just.see

SO not much else to say about koh phangan except to talk about new years! WOO! we actually went out. i know. raise the roof. we are awesome. no, but really, it was olivias birthday so we went to the nice beach during the day and i had the most GOD AWFUL curry ever. i wanted to vomit. we listened to a 50 year old who sounded 15..... 'maannnn' (and had the mannerisms of one too). she entertained me for a good half hour. and we sunbaked. pretty shocking stuff considering we were on an island in thailand...

got back, slept, ate and then i put on my nice top for the first time (and make-up! what????) and had a pretty good night! i had just discovered that anti-biotics would get rid of my sickness so was on them, but was wary to drink. dont actually know what happens when you get drunk and your on anti biotics, but i get the feeling its generally not good. despite this, i still had a couple of cruisers and posed with a bucket, and we danced where there was danceable-to music (a lot of it was trance... saw this old guy dancing by himself, hugging himself and im pretty sure he was high.... ) and came across A LOT, and i mean a lot of creepy, creepy guys. that was interesting. we found this lovely half malaysian half aussie guy with his sister and male lover (we later came to the conclusion that they we not indeed gay, it was a way to get girls to trust him and not immediately say no. awks, cause it worked...) who bought us a drink. had a lot of guys offer us sips from there bucketsx, one guy accidently dunked olivias camera in his bucket... gooood. the other thing that was there was a fire skipping rope and later a fire hoop. mix this with a lot of drunk guys and you get the medical facilities making bucket loads. obviously people stuffed up and there ankles and legs and stomach and arms and even there faces got burnt. but did they care? not til the next day! we met a girl who said she met a girl, whod been pushed intot he skipping rope, stumbled over it and then a bunch of guys had jumped on top of her and she had to be pulled out. she had completley burnt ankles and feet :/ i just thought it was the stupidest thing you could possibly want to do really, but plenty of people disagreed with me, obviously. so new years came and went and we arrived back at our bungalow about 3ish, slept, and then left koh phangan on the 2nd of january (after 2 solid days of rain) for koh samui.

we definitely pushed in the line to get on the boat. sorry! thank god we did though, there would have been at least a hundred people stranded, even after the last boat of the day left i reckon! got to koh samui and went to the 2nd main beach, lamai. we arrived by share taxi in lamai and got soaked immediately. i have never seen so much rain. rain rain rain. everywhere. we were dropped off, not in the town, which sucked, and walked 20 minutes, went into heaps of places where it was a casual 50-100 dollars a night (even the shit places). found a dodgy little 'resort' for the grand total of 8 dollars a night and settled in as best as you can settle into a damp cellbox that smelt, had a leaking bathroom and an uncomfotable mattress. and it rained for 3 days straight, so we spent all our time inside. lovely. seriously, some of my clothes still smell damp! luckily we found a relatively cheap, MUCH nicer resort, with a TV! granted the main english channel was cartoons, but still! so we spent another 2 nights here! and the sun came out we suntanned and sat at the beast side resturants and it was really quite nice.

after samui, we came to malaysia to renew our visa. after a slightly stressful time, thinking that the roads would be flooded (the reputable company that goes to penang said they were), it was a pretty unstressful, if long trip! we left at 7am and arrived at 11pm, with a few breaks in between. we found our hostel thing, which is great and slept. and olivia got bitten that made her eye swell up the size of half a pingpong ball. so our first day was spent going to the doctors and her icing her eye, and the second and third and fouth and fifth were just as uneventful. we have been so so lazy while we have been here, i dont really know why because we have constantly complained of boredom too... i guess since we are coming home so soon, and i am a bit of 'cultural stuff' temples just dont seem so appealing. having said that, i really like georgetown in penang and if we had used our time productively, probably would have come back with some stories. oops! ah well.

5 days till the family comes.
16 days till i arrive home.

left england, no problems, onto more exciting things, THAILAND!! yes, we have arrived (20 days ago), the last stop of the trip!!! crazy crazy times.

anyway, got to bangkok airport and tried to get a taxi but everywhere was saying 4000 baht which is like 120 bucks. eventually we found the government taxis where it only cost 400 got to our accommodation which was amazing!! a fairly big room with 2 single beds and a shared bathroom, but it was about 10 minutes away from the main 'tourist' rd, Khaosan, so it was quiet at night. when we where shown our rooms there was this cat on a pole, just watching us, but it looks so wretched and scared, it was quite funny at the time.

over the next few days went to khaosan rd which has about a gazillion shops come stalls selling pretty much the same as vic night market and also went at night where street vendors sell pad thai and resturants sell over priced food. also went to some temples like Wat Pho that has the biggest reclining Buddha in Thailand (i think) and basically just chilled, tried to get over jet lag and eat yummy thai food!

