I suck...
I'm slack...
Sue me..
There shall be photos from "the most memorable birthday/buck's EVER" soon!

but for now...
i give you...
the iBuzz Two...

Ooo Ooo Ooo!!
Really quick one...
Ye olde Nokia 6680 (ie drowned in Thai Tomato and Lemongrass Soup mobile phone... see HERE-01 and HERE-02 for history!!) may be being resurrected by Digimob!!
Blessed are they!
Will keep ye informed...

Small changes have been made...
Updated to Blogger beta the other night and made a few aesthetic twinges...
Been in the mood for writing recently (fiction that is)...
But those EuroBlog posts are still gnawing at my conscience...
Comp's been out of action so haven't been able to grab photos from iPod to put up either...
Bugger...
May bow to pressure and get a professional to fix comp...

On a lighter note, received as an early birthday prezzie (and i chipped in a bit too) from younger bro, FIVE of the Series four McFarlane's Dragons!! YAY!!!
Wifey wasn't so thrilled with the purchase... but they're still a heck of a lot cheaper than a Gucci bag!! :-) She'll hate me for saying that, but she never reads my blog!! ... i think...

I picked up all except for the water dragon... check them out here if you're interested... oh i know YOU are interested Jo!!
And they already have pics up for the Series five Dragons that'll be burning a hole in my wallet early next year!! Check em here!!

Out of the six races of Dragon, there is always a LARGE one in a special box set. They're doing something a bit diff for series 5 with the Fire Dragon, more of a bust than the whole figure... bit disappointed... GIVE ME WINGS!! love wings... can't get enough...
The figures with outstretched wings are the best in my opinion... maybe one reason why i haven't bought any of the Water Dragons yet... lacking wings... wings don't work under water so well... pity...

nuff babble...
early-ish night... no i doubt it...
will probably continue playing Marvel: Ultimate Alliance on the blessed box...
work tomorrow and maybe poker in the evening... yaya!!!

Damn it's good to be back...
Even being back at work seems to be a good thing!! :)
Basically just wanted to do a "before and after" shot ("euro evBSc" VS "oz evBSc") and make some hollow promise that I'll get around to typing the rest of our "thrilling" holiday adventures soon... not that anyone reads them... sniff... ;)





Spent the arvo at the Glenelg Food, Wine and Music Festival yesterday with Jee and Dr Dat(vid).

Good times were had by all... nice and relaxing day... plenty of eye candy... gold coin donation to the Variety Club for entry is a great idea... my one small criticism of the Festival is that the wine prices are a touch on the steep side... $6 - $8 per glass of wine seems pretty hefty... aren't the wineries trying to advertise themselves? shouldn't they have it a touch cheaper for better business? maybe I'm just outta touch economically... there's no access to a cash machine once you're inside and the stalls don't accept cards, so one runs outta moula pretty soon!

Back in the motherland!!
Yay!!
So relaxing!

Told mum we were arriving on the 25th but rocked up on the 23rd as a bit of a surprise!!
:-)
Catching up with Chrissy D and Naoko in Sydney for a couple of hours was great too!
Return to Adelaide soon guys!!
Got home in time to watch the Crows go down to West Coast in a most appalling fashion... dammit!!

Coming back was a bit of a bitch...
long flights... little sleep...
worrying about customs busting our butts about weapons or alcohol or excessive boutique goods...
but all was peachy!!
soon (maybe) shall come the SUPER MEGA BIBLICAL PROPORTION entries regarding the remainder of our trip... soon...
should be easier than typing it all on my mobile so might be able to get them done relatively quickly!

good to be back on home soil...
god i need a shave and a haircut!!
evBSc

SWEET MERCIFUL CRAP!

;-)

AUGUST 12th

So we arrived in Milan (The Last Supper baby!) after yet another sleepless-ish night and soon were on the connecting train to Bern.
Really weren't prepared for what a difference there was going to be between Italy (or Southern Europe in general) and Switzerland. But i guess something mystical happens as you cross those mountains cos it was flipping gorgeous!

The green fields. The milky green rivers. The brown cows. The wooden houses. The forests. And the mountains... it's difficult to not be enchanted by such towering giants.

SWISS (C)RAVINGS...
We fell in love with Switzerland from the beginning and it just got better and better the more we experienced.
The natural beauty is wonderful. The people are some of the nicest we've come across. It's so clean! Such a peaceful and calm place too.
We never wanted to leave...
But seeing as i'm writing this from my hostel bed in Prague, i guess we eventually did and i must continue my story...

Arrived in Bern and checked into Pension (or Hotel or Garni depending which sign you were looking at) Martahaus which was superb. good location and really nice and clean. headed out for lunch and started our roamings in beautiful Bern.

To compare Bern and Naples would be the difference between Heaven and Hell.

Bern... so clean, so peaceful.
Naples... so filthy, so hectic.

I'm sure there are people out there who love Naples for its energy or some other fantastical reason. They can have it. Naples' one saving grace is its pizza.
Bern is Gabriel. Forever beautiful and angelic.
Naples is Lucifer. Now cast down into the pit and never to be redeemed.

Enough ranting...

We walked around blissful Bern to Munster Cathedral which has some rather impressive 12m high stained glass windows. The old town is UNESCO protected and really beautiful. On to the bear pits (the bear is the symbol of Bern) where they've kept bears since the late 1800s.
Unfortunately the bears were sleeping when we checked it out, so no ursine action for us.
we cruised along one main street which has a fountain about every 100m. Each fountain consists of a bowl with four spouts and then a central column upon which sits some sort of statue. There was Lady Justice, Samson, a bear in armour and lots more, but the best was the baby eating ogre fountain! I was a tad disappointed though. I'd read both in the LP and a few comments on the net that "you've gotta see the baby eating ogre fountain", so i thought that it was gonna be like Roman scale fountains (ie big). But no. Same size as the others, just quirky! :-) Still worth a look though!

Before dinner, the weather drove us home to secure warmer clothing and umbrellas. Wanted to catch a tram to the restaurant but weren't sure which one. As we were pondering over a map, a very kind (and hot!) Swiss woman asked us if we needed some help. She was getting on the same tram and also suggested instead of changing trams to get to our destination, that we walk along a particular street which would take us straight there and was covered so we didn't have to worry about the rain.
Love the Swiss! :-)

The restaurant had been converted from an old tram depot (and retained the name) and is still running Bern's first micro-brewery. They make three different types of beer, my favourite being Weizen (which i've recently discovered means wheat).
Not sure, but think (for those in the know) that Schoffer Hoffer might be a weizen beer. Mmmm tasty!
Food was great too. I had a veal and mushroom dish with rosti (hashed potatoes) and Jee had a couple of boiled Bavarian sausages (they came out in a bowl of hot water too) accompanied by a giant pretzel and sweet dipping mustard. Superb!
Had to sample all three varieties of beer, so ended up pretty tipsy by the time we got home!

AUGUST 13th

The hotel has a great breakfast included in it's price so after we broke our fast, we headed to Gruyeres, about 2 hours from Bern. The country side on the way and surrounding Gruyeres was some of the most beautiful we'd seen (up until that time anyway!). Most people head there to visit the famous cheese factory, but I really wanted to check out the H.R. Giger Museum. Giger is the twisted little puppy who designed THE Alien for Alien (and Aliens, Alien3 and Alien Resurrection) (mind you Giger should have shot them for the fourth installment!) (maybe Sigourney Weaver should request to do a fifth to redeem herself!).

But Giger is definitely much more than jus Alien. He's got some amazing stuff, both pictures and sculptures. He does a lot based on biomechanical (as in humans or nature blended with machine), he's almost like a perverted Antonio Gaudi!

Grabbed a snack after the museum and then went to the Giger Bar for a coffee and to warm up. Basically rained all day long. :-(
Giger Bar has some funky seats and the ceiling is like a giant spine with ribs extending out.

Headed back to Bern to grab our gear before jumping on the train to Interlaken. Switzerland is small and the trains are fast, but due to the mountains the travel time can be a bit longer than you'd think by looking at the distance on the map.

Interlaken is another gem in the Swiss crown. Surrounded by massive mountains (the taller ones are snow capped even in summer), it's just peaceful and the air is alpine fresh.The walk to the Funny Farm Hostel was through quiet suburban streets and our souls were at ease. Ahh the calm before the storm... what a wonderful feeling...

We were booked in at the Funny Farm Hostel but it shares its reception with the Hotel Matterhof. When we were checking in with the lady (quarter Korean plus quarter Japanese plus half German equals Hot Stuff! Even the missus agrees!) at reception, she took our name and she said "oh" in a rather dismal fashion. I asked her if our booking had been filled or something but she just said the walk out the back might be a bit cold. Meh i think, no biggy.

But there was a biggy waiting for us. Drafty rooms with no locks (or even lockers for safe storage) in a building which probably used to be a barn! The communal showers were in a large open room which looked cold enough as it was but probably freezing in winter! There was a pretty healthy looking dope plant growing out the back too! It truly was a "backpackers" and not really a hostel.Jee just sat on the bed looking depressed and said she wanted to get out of Interlaken as soon as possible. This was a different Jee who got off the train staring at the mountains, deeply inhaling the fresh air and stating with glee "it's so beautiful".

