Merry Christmas!

Instead of Christmas Tree (which I was a bit too lazy to go out and buy) I have improvised and made a Christmas shelf where all our delightful presents from you all sit. And thanks to Mum's package, we even have some lovely decorations! I think this is the most presents we have had since we were kids! We are so excited that we're even having our own Christmas dinner with the complete works-turkey, roast veggies, pudding on Monday night so that we can open then all. Thank you to Mother Jones, Mother Jucha, The Brownies and Nonna for sending the gifts over as it has really made it feel like Christmas and made us feel loved. We miss everyone so much and will be thinking of you all through the holidays.

We hope that everyone has a fantastic Christmas and a happy New Year.

lots of love Nicky and Liz

Christmas Time in London

So last weekend we decided that it was time to go into the city and experience some of the Christmas festivities. After searching the web we found that there were some German Christmas Markets along Southbank, which is where the the London Eye is situated along with lots of other cultural things to do (museums, galleries, aquarium). The markets themselves were fairly uneventful but what we did enjoy was a delicious bratwurst which if we are really being honest here, is all we went there for!! Mmm so good. AND I tried mulled wine....not really a fan, but glad I gave it a go. We spent the rest of the day just walking along the Thames, the weather was quite mild so it was quite enjoyable outside as long as you were rugged up. Also a warm cup filled with vanilla latte helped too :) I also took Lizzie to see the Trafalgar Christmas Tree as I feel that she missed out the other week!

Trafalgar Square Lights up!

So I had been told that a very London Christmas experience was to go and watch the lighting of the Norwegian Christmas Tree in Trafalgar Square. So last Thursday (6th Dec) I caught the tube into the city to watch this grand event. It was quite chilly but I was prepared with all of my layers and my new lovely warm coat and a rather delicious and hot cup of coffee :) I was there about an hour early so I actually got to a spot where I could see the stage and the Choir. The Choir sang while people were still filing into the square and then a different Choir sung after the ceremony which took forever! About 3 people spoke and each one repeated what the other said...which was basically, how wonderful a gift the tree was as it is given to the people of Britain by the Norwegians as a reminder and thank you for the help that Britain gave them during the second world war. This has now been a tradition for over 60 years. Lovely story but after the third one I got the gist of it!! But it was nice being there although, a little less eventful than I thought as the tree only has white lights on it! Where is all the tinsel and red and green decorations Britain!! Anyway, here are the pictures of before and after...awwwww

Enjoy!

Erin and Damien visit us!!

So not long after getting back into London I had something to look forward to as one of my closest friends and her boyfriend were coming to stay with us!!! Erin and Damien had been travelling for 3 weeks around France, Spain and England and were stopping in London before heading back to Brisbane. They got the pleasure of staying on our teeny sofa couch in our little apartment. Was so great to have them here...I was in need of Erin hugs. And by gosh they were good!

The first night here, we had a few drinks and dinner and prepared for the next day of sightseeing. As Damien had already been here before it was all up to Erin where we went, she was not too fussed about seeing the traditional tourists sights instead opting for a stint or two as it turned out, in Oxford Street, London's famous shopping street. Here we only made it the corner of this street before we had to stop for a break as Ez had already spent her budget for the day...only to return at the end of the weekend for a wee bit more! Mainly, the time spent with them was mainly in pubs and restaurants as they were very excited about being back in a country where they could actually understand the language as a few of their trips took them to regional places where English was not spoken! Also, Damien's main aim was to eat as much sausages and mash as possible!! We also had an afternoon out where we met Erin's second cousin Peter who lives here and managed to drink a fair bit of cider and quite a few glasses of G & T's!! Was just so lovely to have our friends with us. Thanks for visiting us Erin and Damien!!

