Then and now

Venice has had record flooding in the past few days, and it seems so strange to see the photos of it now compared to when we saw it over a month ago.

Then (St. Mark's Square):

(Remember these yellow chairs from this café!)

And now:

(There are the yellow chairs!)

Oxford Circus Tube Station

One of the busiest places to shop at...it was a mob scene of shoppers when we got off at this station.

Back to London, please

If a plane ticket to London blew down the street to me I'd pick it up and fly back there right now.  For now, I'll just have to live through the photos...

Long time no see

I've been a little erratic with the blog posting -- not that there's a lack of things to post about; I've just been busy with other things (a really good book, cleaning, painting, figuring out gifts for Christmas...).

Here's some more shots from our vacation (these are from Northern Ireland):

Windy at the beach

Taken at Castlerock Beach, Northern Ireland.

Autumn

When we were in Richmond Hill, Ontario the trees were just starting to turn.  Beautiful!

Goodies

We brought back treats for ourselves...british candy is soooooo good!

Magazine haul

I went crazy with buying magazines on vacation.  The ones below are from the UK, Spain and Italy:

Differences and other musings

We've been home for almost two days now, and I'm still adjusting to normal life around here.  It's amazing how being away for a while has changed my views on where we live -- here's some examples:

• The cars here are HUGE.  As are the roads.  Nice and wide and relatively straight!
  
• You won't be looked at as a target crossing the road.  And you don't feel like you're in a live-action frogger game when you do attempt to cross the street.
  
• There are no people here.  Seriously.  
  
• Small roundabouts = good.  Gianormous roundabouts with no rules = bad.
  
• It's CLEAN here.  And we recycle.
  
• It doesn't smell like a festering ashtray when you step outside.  You don't risk cigarette/cigar/pipe burns walking in public. 
  
• People are civilized, and for the most part, have manners and follow rules.
  
• Things are CHEAP here.
  
• Showers are big -- and my elbows are happy for that.
  

I have a whole new appreciation for home, but there are a few things I wish we had here:

• Awesome small cars that are zippy to drive.  (our Peugeot was really cool)
  
• Responsibly sourced food available in grocery stores and restaurants.
  
• Pride for local products and discouraging the purchases of 'exotica' (yup, that's what they call it!) from faraway countries.
  
• Big department stores that carry fab products (the Bay and Sears make me cringe now), and have food floors that blow your mind.

And just some general things I've noticed being back at home:

• The water here is great.  Soap lathers up really well!  
  
• The trees hardly dropped any leaves. (I think they're late this year...I had dreams of coming back to bags of raking to do.)
  
• The reno fairies didn't come and finish all of our projects while we were gone.
  
• You can't get wake-up calls or room service on our phones.  LOL
  

We're home!

We made it back to normal life again...barely.  Both of us have some crazy jet lag going on (we went to bed before 7pm yesterday).  Seeing as work is quiet (hurrah!) I'm going to attempt to tackle some laundry and unpacking.  Small goals today.

Day 25 - The long way home...

Today is going to be exhausting with a capital E.  We're getting up early to catch our plane out of Barcelona at 7:35am (which will be around 10pm the night before where we live! augh!) and heading to London for 9am to connect with our flight to Vancouver for 12:05pm.  We get into Vancouver around 2pm (local time) which will be so strange seeing as it will feel like 10pm to us.  

We're on our last leg home!  

Last bit of Barcelona

I'm headed to bed now (mleghhhh early morning coming). Here's what we got up to today:

The view from our room.

Looking down a little alley in the Gothic Quarter.

Shady dudes selling rip-off purses (notice the strings attached to the corners of the fabric for an easy getaway!).

Free Damm.  Volt-Damm.  Damm Lemon.  Awesome.

At the end of Las Ramblas.

Do not adjust your screens...that's a PINK Smeg dishwasher!!! :)

Malta

Here's some shots of Malta:

Day 24 - Everybody off, and back to Barcelona!

The only thing I can say about leaving a cruise ship on the last day is that it always sucks.  It's like a smack to the head getting up early and seeing that everyone is doing a mass exodus to the exits (and the breakfast buffet, but that's another story).  There's no relaxation to be had today (especially if you're some of the silly people who book a flight in the morning and have to rush like crazy to the airport).  Fortunately, we are not those crazy people.  

We've learned to take our luggage with us off the ship (instead of having it loaded the night before) so we don't have to wait to retrieve it from the carousels, and we can walk off the ship whenever we want.  We're also not catching a flight out today, so we have almost a full day in Barcelona to take in.

 

We're staying at the Hotel Jazz tonight, which will be strange in two ways: it won't be floating; and it will be much bigger than our cabin over the last 12 days!  :)

Day 23 - At sea

Today is our third day at sea, and Halloween!  I've never been on a cruise ship for Halloween...or spent Halloween floating in the Med or other body of water... 

It's also our last day on the ship, and we'll be spending part of the evening packing our goodies (and hoping the zippers don't burst!).  Tomorrow is going to be an early morning with everyone being booted from their cabins, eating breakfast and eventually getting off the ship.

Day 22 - Valletta, Malta

We were supposed to be in Tunisia today, (which would have been cool to say we've been in Africa!), but due to some port issue, we're in Valletta instead.  To be truthful, I don't know much about Malta (other than Madi DiPassion being from there -- Cynthia will be the only one who understands that comment...LOL, he was a guy in our graphic design program for a year), but we're going to wander out and see what we can find!

Split

Well, we arrived offshore in Split yesterday, but we weren't able to tender to the city due to crappy weather. (It was fine in the morning, but there was a storm coming in for the afternoon, which isn't good for the little tender boats.) So we had a day at sea to relax (and another one today) before we arrive in Malta tomorrow.

Our 4x4 excursion was cancelled in Split, so we've arranged for another one in Malta tomorrow, which should be fun!

Venice

Venice was a great place to visit, namely because we couldn't get run over by any cars! All through the canals, only people can walk, which was really nice. We lucked out early and figured out the public transport system using vaparettos (water buses) which were fairly quick and never had us wait too long for one. We bought a 36-hour pass which gave us unlimited usage for that time.

We saw St. Mark's Square first, and it was full of gothic venetian architecture and pigeons. Everything in the sqaure is really expensive and touristy, but if you go a few streets in, things become less expensive (we compared gelato prices!).

We also went to Murano -- which is known for it's glass production. We saw some glassblowing and walked around some galleries and shops.

Funniest soft drink.  LOL!!

Where people live in Venice (well, one part!).

Skinny alley!  (oh, and Trevor's there too!)

Gothic venetian architecture in St. Mark's Square.  oh la la

The tower in St. Mark's.

Best. Hot. Chocolate. EVER.  (I mean that.  We have had dreams of it...sigh.)

Rush hour in the canal.  5 gondola pile-up...LOL!