Liz & Nicky See the World

Lagos

2009-08-14T12:56:00.000-07:00

A cruisy beach holiday destination where every thing is easy and all within a short walking distance from each other. This town is very touristy as lots of the English holiday here during the summer break. There are lots of beaches to choose from, the section we visited was the Gold Coast which is made up of lots of small beaches divided by cliffs. We didn´t get to al lof them but we tried our best! The water there was quite clear but not like it was on the Greek islands.

On one of our days in Lagos we decided to go sea kayaking. Liz has been wanting to do it for ages and I am so glad we finally got to do it. It was so much FUN! We joined in a 3 hours tour, with Liz and I being an unbeatable team in a double kayak. We got to go farther along the Gold Coast then we could walk and got to see and go through all the grottos along the way. The were so lovely and in some of them the water shone a bright green due to the sunlight filtering in through the cliffs and cracks. Was really pretty. Liz and I were also the only female couple kayaking and we totally kicked everyones butts back to shore!!

The town gets quite lively at night so one evening we went in and ordered some cocktails and enjoyed it all. Nearly bought some souviners during this time but luckily we saw sense and decided to go back during the day (the memory of our Oktoberfest spree was still fresh in our minds!). And thank goodness we did. What I wanted to buy in my semi drunken haze did not look at all good in the light of day. Phew, a close call!

I managed to get a bit burnt here and so now I am feeling sorry for myself. It is however our last beach stop until Valencia so my skil will have time to recover. And yes, we have been applying sunscreen everyday. Lucille we´ve already managed to finish both of the tubes you sent over with Timothy! Don´t stress though everyone, we have another bottle to lather ourselves up with!!

Lisbon

2009-08-14T12:46:00.000-07:00

What a lovely city! So clean and friendly with lots and lots of monuments all around which seems a little strange but I´m sure there is a good reason! OUr hostel was in a prime location right in the middle of a mian square with a 10 minute stroll to the water. In Lisbon there are lots of buildings which still have thier fronts covered in tiles which looks really cool. Some of the patterns are quite busy but others are quite beautiful and it makes them really stand out.

The city is split up into neighbourhoods so we just walked from one to the next. Except for on, Belem, which we had to catch the tram for. Our missions here was to find the best custard tart bakery in Lisbon. Liz had read an article ina London paper ages ago and we had saved it so that we could find these delicious delacies. At first we thought we had failed in our mission but after asking a local we were pointed in the right direction. Now, I don´t really like custard and all things related but these were amazing!! So scrumptious! The recipe is so secret that only 3 bakers know it and when 1 reitres it is passed to a new baker. The even mix the ingredients in a secret room each morning and iwth both locals and tourists buying these, they sell 13 000 on a weekday and 20 000 on weekends...holy! So good. It is safe to say we had a few each before getting the tram back to the centre!

Athens

2009-08-14T00:59:00.000-07:00

Here we only stayed 2 nights which was plenty. There is not alot to do in Athens especially if you are not interested in Ancient Greece. We are in the not interested category. However, we figured we would at least go and see the Acropolis because it was there and we felt we should.

Our morning started off with the watching of the Changing of the Guards outside Parliament House. This was really interesting as it is very traditional and not at all like the one outside Buckingham Palace. It happens every hour so it´s not as regal as Englands. We then headed into the Plaka where all the shops and tourist places are. There were so many sandles I wanted to buy but I held back and didn´t even buy one pair! We then headed to the Acropolis. €12 to gein in. Highway robbery! So we walked around the fence and got snaps of it from far away. We did however notice on our walk around the fence a lovely, brand new museum dedicated to the Acropolis and it only cost €1 entry. €1!! So we actually got to learn about the Acropolis, look at artefacts, enjoy alovely view from the top floor and most importantly, did it all in the comfort of air conditioning! That pretty much sums up our day in Athens - it was too hot to attempt anything more that that.

That evening we packed up our bags again in preparation for a day of flights - first a 3 hour flight to Milan, then a 4 hour layover in what was to be the smalles and most boring airport layover EVER! Then another 3 hour flight to our destination- Lisbon.

Eat, Swim, Sleep

2009-08-13T02:39:00.000-07:00

This was to be my motto for the next 10 days of our journey. Our first night in Athens had us showering, eating some Gyros, then sleeping as we had a very early start (5:30am!) the next day!

Our Greek Islands tour started with a very slow ferry ride to Mykonos (5 hours), this was not so bad as we spoke to some people on our tour and got our itinerary from our leader Dax (idiot!). We thought this tour was fairly independent but it turns out that every day and night there was a dinner or activity organised, Eeek! This was not what we wanted. Luckily they were all optional so Liz and I opted out of most of them, main reason being the organised dinners would cost €10-15 each where as we could go and eat in a restaurant for €20 combined AND get actual Greek food. Most nights the food was of other nationalities. As if I paid to go all the way to Greece to eat pizza and Thai!! Crazy bastards.

Anyway, as I was saying in the beginning, we mostly slept, ate and swam. The sleeping happened at all times of the day whether on the beach, in our mini tent huts or by the pool. The eating also occurred throughout the day, dinners were my favourite. We ate in quite a few Greek Taverna's and I think we only had sub par food once (thanks to our leader who took us to this place). On Mykonos I had my first Moussaka. Delish. Here I also had what would be the tastiest Greek Salad of the whole trip. On Paros, we stumbled across a Taverna near our beach, which had a fantastic view of the whole bag and here we had tatziki and iced coffees. Our campsite had a family run restaurant attached to it and I had stewed meatballs (Mum I think it's almost the same as your sausages/meatballs in tomato sauce from the cookbook). They were amazing! Santorini had us tasting fried cheese, stuffed tomatoes and of course more tatziki! Santorini is also where our tour leader took us to the sub par restaurant which also smelt like a toilet - not pleasant at all! Our last island, Ios, had us eating mostly Gyros (we were a little over them by now!) and again another restaurant where we decided to be brave and try the calamari, but it came out on the dish with all of the tenticles and it's head. All fried. I had a little trouble eating it and had to cover up the remaining body parts with napkins!

Onto the actual islands. They are not at all what were expecting. When you see photos of the islands you always see the white houses and the brilliant blue water. This is exactly how they look, except for the brown, barren land that surrounds everthing. As the islands are so windy no vegetation grows there. Also their ground is very rocky so I'm guessing the soil is not very furtile. But it is just an odd contrast. The water is amazing though. On each island it was a different shade of blue or green. Our favourite water was on Mykonos but my favourite beach was on Ios as it was actually sandy! The water was quite cold in comparison to the heat of the day but if you had been sunbaking it was so lovely to dive into. Our skin colour has improved and is no longer pasty white. HOORAY! This was one of the main goals of the islands - plus tasting all the food of course! Mykonos and Ios were the party islands and you'll be happy to know that we did participate in one evening out in the clubs where nothing happens until at least 1-2am. I was so bloody tired! But I did it and with only 3 drinks in my body I managed to get home at 4am. What a feat! The nightlife that we experienced was on Ios and I have to say that I wasn't that impressed with it. When I went into the 3rd bar and heard the same songs for the 3rd time, I knew it was time to go. This nightlife was not for me.

Paros and Santorini were much quieter islands. Paros seemed very chilled out and seemed to be the holiday destination for families. Here we went on a boat cruise around AntiParos (the small island next to Paros) which took a whole day. It was lovely. In true backpacker form the boat was small and packed, but what we got to see made up for it! We jumped off the boat into such clear water - it was like something off The Great Outdoors! On Santorini we went on a half day tour where we got to climb up to the edge of an Active Volcano. It was so cool! There were even spots where you could feel the sulphur coming out of the ground. Santorini used to be a round island but due to the largest volcanic eruption in modern times (the only other larger ones were prehistoric) it split the island up. But don't worry, it's dormant and it's been predicted it won't erupt until 2025 (the last eruption was in 1950). Phew. We were safe. This tour also took us to the hot springs which is caused by the volcano somehow, and the water is muddy brown and about 6 degrees hotter than normal. The mud is supposed to be good for your skin but I chose not to cover myself as it felt gross!

Our accommodation on the island was fairly basic, as we stayed at campsites. We slept in little canvas hut things which locked and meant we didn't have to share with strangers! Yay! But on Paros we actually slept in a tent, on a mat. Let's say it wasn't our most comfortable nights sleep. The only gripe I have is that on the islands you cannot put toilet paper in the toilet. No no no, you have to put it in the bin beside you. That has no lid. That smells like shit. Literally. This very much grossed me out, especially on the 2 party islands as the more drunk people got, the less clean they were. This is not ideal when sharing large shower and toilet blocks. Eeewwwww!

Scotland

2009-08-13T02:21:00.000-07:00

It was to take us 4 train changes and a whole day of travelling to get to Edinburg. But we were well prepared with snacks, books and blow up pillows for the journey. Edinburgh is a beautiful city. All of the old buildings make it almost seem a little magical especially with the Castle dominating up on the cliff. Our hostels here were so so, these ones were not as clean as the last in Wales but I'm learning to not be so picky and just get on with things. If I think about it too much I'd probably never set foot in another hostel! Our first night here we grabbed some kepbabs and went down to Princes Park and just admired the Castle and then took a look around the city. We had the whole of the next day to explore so we thought that to get some background info on the city that a walking tour would be best. It went for almost 4 hours but we did get alot from it, espeically on how much the Scots dislike the English and few stories about some quirky character in history. I didn't make it into the Castle as I already had an information overload and couldn't handle another 3 hours of reading.

The next day we headed off on our Wild in Scotland tour which was to take us up into the Highlands and to the Isle of Skye. The first day was alot of driving but we did stop at a few palces where battles had taken place; the most important one being Culloden Battlefields where over 700 Sctosmen died in a huge battle. It was quite a sad story acutlaly and the memorial there impacted on us alot. By late evening we had finally made it to Skye. The scenary over the last couple of hours of the drive was breathtaking. The Highlands are just so beautiful. I could never get sick of looking at them if I lived there. Our hostel here was fab! It was almost more like a home stay- it was so clean and friendly and quirky. It was called Skye Walker Hostel but inside there were life size cut outs of Star Wars characters on the walls wearing bits of tartan. Hilarious!!

The next day was a great day. A lazy breakfast and then a short drive to the base of the Black Cullen Mountains where we waled to the Fairy Pools. They were lovely! We were encouraged to go for a swim in them but seeing as the water was 8 degrees, Liz and I decided to pass! Some were brave and soon had skil as red a a tomato! The mountains were huge but amazing - they were quite rocky and of course were black and just loomed over you as you looked up at them. That afternoon we did another big walk. This time to Old Man of Storr which are these huge rock pillars in odd shapes that look like they have been placed there on their edges. We walked/climbed right up to the base of one of the pillars. Took about an hour but the view form up there was incredible, the mountains and lochs looked like something from a painting. And we lucky on this day to have sunshine all day so everything looked even more beautiful with such a blue sky.

Our dinners and breakfasts were included as we paid a ktity at the beginning and then food was bought form that. We were lucky enough to have 2 chefs on our trip and they cooked dinner for us both nights. It was simple stuff they made but it tasted bloody good! No one minded at all cleaning up afterwards after such a tasty dinner!! On the Saturday night the ownders of the hostel and some of their friends played music all night. Mostly fold but some modern stuff as well. It was fantastic. They were all really good musicians and they even played Bound for South Australia for the Aussies on the tour!

