Kathleen (left) and her friend GaelleEveryone who came to our Ruby Wedding in June met Kathleen, Chrissie Ferguson's granddaughter, who is currently spending time at Cranfield College near Milton Keynes. She has been visiting as many countries as possible in the last 3 months, with one "breathless" tour when she had friends visiting from Canada, her home country. We were lucky enough to receive e-mails detailing her adventures in many lands and I thought it only fair to share these with the rest of the family - here we go with Kathleen's Grand European Tour:-
" Well, it is my first day back at work (darn!) and as it is a Saturday night, not much is going on, so I am going to take advantage of that and begin my tale. So sit back and prepare yourselves as we travel back in time to October 2nd as three Canadian girls were getting on the plane to.... PARIS: Or more accurately Beauvais. A tiny town (actually just a tiny airport) north of Paris. We landed at about 6:00 and successfully got another stamp in our passports (yipee!). First impressions...didn't look much different that the Abbotsford airport or even the Pitt Meadows one!! We hadn't yet found a place to stay so after a bit of discussion we went over to the information desk to ask for help. I am sure that you all know about the stereotypical Parisian, well apparently that also applies to Beauvais-ers as well. They weren't exactly helpful, in fact I am sure that there were actually more snide comments than helpful ones but nevermind. As it seemed like no one had anything else to do we were helped by almost everyone including one guy who missed his flight. The guy who missed his flight did actually find us a place to stay and made reservations but not before making a sign that read "Pauvre gosse sans hotel (sans avion)" and wandering around to all the French speaking (or I guess French reading) people he could. By the time this display of French hospitality was over, one hour later, we had missed the bus to Paris and now had to rely on a cab to get us to the train station to get us to Paris. We did get to the station on time and caught the last train to Paris. It was getting late and dark and I couldn't help thinking of the first piece of advice that Mick and Dje had given me "Don't ride the Metro at night" and here I am not yet 3 hrs in France and preparing myself to ride the Metro at night. It was on the Metro that we were faced with our first language test, we couldn't figure out how to buy tickets, and then how to get where we were going. One of the guys at the airport had given us a map of the Metro and marked out where we had to change and but unlike the Tube all the stations didn't seem to be on the signs. We somehow muddled through and soon found ourselves on the street. We had no idea where we were going, and only had a phone number and street address to find our hostel. We sort of picked a direction and started walking. As it turns out it was the right direction and it also turns out we were staying in a hotel!! Ohhh, it was so exciting...I could have a bath! I don't think that there were any girls happier in all of France than we three that night. The next morning we packed up our stuff and headed out to the Metro with the confidence of experience Metro-travellers to see Paris!! We were planning on catching a hop-on, hop-off tour bus and figured the Eiffel Tower was as good a place as any to catch it. Emerging from the train station, we were pretty excited to see this, the most French of all French landmarks. But it was nowhere to be found! "Geez, you would think that we would be able to see it by now" I exclaimed as we walked across the street, completely oblivious to the gigantic towering structure IMMEDIATELY to our right. Oh well. After fighting off the hordes of vendors we got nice and close and started taking pictures. Then we saw a rather large red bus with lots of tourists and thus we were introduced to our Parisian Tour Bus. Our next stop was to be the Louvre, but thanks to some unknown police incident, the ability to stop was immediately in doubt. Many cars honks and blocked off streets later our driver gave up and headed off to Notre Dame. What a beautiful church, but oh, what a lot of people. I have never seen so many people sightseeing in a church before, and it made for a very loud, impersonal visit. I like to wander about at my own leisurely pace and I felt rather like a sheep being herded in a small trough. Next was the the Arch d'Triumph. And the craziest roundabout I have ever seen. No wonder you hear stories of people getting stuck going around and around. It was madness. And it detracted somewhat from the Arch. But nevertheless I got a lot of great pictures and I really enjoyed the views down the 12 streets leading to it. Our tour continued on and we had a really nice overview of Paris. But more often than not I found myself balancing precariously on the edge of my seat trying to get a half-decent picture as we sped through the streets rather than taking my time and discovering things myself. Anyway our tour ended back at the Eiffel Tower and we decided to go to the top. And that was the best decision of the day. What a stunning view of how Paris is actually laid out. Up until this point I was feeling a bit disappointed with Paris, I think it was because things felt very rushed. But when I got a chance to actually see the city I felt excited to be able to come back. I am so glad that we took that tour and saw what we did, but Paris cannot be seen in a day. Up on that Tower I decided that it will be the first city I return to and really discover. And I'll be able to speak French! That night we had a night train booked for Munich. We decided in England that we couldn't come that close to Germany and NOT go to Oktoberfest, so after gathering our packs we headed back to the station to experience our first night train. Next stop (and next email)...beer tents and pretzels a'plenty... Love Kathleen
Everyone ready for my next email? As promised...Germany!
