last night, london and home

the last night of the tour was a good 'un.
went back to the jazz club (indoor) but unfortunately it wasnt a music night, instead it was an interview with some famous spanish writer, and as i can neither understand slovenian or spanish, me and the two belgians i was sat next to decided to leg it, and headed back to the outdoor jazz club
and proceeded to get very merry and discuss why the french are the sole reason why the EU doesnt work :-)
they were spot on and spoke better english than half the brits!
so two additions to the hero list;
Micheal and Marian (rock loving, un-PC belgians)
had a long day of travelling, mainly spent waiting around with not much to do in airports and bus stations on the last day, and arrived in stansted about 18.30
one of my cousins works and lives down south not too far away so she'd volunteered to pick me up and i crashed at hers for the night. another addition goes therefore to helen, for a whacking feast of chinese food, several bottles of beer and a couple of gins (plus a lovely big double bed!!!)
well the next morning it was another long day of travel, wow i thought prague was hard to get around, the london underground is huge! and complicated. managed to get where i needed to be though and got back into hull about 3pm. i have to say its nice to have home cooking and my own bed.
my mum did me a big sunday roast of beef and yorkshire puddings and it was awesome!
feels weird being back home..
had an amazing trip and met some of the friendliest and most genuine people i've ever met, and managaed to shoe horn in so much stuff and rack up so many miles (i'd love to know how much distance i've actually covered)
well i've only got a couple of weeks back at home then its back to bradford and back out on placement at huddersfield royal infirmary.
soon lose the holiday feeling!
this is the end of the blog so hope you've enjoyed reading it, if anyone has any questions or wants any advice feel free to email me (cayalee@hotmail.com)
over and out
cj

ljubljana and jazz

well its the last day of the holiday. been spent mainly unproductively!
i'm begining to get the whole jazz vibe and the european love for it is somewhat wearing off on me..
got 'educated' by the local jazz shop owner yesterday and ended up cracking a tinny with him and toasting to the success of his new shop and helped him on his way with a cd sale, tis really dam good. funk and jazz done right!
ended up at a jazz bar last night, got talking to a german speaking italian who'd studied in britain and had picked up the british drinking gene :-) so got merrily pissed while watching a student jazz jam session which was spot on!!
headed back there this afternoon after a long lie in, (as i'd spotted some hammocks the previous night) and spent my afternoon horizontal with a few beers listening to a mix of jazz and a sound set up of a big stage over the road, so will be heading to see whats happening there later on.
in the meantime ive gotta catch a series of buses tomoro to get me to the airport so got quite a day of travel ahead of me.
i'll post when i get back to britain, but for the tour, its over and out.
once again, a big thank you to everyone who's helped us out or is on the hero list and a big thankyou to those people that slipped our collective drunken minds and didn't make it onto the list!
its been a brilliant trip and i wouldn't hesitate to do something similar again.
definitely learned that as long as your willing to break the ice, most people are very friendly and willing to chat/share a beer :-) and seen some extremely stunning places.
once again, over and out..

trieste, train fuck up and last port of call

well, triest i have to say is stunning.
spent the majority of 3 days there (though the third was wasted really)
second day of triest i had the fun of finding another bed for the night with my heavy gear on in the sweltering heat of midday.
once sorted tho headed down to the harbor where it seems the whole carnival atmosphere was focused on an event called the trieste challenge, of which a set of boats had to do a major race in one day, and first one back takes all the prize money.
mooched around and saw a few more bands, though they weren't as good as the previous night and supped a few bottles of peroni.
next morning i had to set off for ljubljana and this is where it all went wrong.

