The Travelling Tobias

Homeward bound

2008-09-23T18:32:00.000-07:00

As of typing this I'm sitting in the Premiere Lounge at the Kl airport, relaxing, enjoying the massage I just recieved, a shower and a small buffet of food i'm so eagerly awaiting to sample. I have a 9 hour (or thereabouts) layover here, I fly out later tonight and arrive in Adelaide early Thursday morning. Looking back it feels like only the other week that Robert and I left Adelaide and landed in San Francisco, but in reality it's been a long fun 3 months, and actually felt like longer to me!!

I spent this last weekend back in London, staying at a hostel near Kings Cross, pretty central.. I was within walking distance from Soho, Piccadilly Circus and Oxford Street, so it was really cool! Unlike my first 4 days in London back in July, this time I finally found a cool little independent cafe to go to, found it just off of Oxford Street, pretty sure it was owned and run by a group of lesbians because the posters on the wall were all orientated towards 2 female models in various poses with sexual connotations, not that it matters.. because the coffee was great!

I had an awesome time at the hostel too, I was hanging out with a wide range of people, the hostel manager is from Swaziland, for instance. On my last night, Monday night, we had a birthday party for this Chillean guy who was also leaving on Tuesday, so that was a LOT of fun.Apart from that I also spent 2 days on the piss, quite literally.. getting back to the hostel on Sunday to find my Aussie mate Leighton out the front waiting for me, then taking me out to a place called Church for a long afternoon on the turps. Had a great time though! Oh yeah I also sussed out Portobello Market, it's another large outdoor market to the west of Central London, not the same as Camden Markets but still pretty cool!!

Well I can't think of much else to say right now, soon after coming home I should be starting a conracted position with a small graphic design studio in Adelaide's CBD (grote street), working with my friend George and I also studied my Advertising & Graphic Design course with! And i'll be planning a trip to Japan for 2009 (and about time too!!)

London!!

2008-09-18T11:33:00.000-07:00

I'm going back down to London tomorrow afternoon, so I can spend the weekend there, relaxing and such, trying not to spend much money.

Edinburgh has been great, have really enjoyed it here!!

In stitches

2008-09-16T13:53:00.000-07:00

Before leaving Australia I thought I would better myself by experiencing the world around me, and I think I have done. I've now got more patience, am more open to new experiences/people and generally have a much better outlook on life. Another skill I've picked up is looking on the bright side of things, even bad things.

Last night i slipped on some stairs here in the Castle Rock Hostel, Edinburgh, landed face first onto the steps before coming to a stop and noticing a constant drip of blood from above my left eye, like a leaky tap. It was quite gymnastic of me really. The staff here were kind enough to get me to the hospital where I hung out for a little while, chatting to a nurse who was giving me stitches in my face. I'm all good now, just a little tired.

Thought i'd learn from the incident of rolling both of my ankles simultaneously earlier this year in February? Guess again!

What an adventure Edinburgh has been!!

Good things and bad people

2008-09-13T05:27:00.001-07:00

Am loving Edinburgh so far, apart from the people spending their whole day sitting on the street asking for money, everything else is pretty cool! Yesterday I got to check out the Edinburgh Castle, had a tour guide for a half hour and he showed myself, and other people, around the main sections of the castle, throwing in some jokes and a lot of interesting historical facts. I'm even more intrigued with this place now more than ever!

At the castle I went into the War memorial primarily for the fallen soldiers from WW1, was a really cool memorial. I remember walkign through the enterance and an American family were in front of me, one of the daughters tapped on a sign saying "no talking inside" .. or something very similar, then soon as we got in the mother goes "this is amaaazzinggg".. totally oblivious to the sign she had just read! What an idiot! Also an older German couple were taking photos despite there being No Photography signs all around... some people hey!

I also made the effort to go to Carlton Hill which has good views looking from New Town and towards the docks, which is now where my friend Robert is working!

I also went to the National Museum yesterday with my friend Milena, the museum is pretty much based on this history of Scotland from thousands of years ago up till now, so that was real cool too.

I've decided to stay here until next weekend, will probably do a 3-day highlands tour during the coming week, and head over to Glasgow next Saturday with Robert, Aidan and Ben (all mates from school), then it's back down to London and back home.

What a lovely town

2008-09-10T14:28:00.000-07:00

So I can't say too much as i'm in a net cafe and time is limited! I arrived here in Edinburgh on Monday afternoon, met up with Robert Daniels, my mate who i was traveling with earlier in July/August, and we're both staying with our friend
Aidan (whom we know form school), funny though because Aidan's off in Poland!

Today I climbed Arthurs Seat, it's a big hil with the best 360 views of this town and was wel lworth the time spent to climb up there, was pretty windy as well but at least I didn't over-heat! In the next few days i plan on checking out the Castle which.. is brilliant, especially when lit up at night time!!

I wish i could stay and have the feeling i will come back here to live at some stage, it's just so nice here.

Can't think of much else to say but i'm safe and happy and having a great time!!

The Emerald Isle

2008-09-08T01:11:00.001-07:00

I'm sitting on my laptop at my friend Denis' place, eating breakfast, only hours before having to leave to fly to Edinburgh. I've got nothing but positive memories of Ireland, apart from the amount of Euro I've been spending, apart from that I've had one of the best times on my trip so far! Much thanks goes to Denis and Angie for inviting me to stay here with them in Dublin, they're 2 of the best, kind-hearted people I know.. even organised accomodation for me in Galway with some mates of theirs!

Galway was brilliant, I stayed with 3 lads just outside the center of town. We went out for pints on 2 of my 3 nights there, only planning to have a couple of drinks, it always ended in half a dozen or more, but whatever, it was all good. One night in particular we went to a pub called Taaffeys (or could have also been The Quays) where there were some irish blokes playing Irish songs, I ended up having a song requested for me by one of the lads, the song was Raggle Taggle Gypsy O..

Here's a link to Youtube if you want to hear the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V2QZIuFPrTo

Also at Galway I did my first touristy thing in Ireland, I went on a coach bus tour down the coast into The Burren where I was able to see the Aran Islands f rom a distance, the Cliffs of Moher, the Aillwee caves (where I experienced total darkness) and the stone shelter called Poulnabone Dolmen. It wasn't just about the main attractions for me, I enjoyed passing by the country-side.. looking at the rolling hills, traditional Hooker sailing boats, dilapidated castles and the small stone walls seperating people's properties and keeping livestock in.

Dublin has been good to me too, Denis and Angie took me to the Dublin Botanic Gardens on 1 of my first days here, took me to the beach at Portmarnock, played some hurling in the park up the road, watched Gaelic football in a pub, also watched the all Irish final of Hurling in the pub.. it's a good spectacle sport.

I hope I paint a pretty picture of Ireland but like all places there are people you'd want to avoid, those people here would be the Pikies, who are also known as travelers, basically you wouldn't trust them as far as you could throw them, in other words you'd want to avoid them. Denis here had grown up knowing plenty of travelers and knows how rough and sketchy they are, anyone with a deep-rooted culture of fighting should be avoid really. I actually saw some riding past on their horses, that's another thing.. they have horses, back home you'd never find a poor minority group owning dozens of horses!

I could keep going on but I need to pack my bags as I'm flying off to Edinburgh in a few hours. I have no more plans after this plane flight, will probably stay in Edinburgh until the 20th and only make my way back to London for 1 night or before I leave. I've also been adding photos to my picasa album if anyone would like to see some of Ireland.

Dublin dublin dubliiiiinnn

2008-09-02T09:48:00.000-07:00

In the last 2 days i've managed to pack in a huge range of awesome activities. The other morning we (myself, denis & angie) went for a drive down to portmarnock, a sweet little beach area, the beach was SO good, stretched for ages and the water was flat as, in the horizon I could see loads of small sailing boats just hanging out together, was either some sort of race or just a meting point. Anyway, this place was real nice, we walked down the beach for half an hour.. which meant we had another half hour walk back to the car, we hung out for a bit drining coffee and resting.

We went to a pub called Porterhouse North (there's also Central and South) to watch the Gaelic Football, we watched 2 matches and had a brilliant time, I drank some more crazy drinks, one was a double chocolate stout and a Swedish pear cider!! Heaps nice drinks too.

I've had a little game of hurling with Denis in the park up the road from his place, in the coming weekend there'll be some hurling matches and so i'll be in town to watch them, apparently they're very rough and fast-paced, having dabbled with the hurling bat and ball a little bit I'm heaps excited to see a proper game! I've seen some young teens play but they weren't very rough, have been told the older guys make for a good sight!!

I also got taken through the Dublin Botanical Gardens, it was real lovely, and there was some rain during my little visit there. I have to say that i enjoy the botanical gardens back in Adelaide but the one here is just much much nicer, the river Tolk runs through the gardens, there's ups and downs instead of the flat ground back home.. and hey, it's Ireland! This place is great!

