Stockholm: Capital Of The North

We took the train from Copenhagen to Stockholm and arrived at the station at about 6pm. Luckily for us, the hostel was not very far from the station so we decided to check in, dump our bags and wonder around the city a bit. I must take this time to first comment on the hostel itself. It is by far the best hostel we have stayed in. The location is pretty much smack bang in the middle of the city center, near most sights. The staff are friendly, the price isn't too bad and the people there are cool. As I was saying, we dumped our bags and ventured out to get a feel for the city. The city itself is very unique. Was very interesting to see how the Swedes go about their everyday business. We were hungry so we decided to grab some pizza before heading back to the hostel. Another great thing about the hostel was that it had free internet and a lot of computers. So we decided to take this opportunity to book our trip up north. Unfortunately, we hit a massive brick in the wall and our trip "into the wild" was looking like it was not going to happen at all. If you recall, our initial plan was to head up to northern Norway, to a city called Trommso. Well, bad news. Apparently, the entire city shuts down for the winter and finding accomodation is pretty much impossible. So our next step was to find some form of accomodation in Kiruna, which is a town in northern Sweden. Unfortunutely, everything was fully booked. Literally everything. Things were not looking too good for us, but there was one last resort. Abisko National Park. All we knew was that it was about 1 hour north of Kiruna. It was a national park in Sweden, and apparently one of the best places in the World to see the Northern Lights. So, with a last ditch effort, we managed to find some accomodation there, right in the middle of the national park. Satisfied that our trip up north to see the aurora was still a go, we decided to hit the sack for a well deserved sleep.

We woke up the next morning and decided to do some of the sights. Museums are closed on Mondays so we planned to do all the other things. The first stop was Stadshuset (City Hall). It has been the seat of local government since the early 20th century and it is also where the winners of the Nobel Prizes hold a banquet dinner. There were two amazing rooms inside this hall. The Blue Room (where the Nobel Prize winners would dance) and the Gold Room, which had 18 million shimmering gold tiles. This was a sight worth seeing. After finishing off the City Hall, we decided to wonder through Gamla Stan, which is also known as 'Old Town'. Stockholm was once confined into this one area, Gamla Stan, but now it is the center of the city. We ventured through the main pedestrian street and marvelled at the maze of small side streets and the area's historic feel. In Gamla Stan was the Slottskyrkan (The Royal Chapel). This was the last sight for today and we decided to head back to the hostel. On the way, we did some grocery shopping as the hostel provided free pasta. We went into the supermarket to get some pasta sauce, and decided to cook a nice meal once we were back at the hostel. Not knowing exactly how much pasta we needed to cook, we put some pasta in the pot and at the time, I must say it looked a bit too little. So we added more pasta. It still looked like there was not enough pasta in the pot to feed both of us. So we kept adding more, and more... then we took some out, but then it looked too little, so we added more. All in all, neither of us knew how much pasta to put in the pot. In the end, we just decided that whatever was in there would be sufficient. So we turned the stove on and decided to play some cards whilst the pasta cooked. So we waited, checking if the pasta was cooking. There was no heat on the stove. Thinking it might take some time for the stove to heat up, we decided to continue playing cards. So we waited, and waited, and waited some more. Still, the water was not heating up. After about 45 minutes of waiting for water to boil, often looking cluelessly at the stove, we decided to ask someone why our water won't boil! Low and behold, apparently there is a button you have press to turn on the electricity for the stove. There we were, two idiots attempting to cook pasta, without any heat. After finally turning the stove on, the water began to boil. So we went back to our cards. About 5 minutes in, I tried to recall how my sister cooked pasta. Then it hit me. Why didn't we just use a kettle to boil the water! Ofcourse, by that time it was already too late and our water that was in the pot had already boiled. So we put the pasta in and couldn't wait until it was cooked. Once it was cooked, let's just say we had cooked enough pasta to feed about 10 people. Our measurements were way off. Ah well, atleast we knew how much pasta to cook the following day!

We had breakfast in the hostel the following morning. We wanted to take things a bit slower and since museums would be open today, we decided to do them. The first museum was The National Museum. Unfortunately, it opened at 11am, so decided to wait around a bit. As soon as it opened, we walked in and decided that it was too expensive. It was almost 9 euros to enter the museum and considering the Louvre itself was 13 euros, we felt that there was no real point paying so much and decided to skip it. We made our way down to the Moderna Museet (Modern Museum) instead. Was cheaper entry and had better exhibits including Dali, Edvard Munch, Jackson Pollock and my personal favourite, Warhol. After spending around 3-4 hours in the Mordern Museum, we made our way to Skansen, an area within Stockholm which apparently provides the best views of the city. On the way we found the Vasa Museet (Vasa Museum). This museum is home to a massive warship that sank in Stockholm's harbour in it's maiden voyage (20 minutes in) in the 17th century. It was salvaged and is surprisingly well preserved considering it was made of wood. Apparently, the less salty waters surrounding Scandinavia is what preserves such things better than the xmore salty waters that ships generally sink in. I must say, this museum was well worth the visit. The ship itself looked like something out of the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' movies. Was fantastic indeed. By the time we were finished with the museum, it was already getting dark, so we decided to head back to the hostel and get some groceries from the supermarket on the way. Yes, pasta again. But this time, we decided to add something to our recipe. Thinking that we were eating too much "unhealthy" food, we decided to add some vegetables to the pasta. We have this plan, that each time we make pasta, we're going to add something else to the recipe so that by the end of the trip, our recipe will indeed be perfected and even make the likes of Gordon Ramsey proud. After dinner, we did some laundry and I took some time to check my results for the university semester. If you recall, I had to endure the pain of taking 4 exams within the space of 4 days. Well, it was a relief to see that my results for the semester went very well indeed! Not sure how I pulled that one off...

The next morning, we decided to change our hostel for New Years. We were originally going to stay in another hostel in Stockholm, but we were so pleased with the current one we were staying at, that we decided to change it. We had a lot to get through today. Our train to Abisko was at 6pm and our primary aim for the day was to do the Swedish Royal Apartments. However, when we got there, we were told that the apartments were not open since the Nobel Prize Winners were residing there at the time. Instead, we decided to go check out the Royal Treasury and the Armory which provided an extensive insight into Swedish history. We have seen a few treasuries already but I must say, the . It was starting to approach evening and as the train to Abisko was a 14 hour trip, we decided to go to the supermarket and grab some snacks for the train. For dinner, we found a Subway and decided to get some foot-longs to eat in the train. We said good bye to the hostel and the friendly people we met and were on the road again.

Until next time...

Rishi

Copenhagen: City of Danish Hotdogs and Glazed Almonds

From Amsterdam, our next stop was Denmark. In particular, the lively city of Copenhagen. This city is apparently the center of Europe's oldest monarchy and embodies a real laid-back spirit that would put even Aussies to shame. We decided to take the night train from Amsterdam since the train trip over was almost 14 hours. The night train constituted of not seats, but couchettes which are basically like extremely cramped sleeping beds. Good thing though is that we managed to sleep for (most of) the journey and even managed to meet a few crazy New Zealanders in the same carriage as us. Once we managed to get to Copenhagen, we walked out of the train psyching ourselves up since we knew that it would be colder than Amsterdam. Strangely enough though, it wasn't as cold outside and satisfied that we were wearing clothes sufficient enough for the climate there, we made our way out of the train station to the hostel. Funnily enough, the crazy New Zealanders we met in the carriage (trust me, these guys were crazy, they had some insane trip planned. by insane, they were doing like 7 cities in the space of 2 days) were staying in the same hostel. So after combining both mine and Chris's navigational skills with that of the New Zealand guys, we managed to find it.

