unfungible us

He who has great pictures, also has great responsibility...

2006-07-22T04:10:00.000-07:00

to post those pictures!

Well, I'm now mostly home - yesterday was a rediculously long day (flew over a quarter of the way around the world, dontcha know) and now am dealing with some jet lag. I think I'll overcome it sooner and easier than I did going oevr there, but it'll still take the whole weekend, and monday may be rough.

Regarding pictures, I have decided that the most straight forward route is to simply wait until Sunday or Monday and post those pictures from my home computer. It's pertty zippy (compared to some of the dogs I've been using while travelling) and I can actually download the images to my hard drive as opposed to nicking them from the camera all the time - I expect this will make the entire process easier.

I will be posting dozens of pictures as well, because I do appreciate that I was not able to muster a single photo while I completed the Contiki portion. What can I say? Boggin' ain't ez.

Pictures? We don't need no steekin' pictures!

2006-07-18T04:16:00.000-07:00

I think the title sums it up nicely. What actually happened is that Gillian went off to see cultural stuff, and I came back to the cafe to finally post pictures. Well, I'll give you one guess as to who has the camera.

However, it's not a total loss. In lieu of pictures, I present you with some ascii art.

Here's one of me in a crowd (I'm the one smiling):
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Here's me on the bus (we're at the front, Gillian is sleeping beside me):
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I've got more...but maybe you would prefer to see the real thing. I strongly suspect that I won't be able to post anything until Yellowknife now, but one never knows.

'Til next time.

And over here, we have the brains...

2006-07-17T12:57:00.000-07:00

Specifically, Florence is where the brains are (or were). In particular, residents include Galileo Galilei, Niccolo Machiavelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Dante, Donatello and Raphael. Basically, without Florence, we would have no Ninja Turtles; where would we be then?

Venice was a bit of an anti-climax. The center of Venice (and I imagine most of the city) is pedestrianized - so there are no cars anywhere. Obviously, that means there are a lot of boats. But I wasn't in Venice fort the transportation - I had two things that I really wanted to do in Venice: first was to upgrade from my current luggage - a duffle bag - to something more suitcasey. The second thing to do was to find an internet cafe and post some photos.

On both accounts, I failed. At a glance, Venice appears to have little besides fantastically expensive restaurants, fantastically expensive hotels, fanatistically expensive glass stores and fantasically expensive handbag stores. Well, that's perhaps not entirely accurate; there are cheaper versions of all those products (except the hotels), but you're not getting the "real" thing from the cheap guys, and depending on who you buy from, you can get ticketted and thrown in jail. Something to be avoided to be certain.

Venice in general is very noisy and crowded.

One interesting thing that I saw in Venice that I hadn't seen before was people dressed up as statues. Some street performers were dressed realistically enough that, when they were standing still (in a suitably statue-esque pose), most people strolled past without a glance, and then did a double-take when the statue started blowing kisses at them.

At the end of the day, I left Venice utterly exhausted and somewhat cranky. The busride to Florence (via Pisa) was nice, because it gave a chance to relax.

Pisa is one big gypsy-fest, and a condemned building. Worth a stop, to say you've been there, but I wouldn't even recommend staying overnight at a hotel.

Maybe I'm sounding a little down on Italy. Overall, I'm sure it's great and lots of culture and history and all that, but I'm just not all that into it, I'm finding. Maybe the pace of the trip and the heat is starting to wear me down a little. Oh well.

Earlier today, we made it to Florence. Florence seems nicer, and apparently, the shopping here is great, which should make the above referenced suitcase hunt easier. Obviously, the internet is easier to access here, and it looks like I'll be able to upload some pictures (finally!), from the cafe I'm at now, tomorrow.

Although, as anyone who reads this knows already, only time will tell. Any pictures I post tomorrow could well be the last during the actual trip, with a final post made from Yellowknife showing everything since.

And it aggravates me when people give italian salutations when they have visited Italy, so I'll just say so long.

...

Arrividerci. I couldn't help myself.

When the moon hits your eye...

2006-07-15T15:50:00.000-07:00

...like a big pizza pie, that's amore!

I've made it to Venice, which is quite warm. Over the past few days, we have travelled from Paris to Lucerne to Lichenstein (sp?) to Munich to Innsbruk to Verona to Venice. A lot of hours on the bus and a lot of great food at pretty much every stop.

