The rest of Mallorca January 10, 2016

It hasn’t quite been a year since the last post so technically no one can be upset with me.

Anyway – it’s our second day in Mallorca and we wanted to go on a Boat Tour.  After some searching we found one that included sangria and snorkeling.   The tour was absolutely stunning.  All that cliche “sun was shining” “water was deep blue” stuff.  Seriously, it was almost too much to take.  We had our sangria and boated by celebrity and rich people hot spots and by the time we got to where we were going to snorkel, the waves were pretty heavy and I was feeling a tad seasick.  Which I swiftly put aside to jump into the water and look for fish.  The four of us swam around and then I promptly went back up to the boat to throw up – no regrets.  After that I was basically dizzy for the rest of the way back so I layed down on the bench.  Which actually worked out well for tanning.

Later on we went to another German influenced restaurant for dinner where we learned that waitresses have absolutely no idea how to split the bills up. We relished in our last night of Mallorca and headed to bed to be ready for our flight to Barcelona, our last city of the trip, the next morning.

Cheers

The day we were carnivores January 11, 2015

Here are the inexcusable excuses I’m using to cover up for not posting in so long: Thanksgiving, Christmas Shopping,  Christmas Time,  Boxing Day recovery, Pre New Years Plans, New Years, Post New Years resolution creation, post resolution disappointment.   In any case, I promised Sophie yesterday that I would get back on track so this post is as much for her as it is for me.  Here goes.

It was our last day in Malaga.  When we were having breakfast we told Gerome that tonight was our last night and we wanted his famous BBQ dinner that we witnessed the first night.  He promised it would be the best dinner we’ve ever had.  We walked down to the beach and proceeded to have an incredibly relaxing day.  Alternating between swimming, tanning and people watching.  It was beautiful and well deserved.  The sky was blue and the water even bluer.  We could have layed there forever but we started to smell like a mix of sun screen and sweat and knew that there was quite a lavish feast waiting for us.

We got prettied up for the second time this trip and walked down after the sun set to find that Gerome was already getting the BBQ fired up.  We didn’t specify what we wanted so our palates were at the mercy of this french, slightly insane but genuinely caring, self proclaimed famous pastry chef.  Our dinner that night consisted of pounds upon pounds of meat, meat and more meat.  Were there sides?  Nope.  Just meat.  And of course Gerome’s famous sangria.  We were served sausages, following by steak, followed by pork chops, followed by (and I quote) “De Best Chorizo in Da World”, ending with more steak.

We were in a food coma.  Or more accurately a carnivore coma.  I vaguely remember being offered a piece of bread to soak up the protein.  But hey, there’s fruit in sangria right? We stayed up listening to Gerome tell us his world adventure.

The next morning we were off to the island of Mallorca.

Since there should be mo more major distractions in the month of January ( I’m not making any promises – the Canal opened this week), I will do my best to post in the next three weeks.

Cheers!

A day in Windsor December 31, 2012

Happy New Years.  I wish I could tell you all about my resolutions but alas I don’t make any.  I can feel your judgemental eyes and I will ignore them. Moving on, I still have a few days left to tell you about.

We decided to take the train into Windsor for the day.  We had to switch over in Slough, which is aparently the original location for the British show “The Office”.  I can’t tell you any more about it because we only experienced the station.  It was a little dirty.  We  arrived to Windsor, sunny and 30 degrees and had a burger in a cute joint that reminded me of the Works.  Our waiter told us that he had the best burger of his life in a place called Red Mill which turns out is in Seattle.

After lunch we walked through town to the College, which was closed.  Jenn bought a super cute giant floppy hat which may have been impulsive and hard to get into her suitcase but when in Windsor!  After the college we stood in line in the scorching heat for almost an hour to get into the Windsor Castle and St George Chapel.  Which was actually worth every minute.  It was another overwhelmingly beautiful lavish little village of riches I’ll never know but for some reason it didn’t upset me.  Maybe it was the garden, I really like gardens.  We took one of those dorky pictures with the guards who don’t move. They must have been sweating in there.  Incredible self control.  They must make great husbands.  Are guards allowed to get married?  I’ll look into that for you.

After the castle we had tappas at a sweet mexican restaurant and headed on back to Annettes to pack for our last two days in London before going home.

Cheers

There is a woman living in that box. September 23, 2012

Our flight was at 7am so we had to wake up at 4:30, and because we were so angry with our neighbours we decided we didn’t have to be quiet.  I don’t think it bothered them though because aparently we were living beside a bunch of ogres.  On our way out I wrote a nice note for whoever was coming into our room next, warning them about the situation.  We hopped on a plane (no mistakes this time) and landed in London at 9am.   We took a subway followed by a 45 minute walk in the pouring rain and made it to our hostel The Walrus Waterloo.  We couldn’t check in yet but we were allowed to store our bags and we killed some time at the closest Starbucks.  We went back to the hostel, where the overly sweet staff carried our bags to our rooms (even though I warned him mine weighed about 4 tons) and we got a tour of the place.  It was beyond cute and we were 5 minutes walking distance from everything typical touristy.  The sun was coming out so we decided to go out and explore.   London was buzzing with Olympic electricity and we even got to watch the womens marathon through the streets.

