That's hobo style..............................................................

Back on the road. It's been some time since my last update-longer than I would have liked it to be, but such is the cost of a steady income.
So I guess the last you heard was Dublin. We flew out of Dulin, into Luton as planned. Got to London, on to the Bournemouth Warren. Getting out of London on a cancelled flight proved trying, but I go by with a little help from my friends. I suppose I sort of forgot to update when I got home, so the stuff after Dublin's a bit of a footnote, for which I do apologize, but alas - three months have since passed us by.

I'm currently in Ontario, that's kinda neat. I'm at my cousins' place right now outside Binbrook. I'm travelling currently with my brother as we pick out way back home. Earlier in the summer my friend Robert and I bought a car together. It was decided that I was to drive him home to Stratford, Ontario as an end to his summer on island. There were a few concerns about the feasibility of such a venture, but they have all been swept aside with the bold recklessness of roadtrippery.
This is how I've found my way to my present position in Southern Ontario.
Veera, Josh Underhay, my friend Danielle Sharkey, my afore mentioned friend Robert Crossley and I set off mid morning on the 26th of August for La Ville de Québec. We stayed a night in Québec with Jackie Sharkey-where we ditched Danielle. Arrival the next day in Dyers Bay 12 hours or so after we left was welcomed by a hot meal and cold beer and fresh beds.
The week spent in Dyers bay turned out -to our surprise- only to be a day and a half. Our rest and relaxation was a most refreshing reprise from responsibility. We spent the next night in Stratford.
And so I find myself here, at the Evan'ses writing up to let you all now I'm not dead- just landlocked.
Since it might another three months until you hear from me again, I'll tell you what we're planning for the way home. Tomorrow, say three-ish, Josh and Veera and I will head off to our Sister's place in Hamilton. We'll stay there for a night or two, head off to Montreal an finally homeward. This fall doesn't promise much in the way of activity for the blog. Not to worry, there are a few intriguing prospects to be explored on PEI for the time being.

In response also to that last entry- I will at some point be posting some sort of pictures once I get the time. School will be happening in the fall.


Enjoy the ride

Come travel light....................................................................


So, having last heard I was heading to Lithuania, you're not exactly in the know as a diligent travel blog reader. This is my fault for infrequent postings. To be fair, though, I have been adventuring more and interneting less. There's more to write and less time to write it. I did actually write some pretty breif posts in Berlin and Amsterdam, but for whatever reason, the internet refused to work as expected. Oh well.

So we flew into Kaunas, Lithuania around the 17th of April. We were picked up by our soon to be Lithuanian friends, Erika and Mintaute. We stayed in a sweet apartment Erika set up for us and partied heartily Lithuanian style. They showed us around the town and outside (for a notable night at Mindogas' (sp?) Cottage in the sauna). I can't just say that was the highlight, as this while trip has been fantastic, but that was certainly an awesome chapter.
After Vilnius we bused across Poland, unfortunately unable to stop. We made it to Berlin some 19 hours later. That was fun.
Berlin rocked ou collective socks with good times and bad. It was a cool town that we walked all over. Unfortunately I lost my money belt and the 200 € therein (I may have had some help in losing it). We had a great day at the Embassy.
We trained straight from Berlin to Amsterdam, which was also a sock rocking good time. The hostel we had had roof access off the balcony, providing us with a unique view of the town. The last night there we got screwed for trains and hostels (as it was Queens day in holland), so our trip took a drastic change southward. Instead of catching a night train to Paris, or making a stop in Brussels, we slept in a park and took the morning train to Luzern, Switzerland. Luckily, Luzern was a beautiful city that could have played host to any number of fairy tales. Here, we encountered a local marathon festival. Also, the Swiss are wonderful people.
Thinking ahead this time, we were able to book some cheap accomodations in Venice for our next two nights stay. Venice is always a reliably awesome ton to lose yourself in. I highly recommend.
Next to bat was Rome, where we only were able to stay one night and two days. The first night we found a free May-day concert happening near our hostel. We spent the next day well and saw the Roman Forum, picnicked in circus massimo, and got blessed by the Pope within a 4 hour time period. Much of Rome was explored.
So the plan had been to go from Rome to Barcelona, and last you heard that's where we were headed.
Well. Let me tell you....
As it turns out, and we discovered this in mont Pellier in Southern France on our way through, that trains into Barcelona were ok, but trains out were mostly full. The only way out of Barcelona by rail involved us paying 60+ €. We opted to spend more time in Paris.
Paris was good to us and we made some good finds-the best of which, in my opinion, was a visored Vespa Motorcycle helmet in a garbage pile that is in phenomenal condition. It's a bit annoying to pack, but it saves me a bunch of money. :)
We were in Paris long enough to do all the tourist stuff, from the Louvre to the Eiffel tower. We walked Paris 3 times over and just explored everywhere we could think of. We hooked ourselves up with some cheap reservations for a train to the coast, and one thing lead to another-you know how french wine can accelerate these things....anyway, now we're in Dublin.
We've just done the Guinnes tour today, and we're off to cook real potatoes in a hostel Kitchen for supper. I'm giddy with spud anticipation.
From here the plan is to head back to England tomorrow night and land in Bournemouth the next morning. We'll spend a few days with the Warrens, chillin in good company and head back to London, where we fly out.