Like I said before, while still in England and flipping through some guidebooks we realized that we were going to be quite close to Germany just in time for Oktoberfest and so our plans quickly changed to include a detour to Munich. And to save ourselves a bit of money and to ensure that we would have as much time as possible, we opted for a night train. And what a comfy ride...ha ha ha, right! It was freezing cold, and the lights were on for much of the night and we all kept getting woken up by French or German train operators asking for tickets. Luckily, I can manage to get a pretty decent night sleep almost anywhere so I wasn't TOO bad off.
We pulled into Munich in the morning and headed off to a Burger King to get freshened up for our day in Germany! I felt rather bum-ish as we each ordered a drink (so as not to feel too guilty for using their facilities) and took turns brushing our teeth and changing our socks in the bathroom.
Then it was off to the beer tents!! We had a vague idea of where we were going, and sort of followed the crowds of people when we were unsure. A nice thing about Europe is that they are sort of quiet about their events. I mean, we were in the capital of Oktoberfest and there was not ONE sign advertising it. Could you imagine the fanfare and ads and corporate directional signs accompanying a North American Oktoberfest?! Ughh, I much prefer the subdued European way.
Anyway we soon found what seemed to be the main grounds but it seemed more like the PNE than Oktoberfest! I'm not really sure what I was expecting, but it sure wasn't families and rides and sweet vendors! After a few pictures with some odd looking attractions we found the Haufbrau tent (which we had been previously told was The tent to be at). And in we went...and oh my gosh!! It was maybe 12:10 and already the tent was packed with singing, drinking, dancing people and an ohm-pah band! We soon realized that there was no way we were going to get a table with chairs so we settled for a table to stand by. It was so much fun, and in no time at all we were chatting to the other people at our table, singing German songs and eating lots of pretzels and drinking lots of beer. I don't know how many of you have been to Oktoberfest, but the one thing that you must realize is that the beer mugs are HUGE!! I could barely lift three and the waitresses can carry up to 12!! They do have wrist braces on, mind you. The waitresses also don't work for the beer companies, they run their own little businesses, buying the beer themselves and selling it to us at a slight profit. Our waitress is a film editor for most of the year, but comes out to waitress for the few weeks every October. For all those Canadians reading this, you may be please to know that the little teddy bear she was wearing is now sporting a Canadian flag. One of the guys at our table had been given the pin and kindly donated it to the bear.
The time just flew by and before we knew it, we had to go to catch our train to Zurich. It was only 4:30 but the tent was so full, and there were a bunch of people waiting outside to get in! When we emerged we first noticed that it was raining. Nuts, didn't take long for that to happen. But I guess we were extremely lucky in Scotland so we were due a little rain. We managed to find the "bahnhof" and successfully found our train. Kathryn and I were pretty hungry so we had a fun little dash back to BK for a hamburger in the 10 minutes we had to spare before our train left. Then we settled in for our trip through Germany and Austria (none of which we saw since it was really, really dark) to our next stop, Switzerland...land of melba toast and elves. Oh, now you are really curious aren't you? Well you will just have to wait until next time...
