The Great Barrier Reef, Fraser Island, and the Sunshine Coast

You know you’re really on vacation when you find a 4-day-old moulding avocado in your day-pack.

So backing up, we were about to leave Cairns, some of us sun burned, some of us coughing (remember the colds) to head south, but Aviva felt this weird pressure in her ears, so off she and Rob headed to the 24-hour walk-through clinic (yes, "walk through" – not sure how they examine ears that way). Anyway, Aviva had limited confidence in the MD who examined her. She wasn’t so sure how good his English was and he only spent about 30 seconds examining her when he gave her a prescription for an outer ear infection. The pharmacist wasn’t much better. Rather than telling Aviva how she should use the medication, she kept asking her what the doctor had said and then would say, “Yeah, ok, that sounds good, do that.”

So with Noah’s eye infection still being treated, and Aviva’s ear infection, we headed off down the coast. Back in a rental vehicle we found on-line, you know us – enviro-friendly geeks – we found ourselves in a massive “maxi-van” which seats eight, with tons of extra room. None of us were too happy with the size, and while parking was already a challenge in the last van, this one topped it. As an aside, Diane has now been promoted back to the front seat and only occasionally gasps or yelps.

We spent the night before our boat tour in Airlie Beach, a definite can-MISS, beach party town with drive through liquor stores again.

Our hotel was in the quieter part of town, but right next to our rooms was an 18 year-old's all-weekend birthday party (drinking age here is 18). As it turned out, the 18 year-olds weren’t the problem....it was their loud and perhaps drunk parents! The front desk assured us they would be quiet by 8:00 pm. When 9:00 pm rolled around and they were still raising a ruckus, we went to the front desk to complain, only to learn that the front desk closes at 8:00 pm and the staff go home for the night. Thankfully, the rowdy bunch settled down by 10:30 pm and we all got a good night’s sleep.

The next day we headed down to the boat. The parking lot was $22 for the two days, but the machine only accepted coins. Fortunately we found another place to park that accepted credit cards, given that we don’t tend to walk around with that kind of change in our pockets!

At the dock, we were greeted by Woody, the scuba instructor from North Hampton, UK. We soon met our skipper, Pete, from New Zealand, and Harriet, the cook and sometimes guide from Australia. There were 27 of us in total on Wings III, a catamaran sail boat that goes around the Whitsunday Islands stopping in choice spots for scuba and/or snorkeling, as well as a beach or two. There was one minor snag for all on the boat, and an additional snag for our family: it was cold and rainy, and some in our family had colds, eye infections and ear infections. The cold weather didn’t stop us from getting in the water, but the colds in our heads did stop us from being able to scuba dive. Aaron made two attempts at it, but was not able to equalize the pressure in his ears :( To be honest, a couple of us (i.e. Rob and Diane) were a bit skittish about the whole scuba diving idea to begin with! So we all snorkeled instead – and that was pretty amazing.

So how did we get into that 19 degree water??? Each of us wore 3, yes THREE, wet suits! If you go up one size each time, the space in between heats up with your body and can keep you pretty warm. (We only did this on the 2nd snorkel. The first time we were all chattering away). All bundled up like the Michelin man, we saw amazing fish and coral. On their second time out, Rob and Aaron saw a turtle swimming in the water. On a later snorkel, Aviva and Diane saw another turtle and swam with it for a few minutes. And by turtle, we mean huge things – we’re guessing they were each over a meter in diameter. As for Noah, well he saw a Moray Eel. All told, it was pretty awesome.

We also went to an amazing beach, Whitehaven, with the softest sand you can imagine – something between brown sugar and flour. During a hike on that island, Rob wanted to change into his bathing suit, so he and Diane let the others go ahead, while she kept a lookout and he changed. Once ready to rejoin the group, the others were no longer in site and so Rob and Diane were on their own on the trail, trying to figure out where the group (including Aviva, Aaron and Noah) had gone. They stumbled upon the other two academics on the tour, who were also lost! The four fumbled around on the trails and eventually met up with the rest of the group.

On the first night on the boat, we opened our hatch to let some fresh air in-you can do that when the boat is moored... operative word here being "moored". Unfortunately during the night, it rained.... And near to that open hatch lay a bunch of our stuff, including Aaron's book and all of our passports. Thankfully we had a fan in our room, and they dried, but they were all curled up and oddly contorted. We were a bit worried about getting in trouble on our return to Canada for damaging them, but low and behold, because they are made out of some weird newfangled plastic material, they straightened out within a couple of days squished between two books. Good to know if you are a Canadian out there with a wet passport!

The crew and our fellow passengers added to the fun of the tour. Aaron and Noah spent hours with our skipper, Pete, and learned a ton from him about sailing, navigation, New Zealand, etc. Aviva got to hang out with a bunch of people her age, since aside from the two other academics, most of the passengers were under 25. It was a very international crowd, and we all enjoyed the camaraderie.

After the boat tour, we headed further south to Fraser Island in our maxi-van. Fraser Island is a 120 km-long island made completely from sand. It has several fresh water lakes on it, which are really rain basins as they are not actually fed by any rivers or springs. There are also fresh water streams on the island also made from rain water, that takes 70 years to seep down through the sand, hit bed rock, and then form a stream that flows out to the ocean. We visited one of the lakes and did a creek hike in one of the rivers, upstream against the current.

But the coolest thing about Fraser Island was probably the “roads” there. In order to preserve it in its natural state, none of the roads are paved; they are all sand. The only way to travel here is in a 4X4 vehicle, and even then you can easily get stuck. If the sand doesn’t get you, you can also end up out somewhere on the island and then the tide comes in cutting you off from the other part of the island, and you're stranded till the tide goes out again! So we went on a tour bus, and the ride alone was entertainment enough. Sometimes the bouncing was like being on a ride in an amusement park. At other times we got stuck in soft sand moving along at a snail’s pace and wondering if we would have to get out and push (remarkably, Aviva actually fell asleep for part of this crazy bouncy ride). Then, the east coast of the island is this incredibly long beach, which they use as a highway, with an 80 km/h speed limit. They didn’t used to have a limit, but there were too many deaths, with people driving like maniacs on the beach. Our driver also drove straight over rocks – it felt more like riding on an elephant than in a bus at times!

Near the end of the day we were on one of the roads crossing the island when another vehicle was heading right for us. The other vehicle stopped and backed up to a spot where we could get around each other (the sand roads are all one-lane by the way). Unfortunately, in the process, they got trapped in the sand. Their vehicle was a pick-up truck used by the local Aboriginal people, but was rear wheel drive only – insane! So we were suddenly all stuck. Folks from our bus spilled out, and several including Aaron, tried to push them out of the sand, but they just ended up digging in deeper. Eventually our driver skilfully backed up our bus between two trees, barely missing one of them. He then tied the front bumper of the stuck pick-up to our bus and pulled the trapped vehicle out of the sand. As we all piled back on the bus, we could hear the other driver backing up his truck and then a loud crunching noise. He had hit the tree we had just missed!

The other cool thing on the island is the wild dingoes. Dingoes are everywhere in Australia, but the ones on Fraser Island are the purest breed. They are thought to have been introduced to Australia about 4000 years ago – after the Aboriginals arrived and before the Europeans came. They’re actually from Asia – Malasia/India/Indonesia and may have come over with fisherman trading with the Aboriginals. Oh how the Europeans love to think they were the first to “discover” a place, eh! Anyway, there were warning signs all over the place about the dingoes as they love to steal food – and have been known to attack people, especially small children in their search for food (remember “A Cry in the Night”? The woman was only very recently exonerated on June 11).

Let’s take a moment to review some of the new vocabulary we’ve picked up in our travels here.

• Cuppa = cup of coffee or tea, as in “Let’s have a cuppa.”
• Doona = comforter
• Dunny= outhouse
• G’day mate = Hi buddy... yes, they really do say this.
• How ya goin’ = How’s it going
• Tasty cheese = cheddar cheese (we think – at least that’s what it tasted like to us).

Now we come to the section we call Australians make everything sound cute:

• Sunnies = sun glasses
• Paw paw = papaya
• Strawbs = strawberries
• Avos = avocadoes (as in, “hey, I just found a mouldy avo in my day-pack!”)
• Pokies = Slot Machines

After Fraser Island we headed further south still, to The Sunshine Coast. During the drive Aviva read to us our second book, “The Kite Runner.” It seemed fitting to read about Afghanistan while we were in Australia, cuz they both start with A. Throughout these last drives we have passed through tons and tons and tons of cane fields. They even have “cane trains” here. They are these mini-trains that sit on a very narrow track. The farmers load the cars up with the harvest and then move the train along. As with all holidays, we’ve also had a couple of theme songs that have nothing to do with the place we’re visiting and only to do with what we wanted to listen to at the time. So the theme songs for this year have been: Roundabout (by Yes) and Sunday Bloody Sunday (by U2).

The last three nights of our holiday were spent in a little beach town called Caloundra. We relaxed at the beach, read, ate very well, and just hung out. Rob and Diane had their anniversary here, and so the kids had dinner in one restaurant, leaving the parents to go out for a romantic 21st anniversary dinner. Left to their own devices, the kids tried Oysters on the half shell and reported back, “I didn’t totally hate them” (Aaron) and “They tasted like blood” (Noah).

