Last blog post till we see all your lovely faces!

hmmm.....Nice, shall we continue from there then.

After soaking up a rather large number of sun rays we left the beautiful city of Nice and headed to San Sebastion at the very northern tip of Spain about a 30 min train ride from the border to be exact! We stayed at a cute little hostel called Olgas met quite a few Canadians, the Canadians are coming out in full force, Im guessing since schooling is now all finished up! We soaked up a few more rays, found a dock WITH A SLIDE! Ate some Tapas wandered the old part of town and ate DELICIOUS gelato!

From San Sebastion we headed to Madrid we had a solid 36hrs in the capitol city, we shopped till we dropped, went on a very informative walking tour :) and enjoyed some rather tasty Pailla and then on to LISBON PORTUGAL!

Lisbon = the city of many hills.... THEY WEREN'T KIDDING! Everywhere you want to go seems to be uphill! We climbed to our hostel, climbed to a Castle and climbed to the grocery store! We went to a modern art musuem in Belem (a district in Lisbon) and ate "The Pastry of Belem"!!!! And then headed to Sintra a fairy tale land of castles beautiful gardens and magnificent trees!

From Lisbon we headed down to southern Portugal to Lagos another beach town (we do enjoy a good bit of ocean!) We found random tunnels along the coast and went swimming in the shockingly COLD ocean! On our second day we decided to try our hand at surfing....we got all decked out in the suits (CLASSY!) grabbed our boards (with the foam edging, we don't joke around) and hit the waves.... hit being the best adjective to describe this adventure :) now all kidding aside we both did stand up WHICH WAS SWEET! and the next day COULDN'T stand up but all in all it was a stellar day!

From Lagos we booked it to the bus stop, 6:30am a bit on the early side, HAPPY BIRTHDAY CHELSEA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :) (what more could you ask for on your 19th really!) So.... 3 buses and 14hrs later we arrived at the southern tip of Spain in Tarifa 30 minutes from Morocco WOWZA!!!! Sadly due to timing and passports we couldn't actually get on African soil but we could see the coast when we climbed a hill.... and well thats pretty much being there! In Tarifa we headed to the beautiful beach! wandered through the old town ate quite a high volume of Magnum icecreams! SO TASTY! And wowed the crowds with our cooking skills.

36 hrs later...... and Chel and I were ON THE ROAD AGAIN! to.... GRANADA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and it is BEAUTIFUL! We visited the Alhambra which was GORGEOUS! baked in the hot hot sun, munched on SO many kebabs! Decided to show off our ridiculous India pants... people were jealous... and climbed a mountain to a man living in a cave selling delicious tea and watched the sunset!

Tonight we are heading to Barcelona OUR LAST CITY!, sadly they don't have internet so this will be the last post before we arrive on Canadian soil, ON CANADA DAY I might add :)

So much love from
Chelsea and Simone!

We are celebrating our 6 month annivsary on July 8th just so you're all in the know! It's going to be a joyous occasion :) (you may bring cake for the happy couple!)

THANKS XOXOX!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

20 days!!!!!!

My goodness, its pitiful how little we blog! Though please take note Chel: 1 blog post, Simone: the rest.... WHERE IS THE JUSTICE!

So when we left off last Chel and I were sailing across the ocean blue to get from the island of Corfu in Greece to Bari in Italy.....

We actually arrived in Brindisi after ferries being cancelled and late, and then slowly but surely made our way up to Rome. And 24hrs later we arrived in Rome and had quite the time making it to our hostel somehow it involved 4 buses, 2 metros, a smart car and a lot of backtracking but we arrived and found our tent (in Italy we stayed in campgrounds quite a bit theyre much cheaper though WAY out of town in most cases, it was a bit of give and take :)).

Our first day in Rome we headed to the Vatican city and over the course of two days we saw St Peters Basillica, the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Sistene Chapel and to many Roman ruins to count! it was lovely warm BUSY!

From Rome we headed to Florence and stayed in another campground atop Michelangelo Piazza with beautiful views of the city. We met up with the Duncan Christian girls again which was great and did a bit of shopping.... :) We also had a fantastic true Italian meal with all the courses, it set us back a bit in our budget, but dont get me started on the lemon BUTTER sauce :D TASTY!

