Last leg

Well my final week is drawing to a close. It doesn't really feel like 7 months. I spent this week in the USA. Not a lot of time but I prioritised people over stuff for this continent and there were more people in Canada. I spent 2 days in New York where I walked an insane amount and tried to fit as much as possible into not enough time. I didn't get to everything but I did see a lot. I walked over the Manhattan bridge, through China town and Little Italy, past the empire state building, through the public library, around the theatre district, times square and MoMA. I spent as much time as I could afford at the Met and wasn't all that disappointed to discover that the guggenheim was closed on Thursdays. I had already filled my art gallery quota. Instead I wandered through central park until I was completely exhausted. Turns out 6 weeks sitting on sofas and being driven around by friends and family wasn't so good for my stamina. So I headed to the library and say there for a while until I could feel my feet again. All in all New York was pretty impressive and definitely deserved more time than I gave it.
After New York I headed to Salem where I spent 2 days with family friends I hadn't seen in yonks so it was good to catch top. I got the driving tour of Salem because it was colder than expected and the baby was not happy being in the stroller. Which meant my feet got a nice break before I tortured them again in San Fransisco. I didn't really have a list of things to see in San Fransisco. I just walked. One way the first day the other way the second day. I found the big park, a part of town with lots of little independent shops and cafes, the part of town with lots of designer shops and no cafes (guess which I liked better), wandered along the fisherman's wharf (with a very cloudy view of golden gate bridge and alcatraz) and climbed many hills. 
And now I am just one 13 hour flight from New Zealand. So much fun.

Goodbye Canada

It's been fun but it's time for me to leave again. Another few weeks of friends and family; movies, games, conversation and general excitement. As always I didn't have enough time with everyone but I'm really looking forward to this last week of my trip and then getting home. I don't remember what it's like to not live out of a bag. But the prospect of my own bed and better tasting toothpaste didn't make it any easier to say goodbye to Catie for the last time (it wasn't easy to say good bye to any of you but Catie gets to be mentioned by name because she's Catie).
The adventure isn't over yet though. Coming up: New York, Salem and San Fransisco.

Did you miss me?

So it turns out that without someone pestering me to do this I don't get around to it for a very long time. And since Catie is usually the one doing the pestering and she has been with me for the last few weeks and therefore knows everything that I've been doing she hasn't been pestering me. Until the last few days when I have been talking about how I really need to write a blog and then admitting that I haven't done it yet.
But since I made it to Canada there isn't as much to tell you about. There have been great things happening but things like playing cards with family, going to movies and reading stories to children, while fantastic when you are there, don't make for as interesting tales for a blog. So despite the fact that there has been such a long gap since the last one (I shouldn't have suggested that one was the biggest gap. That was just challenging me to have a bigger one. And I succeeded) there isn't actually all that much to say.
There is a bit more to say about Europe though.
We had 3 more days in Ireland after my last post. Which really wasn't enough time. We only managed to get to Cork (with a morning excursion to Blarney) and Galway. I definitely am going to have to go back there some day with more time. We did at least get to see a fair bit of the country on the buses in between. Of all the places I've been to it was the most like New Zealand in terms of landscape. It's New Zealand with castles.
Cork was lovely. We took a bus out to Blarney and saw the castle, poison garden and a cycle race. And yes I did kiss the blarney stone. It just seemed so ridiculous to have to hang upside down off the top of the castle to do it that I couldn't pass up the opportunity. I still have no idea why they would put it there. It supposedly already had an impressive history before it got there and if you were given a fancy historically significant stone wouldn't you put it somewhere a little more accessible?
The grounds were beautiful as well but unfortunately we didn't really feel like we had the time to explore it properly. There are caves and druid remnants somewhere but we only had time to wander through the poison garden (yes, it's exactly what it sounds like).
When we got back to Cork we wandered the town. Saw the pretty churches and streets and rivers. Found an adorable cafe. Passed some people dancing to a busker on pan pipes.
The next morning we started early to get a glimpse of the much lauded English Market before catching the bus to Galway.
Galway was also fantastic in a vague just meandered aimlessly the whole time way. It has a river and a few canals that turn into a bay. It's an area where people still speak Gaelic and home of the claddagh ring so there's a stronger Irish culture there. But we didn't do anything specific, just walked around the old town and stopped by the main sights. We also stopped by the most modern cathedral in I forget which geographical area. Possibly they said all of Europe. I forget. It was pretty and cathedral shaped and had a sign for coeliac communion. Which I though was amazing. And we found the nun's island and the Spanish arch.
But we weren't there for long and the next day we got on another bus back to Dublin airport to fly back to London. We only had one more night there and then early the next morning we had to head back to Heathrow to fly to Toronto. Because it was cheaper for me to do my whole trip as a return ticket to Germany I had to fly to Frankfurt first and then on to Toronto. Which was a bit odd. Especially since there were strikes of some sort in Frankfurt and my flight there was delayed to the point where I ended up with only 30 minutes to get from one plane to the other, including going back through security. I walked very quickly and made it there with more than half of the boarding already done.
And then I got to Toronto. And since then I have been catching up with family and friends and generally doing things that are not so adventurous. And that will continue for the next few weeks. But in early April I will be doing a bit more adventuring before heading home so maybe there will be a few more stories to tell.