after looking on the net, deutsche bahn uk told me i had to go to monfalcone to get the train to ljubljana, but when i got on the train, it took me straight back to trieste.
baffled i jumped off and went to ask the station personel.
they said no the only train that goes is tonight, which was more confusing as the woman i spoke to previously had booked me tickets for the earlier train, and that i'd have to head to monfalcone and wait for the connection.
well i killed the four hours sat in a park with yesterdays 'the times' and a bottle of fanta and went back for the train.
the guy at monfalcone was adamant that the 19.10 budapest train did not go to ljubljana even though i knew it did and said i had to get the 22.47 budapest train, getting me into ljubljana for 2.30 am
after exhausting every non-offensive hand gesture and my limited repetoire of french and german, i'd still got no further and decided to give up before im kicked out of the station.
so i had another 2 hours to kill, but luckily there was a garderoba (cloakroom) to ditch gear in so left my bag and went for a wander.
my trusty ears picked up faint twangs of reggae/ska from quite a way off, so followed them and ended up at a small but lively ska festival, where the main act makako jump were really cool (www.makakojump.net)
well anyways the dam train came straight back to trieste, then onto ljubljana so why the fuck they thought it'd be hilarious for me to travel 20 mins, then wait for four hours in some backend town to get a train right back to where i started i have no clue, but i'd love an explanation.
got in and crashed, woke up to a gorgeous day in slovenia.
been for a wander all round the city and ended up at this "alternative lifestyle" centre called metalkova, which apparently was evacuated during the recent war and taken over by squatters and anarchists, but now hosts a selection of reggae clubs (including the one we ended up in with alesh and egor plus the gorgeous women katje etc) and a fine collection of hairstyles as well as some amazing graffiti art and cool sculptures.
the table next to me were ruthlessly taking the piss out of a couple of tourists wandering around there so the camera was out of the picture (geddit?!) but im sure you can google it if your bothered.
off to a jazz bar tonight, as apparently is a jam night, so should be cool!
only one more night left so need to get making arrangements to get to the airport from here, but home soon :-(
more soon..

trieste and last night of rome.

hi all, sorry for delay in posting, the computers at the last hostel only let you go on for fifteen mins before they logged you off!
im now in trieste after a great last night in rome.
i'd met up with an american called jeff who is a jazz musician studying italian in rome, (who is now added to the hero list!) and we decided to hit the vatican (leaving the killer of saints t-shirt at the hostel this time!)
the place is absolutely stunning and my phone camera doesnt do it justice really.
the level of detail put into everything is amazing and the pure affluence of the place is amazing, if not disgusting.
jeff had heard through the www grapevine that there is a big jazz festival from june to september in a park in rome which attracts world famous acts, so we went to scout it out, but realised it didnt start till ten thirty so had to go back into town for six hours :-)
went and had a proper look around the colloseum, though it was too bright for my poor little phone to get a decent photo (edit-added one in previous post)
on returning to the hostel with a few beers, we met some hot (and i mean HOT) aussie lasses in our dorm who had no plans and were more than keen to accompany us to the fest that night. turns out they were in the minority of quality aussies we'd met, and proceeded to party hard :-)
the fest was dam cool, though some of the tracks were a bit too out there for me.
we'd screwed the bus times on the net so began a long walk to the nearest metro, only to find that shut 15 mins earlier!
stumbled upon a rare late night pub and stocked up on lager and paninis and got taxi back, only to be up four hours later to head to trieste!

hero list now includes,
jeff (awesome american)
anna (hot hot hot, but shagging an argy)
ylan (hot hot hot, but shagging a french canadian)
bridget (hot hot hot but shagging an aussie)
ben (the french canadian whos shagging ylan)

well arrived in trieste majorly knackered, and greeted by the grumpiest hostel man ive ever met. got a pizza and a beer and headed into the old town. the place is electric at the moment, seems to be some boating and music festival on.
theres stages all over the city with bands on all day,.
sat listening to a couple of bands of which was a jazz quartet (picture below)
and the worst of which tried to mix chic "le freak" into jamiroquai "cosmic girl" and the singer was shite.
still, good banter.
got another night here and then heading to ljubljana (again) for last part of trip.
cj

roma, pub crawl and crash n burn

well its day two of rome and im absolutely shafted.
my feet hurt, my shoes rub, im tired, and im sick of pizza.
went on a bit of a pub crawl last night, kind of an organised thingy but it seems the itit's don't quite get the concept of a pub. as out of the whole city centre there were only 4 bars that opened late enough.
so it was more of a pub saunter/stroll, but it was top quality banter. yanks are officially the worst drinkers ever, these two lasses were on the porcelain phone afte the second pub. they got outdrunk by a muslim! hahaha
met some sound guys on the 'crawl' one of which is featured below with some random shots of rome :-)




