It's spring break!!! I've been wasting the past few days away. I guess I coulda helped out with the revision days - where we require specific grade D students to come in to do extensive science work in hopes of getting them to a level that they may achieve a grade C - but I didn't. I'm heading to Vancouver tomorrow and I'm leaving in the next few hours to get the bus into Huntingdon. My plan is to try to get to Heathrow after the London rush hour but I don't exactly know if that's possible cause I don't know what hours London rush hour runs. I have a super heavy hockey bag that I can't lift myself. The courtyard is gravel so right when I step out of my door comes the first test since the wheels won't roll over the pebbles. Good work, eh?
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
The dead
Unfortunately, this is the last picture of the dwarf. His head caved in when I dropped him at one of the London art galleries. Tile floors don't go too well with ceramic dwarf heads. I left the remains in a hotel garbage can in London next to King's Cross - St.Pancreas underground station.
I've purchased a used one but he/she doesn't look anything like this one. I tried to find the store that I bought this one from - it's in Peterborough and they had millions of them - but I couldn't find the store. Damn it.
The sun is shining down here and the birds are chirping a lot. However, it's still very cold and my flat has moderate heating, at best. The food, candy, and clothing is expensive and I get paid a low wage. Only 5 more months, though.
ed
I've purchased a used one but he/she doesn't look anything like this one. I tried to find the store that I bought this one from - it's in Peterborough and they had millions of them - but I couldn't find the store. Damn it.
The sun is shining down here and the birds are chirping a lot. However, it's still very cold and my flat has moderate heating, at best. The food, candy, and clothing is expensive and I get paid a low wage. Only 5 more months, though.
ed
Tuesday, March 14, 2006
Guinness Factory in Dublin
Another well timed visit. The Guinness Factory had just recently been renovated and we got to visit it with its new viewing bar. This is Dwarf with his free pint of Guinness. The Guinness here tasted less bitter and much smoother. It went down like iced tea. The tour itself was something like 900 floors - or felt like it. We didn't get to see everyting because we wanted to get our drinks but it was well worth the money. I wouldn't doubt you could make a whole evening of it.
Cathedral of Our Lady
This is the large cathedral in the middle of Antwerp. We arrived after a 90 minute train ride from Brussels and we had an Italian dinner here. It was a very nice city but everything was closed by the time we got here. Well, everything except the Red Light District, of course.
Atominum stairs
Here's Narv inside the belly of the Atomium. Cool pic which makes him look like he's Cuba Gooding, Jr. in Gattica or something.
Atomium
The famous structure built for the 1958 World's Fair. Though we weren't lucky with the date to visit the European Union, we were lucky with this date as the Atomium had just re-opened after a couple of years of renovations. We were allowed to move into all of the little spheres except for the restaurant sphere and the kid's sphere which were not yet open.
European Union
This is Dwarf outside the European Union. The EU building is only open to the public 1 day of the year. The day we went was not that day. We were promptly told that we weren't allowed in. We left and it started raining.
Girl pis
To make things fair, there is also a statue of a girl peeing. Unlike Manneken pis, the city of Brussels are would rather visitors not see this one. There is no mention of the Girl in conventional travel guides and it took us a little while to find her. She's found in a dead-end alley and she wasn't peeing...they'd turned her off. As well, she was behind bars, unlike Manneken. There was a lot of weird things written on the wall about her and I think a lot of people don't like the idea of having a statue of a girl peeing. We were the only tourists at the site.
manneken pis
This is the famous mascot of Brussels. It's a statue of a boy peeing. There are two stories that go with this statue. One of the stories has the boy being statue-worthy because he was found peeing on a stick of dynomite or a large firework. By peeing on it, he put it out. Otherwise, it would have exploded and burned down the city. The other story is a very prominent and rich man of Brussel, his son went missing. The statue marks where he was found and what he was doing when he was found. They dress him up depending on the special occasion. He has something like 500 or so different costumes and there is actually a museum that you can go to and see them. In this picture, he is wearing an old Vancouver Canucks uniform celebrating the 15th anniversary of their last visit to the finals. Actually, it's him dressed up with an Olympic Gold medal.
