EuropeMania!

well... i am now at home, for the first time in 39 days!! all i can say, is EUROPE IS AMAZING. wow. i am still kind of in awe that it happened... it seemed like it went by so fast, yet when i look back to my cousin's house, or Peak, or even say Chalet, it seems like EONS ago. but, here i go in the EXTREMELY condensed version of my trip, and check my MSN space later, i'll have some of the better pics up.

so it all started on july 15th... with me waking up nauseus... YAY. anywhoo, my parents, grandma, brother and myself flew to london heathrow, and then connected to manchester where we were met by my aunt and uncle. I haven't seen them since 2002 when i went to england last, so that was pretty exciting. we narrowly avoided a few accidents driving to their house, where i got to see my cousins again!! yay. we spent the next couple days around bakewell, nice and quiet.
we then left for York, and scotland. york was... interesting. i think the highligh of it was that i found a decently priced HP there. our next stop was Newcastle upon... somthing. there really wasn't much to see there, but we did walk hadrian's wall for a coupdl of hours, and we saw housteads fort which is the most complete roman fort in nothern britain.
After york, we went to edinburgh, with stops at Floor's Castle(where i found SNATCH, and bought it) and Kelso. we spent 2 days in edinburgh, and saw the royal mile, edinburgh castle, and some random little museum thingies. we then drove to St Andrews and saw the golf course (like a week after the open), and had the craptacular club house food. i also went wading in the north sea there. we then went to aberdeen, gaining one flat tire on the way. the next day we went to banff... which was really small...but they did have their own banff springs hotel!! we stayed in inverness that night.
the next day we went to Loch Ness...it was SO beautiful. we also went to Loch Lomond, where i sang l0ck lomond so loud that i got stares.... and then we drove to glasgow, which is basically a city. we have one around the corner, so nothing exciting to see. we then saw the Falkirk wheel on our way back to my cousins house... whcih was TOO many hours in the car in my opinion.
Once we were in bakewell we went to see Chatsworth (where Peak was going to be), Alton towers (theme park... Oblivion= world's first vertical drop roller coaster!!), and my cousin and i dyed our hair PINK. Can you believe it.... me a PINK HEAD??? ha ha no worries becuase with how dark my hair is, you really could only see it where my hair has highlighted itself, or in some fo the red streaks, it was very subtly pink... i really liked it... infact to the point that i'm considering doing it again this weekend...

AND NOW... COMES THE FUN PART... GGC EUROPE 2005!!!
the first week was Peak 2005, an international girl guide and boy scout camp.... oooh co-ed!! and let me tell you, it was HUGE!!! there were 5000 campers and 800 staff, and the "international" guests probably barely topped 1000, but us, as canadians, and the CRAZY people we are, managed to attract ALOT of attention. All of us were staff, and i worked on the Adventure course, either taking groups around, or manning the zip line, it was ALOT of fun. i could have done that for a VERY long time. some of the highlights of the week included: opening ceremonies(Sign languaging to Alrene and Christina), international night(whoo, leading ZOLTAN for a couple thousand people was QUITE the RUSH!!), meeting the Chief Guide, Girls Aloud, Crazy Frog and Sandstorm, Hair washing, and an ACTUAL BATH, Joe and the Wanafytes, "SCHNOGGING" my fanta well dressing, Claire and I setting a chatsworth speed record, playing blind soccer, the paint fight, seeing the RUGBY WORLD CUP (the closest a canadian will ever come to it), fireworks, dancing, looking at the stars with pauline, and skipping through peak singing I AM CANADIAN at the top of our lungs. wow... that was alot. Some not so good moments, were thankfully fewer in number, just my rolling my ankle, and not being able to walk, Katie hurting her back, my "moment of utter shock", and laura's Mono scare.

After peak, we went to chesterfield, and then on to London. London was all new again, as we did different stuff this time. it was fun. we saw Pax Lodge (one fo the four world guiding centres), London Dungeon, the Big Bus Tour, London eye (it was SO clear this time!), the changing of the guards (from INSIDE the gates... ha ha guiding pays!)(the even funnier thing was that they played the BEATLES song as we played in band this year!!), and we went to the GLOBE THEATRE to see a Winter's tale, which was ALOT of fun, except for our excursion on the subway afterwards.

we then flew to amsterdam, which was basically all a GIANT headache to me, becuase as you may know, marijuana is legal there, and pot and i DO NOT MIX. we saw the anne frank house, and did a boat tour, it was pretty cool. we then went to Brussels.... whcih was interesting. Basically, there's not much to see there. their pride and joy was this little statue of a boy peeing, called Manneken Pis (go figure), it was rather anti-climactic as it was so small... and hardly entertaining. we then went on a bus tour, and most of us slept, so i couldn't tell you what we saw...the highlight was the Belgian waffles for dinner, and the people who filmed Anna freaking out over stepping in poo.
we then trained it off to paris, where we saw Notre Dame ("have you seen Mr. Modo??"), the eiffel tower ("this building is now closed to the public, please remain calm," and "hello my name is kristen, and i'll be sharing your personal space today"), Arc de Triomphe, Champs D'elyssees, the Louvre (Yay mona lisa, Madonna on the rocks, and the INVERTED PYRAMID for all you people who have read the Da Vinci Code), Laura and i got Characatures.... we look like puppets, and "avec sans anchois/aves cent anchois" which one??

