London and Edinburgh

Well arriving in an English speaking country is a nice feeling after 6 weeks of foreign language fiascos. Due to my complete exhaustion, it was even better, basically i am ready to get to the USA and stay in one place for 11 weeks, even if i work my butt off.

 So in London we had been staying with my cousins, the Strachans, all three of my cousins from the same family living in London together after growing up in WA. It was pretty cool catching up with them, nice and relaxing being will people i have known for more then 2 days. Basically in London i didn't do much that i haven't done before, the only new thing was Westminster Abbey, and we were planning on Lords but then the desire for sleep got the better of us and well, Lords will have to wait till my third trip to London, something i am somewhat disappointed about, what can you do.

So we went all around, caught a tour bus which was pretty cool albeit previously done, i think i will move on now.

Scotland is pretty wicked, ever though the weather wasn't great today the history and culture is pretty nice in my opinion. We went to the Castle today which really dominates the city, it is on a huge hillock in the middle of town and just cliff and grass around 3/4 of it so you can see it from nearly anywhere in the city. Anyway the castle is great inside, so huge and with a plethora of buildings, gates (7), guns and general castly things. We spent about 3½ hours there which was probably the most engaging tourist attraction in a while.

So yeah, the castle was cool, the crown jewels were nice, the Scots have a nice massive sword in the jewels, which i kind of like. Lots of army museums were also in various rooms of the castle.

Besides the castle however, there are not a huge amount of things to do here, which is fine, we have spent a fair bit of time wandering the streets and tomorrow we will see all the main monuments before London calls us. Basically the tourist side isn't huge here but the town is nice and chilled (in more then one sense).

So only about 38 hours till we leave for the USA and quite frankly, Europe has been great but i am ready to go.

When your pool ball plays like a lawn bowl, give up; Haggis is something i will have to try tomorrow, Irn-Bru is good but not great; Scots love rugby (the weather is no good for anything else); Can't find any pressed thistles anyway, (obviously Braveheart hasn't created that industry i was hoping to see); try to remember if your curry is chicken or beef, avoid problems. 

Paris, EuroDisney

Paris has been pretty cool over the full 3 days. Today we went to EuroDisney and at first we were wondering why we were there, it was all a little childish but it was pretty cool in the end, lots of fun and lots of expensive food which we didn't buy but i ate a fair few twix bars that i had stored in my bag. Anyeway went on 5 rollarcoasters, a laser shooting game, a haunted house, some stunt shows, a little car thing which it poured with rain for and my car got stranded and i was driving in a car too small for me with an umbrella in one had, foot on the accelerator full and then a member of staff came and turned off my engine, that was awesome. My car was also a slow one and so Caleb enjoyed ramming me every 5 seconds, hmm, that was actually a fun ride that one.

Anyway tomorrow we are going to London, as you would have guessed, it will be good staying with my cousins and having more oppurtunity to relax as well as being around people i know. Au revoir

Hotmail, fails me for the first time

Ok so it is not like hotmail has never failed me but when i have a bus to catch tomorrow morning and it just so happens that hotmail is down and my confirmation details are on email that i am a little worried about how tomorrow will go.

We are catching a 7.07 train to Calais and then have 45 minutes to buy our ferry ticket (we may get a discount, no one can actually tell us) and then get a bus from Dover to London without having confirmation details, this is going to be an interesting day, and if we miss one piece of the puzzle, it will be merde.

Paris, enjoying it, unlike Nicole

We arrived in Paris today, after running like buggery to a train after discovering the metro station closest to us was closed. So far the sites and places we have been are amazing and spectacular, ze walked from our hostel down towards the Opera House and then river where we saw the area in front of the Lourve. (interlude: Caleb can't spell tonight, keeps on asking me to spell things.) Between then Lourve and the Arc De Triumpe is pretty cool scenery and shopping, although i would be a fool to think i could afford anything there. 

Once we arrived at the Arc, the rains joined us in our site seeing and we managed to enjoy the light wind and rain all the way to the Eiffel tower. Caleb was pretty excited about seeing the tower and to be honest i didn't really know what to expect, if it would be cool or not, it was pretty cool (i have used 'pretty' too much in the post). We went on the stairs option and it wasn't too bad, seemed like it was going to be at the start but all bark no bite. From the top the view was spectacular, seeing all the churches and palaces of Paris. The best thing was probably the general roofline, most of the roofs were of a similar design and colouring so you got a great view over the whole city, not quite as good as Prague's roofline but pretty good.

My dinner was poor on every count tonight, they forgot my order, the entree was terrible and the dessert i didn't even finish and it was baklava, how hard is it to get good baklava, eich.

