Day 34 - 37, Beck's Wedding

As mentioned earlier, we got up at the ridiculous time of 3 am to catch a 4 am train to Vienna, then somewhere else I don't remember, and then Munich. After that, we went through a bunch of small German and Austrian towns until we came to the Alps, where the scenery was absolutely stunning. All snow-capped mountains, lush green valleys, gigantic viaducts, and awesome architecture. We then changed trains again at Verona, where we caught a completely shithouse train that made even the crappiest QR train seem like luxury. There were puddles of wee everywhere, and an African bloke who asked me to marry him so he could move to Australia. As flattering as that was, I took off to sit with the oldies in order to feel somewhat safe.

Once in Venice, it was nearly 10 at night, and Bryan was waiting for us. He then proceeded to lead us on to a ferry, and through a maze of buildings, stairs and bridges to the apartment we had rented along one of the canals. All carrying over 20 kilos of luggage. I was completely buggered.

The next day was much better however, as it was Beck and Bryan's wedding day. Her dress was stunning, and the room where the ceremony was held at the town hall was beautiful. It was conducted in both English and Italian, and it was a rather intimate affair. After that, the happy couple took a gondola ride down the grand canal, as you can see in the photo below, while the rest of us followed in a water taxi.

The water taxi took us past the Church of Good Health, built after the end of the Plague, as well as many prominant Venitian landmarks, until we reached the entrance to St Marks Square, which you can see in the photo below. The photographer and videographer made us walk around the city after this photo was taken for a good 2 hours before we were allowed to go to the lovely seafood restaurant where the reception was held. Everyone got quite a bit drunk, sung 'When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie' very loudly and off key, and stumbled back to the apartment for a kip.

In this photo, I'm the one on the far right, in the white dress with black flowers.

After the nap, AJ and I walked around Venice, and stood on a bridge overlooking teh Grand Canal, where you could see all the landmarks we had seen earlier that day. Venice is absolutely gorgeous at night, with all the light bouncing off the white buildings and black water.

The next day, two of our party left for Switzerland, and the rest of us took it fairly easy - I went shopping for groceries and had gelati and pizza, and went on a ferry ride around Venice to see whatever we hadn't yet seen. This was the rest day before yet another mad dash, this time to our final cruise on the Ruby Princess that was to take us around the Mediterreanean.

Days 32 - 33

After the epic train journey yesterday, we got out at the train station, caught taxis to the hotel, and discovered it had a tiny spiral staircase and our rooms were on the third floor - thus, we had great difficulty dragging up 25 kilos of suitcase. I longed for the cruise ship so I could just rest without worrying about lugging everything I owned (which amounted to half my weight) around with me.

Prague is gorgeous, exactly how I pictured it. The day after all that train travel, I walked a bit down the street from the hotel, hopped on a tram and walked around the city's centre until I found the Old Town, with the beautiful Astronomical clock, Wenceslas Square, Tyn Church, and what I think was originally a gate into the city.

I bought one of those really yummy hot chocolates that taste like they've just melted a block of chocolate into a bowl and set off to find the National Museum, Charles Bridge, and Prague castle.

Prague is beautiful, but I just didn't connect to it as much as I did with Germany.

Didn't really do or see anything else in Prague as the next day we had to get up at 3:30 am to have an even longer day of train travel - a total of 14 hours to meet up with Beck and Bryan in Venice, Italy for their wedding.

Egypt and Europe: April - May 2009 PART IV

Next stop after Germany was Austria, where we toured the cities of Melk, Linz, Durnstein and finally, Vienna. Durnstein was a gorgeous little town we walked around at night, which had a tiny cemetery on a hill. What was interesting and kind of creepy about it was that, since they were unable to dig graves, they had stacked up all the bones in a stone room in the cemetery instead.

Vienna was rather like any other major European city, only with much better chocolate. We didn't stay very long, and while pretty, I just didn't feel the same kind of pull I felt in Germany.

The next city on the list was Bratislava, in Slovakia. Having only been a country since 1992, it still has a lot of history, and a lot of really awesome statues. I have to say that I was really quite enamoured with them, as you'll see from the photos.

I tried to read some of this guys poetry when I got home, but alas, there wasn't much of it in English, and it was a little blood thirsty for my tastes.

Hans Christian Andersen stayed a night in Bratislava, and apparently this qualifies you for statue status. I love how they worked aspects of his stories into the statue.

This one was across from the German Embassy, and represents a famous Brother's Grimm fable, in which a boy drinks from an enchanted spring and is changed into a fawn, while his sister chooses not to, and remains human.

I had to take a picture of Andy Warhol. His parents were Slovakian, and its a pretty random statue.