had a bit of a nightmare with the camera, as its so sunny, the stone reflects the light and blurs the shot.
going to crash and burn tonight catch up o some zeds and then do my touristy thingy tomoro and do the vatican and do the colleseum properly too. then need to start heading north towards slovenia. probably gonna go via trieste, but might see if i can ditch ljubljana for two nights as theres not that much to actually do there.
maybe hang around piran for a night or two, but i'll see!
anyways, the time nazi's are at it again so need to sign off for today..
more soon.
cj

ciao bella!

awright
arrived in roma today, have to say its awesome, not just because of the sheer volume of cliche tourists here either.
though i think theres probably more yanks here than in america, and theres millions of jap tourists complete with shiny camera thingys.
had a wander round this morning and saw the colleseum, and ended up getting thouroughly lost, but i think thats the best way to be here. theres so much old stuff, and you can just be wandering the streets and then pow, your in a lovely piaza eating pizza by a fountain (which are all drinkable. the only drink you need to buy here is alcohol)
speaking of alcohol, its the spanish steps pub crawl tonight. after our exposuretopolish drinking, these iti's dont stand a chance :-)
time to fly the union jack high!
promise a better post and photos tomoro, its siesta time now..
cj

scuba photos and italia day 2

hi all,
loving italy at the moment, all be it its probably because i'm on a high because i actually have clean clothes...
no, its not just that, ancona has a really nice chilled out vibe to it.
loads of plaza's and leafy boulevards with the oldies and young romantics sat around chilling out/eating each others faces.
gonna have another wander into town now, only thing is i've gotta lug all my clean clothes with me cos of this stupid archaic hostel locking everyone out till 4.30.
its nice to be chilled out, but most of the businesses here have like a four hour lunch break!
very different to the uk, including the driving.
jesus, i thought bradistan was bad, but here people pull out just in time of full speed lorries on a moped whilst on their mobile phones.
traffic lights are mere suggestions of what you should do in your vehicle and indicators are an arcane magic banned by the clergy.
it'd be interesting to do a placement on an italian head injuries unit to see how many of the guys on there were previously intrepid vespa boys.
as promised here are some photos from scuba diving,
note the accentuated curves given by the wetsuit :-)



the plan is to head to rome tomoro, see some sights, marvel at lots of graffiti and do the spanish steps pub crawl..
more soon..

more piccies

Hi all again, more photos to gorge yourselves on. they're not in any kind of order so i'll caption them for you :-)

lake bohinj in northern slovenia near the landing site of paragliding.

leaving the port of split for korcula island (where i did scuba course-photos of that coming soon)

the piccy of the glider when airborne

us being suitably first class from prague to budapest

a foot shot from several hundred feet up in the air (paragliding)

dl kitting up ready for take off

pimp my daewoo (budapest) that thing is like a 1l engine bag of crap, the owner either watches "the fast and the furious" too much or has an excellent sense of humour!!

italia!

