An Ending

So I figured this blog needed one. And it is of course a happy one. Dermot and I are home safe and sound and stuffed after a great Christmas with the McDowell/Hayden family. We didn't think that we would make it home for Christmas. We arrived in Los Angeles on the third leg of our flight from Auckland to find all flights to Philadelphia canceled. We heard that there was a standby flight to Philly at 9 p.m. Christmas Eve, so no worries, right? After the most stressful 2 hours of my life fighting for two seats on a packed plane Dermot and I landed in Philly via Las Vegas (with our bags!) at half ten at night. At half eleven we were showered and in our pj's watching Conan O'Brien by an open fire. Thank you gods of travel.

16 countries in 4 months, that's a sense of accomplishment.

As per usual, I was getting really choked up leaving New Zealand. I kept saying to myself I didn't want to leave but that's just me being typical sappy Abby. Dermot and I did everything we wanted to do there, and we did it richly. It's a pity it's so far away. It's the kind of place you could return to year after year, to the beaches, the cities, the countryside, the people. But, probably won't. Return that is in body. I'll return there daily in my mind.

The last week or so was spent reaching the top of the south island then retracing our steps to Auckland via Wellington and Raglan. We met up with our friend Freddie again in Nelson for a few pints and a long walk through the Abel Tasman National Park (I believe it was 22 km). Nelson was a great little town and the Abel Tasman was a great challenge. People who have never hiked the Abel Tasman say that it's a walk on the beach. And true, it is, there were many golden beaches to cross, high tide abiding. But there were also many hills to climb in the that golden searing New Zealand sun. No complaints really, I'm just out of shape. I remember my first week in the country a tour guide said to me that New Zealand experience is all about birds, bush, and Maori culture. We experienced all that and more.

After saying our fond farewells to Freddie and to the south island, we boarded the Interislander ferry to Wellington. I would love to transplant Wellington onto Pennsylvania. I love it, I want to live there, I could live there if it wasn't so feckin far away, but that's what makes it Wellington. Raglan after Wellington was a nice, little break before the bustle of Auckland and the ensuing cold of Philadelphia. People go to Raglan for its breathtaking beaches and never leave. We left extremely sunburnt, or in my case lobsterfied. Yet, it was nice to have the time by the sea to reflect upon the trip and the road before us.

Back in Auckland we got to see Rhys Darby the comedian perform live. He's known better as Murray Hewitt the manager on Flight of the Conchords, i.e. my hero. Hahaha. It was nice coming full circle to Auckland. We stopped by the Auckland Base hostel for a few spirits, rounding our complete tour of the cheapest and best bars in the whole of the country.

That pretty much sums it up.

Dermot and I both agree that this trip has sufficiently scratched all our iches and planted our feet firmly on the ground and brought our heads down out of the clouds. We've said it all the time, we did everything we wanted to do. We look forward now to the road ahead as it bends towards other directions. It goes on and on, remember?

Thanks for reading!

Misty Mountains

So we left sleepy Dunedin behind us with 3 pictures of the entire city in our camera's memory card and a wicked hangover. We had a great time there, though, despite the lack of things to do or things to take pictures of. We spent most of our time in The Bowler playing pool with our friend David or talking philosophy with the barman Mark. Dunedin was mini-Edinburgh indeed, cosy pubs and rain.

Off to Queenstown it is, then! Queenstown in the most beautiful "city" in all of New Zealand. It's nestled between a mountain range called The Remarkables, an apt name for a particularly spectacular section of the southern alps. And I use the word city lightly because it's actually quite small.

The drive to Queenstown from Dunedin was really long, so there wasn't much to do upon arrival. We booked a day tour to the Milford Sound then headed to the cinema to watch the new Bond movie.

The day trip to the Milford Sound was wonderful. Dermot and I had intended to get to the Milford Sound after Queenstown, though we weren't really sure how we were going to go about it, so the day tour was great. Having someone else drive us around for a few hours and give us the full tour really saved us a lot of hassle and basically enriched the experience far beyond anything we could've managed to do on our own.

That night, was Friday night, and since all we've heard about the entire time throughout New Zealand and even before coming to the country, was how great the nightlife in Queenstown was, we were excited. And don't get me wrong, I haven't seen 4 a.m. in a loooong time, but it left me a bit surprised. We went on a really shitty pub crawl that left us at 2 a.m. in a crappy club with a bunch of drunk English people dancing on the bar to Britney Spears. So we left in search of better entertainment. It was dead, the whole town was dead. It took us a half hour in the quiet darkness to find another place. Was there going to be another place? I dunno, we hoped. We eventually ended up on the Sky Bar that had a great atmosphere and a lot better music. Drunken English people are a more tolerable when Oasis is on in the background.

Since we had done all we wanted to do (i.e. all that we could afford to do) in the area of adventure sports, there wasn't much to do in Queenstown but drink.

And eat Fergburger. They are the pride of Queenstown, a tiny little business that sells the best burgers the size of your head. Yummy.

We'll leave the rest to your imagination.

We got the chance to take a few day trips. Queenstown has the highest concentration of LOTR sites in the whole country, but since the money was running low we decided to try and see them ourselves rather than pay for another tour. We headed to picturesque Arrowtown for the Ford of Bruinen where Arwen escaped the Ringwraiths. Then to the site of the AJ Hackett bungy jump where they shot some scenes for the river Anduin and the Pillars of Argonath. But the highlight was a day trip to Glenorchy where Orthanc was superimposed at the head of lake Wakatipu. But the location of Isengard was secondary, next to the scenery along the way to Glenorchy. It was unexpected beauty, which is the best kind. See the pictures we've uploaded, if they do it any justice.

The next stop was Wanaka, a little town by a beautiful lake. It was raining. And there wasn't much to do in Wanaka. It was still nice, and it served the purpose of getting us along the northern track up to Nelson, where our last stop in the south island will be.

After Wanaka was Mount Cook national park, where spent 2 days getting some fresh air on a couple (thank goodness) easy walks around the mountains and grounds before New Zealand's highest peak. Mt Cook and it's surrounding peaks were stunning. They looked fake, as we kept repeating to ourselves. But pinch me, they're real. The snows on the peaks that you could see from a distance were a neon blue. And Dermot had fun trying to hit some of the glaciers in Hooker Valley lake with stones, I think he managed to skim one of them. All the lakes around the national park are pure alpine blue, it was gorgeous. Pure, unspoiled nature.

We're glad to be doing these little villages, off the beaten path.

We arrived yesterday in Arthur's Pass, or Arthur's arse, as Dermot said this morning as I broke the news to him that it is STILL pouring outside. Misty feckin mountains. We can't do much walking in the rain here, which is unfortunate. Dermot said we could always put on our swim trunks and head to the hills, but we're not that ambitious.. We leave tomorrow, so hopefully it'll clear for a few hours so that we can take in a few photos, it's supposed to be beautiful, under all that mist.

Tomorrow we head to Nelson, to meet up with Freddie again and hike the Abel Tasman national park. I think we're actually going to camp under the stars. Those famous New Zealand stars.

I love this country.

I tripped on a cloud and fell 8 miles high

So we said our goodbyes to Freddie at the end of our Rotorua stay and headed for Taupo. We're looking forward to meeting up with him in Nelson, at the northern tip of the south island a month from now. We really enjoyed hanging out with him, he's a great guy. And it was fun seeing the interaction between the most English of Englishmen and the most Irish of Irishmen. Yes Freddie, the Irish have a language, what do you think we spoke before you came around? And I believe Dermot can now use the word "whilst" more often...

Good times.

We got up to a lot in Rotorua. The highlight being white water rafting. For an hour we battled level 5 rapids (level 6 being too difficult for commercial rafting). The instructor for some crazy ass reason put me in the front, despite me arguing that I wasn't that light... but now upon reflection maybe it was because I am in fact not light (10,000 cheesburgers later, remember?) The crew paddled at my at my pace and we managed to not flip our boat as it went down a 7 meter waterfall. I was surprisingly calm because at the back of my mind I knew I was a good swimmer. Dermot, on the other hand was more nervous. After the waterfall, I switched places with Dermot and Freddie as they took to the front and I got in the back. They got the chance to be nearly drowned as we went head first into a rapid. All the pictures I posted have us smiling like idiots. It was awesome.

We also went to a Maori Hangi in Rotorua, which is the equivalent to a Hawaiian Luau. It gave us tourists a chance to dig into Maori culture and food. We got to see an hour's worth of dancing, singing, and fearsome haka's (seriously, look up the word "Haka" on Youtube and see what I'm talking about) then we stuffed ourselves stupid in typical Maori cuisine. Mmm... vegetables. Then after it got dark they took us to see some glow worms, or the Maori fairy eyes. Touristy, but mandatory. It's their country after all.

We also did some luging, which gave the men in our party a chance to be boys again and the girl in the group to worry. Haha, it was fun. Little tiny carts winding up and down a steep, concrete track.

Rotorua was great.

But seriously, they should change the name of the town to What's That F#cking Smell

It's a volcanic hot spot. The gut wrenching odor of molten rock and sulfur hit your nose at the most undesirable of times. By the third day I was ready to leave or one of those gags of mine was gonna turn into puke.

Picture it!

Anyway... Taupo was our next destination and since it was pretty close to Rototura the drive there was easy. We checked into our hostel then proceeded to book some events for the days ahead.