Love Kathleen
Welcome to this, the third installment of my travels...I am sorry that it has been a while between tales. I am valiently trying to get them all typed out before I forget what we did!! I believe that I left you on the train to Zurich, after a really, really, REALLY fun couple of hours in Germany. We pulled in to Zurich later on in the evening, bound for a place called Martahaus. Right away I loved Switzerland, my first impressions were of a clean, beautiful city, and the I loved the night walk across the river on a lovely old bridge. We arrived at Martahaus and discovered that it was another hotel!! (Even though it was classed a hostel in my book. This should have given us an indication of what was to come) Anyway we were pretty tired and looking forward to a quiet night.
I popped off to have my shower, leaving Shannon and Kathryn to set up house, if you will. When I came back, about 10min later, Shannon was laughing hysterically on the bed and Kathryn was on the phone with reception trying to explain our problem....that our window was completely off!! "What happened?!?!", I said Apparently the window was a fancy window, which could open from side-to-side and top-to-bottom, and Kathryn was demonstrating it to Shannon and pulled it right off!! And because it was so heavy they couldn't lift it up to put it back on! A few minutes later, the receptionist came to help and he was...umm how to put this nicely...a very delicate man. Right away we knew that there was no way he was going to be able to lift the window, let alone heave it above his head to reattach it. I guess he realized this too, because he immediately called for backup. Which came in the form of an even smaller man, if possible. It was quite funny to see these two poor, tiny men, trying to reattach this massive window. And because it opened both ways, this proved to be quite complicated. After much struggling and much heated debate in German, and much muffled laughter from us, yet another man came to assist. This guy was like a monkey and although just as small as the other two (at this point it seemed like ALL Swiss men were actually elves) he hopped up onto the ledge and within a few minutes he had it back on. Or so we hoped, his exact words were "well, that should be okay until morning" which I am sure gave much comfort to Kathryn who was sleeping right under it!! But true to the elf's word, it did hold, and we awoke the next morning with Kathryn very much in one piece and not at all squashed under 10 tonnes of glass. I must also add in her defense that I don't think it was simply her opening the window which caused all this trouble. (Even though the receptionist obviously didn't believe that.) It was EXTREMELY heavy and there must have been something wrong with it, before we even got into the room. So no, Kathryn does not have the super-strength of three men, she is just a bit unlucky.
The next day was beautiful and we decided to just start walking. We wandered off to the centre of town and were soon drawn to the lakeside and the aroma of hot chestnuts. Lake Zurich offers the the usual sorts of things one might expect at the lakeside...ducks, families, boats, vendors, human art displays, an old man in nothing but a diaper.
That night we wanted to go out for dinner since we hadn't really eaten out since Glasgow. We started off looking for a fancy-ish restaurant, but were terrified by the prices (about $60.00 per plate)! After a few rounds of the town square we sadly realized that even Thai take-away was out of our price range (at about $20.00), so back to the train station in search of a grocery store. That night we dined luxuriously on melba toast and leaf flavoured yoghurt (well, I had the leaf flavoured yoghurt, Kathryn and Shannon picked some more "normal" flavours) And then after one more night at Martahaus, we set off for Italy, hoping for good food and a lot of sun.
I had always wanted to go to Switzerland to see the mountains and I was especially excited for this trip as I really miss the comfort of mountains, living in East Anglia. There is something about seeing them and their snow and knowing that I can go skiing or hiking whenever I want, that I miss quite a bit. But as much as I loved the physical beauty of Switzerland I'm not sure when I'll be back. It was just too darn expensive for me.
Plus the Lindt chocolate factory was closed.
Ta-ta for now! Love Kathleen
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Hello!
