Have you been to....

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o0obluemoon0o0

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Have anyone been to out of USA? to Europe, Thailand, Africa, Austrilia, South American, London, etc etc?? tell about your experience, and what you did in those areas, where you have been to, and your great moments, etc etc... I'd love to hear all about it.

~Kizzy
 
I've never been out of the United States. The furthest I've ever gone is the south-easternmost point of the United States... Key West, FL. :)
 
*REPOST* :repost:
there have another thread somewhere.. about I've been touched. I think Deaf258 or Kujife starter thread.. (I cannot remmy which one)
 
Great Britian
I born in Scotland & grow up in London since I was 2 years old there.

The list of countries, I´ve been visited to...

Island of Majorca, Spain
I was a little girl to play with sand on the beach & swim... I noticed from the brochures that there´re many of hotels, building sites etc around than I last saw at years ago. We might go there one day to see how difference between now & years ago.

Playa de las Americas, Tenerife (Spanish island)
seaside, sunbathing, riding the donkey, Flea market etc.

Tunisia, (Africa)
Flea markets, seaside, sunbathing, riding the camel at desert, meet animals. I have some photos of me with lion, snake, e.g.

Greece
Paohna (Pahoa?) is the village approx 15 km away from Athens where we stayed is the most horrible. The Greek bullied homeless dogs & cats front of us. Few Tourists were furious & hitted them back. We went to hill for a walk & found dead dog in the plastic. Some of Tourist also saw dead cat, kitten, puppies etc in teh plastic, too. The Greek disgusted that way we (tourist) fed the homeless pets. We all ignored their nasty remark. The pets came to greet us because they know we brought those foods for them everyday.
I felt that the hotel is not right place to welcome the tourist but Athens.
We visited the kind of temples, one named Poseidon. We were on the temple of Poseidon to see the beautiful views.
The Athens is a large city with unfriendly atmospheres...
We sailed to 3 different islands called Hydra, Poros & Aegina with boat for 2 days trip. I must say that islands are much better than Athens. Lovely & friendly atmosphere.
It MUST be islands when we want to go Greece again.

France to different cities many times.

Paris
Special offer for Honeymooner Champagne Holiday...
5 days including Special Tour & champagne Dinner! One day after our wedding we traveled from London to Paris & return with Hoverspeed hovercraft in Dover across the channel, train to Paris.
A superb champagne dinner at La Cremaillere restaurant in Montmartre.
A sightseeing tour of the spectacular illuminations with French onion soup supper to follow.
River boat cruise on the Seine & tea on the Champs Elysees.
Night Tour around the Paris to see lighting.
We visited Montmartre, Champs Elysees, eiffel tower, versailles & gardens.
There´re dozens of artists around Montmartre to offer to paint your portrait. Flea markets...
We´ve been on the top of Champs Elysees & Eiffel Tower...
We went for a walk around the Paris, also beautiful garden & versailles...
We also took the Metro (Underground)...
Traffic, ooooohhhhh Noooooo!

Germany
After honeymoon, I left London to follow my fresh hubby...
Almost around the Germany to visit theme parks with family.
Those places I like very much is:
Rothenburg o. d. Tauber
Black Forest (Schwarzwald)
Bavaria Forest (Bayerischewald) - dozen of times
Rüdesheim am Rhein
Köln am Rhein
Hamburg
Stuttgart
Island of Sylt
Coburg - good for doll collectors.. I´m one of them
Königssee
Munich
many more places

Denmark
Nice place but very expensive country.

Pissouri, Cyprus
Where we stayed for 3 weeks are toooo beautiful country. The wine makers around Pissouri... Wine tester.. oooohhh we drank alot..
There´re plenty of lemons & oranges trees around. You can eat the lemons like you eat oranges.. no bitter mmmhhhh.
I wasn´t keen lamb´s meat until we tried it there... really super, not same as Europe.
We rented the car to travel around almost everyday between Paphos & Limassal... We saw church, tomb, then shopping spree...
The Greek are shock & upset when they saw us. We repeated their questions that we´re normal like everyone - got the job, have our own house, travel etc but they still are not accept to this. We got ice creams, drinks etc for the gratis every time we visited different cafes because they feel "sorry" for us. They treated us like "God" until we visited one of many cafes - they asked us alot of questions because they have a deaf & dumb uncle, that´s why they can´t image when they saw us for a first time. We can´t beleive when the owner told us the whole story about the deaf in Cyprus life. There´re only one school for the deaf with very low education in their country. The marriage, job, education etc for Deaf is out of the question because they thinks deaf belong to mental. On the next day the owner introduced his deaf & old uncle to us. We´re shock & feel sad for him. It´s hardly to communicate with h im but we tried hard to understand him with the help from the owner. We grow to understand him since we saw him everyday for 1 hour. He told us that he´s unmarried & never visited to school & have no friends. He living under the support from his relatives. He´s not allow to marry because of deafness. No wonder, many deaf Greek went to live in England.

