All I Want For Christmas Is You...

Firstly, Merry Christmas to all my family and friends who read this. I hope you all had a great day and I hope the day brought you lots of joy and love!

After Poland I made my way to Larvik in Norway to spend Christmas with my friend Kasper who I lived with in Norway:

This was us in Hawaii, with a freakin big Volcano behind us spewing out gas and stuff... Awesome...

Anyway, Kasper invited me into his home with his family for Christmas which was really nice of him and the entire Landmark family <3  Below is a few photo's from Christmas Eve (the day pressies are opened) and Christmas Day:

The Landmark's Christmas Tree! 

Very excited for dinner!  

Probably the BEST fruit salad... EVER

The Presents arrived! 

Santa found me in Larvik! (Thanks Landmarks!)

The dream of having snow and a wood fire heater on Christmas came true!

Kasper's Dad- Ståle

Kasper's Mum Elin and Sister Hanna-Sine

Supper which included Australian Wine :oD and gingerbread and lots of other goodies!

Christmas lasted from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day and then we also celebrated Hanna's 30th birthday on Boxing Day as well. So it was a great few days surrounded by Kasper's family and friends and they all made me feel very welcome! So a big thank-you to them all! Although I couldn't be with and see the people in my life back in Australia that make me really happy, it was nice to still be with lovely people who opened their home to me! 

After Christmas in Larvik I have now headed a bit North-West to visit my other friend from Hawaii, Birte. I'm now at her house in Stavanger and loving it. The scenery is amazing and I've made sure to take plenty of photo's so check back here in a little while! I'm heading back to Larvik to spend New Years with Kasper and his lovely friends which I'm really looking forward to! 

Happy New Year kids! Talk to you all in 2011!! 

<3

Toruń, Poland

So, classes have finished for the year! Hooray!!! I had organised a few months ago to visit a friend I lived with in Hawaii to visit him in Norway and spend Christmas with him (look forward to my next post on Norway- that's where I'm writing this and it's amazing!)... Anyway, I had a few days up my sleeve between classes finishing and Norway beginning so I thought I'd check out a little bit of Poland! 

I chose Toruń because it was super cheap and I'd heard really good things about it. I was thinking os going to Krakow but friends and I who I went to Prague with are going to go in January and visit Auschwitz so I didn't want to go twice. Also, Toruń was a few hours closer...

Anyway, after a full day of traveling consisting of 5 trains with snow delays of at least 30 mins between train in about -10 to -15 degree temperatures, I was glad to finally get to the hostel. For the next three days I basically got up, put on my 100 layers of clothing and headed out to look around. Toruń is a pretty small town and with -10 degrees it makes you check things out pretty quickly! But here are a few photos (some you may have seen on Facey already):

Border of a fort built in the 14th Century (the next few pics)

Ice on the Vistula River!  

Copernicus! Champion of everything!! 

He was first person to suggest that the Sun was the centre of the Universe, not Earth. Pretty much shaped the way for the Scientific Revolution...Also, in his spare time he was a mathematician, astronomer, physician, quadrilingual polyglot (spoke four languages), classical scholar, translator, artist, Catholic cleric, jurist, governor, military leader, diplomat and economist. Yeah...

Lots of churches here! 

Haha, I went to the "Living Gingerbread Museum" which I was hoping would be a place full of Gingerbread men from Shrek... I was disappointed. Although instead I got to MAKE Gingerbread! it didn't come to life- but still pretty fun! 

Night-time! 

So, yup. there ya go. I definitely didn't need 3 full days there, especially in winter and by myself but was still nice- and super cheap (7 Euro per night in the hostel and 0.75 Euro for 0.5L of Beer) :oD

but now I'm in Larvik, Norway and it is Christmas Eve which is the main day Christmas is celebrated and definitely is better then Poland haha. I'll be here until after New Years so wait a week or two and there will be a nice long post full of amazing photo's! 

Merry Christmas everyone!! xoxoxox

Schnee und Dresden Weihnachtmarkt!!!!