There are two things to do in Taupo. One, is the Tongariro Crossing, i.e. for LOTR fans it's Mordor and Mount Doom. So to me, that was my priority.

Two, is skydive.

We wanted to do both.

It was 2 o'clock and we were thinking of getting something to eat. But the lady behind reception had better ideas. She suggested we go sky diving instead, and do the crossing tomorrow.

Ok, whatever you say lady.

4 o'clock comes around and Dermot and I are hoisted off to Taupo Airport in a limo.

5 o'clock we're strapped into harnesses and suits and thrown in a plane.

Shortly after, I'm dangling my legs over a the side of a plane and thinking what on God's green earth am I doing!?

Too late! WHOOSH!

Dermot said I screamed but I don't really remember much.

I was the first to jump (i.e. get pushed) out of the plane, but we both experienced one minute's free fall and 5 minutes of floating from 15,000 feet.

We both agreed that it was the longest minute of our lives, versus the popular argument that it goes by too quick. We didn't anticipate the speed at which we were going to fall. For 60 seconds I struggled to breath (and in the DVD you'll see that that struggling looks something like a fish trying to breath out of water) and my head felt like it was going to explode from the pressure. We fell through a cloud and green earth came up to meet us then, thank God, the parachute unfolded and we were hoisted back up in the sky for the most unbelievable 5 minutes of life. Because the instructor is behind you, you feel like you're alone, in the windowless, bottomless world of the sky. You could see for miles and catch your breath. My instructor pointed our Mount Doom in the distance, I squealed with delight.

Our instructors landed us both safe and sound on the ground.

It was the best thing we've ever done.

We'll show you the DVDs in person, cause they take too long to load here on the blog. Check out the photos.

It was good that that was the best thing we've ever done because the following day was the worst thing we've ever done. I can look at the pictures now and see the beauty and I can feel the pride in me knowing that I completed a 12 mile trail of tears around volcanic wasteland in the searing, ozone-less New Zealand sun. I mean, what else could I have expected? It's Mordor for crissake, it's not gonna be a walk in the park, like the hike up to Murren in Switzerland now seems. I was weeping by the end of it, under my breath because I didn't want to test Dermot's nerves anymore. I basically made him carry me down the side of a volcano. It was the steepest of slopes with a surface of loose, sharp rocks. I had already wiped out and bruised my spine and cut my hands trying to do it on my own. So he ushered me down for 45 minutes of terror like my brother used to help my 93 year old great grandma climb the step to our house if it was icy. We walked up the devil's staircase, then down jagged crags, then up steep inclines, through snow and then surfaces that looked like the surface of the moon. I got my pictures in front of Mount Doom but that was only the beginning of the hike, so don't be decieved by the smiles, haha. Aw man, I'm never going to yell "hurry up" at Frodo and Sam running up Mount Doom at the end of Return of the King anymore because I know how hard it is.

After a day of rest, we left Taupo and headed to New Zealand's capital city Wellington. It's built around a bay at New Zealand's southern most point in the north island. The major highway into Wellington was basically on the beach. High tide was in and only one strong gust of wind would've drenched the cars in ocean. It was so strange to see. Our hostel was located a good distance away from the center of the city, in a little town called Plimmerton. Our hostel was right by the ocean, it was beautiful.

In Wellington I got to get my geek on with a full LOTR day tour that took us to several locations including Weta Studios where all the magic happened (the CGI, the costumes, art design, etc). Dermot got to shake hands with Lurtz, the massive Uruk-hai leader - just look at the pictures I'm not talking crazy! We got to visit where the Hobbits left the Shire, The Road where they encountered their first Ringwraith; Rivendell where we really had to use our imagination; Isengard where Gandalf of Saruman had a stroll; the river Anduin; and Helms Deep. Now, nothing looks anything like the movie, except for maybe The Road. Peter Jackson and crew manipulated the scenery so much with CGI. But you could still see traces of the crew and you got to hear the stories of how everything was done.

I remember back in 2001 trying to explain to my parents as we were heading to the theatre to watch The Fellowship of the Ring about the books and the story. My mom asked me "where is Middle Earth"? I said, well, it's made up, it's Tolkien's fictional world. But I said that in 2001, before I had been to New Zealand. New Zealand is Middle Earth, there can be no other country on earth more suitable to be the place that millions of people have visited in their minds since 1937 when the stories were first published.

It's magical. The Maori call it Aotearoa, or the land of the long white cloud. To me, as I can't see it from space, it's like driving on the back of a sleeping dragon, one of those mythical sea creatures from the Dark Ages that foreign explorers would devise to occupy the farthest stretches of maps. The jagged edges of mountains and beaches look like claws. The green, its scales, the parched earth, it's haunches. The volcanic fissures are its breath. You must drive slow and careful around the slithering mountains, and take in all the beauty.

Because our hostel in Wellington was away from the city and by the beach, we got the chance to see the famous New Zealand stars. They twinkle. And the sky is actually a dark blue, except if you looked to the far left to see the bright lights of Wellington that seem to be from a distance something out of War of the Worlds.

Anyway, Wellington was great. It was a very vibrant, artsy city. It was surprisingly small for a capital city, but that is not a complaint, because it was very walkable and warm, people wise. Dermot and I looked lost, what else is new, and a woman came up to us and said as much and pointed us on our way. You don't get that it most capital cities.

After Wellington we headed to Christchurch on the south island. We boarded the Interislander Ferry with our car. When the ferry started to churn about in the Cook Straight, we headed down a level to the movie theatre to pass most of the "turbulence" for lack of a better word. Sea sickness is never fun.

Christchurch was very nice. It was colonial in appearance, kinda like if Tommy Bahama designed Boston. Not as youthful and hopping as Wellington was, but it still had a lot for us to do... like pub crawls! Which are always a great way to meet people and see the city (and hopefully remember it the next day).

But the highlight of Christchurch was the day trip to "Rohan" (stay with me, more LOTR references here). Rohan featured in the 2nd movie, The Two Towers, it was the home of the horselords and Edoras, the capital and the Golden Hall. Tolkien described Edoras as this isolated kingdom surrounded by 360 degrees of mountains. Peter Jackson wanted to build his own Edoras in a studio because the chances of finding such a place on earth were slim to none. But him and his film scouts were in a helicopter, flying around the south island to map of other film locations when they flew into this place, Mount Sunday as it's called in real life. The helicopter pilot said, as they flew through a cloud and Mount Sunday was revealed to them, "holy shit, is that for real". And it was. And it became the location for Edoras in both the 2nd and 3rd movies.

The crew built The Golden Hall upon Mount Sunday in 8 months for little under 3 weeks of filming.

That's where Dermot and I went that day, on this tour. We alongside a few others hopped in an off road vehicle to visit the site of the Golden Hall and I got to stand where Eowyn stood in The Two Towers and, and, it was the greatest day ever. I got to sword fight Dermot in front of the mountain. The tour guide wanted me to use the sword, but I said gimme the battle axe. And I got to sit where the fire place in The Golden Hall was, and...

And, I can die a happy person... many, many years from now, heh.

My geekness has been fulfilled.

So we're in Dunedin now. A sleepy, little Scottish town 6 hours south of Christchurch. It's raining today too, pouring actually. Kinda funny, we go to the "Edinburgh of New Zealand" and it's our first rainy day. Dunedin was founded by Scottish immigrants in the late 1800s and the town is rife with the celebration of all things Scottish. Rainy days, included.

We head to Queenstown on Thursday, the party central of New Zealand.

So ah, I figured I'd blog now while I had the time.

Sorry for the long entry. There's so much to do in New Zealand, it's hard to find the time.

Hope all is well, Happy Thanksgiving to all the yankees to read this.

Over the moon...

Kia Ora, bro. Or hello, to those that do not speak Maori.

Happy days, I get to blog.

Dermot and Freddie are black water rafting right now. I was planning on doing it, we had paid for me to do it, but I woke up this morning and truly realized what the f#ck black water rafting entails, and I chickened out. I'll let someone push me out of a plane over Mount Doom (Tongariro National Park) but I'm not gonna raft in a cave by myself with a single light on my head and a single tub keeping me afloat.

Bgok! Bgok! (Chicken noises?)

By the way, Freddie is our friend we met in the last hostel back.

Anyway, we'll start at the beginning, or the plane ride from Berlin to Auckland.

It was the nicest plane ride I've ever taken. Korean airlines is packed with polite, helpful employees, you get great food, free socks, and loads of great movies to watch. And in between the movies they show you clips of how to do airplane yoga, which after 20 hours of sitting down, felt really nice. So getting here was really a peice of cake. It's a small world when you think of it. We can fly to the farthest land mass away within 24 hours, and you get free socks in the meantime. Lovin your work.

That's another saying here, loving your work. The Kiwis are full of catch phrases. New Zealanders called themselves Kiwis, not after the fruit, but from the native, flightless bird. Makes sense, right?

We arrived in Auckland on the 28th. It was sunny and warm.

We took showers, left our stuff at the hostel, then walked to the local town of Parnell, where our hostel was located, to get some food. Parnell is a very posh borough of Auckland, so cheap backpacker food was hard to find. We ended up in The Bog, an Irish pub for a pint and some burgers.

The Phillies were playing on the t.v. I assumed it was the rained out game, a re-run, it couldn't be game 5. But it was the bottom of the 6th inning...

Bar tender, excuse me, is this game live?

