People of Rome... invent outdoor airconditioning... please... Okay, so day 2 in Rome started out by being hotter than the previous day, awesome. We started off the day by catching busses and trains etc into the city itself where we then proceeded to head directly towards the Vatican, wanting to try avoid queues etc. Surpirisingly enough there was absolutely no queues when we got there. I was expecting tons of people lined up for blocks. Hey, all the better for us.
So we headed in and then proceeded to start looking around at all the statues and paintings etc. Holy cow, they have a lot of them. Seriously. Like every surface is covered with stuff. Well, one of the main things that we wanted to see there was the Sisteen (spelling?) chapel so we headed off to see that. Now, I'm not going to say that it wasn't impressive, because it was, but my expectations were a little different from what was actually there. Anyone that knows about it knows that there is that picture with the guy whose hand is reaching out towards god's hand... you know the one I'm talking about? Well I always imagined it was this massive image that covered the ceiling... It isn't.
That picture is just a small one on the ceiling, it is in fact one of many pictures that cover the ceiling of chapel. I always expected it to be this massive thing, not a tiny little one. Whenever you hear about it or see it on TV it is always made out to be awesome. I was slightly dissapointed with that, but then again, the chapel itself is damn amazing. It's crazy how much work went into it. Anyway we headed out of there to go and grab some food before we continued to explore the various parts of the Vatican.
The Vatican clearly thinks it knows what people want to see. That is to say, they apparantly believe that EVERYONE wants to see the Sisteen chapel. Why? Because it seems that a large portion of the other exhibits that you can go see will lead you back to the entrance to the Sisteen chapel. Yes it is impressive... but a lot less so on your third trip around it. Oh well. After we had our fill of the different art pieces etc. in there we decided to head off to go explore the rest of Rome for a bit.
Oh, before we continue, I need to explain something. Lee-Anne hadn't brought any propper flip flops or anything like that for the trip, so she decided to get some the night before at the little market thingy at the camp site. This will be important, remember it.
After heading out the Vatican we headed around the corner (a really big corner) to go see St. Peter's Bascilica. Damn, that place is huge. I don't know how people managed to design places like that let alone build them. Or decorate them. The amount of gold in there is kind of crazy. Not to mention the paintings, murals, statues... you get the point right? The place was crazy awesome. I would have gone up the stairs to the top but then I wouldn't have had a chance to see anything else in Rome, I can't quite explain how long that queue was because I couldn't see the end of it. Oh well.
After we finished up there we decided to go look at the Circus Maximus. If you know about the place then you can see where this is going. Anyway, it was time for fun and games. Now, you remember those slops I mentioned earlier? Heres were the fun began. She got blisters on her feet, right where the top of the slops were. So she used micropore tape something or another to cover it. The slops kept eating it, oh well, reapply and continue. So we caught the metro to the Circus Maximus station, checked our maps and headed out to go see it. Well... we walked, and walked, and walked, and couldn't see it. You want to know why?
We couldn't see it because it 2006 the remains of it were torn down. Well now, damn wouldn't that have been useful information for our tour manager to have given us but noooooo, not even a mention. And the damn thing was still listed on the map that he gave us. That was a painful waste of time, mostly for me because I had to listen to her complaining about her feet the entire time. My poor ears, you cannot understand the pain... anyway.
After that failed walkabout we continued on to get some awesome pictures and views of the Roman forum. This was of course after we had paid rediculous prices for some drinks because it was so hot. The Forum was massive. A lot bigger than I had expected. We went from there and headed towards the colloseum when we had some real fun and games. We were just walking down the path as this guy with an umbrella is walking rather quickly towards us. Out of nowhere this HUGE guy slams his hand around the other guys throat and shoves him up against the fence. Now, we didn't want to make it look like we were paying attention to this so we just kept our same pace and continued walking in the same direction we had been going and definitely, nope nope definitely not, looking at what was going on. One problem, the big guy starts hauling the other guy the same direction we were going.
That was when we noticed it. Just up ahead there was an old Italian guy sitting on a ledge with some shopping bags, and this other darker skinned guy on his knees while another large italian guy is standing over him. The guy on his knees looks like he is begging and praying. Kind of creepy. Anyway, the guy moving in the same direction as us, brings umbrella guy to this scene, takes the umbrella and puts it into one of the packets that the old guy had. It's at this point that the guy who stole the umbrella (I'm assuming) starts beggging and praying as well. The old guy waves his hands and the big italian guys shove the two thieves (I'm assuming) away who then bolt.
It was kinda dodgey and creepy but you have to admire them. It was a damn effective way of getting back the stolen goods as well as scaring the bajeezus out of the thieves... and any tourists that happened to be near by. Well we vacated the area as fast as possible and headed off to our next stop. A little church in Rome where some Capputian (spelling?) monks had their crypts. Wow, I'd say they were wrong but as our tour manager keeps reminding us, it's just different. All of these crypts were decorated with bones. Human, animal, all just stuck in various patterns etc around the place. There were even some bodies that looked really well preserved that were just there in poses. The weird thing is that they were just out in the open air and it didn't seem like they were decaying all that much. It was kind of creepy.
After this, and much whining from miss silly slops, we decided to head back to the camp site where we had a "buffet" (it's not buffet if you can only go up to get food once damnit) dinner followed by more boiling as we tried to sleep amidst the horrendous amounts of noise that were coming from the bar. Oh well. Oh I should mention that she also went plummeting down the stairs at the train station on the way back and gave herself a rather nasty bruise. One again die to the slops. Lets just say that the slops did not meet a happy ending when we reached the camp site...
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 4
New Guy: 3
Chachi: 1
Bus: 2
Other Guy: 1
Vatican: 2
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Chemical warfare of the peri-peri barbeque fart variety
Hello good morning and thankyou please, theres liable to be a blast of posts shortly as I actually have access to internet. Go me.
So when we, and by me I mean the royal we, had finished up in Venice and now it was time to get up nice and early and head off to Rome. Now I think I mentioned that Venice was hot. If I didn't then let me tell you now, Venice was hot. But Venice my friends, had nothing on Rome. Partially because we had awesome air conditioned cabins in Venice. Our accomodation in Rome was... less than awesome. But more on that later.
The first thing we did as we hit Rome was go on a mini walking tour. We got to see some cool stuff such as the Trevi fountain and spot the colloseum in the distance but more importantly we got to see the Pantheon. That building was cool. The size of it, for when it was built is pretty awesome, not mention that the only source of light in the place was a single hole in the roof which still managed to get the job done. After that it was time to go for a walk about and grab some dinner.
I must give this its own section so that I can describe to you something of great importance. You can get pizza anywhere in the world. Different places are better than others etc. etc. But there is still one universal truth. The Italians invented the pizza and by god can they make good ones. The pizza I had that night was by far the best pizza that I have ever had in my life. One moment it was on my plate and the next it was in my stomache with me wondering where it all went. If you ever want to have a propper pizza, go to Rome. Or at least to that little cafe/restaurant/thingy because damn was the food good. Anyway, moving on. After the meal we were all trundled back to the bus to go to our... accomodation...
To say we were dissapointed with the accomodation in Rome would be an understatement. It was definitely the worst we had had. The real kicker? Our tour manager, who had been warning us about how we had to lower our expectations of all the previous accomodations, kept raving about this one. He was going on and on about the facilities and about how this was a serious upgrade over the normal place. My question, how damn bad was the normal accomdation.
The rooms were like saunas. There is no other way to describe it. It was boiling hot and the room seemed to just pull whatever heat it could find into it. Then the other fun part about the rooms. Our cabin was basically a room in a 3 room cabin unit thing, and if anyone moved in any part of the unit the entire thing shook. Well that was fun... or not... At least there was a pool... which was closed by the time we got to the camp site. Okay so there was free internet... with huge queues and you could only use it for half an hour. Fail.
Needless to say it didn't look like Rome was going to be pleasant. Weather wise anyway. I was, however, planning to enjoy the day of sightseeing we had planned for the next day...
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 4
New Guy: 2
Chachi: 1
Bus: 2
So when we, and by me I mean the royal we, had finished up in Venice and now it was time to get up nice and early and head off to Rome. Now I think I mentioned that Venice was hot. If I didn't then let me tell you now, Venice was hot. But Venice my friends, had nothing on Rome. Partially because we had awesome air conditioned cabins in Venice. Our accomodation in Rome was... less than awesome. But more on that later.
The first thing we did as we hit Rome was go on a mini walking tour. We got to see some cool stuff such as the Trevi fountain and spot the colloseum in the distance but more importantly we got to see the Pantheon. That building was cool. The size of it, for when it was built is pretty awesome, not mention that the only source of light in the place was a single hole in the roof which still managed to get the job done. After that it was time to go for a walk about and grab some dinner.
I must give this its own section so that I can describe to you something of great importance. You can get pizza anywhere in the world. Different places are better than others etc. etc. But there is still one universal truth. The Italians invented the pizza and by god can they make good ones. The pizza I had that night was by far the best pizza that I have ever had in my life. One moment it was on my plate and the next it was in my stomache with me wondering where it all went. If you ever want to have a propper pizza, go to Rome. Or at least to that little cafe/restaurant/thingy because damn was the food good. Anyway, moving on. After the meal we were all trundled back to the bus to go to our... accomodation...
To say we were dissapointed with the accomodation in Rome would be an understatement. It was definitely the worst we had had. The real kicker? Our tour manager, who had been warning us about how we had to lower our expectations of all the previous accomodations, kept raving about this one. He was going on and on about the facilities and about how this was a serious upgrade over the normal place. My question, how damn bad was the normal accomdation.
The rooms were like saunas. There is no other way to describe it. It was boiling hot and the room seemed to just pull whatever heat it could find into it. Then the other fun part about the rooms. Our cabin was basically a room in a 3 room cabin unit thing, and if anyone moved in any part of the unit the entire thing shook. Well that was fun... or not... At least there was a pool... which was closed by the time we got to the camp site. Okay so there was free internet... with huge queues and you could only use it for half an hour. Fail.
