PHOTO TIME 2 - part 2

Okay some more photos from various countries. Same deal as last time, click on the photo to view it properly. Really struggling to find time to upload more but this tour ends on the weekend so hopefully a whole lot more soon! No more P.O.D. Until atleast then though. Enjoy!

PHOTO TIME 2

The Eye

Big Ben

On the eye

Modern day Shakespeare

Jamie

York Minster

York Minster

Edinburgh, Scotland

Dublin, Ireland

To Ireland...

Scotland was good to us for the most part. Besides when Jamie and I went to get a kebab- which we thought was simply some meat on a stick with some capsicum and stuff but actually turned out to be meat and salad in a styrofoam container with 2 pizza bases in a bag of course. We however did proceed to discover Jack Daniels and coke at a bar for £1.50 (about $2.20 aus) and took full advantage. The highlight of the night though was probably the fact that Monday night at 'The Capitol' is of course quiz night! So we entered our team of two and went on to finish in dead last but had the best night in Britain so far. 

And today we headed over the Irish sea and made our way from northern Ireland to here in Dublin, where we will stay tonight and tomorrow night and even managed to get our photo in the paper for tomorrow to celebrate the government making public transport free. When the photographer asked us Aussies what our names were so he could write them in the paper he seemed to be expecting something a little less Irish than 'Hamish McLoughlin' though. 

P.O.D. Where is London bridge?

On my way to London I was pretty excited to actually see London bridge. Until I saw it. As you can see in the photos London bridge is the boring plan brown bridge and the cool big bridge is actually the tower bridge. I though after years of singing 'London bridge is falling down' that it must be a pretty special bridge otherwise who cares if it falls down. Obviously nobody cares as the current London bridge is the fourth one that's been built on the site.

Great Scot!

I have a love/hate relationship with the Internet over here.   Using google and my phone gps have basically saved my life on numerous occasions, but when the Internet isn't working how I want when I want I want to throw it off the highest mountain in Europe and watch it smash into 7000 tiny pieces. That's why I haven't posted in a few days, because as soon as I began heading north of London en route to Scotland my phone had been more temptemental than my sister.

But despite that, I am pretty glad to be out of London city. It's a beautiful place with a lot of interesting people and sights, but after a few days the crammed streets begin to drain the life out of you. I don't think I could live there.

So early Saturday morning we began our journey north to Scotland, stopping on the way to visit Stratford upon Avon which is where Shakespeare lived and his house is still in tact and now an expensive tourist attraction. We also stopped briefly in York, which was a pretty nice town before heading to Leeds for the night. I wouldn't live in Leeds if you payed me. It looked, felt like and apparently is a pretty unsafe city and despite our hotel being in a nice area, walking a block in any direction was enough to feel like you were in the dodgy area of town. 

The next day we headed north again and entered the highlands of England and began to see some spectacular mountains.  This was a day of highlights and lowlights. The highlights included some of the most beautiful scenery I've seen, most notably around lake Wyndemere. I could definitely live around there. And the lowlights included leaving my backpack at the train station then spending $50Aud on a taxi to go back and get it, followed by leaving my phone at a table at Burger King in a mall. And to top the bad news off was news from dad that my last surviving pet fish that's been with me for 2 years didn't last 2 weeks in the merciless care of dad.

We stayed in Glasgow which is the biggest city it Scotland last night and will do so again tonight before heading to Ireland tomorrow. Glasgow isn't anything super special but today we visited Edinburgh, which I think is a much nicer city and would have liked some more time in. There's a castle hanging off the side of the cliff but after a driving tour of the whole city and walking through the malls in the new city we didn't even make it to the old city including the castle. Some of the buildings in Edinburgh date back over 1000 years and there's even a pub est. In 1581.

In other news....

Saw the most expensive bottle of whiskey of the trip so far today, $22,500 for what must be a fine drop.

Forgot to mention that while I was in Italy I had an admission from an Italian national that the penalty call that led to Italy beating Australia in the 2006 soccer world up was not the right call.

