codegoat - Travel

Home Sweet Home

nospam@example.com (Chrissy Simpson) — Mon, 23 Jan 2006 12:20:10 -0500

We have been back in Victoria for two weeks now and things are going well. We are house sitting and cat sitting for Marion and Vince Howlett for a couple of months while they do some traveling in Australia and New Zealand. It is such a perfect arrangement for us as it will give us time to get readjusted to new jobs. When they return we will probably find a rental property somewhere. I have found a job working for a local company, called Applocation. Applocation specializes in wireless location applications. The dot on a map kinda thing. Travis has been keeping busy working on personal contracts.

Both of us have been playing plenty of World of Warcraft in our spare time. For those interested few, we managed to level our two newest characters to 60 and we have joined a new guild on the Frostmane server. The new guild is Shar Hellven where a few of our friends in town play. It is pretty small, but lots of fun. Will our addiction ever end? At this point, it doesn't look like it but I am sure that we will eventually get bored and move on. However, blizzard knows how to build seriously addicting games and add content to them to make them even more addicting, so maybe we will play it forever.

Happy New Year!

nospam@example.com (Chrissy Simpson) — Sun, 01 Jan 2006 05:14:35 -0500

We are officially back in North America! Last night we arrived at my Brother and Sister in-law's house just outside of Boston. We are visiting with Bob, Lauren and little Jake and Makena until next Friday when we fly back to Vancouver.

Our last few days with Josh were spent trying to fit all of the things we still wanted to do in with two Millwall games. Trav and I went into London one day where we visited the Natural History Museum and tried to do some shopping but we kept running into closed stores. I guess the day after boxing day wasn't a good day to try to shop. The other free day, Josh had off, so we headed down to our favorite mall to see King Kong. We all really liked King Kong. It was good because Trav, Josh and I have had a really good record for picking trashy movies to see in the theatre. Leaving London was bitter-sweet. Trav and I were really ready to come home and see our family and friends, but we had a good time with Josh and will miss his company a lot.

The trip over from London was long. In total, we were traveling for 35 hours. YUK! The flight from London to Toronto was uneventful and went quite fast. For the second part of the trip, we were taking a bus from Toronto to Boston. From the airport in Toronto, we took a bus to the bus terminal where we got on a bus bound to Boston. Now, when we booked these bus tickets, we were in this little naive world that we would get on one bus, fall asleep and then wake up in Boston. How wrong we were.

At midnight, after driving for about 2 hours, we reached the border crossing and we didn't drive away from the border until 3 am! It was the most awful border experience I have ever had. First, the bus had to park for a little less than 2 hours waiting its turn. Then, when it was our turn, we all lined up to go through customs. One would think that in a place as cold as Niagra Falls that they would have a waiting room. But, no. The whole bus had to line up outside. It was -7 C! We froze in line as we watched the border crossing guards take a coffee break. The line didn't start moving for maybe a half an hour! It was awful. I can't believe how they treat people on the bus. When it was our turn, we flew through. But I think they looked through every suit case of every other person on the bus. It was horrible.

After the border, we had to make two horrible changes to other buses. The busses were so packed and for one section of the ride Trav and I couldn't even sit together. Anyway, our lesson has been learned and we will never take a bus to save a few bucks again.

When we finally arrived in Boston, we found out that Bob and Lauren had been stuck in a snow storm and missed their flight the day before from Utah. So, we took a cab to their house in Norwell. When we got here, we were exhausted. We tried to search for some hockey on TV, but nothing was on, so we just went to sleep. We didn't even make it to midnight!

That's it for our adventure. We are quite glad to be back in North America. This morning we woke up to two or three inches of fresh snow. It is so pretty!

Great Britain Road Trip

nospam@example.com (Travis Simpson) — Sun, 25 Dec 2005 04:43:25 -0500

With us only being here in England for a little while longer, we decided to rent a car and see a bit more of Great Britain. Leaving London on Monday (December 19th) we headed for York, England. We spent a night there which included a dinner of giant Yorkshire puddings! Well, they were giant, but not nearly as good as Marion's! After our dinner, we walked around town which ranges from normal english streets to tiny streets where it feels like the buildings are falling in on you.

