Travel Adventures

Falun 7/30-8/1

2009-08-24T14:44:00.000-07:00

When we got up the next morning we had some eggs and toast waiting for us. Shawn had over heard us talking about how much we missed eating eggs for breakfast so he made sure we got some before we left. We told them all goodbye and were off to the train station. We took a 3 hour train to Falun when we got there we called Justins sister Cierra and she came and met up with us. We walked around the small town for an hour and then headed to Justins uncles house in Sagmera where we were going to be staying. Sagmera is a small village about an hour away from Falun. It’s a beautiful place with many lakes and amazing tree covered hills. Justins cousin Linda also lives there and lives just down the street from his uncle Eeros house. When we got there we were able to hang out with Eero and talk about what we had been up to. Eero had surgery on his foot recently so he has a cast on and has to use crutches to get around. We set our beds up in the living room because he had other guests staying with him and they were occupying the guest room for 2 more nights. We decided to go and visit Linda at her work. She works at a clothing store called Lager 157 about a half mile away from their houses. In Sagmera there is a restaurant and Lager 157 and that’s it. Its such a tiny little place. We found Linda and said hello then we looked around for a while. After that we met up with Cierra and Milou. Milou is Lindas 5 year old daughter and she is so cute! She speaks very good English for her age. That night we took a bus with Cierra back to Falun to get some food. We went to a small pub called Harrys. We got an amazing hamburger. Our waiter was a stud and hooked us up with free drinks. We sat there and talked with Cierra until they kicked us out because they were closing and then went down the street to an outdoor bar that was having a concert. It was kind of expensive to get in so we went around the back and found an opening in the fence and snuck in. The music wasn’t really our flavor so we only stayed for a bit and then went back to the bus station. We had just missed the 12:30 bus and the next one didn’t come until 2:15 or so we thought. We waited around until 2:30 and it never came. We looked at the bus schedule again and realized the 2:15 bus was only on Friday and Saturday nights and it was only Thursday. We asked a taxi how much it would cost to get back and it was 100 dollars! We checked a few hotels to see if we could find something cheep but they were all too expensive so we had to resort to the taxi. By the time we got back the sun was coming up and we were exhausted. We were so happy to get to bed.
We slept in Friday morning to catch up from the late night. When we got up we took a bus to a nearby town called Bjorsas. They have a small restaurant that we went to for lunch. Swedish meatballs and potatoes with a berry sauce! It was so good. After lunch we went back and went running. That night Eero ordered us dinner. We both got a kebab pizza. The pizza in Sweden is much different then at home, its really thin so you can eat the whole thing by yourself. After dinner we went to bed.
The next day we went with Linda and Cierra to another small town called Luxen. They have quite a few small shops and a nice park. We walked around and then went to the park. There was a giant Dala horse that we all played around on. We sat down on the grass and took a nap in the sun. When we got back we did some laundry and we faced a hard reality….they don’t have dryers in Sweden! We had to hang our clothes on the line outside. Not only does it take forever to dry but your clothes get so stiff its like putting on a shirt made of cardboard. It makes you realize some things that we take advantage of when were home. We never had thought about how much we love our clothes fluffy and fresh.
We decided we wanted to go for a swim so we walked down to the lake and stopped at the first dock we saw. There was a sign that looked like it said no trespassing but it was in Swedish so we sat there for minute deciding if we should just go out on the dock anyways. Only a minute after we were standing there a guy came down from his house and started saying something we couldn’t understand. We told im we could only speak English. He knew enough to tell us it was a private dock and that we could use the dock that was a few miles down the road. We asked him a few questions about the lake and tried to butter him up so he would let us use his dock but it didn’t seem like we were getting anywhere with him so started down the street. We only got about two hundred yards before a car drove up to us. It was the guy and he told us that we should just use his dock. We are so good at manipulating people into giving us what we want! We jumped in the water and swam for a bit then went back to get ready for dinner at Lindas. She made us an awesome dinner. After we ate we made a fire in the wood burning stove and all hung out then talked until late. Then we were off to bed.

