Who Wants To Be A Milanaire

If you are ever in Milan, don't go into any of the shops in the big streets. It is all designer labels that you can't afford (or shouldn't choose to be able to afford anyway), or fancy food shop/cafe where you have to pay first (which means you have to know and be able to say what you want in Italian - we can't) and then hand in the receipt to get the food. It explains why most people go to McDonalds (and leave the rubbish all over the main square where the big nice church is). Anyway we found a little place with 12 different pasta dishes on a side street which was AWESOME! So just be patient and you will be rewarded.

Some of the things we learned within a few days of being in Italy is that people are very passionate about stuff. They give their all. Especially when they are driving. And they don't mind overtaking you even if there is traffic coming in the other direction or even if you are ALREADY overtaking someone. Sometimes both of those things are happening in both directions, with cars double parked on both sides of the road. Anyway Milan wasn't all that exciting for us.. probably because we decided we would not pay to see anything touristy. There is a nice big classic shopping arcade thing, a palace and a nice old church near the uni we checked out in a few hours we were there.

Right Up Your Allevard

So we were now on our way to Italy, not because the French were too rude (well....), but because we wanna be Venice in about a week's time to meet friends. And at the time we didn't know how to read the camping/caravan guide properly yet. So it took us a while to find this campsite which we thought was near Grenoble, on the way out of France. It wasn't. It was in Alavard, which was a little bit north. But it turned out to be a beautiful little place as you can see. The nice mechanics at the local Citreon Garage were very helpful and I picked a few apples at the campsite. But we had to head up the Alps and test Cedric's engine out a bit more.. He loved the challenge, climbing up and down amidst snow-capped mountains with no problems, thank god! And before we knew it, we were in Italia!

Beaune Ultimatum

Next destination was a little town surrounded by lots of vineyards where we rode our folding bikes and just get lost in the yellow, red and green of the gentle hills. The lovely market full of locals and tourists in the centre of town had lots of yummy stuff and I can still hear the dude at one of the shop say "this iz zee Pesto.. Or-Bearrr-yeen (Aubergine / egg plant)". The wine tasting experience in one of the 'caves' was fun, but they we didn't like the wines that much. Peter succesfully asked someone where zee Cybercafe was, in French, but ofcourse they thought I could speak the language and told him how to get there in French.. that's why we haven't put these photos up til now :(

I Louvre Paris

The start of our 9-week adventure in Europe consisted of crossing the waters from England to France. We recommend Speedferries, because it was cheap and fast. The toll for the highway to Paris then cost us about 27 Euros, which made us decide that we will not go on a tollway again. Anyway we got to our campsite, Blois de Boulonge which is on the edge of inner paris, and I mean it only took us about 30 minutes to get to the Louvre.. we slept in our van right by the Seine among Europeans from all over, including a bunch of Irish rugby-crazy guys who had a converted bus painted with cartoons of rugby players and something Irish.



We spent 4 nights in this elegant city. The most impressionable thing about the Notre Dame (big cathedral) was the beggars at the gates.. it's free to get in, so you just give to the beggars instead - not a bad deal, we thought.







The next day I did the Louvre (yes, i was there from 10am-6pm and still only saw about 60% of it), arguably the only museum you need to go to in Europe, while Rachel checked out Musee de'Orsay where they have lots paintings by Van Gough and Monet. We got to catch up with Jo and her Dale family from Mt Tamborine, who holidayed in America, visited Micah and Marte in Norway and were in Paris for a few days on the way back to Australia. It was cool to catch up. Mr Dale went to L'Abri in Switzerland where we plan to be in a few weeks time.






We also caught up with Michelle, a french lady Rachel befriended in Bangkok. She took us out for a drink and delicious French dinner. The rest of our time in Paris was spent walking around admiring the autumn leaves, buildings, and little things like the Cafe Amelie works at in the film, and find quieter areas to avoid tour groups.

Even Bather Than The Real Thing

Next up was Rachel's must-do little town, also recommended by Wazza from Brisbane, and just about everyone who's been there. Bath. And it's easy to see why. Tourists flogged from all over the world to see the old Roman Baths where the water looks like it is from thousands of years ago. We splurged out on a 3-hour pass at the massive day-spa in town nearby where the Romans used to have their fancy baths. Our favourite bit was the glass steam-rooms with different herbal vapours like lavender, eucalyptus and jasmine. On the way back to London we checked out Stonehenge, the ancient rock thing (from outside the fence) and actually went into another larger site which was more interesting & a bit less touristy. Nice to see how big they were, and marvel at how they got them there and arranged so. We had 2 very hot and sunny days that weekend. You count those as precious blessings from God when you live in England.

