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Korea |
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Ok hi all, first travelogue here. Am finally on my way - got a 10 hr flight to Seoul first off. Thankfully as part of the flight deal I got a free hotel room for the stop over - that had to be the best shower Ive ever had (even though |
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Walking the Monopoly Board |
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Ok, London Day 1!
Last night got to Leightons place (uni mate for those who dont know him) who lives in East Finchley, which (sadly), is at the diagonally opposite point on the train line to the airport. Anyway by the time I got there I was a bit wrecked, I had |
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Lyds and Sal |
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Today I met up with two people: Lydia and Sally.
Lyds is over here travelling same as me, left a few weeks before I did and has been to a few places already. We are going to Godskitchen and Creamfields together in July and August and also a bumper trip to |
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Go you Wallabies! |
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51-15....brilliant....brutal...pallindromic....enough said.
Shame the pub I was in was empty (it was 11.30am I think everyone was still asleep hehe)
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Jack the Ripper |
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Today Leighton and I did some more sightseeing - and London finally drenched me (it had been uncharacteristically blue since my arrival)
We went for breakfast at Casa Pepe's (a tradition around these parts) and then headed into the city. We went to the British Musem first to see the Egyptian, Greek, |
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Hampsted Heath |
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Today I went for a wander in Hampsted Heath. It is a massive space of bequested land in....errr....Hampsted :) It is massive. Oh wait I said that. But its really massive!
Its like Heathcliff and Catherine wandering the moors in Wathering Heights...there are massive grassed hills, lakes, sections of enclosed forest, pretty |
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Diana Denied |
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Today Lydia and I went to Kensington Palace and gardens. The gardens and grounds are the edge of Hyde Park that a past Queen took as the grounds for the palace. To be honest the palace isnt that impressive. Neither is the £10.80 entrance fee (about $26). Needless to say we |
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Hybrid @ Turnmills |
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Tonight I went to my first London club - Turnmills (owned by Tall Pauls family if anyone is interested). We saw Hybrid there, Lydia's favourite dj(s). Along the way I met Steve, Jav, Mark as well all cool people. Steve lives in East London, Jav and Mark are from Manchester (its |
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Tate Modern |
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Today I have been to the Tate Modern museum. Thanks to Sal, I got free passes to all the exhibits (her company is a sponsor of the museums) which made me feel super-important - as others were queueing up for tickets, I flashed my badge for the Here's a program, right |
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Tate Britain |
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Today I went to Tate Britain....the other Tate museum. It deals with more of the normal art if you can call it that...more older stuff than Tate Modern, more landscapes and that sort of thing.
The two major exhbits were Art and the Garden and Art and the 60s. I guess |
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Bella and Juzzy arrive |
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On Thursday Bella and Juzzy arrived from Sydney (via Thailand for 3 or so days). Of course with them around its been a pretty busy time, so here I am writing this on Tuesday with a few days writing to catch up on!
I have had fun showing them some of the |
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Go NSW |
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Queensland sucks, NSW rules.
Watched the State of Origin decider at a pub in Kew (near the Royal Botanical Gardens) similar to the Rugby test, it was 11 am and the pub was empty. Shame there was no Qlders around as the blues ran in try after try :)
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Progression Sessions |
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On Friday night, Bella Justin and I went to The End to see LTJ Bukem and MC Conrad's Progression Sessions night. The club is awesome, the sound system is great and the DJ booth is in the centre of the room with people all around.
Of course Bukem and Conrad never |
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Shell, Doz, and Hum |
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On the Saturday night we had two events. The first was a leaving party for friends of Leighton and I from university, Doz (Andrew) and Michelle, who after living in London for some 3-4 years have decided to return to Australia via Europe and Thailand. We went to a pub in |
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Measure for Measure |
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Today was to be my last full day in London (for now anyway) as I intended to move on to Bristol on Tuesday. However I am now holding that until Wednesday as Trace and Si have visitors tonight.
Today we went to Hampstead and had a look at Hampstead Heath. Actually |
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Bristol Town |
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Today I travelled (Megabus.com £3.50 bus, bargain!) from London to Bristol to see Trace and Si who moved over here from Sydney (Simon is an Englishman, Trace and Aussie) late last year.
Bristol is a change of pace, a lot quieter than London and slower- it is quite nice. Trace and Si |
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Ashton Court Festival |
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This weekend was Bristols biggest festival (how lucky was it that I came down, I had no idea), called the Ashton Court festival. It is run on a big open field in the hills behind Bristol. Run over two days, it is £5 to get in both days. The highlights of |
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Cardiff |
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I love being in Bristol if for no other reason that it is so close to Wales and you can get there in 1/2hr by train :)
So I decided to head to Cardiff for the day, chalk another country up on the board.