Good Ol' London Town

Well, as you all know, we made it back to London safe and sound. We spent our first week back searching for somewhere to live. We were going to go back into a share house, but after look at 3 I decided that I could not be happy in a share house...it was all too much. I just wanted our own space where I did not have to share anything with strangers! We found this cute little studio apartment in a suburb called Golders Green. It is only one kinda biggish room with a kitchenette, a table a convection/microwave oven, our large sofa bed and a mini sofa bed for all our future visitors. We have our own bathroom and some wardrobe space. It's perfect. Plus it is right around the corner from Liz's new work place and near all the nice schools in this part of town. So hopefully we'll settle in nicely.

Liz's new job I hear you say?? Well, Liz has taken on a nanny job. She is working for a really lovely family who have 2 children aged 14 and 11. They don't really need too much nannying but mainly need a driver, cook and homework whipper. She also has to do the odd things around the house such as washing and shopping but she has the middle of the day while the kids are at school to do this. Most of the time I think she will have this time in the day to do not much, lucky thing! She doesn't finish until 7.30pm and on some evenings and weekends will have to babysit. But it is an easy job and it is her turn to have a cruisy year. Plus it's a solid income which we need now that we're paying a fair bit more rent. I'm heading back into teaching an am hoping for a contract come January to tie me over until June next year so keep your fingers crossed for me! Will post photos of our pad soon :)

Back in Munich

It was a little sad to get back on the bus for the last time and head back to Munich where we were flying out of the next day. We stopped in a town in Liechtenstein which is the smallest country in all of Europe. We basically stopped there for lunch so we didn’t see much of it, but I don’t think there is much to see anyway!

We had already decided that upon our return to Munich we were going to head to the Augustiner Beer Hall and have us some pork knuckle and beer. When we walked into the Hall we saw Melinda who we had been seeing all through Italy who we had already said goodbye to about 3 times as we thought we wouldn’t see each other again! Had a beer with her and another traveller before heading off with them to another hall to have dinner. We were not going to go as we were happy at our current hall but decided some company would be great. And so glad we did as the Hall we ended up at had the Oompa Band playing and was completely packed. Was great fun! Got talking to some people beside us who were locals and apparently that day was a celebration of some sort in Munich and the Band only plays there 10 times a year. How lucky was that! We had a great night ending our trip on a high note in our favourite city.

Lauterbrunnan, Switzerland

This is to be our last new town. We were really excited about coming here as we had heard so many good things about it from all the other travellers that we had meet over the 3 months. And it did not fail to meet our expectations. This place was absolutely beautiful. A bit like St Johann in Austria but we were much higher up in the mountains than there plus here, there was snow capped Alps!! We had had a really long bus journey to get there (8am-7pm) so we basically dumped our bags and headed to the campsite restaurant to taste some of Switzerland’s famous Rosti. Oh my gosh it was good!! It is this kind of potato pancake but topped with mushrooms, ham and cheese. Delicious!

On our first day we went to these amazing falls called Trummelbach falls which are actually inside of a mountain and the water falls here at 20 000 litres per second. The noise when we were inside was so loud Liz and I had to shout at each other. After that we headed off into the little town and had hot chocolate and a wander around. Now over our hot chocolate we had to ponder on what to do the next day. The choice was between catching a train to the Top of Europe, expensive OR head up on a gondola to the Revolving Restaurant where a James Bond movie was filmed once, less expensive. After much deliberation and conversations with our fellow travellers we decided to splurge and head to the Top of Europe. And oh my gosh are we glad we did it! We had an absolutely perfect day, clear blue skies all around which made for good photo opportunities.

The journey to the top took 2 hours but it didn't seem like it as the views from outside the windows kept us entertained. It was so beautiful. And then we reached the top. My breath was taken away. It was just miles and miles of snow with these huge peaks just standing right in front of me. So magnificent. The Top of Europe is actually called Jungfraujoch and at the lookout it is 3571m. So cool. They have built this entire building inside the mountain which contains souvenir shops, a few restaurants and an Ice Palace!!! But before heading to the Ice Palace, we headed outside and I got to stand in a whole lot of snow and play with it for the first time in my life!! (I'm not counting the itty bit of snow I saw in April in London) It was awesome!! We had so much fun up here! I even sent postcards from the top, and for those who received them, they are special because Jungfrau has it's own postcode AND stamps the mail with it's altitude (3454m where the post office is) . Feel special people!! The Ice Palace here was so fun. It is basically all of these rooms completely made out of ice,Liz and I went sliding around in there. There is a video of us doing this but you'll have to be nice to us to see it when we get home. Ha! So anyway that is how we ended our stay in Lauterbrunnan which was just perfect. Can't wait to go skiing now!!

