2012: A year of travel in review

I have not been posting to my travel blog much this year so seeing as it is now December, I thought I'd write a summary for 2012.

• My year started well with waking up on New Years Day in Paris. I had got there just for new years eve (with only about 2 hours to spare) after getting spending the night on a bus stuck on a closed, icy mountain road in the French Alps and having to be rescued by the rescue services (see separate blog post). I would visit Paris two more times in 2012, both in November, with a business trip and a trip to Disneyland Paris in the same week. 

• My business travel year also started well. I travelled to Pennsylvania for business meetings, and combined the trip with a weekend in Atlantic City. I managed to lose both my passports on this trip and only realised on my way to the airport to fly back to London. Luckily I managed to get them back!

• The Spring was packed full of travel! A boys' trip to Las Vegas for a mate's 30th, a long weekend in Tenerife, a business trip and weekend in Ireland, a surprisingly rainy weekend in Gibraltar, and Easter in Australia, where I went just for a week. I surprised my parents as I didn't tell them I was coming home. On my way back from Melbourne I stopped over in Doha to look around. 

• During the summer, my parents were over from Australia. With them, I travelled to Prague and Venice, and also did various sightseeing around the south of England. 

• However, my main trip this summer was to the Benicassim Festival, on the coast of Spain between Barcelona and Valencia  We stayed at a spa resort instead of roughing it camping, spending the nights at the festival and the afternoons recovering on the beach.

• Autumn was spent chasing the last of the summer sun. I saw my parents off to Dubai on their way back to Australia, and had a weekend in Ibiza with my girlfriend.

• Other business trip destinations this year included Brussels, Madrid, Munich, Oslo, Prague, Vienna and Zurich.

• My travel year will finish off with flying to Miami on Christmas Day to get some winter Florida sun!

Overall less flights this year than 2011 but about the same distance flown:

Christmas and New Years in France with the Fanaticas

If you know me at all, you ill know that I like to use all of my days off work for travel. When I found the Fanatics Skifest and Paris Combo tour, I knew it was perfect for me because it left after work on Friday 23 December and returned on Monday night, 2 January - absolutely maximising the Christmas and New Years break: ten days away for the price of 3 days' annual leave!

It certainly made for a Christmas to remember.

On the way there our bus driver got lost, and although we were driving from London to France, we somehow made it into Italy.  Thanks the extra few hours that added on, it made the bus ride there a whopping 23 hours.

We got there late on Christmas eve, too late for the French Christmas Eve festivities, but not too late to party. When you are in the snow with a group of 150 Aussies and Kiwis in their 20's and early 30's, you know it's going to be wild. Christmas Eve was spent in a rather drunken haze, and for the rest of the week the apres-ski didn't disappoint, as all of the nights seemed to me equally big.

The skiing was good too. There was a big dump of snow before we arrived, and for the rest of the week (bar the final day when it snowed again) we were skiing in glorious sunshine under bright blue skies.

Risoul, photo courtesy of Lucy

The snow did get a bit patchy and icy towards the end but it was manageable. Risoul is a small resort in the south of the French Alps, and our accommodation was true ski-in-ski-out.

I shared a room with an English friend of mine and a brother and sister from Townsville. The Queenslanders helped me get back some of my Aussie accent that had faded in London over the last few years.

Snowing on the last day

After six nights of carnage and one more day of skiing on some finally fresh snow, it was time to head on to Paris. The bus ride from Risoul to Paris was to be eleven hours. Our tour leader joked it might be more like 17. It turned out she had underestimated it.

A few hours into the drive the drivers decided to take the snow chains off the bus. They had some sort of problem with a piece of one of the chains getting lodged in the wheel, so it took them an hour or two, while we waited patiently watching DVDs' on the bus.

Then came the second hiccup. We came to an intersection where a rear-wheel-drive car without chains was stuck on the ice. No problem, a whole bunch of us got off the bus and pushed the car out of the way. By this time it was past midnight and I was getting ready to settle into the bus seat for the overnight bus ride.

But then came the biggest problem of all. In order to get us to Paris quicker, the bus driver decided to take a small detour. A short cut, if you will. It was windy B-road through the mountains, which I think would be treacherous at the best of times, but on this occasion, given the snowfall on our last day of skiing, was covered in ice.

GPS screen capture of where we were, courtesy of Eleanor

We got stuck on one turn, and as the driver tried to get us out of it, we started sliding down the road. The girls on the left side of the bus started screaming in a panic, as they looked out of their window and saw a sheer drop down the cliff next to them.