Cathedral of Saints Michel and Gudule
This is the inside of the magnificent Cathedral of Saints Michel and Gudule. It was a very nice cathedral. This is Narv standing in front of a wooden thing. I don't remember the significance of the picture. Though, doesn't Narv look stunning?
Place du Petit Sablon in Brussels
This is one of the statues within the large park that is Place du Petit Sablon. The park was across the way from our hostel and though it was a nice park, it looks much better in the books than it is in person. A little shady and somewhat unkept, it had the same feeling of walking around portions of Stanley Park. Plus, it was really, really cold.
Duomo in Milan
This is the roof of the Duomo Church in Milan. As all things with height in Europe, for a moderate fee anyone is allowed to climb the stairs and run around on the roof of this church. It's pretty neat to be able to climb the roofs of everythng but when we got up to the roof it didn't feel as sturdy as it seems it should to allow people to run around on it. However, having said that no one died during our visit and that's good, right?
Torino Arcade
This is the enterance to a large arcade in Torino. It's really quite neat but being open at both ends, it was pretty cold.
Monday, March 13, 2006
Gold Medal
The Canadian women posing with their golds. This was a pretty cool thing to see as it was the only game that we went to that the team we wanted to win did win.
Canada vs. Sweden - Gold Medal
This is the view of the game from our seats. This is right after the end of the game and Canada winning the Gold Medal. It was very loud and very exciting but it was disappointing that it wasn't sold out. I'm sure that a lot of Americans that had purchased tickets didn't show up when the US women didn't advance to the final. I'd say the place was only 2/3 full. The crowds were good but not as loud as a Stanley Cup playoff game or anything.
USA vs Finland
This is the view of the US/Finland game from our seats. The game wasn't that great. The US won handily and we were really tired.
Canada House
Here's Canada House, the most popular pavillion at the Winter Olympics. It took something like 3 hours to find and when we got there it was closed because Wayne Gretzky decided he wanted to see it. So, for safety concerns, the police closed it down as Wayne and Vicki Gabreau ate Canadian bacon or what ever inside.
Olympic Curling
The third event that we went to watch was Women's curling. It was pretty cool but no one was there. There were three teams playing on the four sheets and all three teams that we were rooting for - so Canada would have a better chance of making the playoffs - lost. Regardless, the Canadian women made the medals.
Mascots
Here's Narv with the images of the 20th Winter Olympic Games. This was funny not for what was happening during the picture but what happened afterwards. The blue thing on the right flicked Narv's hat and started laughing. I guess you had to be there.
Canada vs. Finland
This is the view of the ice from our seats. We were something like 5 rows from the ice.
Canada vs. Finland
Obviously, we thought Canada was going to cake walk through the Fins but, of course, Canada lost 2-0 and we had to deal with all of the talk from the Finnish fans. The atmosphere before the game was amazing...at least 2/3 of the crowd were Canadian and they were trying their hardest to get going. However, after the first Finnish goal we didn't hear much from the Canadian fans for the rest of the game.
Russia vs Latvia
This is my view of the ice from my seat. The Latvian fans are crazy and they were chanting heavily during the entire match...even as their team got their butts handed to them 7-1 or whatever. Narv's seat was suppose to be next to me but because he had all of his luggage with him the usher made him sit higher up in the stands. There, he met the most important guy of our trip: Eduardo. Eduardo, a high school student took us everywhere we needed to go and generally took care of us for the day. If it wasn't for him we'd probably still be there trying to find the enterance to the Curling games.
London to Turino
Our flight to my first Olympic experience was delayed by an hour our so by fog. The flight was pretty amazing because if I had to guess I'd say at least a half of the plane was full of Canadians making their way to the Olympics. Underneath this jacket is Narv trying to get some shut eye.
Casa Batllo
The fourth Gaudi that we visited, it is a weird building that the owner had asked Gaudi to redesign to increase the amount of natural light that entered the building. At night, they light it up and it looks even more impressive.
Parc Guell
Another Gaudi, it's a huge park that overlooks the city. It's made up of weird things built out of sedementary rock. In the middle of the park is Gaudi's last home which the city has turned into a Gaudi museum. (The city has like thirty different Gaudi museums.) Very weird park.
Casa Mila or La Pedrera
Another Gaudi, it used to be an apartment block but is now a museum. He built the roof up with weird statues of warriors that look amazing in the light of the night. It's super cool but enough of Gaudi, right?