Yep, this game is live.

Dermot and I got to watch a team from Philadelphia WIN a championship. It was the greatest, most random moment. Something must've told me to go into that pub, probably the only pub in Auckland showing the game. I got to watch it live. I still don't believe it. The Philadelphia Phillies are world champs. Phuck yeah!

Auckland was a great city. It's the biggest city in the North Island, where we'll be spending the next couple of weeks. We got to drink in a pub called Father Ted's and watch the All Blacks beat the Aussie's in rugby. Dermot called Auckland mini America. We got to eat at Wendy's, it was very exciting all together. Though relatively small, there's a great street called Queen St that has lots of pubs and restaurants and an IMAX theatre we took well advantage of (we hadn't seen a movie in months!) It's great to be in a country that speak English, haha.

And Maori.

New Zealand has only been a country since 1840. I guess because of that the natives and their culture had a chance of survival against the colonization. The English were the first ones here and they signed a treaty with the natives that gave them their land and their language and protection against other potential white faced threats (i.e. the French and the Dutch). So nowadays, you are of European or Maori descent (or of course both, love knows no bounds). I know I'm only seeing the tip of the iceberg. I'm sure there are grave social injustices and prejudice, but it's wonderful to see the European incorporate the Maori culture into their own, and almost show it off with pride and humility. It makes me wonder if in another world the US couldn't have been this way. Native American culture at the forefront instead of radio-active reservations and bloody memories...

We stayed in Auckland for 5 days, 3 of which it took us to get over the jet lag. Going to bed at 5 p.m. and waking up a 6 a.m. was fun (not).

During the five days there, we took a day tour. The woman giving the tour said we're going to start the day with a game. Everyone stand up who wants the chance to win a free bungy jump off of Auckland's Sky Tower (the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere). Dermot stands up. After two rounds of heads or tails, Dermot wins the contest. A half hour the contest, Dermot is standing on top on the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere getting ready to jump off it. I'm standing below getting it all on camera.

3,2,1, and Dermot jumps!

I have it all on video. I'll post it soon.

Luck of the Irish, right?

After Auckland we headed north to the Bay of Islands in our new (used) car that we bought. It's a Mazda Astina. It drives, and it has breaks, good enough for me. And the guy we bought it from gave us a written guarantee that when we bring it back to him, if it's still in one peice, he'll buy it back from us for a little under what we paid for it. I drove and Dermot navigated. There are only like 4 roads in New Zealand (just kidding) so it wasn't hard for us to find Paihia, the town in which we were anchoring in in the Bay of Islands.

It was beautiful and the weather cleared up for us giving us 4 sunny and warm days by the beach.

Jealous? ;-)

We met Freddie Judge from London in our hostel the first day and figured out that we were all headed the same direction for the next week or so, we'll tag along together and see what kind of stuff we can get up to. The second day in Paihia we did some extreme flip flopping along the rocky coast of the beach. Dermot got blisters and everything.

The third day we took an Awesome Experience tour bus up to the north of the North Island to Cape Reinga where our bus driver drove us along a 90 mile beach, taught us some more catchy phrases, made us listen to Kiwi reggae music, pushed us down high verticle sand dunes on boogey boards, and fed us fish and chips. Sweet as, bro.

The fourth day my mom called me every hour to update me on the election. And around 4 o'clock New Zealand time I got a text from Carrie: OBAMA! And a phone call from my mom a second later saying it was official, President Elect Barack Obama. Dermot, Freddie and I were walking around downtown Paihia at the time. Dermot took a picture of me screaming with joy before I ran all the way back to our hostel to watch the live coverage on CNN.

Pinch me, the Phillies and Obama win in one week.

Best. Week. Ever.

We headed south for Waitomo then after making the most of the Bay of Islands.

We stopped over in Auckland to pick up some stuff we forgot in the hostel and do a Skyscreamer reverse bungy, when in New Zealand!

Waitomo is a remote part of the North Island, you have to find it on small roads through winding hills. It was lovely. I saw what looked like Shire (from the Lord of the Rings) at every turn (the whole fecking North Island looks like the Shire) but this part of it even more so. The sun was setting and it turned the mountains purple.

As the sun began the set, I noticed a couple of cars coming towards me were flashing there lights. At first I thought it meant a cop was ahead, or something. But when the cars kept flashing, even miles up the road, I made Freddie get out of the car and check my headlights, maybe they weren't working.

They weren't.

Freddie said, well, you better hurry up then because the sun is going to set soon.

Cue the reverse vampirism.

We chased the last bit of sunset through the winding, dark roads towards Waitomo. Dermot asked Freddie for his miners cap (i.e. the thing he uses to read books at night in the room) to shine towards the road ahead and I turned the emergency blinkers on.

For 15 km we rode in the dark, seeing the signs for Waitomo in the blink of the emergency lights.
It was hysterically insane.

We parked the car in the bright lights of Waitomo's only pub, waddled our way to our hostel which happened to be right behind the pub, dropped our stuff off in the room, and proceeded to drink and laugh away the danger. Freddie played some awful songs on the juke box and we went to sleep safe and sound.

Yesterday we drove around the countryside of Waitomo, eventually ending up at the black sand beach where local Maori women were catching fish (apparently to put in omelets) and I managed to get burnt in the 3 minutes I took off my hoody when the sun managed to show itself. New Zealand has "bugger all" ozone. Apparently.

Tomorrow we head to Rotorua, i.e. the movie location for the Shire, and the heart of Maori culture in the whole country.

Sweet as, bro.

Blow your nose weather

I have 20 minutes to write something. Tomorrow we depart for New Zealand and leave all this blow your nose weather as Dermot calls it behind.

It's cold.

Since we left Prague we've really felt the ensuing winter months.

But in Poland it added to the atmosphere. I dunno, stereotype or not, I just consider Poland one of those cold countries. And it was.

Anyway, Prague.

Beer crawls, tourists, and theives. It's a beautiful city. I say that a lot here, but I mean it this time. Take away the bazillion tourists, and it's eastern Europe serene.

Somebody stole my wallet in our hostel. We know who it is, we've canceled the card, the company is investigating it, Dermot and I look forward to having our 3,500 EUR returned to us as soon as possible. Unforunately, when something like this happens it puts a damper on the city itself, but I think once the money is returned and the case is closed I'll look back on our 4 days there more fondly.

Picture this, we're in Krakow, Poland, in the expansive, hopping town squre. We go to get money out of the ATM and it says that we've already spent our daily limit. But we've been on a train all day, how could that be? Where's my credit card Dermot? Cause it's not in my purse. It's a beautiful evening in Krakow, early birds are going to dinner, people are coming home from work, music is humming loudly, and then there's me in front of the chapel ripping through my luggage in a way that would make Jack the Ripper proud and screaming it's gone! It's gone! My wallet is gone.

Eh, we went through the emotions, drank the 11 free shots of vodka our hostel was offering that night and finished the night with a little Polish kareoke.

We saw the tiny Krakow the next day. I can understand why Pope John Paul II was proud to call it his home, the city of his life. It was quaint and medieval and very walkable.

We then headed to Warsaw, Poland. Which was a huge city in comparison. Thankfully our hostel was in a perfect location, otherwise it would've been too much. We saw what we could though, considering we arrived at the Jewish cemetary an hour and a half after it closed THANK YOU LONELY PLANET. Anyway, we saw a Christian cemetary that was equally as moving. I can't express how shocking it is to actually see the countless grey headstones that mark deaths at the year 1944.

The Warsaw Rising monument was equally compelling. The Polish have some history. It was a very moving city. And it has a wonderful old town, that despite being completely rebuilt in the 1970s looks like you've stepped back in time when the Polish actually had the opportunity and the wealth to create and flourish in their own right.

Off to Berlin. The first night we arrived in really late so we only had some time to get some food and drinks and soak up the night life, pacing ourselves for the next day. We took a 4 hour walking tour around the city which was so great because we really saw everything. Berlin is freaking awesome and I will jump at the opportunity to come back. Vibrant, historical city. It's awesome.

That's the justice I can do it, Berlin is awesome.

I'm rushing to write this, gimme credit!

This whirlwind tour of Europe has been exactly that. A whirlwind. Day long train rides, 8 hours to sightsee massive cities, ...hangover days.

I can't believe we did it. I can't believe this European chapter is closing, for now.

Amsterdam, hehe, I really haven't been the same since.
Munich, it's weiners and pretzels and beer halls.
Interlaken, heaven on earth.
Vienna, and the cult of KFC.
Romania, look at all the COLOURS.
And all those twisting, revealing train rides.
And so much more...

Dermot took a picture of me throwing out our Europe On A Shoestring book as I made room for our New Zealand travel guide in our carry on bag.

I'M SO EXCITED. We're so excited.

We depart tomorrow, Oct 28th and we land Oct 30th in Auckland.

We'll say hi then, from the otherside of the world.

In the meantime, GO PHILLIES!!!

10,000 Cheesburgers later...

We're in Bratislava now, killing time. Cause there's not much else to do here but kill time. People told us not to go to Bratislava, actually, everyone told us not to go to Bratislava. But we did. So the expectations were low. No real surprises after we arrived. We got some good pictures, it's a surprisingly picturesque little city. Little being the key word. We're looking forward to drinking in a pub tonight that has a statue of Lenin in it. And last night we drank a beer called Kelt out of the coolest. tap. ever. It was a viking sword with horns. Awesome.