After much discussion I went to the reception to see if we could upgrade to the hotel. In the LP, a double in the Matterhof seemed darn expensive but we were desperate.
The lady knew as soon as i returned what i was going to request. I said that I thought we were a bit old for that level of accommodation. She said that she was too old for it a couple of years ago when she went to South Africa with a friend and thought they'd try to rough it but changed their minds after the first night!
For only ten Swiss Franks more per night, we stayed in the hotel in a room which had a double bed and a bunk bed and a private bathroom. There was the potential that two other people might join us, but we didn't care and it never happened, so that was sweet!
What an emotional rollercoaster! Love it!

The Matterhof i think has been around since the end of the 19th century. Interior needs a bit of modernizing perhaps but it's clean and comfy and that's what's important!

AUGUST 10th

ferry was shite. was only a small ferry so the chairs didn't recline much and was pretty crowded. and on top of everything, the engine noise was loud enough to prevent any possible form of decent sleep. jee got some fitful rest but i got bugger all.

they showed Pirates of the Caribbean (why you would show a pirate movie on a ferry i have no idea!) then Daddy Day Care then Lord of the Rings: Return of the King.
i saw most of the first, must've passed out for Daddy Day Care cos the next thing i knew LOTR was on.

So we arrive in Piraeus at 7am, 3 hours later than expected. we trekked to the station then caught the train towards the Acropolis.
original plan was to take in some of the ancient sites of Athens prior to heading to Patras. however it takes about 4hrs from Athens to reach Patras and there are only a few trains AND we wanted to get there as soon as possible to book tickets for the ferry to italy, so we were in a bit of a pickle.
got off at the acropolis station and looked for lockers but there were none so we had no choice but to lug them. the Acropolis and its associated monuments are up on a hill overlooking Athens and lugging heavy bags uphill ain't the most entertaining practise so about halfway there, Jee said she'd watch the bags and wait for me to go and check them out.

jogged up the hill and through various tour groups that were just arriving to the entry. i could see the top half of what i think was the Acropolis so i took a snap shot and headed back down to meet Jee. marked that down as something to see next time we come to Europe. there's been a few things along the way that we've skipped over and promised to return to someday.

Next 4 hours were spent training it to Patras. were lucky enough to get seats on the longer of the two trains we had to catch, so that was a small mercy.

grabbed our tickets and chilled. had something to eat (Jee had another bloody yiros! i think she's addicted!) at Chick'n Chicken and were undercharged by a rookie waiter. got on the boat bout an hour before departure and secured our seats. also grabbed the two seats behind ours cos no one appeared to be in them. we learnt from previous ferry rides that if people have the "deck" seat tickets, they can jump in the aircraft style seats if no one has them reserved. otherwise a fair amount of them sleep on the floor! it's much better than the deck for sure. the deck does have a roof covering the area, but the sides aren't covered so once the ship is moving the wind whips in and makes things pretty chilly. and to add to it, the evening we were leaving, it started raining pretty heavily and the roof of the deck was really leaky so the place was covered in water!indoor space was at a premium!

tried to get to sleep pretty early on. wasn't the most comfortable, but was the best i've been able to sleep on an overnight ferry so far! stretched out over two seats with my legs dangling off the end wasn't too bad at all! can't remember exactly what time it was - maybe midnight - when suddenly they announced that the self-service restaurant would be open for another 30 mins. they woke me outta quite a deep sleep and i was rather pissed off seeing as it had closed about two hours ago anyway. i could hear a fair amount of movement going on, so i took my bandana off my eyes to see what was going on. we were docked at another port and more people were boarding! and some of those people had seat reservations and were kicking sleepers out of their seats! so i sat up and stayed awake making sure no one disturbed my sleeping beauty (girl sleeps like a bloody log! she never woke up once thru the whole commotion!). once the ship started moving again and i was sure that no one else was coming along, it was off to dreamland again...

SIDENOTE: I've read back over a couple of my past bloggings and feel i must pass on my humblest apologies for the lack of eloquence in these entries, along with the grammatical and spelling mistakes and sometimes missing out entire words! i'm writing all these entries on my mobile phone then sending them to my email address. then when time is willing, i paste them into my blog.
typing on my phone is plenty slower than thinking speed (mind you i can basically touch type at great speed on this keypad thanks to all the practise i've had!) and thus sometimes i'm ahead of myself before i've had a chance to write it and don't realise that i've left something out.
then when copying from my email and pasting into the blog window, it does a wierd double up kinda thing that i try to get rid of if i notice it has happened.
Perfektion is impossible I guess...
;-p

AUGUST 11th

Arrived in Bari, Italy feeling quite refreshed and ready for the next long haul. plan was to catch a train to Rome and then an overnight train to Bern, Switzerland.
(my grandmother generously put me through a very good education, but i always thought that Zurich was the capital of Switzerland! Didn't study Geography! That's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!) (and the dubious Mr Tang also believed that Geneva or Zurich was the capital of Switzerland, so I'm not the only one!! yay!!)
unfortunately the sleeper was fully booked so we had to book an overnight train from Bari to Milan and then catch another to Bern.
Bari's a nice enough town to spend a day in and due to being a main port, it has plenty of boutique shops for those last minute duty free purchases, so Jee was plenty happy!
So we wandered and window shopped until 9pm.
The 1st class sleeping seats on the train were in cabins of six seats and we were sharing ours with just one guy initially. Very nice Swiss guy called Cedric who was from the French speaking part of Switzerland but could speak Italian fluently and English and German very well! He'd spent a month in Australia in January brushing up on his English and having a holiday, so he actually knew Adelaide!
The cabin was very comfortable with only the three of us (especially cos we could stretch our legs out to the opposite seats!), but unfortunately after an hour, we were joined by a rather portly (shall we call him "prosperous" Lucinda?) gentleman who snored rather loudly and then later on a youth, so leg stretching was not to be had.
soon got pretty cold in the cabin making sleep even more difficult.

AUGUST 7th

had booked a tour to go and check out the active volcano in the centre of Santorini. caught a ship out to the central "island" and were led by our guide around the various craters. no sign of lava or billowing smoke unfortunately, but there was a steam vent and some areas that'd turned yellow from the sulphur. you could really feel the heat coming outta the vent!
cos the volcano is very closely monitored, the guide said the residents of Santorini don't fear and eruption, it's the earthquakes that are the killers - literally. Santorini is beautiful, but it's not the most "permanent" of islands!

next stop was off to the hot springs.
the boat couldn't get close enough due to being too shallow, so anyone who wanted to paddle in the springs had to swim there. the volcanic vents warm the water to about 36 degrees and due to the minerals, change the colour of the water too! only a small area that's closest to the vents is a vivid green and then it's an orange-brown colour till quite far out.
swimming towards the vents, you don't notice the temperature difference too much, it's more when you are swimming back to the boat that you feel the cold!

next moved on to the other island that makes up Santorini for lunch. yiros (of course) and a greek salad.
grabbed the boat back to Oia where some people alighted but as we'd just been there a couple of days before, we were happy to just head back to the main port. took the cable car up to the town cos the donkeys were a touch too stinky!

if you happen to be in the area, here's the perfect coffee and cake break in Fira, Santorini!

grab cakes from Zotos Family Pastry.
grab take away coffee from Quinta.
sit on porch of Replay (clothing store).
ENJOY!

the cakes at Zotos looked soooo good, but they didn't sell coffee and the next door wouldn't allow us to have their coffee with Zotos cakes in the store, so we had to search for a take away coffee joint. after we'd had our cake, we returned to Quinta for another coffee cos it was a funky joint. think it becomes a bar at night. i tried a "greek coffee" for the first time and regretted it! don't know if it was just bad there (i doubt it though), but it tasted crap (really weak too) and is full of sediment (purposefully i think). will have to check with "she who pays my wages" if that's the way it's meant to be!

headed home and swam in the pool for a couple of hours until it was dark then headed our for dinner. expressed that i didn't want yiros again, so we wandered around the beach road a bit looking at various places and settled on one that had good descriptions in english of the food! :-)
had squid, a greek salad and moussaka which was a first and fantastic!

AUGUST 8th

had a truly relaxing and very very lazy day. did nothing but swim and sit by the side of the pool.
the reception desk is adjoined with a little kitchen and so when we got hungry, we just ordered some food, had a beer, chilled for a bit more and jumped in the pool again!

aaah that was the life...

no looking around museums or churches.
no rushing to catch the next train.
just the sun and the water...

AUGUST 9th

had to check out in the morning but because they understand a lot of the ferries don't leave till the afternoon and there's an outdoor toilet and shower everyone's free to use the pool until they leave!so we first went out and booked our accommodation in switzerland on the net then came back and swam and frolicked till about 7pm.

Jee suggested yiros for dinner again (we'd had one for lunch!), but i didn't think i could stomach another plus cos it was our last night in Santorini i felt like something special.
found a restaurant where you walk out the back and select what you want then they cook it up for you.
so we chose a skewer of meat and veg each, a greek salad and a stuffed tomato and capsicum. the stuffed vegies and salad came out quite soon with bread and we were fairly full after all that.
took a while for the skewers and we were wondering if we could cancel them cos we'd really had enough. but they came eventually and you'd never guess what accompanied them on the plate...

pita bread, vegies and sauce to make your own yiros!!

