hello family? is your internet down?

good day guv'nor and so on and so forth... we are indeed in jolly old england, enjoying tea and greasy breakfast and all that other good stuff. this may very well be my last post of the trip, so i'd like to pause and thank the academy and all of you for your attention over the last two months... it's been much appreciated, and i hope you all enjoyed reading about our exploits as much as we enjoyed having them.
so anyway, today caitlin and christine shopped ALL day... or maybe i shouldn't have told you that... while i took in some history at the tower of london. i figured that my majors required that i pay a visit to this world heritage site, but to be frank, i was a little disappointed. however i would not have been disappointed if i were interested in armors. and swords. and armors. and swords. the crown jewels were quite spectacular, though. they make you stand on a moving sidewalk as you slowly glide past the crowns so no one hogs all the reflected glory. i also confused a staff member when i got mixed up in a group of elderly french tourists. and i got a look at the tower bridge, the london bridge's fancier cousin.
yesterday we did the whole tourist thing again, taking in the british library (my personal favorite museum thus far - and that is saying something), leicester (pronounced lester) square, the parliament buildings and big ben, westminster abbey, and st pauls cathedral. in the evening we went to the west end, where we saw avenue q, a delightful romp starring a whole lot of puppets and featuring songs such as "everyone's a little bit racist", "the internet is for porn", and "what do you do with a b.a. in english" (which hit a little too close to home). it was a very good time, all in all, despite the fact that we had to run a long way to get there. perhaps because we were late, we got our seats upgraded!
can't write no more... too sad.

A message from the swassmaster...

Hopefully you all can figure out what THAT title means...
Alrighty, so we are in Paris, France. Home of the Mona Lisa (saw it), Arc de Triumph (saw it), Eiffel Tower (did it), Sacre Cour (saw it), Monet museum (saw it+ loved it), Moulin Rouge (saw it), Louvre museum (saw it), Notre Dame (saw it), and many many good shopping spots (did that and then some...) As you can tell, we have been very very busy. We arrived Monday night, and took it easy. But Tuesday was a very busy day that we are still recovering from. My absolute favourite sight was the Monet museum, Caitlin and I went Tuesday morning while Kristen went to Musee D'Orsay. I loved his waterlillies and spent a fair amount of money at the gift shop. today at the Louvre we saw many many works of art. some of the more famous ones include Mona Lisa, Aphrodite, the raft of medusa, Michelangelo's dying slave, and much more. It was very cool, although the cattle-herd syndrome was apparent as it was very crowded and full of obnoxious tour groups, who we have evil thoughts of everytime we see one. tomorrow we fly to London, where everyone speaks english, hooray! Then only four more sleeps until home!
sorry i am nowhere near as clever or witty as kristen, but hopefully you all havent forgotten us and are counting down our homecoming just like we are! See you on Monday!

don´t count your money in front of that homeless guy...

i know you´ve all been faithfully checking your computers for a new post every day, and for once, i won´t disappoint you. we´ve had some trouble getting any extended time on the internet, so i´ll attempt to get you all caught up on the main things we´ve been up to...
so we spent june 15-17 in rotterdam and amsterdam. i personally loved amsterdam. it was very charming and innocent looking, although its somewhat compromised morals cast a shadow on its otherwise angelic features. it reminded me of what bedford falls would look like if george bailey had never been born: a beautiful and innocent little town, which had somehow, sometime lost its moral compass.
from there we went to paris for one night. saw the eiffel tower, which was amazing, but i won´t go into detail because there are people waiting to use the internet.
we then ventured south, through marseille and on to two smaller conjoined cities, st raphael-frejus. in the marseille train station, we encountered a few army guys in camouflage, which could have been intimidating if it hadn´t been for their very large, very impractical, and very stupid looking berets. and the french wonder why people make fun of them.
while in the south of france, we did nothing, absolutely nothing, except lie on the beach and recover from all the fun we´ve been having. also, i was amazed to find my accent improving in leaps and bounds. at one point i participated in an exchange with a local, and was amazed at how authentic my ¨bonjour¨and ¨merci¨ sounded.
now for sangria and fireworks...

feeling fine and fetter-free!

first of all, apologies for the lack of posts during the last few days. one of the many lessons that we've learned in germany is that "free internet" essentially means "broken internet".
so here we are now in the land of wooden shoes, giant fans, and lots and lots of prostitutes. the netherlands! we are currently staying in rotterdam, a mere hop, skip, and hour train ride from amsterdam.
from salzburg, we made our way to wurzburg in central germany. once we got there, discovering that "the sound of music" was still in our heads, we attempted to get it out by listening to the hum of as many trains as possible, and the yells of a million soccer fans. here's what we saw:
-wurzburg (a bridge, a river, some bugs)
-rothenburg ob der tauber (a walled medieval town, very beauty and the beast-esque... caitlin climbed another tower and got kicked in the head by kristen... christine's nationality was made obvious by her use of the word "eh"... huskie shorts identified kristen as a saskatchewanite...anian)
-nuremburg (learned more about hitler, saw alot of soccer stuff including beckham... cops lined the streets to prevent soccer riots)
-hungover soccer fan wearing only his german pride
-cologne (big church, lots of kolsch, chocolate factory, intellectual conversations)
-martin (we finally made a friend... we crashed at his pad - he was a wonderful host/tour guide/cook/translator/chauffeur/nice guy)
so we thought we were getting all worldly...
after navigating yet ANOTHER metro line, we found our stop, walked up the stairs, and then... we were lost. teary eyed and mapless in a deserted city (there was a football game on), we were rescued by a u-ie flipping biker, who calmed our fears with four simple words: "i too am canadian!" for once, christine didn't feel stupid about all the flags on her backpack. with his assistance, we were able to turn our heads left and find our hostel, a mere five steps away.
other hilarious situations resulting from christine's patriotic plethora of patches...
"i see you have your anti-american patch..." -guy in vienna hostel lounge
"are you really canadians?" -american implying shared nationality
"canadiaaaaaaaa!" -lucky
ündoubtedly, more to come...