Anyway, so the last time we tuned in was Serbia...

Right, so we left Serbia on the longest, most uncomfortable train to Sofia, Bulgaria. We were crammed in with 6 other people for 12 hot, deordorantless hours. Dermot sat next to Sauron the Dark Lord, or atleast his cousin (Iiiii SEEEeeee youuuuuu). And I was sitting next to some 7ft Serbian pervert who spoke to his mom or his wife I wasn't sure for all 12 of those hours in the beautiful language that is Serbian (not). The train wove us through the scorched earth of Serbia, stopped randomly in the middle of nowhere for 20 minutes here, 45 minutes there, and got us into Sofia a half hour before most of its restaurants closed.

We got a taxi to our hostel, where we checked in then ran to KFC for dinner. We then bought loads of beer to wash down the dinner and train ride. But when we got back to our hostel, the kindly receptionist told us we couldn't drink after 9 p.m. It was 11 p.m. Never tell an alcoholic she can't drink. (Just kidding mom).

So we signed up for Facebook accounts, I let Dermot beat me in a few games of pool, then we collapsed in our room and fell asleep to the soft purrs of an Asian woman coughing. And I particularly enjoyed walking downstairs and across the courtyard 2 times in the middle of the night to pee.

Sofia, Bulgaria was worth it though. We'll add it to the list of places we've been that'd we'd gladly return to. I'd love to see more of Bulgaria as well, its history seems rich and ancient. Sadly, the poverty of the city struck me hard. It's not easy seeing 80 year olds begging on the street... Long lives Communism.

We saw what we could of Sofia on foot in the searing heat. Then went back to our hostel for the free dinner that they were serving and to drink the beer that we had purchased the preceeding night. We were getting up around half 6 to catch a train to Bucharest, Romania.

We got to the train station at 8 a.m. for our 8:40 train. We departed the train station at an awesomely annoying 11:30 a.m. We arrived in Bucharest at 21:00 after another painful journey, (our cabin could've doubled as a sauna). And then there was the Romanian Border Patrol, otherwise known as two badge-less jabronies in fake-looking jackets, who took my passport away from me saying they needed to stamp it. My bullshit radar was off the charts, but they gave it back to me after a half hour, laughing, silly American girl. I said under my breath that the funniest thing about this is my husband is probably less hairy than your mother. Haha hahahaaaaa. Funny.

We saw the sun set on Bucharest as we attempted to find our hostel without getting lost. Attempted, being the key word. We are SO good at directions. But after 1 hour of walking up and down the same street, I started screaming, EXCUSE ME, CAN ANYONE TELL ME WHERE THE NEAREST STRIP CLUB IS. Because our hostel was above a titty bar called 'Heaven' - insert ironic quip here.

We found the hostel eventually, toweled ourselves off because it is SO HOT in this area of the world, then set off to get some drinks.

Bucharest was so cosmopolitan. Definitely not the shit ridden, rabid dog infested, wasteland of crumbling brick buildings as I had anticipated. No seriously, what do you see when you picture Bucharest? I'd argue that it wouldn't be far from what I had pictured. It was a great little city.

Off to Transylvania! Muah ha haaa. I need a tissue! We meet some fellow backpackers at the bus stop who had actually stayed at the same hostel we did who were heading to Transylvania as well. Small world. Brasov was the collective destination. So we ended up traveling with Mark from Australia, and Vanessa and Alana from New Zealand for the next 2 days. We suggested to them that they should stay in the same hostel that we were because they'll probably have room and it's the top rated hostel on hostelworld.com for Brasov, Transylvania. So they complied. We arrived in Brasov, where we had to take a another small train half hour outside the city, well past Brasov town, where the Carpathians became scarily closer and more abundant. Oh Christ, where are we taking these poor people! We hired two taxis who had no idea where our hostel was exactly, but it was somewhere thatta way, farther into the Carpathians.

We're no where near Brasov, are we?

No. Nowhere near Brasov.

Just call me Jonathon Harker. The fear I had in me as the taxi struggled to climb the slight, rocky trail up the mountains to our unknown destination was as palpable as Bram Stroker could have described it.

I felt bad, I had told our fellow travel companions that our hostel in Brasov was the highest rated location for the area. So it was guilt, really.

But then the trail broadened. The countryside before the Carpathians was breathtaking. See our pictures, if they can do it any justice at all. The sun was setting, the air was cold, the moon was coming out from behind the clouds... this is what I wanted from Transylvania. I just hope our companions felt the same.

They did.

Hallelujah.

So as to reiterate, we were in the middle of nowhere on this farmer's farm. Josef, a very nice man, with his wife and family. I finally got a picture of a woman with the babooshka on her head as requested by my mom! Hahah. We took loads of pictures, played with the dogs and chased the chickens around, adjusted to where we really were, unpacked and got psyched about the prospects of hunting for Bran castle the following morning.

Anyway, who's hungry? Lads, help Josef clear the back of his pick up truck and we'll ride 3km to the nearest town to get some dinner. Everybody hop in! Mind yer arses, the road gets bumpy ahead. Very, very bumpy. Mind the branches as well, they sting at 60 km/pr hour!

We were loaded like cattle into the back of his truck and spun around the hills of county Brasov for 30 minutes each way all for the sake of some pasta and drinks. Hysterical.

We made each other dinner, drank a bit, then got a good night's sleep in the fluffy clean beds of Villa Park hostel, with alarm clocks set for 8 am the following morning.

We hiked to Bran Castle, otherwise known as Dracula's castle on a hot, clear day. The castle itself was insanely disappointing. No mention of Vlad Tepes at all, and the interior dates to the early 20th century. But the hike there was spectacular. The path was not the least bit man made. We hiked up rocky slopes, down slippy hills where we swung from trees like suicidal monkeys, as we followed our instincts (or should I say Mark, Vanessa, and Alana's instincts) and a few signs here and there. Bran castle is that way, you're good, keep going! 3.5 hours later we arrived in Bran town, ate some pizza, and caught a very deserved bus back to our hostel. Well, atleast the nearest town next our hostel. Remember the 3 km car ride? We had to walk that, uphill. Fun.

It's okay, because of the 10,000 McDonald's cheeseburgers we've been eating since we've come to this area of the world we burned off like, 4 of them. There are McDonald's everywhere!

We left for Budapest at 7 am the next morning. An hour long taxi ride and we were at the train station in time for our train, which was also on time. Sweet!

11 hours later on an okay train, we arrived in Budapest. Our hostel there was freaking awesome. We watched Scrubs on DVD, got our laundry done, checked our internets. Place Budapest on the list of places to come back to as well. It was so beautiful. We took a walking tour so we saw the vast majority of the city and learned the chaotic history of the Hungarian people. And we went on a pub crawl to a karyoke bar where we sang some Chili Peppers and Bon Jovi.

The highlight of Budapest of course were the baths. Dermot and I spent half the day soaking in the thermal baths of Budapest's most popular destination. The water smelt like the stuff you developed photographs in and the number of hairy, unfit men in speedos was a bit disturbing, but all that aside, it was heavenly.

We ate that night in an Italian restuarant where we drank Hungarian wine called Bulls Blood. Yes, Bulls Blood. Tasted like flowers.

We left Budapest wanting more and expecting to see it again.

And now we're back here, to Bratislava. 1 hour and 16 blogging minutes later. How's about that for killing some time?

Photos will be uploaded later, my fingers hurt. And Lenin awaits.

About our pictures

I don't know why some of our pictures aren't showing clearly. Some are, some aren't. But all of our pictures were uploaded at the same time, the same way. We've noticed that sometimes the pixelated pictures just take a while to load... and some just don't load at all.

I'm not quite sure what to say.

Picasa web lets us order prints, etc. I suppose then it just gives us a reason to meet up with ye and show you the pictures then.

Hopefully, the glitch will fix itself, soon. We're getting some good pictures over here.

Love you all.

Carpe feckin diem

I'm not sure when we'll get the opportunity to do this in the next few days, so I'll rush this blog to have it updated. We board a train to Sofia, Bulgaria tomorrow at 8:40. It arrives at 18:20. So we'll get one day in Bulgaria after all that travel. Then on Wednesday we head to Bucharest, Romania from Sofia on a train that takes 9.5 hours. And that's if the trains are on time. Which I hear they never are.

Right, be present be thankful.

Hard to be at the moment cause we're a bit burnt out. We booked an extensive trip this month and we're feeling it. 1 day of travel, 1 day of sightseeing and so on and so on. We booked our flight to New Zealand and all of our hostels for the month, so we have to stick with the schedule. We'll get through it, gladly. But it's draining.

The train from Bled, Slovenia to Zagreb, Croatia was easy enough. We had an hour to anticipate Croatia. But it was in that hour that we realized there are no trains to Dubrovnik. We therefore sacrificed Dubrovnik to use it as an excuse to come back to this area of the world another time, and in better weather. It's been cold and rainy so far. So in this pickle, we consulted the map in our Lonely Planet guide and said, well, we're booked into Sofia, Bulgaria on Monday 6th, we have two days to kill in a place that must be between Zagreb and Sofia?

Where is there such a place?

Serbia.

Belgrade, Serbia is in between Zagreb, Croatia and Sofia, Bulgaria.

I said to Dermot I'm not going to Serbia. Did they or didn't they execute Slobodan Milosevic? And what about his cronies? I'm not going to Serbia.

