Tag-Archive for » food «

Oct
04
All roads lead to Rome
Europe ~ Italy ~ Pisa, Florence & Rome

I don’t think I have ever been as exhausted as I was when we were standing there looking at the leaning tower of Pisa. Keen to save money on accommodation, we arrived in Italy after spending the night at the Girona Airport and the night before that on a bus from Madrid to Barcelona. Finding a hotel in Pisa turned out to be a little harder than expected, for some reason most of the hotels were full, mid week. We spent the morning seeing everything in Pisa – i.e. the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which was another great thing to see. What was even better was watching all the tourists standing on the lawn (right next to the sign saying ‘keep off the lawn’), with their hands in the air, trying to get the perfect photo of themselves ‘holding up the tower’. Of course I had to get out there and do it myself! After 19 hours of sleep we headed off for Florence…

Bobbi holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa

Bobbi holding up the Leaning Tower of Pisa

Florence provided the first (but not the last) opportunity for us to indulge in gelati and pizza. Yum… We spent our time wandering about town, went to the Academy Gallery and spent over two hours in line to see David – it was worth it. I think. Very impressive statue, he stands over 4 metres tall. We considered going to see some other galleries, but decided we couldn’t hack any more lines. We instead spent our time wandering about town, getting lost down narrow alleyways and doing some general people watching.

Rome came with a shock – people. We thought we’d been clever, leaving the big city to the end, tourist season was supposed to end in September, but no, there were people EVERYWHERE!!! We visited all the big tourist sights, including the Colosseum, the Cappaccini Monk Crypt and St. Peter’s. For me, the Colosseum was the best of the lot – its so amazing to think that the structure has survived so much and is still surviving the latest test – tourists. We waited in line for absolutely ages (seems to be the norm for all tourist attractions in Italy), eventually got in and spent our time tagging along to different tour groups, so that we could hear about the Colosseum. One invention that we have noticed and not enjoyed on our recent travels is the tour group radio set. Nowadays, instead of the tour leader holding a microphone and shouting out to everyone in their group, they now talk into a mouthpiece, and the rest of the tour listens via headphones. Makes it really hard to overhear what they’re talking about!

Tash hanging out in the Colosseum

Tash hanging out in the Colosseum

They say all roads lead to Rome, and perhaps it is true, as Rome was the last stop for our travels in Continental Europe. Indeed, if you don’t count our last week in London, it was the last place that Tash and I will be traveling together. Next week we split up – Tash goes back to Edinburgh to make the most of her work visa, whilst I head home via Japan… It’s been a great trip together, but I guess it’s time to move on…
xoxo Bobs

Category: Italy  Tags: , , , , , ,  Leave a Comment
Sep
27
Chomping on churros
Europe ~ Spain ~ Girona, Barcelona & Madrid

Getting here turned out to be harder than we thought… Cast your minds back to a week ago, when poor, exhausted Bobbi and Tash stumbled out of bed to catch the 4am bus to the airport. What really happened is we got to the bus station at 4.05am, consequently missing the bus. The next bus didn’t leave until 5.30am which meant we would have missed out flight. As there were no other busses or trains to the airport, we were just about to catch a taxi (would have been about $280 AUD) when… a Swedish girl rocked up to the bus station with her parents, to find out she’d missed the bus also. So, in return for the money we would have paid the bus driver, they offered us a ride to the airport, and we all caught our respective flights. Looked bleak for a moment there though…

Arrival in Spain went really well, considering how much trouble we had just getting to the airport in Sweden. We spent our first two days in Girona, a small town about an hour and a half north of Barcelona. We were lucky enough to find a bed at the first place we looked – a pension run by an motherly Spanish woman. A pension is basically a flat that the owner has opened up to guests – for a double room (with bathroom, yey yey yey) it turned out cheaper than a hostel would have been. We spent our first day seeing the sights of Girona (cathedrals, river, Arab baths) and our second day bathing in the beautiful Costa Brava – the Spanish sea. We lathered ourselves in sunscreen and ‘baked’ away for 5 minutes – and got sunburnt in the weirdest spots. I got burnt in two places on the small of my back, whilst Tash has bright red ankles.

