Walking in a winter wonderland

Last weekend I was in Copenhagen. Ahhh I just love how that sounds.
On friday afternoon I met Jilly at London City Airport and we boarded our flight to darling Denmark.
Post landing we had a couple of issues with money and metro tickets but soon enough we were sitting on the metro, beer in hand - hells yeah Danish drinking laws!

Tristan met us outside the metro, we literally dropped our stuff, had a couple of shots of the good ole Captain Morgan's Spiced Rum and headed out to Culture Box.
The rest of the night, I'm ashamed to say (sorry Mum!) is a bit of a blur.
Free beer for the first hour, a million messages between Trist and I along the lines of:
"Where are you?" "I'm at culture, you?" "At culture, where are you?"

Stopping off at a random bar where Tristan dropped a whole tray of shots and then tried to get away with not paying for them, having a Pizza Time stop on the way home that Jill has no recollection of, Tristan and Jill turning into destructive maniacs and me passing out in the hallway.
I'm pretty sure we had fun though.. Jill's head might say otherwise.

The next day was a little bit of a struggle, but we still managed to walk around the city quite a bit.
I did my mother proud by walking through the amazing Library - modern, black and sleek on the outside, but traditional and gorgeous on the inside, encyclopedia's galore!
We had a surreal visit to Christiania, the suburb in the middle of Copenhagen where there are only three laws, no hard drugs, no running and no photos. Pot is sold freely and houses are made out of just about anything.
The boys cooked us mussels for dinner (AMAZING) and we had a few cocktails later on at night.

Sunday was absolutely freezing, but that didn't stop us from having a crazy good lunch and a magical time at Tivoli. Rollercoasters, 5-G Force rides, mulled wine, reindeer and christmas lights everywhere!
That brought us to a 4am wake up, flight back home and me collecting Guy and heading down to Kent for Christmas.

Which is tomorrow by the way, so I hope you all have an amazing day! I'm sorry I can't be there with you all, but I'm sending all my love and Christmas spirit!

P.S. again, to my unbelievable friends who sent me THE best birthday present, I love you girls so much!

Once upon a December

Weeeeeee birthdays!
I turned the big 21 last friday, and had a magical weekend to follow.



Thursday night I headed to Stepney Green to Gatt and Jills house for a pre-celebration.
Gatt, Jill, Jared, Carly, Mark, Guy, Braiden, Rum. Fun fun times!
Jill called Anna in Melbourne and they all sang happy birthday to me at midnight. Without sounding to braggy - I got an amazing Tiffany's necklace from Mum, Mimco treats from Jilly, a lovely old book from Braiden that I can't wait to read, Jamie Oliver's cookbook and the promise of a Harrods high Tea from Guy.
It was a perfect night.

The next day I did Braiden a favour by hanging out at his place while his internet was installed (because he headed to Paris early) I got to lounge around watching movies with coffee and a croissant.
Afterwards, I met Dad and Pop at borough markets for some tasty treats before getting ready for Paris!

I met Jilly at St Pancras with champagne for the train ride. We met Bray at our apartment, dumped our stuff and walked to the boy's apartment where Ali, Guy and Gareth were waiting with beer, cheese, bread, prosciutto, olives and champagne . After a night of King's cup, a horrible cake and orange juice pulp everywhere we walked back to our place.

Saturday was an absolutely magical day. We had an amazing breakfast at 1pm (best omelette ever!) and spent the rest of the day wandering through stores, the christmas markets, down the Champs Elysees towards the Eifell Tower - which we managed to catch at 6pm when it starts twinkling.
That night we took the Metro to Bastille in the hunt for somewhere to drink and dance.
After a couple of fails we stumbled on a little bar with an underground dancefloor, which unfortunately closed not too long after we got there.
A fricking mission of a bus ride (where Naomi got hit on and then spat on) we crawled into bed.

Yesterday we trecked up to Montemarte for more treats and gorgeous views, then napped for a little too long before going out for a proper french dinner.
We grabbed some macaroons on the way home before heading to bed early - 5:45am start for Jillian and I this morning heading back to London.

It really was the most amazing birthday, and even though I wish a few others were here to celebrate with me, I love that I can say I was in Paris for my 21st.
Thankyou so much Alistair, Jill, Guy, Braiden, Naomi and Gareth for the whole weekend!