Tomorrow i'm heading off west to galway for 2 nights, hopefully I can stay with one of Denis' mates. There's some nice coastlines in the west with big big cliffs and some castles, so i'm looking forwards to that, then im coming back to Dublin for the weekend like I mentioned.

Also there's a cheese here called Dubliner, it's possibly one f the best cheeses I've tasted.. apart from the cheese Lee and I bought in Delft. Dutch cheese is just something else!!

All about the craic!

2008-08-31T01:28:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-23T03:05:00.001-07:00

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

2008-08-21T22:43:00.000-07:00

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!!!!

2008-08-14T07:56:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-09T13:22:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-08T03:36:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-04T13:49:00.000-07:00

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

2008-08-02T10:20:00.000-07:00

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!

City of Contrast

2008-07-31T01:09:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine from back home had asked me to elaborate on my thoughts on Berlin, as what I said to him came across as a bit of mixed feelings. I've found the best way to describe Berlin is as a city of contrasts. You'll know what I mean if you've been here, if not I can explain further.

One day Robert and I were strolling along the Berlin Wall at a section called the East End Gallery (one of 3 large remaining sections), it's a famous section which had once been a major attraction to artists, now most of the original layers of paint have crumbled off or been chipped away at people wanting to sell parts of the Berlin Wall, so it's a mixture of crappy graffiti and what was once there. We stumbled upon an enterance to a bar situated between the wall and the Spree River.. the bar was a man-made beach with loads of sand and deckchairs. So there amoungst history is a new-age bar resembling something from South-East Asia.

Berlin's a city with loads of awesome old buildings, some of which still have bullet holes from WW2, a piece of history again.. but then you look down at ground level and the walls are covered in crappy graffiti.

You can buy a bottle of fizzy apple juice for around €1.30 or a 500ml bottle of beer for €1.20. Actually you can buy beer much cheaper off the shelf in supermarkets, which still ends up around € 0.40 cheaper than 1L of milk.

There are more examples but I think you can get the gist, besides, I'm going up to Hamburg today so most of my attention is focused on that, and not on updating my blog with interesting facts and stories. Some more information on what Robert and I have been doing... checked out Topographie ds Terrors (1 of the 3 remaining stretches of The Wall which has been left in its original state, and once site of the SS headquarters!), played hide-and-seek in the Jewish Memorial last night scaring people, found the former site of Hitler's bunker (nothing special), saw the Brandenberg Gate flood-lit at night, drank beers on a bridge with a hundred people on a work night here in Kreuzberg.

Berlin

2008-07-28T08:15:00.000-07:00

Okay so I'm now in Berlin, it's nice here so far although a lot of the streets are dirty, I don't know if that adds or detracts from the charm?! I can overlook that, but what I can't overlook is all of the bullshit graffiti.. it's everywhere, even on the sides of lovely old buildings and doorways... maybe that's the German way!

I've been here for 3 days now so i've done a few things. Firstly, we're staying with my friend Dorota, she's Polish but living here in the center of Berlin in her own little flat, a very central location and only forking out €300 a month! Crazy. On our first day we did sweet F all due to being exremely worn out from the long days and late nights in Spain, Doro showed us around a little bit until she had to leave us to see some friends. Robert and I made our own way around the East Side Gallery, which is just part of the old Berlin Wall which has some paintings on it.. it looks pretty shit but the history side of things is rather cool.

Since then we've been to the Jewish Memorial area which is very cool, the Brandenberg Gate, Checkpoint Charlie (where I lost my wallet, only figuring it out 5 hours later when i was about to buy a pair of Birkenstock sandals)... (oh yeah, ended up finding my wallet at some cafe near the checkpoint where i bought a very terrible coffee). Have been all around Alexander Platz and the Mitte District.

Yesterday, Sunday, Doro took us to the Flohmarkt in Prenzlauer Berg.. it's like a huge hippy market in some parwith loads of cool shit to buy, I bought a nice t-shirt which was designed and printed by the guy who sold it to me, since he knew Doro he gave me a €5 discount!! We drank beer in this cool make-shift bar outside under some trees, then finally got a taste of true German culture with a Bratwurst in a small bun!! Cheap as and very tasty. For someone who very rarely eats sasauges, I think I could go for a few more bratwursts!!

Last night, Doro took Rob and I to some park where her friends were playing some football (soccer), a park in the middle of Berlin, and we were able to chill there drinking beers and generally having an amaying time. It was awesome! We also met a few of her friends which was also really good... somethi we wouldn't be able to do if we had chosen to stay in a hostel!

I havn't had much time online recently and havn't had any time to connect to the internet on my laptop, which is why I don't have any new pictures to show. hopefully I'll get my laptop online when in Hamburg in the next week.

Stay tuned for more exciting news and drunken stories.

Cazorla

2008-07-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

Okay so bit of a round-up of events, I lived with a bunch of Anglos, people from Canada, US, UK, Ireland and Australia.. coming together to teach English to a group of Spaniards who're already at an intermediate level of learning English. I would've been the most under-qualified person there, most people haven finished a university degree or two, and there I was.. a college drop-out socialising with professors and academics of all sorts.

The 8 days in Cazorla were some of the best days I've had so far this year, I learnt how confusing the English language is and how many stupid sayings we have (the last straw.. for example), learnt a little about myself, a lot about the Spanish; their cultures and languages. I made friends with people I will befor the people I met keeping in contact for a long time to come, hopefully some I will be able to see again!

I find it hard to some up my experience as a whole, each day brought new experiences, each night brought new experiences. The copious amounts of wine at lunch and dinner was an experience in itself, who knows how much Euro I saved from mostly drinking this wine instead of buying drinks at the bar!

I recommend this Pueblo Ingles program to anyone and everyone, if you'd like more information just ask me. There's more places you can go to teach, I'm already thinking about going to teach in Pals which is just North of Barcelona, sometime next year.. partially so I can see some of my Spanish friends who live in or around Barcelona and Madrid. That also gives me good reason(s) to finally learn some Spanish. I already know how to order a coffee on ice, but that's deffs not enough to get me by!!!

Cazorla

2008-07-21T01:40:00.000-07:00

Cazorla (ka-thor-la) is a small town in the South of Spain, below Madrid.. but not quite at the Mediterranean. For those who don't know.. I'm teaching English here for a week, it's volunteer work which means I don't get paid, but I'm put up in a villa with free food and lots of free Spanish young wine. I have the best views from my bedroom. For example, and this is the truth, from my bathroom I can be showering whilst looking out of the bathroom window, looking towards the horizon and all I can see are Olive groves... as far as the eye can see!!

Behind me would be some big hills, and on the opposite side is a famous National Park. The moon rises from behind these hills, the past few days it has been a full moon too.. so it lights up with sky, but then you get the silhouette of the hills! It's great! There's also a castle here within view of.. where I'm teaching. It isn't just me here, there's a bunch of people teaching English, people form Canada, the UK, Ireland, Australia and America.

This has to be the best way to experience Spain; going to a town off the tourist trail and experiencing a side of Spain most people never have the chance to see. I've become friends with many of the Spaniards here, a few of them are very high up in their respected industries.. yesterday I had a 1-on-1 with a man who works as an engineer within Nuclear Power Plants/stations, there's another bloke.. Javier, who is a Health Inspector.. so if someone complains about a doctor.. Javier will go and sort out the problems. I'm learning a great deal about the Spanish, Spanish culture.. and of course myself. Something this program does to people is it makes them reassess their lives, opens up our eyes and can literally change lives. That's not taking things over the top, this is an amazing program.

I have plenty more to talk about so I'll leave that for another time, keep looking back for updates!!

Adios.

Madrid

2008-07-21T01:28:00.000-07:00

I once thought Adelaide was slow-paced and relaxed but I think I might have to change my mind about that! Madrid is wonderful, peaceful and... just awesome. It's not as much a tourist destination like some fancier Spanish areas (San Sebastian for example) but is still very good. Spanish coffee is the best I've ever had, I can order a cafe con leche (coffee with milk) for 1.20 euro's.. which is cheap, especially for such a great coffee!

I actually did quite a bit in my 3 days here, whilst I have a journal with information on everything Robert and I got up to, I wont bother touching on more than half of it. There are a lot of squares here... open areas, where people hang out and drink or eat, or both!.. mostly both. I enjoy this sort of thing and spent some time, even on my own, sitting in cafe's experiencing this part of the Spanish culture. Another facet i enjoy is the siesta break.. most if not everyone who works will have a siesta in the middle of the day.. which could go from 40 minutes to 2 hours. People seem to work longer hours but they do get a 2-hour break in the middle, some people sleep, some people hang out in plaza's/square's.. some people go swimming.