But we're not going to Dubrovnik. We only booked two days in there and it's an 11 hour bus ride to Dubrovnik from Zagreb, who knows how much it's going to be to another country. Gotta stick to the schedule.

Okay, we'll go to Serbia, but I'm not telling my mom.

Alright, so we arrived in Zagreb to our hostel and instantly booked our hostel for Serbia off of hostelworld.com, making sure it got high ratings for security and so forth.

My mom text me 'watch out for the bad guys' in Zagreb. I thought to myself, wait til she calls and finds out where we're going next. AH!

Okay, okay, I'm prejudiced. It's out of ignorance and fear.

Belgrade's been fine.

Zagreb was wonderful.

Everyone is friendly. Everyone speaks English. Yes, there are a few assholes wearing anti-USA t-shirts, but there are assholes everywhere. And who knows what they've seen in their lives, let alone the stories their parents may have. I'm not gonna judge. I'm just gonna sit here in my humility. I'm humbled.

And tired.

In Zagreb, 2 double rums and coke each was a fiver. We took advantage. And we met a lovely Croatian couple who bought us some of their national shots - one tasted like honey, one tasted like a pine cone. They taught us how to say cheers in Croation, some saying that sounded like giggly puff. They had been talking to some turd sammich at their table that was trying to convince me that Tony Iommi the guitarist from Black Sabbath was the most overrated guitarist of all time and all he played was a bunch of power chords. Needless to say the conversation with this turd didn't last very long, so Dermot and myself alongside the Croatian couple left him and headed to a Croation chipper. I think I ate a burger, I wasn't going to ask. They showed us around the city at night, inadvertently, because Dermot and I were so drunk we didn't remember where our hostel was. But it was nice, for us anyway. We thanked them profusely once we did find our hostel and we went to bed.

The next day we explored the surprisingly small Zagreb. We took some pictures, played some Scrabble in the park, then hit the pub again for some more double rums. The bartender remembered us from the night before.

We left for Belgrade on Saturday morning. The train was packed. And to our disdain you could smoke. There was one man who took the liberty, every 3 minutes. I asked Dermot how was he still alive? Eventually the train thinned out and Dermot and I could close the door to our cabin. Dermot said the Serbian countryside could've been Ireland 50 years ago, or Ireland if Hitler had had his way. Endless, endless corn fields.

My IPOD had died and I was finishing my book while Dermot was in his own little world listening to his IPOD, I heard Bob Marley faintly. Suddenly our cabin door gets pushed open and in walks this 6'5'' Serbian guard who asks for our passports, border patrol. I give them to him. Dermot takes off one of his ear phones to hear something if there was something to be heard. He was in fact listening to Bob Marley.

Don't worry pssssssssssh...(something in Serbian) Dermot. O'Connor....(something in Serbian)...psssssssssh. About a thing. Cause every little thing, gonna be alright...

The Serbian border patrol man was ringing through his walkie talkie. This Irishman listening to Bob Marley on his IPOD looks nothing like his passport. It must be a fake. Let me ring intelligence to see if he's a wanted man. He has a beard now, and long hair, it must be a disguise. Nothing like his passport.

Nothing comes over the walkie talkie.

We're good to go. Hvala, and welcome to Serbia.

Anyway, I'm gonna go get some sleep. Early train tomorrow, not really lookin forward to it, gonna need some energy.

I'm thankful for every tired minute of this trip.

Sofia, Bulgaria is tomorrow (night). Then Bucharest, Romania on Wednesday morning.

New pics are up. There are bombed out buildings near the train station here in Belgrade. I'm gonna take some pictures of them tomorrow and post them in the Belgrade album.

Goodnight.

Vienna, Australia

Right, so we left Interlaken thinking that there was no way we were going to top the good times and the good friends.

Not to diminish the people we met there, but holy hell, it got better.

Salzburg was great, I mean, the hotel was great. And that's where we spent most of our time. We had a bit of trouble finding the place, but what else is new. We came to the corner of where our supposed hostel should be, but all we saw was a 4 star hotel. We looked at our hostelworld.com print out and saw that it was in fact where we were going to be staying for the next 3 nights. Unfreakingbelievable.

It had a huge cozy bed, clean linens, a private shower... a tv!! Since the tour was expensive and Dermot had never even seen the Sound of Music anyway, we saw downtown Salzburg in half a day. Beautiful city, but tiny in comparison. There was a festival going on downtown which was a real treat to see the people of Salzburg out in force and celebrating their culture. We ate some of the local goodies. And Dermot won me a banana moon in one of the carnival games.

Dermot and I were sick anyway, we were both fighting colds. So the rest was well needed. We ate at some local Salzburg restuarants, in particular the first night with some American ladies. We talked about politics and we exchanged travel tips. But after the meal and one beer each we headed back to the hotel to watch Austrian television and eat some Austrian pastries in that big cozy bed.

And so on for the next two nights. So thank goodness for Salzberg. I really enjoyed the luxury of clean towels and tv and leaving my bag unpacked the entire time.

Off to Vienna!

We arrived and found our hostel with little hassle. When we checked in and went up to our rooms it began. Ashlea from Melbourne, Australia was in the room already and we said we'd all head out together to get our first impression of Vienna. We strolled around this expansive, gorgeous city. The weather was perfect, hot even. We found the tourist information center and booked walking tours for the following day. And rest assured in that fact, we headed to the pub. Our first Australian pub in Vienna, Crossfields. We ordered at the bar the local brew while Ashlea ordered a Fosters. Then we noticed some seats had cleared in the corner of the pub. We asked the lads sitting there where these seats free and they said no. Haha, joking. Way to break the ice Ben. So that's how we met brothers Ben and Sam from Noosa, Australia. We found out that by chance we we're all staying in the same hostel, West End. Ben and Sam wanted to go back to the hostel to freshen up because they had been in the pub all day, so me, Dermot, and Ashlea downed our beers and we headed across Vienna in the dark to our hostel. Ben tried to join a pub crawl, but we think it was a funeral. Sam led the way and was our tour guide. He showed us Van Gogh's cathedral where Mozart won his first music competition. Eventually Ashlea asked a local where we could get a train back to our hostel, and we were officially on our way.

The second pub that night was Wombat's hostel bar called the Wombar. Don't really remember much else of that night, the pitchers of beer were so cheap, we met a stationed army man from the US named Fred who tried to get with Ashlea, but she was afraid of his... hahaha...

We ended up in KFC anyway. Like Sam said, every man must know where the nearest KFC is. We devoured a party bucket like starved cannibals. And so began the cult of KFC. We exchanged numbers and said we'd meet up tomorrow afternoon sometime. Dermot and I were going on the walking tour while all the Australians were getting up at half 5 in the morning to watch the Footy... or the equivalent to the super bowl.

Dermot and I paid for the most lackluster of walking tours. Plus we were the youngest people on the tour by 20 years. We got some good pictures, heard about Mozart, visited some places that made crisp apple strudel, but that was about it.

I'm going back to Vienna to do it proper, it's second in history and beauty only to Rome. You know, go see a symphony or something...

Anyway, we met up with Ashlea and our new KFC cult inductee Vinod from Alaska. Cue the Sarah Palin jokes and we were off to meet up with Ben and Sam at another Australian pub The Travel Shack. Carol from Perth, Australia, another girl in our room who looks like Nicole Kidman came along as well. Waggawagga (another girl from Australia, it's not her name, it's where she's from but we all forgot her name and decided to call her Waggawagga for the rest of the trip) said she'd meet us there.

There are no kangaroos in Austria but there sure were alot of Australians.

I fucking love Australians.

We got sloppy at the Travel Shack. Extra strong Australian wine and steins full of strong German beer helped. We all got along like long lost friends. We crawled back to our hostel in each others drunken arms, but not until we got some KFC.

The next morning we said we'd all get together again and try to see some sights. Sam said it was the second time in 24 hours that he'd woken up hungover. Waggawagga led the way, she was studying history in Austria. So for a good hour or so we were the proper tourists.

We lost Waggawagga around the statue of Maria Theresia, so we made up some stories ourselves. Maria Theresia the Kebabslayer. Her one hand rules the world, the second is outstretched saying you there, go get me a kebab, with extra garlic sauce. The cult of KFC then began kebabs for Christ. It was hysterical, trust me.

Around half 11 we decided that we'd had enough of sightseeing so we went back to Crossfields we were had met and ate and drank for a few hours. Then Vinod wanted to go see some more sights, so we let him. Ben and Vinod left for Beethoven's grave while Sam, Dermot, Carol, Ashlea, and myself headed to Flanagan's Irish pub where we sat outside in the sun. Some very colorful conversations later Ben and Vinod came back, we headed inside the pub and ate some dinner.

Then we headed to Wombar again for the funnest night ever. We took full advantage of the two happy hours and the barman pouring shots of Jägermeister into our mouths. We danced ourselves into oblivion. The Wombar had the best music ever. The guys behind the bar playing the music knew that the majority of the customers drinking there tonight were Australian so he fed into it. AcDc ruled the airways. We all screamed TNT OI! OI! OI!

We managed to crawl home, but not together. We were all leaving the next day at different hours of the morning. We hugged like little girls and said we'll all meet up again someday. I hope that's true. Dermot and I could really use some of that free room and board promised to us at so many occasions during that weekend.

Best. weekend. ever.