Our house, in the middle of our street

Okay, so technically not my house - but it will be for the next two weeks!

Tis correct, I have quit the crazy hostel and am moving out tomorrow.
After two months of night shifts - hectic sleeping patterns, random people in beds they aren't supposed to be in, calling the police because a crazy italian man refuses to leave and cleaning up after one too many party - I am out of here!

Gatt, Jill, Jared and Carly (funnily enough they were all originally Andrew's friends) signed a lease on a place in Stepney Green and have kindly let me stay short term.
So, for the time being I'm on a massive job hunt, which is a little stressful but I also have some amazing trips coming up - Paris for my birthday, a day trip to Bruges with Jill and a weekend visit to Copenhagen to visit Tristan.

And as a spur of the moment trip, my Dad is bringing my Pop over for a couple of weeks. They land on the 29th of November and I couldn't be more excited to see them!

But for now, I have to say goodbye to the Astor Hyde Park.
I have had some absolutely hilarious times here and met some really incredible people!
Jill, Anna, Liv, Antwon, Colin, Mark, Naomi, Crispy, Danny, Braiden, Brian, Jizz, Scott, Sean, Pontus, Oscar, Daniel, Luna, gahhhhh there's too many!
Toodles Astor, and everyone living here, love love love to you all.

Our first night at Astor

B@1

Anna and Liv's last night :(

Church with Yemeny

"Working"

Halloween with Cwispy!

Horror movie, right there on my TV

Ahhhh Halloween. I'm finally in a city that embraces it.
About a week ago the staff were chucked into pairs and told to host an event every few days.
Scott and I managed to score the Halloween party - held the Friday before last.

We bought tons of decorations, carved pumpkins and put on 3 all you can drink punches.
...And the night was a bigger hit than we could have expected.
The kitchen was buzzing with guests and staff, most in costume, some just covered in fake blood.
As you can imagine, it was a rather messy night - but so much fun!

Since then we've had a couple of quieter days and nights hanging out with the staff and our new swedish friends. Braiden's back from Brissy so we're slowly adding to the crew here.
We all took a trip to Oxford Street to brave Topshop and Primark, and came back succesful :)
But that wasn't the most exciting part. Everywhere I go now I'm starting to see Christmas decorations!
We got kicked off our bus early and had to walk past Harrods. Walking past soon turned into a half an hour stop inside, where we saw crocodile shoes for £8,200. The area we're in really is how the other half live, someone find me a rich husband stat!

Jill, Gatt, Jared and Carly managed to score a house to rent, so it's exciting times all round.
I'm still on the job hunt, but lucky to have this place for now - at least I have somewhere to sleep!

Guy is off in Estonia (I think?) and Ali is skating his way through France - lucky boys!

I've become attached to the fish we have at reception, Laurence Fishbourne. Gatt and I cleaned out his tank, and he was moved to a better spot where he is much happier, playing with the rocks in his tank.

I'll try to do more exciting things soon, I think my posts are going downhilllllll.
But ta ta for now, missing you all!

And it goes.. on and on and on

Wahhh sorry guys!
I've been stagant for so long now I forgot that I still need to update this!

So since I last left you I have moved from night cleaning to night reception at the Astor.
This means 4-5 nights a week I do an 8pm to 8am shift on reception. Most of the time its easy and even a little boring, but sometimes when people are put in the wrong room or you have someone sleeping in a bed who's not actually staying at the hostel it's a little stressful.
And then there are the nights when everyone goes out without you and you see them come back niiiiice and drunk. Like Gatt tonight - hard to be mad at that puppy dog face though.

Other than working, and therefore sleeping until 2pm, still looking for an office job and the occasional drinking night I have just been hanging out with the kids here.
Saying hi to new faces that started work at the hostel, welcoming back Gareth (who is a night receptionist too) and Guy, and saying goodbye to Anna, Danny and Liv :(

I had Andrew here for a week or so, but he's back home now and loving it - say hi if you see him!

I also had a visit from my favourite boy in the world - Ali B. He stayed at the hostel for a week, which was unfortunately the week I did 5 night shifts in a row so I didn't get to spend as much time with him as I would have liked, but it was still amazing to have him here. He is now off galavanting around Spain on his way to France - lucky bugger.