After sleeping in one of the nicest hostels we have seen in our travels, we drove to the coast of England then headed for Scotland! Arriving in Edinburgh late afternoon, we drove around town looking for a hostel... This driving around included entering a "Taxi and Bus ONLY" zone. It was like a little nerd wandering down Bully Lane. We found our way out of that zone and eventually found a hostel. Well, we went from the great hostel in York to one of the worst we have seen in Edinburgh. It even included a 60 year old deaf South African who enjoyed yelling stories at 11pm (I am sure the people in the other rooms were really impressed). But we found an awesome seafood restaurant, enjoyed some crayfish, crab and mussels!

Wednesday was a fun driving day, we drove from Edinburgh to Glasgow then after a quick drive around Glasgow we headed south, England's lake district calling. The lake district was beautiful, tiny (and I do mean tiny) windy roads through hills and lakes. After a hour and a half, we came across Windermere, a tourism town. I don't think I have ever been to a town where almost every house there has a B&B.

Thursday was to be our long haul, we needed to go from North Western England to Bath (just east of London) and see Wales in there too. It ended up being an awesome day that included a tour of a really neat Castle (in Wales), a pretty good BLT, and lots of open road. Our day started at 8am and we arrived in Bath at 7pm. It was quite the drive, but it is always entertaining when you are driving on the wrong side of the road. We were pretty tired, so we found a hostel, had some dinner and called it an early night.

We woke up at about 7:30 (car was parked in free parking until 8am), had breakfast, checked out and bought a parking pass for a few hours. Then we went to where Bath gets it's name, the Roman Baths. We then climbed back in the car and headed for the Stonehenge! I am not really sure how to explain them... rocks? After checking that out, we headed for Oxford - our last stop on our trip. We spent a few hours walking around... Enjoyed some sub sandwiches and one of the most amazing (and expensive) chocolate chip cookies we have ever had. If you ever go to Oxford, check out Ben's Cookies, I think it is quite popular, as I saw a girl wearing a Ben's Cookies shirt.

Now for the fun journey through London, Chrissy enjoyed driving in London... Probably the most stressful driving she has ever endured. She did awesome.

It was a fun trip, very neat to see all the places we went. We both really liked York and Oxford. Edinburgh was FREEZING, the wind was crazy. Bath was neat, but I'll stick to my own personal Bath, or a jacuzzi tub some day! Wales was very beautiful, the only country we have been to where there are castles everywhere... It was quite neat.

Check out the recent additions to our photo album for pictures from this trip!

Jordi's Visit

nospam@example.com (Chrissy Simpson) — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 18:40:44 -0500

Wow, so it has nearly been a month since our last post! Time flies! What have we been up to? Well Jordi (Trav's younger brother) has been over visiting for the last two weeks, and we have had quite a busy Millwall Schedule. We also found the local library so we have been reading some books. I just finished reading Oliver Twist. It seemed fitting, being in London and all. And I have started in on the Left Behind Series. Almost pounded through the first one. Trav has read a lot of the Left Behind Series already so, he has been reading one. Maybe the 8th or 9th book, but I am not really sure. The 16th was Chrissy's Birthday (happy 26th to me). A couple of days after my birthday, as is customary, we went to see Harry Potter in the theater here. I thought it was the best Harry Potter movie yet! Even though, I thought it was the poorest of all the books.

With Jordi, we went out to see the London sights and we were able to see a few things with him that we hadn't seen ourselves yet. We had dinner in the original Hard Rock Cafe which was pretty fun. We also toured the British Museum and saw the Rosetta Stone which was really cool. And, we made a trip out to Abbey Road to walk the famous crosswalk on the Abbey Road Album Cover. Last but definitely not the least important, we went to Harrods and had THE FINEST, I repeat, THE FINEST chocolate of all chocolate, hot chocolate and chocolate fudge brownie with chocolate sauce at the Harrods chocolate bar. Is that enough chocolates for you? hahahahaha... I have never seen a menu consisting of only chocolate, it was great! Jill, where ever you are, I was thinking of you Babe!!! I would go as far to say that it ranks the highest on my London experiences. Even though it was 25 pounds (around $50 CDN now go go Canadian Dollar!) for four hot chocolates and one brownie, I WOULD DO IT AGAIN IN A SECOND!!!

Check out the new photos from Jordi's stay.

Saturday is probably the biggest Millwall game of the season. They are playing their rivals, Crystal Palace. It is away at Crystal Palace and should be an interesting game. One of those games with what seems one to one cop to attendee ratio. So, expect to hear from us after that!