Cardiff is nice, if a little similar to |
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Bath |
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Today I went to Bath, which is about 15mins by train from Bristol. Bath was the place the Romans came to relax, hence there is a lot of Romanesque architecture to see, actually it is an amazingly beautiful town.
Here I met up with Elly who I met in Sydney (she has |
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Cornwall |
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This weekend Trace, Si and I met up with Sal and Rob, friends from Sydney and we went of south to Cornwall county. Cornwall is located in the bottom left hand corner of England, and actually has some nice beaches! Seriously!
We camped in a town called Porthtown (in Cornish I believe |
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Dublin, Belfast, Ireland! |
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Since I had a few spare days (I was to return to London after the Cornwall weekend, but Leighton is going to Wales with his folks so noone would be around the house) I decided to take a quick hop to Ireland. I only had three days, not enough to see |
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The Dam |
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Ok so after the madness of Godskitchen (I gotta write about that when I get time, but I am falling behind here) Leighton, Lydia, and I headed to Amsterdam. This is the start of Lydia and my 3 week adventure around Amsterdam, Munich, Budapest, Krakow, Prague, Berlin.
The hostel we stayed at |
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Munchkins |
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Guten tag!
Munich, what an awesome town!
We managed to spend about two days there and it was nowhere near enough. Hopefully I can get back there around late September for some Octoberfest action - oh yeah!
Quick synopsis of Munich: kick ass architecture, beer, sausages, nice parks, beer, people speaking German, beer....but I |
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Budapestrians |
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Our trip with the Budapestrians started on Sunday night - Justin Lydia and I took the train from Munich over, probably about an 8hr journey.
On the train we went through Austria (since I dont think I will be able to get there on this trip, I jumped out of the |
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Krakow |
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So we had a fantastic overnight train trip from Budapest to Krakow...via Slovakia. The train left at 7.30 at night and got to Krakow at about 5.30am. We were lucky enough to find a free compartment so we could at least stretch out. Of course we really didnt get a comfortable |
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Auschwitz |
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Note: This isnt such a feel good travelogue!
Today we did a tour of Auschwitz, the most famous of the Nazi concentration and death camps from WW2. We had a 3.5 hour guided tour through Auschwitz II Birkenau camp (this was the larget camp with up to 5 operating gas chambers responisible |
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Praha Part I |
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So from Krakow we made the trip across to Prague (Praha) where Bella and Justin were already staying. They had organised us a place at their hostel, Sir Toby's, which is a very cool place and we met lots of great people there. In fact the first night after we had |
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Ceske Krumlov |
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Ceske Krumlov is a little medieval town south of Prague near the Czech-Austrian border. It was highly recommended to us by Justin and Bella who also went there. The town is on the UNESCO protected list because the majority or its houses and streets are in their original 14th condition and |
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Praha Part II |
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Back to Prague and to Sir Toby's again time to meet new friends since our others had gone already. As I got to my bed and was writing in my journal two rather loud girls walked through the door. These two girls, one American and one German, were Deana and Mirijam |
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Ich Bein Ein Berlina |
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The worlds famously uttered by President Kennedy on a trip to Berlin (and taken off in the Simpsons by Mayor Joe Quimby Ich Bein Ein Springfielda)
Berlin was fantastic. We had three nights there, at the Circus hostel, which had been recommended to us but was only ok. Amazingly, we managed |
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Creamfields |
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For those that don't know, Creamfields is a massive music/dance festival held in Liverpool (middle England). It has about 7 arenas of different kinds of music, and around 30-40,000 people attend. Nothing like this ever happens in Australia so it was an experience.
It took us about 5hrs to drive there from |
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Haggis Tour |
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With Andy and Jane going away for a wedding, I decided to do a Haggis Tour of Scotland (no Karl, not a tour around a piece of Haggis) over 6 days, to see more of the country. So at 8.15am Tuesday morning 20 mostly Aussie, Kiwi, SAF, and a few others |
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Brussels |
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After spending a week and a bit with Andy and Jane in Glasgow I flew off again for the big trip - 10 weeks backpacking without a break.
First stop, Brussels for two nights. Got a 19 pound flight there (and 13 pounds of that was tax) I really only had |
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Oktoberfest |
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Oktoberfest was 4 days and nights of absolute madness. I wont even tell you some of the things I saw happen there, it just...well it warrants further explanation, and in some cases, the people there were just insane (funny how most of them were from Aus, NZ, or SA!)