I'll land in Halifax and hang with more good company before returning to PEI- where I'm sure to encounter even more good company. Things are looking up for sure.

I'll be seeing ya,
Mitch

PS Sorry again for the infrequent contact with everyone. I really haven't had much internet access. I'll catch up on all emailing and updating ASAP. Pictures will be posted too. :)

Just grab your hat..........................................

Alirght, so again internet is sparce. I have 3 minutes to write this, so it'll be short but sweet.
Since Berlin, we've been through Amsterdam, Switzerland and Italy. I'm in Roma right now and we leave in 20 minutes for Barcelona. It'll be 24 hours of train, so I may not be in any condition to write another update when we get there.
At some point, though, you will hear of my adventures. Each and every one of you.
Worry not, it's on the way!

Ciao

So if you wanna join me for a while..............................................................

Oxford. Well, When last you heard the plan was to bike down to Stonehenge and back in just a few days. The impracticality of this set in in slowly, but surely. Since we were in the midst of facilitating the borrowing bicycles anyway, we decided that a bike trip somewhere would be good. We opted to go just as far Oxford.
Since, all of a sudden, we were going half the distance we thought we'd go, we had more time to play with. So we took all the back roads we could getting to Oxford. Because of this, though, we saw some amazing countryside and charming villages along the way. Unfortunately, the side roads are made with no regard for geological upheavals or tourists in any way. It wasn't that much farther than taking the main roads back, (76K vs 72K) but it was noticeably less flat.

There are some interesting sights we saw along the way. Just outside a town called Whipsnade, we found ourselves biking past a wild life park. We first noticed something strange about the high concentration of kangaroos in this area.....


There is also an abundance of painfully quaint houses along the way.




When we stopped for the night, we decided that it might be a good idea to essentially camp on the side of the road, just out of sight. While we looked for a place, we stumbled across the coolest tree. It was an old fallen willow, who'd been covered with ivy. This is where we slept.






Oxford is filled with beautiful, rich architecture. It's kind of a neat old town, filled with young people.








On the way back, just outside the town of Aylesbury, There are these neat old ruins, held up by scaffolding. We stopped and at granola bars in the castle.







Off to Lithuania!

A new adventure Lies just around the bend...............................................................


So I told everyone that I'd be updated a lot as my adventure grows.
My bad.

So. Great Britain. Let me tell you the tale of the bus pass.

We left luton in the morning to get a good start on the day. We went to London with some Hungary-friends (don't worry, we fed them) and saw the sights in Camden.

Camden has streets lined with shops of all sorts. There are several huge market places where people independently sell whatever they can. There's one memorable store called CyberDog which specializes in rave gear. It's like MadMax meets Matrix on acid with black lights. It's nuts.


We also looked for, and found, the elusive Gherkin building. I can honestly say I wasn't ready for it. There's nothing one can possibly do to mentally prepare themselves for the Gherkin. Nothing.