NOOOOOOOOO!

and it was chunkier than your average yiros!
but we soldiered on!
can't waste good food - even if it was the same thing you'd eaten for the last five days!

by the end of it all, we were super stuffed.
but we were lucky that night. towards the end of our meal, the moon started to rise and it was bloated and blood red. very beautiful for our final night.

we rushed home cos we thought the guy was leaving to take us to the port between 9 and 930pm. when we got there, he was sitting by the pool with a cigarette looking very relaxed. we apologised for being late but he told up not to worry cos the ferry wasn't till 11pm and it's always late anyway.
so we relaxed for a bit and took some night shots of the pool area.
at about 10 we started wondering when we were leaving. i think by 1030 Stelio could see we were a touch agitated about possibly missing our ferry so we hit the road.
unfortunately, he was right... very right.
it was late... an hour late.
the ferry was meant to be boarded at 11pm arriving in Piraeus at 4am.
but we boarded at midnight and didn't get in till 7am!

AUGUST 5th

although we'd originally told Tony that we'd stay for four days, we started the day by moving places. Tony was a fast talker with too many empty promises and there was a really skanky smell outside our room. at first i thought the smell was like rotting seaweed from the beach. my brain was associating the smell with a memory from my childhood of an odour i'd smelt around my grand parent's farm. i was sure it was a beach smell. i realised later that it was the smell of a septic tank! Santorini is a small island and thus (i think so anyway) some places have septic tanks instead of proper sewerage systems. we sometimes saw a truck that G labelled the DONG-CHA (shit truck), which appeared to be driving around and pumping out people's septic tanks. nasty times!

so we looked for something else. the trusty LP guided us to Stelio's Place which was only a few minutes walk away, had a decent sized pool and was quite a bit nicer.

we went out and hired a quad bike or All Terrain Vehicle (ATV) as it was labelled but in the rental contact, it is illegal to ride the ATV on unsurfaced roads, thus losing the meaning of "All Terrain"! (and yes mother we even had helmets!) we rode our ATV from tip to tip of Santorini! was great fun!

started on the southern end at the lighthouse and Red Beach and then rode up the highest mountain and eventually to Oia (pronounced Ia) which is on the northern tip of the island.
the ATV wasn't exactly the fastest creature. with Santorini being part of a volcano, it is quite mountainous in places. max speed uphill with 2 people on it was about 20kph. on the downhill, we'd get up to fifty, but that's when things started to shake a little too much for comfort!
:-)

Oia is really beautiful and if you've seen pictures of the traditional white buildings with blue highlights, probably most of those shots were taken in Oia. we got there at about 6pm but wanted to watch the sunset which is meant to be most beautiful from that area so we meandered around a bit before finding a restaurant that was pretty pricey but had a brilliant view of the sunset. After a beer, some prawns, a great salad, a bottle of Santorini wine, a fantastic sunset, chocolate mousse and coffee we happy, stuffed to the gills and quite tipsy!

whilst i was a little unsure about my blood alcohol level for riding the ATV home in the dark, we didn't have much of a choice (there's always a choice evBSc... always) as Stelio's Place was on the opposite end of the island and the bike had to returned by midnight.

however i soon discovered there's nothing more sobering than a stiff sea breeze in the face while riding high on the edge of an active volcano! made it home in one piece, took a photo of my very sunburnt upper legs and collapsed into bed!

AUGUST 6th

had a slow morning then a yiros for lunch (forgot to write it but the day before we had a yiros for lunch as well!) then went to Perissa beach which was literally a stone throw from where we were staying.
this has gotta be the strangest beach i've ever seen! leading up to the water, there wasn't sand, but black pebbles.
once you got to the water, rock.
no sand.
solid rock.
it was like water frozen in time.
it had ripples in it.
super mega ultra freaky!
and to top it off, it had a thin layer of algae on top which made it very slippery!
it was so bizarre. i guess that's what a volcanic beach is?!
swam for yonks just looking at the way it was formed.

some guy on an inflatable raft started swimming out to sea and just kept going. i would sometimes look out and assumed he was gonna turn back at some stage, but he never did! he went out of visible range (over the horizon?) and was out of sight for maybe an hour.
eventually a little speak was visible which turned out to be him. a lifeguard actually swam out and met him about 100m offshore, probably to check if he was ok or to give him a slap up the side of the head! :-)

like i've stated before, european beaches (well at least the ones we've encountered so far) are very calm in comparison to Oz waters. you'd probably be lucky to return if you did that in Australia. or when you did finally return, you find yourself 10km down the coast!
while Jee experimented with sunbathing semi-topless, i dug a hole in the pebbles about 3 metres from the water. eventually reached coarse black sand and water and then i couldn't dig any further cos i hit "the bottom"! and that was only about 40cm deep!

we had to change our departure day for the ferry and that could only be done in Fira, the capital of Santorini. so we caught the bus in, changed our tickets and had another yiros for dinner.

AUGUST 3rd

woke up after bugger all sleep.
ship arrived in Patras at 1pm.
caught a train at 155pm and gradually made our way to Piraeus - the big port for Athens.
stuck with Yvonne and Craig all the way and picked up a couple of chicks from Perth along the way who had about as much of an idea about where they were going as the four of us. safety in numbers!

everything was booked out for going to Santorini that night, so instead of spending a night in Piraeus, we booked an overnight ferry to Crete and an early morning ferry to Santorini.
Piraeus was where we experienced our first of many yiros. and it was bloody marvelous! it may have been due to the fact that it was only 1euro60cents or that we hadn't eaten since breakfast, but it was soooo good!

the ferry was "okay", but definitely nowhere near the standard of the Blue Star ferry from the previous night. this one did have showers though, but they were pretty dodgy looking so we decided against it. it took off at 9pm and we were pretty beat from lack of sleep and all day travel, so after a whiskey for me and a coffee for G, we TRIED to sleep. the seats were about as good as the night before and this time it was cold in the cabin area. couldn't just grab some extra clothes from our bags though cos for this ship (and only this one out of all our trips) the big bags were locked in the hold.

on top of the cold, the light and tv were left on all night. the light is no problem - i always tie my bandana over my eyes to block out the light when travel sleeping. but the bloody tv was a different story. maybe if they had greek programs i would've been ok cos i wouldn't have been able to understand a word. but every single program was in english with greek subtitles! CSI, Law and Order, Walker Texas Ranger, Desperate Housewives, The Shield and one more that i think has slipped my mind.
when i couldn't sleep, i tried watching some of the shows but then i'd get sleepy so i'd try to sleep. but i couldn't sleep cos of the cold and noise.
i couldn't wait till 6am...

AUGUST 4th

got into Crete at 6.
thankfully the sun was up. had to wait till 9 for next ferry to Santorini, so we thought we'd grab some food. could see the Golden Arches up the road, so walked up there. not open. :-(
couldn't even see an opening time written anywhere either.

headed back down to the port where the boat was already sitting and just waited there. had to wait until 30 mins prior to departure before we could board so were starving when we got on! grabbed food at bar at were soon zooming off to Santorini.

got into Santorini and started to look for accommodation. one guy grabbed us and began ranting about his place - Tony's Villa (the Legend). seemed decent enough so we went for it.
place was ok.
Tony kept talking about how he can get us a good deal for this or half price for that. he drove past one place and said that if we mention his name there, we can drink wine for free! turned out later to be a winery that had free tastings!

seeing as we hadn't showered or slept properly in two and a half days, we had a shower and then crashed for 4 hours. we then got up, went and ate a yiros and then went back to sleep again!

AUGUST 2nd

caught the early train to Bari, a port town on the eastern coast of italy. it looked nice and pretty after the filth of Naples, but we didn't see much of it. once we arrived at the station, we jumped on the first bus to the port. once at the port we booked our tickets for the ferry to Patras in Greece. ferry didn't leave till 8pm and we couldn't board till 4pm.

basically twiddled our thumbs till 4 and then jumped onboard. the ship was great (little did we know that we were starting with the best and going downhill from there, but more of that later!). it was like a floating hotel! with our first class eurail pass we were able to book "aircraft style" (reclining) seats at half price (46euro post discount). they seemed quite comfortable and they were in an enclosed area. went exploring around the boat a bit until we got hungry enough and headed to the restaurant. there was a self-service restaurant or a-la-carte but we felt like a touch of class, so went for a-la-carte.

we were the first ones there and there were some really nice looking tables with a view out the window, so we asked the waiter for a table. he gave me a once over and led us to a table far from the windows. :-(

ok, so i was very unshaven and wearing my rather vivid spiderman t-shirt with bright green shorts and had been travelling for long hours on trains and waiting in cafes all day so i looked a bit scruffy, but come on! we later discovered that the part we were seated in was the non-smoking (3 tables) and the rest (maybe 10 tables) was for smoking, thus we were seated where we were. still, you think he could have asked instead of looking me up and down!

during our meal the ship set off. we were soon joined by an american couple, Yvonne and Craig, who were on their honeymoon. they were at the end of about a month in europe, with the plan to spend the last few days in the Greek islands. a greek lady came to eat as well and gave us some advice on good islands to go to, but we were set on Santorini anyway. she actually kicked up a bit of a fuss with the waiter when he wanted to seat her on the third and final table in the non-smoking section but he wouldn't budge.

we both had pasta dishes that were really nice and the bread with olive tapenade was great too.

tried to sleep in our "reclining" seats. they maybe go back an inch more than aeroplane seats do. sleep didn't come very easily unfortunately.