We got to the hostel at about 11 in the morning. It worked out nicely since both of us slept half-decently on the train and we werent that tired. With that in mind, we decided that it was pointless just lounging around in the hostel and went off exploring the bustling city of Copenhagen. But first... food! Both of us were hungry, since the only thing we had eaten in the past 16 hours or so was some pringles, chocolate and a banana. Copenhagen is famous for its Danish Hotdogs. There's side stalls in like every main street selling these hotdogs. Apparently you havent truely experienced Copenhagen if you havent tried one of these hotdogs with everything on it. When the Danes say everything, they really do mean everything. This hot dog had about 6 different types of sauces on it, 4 of which were different types of mustard alone... it also had some fried onions (which were surprisingly crunchy) and to top it off, they slap some pickles on top of the hotdog too. Balancing this thing is an absolute mission, let alone attempting to eat it. Let's just say it was messy, but damn good. Now that we had eaten something, we were raring to go check out some of the sights. The first stop was The Rundetaarn, in english this basically translates to the round tower. It's a tall tower with no steps and has an observatory at the top, providing a 360 degree sweeping view of Copenhagen. It was a breathtaking sight and you could also see Sweden across the Baltic Sea which was quite something. Once we were finished with that, the next stop was something called The Rosenborg Slot. This was built by King Christian IV in the 17th century and basically acted as summer housing for the Danish Royals. Now though, it houses the Danish crown jewels and the treasury. Some of the weapons on display there were stunning. At this point, it was about 2pm and we still had time to do a lot more . We were progressing at a decent pace so we decided to knock over a museum. The Statens Museum for Kunst (State Museum for Fine Arts) displayed a wide collection of Danish and International art. There was no entrance fee for the museum and overall had some very unique artwork on display. It's a relief not having to pay to get into museums, a lot of our money is spent on museum entrance fees which can range from anywhere between 4-10 Euros. To get a more general picture, that's 20% of our daily budget! After finishing the museum, we still had time to check out Copenhagen's most famous attraction. Den Lille Havfrue (The Little Mermaid) statue. There is a statue to honour the fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen at the mouth of the harbour. Whilst making our way towards the stature (which was a bit of a trek), we managed to check out The Kastellet (a 17th century Danish fortress). Unfortunately, it was too dark to look at it in any great detail, so we decided to move on. The final sight for what was becoming a very successful day was to take a look at the Amaliensborg Palace. This comprises four huge mansions which serve as winter residences for the Danish Royal Family. We thought we could go in, but apparently it was too late, so we decided to head off back to the hostel and grab some dinner before hitting the sack.

Hoping that the second day in Copenhagen would be as successful as the first, we had some breakfast and then head back out into the city. The first thing on the list was to check out the Danish Royal Cathedral. We've seen already seen such a diverse array of Cathedrals and this was no exception. The next sight we wanted to go take a look at was the Marmorkirken (Marble Church). Now this Church was amazing. It was built in the 19th century, but what was truely amazing was its marble dome, which apparently is the 3rd largest marble down in Europe. A very interesting church indeed. The next stop was to go back to the Ameliensborg Palace and see if we could take a look inside. Luckily, our timing was great. So great in-fact that the Danish Royal Guards were doing a parade through the square. After watching the amusing display by the Royal Guard, we head into one of the four huge mansions to take a look inside. It housed some of the original furniture and rooms of older Danish Kings and royalties. The final stop for the day was the National Museum which had a vast collection of ancient Viking art along with other Danish historical artifacts. After another tiring but successful day, we decided to make our way back to the hostel.

The third day constituted of basically doing nothing. We had manage to finish most of Copenhagen in 2 days which was great. We took the third day to relax a bit and take it easy. We had been doing things rather quickly so we both needed some time to zone out. At about 1pm, we decided to head out and grab some lunch. We have this thing that we both must do in every city we visit. That is to try the local delicacy that the city has to offer. In the case of Copenhagen, it was both hot dogs and toasted, glazed almonds. Every time that we passed one of these side stalls that sold these almonds, we'd get that distinct mouth-watering smell. We couldn't leave Copenhagen before grabbing another hot dog (with everything) and two bags of glazed almonds. These almonds, once you eat one, you can't stop eating them. We knew that they were not the healthiest thing we could eat, but they were so good.

After ticking Copenhagen off the list, Sweden was calling us... in particular, Stockholm!

Stay tuned...

Cheers

Rishi

Amsterdam: City of Sinners

Ok now we all know about Amsterdams reputation as quite a hedonistic and sinful city. There are two ways I could approach this post, and I am going to go with the blunt option. Yes, parents, we did go to the red light district. Yes, we had a look around. No, we didnt decide to try ( I mean come on! WE ARE ON A STRICT BUDGET HERE PEOPLE!). Now that that is out of the way and there is no room left for dust swept under the carpet, I can begin the post proper.

Me and Rishi arrived in Amsterdam as sick as dogs. There is nothing else too it. We were absolutely shattered from Paris and Belgium and the pace at which we were powering through cities. I think we were also suffering from the inevitable effects of walking around in very cold conditions all day and had developed a couple of bad colds. For these reasons, we decided to take it much slower in Amsterdam and booked to stay an extra day or two in order to rest and partially recover. Our first day in the Nedtherlands was, therefore, a bludge day. Mundane things like laundry, blogging, emailing, catching up on sports news, planning the next leg of our trip and booking accomodation took up most of the day. We ventured out to get food and such but otherwise stayed indoors in a hostel that had some very good facilities.

In the morning, feeling slightly better, we decided to go on a walking tour of the city with the same company that organised our extremely successful pub crawl in Paris. This was very well done and the guide was extremely friendly, funny and knowledgeable. It served as a fantastic introduction to the city and the culture. The layout and history of the city were quickly grasped and lots of great stories were told, including one about some an indestructable medieval ball of bread. On a more serious note, I was quite stoked to visit the once headquarters of the Dutch East-India Company, about which I heard so much in History class back in S.A. Fun times. At the conclusion of the tour, we decided to tackle the nearby Anne Frank House which had been turned into a museum. If you dont know the story of Anne Frank, I suggest you do some research and read up about it a bit. It is quite an inspiring story which I found overwhelmingly sad at its conclusion. Nelson Mandela once said that 'The Diary of Anne Frank' gave him and many of the prisoners on Robbin Island strength. The museum was very well set up and provided quite an experience. After exiting the museum misty eyed, we had a bit of an exploration walk through the central city basically trying to get a grips with the city which can be quite confusing with its canal system and narrow streets. We managed to get to Central Station and reserve our seats on the overnight-train to Copenhagen later in the week and then realised we were in time for another tour by the same company, their Red Light District Tour. Now despite what you are thinking, the tour was done in a very professional and informative way. We were given the history behind the district and how it came to be what it is today. They took us through the district as a group and navigated us through some of the tourist traps, explaining how the whole industry operated. Urban myths were destroyed and amusing stories were told. All in all, a great way to see this often misunderstood and frowned upon neighbourhood. By this time, my cough in particular had mutated into some sort of monster that was trying to eat me from the inside, so we went back to the hostel in search of a good nights rest.

In the morning, at the behest of my parents, we decided to go get our coughs checked out at the nearest hospital. After quite a lengthy process we were seen by a very nice doctor, who pretty much just laughed at us and said 'Welcome to Europe!'. All we had was bad European colds which can take weeks to go away. Feeling slightly wounded at our comical concern, we decided to hit up some high culture for a change and headed straight to the Van Gogh Museum. This was another museum that was extremely well put together. Extremely informative, the museum provided detailed information on Van Goghs ideas, philosophies, techniques and evolution as an artist. There were some very famous Van Gogh's on display, but unfortunately, as with lots of these art museums, photographs werent allowed in most of the rooms. This pretty much concluded our day, but we managed to get our hands on some Dutch 'Bolletjies' (basically a Dutch Donut without the whole in the middle) which Rishi completely fell in love with. Quite touching. Rishi as an eligible bachelor is no more young ladies! His heart is now in Amsterdam with the Bolletjies. Unfortunately, his fidelity was tested almost immediately as for dinner we decided to risk a place called 'Febo'. Please reserve judgement. Basically its vending machine burgers. However, let me explain. The customer is confronted with a wall of vending machines, presenting different kinds of small burgers, and other cheap fast food. There is an actual CHEF behind the wall of vending machines cooking up the burgers and putting them in their slots. As a result, the food is extremely fresh and VERY good. In fact, probably some of the best burgers I have ever had. Cheap, fast, convenient. Genius. Rishi cheated on the Bolletjies without a second thought and is now permanently reminiscing about Febo, but unfortunately it seems to be an exclusively Dutch thing. Such a tragic story. Shakespeare would be proud, or rolling over in his grave.