Longest gap yet?

So my excuse for not writing this time is that my mother has arrived and is far more interesting than writing to you. Also the hostel we are staying at wants to charge us for wifi. I refuse on principal. When I need internet I can find a cafe with free wifi. But that means I mostly only do the things I need to do and unfortunately for you writing a new update is just not as high on the priority list as finding transport and accommodation.
I meant to write this on the bus yesterday but I slept instead. We don't have internet at the moment though so even if I had written it I wouldn't have been able to post it.
So much to tell you. Last you heard I was in Scotland, now I'm in Ireland having stopped in Wales and England along the way.
Edinburgh was great. Very pretty with a really good museum and good views from the castle and from the other hill. I didn't actually pay to go into the castle because £14 is ridiculous. Almost twice what I paid to get into the Vatican museum and that's the Vatican museum and you can easily spend 4 hours there. The castle's probably only worth one and I have seen quite a few castles.
But other than that and the complete lack of colour (everything is grey stone) Edinburgh was lovely.
Then I officially ran out of time. I had to be in London by the 10th but I wanted to get over to Wales as well which would have been about 13 hours and at least one change on the bus or £150 and 3 changes on the train. So I took a train to Manchester, arriving around 9pm, and then the next morning from there to Cardiff (departing around 9.30). So I spent about 12 hours in Manchester and slept through most of it. But what I saw along the walk between the bus station and the hostel had potential for being quite nice, if anything had been open.
But I got to Cardiff early enough to have a decent amount of time there even though I only had the one night. I really liked Cardiff and wish I'd had time to see more of Wales. Cardiff was surprisingly modern. For a place that's been inhabited as long as it has it didn't have so many old historic buildings. I never did find out why. I went out to the bay and saw the fancy architecture and Roald Dahl plass and the waterfront and a whole wall covered in Torchwood posters. I wandered around the central city with all its arcades. I went to the castle. It was really interesting with a really long history. They thought it was from Norman times until in the late 19th century they uncovered walls from a Roman fortification. It was privately owned and still lived in until the mid 20th century and was used as an air raid shelter in the 2nd world war.
Sadly it rained a lot in Cardiff and I started to feel a bit damp. London, however, was fairly decent weather. I caught an afternoon bus and got to the hostel in the evening. The next morning I headed out to Heathrow to meet Mum. I had a little difficulty figuring out where to go because despite pestering from me she never actually got around to emailing me her flight details. But I tracked her down eventually.
It's great to see her and to be travelling with someone again. She wasn't very happy with me forcing her to stay awake until 9pm but since her jet lag was gone in a couple of days I think she should be grateful. The first day we didn't do a whole lot. Walked to Harrods and marvelled at the egyptian themed stairway and the number of digits on the jewellery prices. The next day we went to the museum, saw the parthenon marbles, the rosetta stone, assyrian reliefs covered in cuneiform and the gift shop. That day we also managed to get to the national library which had a display of manuscripts and an impressive rare book collection including a range from papers of notes by Leonardo da Vinci to original copies of Beatles songs. And we even managed to get to Camden market about half an hour before it closed. If only we'd had more time. You could spend hours there.
The following day was Mum's birthday and Catie and I had decided the best present would be a trip to a show. So in the morning we headed out to get the discount on-the-day tickets to Wicked. Then we did touristy things like piccadilly circus, westminster abbey (which we weren't willing to pay to see. It was even more than edinburgh castle which would be at least twice the size) and europe's biggest bookstore.
That evening we went to Wicked which was fantastic. So much fun. And the songs have been stuck in my head for days. I wouldn't even know how to describe how great it was. So I won't try.
On Tuesday morning we packed up and headed back to Heathrow to catch a flight to Dublin. We arrived in the afternoon and went for a wander around the city. We didn't have any specific goals so we just walked randomly until we got hungry. It really is a lovely city. Fairly compact so easy to walk everywhere. And it just feels nice.
We didn't have a huge amount of time there because we don't have a lot of time anywhere but we managed to see everything we really wanted to. We made it to Trinity college, St Patrick's cathedral, Grafton street, Temple Bar, Christ Church cathedral, O'Connell street and the book of kells. Our second night there we went to a pub and listened to live Irish (mostly) music with all the people singing along.
Which brings us to Enniscorthy. Probably not a stop most tourists make but it is a pretty little town with a castle, a history of uprisings and, most importantly, family. That's the thing about having Irish heritage, very distant family is still family. On my dad's side of the family I've never even met any 2nd cousins but on my mum's side I've met several 2nd cousins and now a 3rd cousin and they're all just cousins. So we had 2 days there getting to know family and hearing about family histories (not all of it ours) and seeing some of small town Ireland.
And today we came to Cork. We looked up the bus times but our cousin told us it was better to take a train then a bus because otherwise we would have to drag our luggage across a big bridge. But it turned out that required back tracking and an extra 2 hours so maybe sometimes the internet is more reliable than local know how.
And that's where I am now, yelling at my phone because it died in the middle of a sentence and was contrary about turning back on quickly.

