Croatia/Slovenia 2

I’m back, sorry about the delay, we’ve been having really nice weather recently so I’ve been enjoying it. But here is the rest of my trip with Grandma and Auntie B (Also I found the pictures from the first two days, I thought it was weird that I didn’t have any, and I will post them at the end of this post)

Day 4:

Lots and lots of walking! We went first to the city of Pula where we got to see a coliseum, an old church, and lots of pretty buildings, it was also a really nice sunny day, even though it was a little cool.  Then onto Ravenija (sorry if I spelt it wrong) where we walked up a hill to see a beautiful cathedral. We also got gelato there, and mine was massive, I didn’t think I would be able to finish it, but it was hot and I love gelato! Then back to Porec where we were staying for supper and some more wandering around seeing the sites!

The Coliseum

These pots were found underneath the Coliseum, there were
hundreds of them

The Church in Pula



The Cathedral in Ravenija

Grandma and Auntie B at Rovenija for Lunch

We all had ice cream, mine is the one in the front (yay Kiwi!)

Day 5:

We got up fairly early, and headed out to see the Slovenian caves. And they were fantastic. The first one was quite a hike, there were over 500 stairs and lots of hills and dips and everything. Our tour guide was awesome and she pointed out some really interesting features of the caves. You weren’t allowed to take photos inside, not that I could have anyway, it was really dark, and also I was kind  of busy making sure I didn’t trip over something. The second cave that we went to was absolutely beautiful, way more things to see, but our tour wasn’t the greatest, because there were three bus loads of tourists, which made our group in the hundreds, but because we had learned all about the caves in the first tour, it was nice to be able to see all of the various examples. There was also a very interesting train ride down into the tunnels. After the caves we headed out to Lake Bled, where we stayed for the night.

The beginning of the tour from the first Cave

We were allowed to take pictures at this point.

This was at the exit of the first cave.



Grandma, S and me on the train at the second cave!



Grandma, S and Auntie B on the train

This was the view from our room at Lake Bled.

Day 6:

Our ‘lazy’ day. It was pouring rain, so there wasn’t a great deal of excitement for going outside, but we went on a lovely train tour around Lake Bled, and then spent a lot of the afternoon in the pool! We also got some shopping done. For supper we ended up in the coolest place. The waitress was fantastic and the food was delicious! I had fajitas for the first time in forever and even though I was totally stuffed I felt like I could have had 10 more!!!

Grandma, S, C and B on the train ride!

The Train

The island in the middle of Lake Bled

Last Day:

Pretty much we drove home, and I said goodbye to my Grandma and Aunt, and they went to Vienna. I got a lot of laundry done, and also wrote up the first part of my Ireland blog post. Since then life has been pretty calm, just trying to get back into the swing of things, like homework (which you will notice I am not doing, but instead am working on this post J) Anyway, I should get back to that.

Here are the pictures from the first two days (see the last post) And also I want to say that Teddy did come with me, but unfortunately didn’t get into any photos in Slovenia or Croatia!

At the cafe for lunch the first day together

At the Austrian Restaurant for supper!

Also at the Austrian Restaurant!

Lots of Love,

Tiny

Slovenia and Croatia

This blog posting is hard, there are so many things that I want to talk about that are happening right now, but also I need to keep it updated about what I was doing when I didn’t have internet. So a short recap, I am back at school, it is going fairly well, Wednesday I had tea with N and Finnish M, which was totally awesome. M and I have found that we both really like cooking for more than 1 person J. Then yesterday I was wandering around campus looking for lunch when the new cafeteria in my building was doing a promotion and gave me a free Panini!! Talk about awesome! Anyway more to the point of this blog post, what I did with the last week of the Easter Break.

When L’il Bro and I and the gang landed in Graz, I had a message on my phone from my Auntie B, who was visiting, that we should come for supper, and we did! It was awesome. I got to see my Auntie B, my grandma and also their friend. L’il Bro and I went home and the next day our adventures began again.

Day 1:

We went to Schloss Eggenberg. I’ve talked about it in an earlier post (see link) and it was awesome. http://tinyandteddyseetheworld.blogspot.com/2011/08/castle-eggenberg.html It was cool to go back cause I know some more about Austrian history, so on the tour I understood some more of what the guide was telling us. It was also fun to watch the reactions of all of the rest of the group. Even L’il Bro was interested. We also got to see some of the peacocks that live on the grounds. Sorry I don’t have many photos, I was so tired of taking them after Ireland, but when I get some from the others I’ll post them. Then it was time for lunch and a visit to the apartment and then supper at an Austrian restaurant, then home, to get L’il Bro all packed and ready to leave.