Most of us decided to get off the bus at that point, and wait for the drivers to get the bus around the turn. As we waited out in the dark, freezing, cold, they put some grit down and managed to get the bus moving again, with us once again on board.   But before you knew it the bus was sliding around on the ice, culminating with the back wheel in a ditch and the front wheels lifted firmly off the road surface.

The bus drivers called for their road-side assistance but a few hours later we were still waiting on the bus and assistance was nowhere to be found.

Eventually we were rescued by the French National Gendarmerie, who shuttled us down the mountain a few people at a time in their cars, and put us up for a few hours until morning in a hall of a local village. The next morning, once they managed to get the bus off the mountain and the bus driver had paid his fine for taking us down a closed road, we continued on to Paris.

Our 11 hours drive to Paris turned into a 24 hour drive and we made it at 10pm on New Years Eve. A quick shower in the hotel and we headed out to the Eiffel Tower, armed with imitation Champagne bought from (probably) illegal street vendors.  Made it for the midnight celebrations - just!

One more night of partying on the evening of new years day, and we headed back to London.

2010 - a year of travel in review

It has been a bit of a slack year, blogwise!  I have to be honest, I have not done a good job at all of keeping this blog up-to-date this year. So as the year draws to an end, I thought I could get away with it all by summarising my year of travel in one single post! So here we go...

Let's start with a scary stat. 

I took 36 flights totalling to about 44,900 miles (about 72,250 km) in 2010. Some of this was for personal holiday travel, and some was for business (not business class though - I wish!)

IT ALL BEGAN IN...

Australia. I visited Australia for Christmas and New Years last year, to get away from the London cold and catch up with those at home. It was great! A trip down to Sorrento with one group of mates and another trip to Warrnambool with another group, ensured that I spent as much time as possible on the beach.

A CHILLY RETURN

Brr! The very next morning after landing, I found myself walking to work in the snow!

But really, you can't let winter stop you! So some friends and I ventured right into the cold. Up north. To Yorkshire. The highlight was staying in the seaside town of Whitby, and you can read all about the trip here.

THE WINTER WAY

Making the most of England despite the winter, my girlfriend and I went down South too, and visited New Forest and Portsmouth. But let's not get carried away with English travel. Europe is at our doorstep! A friend and I headed of to Austria for a few days. We had a good time wandering around Vienna, eating ketchup flavoured chocolate and generally being silly, as well as meeting up with some Austrian friends, and visiting them in the mountains where I lived when I was young. My friend headed back to London, and I stayed on to go skiing at Bad Gastein, near Salzburg.  Austria's a great place to spend a winter week!

Reichenau, Austria

SPRING INTO LIFE


It was a spring full of travel.

• A day road-trip to Belgium on a freezing day with some friends, visiting Antwerp and Gent.
• A visit to Zurich in Switzerland for work
• A trip to Portugal at Easter
• A business trip to America, which took me to Minnesota, Chicago and unexpectedly, New York
• A long weekend in the Peak District
• A break from the winter in tropical Barbados, which was definitely a highlight of the year
• A trip to Brussels just to have lunch with some clients

SUMMER IN EUROPE

This summer I spent a lot of time in England.  I attempted a beach trip to Blackpool, stopping off at Liverpool on the way, but being Northern England, it was cold!  I had a few other trips around the UK for work, including Durham, Newcastle and Birmingham.

The highlight of my summer, however, was my trip to Greece.  I went with a bunch of great friends to explore Athens and sail the Cyclades islands!

SPAIN

I finished summer off with a trip to Spain for the August bank holiday weekend, taking in Alicante, Valencia and Zaragoza.

Alicante

The idea came up by looking at what cheap RyanAir flights were available to warm places. I found one into Alicante, which is half way down the Spanish East coast, and one out of Zaragoza, in the North of Spain. This would be a great excuse to traverse the country by train!

But it didn't all go according to plan. When I landed in Alicante and came through passport control, the first thing I did was get changed into shorts. Which is when I realised I didn't have my wallet!  Surely I couldn't have lost my wallet again? (I had lost my wallet half way through the Greek sailing trip just months earlier!)

I asked at the RyanAir desk and they asked someone to check the plane.  No sign of it. Maybe I dropped it in the airport?  I went to the airport Police station, which was in charge of lost property. They asked me to hang around for a few hours in case it showed up. So the first few hours of my holiday were sitting on the airport floor. And then on the phone to the banks, cancelling all my cards! 