hi all, arrived in italy safe and sound, got a wee bit soggy this morning!
the thunderstorms had been chasing me over the adriatic and while it was a dry night, it certainly was a wet morning. my trainers fell apart in a puddle at the ferry port and my combats looked more like waders. oh well, it only lasted half an hour and its turned out to be a glorious day. the ferry was 'interesting' read:carnage as it seems that common sense bypassed the continent..
instead of setting up a queuing system the ferry guys thought it'd be hilarious to let everyone charge and form a swarm in front of the ramp so that the 2 passport control people didn't actually stand a chance, and on top of that, rather than get all the passangers on board and then worry about the cars, they thought it'd be even more hilarious to do 2 jobs extremely badly, dribbling both on board in small dollops, delaying the boat by over an hour.
why the stupid idiots didn't use the passenger side entrance also baffled me, as once you did actually get in, you then had to dodge the parking traffic to get to the stairwell.
inside doesn't even get a mention as complete and utter chaos doesnt even come close to describing it.
i bailed out of the way as stroppy croats battled with raging italians over who's seat this was and why the other couldn't put his suitcase there or anywhere near and retreated to the sundeck to observe the sunset and passively smoke a cigarette factory.
i had to sleep on the sundeck of the ferry as there was no room inside, and no way was i paying fifty quid for a seat! only to battle it out with the locals.
it wasn't too cold in my jumper jacket and sleeping bag, but i won't be rushing back to do it anytime soon :-)
ancona seems very nice, if it wasn't for the graffiti and italians it'd be gorgeous.
of course its a sunday so not much is open, but i'll have another look around tomoro and hopefully see the place at its best.
i can get a signal now on 3 ITA so i can mms off my phone, hence the photos above!
theres a wilted flower on the auschwitz-birkenau memorial that i though particularly poignant, krakow old square, a paraglider coming into land at bohinj and ljubljana's old town castle.
i'll post more up when i can!
cj

i am still alive!

hi all, i am still alive and kicking, no posts recently because ive had no internet access!
after my one night in the croatian town of split, i've been on a croatian island for the past few days learning to scuba dive.
the island is called korcula and i was staying in a gorgeous little place called vela luka which is a small harbor town of 4300 people.
im now a certified padi open water diver :-)
met up with some really cool irish guys who took me under their wing for a 'few' pints, and also been on the diving course with them.
ive been quite surprised really, as anyone who knows me knows i've had bad experiences with a few of our irish cousins and their england hating antics, but these guys were sound!
so i have a few more to add on the hero list;
brina
pheluna
jj
will
and most of all a big up to the galloway divers especially sadhbh (pronouced sigh-ve)
shes an absolute hero of the state, a female diver travelling croatia on her own who unfortunately lost her debit cards and camera last night and was my dive buddy for the night dive.
the weather has been gorgeous here, except for yesterday when all hell broke loose, and the biggest most immense thunderstorm broke.
i've never seen anything like it at all!!
me and sadhbh stayed up and watched it all night, and the hills around us got pounded with lightning and it was still flashing away at four am.
other than getting my certificate, we havent been up to much, just taking advantage of the gorgeous weather and cheap(ish) beer.
did a night dive the night before last, and i absolutely shat myself.
jumping off a boat into pitch black water with only a torch to see by was quite an experience, but once we were under i kinda calmed down a bit :-)
saw a sea hare and a few octupi and a few crab, and loads of fish, was a very surreal environment to be in, felt more like i figured space would, hovering almost weightless in pitch black.
i turned off my torch and turned away from everyone else and you could literally see nothing, just black, and only hear the background crackling of the sea life and the darth vader noise of your regulator. if you waft your hand in front of your face when its like that, all the microorganisms in the water give off a phosphoresence of millions of different colours, figure its like an lsd trip or something :-)
had a bit of a rush today to get the ferry back to split, finally decided on a plan of action. i'm heading to ancona in italy on the overnight ferry today, to arrive there for eight am, then work my way back to ljubljana (again!!) via rome and trieste.
approaching the last week of the trip now, kind of a scary thought though i'll deffo be glad of a nice big bacon banjo with proper ketchup (by that i mean heinz, none of this daddy's rubbish)
and water with no gas.
and a sunday roast mmmm....
but first, to the land of pizza, ferraris and people who can't queue. italia.

dodgy intel

after bohinj and the paragliding and kayaking i realised it was going to be a bit of a nightmare to get anywhere without having to double back on myself, so i did the adventurous thing and asked for help, though the bus i was told to get on was blatantly not the right one!
well i ended up in kranjska gora (a ski resort further in the mountains) which is completely the wrong direction to where i wanted to go (nova gorica) but never mind.
kranjska gora was beautiful, even higher in the alps that bohinj.
alas, im not kitted up for anything more than i've already done so i decided to have a wander and get an early night and prep for a long travel.
the place is very picture-esque but its all families and couples so i got on the net and looked at my options;
italy or croatia.
croatia it is.
so i jumped on an early bus and ive spent the day milling around ljubljana awaiting my train to split via zagreb, which i'm doing first class again, this time its about 12 quid.
been up to the castle today, met up witha bunch of guys from nottingham which were pretty cool, but ljubljana is a bit dead today, being a sunday. hopefully see it better in two weeks time when i return for my flight.
ive heard a lot of good things about croatia and the dalmatian coast, so should be good. maybe get a ferry to dubrovnik and train to sarejavo if im feeling really adventurous.
thats all for now..
more soon..

