We made the journey to Belfast in Northern Ireland, UK. We have enjoyed the beauty of the surrounding area, and learned much about the region’s political history. To be honest, the past troubles of the area brought a heaviness that I haven’t yet experienced on the trip.

We flew into Belfast on July 14, one day after a “Marching Season” riot took place in the city. For some background, Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom (with England, Scotland, and Wales). Northern Ireland has a majority population of Unionists and Protestants, who seek continued union with the United Kingdon, and a minority of Republicans and Catholics who seek to join the Republic of Ireland. Each year during the “Marching Season,” the Unionists march to celebrate the victory of the Unionists over those wanting a united Ireland. Sadly the 2015 celebration resulted in clashes including fire bombs, fires on the street, and confrontations with police.

We took the bus from the airport to the city centre, and then walked to our hostel. While looking around we saw smoldering fire piles from 2 nights ago. The size of these fires must have been huge to smolder for two full days. We saw the very large wall that separate the Republican and Unionist sections of the city. After seeing the rough state of the city on our walk to the hostel, Jon and I wondered what we had gotten ourselves into.

To gain a deeper insight, we hired a local cab driver, Peter, who lived through the past conflicts of Northern Ireland. I won’t go into the details here, but Peter discussed The Troubles that erupted into a near civil war in Northern Ireland. A peace agreement was made in 1998, which set up a strong roadmap to peace for the region. Peter personally lost close family members in the conflicts, but has a strong hope and belief that the situation is and continues to become much better.

Aside from the riots on the 13th, the region continues to be a peaceful and beautiful place. The people that we have met in Belfast have been very welcoming, and are committed to the ongoing peace in this beautiful region! Today the two sides have laid down their arms, and express themselves in artistic murals throughout the city. While some are rather intense, they provide a unique insight into the region’s past. Check out the photos.

Enough with the heavy stuff! Yesterday we had an amazing day trip out to the Giant’s Causeway. This is an amazing sight of natural beauty, with 40,000 basalt columns that form into hexagonal (six-sided) columns. There is a very interesting geographical explanation for how this happened – feel free to Google it for more details! The 40,000 columns go along the coast cliffs of Northern Ireland – a truly beautiful site. The photos are quite fantastic!

The natural beauty of Northern Ireland is astounding. I’ve never quite seen such lushness in the greenery! If you can make it out to Northern Ireland, I highly recommend it. Tomorrow we hop a bus to Galway City, in western Ireland. Onward and forward!

Cheers!

We made the northward journey to Edinburgh and have been enjoying the natural beauty of the city. Earlier today I wandered through Holyrood Park to “Arthur’s Seat,” a beautiful peak overlooking the Edinburgh Castle! Check out the photos.

A trip to Scotland wouldn’t be complete without trying haggis, a tasty dish that includes sheep liver, heart, lung, and stomach. Highly recommended! If you can’t handle the full dish, you can try a sample on your burger!

The Edinburgh Castle is a beautiful medieval castle perched on a high point in the city. According to some researchers, this may have been one of the most attacked fortresses in the world – we managed to avoid the cannon fire!

The galleries and museums in Edinburgh were also very interesting. A main exhibit is the Millennium Clock, which was built to commemorate human suffering of the 20th century. Even though it sounds (and is) rather dark, this was fascinating to see. Every hour the clock and its tower toll and provides an animatronics display. If you’re ever in Edinburgh, check it out at the National Museum of Scotland!

We’ll be flying out to Belfast on July 14th to begin our Ireland adventure. Until then!

Cheers,

Shawn

Hi Everyone,

I know it’s been a while, but I’ve been having too much fun in London! We spent a good ten days in the UK’s capital, checking out all kinds of amazing sights, monuments, museums and shows. We are very grateful to Laura, a fellow traveller and friend that we met in Morocco, for hosting us. We had a blast Laura!

A bonus for budget travellers, most of London’s museums are completely free! This includes the world-class British Museum, which has a stunning array of artifacts from the ancient to modern world, including the Rosetta Stone, sculptures from the Parthenon, and an Egyptian Sphinx (yes this is a huge Sphinx that was somehow transported from Egypt). Some of the other London museums we checked out include the Science Museum, Museum of Natural History, the Tate Modern Art Museum, and the National Gallery. Fantastic!

