All about the craic!

One place i wasn't planning on going to, but really wanted to go to, and I made it here yesterday morning, bright and early, and it was my lucky day as it wasn't even raining! Ireland is a wonderful place, I can't really vouch for any place other than Dublin but from what I hear, the rest of the country is also great.

I'm staying with 2 friends, Denis & Angie, I met them whilst teaching in Cazorla, Spain. They were nice enough to pick me up from the airport and showed me around town all day, despite being tired from a night of drinking the previous night (that's Irish for ya). We went out last night into town, I think we came close to but missed Temple Bar, but had heaps of fun in a true Irish pub with some bloke singing good Irish songs, it was great! I drank stout all night, loads of stout, irish stout all the way! Oh I actually drank an ale called Smithwicks, brilliant ale, i'd love some more of it right now.

I'm off to the beach shortly with Denis, I don't know much about the beach but from what I hear it's wonderful, even in the rain. Later on we're off to the local pub to watch some important Gaelic Football match so should be good. I'm guessing the atmosphere will be similar to watching the AFL Grand Final back home, but Irish, and more fun.

I didn't get up to much in Belgium, only place I went to was bruxelles and i hardly saw any of that place. I got taken to Waterloo though, that was pretty cool stuff, and I didn't even know any of its history up until that point. There's also this building with a 110m painting of the battle of Waterloo, real cool stuff! On my last night i was taken out to a heaps old Belgian restaurant and was the first time I had mussels, in Brussels.. something i'll never forget! Thanks Francis and Lucie!

Peace always.

Some plans n ssssstuff

Right now I'm in Nijmegen with Lee and staying with this Dutch guy Maarten, who Lee met whilst in Ghana early last year, he lives in a huge student complex housing Uni students from this country and Germany, we have an awesome view out of the apartment's window.. overlooking a huge grassy area with trees and garden-beds; real lovely stuff.

We'll be here until tomorrow, which is Sunday 24th, then making our way South to Maastricht (possibly the oldest town in the NL but debatable as Nijmegen also claims to be the oldest town), I wanted to visit Maastricht at the start of my time in the NL but bailed on that as my couchsurfing host ended up being out of town, so am excited to be able to get down there!

After Maastricht I'm making my way into Belgium to visit my mum's brother in Brussels, while there I'd like to make a trip out to Bruges and Antwerp (maybe Ghent too), and in the meantime be drinking copious amounts of that famous Belgium beer, and maybe sample some pralines. I wasn't planning on coming here but since I'll be next-door to the country it'd be a wasted opportunity if I didn't see it!!

Ireland's next, I will most probably fly from Belgium direct to Dublin to stay with 2 friends i made while teaching in Cazorla, Spain. So far I don't have any plans for Dublin apart from checking it out and drinking Guiness, I might try and see some other areas if I think I have the time.

Finally, I'm going to go to Edinburgh, hopefully for 4-5 days, and for a weekend so I can check out the night-life I've heard so much about from friends who have lived there/still living there. Since this will be towards the end of my trip I'd like to make a quick step down to Cardiff, Wales, since my mum was born there and I've always wanted to go there.

That's about an exact rough-plan, though I don't have any tickets for travel or accom sorted for any place I've just mentioned, so anything can happen really.. and it's so exciting!!

Den Haag

Lowlands was an amazing festival, I met some of the best people I now know and had some of the best times of my life, so far. If I could I would come back next year to party for another 3.5 days!

But for now I've been back into the traveling bit, moved down to Den Haag on Tuesday night pretty unorganised, only found a couchsurfer that afternoon! Was pretty lucky that we could be hosted at such short notice. Lee and I have been staying with a Dutch couple; Marco + Suzanne, in a nice area of Den Haag close to the beaches. However, today's our last day and we're moving East to Nijmegen (pronunced in a very strange way). Sometime after that we should be going down to Maastricht if all goes well.

I've booked a ticket home to Adelaide for the 23rd September, arriving on the 24th. That gives me another solid month of travels and here's what i'm planning to do; See my mum's brother in Brussels (see Bruge and Antwerp if possible), spend some time in Dublin with 2 friends of mine who live there, finally suss out Edinburgh for a few days and see what the fuss is all about with that town, hopefully get down to Cardiff in Wales as my mum was born there, finally ending my trip in London for a few days before heading home.

Back to the NL; this country is awesome! The people are friendly and the scenery is amazing, I spent 17 days in Amsterdam because it's so cool there, and not for the reasons most people go there for. Out of all the few countries I've been to so far, this one is my favourite!

Lowlands!!!!

As of typing this i'm also getting ready; packing my clothes and stuff for the 3-day camping music festival called Lowlands. I wont be online until at least Monday night or later.

If interested in the festival then check out: www.lowlands.nl

Woooooooo party!!

Good tiiiiimmmeeesss

Amsterdam is awesome and today proved that to me once again. Saturday today, I got up and did sweet F all aaalll morning, just sat here watching band Of Brothers on DVD and eating waffles with nutella and drinking coffee, finally a Saturday where I don't have to do anything if I don't want to, I can do what I want.. when I want. I probably left Eddie's place around 1pm and caught a tram to Centraal, went for a bit of a wander for a few hours just going with the flow and stuff, ended up walking into a main area.. no idea what the name is.

Anyway I passed this street performer who looked very familiar, so I stopped to watch him, turns out I was there at the end of his act so obviously saw nothing, nevertheless I went up to him and said g'day, like a typical South Aussie would (no doubt), turns out I recognised him from Adelaide once or twice, this guy travels around the world as a street performer.. and I recognised him from the other side of the world!! We had a couple of beers at some sweet little quaint pub nearby, actually at 3 pubs, was great, even bumped into a couple of his mates who ended up buying us drinks!

So that was today, yesterday went to the cinema with Eddie and we saw Batman: The Dark Knight, at this cinema which was built around 1920, looks just the same, real nice and awesome, movie was epic too, after that we went to this pub for some beers, sat out the front and was lucky enough to see some guy ride his bicycle straight into a pole! Was pretty funny but then he fell over and that was just great, cracked me up real good!

Hmm what else, have seen police officers ride around on scooters, have enjoyed the random farmers markets popping up in open spaces, strangely.

Can't remember what else I might've had to say, have been having too much fun! Lee comes over on Tuesday 12th, heaps looking forwards to this as she's staying here with Eddie and I, and coming to Lowlands with me, should be sweeeeet!

Haarlem, Den Hague, Centraal

The NL has proved to be what I expected, every aspect. A few days ago I caught a train straight from Eddie's house to Haarlem, a wonderful little town to the west of Amsterdam. Haarlem has a lot of canals aswell, cobblestone streets and small eateries, cafe's and bars, I took the liberty of finding a good pub to relax at for a while and drank some local beer. Dutch beer is great, and so is the variety of it! Just last night I drank a type called Gulden Draak which is 10.5%, wonderful stuff.

Yesterday I also made my way down to Den Hague (try to pronounce it and you'll get it wrong), unfortunately it was raining, but that was alright as I enjoy the rain, but it did bring a quick end to my time there, I was planning to catch a bus 5K's west to Scheveningen to check out the beach and cafe's/shops there, but couldn't do that either. The most I did in Den Hague was wonder around looking for a place to eat, getting wet until I bought an umbrella. Possibly an hour into this trip I caught the train back to Amsterdam Centraal where I decided to go for another wander, just getting more wet, I decided to catch the train back to Eddie's.

Pretty much soon as I got back here the rain decided to stop! Apparently the weather here is like that.. can be cloudy and rainy one minute, sunny the next, and back to rainclouds. Anyway, Eddie and I went for a drive to the old dockyards not far from Centraal, this is where a lot of industry was (which has now been moved downstream), so this dockland section has been renovated, new buildings built among the old, and people live there! It's real nice, we went to some pub overlooking a canal and drank some beers, was good!

Now as of writing this it's Friday afternoon, I accidentally slept in till 11 so havn't bothered to make a move anywhere, besides.. it keeps raining. Am really enjoying this freedom which comes from traveling on your own; you can go do what you want when you want, so I have been taking my time with everything! this weekend coming up Eddie and I are going to a town called Breda, not far from the Belgium border, will be checking out a museum on Graphic Design (www.graphicdesignmuseum.com) which is something I've been looking forwards to for moooooonths!!! yeeiiw.