Standing in the entrance to our pension in Girona

Standing in the entrance to our pension in Girona

We rocked up to Barcelona with the intention of buying a ticket on the night bus to Madrid. Which we did. Kinda. Having brought the ticket, we spent the rest of the day wandering about, idly looking at hostels for when we returned to Barcelona later in the week. It wasn’t till about 8pm (our bus left at 11.30pm) that we looked at the tickets and realised the bus left the following night. Whoops. Rushed down to the station to attempt to change the tickets, but quickly realised there was no hope, so concentrated our efforts on finding somewhere to stay. Did I mention that Barcelona was in the middle of a fiesta (festival)? Luckily, we once again found a bed at the first place we looked, so it wasn’t all bad. We were able to spend the second day seeing the sights of Barcelona (mainly Gaudi’s cathedral – La Sagrada Familia and some of his other buildings), wandering along the main street of Barcelona and watching the going-ons of the festival.

We spent the better part of 3 days visiting our cousin, Katy, in Madrid. She’s over here improving her Spanish (not really sure how, it seems pretty fluent to our ears!) and is really living it up the Spanish way. She took us around town, showing us some of her favourite haunts. One night was spent in a hookah bar, where we used a giant pipe to smoke flavoured (in our case, apple) tobacco. Very laid back, cool atmosphere. Katy also took us to the big park in Madrid, where, on a Sunday, everyone congregates to dance, fire twirl and play bongo drums. Once again, fantastic atmosphere, everyone really gets into it. We went to the Sunday market (so many people, luckily our experiences in Asia taught us how to act in a crowd) and tried chocolate churros. Yum – you’re served a big plate of churros (long, Spanish donutty things) and a mug of thick hot chocolate, used to dip your churros in. Mmm.

Katy, Tash & I trying hookah

Katy, Tash & I trying hookah

We spent last night on a bus from Madrid to Barcelona, arriving here in Barcelona at 8am. Tonight we are camping out at the airport before our 6.30am flight to Italy. Traveling is fun, but I sure do appreciate a bed!!!
Take care peoples, let me know how you’re going,
luv bobs

Category: Spain  Tags: , , , , , , ,  Leave a Comment
Sep
14
107 days to Christmas
Europe ~ The Nederlands ~ Amsterdam & The Hague

107 days to Christmas is what the sign in Amsterdam’s Christmas Shop read. And to think I wasn’t counting! Amsterdam is a lot of fun, in some ways the town reminds me a lot of Surfers Paradise, probably very similar to what Queenland is like during schoolies time. We’ve been staying in a hostel in the middle of the red light district, 24 people in our room. We are the only females, the rest are mainly 20 year old English schoolboys. And they act it. Although one of the boys had us in stitches the other night – whilst he was getting ready to go out he pulled an iron out of his bag and proceeded to iron his shirt. Guys back home have a lot to learn from the Europeans!

Wandering around the streets is a lot of fun – you never know what to expect. There are always a few unsavioury guys hanging around the front of our hostel, always trying to sell us some ‘fun’. Tash says it reminds her of back home in St. Kilda. Next door to our hostel we have signs promising ‘live sex show’ and ‘fun girls’, whilst only a couple more doors on there are girls wearing next to nothing waving at men through their windows. Of course, there are coffee shops all over the place, most are tiny little cafe style shops, proudly displaying their green and white sticker that claim they are a registered, government endorsed coffee shop, legally allowed to sell marijuana and other cannabis related items. Each has their own menu of what they sell – almost none of the shops sell alcohol as well.