Our next, and BEST stop was Switzerland!! we went to Our Chalet, a world guiding centre. it's in Adelboden, which is near Interlaken (if you watched the news recently) or if not, kind of south west corner i guess... anyway, small town. we took over the attic of Spycher, which means barn in swiss german, but don't worry, its not a barn, its was really nice, our room was SO cozy. the other groups who were there were from Ireland, wales, and 3 british groups, so essentially we were the only ones from outside great britain... and we were alot older than most of them, except the welsh ladies, who were all older than us... kind of disappointing, but still cool. we did, however make frineds with the staff, Imogen from tasmania, Rebecca from Huston, and harriet from England, they were all REALLY cool.
Chalet was definetly more about adventure than Cabana(mexico), and Cabana was definetly more about new friendships than Chalet, which was perfectly ok with me, as i was happy with all the people i got to share the trip with. but right from day one, we were hiking everywhere, and always taking the walking option rather than the taxi/gondola option, which kind of granted us the "crazy canadian" status. Our week included hikes to Engsligenalp, Tchenton, wood carvers, Adelboden, Adelboden, Adelboden, Grindelwald, and Oeschinensee. The best one though, was the overnight hike that katie, laura, arlene, pauline and i did. we hiked until like 10, had some hot chocolate, and then went to bed in a cheesemaker's hut, and woke up again at 2:15. we then hiked until like 6 when we reached the TOP of the mountain. it was SO COOL, we watched the sun rise from the top of Switzerland. extremely cool. WE even had a snowball fight on the way down!!
Other cool things included RODELBAHN, basically a toboganning type thing, SNOW in August, Alpine Wrestling, the chocolate factory, International night, being in a cloud 4 or 5 times, trummelbach falls, Gruyeres, Niesen(steepest funicolaire in the world), swimming in a glacial lake (brrr 7 degree water!!), campfire and MOST OF ALL CANYONING!!!

Baiscally canyoning is White water rafting, minus a WHOLE bunch of water, and minus the raft. we started by rappelling into a canyon... only slightly terrifying cus i'd never done it before, and heights are something i don't really do well with. after that, we made our way through the canyon by jumping(not so gracefully on my part) into huge pools of water, or sliding on the smoothed rocks and landing in water, or ziplining and dropping into the water from high above. definetly the most extreme thing i've ever done, but probably one of the funnest, even thoguh we were FREEZING cold.

Our stay at chalet, unfortunately ended on a rather sour note, as our bus to the train station in Frutigen was cancelled becuase the road was closed due to 3 landslides, so we had to call up the taxi, and about 3 hours later, we were on the train. on the train, all the rivers, which were normally like glacial blue, were muddy and very very high, we even saw houses sitting in a few feet of water. it was really scary, it looked like something you'd see in the news. well... you guys mgiht have actually, the town of Interlaken, whcih is near chalet, had aLOT of flooding, and there are now some people who have died, and are now evacuated. its pretty scary to think that we JUST got out in time. I'm not surprised though, becuase we had rain EVERY day that we were at Chalet except for one i guess, becuase Anna wished for sunshine on her birthday(she's ANCIENT now!!) nonetheless, we got to Zurich, saw the teddy bears, had a hair straightening party, and went all the way HOME safely!!

Now, i'm at home, missing switzerland like crazy. i've been helping my mom move into her new school and seeing some of my school friends throughout the last 2 days, and all the while fighting some VICIOUS jet lag. we went to the war child concert last night to a SOLD OUT sign, so we hung around a bit and then walked home. its nice to be home, and it was an AMAZING trip, but i'm still in teh same post-trip stupor i experienced after mexico, and this time its pretty bad. one thing that cheered me up though was that Eva from Guatemala, who i met in mexico mroe than 2 years ago now called me tonight. it was really special. it really reminded me that "friends never say goodbye" a song i was ironically listening to a few minuted before she called. it made my day a whole lot better... something i really needed to remember today. so now, its back into the swing of things, and enjoying what little summer i have left. actually excited about school this year!