after bangkok we went up to Chiang Mai which is in the north of thailand basically in the jungle. a lot of people say its more 'real thailand' than bangkok or the south, and its definitely more authentic than the south but its definitely NOT the 'real' thailand. anyway, when there we went to the night market again, similar to khasan, just BIGGER and we also went on a trek! the trek was really good. at first we stopped off at some 'hill tribes' which was bascially thai people in tradtional dress sellling things. i felt so awkward, like we were in a zoo and they were the animals. apparently we were allowed to take pictures but it was super awkward because the vendors werent very forthcoming. in the end i bought something and then took a picture, which i felt was fair. after that we got dropped off at the trek starting point. we stopped at another village which was literally just houses and 2 children, who im pretty sure tried to take things from my bag, but i caught them in time. we walked for a couple of hours and our guide stopped us at one point to tell us a story, only problem was there were like 2 bees who wouldnt leave us alone so i wasnt very interested in the story. the only thing i can remember from it was that there was a snake that wanted to become a monk, became a monk, then everyone was scared and when you become a monk you are now asked the question 'are you human?' to which you have to answer 'yes'. good. im pretty sure there was more to the story but, as i said, i was distracted. we arrived at our stop for the night which was basically 2 sleeping houses, 2 houses for the family that lived there and a 'shop'. the sleeping houses were pretty cool though, definitley different. you lay on the floor on these mats and had a couple of blankets and a pillow that was shaped like, and felt like a brick. we were told by a girl who was doing a longer trek than us that it got super cold at night so we stole blankets from the free beds and were toasty warm, if uncomfotable from the pillows. that night we had this vegetable stew and something else that i cant remember and rice, it was actually pretty good. by 6 it was pretty much dark and i wanted to head to bed, but i knew i wouldnt be able to sleep. anyway, ended up staying up to be one of the last awake (and yet i still went to bed at 8.30) watching these 3 other aussies smoke weed from a bong, both of which were bought at the 'shop'. although i didnt participate, it was pretty funny to watch!

the next day we headed off to so some activities! first we rode an elephant into a river, where (it seemed) to try to drown itself, and us too, then we rode it properly and fed it bananas! it was really nice, but the people controlling the elephants hit them pretty hard and one had blood all over its head. i mean, yes, they are HUGE creatures, but they are still wild and it wasnt very nice to watch the people hit them. then we did a zipline, which was a massive joke. advertised as 19 ziplines 20-something km, it turned out to be one zipline across a river. i was pretty dissapointed about that, but got over it. we also did a bamboo raft and whitewater rafting!! white water riding was my favourite, i cant wait to do it again

we arrived back at our guesthouse pretty exhausted and spent the next day chilling, waiting for the bus to take us back to bangkok. i got a smoothie from a smoothie place in somprethet market which is the best smoothie/muesli, fruit and yoghurt place in thailand i reckon and we said goodbye to the owners of the resturant we went to a couple of times and then we headed for the bus stop. got on the bus and it was FREEZING cold. olivia was in shorts too! until 1am, when the bus stopped to get refreshments and use the toilet. after that they turned the aircon off and we actually got some sleep! when we got to bangkok we headed straight to kanchanaburi, which is home to 'the bride over the river kwai'. here we chilled, the bathroom STUNK (and unfortunately it was a private bathroom, so our room stunk to), we went to the bridge and the museum and it was pretty nice. the river is stunning!

after kanchanburi we headed down to koh phangan. after a sleeper train, a bus ride, a boat ride and a share taxi ride later, we are now here, at 'thai dee garden' in a pretty nice bungalow, in haad rin, the party place on the island, but just outside the main town so its still pretty quiet at night (except when the 2 english boys, one of which is very good looking, decide to argue at 3am every morning). so far, i have got sick, we rode a moped to a near by town, olivia crashed a moped and has a very bad bruise, olivia might be getting sick and we havnt partied. gooooood. the beach in haad rin is pretty awful. the 'nice' beach is full of people playing volleyball and soccer and you basically feel like your on show, and the other beach isnt a beach. i dont know what the lonely planet people were on when they went to the other beach, but when we went there today the sea was full of rubbish and sea weed and dead birds, and that was pretty much what the sand was like too. and the sand was like less than 2 metres deep at its deepest point, so even when there was a clean patch, it was pretty much impossible to like down. needless to say i gave up on that beach pretty quickly. i was hot and coulndt even swim in the water!

that said, we went to a beach by long boat yesterday and it was amazing. there were quite a few people and i did feel like i was being sat on slightly, bu the view of the limestone cliffs and the colour of the water and the general atmosphere was so so so nice. i really really liked it!!! and the water was amazing to swim in too.

so screw the other beach, im going to the nice one

Soooooooooooo long since posts, once again.

