After spending a good 6hrs trying to find a website for the Greek ferry schedules back home, it couldn't have been any easier organising it from here... you jump off the plane, go to the ticket office, catch a 1 hr bus trip for E3 for Piraues port and you are on your way. The ferry to Santorini cost E30... but we ended up on the 8hr ferry. If you have no other choice, it's best to get on early otherwise you ended up trying to sleep on plastic chairs on the top deck. Of course, if you don't ask, you don't get and for an extra E10 you can sit on comfy seats that are like first class plane seats.

 

We arrived in Santorini around 1:30am, again with no where to stay. Again, no worries. There are people flogging off spare rooms and we were lucky enough to hook up with Lefteris, a local from Santorini who ran the Hotel Antonia in the main area of Fira - within 100m of everything except the beach. E45 per night and he basically told us where to go, what to pay, etc.

 

We were only supposed to spend 2 nights in Santorini, but ended up spending 4... there were an even number of highlights/lowlights...

- hired ATV buggies to get around the island. Cost E15 per day but allowed us to go to Perissa Beach with the black sand.

- hung out every night at the local Irish Bar pertty much until close. This is where we kind of felt like local tourists, as you would run into the same people every night.

- The Horse killed the PUA stakes. The Bear was sarged, though he refuses to believe it.

- Watched the Aus v Japan game with about 5-6 other Aussies. They all had tix to the Brazil game in Munich. We met 7 Uruguayan girls travelling the night before who wanted Japan to win... they hated us for beating them, but they reckon most men they meet are gay, except for Australians, so they love us.

- On our "last" night, we stayed awake and visited what we thought was going to be an apartment with a view... it turned out to be cliff-face house with multiple rooms, terraces and mezzanine levels. One of the most amazing places I've seen. The powers of seduction were strong here and rightly so - only pictures can tell the story. But some of us are stronger than others... haha

- Supposed to catch a ferry to Ios after the all-nighter. We got on the ferry but slept through the stop... so we were on our way to another unknown island, then U-turn to Santorini. All up a 10hr round trip (luckily it only cost E7). A few others on the same ferry also missed it and they weren't even asleep. Bears camera went missing, most likely stolen, on the ferry right from under us when we were sleeping. This entire episode was a dogs breakfast - lucky I feel asleep (passed out) for a few hours as it was pretty choppy on the water apparently. We ended spending an extra night - when we got back to Santorini, Lefteris from the hotel was waiting there, saw us, asked "What happened?" and we stayed in the same room.

 

So we finally made to Ios (although we nearly slept thru our alarm to catch the 9am ferry after getting back from what was supposed to be a quiet night at 5am), where I reckon 50% of the people are Australian - basically schoolies week, but without the older male predators... unless you consider 32 to be old.

 

 

In keeping with our complete disregard for organising anything in advance, we arrived in Rome at 2am on Thursday 8th, attempting to look for a hotel near the airport. We planned on dropping the car off and not even attempting to drive in the main area. At 4am we found a room for E110. I still have no idea where it was as we drove around in circles for 2hrs. Given we had only slept about 3hrs the night before, we really needed a bed to crash in.

 

We were glad to get rid of the car as it was becoming a burden... and just to prove so it took another 3hrs to find the drop-off point. The instructions we were given were appalling, we had to fill the car up twice as we ran low on fuel and payed a toll and U-turned to pay again just to get back on the right direction. We didn't tell them about the damage I had supposedly caused to the front of the car, but I fessed up about the chocolate milk I had spilt all over the back floor seat (that had started to mould cos we tried to cover it up with paper). Thankfully by 2pm, we were catching a train to Termini Station.

 

Rome isn't as dirty or shitty as most people have told me. The historical sites, etc. are pretty mindblowing and it's a shame we only visited rather than toured the Colosseum and Vatican City. Did the usual visit to Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain via the get on/off bus tour. We stayed at a hotel near the Maria Maggiore for E140 per night with the best breakfast we've had so far... even better is that we'd steal croissants in the middle of the night when we were hungry.

 

I've worked out that the 3 of us must stand-out like dogs balls for Pub Crawls... we have always had 2-3 people come up to per city flogging their nights. And of course, the other boyz were happy to oblige. Friday night in Rome + pub crawls is probably not something you would do in Melbourne... it would be like hanging out the front of Flinders Street Station at night, except anyone and everyone can drink and throw bottles around as much as they like. What should have been a 1am finish ended up finishing at 5am.