Top of the Sagrada
This is the view from about the top of the Sagrada. I don't know what the phallic tower is in the background.
Fabio in Barcelona
This is Fabio. He's another med student that we ran into and I believe he was from Portugal. Here he's looking at a map of the weird wonderland-type place we decided to go spend half the day to find. If you can believe it - I can't believe we did it - this centre, which we paid 15euro to enter, was a tourist site that contained different pavillions representing Spanish life of all the regions of Spain. (Look, it's Sicily and over there it's Valencia.) The idea was to be able to visit all of Spain without leaving Barcelona. It was weird that we went to this to get a feeling for Spanish life while we were in Spain. Whatever. Never again.
Olympic Stadium
This is where the opening and closing ceremonies of the Barcelona Summer Olympics took place. Now, it is the home of FC Barcelona. Though it looks somewhat impressive here, it's actually a really crappy and delapidated giant stadium.
Barcelona Museum
This is the painting on the ceiling of the Barcelona Museum. We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the Museum but we did anyways in the spirit of competition. This is my picture. The other picture is Karen's.
Barcelona
This is Barcelona from the top steps of the Barcelona Museum. I believe (but might be wrong) that it was the Royal Palace of Barcelona before it became the Museum. This was the first full day in Barcelona and it was very cold even though the sun was out.
Gothic Region of Barcelona
This is the Gothic area of Barcelona with its narrow alleys and super high buildings. The Gothic Area is suppose to be the party area of Barcelona and it had tons of touristy things to do. I met Karen on the plane. She's a fourth year med student from The Netherlands. She was really knowledgeable about Barcelona which was good because I didn't know anything about it.
Friday, March 10, 2006
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Barcelona, Spain
Hi all. I got back from Barcelona two days ago. It was tremendous. The weather was a balmy 23 degrees and the sun was out for the majority of the four days I was there. I'll post more about it once I get back from Torino. The weather in England has been great, too. Today, it was at least 15 degrees and the sun was shining like it was summer time. I'm at Stansted airport right now waiting for my flight to the 20th Olympic winter games. It's going to be great. Narv just arrived after a tough flight from Vancouver but we're all ready to go.
Go, Canada, Go.
ed
Go, Canada, Go.
ed
Monday, January 30, 2006
Staying
Hey all. Found a way around this county's anti-blog measures. So, I'll try to update this as many times as possible now. As you now know, I've decided to stay another 6 months. My fate was sealed after I bought an ironing board on Saturday. Obviously, if I'm going to impulsively buy a £7.99 ironing board from the Rainbow Co-op I'm destined to stay so I get at least 6 months of use out of it.
I actually haven't told senior management that I'm staying so there's still an opportunity to back out of it. I don't think I'll do that, though, considering the tremendous drop in work following Easter.
I've also picked up a 21 inch television from a guy I met at the Jolly Sailor Pub. It's only a year or two old and I got it for £20. Well, I bought him a pint, too, so it works out to be more like £23. I works fine but I have to keep it on the low down as England requires all television users to register their TVs and pay the annual stipend of £160. It's money that keeps the BBC going. The BBC shows hockey games every two weeks or so. Wednesdays at 3Am. Yippee.
I haven't figured out how to circumvent the flickr.com ban yet so I can't post pictures anymore. I'll figure it out, though. Believe you me. Without much else to do but watch the Simpsons at 6pm and what ever garbage movie is on channel 4 at 1000pm, I'm searching the web or listening to webcasts of NHL hockey games. At least they haven't blocked NHL.com.
Ed
I actually haven't told senior management that I'm staying so there's still an opportunity to back out of it. I don't think I'll do that, though, considering the tremendous drop in work following Easter.
I've also picked up a 21 inch television from a guy I met at the Jolly Sailor Pub. It's only a year or two old and I got it for £20. Well, I bought him a pint, too, so it works out to be more like £23. I works fine but I have to keep it on the low down as England requires all television users to register their TVs and pay the annual stipend of £160. It's money that keeps the BBC going. The BBC shows hockey games every two weeks or so. Wednesdays at 3Am. Yippee.