Anyway, I left you at me in Barcelona waiting to meet mum in Madrid. The Barcelona main train station is like an airport, had to go through all sort of security and everything!!! Got on the train, no glitches, arrived in Madrid and found Hotel Francisco II and may I say, it was a VERY nice hotel. Basically in the centre of Madrid right near plaza de sol and it had heaps of charm, little wooden windows that opened onto the cobbled street below and it was just generally lovely. Settled down to wait the 10 hours before mum arrived. Had a few (yes a few, it was clean and I didn’t have to wear flip flops) showers, watched some Spanish mtv, got some food and bummed away the afternoon. Mum was meant to be arriving at 9ish (if memory serves), so obviously I would wait up for her. No such luck, flight delayed 2 + hours and I definitely went to sleep. I have to say a highlight of this trip would be hearing a knock on the door and ‘ally!’ and then creeping (not sure why I did this, but I did) up to the door, throwing it open, giving mum the BIGGEST hug and seeing the doorman laugh and grandma just look slightly (but happily) bewildered. Left with mum and gma to find some food. Now my experience of Spain is that they don’t eat till the late hours of the evening and granted it was 11, but EVERYWHERE was closed. I thought we would be set, but it was actually really difficult! Mum and gma ended up getting some pizza and then we all got smoothies from a bar later (yes, food places closed, smoothie places not). Set off the next day to enjoy Madrid and took gma on an EPIC walk, literally 3-4 hours in very hot weather (epic for her, anyway). I don’t think grandma has done so much exercise since she was much, much younger. We did stop along the way to get fishy olives (not the intention for them to be fishy, I did not like) and a well-deserved diet coke, but she did really really well, and I saw parts of Madrid I hadn’t seen previously. Can’t remember what we got for actual meals in Madrid but I do remember we went to the food market right next to the main plaza and I had sushi (not bad actually!) and then we had my favourite European food, of which I do not know the name, a greasy, cheesy flaky pastry roll that was DIVINE, and a little bread thing with sundried tomatoes and cheese on it too. We tried to find them again in Spain, but were sadly, unsuccessful.

Day 3: went to collect the car from atocha railway station, taxi driver dropped us off a fair walk away and needless to say we got lost finding the car hire place. Good start. Driving out and trying to find a way out of Madrid was a night mare. To be honest my strategy was just get out of Madrid onto any road, work out where we were and then find a route to where we were going to. Didn’t quite work out that smoothly, as in we went for ages on a road, with no sign telling us what it was, and no turn off. Finally worked out our way to Salamanca and we were off. Pretty nothing countryside, but I have to say a high point was, when we turned off for refreshment, grandma choosing to have a beer at 11 in the morning, and I’m not ashamed to say this became a theme of the trip. Go grandma haha. Arrived in Salamanca, found our hotel which was very good, once again, not quite in the centre but it did mean we got a good night’s sleep! Headed down to town and just sat and had an ice-cream and had a look around town.

Not sure of the order of things we did in Salamanca but this is the general gist. Had a look at the cathedral where we went into the old bit and the new bit and mum and I climbed to the top of the tower. It was pretty good, as far as churches go, very, very, big. Had a look at the university and snuck into the exit, meaning we didn’t have to pay. Go us ha. It was very very nice. For me, Salamanca rivalled Granada for a place I’d like to come back to, so it was pretty beautiful. We sat in lots of main streets, drank sangria, wine (well gma and mum did) and i had coke and orange juice (what a party animal) and we found this resurant just outside the main square that did the incredible goats cheese salads, and gazpachos. And pretty good mains, with unlimited wine and coffee or dessert at the end. It was a very nice place. We went there twice . On the last night when we decided to be adventurous and it wasn’t so busy, we went to a restaurant in the main square that, sadly, was pretty average. On one of the days the med kids from the uni were celebrating the day of their patron saint (or something like that) and were all dressed up and partying, there was quite a festive atmosphere that day. Especially, when, by 3 most of them were staggering around drunk. But yes, I loved loved loved Salamanca and would seriously consider coming back there to study.

THEN we went to Toledo. The drive there was fantastic. It was so pretty, in fact we stopped off at this rock place that looked over onto the lake with the Spanish hills as a back drop. It was breathtaking. (words can’t really describe it, it was really unique). And we stopped off in a small Spanish town for lunch, where, through sign language and my very limited knowledge of Spanish (most of which I have since forgotten) we ordered a platter of chorizo, cheese, ham, olives and bread with coke for me and mum and a beer for grandma. Yum!

We found our hotel in Toledo. It happened to be at the very very bottom of a very very steep hill. Perfect for grandmas. Not. AND there was hardly anywhere to park and driving through those narrow streets is more heart stopping than any view when you’re driving a rental car and a scratch could cost A LOT of money… Unfortunately we couldn’t cancel our accommodation and find somewhere else so we ended up taking a taxi in and out of the main town (which ended up being, basically on the top of a hill. I don’t think there were any flat surfaces, except where there were restaurants, and sometimes not even then) anyway, so Toledo is not a grandma friendly place. Nevertheless we made the most of it, took an open top bus around the outskirts of town (to steep and narrow for the buses to actually go INTO town) had some amazing garlic fish (possibly swordfish, I know we had this in Alicante) and very nice paella. And grandma suggested we have a pina colada, so we did haha.

