Escape to the English Countryside

Tim and I thought it was time to have a break from the hussle and bussle of city life and pack our bags and head to the beautiful Lake District.

We looked online and found a beautiful farm that needed people to help with general handyman jobs in exchange for accommodation and food. This sounded perfect, a week a way in the country, meeting new people and getting our hands dirty again.

Saying goodbye to our mates at the Queens Arms pub, we caught the 9:30am bus to Manchester train station and the 11:15am train towards Ulverston.

The train ride went for just shy of 2 hours and the outside scenery became more and more beautiful with every passing minute.

When we arrived in Ulverston we were greeted by our new ‘boss’ Ben, a very friendly guy who had once travelled to Australia and thoroughly enjoyed himself. We stopped at the local supermarket and grabbed a weeks worth of food before heading to the beautiful farm that we would be staying at for the next week.

When we arrived at Ashlack we were blown away with the beauty. The sun was shining, the fields were green as can be with thousands of sheep spotted around. Our sleeping arrangement was in a massive farmhouse called Beckstones, it slept 17 people!! Tim and I shared it with one other lady named Paolma from Madrid who had come for the week also. There were so many rooms, we couldn’t count them all.

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Our first day we did a few jobs here and there, but because it was late afternoon when we arrived we ended a couple hours later and relaxed for a little while before heading down towards the lakes to take in the beauty of the Lake District.

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Over the week we did varied jobs from varnishing floors, sanding and painting gutters and barn doors, cleaning car parts, feedings pigs, tidying up, weeding the vegetable gardens and cleaning and setting up the yurts for the next lot of visitors. Our walk to the farm was very scenic with creek beds, green paddocks, cows and beautiful stone cottages.

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morning stroll

 

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yurts

It was really good fun and the week flew. The sun was shining for 80% of our stay and we only had one working day where it rained and we had to find some inside jobs to do.

On the Saturday it was our day off so we decided to explore the property of Ashlack. Walking down the long driveway we bumped into Richard, one of the good friends of Ashlack’s owner Mark. He asked if we wanted to go see the local agricultural show, which we happily said yes to.

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The agricultural show was great, reminded me of my high school days with the horse, cow and sheep shows, agility trials, horse jumping and biggest vegetable competition. We stayed for 3 hours exploring until the show closed and it was time to head back.

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On our way back Richard asked if we wanted to see anymore of the English countryside. He drove us through narrow windy roads, took us to two cozy pubs were we had a pint and showed us fields where stone igloos remains were from the Bronze Age, which was interesting to see.

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By the time we got back to Ashlack the sun had set and it was time to cook some dinner. We picked some fresh vegetables from the garden and made a nice vegetable pasta mash up, using the fresh veg and all the food we had left in the fridge. The last two nights of our stay we moved into the caravan, which was a lot easier to keep warm and invited Richard in for some dinner and wine to say thank you for today’s tour.

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Overall our week experience at Ashlack was great, Tim and I will definitely like to do more experiences like these as you never know who you will meet, what you will see and the memories you will make.

clem

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Filed under Country 07: England

Amsterdamed

Amsterdam! One of the places on this cruise that I was most excited to visit. There are so many unique experiences that you can’t see or do in Australia, so was excited.

The Carnival Legend arrived into Amsterdam around 10:30AM, so we all left shortly after and walked into town.

Ivan and Jen had sussed out a free walking tour that we could do at midday, so we found the meeting point and decided to grab a bite to eat.

We all had these delicious falfel and salad wraps from a local store, they were self serve, so we made them chockas and struggled to finish them 🙂

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We then had a look at some souvenir shops, before it was time to meet up for the tour. If you are ever visiting a big city, I would highly recommend the FREE WALKING TOURS, they are completely run on a tipping bases, so you pay your guide what you think the tour was worth. They take you around to the major tourist sights, inform you with interesting facts and history about the town you are in and what to do during your stay.