Great Scot

Straight after getting back from Scandinavia we decided it was time to bite the bullet and purchase a campervan. Along came 'Cedric' the Citreon camper, quickly found on Gumtree.com, and later named by our friend Stu Badhair from Brisbane. Cedric is a crappy old van. There are mamny bad things about him: rusty, no shower, loud, etc.. but his engine rocks. So off we went in August on our first Campervan road trip to the land of male skirts, black alcoholic drink and that weird thing called haggis. Glad to report that we did not try any of those things. Spent a few nights at a camping ground near Edinburgh. The city was packed, being the last weekend of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, but that meant some free things to see on the main streets. We then checked out Edinburgh Castle, the 'scotch museum' (an excuse to buy expensive whiskey), went up to a beautiful coastal town called St Andrews (where Prince Willam apparently went to Uni at), and dropped in on a scottish boarders town (yes, the series of towns boarding England) called Melrose on the way home for one night. Overall the trip was greeet. Oh except for that cup of coffee we got at the actual boarder crossing from Scotland to England coz we were so cold. It cost us 1 pound ( A$2.50 ) and it was a cup of hot water and instant coffee powder. Hmmmm

Swede Mate!

Stockholm - It's hard to do justice to the most beautiful city we've seen by my clumsy words. From the well-planned colourful old river-side buildings to thousands of quirky cafes and bars.. we were kept out of our beautiful Soldermalm pensionat (apartment) for most of the time. The there's the awesome Palace, Nobel Prize Museum, and massive Open Air Swedish traditional life museum/park. And they had those cool bicycle spots where you get a card and swipe it to ride a bike for 3 hours, then put it back somewhere else and get another one when you need to.. for like $20 for half a year something like that. No, Ikea isn't the only genius thing to come out of Sweden. Whether it's enjoying oldschool jazz at Stampen in the well-preserved part of town, munching on biologique (organic) patries complete with seaweed, or just riding around the river ways checking out coulourful boats, Stockholm has won our hearts.

"Nor-way! That's great! We've landed on the moon!"

Alesund, Norway

Now I'm no genius, but I knew Norway was gonna be cold when I looked down from our plane on the flight from Oslo to Alesund. And full of islands. Beautiful islands. And very hospitable people.



Our friends gave up their whole place for us to live in for 2 weeks and their daughter is a toddler with the most personality in the world. Micah's freshly roasted coffee was very memorable. (They've started a coffee roasting a business now).



From their living room you can see the mountains which we climbed up. Very scenic. The town centre had an old part with nice stone buildings. We ate lots of bread and cheese. Our friends were incredibly generous. We went to cruise the fjords one day. They had annoying recorded guide tapes playing in 4 different languages which went on constantly, but even that blaring distraction could not diminish the beauty surrounding us.



Moldejazz

Onto the one of the world's oldest and most respected jazz festival in Molde, a few hours by car and ferry away. most impressive were the Rashied Ali Qintet, and the Wayne Shorter Quartet (featuring Brian Blade on drums).. most of it went over my small head :) but I appreciated the grace and friendship displayed by threse awesome muso's. Inspiring. Elvis Costello and his band was also pretty cool (as was Steely Dan, eventhough we didn't know any of the words, unlike the Norwegian fans!!). Not allowed to take photos at many of these concerts, so check out the view instead hey? We had some very blessed sunny days there. We all stayed with one of their family friends on an island where the Nazi tried to build a landing strip many years ago.. scary indeed.

Bergen-Oslo

Bidding farewell to our friends in Alesund, we boarded the first plane of the day to Bergen for the train ride. Inspite of our tiredness, one of the world's most gorgeous train rides lived up to expectation. Bergen had some interesting old wooden buildings, and Oslo had lots of green statues. Churches, palace, local strawberries and smoked salmon, +hotdogs.. what else could you want, really? They were about to fade into the background as we approached Stockholm, Sweden.

Thoughts for a Sunny Saturday

It's funny what you find on a Saturday morning. Rachel and I have been reading a book given to us by a friend: A New Kind Of Christian. And from the author's website (brianmclaren.com) I found a link to this article which pretty much sums up where my feelings about church is at the moment:

http://www.kinnon.tv/2007/03/the_people_form.html

Let me know what you think.
Seeya
Peter

Better Lake Than Never

Apologies for taking so long to update this space earlier, but I guess when it rains, it pours! And what beter place to be poured on than in London - where it has been raining for about 13 days straight - right in the early part of summer (YEah Right! , what summer!??!?!) Despair not, however, for the sun is here today. And it takes me back to Lake District: 6-hour drive up north from London, half way up to Scotland, really.

Sharing the ride with Sarah, we picked up the car from Central London around 6pm on Friday night for the 3-day weekend. The best feelign is that of leaving the big smoke behind. And as most people planned to leave on Saturday morning, we had a pretty cruisy time on the road. The next morning it's straight to the hills. If this is any indication of how green Scotland is, then we definitely going there. Don't let the sunshine fool you though - it was pretty chilly still. We loved the view from the hills, and the sheep. And the fact that everyone else seems to be in designer professional hiking gear (it's no walk in the park but it's definitely NOT Mt Fuji!), and we were in jeans and snickers. Needless to say the most common shop in the touristy little towns are hiking-gear shops.

We stayed in Keswick, where every second little house is a bed and breakfast. We walked around the markets, ate bad (typical) English food, and checked out the lake in a little boat. And tried not to disturb the sheep, who seem to occupy every available green space there. Definitely worth the drive, even though I was sick for one of the days. Oh we also drove around many other lakes and checked out an old church whose yard is full of beautiful graves which was rather peaceful.

Increase the peace and make sure Howard is out by time we get back to Aus!
Peter (&Rachel who is trying to sleep in on this sunny Saturday morning)