From Florence to Cinque Terre where we hiked the BEAUTIFUL trails along the coastline connecting the five little villages! it was beautiful! and luckily we did the hike backwards and got the incredable amount of stairs over and done with at the beginning! Rather clever :) After a few days enjoying Cinque Terre we headed to Venice it was brief, but the canals were lovely and rather confusing! and the heavens decided to bless us with a little rain! little more like A MAJOR DOWNPOUR!!!!

From Italy it was SWITZERLAND TIME!!! After too many trains to count we ended up in Grindewald Switzerland, a tiny little town with beautiful glaciers cows with bells and rolling hills and valleys of wild flowers! It was GORGEOUS! We climbed 890 log steps! jumped a railing climbed up another mountain and then in shorts and a t-shirt ate lunch with some ice and snow :).

From Switzerland we decided to go on a hunt for ASHLEY WILSON!!! 15 hrs later and 7 trains later..... for some reason Chel and I felt we were smarter than the train stations computers and created our own itinerary! NEVER AGAIN! we were 6 minutes ahead of schedule though! We then arrived in Dordrecht in the Netherlands and decided that Ambucht must be smaller than it really is we were in the MIDDLE of nowhere at midnight with no address, phone number or direction, just our TERRIBLE MEMORY of where exactly their home was situated so we ended up hopping on a bus, breaking up a midnight kiss and getting driven by the mother :) in actual fact it was a rather lengthy process involving deciding the best place to lay our heads for the night under a car or in a bush hmm.....

Once in Holland again we got some laundry done again! Enjoyed breakfast at home :) and were able to plan the rest of our trip out.... sort of :)

We found Ashley and Jaime in Amsterdam :) so exciting wandered around the canals, caught up and enjoyed Indian food for dinner :) ALOO GOBI!!!!! (and Biryioni!)

From Amsterdam we headed to Rouen in France and then Dieppe which were both beautiful and then headed across the English channel and stayed in Brighton which was so nice and SUNNY! we stayed with some friends we met in Greece which was GREAT then headed to London for a few days saw the sights and stayed in a gnarly hostel! Went back across pit stop in Dieppe one more time and off to Paris.

Paris well Im not really quite sure where we stayed it wasnt in Paris city thats for SURE! it was called Hotel Cheap Beds... and thats exactly what it was! We ran up Montmartre saw the hotel we stayed in with school and ate a crepe and then hopped on a train to Dijon.

Dijon we bought Dijon mustard, found a park, went to a lovely wine tasting in a large old cellars with quite a few barrels and stayed in a hostel on the side of a highway! France is not cheap for hostels, as you can probably tell, we tend to go for the outskirts!

From Dijon we headed to Nice which is where we are situated at the moment and have been enjoying the sun and the sea! BEAUTIFUL!!!

Well folks hopefully youll get one more before we return! Maybe not though.... :) perhaps youll just hear it from us!

20 days and the countries left are.....
A bit more of France
Spain
Portugal
and Morroco!

see you all soon
xoxox
Simone and Chelsea!

6 weeks to go!

I guess I'll go back to where I left off last. From Vienna we headed to Salzburg and pranced around like Maria from Sound of Music which was lovely it was quite the speedy trip through only 4 hours in the city but we managed to see a large portion, and then from Austria we continued on to Budapest Hungary. We munched on donuts, climbed a few hills, crossed a beautiful bridge, and went swimming in an ancient bath which was fantastic! It was a natural hot spring and the temp was a delightful 38 degrees! From Budapest we took a train to Istanbul, our train passed through Bulgaria and Romania and when the time came to switch trains we realized that we had misread our ticket! Ahh the 24 hr clock! Gets you every time! So instead of travelling for 20 hrs by train we travelled for a solid 37 hrs including delays! We were without food and a lovely English couple gave us a picnic lunch until we reached the Turkey border!!!! So 3am we arrive on the border of Turkey where we must pay for a visa, well as luck would have it Canadians have to pay at least 3 times the amount that any other country has to pay.... SPLENDID! We were low on funds of course no atms, they only take euros or turkish lira GO FIGURE!!! and we were in a bit of a bind! But luckily enough the English couple came to our rescue again this time in the way of funds!!! and well LESSON LEARNED!!!