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meeting point

The Dam Square is where we had to meet, there were a lot of people so the groups were divided into smaller groups of about 30 people. Our guide was an Irish man, who had come to Amsterdam to study a few years ago and knew a lot about the town.

On the tour we visited many places, including the Red Light District, Royal Palace and Anne Franks House. Along the way were saw canals and heard that during orientation week for university, students go out at night and find as many bikes as they could that weren’t locked up and threw them into the river. Every year between 20,000 and 30,000 bikes are removed from the canals!

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We also learnt that in the Red Light District the girls work for around 8 hours a day and cannot leave their window as it is expensive to hire a window and they need to reach a quota every hour to be able to start making a profit after paying the rental fees. So they use a bottle or a bucket to pee in and if you are caught taking photos of the working girls, or try to get away without paying, they will chase you and throw their pee at you! We did see one man get arrested for not paying, but he was lucky to be pee free.

The tour lasted for 2.5 hours and was really good. We felt our guide was knowledgeable and showed us a lot of Amsterdam.

Afterwards we went and explored a bit more, revisited a few places that we saw on the tour and bought some souvenirs.

We went to a typical ‘must see when in Amsterdam show’, enjoyed some Amsterdam goodies and had fun walking around the picturesque city.

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cool houses

At 6:30PM we ran back to the boat as we were running late…again 🙂

Making it on board we relaxed for a couple of hours, took some pictures of the boat leaving the docks, cleaned ourselves up and headed down for dinner.

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It was our last meal on board of the Carnival Legend so we said our goodbyes to our dinner friends Ron and Lisa and headed back to Ivan and Jen’s room for some drinks.

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Filed under Country 13: Netherlands

Estonia, where pretzels are bigger than your head!

We awoke in the beautiful bay of Tallinn, Estonia. The sky was overcast, but the sun was trying to force it’s way through.

Tim, Jen, Ivan and I enjoyed a buffet breakfast before leaving the boat for a 15 minute stroll into Tallinn centre. There were market stalls set up everywhere and everyone was in happy spirits.

Ivan had found a free city walking tour that started at midday so when it was almost time we all headed over to the meeting place and waited for the tour to start. Our guide was named Mairi and her English was impeccable.

The tour went for a couple of hours and along the way we saw the beautiful sights of Tallinn.

First stop was the Independence monument, which is located at Freedom Square. The towns people aren’t 100% sure what the statue is meant to represent, but they do know that the ‘E’ in the centre is for Estonia and the monument looks a bit like a sword in the ground. But who knows…

We then went to a great lookout over Tallinn, the scenery was very pretty, the sun came out for us so we could take in this medieval city for miles.

After a couple of hours the tour concluded, as the tour is free donations are welcomed so we gave a nice donation for her great work and knowledgeable tour.

It was now time for a beer! And who can say no to Duff 🙂

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Heading to the Beer House down a small alleyway we headed inside and sat inside of a large beer barrel. We ordered liter steins and pretzels, the pretzels were honestly bigger than our heads and tasted so good!

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stein and pretzel

We then used there internet as it is so expensive on the boat and replied to a few emails.

After our drinks and pretzel we made our way to the liquor store to buy the Estonian local liquor which they call Hammer and Sickle – Hammer because it hurts your head in the morning and sickle because it makes your legs go wobbly and fall over – aka a strong liquor.

Mairi advised us to mix the Hammer and Sickle with champagne for an extra tasty and alcoholic drink.

We then all ran for the boat as it was almost leaving time and saw the perfect opportunity for a great photo with the ship in the background, shows the size of the boat!

Once back on the boat we all relaxed and freshened up before Tim and I headed to play some trivia. Jen and Ivan joined us in the middle of the second game and then I snuck into the VIP club with Ivan and Jen whilst Tim continued playing trivia.

The VIP club was for people who had been on multiple cruises before, so I sat behind a pillar and enjoyed the free cocktails and nibbles that were provided. Can never say no to a free drink!