 

We had a 9:15am flight to Athens, so the plan was get out of the door by 7am, catch train from Termini at 7:20am and check in 60 min early as we didn't know how early we were supposed to be. Good plan. Once Bear finished packing, it was 7:15am - so taxi had to caught. By 7:30am, he realised he didn't have his passport. 30 minutes later he found it hidden between items of clothing. He has had a constant habit of hiding his shit all over the room. So by 8am we were heading to the airport, thinking we'd missed check-in for sure. As it turns out, we made it with 5 mins to spare.

 

 

I am probably going to be the first to say Florence is overrated... or maybe I've been spoilt so far on this holiday. Sure it has the piazzas and laneways, but didn't find anything that set it apart from any other cities we have visited. Went on the usual bus tour for E20 but didn't visit any museums or anything. As has become customary thus far, found the only pub crawl in Florence... and it proved to be the worst one. No stories to tell here depending on which whose perspective you look at it from.

 

Have also found Florence to be one of the most conservative cities so far (Italy in general). Haven't been able to work out the cost of sitting outside whilst eating, service fees, etc. One minute we are charged E70 for an average lunch, the next E30 for a decent dinner. Italy also has the strangest dunnies... weird flushers, cramped spaces, some on an angle, ellipitical bowls, some high, some low. We have called them skidmark dunnies, as you shit directly onto the bowl, not in the water. Anyway, it was important enough to share this point.

 

Left Florence on Wed 7th to drive to Pisa, but didn't get there until around 4:30pm. Leaning Tower is impressive... you don't get a full visual until you actually see it and how pronounced the lean is. Did the usual touristy "my-cock-is-the-leaning-tower-pictures", had something to eat and left Pisa around 9:30pm, expecting a 2-3 hour drive to Rome. As we took the coastal route, it ended up taking an extra 2 hrs... probably longer if Bear hadn't clocked up 200km/hr on the autostrada.

 

In keeping with bizarre road trip incidents, we stopped at a diner on the way... I went to the toilet and these 2 cops followed me in, looking under toilet doors and opening them to see if anyone else was there. I got out of there pretty quickly...

 

Time to head off... catching a ferry to Santorini now, so will update on Rome next. I can say that I wish I spent more time in Rome as I was impressed, but maybe that's because I had lowered my expectations based on their feedback and experience. Strangely enough, we did not experience one pickpocket attempt or scam of some sort.

 

Bye for now.

 

Decided to stay an extra night in Barcelona... love this place. Ended up doing another pub crawl on the Thurs night, which ended any plans for an early morning departure. That and Bears new luvball status. Kind of like a Lost in Translation moment - but thats not my story to tell.

 

Before I continue, if any punctutation or spelling is out of order, its cos of this farken Italian keyboard... the letters are OK, unlike in France, but the symbols and characters are all over the place.

 

Anyway, on this pub crawl there were heaps more Aussies. Met a chick who turned out to be my cousins primary school teacher last year. The Horse, Bear and Dog were all pre-occupied this evening, so this is just a reminder to tell those who need to know what happened on this particular evening.

 

A pickpocket attempt was made when I got back to the hotel... I call it the Football Tackle technique. Again I was hip to the scam though... when they know that you know what they are trying to do, its weird... they kind of just walk away as if to say its cool, hey I tried. Good thing I told Bear about it as someone else tried it on him later that night.

 

Despite only 2hrs sleep the night before, Bear needed a wingman, so obliged and ended up at a more local club called Skodo in the Barceloneta area later that night. Left Saturday afternoon to Girona to visit the Dali Museum... except we got there too late in the arvo, so decided to stay in Figurues for the night.

 

Dali was nothing really special... or not as trippy as I expected. We then had dinner at a town called Empuror Brava, kind of like a Port Douglas type township. I think we were avoiding the 950km overnight drive to Florence (decided to skip Milan). We ended up leaving at midnight and didnt arrive until around 2pm. Didnt realise Italy was so hilly... but havent really hit the crazy driving yet.

 

Found a garage to park the car (20e) and he recommended a place to stay for 100e, within 5 minute walk of the central area. After first thinking this place looked like a shithole, its grown on me... a lot of American tourists and students studying here. Price of stuff is not too bad, but internet access is expensive... around 4e an hour.

 

Time to burn some photos so i dont lose all those photo and video memories... Next stop is Rome in about 2 days.

