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!