Holland
We visited cheese factory. Goat cheese mmmhhhh! Wooden shoes factory. Boat river cruise, Amsterdam, Rottenheim, Netherlands, Lovely city. Beautiful garden, with littles houses..

Austria
Liechtenstein
Lindehof
Salzkammergut
Salzburg
then many more areas we´ve been visited to. We went there dozen of times.

Switzerland (5 times)
Swiss Falls, Genf, Lanrca (beautiful city with river).

Sri Lanka (Ceylon), then island of Maldives
We cancelled our book with the doctor´s recommend because we discovered that I´m over 3 months pregnant to due 2 months before flight date. It´s too risk to travel there without injection to protect yellow fever etc. An injection would damage unborn baby.

Czech Republic
Dozen of times to Eisenstein (twice a year - approx 2 hrs. away drive from my home to there) to buy cheap clothes where the Vietamesse are around. Watch out, they deal with prices in their mind! We deal to reduce the prices with them before buy... My boys loves friendly faces there. They know us well & happy to see us
Karlsbad - famous Spa for waters, glasses
Eger - a large Flea market
Journey to Eger & Karlsbad with car is unsafe because of Czech´s law. It´s very difficult to get the proof that you are not on the responsible of road accident, missing car etc because CZ polices do nothing... We noticed alot of CZ drivers are very senseless & often ran away after hit your car or stole your cars.. You have to apply for the special insurance policy when you want to travel to there to save more hassle...

Luxembourg
too gorgeous cakes in every bakers... mmmmmhhhhh Too many bakers around to seduce you to buy their cakes...

Belgium - mmmm - not much to say - Nice place. Very good Waffles makers... mmmhh My sons are waffles crazier.

Italy
Lago Maggiore, boat to island of Isola Bella
Gardesee (Riva del Garda) - Romantic city
Südtirol.
We love Italy... very beautiful country...
We are hoping to go to Toscana or Rome.

Side, Turkey
seasides, Flea market, family holiday, visit to Antalya. Cheap jewellery to buy...
 
Singapore
Unbelievable beautiful colorful of culture. Very clean country in the world. Throw the cigarettes, chewing gum, foods etc are strictly forbidden. If you want smoke or eat then find bench to sit down to have your lunch or smoke. Each bench have own rubbish bin with smoking tray. You pay the fine if they catch you smoke or eat on the street, also chewing gum, too. If you can´t acheive $1,000 fine, then you have to clean the street etc for 2 weeks.
We visited to river Clarke Quay - beautiful view with markets... We met Deaf owner who set his own business as the Dresserie Portraits Studio there. he employ only one deaf man. We dressed as Chinese clothes there to take a picture. We communicated each other with no complication. He married a hearing lady & have a baby. He´s a pride man & won´t let his wife to help him with his business because he want to be dependant without her. He already bought next shop to make bigger. He´s going to employ 3 more deaf people. He has no desire to employ hearing because he has a fax machine. We chat every time we visit Clarke Quay.
Day & Night Tour, island Sentosa Tour, (we traveled to there with a Cable car Ride, also train). Heartlands of New Asia, Change Prison Museum, chinese Temple, Underwater world, Images of singapore (the wax museum to view images of historical singapore including the WWII, surrender chamber & pioneers of Singapore etc). After end of Sentosa Tour we stayed at night musical fountain for the break to see beautiful color of waters. My boys kept saying: "What a shame, you can´t hear - it´s beautiful music". I told them that I have the feeling - lovely feel to see color water fountain. We visited National Orchid Gardens, Night Safari, China Town, India Town, cheng Ho imperial cruises - sail to the Southern islands, Ming Village (produces hand crafted replicas of Chinese porcelain from the Sung, Yuan, Ming & Qing Dynasties, artistic free hand painting on teh fine porcelain in teh factory tour.)
Big shopping Mall at Orchard Road