Plenty of other things have kept us busy, in particular, the hunt for good food. Amsterdam has lots of food, unfortunately not all of it is very delicious. We’ve been rather impressed with the fries stores – you get a ‘cone’ of fries, and then a choice of sauces. Some places have up to 30 sauces, quite impressive. And I am [proud/disgusted/surprised/forced] to admit that I have now eaten my first burger from a vending machine. FEBO, a fast food chain all over Amsterdam (possibly all over the Nederlands, I’m not sure), specialises in its burger vending machines. The burger wasn’t too bad, tasted a bit better than McD’s, to tell the truth.

Hmm, what burger should I get from the vending machine? (answer: none!)

Hmm, what burger should I get from the vending machine? (answer: none!)

We spent the better part of two days visiting friends in Den Haag (The Hague). It was great to see a different part of the world from a locals point of view, there’s so much you miss just being a visitor. Maureen and Michael, who are avid travelers, showed us many of the sights, including the Escher museum (fantastic), the cute town of Delft and the beach in Den Haag (very interesting, a whole heap of restaurants are temporarily set up for the summer, along the beach front, and are taken down at the end of summer). Whilst in Delft I tried the national food of pickled herrings, and convinced Maureen to as well. Not really my favourite food… Maureen also took us to see a panorama painting, which was fantastic. We stood in the middle of a 1880′s painting that went all the way around us, made you feel like you were in the painting itself.

Mmm, pickled herrings with onion

Mmm, pickled herrings with onion

Well, we’ve just arrived in Stockholm, so we’re now getting ready to take on the Vikings. Hope every-ones looking after themselves,
luv bobs

Category: The Nederlands  Tags: , , ,  Leave a Comment
Aug
30
Baguettes, baguettes, baguettes
Europe ~ France ~ Paris & Versailles

Well, everyone had better appreciate the trouble gone into writing this… It turns out that keyboards in France are different to those everywhere else. Just small differences (the letters ‘q’ and ‘a’ have swapped places, as have ‘;’ and ‘m’) but its enough to make the thought of typing an email horrendous. Anyway, enough complaining, we are in Paris, after all! Arrived after a very long night of sleeping in Glasgow airport – we were 3 of at least 100 other people who decided to make the smokers lounge our bed for the night. We were the odd ones out – we didn’t bring mattresses or sleeping bags, unlike the many others. Although it was nice and sunny in Scotland, Paris was windy and raining. So very typical of our luck!

We’ve been eating our way through all the delicacies of Paris – baguette with jam for brekky, baguette with cheeses for lunch and baguettes and snails for dinner. Well, at least that’s the way it seems. We also have nutella crepes for desert, accompanying each meal. Of course, if we get sick of all the cheese we can take a break and have a bottle of 2 euro wine instead…

Of course we’ve been seeing the sights as well as eating. Kinda. We make sure our sight-seeing fits around the eating, don’t want to miss a meal! A couple of nights ago, we climbed the Eiffel Tower. Alot of steps (not as many as the Yellow Mountains in China), but definitely worth it. The view across the city at night was fantastic. Last night we had a picnic in the gardens in front of the Eiffel Tower, thankfully the small children didn’t come near our area, we must have been scowling enough to keep them away. We’ve also gone and seen Le Sacré-Coeur, a really big churchy thing on the hill behind our hotel. The dome was amazing to see, all the tourists filing past, one-by-one was just hilarious. Notre Dame was similar – an spectacular building, but the amount of tourists around was just frightening.

The Eiffel Tower at night

The Eiffel Tower at night

The catacombs were great. A couple of hundred years ago, it was decided that the cemeteries were too full, so the French decided to dig up all the bodies and dump them in an abandoned mine. At some stage, the person in charge decided to do it decoratively, and so all the bones are lined up, using a combination of skulls and femurs to create patterns in the walls. The over-all effect is quite unique – eerie and intriguing all at the same time.

