jewel89
Travelling Canadian Joined: June 1st 2009
Logged in: January 13th 2012
Logged in: January 13th 2012
Travel Blog Posts
We headed out to Epcot today – again, think we made a great choice! The first half of the day the park was practically empty..!! I guess everyone was sleeping in/hungover from New Year’s haha. Daisy Duck was near the entrance, so we did photos with her first – then Stitch was dancing up a storm, so we met him too. He had fun playing with my index cards – he was waving them around and basically teasing me for having them instead of a book haha. No love Stitch :P Mission Space had a less than 5min wait... uh, ok! We opted for the “more intense space training” – it was neat. Loved that Gary Sinise was the video host haha. The ride basically has you blast off to space and land on Mars – ... read more
Happy New Year everyone! We decided to try and “avoid” the Disney crowd as much as possible on New Year’s Eve, so we headed off to Hollywood Studios. We made a good decision – the crowds weren’t out of control until around 11pm-midnight. In the morning we went to see Beauty and the Beast the musical – essentially they just strung together all the songs from the movie assuming you knew the story enough to fill in the blanks haha. It was great – as per all the Disney songs, we sung along :) Good old Disney. Gaston was a great ham in the play, and it was fun to watch Lumiere and Ms Potts prance around the stage. Tower of Terror was next door – that was a great ride. I think one of my ... read more
Day of Disney firsts today :) First park, first character picture, first autograph, etc. And I loved every minute of it - totally re-lived my childhood all day. We had a nice breakfast (yay, free) at the hotel and then shuttled off to Epcot, to catch the Disney transfer to Animal Kingdom. And the magic begins! We went straight to Fastpass Everest (so not waiting in line when no need) and then went to the safari expedition. The line was long enough, but I didn't even mind lines today because Disney even does that right!! There are videos/movies, displays, everything is themed perfectly etc. The safari was nice - the vehicles themselves were really cool, and they let us do all sorts of crazy "off-road" experiences including nearly falling off a bridge and chasing after poachers ... read more
Goodbye Massena
Early morning this morning..!! Drove down to Massena to catch the 7am flight out to Albany (on to Boston). Man, the things we do for cheap flights. The border was a ghost town, so we had fun chatting with the guard. Tracy's family drove us down, so when we gave all the passports over it was kind of like "ok who doesn't belonggggg" haha. He was good though - he joked around with us about how we're going to see "the Mouse" and all that jazz. We got to the airport before it was open, so drove back into town for coffee at McD's... which also wasn't open yet. The owner made us wait outside for 20min - we weren't too pleased considering he was supposed to open at 5am (only let us in at 5:15). ... read more
Right, well that was a tiring 48 hours. Monday morning was nice – I had a few hours before I had to bus to Ljubljana from Bled, so I finally took the time to walk around the entire lake and see it from the other viewpoints. Very pretty.... and longer thann I thought it would take! I had my leftover pizza for lunch, so I sat on the edge of the water, just people (and duck) watching. I also had a good laugh watching people in their boats. You can pay something like 20euros to take a boat to the little island, or you can rent a rowboat for 10euro... the thing is, it looked like for most people this was the first time they’d ever used a rowboat... ahahaha. They were so lost – it ... read more
Bled Castle
I decided to hike the "quick" path up to the Castle rather than take the leisurely walk or the tourist train... yeah... that was an unfortuante choice on my part haha. The 15min walk is essentially 3min of steep gravel path in the woods, and the rest is all stairs. So many stairs. Not cool. I had a good laugh when I got to the castle though - there was a couple who had their (looked like a Lhasa Apso) dog in a rolling suitcase, with the top obv open so the dog could sit/stand. How cute. Anyway. You have to pay 8 euro for the Castle... which I'm never a fan of, but after the kajillion stairs, I wanted the satisfaction of seeing the lake from above haha. The view was quite nice, although the ... read more
Start of the gorge walk
Well, that was a trek and a half! Tomorrow it's supposed to thunderstorm around here, so I figured today would be the day to hike to Vintgar Gorge. Now, there's a "turist bus" in the morning, and I could have taken a taxi... but no, I went all out and walked what was supposed to be 4km (1hr, give or take) each way, for a grand total of about 10km incuding the gorge. Yeahhhhh. That didn't work as planned haha. First off, I was supposed to walk north-west out of the town, and then every single website/guide book says the path is CLEARLY MARKED on how to get to Vintgar. Cool. Sounds easy enough - so off I went. I walked. And I walked. And I walked. In the 28 degree sunny weather. I walked along ... read more
Castle
Had a very lovely day today :) Checked out from Ljubljana and caught a bus north-west to Bled - it was a pleseant enough journey, driving through some small towns and farmer fields, with picturesque mountains in the background. Driving into Bled, I couldn't hlp but smile. Within 10-min I knew I was going to love it here. And after an hour or so, I was seriously questioning whether Iceland is still my favourite/most beautiful place I've been. My hostel is beyond fabulous - more about that in a later entry. Long story short, great hostess and I got upgraded from a 3-bed, to a 2-bed, by myself! Party! My stuff is now everywhere, all across the room haha. Perfect for when I need to re-pack. I went to the supermarket, made some lunch and then ... read more
Grafitti
(the photo uploader is acting all crazy, so sorry if they don't load properly!) Decided to actually stay in town today and take in its sights. I started my adventure with another lovely panini from Back Werk - such a great find. I then headed off to the artist area. The walls were plastered with grafitti - I was in heaven snapping photos. From there I wandered thru the sleepy sidestreets until I came upon Dragon Bridge - great dragon statues to be seen! Next was Butcher's Bridge (weird little statues of fish heads I believe they were...? haha) which also had all the love lockets that you see all over Europe. Sweet. And from there I took the furnicular up to the castle (for 2 euros return as a student, I couldn't resist!). The view ... read more
Caves
I had to decide between two caves today... the easy to get to, touristy ones... or the off-the-path ones. Now, 99% of the time I'd go with the off-the-path... but having just spoken to another backpacker who spent forever trying to find the path to the off-the-path caves (haha, oh dear) I decided to play it safe. Had a wonderful lunch at the little sandwhich place across the road (paninis or sandwhich, 1.99 euro? I'm happy) and then went to catch the bus to Postojna, about an hour south-west of Ljubljana. The bus ride was nice - great scenery, passing through sleepy little towns in the mountains. One part was particularly steep with sharp curves - I really wish I had my camera out because the signs were epic - they were warning motorcyclists about sharp ... read more
