Monday, June 30, 2008

Back to work


Back on tour since yesterday after getting rained out all weekend by amazing storms. Got rained on a bit today as well. Since starting up again, we have met Norwich, Cork, Utrecht, Seattle, Sydney, a group from Essex, Houston, Amsterdam, Melbourne, Wales and Cambridge.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

6 Australian states


Australia Day on the tour today, with 6 states represented - Sydney, Melbourne, Townsville, Perth, Darwin and Hobart. We also met Leipzig, Cork and Helsinki. Rain in the forecast for the next few days, so we will see how it goes...

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Working on our tans...


More sun today & 32 degrees. We met a group from Intrepid Tours from Australia along with others from Nottingham, 2 from Glasgow, London, Galway, Paris & Strasbourg.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Sun-storm-sun


Hot & sunny today until around 4:30 when a short but intense thunderstorm came out of nowhere. Afterwards, it was back to sunny skies. We met 7 from England today - London, Preston, Ipswich, Burnley, Liverpool and two from Kendal. We also met two from Perth, two from Sydney and one each from Berlin and Toronto. The picture from today was taken just before the storm...

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Most beautiful day of the year so far


Perfect day today - 33 degrees and a light breeze in the sunshine. We met 2 from Aberdeen along with Sweden, Norway, Paris, Munich, London, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Edmonton and Colorado. That's nine nationalities today. The summertime atmosphere is definitely here now.

Saturday, June 21, 2008

First from Fiji on 'Dutch' rugby day


We met a rugby team from Holland today that only had two Dutch players... The rest were from Ireland, England, Australia and . . . . . Fiji! We also met 4 from Detroit, 3 from Paris, 2 from St. Louis, Missouri and others from Kent and Italy. Huge crowds in town today for the Wianki summer festival - about 250,000 will be along the river for tonight's concert.

Thursday, June 19, 2008

County Fermanagh & Edinburgh continued


In a given year we might meet just a few people from County Fermanagh, so it's it's really unusual for us to have met someone from there on two consecutive days. We also met Edinburgh for the third straight day. Also along for the ride were Las Vegas, Chicago, Cheshire, Madrid, Helsinki and three from Ottawa. Sunny skies and a nice breeze all day long...

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Australians restore order.....


About half of the people we meet in a typical year are from Australia, which is amazing for a country of 22 million people on the other side of the world. NOBODY travels like the Australians. We hadn't met any Aussies on the tour for three consecutive days until today, which is very strange. Anyway, today we got back on the Oz track with Melbourne, Brisbane & Canberra on the tour. We also met Edinburgh (two days in a row), two from Belfast, two from near Bath, England, and another from County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland.

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Dallas & Leeds together again


For the second time in three days, we had people from Dallas and from Leeds on the same tour. Strange. This time a whole family from Dallas and two girls from Leeds. We also met Mexico City (nice talking Mexican football with you), Edinburgh, and Barcelona.

Monday, June 16, 2008

First from Pakistan


We met our first Pakistani on the tour today along with others from Malaysia, Los Angeles, Boston, Virginia, New York, Dublin, Milan, Perth and both Birmingham & Middlesbrough, England.

Sunny skies returned today and you can see the beginnings of the tourist season starting with bigger crowds in the square every day.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Wet Weekend


We got rained on quite a bit over the weekend. Thanks to everyone for being brave despite the threat from the skies. We met two from Gold Coast, Cape Town, Brussels, Cork, Montreal, three from New York, two from Connecticut, Dallas, Philadelphia, Munich, Leeds, London and Stirling, Scotland. Starting to wonder when we will see the sun again...

Friday, June 13, 2008

A dry day is a good day


It was as dark & cloudy as it could possibly be without actually raining today. Recent trend of lots of English continuing today with 2 from Chester, 3 from London and 2 from Manchester. We also met 2 from Oslo and others from New York, Phoenix, Madrid, and Rostock, Germany. Thanks again to the couple from Oslo for teaching us the bad words in Norwegian....

Thursday, June 12, 2008

Dark & cloudy but dry...


Started out as another ugly day but got better as the day went on. Father and son from Worcestershire, two from Pennsylvania, one from Sao Paolo and one from the Gold Coast in Queensland made it out today. Lots of Polish flags and jerseys on the streets today as Poland goes up against Austria in the Euros tonight.

Must-win for Poland since losing to Germany in the opening match...

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

R-A-I-N


The good weather had to end eventually... Lots of dark clouds and rain today & more in the forecast for the next few days. A few brave souls from London, Brighton, Beverly in Yorkshire, Oslo and Wellington came out in spite of the rain - thanks for being tough today.

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

Hottest day of the year so far...


Nice days today and yesterday - too nice, maybe.... Today was 35c/95f and we took five breaks over the course of the tour to cool down & get a drink. We met four guys from Glasgow (including Ross, on the tour for the second time), three from Sydney (nice taking to you about the Aussie softball team), two from Belfast, and others from Dublin, Vancouver Island, Cork, Limerick, Tipperary, Kent and Chicago. Bring your water bottle and suntan lotion...

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Sweden, Toronto continued...


We met both Sweden and Toronto for the second consecutive day today, along with a family from Indianapolis, Indiana, and two from Hobart, Tasmania. Rain and clouds in the morning scared some people off today but tomorrow's weather should be better.

Saturday, June 7, 2008

First from Ecuador, Montenegro - mini United Nations today..


With the day & night tours combined, we met people from five continents today. During the day, it was Scotland, England, Washington D.C., Boston (a lot of Boston lately...), Melbourne, Northern Ireland and Gorlitz, Germany. At night it was Toronto, Vancouver, Sweden, Thailand and our first ever visitors from Ecuador and Montenegro came on the same tour. Eleven nationalities in one day. The clouds came in later in the afternoon & we got rained on a bit but it was a great day.

Friday, June 6, 2008

Chinese lesson


A group from Hong Kong on the tour today, along with London, Munich, Atlanta, Stockholm, San Francisco, Melbourne and Brisbane. We learned how to count to ten in Chinese - and then promptly forgot how to count to ten in Chinese. They told us that Hong Kong is not exactly ideal biking territory because of the hills and, oh yeah, the third highest population density of any city in the world makes it difficult too...

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

First Italians of the year....


Another gorgeous day today - sunny with a nice breeze to cool things off. We met our first Italians of the year today, from Como, along with a group from Brittany in France, a Mexican woman and two sisters from Belfast. We even got an invitation to drop by the next time we are in Northern Ireland - thanks for that & see you there!

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

75 years young - a new record


We met a group from Intrepid Tours from Australia today, with several people from Melbourne, and also Newcastle, Sydney, New Zealand, Berlin and Oregon represented. Peter from Melbourne set a new record with us today, after celebrating his 75th birthday just a few days ago. The previous record was 74 years, also held by an Australian from Darwin that we met three years ago. Must be something in the water down there.... It was nice talking to all of you today, and thanks for coming out for the tour.

Monday, June 2, 2008

England continued


English invasion still going for the last couple of days, with a group from Sunderland and others from Liverpool, London, York, Bristol, Birmingham and Durham. We also met Budapest, Kansas City, Minneapolis and Brussels as well. Nice to meet you, Zoltan and Koti, say hello to Budapest for us. Mmmmm..........chicken paprikas.