More than 5 YEARS later!

I never actually forgot about this blog - I just got completely separated from it.  I lost a link / forgot a password, who knows.    I even went looking for it about a year ago with no luck.   Who knew the secret for finding my way in again lay only in following the ancient link from my CouchSurfing profile while simultaneously being logged in to Google Chrome?  It's great when new technology opens old doors.  Facebook has pretty much made this blog even more irrelevant than it always was, but this page is a little more 'mine' so I think I'll start showing it a little more TLC.

As this is a travel blog, let's do a quick run down of my travels for the last 5+ years, shall we?   For sanity's sake, I'm going to just stick to the international travel.  Notice the sharp drop off that begins in 2009...

August 2007 - Italy with my sister & friend - Rome, Florence and Pisa
November 2007 - Italy: Venice (for work) Padua for sightseeing and CouchSurfing
October 2007 - Netherlands - Amsterdam - touring with my Aussie travel buddy
October 2007 - UK - Bath & Stonehenge with Mom, Diane & Teresa
November 2007 - Spain - Barcelona (also with the Aussie)
January 2008 - Ireland with the lovely Nikki - Dublin & Cork
April 2008 - Austria - Vienna (CS)
April 2008 - Portugal - Porto (CS)
May 2008 - Scotland - Edinburgh - Couchsurfing w/ my Dad!
May 2008 - Germany: Goettingen & Cologne (for work & couchsurfing)
May 2008 - Czech Republic - Prague w/ Erica
June 2008 - Czech Republic - Liberec (for work)
June 2008 - Oxford, UK (with Mr. Lensing)
July 2008 - Canada & Alaska with Stephanie & family
August 2008 - Ireland with Veronica - drove 'the long way' from Galway to Dublin
December 2008 - UK - London (High Wycombe actually)
January 2009 - Sweden - Gothenburg (for work)
May 2009 - Germany:  Goettingen (for work) / UK - Midlands / London (for work)
May 2010 - UK - Midlands (for work) / France - Lille - CouchSurfing awesomeness with the lovely Mariam
June 2011 - France - Paris / Spain - Madrid
January/February 2012 - Australia - Sydney, Melbourne, Perth (for work)
December 2012 - Germany - Munich & Nuremburg

That is a fairly accurate list, but I'm sure I've left something off.     The next time I feel like procrastinating my post-travel laundry (as I am right now) I'll go about uploading some pictures.

Deathly Hallows

No spoilers here - but I did love the book. I started at about 3am GMT on Saturday and finished around 11pm that same day. I DID stop to sleep (for a few hours), eat, and wash myself, lest you think I'm obsessed or something.

I had a uniquely English experience when I got it on Friday night. It was nothing like the previous release parties I've been to in the US. No, this was even billed as a 'Line Party', which really didn't mean much to me - They talked about actors and activities and I assumed, wrongly, that this would be going on in some sort of dis-organised carnival style event. Oh no. We stood in line. 4 blocks from the store, and on a couple of occassions folks in costumes or toting bag pipes strolled by, but that was about it. It seems I had forgotten how much the English LOVE TO QUEUE! Apparently, the standing in line WAS the fun. Riiiiight.

Mostly we chatted like normal, froze our rears off (Yes, July though it may be, this is England) I knitted, and we tried to tune out the incredibly annoying woman in line in front of us. Now, as a person that frequently plays the role of 'incredibly annoying stranger' I wasn't too bothered by her, but she was about 21 and a really bossy sort of know-it-all type and it did get old. Lisa and Virginia and I were playing that game where you say a movie, then an actor from that movie, then a different movie with that actor etc...and whenever one of us would get stuck she would butt in! 5 hours with her was a long damn time.


I did not dress up for this event. I DID however spend about an hour sketching a Dark Mark on my left arm.

7.7.07

So, details...I had tickets to Live Earth (big concert, you may have
heard) and I offered the second one to my friend Betsy, who it turns out
is related to the bass player for Foo Fighters (months I've known
her and she didn't bring this up!) Anyway, Nate (her cousin, the bass
player) gave us VIP "Artist Guest" Passes. They wouldn't get us
back stage or even better seats, but they DID get us into the VIP
lounge where all the famous people in the secured boxes got to eat and
drink for free.



I met Eddie Izzard, Jamie Lee Curtis, Ioan Gruffuld, Kyle Mclaughlin,
and my personal favourite, Dave Grohl and his 18 month old daughter. I
met a BUNCH of British stars that I didn't know from Adam (Kasabian
and one of the guys from Bloc Party are two I remember NOT recognizing)
Of course I played it too cool to actually get a photo with any of
them...I didn't want to be the annoying groupie...not sure if I regret that
or not.

Anyway, it was really cool. The sneaky candids may get posted later,
they didn't turn out well b/c it was kind of dark, and I was trying to
be sneaky!

Chocolate and Beer

For the late May Bank Holiday, despite poor planning on my part, I managed to join two of my American friends on a trip to Belgium. We stayed in Brussels and spent a day in Bruges over the 3 day weekend. Unfortunatly I don't know a lot about European history (which has been bothering me more and more since I moved here...I need to start reading some non-fiction) so I had no idea what to expect from Brussels...except of course for Chocolate and Beer (and waffles).
They were having a Jazz festival in the Grand Place, I don't know who was playing, but it gave the whole area a really great energy and I love this picture of the incredibly modern stage set in front of the incredibly Gothic buildings in the square.

Bruges was not a city I was familiar with until a few months ago...but the Brits love it. It's a very small town near the coast of Belgium with loads of canals. Hundreds of years ago the Bruges Harbour apparently rivaled London's. Now it's very quiet, and sort of sleepy when it's not being over-run by tourists...which it usually is. This is a picture from the little cruise we took along the canal. No Gondolas here, so it's not quite like Venice.

We also visited a pub that had 400 different types of Belgian Beer. Between us we tried about 12...two were absolutely foul, and I will forever steer clear of the 'fruit' ones. The first of the foul ones was served in a wine bottle...weird.















The menu listed all 400 beers by type color-coded and indexed along with a description of each, so naturally, the menu was huge.