Half-asleep on the bus between Barceolona and Valencia, Spain.

Listening to my music when ¨Run¨ by Snow Patrol comes on.

And then my phone rings.

My Nana passed away at night (it was 5am in Toronto) and my Dad called to give me the news.

The girls were really supportive, but crying on a coach bus is rather embarassing. Thank god I had 2 more hours where I didn´t have to talk to anyone.

Thank you to everyone i txted that day that offered their love and support. To my family. To Monica, Jen and Michelle. And to Nick and Emma and Gavin, who although they were many many miles away (and in Nick´s case, even farther), were there for me the whole time.


Light up, light up
As if you have a choice
Even if you cannot hear my voice
I'll be right beside you dear

The rain in spain is in my head.

So after getting home from the lakes last night at 11pm, Michelle and I had to pack up all our stuff for Spain, shower, and then leave for the bus from Victoria at 2 am... Our plane flew out at 630 am! So basically we got about 1 hour of sleep before jetting off on our next adventure.

After a long long way to get to the airport, we clamboured aboard a lovely Ryan Air flight (yeah right) that took us to Barcelona! Well, more specifically, Girona Barcelona.. 1.5 hours outside of the city centre. We got in, then took lie a 45 minute travel to our hostel (very nice hostel though) and met up with Jen (who had been here for one day already and will be traveling the rest of spain with us).

Now we were exhausted, but also hungry... and since our hostel is in the outskirts, we ventured into a little cafe where NO ONE spoke english (well, except for a like 14 year old boy who helped us out a bit). Now THIS is a traditional traveling experince... one that I had actually never came across before because normally SOMEONE speaks English. Basically, we relied on Michelle´s awesome grade 10 spanish, the broken words of a 15 year old barcelona boy, and lots of miming and bringing out dishes off other peoples tables to show us what they were!!

Somehow we ended up with some delicious food. I had some grilled chicken (super salty) and chips (err, fries) and Mon-Jen-Michelle had some rice with warm gespacho and an egg (?). They also gave us a free bottle of water, bread and then some yummy ice-cream dessert. All for 5 euros... which was cheaper than we thought. They were SUPER nice and it was amazing to interact with locals... and made us realise how awful we are at spanish.


...now for the unpleasant news.

My Nana is not doing very well. She has been sick for the past little while and now is back from the hospital, in pallative care, and such. My sister wrote me a msg explaining it better than I can so I´ll just copy it here:

¨She’s now refusing to eat anything or take her meds and she’s only drinking sips of ginger ale occasionally when her throat is dry or she coughs. The doctors think there is probably actually something going on in her body that is making her not want to or unable to eat but she has kind of given up her will to fight/live anymore so there isn’t much they can do anyways. She’s under palliative care now which means that they won’t send her to the hospital for anything but they can administer what the doctor orders which is good bc that means she can stay in her room (which is all she wanted when she was at the hospital) and they’re making sure she is comfortable.

Basically, I feel really guilty. How can I have fun and be on bloody holiday while my family is in so much pain! How can I go and drink sangria when my nana is so sick. I feel awful. I cried a bit here in the hostel and talked to my sister a bit so I know there is nothing I can do. But I just feel guitly. I won´t be flying home because of the logistics and timing, and it doesnt make much sense for me to fly home for a few days and then fly back to London when I´ll be back in under two months. But still. I feel pretty shitty.

The rain in spain is in my head.

But I know my Nana and my dad would want me to push on and enjoy my holiday. The girls know (monica is telling them) so they understand if I´m a little quieter... but the most I can do is love the life my Nana has always wanted me to have.

It´s still pretty awful to deal wtih all this without my family right by though.

Love you all.

The Lakes are lovely (said in a british accent)

I had a wonderful weekend up north.