Struggling to find a computer to upload a whole bunch of photos, so for now one photo a day will have to do!

P.O.D. Axed

Sure I've seen axes before. Sure I know that in history people have been beheaded. But there was something about seeing this axe, and reading the documented proof that a little over 100 years ago this very axe performed it's final beheading of a human being that I found fascinating. This is one of the many things also at the tower of London along with the crown jewels that was pretty amazing. The tower of London isn't cheap, but if you're ever in London, it's worth it.

P.O.D Delivery boat

Another photo from the beautiful Venice. It's amazing to think that the people of Venice don't even have the simple luxury of roads. I mean canals are cool but even watching tradesman pulling up about 100kg wheelbarrows up and down set after set of steps is tiring. Then they load them into boats and they're shipped off. It also looked funny seeing the mail for the town cruising down the canal on a boat but there's just no other way. Still, I don't think you could complain too much about living in a place like Venice - if you could afford it.

P.O.D. Alps

This was a pretty nice photo I took on my phone flying over the alps last week on the way to Italy. Only the second time I've seen snow in my life and I've never actually touched snow. So needless to say going to the snow is high on my travel list. Also this photo made me excited for my Alp adventure at the end of July following the tour de France!

P.O.D. Graffiti

 There is a lot of graffiti in Italy, atleast in comparison to Adelaide. Kids are always going to spraypaint the occasional fence on sign anywhere in the world but what surprised me the most was the amount of graffiti on historical buildings. I'm talking 500-600 year old buildings with the walls plastered in pen and texta ink with dates and words in foreign languages and before we point the finger at disrespectful Europeans, I should mention that there was atleast one big 'G'DAY MATE!' written on the staircase in an ancient cathedral.

This picture however made me have a bit of a chuckle and anybody who knows me well will know that this is exactly the kind of thing that while I don't condone it, I do think it's funny.

P.O.D. Gold

Romans must have had a lot of spare gold, because i'm not sure if this is sculpted from gold or painted in gold, but either way they've used a lot of gold. This is a close up of one of the hand carved gold panels on a huge door to a cathedral. Sculptors worked for decades on a single piece of work like a statue or a door and the articulate masterpieces and a testament to their dedication and talent. Once again it's hard to gain a perspective of the size, but overall the door was probably 7-10m high and 4-5m high and this panel was about a 30cm square. So the carvings are quite small and the detail is amazing.

Quiet time and interesting people.

The last 2 days have felt more like a holiday than an adventure. Today and yesterday are the only 2 days of my whole trip where I'll be by myself, so I have just relaxed, caught up in some sleep and organized some stuff. Yesterday I moved hostels, and I spent the time between check out and number 1 and check in at number 2 walking around Victoria. Went to Buckhingham Palace and watched the changing of the guards and to be brutally honest it was a little boring.
Then I caught the underground to my new home in peak hour. The underground has about 5 million users everyday apparently and at least half of them must have been on my train. I was literally pressed between 2 people the entire journey. It was an experience, that's for sure. Maybe not a great one but I'll appreciate the space on the noarlunga train a lot more when I get home.

I settled in then decided to brave it and go friend hunting at the hostel bar. Sure enough I hadn't even ordered a beer yet and I got talking to Jesse from Canada who is in his last week of a 3 month stint in europe visiting pretty much the exact list of countries that I'm hoping to head to.

Today I met 2 cool people;
This guy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okhwan_Yoon

And a Moroccan guy who I chatted to in the dorm and he told me I have to go to the party city in Morocco. Considering he drank a whole bottle of wine in the 15 minutes we chatted straight out of the bottle, I have a feeling he knows a thing or two about partying.

And tonight I'm heading off with my Canadian friends to see Big Ben and some other London attractions at night, before heading off to the airport at 5am tomorrow to welcome Kelly and Jamie to the UK.

Don't forget to check back for the daily photos, so far I have scheduled one post a day for 7 days :)

P.O.D. - Skeletons in your closet?

