Tuesday 21 September 2010

The Last of Switzerland...

Both Ben and I have decided that Switzerland has been BY FAR our favourite part of the holiday! Having been on travelling round for a month, and seeing so much amazing stuff...we have realised, rather quickly, that the best part of travelling is who you meet, and getting amongst the culture! Not only in Switzerland the most beautiful place on earth, but making friends with some of its beautiful citizens has just meant our holiday had reached new heights of beauty! We have been truly and utterly spoilt by Sylvia and her family...and without getting spiritual about it, I reckon this is how Jesus would make people if they came to visit him!

We took a chairlift to the top of one of the Swiss Alps, and had hot tomato soup and Apple Strudel with Vanilla Sauce, (No I was not even slightly afraid going on a chairlift without the imaginary safety of snow beneath me, despite what Ben or Sylvia might tell you if you were to ask them). We walked around crystal clear lakes in the middle of mountains, and hussed our way down the longest monorail in Europe...I personally reckon in the world! And yes I did huss, but only after I had made quite sure that not using the breaks the whole way down would not result in my cart flying off the rail at the corners, leading to a grusome death...yes then I was quite the speed demon! We ate traditional Swiss, and Austrian food, danced the night away, and were given plenty of much needed hair advice...well that last one was directed at me, and the mess I have made of mine going blond and using straighteners daily! So, now heading to Germany to stay with an old school friend of Ben's, we have planned our Swiss ski holiday for February, and made all our new friends promise to come stay with us in London!

Ben Comes Home...

Well, we have returned to Ben's home country, Switzerland...only to find out from a legitimate Swiss person that he in fact does not look Swiss, but Danish, or Dutch...so from now on I will have to cease hassling Ben about looking Swiss, and call him Danish, (I can't go with Dutch, since that is what I pride myself in being).

How stunning is Switzerland! Ben used the word pristine to describe it, and I totally agree! It is much like NZ with gorgeous mountains, rock faces, rolling green grassy hills, crystal clear rivers, etc, but just a bit less rugged! And to top it off are the tiny villages dotted throughout the Alps. Little Chalet style houses, fronted with flower boxes displaying bright red and yellow flowers! Really something picturesque! I am truly in love...and to be honest, it's similarity to NZ had us both feeling a little homesick!

We are staying with a friend of a couple of my brothers and my Uncle, the most lovely girl, Sylvia. And talk about being totally spoilt! Her and her family have made us truly feel welcome! We spent this morning, in true Swiss style, by going into the Alps to collect their horse and donkey. The horse was particularly adamant she was not leaving the Alps, and her other horsey friends, meaning it took a good half hour to get her into the horse float. Pushing her butt, pulling her from the front, teasing her with carrots and bread and lifting her legs did not work. In the end, we had to wrap two straps round her back legs, a man on each end pulling, Sylvia's father lifting the legs, and Ben and Sylvia pulling from the front, to get her in. I think the saying 'stubborn as an ass' needs to be rethought. Ben and I have fallen in love with the silence and fresh air. Even the larger cities are clean and cutely styled, set in the midst of the mountainous Alps. We have fallen in love with Swiss food, and Swiss people. After dinner last night, a group of people invited us to their table for a drink cos they 'wanted to meet the kiwi's'. Ben lapped up the celebrity attention and was in full form, cranking out his knowledge on politics, Swiss banking and farming. He even told plenty a travel tale to get a few laughs. He has truly decided he is home...whether he actually looks Swiss or not!

I look forward to dancing it up in a Swiss club tomorrow night, and checking out more of what this stunning country has to offer!

Thursday 16 September 2010

Milan

So, sitting here on the train to Milan, I am having one of those 'I feel blessed' moments! Every now and then I get these little buzzes, where I am truly so grateful that I get to be over here doing what we are doing. We have just met the most lovely Ozzy girl on our train, who is travelling for a couple of months but is feeling homesick. Naturally I want to take her under my wings and be the nicest person she has met on holiday to cheer her up! I can relate to her homesickness, and hence the reason for my 'I feel blessed' moment...as for a change, I do not feel homesick, and wish I weren't so far away from the people I love most, but am just appreciating our decision to travel!

