****WARNING: Ridiculously long blog entry. Please feel free to skim/skip this one. Wow, this is why it’s good to be limited to pay-per-hour internet café time and not have unlimited computer access. **** Gasp! The internet is out! Ohh horror of horrors. I can only hope it’s working again by the time I get back from today’s sessions. In the meantime, I’m writing this in Word and I’ll have to upload it when I finally get an internet connection again. It’s Sunday morning now, I was wayyyy to tired when I got home last night to write an entry, but I&rs [View Full Entry]

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If you'd have told me two years ago that by Nov. 2007 I would have visted all six populated continents of the world, I NEVER would have believed you. Yet, here I am, just 13 months after Derek, Mark, and I first boarded the plane for Australia, typing a blog entry from Quito, Ecuador, South America. I made the first half of it all happen--my world tour took me all over Australia, SE Asia, and Europe. But since I returned in March Scouting has been doing a nice job of taking care of the rest of it. First I went waaay [View Full Entry]

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Well, here it is, my 75th (I think), and final entry (maybe). It was 5 1/2 months ago that Derek, Mark, and I said goodbye to our loved ones, boarded a BC Ferry, and left the land of Tim Horton's, Canadian Tire, cold Pacific Ocean, and sane traffic behind. Yah, that was a random summary of Canada, wasn't it? Well, it's what came to mind. I thought I would do one last entry to sum things up a bit. And yet, I'm really not done my year of crazy travelling. In fact, as I write this I'm sitting in bed in [View Full Entry]

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I have to say, the two major Parisien monuments really let me down today. The Louvre and the Eiffel Tower just really didn't come through. Let me explain. We started our day off at the Louvre. After waiting in a pretty big line to get tickets and then fighting our way through crowded halls, we finally made it to the Mona Lisa. "Well, there it is." was pretty much Derek and my responses. It's not like we hadn't seen it a thousand and one times other places (including on EVERY imaginable peice of Louvre merchandise) and it really wasn't that [View Full Entry]

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We're in Paris now, but I think it's important for me to report on the Juno Beach center where we spent two days after leaving the ski hill. If you don't know (and you SHOULD if you are a Canadian citizen!), Juno Beach is the name for the 8km stretch of Normandy coast line where the Canadians landed during the Allied Forces D-Day invasion. The Canadians did great and penetrated farther into occupied territory than any other group that day (although, looking around the area, I had to wonder if that was due to a more forgiving landing site). At [View Full Entry]

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Wow. I just finished four of the most fun days of my life living waaaay above my general social class and income bracket thanks to the intense generosity of friends from highschool and their subsequent, equally kind, connections. I'm talking, of course, of my time in the ski resort village of Meribel. Not sure what Meribel is? Let me give you an intro: it's in the center of 3, interconnected, skiable valleys containing the biggest area of skiiable terrian in the world, it boasts 190 lifts, has FOUR Club Meds, was home to the alpine events of the 1992 Winter [View Full Entry]

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If you're just checking my blog, be sure the you caught my last entry which I just published. I split this up into two because the last one was getting excessively long. So, when we last spoke, Derek and I had just arrived at Vicky's house in Erps-Kwerps, Belgium. OH! I forgot a pivital moment of our first night there. We went and got some famous Belgian frites (fries) to take back to Vicky's house. Mmmmm so gooooood! That's where the real "French" fries are from, for sure. We ate an absolutley disgusting amount of fries, and Derek has the pictures [View Full Entry]

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I'm not sure how much I'm going to get through here today because I have days and days and days to catch up on, and I don't have unlimited time at the moment, but we'll see how much I can do. I guess I'll start with Amsterdam, first. When we got of the train a sense of calm immediately fell over me. Ahhhh the Netherlands. I really like that country, a lot. After a bit of work to orient ourselves we figured out which of the narrow streets with a combination of trams, cars, and bikes flying down them, we were [View Full Entry]

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For those of you wondering what has happened to me, this e-mail to my parents is the best I can do at this point. Sorry!!! Hi guys! I know it has been ages since I posted on the blog, but there have been some problems. The internet in Amsterdam seemed unreasonably pricy, so I opted to wait until we got to Brussels to just do a mammoth update then since we had a lot of time to kill until we could meet our friend from Thailand, Vicky, who has invited us to stay with her for a few days (she's so [View Full Entry]

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With some much communication now easily possible due to the greatness that is The Internet, sometimes it feels like I never left home. However, all this communication takes time, and more and more the poor blog seems to be getting neglected. Tonight is no exception. By the time I'd finished reading and responding to all my e-mails (and the Scouting ones have picked up again now that the Christmas holidays are over), answered all my FaceBook messages (the new internet time-eating demon) and done a quick perusal of the top stories on CBC, my hour if internet is pretty much spent. [View Full Entry]

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