VIP night

Near the end of the evening they started showing pictures of all of the Carnival cruise liners and asked the audience to clap when they saw the ones that they had been on.

Hiding behind the pillar I couldn’t actually see the boats so would cheer randomly to make it look like I had been on many before. Wasn’t until afterwards that Ivan pointed out that the pictures had dates of when the vessel was released and I was cheering for cruises that took place before I was even born. Oops!

After we grabbed Tim and headed to the dining room for dinner. I ate the vegetable lasagna and apple pie, as always, it was very delicious.

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After dinner we went up to Ivan and Jen’s room and tried the Hammer and Sickle, it was ok, quite strong like the Mairi had said. We then played the bean bag game for a little while, which is always fun.

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Next on the agenda was the Adult Team Challenge where we had to split the room into two and participate in ‘adult’ activities. We weren’t the winning side in the end but still won some champagne which we opened and drank with all of the teammates. Then after a couple hours of chatting and drinking we decided to hit the hay. The sun was just setting and it was well into the AM’s.

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Filed under Country 12: Estonia

Russian Experience Part 2

Just like yesterday we were up nice and early as we had to be on the bus by 7am. Again we were lucky for another one of St Petersburg’s sunny days, the weather was beautiful.

One lady slept in so the tour bus left without her, about 15 minutes later Alexandra received a phone call from Carnival telling them that they had to pull over and wait for the lady they left behind. At 7:40am everyone was on board the bus and we continued our journey to Catherine Palace.

I was really tired so slept the hour drive to Catherine Palace and awoke feeling nice and refreshed 🙂

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Catherine Palace was huge! Again we were one of the first groups to arrive, so when we got inside it wasn’t very busy at all, which was great.

Because of the flooring everyone had to wear sexy shoe protectors – squishy boots.

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We went through lots of rooms whilst we were here, taking in the artwork, ballrooms and dining room set ups.

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The gardens were just as lovely. We spent about 2.5 hours at Catherine Palace in total, we didn’t get to see the entire palace or gardens, but we felt that we saw plenty.

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Wearing the very sexy looking audio headpiece

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Once we had finished exploring the grounds of Catherine Palace we got back on the bus and headed to the river for our river cruise.

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funny looking boat

cheese :)

The river cruise went for an hour, it was nice to see St Petersburg by water. When we got off of the cruise it was time for lunch. This time we were eating at an old girls boarding school that had be transformed into a restaurant. On the menu today was salad, soup, beef stroganoff, ice cream, water, wine and yes vodka.

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Tim and his salad

The last stop for us on our Russian adventure was Peter and Paul’s Fortress, Cathedral of SS Peter and Paul was really pretty. Inside the fortress you will find the places where the royal family were  buried after they were tragically murdered.

The cathedral’s inside was quite small, so we didn’t stay inside for very long, 15 minutes maximum.

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royal coffins

We thoroughly enjoyed seeing St Petersburg, our only criticism would be that we were never given any free time to see the ‘real’ Russia, to explore at our own pace, see what the locals pay for vodka as the prices in the shops we were taken too was ridiculously expensive. Otherwise we were happy with everything that we were able to see.

When we got back on board Tim and I both had a nap and woke up 15 minutes before food was ready to be served. Getting ready we joined Ivan, Jen, Ron and Lisa for dinner and ate spinach and walnut salad, thai curry soup, fried chicken and ice cream.

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Filed under Country 11: Russia

Russian Experience Part 1

Up at 6am, Tim and I walked sleepy eyed to Truffles Restaurant for breakfast. Today we were docked in St Petersburg, Russia! And like always Tim and I are super dooper organised and left booking a tour to the last minute 😉 because of Russia’s strict visa requirements, everyone on the cruise has to be apart of a tour (whether through the cruise line or independently) to be able to leave the boat. We had applied for a couple independent tour companies as they only take 18 people instead of 40 so it would be a lot more personal, it was cheaper and you saw a couple extra places that the tour on the cruise ship didn’t. We unfortunately missed out on the independent tour companies so had to book a tour through Carnival Shore Excursion, it was expensive for the 2 days, but we had to pay for it as we didn’t want to have to stay on the boat.