I haven't figured out how to circumvent the flickr.com ban yet so I can't post pictures anymore. I'll figure it out, though. Believe you me. Without much else to do but watch the Simpsons at 6pm and what ever garbage movie is on channel 4 at 1000pm, I'm searching the web or listening to webcasts of NHL hockey games. At least they haven't blocked NHL.com.
Ed
Saturday, January 28, 2006
28 January
Hello all. It's been a long time since I last posted. It's been really busy at the school with mock exams and stuff so I haven't been able to get out to the internet cafe in the last few weeks. However, I'm here now and let me update you all on what's happening.
As you all probably know, Odette left for Guatemala and Fiona left for London so my circle of friends has dissapated some what. However, Zelresse has moved into flat number three (she's South African from New Zealand) and Len, Carol, and Jackie are still in the flas and that's keeping me sane. She's here until the end of the year but I think she might be having second thoughts. At least that's the feeling I'm getting from her. The school has again officially offered me an extension to my contract and I said no. They suggested that I take until Monday to think about it and now I'm thinking of staying. I know for a fact that the workload gets increasingly easy between April and July and that's the incentive in staying. This, plus I don't have as much money as I thought I had. I actually don't even have enough money to buy a ticket back to Vancouver at the moment. (I don't know where all the money goes...though I guess it's pretty easy to figure out since I'm spending a lot on accommodations and my last gas bill being £212. The woman at the bank asked me if I leave all the lights, heat and hot water running 24 hours a day. It's a lot of money for two months of gas, eh?) Staying another 5 months will provide at least £6000 but then£2100 of it will go to rent and at least £500 to gas and water.
Well, I have another 48 hours to think about it. If I do accept it I'm going to ask for 2 weeks off before beginning at the start of March. Plus, I'll see if they can help me a little more with rent. As well, they'll have to pay the extra £500 required to extend my work visa another 6 months.
Oh, I really don't know what to do.
I hear the weather in Vancouver has been pretty crappy the last 2 months or so. I should say that it's been sunny here the last two or three weeks and we rarely ever get rain during sunlight hours. Actually, we're only a few feet above sea level and we have no mountains in the county so we are said to be the driest county in England. That's good news I guess but it's still very, very cold and the sun sets by 1600hrs.
Hope everyone is doing well. I miss being in Vancouver, though this might be as good a year as any to be away from Vancouver considering the weather and how the Canucks are playing.
Only three more weeks until the Olympics in Turino. Only two more weeks before Barcelona. Yeah!
Go, Arsenal, go.
ed
As you all probably know, Odette left for Guatemala and Fiona left for London so my circle of friends has dissapated some what. However, Zelresse has moved into flat number three (she's South African from New Zealand) and Len, Carol, and Jackie are still in the flas and that's keeping me sane. She's here until the end of the year but I think she might be having second thoughts. At least that's the feeling I'm getting from her. The school has again officially offered me an extension to my contract and I said no. They suggested that I take until Monday to think about it and now I'm thinking of staying. I know for a fact that the workload gets increasingly easy between April and July and that's the incentive in staying. This, plus I don't have as much money as I thought I had. I actually don't even have enough money to buy a ticket back to Vancouver at the moment. (I don't know where all the money goes...though I guess it's pretty easy to figure out since I'm spending a lot on accommodations and my last gas bill being £212. The woman at the bank asked me if I leave all the lights, heat and hot water running 24 hours a day. It's a lot of money for two months of gas, eh?) Staying another 5 months will provide at least £6000 but then£2100 of it will go to rent and at least £500 to gas and water.
Well, I have another 48 hours to think about it. If I do accept it I'm going to ask for 2 weeks off before beginning at the start of March. Plus, I'll see if they can help me a little more with rent. As well, they'll have to pay the extra £500 required to extend my work visa another 6 months.
Oh, I really don't know what to do.
I hear the weather in Vancouver has been pretty crappy the last 2 months or so. I should say that it's been sunny here the last two or three weeks and we rarely ever get rain during sunlight hours. Actually, we're only a few feet above sea level and we have no mountains in the county so we are said to be the driest county in England. That's good news I guess but it's still very, very cold and the sun sets by 1600hrs.
Hope everyone is doing well. I miss being in Vancouver, though this might be as good a year as any to be away from Vancouver considering the weather and how the Canucks are playing.