It's late now, and I discovered (after waiting for until 1 am to get on a computer) that the computer will not allow the camera to be added as a device, which means no pictures...for now. There is an internet cafe that I will be able to access tomorrow (with AC!), so I will post from there. In the mean time, I need to get to sleep so that I am not a zombie come morning.

Ah, Paris - C'est magnifique.

2006-07-12T05:59:00.000-07:00

Here I sit in a small Paris internet cafe, blogging without a camera. I've spent the day looking for and then hanging out with an old friend of mine from Yellowknife who moved to Norway some years ago.

Paris is a great town, and pretty easy to get around in as well. Maybe I would feel differently if I lived here, but the subway is really effective in getting me from any part of the city to any other part, and I don't find it all that confusing either; just double-check the train is going in the correct direction and then hop on.

Because my day is spend mainly slumming and Gillian is at the Louvre, you can guess who has the camera. Hopefully tomorrow I will be able to post some more pictures - I think I've got about 4 days to make up for by this point. On the other hand, tomorrow, we're off to Lucerne, so depending on travel times, that may not be terribly likely.

Let me talk briefly about Paris. First of all: the French sure know how to build impressive buildings. We've seen the Military School that Napolean attended, the Eiffel Tower, we did a few rounds of the traffic circle arounf the Arc d'Triomphe, we went down the Champs Elysee, we saw the outside of the Louvre, the Paris Opera house (setting and inspiration of the Phantom of the Opera), the Assemble Nationale, Place de la Concorde (where all the executions of the French Revolution took place), Notre Dame (which took 250 (!!) years to build), and plenty more. We saw where Hitler danced a jig upon capturing Paris. Yep, Paris is one impressive town with crazy history. Did you know that during WWII, before Paris fell, the French put their German prisoners in buildings close to Notre Dame, so that the Germans wouldn't bomb the cathedral? Crazy.

Tonight, I'm off to see the Moulin Rouge.

At any rate, I've got to run now, but I'll keep posting text or pictures as conditions permit. See y'all in Lucerne.

Despite the rumours, London bridge is just fine.

2006-07-09T09:55:00.000-07:00

So here we are in sunny-cloudy-rainy-sunny-windy-cloudy-etc London. In the past two days we have been privy to two seperate Bristow family gatherings. I have to say that the frenetic pace of London is almost relaxing in comparison :). Today we took in both the Cabinet War Rooms (my choice) and the National Gallery (Gillian's choice). Pictures weren't taken in either museum, so all we will be able to post (when we are again able to post pics) will be general London area photos.

We will be able to post a few clever pics of the changing of the guard though, outside Buckingham Palace. We also meandered past 10 Downing Street, which bears a passing resemblance to a prison with luxury cars out front - this is more a comment on the large imposing walls and the plethora of heavily armed guards. To their credit, they seem to be very friendly.

That takes me to the reason that there are no photos in this post. The internet cafe we are at has very helpfully provided USB ports for customer use and then very unhelpfully disabled them. I am not enjoying my easyInternetCafe experience. If you happen to be near one and need to use the net, go somewhere else.

Well, that's all for me. To placate Erin (read the comments), Gillian has been coerced into writing this:

I am having a great, but exhausting day in London and I am looking forward to our Lamb dinner at first cousin (once removed) Hazel's house in London.

Still, with all the business, I still wonder how Erin's date with the hot Italian flight attendant, Antonio, went. Drop me a line, Erin, and let me know.

Kisses everyone!

90 years ago today...

2006-07-06T04:34:00.000-07:00

My grandmother was born. So we thought we'd have a cake.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves just yet. Yesterday was our first full day in Hythe, and what a great day it was! Gillian and I had breakfast at the Saltwood Cafe which, incidentally, was huge.
Me, being full, at the Saltwood.
High Street in Hythe. "High Streets" are much like main streets on the western side of the Atlantic.
Mimi's house.
The crypt at the local church. The one on the left looks like my mum! :D
In the evening, there was a concert played on the Canal. Here is the Royal Ghurka band playing.
And the fireworks finale. It was really, really good.

