Slovakia - Bratislava

Hey all here are the photos as promised... excuse the lack of explanation but internet (even WIFI) is reeeeallllly expensive.
This is the beer that a random idiot of a scotsman stole off us and drank infront of us!!!!

The ice hockey game we all went to and got totally smashed...

The beer stack..

View from the train from Bratislava to vienna (sorry this photo should be last)

At the bar in the hostel

Boys will be boys.... (adam and chris)

Boys will be boys mark II

The lack of fridge space in the hostel was NOT a problem...

yummmmmyyyy....

All Hail the beer gods...

my first real look at lots of snow...
(now over the cold)

Chris is overjoyed..

Adam looking pensive...

"I'm the King of the mountain..."

STOP throwing snowballs ADAM!!!!!!

Bascially lots of fun and snow balls. I don't have the picture, but Chris threw one at me that actually hit me and went all down my coat... the BASTARD!!!

We are now in Vienna...

going to Munich in the next few days. However the temperature has gone up in the past week and it is no longer sub zero. that means RAIN not SNOW....

Slovakia......

Hi really quick update.

Sorry there are no photos but our computer isn't working with the wireless conection here. They are soooooooo funny so i will be posting those that are suitable in the near future.

bascially we have been in Hungary (Budapest) and Bratislava, (Slovakia) for the past few days. REeeeeealy good times.

We met up with a whole heap of australian's at the hostel in Budapest and have been having a really good time partying with them. So on the next leg it is just us and this random called adam, who has been studying in Manchester for a year. He's pretty cool, totallly hilarious, and so we are going on, again, to Vienna together today. We are supposed to be leaving shortly, but the boys are all still in bed. They went to bed at 4:30 am, after drinking the place dry i'm sure. Me, on the other hand, went to bed about 2:00.

Yesterday we went to the castle and had snowball fights. The photos are pretty cool so i will post them soon.

Adam then took us to a Ice Hockey game. Very funny because we didn't know what was going on. But the locals thought it was pretty funny how we were screaming in english at the teams.

anyway i'm taking up the only computer in the hostel so i had better go.

willpost photos, (as i'm sure not many of you actually rEAD the text) later.

sorry this is muddled but i think we spent all our money so there is none for coffee.

byeeeeee

Crossing the Spanish desert...

well, our train was expensive but excellent. There was even enough leg room for chris!! that is saying something. The Train ride was really interesting as we had to go inland through Spain.

It didn't matter how dry and dusty it all was they farmed all of it.

very quick update

ok.....phew...... tickets to Brussels booked for the 28th of September (i hope)

yesterday was great. We took a bus to the Auchwitz. 1/1/2 hours it took.
the camp was very clean and tidy and neat with beautiful brick barracks (built for the Polish army) however the displays inside were the most shocking. The most powerful thing we say all day was a room that was full of TWO TONNES of HUMAN HAIR. It was all behind glass and lumped in a big pile that reached the roof of the room. It is the left overs from what the nazis tried to burn when thy left the camps. There was also about the same amount of Children's shoes...

we weren't allowed to take pictures of it but we got some of the outside of the buildings.

Birkenau was the on ethat looked like the movies and pictures, kilometers of burn and standing barracks. the toilet barracks were gruesome. a row of stone benches with holes in them on either side. They were no more than 6cm apart with no privacy whatsoever, in fact the guards used to stand infront of the prisoners and count to five and then wack them with sticks to make them stand up faster. The guide said theat most of the time they had explosive "number two's" from lack of food. 5 seconds is not enough.

today we went of a tour of the Jewish district. WE saw the Ghetto and where Shindler's list was filmed. OUr guide had a portable DVD player and showed us the scenes when we were standing at the spots. We saw the factory (went inside)

we were also on the tour with a woman from israel, her parents lived in Krakow before the way. They escaped in 1939!!!!!! to Russia and were put in a work camp. They eventually escaped to what became Israel. All her family died in Auchwitz.

we had lunch today in a VERY expensive restaurant on the Jewish Square. Very POSH. I had Turkey breast with pears and brie and cranberry sauce on top with potatoes and goats cheese feta. i had a starter and two beers. It cost about 25 dollars FOR THE BOTH OF US!!!

anyway better go there is only one computer here....


byeeeee

InPoland

hey all we have arrived after a very very long train ride. We spent out train ride with a Polish girl, a Korean, anPolish lady and a couple from Prague.

we tried to learn Polish on the journey. We managed about a word an hour. Polish is the third hardest language in the world after wierd african language and a chinese dialect.
so we had not a lot of sucess and everyone laughted for about 4 hours. Words that sound the same to my ears mean different things. Please is almost the same as little pig!!

anyway better go off to Auscwitz today on a all day tour.

byeeee


sarah

quick update

Off to Poland by train today (25 euro each) for a 7 hour journey between countries.

it is one of the prettiest train journies you can do apparantly.