I've also been in booking mode this week, having bought train tickets to Paris for my birthday and flights to Copenhagen with Jill to visit Trist. Exciting things coming up soon! (Sorry I've been a bit boring lately, haven't even taken any photo's lately, so these I stole from Jill and Bec)

Guy, Jill and I

Hannah Montana, Owivia, Anna Banana and Jillybean

Towards the end of a night out in Camden..

I wish I had a mango tree, in my backyard

So here I am in London, starting to settle down.
As Jillybean was off to Oktoberfest, she offered me her job for the week, which has turned into long term.
Basically I clean for about an hour at night in exchange for a free bed.
The only downside is that the bed is on the 6th floor, with no lift. I'm being forced into exercise.

So for the past week or so, I've been "working", drinking, seeing a couple of recruitment agencies for temping work and not a lot else.
The manager here left us last week, so his last few nights were hectic.
Last Friday was the last ever beer olympics, which ended with a massive beer fight and everyone dancing on tables.

This week the weather has been amazing, so I'm not going to lie I've been putting off searching for jobs to hang out in hyde park. Other than that I've been hanging out with the kids here - including Gattman, who gives me a nice reminder of home.
We have seen Colin get a tattoo of an anchor on his arm, had a couple of visits to Camden markets, many a trip to Waitrose for food and then just generally hanging around the hostel.

One highlight was Colin taking Naomi, Mark and I to lunch at a thai restaurant called "Mango Tree". We had cocktails and wine and a 4 course banquet. It was all kinds of delicious, see below:

Starters

Mains

The days here kinda roll into each other, only distinguishable when people leave or arrive. A couple of days until Jilly is back, and 5 days til Ali arrives. Couldn't be more excited!

And we're the three best friends that anybody could have!

Soo, Tristan, Guy and I (or as Guy affectionately calls us, the wolfpack), met up again in Prague. Oh, what a gorgeous city.
We really explored it too, NAHHHT.
We attempted a walking tour (and bailed, because the tour guide was annoyingly enthusiastic), attempted a pub crawl (and bailed because there were 3 other people there - hooray for my acting skills, I faked being sick and we got our money back) and went on an actual pub crawl where we came back and found Guy passed out in the bathroom.

On one day Guy went to a concentration camp, so Trist and I did the complete opposite - went to the ZOO!
Ahhh that was a fun day, we saw polar bears, reindeers, bush dogs, a sleeping kangaroo, 20 giraffes, a baby gorilla, tiger cubs and heaps of other cool shit. We felt like little kids that day :)

baby gorilly

From Praga/Praha/Prague we caught an overnight train (something you have to do when in Eastern Europe) which was actually really clean, reasonably sized and thanks to Guy's night time cold and flu tablets a decent nights sleep.
That brought us to Krakow where we had a couple of days. We went on a walking tour (the whole thing this time) ate a lot of food and visited Auschwitz, the concentration camp. Oh my, it was so moving, and horrifying, and interesting. But I came back wanting to hug a puppy and play in the sunshine and see a rainbow. It's something you have to do though, as depressing as it was.

Auschwitz

Another train ride took me to Warsaw for a night, before my flight back to London, where I am right now.
This begins the job hunt - wish me luck!

Scattered Diamonds

Leaving Croatia was death. Our flight from Dubrovnik was delayed 3 hours, so we didn't leave until 2am.
We had an airport hotel booked in Zagreb, but as we got in at 3:30am, we didn't see any point in checking in.
So Guy and I trekked through the seediest city I've seen yet, in search of the train station.
We luckily managed to arrive 40 minutes before a train to Budapest, so after 7 hours on a dodgy Eastern European train we finally arrived in Hungary.

Someone must have felt sorry for us, because it was here we had the best 2 days of the trip.
Despite the hostel being up 5 flights of stairs, it was clean, the staff were super friendly and extremely helpful.
Sarah directed us to this little bistro for lunch, where I had a coffee and an amazing pepper crusted duck for under $10 Aussie. The first thing we learnt about Budapest is how cheap it is, such a relief for backpackers.

We thought we'd make the most of the afternoon by going to see some sites by the park, including a castle and the Thermal baths.
Which brought us to the evening's shenanigans. We were told to be ready at 8pm ON THE DOT and we were taken to a karaoke bar serving 2 euro cocktails until 9pm. Fun times all round.

