Ali's Gap Year Travel Page

Thursday, 08 March 2007

Location: Canberra, Australia

Hi everyone, I know its been ages since I've posted anyhting - I mean I still haven't finished writing about my trip and I've been back for three months!! Oh well, once again I'm gonna use the excuse that I've been busy and that because I've just moved away from home again and am now a resident of the ACT!! How exciting!! Mum and I came down here on the 9th of Feb and she stayed over O week to help me move all my stuff in to my third floor room (lots of huffing and puffing there!!). Might recruit the army to help me next time!! I would just like to point out that I did in fact drive all the way down here while mum navigated - not a bad effort considering the furthest I'd driven before that was Hawk's Nest!!

O week was a lot of fun and there were heaps of things to do organised by both the college I'm staying in (Burton and Garran) and the university itself. There were introductory lectures, market days and the usual. B & G organised heaps of parties and events to welcome all of us first years such as pizza nights, walking tours to all the best local shops, classy nights, a drag n diva night (some good outfits there and certainly a good ice breaker with all the boys in dresses!!) and other fun stuff. I unfortunately got really sick and missed out on the toga night and the occa night and even the luau but I still had some fun anyway. I also went in a few poker tournaments which I actually did really well at considering all the people I was playing against all took it really seriously and used all the fancy terms and stuff. I just sat there drinking my champagne and winning nearly every hand - i ended up with a pile of chips triple the size of every one elses!! Pity it wasn't for money..... The others at the table got grumpy at me cause they were better players (or so we all thought) but I kept winning so maybe I'm better than I think or perhaps it was just the champagne.......

At the moment I'm busy settling in to life here in Canberra. We are in week three of classes and I'm doing microeconomics, statistics and Chinese. Because Chinese is such a hard course, I'm doing double of it all year so I have to wait til next year to start my non-language major for asian studies. I'm probably studying about 4 times the amount of Chinese than I am with the other courses put together!! Its so much work!! But I do like it especially the characters. I'm terrible at the speaking but at least I'm good at writing it. But now statistics is getting a lot harder so it might mount a challenge to my chinese study time (stupid probabilities - I hated them in school and I still hate them now!!).

In other news, I'm back in the workforce and I'm now a junior pharmacy assistant (BIG BIG thanks to Jan!!). I'm at Hawker pharmacy which is a bit out of the city but I really like working there and its a really good job - different to anything I've done before. At the moment I've been working a lot (today is the only day this week that I have off hence the reason I'm writing now) but thats because I'm doing a lot of training, having never worked in pharmacy before. The retail part I picked up really quickly but obviously the pharmacy specific parts take a while. Any hints uncle Howard?? Normally I'll be working three times a week which will be perfect.

Anyway thats it for the moment because I need to go rescue my washing as things sometimes wander. Though if I wait long enough someone might put it in the dryer for me!!

Next installment: what happened when the storm hit Canberra, there's fun, there's excitement and there's a whole heap of drama. So get ready for the night of havoc that well and truly said 'welcome to Canberra it's a fun place'!!!

Tuesday, 16 January 2007

Location: Barcelona, Spain

I suppose its time I finished writing about all this before I forget it all!! Its so good to be back home again thats for sure!!

Spain was definately one of my favourite places on our trip and not suprising because it was one of the places I'd most wanted to go to. Our first stop was in Barcelona where we spent 4 nights. On our first morning we went for a walk down the famous La Ramblas in the very centre of Barcelona and I have to say it is one of the coolest streets in the world!! It is lined with shops and restaurants and down the middle it has all sorts of markets, stalls and the best street entertainment you will ever see!! We came across all sorts in Barcelona from singers and musicians to break dancers, puppeteers, painted men, mimes and even a pair of professional acrobats!! It was like one big open air theatre and you could wander around for hours without getting bored.

We wandered down to the harbour and had a look around there before we headed off to a palace designed by the architect Gaudi who designed many of the coolest buildings in Barcelona. He was like the arcitectural equivalent of Salvador Dali - his buildings are full of the strange and the bizarre and many of them look like they are dripping!! Anyway, the palace was shut when we got there so we wandered across the city to the gothic quarter which is possibly the most beautiful and atmospheric part of the city. In the narrow and winding backstreets we discovered a tiny jewish synagogue that had somehow survived all the inquisitions and was over 1000 years old!!

After that we did the necessary thing and headed to the chocolate museum to take a look. It had information about the history and the making of chocolate and how it had been nrought to europe, but the coolest part was all the sculptures that were made of chocolate!! I've never seen anything like it!! Some of them were huge and so intricately detailed - we saw guitars, cartoon characters, models of buildings like the sacrada familia, we saw animals and even a perfect cholcolate model of Louis Armstrong with his trumpet!! It was awesome!! More on Barcelona next time!!