Alicante was our last stop in Spain. The drive was looooooong. But we got to our hotel and it was right on the beach! We didn’t have a sea view, but as mum pointed out, probably quieter that way. Not that it mattered in the end as grandma snored SO LOUDLY. At one point mum and I were both awake at 1am on our phones on Facebook, laughing and quietly despairing at the same time. I think grandma thought something was wrong at one point in the day time as I may have snapped a bit, but I couldn’t tell her, shed kept me awake. And she would have denied it anyway. We spent our afternoons on the beach (and got massages from some Asian ladies who eventually swamped us and literally after the first one finished, they all came up and asked if we wanted another. Ah, no, we just had one. In the end, it got a bit heated and they backed off, but one settled in front of us and one behind and mum compared it to the mafia attacking us. hahaha) and mum and I walked up to the train station to buy my ticket to Madrid and we had fantastic food with another very good paella on our last night and that was basically it. We did take the open top bus again to get to the castle on the top of a hill which mum and I explored and gma sat at the bottom, but it was just a very nice lazy time.

The day I was meant to be catching a train to Paris, everything went wrong. We got lost when we only had to do a right turn, then another, then a left. So I missed that train and we decided that we would just all go back to Madrid and I would catch the fast train that was expensive. After 2 hours of driving around in circles basically, mum got us on the right road (yay!) and we drove the 5 hour drive to Madrid. Thank GOD atocha was easy to find, and thank god I missed my train really, because if mum had to find it with only gma to help, not sure it would have ended well… dropped off the car and I went to buy my train ticket. This is the series of events andi really don’t want to dwell on it, as it still makes me feel stressed.

Lined up for half an hour in the wrong line for the train I wanted but COULD catch another one to Paris, buying the ticket there.

Lined up in another line for half an hour to find I couldn’t book the train I wanted because the guy was a nong, and obviously new, as he said I couldn’t possibly have purchased the tickets I did, from where I did, BUT I DID AND YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOURE DOING.

And ended up buying a ticket for a train that left in an hour and would take me 45 minutes to get to. So I had nearly zero time to say bye to mum and gma and no time to get food (which we had been planning to get from the market with the cheesy things). I was stressed and emotional to say the least!

Got on this awful train with seats that didn’t recline (I was meant to be sleeping on a lovely sleeper train at this point, the one I missed) and evidently a gazillion mosquitoes as I woke up the next day and discovered bites up and down my shoulders and all along my back, I have never ever been bitten so bad. Arrived in Paris and got to our 17 euro a night hostel with rats and a gazillion people squished into the room and dodgy people outside that followed you and made sure you didn’t go out at night (then again it was 17 euros, compared to a 30 euro place, so we can’t complain). Found Olivia and found out she had been to Versailles the day before, bit sad, as I would like to have seen it, having studied the revolution and all but that’s life, and we went out to the Louvre (got in for free, yay uk passport) and I had a crepe and chestnuts and we went to Notre dame (which was beautiful, but SO crowded we only stayed in there for like 10 minutes…) and that’s about it. And we booked Disneyland!

The next day we went couch surfing! It was an… experience. They guy was 40something, the lady 30 something. We suggested we would make dinner on one of the nights at like 5ish and at 7 they were like, so you’re cooking tonight? We were like, what??? We don’t have any ingredients! So we rushed to the shop and luckily they were still open, rushed back and cooked chicken parmas. The next night the lady, who was Indonesian, made us Indonesian food which was quite nice. We had cinnamon bananas but then also this weird sweet, mushed asparagus and something else equally as strange and then a really sweet, meat thing on top. It was interesting, in, I think, not such a good way… so glad we have done couch surfing, but might wait til I do it again. Good experience, but not great! (and to be honest I think the hosts felt the same way)

Flew back to London to meet mum once again to go to Susies (my godmothers) for a few days. Met her adopted son and her saw iz, her daughter again and just had a really good time. Went into London and visited the infamous mnm world and had an incredible lunch at tgi Fridays where mum and I, without conferring, managed to order the same things including deserts and met penny, mums other oldest friend besides Susie, again. And then it was time to say good bye. Was at the bus depot and yeah, it was sad. Got to will and Karen’s and bummed around and then on the 1st of November, went to Artic Monkeys!! I have to say, I was not so excited about going. No idea why I bought a ticket as I have really not listened to their music, BUT I had a really really good time. It was hot and sweaty and there were a lot of 15 year olds in the mosh pit creating trouble so I got out and just enjoyed the music form the side, and I have to say, gladly, that it was worth going.

On the 3rd Olivia left for Italy, and on the 5th I left for grandmas, where I drank a lot of tea, ate a lot of cake and played a lot of scrabble and then on the 7th went back to Susie’s where it was discussed that I would kind of babysit the kids when needed. So for the past 3 weeks that’s what I have been doing! (Interspersed with going up o London on the weekend to Susie’s apartment and Cleo helping out after the first week) I have loved it. I won’t lie, it is hard work, and sometimes I’m exhausted, but the little boy is absolutely gorgeous and iz is so sweet and means so well, so at the end of the day, it’s really fantastic. And spending so much time with Susie has been great too! It sucks living in another country, I’d really like to pop over for coffee or to babysit occasionally when I go home, but it’s a bit hard when you’re on the other side of the world! And I want to say a massive public thank you to Susie for letting me stay in her home and look after her kids. You are so generous and I really can’t thank you enough for everything you have done for me. I will miss you and the kids so so so much, I don’t want to think about it!

