Fall 2008

Time has gone by fast and we have been living here for almost 19 months and have now started to feel comfortable with the British way of life which was unfamiliar and unsual for us a few months ago. Life is also becoming busier and hence the lack of updates on the blog. So here goes a brief summary of the fall.

Our last trip during the summer was a short visit to Madrid, Segovia and Toledo. We visited with my aunt and enjoyed the sunny days and evenings in Madrid. The highlight of the trip was the roman Aqueduct of Segovia, built around 1st century AD and still working. We also enjoyed the Spanish wine and the tapas.

The end of the summer also meant the end of university life for me, which concluded with the submission of my Masters dissertation and more importantly, the official end of school year celebration at our home - we had representatives from 17 different nationalities, a baby who was born during the school year and a putluck dinner with dishes from each corner of the world.

At the begining of September, life continued to change for us since I started working in central London, changing the dinamics of our life, joining the crowds of commuters in the underground. So since then, we have been spending more time in central London during the week, which we did not use to do before.

The last bit of fall felt more like winter, with our visit to our friends Elke and Thijs where we catched the first snow storm in the Netherlands. It was very cold, I guess we are slowly losing our Canadian winter toughness - especially true for Scott who was used to playing sponge hockey outdoors in Canada at -30 and now was feeling cold at -1. We visited the Rijskmuseum and the Heineken experience in Amsterdam, walked around Maarssen and enjoyed some quality time with our friends.

Garden Tea Party at Buckingham Palace

We were lucky enough to be invited, through Canada house in London to one of the three Royal garden tea parties that the Queen offered this summer in the gardens of Buckingham Palace, in July. It was a remarkable experience for us, we had a short conversation with Prince Charles and Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall (Mainly Scott, I basically nodded and smiled while Scott told them about our lives in London). We were are able to walk around the private gardens of the palace while two bands dressed in bright red uniforms played happy tunes (Among them Beatles and some of the songs of the Chicago musical).

We tried the famous cucumber sandwiches, Victoria sponges, strawberry tarts and square chocolate covered cakes with a crown on the top. Incidentally, if you are ever in this situation do not go for the Victoria sponge because it is quite messy and they apparently do not like to give you napkins. Even though they had the famous Buckingham palace tea, made from loose leaves of earl gray and jasmine, it was a very hot afternoon and most people had iced coffee or juices instead. Towards the end of the party, they offered Loseley ice-cream with "real jersey cream".

Of course one of the highlights for a hat lover like me was that the invitation stated that ladies must wear a "day dress with a hat". So after careful research and consideration, I realized that what most people do is hire a fancy hat rather than buy an ok one. So I hired my first British hat from a very peculiar and cute store. They even added some red feathers to match my dress.

It was a beautiful treat to see the Royal family and spend time inside the gates of such famous building. It was also a very British experience for us which we will never forget.

All roads lead to Rome

We just recently returned from our camping/road trip through Europe. We camped for 17 days and drove at least 5000 kilometers through seven countries. It was a truly amazing experience and also a very effective and inexpensive way to see Europe. I will not post pictures of France, Netherlands and Belgium again since you've probably saw and read about those places last year in this blog.

The itinerary


We had 17 days and our final desitination was Rome. Based on that, we decided that we would visit selected cities on route, while keeping long driving days to the minimum and trying to stay in the same campground for at least two nights. So we pre-calculated the distances and times of each segment and selected campgrounds along the way.

The selection of the campgrounds was based on their location with respect to public transportation (i.e. near a train or subway station) in the big cities or their scenic views or distance to the sea in some other cases.

There is a lot to say about the campgrounds in Europe and we have come to know them quite well. The main advantage is that you save a lot of money comparing it with staying at a hotel and the campgrounds are very convenient with many different services such as restaurants, bar, store, fresh bread delivered every morning, laundry, hot clean showers, etc. We were able to access public transportation to the city center from all the camprgounds located near or inside the cities and some of the campgrounds even had free shuttle buses. For 17 days we were outside for the most part of the days and into the nights, enjoying fresh air and open skies.