Nice, France

We had a short stop here in Nice, and the main thing that we were excited about was that we got to eat french pastries again!! And yes Weasy, we did have chocolate croissants and they were delicious!! Actually we had them for breakfast both days we were here! There is not alot to Nice really. It is full of shops, Casinos and beaches. Us being the true backpackers we were chose the cheapest option and headed for the beach, well actually another stoned water front but these ones were much more comfortable than the ones in the Cinque Terre. Smaller, much nicer for laying around all day. Which is exactly what we did for 2 whole days. So relaxing. We didn't manage to get in the water because although it was beautiful and sunny, the water was really cold.

We also went to the Modern Art Museum here to see some Roy Lichtenstein who I really like, and it turns out they only had 1 of his works and it wasn't even one I recognised! Lucky it was free on the day we went. I felt very ripped off! We went for a walk through the Old Town, which Mrs Jucha had highly recommended. And rightly so. It was all these little winding streets which were filled with cafes, shops, restaurants and most importantly for Liz, creperies. They were pretty good I have to admit, as even I had one although Lizzie finished mine off as it was too sweet and just way too much pancake for me!

Cinque Terre, Italian Coast

After our road trip we stayed in La Spezia for one night before getting up nice and early to head to the Cinque Terre just a short train ride away. This is a UNESCO site and is made up of 5 villages all on the coast. We stayed at the village called Riomaggoire which is the first village of the 5. There is not really much to each village as they are really quite small but are absolutely adorable. On our first afternoon here we checked out our little village which took all of 10 minutes and then headed to the beach. Well cobble stones which we found so bizarre! And so uncomfortable to lye on after you have been swimming! The water however was beautiful. It was this dark blue colour but really clear. Bit cold at first but after you swam around a fair bit you got kind of warm! We also made some rock castles….not as much fun as sand castles and less satisfying to destroy! We finished our day by finding a lookout and settling in the watch the sunset. Absolutely beautiful.
Our second day we got up nice and early as we had already pre-planned to do the 9km walk that starts in the first town and ends in the second town. We set off at 9am in Riomaggoire walked the nice boardwalk and ended up in Manarola 20 minutes later. The next section of the walk was also fairly easy and took us probably half an hour to get to the steps that led to Corniglia but 15 minutes to get up them! Corniglia is set on top of a rather high cliff so hence the thousands of steps to get to it. We felt quite puffed after this and hungry as we hadn’t had much breakfast, so we stopped here to have a panni and coffee and ended up speaking to 2 Australian women who were on holidays for 6 weeks and were also doing the 9km walk. We had heard through the grapevine that the next 2 sections of the walk were quite hard but we had no idea it would be this hard! It seemed that we would climb one hill then much to our disappointment we would walk down which only meant that we would have to eventually go up again. This next section took us the rest of the day. We stopped in Vernazza for half hour to soak our feet in the cool water and then headed on to the last walk to Monterosso. By the time we got to the village our legs were shaking so much we had to sit down! Although the walk was quite hard, the views and scenery was well worth it. Sometimes we would be walking on the edge of the cliffs over looking the sea feeling nice and cool and then others we would be amongst vineyards dying of heat! Pretty amazing though.

When we stopped in Monterosso, we changed into our togs, jumped in the ocean and pretty much jumped straight out again! Because although we were really hot the water was quite cool as it was 3:30pm by the time we got there. We quickly changed and headed off to find some food and it was here. On our last evening in Italy that we finally came across some great pizza.

This one is for the Penna's!!