Melbourne, Australia
We traveled coast from Victoria to New South Wales with car. We visited many places = Safari Werribee, barrabool, Lorne, Apollo Bay (The twelve Aposiltle - Great Ocean Road around 100 km long), Maritime Museum in Warmambool, cobden, many more places, Port of Echuca, the Murray River - Steaming boat.
We stopped at Norway cafe called "A Touch of Norway" to have a cup of coffee & cake mmmhhhh! lovely shop near the Dandenongs.
We were on the Puffing Billy (Australia´s Steam Railway), really lovely old fashion train. My boys are crazy about this.
Currawong Bush Park, you can see Australian wild animals there... Koala bear, color birds, kangaroos, etc. We visited to Melborune Aquarium, Melbourne Observation Deck (Great Tower - 253 metres tallest office building), Cook´s Cottage at Melbourne Park, city, queen victoria Market, Famous Finder Street train station, sovereign Hill, Ballarat..
Color birds are everywhere - "parrots". They came to us for the nuts/bread. The parrots are on our head, shoulder, arm,....
We were on luxury Tramcar restaurant with Night Tour.. to see seelighting (without kids ).... Unforgettable evening, we ever had.. lovely old fashion tramcar...
Victoria, the beautiful place likely Victorian times..
Phillip Island & Surrounds, Cowes, Hasting, Flinders.
Shopping there are real super... We went back to homé with 8 fat cases...

Disneyland Paris
We drove to there with car. One day after arrival, my son had an accident. His arm is fractured & bit scratch on his face by fall down. None of them speak German at Red Cross (First Aid) but English. A lady who work for Disneyland speak only German & translate for us. She accomplanied my son & me to hospital with French driver to leave my hubby & 2nd son at park. That French driver drove is real crazy & senseless!!! He drove real faster on the narrow road like car race which it supposed for 30km speed - careful for the kids to play etc. It scared me but my son . He swear at French languages to other drivers because they should move their car for us to drive to there but they sear back to us. I noticed that French drivers are very impatience... real faster like car race.. Oh my god, I will NEVER on French car again....!!!
Anyway we waited for 4 hours at waiting room with staring french people.. The hospital is tooo horrible... We can see many injured people lied at the hallway front of us, also just from operated...etc. It´s not well care hospital. I asked lady about this. She told me that there´re short staff there, that´s why they have to keep watch out by Receiption at Hallway until they went back their room...
5 days in Disneyland are sooo great. My sons love every Disney figures.. They greet us at breakfast...
We always want to go to USA Disneyland but when? I dunno!!! We would of go there tomorrow when we won at lottery . Those people told me that USA Disneyland are tooo large to walk or catch the bus - waste hours to use everything - very expensive... Paris is much better than USA Disneyland ???

We will go to Disneyland in Paris again & also around the city Paris tomorrow for 4 days with my friends & their families ;)
 
Canada, Niagra Falls, nice.

Ecuador, backpacking tour, when I was a teen. Fun adventure.
 
This will be a serie of six posts about my experiences. They are too long to include in one post!

My first time to fly abroad was when I went to Germany as an exchange student in 1996. I stayed in Germany for 5 months, and lived in a city called Darmstadt. I lived in a student dorm, and it was filled with a lot of international students. It was really cool. I had long weekends, because I had no classes on Thursdays, and Fridays the university was closed for summer semester. So, I had 4 days weekends, and I could do a lot of travelling around Germany and Europe. It was a blast.

In Germany, I visited many places such as: Frankfurt a.M., Dieburg, Erbach i.d. Odenwald, Heppenheim a.d. Bergstrasse, Michelstadt, Darmstadt, Arheiligen, Wiesbaden, Rüdelheim, Rheinfahrt, Aschaffenburg, Nürnburg, Regensburg, Schwandorf, Amberg, Donaudurchbruch, München, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Schloß Lindenhof, Schloß Neuschwanstein, Füssen, Romantische Strasse, Hohenstein-Oberlungwitz, Dresden, Berlin, Sachsenhausen, Mügelsee, Potsdam, Saarbrücken, etc...

It was great to get to visit many places in Southern Germany. Germany had a wonderful ticket offer for their trains, which was "Happy Weekend Ticket" where 5 people could ride together on one ticket unlimited from Saturday morning to Monday early morning (2 am) on all slow trains, for 35 DM each ticket. It meant each person could only pay 7 DM, and visit several places during the weekend.