My night in Manchester was a blast. Met up with Dave (one of the british exchange students that lived with us in Bates in first year), had some pizza, played some drinking games, and headed off to a club to celebrate his roommates birthday. Craig met up with us too which is always a pleasure. :)

On Saturday, we (did I mention Michelle - a friend from Toronto - is visiting?) along with Dave and his gf, drove up to Dave´s childhood home in the Lakes District. He lives in Ambleside... and the town is as cute as its name implies. A small village in England´s national park. Surrounded by mountains and near the biggest lake in the lake district, it was out of a postcard of English countryside quaintness. Not to mention Dave´s family owns a toystore and THEY LIVE ABOVE IT. I have always had a dream of living above a store and this was pretty much my dream house, lol. We went for hikes and had picnics, wandered around the town (there are sheep EVERYWHERE), and enjoyed the local pubs and nightlife (although we had to travel to the next town for that). Then on Monday... we went on an alpine high ropes course in the forest. called ¨Go APE¨.. Basically, we got strapped to carabeeners and wires, climbed huge ladders and did all these cool apline tree things...like wobbly bridges, swings, jumping off the edge and flinging yourself onto a net... and ZIP LINES. I have always wanted to go on one and I went on FOUR. SO MUCH FUN. I had a blast there! Totally reccomend it to EVERYONE. There are about 18 different branches across England, so if you come visit, you should go here! ... unless you are afraid of heights. (monica)

Zurich Recap

So I have completely neglected my blog over the past two weeks and I apologize!

Quick Recap of Zurich:
- Clean, quiet, peaceful city.
- They have a trolly car that goes up a hill for only three minutes to commute the university students from the main street to the university up on a hill. I was very excited by this trolly car and made Gavin take me on it.
- Very pretty river and lakeside.
- Grossmunster church has very beautiful, but very "different" stained glass windows. No huge jesuses here... but cool art pieces.
- Gavin was a wonderful tour guide and host :) I will return the favour in July.
- Sprungli chocolate = AMAZING. Even better? these things: Luxemburgerli
- Gavin cooked me a wonderful dinner each night. Saved money AND was delicious.
- Went on an amazing hike up a steeeeeep hill to get a wonderful view of the city, Swiss countryside and far off Alps. Complete with celebratory half-melted ice-cream and beer at the top.
- Party scene in Zurich = dub-step club and student bar, not as wild as London, but not bad either... the walk home however, was VERY enjoyable.
- Naps on the grass in a park by the lake = a wonderful idea
-....and ASH CLOUD STRIKES BACK!!! A small eruption canceled my flight (mine was the ONLY one to London from Zurich that was canceled -- what are the chances!?) so I ended up crashing at Gavin's another night and heading home in the morning on Monday. Apparently London doesn't want me to return? Okay by me, I'll travel some more!

So there you have it... Three days in Zurich in a nutshell. It was great, I got a patch, and can check another country off the list.

Zurich!

Switzerland tomorrow!
More specifically, ZURICH tomorrow!

I'm heading to visit a guy I knew in first year (haven't seen Gavin in like 4 years, but we kept in touch via facebook!) and I'm really excited! Switzerland was unfortuently one of the countries we couldn't visit in our Eurotrip last year, so I'm glad I'm getting a chance to see it --- and with a local tour guide! Gavin is there studying geophysics or something crazy smart, but I'm stealing him away from his studies to tour me around (actually no I'm not, I lied. He has a field trip in the AM I arrive so I'm gonna let myself into his flat with a hidden key).

The only shitty thing about this trip is the flight time there. I have a 6:30 flight from Stansted airport, like an hour outside of London centre and even farther from the 'Shim (Monica and my new "ghetto white girl" nickname for our lovely little neighbourghood of Lewisham). I am catching an easybus airport transfer at 3:15 AM!!! So I am just going to head out to Sam's flat because she is right near the bus stop and hopefully catch a few hours of sleep. I'm rather nervous flying for the first time by myself, but at least I sort of know this airport (we flew out to Italy from it).

Anyways, the next time I blog, I will be 5 pounds fatter from all the Lindt I eat. Hahaha, jealous Dad?

Where are the mighty ducks when you need em??

I never thought I would be affected by a volcano in my lifetime, but....

f-ing Iceland.

Guess who was stuck in Bratislava for an extra two days?! And Bratislava is a lovely town... but not a three day worthy town. We did most of it in the afternoon of the first day.

We had a motto of "What Happens in Bratislava, Stays in Bratislava", so I won't go into much detail. Needless-to-say, our time there involved: men in manholes, attempts at authentic cooking, 1 euro beers, giant straws, and dinosaurs.

Yes, dinosaurs.

Did you not know that they are still around in Bratislava? In DinoPark? An addition of the Bratislavia Zoo? Oh yes.

We met up with another traveler who was stuck in Bratislava and trying to head to London. His name was Mark and he is studying overseas for a semester (he's 21 and from Denver or somewhere). He was nice, but rather quiet and we hung out with him for like two days, plus the 22hr bus ride.