A random Bratislavian street, one of the many we toured in our few ours in the city. Such a pretty city. I had no idea I would like Slovakia so much. A few buildings had cannonball damage from Napoleon's time, with some even retaining the actuall cannonball in the wall. Apparently these were placed there, as buildings that suffered cannonball damage paid lower taxes.

I forget the story behind this guy, but he's on t-shirts and postcards and seems to be pretty famous.

Our schedule on that particular day was pretty hectic, so we only got to spend a few hours in Bratislava. We had the rest of the afternoon and evening to sail on to Budapest, where we had the next day to tour, and the day after to disembark. In all honesty, I was rather sad to be ending the cruise down the Rhine and the Danube - I had seen some amazing towns, particularly in Germany, and some beautiful scenery along the way. If ever you get a chance to do it, I'd definitely recommend it.

We got into Budapest late at night, and the entire city was beautifully lit, even the bridges. It was gorgeous, and I only wish the photos had turned out. The photo above is of Heroes Square, on the Pest side, which is across the road from the avenue where the communists would hold their marches. All the best architecture, statues and monuments seem to be on the Pest side.

Spectacular views from the lookout on the Buda side of the city. I think I prefer the Pest side though. Both sides are so different, its like completely different cities.

After disembarking the ship the following morning, we made our way to the Buda side, where we stayed overnight before catching a train to Prague. And what a bloody long train ride that was, consisting of about three different trains since we had to keep changing.

Egypt and Europe: April - May 2009 PART III

On the 25th April, we dragged our suitcases to Gare du Nord train station in Paris, and spent eight hours travelling through the French and Belgian countryside. We arrived in Amsterdam some time in the afternoon and decided to go for a walk around the Van Gogh and Rijksmuseums. Apparently Amsterdam has more canals than Venice.

Our walk led us to a park paved with fuchsia-coloured trees, and canals in front of pubs and cafes that were lined with tulips like this one. We stopped at a cafe and had possibly the best cheesecake Ive ever had in my life, and then later had a nice stew at a pub. Completely bloody freezing, but Amsterdam still became one of my favourite cities.

The next day a few of us decided to try to find the Anne Frank Museum, so we set off on the trams and wandered around, before finally finding it. Unfortunately, the line snaked all the way around the corner of the building, and we had a cruise ship to check in at, so that's another thing I shall have to go back and see another time.

A glorious Amsterdam sunset, taken before we set off to the Red Light District to see what the fuss was all about. The whole place smells like weed, obviously, and its lit with red and purple lights. They have different sections depending on the kind of prostie you want - female, transgender, transgender with stubble. One member of our group had a hard time distinguishing between the guys dressed up as girls and the actual girls, despite the stubble. Our last night in Amsterdam ended with a brownie and a long walk back to the cruise ship, before we set sail for Cologne, Germany.

It rained in Cologne, but I was so excited to finally be in Germany that I really didn't care much. I loved every second of it despite the miserable weather, including the Dom, the typical German architcture, and the statues in the centre of town of a woman with elves, who once did all the work for the townspeople. The woman set a trap to catch the eleves at it, was caught in the act, and the elves subsequently refused to do any more work for the towns people, who have had to do it on their own ever since.

After Cologne, we cruised along the Rhine to Koblenz, where we drove to the Marksburg Castle, which you can see on the hill above. It remains the only undestroyed castle in Germany, complete with it's own church, torture room, and tiny little beds.

Rudesheim, famous for its coffees with Asbach, was next on the list, followed by Mainz, where Josef Gutenbug, the inventor of the printing press, was from. After that, we sailed to Wertheim, a lovely little town with a long history of glass-blowing. You can see the town centre below. As you walk into the centre, you see a building covered in butterflies, eyes, Jewish Stars of David, and musical notes, which makes up a memorial to a Jewish family who was killed in the war. According to our tour guide, the mayor had most of the Jewish people leave the town just prior to the war, and most of them immigrated to America and took on the town's name as their last name. Unfortunately, the ones who stayed were killed.

From Wertheim, we cruised further along the Rhine to Wurzburg, where we toured the Residenz Palace. The palace itself is incredible - the staircase leading up to the first floor has a stunning ceiling, which depicted the four continents known at the time: Europe, Africa, Asia and the Americas. The palace also has beautiful gardens, and a mirror room that reminded me of Princess Mombi's palace in Return to Oz. We then drove along the Romantic Road to Rothenburg, which you can see in the photo below.

Rothernburg is famous for its Christmas Museum, which was pretty insane with the fairylights and the fake snow. Pretty, but kind of over the top. It also retains the old town wall around the perimetre of the old town, which is interesting.

