Jan 2007

Sorry to upset the chronological order of things, but as its obviously going to take me a little while to get through my Europe trip I think I’ll just post an update of my last few weeks in Leeds while its still all fresh in my mind.

I got back into Leeds around the 4th of January, and although it was sad to be saying goodbye to all my new friends from Contiki, I was exhausted and ready to be going home. The thought of my own bed and no bus to catch ridiculously early in the morning was heaven.

I didn’t manage to get a lot of rest though. This is mostly thanks to James (there you go, 3rd mention) and the other boys in flat 1.1 who I went out with the night I got back to Leeds. They should feel privileged that I’d barely been home a few hours and I was already around visiting them.

And then caught up with more people who had also just arrived back in Leeds after going home for Christmas over the rest of the weekend.

Then over the next three weeks I spent most of my time with the boys in the flat downstairs, and James and Don fast became my favourite people in Leeds.


It was really a short but sweet time as Don (who is from the US) and I were both leaving within a few days of each other.

Don’s flatmates got a goodbye t-shirt made for him, and although I didn’t contribute to this I did go with James on a trek around an Industrial Park to find the shop to pick them up from, so was granted the honour of standing in for an absent flatmate to present the t-shirts to a teary eyed Don.

On the Saturday night before I left I had a goodbye party, which consisted of an overpacked kitchen, pizza then Halo – a nightclub inside an old church in Leeds where I had a booked a private VIP area for the night. It was a great night, and I bawled my eyes out saying goodbye to everyone at the end of the night

Then I was packing Sunday and Monday. Had dinner with Bjorn sunday night, and then with James at the Hard Rock Cafe on Monday night, my last night.

Goodbyes:


Packing on Sunday and Monday... I wanted to take EVERYTHING....

At the bus station just before I left – just before I cried...

Then it was hours and hours of travelling. I didn't even bother trying to count it this time or work out when I should be sleeping and eating and waking on Adelaide time like I did on the way over. I just slept whenever I could, which wasn't often. The transfer in Amsterdam airport to my Amsterdam - Kuala Lumpur flight was fine. I pretty much just walked off one plane, to the next gate, sat for a bit then got on the next plane. But then I got to Kuala Lumpur and realised I had a 5 hour wait, and no malaysian currency to buy food. They wouldn't take a card so I had to pay with a British 20 pound note - this meant about 120 ringgit in change. Then I found a bench, set my alarm on my phone and slept for 2 hours. It was the best sleep I had gotten in about 20 hours. Then back on the plane to Adelaide, through customs and back to Charles St.

It was weird coming home - the weirdest part, stragely enough, was walking into the flat and finding it looking exactly like I'd left it. For some reason coming back to everything being the same as when I left made it harder to come back, not easier.

I've been feeling a bit homesick since I got back, readjusting to life here, and dealing with leaving behind what had become my home over in England. While I'm glad to be back and seeing everyone here, I made some really good friends there and I miss them a lot. And though everything is familiar here, I do feel a little foreign in my own country, whereas I had come to feel really at home in England. I'm sure I'll feel better when I've readjusted.

I think I'm getting over jet lag now - after days falling asleep between 3 -6pm and waking up between 1-3am I finally slept in til 5am this morning! yay me! I don't mind waking up early though so I hope I don't go back to sleeping in late.

Anyway, coming up for me is a few weeks of holidays - not quite sure what I'm going to do! I've already done too much shopping, and my bank account won't hold up to much more. Big Day Out this Friday.

Not long til uni starts again though, and I'm really looking forward to it because its all teaching this year.

And I'm hoping to be able to afford to go back and visit people in England for about 5 weeks in their summer, June/July, finances permitting.

Thats all for now.

• We now return you to normal programming.... (more Europe to come soon...) xx

aaah, I’m only just past Amsterdam.... I really should have got onto this sooner. Oh well, I’ll go through the photos and see how much I can still remember! First a reminder that if you want to see more than the limited photos put up here go to http://picasaweb.google.com/a1120631/Contiki

Leaving Amsterdam we drove to Germany, and through Cologne on our way to St. Goar and a little family run hotel in Urbar. We stopped for a couple of hours in Cologne to go and drink Gluhwein and eat gingerbread in the Christmas markets. Jen and I got used as demonstration models for this hair stick thing, a bit like a chopstick with decoration on one end. Good marketing strategy as we both ended up buying two...

The Rhine Valley in Germany is pretty to drive through, and there are castles everywhere. We stopped in St. Goar for wine tasting, a look at the world record holding cuckoo clock (forgive me, but surely this wouldn’t be hard record to beat?!), and a supermarket stop to stock up on supplies for our two night stay in the alps in Switzerland. (That makes it sound like we were going to be roughing it, but its just because to reach the hotel we had to take cable cars which ended at about 3.30pm so restricted access to shops.)