Day 2:

Dropped L’il Bro at the airport in the morning and then continued to explore Graz. We met up with Finnish M at the University and did a quick tour. Then we walked around the Schlossburg, went for coffee and checked the things off of the list that Grandma, Auntie B and S wanted to see. We found the coolest cloister that I hadn’t even heard about from the tourist book, which was nice because it is always cool to visit places that I haven’t been before. Again, sorry for the lack of photos. We had dinner at another restaurant that I hadn’t been to before which was also Austrian, but it was neat because the table next to us was celebrating and everyone was dressed in typical Austrian clothing, so Dirndles.

Day 3:

Time to head out. Auntie B’s friend C, who I went to see in December, drove down to picj us up from Graz, and head onto Croatia. On our way we got to see the Lipizzaner horses at Lipica and I also got a stamp on my passport!! (You have no idea how excited those stamps make me). And we finished the day in a really nice hotel in Croatia.

We stopped for Lunch at a little road stop, it was really yummy!
And the lake behind it was also very beautiful

This was one of the older horses at the
Lipizzaner place!

More of the horses

I’m going to stop there, because now that life has started for me again I kind of need to do homework, buy groceries and all of that good stuff!

<3 Tiny

Dublin

See I told I would have this post up by today! J We spent more than one day in Dublin which was really awesome because I was exhausted from all of the driving and also from moving from one place to another. However on our first day in Dublin we weren’t quite done with the car yet!

Day 8:

We started the morning going to Trinity College to see the Book of Kells. It is a book that was written in 800 AD and is an illuminated text. In other words it is a really amazing book with really neat calligraphy and pictures (If you don’t know what it is or looks like you should look it up). We went first thing which we found out was a good thing, because right when we finished there was a massive tour bus that arrived and pretty much took over the museum. Then we jumped into the car and drove out to a place where they have tours to Neolithic tombs, talk about fascinating. The one that we went to was called Knowth and it has two really long tunnels underneath it for the burial grounds. Also there were these amazing carved stones all around the place. They don’t know why they made these structures, or how, but they know that the one at Knowth was not only used in the Neolithic, but also throughout history as a fort because it was a giant hill in the middle of farmland. And finally we said goodbye to the car and headed back to Dublin. It was a good thing we did because we had no idea how long the bus was going to take to get us back to the airport and we got a pretty good idea on the ride home.

No pictures in the museum, so I got one of the sign!

This was our hostel, see what I mean about
the purple (see last post)



This was the coffee that E got at Trinity College

This was the tomb that we went to go see!

Some of the carvings on the stones. They had all rubbed
away a lot, but that is to be expected from stones that are
5000 years old.



This was the tomb from a ways off. It was a really big hill, so
it made sense to have it as a place to put a watch tower or two!

Day 9:

We started out the day with the best breakfast ever at a place called the Queen of Tarts. If you ever end up in Dublin look it up! I think though we were all vibrating with all of the sugar that we ate that morning, I know I was! Then we walked to the Gaol, I got us a little lost, but the route we took was more scenic than the other way. The Gaol was very interesting, because of all of the history it had. First it was used as a place where they deported criminals to Australia, then as a place for criminals from the potato famine, and finally as a prison for criminals from the civil war in Ireland. The stories that the lady told us were just so cool. Also the main part of the building has been used in some movies, so you might know where we are talking about (I can’t remember them right now). We then went to a concert that was put on by one of M’s friends and her orchestra. They played two parts from Holst’s The Planets, which is my fave so I loved that part too! (Sorry about the lack of pictures, by this point I was a little tired of pictures and also my camera battery wasn't fully charged)

The menu, I am pretty sure that is L'il Bro.

My Breakfast! I shared, so dont think I ate it all myself.
Teddy loved them both!

The Gaol

Day 10:

Aka Our last day. We started the day going to another café, not as popular as the other one, but equally as good, I had eggs though, because I couldn’t do another sweet breakfast. We also went back to Trinity College to get some stamps and some more post cards, and we played cards too. And finally, after three days we made it to the Guinness tour!!!!! The only bad thing I can say about the tour is that I had had too much Guinness by the time we got there that I had a soft drink instead of a Guinness at the end. (But don’t worry I did try the sample that they gave us part way through the tour). By the end of the day though some of us needed a serious nap, and we went for one, and then we packed everything up, shared some youtube videos and went to bed, because we had a really early start to the morning in order to catch our flights home.

The Guinness Factory!!!!! Teddy likes
Guinness too! 

There were a lot of signs!



E and her taste of the beer.



L'il Bro with his taste of the brown stuff!

Wow, that was a ton of stuff to get in. I may have a post later that is just pictures taken by the other members of our group, because, as is always the case, I don’t have many pics of me. I’ll post again soon, but right now I really need to do some studying for my classes!