All the pictures have been updated. We've been in Slovenia for the last 3 days. Beautiful, peaceful, and cheap. We were told not to go to the main city, so we've been around Lake Bled in a wonderful hostel... full of Australians.

And for the record, here is our new, improved Itinerary

Slovenia
Lake Bled

Croatia
Zagreb

Serbia
Belgrade

Bulgaria
Sofia

Romania
Bucharest
Transylvania

Hungary
Budapest

Slovakia
Bratislava

Czech Republic
Prague

Poland
Krakow
Warsaw

Germany
Berlin

Then fly to New Zealand.

Tomorrow, we head to Zagreb, Croatia.

No worries!

Is he REALLY the head of the Kwiki mart?

We left Munich early Friday morning. The last night spent in the hostel we drank happy hour beers with our friend Peter from Athlone. We didn´t get a picture with him, he was headed out and we were headed to bed early.

We caught our train to Interlaken, Switzerland without hassle because our hostel was basically right across from the train station. We stocked up on food from the train station and prepared ourselves for a 7.5 hour journey through the Swiss Alps. It wasn´t really hard preparation, per say, but it was going to be our longest train journey yet.

We arrived in Interlaken around 4 p.m. greeted by the most breathtaking sights. It was hard to imagine the storm clouds in the distance were not actually storm clouds, but mountains. The peaks were so high it was hard to tell where the mountains ended and the sky began. We tried to take pictures along the way because we had no idea what we were about to see when we arrived in Interlaken, let alone on Saturday when we attempted to hike a few of them.

Our hostel was the best hostel we´ll ever stay in, Balmers Herberge. It had a games room with a free pool table, a large screen tv where you could rent movies and watch on the couches, a reading room, a huge bar/restaurant/night club that opened til 2 am a beer garden that over looked the alps, everything! We took adavantage of eveything there, including the two happy hours a day! We loved it so much that we booked another night. We checked out the prices of Bern and Lucerne and decided our budget couldn´t cope. Oh well, suppose we´ll have to suffer at Balmers!

We meet people there that felt like lifelong friends, however odd it was to say at the end of the night see ya, have a nice life! Mostly Aussies, a few Canadians, and two Americans. Troy and Sharnee from Western Australia, Jenoa Swan from the Gold Coast, Jordan from Toronto, Altaf and Oliver from New York. We were at the hostel for a weekend, as most people were, so we had a few nights with these great people to laugh and drink and learn more about the world. We exchanged emails and facebook info, so who knows, maybe there´ll be a few more happy hours in the future together! Here´s hoping.

Saturday: we hiked up to Mürren. We got a good night´s sleep, ate a good breakfast, filled up bottles of water, and put some sandwiches in our bags, I rented hiking boots, we had a good map in hand, and off we went. We got a train from Interlaken up to Lauterbrunnen. From there, we followed signs to Mürren. The first sign we saw said Mürren 2 hours and 40 minutes thatta way.

Dermot started hitch-hiking 50 metres up the hill as I was panting beside him thinking is it really this slanty the whole way up? He put his thumb down as we saw there were to be no more cars past this point and I drank half my water bottle. Up it is then.

It was hot, but clear. As strenuous as it was it was so rewarding to see the village below us get smaller and smaller and the mountains in the distance get closer and closer. There were two points on the trail that actually sloped and I screamed in excitement. Though it wasn´t upon reflection the highlight of the trail! Look at the pictures we posted. We took so many. They were wonderful little excuses to stop and take a breath and drink some of the Alpine water in our water bottles that our hostel ran through their taps.

At one point during the trail we were a bit confused. We came to a walled field that looked like some farmer´s property we´d have to trespass upon. We continued through the gate hoping it was our trail. A biker along the way assured us that this was the way to Mürren, that UP is the way to Mürren. Halfway through the farmer´s fields we stopped to hear the music. It sounded like a thousand wood chimes, but Dermot said it was the cowbells:

We stopped in Winteregg, yes, that´s what the village was called to eat some sandwiches and watch two mountain men de-barking a log - which will probably be used to build a house I´m sure, all the houses in Switzerland are timber-framed, like little matchbox houses. We started to notice during the climb that the air was gradually getting cooler. It was when we stopped to sit in the shade that we realized it was FREEZING. We put our packs back on our back and howled because our sweat had turned to icicles.

From Winteregg we had about 40 minutes to go, and thank the heavens above it was downhill. Those mountains that 2 hours ago seemed so distant and so high were now to the left of us, at our side, all the way to the town of Mürren. You could extend your arm and try to grab them, so to speak, go-go Gadget arms.

We arrived in Mürren where we payed a fortune to go up to the highest peak in the Jungfrau region: Schiltorn via the cable cars or as they´re called here funiculars. I was terrified the whole way up and down but it was worth it for the views. I kept thinking as I was looking around the funicular that there were pregnant women onboard, old people, little kids, people in wheelchairs, a few puppy dogs, God wouldn´t kill us, right?

When we came back down from Schiltorn to Mürren we decided to take public transportation back to Interlaken. We set out to walk back... fuck that! Climbing up to Mürren was the hardest thing we´ve ever done, and although the journey back would be shorter and downhill, nothing seemed more appealing than sitting down in a train and resting our weary selves.

Okay, so basically, Switzerland was amazing. Despite not going to Lucerne or Bern as anticipated I think we really experienced the essence of that country. We´ll be back, definitely.

Loads of pictures have been posted! We´re in Salzburg at the moment, Vienna is at the weekend. We´ll post more about Austria later. Until then, G´day mate!

My arm hurts, cause I did so many

We left Cologne on a 3 hour train ride down the Rhine Valley. Imagine a child drawing mountains on piece of paper, you'd see a frantic set of horizontal zigzags. Then imagine the child drawing fairytale castles on top of those mountains, on the very tippy top. That's what the Rhine Valley looks like. Sharp, dark green mountains, countless fairytale castles on the peaks, and little German villages in the valleys along the river. It was a wonderful surprise. I wanted to go to through the Rhine Valley, but had no idea how we would fit it into our schedule or afford it with our tight budget. So the journey towards south Germany was a gift.

Since Cologne was a big stinkin failure we turned to Heidelberg for redemption. So thank God for Heidelberg. It was lovely. It had the little things that tourists want to see without having to sacrifice its authenticity. Beer halls, cobblestone foot paths, and weiner schnitzel. Our hostel was a pub. We were greeted by a friendly publican who gave us two welcome pints of their local brew. Then we were shown to our rooms that were every backpacker's dream: clean and secure. We ate our very first weiner schnitzel, very exciting all together. I understood from then on why Germans were such good drinkers, look at their food! It was fried pork chops with fried potatoes with bacon and rosemary as garnishes. Yummy in my tummy. And to reiterate, it was great drinking food, so off we set to check out the town and sample the local spirits.

Heidelberg was a lot bigger than we expected, so we walked through the town's main street to hopefully get our first feel for it. It was mostly shops, high fashion and German souveniers. Dermot had to pull me away from the coolest coat I've ever seen, ever. It was only 120 EUR. I said we didn't have to drink for the next week. And he replied by saying that I didn't have to eat or drink for the next week. Point taken. Anyway, we ended up in a pub called the Hemingway. The sun was going down and it was getting cold. We couldn't believe the chill in the air because it was just in Bruges that we were sweating our asses off and melting under the humidity. Excuses, excuses. So, in the Hemingway we were feeling a bit adventurous and decided to pick a random beer off the menu. We chose Rauchbier. It was a dark, thick bottle with medieval writing on it. The bartender decanted the two bottles and from somewhere the smell of bacon came under our noses. Because it was dinner time, and the Hemingway served food, we thought it had to be a passing waitress with the next table's order. Nope. It was the beer. Dermot drank it down. I refused. He laughed and tried to convince me that beer does not taste the way it smells. ALL beer tastes the way it smells. And this was no exception. I begged Dermot to drink mine, as he was halfway through his and determined not to waste a beer. He said if I tasted it, he'd finish mine. So I did, I suffered a gulp. And to my fear it indeed tasted like bacon. Neither of us finished it. The bartender saw this and laughed. He said he doesn't know why they even sell it. So we ordered two pints of a normal pilsner and burped up the rest of the Rauchbier, or the weiner schnitzel, I couldn't tell.

We visted a local beer hall called the Vetter, but I had to stop drinking because I'm a delicate flower with a weally weally sore throat (and I wanted to save my health for Munich) so we headed back to our hostel/pub. There I drank tea while Dermot drank liters of beer as if they were pints. The bar tender informed us the next day that most normal drinkers try one for the experience. Not our Dermot. We ate weiner schnitzel again for breakfast, then went back to bed. German beer is unfiltered and therefore zehr headache inducing. After the nap, we headed up to the Schloss or Heidelberg's mega castle. It was ontop of a mountain overlooking the city. It was a tourist must, so we did, and it was nice. If I described the castle as looking very German, can you picture it? Cause, it looked really German. Stoic and to the point.

We walked around the side streets of Heidelberg to see what we could of the rest of it. We stopped for a while in the square to eat some pastry thing and feed the pigeons (they must not know the Goodfeathers family of Boston - an inside AWA joke). I got some great pictures of the cute little town, but since neither of us were drinking we headed back to our hostel early to get a good night's sleep for Munich.