AUGUST 1st

caught a bus bright and early in the morning to catch a ferry to the gorgeous island of Capri!

paid for a coastal tour of the island by boat which included a stop a the Blue Grotto which is a rather large cave that only has a small opening. if the sea is too rough, it's inaccessible, but luckily for us it was calm enough. it wasn't calm, but just not TOO rough! when we first arrived in Capri, they said we wouldn't be able to go in due to the sea condition but by the time we got there, it'd eased up a bit. one of the guys at the minbak at been to Capri two days in a row and both days couldn't visit the grotto, so i guess we were lucky.
you have to pay extra to go in cos it requires you to jump in a small boat that can only fit 4 people and the oarsman. they definitely know how to milk you for all you've got. i think you actually pay for two separate tickets - one for the boat and one for entrance to the grotto. bit steep really for what it is, but meh, that's what being a tourist is all about!
once the boat gets to the entrance, you have to lie flat in the boat and the oarsman pulls in the oars. he then grabs onto a chain which is permanently attached to the cave and waits for the waves to dip down enough. then he drags the boat thru the hole using the chain and suddenly you're in peaceful waters. the reason it's called the Blue Grotto is that the way the light enters the cave thru the entrance makes the most amazing sapphire blue colour.
a bit of paddling around (enough time for us to take photos and not too long or we'd be holding up the next boat load of tourists!) and then out again. was sure almost cracked my head on the way out!

tour continued on around the island, stopping at various famous or pretty spots.
back at the port we caught a bus up to Anacapri. it was insane! they crowd as many people as possible onto this tiny mini-van kinda bus which then hoons up narrow roads that are on the edge the cliffs. you really don't want to sit on the right side of the bus - like i did - cos all you see is an unforgiving, straight down drop to your doom!
from Anacapri there's a chair lift up the mountain! was good fun and the views were great. but up the top was amazing. we were up in the clouds! on one side, it was clear and you could see down to the city. on the other side, it was like someone had erased the world. just pure, blank white. really peaceful too.

down the chair lift again (some chick was sun bathing topless almost directly under the chair lift towards the end!) and wandered around Anacapri a bit. almost bought you an italian leather hand bag that we thought you would've liked mum, but it turned out to be 500euros so you might have to wait till next time! ;-)

after lunch we caught the ferry back to Naples. were so tired that once we'd sat down, we fell asleep and the next thing we knew, we'd arrived in Naples!
at the train station, we booked tickets for the next day and i got G to take a photo of me with one of the station police who get around on Segways!

That night we had the best pizza ever. Again LP recommended and just around the corner from the place we'd eaten the night before.

Pizzeria da Michele.

that name again...

Pizzeria da Michele.

When we got there, we had to grab a ticket and wait for a table. 10 minutes later we sat down and checked out the menu which was stuck to the wall.

it went something like this:

1 - Margherita (medium, large or double cheese)
2 - Marinara (medium or large)

Coke, Fanta, Water or Beer

and that was it!
can't remember the prices exactly, but it was only 3 - 4 euros for the pizzas! we had the double cheese margherita and the medium marinara. both were big and tasty! we also ordered two cokes and the total bill ended up being 11 euro!

ARGH! TOO CHEAP! TOO DELICIOUS!

personally i don't think i'd piss on Naples if it was on fire, but i would charge into the blazing inferno to save the chefs of Pizzeria da Michele!

we slept well that night with happy bellies!

SIDENOTE: gonna have to check this out when (if?) we return to oz (or someone can leave an informative comment on the blog!), but marinara in italy has nothing to do with seafood. it has more to do with garlic i think. i have been enlightened...

So even swearing on Jim Morrison's grave (which we did see!) didn't provide enough inspiration to get around to posting those messages on me blog.

BUGGER!! >:-()

But in London at the mo and heading to the House of Tang in Nottingham (Men in Tights?) tomorrow and i believe there is access to the "information super highway" (when was the last time you heard that phrase used?) within the abode, so ye may be receiving some EvCentric nourishment soon!

Super bugger about Peter Brock too...

I think Al Qaida's new plot is to knock off 3 top Ozzies by Sept 11!
Bastards...

Speaking of which, five years to the day...
how time has swept along so quickly...
I still remember kneeling on the tatami in the tv room of Parkside House with a bunch of my housemates watching the early scenes fall further and further into chaos...
If you have a chance, check out the Spiderman comic with the pure black cover.
Powerful stuff...

CRIKEY!
He's carked it!
Don't know the exact details yet, but when I woke up this morning, there was a "breaking news" sms on my mobile.
"Steve Irwin has died."

Bugger...

Have seen a couple of posters for "Snakes on a Plane".
They thought hard about that title...
What has Samuel gotten himself into?

GAY PARI!

(well i did enter wearing a pink t-shirt after all...)

;-)

Arrived at 7am after a night train from Heidelberg (Germany) and was stuffed on coffee and croissants by 9am!
(don't know if the old dude serving breakfast doesn't understand English properly or if just wanted to stuff us silly!)

Had a very Paris day! After a rest in the morning, we had lunch at a small French restaurant. I had steak tartare which was rather tasty. Nothing like a chunk of raw beef mince mixed with raw egg and herbs to give you the energy to take on the sights of Paris!
The Hotel of the Invalids (hors d' to the Revolution), Alex the 3rd bridge, L'Arc de Triumph and ye olde mighty Eiffel Tower! Tall and fantastic! Can't believe they were thinking of tearing it down at one stage! Haven't gone up it yet but will soon.

Have just finished watching a special on CNN about Osama bin Laden and now watching the CNN news report about the new Al Qaida tape on the net and potential terror arrests in England.
YEEHAA!
Think we shall be checking smarttraveller.gov.au to see what the recommendations are.

Speaking of the net, I have 13 days worth of blog sitting in my email begging to be published. There is internet at the hotel but it's bloody expensive. Saw a net cafe round the corner that'll hopefully be cheaper and I swear on Jim Morrison's grave (we'll hopefully see it in the next coupla days) that I shall post these on EvCentric!

Biblical proportions baby!

Delicious North Korean Cheese...

Two months to the day since we left Oz...

WOW!

When will it end?
To think that our return flight was originally booked for August the 12th, a coupla days after they discovered that terrorist threat! Doubt we would've been able to get home!

Well it's time to skip to the loo me darlin! One too many 1L steins at a beer hall in Munich!

Auf Wiedersehen!
Tchuss!

The best T-shirt...

... EVER!!!

and all those in favour, please leave a comment!!

This is the one i picked up in Rome.

(Sexy model shall remain anonymous)

Salzburg, we have left.
Linz, we are stuck in.
Train, seventy minutes late.
Demorado! Demorado! Demorado!
Approximate arrival time in Prague, 10:48pm.

YEE HAA!

in other news, evBSc may be facing legal action from an all powerful, global multi-national company!
but we'll leave out specific details until one truly knows what is going on...

Twenty eight minutes and counting...

Leaving Salzburg for Prague today!
and for now... another post from almost a month ago!!!

JULY 31st

headed to Naples (Napoli) in the morning. Jee had been talking about Naples having one of the three most beautiful ports in the world and of course it is the birth place of pizza, so it was definitely on our itinerary.
i'd read in the LP that bag snatching and theft was pretty rife so i was prepared for clutching my bag close to me.

what i wasn't prepared for was how much a pock mark on the face of italy Naples would be! it was absolutely filthy. around the main station area almost felt like a third world country. of course there were the usual "non-italians" selling fake shite galore, but there were a couple of guys selling laptops and mobiles too.

can anyone say "stolen goods"?

as we were walking to the korean minbak, this one guy walks up to me and says:
"do you speak english?"
"yes"
"can you break a 100 note for something smaller?"
(of course i do mate. and while i reach to get my wallet, which bag do you wanna run off with? or do you just wanna grab my wallet which is chained to my bag?)
"no sorry"
and he walks off. guess we're obvious and easy targets cos we're carrying big backpacks and multiple other bags.

got to the minbak which was nice enough, but didn't have that personal feel like the Roman minbak.
dropped our bags off and left pretty soon. on the way out Jee had a quick conversation with a korean guy who is a tour guide. he mentioned how young koreans are getting quite rude and that they'll sometimes actually threaten him that they'll write bad comments about his tours on the internet. the net is definitely one of your closest allies when travelling and can easily sway your decision making by reading other people's experiences.

caught the train to Pompeii. ended up being the wrong train. sure it stops in Pompeii, but it stops at modern Pompeii station, not old (we got our asses whupped by a volcano) Pompeii.
there's a different company's train line that runs to old Pompeii, not the standard rail line.
so we walked for about 25 mins to the ruins and jumped inside.
it's another one of those "i'm looking at almost 2000 yr old crumbling buildings in the peak of summer" experiences again, but truly interesting too.
there are a fair amount of buildings that are intact (incl a brothel with ancient porn painted on the walls!) and it's interesting to get a feel for how things may have been back before Vesuvius went ape shit. some of the resident must've been really rolling in it judging by the size of their abodes. there was one house that had a mosaic on the floor with probably one of the original "beware of the dog" signs in history!