We went out for dinner last night. We each had a big meal, 2 LARGE beers and two large desserts and the bill was 25 aussie dollars.

not too bad at all. Poland is supossed to be better.


anyway better be off as breakfast (free) awaits us downstairs in the bar.

byeeee

Ok we have hit Prague

Heya all,

we have hit Prague at last after a very beautiful train ride through southern Germany. The train went along a beautiful river in the mountains and because of the rain it was covered in rolling clouds and mist. Made some nice pictures. When i am home i am sorry to say that i was stuck in a compartement with my video cammera and was bored so i have quite a bit of video of the train travelling through non eventful (but beautiful) countryside.


apart from that, things here seem very cheap i got out 400 KK and it came up on my bank as 24 dollars. a meal out is about 80 - 150kk(ish)

free breakfast here and free internet....


bye for now
sarah

Dresden

Hey everybody,

Sorry for the mega blog update the other day, and the state of it, but i couldn’t see what was being written and was having problems changing things. I have now gone back through and fixed up a couple of typos.

(hmmmmm…. Edit…. this is rather long too….) sorry :-0

Bascially we are in Dresden, just south of Berlin. If anyone is coming to Germany, then i really really suggest a 3-4 day stop over here. We have had a day and it isn’t long enough.

The weather has been beautiful, sunny and bright, warm but not toooooooo hot. The city is gorgeous to say the least, despite the fact that we blew it to smitherines during 1945 !! 85% of the city burnt to the ground or was destroyed by the bomb blasts. Including all the MEDIEVAL city and much of the surrounding area. As Dresden fell into communist control after the war, much of the bombed out buildings remained as rubble until very recently when the have started to uncover and rebuild. As a monument the Prodestant church was rebuild out of the burnt and broken stones. The church fell to the ground after the blasts of bombs nearby weakened it’s structure and the fire had cracked the sandstone. The left it for years, and then carefully measured and scanned each piece of stone, put them into a computer program, and then put each stone back where it was. Where there was no stone, they bought a new one. Amazing. It was only finished in the late 1990’s. many of the other buildings have been restored and look like they have stood for a thousand years ! Some that have been rebuilt in the past 5 years still look a little modern but are much better than the 1970’s period of building that are there.

We have been sooooo surprised at the cost of beer !! sOOOOOOO CHEAP !!!
1.30 buys you ½ a litre of beer in a cheap restaurant, and 1.90- 2-50 in a more expensive one. Not very expensive even by Australian standards.

Today we went on a tour of the city (photos being posted in next post.) It was a great day. The only problem we have faced is the American tourists ! Last night we had one in our room, and i though well i wonder if Chris or I will smack him in the face first !

He comes in when the German girl is watching a movie and stands in front of the tele screeching his mouth of to chris about his trip (ok thats fine) but he was soooooo loud, every time she turned up the tv, he talked louder to a very unentheusiastic audience. I was reading and Chris was using the computer. Then he asked what Chris did, and chris explained. Then he became an expert on cellular biology when he didn’t even know the function of DNA. Even i with my schoolgirl biology knew he was talking out of his arse.

THEN he was babling on about how germans are all overweight (he was fat and ugly) and said that if he loved the food in germany and if he lived here he would be very fat. ! (snorks snorks as he was HUGE) Not underexagerated by the fact that he came out of the shower wearing the grand total of a pair of boxer shorts ! No top ! all that white flab, i couldn’t even look in the room.

I thoink Chris was about to have a go at him when he started to talk about how good at martial arts he is and how he can smack through 5 boards at least (with his bare hands.) He didn’t look as if he could smack through butter ! THEN he started to do the most pathetic « high-ya » chop kick and then stretch his legs USING MY BED AS HIS BENCH never mind that he could barly lift his leg the foot or two to the rail of my bed. Remember what he was wearing how fat he was and that i was in bed reading. Such an athlete !!

AMERICAN STORY TWO (the most funny of all of them so far) please skip if you have little time to read….but it was sooo funny to watch this happen…

Denmark – the home of people who speak English as a second language. EVERYONE speaks english and very good english ! We were in a que at (so embarrasing) hungry jacks, (we were desperate ok !!) It was full of english speaking tourists. I was in the que infront of an american couple about my age. The girl started whispering to the boyfriend, « i can do this if you want » he replies « are you sure you can handle it, i can do it if you want, » « no no she replies i’m happy to »

Oh i thought, she is going to try and speak in Danish ! Brave !