The hotel in Urbar was cute and family run, with just a little bar, but probably one of the best nights since we were all there together (since we had no choice). I spent part of the night watching a group of local guys playing some dice game, which they patiently tried to explain to me in English, but I think eventually gave up and just wanted to play and me to leave them alone!

Apart from that it was too much german beer and wine, and a few random sing-a-longs in the bar – led by the Australians of course....

Sign on the back of the room doors:

I think the other guests 'honourated' our noise levels and we 'leafed' our rooms as they 'were was'. :P

The next day we were up bright and early as usual and driving into Switzerland. Switzerland, although the most perpetually neutral country in the world it seems, is also the most paranoid and armed for defence! They have missiles aimed everywhere, even at themselves if it should ever be best to blow themselves up rather than be attacked, and fake bits of mountains built to house this stuff. I wouldn’t have believed it but I saw the fake bits of mountains myself. And every male in Switzerland does military training and owns a machine gun! The Swiss also seem elitist when it comes to who can become a Swiss citizen – you must speak French, German, English and Italian and a whole lot of other criteria – even if you marry a Swiss person.

Anyway, when we got to Lucerne we got out overnight bags and boarded the cable cars to get to the top of Mt Pilatus to the hotel which is the highest in the Alps. My excitement at going up a mountain and getting to see snow outweighed any fear I might have had about being dangled in a little red box high above the ground.

First glimpse of snow

At this point we were all thinking this was going to be it, just a sprinkling of snow about the place. And I thought, Oh well at least I got to see some even if I can’t really make snow angels in it. In a way the slight disappointment was good as it lowered my expectations for the sights that were actually waiting for us up the mountain.

first time touching snow!

The coldest I’ve ever been in my life, right on top of the mountain. (At this point I was very glad I’d decided to spend perhaps a bit more than I could afford on a ski jacket – I thought at the time, will I really need this?... but yes, yes I did!)

That night we had our own private disco, or Swissco – which still now, even as I remember it, causes me to sing in my head our own take on Who Da Funk’s ‘Shiny Disco Balls’....’late night booty calls, Shiny Swissco balls’... which somehow ended up ‘Chinese Swissco Balls’ – I would say you had to be there, but I was and I still don’t get it!

The next day was sightseeing and fondue lunch in Lucerne. At first we were soaking our bits of bread in the cheese mix and deciding that we didn’t very much like cheese fondue – it had a really strong wine after taste – who knew cheese fondue had wine it? Or were we just ingnorant. But then we decided to just dip it in a little bit it actually tasted good then. Some people bought Swiss Watches and stuff while we were in Lucerne, but that was a little out of my price range. I did buy a white Swiss Army Knife though, white being traditionally the colour that you could only get in Switzerland, Black for Europe and Red for the rest of the world. (Now of course you can get them in any colour, or pattern, anywhere.) And of course I also bought plenty of Swiss Chocolate!

Then on our way back up the mountain we stopped about 2/3rd of the way up to play in the snow! I of course had to try making a snow angel even though I’d been told, quite truthfully, that it just makes you cold.

And then we had lots of fun running, tripping, sliding and falling down the hill through the snow (the only way to stop once you started running was to fall over). Jen at one point was running down the hill and her shoe came off. Of course the snow had immediately caved back in over it and it was a fairly inconspicuous beige colour to begin with. Fortunately after only about 10 minutes of everyone being careful to make no new footprints, someone happened across it and it all ended happily. Lucky, otherwise she would have had to spend the rest of her time in the alps shoeless, least of all having to walk back up the hill with only a sock on.

On my way back up the hill I came across and icy spot that was too slippery for me to get up so I asked for a push from behind, but my friend decided she would be funny, get her camera ready, push me over and take a photo... it was pretty funny, if a little evil :p

Switzerland and the snow was probably my favourite part of the whole trip. It was beautiful and amazing!! The pictures don't do the views justice - it would take your breath away every time.

The next day it was out of Switzerland, through Lichtenstein (“ke-bab, ke-bab, ke-bab”... another inside joke, sorry - you can ask me for an explanation if you like because it has to be heard to be understood), and into Austria. This was Christmas eve, and even through we went to Christmas Markets (which were luckily open an hour longer than they were supposed to be so we got to see them) it didn’t feel like Christmas at all to me. Not really in a sad way – I was still having the time of my life, it just wasn’t anything like Christmas.)

That night we tried the apparently famous Farmer’s Schnapps or something – I think its just famous for being totally horrible and making you feel like you should stay away from naked flames for a while or you might be combustible. The favourite of the night was the Sperm shots of some milky schnapps stuff in giant sperm.

Jade, me and Barbara and some of our sperm collection.

And that’s up to day 6 – just 10 more to go!

