The Boyd Family Blog

Hi guys,

so we have been pretty slack with our blogs but here’s a catch up, we arrived in Berlin safely and were very happy with our hotel, pretty swish! Our first day here we hired bikes and did some world war 2 memorial sites like check point Charlie and the holocaust memorial as well as some shopping 🙂 we also found a restaurant in our hotel that served an amazing steak which was heaven after so much pizza and pasta! Next day we hired bikes again accept this time we went to the Berlin Wall and were on our way to the zoo when the rain really set in, it was 2 degrees and pelting down so we went home 🙁 we finally have had some time to relax which has been so nice! and have slept in every day. Today we went to a concentration camp in northern Germany it was very confronting and sad but also very interesting it snowed last night so we awoke to snow yay! At the concentration camp it was 0 degrees and freezing (literally) + it was snowing!, when we got home we realised we had a beer hall right next to our hotel !! We went there for dinner and a couple of 1 litre beers and a watched the snow fall, tomorrow we are catching up with friends who live in Berlin and going out to celebrate our 2 year anniversary by having dinnern 203 metres in the air at the rotating tv tower restaurant! scary, on Sunday we are heading to Munich another 6 hour train trip (which is actually really quick) and then it’s off to the snow, pretty excited

tzlk soon bec and Sam

Bonjour!

Paris has been amazing, there is so much to see and do here! Our first day was crazy we literally walked like the whole of Paris in a day, we went shopping went to Notre dame the big church in Paris, then we went to the louvre museum which is huge this is the ne where the entrance is a glass pyramid, Sam was very excited he got to see the Mona Lisa although it was hard to get a good look with so many people, we couldn’t believe it but at the louvre they actually charge you 1.50 euro to use the toilet!! So shouldn’t be allowed. Next we went to the lock bridge it’s one of the 27 bridges that run along the river accept this one is covered in locks, the tradition is that you write yours and your partner name on the lock, lock it onto the bridge and then throw away the key, me and Sam put one on (there is photos on Facebook) aftwe we had a long walk to the Eiffel Tower, it really is beautiful and really really big I felt scared just looking at it, we waited and went up at dusk so we watched it turned to night was a pretty amazing thing, on our way home we got off at the wrong stop and ended up in some sketchy neighbourhood but once again Sam saved the day haha 🙂

day two we finally slept in I think we were exhaustall from all the walking, we went to the train station to book our tickets to amsterdam only to find it was booked out, so now we have to go to Brussels in Belgium and hope we can get on a train from there, ooh well off part of the experience, for the rest of the day we went on a bus tour and did some good eating, more crepes! Then went on a fancy dinner cruise, it was really nice but maybe a bit fancy for our simple tastes haha now it’s the next day and we have just packed up to go to belguim, so hopefully talk to everyone from Amsterdam later today or tomorrow hope everything is good back home

Bec and sam

Yesterday was New Year eve but also our last day in Barcelona 🙁 for our last day we went on a funicular which is pretty much a skyrail/enclosed ski lift that goes over Barcelona city and up to an old castle, Sam was loving it and I was scared out of my brains but the view was awesome ! Sam loved the castle because he got to pretend to use huge old guns and dream about actually being alive when they used them. after we went to what we decided was our favourite restaurant in Barcelona “la coma” for lunch where Sam learned the hard way that ordering a hamburger in Spain means getting a hamburger patty with no bun or filling, we had a good giggle. After lunch came the highlight of the day, seeing real gypsies you know the ones of my big fat gypsy wedding, we found out that the show does not over exaggerate what gypsy dress and talk like!!! New Year’s Eve night was a quiet one for us we had to be up at 5:30 am the next day so we just went out for Chinese and called it a night although we were asleep when countdown happened we were awake mostof the night as our hostel turned into party central, when we left at 7am to catch the train the party was still going!