Lots of love,

Tiny and Teddy

Ireland Part 2

So where did I leave off?? Right…

Day 4:

We started off the day sort of early and we went to Ross Castle right after breakfast (it is just outside of Killarney). It was really rainy on that day, and we were all wet, and cold, so we didn’t do much exploring, but that didn’t stop us from the carriage ride. The man that we had as our tour guide was really fun and he told us a ton of information about Muckross Abbey (the place where we had the tour, just 30min from the castle) my fingers almost couldn’t move though because we were so cold. After that we drove around a lot of the Ring of Kerry, and saw the ocean for the first time! It was beautiful, although I will admit that I had a nap for part of the ride though. When we turned onto this one road though we were all awake. It was a one lane road with a 100km/h speed limit (don’t worry, we didn’t go nearly that fast) we also got into a “Sheep Jam” where there were 4 sheep on the road. When they started running, all of the sheep in the field also started running, that was a good laugh! Finally we ended up back in Killarney (after some German studyingJ), where we stopped at an Irish pub and had some real Irish music, it was sooo much fun.

P and E getting ready for the rain

The Ross Castle

M and A, ready for the wet!

Our horse from the carriage ride.

Muckross Abbey



L'il Bro and E walking to the waterfall at
Muckross

The waterfall

This was just on mountain in the Ring of Kerry

The Ocean for the first time on this trip!

Day 5:

We were up early once more, by this point we were all getting a little bit tired out. We were supposed to do a tour of this Monastery Island, but the weather didn’t cooperate and we couldn’t get there, so we drove around the Dingle Pennisula instead. Our first stop was the ocean. We went to this beautiful beach where some of us went into the water and the rest of us played in the sand. (Not swimming though, it was a little cold for that, and we didn’t have out swim suits). Then we stopped at the city of Dingle, which was nice, and then to the Beehive huts. We also stopped at this one point where L’il Bro and I walked out to the end and got to see the power of the ocean. It was Beautiful!! We ended up in a city called Tralee for supper, which was good, because we hadn’t anticipated Limerick to be quite so far away as we had thought. When we got there we collapsed into bed and didn’t wake up until the morning.



These are Ogham stones, they have some of the first forms
of writing on them. They were lines carved into the side.



The Ocean again!



All of us at the beach

P and me playing in the ocean!

L'il Bro and the Penguin at the Dingle Aquarium

Dingle



The Beehive Huts

All of us at the Beehive Huts

L'il Bro at the end of the pathway

Me at the end of the pathway

Day 6:

We had a lazy morning, and by that I mean we went and had breakfast and then had a nap before doing anything! We walked into Limerick, because we were all in need of a walking day, instead of being stuck in the car the whole time. We stopped by the Frank McCourt museum because we had all read or seen the movie “Angela’s Ashes” it was really fun, our guide was knowledgeable and gave us a nice tour. We then stopped at a candy store where they let us try candy that was sooo sour that my mouth hurts thinking about it even now. We wandered around Limerick for the rest of the afternoon and then back to the hotel. It was our restful day, and we were still all exhausted by the end of it!

The museum

E as the teacher from the Frank McCourt museum



L'il Bro at the candy store,
they were really really sour

L'il Bro, E and P in Limerick

Shadows of Me, L'il Bro, E and P

P's First pint, he was excited because he wasn't driving that day!

Day 7:

Once again we were out and about not too early. We started the day with a run around the toy store next to our hotel and then went on to the Cliffs of Moher. They were so fantastic, it is hard to do them justice even by showing pictures. Probably the best advice I can give is go see them yourself. We walked and walked on those cliffs, and also took about a zillion photographs, because everywhere that you stopped there was a slightly different view to see and you had to grab one. We got back in the car and saw some ancient crosses and also an old burial ground before heading to Galway, which we stayed in very shortly due to traffic, and instead stopped somewhere else on the way to Dublin for some Chinese food. By this point I think I can safely say that everyone was tired of Irish pub food. Then we made it to Dublin and got into our hostel, which was purple, so I immediately liked it!

Teddy on the way to the Cliffs, he was there
the whole time, he just stayed out of the rain

The Cliffs of Moher

L'il Bro and E taking a look and a picture at the cliffs



They were absolutely beautiful and the weather was the best
for taking pictures!!

We got a really nice lady to take this pic of all
of us!



The Burial ground thing, it was really cold there, so we didn't
stay too long.

I think I’ll stop here and actually get some homework done as school does start tomorrow and I haven’t really looked at it since the break started! I promise I will get up the rest of Ireland and the trip with Gma and Auntie B before the end of the week.

Hope everyone is having a great time!

Tiny & Teddy