We then stumbled upon my favourite sight in a city, a food festival.  Tucked in behind a big theatre were 10-15 booths everything ranging from traditional lebanese food to goats milk ice cream.  There was even a place selling what they claimed as “The Best Sangria” which of course, we had to try.  After stuffing our faces [literally] we continued our adventure through London.  We passed by a fair, some buskers and an outdoor art display.

The next morning we woke up to what we hoped would be a full day.  We had to go pick up our London Pass (a speed pass to most attraction sites) and our Hop On/Hop Off tour tickets.  We had purchased those before we left home to save some time.  Our travel agent assured me that I wouldn’t need our printed confirmation for the London Pass however when we got to the office it turned out we did, so we ran back, out of breath and returned.  Next we had an issue with the Hop On tickets.  We were under the impression that we had purchased a two day pass but aparently those aren’t allowed to be sold.  After about an hour of extreme confusion and out of breath-ness later we had figured everything out and we were on the bus taking in all the cool things London had to offer.  I squealed a little when we passed by Daniel Radcliffes school (so sue me I like Harry Potter).

After our tour we went to the Art Gallery.  It still amazes me that all the galleries and museums are free.  We did most of the permanent exhibit then I wanted to check out the temporary exhibit called Titians Metamorphisis.  It was in the basement and most of it was dimly lit and weird.  Maybe I don’t understand all art.  Anyway I noticed people going in and out of a pitch black room so I followed.  In the centre was a giant box, about 15X20X20.  There were windows on two sides but there were curtains covering them and a wooden door that didn’t open.  At a closer inspection you saw a peephole on one side and a crack in the curtain of one of the windows.  When it was my turn I took a look in through the window to find a full bathroom inside.  In the centre was a bathtub and in the bathtub was a real life women shaving.  I thought maybe I was imagining it but then the chatter from other people in the room confirmed that I wasn’t crazy.  I took another look, the woman didn’t move from the bathtub and didn’t seem to know that anyone was even looking in.

I decided that I should investigate.  I asked one of the workers to explain it to me.  She said that in the story of Titian, he watches a woman bathe in the forest so the artist wanted to put us in that situation.  I’ll say it again, maybe I just don’t understand art.  Also then I was concerned for the well being of this woman and how long she’d been in the box.  The worker looked at me like I was crazy and told me it’s only a 4 hour exhibit.  I dragged Jenn in to see if she understood any more than I did,  but we were in the same boat.  I wonder how much they pay a gal to sit in a box and shave all day,  I’d take that job.
Cheers

These girls are STILL slamming the door. September 19, 2012

We were fried from our exciting day at the races so we decided to take a fairly easy time.  We visited a fantastic department store called Penny’s which was a super hybrid of Forever21 style and Walmart prices and then made our way to the Art Gallery.  We had dinner and decided to catch a movie.  Lucky for us we made it in time to watch “The Dark Knight Rises” at a small grimy theatre around the corner from our hostel.  If you’ve seen this movie then we can share our mutual love later.

While we were walking back I noticed that a few hallways down from us someone had left a note on a door saying “For the love of God woman, stop slaming your door, it is very loud and we were trying to sleep”.  Which made me feel happy that we weren’t the only ones having problems with our neighbours.  That night I walked into the bathroom and noticed little black specs all over the sink, which I initially thought were hairs and was grossed out by our neighbour not cleaning after his shaving, but upon further inspection realized they were actually cigarette ashes, which explained the smell.  What is wrong with people?!  Anyway Jenn and I were just about to fall asleep when once again, the door started slamming along with girly drunken laughs and I vowed that the next day I would also write our neighbours a note, maybe that would work better.

The next morning I woke up and wrote this lovely note “Dear Neighbours, pretty pretty pretty please stop slamming the door, it’s louder than the train going by and impossible to sleep through.  Cheers 🙂 ”  Yup, I even drew a happy face, so they knew there were no hard feelings.  I put it up on their door and we were out for the day.  We visited the Chester Beatty Library, an incredible collection of original books from all around the world from the last billion years.  We left and were strolling through Temple Bar area enjoying the sunshine and warm weather when all of the sudden ZOMBIES.  Yup, we had walked smack through the annual Dublin Zombie Walk, raising funds for The Cancer Society.  Bonus: Jenn HATES zombies.  While she was squirming uncomfortably, I was loving every minute of it, yelling for each group of zombie friends to pose for a picture.  After I’d had my fill of Zombies we went to a restaurant called BadAss for some lunch.  When we got back to the hostel we realized that despite being out for the entire day, our neighbours had left the note on the door.    We had a fun dinner with the rest of our hostel friends and tucked in early since we flew to London the next day.  Our neighbours came in at the middle of the night and despite having a chat about my note, decided to continue to slam the door anyway.  So that’s how we were playing this game…..

Cheers