The Global Degree Thank You Note

Hello Everyone, 

As one might have wondered in passing what happened to my fundraiser (The last Dreamer), I was able to raise some money but I didn't hit my mark. It ended on June 6th and I found out that no one got their contributions refunded back to them. I chased down the technical support team in hopes that they could answer my unanswered questions. I am not a dishonest person and the last thing I would want is to take advantage of my lovely friends who were  supporting my dream. 

When I finally received an email back after a long deal of frustrating correspondence from the website 'people' I was told that they have had a glitch and it has charged everyone's credit card for the amount that they had contributed. To my shock I was feeling that I had not only lied to my friends but I have taken advantage of them in some sense. I wondered how I would be able to return these funds back to the correct individuals. The 'people' and some of my friends were happy to give me the money anyways, which I felt a little guilty about. In the end that was all they could do for me since they didn't have the ability to send the money back. 

The story goes, I was working in Taiwan at a hostel trying to make money but because the wages were low I wasn't able to save up a lot. This was when I created the video, hashed out ideas, talked to a plethora of wonderful individuals about my dream. I then left Taiwan after returning to Japan to say my last goodbyes and embarking on my Eurotrip in May. My funds were depleting as one would know that Europe is not a cheap country. 

I had enough in my pocket to get me to the end of this trip where I would go home and tend to the matter of finances and obtain a new working holiday visa for an EU country. It was suppose to be Germany but I felt like there was so much more to see since it was in a much closer proximity, so I decided to take my time and travel onwards. As some of you may already know from my posts and photos I have just walked the Camino from Portugal to Spain to get some perspective on what I should do with my upcoming future. 

The kicker is that when I was Porto (about three weeks ago) I was either pick pocketed or very clumsily lost my wallet. I was heartbroken and defeated that I still had this eye-opening venture of a walk ahead of me. This was at the beginning of the walk. I was very lucky that my boyfriend was able to give me some funds to get me through the alburges throughout and slept outside when we could. I spent 15 days walking in the Spanish heat, the tropic rain, battling bugs, walking along highways, farms and much more. 

I wasn't entirely disconnected from the internet but I wasn't getting anymore correspondence from the tech team at global degree until I had at last arrived at my end destination Santiago De Compostela. The way of St.James were pilgrims who walked to see the remains that were unveiled, they came from all over Europe. The pilgrims who made the religious walk, battled inner demons, the weather and an the anguish of the pains in their bodies on the long and arduous journey.Throughout the camino one learns a lot about themselves. I walked to see if I could find myself, with no money in my pocket relying on others. When it came to the end my camino, they wired your money to me in Madrid before I boarded the last leg of my journey from Spain to Germany to head back to Canada. 

I was overwhelmed that this came when it did because I don't have any credit cards, debit cards or cash of any sort. My pockets were empty but my mind overflowing with thoughts of what was to become of me when I arrived home. I will find work, endeavour to save up money to catch tailwinds to another unknown land to me. Until then I will try this civilized life where the following weeks will be known and the comfort of people aren't from only strangers met along the path. So I write you with my deepest thanks that you have helped me make it to the final destination, a place called home. 

If you have any questions or concerns of the above feel free to contact me via email. 

I love you all very much and I will remember this blessing until the day I take my last breath.

Yours, 

Jenny Tam

What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters to what lies within us.

Jenny Makes her 1st Travel Video (POLAND)

 'Poland' 

by Jenny and Monika 

A lot of you have probably already watched the video Monika and I made of Poland. Needless to say that I have to make sure it gets a spot on my blog. After hours of editing I recalled my fear that previously haunted me about creating video content. It is time consuming and well, not the most easily of tasks for someone that isn't skilled in this department. Making the videos though, were bundles of fun and I think I am getting slightly better at it.

It is really nice to be able to enjoy meals with someone and have a partner to travel around a country. Let alone a native to the country. We all know that I love learning languages and eating food. Let's see if I can continue to find people along the way that will assist in my video ventures.

I'm happy to take any advice in regards to making better quality videos but until then I am just going to have fun and see if I can get my friends to laugh with me along the way. I hope you found the video as funny and entertaining as it was to make.

<3  

P.S. If I am able to make videos during this Eurotrip the blog posts will most likely be less frequent. Maybe it is easier for some of you to watch or read. Let me know :) I would like to stay connected until I return home to Canada-land.