We started from Victoria Bus Station the next morning after a night hosteling in Camden. We bused all the way up to Edinburgh, which took us till 8 o'clock that night. We confusedly found a hostel after most things were closed and buckled down for some Karaoke. We then explored the town a bit, and even found a castle.
The next morning we efficiently planned and executed the decisive missing of our bus southwards, and were stranded in Edinburgh. So we walked our feet off in full backpacker gear.
Some of the walking we did was more upward than normal. Thus we discovered Holyrood Crag.








We decided to take the late bus out of Edinburgh that night, as we're poor and didn't want to pay for another night at a hostel. Besides, bus stations are nice, right? Wrong Mitch. Wrong again. Oh so very, very wrong.
It wasn't the busing itself that was the problem, but the stops and switches. We ended up staying for a couple of hours in the middle of the night in Manchester.This bus station in the middle of the night is just convenient place for the wholesome folk of midnight Manchester to
ride out whatever they happen to have consumed earlier in the evening.

After catching a few random buses, we found ourselves in Cardiff. It's a pretty cool spot, albeit starved for tourists. They've put a lot of work and funding into making their tourist industry as friendly as possible. The Welsh are wonderful people. We even got to go inside this castle as, unlike Edinburgh, the guards had no submachine guns.
We camped that night in Cardiff.
The next morning we awoke cold, but refreshed to a breakfast of mustard sandwiches, grapefruit and beer (the breakfast of champions) and were on our way. Turns out very few buses go anywhere from Cardiff except London. Off we were again to Victoria Station.
Since it was late by the time we got to London, in the interest of economic shortcomings, we spent the night in Luton. A shower and a hot meal later, we were back on the road.

We found ourselves in Liverpool that night, where we enjoyed the hospitality of the Embassie Hostel and discovered some questionable beer. I had the Hobgoblin, Adam drank the Old Peculiar and we shared the Bishop's Finger.


Liverpool hosts largest Anglican cathedral in the world. It was first designed as planned as the largest cathedral in Europe. Funding fell through, and they built instead this still imposing structure. We saw an exhibition at the Liverpool museum with the original model on display. It would have dwarfed God. (Counterproductive?)










So the buses were full leaving Liverpool, so we opted to stay the night again, and left in the morning. We were set on going to Bath, but the connection at Victoria Station ended up being booked up. We found ourselves in Canterbury later that evening. There was a few minutes, as we stood between two buses waiting for the Ok from both/either, when we could have ended up on either side of the country.

We found another really hip hostel just outside the town proper. We walked around at night again for a little while and found the Cathedral that cost like 7 pounds in the day to approach-but we got in for free at night. We toured Canterbury in the morning and left for Josh's that afternoon, where we've been (more or less) ever since.





Tomorrow we're all biking to Oxford, and hopefully on to Stonehenge. We have to be back for the 17th, to catch our flight to Vilnius, Lithuania. But that's another story.


Also, here's Josh in a bubble. I could explain, but I probably won't.


Cheers

That never seems to end..............................................
Ok folks, so I haven't been updating enough, and I'm sorry. The important part is that I will be doing it more, especially now that I'm doing something interesting.
I left Halifax around midnight on the night of the 20th of March bound for London Heathrow Airport. I was pretty sure that my cousin Adam, whom you may recognize from the Edmonton posts, was flying in an hour before me. I landed in a medium sized airport and thought about how difficult it would be to find him. I then found out that the medium sized airport I was in was terminal 4 of Heathrow. Luckily, we defy probability entirely.
We only got a bit lost getting to Josh's apartment in Luton, and were there in plenty of time for a nap. We explored Luton that night.
The next day, Josh took us into class as show n tell guest peoples. The shock and horror of inner city English school children was too much for us not to Pub. Josh played a gig and we all pubbed. Good times were had.
Today, Adam and I did the London walkabout thing. There's a lot of London to see, so more will happen later. We didn't do much that one couldn't imagine from a tourist handbook.

Tomorrow we adventure further south. To Brighton and Beyond!

Mitch

Down this Road......................................

No! There's the land. (Have you seen it?)
It's the cussedest land that I know,
From the big, dizzy mountains that screen it
To the deep, deathlike valleys below.
Some say God was tired when He made it;
Some say it's a fine land to shun;Maybe;
but there's some as would trade it
For no land on earth -- and I'm one.
-More Robert Service

This post will be longer. But Im just so dead tired. :)