Needless to say it didn't look like Rome was going to be pleasant. Weather wise anyway. I was, however, planning to enjoy the day of sightseeing we had planned for the next day...
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 4
New Guy: 2
Chachi: 1
Bus: 2
Friday, July 17, 2009
The only free seats you'll find
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Venice. Well the ladies and the gentlemen are, so I don't know why I'm mentioning them here. None of them read this anyway, just the stalkers that I seem to have accumulated. In the famous words of our tour manager, "Oh well".
Okay, so bright and early we woke up and went for breakfast before heading out to the ferry to take us to Venice itself. But first a word on the breakfast. Those of you who don't know, Venice is in Italy. By default, this means that in summer it is bloody hot. Being right next to a large body of water, it means that it is very humid. Humid and bloody hot makes for awful muggy weather. While it was fine in the rooms as they had air conditioning, it does mean that everywhere else kind of sucks. Taking this into consideration, it has come to my attention that eating cocoa pops with milk that has been steadily getting warmer is not a good idea.
Other than that mishap with breakfast, however, it was a fairly simple matter of walking the short distance to the ferry and heading into Venice itself. To say that Venice was geared for tourists would be like saying that snow is cold. It's a bit of an understatement. I am firmly convinced that there is no other business in Venice other than stuff for tourists. Everywhere you looked you found shops selling souvenirs. Sometimes you didn't even have to look as they had mobile shops and would come up to you. But more on shopping later. First, we had some demonstrations.
Our first stop after a mini tour by Chachi we were taken to a glass blowing demonstration. For anyone that seen glass blowing before you know that it is pretty cool. What we saw here was beyond awesome. Taking a small piece of molten glass the guy was able to mold it into the shape of the Ferrari rearing horse in less than 5 minutes. Needless to say I now have one of those sculptures taking up some space in my bag (hope it doesn't break in transit). After that it was time to go see another demonstration that wasn't exactly to my taste. A lace demonstration...
Now this was something different, and not in a good way. Our tour manager had continualy gone on about how all the guys in his previous tours had said that this was the best thing that they had seen on tour so even a few of the guys were excited about this (maybe they thought there would be lacy underwear being displayed or something, I dunno). The problems with the demonstration were twofold: firstly it was a lace demonstration, secondly our tour manager had been lying through his teeth. The demonstration was the biggest waste of time of my life. This includes the numerous times I have heardthe Superboy punched reality rant. It was that bad.
Anyway, I managed to duck out of there as fast as I could and we went a browsing. Letsjust say that not much actual purchasing was done, why? As I stated earlier, Venice is pretty much just there for tourists. Due to this fact, everything there is horribly expensive. Veniceis known for two main things, it's Venetian masks and Murano glass. Both of these things can be found in various locations all around the city which one would assume would help lower the price with such an abbundance of goods. The sad truth is that the prices seemed to be uniformly increased everywhere we went.
The other issue I have is with the Murano glass itslef. Sure, its got specific tints of colour to it but then answer me this, why were there different colours of Murano glassavailable? I've seen glass factories in various places all making different coloured glass items. So if the glass here was special because of itscolour why is it still so expensive? With the numer of places around the world that can make different coloured glass items why do the Venetians get to charge so much? I suppose it's because people are williung to pay the prices they set, I am proofof that.
Well not exactly the price they set I suppose. It was entertaining to discover just how much they seem to enjoy haggling overthe price of the items. When a shop assistant comes up to you and goes, "You like this? We can work out special price for you." Mostplaces I have been to they try and sell it to you for the listed price and only start haggling if you initiate it. I'm not sure if the Venetians were actually trying to make a profit on the itemsor if they just set prices so that they can haggle with people. They reallyseemed to enjoy it. Oh well, to each their own. It's not wrong, it'sjust different.
After copious amounts of browsing overpriced shops we managed to grab some lunch... for an hour and a half... the restaurant was cooler than the streets of Venice. The muggy heat seriously becomes oppresive after a while. I don't know how people manage to live in it. It's unbearable asfar asI'm concerned. Well after a long lunch and then finally reforming our tour group we all went off for gondola rides. It was pretty cool I suppose, it's definitelya different way to travel aroundacity and is pretty relaxing. Unfortunatelyour gondolier (is that the right word?) didn't seem to be one of the singing variety (one of the groups on a gondola apparently got shouted at for asking their gondolier to sing). Once we were done in Venice it was time to catch the ferry back to the mainland and head back to the camp site. And thatwas pretty much it for Venice... you can go now... seriosuly leave, you're creeping me out...
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 4
New Guy: 2
Chachi: 1
Bus: 2
Okay, so bright and early we woke up and went for breakfast before heading out to the ferry to take us to Venice itself. But first a word on the breakfast. Those of you who don't know, Venice is in Italy. By default, this means that in summer it is bloody hot. Being right next to a large body of water, it means that it is very humid. Humid and bloody hot makes for awful muggy weather. While it was fine in the rooms as they had air conditioning, it does mean that everywhere else kind of sucks. Taking this into consideration, it has come to my attention that eating cocoa pops with milk that has been steadily getting warmer is not a good idea.
Other than that mishap with breakfast, however, it was a fairly simple matter of walking the short distance to the ferry and heading into Venice itself. To say that Venice was geared for tourists would be like saying that snow is cold. It's a bit of an understatement. I am firmly convinced that there is no other business in Venice other than stuff for tourists. Everywhere you looked you found shops selling souvenirs. Sometimes you didn't even have to look as they had mobile shops and would come up to you. But more on shopping later. First, we had some demonstrations.
Our first stop after a mini tour by Chachi we were taken to a glass blowing demonstration. For anyone that seen glass blowing before you know that it is pretty cool. What we saw here was beyond awesome. Taking a small piece of molten glass the guy was able to mold it into the shape of the Ferrari rearing horse in less than 5 minutes. Needless to say I now have one of those sculptures taking up some space in my bag (hope it doesn't break in transit). After that it was time to go see another demonstration that wasn't exactly to my taste. A lace demonstration...
Now this was something different, and not in a good way. Our tour manager had continualy gone on about how all the guys in his previous tours had said that this was the best thing that they had seen on tour so even a few of the guys were excited about this (maybe they thought there would be lacy underwear being displayed or something, I dunno). The problems with the demonstration were twofold: firstly it was a lace demonstration, secondly our tour manager had been lying through his teeth. The demonstration was the biggest waste of time of my life. This includes the numerous times I have heardthe Superboy punched reality rant. It was that bad.
Anyway, I managed to duck out of there as fast as I could and we went a browsing. Letsjust say that not much actual purchasing was done, why? As I stated earlier, Venice is pretty much just there for tourists. Due to this fact, everything there is horribly expensive. Veniceis known for two main things, it's Venetian masks and Murano glass. Both of these things can be found in various locations all around the city which one would assume would help lower the price with such an abbundance of goods. The sad truth is that the prices seemed to be uniformly increased everywhere we went.
The other issue I have is with the Murano glass itslef. Sure, its got specific tints of colour to it but then answer me this, why were there different colours of Murano glassavailable? I've seen glass factories in various places all making different coloured glass items. So if the glass here was special because of itscolour why is it still so expensive? With the numer of places around the world that can make different coloured glass items why do the Venetians get to charge so much? I suppose it's because people are williung to pay the prices they set, I am proofof that.
Well not exactly the price they set I suppose. It was entertaining to discover just how much they seem to enjoy haggling overthe price of the items. When a shop assistant comes up to you and goes, "You like this? We can work out special price for you." Mostplaces I have been to they try and sell it to you for the listed price and only start haggling if you initiate it. I'm not sure if the Venetians were actually trying to make a profit on the itemsor if they just set prices so that they can haggle with people. They reallyseemed to enjoy it. Oh well, to each their own. It's not wrong, it'sjust different.
After copious amounts of browsing overpriced shops we managed to grab some lunch... for an hour and a half... the restaurant was cooler than the streets of Venice. The muggy heat seriously becomes oppresive after a while. I don't know how people manage to live in it. It's unbearable asfar asI'm concerned. Well after a long lunch and then finally reforming our tour group we all went off for gondola rides. It was pretty cool I suppose, it's definitelya different way to travel aroundacity and is pretty relaxing. Unfortunatelyour gondolier (is that the right word?) didn't seem to be one of the singing variety (one of the groups on a gondola apparently got shouted at for asking their gondolier to sing). Once we were done in Venice it was time to catch the ferry back to the mainland and head back to the camp site. And thatwas pretty much it for Venice... you can go now... seriosuly leave, you're creeping me out...
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 4
New Guy: 2
Chachi: 1
Bus: 2
Because you're the expert on butterfly sex
Good morning stalkers. Time again for me to try and catch up with all of my posts, I'll get it done one of these days. I blame it primarily on the bad spots for getting internet... mostly... anyway, on with the show.
We left Austria early that morning to head off to white water rafting... with basically no rapids. This was pretty much why I wasn't doing it. If its going to be proper rafting, I want the aim to be to go down the river over rapids etc. and not to be about throwing each other out the raft and tipping it over. Sod that. Anyway, we dropped off the rafters and headed on down to the finish to wait for them. We didn't exactly have to wait for very long, the bus trip down to the finish was a bit windy and no where near as direct as the river route. After this it was back into the bus to head for Venice.
Now here's the kicker. Our tour manager was carefully explaining that we really needed to lower our expectations for the accommodation we were going to get because this was to be our first camp site. After the "awesome" hostel we had in Prague this had me a little worried, although, in the back part of my mind I was sort of going, "but it's always been relatively fine so far...", and then we hit the camp site.
Wow, was he wrong. Twinshare cabins. Bathroom with shower and toilet en-suite and here's the best of all, airconditioning. I honestly don't know how he expected us to think that this was shit acommodation. As far as I'm concerned it was the best we had had so far. Better even than the "hotel" in Amsterdam (that being mostly because it was twinshare instead of quadshare). We did't actually go into Venice itself as that requires a ferry ride (for those of you that don't know Venice is made up of a lot of island type things...). Anyway, we were all set to have a nice relaxing day, make that evening, at our camp site in Venice. That night we were once again presented with a barbecue (which was awesome).