Stockholm 7/27-29

2009-08-20T06:07:00.000-07:00

We woke up Monday refreshed and ready for the new week. We were starting to feel really bad that Shawn and Kristina were sleeping in Alex’s room and we were staying in their room and sleeping in their bed. We got up and went running next to the water and tried to work off some fat. It seems like we have been eating everything we can get our hands on lately. We decided that we would go check out some more of the sights. When we got down to the city center there were people everywhere and there were rainbow flags and pink ribbons hanging from every lamp post. We started asking around and it turns out it was gay pride week. It didn’t seem like there were any gay people around. Maybe the gay people in Utah just go overboard to make sure that everyone knows. We checked out some small shops and we went into three different malls. After a long day of walking around we decided to get some food. We went to a cool little restaurant and we both got the lamb burger. We sat there and enjoyed the atmosphere for a bit and then we went back to see what Shawn was up to. We cleaned up a little and then Shawn took us to a one of his favorite places to chill. We sat and talked and had a few beverages until it got late. We headed back and went to bed.
The next morning we decided we had taken their bed for long enough so we found a the only hostel that had vacancy and booked it for the night. It was about 2 miles away so we decided to just walk. When we got there it looked kind of nice but once we checked in and saw our room we decided it wasn’t good at all. Our room was the smallest so far and we had to share it with 6 other people. There was no place to lock up our stuff so we had to just leave it on the bed. We didn’t even want to leave the room because we were scared someone would jack our stuff. Luckily our roommates showed up and they ended up all being pretty cool dudes and we felt like we could leave without getting robbed. The only good thing about this hostel was the shower. It was like showering in a rainforest. It had these huge showerheads that poured down on you and was lined with black tile and had cool lighting. After we got ready we met up with one of our friends we had met a few night before. We all went and walked down by the water and then we went to a small little bar and ordered some appetizers. It felt like we were adapting to this place and it was becoming our new life or something. We felt right at home. When we were done there we decided to go back to the hostel. We told our friend goodbye and we were off to bed or so we thought. The beds were the worst beds ever. We would have slept better on the floor. There was a bar right in the center of the bed so it peaked in the middle of the bed. We had to pick a side to sleep on so we were trying to sleep on half of a twin bed. The next morning we realized we shouldn’t have left Shawns place. We still had one night left before we had to leave for Falun and we didn’t want to stay at that hostel one more night! We called Shawn and begged to come back to his place for the last night. He laughed at us and told us we were dumb for even leaving. After we got back to Shawns we headed down to a small park that had a turf soccer field. We met some guys and jumped in for a pick up game. They were all cool guys and we had a great time playing with them. After that we met up with Shawn and we went to a different part of town that we hadn’t been to yet and shopped around for a while. We found out there was a circus going on in one of the parks later on that evening. They have the circus a couple times a week and its free so there are hundreds of people that go. We went and got some bread and cheese to take with us and headed over to the park with Shawn and Alex. We got there kind of late so we didn’t get the best spot but it was still way cool. Everyone brings food and a blanket so you sit on the lawn and watch while you enjoy a snack. It was so fun. After the circus was over everyone sticks around and hangs out. We sat there for a few hours and relaxed then went back to get some sleep because tomorrow we are off to Falun.

Stockholm sleeps at 5 in the morning 7/25-26

2009-07-31T14:58:00.000-07:00

We started off the day around noon which was perfect because Shawn would get home from his trip up North around 1pm. We had a nice little breakfast thanks to Kristina just before she ran out with Alex to get some good walking in. When Shawn got back we talked for a little bit and expressed our desire to go running because we were getting no exercise on our trip so far. He told us he would take us for a nice little run through the city a route that he is used to going on. It was a beautiful place to go running especially considering we were in the heart of the city. He took us up the cliffs along the cliff lines overlooking ocean, then next through more buildings down to the shoreline. We ran over a bridge and to another island in the archipelago that is Stockholm. This had mountain type trails to offer, it felt like we were not even in the city anymore. From there it came to a lake that connects to the ocean. We stopped to get a breath and Shawn told us that there is fresh water and salt water surrounding and running through Stockholm. We couldn’t tell the difference from place to place but after looking we realized the fresh water was calmer. Shawn then asked us if we wanted to go for a swim. It was warm, and we were sweating so we said sure. We stripped down to everything but our boxers (don’t forget this is the middle of the city) and dove head first off the dock into the water. It was a perfect 68 degrees which felt very nice and cool. We swam to the other side of the lake and after a little rest we swam back, got dressed and started running again feeling reinvigorated. We went over to another island, through a park, and then back to Shawn’s. It was about a 5 mile run so we were pretty exhausted. We took showers, got some food and chilled out for a little while talking about possible plans for the night.

Shawn and Kristina wanted to hang out for a little bit but couldn’t go far because Alex is only 14 months old and such a cute kid. So we made some drinks, got some chips and peanuts and went on the roof which had a pretty decent view of the city. While were hanging out up there another group of people that lived in the complex came up. Apparently having the same idea as us, and seeming like a bunch of nice people we all started chatting. After about an hour and a half they asked us what we were doing the rest of the night and if we would like to join them. They ended up being some of the coolest people we could have met. They told us they were going to the hottest club in town and we needed to come with them. It didn’t take much prodding. We quickly got ready and met them just outside the building to head over to the club which was called F 12. We quickly saw why it was the hottest club around, the line was very long and was moving very slow. This is because they are extremely picky about who they let in. The ratio of girl to guy had to be 70% women and 30% men. So being guys hearing this we thought we were in trouble. Not only that, but even though they still let in way more girls, they only let the attractive ones in, and same with guys. We had a secret weapon though that we didn’t even know we had, we weren’t from there. They like people from outside of the country way more than the locals. After a little waiting, and seeing many people ushered out of the line right next to us and not allowed in, eventually we got in. Can we just say that every woman there was extremely attractive and just leave it at that.