Our next stop was La Spezia where we were hiring a car to drive to a village called Rocca d’Arazzo where my Grandfather was born and lived until her moved out to Australia as a little boy. This was a mission! We got the car fairly easily but it was working out how to drive a left handed car that worried me! As it was my trip it was my job to drive, so after sitting and playing with the gears I felt like I had the hang of it. Got instructions of how to get out of the town and onto the motorway and we were off!! Now, when we planned this idea in London it seemed like a great idea…that is until we saw how people drove in Italy. Oh my god they are crazy! Lucky we were in a quieter part of Italy so it wasn’t too bad but the motorway, that was a different story. There was at least 3 lanes of traffic so a slow, an overtaking and a fast lane. The speed limit said either 110 or 130 depending on which section we drove. Now, I sat in the slow lane, not because I was going slow, but because I was actually doing the speed limit. The other 2 lanes were doing at least 20-40kms over the limit, especially those in the far left lane. It was freaking unbelievable! Even when the speed limit dropped to 80 every car was still doing at least 100. I have never seen Liz looked so scared. She barley spoke to me when we were on the motorways! But the roads were bloody unreal, as they should be since the toll was 15 euros, one way!!

Our plan was to drive to Asti and stay there the night then wake up the next morning to head to Rocca. We were basically on track with only a slight detour off the motorway as their numbers and signing was a little difficult to follow at times. We finally made it to Asti and found the first hotel we came across. Was really nice and clean and then next morning while having a pastry and coffee at their bar, we asked the owner how to get to Rocca d'Arrazzo as our map didn’t quite give us the smaller towns in that area. He kind of laughed a little when we told him where we wanted to go and just kept repeating that it was so small! But he and his side kick gave us really good directions and a map of the region and shook our hands on the way out. So nice!! We hopped back into the car and about 10 minutes later we were in Rocca d’Arrazzo.

This place is so tiny! Everything was just like you picture a small Italian village to look like, but sorry Mum, there were no cobble stones anymore. We walked around and found the Municiple Hall which also houses most of the government offices as well as the post office. The main street had 1 bakery, a little butchers, 2 bar/café places, a general store, a 1 pump petrol station and a bank. So it’s safe to say it didn’t take long to explore, but we did walk around all the streets just to check it out and to take lots of photos for you all. We did find the cemetery and had a look around but we only found 2 Penna’s and a few Doglione’s so I’m not sure if we are related to them or not. But I have the info which I’ll email to you all soon. It is such a pretty region out there and is mostly farms and vineyards. But it was so great just to visit there. A few people tried to talk to us and due to us knowing no Italian it made it difficult but I think we did ok with hand movements! I made you a short video clip so I hope you can all watch it!

After spending the morning there we headed back to Asti for lunch and a quick look around and then got back in the car to head back down to La Spezia. It was safe to say that I was not sad to give back the car as our trip back down was great until we had to navigate our way back to the hire car office…that was stressful in peak hour. I had gotten used to driving on the left side on the motorway but in the towns it was different…lucky I had Liz who helped me to turn on to the correct side of the road every time! Super Co-Driver she was!! I will send you all pictures of Rocca once I’m settled back in London as I’ll only be able to put a few up on here. Miss you all lots and lots
Xoxo

P.S I am still trying to upload the video. When it's up I'll send an email through. Sorry but the internet is being difficult!

Pisa, Italy

Not much else to say about Pisa really!

Florence, Italy

So Florence was fairly similar to Siena, just bigger. Again filled with about 10 art galleries so it was probably not the best place for us to stop. But we did make the most of it…we saw the second biggest Basilica in the world and also a bridge which is completely lined with jewellery shops making it the most expensive bridge in the world. But most of the jewellery was dead ugly so I don’t know who would pay for it! This was a good place to just wonder and walk through all the streets and look in shops. Found a super nice place to have a Panini which for once was not a rip off!! We stayed out at a campsite again in a little cabin, was bloody freezing but was good as they had cooking facilities. Hooray! We took a day trip our to a small town called Greve in Chianti just to see what the Tuscan country side looked like… was really pretty and mainly just hills completely covered in vineyards.Didn’t find my castle though girls! Haha Hmmm and I think that is it for Florence. Oh we did by some leather goods from these markets and I used my super good bargining skills to get some euros off!