From there on the night was relatively calm except for one major hiccup. I tried ordering a drink. Not to say that I had problems ordering the drink, that's fairly standard regardless of where you are in the world. The problem came in when I tasted my drink. You see, I had ordered a fairly simple vodka and lemonade. Not exactly a complicated drink. So I had my first sip and it all seemed fine, until the aftertaste hit me... I can quite honestly say that this is the worst vodka that I have ever had the displeasure of drinking. I would gladly take russian bear and quite probably black horse before I would willingly drink a glass of that stuff they said was vodka.
And so it was that I poured away a good chuck of money (for those of you not in the know, when converting South African rands to Euros we get screwed big time) as I had declared the drink undrinkable and, as everyone knows, this is my tv show so my word is law. Errr... yea that was it for day one in Venice. Good evening and good night...
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 4
New Guy: 2
Chachi: 1
Bus: 2
We left Austria early that morning to head off to white water rafting... with basically no rapids. This was pretty much why I wasn't doing it. If its going to be proper rafting, I want the aim to be to go down the river over rapids etc. and not to be about throwing each other out the raft and tipping it over. Sod that. Anyway, we dropped off the rafters and headed on down to the finish to wait for them. We didn't exactly have to wait for very long, the bus trip down to the finish was a bit windy and no where near as direct as the river route. After this it was back into the bus to head for Venice.
Now here's the kicker. Our tour manager was carefully explaining that we really needed to lower our expectations for the accommodation we were going to get because this was to be our first camp site. After the "awesome" hostel we had in Prague this had me a little worried, although, in the back part of my mind I was sort of going, "but it's always been relatively fine so far...", and then we hit the camp site.
Wow, was he wrong. Twinshare cabins. Bathroom with shower and toilet en-suite and here's the best of all, airconditioning. I honestly don't know how he expected us to think that this was shit acommodation. As far as I'm concerned it was the best we had had so far. Better even than the "hotel" in Amsterdam (that being mostly because it was twinshare instead of quadshare). We did't actually go into Venice itself as that requires a ferry ride (for those of you that don't know Venice is made up of a lot of island type things...). Anyway, we were all set to have a nice relaxing day, make that evening, at our camp site in Venice. That night we were once again presented with a barbecue (which was awesome).
From there on the night was relatively calm except for one major hiccup. I tried ordering a drink. Not to say that I had problems ordering the drink, that's fairly standard regardless of where you are in the world. The problem came in when I tasted my drink. You see, I had ordered a fairly simple vodka and lemonade. Not exactly a complicated drink. So I had my first sip and it all seemed fine, until the aftertaste hit me... I can quite honestly say that this is the worst vodka that I have ever had the displeasure of drinking. I would gladly take russian bear and quite probably black horse before I would willingly drink a glass of that stuff they said was vodka.
And so it was that I poured away a good chuck of money (for those of you not in the know, when converting South African rands to Euros we get screwed big time) as I had declared the drink undrinkable and, as everyone knows, this is my tv show so my word is law. Errr... yea that was it for day one in Venice. Good evening and good night...
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 4
New Guy: 2
Chachi: 1
Bus: 2
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Ripleys believe it or not
Good morning stalkers. I hope you all had a sucky day while I was out enjoying myself on vacation. You had sucky times? Awesome. So on with the journey. Now that we were done in Munich and the beer halls it was time to head off for our next destination; Austria. Okay now I wouldn't say that I wasn't looking forward to Austria, I was kind of indifferent. Why? Because I've been there before. Damn was I surprised.
Austria in summer and Austria in winter are too completely different things. For those of you who are confused by the seasons, it is currently summer here in Europe, 'kay? Now Austria was our first stop where it didn't look like it might rain at any moment which was a nice change from the rest of the tour. After a hurried breakfast... which I didn't touch. I couldn't recognize most of it... anyway, we headed off to Austria. The trip didn't take all that long and once again our tour manager decided to remind us that the accommodation wasn't going to be very good because it wasn't actually a hostel, it was a Contiki special stop over.
I'm not entirely sure what he was trying to get at, because this was one of the best places we had stayed in. Not to mention one very important factor, twinshare instead of quadshare. For those of you not versed in languages other than stupid, that means that it was two to a room instead of four to a room. For those of you who still don't get it, it means that we weren't saddled with roommates this time which was awesome.
Now, to the shock and awe of most of my stalkers out there, I did exercise here. I'm not talking about going to gym and doing some arbitrary exercise, I'm talking about good old fashioned exercise; bike riding. Immediately after arriving at the spot, we were handed our mountain bikes and we started our bike trip UP the mountain. Yes that is right, not some quick little excursion down the road, it was up a friggin mountain.
For the unbelievers out there I have photographic evidence of having been on this bike ride. So bugger all of you. The damn thing was 25kms. Most of which was uphill, the end of the ride was cool I suppose, it was downhill but it was much much steeper than the ascent and thus it was shorter. Do I regret it? Not one bit. The views from the top of the route we took were AWESOME. You can see down the entire valley and out to all of the logging sites that are around the town we staying at. This is definitely another thing I suggest everyone try do. If you're thinking of excusing yourself saying that its too long and hard then think of it this way: if I managed to you it you bloody well can as well. If someone as lazy and unfit as me can do it then anyone can.
The ride finished off with a decent barbecue (seriously, when are they going to learn it's called a braai?) This was followed by some relaxing in the room and then "bar orientation". Now this one was entertaining. Basically, it was an excuse to have us all pitch up at the bar and get given a free shot of sour apple schnapps... hey I'm not complaining, but they could have just said, "guys we going get drunk huuuaaaaaaaaa!" It would have worked just as well. Anyway, we proceeded to move from here to dinner, after which it was some more drinks.
Now, something that I need to explain about our tour manager. For most of the beginning of the trip he has been sick. Not that you could tell from the way he behaved on the bus etc. He is actually pretty decent at making it seem like he's fine, however, because he had been sick he hadn't been coming out drinking. Well he was feeling fine now... at least until the other Contiki reps got hold of him and poured I don't know how much alcohol down his throat.
So later that night after finally finding him (we were surprised that he was capable of standing without assistance) we headed out to a bar in the town. Ooooh wait before the bar, I just remembered. We did it after the barbecue, we went for a walk into town. The reason? I had this weird rash on my hands which I've had for a while but it seemed to be getting worse. So we hit an Austrian pharmacy where the lady who could barely speak English gave me this weird looking gel stuff to put on it. Only one word can describe it, AWESOME. As I am sitting here typing the rash things are almost completely gone, anyway, bar.
So we headed out to the bar for a few drinks and had some mild entertainment with Chachi (the tour manager) losing his watch. I left earlier than some of the others and may I just say this. Some people should not be allowed to sing while drunk. I know I'm bad as it is, but at least I don't make up songs as I go. New Guy had decided that he was a grand composer and was sharing all of his new ballads on the way back... someone save my ears... please? Anyway, that was pretty much our short stop in Austria.
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 4
New Guy: 2
Chachi: 1
Bus: 2
Austria in summer and Austria in winter are too completely different things. For those of you who are confused by the seasons, it is currently summer here in Europe, 'kay? Now Austria was our first stop where it didn't look like it might rain at any moment which was a nice change from the rest of the tour. After a hurried breakfast... which I didn't touch. I couldn't recognize most of it... anyway, we headed off to Austria. The trip didn't take all that long and once again our tour manager decided to remind us that the accommodation wasn't going to be very good because it wasn't actually a hostel, it was a Contiki special stop over.
I'm not entirely sure what he was trying to get at, because this was one of the best places we had stayed in. Not to mention one very important factor, twinshare instead of quadshare. For those of you not versed in languages other than stupid, that means that it was two to a room instead of four to a room. For those of you who still don't get it, it means that we weren't saddled with roommates this time which was awesome.
Now, to the shock and awe of most of my stalkers out there, I did exercise here. I'm not talking about going to gym and doing some arbitrary exercise, I'm talking about good old fashioned exercise; bike riding. Immediately after arriving at the spot, we were handed our mountain bikes and we started our bike trip UP the mountain. Yes that is right, not some quick little excursion down the road, it was up a friggin mountain.
For the unbelievers out there I have photographic evidence of having been on this bike ride. So bugger all of you. The damn thing was 25kms. Most of which was uphill, the end of the ride was cool I suppose, it was downhill but it was much much steeper than the ascent and thus it was shorter. Do I regret it? Not one bit. The views from the top of the route we took were AWESOME. You can see down the entire valley and out to all of the logging sites that are around the town we staying at. This is definitely another thing I suggest everyone try do. If you're thinking of excusing yourself saying that its too long and hard then think of it this way: if I managed to you it you bloody well can as well. If someone as lazy and unfit as me can do it then anyone can.
The ride finished off with a decent barbecue (seriously, when are they going to learn it's called a braai?) This was followed by some relaxing in the room and then "bar orientation". Now this one was entertaining. Basically, it was an excuse to have us all pitch up at the bar and get given a free shot of sour apple schnapps... hey I'm not complaining, but they could have just said, "guys we going get drunk huuuaaaaaaaaa!" It would have worked just as well. Anyway, we proceeded to move from here to dinner, after which it was some more drinks.
Now, something that I need to explain about our tour manager. For most of the beginning of the trip he has been sick. Not that you could tell from the way he behaved on the bus etc. He is actually pretty decent at making it seem like he's fine, however, because he had been sick he hadn't been coming out drinking. Well he was feeling fine now... at least until the other Contiki reps got hold of him and poured I don't know how much alcohol down his throat.
