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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2009 19:41:22 GMT
I wasn't nitpicking about you, Spin. I was nitpicking about Distant's friend in Belgium.
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Post by spindrift on Jun 14, 2009 19:44:55 GMT
;D
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Post by distantshores on Jun 15, 2009 14:03:40 GMT
k2,
I should have copied and pasted what she had said in her email! I abbreviated it! I took a quick look for the email this morning and couldn't find it. She did mention that they had to change trains somewhere along the journey. At the border possibly? I have never been to that part of the world so I have no idea. They did take video along the way. That might clarify some stops and train changes.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 15, 2009 14:06:38 GMT
Not to worry. I bet there are not even 2% of the people from other parts of the world who have any idea of the difference between the Trans-Siberian and the Trans-Mongol.
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Post by distantshores on Jun 15, 2009 14:11:24 GMT
spindrift, I just read your reply #27 and I must tell you that I too am impressed with you and your life. It would make for an awesome movie! I'll buy the first ticket!!! As for all the BF's.... variety is the spice of life eh!!! I bet you're a fun person to be around! I think you were lucky you "didn't" marry a man who settled for a "frog", don't you! ;D
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Post by spindrift on Jun 15, 2009 16:21:14 GMT
Things have quietened down a bit (but not altogether) since those days....
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Post by Deleted on Jun 15, 2009 16:41:58 GMT
Yes, Spinny has time to grow a garden now!
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Post by distantshores on Jun 16, 2009 2:59:35 GMT
I still think there's an awful lot spinny's not sharing with us!!! I'll just have to imagine I guess! Oh my gosh.... spinny!!! ;D spinny, spinny...how does your garden grow!!!
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Post by hwinpp on Jun 16, 2009 3:03:32 GMT
I was about the same age as Jack and Tilly when I went on my first trip. I was living in Algiers at the time and my school was French so we had extremely long holidays in Summer. I think two months or so. So at the beginning of the hols my father packed me off to Europe. By ferry to Marseille then two months of interrailing between Barcelona and Berlin. I had weird notions of working for my fathers' friends but gave up on that very quickly. Both friends I tried working for had pity on me and paid me ludicrously high hourly wages and easy boring work (shoveling sand and mowing a lawn) so I stopped after a day at each feeling I'd done my bit. Details of the trip are hazy but I do remember it was the first time I saw Carcassonne. That place has stayed in my brain since then and whenever I visited France after that I tried to go there if at all possible. I think I must have taken 4 girlfriends there... ;D
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Post by Deleted on Jun 16, 2009 4:20:52 GMT
I want to hear some more about Carcassonne hw,not necessarily the gf's
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Post by hwinpp on Jun 16, 2009 5:14:54 GMT
LOL! I'm not an expert but it must be the medieval city in Europe! High walls, nice little (touristy) restaurants, romantic squares, oh, everything you'd expect from a city from the Middle Ages: www.yofavo.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/carcassonne2.jpg[/img] And it's near Rodez, Albi, Montsegur and the Pyrenees. My favourite areas in France!
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Post by Deleted on Jun 16, 2009 11:43:10 GMT
Can't help it but ,since you introduced the 4 gf's into the thread,I found myself thinking while looking at the photo,hmmm,that turret looks like a good place for a tryst...
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Post by Deleted on Jun 16, 2009 11:58:00 GMT
Carcassonne is the most unique medieval vestige in Europe, but it was purposely "restored" incorrectly in the mid-19th century by Viollet-le-Duc after having been pretty much abandoned in the 17th century. Most of the 13th century buildings were just used as warehouses until the walls would collapse.
Viollet-le-Duc decided to abandon authenticity for "picturesque" which is why Carcassonne has all of those pointy round roofs which were just flat turrets in the authentic version. Anyway, it all looks very nice ("too nice" say some, as there is as sort of Disneyesque ambience inside the walls).
If you have never been there yourself, you have almost certainly seen Carcassonne in lots of movies -- for example, in the Kevin Costner version of Robin Hood.
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Post by distantshores on Jun 16, 2009 14:22:41 GMT
From the photo it certainly is a most beautiful place! I can understand why sometimes a place has to be made attractive to the public so they will come. Why restore something where no one came to see it!
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Post by lola on Jun 17, 2009 13:46:34 GMT
Ryanair flies to Carcassonne.
You can sit in the leafy courtyard inside and drink espresso, eat cassoulet.
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Post by bixaorellana on Jun 17, 2009 15:23:36 GMT
This thread prompted me to read the Wikipedia article -- interesting! I have read & recommend the book Labyrinthe as a good piece of entertainment. And no, the author is not the model with a similar name.
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Post by bjd on Jun 17, 2009 15:29:46 GMT
Save the cassoulet for a cold day. Last June I went on an outing with a local organization. First we hiked in the woods, which was pleasant, then we went to have lunch in Carcassonne. The meal was part of the deal so we couldn't choose the menu. It must have been about 35° in the courtyard of the restuaurant, and we were served a huge salad and cassoulet . We all sat and sweated, drank a lot of water and left most of the cassoulet. Viollet le Duc, who restored Carcassonne to what he imagined a medieval town looked like, also restored a very old Romanesque basilica here in Toulouse. Shortly after we arrived here (23 years ago), the city decided to remove his alterations and the church now supposedly looks like it did originally. St Sernin
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Post by lola on Jun 17, 2009 18:23:46 GMT
Yes. When I was there I had the expressos, skipped the cassoulet. Probably if you can sit outside, it's too warm for it.
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Post by auntieannie on Jun 17, 2009 20:41:52 GMT
I am so tame! I think I am programmed/conditionned to only flirt with what isn't straight and narrow...