Thought I'd give you all a bit of an update on the cold, snowy winter that I am facing in Dresden! It started snowing around the 20th or so of November and since then there has been snow (schnee) all over the ground in Dresden. It's been wonderful!!

This is my bus stop and currently where I spend most of my day- waiting for the number 62...

As I'm sure you've all seen on the T.V this has caused havoc on trains and flights. It's also affected my schedule to get to uni because the trams and buses are always delayed, this has made going to uni not fun lately... add in the fact that the sun doesn't wake up until about 8am now and sets around 4pm and temperatures have been in the negatives since November... This makes Eb not very enthused for Uni. It makes me wanna do this instead:

Also a fun part about all this wintery, snowy goodness at Christmas time is the Weihnachtmarkt (Christmas Market) that is held in pretty much every town in Europe. Dresden's claim to fame (alongside dental floss and mouthwash) is starting the Weihnachtmarkt in 1434... Yup- this is the 576th one..Yeah, impressive I know. Dresden-1, Rest of the World- 0. The Weihnachtmarkt is super fun and so pretty with all the snow. It's been a great place to pass the time with friends whilst drinking Glühwein (warm, spiced wine) and looking at all the marvelous stalls. See exhibits A,B,C,D and E:

The Frauenkirche in the background... pretty neat.  

Weihnachtmarkt crafty goodness... 

 Yes, I did go on the Ferris Wheel... It was awesome... 

I like this with the Full Moon in the background... 

My Weihnachtmarkt, Glühwein drinking buddies:

Alice, Emily and Me at the front, and Matthias and Richard at the back :o)

It'll be sad to know that when I come back from my Christmas Holiday travels (see next post) the entire square will be back to being boring. It packs up on the 24th of December and apparently brings 2 million tourists to Dresden.. which I believe cos there was always soooo many people about. 

Good Job Dresden Weihnachtmarkt :o)

And also well done snow- you've provided us all with much fun including unexpected snowball fights on the way to parties, and making it take 10 times longer to get home after parties because its soooo much fun to play in :oD

... Although by February I'm sure I'll be pretty sick of it :oP

2 Girls, 1 Trip To Amsterdam and Brussels.

Firstly, apologies for this being 4 weeks late. No excuses really... Just slack. I guess i can say that Uni has been pretty intense lately with organising courses and has been a bit stressful and so blogging has gone down a bit on my list of priorites (also been getting addicted to Gossip Girl). Whoops.

BUT, here I am finally. Reporting on a 6 day adventure which I'm still undecided whether overall was a good time or not... You can judge for yourself...

So, after a pretty crappy week or two of boy dramas (yes...plural) back in Aus, I decided what better way to try and forget about everything then to go and write myself off in Amsterdam! (Sorry Mum). I found my buddy Alice who came to Prague with me (who was in a similar boat as me) and we set off for an adventure which would include 2 nights in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and 2 nights in Brussels, Belgium and 1 night each way on the City Night Line Trains.

As mentioned in my last post, my good friend Stephen who I lived with in Hawaii now lived in Amsterdam with his beautiful gf Wieteke. We arrived in A/dam around midday and met Stephen at his, dumped our stuff and headed out on an awesome boat "cruise"! I use the word "cruise" lightly, but basically it was a wooden boat built in the 1940's that seats about 10 people. On this "cruise" which lasts about an hour, you can bring whatever food and drink you like...So we stocked up with copious bottles of wine and set off... The views of the city through the canals was beautiful...

 Our boat was similar to one of these small ones...

Alice, me, Wieteke

Love it...

Me and Stephen

aaaaand I'm drunk...