I have many wonderful memories from this experience, such as learning German Sign Language, meeting Deaf Germans, going to many Volksfeste (street fairs in cities), etc... It was really a full agenda for me, and I even made friends with hearing people from other countries such as Belgium (they invited me to a Belgian party once), Spain, Iran, Italy, etc...

One of my favourite memories is when I went with one of my friends to Garmisch-Partenkirchen, and to Füssen. We saw the castles that King Ludwig II made. Very ornate but very "romantic." Also in Berlin, we saw the Berlin Wall. In France, I spent time with my good friend during the Bastille Day holidays, and it was a crazy time in Paris, with everyone playing with fireworks even in the métro!

I was very sad when my 5 months were up and had to return to the US. It was a wonderful experience, and everyone should definitely go abroad to try different food, experience different cultures, and so on. I highly recommend it!

Next: Second trip to Europe...
 
Second trip to Europe:

It was Spring Break 1997, and I decided instead of going to Florida and get drunk, I would fly to France. My French friend gladly invited me to visit her, and made sure she had a couple of days off so that she could show me more of Paris that she didn't in July 1996. It was for two weeks, and I also was thinking about renting a car myself and driving through France to see some things. My friend insisted that I not rent a car, but that she would drive us in her car around France. So I accepted.

Whilst in Paris, we visited many places and enjoyed eating out in different restaurants. One day when my friend had to work, I took a train to Chartres, about an hour away from Paris to see the famous cathedral that I heard about so many times in my architecture history lectures in school. It was nice to see the cathedral but I thought the town itself was much more interesting to visit!

Then we went on a road trip starting from Moret sur Loing (where my friend's parents live in) and we drove through Loire Valley to visit different castles. We visited the famous Chambord castle, which has about 400 rooms. We also visited Blois, Amboise and Chenconceaux. We stayed overnight in Tours, and ate pizza for dinner. It was such a nice time.

We drove northwest towards Mont-Saint-Michel, which is a famous island out on the Bretagne coast. A lot of monks lived there and it has a small town with an abbey on the top of island. It was a great place to visit and explore. We drove back to Moret sur Loing, but we missed the last train back to Paris... dang! So, we had to wake up really early in the morning to take the first train into Paris, as my friend had to work that day. I brought all of our luggages back to her flat, then went to visit Paris on my own. One day, when my friend had to work, I took an express train to Rouen, which is an hour northwest of Paris. There, I saw many great sights such as the catherdal, Gros Horloge, Cathedral St. Joan of Arc, etc... etc... Rouen had a lot of historical timber-framed buildings painted in many different colours. It was really worthwhile to visit Rouen for a day. At the train station on the way back to Paris, I saw a group of deaf youngsters, but could not understand their sign language, which was probably Normandy regional signs.

During this trip, I managed to visit the Musée d'Orsay which was a cool museum. The building used to be a train station, and it was converted into a museum space to show a lot of sculptures such as Rodin, and to show a lot of modern artworks. It was agreat place to visit!

I went to a play signed in LSF and spoken French, and it was fun. Also, I went with my friend to INJS to listen to a workshop on how to deal with people who wants to kill themselves. It was conducted in LSF, Français Signé and French.

All in all it was a nice visit in Paris/France and I was glad to have gone!

Next: third trip to Europe.
 
