TravelStream™ news feed for member megs09 on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/megs09 en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Fri, 25 Jul 2008 14:26:04 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/megs09/3/1214072160/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/megs09/3/1214072160/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/megs09/3/1214072160/tpod.html Fri, 25 Jul 2008 14:26:04 -0400 Norway, Uganda and whatever countries I can visit on cheap flights!

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Carcassonne, Languedoc-Roussillon, France

A one day trip to Carcassone from Toulouse to visit the medieval city where construction started in the 4th century and ended in the 16th century. You can see the different stages of fortification and building of Carcassone as different owners took over. Very interesting despite being a very touristy location.
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Pyrénées Central, France

Here are some pictures of the beautiful Pyrénées Centrals where I have been working in last of the old growth forests of France.
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Roskilde, Zealand, Denmark

I returned to Denmark but this time visited Helingsør and Roskilde. Both were very nice towns to visit. In Helingsør you can see Hamlet's castel (Shakespear) and walk around in the quaint little town. Not far away is a really nice sandy beach accessible by bus. We brought a pic-nic, kite, and bubbles and spent the whole day there. The I also visited Roskilde another very nice town, where you can find the Cathedral of Roskilde where many of Denmark's Kings and Queens are burried.
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Bremen, Bremen, Germany

This was my return trip to Germany to go to a graduation celebration in Hannover. I flew into Bremen first though and took and short tour around the beautiful city. Bremen is perhaps best know for being the home of Beck's beer. It is a nice city to fly into since the airport is only a 15 minute ride away from downtown/central train station.
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Hjerkinn, Norway

Having 10 days off school for easter holiday, I decided to do as the Norwegians to and head to the moutains to spend some time skiing. I planned a 9 day ski tour from Hjerkinn to Lillehammer, ending on Sunday March 23 and spending a day in Hafjell telemark skiing.
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Beneditkbeuren, Germany

In order to cure my depression I yet again took off to the mountain, this time on a 10 day trip to Germany, Austria and finally in Denmark. Yes I know there are no mountains in Denmark but it is a beautiful city none the less and deserved a visit.
My trip started off in Munich where I spent a few hours wondering around. I returned to visit the city hall with the famous clock. This time since it was not tourist season I was able to get a bit closer to the clock although I was not there at 12 to see the figures come out and dance.
I walked around and stock up on necessities such as toothpaste to avoid expensive Norwegian prices. I even got a 19 Euro haircut, while you can get cheaper hair cuts I was in a rush and went to this salon anyways hoping the extra money would be worth it. It was not in the end I still ended up with a shitty hair cut- I will have to fix it myself now!
In the even I took the train to Benediktbueren where I met my friend from Sweden, Emanuel. We stayed at the beautiful Zentrum für Umwelt which is a very old monastery that now serve as an area for cultural and environmental education and they also have accommodation. The village and monastery are very charming and will win your heart over at first sight. There are traditional Bavarian homes in the village and the landscape is formed by snow capped mountains and moors. This is an area highly worth visiting and Bavarians are some of the nicest people I have ever met. Be sure to learn how to say hello so that you can greet others in the street as you pass them as well. In Bavaria this is normally Grüß Gott (may God greet you, sort of pronounced goose gott), the area is very catholic.
Since there was no snow in Benediktbueren and snow conditions were not so good we took off to Austria too an area near Tirol. Thus my child hood dream of skiing in the Alps came true! We skied up a valley, climbed a steep slope and found ourselves struck by winds blowing at 130 km/h! There was a strong wind storm happening. We were unable to walk along the ridge because of the strong winds and the way we came up didn't look good for skiing down so we huddled up at the top for about an hour hoping the winds would calm down. When no change in the winds came we crawled over to the other side of the ridge to see if we could ski down there. It looked good so we abandoned our old plans and headed down the other side of the mountain. We skied down some decent snow and safely back to our car exiting, from a differently valley. Days later we discovered why we had difficulty coming up the mountain and getting down- we had started up the wrong valley to start with! Fun none the less.
The second day we were in the same area but opted for a longer ski tour but where we would be protected from any strong winds. The skies were clear and the sun was out, by the lunch time I was skiing in a t-shirt and thermals only. We approached an Austrian hut, which is quite big to Canadian standards and is always staffed. There we were greeted by a great big dog and the hut operators and spoke with them shortly. As we were getting ready to take off the husband sat down in the sun with his wife and began to play his accordion! Sun, snow, mountain and live music, I couldn't have wished for more.
We pushed on a finally came to our glacier, turned around a skied back.
On our fourth day of skiing we were again in Austria- but I am at a loss to tell you where we were exactly. This time we were joined by a funky German monk called Robert. Robert sported hot pink ski boots from the 80s- which was great since it was still snowing I knew we would never lose sight of him. We started at a lower elevation that day and the snow conditions were marginal climbing up meaning that Emanuel and I walked up to save our gear while Robert continued to ski up since he had the advantage of old second hand gear that he didn't care about that much. At the top the snow was much better and the ski down was again better than the previous day.
Our fourth day of skiing was the shortest but one of the best since 30-40 cm of fresh snow had just fallen. We had only a few hours to ski so this time we stayed in Germany and stayed close skiing somewhere near Kochel I believe- near the Zugspitzer. We had quickly skied up the fresh snow and encountered lots of people coming down the mountain having already enjoyed the snow. We easily spotted Robert the monk ripping up the snow too as we made our way up. Boots and old style of skiing were not hard to miss. We made it to the top and skied down some great snow- some of the best snow I had skied all year since I had missed the best of the BC pow by leaving BC so early in the ski season.
On the final day we were able to make another quick ski trip in about 4 hours that was right on the border of Austria and Germany before we headed to the other end of Germany for a 7 hour car ride to Hannover.
The great thing about skiing in Alps is how accessible they are and the number of short trips that you can do. Unlike BC you don't need 1-3 days to do a ski trip, a few hours is enough for you to ski up and have a great ski down. Unfortunately, I didn't see much of Hannover since we arrived so late and the next morning we hopped on a train to go to Copenhagen next! This was one of the best trips I have ever done since I had a local tour guide (Emanuel) and got to see and experience so much more of the culture.
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Åre, Sweden