Amsterdam Day 3

This morning we were able to get our tradition dutch breakfast including hagelslag 'dutch chocolate sprinkles' accompanied by bread and butter. On the side you can get cold cuts which I believe was ham at our hostel and sliced cheese. I took advantage of the granola and yogurt with your universal apple/orange juice/coffee/tea as a morning beverage. There was a note next to a breakfast cake 'try me with butter' it was one of those hey I haven't had this before, better try it moments. I myself was like cake and chocolate sprinkles for breakfast whats not to like?

We checked out of our room and went to the museum Rijks Museum where they featured Rambrandt works and the famous 'The Night Watch'. The building itself looks enormous from the outside but I guess the rooms indoors were quite large making the exhibit quite small when you walk through it. There were many other museums to visit Danny and I for once wasn't in the mindset to hop from museum to museum on this trip. Until next time.

The best way to stay in Amsterdam is to rent an apartment of your own with full facilities, since we currently live in staff housing and share our bathroom and kitchen we really appreciated having our own place. For 70 Euro a night we got a full flat!!

View from our apartment window.

A picture of the tram, car lane, bicycle lane as well!

Tonight I wanted to celebrate my birthday, we went to Liedse Square were all the bars are at. During our first drink of the evening we asked the bartender were they had live music there was one place around the corner but when we walked up they were playing Crazy train by Ozzy, so we wandered to the jazz bar Alto were there was a live band. The band 'The Soul Catcher' even gave me a birthday shout out after we spoke with them outside.Where found out that the band members were from all over the world! I had a wonderful evening out.

Amsterdam day 2

We woke up far too late to try out our free Dutch breakfast, made a note to try harder tomorrow.
Today we set out to have a wander around Amsterdam. We headed first through a street market that is on everyday before heading to the Museum District, which was dominated by the imposing figure of the Rijksmuseum. There are lots of museums are various sizes all centered around a big plaza where we found the I Amsterdam sign which you might have seen pictures of.

From the Museum Quarter we headed north towards the city center  passing through what our map told us was an arty district. It was full of pokey galleries, many of which were closed, and was less exciting than I expected it to be. From here we found ourselves in a more mainstream shopping area, and took shelter in the nearest coffee shop.

The Dolphin Coffee Shop was very different to the first place, much more commercialized for tourists. It was the most like an actual cafe of all the coffee shops we visited.

Later on in the night we took a walk into the infamous red light district to see what the fuss is all about, were we wandered into the sex museum. I don't believe this was the original museum it might have been just put together for the tourist but it was fin to see all the different cultures of sex represented in one building.

Snow White was showing cartoon porn!

RLD.

Making it to Amsterdam

It has been a teenage dream of mine to make it all the way to Amsterdam where I imagined life being tolerant   and filled with acceptance of what peoples hobbies were, are and will be.

The start of the day wasn't the best, I had one of those life blips that have been happening more often than not. Left my passport back in my room when we made it one train stop away from home. Luckily it wasn't that far, on our way back I picked up some Euros from the post office for an exchange of 1.08 should have been 1.13 if they didn't take their small fee.

Advice: If you are ever in east Sheen at the post office on the main street, watch out for the grumpiest individuals of all time. Not only are they not helpful they just seem so unhappy with their life careers. I have been in there a handful of times now and they just don't seem pleased, I am tempted to suggest a different profession (by contrast the man running a computing service out of the same room is a really jolly fellow, back during Christmas he cheerfully lent us some tape and scissors for a parcel when the nasty people from the Post Office side flatly refused and told us we had to buy some. Kudos to that guy).

Finally we made it out of Sheen off to Waterloo station, our standard transfer route into the city. From here we took the Waterloo & City line, which is the shortest Underground route and also the only one that is 100% underground. This took us to Bank, in the City of London (which is its own province basically consisting of the business district around Bank). We ended up at Liverpool St. Station, where we hopped on the overground train for an hour all the way to Southend Airport. The airport with only three departure gates, nothing fancy but does the job.

After a very quick 40 minute flight we arrived in Amsterdam a blanket of snow on the ground to greet us. When we walked off of the plane it was about the same temperature as London, -3C not too bad.

Now this was the hard part a serious lack of help from the train station, needing to buy a ticket to get into Amsterdam central station. First thing we did was try to buy a ticket from the ticket machine but it was card only, so off to the ticket/information. A lady sold us one way tickets for about 7 Euros and told us Platform 1 or 2. Okay I thought that was helpful information until we got down to the station and realized that everything was in Dutch. After a good 20 minute wait and reading all the signs available we got on the right train into city centre. Nobody checked our tickets so I don't know if it was necessary for us to purchase a ticket into town.