Oh, and my aunt Sue complained about the picture of her that I put up on the Blog earlier (taken at Towanroath). So, I have decided to dedicate a whole post to her, in the very near future. Any Bristow blog-watchers in particular, keep your eyes here for an up and coming Sue-stravaganza.

When seconds count...

2006-07-05T04:40:00.000-07:00

I only have about 20 minutes to make as many posts as possible right now, so words will have to wait until later!

On to the pics.

Another shot of Brian and Sarah's garden.
Us.
Ducks.
Leeds Castle.
Falconry demonstration.

A garden in Smarden...

2006-07-04T00:37:00.000-07:00

So, I'll begin by noting that I am back in dial-up land, so this will be a picture-light post. The next thing that I wanted to mention was an e-mail I received from my uncle Alan, checking in from Budds Oast.

I had no idea that you were so interested in the words 'Budds Oast'. Grammatically there probably should be an apostrophe but the words originate back to a period when most people spoke and did not write while phonetic punctuation had not been tested.

An entry in an old guide book states ' Budds is a hamlet in this parish lying about three quarters of a mile westward from Shipbourne Church.'

Another reference states ' The family of John Budde, mentioned in 1293, had parted with the property but their name had stuck to the house.'

You are probably aware that both our neighbours, Great and Little Budds, may originally have had 'Farm' in their titles while the grass area is shown as Budds Green.

That's not only very interesting, but it lines up nicely with some of the grammatical facts from "Eats, Shoots and Leaves" - namely that punctuation is a living and evolving sort of thing, and that the the apostrophe, in particular, seems to shift in and out of acceptable usage as time progresses. Furthermore, back in the days of John Budde, I'm not even sure that the apostrophe existed even if the locals had known how to write.

Moving on now - yesterday, we drove down from Shrewsbury to the village of Smarden, to stay with my uncle Brian and my aunt Sarah. The drive was long, and getting tedious by the end of it, but we did have a GPS navigational system in the car which gave directions with an australian accent. It had been named Bruce by Bob and Sue. I think it aggravated Dave while he drove, much to the amusement of the rest of us in the car.

Brian and Sarah continue the English trend of having a marvelous garden. Here is a picture, for your edification.

Well, that's all I've got for now. Tomorrow, I will be trying to find an internet cafe, or some other public access point in either Folkestone or Hythe. Depending on my success, you may or may not see a lot of posting over the next few days.

Macro mode, FTW!

2006-07-01T16:52:00.000-07:00

So, I discovered a few days ago that our camera has a built-in macro mode. Every now and then I see a pretty looking flower and will snap it. I thought I would share some of the highlights with you now.

In no particular order:

Ah yes, Happy Canada Day as well. Would someone please have a Molson Canadian for me?

What rhymes with Towanroath?

2006-07-01T16:14:00.000-07:00

I dunno, but it's where we're staying. Towenroath is the name of the house that we're at, much like the previous house was called (properly now) "Budds Oast".
Our hosts are my uncle Bob and my aunt Sue, who are both very cheery and entertaining.

Apologies to both for the poor choice of picture but, unfortunately, it's the best I've got of both of you.

To everyone else: This picture was taken last night at dinner. Dinner itself was rather good, and Bob commented a number of times that he'd never seen so much cider being drunk in a single evening.

But enough of that. Let's get on to what we did for the day. Well, we started by walking through thick fields a "Stinging Nettles", a delightful english plant that irritates the skin with a mild burning sensation for hours after ou have brushed against it. Most of us did our walk in shorts and t-shirt, which made for some interesting times later.
At the conclusion of our nettled walk, we had lunch here.
After lunch, we had a stumble through the nearby town of Clive.

I have photographed the appropriate cairn, just in case you didn't believe me.
The heart of Clive is this 1000+ year old church, built originally by the Normans.
A closer shot of the church, which handily shows the hill which we were about to climb.
Climbing the hill allowed us this view. As usual, the camera doesn't do the experience justice.

On the other side of the hill, we stopped by yet another pub for dinner before moseying back to Towenroath for supper.

It's a hard life when you're on vacation.

Oh yeah, England was eliminated by Portugal in the World Cup of Soccer. My sympathies to the English fans out there.

Go North, Young Man. And the rest of you too.