So, in a week I will be heading back to Bridgwater to say goodbye to will and Karen and Joe and Anna and saying another massive thank you to them for ferrying us around and saving us bus fares, as well as putting us up for such a long period of time (sorry our rooms got so messy, it’s incredibly hard living out of a backpack when you’re staying in one place!). you, as well, have been very generous and I’m so grateful! And then in another week after that we are flying to Thailand! As of today, 59 days till we arrive home!

sorry, its been almost a month! with keeping my diary, i get confused when ive posted things haha. and its almost october, eek!

we eventually got to berlin!! yay! our eurail is valid on the s bahn so we took that as far as we could towards our hostel and then we decided to be stingy bums and walk. the distance wasnt to big. ha. ha. so we walked. and walked. and walked. and popped into a supermarket because we were staying for 5 nights and wanted to stock up and we thought we were close to the hostel. we were wrong. so we got pointed in the right direction, and we walked. and walked. and i carried olivias day pack, and she carried the shopping and i think her arms still hurt like a week later :/ and we walked. and then we arrived! yaya! we checked in, cooked our pizza becaus there was no freezer, and chilled for a while. that eveneing we went to see the east side gallery which is a very long stretch of the berlin wall that is decorated with street art. it was amazing! i got some great photos, one i looked at again the other day and i swore it was actually real. like it actually happened. anyway. as we were leaving some (a lot of) harley davidsons rocked up, we stayed and watched for a bit, because they were forming a movie. it was all going rather slowly, as making of movies do so we left, only to have them zoom past us on the way back with a camera man hanging out the back of a truck! exciting times haha.

now for the dot points. this is everything we did in berlin in no particular order.

1. check point charlie - really interesting exhibition on the GDR, the checkpoints with HEAPS to read
2. topographie of terrors - once again HEAPS to read, but on the history of berlin, starting at ww2 and going through to the communist era, but exploring mainly compensation and life in post-war terms
3. stasi museum - fantastic free museum we stumbled upon about the stasi regime and the techniques they used to infiltrate peoples lives. including ´smelling jars´so dogs could track you if you became suspect later on. very strange. also, their determination to know EVERYTHING was insane. it was repeated throughout the exhibition and they just couldnt let it go.
4. brandenburg gate - underwhelming. wasnt sure of the significance. just a gate (i really gotta research these things so the mean something!)
5. statue of an angel (called it an eagel. BIG no no apparently) - we walked for ages and ages to get there, but the really exciting thing was, that that day the pope was visiting berlin! so there was heaps of cordoned off areas and heaps of convoys went through and olivia thinks she may have seen the pope!
6. the holocaust memorial - amazing. these grey blocks are placed over a block of land in the middle of berlin. the land dips in the middle and the blocks get bigger, so its like youre being swallowed. the light changes and people flash and appear and dissapear. its cold and foreboding and a really really excellenet memorial.
7. holocaust museum - right next to the memorial. once again, fantastic. so so sad. you could sit and listen to stories from different concentration camps, liek one lady told the sorting doctor her son was younger than 12 and got her mother to go with her sons, ie sending them to the gas chambers. and she survived. another thing was letters and diary excerpts from people. one 12 year old said (paraphrased) ´i dont want to die, but they wont let us live. i dont know why. im scared. they throw the children into the killing pits´. how awful is that!?? i was very close to tears...

sadly enough, in berlin we didnt go out. apparently its amazing! but we´re so poor

on the 24th of september we left for nuremburg. it was very very pretty and had a mini oktoberfest, which was basically a nick nacks and food market, but it was great! we tried the sausage thing in bread and suprisingly enough it was good! (not a fan of shit sausages, but these were very good). we were lazy the next day and just had a gorgeous walk down the river which was very pretty.

and then! OKTOBERFEST!!! on the 26th we arrived in munich to be greeted by men in lederhosen and women in dresses. we got to the tent and luckily the man on recpetion, acknowedgin we had NO MONEY changed us from beds to the floor. so yes, we slpet on the floor for 3 nights. thank god for unlimited blankets, we ended up getting 18 between us and practically had matresses underneath us anyway! on the first ngiht we sat around the fire with some strange strnge people. one ´swedish´guy who had alondon accent, but we doubt he was either. and when we went to bed these middle eastern men tried to catch our attention and kissed at us. I THOUGHT WE´D GOT THROUGH THIS!!

the next day we found oktoberfest! not what i was expecting at all. its like a big carnival. like the melbourne show, with drinking. we found the HB tent, apparently good for first timers because you´re guaranteed to sit next to engligh speakers. we were surrounded by german. good. nevertheless we got a stein each (one frigging litre. i. hate. beer.) and struggled to get through it. the songs were hilarious though. one song, everyone stood up and then cheers and then drank. i think it was mainly a marketing ploy to get people to drink more, but it was fun! people chugged the stein as well. theyd stand on there seats and everyone would cheer. except if you failed you were booed haha. the guy sitting next to us was snorting snuff and the police came up and watched, laughing, because he could NOT do it right. the policeman tried to help, it was funny! we left the tent and found ourselves a ride. not a good idea with a litre of beer. but we managed. we went back after this, i was shattered and not feeling too well... that evening we met a huge group of aussies and basically we had a good chat, they were really really nice and seemed to be doing a lot too!