But what would I do for money? When I lost my wallet in Greece, I simply borrowed some money from my friends. But I was in Spain alone! HSBC agreed to send me some emergency money through a Western Union Money Transfer. All I had to do is find a Western Union office and show them my reference number passport (which luckily I still had).

I had €3 in my pocket, and luckily the bus from the airport to the city was €2.40. Although I seriously considered walking, had it not been 35 degrees.  I made it to the city and found the Western Union office. The problem was it was now the early afternoon.... and therefore siesta! I had a few hours to kill before the shop re-opened so I went to the beach. Unfortunately I couldn't find any water taps, and €0.60 wasn't enough to buy a drinks, so after a few hours on the beach in the blistering sun, I was parched.  When I finally picked up the emergency cash, the drinks and ice cream I bought were the most delicious I'd ever tasted!

I explored Alicante a bit, which diddn't take long. It is a small city, surrounded by cliffs and a very touristy beach. It wasn't full of English tourists though, which was nice. That night I caught a train up to Valencia, which is Spain's third largest city. Amazing architecture kept me entertained, and the next day I went to a beach too.  The Valencia beach had a lot more locals than Alicante. On the second night I made my way to Zaragoza, which is a quiet city in North of Spain, inland. After some sightseeing there, I headed back to London, with a few Euros to spare.

Valencia by night

OKTOBERFEST

I decided to celebrate the end of my 20's and beginning of my 30's by going to Oktoberfest in Munich with a few friends.  Just like two years ago, we did a package with Alpenrider, staying in a chalet in beautiful Kirchberg in Tirol, Austria.  For two days in a row, they took us into the centre of Munich for the festivities, and then drove us safely back over the border to Austria to recover. I had a great time and it was a perfect start to the next decade of my life!

Drinking Bavarian style, in Lederhosen

SWEDEN

Soon after coming back to London, I had a business trip for a few days in Sweden.  My colleague and I flew into Copenhagen in Denmark, and the next day caught the train across the Oresund bridge-tunnel to Malmo in Sweden. A small city with a beautiful town centre. We had some business meetings and ate some hamburgers, and caught the train up to Stockholm. For more business meetings. And more hamburgers. And hot dogs.

A Swedish hot dog with mashed potato, in a wrap of course

 Luckily on the Friday night some other colleagues of ours came over from London to join us for the weekend, and saved us from the junk food eating. Unfortunately this was replaced by copious amounts of drinking, which in Stockholm, isn't cheap.  It was a great weekend though, exploring various areas of Stockholm night-life.

KRAKOW AND THE HAGUE

Two of my friends from Australia are in Europe and they spent some of their time visiting family in Poland. What a perfect excuse to make my first visit to that country!  We decided to meet up for a weekend in Krakow.

So I consulted good old Ryanair and booked a cheap flight to Krakow on a Saturday morning. The problem was that the flight was at about 6am, out of Stansted airport - London's equivalent of Melbourne's Avalon. I had to get there by about 4:30, which meant that I had to catch the easyBus from Baker Street at 3:30, which in turn meant that I had to catch the night bus from my house to Baker Street at 2am.  So I had to get up at 1am - probably the earliest I have ever gotten up.  I did think of just pulling an all-nighter, but knew I would only have 1 night with my friends, so I wanted to have the energy and awakedness for that.

And that I did. I managed to do a lot of sightseeing with my first day in Krakow, and then had quite the night out that night, with my friends and some people from the hostel. I thought a 3am finish was a good effort for a 1am start the morning before!

Day 2 in Krakow was cut short by the fact that I needed to be at a conference that Sunday night, in the Hague, the Netherlands. So, after only about 30 hours in Krakow, I left my friends on a walking tour in the early afternoon, and started my marathon journey to the Hague: taxi to Krakow Airport, flight to Prague, another flight to Amsterdam, train to Rotterdam, another train to the Hague, taxi to the hotel! Phew! 

After a few days of fun at the conference I was happy to come back home to London!

WINTER

And that was pretty much it for the Autumn, because soon after that, winter hit!

I had a few more domestic trips around the UK for work, going to Edinburgh, Newcastle, Aberdeen, Bristol and Birmingham, but no more holidays, unfortunately. It was time to save my leave for the the trips coming up in the new year.

I welcomed the new year by the first of those, a ski trip over Christmas and New Years Eve to Chamonix in France - which was great fun.