SIDENOTE: mosaics... bloody impressive when you think about them. lots of little tiles all put together to form patterns or pictures. guess they last longer than painting, but the time it would take to make them!! that was one thing i forgot to mention about the inside of the dome of St Peter's Basilica -- it's all decorated with mosaics made up of tiny tiles. and it's definitely not small!! to look up from below, you'd think it was just a painting, but get closer and you see it's all mosaics! very impressive!

spent a few hours checking out various parts of the ruins and then headed back to Naples.grabbed pizza from a LP recommended place called Trianon which was decent.

JULY 29th

started the day with buying a t-shirt that i've wanted for a long time. saw it on the net a couple of years ago i think and stumbled across it in rome! it is the ultimate t-shirt! i shall describe it no further for it demands to be seen not described!

on to the sightseeing tho...
as we wandered to our first destination, we came across a "priest shop". it had all sorts of goodies for sale like portable altars (incl mini-crucifix and vials for holy water), mitres and those big sticks with curly tops (which could be unscrewed into sections to fit into a suitcase!)

we went to Plaza Nouvena which has three fountains, the main one being rather impressive and bearing what appears to be an egyptian obelisk too. there are a few obelisks around Rome which i believe were pillaged from Egypt after various victories or such forth.

we moved on to the Parthenon which was fantastic. (side note: i'm writing this on the 16th of august so whilst i want to include such precise details as when things were built etc, i can't remember and i don't have my Lonely Planet at hand! Google it baby!) the dome of the building has a 9m hole in the middle - purposely built that way. what happens when it rains, i'm not sure. i assume they have some sort of drainage system. that was the interesting thing about the ruins in Pompeii - the richer houses often had one room in the house that had a big square hole in the roof directly over a big square in the floor that was set at about 20cm lower than the rest of the floor to catch the rain. not sure why they did it, but it was interesting to see. maybe Google can explain.

i think the Parthenon was originally built to house the bodies of kings (or was later decided to be used for that purpose) but Raphael (the artist not the ninja turtle) loved it so much he asked to be entombed there too. he died in 1520 but in 1833 they wanted to double check it was true, so with the blessings of the pope at that time they opened it up. found that indeed he was entombed there (DNA testing must've been way ahead of it's time!) and so the pope gave him a marble sarcophagus. lucky boy!
Umberto I and Emmanuelle II are also entombed there and there were even a couple of FBI-looking guards standing in front of Emma 2's tomb. that'd be a thrill-a-minute job i'm sure!

after a cafe di granita (strong iced coffee with cream) we moved on to the Trevi fountain which was crowded but funk-tastic!

after dinner a bunch of us headed out with tripods to take some night shots of the Colosseum and Trevi fountain. got some great shots. i think billy joel and bryan adams had played in front of the Colosseum that night. there was a stage being torn down and various pamphlets indicated that the two had performed that night.

JULY 30th

Usually the Vatican Museum is closed to tourists on Sunday, except for the last Sunday of the month when it is free entry to all (but closes by 1:45pm)! thus we got up at 630am with the intention to skip breakfast and just go and line up. but the K-mumma was up before us and already preparing breaky and insisted that we ate before we left. so we had our hearty meal and then Jeong Hun, Konomi, Jee and I headed off towards the Vatican city.
We got off at the station with about 100 other people and luckily we were at about the head of the pack as we walked to the museum. the closer we got the more we could see a huge line of people. it snaked along the outer wall of the city and was up to 10 people wide in places! we knew we were going to have to wait, but this was looking bad.
so we jumped on the back of the line and started the play the waiting game...

luckily the first part was in the shade, so we could stay cool. fairly soon after we arrived, wave after wave of tour groups arrived and jumped on the back of the line. thank god we beat em!
bout half an hour into the wait, a family of four (i think germans) merged into the line in front of us. Jee was pushing me and telling me to tell them to go to the back of the line, but i tend avoid confrontation and didn't really want to do it. then suddenly Konomi - who is half my height - steps up to the towering anglo-saxons and tells them that they have to go to the back! she said that it's cos she's over thirty that she's stronger! :-)

the human serpent that we were encased in gradually wound its way along the walls of the city. what i thought was the entrance we passed by and turned another corner to be confronted by the real head of the line. bloody long. plus probably about two thirds of the line was in direct sunlight and was pretty toasty. total wait time was one hour and 45 minutes. ouch!!
got in and were put thru metal detectors and x-ray machines. i was wearing shorts but had my zip off pants bottoms in my pocket just in case there were probs getting into St Peter's Basilica. cos they have zips and the security dude ran his scanner over my pocket it beeped. he asked me "is it wallet?" and i whipped open my pocket, flashed him a grin and said "no! they're my pants!". i was quickly shuffled on...

did a kind of running tour of the museum. it's frickin huge! we chose a couple of sections of mild interest and browsed thru them on the way to the Sistine Chapel which is towards the end of the museum. to get to the Sistine Chapel, you have to walk down a few sparse corridors and steps and they continuously repeat a recorded message in about 5 different language. the message states that due to the Chapel being a sacred place, please be quiet and taking of photos or videos is prohibited. no probs i thought - been in enough similar places with similar rules.
first thing when we get in there, the noise! seemed like everyone was having a conversation! and secondly, plenty of people were taking photos. so i whipped out my cam and took a few happy snaps too! Michelangelo sure worked hard! :-)
mind you, i was a little disappointed with "The Touch". i had imagined that it covered the entire ceiling, but it is only one section of a much larger painting. delusions of granduer i guess!
supposedly Michelangelo started painting the ceiling with plenty of detail, but then realised that the details couldn't be seen from the ground so painted the rest with less detail. i reckon he just got lazy when he realised what a task it was gonna be and couldn't be bothered with the details! :-)

stick figures with smiley faces for all the angels! how the hell am i meant to paint all those feathers?! :-)

fairly soon though a few guards (not the dandy swiss guards but normal italian ones) came thru and started shushing everyone and yelling out "no photo!". everyone stopped taking pics but occasionally there would be:

Flash!
"No photo!"
pause...

Flash!
"No photo!"
(rinse, wash and repeat!)

i started taking a video of the ceiling but just holding my cam at stomach level. didn't notice a guard coming thru crowd though and he points and says "you! no photo!". was gonna protest that it was "no photo" but "video" but i just shrugged and turned it off. think it was out of focus anyway.

eventually escaped the museum. we were all starving and couldn't think of where to go or what to eat so just got a flier from a tout which had a lunch deal that include pasta, pizza and a coke for 8 euro. sounded good, but was absolutely shite. the pasta was instant packet crap that'd just had the top whipped off and stuck in the microwave. the pizza was a pita bread with tomato sauce, a slice of ham and a slice of cheese whacked on top and heated. the coke was post mix and rather watered down. but at the end of the day, we were starving and any food in our belly was fine. was a bloody insult to italian food though!

walked thru St Peter's Square and then entered the Basilica. we'd come appropriately dressed after various warnings and past experiences but there were plenty of people who weren't and were being turned away. one couple just ahead of us were turned away cos the woman's skirt was above her knees. as they were walking by, i handed her my bandana (the ever trusty bandana!) and told her to try wrapping it around her legs so it would cover her knees. she did so and got thru! they asked he there was anything they could do to thank me, but i just said remember that australians are friendly people! :-)
unfortunately though, about 50m on, there was another check point where the Vatican Nazis were checking for inappropriate dress and they must've have had sharper eyes cos they turned the couple away. bugger for them...

we waited in line for about 45min to climb the dome of the Basilica. was cheaper to climb by the steps instead of taking the elevator, so we stepped it. actually there weren't that many steps that the elevator covered anyway. but there were 330 steps AFTER the elevator that were advised not to be attempted by wusses or those with weak hearts. :-)
the closer we got to the top, the more people there were and the more jammed it became. and whilst the dome has ventilation holes, there isn't too much airflow. so we're sweating like it's going outta fashion but when we finally got out to the viewing area, it was like being kissed by angels. so cool and refreshing. view was fantastic too! all the people in the square were like little ants!

if you are near the Vatican in summer, have gelati from the Old Bridge Gelateria just across from the city walls - some of the best we've ever had!

had dinner at home then saw off Jeong Hun and Konomi at the station. were feeling a bit down after saying goodbye to friends and thinking about leaving the comfort of the K-mumma's care the next day, so had a beer at Maccas. wandered home to discover that K-mumma had bought 2 cartons of budweiser long necks!! not my usual choice for beer but when it's free, i no complain!! :-)
drank way too much but those damn koreans have a bad habit of refilling your glass as soon as it's empty! ;-)
was great just chatting away and finally stumbled to bed at a very late hour.

exiting swiss territory for Austria. should've watched Sound of Music before i left. Austria appears to be a little more 3G friendly than switz and we've had a 6hr train ride, so hopefully will be able to do a couple more posts soon. and they shall be of biblical proportions! :-)

we didn't want to leave switzerland. it's so beautiful, but who knows what lies in store for us!

does anyone know Heidi from Switzerland? the children's book or animation? she lives in a fabulous place!

in Salzburg now and hopefully will be dining on Wiener Schnitzel tonight!

as one famous Austrian once said: "Spielen ist verboten!"
and as another famous Austrian once said: "I'll be back!"