Bet you never thougth you would hear the end of my European story did you? Well, at long last (and a few inquiring emails later) here comes the tale of country #5 - Italy. We left Zuirch bound for Venice and actually had actually had a compartment to ourselves! It was nice and we spread out quite nicely for a good nights sleep. When we reached Milan the next morning we had to change trains and were introduced to the Italian system of "cram as many people as you can on the train so that they spill out into all the halls and take up all the extra space but still insist on driving the refreshment cart up and down the cars ringing the bell constantly and pushing through the hordes of passengers". Luckily I had managed to get a little space in between the cars by the washrooms and was even able to sit down for a short while, or at least until anyone needed to use the toilet and could actually make it through the car. Shannon and Kathryn were wedged in one of the ailes outside of a compartment - literally wedged since they were considerably wider than normal, as we all still had our packs on. Three hours later (yes that's right I said three hours) we arrived at the Vencie train station, and the train fairly exploded onto the platform and we headed out into the city.
Before we left Switzerland we had reserved three beds at a hostel, or at least we hoped we had. There was quite a language gap between the womand and I and as she didn't take a credit card number, we just had to cross our fingers and hope that we would have a place to stay. We did manage to say that our train would arrive at 8:00ish that night and she told me that the one condition was that we had to be there by 10:30. This gave us a little over an hour to find the hostel and we weren't too worried. Now I may be totally stupid, but I had no idea how Venice actually worked. I mean, I knew about the canals, but I was really shocked when I found out that canals were the ONLY way to get around!! After some confusion, we found out that our hostel was on a different island and we had to take a boat to get there. We got on and sat back to enjoy the lovely city by night, only to discover that we were going the wrong way!! So, at the next stop we got off and got back on this time going in the right direction, or so we hoped. I say hoped because no one seemed to know where Ponto Piccolo was...very reassuring, as we had a serious time constraint. As time went on, we grew more and more anxious, knowing that even when we did find the right stop we still had to locate the hostel, and we only had our incredibly general "Lonely Planet" map to go on!! I think we landed on the right stop with about 10 min to spare and the three of us ran off the boat. Now Venice is not the most clearly marked city in the world, and there were no street signs and the numbers seemed to be pretty random, and to top it all off there was no one in sight. Luckily, in our frantic running about, we bumped into two people who pointed us in the right direction (of course completely opposite to where we were going). Now it was a full sprint as it was 10:25. We finally found the building and were just running over the bridge when we saw the door close and heard the door lock!! Hoping that the owner would be in a good mood, and not really relishing the idea of a night on the streets, we knocked...and waited. We almost immediately heard the lock turn again and to our immense surprise it was a tiny, tiny nun who opened the door!! This lovely old nun welcomed us in and told us she was expecting us! What a relief!! She then showed us to our rooms or rather room. Have any of you ever read the "Madeline" books? Well this room was just like this book. Rows and rows of beds filled with sleeping girls. It even had a massive picture of Jesus overlooking the whole room!! And even though it was only 10:30 we felt like the bad girls as we quietly put our bags down on our beds. Kathryn made the mistake of putting her bag on her bed, and the little nun told her that the bed was for sleeping and we were not to put anything else on them. Then she shut out the light and closed the door. She was a tiny bit scary, actually. Anyway, we were trying to get ready for bed while at the same time trying to remember all the rules. Then to make matters worse, I got the giggles. I couldn't stop laughing!! I couldn't look at Shannon or Kathryn for fear of becoming really hysterical. Then as there was nothing else to do, we went to sleep.
The next morning we got up really early and headed back to the main bit of Venice. And what a gorgeous city!! I loved, LOVED it!! Our plan that day was pretty much just to walk around. We had so much fun getting lost and wandering down roads and we discovered the most quaint little squares. We even heard a tourist fall into the water, which was quite amusing. We saw markets and loads of people all dressed up with the masks and costumes. The main square is the piazza San Marco, and it is totally dominated by the cathedral and pigeons. Oh, the pigeons were everywhere. I thought it would be really fun to run into the crowd of them making them all fly up. And it was fun until I accidently stepped on one!! The poor thing was limping away from me as I chased after it trying to give it some melba toast as an apology.