We had lots of fun on the boat :o) It was only about 4pm and we were well on our way to being pretty far gone... Then we drank some more... went to the red light district and then it was morning :o)

On the Saturday we went on a walking tour of the city where we explored the cute houses and went through the red light district again. I was being a really bad tourist and took hardly any photos. For me this trip was more about just relaxing so you'll have to use your imagination a little bit. But the Red Light District certainly isn't as crazy at it seems. It's basically just cobblestone alleys with glass doors and women in lingerie behind the door standing there... If you wanna get a bit of action, you walk in, pay a minimum of 50 Euro (depending what you want) and Bob's your Uncle.

Saturday night was a lot of fun though. It was Museum Night which is this massive once a year do with all the museums (about 40 of them) opening their doors until 2am and having DJ's and drinks whilst checking out painting and the like. We had heaps of fun checking out original Monet painting whilst hearing Black Eyed Peas "Tonights gonna be a good night" at the same time lol. A cool museum was the NEMO which is similar to Scienceworks except probably 100 times better. Heaps of interactive stuff to do and the building looks like the Titanic kind of and is on the water! Can't get much cooler then that! I forgot, earlier that evening we went to a "Boom Chicago" show which is like "Who's line is it anyway" and includes some actors from the Drew Carey version. One of the funniest things I've ever seen and if you go to Amsterdam I highly recommend checking it out! 

We bailed Amsterdam on Sunday and headed for Brussels. Very happy with our efforts so far and looking forward to our snacks on the 3 hr train trip:

NOTE: Germany does NOT have salt and vinegar flavoured chips or Pringles... Mine and Alice's favorite flavour so we were very excited to eat these!! 

And then it all came tumbling down....

We went to get off the train in Brussles when I hear from Alice "Eb, do you have my backpack?" "Ummmm, No..Why? Where is it?" 

STOLEN! THATS WHERE!!! LAAAAAAAME! 

So we spent the next 2 and a half hours in a Belgian Police Station which was super lame and defs put a dampener on the entire Brussels experience. It was also wet and cold which didn't help the situation.

Alice was obviously pretty upset, but then we got to the hostel and she said "Lets go get drunk!" 

Being the awesome friend that I am... We came, We Drank, and We Conquered! We had dudes buying us drinks left, right and centre and had a great night out drinking Cherry Flavoured Beer! 

Saying I woke up worse for wear the next day is probably the biggest understatement of my life... Alice had no clothes cos they got stolen, I felt like my brain was soaking in cherries and we pretty much did nothing all day. It was pouring with rain... I think we had Pizza Hut for dinner and went to the movies to see "The American" with George Cloooooooney.. Please don't go see it. Waste. Of. Money. 

The..uhh...I think we are up to Monday?? Was a better day... Still raining but we felt bad about the lack of photos we were taking and so went on a quick trip around the square and took some snaps for you all to see... Forgive me for not knowing what ANY of them are... but I do know the Police Station is about 50 metres away

Our food choices on this day were a lot better then the day before... We found this amazing, beautiful Crepe place where we indulged...

Nutella and Banana! Yummmm!

As I said earlier, weather was horrendous, for the most part of our last day we tried to grunt the weather and make the most of Brussels. but then we found this cool, WARM, old restaurant and had a few drinks and authentic Belgian food... I had 1/4 chicken with an apple puree and vegies. It was delicious! 

Then we left... And most likely never to see Brussels again. No really, it didn't grab me as a city. There really isn't much to do but eat some chocolate and drink beer. And the famous chocolatiers you can find in all major EU cities so it's not like its exclusive...

So I rate Amsterdam as a 9 outta 10. Great company, beautiful city, ability to let your hair down when most needed. Only thing letting it down was the weather.. Would be great to come back in Summer.

Brussels, honestly, like a 5. Only good things were the food and beer. Although that is sometimes a great reason to go somewhere! Although not enough of a reason for me...

BUT, I has great company with Alice and was good to have a girls weekend and forget about silly stuff that was getting to both of us! 

So there you have it... Pretty dull post too I know (It IS 2:30am). My next one I do believe will be about the Christmas Markets and all the snow we are having here at the moment in Dresden!! I think I will wait until the weekend though because there are a few more times I'm going to the markets and there is more snow so I'll wait! And it will be a nice, joyful, christmassy Blog... yay!! 