I go up to the counter and order my food, talking to a young boy who could have been american his english was THAT good ! I couldn’t tell if he was a non-native speaker. All goes well and i’m waiting for my food when the american girl goes up to the counter behind me and starts talking to the boy.

She got right up in his face and said in the loudest, slowest voice imaginable « DO YOU SPEAK ENGLISH, WE (pointing to her and boy) WANT TO EAT (pointing to her mouth) SOME BURGERS »

The boy (bless) held his composure VERY well which is more than can be said for the other two servers who ran behind the machines and laughed and laughed. The rest of the customers just stood in shock as she didn’t know she had done anything wrong.

The boy of course responded in perfect English despite the fact that she ordered her food in the same manner.

I don’t get it, they looked intelligent enough !

FUNNY STORY THREE ( The next most funny )

Versailles – Toilets…
We were in the que for the toilets. An English speaking woman came out of the middle cubical and went to wash her hands. An americal woman went into the middle toilet after her. The American woman closed the door and let out a scream and came running out pulling a disgusted face. (meanwhile the woman who had just been in there turns around going …oh my god, what have i left in there…) The American says to everyone, not to use that toilet and she will wait. Someone asks what was wrong (we were epecting poo, vomit, sanitary, pad….. ) but no there was only a thin toilet seat ! HUH ! she proceeded to try each toilet in there, (despite the fact that we kept saying they would all be the same,) before she left (without going in THOSE toilets) telling her friend about the disgusting state of toilets in France and how much better they were in america !


BACK TO DRESDEN !!!

We are leaving tomorrow morning and going to Prague, so i will hopefully be able to update a bit better from there. Enjoy the photos !

Hope you are all having fun in Australia, We want to stay in Germany !


byeeeee

alive and in berlin

Right, well here i am sitting on the lower bunk in a youth hostel in Berlin after eating our delicious buffet dinner (yet again) at only 5 euro. We had chicken, pork, rice, a stew/salsa , salad bar, bananas and tea and iced peach tea.

I am now in possession of all my belongings, but am rather annoyed that my suitcase spent two days in amsterdam before me !!!! (more of that story later….. here on…. You are about to be bored senseless….)

But thats about enough for now, as i know i havn’t been able to update much in the last week or so owing to lack of internet and the expense of the internet.4 euro for an hour gets about ½ of our travel booking done a day, with no email and certainly no blog updates. So i will start at the begining, which, i guess for most of you is around the time we left for Paris.

JOURNEY TO PARIS :

We left London about 11 :00pm and got a bus to Paris, ok you live and learn, that is the last time we do that journey !!! we had to get off about 2 ;00am to catch the ferry to Dover (yes again) and then get off again about 3 :30am an back onto the bus for the journey into Paris. Chris had about 0% legroom, and i don’t think i had much more. When we arrived we had no clue even what area of paris we were in and the ticket machine didn’t work. So we trouped on over to the other end and found a person. A few trains later we made our way to the road we needed.

Paul was away in Marsaille that day and he arranged for his friend to let us into the apartement. Enter Frenchtime… not too bad considering i was so tired i could have forgotten my middle name. Guy was great he showed us everything we needed and then left. About half an hour later he returned with a bag of Bread and croissants !!! i was so happy i could hardly say anything. (we had had nothing to eat since early the night before and had had about 0 hours sleep.) Later that night we ordered pizza (sorry too tired for anything else)

THE NEXT DAY…

Funnilly enough we slept in this day …

THE FOLLOWING DAYS..

All kind of blur into a mishmash of fun.
I dind’t like Paris last time i was here (jetlagged, middle of winter, 6 hour stop over…) but how much i love Paris now ! it was awesome ! luckily my French came back to me far quicker and far better than i thought it was. I was concerned that i wouldn’t be able to converse with people at all. I met Paul’s new lady friend, who i must say is beautiful and loverly, and several other people and i don’t think i said anything toooooo shocking this time. I was concerned when i said something in responce to a « do you want another drink sarah » i responded i french with a phrase and the conversation stopped, ( i thought oh no i’ve just said something reallllly bad…..) but no Paul grabbed my hand and said « you are truly French that is a very very good french expression for saying « i want another drink »
Later on the comment was made that m French was best surrounding drinking phrases…..lol……

The shopping in paris was excellent and sooo cheep !!! we found some really good bargins, including a beautiful warm black ¾ length jacket for chris that was only 39 euro !!

I bought some very very very very very high boots ! black.

