Sean and Shannon's Blog: 2011

Monday, September 5, 2011

Mayor of London Skyride

We joined 55,000 people on bikes to cycle the 11.6km traffic-free route around central London, which took in some of the capital’s most iconic landmarks including Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, the London Eye, the Mall, Buckingham Palace, The Tower of London and London Bridge. In typical London form it did rain, but we still had a great time.

Shannon, Sean and Kirk

Us in front of the Houses of Parliament

Horse Guards parade, where the Beach Volleyball will be held during the 2012 London Olympics.

Where's Wally?

Northern Ireland

August Bank Holiday Weekend saw us head over to Belfast with Emma. Jackie drove up from Dublin to meets us. We spent our first day in Belfast, checking out the sights. Day 2 we started a road trip up the coast to the rope bridge, Giants Causeway and Bushmills, speinding our second night in Derry. In Derry we did a Derry Taxi Tour, learing about the region's past and present political and religious divisions. We then made our way back to Belfast, before heading back to London.

Belfast City Hall. We had great weather all weekend.

The Giant's Causeway, is an area of approximately 40,000 inerlocking basalt columns, resulting from an ancient volcanic eruprtion.

Emma, Shannon and Jackie at the giant's Causeway.

Mr Scared of Heights, Sean holding up the crowds at the Carrick-a-Rede Rope Bridge. Fishermen erected the bridge to Carrick-a-Rede island over a 23m-deep and 20m-wide chasm to check their salmon nets.

The beautiful Irish countryside.

The Free Derry Mural. The mural of the Battle of Bogside is visible to the right.

A mural depitcing the Civil Rights Movement.

The murals viewed form the top of the hill in Derry.

The girls sampling the local beverages.

Irish flag shots.

The Crown Liquor Saloon in Belfast, was refurbished in 1885 and is apparently a great example of a Vitcorian Gin House. The inside is pretty amazing, with elaborate tiling, stained glass and woodwork. Worth a look, despite not being the cheapest pub in town.

Fulham vs Liverpool

Sean got a ticket for see his favorite Premier League team, Liverpool play Fulham for his birthday.
Lucky Sean was there to see Liverpool warm up, or he would have missed the first goal as Rodriguez put Liverpool ahead after only 32 seconds, and volleyed a second before Dirk Kuyt made it 3-0 on 16 minutes. Maxi Rodriguez ended up scoring his second hat-trick in three games. The match ended up 5-2 to Liverpool, so Sean was a very happy camper.

Line-ups

Liverpool coming on to the field.

Seems as though Schwarzer might have made all his saves in the warm-up...

Ascot Races

Got all 'suited and booted' for a day at the races. Headed to Ascot for the Dubai Duty Free Shergar Cup.

We had all been to Ryan and Sam's Leaving Do the night before, so just needed a top up the next morning.

Em and Shannon.

Ev and Em

Shannon, Mads and Em

The boys dancing on the table to Jason Donovan.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Ukraine

After Russia we flew to Kiev, Ukraine. Kiev has a population of approx 2.5 million and is the capital of Ukraine. We did a couple of walking tours to check out the sights. There are many pretty domed churches and monumets along with some great architecture.

The People's Friendship Arch, was constructed in 1982 and is dedicated to the unification of Russia and Ukraine.

The Dnieper River. Runs from Russia and Belarus in the north down to Ukraine, passing quite close by to Chornobyl. It is possible to do tours of the Chernobyl site, however we gave this a miss, deciding that a visit to the Ukrainian National Chernobyl Museum might be a safer option. The museum has the potential to be a lot better, but currently contains an extensive collection of scale models, films and artifacts etc, designed to educate the public about many aspects of the Chernobyl Distaser. One of the nuclear power stations exploded on 26 April, 1986, however notification of the event was not made until increased radiation had been detected in neighbouring countries. The explosion resulted in at least 100 times more radiation being released than the atom bombs that were dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima. After the accident, traces of radioactive deposits were found in nearly every country in the northern hemisphere! It is a very sad, but interesting story, and a visit to the museum is highly recommended.

Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) is the central square in Kiev.

Saint Andrew's Church

St. Michael's Golden-Domed Cathedral

Joel, Shannon, Sean and Emma, soaking up the sun on a walking tour, in front of St Sophia Cathedral.

A Gaudi like building The House of Chimaeras or Gorodetsky House, is accros the street from the President of Ukraine's office, has been used as a presidential residence for official and diplomatic ceremonies since 2005.

We caught a local bus for over an hour to Pyrohiv, originally a village south of Kiev, which is now home to The Museum of Folk Architecture and Life of Ukraine. The photo above is of a wooden church.

There are approximately 300 buildings a the site, including churches, houses and windmills.

The boys taking a break under on of the many windmills at the site.

Shots seemed like a good idea on our last night in Kiev.

Sean enjoying the local food, Borscht (Beetroot Soup). Overall the food and beer in Kiev was great. We tried a variety of both, including chicken kiev, perhaps not actually traditionally Ukrainina, as it seems to mainly only be sold to tourists in Kiev.

Russia

We booked a tour for our Russia trip and headed over with Joel and Emma. We had 3 days in St.Petersburg, an overnight train and then 3 days in Moscow. Great weather, 35 degrees and sunshine. It wasn't too difficult to get around, public transport is really cheap. The locals are keen to help out, even if they don't speak English. It was interesting to learn a little about Russian history, and the buildings are amazing!

The Church of the Saviour on Spilled Blood. It was built on the site where Tsar Alexander II was assassinated and was dedicated in his memory.

The Hermitage/Winter Palace. Former home of Russian Emperors, is now one of the largest and oldest museums in the world. We visited it after a big night sampling Russian vodka, so it was a bit of a struggle.

Saw plenty of paintings, including this one by Da Vinci, Madonna with a Flower.

I really liked the mosaic room. This is a able top, with tiles approximately 1x3mm in size, the detail is amazing! It shows many different views of Rome.

I wasn't a massive fan of the food in Russia.

Mainly meats, which of course kept Sean very happy. Check out the size of that kebab.

Plenty of Russian (Matryoshka) Dolls for sale at the markets. Traditional versions are very popular, however you can also get ones with Football Teams, Bart Simpson and Barak Obama on them, didn't see any with Julia Gillard on them.

One of the days we went out to see the gardens and fountains at Peterhof Palace. It is a UNESCO World Heritage site, laid out on the orders of Peter The Great in the 1700s.

There are many fountains there and beautiful gardens. Well worth the trip out there.

The overnight train was actually quite nice. We had a cabin between the four of us, easy to get some much needed rest. First stop in Moscow was Red Square, which was definitely a trip highlight. The name Red Square is derived from the Russian word for the location, which can mean 'red' or 'beautiful'. I loved the onion domes and colours of St. Basil's cathedral, built in 1551. Rumour has it that at the completion of works, Ivan The Terrible blinded the architect, so as he could not re-create anything similar anywhere else.

The State Historical Museum on the right and the Kremlin walls and towers on the left. While at Red Square we also went into Lenin's Mausoleum to see the body of Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union.