Only three more weeks until the Olympics in Turino. Only two more weeks before Barcelona. Yeah!
Go, Arsenal, go.
ed
Sunday, January 08, 2006
Odette leaves.
So, it's been a long time since I posted on this blog. The school has determined that blogs are evil, full of half-truths and lurkers so they've banned blogs from the school. Now, I have to go to the internet cafe (yes, there is one in Ramsey...it opened a couple of months ago) if I want to blog. That means it'll be difficult for me to blog much in the coming weeks. Plus, they blocked flickr.com because it may contain offensive pictures. This school is just odd.
I've decided not to come back following the end of my contract in February. Instead, I'm going to take two months to finish up some travelling. I might come back after that for a few months, just because I've been told it's really easy teaching during these months but I'll have to think about it more. In February, I'm heading to Barcelona for five days before flying to Turin for the Olympics. Narv is going to join me in Turin and we're going to Milan, Brussels, Antwerp, Dublin, and London. After that, I'll have a couple of days to pack up the flat and get everything out before heading out for more travelling. Where? I don't know yet. I think I'll try to get to Germany - for the World Cup of Football and Russia sooner or later. As well, I want to get to Wimbledon but past these few things I'm not sure about anything. I'll have to figure something out in the next few days.
Odette left and I am the only remaining member of the group that came over at the start of the year to teach at Ramsey Abbey. It's very quiet and there's not a lot to do here. It's very isolated but all I have to do is think that in five weeks I'll be out and travelling again.
Hope's all is well.
I've decided not to come back following the end of my contract in February. Instead, I'm going to take two months to finish up some travelling. I might come back after that for a few months, just because I've been told it's really easy teaching during these months but I'll have to think about it more. In February, I'm heading to Barcelona for five days before flying to Turin for the Olympics. Narv is going to join me in Turin and we're going to Milan, Brussels, Antwerp, Dublin, and London. After that, I'll have a couple of days to pack up the flat and get everything out before heading out for more travelling. Where? I don't know yet. I think I'll try to get to Germany - for the World Cup of Football and Russia sooner or later. As well, I want to get to Wimbledon but past these few things I'm not sure about anything. I'll have to figure something out in the next few days.
Odette left and I am the only remaining member of the group that came over at the start of the year to teach at Ramsey Abbey. It's very quiet and there's not a lot to do here. It's very isolated but all I have to do is think that in five weeks I'll be out and travelling again.
Hope's all is well.
The wall at York
On our way back to Ramsey we stopped at York. It is a double-walled city about 2 hours from home. It was pretty cool and has a lot of history behind it. Of course, I don't know any of this history cause we were too cheap to go on a tour and even cheaper considering we didn't pick up a 60p tour sheet. Well, Ross knew a lot about the wall and he told us about it but I forget what he said.
Scary cave thingy
Upon our attempts to find an internet cafe, Fiona found a weird museum instead. I don't know how she found it - it's up a flight of stairs a couple of doors down from the cafe and the stairs were pitch black and smelled like pee - but she did. The first thing we saw was a weird museum dedicated to torture. Then a scary - super scary - catacomb thing. We walked down through one end - in complete darkness before we got freaked when we saw a candle flicker. We ran out. On our last night in Edinburgh, we went back to see if we could get back in and check it out completely. All five of us climbed the staircase. We entered the door but I guess Marie-Anne and Ross were kinda loud (kept asking where we were going and stuff) and a bouncer type guy caught us. However, instead of stopping, Fi said run so Odette and I ran away with Fi deep into the dark catacombs. We could hear Ross and Marie-Anne trying to talk their way out of trouble. We ran and ran until we got to the end. This is a picture of the last room in the caves.
Edinburgh Castle at night
Edinburgh is a great city. It's probably my favorite next to Vancouver, of course, and Stockholm. It has a population of only 550,000 but it seems it should be much bigger. They have a great transport system (I hear) and there were very few cars on the roads. The city is full of magnificent buildings and interesting sights and everything is within walking distance. Someone mentioned to me they thought that if you could take all of the interesting and significant things in London and get rid of all the other stuff you'd be left with Edingburgh. You need just walk a block and there'd be another cool thing to see or do. The only complaint was the prices for fish and chips. They charge £5.50 ($11CDN) for a small order. Highway robbery, I say!!