P.O.D. (Photo Of the Day)- I will be posting a photo from some stage of my trip so far each day along with the story behind it. It'll be scheduled to post every afternoon so check in every afternoon for a new photo!

This will be aswell as my usual random posts :)

 

When I was at school, we learned the basics of the human skeletal system and I can even name a few bones. We had a replica human skeleton that the teacher used to use to as a learning aid, much like the one above. However when Elisa took me to her school on Saturday I realised that the Italians do it a little different. They use a real human skeleton that's a few hundred years old. When it's not being used it's just stored in the school museum. Yeah, that's right, the school has a museum.

O-Canada!

I was gonna write a nice long post with photos tonight, but ended up drinking pints and rum with my new Canadian friends. Hope you don't mind haha!

Organising + England

Dear diary (HAHA), this is going to be a two part post, as the title would indicate I have some organising to do and I have some England to talk about! But first off, for those who have been following the blog, the photos are now in a rough order and have captions and are in higher quality, so head back down the page and see hem again if you want. And hopefully I'll put some more photos up tomorrow or the next day, depending on how much time I have spare :)

Organising!
So far the trip has gone pretty well with minimal organising. I am a little embarassed to admit that yes I did book my acoommodation for when I landed in England for the first time last week the night before  flew out of Adelaide. That's also when I booked my flights to Italy the next day, and everything went pretty smooth i'm proud to say. But I have been meaning to prepare an itinerary for those back home, in particular Mum, Dad, Grandma and Dar! But until now I have not had an hour to myself on a computer to type one up! It's hard to believe considering im already 10 days into my trip! But between flying and hanging out with Elisa in Italy and Jacki in London, I have been flat out.
So here is a pretty rough outline of my plans between now and August 1st.


Itinerary
21June-Today

22/23June-Solo in England, cleaning out and organising my bags and sorting some photos maybe?

24June-Meet Kelly and Jamie at the airport at 5:55am (sigh)

25June-2July- Tour bus from London, anti-clockwise to Scotland, Ireland and Wales(more details later)

2July-19July- Free time with Kelly and Jamie! Heading back east but to where and when is still to be decided. Most likely to but not limited to; Italy, Switzerland, Austria, Germany.

20July-24July- Going by myself on a guided tour to the last 3 stages of the Tour de France, beginning in Lyon, South France and ending in Paris on the 24th(my birthday!).

25July-29July- Chilling in France with Kelly, Jamie and for some time Ben Delecourt, a.k.a. 'Frenchy'. Hopefully he can show us some cool stuff in his home town of Paris.

29July-1Aug- Travelling home :(



England
Sunday was a pretty relaxed day, despite being in Italy, France and England in the one afternoon I actually didn't do much except stare out of windows. Monday I met Jacki (friend from SA) in the morning and we spent the day walking around London looking at cool stuff and she got a pretty nice tattoo on her leg. Then we had a late tea because I'm still on Italian eating times so I haven't been getting hungry until about 9pm. 
And today was a real cool day. I had breakfast with the Amor family then after accidentally catching the wrong bus and ending up in Chelsea we caught the train to the other side of London and went to the royal tower. That's where the queen keeps her bling and other cool jewelry but sadly cameras are banned so you'll have to google the crown jewels. Then we cruised down the river to the London eye (massive ferris wheel), went for a spin on that and then said my farewells to the Amor's and prepared for 2 days of solo missions.

Venice and Unplanned Fun

Sorry all for the delay in posts, but the last few days in Italy were hectic. Also I'll put captions on the pictures I posted earlier today next time in on a computer.