We Made It.

nospam@example.com (Chrissy Simpson) — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 08:30:24 -0400

After a seriously long day, we made it home to Josh's at 2 am last night. The flight was pretty good. We still can't believe that it only cost $10. We were waiting for someone to tell us that we had to pay some extra fee or something. But, nothing... The train ride from the airport was long and expensive. A big welcome back to the pound. Our train ride from North London to South London was about 3 times the cost of our flight from Switzerland. hehe...

Today has been very relaxing. Before we left Switzerland we spent almost every last penny (we had only .05 SF left) on butterzopf and this morning we devoured all of it. All day we have been cruising around on the net and watching movies. Soooo Lovin it!

I am going to get the rest of the pics up on the site in the next couple of mins so take a look at the end of the Zurich album.

London Bound

nospam@example.com (Chrissy Simpson) — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 04:02:20 -0400

Our last weekend with Pius and Hedy was packed full.

Friday, Hedy took us into Zurich for a guided tour of the city. We walked around a bit, took in some nice views, had an awesome hot chocolate, then fed the fish in the river curried nuts. They ate it up like mad. After Pius was finished work, we met up with him and all went to a great dinner.

Saturday, was packed full. We woke up early and drove about an hour to a village that is known for its wine making. It is also known for the story Heidi for those of you who know it. We took a nice long walk through the vineyards and villages. It was so beautiful! Then we stopped for some Suser. Suser is a low-alcohol wine that is only available in the fall here. It tastes like amazing grape juice. After the Suser, we went to Pius and Heady's favorite winery for some wine and a meat/cheese plate. Then we decided to pop over the border into Lichtenstein for some ice cream and to add another country to our list. Been there done that! There was a fall fair going on in the Village next to the one that Pius and Hedy live in so, we dropped in on our way home for some dinner and a taste of real swiss music! It was so fun!

Sunday we left Pius and Hedy and took a train to Basel, Switzerland (near the Germany border). They were such good hosts and we are very glad we stuck around to meet them.

Yesterday, we walked around the town a bit but didn't do much. We said hello to the Rhine river and watched some crazy people water ski.

This morning, we checked out of the hostel, then dropped our bags in a locker in the train station. It is really cold here today so we have taken refuge in an "Internet & Fun" cafe. This afternoon we are going to hit up a movie and then we fly to London at 9:45 tonight. We are excited to see Josh and Ali (who is visiting this week for fall break) and to sit down somewhere familiar where we know we won't have to pack our backpacks up in another 3 days. It has been 2 months since we left London! WoW!

Our first weekend with the family.

nospam@example.com (Travis Simpson) — Mon, 10 Oct 2005 08:41:07 -0400

Right now, we are staying with Momma Simpson's cousin Pius in Pfaffikon. On Saturday, Pius and Heady took us up Mt. Rigi, which is about 27km away from here, or so the GPS tells us. We hiked around the Mt. Rigi area, lots of very beautiful views.

Yesterday, Sunday, we went out to meet and visit with Grandpa's sister Rosli. She had a huge lunch waiting for us, it was very good. After lunch, I could barely walk... But we climbed in the car and went around seeing all the places that Nana and Grandpa grew up, lived and worked before leaving for Canada. It was very neat and educating to see all this stuff and learn a lot about Grandpa from Rosli. After a few hours of seeing all these historic family sights, we went back to Rosli and Wendelin's house and had dinner. Which included the Swiss tradition of doutching eggs! Chrissy's egg proved to be the best. Was a good dinner too! Mmmmmm...

I just updated the Zurich photo album with pictures of this weekend, and hope that you all enjoy them.

Finally! Photos!

nospam@example.com (Travis Simpson) — Sat, 08 Oct 2005 16:24:52 -0400

Well, we have finally updated our photos! After 2 weeks of being patient, you now have lots to look at.

We are now in Pfaffikon, a village just outside Zurich. We are staying with my second cousin Pius and Heady, they have been extremely nice in taking us in and giving us a nice warm place to stay. Great food too! Today we went for a hike on a mountain about 27 km away, it was beautiful. Tomorrow we are going to see more of the family as Pius' Mom has invited us over for lunch.

It is late here, so I am going to bed. But we will try to update the photo gallery with some descriptive comments over the next few days. Good night!