Madrid also has a good network of public transport, both overland buses and underground trains called the Metro, it's quite similar to London's tube system with 2 exceptions; the Metro isn't as old as the Tube, and instead of varying types of English.. everyone here is Spanish!

Some more things I saw/tasted.. Spanish wine, Sangria, Paella (which is not pronounced with the L's), chocolate con churos, proper pizza + pasta, spanish beer, coffee's and pastries.

In short, Madrid is wonderful and I want to see the rest of Spain, I also want to learn Spanish once again so hopefully I can get some lessons sometime, somewhere!

London

2008-07-21T01:21:00.000-07:00

My last post for London right now. So I've mentioned that a couple of my friends are overseas right now as well, and my last day in London, which was Monda the 14th, was spent with friends Ben and Kara.. and obviously Robert. I hadn't seen Kara since May when i was fortunate enough to accidentally bump into her at Adelaide Airport when she was leaving for the UK.. so was good to catch up again.

One of the best things we did today was chill out in Regent Park, it would be similar to the East Terrace parklands in Adelaide.. except much nicer, more flower beds and fountains.. and squirrels!! We spent some time gawking at a particular couple who were asleep and had a squirrel running all around them and sometimes climbing onto their legs! Oh yeah Ben took photographs.. and he looked like a massive perv!! haha.

I finally got around to buying a UK sim card for my mobile phone, but in order to use the sim I had to get my phone unlocked, most people who can unlock phones are all indian/paki and rip people off, most of these people said they could unlock my phone in 2 hours and it'd cost 25quid, this was shit as Robert got his phone unlocked in 15 minutes only 2 years ago. As luck would have it we found a shop which could unlock my phone in 15 minutes.. but still charged me 25quid.. i couldn't argue, i wouldn't have anyway, so just accepted it and tryed to forget about it. Everything ended well, I bought a sim with O2.. one perk is free texts to any UK number within the UK!

Tower Of London, Tower Bridge

2008-07-15T07:16:00.001-07:00

By now we had relocated to a much nicer hostel with a great location.. literally 20 seconds or so walk from Piccadilly Circus! This was great as we were now central to London, made the most of this with an early start to our Sunday in London and went to the Tower Bridge, having lunch on some grass nearby, then crossing the bridge, and then making our way to the Tower of London.. this VERY old structure everyone should see!

A Beefeater a large group (which we were apart of) on a tour of the Tower, he was pretty funny and involved the crowd at times, was a great story-teller as well. It's not easy trying to explain how cool this place is, I could go on and on about its history but until someone sees it.. what I type are just words on a screen, to be here is just something else. Maybe do a wikipedia.org search and you'll learn much more than I could tell you in a couple of paragraphs.

After the Tower of London Robert took me to this almost secret pub, hidden down some backstreets in a part of London I can't even remember. The pub is called the Lamb and Flag and is around 150 years older than Australia as a country! Crazy hey! Almost everything there is original, the floorboards are even slanted and on different angles to each other, probably just by so many people walking over them in the course of time, I presume. We had some proper English ale.. the type silly Australians complain about saying "they drink warm beer over there!" Turns out it's not warm, it's below room temp, and in a cold climate.. why would you want an ice cold beer?!

Rob and I ventured out to China Town for dinner which was alright, the portion of food here is much smaller than it is back home, and way smaller than the asian food I had in Thailand. I still find this strange, but didn't let it get to me, it was nice food however.

Pretty sure we went out tonight to a place called O'Niels, apparently it's really good on Saturday nights but was a bit average tonight, and due to being etremely tired I called it a night after 1 beer and finally had a bit of an early night (11pm) back at the hostel, excited for what was to happen on Monday!

Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, London Eye etc.

2008-07-15T07:05:00.000-07:00

Today was a good day, the first stop was at Big Ben and Westminster Abbey, seeing these 2 places up close was pretty amazing, so I celebrated with a muffin from Tesco's and walked in the opposite direction towards the London Eye, this is a HUGE ferris wheel and is pretty stunning when you see it up close, if it were cheap to go on then i'd do it. While walking around we passed through Waterloo Station which was some fun, you could catch a train there and go to the centre of Paris in a matter of hours!

Next was the unimpressive Tate Modern, strange that i'm into art but didn't enjoy this place.. suuuure it's HUGE but the quality of work is low, although not understanding most of the exhibits had something to do with this. So I left there impressed with the size of the building but unimpressed with the work on show, and we made our way over the Millenium Bridge and to Saint Peters Cathedral whch was pretty cool, and old.. like all of London really!

We squeezed all of that in before lunch-time, which is when Robert and I met up with long-time school friend Ben, in Piccadilly Circus. This was really cool as the last time we were all together was at a pub back in Adelaide, and talking about our up-coming trips! Eventually we made our way to Hyde park to drink some beers and relax, which we did pretty well!

Ben had to leave to go to his sister's place in Fulham, so Robert and I met up with one of Robert's friends, Josh, and had dinner at some pub in Hammersmith, the meal was really nice.. a burger and chips + salad for close to 4quid! (beats subway anyday). Later in the night we made our way to Soho for a bit of a night out on the town but since I forgot to being my ID card we couldn't do much, and left just as soon as we got there!

London

2008-07-15T06:43:00.000-07:00

So before I go on about London I have to mention something that happened at LAX; Robert and I were waiting to check in with Air New Zealand when a bunch of religious finatics (catholics we assume) began singing and playing the tambourine, we were very glad that we weren't on their flight to Sydney!

I can't be bothered going back to update something from mid last week so i'll just ramble on about London, London's great, I was excited for a change of scenery as well and the colder English climate tickled m fancy, turns out that my first day there was quite warm.. maybe 19-degrees celcius, though did rain briefly. Robert and I stayed at this hostel in an area called Bayswater.. a nice place really. Out hostel was a big crummy, breakfast was below mediocre and the place could've done with some general maintenance.

We got lost 2 times trying to find the hostel which wasn't a good start, especially considering when Robert has the pocket-sized A-Z street guide of London, but we found the place eventually and that's all that matters now. Our dorm had a balcony which was pretty cool, we sat out there for a bit and ended up doing some drinking there too.

Quick update - London

2008-07-11T11:44:00.000-07:00

I still have a couple of posts to do on Santa Monica, but I'm in London now, it's my first day here and am really enjoying it so far, have already been on the tube numerous times, sussed out Picadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square, Oxford Street and stuff.. i saw Big Ben from a distance!

No idea if i'll have time to update this in my 4 days here, maybe i will.. if not then i'll try to when i'm in Madrid for 3 days next week. The week from the 18th July i'll be in a small town South of Madrid teaching English and won't have internet access.

Peace always!

Santa Monica, Hollywood, Venice

2008-07-10T08:46:00.000-07:00

This place is amazing, so relaxing and easy-going, it's similar to the Gold Coast.. but better, SO much better. There aren't high-rising buildings which is great, there's a 3-block promenade similar to Surfers Paradise's Caville Mall.. but the one here is still better.. part of that has to do with being in California. 1 block away is the well famous Santa Monica pier which has a roller coaster, ferris wheel and other rides and games on it. Crazy how this massive pier is able to support so much on top of it.. and not sink in the sand!

Our first day here consisted of roaming around and just sussing things out, didn't really do much today that I can remember.

Our second day started with one of those popular tours to movie stars homes, hollywood and some other stuff. This was alright, and by alright I mean really average, how lame can you be to gawk over movie star's houses? Truth is a lot of people do this and record everything on their video cameras. I find it strange that people (especially tour-bus drivers) waste so much time of their life spent talking about lives of movie stars, just baffles me! So this first section didn't interest Robert and I and we were quite bored.

Rodeo Drive was next and this area is average, just upper-class shit, expensive shops and places to eat. Robert and I had lunch here though which was a bad decision as the next stop had a nice shopping area with a Farmers Market.. had cheaper and better food.. oh well! Next was Hollywood and the Hollywood sign.. we saw it from a large distance and much thanks to LA's smog.. the sign was hardly visible, nevertheless the view from our lookout was really nice. We also went to the main boulevard with the stars in the concrete and all of that jazz, once again not something I particularly cared about but was worth seeing... i guess?!

The main good aspect of the tour was being able to be driven around for 4-5 hours in a comfy bus and having many sights packed into this small tour. Robert and I were thinking of going to some of these places on our own, which would've taken ages!!

Later in the afternoon we hired old fashion bicycles and cycled down to Venice, all the way along the boardwalk area on the beach! This was so amazing, being there cycling along a famous beach (which is nice, as well as famous) was just something else.