 My solo mission to Venice went almost perfectly, slept on the train almost the entire 2 hours, both ways and managed to see the majority of the city. I didnt ride a gondola in the canals for a few reasons, basically because to go for a private ride was ridiculously expensive and to go on a group tour you had to stick to a designated route and could only go in the large canals and people were jammed into the boats like sardines. Not my thing. So I spent the better part of 2 hours strolling through the maze that is Venice on my way to San Marco; the most famous and best plazza and cathedral in Venice. For those who dont know, Venice has no roads and there is no scooters or other vehicles allowed in the city (they wouldnt fit down the streets anyway)so despite being the most crowded place I've been to so far, it was so peaceful. I didn't go inside San Marco because the lineup was ridiculous so I took some happy snaps and headed for the train station, walking in the other side of the grand canal this time and seeing the other half of the city. I only spend about 6 hours in Venice but you could easily stay there for a few days and not experience the entire city. Elisa had told me about inconsistency of the Italian weather and sure enough the day went from sunny and 30+ to thunder, lightning and heavy rain in about 10 minutes. The locals all whipped out their umbrella that I thought it was strange they were carrying and kept walking and the tourists all stood under shelter and waited it out. 

That night Elisa and I rode to the city and met most of her classmates to have some drinks. Truth is that I hate shots but Elisa's class thought they would try and kill me with a shot that I'm pretty sure was straight poison but they insisted on buying me a round so I obliged. Didn't go well. 

Saturday we woke up late and had nothing planned for the day except to buy me a USB and meet some friends for lunch. By the time we got home from doing that it was 2am and we had seen a huge street parade, gone to a feast and had a gathering in a park. The park was opposite an ice-cream shop, and it was pretty strange seeing people ranging from older than my grandparents to kids with dummies still lining up out onto the street at midnight. 

This morning  we went out to breakfast with some more friends then Elisa cooked one last meal of Italian pasta for lunch. I really didn't want to leave Bologna and it was pretty sad driving away in the back of the taxi, not knowing when I'll be back to see the Negrini family. But one things for sure, I'll be back!

PHOTO TIME!

CLICK 'READ MORE' TO SEE PICTURES

Click on each picture to open it in full size, they look much better that way. Also they should have captions now.

Butterfly garden mentioned in the first post! Inside the Singapore airport!



Another airport garden




Airport waterfall



Italia

Yesterday morning was my first morning in Italy and when I was offered coffee, chocolate yoghurt, bread, cake, chocolate biscuits and fruit for breakfast I should have known what I was in for. Food over here is a whole nother world.

After breakfast we went for a walk to one of the churches in the area and once again I made a rookie mistake with the clothing.  The church was on the top of a big hill and I had known for days that the weather was going to be about 30 everyday I was in Italy so I still dont know why I wore jeans. When we got back I had my first taste of Italian pasta for lunch. Then meat skewers. Then a bowl of tomatoes. Yes, just for lunch. Then Elisa asked me if I was able to ride a bike into the city of Bologna because she wanted to show me around. Of course I can ride a bike but it still didn't feel right riding a 40 year old bike on the wrong side of the road with no helmet on amongst traffic on the narrow streets of Bologna. It was a pretty amazing start to the day.

We had a look around Bologna, stopping for coffee then gelato by which time I was feeling pretty Italian. That night is when I started to realise how different Australia is from Italy. Elisa's mum is a high school teacher and it is tradition here for the graduating students to take all their teachers out and pay for dinner a week or so before the final exams. To me this seemed like a pretty obvious attempt at bribery but I went along with it (I realise that i'm not a teacher or student but somehow managed to get an invite). I was the only one at the table who thought it was strange for the teachers to be pouring glasses of wine for their students, probably because if a teacher did that for a student in Australia they would be facing time in jail, not being thanked.

Then pasta again. Ate my second serving of pasta for the day, then a different kind of pasta, ate that, then one more kind of pasta, ate that too. So after my fourth serving of pasta in one day, I was stuffed. Then 5 minutes later a tray of meat came out. Had one tiny bit of that, (didn't want to be rude!), then another plate of hams and sliced meats. By this time I had realised how Italians eat, first pasta, then meats, then vegetables, then dessert, all accompanied by wine. Sure enough after the 3 servings of pasta and 2 servings of meat it was vegetable time. So out came the olives, chips, capsicums etc. And everyone just ate and ate. Then cake. keeping in mind that Italians don't usually start eating tea before 8:30/9 by the time we finished all the food it was almost midnight. On a Wednesday. And the restaurant was still half full. Going to an 'Italian Restaurant' will never be the same for me again. 