Highlights of the trip


It is hard to say what were the best parts of our trip, but we came to the conclusion that it was the two days we spent in Switzerland, camping at the feet of the giant mountains Eiger, Monch and Jungfrau in the valley of the 72 waterfalls. We camped literally at the foot of a waterfall and with views of snowy mountains on each side. We took a cable car up the mountain to a region declared UNESCO world heritage site called "Jungfrau-Aletsch-Bietschhorn". From there we continue the hike across some of the most glaciated parts of the European Alps




Northern Italy: Lerici and Pisa

Lerici was sort of what I imagined an Italian mediterranean town to be like. The relaxed athsmosphere, the small town feeling, the blue ocean contrasting with the houses built on the cliffs painted in bright colors and whites.

Tuscany

We spend a couple of nights in Barberino, Tuscany. We visited Sienna, St. Gimignano and Florence. It was a brief introduction, so we will have to come back again to fully grasp the essence of Tuscany.

Rome

Rome was more than I expected, if that is possible. It is a truly amazing city, every corner, every street, every piazza and every church. I absolutely loved Rome, even though it was crowded with tourists and incredibly hot. We waited in line for hours under the sun to visit the Basilica di San Pietro in Vaticano and walked around and learned all about the Coliseum and the ruins of the Roman forum. We saw the fountains and the Spanish steps. We tried their pizzas, lasagnas, pastas, risottos, gnocchi, gelato among many others.

Venice
I guess I did not realize the whole island of Venice is off-limits to motor vehicles, so all the transportation is done in boats, water taxis and of course, in gondolas. Venice smells like salty water and is much bigger than I thought. The campground was one of our least favorites, they were many mosquitos and it was really hot and humid.

Mallorca

To celebrate our third anniversary we planned a trip to Mallorca, the largest of the Spanish islands. When we first booked the trip back in December, I initially thought that it was going to be a winter getaway to sunny beaches. However, later on as we started to research more into it we realized that it wasn't going to be quite as warm on mid February. Nonetheless, we got sunny and blue skies every day and temperatures up to 18C which was very nice after the long grey winter in London.

The island was surprising larger than I expected, for a point of reference is about the area of Lake of the Woods or about 1/3 of the area of Puerto Rico. So we spend our time exploring the different beach areas, towns, mountains and of course the most popular touristy spots as well. We found a great deal on a car rental from a company called Record so we had flexibility to move around. We stayed in a nice hotel full of elderly German tourists, actually the whole island was full of German tourists. Apparently since the 1950's they started to promote cheap tour packages in Germany and later on came the discounted airlines with direct flights from many German cities. We were pleasantly entertained by their ballroom dancing abilities (and I am sure they enjoyed our merengue moves).

My favorite place in the island was a little town called Valldemosa, a beautiful spot on the mountains which is home to a large monastery house and many picturesque streets and gardens.

We did a long walk from the town of Soller to its port, Portsoller and then we rode back on the tram. We visited the Caves of Drach in Porto Cristo, one of the highlights of the trip. One of those places that seems to be out of this world, with the Crystal clear water and the stalactites, the lighting and then a lake inside this caves where they put on a performance of a organist and two violinists on an illuminated boat playing classical music. It is very hard to describe but you are under the earth in this magical place. It is dark, the only light coming from the illuminations on the boats. And this incredibly serene music coming from the organ and violins. It lasts about 10 minutes, and then they go back into the darkness where they came from. In the surroundings it almost felt as it it were a ghost ship that had happened to cross our paths in this surreal underground world. It was a very, very strange feeling. Something I'm sure I won't ever experience again. Unfortunately, no pictures allowed inside the cave.

We are still here...

We are very sorry for our long absence from the blog. Back in September, with the passing of Scott's Dad, we lost our most regular reader and it has been difficult even thinking about posting here knowing he won't be reading it.
I supposed now four months on its a little bit easier to deal with it and we feel quite guilty for not having posted for you others that were reading this. So, we hope that from here on we'll be keeping in touch more often. Stay tuned for a new posting soon!
Abrazos,
Alex and Scott Gallagher