The next day we were leaving for Denmark, but still had most of the day ahead of us. Once check out was completed, we roamed the city in search of some descent pictures. We went inside the 'Rijks' Museum, both an Art and a History museum, which had a very good section on the Dutch Golden Age and the VOC (Dutch East-India Company). it also had some fantastic art from Dutch Masters, including the extremely well executed and famous 'Nightwatch' by Rembrandt. I think he is definitly up there as one of my favourite artists. His ability to portray different textures and his almost genius like approach to utilising light is fantastic. Hats off to you sir. After we had finished there we collected our bags and headed to the station where our 14 hour treck to Denmark and Copenhagen was about to begin.

Belgium: Hot Chocolate, Fries and Waffels. Oh and Beer. mmmmmmmmm

Our final day in Paris consisted of a day trip to the suburb of Versailles a few kilometers south west of Paris proper. Before leaving however, we had to sort out our hostels for Brussels, Brugge and Amsterdam. This was more difficult than it should have been because we had unwittingly let the weekend sneek up on us, and many of the places we wanted to stay in were full. nevertheless, we managed to figure it out and finally left for our trip. The reason for our visit was to check out the illustrious Chateau de Versailles, Frances grandest and most famous Chateau. It was the political centre of France from 1682 to 1789 when the French Revolution resulted in the dissolution of the monarchy. It is really big, 580m long with hundreds of wings, rooms and halls. We visited the incredibly ostentatious King's and Queen's apartments which just blew away everything i have seen so far with the sheer size of the wealth flaunted. A highlight was definitly the 'Hall of Mirrors'. Perhaps even more impressive than the palace itself is its acres upon acres of landscaped gardens. These stretch faaar into the distance, and you can go on multiple walks that take up many hours. We didnt have the luxury of having that much time, as we wanted to head back to Paris in order to try get into the catacombes again and to visit the famous Musee D' Orsay that evening.

Unfortunately we were too late for the Catacombes once again, so we just headed straight to the museum. The Musee D'Orsay contains Frances national collection of painting and sculptures produced between 1840 and 1914 from the Impressionists, post-impressionists and Art Nouveau movements. We saw works from many artists including Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Manet, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Seurat and Matisse. Rishis favourites included most works from Monet whereas I enjoyed Van Gogh a little more but also liked Monet. The entire Academic Painting school really impressed me as well. Afterwards we decided to call it a day and head to the hostel to pack. In the morning we would bid farewell to Paris and head to Belgium and Brussels.

We arrived late in the afternoon, and most of the sites in Brussels were shut. However, we decided to head out anyway and have a bit of a walk around. We figured we had at least enough time to check out the Belgian Brewery museum or the Belgian Chocolate Museum. We made our way to Brussels' central square called the 'Grand Place' and had a real 'turn the corner moment' (the ones where you are just stopped dead in your tracks). The Grand Place is utterly astounding, and has been made a World Heritage Site. The buildings are amazingly grand and surround the square on all four sides. The spires tower over you and the gold gilted facades and the graceful gothic pillars on the buildings really give you a sense of being transported back in time. It really did take our breath away. Once we had recovered from our bemused states, we decided to knuckle down and get down to the REAL reason we were in Belgium. The Beer. The Brewers MUseum was quite interesting, but a little small. It gave us a good introduction on just how deep in we were, as Belgium has thousands off different beers brewed all over the country. Afterwards we walked around the city a little longer and managed to stumble upon the famous 'Mannekin Pis' fountain. Apparently its a national symbol, but Im not sure. I mean it IS just a little boy taking a leak into a fountain. Apparently his costume changes fairly regularly, and there was one time where he didnt 'go' for the entire day and everyone was told to be extra careful of prostate cancer. Weird Belgians. We randomly found some statue that everyone was touching, so we figured that it would probably be a good idea to do the same just in case. So I nudged Rishi forward to take a photo. Some random guy was sniggering, and we eventually figured that the whole thing was for good luck in getting pregnant. WATCH OUT LADHA FAMILY! YOU MIGHT HAVE A LITTLE ONE ON THE WAY!

After that little experience, we decided we needed to stop messing around and get to some Belgium Beer. We made our way towards this place called ' Le Bier Circus'. The only thing we knew about it was it was a 'place for serious beer buffs'. SOLD! I cant remember exactly what Rishi had, but I got myself into something called a 'Kwak', which came in this awesome glass that was tapered towards the bottom and which had a massilve bulb on the end. The Beer itself was quite strange, but I didnt mind it. Very complicated flavours. My second glass was something that was called 'Bush'. I couldnt resist it. My English friends will be interested to know that this beer is the strongest Belgian Beer available, standing at 12%. TWELVE PERCENT!!! Thats like drinking two and a half beers back in Auz. Crazy stuff. Needless to say, that was the end of the night!

Our next day involved us achieving some very important goals. For breakfast, we managed to find a really nice waffle place that served traditional Belgian Waffles. These things are amazing. You can have almost anything on them, and we opted for whipped cream and bananas. Very filling and they tasted amazing. A good start. Next, we went hunting for some good Belgian Hot Chocolate. We found this place where they use real chocolate that is attached to the stirrer. You place the stirrer in a cup of hot milk and let the chocolate melt into the cup while you stir. Hot chocolate the way it was meant to be! TICK IT OFF! We then made our way to the Beligan Chocolate Museum, where we were educated as to the process of creating all the amazing Belgian Pralines and other chocolates. Our going there had nothing to do with the free sample we got at all. Honest! Our final stop in Brussels was the large Cathedral to Saint Michael we had passed by the night before. Confusingly, it wasnt in any of our guide books but me and Rishi are becoming accustomed to going off the beaten track and having a look anyway. This church was definitly one of my personal favourites so far. Its predominent colour was white, which made the whole space feel very open, light and airy. It wasnt an oppressive cathedral at all and was quite graceful. It was a nice way to finish off a bit of a whirlwind tour through Brussels.

That afternoon we left early for the quaint but touristy town of Bruges (Brugge). It is a medieval town that is one of the most popular destinations in Belgium. The town was mostly abandoned in the 14th century, leaving it suspended in time. The whole thing is a World Heritage Site, even if its reputation as a 'preserved city' is partially fabricated as the place was slightly rebuilt in the 20th century to reflect medieval times. Once again we arrived a little late to do much of anything, so we decided to just have a bit of a walk around to explore the town. We made our way towards the centre of the city and the famous 'Markt'. Just like the grand place, this central square was spectacular all lit up with some impressive buildings and medieval houses surrounding the centre, which had been turned into an ice skating rink. Horse Carriages randomly wandered up and down the streets, and it was quite a challenge having to dodge them at every turn. Rishi almost got run over by a particularly eagre horse and Eurotrip was almost at its conclusion right there, but luckily he was quick enough to dodge out the way. Good times. We didnt have much else to keep us busy, so we had some dinner and turned in a little early to recharge the batteries.

We were woken up to the sound of lots of church bells, as it was a Sunday. Obviously this had dire consequences as the Cathedrals and Churches had arrogantly closed their doors for the morning to the innocent and curious tourists. How inconsiderate. Nevertheless we made our way once again for the 'Markt' and some of Brugge's more secular buildings. We climbed to the top of the famous Belfry, pretty much a clock tower that overlooks the city. We squeezed up the 366 steps which were incredibly narrow, especially near the top. The view was worth it though as the whole of Brugge was set before us. Afterwards, we went to the small Groeningemuseum which had some interesting artworks by the Flemish Primitive school. We also went to Belgiums oldest 'stadhuis' (city hall), which featured a guilded Gothic Hall, which was very well done. Unfortunately pictures werent allowed. By this time, the churches were reopening their doors to tourists, so we went to the very small 'Heilig-Bloedbasiliek' (Basilica of the Holy Blood) where we managed to see, as you may have guessed, a small guilded vial that true Catholics believe contains the blood of Christ. Apparently it was brought to the church by a local knight who recovered it on a crusade. There was a small service which I attended, and I was able to go up to the relic, touch it, and say a quick prayer. It was quite a moving experience. The question of whether the relic is real or not is irrelevent to me. For the Catholics, it is an act of faith and a form of worship. Meeting back up with Rishi, we made our way towards our final stop for the day, the 'Onze Lieve Vrouwekerk' (The Church of Our Lady). This church contains one amazing treasure: Michelangelo's 'Madonna and Child'. This small statue was the only work of art by Michelangelo to leave Italy during his lifetime. The detail is fantastic. The expressions and natural poses of the figures are incredible. You don't feel like you are staring at stiff pieces of marble at all, but almost living characters. They look so soft and natural. It really is a beautiful piece of sculpture by the master. The rest of the church was very dark and hazy and there wasnt much else of note. As you can probably tell, I didnt enjoy the rest of the church very much, but it definitly was a great way of finishing off our time in Belgium. That evening we were heading on a 3 hour trip to Amsterdam and a new country with new culture and a new language (although interestingly enough, Dutch was everywhere in Belgium as you can probably tell in some of the names of places). A new experience was just around the corner.