Our last day of the tour was again mainly driving, we stopped in Stirling to hear aobut William Wallace and Robert the Bruce, saw Eileen Dolan Castle and a quick look out at Glen Coe. Ooo I forgot to mention on the first day we stopped at Loch Ness. It was a beautiful loch and no, there was no spotting of Nessy, just a million midgies! We also got to try some whisky, single malt of course. Gosh it was strong! I added some water and found it quite nice, Liz however gave her dram to some of the others. Back in Edinburghwe were worn out so we had dinner and repacked out backpacks ready to leave bight and early the next day for....Greece!!

Wales

2009-08-09T02:16:00.000-07:00

Due to the ridiculous amount that people are charging for internet (1 euro for 10 mins of the Greek Islands!) I'm a wee bit behind on the blog. So bear with me and I'll try and fill you all in as best as possible.

Wales was beautiful. It was really the perfect way to start our trip. We headed to a little place called Betws-Y-Coed which is up in the North and is at the edge of Snowdonia National Park. It took us 3 train changes to get there from London but I love the trains so I didn't mind one bit. Our hostel was quite small and quaint and we shared a dorm with 2 English lads who were in the town for field work. Geologists. they were so lovely and considerate. Their mothers should be proud!

The main activity to do in Betws-Y-Coed is to walk. So that is eactly what we did. Armed with our walking shoes and waterproof jackets we picked up a booklet with walks around town from the tourist info centre and headed for a short 4 and a half mile stroll. This walk took us though some woods and along a beautiful clear reiver. It was so quiet in there, eventually we makde to Swallow Falls which were a bit disppointing but a good conversation with some fellow walkers made up for it.

Our mian objective for the trip was to climb Snowdon Mountain. This is the tallest mountain in Wales and England standing at 1085m. The Geologists in our room advised us to head to one particular spot as they knew one of the paths started there. So this is where we headed nice and early on the Sunday monring. Now what you need to know is that there are 6 paths up Snowdon with degrees of difficulty. Being the novis walkers we are we needed the easiest path. The one we went ot was no this. The sign at the start of the path stated "this is the most difficult of the walks, NOVICE WALKERS ARE NOT ADVISED TO CLIMB THIS" Eek! So luckily we had picked up a leaflet of the easiest walk and tour delight it started in the next town over. While waiting fo rhte bus, 2 men n a mini bus offered us a life (it was safe Mums and Dads, they were part of a charity climbing the mountains!) as they were headed that way. So eventually we started the walk. There was a defined, nicely sloping path, views were beautiful and things were great. It was about 2/3 up the mountain that it all started getting harder. The path was getting steeper and we were now up in the fog so it was quite cold. It also didnºt help that the last mountain we had climbed was last summer and we are extremly unfit! Towards the summit I think I was taking 20 steps then stopping, 2o steps then stopping. Just short of 3 hours we finally made it to the summit! HOORAY! And wah a spectacular view - fog and more go. You couldn't even see 2 feet in front of you! By now I was cold and sore so we went into the shelter for what was the best cup of hot chocolate I've ever had! What an achievment! Now we were faced with a tough decision - to walk 3 hours back down or catch the trin. After much umming and ahhing we decided on the train for 2 reasons; #1 we were stuffed and #2 the buses back to our hostel stopped around 4:30pm and I did't want to miss it. We slept very well that night and woke up surprisingly good the next day with no sore muscles!

The rest of our time here was spent doing other small walks around th etown. There are so many beautiful woodlands in this area it was amazing walking through them and their Gorges were lovely as well. The weather actaully held out for us and we only had one day of rain and even that wasn't so bad as it stopped and stared. Even got a couple of walks in!

Quick Update

2009-07-23T13:18:00.000-07:00

Hi All! We're doing well, we have been to Wales and are now in Scotland. We have been having trouble getting on the net to update but hopefully soon I can write a bit more. We are off to Greece on Monday which we are very excited about as there will be sun!! Love to you all
xoxo

Music! Music! Music!

2009-07-09T04:43:00.000-07:00

Last week was an exciting week! On Thursday evening we set off to the Royal Albert Hall to see George Benson (if you have no idea who he is you tube him and you'll soon know at least one of his songs!). Mum and Dad bought us the tickets for our birthdays and although we really had no idea what George Benson sung we wanted to see the Hall and they seemed excited about it so we thought it couldn't be all bad. And it wasn't. The Albert Hall is amazing. It is round and all the seats face the stage and it doesn't really matter where you sit you can still see the stage. It's really quite tall and our seats were right up the back (second to last row!) and although we couldn't see his face properly we could still see everything. We had a horrific comedian come on first to 'warm' us up. He was rubbish! Kept telling jokes that really only appealed to the senior citizens of the audience. Which was most of them. Yes, we were one of the few young people at this concert. Finally he came out and he sung some Nat King Cole songs which were lovely and almost sent us to sleep due to the fact that I had one beer at dinner and also it was the hottest day on record at 32 degrees that day and good old Albert Hall does not have air con so it was quite balmy inside and the perfect temperature and songs to send you off. But, after he sent off his orchestra he started playing his music and that woke us up quick smart! He's such a groover! And Liz and I were both quite surprised in that we ended up know about 4 of his songs!! He had the whole audience up on their feet, including the 70 year old women in the front row! Fantastic!! Thanks Mum and Dad for the tickets!

The following Saturday we had tickets to Wireless which was a concert in Hyde Park. The headlining acts were Dizzie Rascal, Paul Okenfold, Sneaky Sound System and BASEMENT JAXX!! We were so excited to see Basement Jaxx. They're set right at the end just knocked our socks off and we just boogied especially as they played all of our favourite songs. The ticket was worth the money just to see them as they played for over an hour. So good! I didn't like Dizzie Rascal but Paul Okenfold was good and Sneaky just rocked their tent as most of us there were Aussies and Kiwis and everybody danced and jumped around for their whole set. So. Much. Fun.

Timothy, Liz's brother arrived last Friday. He is taking over Liz's job as a Manny and Liz has been showing him the ropes. We've gone out and done some London things with him, most importantly, Hampstead Crepes mmmmmm delicious. This weekend we are off to Platform 9 3/4 in preparation for the new Harry Potter, which we have already booked tickets for. Oh, just such a busy last week!!

London Days Out!

2009-06-26T12:22:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was jam packed with all things to do with London. Saturday was an early start as we were heading into Leicester Square for 'West End Live' (a free event), unfortunately our bus was running a little behind schedule so we didn't make it there until half an hour after the start, which seemed on the bus not such an issue. But upon arriving at the Square we were to find 2 giant lines of people waiting to get in. Bugger. Luckily, Emme and Kit were also late, unfortunately thought, Chris and Kat and 2 friends of theirs had been a wee bit smarter and had arrived early and were already in! However our line up (45 mins!) was fine as there were screens all around and we could still see and hear what was going on inside. And I can hear you saying, Nicky what is West End Live? Well my dear friends, it is where some of the musicals in West End get up on stage and sing a few songs from their wonderful productions and us, the public who are too poor to go and see them all, can feel like we're not missing out. Some were a little disappointing due to their lack of costume and song choices (Sister Act) and others were fab (Jersey Boys, Thriller). All the good ones finished by 1pm and so we all left and headed off for lunch where afterwards we hit up the National Portrait Gallery (one of my last things to tick off my London List) and I finally got to see the portraits of the Tudors whom I have been reading up on since being over here, such a scandalous bunch they were! We did head back to the West End Stage to see the London Men's Gay Choir, the biggest in Europe for an entertaining 3omins. We also got to see Stomp which was freakin' awesome...I want to be like them, they're so buff!

This then brings me to the next adventure of the day, catching up with Kimmy and Emme with quite a few pints and £1 burgers. Could you ask for a better end to a day?? Kimmy had been travelling around Europe for the last 6 weeks so we had lots to catch up on. We all left that evening for our night trains before they shut suitable tipsy. Well I was anyway!

Sunday we were up early again to meet Kimmy in the city for a full day of sightseeing! Kimmy had already seen most of it when she had arrived at the beginning of her 6 week trip but the one thing she hadn't done in which I needed a partner in crime for....the London Eye! The line up was huge but it moved quite quickly. Liz left us in the hope that she had 3 hours of freedom but not so! We had lined up, got our tickets, lined up again and went for our flight in just over an hour! I can't say that it was the most exciting thing that I have done in London, it moves quite slowly and there are about 15 other people in your capsule so you don't get a perfect view the whole time. But we had a lovely clear day so we got to see everything and as much as all cities look the same from up high, it was still fantastic to be up there.

We caught back up with Lizzie and decided our next stop was Harrods where our highlight was the luxury toilets (that's right, luxury! and not up to Kimmy's standards at all, hehe) and Oxford St. Since it was a nice day, we walked to both places. It was quite a walk as we went past Buckingham Palace and though Hyde Park. This was much preferable to the stinky, dirty, old tubes. By the time we finished we were buggered and stopped in at a pub for a roast dinner. Delish! Another great end to a fabulous day. Thanks Kimmy!!

Punting in Oxford

2009-06-08T04:28:00.000-07:00

One dreary Sunday morning Em, Kit, Liz and I left London and set off for Oxford. Our first stop (well mine and Liz's) was a freshly brewed coffee before boarding our train and Kit being so lovely and organised had bought the paper to be divided up among us for the short train trip, the sport pages of course being the most sort after! Oxford as most of you know is a University town and is made up of lots of different colleges and we were so lucky as to have our very own personal guide of the town as Kit had gone to Oxford for his studies.

The main event for coming to Oxford though was to go punting. This is a boat which is kind of like a canoe cross gondola and it has a huge long metal pole - the punt - which you use to push and steer you through the canals. This was so much fun! Kit of course took the pole first to give us all a lesson on how to punt then it was Emme's turn, she did a pretty fine job and managed to only run us into a few trees. I had a go and my forte was not running into trees but into the banks of the canal, but I have to say with the pole being more than twice my height I think I did a pretty good job. Liz had the crucial job of actually stopping Em and I from crashing more than we did by using the oar in the boat to guide the boat...I dare say, without her help Em and I may of had more run ins or worse, ended up in the canal!! And we actually had beautiful weather there, as I mentioned at the beginning, it was a miserable rainy day in London and the same had been predicted for Oxford but as luck would have it, the clouds were left behind and we actually got quite a fair bit of sun, especially for our punting expedition which was lovely as we were able to relax in the sun while Kit did all the hard work of moving us around the canal :)

We also managed to get a squiz inside one of the colleges as Kit showed us around his. They are so nice.My favourite are the lush green lawns that they all have, it made me want to go to sleep on them (unfortunately it had rained that morning and instead of being just soft and inviting they would have been cold and squelchy). And get this, at Oxford you are tutored on a one on one basis or sometimes two on one. No wonder they produce such smart cookies, unlike good ol' QUT and UQ with a twenty five to one ratio!!

The rest of the day was spent wandering around, having lunch and coming across a boost juice which made our day, especially Em's who could finally show Kit what a real smoothie was supposed to taste like!! haha All in all a great day out with great mates and some sunshine.

I love the North!!

