Norge

Welcome to Norway!! We flew into Oslo, kinda, and took a nice bus trip to Oslo proper, funny story that. I think I ate horse meat in the airport. We then took a train to As (don't have the correct type of "a" to make it phonetically appropriate). As is where Cherie's friend Gunhild lives, she met us at the train terminal in Oslo with her boyfriend Gunstien, he's cool.



So this is the house that a Norseman built, I assume, I didn't see any vikings, just a few cairns that Gunstien pointed out to me. This house is about 200 years old, it was a farmhouse, now it is a house for Gunhild and her roommate Ingvil, they were nice enough to let us stay.

Bikes, they like to ride them all over the place in Norway, especially, I think, in As. Many of the people here rent out rooms and small houses to the students going to the university. It is a small town and has a nice country town feel to it. But of course the universal truth applies here too: Students are poor, most don't have cars, so they ride bikes.

I like this sunset shot, the spiders silk in the grass is my favorite part. Norway reminds me of home a bunch, except that there are no huge mountains looming in the back of every shot. Green, and rolling hills, clean air and birds singing, I miss it a bit.

Gunhild and Gunstien took us to Oslo one day to look at the viking ships that had been unearthed and put on display. There were three of them, I learned a whole bunch, it was really cool, I would have liked to be a viking.

A tabletop condiment fairly common for breakfast or lunch, it was explained that it wasn't like the expensive Russian caviar. I didn't try it, but I did like the brown cheese, and corn on pizza is not bad, go ahead and try it sometime. And kebabs, ohhhh, sure it cost us near $12, but it was worth it, even just to watch them make it. Somebody needs to start a kebab stand here.

Oh, btw Heidi, Norway was my most favorite place on this trip, actually my second most favorite place in the entire world! I will of course be posting more pics of this place soon :)

London

London. We had a great hostel, Cherie's friend, Julie, booked it for us from Scotland, we had terrible troubles in major cities before that, so it was a blessing. Anyway, our great hostel was one block away from Hyde Park and a major bus route. Don't take the metro, it is very expensive, but they do have an automated voice that reminds you to "mind the gap", balance that on your scales of value beforehand, you'll know what to do.



This is me in Hyde Park, I think I was thinking, when am I not thinking? The statue was a representation of 'masculinity' or some such.

Also somewhere in Hyde Park, the place is huge, Cherie looking sweet and pretty on a hill surrounded by flowers. But you can see that for yourself.. .. .. She's really not all that sweet, she just looks it, like those purple candies that taste like soap, ughh, biggest waste of 10 cents in my life. No, she is sweet.

We went to the changing of the guard, funny hats, yay! We stood around for a long time, saw these dudes marching it out to Buckingham Palace, saw some real military dudes follow them, and then left. We were already a block away before we realized that the guard was just then changing, we missed it :P

Big Ben, it's really not all that big, I had a crayfish sandwich, it wasn't very big either, but it was sufficient and delicious, much like Big Ben I would assume.

Trafalgar Square. I like this shot, took a while of waiting to let two Italian Lady's finish their telephone calls in the most prime picture taking spot in the square.. sheesh. No escape I tell you.

Ok, we also went to a Blue Man Group show, stopped by Drury Lane and took a picture with a muffin, went to the London Zoo, and visited various other tourist traps, we even ate at a noodle hut. Anyway, next we are off to Norway to visit Gunna.

Prague, Part II

So, again, here I am. I wish to finish these posts soon, but I must do the locations justice in my commentary, and yes, I am lazy. No Crispy Crunch for me today, something very similar in occurring events to that which brought the chocolate to my gullet, but no, no food involved.


Ah, the destination! A friend of mine who had been to Prague with her fiance told me of it. On the little map we had it was barely legible that there was even a church here. It was hidden behind some houses up on a hill, we climbed and enjoyed the view, enjoyed the church, and the church gardens. It was lovely.

A view from the gardens, overlooking the river in the opposite direction of the last river picture, Cherie takes some great pictures.

The next day we did the castle. We walked across the Charles Bridge (remembered that one). There were people everywhere, we thought we got a good deal on gelato from a vendor until we actually did the conversion and looked at the size of the scoops he gave us, it was still good tasting. There was also this cool little old man with his music machine, similar I guess to a grinding organ, but he just stood there turning a wheel and the song wet on and on, all sort of musical instruments playing merrily.

Inside Prague Castle Cherie had some fun with a guard she thought was cute, poor fellow.

This is the back end of the church located in the castle area, it looks pretty cool, even I'll admit that.

Next we headed off to London town. Yay!