My first trip out of United States was to British Columbia, Canada in 1998. My family saved up some money then finally we all went on a cruise (Sea Princess) in 1999 for 11 days cruise plus 3 days in Mexico. All those stops at the ports was one full day .... We went to :
Grand Cayman Island
We went snorkeling and saw lots of beautiful colorful fish but the reefs was pretty much ruined -- not a pretty sight. Then we took a boat out in the ocean and swam with the stingrays -- that was very exciting.
Ocho Rios, Jamiaca
We went to Dunn's River Falls and climbed the waterfalls -- the water was very refreshing and beautiful environment. Then my siblings and I went parasailing and got to see the whole island of Jamaica. Very thrilling! We also stopped by in a flea market but I would say that was one of my most culture shock. The ladies there would pull on my hair and beg to braid it to get some money. US $1 equals to $28 or $38 in Jamaica - I can't really remember.
Cartagena, South America
We visited a fort there and drove through the cities. Lot of poor people there -- saw several carts being dragged by donkeys and etc.
Sailed through Panama Canal and stopped at Panama City.
Going through Panama Canal was very interesting and see how it works to lift a ship up and going through the canal. The stop at Panama City was very short and it was during the night.
Costa Rica
We went out for a swim in the ocean. We visited a rainforest there and saw thousands of ants. They were soooo huge and they were carrying leaves n' sticks all the way up the tree. The leaves were like six feet tall. Much taller than I am! Amazing.
Huatuclo, Mexico
We went snorkeling all day there. Saw bunch of fish and some dull reefs. I was bitten by fish twice. Once in Huatuclo and Cayman Island. Eek, eh?
Acapulco, Mexico
We stayed there for three days. We went jetskiing there and visited this Cliff Divers. We rode in a horse carriage. We ate at this restaurant then the next day we had to go back to USA. I ended up having a bad diaherrea from something that I ate there. No fun at all! :P
In 2000 - I was selected to be one of 11 delegates out of whole USA to participate in Mobility International USA Exchange to Costa Rica for more than two weeks. I had a wonderful experience there. It was really one of a lifetime experience for me. I stayed with this home stay family who only spoke spanish and I knew few spanish but not that much. But lucky my "mother" knew some spanish sign language so she was able to gesture with me. I visited Volcano Poas, Limon,Tram through rainforest, and so much more. My group was all disabled (blind, wheelchair, deaf, and C.P.). We interacted with other disabled people in Costa Rica. Learning about their ADA rights and advocate about our rights in America and so forth. I had to take a cold shower for almost two weeks. They don't have any hot water. And when you go to bathroom - you wipe and throw it in the trash not down in the toliet due to their bad pipe systems. Very different, huh? I also visited Deaf/Blind School. It was so much fun! All the deaf children ran up to me because I was deaf so they tried to talk with me. They were soo friendly and kept saying "you america?" - "un estos" - i forgot how to say it in spanish, my bad. That trip will be something that I will never forget. I highly recommend someone to do exchange. It is worth it!
I went to Nigara Falls and visited a deaf school in Milton, Canada in 2002. I was there to root for my canadian friends playing in the ball hockey tourney.
So, thats the end of my bedtime story. :)
I'm aiming for Europe for my next out of coutnry trip. :fingersx:
 
My third trip to Europe was very quickly planned with a good friend of mine. We had a mutual friend in England, so we decided to go and visit her and spend some time in England. In between, we would also travel towards Germany to visit my friend's relatives and then back to England.

In England, we met loads of local deaf people and went pub-crawling, etc... It was a lot of fun, just a lot of partying. We partied some in Derby, and then on Christmas Eve, we went pubcrawling and ended up in a nightclub where we drank so much. We got back to friend's house and slept good. Next day, Christmas day, we spent having a little party of our own.

During all this, my friend and I managed to visit a few places such as Manchester, Preston, York, London and Derby. My French friend came and joined us for the New Year celebration, where we went to Brighton, England to celebrate in a nightclub. Brighton was an interesting town on the Channel, with an Indian-style building as its most well known landmark. After Brighton, we went back to London and celebrated my friend's birthday at the Rainforest Café. That night, we went to Dover, to take the ferry to France (Calais).

My friend and I took train from Calais to Brugges (Belgium), where we spent two days there visiting the place. It was really interesting there, because there were some canals through the town. It looked distinctively Flemish in style. We continued our journey on the train towards Germany, where my friend's relatives in Mönchengladbach were waiting for us.

We spent a week in Mönchengladbach with my friend's aunt and family. It was really interesting because my friend was born in Poland but moved to the US later on. The family was communicating in Polish, and I had to communicate with them in German, since none of them knew English. My friend's cousin proposed that we take train and visit a city nearby called Köln, which was really interesting to visit, especially its well known cathedral.

On the return to England, we took the train to Brussels, the capital of Belgium. We spend two days there, and enjoyed it there. We took the Eurostar train from Brussels to London, which went under the sea (English Channel) through the Chunnel Tunnel. It was a high speed train, and we arrived in London within 3 hours from leaving Brussels.

We spent a couple of days in London before flying back to the US. It was a great visit, especially spending time with my friends. It was great to visit my friend's Polish relatives and learn a bit of Polish culture and cuisine. I loved the "goblenik" (?) which is like meat and rice rolled in cabbage leaves, and boiled in spiced tomato sauce.