2009-04-30T04:51:00.000-07:00

This little trip has to be one of my favourites since being over here. We only went away for 4 days but it was to the most loveliest places. We first took a long bus ride (5.5hrs) to Liverpool where after a friendly chat with the hostel chick we were off to The Beatles Experience!! I was super excited about this and rightly so, it was a great museum with so much info on the band. By the end of it we both had an overload and probably really couldn't tell you what we had just read. So to digest it all we sat down with a coffee while I contemplated which Beatles memorabilia I was going to purchase from the shop! I think I have chosen well and only spent a mini fortune instead of an actual fortune...lucky Liz was there to help me see sense.

After a look around the city, which is just beautiful, as everything is shiny and new as they were Cultural Capital of Europe last year and had a huge revamp. Albert Dock was really nice and we were quite bummed that we only had 24 hours here. That night we went to a pub and watch Liverpool play Chelsea, was really great as all the locals were there in their Liverpool jerseys yelling and hugging everytime they scored. Unfortunately Liverpool lost by 1 goal. No one was happy then. But I have officially declared Liverpool as my favourite city and I think I will even by a I heart Liverpool mug.

The next morning we set off to the train station to head to The Lakes District. It was a short but scenic trip and I was reminded again how much I love trains in comparison to the evil buses to travel. The Lakes is actually made up of 10 or so lakes with little towns next to them. Our little town was Windermere where the biggest lake of them all lives. It was adorable. We stayed in a backpackers which was nice but with very uncomfortable beds. And as soon as we had dropped our stuff off we went straight to the tourist office to get some directions for some of the many walks in our area. We did a short walk to one of the summits, it was classed as a 'C' grade walk so it was really easy. The views were brilliant but the wind was so strong I felt like I was going to go flying off!

Over the next 2 days we did 2 more walks one which was a 'B' walk, now I looked at the 'A' walks and decided against them since they encouraged strongly for you to use a compass, since we didn't have one and I don't know how to read one if my life depended on it we thought it best to stick with the lower grades! What I loved about these walks was that you actually went through peoples farms, climbed over rock walls and past about a million sheep. It was fantastic!! We did have to learn new terminology where a 'cairn' means a pile of rocks, a 'stile' is a wooden or rock ladder over a fence and a few others which I won't bore you with!

We also managed to spend a few lazy moments by Lake Windermere which was just lovely and wandered through the both Windermere and Bowness-on-Windermere, which is the town right beside the lake. Had some great food, relaxed and was the perfect way to finish up our holidays.

The only bad thing to happen the whole trip really was coming back down to London, we had to change change 3 times just to get to Liverpool. At one change we were on a train that went all the way to London and arrived at 5pm. Our bus out of Liverpool only left at 4pm and we were looking at another 5 hours til we hit home. We decided to enquire on how much a ticket would be on this super fast train.....65 quid. Each. You can safely assume that decided that the bus was the best option for us!!

Ireland

2009-04-28T10:47:00.000-07:00

With our tiny amount of luggage due to the restrictions of the wonderfully cheap flight by Ryan Air we set off for Dublin on a lovely Sunday. We got there kind of late in the afternoon but had just enough time to dump our stuff and go for a quick look around the city. We managed to see Trinity College, Dublin Castle and the main Cathedral, all very lovely to look at. We also went into the Temple Bar area and decided it would be nice to sit down with a beer/cider and listen to some traditional music. This was going well until I went to buy the drinks...13.20 euros for a pint of light beer and an alcopop. Holy shit!! So it's safe to say we only had one drink each. And yes, the music was good!

Our tour left bright and early on Monday morning, we were to set off on the 6 day all Ireland tour with 49 others and a tour guide....hmmm not too impressed with the 51 seated bus since we were under the impression most tours were only about 30 people, and the fact that half of the bus were rich gap year kids (18 year olds who take a year off after year 12 and become a teachers aide at a school exactly the same as the one they just left...hmm what a new learning experience) but this aside we headed off to our first sight seeing attraction with only 3 hours on a bus to get there.....but onto what we saw. Now I could bore you all with a day by day outline on what we did but instead I'm just going to give you the highlights in dot points as they are practical and easy to read :)

Blarney Castle - no I didn't kiss the stone...bloody disgusting if you ask me and I definitely don't need the gift of the gab which is apparently what it gives you HA!
Saw Inch Beach where Coldplays 'Yellow' clip was filmed just for all you music fans out there, it's a beach.
Stopped in Annascual a small town with not much in it except the explorer Tom Crean's pub for the night
Followed the coast line to Dingle which is a small but cute fishing village where due to the rain there was not much to do except have lunch and it is here that we had the NICEST fish since being over here
Drove around the Ring of Kerry - not all of it since it is 192km long but what we saw of it was pretty through all the rain and mist of course
Stayed the night in Killarney - due to the weather and the lateness of our arrival we didn't see much of it. Due to the shit organisation (lack there of actually) of our tour guide Liz and I were separated for the night, we weren't even on the same level! We only just survived....
Crossed the Shannon River, the longest on in Ireland and the UK at a whopping 300km...can you believe it?!
Cliffs of Moher - one of my favourites. These cliffs were amazing and we had such a beautiful day that we had our picnic lunch on the top of them
Burren Mountains - a bit of an odd thing really, it's just this huge space of land covered in limestone rock but was such a cool thing to see, I think this was one of Liz's favourites.
Galway was next - super cool town, we were actually really disappointed that we didn't have more time there. Listen to a fantastic local Irish band and had THE best Irish stew ever
Derry was really cool, again we got in late and didn't get to see much but we had a walking tour in the morning and was shown the areas during the Troubles and found out some really interesting stuff. Got to see some of the murals that had been painted...amazing but strange at the same time
Carrick-a-rede Rope Bridge - we crossed. Not so scary at all really especially when you have a lovely calm day with only a sprinkle of rain! Beautiful walk down to the bridge though
Giants Causeway - fantastic on our top 5 or Ireland. The Myth that goes with the rocks is so great that there is no way the scientific reason for their formation can be true....it just can't be
Belfast - this is such a beautiful place, the people were so friendly and it just had a really great feel to it. We went on a black cab tour where you are taken to both the east and west sides and are told stories of all the troubles and taken to all the murals. Amazing, it's hard to believe that such a lovely city had such a horrible past...what is amazing though is that even though they're largely at peace, the wall that separates the 2 communities still exist and the gates are still closed at night times due to not being able to trust each other.
Well this isn't really a highlight, especially not for Liz but I thought I'd put it in...we visited the Guinness Storehouse. Yeah, beer making is not that interesting but I got my free beer and that was that.

So there you have it. The main highlights. We really enjoyed Ireland but were quite disappointed by the tour.....it was lucky our guide (although disorganised) was really entertaining and knew her stuff about everywhere we went and made the long boring bus rides passable. Our accommodation was shit to say the least. Especially in Belfast where 22 of our bus got shafted to another hostel where we were put in a room, the same room, which was in an old building out the back of the actually hostel with no showers and no hot water. There was toilets but that was about it...safe to say we didn't enjoy that at all. It would be great to go back there with a car and visit all the places we didn't really have much time in and just take things at a slower pace..but that would take time and a fair amount of cash due to Ireland being so bloody expensive (well the Republic is the North is cheap as chips!

It's a sauna! It's a sauna! It's a sauna! It's a sauna!

2009-03-18T10:18:00.000-07:00

Sorry Merran, I know it's been almost 3 weeks since you left us and there is no good excuse for not writing this earlier, so I hope you like this blog about your stay in London.....

Liz and I had the immense pleasure of having our good friend Merran come and visit us in this fine city they call London. She arrived after a busy trip in California so it was safe to say my first encounter with her was waking her up after school whilst she was napping on our super small comfy sofa bed :) Our first trip out was of course, to a local pub where we had good old English food, pies, mash, peas and a pint.

We had a fun filled packed weekend up ahead. On Friday evening we had a few drinks and headed into Heaven which is one of the bigger gay night clubs in London. Of course we went there early and with vouchers so we didn't have to pay the ridiculous cover charge. It was an evening of drinking and 80's dancing with Merran being on the prowl but alas like The Beat, the males out numbered the women. But at the end of our evening we had a really fun hour long bus ride all the way home...it was super. NOT although Merran and I did manage to amuse ourselves.

Safe to say Saturday was quite slow and I do believe we only left the house to find food....but that geared us up for sunday. FOOTBALL DAY! We had bought tickets to see a Premier League match between West Ham and Manchester City. Turned out our seats weren't the best but regardless we were able to see all of the game AND the a way supporters area. I found it quite amusing to watch the banter between the two crouds of supporters. It's all so serious! The game itself was ok, not very exciting though with loads of dives, but West Ham did eventually score in the second half to win the game. After that we headed straight to a pub in Camden for some food and more beers. Which ended up with Merran and I quite tipsy. Lucky I had Monday off!!

Monday Merran and I had decided to pack it with loads of touristy stuff, the Tower of London was first on the list, followed by The British Museum followed by a trip to the theatre to meet Liz and Emme and finally see Wicked! It was a super fantastic day and I was so buggered by the end of it. My favourite of the day was the Tower, it was so surreal to stand in the exact same spots as Kings and Queens from the past...way cool. The Royal Jewels were pretty impressive too, as was the travelator that takes you past the jewels, we rode it 3 times just to make sure we got a good look at jewels in all their glory.

We waved off Merran bight an early Tuesday morning as she had to head to Heathrow to catch her plane to take her back to the wonderful land of Oz and begin her festivities at the Sydney Mardi Gras. I contemplated squeezing myself into her suitcase but it all seemed too much effort that early in the morning....

Leeds and York

2009-02-19T08:45:00.000-08:00

With a little bit of time off Liz and I decided to head up north for a few days rather than stick around London. Our choice was Leeds and York. Well actually it was my choice as Liz has seen most of this stuff already. The main reason for choosing these areas are as they are in Yorkshire, where they film the tv series Heartbeat. It just looks so nice on tv!! But alas, the areas that we were in were not where they film the show but further north in Yorkshire in an area called the Moors...however after that little bit of a disappointment I was still able to have a brilliant time.

Our first stop Leeds was really nice, it reminded me of Brisbane where everyone is nice and the pace is alot slower. There really wasn't much to do in Leeds as it was mostly filled with shops. I swear we saw 5 different shopping centres plus the main shopping mall area. Crazy! There were lots of buskers though in the mall which I really liked listening to. One in particular stood out and I'll include a picture as it was just awesome! This guys gets his dog Bess to sing certain parts of the song by either blowing on his harmonica or saying the word love. Awwww :) We also stumbled across these markets towards the edge of the city and they were filled with everything you could imagine, from fresh fruit and meat to gladwrapped teles and VCRs...haha loved it!

We caught a local bus to York on Sunday afternoon and fell in love with York as soon as I saw it. It is one of the oldest cities in the UK being built in AD71. Holy! What I really liked was the walls which still circle the town. We were able to walk all the way around the city on them and had tea in one of the gates, Walmgate which was just fab. York is also home to the Minster which is the largest Gothic Cathedral in the Northern Europe, it is awesome! We spent most of our time just wandering around all the small streets and looking in all the cute shops. York is also apparently one of the most haunted cities and so with this in mind we decided it would be best to go on a Ghost Walk tour at night. Ha! Actually it wasn't at all scary but it was really cool to listen to all the strange happenings that go on in the city. We even went and had lunch at the oldest pub built in 1503 and whilst deciding what you'd like to eat you also can read about about all the ghosts that live in the pub! Cracking. But what would a visit to one of the oldest places in the north be without an afternoon break of scones, jam, fresh cream and a cup of tea.