I have heard that you either love Venice or you hate it. And I love it! I loved all the oldness of it. I had so much character and history. This city is all water or pavement. There is NO green space whatsoever, but it is beautiful!! I found a pretty good website with pictures of Venice. And I am telling you, this is what the city looks like. I could have taken any one of these pictures. So if you have time, you can check out one of my favourite cities.
www.goeurope.about.com/library/weekly/aa073002a.html
I think with that I am going to wrap up this entry. Hope this will entertain you for a while. And don't worry, the next installments will be coming before Christmas...I have almost a week at home alone before heading to France, so I will have plenty of time to finish off my tale. Until then...happy shopping!
Love Kathleen
Hello to all!
Well it is hard to believe that Christmas is only 10 days away!! I can't quite get into the spirit yet, as our house is distinctly not Christmas-y. Since everyone is going somewhere else, we didn't see much need to decorate, but it is funny how much I miss the trees and music. I am really looking forward to seeing the tree and decorations and family on the 23rd!!
But enough talk about Christmas, I promised you that I would finish off the tale of my Europe trip before I left England so I had best get on with it...
We stayed in Venice for two nights and left early in the morning on the third day, bound for Florence. The weather in Venice was pretty good, but by the time we got to Florence it was looking a bit sketchy. Nevertheless we found ourselves a fairly decent hotel and hit the street. But back to the hotel for a second. We managed to find three beds but there was two in one room and one in another. I opted for the lone bed, set my bag down and rejoined Kathryn and Shannon. It turns out that my roomates were English and Canadian (from Vancouver even)!! And they were really lovely girls. That night we were up chatting for a good few hours about England and Vancouver. It was nice to hear some familiar accents. Another bonus about this hotel was that the internet was free!! It was EXTREMELY slow, but free!!
Anyway back to the streets of Florence. That afternoon, we found ourselves in the main square, eating pizza on the sidewalk and looking around at the Duomo (I think that the spelling may be wrong, but it is a magnificent church in Florence which MUST be seen!!). After our first official Italian pizza we brushed ourselves off and headed into the Church. The ceiling on this was amazing, and for reasons which will be explained later, I liked it even more than the Sistine Chapel. We wandered around the church for a a bit and then, upon discovering that Michaelangelo's's David was not in Rome as we thought but in Florence, headed over to the museum where he was housed. By this time it was raining and standing out in the rain, in line, to see David was not really very much fun. But we were all looking forward to seeing this sculpture up close and were willing to appease ourselves with "paper, rock, scissors" until we were let in.
Now there are other things to see in this museum besides David, so we walked around for a bit, wanting to get the most for our money. We saw some unfinished sculptures which I thought was really interesting because you could really see how intricate and difficult is it to get such beautiful art out of such basic rocks. Then we saw David. Wow! What an amazing piece of work. I mean I had obviously seen pictures before but the detail on this is absolutely stunning. I really can't describe it, and all I can say is that if you ever get a chance to visit it, pay the money and go in. It was unbelievable. The set up was great too, because you could walk all the way around it and really get a good look. The girls and I just sat and looked for about half an hour!! It was mesmerizing. When we were talking about it later, we found out that each of us had been looking at it the same way. We each picked a spot on his body to study at length. I was looking at his neck and the detail in his throat was fantastic and I wasn't even very close!! (Little aside: We found out that just after we got back to England, David somehow fell off his pedestal and sustained millions of Euro's in damage. Ooops, glad to see him before he was hurt!!)
When we finally managed to tear ourselves away, we once again hit the streets and discovered lots of sculptures and art that had been around for ages. Including a David replica in the place where the real one once stood! When we got back to the hotel that night we went on the internet and then went to bed as we had an early morning. We were planning on catching the train to Rome in the morning and then the night train to France in the evening. Rome wasn't built in a day, but we were going to see it in one!