With our limited time Guy and I decided we needed to smash a whole day of sightseeing, starting with a walking tour through the Pest side of the city (Buda and Pest are divided by the Danube) . Following that we walked along the river to find something called "Shoes". Basically, it is a line of lifelike shoe sculptures along the edge of the footpath next to the water. There are no signs or plaque, you just have to know the story, and thankfully I had Hitler nerd G-Rams with me. The shoes symbolise the possessions stolen from the Jews after they were shot into the Danube by the Nazi's. Seeing the tiny pair of children's really makes your heart melt.

To perk ourselves up, we hopped on the tram and headed to the Grand Central Market, a huge undercover market selling all kinds meat, fruit, veg and desserts with food stalls and souvenir shops upstairs. Guy frothed at the mouth buying a leather wallet for 13 euro.

Next, we revisited the Basilica, after passing it during the walking tour. It is without a doubt the most beautiful building I've ever seen, inside and out. I can't even explain to you how intricate the structure was, or how beautiful the paintings were inside. We made our way up to the balcony as well, to have a panoramic view of the city.

Ceiling of the Basilica

Our final stop before dragging our tired asses back to the hostel was the Terror House. Located on one of the main streets, in previously served as headquarters for both the Nazis and Soviets. The exhibition they have in place explains how these eras effected Hungary and its people. Its such an odd thing to be excited about but it really was an amazing experience. The exhibition was put together so well, so much effort had been put in to explain the terrible history

As we had to get up at 4am, to make our train to get to prague we wisely chose to opt of the dress up/piss up going on at the hostel (even though I did get a little jelly seeing them all walk out, ridiculous dressed). Instead we walked to the Jewish quarter to a bar recommended by the hostel, Szimpla. It was incredible, just what Perth bars are trying to do - totally eclectic with random shit everywhere.

We're now in Prague, reunited with Trist. Hooray!

P.s. my laptop has finally died and won't let me on the net, so until I buy an android my blog posts won't be as regular! Sorry kids, I'll update as soon as I can.

P.p.s. If you know the band that relates to the title of this post, you get a prize. Or you'll understand why I chose it, either one.

Nobody likes a bogan

Sorry, it's been a while, I've been on a boat.

This little tale begins a week ago, last friday to be precise.
One of the guys that works at the Astor (the hostel I've stayed in a fair bit in London) was having a party for his birthday.
In the largest room at a super nice hotel in Kensington. To say the room was nice is a freaking understatement, and as I'm sure you can imagine we had the best night - all dressed up, taking ridiculous snaps, eating amazing food and drinking just that little too much.


COLON!

 At the time Guy and I thought it would be a good idea to pull an all nighter and then take a 6am flight to Split, Croatia.
After the taxi, coach, flight and bus to get to our boat we basically just died.
After we surfaced we had a week long trip sailing through Croatia.
We left from Split (sozza no photo's due to actually being comatose) and sailed into Makarska, which we basically slept through.

Day 2, after a gooooooood sleep Guy and I were a little more awake and social. We hopped off the boat at an island called Brac. The day was fairly chilled - just strolling around the markets, seeing a beach and having a meal with a few people from the boat.

Stop 3 was an island called Vis where a small group of us (Gayle a New Yorker, Mikael from Denmark and Pip from Melbourne) walked to an adorable secluded beach, had a cheese and wine stop and went out for a seafood dinner. Was loverrrrly!

Tiniest church in Vis

Our next island was Hvar, a supposed party island. After spending all day cooped up on the boat, Gayle, Guy and I took a hike up to the fortress to get some of the best views I've seen in my life. Later on the whole boat went to dinner at a fancy shmancy restaurant - 4 course seafood dinner thankyou very much.
Aaaand of course, we were dragged out to the "nightlife" - basically the leedy crossed with the cott, but it was a pretty fun night.

"Photo's don't do justice!"

The next couple of days were smaller islands - Korcula, which is Marco Polo's supposed birthplace and Mjet, where we rode around a beautiful National Park.

