In Holland having a fab time. I have put some photos on Facebook so have a look. If you don't have a Facebook account get your daughter,sister or grandad to show you. My Opa has a Facebook account why dont you?
:)
all the best
lots of love
Acushla
I hope to write more soon.
xoxoxo
Thursday, 30 October 2008
Monday, 20 October 2008
David, Venice and Madonna
Hi all,
I'm now in Florence in Tuscany and it is beautiful! Today some girls and I all got up late and took the bus to San Germano a medieval town perched on top of a hill. It has all these towers that look like sky scrapers so the place from afar looks a bit like Manhattan.
It was a nice little town to walk around and we ate great gelati. But the best bit was when we went on a walk through the country side. Tuscany is just so beautiful! And as it is Autumn all the leaves are changing colour and it is just lovely. Such a great day just soaking in beauty.
I went to the Ufizzi Gallery the other day which is the top museum for Renaissance art. There are so many great works of art there, my favourite being 'Spring' by Botticelli ,it is so beautiful and the 'Birth of Venus' was inspiring too. I spent the whole morning there then just wandered around, painting the Ponte Vecchio, a lovely old bridge that crosses the main river. We went out to San Givno today because it is Monday and the museums are not open. Tomorrow I am going to get up early and join the line to see Michelangelo's 'David'.
Last week I was in Sorrento which was really beautiful. From there I went to Pompeii and Herculaneum which was just fantastic. I was just awe struck at how intact it was. It was amazing to just walk around a ancient Roman town. Just so so amazing.
I'm now off to hang out in the Cinque Terra for a few days on Thursday. Then off to Holland and England.
Love you lots
Acushla
I'm now in Florence in Tuscany and it is beautiful! Today some girls and I all got up late and took the bus to San Germano a medieval town perched on top of a hill. It has all these towers that look like sky scrapers so the place from afar looks a bit like Manhattan.
It was a nice little town to walk around and we ate great gelati. But the best bit was when we went on a walk through the country side. Tuscany is just so beautiful! And as it is Autumn all the leaves are changing colour and it is just lovely. Such a great day just soaking in beauty.
I went to the Ufizzi Gallery the other day which is the top museum for Renaissance art. There are so many great works of art there, my favourite being 'Spring' by Botticelli ,it is so beautiful and the 'Birth of Venus' was inspiring too. I spent the whole morning there then just wandered around, painting the Ponte Vecchio, a lovely old bridge that crosses the main river. We went out to San Givno today because it is Monday and the museums are not open. Tomorrow I am going to get up early and join the line to see Michelangelo's 'David'.
Last week I was in Sorrento which was really beautiful. From there I went to Pompeii and Herculaneum which was just fantastic. I was just awe struck at how intact it was. It was amazing to just walk around a ancient Roman town. Just so so amazing.
I'm now off to hang out in the Cinque Terra for a few days on Thursday. Then off to Holland and England.
Love you lots
Acushla
Friday, 10 October 2008
N.A.B.R. (Not Another Bloody Ruin)
This is what my family used to say when we were driving around Central Australia and we would stop every ten minutes to get out of the car and walk around a deserted village. No offence to Australia but Roman ruins are the best. They are great: I love to walk around and try to imagine how life was like over 2,000 years ago! I went to the Colosseum , Palatine Hill (where the emperors lived and Rome was founded)and the Forums. I also went to a church underneath which is a 4th Century Basilica and then underneath THAT there is a Roman house with a temple inside it. The Roman temple is nearly 12 meters below street level, so 2,000 years ago that was the level of the Roman street. Really cool.
The Colosseum was good but the Forum topped my day. So great to walk around and imagine things the way they were. I saw the Roman city, Jerash, in Jordan & it is far more intact, but this was THE Roman Forum where Julius Caesar and Pliny the Elder walked. Really cool and really nerdy! :)
I should go and let someone else use the computer.
Love you all
Acushla
p.s.