We left Heidelberg in the freezing morning. Switzerland's impending weather was looming in our minds. Our train to Munich took us through the German countryside. Scattered little towns in between large, dark forested mountains. It was nice to be seeing some mountains after the incredibly flat Belgian countryside, it satisfies the whole aspect of "it's a journey, not a destination" thing.

Munich is massive. It's in the heart of Bavaria, and therefore is the heart of all things German. We planned to come to Munich for the Oktoberfest, but after having met people in Bruges who said they paid 35 EUR per person for a TENT, and that the beers are 4 EUR a pint, we panicked and re-routed our trip to specifically avoid the fest. And for good reason. The population of Munich is 1.6 million. For the Oktoberfest it swells to over 8 million. You can enjoy Munich without the madness of Oktoberfest, as we've found it's a vibrant, youthful city. We started off Munich with a super sloppy pub crawl. Free beer, free Jagermeister shots, litres of beer galore, and lots of pretzels to soak it all up. It was the best night we don't remember, hehe. Our second day here was recovery and a free walking tour. These free walking tours that we're going on are the best ways to see the city and hear it's stories. And Munich has stories. And very dark ones, at that. It's sickening to walk in the foot steps of Hitler. To see where he held his meetings, planned his plans, give his speeches, and hear how there were so many failed attempts to stop him. It's wildly frustrating and at the same time fascinating to think that this was all only two generations ago. Munich is coping with it's past, but it's hard for a first timer to see one discreet plaque on an unmarked wall memorializing Kristelnacht.

But I'll shut my mouth, or in this case, type very little, because it's not for me to pass such judgements. We went to Dachau Concentration camp today and I'm... speechless. There's too much emotion to paraphrase. Too much anger, misunderstanding, hatred, guilt, fear, in modern Germany's past. It has something to do with me because I'm a human being and I'm part of this world. I'm glad at the end of the day for memorials such as Dachau. Because there was so much human suffering there, it spared no one. I don't know what it's like to be a modern German. I wouldn't know how to cope with such a past. Is it a simple, discreet plaque that serves to remind those who take the time to look at it and reflect? Of course it is, as is Dachau. You can't turn Germany into a massive memorial. You have to move on, and as we heard today: to honor the dead we warn the living. I believe Germany is aware, and they can and are coping with it's past.

How to leave on a good note? Don't think I can. Dachau was real, and it will haunt me. But it will hopefully guide me.

New pictures are up. It's taken us 2 hours to upload only Antwerp and Bruges. Cologne, Heidelberg, and Munich will have to wait. Our hostel's happy hour is happening as we type this.

Interlaken, Switzerland is next. We have a 7.5 hour train ride through the alps at 8 a.m.




And on a wonderful sidenote:

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE EVER EXPANDING KUHN FAMILY!! Danny and Sara Kuhn and Kevin and Meghen Kuhn are both expecting little additions come 9 months from now. All the best!! Health and happiness to you all in the meantime!!! WE LOVE YOU GUYS!!

One week later...

We left Amsterdam running (literally). We made our train to Antwerp with a few minutes to spare. Running with 6 months of supplies on your back was fun. I think half way through the train journey I stopped sweating.

We arrived in Antwerp Centraal midday Monday 8th. It was a very impressive station, and by impressive I mean large, and by large I mean very hard to navigate. We had a bit of trouble figuring out the transport system, but sure enough we found our hostel (3 hours later, hahaha).

Our hostel was... an attic? It was above a jazz/folk music bar. 8 beds, two showers, a grand piano in the corner of the room, and for all that mattered to me a toilet outside. The stairs were like walking in an M.C. Esher painting. Alex, the guy giving us the grand tour said the steps are even more fun when drunk. And to add to the madness of this place, the next morning when I came back from the shower Dermot was being serenaded by a large black man from Brazil named Patrick playing the piano that was in the room, I think he was singing "A Kiss is Just a Kiss". I have pictures. We'll post them tomorrow. We fell asleep and were eaten alive by mosquitos while some crazy girl howled below Dermot's bed. And in the morning, we were talking to the owner of the place about our travels and our money concerns 6 months from now and he said not to worry, you can always rob some old ladies. There are lots of old ladies in this city. So, that was the hostel, anyway. I was going to give it a bad review on the website we booked it on, but now in retrospect I don't think I'm going to. It had character... or atleast was full of them.

Antwerp was beautiful. The weather was perfect so it gave us the opportunity to stroll and get lost and take lots of pictures. We've been surviving on pizza this entire time because we're on a strict budget and Italian food is the cheapest. I told Dermot that I felt like I should be eating meatballs, yanno maybe something cultural, but cultural means expensive. So we ate Belgium waffles instead, it was a nice compromise. Belgium beer is the best beer in the world. And in Antwerp we found it to be very inexpensive. Our first day we drank around the city in various street cafes then ended up in the Old Arsenaal, a pub that hasn't changed it's decor since 1924. We drank Troubador, a strong but sweet tasting German lager, as recommended by a gay Englishman who was sitting next to Dermot. We soon ventured to Robinsons, a real local pub with a wonderful bar lady who spoke English alongside 4 other languages. I must say, the trip thus far has really humbled us. I know a few words in German and Italian, Dermot speaks beginner French, and we meet people like this who are quite common in these areas. The bar lady was wonderful to talk. And we actually got to talking to a local who was sitting next to us at the bar who taught us about the rivalries within Belgium: North/Flanders/Flemish speaking vs the South/French speaking factions. On Tuesday we ate some more Italian food and headed to a beautiful, quiet part of the city to play scrabble under a tree. Dermot won, whatever. A guy was playing the clarinet next to us. We eventually ended up in the Old Arsenaal again, this time staying til closing time. We got to talking to two very nice old ladies from Germany that were impressed that we were heading to their area of the world the in the coming week. I counted to ten for them in German, they feined excitment. A local Belgian popped up for a bit, and we had the bar man Stefan take a photo of the five of us. Stefan's family has run the bar since it's opening in the 1920's. We told him as we were leaving that we hoped to see one of his son's here again someday. He smiled as best he could considering that we had drank more than we could afford to pay for.

We left Antwerp for Bruges on the morning of Wednesday 10th an hour later than intended. How do you say hungover in Flemish? Stupid sexy Flanders beer. I said to Dermot as we were on the train to Bruges that we might as well taking a train through rural Pennsylvania the countryside was that similar. I wondered if it was a reason why the Amish decided to settle in PA. Even the passing houses architecture was similar. So, we arrived in Bruges 2.5 hours later, and got a bus to the center of town. Luckily it was a beautiful day because we had to walk some distance to our hostel. The hostel had a perfect location. It was probably one of the best we'll stay in. Cheap beer at the bar and a happy hour to boot. Bruges was gorgeous. It was touristy, over priced, over crowded, but for a good reason. It had that stuck in time feeling. The locals seemed very proud of their city's beauty, and as we saw they had good reason to.

Our second day in Bruges we decided to beat the crowds and the high prices and head to the beach across the Belgium countryside on bikes. The beach was an hour and a half from Bruges, so we headed out early morning. I think that road to the beach will be one of the things I see before I die, one of the supposed scenes that flashes before your eyes. It was heavenly. It was the highlight of the trip so far. The road was through a secluded countryside, slopping downhill in the shade of the trees and the wind was at our backs. Now, uh, during this piece of heaven, we weren't really thinking of the return journey. A town called Damme really saved our asses (literally). We stopped on the way back to cool off and eat some pancakes in a local restaurant. The pancake was called Franse and it was artichoke and ham wrapped up and covered with cheese and tomato sauce. It was good, actually, our first real affordable authentic meal. The way back to Bruges was torture. Stopping for the meal gave our asses time to bruise. We had to cycle to the train station on the complete otherside of town in the searing midday heat, and of course we went in wrong direction before turning around. And while we're on wrong directions we never actually made it to the beach. Do they make watches with GPS systems? That night we went on a free walking tour of the city, which was a nice rounding out of Bruges and of Belgium.

Yesterday, Friday 12th we arrived in Cologne after a 3 hour train ride. Cologne has a cathedral. Actually, the largest cathedral in Germany and definitely the largest and most impressive that we've ever seen. And beer halls, Cologne has beer halls. They serve beer in 200ml glasses from a tray that looks like an old cinema reel turned on it's side. And the halls themselves are like no other place we've drank in (and that's saying something!). Great atmosphere and wonderfully stereotypical. We met some Germans from Frankfurt last night that of course spoke great English. One of them actually tried to tell us a joke. It went something like: what is the difference between a girl in a church and a girl in the shower? One has hope in her soul and the other has soap in her hole. Very droll and we laughed despite ourselves. When you do the calculations, or, let's be honest, when Dermot does the calculations, we were paying 4.50 for a pint of 4.8% beer. And since an Irishman cannot just sit back and sip beer, we sought cheaper alcohol in what we thought was the center of the student population here, and where there are students, there is normally cheap beer. We were wrong. We found swank pubs with even more expensive drinks. We walked by Papacitas, a Spanish restaurant and saw the words Happy Hour. We proceeded to enter and drank ourselves silly on girlie cocktails for an hour. By girlie I mean pink, but there was nothing girlie about the strength of them. We finished off the night with two buritos supremo and said hasta to Papacitas. So, what I'm essentially saying is Cologne has a massive church and nice but expensive beer halls, that's about it. I mean, if you were a gay drug addict, you might like it. But, let's just say we're looking forward to Heidleberg tomorrow.