View from Marco Polo Tower

As soon as we got into Dubrovnik us 3 bailed to a hostel (a day sooner than the cruise ended) which brings me to the downside of the week.
Our boat was occupied 95% aussies, 90% aussie bogans. Some of the guys woke up one morning and had breakfast beers at 8am. The first night Gayle got to hear a guy having "some fun" with a girl right next door to her, and then another special lady an hour later.
Basicallyyyy.. Croatia is amazing. The islands were gorgeous, some of the prettiest sites I've ever seen.
BUT every experience was ruined by the idiots on the boat, I wouldn't recommend Sail Croatia to anyone, do it all yourself.

Now we are in Dubrovnik, in the best hostel I've stayed in with an amazing view. We've spent some time in the Old Town and did a quick visit to Lukrom, another little island today.
We have tomorrow to kill chilling on a beach somewhere before we head off again - which might be enough time before I melt, I forgot what heat feels like!

From where you'd rather be

For all the festival heads.

Sorry guys, been a bit M.I.A lately.
So after Edinburgh Guy and I took a little trip to Manchester on our way down to London.
Not heaps to report, as there isn't much to do, but it's one of those cities that you know would be amazing to live in. The area we were staying in was full of cute cafe's, bars and vintage shops.
Plus I just kept thinking of Katie while I was there :)

A couple of days in London (including meeting up with Gareth and a hugely epic night where a whole group of us danced like crazy people at the Notting Hill Arts Club) brought me to Leeds.

Before I start this story, let me introduce Jill. Here she is:

At bullshit AM, still a little drunk we dragged ourselves to the bus station, to then sit on a bus for 4.5 hours, to then make our way through Leeds city, to then sit on a bus for 45 minutes, to then carry all our camping gear to a suitable camping ground, to then set up the tent and die.

The next three days were filled with rain and mud and tesco's and yorkshire pudding and not eating burgers and limited sleep - but they were good days.

The list of bands we saw were including but not limited to:

Best Coast

Friendly Fires

Muse (including a fireshow and fireworks)

Does it Offend You, Yeah?

The Naked and Famous

Foster the People

Metronomy

The Vaccines

Digitalism

Two Door Cinema Club

The Kills

The National

The Strokes

After another deathy deathy bus ride where we tried to think of all the different types of ways we could get home if we had super powers we are back the hostel, in recover mode.

With Guy and Tristan in Berlin I have a couple of days to chill out here with Gareth and the rest of the hostel crew.

I'm Harry, Harry Potter.

So where did I leave you guys last? Just seen the Museum yeah?
Right, from there we ventured out and caught some comedy - some absolutely hilarious, some extremely crap that we walked out of.
The best was a couple of british girls that reminded us of Lucy on speed, one of which had us singing the following lyrics:
"Soo piss on my face and feel no shame,
You don't even have to remember my name,
Your facebook status doesn't have to chaaange"

Yesterday was a deliciously lazy day during which the boys napped for about 4 hours and I watched that much of TV. Sometimes you just need a catch up, stop judging us!

I feel like justifying - today we accomplished the final checkpoints on our list.
We had coffee in the cafe that J.K Rowling wrote Harry Potter in, named 'The Elephant House'.
It was a long wait, but worth it for a decent cup of coffee!

We caught some more comedy and then wandered through the cemetary in which J.K Rowling found some characters names - including Professor McGonagall and Tom Riddle.

Now we're about to head to a pub for dinner and then to a theatre performance for our last night as a group.
Tristan (aka. Guy and Hannah buffer) is heading off to Copenhagen tomorrow to start his year of Uni Exchange.
Seeya later Edinburgh, you've been lovely. Seeya later Trist, you've been bareable.

Soup, soup, a tasty soup, soup.

Scotland is full of rain, and jumpers, and umbrellas and soup cravings.
But I'm kind of really loving it.

The city is buzzing at the moment, because the Fringe Festival is on.
Tristan booked us into an apartment, that is absolute heaven after a few weeks in hostels.
This week we've been cooking dinner and watching tv and not having to lock up our stuff everyday, such luxuries!
Our first day here we (Tristan, Guy, Myself and a girl Trist met in Amsterdam - Sallie) went on a walking tour through the city and then through the undeground vaults that used to house all the homeless.
That night we attempted to see some comedy but as there was a break in gigs the three drunkys took over the microphone. I left them upstairs telling knock knock jokes, and when I came back 15 minutes later Guy had his ipod hooked up, was singing into the microphone as Tristan and Sallie were dancing around like mental patients. It was pretty entertaining.