the next day we went again, this time with the intention of going on some rides we went on this high swinging chair one, which was awful! we both closed our eyes and prayed for it to be over. you were just swung, not that fast up in the air in these little chair things, like the baby swings. was not happy. and then we went on a rollercaoster which was awesome. and then went on an upside down wizzy around thing which was great too! decided to give the beer tents another go, went to paulener, which i heard was good, but it was empty! so we went to laurenbrau (not spelt like that, god knows what it is) because olivias dad drinks it! we got a beer between us but it was awful! worst than yesterdays. and we were surrounded by germans. once we were done, we pooled our money and didnt have enough for another beer so we went home. again, sat around the fire,met some nice interesting people then went to bed.

so oktoberfest was not what we was expecting. we didnt meet many people actually at the place because we didnt have enough money to drink a lot of beer (and we dont like it...) and we went on rides. hmmmm. might need to come back, when i like beer and am rich. (we met people who were like ´we´re on a budget too, but we´ve blown it hahahahaha´, lucky you that you can do that! wah listen to me winge haha)

so we arrive in budapest on the 30th of september. we went for mexican for dinner and i got tacos. massive dissapointment, they were like floppy taco tasting burritos. yuk! but the meat was what we were after and that was good! (we´d been feeling very tired and think its due to NO iron in our diet. oops.)

the next day we went on the walking tour and walked up castle hill and across the chain bridge (which the hungarians are SO proud of) and hot hungarian for lunch! i had this stuffed cabbage thing and olivia got beef stew which this gnocchi stlye side dish. it was interesting. nice. definitely edible, but it was one of those things were you get sick of the taste after a while. everything tastes the same, the cabbage, the stuffing and the sauce. went home, chilled for the afternoon and then had nachos for dinner. yum and we went out! yay! finally! got quite drunk at the hostel and then went out with 2 americans studying in prague, and paddy, an australian who´d been working in lilverpool. the night was interesting! we went to this awesome pub/bar place where there was this amazing courtyard and the atmosphere was just really good. blake, who doesnt drink much, was drunk though. and was like an annoying 4 year old! rather than just appreciating the atmosphere he was dead set keen to get going and dance. and as we were going, we were tring to find his friend, keith, but he insisted keith had met some girls and was okay. (he wasnt, he called us and had to find us 2 hours later. oh, and he also got super moody over everyone image of americans). on the way we picked up a few more aussies and an english guy and we went to this club that was like an underground bunker. the music was techno, but ive long since given up trying to find music like in australia, overseas, so i was enjoying myself, doing the best i could with the non existent beat and my non existent dance moves. but blake and the other aussies wanted to find something better. i dont know how, but someone heard about this club with 5 different floors with different music, so we headed there. after about half an hour we arrived and it cost. it was okay for the girls, but the guys was a bit expensive, so they decided not to go in. BUT THE MUSIC SOUNDED GOOD it was 3.40 and we figured we´d get 2 hours at most of dancing so liv and i joined the guys to go home. so it was an okay night. definitely not bad, but people just needed to chill. and there was no chance that blake was getting with either me or olivia, which i think was his goal haha. ALSO, that night a man broke in. he got through 2 security doors and the locked front door and stole the hostels laptop and 20€ from keith. scary shit i tell you. luckily nothing was taken from me or olivia but the fact he got into the hostel (which is in a random place in a random building) meant he knew what he was doing and must have had keys.

woke up the next day and chilled and then went on a danube cruise in the night! it was so so pretty. budapest is gorgeous!

and on the 2nd we left to go to prague. and now this is a story. we are on the train in hungary and the ticket man sees our eurails and is like, thats not valid in slovakia. we´re like shit, okay, well do you know how much it will be?? he estimates 10€ each. so we get into slovakia and the train man comes around and its 40. 40€ each. fuck. luckily i have it, because i dont think he had a card machine. he tells me we have to go change it, im like, okay, bit weird but okay, and he takes me into an empty compartment. shit. he tells me we can just pay 40 instead of 80 and not get a ticket. by this point im a bit stressed and confused and just hand over the money and then realise its a bribe. crap. so i go back to my seat, tell olivia and we`re both like, errrr not happy! we have both heard stories about illegal activity and then they call the police and get a cut from what they fine us too, and we get chucked in jail. so olivia goes to find him to fix my mess but he refuses. next time he comes through the carraige we insist we want a ticket. he cant refuse infront of everyone so we get one. thank the lord! so we are 80€ lighter, but a least we´re not in prison!

