NDBT

I’m officially over 13 months abroad now. Go me! Obviously, taking a year off to travel is more common in Europe, but I guess this makes me part of a pretty select handful of Americans who take the leap. I’m unfortunately too broke to get a commemorative tattoo just now (as my mother breathes a sigh of relief), but I will at some point.

I think this achievement calls for a little retrospective. Mostly it’s been great to go back through all my old entries through the past year and remember all the awesome things I’ve been able to do. And a lot of the lows on here (especially those in Madagascar) at least make for really good stories, and in no way outweigh the great bits about travelling.

Ireland Highs:

Seeing Rocky Horror at the Sugar Club in Dublin

Newgrange

The mummies in Dublin (at St. Michan’s)

Slurping my smoothie at Bertie Ahern

Yamamori!!

Watching Ireland beat England in six nations

Glendalough

Kavanaugh’s bar next to Glasnevin

Killarny National Park (including the horseback ride there).

The Burren

Connemara

Donegal (particularly the famous chippers, and the walk out to lough eske)

The Giant’s causeway

The murals in Belfast

The trad session at Hercules in Belfast

Pat’s horse winning Fairysdown

St. George’s Arcade in Dublin (also, St. Stephen’s Green, the dead zoo, and the pubs in Ranelagh. And the Laser video store, although Alice’s here in Chch is still my fave. Oh! And Cafe Bar Deli!!! Yummm…. and Blazing Salads).

The ghost tour in Dublin http://blogs.bootsnall.com/Jessica+Dillon/?p=38

The bog men at the National museum in Dublin

The staff at Kiely’s (well, everyone except Gavin, but they finally fired his butt).

The Guinness Storehouse

Whelans

Seeing the Anatomy lab at RCSI

Helping Kristl out with the Vagina Monologue auditions

Ireland lows:

Things being closed in the winter

Carrowmore (the information centre was closed, and I really ended up seeing enough stone things)

Getting locked in the park in the Westport House grounds and having to ford a river to get out

I’d skip Sligo next time, but it wasn’t really bad per se.

Walking out to Lough Eske and then not actually seeing the lake.

Working the weekends around Christmas – I’ve never been so exhausted and stressed out in my life.

Not being allowed to take photos inside Irish museums

England Highs:

Seeing the RSC

Getting to participate in movie trailer marketing research AND being paid for it

The giant Swiss clock in Leiscter square

Finding the only Beard Papa’s in Europe, with green tea flavour

The British Museum

El Piano in York

the ghost walk in York

Yorkminster

Sherwood forest and Newgate Abbey

The Charlton house B&B in Stratford

Most of Stratford (the holy trinity church, the avon river, the brass rubbing centreand the butterfly farm, which was fantastico). Also – watching 6 nations in the Garrick with a pimms lemonade.

Ye olde trip to Jerusalem

The Alley cafe in Nottingham

Glastonbury (hippies are just too much fun)

Stonehenge, Avebury, and Old Sarum (including the Red Lion Pub at Avebury)

Salisbury, especially the cathedral and magna carta

The Eden project

The veggie restaurant in Exeter

Admiral Benbows in Penzance

The Mousetrap! (and getting ice cream at intermission!)

The Natural history museum in London (also, the globe, the Tate modern, St. James’ park, the national gallery, and covent garden mall)

The train from Crewe to London (Virgin first class, baby!)

The Tower of London

England lows:

Shrewsbury (including the Lion and Pheasant hotel)

Trying to get a replacement adaptor for American electrical appliances, only to realize that the ipod charger does that anyway

Not going on a Ripper tour

Not going on the North York Moors because I was sick

Things not being open due to winter, or not being able to get to things without a car (Jamaica Inn, etc.)

The Theatre museum in London being closed, the cabinet war rooms charging 9 pounds.

Scotland highlands:

Driving through a blizzard and just barely being able to see deer through all the snow.

Walking around Skye.

Hollyrood

Edinburgh castle

Chocolate soup

Loch Ness day tour (Urqhart castle)

The hostel in Edinburgh

Scotland low road:

More time? I’d really love to see more of the country.