So Ben, sitting opposite me is attempting to beat my high scores in Bedjewelled Blitz on his phone. He will be lucky, since I have watched him play, and his pause before every move, will unlikely mean he even comes close. Not that I am bragging to you all while he is preoccupied or anything. Actually the other day, we were having competitions on Bedjewelled, and he was hassling me for being so chuffed with myself at my beating him, and I told him, that it is not often I am better than him at something and so I was allowed to gloat every once in a while. He promptly replied that there was plenty that I was better than him at, to which I questioned, 'what exactly?'. Now his response to this was 'Well...you are better at Bedjewelled, and wearing a dress'. Hmmm....is all I have to respond to that. Point proven! Gloat I shall.

I have decided that being away from my new wee niece has turned me into stalker Aunt. I have got photo's of her as my phone screensaver, I made Ben save her to our laptop desktop background, and I spend a good part of each morning looking through the pics I have of her, and just gooing. I think Dam and Lanz will be just slightly relieved that there is thousands of miles of sea between us, or they might have had a daily doorstep visitor!

We have spent the last day and a half building up the last of our tans, before we head up north to the cold, and beginning of winter. No more will I be refused from churches for my lack of clothing...gone are the days of heat, singlets, and swimming!! :-( I had even taking to swimming lengths for exercise, which I had decided was my new favourite, due to the fact that you could not feel the sweat running down your body while you did it, in comparison to running or being in the gym. Not only that, but the minute you stopped you were instantly cooling down...so good! Now, however, it will be back to long runs up the Swiss Alps...which actually doesn't sound that bad when I say it like that.

In Milan: Tonight we found heaven...or at least what any bargain hunting person on a travel budget considers heaven. After not having eaten since 8am, due to train rides, visa card dramas, and hotel check-ins, we did a quick amount of research before deciding it was time to have a quick look round Milan and hunt out somewhere for dinner. Now our Google research told us that there are bars in Milan which will give you free food with a drink purchase...'too good to be true', is exactly what we thought too. However, we were wrong. This is actually legitimate! Being Kiwi's and from a culture where nothing is for free, we did what we felt was our duty, and did not ask for a glass of tap water with a dash of lemon, but purchased an actual beer and wine. Sitting down at the table with our drinks, we were told by the waiter to go help ourselves to the food. Now don't start picturing a couple of sloppily put-together finger foods...no this was more comparable to a Christmas pot-luck dinner. They had pasta, salads, frank and beans, (which much to Ben's amusement, was my favourite), chips, quiche, pizza, fruit, dessert...and more. No we could not believe our eyes, or our good luck at this most wonderful find on a budget, and just when we were in full hunger pang mode! Being that I remember my family sharing stories at their good luck at the races one day when they found a room full of food and drinks which they assumed were free, only to be promptly kicked out, I was very polite in my tiny helping, and began to worry about Ben going up for his second, larger helping, to which he assured me he had seen others do. He was right. People literally had come in, (students I presume), bought a juice for 2 Euro, and had their full of dinner! I was cautious in my approach to a meagre second plate, but still am proud to say that I claimed enough of the bargain to make up for my expensive wine. I could only think how much my brothers and cousins up north would have got amongst this deal had they been here! This one is for you guys!!

Well...what else to do in Milan...we are possibly going to see 'The Last Supper' by Leo Da Vinci, and I will most definitely strut my stuff down the catwalk...just for Andhy Blake! Then we are on to Switzerland to herd some goats on one of the Alps...actually I think it is horses we will be herding...but close enough!

Monday 13 September 2010

Venice and Being a New Aunty...

Well this is coming to you from a new Aunty on the Schuurman side. And yes, I am just slightly excited at this!! I have seen photo's of my gorgeous wee niece...and she is just the most adorable wee thing!! I think she is a good mix of Dam and Lanz...being that depending on the photo, depends on who she looks like...and I do have to agree with my wee bro, she most definitely has Lanz wee button nose!! Too too cute! Unfortunately, my little niece has done nothing to dispel my desire for kids...rather the complete opposite...if I was clucky and wanting kids before...it is only worse now!! I am truly in love with the wee munchy...I could eat her she is so yummy!

