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