Bus ride??? you say. Oh yes. 22 hours?? you say. Hells yes. We drove through 5 countries and now I can say that I have driven across Europe. The only reason we knew which country we were in was because my phone would send me a text message welcoming to "vodafone France" or "vodafone czech" whenever we crossed borders. When we bought our tix, the ticket lady did not speak any english so when we finally able to get a ticket to London (she was very frustrated with our lack of Slovak speaking skills), we weren't able to ask her HOW it got to London. All we knew was that we had to be at the station at 9 am and that it cost 80 euros.

They kept showing movies, but not in english or with english subtitles. I watched one. This movie where two divers get left behind in the ocean during a resort scuba diving thing and then they get eaten by sharks (spoiler alert). It was interesting because I had to rely totally on the visuals.

There was this guy behind us... Yeesh with a capital Y. He was drunk. and fell asleep leaning forward so his hands kept hitting us on the head. And then, about an hour after one of our pit stops, he threw up. In a bag allegedly, but also it leaked on the floor. We were able to pick up all our stuff without getting it on it, but still. GROSS. I couldnt' really smell it, but Lisa could. And the next pit stop wasn't for FOUR HOURS. So when we stopped, she mimed to the driver (who also spoke very little english) and it was cleaned up. No more throwing up from the man for the rest of the trip at least....

We finally got into the Port of Dover at like 8 am on Sunday. What a way to end the trip. Definitly a story I will always remember.

F-ing Iceland.

Singing in the Rain... In Vienna!

Small Rant: Make sure that you always buy the correct metro ticket when in another country... otherwise, you end up in tricky situations like we did on our way from the hostel to the bus station to go to Vienna. Apparently we had bought a 3 stop Metro ticket and were on the train for 5 stops... even though the number 3 shows up NO where on the ticket machine when you buy it (even when you ask to translate it into english). These three ticket checker ladies subsequently charged us 25 Euros EACH for not having hte correct ticket. But it wasnt like we were trying to cheat the system!! If we didnt have a ticket at ALL, I could understand, but no, they were having none of the "We dont speak your language and are poor student travellers." So long story short, we ended up paying a fare for those tickets that cost more than our two nights in the hostel.

Now back to the adventures of Lisa and Susan...

We took the bus to Vienna because it was cheaper than taking the train. Two other boys (An aussie - Paul and a kiwi - Steve) from our hostel were also going to Vienna that day so we took the same bus as them. They were super nice and helpful with getting us to the bus station and calming us down after those bitchy ticket ladies took our money. They are noth actually living in London too so hopefully I will see them when we get back from our travels! The bus ride was sweet. Comfy seats, free hot beverages, and they showed a movie (The Game Plan starring The Rock... I made it about halfway before falling asleep). Got to Vienna, went to our separate hostels (our new hostel is NO where near as awesome or nice as the Loft in Budapest) and then met up for drinks and dinner after. I had some schnizle and the boys bought us beer to compensate us for the ticket fiasco (so nice) and we headed back to our hostels around 1.

You know my family's travel motto? "Its not a trip til Susan pukes". Well, got that covered last night. Woke up in the middle of the night with a wicked bad sore throat and my stomach all in knots. :( Not to mention our hostel bathroom is GROSS. Took a gravol and passed out again. Lisa said her throat also hurts, so mazbe we picked up a bug somewhere.

We woke up today around 10, had a shitty hostel breakfast (2.80 for two rolls and a tea) and headed outside in the RAIN. ALl day it has been raining and COLD. No wonder we are getting sick! We also had nooooo energy so today has been kind of a lazy wander. We went to a museum on Music called the Haus Musik and learned all about a bunch of famous composers (Mozart, Schubert, Strauss, etc) as well as a modern, interactive portion (we acted as conductors using Wii technology!). We did that for most of the day, wandered around nachmarkt for lunch, and checked out a bunch of parliament and pretty buildings. We made grilled cheese at our hostel for dinner, then headed to a concert!

The concert was very small, but still impressive! We only paid 18 euros each for it so it was in our price range too. The first half was Mozart and the second was Strauss. There was an opera singer and two ballet dancers as well. It was very nice to pretend to be classy (in my hoodie and trainers...lol). Now we are calling it a night because we have more to see tomorrow before heading to.... BRATISLAVA!