First Diary entry and I don`t know where to start, highlights??
The russian party was sensational everyone got dressed up and 9 of the 10 bottles of vodka got drunk. I had 3 hours sleep before driving outnto Napperby Station to accompany the Sydney Uni Ag Science students to talk about the Pastoral Industry. Thankfully they were as weary as me. Much to my relief I am able to handle alchol, after 6 months of saving I have only had a handful of `blowouts` and thought that my liver my be able to hack it!! Guess what it is fine and very capable at drafting out those evil vodka toxins!! I ma ready to become a backpacker.
In other attempts to leave the country the house is packed up and my last day at work will be spent packing up the office. The sheets in my swag have been washed, Billie`s sleeping mat is packed I think I am ready to hit the road.
I am quite sad to be leaving as I am leaving so many fun people, my kick arse job and this beautiful country, but hey you know what, it will all be here waiting for me on my return!!
But there are plenty of events I have to survive and I think it is time to break out the Beroccas. The show cattle events, Govies muster, Bronco Branding and the Beef Breeders Ball should all lead to an all round fab last weekend in Alice. See you somewhere round oz or the world.............
Well technically today I would have been on the road with my Ipod blaring and cruise control set on 130km/hour, unfortunately on Thursday morning I had an old snoozer run up the back of my car (Des). I got out of the car wanting to hit the man, I mean how bad a timing is that!
Anyway as he dosen`t have insurence, we marched off to the cop shop to get a report filed. It was hear that I realised that as miserable as I felt at least I didn`t have to report a stalker, a husband basher or report to the cop shop for bail - in the grand scheme of things I was ok, the bloke who hit me was ok - so apart from some inconvience life is still good.
Old mate and I after filing the police report than went to the smash repairers got a quote and my car has been in the shop since Friday. The quote was for $3K so thank god I`m not paying that.
After a very long day of being `Strong Sally` getting my car sorted, calling Mum and Dad to tell them I wouldn`t be home this week and helping the judge with the cattle section at the show, I was in need of some beer. As it turned out that desire stuck with me the entire weekend, I was in bed at 2am after the cattleman`s bar & govies muster and 4am after the beef breeders ball.
Once again this year I competed in the Bronco branding with Ellena my housemate and Gilly & Crawf. We got thrown around like rag dolls by the Napperby Station Santa steers, they were massive and full of energy. Big improvement this year as we were able to catch 3 steers and record a time. The busted fingernail, the massive bruise on my shin and some other cuts are all proof of it.
Jo-Jo the poddy calf that we raised was also a star performer at the show. Some kids led him in the kids classes and it was very cool to see him with ribbons around his neck and walking out in the grand parade. Not bad for calf that is blind and tried to die on us three times!!
The other highlight was as the DPIFM heifer was grand champion female at the show, I had the honour of receoving the ribbon and Trophy for Grand Champion Female - Not bad I think, stay posted for the photo!
So I had better sign off, keep your fingers crossed that Des is road worthy Wednesday night and that the old snoozer coughs up!!
Till next time
Ciao
2156kms or 22 driving hours later and I am back in the land of the goats, sheep and emus. The drive has been mamouth, how many of you have driven half way across Australia and been able to type something cohesive, because I am struggling!!
How do I describe what I have seen?
I left Alice Wednesday afternoon, 3/4 an hour after I picked up my car, thats right I was fuelled up, packed up and out the gate that quickly, I may have been a bit keen to get on the road!
I made it to Kulgera that night, paid my $6 camping fee and ate at the roadhouse listening to Grey nomads tell travelling stories, honestly we should all get out and see Oz while we are young.
Billie and I slept pretty well, despite some Japanese campers arriving late, pitching their tent and opening and closing car doors for what felt like half the night. Anyway I got the last laugh up at 6am, cracked the ice off the swag and car, turned on the high beams and was at the SA border for breakfast.
Thursday was a Big days drive, Des just carved up the highway dodging wedgies on the side of the road and passing slow arse caravaners like it was nobodies business! I fell in love with the country around Cooper Pedy and Woomera. I want to go back and travel through the flinders ranges, though maybe not in Des. Waved at the ocean as we wizzed through Port Augusta. Had dinner at Yunta and camped last night at Manna Hill in a caravan free campsite!!
This morning`s drive through the Broken Hill region was erie, It was all foggy and I felt like I was on another planet, no wonder Mad Max was shot there. The mobile range cut out after White Cliffs, where I finally hit the dirt road, there is no better feeling than passing 4wds in a commodore, it just really puts them in their place!
The last 100kms was probably the longest of the whole trip. While it was slow going due to the cut up road, all that was running through my head was we`re nearly there, I`m nearly there. I had a strong desire to get out of the car (not helped by 2WEB playing Toto music, yes the same music that the Triple J breakfast crew play each morning as their piss take theme!) and even Billie picked up on it, as she scrambled around the back of the car.
But the best part is I`m finally here, I`m with my family (minus Trudie - wish you were here, it just doesn`t feel right) and tomorrow we are having a BBQ with all the Bourke family and friends, it should be a fabulous afternoon and no doubt I will cry at some stage, but hey I`m a sook!!
So stay tuned, thanks for the messages and I will be in touch
Luv
Me xoxo (see sook, missing you all already!)
Greetings to all of you - hows the cold weather, absolutely loving summer here it is like >35 degrees here, wearing my skirts and thongs, eating salads and drinking litres of water, and a bit of beer!!
Has been a hell of trip to get here. 20 hour flight from Sydney to London, 12 hours stop over in London, then 3 hours to Athens. I arrived in Athens at 3:30am, arrived at the backpackers at 4:30am and could not check in till 1:30pm!! It was close to 3 days before I had shower - yuk!!
But after refreshing, lounging on the couch watching crazy Greek MTV - there was a Jon Bon Jovi hour - honestly these guys love their 80s/90s Pop, the girls arrived and we ate some salami, olives and bread that I had bought at the local deli. But before I knew it was 9pm, so we felt we should do the good thing and go out. Went to the roof bar at the backpackers and kicked back having a couple of beers looking at the Acropolis lit up and chatting away with other travellers. I love telling them that we don`t know when we plan to leave greece, most of them only stay a week or so.
Athens has been very easy to get around, it is actually very hard to find someone who doesn`t speak english. Though the bloke at the deli couldn`t quite undertstand me so I had great fun asking what the salamis were and then telling which one I wanted and how much. I haven`t had to bust out the interpretive dance yet have started what i am sure will much sign language!!
So where to from here? Well we plan to catch a ferry to the islands of either Naxos or Paros on Sunday morning to hit the beach. I am so excited about laying in the sun, getting hot and then swimming in the ocean I have missed it so much!
Not a lot of hot goss, we are laying low until we hit the party islands, we figure there are plenty of late nights ahead! So till then take care, stay in touch and I will speak to you all soon.
Cheers
Sally
Yasousis (the only greek word I know)
Apologies for the crap entry from Athens it was very late at night and people were smoking in the internet cafe I was in, it was pretty gross all round and I just wanted to get out of there ASAP.
Anyway I am now in the island of Paros. We caught a ferry from Athens on Sunday morning, left our hostel at 5am - yuk!! Thought I was meant to be on holidays!! Anyway when we bought the tickets there was some discussion between the old man and his daughter as to which Pier we left in the end they told us the wrong pier and we nearly missed our ferry. The three of us had to run for what felt like a kilometre with our 20kg backpacks on our backs. It was an absolute heart starter. In the process though I broke my brand new sunglasses - you know the pair Trudie, last time I buy expense sunnies!!
I have spent my entire time on the island without sunnies but am holding up quite well. Thankfully I have not been hungover yet and that may be the critical factor. Still haven`t really had much to drink since the BBQ at `Moorlands` not like a minor case of Alcohol poisoning to ease up your alcohol consumption.
Anyway enough about me, I am running out of time and still have told you nothing about what I do all day on the greek islands....... well nothing.
We sleep in, have brilliant greek yoghurt for breakfast, spend 1/2 an hour deciding which beach to go to. Go to the beach. Come home late in the afternoon, disco nap, get up drink some cold Mythinos (local ale) and eat olives, salami and all sort of other cheese and biccies delights. I have so much fun trying to order salami from the deli when they can barely undertstand my english, so I just always pick the biggest one!!
At night we wander the streets, the towns just become another place, there is a great atmosphere. It is not so hot, the shops are still open at midnight along with the resteraunts and the clubs don`t come to life till after 1am.
Then we repeat the following day.
We stay in apartments, 20 euros a night, no backpackers hostels so far. Yay!! The buildings are white with blue edges, red flowers, just stunning I will try to figure out how to load photos up soon. But it is all classic greek postvard stuff. There are plenty of crazy things to take in though, the old couples whizzing around on their scooters, the old man driving his 3 wheeled ute and the teenagers who just wnat to be a brunette Paris hilton!
It is just a hoot.
Better keep moving on my money is nearly out - I can`t believe how quickly an hour gos.
I hope you are all well, don`t hesitate to drop me a line I need news.
Yasousis
Sally
xoxo
Yasousis - have since learnt that this is the plural hello and that Yasis is the singular hello. Not bad huh, the things you learn when you are being served free shots by the barman in the local taverna!!
Anyway back to the begining.
We spent three nights on the Island of Naxos at Anna beach, funny thing though didn`t make it to the beach!! Instead we had this kick arse apartment that had a pool. Spent lots of hours by it reading and just generally chilling out. This was very important we decided as we needed to prepare for santorinni, I had to get over my cold and end the self induced alcohol ban that I was on.
We caught the bus into Naxos town one night and wandered through the old town bit which was cute and quite hilly but to be honest not as good as Paros` old town. We watched the sunset over the ancient temple gateway, amazing large lumps of marble? that they had erected and carved out perfectly. I am falling in love again with ancient history and am facisnated as to why civilisations have come and gone that were so advanced thousands of years ago.
We caught the ferry to Santorinni yesterday afternoon. The last 5 minutes we went up on deck to watch as we entered the harbour with the sheer cliffs of santorinni and the tiny villages staring down at us.
We are staying in a hostel, yes we have thrown off our tiaras and are now roughing. Very excited as there are alot more people our own age here and the accomodation is so cheap. Have thus spent our savings on beer, which brings me back to learning greek. I have learnt the rule that if you buy three rounds in a bar then you get free shots, having started at 6pm we were quite shot by the end of the evening. Had a blast though and it was good to have my party skates on again.
Animals spotting so far includes ugly sheep, nice horses, 1 donkey, 1 cow and calf (tied up with the equivalent of a campoven for a water trough - not sure it holds 40 litres).
Sunburn 1 front Right leg, 1 back left leg, 1 chest and 2 arms (note not the delicate areas of sholders or back - yes the only places I chose to put sunscreen on).
Books read 2, books to read 2.5
That is the score so far folks, so I had better sign off, return to our 1 euro Mythisos cans and see in tuesday morning.
See ya
Well i have managed to drag myself from my bed to note down for you all what I have been upto for the last 5 days (technically nights) - Mum & Dad if you are reading just remember I learnt from the masters!!
After my last posting (Monday night) I did indeed return to my friends to drink 1 euro beers on the veranda and make friends with our new roomie Sonna from NY. Kate got all tuckered out at 11:30, in which case all the backpackers cross the road and go to Atlas bar for crazy hour 2 euro beers with a free shot of blue vodka. After 5 nights I still don`t know what makes the vodka blue but it does certainly make it drinkable.
Anyway knocked back a few there, made more american friends, I became the gatekeeper only letting certain people in and out of the bar area - basically drafting off the idiots. We changed bars after happy hour and ended up at beach bar. Yes it is a bar on the beach (I love the greeks that just name it as they see it). We stayed there till 4:30am. tame by greek standards but we didin`t make it to sleep till another hour later as we went adventuring for a 24 hour bakery, alas no pies but many many more tasty things. We were led there by a pair of stray dogs, who have seen drunk tourists before, you could so see their plan lead tourists to bakery, follow tourists home, eat their leftover food - and this is what happened exactly.
Brooke and I are sticking to a rule of that we only go out every second night, we`re old and can`t keep up the pace with the twenty year olds like we used to. So Tuesday I do good day time activity I got to the Museum to see the artefacts from Akrotiri - the city buried by a volcano back in 1600 BC, they think that because half the city ended up in the now present harbour that Santorinni is the lost city of Atlantis. Anyway my history nerd in me had a great time but I caught the bus with the girls afterwards to Red Beach. A beach that is made up of red and black pebbles from the lava 3000 years ago - just so unique, I don`t think I will ever see it`s kind again.
That night we head into Fira to watch the sun set over the harbour - beautiful, heightened by the fact that we were drinking icy cold coronnas. When I go to heaven they will be serving cold coronnas and the sun is setting in santorinni. We got chatting with the half irish half greek bar maid and she was telling us about her crazy Aussie mate Phil who kept her up all night at the bar. So when we went out for dinner guess who is working in the resteraunt that we eat at - Phil. So after our networking, we catch the bus back to Perissa Beach hostel and crash out.
Wed Night, head out to meet some friends of a school friend of mine (B) and also coordinate to meet Brooke. We go back to our local now the Tropical Bar, knock back a few bevvies, become best mates with the half irish half greek bar maid and the other bar staff, including Will the very cute canadian. Andrew finally turns up (B`s friend) and Phil does as well. Well it is on we are drinking, dancing and enjoying the fact that men out number women 5:1 :)!! Andrew headed off at 3am and the crowd at Tropical bar had slipped so Brooke and I head out to the other clubs we go to Murphy`s Bar (10 euros cover charge each) then we got to the best nightclub in Fira (pay 15 euros each) discover it is filled with very glamourous young greeks, all as high as kites and only playing crazy greek dance music. It was by far one of the trippiest nightclubs I been to right up there with the house music club in Houston Texas. Anyway realising we were not on the disco biccies like everyone else Brooke and I decide to go home. We were convinced that the last bus left at 4:30am for Parissa. We get there at 4:15 to discover it left at 4am - why now do the greeks run on time? So we cab it home for what has been a mind boggling budget blowing night.
Thursday very tired and Hungover, sleep, go to the beach and eat giros. Oh thats right go to Oia for the sunset, take photos of blue churches and generally get our fix of greek tourism.
Friday Night - budget night, drink 2 x 1.5L bottles of red wine (3.4 euros each), go to Atlas for 1 beer, 1 shot - make lots of friends, including some crazy Italians who didn`t speak alot of english and Kate & I speak only 5 words of Italian between us. Oh yes thats right Kate shook off her nanna rug and came out with us. Boy did she make an impact to! The Italians thought she was hilarious and ultimately crazy - well we all know that. Anyway we make it back to Beach bar, dance on the barrels, dance with the locals, drink like fish and wind up back at the 24 hour bakery with a croissount and feta pie in our hands.
Saturday hungover, cheap wine leaves a nasty little man in my head hammering away. The only thing that can soothe it is a greek version of english breakfast eggs, hot dog sausage, tomatoes, lettuce, cucumber, kidney beans and hamburger bread with peach jam. Thank fully the OJ was good. Wash away our worries in the cool blue clear waters off parissa beach. To apologise to our bodies we go out for dinner, eat lots of salad and Kalamari. The world is at peace again!!
Today go to the beach and go out tonight as it is Brooke`s farewell, she heads to Macedonnia Tuesday morning. So we are heading back to Tropical Bar and we will either catch the 4am or 7am bus home.
Not sure where Kate & I will end up over the next week (we have to be in Athens on the 15 August) maybe Crete, maybe here but either way still on a greek island.
Till next time my friends
Yasousis
Good Morning All,
Today is my last day in Santorinni, Kate and I catch an overnight ferry later this afternoon back to Athens to then fly to Lisbon via Milan in Italy. So it should be a fairly full on 24 hours of travel.
But having stayed here for so long, as I have mentioned before we are close to locals. Because we have made friends with so many here we have a full day of trying to get photos of all our friends for you as well say our goodbyes. Our beach chair man yesterday told us we were his best customers and that he would give us always a good deal, I don`t know how much better when he lets us have them for free some days and will kick other beach goers out of there chairs so that we can have a chair and umbrella.
You know you`re a local when you start to find out the gossip on the island. While most tourists here would not suspect that there is a seedy underbelly of santorinni we have certainly discovered it.
Last week out the front of our hostel a girl was hit by a vechile, thankfully she lived but the vechile that hit her just kept driving. We were quite shocked as you can imagine, we also know how easy it would be to be hit espcially when we are used to vechiles coming the other way.
To top of that bad news we found out from a Kiwi barmaid that one of the local bars owners was shot dead by the mob while he was in Athens 5 days - apparantely he was mistaken for someone else. Now I have watched plenty of episodes of the Sopranos and I would think that the mob would know who they want to hit right? Anyway all that we noticed was the bar was boarded up for 5 days and then magically reopened. The only hint that there had been a tradegy in the family (as the son now runs the bar) is a single yellow rose pinned to the front of the bar.
Our gyiros lady has her cafe opposite this bar and we think the son rents the flat above the cafe from her and that she cooks for him, as he often yells across the strett with his order for food.
Kate and I have also been highly entertained by a family who live next door to our hostel. Their house looked like it was falling apart and we wondered if we would be able to squat their. The next day they whole family turns up, 2 g`mas, husband & wife, their children and their children - so as you can imagine bedlam. Turns out the husband, who would be in his 50s is rennovating - Kate & I have called him Bob the builder. Well we have discovered apparantly building permits arent needed in Greece as Bob the builder commenced cementing and laying bricks, much to our shock the pad was laid without any leveling of the ground and the bricks were laid but also never levelled out. Today he is finishing it all off with the roof, which as you can guess from what I can see is not levelled!! If I get a chance I will upload the photo I have off our hero Bob the builder!!
Continuing with our sorrowful stories from the most beautiful island. After leaving the beach yesterday afternoon our beach chair man, came sprinting across the black sands of Perissa Beach to ask us if we had heard about the accident that happened near our hostel last night - our jaws dropped as you can imagine, another one so soon. What followed was a sad but somewhat entertaining story of a man on a motorbike driving over 100 km/hr (the speed limit on the island is 30km/hr) hit two people killing them both and possibly himslef. Now I know that isn`t funny what was funny was how our beach chair man told us, see he is itlaian and has lived here for a number of years. His english is ok but some of the more intricent words fail him so when telling us that the lady who was hit didn`t have a pulse he said her vains no longer went pump, pump - while also doing the action. He then said the 2nd person killed was like a chicken after you twist it`s neck - not that he said alot of those words it was more actions and the word chickens. So it was one of the most confusing gossip sessions I have ever had. On our walk home (with scooters, quads, motorbikes, buses and cars wizzing around us) we wondered at how many accidents really must occur on this island because the greeks are crazy drivers and drive with alot of arrogance, plus throw in so many tourists who don`t know where there going, how to drive a scooter or which side of the road they are meant to be on and you have utter chaos!
To top this all off we after hitting the town on sunday night for Kate`s Birthday, Kate and I caght the 4am bus after we had stumbled out of Tropical bar. For starters they wouldn`t let us on, I thought they were just funny, but actually they were being pigs letting the greeks on and keeping the tourists off until the last moment. I may have fired up a bit and called the bus driver and the money collector malakas (it is best I don`t translate this wonderful greek term). To top it off the money collector charged us twice as much and pocketed into his pocket not the money collector tin. Dodgy dodgy men. They also only let me off at our normal stop and kept Kate on the bus till the next stop - real funny with a couple of drunk, tired and cranky aussie girls!!
Well I had better sign off with a short list of Aussie spottings I have made so far in our santorinni travels -
At tropical bar they sell both Coopers sparkling ale and VB (5 euros each)
The supermarkets stock the smallest containers of vegemite (3.4 euros each)
Bundaberg Ginger beer is sold but is labelled as Aussie Power (1.5 euros each)
Till portugal my friends
Yasis
Ola from Porto,
Where to start, Overnight ferry from Santorinni to Athens was great as we were in Biz class and weren´t packed in with all the italian teenagers going to Ios, who don´t like to shower and take up so much room with their roller suitcases (also run over your toes with them, took to swearing at them in greek).
Spent 3 hours trying to sleep on the Athens airport floor, very hard and cold, kate slept like a trooper at the head of the queue for Ailitalia. The flight to Milan was not very memorable due to me being asleep before we had even taken off. Woke up for our snack, Kate and I LOL at the TV showing Fashion higlights from the Fall collection, only the Italians would have this as inflight entertainment. Milan Airport was so so, mainly because we slept and the flight from Milan to Lisbon was exactly the same as the previous one except for the landing where I think we had the learner pilot who chose to land our Airbus A320 one wheel at a time, it felt like we nearly tipped over!! Thankfully we were so out of it, that we didn´t even bat an eyelid.
We spent one night in Lisbon, in which case we slept all afternoon. We spent the follwoing day on public transport getting from the burbs of Lisbon to the CBD to then catch the fast train to Oporto. The train sat on about 190 km/hr and could get up to 250 km/hr. Kate and I being the organised travellers that we are arrived in porto not knowing where we were staying nor how to find the accomodation area. So after trapsing up and down tiny cobblestone streets, we found a hostel.
It was completely booked but recommended another place, so some further walking up hill and we walked in. They did not speak a word of english but with lots of sign language and clear no´s we realised there was no room at this inn either. We tried some other residentals (hotels) and got a room for 15 euros. But this was even more sign language involved as the owner didn´t speak anything and did the good Australian thing of speaking in portugese slower and louder!! She was a very old good catcholic lady who showed us to the immacualte room, she was from the school of cleanliness is close to godliness, so we were very comfortable.
After cooling down, our tummies were rumbling as we were on greek time and were due for some feeding. It was Kate´s pick for the resteraunt and we wandered into a dark hallway and popped out the other end in a brazillian resteraunt. Saying Fala englais (do you speak english) we got a resounding no, as there was no one else in the resteraunt we weren´t sure if the kitchen was open, but he kindly showed us to our table and launched into a tirade of portugese and we had no clue what he was asking us. There was no menu and as we were to later discover we had the brazillian style of meal. The equivalent of yum cha, with every kind of meat brought out on a large skewer and sliced for us. It was fantastic and as I haven´t had beef since I left Alice Springs I was wrapped!! We ate and ate, we couldn´t figure out how to say no more, but soon discovered that using our table manners of knife and fork at 12 o´clock that we were able to pull up.
It was a very entertaining evening and we scurried back to our accomodation, fearing lock out and the scorn of our hotellier. And scorn she did when she let us in. There was much more loud portugese and eventually she gave the rubbing together of fingers symbol for money - that was why she was so cross, we hadn´t paid her before we went out. So after paying she relaxed gave us back our key and we slept with clear conciences.
We checked out the following morning and returned to the hostel which is dearer but there is no cranky portugese lady and we are meeting plenty of other travellers and get plenty of advice for spain.
Tomorrow Kate and I are hiring a car for 4 days to drive through portugal, it is only a little bit more spennie than catching the train so it should be fun. Planning to camp in some of the national parks, can´t handle this city life.
To finish off here is a list of reasons why I like Portugal better than Greece
1. Portugese is in the english alphabet not Greek Alpabet, so we can guess at what the words might mean
2. Portugal has sidewalks for pedestrians, no fear of being hit by a scooter
3. Portugese speak portugese there is no english spoken and my sign language/interpretive dance is improving
4. Portugal is greener
5. Portugal is more organised and cleaner
Till next time Amigos
Ciao
Yay we have survived and are currently in Lagos, which is right down south of Portugal.
Kate and I picked up our buzzy little Kia car to drive along the river duros (winding through some mega mountain roads), it took us like 2 hours to get 50km. That was after us spending 20 minutes trying to leave oporto airport, and another 1.5 hours trying to find the river road. I spent the fistr few hours trying to get us out of the city but eventually got too frustrated, I kept indicating with the windscreen wipers, going to change gears where there was no gear box and getting tooted by the locals.
The drive was lovely and once we hit some less winder roads, the trip improved. We set out target of a national park, can,t remember what it was called but it took us all day to get there as we kept trying to eat. As we were in regional portugal and it appeared to be a festival day there were no resteraunts open, nor supermarkets and the servos only stocked ice creams, so yes for lunch we had ice cream - hows that for responsible eating?