Tuesday, 19 December 2006

Location: Greathouse, England

I suppose its time I caught up on a bit more of my holiday then!!

After our week in Assisi we spent the day travelling by train to Nice. 4 trains and about 13 hours later we arrived safely in Nice and after a good old walk from the train station, we found our hostel which was just a block away from the beautiful (albeit pebbly) waterfront. We ended up spending 4 nights in Nice but the first one we were exhausted after all those nasty trains!!

On our first day in Nice we did a bit of wandering (our particular travelling specialty. Courtney doesn't believe in maps though so its up to me to make sure we don't get lost!!) and we walked for a while along the waterfront and found the famous food markets in the middle of town. These markets were crazy and the vendors were continually yelling about their prices and their produce. It was a bit bewildering but at least for the first time in our travels I could understand the language. I even got to practice it a bit when we bought some delicious fruit and some of the best cheese we found in Europe!! None of the sellers seemed to speak any English so my bit of french came in handy!!

We had a late lunch and then that evening headed off to the movies to see the 'The Black Dahlia' which was thankfully in English (you just had to ignore the french subtitles!!). We weren't to happy on coming out though to find that we had to walk down a dark street to get home!!

The next day we took the train to Monaco to have a look at how the rich and famous live. It was a beautiful sunny day and very hot despite being november, so I can understand why they would want to live here!! Monte Carlo was a very beautiful and very clean city but it was built into the cliffs surrounding it so we had a few hikes up hills throughout the day!! The waterfront was beautiful and I have never seen yachts that size in my whole entire life!! They were more what I would class as a ship rather than a yacht!! I would love to know how much money was tied up in that harbour - It would probably feed all the 3rd world countries for a decade!!

Having heard that you actually have to pay a fair sum to get into the casino, we contented ourselves with the still impressive outside and headed off to the exotic gardens instead. These gardens are made up entirely of different species of cacti and were not exactly what we had expected when we went to Monaco but they were actually really good and were high up on the hill so we had priceless views out over Monaco and the Meditteranean. It really was an amazing spectacle!! Down the bottom of the garden was a small cave system and we got a free tour with our ticket. The tourguide unfortunately didn't speak english and I don't know many french words that have to do with caves so we had to be content with listening to him speak Italian to the other tourists. We weren't really worried though because we had already been to Postojna where the cave system was much much bigger so we were happy just to look.

By the time we got back to Nice we were exhausted from walking all day so for a treat we went out to a fantastic mexican restaurant (not quite as good as the one in Rome but very close) which made the strongest cocktails I've ever had!! One of those was equal to about 4 normal ones!!

The next day we went for a brief morning trip to very high class Cannes where we found getting a coffee a very expensive and snooty affair. The waiters in the posh cafe didn't seem to like us much probably cause we don't ooze wealth or style though by the end we did ooze irritation!! We didn't find ourselves drawn into staying very long in Cannes though we were happy to walk on a sandy beach (no waves though!!) for the first time in our holiday. We also did a little bit of shopping in the posh gallery Lafayette though only because we got a non-EU shoppers discount (slightly making up for the discrimination in Italy!!) and we only bought a face wash each - nothing too expensive!!

That afternoon was spent almost entirely at the laundromat watching the slowest washing machine ever!! Lucky Courtney brought along her Sudoku or we would have gone mad!!

Unfortunately that was our last night in Cannes so we celebrated by having a picnic on the pebbly beach with a 2 euro bottle of wine (which was actually very drinkable!!). The next morning we headed off early to Barcelona on what was to be a 12hour odyssey on two trains. Needless to say we turned up at our hostel looking pretty feral and frazzled and thankfully there was no one else in our dorm that night cause we would have scared them away!! Despite the inauspicious beginning, it was in fact the start of one of the best stays in our trip and Barcelona (Spain in general actually) was definitely a high light!!

Anyway, in other news (i will catch up on Spain later) I am getting onto my flight tomorrow and heading home!! I can't believe my year is actually over - its gone so quickly!! I wish I could stay longer but I'm also so excited about going home and I can't wait to see everyone in just a few days!! I'll probably tell you the end of my travels instead of typing them hehehe. I'm so lazy...... Not long now and I'll be back!!

Thursday, 07 December 2006

Location: London, England

After our time in Rome we caught the train to Florence and found our hostel and after dragging all of our bags up four flights of stairs (no easy task I can assure you!!) we were told by the rather nasty lady running the place that our rome was actually in another building on the other side of town. Still sweating from the climb up the stairs and getting angrier by the second we asked why the room we had booked wasn't in the hostel where we had booked it and kind of refused to move. They weren't very happy with us for not moving (and vice versa thats for sure!!) but they set up beds for us (trundle beds with sleeping bags - even less happy now!!). The only thing we couldn't fault about this hostel was its perfect location right in the centre of florence. We only stayed there for two nights before we moved to a much nice (and cheaper) hostel just a couple of streets away.