The next bit was even harder to navigate, Amsterdam runs a bus and tram service for public transportation. We were able to buy a 3 day pass for 16 Euros that gives us unlimited public transport. Now I didn't notice that we were station B verses station A where the 25 Kennedy line was meant to stop, hindering our arrival time by a little bit. It took much longer than hoped to get on the right tram.

Now the tram has no English on it, just a tram map and a small electronic map telling you the upcoming 4 stops. We didn't hear the name of the stop that we were suppose to depart at so we went all the way to the end. The tram diver wasn't very helpful and tried to hustle the tourist that were lost like us from one side of the tram to the other. I had no idea what was going on. We ended up staying on the same tram back around to our proper stop and finally found our hostel. Bicycle Hotel has a little lobby were they have a couple public computers, the breakfast room and the reception desk. The gentleman let us in with a buzz at the door gave us a map and a key to our room. Directed us to the nearest coffee shop (Papillon) and to a small restaurant district.

Finally we were able to drop off our things, find a smoke and start relaxing into the evening. After that we were able to find some late Thai place that sold us some noodles and curry. Too bad she was the whole front of house staff just like we stepped into Thailand. After another smoke we hit up the Supermarkt, which is the stoner's dream store; wall to wall snacks with every variety of flavours and colours ignite all your munchie senses. There is no way you could not buy something after walking into a place like that.

Leaving Roma

When I had awoke this day I was sad. Italy rocks, full stop. Tossing our keys at the front door man who seems to always be there off to grab our last breakfast and coffee in Rome.

What to do during our last hours before we jump on the bus back to the airport. First we had to find the place the bus would pick us up from. The thing is that when we got off the bus there was so much to see we didn`t even make note of where the pick up point was. After asking several people who just pointed us in general directions from the Termini station we finally found it. Time to relax for a bit with a bag of chips ugh I mean crisps. Next thing I knew it was time for lunch!!

Danny had to have one last pizza in the hope that it wouldn`t be boring and mundane. He ordered the 4 cheese and was not disappointed. I ordered the ravioli since I didn`t have any on this trip as of yet. YUM! I ate it all so quickly. They even gave up free grapefruit juice.

Now to the airport, after standing in what seemed like a non moving queue we stepped outside to make friends with another kitty.

We love you Roma.

Yay, kitty sleeping sitting up!

Veni, vidi, vici.

I came, I saw, I conquered.(something Julius Ceaser said...lol)  Seemed very fitting for today's post.

Lazy morning, a slow start. Another cup of wonderful coffee to start the day, damn! The Italians make heart-lifting coffee. The mission for the day was to see all the things that we missed yesterday, starting with the Vatican. En route, we got distracted: on the first day that we arrived in Rome I saw this bag with a map on it, I saw it again and again. This antique map designer looking bag which now that I have looking on Google for it realized that it has been made by Alviero Martini. By this point of my trip I wanted it but I couldn't find one that fitted me like the old lady purses, luggage and mini bags. When walking towards St.Peter's we passed a stand that had a courier bag just like I wanted, 20 Euros instead of whatever the designer price was for it. *smiles* Enough about bags.

As we got nearer to the Vatican we got heckled by tour guides left right and centre, most of them were really friendly then again they are meant to be. They were a pushy and avoiding them seemed nearly impossible. For 40 Euros they would provide tickets into the Vatican Museum & Sistine Chapel with a guide for two hours. Since Danny and I didn't have enough money to get into a line we needed directions to the bank machine which was the local post office.

ARGH! My bank card didn't work. Danny had to take out money for the both of us, maybe I shouldn't have bought that purse after all. Naw.  Fending off more tour guides, we decided to join the long queue snaking across Piazza San Pietro. This queue, which most of the nearby guides had been using the ability to skip as their main selling point, actually moved super fast and got us in and out of St. Peter's Basilica in 45 minutes. 

The scale of the place is really quite something.

Official Vatican guards in their fancy uniforms.

Bemused but grateful of the anti-climactic time spent standing in line, we decided to find the entrance to the museum proper, under the assumption that the really awful line must be there. When we found said entrance, there was absolutely nobody waiting and we were able to waltz straight in. Moral of the story; don't let the guides trick you into paying them money unless you actually want to hear what they have to say, because - unless we were just lucky - there aren't any lines worth skipping. Still, we did find out from them that I could get a concession ticket with my ancient student card, so that was nice.


The Vatican Museum is crazy big and also includes the Sistine Chapel and free access to the Vatican gardens, which are nice on a sunny day - it's well worth the 15 / 8 conc. Euro price tag. Having successfully entered, we took some time to get kinda boring pizza from the cafeteria, to replenish our energy for the long trek ahead.