We stumbled across a snmall town that Kate and I now refer to as the T town as we couldn`t pronounce nor remember its name. But there was a big castle (our first castle) and inside the locals were doing traditional dancing and music. It appeared to be celebrating the grape harvest, we were in the valley where all the port grapes grow. SO that wa slovely and we have some cracker photos which I will upload later.
But we were hungry and were convinced that the next main town would have food. We were wrong the only things open were cafes and they were just serving old men coffee. Thats right the old fellas dont go down to the pub to get a away from their missuses but instead to the local cafe and gossip with the rest of the villages old men. We stumbled into one of these under the illusion that they served soup and unlike the Aussie pubs where all the locals would look you up and down then stare, no one battered an eyelid it was like we didnt exist.
Kate took over driving again and windened us through the national park where we couldnt find a campsite, so we pulled over to the motel and asked for directions. I would just like to say my sign language is increasing (I dont think improving is the right word) as I asked this man where we could camp, putting my arms over my head in what I was trying to show as a tent symbol, he politely said scuzi momento and called for someone who could speak some englais. I hope he pissed his pants after I left because I should did, what was I thinking.
As an aside Potugese NPs are very different to aussie ones, natives animals do not reside in them, peoples dogs, horses, milking cows, sheep and goats do. We heard an occaisonal bird. Also people live in the parks and farming is practised in the valleys, surely an ideal place for deer to be grazing instead of growing corn?
Yesterday we drove from the NP to Lisbon. We went to sintra which is on the edge of town where there is a massive castle buily in 1919 with gorgeously amazing gardens laid out in a fantasy sense of shakespears hamlet. It was a fantastic afternoon.
Kate and I had learnt from the previous day and now carry food and water in the car. We called into a beauftiful mountain town on our way to lisbon and bought sheep and goats cheese and fresh bread. That was our lunch.
After our castle visit we headed into Lisbon to find some accomodation. I was driving Kate was our navigator. What followed was a 2 hour epic drive around cobblestone streets, up the wrong way of one way streets, nearly wiped out by buses and trams and at one stage trapped behind a barrier that we thought would open automatically. Much tooting from the local cars resulted in me, finally figuring out there was a speaker button and called the little man somewhere to let us out. Ey yi yi, it was the afternoon from hell. We drove to and rang like 8 places all booked out. Near tears both of us we had dinner by the river, in what was actually a Aussie themed resterauint. Aussie themed like the american Outback resteraunts though and no meal was actually aussie.
We gorged ourselves as this was our first real meal in like 40 hours. Our waiter was shocked by how quickly we ate. But we were happier and returned to the car with a new plan. Screw lisbon we´re heading south out of town. So we drove 40kms and finally at midnight last night found a campsite by the atlantic ocean but also next to the towns local sewerage depot. Before retiring for the evening though I had a another game of charades with the owners while I explained that we didi not have a tent but would be sleeping on the ground and in our car. Kate was wetting herself from the car while she saw me acting out what we wanted. What was funny though was the fellas wanted all our license numbers and filled out 3 pages of paperwork but it was too hard for me to pay our 9 euros for our campsite. Anyway finally at 1am we found a spot and crashed.
We are now in the cosmopolitian city of lagos surrounded by brittish holiday makers. We have secured accomodation and a bus ticket to seville for thursday, so we are miles in front.
Jo thank you for your tips, now that we are somewhere with resteruants open for lunch we plan to have a very filling and long lunch drinking sangria.
Ciao my friends
So the main reason I wanted to go to Seville is that the only whole opera I have every watched was the Barber of Seville and as such thought Seville sounded like a great little city to visit.
Well if only picking destinations could be that easy all the time. Seville is gorgeous, though it didn´t seem so nice when we got off our bus from Lagos and it was 36 degrees and we got lost trying to find our hostel. On the upside I have found where they sell spanish fans and where the supermarket is.
So after checking into our hostel, having a nap under the gorgeous A/C I woke up at 9pm famished. Lunch had consisted of a chocolate bar at some random bus stop in portugal, so I was due for a real meal. It is so nice to be staying in a hostel with a kitchen and free food. So for dinner we had chicken pasta salad.
After dinner I scurried to wash my plates and dishes as the hostel was taking a group to free Flamenco dancing. Needless tro say this was at the top of my list of things to do when we got here. We walked for over half an hour through the streets of seville at 11pm and it was stunning. There is the most impressive cathedral here and castle. Plus the river looked fantastic with all the little bridges lit up. Honestly this is just a stunning city so I think I will enjoy the next couple of days here. It is certainly less touristy than Lagos.
Speaking of Lagos, well there isn´t really much to describe. Kate and I celebrated the end of roadtrip portugal with some a resteraunt that we think actually made portugese chicken and lots of jugs of sangria. We didn´t think they were that strong but it caught up with us after dinner when Kate and I challenged the locals to pool at a the red eye bar.
To describe the game, Kate and I fluked some good shots and for the smallest of periods had them actually thinking that we were players but then our true colours came out and the boys started to throw their game so they could spend mopre time with us. Very embarrasing as you can imagine, I felt like the mouse that a cat plays with. Eventually they put us out of our misery. We farewelled them and were shortly accosted by the drunkest man in the bar who needed to tell us all sorts of not facisnating facts, to be honest I can´t remember the conversation much, needless to say we were all probably dribbling on about nothing. We called it quits and retired for the evening.
The next day saw Kate and I with splitting headaches from the sangria. Yukky, to soothe the pain I slept, than ate, than people watched in the main praca and then ate and slept again.
This brings me up to yesterday where we travelled to Seville and the fact that it is now well past midday and I´m still in my PJs, still tapping away at this keyboard. SO I will bid adioas and go hit the streets of seville to uncover some more gems.
Howdy All,
Leaving Saville today for Granada on the bus, only a short trip today of 3 hours so should be good. It rained yesterday here in Saville which our hostel man was telling me was quite unusual as they get most of their rain in winter. The countryside around Saville reminds me a lot of Dubbo, dry undulating hills but I guess differs as there are more corn fields and orange orchards!! But still very pretty and somewhat familar.
So when I left you last time I was heading out for some Flamenco dancing. Anyway it was bizarre, in some ways what I expected and what I didn´t. I expected it to be in a crusty old taverna surrounded with tourists and that the performers would be Gipsy looking. The Lady who did the dancing though was not what we were expecting she was a big girl (about 1.5 x bigger than me) both height and girth and she wasn´t wearing a red dress but a light blue polka dot flamenco dress that was tightly done up that none of her ´wobbly bits´wobbled. Lord knows how she breathed in it. Apart from the very different costume, she was fantastic and had all the attitude of a flamenco dancer, confidenet, sexy and a little bit scary (seriously I wouldn´t want to cross her on a bad night). The guitarist and other singer were funny little men who clapped, sang and strung away while she flung herself from one end of the stage to the other. You had to be carefull of the flinging because the italian couple sitting in front of us copped the biggest blobs of flamenco dancer sweat, but I guess it adds to the experience right?
It was a great night, espcially as our hostel guide had advised us to sit as close as possible to the show, flamenco is best enjoyed with the eyes then the ears he said in broken greek english (yes still running into greeks! Impresseed him with our 3 words of greek, hello, thank you & a very bad swear word). The first show we were one off the front but with Sangria and lack of sweat flung onto us it was fine, for the second show we had the front row and that was brilliant, when I rested my feet on the stage I could feel the vibrations of the stomping and clapping, even me who has no sense of Rythem could keep up this way!!
Day 2 and Kate needed a day free of sight seeing so I left her at the hostel tucked up with a new book. I went to the Seville Cathedral which is the third largest in the world, pretty interesting with all the seville families paying for their sinful lives building little chapels all through the cathedral, the skillful work that went into the metal, wood, gold and paint was very detailed. Two things that really stood out for me though was the monument in the cathedral to Christopher Columbus, who is apparantly buried in the Cathedral. It was of 4 knoghts carrying his casket drapped in cloaks that were painted in gold, they were taller than life like and were aimed towards the main alter where the light shines in behind the stained glass window. Really awe inspiring, the honour paid to the man who discovered the new world and changed how the europeans thought about the rest of the world.
The other things that blew me away is as a result of the discoveries Chris made and the gold and silver that the spanish brought back after plundering the americas. Gold crucifixes, gold plated frames, silver tabernacles, gold bells and so on, it was kind of sad and left a bit of bitter taste in my mouth.
On the upside I think spending over 2 hours in Catholic Cathedral which should make up for my lack of attending church for the last couple of years, not sure if it will cover me for the sins. It was kind of funny though, as grand as that Cathedral was it didn´t feel to me as spiritual as the Byzantine Church in Paros which was tiny in comparison but fell twenty times more sacred.
Night of day 2 and we ascended the stairs to the rooftop of our hostel for a grand feast of tapas, port wine (from oporto) and drinking games. Thats right hanging out with a bunch of american and canadian kids on holidays from uni has resulted in Kate and I pretending that yes really we are back at uni, with Kate studying Environmental Law and myself stufying Arts commerce, through the University of Lisbon. No doubt with this many lies rolling out of our mouths we not only had ourselves bamboozled as well any one in earshot. All i can say that all the time waiting for buses and trains results in 2 aussie girls entertaining themselves with the ridiculous stories they can make up!
Yesterday Kate and I went to the Real Alcazar Palace, which is where the Spanish Royal Family reside in summer and continue to today. It was amazing. The gardens were gorgeous and Mum you would have died at their rose garden. Some of it was how I would imagine French gardens square hedges and long stretches of water ponds. The castle as you can imagine has been built onto over the past 600 years. One of the rooms we visited was where the royals planned with Columbus his voyage to find the new world, it was actually quite a plain sort of conference room but mind boggling to think of all the decisions made and debates held there.
One part of the palace was actually designed by Islamic architect and it was amazing and so different. The star of david was everywhere and in some parts of the archways their islamic writing proclaiming Allah is great. It is a deffinant wonder why the spanish royal family invited this considering these guys went to war so often against the moors. The tile work, the gold enlaid into the plaster work and the carvings into the massive wooden doors was spectatular and just took your breath away.
The final amazing sight that I remember from that palace is the amazing tapestries. They were amazing and took up half of the walls. The detail in them was that the hands of the people in them were shaded. They were made of silk and wool and the weaving of them could take up to 2 years. The collection housed in that palace is some of the most valuable in Europe.
So amazed and immersed in the wonders of this palace, Kate and I actually seperated from each other and never made an end spot to meet each other. It resulted in both of us waiting for each other for over an hour in seperate spots and different times, before we both just went óh stuuf she´ll turn up at the hostel when shes done´. I got back to find kate curled up in bed having a nanna nap, thankfully I was more relieved that she was ok and didn´t actually want to kill her!!
We are slowly getting prepared for the tomato festival, Kate and I bought 3 very ugly synthetic flamenco inspired dresses for 3 euros each to wear to the festival. We are meeting a Saffer friend of ours in Valencia and so bought her a dress as well. Just wait for the photos folks, we are going all out in fancy dress, WOULD YOU EXPECT ANYTHING ELSE??
Alas Kate and I still haven´t bought plastic Tiaras yet as we thought with all our castle and palace touring we really should be little princesses while we tour them. The best I can do so far is yesterday at the palace I wore my ¨I believe in happy endings¨ T-shirt. I will endeavour to pick up our game folks.
Apologies for the lack of photos the hostel computers are in a decrepiate state but hopefully the next hostels will be better.
Anyway i hope you are all alive out there and that Australia hasn´t dissapeared. Harmony I hope you have some good news for me, have you realised another song? I will check on your website!!
Love to you all and I wish you could be here!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hola from Valencia and our 4 star hotel, nice change from hostels!
So the delayed news, I had anticipated that our hostel in Granada would have internet, namely because on their site it said so but then again you should never belive stonerds right? Yes thats right our hostel was run by 2 guys who were stoned all the time. The story is this 2 stoners rent an apartment in Granada realising they can´t continue to support their habit they decide to convert their apartment into a hostel, by 4 bunk beds and air mattressed, post a name on hostel worlds website and put in a couple of fake ratings and their in business. 8 people stay per night at 15 each and they get to smoke all day and night now.
Needless to say we weren´t overly impressed but were highly entertained and intrigues as to how they managed to stay in business and how they hadn´t manadged yet to be ripped off by some savy yet cunning traveller. If you left food in the fridge they ate when they started to get the munchies and they never left the hostel instead driving their guests round the bend with theories on politics and the world.
Granada reminded me of Alice as it had a high popùlation of dirty hippies. All the same it was an interesting city, very stong arab influence and a magnificient Palace (that we never saw due to a better preference for the cheap drinks and free tapas at the bars in granada).
We spent two nights and a day there and we were chomping at the bit to leave to meet our new friend Nicole in Valencia at our lovely 4 star hotel and to go to La Tomatina (the tomato festival about an hour out of Valencia).
Well the festival was yesterday and to celebrate the end of summer the locals drive through the streets in Tip trucks filled with tomatoes that are chucked onto the thousands of people crammed into the street. Tomatoes can only be thrown for one hour. Which you can imagine gets very messy and so everyone wears old clothes while their is a strong preference for white there were some sensational costumes. One being this weedy little brittish man who wore some bright orange jocks, a giza hat and crocs, nothing more nothing less. On his jocks however were written on the front ´hiliary wasn´t here´ and on the back was ´she was here¨ with an arrow pointing downwards, I absolutely wet my pants he had so much guts to wear that espcially as his parents were accompanying him and while you would think they should be so proud of their son for being best dressed they were too busy laughing themselves to notice the other people staring!!
Kate, Nicole and I wore some lovely floral print dresses which we paid 3 each for and I can only best describe it as Flamenco housewife who is highly flammable!!
In the lead up to the event their is a lot of drinking so we were drinking GIANT glasses of sangria at 10am in the morning while pushing our way down the little streets to watch the men climb the greasy pole to try to remove the ham, as soonas they did that then the great tomato chucking would begin. Well the pole climbing went on forever with one Australian Fanatic nearly making it before being dragged back down, eventually one fella got all the way to the top but couldn´t unhitch it so the tomato chucking started anyway.
The best way to describe the next hour it that it was like the craziest Mosh pit ever but with tons of crushed tomatoes. I ended up with tomatoes in my hair, shoes, socks, down my dress, on my dress and soaking my camel purse which I had tied around my neck but lined with plastic on the inside to protect my paper euros. As you imagine with such craziness this was not an Ideal place to take the digi camera so I don´t have photos but I will see if I can find some on the net to post instead.
When we got home eventually yesterday afternoon we showered and just about clogged the drain with our tomato pulp. The water even turned pink and our room now smells like tomatoes and that was after I had been hosed down twice by the locals!!
With such adventures we have today to wander through Valencia which is the largest city so far that we have been to in spain and there are some stunning buildings. But for my fellow foodies reading it is the home of Paella and so for lunch today we are on the hunt for the perfect paella. As I have nearly 24 hours off the turps I think I will enjoy my sangria with lunch today.
I will upload more photos as soon as I get a computer that will do it the computers in this cafe are without an accesible USB point so I will get there eventually.
Love to you all
Adios
Hola from Barcelona,
Truly I can´t believe I am here. I remember as a teenager watching the 92 olympics and thinking how exotic Barcelona sounded and looked on the tellie. While it is a city that does lack sophistician (not that I pretending that I even know what that is) there is no doubting it is spanish and a big city with grand ambitions (just look at Gaudi´s buildings!).
Kate and I arrived here yesterday and have been delighted with our hostel, it is like our own apartment that we share with 4 other travellers and the fact that there is a supermarket across the street and a metro station 3 blocks away is just the icing on the cake.
To celebrate our new pad and being in barcelona we hit the supermarket for Cheese and Biccies, beer and sangria (0.50 for a 1L carton). We proceeded to watch the afternoon and evening slip away from our balcony and chat with fellow travellers. Great times.
This morning we headed into town and wandered along Las Ramblas. A 1km stretch of street that is lined with Florists, Street performers, tourist stalls and suprisingly pet shops. Kate and I were left cooing at all the ducklings, turtles, iguanas and budgies (clearly missing our own pets back home).
We stumbled across the main market place where they sold every form of fresh produce including nuts, seafood, meats (see picture), fruit (some I have never seen before) and vegies. Just fantastic and would make any foodies eyes water. We restrained ourselves though as we were on a mission to find the chocolate museum. Yes folks the first place that Chocolate was introduced to europe was in Spain where it was intially drunk.
So after a quick wander through the museum learning many other facts it was straight into the chocolate tasting. Great choclate and it would put Lindt to shame. I had mine accompanied with hot choclate, which is literally melted choclate in a cup, BRILLIANT!! Though I must admit after drinking a full mug of it I could not even look at chocolate, but hey you have to do these things. Apparantly what I should have done was order some pastry with my choclate and dunked it into my drink (well there is always tomorrow because i have since discovered that this molten choclate is sold at numerous cafes, yay something that I can drink instead of bloody coffee).
Kate and I then hit the old town part and found a paella place that sold negro paella. That is seriously what was written on the menu and yes it was as black as ink the paella, fantastic though. It is turned black with Octopus ink as a side matter.
Big celebrations as I have bought my 1st pair of shoes, cute red mules for 15 and made of leather, big big bargain, so impressed am going to wear them tomorrow to the Picasso Musuem (I hope your proud Trudie).
To continue with Barcelona Gourmet Kate and I again forgoed dinner instead settling on Cheese & Biccies for dinner tonight (the brie is fantastic, the olives average and the salami poor but hey it was all cheap).
I had better sign off as dessert is calling and well it is a foodies heaven here.
Happy Fathers Day to all the Fathers and Fathers To Be, But a very big shout out for you Dad, I hope I can find a Skype cafe to call you on.
All my Love
Sally
Hola folks from the gorgeous little city of Sans Sebastin (or sans seb in backpacker lingo). We got here yesterday and plan to make a final fling at summer before we have to head to the UK this wednesday!!
In the 24 hours that we have been hear we are already having a ball, great accomodation, good company of fellow travellers (always helps if there are some entertaining irish involved), gorgeous beaches and a pretty tidy little city.
Though our 6 hour train ride from Madrid may not suggest that this sleepy little beach town is all that it cracks up to be. Half way through our trip the young spanish fella sitting in front of us was interrogated by undercover spanish police (to be fair he did have the obligatory mullet and deserved to be!). Anyway the police asked for his passport and some other paperwork. They also questioned some dirty hippies as well and another young fella who they kept in their custody. All very suss and not helped by the spanish couple sitting opposite us who were quite concerned as they were evesdropping into the questioning (I guess sometimes ignorance is bliss). When we arrived at Sans Seb station this young fella was escorted directy to a police truck and there were about a dozen police in riot gear lingering around the station. While they searched his bag I was convinced that it wasn´t a drug bust based on how heavily armed the coppers were, must be something to do with the local achivist/terroist group, EDTA maybe?? If I find out more I will let you know.
We spent one night in Madrid, I didn´t like it. Probably influenced by accomodation being in the equivalent of Sydney´s Kings Cross and the fact that we got in quite late from Andorra. The city though was also quite dirty and apart from a few museums, parks and the royal palace not alot going for it. Hence why we are in Sans Seb so soon.
We were in a pretty foul mood when we arrived from Andorra as we had just spent 9 hours on the bus with no books to read. We did have some fun as we were facisnated by the spanish truck stops which still served Tapas!! Photos to come soon I promise. The trip was ruined though when we lost the vote on smoking on the bus. Thats right for the last 4 hours on our bus the bus driver allowed the passengers to smoke, hell on earth is the best way to describe it. So Kate and I alighted with very red eyes and headaches. Not happy Jan!!
Andorra was ok, it was pretty much just a country devoted to selling perfume, cigarettes (explains the smoking on the bus I guess) and electronic gear. It is also just a massive ski resort town so if you´ve been to a ski resort I guess you will understand what I mean. But it was still interesting as the locals are a mash up between spanish and french, plus the country is only 460 square kilometeres, smaller than Old Man Plains Research Station!!
Anyway I had better sign off, I will try to upload some photos soon, I hope you are all well, talk to you soon
Hello to you all,
So long since I last wrote, glad to see though that you all at Tieyon are gearing up for the Preg Testing, Jo I left clear instructions for Gilly and Tim about Cheese and Biccies!! Janice thank you for the weblink, at this stage no plans for brussels but as I have still have 8 months I hope I will make it there.
Sans Seb was gorgeous between bursts of sunshine I even managed to top up my tan. We were very lucky while we were there as we fluked the Basque festival where on the first 2 sundays of september they have a regatta where they race these huge boats (kind of the size of the ones that surf life savers use but bigger, crews of like 20 people i think). Anyway the entire old town went into lock down and the tapas bars were open with hundreds of crazy young spaniards wandering from bar to bar watching the races, eating tapas and drinking a fizzy white wine. We had a blast watching all those people and having a few beers while watching the races and eating the MOST Amazing tapas spreads i have seen in spain. Brilliant fun.
Unfortunately all good things come to an end and Kate and I were very excited to be going to a new country on that monday. On out train trip across the border (no stamps in our passports still and there was no sign at all saying welcome to France, so when we arrived in our destination, we thought we were still in spain and kept up our 4 words of spanish) I was thin king of all the things I would miss of spain the list is as follows:
1. Sangria
2. Tapas
3. Hot Chocolate (liquid choclate, yum so good)
4. The mullets, so many we could never photograph them all
Bordeaux was very interesting. Our accomodation was right at the main party area of the city and as such we really didn`t sleep much. We tried to take a wine tour but they were all booked (seems like every one who was there for the Rugby World cup had the same idea). We settled though on going to the local supermarket buying some cheap local bottles of wine and having a huge blow out on bries, blue and camberet cheeses. We made our selves sick from such indulgance, but it was brilliant!! We spent our second day wandering the streets and found the monument area of town and wandered through all the history there. We got a real kick out of seeing the Aussie flag being flwon every where because as you can imagine, the entire city is geared up for the Rugby World cup. We also found the french very helpful and very forgiving of our ignorant french, often confused with spanish words (its reall hard to get si out of your head).
We travelled by train to Toulouse to catch our flight with easyjet back to london. Well as I hadn`t written down the departure time we couldn`t remember what time our flight left so we got there hours early (as it turned out 7 hours early). So we spent a while in the airport, but we found a bar, drank some beers and watched some rugby game, our favourite was Japan vs. Fiji brutal game but also lots of running, was very entertaining. Even bought some french perfume while we were there (I`ll check the CC later, whoops).
Our flight was really good, evern though it left 1/2 an hour later. But out of all the people to sit next to we got chatting to a bloke who was the channel 10 reporter covering the rugby world cup, turns out he was at Barker High school (next door to my old school) and left the same year I did. Not only that but he went through bathurst Journalism and knew some more people that I did, so how small of world is it really?? Anyway we told him we would keep an eye out for him at the wallaby embassy in wales for the game!
Kate and I finally got to bed at like 2am as we spent forever catching trains, attempting to catch the tube which was closed for the night and then finding a bus that would take us to Kennington. It`s a good hostel its just we haven`t spent anytime there.
On the thursday night Kate and I went to meet a friend of her`s from when she worked at AMH in toowoomba. Anyway where else would a couple of Aussies have drinks at but the Walkabout Hotel (The walkie in backpacker speak) in Sheperds Bush (again shortened to the Sheps Bush Walkie). We had a blinder as we were drinking pints of beer on empty tummies and on top of that Scott made us drink the locals favourite snakebites. 50% cider, 50% beer and red cordial, bloody horrible and guarranteed to give you a hangover!! So we downed those quickly to end the pain and to then return back to the beers.
Anyway our night was topped off when former travel companion Brooke Wilton texted to say her and a friend were coming to join us as she was staying 5 minutes away. We were so excited as we had farewelled brooke back in santorinni 5 weeks ago. Well the night got messier, the pub closed and before we knew it we were having photos in a giant box that I had found on the streets of Sheperds bush. We ended up crashing on the couch of Brookes german friend who was living with 3 Aussie guys, I have never seen such a small house jammed with Australian Paraphenalia, I think everyone just amps up the patritism as soon as they leave Australia.