We felt like rock stars. Everyone wanted to meet us guys and girls. Girls would come up to us and say “You’re the two American Boys ya”? And introduce themselves to start dancing. (We found out later that our friends that had brought us were just running around telling all the girls they were there with two American guys, and that they should come meet us, needless to say we were ok with that). Even the guys were awesomely nice to us. Eventually we left the club with a particularly nice looking Swedish girl who wanted to show us another club. That club closed at 3, but apparently that’s when you’re supposed to go find another place to have fun. We said ok, but were going a little crazy because it was just shy of 3 in the morning and the sky was showing signs that the sun was about to say hello. We started off with her, she introduced us to friends of hers that said they could get us into the next place for free. We asked them how long we were supposed to stay out and they said “5, when everything closes of course”. We told them thanks for everything but that we need to go and get some sleep. We left to go get a burger at what was now 3:45 in the morning and didn’t get to bed until about 4:30.

We slept in very long the next day and when we finally got up we didn’t feel like doing anything. So we walked around the city a little, and got some dinner. After that we grabbed some ice cream for the movies we decided to watch and headed home. We watched In Bruges, and The Hangover which were highly entertaining and funny. We fell asleep to get ready for another fun day.

Sexy Town 7/24

2009-07-31T13:46:00.001-07:00

So Friday we got up and got ready for yet another flight. We are sick of airports! Hopefully this is the last flight until we come home. From here on out we will be traveling by train and ferry. We had a cab scheduled to pick us up at 7:30am. We were able to eat some frosted flakes and honey nut cheerios before the cab got there. The cab driver that picked us up was super cool. He asked us several questions about our travels on the way to the airport. He told us that he had always wanted to travel and when he dropped us off he only made us pay half of the cab fare. Nice guy! We got on our plane and headed to Stockholm. We had to switch planes in Copenhagen and it looks way nice there but we will be back there in a few weeks. We got to Stockholm early afternoon. Our plan was to go to Justin's cousins (Shawn, Kristina, little Alex) house to enjoy a free room! We had only communicated with him through email until this point so we tried to call so we would know how to get to his place but that didn't really work since we are retarded when it comes to dialing phone numbers in Europe. There are like 74 numbers you have to dial and you have to add a plus sign or two zeros and subtract 3 numbers in different locations for it to work. What a joke! We were finally able to find out how to get to Shawn's place. We got on a train and it took us through the city all the way to his street. We got there and Kristina and Alex were there to let us in. Kristina gave us a bed to sleep in and set us up with sheets. She made us feel right at home. After we were situated we decided to go out and explore the city. Since their place is right in the middle of the city it doesn’t take too long to get anywhere we wanted to go. We walked down through the city and looked for a place to get a good dinner. We decided that we needed a good old fashion burger but when we started looking for a place that had one we realized we couldn’t read anything the menu said! (Sweden will be a great place for us to transition from English speaking countries to countries that speak no English. Everyone here speaks Swedish but most people can switch over to English like its no big deal. The people here are some of the nicest people we have been around in our lives.) When we asked people to help us read the menus they were happy to help us figure it all out. One place we went to we asked the waitress if she could help us to know what they had to eat. She gladly told us about everything on the menu. 15 minutes later when she was done we realized nothing they had was what we wanted so we told her nothing sounded good and asked where we could just get a burger. She didn’t seem the least bit mad that we had wasted her time asking her so many questions and she told us a good place to go. So we found a cool little place in a small ally way. We both ordered a chili burger. We were talking and we both had a picture in our heads of a big messy burger with chili and cheese everywhere. When it came out it was a small little burger with a spicy chili sauce on the side. They had put the lettuce, tomato, and onion on the side so we could choose what we wanted on the burger. We put all our toppings on and started looking for the top half of our hamburger bun....but it was no where to be found and we were both shocked that they had forgotten the rest of our buns. Then we realized that we were dumb and that they were meant to be eaten with a fork and knife :) It ended up being a really good meal and by the time we finished eating we were both worn out from the travels. We walked past 5 or 6 places that looked like they would be fun and had a lot of people to meet. We thought long and hard to figure out if we were going to stay out and meet some people or if we were just going to go back and go to bed. It was Friday night and we decided to be lazy and go back and watch a movie or go to sleep. We did stop at a small shop and got some waffle cones with really good ice cream. Most of the time we would let nothing keep us from exploring the night scene of a new place but this night eating ice cream and going to bed just sounded nice. After all we still had Saturday night!

In the eyes of Kings 7/23

2009-07-31T13:45:00.000-07:00

We woke up feeling pretty refreshed this morning after sleeping in a little while. We had one thing on the agenda and that was to see the Edinburgh Castle. It certainly is the center of the city, sitting on a cliff that pretty much overlooks the entire city and the ocean. It is absolutely stunning for many reasons, but our favorite was because it reminded us of a Dragon defending castle. It has a green valley around the castle that starts to build on steep rocks that are also covered in green. This goes up from there to sheer tall walls and battlements. The only word that comes to mind is straight up Medieval!

We walked what they call “The Royal Mile” to get to the entrance of the castle. This is exactly what it sounds like. It’s about a mile long and has all sorts of shops, and pubs, and street performers, with banners hanging from building to building above us. It is a very epic way to enter the castle. When we got in the first thing we noticed was the view. We thought the view of the castle was as good as it could get, but once inside looking down on the world below our jaws dropped. Seeing the green surrounding the castle from on high to far below that eventually connected to the rest of the city that led to the water. Imagining that ships were coming out of the fog (that actually wasn’t there, it was a surprisingly nice day) to wage war on the fortress where we stood we continued on. There was so much to see, but what we thought was really interesting was to see how much they actually relied on it for a city itself. There was royal banquet halls filled with weapons, the war memorial was stunning, the cathedral where they still do weddings, and the vault where they held the jewels of Scotland. After what seemed like an entire day in the castle we decided to retire early and headed back to the hostel for a nice night of relaxation and conversation with the other travelers we had met while staying in Scotland. We went to bed early with a good anticipation of heading to Sweden the next morning. See you in Stockholm…….

Sandys Pub Edinburgh, Scotland 7/21

2009-07-31T12:41:00.000-07:00

Scotland 7/21-7/22

2009-07-31T08:22:00.000-07:00

We woke up and got ready to head to the airport. We were able to talk Randy into coming to Scotland with us. It was nice having our friend and brother along for the journey. By the time we left Rams place we realized we were running behind on time so we ran to the underground and caught our train to Kings Cross station (where they filmed many parts of Harry Potter). We then jumped on another train that took us out to the airport that was an hour away. We got to the airport got checked in and made the flight with some time to spare. We sat on the back row of the plain and it was the most uncomfortable flight ever! There was no room to move at all and since it was the back row the seats didn't recline. Good thing the flight was only an hour! We had booked the hostel the night before so when we got to Edinburgh we got a cab there. It was about 15 minutes away from the city center. Kind of far but it was nice to be away from city and get a more relaxed feel next to the ocean. The hostel was beautiful and comfortable. It looked like a castle. It had a good feel and there was a lot of room to relax. There was a game room that had pool tables, couches, TVs, a bar, and huge windows to look out and see the ocean. The hostel also had a theater room with lounge chairs and a continental breakfast. We checked in and got situated in our room. Then we went for a walk down to the water. We were all stunned by the beauty of this place. It was just how we would have pictured the ocean side in Scotland. It had been raining so everything was still wet and super green. After the walk we got ready and headed into the city to find some traditional dinner and live folk music. When we got there we walked around for a little while and enjoyed the medieval feel of the city. We found ourselves at a small corner Scottish pub and couldn't resist stopping in for dinner. After we ate we asked around and found a place that had live music. It was pouring and we were happy to get out of the rain. We met a couple guys from Romania and a dude from Norway and chatted it up for a few hours. We met this guy Gavin, a local and he was a total stud. he offered to take us on a little tour of the inner city and to show us a couple cool places. He took us down the street and gave us a small history lesson about the different buildings and streets. We ended up at another live music venue and sat around and talked for a few more hours. Randy had to leave us in the morning so we were trying to get the most out of what time we had left with him. We caught a taxi back to the hostel and then we stayed up until about four talking about how awesome our night was. The next morning we got up and headed back to the city. It was raining again so we bought some rain ponchos and headed over to check out the Royal mile before Randy left. The Royal mile leads up to the castle and is the main street that Edinburgh was built around. A week before we got there a 35 year old fireman had died putting out a fire in a pub. The funeral just happened to be going on as we walked towards the castle. The streets were lined on both sides with military all dressed in black. There were hundreds of people behind them on the sidewalks coming to pay their respects. We stopped to watch as a lone piper played as he marched down the road in the rain followed by a fire truck and and the rest of the funeral precession. It was a sad thing but cool thing to be able to witness. We looked around for a bit longer then we walked to the bus stop so Randy could get back to the airport. It was hard to say goodbye to Randy he is such a huge pimp that we love being around! After that got some food and went back to the hostel. The rest of the day was all about relaxing and doing computer work. We took a walk back down to the ocean and the we were shocked to see that the water level had gone down 20 feet since we were there the day before. We talked to a local lady that was walking her dog and she told us that the tides brought the water up and down twice a day. It was crazy to see how far the water had dropped. We watched the sun go down and headed back. We made some friends from Australia and we all went and watched Braveheart in the hostels movie theater. We ate some delicious chocolate covered ice cream bars and went to bed at about 2 am.

Hey everyone! Thanks for checking the blog!

2009-07-27T06:49:00.000-07:00

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4,500 years of unsolved mysteries 7/20