Mind the gap

Prague

Here now some information, brought to you in part by Cadbury. "The only thing as good as your Crispy Crunch is one that was destined for another."

Not enough landscape pictures remaining of Rome, so we are off to Prague in the Czech Republic! The aeroplane ride from Rome to Brussels to Prague was quite an experience, Cherie wrote about it after it happened, on her Xanga, if you can find it. It is her story more so than mine, so I won't attempt to tell it, I was just along for the ride so-to-speak.


This here building has a name, I should remember this name, I knew it once, but I forget it now. It's not the Powder Tower, that one I remember. This is the everyday view we had while we ate lunch in the main square a couple of blocks away from our hostel.

This is the National Museum. It sits at the end of a huge square (rectangle is more appropriate), there were around 3 McDonalds resturaunts either on the square or on a side street. Sad, but cheap cheeseburgers :) I went to the museum one morning without Cherie, it was good I did.. they had a really extensive mineral collection. All in all it was a really nice place, but Prague has a plethora of museums that one can visit, most would be smaller than this, but cheaper and more enjoyable. Oh well.

Same unnamed building at night, I was experimenting with night shots, I do have some nice portrait ones. . . a tripod would have helped. Unlike most bigger european cities we had been in, Prague didn't have this 'exclusive' feeling night life, we could wander around in the light of lamps and feel safe, and the people were nice during the day too.

I found a grand reading tree, I was reading the Hitchhikers trilogy by Douglas Adams, I highly recommend it, there are 5 books in the trilogy, so be sure to get them all. This park was the largest we had come acoss so far in our travels, it was pleasant to be able to traverse city blocks in the green scented shade of trees, but as always we had a specific destination, so onward and off.

Our destination, was not this castle, it is Prague Castle, we did it the next day. This is the view from our destination, with the help of a bit of my 10x optical zoom! No more pictures for today, so our destination will have to wait to be revealed til another day, it was a good one, recommended highly by a nice person.

So, back to sleep for me, I just woke up from 3 hours sleep, stupid headache, stupid helmet giving me a headache, ughh.

Rome Part II

Like it how I used Roman Numerals in the title, huh, yeeeeah! I should be going to sleep, but what the hey, if the pictures go up they go up. I like root beer, mmmmm.





Well, this is not the old city, this is pretty much the one and only picture from the Vatican that was landscape, lazy. This is the hall of maps, just imagining how long it would have taken to accurately paint just one of these things, and the whole hall is filled with them. It was also the Popes 80th b-day the day before we went inside, we saw him, I think.

Here is some old stuff, I think lots of people take pictures of these particular columns, they are nice to look at, and the weather was great too, as you can see. Be jealous.

Here we are in front of the Coliseum (that spelling looks so wrong, but the spell checker is accurate, right?) We had a bad experience purchasing the audio guide for the Vatican and so were hesitant about doing it again. The deal breaker: we got to skip the line and get in right away, even though we had to buy two audio guides it was worth it.

The inside. Most of it is ruined, they took stones from it for the longest time, but they re-did part of the flooring, and left the other sections open so you could see down into the inner workings. Might be hard to see, but the small strips of lighter coloured stone in the middle aisle are actually grooves for the elevators, cool huh? The audio guide was much more informative here then at the Vatican.

An outside shot (thanks captain obvious), the thing is huge. That is all the pictures I am allowed in one post I guess, so next time maybe a bit more of Rome, or if not we are off to Prague.

Rome

So here I am, sitting on the side of my bed typing sideways onto my laptop, listening to The Feeling, thinking about L5R tonight, what shall I play, no printer, so I get to use the budget hand-written proxies.

On to Rome..

Here is me, I am standing in front of a fountain, you can tell cause there is water spraying into the air and landing in a bowl thingy made of stone. I really have to apologize for this, there are so many tall things in Rome that the majority of pictures are portrait, and of course I am lazy.

Ok so this is a famous fountain, there is someone out there that will remember it's name, I never knew it, so I don't remember it. The first day we were there we just walked, we had a map from a tourist kiosk or something, and it had 3d drawings of every tourist attraction placed on the map, we basically spent the day going from one to the other. This was one of them.

One of the few green places in the entire city, at least public green places. Cool memorial in the background, it had a plaque that was actually in English. We figured that the huge amounts of dogs all pooped on the sidewalk cause there were no parks for them to do it in, and then while enjoying this green stretch we found out lots of dogs use this one.

Cherie on a hill, overlooking a big section of Rome. Lots of buildings, it's a city ;)

Next I'll show the real good stuff, the pics of the old city, it'll be grand!!