Snow!

2009-02-19T04:52:00.000-08:00

Well, I know it was 2 weeks ago but I thought it best to write a bit about our snow experience here in London. It was so much fun!! What was even better was that we had been at the pub with Emme Sunday afternoon (£3 pound cocktails...how could we leave?!) and both Liz and I were not looking forward to the prospect of work on the Monday but it was our lucky day as there was no work due to the amount of snow fallen. Nice!! haha

We made snow angels and a wee little snowman. I feel ashamed of ours after I saw Emme's efforts with her gianormous snowman but in my defence, my boots were completely wet and my socks were soaked through so a small one was all I could manage. What a sook!!! But I did enjoy playing in it...it is just so pretty.

School that week was awesome...Monday and Tuesday off, Wednesday was a play in the snow day, Thursday I actually had to teach and Friday it snowed again quite heavily. So even though I made it to school before the snow fell, I still only had half a class where we went and played in the snow and then most of my class left at lunch leaving me with 4 children all afternoon. Sweet!

Blasts from the Pasts - January 2009

2009-02-03T08:33:00.000-08:00

We had a lovely catch up with 2 old friends of mine from good Ol' Wello Point. Sally and Beth came to London after travelling around for a short stop over and I was lucky enough to have them squeeze me in!

Ice-skating at Sommerset House

2009-01-11T12:27:00.001-08:00

We have ended our weekend on a high note. By heading to the open air ice-skating rink at Sommerset House. It was beautiful. Now I know ice-skating itself is not so beautiful...well not when your watching Liz and I attempt to skate gracefully around and around. But the rink is in the middle of the courtyard at Sommerset House and there is these lovely blue and green lights that made the ice glow and was therefore beautiful. What wasn't beautiful was the 150 other people we had to share the rink with...luckily we escaped without any collisions and we came off the ice after the hour without being knocked down OR falling down ourselves. HOORAY!

Happy New Year!!

2009-01-11T12:10:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone has had a great start to 2009! We saw in the New Year quite quietly. We went into Camden for dinner and then went to Primrose Hill, which was a short walk away, to watch the fireworks which were happening on the London Eye. We couldn't hear the fireworks but the we could definatley see them. So beautiful!

Liz and I are both doing well. School has gone back already and I have gotten a few set contract days at a couple of schools which is great and Liz is continuing with her nanny duties. We are still enjoying being here but are beginning to miss home especially with this cold cold weather, although, I'm sure once we're home we'll be complaining about the heat! Which brings me to when are we heading back down under....well first of all we'd like to say.....

CONGRATULATIONS!!! To Liz's brother Jeremy and his partner Allie who have become engaged!! We are sad we'll miss your engagement party but are looking forward to seeing you at your wedding!!

So.....this means we will be home for their wedding which we believe they are thinking early September so we will be home around then! We have a fair bit of travelling we'd still like to do so the plan is to do all that before we fly back.

Well that is the general news for now. Ciao :)

Mini Christmas in our apartment :)

2009-01-11T11:37:00.001-08:00

Here is Liz and I celebrating our own Christmas before heading off to Belgium. We had so many gifts to open we thought it best to open them instead of taking them all on the bus! Thanks to everyone who sent them over, they were lovely, we had so much fun opening them!! And thank you to the people who sent us cards too!

Christmas in Antwerp

2009-01-05T08:34:00.000-08:00

For our 2008 Christmas we headed off to Antwerp as we were invited by Ingrid and Tom to join them for the celebrations as they also had Emme and Lyn (Ingrid and Emme's mum) visiting as well!! What a full little apartment they had!

Our chosen style of traveling was by bus which when we planned it seemed like a good idea. We booked a night bus which left London in the evening to arrive in Antwerp early in the morning thinking that we would just sleep the whole way feeling nice and rested and ready to celebrate. Ha I hear you all say. Yep, I think we got THE worst bus in the world. We had a 4 year kicking our chair and pulling our hair on regular intervals as well as a teenager who continually stared at us (and no we gave her no cause to stare!). We also didn't think about getting on the ferry at Dover where we had to vacate the bus to go up on deck...then when we got to Calais, France we had to go through Border Control....this all happened between 1.30am to 3.30am. So I guess you figured that we didn't really sleep much at all!! But in saying that I was wide awake when Em and Tom came to get us, a friendly hug! It was just what I needed!

Our next three days were mainly a blur of talking, talking and more talking where in between we ate and drank and played games. In Belgium the main celebration/dinner happens on Christmas Eve, however we did not have a tradition Belgian meal but an Aussie one!! Ingrid cooked up a delicious Turkey with all the trimmings including real, that's right, REAL cranberry sauce! We concluded the evening with desserts made by Lyn which are Christiansen traditions...and no wonder they were delicious! We ended our evening with calls back home to Aus. Our Christmas day started off slow with presents and breakfast made by Emme - I tell you these Christiansen woman are welcome in my kitchen any day!! :) For Christmas dinner we were invited to Tom's parents place to have leftovers, of stew which is what they traditionally eat this time of year. The stew we had was deer stew with chocolate and wine I think...it was sooo good! And wine....all our meals were of course accompanied by alcoholic beverages :)

Boxing day we headed into Antwerp to watch 'Australia' at the cinemas...completely disappointed by the movie but we evened that out by treating ourselves to waffles..mmmm

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-18T09:41:00.000-08:00

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

2008-12-18T09:26:00.000-08:00

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!

2008-12-11T10:38:00.000-08:00

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!!

2008-11-17T10:08:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-04T10:48:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-04T10:40:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-04T10:12:00.000-08:00

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

2008-11-04T09:49:00.000-08:00

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

2008-10-29T03:34:00.000-07:00

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!!

2008-10-29T03:04:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-28T08:18:00.000-07:00

Not much else to say about Pisa really!

Florence, Italy

2008-10-28T08:08:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-28T08:05:00.000-07:00

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

2008-10-28T07:39:00.000-07:00

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

2008-09-24T10:57:00.001-07:00

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

2008-09-24T10:55:00.000-07:00

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!

Salzburg, Austria

2008-09-24T10:29:00.000-07:00

Not really too much to Salzburg, except of course THE SOUND OF MUSIC TOUR!! I have now, re-enacted a few scenes from the movie when visiting some of the places they shot it. And I was not the only one!! There are millions of us flocking to Salzburg just to ride on the very cooly painted bus and hear all about the wonders the is The Sound of Music. I was a little disappointed though as you don’t get to go to the top of the hill and sing the opening line as the mountain is a 3 or 4 hour walk up the mountain to do this and well, they don’t really have time for that! But I do have to say it was a definite highlight. Another highlight whilst on this tour was the Apple Strudel….mmmm delicious!

We also just walked around the Old Town which is super cute, it’s this tiny street and there are just shops everywhere and all them have this great signs hanging from the outside of each shop…very old fashion but adorable! Here in Salzburg we went to the Augustina beer hall and had Pork Knuckle, Potato and beer. Was soooo good! The knuckle we got given was supposed to feed just one person but Liz and I had a hard time finishing it off together!! And all the beer is served straight out of the barrels…was really good….had a few half pints in preparation for Oktoberfest!

Let the Beer Drinking Festivities begin!!!

2008-09-19T01:05:00.001-07:00

So we have made it Munich, the beer capital of the world and home of the world famous Oktoberfest!! Liz has done some training and drank her very FIRST WHOLE half stein yesterday in preparation for the weekend. I'm so proud of her :)

We are camping for the weekend but a slight problem is that in the space of 5 days, Germany has decided to drop quite a few degrees....actually alot. We have had to go out and buy thermals so that we do not get frosbite over the next 3 nights. This I am not looking forward to but I am very excited about the rest of it as you all know it's been a life long dream to come here and drink gallons of beer in a giant tent hahaha

Stay tuned for the ending of this beautiful tale.......

Vienna, Austria

2008-09-14T10:37:00.000-07:00

Vienna has done everything possible to make us dislike it but we have been determined to have a great time!

Issues:

Number 1.Our first night in our dorm room was full of stinky, snoring men so it was safe to say we really didn’t sleep that well.

Number 2.Got up in the morning to explore and went to get some money out of my Travel Card account and was not able to. Little worried. But that’s ok because we have our calling card and we’ll just ring and fix it all up. Calling card doesn’t work. Fine. Spend 5 euros to call the card people to find out they have blocked my card to do an identity check on me. It is blocked because they did not receive the form and correct papers back by the due date….they sent the paper work to my London address. Where I am not since I’m travelling, with my Travel Card. FOOLS!! To clear this up I have to send them a fax of my passport, drivers license and a document with my UK address on it….right. Called Katie (Liz’s sister) on skype to see if she could help as all our paperwork is at her house. Turns out we were nicely organised as we had copies of all 3 things in a bag at her place. FEW! Still haven’t found out if I’m cleared or not yet. THANKS KATIE!!!

Number 3: Liz has broken out in giant red itchy bumps….she has picked up bed bugs. At 8.30pm at night trying to find a chemist to get calamine lotion and antihistamines was a feat. And we failed. Poor Lizzie went to bed so itchy. Up early the next morning though to get treatments. Poor Lizzie is still suffering... we are shaking our fists at whichever hostel did this to her!

But after all this, we have still managed to really enjoy Vienna. There is lots to do here and we have done everything we wanted to. We walked around the Ring Road which encircles the main part of the city and houses all the important buildings. The Hofburg Palace, State Opera, Parliament, Museum Quarter and lots more. We then walked a bit out of town to look at the Hundertwasserhaus which is this great apartment block which this particular artist/architect designed. It’s all different colours and everything is uneven and just great. Really different. After this we went back to the Opera to line up for nearly 2 hours to get standing tickets for 4 euro each!! The Opera we saw was called Ariadne Auf Naxos and was all in German and even though we had translation screens in front of us, it was a little hard to read that and watch. But we can now say we’ve been to the Opera. Feet were bloody sore after that!

Our next day took us to Praterstern which is a big fun fair park with heaps of rides and games and junk food. A permanent Ekka if you will. It was really quiet and not many rides were open so it was a little eerie but we had a look around and then walked back into the city. On our way there, we stopped for coffee and some on Vienna’s Sacher Torte. Best chocolate cake. Visited St Stephen’s Cathedral in the centre of the city and then headed out to a Heurige (wine tavern) called 10er Marie to test out all this wine people keep going on about. And I have to say it is worth going on about!! Liz had this white wine which had only been made that day. We think. But it came out in mugs and looked like cloudy apple juice but tasted so good! I had some red wine which I really liked. And it was so cheap. A Mug (250mls) cost us 2 euro 20 cents! Cheap drunks we were! Plus there was a festival in the streets just outside this tavern so there was heaps of great music so we had a great night.