There was one really odd and upsetting thing that did happen while we were in Caloundra. On the first day, as we strolled along the beach, we noticed four police officers standing around what looked like a parachute and a helmet. We weren’t sure what to make of it at the time, but the next day we read in the local paper that a skydiver had actually fallen to his death there a couple of hours before we arrived on the beach, in front of tons of witnesses as it was a Saturday, late morning.

On a lighter note, for our last night in Australia we got dressed up and went out to a very nice restaurant overlooking the water. We returned to the hotel for a late night swim in our warm pool – although still not warm enough for Aviva and Diane, but the guys did swim. We’ve written this, our last entry for this summer, somewhere over the Pacific.



Till next time.....Love,

RANAD
P.S. Comments always appreciated.

Uluru and Cairns

When you’re thinking Alice Springs, don’t think Palm Springs. It’s more like Yellowknife with palm trees.

We stayed in Alice Springs the nights before and after our camping trip to the Outback, so we got to spend a chunk of time there. After hearing a number of white Australians tell us about how Australia has abolished their Reserves and handed back land to the Aboriginal people since the mid-1980s, we saw things here that made us think the situation hasn’t progressed quite so much between the whites and the Aboriginals. There seemed to be a lot of unemployment, homelessness and general poverty amongst the Aboriginals. This was in stark contrast with the droves of young Brits and other Europeans snatching up tons of jobs in this city where work seems to be abundant. It wasn’t clear to us though whether this was also because of a reluctance on the part of the Aboriginals to assimilate to the European ways, given the richness of their own culture and history. All in all their situation does not seem that different from the North American one; with a people who have lost their way of life, but the alternatives are not necessarily the right choice for them either.

OK, now about our camping trip to the Outback.

We woke up dark and early at 5:30 am, which unbeknownst to us would be the same time we would be waking up for the next few days. We loaded up our small packs into the bus, picked up a few more people and headed to the Outback. Along the way we stopped to “gather” fire wood, which seemed conspicuously easy to find – almost as if it had been laid out for us ahead of time in large quantities (we wondered....). Our travel companions were absolutely lovely. We were the only native English speakers on the trip; the rest were French, German and Spanish. OK, there was this one weird French guy from Lyon, who seemed to behave like a rebellious 12 year-old, despite being in his late 30s. He needed to be faster than everyone on every hike, would talk to his friend when the guide was explaining things, had his ear buds in at all times (perhaps to drown out everyone else), went too close to cliff edges – to the point of being reprimanded by the guide,....and on the last day took off his shirt and was swinging it around, showing off his skinny, mediocre body and giggling with his friend.

On the first day of the trip we went to Uluru (formerly known as Ayer’s Rock) – a 348 metre tall flat top rock (monolith) that is 9.4 km in circumference sitting in the middle of a very flat desert. It is the result of millions of years of sand accumulated from inland seas and compressed, followed by erosion. We started with a visit to the cultural centre and read up on all of the religious significance of this site, along with the art gallery where we could see local Aboriginal art work, most of which was in the pointillism style. Next we did a hike around the base of Uluru. The Aboriginals encourage visitors to see it in this way; and they discourage climbing Uluru itself. The Australian authorities, however, give a mixed message about climbing it. They have this precarious old chain from the 1950s that you can hold on to as you climb up the rock with no safety fencing (atypical for Aus where safety is always evident). At the same time, they have signs and guides telling people of the dangers of climbing it (many have died) and that it’s disrespectful to the Aboriginals. Needless to say, 100s were climbing up and down Uluru....We did not.

That evening we watched the sun set behind Uluru, colours changing as the light faded. We sipped champagne with our European traveling companions. Olivier, a suave young French guy from Marseille, gladly popped the corks for us, with a cigarette hanging from his mouth – fulfilling any stereotype one might have about French guys.

Did you know that it gets cold in the desert at night? Really cold. As in freezing cold. The first night we stayed in pre-fab tents each with two single beds inside, an electric lamp, and a wooden floor. And we froze our asses off. The second night we slept under the stars, on the ground around the campfire in these Australian sleeping bags called “swags”. And we were toasty warm. The swag is like a cocoon with a canvas outer shell that zips you inside. It contains a mattress, and full bedding- and it warms you simply by trapping your own body heat inside.

When they originally asked us who wanted to sleep in the swag, Rob was hesitant, afraid of the wildlife at night – you know, snakes and dingos and the like. When Diane, Aviva, Aaron, and Noah raised their hands, along with a 9-year old girl called Laura, 12 more of the 22 people on the tour followed suit...and finally, succumbing to peer pressure, Rob did too. The next morning, Rob said “This was the best sleep I’ve had in my life”. The bonus to sleeping outside was that we slept under the mid-August Meteor Shower, and got to wish upon shooting stars- although most of us fell asleep after only a few, simply exhausted from our action-packed days. Our other expeditions included seeing the sun rise at Uluru, and hiking Kata Tjuta (A.K.A. The Olgas), as well as hiking the King’s Canyon.

Our tour guide, Jess was outstanding. She possessed a wealth of knowledge about history, geology, plants, culture, politics, you name it!

If we hadn’t already had enough of Alice Springs, the next day after our camping trip, our flight was delayed by 4 hours, and we got to spend another day there. This allowed us to take care of a number of errands, including taking Noah to the hospital to deal with a minor eye infection. After, at the airport, we reunited with half of our tour group, and with Qantas giving us each $25 food vouchers as compensation for the delay, it was a party!

Next stop Cans – Oh! You didn’t know? They pronounce Cairns “Cans” over here. So from the desert centre, we moved into the tropics, and the next day we did a hike in the Daintree Rainforest. We learned a ton about this, the oldest rainforest in the world. Majestic trees, with vines spiraling around them, buttress themselves by spanning out huge root systems to stabilize themselves in the moist soil, and to increase the oxygen to their roots.

True to its name, the rain forest rained on us throughout the hike. Everybody remembered to bring a rain shell...except for Rob, who sheltered himself with one of our towels and his Aussie Outback hat.

The next day a cold, which had started with Rob back on Kangaroo Island, had now caught up with a few more of us. So we opted for a quiet day on the beach. With frequent clouds breaking up the sunshine, we were perhaps a bit negligent with our sunscreen. But clouds or no clouds, this is the tropics man and UV gets through, so guess what? We all got burns!!!

While here we’ve learned a lot about, and seen several examples of controlled fires. The Aboriginal peoples did this for tens of thousands of years. The controlled fire was a form of early agriculture: the Aboriginals would burn a section of land, yielding new growth to be harvested as well as bringing animals to the area, making it easier for the hunters to catch them. With the Europeans managing the lands, the controlled fires ceased, causing uncontrolled bush fires. In recent years the old ways of controlled firers have been reinstated in this area. In Queensland (near Carins), they also use fire to manage the crops and we have driven through a few smoke filled patches of highway when passing the sugar cane plantations.

We are now en route to the Whitsundays for a boat trip. Our drive has been long with a few stops along the way for hikes in more rain forests and a couple of interesting eateries. At one café in particular a roadside sign advertised home-made scones with cream and jam along with an art gallery with works by the owner/baker. Said owner/baker turned out to be an eccentric, curmudgeony older British lady, who served us our scones and cream admonishing us to not put our used spoons or knives back into the tub of cream (like we actually would have?!?). She had signs explaining how to use the toilet “flushing is compulsory” “closing lid after use is compulsory”, etc. To top it all off, when she learned we were from Toronto, she replied, “My least favourite city,” then added, “in Canada”.

We’ve got to catch a boat for the next coupla days, so we’ll talk soon!
Love,
RANAD

Great Ocean Road and Kangaroo Island

So after we got stopped by the police, we had a lovely breakfast on funky Brunswick St. Oh wait- did we forget to mention that we got stopped by the police? Well, as Rob was just getting the hang of this novel left-side-of-the-road-driving thing, we heard sirens, and immediately started thinking of all the potential road rules we might have broken. Two police officers emerged and surrounded the car. Without skipping a beat, Rob pulled out the Canada card, explaining how he was just learning how to drive on the left side of the road. The police officer replied, “Ya, I can tell.” He made us pull over onto a side street, but we still didn’t know what we did wrong. After inquiring, the officer explained “nothing specific, you just looked like you didn’t know what you were doing.” Rob exclaimed, “I don’t!” They were rather sweet and a bit apologetic, giving us travel tips, and chatting with us about our future vacation plans. What’s a RANAD vacation without at least one encounter with the authorities?

Now for the Great Ocean Road. Think Route 1 California crossed with Cabot Trail Nova Scotia with a twist of Amalfi Italy (see our previous blogs).

Everyone has made it abundantly clear that one should never drive the great ocean road after dark...but we did. Nonetheless we had the majority of the day in light to appreciate the spectacular vista, and feel spectacularly jealous of those that live so near. With ocean on one side, and cliffs and sea-facing villas on the other, it’s not hard to be impressed. Continuing with the theme of past RANAD road trips, Aviva read us a novel: The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green. The book is about a teenager living with terminal cancer, and while certainly tragic, it’s not overly sentimental and chock full of satire and wit.