Obviously, we had quite a few things to see in Rome, and not much time to see them in so after we managed to stow our packs for the day we headed off to the Coliseum. Even though I have seen so much on this trip so far, it still amazes me when I see something like this in person. Some have lived up to expectation, a few have exceeded them, and some have been a titch disappointing. And the Coliseum was such a place. It was a bit commercial, with men dressed up as Gladiators standing outside and very crowded. I know that I cannot expect places like this to be empty, but I like to imagine what things would have looked like and it is rather difficult to do with people taking pictures and vendors selling souvenirs at every turn! I wanted to be able to see how it really looked without all the walkways and ramps over the floor. And especially not with people loudly suggesting that "Wouldn't it be great if they could fix it up a bit?"!! Maybe I'm being too picky but I would like to be able to discover something amazing and visit it with no one else. I realize this is exceedingly difficult but a girl can dream can't she?
Anyway, enough of that...Next up was the Vatican city. And, as luck was on our side, we saw the Pope as soon as we got there! And boy is he ever tiny. But I'm sure the massive courtyard and the hundreds of people didn't help improve his size! So far eight months into my trip and I had seen both the Queen and the Pope, not bad, eh?
After the Pope we headed off to the Sistine Chapel. And the art in here was fantastic as well! There were just rooms and rooms of massive frescos covering every inch of space. There was actually too much too see. I think any one of us could have spent a day in just this one place. When we finally go to the Sistine Chapel roof, I was disappointed. Not with the painting but with the people. The room was just jammed packed with people, who were all talking quite loudly and taking pictures, even though the message asking people to not talk or take pictures was repeated over and over in every language possible. I think people were forgetting that it was a church and should be treated as such. It was horrible. And I found myself distracted by all the annoying hordes than actually enjoying the art. We did stay for a bit and I loved the paintings, but overall I enjoyed the Duomo experience tonnes more!
Then we headed over to the Forum, my favourite place in Rome (despite the rain, which by this time was soaking everything in sight!). I walked all over and just let my imagnigation take over. The grandness of this must have been awesome. I could have spent much more time there but it was really wet, and I knew that the history and oldness, which I found intoxicating, was not shared by Kathryn and Shannon who spent a lot of the time, huddled under a stone with many other people. I understood and was quite cold myself so we headed into town to dry off and find a place to eat. But the Forum let me explore the way I wanted to, with a small number of people, partly because of the rain, but partly because there was much more grand things in Rome to see at first. But I loved the fact that this had existed for centuries!
That night we dried off (or tried to) walked around a bit more, had a lovely meal in a lovely Italian restaurant and settled in for our train journey to the south of France. With all the running around we had done on this trip so far, we decided to take it easy in France. There was nothing absolutely pressing that we had to see before we left for England and I think all three of us were looking forward to just hanging around rather than dashing around like crazy from place to place. As much fun as that is, after two weeks, it wears out even the most energetic of 22 year olds.
And with that I'll leave you...Have a great day and you will hear all about my travels in France in October, before I head off to France in December. I promise!!
Love Kathleen
Hello!
Well this is my last installment of my travels to Europe. It is strange to think that I came back to England almost 2 months ago! Boy time sure flies...anyway...the south of France........
As mentioned in my last email, we were pretty tired and looking forward to a few days of relaxation in Cannes. We arrived, still not sure how long we were going to be staying, but excited about being back in France (or at least I was). Cannes is a lovely beach town and is pretty easy to walk around it. The only problem was that it was POURING rain when we got there. And I mean "soaked to the skin and everything in our packs" wet! It was awful, and we were wandering all over town trying to find our hotel (the same chain that we stayed in in in Paris...we dubbed them our French hotels, even though they are an international chain). We finally made it to the bus stop and with the help of the bus driver (yes, that is right I said "help"...the people were MUCH friendly here than in Paris!!) we found our hotel and checked in, and hopped right into the showers to dry off. At this point our plan was to explore the city, have a nice meal somewhere and spend the next day shopping, or rather window shopping...we were in Cannes after all! Then we were still undecided if we wanted to take a train the next day to somewhere else of just stay where we were.