These were sorely tested the last night we were there when Paul took us out for dinner (mussels and chips and beer ..ohhhh my god yummmmmmm) and because he paid ( we cursed and tried to bribe the barman but to no avail) we said we would take him out for a nice drink… this happened to be miles away (new boots) to which Paul and Chris keep making comments like : « would you like a wheelbarrow, a fighterfighter carry, and : it’s only 100meters…..every few minutes.

It was a realllllly nice drink and we walked back. Such a beautiful city. Paul was really wonderful. He was working a lot but it was great to talk when we did have time J

A FEW DAYS LATER…

We left Paris, bound for Copenhagen. We didn’t do much here except go to a really good museum. We had no time for anything else. We spend out last day sitting in the airport reading and drinking, (it was pissing it down)
On a high note we found beer in copenhagen that was 2dkk. (about 50cents an bottle..ish…)

BERLIN

Beautiful plane flight into berlin, i took some sneaky and WONDERFUL photos out the window and we landed in Berlin, after a 40 min flight. (I love Europe)
We we at the luggage return spot and a sign came out saying ‘last bag’ Problem as i had no bag, it was late, we were in Germany now so no French speaking for me, and we had to find our hostel. We knew what had happened straight away !! it was the silly girl at Copenhagen airport who sent my bag to amsterday under another passengers name. The reason for this was that my bag was 2kg over the 15kg weight limit. (THANK GOD i took out my unmentionables bag, my cammera cables and my NEW boots and jeans and a jumper and put them into my hand luggage….) while i was repaking my bags she mucked up the process and sent the bag to Amsterdam.

I really am annoyed as my bag in more travelled than me !

It took AGES to get back as they dropped it off 24 hours later and (apparantly) the 24 hour hostel wasn’t open, we rang and rang, (correction) the loverly people at the youth hostel rang and rang, and finally it got delivered 48 hours later. To the great relief of all concerned.

Berlin – Itself…


Possibly one of the most beautiful cities i have been to so far. I was expecting it to be all modern and ugly like the bits of cities remodled after the war. This was not so. I guess most of the building is rather recent, particularily as the wall has only been down about 17 years or so. The wide open spaces in the streets cause by the war and wall are a welcome relief to most city centers and their traffic.

The line of the wall is clearly marked by two little rows of bricks that go through buildings, roads, gardens …

TOUR
We did what was posssible the best tour we have done so far in Berlin. We went on the 3rd Reich walking tour, lead by a very enigmatic guide called Per. He took us all over the city for about 4.5 hours going into details about how Berlin was in the years leading up to and during the war. It was the best way to learn about a side of WW II that i have never really studied. He was really funny and well informed. He made some craking american jokes which i enjoyed immensley. ( I have to dedicate and entire journal to what we call « american jokes » as they are the group of tourists that have annoyed us the most where we have gone.)

Several hours later, and very much better informed about the history, we trecked back to the best hostel in the world with the most irritating room mate.

THE ROOM MATE SAGA !!!!
Ok Berlin YOUTH HOSTEL….

Full of about 200-300 teenagers here on school trips and a few other people, mostly « youth »

Dorms of 12 people in bunk beds sharing a toilet and shower, single rooms are available.

Enter old STUPID woman who thinks it is HER room and she rules the room. She is soooooo funny we all have bets to see how quickly she will have a go at someone in the room and what it will be for.

Yesterday she comes home from « work ? » and the first words out of her mouth were…. »which one of you is it that leaves the bathroom door ajar after you have been in there… » Apparantly the fan that runs for about 30 seconds after the light goes out annoys her. She has taken out 5-6 extra sheets from downstairs and made a cocoon out of her bottom buck to block out anyone looking into herbunk. She turns out all the lights at 8 :30 – 9 :00 and squeals at anyone brave enough to turn them on. She tells us to stop talking well before 10 :00pm.

Last night was possibly the best. About 10 :00pm, She was in her cocoon, We were all in our bunks, in darkness becuase she didn’t want the big lights on, pretending to be quiet, someone wanted to open the window, it was very stuffy and they asked everyone if it was ok, about 10 mins later she huffs and puffs out of her coocoon and storms accross the floor (and the people sitting in front of the window, and slams it shut about 3 times to make her point ! apparantly the noise from the street was too loud !!!!

LOL – we are all quietly giggling away at the amusement, makig sure we all cough VERY VERY loudly and wake her up as often as possible !!

Now onto what we did yesterday…


SACHENHAUSEN – concentration camp

We joined a tour group and went out to Sachenhausen. It was about 40 mins out in a small town. Most of it was destroyed and changed after the liberation and it was taken over by the communists (east germany) and used as a prisoner of war camp.