Of course we also checked out the iconic sites of Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, the changing of the guard, and the Tower of London. We caught London in the midst of an “English heat wave,” temperatures got up to 32 degrees in London. Although this heat is unheard of in London, we had already been acclimatized to it by our time in Spain and Morocco. Even though our stay in London has been the longest of the trip, I feel like we could spend a month longer in this splendid city!

We also have a claim to surviving London during a tube (subway) strike for 1.5 days. While it was chaos trying to cross London during this time, we did appreciate the tube workers for scheduling their strike from 6:30pm on Wednesday until first thing Friday morning. I was half expecting to see the tube workers line up in a queue (line) to start their strike! All was back to normal operations Friday morning so that we could catch our bus north to Edinburgh. I quite enjoy British efficiency!

Now it’s onward to Scotland! Haggis awaits me!

Cheers, Shawn

Made it to the enchanting city of Paris! The cheap flights in Europe are really helping the budget! We are staying in a little community in the outskirts of Paris called Malakoff. It has a quaint feel of a smaller town, but is only a 20 minute metro ride to the city centre. I highly recommend staying in Malakoff to my fellow travellers.

On our first evening here, we hopped the metro to the Arc de Triomphe – a grande monument first ordered built by Napoleon over 200 years ago. While walking underneath the arch I had to remember how small I am in the world!

From the Arc we strolled over to the Eiffel Tower – lit up all nicely as it was night time. It’s quite a site seeing the tower in person. An interesting fact – the Eiffel Tower may have the highest concentration of selfie-stick sellers in the world!

On our second day we headed out to the lavish palace and gardens of Versailles. This site was ordered built by King Louis XIV – a king with fine tastes! The extravagence, style, art, and detail of the palace and gardens is exceptional. Check out the photos!

On our third day we checked out the National Museum of Modern Art. The pieces from Dali, Picasso, an many other prominent artists were inspiring. In the afternoon we ran into a street music festival with very colourful music, costume, and dance! Aftewards we took a spin around Notre Dame Cathedral. The French certainly do have style!

On our fourth and final day, we spent a fully packed day exploring the Louvre – a museum with a staggering collection of paintings, sculptures, relics, lavish apartments, and a collection of sphynxs from Egypt! I was quite surprised to see a full room dedicated to an Egyptian pharoh from the 18th dynasty – Akhenaten. He tried to convert Egypt to a monotheist religion – Google him!

My exerience in Paris has been awesome. The Parisians that we’ve met have been very friendly and helpful. Previously I’ve heard that Parisians could be rude or unfriendly. I’m writing to say that this stereotype is not necessarily true. Even though I speak with terribly broken French, my time here has been great – both due to the city and its beautiful people!

Now we’re off to London! Cheers!

Hi everyone, we made it back to Europe! Flew from Casablanca to Barcelona on the 20th. Barcelona is a gorgous city, with so many sites and events to experience. Some of the highlights include:

• The Sagrada Familia (Sacred Family) Basilica. This stunning Basilica combines modern and gothic styles, and utiizes natural light in such an amazing way. The scale and unique designs are like nothing else on the planet! See the attached photos
• Casa Batllo – a facinating house designed by Gaudi, the same architect as the above Basilica. Every detail of the house was methodically thought out, such as the central light column to provide natural lighting, the erganomic ventaliation system, and the bronze door handles made with clay moulds to perfectly fit to your hands
• La Boqueria: an extremely appealing market with all kinds of fresh seafood to taste, freshly squeezed fruit juices, wine, beer, and every kind of goodie that you can think of.

The general vibe of Barcelona is very chill, even though it is a thriving metropolis. I learned that Barcelona, an the Catalonia region of Spain speaks their own language -Catalan! This area is quite distinct from the rest of spain, with its own unique culture and history.

We were lucky to be in the city for the Saint Joan festival on the evening of the 23rd, where the people head to the streets and beach and set off fireworks until the wee hours of the morning! Vendors were coming around the beach to sell beer and mojitos for 1 euro! Quite a bargain!

All in all, Ioved Barcelona! I will definety be going back. From Barcelona the journey continues onto Paris! Until then!

One small ferry ride is all that was needed to significantly alter the traveling experience. Right off the ferry we were whisked away from a few “official” tourist ambassadors. From a grande taxi to the medina we were delivered, my inexperienced travel mind thought ‘this is great’ chauffeured to the doorstep.  You’ve probably already guessed it, yes there was a catch. However this would prove to be the formal introduction to Morocco’s method of business. I was not prepared for the style of life we dove into, equipped with my unabiding avoidance confrontation. Adapt we did.