Saturday was another wandering and exploring day ready for our big Sunday of going to Mass!! That’s right, you heard me, Mass! We got up super early to get a decent standing spot to hear the Vienna Boys Choir sing in the Chapel attached to the Hofburg Palace. We froze and our feet were a little sore by the end of it but it was well worth it. The Choir was one of the most beautiful sounds I have ever heard. We only got to see them for 1 song as they were in a different room for most of the service but it was enough just to hear them. As the day has been bloody cold here, we warmed up with some delicious coffees and then lazed around reading and relaxing at the hostel.

Tomorrow, Salzburg….The hills are alive with the sound of music. I AM SO EXCITED!!!

Bled, Slovenia

2008-09-14T10:21:00.000-07:00

We headed off to Bled next, which is about and hour and 20 minutes from the capital. Got a bus, and again, had to find a map and walk with our backpacks…slightly more painful this time as there were hills!. I swear I was going to collapse just as Liz spotted the hostel! Dropped our stuff and went for a look. Bled has a famous lake and it is absolutely beautiful. It’s huge and blue and clear. You could even see the fish if the water was shallow. It was quite hot, so we decided to go back to the hostel to check in and grab our togs so we could go swimming in the lake! Diving in the water was a bit cold but it was so gorgeous to swim in. Just being able to look around you and see the castle, mountains…oh it was wonderful! Over the next 3 days, we went swimming in the Lake every day even when the sun was hiding.

We hired a little wooden boat and rowed to the little Island in the middle of the Lake which has a church on it. We decided not to explore as we have seen so many churches, plus we only had the boat for an hour and we wanted to keep rowing. I was not very good at it but Liz was great. Some action shots will accompany this blog!! We walked all around the Lake also, which is 4km, we did it in a very leisurely stroll so as not to exert ourselves. We also tried their famous Cream Cake. This is pretty much a better version of vanilla slice, but with a thick layer of cream on the top…mmmm I also tested out their 2 Slovenian brews here, both coming in 500ml bottles which I found amusing. One called Union was so so but I really liked the other which I think was called Lasko.

On our last day we decided to walk to the Vintgar Gorge which was about a 45 minute walk from our hostel. When we reached the area we could already hear the water rushing and when we saw the first river we were amazed. The water was crystal clear. So lovely. The Gorge walk took about an hour to the end and back. And as we had gotten up a bit early to do it, we didn’t come across anyone else which made us feel like we were in our world. In some parts the water was this beautiful green colour. If it wasn’t so cold in the Gorge you would have jumped in!
We really enjoyed Slovenia, everything was so cheap, the people were really friendly and the views at Bled were just beautiful. Definitely a place I would recommend to everyone!!

Ljubljana, Slovenia

2008-09-14T10:15:00.000-07:00

So after our trip to Budapest we were supposed to hop on a bus back to Prague. But since Prague really didn’t impress us that much we decided to take a side journey to Slovenia as a few people from our tour recommended it. So we stayed an extra night in Budapest to organise ourselves and booked train tickets to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia. We were under the impression that we had the one train all the way there which was about an 8 hour trip. So we got on this super nice train only to be told that in 3 hours we would have to get off and get on a bus. Right. Following everyone else we hopped on this un air-conditioned bus that just drove for an hour and half through the countryside. I only knew we were still in Hungary because every now and then I would see the Hungarian flag out the front of houses. Finally we stop and got our bags and were moved to a different train. This one was not so fancy, had no air con and we couldn’t really tell if we were getting on the right one. We did however see the ticket man so we figured we were ok. We hoped! We got to be in a carriage just like the ones Harry Potter takes to Hogwarts…this I found a little exciting, except there was no lady coming around with a sweet cart, wee bit disappointed there!! 4ish hours later we arrived in Ljubljana. HOORAY!!

It’s night time, and we have no map and no clue as to how to get to our hostel. Hmmmm Lucky, Lizzie found a random map in a display so we kind of made a mud map off of that. Now the only problem was that we had to carry our backpacks. Yes! This is the first time we’ve really had to carry them further than down the stairs of a hostel and onto a bus. It was awful! I swear, if we ever ACTAULLY backpack, I am buying one of those expensive women ones and only taking 10 items of clothing!! Found the hostel so all was good.

Our day in Ljubljana had us just looking around. There was not too much to see there except a few buildings, a castle on a hill and a canal. But it was pretty and the people were really nice. We actually slept most of it as we were so buggered from the Trek.

Photos from meeting Krystyna and Chris in Krakow

2008-09-14T03:53:00.000-07:00

Eastern Trekker Tour 29th-4th September

2008-09-06T08:51:00.000-07:00

On the morning of the start of our tour we were up nice and early to have breakfast and meet our fellow trekkers. There are 32 of us and there was no way we were going to remember all of their names! Our first stop was the Bone Church in Kutna Hora. This was freaky. The whole inside of the church is filled with human bones, some are made into chandileirs, into huge caves and just generally hanging around. Liz absolutely loved it, me, meh bit creepy. But the reason being that the gravyard attached to the church was overfilled so they decided to do something with all the bones and this is what they came up with!

After this, we continued on to Olomouc where we checked into our hotel and had a teeny rest before meeting up with the group again to go on a walking tour led by our tour leader. Not too much really went on this town and plus I was way to hungry to pay attention. It is a fairly small town with a square. Oh the founder of Genetics studied here. We then went to dinner but as some of us had to go to the ATM we got left behind but were eventually found and as we were starving we were of course THE last ones to get our dinner. I swear I was going to eat the table cloth! But I had Goulash and all was well in the world again. Visited a plane that landed in the city and they never bothered to move it so now it's a bar. Smelt bad so we didn't stay.

Day 2 had us back on the bus and off to Auswitz . Bit nervous about going here. Was definately an interesting experience. There really just isn't many words to describe how it makes you feel in there.

Back on the bus to Kracow we stayed in a dodgy hostel but it was mostly clean so it was ok. First night we went to dinner and had Perogi which Liz had been raving about as her Dad and Babcia used to make it. It is a kind of dough with meat,vegetable or fruit filling, kind of like ravioli but without sauce on top. It was delicious!!! Had the local beer, not bad, and then went to a club which had us having a shot of Polish Wodka. Oh my god. Never again! I swear it burnt all of my taste buds going down. Next day was a bike tour around Kracow. This city is so beautiful, there is a huge river running through it and the day was so sunny and gorgeous it made us fall in love wtih it. In the afternoon we met up with Liz's relatives. Her Dad has been speaking with his cousin Krystyna for a while now and her nephew Chris spoke pretty good English so he came to translate between Liz and Krystyna. It was a great experience and they have convinced us to return at the end of the year and visit them again. Krystyna lives a little way out of Kracow so it will be lovely to visit her home and hopefully try some of her cooking as the Polish have some delicious dishes! That night we went to a salsa bar and I had a go. It was so much fun!! Who is up for joining Salsa dancing with me when I get home????? :)

Day 4 took us to Zakopane which was only 3 hours away. The afternoon was our own to go exploring so after a quick look through the village we decided to climb up one of the mountains. We are pretty unfit but we were surprised that it didnt' take us that long to climb it, plus we chose the smaller of the two, as one mountain climb on the opposite side of the village took 2 hours to get up and 2 hours to get down...yeah not for us right now. The views at the top were absolutely beautiful and would look even more amazing during winter. The mountain are part of the Tatry Ranges and I think our mountain was 1130m high. Dinner that night was out to a grill place that had shish kebabs the size of me. Liz and I chose to share this meal and we were glad of it as it was huge but so delicious.

Day 5 took us to Budapest and on the way we had lunch in a church yard in the middle of Slovakia and then headed into Hungary. Our night was organised by our tour leader, first off was dinner at a restaurant and then on to a 'booze cruise' which was meant to be all you can drink whilst on the boat....yeah, the beer was hot and the wine ran out before everyone even hopped on...RIPPED OFF!! Was a little cranky at our tour guide for leading us on to this as we all had to pay the equivalent of 16 euros each for the pleasure. Not happy Jan! But the night picked up as we went to a cool bar and started throwing back the drinks which were very cheap and tasty. Then moved onto a night club which was underground and smokey but playing trashy but cool music which seemed to suit our tour. Lots of dancing and drinking and Liz hoovering the streets of Budapest as they were dirty...picture to come later haha

Day 6, bad hangover but we were all up to go on our bike ride of Budapest. We were a little slow but glad that the Pest side was flat. Not so happy about the Buda side where we had to ride up a massive hill to see a castle. Some walked but most of us rode all the way. View was definately worth it. You could see all of the River Danube and the Pest side. Ride back down was much more pleasant and then it was off to Burger King for us!

Day 7 had the bus leaving for Split and us staying behind as this was were we hopped off. It was sad to say goodbye to the group who we'd just kind of gotten to know, but some are living in London so we may catch up with them again. Another guy hopped off as well, so we hung out with him until we left Budapest. We went to the Thermal Baths which were fantastic and so relaxing. One of the baths was 38 degrees and just wonderful, we didn't want to hop out but it was recommended to only stay in there for 20 mins.

Budapest was really great and so cheap that it is definately a place worth visiting. We also really loved Poland and so I am sure we will be returning there again soon. The tour was definately an experience and we are now looking forward to enjoying getting back to doing our own thing.

Prague

2008-08-28T13:40:00.001-07:00

As we only have had 2 days in Prague we have mainly just walked around the city and wandering through their many many streets and ally ways. We have been on 2 walking tours here as the city is kind of divided on either side of the river. On the left bank is the Prague Castle which is bloody huge! Our guide was a bit boring though, as he had lots of knowledge about architecture and the centuries in which the buildings were built but far out he did not know how to deliver them! I swear Liz was snoring behind her sunglasses! But it was a great view when you got to the castle as it is on the top of a huge hill. The right bank is the Old Town and this is where all the shops, restaurants and gothic buildings are. On this tour we learnt about the buildings (again) and about the history of the city after WWII, mostly about the communist regime which was run by the Soviet Union and how the Czech's over threw them in 1993...interesting stuff actually.

One afternoon we stumbled on the 5th International Folklore Festival where many different countries where in their traditional dress and performing traditional dances. It was brilliant! We had such a lovely afternoon/evening sitting in the sun, drinking cocktails and being entertained! We saw some Polish dancers so we took lots of photos of them for the Jucha's! and New Zealand had some representatives which was great to watch.

Had some pork, dumplings and saurkraut with some local beer so I think we have seen everything there is to see here. Lovely place.

Dresden

2008-08-28T12:56:00.000-07:00

Dresden. A small town filled with old buildings and old people. Yes! That's right. The elderly flock to this town. It was crazy, the day we went into The Old Town, (it really is called that) there was just bus after bus of over 50's!!! This section of the city was 98% destroyed by bombing at the end of WWII just to piss off Hilter...well done Allies. So most of the buildings that are 'old' are actually reconstructed and they are a mixture of new sandstone and burnt stones from the destruction. But in saying that, they do have some really lovely buildings and our favourite was the Swinger which is an old palalce. Was just beautiful.

Around where our hostel is what I called the hippie quarter and this was an are filled with alternate people, goths sitting on a sofa on the footpath drinking just one example, and lots of bars. And lots of beach bars which we also saw in Germany and went to one with Ingrid and Tom in Antwerp. But basically they lay sand in a large area and then add in a bar, chairs and table and there you have it...a beach bar!! But as I was still feeling like crap we did not go to any of these bars. I just slept most of the time to try and get better for the rest of our trip.