 

Ciao. 

Left San Sebastian on Sat 27th for 8 hr drive to Barcelona... to avoid the tolls we took the scenic route, which was worth it. Stopped at a few villages and locations, but otherwise uneventful.

 

Got to Barcelona around midnight. We were pulled over on the way in by a group of men flashing ID cards. Had no idea who they were and Bear didn´t want to stop as there were no sirens. One guy got out and asked for our passports, but we didn´t want to hand them over. He asked us if we were "Romanian" and when we said no, he let us go. Weird tripped out shit. Not a good start.

 

Didn´t know where to stay and Barcelona is huge. Everywhere we asked was booked out, so we did the next best thing at 3am in the morning... we stayed overnight in a car park.

 

Our mission was to find a place in the morning, which we booked for 2 nights for €80. After looking around, we decided to move into the Bari Gotic area - would recomment this to anyone. Ended up at a "gay-friendly" hotel €105 inc breakfast), close to all the bars, shopping, restaurants, etc. Again, everything pretty much closes at 2pm and re-opens at around 5pm.

 

Could easily imagine living in Barcelona... the streets are wide and the city is mostly a grid and traffic seems a bit more controlled here. The city stinks a bit like burst sewerage pipes underground that haven´t been fixed. Las Ramblas is the tourist strip, but is more like a hectic Swanston Street. They always wash the street down every night.

 

Other Barcelona highlights/lowlights:

- went on bus tour for €22 for 2 days but generally boring (not as good as Paris). City is too big and landmarks are too spread out. Saw examples of Gaudi, Sagrada Familia, etc. and plan on visiting Dali Museum in Girona.

- gypsy tried to steal my mobile phone in a stealth 3 pronged attack. I saw what was happening and grabbed her hand and the newspaper she was trying to shove into my face.

- went on pub crawl (I know I don´t drink, so how ironic) visiting 4 bars and 1 club). Heaps of American travellers here.

- ran into the Dog walking along Las Ramblas at 3:30am. Chances of that happening virtually zero.

- Saw Red Hot Chili Peppers at Palau St Jordi on 31st. Not a hug fan but can appreciate their ability to work the crowd. They obviously don´t do encores here cos they finished, walked off stage and that was it. Only recognised about 20% of the songs. Funniest bit was outside, where hawkers flog off pirate t-shirts and try to do it within 10 minutes before security pushes them away.

- Visited the Nou Camp stadium, which doesn´t look impressive at all from the outside.

 

Time is running out - plan to head to Monte Carlo next for 1 night. Sure there were other things that have happened, but can´t remember!

 

Adios.

 

Got to San Sebastian around 8am on Wed 24th. Drove around looking for a place to stay and found a nice place with views over the town for €80 inc breakfast. It was a family run business - Ignatius was really helpful and would recommend the place to anyone.

 

First thing we did was head to the beach to get a tan... and check out the topless sunbaking. This was more of a chill-out pitstop after the first hectic 6-7 days. Spent quite a bit of time on the beach and checking out the food and nightlife. The old part of town was where we hung out the most with it´s typical euro laneways and tapas bars. Everything closes between 2-4pm, restaurants open around 7pm, tapas bars around 9pm-12am and other bars from 12am onwards.

 

Went for a coastal drive to a village called Getaria, where they cook fish on huge BBQ grills, but opted for the 1kg veal between 3 of us. Opted to stay an extra night to really wind down, than face the 8hr drive to Barcelona.

 

Did a lot of walking and sunbaking, so am nice and brown now... the weather was only 20 degrees. The local girls in this area all look like men though... mullet hairdos with straight fringes and huge jawlines. Have been assured that this is typical of the Basque region and that Barcelona will be better. Am losing track of things that are happening as things are pretty hectic, but we do plan on spending 6 days in Barcelona.

Sorry for this for being disjointed... hard to keep up to date. Am currently at an all you can eat place in Barcelona (€9.20) which includes free internet.

 

PARIS

Did all the touristy things... most impressed with the Louvre, even though we were only there for 2 hours and probably on saw about 15% of the place. Other highlights and things that happened...

- did the bus tour and Seine River cruise... better off doing the cruise first but get them out the way early in the piece so you can really get a full impression of how big the city is

- weather was shit. cold and rainy

- left Paris at about 2:30 pm on Tues 23rd and stopped by Chateau Versaille for about 90 min. Free to view gardens, but the whole building is undergoing restoration until 2008, so it ruins the facade. By the time we left it was 6pm, so a car sleep was on the cards as San Sebatian was about 8hrs away. Racked up about €50 in tolls on the way to Spain.