Paris: Where the chicks are hot, the pigeons are fat, and the yoghurt is carbonated...

Well we made it. After a relatively uneventful and smooth journey to Paris on the awesomeness that is the Eurostar, we set about finding our hostel. This proved slightly more challenging than expected as we werent entirely sure what metro station to get off at, but we ended up having a nice walk around the city in our search. We eventually found our hostel in a great location, right next to the Louvre Museum and proceeded to check in and get ourselves organised for the days sightseeing. Our first priority was to find a Tourist Information Centre so we could get a decent map of the city. Having completed this, we decided to explore a little more and meander our way around the city in the general direction of the Arc de Triomph. On the way we randomly ran into some very beautiful churches that werent in either Rishi's or my guide books. The Church of Sainte Madeleine and Sainte Augustine proved a great introduction to the rich and diverse architecture of the city, and served as great rewards for our explorations. The Arc De Triomphe soon appeared in the distance, and it didnt seem very far away at all. Unfortunately, due to its size, this was deceiving and it tended to stay 'in the distance' for a good half an hour. However, we were not dissapointed when we arrived. It really is a spectacular site, rounded by the huge Charles de Gaul traffic circle. All I could picture in ,my mind was a young Bernard and Brenda Hale nearly killing themselves while attempting to navigate the gigantic traffic nightmare. Cheers to you Mum and Dad. We then walked down the famous Champ del Elysses to arrive at Concord Plaza, and a large Egyptian Obelisk given to the French as a present in the 1800s. Not satisfied with having completed this massive trek, we decided to hike to the Eiffel Tower as it was soon to be sunset. Our legs were soon protesting violently, and even more so when they discovered much to their horror, that we were going to climb to the top. It was worth it though, as the views of the city at dusk were breathtaking. the Eiffel Tower is truly a wonder, especially when it is all lit up at night. Limping our way home, we decided that day & was a success, and declared the Euro Trip OPEN!

Day 2 found us wanting to visit the Louvre Museum, only to discover that it is closed on Tuesdays. Reverting to Plan B, we headed to the centre city and the Ile de Cite in the middle of the Seinne River. Our first stop was the Conciergerie, housed in the old Royal Palace of which not much has survived. It is now the seat of the French Law Courts and functioned as a prison during the French Revolution. There we discovered the place where Marie-Antoinette was held prisoner before her execution, along with other casualties from the Revolution. Next we headed to the Saint Chappel in the old courtyard of the palace. We were told that this was Paris' finest example of Gothic architecture, and were not initially overly impressed. It was beautiful of course and the colours were quite startling, but other than that it wasnt anything special. UNTIL we headed upstairs. It was truly jaw dropping. The stain glass windows were so unbelievable. It just left us speechless for AGES. Definitly one of my favourite sites so far. We could not put off going to the Notre Dame Cathedral any longer. I had high hopes for one of the worlds most famous Cathedrals, and was certainly not dissapointed. The detail on EVERYTHING was fantastic. It was also quite beautifully symmetrical and extremely large, easily one of the biggest I have been to. However it was also extremely beautiful to match. I havent really found anything that balances this quite as well as Notre-Dame. Unfortunately, we couldnt find any sign of any hunchbacks.... We then had a bit of a trek to go to our next site, the Pantheon. This is much larger than the one in Rome, but a lot more modern. Originally functioning as a church, it has been used as a sort of French National Temple since the 1800s. The whole place demonstrates one of the qualities that I really love about the French. They are EXTREMELY proud of their heritage and culture, and for good reason! Today the Pantheon houses some beautiful artworks dedicated to important events in French History. Underneath, it contains the burials of some of the greatest and most prolific French men and women including figures like Voltaire, Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas. Concluding this solemn visit, we wondered towards the Palais de Luxembourg, a large building and garden complex. We didnt stay long, but decided to head to the underground Catacombs of Paris, its solution to overpopulated graveyards. Unfortunately we arrived too late and it was shut, so we wondered back to the hostel, taking in the Hotel Invalides, which contains the burial of Napolean, and a light show on the Eiffel Tower.

Day three saw us finally managing to get to the Musee Louvre. We had walked past this gigantic complex many times and each time we were freshly astounded by its size and beauty. Now THIS is a museum! It used to be a fortress before being converted into a museum, which explains its sheer size. Inside, the dizzying map gives testament to the truly awesome task of taking in the Louvre in one day. It cant be done. We quickly cancelled all other plans for the day and resolved to get as much done as possible. Exploring all the sculptures, paintings and other objects from literally every corner of the Earth, and every time period imaginable was an opportunity not to be missed. Our highlights consisted of:

The Glass Pyramid at the entrance
The Sculpture: The Winged Victory of Samothrace
The Sculpture: Venus De Milo
A Statue from the Levant which is dated to 7000BC, if I translated the French Label correctly. 7000BC!!!!!
The hilariously named 'Rishi' coffins from Egypt
The Painting: The Mona Lisa
The Painting: Wedding Feast at Cana, A truly GIGANTIC piece
The Painting: David and Goliath, a double-sided masterpiece
Most of the French Sculptures
and many other paintings by Da Vinci, Louis David and Delacroix in particular.

The visit was truly epic. We managed to get through about 2/3rds of the museum before going home for a break. We then headed out to a pub crawl, which proved a much needed break from site seeing. We met some other Australians, some Canadians and some Swedes. A very diverse group indeed!

Time is almost up so stay tuned. Next stop, BRUSSELS. We are leaving in the morning. Au Revoir Pari!

Leaving For Paris

Hey everyone. Firstly forgive me if I make any spelling mistakes or sentences that do not make any sense. I've had like 4 hours of sleep in about 40 hours and had a bit to drink and still in the process of sobering up.

My flight from Sydney was delayed. Just as we were about to take off, the Australian airspace was randomly shut down. So we were just sitting there like rabbits waiting for the plane to depart for almost 2 hours. When we were finally airborne and finally about to land at my stopover (Hong Kong), we were circling Hong Kong airport for about 30mins since there was traffic. All in all, the flight was delayed by roughly 2 hours although I managed to somehow locate Chris (who thankfully was still waiting) at Heathrow.

From there, we had a bus that would take us to Milton Keynes, where Chris was living for the past three months. Only thing was that we missed the bus due to my delayed flight. Thankfully we managed to get hold of a rescheduled bus and eventually made our way down to Milton Keynes where we enjoyed a nice english breakfast.

We had a lot to organize so we got cracking pretty much right away. After we finished organizing everything, we decided to go to the town center as we both needed to buy a few things. The town center was nothing like I had imagined. It was about 3 times the size of Parramatta Westfield (which is pretty massive). After buying the necessities, we decided that there were two things left to buy if we were to wing this trip completely, The first was a magic 8 ball, and the second were some dice. Why would we need such things? Well, we figured that since we have no idea where and when we are doing things, we figured it would be a 'good' idea to let the magic 8 ball decide for us. Finding a store that sells a magic 8 ball and some dice is easier said than done though, and after about an hour of looking, we finally managed to find a store that sold both. Satisfied that our Eurotrip is still a go, we decided to have a decent dinner before heading off to the pub and say goodbye to Chris's mates here in Milton Keynes.

By saying goodbye, I had no idea it would turn into some sort of beer tasting exhibition and after about 6-7 different beers, we decided it was time to head home. We were not planning to get any sleep since we had to leave in about 2 hours, so we decided just to chill out for a bit before heading out.

So here we are, our Taxi will be here in about 45 mins and we'll be making our way to Kings Cross St. Pancreas (the station from the Harry Potter movies), which will take us to Paris.

Stocked up on Red Bull and falling asleep as we speak, we're gonna soldier on like we said we would and hopefully make it to Paris.

Stay tuned for an update from Paris... if we make it, that is.

Ciao.