So prague. we arrive and get to the street ive been emailed, as it is a new location. but there is no hostel. we go to the hostel we can see, and they called our one, and yes its there, you just have to walk through a resturant. awkward! the waiters gave us such dirty looks. but yes! so the hostel that cost us next to tnothing due to being in prague 5, had recently moved to prague 1! right in the centre of the city. there was hardly any other guests and everything was being renovated, but we cant complain for the location adn price we paid! in prague we went on a walking tour, to charles bridge and chilled in the gardens near the river. it really is a fairytale city. pictures (well mine, anyway) dont do it justice. but i loved it!

after prague we went to krakow. and guess what!? our eurail isnt valid there either. although we checked liek 3 times, for both budapest-prague and prague-krakow, no one mentioned that our pass wasnt valid! i mean, we should have looked too, but no one knows whats going on in eastern europe... so we are on the train and luckily we can pay by card to get to katowice. then on the katowice-krakow leg, we cant. we only have euros and they wont except this either. the ticekt man mentions the police and we´re luck, fuck, again?? 2 guys sitting near us are in the same boat and we´re like, hell no, this is NOT happening. they manage to swap euros fro zloty´s and we get 100 from this guy (who later takes us to an atm and we pay him back, lovely guy, bit wierd, but he saved out bacon, so not complaining!) so once again, we arrive after some excitement and find our hostel which is right near the train station, yay! it very nice, friendly and we meet these kiwis who promise to buy us alcohol for the next night so we can go out (i think they heard we were complaining about being poor ahah, awks!) the next day, we go to Auschwitz. i didnt cry. but it was quite overwhelming. we got taken around Auschwitz 1 and then we were taken to Birkenau, which was the main extermination camp. the size of this camp is phenomenol. i just couldnt stop imagaining what it woudl have been like, rows upon rows of buildings, dusty in the summer and too cold in the winter. words cant describe it.

and then that night, we drank away our sorrows we were watching get him to the greek which happened to be on tv, and we took some shots and we were just about to go out when olivia decided she doesnt feel well. i wont go into the details, but for me and her, the night ends here ahha. the next day we watch shall we dance and try to find other english speaking movies (impossible) and i read. and its nice, but i got so over staying inside! and i wasnt that hungover, yay! our last day in krakow, we go into town have a look around. its really nice, but i couldnt help thinking it would be AMAZING in either summer or winter, with sun or snow, not the overcastness we got. that evening i have a train to catch at 17.50 to the airport to fly to barcelona! but im running late and dont have enough time to look up where the hostel is in barcelona. good. so i arrive at the airport. my phones dead. im not sure im going to be allowed on the flight because ryanair is self check in and there is a good chance i entered something wrong with my passport (place of issue? on australian soil = australia, but the british embassy is british soil, isnt it?). my phone is dead. i dont know whether the shuttle bus will still work at midnight in barca. oh and my cards not working. good. i ask around and am told there is no internet in the airport. find internet in the airport (see, no one knows anything in eastern europe!) and find the hostel. one thing done yay to cut a long story short, everything works out, i wait a lot in the airport, i wait a lot in the cold at REU airport in barcalona. and i walk half an hour before realising the metro works all night on a saturday in barcalona. get to the hostel and crash.

and today i have done washing. eaten expensive sushi and booked expensive trains. yay! haha

and im getting dirty looks (been on for AGES), so i have to get off and cook dinner, cant read through. sorry for the rushed last few paragraphs (prague onwards really), i had 4 hours sleep because 3 different alarms went off at 8am and no one turned them off. bye!

Wednesday - after a long long train ride, overnight, with seats that didnt recline we arrived in barcalona. we were so tired and were moving and thinking incredibly slowly!! i wanted to get to the hostel, drop our bags then go on the walking tour, but by the time we actually reached the hostel, the tour had started long ago. so we sat, and i went on the net, wrote some postcards, watched tv and went grocery shopping. we made chicken parmagana and it was delicious! we finally checked in and although we had booked a 14 bed dorm, the room was enormous, didnt feel like there were that many people at all; tried explaining this to the reception lady, that i was really impressed, but she got a bit defensive saying 'this is what you booked!' i tried to explain but it all got lost in translation i think... oops haha. in the afternoon we went for a walk but we were exhausted after little sleep on the train so we hurried back to the hostel and chilled. met some really awesome people, an australian girl who was really nice and 2 aussie guys who told us what we missed out on in ibiza also watched the end to freaky friday (the one with lindsey lohan), that took me back!!

Thursday - we hired bikes!! best way to get around i think. we headed down to the beach and cycled along the beach path thing (cant think of the word, prominard? also cant spell... but thats another issue ha) the hostel lady said the beach wasnt as nice as aussie ones, but i think it was really pretty. apparently its dirty when you swim, but from the sand it looks good. cycled up to the sagrada familia, a church designed by gaudi. wondered why there was scaffolding, and why there was scaffolding in all the pictures as well... turns out, although building the church began in 1850, its not due to be completed until 2020. good barcelona, good. but it was still pretty amazing, it looked like it was out of a fairy tale, hansel and gretel or something. tried to get a nice postcard because photos dont do it justice at all!! planned to cylcle by gaudi's other 2 buildings on the way back to our hostel, got slightly lost and missed them, but reached the hostel eventually. stored our bikes and watched a movie (because it was movie night! they said there would be popcorn and there was, but i could have finished the whole thing by myself haha).