Haight/Ashbury

2008-07-08T19:59:00.000-07:00

Does Haight/Ashbury ring a bell to anyone? Well apparently it's where the whole Hippie movement began.. although you wouldn't think that if you hadn't previously been told. With such a fruity history you'd think this area is just amazing, but it isn't.. it has nothing on Byron Bay (if you didn't know, i used to live there for 6 months). Despite that, it's a nice little area and its main street is Haight Street, strangely enough. This street is packed with good shops, selling shit from second hand gear to brand spankin' new gear... I ended up buying some white shoe laces. We also had some really nice burritos for lunch at some Mexican corner store.. not as good as Burp Burrito back in Adelaide but at least here you get authentic Mexicans serving you Mexican food.

Oh yeah, Haight is right next to the Golden Gate Park! We went there as well, being my second time there, I knew exactly where to roam. Robert and I passed an open air Salsa dance class.. anyone walking past could join in for free. Seriously, it looked really cool and fun, people were joining in with no shame.. and no Robert and I didn't dance.. though we did joke about giving it a shot haha. We ended up in the Japanese Tea garden, sure it has nothing on the real-deal in Japan but it was still quite nice and relaxing.

From the GGP we obviously went to Haight, then back into downtown San Francisco to the main shopping district that is Market Street. We ended up in Union Square again which was great, I was laying under a tree on some grass writing in my journal while Robert was over checking out the HUGE Macy's department store. They have 3 HUGE stores, one of children, one for women and a small one for men! I hung out in the main sitting/open area of Union Square and when Robert came back from Macy's he commented on how I looked like a local just sitting there relaxing! We decided for a better view of the square and went to the rooftop decking of Macy's, there's a restaurant up there as well. The view was well nice, there was a flat open section with tall buildings on every side just leaning in on it.

This was our last day in San Francisco and it ended up being very nice, the first 2 days we didn't do much but then packed in a lot in the last 2 days. We were to catch a Greyhound coach bus from here to LA.. as of writing this I'm now in LA.. in Santa Monica, so I can comment on the bus.. it was crap, the floor was sticky and there was food scattered all around, the chairs were average, and we ended up being dropped off at some totally shit bus depot in a shit area in downtown LA. I'm glad to have chosen a bus over a plane.. the experience was good.. now I know how bad buses can be haha, it's my own fault anyway for wanting to take a bus.

Entrance to the Golden Gate Park.

Free swing-dance lessons.. no I didn't do it :-)

Japanese Tea Garden, GGP.

Burrito and corn chips for lunch in Haight.

Union Square, San Francisco.

Golden Gate Bridge

2008-07-08T19:39:00.000-07:00

Saturday 5-7-08

The day we finally chose to cycle across the world famous Golden Gate Bridge ended up to be the best day we had in San Fran! We considered ourselves quite lucky to have had the bridge in full view as for the days leading up to today.. the bridge was blanketed in fog. The cloud lifted soon as we approached the bridge, so had some brilliant photo opportunities there. Once on the bridge though.. the fun really began!

I'll try to explain the size of the bridge; it looks massive from afar and looks massive from up-close. It really is an impressive structure and I'm baffled at how it was created SO long ago.. incredible. We were having such a good time that we ended up getting sun-burnt, I was worse off with lovely pink forearms which (now 4 days later) are still pinkish. Also, I taunted a little boy who was also cycling over the bridge, I rode up right behind him and ringing the bike's bell frantically.. he shit himself and peddled off real quickly!! Once over the bridge you have the chance to drive/walk up to this lookout which is roughly at the same height as the highest part of the GGB.. this was crazy.. we could see the clouds rolling into the bay and over the bridge, in fact we were IN the clouds at times! It was very windy and quite cool.

From here on we cycled to a little fishing village called Sausalito, a beautiful little town with some wikid nice cottages and views of San Francisco.. which is pretty much directly opposite it over the bay. I could imagine living here.. if I had my dream job here that would be nuts.. and if you want to goto San Fran you could just catch a ferry there.. which is what we ended up doing. We had lunch in a little cafe which was pretty cool.

Waiting for the ferry was pretty relaxing, everyone who was riding bikes just let them stand in line and everyone would walk off... then come back in time to catch the ferry. Robert and I did this too, bought some iced tea and chilled out by the water's edge. The ferry ride back to SF was nice, and once off the ferry we had to ride along the bay to drop the bikes back off at the bike rental stall.

So you can understand just how much of a good day this was, every other day was foggy, even in the CBD. Clouds were out in force from the morning with only a small break in the afternoon.. and back out again in the late afternoon, so having an almost cloudless 3-5 hour period was just awesome.

There it is!!

Leaning on the Golden Gate Bridge.

View from the hill on the opposite side of the bridge.

Relaxing in Sausalito after hours of riding.

Independence Day

2008-07-05T22:50:00.000-07:00

Today wasn't as crazy as I expected, there weren't idiots running around doing dumb shit, people were like the were on any other day. My day began with another morning stroll down the the bay to write in my journal, heading back to the hostel shortly after and then leaving once again, but this time to Golden Gate Park. I was going with a Danish couple who were interested in checking out some museums, the first one we went to was based on comic book art.. but was closed!! So we caught the metro to GGP.

The park was fairly blanketed in fog which was pretty typical by now, but really cool (literally) as being inside a cloud is sort of wet and cooling. The park is huge and I only covered a small area, there's a lot of plants and grass and flower beds.. and joggers! SO many joggers. We bought discounted tickets for this 9th floor observatory town with amazing views, once again.. the fog was an issue, so my view stopped after 200m or so. Bu still that was cool, I then left the couple and made my way back downtown, had some taco's for lunch in the main shopping district along Market Street.. and then making my wa back to the hostel for the Independence Day rooftop BBQ!

The BBQ was SOOOO good, everything supplied for us, food, salad, bread, sauces! I had 2 vegetarian hotdogs and some salad, drank some Stella and hung out in the sun chatting and watching a fellow guest beatbox on his microphone. The hostel roof has a wooden decking so was lovely to be on, and had some nice views towards China Town. After lunch we walked to Market Street to check out the shops, there's some huge department stores here, they even have a Westfield which was really cool. Not spread out much.. it just goes up many floors. Union Square was alright.. nothing that fancy.. but a nice area to hang out in I guess. We went back to the hostel for dinner, back up on the rooftop again, and I had a nice home-style cooked hamburger.

Later on we were hanging out in the common room with 2 English lads, getting our drink on a little and only left the hostel around 9:10PM... knowing full well that the fireworks began at 9:30. Drinking the whole way to the wharf, we managed to get there just in time for the last 10 minutes of fireworks. Downside was the clouds were back over the bay so half of the fireworks could hardly be seen, just large bursts of colour really. We're not sure why but after the fireworks almost everyone left the wharf area, the cit really needs to capitalize on the crowds and somehow keep them down there to party longer, ultimately.. to spend more money and have fun. We actually left as well so can't really bag out the locals haha, and we ended up in an Irish pub we went to on the pub crawl.

These English guys have no shame, whatsoever, lucky they couldn't see themselves from someone else's point of view because 2 drunk English guys break-dancing in the middle of a pub is only half as cool as it sounds, but made for good laughs + conversation starters. I left a little after midnight, Rob stayed there for a bit longer and told me some funny stories of things that happened later on, like some random guy out the front of the pub who could do back-flips. This is a fascinating city, San Francisco.

Drinking Stella on hostel's rooftop

Rooftop BBQ

I love love

July 3rd

2008-07-05T22:22:00.000-07:00

It's not easy knowing what to expect for July 4th, there seems to be some clouded hype about it for people outside the US, turns out that it's more of a family orientated public holiday, the real partying goes on the night before (though might not be the case everywhere). I started the day with a walk down to a bunch of piers, sat and had a coffee and wrote in my journal, finally making my way back to the Hostel where I caught up with Rob, and we went to a corner diner for some lunch.

The next few hours was spent wandering the streets, photographing many steep streets and admiring the cottages overlooking the bay area. We meandered through Fishermans Wharf again but this time it was very packed and the atmosphere was good. Lombard Street was next, it's the most windiest street in the world.. apparently. All I know is living there would be shit as your street would constantly be filled with tourists, if you were in a hurry you'd have to plan to leave your house at least 10 minutes early! Filbert Street is another steep one and with a funny name too :-)

We had a new girl in our dorm, Sheila, who is from Ireland.. and we took her to a local pub for happy hour, being Irish she was glad to come along. This pub was small and only sold local micro-brewery beers. There were 3 American guys about my age pissing on pretty hard, mirrored the cliche image of an American Jock from all of those football/teen movies. Funny guys, spent most of their time asking for high-5's from passerbyers.

We went out on a pub crawl that night with Sheila and her friend Jennifer, as their old hostel was doing a pub crawl. It was pretty fun.. getting cheap drinks and checking out some quaint bars, I think I left the group around midnight as I was (and as of writing this.. still am..) very tired from my flight here.