The 2 days (9 hours each day) ‘Grand Tour’ cost $350 per person, if we had been more organised and arranged through an independent tour company we would have been looking at around $270-300 for the same tour plus a couple other places.

Meeting in the Foley theatre we were given our bus number (bus number 13) and waited for our number to be called.

Once we were called we left the boat and went through the immigration process. We needed our passports, immigration forms and tour tickets. The process was quite quick and within 10 minutes we were through immigration and looking for our bus.

Once we were on our bus our tour guide Alexandra explained the plan for the day, handed out portable headsets so that we could hear our tour guide even if we weren’t right next to her and we left for our first destination.

Alexandra informed us that there was on average 13 sunny days in St Petersburg and we were lucky to have one of them. The sun was shining making the colourful buildings of St Petersburg stand out.

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Our first stop was of a water view of the Winter Palace (the main building of the Hermitage Museum). We were heading there later today, but from this view you can really see how big the museum is. Next to where we were was a boat, which has been transformed into the cities most expensive restaurant and gym.

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Hermitage museum

Our first building to explore was the Orthodox church called The Church of our Savior of Spilled Blood, the outside of the building was stunning! So colourful and attractive.

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The beauty didn’t stop once we were inside either, the church interior was beautiful. We were lucky to be the first group for the day to walk through the church as it isn’t a place you want to be with hundreds of other people as it is quite small.

The artwork was so special because it is all made from mosaic, floor to ceiling. 

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IMG_0060-001Right in the centre is the two-headed eagle. This bird is there to keep an eye on both the east and west of  Russia as the country is so large.

After about 20 minutes we left the Church of Spilled Blood, piled back onto the bus and headed towards St Isaac’s Cathedral. St Issac’s is the 4th largest domed church in the world. It was really pretty and again covered from floor to ceiling with detailed artwork.

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Next was the Hermitage Museum. We were promised that with the tour excursion we would skip all the lines, but that wasn’t the case. When we arrived there was a line that went around the building, the group had to wait 45 minutes to get inside. Tim and I snuck off to take a few photos and made it back in time to enter the building.

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We walked through hall after hall, all filled floor to ceiling with famous artwork, examples being Peter the Great and Da Vinci.

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I’m not a massive fan of art museums so didn’t mind the pace that Alexandra was going, but there were quite a few people complaining that she was going too fast. In total we would have been in the museum for 2 hours, it is easily a place you can spend a good couple of days in, if art is an interest of yours.

Next was lunch; salad, soup, chicken, ice cream, water, wine and of course VODKA! We were greeted with a shot of vodka, no chaser, just pure vodka, was strong but tasty.

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We spend an hour and a half at the restaurant talking with those seated around us.  After lunch it was time to go shopping! We knew from other tours that we have been on that the tour guide would take us to a shop that has all the souvenirs any tourist would want to buy at ridiculously high prices. We were correct, so only purchased post cards and a couple magnets. The Russian Dolls were from 10-3000€, depending on how much detail there is and Russian Eggs from 40-1000€.

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IMG_5840-001Expensive piece of amber

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After everyone had finished shopping – spent an hour here – we went down to the water to take some photos before it was time to head back to the boat.

Russian canal

Battle ship

Truffles restaurant had anytime seating, so once we were back on the boat Tim and I headed straight to the restaurant as we were starving. The rest of the night was pretty quiet as we had an early start, so Tim and I went to bed and watched a movie.