do mi mi, mi so so, re fa fa, la ti ti

and now itäs in everzoneäs head!
so its been a weekend of ups and downs, soccer and russians, tears and kicks, and christines jozful return to health.
so: fridaz we got to salzburg. ate some fish. met waldo of "where's waldo" fame. he followed us from vienna to budapest and back to salzburg, where we met up with him at our hostel. crazy stuff!
saturday we embarked on a journey of grand proportions. as we all know, "the sound of music" has been one of our "favorite things" ever since we were "sixteen going on seventeen"... maybe even before... because it sure is "something good". "i have confidence" in that! we "solved the problem of maria" by going on a sound of music tour, in which we (sometimes disappointingly) separated fact from fiction. we saw: the real von trapp villa, the fake ones (they used different buildings for the front and back of the house in the movie), the gazebo, the church where they got married, and the gardens where they (and we) frolicked.
today we moved on to the darker side of history by visiting dachau concentration camp near munich. it took a bus, a train, another train, and another bus to get us to the location, and a bus, a train, a jog, a train, and another bus to get us back. yes, we sure did run like fools after the train as it... sat unmoving next to the platform. but it could have started moving at any second! after this drama, more drama ensued as we held our own u.n. conference on the train. the ambassador from russia invited us to the discotheque. the ambassador from austria showed us his pictures from kenya. and the canadians assured all present that thez were indeed more beautiful than their fellow countrymen... or women, as it were.
upon returning to salzburg, we cheered on angola as they bravely battled portugal in pursuit of that shiny cup. it was almost like the quidditch world cup! we ate bratwurst and frankfurters (which is a 2 in 1 hot dog) in "residenzplatz" (also of sound of music fame) and observed the giant screen, acting like we knew and cared what was going on.
so many things are blogworthy, but when it comes time to share them, they slip our minds...
keep up the emails and comments!!

so many speedos...

first of all, we have new pictures! and we set the keyboard to english, so now z=z and y=y. anyway, the reason we suddenly have more greece pictures up is because we got these ones off of caitlin's camera rather than christine's.
today was our second full day in budapest, and fortunately the weather was much nicer. so was the scenery, as we discovered when we visited slkajdflkj (or something like that) thermal baths. cultural differences became apparent in the changeroom as we viewed ample bosoms, and intensified outside, as we quickly discovered, against our will, which of our fellow bathers were jewish and which were not. the baths themselves, however, were quite lovely, with the exceptions of the freaky statues. we'll never look at geese the same way again. the baths are heated by something geological, not unlike the hot springs at banff. supposedly, they have healing properties, for which christine is thankful.
last night we went to the "jazz garden", where christine spent upwards of 700 forint on cranberry juice. the music was amazing, and the acrobatics were equally so. have you ever seen anyone play the piano with their feet? we have.
tomorrow we venture back into austria, to visit salzburg, where, as we understand, the hills are alive, at least in our hostel - they play "the sound of music" every day! caitlin has a wee pee every time she thinks about the excitement to come.
speaking of excitement to come, we are discussing potential changes to our itinerary. stay tuned...

feed the birds, tuppence a bag...

...or one euro, as it were.
yes indeed, we certainlz did feed the pigeons in san marco square. those are some pictures to see - the three of us looking like crayz bird ladies. perhaps, if zou're all reallz luckz, photos will be posted soon. but i make no promises.
(in case zou haven't figured it out zet, in austria, z=y)
and hello from wien, or vienna, as zou foreign devils call it. in our hostel we saw a large advertisement for something called "wiener fest" - we assume that's what we attended this morning when we saw the entire vienna bozs choir in little sailor suits. hahaha, kidding. in all seriousness, thez were fantastic. it was worth being elbowed in the ribs for an hour and a half bz pushz asians just to hear their angelic voices bringing us closer to God.
so we have left italz behind us and ventured forth into the land of hitler, wiener schnitzel, and strudel. quite an eclectic mix. culture shock set in while we were still on the train, at a place called tarvisio, which is the border stop. suddenlz the train attendants changed color, became more brisk and demanding, and we all started humming "edelweiss". the scenerz on the waz was fantastic, straight out of "the sound of music". vienna is a much more modern looking citz than venice, rome, florence, or athens; with the exception of the odd gothic cathedral or random guzs in powdered wigs, it could pass for calgarz.
todaz, after seeing the choir, we lost caitlin! unfortunatelz we found her again though. then we went to "haus der musik", the music museum, where we learned all sorts of fun facts, went nuts in the gift shop, and wowed people with christine's musical talent.
we finished up venice with a visit to san marco square, where i climbed the "campanile", or bell tower, as it were, for a reallz, reallz fantastic view. venice is beautiful, and different, from prettz much anz angle. we fed the pigeons, watched murano glass being made, ate gelato, wandered along the canals, and sang "jingle bells" with a little italian girl. essentiallz, we feel that we are all italz'd out - so now it's on to cooler climes and hotter times!