Today we went to Florence, about a hour and a half by train from Bologna or about 5 minutes if you sleep through it. I just looked back over all the photos I took of the city and was very disappointed. They don't do the buildings that took decades to build and have been standing for centuries any justice. I'll still put some up anyway but really they have to be seen for yourself. I was looking at some weird American guy carrying an American flag and talking into a megaphone wondering what the hell he was thinking when Elisa pointed out that he was the tour guide for Jersey Shore and that that's why there were camera crews running around us. I don't think that telling locals to move because they're ruining the background shot of an American tv show is the right way to make friends in Italy though.

And just now I've returned from a family dinner, where we had the usual couple of servings of hand made pasta, meat and vegetables with home-made wine. Even better than last night. Then out came a cake with 'Welcome' on it that Elisa's Nonna baked specially :)

And finally, tomorrow I am heading off on a voyage without my personal tour guide / translator, to Venice! I've learnt a few random words in Italian so i'll be able to test them out tomorrow.

Getting to Bologna

When I booked the flights from London to Bologna it took about 10 minutes on the Internet. All I had to do was go back to Heathrow airport, fly to Amsterdam, connect to Bologna and then catch a taxi to Elisa's. Too easy.

After first catching the wrong bus to the wrong terminal, I had to catch 2 trains to get to the right terminal. Heathrow is the busiest airport in the world apparently and has over 65 million passengers a year, hence why the airport has it's own train service. 

Things started going okay from then, the flight from London to Amsterdam was a joke, it takes me longer to drive from Seaford to Goolwa and there was barely time for the hostesses to offer drinks. Amsterdam to Bologna was a little longer, a little over 1.5 hours but flying over the Alps was amazing. It's about 30 degrees in the day but they still have snow on the top! 

Then the language barrier hit. First of all I needed to go to the toilet on the plane, and as I approached the toilet some lady started speaking Italian flat out and I had no idea what sue said but the gist of it was that somebody had destroyed the toilet and it was blocked.  Then I grabbed a taxi and apparently the only English he knew was 'OH MY GOD!' because he kept speaking Italian then when I tried to tell him I only spoke English that's what he was saying. Eventually I managed to communicate to him that I needed to use his phone because I lost Elisa's address and I finally got here at about 11pm. I think were going to Florence today, should be a nice day :)  I'll put photos up soon! 

Jetlaggggg

Well I finished my time off at Singapore airport with free foot massages and then watched a movie at the airport cinema (also free!). Then I stuck to my game plan on the plane and watched a movie, ate my meal then took a sleeping tablet and slept for over half the flight. All was going to plan until I arrived in London.

I made a rookie mistake today. After getting sick of walking around the underground and playin on the travellators (some of them are over 100m long and go up and down hills, pretty cool huh?) I decided to catch a bus to my hotel early and that despite my 7 hours sleep on the plane and only being awake for 8 hours since, that I should have a nap. So at 1pm I set my alarm for 2:30pm. I woke up at 1am (which was 9:30am back home). Jetlag got me by the bollocks.

So I'm not really sure what to do between now and my flight to Italy at 4pm. There's only so many papers you can read at the airport.

Singapore!

Welcome to my blog for my trip to Europe! Incase you didn't know I left cold wintery Adelaide this morning and wont be returning until August, and I couldn't be more excited!
I'll be posting pictures stories and other experiences on here randomly hopefully every few days, so feel free to check in every now and then and see whats going on :)

Right now i'm in Singapore and its about 30 degrees, probably didn't need to wear trackies. This airport is more like a garden than an airport so i'll try put some photos up in the next few days. But for now I have 3 more hours to wait until about a 13 hour flight to London. A quick movie and a sleeping tablet and ill be there in no time!