That night after dinner (which included kangaroo steak for the guys), we stayed on a farm, and our host, Sue, had a little surprise for us: A baby koala that she had rescued after its mother was killed by a car. Words cannot express the cuteness of this furry creature, and we all took turns petting him. In addition, the next morning there was a herd of wild kangaroos grazing on the property, just outside our windows. We felt like we had VIP passes for some nature show. Just as quickly as they appeared at our windows, off they hopped (or rather leaped), agile and swift.
We got an early start that day so that we could get in a couple of hikes before continuing on our drive. Our hike was along the cliffs edge, and down to the beach in Port Campbell National Park. Though not the most physically demanding of all hikes, it was certainly one of the most beautiful. Next, we went to see the 12 Apostles. Not a religious site, but a natural one; 12 giant rocks protruding from the ocean that have been carved out from the mainland by the relentless waves. During our drive that day, we stopped in a town called Warnambool, a small, non-descript town, but surprisingly we had a lovely lunch in a hip cafe because in Australia you can spit and find a good cafe.

That night, however, we had a uniquely different experience. We had no reservations, so pulling into a town called Naracoorte, Aviva suggested we stop at the best lit hotel for the night. Now, the tip-off should have been that attached to the hotel was a “drive-thru bar.” Seriously. But we decided to give it a go because after all, it was well lit. Rob went in to scope it out and the next tip-off should have been the sign saying “No Minors Allowed;” the receptionist was reluctant to give a room to a family because of the no minors rule, but acquiesced when he learned that the eldest was an 18-year old girl. The price seemed good, so Rob continued to check it out. He noted the casino, shared-bathroom and finally, the real deal-breaker: Four barefooted guys sitting in the hallway, drying their socks on chairs. So we nixed that hotel. The next hotel was no better, so we took a break to buy some groceries, but even the grocery store was a bit sketchy, with posters of bikini-clad girls advertising firewood, and ads for discounts on alcohol and tobacco on pension cheque day. Finally the woman at cash recommended we try Carolynne’s Cottages. Aviva was sceptical, as it was completely un-lit and almost impossible to find, as though Carolynne was challenging us to find her business. Aviva was certain that we were going to be murdered in this remote forested location at the outskirts of town, and pointed at the stone statues in the yard, claiming they were Carolynne’s past guests...Hmm. Carolynne turned out to be an elderly woman who should have been more scared of us than we were of her, and showed us to our cozy cottage with a fully-stocked fridge.

The next day, we drove inland through South Australia wine country, passing several wineries along the way. We drove to our ferry that took us to Kangaroo Island. Due to Diane’s unruly behaviour -shrieking with fear as Rob was driving along the cliff- Diane was demoted to the very back of the minivan where her inability to accurately see the road drastically improved her behaviour! Kangaroo Island is sort of like the P.E.I. of Australia, but it’s almost completely uninhabited by people (loads of wildlife though). Our first night there, we went for a nature walk looking for wallabies, kangaroos, and possums. Key word is “looking”-we never actually saw any that night. We did see a pitch-black night sky strewn with stars; no clouds, no light pollution just us and the galaxy.

We despaired that we were only going to see wildlife in the form of road kill (sadly, the highways are dotted with dead wallabies, possums, and some kangaroos), but we did get to see tons of live animals the next day. First we went to the Remarkable Rocks,

which is a dome formed by rising molten lava that cooled, and then was exposed to erosion by wind and sea. They are basically giant boulders in kooky shapes that you can climb; we didn’t climb though. Then we went on to the Admiral’s Arch, where we were feet away from New Zealand fur seals sunning themselves on the rocks.

We saw sleeping pups, a few territorial scuffles, and some were swimming in the crashing deathly waves, totally nonplussed. We watched them for at least an hour. We then went on a nature walk in Flinders Chase National Park where we got to see the Australian wildlife we were looking for: Kangaroos and wallabies grazing in the planes, exotic birds (emus?), and amazing plant life. There was a platypus viewing site where you have a 98% chance of not viewing a platypus. And guess what? We didn’t see one.

On our last day in Kangaroo Island, we toured the local farms. First we visited a bee farm where they produce honey using a Ligurian (from Italy) bee. This bee only exists in its purest strain on Kangaroo Island because the island has been so successfully quarantined for the past 150 years. We also visited a eucalyptus distillery where they make eucalyptus oil. We wondered what eucalyptus oil can’t do since it seems to be a cure for anything and everything. Finally we went to a sheep dairy, and got some amazing cheeses. The owner let us feed the sheep, which included one very bossy (i.e., territorial) ewe who kept butting the others out of the way when we’d try to feed them. The advantage of coming to Australia during the winter, their off-season, was that we got a lot of appreciative proprietors, who gave us little free tours.

After taking the ferry back to the mainland, we drove to Adelaide to spend the night prior to a flight to Alice Springs. What to say about Adelaide? After seeing the culture and sophistication of Sydney and Melbourne, the gritty feel of Adelaide was particularly striking. Lots of sex shops, gaming rooms (casinos), massage parlours, etc... It’s a raunchy city with a reputation for being so.
Currently we are in the airport waiting for our delayed flight to Alice Springs.

More soon.

Love,
RANAD

RANAD in Australia: Sydney and Melbourne

You know you’re in Australia when the homeless people are wearing UGGs.....

Australia is far. Very far. This is why we decided to send Rob on a reconnaissance mission two weeks ahead of us just to test the waters... and he threw in a few workshops along the way. On the day of his departure, there was an electrical fire at Pearson airport, and so Rob was re-routed to a different flight. In the mayhem of the electrical fire and airport staff being unclear on how to proceed, Rob was told to do one thing by the police, only to be told the exact opposite by airport security. After several back and forths between security and police, which included Rob asking the security guard if he was going to taser him, Rob was kicked out and told to return to the airline desk (as was everyone else). Ironically, while waiting to be re-routed back at the Delta desk, Rob and the others noticed a huge sign that read, “Pearson, voted Canada’s most improved airport!” Hmmm.....

Two weeks later, with Rob half a globe away, the rest of RANAD embarked on the journey to Oz. Due to an electrical fire in Detroit, the plane never arrived (okay, we don’t actually know about the electrical fire, but either way our plane was held up). So... the rest of us were also rerouted. Now, just to preface, every mildly annoying thing that can go wrong in air travel did go wrong. First the flight was delayed, then the flight was re-routed, then the re-routed flight was delayed, then one bag didn’t make it onto the rerouted flight, then we almost missed the connection in L.A., and finally, the rest of the bags were lost (clearly they just couldn’t keep up).

So our first day in Sydney we went shopping for underwear. Really really really expensive underwear. Why? Because the bags were still lost, and everything in Australia is a tad expensive....even the underwear. FYI, minimum wage is about $18/hour here, so they can afford $20 gotchies.

Fresh underwear in hand, we enjoyed strolling the city, watching some talented buskers (Everything After – if you wanna check them out on Youtube), and then headed out for a yummy dinner in Chinatown, where one of the most authentic places to eat is called, “Eating World,” basically a food court with absolutely no ambiance. One of the differences in this Chinatown compared to ours was the ubiquitous dessert cafés, serving Taiwanese and Hong Kong style desserts; stuff like mango on shaved ice with coconut milk, flavourless red beans on shaved ice with molasses jello, sesame pancakes, etc. The descriptions here say it all, some of it tasted good, some of it not so much.

On the following day we took a boat tour of the Sydney Harbour.

It was a great opportunity to get a feel for the greater Sydney area.
Our septuagenarian guide was a bit atypical for his age, continually checking his iphone whilst giving a tour of the harbour. Needless to say, it was not the most compelling tour, but it was somewhat informative (both about both Sydney, and the modern day grandpa).

Later that night, we went home and watched the Olympics. We couldn’t believe that all this time we’d never realized that the Australians are the true stars of the entire Olympic games- or at least that’s what the coverage here would lead you to believe. Really, it’s remarkable how little they cover of any country other than their own. In one rowing event they placed second, and the coverage cut away from the event before we could see who got the bronze. As for swimming, was Michael Phelps even in this Olympics?

On the topic of sports, anyone a Footie fan? The Aussies are obsessed with it here, packing stadiums with 70,000 fans at $18 a ticket: Australian rules football. It’s sort of a cross between soccer and rugby, though it would appear to not have any consistent rules whatsoever. We’ve decided that Footie is a game created by a bunch of 10 year old sore losers who couldn’t win a real match of rugby, so they just kept changing the rules as they went along: sometimes you have to throw the ball, sometimes you can’t throw the ball, sometimes you run with the ball, sometimes you dribble the ball, sometimes you kick the ball through your opponents post, sometimes you kick the ball through your own posts. Really. We can’t seem to make heads or tails of the game. But it does seem to be highly aerobic, apparently they run upwards of 20 km. a game.

The next day we went on a bike tour with Matt, an aspiring actor and sometimes tour guide.