Train to Paris

our train ride to Paris actually went really fast (for 7 hours) we were on the second level of the train and watched the French countryside fly past at over 300km an hour, one slight difficulty however was that all the information on the train was given in French so we had no idea what was going on and just assumed we were changing over at the right time, we also saw the first bunch of Aussies since the plane ride and where were they from GEELONG haha the guy did rowing for geelong grammar. When we arrived in Paris we were once again trying to find our bearing with no more than a map and a hotel address but Sam the man got us from one side of paris to our hotel using the metro system which once again was only written in french, arriving at our hotel we found that we were on the Main Street in our area right near heaps of shops and restaurants we also found out that our swanky hotel usually charges over 200 euro a night but because its off season we got it dirt cheap (30 euro a night), our room is pretty good big bed, big flat screen telly, ensuite and an awesome view down the Main Street. We had a shower and wandered down for dinner, the place we went had Nutella and caramel crepes so Sam is now laying in bed with a very full tummy, very much looking forward to exploring Paris tomorrow and hopefully will have photos for you all soon, hope everyone is good at home.If you want you can read more on my new blog

Au revoir

Love bec and sam

Ola! haha that about as good as mine and sams spanish gets still, we are feeling more confident now and know our way around (just in time to leave) ill start with yesterday, Saturday. We went to Guadis park, made by a famous artist, the park sits atop a mountain and has amazing views of the city and all of barcelona, it really was amazing

To get to the park you have to go up a fair few hills but  its okay theres escalators in the middle of the street ! so random. After this we walked the main street and sat down for lunch and ended up walking the whole harbour. Everyone will be amazed at how much walking sam is doing with no complaints! i managed to fit some retail therapy in too (no complaints from sam again) and i really wish my bag was bigger. Saturday night we absolutly crashed once again asleep by 7pm we are still finding hard to adjust to the time difference

SUNDAY

today we were up at 5am again unfortunatly, but we are making the most of our days, i dont think our neighbours in the hostel like us because we are up so early. Today we went on a 3 hour bike tour o f the city which we both really enjoyed although pretty tired and sore now, the tour takes you around the artist guadis famous buildings and other sites of barcelona. After we went out for a late lunch, i tried sangria, it came in a fish bowl! one was more than enough for me, as steph would say it went straight to my head. barcelona is such a pretty city and the weather is perfect people keep looking at us like we are crazy because we are walking around in tshirts whilst they all look like they are going to the snow! sam stated that he needed shorts its that nice (i wouldnt go that far) but its perfect weather. Tomorrow is our last day in barcelona and on the 1st we are heading up to paris, thats all from us for now, we are having trouble getting photos onto the blog but they are all on facebook so check them out !

hope everyone is doing well at home, we will check in again soon sam and bec

Hey everyone, here goes our first post from Barcelona!

in the end it took us about 34 hours to get from Melbourne to Barcelona with 3 stops along the way, our first flight to shanghai was 10 hours and of course my tv didn’t work but I didn’t really mind, Sam found out that you could play games and spent most of the flight playing poker, which was good cause me didn’t annoy me 🙂 

When we arrived in bejing we were informed much to whole planes shock that we would be walking across the tarmack and catching a bus it was -11 outside and we weren’t exactly dressed appropriately !!! Was a little bit cchilly 

our next flight from Beijing to Frankfurt was another 10 hours but there was only 15 people in our section of the plane it was almost completely empty meaning me and Sam managed a whole row of seats each to ourselves and slept majority of the flight, when were arrived in Spain (finally) we were happy to find our bags had also made the 3 stopovers safely, we jumped in a cab and arrived safely at our hostel. It was nice when we got here to have staff that spoke perfect English and were really friendly (getting through the Chinese and German airports was tough!) we needed to change some money so jumped on the metro which was another daunting experience and headed into town the city here is beautiful, we did a little exploring but were buggered so went and got groceries for dinner and headed back, trying to explain lactose free milk to people who don’t speak English was a challenge but we got there. We made cravioli and cheese ravioli for dinner and were asleep by 6pm our time. It’s 5:30am not and we’ve just got up so we defiantly got a good nights rest can’t wait to explore more today! Sam has taken over as guide and map reader! Luckily cause he’s a lot better at it then me haha talk to you all soon, we will try and blog pretty regularly 

last but not least congratulations to Kate and Jason on the arrival of Darcy we hope everything travels wwell 

bec and Sam 🙂