On our first evening in Florence we got a much needed gelato and went for a wander around. Florence is still full of tourists like rome but its alot more relaxed and doesn't feel as crowded. Its a great place to just wander around the streets and the piazzas. We started at the piazza del duomo which is home to the spectacular and HUGE cathedral which is tiled on the outside with the most amazing patterns in green and pink tiles. Then we wandered to the loggia della signoria which is an open air display of some really famous statues by florentines. Then we walked across the ponte vecchio which is Florence's most famous bridge and is lined with jewellery shops.

The next day we went inside the duomo and found that it is just as large on the inside but a bit bare really, underneath though, they have a crypt museum where you can see the excatvations of older cathedrals and roman ruins (the mosaics were amazing!!). After that we did some shopping at the leather markets and just like jacqui, I came out with a really nice handbag (and a few other things!!)

The next morning we were just wandering around when rain forced us into the palazzo vecchio which turned out to be a good move. The palace was once home to the Medici family and was decorated just like you would expect from such a powerful and rich family. The palace was amazing and had some incredible fresoes and great views out over florence. The day after was a big one, we got up early to go to the Uffizi gallery - one of the best and the biggest galleries we saw. We pent all day there and by the time we came out we were exhausted!! We saw so many amazing pieces of art though - lots of ancient roman sculptures, paintings by Raphael, Botticelli, Michaelangelo and even a few Da Vinci paitings and sketches.

Despite being all arted out, the next morning we also got up early but this time we went to see the David. Unlike Jacqui and Renae, we basically got straight in and hardly had to wait at all. Its only a tiny gallery but the David is worth it 100%. He is the most amazing statue and the copy in the palazzo vecchio doesn't even come close. Michaelangelo was a genius thats for sure!! I completely fell in love with the David and even Courtney was pretty impressed!! That afternoon we went across the river to the palazzo pitti, another palace of the Medici. Our ticket got us into the costume gallery, the silver gallery and treasure rooms and the Boboli gardens which were amazing. We got the best views out over the whole of florence and the surrounding tuscan country side. They were some of the most beautiful gardens I have ever seen and it made a nice change from the endless galleries and palaces it felt like we'd been visiting!!

That day was our last in Florence so the next morning we caught the train to Assisi for our week of time share (thanks to Courtney's parents!!). Our accomodation there was like complete luxury compared to some of the hostels we've been in along the way - no fighting over the showers, no getting woken up by other people coming home late or getting up early and no one snoring!! It was a very relaxing week and a great way to recharge the batteries for the next half of our trip. That being said though, we did do a few things (except the first day when I positively refused to get out of my bed until nearly 12!!). We went into a Assisi nearly everyday and it was a really nice country town high up on the hill top so we had fantastic views out over Umbria.

Assisi's main claim to fame is that it was the birth place of St Francis (who we now know a lot about!!) and it has an amazing basilica dedicated to him. Ive never seen so many monks and nuns wandering around as I did in the streets of Assisi!! The basilica is built on two levels and we explored the whole thing at various stages throughout the week. It has very bright and vibrant frescoes on every inch of wall you can see and the most amazing thing is that some of them are nearly 800 years old. Its an important place of pilgrimage because it also holds the sacred relics of St Francis such as his clothing and blessings written by him.

Assisi is a great place to just wander and get lost in the narrow medieval streets which is really spooky if you are there between 1-4 pm cause everyone goes for a siesta and the streets are deserted and the shops shut!! We also visited the crypt museum of the cathedral (different to the basilica and the thousand or so other churches in Assisi) which showed the remains of the old cathedrals and some roman ruins as well. We also went into an old church i the main square which had been built into the old Roman temple to Minerva and still had the columns outside.

On our last afternoon in Assisi we even went to the effort of climbing up to the Rocca Maggiore, an old fort high up on the hill above Assisi and we had the most wonderful views out over the countryside. Its exactly what you imagine when you think of Italy, especially the Tuscany region. The fort itself was pretty interseting too and we spent a few hours climbing up and down its towers and twisting stairways and walking around the walls. It really was a beautiful spot and I felt we got to know the town fairly well in the week we were there (especially its many lung busting hills!!).

After that we headed off to Nice but I'll write about that next time!! Jacqui's back from New York tomorrow!!

Happy Birthday Jenna!! Hope you enjoyed Robbie Williams - was he just as good in real life??