Friday - rode our bikes back and then went on the old city walking tour. it was good but i was NOT in the mood and my feet hurt so much! (part of the reason we hired bikes) so i didnt listen. we had to check out of the hostel and into another, due to plans changing, but when we went to pick up our bags we got side tracked by yet another movie and the aussies, and didnt end up leaving til 6. got to the hostel, another 14 bed dorm, but the room was TINY (this is what i meant at the first place!). some guys started talking to us and i thought they were nice, but then we heard the story of there arrival the night before at 1am. the 5 guys got in, flicked the lights on and off and pulled the sheets off the girls, and then said how funny it was. ass holes. if they had done that to me, i would have gone to reception and asked them to be removed! and then they just turned out to be creepy. constantly staring and being weird and i regretted being so friendly to them! bloody italians. did not enjoy them at all. we decided to go out after having not done so for a couple of weeks due to sickness and major budgeting. olivia really wanted to go back to our old hostel and pick up the aussies so thats what we did. at 11 we left, arrived soon after, and found out they werent there... good. so we sat out the front and drank and waited, hoping for them to come back (sounds super creepy, but really we had a bottle of malibu to get through as well). when olivia went to the loo, i went upstairs to where the guests of the hostel hung out (as we werent guests we couldnt go there, we tried) and said i was waiting for my friend and didnt want to wait alone. anyway, made friends with some american guys and then one said he would come out with us. the other two bailed (in hindsight, i reckon they were like, finally! a night without omar. but more on that later) olivia came back and picked up 2 swedish girls who had been in our room, and we all headed out. got to la rambla (the main street) and went to 'moog' which we had free entry tickets for. got in and it was techno crap playing. no beat,no bass. awful. so we left and went to another place where some lady on the street had given me free tickets too as well (this is VERY common in europe, you can be approached in the day, at night, on the beach, wherever, by people offering free entry to their club. its actually pretty awesome!) and this place was good. (funny music though, as well as your standard, they remixed lion king in there, as well as some other slow songs...) getting in was an issue though. it was past 2 so guys had to pay, which was fine, but they tried to make olivia pay as well, as they said she didnt have a ticket. she did, she gave it to the guy! i reckon they have a limit on the number of free people in a group they let in... so i put my angry face on and the guy relented danced for a bit. swedish girl head banged, and omar... well, he tried to dance with so many different people and when he left, they all looked a bit disgusted and shocked. he was just way way too intense. not in a gross way, in an intense way. (and as we were walknig the streets to get to the club he was showing off and being really loud, yelling 'hola!' at people and all the rest of it, yelling at the guys selling water, and olivia and i were like 'SHUT UP! youre embarrassing yourself and behaving like a dick'. he was a weird. anyway, we left and he was didnt know how to get home. luckily for him, the swedish girls did, so we bailed quick smart. got back to the hostel and crashed

Saturday - woke up feeling pretty average, but after taking 20 minutes to eat a piece of toast with vegemite and drink some water i was fine, yay!! our train wasnt til 3 so we bummed around a bit had maccas (the smallest nugget meal is 9 nuggets, 9! so. much. food.) and went to pick up food for the train. im not very good at shopping when im stuffed full because i cant imagine being very hungry again and so dont feel like eating anything, which makes buying things difficult because i dont want it, make sense? anyway, finally settled on some coloured popcorn and corn crackers. left the hostel, got to the train station, did some more waiting, and got onto the train at 3. 3 hours later and some breathtaking scenery of the basque country, with HUGe hills covered in pine trees, we arrived in Tour de Carol, the middle of no where. mountains surrounded us and the was nothing really, except a train station; and this was where we where catching a train to paris??? i sat outside and read as we waited (yet again) and the air was really fresh and the country side beautiful, and id love to go back and drive though the south of france, north of spain. at 20 20 we got on a bus and went on the windy-est trip EVER. worse than the balck spur. so so bad. got to Toulouse and hopped on the train: we had 'seat' tickets and we thought it would be the same as the spain ones. it wasnt! they nearly fully reclined, and as the train was pretty empy, we had 2 seats each. so the night was much more restful.

Sunday - Got to the train station and found out that there were no tickets to berlin, arriving today. that was a bit of a bum, as we'd already booked accommadation. the next best thing was to take a night train tonight which was a bit out of our budget, but i think we get beds!!! hallelujah, a bed. so spent the morning in maccas trying to work out how to email from my phone (by the end i think i realised i cant) and bumming around. had indian for lunch, poori and parotha! really took me back, their potato curry that came with it, tasted exactly the same as the one at ganesh mess in rameswaram. again, out of our budget, but we havent had a proper meal in days... and it was delicious. anyway, 4 hours til our train comes, ive finished my book and my ipod has dodgy music on it. wish me luck.

ps, we can feel it getting colder... might have to do some shopping, not out of want, but out of nessecity