Siena, Italy

Not really too much to write about here…it is a really small town which is full of churches and has a giant square in the middle. It is mostly famous for it’s art and a horse race that happens every year in the centre square. We were not there for the race and art is not our cup of tea so basically we wondered around, ate some food, looked in the shops and that was Siena done. We did however find this great place that did awesome hot chocolates…nice and thick just like they do in New Farm! We did have a really nice place to stay here with super cosy doonas so we slept in too which was just lovely.

Rome, Italy

We started our first evening in Rome by going to the supermarket and having THE best dinner we’ve had since I don’t know when…it was only tuna and salad but since it had been a while since we had eaten such fresh ingredients we were in heaven!! Our first day in the actual city took us on a Vatican City walking tour, which we were both excited about. Even though I’m not religious, I thought when in Rome….ba-doom-ching! Haha I promise I won’t use that cheesy line again! Anyways, we had an American girl who seemed pretty cool but we soon discovered she was quite annoying…reason being is that she likened everything to pop culture somehow. I’d really like to give you all examples, but due to a number of family members reading this I think it’d be best if I saved them for one on one conversations. Oh one that is not too x-rated is that she referred to St Peter’s Basilica as the Pope’s crib (Grandma’s crib slang for home/house). Yeah. She was tops. But apart from her what we saw was fantastic. She gave a rather rushed but general run down of how the Vatican City came about then took us over the Bridge of Angels, which has a statue representing each step of the Passion of the Christ. Then down into St Peter’s Basilica. It is huge!! We went into the Vatican Museum as this is how you get to see the Sistene Chapel. But first we got to see some of the art work in the museum, sculptures, the map hallway and the tapestry room. The guide briefly told us about these things before talking us through the Sistene Chapel painting. This was done outside of the chapel as you are not allowed to talk or take photos of the paintings once you are there. We finally went into the Chapel and it is truly amazing. I cannot believe that one man painted all of that in 2 years and in such a bad body position. Just looking up at the ceiling for 10mins hurt, imagine doing that for 3 years!! No wonder Michelangelo ended up a cripple. This is where our tour ended and we were on our own. We decided to head up to the top of the Basilica to look out over Rome…not as cool as the Eiffel Tower especially since we had to walk up these tiny stairs in the dome…but still not a bad sight at all. We also went down into the Basilica and it is even more impressive on the inside. There is gold leaf everywhere, sculptures galore, paintings and mosaics. At the beginning of the Dome there is lettering done in mosaics and these are apparently 6ft tall…holy smokes! But this is where we ended our day.

The next day we did a Roaming tour of the city with a much better guide. This was a general all over tour and took us to Palentine Hill, the Pantheon, Colosseum, Roman Forums and lots more, I just can‘t remember them all! But we did get a bucket load of history over the 4 hours. Rome is so cool! Our guide also gave us some other sites to go and see so over the next 2 days we set out to find them. One was a 12th Century church which had a 4th Century church under it and then under that church there was a 1st Century house and cult alter…awesome. Also saw St Peter’s Basilica through a keyhole…bit hard to explain but trust me it was cool! We also saw the Spanish Steps and the Trevie Fountain. I think that is about it for the sight seeing things.

We were really disappointed in Rome’s food as everything was over priced and shit. We got ripped off a couple times at dinner and even got yelled at by a waiter…so our opinions of Italians was not the best. By the time our 5 nights were up we were definitely ready to leave but before we did we made sure we saw the Colosseum again…this building is just by far the greatest we have seen on our trip.