Operation: Stuff It In! (Version 2.0)

Just two days left now and “Operation: Stuff It In (Version 2.0)” has officially begun. I thought I should start early and get it done as I suspect Friday will be somewhat hectic. A lot has happened since my last post, I was considering posting earlier but thought it best to wait and write everything in one post.

Let's see... where to begin... Oh, exams are over. If you don't remember, I had been extremely unlucky with my timetable and had 4 exams within the space of 4 days. That may not seem so bad, but these exams went for more than 3 hours each day and by the time I got home (remember, 1 hour travel time to get to uni), I was so exhausted to the point that I couldn't even concentrate for the next exam. My brain felt like it was about to explode, but thankfully, I got it together and managed to put in a huge effort and come out of those four days somewhat unscathed. I think overall, the exams went well. Pretty sure I nailed 3 out of the 4 exams, the other one, i'm relying more on luck than anything else really. Anyways, enough about exams. Let's get to the serious stuff shall we...

Like I said, i've slowly started to pack. When I say slowly, I mean that I haven’t really done anything apart from decide upon what i'm taking and getting organized. I decided that I should tidy my room up a bit first before I get packing properly. I'll need to do a supermarket run to get a few more things, but apart from that i'm pretty much set. It's just a matter of stuffing it all in the backpack, which doesn't sound all that hard but apparently, there's a special way of doing it. I need to drive round Chris's house and pick a few things up for him that I need to bring over, so i'm hoping to get some advice from Matt whilst i'm there as he was the one who helped Chris pack his stuff.

We booked our Eurostar tickets (after slight complications) and we'll be departing London on the 1st of December in the wee hours of the morning (by "wee", I mean we're waking up at like 3am). The hostel in Paris is booked too. Apparently it's a decent hostel, right next to the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower. So as far as Paris goes, we're pretty much ready. I managed to get hold of a decent Europe guide book too, different to the Lonely Planet one that Chris has. This way, we can compare notes before making certain decisions. I'm saving that for the plane trip as it's almost impossible for me to get any sleep on the plane.

Friday's going to be real crazy. I am probably going to do most of my packing then ie. Actually "stuffing" it all in, but that and Stephen's organized a nice little get-together in the evening at Terry's house (which btw, is the best house for parties), so that should be a nice little farewell thing.

I'll update when I can.

Cheers.

Rishi.

Exploring England

I have been very busy since Barcelona exploring all around Southern England as much as I can. I have almost completed the things i wanted to do while I was here, but I am quickly running out of time. The only places I have left on my to do list is Sheffield University (which is going to be extremely difficult to get to on public transport, hence me waiting this long to go), more sites in London, the Lakes District and Cornwall. Unfortunately, I will only be able to choose one and I really do need to go to Sheffield, so that limits my options.....

The first place I went to was a direct result of the travel bug that hit me at the conclusion of my Barcelona trip. Since then, I have gone somewhere almsot every weekend I have had off except when I was forced to stay home and finish an essay for university. I decided to hop on a train and smell my way to a place called Salisbury in the South-West of England. This place is one of the oldest towns in England, and was the place where the Barons swore allegiance to William the Conquerer following the battle of Hastings in 1066. It is very old. This was the first time I had actually been able to explore a real English town. I found it absolutely incredible that almost EVERYTHING in this place was older than both of my countries COMBINED. What was also interesting was the way people used and lived in buildings and on sites that were so old, and in some cases (especially one building that had been standing since 1206) the original building. It was really very curious from an archaeology perspective :pOne of the main reasons for my visit to Salisbury was the amazing Cathedral there. It has the 4th tallest spire in Europe, and was the first Cathedral I have seen on this trip. It was quite awe inspiring to say the least, and I spent a long time walking around the grounds and reading all the gravestones and internments.There was also a great many war memorials in the Cathedral itself, specifically from the Boer Wars in South Africa. I suppose the regiment from the area must have been heavily involved. In fact, the countryside around Salisbury used to be the major training grounds for the Allied forces in preperation for Operation Overlord and the subsequent landings. Apparently there are a few ANZAC memorials around the area too. So the area is steeped in military history.

My main purpose here was to catch another bus and head to STONEHENGE! I was really excited about this, despite almost everyone I have ever mentioned this too telling me that I was goingto be dissapointed. They were wrong.I suppose it makes a difference when you have such an interest in the material. When you have read about it a hundred times, thought about how it would have been constructed, pondered on the transportation process. The monument itself is not impressive, but it was built almost 5000 years ago people! I mean if that itself isnt something to give you Ancient History tingles, then I have given up on you. It was really quite mysterious. No one knows for sure what it was used for or why it was built. However, when you consider there are almost 300 grave mounds all within a 1.5km radius around Stonehenge, you get a sense of how important it was. Spooky!

The next day I made my way to Winchester. This place was even more historically important than Salisbury. It was the capital of Saxon England under the incredible King Albert the Great No other King of England has received that epitaph, and for good reason. Albert created the place that we could call 'England'. He pushed back the Viking invaders and formed a state that would eventually become what we now know as England. Needless to say, Winchester is important. It is also home to an even more impressive Cathedral than Salisbury, although in different ways.

I wondered for ages around the side streets of Winchester, lapping it up.Before heading back home to get ready for another week at work, I managed to find the unmarked gravestone of King Albert. He is buried in the grounds of a very small church marked only by a plane gravestone with an incised cross. Quite thought rovoking considering he was one of Englands most important kings.

The next week I decided I just HAD to start my tours of Universities in England with Oxford. It was surprisingly easy to get to and only involved a 40 minute bus trip. I had been in contact wiht one of my friends from the dig, Flo. She is a PHD student at Kings College in London, but is familiar with Oxford and has spent some time there. She was kind enough to show me around some of the colleges and explain to me how the system worked.I can't describe the feeling of Oxford. It had such a buzz to it. The university IS the city. The students are its citizens. Everyone is running around talking about university related shennanigans. The colleges are imposing and impressive. YOu are reminded at every single turn that this is one of the most revered institutions in the world and about the incredible people that have studied here. I absolutely LOVED the feeling of the place. I never really saw Oxford as an option for my post-graduate study, but I can easily see myself thouroughly enjoying it there. Its quite intimidating because I will have an incredible amount of work ahead of me if I want to make the leap but i am sure it would be worth it.

The next week Ben, a very good friend of mine over here, came back to visit. He is currently working at another site but comes around every now and then to hang out. We decided to do a road trip down to Canterbury to check out the cathedral over there as it is supposed to be one of the most impressive in England both architecturally and historically. The drive down was awesome. Juiced up on Energy drinks with Guns and Roses and the White Stripes blaring in the background, we made the 3 hour drive in Bens horrible little Nissan Micra that threatens to explode at any speeds over 30 miles an hour.It was amazing. The Cathedral was pretty good too. Its the spot where Thomas Beckett was famously assasinated by the knights of King Henry (I forget which one :p) and has become one of the major pilgrimage spots in England.While there we also saw the tomb of the Black Prince, and the catacombs underneath the Cathedral. We were going to stay the night there and head to the cliffs of Dover in the morning, but we had trouble finding a place to sleep and decided just to head home and hook up with the rest of the crew back at Wavendon.

My next trip only happened 2 weeks later due to a rather large obstacle in the form of an essay for the one and only course I am enrolled in at University this semester (Yes, as hard as it is to believe, I have still managed to do a course while travelling). I wanted to continue my tour around English universities by heading to Cambridge.It was very similar to Oxford in many ways, including the system and structures that seem to be in place. However, it had a very different feel to it. It was much more laid back than Oxford and much more spread out. It also reminded me a little more of a university as I know it. The colleges were still incredibly impressive, and the entire place stooped in history with graduates such as Winston Churchill, Darwin and Isaac Newton.I managed to explore the actual lecture halls and check out the archaeology museum there, along with the classical library. Lets just say that the facilities knocked my socks off. I really dont know whether I like Oxford or Cambridge more, they both have their pros and cons. However, Cambridge DOES have 'Do Not Walk on the Grass!' signs in seven different languages.....
Now I only have a couple of weeks left here in England, and while all the travelling has been fantastic, the work has been very very draining and frustrating. I have so much to do before I leave so I wont be having much more free time. I will try make time for Sheffield University next week, but other than that I will be buying cold weather clothes and replenishing my backpacking supplies before meeting Rishi at the airport on the 29th of November. I cant wait. It cant come soon enough.

