A FIRST ENTRY...

Well, what can I say? I'm on the last leg of my "European Tour" and lemme tell ya: it's been a wild ride! I've seen so many beautiful cities, experienced such wonderful cultures, and have met some pretty awesome folks along the way. I've learned much about myself over these past 3 months. I've really gotten to KNOW myself on a profound level because I've had a lot of time to think... all those bus and train rides... It's truly amazing what the brain will come up with if you allow it some time to ponder in silence and tranquility, without the day to day, mundane stuff it's grown so accustomed to. I'm impressed with my brain! haha So, my brain is impressed by itself? My brain is self-impressed? I don't know how to put that since I'm talking as though "I" am a seperate entity from my brain... Ok. I can't think about such things right now. Maybe I'll come back to that, maybe not. But ya.

Where have I been?
I've been to Yack n' back! haha Seriously, we - my travelling companion, my partner in crime: Monique and I - departed Toronto on Septemeber 11th and landed in smoggy Athens, Greece. We spent 2 weeks touring mainly the islands of Santorini, Naxos & Mykonos. We ferried our way to Turkey where we spent 3 weeks with Monique's bro Jean-Paul. What a country! My favorite country thus far FOR SURE! Flew out of Instanbul to land in a pot-smoker's dream city: Amsterdam, Netherlands... spent a full week (minus a day) there and indulged ourselves quite chronically. ;-) On to Berlin, Prague, Munich, Frankfurt, Dublin. Spent a whole month (plus 3 days) in Ireland, stayed a while in Greystones with some funky fellas: thank-you Stephen and David Flynn! and toured around down the east coast, to the south, then up the west coast and back to Dublin where we flew to Barcelona on Dec. 4th. We met up with Monique's pal Erica and spent 3 nights there, moved on to the island of Ibiza, to Valencia, and tomorrow we're off to Grenada! yay! We will be there til Sunday before we overnight it to Madrid, our final Spanish destination before Monique and I part ways: she's off to Canada and I'm off to Thailand!!!

Where am I going?
I never really know where I'm going, or, at least, I have learned to play it by ear. Never plan anything, never have expectations, go with the flow and it'll all work out for the best. This has been one the major lessons I've learned on this trip. Not to say don't have a "game plan" or anything! I mean, I always have a general idea of where I want to go and sometimes you have to knuckledown and book a hostel, a train or plane ticket in advance. And as for Thailand? Well, I'm meeting up with a lovely lady named Carly and we'll be spending the holidays together since we're both on our own and out of the country this year. I'm not telling the whole truth about that since Carly is much more than just a pretty face... And if this is about where I'm going, then I'll be talking loads more about this incredible and inspirational woman in the near futur. I'll be back in Canada around V-Day, but until I am back, there is so much more to experience on this excellant adventure and I'll be documenting as much of it as possible.

Awesome. Let's see if this works. All the commands and everything are in Spanish since I've started this blogger here in Spain. So I'm not completely sure of what I'm doing at the moment. This is a test of the emergency broadcast system... heehee

Buenas Noches!

sausages to leprocauns

Hello all! It's been a while but I have finally found some
(expensive) time to write about my travels from Berlin, Germany to
where Monique and I are now: Greystones, Ireland.

~sigh~

So, Berlin. Ya. It was rainy and our hostel was shit cuz it was
full of stupid teenagers and it was expensive and sheets & breakies
was extra money and the bunk beds were so creeky. So I didn't
really get a good vibe from Berlin and all I wanted to do was go
back to AMSTERDAM! Can you really blame me? But, since we were
there, we thought we might as well see the city and decided to take
a bike tour! Yay! Mike's Bike Tours. Our guide was this greesy
aussie with SUPER long and wonderful dread locks. He was pretty
funny and showed us some pretty interesting and of course historical sites. Let me see if I can remember some of them... The Berlin Wall - or rather, what's left of it cuz in most places it's just a stone line in the ground and in others it's the actual wall with the gap in between the 2 sides of it are still kinda there. It's all graffitied to shit now too and stupid tourists would go out at night and ram into it (with their vehicles, yes) to make chunks fall so they could take home a piece of it. Checkpoint Charlie of course, which is where the old American and the East Germany borders met. The University where all those books were burned, the old palace, museums, Marienplatz (where all the political rallies and such were held... pretty cool... there are statues of Karl Marx and Staline we got pictures with), the hotel from where Wacko Jacko dangled his baby and nearby from where Pink Floyd played and from where David Hasselhoff (AKA: The Hoff) performs. haha Kinda funny. But uh, so Berlin was almost all restored cuz so much of it was destroyed in WWII and so you can see the covered bullet holes in so many of the buildings. It was pretty neat riding our bikes in a huge tour around the city. It was definitly a highlight.