Anyway the next day we headed out to Portobello road and wandered the markets, had some fab thai food and then went onto Oxford street to do some shopping in the institues of london, topshop, primark and Marks and Spencers, as I plan to backpack some more I did not purchase as it all just increases the weight of my 20kg backpack!
On our return to our hostel, Kate and I showered fell asleep with a promise to rise at 5:30am saturday morning to go an watch the wallabies play wales in cardiff wales, tickets which we bought back in January!! See next diary entry
What can I say about yesterday`s game but that it was awesome to be in a stadium with 71,000 other rugby fans screaming their lungs out for their teams. The welsh were really friendly and while they got flogged, they were all so nice to the Australians who had travelled to the game. In any of the welsh pubs they were just so willing to have a chat and moan about the weaknesses of their team.
For those of you not aware, Kate, Brooke and myself had booked tickets through the Fanatics back in Jan. We arrived at Paddington station at 7am (after walking the entire length of Hyde park thanks to rail works on the tube) to collect our t-shirts and hats and boarding our gold coaches. It was a pleasant trip actually and apart from the 2 hour CD of Aussie 70s and 80s classics, it was not what I was expecting. No alchol was allowed on the bus and most of the bus slept the entire way.
We arrived in Cardiff at 11:30am and went straight to the Aussie embassy which was the cardiff cricket club converted into a giant bar, dancefloor, stage area and sales of rugby gear. We had a blast here, drinking a couple of beers, catching up with a friend of Brookes and our Channel 10 reporter, we even got filmed with our giant wallaby flag, keep an eye out for it on Sports tonight! The three of us are waving back to all of you back home!!
At about 1:30am we walked up to the stadium and found our seats. I missed the national anthem and start of the game as I was doing the good Aussie things and getting more beers. The game was fab and as it was my first live wallaby game I had a ball being able to see the whole game in perspective of the entire field and not have to listen to stupid commentators. I got my wish that wales would put up a fight and nopt get completely flogged, we actually got a bit converned towards the end but before we knew it the game was over and we had just about shouted ourselves hoarse from outdoing the welsh fans chants and singing of Deliam (they are massive fans of the local boy tom jones!!).
Well after such a brilliant win we bolted back to the embassy and got into the beers some more. We danced away to hours of Aussie songs and met lots of other buses. By 8pm we were having a ball and realised that we had missed our bus back to london with all the other fanactics, whoops!!
Anyway Brooke had some friends who had hired a limo so we went to meet them at a welsh bar and have a few drinks with them and see if they had room for us. Unfortunately we didn`t have any luck but we met lots of local with good advice for us about trains, buses and the location of maccas. Some really nice girls actually gave us their address and said if we got really stuck that we could come and sleep on their floor, how cool is that!!
Anyway we went ion search of dinner and ran into some more Australians waiting on their limo. We got chatting with their driver and them and before we knew it we had paid £10 each to get a ride back to london, sweet. So apart from being ina car with 11 other people it wasn`t to bad a trip, well the other girls were annoying they were those kind of Aussies who have lived in london too long and put on an english accent, whinge alot and just generally become sour little princesses, we didn`t gel so well.
Anyway we got out at Putney and we bought Brooke in a black cab to Sheperds Bush and Kate and I tackled the compliucated system of getting across london at 2 am back to Kennigton. We had some fun, mainly being lost at 3am at Hyde Park Corner and being amazed that we were on the monopoly board (Park Lane and Mayfair) before we finally we found a bus that would take us out of downtown london!! So I have seen all the sights just in the dark is all!!
Anyway after a wayward wander through our surrounding suburb at 4am we finally crashed in our beds and haven`t emerged till 2:30pm in the arvo and that where I am up to, sitting in a funky little internet cafe playing catch up.
Tomorrow is my last day in London, I plan to hit Tescos (the big supermarket) to find some vegemite and Milo to take across for my 3rd coursin Sarah and her family who I plan to visit while I am in Munich. I am very excited about hitting the road again back in Europe and spending Euros not Pounds!! Kate heads starigh to edinburgh and by the sounds of it will be inspecting a house for us on tuesday that we may be able to move into. She plans to get a job etc this week. For me it is still a bit too soon and I don`t plan to start work till october. Brooke leaves tomorrow for Brussels and plans to travel through france where she meet up with some friends to watch the quarter finals of the Rugby Worldd CXup, lucky thing.
So thats all for now folks, I hope you are all well and are enjoying the warming up weather, I have buried my most summery clothes in the bottom of my pack and now live back in my jeans :(
anyway love to you all,
me xoxo
Just so you know, I have already written this before the evil computer that I am on wiped my entire entry....arhhh!!I left London very early Tuesday morning (3am from my hostel to catch my 6:30am flight from Stanstead airport). To my surprise Ryanair was quite good to fly with, sure we left late and they try to sell you lottery tickets on the flight but otherwise it was quite a good flight, I even had a bit of a snooze on it.
Arrived in Salzburg to see the beautiful green land and mountains covered in cloud and raining. Not that I was dissapointed on the contrary I was very excited about walking in the rain. I can`t think the last time I got soaked. Thankfully though I was able to bust out my cheap raincoat that I bought in Alice (I guess it was cheap because it rains so little there).
Ok guys I have lost my entry again, so will add more to this when I get to a better internet cafe. Bare with me ok!! I have to go as my train leaves in an hour and I still need to grab my massive backpack. Will write more from Munich!!
Lets try this for the millionth time!!
I am now writing to you from Prague so my memory is a bit hazy but I will try to recount my 3 days in Salzburg.
I spent Day 1 in Salzburg reading my book, doing my washing and sleeping. All great activities for rainy days. I learnt one thing while staying is Salzburg it is where the Sound of Music is set and so the entire town and Hostel are geared to trap tourists with tours etc. The hostel i was staying at played the sound of music everyday, as I am not the biggest fan this was all lost on me and as such I made sure I did things that nothing to do with the darn Von Trap family!! Joey I know you would be disspaointed in me but I am just not a musical fan!!
Day 2 saw me heading for the castle on the hill. I decided that I ate thje biggest snitchel the night before that I would climbed up the hill and not catch the cable car up. My fellow travellers were shocked but it really wasn`t that steep, nothing like climbing the rock!! Anyway I had a good wander around and was dissapointed to learn that no Kings, Queens or princesses had ever called this place home. It was where Catholic Bishops lived and protected themselves, and as such it was not called a castle but a fortress. Still it was interesting with a very strong military collection of weapons and uniforms. I have never seen so many guns!! Out of the 4 hours I was there I never learnt what for 800 years the women did in Salzburg, they must have existed I guess but I guess that is why it is called HIStory :) !!
I spent the afternoon wandering around the old town area. Sampling weiners, strudel and other tasty Austrian snacks. It was all very pretty, tidy and scenic.
Day 3, having eaten more snitzchel, I decided that I would do something active againm so I rented a bicycle from the hostel. It was a great day out and so I cycled for a few hours. I headed south of Salzburg along the river on this great bike track. But before I knew it I had cycled to the 2nd town from Salzburg and that was 15km away!! Yikes no wonder my bottom was getting a little bit sore!! Anyway I wandered through the town (can`t remember it`s name now) and then thought back we go to Salzburg. I expected my legs to give out first but it was actually my bottom. I was so saddle sore that when I got to salzburg I could have thrown the bike in the river.
Instead I chose to head into town for a big feed and a cold beer. Thankfully the town had started its Autumn festival so there were little tempory resteraunts and bars set up in the old town square in the shadow of the giant cathedral. Just what a little kike rider needs.
I returned the bike thankfully back to the hostel and spent the remaining part of the afternoon not sitting down!
The following day I caught the train to munich to go and stay with my cousin Sarah, her husband Jurgen and their 2 little girls Katie and Jessie.
I was so excited to be staying with my cousin Sarah, her husband Jurgen and their tqo little girls Katie and Jessie. I hadn`t seen Sarah, Jurgen and Kate since they were at NYE at Hungerford in 2005. So I hadn`t even clapped eyes on Jessie and the whole family back in Oz were just as excited that we were all meeting up.
Apart from catching up with Temmlers I was very excited to not be staying in a hostel and to be staying Germans, who could translate everything for me!!
I was throughly spoilt by the Temmlers, I was to pick what meals I would like to have, I had a cake baked for me and was even given a double bed to sleep in!! Sarah and I spent the days talking, we talked so much about everyone back home, life in Germany and life in Alice Springs. Sarah was so excited to have someone to speak English with. She has some Canadian neighbours who have just moved across the road but otherwise she generally speaks german and very well too I might add.
Sunday Sarah and Jurgen organised to take me down to Starnberg Lake. Jurgen volunteers at the local lifesaving group who respond to call out on the lake but also at other accidents such as car accidents, plane crashes and fights at a local girls boarding house. (All of which Jurgen went to while I was there). But the best things is the group has a boathouse on the lake and it would put the AZRI social club to shame. It super kitted out with 3 couches guys!! A huge telly, jukebox, pinball machine, kitchen with Coffee Machine oh and two boats!!
We went down to the lake on Sunday morning and had a white sausage breakfast. The white sausages are made of veal and pork and are flavoured with fresh herbs and as you can imaguine they are white. Well they are served with giant pretzels, sweet mustard and beer. With everyone else on duty I was the only one drinking beer, much to the jealousy of the group of friends gathered there.
As you can imagine it was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, the beer was cold and the food was fantastic and even though I don`t speak German Sarah was translating for me so I kept up with all the stories!! What a life, travelling is sure hard!!
After a quick nap, skipping stones across the lake Sarah, the girls and myslef headed back to the house for Cake hour. We had developed a bad habit of eating Cake in the afternoon with lots of tea!! As we had eaten all the cake I volunteered to make the good ole shearers snack of pikelets. It has beenm so long since i had made them that I burnt about 70% of the pikelets, thankfully all the children who come to visit the girls did not mind and returned back to their parents I am sure telling their familes of the mini pancakes the temmlers were serving!!
That evening Sarah treated me to her snitchel and it was fantastic as we had it with tons of lemon juice and ketchup. Mum it was almost as good as your crumbed cutlets!! Over dinner Sarah and I developed the plan for monday as we were going with Jurgen`s parents to Octoberfest. They had booked a table at one of the beer tents last year and had a spare ticket that I could take. It meant though that Jurgen was to stay at home to babysit while Sarah and I went off galavanting round Octoberfest!!
So with our plans in place I slept soundly, though the rest of the house didn`t as Jessie has some more teeth coming through and wakes up often during the night screaming. Katie wakes up at about 6:30am ready to head off to Kindy, so it is a very sleepless night generally for the temmlers, with them all being shocked that i slept through all the noise!!
Thats right folkd before I knew it I was off to Munich`s world famous beer festival known as Octoberfest!!
We had a great day for it and aftyer Sarah and I had dropped the girls off to Kindy and went for a 5km walk through the woods we got ready. While most of you know it takes me forever to get showered, dressed and made up. It took sarah just as long as she was wearing the traditional dress of a long dress, with a white shirt underneath and an apron. She was not out of place either for all the Germans attend the festical in their traditional outfits. And they all very greatly the girls wear anything from liederhousin to short dresses. The men of course wear their ledeirhousin with either a white shirt under neath or a checked one. What was entertaining was all the different body shapes trying to fit into their old outfits. Too tight leather pants or corsets that were cutting off the breathing but effectively pushed old breasts up into the traditional cleavage!!
The beer halls were brilliant. Before Sarah and I joined the rest of the family we wandered around all of the beer halls. They varied from very raucaus tents with people standing on the seats, singing, smoking and clanging their steins together to family orientated tents that were very demure as they served coffees as well!! Not very festival like I think!!
We also sampled lots of the carnival food including Fish rolls, roast pork and fruit on a stick covered in choclate. Yum!! Careful not to get too full as we had to save room for beer!!
We sat down at our table at 5pm and we didn`t leave till 10pm. In that 5 hour period I had drunk over 3 litres of beer, eaten a whole giant pretchel and half a chicken. Sung myself horse to old german songs and more popular english ones like `Country Road`. I had also danced on the seats and generally had a brilliant time. Jurgens Brother Mark kidnapped Sarah and I to the carnival area where all the rides were. I am a big chicken, so we only we went to 2 rplaces. One being a haunted house with a gravitron, really good Idea after 3l of beer. Just thinking about it makes my head spin and I start to feel sick!!
The other place we went to was the equivalent of the Fred Brophys Boxing tent at Birdsville Races. Here they get the crowd up for various activities onto a spinning stage. Initially it was boxing and then it was just who could stay on the longest. Before I knew it I was dragged onto to stage by Mark and was spinning around very quickly. Whats with all the spinning??
Anyway the rest of the night was spent either Mark or myself up on this stage trying to stay on the longest. The worst one was me hula hooping on stage. Being the good school of the air child that I am I have no coordination for such things as the hoola hoop. Very embarrasing, espcially as I resorted to all sorts of other tricks to make sure I din`t get kicked off!!
Anyway it was a cracker of a day and night. I was so glad to go with germans who told me all sorts of things like whst the songs were about, how to hold my beer and when to drink and not drink!!
I saw the tent where most of the Australians go and I must admit it would have been fun but after seeing so many drunk Aussies at the Wallabies game, at the walkie and at La Tomatina i really didn`t need to be hanging out with them. Thats what Australia is for right!!
So Sarah and I got home about 1:30am, drank alot of water and woke up the following morning with bad headaches. While I thought I was hard done by as I had to travel 8 hours to Prague, Sarah actually had a worst night, waking up often to comfort the girls and then having to drive them to kindy as it was raining. Honestly I had it easy!
Sp under a hangover cloud I said goodbye to the Temmlers and left feeling very homesick. With all the talk of Bourke and family, I really would like to go home but I need to chirp up as there are still plenty more adventures to be had!!
Till next time my friends when I recount my tales of Prague without a voice!!
Now before most of you wonder who the the Spatenkovas are, I have a very dear friend in Alice Springs, Eva whose is from the Czech Republic and most of her family still live here. Eva`s sister Lanka lives in Prague and Eva`s parents live about an hour out of Prague in a very cute little village area.
So with many text messages from Eva to me to Eva`s family and back to me I was organised to stay with them on thursday and friday night. I was so excited to be staying AGAIN in a home with locals of the area.
But prior to this I had booked myself into a very swisho hostel, flash toilets and BIG fluffy pillows. So good and very good for coming down from the wonderful hospitality I received from the Temmlers.
I got in late Tuesday night from Munich. My train ride was 8 hours long and the first 4 hours I had a very nasty headache and really didn`t feel like doing much, espcially not changing trains every 2 hours!! It was the most interesting train journey I have done. I was throughly confused as when I purchased my ticket there was no seat allocation and a series of town names were printed on my ticket. The ticket lady also insisted that I take a train timetable for between Munich and Prague, What tha?
Turns out it became my life bloud because all of my trains terminated and it was the only instruction I had as to what train I had to catch. Thankfully by the thrid train I worked out that the 3 aussies and 2 yank backpackers were all going to Prague and that I would follow them, much eaier than me having to figure it out!! I was fooled because they had as little idea as me. AT one point in the mountains between Germany and the Czech Republic we were the only ones left standing on the platform while all the locals had scampered off. Um what now we asked each other? Well we did what any good traveller does in this situation follow the crowd off the station, around the corner and onto a bus amoungst the pine trees and mist. After a minor realisation that the man in the funny uniform was not the train conducter but the border control, we got our stamps (yay, Kate have you counted those yet??) and then boarded a bus to then catch our Czech trains. Ey yi yi!! But good fun and for the second half of the journey I had some company but this was made worse by the fact that I did not have a voice. My fellow travellers thought that this was hilarious that after only 1 day at Octoberfest I had lost my voice while they had been there for 3 days and hadn`t. All I can say is that they were not partying with Germans!!
Further confusion and hopelessness when we got off at the wrong prague train station, as everything was in Czech we did not understand that we had gotten off at a suburban Prague stop not the Central Station. After asking the station staff, the second one said that the train on the opposite platform would be heading to Prague central shortly. Yay, hurrah for nice and helpfull people, by this stage we had collected more english speakers to our possie, we had gone from 6 confused backpackers to now 11 dumb tourists!!
Anyway we made it to the station and I had to change money, at a bad exchange rate but hell I was tiered and grateful that I could spend thousands of Coronas!! Got the metro, found my hostel after getting a little loss, dumped my bag and grabbed the most awesine Mexican I have had since i have been in Europe!! Even had the famous Budweiser beer for the equivalent of less than one euro!!
Wednesday my goal was to get to the Prague castle. Well I found it, not hard to miss on toip of the hill. It was amazing and I got such a good view of prague. The sun even came out for a brief period. In the afternoon I wandered amoungst the old town, the old and new squares. Took lots of photos and generally got my bearings. I also called Lenka and organised to meet her the following the afternoon to stay with her and her 2 daughters Magda and Anna.
Thursday and I went to the communist museum. Really really interesting to learn how the Czech republic got tangled up in that whole mess and how it all came apart in the Velvet Revolution of 1989. I also gained a better understanding of the landmarks who had witnessed protests, armies marching through, tanks, war, destruction and the protests against Communism in November 1989. It really gave me a better understnding as to how Prague as transformed itself and how the lives of the people here has changed so rapidly. To survive such a social experiment as communism and reimerse back into democracy and capitalism is amazing and something I struggle to understand.
Later in the afternoon I met Lenka,Anna and Mrs Spatenkova (Lenka and Eva`s Mum) at the metro station, actually out the front of the McDonalds. At the time I thought that I had bever met Lenke and only Mrs S after Eva gave Birth to Luke. Anyway turns out I met Lenke and Anna when they visited Eva 3 years ago. If Lenke had said to me then that I would stay with her in Prague I would never believed it (espcially because at the time she did not speak english!).
We had a wonderful afternoon talking about Alice Springs, Eva ,Tony and little luke. Lenka had lived at Ti Tree for 3 months working at Spinifex Gallery and she recounted to me her love of the Australian Bush and the beauty of central Australia. Sigh this has only made me more homesick, it appears that this week is all about you guys back home and how much I miss you all and wonder as to what you all are getting up to each day!!
Lenke cooked up a massive feast for us and throughly spoiled me with a 3 course meal and Mrs S had purchased me all sorts of tablets to help fix my voice and Lenke was making me all sorts of special brews of teas. But to top it off we headed back into Prague at night to go and watch a one hour fountain show with lights and music. It was really well done with the fountains choreographed perfectly with the music. Just stunning!! Such a lovely treat and with all the rain, which had thankfully stopped, there was not much of a crowd gathered and it felt like we had the place to ourselves.
I collapsed into bed that night and slept so soundly knowing that today would be a big day with more sightseeing and spending the evening with Lenkes parents int heir house.
True to form Lenke and I headed back into town to go and see the Jewish Synagogue, the oldest in Europe. Alas our plans fell apart when the synagogue was closed for the holiday weekend. SO we trapsed around in the rain through old town. We climbed this beautiful old clock tower to get a higher view of the old town of Prague. Lenke was a very good tour guide, translatting plagues, incriptions and telling me all the stories behind the buildings and monuments. Just Brilliant.
We headed over the river to go to a park that she normally takes her girls to. We went up the hill in a cable car, amd were going to climb a tower but with all the low cloud we would not have seen a thing but mist. Instead we went to a building that had a maze of mirrors and had a ball. Me being the biggest child of them all loved it. We walked back down the hill to a fairy gallery that a local artst has which he had dedicated to his imaginery fairy kingdom, very creative and different. By the end of our visit though I was pretty weary, the rain was heavier and the day was getting on so we went back to Lenkes apartment. I was treated to a czech meal of Goulash, potatoes and more tea, yum!!
We headed out to Lenkes parents house and by the time we arrived the sun was coming out for brief periods of time and the countryside looked so beautiful and GREEN!! Here Mrs S treated me to a massive meal of roast pork with stuffing, mash potatoes and vegies and the most beautiful lemon merangue type of cake. Fabulous!! They also showed me around their house which their Grandfather had owned and that Lenke`s father had grown up in. very cute and they showed me how the house was heated by coal, very interesting as I had never seen this before.
For further entertainment Lenka and her Father brought out their guitar and sand both Czech and English songs. This was gorgeous and it was lovely to see how they enetertained themselves during the cold winter months. Word on the street Eva is that you have the best voice in the family, why have you been hiding it from us??
So it has been a long wet day but I have seen lots of things that your average visitor to Prague never gets to see and the Spatenkova family has been so kind to have me to stay and to share a piece of their lifestyle with me. I am honestly touched as to how generous they have been to me and so patient as Lenke is the only translator we have so she is constantly translating Czech into English and vice versa!! How she does I don`t know!!
Tomorrow I fly out for Edinburgh which is going to be 1 degree warmer than Prague, woo hoo people I going back into double figures!!
Till next time friends ciao xoxo
Well in case you have been all wondering why I have been so long in updating you in my adventures here is what has been involved since I left Prague.
I arrived in Edinburgh at 11pm on saturday night from Prague after sitting in the airport for 4 hours waiting for my late connecting flight, why does every Brittish flight run late?
Anyway Edinburgh wasn`t t too cold I guess I was only wearing 2 jumpers and a t-shirt while I waited for my night bus to my hostel to meet Kate. Well Kate and I had so much catching up, I had to tell her all my adventures over the past 12 days and she had to fill me in on life in edinburgh the houses she had seen as well who was who in the hostel where she had been staying! We sat up drinking beers till about 3 am, but we covered most of the goss and had to look at a house at 10am.
So our house hunting started on sunday with a viewing into a shared flat in the notorious council flat area of edinburgh, actually it was where they filmed Trainspotting, so you should be able to get the image quite quicikly grey building, grey pavement, grey sky and lot of little brats running around spray painting things and burning stuff. We waited half an hour for the land lord and looked in the place. While the room was fine, we could fit 2 single beds in it the rest of the house was tiny and could not hold 4 adults, tiny kitchen with only a beer fridge to hold the food and a lounge room which was a plus as a number of flats in Edinburgh don`t have living rooms. Something Kate and I agreed on was essential if we were going to share a room!! So without even discussing we turned that place down. To comfort the fact that after 24 hours in edinburgh we still didn`t have a house I bought some boots instead, yay 2nd pair of European shoes! After doing a quick grocery shop we headed back to the hostel where when walking into recption I ran into a former Colleague from NT DPIFM Amanda Bell. Amanda had left August last year to do the travel thing as well and last I knew she was in London. You can imagine how shocked we both were to see a familar face from Alice. A real bonus either way.
Monday I tried to get a letter from the hostel staff stating that I was residing at the address listed. Well I waited on the manager all day and finally I got one but not until the end of the day. The reason I needed such a letter was to open a bank account.
Tuesday open bank account day and print off CVs to hand out to bars. Printed out CVs tried to open a bank account but failed as they told em it would take 4 - 6 weeks to open one, I ca`t wait that long because you need a UK bank account to start work. Oh yes the joys of UK beauracracy!! So I failed on the account but figured I might check out a couple of places that were advertising for staff and see if I wanted to work there. On the way got hungry bought a sandwhich and some how managed to loose all my paperwork!! Yes it is true i have contracted a mild guess of vagueness, some would say it is a permanent condition, but I am willing to debate this point!!
So got on the bus home with some fellow travellers feeling damn right useless and that I had completely wasted a day!! Oh well as Scarlett O`Hara says I`ll think about that tomorrow!
So tomorrow came and with a new letter of residancy I marched back to the banks. I was turned down by one because I needed a letter of employment, great need a bank account to get a flippin job!! Thanks for your help boys!! Turns out HSBC does a passport account which I opened in about 20 minutes and then marched off to drop off CVs to bars. Then I also went to a recruitment agency for Hospitality work, turns out they are actually a temp agency and within 2 hours I was inducted into their system and was starting work the following morning at Edinburgh council serving Bacon and Egg rolls at the canteen. Yay bring on the tuckshop lady arms!!