I stayed in |
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Dirty city, Island Fun |
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Ok, so since I am so crap at writing these (well really who wants to spend an hour or more at an internet place!) I am going to lump in Athens, and the Greek Islands.
After the madness of Oktoberfest, I decided to go to Greece earlier than expected 1. because the |
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Roma |
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So after 30+ hrs we made it to Rome. It really was an insane trip....bus from Athens to Patras (the port) 4 hr wait, 16hr ferry to Bari, then instead of a direct train to Rome as I expected, we had to go via Pescara (look at a map of Italy |
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That leaning tower... |
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After I arrived in Florence the first thing on the list was a day trip to Pisa. It is about an hour or so west of Florence, and trains go there frequently. The train runs through the Tuscany landscape which is quite beautiful. I would have liked to stay a few |
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David is big, man |
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When it came down to it, although we had three nights in Florence, we only really had one full day to see it since Pisa took the other day. In reality I reckon another day was required, but again you cant do everything.
On our full day in Florence we tried to |
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Venice |
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Venice is a cold, wet, windy city. Well thats how I saw it as I was shivering in a tshirt on a boat on a canal!
Its beautiful, dont get me wrong - you can spend hours wandering down tiny tiny streets finding little restaurants and bars and nice shops. Its a |
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Nice, not so nice? |
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Next stop on the whirlwind tour was Nice, ah yes the south of France.....Well the location is spectacular but the weather from Venice followed us and as a result we had overcast and rainy weather for the three days we were there. Really not befitting the surroundings.
We stayed at a |
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Barca |
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So the anticipation of Nice led to a bit of a letdown with the weather, and Barcelona had an even bigger rap with almost everyone I had talked to absolutely loving it. I left 4 days later liking it, but definitely not loving it.
This was set basically by two separate incidents, |
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Sevilla |
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After our nightmare trip we really only had one full day in Seville, but I am glad we went. It is a small place and it is pretty easy to see everything in one day but you cant really relax there - its a laid back place so a longer stay |
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Madrid (Real Madrid v Valencia) |
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I was a bit unsure about Madrid. Some people have said to skip it all together, that there isnt really anything to do there. We decided to go, specifically because we wanted to see Real Madrid v Valencia on the Saturday night...which we did.
After we arrived from Seville, we went straight |
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Lisbon |
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Off to Lisbon, Portugal. This is the last city that James is visiting before heading back to London via Paris (on a long series of trains!) before heading off to the southern hemisphere, some of Asia, Australia, New Zealand, then off to the US. We hadnt organised a place to stay |
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Sintra |
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Sintra is an old town about an hour by train from Lisbon towards the coast. It was a nightmare trying to find the right train to get there, wandering around in the pouring rain but I got it sorted and eventually made it.
The highlight of Sintra is two things - |
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San Sebastian |
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Off again, on the night train to San Sebastian. I met a cool guy named Ahmed who is in night club promotions, and has a serious mobile phone addiction. He was on it all night even using my handset when his battery went flat!
I got to San Seb about 6am and |
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Geneva |
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Geneva is a nice city but quite small. It is the home of the UN, and thousands of worldwide companies and organisations such as the Red Cross.
You can pretty much do everything touristy in one day, but I took two. In fact I wasnt even going to come to Geneva but |
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The Swiss Alps |
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Next stop was Lauterbrunnen, in the valley below the Swiss Alps. Stunning scenery with the small town surrounded by high cliffs complete with cascading waterfalls and lovely country roads for walking. Oh and of course a river runs through it! At the end of the street you look up and there |
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The hills are alive... |
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...with the Sound of Music...Next stop, Salzburg, birthplace of W.A. Mozart, and the principle film location of the Sound of Music. Austria is the 21st and last country (or principality, sovereign state, place-with-its-own-flag) that I will visit this trip.
The city of Salzburg is quite picturesque, split by a river surrounded |
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Vienna |
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Capital of Austria, Vienna was the next stop on my trip. The end is in sight now!
I stayed at this great hostel called Wombats, yeah the name is inspired by an Australian guy the owners once met whos dream it was to open a hostel called Wombats, unfortunately the guy passed |
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Bern |
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After Vienna I had two days in Bern to catch up with Barbara, Doris, and Severene the three Swiss girls I met in Rome. The place is quite small and you really can do everything in one day or even less. The first day I spent looking for Swiss army knives |
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I love Paris in the spring....err Autumn-time |
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And so to the final stop in my continental Europe, and of course one of the best...Paris! I had 5 days and left still with plenty of things to see.
I stayed at a fairly strange but still cool hostel called Peace and Love (that should have tipped me off right |
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