guess where i am?

i am in Malta

yes thats an island inbetween africa and italy, and yes it was free trip,

our ferry to italy decided to make a pit stop and we are allowed off the boat and so have about 7 hours to spend in Malta, its great

the food [ rabbit] was amazing

and their money here is better then the euro, usually everything is the other way around

did i mention i am in Malta? thats kind of sort of near sicily if you dont have any idea and need to consult a map

M A L T A

haha
life is good

except fpr the ferry last night, one man took off his shoes and promptly fell asleep, perhaps passed out from the smell of his own feet and only after we got a few more people besides us to complain to the reception did they open another room that we could sit in without gagging

i tell you it was VILE

but now i am in MALTA!

off to catch the ferry again

ciao

tommorrow

i will ride a camel, what more do i need to say


besides a few days ago, i had a turban thingy on my head, full on arab get up, oh yes, oh yes

رسالة شكر

I have no idea what the title is but it is in arabic and it looks cool

so if anyone can see it and read arabic and its a swear, sorry

ok so some how i managed to chqnge the keyboqrd bqck to english except when you look at it nothing is the same

so the past few days crazy,
the guide book we have ( lonely planet) sucks, heres why
the places it says are good are pretty good, but the places it says it sucks, are also good, so really you dont know where to go cuz sometimes the places its says that suck, really do suck, like Matmata today, its where some of stars wars was filmed, so one would think that they would use that to capitalize on the tourist scene and make it a cool place, but infact it is VERY, (read: horribly) dissapointing, the ^star wars^ hotel, is a dump and only there fo the 15 - 20 tour buses that stop there, i guess in a way its neat but compared to ther thinsg we have seen its is bogus and the man charges the tour bus people money to use the can, about 75 cents CAD, so he is making a fortune,

yesterday we stayed at a plces called Ksar Hallouff, let me tell you that it was amazing, another planet, you wonder when you left earth, in the middle of crazy desert mountains, which we climbed and cliff walked and scaled massive boulders in all we hiked 10 kms as the crow flies, whiwh translates into VERY FAR but it was great, eating atop a crazy mountain in the weirdness of the desert mountains

the pictures will prove nothing, but i was amazing

oh and every radio station plays Bryan Adams, ha ha, and Celine, WHAT IS THIS PLACE!

here si some arabic for you to see;

ناني تلابهعسش لبنسشعاب نشسعغبشسعخها بهسشعبنمشتمعنصخهغثلةىلاؤنماشستاس م
تناسعهغص ضخثفخهضىئكشىى بخغعفق

enjoy that? i bet you did
here this next bit says joanne ( as corresponding with the french keyboard, not actually in arabic)

تخضىىث

cool huh?

Flamingo Point

So we spent some time on the shores of the Medditerranian Sea, on white sand beaches swimming in the sea, was fantastic, saw some wild flocks of flamingos but they were a bit to elusive to take a photo of

The water is not warm, a bit cool, but entirely refreshing and you can stay in for a long time without being cold; the beaches rae full of very old european people, no young people at all, lots of horse on the beach available to ride, although we didn;t a few massive resorts charging 500 Dinars a night we stayed at a place that was only 30 / night, much more reasonable:

the food here, has left some room for desire: their favortie thing to eat is tuna

tuna .....TUNisiA coincidence? they put tuna on and in everything, including pizza that and egg (egg and tuna) live as one in everything you eat** lots of octupus too, but that stuff is tasty most of the time

i have aquired a few odd bites on my arms, at first i thought it was mlosi bites, but now that the red and swelling went down it is much more peculiar, probably some sort of wild desert spider having lunch on my arm no negative side effects really, just a bit itchy and annoying at times, i have also been attcked by mosquitos whiwh i find a bit odd since at home i rarly get bitten, they ,usty love the canadian blood,

everyone here seems to think that we are dutch, they must get alot of them dutches when i say NO they continue to guess every country from which white people come from

one guy after exhausting his options of his mind, pointed to the sky and said..... Allah? ha ha
yes , i am from heaven..... i told him canada, he will probably add that to his list now;

some other guy told me ( after i told him i was from canada ) that he was too, and his mother was Celine Dion, wow, she sure has gotten around

Cactus Fences

so here i am in Tunisia

there will be more updtes on irelqnd but for now i will tell you that its nuits here.
first of all the keyboard is in arabic

today i saw a gladiator style colleseum the basement tunnels were still intact so you could see where the animals and men were kept: some of the opuside had fallen but over all in great condition:

they speak french and arabic here, npt much english but a bit, relatively cheap and it is definatl low season, we dont see many foriegners at all,

there is alot of catii fences and i love cactii! palm trees and wild flocks of flamingos we have yet to see

heading down to an island tommorrow and then into the desert on a camel, cant wait

oh and i hardly se any wome here, ever, always inside i guess, and i feel like a slab of meat on the street; so have been telling people i am married to john: seems to work

its fun anyways, off to a local folk band now::: should be interesting

Gatwick

so it turns out that i have a bit of EXCESS luggage. no problem i figured i could leave it an a baggage holding thingy in the gatwick airport in London here and pick it up on the way home.

yes you can indeed do this, for about $300. WTF thats insane. so as its turns out i am going to have to haul all the stuff i have bought iwth me. how does one spell out regret of buying a litre bottle of alcohol instead of a much smaller lighter bottle.

Dublin is a time of the past. i have left the country and i will not see it again on this side of the moon. perhaps another year or another life time. its a great country, there is much more to tell but as the clock counts down on my paid time here at the net kiosk i must wrap this up.

I will have more stories for sure soon.

but for now. i must post and board the plane to the desert to catch some eternal sunshine. i hope.

News

Ok so I have a few minutes here to write a brief update. We went to pick up the car and then proceeded to move John out of his apartment. that took pretty much all day and by the end of it i felt pretty stressed out about driving. driving all day on the wrong side of the road in a busy city all the while having no idea which way i am going is an easy way to get yourself committed. The next day we left for our journey around Ireland.

First stop was New Grange. A large mound in the ground that is something like a Buriel Chamber that gets lit up by the sun on Dec 21 the winter solstice. It was fascinating to be in. and there are carvings in the rcks from people who have visited there," murphy was here 1830 " some things never change.

Been spending the nights in B&B's. I dont know if i have been in one previous to this trip. but they are very comfortable and the 'full irish' breakfast that is includedis very very tatsy, but has no shortage of grease.

The country side here is very beautiful and though it is autumn and the leaves are changing, it still seems very green. Its cold by Irish standards but i find that I am hot more often then not. The roads are all small winding country roads. I dont find driving on the left that different anymore. driving is driving and I feel that after 9 + years of drving on the right side of the road, I adjusted well and quickly. I am sure other people have different opinions.

I have seen loads of other things here too, Giants Causeway, Bushmills Distillery, Carrick-a-rede rope bridge [ didn't go on, was closed and very very swindy], Toor Head, Drove through Belfast. There are loads of military outposts in Northern Ireland and they use the same money as in England. [ Northern Ireland is actually a different country then the Republic.

I'll have to write a more detailed post in the future. am having great time, have some great pictures of the counrty side and even one of Scotland since you can see it from the coast of Ireland up north.




The wether has been alright, lots of rain of course but breaks in it enough for us to gt outside and see the sights.

On the road

spent a few days on the road.

Craziness driving on the other side.

hopefully soon i will be able to find an internet cafe and get some posts up. but for now.. you'll have to wait. dial up makes me nuts..


talk to you son.

the sheep paparazzi