-  got to Bordeaux at about midnight, but it was a ghost town and didn´t want to get too far off the track, so basically skipped it.

- pulled over into a truck stop (which are pretty frequent) and decided to sleep in the car at about 4am... worst sleep ever and it was about 1 degree outside. Bear was cramped like Gollum in the back seat, while Horse and I were squirming in the front  - probably slept about 1 hour. Overnight, one of the trucks was robbed and the empty boxes of LCD screens were thrown in the toilet behind us.

 

Overall, Paris is pretty awe inspiring and really needed 5-6 days to get around and visit. Despite what popular opinion and what I had heard, generally found chatting/ordering/conversing with the locals was fine, so long as we addressed them with Bonjour/Bonsoir and made some attempt to understand what they were saying.

 

Food place is about to close, so better eat some vegetable greens and fruit whilst I still have the chance...

 

About to leave San Sebastian after 3 days and heading down to Barcelona - plan is to stay there for the next 6-7 days. Haven´t time to upload photos and it costs about €10 to burn back-ups onto CD. Hopefully stuff will be cheaper in Barcelona. Next update will be in a couple of days.

We spent an extra night in Brussels - the city has a peaceful vibe and it´s a good warm-up to Paris.

 

Got stuck trying to get out of Amsterdam in peak hour... took 3hrs to Breda (only 50 kms away), but managed to clock 150km/hr on the way. We had no idea where to stay, so had to drive around Brussels looking for "spots". What a fucking nightmare... did a Chevy Chase on at least 1 roundabout (Bear also did one in Paris). Completely drained any physical and mental energy I had, especially after making a panic turn and ended up in the ghettos of Brussels.

 

Brussels is more than than just Jean Claude Van Damme, Tin Tin, waffles and chocolate... it´s actually relaxed city with great gothic style architecture. There was a jazz marathon on and we walked the streets and alley ways of the restaurant and shopping districts. It´s cold though - only gets up to 20 degrees in summer and it rained most of the time here. That didn´t stop us going a bus tour and going out... on last night we were looking for somewhere to go out and ran into these 2 American girls from California... we found a place called Delirium which apparently has the world record for serving the most brands of beer. They then suggested a club called FUSE, but we ended up ditching them to go to a small laneway bar. Decided to go to Fuse afterwards at about 1am. The thing I´ve realised about locals here is the concept of time, distance and directions is completely foreign to them - fair enough an obscure bar/club, but even what could be considered to be tourist landmarks... but that´s a different story.

 

Get to Fuse at about 2am - costs E20 to get in as Laurent Garnier was playing (Miss Kittin the following week)... but it was stinking hot and heaps of sweaty guys around. They even charged you E50 cents to use the toilet (toilet tipping seems quite popular). Left after 30 minutes.

 

PARIS

Bear had the honour of driving to Paris. Was raining hard when we got there and again had no idea where to stay. Got off at St Denis based on Horse´s poor navigational skills. Drove around for another fucking hours or so until we stopped at a servo where the guy suggested staying around Le Republique.

 

Found a hotel at around 10pm for E80 per night, but had to find somewhere to park the car (ended up costing E40 for a day and a half). Walked to Notre Dame and River Seine at midnight and got something to eat. Planned to have an early one, but again, American chicks made their presence felt...

 

We were eating and saw 2 girls being hassled by some bar staff about something... who knows what was going on but they were getting ripped off. They sought solace in us being able to speak English and "protect" them from the dodgy Parisien elements (and there were lots of them).

 

So when I look back on Paris I can check off a number of things we wanted to do... Notre Dame? Check. Eiffel Tower? Check. Arc de Triomphe? Check. Paris Gay Bar? Check. We ended up going to this place called "Queens" on Champs Elysee with the 2 Alabama girls. We walk in the front and Horse says "I just saw 2 guys pashing..." I hear Madonna playing on the dance floor. Muscle tops and shaped eyebrows everywhere. Podium dancing. It was funny in hindsight, but I reckon the guy who recommended the club to us deliberately told us go there.

 

Time to head off... will up date later.

 

 

Phew... finally have found the time to put in a decent entry... starting from the beginning, as there have been a few stories to tell.

