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..