* indicates use of moderate to severe storytelling

hi all, last night in bohinj tonight, i had another thrilling day of hand washing clothes in the sink but at least i have a sizeable amount of clean kegs to wear.
this afternoon i decided to have a wander into the pretty small town and have a decent look around, but nothing much has changed since the lonely planet book was written as there is still only five shops with a small smattering of bars around. however there are a few places to hire kayaks so thats exactly what i did.
soon after donning my lifejacket and spraydeck, i was battling fiftyfoot rollers out on the lake and dodging cruiseliners*
really it was windy and wavy so i got wet. and had to dodge a few tourist boats.
it was good fun though, the lake is stunningly beatiful, in the shallows its an azure green, and the rivers that feed in and oput its absolutely gin clear. the locals swear the water is safe to drink, but after previous experiences with local water (turkey) i didnt feel obliged to test it!! the gusty wind prevented the paragliders taking off so the lakeside was devoid of cool aerobatic entertainment, and the cable cars up mt. vogel were out of action as well.
another pasta meal and some CNN on tv followed, seems monsieur prescott (johnny two jags) has put his foot in it and pissed off the yanks. good man!!
seems very lonely after spending so much time with the other boys but i'm heading to lake bled tomoro for a night which is a bit more touristy so should find a wingman/wingwoman there to travel with.
hopefully gonna catch a train into croatia with a look to seeing some of bosnia to add a second stamp onto the passport and notch up some more miles, though trains are a bit shit up in the mountains so i can envisage some very long and tiring journeys ahead.
just sat at a pc having a beer and soaking in the atmosphere writing the blog tonight, gonna get an early night and head off to bled reasonably early tomoro so not exactly an exciting post!!
apologies to all who read this, but joachim (previously mentioned as a state hero) has given me a contact number of a friend of his who organises parachute jumps from a cesna. hmm.... i feel a plan coming on...
more soon..

who said european trains run on time?

the last day (kind of only day) in ljubljana was a good one, we caught up on much needed sleep and headed for a swift look around the town, which seemed extremely pretty and based around the river, with a good compliment of bars and restaraunts.
we ate a thouroughly posh meal of steak and shrimp got plagued by wasps and legged it back to the hostel to get changed and head out for a beer or six.
after meeting yet another heroic taxi driver, we found some pubs and got control of the juke box... three iron maiden songs later, two local boys were buying us beers on the strength of our music tastes :-)
alesh and egor turned out to be making the most of the bank holiday and had been out on the razz for roughly ten hours by this point, and the entrance of the local arrogant aussie bastards didn't please alesh.
to be honest if things had of kicked off i think i'd have sided with the slovenian heroes as these were the most arrogant dickheads i've met in quite a while.