The following day we journeyed to Nuremburg, where we toured the Colosseum, a building inspired by the Roman original and used by Hitler to give speeches and hold rallies in world war 2, as well as a medieval castle. The photo below is the view from the Medieval castle. Nuremburg is also famous for its gingerbread, which doesn't actually have any ginger in it. Still pretty yum though.

Lastly, we visited Regensburg and Passau. The former has a bridge that was apparently the inspiration for the Charles Bridge in Prague, while the latter has a Baroque cathedral, which was a welcome change from all the gothic churches we visited. It also apparently contains the largest pipe organ in Europe, which we sat and listened to for what felt like three hours. I felt like I was in a Tim Burton movie.

Egypt and Europe: April - May 2009 PART II

After the disaster that was Egypt, I was very keen to leave all of that ridiculousness behind me and move on to Europe. We arrived in Charles De Gaulle International Airport at about 6:30 pm on the 23rd of April, and I was rather surprised by the complete and utter lack of security or any kind of customs. We met up with another member of our travelling party who had bypassed Egypt and flown in from Australia, and then got on the train to Place de Clinchy, where our hotel was. I later found out that the hotel we stayed at was the same hotel Liam Neeson's character stayed at in the movie Taken.

The next day, we decided to walk around Paris instead of doing some 60 euro tour, and it turned out to be one of the highlights of the whole trip. We started off by catching the Metro to St Michel's Place, where we walked to Notre Dame, which you can see in the above photo. I actually love the Metro - the convenience of trains arriving every two minutes, coupled with the randomness of the back-flipping buskers make for an interesting train trip, much more interesting than any trip on a QR train.

Inside the Notre Dame, with its gorgeous stained glass windows, beautiful gothic architecture, and various statues and shrines to saints. I kept thinking of Quasimodo, and hoping there'd be some kind of reference to the Victor Hugo novel.

Our walk continued from Notre Dame over the Seine to the Centre Culturel G. Pompidou, where we watched a woman playing the digeredoo, and on to the Louvre. People under the age of 26 get in for free (yay!), and so we wandered around for a while, looking at the gorgeous ceilings, the Venus de Milo, and the Mona Lisa.

We then made our way along the Seine, past the Musee D'Orsay and the National Assemblee to the Eiffel Tower, where we made friends with a guy from the Cameroon, which was... interesting, to say the least. The tower was so much taller than I was expecting, and I felt dizzy just looking up at it. It does make for some pretty awesome photos though.

I have a problem with heights, obviously, so I remained at the bottom while my friend made her way to the top and took some pretty spectacular photos, like this one.

The one thing I missed out on that I was really keen to see was the cemetery where Oscar Wilde was buried, but I know for sure that I will go back to Paris one day. It is a beautiful city, with awesome food, and a lovely vibe, and I would love to spend more time there. The people were much friendlier than I was expecting, with the exception of a certain woman in a cafe who made rude shooing gestures to us when we didnt vacate immediately after buying our coffees. Paris is definitely up there in my list of favourite places I have to see again.

Egypt and Europe Trip: April - May 2009 PART I

Egypt was certainly nothing like I had expected. We landed at Cairo International Airport at about 6 pm local time on the 10th April, desperate for a shower and a bed, but what we got instead was a crazy ride in a van through insane traffic to our hotel. Cairo is loosely controlled chaos; traffic is complete insanity, and the locals only seem to follow one rule: drive on the right, like Americans. I was very surprised that we didn't happen across any accidents on the way, although there were rather a lot of cars missing their sideview mirrors. Anyway, being a passenger in a car in Cairo is nearly impossible to describe, as there is so much happening at once. What would constitute three lanes in Australia is somehow, magically, transformed into five in Egypt. The roads are dusty and covered in potholes, and every person in Cairo seems physically attached to their car horns. What made the chaotic drive through Cairo worth it was the view we had once we reached our hotel, which you can see in the photo above.

It wasn't until our fourth day in Egypt that our tour started, and it started with a bang. Nine of us hopped on a bus and were driven to the Great Pyramids, where our tour guide left us to fend for ourselves. We had been wandering around the base of the pyramid for all of five minutes when we were approached by a man in a red headdress and a white robe claiming to be security. He suggested the best vantage points to take photos of the pyramid, and even had us pose for a few pictures. Here's where it all went sour. He grabbed my leg and forced it into the stirrup on a camel, which I hadn't even noticed until I was suddenly on top of the bloody thing. The photo you see above is one 'he' actually took, so I suppose the experience was worth something. He then had my friend get up on one, and led us away from my friends fiance, where he proceeded to try and rob us. After arguing with him for what seemed to be hours, we gave him 70 Egyptian pounds just to get rid of him, and took off as fast as we could in the other direction. I was left feeling completely disheartened and disillusioned with the entire country, and, quite frankly, was ready just to go back home to safe, comfy Australia. I didn't, and I'm very glad I didn't, but it was the first in a series of bad experiences I had while in Egypt which has convinced me that one trip was definitely enough.