Matt was long on entertainment, short on factual accuracy, claiming for example that the American Revolution occurred in 1786...hmm... We think we learned some interesting information about Sidney, although it’s hard to know for sure. Apparently the Matrix was filmed in Sidney...? Apparently Nicole Kidman and Tom Cruise’s Sydney condo sold for 12 million...? What we do know for sure is that we biked across the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the view was spectacular. We tried lemon-lime bitters and some local beer. And we cycled to all the major sites of Sidney, including the Sydney Opera house. Apparently the architect, fired from the project for overspending, left the country, and never returned to see his project completed...?

The next day we took the ferry to Cockatoo Island, a now defunct shipyard. There was an exhibit of installation art all over the island from various artists. We found ourselves feeling a bit torn between wanting to be more open minded to this esoteric art, wishing we were more open minded, and finding ourselves not so open minded. Much of the art often appeared to be a conglomeration of seemingly random objects placed in a room attached to “deep” artist statements that were quite a stretch (“These two pieces of hanging cloth represent the divide between the East and West of this world,” and the like).

There were, however, a couple of really cool pieces, like a room filled with thousands of paper guns that opened up like a fan into colourful paper flowers. There was also an Uruguayan artist whose sketches, reminiscent of Dali, filled the walls of a room with distorted grotesque figures and political messages.

That night we saw the first night of Sydney's Improv festival at the New Theatre in Newtown. This very talented bunch came from all over the English speaking world, and we definitely had a lot of fun at this show. The next day we rented a car, and drove to the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney where we did a hike and saw some really massive trees. We discovered a new bird call: The Whistle and Bell. It's two birds that call to each other, and one sounds like a whistle, the other like a bell, although honestly, it sounded more like a whip to us. As we were losing daylight at the end of our hike, Aviva was straggling behind and to encourage her, Diane suggested she imagine she was late for an audition that was being held back at the car. It worked. We should add that this day trip involved Rob learning how to drive on the left side of the road (recall that we said we had rented a car). As if learning how to drive on the left side of the road wasn’t difficult enough, Rob had the additional challenge of dealing with the occasional terrified shrieks and gasps coming from Diane.

Let’s talk a bit about the weather in Australia. As we were preparing to leave Toronto, Diane kept reminding us that it was winter in Australia. But did we believe her? Not really. Even Diane didn’t fully believe her. Every day that we’ve been here, we’ve had to add a piece of clothing: hats, gloves, scarves, thermal undershirts, thermal underwear, and Aviva even bought a winter coat. There is this denial of winter that even the Australians seem to indulge in as well. There is totally inadequate heating in the hotels, so you’ve got to really go under the covers at nights. They seem to have these space heaters that they use in restaurants, which are something like huge toaster ovens, and appear to be fire hazards not unlike real toaster ovens.

Next we flew to Melbourne, a much less eventful flight than any of our journeys over here. The first night in Melbourne, we had a real Aussie barbecue with Rob’s new colleagues, Brendan and Di whose beef and lamb were raised on their own farm. Interestingly, in order to maintain their small herd, they periodically rent a male to get the job done from a business called “Rent-a-Bull.” Seriously. At Di and Brendan's the plan had been to put on our togs (bathing suits), and get in the spa (Jacuzzi) before dinner. Rob, Noah, and Aaron did so, but the gals? Well.... remember it is winter in Australia. After dinner, the kids jammed with Brendan and Di’s younger son, Rob, whose rendition of Santana’s “Black Magic Woman” was spot on.

Our hotel in Melbourne was right next to the Queen Victoria market, this fabulous foodie heaven. Each morning we went there to buy fresh baked goods, cheeses, Tazmanian salmon, home-made yogurt, you name it, for our breakfasts and lunches. YUM!!

On day two, while Diane did a workshop in Melbourne, Rob and the kids did a free hop-on hop-off bus tour of the city. Melbourne like Sydney is gorgeous in its own way. Sydney has the spectacular harbour, bridge, opera house and hills. Melbourne has the architecture, the arts, the fashion, and the river.

On our last day in Melbourne, we did another bike tour.

Our guide, Brian, a 62-year old graphic artist who lived here all his life, was very knowledgeable. In fact, he is 7th generation Australian. His great great great great grandparents were BOTH convicts brought to Australia on the first fleet. Because they were a couple, they were given some land to work along the Paramatta River and two labourers (also convicts). The story goes that they served goat at their wedding, and not unsurprisingly, shortly after the nuptials,one of the General's goats was found to be missing. The newlyweds were arrested for stealing the goat, but claimed that the goat was already dead when they "found" it, so they were subsequently let off. In addition to hearing about Brian's ancestors, along with seeing the sites and history of Melbourne, it was a bit of a foodie tour as well. We went to an fabulous Italian bakery where we had pastries and coffee, returning to the market for lunch: bourekas like we’ve never had before. But more about the amazing food and coffee here next time...

Next stop? The Great Ocean Road....

Talk to you soon.

Love,
RANAD!!

London and Edinburgh

Hey gang, so we finally accomplished a life long dream to swim across the English Channel, or at least to traverse it by train in one of humankind's greatest engineering feats: The Chunnel. And guess what? It was really anticlimactic. There you are, cruising across French farmland in a high speed train that suddenly goes into a pitch black tunnel for 20 minutes with nothing to see, and boom, you're in the UK, cruising across more farmland. Now if they suddenly screeched to a halt in the Chunnel, made sounds of water rushing in, shot bullet holes in the windows....now that would be interesting. I guess we're just that hard to please.

Anywhoo, we arrived in London and met up with Diane's mom, Eva, so we were once again 5 (remember, Aviva left us in Switzerland to join her band of traveling minstrels). We settled into our cozy little house and hit the town for the next coupla days, with our go-go-Granny. We boated on the Thames, bussed around London-town, went all over by tube, and saw many of the major sites. In Greenwich, we had lunch at an awesome market where you could get just about anything from anywhere in the world....and we did: Ethiopian Vegetarian, Mediterranean fusion, French crepes, sweets, sushi, blah blah blah. We then checked out Greenwich Meantime which was also kinda cool. In the evening we had our first (and for some of us last for this trip) taste of fish and chips. Yum (ish).

Perhaps the most challenging part of our time in London was spent trying to figure out their incoherent public transit fare system. We dare you to even try to figure it out:

The pay as you go Oyster card gets you 10% off the boats, but not if you already got on the boat; and if you have a flat rate travel card, you spend more than the Oyster card, but less than a point to point, but you get 33% off on the boats. And if you are a kid, which is 16 or less, then you pay less than a travel card, but more than an Oyster card, but you can't get the child ticket on the bus so then you have to pay the adult rate. And the boat requires a 5.50 supplement each time you get off, but you can ride the rest of the transit system all day long for one rate...unless it's peak time.

Get it? We certainly did NOT. So a couple of times the credit on our passes was depleted and so they no longer worked, and we were told we had to pay more. But we had this really innocent looking Grandmother with us, who would do her best rendition of bewildered righteous indignation, and we would all get waived on.

Next we all headed up to Edinburgh, Scotland, to meet up with Aviva. As you may know, the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (the largest festival of its kind) was in full swing at the time of our arrival. The place was thick with crowds, and you can't walk two steps without running into a street performance, or people handing out flyers for their performances in theatres all across the city. Our first stop was The Dreamcatchers, the Earl Haig/Claude Watson performance that Aviva was in. It was really special to see the group perform; they were amazing (but hey, we're not biased). Over the days that we were there, we saw a few of the many buskers, who seemed to try to out-do each other when it came to dangerous juggling, i.e., juggling machetes, hatchets, and even chainsaws (yikes, that was scary!). These guys were world-class, and could entertain street crowds in the hundreds for 45 minutes at a time, often effectively dealing with drunken nasty hecklers.

On our second day in Edinburgh, Eva headed back to London, and we did a day-hike up Arthur's seat at the top of the Holyrood mountain, walked along the mountain's edge and came down at Holyrood palace, the Queen's residence when visiting Scotland; although she didn't wanna invite us in, so we just stood in front of the palace in the rain :( We also walked the Royal Mile (the distance between the castle and the palace), and did a free walking tour of Edinburgh, which was amazing (Sandeman tours) and we could actually understand the guide despite the outrageous, but charming accent.

So that's it for this summer. We're now somewhere between Greenland and Iceland, way way up high. See you all soon.

With love,

RANAD

Paris

This was probably our nicest visit to Paris ever, well...except for our departure, which was insane. More about that later. What made this visit better? Perhaps, that we were sleeping in actual beds this time (at an Ibis), and not on someone's floor; and that we had recommendations on where to eat really well from our friends James and Laurie who had previously lived in the 11th district.

Paris is an incredibly cyclable city, flat and lots of bike lanes that take you everywhere, although sometimes you have to share the lane with maniacal taxi drivers and not-so-maniacal bus drivers; still, it's a tad disconcerting to be riding along and notice that there's a huge bus just behind you trying to squeeze by. On the first day we took a fabulous bike tour (FatTireBikeTours.com). Our British guide, Alex, was funny, knowledgable about politics and history; he gave us gory details about the French Revolution, and the heads that were cut off in Harmony Square (Place de la Concorde). He also taught us tricks to get comfortable riding in Paris traffic, including "total lane domination" where all 20 of us took up an entire lane of traffic, to the honks and insults of the drivers behind us.