So later that night after finally finding him (we were surprised that he was capable of standing without assistance) we headed out to a bar in the town. Ooooh wait before the bar, I just remembered. We did it after the barbecue, we went for a walk into town. The reason? I had this weird rash on my hands which I've had for a while but it seemed to be getting worse. So we hit an Austrian pharmacy where the lady who could barely speak English gave me this weird looking gel stuff to put on it. Only one word can describe it, AWESOME. As I am sitting here typing the rash things are almost completely gone, anyway, bar.
So we headed out to the bar for a few drinks and had some mild entertainment with Chachi (the tour manager) losing his watch. I left earlier than some of the others and may I just say this. Some people should not be allowed to sing while drunk. I know I'm bad as it is, but at least I don't make up songs as I go. New Guy had decided that he was a grand composer and was sharing all of his new ballads on the way back... someone save my ears... please? Anyway, that was pretty much our short stop in Austria.
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 4
New Guy: 2
Chachi: 1
Bus: 2
Don't prost too hard
Well then folks, now that we were done in Prague it was time for us to take a trip back into Germany, this time to Munich. We were getting slightly worried as our tour manager had once again warned us not to get our hopes up and that tour accommodation was going to continue to decline. After Prague this was getting slightly worrying, but we headed off anyway.
Our first stop in Munich was the world famous Glockenspiel... our tour manager warned us that it was over-rated but damn... it has to be one of the most pathetic things that I have ever seen. The astrological clock in Prague at least looked pretty cool, even if it's display was a little weak. This thing was... useless.
The entire thing that it does looks like it was some sort of carousel. Sure it was made ages ago so I suppose yay, good accomplishment for back then. But the way people go on about this thing you would think that it farts gold and burps wishes. Anyway, this wasn't thankfully, what I had been looking forward to in Munich. That title belongs to something a lot more special, a lot more sacred and awesome. A proper German beer hall.
After dumping our stuff in our rooms at the hostel. Okay no wait, I have to tell you about the door locks. Holy cow. These things were complicated. You had to press in a button. Press your room key card to the sensor. Wait for a light to change colour, turn the knob to the right while pushing on the other handle in order to open your room. Only it didn't work. Our esteemed tour leader was slightly misinformed about the locking mechanism.
On the actual door handle there is a slight, and I do mean very slight, bulge in one direction. That is apparently the direction you have to turn the handle in once the light changes colour... Seriously have these people not heard of a simple lock and key or even a normal damn keycard system? This sort of thing should be outlawed as torture. Do have any idea how loud drunk people are when trying to open their rooms at nigh? Anyway, that only happened later, back to the beer hall.
So the beer halll we went to was a bit out of town but it was damn awesome. Huge steins (read one liter) jugs of beer as well a huge meal (read pork knuckle). It was made of awesome. The food was cooked to perfection, the crackling was nice and crispy while the meat itself was still juicy and I was even able to drink half of my beer. For anyone that knows me they should know that I do not drink beer. It tastes crap. Which is what my taste buds decided to remind me about half way through the stein. Oh well. I can still say that I went to a German beer hall and had pork knuckle and beer. So screw all your disaproving looks.
Anyway, it was't just food and drink that we got at the beer hall. There was a full on performance by some dancing girls, oh but before that, the "band". This consisted of one old guy on the trumpet and this other old guy on the keyboard. And wow, this guy on the keyboard looked half dead. There was absolutely no facial expression. He could have been Keanu Reeves grandfather. He just stared sideways at all of us and continued playing with this completely dead expression on his face. I was ebegining to think that perhapos he had died and his body was just so used to doing the same thing that it simply got up and carried on doing what it was used to doing.
Anyway, they provided some awesome music and wow the guy in the trumpet... he liked to make us drink. For those stalkers out there who don't know about beer halls, there is a specific song that everyone has to sing in the hall, which toast to at the end of the song. Well the trumpet guy kept calling for everyone to sing this song and take up their glasses after every second or third song. It was kind of rediulous. Not to mention, although I only spotted it about half way through the evening, he had nothing in his tankard. He would just lift up the lid, we toasted and then he put it down again... not suspicious at all... hmmm... but anyway, the dancing girls.
The performance was awesome. Lots of leg swinging, skirts flying and strange branch things being twirled around. It was good entertainment. I can see why the Germans of old enjoyed having beer halls so much. If I was getting entertainment like that every time I went to one I'd be there like every day. Good times. The best of which was this one dance where they used a bench and would smash it up and dopwn against the stage while dancing around it. While this was happening, two of the other girls would be using different sized cow bells to provide accompanyment to the music. It was really cool and I reccomend everyone try and experience it some time. Stalkers... you do it when I'm not there... you dodgy freaks...
But anyway, the evening was a great time, some people got called up on stage to dance with the girls as well as having everyone in the hall join in for the chicken dance (some of the people didn't know how to do it, I thought everyone was born with that knowledge?). After everything had died down and we cleared out of there we headed back to the hostel and the club that it had down stairs. I have to admit that the club was pretty decent; dance floor, bar, pool tables etc. Anyway we had two or so drinks there before heading back up the rooms to get a relatively early (read like 12 or so) night before we heading off the next morning.
Scores:
Me: 2
Her: 4
New Guy: 2
Chachi: 1
Our first stop in Munich was the world famous Glockenspiel... our tour manager warned us that it was over-rated but damn... it has to be one of the most pathetic things that I have ever seen. The astrological clock in Prague at least looked pretty cool, even if it's display was a little weak. This thing was... useless.
The entire thing that it does looks like it was some sort of carousel. Sure it was made ages ago so I suppose yay, good accomplishment for back then. But the way people go on about this thing you would think that it farts gold and burps wishes. Anyway, this wasn't thankfully, what I had been looking forward to in Munich. That title belongs to something a lot more special, a lot more sacred and awesome. A proper German beer hall.
After dumping our stuff in our rooms at the hostel. Okay no wait, I have to tell you about the door locks. Holy cow. These things were complicated. You had to press in a button. Press your room key card to the sensor. Wait for a light to change colour, turn the knob to the right while pushing on the other handle in order to open your room. Only it didn't work. Our esteemed tour leader was slightly misinformed about the locking mechanism.
On the actual door handle there is a slight, and I do mean very slight, bulge in one direction. That is apparently the direction you have to turn the handle in once the light changes colour... Seriously have these people not heard of a simple lock and key or even a normal damn keycard system? This sort of thing should be outlawed as torture. Do have any idea how loud drunk people are when trying to open their rooms at nigh? Anyway, that only happened later, back to the beer hall.
So the beer halll we went to was a bit out of town but it was damn awesome. Huge steins (read one liter) jugs of beer as well a huge meal (read pork knuckle). It was made of awesome. The food was cooked to perfection, the crackling was nice and crispy while the meat itself was still juicy and I was even able to drink half of my beer. For anyone that knows me they should know that I do not drink beer. It tastes crap. Which is what my taste buds decided to remind me about half way through the stein. Oh well. I can still say that I went to a German beer hall and had pork knuckle and beer. So screw all your disaproving looks.
Anyway, it was't just food and drink that we got at the beer hall. There was a full on performance by some dancing girls, oh but before that, the "band". This consisted of one old guy on the trumpet and this other old guy on the keyboard. And wow, this guy on the keyboard looked half dead. There was absolutely no facial expression. He could have been Keanu Reeves grandfather. He just stared sideways at all of us and continued playing with this completely dead expression on his face. I was ebegining to think that perhapos he had died and his body was just so used to doing the same thing that it simply got up and carried on doing what it was used to doing.
Anyway, they provided some awesome music and wow the guy in the trumpet... he liked to make us drink. For those stalkers out there who don't know about beer halls, there is a specific song that everyone has to sing in the hall, which toast to at the end of the song. Well the trumpet guy kept calling for everyone to sing this song and take up their glasses after every second or third song. It was kind of rediulous. Not to mention, although I only spotted it about half way through the evening, he had nothing in his tankard. He would just lift up the lid, we toasted and then he put it down again... not suspicious at all... hmmm... but anyway, the dancing girls.
The performance was awesome. Lots of leg swinging, skirts flying and strange branch things being twirled around. It was good entertainment. I can see why the Germans of old enjoyed having beer halls so much. If I was getting entertainment like that every time I went to one I'd be there like every day. Good times. The best of which was this one dance where they used a bench and would smash it up and dopwn against the stage while dancing around it. While this was happening, two of the other girls would be using different sized cow bells to provide accompanyment to the music. It was really cool and I reccomend everyone try and experience it some time. Stalkers... you do it when I'm not there... you dodgy freaks...
But anyway, the evening was a great time, some people got called up on stage to dance with the girls as well as having everyone in the hall join in for the chicken dance (some of the people didn't know how to do it, I thought everyone was born with that knowledge?). After everything had died down and we cleared out of there we headed back to the hostel and the club that it had down stairs. I have to admit that the club was pretty decent; dance floor, bar, pool tables etc. Anyway we had two or so drinks there before heading back up the rooms to get a relatively early (read like 12 or so) night before we heading off the next morning.
Scores:
Me: 2
Her: 4
New Guy: 2
Chachi: 1
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
I drink laundromat
So, we had been issued with tram tickets for Prague the night before and didn't feel like getting up particularly early so we slept in and attempted to use the tram to get into town. Wow, was that fun and games. First of all, they informed us that the tram we needed was number 12. Thats all fine and well except for the fact that it doesn't go anywhere near the hostel. Awesome, you guys rock. After working out which tram we needed it was an entertaining game of guess the stop because we couldn't even pronounce half of the names of the stops and a lot fo them were very similar. Luckily we managed to navigate our way to the meeting point for our afternoon cruise on the big main river thingy in Prague, Vltava or something like that.
They pointed out some of the more important buildings in Prague as well as the history of some of the bridges etc. It was FAR superior to the one we had in Amsterdam. Not to mention the buffet lunch... mmmmmm free food. Well not free, we paid for the cruise, but at the very least it was cheap food compared to most of the other places we had been. Booyah for Prague. One of the more interesting things that we were informed about was a special little green drink. One known as Absinthe... good times... guess what has made it into my bag for the trip home?