A very quiet town.

Berlin

2008-08-28T12:28:00.000-07:00

Berlin was amazing. It has so much history that it was an overload by the end of the 4 days! On our first day we did the walking tour which was just great. Our guide was Scottish but he'd been living in Berlin for 10 years so he had lots of things to say! We visited so many places that I can't quite remember what they all were but we of course saw the main things, Brandenburg Gate, Berlin Wall and the Topograpy of Terror (this is a photo gallery of the Nazi party and their torture & intimidation methods), outsides of the many museums, the Berliner Dom (one of Liz's favourite building in Europe so far), some other cathedrals and synagogues around the city. Oh and Checkpoint Charlie, one of the four checkpoints that entered into the Allies section of the city during the Cold War.

One day we went to the German History Museum which we thought would only take 2 hours but we were in there for 4! And our brains were definately a little sore after reading so much information! But we have gained a better understanding of the World Wars, especailly the second one and how the nazi regime came to be in power. There is also this massive Jewish Memorial in the middle of the city, it's really quite depressing, but there is a information centre under it, so we also had a look there.

On our last day, we went for a walk to the Berlin Wall on the Eastern side, it's known as the East Side Gallery, and this is the longest still standing part of the original wall. It's 1.3km and every 3 years artists are drawn out of a ballot and come and paint a section of the wall...it looks fantastic. I cannot imagine what it was like to have your city divided into 2....madness really.

The picutre on the left is of the Jewish Memorial and the picture on the right is of the East Side Gallery - bit graffitied but you can still see the picture well enough.

Amsterdam 14-19th August

2008-08-20T07:10:00.000-07:00

So we have visited this so called city of sin and well, it really isn't that sinful. On our first day we went on a walking tour (we do love them) and the guide told us so much about the history of the city that it made us realise there is more to it than just drugs and sex! However in saying this, we did manage to visit the Red Light District on a Saturday night...was definately an eye opener but no where near as seedy or dodgy as I thought it would be. There are just lots of bars and coffee houses mixed with restuarants and of course, lots of glass doorways with business women waiting for clients. They definately cater to a wide variety of clients...some were very interesting in deed! We also saw the highest point in Amsterdam which is walking bridge, and as most of the city is below sea level this bridge one of the only things above it! The skinny house was another favourtie of ours, this house is only 1.8m wide and 1 man lives there. It is skinny as way back people were taxed on how wide their houses were and I guess the person who built this was not very wealthy!

On the Friday night we went on a Pub Crawl and there we met some of the people we've been travelling on the buses with and managed to get drunk and dance the night away. Was super fun even if the clubs were a bit dodgy. We also managed to waste a good few hours one day in a park just enjoying the sunshine and the ability to do nothing. I visited the Van Gogh Museum whilst Liz explored the city. Art is really not her thing so we decided to go our separate ways on this morning. I really enjoyed it and found it quite interesting...he has such cool paintings! There were a few markets around which we went and visited, mostly just junk but nice to wander through.

On our last day there we thought we would be energetic and hire bikes and go for a ride outside of the city. It had been raining that morning but we tried to stay positive and waited til it had stopped for an hour before hiring them. So we were about 30mins out of the city when it started to pour...our executive decision, since we had no rain coats and no idea what would be at the end of the map, was to turn around and dry out somewhere with food and coffee. Which we did. There are so many bikes in this city it's just crazy, if you hear a bell you have to get out of the way fast or you hear dutch being yelled at you as they ride past. And you don't want to mess with them as they're huge!!

We also visited Rembrandt's statue in Rembrandt Park (original I know) which was a really cool part of the city. And just around the corner was Leidseplein where there were always street performers in the square which I liked to watch. I drank Heineken here but unfortunately the brewery was closed, so no beer making for me. And I think that's it for Amsterdam.

Chocolate, Waffles, Fries & Beer. 12th-14th August

2008-08-19T12:44:00.000-07:00

Yes! That’s right, we are still in Belgium but have moved onto the tourist town of Brugges. Here we did all things Belgian as you can see from our title! There was not too much to see in Brugges so we were glad that it was only a two day stop. But it was such a pretty little place (even though it did rain on and off the whole time). On our first night we went out on a walking tour of the city, which turned into a hike really as the guide I don’t think really wanted to be doing it. However, he was entertaining and gave us lots of interesting facts about Brugges’s history. For example, all of the houses/buildings have brick fronts where you cannot see the roof behind it. Why? Well, back in the day when they were making them, brick was super expensive so people build their houses out of wood and then just put the brick in the front to give the illusion that they were well off!!

Our hostel was pretty old but it did the trick….even if we had to walk through a 10 bed dorm to get to our little 4 bed dorm! On our second night there, a group of people were staying in the bigger dorm and had been out sampling the delicious Belgian beer I’m sure, and at 3am thought it would be cool to let off the fire extinguisher in their room. I heard all the ruckus but was too tired to get up and see what had happened. Glad I didn’t, that whole room was covered in pink dust as was all their belongings and the beds. Super glad we didn’t choose to be skimpy on that hostel and chose the 4 bed dorm!!
Sampled 2 more beers here. One being the Brugge beer (cannot remember the name) and the beer in the picture of me is called a Qwak, as it’s supposed to make a quaking sound as you drink it…I didn’t hear the quack and was pretty drunk after one due to it being 8%!! And yes Tom, I took an hour to drink it just like you told me to!!

We also climbed to the highest point in all of Brugge. There is a windmill on it which I also climbed, but can you beileve the size of this hill...it's a slope people, not a hill! haha

We also visited this cafe/restaurant called Choc Bar which as it's name states is a bar full of chocolate. Here we had hot chocolates that were just heavanly and then we decided to try their signature dish which was a beef stew cooked in Leffe beer and chocolate. I have never tasted anything like it before...it was delicious!!

We really like Belgium, the people were friendly, the food tasty and the beer cold. What more do you need!

Ingrid & Tom's Bed & Breakfast, Antwerp Belgium 10-12th August

2008-08-19T12:16:00.000-07:00

So our next destination was Belgium where we were dropped off in Bruges by the bus and jumped on a train to Antwerp to see Ingrid and Tom. For those who don’t know who these people I speak of are, Ingrid is the sister of my good friend Emme and Tom is Ingrid’s fiancée. When we hopped off the train they were there to meet us and took us to their cosy apartment where for dinner Tom cooked us what Ingrid referred to as poor man Belgian food but to Liz and I it was five star as this was the best home cooked meal we’d eaten since before we started out trip! It was sausages, potatoes and this red cabbage and apple stuff ( I remember the actual name of it!) delicious! Also we got to try some chocolates and of course a Belgian beer, which Tom advised me to drink slowly due to it’s high percentage of alcohol content. Safe to say, after it I was slightly tipsy. They then took us to this lovely outside summer bar and then Ingrid took us to see a movie which was being screened in the old hangers by the river. It was awesome!! It had lights and you just pulled up a blanket to watch. And to make it even better, it was in English with Flemish subtitles! Score!

The next day Liz and I got a sleep in and around lunch time Ingrid finished work early to take us around town. It’s a really small place but so quaint and lovely. We got to go and try REAL schnapps at this bar, so many choices! But we all chose different ones and shared. They were so strong (20% but the strongest was above 60% I think!) and after 2 each we left as we didn’t want to be drunk! We also got to try Belgian waffles which were delish! I think this would have to be part of Liz’s favourite part of Belgium!

After another home cooked meal and a few drinks our second night was over and the morning came too quickly and we were off back to the train to Bruges.

So thank you Ingrid and Tom for having us, we had a great time and cannot wait for Christmas!!

Bonjour! 5th-10th August

2008-08-12T00:39:00.000-07:00

Our next destination was the beautiful city of Paris, France. So we hoped on our first bus and while watching movies and tv series on the bus we crossed the German boarder and were in France. 4 hours later we were driving through Paris. This city is amazing. Everyone is really nice and the feeling you have when you are there is indescribable. We loved it!

On our first day we took a 'free' walking tour which lasted 4 hours. This did not turn out to be free as you are expected to tip the guide at the end. False advertising! But it turned out to be worth it, as we got shown to all the major sites and gave us our bearings for the rest of the trip. The weather there was absolutley gorgeous for the first few days but then we had rain for a few days, not that it stopped us from getting out and exploring!

We saw Notre Dame and went inside to have a look, it is such a lovely building, so much detail, and the gargoyles are way cool. We also stumbled into an area known as the Latin Quarter where we mananged to find some super cool streets with some tasty food to eat. It was a really bohemien area where we were told lots of student's hang out. We tried to find this area on another day and as we didn't take any notice of the street names it took us 3 hours of walking to refind it again! We really liked the food there so we visited it 3 times in all.

We were super excited to visit the Moulin Rouge and we did this on the Thursday night. It was so cool! Their costumes are fabulous, their dancing was fairly average but everything else was super cool so it didn't matter. In the show there was also a ventriliquist, acrobatics, a juggler and the coolest was this lady who swam in a giant tank filled with water and snakes!! On Friday we visited the Louvre, this place is so huge! I swear we walked at least 3km and we barley even got through 1 third of the place. I saw the Mona Lisa but to do this I had to push my way through the hundreds of tourists who were taking photos of it. We also saw some other famous artworks but I cant' remember all thier names! After the gallery we went to sit in the park to eat crepes and watch the Eiffel Tower which was all lit up. It was magical, and on the hour the put lights on that twinkle and you here everyone in the park go ooooo, it's great! We didn't go up it then but decided to wake up super early the next morning to try and beat the crowds which kind of worked, but we still had to wait a little while to go up. And no, we didn't climb to the second floor, we just lifted it all the way up! The view was spectacular! Something I will not forget quickly!

On our last day, we bought some delicious pastries and went and sat down beside the River Seine and watched the boats go by, I think this was one of my favourite parts of Paris. That night we went to the hightest point in Paris which has the Sacre Coueur which is a lovely church and we ate cheese and drank wine on the hill until we got chased out by security as they were closing!

It was kind of sad to leave Paris as we just had such a good time, and loved just walking around and finding new things but the adventure must continue!

Au Revoir

Stuttgart, Germany

2008-08-04T05:34:00.000-07:00

Well, we are finally on our adventure and our first stop has been Stuttgart. We arrived here with little hassle with only our plane being delayed half an hour in Stanstead(UK) due to the mob of people waiting to check in - there was no queue and it took us an hour and a half to make it to the desk. CRAZY!

We managed to navigate our way to our Hostel really easy as there are loads of signs around - not in English mind you, but we are getting very good at matching words! The hostel is actually more a hotel and here we have a room by ourselves and we get to watch tv! So now, we have watched The Simpsons and Little Britain in German...my life is now almost complete.

The city itself is really lovely. It's slow paced and not at all crowded which is a nice change from the ever busy London. It has these beautiful squares in which cafes and bars surround it as well as places for people to sit so you can just relax and enjoy the sunshine. Also great for people watching! There is not much here to sightsee as it is not so much a tourist destination as some of the other places we'll be going to. But it has been a great way to start our holiday by forcing us to just take it easy, enjoy our sleep ins and relax.