So I raced out and bought some cheap shoes, black pants and a white shirt ready to start the next day. Well I have worked their the last 2 days and they have been really friendly and helpful. I thought I was doing a kick arse job at serving my bacon and egg rolls, turning on the charm big time but they staff liked me mainly because I spoke english, most of the temps they get speak english but badly. Oh well I shouldn`t get above myself I guess!! Anyway I have more work tonight and all of next week as well, so thats good, making money is always good.
On the housing fron tKate and I are in good spirits, last night we saw two houses both of which are really nice. Now we just need to win over the housemates so they will let us move in! Fingers crossed could be a bit much to hope for that we will will have a house and me a job all in the same week! Kate is still deciding as to what sort of job she wants, I have told her thats fine I`ll be the bread winner and she is in charge of finding us a house. Bit worried as she started to think about buying a house in Brisbane, do most backpackers do that? Thankfully it was sold already!!
Ok I hope you are all well, Harmony and Elle thank you for the news updates. Again Gilly thanks for the reference!!
I will be in touch with further updates and photos soon I promise!!
So gang since last week I have had a pretty full on week. I learnt how to make coffees (no mean feat for me as I don`t drink coffee), moved out of the hostel into a cool flat with an irishman and scotswoman (Pete I am living just off leith walk, so am 25 minutes walking distance from the middle of Edinburgh), swore at the assistant chef and have applied for another job with THE foody shop, cafe and resteraunt in edinburgh. I also managed to break one of the keys for the flat withing 24 hours of receiving it and so now have a good relationship witht he local key cutter. Checked out an american folk singer in a cute little pub around the corner from where I now live. As Neil my housemate (the irishman) is in a band I have decided to learn the guitar. My G cord is awesome, but I may have to cut my fingernails to get the rest of the cords!
As Kate and I have been sharing a bed we have decided to become like all old married couples and get seperate beds. We bought some cheap single beds from a local thrifty shop for a steal in prices. Am now hooked on op shopping it is so my cheaper than the high street and the clothes are far more entertaining. Our housemates are planning an 80s party at the end of the month and as you can imagine I am feeling inspired!!
The week is also looking promising. I have another weeks work with the Edinburgh City Council working in the cafe. It certainly has been an experience working with scottish people. My ear has certainly become atuned to the accent but also to the whinging. Honestly if my colleagues aren`t complaining about how hard they work when it is busy they then complain about the management or their colleagues. So depressing, come on people the weather is bad enough without trying to make life completely miserable. Honestly I don`t understand their complaints, they get free meals and ge paid, they don`t work long hours and generally the customers don`t complain so really how bad can it be!! As you can imagine my constance optimism drives them nuts so I make sure I crank it up another notch once the whinging kicks in about sore feet, or the time of day etc!! Such a patient colleague I am!!
So while my dreams of pouring beers in a dark dingy pub have not turned out that way I thought am rather enjoying working in the cafe and at this stage am not sure whether I will even ever end up working in a bar.
Kate is showing promise at getting work, she did 3 hours babysitting this week and even went for a job interview with a walking tours company who do tours. Kate is just deciding whether she wants to do that type of work. She really is becoming very accostummed to the unemployed lifestyle. I think it is brilliant because Kate does all the jobs I don`t have time for cooking, shopping, cleaning and organising beds, computers, houses etc. Honestly it is the closest I am ever going to get of having a house husband !!
So I guess I had better sign off for another week. No doubt my life will become I a little bit more normal but I will try to keep you all up to date. Pete Thank you so much for all the contact details, I have been thinking of your connection here and I think there would be plenty of work in the local ag department if you wanted espcially with the local foot and mouth outbreak. And I have also fallen in love with this great cooking and camping show where this couple travel around the UK hunting and cooking all the wild foods. Really cool, I now know some great recipes for rabbits!!
Miss Jo Rodney what is this news about planning weddings ?? Is there an announcement I missed???? Should we be broadcasting this to all the heartbroken Alice Springs men????
Keep the news coming guys, I am thinking of you all often. I will be in touch.
Apologies to you all for leaving it 2 weeks to write another journal entry. I didn`t think my life was that exciting to tell you all about but thinking back over the last 2 weeks I have not been resting on my laurels.
I did another 2 weeks of work at the edinburgh city council cafe and canteen. The 6:30am rises started to really eat at me as well as the rather chilly mornings that I walked to work in anywhere between 0 - 5 degrees celcius. I now have a very nice pair of leather gloves lined with Cahsmere, thank you Marks and Spencers!! Just saving up to buy a good coat.
I have started my new full time job at Valvona & Crolla`s resteraunt Vincaffe as a waitress. Yes can you believe it, me learning to waitress at 27!! I still honestly can`t believe that only a few months ago I was working in cattle yards in the Alice Springs Region either covered in dust or pooh or both and now swan around carrying three plates, referring to all my customers as either sir, gentleman, ladies or Madam. Then again I did like calling cows ladies, so I guess it isn`t that much of a stretch!!
The resteraunt I work in is very flash and I feel a bit pressured to act like the surroundings, so I try to speak softly and nicely to everyone, I wear make up every day. I am working on trying to loose my clutzy ways though as so far I have broken 1 wine glass, 1 vase and stuffed up a couple of orders and I have only worked 4 shifts!! Surely things will get better right.
All work and no play can be very dull so 2 friday nights ago Kate and I went on a pub crawl along Edinburgh`s Golden Mile. You might remember that Kate had applied for a job with a walking tours company, well they also do pub crawls on certain nights, so as part of Kates training she needs to go on one of these tours. I was very excited to finally be hitting the pub scene in Edinburgh (which as it turns out is the home of Bucks and Hens nights). We had a great night and the manager of the tours was also on the crawl so he was buying Kate and I Whiskey, as Kate doesn`t drink whiskey I drank hers. Problem was I don`t drink whiskey either, but thanks to my new budget I don`t turn down free drinks, well free anything to be honest!!
We had a great night and made plenty of friends, got kicked out of one night club and I generally got lost as we changed pubs, bars and clubs so often. In the end we found a pub we liked and let the group go as we were having too much fun. We eventually made it home in our first black cab ride home, how brittish of us!!
The following night was the Rugby World Cup Final and Kate and I went to meet out housemate Rachel at Edinburgh`s local Walkabout. It was absolutely packed to the rafters with Saffas and there was a splattering of English. It took me 15 minutes to get a drink. My greatest satisfaction of the entire evening, apart from watching one english supporter being thrwon out of the pub, was the look on Johny Wilkinson`s face when they had finally lost the game!! It was brilliant!! Alas I am now a nanna and can`t back up the following night so I left Kate and Rachel too it. I was also supposed to meet Alanna Edwards who used to live in Bourke but now is in Edinburgh, but honestly I was stuffed and had to go. So I was in bed by 11pm.
So last week I worked in the cafe 7:30am - 4:30pm. I ended up getting extra hours as one of my ladies whom I work with, while supporting the Aberdeen football/soccer team, got so excited when they kicked a goal that she jumped to run forward and forgot there were seats in front of her and twisted her knee. Och, but kind of funny right!!
But not satisfied with that I accepted working a night shift at the resteraunt on monday night, finished at midnight, got to bed 1am, up at 6:30am the following morning to go make Lattes for the council workers. I also worked this saturday and sunday just gone. Today is my 1st day off in a week and I am loving it.
Saturday night out housemate Neil had a combined Birthday party with two of his friends. So we had a few people over and Kate and I invited a friend each. Kate`s little sister`s best friend lives in Edinburgh so she came along as well as my Bourke friend Alanna. So we had a little Aussie invansion on the night. It was great to compare notes on each others travels as well as experiences so far with the scottish.
Once festivities had reached their peak here, Kate, Christie and Myself went with Alanna to gate crash a Halloween party. It was the best Halloween party I have ever been too. All the walls were covered in black, there were cobwebs every where and everyone was dressed up. I felt like such a dissapointment as I was dressed normally. But it was fun and the party was filled with Kiwis and Aussies so the drunken dribble was easy to translate!!
What I have really enjoyed about living in Edinburgh is I have had an oppportunity to really get to know the scottish people and their lifestyle. Unlike some of the people i mer in London who worked in Aussie pubs, lived with Aussies or kiwis and partyed with them. I mean thats no fun right, I am here to experience a different culture.
The scottish culture while obvisouly being passionate about football their other passion is Scotland. The men wear kilts to weddings, the bagpipes are played by the buskers and even the buses are proud to be scottish with the bus seats covered in tartan. Though there does seem to be some interesting behavious for example, if you plan to pop out to have a beer at the local pub just check how old you are first, even though it is legal to drink at 18 some pubs will only let in those over 21. The best scene I saw was on a sunday afternoon, about 6 40 year old battlers standing out the front of the pub smoking (you can`t smoke in any UK pub or resteraunt - yay!!) with a big sign saying `strictly only over 21s permitted`. Even if you were under 21 you wouldn`t want to go in there, you certainly wouldn`t need a sign to say you weren`t welcome.
While slamming those ocka Aussies living here, Kate and I have still been getting some cravings for home. Kate got her first `care package` of Tim Tams, vegemite and Chicken Crimpies. My 1st one hopefully will arrive this week of Billy Tea and hopefully my joggers so I can get back into running. We have also found an asian store that sells Milo, have really been missing my warm milk milos before I go to bed.
Kate and I would still like to call Australia home with the following items,
So if any of you feel inspired care packages will be gratefully received at -
36/11 Halmyre Street
Edinburgh EH6 8QD
UK
Postcards are also very welcome, we miss the Aussie landscape and wide open spaces. Our lounge room window looks onto another lot of flats and at night we can look into other peoples loungerooms. Really weird for me, espcially as I haven`t live near neighbours for what 4 years!!
By the way I have a new UK Mobile my number is 07504 481 770 (you will need the country code and to diall 0011 before calling or texting me!!). Once I know my house number i will let you know.
Guitar practice has been slow, but will pick up as I have my nails, watch out world!! ok really I will sign off but hope you are all well and that life is being good to you. Till next time, Ciao.
Again my apologies for leaving it so long to recap on my adventures, or lack their of them as I have been laying low and working hard. I had a bit of a crappy week, 10 days ago my dog lost an eye, I got homesick missing the people and places I have left back in Oz and generally having a chaotic week at week (christmas shopping has started and everyone wants to have a coffee to get them through it!!). Anyway what better way to chear yourself up then to treat yourself to a weekend away. So with the help of Allie & Jillian`s emergency fund (I get paid this week after 6 weeks of working for my new cafe) Kate and I went to visit Brooke in Dublin.
We chose Dublin after playing Ryanair roulette from Edinburgh. It only cost £0.01 to fly from Edinburgh to Dublin plus taxes but it was the cheapest deal so that was pretty cool.
So after I finished work I fairly skipped home to meet Kate, pack, shpwer and head off to the airport. We got into Dublin and it was a balmy 0 degrees when we landed. I say Balmy because it was bloody cold when we left Ed but it got colder when we arrived in Dublin. While trying to find Brooke on O`Connell Street by the giant pole in the street (just got off the bus which was filled with polish people - so we had a chuckle about the giant pole!!) we nearly froze to death. Zero degrees and a northerly wind that I swear was coming straight off the artic. Kate and I vowed at this point that this might be the weekend to invest in some winter coats. I have been cruising around in my thin woolen jumpers and cotton hoody, which are fine combined together for cold weather but not for cold, windy weather!!
We finally found Brooke who has completely camoflaged herself in with the irish. Wearing boots, a funky coat and cap, we weren`t quite sure that this super trendy look lassy was our friend, surely not the same one who was flopping around in her thongs, sarong and Bikini on the beaches of greece on a few months ago? We certainly are alot whiter now.
Brooke took us for a quick tour through the streets of Dublin and Temple bar explaining all the pubs and how the pubs are always htis packed with people any day of the week. Gorgeous pubs (filled to the rafters) all painted in bold reds, blues, green and gold - real picture postcard stuff - didn`t think to take a photo though!!
After our brisk tour in the rather brisk weather we headed back to Brookes House in the south of Dublin where a bottle of wine was produced and much gossiping and comparing of notes on getting houses, jobs and tax file numbers in our respective locations took place. Before you could say `Sally are you asleep on the couch?` it was 4:30am and we needed to get to bed espcially Kate. Who had only had 4 hours sleep the night before as she had stayed out to 3 am watching our housemate perform at a local pub gig. I went home at 1am, knowing I had to spend friday being nice to people all day.
So we rose from our slumber at midday to hit the shops of dublin. After a quick passing through Grafton Street - the Pitt street Mall of Dublin, we went for a pub lunch in Temple bar. It was brilliant and we all enjoyed it as none of us have been able to afford eating out since we have started working. We then headed to Pennies the super cheap clothes store to buy some winter clothes. 80 euros later I walked out with a winter coat, 2 jumpers, 9 pairs of earings, 3 headbands and a winter hat. I subsequently lost the winter hat on my way through Dublin Aiprort Secirity. Seems to be typical to my form!!
We returned home via Grafton street in the pitch dark (it was 5pm) but the street was lit up with all their christmas lights and it really looked like magic. To be honest though Edinburgh does look prettier as the princes gardens are all lit up, the ferris wheel is in place, the ice skating rink is built and the german stall holders are doing a roaring trade. It really is starting to feel like christmas, would be nice to have some snow though!!
We made it home, made dinner, drank some cheap red wine, watched some trashy UK television shows like X factor and I`m a celebrity get me out of here (filmed on the gold coast), so jealous of the tropical weather!! Then at 11pm we headed out to meet some of Brookes frineds in temple bar. We watched a kick arse Irish band, drank and denced the night away. Did a bit of bar hopping before standing out the front of the Irish Bank waiting for a cab.All the bars shut at 3 am but some how we ended up in bed at 4am, not sure where the time went...........
Sunday again we rolled out of bed at midday and dragged ourselves back into town for we were on a mission. The only thing I had wanted to do when I got to Dublin was to go to the Guisness Brewery where the original Guiness was brewed. So we walked 20 minutes out of town through some rather dodgy streets to the factory, but as I kept telling the girls it`s cool my sister lived near to here and even though she said yes she used to see people shooting up in the streets she never had any trouble.
The factory was brilliant!! Really interactive learnt about how guiness gets its dark colour, the grain is roasted before it is brewed, tastes a little like coffee. We got to taste some guiness and climbed up to the 7th floor to enjoy our free pint of guiness in the bar which is surrounded by glass and overlooks all of Ireland. We sat back and watched the light leave the Irish sky and the street lights light up at 4pm. It was a fabulous way to wind up our brief Irish weekend. I really do have to make sire that I get back there again because there is still so much to do and I would love to get out of the city and see some of the country side. Though i keep saying that about scotland to and I still haven`t done it yet either!!
Kate and I got back to our little flat late sunday night, though tired we were both quite refreshed and ready to face the coming 4 weeks before christmas which will see us both working like dogs, to make the most of the hours that we can get.
I hope you are all enjoying the lead up to christmas and are making the most of those lovely warm nights and having BBQs, inviting friends round and making plans for the holidays. Trust me I miss that so much and am living through you all vicarisouly!!!
I will make sure I do another blog about Christmas in Edinburgh for you all when I get to the ice skating rink (will be entertaining as I can`t skate) and hopefully if there is any snow!!
Sending you all my best wishes that you are well, happy and having fun
Luv Sally
xoxo
A very Belated Merry Christmas to all of you but as it is snowing and i don`t have to be at work for another 4 hours I thought I would update you all on how I celebrated the festive season.
Christmas actually started off tragically with my housemate having to rush back to Northern Ireland to be by the bedside of his father while he passed away from a long battle with cancer. Also I received news that my 3rd cousin Jeremy was killed in an Ultralite accident, while mustering some cattle on a property in the wanaaring district.
So with such sad news all round I was in need of some cheering up. Thankfully we had a house full of visitors for about two weeks. Our first guest was Kate`s cousin Keith who arrived from Afghanistan via brussels and Paris. Within 3 hours of Keith leaving Brooke arrived from Dublin with Bronchitis, so she wasn`t up for playing much until she got better. I was relieved as work was mananic leading up to Christmas abd I just kept coming back from work sick of people and very tired. So I wasn`t alot of fun either. Thankfully Kate had quit her cheese delivering job and was able to entertain Brooke but also stock up on the supplies that we would need for Christmas lunch.
Christmas eve was celebrated in our lounge room with a breaking out of the Aussie supplies - pizza shapes all round thanks Elle! After looking up our favourite christmas carols on you tube we all rolled into bed, to rest and get ready for santa. Not that we got much sleep with all three of our mobiles going off all hours of the night with calls and messages from Australia. I eventually gave up on my sleep in and got up at 8am to call the family at my G`mas in Dubbo. The girls weren`t far behind me and after a few phone calls we were seated around the Christmas tree laddened with presents.
Before the present opening Brooke and Kate dissapeared into the bedroom to surprise me with the first of their Christmas presents. Out appeared what can only be described as the human equivalent of Teletubbies. Kate and Brooke were dressed in matching Velour Tracksuits and presented me with my own. Unfortunately I wasn`t as enthusiastic about them as they were - in hindsight I was lacking in Christmas spirit due to the development of a cold and a good smack of homesickness. But bless them they were very excited - borderline ADD. For Kate`s Next surprise brooke and I had to leave the Christmas Tree while Kate created the snow that we needed for the white Christmas that we wanted. What she produced white styrofoam packing that she took from work and covered the hallway in it. The plastic reacked of plastic and lord knows how any of us didn`t asfixiate I will never know.
The present opening commenced shortly after alot of photo taking of brooke and kate in the snow, the snow fights and me hiding from the snow. The plastic smell was not helping the headache that my lovely cold had decided to give me! Needless to say I did very well for presents with a woolen beanie from Mum and Dad, Earings and Cds from my sister, a wind up torch from my Aunty, A cookbook from Kate, A passport holder from Brooke and a squeeky toy from my Grandmother. But the tears sprung from my face with my horses and dogs having wrapped me a present that was a calendar with Ormiston Gorge on the front cover - Whamoo the homesickness hit me!!
Well the cds went on and I headed for the kitchen to whip up the 3 course Christmas lunch we would have. The menu included:
Entree - Pumpkin and Parmesan soup
Main - Roast Pork, Chricken and vegies accompanied with Honey Almond Carrots and beans
Desert - Home made Apple Pie, Lemon Tart and Kate`s Trifle
It was massive and we only dipped out toes into desert but as we were suitably stuffed we rolled ourselves back into the lounge room to watch the DVD that Kate got sent `Summer Heights High`. It was brilliant and we were all laughing and sleeping in no time. It was just what the doctor ordered for some weary and homesick Australians.
I had to work Boxing Day which wasn`t too bad as I was able to go and get some Cold and Flu tablets from the Pharmistist which took care of my headache and runny nose. But I was buoyed by the arrival of my old friend Jo and Her husband from San Fransisco. I fairly ran from work to meet them at the airport bus stop. Poor things after 20 hours of flying they arrived to cold temperatures and having to climb up the stairs with all their luggage. But I tucked them into Neil`s room and with some cold beers, Aussie snacks we had them in a relaxed state of mine. I was feeling a hell of a lot better at the thought that I had 2 days off and with my Grandma`s present of a hire car for 2 days a roadtrip to find nessie, Archie and Braveheart - plus any other scottish cliches I could think of.
So we all went to bed happy in the thought that there were more adventures ahead...........
I woke up early on Thursday to go walk to Thrifty car hire to pick up my hire car. I was a little bit nervous as I hadn`t driven in 4 months and last time it was quite tense as it was on the other side of the road. But after going through all the mounds of paperwork, I was as right as rain as soon as I sat in the car. I felt completely at home - no wonder as it was GM car and was somewhat similar to my own commodore `Des`.
I got back to our apartment to pack my bags and round up the troops ready for the roadtrip. I had also packed Aussie Chips, choclates, 3 bottles of red and scottish guide books. Unfortunately Kate and Brooke chose not to come with a whole host of useless excuses ranging from the car is to small to you guys should spend some time together. The real reason, Brooke had discovered that you can watch Grey`s Anatomy on line and they were only half way through season 2 with season 3 still to go. They did not go anywhere and on the first night stayed up till 4am.
Jo, JJ and myself instead jumped into the car and headed north for Inverness. Instead driving west to go to Stirling. And boy were we glad we did, it was a pretty little town and Stirling Castle was great to wander around. Very formal and falling apart but still interesting. The view from the castle of the William Wallace monument (just picture us standing on the side of the castle yelling they may take our lives but they will never take our freedom!!) was breath taking. Just amazing and a truly Scottish experience.
So after a quick bite to eat in a cozy little pub, with plenty of chips it was time for us to hit the road for Inverness. It was great poor JJ never got a word in as Jo and I chatted away, we had a lot of news to catch up on. Before we knew it was dark at 4pm and we were still 100 miles from Inverness. We puched on a little bit further until eventually I called in quits driving in the dark on roads I am not familar with eben though there aren`t Kangaroos here I still have that feeling that something could jump out at me - thankfully I was correct as there are alot more Deer in the higlands.
So we pulled off in some little town called Newtonmore, close to Glengussie. We checked into a little B`n`B with the Husband being more than happy to accomodate us but the wife not so!! Anyway we escaped and headed for the pub where we drank way too much red wine (Jo and I drank 2 bottles each) and sang along with the band. We wobbled our way home to the B`n`B but alas I felt a but crook and unfortunately I was a bit sick, slightly embarrasing but otherwise ok.
During the evening we discovered that we were staying in one of the villages where Monarch of the Glen was filmed. Alas the closest we got to seeing Archie was a few photos on the pub wall but that was ok.
The next day and we all woke up the worse for wear. Except for JJ who was hungry and wanted breakfast. Jo and I were still unsure as to whether we could hold anything down and I was pretty certain that I couldn`t. So to help the situation and the fact that I had to drive us around scotland all day I needed Ginger beer. Guess what it took 4 stores until I could find any and JJ 3 villages before we could find a place that did take away coffee.
We found coffee in cute little village called Carrbridge. Famous for its bridge that is 400 years old. It was 3 degrees at 11am and as we spoke the road was icing over. My rule was that I would be happy to drive as long as there was no ice. Well we found Ice in Aviemore, it got down to 0.5 degrees and everything was covered in ice, not snow Ice. It was white and the grampian mountains even looked blue. Truly amazing, as we drove another 5 miles and there was no longer Ice and instead there was a rainbow and beautiful fields.This would just become the theme of theday 6 different forms of weather in one day. We had ice, sun, fog, rain, wind, wind rain and fog all at once.But still amazing.
We drove on and arrived in Inverness, we didn`t stop as we wanted to get to Loch ness to find Nessie. We got to the Loch but alas with all the fog it was hard to see Nessie. Jo and I even fentured down to the water side to see how cold the water was - we wanted to test the theory that the water would be warmer than the air - wrong it was still very cold.
Our next stop was Urchurquat Catle, a gorgeous little castl by Loch Ness - unfortunately in ruins but still amazing. We took some photos and then planned the remainder of the trip we would drive down to Fort William which is on the West coast of scotland. We then headed across to Perth and got back on the A9 to head down to Edinburgh. Though it was inly like 150 miles it ook us all afternoon. The road was very windy around the lochs and through the scottish countryside and higlands. We drove past one recent headon where they were still trying to cut the vistims out of there cars. I watched my speed alot more after that.
I wish I could describe to you my favourite bits of the roadtrip. But there was this country that we passed through after Fort William. It was covered in Heather and it was wild. There didn`t appear to be any agriculture there was grey rocks, over flowing waterfalls and this amazinf valley that we drove through that you could see had been carved out by some amazing Glacier. Truly stunning anf made even more beautiful by the rain, mist and fog that was covering bits and pieces of it. I think we I return back to Australia and I want to think of Scotland that is what I will see in my mind. Alas I have no pictures of it, but due to its size I don`t think I could get a good photos of it.