My first independant travel was 4 days in Strasbourg with my cousin. We took the train, had booked a hotel and had a great time! We liked the same things.. eating, walking around looking at how people live and the buildings around us, between visits to cultural monuments/museums, etc... We were 19-20 y.o.
I joined the club of the "didn't call mom and dad for a month" at 25, during my first trip to India. Well, I DID try to call them from these semi-public telephones, but my parents didn't have an answering machine. I bought one for them the day before I left for my second trip to India so I knew I would be able to leave messages if no-one was home when I called. (as a way of escaping their reproaches - if that's a word?)
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Post by spindrift on Jun 17, 2009 20:51:54 GMT
I was forced to stay at that expensive hotel inside Carcassonne when I had to wait a couple of days for a Ryanair flight to London. Granted that it's interesting to look at but the amount of tourists was overwhelming and I was so pleased to leave.
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Post by ilbonito on Mar 22, 2010 1:10:59 GMT
My first independant trip was aged 21. I had just finished uni and unexpectedly come into some money inherited from a grandmother passing. I had always dreamed of travel but my family never went anywhere - I had never left Australia, and only made very limited trips within the country -to Sydney, or to local beach towns. This was going to be my "overseas experience" so I was superexcited. Come to think of it, it was first time living out of home at all. I booked a round-the-world ticket, with Brazil as the first stop. I was travelling alone. I can still remember that first international plane trip, not knowing how to use the remote control and being embarrassed to ask. When the plane touched down in Rio (thirty something hours later!!!) it was like being on another planet - I was just amazed that so much beauty existed. I had never seen the colours of the tropics before, or felt a different kind of air, or heard the burble of a strange language. And Rio - with its jagged peaks and blue seas and lovely warm people was an incredible eye opener. I rocked up to the youth hostel which I had booked and prepaid, but they had no idea who I was. Luckily there was a room anyway. That night in my dorm I met a Brazilian fellow traveller - a soap opera actor no less, on a weekend break from Sao Paulo - and we went to Copacabana Beach for New Years Eve with a million people dressed all in white throwing flowers into the ocean, and dancing under the fireworks, and of course we hooked up. In thirty hours I had gone from a never-travelled, suburban live at home, to being thrillingly free in the most beautiful place imaginable, with a glamorous TV star Brazilian boyfriend. It is perphaps unsurprising that I have loved travelling ever since In the end, I stayed almost six months in Brazil, it was hard to leave-. I just used the rest of my around the world ticket for a couple of quick stopovers in Europe and Thailand on the way home.
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 22, 2010 4:43:56 GMT
Whooo, Ilbonito! That story has everything: gorgeous backdrop, a touch of suspense, the cast of thousands, romance, and a happy ending.
Even though you got it together at that young age to plan and book an ambitious trip, did you have any idea that at heart you'd wind up being such a confirmed traveler?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2010 6:26:29 GMT
I think some people have the travel gene, even if they are prevented from ever leaving their hometown. When I was growing up, there were so many people who dreamed of going to Rome or Paris one day but knowing that it was impossible and that they would never get there. Others couldn't give a shit.
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Post by ilbonito on Mar 22, 2010 8:27:34 GMT
did you have any idea that at heart you'd wind up being such a confirmed traveler?
As k2 said, I always knew I wanted it, I just wasn't sure I would be able to make it happen. I remember coming back from that first trip totally depressed and lost because I was 22 years old and had already achieved my great dream in life - to travel. What was left to achieve, I wondered.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2010 8:35:48 GMT
Well, it may have been sort of a mistake to choose a RTW trip for the first trip, although I do understand why Australians do that -- it's practically the same price as a return fare to Europe or the Americas anyway due to the distance. And I have met many Australians taking a 6-month break to travel as much as possible, once again because of the great distance and the expense of getting to the other side of the world. You get your money's worth, but it is probably not as emotionally satisfying. If you have to cram England, France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, the Netherlands, etc., all into the same trip, there are only so many cathedrals, museums or even graffiti walls that you can appreciate before they all start looking the same.
As for me, I always knew that I would travel because my mother was French, and my whole childhood was based on scraping up enough money to be able to go to France to see the rest of the family from time to time. That was about every 4 years. How the world has changed!
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Post by ilbonito on Mar 22, 2010 9:15:54 GMT
As it turned out my "around the world" trip really turned into Brazil, and a weekend in London, Barcelona and Bangkok each on the way home, which worked out quite well, as I've since gone back to re-explore the places I touched on lightly (except for Spain, which I've not yet re-visited).
And there was no price difference at all in getting a round the world, or Australia to Sth America return!
My original plan had been to go to Nigeria! I was persuaded out of it by anxious friends and relatives, and looking back, I think that was probably wise. I was a little bit too naive to jump in that deep..but then who knows? Maybe it would've been amazing ...
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Post by bixaorellana on Mar 22, 2010 17:30:12 GMT
I think the over-ambitious trip plan is practically a rite of passage, and probably a good learning experience as well. It may be the people who doggedly follow the excess itinerary who get turned off on traveling. But the ones who realize that they've either bitten off more than they can chew, or that certain places warrant way more time than had been allotted, are the ones really suited for traveling. The flexibility and resourcefulness needed to re-vamp an itinerary in mid-trip are the same traits that allow a person to enjoy the unexpected and the offbeat.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2010 18:13:59 GMT
My first RTW trip consisted of 48h in Seoul, 48h in Tokyo, 48h in Sydney, 48h in Papeete, 48h in Los Angeles -- and then back to Paris.
My second RTW trip was 3 days in Hong Kong, 3 days in Vancouver, 2 days in Seattle, 3 days in Los Angeles, 10 days in the area of Tampa, 1 day in Atlanta -- and back to Paris.
Then I figured it was getting sort of ridiculous and stopped.
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