2006-07-01T15:54:00.000-07:00

June 30 in Pictures.
We went from Budds Oast to here...
to here...
to here...
to here...
and finally got picked up...
...here.

I don't know about you, but I was exhausted.

Total Trip time: 7-8 hours.

Budds Oast, Day 3

2006-06-30T13:52:00.000-07:00

So, it turns out that it is properly spelt without an apostrophe at all. As far as we could put together at dinner, the Oast was The Oast for the region with the moniker of Budds. As is apparently English custom, the apostrophe is omitted for buildings which represent The particular building of the area. An example is nearby Underriver House, seen here.

At any rate, on to the pictures!

In the morning, we took this wooded trail...
and then walked through this field to the church in the distance...
to visit this farmer's market. I bought fresh picked raspberries, and Gillian bought feta and olive bread. Other finds included cherries, some locally produced drink and some scones. All in all, a rather successful outing.
After visiting the Farmer's market, we went back to Budds Oast for a rest before marching in the other direction, going past the above pictured UnderRiver House and these British icons, before winding up...
here, for lunch.
On the way back, we crossed a field full of sheep.
I took this photo, which I think is rather nice.
Lastly, as a closing shot, Budds Oast by night. The next day, we set off for Shrewsbury. Details to follow tomorrow.

Day 2, Budds Oast

2006-06-30T08:07:00.000-07:00

So I've been reading "Eats, Shoots and Leaves", and am quite at a loss as to whether it should be "Budd's Oast", "Budds' Oast" or "Budds Oast". For those who don't know, the English name their houses. Budds Oast (or whatever) is the name of the house we have been staying at.

Anyways, here ya go.

The first image is taken on a walk I took on my first evening in England.

The subsequent images were taken during the next morning, on a walk I took, due entirely to jet lag.
In the image immediately at right, you can see a "turnstyle". The English have public paths that wind through privte property. At each fence can usually be found a turnstyle, designed exclusively to help people step over that which could be said is designed to keep them out. A rather fantastic idea, if I do say so myself.

More morning walk. I'm particularly pleased with how this shot turned out.
A historical building called "Ightem Mote". Very picturesque - just like the rest of it.
My grandmother - Mimi or just Meem, as you prefer - stopped by for a visit.

Apparently, someone off frame has just cracked a joke that my aunt Carol finds rather amusing.
Ellie, the happy dog from a few posts ago, is evidently amused by the same joke.
Gillian has a quick swim, before we dash into nearby Tonbridge on an errand.
And here we are, literally dashing. The errand was actually to access the internet at the local library, in order for me to continue posting this blog. Unfortunately, we got lost - several times - and I fell asleep in the back seat before order would be finally restored.

I hope you all appreciate what I go through to keep you abreast of our routine!

I'll probably be posting again in a few hours, in an effort to get us somewhat up to the minute.

More Photos.

2006-06-28T08:35:00.000-07:00

The flight over.

Establishing photos of where we are staying.

One happy dog.

I expect I will not be able to post again until Friday. Half an hour later in Newfoundland.

Pictures, pictures, pictures.

2006-06-28T08:06:00.000-07:00

My first straight razor shave. Guys, this is a good thing. I recommend it. If you're in Calgary, go to Assman's. Hilarious name and a great shave. Where can you go wrong?

Five handsome gents waiting for a bride.

One bride, and two proud parents.

Do you? I do.

This picture was taken at what would be described by some guests as "the best party ever."

dial-up ain't ez

2006-06-28T01:10:00.000-07:00

First, I ought to apologize for taking so long to update the blog. As you can probably guess, a lot has happened since the last post. First and foremost was our wedding. Gillian and I were married on June 24, 2006. But maybe I should rewind and start at the end of the rehearsal dinner.

At the "rehearsal" dinner, Gillian asked that I choose the music that she would walk down the aisle to. After clean-up had all been finished, Jarrod (my best man) and I drove back to his place, so that we could sort out that particular detail.

We listened to a bunch of music, including Moonlight Sonata (Beethoven), Moonlight Serenade (The Glenn Miller Orchestra), Swan Lake (Tchaikovsky) and more. I should mention that the piece which occured to me first was the Imperial March - you know, Darth Vader's theme in Star Wars. After input from Kristen (Jarrod's better half) and Angie (one of Gillian's bridesmaids, who was very patient after being awoken at 1:00 in the morning), I selected "Simple" by k.d. lang. We all went to bed shortly after settling the music to be played.