 

MELBOURNE TO SINGAPORE

7 hour Qantas flight. For some reason I was seated separately from Bear and Horse, however I did have two seats to myself. Bear managed to convince the guy next to him to move, so I said goodbye to Bill and Pam from Adelaide ("We hope the person who sits here next is as lovely as you...") and my luxurious seat to a cramped window seat next to the Horse. Bear had the worst of it as I think the guy in front of him had the super Lazy-Boy back extender seat. Tried to watch March of the Penguins, but watching movies on a plane is too distracting.

 

SINGAPORE TO LONDON

Singapore Airport is pretty impressive and it was a shame we were only there for 45 min. We took a BA flight to Heathrow for another 14 hours - again was seated separately and there was nothing that could be done. Slept for about 6 hours and watched Match Point and other crappy repeated programs. Heavy turbulence over Pakistan and Russia which made me start to think watching Air Crash Investigations on TV was not such a good idea (thanks for that Simon)

 

LONDON TO AMSTERDAM

2 hour stopover in Heathrow, which is a shit looking airport. It looked cold and cloudy in London, so it was 2 hrs too long. Flight was delayed for about 15 minutes as the "landing gear" had malfunctioned and in between the automated safety demonstration, the power cut out/reset (thinking Air Crash Investigation again...). Landed in Amsterdam at about 10am on Wed 16th.

 

AMSTERDAM

Landed at Amsterdam airport and had no idea what to do. Asked a stranger whether it was better to catch a taxi or train to the city.. E3.6 vs E30 for the taxi we opted for the former. The 19.25kg backpack was killing my back, but the trains here are really comfortable. Got to Centraal Station and followed the instructions to the hotel on the tram - the first thing that strikes you are the bicycles, they are everywhere. Virtually no cars and the bikes rule the road.

 

Decided to walk and find our way back. There is a really relaxed vibe in Amsterdam and I´m sure there are plenty of tourists which helps. Everyone speaks English anyway, so it´s not too hard finding your way around. When a city builds it´s reputation on dope, what else could you expect. Of course it is also known for it´s architecture, canals and red light district, but we each found a belonging to certain food items. Bear loved the fried chicken, I loved a drink called Chocomel (called Cecemel in France) and Horse... well he just loved the weed. And of course, that was the first thing we sought out to do.

 

You basically go into a coffee shop and order off the menu - we visited the Grasshopper, Blues Brothers, Cafe 420 (where we watched the Euro final), Jolly Joker... product names like Bubblegum, Shiva, NLX, Thai Buddha... and the rest is a blur.

 

So we stumbled across the Red Light District with the women offering their services from building windows and doors for E50. The rule in this area is don´t stand still, unless you want to be offered drugs by the dealers. There are no police around, but everything still seems safe and under control (though Bear and Horse might beg to differ after a night out). Went to this weird caberet sex show at Casa Rosso Theatre for E30, visited the Heinekin Brewery amongst other things. Left Amsterdam on Friday and went to Schipol Airport to pick up the Peugeot lease car.

 

We get to the airport and ask around. This lady tells me to look for this man or woman in high heels ("I´m not sure what he or she is..."). So we wait for about 45 minutes and in he comes... Ru Paul in some kind of pre-trans-sexual op. He had this red hair, with a red jacket, white pants, pink high heels and orange finger nails. We´re thinking what the fark is going on here, but he took us to pick up the car about 10 minutes from the airport.

 

Will update later on the rest of the trip with a condensed version... waiting for the other guys to finish and I´ve been here for 30 minutes already... by here I mean San Sebastian in the Spanish Basque region, about 20km from the Frnech border. Our plans changed a bit and we´ve decided to ditch Madrid. I´m sitting in a Brazilian internet cafe charging E1.80 an hour.

 

Only have 5 minutes to spare but need at least an hour to write... these are as much my memoirs as they are for you to read. Have been in Belgium for the last 2 days and about to head to Paris. Decided to stay the extra night here and check out the nightlife. There was a 3-day Jazz Festival on and we were staying a 5 minute walk from the city centre. Is also a good way to brush up on your French before heading there - it's also a beautiful with plenty of Gothic architecture and laneways. I drove the first leg to here - it took 2hrs from Amsterdam to Breda (only 50kms), and another hour or so to Brussels... doing 150km/hr constantly also helps, but have been tripping out on the road rules and roundabouts. