pop_n_a_pope

Hello Dont know if anyone is still reading these

Think the last one I sent was from italy

Guess what I did My travel intinery showerd my flight rome to Dubai being 29&30 May,but I only read 30, so when kerrie looked at it she said" I think you were supposed to be on a plan an hour ago"

So I had to spend most of the night on the phone and waiting for calls to see if they could get me on a flight the next day,the 30th which i had my plans for,but they could so it worked out ok,but the 30 was flying and waiting over at dubai for 3 hrs,so it took a few days to catch up

Am in Thailand,pattaya with JOn( newpew)dont like it much,it is very hot,smelly and definatley seedy

Have been to a few girly bars but like for a look and left alone

Not like the 3 guys who paid the "Bar fines" and left with 8 girls

Hope your not reading the blog kerrie as I may have "forgot" to tell you this in mail

So as not to fall to temptation we are moving on to Chaing Mai and Koi Sumi for a few days

Broughtlots of taylor made cloths,Shirts 100% cotton $17 fitted.a suite and over coat and heaps of t-shirts,had to buy another bag

Rented scooters and risked our lives, its not uncommon to see 3or4 people on 1 scooter.the biggest danger is being collected by a scooter going up a one way st the wrong way,no one obeys ant rules here they are crazy

I understand why Di wants to go back to italy,I could do a villa there for 3-6 months

The last 2 days going to st peters sq qnd basilicca was awe inspiring,even went to mass and took communion,for 1st time in about 40yrs

Didn't go to confeeion or "reconcilation" need to make a list first

today we fly to Koi Sumi so here hoping we get there

Cheers to all Your friend John

WELL MY euro adventure is just about over,im im the travel mode and could just keep going,it was a bit daunting arriving in a big city and not knowing where you are or to try a figure how to get around,worse if you dont speak the lingo,but dont wworry if i get lost

just too much too talk about,but each country I go to i think Wow,it si justv a BIG eye opener,the food,the sights, the history,I just love it all,and we will travel HEAPS more

Off ot Thailand ,which will be very intresting

Been to St Peters Basilica and I thinnk noyhing can match that,it was extra,extra special.Might even turn me back to religion,even took communion!!!!!!

see you all soon

Youyr friend John

Sorry I jhave not updated for so long but

A -It is so hard to fing acerss points when we are on the go so moch

B_ The only ones I can are 25-30 dollars an hour

So im 10 Daysd in to italy and have done and seen so much that it all seems to merge

If you dont do this daily or Bi,you forget the little things that really "grab" you like gonig to this amazing little cvillage Gondolfo were the pope has a summer residence,but 7yr old play scoccer in the town sq and all the locaols just sit around and talk of an evening,its the little slices of every day "real" italy the I just love and have had lotsd of slices

But the big name places are just as amazing,like today went to islae of capri,luky to be alive the bus drivers are insane going aroun hairpin sheer drops on norrow roads that have traffic and acooters coming from every where

Have sent a few post cards and sent a few in last few days

Was eally touched by Assisi the cathdiral and History are far more that I understood

Florencd,Venice,Rome,Milan,Pompeii and many less known places

Our guide is superb and makes in a gret trip

The bunch of people is a good cross section and lovley people

Love pulling there legs,and they love me pulling the mickry out of them,mostly yanks,

Went for a swim in the Medditerranian to day WOW

Back to rome for 3 days then Thailand then Home which will be OK

Kerrie is loving Italy and we are haveing a very good time

will have more time in Thailand to update and tell some stories

see you all soon

love joihn

Well got plane to Zurich and train to interlarken,but have to be quick,do you believe that the net here costs 25 aus dollars an hour to use,europe is expensive but switzland take the cake 6.00 for a hot dog,pasta dihes start at about 18.00,clothes are abot times 3 or 4 what we pay

Anyhow an absloluley beatiful country,when up a "joungmaiden" name of a mountain and was not well too high 10,000 ft but spectacular

tha alpine vilages,waled a few are just like the movies

got go chase a milk maaiden,hope a dont catch her
see ya

Just a quick note to let everybody know that ive passed on Nice, and am now back in the U.U.Uk and will finish off some sight seeing and try settle into some work soon. The warm weather has arrived - 24 degrees today (!) which means that the English will start taking holidays soon and theres quite a few nice jobs listed so i've come back to London to discover routine again, which ive been missing.

I won't be updating the blog any more, but if you want to send me an email, feel free. All of your comments will be e-mailed direct to dad now instead of coming through me first.

Take Care, and thanks for all your words,

Fiona

Not sure what you guys have gotbut it was hard to update journal,fiona hasnt told me if she has so for any friends I have who are still persavering

We had our 8 day tour of france and it was great The tour group was great,full of ols single ladys so i was well suited

thing we saw,Normandy landing beaches,place in Rouen where thy burnt Joan of Arch;, Monets house and garden that inspired many of his paintings,so towns you may not have heard of but are so beautifuuly french,just to walk around a frech town

So many Cheauteaus and CATHEDERALS cant put it into words but a big big wow

Last night was a farwell dinner in a little french retrauant,with musicians playing it was so romantic I called Kerry and aked her to come over and do an Italy tour with me,and somehow she said yes,so we have 12 days doing italy,Tuscany,rome,Florance Pizza,sorrento and we are both looking oprwaerd to it so much.

How will i ever go back to work? have tried to send oyu guys some emails but they wont go through probably blocked cause there from an internatioal

PARIS I could write and write,just enough to say if you have the desire to do europe the you MUST start planning now

afyer Paris Fiona and I will go to Nice for a week then maybe back to london to help get hersettled,the back to rome for me and a "Roman Holiday" which I think will be the highlight for me

Sorry I havnt written more but too busy havin a great time

Love to all Johhny Boy

hi denver! im in france now and learning alot. i miss you too. save your money and ill save mine and maybe one day i will be able to help you travel like my dad helped me. i love the sound of your garden. youll have to start looking for recipes to cook the food youre growing.

i am trying hard to speak french and doing ok so far

using this french keyboard is hard and there are people waiting for the computer so i have to go....

aurevoir xoxo

At present we're at Ambleside YHA - a gorgeous spot on Lake Windemere ,in the Cumbria region in the north west of England. I'ts so peaceful here ,and full of sheep! Wallace and Grommit must have grown up around here becasue there are plenty of shaun's cousins around - sheep with white fur, but black faces and limbs. It's spring, which of course means baby season making them a very cute scene to watch.

We went for a drive today along narrow and hilly paths lined with either stone walls or hibernating hedges. We saw plenty of sheep trotting along the road oblivious to the dangers that they caused.

There's also plenty of birdlife around here and tomorrow morning we're going to go to a bird sanctuary.

We went to Hawkeshead today, to see 38 original Beatrix Potter samples and to learn a little bit more about her. \unfortuneately it was too late by the time that we realised it, but we could have gone to her home as well, which i would have much preferred. Beatrix Potter featured Lakes district animals and locations in her stories, and owned a considerable amount of the land around here .All in all she bequeathed them at least a dozen properties in the area for preservation, and this is certainly a gift to the world at least as large as her literary gifts.

Last night we stayed in Blackpool, and oh my goodness what a place! It's totally mad. Basically, it's a looong beach with three piers, and of course the blackpool tower. The piers are full of rides and games arcades and the whole area feels like the Easter Show without an inch of class. £1 shops sell items of very dubious nature, including 'chilly willie' and 'tiny tittie' lolly pops... and those are the tame items.

We played bingo for 20p a game, and didn't win a single cent.

The area is just plain... nuts. It's dirty - the beaches are filthy but i guess it doesn't pose so much a danger as nobody actually goes there without a full complement of clothing because it's so cold! There are noisy trams running up and down the promenade and they're quite expensive so we didnt' take a ride.

We stayed in a B&B with Tony and his partner Cliff, and boy was that an experience .Tony was sooooo chatty it was annoying, and yet he was so very accomodating and kind, truly, very warm. Everytime we said thankyou, he replied 'You're very welcome, it's no trouble at all' in his lovely english accent. He'd lost his mum less than a week ago, and told us how he was a Christian Orthodox minister because he was too 'rock and roll' for the church. He lamented that he'd have to throw out the bacon left over from breakfast because he was a vegetarian, which explained why there was a sticker saying 'if you suck it, i think you're still a vegetarian' on the bureau in the dining room. The place was decorated very niceley indeed, the garden was the nicest in the street, there were religious symbols in the house and like Blackpool, Tony was someone that you could never hope to understand in a short time, and were drawn to, and annoyed by, all at the same time.

I don't think i'd be going back there in a hurry, but if i did, it sure wouldn't be on Easter Weekend - at least two places run out of Chips in the Fish and Chips capital of England!!!!

Tomorrow we shall explore the lakes district some more as we do our best to stop wishing we'd booked two nights here, and then we'll head to edinburgh for three nights, glasgow one, and then it's an early morning flight to paris on the 22nd of April.

|I really miss everyone, so do keep in contact.

(I just wanted to save it in case i lost it)

I've jsut been looking more at the handbags from that place, the gnome one is SO cute, not to mention the hot air baloon one!!! You know, if i bought it, i'd get back almost £8 in VAT refund... that's $20... so it really only costs $230.............. *sigh*

After just over a week on the road, i still can't get past this strange sensation that I have - that Samantha from Bewitched is behind me, twitching her nose and sending me to all of these amazing sites. I'm walking the pavement in places that i've only ever heard about, or read about, or seen pictures of, and it doesnt' feel real. A part of me keeps wondering when it will end because A) I feel so lucky and B) I wish i could just step back, because need to take it all in. Don't get me wrong, it all feels great, but it really does feel 'out of this world' to stand beside the site where the first King of England was crowned, to see and touch ruins that are older than I can comprehend, to walk the streets that Jane Austen did - to walk into the ballroom where she probably danced and observed the party for the purposes of her writings. And really, i'ts only just began.

Btw - for the benefit of my friends, Dad well knows what stonehenge etc is! I was shocked at how small it was, but tomorrow we're going to head to Warwick, Via Avebury which is where there are more stone circles and a museum about the ancient artifacts.

Reflections:

English water tastes yuck, even the bottled stuff. The Thai water tasted better, once it had been purified of course

Nobody ever told me that there was more than one bath at the Roman Baths in Bath!

Yoga is going to be difficult to do in italian or french...

I'm not so sure i do want to come back to Bath to live and work........ it is a very busy town, gets overrun like crazy by tourists, i'd need a car to get out of the area much, and i might just get bored by all the buildings that look the same! But, then again, i'll only know if i give it a go!

It's 10pm and i've just finished a Yoga class at the YMCA here in Bath where we're staying. I really needed the good stretch and relaxation, there hasn't been alot of sitting still on the trip so far.

We arrived in Bath last night and I was struck by the size of the town. I have looked at the 'www.visitbath.co.uk' website a dozen times or more over the last 12 months, but i wasn't prepared at all for my first views of the area. We drove down from a hill, and below us was the town of the bath in a little valley, but up the sides of that valley were rows and rows of terraces all made from 'Bathstone' the unique sandstone of the area. As we drove into this vechicle unfriendly town, i was amazed at the uniformity of everything and how spread out the area was. I felt like it was almost drab, though i'm glad to say that 30 hours on, the beauty of the area is starting to emerge in my mind.

We started our sightseeing this morning with a free council approved walking tour, which was fantastic. Our guide has lived in the area a very long time, and is a local historian with interests in architecture, the people of Bath, as well as it's place in national history. The tour went for nearly 3 hours and despite the wind and cold and tiring feet we would gladly have listened to her for hours more.

Bath is a really lovely area - the shops are amazing! I'm not one to care much for fashion but I really love the style of this place. I fell in love with a handbag today. http://www.radley.co.uk/experience/homesweet.cfm Basically the scottie dog is the motto of this company and they release a signature bag every season. I wanted to buy it sooo much, but at £99 or $250, it's above my budget..... fingers crossed it will be here when i get back and have earned a few pounds, but i won't hold my breath as it's a 'special release' bag that will soon become a collector's piece, so i'm told. Oh well. Perhaps i'll just get myself one of the smaller ones, or one of the purses... they're just soooo cute.

Yesterday was pretty special for reasons other than our Bath arrival, (and the fact we managed to negotiate our way out of london by car only landing about 30 m ins in the opposite direction to which we'd planned.....) We'd stayed the night of the 12th in a small town called Winchester. We originally meant to go to Salisbury (dad's wishes) but on our way dirivng there, we saw a sign to Jane Austen's house. It was about 5pm, so we thought we'd pick a closer town to stay the night and double back the next morning to Jane's place. We found ourselves a lovely little private B&B and got up early to do a walk of the town. Winchester was held by King Alfred the Great and there are roman and medieval walls, a huge cathedral (dad said its' in some song?) and it's a truly lovely little river town. Anyway, we set out in the morning, down the oldest known constantly inhabited, street in the UK (dated from roman times) and went to start our self guided town walk, when we noticed a few bobbies around, and that the main road was shut off. A few more investigations revealed a few tall men in very smart military dress uniforms, and some chatter with the locals revealed that there was a ceremony to take place a bit later on. Basically, it was the town of Winchester, giving a particular regiment of the King's Royal Hussars the 'freedom to the city' which according to Dad is an old tradition that basically allows that regiment to bear arms in the city because they're trusted. Princess Anne happens to be the figurehead leader of that regiment, so she was in attendance for the inspection and procession.

We spent a little time wandering around Winchester, walking pass the home where Jane Austen spent the last 6 m ontsh of her life, and past the cathedral where she was buried. We couldnt' go inside at first because Princess A was in there, and later on we decided that $12 was a bit much for a quick in and out, so we never went into the famous Cathedral. We watched the parade, which wasn't particularly crowded, especially as most of the people watching were locals that had just come down to do their shopping or move from A to B in town. Dad and I chatted to the locals and had a fantastic morning all around. I met an adorable old lady who kept telling me about a hundred times how her son lived in AU for a year and to this day he puts on the Aussie accent to rile her. She was so sweet though. At first we started talking and i mentioned i was from AU and she said 'oh really?', to which i replied 'isn't my accent very noticeable?'. she said that it was, but she didnt' want to seem impolite by commenting or asking me where i was from. she was just adorable.

i'd never have considered myself someone who'd be caught up in the whole royal watching thing... but you know, i enjoyed yesterday, seeing someone frmo the royal family, whereas a month ago if you'd asked me if that would have been anything interesting to me i would have said 'no way, i'd rather go to jane's house!'. I will get back and see jane's place, but the parade at winchester was a one off occasion i would never be able to repeat, not to mention the fact i was seeing someone from the royal family by chance.

Current Location: Bath, England
Current Mood: mellow
Current Music: Marching Music