I managed to get up at about 5.30am (somehow, after going to bed at 1am!) and get ready, checked out and at the Contiki meeting point before 6.45 on the 19th. I spent about 10 minutes worrying I was in the wrong place or something, like I always worry about everything for a bit. But I was in the right place, and started talking to a couple of people I had met the night before at the pre-departure meeting. (So the meeting was good for something I guess!) These people were Jen, Brett (both Aussies) and Adam (a Kiwi) and we all of course proceeded to make cheesy nationality jokes.

Getting on the bus, we lost no time in taking over the back of the bus, along with Al, Mikey and Duane, three more Aussies. Being loud and Australian (and New Zealander sorry Adam), we bonded right away and this is the central group we formed for the rest of the trip. (And maintained our control of the back of the bus too... really Contiki is like long school camp in a lot of ways!)

We drove for a couple of hours until we got to the White (or really not so white) Cliffs of Dover to take the ferry to France. And I got another stamp in my passport. (I plan to collect them now :p) The ferry trip was fairly uneventful and the sea was calm so no sea sickness issues thankfully. We just ate breakfast and browsed duty free. Then most of this day was spent driving through France, Belgium and Holland. There wasn’t even much scenery since it was really foggy most of the way. We got to know our tour manager, Lucky, a bit and he gave us a bit of a history of the Netherlands as we drove to Amsterdam. He also warned us about standards in Europe and made us think we were going to be spending our time in Europe staying in dumps, with smelly toilets without S-bends, eating bread and water for breakfast. Fortunately he was just lowering our expectations so that (apart from a few minor exceptions) we were always presently surprised by our hotels.

Arrived at the Ibis Hotel in Amsterdam at about 4pm and, already tired out from a day of driving, Jen, Sonia (aka ‘Charlie’) and I lay around in a room getting to know each other. We were put together as room mates in triple share room for the trip. And they’re both cool Aussie girls and we got along pretty well so that was good. Then we had dinner at the hotel (this dinner met the low expectations we had been warned about unfortunately!) then were driven in on the bus to central Amsterdam for a canal cruise. This was great, and we also got free wine and Heineken. Always welcome. Then the night was free to explore Amsterdam. Let’s just say, everything you’ve heard about Amsterdam... it’s true. Weird, fascinating, bizarre...and a little saddening.

The next day we visited the Anne Frank house. I got a shock when I came up the little stairs and there was the bookcase covering the entrance to their hiding place. It actually caught my breath for second to see it, and it felt surreal to be going through it.

Then we went to the Van Gogh gallery, took photos with the big I AMsterdam letters, nearly got run over by a tram (this was Jen and I still not used to traffic coming from the wrong direction!), nearly got run over by one of the innumerable bicycles numerous times! and headed off for the Heineken museum.

Along the way we saw a man outside a building holding a rope, and over a pulley at the end of that rope was a bed hanging up in the air. This guy called out to us, asked if we spoke English, and then got Duane (the guy who was with Jen, Sonia and I) to hold the rope while he ran up the stairs (remarkably quickly for an old man and 4 flights of steep stairs) so he could pull the bed into his house. All of the houses in this style have hooks on the front at the top for this purpose and when you see the houses and the stairs you understand why. When the guy was coming back down he saw us taking photos of his colourful stairs and invited us up to have a look at the flat he is renovating at the top.

After our little sojourn with the locals, we continued on to the Heineken factory, which is a really good exhibition. (Great advertising strategy on their part!) I have a funny karaoke video of us that I’ll put on YouTube soon. The picture below is of these little pods you lie in and watch Heineken commercials. When I looked into the room everyone was just lying silently in these weird pods in a eerie green light, hence my label for them of Heineken Brainwashing Pods.

Then we were supposed to be meeting the group and the bus to go to dinner in a sea-side town just outside of Amsterdam. Unfortunately we hadn’t left quite enough time to make our way back, and delayed and crowded trams meant we ended up missing the bus! Fortunately a taxi between four of us wasn’t too expensive and we managed to meet the group at the restaurant. This dinner was much more appetising than the night before. And more free Heineken. Then we went back on the bus into Amsterdam and... well as a group we went to a sex show... when in Amsterdam, I guess. But I have no interest in doing it again. It was weird and sad.

But I would want to spend some more time in Holland. It has more to offer than that.

Well that’s part two. This is turning into a monster blog – it will be at least 8 parts if I continue at this rate. Just a reminder all this detail is primarily for my own records so you can skim over the bits that start to get boring!

Part three coming soon...