2009-07-25T08:02:00.000-07:00

This was probably one of our favorite days because we were able to see all sorts of amazing things while at the same time seeing God help us along the way. We woke up a little later then we had originally planned in order to see everything that we wanted to see. The plan was to see the Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, Stone Henge, and then come back and ride the London Eye. Ram was not going to join us today because it was Monday and that is his day for meetings at work so he couldn’t join us. Just to point out we had to be at our bus stop at 1pm for Stone Henge.
We ran to the tube to go to the Tower of London first because we knew that we were running late already and didn’t want to miss the crown jewels. We didn’t actually realize how late we were running because of the lines that we met when we got there. The castle was awesome though, and the tower was great. It was painted white back in the 1400’s by the King of England at the time. From that time on it was known as “The White Tower”, although it looks more yellow now. That must have been a site to see back then though, and it makes you realize how important the show of power was, just as much as the power itself. Then it was into see the crown jewels which at this point we did realize how late we were running, and the line to see these was much bigger then to get into the castle, but we really wanted to see them. We got in and we were pushing people out of our way to go through faster, you could tell that some people were annoyed, but we needed to get through it. The jewels were amazing though, some really amazing things in there. Like the biggest diamond in the world on one of the scepters. Your not supposed to take pictures when you go in muahaha.
After we got out we were running to the tube. It was probably about just shy of a mile away and we ran the entire way. It was about 1:05 and we knew that they were boarding our bus for Stone Henge already and would be leaving at 1:30 and we weren’t completely sure of where it was. This is what we mean about God taking care of us. We were praying on the way there that we would make it so we could see Stone Henge, but we wouldn’t get off the tube until about 1:28. We were running around looking for our bus and we couldn’t find it. We were starting to get discouraged that we wouldn’t find it because now it was about 1:45 we thought for sure we had missed it. Just when all hope was gone we were running and I spotted a bus that looked like it might be the bus we were supposed to get on. It turns out to be the bus and they are still there having problems with “overbooking”. Turns out that a couple of people had their reservations wrong and had gotten on a day early and was causing the bus to stay and figure it out. Once we got there they saw our name on the list and went through everyone one by one until they found the culprits. We got on and they were kicked off. Later we were talking to the bus driver and he said that had never happened before, they always leave right on time regardless if they have all the people or not. Due to a series of events that led the bus driver to get their later and the manager of the tour to go through roll call they got things mixed up and we were allowed graciously by God to get on the bus. Let me just say that it was worth it.
Stone Henge was awesome! We learned that it has been there for roughly 4,500 years and they have no idea how it got there. They believe that these huge rocks were probably brought from the sea based on the type of rock. The craziest part about it is how much man power it would have taken to do something like that, over 100 men per rock easy. It was amazing to be at such an ancient place.
The bus ride back was also interesting because we thought we might get in a fight with some other passengers on the bus. We still aren’t sure where they were from although someone said that they believe they were from Romania, but let me just say that they were a pain. On the way there they were sitting behind the bus driver and complaining loudly every 2 seconds about this that and the other, not only that but they were being very rude and inconsiderate to everyone else on the bus and making snide comments so Tyler, Randy, and Justin were already on edge. When we were about to get on the bus the bus driver told us that seating does not remain the same and asked us if we would take their seats. We did and when they got on the bus they got really mad and said, “move”, “sorry, you must move”. Justin and Tyler handed them their things, and said move to the back thanks. On the way off the bus they tried to take a picture of Justin under the pretense that they wanted a picture of “the rudest person ever”, the bus driver wouldn’t let them and kicked them off. Once they were off everyone started cheering for us.
After that little episode the bus driver told us 3 that he would take us anywhere in the city that we wanted to go for free after he let everyone else off. It worked out perfect for us because we were heading to the London Eye directly after. He dropped us off right at the base and thanks us again and again and left.
The London eye was brilliant! The sun was setting, and it sits right next to Big Ben and has a great view of everything in the city when you get to the top. The top stands 450 feet tall and has a perfect 360 birds eye view of London. It was also cool because the UK flag was flying at Parliament which we are told is really unique and barely ever happens. It was flying while we were at the top, and when we touched the ground it came down. After that we walked over to get a good picture of Parliament and Big Ben from across the river while the sun was coming down and it was lighting up.
For our last dinner there Ram told us that he was going to take us to a special Indian dinner. We had resolved beforehand that we would be paying for his dinner and splitting it up because he had been paying for a lot of our meals, and nights out. When we got the check though we changed our minds, and asked to just help out with the tab. The final dollar amount ran about 500 dollars, and we sheepishly thanked Ram again for taking such good care of us while were there and turned in for an early night so we could make the plane in the morning. Next stop, Scotland……

And on the 7th day we rested 7/19

2009-07-23T13:51:00.000-07:00

Sunday….perfect day to relax a little and rest from all the adventures. We got up at about 11:00 and we walked down the street about half a mile to a small breakfast restaurant. Its so nice to be able to walk everywhere! We are so use to driving anytime we decide to go somewhere. Everything here is close enough to just walk. So after we ate our brunch we walked down the road a bit farther to a small movie theater. We hadn’t checked movie times but we lucked out because right as we got there Harry Potter was just about to start. Justin could hardly wait. He was like an excited little school girl! We stopped at the concessions for some snacks. We asked for popcorn and the asked “sweet or salted?” Tyler responded “BUTTERY!” but there was no buttery just plain old salt. They don’t serve butter on their popcorn here. Can you believe that?! Just another reason why people in the states are a little bigger around the waist lol. The salted popcorn ended up being quite good but our drinks were warm because they don’t put ice in hardly anything. The movie was great. All four of us really enjoyed it. After the movie we walked back to Rams. Randy and Ram were tired so they took a nap while we went on a hunt for free wifi. We found a McDonalds that had it so we sat there catching up on emails and junk until both our laptops batteries died. We walked back and Ram told us he was going to take us out to an Indian dinner. We jumped on the train and headed towards the east side of London. We hardly ever eat Indian food so Ram ordered a bunch of different things. The food was really good but it was so so so hot! We were all sweating! It was a great meal. We had a very good ice cream for dessert made from buffalo milk. After dinner we went back home and talked for a while and went to bed.