Scott Monument

Over the last few days we've had Sallie's boyfriend meet up with us, visited the Edinburgh Castle, seen The Inbetweeners movie and went to the National Museum of Scotland - where we saw Dolly the first cloned sheep!
We've still got a few more days here to see some more of the Fringe and to chill out in this adorable apartment :)

View from Edinburgh Castle

Dolly!

Shots, shots, shots, shots, shots, shots everybody!

Last wednesday the one and only Guy Ramsay landed in London.
At 7am I met him in the hostel lobby and we then spent the day with the rest of the crew riding around London showing him the touristy sights.
It was also Tristan's 19th birthday which meant a pub lunch and a night of drinking and dancing at a bar in Notting Hill. What I remember of the night was awesome! "lol jokes" ;)

The next day revolved around food, and then seeing Wicked at night. OH MY GOD, it was amazing.
"Defying Gravity" gave me goosebumps and almost produced tears.
Even the three guys that came with us, Guy, Trist and Braiden, enjoyed it.

Friday we returned to Borough markets and bought too much and ate too much, but as always it was amazing. Friday night = beer olympics, but after we talked it up heaps, it OF COURSE went to shit. Too many people were there and then somehow a massively annoying band started up while we were trying to play.

Yesterday Guy and I took a day trip down to Sittingbourne so he could meet the family and I could dump some clothes that I don't want to carry around with me. We got stuffed with cake and tea and burritos and then were sent off with scones wrapped up. Ahhh I love Allison!
One of the girls was having going away drinks (as she is heaidng back home) so we trecked out to Shoreditch to a really cool little bar for a few drinks.
An early morning today, and we were on a train to Edinburgh - where we are now chilling out in the best apartment ever!
I'm so stoked to be here for a week.
For now we are absolutely exhausted, so we will take a night to recover and then check out the sights tomorrow as well as soaking up all that the Fringe Festival has to offer.

I'm in London, still.

Firstly, yes we are fine. We seem to be in the only area not affected by the riots. But even walking around the city during the day, we haven't seen anything.

Now backing up a few days, I had 3 nights in Cork not too long ago.
They were chilled out and uneventful. The highlight was my day trip to Blarney castle.
I kissed the Blarney stone, which is meant to give you the gift of the gab. Not sure it worked for me though!
The gardens surrounding the castle were absolutely incredible, like something out of a children's fairy book.

Since then I flew into London and checked into the Astor Hyde Park, my favourite hostel so far.
Apart from having to lug my suitcase up 4 flights of stairs because there's no lift, this place is awesome.
There's always stuff going on and people to talk to, but it's kinda made me way too relaxed.
We have ended up hanging out here a little too much, and leaving the hostel later than we should.
After a couple of messy nights, including one where I lost my wallet (never, fear I went to the police station and it was there with everything still inside!) we decided to be a little more active.
Over the last couple of days I have visited Westminster briefly, had coffee in Camden, hunted for Vans in Covent Garden, attempted a walking tour of London Street Art, bought vans in Oxford street and am now staying in tonight with a microwave meal to avoid the riots.

I would upload photo's but my camera cord in 4 floors up, and you all know me well enough to know that I'm too lazy to get it. Just check facebook later! ;)

And I lost my heart to a Galway girl

Everyday I love Ireland more and more.

On Monday I hopped on another tour bus (this one was a lot better than last time) heading to the Cliffs of Moher. It was driven by an Irishman named Desmond, who was so hard to understand but pretty entertaining nonetheless. On the way back he was singing along to the Irish CD he had in.
We made so many stops I can't even remember them all, but at around 2pm we got to the cliffs.
They were pretty spectacular, and I had my camera fully charged this time.

Yesterday I sat on a bus for 4 hours travelling to cork. My first impression of the city was pretty interesting.
On my way down to the city to meet up with a girl I'd met in Galway, I had a drunken Irishman follow me asking me about the weather in Darwin and then I saw a guy take a swing at a girl, which then turned into a brawl that the Garda had to come break up.
But after that we had a couple of drinks at a pub with the friendliest barman and a fantastic band - so hopefully it's all up from here.

Why can't I be the cute, carefree Irish guy who sings all the time?