It wasn`t long after this part of the trip that it went dark and we all just wanted to be back home. We got back to Edinburgh about 5 pm, dropped off the car and then walked back home. On the way back I showed Jo and JJ where I worked and we found a fab Thai resteraunt to have dinner at.
We all collapsed into bed with me making plans for work, Jo and JJ off to do the touristy bits of Edinburgh and Kate and Brooke to go shopping. The next big event that we were all getting excited for was Hogmany and the NYE street party.
With work giving me 2 days off in a row I had to pay the price and work NYE day. To top if off it was just me and the boys in cafe which is fun but a little bit trying as the boys aren`t as on the ball as the girls and the place always ends up a little bit more messier. To top it all off I had one customer yelling at me because she didn`t get to sit where she wanted to. Honestly as Mum and I were saying the silly season just makes people grow horns and become little devils thinking they can treat people anyway they like. So needless to say I finished work in a very foul mood and fairly stormed out of work, wishing all a happy NYE. I cheered myself up though on the walk home reminding myself that it wasn`t every day that i had a house full of my favourite people and that I would have to make the most of the night as it really would be one of a kind.
So to strengthen me I called into tescos and bought a bottle of vodka. Thank goodness the UK is similar to the US where you can buy your alchol and groceries all at the same time - very civillised. Alas finding cans if red bull proved to be hard, stocks were running low as people were stocking up to take their alcohol up to the street party.
I got home to find Allana, Kate, Brooke, JJ and Jo all seated in the lounge room enjoying some beers and laughing away. What a welcome home. I sat myself down and poured myself a berroca first. After downing that I then poured myself a tequila that Jo and JJ had brought across from California - it is so good that I just drink it neat - no need to shot it just to sip it slowly.
I then poured myself numerous more and then went and had a bath to come down from a busy day at work and to start the preening session before heading out on the town for NYE.
9:30am came round and we strapped on our wristbands that acted as tickets and headed up to Princess street for the party. Everyone was in such a brilliant mood, I didn`t see one fight, well it same close to it though with some que jumpers in a the wrong lines at the port a loos.
The fire works at midnight were spectactcular, we all easily forgot that we were standing in the rain watching them. We danced to the bagpies playing `ole Angsaye` and hugged each other.
Jo and JJ headed home as they had to get up at 5am to catch their flight back to california. The girls were slightly seperated but were all reunited at the `Walkie` where after a drink or two we then headed onto Rachel - my housemate`s pub Finnigans. The reason for this is that one of Rachel`s friends is a bouncer on the door and he let us in ahead of 40 other people lined up outside. Its not what you know its who you know!! They had an awesome band playing and before we knew it we were kicked out at 3am. Didn`t get home till 4am as getting a cab was useless so we walked most of the way home from the Royal Mile before accosting some drunks queens who had just managed to hail a cab and were headed in the Leith direction as well.
We collapsed in bed but not for long as the phones continued to ring and bleep away with texts and phonecalls from everywhere wishing us all a very happy new year.
With such a fantastic kick start to the year, I think I`m in for a brilliant year and am holding course for making sure that I continue to have plenty more fun. By the sounds of the news coming from home it is sounding similar plenty of rain and the safe arrival of babies (Congratulation Bridget and Brod) (Thinking of you Jacqui and Craig, Jayne and Ian, James and Danielle while you are all waiting). I hope you all have a fabulous year filled with good times, good fortunes, plenty of laughter and creating some marvelous memories - Love me xoxo
After coming down from the high that was Christmas and New years the silence that was in the house after all our houseguests left was aweful. I was bracing myself for a rather dark, cold and depressing month ahead.
How wrong I was. Neil returned from Northern Ireland on the 1st weekend in Jan, to find all us girls out helping Rachel to celebrate her 20th Birthday at one of the two local Irish pubs. My stamina was severely hampered by the delightful germs that Brooke had brought across from Ireland. A wonderful deep barking cough and general cold. Of course at the time I didn`t think I was sick but in hindsight I was quite run down and really should have taken some time off work but alas my company does not believe in paid sick leave and hell I need to work as much as I can.
Rachels celebrations passed and the following weekend we had a heap of Neils friends around for some food and drinks before heading out to watch Neil`s Band play. I had every intention of going and after showering and changing out of my work clothes, I just had to lay down on my bed for a little while. Before i knew it i woke up to find the entire house empty and that I had missed the entire party. I went back to bed and spent the rest of the weekend on the couch - trying to shake my cold/cough. This worked and I am finally back in good working order and was fully prepared for the week ahead that would be my birthday.
As some of you may be aware I refer to my birthday as the international Day of Sally, a day of festivities namely by me. This year though I chose to make my birthday a festival. Celebrations kicked off at 2pm Thursday afternoon when i calculated that in Australia it was midnight and as such my Australian Birthday had started. My Australian Birthday saw me treat myself to a rather potent Margeritta from Work and thankfully my colleagues indulged me by making it frightfully strong. This put me in a good frame of mind to go and purchase a Eurotrash dress. A dress so tight, so short and low cut that I decided that I shouldn`t eat for most of the day to ensure that I didn`t scare to many of my guests!!
Thats right this year for my Birthday party the theme was Eurotrash with a touch of gold. It had been planned back when Brooke, Kate and I were in Greece. We saw so many trashy russians, eastern europeans etc dressed so badly that we felt we just had to have a party of the same standard.
My birthday was on a friday and unfortunately I had to work. So I was up at 7am with Kate quitely moaning happy birthday to me. Work gave me a bottle of Prosecco for my birthday, Italian Champagne, I didn`t have the heart to tell them that I don`t drink champagne. I got home that evening, fell asleep on the couch and Kate went to go meet Brooke at the airport. Thankfully by the time brooke arrived I had revived myself and was busily getting to work on the party decorations - lots and lots of gold stars. SO at 11:30pm on my birthday I opened my presents from Jo and JJ, Trudie, Kate, Brooke and Neil. In all a good haul of handbags, t-shirts, books, lipstick, cds and practical things like socks, umbrellas and towels. Kate then brought out my Kate - the first one I haven`t made in about 6 years, choclate cupcakes stacked high with chocolate icing. I think Kate has been taking tips from her cake designing sister Sarah.
After much gossiping amoungst us girls we finally got to bed at like 2am. I was very pumped for my birthday weekend as I had the weekend off - a very rare event as saturday is our busiests day and in the past 3 months I have only had 2 off!! So I spent saturday getting ready for my swoire getting and preparing food. Decorating the house and hooking up my Ipod to the house speakers.
Drinks were poured at 5pm and by 9pm our first Guests arrived to find us well on the way with the celebrations but so were they and the party rocked on. All my guests arrived in dress ups with only one person being penalised for not making a big effort. She had to shoot whiskey. I did have some dress up items already prepared in a silver coloured box. they included some gold hair, mega gold earings and leopard print G-strings for the fellas that actually growled when you pushed the button!! Still most of them were worn at some point by the party goers - bless their little socks.
I eventually fell asleep on the lounge room floor at 3am, missing my housemate Neil and his best mate Nick stripping off their shirts to do a reactment of James Blunts `your beautifull`.Thankfully we have photos to suitablly shame them. Again I woke up in the lounge room at 6:30am to find I had missed the rest of the party and after casting my eye over the split red wine on the capret, the half drunk drinks, the gold glitter everywhere - i thought it was best to actually go to my own room and pray that some cleaning fairy would tidy up the lounge room for me.
Amazingly she did appear - Brooke got in and tidy up tje loungeroom and washed all the dishes. Leaving me to vacuum the lounge room and Kate to clean the bathroom. Only to discover that some one had vomited in there and then tried to clean it up, badly. We still are not sure who it was, a true mysterey. Brooke unfortunately had to return back to her real life in Dublin though we are really trying to get her to move here to Edinburgh but she has some visa issues to overcome first.
Australia Day was not celebrated in my usual style. Kate and I did go down to our local bar which is run by an Aussie hick from Grafton and sank down a couple of tasty little creatures beers. Kate was heading over to Dublin the following day to help Brooke celebrated. After our beers Kate and I returned to find out who was Australian of the Year - Lee Kernagen - what tha??? Find out the results from the Tamworth Country Music Festival - you were robbed Harmony!! But I bet performing in front of all the Country Music Elite must have been an amazing highlight.
The 25th Jan is also a very important night for the Scots, it is Burns night. This is when they celebrate their greatest poet Robert Burns by drinking copious amounts of whiskey, eating haggis and reading poetry.
Neils friends decided to host such an evening and as such dedicate it to him as he didn`t have a christmas this year and so we would have one for him. We did the whole secret Santa thing and all had to prepare a pice of poetry and a comedy piece. Kate, Rachel and I didn`t get the message about the comedy bit we had prepared our 5 line poems but no more and were scared like hell when we arrived at Elliots house to find a stage area set up and Nicolas MCing the evening. When it came to my turn I thought I would recount the story of my trip to find Elvis at Graceland in Memphis Tennesse and started to enjoying retelling my tales - at which point Kate yelled out `who gave Sally the spotlight?!?`. I cracked up as well as the audience and shortly after i wrapped up my yarn and poem. We dined on huge portions of haggis, which I have come to enjoy but I haven`t been able to enjoy the whiskey - honestly it is evil stuff. I certainly can`t drink it scottish style, neat with no ice so as not to dilute the alcohol!!
It is only 30 days now until winter has officially finished and the days are finally starting to lengthen (it now only gets dark at 4:30pm) and we even get some days where the temperature goes into double figures. It could still snow, it snowed briefly here last Thursday, so I know we are not out of the woods yet but the end is nigh. I am also starting to plan my next lot of backpacking. I plan to start with the ANZAC day service at Gallipoli before heading to Egypt and heading onto Russia via possibly Montenagro and Croatia and other such funny cheap eastern european countries, with funny languages currencies and writing.
Enough of my dribble for another month. Congratulations to Ian and Jayne on the safe arrival of Charlie. Congratualtions to Eva and Tony who are expecting their 2nd child in July, so lovely to hear that the Alice Springs population continues to grow!! I hope you are all well, soaked in rain and green grass leaping from the ground, with a cold beer in the warm evening and a lovely healthy tan on your faces!!
I would like to dedicate this Blog to Jim and Geoff who partied over the weekend in Perth at Jim`s 60th and harrased my mother with their only message being `Tell Sally to Bloody update her website!`. I am sorry that I missed out on your party Jim, sounds like it was a great weekend filled with alot of alcohol and ripper yarns - `never the let the truth get in the way of a great yarn`.
So it is official I have started the count down until I leave Edinburgh, repack Trudie`s Backpack and hit the road. The flights are booked for Turkey, Egypt and hopefully (if I get myself into gear) I will book a flight to Athens from Cairo. The new plan is to travel up the Northern Greek coastline and then catch a ferry across to Southern Italy. After that I have no idea - it will be choose your own adventure.
But I think I will be very ready for Italy since working in an Italian Resteraunt/Cafe - I know all the important items on the menu like Dolci (dessert), Birra (Beer), Pranzo (sandwhich) - occaisonaly I practice my 3 words of Italian (Ciao, Grazi and Prego) with my staff members but I think I may need to know some more........ah hell i never learnt any more than 3 in France, Germany, Spain, Portugal and Greece - and I couldn`t speak while I was in the czech republic thanks to Octoberfest.
So with time running out in Edinburgh I have a list of things that I want to see and do. Number one on the list was the ghost tour of Edinburgh. Brooke was visiting from Dublin so we went along on the walking tour. We couldn`t have picked a better night for it, it was only a couple of degrees above zero and it was thick fog. We met in the middle of old town, out the front of St Giles Cathedral where they buried thousands of people in mass graves after the 1600s plague. We then went onto the promenade out the front of the castle where they used to burn the witches. The fog got even thicker - we couldn`t even see the castle and it was only 100m in front of us. We then walked through the grass market where the hanging tree used to be and a tale was recounted to us of a woman called Molly who actually survived being hung.
The final end of this gory tour was a walk through Greyfriars graveyard. It was all exttremely creepy as our tour guide told us about how alot of the original graves had been resited to fit in a few extra thousand over the years, so much so that it has now affected the slope in the graveyard - as in there is now no slope thanks to the number of bodies. Apparantly after heavy rain the soil erodes away and a few bones poke up. Nothing I haven`t seen before I figured.
The scary bit was when we went into Macintyre`s Crypt where apparantly there is a very famous poltergist who likes to pick on woman, this spirit pushes, pulls, chokes, scratches and burns his/her`s victims. Apparantly if you stay in there longer than 10 minutes something will happen to you.........and thats when the student wearing a scary mask jumped out from around the corner screamed at us and ran on. Dad you would have loved it - we all screamed, freaked out and then laughed. Our guide explained to us the reason why they pay some one to jump out at you, apparantly to many people got too freaked out from the whole tour and never slept, so by making us have a laugh at ourselves we wouldn`t get to hung up on ghosts etc. I think it just adds to the value for money thing. Anyway it was a cracker of a night and we got plenty of creepy photos from within the graveyard - the weird thing was that both Kate and I`s cameras batteries ran out there but once we got to the pub around the corner we were back on full power........hooo hooo hoo!!
Kate and I have been meaning to Climb Arthurs Seat in Edinburgh since we first arrived. It is a mountain/hill/remnant volcano (help I need a geologist to define it) that is right in the middle of town and I find it quite reassurring that all though I am living in the heart of the city I can look out and see open country that isn`t a park or being built on. It even has the mysterious heather that Kate and I have been trying to identify since living in Scotland. Anyway we conned our housemate Rachel to act as our guide and to take us up Arthurs seat, she even took us to the remnents of an old chapel and showed us what the craggs were. We reached the top which had a great view. But the people fascinated us more, sure there was your a typical spanish tourists but there were also people with their days shopping and yes the sun did shine for a couple of hours that day but that does not make it warm so there is no need to wear just shorts and t-shirts. The wind was wild at the top as well, it hurt my ears and to take photos it was best to sit down so as not get blown over. There was a chinese tourist blown off it last year and he was killed.
With that in mind we decided to get off the seat and head back down but to go a different way. Kate was our leader in the descent and seemed to think that lack of experience in mountain climbing meant we could go down eroded gullies and gorges in the rock face. I did remind Kate and Rachel that yes I have fallen of a rockface before - while climbing down. I was started to get a bit concerned as the rock face was quite steep. Seems I wasn`t alone as next minute a voice from no where shouts `thats not a good idea` we all look up and around. Again the voice says `the way your going it is not a good way to go and is veyr steep`. We finally locate the voice - it is a older man yelling at us from the top of the seat. We laughed him off saying oh its ok we know what we`re doing - it just looks bad.` Then an american man standing on the proper pathway also yells out `yeah his right it isn`t a good idea`. Kate and Rachel shocked that anyone would tell them they couldn`t do something regrouped and started alot of pointing. I sat down and laughed because I couldn`t agree with the bystanders more. Eventually the three musketeers comprimised and we took the mountain goat approach and walked sideways across the hillside till we met the proper path and then took it down. Much much safer. No one died a good result I think even though Kate and Rachel call me a sissy!!
Last weekend Kate flew back to Australia to see her family after being away for 12 months and to attend a friends wedding. She promises me that she will return in 4 weeks - I am holding her to it. Anyway on the day that Kate left it was the first day of spring (we had galeforce winds and very heavy rain - delightful). It was fitting farewell for Kate who has returned to balmier weather and sunshine but it was a horrid welcome for my Canadian friend Courtney. Courtney arrived from London for the weekend. I knew courtney through Jo Rodney while she lived in Alice Springs for 6 months. I hadn`t seen her in 2 years and while we have stayed in touch via emails and facebook - it was great to see her in person. Unfortunately I had to work the first 2 days she was here but my wonderful housemates took her under their wing and took her to the pub and to watch Neil`s band play. Courtney and I made plans for my day off sunday.
We went to Edinburgh Castle somewhere I have been meaning to go for oh the last 4 months. We had a great time checking out the scottish crown jewels and the sacred stone of destiny (sounds like something out of Harry Potter - Philosphers Stone - gee JK Rowling really was imaginative!!). Anyway the stone of destiny is what each Scottish King had to sit on when he was crowned. Apparantly while ever the stone of destiny is in scotland, Scotland will be a free and independant country - bloody superstious lot. The stone went missing for 700 years when the English stole it after the 1300s long battle. During this time Queen Elizabeth beheaded Mary Queen of Scots etc. And here starts the giant chip on the scottich scholder about the English - warning don`t ever ask a passionate 25 yo scottish male why he doesn`t like being confused with being English - it is a very long and boring lecture you will receive. - but may be entertaining if you take the mickey out of them.
Enough with the asides, Courtney up until her visit here had never seen a castle before so we felt that it was important that we buy some souvenier cheap plastic crowns for us to hold our own coronation in the Kings Dining Hall. This was very entertaining while we had the room to ourselves, not so funny when 2 bus loads of tourists came through to find Courtney and I running around courtsying with crowns on our head - oh well it was great fun, eveyrone else was just a bit boring!!
With such a succesful day of sightseeing we headed out for dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe where we tucked into some great american/mexican ribs and Fajitas. Then I dragged Courtney off to my staff night out from work. We hung out with a couple of my friends that I have made from work - once alcohol was added it all became very entertaining. Normally if I have to work the next day, i try to get home at a reasonable hour like 1 or 2am instead in celebration of seeing Courtney we got home at 4am. Plus thanks to the Jaeger bombs I was having with her I only slept for 2 hours, then it was off to work - FYI I need more than 2 hours to be a nice and efficient Waitress/Maitre De. It was a very long 8 hour shift with me snapping at my colleagues and being very short with my customers, having issues balancing and also maintaining my hand eye coordination. Poor Courtney had to drag herself off to the airport to continue her adventures in the Republic of Ireland.
On the to do list before I go -
Till next time my friends - stayed tuned
xoxo
I just got off the phone with Mum and Dad and one thing really stuck in my head both of them had asked me `What have you been upt o, just work?`. This is generally my answer whenever they ask me about what has been going on and while most days being a waitress in an Italian Cafe is repititive and mindless, some funny stuff does occur. So I will recount for you the last 4 months of me working in Vincaffe.
The Regulars
Every cafe has them, to be honest we have a lot of them. There is the 25 yo guy who comes in every day wearing the same blue coat (I think he is like me, only owns one) who has a chocolate Muffin and Mocha - we call him Mocha and Muffin man.
There is the family of three who come in and have 6 lattes between them all. They come in EVERY day, I have not seen them miss a single day yet. I know their names, they know mine. Apparantly Richard was a commonwealth bowls champion.
There is the crazy Cappacino and Bombolini lady who comes in a whirl sits herself down and immediatly starts counting out the exact money (plus her 30 pence tip) for her same order. She makes me chuckle as on her last visit before christmas she treated herself to a cosmopolitian cocktail - no bombolini on the side. Oh I just realised you may not know what a bombolini is, it is a little sugared donut that has been fried in olive oil. Very addictive.
My favourite regular though is JK Rowling. She comes in every monday afternoon (except for when it is school holidays). Her order is either just a sparkling water if shes writing, A black coffee and a sandwhich if she is editing her writing. The first time she came in when I was on, I didn`t even realise who she was and 3 hours after she left one of the other staff told me who she was - I was completely shocked when I found out. Espcialy as I had been entertaining all the other staff wih my tales of adventure from the territory and Bourke. It was a very quiet day so my rather quiet voice carried easily across. Watch out for the next book if there is mention of some crazy waitress.
Saturdays
Saturdays are our busiest days in the cafe. I will generally be on Maitre D and am responsible for drafting up the customers, who is eating upstairs in our resteraunt, those who are just having coffee and where I will seat them. We have three different types of seats and all the customers want to sit in either one of our booth seats because they are more comfortable and apparantly as I am told by countless complaining customers because they have a back. So on saturdays I generally have to deal with one customer chucking a tantrum because they can`t sit at the booth seats. Most of them shout and then storm out, the classic one was one couple, with the wife shooting me a comment of `well my husband has a heart condition and must have a seat with a back` - in my head I thought `um how does a seat influence your heart`. The husband gave me a very weary look of apology as they left. The other bad part of saturdays is that people will queu for coffee. Thats right they will stand in line for about half an hour to just have a cup of coffee - apparantly ours is the best - but come on half an hour - do these people not have a life?
The Crazy Customers
While occaisonly we have a few loopy customers for one week in January they all came out of the woodwork. Literally every day for 5 days there was at least one crazy per day. It was a tuesday morning, it was quite, there were only 3 tables of customers having their coffees - life was fairly peaceful. This older lady walks in wearing sunglasses (very unusual as there is never any sun in this country), I ask her if I can help her with anything. She says `yes, can you please turn off the music`. I laugh and say `no I`m sorry`. The music is the key ingredient for the ambience in the cafe, frank sinatra and the rest of the rat pack play all day every day. She stands there looking at me, I am smiling back at her and then she says after about 20 seconds ` God loves you` and turns on her heels and walks out. Freaky.
The following day, it was raining in the afternoon and we were getting the coffee machine serviced so all coffee orders had to go through our resteraunt upstairs. The takeaway orders were the worst as it involved calling them, sending paper cups up in the hoist and then sending them down again. Throw in a couple of french and spanish waitresses who don`t undertsand good ole straylan and orders got muddled up. Anyway it was a tiresome afternoon and too top it off this early 20s lady comes striding in, eyes as wide as saucers wanting coffee. We ask her if she would like coffee to sit in or take away. `Take away` she replies, I then ask her what type of coffee she would like. Oh I don`t know, she then launches into a rambling speech that sounds like its for my boss, he is mean, I don`t know what he wants but it has to be right. I make some suggestions like Latte, Cappacino, white americano? By this stage she has planted herself on our bar stools and flung the papers she was carrying half way across the bar. She starts ruffling around in her bag and produces a mobile and hands it to me. I say `I`m sorry mam what would you like me to do with this` she replies ` ask him.....ask him what he wants` She then starts nattering away to herself about a cat that died `he was the first one I had that died - its really sad, I`ve been crying all day`. While this is going on I`m on the phone talking to her boss asking him what he would like to drink - white americano - any sugar sir - no. I hang up. SImple, why on earth could she not do that. I explain to her that unfortunately our coffee machine was out of action and that she may have to wait a while as the resteraunt would make up her coffee. She was happy to wait - damn we are all thinking. While she waits she wanders haphazardly around the cafe looking at all the things on her shelves, she takes a wide swing and just about yells ` I want these, he will love them`. Turns out she meant coffee cups and produces the money from a plastic bag. By now I am starting to piece it all together she is a vet nurse (she has her clients files with her), she is spending petty cash as she keeps asking for dockets repeatidly) and I reckon instead of taking Meth Amphetamine (like the rest of the staff think) I reckon she`s on equine repitnol or morphine. She was completely out of it!! Eventually her coffees arrive, she pays and we never saw her again - wonder if she got sacked for stealing her patients drugs??
On the Thursday my regular Anne comes in who likes to have a cappacino with out the milk but with hot water, but still likes the foam - a very annoying coffee to make for a 20 pence tip. Anyway she loves to chat and of course I have the best ears in the cafe don`t I? As it turns out she used to be a hairdresser but got out of it, but she spent 15 minutes telling me about her prolapse (shes at least in her mid to late 50s) and how she has to have an operation and how she won`t be able to walk for x amount of weeks and won`t be in to see us. (I think yes because I so loved our chats so much). After she leaves I just shake my head and ask god why me, why are you sending the crazies to me.
Friday comes round and its only 2 hours until my shift finishes. A rather shabby looking retiree woman has sat herself down on our outside tables, very unusual as its at the end of the day and it is bitterly cold. So I grab a menu and head out to ask her if I can help her and if I can get her anything. She then launches into a 15 minute chat, where I don`t say a thing as I can`t get a word in and all I wanted to say was `I will leave the menu with you and come back to take your order`. She starts off by telling how she can afford to drink coffee because she won £650 on elvis last night (still not sure if it was a Elvis themed poker machine or if elvis was calling the bingo night that she was at). She then moves on to tell me she is waiting on her friend and how she loves Bambi. I am still not sure if Bambi was her friends name or if she just really liked Bambi from the Disney movie. She then goes onto to tell me how she hasn`t worked for x amount of years because of her legs which she lifts up to show me. I start backing away at this point and by the time I`m at the doors she realises that I am leaving. I walk back inside and watch her as she yells at people walking past the cafe - I can only make out the keywords of Bambi and Elvis. Again my lovely colleagues left me to deal with her and none of them would come to my rescue while I was trapped out in the cold air - evil evil people!!