Exploration of London 7/18

2009-07-23T13:50:00.000-07:00

We woke up Saturday morning, ate a croissant breakfast sandwich, and were off to see the city. London has an amazing underground transportation system. It takes you everywhere you could possibly want to go in the city. We jumped on a train around 11:00 and got off at Westminster. As soon as we came up the steps we were staring at Big Ben! It was unreal! We walked all around parliament and enjoyed the amazing architecture. After that we headed to the Thames River for a boat tour of the city. We were happy to have Randy and Ram with us on the journey. We went to the top of the boat which was great because there was no roof. We could see everything really well and were able to take some great photos. Our tour guide pointed out all the interesting details of things which we were passing by. We floated passed many huge attractions such as; London eye, Tower and London Bridges, Globe Theatre, St. Pauls Cathedral, and about fifty other great things. The boat took us to Greenwich where we got off and went to a little market where vendors we selling their goods. We got some lunch from the market looked around for a bit and headed back to the tour boat. The next stop was at the Tower of London where they kept the Crown Jewels but by the time we walked over to get in they had just closed. By the time the tour ended we were hungry again so we jumped back on the train and went to a small Lithuanian restaurant. we ate some lamb and chicken and then headed back to Rams house to get ready for the night. We met up with one of Rams friends at a tiny little Latin club. He is a cool guy from Italy named Christian. We hung out there met a few people and then proceeded down the street looking for something more exciting. There was another little place with the door open and we could here some Michael Jackson playing and people yelling so we went in to check it out. When we went in there were people taking turns dancing and everyone was cheering for whosever turn it was. When they saw us they made us each take a turn in the middle lol. We all busted a few sweet moves and they were quite impressed by Randys splits. Including the DJ and the bartended there were only ten people in the place. We chatted with them for a bit and decided that we were spent and we headed back home. It was another great day! Very exhausting but it seems like everyday has been since we got to Europe.

Cheerio, your spot on Kensington! 7/17

2009-07-23T13:11:00.001-07:00

First off let us just say that the second we got off the plane we knew we were going to love London. It is so much bigger then Dublin with a lot more things to see that you are familiar with. The other thing that we loved right away was the public transportation. We left the airport on a train that turned into a subway and was much faster, cheaper, and easier then the busses in Dublin. We took the subway to about a block away from where we were staying which was South Kensington and Chelsea in Sloan Square. For all of you who don’t know Chelsea is the most expensive borough in London and Sloan Square is the Royal Borough of Chelsea. So needless to say it was a very posh and very expensive area. Randy (Tyler’s older brother) and Ram (pronounced Rom) met us at the stop and walked to Rams place which was very nice, but also quite small considering how much it cost for the place. To live there it cost just over 1 million pounds which is about 1.8 million dollars for about 500 square feet of living. It also has a nice little porch that overlooks the street.
We didn’t have a lot of time to chill out because Ram and Randy were super excited to get going because they had been waiting for us. We were just as excited to get out and see the city. We took the subway to Piccadilly Circus which is like New York’s time square. There were tons of people and lights and it was exciting to be there on a Friday night. London really does have so much more to see then Dublin. Ram took us to an awesome little Italian place in Piccadilly that had traditional Napoli pizza. After filling our tummies we went to a couple little places and found a cool little Huka Bar that we sat outside of. Finally we decided to call it a night and had to take a cab home because the subway closes at 10:30 and it was about Midnight. A great way to start off London.

Updates comming soon 7/21 11:08 am

2009-07-21T03:05:00.000-07:00

London updates are on their way. We have had no internet connection so its been hard to keep things up to date. Heading to Scotland today and will have London blog within a day or two. Thanks for checking!

The cooldown and windup 7/15-7/17

2009-07-19T11:14:00.001-07:00

We got back from the country side worn down and dirty so that whole day was doing laundry, catching up on emails, writing the blog, and cleaning up in general. There really isn’t much else to say about that day because we didn’t really do anything and then went to bed.

The next day however was the perfect way to leave. We woke up early and went to a little breakfast nook that we had been scouting since we got there and got a nice normal American style breakfast (of course it was a smaller portion and also we got baked beans with it, who knew). After getting some food in us we decided to walk around the city and soak up everything before we left.

It was just the ticket. We walked the main shopping area after checking out Trinity College which is the college in the middle of Dublin, great place, nice and green and a good place to hang out for a bit. Then we headed over to St. James Green. This is an awesome park also in the middle of the city with a river running through it, and big green lush trees everywhere. We people watched for a good 2 hours before leaving to find an all you can eat Chinese place that overlooked the park. We went to bed a little earlier than normal that night after watching the 5^th Harry Potter to get ready for the 6^th movie.