Anyway after drying off we set out for the town and the beach. Shannon was really excited to see the ocean, and even though it was still raining, it was beautiful. That day was lovely as we just walked around. I also had my first crepe! It wasn't really that good, but I am glad I tried it. (I have since had crepes made by Dje and Mick which were really good. I even tried my hand at it, and managed to flip mine in the air and catch it in the pain on my very first try! I must be a natural!) We were pretty tired and pretty much as the sun went down we headed back to the hotel, excited that we didn't have to set our alarms the next morning.
The next day after a lovely lie-in we headed off to the town to do some more shopping. And it was great, but a bit frustrating for Kathryn and Shannon as they wanted to spend a bit of money but they couldn't find anyting. Still it was nice to spend a day doing nothing. After we had spend a good few hours window shopping we headed off to the beach, and played in the sand. The weather was a bit nicer and none of us really wanted to leave. So we headed back to the hotel to check back in and Kathryn and Shannon grabbed their bathing suits. We got a few strange looks on the bus, seeing as Kathryn and Shannon were in shorts and carrying towels and it was still pretty cloudy. But hey, when was the next time we were going to be able to swim in the Mediterranean? We quickly arrive at the beach for a bit of a swim for Kathryn and Shannon and some sand-castle building for me. It actually turned into a "being tossed around in the ocean, cause the tide was coming in" for Kathryn and Shannon, and a "sand turtle named Henry cause my castle walls kept collapsing" for me. Still, it was really fun, and aside from one scary moment where Kathryn and Shannon were slightly swept away, at Kathryn lost a bit of her suit for a split second, it was fabulous!! After a while they came out, and we all played in the sand and then just sat and watched the sun go down. And what a fantastic sunset. The whole sky was just lit up, in one of those really intense, magical sunsets, where the whole world is just so colourful. Absolutely gorgeous! That is a night I will remember for the rest of my life.
When the sun disappeared, and therefore what little heat there was also disappeared, we realized that we were quite cold so we went back to the hotel to warm up. Then we decided to splurge on a little dinner since it was going to be our last night in Europe and we hadn't really bought anything that day. Now I am sure that you all know the rumours about French cuisine, and judging from my one real French meal, they are all true. This was the best meal of the trip and one of the best meals of my life! I had cheese quiche to start, duck with peaches for a main course, and creme brulee for dessert. I also had a coffee with my meal which somewhat surprised the waiter. But the whole meal was excellent. It was a tiny little restaurant, and the waiting staff were fabulous! It was such a great way to end an amazing trip!!
The next day we woke up to a beautiful sunny day (of course, the day we leave) but we walked to the train station on the beach to spite it. Which is a lot harder than it looks with a huge pack on! We took a little train to St.Rafael and spent the day there. We actually managed to find a shop and Shannon and I bought a shirt (not an easy feat in a tiny, busy shop with packs on). That night we boarded our last night train for Calais. Then we took the hovercraft back to England. It was strange, but when we approached England I had the feeling of coming home. I guess I have settled in here. A bit scary, but more on that later.
While the girls were in England we went to London (of course) and to Warick Castle which is just a bit north of Cranfield. Then we spent a day shopping in MK before making one last jounrny to Heathrow. So there we go...my travels to Europe. I do love travelling alone but it was wonderful to have the experience of discovering this continent with two of my best friends. I love Europe! This place is fantasitc and unlike anything I have seen before (especially Venice). It is just steeped in culture and had a definate sense of oldness about the place. It is difficult to descibe, but the history surrounding the whole of Europe is a little unbelievable. As a history student coming from Canada, this continent never ceases to excite me and my imagination. I can't believe I am here!!
As much as I am loving being in England, I am getting itchy feet and I am ready to move on. I do have some plans for 2003 but you will just have to wait until the details are finalized before I tell you. Hee hee, just to keep some of you in suspense. I also want to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas and New Year! Hope that this coming year brings you health and happiness. I miss you all very much (at least the people who I don't see anymore)!
God Bless, Love Kathleen"
Kathleen (left) and her friend Gaelle