Oktoberfest, Munich

Now, I don’t know if you have all been keeping up with the weather reports over here, but we are in a very cold Europe right now. So we decided that since we would be camping, yes that’s right it was cheaper and we thought it was a good idea in March, that we would splash out on thermals. Thank god we did!! On Friday afternoon, we left our warm cosy hostel and headed for our campsite. Got tent number 47 and a wrist band that had not only our tent number on it, but also the address of the campsite just incase security found you in an alley somewhere over the weekend. Sitting on the ground we decided our next necessity was to buy a pool lilo from our tour operators - mine was green and Lizzie’s was pink. Our first night we showered and layered up with our thermals (long johns & 2 singlets each), trackie pants, t-shirts, jumpers and jackets. Oh and 2 layers of socks. Did we sleep? NO!! Had to get up at 6:30am on Saturday morning to get ready to make it to the festival to try and get into the Hoftbrau Hall. We got there at 8am and met a mob of people out the front…we stood there for 2 hours and when we finally got close to the front, we were told no one was coming through the front doors and if you wanted chance to get in get to the back doors. So us and about 400 other people sprinted around the building (I think I even pushed people!) and made it kind of close to a door and got in. This was at 10.30am. We had lost our tour group right at the beginning (bloody waste of money they were) and had to find our own table…this was a mission as everybody was saving seats for people who hadn’t even made it into the hall yet. Finally found some nice guys who squished over. Now I hear you asking why all the fuss for this hall?? Well, this is the hall in which the Mayor Taps the first keg to signal that the festival has started….this doesn’t happen until noon. When this happened thought, it was totally amazing. The crowd of 10 000 people cheering and shouting was crazy! Now all we had to do was wait for a Fraulein (not beer wenches or they don’t come to your table as the table next to us found out) to serve us. This. Was. Painful! We didn’t get our first beers until 1.15pm. Yes, that’s right, we had waited a total of 5 hours to get a beer. Nuts. Absolutely nuts. Tasted good but!! Best fun ever! We had steins and sang and all was well in the world. That is until we had to return to the cold, crappy campsite, better sleep this time thanks to the Hoftbrau!

Day 2 of Oktoberfest had us heading in quite late, around 10, watched the parade with these giant horses bringing in barrels of beer, and lots of traditionally dressed Germans playing music marching through the festival grounds. I quite liked it. We then decided to head into the Lowenbrau beer hall around 1pm and found a table fairly fast considering the beer had already been serving since 12. Made some new friends again and drank until about 7pm. Now I hear you all asking about how many steins we had. We I think I had over the 2 afternoons 6 and Liz the non beer drinker got down 3!!! I am so proud of her, as should all of you!!! What an effort by the girl who has only ever finished half a stein her entire life!!! Now I now, I probably should have had more, but people, these things are massive…they are more daunting than you realise. But with all these steins also came our drunken purchasing of merchandise and here we went a bit crazy…but hey, we now have 3 Oktoberfest half steins, 2 crazy hats, a shirt, a jumper and of course a gingerbread heart!! Campsite sucked again, and no sleep for me as my lilo was completely deflated and Liz didn’t even offer to share hers…drunken bum!!! Got up at 6am on Monday to get back to the nice warm hostel to catch our bus to the next destination.

Oktoberfest rocked!!!

Munich, Germany

Before hitting up the Oktoberfest we had few days to actually look around and see Munich. We did this by going on a walking tour which was fantastic. Our guide, a tall black German/Canadian in lederhosen, took us to all the major parts of the city but also gave us lots of information about Munich which we actually remember!! I wont’ bore you with it now…so watch out for when I speak to you all next! He took us to this great Beer Garden in the middle of the city, which we returned to 3 more times. Not only was it a beer garden but there was a fresh food market as well, so you went and got all your goodies (stuffed peppers, olives, bread and cheese) and got your beer and sat in the sun all afternoon. Perfect. Here, Liz started AND finished her first ever half stein of beer…pretty impressed I was! The next day we went to the Deutsches Museum which is just massive. It’s 6 floors of science and technology from way back to the present day. There was lots of interactive things you could do in each section, we only visited a few Musical Instruments, Chemistry, Photo & Film, Textiles, Printing, Technical Toys and this took us 3 hours. There are 61 sections….some of it was a little hard to really learn off as it was all in German, but still cool to look at. I can just imagine every school teacher incorporating this museum into their curriculum, it’s got everything!