Blogs from Europe - page 13881

Fiona's last day at the Oxford English Centre was on Friday. I have ten more work days at WISC. We went to St Andrews Church (C of E) for the last time on Sunday. We will miss our friends and community there greatly. Our flat is filled with boxes are we prepare for the big move. We have a busy couple of weeks ahead before we begin our travels. On Sunday we (finally) saw the Lion King in London. Before the performance, we intended to meet Igor for lunch to talk about travel in the Balkans, but the train service between Oxford and London was late. In the end Igor met us at the theatre. In ten minutes he referred to points of interest on a giant map of the former-Yugoslavia and then generously left the ... read more

Egg #2. It's me again, with a little update from La Rochelle, on the West coast of France about half way up. Unfortunately I don’t have any near death experiences to tell you about this time, but I’ll do my best to make something up if I feel that its getting a bit tame. La Rochelle is a med sized harbour town. How to describe La Rochelle?……. I’d say: nautical, fresh, pretty, well maintained, sunny, pleasant, nautical, white, nautical, bright, breezy, nautical. And just erring slightly on the side of ‘retirement home’. So, what’s with the nautical malarky? (readers voice). Well, to say that Portland Bill and Captain Pugwash probably went to school here could be the understatement of the year. There’s a port here called ‘Les Minimes’ ……… more like ‘Les Maximes’ - there’s at ... read more

On Sunday I decided to head up to Monmartre and the Sacre Coeur with a friend to spend the afternoon. We brought lunches and bought a fresh hot baguette on the way so before braving the crowd around the church, we picnicked on the hillside overlooking Paris. And it was really all of Paris. Even though the day was not perfectly clear (as you can tell in the photos) I could still see for miles. Of course, I havent' been up the eiffel tower yet, but so far it's been the most impressive view I've had of Paris. And of course it was kind of cool to remember the Amelie scene with "les fleches bleues" and compare the scenery to my surroundings, since it did take place in Montmartre, if I'm not mistaken. The church ... read more

Well busking seems to be not-so-bad after all! I must say that the Oxford crowd are much more enthusiastic than the one in the London tube- especially seeing as they are all drunk and happy! :) (It was the weekend). I busked for 2 nights in total and a little during the day and made a grand total of £100, which paid for all my accommodation, food and I still have £20 more in my wallet than when I came here! I managed to sneak back into the youth-hostel during the wee-earlies and sleep on the floor the night I was 'living' on the mound (hey, I was alive and I was on the mound! That constitutes "living"! :P) They didn't seem to have a problem with it- which was good, seeing as it was either ... read more

I was jarred awake this morning at an ungodly hour by the sounds of someone in my room yelling at me to wake up. "30 minutes until docking" he was yelling. The nerve of this guy to enter my cabin unannounced to wake me up. I was still able to hear him as he went down the hall yelling at all the other passengers to wake up. Not wanting to be left behind, I quickly ran in the shower and gathered my things. We docked in the port town of Igoumentisa. From here, we were to catch another ferry that would take us to Corfu town. It was still dark outside and everyone was still half asleep as we were disembarking. We walked along with our suitcases to the port terminal where we were to ... read more