After that harrowing experience, we got back on the bus and drove to the second pyramid, where we were led down a steep passageway and into the heart of the pyramid. It was one of the most amazing things I've ever done - you could feel five thousand years of history pressing down on you, feel just how amazing the ancient Egyptian civilisation really was. It was unbearably hot and stuffy, and cramped beyond belief, but I'm glad I did it. Everything had obviously been removed from the pyramid, save a stone coffin in the burial chamber to show you where the mummy had been.

The tour of the pyramids ended at the Sphinx, where it was hard to get a decent photo without some random tourist's head in the shot. The same thing is true of any famous landmark, though. We concluded this fourth day with a trip to the Cairo Museum, the highlight of which being the contents of King Tutankhamun's burial chamber, and lunch at a local koshary restaurant. Cairo definitely left an impression with me, and now that I'm home and the shock of being robbed has faded somewhat, I can say that I definitely enjoyed the majority of it.

The next day, we left on the bus for Alexandria, and what an adventure those Egyptian highways are. Our tour bus got a flat tyre three seperate times. One of those times, we kept driving until we reached a roadhouse, and we all found it highly amusing. It did postpone our checking in to the hotel though, and delayed our visit to the catacombs as a result, but it was all good. The hotel more than made up for it - 5 star, right on the Mediterreanean Sea, private beach. It was gorgeous. The traffic was much less hectic in Alexandria as well, and the food was good. The next day we visited the Catacombs, the Roman tombs for the nobility of the time, the Library, and various other points of interest, and Alexandria became my favourite Egyptian city.

After Alexandria, we drove back to Cairo and caught a train to Aswan, which took fourteen hours. My god, were those fourteen hours long. The food was terrible, and there was a very creepy rail employee who liked randomly opening my cabin door to grin at me. I kept the door between my friends' cabin and mine open from that point on, to keep the creep out.

Aswan embodied the craziness of Cairo, and the hotel in Alexandria had definitely spoilt me. Again it was right on the water (this time the Nile), but no where near five star. We caught a plane out at 4 am the next morning for Abu Simbel, where we visited the two temples Ramses built for himself and Nefertiti. You can see Ramses' temple in the photo above. My fear of flying came back threefold on that flight, as the plane was a rickety old Memphis Air plane, with broken seats and table trays and screws coming out everywhere. Not my idea of a safe, relaxing flight. The temples themselves were amazing, having been rescued from the flooding of the valley below due to the construction of the dam.

The next night we embarked on a three-day cruise down the Nile, stopping at various ancient sites such as Kom Ombo along the way. We disembarked at Luxor, where we were able to visit Hapshetsut's temple and the Valley of the Kings. Visiting Hapshetsut's temple had been a dream of mine since I was small, so walking around the giant pillars covered in her face, seeing petrified trees she had had brought back from Punt, and seeing some of the paint still on the elaborate heiroglyphs was very surreal. It looks exactly as I had pictured it, as if it had been carved right out of the mountain. The Valley of the Kings was rather similar, experience wise, but for different reasons. The tombs were almost perfectly preserved, with brilliant murals still with their original paint. What pleased me is that, after two weeks, I could determine which figure depicted which god. Despite the blistering heat, the amount of walking, and the fact that I was so poor I couldn't afford to eat McDonalds, it was really a fantastic day.

Our final day in Egypt began and ended with a visit to Karnak Temple, another place I had been very excited to see. The entrance is guarded on either side by hundreds of sphinxes, known as the 'Avenue of Sphinxes', and after the first courtyard, it opens into the forest of pillars. What angers me about the temples is that people throughout the centuries have had no respect for them, defiling them with graffiti or removing parts of them. The British removed the beard of the sphinx and have kept it ever since, while hundreds of faceless strangers have carved their names and the dates they were there into the stone walls and pillars of Egyptian temples and tombs. Karnak was no exception.

We flew back to Cairo soon after, only to find that my suitcase had been broken in to and the extra money I had put in there at a friend's insistance to keep it safe was gone. The final straw that broke the camel's back, you could say, because I knew then I would never come back to Egypt, even though I had had such a wonderful time on the tour and had seen so many fantastic things. It was just one bad experience too many I think. Overall, the Egyptian people were very friendly, but the people who worked in the tourism or retail industry were horrible, and completely soured my outlook.