We were definitely ready to leave the next day and go to London. We caught our plane around 1:20 and were off to the races. Next stop, London…..

Into the Land of Leprecahns 7/13-7/15

2009-07-16T04:21:00.001-07:00

We decided to keep this as a separate blog from the Dublin experience because it really was so different. This picks up after our tours. We had to run back to where our packs were locked up and organize them so they were effective and we weren’t taking too much with us. After we did that we jumped on another tour bus because it was the quickest way to get to the bus that took us into the country and out of the city (we only had 30 minutes before the last bus left).

The “St. Kevin’s” bus was wonderful; it was like a Le Bus back in the states. As soon as we were out of the city we started to cheer up a little. It was so insanely green just as the sun broke through the clouds. We have to mention that you have never seen grass so green, nor trees so deep in color as we have on the Irish country side. I would say that it is the perfect representation of the Shire and we were two Hobbits traveling through.

After a 2 hour bus ride we came too our stop. A quaint little town tucked in the rolling hills called Laurgh. We needed to get supplies so we jumped off and went into the closest thing to a grocery store. There wasn’t much to choose from so we did our best and started our 20 minute walk along the road to the trailhead with our 40lb packs on our backs. Half way through this little stroll it started to rain, and rain, and oh yeah, rain! (Thank goodness for our built in rain covers on our backpacks)! Well needless to say, when we found our trailhead it was a muddy swamp which took about another 20 minutes to walk.

Once we were there we set up camp and started to look for firewood. We broke off dead tree branches on trees which were hard to find because there was always so much rain that hardly anything died. But we found a little grove that would be our supply for the rest of the trip. We got a little break in the rain and worked hard to get a fire going, but once it was going anything would burn on it. We cooked our canned soup then went to bed for the night.

Sleeping all night then waking up to rain, we decided to go back to sleep so we slept for about a total of 15 hours. Starting the morning with another fire and the hunt for bigger and better wood to burn. We eventually found this green spiky leave that looked like holly that when put on the fire would start to burn and act like an oil or gas. It would go crazy, it was really awesome and we would use that as fuel anytime the fire started to go out from the rain, we also build a lean too to protect our only source of entertainment.

I’m sorry if this is slow at all, but this part of the trip was just pure relaxation, recuperation, and filling up our tummies in the beautiful green surroundings. We were kind of like Bear Grylls (No big deal J) after a quick bath in the perfect temperature water we went to bed............Oh yeah and Tyler cut Justins hair into well a sexy mowhawk. Props to Ian for his!

We woke up the next morning running for our lives to catch the 7:15 bus. We caught it for another relaxing train ride back into the city….

PS: Please leave comments! We love reading them, and it would help to know if we are leaving out anything or going into anything too much. Hope you are enjoying, this is a lot of work.

2 a day and rain on my face 7/13

2009-07-16T03:23:00.000-07:00

We woke up early the next morning around 6am feeling completely refreshed since we went to bed so early. After some early morning calls and email replies we grabbed 4 pieces of toast which is the breakfast they were serving and started getting ready for our early morning tour of Dublin City. Since we had to be out of our current hostel before 11:30 and we knew that our tour of Dublin coupled with the Guinness factory tour we had to find a place to lock up our bags and we convinced our old hostel that we would be coming back to stay so they let us. Which of course wasn’t true because they were too expensive muahaha.

After we took care of everything we ran and jumped on our tour bus which was a hop on hop off tour. All that means is any place in particular we were interested in we could jump off, and then just get back on the next one that came around. There are tons of these busses so it isn’t a big deal, and they are all double deckers with half of the top deck exposed to the elements. It was raining but we decided to sit under the rain anyway because of the perfect view of the surroundings.

The tour was great, and our tour guide was funny. Actually, all of the guides are funny because of their voices. The Irish accent is the best accent ever because it always makes you laugh. It was interesting to see the city with its mix of modern and old architecture. There is a big 200 foot Spire (which they call a standing stone) in the middle of the city that was built within about 10-20 years. And then you have a theatre right next to it that is still in use to this day that is 200 years old.

It was also interesting because some of the architecture looked like it was built by the Romans with pillars with angels gracing the sides. Although we were told that the Romans never actually made it to Ireland. And some of it looks like old English Castles just as you would picture them. And they are all side by side. We also saw some awesome old churches like, Christchurch, and St. Patrick’s. Absolutely stunning and completely surrounded my green lawns and trees.

Finally we reached the Guinness Factory and we hopped off. We didn’t mind paying the 15 Euro to run through the factory tour. Except that is exactly what we ended up doing, running through it. There really wasn’t all that much too see that we hadn’t already seen on Discovery Channel. Justin became a certified pourer of Guinness and got a certificate for it while Tyler looked around. The very end of the tour was the best because of the Gravity bar at the top. It’s a 7 story high bar with glass windows that overlooks the entire city. There we toasted to each other’s health as we tried to point out certain buildings.

When we were all done we jumped back on another bus and finished the tour, we still had a long day ahead of us….