this is our bar, we put so much money behind it, and you're just slovenian

well i suppose my comments about them drinking wine in a mans pub didn't go down too well but hell they deserved more than just a verbal slap.
anyways bar-room brawl averted and alesh and egor ushered us out the door onto bigger and better things.
after following their 'local knowledge' read:drunken stupour
we got failry lost but were saved by bumping into some foxy slovenian ladies who took all of us to probably the shadiest club i've ever been in ever
the smell of weed and sound of reggae was still haunting us the next morning, though what really happened at the club is a bit fuzzy.
yesterday saw another wasted day, a late train to bohinj from ljubljana made us miss a connection and have to sit around in jesenice for the best part of 3 hours.
when we arrived the very friendly paragldinging instuctor (joachim) set us up with some lovely digs at the apartmenti triglav. with comfy beds, private shower and kitchen and everything!!!
becasue we arrived so late, and the weather weasnt so hot, he could only take on of us up to fly yesterday so dl got the short straw as they are heading for italy as i type. all was well and he was airbourne for the second time in two weeks, though with a few more aerobatics than a 737 pilot could get away with.
as only he could fly, we had to hike back down the hill to the car, completely plastering my trainers and trousers (the last of my clean gear) in thick mud.
i ended up cooking a pasta and meat meal for us all and we sat on the balcony and toasted to a good two weeks.
its been class with the boys, only a few inevitable disagreements and tantrums but top banter and drinking form from all involved parties!
today it was my turn to glide and after being set up for the morning on a stevey k cooked bacon sandwich i was ready to rock the mountain top.
got some beautiful shots up there, hope my phone camera does it justice!
the take off was a bit hairy, with a few hops before taking fully to the air but the rush is just amazing (by the way if there are z's and y's all over the place its because the keyboards are different here!) we did a few aerobatic turns and stalls and brought it in for a smooth landing on the lake side. it was a great morning for it, beautiful views and gorgeous sunshine ( a nice change from the cool and greys of poland and czech republic) though the afternoon has been slighlty less fun, the lack of clean gear meant an afternoon of hand washing in the sink. wow.
so its another meal of pasta and meat tonight, and an early night as all this boozing and early mornings is beginning to take its toll.
gonna hire out a kayak tomoro and see the lake fully, then make plans to head to bovec further along the alps..

in other news the awards for the two weeks are as follows:
best pull on tour, rob kennington (ken)
worst pull on tour, rob kennington
biggest idiot of tour, daniel longhorn
most dangerous man of tour, daniel longhorn
most improved drinker, steve kennington
biggest beer belly, chris jarratt.

at this point its probably a good idea to say big thanks to everyone who's helped us out so far so a big breath in and here we go;
gorgeous krakow hostel ladies (eye pleasing helpfulness)
heroic auschwitz taxi man (dodgy driving and tour guiding)
lucy and anna (sexy southern white water rafters)
local polish drinkers (mad dog drinking football plazying legends)
zakopane train station man (bilingual polish ticket buying saviour)
the american dog walker ("thats not a labrador" (ask ken!!!))
rihanna (gorgeous all knowing tram and underground expert and ticket buying lady)
first class sleeping car with butler (great sleep, great beer)
jodi and heather (the best americans ever + budapest tour guide extroadinaire)
radiohead (great gig)
the first taxi driver (sorting out a major communications fuck up in keleti pu station)
olga, katja and others (from a fuzzy last night in ljubljana)
alesh and egor (god bless all day drinking sessions)
the heroic ljubljana taxi driver (great info and good english)
joachim (paraglider expert and general hero of the state.)
that just about brings us up to date, so now im flying solo!!
more soon...

the inevitable crash and burn

hi all, well after such a smooth entrance to hungary it was inevitable the exit would be much less smooth, and so it was.
it turned out the 12.55 train we booked did not exist, and all station personel could do was recommend a different station (of which there are five) so we ended up doing a mad dash across the city in taxi costing nearly 20 quid.
when we arrived at the new station, the personell just looked baffled and shrugged shoulders at the mere suggestion of the word "ljubljana"

another mad dash ensued which returned back to the original station where a decent english speaking ticket lady informed us that there is indeed a train but it isnt labelled ljubljana, its actuallz venezia and we'd have to wait 4 hours for the next train.
needless to say we didnt arrive in ljubljana (capital of slovenia) till around 2 am,
but the hostel guys picked us up which was nice of them :-)
a major crash and burn happened the second my head hit the pillow and 14.10 was the next thing i saw on my watch.
just been for a wander into town for a meal and first impressions are that this place is awesome.
we're looking at doing either scuba or paragliding over the next few days as we're not too far away from the alps.
in other news i think i set the land speed record for frisbee by launching a disc on a moving train... gonna google to see if its been done before :-)

the last night of the festival was reasonably uneventful, though a good english band called the carving was spotted on a smaller stage kicking out some great songs.
not sure wether ken and dl should be deducted points for voluntarily seeing the rasmus, i'll decide later!!
ken racked up another snog, though points were negated due to ditching his wingman so the score is still 1,0,0,0

going to be sticking around in ljubljana for a few days to get some washing and sleeping done then i'm parting ways with the boys who have to return to england.
met a cool irish guy whos heading down to croatia, so may sample some sun sea sand and paddy humour :-)
thats all for today, more soon..