Random Actions by Customers
I guess cafes are confusing places, I often find that when I haven`t order any food with my takeaway drink that obvisouly any food put in front of me must be eaten. I mean you do that at maccas right - order a diet coke and if someone elses takeaway bag of food is nect to yours you just help yourself right?
Well that instance did happen our service counter is often where our take away customers like to prop themselves even though i ask them to wait else where. So this gentleman orders a takeaway latte. One of our staff is in plating up the food orders for the sitting in customers and puts out a plate of 2 shortbread biscuits. I miss most of the actions but after waiting a couple of tables see the takeaway customer walking away chewing. Not unusual, sometimes they order food while they wait. I go to take the shortbread to the table -onlt to discover there is none - old mate ate it!! Helped himself completely. The following day he even told me, giving the excuse that we do courtesy biscuits and I couldn`t help it I returned a rather sarcastic reply over my sholder of `yes sir because thats the type of business we`re into here, the giving the food away kind`. Honestly these people treat us like we`re starbucks!!
Another classic saturday morning saw this Chav (similar to a bogan/westie) or NED (non-educated deliquant) walk into the cafe put his fingers in our tip jar, wander around the cafe and then walk away with £2. I was ropeable but call him out on it as I was on the other side of the cafe - cheeky!!
But the all time classic was the 2 old lushs (lady alcoholics) who came in one afternoon to have a glass of wine and some shortbread. They didn`t want to pick a wine but just the cheapest. I made them pick their win though because the difference is only a pound but the taste is worth it. Anyway they had been in before and had been there for hours on these single glasses of wine. I wandered how they could talk so much and drink such warm wine. This second time though I found out what they were doing and not very discretely. They were putting their glasses under the table and grabbing a bottle of wine out of their handbag and top their glasses up. Cheeky. The worst part was I was the only one who saw it. To make sure I wasn`t seeing things I went over and collected their empty plate and saw the bottle of wine sitting on top of the handbag, I smiled and wandered off. I then consulted 3 levels of staff on how to handle the situation, if we were just a pub we would put them out on their ear in a second but we`re Valvona and Crolla we are different, everything must be done discretely and with minimum fuss. So Francesca the director comes down and as they struggle to put their coats on - because they are a bit pissed - she just quitely mentions that they will not be welcome back follwoing on from their behaviour and if they would kindly just see me to pay their bill. They even left a £3 tip - how funny is that. Aterwards I thanked Francesca for help and mentioned to her that I thought she must have had to deal with a few situations like this before. She said yes but the worst one was when she had to bust to people shagging in the mens bathroom of the resteraunt - charming!!
So folks that is the reason why I am rapidly going insane working as a waitress, I am so looking forward to retunring to a normal job where no one expects me to give them excatly what they want - hang on whats the deal with drought inspections?????
Anyway guys do think of me of dealing with the torture of having to be overly `nice` to people 8 - 9 hours a day, repeating sentances and phrases all day. Enjoy your sanity and remember be nice to your waitress or waiter - they could be hungover!!
Love me xoxo
Hello everyone, I hope you are all well and are getting up to plenty of mischief like moi.
As of today it is only 9 more days until I become a backpacker again and as such I have been getting myself into training. I have needed to practice
AS the next 10 weeks I will pretty much be travelling by myself I thought i should start to get used to just my own company. So I did 2 day trips last week, one to Haddington (now to be referred to as the home of the Leigos) and the other to the little town of St Andrews in the Kingdom of Fife. Yep it is not a county or a state or a provence but the local signs refer to the region as a kingdom.
Last week was the second time I went to Haddington which I think is only 15 or 20 miles out of Edinburgh. All I know is it is a 45 minute bus ride through suburban edinburgh and some countryside. Haddington is really a very cute little town/village, with quite a past to it. But myu favourite spot is the Nunsgate bridge which was built in the 1300s to allow the nuns to cross the river from their accomomodation to the Cathedral. Later the bridge was used to hang the town`s criminals, rather horrific as it is such a pretty setting with ducks and white swans, lots of green grass and a gentle river flowing through. Anyway I spent a few hours wandering the graveyard trying to find a grave for Leigos or Ligos (as it was spelt in the 1700s) but alas I think my relos were a bit too poor to afford gravestones. But it was a fascinating walk through with alot of familar names being turned up of i guess friends relatives.
The following day I went to St Andrews and even though it rained on the morning bus ride out there (30 miles distance but it took 2 and half hours as we had to pick up every old nanna from every small little viallge and they are every 5 miles) by the afternoon it was a great day and the temperature even got into double figues somewhere between 13 and 15 degrees celcius.
I went to the gorgeous St Andrews Cathedral built in the 1100s, blown over once by some huge winds and then rebuilt again before being torn downed and burned by the English prodestants in the 1600s. It was huge though and today you just walk through the skeleton of the Cathedral which still has the entranceway in tact and one wall and the alter. Just amazing as how many cathedrals can you walk into that are covered in grass, have no ceiling but are set right next to the coast?? It is amazing and beautiful all at the same time.
What fascinated me was this massive cathedral was built in basically nowhere of scotland. The reason though is apparantly St Andrews is where the Greek monk landed with the bones of St Andrews. Now the rest of the details I am unsure like why Andrew was a saint and why is the Scottish saint but either way he is very important.
Appart from being the religious hub of scotland St Andrews also became the educational hub, with St Andrews University being the oldest in Scotland and the third oldest in Britain (behind Cambridge and Oxford). So thankfully when I was there most of the students were studying for their exams so they weren`t dominating the streets just annoying spannish school kids and american tourists. So I wnadered past some of the universitry which is scattered through out the town.
I also swung by the home of Golf, saw some people hitting off, took some photos and well basically went and ticked that off the list in my head. Alas golf is lost on me, but there were plenty of silly old men wearing ridiculous clothes chasing a little white ball through some rather strong winds coming off the coast. Very different to the Alice Springs and Wanaaring golf clubs - the only two I have ever been in.
Finally I just wandered through the streets of St Andrews and found there to be plenty of gorgeous shops in the town. Some gorgeous foody shops selling cheese (yum!), Ice cream (yum yum) and bakeries which had by the tray load fudge donuts. I looked at the and wondered. They must be quite good if there are so many of them, so I thought to hell with it (and apologies to my heart) and tried one. Well basically it is a donut filled with custard, topped with caramel icing that has been fried. It was ok but I started to notice how much the scottish like their food fried, haggis, chips, fish and of course a mars bar!! I found a chippy (fish and chip shop) that sold them for 80 pence, what a bargain!!
After my little adventure through St Andrews I hopped back on the bus with a new book I had just bought to read on the way home, but with the warm sun coming through the window i was asleep by page 3. What a great way to spend my day off.
I woke up as I was leaving the kingdom of Fife with Kate having sent me a text message to meet her for a drink, she met me at the bus stop and we wandered off to Rose street.We had a drink at Dirty Dicks, very dirty with some seedy old mans stags do. After being annoyed by them I made a very bad excuse that we had to meet our housemate Rachel at abnother bar. Kate told me off for not being very nice to them, my new favourite game when dealing with stupid people is telling the most outrageous lies and just seeing how far i can take it. For example I have told people I have lived in Edinburgh for the last three years and that in Australia we don`t get Easter Eggs because everyone doesn`t believe in god. The worst part these people belived me!!
Kate and I Moved onto The Candy Bar in george street drinking 2 for 1 drinks during happy hour. We got very drunk very quickly and found a scotsman who had been to Alice Springs. Anyway we had to leave (happy hour was over) and Kate decided that we had to go over the fence. The bar was below street level and you have to go up some stairs to get out and their is a fence on street level to stop people falling down. Alas the gate was locked and as such Kate didn`y want to walk all the way round to the other exit so she asked the barman who had been making us margerittas to help her over the fence. I can only say that he `threw` Kate over the fence, in which case she did a type of somersault and landed on her cheek causing a black eye, bruised sholder, thigh/arse and shin.
I made it over the fence without incidence.
We then staggered up the hill to the grassmarket to where else but Finnigans where our beloved housemate Rachel works. Details get sketchy from here. Kate swanned in out between moaning to all the Finnigans staff about her face, she also went to the bathroom to admire the colour and swelling. As such Kate and I fear that we can really never show our faces in Finnigans again, because we really do treat that pub like it is our home and to be honest we are not good patrons as we are normally far to drunk by the time we get there to drink anymore.
So the night wound up ok, I had a very sore head the next day and as I had to do a saturday shift (our busiest) I really wasn`t the most Attentive waitress, oh and dropped to 4 things, thankfully none were glasses or mugs!!
So thats it folks my training is going well, my farewell party is this weekend coming, I am planning a `tea` party but i most likely won`t be serving tea more like G `n` Ts!!
Take Care
Love me xoxo
Hello All from a smelly old ınternet cafe ın the heart of Istanbul. Yes I am back to beıng a backpacker and am lovıng ıt. Not mıssıng workıng but was pretty sad to leave everyone behınd ın Scotland. Spent my flıght from Edınburgh tryıng to remember all the good scottısh sayıng I had learnt, every now and agaın ı remember a few more but faffng about sure ıs one that has stuck ın my head.
Anyway after many delays before departıng termınal 5 for Istanbul wıth the best quote comıng from the aır hostess `ladıes and gentleman our apologıes ın the delay ın boardıng you on thıs flıght but we are tryıng to locate the pılot` love brıttısh aırways and theır abılıty to tell ıt lıke ıt ıs!!
Arrıved ın Istanbul just ın tıme to catch the last metro traın ınto town. Loved the fact I was the only western traveller on the traın so ı got lots of stares let alone the fact ı was a woman!!
Fınally after gettıng lost on the streets of Istanbul at 1am wıth my 18.3 kg backpack I found my hotel checked ın and caugh up wıth my frıend (and Mıss M,s chıef brıdesmaıd) Alex known as corkers. It was so nıce to see a frıendly face and ı chatted away to corkers for about an hour before ı calmed down enough to sleep. Poor corkers was tryıng to recover from her 18 hours of flıghts from sydney.
I was woken up by mornıng prayers at 6am and went back to sleep before corkers and I checked out the free breakfast buffet. An amazıng spread not quıte for western tastebuds wıth olıves tomatoes sweet bread eggs and god only knows what else on offer. But ıt was amazıng and hey free.
Spent day one explorıng the sıghts and ı was so many kınds of happy, the weather was tops (sunny and warm), ıstanbul was excıtıng and dıfferent, I had corkers for company and we off on our adventure!!
We saw the grand bazaar wandered around wıth only mınor amounts of harrasement from the stall holders. we had cay (tea) wıth the local men who gave up theır plastıc stools to chat to us about ANZAC day, the dıfferences between turkey and Australıa and to basıcally practıse theır englısh. It really was a lovely experıence.
We found the blue mosque (blueısh coloured tıles) and went ınsıde removıng our shoes and coverıng our heads to admıre the plush carpets and amazıng decoratıon of the mosque ınsıde. Unlıke chrıstıan churches they really are quıte basıc ınsıde just the alter as to where mecca ıs and then just lots of open space to pray.
We then wandered through a lıttle park on our way to Afa Sophıa whıch was buılt ın 532 as the bıggest church durıng the roman tımes before ın the 1300s the sultan converted ıt to a mosque. Ataturk (the turkısh general at Gallıpol and Turkey,s fırst presıdent) then converted ıt to a museum to pay trıbute to both the chrıstıan and muslım faıths that had made the buıldıng great. So ıt was stunnıng.
we then wandered on to some amazıng royal park full of lush green grass, trees wıth bıg green leaves and lots and lots of tulıps. After gettıng some great photos we basked ın the sun and ı well fell asleep. Just brıllıant.
We then made the long slow journey back to our accomodatıon. Where after a shower we wandered to meet the rest of our travel group ready to embark at 8am for Gallıpolı. After a few warm beers, efes when cold ıs not a bad beer, we got chattıng wıth a few of the others and ıt was a nıce nıght. I got to bed at lıke 2am contınıng what has been 5 days of lıttle to no sleep (eıther from partyıng or general excıtement).
Up for the breakfast corkers and ı soon dıscovered that we were as a tour group goıng to the exact same sıghts as yesterday. Neıther of us had read our tour ıtenarıes, so nıce to be travellıng wıth someone as blase about detaıls as myself!! SO at each of the sıghts we would just cutr away from the group and eıther get photos wıth Turkısh Navy soldıers or go have a coffee. Turkısh coffee very strong, but bot am ı glad that ı don`t have to make ıt or serve ıt,!!
Fınally we were taken to a resteraunt for lunch and after a full 3 course meal for the prıce of $aus12 we were very full and got on our bus for the 5 hour trıp to Gallıpol. I slept away the fırst hour. After many dıstractıng stops for meals carpet ınspectıons and toılet and bank stops we fınally made ıt to Gallıpolı and Anzac cove.
Securıty was a major concern we passed through 2 checkpoınts (they are only allowıng bus tours only) and a thorough bag search before we walked down to the cove. Kıtted out ın grand stands, bıg screens and army bands and documentrıes playıng all nıght. Corkers and I found a seat ın the back stadıum so we could see some of the actıon, but alas we wouldn`t be able to sleep comfortably wıth theır beıng no room to swıng a cat. The organısers dıd not expect as bıg a crowd thıs year estımates are about 10,000 people attendıng the servıce.
It was all faırly basıc but at 4:30am when the ANZACs landed the lıghts went down and they played the gallıpolı sympothany whıle the clıffs were lıt up ın blue lıghts. That was when ıt hıt me, I fınally could apprecıate just how much those boys went through. The gfact that they arrıved ınto somethıng that the brıttısh drastıcally underestımated. Whıle I wıll nver know what excatly ıt was lıke I have a much greater apprecıatıon as to what the Gallıpolı campaıgn really meant to the Australıan solders theır.
The servıce was good and theır were some great addresses from NZ PM helen clarke and the turkısh presıdent. Alas Kevın rudd`s lacted any meanıng or emotıonal connectıon and to be honest ıt was the worst of them all. Hıs speech was solıd speech wırter drıbble that saıd what they thought should be saıd not what he would lıke to say.
Anyway after tjhe servıce everyone got up to go to theır respectıve servıces. Aussıes went to the lone pıne one, kıwıs to the chenook one and turks to theırs. Alas only turkısh people were allowed to attend that servıcve. The memorıal servıce at lone pıne was freezıng wıth a hell of a wınd whıppıng across the crowd. After much searchıng I found the grave of my great great Uncle Jım Bryant who was kılled durıng the battle at Lone pıne. A vıscıous battle where the soldıers were down to hand to hand combat and many hundreds bodıes were never found. I can not descrıbe the relıef I felt when I found Jım`s grave because I was so worrıed that I would not be able to fınd ıt. Mum and Betty he has a lovely lıttle bush planted next to hıs grave wıth bıg yellow flowers on ıt. I left a lıttle metal gum leaf pın below hıs gravestone, the closest thıng ı could get for eucalyptus leaves. Very sad he was so young only 22.
A couple hours after all the servıces had fınıshed we all poured back onto outr buses for the long trıp home. Corkers and I slept most of the way. Whıch was a same becasue the turkısh countrysıde ıs so pretty and green, nothıng lıke what I expected!!
Anyway ıt ıs raınıng here I am off to hıt the egyptıan spıce markets and to fıgure out where I wıll go after ıstanbul, possıbly Izmır on my way to the med coast. So I hope you are all well. Congratulatıons to James and Danıelle on the safe arrıval of Ruby Leıgo!! Very excıted to have another Leıgo ın the famıly.
Hope you are all well and happy
Tıll next tıme
Love Me xoxo
Hı All
Hope you are all well. I have spent the last couple of days comıng down from the pılgramage to Gallıpolı and soakıng up Istanbul. I have fınally also pıcked a destınatıon as I have just farewelled Corkers thıs mornıng - she ıs off to Denmark. For my next adventure I am catchıng the overnıght bus to Selcuk on the Agean coastlıne of Turkey. It ıs just opposıte Samos. Thıs destınatıon was suggested to me by a turkısh travel agent so fıngers crossed ıts ok. Worst case scenarıo ıs me hangıng out readıng my book and doıng my laundry!!
Corkers and I returned to Istanbul late Frıday nıght to a rather cool Istanbul. It has been cool, overcast and raınıng. Though even on coldest days ıt ıs a warm day ın scotland I am copıng well and the raın has been so lıte than I haven`t worrıed about umbrellas or my raın coat.
On saturday Corkers and I after doıng our ınternet tıme and myself bookıng my busfare had lunch ın a very cosy upmarket turkısh resteraunt. We befrıended our waıter and before you could say goodbye he was on hıs break and accompanıed as our guıde through the Egyptıan spıce market. He taught us some great turkısh sayıngs most of whıch I have forgotten expect for thank you very much whıch sounds lıke `teasugarandrınk` when saıd very quıckly. He was very sweet and helped explaıned alot to us. I was more ınterested ın hım where he was from why he had come to Istanbul at 16 for work. Where he learnt to speak englısh (the resteraunt that he works ın gıves them englısh lessons twıce a week). SO that was very very cool gettıng an ınsıders guıde to Istanbul.
On Sunday ıt was stıll raınıng and not really a great day to be out so we went and had a turkısh bath. Where for 40 new turkısh lıra (roughly 20 pounds or 40 aussıe dollars) we had a full body scrub, soapıng and massage from some rather bossy turkısh women. All pretty good apart from the fact that everyone as starkers!! Bıt confrontıng for us pruddısh aussıes who unlıke these euopean women are not pğartıcularıly comfoartable ın beıng naked ın front of other women. But after gettıng over the fact that apart from more or less fat than myself all women are the same I really enjoyed my turkısh bath. It was very relaxıng and I can understand how ın days gone by ıt was a very ımportant rıtual.
After our bath and a bıt of wanderıng and relazıng ın our lıttle turkısh cafe by the grand bazaar corkers and I headed to the Ottoman palace. Where we were amazed to fınd yes there were tourısts there but alot of them were actually turkısh and we really wondered why so many locals would come to check out an old palace. Well weren`t we ın for a lesson when we hıt the prıvy chamber whıch after followıng the snake lıke lıne we dıscovered stored very holy relıcs ımportant to the muslım faıth but also to the chrıstıan and jewısh faıths. Contaıned wıthın these ımpressıvely decorated and protected walls were the bones of St Juhn the Baptıst (yes I saw real arm bones and skull), the turban of joseph, the staff of moses and the footprınt of the prohphet mohammad. Amazıng and how real they are ı can not say but all I know ıs the turkısh put alot faıth and sıgnıfıcance ınto these relıcs. It really was amazıng espcıally as there were thousands of people streamıng through these tıny rooms and occaısonally the securıty guards would shu people on ıf they stood stıll to long!!
As ıt was corkers last nıght after our palace meanderıng we went m,back to our Hotel repacked our bags and then went down to our favourıte lıttle cafeterıa (ıs the best wya to descrıbe ıt) where though the ınterıor ıs lıke BBQ Kıng ın Sydney the food ıs sensatıonal, wholesome and cheap. 6 Lıra for a full meal and drınk. The food ıs tasty and very tradıtıonal and full of locals - always a very good sıgn ın my books.
We then caught the Tram back up to Sultanmet and wandered amoungst the nıght stalls before fındıng a resteraunt where we could sıt on the roof and drınk a beer whıle gazıng across at the Bosphorus Rıver the blue mosque and Afa Sophıa. Really a lovely way to wınd up our tıme together for corkers and I before we head our seperate ways and promısıgn to catch up ın Sydney when I get back.
So folks I wıll sıgn off for now - I wıll be ın touch from hopefully the sunny Agean............
Greetıngs Everyone - Keep forgettıng to ask the Turks that I have met how to say hello so I wıll just have to settle wıth the english versıon at the moment.
I got ınto Selçuk early Tuesday mornıng after spendıng 10 hours on a bus overnıght from Istanbul. Even though I only got a few hours sleep the Turkısh buses are really good you even get tea and cake from the steward who walks up and down the aısle - flash brother!!
Selçuk ıs stunnıng ıt ıs tucked ın between 2 major mountaın ranges on the plaın whıch leads out to the Aegean sea. Selçuk ıs a major tourıst destınatıon (as I found out when I arrıved) because ıt ıs the closest town to the ancıent cıty of Espheus. Espheus was the major roman cıty for the asıan part of the roman Empıre.
My hostel ıs owned and run by a turkısh famıly whose son the manager lıved ın Australıa for 18 years and as such ıs a great translator for us all here. On my arrıval after the oblıgatory turkısh tea and a shower I headed off to Espheus wıth Mehmet. Mehmet seeıng that I was alone dıd what all good turkısh men do and that ıs talk to me. Before I knew ıt I was on hıs scooter and beıng gıven a guıded tour of Selçuk, the ancıent greek temple of Artemıs and fınally dropped off at the entrance to the Espheus sıte.
Honestly the turkısh people (and to be honest men because barely any women work or are out ın the streets) have been so frıendly and helpful. Its pretty easy to spot the genuıne ones from the ones who go `hey lady, where you from? You Aussıe? Come ın for best kabap`. The genuıne ones haven`t trıed to sell you anythıng wıthın the fırst mınute of layıng eyes on you.
Esphesus was amazıng, at ıts peak 200,000 people lıved ın the cıty and ıt has one of the most ıntact amphıtheatre goıng. Thıs amphıtheatre could seat 25000 people and the acoustıcs ın are perfect, stıll today. I was sıttıng up the back of the stadıum and could hear people sıgnıng on the theatre floor. Absolutely amazıng, full credıt to the romans they knew what they were doıng.
Wıthın Esphesus so much ıs stıll ıntact roads, mosaıcs, houses, lıbrarıes, momuments to the dead, basıcallas. All of ıt to ıs marble, truly astoundıng and the lıttle Ancıent Hıstory Nerd wıthın me just loved seeıng all of ıt comıng to lıfe before my eyes!!
I spent half a day there wanderıng through ıt all, dodgıng the korean, ıtalıan and amerıan tourısts but lıstenıng ınto theır tour ghuıdes one of whıch was an archeologıst who worked on the sıte - glad ı never went ınto Archeology ıf old mate has to be a tour guıde to pay the bılls!!
Alas my lack of sleep dıd get the better of me and when I woke up from my lıttle nap ın the amphıtheatre I realısed maybe I should sleep somewhere out of the sun before I became a complete beetroot!!
I spent yesterday afternopon out to ıt and as there are only a few backpackers around I had the entıre 15 bed dorm to myself so ıt was a very peaceful after noon nap.
Last nıght we sat on the roof top terrace of my Hostel watchıng the sun set and emjoyıng the fırst BBQ ı have had sınce god knows when - at leastt 9 monthd and I even had steak!! Alas the turkısh cook dıd them well done but hey ıt was stıll fıne wıth me. The other part was the opportunıty to sıt around wıth fellow travellers and hear there tales, exchange tıps on travellıng through turkey and ıdeas on where to travell to next. Brıllıant.
Today I have been to the Espheus Museum to see the best of the treasures from the sıte, most of whıch aree amazıng marble busts, statues and relıefs. I then went on up to the St John Church whıch ıs apparantly buıly on the grave of St John who wrote hıs testament hear ın Espheus. St Paul also hung out here and Apparantly Mary escaped from Jerusleum as well to here. As you can ımagıne I´m a bıt of a sceptıc as only a few days before I had seen the skull and Arm of St John ın Istabul and apparantly that had come across from Egypt. All I can thınk ıs that whıle St John certaınly travelled alot ın lıfe preachıng and baptızıng people, he also covered some ground ın death!