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Filed under Country 11: Russia

The Gateway to Santa Clause

Yesterday was another Sea Day filled with trivia games, eating, relaxing in the spa and watching shows. Earlier yesterday I organised a surprise cake to celebrate Tim’s birthday. At dinner our waiters all came out and sung Happy Birthday, embarrassing Tim, but he loved the thought.

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Today we were heading to Helsinki, Finland! Both Tim and myself were excited to come here as we had both never been there before and it was the gateway to Santa Clause 🙂

Tim, Ivan, Jen and I all went to the Truffles Restaurant for breakfast, I had poached eggs and Tim had eggs benedict. Once we had all finished and were ready we left the boat together and caught a shuttle bus into town. The shuttle bus cost 10€ each round trip – Tim and I were keen to walk but the lady said it would take 40mins each way.

Helsinki was beautiful, as a foursome we walked around taking in the scenery. A local lady informed us that there was a market being held by the river so we went to check that out. Ivan and Jen had a food tour planned so we said goodbye and parted ways.

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The market was filled with fresh fruits and vegetables, souvenirs and animal skins.

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Tim and I bought a few postcards to join our collection and a stuffed toy reindeer wearing a scarf with the Finish Flag.

During our wander we came across this massive building, it turned out to be Helsinki Cathedral. Helsinki Cathedral was famous for being the church on a hill. We were surprised how empty it was inside as there were so many people outside taking photos of it.

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On our explore we came across Helsinki train station and thought we would take a photo of us with the Helsinki sign. We were both doing jumping poses, self photos and silly photos not realising that there was a train full of people watching us. When we realised we looked and a lady sitting in the window seat nearest us was laughing at our craziness..oops!

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tracks

Leaving the train station a little embarressed we headed towards a supermarket and grabbed an ice cream each. Then we made our way towards a park, en route we came across this beautiful deserted church. It was really cool and nicely decorated, we were surprised that there was no one else around.

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About an hour before the last shuttle bus went back to the boat we went to the City Hall to use their wifi and book a tour for Russia. Tim also asked if they happened to have a Helsinki stamp, which they did, so we got a Helsinki stamp in our passport 😀

On the way back we looked through the information shop and picked up some more bits and bops for our scrap book.

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When we were all back on the boat, Tim, Ivan and I played a couple games of trivia. One being the British Pub quiz, which we won!!! Afterwards we got ready for dinner.

Tonight’s menu I had prawn cocktail and shared frog legs with Tim. Tim had the steak and I ate vegetarian Indian curry, which was ok.

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Every night the wait staff performed a song to us, tonight the boys pulled Jen up to dance with them. It really looked like Jen was enjoying herself and she did a great job copying their moves!

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Filed under Country 10: Finland

Crazy Germans

Tim and I got up at 9am as we had planned to meet Jen and Ivan for breakfast, but they were slackers and stayed in bed. After we had eaten we knocked on Ivan and Jen’s door and awoke them from their slumbers.

We decided to meet at ours for 11am and leave together. When we finally made it off the boat the sun was shining and everyone was in great spirits. Warnemunde was holding boat racing and there were stalls set up all over the town. Warnemunde is a small town on the water, the scenery was really pretty.

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Most of the people on the cruise had trained it into Berlin, which was 3 hours each way. We all decided against that as it is a long time to travel for the amount of time we would have to spend there.

As the weather was so nice we decided to stroll along the beach. There were games of handball being played, so we stayed and watched the girls team for a little while. One of the teams from Berlin were named the ‘Flying Kangaroo’, for obvious reasons we supported them 🙂

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flying kangaroos

At 1:30pm our bellies started to rumble so we headed back towards the food stalls in hunt for some German sausage! We were successful here and found a stall selling just what we wanted.

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Tim went for a curry sausage and I had a bratwurst, they tasted delicious! During lunch we were lucky to meet the local drunk, Rambow. He joined us with his dog and 5 mini bottles of whiskey with about 10 empty bottles as well. Rambow was very funny, knew zero English but was a good laugh non-the-less.

