Category Archives: Travel

Europe 2023: Aachen

Aachen was really high on my list of places to visit for this trip, because I’ve seen the Cathedral there in several documentaries (my favourite being The Day the Universe Changed, Episode 2: In the Light of the Above, which discusses the impact of rediscovering Greek and Latin scientific and philosophical writings on Western European thought). Also, we used this video to help us plan the trip. So here we go! Shorter post this time because we were only here less than 24 hours.

Day 7, cont.

We got on the IC (inter-city) train to Brussels where we changed to the high-speed ICE (inter-city express) train. It was a very high speed train because however fast I guessed it was going from looking out the window, it was probably going about 50% faster than that. (A high-speed train later in the trip was going about 240k/h, which it said on the screen that announced the upcoming stops, so it was really booking it. North America could never.) There was a really cute black baby on the high speed train, but he was a wiggly little boy and when the mom walked away for a few seconds to attend to some luggage I had to keep him from squirming out of his seat and running after her! Eventually she got him to sleep. Continue reading →

Europe Trip 2023: Bruges

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Amsterdam to Antwerp

In an effort to not make you scroll forever while reading, I’m making many images smaller in this post, click them for larger. (It doesn’t help, you’re still going to scroll forever.)

Day 5

We started the day by going to the local bakery across the street from Tharash’s apartment for a loaf of fresh bread. It was very popular in there, people lining up out the door to get their bread and buns and pastries, and smelled amazing. Then we went to the grocery store for cheese and cucumber, and I also requested some crackers as a snack. This was when I discovered that Tuc makes crackers that aren’t just plain salted crackers, so I got bacon crackers omg. They do use real bacon so they’re no good for vegetarians, and they are very salty. I loved them so I was sparing with them and they actually lasted until I got home again since I didn’t eat one every day. (My local Dutch import store sells paprika-flavoured ones!) Continue reading →

Europe Trip 2023: Amsterdam to Antwerp

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Hello! This year’s ridiculous adventure took me to Belgium and Germany for three and a half weeks, wherein I saw a great many things, ate a lot of food, drank a lot of alcohol (by my standards), and took a lot of pictures (nearly 3,500, plus 500 from Tharash, though I’ve narrowed it down to about half of that (these are just mine and have not been edited in any way)), so these posts are going to be very, very long as usual. But here we go. I kept a careful journal on my phone to refresh my memory, so I’m arranging things by day like in my notes. Continue reading →

I went to a rock concert

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Found out Disturbed was playing their Take Back Your Life tour “near me”, near enough that I could justify the travel expenses, so I decided to go! They’re one of my three most favourite bands that I can’t get tired of (along with Dire Straits and Big Country).

Mount Baker lookin’ good! ^ It pretty much looms over Abbotsford, really, where the concert was, so that gives you an idea of how far I travelled. I forgot to take a picture of it while I was actually there. Actually once I got off the ferry, Google said it was only an hour’s drive away, but there were many sections of the highway where traffic reduced speed to like 20km/h, which really did a number on my gas tank. : P It was also pretty hot and humid for May (it was a heat wave) which didn’t help. Continue reading →

BC Trip 2022: Exterior

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After the events of the previous post, we got back on Friday night from our trip all over the BC mainland, and the rest of the trip was almost entirely on Vancouver Island. Saturday we just spent relaxing, I think we made Japanese-curry-in-a-box for dinner. Played some videogames (Tales of Arise is very on my to-play list!). Caught up with internet friends. I don’t remember what else right now, so it must have been properly chill. I think we went to buy beer? Tharash wanted to check out the local breweries so we bought three cans at the liquor store. Tharash picked two based on recommendations from the store worker, and I picked one based entirely on the label art which was pretty. We split all of them and drank one a day.

Sunday was a big day, we went whale watching! So we walked down to Fisherman’s Wharf, saw the houseboats and all the brightly painted unique designs, and got on our tour boat along with a large group of teenagers from… I think it was Brazil? A lot of them weren’t dressed for cold sea air, so I hope they were okay. The first part was spent just getting out away from shore, and the boat went very fast. When it slowed down again, somewhere halfway to Port Angeles, we were invited up to the bridge along with the only other two people who weren’t with the teenage tour group. We saw orcas from up there! The whale watching tours all talk to each other about where the animals are, and there are laws against getting closer than 200m, so there was a ring of boats around the whales, who were just chilling out – they didn’t breach or anything. It was also interesting for me to see the Olympic Mountains more close than normal. Unfortunately, after a little time up there, I started to feel seasick. The crew had some nice ginger chewy candies, and I had my water, but it didn’t stop me from actually being seasick off the back. I spent most of the rest of the trip half-napping on the back benches to avoid feeling any more sick. Tharash didn’t get sick at all because he is much more used to being on the water, and he had a very good time with his camera. Continue reading →

BC Trip 2022: Interior

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Last year was going to be the year, but there were still too many restrictions on, so it was this year that my best friend came over for another of our crazy travel adventures. Ever since he caught a glimpse of BC in 2018, he’d been wanting more, and I’d been wanting to show him, so here we are!

Some of these pictures are from his camera; some are from my new phone (and a couple are from his phone). I really like having a panorama function now! Choosing pictures was really really hard though! (for the full unlabelled photo experience click here) Continue reading →