Next Fourth trip to Europe...
 
Fourth trip to Europe, March 1999

My ex and I decided to go on a trip together for 14 days during the spring break holidays. We made a big plan to "tour" Europe because it was my ex's first time to visit Europe. We planned a road trip from Germany to Austria to Italy and finish it in France. It was crazy in planning, but here's how it went...

We landed in Amsterdam Schiphol only to miss out connecting flight, so we had to fly with the next Munich-bound flight three hours later. Since my friend was supposed to pick us up, I was worried and could not contact her. I asked the airline to give a message at Munich airport to let them know, but my friend said she was never alerted.

We arrived in Munich unable to find our friend, so I bought a telephone card and had my ex try to call and get a hold of my friend. Her father replied in German, saying something, then handed the phone to someone else who could barely speak broken English. My friend was nowhere to be found but they gave us two numbers to try. We tried, only to get answering machines. Dang! We decided since it was getting late, we would just take the train to Munich city centre and find a place to stay.

Next day we finally got a hold of my friend, so we agreed to meet in Regensburg. It was funny because she told my friend it would take us 3 hours to drive to Regensburg from Munich, but when I hit the Autobahn with the rented car, I was driving 190 kph (120 mph) to Regensburg and arrived there 2 hours early... Oops! So, we decided to go visit a landmark in Regensburg called Wahalla which is known as Hall of Fame of German Celebrities. Finally, we arrived at the train station to meet our friend, and went to my friend's home in Schwandorf. It was fun going FAST on the autobahn.

We spent a few days in Germany, visiting places like Munich, Dachau, Schwandorf, Regensburg and we also went to Czech Republic to see the Vietnamese peddlers near Eisenstein. However, my friend had an expired ID card, so the Czech customs refused to let her into CZ. We met back at Eisenstein and looked at the train station information about trains to places like Domalicze or Praha. The services were very infrequent and would take forever. So, we drove to another border town and left my friend on the German side. We drove into CZ and visited a few places, then came back to German side to pick my friend up before going back to Schwandorf. It was crazy, all over an expired ID card!

When we were visiting Dachau, my friend was driving the car and somehow did not pay attention. As a result she collided with a car in the front of us. I was worried because it was my rental car! I looked outside and surprisingly, the car had no damage besides a broken headlight. However, the car in the front had bad damage to its back door trunk. My friend told me that her insurance will take care of it, and that I should have nothing to worry about! Whew!

Monday, the headlight was fixed, then my ex and I drove off to Innsbruck, Austria where we spent the day. It was very beautiful in Tirol. We made our way towards Venezia where we spent two days at. It was very cool to visit Venice, seeing no streets but canals everywhere, and bridges, boats, etc... We had to use a water bus (vaporetti) to get around the city. We saw a lot of cool stores selling Murano glasses, carnival masks, etc... I purchased a mask for my mum for 45 dollars.

After Venice, we drove to Florence. It was no easy task! We kept getting lost because we wanted to avoid the autostrade (toll interstate highway) so we limited ourselves to national roads only. The signs were non existent and my ex got very upset after a while and told me to drive. After a while, we gave up and took the Autostrade to Florence. We spent three days in Florence. It was awesome in Florence. We got to visit the Galleria degli Uffizi to see many famous Renaissance works. It was amazing to see the actual artwork themselves, all the colours and strokes, etc... Nothing like looking in books!

After Florence, we visited Pisa where we saw the Leaning Tower and the Duomo. We also drove to the Marina di Pisa to see the Mediterrean Sea. After eating dinner, we drove towards France using the autostrade. We arrived in Lyon at around 4 in the morning.

We spent the day visiting around Lyon, and then we took the TGV train up to Paris to visit my friend for two days. We showed my ex all the usual sights, whilst I caught up with my friend on news and all. We flew to Amsterdam where we had an overnight stay before going back to the US. It was very interesting in Amsterdam. We saw many things in one night, because it was such a compact city.

Next, fifth trip in Europe
 
Been to Europe 4 or 5 times all were
work-related I was staying at five-star hotels
including Amsterdam, Munich/Germany,
Geneva Switzerland, Stockholm/Sweden... I actually
love Amsterdam the best where I felt that I had
some past family roots there being partly Dutch myself.