But the St John Church was amazıng and there obvısouly some credence to the sıgnıfıcance of the church as ıt was hıghly treasure by the chrıstıans. Alas as Turkey became a muslım state the care and attentıon to the church also decreased seeıng only ruınbs left of thıs marvelous Roman buılt church.
I have spent the afternoon layıng ın the sun readıng my book, snackıng on some olıves and fetta that I bought and just generally enjoyıng my holıday!! So pıty me folks I am a bıt sunburnt but all ın all very content.
Congratulatıons to Alıssa and Keenan on theır engagement. Jo and Paul I hope the Preg Testıng ıs goıng well -not sure ıf I´ll be back ın tıme for the Beef Breeders Ball to be wheeled around but wıll have to make up for ıt all and come down to vısıt you at Tıeyon to Have a few cold beers and do a raın dance for you!!
See You all soon
Love Sally xoxox
Hello all from Fethıye a beautıful harbour cıty of 65000 people on the med coast.
Had a great bus rıde from Selçuk as there was only 5 backpackers and 3 locals on the bus for the entıre 6 hours. Bus travel ın turkey ıs quıte unıque to other servıces I have caught around the world apart from beıng offered drınks and food you also I have dıscovered must have your hands doused ın Alcohol after each stop. Quıte an unusual servıce but one way of makıng sure you reall are clean before gettıng back on the bus. Whıle the Turkısh love to smoke they can no t smoke on the bus BUT the bus drıver and attendant stıll can. So every tıme they get bored they lıght up , not a very pleasant experıence for non smokers nor smokers ıtchıng for a draw themselves.
Was a bıt surprısed to be asked for my passport by an army securıty checkpoınt but as ıt was may day ı thınk they were b eıng extra careful?? There were large protests ın Istanbul on May Day by t he unıons as the Turkısh Gov would not let them march . They chose to march and the Gov pulled out all the stops wıth water cannons and tear gas. Apparantly the turkısh gov wants to look good for the EU so they can gaın membershıp and access the must needed EU fundıng. There also contınues to be turkısh attacks on the PKK ın Iraq but thıs seems to be a mınor matter espcıally as ıt ıs USA approved . So thats the polıtıcal sıde of Turkey thanks to the Aljazeera News network that I have been watchıng each nıght as ıt has the best world news coverage ı have seen sınce probabl y leavın g oz.
Yesterday ı went on a 12 ısland cruıse wıth 4 other travellers ın my hostel and ıt was fantastıc. We spent the day cruısıng the med stoppıng at lıttle ıslands for a swım and soakıng up the sun. Lunch was also ıncluded for the bargaın prıce of 25 lıra or 13 pounds or 25 aussıe dollars. Great great day of azure blue water , warmıng sun and general relaxatıon. Alas my sunburn has been topped up but some of ıt has already tanned and as such I would be unrecognısable from the transluscent person ı was ın edınburgh!!
Tomorrow I leave Fethıye for Olympos to spend 5 days ın a treehouse..........yes thats rıght a tree house by the beach. Agaın ı ask you to feel sorry for me loungıng around wıth my toughest decısıons beıng what to have for dınner..............sıgh holıdays are wonderful.
Take care fol ks and ı wıll see you soon. Love Sally xoxox
Hı all I am ın Göreme at moment ın Cappadocıa - central turkey and have been gettıng back ınto sıghtseeıng mode - but more about that later.
I have spent the last three nıghts perched up ın a bungalow admıst an orchard of Orange trees blossomıng. The smell remınded me of walkıng ın the evenıng between the orange trees that lıne the AZRI drıveway.
It was an ıncredubly relaxıng 4 days that saw me fınısh 2 books whıle alternatıng between layıng ın the hammock or on the beach at Olmpos. Thıs was the real holıday part for me - I was able to sneak ın some wrıtıng and work on my tan at the same tıme.
Whıle thıs was a delıghtful way to spend my days I am glad to be away from the coast a bıt. In Feıthye and Olmpos the turkısh people are more westernısed - ıe ı never heard call to prayers 5 tımes a day and most of the women were uncovered and I saw more of them workıng ın shops etc. It ıs very nıce to be back ın a more tradıtıonal Turkısh regıon (stıll lıttered wıth crazy german tourısts and Aussıe backpackers) as I do feel lıke I am ın another country and culture. Though be careful what you wısh for ıt ıs only 3 more days and I`ll be ın Egypt where everyone says to me ıs madness wıth hassalıng for you to patron theır busıness. I am ıntrıgued as to how much more dıfferent the Egyptıan men wıll be to a western woman compared to the Turkısh - who ı am bettıng wıll seem lıke saınts ın comparıson.
Anyway I have not slept well after my 14 hour overnıght bus rıde from Olmpos, so I wıll sıgn off and go curl up ın my cave (yes lıterally a cave I`m sleepıng ın) for an afternoon nap. Tomorrow more sıghtseeıng wıll report to you all soon.
I hope you are all well and safe Travels to Elle and Andy off to the ınternatıonal rangelands conference ın ınner mongolıa - very very and ıncredıboubly jealous!!
xoxox
PS - Nearly bıt the head off one brother of a hotel owner ın Goreme who on our arrıval ın nevıere (sp?) walked through the bus at 6am askıng ıf we had booked accommodatıon and tours yet - as most know I really do not lıke beıng dısturbed or spoken to an hour after wakıng - he was ıncredıbly lucky I chose to be cıvıl!!
PPS - Thıs place amazes me wıth ıts sımplıcıty, a horse and wagon just went past carryıng the weeds from the fıeld wıth an old turkısh gentleman wearıng a wool cap and a huge mostache - I mean ı am usıng state of the art technology here and there stıll usıng a horse and cart ??????
Hello All from Göreme on my second last day ın Turkey. Can you belıve I have nearly been here for three weeks!!
How do I descrıbe Göreme all ı can thınk ıt ıs lıke Cooper Pedy ıf Gaudı was allowed to desıgn ıt. The town ıs based ın a valley whıch has eroded away from the lava that ıt was encased ın over thousand of years. What ıs left standıng ıs what the locals call faıry chımmneys or lıttle pınnacles of harder lava wıth Basalt tıps on them, makıng them look a bıt mythıcal and certaınly very unusual.
What makes the place even more unıque ıs over the past 1800 years people have lıved eıther ın these faıry chımneys, ın the clıff faces or even below ground. What these ancıent people dıscovered ıs that the lava rock was easy to carve out, strong enough to support several levels of accomodatıon, the rock was well ınsulated from the extremes of weather ın summer and wınter.
The people here were generally Chrıstıan up untıl the 1920s when Ataturk sent all those of Greek descent back to Greece and as such those remaınıng were turkısh muslıms.
The Chrıstıans though really used the underground cıtıes to theır advantage durıng roman tımes as they were able to hıde from the armıes and avoıd beıng persercuated for theır belıefs. They were able to lıve for up to a month below ground, keepıng lıvestock, graın and wıne below wıth them. There were also wells and several ventalatıon shafts. These underground cıtıes were as deep as 44metres. They had bıg mıll stones that they rolled over entrances wıth peep holes to see ıf the enemy was stıll there and ıf they weren,t then they would leave theır underground cıty.
Of greatest ımportance to the Chrıstıans was theır relıgıon and as such there ıs a lıttle church everwhere often decorated wıth frescoes generally of whıte wash and ochre from the local soıl. These churches are carved ınto the Lava clıffs, are underground and even ın the sandstone clıffs of the Illhara valley.
Today Göreme ıs a thrıvıng tourısm town where you can catch one of the dozen or so hot aır ballons that go up every mornıng over the valley. The town ıs clean and well organısed but more relaxed then some of the other tourısty areas I have been ın.Göreme ıs also ın the center of the Cappadocıa regıon whıch produces the best carpets - I thınk orgınally thıswas grazıng country here for the nomads who now have settled and grow ırrıgated crops ınstead. Unfortunately potatoes are no longer grown here as the chemıcals they used on them gave the people cancer - oops!! Göreme also has three dıfferent types of prısons for medıum to hıgh securıty prısoners.
Basıcally Göreme ıs a very ısolated and some what arıd regıon of Turkey. The country surroundıng ıt ıs flat and open wıth on the horıson gıant snow capped mountaıns some of whıch peak at 3000m. These mountaıns are the remnants of the volcanoes whıch poured out the lava whıch the people lıved ın. It ıs stunnıng country, one of whıch I feel more comfortable beıong ın - guess thats just the desert rat ın me though.
From an Agrıcultural stand poınt each vıllage employs a sheperd who tends to the vıllage flock every day. Each member of the vıllage has a dıfferent colour sprayed onto hıs sheep, goats or cows to ıdentıfy whıch ıs hıs the flock. Mınd you the vıllage flocks would be lucky ıf they reached 50 head of sheep or a dozen head of cattle (beef and daıry). I found thıs all out from one of my tour buddıes a retıred NZ farmer who was drıllıng our tour guıde yesterday - so glad he dıd because I was wonderıng how ıt all worked.
I dıd laugh yesteday - the turkısh work on Turkısh tıme, hıghly sımılar to Terrıtory tıme and as such nothıng bothers them when thıngs go wrong because well they have all day. But a true reflectıon of thıs ıs the tractor traıllers whıch all farmers have paınted. Now most farmers ın Oz mıght gıve theır traılers a coat of paınt every couple of years butthey would never paınt actual landscapes or anımals onto them. As such the traılers are a work of art, ı guess ıf you work all day ın your fıelds ın nıce to drıve home ın your tractor traıler proud that yours ıs a very pretty traıler!
I have really enojoyed my tıme here and wısh that I could spend a couple of days drıvıng around the vıllages observıng some more lıfe ın regıonal Turkey and how they go about ıt. For ıt ıs certaınly dıfferent from lıfe back home.
Tonıght I catch my 12 hour overnıght bus to Istanbul where I wıll spend most of the day sleepıng at the ınternatıonal aırport whıle I waıt for my Aır Egypt flıght to Caıro - mıght be a bıt harder to spot the terrotıst on that flıght - ı should stand out lıke a pımple on a bald head!
So folks tıll next tıme from Egypt goodbye.
Sally xoxo
Salam Alaykoom (Hello in Arabic) from Luxor
Well I`m a week in Egypt tomorrow and while I have gotten a little over the shock of Egypt I am truly amazed by the sights that I have seen - I have to pinch myself that I stood next to the Sphinx and that I have touched the side of the Great Pyramid and marvelled at the perfect Angle reaching up to the sun.
I arrived in Egypt with some slight drama - the tour company got muddled up as to when they were picking me up and as such I freaked out a bit as I didn`t know where I was staying, I didn`t have a local contact number for my tour and to top it off I had no Egyptian pounds to my name. Thankfully many texts backwardas and forwards with Neil my housemate in Edinburgh he managed to rustle up some paper work and a couple of calls later I was being whizzed away to my 3 star hotel - which after 2 weeks of hostels felt like a 5 star hotel. I was exhausted as I had caught a 12 hour bus ride from Cappadocia and then hung out at Istanbul airport fort 6 hours while I waited for my Air Egypt flight to Cairo.
Day 1 was a 7am wake up call and meet and greet with my other 12 travel companions and Abdul our tour guide (who is a Numbian of well over 100kgs who keeps yelling at us to get excited - which at 9am in the morning is just way to much enthusiasm even for me!). We saw the great pyramid and the other two as well as the sphinx, went to a papyrus workshop and then went to the Cairo Museum. The Museum was amazing I saw all of King Tuts goodies including his funeral mask - couldn`t belive I was within a metre of it. I of course being the history nerd that I was spent too long in the museum, emerging to find the entire tour group all ready on the bus and waiting for me. I got lost in the mummy exhibition - I stared Ramses II in the eye and his wife Hatshepsut has not fared so well over the past 3500 years. The mummies, some looked at piece others looked a bit violent and uncomfortable.
That night we caught the overnight train (yes so soon on public transport in the evening as you can imagine I was highly impressed). But we were in first class which even though it was very run down, a bit shabby was amazingly comfortable and I passed 8 hours of sleep easily.
We arrived in Aswan where we all checked into our hotel and chilled out. My own room had a brilliant view over the nile river and the sunset was amazing. The next day we were up 2:45am to catch the police convoy to Aswan Dam to see Ramses II temple. As the biggest threat to the Egyptian economoy is a down turn in tourism, tourists are a target for terrorists - so as such the government takes it very seriously to protect tourists. Family and friends do not be alarmed the last attack was in 1997 at Luxor when 80 people were killed in machine gun fire at a main sight. There are now metal detectors at every sight and museum as well lots of security and police. What you should worry about is the bus drivers in the convoy who race their buses across the 2 lane highway over the sahara with little regard for other road users.
Ramses II temple was built over 3000 years ago and is amazing. Even more amazing is when the Egyptian government decided to build the Aswan Dam they moved the entire temple up hill to escape the rising dam water. I can`t remember the size of the dam but it goes right into Sudan which was only 11kms away from where we were.
We headed back to Aswan grabbed some supplies and then met our Felucca for a cruise down the nile over 2 days and 2 nights. It was amazing as a Felucca is only powered by sail and has been used by the egyptian for thousands of years to sail the nile. They zig zag across the wide river to catch the breeze. So we enjoyed our incredibily cheap 500ml beers 10 egyptian pounds/1 GBP/Aus$2, swam, sunbaked, played cards and generally realxed.
Things came to head though on our final night when all mighty sand storm blew up out of the west from nowhere. While we were parked on a island in the river at about 11pm the captain had to redo our anchors for fear the boat would float away - so he tied it to the tiniest palm tree on the island. The following morning he admitted that yes he was worried it would be uprooted by the almighty winds. To describe this sandstorm, we could not see the other boats parked by the island nopr the bank on the other side and for those who came to Birdsville races with me - the sand built up so much quicker on us then there.
We survived and arrived early the next morning at some little town that I was later informed was the camel trading centre of Egypt. Our bus whizzed us to a couple more temples with hug walls and pillars with amazing images of pharoahs and gods carved into them - some even retaining the original colours they were painted in. Something i never realised that these sandy coloured images were once brightly coloured with a white wash back ground. The wonder of these temples is amazing with one having 40m high walls that Alexander the great helped to assist to build so that the Egyptians would aknowledge him as Pharoah and as such a god.
We arrived in Luxor yesterday and I visited the Luxor temple last night which was amazing as there were less people, the weather cooler and the temple amazing lit up in the night. We even caught a horse carriage to the sight - I was also relived as my horse was in reasonable condition. Honestly the condition of some of the horses and donkeys is poor here and you really do wonder how they can gte any work out of these animals when they are so starved. But as one of the tour guides explained to his customers on our train human life is cheap here in Egypt and as such animal life is even cheaper.
This morning we were up at 5am to take a motor boat across the nile, watching the sun rise where we were met by a team of donkeys that we would ride for an hour to Hatchepsuts temple on the edge of the Valley of the Kings. We were all really looking forward to this and as we got to stear our own donkeys, a number of donkey races followed, a couple of thongs were lost, one donkey kicked, another brayed and my donkey called Silver Tanki nearly got bit! It was a hoot and everyone throughly enjoyed riding thru the streets and farmlands signing out hello to all the locals while yelling `yallah, yallah` to get our donkleys to go faster.
We saw Hatshepsuts temple and explored three of the tombs in the valley of the kings. All having their own merits, some spectatcular colours left on the walls, others the deepest tombs (150m down) or the grandest entranceways.
This afternoon I went to Karnak Temple which is the largest and grandest temple, it is actually made up of 10 temples over 65 acres. With amazingly high pillars, obelisks and walls.The Pharoahs over 2000 years added to this temple with either statues, pillars, obelisks, walls or temples. At its peak it needed 500 priests to maintain the religious side of it. Truly amazing the architecture and the basic tools they used 3000 years ago to build even today such grand buildings with such attention to detail.
Tonight we catch the night train back to Cairo and then in a couple of days I go to Dahab to holiday by the red sea. I am sorry for such a brief over view on my time here, I have seen so many amazing things that I am overwhelmed and have probably left a lot out of this blog - but just know that my little ancient history nerd is very very happy to see the thinggs that she only ever wondered at in books!! This is just one of those once in a lifetime moments for me.
Love to you all and hope you are all well - time is getting closer till I get home.
Love
Sally xoxox
Salem my friends from the crystal clear blue waters of Dahab on the red sea. Do not fret I have finally had a full nights sleep where I have not had either a ridiculous wake up call or a broken nights sleep on a train.
I got into Dahab on monday. We caught the tour company mini bus from Cairo and it took us about 8 hours. We drover through a hell of a lo0t of desert and when I say desert I mean deserted (sp?) no trees, no grass. Just sand and rock with some occaisonal little rocky plateaus. But amoungst all of this we would pass the occaisonal house and while it looked deserted there would be signs of life - like a power line connection, water containers, a well or even children playing in the shade of the house. But nothing else, no crops, little animals, no signs of transport (car, camel, horse, donkey or even pushbike). Where do they get their supplies and how??
Not that I can complain of a hard trip - we lost about half our tour group so it is just down to 7 of us and as such there was plenty of room to spread out on the bus. The mini bus was also equiped with a DVD player so we relaxed watching movies that were recent releases and in English!!! Amazing!!
Yesterday I went snorkeling at Blue Hole- about a half hour out of Dahab. Blue hole is the remnants of a volcano that is now a 150m deep crater with coral that lines the top 10 metres of so and crawling with gorgeous tropical fish. The water is even more saltier than the med.
The one thing that makes Dahab stand out from other coral sights in the maldives, thailand or the GBR is that the coral reefs are within walking distance of land. We literally put on our fins and snorkels stepped into the water and looked down into the ocean revealing gloriously coloured fish and amazingly formed coral. Truly amazing and to see such amazing fish was amazing and to swim in their schools was brilliant fun. Such a different experience to the rest of my Egyptian trip.
After our snorkelling we walked onto the shore, crossed the dirt road and sat down in our resteraunt for lunch. Thats right we had an amazing meal while over looking blue hole!! So basic and simple - but those resteraunt awners have got the system - they give you the snorkels, fins etc and you in return have a big old feed at their place. expensive you would think - by egyptian standards yes -but for foreigners I spent the equivalent of 4 GBP for my lunch, drinks and snorkels!! This place is so incredibly cheap.
Today I am having a lazy day by the pool and beach while the rest of my group has gone off to learn how to dive. I have passed as to be honest I doubt I am ever really going to need my diving certificate in Alice Springs!! The snorkelling was the best fun anyway.
Tomorrow afternoon we have organised a fishing trip and we are all praying that we will land a red eye snapper! So should be a great day. What I do for the rest of the week - I am not sure, but i will make it up as I go along. The group is excited about camel riding - me not so, have done it before and to be honest it is slow and uncomfortable so I might go for a horse ride on the beach at sunset!!
So my lovely friends adiu until next time
Sally xoxo
Yasis All from friendly old Athens,
I never thought I would be so happy to be back in Athens again. But more about that later.
The fishing day out on the red sea was great fun alas though I didn`t catch anything with a lure or bait. plenty of bites but no takers. One of the fellas on our tour scored well taking all the prizes (we had a pool of money for first fish caught, biggest fish and most fish). Only one of the other fellas caught a fish and unfortunately it didn`t fit any of these categories. The afternoon and evening on the boat was great though, we snorkelled and swam out in the open ocean, dived and jumped off the top of our 2 storey boat. I screamed the whole way down - being not very brave about heights, but it was good fun.
The remaining days on the red sea i spent relaxing by the pool, sunbathing, reading my books and generally chilling out. It was fabulous and I enjoyed it throughly though my tour guide was amazed at my ability to sleep and stay still for so long. I think he was worried I wasn`t enjoying myself!!
We ate like kings to in Dahab - every evening heading out for massive feeds of seafood and BBQ meat. Bliss as even though it was expensive by Egyptian standards it was still cheap by Brittish pound.
We chose to spend an extra day in Dahab and didn`t return to Cairo until sunday evening - best decision the group made. The trip back was similar to the trip across with me spending the entire time comparing the ranges and deserts to those of central Australia. The only difference was this time I was awake when we went through the tunnel that passes under the suez canal. Pretty cool I thought - but to be honest it was just a dark old tunnel. I did see a giant container ship passing by but alas I couldn`t see the water for the sandhills - kind of a contridicting image chip moving through what could look like just sand! On our 8 hour road trip I did count 2 dead camels by the side of the road, spied a goat entering a desert town shop perusing the chip/crisp aisle and only grabbed at the hand rail in front of my seat twice from fear of the bus drivers antics!!
The flight to Athens was bliss as they served pork as the main meal. It was at that point I realised i had spent 4 weeks without eating pork due to the Muslim faith, not that I noticed until it sat right in front of me. I have been over compensating since eating salamis and ham since my arrival in Athens.
Athens now feels like a home to me and I was very excited to see order in catching public transport (ie designated stops), clean (ish!) streets and women with exposed hair everywhere!! It is amazing the differences and to be honest I am relived as I feel so much more confident walking the streets then in Egypt (not that there was ever trouble but you knew everyone was watching you).
Anyway the plan is to now head to the Island of Corfu via Zakynthos, Kephalonia and Ithaka. I will head to Bari Italy next week. Time for some more good times ahead!!
I hope you are well and enjoying yourselves. Till next time my friends
Yasis
Sally xoxox
Yasis My Lovely People,
it was brilliant to be back in Greece and to head out into new territory but to understand a bit better how the Greeks operate. I caught the bus from Athens to Patras. Patras is the third biggest city and second biggest port in Greece. My plan was to go to the Island Zaknthos but on my arrival in Patras, at the ferry ticket office I found out I would have to catch another bus and then a boat not ferry to the island. It all sounded way to complecated so I took the next available ferry to Sami in Kephalonia where Captain Corelli`s Mandolin was based - novel and the movie.
Alas the ferry was leaving as I was talking with the lady so I spent the night in Patras which was actually quite nice, I found an exceptionally cheap hostel. With the savings on my bed I went and spent the difference on a flash meal at one of the trendy resteraunts alongside the marina. It was marvellous and just what I needed after eating my meals in the street out the front of my Athens Hostel!! (They didn`t allow any food or drinks in the hostel, so all the tight budgetting backpackers sat out in the street watching the kids play soccer in the street and oocainsonally dodging a miss hit ball!).
I arrived in sami, amazed at the difference from my other island experiences during the high season last summer. Gone we`re the old ladies holding signs up with the pensiona name and screaming for your business, instead Sami was tranquel and exceptionally quiet, well after the ferry left and all the trucks had driven out of the village. I found a cute little hotel run by retired local couple and after some negotiating got a reasonable price.
I even had a balcony and so that afternoon i splashed out on cheese and biccies and lots of fruit and cheap sangria. I plonked myself out on the veranda dining on my nibblies and watching the sun set slowly. The only thing was that I missed the company of the girls, but hopefully they are feeling guilty enough. The exciting news is that I am meeting Brooke in Rimini for 4 days and we plan to live it up greek style from last year.
My 2nd day in Sami, I hired a pushbike and cycled the 4kms to the antesamos beach. Which is spectatcular and I was fairly confident that i could handle cycling the 4km to the beach. The problem was that I severly underestimated the grade of the hill/mountain that I had to climb. So the 4km ride took me about an hour and a half with most of the time me off the bike walking it. Even down hill as my brakes were fine but just not enough for the hairpin corners on the down hill run.
So I spent the morning at the beach topping up my tan. It was a gorgeous beach with only about 20 people on it. The beach was made of rocks though! not overly comfortable for reclining on!! I headed back - walking yet again for some lunch in town by the waterfront. All very civilised really.
I had a nap in the afternoon and then in the early evening wandered around the town, taking photos, because it really such a picturesque town. All the plants were flowering and the sami people pride themselves on the presentations of their houses. The church and town square were all very familar from the movie and with a gelato in hand I really was enjoying the whole experience!!
I finally made the call though. As much fun as I was having relaxing around the island I was ready to get back into sight seeing mode and booked the next available ferry to Italy.