There was still quite a bit there though, as they are trying to recognise their history a little more and the information there was grim, but well presented.

PHEW….


Ok kinda back to today, just had two more aussies come into the dorm, and warned them about cocoon lady.

WRAP _UP

Basically having a great time LOVE BERLIN !!!!!!! it is Cheep and clean and fun !!!!

Off to Dresden in a day or so and then to Prague for 5 days. Then we are going to Poland but no idea how yet.

Sorry for the very very very very long update, and if you have got to the end then you either are totally bored, have no social life, or cheated and skipped the middle bit on your way down !!!!


Byeeeeee


Sarah and Chris

Photos....

King Arthur's Round Table

Avery beautiful house. We saw everything from Kitchens to attics!!

Edgecumbe House - rebuilt in 1950's after being totally destroyed in wwII

BATH!!

bath

Leeds Castle

Dover castle

On the way to Calais

Calais

Cothele - the most amazing place ever!!! my favorite place so far

Hever castle

Our castle

Under Leeds Castle maze

Leeds Castle

for more details and photos go to my bebo pixie-constance.bebo.com

Alive.... but soaking...

It's raining here today...

But this had better be quick. I am sneaking in a few mins on the internet before people come home for dinner.

We are alive! the reason for the lax communication for a few days is that we hae been camping with no internet (or electricity for a week)

we are now staying at Babrara and Steve's place called Gastard, just outside of Bath. We are having a great time. I had forgotten what a bed (a real one not an airbed) looks like. It is the first real bed since weeks before we left Aussie.

We were in BATH today, and it was beautiful. Not sure i like the mineral water that comes our hot for you to drink.

very pretty city and worth a visit.

will update later with photos. (hopefully tomorrow) but for now i must go.


hope everyone around the world is fine

sarah and chris

So don't know where to start....

Well i guess i can start with, "We are back from France"!!

But i should probably start with the start of our trip.

Chris picked up the car on Monday and we managed to get out of the center of London and back to Bow with no even one wrong turn!!! my navigating skills were awesome!!

We said goodbye to james who was was sad to see his playmate go, they have been racing toy helicopters around the flat for days! That was untill James got his BEBE gun out and started to fire at the helicopters while they were flying. He got one and it flew into the curtains. two mins later it was back flying and irritating me while i watched telvision.

Monday we drove over the big toll bridge and out of london! Oh my god! center of the city was easy. Finding the motorway was a nightmare... not helped that we had a map of london and a map of the country that was not detailed enough to show the roads... we made it to Maidstone and the castle was closed. So we went on a tour of the 4 meter wide English village roads.

those of you that know how Troy from "Midsomer Murders" drives will understand the perils of the tiny roads! chris was so very amazing, i couldn;t even have walked down the roads with another car coming.

We popped into a post office i a little village and the lady told us where another castle "Hever Castle" was. This was about the most fantastic thing. A really old little castle. Fully decorated and blah blah blah... pictures will follow at a later date. (this is a dorm computer in a hostel and we can't connect the cammera.)

We then camped at Pine Lodge, (irritating children.) THEY SHOULD BE SUPERVISED IN THE TOILETS!!! a group of four siblings (german with no english) spent about 20 mins cleaning their teeth running up and down all the 8 sinks spitting into each one in turn!! they didn't understand and thought it was a game to make we wait as long as i could. Igave up and had a shower and they were still scrubbing away when i got out! how can you clean you teath for that long.

anyway next day we went off to Leeds Castle, Which i suggest you look up on line, as it was one of the most beautiful places i have ever been to. There was even a maze which in the middle led to an underground tunnel that led you through waterfalls and caves to get out the otherside.

(running out of my 30 mins credit on computer)

we then drove to Dover and went to Dover castle.

we went into the old WWII tunnels and the old castle. The view from the top of the cliffs was perfect.

we camped again and went to sleep early in preparation for our trip to FRANCE>

we went to Calais yesterday which was great. I got to talk in French. We had baked Brie in a pub and he chatted away because i spoke to him in French. some other git comes in and askes a question in another language, and he didn;t even look at them shouting "non" "non"

I had to call a taxi to get us to the dock on the way back, so i went into a pub and asked to guy to call one... they were all smiling and helpful and we were chatting away about wine (the bar tender had just corked a bottle) They understood eventually.

Taxi came (poor chris didn't understand a word except rugby, kangaroo and australia) but we talked for the entire trip and he said he could understand me very well. (good practice for Paris in a month.)

Now we are in Portsmouth South England at a hostel about to get food.

have about 4mins left on credit, need to read email.

will update with more info later... going towards Plymouth tomorrow!

byeeeeeeeeeeeee