Leaving the continent

Tonight I take a ferry to the UK. It's been a good run in continental Europe but it's time to move on. In fact it might be past time to move on since it appears I'm going to be short on time in Britain. Oh well.
And that is all that I wrote before I left. I realised I needed my phone to be not dead since that's where my ticket for the ferry was so I stopped writing to conserve battery. And then I never started again. The ferry had a tv with shows in english. It was very distracting.
So I made it to the UK. And have been doing the country on fast forward.  Today I'm in Inverness, heading to Edinburgh this afternoon.
And that is all that I wrote before I left. But this time I remembered to start again. I'm now on the bus to Edinburgh.
I don't know when I last wrote but I know it's been a long time. And if I go back and figure out where I left off I probably won't catch up to today. So instead we'll do this backwards and just go as far as I can be bothered in one go.
Today I had a wander around Inverness. Saw the biggest second hand bookstore in Scotland and decided that I might need to buy a new bag because I don't really have enough space for more books. Walked to the castle and the museum (which is closed on mondays so wasn't very exciting). Walked along the river to Ness island which is apparently home to bats and otters and deer but I didn't see any. Walked back along the river and past the old cathedral. Walked the other way along the river and sat for a while. Saw a seal swimming in the river. Went back to the hostel to phone Canada to sort out some student loan stuff (which was surprisingly easy and left me time to write some of this). And then caught a bus.
Yesterday I spent the morning on the bus from Glasgow and most of the evening sitting in my hostel planning which left only a couple of hours of walking around Inverness. The up side is that I now have accommodation and transport sorted for a whole week and won't have to do any more planning for... well, a few days.
Someone is spraying hairspray on my bus. Who uses hairspray on a bus? It's a bus. No one cares what your hair looks like.
And that is all that I wrote before my phone died.
So where was I? Glasgow. Glasgow was good but wet. I spent a fair among of time hiding in the Library and art gallery (which was the same place. The library was in the art gallery).
So the power outlet here is not working properly and my phone isn't charging right. Which means it's going to die again soon. And if that happens it will probably be days before I manage to post this so I'll just summarise a bit and finish this quickly.
Before Glasgow was York. Walled city, river, book store, seven hour bus ride.
Before York was Nottingham. Busy, castle, Robin Hood.
Before Nottingham was Cambridge (pretty with a side of snow) then the ferry (quite flash), Amsterdam (don't know how to summarise) and Rotterdam (Santa statue). And before that was Belgium which I'm pretty sure I already mentioned.
Ta da! Update complete.