We arrived in Instanbul and stayed at a really sweet hostel called the Stray Cat (they had stray kittens :)). We went to the Grand Bazaar the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia. From Istanbul we headed to Goreme to see the Fairy Chimneys, which were incredible, and when on some gorgeous hikes (unmarked trails! not our strong point!). Goreme to Olympus down south where we took an amazing 4 day sail boat cruise!!! The water was like a massive bowl of blue raspberry jello!!! BEAUTIFUL! and we met some pretty fantastic people on the boat as well. Day 3 we went paragliding! jumping off a 1.7 km high mountain was quite the adrenalin rush, and then to slowly float back down to land, pretty wicked! From the boat cruise we headed to Pamukale for check out the calcium deposits, not quite as full as we would have hoped but some of the pictures turned out quite nicely! And for our last stop in Turkey we headed to the west coast and enjoyed the ruins of Ephesus which was also great! Overall Turkey was LOVELY hopefully I didn't bore you as I hopped from city to city! Initially we were planning on spending 3 days in Turkey but we ended up staying their for almost 3 weeks!

From Turkey we headed to Greece, we spent a bit of time on the island of Naxos and then headed to Santorini for some classic pictures of the white and blue houses, and Brad and Angelina were even docked in the harbour, go figure. From Santorini we arrvied in Athens which felt pretty safe all things considered and we saw the classics Acropolis etc... From Athens we headed to the west and landed on the island of Corfu where we met a group of girls from..... Duncan Christian! WHAT ARE THE CHANCES!!! so we played a rousing game of Dutch bingo. Chel played basketball against a bunch of them in school, one was related to the Reems and a bunch went to Duncan Christian Reformed and they all responded "oh you''re Pastor Darren Colyn's niece, no way" indeed I am, SMALL WORLD!!! I believe we'll be having lunch at The Doghouse upon our return!

From Greece we're off to Italy to see the wonders of Rome, Florence, Cinque Terre, and Venice and then to Switzerland but hopefully a blog will surface by that point again!

See you all soon! I believe its 43 days to be exact!!! Enjoy the warm weather!

Simone and Chelsea

wowza!!! where has the time gone!!!!

SO SORRY FOLKS!! this is long overdue!!!!

Well a quick overview of what we've done is in order!!!

From The Netherlands we took a train to Berlin which was great, we stayed in a fantastic little hostel and got to enjoy the wonderful city of Berlin we saw the Berlin Wall, Checkpoint Charlie and Holocaust Memorial to name a few. The weather was gorgeous and Germany's dance crews were out in full force? odd but a nice touch! From Berlin to Munich for oom pa pa bands tons of history beautiful cobble stone streets and cute little cafes! DELIGHTFUL!!!!

Germany to Poland and our first stop was Warsaw. We entered the city of Warsaw 2 days after the plane crash occured killing both the President and his wife, as well as nearly 100 other government officials. Really devastating news! and the entire country went into a two week mourning period. The streets were lined with thousands of candles and flowers and thousands upon thousands flocked the streets to pay their respects! From Warsaw we headed to Krakow where we went 135 metres below ground to a HUGE salt mine (pretty neat) and then on a day trip to Auschwitz which was incredibly powerful to see and witness.

From Poland we entered the Czech Republic and our first stop was Prague which we thoroughly enjoyed! BEAUTIFUL CITY the weather was amazing and the Chel and I were finally both feeling 100% at the same time! BLESSING! Yesterday we were in Czechs second largest city Brno, which in the end was rather cute :) and now.... whew... VIENNA AUSTRIA!!! 5 countries and just under 3 weeks! It's been a whirlwind! but absolutely delightful!!!!

Hope you all at home are doing swimmingly!!! enjoy the fresh spring air!!!

xoxo Simone and Chelsea!!!!!!!!!!

