back in canada

well, I'm back. In Belleville. sigh. Well actually I'm visiting in Waterloo at the moment, but I'll be back there later. Paris was pretty fun, although we were getting sick of sight-seeing. We got to stay in Nisha's old apartment, which was lovely. We drank and drank of the wine there, especially the Beaujolais neauveau (probably spelled wrong). There is one night in Paris where the new Beaujolais is ready to be drunk, and the whole city gets HAMMERED. What an interesting phenomenon. I wish canada had this day. Not that we don't use every possible holiday to justify the whole city getting staggering drunk, but it was a special night. We saw lots of pretty sights, and all the famous, required viewing sights (Eiffel tower, L'ouvre/mona lisa/venus de milo, etc). Some wonderful galleries there. Our favorite was the musee d'orsay. Good good, delicious times were had. I'm glad to be home though. :)

Köln, so so rainy

Well, we're in Köln now, we have been here two days, and tomorrow we leave for Paris at around 4pm. It's a pretty city, but we haven't really had a fair look at it, because the weather has been total shite. It has the biggest, pointiest cathedral that I believe exists. It's so big, I can never fit the whole thing into one picture. Our hostel is decent, although it is very smoky, and I feel like I'm in a techno party while I eat my breakfast, lunch and dinner. Oh the sacrifices of travelling. Also, this is a DYKEY city, although I've no idea why. So many girls, snuggly holding hands down the street. awwwww! hold back the vomit. Anyway, I'm off to sip some wine in the techno party lobby, wish me luck....

Berlin is the COOLEST place in the world

It´s funny that I never really connected with Ireland - I thought... it´s not you, Ireland, it´s me... But the second I got to Germany, I fell dorktastically in love with it. Berlin is such a beautiful capitol city. Everyone should come here! We went on a fantastic walking tour of the city yesterday, and the guide was brilliant. The city has so much interesting and disturbing history, and I learned a lot from the walking tour. Some highlights were the Jewish WWII memorial, the memorial for the books burned by the nazis (a clear panel in the middle of the Bebelsplatz square reveals a large underground empty book storage area representing the negative book space for all the books burned), museum island - an island made up of museums(!), and the Reichstag (German Parliament), which was restored in 1990, with a glass dome on top, which you can go into and look out at the city, or down upon the parliament at work (very clever). Another place that I really enjoyed was the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtnis-Kirche, a monument to the damage from WWII, it was nearly destroyed except for the front entrance, it´s spire is broken off, and it was eventually partially repaired, and converted into a museum. We also saw the location of the underground bunker where Hitler was hiding out, and committed suicide. That was really creepy - luckily, it was destroyed long ago, and nothing is there except for grass, which apparently gets covered in dog shit in the summer. Today we are doing some more in-depth museum exploration - The museums are incredible, and (plus bonus), are leaders in the field of Near Eastern Archaeology, and I have studied a lot of the famous items in the Pergamonmuseum. yay!

Goodbye Ireland, Hello Deutschland!!

Someone mail me my dirndl, because we're goin' to Germany!! As most of you know by now, we've decided to pack it up and come back to Canada. Before we get there, we're going to squeeze out one last budget trip - To Berlin, Koln, then Paris (this one's actually in France, not Germany). I'm sooooo excited to see all the art galleries and Archaeological exhibits, especially the Pergamonmuseum in Berlin (very important Near Eastern Archaeology coolness). Sorry the posts have been less frequent - it's hard to keep up with this mowfk when you're travelling. I will be better, I promise.