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Page 6 of mike and elysia Travel Blog Posts
December 31st 2011
After sleeping in this morning, we went out to do a little grocery shopping to get ready for New Year's Eve. Sander and Mike bought Oliebollen (basically very big Timbits) and Appelflappen (basically apple turnovers) from a few local markets. Those are both traditional New Years Eve foods in the Netherlands - they are also both deep fried and artery blocking (but, hey, who are we to break with tradition?!?). Annelie and Elysia went for a short bike ride to the Vuurwerk (pronounced Vvvuur-verk) shop to buy Vuurwerks. What are vuurwerks, you ask? Fireworks of course! On the way to the firework shop, Annelie ran into a bit of trouble with a fellow country-woman... Suffice to say that she sorted it out with a few sharp comments! Later in the day, we walked through downtown Utrecht, ... read more
Alle goede avonturen beginnen in Nederland (All Good Adventures Start in The Netherlands)
Published: December 31st 2011Europe » Netherlands » Province of Utrecht » Utrecht
December 30th 2011
Today we boarded our British Airways flight in Toronto to start our latest adventure! Our plane left about an hour late because it was snowing quite hard in Toronto, and the plane needed to be de-iced. We were worried that we would miss our connection in London, but luckily, we made up most of the time in the air. Unluckily, once we arrived in London, the plane had to circle the airport a few times waiting for a chance to land... so we did miss our connection. They booked us on the next flight though, so we were only an hour late getting into Amsterdam. And, British Airways gave us £20 to spend at Starbucks, for our inconvenience, so we loaded up before we got on our next flight. Sander and Annelie met us in the ... read more
Our surprise location.... On to the beaches of larnaca, cyprus
Published: July 31st 2010Middle East » Cyprus » LarnacaJuly 28th 2010
Our surprise destination: cyprus. We didnt decide o do this part of the trip ahead of time. We thought we's want to spend a few more days at the end of the tour in egypt, but we knew early on that we didnt. Also because of the constant travelling we thought it would be nice to hit the beach for a bit. Cyprus is pretty close to egypt and a friend of ours on the tour knew someon who loved it so we booked our flights and it was easy . Today was quite an uneventful travel day. We were dropped off by taxi at the bus station and we took the VIP bus (safe for tourists or for people who wanted to pay more for a nicer coach) to the Cairo airport. We were ... read more
July 27th 2010
After a breakfast at the rooftop restaurant overlooking the sunny city, we headed off to explore the famous Biblioteca Alexandrine. It is believed that the new Alexandria library is on the site of the original ancient library (by the same name). It was the center of knowledge and learning of the ancient world and it housed a million papyrus scrolls with knowledge of the time. It was built in approximately 200BC (I need to check my dates on this) and only survived about 400 years when it burned down. Only one papyrus scroll survived the fire and is now housed in a museum in Vienna. The new library was built on the same site and finished in 2002. It's designed in the shape of a sun disk, representing the sun rising on the Mediterranean as the ... read more
July 26th 2010
We arrived at our hotel on July 26th street on July 26th. Apparently it's a national day, enough to warrant a street name, but I'm not sure what actually happened that day. In any case, the Egyptians didn't seem to celebrate anything on this day. Today we said goodbye to Amman and said a reluctant hello again to Egypt. Ww got off the plane in Alexandria and right away we could tell the difference. Things were much dirtier here than in Jordan. This time we tried to avoid the visa fiasco of last time and instead of waiting in line at customs, we tried to get the visa first so we didn't have to go back for it after. We were wrong again. We stood in front of the visa desk for at least 10 minutes ... read more
July 25th 2010
Today we awoke lazily around 9am had a quick breakfast and headed down to the lobby of the Arena hotel (scratching our bed bug bites like mad!!) and met the driver we had hired to take us north to the ancient town of Jerash. Built in Greco-Roman times, Jerash was once a thriving city, complete with multiple theatres, temples and even a hippodrome. Many of the remains are in surprisingly good shape, while pretty much all of the everyday buildings (houses, etc.) existed today only through the odd fist-sized stone laying in the plains. Jerash is a very large site, and although there aren't a huge number of recognizable ruins left to see, it takes a few hours to visit just because the distance between the ruins is so great. Even before you get to the ... read more
July 24th 2010
Today was the day that we said goodbye to all our new travel buddies. I have to say that it was very sad for mike and I to see people trickle off to the airport as we gave our arm pump salute to their cabs. We have 2 more nights here in Amman, and the last to leave today was Dave, who had a midnight flight. After we waved goodbye to the others, mike, Dave and I (and mark for a little while) took off to explore downtown. We walked and walked and walked all day, exploring every nook and cranny in downtown. We walked up and down the main shopping street (stopped in the gold souk so I could buy some jewelery!), explored the fruit markets, experienced the thrill of crossing the crazy streets, tried ... read more
July 23rd 2010
This morning we set of for the lowest place on the planet not covered by water. We stopped at an elevation of 422 metres BELOW sea level on the East Bank of the Dead Sea overlooking Israel. With eagerness we grabbed our cameras and books and ran into the dead sea to discover what all the fuss is about. It turns out that the dead sea is very salty. Life jackets are not required, as drowning isn't really an option. They have life guards on duty on the beach, but I'm not convinced they can swim - actually it is very difficult to swim in the dead sea. It is so salty that everything floats incredibly well and it is actually hard to swim when you are floating so high up in the water. We decided ... read more
July 22nd 2010
We packed our bags and we left on our journey towards Amman. The next stop was madaba, a small city that is known for their beautiful mosaics. We drove along the kings highway though the countryside of Jordan. Jordan is a very mountainous county so this road is very windy and continuously went up and down and through canyons. Aside from the few villages we passes, the landscape is mostly barren and rocky desert. On our way we stopped at two crusader castles. The first was called Shobak castle, which we only visited from the outside because the tour guide said that the next castle was exactly the same, just that it was much more intact. So we drive a bit further to reach the present day town of Kerak, and visited the kerak crusader castle ... read more
July 21st 2010
This morning we awoke early and climbed aboard the bus and made the grueling five or six minute drive to the ancient city of Petra, which was once home to the thriving Nabatean populace. Although you may not be aware of it, you are at least somewhat familiar with Petra. Petra was featured in the third Indiana Jones movie (the one with Sean Connery). We walked in through the main gate and hopped on a bunch of waiting horses to make the 1ish km journey to the start of the canyon. Every horse comes with a person to lead the "rider" down the path. Coincidentally, my (Mike's) horse was the only one to not have a matching human - it's a good thing I rode horses when I was a kid! (As it turns out, riding ... read more
Our next trip is finally booked! After a fairly long travel hiatus, we are finally hitting the skies again, this time to Nepal, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. Look out South East Asia, here we come!
... full info
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This map shows the countries we have visited... We are working to colour in as much of it as we can!
Trips
Let's Go to Greece
December 25th 2008 -» January 8th 2009
Netherlands, Egypt, Jordan and Beyond!
June 30th 2010 -» August 2nd 2010
2012 Exchange to London, England
December 29th 2011 -» May 30th 2012
Nepal and South East Asia
June 10th 2013 -» July 31st 2013
December 25th 2008 -» January 8th 2009
Netherlands, Egypt, Jordan and Beyond!
June 30th 2010 -» August 2nd 2010
2012 Exchange to London, England
December 29th 2011 -» May 30th 2012
Nepal and South East Asia
June 10th 2013 -» July 31st 2013
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