I should have one about my good buddy Stu spending about 4 days with me in Dresden and we went to Prague and Berlin but I didn't really use my camera, Stu used his so that'll have to wait till he gets home later this month and sends them to me!

Happy First Day of Eating Advent Chocolates! 

xx

Paris- You Stole My Heart (And My Scarf)

If someone had given me a synopsis of what was going to happen in my life for 2010 at the end of last year I would have told them they were crazy. I had finished my Bachelor of Environmental Science, I was living in Geelong with my (then) boyfriend and his family, working part time at a Gym and was looking at potential career jobs with no real plans to be anywhere but Geelong (Victoria at the most). Within the next five months everything was turned upside down with every single part of my life being altered...and within ten months I found myself standing at the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris wondering how I got there... People say things happen for a reason and I believe this to a certain extent. But more importantly I believe The Butterfly Effect- where changing one thing in your life can cause dramatic differences to the path you are on. If I didn't study my Masters and accept the scholarship to study in Europe, my ex and I would probably still be together (although unhappy), I wouldn't have completed a three month internship at Barwon Water and in turn been given a full time job as a Sewerage Planning Engineer for when I return in February... This all has a point...bare with me...

So as I'm standing on top of the Eiffel Tower by myself at about 9pm (I pretty much got into Paris and headed straight for the Eiffel Tower) listening to Angus and Julia Stone on my iPod (I know guys- I'm still obsessed) watching people look into each others eyes, stroke each others hair and kiss on one of the most romantic places with a breathtaking view I didn't really know how I felt. I was happy and grateful to be given the amazing opportunity to study in Europe and be able to jump on a train for 8 hours and be in Paris- something that I had always wanted to do. I was kinda sad because I wanted to share it with someone amazing and really wanted a cuddle...and I was curious to think where I'll be and how my life will be this time next year. Cos if I can be in Paris when I hadn't dreamt of it last year who knows what will happen by next year. As much as there were some terrible times this year, I've also had some amazing days and weeks that I wouldn't take back for the world as well and I don't think I would change a thing that has happened this year- it's all caused other things to happen which I am super thankful for. To get back to the whole "Blog about Paris" it's made me be able to see beautiful monuments like this:

That create views like this:

After my emo hour or so in one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen, I wandered the streets of Paris listening to conversations in French and soaking it all in. It didn't take me long to decide that Paris was amazing. There is just a fabulous vibe there that say "My name is Paris. I am vibrant and full of character, my language is sexy and everyone who lives here is happy and in love". So the next morning I woke up and embraced the city I was in. I had a nutella and banana crepe for breakfast (a-may-zing) and went on a free walking tour of the city that is done by students for students. I had a great tour leader named... actually, I forget... But he was great (Perhaps Scott or Sam?). Anyway, we walked around the city for four hours and he showed us: 

 The Notre Dame- built in 1160 and took 200 years to complete. 

A fine example of French Gothic Architecture

These steps are where "Friday 13th" superstition was created. A dude was burnt at the stake here on a Friday 13th aaaages and whilst being burnt he said that the King would die within the year with no hair on his head... It happened.. it happened for the next 4 years straight... ooooOOOooOoOOh 

 This is the boat the firefighters of the Seine River work on. Apparently in nice weather they do sit ups and work out on the deck... I cursed the rain at that point... :oP

This is where the "Immortals" work. They are the keepers of the French language and work on keeping French... well, French. In other words protecting it from the English language e.g when the "computer" came along, they decided in French it would be called an "ordinateur". They also decide what article goes in front of a word, in English we just have "the", but some other language have "male, female and neuter" e.g. German "der, die and das" and French "le, la, les". It took them three months to decide what article goes infront of "iPod"... three months...