Peeing boy of Brussels, 1 of 3

As we arrived in brussels and began to wonder what great sites we could see in the afternoon before planning our next day once evening arrived we decided to cruise the streets and wander towards the famous peeing boy of brussels.

While meandering through the mass of chocolate shops and souvenier outlets we could only marvel at the amount of memorabilia relating to the peeing boy that we could only begin to wonder why it was such a popular tourist destination. Continueing through the streets while not knowing exactly where the peeing boy was we came across what we could only assume was a replica of the boy itself in a small street corner fountain.

With the amount of tourists crowding around the fountain i began to recall that a few years ago in Munich a tour guide said that the 3 most over-rated attractions in Europe were the glockeinspleile in munich, astronomical clock in prague and the peeing boy of brussels. Yes, it hit me that this was the peeing boy in all it's lack of glory, and atleast we didn't have to come at a certain time of day to realise that. Why do people think these things are tourist attractions, i do not know, but i have gone out of my way to see all three.

Amsterdam, interesting

Well we arrived in Amsterdam yesterday and so far it has been pretty interesting, our hostel is a Christian hostel where all the staff are christian and there is stuff around, but it is in the middle of the red light district, which is another story. Some of the guys from the hostel took us to a church last night in an attic which was pretty cool, heaps casual, we sat 2m away from the speaker on cushions, other people were on couches or at tables. The service was reasonable, they say songs way too slowly for my liking and the sermon wasn't spectacular but it was good to go and enjoyable.

So when we first left the hostel earlier in the day to have a wander around and see some of the churches and stuff, we walked down our street and suddenly in a window 1m from you is a prostitute in lingerie staring at you or just sitting there on the phone and stuff. It was a bit of a shock just seeing them in little rooms with access doors to the street. The scariest thing however was that at this stage of the day (5pm), not of them were attractive, i had always imagined that if you want a prostitute you would atleast want a good looking one, hmm.

Later at night when we were getting dinner after church, there were a lot more of windows occupied and in the end just walking around it really was not something i would want to do again, we will try and minimise walking around the hostel at night, it is really creepy and depressing, Oh and i can definately smell weed in most cafes we go past.

So Amsterdam, hmm, today so far we have gone further from our hostel and it is nice, tomorrow i get to go to the MC Escher and Herge (Tintin) museums, should be good. Forgot to say the hostel is really quite terrible on every part besides the church service.

Someone please Lynch me

Well this has nothing to do with my travels but Quientin lynch has kicked 5 goals for the West Coast Eagles, and for anyone who follows the eagles that is possibly the best thing to come out of beating Collingwood. When you have a huge man who runs around the forward line generally dropping marks, missing goals and looking angry and he pulls out a stellar match kicking 5 goals it definately gives a bit more confindence in the forward line, considering that is in my opinion our only weakness (hmm, besides underground criminal connections, booze buses, domestic assault and Andrew McDougall in general).

Cruisy in Berlin

Americans do not understand the word `cruisy`in it's aussie context, one of the true downfalls of the American race. 

Today we have not really left the hostel, only to go to the bakery for lunch, and it has been good, our first day of actual relaxing since we arrived in Europe, i guess we had wanted to get so much in and not miss out on stuff but really we were exhuasting ourselves so we have adjusted a bit.

I am currently being imposed on by the german version of the streets (as far as i can tell with the langauge barrier and all), actually not bad at all, i am enjoying it, we might go play some pool tonight but not really anything much, get to bed early and finish my book, which is a group who become freinds after all failing to successfully commit suicide, pretty enjoyable but a bit negative.

Weather is shorts weather; Berlin has 24hr clubs in ghetto like areas; had vegies with dinner last night, we cooked them fresh as well.

München

As an aside, yesterday Bear Dab Road broke the 50 unique views mark, 51 views and 8 feeds in one day, i kind of think that is impressive but am trying not to let it get to my head.

Ok so in may, in München, they make a beer which is a fair bit stronger and sweeter then the norm, drinking a stein of this may not be something i recommend, now i wasn´t drunk but a little tipsy and wondered where my backpack was, turns out it was on my back, dang that´s embarrassing.

Munich is awesome the second time round, i could live here, and in Vienna, the two most livable european capitals.

Die MUMOK ist scheiße

Well if you don´t know any german then ifyou ever go to Vienna don´t ever go to the MUMOK art gallery. Vienna has an area with 4 art galleries and when trying to work out which one to go to i decided on the MUMOK which was a ´modern art´ gallery, turns out modern art nowadays involves lots of photos of self mutilation and random sculpture. Also in news, Contempory art entails art from artists such as MC Escher and Salvador Dali and just turns out to be exactly the type of art that i love. So if you want to see some contempory art in Vienna go to the Kunsthalle, i wish i had.