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