Clogs, cheese and... canals

For many months I had been amping to travel through Europe by train, I heard it was the best way to travel; relaxing, peaceful, interesting.. though more expensive. Two nights ago I booked a train ticket from Hamburg>Arnhem for a pricey 82 euro, but it was worth it. This morning when I was at the train station in Hamburg I felt as excited as I felt when I left Adelaide over 4 weeks ago! I rocked up in Amsterdam this afternoon after a short 5 hour train journey though some of the most lovely countryside I've been through so far. Everything was how I pictured it to be.. here in the NL, I passed lush paddocks, farm lands and small bunches of cottages.

Rob and I spent our last night in Hamburg with his friend Sophie, whom he met at his teaching week in Spain. Sophie lived literally 5 minutes down the road from Tobii, why we moved location for 1 night I do not know, nor do I know why I agreed to it, it felt like more trouble than it was worth, BUT.. Sophie had a nice place and took us out to the Reeperbahn, showed us some nice places to eat and even stayed out so we could chill and have a beer. The Reeperbahn is a district packed with sex shops, night clubs, bars, restaurants.. oh and prostitutes. Since we went on a Sunday night, the area was fairly tame. Personally I don't like areas like this, I feel out of place, so sussing it on a Sunday was probably a good way to do so. The Reeperbahn started by the sailors who used to dock at Hamburg, remember it's a busy port.. and so the area has remained the same way.. full of bars and places for desperate men to meet desperate women.

So Germany is over, I had a good time, didn't go to as man places as originally planned but I think things worked out for the best, I stayed in Berlin for 6 days and Hamburg for 4 days, any more would've been too much. Now I'm in Amsterdam staying with my friend Edwin, I know him through an artgroup I'm apart of which has members from all over the world, I was 1 of 2 members from Australia. I have a week until I meet up with Lee, a week to explore surrounding towns.. got to go to Edam and eat some cheese etc... cliche stuff.

A bit of cool info, since couch surfing, staying with friends and the week in Spain, I would've saved a minimum of 220 pounds!.. quite good for the old savings account!! After eating hardly anything but bread and pasta, carbs, for the past month.. I'm setting out to eat some healthier food, get back into some fruit and veg!! Lets hope this can work haha.

Hamburg

This place is excellent! I'm enjoying Hamburg more than Berlin, partially because Berlin is so spread out and to find something cool that you need a friend to show you around, but Hamburg is either small (or compact) that you can lose yourself and end up somewhere sweet.. which I did about 4 times yesterday! I actually tried to get back to the center of town but ended up where i started.. I rode around in a HUGE circle for about 40 minutes.. finally asking someone for directions! haha, what an adventure.

I'm not sure if i mentioned this to anyone but Robert and I are staying in Hamburg with a cool guy called Tobii, I found him on CouchSurfing; an old concept under a new name. Tobii lives in Dammtor, it's near the center of Hamburg, he owns 3 bicycles.. 2 of which he has let Robert and I use as much as we want, so we've been riding around copious amounts of times, leaving in the morning and coming back by late afternoon.

There's a massive gay pride parade/festival on here, not something I'd normally care for but it's actually pretty cool. It has been going for about 2 days now, there's a load of food stalls and places to buy beer, actually there's always loads of places to buy beer, I've been riding around on bicycles either drinking beer at the same time, or eating ice cream. If i'm not riding a bike then i'm drinking beer in the streets, as it's legal and accepted here, unlike Adelaide.

Last night we went to this small beach near the docklands, and had a BBQ wth some of Tobii's friends and peeps from the CouchSurfing Hamburg network, was really cool. We've had nothing but good times so far here and have only been here for 2 nights, and have 2 more nights to go.

I could talk about so much more but that'd mean I have to look in my journal and sit here typing for another.. ages. I uploaded photographs from Spain into my photo album so click on the link to the right and suss them out.

Oh yeah, we've been drinking beer every day, it's a bit hard on the taste buds, but there's so many types of beer here it'd be a tad silly to miss out on tasting them all. Another factor is the beer being so cheap, and being able to drink it anywhere. Have also been eating bratwurst which is different as i very rarely eat snags, but the ones here are just so tasty, and again.. cheap!