The Louvre and the Pyramids of the Louvre. The main pyramid is the entrance of the Louvre. I went in and saw probably 1/10th of the 3500 articles in there. Apparently if you look at each article for 30 seconds during opening hours it would take you 20 years to get through it all. So I think i'll need to go back there...I did take some photos which I'll get to later. The President of France in the '90's wanted to leave his mark on the Lourve (as most senior people did in France e.g. Napoleon etc...) and he decided to have an "invisible pyramid" built that was made of a special glass that didn't create a reflection. However, as you can see, they are very much visible. The glass would collapse under itself so metal reinforcement had to be constructed... AND he made 5 not 1... When it was revealed the Parisians weren't too impressed...AND the glass totally gives a reflection..lol, I think this is hilarious! 

and a nice garden in the city...

It was a massive day of walking and saw so much. Yet, still didn't see half of it all. The amount of museums there are crazy... There is one for EVERYTHING! 

Even a Museum specifically for counterfeit items... The Musée de la Contrafaçon- True Story. 

Afterwards, I met some Americans and a Kiwi back at the hostel and had dinner and went out to a few bars. We met some fun french people who owned one of the bars we went to and they took us to a few more as each one gradually had last drinks. We got hooked up pretty well and it was fun to be away from the touristy stuff and be in the proper French nightlife... I woke up slightly worse for wear the next morning and less one scarf :o( but made my way to the craziest place I've ever been... the CATACOMBES!!

Now, this was reeeeally cool/morbid/surreal. The Catacombes in the Old Quarries running under Paris were made as a giant depositary of human remains from the Cemeteries of Paris. Over 6 MILLION BODIES are stacked up in the quarry and a section of 1.7km can be viewed by the public. Pretty cool right? I definitely recommend clicking here and reading up on the first four groups of sentences (too small for me to call then paragraphs and turn you off clicking) to get a feel for it.... and then marvel at these photos...

1.7km of this! And it goes for longer then that but only the 1.7km is open to the public! Pretty crazy right?! I could have played the bongo's on their skulls and used their arm and leg bones as an xylophone...may they rest in peace! 

I guess I can't leave you with 6 million dead people so here are some pretty pictures from in the Lourve:

Miss Lisa herself... however seeing her made me realise how much I don't really care for paintings all that much... I found cooler stuff!! 

An actual Easter Island head!  Which was really massive. 

A cool Hawaiian wood carving from ages ago

The Winged Victory of Samothrace was made in 190 BC and is a marble sculpture of the Greek Goddess Nike (also called Victory). What I thought was pretty impressive (if it wasn't already) was that it's been displayed at the Lourve since 1884. 

Cool hieroglyphics. Pretty sure it says something about me being the most awesome person you know... 

Fancy Roofs...

The centre of the Lourve (which, if you've been there you can vouch) is the most confusing building I have ever been in! You could very easily get lost and its really hot and it feels claustrophobic. Honestly, it wasn't the highlight of the trip for me...

All in all, a pretty awesome trip... I spent a mint load of money, the weather was pretty crappy and my night train was cancelled cos of the train strikes so I had to stay another day and pay for another night in a hostel- but it meant I got to do more so that was good! It feels like I could have lost my luggage and I still would have loved it... There is something about Paris that I really loved. Oh! P.S The food was amazing! Every single thing I had was the best of its kind. e.g. crepes, chocolate crossaint, orange juice (I don't know how, juice is juice) and the most delicious ham and cheese baguette EVER! again, its just ham and cheese but the bread was so good... I wish I bought another one... 

I'll be looking at going back to Paris. Not sure if again on this trip- I'd prefer to be there in Summer...But next time I want to visit the Palace of Versailles and Montmarte which is where the majority of "Amelie" was filmed if you've ever seen it.

So I say au revoir to Paris... Dresden and University for the next two weeks, then The Netherlands and Belgium with my "new friend" and Prague buddy Alice! Super pumped because my friend Stephen who I lived with in Hawaii lives in Amsterdam with his girlfriend and we are staying with him for two nights!

Yay for reunions! 

But ohhhhh I miss Hawaii sooooo much!!!