:-)

JULY 28th

so bloody hot from the beginning of the morning. we were toying with the idea of jumping on one of the hop-on-hop-off tour buses to just see Roma's main attractions but missed them by five minutes.seeing the next lot weren't due for another hour we thought we'd grab a coffee at Maccas in Roma Termini (Rome's central train station). it was FANTASTIC! cover or service charges are always a bitch in Italy, so Maccas is a sure fire way of avoiding them! but Roma Termini Maccas was something special. the seats were really comfy and it was so nice and cool inside. we actually ended up spending 2 hours in there! it was just such a blessing to be out of the heat! but we made good use of the time by planning what we were gonna do for the next couple of days.caught the metro to a small church that we wanted to see, but they have a siesta, so we wandered along the leafy Via Vittorio Veneto to Villa Borghese Park. along the way to the park was an actual Lambo shop that had two cars on display and various little Lambo knick knacks for sale. unfortunately they were siesta-ing too, so we continued to the park.we hired a bike which had a canopy and you sit side by side in. once you start pedaling, an electric motor kicks in and does all the work for you! it was great fun to hire for an hour and go along all the paths in the park! definitely do it if you go!headed back to the church which in Jee's book was labelled as Chiesa di Santa Maria Concezione, but didn't appear in the Lonely Planet. this church - or the crypt of the church more like it - is a MUST SEE! it contains the skeletal remains of 4000 faithful followers (i think of the Capachuin monks). but these skeletons aren't lying there whole in slots in the wall or anything as mundane as that. they've been dismantled and the various bones now adorn the walls and ceilings in a myriad of patterns and designs. you'll see stars made of coccyxs (what the heck is the plural form of coccyx?) with borders of ribs and jaw bones and such forth. picture taking was a no no, so i bought a couple of postcards and will take pics of them and post them on the blog hopefully! the final section had what looked like child skeletons. they had the feeling of being cherubim of death. and indeed pinned to the ceiling was one complete skeleton which held a scythe made from bones. twas a really macab!
"What you are now, we once were.What we are now, you will become."i over heard an american saying something about a similar crypt in Paris, so hopefully we\'ll have a chance to check it out too!tried once again to enter the Lambo shop but it was a no go. this time we could see a guy in the office, but no matter how often we rang the bell, he didn\'t unlock the door. i guess they\'re really sick of tourists wanting to take photos of the cars, but i really wanted to buy wanted one of the scale models of a Gallardo so i was a tad disappointed.we bumped into Jeong Hun (K-guy) and Konomi (J-gal) - a couple of friends we made at the minbak - in front of the Lambo shop. they\'d been sightseeing elsewhere and were trying to escape the heat too. went to the spanish steps where "all the beautiful people go". there were lots of "beautiful" indian guys hawking their wares too! probably all the beautiful people go there cos all the boutiques are round that area!headed home for dindins then went out with Jeong Hun, Gyu Sang (another K-guy) and Konomi to a bar called Stardust that was "the author\'s choice" in the LP. twas cosy and funky. stumbled home quite drunk by about 1am

i would like to inform the readers of Evcentric that evBSc just survived a 134m bungy jump over a lake in the swiss alps at an altitude of 1642m.

fuck yeah...

:-)

HELLO
THIS IS FROM A PHONE BOX IN BERN... SWITZERLAND
BABY...
IT REALLY
IS THE BIRTHPLACE OF THE INTERNET...!!

JULY 27th

off to Seoul! whoops i mean Rome!

four days surrounded by koreans eating korean food for breakfast and dinner, it's hard not to get confused!the korean MINBAK that i talked about before had its good and bad points, but then again, everywhere does.the place was like a large 3 bedroom apartment. two rooms were full of bunk beds - one for guys and one for gals. could fit about 10 - 12 people in each room. there was a third room which i thought was just for the family who runs the place to sleep in, but they've even got a coupla extra beds in there just in case things get extra crowded!25 euro per person. full korean breakfast and dinner included. one computer for free internet use. the mother does your washing for you!a couple and their daughter live there and provide everything!every morn and night, there was a different main dish served with rice and four side dishes every meal! and this was real hunky dory korean food! some of the best i've tasted! the first night, we had a fatty roast pork dish and there seemed to be a fair bit left over, so i was sure that's what we were gonna be eating for breakfast. but no! next morning was grilled fish!kimchi for breakfast can be a hard thing to get used to, but one learns to embrace it like a lover! :-)of course the mild drawback is having garlic breath for the majority of the day, but chew enough gum and you're fine!

Roma was darn hot too. was served up lunch by the korean mumma when we arrived then we took in some sights.headed to a huge building that's the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and a monument to Emmanuelle the 2nd (will have to double check that). the place was made of white marble and had lots of large statues adorning the building. the centre piece was a massive statue of Emmanuelle II on a horse. the place also had an eternal flame and two guards carrying automatic weapons. witnessed a changing of the guard too which involved a lot of saluting and turning around.at the gate to walk up the steps of this monument, there is a sign stating that this place is sacred to Italian people and out of respect, no one is allowed to sit on the steps. i think there may also be a semi-dress code cos i think one chick was turned away for too much exposed midriff. no probs for us though. but i wanted to check what this place was about in my Lonely Planet book, so about halfway up the steps, i lent up against the case pillar of a statue which was also providing some very nice shade. was reading my book when one of the guards at the gate starts blowing his whistle and gesturing for me to get away from the wall. sacred indeedy.this wasn't the only time we witnessed such an event. that night, we were in a square drinking beers with some of the people from the MINBAK which was in front of a building that i think was the ministry of agriculture. the cops did a drive by and didn't say jack, so we were fine. but later some other tourist came and sat on the wall which formed part of the square's boundary and part of the ministry's driveway. bout 10 min later the guards from the ministry noticed them and started whistling from behind their gate (obviously the night crew aren't ranked highly enough to be granted whistles!). they were whistling away and gesturing for the tourists to get off, but either they were ignoring the guards or had no idea what they were on about. 5 min later the cops rock up and get the tourists off the wall. i think Romans don't masturbate over porn, they have centrefold spreads of buildings and monuments and jerk off to those! :-)

anyway, back to the days events.after a pit stop in the shade, we walked thru the ruins of the Roman forum and various bits and pieces that are still left over. part of me was wondering why the ?@&! we were walking around looking at rocks that were a couple of millenia old but the other part of me was fascinated by how the Romans had built these structures with such detail that'd managed to survive for so long.continuing thru the ruins, we stumbled upon the Colosseum which was rather impressive to behold. decided to skip going in based on price and advice. if you are a citizen of Adelaide AND under 24 you can get in for half price, so remember that in your next lifetime or go now before you're too old! :-)

finished the evening by heading to a gelataria with Jeong Hun and Konomi (couple of friends we'd made at the Minbak) and three k-gals who were leaving the next morn. the gelati was some of the best we've had!!
Gelataria S.M. Maggiore... check it out if you can!! the chocolate was maybe too rich... but divine!!

JULY 25th
PISA! Come for the tower, stay for an hour!
and i mean that literally... Pisa is a small town (popn 92000) that got lucky. a dude called Pisano builds a tower on some shitty land and makes a town famous forever! it's an amazing thing to see and truly only one of a kind. not just the lean, but the design of the building is beautiful. the nearby cathedral is also nice. cost 15euro to climb the tower, so we declined ourselves that luxury. but Pisa don't have much else going for it! we caught the 10:37 train (left at 10:47) from Florence this morning, spent some time in Pisa and now we're on the 2pm train back to Florence. once we arrived in Florence, the heavens decided to open up again! and for the third time in two days BOOM! thunder and lightning! maybe the Roman gods are displeased with us! waited in station for a bit for it to slacken off then made a dash for our hotel. at the exit to the station there were black guys and arab guys selling umbrellas! guess it was inclement weather for rip off bags and sunglasses, so why not pimp some brollies! The main tourist strips in Florence are plagued by these guys selling fake louis vuitton, gucci etc bags as well as sunglasses.
the bags and sunnies seem to be sold mostly by black guys, prints of famous artwork by arab guys, little toy electric Smart cars that drive around, flash their lights, open their doors and play a short sample of annoying chinese music over and over (i want one!) are sold by chinese guys and then there are sometimes younger guys (maybe european of some sort or perhaps brazilian) that sell little train carriages made up of letters to form your name... they are anywhere tourists are likely to be. there are BIG signs around the main shopping areas of Florence in english, italian, french and spanish stating that purchasing fake goods is illegal and can impose a fine of up to 10000euros!but these guys seem to have some kinda "understanding" with the cops. there is a big police presence in Flo - well it seems so around the main tourist strips anyway. they'll constantly be driving their little cars along the streets, even thru squares that are pedestrian only areas. and if you have a bunch of the hawkers along a street peddling their crap and a cop drives along, they quickly fold up their tables or bundle their bedsheet full of bags together into a sack and then just stand there until the cops leave the area. as soon as they're far enough away, out comes the merchandise again! if you stay in one area long enough, you'll see it happen over and over again. took a short video of one such event in action which i'll hopefully be able to post for your viewing pleasure at some stage!
had pasta with a wild boar meat sauce for dinner and then headed to Ponte Vecchio (the goldsmith's bridge) for more sunset action! tis the 31st of July and i'm trying to recall the events of the last few days!
JULY 26th
a morning of waiting. i think we got to the Uffizi Gallery at 845am with the belief that it opened at 9am. there was already a huge line and it actually opened at 815am! bout an hour later we entered Uffizi, which houses "the greatest collection of Italian and Florentine art in existance." the interior was beautiful and there were definitely a lot of paintings that even an uneducated buffoon like myself recognized. Botticelli's Birth of Venus and Allegory of Spring were great.
SIDENOTE: on the train to Naples at present from Rome with a hangover. writing ability may be at a low...


