* 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..