Skull and Crossbones at the Catacombs

Skull and Crossbones at the Catacombs

We’ve also seen the rest of the traditional sights, such as the Louvre (got to see the Mona Lisa, should have seen the tourists at that place!) and the Arc de Triomphe (huge huge round-about, so many cars). We also spent a great cuople of hours wandering around Versailles, enjoying the gardens and looking over King Louis XIII and his son, Louis XIV’s chateus. The rest of our time has been spent soaking up the atmosphere (whilst eating crepes) and enjoying our very own bathroom. Now we’re preparing for our week in Germany, should be a heap of fun, will swap from bread to snags… luv yas, bobs

Category: France  Tags: , , , , ,  Leave a Comment
Jul
28
Following the Beatles in Liverpool
Europe ~ United Kingdom ~ Scotland ~ Edinburgh & England ~ Liverpool

We’ve been on holidays these past few days – decided it was time to take some time off (… being a tourist in Edinburgh…) to be a tourist in Liverpool, home of the Beatles. Elysha is a huge fan, so off we jetted. Liverpool is an interesting town, used to be one of the bigger ports for England. Nowadays the port doesn’t get as much business, and you can tell. The town has a lot of deserted and run down buildings. On the other hand, Liverpool boasts a University with 70,000 students – pubs everywhere! Stayed in a fantastic hostel, after walking in, Tash pointed out the smell. ‘What smell’, I asked, immediently worried. Turns out she was happy about the lack of smell… Elysha was a bit disappointed over the lack of Beatles memorabilia (we brought all our souvenirs at the airport, better and cheaper!), but Tash and I thought it was tacky and great fun! Went on the Magical Mystery Tour – a tour bus that stops at all the houses where each of the Beatles were born, everyone troops out of the bus and takes photos of the houses and then troops back onto the bus. The poor people that now live in these houses – I feel sorry for the people who will eventually buy our house back in Toomuc Valley. Imagine all those people that will stop to look at the house because the famous Bobbi once lived there… hehe

Magical Mystery Tour Bus

Magical Mystery Tour Bus

Apart from that, we’ve just been doing the same old same old. Elysha and I ventured out the other night to find some-where new to eat, ended up at a quaint little Italian restaurant, very cute, although the waiter left us a little perplexed. An Italian accent is hard enough to decipher on its own – try throwing a bit of Scottish into the equation as well, absolutely impossible! After dinner I tried a fried mars bar – didn’t need any vodka that night – I was well and truly high after the layers of sugar and fat. Not bad though :)

Totally used to life at the hostel now. Spend most evenings with the crowd in at reception, listening to music and talking general rubbish. The other night, one of the girls commented that when we all get home, we are going to wake up in the middle of the night and want to have a conversation about nothing – and have no-one to talk to. At the hostel, there is ALWAYS some-one awake, always some-one to talk to. Have mildly been discussing setting up a phone-club, so once we’re home we always have some-one to call in the middle of the night, to talk about nothing at all. Dealing with everyday things can be tough, I constantly dream about being back home, in my own kitchen, when finding a bowl for cereal is not an ordeal. Was eating brekky the other day, when one of my friends came in, and sat down. Placed his pint glass of tea on the table (no mugs left), and proceeded to take a handful of cornflakes from the box, followed by a swig of milk from the carton. “No bowls” he grumbled as he grabbed the paper…

Elysha & I at the hostel

Elysha & I at the hostel

I’m nearly on the move again – I booked flights over to Ireland for the week after next, so excited. I’ll be flying over there, traveling for two weeks, then back to pick up the girls, then onto Paris. Woohoo!! Am madly planning out an itinerary for Ireland, will be flying into Dublin and out of Shannon. Must try and get to a good Irish pub and grab a pint of Guiness, yum yum. Wonder if there is a brewery tour for the Guiness brewery, or even the Kilkenny one? Must find out. If you know of anything I must do whilst in Ireland, let me know!

xo Bobs

Category: United Kingdom  Tags: , , , , , ,  Leave a Comment
« Previous Entries
Next Entries »