of first and seventh class...

well the train from prague to budapest was absolutely amazing!!!
we were actually in first class, and it only cost around 10 pounds!!
we had our own beds, room service, and double locks so we could sleep safe and sound after hearing the horror stories of people gassing the train and doing mass roberries.
i couldn't believe how smooth it all went, with only two passport checks we arrived in budapest around 8am, and straight away we had offers of taxis to the festival.
we'd decided it would be amazing to head off to the fest on obudai (think thats right) island in the middle of the danube.
we arrived in the rain thinking this would be the final catch in an otherwise smooth arrival, but the second the tents came out of their wrapping, the rain stopped!!
result!!
ken was most displeased at the idea of no showers and chemical toilets but the promise of radiohead and cheap beer soon brought him into the festival spirits :-)
the sons and daughters warmed up the day, followed by deuce. the penultimate act were a hungarian band called heaven street seven so i struggled through an hour set of hungarian lyrics until the main headers radiohead arrived. they played a pretty good set including most of their biggies like street spirit and karma police which i've heard is pretty rare for them.
a very wet night ensued and we returned to base camp a bit soggy bit in high spirits after meeting two brilliantly cool amercians (weird eh?)
they have been studying over here as part of their degrees in music and human geography, though are flying back today/tomoro.
after a reasonable nights kip (sleep for you non-brit readers)
we got up early and the remaining american girl offered to be our city guide and took us on a tour of budapest, including the castle, st stephen's (istvan) cathedral
and an art gallery of all places!
budapest isn't much compared to the beauty of prague but it definitely has its charms, and the big attractions are absolutely gorgeous.
st stephens cathedral is outstanding even by catholic means, the sheer volume of gold and marble is amazing. however this only leads me to be extremely cynical of the purposes of these buildings and the fact they've got a 1000 year old preserved saints hand there which you have to pay to see is a bit sick.
still, its a gorgeous place, and shows well on the archicetcs/engineers CV!!
the art gallery was something different for me, but was quite enjoyable and our guide had a great great uncles paintings there.
by the time we sclaed up the hill to the castle we were tired/hungry/thirsty so decided to call it a day.
its been a really fun day, if not a little hard on the feet, and we saw off our guide with a nice hungarian meal with a lager. that brings us up to date so more posts from slovenia/croatia (which ever we decide'!!!)
more soon..

prague and overnight trains

hi all for day 5/6 of the trip.
day 5, the overnighter;
after the carnage of poland we set about the task of a 12 hour overnight train to the czech republic capital of prague.
we were challenged to football by the local lads that drunk us under the table at rockus club in zakopane, and after a poor performance we managed to retain the national pride with a 6-5 victory in extra time, and set off with our gear feeling rather unwell to the station.
the first travel nightmare was zakopane station as not a single person even hinted at understanding anglais and my polish is restricted to 3 pints of lager and a coca cola please :D
luckily we found a bilingual holiday maker from chicago who did the deed and helped us out, we were booked into an eight seater compartment with no lock on the door and two rather haggard looking locals (smoking like chimneys) after several interruptions and some train maintenance we were alone but unable to sleep due to constant interruptions for ticket checks and passports.
arrival in prague saw us getting done by a cowboy taxi driver and having to walk for 30mins to find the hostel, which seemingly didn't exist to the locals.
after a sleepless night and long walk with heavy gear, spirits were low.
but after a power nap and a wander we set about having some food and drinks in a nice restaurant in the main square.
it has to be said, prague is absolutely beautiful and must be seen at night to get the full effect.
spent the rest of the night in a gorgeous little underground blues bar supping gin and listening to some serious fretwanking from an american blues band and then got a reasonably early night.
went on a walking tour of the city this morning and now feet are really hurting!
gorgeous place though, will deffo want to come back for more.
another overnight sleeper train tonight to budapest (hopefully seeing radiohead tomoro night) hopefully we'll be ok as we've got sleeper compartments!
might struggle to post for a few days as we're hopefully going to this music festival, but more soon..