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Rambow

Rambow inspired us to go have a drink, so we said farewell and headed to one of the stalls selling traditional local beer – Rostocker.

cheers!

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Whilst we were having our beer we were greeted by several girls – Apparently the tradition in Germany when you are about to get married is to go out and sell as much ‘naughty’ toys as you can to the general public. Then with the money made all the guys/girls go out and spend the money on drinks. Sounds like fun to me! We were greeted by a few different groups of people so ended up with lots of funny toys by the end of the day.

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After our beers we headed to the local supermarket and grabbed some alcohol to drink in the park. When we were there I asked a German boy how to say white wine in German. I’m not sure if something was lost in translation but he took that as an invitation to try and kiss Jen and myself. When we pointed to our husbands the guy then thought he could get out his manhood! We couldn’t believe our eyes, after what happened I felt really bad for asking how to say white wine 😉

BIG vodka

Once we managed to escape the boys, we headed to a local park and enjoyed a few drinks before making our way back to the boat.

drinking in the park

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Filed under Country 09: Germany

Canal Tour Through Copenhagen

Loosing an hours sleep because of the time change when the alarm went off we were both still tired, it didn’t help that our room was pitch black due to no windows so it always feels like the middle of the night.

Getting up at 7:30am Tim and I head to Truffles restaurant for breakfast, I had poached eggs and strawberry yogurt, Tim had eggs benedict and a yogurt.

We then got ready and departed the boat just before 8:30am. It was a surreal feeling getting off the boat and being in a different country, the skies were looking grey in Copenhagen, but we were hopeful the sun would come out.

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When we departed the boat we decided to walk the 20 minutes into town and enjoy the fresh air and sights of Copenhagen.

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This isn’t the real ‘Little Mermaid’, I think it was built for the tourist as the guys loved getting photos with her, can’t guess why…

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We didn’t organise a tour for Copenhagen so just walked around for a couple of hours. We spent about 20 minutes in the largest toy store in Scandinavia playing with all the toys on display, our favourite being the crossbow, we could have spent hours there.

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The sun started to tease us so we decided to walk down to one of the many canals and check out a river cruise. The river cruise cost $8 each and laster just over an hour Our tour guide spoke excellent English and was quite entertaining.

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 These sand sculptures were amazing

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We both thoroughly enjoyed the boat tour, it pointed out a few things that we wanted to go see closer up like the sand sculptures and the Little Mermaid

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We had to be back on the boat by 3:30pm, so after we were satisfied with what we had seen in Copenhagen we bought a couple souvenirs and headed back to the boat.

Both being tired we had a quick nap and woke up just in time for dinner.

Steak was the feed tonight, again was yummy, for dessert Tim had chocolate crepes and I had the Cruise famous chocolate melting cake. We then shared a fruit platter as we felt like we had had too much chocolate for one night.

steak

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The sunset was beautiful, Tim and I watched as the sun set and at 11pm John, our cruise director announced, that shortly we would be going under the bridge connecting Denmark to Sweden. Apparently the stack only just makes it under the bridge so we thought that would be a cool thing to see.

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Filed under Country 08: Denmark

A Day at Sea

Our first destination was Copenhagen, Denmark, because of the distance we had a day at sea. Sea days were good fun, there were countless numbers of trivia games being held – which we won two of (2 more ships on a sticks whoo), beanbag championships, games, shows and entertainment.

ship on a stick

At 3:30pm the boat holds a high tea, so we all went to the restaurant and enjoyed cucumber sandwiches, scones with jam and cream, tarts, cakes and green tea.

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After high tea Tim and I went to play beanbag challenge whilst Ivan and Jen went for a dip in the spa.