Berlin to Prague, Czech Republic! Uhm... I have a feeling I already wrote about Prague... So, I'll skip it and say that we stayed 6 nights there and I loved every minute of it and the beer was DELISCIOUS and so was the food! haha Let me know if I didn't send a mass on Prague...

Prague to Munich, Germany! Munich was beautiful, sunny, and the vibe was great. We spent the better part of our first 'day' visiting the 1st Nazi Germany concentration camp... we went to
Dachau (pronounced: da-how, with a sort of phlegmy sound for the H)
and got a tour of what's left of the camp today. So eery. Our
first stop on the tour was inside where the SS would hang 'the
undesirables' from the beams by their wrists - BEHIND their backs -
and so their shoulders would pop out and they would be in so much
pain and the only way to avoid the pain is to hang as still as
possible - find the centre of gravity - except, thing is, since they weren't considered people from the moment they walked through the gates, they were already dead to the SS and so the SS would push them and hang off them and whip them until they died the most
excrutiating death... I'm sorry for the vivid description, but I
really want to emphasize how the guide described it to us... I
cried so much that day... To NOT be considered a PERSON, a HUMAN
BEING and to be treated in such a horrible manner, more horrible
than anything you can imagine... as horrible as the Christians
described Hell. And it wasn't just the Jews who were treated this
way, but germans, homosexuals, anti-socials, catholic priests, the
Roma and the gypsies... this happened all over Europe and because of one man... So ya. The whole tour was just indredibly somber and
Monique and I hardly spoke the whole time. The Gas Chambers were
well, very REAL and I was almost sick with sadness... If you ask me
about it some time, I'll tell you, but I'm not gonna write this
stuff here... it's too disturbing. I'm glad I experienced that
place though. We are both glad.

The next day we took a free walking tour of Munich and so that was
MUCH more lighthearted. I loved it!! Bavaria... The famous clock
was really nothing special, but everything else was pretty cool.
The cobblestone roads, the nice people, the YUMMY beer, the
history... Munich, much cooler than Berlin! I have pics and so
I'll post them soon. They'll tell the story. I'm going to try and
add captions to them so you can understand what you're looking at.

Munich to Frankfurt, in a car pool we discovered through one of the
girls from the hostel! Awesome ride! Nice dude for sure and he
drove us right to the city centre where we could catch our shuttle
to the cheap-ass airport Ryanair flies out of. Listened to some
great music!! We had a beer in Frankfurt which means we were
OFFICIALLY in Frankurt. It's a lot more modern than any other city
in Germany, full of skyscrapers and cutting edge technology. We
only spent a few hours there before we flew out to Dublin that night.

Frankfurt to Dublin, Ireland!!! Ahhhhh... Dublin. We are
definitly liking it here, except for the rain andthe cold though!!!
We walked all over the city pretty much, well the centre part
anyhow. We caught a Tracy Chapman gig last night!! That was so
cool! Greystones is so cute and I will write more on that another
time cuz my internet time is expensive and... well... I'll be here
til Christmas! Yay!

Until next time, (sorry I just cut off like that) take care of
yourselves and know you are all in my thouhts and in my heart. I
hope your're enjoying the photos!!! yay!

amsterDAMN it's good to be here! (and Berlin)

Peace, Love, and Happiness to all!

