Europe trip June 1-26, 2022



 12 days until my sister Christine Stevens and I head out on our long planned tour of Europe.  I can’t wait!



Comments

  1. LauraMay 20, 2022 at 10:58 AM

    Hi! Hope comments are OK, but let me know. Looking forward to following your adventures!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Christine StevensMay 20, 2022 at 11:34 AM

    Hi! I'm using Chrome and this is working. Blogger must like me :) I wish I could add a picture to a comment but nooooo...

    ReplyDelete
  3. AnonymousJune 1, 2022 at 5:32 AM

    Safe travels ladies!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

We’re going on an adventure!

Image
Warning!!!! This posting will be a great blog post, but 99.9% will focus in on our trip to HOBBITON!  Hobbiton is close to the town of Matamata in the center of New Zealand’s north island.  It is where they did filming for both the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Hobbit trilogy.  Even the people that have never watched the movies had a great time, so maybe everyone reading this and seeing the numerous pictures, will also enjoy it!   Our exciting Thursday 3/7/2024 started slowly.  We checked out of our Auckland hotel and headed out of town and on to Hobbiton.   On a bus tour, the tour guide talks about random things about wherever you are visiting and ours talked about trains, flora, history, politics etc.  For instance, Zealand means sea land in Dutch.  In the late 1700’s, captain James Cook from the Netherlands, came upon New Zealand and named it.    In the Netherlands there is Holland and a Zeeland, that is where the name came from....
Read more

Te Ao Maori (the World of the Maori)

Image
Friday, March 8th Rotorua, Aotearoa New Zealand  The two main islands of New Zealand were originally discovered by Polynesian peoples traveling by large canoes from other Pacific islands, only about 700 - max 1,000 years ago. One story story goes that they named the islands Aotearoa because as they were searching for the islands, the wife of the chief saw a long white cloud and called out, "al te a roa!" to let everyone know that land was near. Today the Maori call the land Aotearoa, and many signs show both names together as Aotearoa New Zealand.  So...how to pronounce Maori ? You can say Mow-ree (emphasis on the mow, where  mow rhymes with mouse ) or Mah-dee where the d is really sitting in for a slightly rolled r sound.  Maori vocabulary  kia ora - hello, be well (pronounced as one word kyora or kee-oor-da with the rolled r/d sound) morena - good morning pai - good ka pai -sounds good? Yeah good wai - water kai - food tapu - special or sacr...
Read more

The Otaga Region and Queenstown

Image
Sunday, March 10 On the road to Queenstown We woke up in Oamaru, a very civilized-looking town with impressive white buildings of solid Oamaru stone with architectural flourishes like Greek columns and plants and looking very much like a wealthy British city. Local guide Michael greeted us in character as a wealthy 1884 landowner from Scotland named Alexander McMaster. "Alexander" told us about the boom years in Oamaru when a gold rush and a thriving shipping industry led to a building spree on a planned town with an extra wide main avenue, multiple banks and warehouses, and increasing crime. A "snake oil" medicine named Lane's Emulsion was invented in Oamaru, joining many other such products for sale. It was a fancy, neoclassical, Wild West town. Because it became a popular party town for sailors and other reprobates, a temperance movement formed and the subsequent ban on liquor lasted until the 1960s.  Mary tried to sit on th...
Read more