Tales From Dublin 7/11-7/12

2009-07-15T07:12:00.000-07:00

The second day here was exhausting. We needed to find a place to stay because the hostel we were at was full for the night. We walked about two miles with our huge backpacks on and checked with multiple hostels before we found one that had vacancy. The hostel we found ended up being 20 yards away from the first place we stayed so we kind of wasted our time. Once we were settled into the new place we went on a search for some grub. We found a place called Fitzgerald’s and we both got the shepards pie. From there we went back to the hostel and fell asleep for 3 hours got up went to the grocery store bought lunch meet and bread made a sandwich in the hostels kitchen met some new friends from the Netherlands and Australia and went out on the town looking for some fun. We went to Temple bar which is a main part of the city with too many pubs to count. We picked a place with the loudest Irish music we could find. It was unreal! Next thing we knew we were singing and doing an Irish jig with a bunch of strangers in a packed full pub! The live band was great. Neither of us could stop smiling we were having so much fun. We started heading back to our place at 3:00. Our friends we had met in the hostel kitchen were almost as crazy as us and stuck by us all night. We had a great time talking about our different cultures and ended up talking with them until 4:30 in the morning! We decided we should probably get to bed since we had a tour bus to catch at 9:30 the next morning. After the short few hours of sleep we got up and took a shower and got ready for our tour. The showers in this hostel are much better than the last. There was actually hot water! So far we had only seen the city and we were really excited to get out into the country side to see the green hills. Our tour was amazing! We went about two hours outside Dublin to the Wicklow Mountains which is known as the Garden of Ireland. On the way we saw beautiful lakes and mountainsides. We passed where they filmed the movie Braveheart. We arrived at Glendalough which is the heart of the Wicklow Mountains and were starving. We ate at a small restaurant that had an old medieval feel to it. After that we began our sight seeing. There was a cemetery with gravestones that were hundreds of years old along with a cathedral that had been broken down in 1219. We went on a hike that took us around two small lakes and a few small waterfalls. On our return we stopped at more historic ruins some of which we had no clue what they were. We boarded the bus and headed to the next destination. We ended up in a town called Avoca which has Ireland oldest working handweavers mill. We took a run through the town, shared a sandwich, and took a quick tour of the mill. While we were waiting for the bus to leave a dog approached us with a small stick and dropped it at our feet. We threw the stick about 20 times and every time he would bring it right back. Justin told him that we had to leave and that we were done playing. He picked up his stick and walk away. It was a very smart dog. The bus then brought us back to Dublin. We went to the grocery store and bought some pasta and tomato sauce. Cooking at the hostel can become a pain when there is 10 other people using the same little kitchen. It saved us money though so it was worth it. It was only nine by the time we finish our meal but we decided it was time for bed. It had been a long day not to mention we had only had three and a half hours sleep the night before.

SLC TO DUBLIN 7/9-7/10

2009-07-11T04:05:00.000-07:00

We arrived at the airport at 7:00 am Salt Lake time. Our flight was delayed for an hour and a half due to bad weather in Denver. From Denver we to Chicago and by the time we got there it was around 3:00. We were starving and decided to get some delicious food at Chillies while we were waiting for our next flight.
At 5:00 we boarded the plane. It was the coolest plane we have ever been on. Each seat had its own touch screen tv that had a plethora of movies, games, music, and a GPS so we could see where we were at. They served us meal of chicken, rice, and veggies. It was actually really good. We were both so exhausted but neither of us could fall asleep. We got to Dublin at 9:00 am. Flying over Ireland was amazing! It was so green.
When we got off the plane we had to sit in the passport line for about an hour. At this point we really had no idea what we were going to do next. We found an info desk and they told us which bus to take into town and where some of the hostels are. Our packs are so huge we could barley squeeze them on the bus. We met a guy from Scotland on the bus that was going to visit a friend. He was a way cool guy and we got his number so we could meet up with him and his friend later. We got off the bus on Dublins main street O'connell Street. We had picked out a hostel in a brochure we had got from the airport. It was about a kilometer from the bus stop. When we got to the hostel we were so tired we were about to fall over. We got a private room for the first night so that we could get organized and not have to worry about any of our stuff being stolen.
The first day was a bit weird but lots of fun. After getting our room we went down to the computer lounge. It looked like an old dungeon. We met a guy named Jeff from Michigan and told him what room we were in and that we should all meet up later. We went up and finally got to take a nap. After four hours of much needed sleep we herd a knock on the door. It was our new friend Jeff. We got up and took a shower. The showers had a button you pushed and it would stay on for 30 seconds. We couldn't even choose the temperature. luckily it was luke warm and not cold! We met up with Jeff and went to dinner at a little pub on Main Street. Fish and chips anybody?! After dinner we went back to the hostel and met a bunch of awesome people. We met some guys from England that were there for their friends bachelor party. They were a riot. It doesn't get dark until ten here. We decided to all go down to the main strip where everyone goes on the weekend. It was madness! There were so many people out on the street. We met so many people. We were also able to meet up with our friend from Scotland that we had met on the bus. By 12:30 we were ready to sleep so we went back to our hostel and went to bed. It was a great first day but there is still much sleep to catch up on. Hope you all enjoy the pics! Please leave us comments!