Yay Amsterdam! It is tuesday and we were supposed to leave today, then we pushed it to Wednesday, and now it's FOR SURE Thursday we leave for Berlin... haha So, we got here Friday and haven't been to the famous Red Light District yet and I'm not sure we will even go for a number of reasons, one being that it's supposedly not like it used to be and is therefor dangerous. Another being I'm not sure how I feel about going to a place where I see mostly foreign women, mostly young, mostly pushed into that business, their choice having been removed from them, if they ever really had it. On the other hand, it is a safe place to do it, why? Cuz the government's the pimp? Like murder isn't so bad when it's done by a government?

Wo. Sorry folks. It's been a while since you've had any Jacquie rant! But really, did I make you think about it at least a little? If so, then you know, as long as you can reach ONE person... ;-)

So ya, Amsterdam! Beautiful!! Awesome! I'm lovin it! Staying with my friend Tirza, a local, and we've been out every night since we got here, with the exception of tonight cuz we were pooped so we've indugled ourselves in other activities... Her friends are amazing people who have done amazing things and have hooked me up with some amazing connections not only here with them, but with the organizations they've worked with in S.E. Asia - where I'll be for Christmas and beyond. So who knows what Jacquie's futur holds, but be sure you tune in for the updates! haha But ya, I've been introduced to some incredible music as well... I can't wait to share! And some great books I have to read!

Ya. We went out to the city of Utrecht to meet up with Vilaka - one of the sweetest people I've ever met - for lentil soup, what turned into 5 bottles of wine, and... Picture it: 4 extremely intelligent and beautiful women bonding and sharing some of the most deepest thoughts I've ever had, around a dining room table in a sweet pad that was built in the 60s as a hippy commune (so any architects out there would totally appreciate the character of this place), with awesome music playing, talking about changing the world and passions*. It was really great. The next day we slept in, ate breakies, took old cruisers out to see the dutch countryside! It
was like a chinook, so warm and automn everywhere. Saw a castle, some windmills, a beautiful old town, and lots of sheep.

Went back to Amsterdam and cleaned up for the pot luck Tirza had organised, which turned into a Wine and Cheese rendez-vous, perfect! Met more of her friends and a couple we had already met, took some
funny party pictures too. Crashed out and woke up early and went to see the Van Gogh museum! That was pretty neat. The hotdog I ate before entering was discusting. It was cool getting to know the artist was a struggling one and died relatively unknown. Funny how many only become worth anything AFTER they die and therefor don't need the money. So, ya. That was cool, I have my favs, especially The Walnut Tree (er something). Sat around and took in the city a bit at the park behind the museum and some professor dude from the University of Whales came along... strange experience... wanted us to solve a riddle he and his collegue had brought here a week earlier, their students had come up with the riddle... which wasn't all that much of a riddle... I thought it sucked. But that's not to say we didn't have to think about it! We had 6 guesses, mine was wrong - and obviously WAY too deep for these english dudes. Monique's was right and he gave us 10€ just like he said we would. No one else guessed it! It was stupid. I told him so. haha Maybe I'll tell you about it some day... ;-p

So we met up with Tirza and she took us to our first Coffee Shop experience!! You didn't think I'd pass THAT up, now did you?? I know this is going to family and such, but I refuse to write 2 seperate accounts of what happened. This is ME. Love me for who I am! I am in Amsterdam afterall!! But, if you want the full story on that experience, you can either email me OR wait for the full feature film coming to a theatre near YOU! haha

So dinner was good. Indonesian. Loved it. Met another friend who worked as an english teacher in Cambodia, helped set up like 4 schools. She gave me some contacts for when I'm there and I'm really excited about that prospect. We later went to a really cool jazz club where Monique proceeded take the photography world by surprise when she captured some of that amazing vibe. "Brilliant and REAL" - The New york Times. This was an awesome night cuz that was the best jazz place in the city and we were front and centre, just groovin. We caught the midnight train to the East end where we are staying and popped in a certain series II, episodes 1 through 3 and passed out nicely at about 4am. I woke up at 9 for no real reason, just to
email and stuff, and since we decided to stay yet another night, Monique and I decided to go off on our own and check out the Red Light District by day and the sex museum as well... only we didn't
make it to the museum... and that's all I'd like to say about that. ;-P If you'd like to know how this day/night went, email me and ask... wowzers. A lot of ha ha ho ho and hee hee's... let me tell YOU! Wild!!