The beanbag challenge consisted of teams of two standing about 10-15m away from each other. We each had 5 beanbags and the aim of the game was to throw the beanbag through the hole on a wooden board beside your partner. Initially it was 5 points if you scored in the hole and 2 points if the bag just lands on the wooden board. We had to play against 5 different teams, it was knock out so the teams with the lowest scores were eliminated. Tim and I made it to the semi finals before we were knocked out by the team who ended up winning. Was really good fun 🙂

After the beanbag challenge Tim and I joined Ivan and Jen in the spa and relaxed until it was time to get ready for dinner.

Dinner tonight consisted of lobster tails and shrimp, was really delicious!

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Before the dessert menu came out, our wait staff started singing congratulation to Tim and myself for getting married and to Ivan and Jen for their one year anniversary. They gave us a cute piece of cake with a candle in it.

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After dinner we went into the common room and played a round of Jenga, the game seemed to last forever until Jen finally removed the loosing piece.

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Before heading for bed we went to the Folley’s theater and watched the Jazz Hot Show, an awesome musical productions with great dancers and singers. Was very entertaining.

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Filed under Country 07: England

Cruising through the Baltic Sea

After spending 3 nights with my cousin and his family in Romford we woke up at 9:30am and packed our suitcase. We were being picked up by our Vegas buddies at 11am and heading for Dover where our cruise boat awaits us! For Tim’s 30th birthday I bought him cruise tickets from London to Russia via the Baltic Sea. We would be travelling with Carnival Legend Cruise Line.

It was so nice to see Ivan and Jen again, have really missed these peeps. Saying goodbye to Adam, Shirely and Dakota, we squeezed our suitcase and backpack into the back of Ivan and Jen’s hire car and started our journey towards Dover.

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The trip took about 1.5 hours, we stopped once to fill up the petrol and to pick up some alcohol for the cruise.

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Once we arrived into Dover Ivan dropped us and our bags off at the terminal and returned the rental car. Tim, Jen and I waited inside the terminal until Ivan got back and then we all went upstairs and checked in.

The checking in process took no more than 10 minutes and before we knew it we were boarding our new home for the next 12 days 😀

We couldn’t believe how big the boat was, walking into the foyer our minds were blown with how much decor there was and how beautiful everything looked. The elevators were made of glass the bars were decorated in bronze and gold pattering and the staircases looked like they were floating.

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Our room was ready so we thought we would go check it out. Room 1206, we went for an interior room which meant we didn’t have a window, but was cheaper and we still had plenty of space. Ivan and Jen had a balcony room and said we could come use that anytime, which was really nice.

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After unpacking our bags we explored the boat and were stoked to find there was a mini golf course on the top floor! Three swimming pools, spas, basketball court and even a water slide. The next 12 days are going to be awesome!!

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Playing a quick round of mini golf we decided to go explore the rest of the boat before we had to listen to the safety briefing. The boat was so big, we saw the Foley Theater where all of the shows will be performed, Comedy Club and Dining Rooms.

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After the 10 minute safety briefing we all went to Ivan and Jen’s room, stood on the balcony and popped a bottle of bubbly as we sailed away from the white cliffs of Dover.

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We drank the bubbly and then relaxed for a couple hours before dinnertime, which started at 8:15pm.

We were originally seated at a different table to Ivan and Jen so we asked to switch and they happily moved us. Our table number is 220 and we are seated with Ivan, Jen and a nice couple from Edmonton Canada named Ron and Lisa.

The dinner menu was amazing, there were so many dishes to choose from. I decided on the salmon, Tim had the steak and we both had creme brulee for dessert.

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After dinner we all went to watch the cruise director John’s ‘Welcome Aboard’ show in the Foley theater. It was hilarious until the end of the show when I was pulled up onto stage along with 5 other people and had to express my love for Tim in front of everyone. I was nervous enough as it was and hated the fact that when we got back to our room the interview was on repeat on the cabin TV’s. We were throughout the cruise known as ‘The Honeymooner’s’. But hey we got a golden ship on a stick and bottle of champagne to celebrate, which was great!

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