San Fran: Fisherman Wharf/Mission District

2008-07-03T08:50:00.000-07:00

Today was Robert and my first full day in the city, started with a brisk 6am start thanks to the sun and noisey people in the dorms.. strange how the dorms dont have doors and the walls sectioning off each room don't reach the ceiling! Anyway, we went for a stroll in random directions, one of the first things to happen just near our hostel was some (possible gay guy) yelling out at us from across the street.. "HEY GUUUUYS" in a typical gay accent, it was hilarious; best start to the day!

The streets are fairly steep here which is fun, I think the steepest street is California St which has an incline of 31.5% or so. We found another street so steep that the footpaths were steps; just to make walking up/downhill that much easier. We loitered there for a good photo opportunity, then moved on towards the Wharf areas again. If i were to live here I'd want to stay in the North bay area, the houses here are marvelous and the views fairly incredible. I think the only downside is the large homeless population, but they tend to keep away from these nicer areas.

We sussed out the Mission District after lunch time, it's a mostly Latino area, I felt pretty uncomfortable there as most of the people looked sketchy as. I also took note on how people acted towards each other, there seems to be no sense of community, looks like the people who speak Spanish separate themselves from everyone else, and the latino/black/white people stay in their own groups. Though I could be wrong, but that's my observation. I noticed this most when in a little dingy supermarket similar to some in Adelaide's China Town, and some little negro lady and her son were wanting to buy something but couldn't get to the end of the line, so I let her in front of me, and although she was very thankful.. I could tell that the people behind me were rather unimpressed. It's not fair to pigeon-hole American society based on a couple of experiences, but I get a feeling that any largely populated city here is exactly the same as the next, and that the friendly people live in smaller towns.. maybe I should go to the towns? :)

After the mission district we hung out at the Hostel chillin with the Serbian girls who were sharing our dorm with us, they were really fun, one said I look like Justin Timberlake and thus led her to call me JT for the rest of her stay here haha. Rob and I ended up going to Fisherman's Wharf again, this time the fog had cleared and the place was busy, compared with this morning when the area was dead and cold (but that was at 7am). We ended up having a pint of Anchor Steam Beer (San Fran lager) at some pub at the wharf, was really nice, eventually making our way back through the Itaian district and to our hostel for beers and food. The beer here is cheap, especially the imports!! The rest of the night we chilled at the hostel, talking with Danes and a guy from Melbourne, eventually ending back in our dorm and out on the fire escape getting high on the outside fire-escape with a guy from the Philippines and a guy from El Salvador.

Am living by this quote right now, "everyday of my life's the best day of my life!".

Peace always.

Very steep hill photo opp.

Fisherman Wharf + busy crowd.

San Francisco Lager, very nice!!

San Francisco

2008-07-01T23:17:00.000-07:00

It's about 11:15pm here, am mega tired.. pretty much spent 27 hours getting here and had some amazing broken sleep, sucked hard.. i need to get one of those sweet travelling pillows. The stop in Auckland was alright, the airport is nothing special but the food they gave us on the plane was awesome, especially the NZ wine.. Montana.. very nice stuff!! I had 3 glasses :)

The transfer to San Fran was smooth, real nice flying in to the airport.. on my side of the plane was a lot of rivers and.. wetlands (i think), quite stunning really. Has been dark the entire time i've been here so am looking forwards to seeing the city in the daylight tomorrow.

Can't really say much more right now as I havn't done any cool stuff yet. Oh I must comment on Americans; they have the most goofy accent I've ever heard. My first encounter with one was on the plane from Adelaide > Auckland,
he asked me how i was and i replied fittingly, then asked him how he was and all i got in response was "yep". Though we have met some nice americans, one in particular helped us get a train ticket from the SF airport > CBD. I hope I don't meet too many negative ones.

Adelaide, last day!!

2008-06-29T18:42:00.000-07:00

Woooooow, so it's the day before I jet off on my 1-way ticket around the world, time seems to have gone SO quickly from when Robert and I decided to team up and leave the country. A lot has happened since then, have made many new friends.. all of which I will miss a lot. New opportunities I've aimed at for a long time and will now be put on hold for some months, some of which have come about in the past fortnight which is very bad timing, but as I keep reminding myself.. it's better late than never!!

I've been amped to travel for so long and now that it's happening.. I realise even more how much I actually enjoy Adelaide. Although I'm keen to live elsewhere for a while I know I'll come back to Adelaide, it's just inevitable. Everything I want is here, except for the experience of new places. Sure there's a lot of opportunity overseas but it doesn't mean that quality of life will be better.

I've actually been offered my dream job as a professional graphic designer, for a small studio here in Adelaide. So stoked for this opportunity and I was able to work there for 2 days last week, it's so good there, very creativity driven, awesome dudes, and located in a top spot = 1 block from China Town :) Maybe something to look forwards to when I come back! (yes, coming back earlier than expected is an option).

So, next time I update this I could be in San Francisco, London, or Madrid. There's amazing fun times coming up so I hope friends will read this and be involved in my journey. Life's too short to not make the most of everything, and that's now why I'm going away indefinately, I'm so excited to see how life unfolds.

WOOOOOO!! :)

Day 8: Last Day

2008-06-17T02:09:00.000-07:00

So it was my last day today and for breakfast I had a piece of bread which was pre-packaged with this slimey green paste which is a sweet taste, apparently contained coconut! Next was a coconut-taro filled bun; the inside was a purple paste and tasted slightly like honey.. the actual bun was the nicest part though. My third breakfast bun was coconut-pandan filled and its inside was green, it had a subtle taste but was sweet.

Shaun, Laura and I went back into Patong for lunch and ended up at Enjoy.. surprise surprise! I had satay chicken skewers and fried rice.. and yet another coconut smoothie... best smoothie and only 60Baht!!

No idea what the time was but we finally caught a taxi to the Phuket Airport Hotel, took us a while to find it but we arrived and the place was small and cosey, all of the bedrooms were centred around a small swimming pool. There was a little open dining section where we had dinner and played free games of pool. I spent some time in our bedroom watching Pirates of The Caribbean 3 and read Harry Potter for quite a few hours.. drinking Lemon Iced tea and eating potato chips.

My breakfast bread slice with strange green paste.

Pre-packaged Coconut-taro filled bun.

My room with Shaun and Laura.

..Changs!

Original Lays??? haha

Day 7: Kamala Beach

2008-06-12T05:14:00.000-07:00

Today was a nice chance to sleep-in, it was a good change from the early morning starts I was accidentally having. I got up around 10am and sat on the Internet for a bit, then went back to my room and read Harry potter till 3pm.. only because I was waiting for Shaun and Laura to wake up and get ready so we could go to town for lunch. Around 3:30 the 3 of us caught a tuk-tuk up to Kamala Beach (where FantaSea is) and found a nice little restaurant where we would have lunch. I had stir-fried vegetables and fried rice. After lunch we walked to the beach and sat on some reclined deck-chairs on the beach.

All of a sudden loads of dogs came up around us, it was really annoying.. these were street dogs, no owners, they were shaggy and no one cared for them.. and since I'm not a fan of dogs I wanted to get straight out of there, and so we did.. but not before a stop-over at a 7/11. I bought this pre-packed bun with a sweet coconut custard filling.. these pre-packaged buns are awesome and found everywhere here! We caught a tuk-tuk back to our hotel and swam for a little while, just relaxing.. as we didn't have anything planned.

We went into Patong for dinner at Enjoy, a restaurant we had now been back to about 4 times! I had a pad Thai and a coconut smoothie.. this would be our last night in and around Patong as the next day we were to leave and stay at a hotel near the airport. The 3 of us spent the next couple of hours shopping/browsing.. we accidentally stumbled into the biggest stall complex.. dozens and dozens of stalls selling the same old crap. I was sick of looking at so much mediocre clothing that I ended up playing with a couple of tasers.. almost trying one out on myself! haha.

Not an overly exciting day, more so relaxing than anything else.

Shaun and Laura on Kamala's main street.

Lunch, cucumber Adidas logo?!

Kamala Beach umbrellas.

Relaxing to the max!

Pre-packahed buns, one with a gooey green coconut paste! YUM :)

Day 6: Phi Phi

2008-06-08T06:43:00.000-07:00

Best Sunday in a long time! had free breakfast at the hotel, then had to rush to catch the bus we organised to pick us all up and take us to the wharf on the opposite side of the Island. The bus came at 7am, and I was up at 6am.. and with a late one last night I was well tired, but enjoyed the lazy ride in the backseats of the bus, just chillin and listening to my iPod. The ferry we had to catch was great, had about 4 decks and loads of people. I sat on the 3rd deck with my feet dangling off of the side, and many people copied me :) It was a liberating feeling and I could see many islands out in the distance.

