10c, fine 22c, warm The last stop of the 'Matt road show' was Amsterdam. The mere mention of this city instantly conjures up sordid images of coffee shops, 'window shopping' and... windmills (okay that's not sordid.. but you get the idea). It's all true, you'll find whatever it is you're looking for in Amsterdam. I'd liken the parts of the city to a theme park - in your face, loud and noisy. Most people go to experience 'the atmosphere' (not the rides.. pardon the pun!) and not surprisingly nearly 95% of people in the red light district are tourists. This [View Full Entry]

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10c, fine No expectations and no plans - Finland was an open book from the beginning. I knew little about Helsinki and my first encounter of a Finnish person was the Finnair hostesses saying ‘hey’ as I boarded the plane. Wow.. That’s really casual for an airline welcome, I was expecting a “welcome aboard.. blah blah blah”. Even the pilot came on the intercom and was like “hey…”. I thought Finnish people were just extremely laid back until I learnt that “hei” (pronounced: “hey”) means hello in Finnish. Wow.. Finland wa [View Full Entry]

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4c, rain and wind (Ie - bloody freezing!) I could pretend that I experienced a lot of Danish culture and saw the majority of Copenhagen, but that’d be a big fat lie. I had merely 24 hours in between flights from Iceland to Finland - that didn’t allow for much ‘Danish time’ but I did get to see Copenhagen.. just.. Go easy on me if this entry doesn't exactly set the world on fire. I had visions of Copenhagen being a big messy city to get around, instead I was surprised to find a quaint and fairy easy city to [View Full Entry]

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2c, light showers Forget whatever you think Iceland would be like. It’s more full on, more understated, more touristed and more isolated than you’d ever imagined. I had a fascination with Iceland ever since I had to do a project on it in primary school. The people don’t look like Bjork and the landscape is more Greenland than Iceland. The temperature is not as cold as would be expected, and certainly a lot warmer than anything I’d experienced in Canada. I had no idea what to expect when I arrived at an empty Keflavik International airport at 1am. The first [View Full Entry]

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22c, Fine It’s amazing how you can check in your luggage on a small Caribbean island like.. say.. St Lucia and it makes it all the way to Nice, France isn’t it? I waited in anticipation at the baggage carousel in Nice and watched everyone pick up their luggage. I waited and waited until the carousel was empty and got a sinking feeling in my stomach before Iberia confirmed the worst - they’d lost my worldly possessions and no idea where they were. What an awesome start to my arrival in Europe and the first thing I wanted to deal [View Full Entry]

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35c, Fine The bumpy 3 hour ride from Dominica to St Lucia via catamaran was highly uneventful. I wished something had of happened because I had this sinking feeling in my stomach that I wasn’t going to like what St Lucia had to offer - either that or I was worried I’d be kicked out. I had no CARICOM visa and St Lucia was a big player in the cricket finals (which were a few days away). Little Dominica had given me a CARICOM wrist band which SHOULD let me in without passport inspection (and discovery that I have no [View Full Entry]

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30c, Mainly fine with isolated thunder storms ‘The Natural Island’ - that’s the tourism slogan for Dominica and it fits perfectly. This is not the Dominican Republic, this is Dominica where tourism is still a buzz word and the main international airport is called ‘Cane field’. There are no direct flights from anywhere outside the Caribbean and it remains the regions poorest and least visited destination. I arrived via catamaran from Guadeloupe without a CARICOM (Caribbean Community) visa. The website said I’d be turned away or fined, but I figured littl [View Full Entry]

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32c, Fine Someone is always on strike in France and it’s overseas territories. In New Caledonia it was the bus drivers forcing me to rearrange my travel plans. On arrival in Guadeloupe it was complete and utter chaos... the trolley pushers were on strike (baggage carts to our US friends)... how would the country cope?!?! There were placards in French saying ‘death to the trolleys, death to the airport’, trolleys were over turned and the pushers were sitting on the lawn smoking weed. I wondered how the airport would function without the trolleys being returned, until I saw [View Full Entry]

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36c, Fine Boarding the flight to St Maarten from New York I immediately knew I wouldn’t be your typical tourist on the island. All the other passengers were well to do elderly couples kitted out in the latest fashions from (insert name of fashionable elderly store here) and ready to sip Pina Coladas on the beach. Fair enough, I just hoped I’d fit in somewhere on the island because it was obvious that without Marg there would be no sunset cocktails and candle lit dinners. My first taste of the Caribbean was the ride to Sint Maarten’s Dutch capital Philipsburg [View Full Entry]

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15c, Fine If someone had told me that one day I’d be arriving in New York on my own via the subway from a dodgy part of New Jersey and walking up Broadway through the busy Times Square.. well.. I’d tell em’ there dreamin’ (Aussies reading this will get that.. translation: crazy). But that’s what I did and I felt very safe. New York does that to you, it changes the way you look at things and yourself. I’ve yet to find a city in the world that rivals New York as ‘the greatest’. Whatever you’ve read or seen on [View Full Entry]

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