Haggis
Our first night in Edinburgh we all agreed that we had to experience a Scottish Pub. So, we went into this one. (I can't remember the name but it was well Scottish and everything inside was either green or red...somewhat of a tartan theme, I presume.) How disappointed were we when the first waitress turned out to be Canadian (Toronto) and the second waitress from somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere like NZ or Oz. I don't actually recall hearing a Scottish accent during our stop here. Even more disappointing was that the only Scottish beer they had was tenants. Well, at least they had haggis on the menu. It didn't taste like chicken but it didn't taste bad at all. If anything, it tasted a lot like very, very greasy ground beef with lots of chewy bits. I don't even want to think what the chewy bits might have been.
Entering Scotland
This is the sign dividing Scotland and England. Of course, we were kind of disappointed because we heard a rumor that the road dividing the two was painted a green tartan color. Another urban myth shattered. Everyone expect me and the dwarf weren't willing to come out of the warm car for this photo op. So, Fi drove across the street - remember cars drive in the right lane - and parked underneath the sign so we could get this picture. If you look closely you can see their teeth chattering.
Odette and the perfect man
We pulled into a small village(?) to make a snowman. Odette had never made one and we thought it was important for her to experience this. Except for a few pieces of dog poo I think our work was pretty damn good. (At least, the dwarf looks happy.) The snowman is wearing the latest in fashion. It has Fiona's cap, my scarf, a piece of tree for a mouth, two twigs for arms, and two AfterEight mints for eyes. Fi ate the eyes afterwards. Following this important experience, Fiona taught Odette and Marie-Anne how to make dinosaur foot prints in the snow. On our way out of this town we got kinda stuck in the snow. We all had to get out of the car - except Fi - and push to get out. This drew a few curious onlookers. We couldn't figure out if it was because we got stuck in the snow or because we were probably the first tourist in this village...ever.
Dwarf in Sherwood Forest
Though it was close, we went into the famed Sherwood Forest. It was kinda disappointing that we weren't jumped and/or attacked by some guys in tights (is one ninja asking too much?) and that the visitor centre was closed but you can't get everything. Sherwood Forest, like many other forest, has a lot of trees. Because we were visiting during the winter months, it also had snow on the ground. We saw some birds but nothing else, really. Sherwood Forest, which averages 500,000 visitors in a calander year, was kind of disappointing. But we had an amazing snowball fight in the car park. I got Fi good and Odette fell trying to throw a snow ball at the same time as she was trying to dodge one. Heehee. Novices.
Fi packing the trunk...thanks mom.
Organizing the car trip to Scotland was pretty easy. I left it in the hands of Fiona and Odette. We got this weird van - a Kia Sportif, I think it's called. Eventhough it had something like an 8L engine and ran on diesel it was super wimpy. Plus, it took something like 30 minutes to go from 0 to 60km. I might be exaggerating a bit but not too much.
Tuomiokirkko Cathedral
This is a huge cathedral in Helsinki. It sits on a hill and can be seen from everywhere. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to go in. Actually, I didn't get to see anything in Helsinki except the outsides of famous and interesting things because everything was closed for Christmas. I looked through a lot of windows - double glazed...only makes sense in a Northern city like Helsinki - but that didn't give me a true effect of the city. Helsinki is the largest city in Finland with a population of about 1 million. Really, it was like being in a really isolated, really small town because everything was so quiet. However, even if it wasn't Christmas and everything was open and everyone was out and about I don't think that this city would have been much more interesting. Very small, very expensive and the people weren't as friendly as in Sweden.
Royal Guards
This is the Royal Square in Old Stockholm. The buildings surrounding this square include the Royal Palace, Royal Apartments, and a couple of Royal-related museums. The Guards that were protecting the square looked pretty imposing but they didn't shoot me or ask me to put my dwarf down...slowly. I thought it was a very well protected area considering there weren't a lot of people about.
Dwarf on a boat
This is a picture of a small rock in Finland somewhere. I took it at about 6am...2 hours before getting into Helsinki. By how dreary and plain this looked I should have anticipated what was coming in Helsinki. Oh well. At least the dwarf looks happy.
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