The ferry took about an hour and a half to get to Phi Phi, then took us on a loop around some islands, we saw Viking Cave and the entrance to the popular beach where The Beach was filmed (the ferry was too big to get us in there).. eventually stopped near Monkey Beach, where people could do some snorkelling. Just before this I had met this Canadian back packer, Eric, and we sort of teamed up in the water.. instead of snorkelling on our lonesome. Snorkelling was awesome and I want to do more of it! I had fins and could dive down deep.. real close to the coral.

After that we had lunch on Phi Phi, lunch was organised by the tour operators we went through for the day. After lunch we had around an hour and a half for ourselves, so I made the most of it and bought a mango smoothie and sat in the water! How typical :) The scenery here is so good, big rock-faces and loads of trees clinging to them. I even saw a couple there for some extreme rock-climbing! The 4 of us (Shaun, Laura, Eric and myself) hung out together on the ferry for the trip back to Phuket. This time there were more waves and wind, and since we sat near the front of the ferry we got showered with a lot of spray from waves crashing against the ferry!

We parted ways with Jasmin and Steph as they were staying at Phi Phi for the next 2 nights, so it was now just Shaun, Laura and . We went into Patong for dinner again, I found a little stall with 1 guy making food, he made me Pad Thai for 50Baht.. $1.40 AUSD (my cheapest meal yet!!) and was extremely tasty, it even had seafood in it, which I hadn't had in Pad Thai before but now quite like. Shaun and Laura ordered food from a stall a few stalls down, their food as also really good, and the tables had the best table cloths I've ever seen.. so full of colour!

We ended the night at Thavorn Beach again, on the deck-chairs on the beach.. drinking Chang longnecks until the early hours of the morning, affirming my statement of best Sunday in a long time.

The ferry crew

Boat and island in the distance, cool and relaxing

Just dangling the legs :-)

My new favourite Lemon Iced Tea, in front of an island.

Eric the Canadian and myself after snorkelling.

I got excitable after lunch, here on a beach at Phi Phi.

Cheapest meal of my trip, Pad Thai for 50 Baht.

Drinkin Changs whilst Shaun & Laura have dinner.

Day 5: FantaSea

2008-06-02T07:38:00.000-07:00

Much thanks to the invention of the air conditioner I woke up copious times during the night due to being cold, although I did have a sleep over with Shaun and Laura which itself is pretty rad. Shaun had pre-ordered breakfast for today from last night, somehow they got extra food, thus providing me with a free breakfast! (thanks again Shaun) From now till around 2:30pm the 3 of us were just lazing about in the hotel's swimming pools; playing water polo and generally relaxing, and this time we took care to keep the pool balls from getting punctured haha :)

We all caught the free shuttle-bus from the hotel into Patong around 3:30pm, once again went to a quaint little restaurant, this one is called Enjoy. I had fried rice and stir-fried vegetables which was amazing as always, and obviously I had a shake, this time it was Coconut. Straight after lunch we booked tickets to this place called FantaSea, part amusement part theatre spectacular, tickets set me back about 1500Baht or so, I also bought a ticket to go to Phi Phi Island for the following day which was even more pricey.. possibly 3000Baht!!

Shaun, Laura and I caught a taxi to our hotel, leaving Steph and Jasmin to do some shopping around the many street stalls. Our taxi driver was the best/worst driver we've ever encountered. This driver had the most high-pitch squeaky laugh ever! I can't explain explain who it goes.. but he'd laugh for no reason, he'd also beep at other drivers and people on scooters.. for no reason, then he'd laugh some more, and beep, and say things to us.. possibly to make us laugh? I don't know, but this guy was in a world of his own.

FantaSea is insane, so many bright lights and cool statues and everyone was so friendly! There were tones of side-shows aswell, and fun little shops. After some browsing, the 3 of us went into the giant food hall,
this thing was massive! It could seat 40,000 people, and 4 buffet sections to accommodate. I find the underlying thought of buffets as ridiculous; I prefer having enough food to satisfy my hunger.. without there being too much to make me so full. Anyway, dinner was good.. I started on dessert and worked backwards as the desserts were too good to leave to last!

Around 8pm we made our way into this massive theatre decorate with stone elephants and things, we weren't even allowed to take our cameras in. The show was a blend of myth and.. comedy/magic.. strange really, the show began with elephants being walked along walk-ways out through the crowd and onto the stage. There was a lot of fighting and story telling, even acrobats hanging from trapeze from the ceiling! Around half way through some magicians came on stage and were being silly, this is the weird bit.. it had nothing to do with Thailand nor the show itself, apart form this the whole place was quite magical. I ended up having photos taken with the elephants form the show and their trainers.. it was a good night!

Shaun and I at the entrance to FantaSea

Mimicking this sweet statue

Some super hypo section...thing..

The foodhall

This was my dessert, weird little things!!

Le Gang photograph with costume person

Day 4: Phuket Town dissapointment

2008-06-02T07:14:00.000-07:00

Today being Friday and all I was keen to leave Patong follow my plans East to Phuket Town. I accidentally woke up way too early, made my way to the hotel's restaurant for breakfast, and paid way too much for it and ate far too little to make it worth-while. Besides that, I did have scrambled eggs and some toast and 2 glasses of milk which was awesome, exactly what I needed after a long day drinking Changs. I had packed up all of my gear and checked out of Thavorn Beach Hotel, and the 5 of us set off for Patong to get some lunch! I also bought this American chocolate bar called Reeces, it was a culmination of peanut butter brittle and chocolate; the perfect mix! That's one thing I'll be looking forwards to on my trip to California in July... in moderation of course.

Being someone who likes to stroll off on his own to discover new things, I did so and stumbled upon a neat little restaurant which had a good menu and good cheap prices. We sat there for lunch for about 40 minutes which was nice. I had another smoothie, this time a coconut one! It was so fresh and unbelievable. Shaun had a banana smoothie which was also insane.. I wish bananas would come in liquid form like this all the time :)

Straight after lunch we caught a tuk-tuk to Phuket Town, this took atleast 40 minutes I reckon, it was a cool drive; we went through normal Thai suburbs/huts and stuff, finally making it to the very busy and confusing Phuket Town. I felt really confident with being able to find my hostel, after all I did have the address and had bothered to find its where-abouts on Google Earth, despite that none of us could find the place whilst driving along the road it should've been on. The group expressed their concerns with wandering around with the possibility of having great difficulty with finding someone to take them back to Patong (once i find the hostel), and so I gave Phuket Town a miss.. and went back to Patong. It wasn't all bad, at least I got to stay with my friends for a few more nights!

Shaun, Laura and I had dinner at Thavorn Beach Hotel, I had possibly the best Thai Green Curry ever! The only thing I could complain about were the waiters.. although it's nice that they're super friendly, they just lingered around us waiting to have something to clean up. I felt as though someone was constantly watching me! Weird! Nevertheless the most expensive meal on the trip was so worth it. Since I didn't end up in the hostel in Phuket Town, and didn't have a room booked at Thavorn Beach.. I slept on some cushions on the floor in Shaun and Laura's room (thanks guys). The next morning the hotel staff noticed I was back at the hotel and began sussing out if I had stayed there illegally, but without knowing if I had stayed in Steph + Jasmin's room or Shaun + Laura's room.. they didn't make me pay for the night. I felt pretty lucky about that so took the safe option and booked a room for myself for the remainder of my time in Patong.

In hindsight, maybe I was being too adventurous for a first-time traveller with wanting to leave my group to stay in a different town, a town where I would've had much trouble communicating with the locals. Apart from this plan, there were others I didn't end up fulfilling.. but I'm alright with it as the experience of failing just made me a more conscious traveller.

Day 3: Boys Day Out!

2008-05-31T06:33:00.000-07:00

Today was officially Boys Day as the girls were having a Girls Day, doing girly things like getting manicures and pedicures (on the other hand there's plenty of ladyboy's who would do the same thing) anyway, Shaun and I set out around 10:30am to connect with the hotel's free shuttle bus into Patong, not surprisingly we ended up on deckchairs right on the beach to drink some beers and be hassled by touts trying to sell us fake The North Face bags. Soon after we made our way into the alleyways of Patong and stumbled upon a quaint little restaurant where we sat in and ordered the awesome Thai dish... Pad Thai!

We caught a tuk-tuk to Karon Beach which is a place I had planned to visit, which is the next beach down from Patong. Turned out to be much less touristy and only 1 main street with lots of clothing and jewellery stores. Shaun and I relaxed on Karon Beach for at least an hour or two, under a huge purple beach umbrella we lazed drinking more Singha's.. bought a few metres behind us in a makeshift bar. Funny how anywhere in Australia you'd need council permission to erect a place of business, but anyone seems to be setting up shop almost anywhere they want here! I ended up going for a swim even though I didn't bring bathers, which meant that afterwards I was walking around holding my shirt as to not get it soaked. It's cool how you can just be chillin on the beach and people will walk past with snacks for you to buy! Shaun and I found a tiny ice-cream shop with air-con so we sat in there enjoying some amazing ice-creams, until heading off. We were about to catch a tuk-tuk back to Patong and even questioned this guy sitting on the back of a tuk-tuk, instead of hopping in the front.. he walked off to some brand new Nissan with leather seats and all that crap, turns out he's a taxi driver pretending to drink tuk-tuks? Was all good as we paid the same price as a dingy tuk-tuk, had wet clothes as well haha..

