eurotrip 2008
i am in europe, and it is fantastic...even though i have only been here three days it feels like i have been here for months. everyone is so friendly and so welcoming and it just feels so homey!
let's re-cap what has been happening:
september 18th
- i left toronto at around 4:30 in the afternoon and had a layover in north carolina for about an hour and had an overnight flight to gatwick airport. the overnight flight was ok, though i did not sleep at all. i was very spacey when i arrived since i hadn't slept for 24hours. but it was awesome seeing claudia again and it felt like no time had passed since australia. her family is awesome as well. everyone here drives SO crazy. it is actually quite scary for me! the streets are so small so you have to weave in and out of parked cars to get by. and since they drive on the other side of the road it definetely takes some getting used to! pretty much all the cars are standard. OH and it doesn't matter what side of the road you are driving, you can park pretty much anywhere you want! people cut you off left right and centre. hardly any stop lights either, just round-abouts all over the place. its very different!
september 19th
-- so when i arrived at gatwick claudia and her mom were there to greet me. they live about 45 mins from the airport in a town called Essex on the island of canvey. it is a cute little town. when i got to their house i just had to have some sort of sleep so i immediately went to bed. i slept for about an hour and a half and that woke me up! everyone came home from work and i met the rest of the family, claudia's brother and dad and her boyfriend paul. we then all got ready and they took me out for dinner. we had the most amazing chinese dinner. chinese in europe is AMAZING. nothing like canadian chinese. i don't even like chinese back home. we drank and ate and compared sexual innuendos...they are absolutely hilarious. after dinner we came home and i eventually made my way to bed.
september 20th
- i woke up and felt great. no jetlag at all. claudia and i jumped in the car and drove down to "the south-end" to do some shopping and head down to the waterfront. there is this carnival that is right on the english channel. but it was a really nice day so everyone was there and we couldn't find a parking spot because they don't have enough land to make enough parking spots! we eventually came back and hung out with the family for a few hours and then got all dressed up to go to a wedding reception. it was a friend of claudia's boyfriend paul who got married and we just showed up for the reception. the reception was behind a store that sold hot-tubs.....yeah you heard me. we had to walk through the store to get to the reception, definetely took a picture of that! we went with paul's family, his parents are hilarious! paul and i did yager-bombs and dr-peppers and we all danced and danced. its hard to understand what they are saying in general...but when i have a few drinks i mainly just smile and nod when they talk to me. i cannot understand anything they are saying!! they probably think i am some weird foreigner.
september 21st
- i had way too much redbull last night so i didn't sleep much. we were supposed to watch a football (soccer) match today but we were too tired. by the way soccer is HUGE out here!! there is always a game on and a lot of their conversations revolve around the game! we are going to do some more touring around today and then having a big english roast tonight. the rest of the week is going to go by very fast. tomorrow we head to london, then dublin for 2 days and then london again and then paris and then back home.
i love it here!
let's re-cap what has been happening:
september 18th
- i left toronto at around 4:30 in the afternoon and had a layover in north carolina for about an hour and had an overnight flight to gatwick airport. the overnight flight was ok, though i did not sleep at all. i was very spacey when i arrived since i hadn't slept for 24hours. but it was awesome seeing claudia again and it felt like no time had passed since australia. her family is awesome as well. everyone here drives SO crazy. it is actually quite scary for me! the streets are so small so you have to weave in and out of parked cars to get by. and since they drive on the other side of the road it definetely takes some getting used to! pretty much all the cars are standard. OH and it doesn't matter what side of the road you are driving, you can park pretty much anywhere you want! people cut you off left right and centre. hardly any stop lights either, just round-abouts all over the place. its very different!
september 19th
-- so when i arrived at gatwick claudia and her mom were there to greet me. they live about 45 mins from the airport in a town called Essex on the island of canvey. it is a cute little town. when i got to their house i just had to have some sort of sleep so i immediately went to bed. i slept for about an hour and a half and that woke me up! everyone came home from work and i met the rest of the family, claudia's brother and dad and her boyfriend paul. we then all got ready and they took me out for dinner. we had the most amazing chinese dinner. chinese in europe is AMAZING. nothing like canadian chinese. i don't even like chinese back home. we drank and ate and compared sexual innuendos...they are absolutely hilarious. after dinner we came home and i eventually made my way to bed.
september 20th
- i woke up and felt great. no jetlag at all. claudia and i jumped in the car and drove down to "the south-end" to do some shopping and head down to the waterfront. there is this carnival that is right on the english channel. but it was a really nice day so everyone was there and we couldn't find a parking spot because they don't have enough land to make enough parking spots! we eventually came back and hung out with the family for a few hours and then got all dressed up to go to a wedding reception. it was a friend of claudia's boyfriend paul who got married and we just showed up for the reception. the reception was behind a store that sold hot-tubs.....yeah you heard me. we had to walk through the store to get to the reception, definetely took a picture of that! we went with paul's family, his parents are hilarious! paul and i did yager-bombs and dr-peppers and we all danced and danced. its hard to understand what they are saying in general...but when i have a few drinks i mainly just smile and nod when they talk to me. i cannot understand anything they are saying!! they probably think i am some weird foreigner.
september 21st
- i had way too much redbull last night so i didn't sleep much. we were supposed to watch a football (soccer) match today but we were too tired. by the way soccer is HUGE out here!! there is always a game on and a lot of their conversations revolve around the game! we are going to do some more touring around today and then having a big english roast tonight. the rest of the week is going to go by very fast. tomorrow we head to london, then dublin for 2 days and then london again and then paris and then back home.
i love it here!