Since my last post I've swapped cities a couple of times.

From Dublin Tristan and I caught the train up to Belfast, but because we organised it separately we stayed at different hostels.

Mine was run by a couple of Irish brothers who had a french bulldog called Buju running around begging for food.

Tristan's was run by aussies who blurred the line between hostel guests and staff.
I think I may have hung out there more than my own hostel, but they couldn't have cared less.

The first night we took part in a pub crawl run by the manager of Trist's hostel. And by "ran by" I mean he took us to a few pubs and a club and drank more than any of us. It was so so good :)

We met, in total, about 27657 people from Perth and then a canadian Bryan who actually told me he was from Canadia.

The following day the only thing I achieved was going on the Black Cab tour - 7 of us were driven around in a cab and shown around Belfast whilst being explained the history of the Catholic/Protestant issues of late.

I had a chilled night, just hanging out in the hostel chatting to people, because we had organised to do the Giant's Causeway tour the next day.

We payed 25euro for this day long tour to take us up to the Causeway, with a few pointless stops on the way. The tour guide was annoying as hell and the bus was full of tourists, but the Causeway itself was absolutely lovely. We took a stop on the way back at the rope bridge which we walked to but not on, and the views were breathtaking. Cliff faces with beautiful beaches beneath with crystal clear water that you could see down south in WA.

And guess which day my camera batteries decided to die.

The Peace Wall

Yesterday, I spent another day on trains travelling from Belfast to Galway, via Dublin. In my hostel were three gorgeous Dubliners, named Kate, Rochine and Orla, who took me out for a night in Galway. OH MY GOD. The races are on at the moment, so the club was packed with seedy, drunk irish guys who kinda put me off and I headed home early.

Today I walked around the town sitting in cafe's, doing a little shopping and taking it all in. Tonight I'm going to take it easy, because tomorrow I'm going to see the Cliffs of Moher.

It's safe to say, I have fallen in love with Ireland and I can't believe I only have 5 more days here!

Ah the luck of the irish!

I loved Florence, even though we weren't there very long and didn't see as much as we should have. The hostel was so cute, and we chatted to some very interesting people.
We climbed 414 stairs at the Cathedral Tower and saw a 360̊ view of Florence.
We ate overpriced gelato and visited this specific supermarket about 38 times.
We drank Jonathon's grandfather's homemade red wine and bought snacks for his dog, Morgan. It was a really good couple of days.

Jonathan, Trist and I

Sunday we woke up early and spent the whole day travelling.
Due to booking flights after a few drinks, we ended up catching a:
taxi to Florence train station

Coach to Pisa Airport
Flight to Manchester Airport (which is epic by the way)

Flight to Dublin Airport
Coach to Dublin train station

and a tram to our hostel.

Which is huge, almost too big. The corridors of each floor remind me of a hotel and the bar/lounge area is way too big for everyone to socialise because we're so spaced out.
I still like it here, we had a proper Irish pub meal that night and then visited the Guinness Storehouse yesterday, followed by a pub crawl last night - totally tame because there were 4 people on it :|

Today we did the walking tour and saw the whole city, then spent a few hours just sitting in a pub talking to people we'd met.
And now I need to figure out my next move - maybe up to Belfast?

Self-explanatory

Trinity College

P.S. Guy, I can't believe we fooled you. Of course I wouldn't go to Croatia without you.

Mi Scusi, mi scusi

Yep, I'm in Italy.
A couple of days ago I jumped on a plane to Venice to meet up with Tristan.
I got in really late so we just hung out at a bar near the hostel - if you could even call it that.
It was basically an empty uni dorm with no wi-fi and a crazy nonna staying next to us.
The next day we just walked around the town, ate pasta and gelato and then spent 2 hours using a random shop's wi-fi trying to sort out our next plan.
This morning we started walking down to the vaporetto to get back to the train station to discover that all the drivers were on strike. After lugging our stuff around for far too long we met some poms and shared a water taxi there.

And now we're in Florence in the complete opposite hostel to where we just came from.
It's run by this adorable italian man, Jonathan, who treats us like family.
He spent 20 minutes running through where all the good shops, museums, restaurants and bars are.

We already like Florence better than Venice, purely based on the supermarket we just went to.
Pretty keen to check the rest of it out tomorrow!