So on my last day in Sami I went to the Melissani Lake, which is an underground lake, stunningly blue water and so cool (18 degrees) - it had been quite warm during the middle part of the day on the island, mid 30s. I then pottered back to town walking along the beach and called into the caravan park, to swap some books in their common room.
My ferry left the harbour at 7:30 in the evening and I arrived in Bari at 9am Italian time (15 and a half hours on the ferry, though it was a very comfortabe trip). So I am slowly working my way north to Heathrow to fly home. Not long now!!
So Ciao and Yasis my beautiful family and friends, I hope you are all well.
xoxox
I arrived in Bari at 9am Italian time and spent the next three hours walking from one end of the town to the other and back again with my 20kg Backpack strapped on for dear life. Why did I walk around town like an idiot? Well I had no map and no idea where the accomodation would be. So I was on the hunt for a tourist office and the only one I could find was near the Train station.
On arrival at the office 3/4 hour after getting off my ferry and two back resting stops, I found out that the only hostel in town was right near the port which was where I had come from. So after calling and checking they had room for me I threw Tatonka/Mr Hefty (yep the time by myself is starting to have weird side effects, my backpack has a name) and trecked back upto the old town.
Then I got lost in the 10metre square and spent at least 20 minutes trying to find my hostel, providing entertainment for all the old men and women and children sitting out the front of their houses!!
I spent the day getting lost in the old town which had winding narrow streets with three storey high houses with little balconies and mountains of laundry hanging out to dry. Actually the entire place smelt of laundry powder, it was a lovely clean smell! I loved watching all the people going about their business on sunday, those off to church, to gossip with the neighbours, show off grandchildren or to smell the cooking of lunch. I never expected to feel so in italy so quickly!!
That night I went out for dinner with my fellow backpackers and we had dinner in the main square where all the locals we`re out in force doing exactly the same thing, young and old. Turns out monday was a public holiday, Independance Day from the Nazis now that is a good holiday to celebrate I would expect and explained why everything was shut and why everyone was still out in in the Piazza at midnight on a school night.
I farewelled Bari on monday and caught the train at naples. Unfortunately my timing was off and I had to wait at the station for 3 hours. But I observed the local mafia managing the area around the train station. Cars and where they could park (with 3 levels of managers), the wheeling and dealing of knock off goods. After a while I thought I might shift before I had to pay for the benefit of sitting on a public seat!!
The train trip was really pleasant and I am very happy to be back on European trains which are clean and tidy. Big step up from the Egyptian Trains. But i was anxious about my arrival in Naples. I had seen press coverage over the last couple of weeks about the mountains of Garbage that was not being removed and that people were buirning their rubbish in the streets because of the rats. The local government is having a stand off with the mafia. The dumps are full but the gov won`t let the dump companies dump the rubbish where ever they can like say oh the ocean or a gorge etc. The dump companies are owned by the mafia and through in some corruption and a city of 3 million people can`t despose of their rubbish.
From what I have seen though this is not the case in the CBD and tourist areas. The city is dirty though there is rubbish about but not the mountains I was expecting nor the bad smell!! So I`m happy.
I went out to Pompeii today to see the great archelogical wonder, an entire town preserved in an instant from the Erruption Mt Vesuvius (sp?) in AD 79. It was amazingly normal. Houses built of brick, i saw bakeries, temples, houses big and small, gardens, sporting arenas and even a brothel. It was amazing how advanced the romans were, honestly I think if we were magically carted back to that time their lifestyle would not be that foreign to ours. If only Mrs Hegarty my Latin teacher could see me know, i had a couple of flashbacks to sitting in my year 8 classroom learning about Roman life through studying pompeii and how I would imagine what it would be like to actually look at those artefacts in the face and to be able to touch them!
So that is all for now folks I go to Roma tomorrow, which should be amazing as well . Till then
Ciao
Sally xoxox
Bonjorno Beautiful People!!
I am writing to you from an internet cafe next to the main train station in Rome. I have throughly enjoyed my last three days here. The sightseeing has been amazing, I have spent whole days wandering through the brilliant sights and streets of Rome. Collapsing back on my bed at the end of the day with a stomach full of lucisous salads, pasta and Gelati.
My first morning I was up early to head to the Vatican to see the Sistine Chapel and the amazing collection of pieces in the Vatican Museum. I still can`t belive i was standing underneath the amazing masterpiece by Michalaengo (sp?, help trudie!!). I was also entertained by the security guards in the place who told people to get off the alter stairs, not to take photos and shush everyone!! Why is that when ever iyou are n the presence of great art you must be silent?
The Vatican Museum is an absolute horde of goodies of art (all the masters Raphael, Michalaengo and Leornado di Vinci and many more names I didn`t know), sculpture, ancuient treasures and ethinic pieces from other religions. One of the highlights for me was wondering through the carriage room, aka home of the Pope Mobiles incuding about a dozen carriges (one of gold), a chair carried my men, a converted land cruiser, bullet proof rolls and one special design Pope Mobile, Brilliant!!
Alas there was no sightings of Bennedict, but I did pass through the security check points into St Peters and said a prayer for you all!!
I then spent the afternoon wandering the streets in attempt to get to the Trevi fountain. Alas I got lost but found a multitude of piazzas with either stunning domed churches, marble statues or fountains and a gazillion caffes and resteraunts. My second attempt did yield results and I finally found the trevi fountain where I threw my coin in so I would make a hasty return to Rome.
Yesterday I went to the Colesseum. Spectatcular none the less but it was so sad to learn that is was covered in Marbe but that was stripped to build St Peters. Damm you Catholics and your need to worship in absolute opulence!! But it was fun to pretend I was thumbs downing to the emperor to kill the gladiator and to wonder what it would have been like to be in that stadium with 50000 people.
From there I made my way across to Caesar Augustus Villa and marvelled at the frescos. All meandered through the ruins of the roman forum, truly glorious looking with all the flowers out in bloom! Just love travelling through these sights in easrly summer.
Again yesterday afternoon after a massive lunch I did some more exploring of the rome streets and found myself again at the trevi fountain, so another coin went in for my return!! I have been left in awe of this city where every corner reveals another surprise of beaury and wonder. I get why people rave about this place and verify that they are right, you have to see Rome!!
This afternoon I catch a train to Florence to again bask in the glories of the Renaissance, tough tough life for me.
I hear from reports that big rain is predicted for the centre of Australia, my fingers are crossed guys ! I hope you are all well and I hope I come hope to the green green grass of home!!
Ciao Sally xoxox
Bonjorno Folks,
I hope you are all well and enjoying yourselves. Italy continues to amaze me with its beauty and the Italians continue to reveal themselves as being quite mad!
I arrived in Florence on a saturday afternoon from Roma. I checked myself into a campground where I stay in a tent nestled amoungst some Olive trees. The tent was pretty flash though as it had a hardwood floor, beds with linen and blankets. And the spot was gorgeous as it was on the western side of the city and was up the hill so you looked down on florence, just magical.
My first afternoon I walked up to the local look out spot and watched an afternoon storm pass over the city, so I have some magic photos of dark clouds, mustard coloured buildings and terracota roofs. Just a stunning city.
I was up early on my first morning to go to the Ueffize (sp?) museum which contains the greatest collection of art in Italy. It is actually a provate collection collected since the 1200s by the Medici family. It had an amazing collection of renaisance artists including all the big names Michaelango, Da Vinci, Bocelli, Titon and many more names that I have since forgotten. I stood in front of Bocelli`s `birth of Venus` and `Spring`. They were gorgeous pieces with the subjects so delicate and soft looking.
The majority of the collection was religious works and i must admit i began to get a bit over seeing paintings of the annouciation to mary, madonna and child, magi and bambini, the life of christ, christ on a cross. St John, St Francis, Mary, Christ and numerous popes, local saints and even patrons of the work and the artist themselves in the crowds. With my concentration wavering I started to count how many blonde Marys there were (about 5 from memory) and whether Jesus had a beard or not!
After 3 hours i staggered out of the museum and found a little trattoria down a side alley in the old town to have my lunch and to try to digest my fantastic steak and the numerous renaissance pieces i had seen.
I spent the afternoon wandering through the winding streets pf Florence, coming across various piazzas and their chruches. It was a nice afternoon and eventually I walked back to my campsite and collapsed into bed quite early.
My roommate was up at daylight to go see Michaealango`s David in another museum. I slept in as I basically made my decision that i couldn`t line up for another hour and half and then be bamboozled by so much art. So I `took the day off` from the art scene and just wandered arund florence, looking into gorgeous shoe and clothes shops (and realing at the prices for their goods). I looked at leather goods and had a similar experience! But passing this day wandering around the town went so quick and before long it was late afternoon and yet again I was caught without my raincoat in an afternoon storm, which was kind of cute in a way!
While trying to wait the rain out I went into a wine bar close to my accomodation and sat watching the storm and drinking a gorgeous tuscan white wine. Yet again my lifestyle is really tough!
But of course being a single woman in the bar I was of course of immediate interest by the local patrons who wanted to know why I was there. The local old wino soon accousted me and though he didn`t speak alot of english he ended up drawing a picture of me and nattering away about how beautiful I was. I seriously conteplated was worse getting soaked in the rain or listening to this old man nattering away at me! I quickly drank my wine........
But the italian men truly are a passionate kind, case in point while having my breakfast by the river I was watching the number of people out jogging or cycling. I then had to surpress a laugh when one bloke went past jogging but carrying a full bunch of flowers for his amore! Only an italian while out running would still be thinking how he could impress his amore, really very sweet I thought and might explain why Australian men are not overly romantic!
On my last day in Florence (Firenze) I caught the train to Bologna for a day trip. I found it a very cute little town with little tourists there. It was filled with the locals out shopping. I found the centre part of town filled with medieval buildings, churches, halls, palaces and towers (that are on a lean, kind of like the tower of Pisa). In amoungst all of these old buildings was the gorgeous fresh food market area. I spent a good hour wandering amoungst the beautiful vegetables noting how different from home. Zuccini flowers are cooked here. I found a gorgeous cheese shop with so many types of Parmagiano Romana, home made pasta and from the roof smoked hams were hung. The fish mongers were even selling carp! I soaked it all up as I was in the heart of Tuscany and the home of Italian food!
I found a resteraunt that finally was not catering to the tourists. The menu was completely in Italian and there was only one other table with tourists. The food was great and i enjoyed the local white wine. Realised quickly I was a bit out of practice and tottered off to the local park to digest my food, read my book and doze in the sun till it was time for me to head back to florence.
It was a great day out and Bologna was just right for a quick day trip. That night I packed up and got ready to catch my early train to Rimini, to meet my good friend Brooke. I didn`t sleep a wink that night, it was like Christmas eve i was that excited to finally see a friend, who i could share wine with and talk to. Plus she would have all the goss of everyones movements back in Scotland!
Folks coming soon the beach life in Rimini..........
Ciao
Sally xoxo
While I was travelling through Greece, my good friend Brooke got in contact with me to say she had booked herself into a hostel in Rimini on the western coast of Italy and was wondering if I would be around that region and if I would like to keep her company on the beach worshipping the sun?
Brooke has not seen alot of sun in Dublin and I could understand her hunger for some heat and sun, after my time in edinburgh. I was elated to think that I would have a friend to hang out with for a while and after 6 weeks by myself the idea of having a friend with me was just marvellous. So we arranged here in Rimini to have a beach holiday, Brooke`s start of the European summer and for me my last beach time before heading back to an Australian winter.
I left Florence with little sleep, because I was so excited to see Brooke and the 4 hour train ride through the mountains certainly had me concerned as there was alot of cloud but it seemed to clear a bit on arrival in Rimini.
I guess i have to tell you guys that I had a rather interesting start in Rimini.............
It was brilliant to see Brooke and we sat in a resteraunt having lunch and gossiping for hours. After early starts for both of us we were starved and hoed into our food.
After lunch we wandered along the beach front marvelling at how commercialsiased the beach was. Umbrellas as far as the eye could see and hotels lining the beach, honestly I think Rimini is the gold coast of Italy. We decided to go to the large shopping mall to buy some fruit and chesse and salami to accompany our gossiping that evening while we enjoyed some drinks at our hostel.
While at the supermarket I started to get cramps in my lower abdomen (similar to ones I had in Egypt but lower and stronger), eventually the pain got too much and I passed out in the tomatoes! As you can imagine Brooke and I were both petrified, i went down so quickly (literally this all happened in about half an hour). I had a collection of italian ladies trying to help me, wanting know if i was pregnant, eventually a secuirty guard arrived and she called the ambulance.
By this time I was feeling better and very embarrased about being stretchered out to the ambulance. They hooked me up to a drip and took me to the hospital. After about an hour I was finally admitted as apparantly Australia and Italy have a health agreement.
As you can imagine this is a travellers nightmare, in a foreign hospital with everyone around poking and prodding you speaking another language. As I was wheeled into the ambulence I just thought thank god I had travel insurence, because at that stage I wasn`t sure if I had to pay or not but at least I would be covered.
I spent the night in Rimini hospital (in the ER observation rooms as there were no other beds in the hospital, I think hospitals are as stretched here as back home) under observation they did a blood test and i saw three different doctors and the same translator each time. They checked me out in the morning not knowing what caused the pain `but not to worry` the doctor said because the reason I passed out was from the pain.........duhhhh!!!
The bloods came back fine and I have a copy with me know, brooke and i tried to decipher it , they tested for standard things like blood cell counts etc.
While at the hospital I was in good spirits and felt fine so Brooke and I spent most of the time comparing the hospital and its staff to our favourite medical shows. We spotted some McDreamy and McSteamy doctors that we thought would make the hospital like Greys Anatomy. I prayed to god that they weren`t like the staff on the comedy show `Scrubs` and also that I had a doctor like `House` who would not rest until he knew what was wrong with me and what caused the pain (alas he never emerged).
This left Doctor Brooke to do the diagnosing. She said she gets similar pains when she eats to many carbohydrates like pasta. Once I thought back I realised that every day I had eaten at least pizza or pasta every day with little meat or veg, i had been eating fruit. So that is what we agreed on (we even presented the theory to my italian doctor, but he just had a baffled look of but people don`t get sick from pasta!).I think that my body just complained about my diet in just the most intense way. So I am off the carbs for awhile and as such I have not had any repeat symptons.
Now before I go any further I must put the secret squirrel clause into this blog, if any one is reading this who knows my Grandmother, whatever you do, DO NOT TELL HER. She will just worry herself into a fit and personally I don`t think I am strong enough to cope with her worrying!
The rest of our time in Rimini has been for Brooke a bit of a dissapointment. After all my dramas we only got 4 hours of good sunshine, the rest of the time it has either rained, been overcast and blown a cool wind. So we found other amusements. On thursday we wander up to the old town and found a glass museum built over a site where there were some beautiful mosaics from Roman times, more grand than the ones in Pompeii. We wandered amoungst the piazzas of Riminii watching the locals marvelling at the women`s taste in clothes (tight fitting, brightly coloured and with incredibly high heels) and listened to the men yell out Ciao Bella to us and other women passing them by while they drank their Espressos. We of course then ate (we have discovered an array of resteraunts with varying quality of food).
Yesterday being the worst day that we have had we decided we had done all we could in Rimini so we caught a bus to the Republic of San Merino, yes another country that was only 62 square kilometres big fence in with some rocky ranges and the town perched on top of a mountain 750m high of rock. What Brooke and I forgot is that at 750m it is windier and colder, so us dressed in our summer clothes with just a cardigan fairly froze to death. As gorgeous as the town was with medieval streets covered in mist and grand views of the Adriatic coast region, we were turning blue and after an hour and half were on the bus back to the comparibly warmer town of Rimini!
So while the last 4 days have not been a beach holiday it was still very relaxing napping, eating and gossiping. I am now totally up to date on everyones movements in Edinburgh and Dublin, even though I haven`t been there for 7 weeks I feel like I never left thanks to Brooke`s updates!!
Today I catch the Train to Treviso which is about 20 minutes outside of Venice to Visit another friend of mine Bec Klein-Schiphorst who lives there. Bec was at college with me (Sancta Sophia) and she was also the year above me in Ag Science at Sydney Uni. So as you can imagine I am really excited to have a locals guide to the area and to catch up with all the news that she knows about. I am having a great week of friends!!
The only other thought before I go is that I only have 10 days left in Europe!! Then it is back home to Oz, time is flying!
I hope you are all well and staying out of hospitals - I reccommend it!!
Love Sally
xoxox
I travelled to Treviso on Sunday to stay with my friend Bec and her husband Bepi who live near Treviso which is 20 minutes from Venice. While Bec had said she was close to Venice she forgot to mention how gorgeous Treviso was and the fact that there are gorgeous canals, fabulous frescoes and wonderous medieval buildings and no tourists!!
Actually very few people speak english in Treviso because tourism is not big here, but Bec is teaching english here and says more are learning aas there companies are being taken over by american or foreign companies and the common language of course is english, so work is making the italian staff learn english.
Anyway the behind the scenes information I will save for later. Bec and Bepi met me at the train station. I was elated as I have not been met at a train station forever and the fact that they had a car made me think that they must be the luckiest people in the world. I was also really excited as I hadn`t seen bec since uni days and had not met her husband.
I was whisked off to central Treviso to walk the old town, a traditional activity for italians on a sunday afternoon to get dressed up, walk and chat with friends. Then go for drinks and later dinner. So Bec and Bepi gave me the guided tour of the old town, which as you already know I feel in love with (so clean, pretty and tranquil). We then hit a few of their favourite bars for Campari Spritzes (Prosecco wine (similar to Champagne), bitters and soda water with a massive green olive to stir with and an orange for flavour). Really very very refreshing and in here in the north it is similar to Spain where you are given little snacks to accompany each round of drinks. So as you can imagine I was loving having locals order for me and explain the customs and ins and outs of italian dining, i realised how much i had been missing travelling as a tourist.
We actually never had dinner that night we were having to much fun bar hopping and eventually filled up with snacks. So by midnight we got home had a quick cuppa and retired.
Poor Bepi went to work and Bec didn`t have to teach students till later in the afternoon (after the students finish their day jobs). So we had grand plans of seeing Venice but alas it was raining on and off and most of the shops would be clsoed so instead we chilled at home. Catching up on the past 7 years, flicking between Australia and our experiences in europe. A brilliant day as you can imagine.
Anyway that evening Bepi`s family invited us round for dinner. I was wrapped a family meal and a chance to talk with some locals. Bepis sister was actually planning a trip to Alice so we were comparing notes on where to go.
The evening was wonderful. Bepis parents grows all their own vegetables and so the meal was marvellous. The hospitaliity was hillarious, Italians being what they are eat with gusto and everyone talks at once. So throughly confusing and exciting at the same time for me, while I tried to listen to Bec and Bepi`s english translations and then answer questions about where I was from and what it was like growing up on an isolated sheep and cattle property! It was a great night and one that I won`t forget!
Again it was late by the time we got home and I still wonder how Bepi can stay uptil 1am and then get up at 7am! I would be the crankiest cow in the world!!
The following Day Bec and I got up early to catch the bus into Venice. While it was only about 15 kms to Venice it took an hour and a half with traffic. But we had a great day and Bec gave me a very good guided tour making sure to take me to her favourite Patiesserie for a tradional Italian breakfast of coffee and pastry. I skipped the coffee for an OJ but was content watching the italians get ready for their day amoungst the throng of tourists.
Bec explained to me on the way into town that very few italians can now afford to live in Venice. Only retirees (who don`t have debt), foreign owners live in Venice and the rest are hotels filled with tourists. A bit of sad fact for me as I thought it was filled with italians, most travel to venice for work but very few can afford to call it home. Most of the venetian families live in the surrounding towns which are more affordable.
I saw all the sights St marks piazza and cathedral. With my quota of churches now reached I declined on going in. I was most content to wander the streets snapping all sorts of funny little streets and bridges between the islands.
We had lunch in cafe frequented by the gondaliers, which was somewhat reassuring while we sipped our spritzes and chowed down on a light lunch. I then walked Bec back to the bus stop so that she could head off to work at Venice mestre leaving me to get lost in the winding streets. It was a great afternoon and what I loved about Venice was how peaceful it was compared to the other italian cities, the difference there are no cars in Venice. So it was a relaxing and somewhat peaceful kind of day.
In Fair Veronna where we lay our scene................
I caught the train for 2 hours to Veronna for my day trip through this pretty little city. While I knew that Juliets balconny was a fake I still enjoyed imaging the scenes as I wandered around the old town.
The old town of Veronna was again a stunning Veneto town filled with medieval towers and churches. Narrow streets and buildings with great balconnies and windows.
After lunch by the piazza i had another great lunch in a cute cafe discovering that i know knew how to order a great spritz like all the other italians around me and soaking up the sun.
In the afternoon I went to the colesseum, the 3rd largest of roman times and largest intact one currently. It is massive and at the time they were setting up for their opera season. Every summer the Veronna Opera Society runs operas in the colesseum which has apparantly fantastic accoustics. I sat and watched the workman setting up the stage, using a large crane to lift the set pieces in.
After sunning myself like the reptile I have become (edinburgh winter saw me become cold blooded I am convinced) i wandered off in search of Gelato. I floated back to the train station and was back home at Bec and Bepi`s by 7pm. We had a meal at home and compared notes on each others day with Bepi saying to me `you have the best job in the world`, I couldn`t have agreed with him more!!
With a couple of action packed sight seeing days it was time for me to relax and do some washing. I spent the morning at Bec and Bepi`s doing my last load of washing before heading home to oz and reading my book in the sun in their back yard.
Bec and I had agreed that in the afternoon we would take their bikes for a hoon around Treviso. It was an absolute stinker in Treviso that day and we couldn`t believe that a week ago we were shivering!
Anyway late in the afternoon we headed out, me on Bepis bike, not wanting to cause hassle I didn`t worry about adjusting the seat, but this meant I only three quarters of control and power of the bicycle as when the pedals reached down I was on my tippy toes. Peddaling and steering was fine but again stopping took some effort (seems to be always the case for me!), i would slow down enough to tip the bike to the side a bit allowing me to land one foot on the ground and shift my body off the seat of the bike. I became quite advanced at this skill by the end of the ride.
Bec and I toured the farming areas slow enouhg to discuss the type of crop, its quality and how it was going. Again I was loving having a former agger to talk about agriculture in europe and australia. We then hit a small town by the river which feeds into the ocean. It is just one of those typical european rivers you see on telly wide, slow moving and with gentle bends in it like a snake moving through the sand. We saw giant fish in the clear waters by the old venetian boats left to rot. We saw ducks and their ducklings, families out on their bikes or walking their dogs.
Honestly the Italians are veyr active group of people everyone cycles or walks at anyage. I have seen old nonnas off with their baskets to the market and old men pulled up by their local cafe bikes everywhere while they sip their caffe and discuss the days news.
On our way home we passed the fields of some of Becs in-laws who farmed in the area. They were making hay with a rather antique tractor and i of course got snap happy. I guess by Australian standards it was antique but for the Egyptians it would be advance as they still cut by hand and haul with donkeys!!
On returning home, bec and i cooled down, I drank near a litre of iced tea and put some beer in the fridge to enjoy after sunset. I left Bec and Bepi to themselves when I headed out again to venture amoungst the fields trying to get some lovely rural scenes in the soft light of sunset. I can say I turned up some absolute crackers and you`ll just have to see them for yourself!!
The next day (Friday) it was similar fare for me. I had a massive sleep in and then wandered into Treviso to wander again through the old town. Alas I took the wrong turn at the town hall and it took me an hour to find it when if I had just turned right i would have been in the middle of the old town!! Anyway it was lovely i wandered the streets and canals snapping away. I wandered into United Colours of Beneton whose original shop was based here. Again drooled over the beautiful clothes and ran from the high prices.
I headed home quickly, for I had to beat Bec and Bepi home to get showered and ready so we could dash to their friends Hens and Bucks nights (seperate parties held on the same night). Bec and I caught the bus back into Treviso and headed to the town walls where there are 2 bars (the cheap one and spenny one) to meet the girls. We were given flowers to wear and the bride to be was presented with her bunny night!!
More to come soon.............damn internet time!!