Happy new year! What have you got planned for travel in 2011? I am off to Australia, Brazil, and Argentina.Can't wait!

Business Trip to Paris

I am currently zooming through the sunny French countryside at some 300 km/h.

I was just in Paris for a business meeting. Just a day trip. Caught the Eurostar out of London’s beautiful St 

Pancras station this morning and in less than two hours my colleague and I were walking the streets of Paris.

It was a sunny 23-degree day. We arrived near the office where our meeting was, and had half an hour to spare. 

So we went into the nearest restaurant for some lunch. We sat outside and looked through the Mediterranean-style menu. We each ended up ordering essentially what was a kebab. For the bargain price of €20 each!  Yeah. In Paris €50 gets you two kebabs (though each with a mountain of hummus on the side but no salad) and to “Coke Lights”.

Walking around the streets of Paris you really do appreciate why it’s one of the world’s great cities. The architecture is amazing and the city has a real vibe about it. 

We had a good business meeting and then headed to a street-side café for some beers. We jumped on the metro back to Gare du Nord and jumped on a train back to London.

I love it when my work entails days like these.

Christmas in London and the French Alps, Winter in London

Autumn disappeared and winter well and truly set it. Frost outside. Dark at 3:30pm. Freezing temperatures, long woolly coats on the tube, scarves and beanies. And even some signs of snow.

And of course in this hemisphere, with winter comes Christmas.

To get into the spirit of things I even bought a real pine Christmas tree, although the lack of having a car meant I had to get the 2m tree home on a couple of buses, which raised some interesting looks from fellow passengers.

At my house we had a "family Christmas" amongst all our "orphan" Aussie friends and it was good to have people to celebrate with so far from home.

Then on the Friday before Christmas I left work early and met my friend Sue at the Victoria bus station, where we boarded a coach for France. It would be a long bus ride. Once we got to the English Channel we were faced with a long wait for a space for our bus on the Channel Tunnel train; and 7 hours into the bus ride we hadn't even hit France yet. The bus ride was cramped, cold, boring and above all, long. But knowing that soon we'd be jumping around in fresh snow kept our spirits high. 20 hours into the trip we finally arrived in Flaine, a village in the Grand Massif ski area of the Alps, near the French-Swiss border.

Sue and I literally hit the snow covered ground running. It was Saturday afternoon and we wouldn't get our skis until the next morning, so we entertained ourselves in the freshly fallen snow by jumping onto it and sliding down the hills on our bottoms, whilst other members of our group caught up on sleep.

Our accommodation was the UCPA. Kind of sounds like YMCA. It is a French non-profit organisation providing affordable outdoor adventures for everyone. It was a big building which gave us somewhere nice to sleep, eat, drink and hire skis. We got out skis on the Sunday and the next seven days were spent skiing, eating and drinking and sleeping. Flaine is a pretty small village so the après ski nightlife wasn't huge, but staying in such a big centre meant that there was always some sort of entertainment.

Our package included 5 half day lessons, which was great for me as I hadn't had a lesson since I was about 19 or 20 and my skiing since has been self taught and although I could get myself down a mountain, it wasn't pretty.

We were well above the level of clouds all week, which meant it was sunny all along. And it didn't matter much that we didn't have fresh snow, as it had dumped big time just before we had arrived. At times, it felt like summer compared to London.

Christmas eve was spent having a nice Christmas dinner put on by the UCPA, and I didn't miss home that much, because being in a ski resort didn't feel like Christmas much at all.

On Christmas day, Sue and I got up and caught the main gondola to the peak of the mountain, and exchanged presents sitting on some rocks on the snow, as we enjoyed views of Mont Blanc and the snowy mountain ranges surrounding us.

This trip was the first time I had ever skied 7 days in a row, and it was the first time I had ever left satisfied, feeling like I had had enough.

The trip back was thankfully only 16 hours long and our coach arrived in London at 6am on Sunday. A bit of a sleep and a Sunday afternoon to recover and I was ready for work on Monday. It was a short week as new years was in the middle. New years eve was at a masquerade party in a Clapham nightclub.

At around this time the winter started getting really cold. A weekend trip to Amsterdam didn't really escape the winter but it was good fun. It was for a mate’s 30th and was a good fun boys’ weekend!

Upon return to London it wasn’t long until it got to the coldest part of winter and it really was cold! London got its coldest snap in 20 years, whilst Melbourne recorded its highest ever temperature (46C). In London it snowed. One Monday most of London was shut down because of the foot of snow on the ground. No buses ran, most tubes stopped and many got a day off work.