For those of you who may have seen on facebook, the reference to myself as Aunty Lubie...I am now going to clear the matter of your curiosity up. If this name continues within the family...as I unfortunately am most sure that it will...the poor child needs to know that her Aunty Joe, (as I will always refer to myself), is not some dodge, (the nickname could have a somewhat unseemly meaning when the poor child reaches her teens), but rather, had a horrid nickname thrust upon her as she innocently put lipgloss on her lips, one lovely afternoon at a family lunch. This would normally be an unimportant event, but unfortunately for myself, I have the raucous, joking-around, hassling type brothers, who decided from that moment on I would be known as lip-lube to the family. This name was a keeper, (Yay!). And hence the name was shortened to a more effortless calling-length of Lubie. And the joy of facebook is that this name is not limited to my immediate family, and those unfortunate friends who happen to be present during family gatherings, but only the whole world in which I associate myself! So now that the matter has been cleared, and you are all most definitely in my camp, sympathising in the awful things that brothers thrust upon us, I will move on to more travel blogging. :-)

Leaving Rome, we booked ourselves tickets on the overnight train to Venice. Unfortunately our budget did not stretch far enough to allow us into one of the cabins with beds, and we were therefore we found ourselves in a tiny cabin filled with four others. Despite having presumed otherwise, we were not sitting next to each other, but opposite. The reason for this we quickly discovered. To get ourselves comfortable, we had to pull the bottom of our seats out making it possible to lie slightly horizontal. The only problem with this was that your seat, touched the seat of the person in front of you...explaining why you sat opposite your partner. This was relatively, (and I do mean ONLY relatively), comfy for me...being that I was shorter, I spread my legs out on top of Ben and got some semblance of sleep. Ben however, being that much taller, could not stretch out, and when he did have his feet my way, I had to half lie on them, (as they were too heavy to rest on top of me), and this did not last long before I had cramp and we both had to move. So the poor guy ended up sleeping most of the night with me sprawled out like a child half over him. Despite the wriggling round and broken sleep, the time passed quickly, and before we knew it, it was 5am and we were in Venice. A couple of coffees later and we were ready to attempt the day!

Venice...one of my top three places in the world to visit! Now I had heard from many a mouth, that Venice was a let-down, smelly, boring, expensive and generally disappointing. I, however, totally disagree! This has been my favourite place in the world so far. I had always imagined what a city that has canals instead of streets might look like...and it has lived up to every expectation, and every beautiful photograph I had. It is just gorgeous! We spent most of yesterday wandering around and taking a million photos, (not unusual for us). Ben, who I think has a map for every city in the world implanted in his head, actually got lost! That is truly a first! Me, who since leaving the grid of Christchurch, has no sense of direction what-so-ever, followed him round, innocently believing him when he told me he knew where he was. One would think, that my trust in his incredibly accurate sense of direction, would have been questioned, when he led us to a dead end, (the ocean, at the end of the island), but alas no, I followed him still. Dead end number two had him lead me down a narrow street, which ended in a doorway to another canal. This was the point where I told him, that Venice had beaten him and his perfect sense of direction and that I was going to ask someone the way to the bus station...but being a male, Ben did not approve of this idea, and assured me he would get us there. Which he did, I have to admit, after over an hour of seemingly aimless wandering. Whether he actually knew the general direction, or he was just determined to overcome the challenge, I will never know, but I do pride myself of playing the part of the good wife, and leaving him in control!

So, checked into a camping ground with a gym and pool, (both of which we have made the most of already, despite being eaten alive by mossies in the gym), and in an upgraded room with an en-suite, thanks to Ben working his magic with the receptionist, we are ready for day two in Venice, where I will attempt to work my magic on a gondola punter!

Sunday 5 September 2010

Barcelona to Rome

So tonight Ben and I went into the centre of Barcelona for a bit of sightseeing and some dinner. We went to the 'supposed to be, but not quite', 'happening' main street, and were just slightly disappointed at the lack of buzz or people...I guess the crowds of London ruin anyone in terms of what the word 'busy' means. There seemed to be little going on with the exception of one queue reaching out the door of a theatre and winding its way round the street corner. We decided on a relatively cheap place to eat and enjoyed a meal. Now at the end of our meal we were approached, inside the restaurant, by a man selling flashing, highlighter sunglasses. This did not at all strike me as strange, as just at the very moment I had finished my sandwich and smoothie, I though to myself, 'that meal was great, but without some flashing, highlighter sunglasses to finish, it is just not quite complete'! Now one does have to wonder at the reason for this particular choice of sale item, and the particular time of day, (or should I say night), at which the seller decided to make his wares known to the public. Does he often make a purchase just as a couple puts their knives and forks down after a meal, inside a restaurant? Especially a couple who look so little like tourists, with Ben's not-at-all Sweedish looking tan, blue eye's and sun blonded hair. Is it that one, late in the evening, is pondering the next day's beach plans, and is thinking that the best way to accompany their bared Euorpean bodies, is with some flashing, highlighter sunglasses? Well, after all this it is needless to say that these lovely flashing, highlighter sunglasses unfortunately did not make it into my purse, as no matter how hard I tried, I just could not picture myself checking out the sights of Barcelona over the next few days wearing a pair...although I am pretty sure I can convince Ben next time we are approached after a meal, that they are a must have for any Sweedish tourist!.

So it turns out that the street we had actually spent the night wandering up and down was not La Rambla, the main street after-all....hence the lack of business. We did, however finally find the correct street, which was in fact buzzing with atmosphere and full of markets and street performers...very fun! It might be best if we read the street signs before we make judgement in the future I think.

So last night we moved up a class, by flying from Barcelona to Rome. But then when you hear the airline with which we flew, you will realise that Derby was most definitely the one up a class in comparison. Ryanair was the flight company of our choice due to it's ridiculously cheap fares...which we will not complain about. The problem with this airline is that you are only allowed one carry on, per person and that does not mean a mini trolley case, a handbag, and a camera, (as I would take it to mean), it literally means one item...so obviously you are not going to make that item your camera! This also means that any luggage you want to check in has to be paid for on top of your fare...and depending on the weight depends on the price. Now due to the fact we had no bags while in Derby, we had to buy suitcases specifically for our travelling future. And me being the practical one I am, due to the fact we already have decent large suitcases, and large packs at home, I could not justify the purchase of any more. My suggestion therefore was to by a small carry on trolley bag each, (of which we have none), and one large, lightweight bag to check on...aaah...you can see the money we will save already. So emptying our hire car in Barcelona we managed to fit all our possession into the small carry on's and the duffel bag, (sending the rest home in boxes). However we did not account for how much all this one duffel bag would weigh. When we got to the check-in, we realised we were hugely overweight, by two kgs, (at 10 Euro a kg, it is hugely overweight). So being sneaky, as we most definitely are, we layered ourselves up in shirts, boots and jackets, (yes we were aware how completely not suspicious this looked in the 35 degree heat). Then after being sure we had maybe removed two kgs, or close to it, and hoping they would let us away with the rest we put our bag on to be weighed. Now being that I am not the quietest person on the planet, I noticed that for some reason, our few clothes seemed to have dropped the weight by a good 10kgs, and began to announce this loudly to Ben, saying that it can't be right. Under his breath he told me very politely to 'shut-up' as he had purposely placed it on the side and not completely on the scale. His poor stupid wife ruining his cunning plan. This being said, he got away with his sneakiness, only to find out as the suitcase rolled up the escalator that he hadn't needed to be, as we were actually within the correct weight we had paid for.

We are now in Rome, and LOVING it! Italy is actually everything people say it is! Every street you turn down in Rome has some gorgeous church or ancient ruin! We spent the whole day walking through the city towards Vatican city, only to get kicked out once we got there cos my skirt was not of appropriate length, meaning we will have to attempt it all again tomorrow. We awed at the size of the Colloseum, and tried to give ourselves halo's through the hole in the roof at the Pantheon. And to finish a perfect, if tiring, day we sat El Fresco, eating the most divine pasta and pizza!