On the way back to our hotel we bought quite a few Beer Chang longnecks (each are 6.1%) for 38baht each! Back at the hotel we cooled off in the huge pool and played volleyball and water polo, somehow popping one of the balls and even got away with it! Still not knowing where the girls were, we decided to sit outside Shaun's room and drink some Changs, then making our way to the beach for more Changs, once spotting the pier down the beach we decided to go on that to drink more Changs and sat there four hours, took some fun photos and had good chinners (conversation). it was night time when we got back to our rooms and decided to visit the Marley Bar which we pass each time we leave and get back to our hotel. The Marley Bar was run by 2 Thai guys, had loads of reggae posters on the walls and stalls and even played good Bob Marley music, actually they were playing a Best Of cd which I have!

Marley Bar was epic!! We played free pool with the 2 Thai guys, drank more Changs and somehow talked one of the Thai guys into cooking us noodles. Now I have no idea how this came about because all we were asking for was to know if there were any food stalls nearby! Anyway we had noodles and a boiled egg each, best boiled egg we ever had! Pretty sure the bar was kept open as we were the only customers and soon as we left, the place closed! We meandered along the winding roads back to our hotel, only to find the girls there, relaxing. I'm not sure what happened next but it was good and I woke up in my own bed the next day without injury and loss of possessions.

Shaun and I waiting for the minibus to Patong.

Lunch, delicious Pad Thai.

Huge mythical statue on Karon beach.

Awesome beach umbrella.

Drinking Changs on the pier looking out into the bay.

Day 2: Phuket

2008-05-30T07:26:00.000-07:00

Continuing on from the last blog, I arrived at Phuket airport around 9am or so, a good time to start the day! Leaving the airport was tricky, we had so many sketchy locals wanting to be our drivers, and took atleast 10 minutes to get some help finding an appropriate minibus, and were soon on our way to Thavorn Beach! My beach bungalow was pretty amazing, situated about 20 steps form the beach, in fact I could see the water from my front door! I had a double bed all to myself, a tv with a bunch of channels in Thai.. the only 2 in English which I watched was a movie channel and the Discovery Channel, strange, as it's my favourite one!

Since I had gotten to my room the quickest, and speed-settled in, I ended up in the hotel's pool's swim-up-bar (a bar in the water, with seats) and had started relaxing over a Singha beer sometime around 11am, what better start to me day?.My friends gradually rocked up 2 at a time, by then I was already onto my 2nd beer and had made difficult conversation with a bar tender; who was 30 (looked 22), had a huge dragon tattoo covering his whole back and had only recently started learning English.. so talking to him was a lot of fun :)

After the bar and many beers and Long Island Iced teas, we all went for a nap, napping longer than expected, and eventually made our way into Patong for dinner around 7pm. Catching our first tuk-tuk was really fun, they have bench seats without seatbelts, and you can dangle out of the windows or back door (which has no door) but I advise not to do this as everyone in Patong speeds and chances are someone will drive into your face/limb if you're not careful. With that said the traffic seems to work! There are signs reading "DRIVE FAST, be careful".. which is how it goes, along with a lot of horn beeping!

We ended up in a restaurant on the beach for dinner which was really nice. The ladies which showed us there were actually standing at the front of a restaurant elsewhere.. stealing competition perhaps! So we ended up somewhere nicer anyway. I had a Pineapple Smoothie for 120Baht (later finding this to be fairly expensive). After tea we walked down Bang La Road, possible the main night club/prostitute section, as you can imagine was pretty dodgy, but still entertaining! I found some stall making smoothies so I bought a Banana one which was awesome and much cheaper than the one in the restaurant.

No idea what time it was, but we knew it was getting late and decided to get some supplies from one of many 7/11 grocery stores, I stocked up on some bread and jam, Singha longnecks, milk and Hershy's chocolate. I find it weird that there was so much American candy there yet they didn't have American soft-drinks! Anyway, once we got back to our hotel we all hung out in 1 of our 3 rooms to do some light drinking, and ended up on the beach drinking some more. I think I finished all of my longnecks, and by the time I got to bed i'm pretty sure it was just after 2am!

View towards beach from hotel lobby.

One part of the hotel's pool

Awesome banana smoothie!!

My first haul from the 7/11's :)

Day 1: Adelaide/Melbs/Darwin

2008-05-29T20:15:00.000-07:00

I had a 7:45am flight so was up by 5:30, and once at the airport found out that our flight was delayed by 5 hours.. but what can you really expect for a budget airline?! Jasmin and I wasted out time wandering around Harbour Town and at the airport, finally leaving just after 12, getting to Melbourne too late for a day-trip to the city, instead we lingered in the faux Irish pub in the main terminal, had some beers and turkish bread + dip, finally embarking the plane again for a 4 hour flight to Darwin. If you've never been, Darwin's airport is similar to Adelaide's old airport, but smaller. Weird thing is, anyone flying from Singapore into Australia have to go through Darwin.. which means it gets fairly packed while people wait for their flights!

We left the Australia at 3am, arriving in Singapore around 6:30am.. and we almost left the budget terminal before spotting our companions Shaun, Laura + Steph asleep on some benches! We woke them up very excitedly, and slowly made our way to our next check-in. I had some breakfast; a banana smoothie and scrambled eggs on toast, there were a few other interesting items on the menu.. Chicken Ham and Chicken Bacon (I had neither).. First real meal for 24 hours. We then meandered through to the Departure Lounge, spending some time on the free Internet and looking at a small store selling cute asian plush toys and keyrings.

Previously on one of the stop over points, possibly Melbourne, Jasmin had bought the latest Harry Potter novel; The Half-Blood Prince.. and once she fell asleep on the plane to Darwin, I started reading the book and found myself enthralled to its amazing story-line, so when we were leaving Singapore I made a quick dash to the book store and bought the same novel haha, the very start of the Going-To-Phuket- Harry-Potter-Book-Club.

11 hours and counting

2008-05-19T03:57:00.000-07:00

It's official, while I sit here listening to The Wombats, there's only approx 11 hours till I fly out of Adelaide for my holiday in Phuket. I have 7 days of wonderful, tropical, monsoonal weather ahead of me, with days averaging 30degrees; nothing too warm.. or wet :) On the way I have a nice lay-over period in Melbourne where my buddey Jasmin and I will be chillaxing in the CBD doing.. anything really. I also have the same stop in Melbourne on my way back which is awesome as I thoroughly enjoy the place.

I also have an International Drivers Permit which is sweeet, I do plan on eventually getting some light mode of transport when I settle down in Edinburgh come late August, whether that be a rickety old bicycle or a sweet scooter.

So now for the details of Phuket. I'm staying in a hotel resort for my first 2 nights with my friends at Thavorn Beach, Patong. My next 4 nights will be spent in a hostel in the middle of Phuket Town.. where i'll be based, [hopefully] making trips down along the east and southern coastlines to places like Cape Panwa, Rawai Beach, Promthep Cape, Nai Harn Beach, Kata + Karon Beach.. and hopefully up to the north of the island.. I have no idea what's there and I want to find out!!

There's some popular islands a lot of tourists go to, such as Phi Phi island which is unfortunately being destroyed much thanks to unsustainable tourism, so I wont be going there. Chances are i'll stick to Phuket unless I can get a boat to a small island called Ko Racha Rai just below Rawai. Although if it's stormy I wont bother with this island.

I might try do a blog while i'm in the Phuket Town hostel, i'm sure i'll have time.

Oh wow.. only 10 hours and 59 minutes to go...

Counting down.. 20 days..

2008-04-29T03:20:00.000-07:00

So 20 days from now i'll be in Melbourne, about to leave for Darwin>Singapore>Phuket! I'm soooo very excited for this, for those not in the know.. I was pretty down on missing out of doing a stop-over in SE Asia on my way to California.. until I got asked to go to Thailand on a whim, and had my tickets the next evening. And now Thailand is a quick 3 weeks away, then when I get back I only have a short 4 weeks till I leave again, but this time for my longer trip to Europe.

My mum and I finally received our British passports early last week which was very exciting, we were waiting for about 8 weeks and I was worried we wouldn't even get them. Next on my list is travel insurance, international drivers licence.. and maybe some other stuff. I've also figured out the details of places I'll be visiting, as well as dates. I'll do another post soon with my itinerary with lots of sweeet information!