The day of the wedding was frantic. Jarrod and I awoke and were on the road by 8:00 am. We grabbed breakfast from Starbucks and McDonalds (we each wanted something different), picked up some dry cleaning, got a straight razor shave and then made our way over to the college.

The morning consisted of the ceremony rehearsal - this time we actually rehearsed something - and then everyone broke up to get prepared. Being the groom, I was confined to the outside of the building so that I didn't run into a bride by accident. We all moved at something close to top speed the entire morning, with even a few of the guests getting into the act, in order to have everything ready in time.

As the hour approached, the groomsmen all bundled into their suits and began looking all rather sharp.

The ceremony itself was short and sweet. My family seemed to have some difficulty understanding that they needed to be sitting in the front row, but with some cajoling, it all worked out.

After the ceremony, we had pictures being taken. Some really phenomenal ones came out of that, and I will be posting one or two when I have a chance.

Following the pictures was the reception, which went off without a hitch. I think everyone had a really good time there. The chicken that was served was amazing, and our first dance was to Chuck Berry's "You Never Can Tell".

Following the reception, Gillian and I spent our first night as man and wife at the Westin Hotel, in downtown Calgary.

On Sunday, we had an open house and gift opening at a family friend's house. The food and company were delightful. I'll just take a moment to thank everyone again for their generosity and their kindness.

On Monday, our last day in Canada before crossing the pond to England, I went to Cochrane's Gleneagles golf course with Camil, and we played the majority of 18 holes. Golf, as it goes, is not without a measure of fun, but I'm not sure that it is the game for me. Still though, I've been re-assured that nobody likes golf after their first round. Maybe I'll try it again in England.

Monday evening, at 7:30 pm (Calgary time), we left terra firma and made our way eastward. We touched down at 11:35 am GMT, some 8 and a bit hours later at Heathrow Airport where we were picked up by my uncle Brian and my aunt Sarah. We were then driven out to a country house near the town of Sevenoaks, and it is from here that I write this entry. The scenery is marvelous.

So, you're probably wondering where all the photos of this busy couple of days are. The problem is that during Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, I've had absolutely no time to post anything. I was looking forward to being able to post some pictures now that I'm settled in one spot for a few days, but unfortunately, my uncle has only dial-up from his home. I will wait until I can visit a local internet cafe to post the full images of the past couple of days.

Normally, I try to keep it down to 5 photos per day. Not to worry - on the day that I do post, I will be sure to post a good deal more.

Until then.

Approaching deadlines cause a helluva ruckus

2006-06-23T22:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was frantic. And then there was a bridal shower. The bachelor party ran into the bridal party at the Whiskey. Live it vicariously.

Today has been frantic. Pics below are of the "rehearsal dinner". The quotes are because nothing was actually rehearsed.

Stay tuned.

Bachelor Party, Part 1

2006-06-22T14:48:00.000-07:00

So, my bachelor party is actually a two part affair. Gillian will have the camera for her bridal shower tonight, so our up and coming criminality will not be advertised for the world to see. In the mean time, here's what I did yesterday and today (so far!).

More Tomorrow!

Look sharp, troops!

2006-06-21T07:00:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I just got down to Calgary last night. The flight was overall enjoyable. I saw some crazy clouds from the plane. Well, without pictures, its hard to relate the experience, so I'll do the next best thing.

This here is a plugin for Google Earth. When using it, you are able to watch in real time any flight. I don't have it on hand, but when I do, I'll post my flight information for when I cross the pond. Anyone who is then interested can feel free to watch me fly.

Ok, so there are more exciting things to do with your time. Anyways, I'll check in again with a camera in hand. Probably later today.

Another blog bites the dust!

2006-06-19T21:59:00.000-07:00

And by that, I mean another blog gets rolling. So, welcome one, welcome all to Pierre and Gillian's photoblog across Europe.

We have yet to get the camera though. That happens on Wednesday.

Since I lack a camera, I will instead post a picture of my dog, just to get things going.

There he is! That is his serious face.