Thursday 2 September 2010

Farewell Derby...

So insurance decided that 2,385 Euro was far too much to pay to fix our wee Darb Darbs, (as Ben had nicknamed him), due to the fact that we had paid a mere £750 pounds to purchase him. Some people just don't recognise a good thing when they see it. I mean did they take into account the purchases of all Derby's added 'extra's', (drawers, cubby holes, double bed and mattress), and the time it took us to turn him into Holmes Hotel...getting paid mechanics wages of course, (£40 an hour)? Had these things been taken into account I think they would have recognised the foolishness of their decision, and paid the meagre 2,385 Euro's, knowing that Derby had at least a year and a half of great travelling times left in him. Who would deprive such a hard-working lad his owed holidays? I have to say it was a slightly emotional time for me clearing our stuff out of Derby and leaving him behind. My last glimpse of him was the lovingly made New Zealand sticker proudly displayed on his back window, (come to think of it, we might have wanted to remove it and leave just the GB sticker on, due to the circumstances...we don't want to give NZ'ers a bad name!)
So this being said, we have finally left the small town, in which we quickly became locals at the several of the cafes, and Castellon, where we received Derby's terrible news, and are now hotelling it in Barcelona before we fly to Rome.

Now I did think to myself that it is probably the wisest idea for Ben and I to use public transport and avoid any form of driving, being that two weeks was the threshold of our good luck on European roads...and I did think this right up until the time we decided to make the most of the free hire car our car insurance would pay us. So we are back on the road...this time in a left-hand drive car, even more abnormal to drive than Derby, a right-hand drive, on the wrong side of the road, (according to us Kiwi's)...trying to leave the past behind us and once again experience all the joys travelling has to offer.

Our first night in Barcelona was really something quite divine! Being that we are trying to stinge out of as much spending as possible when it is not necessary, after driving round for about two hours we decided that rather than paying ridiculous prices for a hotel, we would relive Derby moments and sleep in the car. Now to be honest this was probably the moment I most missed Derby...a tiny four door Citroen is not quite the same as a double bed in the back of a people mover. We had our seats down as far as they would go, yet still were sitting partially upright. I was definitely in the better position being shorter than Ben, as I could still sleep on my side with my legs curled up...Ben had to kind of sit/Lie on the chair on his back all night. Another thing which we found to be a problem with the size, was not the lack of room, but the quick build up of heat. After an hour Ben and I were both sweating terribly, and it took much convincing on my part for him to open all the windows a small amount so that we wouldn't die of overheating in our sleeps, (Ben is always very safety conscious). This made a huge difference, and nestled amongst all our belongings from Derby, we managed to get a semi-full nights sleep...or at least I did. There is nothing quite like shutting your eyes knowing that you are protected by plates and pots round your head, clothes splayed under your feet, and spices, cooking oil, gas cooker and a gas canister, all next to your face to make for a good nights sleep.

Now I hate to admit it, and know, before I even start this next paragraph, that I am by no means a supporter, but McDonald's has truly been our lifesaver on this trip. Before you start picturing Ben and I waddling back home after our two month holiday, I am not talking about the food. McDonald's has this wonderful little thing called 'free wifi', and to say that Ben and I have scavenged as much of this as possible would be the understatement of the year! Let's just say that 10 coffees (Yes Mcdonald's actually does decent coffee in Europe, and 'yes again', we are too stingy to buy any food), has paid for a good 15-20 hours worth of internet! McDonald's has been responsible for saving us several Euro on hotels, hire car's and flights! Not to mention Ben's joy at being able to watch the All Blacks play South Africa in the Tri Nations final, (I do think the Spanish wondered at his mental state when shouting for the whole restaurant to hear each time we scored though). We are truly thankful! I don't think, however, that they will use our names as examples of how 'free wifi' has been a benefit to the company!