WARNING: This is going to be long! It’s as much to record the whole thing for myself as it is for everyone else to read so I’m going to include lots of detail that may or may not be interesting to you all. So read the parts you want, skim the rest, just look at the pictures, whatever. I don’t mind. Just don’t think I’m putting this up here just to torture you all with a long winded recount of my trip. There won’t be a test afterwards... :p (Pictures will come later as there is an error in the system currently - you can always go to http://picasaweb.google.com/a1120631/Contiki

In the week after uni ended most people had gone home, so I was leading a pretty solitary life for a few days. The most human contact I had for a while came in the form of the shop assistants at the supermarket and the man selling me Euros at the post office! I had no idea who, if anyone, was still in my building until the night of the 16th when I happened to run into two of my downstairs flatmates (the aforementioned James and Don – see guys you get two mentions now!) During the week I had a fleeting thought of knocking on their door in case someone was there, but then didn’t do it! Oh well.

That night I went out with them, bonding over our mutual isolation in a deserted Leeds. So I guess I have to thank them that the following day, the 17th when I had to catch my coach to London, I was so tired I slept all the way and drive wasn’t as boring as normal.

That night I went to Trafalgar Square to look at the fountains, which weren’t on last time I was in London, and the Christmas tree.

I was also chatted up by an old French guy, who I politely declined to spend more time with, and headed back towards my hostel with a detour to Oxford Street along the way. All the shops were closing up since it was night, but I couldn't afford to shop there anyway! Then I went back to the hostel and I think I was asleep by 9pm!

The next day was my museum day, as I didn’t have the time to go to any last time I was in London. My hostel was across the road from the British Museum, so I went there first. I spent quite a few hours there and didn’t even see everything. There are great collections of Egyptian, Middle Eastern and Ancient Greek and Roman sculptures, art and artefacts, including the Rosetta stone. Took me back to my first year Classics courses... and I couldn’t remember much at all from them... anyway... At precisely 12 noon, purely by chance, I happened to come across the clock room, so was able to get the full effect of their chiming. They weren’t all completely synchronised so it wasn’t all at once, which is probably a blessing.

Then I had lunch and headed to the Victoria & Albert museum. This houses a lot of art, sculpture and design stuff. I didn’t even see half of this museum, as time was running away from me. I did see some great sculptures, fashion and an interactive light/sound art piece. They had some reconstructions of Leonardo DaVinci’s inventions on display too, like the wings and the parachute. They had DaVinci exhibition somewhere in the building, but by the time I got to that and spent some time being confused about whether I needed a ticket or not, and where you could actually get one from it was too late in the day. If I have any regrets, its that I didn’t get to see that.

In my last hour or so before things closed and I had to get to my Contiki pre-departure meeting, I did a speed tour of the Natural History Museum, which is next door to the V&A.

I managed to get in the dinosaur exhibition and one about human biology. It was all interesting and I wish I could have spent more time there. Oh well, just means I’ll have to come back to London sometime. What a pity.

Then I had my Contiki pre-departure meeting. This was a bit of a waste of time anyway, since they only really told us stuff I already knew and then people checked in with their passports and contiki documents – but since I was running late I didn’t have these with me so I just had to do it in the morning.

Then I went back to my hostel planning to go on the internet, have dinner and go to bed early since I had to be up and at the Contiki bus by 6.45am the next morning. While I was in the lounge on the internet I met an Aussie guy and a South African guy and ended up watching ‘The Shining’ with them. Weird movie. Then we went to get some kebabs for dinner together. When we got back to the hostel we watched the end of ‘Moulin Rouge’ in the lounge with other hostel guests. And though I had planned an early night, I was up until 1am talking to the South African guy, Michael. It’s funny how quickly you can connect with random people you meet when you’re travelling. And sad that you do connect with these people and then have to move on again so soon.

Well that’s part one... and I haven’t even left London yet! Told you it was going to be long! Stay tuned...

Sorry to disappoint, but this is just a quick update to let you all know I haven't forgotten, but its just going to take me a while to get my Europe Trip up here! I have 1050 photos to sort through, and they'll be up on the google album soon, and when I find a significant enough block of time I will sit down and write up my travels. Don't hold your breath - I'm in the middle of exams (plus everything else I have to get organised before I leave - I have so much extra baggage now I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to ship some of it...) so it could be a while. I'll just say it was amazing and unforgettable. I saw all the things I've always seen in pictures, but now I was actually there. It was surreal! It was so fast it was a blur, and we kept asking each other - what day is it? where are we today? what did we do yesterday? I met some great people too, and it was a good taste tester of Europe that has just confirmed my conviction to come back as soon as I can and spend more significant time here. And I saw snow and stayed at the top of the Swiss Alps!! That has to be one of the biggest highlights of my trip!

I'll be back to tell you all about it in 2 weeks anyway!! (Back on the 25th - I plan to go straight to the beach!)

And last but not least, I promised an honourable mention to the two best downstairs flatmates ever - James and Don! Two great guys I went out with the night before I left for my Contiki trip. (I have them to thank for the early start to my sleep deprivation! :P) Love you guys!

And love all you people reading this too! I promise I'll update you properly soon.