Fresh produce, spices, naan bread, cigrettes the list goes on of what one can find in a medina. Raw in your face aromas to acompany the aray of eye candy. I refrained from freely taking pictures as I did in Spain and Portugal because usually a mild photo surcharge was imminent. I felt uncomfortable capturing the poverty of the country and didnt want to romanticize the reality these people are living.  Tireless donkies loaded up with propane tanks travelling through the maze like alleyways will run one over if it weren’t for ‘balak!’, or watch out, being said by the donkey driver. Think farmers market with a twist, a twist of lamb heads, sugary pastries and no fixed prices.

‘I didn’t know i had some many friends’ one of our fellow combatants accurately said. My friend, my friend were probably the most spoken english words I heard in Morocco. Multilingual to boot, the shop owners can usually pick where you’re from and will most definitely have a friend, cousin, nephew or some anecdotal reference up their sleeve waiting to butter up the wallet. The price would generally not be revealed untill some social bonding occured and the right amount of “friendship” developped. Hospitable by nature and ready with sugar laced mint tea, I dont want to leave a bad taste in your mouth about my experience. Maybe thats what the tea is for.

We road a bus from Tangier to the mountainous Chefchaouen. Well known for its charming blue color it provided a relaxed-layed back scene to soak in. If British Columbia is the weed capital of Canada then Chefchaouen is our brother from another mother. Difference being hash is the preferred method. For a few dirhams a local will guide you through the mountains and proudly show you acres of maryjane. Nights on the riad roof top melted away with muscians jamming out and competitive card sessions.

Beyond the blue city are the Cascades d’Akchour. Getting there is alone an adventure by piling 6 plus the driver in a grande taxi, a 80’s brownish cream Mercedes D400. Oh and make sure you sit front middle like I did, its the best. Did I mention its all standard driving out yonder? A 30 minute ride later arriving numb but gleefully appreciative of the future memory, we started off to the grand cascades. A solid hike hopping on stones over a creek and beautiful scenes along the way its well worth it, one note: go on a weekday because the sunday we went was very busy.

Cheers!

The city of Marrakesh – nothing quite like it! The main square in the city – Jemaa el Fna, turns into a flurry of activity, including snake charmers, musicians, shops with nearly everything, and likely the world’s largest collection of orange juice stands. Just wandering around the square was a treat! We had a lot of fun wandering around the medina area, finding our way through the maze of streets and alleyways.

After all the activities and cities, we decided to chill in a little beach town called Essaouira. A four hour bus ride from Marrakech, and it felt like a world away! The pace is relaxed an calm, with the sound of waves and seaguls in the background. This spot is great for surfing, swimming, suntanning, and catching up on blog posts! We found an awesome hostel here, called Hostel Cloud 9. The hosts an other guests have created a great atmosphere to relax and unwind.

Our time in Morocco is coming to an end. I’ll be making a quick stopover in Casablanca, and will be flying into Barcelona tomorrow. Back to Europe!

Cheers,

Shawn

Into the Moroccan South! From Fez we started a three day trek into the Atlas Mountains and the Sahara Desert! On the first day we made a stop in a monkey reserve, an were able to see a very lively family of monkeys, including some babies. Their moms were quite protective as the babies clung on to their moms very tightly! The scenery along the way was spectacular, as the road winded along with the mountains.

By late afternoon we arrived at a hotel/refuge on the edge of the Sahara Desert. We then jumped on some camels for one and a half hours and ventured into our desert camp. Note that this is legit desert, with massive sand dunes surrounding us. A group of us perched ourselves at the top of the sand dune and waited for the stars to come out. The sky lit up with stars – and we had a fantastic view of the Milky Way. However, none of us brought a flashlight, so we stumbled over dunes and fought our way back to the camp! Many good adventures!

On the second day of our trek, we continued on through the Atlas Mountains, and enjoyed the scenery of gorges, valleys, and even a 400 year old well system. Now the wells are dried up, so we could wander through the underground system in a series of tunnels. Very cool! We stayed overnight in Ouarzazate, and grabbed a bus to Marrakech on the third day. Onward and forward!