Well after the fun little cruise it was free time in Prague. So what did we do? Torture museum of course. Now I know that we went to one in Amsterdam but our bus driver, Brendan (can't remember if I mentioned his name yet), had told us that Prague had an awesome torture museum when we mentioned going to see the one in Amsterdam, so we were legitimately allowed to go see it without being weird... stop judging me you damn stalkers...
Anyway he wasn't kidding about the torture museum. It was awesome. Sick and twisted what things people invented yes, but awesome all the same. So we had a good look around there before going souvenier shopping which took... a while... it may have been due to the fact that finding an atm from an actual bank and not some dodgy money changer took a while. It also happened to be bloody far away. Goddamn Prague, just change your currency to Euros already you damn hippies.
Anyways, that night we went for dinner at the hostel pub which was surprisingly good. Except for my soup. When I order potatoe soup I expect to get potatoe soup. Not vegetable soup with a chopped up potatoe in it. An unpeeled one at that. Grrrr. The foccacio bread was decent at least. Anyways it was that followed by getting to bed at a reasonably early hour without shower. Why without showers you ask? Because something like half of Prague had no hot water. And with a couple of hundred people in the hostel there was no way in hell the geysers were going to hold out. So we decided to hold off on the showers until we reached munich. Wasn't this going to be fun...
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 4
New Guy: 2
Chachi: 1
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 4
New Guy: 2
Chachi: 1
Damn the man and his stupid computers
Okay, so as I mentioned before I was in Prague while writing about Berlin. Now I'm in Venice, well on the mainland next to Venice, telling you about going from Berlin to Prague... Capish? Allow me to explain to you just how difficult it is to get these bloody posts done. There is either no internet available for me to use or it's prohibitively expensive. So now I sort of scrounge around trying to get anything remotely like decent prices so that I can keep you entertained... explain to me why this is a good idea again? Anyway, on with the show.
So we had a fairly early start as we went from Berlin to Prague and I'd tell you whether the trip was long or short except for the fact that it's now been a few packed days and I can't rightly remember. Anyway we made it to Prague and now that was an eye opener. They had said we should expect our accomodation to decrease as we were on the bidget tour... but damn. The place could have been decent I suppose... if they bothered to clean the room before we arrived. As it was there was no pillow cases, some old towel in the bathroom and stains on the toilet seat... good first impression that.
Well after we were greeted by our insane, we were instructed that she was eccentric (but if she's working in that place she can't be rich so then she's insane not eccentric right?), hostel representative. She did inform us that the hostel had a sauna as well as a pool in the basement. Weird yes but as we have been tood numerous times, it's not wrong it's just different. mmmkay. Anyway, ooooo I forgot something, lets backtrack. Before we got to the hostel we actually had a bit of a tour around Prague itself.
We went and had a look at Prague castle. I'd tell you the actual name but I'm too lazy to go and check on waht it is and if you're interested you can go and damn well check it yourself. It's got a weird spelling. Anyways it wasn't an actual castle that we saw but the castle district. So there was a cathedral thingy in there as well as a bunch of other places. It was pretty cool I suppose but the best thing in my opinion was the views from the place. Like anyone knows, you build castles on top of hills/mountains. It gives you the ebst defensible position. So the castle district is at the top of a hill and you get some pretty decent views down over Prague itself. And I just remembered something else.
Before hitting Prague we stopped off in this cool little town called Dresden... no I'm not kidding there is a town in Germany called Dresden. It rocks. A lot of the buildings there have these black bricks etc scattered all over them. What happened was that during WW2, most of the place got flattened but, being the sensible people they are, the Germans had labled every brick that went into each of the buildings. This way, when they rebuilt the place, they were able to put some of the original, unbroken, bricks back into place. Cool hey? Anyway, back to Prague...
Well we didn't do much in Prague that day other than the mini tour of the castle district. After that it was basically back to the hostel where we decided to hit the pool followed by the pub. Okay so the pool was decent I suppose, but the thing that made this hostel better than its first impression? The pub. This was clearly where the hostel was focussing it's money and I suppose it makes sense. Most people at the place are in the pub more than their rooms. Go figure. I, however, had the misfortune of deciding to try a Prague Iced Tea. It's basically a long island iced tea where you replace the rum with malibu. Yeargh. It was vile, although some of the Australians liked it. Go figure. Anyway, that was about it before crashing for the night.
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 3
New Guy: 2
So we had a fairly early start as we went from Berlin to Prague and I'd tell you whether the trip was long or short except for the fact that it's now been a few packed days and I can't rightly remember. Anyway we made it to Prague and now that was an eye opener. They had said we should expect our accomodation to decrease as we were on the bidget tour... but damn. The place could have been decent I suppose... if they bothered to clean the room before we arrived. As it was there was no pillow cases, some old towel in the bathroom and stains on the toilet seat... good first impression that.
Well after we were greeted by our insane, we were instructed that she was eccentric (but if she's working in that place she can't be rich so then she's insane not eccentric right?), hostel representative. She did inform us that the hostel had a sauna as well as a pool in the basement. Weird yes but as we have been tood numerous times, it's not wrong it's just different. mmmkay. Anyway, ooooo I forgot something, lets backtrack. Before we got to the hostel we actually had a bit of a tour around Prague itself.
We went and had a look at Prague castle. I'd tell you the actual name but I'm too lazy to go and check on waht it is and if you're interested you can go and damn well check it yourself. It's got a weird spelling. Anyways it wasn't an actual castle that we saw but the castle district. So there was a cathedral thingy in there as well as a bunch of other places. It was pretty cool I suppose but the best thing in my opinion was the views from the place. Like anyone knows, you build castles on top of hills/mountains. It gives you the ebst defensible position. So the castle district is at the top of a hill and you get some pretty decent views down over Prague itself. And I just remembered something else.
Before hitting Prague we stopped off in this cool little town called Dresden... no I'm not kidding there is a town in Germany called Dresden. It rocks. A lot of the buildings there have these black bricks etc scattered all over them. What happened was that during WW2, most of the place got flattened but, being the sensible people they are, the Germans had labled every brick that went into each of the buildings. This way, when they rebuilt the place, they were able to put some of the original, unbroken, bricks back into place. Cool hey? Anyway, back to Prague...
Well we didn't do much in Prague that day other than the mini tour of the castle district. After that it was basically back to the hostel where we decided to hit the pool followed by the pub. Okay so the pool was decent I suppose, but the thing that made this hostel better than its first impression? The pub. This was clearly where the hostel was focussing it's money and I suppose it makes sense. Most people at the place are in the pub more than their rooms. Go figure. I, however, had the misfortune of deciding to try a Prague Iced Tea. It's basically a long island iced tea where you replace the rum with malibu. Yeargh. It was vile, although some of the Australians liked it. Go figure. Anyway, that was about it before crashing for the night.
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 3
New Guy: 2
Saturday, July 11, 2009
What the hell is metablogging?
Right so I'm sitting here in Prague with a decent keyboard, well not exactly decent but at least the keys are all in the right place. But enough about prague, I'll get back to it later when I'm actually there. Well not actually there as I'm about to leave... shuttup. Back to Berlin. I do believe that's where I left off.
Now to say Berlin was fun would be inacurate. It was painful, not to say that I didn't enjoy myself but goddamn, my feet, soooo much pain. I swear with all the walking we did we could have circumnavigated the city. It was madness. But damn was there some cool stuff to see. First of which was Ampleman.
Now, you may ask, what is Ampleman? And shame on you for not knowing. He is the sign of Berlin. He is the sign of the end of communisim, a sign of the unification of Germany, the sign that tells you whether you can cross the street... No seriously. He's the little green and red man for pedestrian crossings in Germany. Well, east Germany to be more presice. But he is slowly taking over lights in the west as well. Now, I'm assuming that most of you are very confised at the moment so let me explain.
Ampleman is not the normal looking green and red man on the lights. He is a slightly pudgy man wearing a hat. He has character. When he is green he looks as though he is really happy to be crossing the street. Shown in his walking pose. When he is red, he has his arms out to warn you not to cross. Now why am I telling you about a crossing light man? Because Ampleman is awesome. Seriously. There are Ampleman stores and restaurants in Germany. That's how much they love this little guy. Buy anyway, enough about the awesomeness of Ampleman, onto what I did during the day.
So the day started with an early morning breakfast. Note to self, do not touch cereal in German hostels. The milk can be hazzardous to your health. Stick to bread with apricott jam. It's a lot safer. Anyway, after navigating breakfast it was time to head over to our walking tour of Berlin. For those of you who know me then you know that walking and myself don't really get along that well. I have one thing to say to that. Screw you guys, Ima goin' walking. I walked more in that morning walk than most of you have done in like a month. Not to mention the walking I did after it. But more on that later.
Our tour guide was awesome. He was actually funny and managed to make the tour entertaining by telling us various stories about the various places that we visited. We saw a number of things such as the holocaust monument dedicated to all the Jewish people that were killed during world war 2, the monumnet to the books that were burned for the war as well as the famous check point charlie. All in all it was a brilliant tour. After that we got to do some exploring of our own. So where do Lee-Anne and I decide to go? Topology of Torture... naturally.
The display is currently being reconstructed but they still have lots of displays up giving you information on the SS as well as the Nazi's in general. It shows various key members from the Nazi party as well as various people that were tortured for speaking out against the Nazis. Pretty gruesome stuff, kind of makes you wonder how people could do things like that... and why we would want to go look at it... anyway...
From there was some more walking to this AWESOME cathedral with a massive dome and spires etc. You even got to go to the very top where you can see out over most of Berlin. If you are ever in Berlin then check it out. It's called the Beliner Dom, I think. It's hard to miss. But you must check it out, the stuff in there is great. Kind of makes you look at the stuff people build these days and go, "sure its nice but damn it has nothing on those old buildings."