P.S. I absolutely love American food so much that's
why I'm so glad to be at home in America !
 
I've been outside US, Canada and Mexico...but I never been overseas outside US like Europe and all that...but I would like to someday. :)
 
:Oops: thank you Lieb, also it was interesting to read your stories and everyone else's stories. I never posted my last trip here, so here we go:

FIFTH TRIP TO EUROPE: 28 Dec 1999 - 6 Jan 2000

I flew to Paris, France because my friend invited me to join her and her deaf friends on a trip for the New Year 2000 celebration. There were several choices; going to ski in the Swiss Alps (Lausanne) and spending the night at a party with the Swiss Deaf Association there, or going to London or to Amsterdam. Once I arrived in France, my friend informed me that it was decided that we would ride the coach to London and stay there a few days.

On the night of 30th December, we went on the coach to London and at the Dover ferry crossing, my passport was stamped "31.12.99" which was kind of cool. We arrived in London very early in the morning and got to our hotel. I fell asleep at the hotel cos I was totally knackered. Really! Probably the jetlag was to be blamed...

On the eve of 31st December, we dressed up and did silly things. My fingernails were polished with glitter silver nailpolish and my hair sprayed with silver glitter. It was like "what the heck?, it's 2000!" We took the Underground to Westminister Abbey where we went to near the banks of the River Thames. We had the Big Ben tower right in front of us. It was really crowded over there.

As the time counted down, the lights on Big Ben began to flash for each second, and boom, at midnight, fireworks went off. We all hugged and kissed each other and looked around to see if London was gonna be blacked out due to Y2K concerns. Fortunately, nothing went blackout! Ha! The fireworks continued and continued and continued for like 25 minutes. It was awesome.

After midnight, people started to go home, and it was really crowded. Nobody could move. One of the girls in our group started barfing cos she was unable to cope with the whiskey she drank (about a litre of it!)... We tried to get medical attention for her, but could not do anything cos the place was too crowded to even get help around. So, we walked and walked, then found a hotel where they asked a manager to see if they could call a doctor, etc... Once that was settled, the rest of us went on our ways walking to Underground station, only to find that it was closed because people were being so rude and shoveling, etc... So, we walked and walked towards Victoria Station, which was also closed to London traffic! Ugh, we decided to walk around Hyde Park to Bayswater where our hotel was at. Finally, we arrived there, but decided to eat at a kebab restaurant. It was 3 in the morning when we finally got there and we were starving!

After eating, we got together in rooms and had a little party playing games until around 7 in the morning when we finally slept! On the afternoon of 1st Jan, we ate at an American restaurant. LOL... It was nothing like real American cooking, but oh well...

We returned to Paris on the afternoon of 2nd January on the coach, however the ferry workers were having strikes. So, we had to go on the Shuttle (train) through the Chunnel Tunnel. It was awesome because the bus was inside a train car, and we got off the bus to sit on the floor and chat chat chat. LOL...

Next 4 days in Paris was spent with my good friend going around Paris and catching up on news with her. It was a great time in Europe!
 
Too many travel experiences to list here

But I will never forget Italy......everyone must see Italy! It is so much fun to rent a car and drive all over Italy, sampling their cuisine, art, history, architecture and people.

Ive been to Italy twice and still want to return there...........
 
hello, i am very new to this community and i think i was lucky to have found it, i am just surfing trying to find other travellers like me and some other interesting webistes about crocheting and aboit dogs when i found it, I am hard of hearing but i am afraid to contact a doctor, i am just afraid to know how sick i am, as my eyesight is also turning bad. I saw this chat forum about travelling and i got so interested to show you all the pictures of me and my partner's trip to asia and germany, i am also pond of dogs and my crocheting . feel free to view our family gallery , it is still very new but you will learn to get to know more not only about beuatiful views and sceneris but perhaps other cultures. I hope to be able to also find people here who is fond of crocheting. HAVE A Nice day to all and hope that you will enjoy our photos
 
halle again, i am an asian and i have been to spain , th eisland of teneriffe and germany , unfortunately at that time i have no digital camera yet but i have lots an lots of paper photos and experiences to share with. This coming year my partner and I are targetting to visit Thailand and Vietnam. last nite, i saw a guatemalan school for spanish language and i found it interesting to be in that place too, i really want to learn another language and one of them is spanish, so Guatemala can be a ncie place to visit too. It is great to learn other people's culture.
 
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