It's (almost)... November!

Hey everyone! It's pretty much November now. You do know what that means right? Yes, i'm departing at the end of the month.

FINALLY.

Okay. Before I ramble on about stuff, I think I should clear up something first. Just thought i'd offer some explanation on why I haven't been posting here at all. I have been around and like you, keeping up-to-date with Chris's adventures. To be perfectly honest, there hasn't been much I could update you with. Not much is happening here in Sydney. For me, it's the same routine day-to-day, a mix between sleeping, uni, work, going out and studying. I've just been SUPER busy. Uni has literally been owning me this semester, pretty much the toughest semester i've ever had, and now with exams looming over my head, all I can think about is the Eurotrip. I don't think i'll be able to concentrate at all during exams and i'm still wondering how exactly Chris managed this (got any tips for me mate?). That being said, i've got the most SCREWED up exam timetable ever (basically, 4 exams in 4 days straight), but I can't complain, at least my exams end before I need to depart.

Now for some good news. I managed to reach my savings target some time ago and now should have enough money saved up to fund the trip. If it wasn't for the silly financial crisis that we're currently in, we'd technically have a lot more saved up. The exchange rate has dropped drastically over the past few months, which basically sucks. The timing of it is bad, especially since Europe is so damn expensive in the first place. We're going to have to budget even more than we initially planned. Relax guys, i'm not talking about starving and sleeping out on the streets with our sleeping bags (at least, I hope not).

My last work shift for the pots and pans place was on Sunday. That's right, as of this moment, I have no job and will be focusing on the exams ahead (or trying to, procrastination is sort-of getting in the way at the moment). Believe it or not, I worked there for over 2 years and can't believe how fast it's gone. 180 days ago, I was sitting here wondering how i'm ever going to be able to save for this trip, it feels great to know that you now have enough money and all that's left standing in your way now are the number of days until departure. Okay, so like I said, i've completed saving up and have quit work so that I can focus on studying. Sorry for all you people that were hoping for some discount on pots and pans (lol).

Some more news on the trip; I went to STA travel last week and purchased Eurail passes for both me and Chris. For those of you who forgot and for those who simply had no clue, a Eurail pass is an inter-rail pass which allows us to travel to 20 different countries in Europe for 15 days/uses within a 2 month period. It's basically a prepaid travel ticket and it's a cost-effective way of travelling through Europe. Works out a lot cheaper than buying each ticket individually, not to mention how convenient it is not to worry about planning and such. These tickets don't come cheap, but work out better overall. I picked them up today and they give you a whole rail map of Europe (it's huge) and also a timetable book which i'm sure will be handy. We were going to buy our passes separately, but STA travel has them a lot cheaper than buying them online, so we thought we'd save some money and i'll purchase the tickets from here. Ofcourse, we're "winging" the entire trip, so basically have little or no idea when and where we're going. As you know, we've got a tentative plan, but the Eurail pass offers us the flexibility we need. Chris will be booking our Eurostar tickets from London (that's to go from London to Paris, Eurail passes don't cover this). Only other thing left is the hostel booking in Paris, but that should be easy.

In terms of planning for the trip ahead, there's not much left for me to buy. I still need to get my full driving license. It's almost expired I think. I had planned to get it like what, 5 months ago. Haha, talk about laziness. Anyways, my exams finish on the 19th of November and I fly out on the 29th. I still have a 10 day period in which I can finish planning/packing which is PLENTY of time (I hope?). Oh, and i've made some changes to the blog. Our route through Europe map can now be accessible on the right-side of the page.

Again, i'd like to apologize for my lack of posts here, but i'll be updating more frequently now since my departure date looks a lot more realistic.

Stay tuned. Cheers.

Rishi

Barcelona: City of Gaudi

I KNOW I KNOW! I havent posted anything in a good long while. There are no excuses. I got lazy. However, now at least I have something to write about! The last couple of weeks have been a hive of activity from my end, contrasting heavily with the previous months of relatively no travel. A couple of weeks ago I decided to take a much needed holiday from work and Milton Keynes in general. I took off to Barcelona, Spain.

This trip had actually been planned ever since I had left Sydney. Kezia was going to be stopping in Spain for a couple of weeks after her trip around Europe, and we decided it would be very poor form indeed not to meet in Barcelona considering it is only an hour and a half flight from London. Quite conveniently, this trip fell almost exactly at the halfway point in my work here in England, so served as a nice break. Needless to say, getting on the road again was fantastic, and really revitalised me.

The story actually starts the night before my departure for Barcelona. I had booked a flight which took off at 5am in the morning, as this was a much cheaper option than a departure in more sane hours of the day (and for good reason!). Ben, one of my very good mates over here, offered to drive me to Luton Airport in the morning, but the problem was that we were working that night and would only finish at 11-12ish. As completely responsible adults, we decided that it was futile to try go to sleep for such a short period of time, so proceeded to juice ourselves up on 'Monster' energy drinks and push through the night. Needless to say, we had some good fun and quite surprisingly made it through the night and to the airport on time and without serious injury.

Upon my arrival in Barcelona, Kezia greated me at the door and we had a very happy reunion. Bubbling with stories from both of our trips, we decided to go set me up at the hostel first and then go do some site seeing around the city. I had heard a lot about Barcelona's Barri Gotic Cathedral so wanted to go find this first. With a rough idea of where it was, we set off down the famous 'La Rambla' street, a pedestrian boulevard that is world famous as being choked full of life, cafes, stalls, artists, buskers and human statues. It really is a blur of activity, and proved a perfect introduction to the delights of Barcelona. We didnt find the Cathedral straight away, but explored around the side streets and just absorbed the charm and relaxed, yet extremely bustling feel of the city. We eventually found the Cathedral, but it was late on a sunday so it was closed to tourists. Unfortunately, most of the facade was covered by construction material as they are trying to restore it so it was not as impressive as it otherwise would have been. What was visible looked quite special. We checked out the Picasso museum, which houses 4000 works of the artist. We were.....educated and enlightened. Maybe? We arent sure yet.
We then made our way down to the beach to relax, soak up the sun (OH HOW I MISSED THEE!) and munch on ice-cream. The plan of action was then to head into the city again and check out 'La Sagrada Familia', apparently another church/temple/cathedral that I had heard mutterings about. How under-rated it was. This building was the most impressive piece of architecture I have ever seen, AND I HAVE SEEN A LOT OF ARCHITECTURE! It was gigantic, rising up above everything else in the city. It was designed by the famous architect, Gaudi, whose works are dotted all through Barcelona.
Construction started in 1882, and will only be completed in around 2020. There will eventually be 18 towers all over 100m high, representing the 12 Apostles, 4 Evangelists, Mary, and the the tallest tower (170m) will represent Jesus Christ. ALthough it is a construction site, you are still able to tour around parts of the impressive temple. We were unable to go inside on this occasion, as we had just missed closing time, but the facade on the northeast and northwestern side of the building are extremely detailed, and we had a great time picking out the different scenes depicted.

Our next stop was Parc Guell, and the house of Gaudi. This place has been converted into a public park, but its landscaping is clearly dotted with Gaudi's influence. It was a very interesting place to walk through and observe the experimentation he implemented in his own backyard. We had a great time strolling, and then climbed to the top of the hill and looked over the city towards the sea for the sunset (which set BEHIND US kezia. BEHIND US!) before making our way back to the hostel, including the interesting experience of sleeping through your train stop on the Spanish rail service.

The next day consisted of us walking all around Barcelona in a never ending tour. We tried to get into both the Cathedrals again, but for one reason or another this didnt happen. We saw a large monument to Christopher Columbus and his discovery of America, climbed up the Central Park called 'Montjuic' and made it to the castle at the top, which had spectacular views of all sides of Barcelona. We then had dinner on La Rambla, which wasnt as amazing as it should have been. After going out for a couple of drinks, we decided to call it a day.

Finally we managed to get inside the Cathedrals the next day, but only after having the best bagel of my life. They were equally impressive inside as out. LaSagrada Famila in particular really needs to be seen to be believed. It really takes your breath away. It is SO big, but seemingly so light. The roof should not be staying up. There is so much empty space inside, and this jsut adds to its magnificence. The Barri Gotic was also impressive, but in a different way. Big and imposing, it had a sort of grace and beauty on the inside, which I assume is what the architect was aiming for. Needless to say, both these places would be amazing to go to church in. The girls then wanted to do bunch of shopping, so we went exploring in all these chic, classy and fashionable clothes stores. I bought nothing :D.

