Hello From Europe!

So, I've made it to my fourth continent and the last leg of my journey. I still can't really believe I'm in Europe! I've always seen and heard of it so much in movies, TV and literature that it almost felt like a fictional location, so to be here and seeing so many famous sites is almost surreal. Anyway, back to my time in Taiwan.

So I spent almost two weeks in Taiwan with my brother. I've already written about going to his school to meet his class, so I'll start after that. On the 29th we went up to Taipei and went to "technically" the world's tallest building, Taipei 101 at over 500 meters. (The technically is because a building is being built in Dubai that is already taller than the 101, but it doesn't officially count until it's finished) When I saw it, I honestly thought it would be taller. Haha. We went up inside to the viewing deck at the 90th floor, the lovely Taiwan smog obscured most of the view, and only let us see about 5km away from the base of the tower. It was like looking out a plane window when it's going through a cloud...

During the week when Ryan was at work I just did a bit of looking around and shopping. I bought a few shirts because some of the ones I started with are looking a little worse for wear, and because some of them are so funny here. They try to make them in English, and have profound sayings on them, but they get either the grammer, spelling, or sometimes even the word wrong, and they just turn out hilarious. The one I'm currently wearing says, "Like start. Respects. However there are a lot of bad things happening every day and keep going do my best, but I still keep my smile." And it's got random black and white pictures of guitars or a guy singing into a mic. Pretty funny I think.

On the weekend of April 4-6 we went down to the south of Taiwan to a 3-day rock music festival called Spring Scream. It turned out to be a bit of an adventure trying to find the campground, and we almost ended up just pitching our tent on the grass in front of the park grounds because they wouldn't let us in and told us there was no camping inside, when the website had said there was. Funny enough the ticket lady left at 6pm, and then we just walked through the gate that was left open. The campgrounds were well hidden down a barely visible path through the woods, and we found a bunch of other tents already set up. Man would we have looked stupid coming out of our tent in the morning to find people lining up to get into the festival...

The weekend was great, full of awesome music, although most of it was in Chinese. But still pretty great. The Taiwanese sure don't know how to go to a rock concert though. They give each other enough space that we were able to just walk up to the front row for every band, no matter how popular! Just a bit of squeezing through a few bodies and you're there! Whenever a mosh pit opened up it was just the foreigners, and Ryan and I tried to get people jumping for an awesome band, and they just looked at us like they didn't know what we were doing. But we had a great time anyway!

I left Taiwan on the 7th and had a one night stopover in Singapore again before flying overnight to London on the 8th. I think I was hit with a bigger feeling of "I can't believe I'm really here!" than I was at the beginning of my trip when I got to New Zealand. I don't know, but it's good to get a refresher of that feeling when I'm really starting to get worn out of travelling and tired of it.

But London was awesome! I don't know why so many people say that it's not that great. Maybe because it rained on them, but I had three great days of sun, and the cold, clean air was such a welcome change from the hot muggy places I've been the last few months. I had to break out my jacket! Whoa!

I loved walking around and just seeing the cute little houses and fabulous architecture in the buildings. Everywhere I went I wanted to take pictures because it was so... Londoney!



Ok, so my first day after I checked into my hostel, I went to find Fleet Street just because I wanted to, and I went to King's Cross train station to find Platform 9 and 3/4 from the Harry Potter series. (That was for you Aliesha!) I thought there was going to be like a Harry Potter statue or something, but it was just a trolley disappearing into the wall. I took advantage of the cheesy photo opportunity as you can see...




The next day I did a walking tour or the really touristy places like Buckingham Palace, Picadilly Circus, Trefalgar Square, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben and other stuff like that. I was disappointed because the guards out front of the palace weren't the kind you imagine. They weren't the ones in the red uniforms with the big puffy black hats. Apparently the Queen has 5 sets of guards and those famous ones are only one of the five, and didn't come on duty at the palace until May. The changing of the guards wasn't that day, it was the next, but I did get to see the changing of the horse guards. The queen wasn't home by the way. Nuts.


Buckingham Palace

We walked down the road to St. James palace, the 'official' home of Prince Harry and William, but they weren't home either. But because the guards at Buckingham palace have been moved inside the gates, (they were getting harassed too much!) this was the only place we could harass a guard of our own! So, I went up for my picture and took a nice one, and the tour guide said, "Now a funny one!" so I just pointed at the guard, and I heard him laugh! His face didn't move though, and when I was bugging him about laughing he laughed even more, but still didn't move. Pretty crazy. I could never do that!! They have to stay still for four hour shifts, and are only allowed to move in two ways - change the hand their gun is in, or go for like, a 20 second march down the driveway and back like once an hour.



I went to the London bridge (which isn't actually very interesting looking) and Tower Bridge, which is the famous looking one everyone thinks is London Bridge. (I did too!) Another day I met up with a friend I met in New Zealand and we went out to Abbey Road together.

Ok, so it's super hard to get a picture at Abbey Road. It's actually killer busy, and you feel like a jerk if you stand in the middle of the road and make cars wait while you pose for a picture. They like to honk if you do that too. So I made my friend wait with me forever until there was a big clear gap in traffic so I didn't hold up anyone. I'm pretty small in the picture, and it's not too much like the real one because to get that the person taking the picture would have to stand in the middle of the busy road with their back to traffic... But it was a cool place to go and see for sure.



After my few days in London I took the high speed Eurorail train to Brussels, Belgium, and had a full day there. The home of Belgian waffles and chocolate! Of course I had to try both while I was there, and yes, they were delicious! And I think I'm going to go way overboard with pictures in Europe, because in a week I already filled up a whole 512 Mb memory card... But the buildings and sculptures in Brussels were just amazing! Haha, I have a feeling I'll be saying that a lot!




Mmmmm.... chocolate...

Now I'm in Amsterdam, and having a great time. I haven't been to Venice, but I think Amsterdam and it's canals are just gorgeous. The weather is fairly chilly here so I'm just walking around the city all bundled up and loving it. It reminds me of winter days back home which is great because I won't get to see those until next winter.




I went to the Van Gogh museum today, and did a walking tour yesterday that took us through the red light district and around the really historical parts of the city. Did you know that the skinniest house in Amsterdam is only 6 feet wide! That's because they used to pay taxes by the width of their houses, so they just made them really skinny and long. That hardly even seems like enough room to turn around at the top of the stairs! The tour also took us past the most famous "coffee shop" in Amsterdam because part of the movie Ocean's 12 was filmed inside it. And in the front window was a cat named Bowie, that apparently hardly ever leaves the stool he was sitting on. I can't say I've ever seen a stoned cat before, but that one looks like he must be stoned all the time...


Bowie on his stool

So, tomorrow is my last day here in Amsterdam, and I'm going to go to Anne Frank's house. I've read her diary so it's going to be a weird experience for sure. We passed it on the tour the other day and I've already heard the bells of the nearby church that used to make her happy to hear and feel connected to the outside world during her seclusion. The tree in the garden is still there as well, although it's rotting and there is a big debate going on about keeping it or cutting it down to make the area safer.

Well, next stop after here is Berlin, and then I'm off to Prague for almost a week. I'm super excited about that because it's supposed to be gorgeous. I hope you have enjoyed my first entry from Europe, cause it's taken a long time to make over many different sessions. Lots of the hostels here give free internet which is awesome, but that means there are always people waiting. So, sorry for the delay, and I'll try to make updates more often if the internet stays free. :)

Miss you all, and now I'm as cold as all of you are!
:P

Julie