Well much walking later we managed to visit one or two more monument type things before meeting up with some of the other memebers of the group to head for dinner. Now that was fun. Joe's Beerhall was where we headed... too bad it wasn't actually a beerhall. Slight fail there. But, being the adventuresome person I am when it comes to food, *cof*, I decided to have some local cuisine. Bratwurst (spelling?) and mash. Damn that was nice. Although I would have been a lot happier without any sourkraut on my plate. Yeeeaaarrrgghh. That stuff can stay the hell away. Anyway, after some good food we were off walking again. This time with 2 others, Daniel and Brendan. Now Daniel has actually been mentioned before, he being New Guy. This time we just remembered his name, Brendan shall be known as other guy in case I forget his name again and am feeling too lazy to check back to this post.
Needless to say we spent a fair amount of time walking to our next stop, the Reichstag (spelling? damn german words) also known as the seat of parilament in Germany. Needless to say the queue was way too long and we weren't going to get in, but New Guy and Other Guy decided to try any way (they didn't get in. They were the last ones in the line when they hit cut off... I should feel bad about finding that funny shouldn't I?).
So we carried on walking... to the next monument... and I cannot explain to you just how sore our feet were. I'm pretty sure mine were worse as they had been hurting already but damn, she just kept moaning about her feet. Oh well. For those of you, who I'm pretty sure will be numerous, who think that this was over reacting, allow me to put it to you like this. We started walking at about 9am. We had like 2 half hour breaks, once for lunch and one to giv our feet a rest, as well as an hour break for dinner. Other than that, we were walking until 11pm. For those of you who suck at maths, thats... a lot of wlaking. Find someone else to do the maths for you. Anyway, that was big day in Berlin. I'd type more now but this machine is about to log me off, whoops
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 2
New Guy: 2
Now to say Berlin was fun would be inacurate. It was painful, not to say that I didn't enjoy myself but goddamn, my feet, soooo much pain. I swear with all the walking we did we could have circumnavigated the city. It was madness. But damn was there some cool stuff to see. First of which was Ampleman.
Now, you may ask, what is Ampleman? And shame on you for not knowing. He is the sign of Berlin. He is the sign of the end of communisim, a sign of the unification of Germany, the sign that tells you whether you can cross the street... No seriously. He's the little green and red man for pedestrian crossings in Germany. Well, east Germany to be more presice. But he is slowly taking over lights in the west as well. Now, I'm assuming that most of you are very confised at the moment so let me explain.
Ampleman is not the normal looking green and red man on the lights. He is a slightly pudgy man wearing a hat. He has character. When he is green he looks as though he is really happy to be crossing the street. Shown in his walking pose. When he is red, he has his arms out to warn you not to cross. Now why am I telling you about a crossing light man? Because Ampleman is awesome. Seriously. There are Ampleman stores and restaurants in Germany. That's how much they love this little guy. Buy anyway, enough about the awesomeness of Ampleman, onto what I did during the day.
So the day started with an early morning breakfast. Note to self, do not touch cereal in German hostels. The milk can be hazzardous to your health. Stick to bread with apricott jam. It's a lot safer. Anyway, after navigating breakfast it was time to head over to our walking tour of Berlin. For those of you who know me then you know that walking and myself don't really get along that well. I have one thing to say to that. Screw you guys, Ima goin' walking. I walked more in that morning walk than most of you have done in like a month. Not to mention the walking I did after it. But more on that later.
Our tour guide was awesome. He was actually funny and managed to make the tour entertaining by telling us various stories about the various places that we visited. We saw a number of things such as the holocaust monument dedicated to all the Jewish people that were killed during world war 2, the monumnet to the books that were burned for the war as well as the famous check point charlie. All in all it was a brilliant tour. After that we got to do some exploring of our own. So where do Lee-Anne and I decide to go? Topology of Torture... naturally.
The display is currently being reconstructed but they still have lots of displays up giving you information on the SS as well as the Nazi's in general. It shows various key members from the Nazi party as well as various people that were tortured for speaking out against the Nazis. Pretty gruesome stuff, kind of makes you wonder how people could do things like that... and why we would want to go look at it... anyway...
From there was some more walking to this AWESOME cathedral with a massive dome and spires etc. You even got to go to the very top where you can see out over most of Berlin. If you are ever in Berlin then check it out. It's called the Beliner Dom, I think. It's hard to miss. But you must check it out, the stuff in there is great. Kind of makes you look at the stuff people build these days and go, "sure its nice but damn it has nothing on those old buildings."
Well much walking later we managed to visit one or two more monument type things before meeting up with some of the other memebers of the group to head for dinner. Now that was fun. Joe's Beerhall was where we headed... too bad it wasn't actually a beerhall. Slight fail there. But, being the adventuresome person I am when it comes to food, *cof*, I decided to have some local cuisine. Bratwurst (spelling?) and mash. Damn that was nice. Although I would have been a lot happier without any sourkraut on my plate. Yeeeaaarrrgghh. That stuff can stay the hell away. Anyway, after some good food we were off walking again. This time with 2 others, Daniel and Brendan. Now Daniel has actually been mentioned before, he being New Guy. This time we just remembered his name, Brendan shall be known as other guy in case I forget his name again and am feeling too lazy to check back to this post.
Needless to say we spent a fair amount of time walking to our next stop, the Reichstag (spelling? damn german words) also known as the seat of parilament in Germany. Needless to say the queue was way too long and we weren't going to get in, but New Guy and Other Guy decided to try any way (they didn't get in. They were the last ones in the line when they hit cut off... I should feel bad about finding that funny shouldn't I?).
So we carried on walking... to the next monument... and I cannot explain to you just how sore our feet were. I'm pretty sure mine were worse as they had been hurting already but damn, she just kept moaning about her feet. Oh well. For those of you, who I'm pretty sure will be numerous, who think that this was over reacting, allow me to put it to you like this. We started walking at about 9am. We had like 2 half hour breaks, once for lunch and one to giv our feet a rest, as well as an hour break for dinner. Other than that, we were walking until 11pm. For those of you who suck at maths, thats... a lot of wlaking. Find someone else to do the maths for you. Anyway, that was big day in Berlin. I'd type more now but this machine is about to log me off, whoops
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 2
New Guy: 2
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Torture, terror... and then sex
So the day began with a damn early wake up call to grab breakfast and then clamber onto the coach for our trip through to Berlin. Thankfully the tour manager decided not to play the music too loud in the early hours of the morning as their is a good chance that there would have been a riot. This being of course due to the fact that most of the tour group was horrendously hung over and suffering the after effects of waaaaay too many drugs. Now stick all of them on a coach for several hours... I would have been laughing at them but as per usual I fell asleep as soon as I hit my seat.
The trip through to Berlin was mostly uneventful except at the service stations where I swear I have now seen the coolest toilets in the world. There's a sensor on it so that when you're done, it automatically flushes and then this thing comes out to sanitiye the toilet seat. It's weird. The entire seat rotates around while it's cleaned. No wonder they charge you to use the toilets, gotta pay of those research and development costs... yeah... on the plus side you get a receipt which lets you take the cost of the toilet off of any purchase in the shop there so I suppose it's fine. As our tour manager would say, "It's not wrong, it's just different".
Needless to say we eventually made it into Berlin after a loooooong (read somewhere around 10 hours) drive. I honestly don't know how our driver handles it. I would have died trying to drive for that long. Sure he gets the breaks but damn. The man is a machine, not to mention the crazy stuff he does for alley docking the coach. Man has mad skills. But anyway, we made it to Berlin where we were staying at our hostel called the Wombat... No seriously, a group full of Australians staying at the Wombat... contiki has a sense of humour.
Well our dinner here was free, well not free it was included... you get the point, which was good enough I suppose. Except for the damn mushroom sauce on the pork schnitzel. Well much scraping later and I had myself a decent dinner. As did the Jewish guy in the group who thought it was chicken... yeeeaaaahhh... lets just not go there. It was kind of special. But I suppose there has to be a first time for everything, I just find it amusing that that the jewish guy in the group is the one to have this happen to him... in Germany...
Anyway, after dinner we went off to go sightseeing, or more like sight losing. We found nothing of importance on our walk which took us off the maps we had. Whoops. And it wasn't my fault this time, or hers. It was new guy's fult. New guy being the Jewish guy... don't forget it. In any case, we did find one amusing sight, white trash fast food. Seriously, I have photographic evidence. I'm assuming that it was a language problem that allopwed us to get this spectacular take away place otherwise someone has a worse sense of humour than me... and that's saying something.
Finally we decided that an early night would be a good idea as we had a long walk early the next morning. Yeah right. So our room mates decided they were going to the bar to have a royal piss up with some of their friends. That was all fine and well. I cn handle drunk people coming into the room at whatever time. The noise doesn't usually last too long because they tend to pass out. That is of course, assuming that they aren't arguing right outsied the room about something with someone else. I dunno, I was too tired to go eavesdrop properly. Anyway, it means that I only got to sleep reaaaaallly late. Like 2 or 3 I think. Not sure of the exact times. Gonna see if we can get new room-mates for the next stop.
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 2
New Guy: 1
The trip through to Berlin was mostly uneventful except at the service stations where I swear I have now seen the coolest toilets in the world. There's a sensor on it so that when you're done, it automatically flushes and then this thing comes out to sanitiye the toilet seat. It's weird. The entire seat rotates around while it's cleaned. No wonder they charge you to use the toilets, gotta pay of those research and development costs... yeah... on the plus side you get a receipt which lets you take the cost of the toilet off of any purchase in the shop there so I suppose it's fine. As our tour manager would say, "It's not wrong, it's just different".
Needless to say we eventually made it into Berlin after a loooooong (read somewhere around 10 hours) drive. I honestly don't know how our driver handles it. I would have died trying to drive for that long. Sure he gets the breaks but damn. The man is a machine, not to mention the crazy stuff he does for alley docking the coach. Man has mad skills. But anyway, we made it to Berlin where we were staying at our hostel called the Wombat... No seriously, a group full of Australians staying at the Wombat... contiki has a sense of humour.
