http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/ADog/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from ADog en-us Mon, 30 Nov 2009 09:42:18 +0000 Mon, 30 Nov 2009 09:42:18 +0000 The weather is perfect sunlight with a light breeze and just looking around you think you might have walked into a period film as your feet traipse on the uneven cobblestone. Some classmates and I decided to jet on to Lisbon for a long weekend and were very impressed. Lisbon is beautiful and very affordable. Almost the entire city seems virtually unaltered from when it was constructed centuri http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Portugal/Lisboa/blog-449706.html Salut Comme talle vous We're in North America just an hour away from the US... Americans joke about Canada being America's Hat or America Junior but at least in Montreal it feels worlds away. Everything's in French everyone seems to be out on the street taking leisurely brunchdinnerdrinks bars and restaurants seemed full at all hours of the day and people prefer to greet you with b http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/Canada/Quebec/Montreal/blog-431238.html You can easily tell that Hio as the locals pronounce Rio is a beach town. Even if you're not strolling across the miles of beachside promenade in neighborhoods like Copacabana and Ipanema that are nearly synonymous with exotic locale people take their time making it from point A to B and there is a hint of sea air across the city. In general the city's vibe can be summed up as why rush http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Brazil/Rio-de-Janeiro/Rio-de-Janeiro/blog-385971.html Despite three tough gradlevel midterms looming in the coming week 31 classmates and I decided to take advantage of a three day Columbus Day weekend and trek to Iceland for a much needed break. After landing at 630AM and making the 45 minutes drive from Keflavik airport to Reykjavk amidst a cloudy sunrise we were greeted in our hotel lobby with what we were to find out was a ubiquitous odor of http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Iceland/Southwest/Reykjavik/blog-332995.html We had gotten up really early in Amsterdam to make it to our EasyJet flight to London on time. The clientele on the airplane were quite varied some were still drunk from a night out partying. I was sitting right behind a guy that had Made in England tattooed on the back of his neck. It reminded me of one of those What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas commercials with the glum or worn outlooki http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/United-Kingdom/England/Greater-London/blog-229881.html Dave and I were regretting not having payed a few more Euros and upgrading to the first class sleeper train cabin. Things had seemed fine when we had started out in Munich with a pair of Irish schoolteachers these guys looked and acted more like frat boys than teachers. But the cabin was small and crowded and we had people come in from random stops to take up their beds. Aside from that the l http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Netherlands/North-Holland/Amsterdam/blog-229880.html We travelled much of the day on three separate trains and finally made it to Munich in the early evening. Our hostel was next to the train station in what turned out to be the hostel district. After touring our surroundings and getting lost and met some very fun Canadian girls who were some of our roommates at the hostel. We all made plans to meet up at a jazz bar with an open mic night later http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Germany/Bavaria/Munich/blog-229803.html It took us way too long to leave Prague. When we finally found the car dealership in the maze that is downtown we were greeted with the information that Eurocar's Cesky Budovice office would be closed when we were supposed to drop the car off. Their solution was to tack on the round trip bus fare for a guy from the Prague office to go down to pick up the car. We indignantly let them know that tha http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Czech-Republic/South-Bohemian-Region/Cesky-Krumlov/blog-222665.html I was really excited to get back to Prague. It's one of the most beautiful places I'd ever been to and when I'd been in 2004 there were some key things like the Jewish quarter that had been closed and we hadn't gotten to see. After arriving exhusted on an overnight train from Ljubljana we had issues flagging a cab. The only cabbie that picked us up didn't speak much English odd from my recoll http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Czech-Republic/Prague/blog-222422.html We were happy to leave Croatia as it was wreaking havoc on our wallets. We also felt like we had a good feel for the country after having driven through much of it. We pulled up into Postogne Slovenia late at night and checked into a hostel. The next day we were hoping to take a trip into the caves of the Karsk region. Dave being the big geology buff was very excited about this. After some i http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Slovenia/Upper-Carniola/Ljubljana/blog-190496.html Sadly before the Travelblog crash there was a great writeup of my experiences in Xian. I didn't have any backups of this one so it is as of now gone for good. I don't think a rewrite so long after the fact would do my experience justice but luckily the video and comments were left unha http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Shaanxi/Xi--an/blog-177192.html After another 24 hours in flightslayovers Beijing Hong Kong London Sofia I was back in Europe. I was missing Asia a bit but looking forward to such creature comforts as toilet paper Westernstyle toilets babies wearing diapers and no streetspitting. Bulgaria was a country I'd been really curious about as I'd met a fair amount of Bulgarians in the past few years and was curious to http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Bulgaria/West/Sofia/blog-181548.html Sadly before the Travelblog crash there was a great writeup of my experiences in Macao. I didn't have any backups of this one so it is as of now gone for good. I don't think a rewrite so long after the fact would do my experience justice but luckily the pictures and comments http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/Macau/blog-173176.html I suppose that ridiculously late transportation was something that I needed to start getting used to in the Balkans. The train from Belgrade to Bar in Montenegro pulled in nearly an hour late and took almost another hour to get situated before it left. Luckily we had two awesome Serbian girls sitting next to us which made the 11 hour trip a pretty good time with a lot of laughs. We were so lou http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Montenegro/Kotor/blog-184519.html We got into Dubrovnik much later than expected sweaty and tired. We tried our hardest to stay up for a bit and check it out but after an hour of light touring we were exhausted and went back to our Villa to nap which ended up being several hours. We also discovered that it was really hot in Dubrovnik even at night.The next day we toured the city en force along with hordes of other tourists http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Croatia/Dalmatia/Dubrovnik/blog-185350.html The bus from Sofia to Belgrade took a lot longer than expected. The border alone took an hour because apparently the border patrol on the Bulgarian and Serbian sides were too busy having coffee and cigarettes to immediately get to stamping our passports. When we made an unexpected stop in Nis to switch busses I was lucky enough to meet a Macedonian girl who spoke English no one else on the bus http://www.travelblog.org/Europe/Serbia/West/Belgrade/blog-183190.html Up on the Great Wall We were pretty exhausted from Shanghai and excitedly boarded the sleeper train for Beijing having heard that it was the nicest of the trains we would take. We were getting into Beijing at 930 so we'd be able to get a good nights sleep. Our hearts sunk when we found out that we'd be sharing the train car with a group of 40 Chinese 11 year olds and only 4 teachers to watch o http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Beijing/blog-181119.html Shanghai AcrobatsThe Circle of Death I was pretty excited about visiting Shanghai. I remember having read some novels that took place in 1800's Shanghai which described the place as a crazy den of thieves the Chinese version of the wild west and that had captured my imagination. More recently I'd heard it compared to New York but in Chinese terms. We had yet another rollicking train ride from http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Shanghai/blog-178681.html Rising water in the Yangtze's Boat LocksDancers on the Yangtze River After another 14 hour sojourn across the Chinese countryside we pulled into the city of Yichang on the Yangtze river. We dropped most of our stuff off at a hotel as we'd be hopping around the river for the next few days with different accomodations each night. Following a great lunch which we were told would likely be our las http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Yunnan/Yangtze-River/blog-177167.html Heading out from Hong Kong we took a short train to Shenzen which is Hong Kong's nearest border to the Chinese mainland and went through visa and passport control. We were finally in mainland China It was actually a bit underwhelming as everything seemed to be the same except that there was no English writing anywhere to be seen. We boarded the first of many overnight trains we would be taki http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Guangxi/Yangshuo/blog-174927.html