After having been away from the mountains of BC for too long I needed to find some mountains to go play in. I had decided I would head to Åre, Sweden's largest ski are. What I didn't realize was that it was quite far north and took a days travel to get there. I hopped on a bus to Ostersund since my guide book said I could take a local bus from there to Åre. However when I got to Ostersund at 7:00pm, this being Sweden everything was shut down and there were no more buses running to Åre and I still had about 150kms to go. So I hitch hiked. Sweden is not the best place to hitch hike in though because there are not many safe places along the highway to stand. In winter your choices are the road or the snow bank! Fortunately a nice paraglider picked me up and drove me into Åre, finally arriving around 10:30pm. Most cheap places were booked the first night due to an university holiday which I was unaware of so I had to fork out a bit of cash the first night to stay in Hotel Tott. The price was fortunately not that bad for the nice room and free breakfast that I got. I was scheduled to leave the next morning from Ostersund but having decided that Åre was a hassel to get to I figured it would be a shame to only ski there one day. So I found a new hostel that had just opened up and found the next cheap train ticket that would take me directly back to Ås and cancelled my bus tickets. If you are going to travel to Åre the best way is either by train of plane! The next cheap train ticket wasn't for another 5 days, so I had some time in Åre.
Being the cheap person that I am I only bought a ski ticket once out of the 6 days I was there. This was only because I figured the weather wasn't good enough for me to go off touring by myself. Other days I would put my skins on my skis and go exploring the off pist areas and backcountry skiing areas. I realized that this was actually the best thing for me to do anyways because the skiing at Åre isn't really any good anyways. It is mostly beginner and intermediate runs, nothing very interesting except for off pist. Åre has a reputation for being Sweden's best skiing but I would say it is really more of a playground for the rich to go and get drunk in. People seem to go to Åre to party and the area is less about the skiing. While I had a good time touring, I would not recommend going there for the skiing. The ski resort also has very bad customer service. At least I got my fix of the mountains and could return home to study some more.
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Stockholm, Sweden