Well our dinner here was free, well not free it was included... you get the point, which was good enough I suppose. Except for the damn mushroom sauce on the pork schnitzel. Well much scraping later and I had myself a decent dinner. As did the Jewish guy in the group who thought it was chicken... yeeeaaaahhh... lets just not go there. It was kind of special. But I suppose there has to be a first time for everything, I just find it amusing that that the jewish guy in the group is the one to have this happen to him... in Germany...
Anyway, after dinner we went off to go sightseeing, or more like sight losing. We found nothing of importance on our walk which took us off the maps we had. Whoops. And it wasn't my fault this time, or hers. It was new guy's fult. New guy being the Jewish guy... don't forget it. In any case, we did find one amusing sight, white trash fast food. Seriously, I have photographic evidence. I'm assuming that it was a language problem that allopwed us to get this spectacular take away place otherwise someone has a worse sense of humour than me... and that's saying something.
Finally we decided that an early night would be a good idea as we had a long walk early the next morning. Yeah right. So our room mates decided they were going to the bar to have a royal piss up with some of their friends. That was all fine and well. I cn handle drunk people coming into the room at whatever time. The noise doesn't usually last too long because they tend to pass out. That is of course, assuming that they aren't arguing right outsied the room about something with someone else. I dunno, I was too tired to go eavesdrop properly. Anyway, it means that I only got to sleep reaaaaallly late. Like 2 or 3 I think. Not sure of the exact times. Gonna see if we can get new room-mates for the next stop.
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 2
New Guy: 1
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
I must write down title ideas before I forget them
So.. waking up early after almost no sleep because you have been visiting the porcelain gods and all his cousins during the night is not a pleasant experience... seriously... Anyway I managed to somehow survuive the ordeal and have come out of the experience a better person... okay fine, I came out of the experience an ill person. Having to force bacon down your throat during an early breakfast because you know that it will be good for you still doesn't make it feel any better while you are adoing it. Good lord, and I LIKE bacon... Oh well.
Anyway, our day was to start off with a bike ride through a village (town?) called Edam. That was fun until a sudden crack of thunder followed by a rainstorm from hell. So now we are all soaking wet and having to take the bikes back. Oh the bikes. Wow. Okay I will admit it was fun using the bikes but damn, no brakes? Well not normal ones anyway. You have to do this weird back pedaling thing. Honestly, its amusing and all but brakes go on the handlebars. It's just sensible. Otherwise you confuse the tourists and wonder why they keep crashing into each other... or maybe that's the point. Perhaps the Dutch are all secretly laughing at all the tourists... hmm.
Well that's all besides the point. After the bike ride we were deposited back in Amsterdam for some sight seeing. Wow, are Dutch people messed up. When, in the space of one afternoon in one city you can visit a sex museum, a torture museum and an actual museum you know there is something wrong. And before I get onto the more esoteric museums. For those of you who have read Discworld... SUCK IT! I got to see the actual Nightwatch painting by Rembrandt. Mwahahaha, feel my awesomeness. I even got some postcards of it to keep.
Now, the ones that people want. The sex and torture museum (she has determined that I should talk about the sex musueum first, dirty mind on that one...). The sex museum was... odd. Some of the stuff was hilarious, some was mildly disturbing while the rest was basically looking at someone else's porn collection... while a bunch of other people are there with you... Yeeaaaaa... no. One of the more entertaining pieces had to be the chastity belt with the hole at the crotch. Now, while that might seem like it was defeating the purpose of the belt, I should mention that the hole was serrated with spikes. And the even more entertaining thing? There was another one at the torture museum.
Now the torture museum was a special one. It quite clearly shows you just how disturbing humanity is. How the hell did someone come up with the various things in that place? I'm rather used to dodgy and weird stuff but even I was mildly disturbed in that place... In another story I can now explain torture in roleplaying games much better... And they say 20 (something) year olds don't appreciate museums. I'm sure my players will...
We rounded off the evening with some dinner courtesy of her family that was in the Netherlands. And may I just say, bacon pancake with syrup on it... nom nom nom. We then decided to catch a tram back to the hotel... which would have been fine had we been standing at the correct tram station. How were we supposed to know that there was another tramstation with the same name around the corner? Quite a way around the corner for that matter. Anyway, we made it back to the hotel in one piece and managed to turn in for an early night... which didn't actually start until about midnight... don't ask...
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 2
Anyway, our day was to start off with a bike ride through a village (town?) called Edam. That was fun until a sudden crack of thunder followed by a rainstorm from hell. So now we are all soaking wet and having to take the bikes back. Oh the bikes. Wow. Okay I will admit it was fun using the bikes but damn, no brakes? Well not normal ones anyway. You have to do this weird back pedaling thing. Honestly, its amusing and all but brakes go on the handlebars. It's just sensible. Otherwise you confuse the tourists and wonder why they keep crashing into each other... or maybe that's the point. Perhaps the Dutch are all secretly laughing at all the tourists... hmm.
Well that's all besides the point. After the bike ride we were deposited back in Amsterdam for some sight seeing. Wow, are Dutch people messed up. When, in the space of one afternoon in one city you can visit a sex museum, a torture museum and an actual museum you know there is something wrong. And before I get onto the more esoteric museums. For those of you who have read Discworld... SUCK IT! I got to see the actual Nightwatch painting by Rembrandt. Mwahahaha, feel my awesomeness. I even got some postcards of it to keep.
Now, the ones that people want. The sex and torture museum (she has determined that I should talk about the sex musueum first, dirty mind on that one...). The sex museum was... odd. Some of the stuff was hilarious, some was mildly disturbing while the rest was basically looking at someone else's porn collection... while a bunch of other people are there with you... Yeeaaaaa... no. One of the more entertaining pieces had to be the chastity belt with the hole at the crotch. Now, while that might seem like it was defeating the purpose of the belt, I should mention that the hole was serrated with spikes. And the even more entertaining thing? There was another one at the torture museum.
Now the torture museum was a special one. It quite clearly shows you just how disturbing humanity is. How the hell did someone come up with the various things in that place? I'm rather used to dodgy and weird stuff but even I was mildly disturbed in that place... In another story I can now explain torture in roleplaying games much better... And they say 20 (something) year olds don't appreciate museums. I'm sure my players will...
We rounded off the evening with some dinner courtesy of her family that was in the Netherlands. And may I just say, bacon pancake with syrup on it... nom nom nom. We then decided to catch a tram back to the hotel... which would have been fine had we been standing at the correct tram station. How were we supposed to know that there was another tramstation with the same name around the corner? Quite a way around the corner for that matter. Anyway, we made it back to the hotel in one piece and managed to turn in for an early night... which didn't actually start until about midnight... don't ask...
Score:
Me: 2
Her: 2
Laptop time, window washers and CLAWs members. Oh my!
So if I am to explain this trip to you, there are several important facts that must be remembered. The sky is blue. Grass is usually green and out of the 51 people on this tour 45 are Australian. Seriously, what the hell... If I wanted to see Australians I would have gone to Australia. Mind you, from what I've heard the only people that I'd see if I went to Australia would be South Africans. Go figure.
Anyway, to say that the tour got off to a roaring start would be an utter and complete lie. Who ever invented getting up aat 4am needs to be shot. Seriously, that time doesn't exist. I am firmly convinced that I had crossed into another plane of existance or something. Early mornings are for the birds. On a side note. I HATE German keyboards. Do you know how many times you use the letter "y" when typing? Let me tell you, a lot! And having the position of the y and the z swapped around, not mention most of the punctuation, causes havoc with your typing. But anzwaz (fsking kezs...[keys!!]).
Back to topic. No wait a sec I forgot something. The todo list. I have decided a todo list would be awesome for helping me remember what the hell I have to talk about on the post, so:
Anyway, to say that the tour got off to a roaring start would be an utter and complete lie. Who ever invented getting up aat 4am needs to be shot. Seriously, that time doesn't exist. I am firmly convinced that I had crossed into another plane of existance or something. Early mornings are for the birds. On a side note. I HATE German keyboards. Do you know how many times you use the letter "y" when typing? Let me tell you, a lot! And having the position of the y and the z swapped around, not mention most of the punctuation, causes havoc with your typing. But anzwaz (fsking kezs...[keys!!]).
Back to topic. No wait a sec I forgot something. The todo list. I have decided a todo list would be awesome for helping me remember what the hell I have to talk about on the post, so:
- errr
- ummm
- k
- so
Right so I forgot what is going on the todo list. I'll do one for the next post then. What a mission. Anyway, back to Amsterdam (unless you're one of the stalkers, then you can go back to the lawyers... apparently they didn't explain how restraining orders work properly).
So the coach trip to the ferry was exceptionally short. Less so than should be possible. I am assuming that this is because I was asleep the entire ride. Well not the entire ride. I was awake for the explaination of sexy times. No I'm not kidding. The tour manager did in fact call it sexy times. To what am I refering (she would like you to know that there is only one f in refering. Personally I think she's lying but I don't feel like argiung. I'm layz [damn y and z] like that, now shuttup so I can finish talking)? Why that's simple, a live sex show. Not everyone's cup of tea but hey, it was Amsterdam, it had to be done.
Now that the tour manager had everyone's attention he decided to be a cruel and sadistic bastard. I was still fairly sleepy and she, yes that she, had taken a sleeping tablet so we were both prepared to get back on the coach and pass out. And so our tour manager, Ryan, decided that an ice breaker game was in order... he was planning on having most of us go see a live sex show. I think that should have been ice breaker enough, but anyway, speed dating on the bus was apparently going to be it. Needless to say I met a ton of people whose names I can't remember but almost all of whom remember me because I'm one of the few non-Australian's in the group. Yay me... Luckily I managed to get some sleep after that, followed by our sexy time in Amsterdam...
That show was what I would call an eye opener. Who knew that sex could be so... boring... seriously. There were two, I suppose that you could call them intermissions, where a couple was having sex. And the onlything that seemed to be going through their heads' was "God, is it over yet?" I will, however, concede that most of the rest of the show was awesome. I have never seen a comedy a show of it's equal... well apparently they should invest in better advertising because I could have sworn we were going to a sex show and not a comedy show. But nevertheless, even though it was a comedy show. There were naked people. All I'm going to say is this: did they seriously need a gorilla in the show? Sometimes things can go a bit far...