Hmmm… Nessie 2000, but we had no choice but to go through there

Culloden was freezing

The walk to get to our hostel in Edinburgh (ages and ages and ages with our packs)

Italy highs:

The crypts on the Via Antigua

The pizza in Naples

Herculaneum

The Roman ruins

The Vatican

The Antiqua Roma restaurant on the Appian Way

Venice – pretty much everything about it, but especially the behind the scenes at the Doge’s palace, the gondola ride, the Guggenheim, the clock tower, the cheesecake at that Venetian restaurant (also the spider crab there)

My mom planning out everything and getting all our museum tickets in advance

The hot chocolate bars

The leaning tower of Pisa

Painting frescoes at the Palazzo Vecchio

The Uffizi

The Accademia

The restaurant by the Accedemia (oh – found the name; the Ristorante Accademia)

The Pitti Palace (meaning, the Boboli gardens)

The worker’s restaurant (Casa Lingua) in Florence with the (almost) best bread and salad EVER

The garden in Pompeii

The Trevi fountain and the gelato there

The Chinese near the Piazza dante

Seeing the Orient Express

The DeMedici Chapel

Italy lows:

The traffic in Naples

The numbers of tourists at popular places

The giant basillica’s weren’t really my thing for the most part – too gold and byzantine. I did like the altar thing in St. Peter’s, though. I also did like the Brancacchi chapel.

Trying to make train reservations

The wait to get into the Vatican

Speaking of Italy, I crack myself up. I’m having so much fun going back and rereading my older entries… ahh… good times…

Madagascar highs:

Lemurs. Lemurs lemurs lemurs lemurs. Chameleons.

Really – all of the national parks. Andasibe was great, particularly seeing the Indiris, the landscape in Isalo was lovely (for those of us that like dry areas), Ranomafana (fantastic guide, great lemurs, and the best place we stayed at for a view of the forest (Rian’ala))

The soupe chinoise in Tamatave

The road to Soaniera-Ivongo

The night in Soaniera-Ivongo

Ile Ste Marie (especially endemika park, once it opened, the walk out to the pirate cemetery, the open air bar with French MTV and pineapple juice)

The Zebu at the Melinda café in Toliara

The Blackout in Tana

Dinner with the expats in Tana at the Sakamanga

The children at the taxi-brousse station in Fianarantsoa.

The stars at night

The Voille rouge in Ifaty (especially the coco punch) and the baobab tour

The tortoise sanctuary

Madagascar lows:

Being worried that I was going to break a tooth whenever I ate rice. So almost every lunch or dinner.

Getting stuck in a national park with a sleazy guide.

The night taxi-brousse ride. I will not live as long as I would’ve otherwise because of the stress incurred on that evening.

The sweltering heat of Toliara (although it was an experience, particularly combined with the pousse-pousse ride and the rolling blackouts).

The Salaam hotel in Tamatave (with the threatening-to-decapitate us fan and cockroaches)

Trying to get my visa card to give me money in the middle of nowhere

Being slightly worried about the boat capsizing trying to get out to ile ste marie – at least it makes for a great story, right?

Things closing for large parts of the afternoon.

The beggars in Abositra

Mauritius highs:

Visiting the ile aux agrittes. Seeing a pink pigeon and giant tortoises.

Dinner at the Vielle Rouge in Mahebourg

Mauritius lows:

Getting saddled with a boat that the craftsman was supposed to ship to the US

Not having more time to see more of the island. I’d love to go back someday to hike the national park where the kestrels live

Australia highs:

The river cruise on the Daintree

Riding a horse on the beach in Cape Trib

Holding a baby wallaby

Feeding wallabies, kangaroos, and an emu

Seeing a cassowary in the wild

The Rainforest habitat in Port Douglas

The great barrier reef

Glebe (by Sydney)

Royal Botanic Gardens – Sydney

Melbourne (especially the museum and the roasted chestnut stalls)

Penguins on Philip Island

Yarra Bend Park near Melbourne

Kervella Cheese

The night walk at the Krakamia wildlife refuge

The tree-top walk

Rottnest island

Australian crows. Their yowling cracks me up. I am still oh so sad that I lost the video I took of one doing it. Maybe I burned it off before my memory card was stolen? I don’t remember…

Freemantle (or Freo)

All the wildlife, particularly the roos, emus and the cockatoos.

King’s park in Perth

The zoos

Australia lows:

The robbery. Obviously. It’s had a pretty big impact on the rest of my travels

How expensive the country was.

My hostel in Adelaide

My friend getting in a car accident

My haircut in Perth, if you can call it that

Well – I haven’t really seen much of New Zealand yet, so these don’t really count, but;

NZ highs:

Akaroa

Hiking around Taylor’s mistake and the Port Hills.

The Botanical gardens

Cathedral square

The film festival

Willowbank

Alice in videoland and Yellow Rocket bagels. I love both of these places. And the Java café for iced mochas on weekends. And I should say my gym, as I’m there about half the week.

NZ lows:

The laptop debacle. Oh well, at least I got a working ipod out of all of that. And I’m not going to stress quite as much about somehow losing my files, photos, or music. And I can look forward to getting a new one sometime in the future.

In honor of all this traveling; Run Baby Run

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 29th, 2007 at 9:40 pm and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.