Facing the potential threat of being bored for the weekend I took off to Sweden. My plan was to only go for 4 days but that turned into 9 days! I stayed in Stockholm for two days before take off to Åre (the next entry). While in Stockholm I visited I friend I had met in New Zealand, explored the town, the city hall, and Skansen Museum. I stayed on a boat that had been turned into a hostel which was interesting. Stockholm is a city of islands, which can make it difficult to navigate and get around but it is a very pretty city. There are many nice buildings, one of which in the city hall where they also award the noble prizes. The city hall is right on the water as well and this is where the mayor apparently drank a glass of water directly out of the lake for the summer Olympic bid to show how clean Stockholm was- ironically China got the bid though.
I also visited the Skansen museum which was very interesting and was the first open air museum to be built. As you walk around outside you can visit the native animals of Sweden, walk inside old cottages, farm house, see Sami villages and such. I got a bit of a shock when I walked into an old farm laborer's house and found a really woman sitting there knitting. This was the first time I have been to a museum with live people. She explained to me what the life of a farmer laborer was like in Sweden- they basically worked on the farm in exchange for a bit of food and the small cottage and were only contracted for a year. Skansen is well worth a visit- but make sure you do it on a nice day.
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Geilo, Norway

Eight of us traveled from UMB to Geilo to visit the Ice Music Festival, this is the world's only ice music festival. Geilo is a beautiful little ski town, although noticeably touristy. It was a wonderful trip but we also learned some key things on the trip. It is important to note that when traveling in Norway it is best not to book ahead online. Either call or wait until you get there. Some of us booked the festival tickets online as well as the hostel and had to pay fees for this. Also since the Ice festival is new, this was its third year, little information is available as to a correct schedule of events. So if you plan to go to the festival only buy day tickets and it is also best to buy on site.
There was lots of snow all over town so we spent the first day skiing/ snowshoeing to town to buy winter gear for those of us less equipped for cold weather and buy some groceries. In the afternoon we attended an ice carving workshop where we got to use some very expensive tools and attempt to make some pretty marks in the ice, although I failed miserably at this. In the evening we attended a 7:00pm concert where we watched some Guatemalans play ice drums and an ice marimba (like a large xylophone). I am pretty sure these guys were freezing since it was their first time seeing snow and they were wearing their traditional outfits! Next was a female singer from sweden with her brother on a xylophone and someone else on percussion. Then we had another larger break before the 12:00am concert, if you ever decide to go the the ice festival bring entertainment for yourself to pass the time between events! We brought beer and snacks and discussed depressing issues of consumerism and limited resources (as conversationalists usually do) At 12:00am we watch a very interesting Sami concert performed by a girl signing and someone on percussion and a type of ice horn. I have included some videos.
On Sunday I skied to the top of one of the Geilo ski hills while my friend snowshoed. The ski hill wasn't very big and so this way we avoided paying for the lift ticket! I only got one run down though.
The next day Afton and I fulfilled our dreams of ice climbing. It didn't last long enough though and we can't wait to do it again. We got two short ice climbs in. We were the guides best customers apparently since we were the first ones to show up that had ever had previous rock climbing experience! It was a lot of fun and I would highly recommend it, but the guide's dogs ate Afton's water bottle.
Many interesting things to do in Geilo, well worth the visit!
Again Afton took many pictures as well, many of which turned out nicer than mine since she has a much better camer. You can check them out at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aftonhalloran/page2/
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Oslo, Norway

One Norwegian and a group of us exchange students went to Oslo for the day. We visited the Viking museum where we saw 3 viking ships and then went to the Edward Munch (pronounced Monk) museum. I went to the Edward Munch museum mainly because it was free I have to admit but it was interesting and revealed Munch's issues with women. It appeared as if he saw women as evil temptressed and a symbol or cause of death. The Viking museum was also very interesting and had many beautiful artifacts. The three ships were burial ships of wealthy or noble people. With them there had been burried all their nice possessions, some of which were recovered if grave robbers hadn't stolen them. To us poor students the Vikings seemed also wasteful sinc they also burried their dead with horses (transportation) and food in order for them to make the journey to the afterlife.
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