EUROPE!!!!!!

Chel and I arrived in Holland on March 31st to the shock of a 30 degree drop in temperature! We were amazed to find that in the rest of the world cows don't rule the road and people actually stick to their own lane in traffic! We were quickly whisked away from the airport and arrived at Remijnses which was lovely! We got to wash our dreadfully dirty clothing in a WASHING MACHINE! Drink cups upon cups of tea and sleep in our own bed! We were also quickly indoctrinated in the european ways! We explored Rotterdam, rode bikes along the Kinderdijk and experienced the bustling city of Amsterdam! The rain has been a lovely though cold change, and we have come to the sad realization that we are loosing quite a bit of hair! What to blame it on we're not really sure, though lack of nutrition seems to be the biggest factor thus far! Tomorrow we are heading to Berlin which should be wonderful! Europe is beautiful though we've been dealing with quite the culture shock, eating breakfast in India and dinner in Holland, it all seemed to happen rather fast!

Well much love from us baldys!

Have a beautiful day!

xoxo Simone and Chelsea!

3 months down! 3 to go!

Hello everyone!!! Sorry its taken so long for us to right a blog! Yikes where does the time go! After a crazy bus ride from Munnar to Bangalore (12hrs) and then another 3 hr bus ride from Bangalore to Mysore which somehow turned into 13hrs!!!! We arrived in Mysore a bit dazed and confused after 30 hrs on a bus in 30 degree heat! We saw the sights in Mysore and 36hrs later found ourselves on another bus to Hampi, ya that bad boy was also 12 hrs!!! Really the things we do!!! We arrived in Hampi and it was BEAUTIFUL! huge mountains of boulders and ancient Hindu temples from 700 years ago! We travelled the river by boat and climbed a mountain to watch the sunset while sipping some chai, and then dodged the killer monkeys all the way down the mountain! We rented scooters and travelled the hillside passing through small villages and having children running after us and waving hello! After 3 days in Hampi we took a night bus, STICKY little bugger! to Goa where the Arabian Sea greeted us with its cool refreshing breeze! We enjoyed Palolem beach in South Goa for a few days and then went up to North Goa to Arambol beach for 3 more days! it was beautiful and relaxing and we pretty much turned into fish to escape the 40 degree heat! From Goa we took a 12 hr train back to Mumbai where we saw the sights got asked to be in a Bollywood movie, and then headed back to the orphanage!!! Its fantastic to be back and to see all the kids again! They remember us!!! which one would hope after a month! but it's still lovely too see!!! In four days our whirlwind of India wraps up and we're heading to Europe to hopefully blitz through and enjoy 17 countries in 3 months!!! We thank you for your continued prayers and support and we look forward to seeing you all in July, my word it's just around the corner!!!

Enjoy springy Victoria and beyond, we've heard its exceptionally nice right now!!!

love Simone and Chelsea!

Hello again!

Chelsea and I arrived in Kerela on March 9th it was a bit of a milk run journey which involved sleeping on the marble floor of Mumbais Airport! But we arrived in one piece! When we left the plane we were hit with humidity it was insane, you could practically swim to the taxi! We found a cheap hotel and then puttered around Fort Cochin it was a very cute town with coconuts and palm trees galore! We washed and rode on elephants, which was very exciting! And went on a backwaters tour through the tropical rainforest it was BEAUTIFUL! we were surrounded by pineapples and bananas and cocoa beans and even a cashew tree! From Cochin we took a taxi up to the hill station of Munnar which is absolutely stunning it's hill after hill of tea plantations. It's lovely and chrisp and fresh and you can watch woman on the hillside collect bundles of delicious tea! We drove to waterfalls and lakes and went on a lovely row boat ride though sadly we didn't get that far! Today we are taking a 14 hr bus ride to Bangalore and then from Bangalore to Mysore so that should be lovely! We are sadly still on the hunt for a tiger and seeing as there are only 1411 left in the wild in India the chances are rather slim, but the search continues!

Have a wonderful day!
See you rather soon I believe in around 115 days, so that should just fly by!
xoxo
Simone and Chelsea