However, we have tried as many German related food and drink as our daily budget will allow. Meat, bread and beer is what seems to be the delicacy here and we have definately enjoyed trying them. Our favourite is Bratwurst and Kasseler, both of these are just served in a plain bread roll and are scrumptious! The Kasseler is kind of like ham but super thick slices and much more tasty. We also had dinner in a restaurant here and the meals we had were great - again meaty but oh so good.

The one thing we have seen here is an exhibit called United Buddy Bears which are these 2m tall bear statues which have been painted by an artist from each country who are a part of the UN. They were so beautiful -Australia's was there and our bear was painted by Ken Done but ours was not the coolest by a long shot!

The countdown is nearly over!!

2008-07-27T05:05:00.001-07:00

With only 4 days left in London we are beginning to pack up all of our stuff and are not at all sad about leaving 101 Long Lane! But we are amazed at how much crap we have accumulated in just 5 months, thank goodness for Katie (Liz's sister) who is taking all the stuff we don't need for the trip to her place.

Our first stop is Stuttgart where we arrive around lunch time on Friday, we'll be there for 4 days and are really looking forward to just exploring and being out of London. We'll be moving cities about every 4 days and our trip will eventually end in Lucerne, Switzerland on the 24th of October. So far we haven't really worked out how long we'll stay there or when or how we'll get back to England but that'll get sorted eventually.

We're getting really excited and I'm also getting a little nervous, although I'm sure I'll be fine once we're out there!

I will try and update this page as much as I can as we do everything but don't be surprised if it's left unattended for awhile!!

Weekend by the Seaside 20th-22nd June

2008-06-30T09:29:00.000-07:00

As Liz's Mum was in Cornwell for a week, we decided to go there to keep her company just for the weekend and then bring her back to London where she is staying for the next 3 weeks. So on Friday night we bundled up our mini backpacks and headed off to Victoria Station to catch the 11:45pm train to Truro. Not the best nights sleep we've ever had but we were so buggered from staying awake just to catch it that we were snoozing within 10mins of the train departing. Next thing you know, it's 7am and we've arrived! First order of the day, coffee and a full enlish breakfast at the B & B Mrs Jucha had booked for us all. We were staying in a little village called Falmouth which was a half hour drive from where the train dropped us. So picturesque, our view from our window overlooked the harbour, but we were mostly excited about the mattresses that didn't have springs poking into your back unlike our bed back in London!! So after our hearty breakfast we hopped in the car and headed to a place call The Eden Project which have these massive bioms (look like giant golf balls from the road) that have had forests built into them. All of the plants, trees and flowers are native from many different countries. In the sub tropic biom it felt just like being at home and I never thought I would get so excited to see a bottle brush flower!! The whole place though was about sustainablilty and there were other things that were interesting but I won't bore you with it all :)

Next stop was a fishing village called Looe, we even had to catch a barge across this inlet to get to it. It had cobbled streets and tiny shops, it was just so damn cute! Plus we had a conrish pasty which is a must down in that area. Not bad for potato, meat and pastry.

On the Sunday we went to a beach near where we were staying to see if the water feels different in the Atlantic Ocean...so it looks the same but my god it was freakin' cold!! Anyone watching us would have been able to tell we were tourist as we were jumping up and down laughing trying to make our toes warm again! After that we drove to St Ives which was really beautiful but as it was so busy and there is really no where to park we just looked and then headed into the next village called Hayles where we were able to have a huge white sandy beach practically to ourselves. After a bit there it was time to head back towards our train at Bodmin. But by this time we were pretty hungry and needed a decent meal to tye us over for the 4 long boring hours back to London. So we went to the only place that served food all day on a Sunday which was the Bodmin Jail. Had a roast dinner which was bloody huge but delicious then on to the train it was.

Yes, that's right, we've waved to The Queen!

2008-06-16T10:34:00.000-07:00

What a massive weekend! Started off with drinks at the pub which ultimately left us leaving around midnight. Now normally this wouldn't really be an issue, except for the small fact that we decided to surprise Liz's Mum at the airport. Her flight arrived in Heathrow at 6.10am which had us getting out of bed at 4.30am. Hmmm. Was totally worth it. She got the biggest surprise!!

Now onto Her Royal Majesty. Saturday was her celebration of her birthday (which by the way is in April!) and she does this every year with a parade called Trooping the Colour. There is some history about it but I didn't really pay that much attention to that part! This all takes place around Buckingham Palace and down The Mall and into Whitehall. You can actually by tickets to this event but you have to apply in writing and it goes into a ballot and this all needs to be done by February/March. If you get tickets you get to see the salute by all her guards and soldiers which happens in Whitehall. However since we were not that organised we joined the masses on The Mall to wait for the Queen to come past. First off you get to see all the guards and soldiers come past on horses and the army bands in all their glory. So handsome! Then in a carriage came Prince William and Harry with Camilla Parker Bowles (no Charles). I actually saw them in the flesh. Oh my gosh they are both as good looking at the magazines tell you! A few carriages later came the Queen with Prince Phillip. We saw the freakin' Queen!!!

After they came past we hiked it down to Buckingham Palace to try and get a good spot so we could see the Queen wave from her balcony, which we did, but we ended up jumping the fence with everyone else once the police guards had left and got closer! Not that this helped us too much as there were so many people that it was hard to see the balcony clearly but never the less we got snatches of her and the entire Royal Family between shoulders and heads. And the best bit....the Queen waved and we waved back.

After this we were buggered as even though we were totally excited to see the Queen it was actually ALOT of waiting around. I think in total we waited 3 hours to get a look at the Royal Family. What a bloody British thing to do!!

We eventually got home for a short nap and then had to head out again as we had bought tickets to N.E.R.D!!! After an hours journey we ended up in the suburb of Brixton, a.k.a 'The Hood'. As we turned the corner of the venue to line up with all the other fans we realised that we would fairly much stick out like a sore thumb. The line consisted of first of all mainly people under the age of 20 and then second, majority of the people were of ethnic decent. Hmmm but hey, we were totally pumped to see them and we were behind some rather lovely boys from the hood who continued to talk about their skills in womanising, very insightful! Downside to the line was A. that the whole street smelt like vomit and B. there was a delay as there was a late soundcheck so we stood out there for about 1.5 hours. However when we eventually got in and listen to the support act and when N.E.R.D came bursting out and it all seemed worthwhile. This concert absolutely ROCKED! I'd have to say one of the best concerts I've been too. We didn't stop jumping and dancing for the whole time they were on. The vibe in the venue was just mad and went even crazier when Pharrell took his shirt off......OH MY GOD! And they were shooting a music video for their new song 'Spaz' so the whole band were just going mad with energy. So look out we might be in their clip!! (not unless they had super zoom as we were up on the balcony! haha)

The trip home was soooo long and we stumbled in around midnight absolutely exhausted and basically passed out as soon as our heads hit the pillow. But, what a day. Mother arrives, Royalty birthday shin dig and music superstars. What a freakin' day.

Columbia Road Flower Markets - 7th June

2008-06-13T09:42:00.000-07:00

I made Liz and Amanda (Liz's sister Katie's friend who just arrived over here) trek all the way out the these flower markets - we had to walk through some rather dodgy streets to get to them but it was totally worth it. Everything was so colourful and bright. I could have walked away with 10 bunches but instead I just chose 1 tiny bunch of minature pink roses....such a lovely morning.

After these delightful markets we ventrued off to find the existing ones around the same area...these however were not so beautiful and consisted mainly of junk and cheap clothes, homewares, tools and our favourite, the car stereo stall....now I wonder where they all came from...hmmm

After these wonderful stalls we did eventually find a more civilised section of the markets and these were similar to the Valley ones but with extra tasty food!

The Natural History Museum - Saturday 31st May

2008-06-12T10:02:00.000-07:00

We had such a great time here! It was so interesting and our favourite section was the Dinosours. Yes I know we sound like geeks, but we don't care. Geeks are cool!

There were 4 different sections to the Museum -

Dinosaurs - Earth - Mammals

There was also an insect and bird section but that wasn't so interesting so we didn't take photos.

As you can probably tell we also really liked the Mammals section...mainly because everything was so huge and life-like!

My lovely flowers!

2008-05-07T13:09:00.000-07:00

These are the beautiful bunch of flowers that you sent to me girls!! You made me the envy of all the teachers in the staff room! Thank you all for such a lovely gift which didn't make me feel so alone on my birthday. Miss you all!!!

My Birthday Celebrations - the weekend

2008-05-06T10:06:00.000-07:00

Some of you may already know, but Lizzie had organised a surprise for me on Saturday night. With no clue of what was going on, I got dressed up and we headed into Central London. My first surprise was dinner (no surprise really, we all know how much I like my food and how much trouble Liz would be in if there was no food involved!) however Liz had reserved us a table at 3 different restaurants and I got to pick what I wanted. Out of Thai, Indian and a Mediterranean Grill place, I chose the Grill (Indian & Thai aren't that good here). It was sooo good! I had Sprinkbuck steak, was so delicious! Then my next surprise was.....tickets to the musical The Sound of Music! I was so excited that it was probably lucky we were in a public place as I think I would have screamed! And as you can imagine, I thought it was brilliant - I almost cried I was so excited to be there. This is me outside the Palladim and you can just see the Sound of Music sign behind me. This place sure shits all over the Lyric Theatre!

On Sunday we had organised with Liz's sister, Katie, to go to a picnic in Hyde Park (permitting it didn't rain) which it didn't! Hooray! So we headed off to Harrods to buy our food in their Food Hall - we went nuts. We bought olives, salami's, cheeses,sun dried tomatoes and then we stepped into the bakery....breads, danishes and cookies went into our basket. And yes, we could had fed a small army with the amount we paid for it all! But, you only turn 25 once in London right?!

This is my two croonies who helped pick out all our delicious food!!

Me and my delicious birthday cup cakes!

We ended the afternoon by heading to our local pub for some pints...ahh perfect!

Stonehenge & Bath

2008-04-17T01:42:00.000-07:00

Well, we finally went on another adventure, although this time is was only a day trip. We jumped on a tour bus at 7.30 in the morning with the sun shining and thought this is going to be a lovely day! The first stop was Stonehenge, and even though it is only an hour and a half out of London it had already started raining! Good old English weather. We had an audio tour organised so we were able to learn about the history of the stones and all of the theories behind why they are there and for what purpose they served all those years ago. I was a little disappointed at the size of them, no where near as big/tall as I thought they would be, but beside that was an interesting place.

After and hour at Stonehenge we were back on the bus and heading to Bath. Bath was really pretty, reminded me alot of Bristol which is no surprise as they are only about half an hour apart from each other! Here we went into the Roman Baths. Oh my goodness this would have been such a cool place to hang out in the Roman times! You can feel the heat as soon as you walk into the main bathing area, but the coolest thing is just walking around picturing the Romans chilling out. The water looked really nice but it was actually quite gross with heaps of algae and other things floating in it. People actually put their hands in it. YUK!

After the baths we were allowed to roam around Bath for a bit. Our first stop was The Fudge Kitchen. We test tasted and then bought the most delicious chocolate fudge I think I've ever tasted..yes that's right, even better than Fudge Heaven! Then we just had lunch in a pub, which was pretty uneventful except for the wedding reception which was taking place there. That's right, someone was having their days of days in a pub. And to make it more hilarious for us, the Bride was not even in her reception but outside having a smoke with her alcoholic beverage (which looked like bourban & coke). What an unromantical picture is that!!

