Aug 17

I apologize for the decreasing quality and quantity of my posts, but I'm just sick of it. Blogging. I just want to get home right now. Last night I stayed up till midnight and I woke up at seven, so I'm exhausted right now.

Aug 13

About a week ago, we went riding up on exmoor. It took a while to drive to the place, but it was worth it. The horse I was on was called shayne, and I liked him because he didn't like the steep hills either. We rode on exmoor for about an hour, and then we drove back home. That day was very fun. You have to kind of relax to stay on a horse, because if you tense you rock side to side and eventually fall off.

Sometime later, we went to Clovelly, a tiny village that's kind of not really a village because it's so old and has only one street. That, and the fact that it's so steep that a car without a good parking brake would just roll away. There was also donkey rides available, but we didn't get around to doing those because we were kinda done with it.

Aug 7

Hi, I know I haven't been posting much lately, but that's mainly because I'm really fed up with blogging. I mean, like, I've been doing it for four and a half months, wouldn't you be?

Ok, now on to the actual subject.
Bout a week ago we switched house swaps to Barnstaple, and this house is really old, like old enough to have had a thatched roof when it was built. So, as a result the stairs are really suckky, like they're warped and tilted and stuff, and the upstairs hallway is also warped and sagging. Also, because it has barely any windows, it's really dark in here, so we have to have the lights on, like all the time (except when we're sleeping).

That's a basic summary of the house, now I'll take some pictures of it.

Warkworth Castle

The day before yesterday, we went and saw Warkworth castle. Now this castle was a serious hard-core castle. On the way in you would have had to pass by about ten arrowslits, through two portcullises and then across the daunting expanse of bailey to get in to the keep.
Warkworth is amazing. The keep is very complex, and we pretty much saw all of it except for the walls, which were mainly barred off.
The best part is... I remembered to take pictures! Woohoo!!
So ya.

Friday 13 July 2012

Yesterday, we went to see Aydon castle and Chester's roman fort witch was funny.
All roman forts back then had a strong room, right? Well this one was totally flooded because of all the intense rain we've been having recently.
Today we're planning on going to see another castle. We're really doing some hardcore castle stuff lately!
Did you know, that prudhoe castle was the only castle in Northumberland never to be taken by the scots? Well it's not surprising, given its gate system, witch consists of a gate, a steep drawbridge, and another gate. Other castles have something more like just a gate.
That's about all I have to say for now.

Food

This is a post about interesting food. One of the photos is a pastry in Paris called a "religieuse" and the other one is of peas that I arranged in a yin-yang on the ferry from to Roscoff to Plymouth.

July 10, 2012

Ok, so after we left the train station, we drove to the village our house swap is in, Wylam. It so happens that George Stephenson's cottage is in this village, and that is super cool.
Since we got here, we have visited prudhoe castle, a nearby English heritage property, and gone for a ride on Hadrian's Cycleway, a bike path going who knows how far parallel to Hadrian's Wall.
Hadrian's Cycleway is a very pleasant bike path, that I have ridden from Wylam to Ovingham(2miles) and back several times. I like riding it a lot. That's about all I have to say apart from that yesterday, we went back to Prudhoe to arm ourselves. Tobin and I got daggers and eva got a greatsword. They are AWESOME!
That's about it.

July 4, 2012

Yesterday, we left Plougonvelin, took a bus to Brest, took a train to and from there to Roscoff and then a long ferry to Plymouth and then we took a taxi to a hotel called the st Rita hotel, witch had beds with very different qualitys(like, one was super hard, like they forgot the padding between you and the springs, while another was so mushy you'd think they forgot the springs.
Today, we got up, went to the train station, and took a train allllllllllllllllllllllllll the way to Newcastle. Right now we're just about to leave the train station with a car rental.
That's about it.

July 2, 2012

Oh my gosh! I totally forget what we did after the crozon peninsula, apart from going back to do sand sailing(which was totally awesome)
Sand sailing is basically sailing, but on a huge beach with small three wheeled vehicles that you steer with foot pedals instead of boats. After that we hung out on the beach, drew in the flat sand, and got sunburnt:-(

Recently we went back to Le Conquet to do a coastal walk, but got sidetracked and ended up waiting on another fairly large beach so Lise and Jeff could go get the car.

Today we went to St renan for an awesome market, and it was awesome. We also went back to Fort De Berthaume, and since it opened up today, we were allowed to get in and see it. It is pretty cool, and the zip line looked amazing, but we decided it was getting late.

The Crozon Peninsula

Several days ago we took a trip to the crozon peninsula and camped for two nights at a campsite called"Camping l'Armorique".
During our time on the crozon peninsula, the first day, finding that the labirynth was closed, we went further out on the road of no name, and found ourselves at point de dinan. We walked all the long way out the point, and what we found there, instead of the castle we were supposed to be able to see, all we foun was eighty-six trillion tons of wind. It was so much that you could actually lean on it, like a lot.
The next day, we were going to do a trip on a boat that goes inside caves, but we decided to do the labyrinth instead. So, we went over there and it was open, so we went in. This labyrinth wasn't just a normal labyrinth, you had to get to different points along the way, marked by colored flags, that had the next section of a story on a sign. We were in that labyrinth for two hours, and we still didn't find all of the story, so at the end, we cheated through underneath to the section that we missed, and read it.
That night, I had an extremely painful cramp in my neck, and got barely any sleep.
The next day, we packed up and left, and that was about it.
Oh ya, I forgot to mention that as we were leaving, we went to biscuiterie Jain, basically a factory outlet(something like that anyway) that has a big selection of cookies:-):-D:-b(emoticons eating cookies).