On the second day, we rented bikes on our own and made our way across town. The city has over 50,000 bikes that you can rent for 1.70 Euro a day, with automated pick-up and drop-off racks placed conveniently all over. It was lucky that at the very time we were picking up our bikes there was a bicycle maintenance guy right there who showed us how to return the bikes properly (sometimes they don't click in place so easily), to avoid being erroneously charged 150 Euro for failing to return a bike. Let's hope we got it right!

Across Paris, on different days, there are always open air markets that include fruit and vegetable stands, baked goods, and clothing. Outside our hotel, there was an open air market where we picked up lunch for the day, including a whole roasted chicken (which we ate with our fingers outside Notre Dame; very barbaric, but very yummy). On the way to Notre Dame, we got a bit disoriented, and at one point, asked a local where it was. He laughed, told us to look way up, and he pointed right at it, chuckling about "Americans" (it was a bit embarrassing). Later we ended up at the Musée D'Orsay, where we took an English tour of the impressionist painters et al. We could make fun of the guide here, a bit, but we won't.

Our departure from Paris: Seriously messed up! It started out well. We arrived at the train station an hour and a half before our scheduled departure, reserved tickets in hand. We ate lunch, talked, and waited for them to indicate the track number that our train was leaving from. We waited and waited. The departures board clearly stated that track numbers could be posted as late as 15 minutes before departure. And then...15 minutes before departure they announced overhead instead, that this was the final boarding call for our train. We raced around to find out that we had to check-in on the floor above - which was self-evident to everyone else but us. We were repeatedly told, "Vite, vite," by various agents who hustled us through French departures, UK customs and immigration, as well as security. We were scolded by everyone, but particularly by the UK customs and immigration officer who told us, "You're going to another country, you know!" (of note, we've never had to clear customs and immigration in any of the other EU countries we've travelled through). Rob just kept saying to the officers, "Yes Madame, you're right, we're so sorry..." Incredibly, we made it onto the train with about a minute to spare.

We are currently flying across the British country-side on a high speed train. We just emerged from the Chunnel. It took about 20 minutes at a couple hundred klicks an hour. Pretty impressive. Next stop: London.

With love,

RANAD

La Suisse!

Switzerland 2011

Switzerland: A nightmare for the lactose intolerant. The chocolate, the fondue, the croissants, the café au lait, the Gruyère.....delicious, but difficult to manage for those of us with sensitive stomachs. Truth is, we've eaten better here than in Italy, which we can't quite figure out. Ideas anybody?

So we took the train from Milano to Lausanne where we settled in at a hotel not far from the neighbourhood we lived in seven years ago. We spent the next day and a half wandering around all our old haunts and were all a bit over-whelmed at various points. We went to the kids' old schools, our old apartment, and even the candy store the kids used to stop at on the way home from school. We also picnicked at the lakeshore (Ouchy), where we had a better view of the French Alps and Evian than we've ever had. We went back to one of the kids' favourite restaurants, Chez Nif, which sadly is now a Starbucks, a crazy-expensive Starbucks, i.e., $10.00 for a latte!

We had forgotten just how beautiful Lausanne is, and also a number of things have changed - like they now have no smoking laws, which means that you can actually taste your food when you eat at cafés and restaurants. More things seem to be open on Sundays; they don't seem to be advertising Canadian horse meat in restaurants as much as they used to (seriously, we used to be amazed by all the "cheval canadien" that was sold here). And, the new ultra-right wing party here is in full gear advertising "Stopper L'immigration Massive" and What face do you want Switzerland to have? - depicting exclusively white European faces. Still, the city seems to actually be a bit more diverse than it was seven years ago.

We spent a lovely evening with Diane's colleague, Elisabeth, and her family at their house in the country, and then the next morning, we dropped off Aviva at the train station, as she was heading off to London, via Geneva airport, to join her troupe that is heading up to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival shortly. We'll be meeting up with her there later on.

We were all set to head up into the mountains for two days of hiking, when we noticed how red and swollen Noah's right eye had become. Coincidentally our hotel was a block and a half from the Opthamological Hospital so off went Noah and Rob to get his eye checked out. What would a RANAD vacation be without a trip to the hospital? Turns out it was an infected stye, and he was given a script and we were headed out of town by noon.

We drove up to the highest altitude village in all of Switzerland, Chandolin, and stayed at a lovely inn (Plampras - say that 10 times fast). From here we did two hikes, the second of which was toward Arpitettaz. So about that hike. It was recommended to us by Elisabeth's über buff daughter, Juliette, who told us it was going to be challenging, i.e. for healthy but inexperienced hikers. She also said that we were just doing the first day of a two day hike, the second day of which would require a guide. So when we saw the signs warning "expert climbers only," we figured that only applied to day two. Wrongo!! After about an hour of very steep climbing, we hit a section of sheer rock at a 60 degree angle that required you to clamber up, pulling yourself along using these chains that were fastened to the rock. After about three switch backs like this, with much drama and tears from Diane, we arrived at the next section, which was actually at about an 80 degree angle (we are not exaggerating). Aaron and Noah were raring to go, but at this point Rob pulled the plug and said we're all heading back down. We doubled back a short bit, but then Noah found a safer alternate route, which appears to have been a goat path, as we ran into their droppings all along the steep, but grassy incline. At the top we picnicked amidst gorgeous vistas of two different glaciers. We continued on along a ridge and ran into a heard of goats (well actually they were sheep). Broken telephone moment: Diane called ahead to Aaron, "Tell Noah to be careful around the goats, if you get too close they can kick and bite." Aaron said to Noah, "Careful around the goats, if you get too close they can pick a fight."

On the way back down we met up with another group of hikers, and realized we had been taking the wrong path all along! Still, the experience was great, and from above the tree line and the clouds, we got to see the Dent Blanche, the Zinal Rothorn, and the Weisshorn.

Now we're on the TGV (high-speed train) to Paris, holy tamolly, is it ever going fast!

Talk to you later,
RANAD

Italy 2011 continued

Italy 2011, continued

So after Aaron was released on bail, we--
OK good, now we have your attention.

Our new landlady for the house we rented just outside of Florence, was extremely kind, but had a penchant for giving us "Dora the Explorer" style directions. For example, "turn left at the white van" (which was no longer there), "if this works, finish the road and then turn left", "go across the river, which isn't a river", etc. Add to this, she spelled the name of her town wrong, so our GPS could not recognize it. Also on the way there, we passed our first automated toll booth. The toll was 2 Euros. There was an "attendant" standing next to the toll booth, who kindly took our 10 Euro bill, inserted it in the machine, and gave us back 6 Euro. Now we're no mathematicians, but we have a hunch that he pocketed 2 Euros for himself. Perhaps the fact that he was in jeans and a t-shirt shoulda been a tip off to us that he was up to no good.

Somehow we got to our house and settled in fine. Our landlady took us back into town and brought us to a community dinner hosted by Casa de Poppolo. All across Italy there are these community clubs created by various socialist/communist parties. On the way in we saw many signs and communist posters from a different era, and even more current stuff too. The meal was very homey, with picnic table type seating, and loud families all around us. It was lovely.

The next day we headed off to Lucca where we rented bikes and rode on top of the walls of the city. Just to clarify, the city walls are very thick (15 meters wide), and have been turned into a park that you can bike or stroll on. We also relaxed in the park and read aloud our book, Brave New World.

Florence: the first day there was a tad overwhelming. The place is flooded with tourists and it was almost impossible to walk anywhere without being accosted by Schnochus venders (definition of Schnochus: crap that people sell to tourists); E.g., "10 Euro authentic paintings by Leonardo Davinci." Near the end of the day, we took a tour of the Santa Maria del Fiori and all climbed up the Duomo, including Diane whose fear of heights was relatively contained that day....she only asked a few times "What if there's an earthquake?" and when Rob reassured her, "This building has been standing for over 600 years," she replied, "Oh no! That's really really old, the railings could break". We were all rewarded for the 450 step trek with amazing views from the galleries and from the top of the Duomo. The next day we went on a tour of the Uffizi with an amazing Dutch tour guide named Klaus (artviva.com) who basically taught us Renaissance Art History 101. We went to the Academia to see Michaelangelo's David, with a different tour guide who must have missed her calling as a host of a children's TV show (she was super enthusiastic and cutesy) although the information was excellent, and at the end of the day, we got to stand in the presence of the David, very impressive. That day we learned that Boticelli's "Birth of Venus" was commissioned to hang in a 14 year-old boy's bedroom. If that's true, then as Aviva pointed out later, The David shoulda been commissioned for a 14 year-old girl's bedroom!
Dinner that evening was one of our funnest meals because we made it ourselves back at the lovely house we were renting; linguine with porcini mushrooms and tomatoes with basil from the garden.

A word on Gelato: It only takes one of us to convince the rest that we NEED to have gelato. Usually we've been able to keep it to once every one to two days. Usually.

Cinque Terre. We now understand why people say this place should be on your Bucket List. We did a 3 hour hike with spectacular vistas, winding through three of the five towns here, ending up at the beach at the end of the day. Oh, and we scored a free meal here too, although not on purpose: At the hotel, we had our worst meal ever in Italy - boiled flavourless vegetable mush, potatoes from a bag fried in reused oil, you get the picture. At the end, we politely let them know that we were not impressed and they refused to accept our money. On the last night here we had great pizzas and ended again with Nutella Pizza. Yum.

Now we're on a super high-tech train headed for Switzerland, enjoying spectacular views of the lakes and the alps, and trying to behave ourselves, but that's not really possible.

With love,
RANAD

Italy 2011

How do you know when you're in Italy? Maybe it's when the guy in front of you in the Budapest airport. starts yelling and gesticulating madly about his baggage surcharges and looks to the heavens and exclaims "Madonna Mia"! As most people know you're baggage must be a certain weight on these cheapo airlines, otherwise they fine you! He obviously never got the memo. On the plane, the flight attendant who spoke over the PA system, had a striking resemblance to a sex phone operator. Her overly breathy voice, drawling Hungarian accent, the occasional giggle as she told us where the emergency exits were, and the rhythmic punctuated pauses didn't exactly inspire confidence in airline safety. Upon arriving at the apartment/bed and breakfast where we stayed in Rome, in typical RANAD fashion we managed to set off the alarm for the entire apartment building. Thankfully, Alessandro, our host, wasn't fazed by it, and we couldn't actually hear it from the apartment.

After a delicious Italian coffee and Nutella bread, we headed out to spend a day at the beach. On our way out, we picked up cheese at a cheese shop, fruit at a fruit stand, bread at a bread store, you get the idea... Remarkably, the Roman rapid transit system takes you right to the coast for only 1.5 € each. At the beach, we swam, had a picnic, read and lazed about. We successfully ignored the pesky beach vendors, but the couple next to us weren't so lucky and got to see his entire kit layed out for them. On the way back from the beach, we had to wait for about twenty minutes for a bus. When the bus finally arrived, it was packed to the gills with other passengers. But we squished our way on anyway. Each of us were completely wedged between a mix of each other and complete strangers, to the point where Aviva didn't have to hold on to a railing or even support her own weight. And just when we thought you couldn't possibly fit more people on, the bus driver pulled over and picked up more passengers. The people at the back of the bus were throwing there hands up in the air and shouting "Basta! Basta!" (Enough! Enough!) Thankfully, we arrived at the station safely and headed back to Rome.

After a supper with an unplanned, uninvited accordion performance, we started walking around aimlessly looking for gelato. Upon asking some Italians for directions, they proclaimed "We live in Rome, and we're going for Gelato too. You should come with us!" So we did! And boy are we glad because they brought us to an amazing artisanal place, translated every flavour for us, and let us tell you, it was awesome gelato!

The next day we went on a tour of ancient Rome with our art historian guide, Silvia. She was like an encyclopedia of ancient everything! We saw the Colosseum, the Foro Romano, and where the Vesta Virgins lived. (Rob momentarily thought she said vespa virgins, so now every time we think of them, we can't help but imagine nuns on mopeds).

For dinner that evening, Aaron ordered ravioli stuffed with ricotta and pistachio. His first bite revealed some salty ground meat inside. When we complained to the waitress she looked aghast and asked if he was a vegetarian. To keep things simple, we said yes, and he ordered a veggie pasta. This being Italy, it took a while to come, so a very hungry Aaron had to sneak bites of Rob's meat dish whenever the wait-staff was out of the tiny dining area.

Okay, now we digress to list the top seven most peculiar vehicular behaviours we've witnessed in Italy thus far:

1) Man riding bicycle along highway without helmet, talking on cellphone.

2) Two year old child standing on front passenger seat of a moving car. Empty car seat in back.

3) Mother with two small children riding on moped.

4) Parked car with shirtless man and woman in car. Condoms strewn about outside.

5) Woman on moped, talking on cell phone headset, wildly gesticulating.

6) Motorcyclists everywhere weaving in and out between cars on the high way as if in video game.

7) Double solid yellow line on high way = Teeny VIP lane just for motorcyclists going in either direction.

Now on to Amalfi! Well first let's talk about the car rental. While Diane and Rob waited in line, they were kissing each other sweetly. The agent noticed and they stopped, bashfully. The agent smiled and said, "No no, don't ever stop. It's wonderful! Have fun in Italy." And she proceeded to give us a major upgrade on our car rental.

Our first night in Amalfi, in a town called Meta, our hosts recommended a local pizzzeria, where, literally all they serve is pizza; including (we're not kidding here) Nutella pizza for dessert. Each pizza was served on its own individual cookie sheet. It was extremely yum!

The following day we hiked up Vesuvius; an impressive volcano that is now dormant. Noah, taking a water bottle for himself, decided he would go ahead around the rim of the crater, but, tantalized by the vista, he didn't notice the "Access Prohibited" sign. After reaching a parking lot instead, he decided it wasn't interesting and would return back up. Meanwhile, the rest of us, who DID see the "Access Prohibited" sign, were growing a bit nervous, realizing that he must have gone ahead, and were greatly relieved to see him re-surface.

Later we took a tour of Pompeii. It really is remarkable how well preserved it is, especially in comparison to the Foro Romano. We learned that the city had numerous penises carved in stone or sculpted to ward off the evil eye, oh and also to indicate directions to brothels. On the way to dinner that evening, Aviva saw a dead bird (a major phobia of hers) and screamed and crawled on all fours into a gelateria. She has recovered, and they have thankfully removed the dead bird.

The next day our hosts sent us on the Malacoccola, one of the famous hikes, high up in the hills of the Sorrentine peninsula, from where we could see the sea on both coasts. If we could get a euro for every time we got lost and had to ask for directions from a local, we would have enough money to buy Diane a new iphone. (more about that in a moment). We ended up in Sorrento that night for dinner. It was a bit too packed with tourists, but still gorgeous.

On our last morning in Amalfi, we went to the beach for an early morning swim. We all had a lovely time, splashing in the waves while Diane took pictures with her iphone. Unfortunately, she somehow managed to drop her iphone in the ocean. It is currently recovering, but in critical condition, perhaps chronically impaired. We're not sure if it'll make it.

With love,
RANAD

Prague and Budapest

July 28, 2011

Hi all,

Skill testing question: Why does Europe smell like pee??
Answer: Hmmm...... I don't know.... Could it be because there are NO PUBLIC RESTROOMS? Yes, we've had our share of restroom-seeking challenges. First of all, we are grateful to Starbucks for being our free peeing haven. It's really hard to get used to the idea of paying 10 Korona (Czeck) or 1 Euro or whatever just to do your business. Now let's talk about Coffee Heaven, a coffee shop with free toilets... or so we thought. In this little joint we enjoyed mediocre coffee, left, came back 15 minutes later to use their washrooms, and got some serious sass - the guy told Rob "next time, go to Starbucks". The next day Diane couldn't hold it any longer and went back to Coffee Heaven to use the washroom. She hustled her way in, making no eye contact as the staff shouted at her "Hey, Hey!!", and on her way out the woman sarcastically said, "Thank you very much", to which Diane replied, "Thank YOU very much!" But our crowning pee saga was when we climbed up to the castle across the Charles Bridge in Prague. Rob dutifully followed the signs that read WC, 10 Korona coin in hand, only to find that it lead him to a locked washroom. Frustrated, we gazed upon the beautiful king's hunting grounds and thought "toilet!" We looked for a nice secluded bush where Rob (and then the rest of us) could finally pee.

So backtracking a bit, we got to Prague from Berlin by train and headed to our pretty apartment. Small notation, we don't speak Czeck and anyone over 50 doesn't seem to speak English. We can't even really read it. So even figuring out how to get tickets for the subway was a bit of a challenge and there have been several situations where we have resorted to mime and animal noises (to avoid eating pork or beef). Thank goodness for the people under 50, who speak pretty decent English, and it turns out you get subway tickets at convenience stores.

In Prague we took a free walking tour with a Canadian guide from Vancouver, who normally works in film, but has been living in Prague for the last year. We were a bit skeptical at first; a free tour of Prague by a Canadian 20-something named Crystal? Yeah right. But it turned out to be an awesome tour and we learned a ton about the city, its history, and the jewish quarter, for example, Hitler's plan to make part of Prague a museum about "the extinct jewish race."

That night we ate at a vegan restaurant near our apartment. It was fine....if you're vegan and enjoy salt and otherwise tasteless food. The next two nights, we opted for the "When in Rome, do as the Romans" policy, and ate awesome roasted duck, stuffed peppers, Czech dumplings, fruit dumplings, palacinky (pronounced palachinky), etc. and the kids shared a stein of Pilsner beer (the town of Pilsen is 45 minutes away).

On our second day in Prague, we went to the Museum of Communism, ironically situated above a MacDonald's and next to a Casino. It's located just off Wencislas square, the heart of the city, where events of the Prague Spring occurred (the failed 1968 uprising that led to two students' suicides in 1969) and the Velvet Revolution (successful pacifist uprising of 1989). Relevant sidetrack: At the top of Wencislas square we had noticed a seemingly out of place roadway with cars tearing along at break-neck speeds, making it dangerous to cross into the square. We discovered in the museum, that the Soviet's had planned this thruway so that they could get tanks into the square rapidly in order to stifle any uprising should need be. The museum itself lost something in translation, but it was interesting to see Cold War artifacts, the video documenting the police beating the student protestors even in 1989, and Soviet propaganda about the West.

On the train from Prague to Budapest, we didn't have to battle off any old people with canes, although to be honest, this time we were a fair bit more pushy getting on and finding seats for ourselves. Once we were safely seated, we proceeded to pull out whole loaves of bread, blocks of cheese, unpeeled carrots, jars of jam and pesto. We then enjoyed a delicious Philipp-Muller meal prepared by yours truly... RANAD!

And then we had to pull it together, because we were staying with Rob's family in Budapest, and they might not have appreciated our savage ways. So we acted normal for three days, while we toured Budapest with the cousins. The timing of our visit also coincided with Rob's uncle's 80th birthday, so on the second day, we all went for an extended and extensive lunch in the country to celebrate Rob's uncle Gyori (pronounced more like Dieu-ree). And then there was dessert. Birthday cake after birthday cake came flying out of the kitchen - dark chocolate cake, white chocolate cake, strawberry short cake, black forest cake, vanilla hazelnut cake, and even diabetic cake! Strong shots of Hungarian liqueur were had by all and pretty soon the language barriers made no difference and we were showing off our best silly faces, singing, and looking at Communist era advertising for sausage - check out the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watchv=9SIJmBd6D3o&feature=youtube_gdata_player

On the two other days, we had our own private tours of Budapest provided by our cousins, Borbala (nicknamed Bori) and Vera, whom we peppered with a gazillion questions, and they did their best to answer almost all of them. In general we managed the language barrier pretty well, as we had Rob's Hungarian, and a number of the family members there spoke English quite well. However, there was at least one noteworthy language mishap. Rob was talking about Toronto to his cousin Judit. He wanted to say that it's a hard city to live in because of all of the frustrating traffic (forgalom), but instead he said that it's a hard city to live in because of all of the frustrating revolutions (foradalom).

On the last day, we had a bit of a wild ride to the airport. We went in two cars - one driven by Rob's cousin, Miki, and the other by Rob's uncle, Gyori (whose 80th birthday it was). It was all going ok, until Gyori missed the cut-off for our terminal. Phone calls were flying between the two cars. Suffice it to say, that it culminated in Gyori pulling a U-turn on a highway, which did solve the problem, but both Diane and Bori had their hands covering their eyes and were saying "Oh my G-d" in their respective languages.

We all got to the airport safely, had a tearful goodbye and really hope to see each other more often than we have till now.

And now we're in Roma!!

We'll post again soon.
Love,
RANAD






Prague and Budapest

Summer 2011

July 24, 2011

Hi all,

RANAD here (as in Rob, Aviva, Noah, Aaron, and Diane writing together). Here's our first instalment of our Europe 2011 trip blog.

It all started off perfectly; we arrived at the airport with our bags packed, our passports and etickets booked, and our snacks prepared. We hadn't yet paid the cab driver, when Aviva turns to exclaim, "Oh my G-d, I left my costume at home!!" (she needs the costume for her upcoming performance in August at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival). So there was no choice; we had to go back and get it. While Rob and Aviva raced back to the house with the cabbie who should consider driving in the Indie-500, Diane, Aaron and Noah checked themselves in, anxiously firing off multiple texts to Rob and Aviva. At the house, Aviva dashed in and out in record time and, $183 later (the cabbie had no mercy), the two made it back to the airport two minutes before last-call for check-in. Meanwhile Aaron and Noah's backpacks needed to be wrapped in enormous plastic bags and sealed with duct tape, Diane and the boys tried several wrapping maneuvers, which we called "the mummy", "the parka", and "the birthday present".

On the plane we stopped in Quebec City. Thanks to a really awesome flight attendant, and beyond all post-911 odds, Aaron and Noah got to go to the cockpit and meet the pilot, co-pilot and crew! Aaron got to sit in the co-pilot's seat - it was way more comfortable than our seats. They showed the boys all the bells and whistles and answered some questions that Aaron had about flight school.

Berlin - We got to the apartment, which we would have never found had the cabbie not shown us - it was in a separate building called the "gartenhaus" behind the building with the street number on it - apparently this was evident to him by looking at the key. We realized we needed food for the next day, so Rob and Aviva went to get groceries at the local Kaisers, however, it was closed, so they brought back Vietnamese food instead....our first real German meal.

Our first full day in Berlin we went to the Jewish Museum. Designed by Daniel Liebeskind, it gives the history of Jews in Germany over the last 2000 years - including, but not exclusively about the Holocaust. What was perhaps the most interesting was the end, where they had the stories of current Jews living in Germany, a generation or two after the Holocaust. One in particular was of an Israeli guy who moved to Berlin in the 1980s as a young man and experienced preferential treatment from his housemates, which he enjoyed until he realized this preferential treatment was out of German guilt.

Dinner was at a pan-south-asian restaurant, where they told us that we should buy bottled water as their tap was rusty. The restaurant was uber modern and slick - hard to imagine that only the tap was rusty. At the next table were two transvestites who left half-way through. We told Aaron about them, but he didn't look till the second half of the meal; when two women were seated there. For Aaron, these were very convincing-looking transvestites.

Next day we went on a Hop-on-Hop-off bus tour in the rain (Berlin Circle Tours). They managed to make a pretty fascinating city unbelievably dull, by monotonously announcing random facts with no historical or cultural context. We hopped off at the Sony Centre where we dined on our picnic lunch in a back corridor, underneath an escalator as there is nowhere to sit and eat if it's raining. And as always in Europe, toilets aren't free, hard to get used to when what you pay for is sandpaper tissue. The Sony Centre is this gorgeous new indoor-outdoor complex in Pottsdamer Platz, which was formerly no-man's land when the Berlin Wall was standing.

We also got off at Checkpoint Charlie Museum and learned all about the Berlin Wall. The museum is a bit haphazard, and the biggest problem is that it ends with no detail about how the Wall came down and beyond. However, we learned a lot and had really interesting discussions about The Cold War.

Quick note about Starbucks. We feel we have given them plenty of money over the years and so we feel absolutely no guilt about going in there, hopping on their free wifi, downloading maps, finding restaurants, and then going elsewhere to have our coffees. We're in Europe after all; there's better coffee out there!

On our last day in Berlin we'd had enough with the museums and tours. We rented bikes and rode all over the city. It's an amazing city to bike in, with lots of marked bike lanes. In particular, we cycled along the Spree (river in Berlin, pronounced Shpray) and went to what remained of the Berlin Wall (a couple hundred meters), where various graffiti artists were commissioned to do murals. It's amazing how much more you can like a city when the sun is shining and you're not listening to a boring recorded tour guide.

Quest for the perfect German pastries: Based on our previous experience 11 years ago in Worms (another city in Germany....really), Rob has been on a mission each visit to rediscover the perfect hazelnut-chocolate butter tart, but to no avail. We have tried valiantly, sampling pastries from a variety of bakeries here. Last night we bought four different cakes and ate them all! Ok, they were small cakes. The poppy seed one came close, but not quite. Oh well.

Now we're on a train to Prague. The train is over-booked but we have reserved seats. Ha Ha Ha, as if anyone actually cares. En route to our seats, Noah asked Rob, "What if a little old lady is sitting in our seats?" To which Rob answered, "We'll show no mercy and kick her out!" When we arrived at our reserved seats, there was, you guessed it.....a little old lady and her little old husband, and...another little old lady with a CANE and her little old husband, all sitting in our seats. And no, we were incapable of kicking them out, though we really wanted to. But we did kick out the young man from the 5th seat, and we are now huddled in the aisles on our way to Prague.

As for being prepared for Prague, we know two words. We know how to say "yes" and "no", but we keep getting them confused.

We'll write more soon. Love,
RANAD

We're off

It's true, RANAD is off on perhaps her biggest adventure ever. Updates will be coming shortly. Now we have to pack,
Love,
RANAD

East Coast Part Two

Hi again, RANAD here with another Newfoundland update!

So after St. John’s we drove to Trinity. It’s a quaint little former fishing town on an inlet, with picturesque houses and a rocky shoreline; in a word, breathtaking. Even the three-story house we rented could have been in “House and Garden”. We rushed there from St. John’s in order to catch their “pageant,” an outdoor play that moves through the village, describing the history of Trinity. Some of the scenes were kinda hokey, but on the whole, it was very entertaining.

Later that evening, we went to “dinner time theatre”. First about the food: it was great if you like tasteless overcooked food, recycled mash potatoes, and edible petroleum product on your dessert. The show, on the other hand, was very entertaining, with great comedy acts, a magic show, and typical Newfie music; i.e. where the harmonies are gorgeous, the rhythms are cool, the fiddling totally rocks, and the lyrics tend to be only about adultery or drownings, and their love for Newfoundland.

The next day, we went on a stunning 5.3 km hike. It involved climbing up cliffs to look down over the shoreline where we saw puffins, picnicking on a hilltop, descending down into luscious bogs and back up again, and skipping stones along the glassy surface of Trinity Bay. The most physically demanding part of the hike was carrying our little 120-pound backpack named Aviva. Because Aviva had mono, after the first kilometer on flat ground, she was somewhat out of commission, so inclines were pretty much a no-go for her. So the guys, and even Diane on desperate occasions, took turns shlepping Aviva up the hills on our backs, managing to turn a 1 1/2 hour hike into a 4 hour one!

On our way across the province from east to west, we stopped in Gander to check out the Aviation Museum, touted as a “Find” in our guide books. You can hardly call this place a “museum” as it was more like walking through somebody’s attic, who’s really really really into planes. It was not well organized, but they did have some cool planes and cockpits to explore. We also learned that Banting - as in the dude who discovered insulin - died in a plane crash around here.

Next stop: Gros Morne Park, on the west coast of Newfoundland. The ads you see on TV do not exaggerate the majestic beauty of this place. We had less time here than we needed, but we managed to pack in a lot. The major highlight of our stay was an overnight sea kayaking trip with a guide. We had 3 kayaks and the most atypical Newfoundland weather imaginable: clear blue skies and 25 degrees. We paddled under towering rocky mountains, passed harbour seals within spitting distance, saw caribou grazing as well as tons of different birds, paddled along a mirror-like winding river, and then hiked the last part up to a waterfall. We filled our water bottles there and then paddled back to our campsite into the setting sun and wispy cotton candy clouds. And, were greeted by a welcoming committee of about 37,652 mosquitos.

Back at the campsite, we finally got to eat something, because we were absolutely FAMISHED at that point. Our uber rugged guide apparently doesn’t believe in eating or drinking, “I don’t really need to drink water.” We ploughed through 8 bottles of chili, all the dinner rolls, and basically ate everything else we’d brought other than the breakfast oatmeal.

Our guide was extremely knowledgeable; a walking, talking, paddling encyclopedia about nature. However, at one point he did turn to Aviva and say, “I really need to find a wife soon.........So what are your plans after you graduate?”

We paddled back the next morning and hung our clothing out to dry on our car and then headed to The Tablelands. This is a landscape where the earth’s crust got turned over, exposing the mantle. The mantle is rich in nickel, not allowing plant life to grow. The outcome: a Mars-like desert landscape that looks uncannily like Israel; a huge expanse of rusty yellow rocks and cliffs.

Let’s digress now to discuss some of Rob’s recent “toilet adventures.” While dining at a restaurant in Gros Morne, Rob went to use the WC. The toilet, sadly, got clogged, and one flush too many led to water over-flowing onto the bathroom floor. This wouldn’t have been quite so bad, except that the bathroom emptied out onto the proprietor’s laundry room, which had a full basket of clean white laundry siting on the floor. Rob did manage to save the laundry, but not his pride. Bathroom adventure number two, in L’Anse aux Meadows, even more embarrassing. From his bathroom stall, Rob misheard Aaron as saying that the public washroom they were in was empty, when in fact there was a 10 year-old boy there using the urinal. Thinking he was alone with Aaron, who had in fact just left the washroom, Rob started to sing animatedly to Aaron “Smoke on the Water” with a vocal guitar solo. Somewhere there’s a 10 year-old boy out there, who overheard some weird 40-something guy singing Smoke on the Water from a bathroom stall.

Back to the trip - After a gorgeous cruise in Western Brook Pond, a fresh water “fjord”, we headed up to L’Anse aux Meadows, the northern most point of Newfoundland. All along the highways of Newfoundland there is a serious road hazard. We Torontonians think we have it bad with the raccoons. Here, there are ongoing problems of moose unexpectedly crossing the highway and causing major accidents and even loss of life. Dusk and dawn are particularly dangerous, as they graze at these times and with the poor lighting, are very well camouflaged. We have seen 5 on the side of the highway so far.

L’Anse aux Meadows is the place where the Vikings landed about 1000 years ago. We met a bunch of really cool viking re-enactors who taught us a lot about who the first European settlers really were. One man explained to us the entire process of smelting bog iron ore into pure iron. All the folks working here are “experimental archaeologists” meaning they read about viking artifacts and then recreate them out of the same raw materials. For example, we met a guy who made a comb out of bone and horn. He also made a bowed harp; not something you can pick up at Long and McQuade. Aaron and Noah both played on some of the Norse instruments, impressing the crowd. We really enjoyed ourselves and learned a lot.

Now for our accommodations in l’Anse aux Meadows. When we arrived at the inn where we had rooms booked, there was a bit of commotion at the front desk. Apparently the manager had given away not only our rooms, but those of another group as well. There was only one room left for all 9 of us. When that other group put two and two together, they promptly dove into that room, slammed the door shut, and stated, “well we’re in it now!” and were never to be seen again. The manager suddenly sat down, put his face in his hands, and declared, “Why don’t you all just lay off! I need to relax,” and almost started crying. Knowing that there were no accommodations for miles around, we wondered where we roomless ones were to go. Eventually, a second man, whom we have affectionally called “the schleper guy,” materialized and suggested we sleep in the conference room; a large, dusty old space with a lumpy futon, book cases filled with university textbooks from the 80’s, an old TV, and a whole shwack of dilapidated armchairs strewn about. Shlepper guy shlepped mattresses and linens into our “conference” room. Later the manager told us we wouldn’t be charged for the room, but then proceeded to tell us this about 8 times, making us realize that he was a little bit senile - perhaps explaining why he had given our rooms away in the first place.

Today we drove all the way back down from l’Anse aux Meadows and are about to leave The Rock for Nova Scotia and PEI. More from us in a few days.....

Love,

RANAD

Off to the East Coast

As always, this is written by all five of us RANAD, RobAvivaNoahAaronDiane:
A tale of an acronym who decided to take the month of August to head over to the Canadian East Coast for yet another vacation.
So-o-o, let's get you caught up on what we've been doing of late. It took us 7 hours to fly to Quebec City; 9 hours door to door! We could have f@#$ing driven there in that same time! Why, fellow readers, you might ask? Well apparently it was "Monsoon Season" in the province of Quebec so our planes were grounded on various tarmacs due to outrageous rain along the way. But we made it to Quebec City just in time for a blackout that lasted several hours. This meant that both check-in and supper had a litle 19th century twist. We checked in by candlelight and were handed glow sticks and were sent to our rooms. Oh yeah, we had St. Hubert's BBQ delivered to our room where we dined by glow-stick light on the bathroom floor; a glorious supper with limited cutlery. At some piont or anoter during the blackout, Grandmommy (Eva P) arrived at the hotel, and we all tumbled into bed after a warm welcome.
Highlights of Quebec City... well it depends on who you ask. Aviva could give you the inside scoop on the workings of Hotel Dieu hospital. She spent chunks of the first day and a half getting herself diagnosed with mononucleosis (not the end of the world but still kinda sucks). Aaron, Noah, and Grandmommy spent the first day on the town exploring the city. They took the funicular up to the Haute Ville, saw the awesome vistas and the ruins of the original fortress, and had high tea at the Chateau Frontenac. From this point on in the trip Aviva has been joining us some of the time (often via piggyback) and some of the time has stayed back at the room.
Now back to the highlights of Quebec City. We toured the Citadel, and went to Les Chutes de Mont Morincy. We had thought to rent a van for this excursion for $150, but there were none available; so we had to resort to using public transit, which meant that on a $3 ticket we were able to go to Mont Morincy, go back to the hotel to pick up Aviva, return to Quebec City for supper, and return to our hotel for the night.
The next day as we were heading off to St. John's Newfoundland, we gorged ourselves on chocolate-almond croissants at the airport and scared off everyone else at the gate with our pig-like croissant-eating manners. We next parted company with Grandmommy and headed off for St.John's. During our layover in Montreal (which for some reason was further from our destination than our original departure point in Quebec City) we started reading The Hunger Games (an awesome family read).
St. John's: Yes, it's true, the stereotype about Newfoundlanders is correct; they are outrageously kind, or as Rob calls it "cult-like-love-bombing-friendly". Not only do the drivers let you in and stop for jay-walking pedestrians, but on one occasion on a main street, a guy in a pick-up truck ground to a halt, got out of his truck, walked over to our car, picked up Aaron's camera case that he had accidentally dropped out of the car, and asked us "is this yours?" Every moment is a chattable moment here - just when asking for directions or bagging groceries at the grocery store.
Our first day here, we went to the most eastern point in North America - Cape Spear. It is crazy gorgeous, so we took way too many pictures. All over the park their are signs clearly marking that you should NOT go off the trail as there are high waves and the sea can change suddenly. So, of course, we got off the trails, hiked right down to the waters' edge, and along a tiny grassy trail mid-cliff. To our mothers/grandmothers: it wasn't really THAT dangerous, but the story wouldn't be as good now, would it?
We also have been to Signal Hill, which over-looks St. John's Harbour, and for centuries was used by the military to send fire signals. But the most important signal to be sent there, was one to Marconi in 1901 -the first wireless trans-Atlantic signal from England. Today, we went to "The Rooms", a beautiful museum and art gallery where we learned about the history of Newfoundland and its strong Irish roots. They also had a visiting Art exhibit about the impact of oil on people and the environment. The artist chose St. John's as the first Canadian city to display the work because it is an emerging oil economy.
By the way, we have been eating really well here in St.John's. Who would have thought? Tomorrow we're off to Trinity on the Bona Vista peninsula to an authentic Newfie fishing village and for some local live theatre.

As always with love,
RANAD