Both places were really pretty and it was again nice to get out of London and into some fresh air in the country!

Happy Birthday Katie & Liz!

2008-03-30T10:14:00.001-07:00

To celebrate the girls birthday we decided to head into Harrods and have one of their declicious ice-cream sundaes. And oh my goodness they were awesome! None of us could actually finish them they were so big!

Snow glorious snow!!

2008-03-24T10:52:00.001-07:00

I saw my first bit of snow this morning!! I was so excited! So I got on all my clothes and went outside to feel it. It was so lovely, falling softly onto my face and hands. However, it was quite light snow so as soon as it touched the ground, it melted away. So unfortunately I could not make snow angels or snowmen. That will have to wait for winter. Now you may actually have to zoom in on the picture to see the snow properly but it really is there! Just tiny white flakes falling. Oh it was just so cool!

Update: it started snowing some more tonight so I took another photo - and it didn't melt straight away so Liz and I got our jackets on and went outside. I made and threw my first snowball!!!

Easter Weekend in Bristol

2008-03-24T10:13:00.000-07:00

For our Easter long weekend we headed off to Bristol which is about 2.5hours North-West of London. We left Good Friday and returned late Easter Sunday. We originally thought that there was loads to do in Bristol and there is. If you drive. So unless we wanted to fork out a fortune in taxis' to get to castles etc then our only option was to explore this little town. It was such a lovely place to relax actually. Not really too much to do except wander, eat and drink. Which we did for most of the time spent there! As far as sight seeing went, we saw the Bristol Cathedral, Cabot Tower, the Bristol Museum & Gallery and St Nicholas Markets. We also discovered their ice-skating rink and decided to have a go. So much fun with it's cheesy 80's music to skate around too even if slightly depressing that 7 year old boys were zipping past us while we carefully made our way around the rink! i'd like to say however, that we did not fall over once! As there is a University in the town, alot of the bars offered cheap cocktails so this found us sipping on Mojitos during our night adventures and nursing slight headaches the next morning. Overall, such a nice place to get away from the fast pace of London.

Europe here we come!

2008-03-03T04:02:00.001-08:00

We've booked our first trip! We're so excited! Plus it actually gives us a reason to work and save. We've decided to do a Busabout Tour which is a bus (obviously) that goes around Europe and you hop on and off the buss at each stop and depending on how much you like the place you can stay as long as you want and when your ready to move on you just jump back on the bus again. We have bought 2 loops which take us through Northern and Southern Euorpe. The plan is to start just before the La Tomatina Festival in Spain (we have to get there by ourselves) and then from there jump on the bus in either in Nice, France or make our way to Munich and start our tour! (the black dots are where we will be going!)

Not too much else to report. Liz has gotten a job, working for a university doing admin work but hopefully the agency will find her something more exciting but she is happy with this as it is at least some work!! I am still waiting to recieve some teaching work, I did a day last friday, but nothing today. I have another interview with a different agency on Wednesday, so hopefully between 2 agencies I can keep busy as it is totally boring doing nothing all day.

Our house....in the middle of our street

2008-02-25T08:49:00.000-08:00

So as you can see here, this is how we eat dinner. And breakfast. Every day in our wonderful little room. While one of us is getting dinner/breakfast ready the other sets out the blanket (towel actually), cutlery and beverages for the meal. ahhh London!

Sightseeing in London

2008-02-22T03:43:00.000-08:00

Well, to start with, we found somewhere to live! Nothing flash but it's lockable and warm. Sharing with 5 other people in a 4 bedroom house! AND only 1 toilet and shower! We'll see how we go, we're there for the next 3 months.

So after finding that we decided to relax and go sightseeing. On our first day we visited Buckingham Palace, pretty cool place but the guards are boring. They don't really do much, I feel sorry for them! We also spent a few hours in Harrods, most of this was trying to find the gift shop in that maze of a place but we did stop for some Crispy Creme donuts..mmmm delicious! Harrods is just huge, can't really afford anything in it but nice to look at anyway. We also took a walk in West End to look at the theatres and what musicals I'm going to drag Liz along to hehe So many!! On our second day we went to Westminster Abbey which was just beautiful. I can't believe how much work and detail is in that place so amazing. My favourite so far. Also went to Big Ben, London Eye and tried to walk to the Tower Bridge but only made it as far as London Bridge before our feet and our bellies began to complain. Am enjoying the pub life over here, especially the food! Pub meals rock! Another place that I'm sure I will frequent alot is the Camden Markets, oh. my. goodness. So much stuff you cannot walk it all in a afternoon! And it's so close to our house....so convenient, a little too convenient!

London is cold.

2008-02-16T11:33:00.000-08:00

Yes yes. I know you all told me it would be cold but it is so much more colder than I ever imagined and it's not even winter here! how am I ever going to survive come December?? We've stayed at Liz's sister's place for the first few days. So nice and warm. Now we're at the hostel which is not too bad. We went room hunting today and have come to the realisation that we are not going to be able to afford anything nice as it is all so expensive here!! 100 pounds for a room...ridiculous i tell you! We haven't done any sight seeing yet so hopefully once we've found somewhere to live we can do a little bit before getting serious and getting jobs! Still having issues with uploading our photos so we're hoping that at least you'll get some joy out of the written blog...

DISNEYLAND!!!!

2008-02-16T11:14:00.001-08:00

oh my goodness! Disneyland really is the most happiest place in the world!! We just loved it! The weather was so perfect we got to wear shorts and thongs and our hotel was literally right across the road from the park. so great, especially since we'd had a shite day. Leaving San Fran we had to be at the airport at 6am which we did. Only to find out our flight had been cancelled so we were reschedulled to a flight at 9.15am. When we spoke to the staff we specifically asked if our bags were being transferred and we were told that they were already on our next flight. Yeah, they weren't. Well, Liz's was and mine just happened to get left behind. This happened to a few of the passengers so after revving the staff at LAX we were told that my backpack MAY be on the next flight which was due to land at 1.15pm. We had 3 hours to kill. Bag got their ok finally. Skipped the LA hostel because we were now very cranky at LA and headed straight up to Anaheim. Had a good nites sleep in anticipation for our first day at the park.

Our hotel offered breakfast, and while we were dining on some donughts and waffles (only in America!) a man came up to us and asked if we were Australian, we said yes and then he offered us his Fastpass cards as he was leaving that morning. These passes allow you to skip lines for some of the more popular rides in both Disneyland and California Adventure. SWEET! Canadian's are lovely! We had the best day and the ride skipping allowed us to see all of disneyland in one day and not be cranky for lining up for more than an hour on the rides! I bought some Mickey Mouse ears and they stitch your name on the back and I wore these proudly for the whole 2 days. They are so cool! The parade, which we saw at nite had to be our highlight. It was just beautiful. On the second day we went to California Adventure and as we thought, the rides were a bit too scary for us. However we did go on the River rapid type one and got completly soaked and then decided to try the nice calm looking ferris wheel which turned out to be the ferris wheel of death! It swung as you went around leaving Liz and I clutching each other and not looking at anywhere but the floor of our pod. Never again!! Went back to Disneyland where the rides and people were much nicer and calmer!!

The ride over to London was ok, apart from the fact that I ate a ham and cheese sandwhich in LAX which gave me some food poisoning which had me vomiting for the second half of the flight into London. It is official....we hate LA Airport!!!!

The remainder of San Fran...

2008-02-16T10:57:00.000-08:00

On our last day in San Fransisco we decided to hike out the The Castro. Rather boring actually. But did by a rainbow fridge magnet and had some delicious bagles! The I decided that I would like to head over to Haight. Which from our map, didn't look far at all, and it wasn't. It just happened to be up and over the BIGGEST hill we had had to climb so far!! We reached the top, few, only got to get through a park and where there. Turned around and there was the park....another hill and so steep! But, we did climb it and the view from the top of the park was fabulous. You could see all of San Fransisco from the Bridge all the way to the peir. So of course once we trekked down the hill and walked around the town for a bit we stopped for surprise surprise.....a hot beverage!! We also went and looked at what used to be The Grateful Deads House...not really interesting but thought when in Rome....haha

Dinner that nite was at an all American diner called Lori's. It was ace!! It was just like the 60's diner in happy days, red vinyl seats, juke boxes on the table and Rock & Roll playing the entire time. I was in heaven!! and dinner was great, such huge meals tho, I ordered Roast Turkey with gravy and vegetables and it was sooo good that Liz ditched her meatballs & spag to share mine!!!

Bike ride over Golden Gate

2008-02-07T17:31:00.000-08:00

What an amazing day! Yesterday after talking to our British room mates, we decided that it would be a great idea to Bike over the Golden Gate Bridge. Getting up at 7am, we headed down to the kitchen to make some delicious waffles then walked up and down the many hills to retrieve our bikes. Locals may have laughed at us all rugged up in our jackets, scarves and 2 gloves each but it has been a significant drop in temps from humid Brisbane to 8 degrees in San Fran. Reaching the bike shop feeling very excited and energetic we set off on our 13km ride to Sausalito, via the Golden Gate Bridge. The bridge was fantastic, we've never seen a bridge so huge! It would be 4 times longer than the good ol' Story Bridge! Such an amazing view of Alcatraz and San Francisco from the top. Once off the bridge we had a leisurely (read: painful) journey to reach Sausalito. Such a cute little town, with so many expensive restaurants that we didn't even breathe in their general direction. So we settled for a hamburger from this tiny shop on the main street quoted by a local man as the "Best burger in the world" . And we totally agree! Delicious! We then ferried our way back across the bay as by this stage our glutes and legs were feeling rather tender. As a reward for riding ANOTHER 15 minutes from the ferry terminal to the bike shop, we stopped by a Starbucks for a delicious hot beverage. Great way to end the afternoon!

Brisbane to San Francisco - Wednesday 5th February

2008-02-07T17:14:00.000-08:00

After a long flight and lots of sitting around at airports we finally made it to San Francisco! But unfortunately our bags did not arrive with us. They were put on the wrong flight which didn't arrive until 2 hours after us, so airport staff kindly arranged for them to be delivered to our hostel in the middle of the night. So we went to bed in our stinky plane clothes and woke up to find my bag had been delivered safe and sound, but alas Liz's was still not here. We called the airport and they assured us it would be here later in the morning, so we decided not to let this ruin our day. Had a fantastic day exploring, made even better by the fact that when we got home Liz's bag was here and she was no longer wearing the stinky clothes! We started the day off at Alcatraz - the ferry ride across the bay was nice and chilly, I was kind enough to give Liz one of my gloves so we both looked very stylish! We did an audio tour of Alcatraz that walked us through the jail giving us information from guards and prisoners - was way cool and interesting! Went to Pier 39 for lunch, and visited some lovely sea lions which bask in the sun near the Pier. Fun to look at, but god they smell!!!!! Walked home through Chinatown, what a crazy town that is!! People everywhere, no English spoken, and the smell of dried prawns wafting through the air! Decided not to stay long, went on to the much more civilized area of Union Square - home of Macy's, Saks on Fifth Avenue, and Victoria Secret. Everything way out of our budget but nice to look at. Couldn't wait to get to bed as jet lag was kicking in....