June 20, 2012

Yesterday, we went to see a menhir, but we had some trouble finding it:-)
It was called Menhir de Kerloas, and it was bigger than any of the standing stones of Stonehenge!

Today, we went to a village not far from Plougonvelin called Le Conquet, and went on an amazing walk following little plaques with crabs on them, and I got some photos of stuff we saw, so ya.

June 18, 2012 #2

Today we went to the beach near Plougonvelin. Once again, I didn't get pictures because iPods dont like sand:-)
We were going to see fort de Berthaume, but it was closed so here's a photo of it.
That's about all.

June 18, 2012

Several days ago, we went to see the Eiffel tower. It's kind of hard to describe it, it's THE Eiffel tower.
The next day, we left Paris on a TGV to Brest, and from there we took a bus to Plougonvelin, the town we are house swapping in right now.
That's about it really, here's a bunch of photos.

June 13, 2012

The day before yesterday, we left Rödinghausen on a local train to bielefeld. From there we took another train to Klön, and from there, we took an amazing train (streamlined electric) to Paris (yes, Paris). Yesterday, we were going to see the Eiffel tower, but Tobin was too tired, so we explored the park near our apartment. It's a huge area with hills and cliffs and stuff, but it's all artificial. It's kind of weird being in there, because you know it's all fake, but it's really pretty. There was even an artificial cavern with a waterfall.
Today, we're actually going to see the Eiffel tower, and I'll put photos of that on tomorrow's post.
So, that's about it.

June 9, 2012

I guess I haven't posted in awhile, so I'll have to reduce detail a little.
Yesterday, we went on a hike with alpacas and llamas up into the forest around the valley that we're living in right now(Rödinghausen) is in. After the llama hike, we went to a tiny burger joint called Joe's.

Today we went to see Limburg castle ruins, but, since it's in the forest, we couldn't find it and we ended up having to ask some joggers where it was, and the directions proved correct! So we saw the castle and it was pretty cool. So after that, we came home and ate dinner and now I'm typing these words.
I will get photos for the next blog posts I do, and I'm very sorry about the lack:-(
So, that's about it.

:-)

June 6, 2012

Three days before yesterday, we went on a walk with another relative of ours, and took a water bus to a certain part of Copenhagen to see a bunch of large sand sculptures. They were very cool, and there was even a small area for build-your-own! So, we hung around there for a bit, and then we were going to go find somewhere to eat, but some of us were really done so we headed back.
Two days before yesterday, we went over to another relatives house for dinner and the food was good(even though I don't remember what it was), and after dinner we hung out there for quite a while.
One day before yesterday, we did absolutely nothing important except going to the grocery store.
Yesterday, we went to Hillerød to(once again) have dinner at a relatives house.
Today, we have left Copenhagen, passed through Hamburg, and are now on a train to Hanover.
That's about all I have to say for this post.

June 1, 2012

Alright, so yesterday we took the metro and then the train to the frilands museet, which is an open-air museum that has stuff like old thatched buildings and old windmills and stuff like that. We stayed there for a while, but then we were supposed to be at a relative's house for dinner so we took a train that looked a lot like a bus to their apartment. The food was really good, and the cake was AWESOME.
It had this really fudgey inside, but the edges were like normal chocolate cake.
After that, we took the normal train home, and that's about it.

May 30, 2012

The day before yesterday we didn't do much. We did nothing all morning, and then three of us went to the Copenhagen nature center, and the other two (including Eva and myself) stayed. A few hours afterward, Jeffrey and I took the metro to the grocery store.
So ya, that's about it for what we did yesterday. Yesterday, we went to rosenbourg castle. It is AWESOME! Inside, everything is so rich that once you're through 1 floor you're like "oh ya, big crystal chandelier, big deal".
The reason I only have one photo is because the outside is kinda boring, and the inside you need to pay for photo permission, and we only got that for one person.
Today we are doing this awesome Viking museum thing in Roskilde, and we just looked through the main hall. So ya. BTW, the day before yesterday, a whole bunch of people came riding up the ramp of our apartment building on i2 segways. That was weird.
That's about it.

May 28, 2012

Yesterday, we did two things:
We visited the round tower, and we saw pistolstræde
The round tower is a tower that's connected to another building, and the tower has a spiral ramp going up inside it.
The rooms of the building it was connected to were accessible via the tower and there were three I think:
The church took up the bottom half of the building, and above it was the library hall, and above that was the bell loft. At the top of the tower was the observatory, with a wide walkway around it.

Pistolstræde was disappointing. It was supposed to be a short street restored to how it was two hundred years ago. What we found however was a narrow pedestrian street with modern stores selling designer brands and stuff like that. It was so disappointing, I didn't take any photos.
But, pictures of the round tower are below, and they are interesting.
After that stuff, on the way back, we walked by a shop with an interesting display in the window:-)

PS: I got photos of the metro.