So today, we're in Berlin! (In case you're wondering, I saved this email the other day and started writing it again today...) We took a train to Berlin and it only took 6 hours with a gazillion stops so not too shabby! We got here kind of later so we just checked into our rip-off hostel, showered, and grabbed some grub... Tomorrow I'm definitly having sausage and sour craut! And of course see the sites! I'll let you know of course.

We've decided to break up the next 12 days as follows: 3 nights here, 3 nights in Prague, 3 nights in Vienna (hopefully), 2 nights in Munich, and 1 night in Frankfurt which happens to be Holloween night! We were thinking about dressing up as canadians pretending to be americans pretending to be canadians... What do you think? haha We leave the next evening quite late for Dublin... Crazy! To think of all the places we're going to visit within the next couple weeks before we leave for cold - but gorgeous - Ireland for about 5
weeks or so of work. December 20th I'm officially flying to Bangkok from London!!! I'm meeting Carly there and it looks like we'll be heading up to Chiang Mai for Christmas and not sure what we'll be doing for New Year's yet... It's all a surprise for me since I don't know much about S.E. Asia and she works in Cambodia. She has the reigns and I don't mind. I'll be staying in the area for an indefinite amount of time, maybe even work at one of the schools I mentioned earlier... I love not having a plan. I will of course be
keeping you all updated on the turn of events. Questions? Write me! Leave me a voice mail!! Send me party pictures (or whatever) to: orneryhipster@gmail.com

I love you all and I hope everyone had a yummy Thanks Giving... I want to here Halloween stories! Babies? Marriages? I feel so out of touch. Until next time...

Turkish Coasts to Cavernis Caves

GREETINGS ALL!

How is North America treatin' ya? Well let me tell YOUS that Turkey is treating me oh so right! It just keeps getting better and better! Wow. So where did I end off last time? Hmmmm... Let me check the ol' parietal filing cabinet...

So my last entry was about Ephesus, the formidable Roman empire unearthed. We didn't spend too much time in Selçuk cuz we were primarily there to see the old city. There wasn't much to do there anyhow.

We wanted to move on to other sites such as Pamucale (pa-moo-ka-lai): home of the CRAZY CALCIUM DEPOSITS!!! So we spent one more night there and left the next early afternoon for Selçuk. Awesome pics dudes! Awesome scenary! Awesome feeling being there... Imagine a place you had only seen in pictures and had dreamed of seeing with your own eyes someday, and then imagine opening your eyes and BEING there! Looking out onto the deposits, warm spring mountain water flowing, tiny rivulets in the calcium creating a sort of grippy effect... The backdrop to this place was absolutely gorgeous! Mountains and farm fields and a quaint little town, imagine the panoramic view... I hope to help you out a bit with pics... patience
is a virtue. We climbed up to the top and you'd think it was so slippery cuz the calcium resembles ice but no way José! I am experiencing things I never thought I'd ever come close to... Turkey was never a place I thought I'd go but I have been witness to some amazing views and the people are so friggen NICE! It's awesome. Pamucale was probably one the highlights of my trips and I will be seriously dissapointed in anyone who comes to Turkey and DOESN'T visit that place. Be warned. ;-)