On our way to Zurich

nospam@example.com (Chrissy Simpson) — Fri, 07 Oct 2005 01:16:17 -0400

This morning we checked out of our cute little trailer that we have been renting for the last nine days. We were starting to get really comfortable until our heater broke last night at about 11pm (an hour after reception closed). We froze all night then woke up this morning and turned on all three gas elements on the stove to make some tea. Brrrr.... Then we made an awesome breakfast to make up for the terrible night. We had Rosti (potatoes like hashbrowns) with the BEST cheese melted on top then we added an egg to the top of that. And, we had some leftover bratwurst from the night before so we added that to the mix. It was leebi.

For those of you who were wondering if we ever got to the top of Jungfraujoch, here is the dish. Tuesday morning we woke up at 5:30 and there were stars everywhere. NO CLOUDS! So, we decided that we were going to go up the mountain. It had snowed in the hills right above our campground the last two days so the trip up was really pretty. There were a few clouds but definitely nothing to worry about. We get to the town where we have to switch to the private train that goes up and through the mountain. From the town, there was an awesome view of the mountain. And... There was one tiny little cloud just kind of hovering. Anyway, when we got to the top it was a complete white out. No kidding, we couldn't see everything. We both knew that the cloud was going to burn off so we waited at the top for 2 hours. Just sitting there. But it didn't burn off. Our train left at 12:45 so we had to head back down. About five minutes after we stepped off the train, the cloud cleared!!!!!!! Even though we didn't get to see the view from the top of the mountain, we had a really fun time and saw some great sights. So, no loss, but maybe one day we will have to return.

Today we are heading into Interlaken to catch a train to the Zurich area (Pfaffikon is the name of the town). There we will be staying with some of Trav's relatives. We are really looking forward to meeting them. And, as Pius mentioned in the last post, they have good ol' broadband Internet so we will get a chance to get all of you some pictures!

Still in the Swiss Alps

nospam@example.com (Travis Simpson) — Mon, 03 Oct 2005 07:35:59 -0400

We were able to extend our stay in Switzerland until the 18th of October. We fly out of Basel, Switzerland near the German border. The flight cost us 10 Swiss Francs, probably about $10.50 Canadian! Not a bad deal. We have also been in contact with some family here near Zurich, so that is pretty cool and exciting. We are taking a train on Friday (October 7th) to Zurich.

We have spent the last few days relaxing in the rain. It has snowed in the hills above where we are staying, so who knows, we may see some snow before we leave. Still waiting for a clear day to go up into the mountains for the big view. Chrissy has been improving her chess skills, and we are currently tied in our backgammon vendetta.

Hopefully in Zurich we will be able to upload pictures so you can see all the beautiful views.

Switzerland, My Mother Land

nospam@example.com (Travis Simpson) — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 09:29:30 -0400

Well, we are finally here... We have seen a lot of beautiful countries through our recent travels. But Switzerland is absolutely amazing, so much like BC it feels like home. The bus went through a pass on the way to Lauterbrunnen that was quite beautiful, unfortunately, so far the weather hasn't been cooperating. Neither have the prices. Wow. Switzerland is beautiful yes, but the prices are ridiculous. While in Interlaken today, we had to go into McDonalds just to compare prices. Well, a cheeseburger is 3.50SF, a big mac 6.50SF and a meal was 10.90SF!! Currently a Swiss Franc is about 1.03 Canadian dollars, so very close.

We are disapointed with the weather, we would like to go up to Jungfraujoch, 4100 meters up! It is titled "the top of Europe" and has some amazing views. It costs 130SF each, so we don't want to go up on a cloudy day.

We are trying to arrange a cheap flight out of Switzerland so that we can stay longer here. We'll keep you up to date with that endeavor.

Internet is very pricey and we haven't seen any wireless, so we may not be able to post pictures for a while.

A visit to Monaco

nospam@example.com (Travis Simpson) — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 04:42:35 -0400

Yesterday we went to Monaco, the second smallest country (only to the Vatican City) in the world. It was quite an interesting place, and it was warm. Probably best known for the Grand Prix F1 race every year. But apparently very well known for its Casino.

