Budapest

I arrived in Budapest on the 29th of october in the evening. I was collected at the airport by Nóra and her mother Szuszanna. I travel everydax through the city to go to school, and have spent weekends in clubs, exploring, and meeting Nóras family and friends. We have lunch every sunday at her grandmothers house, and during the week i eat whatever szuszanna is cooking. Usually there is a different soup to go with every meal, and lots of chicken. I have been comparing everything (tötökaposo, rokkortkrumpli, and all the different soups.... im not sure of the spelling) with jolans cooking, and i think hers is still better. The school is hard and i am making a little bit of progress, but hopefully with practice i can get better.

last week in london

Our last week in London was not so eventful. Rachel visited for a few days before she went on a bus tour of europe, and we went out a few nights during the week. upon leaving london, Will went on to manchester, ireland, scotland and france, and i went to budapest where he will meet me soon.

Around London

One of these photos is from when we went to the greyhounds at Wimbledon, the other is from tottenham, when we went looking for the damage caused by the riots

London Apartment

We moved into our bedsit officially on the 30th of july. Since we have moved in there have been a few changes, mostly in the state of how tidy the room is. For the first few weeks we explored the area and went out quite a bit in london, but now that we have jobs we have settled down a bit. We were only cooking for ourselves, normally rotating between bacon and eggs, bangers and mash, and chicken wraps. Now i get fed at work on the days i am working which helps out a lot, because i get to eat nice food too.
The weather has been up and down since we arrived, but its starting to get colder, windier and wetter more often.

Turkey

My time in Turkey could have been better if circumstances permitted, as there were many beautiful places and sights. If i hadn't have been given a 600 euro fine, hadn't have lost my wallet, hadn't have spent hours and hours on a crowded bus, and hadn't have lost my skateboard things might have been different. But there where some nice beaches, there are a lot of good bars as well. We went to one of the seven ancient wonders of the world, ephesus, but now all ruins are starting to look the same to me. We went fishing in the Aegean Sea but didn't manage to catch anything, although it was relaxing.

6 weeks in the Greek Islands

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The time we spent working in the greek islands we won't ever forget. We had so many adventures and met so many fantastic people that we will stay friends with forever.

Rhodes - Faliraki

We first arrived in Rhodes during the day, and thought we had made the wrong choice of island. There were only old people around sunbathing on the beach, and no young people in sight. We didn't realise that was because during the day most people sleep, to head out for a big night on the town. The first bar we walked into "GEORGE'S" we stayed all night, and we ended up being offered jobs aswell working for the bar next door, "BEDROCK", which he owned aswell. During the following week we spent all our days setting up the bar by ourselves, and when it finally opened it wa a big accomplishment that we were both proud of. The owners of the bar praised us for our hard work, and we have become good freinds with all the workers and the family who own the bar.

Prague

We spent 11 days in prague, which was the longest we had spent somewhere without staying for work or with family. We watched the lacrosse tournament on most days, but the action wasn't so exciting there. Prague is an amazing city with so many gothic buildings crowding all the squares and cobbled alleys, we spent so much time here walking around and observing the buildings and the people. We also baught a skateboard in Prague, and we discovered a lot of the city by looking for good spots to skate. The people here are crazy as well, we saw a lot of fights, a lot of heavy drinking, and lots of crazy looking skin heads covered in tattoo's, but it was a really fun place! When we left prague we hitchiked to frankfurt to make our plane to Rhodes, and we spent most of the journey in a truck with this nutcase of a driver, who didn't speak much english, but was a DJ hen he wasnt driving trucks and he had the music pumping!

Berlin

Berlin really is a cool place, its like Paris, in it just has so much style. We only stayed for a few days and want to go back if we can. It was nice to see a lot of Germany aswell, because it is different to Holland, you can see so much of the repression's influence

Hitchhiking Amsterdam to Berlin

Telling people all week that we were going to try hitchhike to Berlin, we got mixed responses. Some people said we would have no problem, others thought we were crazy. We had heard from a few germans that is is quite common in their country, so we thought that maybe once we made it to the border it would get easier. We left Amsterdam around 1 in the arvo on monday, and went to a designated hitching point a short tram ride away. We found our first lift within 15 minutes, and were taken an hour towards the border, but also past the exit that we were supposed to have taken. We ended up needing to hitchhike to the next town which was a long way away to make it back onto the right highway. We made it that night to a small city called Groningen at the top of the netherlands right near the border. We got there late, and after trying to hitchhike in the dark for a while, we realised we needed a place to stay.

Not wanting to take the easy road out, we looked for a place that we could have shelter from the rain that was coming, and somewhere we might be able to actually get some. We found some uninstalled drainpipes that would keep us cosy, and managed to "sleep" for a few hours until sunrise, when we got up and started hitching again.

In the next day we made it from Groningen to Berlin by around 9 that night, we were overjoyed with the result, covering over 700ks in a bit over a day. Driving from Hamburg to Berlin was the best ride we had, as it was the first chance we had to see the AUTOBAHN. Our drive was averaging about 180ks the whole way, and also managed to clock up to 220 at one stage, just a normals day driving for him, but me and will were excited

Amsterdam - AJAX

Ajax is the soccer team based in Amsterdam. They won the league whilst we were in holland, so we went to the team presentation and celebration and it was crazy. The fans were going crazy, singing and dancing, lighting flares, pretty much just going nuts in anyway possible.

Queens day - Amsterdam

I've been back in Amsterdam for a week now, waiting for will to finish work so we can head east. We arrive in Prague on the 21st, and we are leaving Amsterdam around the 15th, which gives us a week that we will probably be spending in Germany. Queens day in Amsterdam is the biggest day of the year, the whole city turns into a festival with DJ's and bands performing day and night. The line up of artists would be comparable to any festival held in Australia, although in Amsterdam the festival is free. The majority of backpackers in this hostel Amsterdam are Australian, because of tours organized in oz that go through this hostel. It's funny hearing fresh Aussie accents, and they all just seem so foreign when they get here, it makes me realize how isolated we are at home.

Paris

Paris lived up to all my expectations and more, it was a beautiful city. The first day i arrived i walked straight to the cemetery pere la chaise to see Jim, than spent hours walking up and down the city, back and forth through the alleyways and lanes exploring all the quirky and trendy shops. The style that the parisians uphold in everything they do makes paris such a cool place, everyone is skating or drinking or painting or playing music, the creative, bohemian culture here is

what makes it so beautiful

Javea - Spain

Javea was a tourist town, a settlement set of mainly english and german, who come and stayed for the easygoing nature and weather. It was a beautiful part of the coast, and it was great to relax for a week, staying in a great house with a fantastic view. It was not very spanish in culture though, which was a little dissapointing, but it made up for it in relaxation.