towards the end of the gallery - did a running tour of a fair amount of rooms - there was a da Vinci show case that i stopped to look at but Jee moved on ahead. i watched a video explaining the Vitruvian man for a few minutes then thought i'd better hurry up and catch Jee. went along the corridors and came to the gift shop. scanned the area but couldn't see Jee so i went on thru to the exit. went outside into the blazing heat but couldn't find her anywhere. thought that she must still be inside so i headed back in to be confronted by a Nazi midget in the form of a female security guard. she said i couldn't come back in to the gallery once i'd left. said that i was looking for my wife and showed her my ticket, but she wasn't having a bar of it. i know it's for security reasons, but she could've strip searched me and let me in, but no. so i stood about a metre inside the door way so that i could get a view down the hall from where the gift shop exits. 40 minutes of standing and waiting later she pops her head round the corner from the gift shop. she'd been waiting in there for an hour for me! but she'd been sitting on a seat so i hadn't seen her when i passed thru.

a bit of looking around at shops before we grabbed a take away pizza from the restaurant outside our hotel. they never cut pizzas in italy, well that we've come across so far anyway. so we sat on the steps of St Lorenzo's Basilica and tore our pizza so shreds. it was fantastic! jee and i were discussing pizzas and i said that i think i prefered american style pizzas before because of the variety of flavours and toppings but italian pizzas are more based on simplicity and they are absolutely delicious!we headed to the Ponte Vecchio again. the sun had already set, but there were a trio of minstrels doing their thing on the bridge. they were quite talented and we decided to buy one of their CDs for the memories! :-)

Believe me when I say... it's hot! DAMN hot!
I know we get hotter in Oz, but we usually stay in the air-conned comfort of our houses or offices or skip work and head to the beach... not walk around in the sweltering heat looking at bits of 2500 year old stone...
yay...

JULY 22nd

bless me father for i have sinned...

into Venezia (Venice) by lunch time. we'd booked online a hostel called Casa Domus or something like that. found it with relative ease. we were expecting to be in a room with 3 beds and judging from the fact that it was fairly booked out online, we thought we'd have to share with someone. no biggy.
when we checked in with the guy at the reception who looked like a priest and couldn't speak a lick of english, he handed us keys for two different rooms. were a bit annoyed with this cos it looked like we were going to have to be split up and share with people. tried to ask him to put us in the same room, but he said come back at 430pm and speak with the receptionist then becoz she speak english.headed to our rooms and we were happy to find that we both had single rooms. of course we would have prefered to have been in the same room, but this way we didn't have to share, so all was peachy!

i'm sure the hostel used to be a nunnery! just had that feeling. very sparse but cheap and clean. but hot! Venice is pretty humid - that's what happens when you build a city on top of the water i guess! and there was bugger all airflow in my room and no fan, so i was sweating almost as much as when i was walking from Monterosso!

SIDENOTE:when we did the Cinque Terre walk, i sweat (past tense of sweat? swot? ;-) ) so much that my t-shirt had a white ring of salt around the back from where my backpack had been sitting against my back. there was a pamphlet in my backpack that had been against the part touching my back that was very damp by the end of the walk. sorry Dan, your pack now comes in a new flavour... Salty evBSc Sweat pour homme...

enough babble...

once we'd escaped from our personal saunas, we trekked around Venice in the vague direction of St Mark's Basilica.
Venice is definitely a special city. yes it had hordes of tourists, but what part of europe doesn't at this time of the year? what i mean is that we've been to a few major cities in europe now and besides language and architectural differences, you could be in the same place time and time again.
but not Venice...
there are canals, not streets...
there are boats and gondolas, not cars...
the place is magical...

we wound our way thru the streets and came upon the Grand Canal. there aren't many bridges which cross the Grand Canal and so the Venezians use trachetto - gondolas specifically for making the crossing. they cost 50cents per crossing. twas quick but fun. jee wanted to get a photo of the gondoleer cos he was handsome, back she only got a photo of his back and butt. :-)

finding St Mark's Basilica from there was pretty easy. just follow the tourists!they say in the Lonely Planet that the pigeons in St Mark's Plaza are only outnumbered by the tourists... they were right! hordes of both of them!the line to get into the Basilica was pretty long and in the direct sunshine, so we grabbed some gelati and a drink before lining up.
took a photo of me between the two big columns that you often see on tv shows about Venice. one has St Mark's winged lion on top, the other has St Theodore, the ex-patron saint of Venice. the great thing about the photo is that just as jee was taking it, a pigeon flew straight towards jee's direction just to the right of me. i think he wanted to be in the photo too!

the story of St Mark's Basilica is something i'll have look into a bit more. the basic run down is the Venezians nicked off with his body from Egypt and smuggled it back to Venice in a barrel of pork. then they built the Basilica to entomb him in somewhere special.there's a great painting on the outside of the Basilica that you can check out as you're waiting to get in. it shows the basics of the tale and i just loved the centre picture. shows a bunch of guys around what i guess is the open barrel of pork that they put his body in. and it looks like it stank! there's one covering his nose and i'm sure another is dry retching!

to get inside was just like the Duomo in Milan. you can't be baring shoulders or knees. tough call in the middle of summer, but thankfully the Venezians have their heads screwed on better than the Milanese. as you enter, if you aren't appropriately attired, they give you large square of orange cloth that can be draped around your shoulders or wrapped around you legs! jee's dress bared both shoulders and knees, but she just wrapped my bandana and her shoulders and they didn't worry bout her legs."

the inside of the Basilica is pretty damn amazing. the artwork and mosaics are great. entrance is free, but if you wanna see some of the displays, you've gotta say a coupla euros. one display was of all the stuff the Basilica had looted from other places! most 800 to 1000 years old. things like cups and urns and various other religious paraphernalia. the other display was of St Mark's tomb and this absolutely amazing altar piece called the Pala d'Oro. it's made from gold and has jewels galore all over it. i overheard a tour guide reeling off how many of each gem were on the piece. i only heard "250 sapphires and 300 emeralds" but there were a lot more diamonds i think. the thing was absolutely covered in gems!

next we caught the vaporhetto (water bus) to the Rialto which is the largest bridge in Venice.headed back to the hostel for a bit before we went out for a coupla drinks at a bar recommended by the Lonely Planet.
Cafe Noir. nice atmosphere and friendly staff. next time you have a Hoegarden, try it with a coupla slices of lemon! ;-)

JULY 23rd

off to Lido - Venice's beach. 8 euro for a single deck chair but in the shade so it was worth it. swam for a bit. pretty crowded and water wasn't very clear but was refreshing after all the heat.
headed to Murano next which is a specific island in Venice famous for its glass making.
the glass work is fantastic. really beautiful pieces and designs. we went into one display shop called Fenace Cam (i think!) that was the oldest in Murano - supposedly since 1030. talked with a nice guy called Marco who took us to the upper floor which has a lot of large single pieces and lots of different designs of glasses in various colours. those Murano glass masters really know what they're doing. it's unbelievable how beautiful some of the glasses were. we were really set on getting one and spent about 15min looking and trying to decide which one. finally chose a black and white tall wine glass and asked how much it was...

five hundred and eighty five euro...

that number again: 585 euro

he could see that we a tad (very) taken aback by this price so he said he could do 515euro for credit card or 450euro for cash.

bargain...

he explained that each piece in the showroom was a handmade original and you get free shipping with 100 percent insurance to your home country and a certificate for the piece.
we declined his generous offer.

585euro is close to 1000 australian dollars i think.
i could buy an Xbox360 and a few games for the same price.

let's compare the two...the Xbox360... a machine of beauty and grace that would provide me with hours upon hours of entertainment.and the glass... a piece of overheated sand of grace and beauty that would sit there looking amazing on the mantelpiece of my non-existant fireplace and gather dust until a next door neighbour's child smacks a cricket ball thru our window and reduces our glass to 585euros worth of black and white shards.i think even jee would prefer the Xbox360... and that's saying something! ;-)

Marco told us that the factory and showroom is only open to the public during the summer months. the rest of the year, they make and export glass pieces en masse.jee and i decided that the next time we come back to Venice we'll be rich and we'll buy a few glasses!
;-)

back into Venice proper by water bus again and bought a couple of masks.
had to... it's Venice!
was going to go for the Eyes Wide Shut style, but went for something very different and original in the end.jee wanted to ride on a gondola and i was up for it too, but for 60euro, how much is a boat ride really worth? not even sure he the dude sings! that was another thing we decided to do next time we come back to europe! ;-)
the night was thankfully cooler than the previous one and was able to sleep a lot easier. was woken up at about 520am by a thunder storm! since we've been in europe, it hasn't rained once and the first time it does BOOM!

JULY 24th

morning was nice and cool in Venice thanks to the rain which had only lasted an hour or so. 2 and a half hours on a first class train to Florence. i sat next to a nun! jee took a photo of us... i'm a happy camper. saw a nun with a rope belt. looked really cool. wanna get one for myself, go ultra retro style!
Florence's tourist info office at the station was closed - bloody helpful...used map from Lonely Planet and directions off net to find the Hotel La Noce. was quick and easy and close to the station.
Dan, where would we be without you?
2star hotel but really nice and clean and comfortable beds. reception dude very friendly and helpful too. good location too, near majority of sights.was hot when we got in but an hour later BOOM! thunder storm comes thru! rained really hard for about an hour but cooled things down very nicely.
walked around to the Duomo. fourth largest cathedral in the world. started in 1294 and took 150yrs to build! view from the top is great and even the 463 steps to get up there weren't too bad. thank god it had rained earlier cos it was hot enough going up!the inside of the main dome is painted with visions of heaven and hell. funky stuff!

signing off
evBSc

JULY 16th

off to Monaco!beautiful coastline. cliffs straight into sea. buildings perched on cliffs. went to Casino Monte Carlo. 10 euro just to get in! black jack started at 4pm so only could play roulette or pokies so opted to just take in the interior. amazing! old paintings and ceiling really detailed.
parked outside casino was a black Aston Martin DB9 (thanks to NFS: Most Wanted currently one of my favourite cars!) a silver Ferrari and also two yellow lambos! saw various beautiful, expensive cars. took plenty of photos! after i'd taken plenty of shots (i wasn't the only tourist doing it either!) of about the 4th car we'd come across, jee asked if we'd come to Monaco to take pics of cars or sight see. i said the original plan was sightseeing, but the plans had changed! :-)
could have taken ride (or driven) (35 or 70 euro) along the Monaco F1 circuit in a Ferrari 355 Spider, but waiting time was 2 hours, so missed out on that unfortunately. :-(

went and checked out the palace. guards were present and standing to attention. there was a semicircle with a radius of about 15m from the palace doors sectioned off by a heavy but low slung chain. one tourist stepped over the chain and a guard stepped out of his box bearing an M-16 (time to update!) with a bayonet attached and blew his whistle a couple of times. tourist quickly stepped back over the chain!lots of old cannons and cannonballs around the palace.
missed seeing Grace Kelly's tomb unfortunately.got our passports stamped with Monaco stamps!weren't that hungry when we got home so we snacked and went for a walk along beach at night. lots of ppl still eating hearty meals at midnight!had some of the best ice cream ever. think shop was called Pinocino. had REAL pistachio and caramel.

JULY 17th

booked ticks for next coupla weeks at Nice station. ate lunch and hit the beach for a few hours. overcast but water was nice.home for dinner. then off to the net cafe for booking accommo for all the train tickets we'd booked in the morn. in Rome we'll be staying in a Korean MINBAK (like a Japanese MINSHUKU and for those of us who speak neither of those languages, it's like a dorm or hostel kinda thing and they provide breakfast and dinner too! but we'll be separated into same sex dorms, so i can drink SOJU with the lads!)

Nice was a holiday from our holiday! relaxing, not too much sight seeing. just chillin.JULY 18thon train to Genoa to head to La Spezia. between these two cities is what's known as the Cinque Terre (the 5 lands or 5 villages) which has been gaining in popularity over the last few years according to the lady who owned the apartment in Nice. it was recommended to us by Dan "BoyWonder" Gammon, bless his soul! (as i'm typing this on the train to Florence, i have a nun to either side of me!) an ozzy i spoke to in montpellier also highly recommended it.

dogs seem very popular in france. can even take them on trains and in department stores. owners don't seem to clean up after them much though. lots of shit on the streets (well in Nice anyway). gotta watch where you step!

got to la spezia and headed to hostel in Biassa. very small town located between La Spezia and Riomaggiore (the first of the Cinque Terre). Biassa was quiet (they don't have an ATM!) but beautiful and very traditional. grabbed food and water, then went for walk up winding road and thru the "backstreets" - little stairways and paths crossing between all the houses. you can get lost so easily! but that's the fun part! lots of the houses have out door pizza ovens too!
church bell near our hostel tolls on the hour twice! however many times on the hour and then again 3 min later! tolls all thru the night too!this was the first time we stayed in a shared room. two bunks. other couple came in bout 11pm. we were already in bed. hostel was very clean and well managed.Ostello Tramonti in Biassa - v. nice!"

hmm...
it appears that it doesn't like the formatting...
will do more later...


Had toyed with the idea of blogging from my mobile when in suitable 3G areas in europe, but didn't think i'd end up doing it. now that i realise i'm not getting the quality internet cafe time i thought i'd get, i will post brief notes of what we've done and maybe elaborate later when i have time or if anyone asks a specific question.i've been keeping notes of most days of our trip in my mob so far so i could refer to them when blogging. now i'll just email them!JULY 11got into Barcelona on overnight train. looked around for a bit before heading to karen's place. karen is a canadian lass who i used to work with in japan. she left japan to head to spain to teach english there, hooked up with a very nice Spaniard called Manell (i think that's right!) and has stayed ever since! even though i hadn't seen her for about 5 years and have barely kept in touch due to my laziness, she generously accepted to put Jee and i up for a few nights! feel the love! :-)kaz and Manell live just outside Barcelona in a place called Granollers.kaz took us to lunch at a nearby restaurant. good food and a crazy old waiter! i think he was rather taken with jee!crashed at kaz's. did some washing. resurrected ipod which had not been copying the photos from my digital camera like it was supposed to.in the evening, kaz and manell took us to a funky beach with a bar in a hut on the sand. in front of the hut were bamboo mats surrounded by citronella burners on poles. the moon was huge and beautiful. twas the perfect temperature and the sea was really calm.JULY 12thstarted the morning by waiting in Barcelona's Sants station for 2 hours to buy train ticks to montpellier. spanish system to buy tickets seems pretty shitty from what we've experienced. we had to wait a total of 8 hours over 3 different occasions to buy train tickets!after that we had a day of Gaudi madness! i have to admit my ignorance. prior to heading to Barcelona, i'd never heard of Antonio Gaudi. google him for more info. he was a brilliant architect who based his designs on nature. rarely used straight lines in his buildings. everything is smooth and flowing.
went to Park Guell and Gaudi Museum then visited the Sagrada Familia (the sacred family).bloody amazing.original construction began in 1882. it\'s still being built and they don\'t know when it\'s going to be finished! the money to build it has always come from donations and sponsors, not the government! probably would\'ve sent the city council broke if they had been paying for it!kaz was saying that they will have to demolish some of the surrounding apartment buildings to build the full cathedral. and they don\'t know how to complete the main tower (170m) yet! they\'re not even sure if Gaudi himself knew how he was going to do i before he died or if he was still planning it!a highly recommended sight to see.JULY 13thwe tried and failed to book the second part of our journey from montpellier to Nice again. the spanish computers weren\'t able to connect with the french computers for some reason.decided to leave that part to fate!went to Casa Batllo, a building i think Gaudi remodelled for the Batllo family. another amazing example of Gaudi\'s work.16euro50 to get in was a bit steep but hopefully the proceeds go to building the Sagrada Familia and the audio guide was free. good to hear background info thru the audio guide, but can be a bit over-exaggerated at times (eg. "the most original fireplace you\'ll ever see in your lifetime").but Casa Batllo does show you how much Gaudi thought about natural ventilation and lighting etc. real genius.after lunch walked thru old gothic area of Barcelona and la ramblas. there was a great market along la ramblas which had various fruit and veg shops and butchers. they also had some lolly stalls where i bought some lollies in the shape of fried eggs! so sweet... so tasty...had time to kill and we were sightseeing-ed out so did a bit of window shopping.jee really wanted to see a water fountain display at 930pm that she\'d read about. twas very pretty and there were heaps of people there too! bout a 15min display with lighting and music. think i counted a total of 21 tourist buses lining up along the road leading to the fountain!well i\'ll try sending this now and see if it works!",0]
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some of his buildings remind me of buildings i've seen in animated films by Hayao Miyazaki.went to Park Guell and Gaudi Museum then visited the Sagrada Familia (the sacred family).bloody amazing.original construction began in 1882. it's still being built and they don't know when it's going to be finished! the money to build it has always come from donations and sponsors, not the government! probably would've sent the city council broke if they had been paying for it!kaz was saying that they will have to demolish some of the surrounding apartment buildings to build the full cathedral. and they don't know how to complete the main tower (170m) yet! they're not even sure if Gaudi himself knew how he was going to do i before he died or if he was still planning it!a highly recommended sight to see.JULY 13thwe tried and failed to book the second part of our journey from montpellier to Nice again. the spanish computers weren't able to connect with the french computers for some reason.decided to leave that part to fate!went to Casa Batllo, a building i think Gaudi remodelled for the Batllo family. another amazing example of Gaudi's work.16euro50 to get in was a bit steep but hopefully the proceeds go to building the Sagrada Familia and the audio guide was free. good to hear background info thru the audio guide, but can be a bit over-exaggerated at times (eg. "the most original fireplace you'll ever see in your lifetime").but Casa Batllo does show you how much Gaudi thought about natural ventilation and lighting etc. real genius.after lunch walked thru old gothic area of Barcelona and la ramblas. there was a great market along la ramblas which had various fruit and veg shops and butchers. they also had some lolly stalls where i bought some lollies in the shape of fried eggs! so sweet... so tasty...had time to kill and we were sightseeing-ed out so did a bit of window shopping.jee really wanted to see a water fountain display at 930pm that she'd read about. twas very pretty and there were heaps of people there too! bout a 15min display with lighting and music. think i counted a total of 21 tourist buses lining up along the road leading to the fountain!well i'll try sending this now and see if it works!