It's like a fairytale

How does this happen? It's been almost a week but I don't feel like I've done anything worth writing about. So I guess this will be a short update.
I went to St Malo. Pretty city but a less than impressive hostel (they only have the one). I did a day trip to Mont St Michel. You can really believe that besides the contents of the souvenir shops it hasn't changed in hundreds of years. I went to Bayeux where the hostel was even less impressive and the city wasn't really special enough to make up for it. And I went to Rouen with possibly the worst hostel of the lot and I don't even remember anything particular about the city. I ran out of time and didn't go to the D Day beaches. To be honest I was so sick of Normandy's idea of what youth hostels are meant to be that I was just ready to get out of there.
So I went to Belgium. I got to Brussels yesterday but only stayed the one night because the hostel options there weren't so good either. So this morning I got up early did a walk around the main sights of the city (what's with the manneken pis? Why is that even worth mentioning in passing let alone going out of the way to see?) Then checked out at the last minute and caught a train to Bruges. I walked around a lot. Ate some fries. Looked at the belfry but couldn't climb it since it was closed. Got rained on. Didn't get shot at. And now I'm on a train to Antwerp. And a much better hostel.
I suppose it's a short update mostly because I don't seem to want to go into detail. That would require effort. So I won't be surprised if I get some complaints about the uselessness of this post. Or more likely complaint. Most of you seem to just put up with me being useless at communicating.

Surfing, stones, seafood and Paris

So I guess it's been a while. Internet has been a difficulty recently. But everything else has been good. Paris was amazing. We only had about 3 days there and wanted to see as much as we could in that time so we just kept moving and ended up rather tired. The first day I think I mentioned. We saw sacre couer, champs elysee, arc de triomphe, eiffel tower, luxembourg gardens, pantheon and notre dame. The next day we went early to the louvre. It's pretty overwhelming. We wandered there until our feet hurt and we were hungry. Then after lunch we went to the shakespeare and company bookstore which was a different kind of amazing. I always love those kind of bookstores where it's so packed with books on every surface that you have to squeeze between the shelves. And then the Centre Pompidou which is kind of an awesome building. We did look at most of the art there but we also found squishy chairs and by that point it was very hard to not stay in the squishy chairs reading. Sadly they had to close and we had to make our way back to the hostel and find some dinner. The following day we went out to Versailles. I don't even know what there is to say about Versailles. The buildings were amazing in various ways and the gardens are enormous. Luckily the weather was good so we could just wander the grounds. We got back to Paris in the Afternoon and went to the Musee d'Orsay. Which was also fantastic, though slightly overheated.
And then the next day we had to leave. But not until the afternoon so we had the morning to walk around some more and see a few of the parts of Paris we hadn't gotten to yet.
By the time we got to the train station we were exhausted. We'd decided to have 2 days in the loire valley so that we could sleep and recover for one day and still have time to see some chateaux. But instead we slept and read for both days and didn't see a great deal of Blois at all. But we left much more refreshed than we had been, ready to see Carnac.
We got incredibly lucky with Carnac because we managed to couch surf with a woman who was willing to drive us all around to see the stone alignments and the sunset over they ocean and a tomb and little seaside villages and more. If we had had to do it ourselves we would have found a way but we wouldn't have seen half as much as we did because it would have taken so much time to figure out how to get places.
The stone alignments at Carnac are amazing. I took some pictures and I'll try to remember to stick one in at the end but they don't really give you any idea of the scale. These massive stones are lined up in rows
There are also a bunch of tomb things where they've put these stones standing close together, more or less in a circle, and then placed a giant one over the top. We went to see one that is in a forest area and is still contained in rock and earth. You can go inside it.
Then we went for lunch for the local speciality of galettes. Very tasty. Had a look around the port then drove out to the peninsula with a dramatic coastline where we speculated on the sanity of the surfers.
That evening our host had friends over and she fed us lobster. It's the first time I've had lobster. I decided since I was planning on eating it I should be willing to watch them prepare it. Including the part where they cut it in half alive. Almost makes me want to switch to halal but I trust that most of the meat I eat goes through slaughterhouses where the aim is efficiency meaning a quick and clean kill. I was not a fan of watching a living creature be bisected but once it was dead I had no problem just seeing it as meat. And it was tasty. Though rather hard to eat.
So that should bring you up to date. I am now on the train to St Malo where hopefully there will be decent internet for me to post this.
that go for hundreds of metres. And that's just one part. There are several different parts. Thousands of megaliths covering I don't even know how many kilometres which people purposefully placed upright in the ground. And the rocks don't even come from near there! And unlike stonehenge you can walk right in among them and reach out and touch them. Or you can in winter anyway. Apparently in summer they are closed off so the vegetation can regrow. Another advantage to travelling off season.