
Bhutan
Bolivia
Bosnia Herzegovina
Botswana
Brazil
Brunei
Bulgaria
Burkina
Burundi
Cambodia
Cameroon
Canada (since 1990)
Cape Verde
Central African Rep
Chad
Chile
China
Colombia
Comoros
Congo
Congo {Democratic Rep}
Costa Rica
Croatia
Cuba
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Djibouti
Dominica
Dominican Republic
East Timor
Ecuador
Egypt
El Salvador
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Estonia
Ethiopia
Fiji
Finland
France (march 2008)
Gabon
Gambia
Georgia
Germany(october 2010)
Ghana
Greece
Grenada
Guatemala
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Guyana
Haiti
Honduras
Hungary
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Iran
Iraq
Ireland {Republic}
Israel
Italy (march 2008)
Ivory Coast
Jamaica
Japan
Jordan
Kazakhstan
Kenya
Kiribati
Korea North
Korea South
Kosovo
Kuwait
Kyrgyzstan
Laos
Latvia
Lebanon
Lesotho
Liberia
Libya
Liechtenstein
Lithuania
Luxembourg
Macedonia
Madagascar
Malawi
Malaysia
Maldives
Mali
Malta
Marshall Islands
Mauritania
Mauritius
Mexico (december 2008)
Micronesia
Moldova
Monaco
Mongolia
Montenegro
Morocco
Mozambique
Myanmar, {Burma}
Namibia
Nauru
Nepal
Netherlands(october 2010)
New Zealand
Nicaragua
Niger
Nigeria
Norway
Oman
Pakistan
Palau
Panama
Papua New Guinea
Paraguay
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Qatar
Romania
Russian Federation
Rwanda
St Kitts & Nevis
St Lucia
Saint Vincent & the Grenadines
Samoa
San Marino
Sao Tome & Principe
Saudi Arabia
Senegal
Serbia
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Singapore
Slovakia
Slovenia
Solomon Islands
Somalia
South Africa
Spain
Sri Lanka
Sudan
Suriname
Swaziland
Sweden
Switzerland
Syria
Taiwan
Tajikistan
Tanzania
Thailand
Togo
Tonga
Trinidad & Tobago
Tunisia
Turkey
Turkmenistan
Tuvalu
Uganda
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
United Kingdom
United States(december2000, march 2002,2003,2004,2005,2006,2007)
Uruguay
Uzbekistan
Vanuatu
Vatican City(march 2008)
Venezuela
Vietnam
Yemen
Zambia
Zimbabwe