10th of October
I spent today climbing to the top of St Peters Basilica, ringing home, and hanging out in parks. It was great!! I also threw a coin into the Trivoli Fountain so I will be coming back to Rome someday. Tomorrow I am off to Ostia (it used to be a Roman sea port... very excited!!! )
I love you all lots and can't wait to see you in December!!!!!!
xoxoxo
The Colosseum was good but the Forum topped my day. So great to walk around and imagine things the way they were. I saw the Roman city, Jerash, in Jordan & it is far more intact, but this was THE Roman Forum where Julius Caesar and Pliny the Elder walked. Really cool and really nerdy! :)
I should go and let someone else use the computer.
Love you all
Acushla
p.s.
10th of October
I spent today climbing to the top of St Peters Basilica, ringing home, and hanging out in parks. It was great!! I also threw a coin into the Trivoli Fountain so I will be coming back to Rome someday. Tomorrow I am off to Ostia (it used to be a Roman sea port... very excited!!! )
I love you all lots and can't wait to see you in December!!!!!!
xoxoxo
Thursday, 9 October 2008
When in Rome...
Hi all, so sorry that it has been so long since I have written,(not for a WHOLE week my Opa tells me). I have been so busy and had next to no time on the internet over the last couple of weeks.
But I am well and happy and in Rome of all places! Which is great.
It is lovely here and I am having a ball running around ruins and visiting the Pope. Yes that's right Acushla, and a couple of hundred other people, actually saw the Pope in St Peter's Square and yes he is indeed a rock star. He was meeting the pilgrims and he would say something along the lines of 'to the pilgrims of France' and every one from France would go wild cheering and stuff. Way cool!
The Vatican was the most amazing thing ever. Full stop. The art in there is fabulous and the Sistine Chapel awesome, just hands down the greatest painting and from an artist that wasn't even a painter and who finished it in record time. Stunning!!!!
The same goes for the Basilica of St Peter, just an amazing building.
But my favourite building in Rome is the Pantheon, it is just so perfect. The dimensions make it so visually pleasing as a whole. Beautiful. So many things to write about but sadly not a lot of time, as I am hogging the computer and there are others who want a turn. So I will have to say good bye...and thanks for all the fish.... - Rob at least will get it.
I love you all
I hope you are well and looking after one another.
All the best,
Acushla
But I am well and happy and in Rome of all places! Which is great.
It is lovely here and I am having a ball running around ruins and visiting the Pope. Yes that's right Acushla, and a couple of hundred other people, actually saw the Pope in St Peter's Square and yes he is indeed a rock star. He was meeting the pilgrims and he would say something along the lines of 'to the pilgrims of France' and every one from France would go wild cheering and stuff. Way cool!
The Vatican was the most amazing thing ever. Full stop. The art in there is fabulous and the Sistine Chapel awesome, just hands down the greatest painting and from an artist that wasn't even a painter and who finished it in record time. Stunning!!!!
The same goes for the Basilica of St Peter, just an amazing building.
But my favourite building in Rome is the Pantheon, it is just so perfect. The dimensions make it so visually pleasing as a whole. Beautiful. So many things to write about but sadly not a lot of time, as I am hogging the computer and there are others who want a turn. So I will have to say good bye...and thanks for all the fish.... - Rob at least will get it.
I love you all
I hope you are well and looking after one another.
All the best,
Acushla
Thursday, 2 October 2008
Ein prosit!!!
What a fabulous afternoon I had at Oktoberfest yesterday in Munich. We got to a Beer Hall and had no idea what we we were meant to do. So I asked one of the tables if we could sit with them, they said that would be alright, but, that they had friends coming and we might have to move.
So we sat down and ordered liters of beer and pork knuckles (massive chunks of meat on a bone). Most of the people on the table were so lovely and friendly, and when more of their friends arrived and the family with the child left, we had the best time. Singing songs, cheer'sing every ten seconds. The fun thing was that everyone was standing on the benches and tables by the end of the night. Not anyone on a seat.
g2g (got to go) sorry all my love cush
So we sat down and ordered liters of beer and pork knuckles (massive chunks of meat on a bone). Most of the people on the table were so lovely and friendly, and when more of their friends arrived and the family with the child left, we had the best time. Singing songs, cheer'sing every ten seconds. The fun thing was that everyone was standing on the benches and tables by the end of the night. Not anyone on a seat.
g2g (got to go) sorry all my love cush
Friday, 26 September 2008
Bern
Hi I am now in Bern and having a great time doing not much at all. Just going on the internet talking to some people over Skype; meeting lots of locals who have all been really lovely; reading a fantastic book* that Rob gave me for my birthday. There are two quotes that I just love. This is one of them:
"That's what I like about traveling - you can sit down, maybe talk to someone interesting, see somthing beautuiful, read a good book, and that's enough to qualify as a good day. You do that at home and everyone thinks you're a bum."
That's how my day was, just meeting heaps of people; having conversations; walking; going out to the Einstein's house; being a really big nerd and trying to explain to someone the principles of general relativity. Which reminds me of the time Rob and I over breakfast in Paris, were trying to figure out Physics formulas from first principles. Yes we were the biggest geeks in Paris at that time. :) :) hahahaha
There is another quote about expectations and how when traveling it is best to expect nothing from anything or anyone.... "Then whatever happens is a surprise. The most insignificant thing can become an endless subject of interest."
Ok I have 69 seconds left.
I want to say that I love you all and miss you lots.
I'm looking forward to the day when we meet again.
all my love
Acushla
*"Before Sunrise and Before Sunset: Two Screenplays" by Richard Linklater
"That's what I like about traveling - you can sit down, maybe talk to someone interesting, see somthing beautuiful, read a good book, and that's enough to qualify as a good day. You do that at home and everyone thinks you're a bum."
That's how my day was, just meeting heaps of people; having conversations; walking; going out to the Einstein's house; being a really big nerd and trying to explain to someone the principles of general relativity. Which reminds me of the time Rob and I over breakfast in Paris, were trying to figure out Physics formulas from first principles. Yes we were the biggest geeks in Paris at that time. :) :) hahahaha
There is another quote about expectations and how when traveling it is best to expect nothing from anything or anyone.... "Then whatever happens is a surprise. The most insignificant thing can become an endless subject of interest."
Ok I have 69 seconds left.
I want to say that I love you all and miss you lots.
I'm looking forward to the day when we meet again.
all my love
Acushla
*"Before Sunrise and Before Sunset: Two Screenplays" by Richard Linklater
Wednesday, 24 September 2008
The night they invented champagne.....
Hi all, thank you once again to those who sent cards, emails, comments and Facebook messages to me on my birthday yesterday, it was so fantastic!!
My day yesterday was overall really great but the first half of the day definitely was sent to test me. It was as if the world was saying 'So you want to be 19.. hey well take that... and that!'
I spent the first half of the day trying not to cry but failing miserably. I got your lovely letters and emails and they were so beautiful and I was thinking about and missing you all..... but those tears were ok.
I had decided to go to Versailles for my birthday - it is a great chateau outside Paris where Marie Antoinette and other French royalty have lived over the centuries. It was huge!! Just soooooooooo big...the grounds went on for miles. The lake in the middle of the gardens was 7km all the way around.
But anyway I had decided to go and because I had to be back in Paris to go to the Moulin Rouge that night I had to leave around 10am so that we could spend the whole day and have a picnic. 'We' is Robert and I. We've been having a wonderful time together in Paris and have been traveling together for the last five weeks. So Rob was going to meet me at my hostel just before ten (because he was staying in a hostel down the road about half an hours walk away.) So 9:45 came round with no sign of Rob... 10am and still no sign.... it was 10:30 when I decided that I just had to go otherwise I would never make it.
So leaving Rob a message I got on the Metro and off I went to Versailles. I was a little upset about leaving Rob and that my birthday not going 'to plan' and then I started reading letters from Dad and Oma (thank you all very much by the way , they were beautiful , and thank you for the photos!!) and that set me off crying again so there I was on the Metro in Paris with tears in my eyes. I got to the next station where i had to change trains when I got a call from my Mum, Dad and sister (and Erin Sasha's friend) to wish me a happy birthday, which was lovely... so we had a good chat.
I got to Versailles and there was the biggest queue that I have ever seen in my life! Huge! Nearly as big as the ones I have seen for the Eifel tower! So I had to stand in the line for one hour. I read more letters from family.
So I waited , took one step forward , waited and waited.... and guess what?!?
I got to the end of the line and access to the gardens was free!!!!
Which is all I really wanted to do!!!!!!!!!!!
So I had to go into the house now just so I could feel that I hadn't wasted my time in that huge line! But sadly I didn't enjoy myself very much. I would have
times when I was ok and looking around going oh that's the bed where
Marie Antoinette slept, and that's the portrait of Napoleon's coronation by
Jacques Louis David, and at those times it was great but it was always unfortunately shadowed by a feeling of being upset which I just couldn't shake. I could try and describe it to you but it would be too complicated a feeling. There were other times when I would just be looking through tears and being completely unimpressed and feeling even more miserable because I felt I should be enjoying what I was seeing. When Hannah rang the signal was really bad and then I got told off for
talking on my phone!!!!
However there was a really nice guard whose job is to walk around Versailles making sure that everything is going ok. He was telling me about the best things to see and how to rent a bike to ride around the park on. You are allowed to ride around the park but not around the gardens.
Just a note... I would have been in tears quite a lot during the day but in all my time only one person ever asked me if I was alright. She was a French lady but she couldn't speak any English and yet it was nice of her to ask. Another point...I felt quite flattered because lots of people I have met presume I'm French and start chatting away to me quite nicely then at some stage I have to point out to them that I don't understand anything they're saying :)
When I finally got out into the gardens it was better. Just to walk and to try
to get way from the crowds was great. I like being out in nature. I hired a
bike and rode around the big lake which made me feel much better. I found
a big field that no one went into and spun around in it until I fell
over. Then picked myself up and got on with it. I took pictures of flowers and walked around the amazing gardens.
On my little bike riding adventure I managed to fall off my bike; get the chain to fall off - and then got filthy getting it back on; then got stuck in a boggy bit when I decided to go off road! :)
I was also feeling rebellious so I picked a flower and put it on my lapel;
went through into a garden that I wasn't meant to go into; and then sat on
the grass and had lunch where you're not allowed to sit.
I also got myself a little lost and had to run to get the train back. It was pure fluke that I bumped into Rob who had followed me out to Versailles and was
going back to Paris as well. We got the train just in time.
(I'll try to get Rob to write his part of this epic and post it up.)
So anyway, we got the train to the Moulin Rouge where I had to get changed out of my grimy clothes(remember I had fallen off the bike, changed a greasy bike chain and ridden through a marsh). After reappearing from a disgusting toilet looking half-way decent again, we rushed off to the Moulin Rouge with me putting on makeup while walking and with the rain now pissing down. HAHAHAH.... so we get to the queue (there was no dodging queues by mentioning names for us...I did mention the 'name'.. but it just didn't do anything magical. :) ). I said aurevoir to Rob and then entered the Moulin Rouge.
(Rob spent the next four hours hanging about Montmartre...once again I might get him to fill you in.)
The whole Moulin Rouge experince was great!! Being ushered to you table ("ush, ush")and having 'proper food' for a change. The show was great and I loved the dinner. I had foie gras (duck's liver pate I think) and venison. (By the way I am obviously not a vegetarian any more - sorry erik :)- and haven't been for a while).
I sat opposite this really interesting woman from Russia who now lives in Boston and we talked through dinner. It was so lovely - the live jazz music and couples dancing the night away. Brilliant!
At nine o'clock the show started (dinner started at 7ish). It was great. Absolutely hilarious. I had to stop myself from bursting out laughing! It was the sight of the male dancers in their sparkling clothes taking it all so seriously that I thought was hysterical!!
Some of the show was completely over the top - like when the men were wearing totally pink costumes and dancing around. At one point they burst into singing "I will survive" !!!! Shocking. Hahaha.... just remembering makes me laugh. It was totally hilarious and it was totally great at the same time - the costumes, the music, the dancing, everything. At the end of each dance sequence they had other performers like acrobats (who were just amazing) as well as a juggler and a ventriloquist (which I have never seen before and which was great!).
I could tell you so much more but my bus leaves in ten minutes so I'll have to be quick!!
After the show Rob met me and we went back to the hostel. On the way Rob got me
a birthday cake and we got a lighter from some guy and made it into a
'candle' so that I could blow out a birthday candle. We sat by the canal and talked
until we were nearly freezing and then moved inside to defrost. We had a
great night talking. He gave me a film script for my birthday which is all about two people that meet randomly whilst traveling. He got it from a lovely book shop which is now officially my favourite book shop in the world. I found it the last time I was here and just fell in love with it.
So as you can see my day was full of all sorts of emotions and adventures. It doesn't feel too bad now looking back on it but at the time parts of it were awful.... but not really that many.
I have to send a big thank you to my Oma and Opa who funded my trip to Versailles and a round of applause to my Aunty, Uncle and cousins. Thank you so much... I had a ball.... such a great night out in Paris!!!! I can't thank you enough.
I have to go my bus leaves in five minutes!!!!
Gros bisue -big kisses
all my love
Acushlaa xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox<
My day yesterday was overall really great but the first half of the day definitely was sent to test me. It was as if the world was saying 'So you want to be 19.. hey well take that... and that!'
I spent the first half of the day trying not to cry but failing miserably. I got your lovely letters and emails and they were so beautiful and I was thinking about and missing you all..... but those tears were ok.
I had decided to go to Versailles for my birthday - it is a great chateau outside Paris where Marie Antoinette and other French royalty have lived over the centuries. It was huge!! Just soooooooooo big...the grounds went on for miles. The lake in the middle of the gardens was 7km all the way around.
But anyway I had decided to go and because I had to be back in Paris to go to the Moulin Rouge that night I had to leave around 10am so that we could spend the whole day and have a picnic. 'We' is Robert and I. We've been having a wonderful time together in Paris and have been traveling together for the last five weeks. So Rob was going to meet me at my hostel just before ten (because he was staying in a hostel down the road about half an hours walk away.) So 9:45 came round with no sign of Rob... 10am and still no sign.... it was 10:30 when I decided that I just had to go otherwise I would never make it.
So leaving Rob a message I got on the Metro and off I went to Versailles. I was a little upset about leaving Rob and that my birthday not going 'to plan' and then I started reading letters from Dad and Oma (thank you all very much by the way , they were beautiful , and thank you for the photos!!) and that set me off crying again so there I was on the Metro in Paris with tears in my eyes. I got to the next station where i had to change trains when I got a call from my Mum, Dad and sister (and Erin Sasha's friend) to wish me a happy birthday, which was lovely... so we had a good chat.
I got to Versailles and there was the biggest queue that I have ever seen in my life! Huge! Nearly as big as the ones I have seen for the Eifel tower! So I had to stand in the line for one hour. I read more letters from family.
So I waited , took one step forward , waited and waited.... and guess what?!?
I got to the end of the line and access to the gardens was free!!!!
Which is all I really wanted to do!!!!!!!!!!!
So I had to go into the house now just so I could feel that I hadn't wasted my time in that huge line! But sadly I didn't enjoy myself very much. I would have
times when I was ok and looking around going oh that's the bed where
Marie Antoinette slept, and that's the portrait of Napoleon's coronation by
Jacques Louis David, and at those times it was great but it was always unfortunately shadowed by a feeling of being upset which I just couldn't shake. I could try and describe it to you but it would be too complicated a feeling. There were other times when I would just be looking through tears and being completely unimpressed and feeling even more miserable because I felt I should be enjoying what I was seeing. When Hannah rang the signal was really bad and then I got told off for
talking on my phone!!!!
However there was a really nice guard whose job is to walk around Versailles making sure that everything is going ok. He was telling me about the best things to see and how to rent a bike to ride around the park on. You are allowed to ride around the park but not around the gardens.
Just a note... I would have been in tears quite a lot during the day but in all my time only one person ever asked me if I was alright. She was a French lady but she couldn't speak any English and yet it was nice of her to ask. Another point...I felt quite flattered because lots of people I have met presume I'm French and start chatting away to me quite nicely then at some stage I have to point out to them that I don't understand anything they're saying :)
When I finally got out into the gardens it was better. Just to walk and to try
to get way from the crowds was great. I like being out in nature. I hired a
bike and rode around the big lake which made me feel much better. I found
a big field that no one went into and spun around in it until I fell
over. Then picked myself up and got on with it. I took pictures of flowers and walked around the amazing gardens.
On my little bike riding adventure I managed to fall off my bike; get the chain to fall off - and then got filthy getting it back on; then got stuck in a boggy bit when I decided to go off road! :)
I was also feeling rebellious so I picked a flower and put it on my lapel;
went through into a garden that I wasn't meant to go into; and then sat on
the grass and had lunch where you're not allowed to sit.
I also got myself a little lost and had to run to get the train back. It was pure fluke that I bumped into Rob who had followed me out to Versailles and was
going back to Paris as well. We got the train just in time.
(I'll try to get Rob to write his part of this epic and post it up.)
So anyway, we got the train to the Moulin Rouge where I had to get changed out of my grimy clothes(remember I had fallen off the bike, changed a greasy bike chain and ridden through a marsh). After reappearing from a disgusting toilet looking half-way decent again, we rushed off to the Moulin Rouge with me putting on makeup while walking and with the rain now pissing down. HAHAHAH.... so we get to the queue (there was no dodging queues by mentioning names for us...I did mention the 'name'.. but it just didn't do anything magical. :) ). I said aurevoir to Rob and then entered the Moulin Rouge.
(Rob spent the next four hours hanging about Montmartre...once again I might get him to fill you in.)
The whole Moulin Rouge experince was great!! Being ushered to you table ("ush, ush")and having 'proper food' for a change. The show was great and I loved the dinner. I had foie gras (duck's liver pate I think) and venison. (By the way I am obviously not a vegetarian any more - sorry erik :)- and haven't been for a while).
I sat opposite this really interesting woman from Russia who now lives in Boston and we talked through dinner. It was so lovely - the live jazz music and couples dancing the night away. Brilliant!
At nine o'clock the show started (dinner started at 7ish). It was great. Absolutely hilarious. I had to stop myself from bursting out laughing! It was the sight of the male dancers in their sparkling clothes taking it all so seriously that I thought was hysterical!!
Some of the show was completely over the top - like when the men were wearing totally pink costumes and dancing around. At one point they burst into singing "I will survive" !!!! Shocking. Hahaha.... just remembering makes me laugh. It was totally hilarious and it was totally great at the same time - the costumes, the music, the dancing, everything. At the end of each dance sequence they had other performers like acrobats (who were just amazing) as well as a juggler and a ventriloquist (which I have never seen before and which was great!).
I could tell you so much more but my bus leaves in ten minutes so I'll have to be quick!!
After the show Rob met me and we went back to the hostel. On the way Rob got me
a birthday cake and we got a lighter from some guy and made it into a
'candle' so that I could blow out a birthday candle. We sat by the canal and talked
until we were nearly freezing and then moved inside to defrost. We had a
great night talking. He gave me a film script for my birthday which is all about two people that meet randomly whilst traveling. He got it from a lovely book shop which is now officially my favourite book shop in the world. I found it the last time I was here and just fell in love with it.
So as you can see my day was full of all sorts of emotions and adventures. It doesn't feel too bad now looking back on it but at the time parts of it were awful.... but not really that many.
I have to send a big thank you to my Oma and Opa who funded my trip to Versailles and a round of applause to my Aunty, Uncle and cousins. Thank you so much... I had a ball.... such a great night out in Paris!!!! I can't thank you enough.
I have to go my bus leaves in five minutes!!!!
Gros bisue -big kisses
all my love
Acushlaa xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxox<
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