As the snow was still frozen solid on the ground, a friend I met in Montreal came to visit London whilst studying in Finland. She came and stayed for a week, but sightseeing was made difficult, sliding on the ice. Nevertheless it was a good opportunity to be a tourist in London, and do a whole bunch of sightseeing. Also ventured out of London on a day trip to Hampton Court Palace (one of the homes of Henry VIII, after he took it from the Cardinal for not granting him a divorce), Stonehenge and Oxford all in one day. It was great to finally see Stonehenge – especially given the area was still covered with snow. The thing wasn’t as big as I had thought and a lot more dilapidated than expected, but you can easily cast your mind back to when it was built and see why it is a wonder of the world.

Summer in England, Switzerland, France and Liechtenstein

LIFE IN LONDON

Went to Ascot Racecourse for another race meeting, and saw Belinda Carlisle and Bananarama perform while it poured with rain.

M and I Went to see the Waifs play a gig here in London. As you can imagine, the crowd (mainly consisting of Aussies) was pretty excited when they played London Still.

Also went to a Regurgitator gig. They are one of my favourite Aussie bands, so I was very excited when I found out they were playing London. It was a really small gig, at a university bar, so we got to get right close up to the band. They only had a basic set up, so not much in terms of sound or visual effects like they often have, but the set was great. They played many songs from their best album, Unit (including I like your old stuff better than your new stuff,Modern Life, Black Bugs, Everyday Formula, !, I will lick your asshole and Polyester Girl).

Celebrated my first birthday in London by having a night of cocktails in a bar in Balham. Of course you don’t really need an excuse for this sort of activity in London. There have been many nights out with various people. London: it’s always very social.

TRAVEL

On one of the hottest days of the year, M and I went on a daytrip to Brighton. The amount of people going from London to Brighton that Sunday was ridiculous. Standing room only on the long distance train. Then from the train station in Brighton down the main street to the beach was all a big crowd walking in one direction. The beach was so crowded it was almost tricky to find a space to lay down 2 towels. But the worst of it was that the beach didn’t have sand, but big round pebbles. They weren’t bad to lie on, but the moment you tried walking on them,agony! Nevertheless, it was nice to get down to the beach.

The same weekend, M and I also went, along with a couple of friends, to Chessington World of Adventure in Surrey. It is a theme park, and, although not as good as the big ones on the Gold Coast, was still good fun and had some pretty wicked rides.

TRIP TO SWITZERLAND AND AREA

My first bit of major travel in Europe this time around, apart from the weekend trip to Berlin, happened in late August. I planned the trip with my favourite travel partner, Jen. She is a Canadian girl who I met when I was last living in London, and had travelled with her to Belgium, Germany and France. She is quite a jetsetter, and at the moment is living in a little town in the French countryside, right near the Swiss border, near the city of Geneva. She was nannying for a British/Kiwi family and invited me over to her part of Europe to do some travelling.

I made an early morning trip to Gatwick airport to fly into Geneva, Switzerland. I spent the day looking around the city, which is built on the banks of a bay within a massive lake. It was a warm day so when I was tired from walking around looking at all the old buildings, I went on a boat cruise around the lake, taking in the amazing scenery around the banks, of chalets, green forests, mountains and amazing blue water. Watching the lakeside inspired me to go to one of the beaches afterwards and laze around the beach for the rest of the afternoon. Though I wasn’t brave enough to get right in the water, it was too cold!

Jen’s friend Charlotte came to meet me in the evening and show me a little bit of the city at night. We picked up Jen who had just returned to Geneva from yet another trip, and then headed over the French border to Jen’s little village.

She lived in an old massive house with her family, with a huge garden and even a swimming pool. I hadn’t seen this sort of luxury in a long time, certainly not in London! We all sat around and drank some €2 French wine, a perfect end to a European evening.

The next day Jen and I set off on our Swiss journey. We walked to Switzerland (about a 20 min walk to the border) and caught a train into Geneva.

From there, we weren’t really sure where we wanted to go, so we just boarded a train that headed into the middle of Switzerland and got off in the city of Bern.

We spent 3 hours sightseeing in Bern, a really nice old city set on a sharp bend of a bright blue glacial river. It was seriously picturesque! So much so that I filled a whole Facebook album with just Bern (see album Swiss Adventures Pt 2: Three Hours in Bern)

Bern’s city symbol is a bear, and there are bear flags and logos everywhere, and the city even has its own bear enclosure, where you can throw fruit to the bears. Though my favourite part of the town was probably the rose garden at the top of a cliff overlooking the winding valley with the city in the middle.