Aboriginal carving of Quetzalcoatl, the feathered serpent deity. After all those Roman sculptures it was nice to see something a bit different.

Ancient picnic Bento!

The School of Athens - a famous fresco of the Greek philosophers, with Plato and Aristotle in the centre.

Dali tries his hand at religious imagery.

Many hundreds of rooms and thousands of miles later, after passing lots and lots of extravagant wall hangings, a room full of massive maps of Italy, tonnes of sculptures, a bronze globe, a Bento box and a collection of Pope-based stamps, we arrived in the Sistine Chapel, which is decorated from floor to ceiling with a mind-blowing amount of art courtesy of Michaelangelo. Like the Pantheon yesterday, the visitors were constantly being shushed as the chapel is a sacred place (also like the Pantheon, it didn't do much good). The artistic assault on the senses from all directions was quite foreboding, although the effect was lessened slightly as the room was packed with tourists. Taking pictures was forbidden, but we sneakily took one anyway.

On the left is the Creation of Adam, the most well-known of the chapel's many images. 

Overall our time in the Vatican taught us one thing; that the place is built on excess. Just like most of Rome in general, there are very few areas that aren't lavishly decorated. Time to make an exit.

Roaming around Part III

Now walking back past Piazza Venezia we realized that the massive palace was open to the public, noticing the small people at the top looking down on us, well probably not us in particular but I thought that the view would be nice to see. I was dead tired by this point but nonetheless powered through and climbed the stairs. There was a picture of the building in my first post of Rome of the huge white building here is a picture of me on the stairs getting ready to climb up. (Whilst researching for this post we discovered that the entire palace complex is in fact a singular monument, possibly the most excessive one ever built, that honours the first king of a unified Italy. It is the Altare della Patria, Rome's best lesson in overdoing it shy of the Vatican itself.)

Inside there were a few exhibits, when we got around to the top I noticed that there were still people above us. Around the corner there was a lift that you had to pay to go up in for 7 Euros to ascend up another 100 metres. We didn't go up, I don't believe it is really worth it but then again I didn't go. There are just a lot of other places in the city of you trek up a hill you can get one magnificent free view.

One of the locations on the map was a museum that sounded really cool, when we arrived at the Palazzo Caffarelli Clementino there was a huge opening. Next the Musei Capiolini I was a bit disinterested since it was parchments, letters and scroll written for the Vatican and every piece has a very long read next to it. Having to muscle through the masses to get to it wasn't really my thing, after several rooms of this we were lead into an area with more Roman statues that have been decapitated or cut in half at the torso. Something we both had already seen a lot of today. So we side stepped the rest of it to get our fill at the Dali museum.

Romulus and Remus - this story is very rad.

When we arrived for the Dali exhibit the line was uber long, like really long. Our Roma Passes didn't let us skip the queue so we would have to stand around and wait like everyone else, if my legs already hadn't been giving out by this point after the climb up many stairs I might have waited. Until next time Salvador Dali we will meet again.

While walking across town to our next unknown destination we came across the Circus Maximus, I couldn't even begin to tell you all about this area. After reading the whole wiki page on this area a lot more than Roman races were held here.

The sun is about to set we need to find a nice place to watch the sunset, Italian romantics should be flocking to these areas by now. Got a little lost for direction (since there are absolutely no signposts we just followed the incline of the land until we ended up in the right area) but eventually we made it to the top of Aventine Hill.

The beginning of the sunset on Aventine Hill.

We somehow got around to the back streets coming down the hill and saw a queue for a door that doesn't open, now what are these people doing? (Apparently it's a keyhole you can look through for a miniaturised view of Rome, sounds highly thrilling and given that there was a queue we decided to skip this particular attraction.)


Instead, we got ourselves lost in the fancy residential district that makes up the rest of Aventine Hill, finally making it back down to ground level with rumbling bellies. We tried our luck in a local pizzeria but their menu was distinctly underwhelming, so had our first foray onto the Roman bus system instead, catching a ride back to the Colosseum district (the bus system is crazy and no-one ever seems to buy tickets from the auto-machines on every vehicle). Finally back in a nightlife centre we found a place that sold Gnocchi, which Jen was after. This particular gnocchi was doused in pesto and quite tasty, albeit not the best one we would have whilst in Rome.

The Colosseum is even more impressive by night.

Bellies full and feet tired, we hopped on the metro and made our way home for the night.

Props to the Roman Metro people for not painting over this instantly.