Our last day in Barcelona was really just a kind of limbo. With the prospect of us leaving hanging over us, we really couldnt do very much. We wondered around La Rambla again, stopping to take in a rather skillfill Michael Jakson/robot statue man. After strolling a bit, we had some more ice cream, and then decided it was time to depart. We went to the tube station, where we were to part ways again and had a very teary farewell. It was very difficult to say goodbye, as we had had such a fantastic time, and would have to wait anohter 4 months to do it again. All in all, it was a very healthy experience for me. I returned revitalised and recharged, ready to take on work and England again. Needless to say, I was once again shocked out of lethargy and bitten by the travel bug. This led directly to my next extremely random, but equally exciting adventure......

Work Work Work

Well it has been quite a while since my last post. Be that as it may, there really hasnt been much happening here in England worth writing about. Shift work is thouroughly disinteresting, and it has become a matter of trying to get though the day to day. When we arrived at the Wavendon Arms, the pub was going through quite a tight spot. We have been working extremely hard in trying to turn fortunes around and in this we have been somewhat successful. The front of house service has been completely turned around, but the kitchen still needs a lot of work. We have started to completely fill the restaurant twice over on the weekends, but the weekdays are still pretty quiet. We have a little bit to go, but we are almost there after a month of work.

The people I work with are pretty cool. I live with them and see them almost every day, so its no surprise that we are becoming pretty good friends. The people that live in my house are Dean, an aircraft engineer from Darwin, the twins, Ashley and Danielle who have just completed 3 months at a summer camp in the US, Brandon who has moved here from Cape Town and Thomas from
Slovakia. Along with the locals, Jon, Hannah , Olly and a multitude of others, form the rest of the core group that run the pub. I share a room with Dean and Brandon, but I get on the best with Dean. Needless to say we all have a lot to do with each other and these people form the general social circle with which I hang out.

While working at the Wavendon Arms is quite tough (not so much the actual work that has to get done, but the whole monotany and seeming pointlessness of it all), there are lights at the end of the preverbial tunnel. First and foremost, of course, is the backpacking with Rishi at the end of the year, which is what all this is in aid of financially. It is this that really does keep me going and the prospect of the amazing adventure to come. I will also be travelling to Spain soon to visit Kezia who will be finishing up her travelling in Europe. With these things to look forward to, I am able to push on with the work here at the Wavendon.

I was fortunate enough to make the trip into London to visit the British Museum this week. After a months break from anything to do with ancient history, going to possibly the most prominent of all ancient history museums was a real treat. The whole place is absolutely HUGE. I had no idea how long it would actually take me to get through it. I set aside an entire day, but I only managed to get through about 2 thirds of the Greek and Roman section in 5 hours. It was almost comical. I thouroughly enjoyed being around ancient history again, and returned to Milton Keynes recharged.

I hope to make other trips in and around England soon, as sitting at home here in Milton Keynes is rather pointless (even though it does have the benefit of saving a ton of money). I will hopefully be visiting a number of universities while I am here including Kings College in London, UCL and the University of Sheffield in order to scout out possible post-graduate options. I also want to visit Stone Henge, the Lakes District, Edinburough and Ireland. I probably wont be able to do everything, but I can always give it a go!

Until I have something else worthy to report!

Chris

The Wavendon Arms

The change of lifestyle in the past week has been quite dramatic. I am now working full time in England at a country pub/ restaurant in an area called Milton Keynes, about an hour North West of London. I never thought I would ever do bar work or wait on tables, but here I am working 40+ hours a week doing exactly that at The Wavendon Arms. The place is actually very nice. It is aimed at probably the middle aged, slightly upper class and so we dont have many problems when it comes to bad behaviour or over drinking. People are mostly out to have a good meal with their families, a few drinks with some good friends or conduct some business meetings. The restaurant has a great atmosphere, and is really quite a pleasant place to eat and the bar is very comfortable. I actually wish we had a few more bars like this place around Sydney, as it is really a great place to have a good social drink.

I have had to make a conscious change in the state of mind I have been in for the last 3 months. I am no longer in tourist mode. As a result, I am trying to slip into some sort of routine. The reason I am doing this is mainly to save money. I can't afford to go out and spend money on travelling all around England at the moment, especially considering how expensive everything is over here. This is somewhat helped by a combination of the work at the pub, and a research paper I am in the process of writing for Mitrou.

The work at the pub isn't too difficult. Mostly, it is about customer service and efficiency. I have had plenty of experience in customer service from working at Mobil for 2 years back in Sydney, and the principles are exactly the same. The efficiency however can only come from experience, but I am trying to learn as fast as I can. The most challenging thing is memorizing the entire menu offered at the restaurant, so that I know exactly what people are talking about when they ask me questions. The wines list is also quite challenging but I am slowly getting the hang of it. Needless to say the accent is helping things tremendously. It is a point of conversation with customers, and makes you a lot more interesting. I am milking it to the max!

The interesting thing I have noticed about England, is that the english spend most of their time thinking about what they could be doing if they were anywhere except england. Right down the road from where I am staying they have a huge indoor snow slope where you can ski, and also an indoor skydiving centre. There is also, slap bang in the middle of the shopping centre, a large sandbox equipped with umbrellas, beach balls and lifeguards. Incredible.

Well thats all from me right now. I really don't have much to write about as I have slipped into a routine here that doesnt involve much excitement. Im not quite sure what people would like to hear about, so suggestions would be appreciated.

Goodbye Mitrou!

Leaving Mitrou and Tragana was really really sad. Saying goodbye to all the villagers who had been taking care of us these past 2 odd months gave us a constant desire to just stay one more week. Saying goodbye to the Mitrou crew, however, was much harder and was really actually quite depressing. We have gone through a lot together. We have had to deal with the challenges of archaeology and its joys. We have worked side by side for 2 months to the point where we were literally dropping where we stood to sleep. As a group, we have been baptised through fire (thats not an understatement with the sun the way it was!). Saying goodbye to these people now, many of whom I probably wont see again, was really really sad.

The final week of archaeology was terrifying. A kind of madness gripped the entire camp. DIG DEEPER DIG DEEPER DIG DEEPER seemed to be our mantra. We had to reach our goals. Every trench had to work harder than ever before to get to the point where the site needed to be at the end of 5 years of excavation. We needed to work hard in order to secure funding for another season. We needed to work hard in order to gather as much information about the site as humanely possible. As a result we began staying after hours to work. This gradually increased into some trenches staying open from 6am till 7-8pm almost every day. On top of this, we had our final exams to prepare for and some of us had research papers to work on. Needless to say, very little spare time, and VERY little sleep was available. Especially that considering it was the last week, we wanted to go out many nights just to hang out with everyone.

Through the crazyness of the final week, some extremely interesting finds were made. While these finds were not made within our trench itself, they are very important for the future of the site. Firstly in one of the trenches inside our biggest building uncovered so far, a beautifully crafted gold ring was found as well as links to some sort of gold chain. This was the most significant item of gold uncovered at the site in all the 5 years of excavation and is extremely exciting. It means that wealthy people were roaming around Mitrou 3500 years ago, and is further evidence for the importance of our site in the Bronze Age. Even more exciting was what was excavated in the final 2 days of digging. A HUGE block of stone was uncovered within the same building, standing vertically upright. No one knew what it was. Upon further exploration of the trench, side slabs were also found, and the evidence for a foot slab. The entire structure is very big, almost 5 metres by 2 metres. It is very similar to the smaller cist graves found all over the site, except for its size, and it MAY be possible that this is a giant sized one. What is interesting is that we are pulling a lot of bronze jewelry from this area, and also found a pretty cool gold leaf. We could be sitting directly on top of a HUGE cist tomb. No one knows yet... As for our trench, we managed to uncover another penguin quite deep down in probably Middle Bronze Age levels. ONce again, the Olive Grave delivered on quality and this cist provided us with an amazingly preserved skeleton of a small child, and a beautifully intact pot without as much as a scratch on it!