Once we were exhausted from sightseeing, we bought a Swiss lunch from a supermarket (Swiss cheeses; warm, fresh-from-the-oven baguette and of course Swiss chocolate) to take onto the train and headed further into the centre of the country towards Interlaken.

Interlaken seemed to be Switzerland’s tourist capital. Rightly so, though. In Winter there would be a lot of skiing done on the many mountains surrounding the town. We were there in summer and it had plenty of summer activities to offer, from swimming/boating/kayaking in the lakes (Interlaken, meaning between the lakes, is, as you can imagine between two massive glacial lakes), cycling, Nordic walking in the hills, or going up to the mountain tops to check out the glacier.

We stayed in a small hostel room with some more Canadians, our window overlooking a torrent of bright blue water down the heavily flowing river running past the hostel, with a cliff leading up the mountain on the other bank.

We spent a few days in Interlaken and had a great time. We got around mainly on hired bikes. It was perfect riding around the green countryside during the warm summer days. We went swimming in the lake (water was almost unbearably cold, I thought), and also had a go at kayaking. Being in the middle of a huge bright blue lake surrounded by snowy mountain tops had a real relaxed, tranquil feel about it.

We also ventured up into the mountains, where we walked through the mist of clouds, caught trains and cable cars up and down steep cliffs and ate warm snacks in Chalets to keep warm.

Once we were ready to depart Interlaken, we decided to do so by boat. We went to the port on the Lake facing away from Geneva and caught a ferry to the other side. We ended up in a small country town and jumped on a train, changing a couple of times before we ended up in the city of Luzern.

By this time the night had fallen. We found a hostel, ventured out for food (I had a kebab-in-a-box) and crashed. The next day we explored Luzern, yet another beautiful old riverside city. We spent the day exploring before getting on a train again and heading for the Western border of Switzerland, bound for Liechtenstein – Jen and I wanted to tick another country off the list! No trains went to the small kingdom, so we had to catch a few different trains and a bus to get there, but eventually ended up in Vaduz, the capital. We had a look around bit didn’t find it particularly interesting, and when Jen decided to start destroying the Prince’s property (she broke the fence leading up to the castle trying to jump over it), we decided it was time to leave the country!!

We wanted to stay that night at a Swiss farm, sleeping on the hay in the barn. We called a few farms which Jen found in the listings for this type of accommodation, but when we tried to ring them to get in touch, our German didn’t get us much past “Gutten tag.” So we gave up and caught the train through the mountains in the South of the Country, as we looked in guide books for a hostel that sounded like it could put us up.

At night fall we ended up in a tiny country town in the middle of nowhere called Ilanz. The hostel was in fact some sort of hostel / guesthouse / hotel hybrid, and our room, which was otherwise lovely (with comfy fat feather doonas), was shared with an old man that smelled like an Anticol lozenge and wore nothing but his Y-fronts.

So instead we spent our evening in the restaurant and bar, which was all very nice, and much to Jen’s satisfaction, a unit of uniformed Swiss soldiers.

The next day we headed on, on the train again, through lots and lots of mountain scenery, until we ended up in the mountain resort of Zermatt, near the Italian border.

By winter, Zermatt is clearly a busy ski resort, but even though it was summer, it was still quite full of tourists. We went out on the town and the next day took a train up to the famous Matterhorn mountain. Unfortunately it was surrounded by clouds, so even though we were right next to the snowy peak, we could only see it through glimpses between the thick white fog. Nevertheless, we really felt on top of Europe up so high in the Alps.

After Zermatt, Jen and I headed back through the mountains toward lake Geneva, and back into French speaking territory (most of our trip was spent in German-speaking Switzerland). We ended up going to the small city of Nyon where we went out with Charlotte and her and Jen’s various nanny friends. The next day it was back in the Jen’s town French of Chalex in the back yard around the pool (and a random swim in a flooded quarry) before the imminent return to cloudy London.

News from the other side of the Ashes battle

Hi Everyone!

Sorry I haven't written in a couple of months.

November was a quieter month for me than the last few I have written about. In fact I did not even leave England. The time was spent working, going out with friends (including a marathon 12-hour Monopoly pub-crawl, visiting pubs on many of the Monopoly board streets), going to gigs (including Aussie bands The Living End and Wolfmother) and generally hiding away from the increasingly British weather.