Check back soon!

Womadelaide.. UPDATED!

2008-03-07T20:09:00.000-08:00

last few paragraphs are the updated sections

Well I didn't think I'd be blogging again any time soon! But then my mum bought me a ticket to Womad.. and here I am, blogging! There's a lot I could say about Womadelaide, and knowing me I'll forget to mention some of it. Basically Womad blew my mind, it is soooo good!! There's not 1 single thing which is better than something else, instead everything culminates to an amazing experience. Having said that there are actually a few things which stand out, detached from the music, culture and culinary delights. It seems like in order to attend Womad you need to do one of the following; sit or lay down for a while and get up with a grassy bum (I did this one on purpose), walk around bare foot to get 'womad feet' (..again, on purpose), wear Thai fisherman pants (even though you probably havn't been to Thailand and don't wear them any other time) and wear something on your head which at any other time would be fairly unsuitable.

I wish I had gone to previous years at Womad, I had always been interest but never said anything about it. And since I wont be here for some time I accepted my mum's offer. I was overwhelmed at first when walking through the huge decorative Angus Watt Flags (http://www.anguswatt.net/), I walked around for a bit and sat down to drink some chai and soak everything in. It was great; you could be a full on raging weirdo and no one would care, furthermore.. you'd fit right in!

I met up with my mum for dinner and had some funky Moroccan food which I had to eat with a wooden spork. I gracefully left her and her friends and meandered my way through the crowds and arty installations and ended up at stage 3 watching Beirut (awesome band) until around 8:20pm and then left to see the John Butler Trio. I sat through 2 songs and felt the need to keep walking, which I'm very glad I did as I ended up watching the La Compagnie Carabosse (a French ensemble creating spectacular flaming sculptures made up of hundreds of candle pots) light all of the candles, very surreal and amazing!

The only downside of Womad is the amount of dust in the air, you have no option but to breathe it in and after a while you'll have breathing problems. Those with asthma will know exactly what I mean. Anyway, I bumped into my friend Harry at the Holy Cow Chai Tent, we relaxed there and then watched this DJ's from the UK, got bored, and ended up at the Zoo Stage. I left Harry and bumped into my friend David, and then the 2 of us went back to the Zoo Stage to watch Watussi, this amazing funky band. I find it strange how I only bumped into people I knew once the sun had gone down, when visibility was at its lowest. Watussi's vibe was so good I ended up dancing somewhat, taking comfort in seeing much much older people also getting their groove on. I guess.. when in Rome!

I feel so lucky having been able to go to Womad on the Friday, but going for a second time on Sunday (the last day) made me feel even luckier. I was more organised on the Sunday and soon as I got through the gates I went straght to the Moreton Bay stage to enjoy Mojo Webb's energy-packed blues/roots music. This stage is shaded by the huge Moreton Bay trees, creating the feeling of a secluded forest clearing with a tiny stage. One moment Mojo Webb was rocking out on stage with his band, and the next he was running through the crowd (still playing a guitar). I ended up standing and dancing as everyone around me did it too. I found out quickly that letting loose is mandatory at Womadelaide!

About half-way through Mojo Webb's set I left met up with my good friend Shaun & his girlfriend Laura at Stage 3 to watch The Beautiful Girls, was pretty cool. Shortly after this Shaun and I went to the food area to kill some time and get some cider, then by chance my friend David walked past and stopped right in front of us! David, his gf, and their friends sat down with us and we all relaxed there on the grass. Around 8;30 we left there to see Sharon and the Dap Kings at stage 3, without knowing they moved to Stage 1, so we accidentally saw Toumani Diabate's Symmetric Orchestra instead, woops :)

Next on the list was Mista Savona (roots reggae meets dancehall music) at the Zoo Stage. Everyone was up and dancing, the vibe was amazing!! David put me on his shoulders and for a while I was up there groovin' and recording the band + crowd on my camera (video is on facebook). This was really the last band I watched, and was the last band at that stage. By now it was around 11:30, and we all went to the Holy Cow Chai Tent to chill out on the rugs and drink some iced chai. My friend Harry met up with us in there soon after and that was pretty sweet too. Overall I had a very good weekend, Womadelaide is amazing and I'm going to miss being here for it next year, although.. Womad is world-wide and is also held in England so perhaps I'll attend over there! :)

For more pictures make sure you check out my Picasa gallery: http://picasaweb.google.com/melodywoop
Photos:

Moreton Bay stage
Angus Wat Flags
La Compagnie Carabosse
Mojo Webb
Shaun and I at Beautiful Girls
Shaun and I getting cider
Mista Savona

Getting ready to.. get ready..

2008-03-05T21:51:00.000-08:00

entry number 2.

Hey hey so I thought it was about time I update this thing; tell everyone what's going on and what plans I'm making etc.. all that information people need to know. So a couple of weeks ago I was reading a book called A Fortune Teller Told Me, it's based on a journalist travelling through south-east Asia, having to take any mode of transport apart from planes + helicopters. Anyway, the combination of that book and Lee + Paul's itinerary of their journey through Asia really got to me and I was slightly unhappy on missing out on that pocket of the world on my trip to Europe. Then perfectly timed, my friend Jasmin asked me if i'd go to Thailand with her.. without 2 seconds thought I said "yes" and the next evening we had our tickets booked for 7 days in Phuket!! This is by far the best on-a-whim decision I've ever made, the price of the return trip also had a big part to play; there's no way I'd pass $560 return tickets to Thailand, especially since I didn't know when I'd get the chance to go there some other time.

I got my Australian Passport in January which is great because without it I wouldn't have been able to get tickets to Thailand. So what's next? Well I have a whole sheet of paper with bits and pieces which need to be bought for both of my trips. It's amazing how much you really can fit into a travel-pack, knowing that you're going to be living from it for an unknown amount of time, but on the other hand it sure is exciting!! I'm still yet to get my injections for Thailand (there aren't that many to get). I've heard a lot about the impact of tourism on certain parts of Thailand, such as Phi Phi island, and I have no interest in such unsustainable tourism.. so don't expect any crazy island photos, but do expect some photos of me riding elephants and eating amazing Thai cuisine!!!

Now It's only a short 10 weeks until I go to Thailand, and when I get back there's only 4 weeks until I leave for California + England! I'm going to Cali with my friend Robert, and we've been making some plans already. Looks like when we land in LAX we'll most probably catch another flight out to San Francisco, spending 4 nights there (remembering that 4th July is Independence Day). So far it looks like we'll give couch-surfing a go in SF, but hostels are still a possibility. Our itinerary so far includes a day-trip to Yosemite National Park, ride the famous trams, possibly cycling over the Golden Gate Bridge, check out Alcatraz, and many other things. The rest of our time will be in Los Angeles, I have no set plans for LA as I want to take it at my own pace. No I won't be going to Disney Land, and yes I will buy an over-sized cup of coffee like the over-indulging Americans are well known for.

No one really knows much about my plans for UK + Europe for when I arrive on the 11th of July, so now Is a good time to tell. I need to finalise my bank account soon as Rob and I arrive in London, and I also need to get a phone sim-card sorted out. The 11th is a Friday and we'll stay in London for that weekend. Sometime very shortly after that weekend I'll be catching up with Lee where ever she had ended up to work. This leaves about 4 weeks of time to work until Lee and I leave the UK for The Netherlands for the 3-day alternative music festival called Lowlands. This will be my 1st festival EVER and I seriously can't wait!! Lowlands runs from the 15th-17th of August and chances are I'll go travelling with Lee straight after, and end up in Munich, Germany for the Oktoberfest starting on the 20th of September. After this
event I'll need to get a job, and this will occur somewhere in 1 of the countries in the UK, though most probably Scotland. I'm interested in going to France for my birthday in October, but apart from that I don't have many more plans until Christmas and New Years. So this information will have to suffice for now yeah :)

Keep checking back every few weeks for updates, until I leave for both trips I won't be doing weekly blogs. Bookmark this, and even check out the links on the right of my blog!! Stay tuned for more tremendously exciting blog updates from the one and only Travelling Tobias.

Au revoir!!

To fill the void

2008-01-16T23:57:00.000-08:00

entry number 1.

I'm pretty much done with customizing the original layout I chose, I might try and add a sweet header though. Isn't that just dandy; taking someone else's code and changing it to suit you? :) Anyway, if anyone even reads this (Lee I know you're reading this) i'll be making small updates as time nears July 1st, with some pictures of my backpack, passports, extra things and whatever else I feel like including at the time.

There's no real need to post blogs between now and the end of June so I probably wont even check up on this until.. 3 months from now. ha. And so with that said i'm just counting down the months now, I'll also be starting a short French lesson around March if all goes to plan, and be thinking of some amazing travel plans simultaneously!!

Europe here I come!!!