After leaving Tragana on Sunday, me and 4 of the other guys made the trip into Athens and checked into our hostel. We finally found a place to eat (the place we wanted to go to was closed, or so we found out after trekking halfway across Athens to get to it), and parted ways with Jessen and Josh who had decided to sleep in the airport for their flight the next day. Doug, Alex and I were certainly ready to go to bed but we had made a sacred pact together. We were going to go see 'The Dark Knight', even if we had to die trying. We almost did. Once again the trek around Athens began as we tried to find a cinema. It was raining (very inconvenient when you are walking around), so all the rooftop cinemas were obviously closed. We had to walk all the way into central Athens to find a regular cinema complex. When we finally found one, we were met with the nasty knowledge that the next session was 2 hours away. We were at the verge of giving up and going to bed when we rallied and decided to wait the 2 hours inside the cinema waiting area. Im glad the movie was so good, or I would have fallen asleep :p

In the morning it was time to say goodbye to Greece and head off to England. I travelled into the airport with Doug and Alex and said our goodbyes. I arrived in England, and had to negotiate the underground system with very limitted directions from my pub. Eventually, after a few hiccups, I arrived in Wavendon at The Wavendon Arms and was greeted by some of the staff, given some beer and food, and then given the run down on how the place operated. Ill include more information about the pub after my first shift tonight. After saying hi to everyone, I was taken to the staff house and managed to settle in to a comfortable bed in liveable conditions (much better than I have been coping with recently :p). Seemed like a 5 star hotel I tell you!

Thermopolae

Thank you to everyone who has been commenting on my blogs and also for sending me emails. I may not have time to reply to every one in kind (which is what this blogspot is for) but you can be reassured that I read and love every single one of them. Thank you for keeping me updated on the happenings back home, and please please please continue to do so. I love them.

Now back to the action.....

Things are now starting to wind down. We have started to do that silly little game of 'this is the last time we will etc etc etc..' which is rather depressing. However, with the knowledge of only haveing a few dig days left, a type of energy has creeped into our work and we are moving very fast. We want to get as much as humanely possible done as this is the final year for this season of excavations at Mitrou. What will follow is a research season, and perhaps a few small dig years which will certainly not be on the same scale. After this year, large scale excavations on the island will cease until everything is published.

The mood in our trench this past week has been strained to say the least. We were working towards our primary objective of uncovering the pink marl floor all week long, but it seemed that every single centimeter of soil we uncovered from the trench, something appeared that delayed our progress. If it wasnt a new set of walls, it was a pebble surface (that bane of our trench rears its ugly head all too often). If it wasnt a pebble surface, it was a plaster one (which to be honest was very cool!). We were also affected by external influences, all too often that of a lack of sleep which affected our pace. We have been trying very hard to cram as much into our trip as possible and I think this has now started to take its toll on our bodies. We are always tired. For these reasons I think that we have been a little snappy and strained. The abundant amount of surfaces that have occured within the trench has also made it extremely difficult to understand what exactly is going on. This manifests itself in long periods of us just sitting around staring dumbly at the baulk or trench trying to make some sort of sense of it.

This mood was overcome by the end of the week though. On Thursday afternoon, we FINALLY managed to get down to the level of the pink marl floor. All of a sudden our mood completely changed. We had reached our goal! We started excavating down to the surface, trying to trace it out, and had no trouble finding it. The soil just lifts itself off of it in chunks. I was happily going along when all of a sudden, the soil was no longer behaving like it was before. The surface was gone. The pink marl floor was preserved in patches. Very small patches. It also only extended into our trench about 15 centimeters. If you had to look up anti-climax in the dictionary, you would see 'see LG790-079, Mitrou, Tragana, Greece'. We werent happy, but I dont think anyone really cared. This is what archaeology usually is. A constant anti-climax dotted with a few short spurts of excitement. You live for those short spurts :p

The weekend found ourselves on our final field trip of the season, and for me one of the most exciting ones. We were going to go visit the ancient battlefield of Thermopolae. This was the site of one of the most famous battles in all of history. I can go on about this for an absolute age, but I will just give you the general jist of it. Basically, thsi is the site where 300 Spartans and around 3000 other Greeks made a stand against the hoards of Persia numbering probably around 200 000 (but this is jsut an estimate. The actual numbers range from as little as 150 000 to as many as 2.5 million). Whichever way you look at it, the Greeks were vastly outnumbered. They were sent there to delay the Persian advance for as long as they could. Basically it was a suicide mission. They held the pass against the Persians for 6 days and 3 days of fighting. The Spartans and the Thespians held their ground to the last man and allowed the rest of their allies to get away safely. They also bought time for the Athenians to be evacuate Athens. Leonidas and his 300 became the symbol around which the entire Greek resistance rallied and were able to ultimately drive out the Persian invaders, setting on course history as we know it. The battle and the selfless acts of sacrifice performed there mean many different things to different people.

Needless to say, to visit the monuments there and also see the battlefield itself had a profound effect on me. Not only was I getting the worst case of Ancient History Tingles I have ever had, but I was actually almost choked up as silly as it may sound. It was really awesome to see various dedications and wreaths left at the foot of the statue of Leonidas and at the famous inscription 'Go tell the Spartans, passer by, that here obedient to their laws we lie'. People still remember and appreciate the sacrifice and hardship undergone by those brave men 2500 years ago.

DURfaces, Walls and Delphi!

Things in Greece are coming to a rapid and alarming conclusion. I can't believe that I only have a meagre two weeks to enjoy myself here at Tragana. It feels odd as on one hand I cant imagine that I have in fact been over here for 2 months already, but on the other I am relieved that I am going to be able to take time to recover from the rigours of excavation and the harsh living conditions. This last week has been, as always, both interesting, difficult and incredibly memorable all at the same time. Unfortunately, I find myself at the computer without my USB flash drive so photos will have to wait. IM SORRY I FORGOT!

Excavation wise, we have been chasing a beautiful pink marl plaster floor that we think is just below where we are currently at. Unfortunately, between us and the prize have consistently turned up layer after layer of 'surface'. Surfaces are the most annoying thing in the world to excavate. They are indicated by a slight hardening of the soil, maybe a colour change, and perhaps if you are lucky some flat lying sherds of pottery or a bunch of pebbles. They are very difficult to identify while digging as you are required to feel subtle differences in soil density with your trowel. Even when you 'find' them they are almost always patchy and you loose them within seconds. As they are supposed to indicate occupation of the area, we have to take photographs and everything every single time we come across one. Most of those in our trench are convinced these surfaces are nothing more that phantoms and have so named them 'DURfaces'.

While digging our way towards the marl floor, we uncovered two very substantial walls running on a completely different axis to what we have already in the trench and also quite a bit deeper. This means that they are walls from a different occupational period and are very exciting. They are part of a new building which our trench seems to luckily encompass the inside. We are looking very forward to proceeding deeper to see what we will find inside this new building.

This weekend our trip was to the famous and magnificent site of Delphi. This is the place of the legendary 'Oracle of Delphi' which was world famous all the way from Archaic Greece (c. 800BC) to Roman times. People from far and wide made pilgrimage to the site in order to ask the oracle about what the future had in store for them. Cities and Empires from across the globe also asked about pressing political concerns, matters of war and colonisation. It was indeed one of the most important sanctuaries in Greece. The place is pretty impressive. It is set on the slopes of Mt. Parnassos, and overlooks the extremelly majestic surrounding countryside.

There are remains of a large Gymnasium, a temple to Athena, a large theatre and a huge stadium used for the famous Pythian Games held every two years. The main attractions here though are the large Temple to Apollo (where the Oracle sat and spoke the words of the god to the pilgrims) and the large city treasuries built by many different states across Greece to hold their dedications to the sanctuary.

After our visit to the various sites and Museums, we were encouraged to attend an optional hike to the top of Mt Parnassos directly behind the site. This was advertised as a 'easy walk to the top of the mountain with exceptional views of the bay and site'. As the guide had only done it 18 years ago, things maaaaay have been a little hazy to remember. It was not an 'easy walk to the top' but a veritable bushwhack through rough, thorny scrub that ripped and tore at our legs. We also lost the trail 3/4 of the way up and had to go offroad to find the edge of the mountain. Me and a couple others went on a scouting mission and finally found the place. It was possibly the best view I have yet to encounter in Greece. You had a perfect aerial view of the site and EVERYTHING around it. It was breathtaking. Photo's forthcoming!

I have to dash because my parents have just called :D

Adiossas and Kalispera!