It has been fun being an Australian amongst the English because it allows me to give them a hard time for what is happening to them in the Cricket. On the down side, not only can I not go to any games because I am on the wrong side of the world, but I can't even conveniently watch them on TV because the time difference dictates that they start at about midnight each night.

December has been all about Christmas shopping and more prominently Christmas functions. I have been to various work Christmas lunches and parties, enjoying all the free festivities.

Yesterday I did my first bit of international travel for almost 2 months, going on a day-trip to Lille in France on the Eurostar train. It's a great city and, despite the cold rainy weather, I still had a great time as always in France, trying to communicate in worse than broken French, I like to call it "Shattered French". The famous Lille Christmas market was nice but smaller than expected but the shopping malls were huge with great shopping (something you come to appreciate living in London). It was also good to get away from the cold and rain, even though being on the giant open air ferris wheel in the rain was kind of fun.

Next week I'm off to Prague to have a continental Christmas and New Year. Then its back to England for a last few weeks of Winter. I'm due back in Melbourne on January 25th, so hope to see those of you in Australia some time soon after that, and those of you in Europe before I head off. At this stage I am not 100% sure if I'm coming back to Oz long term, or just for a short break from the winter and coming back to Europe, although at this moment it looks like I will be coming back to Melbourne to look for a lawyer job. We'll see what happens!