Roaming around Part II

North to Piazza Navona city centre! A great fountain and an unlimited amount of art vendors surround by restaurants and colourful gelato.

The fountain at Navona, if you google this fountain you will find yourself staring at the  very eccentric statues that take residence within this area.

After mooing around the mecca of art stalls, we found ourselves thinking of what to do next. The excellent thing about Italy is the fact that it seems like there is a never ending amount of things to do, see and learn about. Whipped out our Roma map that we got with our very handy Roma Pass that has a list and number of all the touristy locations, mapped out our route  (through the windy back streets) to the Pantheon.

We literally walked around the corner and there it was. This massive building right in front of us.

Inside the Patheon. There is lots to say about this place, but lucky for us it was open when we arrived. Danny had read online I believe it was trip advisor that you can't trust the opening times in Rome and they were right since this place was suppose to be closed. (Also if you're wondering what they do about the rain, given that there's a big hole in the roof, then the floor directly below it is roped off and has drains built into it. Smart guys, those Romans.)

The thirst was driving Danny a bit mad (hey, I thought it was time to take a moment with some Italian beer, it's not like Peroni is really popular or anything), we wanted to give our feet a rest since we hadn't sat down in what felt like ages. Achy and very dehydrated we tried to find a patio to sit and people watch, to no avail since there were table charges and a beer was gonna cost us 6 Euros each. The weather was nice enough so off to a corner store to pick up some drinks and take a nice stroll over to the Trevi Fountain. (It's very nice that you can get a take out beer and wander around with it in the middle of the day, and no-one really cares.) Such a beautiful location in Rome, one of my favourites for sure. We sat down enjoyed our drinks and did a sketch of the fountain. A place that I definitely recommend visiting.

The guy on the left is totally punching the horse, whilst the guy on the right is leading his horse whilst enjoying a delicious Italian croissant. The guy in the middle is just chillin' inside his giant clamshell. Who wouldn't?

Wow we did a lot this day, read on PART III! (No wonder we needed to sit down.)

When in doubt go to Rome

I just decided that I could swap some shifts around at work and the next thing I knew I had 5 days off coming up. What should I do with these 5 days off? After work I rushed on home on pay day and thought it is time to get back on a plane and see more of the world. Lets buy some tickets, there was thought on Wales, Venice and even Amsterdam....Rome was the one that strummed the right chords.

After some hilarious antics, tickets are now booked!

First stop, Sky Bus trip to East Midlands airport. I didn't think that there could be an airport smaller than Edmonton's but I have found it here right in the UK. 12Pounds a family ticket got both of us a return ticket from Derby [40 minutes one way] and back, not a bad deal. (Apparently to buy two adult return tickets to the airport would have costed us 12.50Pounds, I like helpful bus drivers.) Off to a good start!

Since I do not hold a UK passport I had to go find the visa check counter, which was very much ust a counter. We had shown up in advance just in case there was a huge line up, instead it took all of 10 seconds. i assume that not very many people that holds a non-UK passport come through here.

We bought our tickets through RyanAir now the website itself states that tickets are relatively cheap but with     all the airport fees it pretty much doubles or triples the price of the ticket. either way, I didn't like the fact that you would have to pay extra for checked luggage. there were no allocated seats and if you didn't have a printed boarding pass on an A4 sheet of paper it would cost you 60pounds to get it printed off at the airport. On the better side of things, if you like first come first serve seats this is an excellent airline to fight your way onto the plane. I personally don't like to have to  line up in a rush at the boarding gate.

2.5 hours later we arrived at Ciampiano airport. From the airport we caught a bus (another 40 minutes) into Roma, conveniently they sold bus tickets return airport shuttle for 8 Euros.

Arrived at Termini station {this place is pretty darn big} the hub for tourist and tour guides. We wandered around for awhile looking for our hotel and hitting up our first tabacci store. Our hotel was hidden away since we were looking for a huge neon sign like all other hotels but it was on the smallest plaque on the side of a huge hotel near the buzzer saying that it was on the third floor. To only find out that we weren't at the correct one and was escorted over to another hotel since they have three hotels within a 3 block radius. Christina Hotel was advertised on hostel bookers as a featured hotel since their regular prices are 60-100 Euros per night and we got it for 20 Euros/per night!

Our double private room had carvings on the ceiling and nicely pattered blankets and wallpaper with a reading chair, a very small TV, mini fridge and a kettle. Much nicer than I had expected, the only things was the fact the walls are a bit thin.

Now we are ready for our first day in Roma.