I like German keyboards I can do stuff like this: ö ä ß

Heidleberg is tomorrow. Then Munich on Tuesday-Thursday. Then we head for Interlaken, Switzerland on Friday for the weekend.

This is quite a whirlwind tour. But sure, what else would you be doing?

Hehe.

My glaucoma... it's... it's gone!

Tee hee.

So we arrived in Amsterdam in one piece. Sleeping in the airport was back breaking, but our plane was one hour shorter than we expected, so we got to the hostel in enough time to take a long nap before exploring the city for the first time.

Hostels are hostels right, our room smells like a hippie's sock, and there is one chick in particular who coughs more than she breathes at night, but you get over it. We're in an 18 bed dorm, not much else to expect. Dermot says we have a sleepwalker/talker amongst the group. Leaning over balconies and asking the coughing girl is she okay. I haven't noticed. You put in the eye cover over your eyes and the ear plugs in your ears and you're good to go... most of the time. Our hostel is very clean, and the lounge where I'm writing this is great. Two tvs, atmosphere, and a bar open 24 hours with relatively cheap beer. Plus a cheap breakfast in the morning.

Our first day here we explored the city ourselves on foot. We ended up in Barney's Brasserie *cough ee shop*. Dont... really remember leaving... but we left not on foot. From there we floated around Amsterdam. It was raining but I didn't care. We were lost but I didn't care. Then we stopped in this magical place with the bestest brownies I've ever eaten in my life. Then this Indian princess convinced us with promises of discounted fine dining so we stopped to eat some food. It was a harrowing experience altogether. Dermot discovered that his feet had toes. And I was a little worried that my stomach was moving. Those bastards must've put something in those brownies! We'll have to go back an yell at them sternly...

Amsterdam is expensive. We took a free walking tour yesterday that lasted 3.5 hours and still we're a bit over budget. The walking tour was great though. It covered the Red Light District first. We have no photos from that part of the tour though. Our guide warned us that photos of the girls in the window is prohibited, unless you want to brave the chances of having her urine in a cup thrown over you. We weren't gonna take our chances. On to other various sites, beautiful canals, which the tour guide said "God created the world, the Dutch created Amsterdam". And a bit of Amsterdam's history - WWII especially with the Jewish quarter's strife and Anne Frank's house. Which we're very moving. Anne Frank's house especially that had the original photos on the wall that she placed there herself during the years her family hid there.

Dermot and I both agree it's an amazing city. Very European, if I may say, from an outsiders advantage. It's clean, safe, people ride bikes... and it's liberal. Very liberal.

Our hostel is in the Red Light District. A very rowdy part of town. I have pictures, a load of pictures. No puns intended. I'll post them on this site within the next two days when we anchor in Antwerp.

We head to Haarlem tomorrow, to walk around another part of The Netherlands, hopefully get a better feel for the country. It's unfair to judge a country by it's main city.

Tonight we're looking forward to a pub crawl.

Now we're looking to kill some free time before then. Free being the key word there.

Antwerp is next, stay tuned!

(We love you all, thanks for the kind comments!)

Godspeed hairdryer, godspeed.

I'm writing this quickly. And thankfully, I don't dwell well on change. We're off to Galway in a few hours... the fourth or fifth last hurrah of Ireland. I'm eating a big bowl of spaghetti for breakfast, soakage. A bell is tolling midday through our balcony window; it's a beautiful day outside, mild and sunny. And those beautifully heavy Irish clouds I'll definitely be missing in the next 10 days are hanging low over the green hills in the distance. No, really.

Hard to believe that this time next week we'll be in Amsterdam. Hard to believe that this short, full era is coming to a close.

When I say full, I mean it in the literal sense.

We kissed Arklow goodbye last Sunday night in a final drunken hurrah. We left Sally O'Briens with our friend Toss at half one in the morning and headed to the chipper Tradewinds. You know, the routine. Chicken nuggets and chips with a garlic dip. Toss is the barman at our local pub Maisy Kelly's. Yes, the barman. We go there, that often. Or... we did. But yeah, Arklow's kiss goodbye was a long one. In all fairness it started the preceding Thursday night with a pub crawl. Arklow is a small town with a lotta pubs... lotta really scary pubs that we never had the courage to drink in before. Arklow is rough out. Ah but sure, we said, we're leaving, feck it. We said we'd get a pint of Heineken in every pub that we'd never been to, in this particular order: The Bridge Hotel, nice knicnacks, a bit of an older crowd; The Brookhouse, where even Dermot squeaked with fear while ordering a pint; The Mary B, redheaded tinkers anyone? Swiftest pint ever; Kitty O'Shea's in the middle of town, okay, we've been there loads of times before but it was too long a distance to the next unknown pub, we'd stop for two pints, refresh ourselves from the walk; John Joes, a massive pub full of character, but I think I was the only female custom in 100 years... We made it to Maisy Kelly's anyway, our Arklow local, where Toss poured the usual, two pints of the finest (ahem, Guinness). We don't really remember the rest of Thursday night, must've been the residue of free pints of Heineken from the night before, Wednesday at the Old Ship where the barman there talked our heads off... yes, Wednesday night. Forgot about that til now... Anyway, what was I saying? The last weekend in Arklow was a drunken haze, very apt. A just summary for the last year and a half. And the icing on the cake was last night, our last order at The Taj, the best Indian food restaurant ever. He got the chicken tikka, I got the chicken balti, we both got one naan bread, we split a portion of the pilau rice, and don't forget the popodom with the chutneys, mango, yes, mango, which we both devoured. We picked up the Indian food instead of getting it delivered. We told the people there that we were moving and thanks for everything. He shook our hands. The guy at our local take-out shook our hands.

What's that Joni Mitchell song? Christ, even the mere suggestion of that song is a cliché. But in a way it's an obligatory reflection. I try to be present and appreciate what I got when I got it, but when it gets to being gone it's still hard. This is the end of a short era. Burn hard, burn fast. Bye bye Ireland. Thanks for the memories. I will miss my hairdryer... amongst other things. I'm not packing it! My bag is heavy enough!

We come back from Galway to the apartment on Sunday, where we'll get the rest of our stuff then leave the keys on the table and head back to the Ballagh til Wednesday. Wednesday night we head to Dublin, a restaurant maybe Luigi Malone's, definitely a few pubs, then to the airport where we'll be sleeping. Our plane for Amsterdam departs at 6:00 am Thursday morning. Check in a 4 am...

I gotta get the hang of this blogging thing. The font is incorrect and the time it says I posted this thing is 3:15 am. Maybe in the next few weeks I'll be up to par. In the meantime, I'll see what I can do. I'm in a rush anyway!

I'm signing off a 13:32.

Stay tuned! Amsterdam here we come!

3 Weeks to Go

We'll, it's the inaugural post. And it's all a bit surreal.

Funny thing, I tried to name this blog site feckwork.blogspot.com but it was already taken... The recession hasn't hit the Irish anyway!

This will be our internet home for approximately the next 6 months. We're going to try our damnedest to update this site, taking into account that we'll be all over the place and we want to share our stories and pictures and the *cough* bragging rights *cough*. We're so excited.

We've stopped working, we've been approved for our loan, we've notified our landlord, started packing, ...set up the travel blog. Not much else to do now but say our farewells to Arklow and get on the plane.

We depart Dublin for Amsterdam on September 4th at 6:00 in the morning. Granted that we actually leave Amsterdam, haha, we'll be heading to the following places below via Eurorail, taking into account that we need/want to keep the train journeys short, sweet, and inexpensive.

Western Europe
The Netherlands
Amsterdam
Haarlem

Belgium
Antwerp
Bruges

Germany
Cologne
Heidleberg/Rhine Valley
Munich

Switzerland
Interlaken/Gimmelwald & the Berner Oberland

Austria
Salzburg
Vienna

Eastern Europe
Slovenia
We'll see!!!??!?

Croatia
Zagreb
Dubrovnik

Romania
Bucharest

Hungary
Budapest

Slovakia
Bratislava

Czech Republic
Prague

Poland
Krakow
Warsaw

We'll then head back to Germany for a third time to Berlin for a few days then we'll fly to New Zealand. I am dreaming of tracing every foot step of Peter Jackson and his crew. Lord of the Rings are my favorite movies ever and I can't wait to get my inner geek on. Dermot will be bungee jumping while I'm climbing up to Edoras. We'll be in New Zealand for three months (should be enough time, should be...) living and working. Then we'll fly to Australia for a month. Then back to Ireland.

The watches on our wrists will be primarily for catching the train on time. We might spend a week in Prague if we're feeling the city and we may hate Cologne and leave before night fall. We're just gonna roll with it. Such is the life, right? The only real 'clock' of the trip is that we want to spend 3 months in New Zealand (all that the American tourist of this faction is granted) with the hope that we'll be back in Ireland for a last Paddy's Day hurragh with our friends and family here on March 17th, 2009. September 08 to March 09. Let's see how much we can fit in.

Then we're home to Newtown, Pennsylvania indefinitely.

That's the plan anyway.

We're looking forward to seeing the world with just a shirt on our back and the skin of our teeth. It'll be a real change from the last two very decadent years.

We've been so fortunate in the past two years and the fact that we're getting the opportunity to do this is just beyond words. What are greater synonyms for extraordinarily lucky?

So I'll try my best to find them, the best words, and keep you all posted.

~Abby