SUMMER FUN: England, Netherlands, Germany & France

Hi Everyone
Since I last wrote (when I described my advetures in Amsterdam), I have been watching the World Cup and enjoying the summer weather in London.The latter has involved sightseeing within London on the weekends, andon work days spending lunchtime in the park.It has been so hot that the Tube (underground rail system) has beenrunning at reduced speed (to avoid derailing) and blaring frequentannouncements warning people to carry water bottles on trains.
In the absence of the beach (which I miss dearly), the parks are theplace to be in London. The parks are super lively, with peoplepicnicking, sunbathing and of course playing "football".But as the mercury hit record highs, the air conditioning in our workbuilding stopped working, resulting in a massive 7-floor sauna tryingto be a law firm. It wasn't fun. But having drinks in London alley-waybars provided good relief on numerous nights.It has been great watching the World Cup unfold in one of the world'sgreatest footballing nations. St George Crosses (white and red Englishflags) are draped in every second window and flying from the top ofmany many cars.As well as watching various England and other games, I have beenfollowing the Socceroos progress carefully. Took the afternoon offwork to watch Australia destroy Japan at a pub near work; but thendecided to take it a notch higher for the Brazil game and head toMunich, Germany.
It was a tour run by the Irish company that I did my Ireland tourwith. Early on a Friday morning we (myself and 20 other Aussies and Irish) departed London and headed to Dover for the Ferry across theEnglish Channel. Amazingly enough, on the Ferry I randomly bumped into Ben, an Aussie dude I met in San Diego, and flew to Las Vegas with, when I wasbackpacking the USA. It really is a small world!!!Upon landing in Calais, we drove all day until we reached Amsterdamfor a stopover. I had been to Amsterdam only a few weeks earlier, so Iwas delighted when our city accommodation suddenly didn't have spacefor us, and we ended up staying in cabins in a picturesque caravanpark ouside of Amsterdam, that lay beside a marina in the Dutchcountryside by the coast. We caught public transport into the city andhad a night on the Red Light District (as you do) and then attemptedto catch public transport back to the campsite. We managed to get asfar as the nearest town but the [last] bus didn't go any further. Weended up walking for over an hour in the pitch dark on a desertedcountry road to eventually find our caravan park - but what afantastic experience on a beautiful warm night in the fresh seasideair with a bunch of great Aussies!!The next morning we embarked on our long drive from Amsterdam toMunich. And long is no exaggeration. Holland is of course to the Northof Germany and Munich is in Bavaria in Southern Germany, and as I found out, Germany is a very large country! But a nice one!! I reallyenjoyed the forest covered hills and valleys and fast cars speedingpast on the autobahns.We found home in a camping site a couple of hours outside of Munich. It was run by Germans who couldn't speak English with the aid of anEnglish guy providing the tents and luxuries such as air mattresses.On the first night I lost my tour group so I mingled in the outsideseating of the campsite's restaurant/bar with some English footballfollowers and local German kids. That was fun, especially with the aid of the German beer that was flowing for €2/500ml (significantly cheaper and tastefully superior beer to what I have had to get used toin London). It was interesting attempting to order pizza and beer inGerman but I think I managed to get the point accross.Early the next day we headed to Munich! We started drinking early onthe bus and got into the spirit of things, hanging Aussie flags fromthe [clearly Irish due to the leprachauns on the side] bus anddrinking breakfast beers. German beers go down surprising well at 9amon a hot day!
We arrived at the Munich Olympiastadion where the official fan zonewas located. But before heading in, we decided to wander onto themetro and take a ride into the main part of town. Some of us exploredthis old part of beautiful Munich amongst a sea of yellow and greencrowds supporting Australia and Brazil. My favourite part of the daywas sitting in a huge traditional beer hall drinking fine beer fromhuge litre stines (€6.20 ea. - great value) while chanting Australiasongs [from classics "Waltzing Matilda" to "Stand up for theSocceroos..."] at the Brazilians, completely drowning out the German folk music band.After that we boarded a crowded metro back to Olympiastadion uponwhich we further exchanged some chants and competitive banter with theBrazilians on board. Then we headed into the official fan zone wherewe drank many more beers and had fun all dressed up in our Aussiegear. I had never felt so Australian and loved every moment of it!! The Brazilian fans had a great attitude and all of the interaction wasfun in great spirits - not the slightest bit of violence or even batattitude at all.As Australia came on we sang and we cheered to the, unfortunatelydisappointing, end. But that didn't totally dampen the mood as thepartying continued until we eventually boarded our bus back to thecampsite and fell asleep exhausted. The atmosphere that day was sofantastic that I can claim it had been one of the best days of mylife!The next day we drove from Bavaria to Paris, arriving in Paris late ona hot and humid afternoon. We went on a bus ride, checking out all thesites and almost crashing in the crazy, seemingly rule-less roundabout around the Arc de Triomphe. Some of us then made our way by footto Sacre-Cour where we climbed the steps and enjoyed the magnificentParis views during a beautiful pink Paris dusk. By the time we werefinished there I was in a group of only 4 people, and although we weredesperate for dinner by about 10pm, we instead decided to just grab anice cream and make the most of our short time in Paris by making ourway to the Eiffel Tower.We found a metro station and somehow managed to buy tickets and getthe metro to take us to the right stop for the Tower. And it was worthsurpassing dinner for!! As we approached the tower, the 11pm lightshow had just illuminated, and we gazed at the amazing structure as itsparkled and lit up the Paris skyline. We then went up the tower andmarvelled at the Paris views until the midnight light show and theneventually made our way down, some of the last people to leave. Wow,spending midnight of a perfect summer night on the Eiffel Tower! Whata week!!
The next day it was time to head back to London but Kylie, an Aussie girl from Bathurst, and I didn't let that stop us. We got up earlyand insisted on doing further sightseeing before being forced to leavethe magnificent city. We managed to check out Notre Dame and thenwandered the streets for a bit before resting for coffees at a streetside cafe and heading back for the bus and the long drive back toLondon.My favourite thing about being in France was using my very limitedFrench from school to speak to people, including the usual niceties (bonjour, bon soir, merci....) and ordering things like coffees andmetro tickets; with a huge sense of satisfaction when my mutteringswere understood!As we sailed back across the English channel I enjoyed sipping on some French wine, in an attempt to grab hold of the French experience forjust a few moments longer, but indeed the trip was soon over as Ifound myself back in South London, boarding the Tube for the long rideback to my North London "home".
Since coming back life has been just as busy. Watching Australia play"football" matches in pubs (being particularly horrified at whathappened with Italy just an hour or two ago in the 94th minute), goingout, shopping, and going to the Wireless Festival in Hyde Park, which I somehow managed to score some free tickets to. Saw acts including The Strokes, Ben Lee (about 80% Aussie audience for him) and James Blunt. Not the best acts, but there's something really cool aboutwatching bands play on a sunny day in the middle of Hyde Park, one ofthe greatest parks in one of the greatest cities in the world.Next weekend I'm hoping to make it to Belgium for a huge rockfestival, and the weekend after, a trip to an English beach atBournemouth with some Hungarian friends. Eventually I'm hoping to dosome sailing around the Croatian islands. I hope it all works out sowish me luck! I also hope all of you in the Southern Hemisphere [whatthey call "antipodeans" here] are surviving the winter as I enjoy the sun. I never thought I'd be saying that about London!
Missing you and wishing you were here to share the exprience......