Here is Andrew's mogress two days in. Not much to report yet.


He is threatening to grow a handlebar moustache (scary!). So, I need your opinion. Which Mo should Andrew grow?


Don't forget to sponsor him.

The bear is the symbol of Bern so there are lots of bear statues throughout the city. Some of them are beary cute (he he). I thought I'd share photos of my favourite statues with you.










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Our visit to Bern was part of the Wilson's Watch Pr0n tour. Andrew, Simon and I spent a total of three and a half days in Switzerland and managed to visit Geneva, Bern and Zurich. It was a whirlwind trip. Other entries from this trip include: B is for Bears and Baby Eaters.

"The search for animals that fall outside of taxonomic records due to a lack of empirical evidence, but for which anecdotal evidence exists in the form of myths, legends, or undocumented sightings."

The Loch Ness Monster is surely one of the world's most famous cryptozoids. No trip to the highlands of Scotland would be complete without a visit to Loch Ness for a bit of Nessie spotting. We drove the length of the loch but didn't spot the monster.


In Drumnadrochit, we visited the Loch Ness Exhibition. The museum explores the legend of the Loch Ness Monster and the research that has been conducted to find Nessie. I was actually surprised at the time and money that has been spent looking for Nessie. First, they posted lookouts on the shores for a year or so. Next they formed a flotilla of boats dragging sonar equipment to plumb the depths. After that they submerged a vessel in the loch for a bit. It recorded the goings on in the loch (fish getting it on probably). After all this, they still have no conclusive evidence that Nessie exists.

The lack of evidence, points to a lack of Nessie. Apparently the population of fish in the Loch (even with all the getting it on) is not enough to support a creature the size of the supposed monster.

The exhibition also examines the photos that have captured Nessie and explains what they might be. A deer swimming in the lake, a blurry bird, the wake of a boat. The most famous photo of the Loch Ness Monster is a proven hoax. The exhibition is pretty non-judgemental towards the wackos that have "seen" the Loch Ness Monster. It concludes with a phrase about the wonderful powers of imagination (sure, sure! We know they are wackos).



I'm not sure it was worth the £6 entrance fee but I found it extremely interesting. A recommended pit stop if you too have a curiosity for the strange and mysterious.

Our visit to the The Loch Ness Exhibition was part of our "Emergency: Jess needs to renew her visa" trip to Scotland on the August Bank Holiday weekend 2008. Other entries from this trip include: Real men wear skirts and Now here are the results. Yep. And we're going to....

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The Pension... sounds like a dodgy three-star hotel, doesn't it? Well, that's kind of right. Except, it's a dodgy three-star hotel which has a top-secret nuclear fallout bunker hidden underneath. How top-secret? Super-promise-you-won't-tell-anyone-cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die top-secret. The bunker's existence was only revealed to the public in 2003, twelve years after Latvia gained independence from the Soviet Union. We arrived at midday in time for the day's only tour of the Bunker (yay!). Unfortunately, the tour was not offered in English (boo!). (Tours in English can be booked in advance and are run if there are sufficient numbers.)

Waiting in the reception area for our tour to begin, I felt like we'd travelled back in time. When the bunker was created, a Rehabilitation Centre was built on top as a cover. This Rehabilitation Centre is now billed as a day spa. This term conjures up imagery of gleaming white surfaces, the smell of scented candles, and relaxing music piped into rooms with water features. The reality was 70s décor meets school camp facilities. The predominant colour was a drab olive green. The marketing video in the waiting room showed beefy Eastern European women torturing patients. It definitely didn't meet the Western ideal of a day spa.

The bunker was much larger than I expected. Covering an area of 2,000 square metres, it includes offices, bedrooms, a canteen, its own power station and a well. It was designed to be fully self-sufficient in the event of a nuclear incident. We were shown the very important Party room, which features a bust of Lenin, the USSR and Soviet Latvian flags and a map of Soviet Latvia showing the collective farms.


Our Latvian is a little rusty (read non-existent) so although our tour guide explained the purpose of each room within the bunker, we remained clueless to the details. A room full of maps of Latvia with areas marked in different colours was intriguing. The official website says they are maps which show how much of Latvia would be underwater if dams and hydro power stations were destroyed. A sign which showed how to put on your protective radiation suit was a little scary.



The bunker was built for a day when the world as it had been known, ended. And while you're inside it certainly seems that world has ended. In the bunker, time stands still. It's a snapshot of an era that no longer exists.

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Our visit to the Pension was part of Dubs' Easter 2008 trip. We travelled from Riga, Latvia to Tallinn, Estonia and then on to Helsinki, Finland, spending a couple of days in each city. Other entries from this trip include: Paldiski.

In March, while we were back home in Australia, we spent an afternoon with Mum, planning our trip around Spain and Portugal. Of course, we all had cities that were already on our personal agendas. Barcelona, Madrid, Cordoba, Granada, Seville were all instantly placed on the itinerary. To plan the rest of the route, we skimmed the guidebooks and looked at the places in between the must-dos. That's how Évora made the cut.

Below is the paragraph that tempted us to Évora:

"What draws the crowds though is the Capela dos Ossos, a mesmerising memento mori (reminder of death). A small room behind the altar has walls and columns lined with the bones and skulls of some 5000 people. ... There's a black humour to the way the bones and skulls have been carefully arranged in patterns, and the whole effect is strangely beautiful."

Chapel decorated with Bones! Gross!

The chapel was definitely an eerie place. Bones cover the walls and thousands of skulls feature in the decorating. This means a lot of empty eye sockets are staring at you as you walk through.

The monks who created the church thought that the chapel would be an ideal place to think about the fleeting nature of life and to help one reduce the focus on material possessions. Death is certainly something that is on your mind in a room full of bones. This message is emphasised by the greeting that welcomes you to the chapel... "We bones in here wait for yours to join us."



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