We walked around for a little while, finding the Casino, we also found lots of REALLY expensive cars. Porsches were no longer the expensive cars. Just to make our day a little more interesting, as we were walking by the Casino, a bunch of cops showed up and started carting everybody away from the Casino. Intrigued, we stayed. After watching for a while, another van showed up with some casually dressed guy who walked up to the front of the Casino and started inspecting, with some sort of detector device, a bunch of luggage and some boxes directly in front of the building. After he finished inspecting, he told the police to move the crowds back further, and he went back to his van. About 2 minutes later he reappeared in FULL bombsquad/hazmat gear. We waited for probably an 30-40 minutes while he rummaged through all the stuff and then, finding nothing, took off his gear and waved to his van to back up. He loaded all the stuff up and left. I guess a false alarm. It was pretty crazy though, as no one really seemed to know what was going on. I searched on the web for anything about it and didn't find anything. Anybody else hear anything?

I thought it was funny though, after they let people back into the area, the guys with the expensive cars (pretty much parked on the front steps of the casino) all went to their cars and got them out of there.

We'll upload pictures when we can, which will include pictures of Nice and Monaco. Tomorrow we head to Switzerland!

Nice really is nice! (thanks Chris!)

nospam@example.com (Chrissy Simpson) — Sun, 25 Sep 2005 03:59:32 -0400

Hey All. Well, we had a good two day stay in the Cinque Terre. For those of you who haven't been there, the Cinque Terre is a series of 5 Italian towns along the coast. There is no access by car to four of the five of them. So, it is a very unique place. We stayed in the first village called Riomaggiore and liked it the best. Vernazzia was a pretty cool place but FLOODED with Rick Steves carrying, loud, tourists.

The day after our last post, we did the hike that connects the towns. It was a lot of work but sure had some nice views (check out our photos). We tried to extend our stay another two days but with it being a weekend, every place we looked was booked solid. So, we left there yesterday headed for Nice and the French Riviera. Being on the water again feels soooo good!

Nice is a cool city. Not much to do except for relax. Last night we had a good bottle of wine, some cheese and a baguette down on the beach. The beaches are pebbles not sand and we didn't have a blanket so it wasn't all that comfortable, but it felt.... french... hehehe. Since we couldn't extend our stay in the Cinque Terre, we are probably going to extend our stay here. That way we can make some day trips out of here. We will probably spend an afternoon in Monaco and a day in Cannes.

We did a picture update so be sure to check them out. We added some pics to the end of Florence and added Albums for Pisa (we were only there for an hour or so) and the Cinque Terre.

We <3 Cinque Terre!

nospam@example.com (Travis Simpson) — Thu, 22 Sep 2005 08:00:30 -0400

Oh wow, this place is amazing. So beautiful, I wish we could post some pictures. But unfortunately the internet is very lacking (and expensive). We haven't found anywhere that has wireless, so it may have to wait until our next stop.

We are going to try to extend our stay to 4 days (instead of the original 2), hopefully that works out. Our accomodation is the best we have had so far, roomy, comfortable, our own kitchen, clean AND an amazing view! Very unique too, the hostel has a few apartments around town setup to rent out. We are probably staying in the nicest one.

We even found a bottle of wine for only 1.80 euro. Tonight we are cooking our own dinner, pesto pasta.

Tomorrow we are going to hike the entire Cinque Terre, all 5 (cinque) towns! Should be an amazing day, with a beach waiting for us at the end. We will have lots of pictures for all of you to be jealous of. The hike will take us about 5 hours, but I am sure it will be worth it!

Anyway, at 10 cents a minute, internet is not cheap here. We'll post again soon!

Ciao!

Florence

nospam@example.com (Chrissy Simpson) — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 14:14:42 -0400

We arrived in Florence yesterday afternoon and have been taking it pretty easy. Last night we went out for dinner to a place that does the traditional 4 course italian meal. The food was pretty far from traditional, but it was alright.

Today, after the first sleep in of the trip, we just kicked around town. Not doing too much of anything really. We shopped through a huge flea market this afternoon looking at tons of leather and Tuscan pottery. We didn't buy anything tho. After that, we hiked up a hill that has nice views of the city to watch the sun set.

Tomorrow we are going to go see the "real" David (there are a couple of fakes hanging around town). Poor guy has had tourists gawking at his naked body for centuries! Gotta wonder how that makes him feel!!

Anyway, that is it for now. We have finally found some wireless access so the photos have been updated. Check em out!

Ciao!