we came, we saw, we conquered

last day of poland today, unfortunately weather time and funds were against the paragliding action so that will have to wait for another time.
what started out as a quiet few last night turned into a hardcore drinking session after meeting a couple of the locals :-)
we got introduced to the wonders of a shot called

mad dog

which has vodka tobasco and rasberry juice all in one.
ken set the pull score to 1,0,0,0 which is most disheartening for the rest of us!
the dancefloor took another beating from the brits, the four man ymca sequence left a few jaws dropped :-D
white water rafting was an absolute blast in the afternoon, though it was a little tame the scenery was absolutely gorgeous, not to mention the 2 girls we met up with for the rafting. unfortunately had to part ways though a promise of a meet-up in budapest sounds heartening.
before we head out to prague we've got another poland v england match if the locals can remember arranging it in the carnage that was last night :-D
having an absolutely brilliant time, poland has been awesome.
people have been excellent and the scenery nothing short of amazing, polish women have really shown up even the likes of leeds!
onto czech republic after a nasty 12hour overnighter...
more soon..
(you can leave us comments by clicking under each post)

day3-the mountains

first train journey over and done with, after some minor confusion with the non-english speaking conductor we arrived in zakopane.
again after some minor confusion and little help from a map we tracked down the hostel and set up base camp.
bumped into two very lovely ladies who needed a few more numbers for the white water rafting trip and now we're off to bomb it down the side of a mountain in a 3 foot by six foot inflated rubber dinghy :-)
decided to hit the town last night, and hit it we did.
the locals didnt even see it coming.
the vast array of shapes we pulled and breakdance manuevres just blew them away :-)
was a truly awesome night after the girls sabotaged the no-mixing-drinks-policy and we claimed the dancefloor for queen and country.
the mood in base camp is distinctly hung over but now we've gotta make a move and go rafting!
hopefully going to jump off a mountain with naught but a glider attached to me tomoro.
more later...

day 2

well we woke up early to the sound of my phone alarm going off, telling us to get up and get our arses to oswieschim (auschwitz)
after a trek to the train station we realised we'd got some dodgy intel and the train wouldnt be coming for another hour, though a rather plump fellow convinced us we wanted to get a taxi with him for 70pln (about 15) and he would wait and bring us back, hell yes we though.
until we saw his driving!
jesus christ, we were overtaking people who were overtaking other people!
oh well we got there and back in one piece and the driver was sorted, being our own guide for parts of the tour, he drove us to birkenau (the biggest part of the death factory complex) and gave us a tour.
the place itself is extremely moving, it shows the resilience and strength of the human psyche but also the pure evil we are capable of.
the most notable thing about the place is the silence, there is no birdsong, just the wind in the trees. its very eeirie.
well its our last night in krakow, going out in the town centre in the beautiful square, then heading to zakopane tomoro for some mountain sports :D
unfortunatley we have no digicam with us and i cant send mms off my phone so it'll be a pictureless blog, but if your really arsed im sure you can google image search birkenau and krakow for an idea.
have fun, more posts soon!

in the beginning!

hi all, tis our first day in krakow, and we're all knackered after travelling through the night down to stansted. after travelling through the night we arrived in krakov and had an extremely trendy tweed jacketed taxi driver. we ditched the gear and headed round tha kazimierz (thr jewish quarter) for a scout around, though it seems the locals can smell a tourist a mile away as they instantly tried to charge us 60quid for two bottles of water :-) think it was propbably my fault for trying to pay with dollars though!
spent the most part of the day walking round 'exploring' and getting rather lost, though we have seen wawel castle, the river vistula and most of the old town.
i have to say this is one of the most beautiful citys i've been to, and the main square is simply stunning!
went out for a few beers tonight and found some gorgeous bars and clubs which i've only just got in from so will post again after a decent nights sleep.
onto auschwitz tomoro!
cj