So, one night in Pamukale and we moved on to Fethiye (feh-ti-yeh) where we took a minibus to a town called Ölüdeniz (o-lu-de-naiz). WOW! The mountains are so lush and green and the beach at the bottom with waters so clear you can see bottom from 20m out from the shore!! Yet another paradise I've experienced!! Our hostel was called Öba and we lived in a little hut called The Moon House. The restaurant was so cool cuz there were pillows and small tables laid out in one corner and so you had to take your shoes off before mounting onto the carpeted platform. I spent much time there reading, especially the first day cuz we arrived during a TERRENTIAL DOWNPOOR! They had only had rain 1 other day that year and this one was the worst! You should have seen the streets were like rivers, the seweres were spewing and the people were huddled in the tiny shops trying to wait it out. We of course got soaking wet and so to hang out in that restaurant was so perfect, just relaxing... The next day we went to the beach and took a boat taxi out to a place called Butterfly Valley. Pulling up to shore you can see tents everywhere along the beach, a small café, vegetable and druit gardens in the back at the bottom of what was the most picturesque scene I've seen yet: the valley came to a V and you could see so far beyond, all the moutains forming various Vs so you could walk down through the valley and follow along the crevace for a long time. It was like the movie The Beach cuz there were people who actually lived there for free as long as they helped out in the garden and caught fish for everyone to eat that night... I'm totally coming back here and living here for a few months... I felt the vibe for sure. That night we went out drinkin and got pretty wasted. Paul puked. haha

The next day we of course went back to the Valley and spent the entire day there. I finished my book The Da Vinci Code while Monique and Paul went exploring the valley. It was another perfect day. Swimming was so much fun! Upon arriving this day, Monique and I decided to just jump off the side of the boat and swim to shore. Very cool! I was so sad to be leaving... They played St. Germaine on the boat and you should seriously check out that music! Totally groovin!

From Fethiye we moved on to Olympos and stayed in the famous treehouses!! Well, they were more like houses made of trees on stilts rather than actual treehouses, although there were a few genuine treehouses I will admit. haha 15 YTL gets you accommodation, turkish breakfast (which I am so comepltely SICK of)
and an AWESOME warm supper. The hostel is called The Turkman Pension. Awesome music at night!! It was pretty cool and the walk to the beach was very unique: old roman ruins! We spent only 2 nights there cuz we had to move on to where we are currently...

Capadocia!! Home of the cave and underground cities!! Our hostel is in a cave! It's called Shoestring Pension and it's so neat to be actually sleeping in friggen CAVE! haha We crashed out for a fewhours upon arriving since we took an overnight bus and didn't get that much sleep. We woke up and walked the long walk to the open-air museum of the 11th Century cave cities... We have some HILARIOUS pictures and I just can't wait for y'all to see them!! Trust me: you will not only sigh from the crazy beauty but you will cry from laughing. Well... maybe not CRY, but they are pretty funny. I don't even think I can describe what we saw -and what we are living in- because my words won't do it justice. But here's something that maybe you can picture: Star Wars Episode IV - A New Hope. Luc, as a young child, living with adoptive parents in that cave city place. If you can picture that then you can picture what we will be seeing for the next 2 days.

Tomorrow we're taking a 6.5 hour hike to see more ruins and an underground city. Tonight we are going out for Paul's 25th birthday, seeing The Whirling Dirvishes, belly dancers, fire dancers, and most importantly: all you can drink drinks!! heehee I'll write my final Turkish entry from Istanbul on the 13th or so before we head off to AMSTERDAM!! moi ah ah ahhhh! It's been quite the trip and like I said, it's only getting better. It looks like I'll be changing my plans after Ireland and won't be touring Europe but S.E. Asia instead... So after Holland, it's Germany, and then finally Ireland. I'll be leaving Ireland at Christmas time and most-likely flying to Bangkok, Thailand where I will be meeting up with my new and awesome friend Carly who'll be in the area since she's working in Cambodia. Maybe New Year's in Laos? So excited!! I'll explain once I know more details of course. The way I see it is if I'm flying there anyhow it makes no sense to fly all the way back to Europe and then go back to Thailand before I go home. This way the money I'll have will go a lot farther then if I stayed in Europe cuz it is FRIGGEN EXPENSIVE! Monique will be going back to Canada for Christmas and it is still unsure as to whether she will be meeting me in Asia. It's all good! Plans change and we are following our hearts. Like I said, I'll keep you posted on all the latest developments. Until next time, keep the emails coming and the voicemails too!! I love hearºng familiar voices and learning that everyone's still alive and well back home. You are all in my heart. I miss you very much. I hope you're enjoying my detailed accounts and I will soon have a website for viewing photos... just keep checking the yahoo photo album! A la prochaine!!