Now seeing as Amsterdam is pretty much the capitol of sex, drugs and... no thats about it. Sex and drugs, not much good music out of there that I've heard of. Anyway, lets just say that Amsterdam has some rather unique coffee shops with some not so unique, but rather entertaining, baking habits. It's in the ingredients I believe. Must be the special herbs you always hear about... Anyway, it was Amsterdam and I was there to try the local culture... It's as good a reason as any.
Now, while the "baked goods" do give you a great happy feeling. And while having that on top of quite a bit of alcohol can feel even better, wow it's not a pleasant place to fall down from. It's kind of like having the flu while being kicked in the stomache just as you get a fever. So that night was all fun and games... I'll not be attempting that again, at least not in a hurry.
Score:
Me: 1
Her: 1
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Expiring trains... the hell
So welcome to London. Not you, me. If you're following me then sod off. Remember the restraining orders? I got some blank ones. Just need to fill in names. I swear it... freaks. Anyway I have arrived in London and what's the first thing I do... go to a motor show. Yes because that's what I've always wanted to do; get off a plane after a god awful long time and then go directly to some event in the BLISTERING heat. Oh well.
I do have to admit that it was kinda fun. The cars were awesome, especially the one that looked like a cross between an old Ferrari and a hearse. Okay so it was a Ferrari but seriously, the back of this thing was ridiculous. Looked like a box. Anyway, some of those old cars were wicked. 3 wheel Morgans. Those things kick ass. And then there was this other... thing is probably the best word. Cross between a racing car and a tractor. It had pistons and what not (I know bugger all about the inner workings of cars... or the outer workings for that matter) sitting right there behind the head of the driver. Rather weird looking but it made an awesome sound as it went speeding up the track.
Now as to the track. This entire event, oh I should probably mention that it was the Goodwood festival of speed, (The one in London [well United Kingdom {She *seriously* needs to stop correcting me}] not the dodgy one, seriously you think i flew back to go to that place?) was held on the ground of someone called Lord March (spelling?). I have no clue who he is but damn. Golf course, horse racing track, uphill car racing track, forest with dirt racing track... I do believe there is something known as too much money. Goddamn...
But anyway, this guy hosts this festival every year and it was pretty damn cool. If you like cars etc. then I highly recommend trying to get here to watch it. Famous bike riders and car drivers. The previous years Formula 1 cars, old cars, new cars, concept cars, seriously weird looking cars. They had everything. Some of the cars there were really awesome looking. Wow, okay so looking back at my post I think that I may have actually enjoyed the festival... go figure. And before any one mentions it I know that I use ... far to much. Just shut up and go away. I don't like Nazis, grammar or otherwise.
Moving on from that comes some rather entertaining shopping at the local spots where I FINALLY managed to get my grubby little mitts on world open warfare2 for the DS. I have been trying to get this game back home for age and it's never damn well in. Oh well, at least I have it and damn it's cool. Nothing quite like blowing up worms. But beyond that I have managed to nab some more games for my DS and it looks like I'm getting back into the 40K scene with my new army of orcs orcs orcs orcs orcs etc. Anyone has issues with that they can take it up with my manager. Yes I know I don't have a manager... getting the hint yet? Any way moving on.
Yesterday I had a lovely reunion with my good friend (correct term please?) Lee-Anne... which lasted all of about 30 seconds before the tickle and poking war started again. If you don't know us then I suppose it could look slightly odd from an outsiders point of view. But hey that's where I fall back to one of my mottos. You think I care? I have a few more of these things which I will impart upon you in various posts. No I can't tell you all of them now because I haven't made them up yet. My mottos and morals tend to be flexible based on the situation. Any way back to Lee-Anne.
She has been crazy enough to decide to go on my contiki tour with me. This should be fun... she stands no chance in the tickle war. Not to mention that neither of us has anything even remotely resembling a sense of direction. If we ever get separated from the tour group there's a good chance that we'll end up in Bolivia or something. And no it won't be impossible. I am almost certain that I have the ability to warp space time. Whenever I am trying to get somewhere and I'm not sure about the directions. I am almost positive that I can bend space so that I end up in weird places that I shouldn't be because there is no other explanation for how I could get to the places I end up in without passing a single recognizable landmark on the way back (Yes I know there are probably a whole host of other explanations but they're not as cool as mine, so sod off).
Anyway as a final note... bugger it I forgot what I was going to type. So...
Score:
Me: 1
Her: 1
I do have to admit that it was kinda fun. The cars were awesome, especially the one that looked like a cross between an old Ferrari and a hearse. Okay so it was a Ferrari but seriously, the back of this thing was ridiculous. Looked like a box. Anyway, some of those old cars were wicked. 3 wheel Morgans. Those things kick ass. And then there was this other... thing is probably the best word. Cross between a racing car and a tractor. It had pistons and what not (I know bugger all about the inner workings of cars... or the outer workings for that matter) sitting right there behind the head of the driver. Rather weird looking but it made an awesome sound as it went speeding up the track.
Now as to the track. This entire event, oh I should probably mention that it was the Goodwood festival of speed, (The one in London [well United Kingdom {She
But anyway, this guy hosts this festival every year and it was pretty damn cool. If you like cars etc. then I highly recommend trying to get here to watch it. Famous bike riders and car drivers. The previous years Formula 1 cars, old cars, new cars, concept cars, seriously weird looking cars. They had everything. Some of the cars there were really awesome looking. Wow, okay so looking back at my post I think that I may have actually enjoyed the festival... go figure. And before any one mentions it I know that I use ... far to much. Just shut up and go away. I don't like Nazis, grammar or otherwise.
Moving on from that comes some rather entertaining shopping at the local spots where I FINALLY managed to get my grubby little mitts on world open warfare2 for the DS. I have been trying to get this game back home for age and it's never damn well in. Oh well, at least I have it and damn it's cool. Nothing quite like blowing up worms. But beyond that I have managed to nab some more games for my DS and it looks like I'm getting back into the 40K scene with my new army of orcs orcs orcs orcs orcs etc. Anyone has issues with that they can take it up with my manager. Yes I know I don't have a manager... getting the hint yet? Any way moving on.
Yesterday I had a lovely reunion with my good friend (correct term please?) Lee-Anne... which lasted all of about 30 seconds before the tickle and poking war started again. If you don't know us then I suppose it could look slightly odd from an outsiders point of view. But hey that's where I fall back to one of my mottos. You think I care? I have a few more of these things which I will impart upon you in various posts. No I can't tell you all of them now because I haven't made them up yet. My mottos and morals tend to be flexible based on the situation. Any way back to Lee-Anne.
She has been crazy enough to decide to go on my contiki tour with me. This should be fun... she stands no chance in the tickle war. Not to mention that neither of us has anything even remotely resembling a sense of direction. If we ever get separated from the tour group there's a good chance that we'll end up in Bolivia or something. And no it won't be impossible. I am almost certain that I have the ability to warp space time. Whenever I am trying to get somewhere and I'm not sure about the directions. I am almost positive that I can bend space so that I end up in weird places that I shouldn't be because there is no other explanation for how I could get to the places I end up in without passing a single recognizable landmark on the way back (Yes I know there are probably a whole host of other explanations but they're not as cool as mine, so sod off).
Anyway as a final note... bugger it I forgot what I was going to type. So...
Score:
Me: 1
Her: 1
So it begins
Hello good morning and welcome to my mind... well not really my mind. More like my thoughts as they happen... well even that's not true. Welcome to where I will share my thoughts with you when I choose to regarding what I feel like blabbing about.
If this was a direct line to my mind it would be more than just a sewer and if you know me then you know that it's not something that you want to see. Well maybe someone out there wants to see it... and that would be a whole new level of disturbing and I think I would then need to read up on restraining orders... you sick freaks.
But I digress, this will be a spot to hear my random ramblings about whatever I want. There will be no requests, there will be no sense (unless I feel like it but that should hopefully be a rare occurrence). I will be starting this nonsense off with a diatribe about the holiday I've just started. If reading this doesn't interest you then by all means don't read it. If you feel the urge to comment on this extolling how bad it is then I suggest you seek copious amounts of help. Dial 1-800-imatroll, I'm sure they will beat some sense into you.
Once again I'm wandering off topic (raise your hand if you think this might be a common theme). As to my holiday, I am going to be doing a contiki tour around Europe. Lots of countries which I don't care to list here. I'll update you as I go along, if I feel like it or happen to remember. All of this assuming I manage to bother to keep this thing updated. In any case, there's my introduction. If you don't like it, bugger off. If you do... you should probably seek some sort of counselling and tell me who you are so I can get those restraining orders sorted out...
If this was a direct line to my mind it would be more than just a sewer and if you know me then you know that it's not something that you want to see. Well maybe someone out there wants to see it... and that would be a whole new level of disturbing and I think I would then need to read up on restraining orders... you sick freaks.
But I digress, this will be a spot to hear my random ramblings about whatever I want. There will be no requests, there will be no sense (unless I feel like it but that should hopefully be a rare occurrence). I will be starting this nonsense off with a diatribe about the holiday I've just started. If reading this doesn't interest you then by all means don't read it. If you feel the urge to comment on this extolling how bad it is then I suggest you seek copious amounts of help. Dial 1-800-imatroll, I'm sure they will beat some sense into you.
Once again I'm wandering off topic (raise your hand if you think this might be a common theme). As to my holiday, I am going to be doing a contiki tour around Europe. Lots of countries which I don't care to list here. I'll update you as I go along, if I feel like it or happen to remember. All of this assuming I manage to bother to keep this thing updated. In any case, there's my introduction. If you don't like it, bugger off. If you do... you should probably seek some sort of counselling and tell me who you are so I can get those restraining orders sorted out...
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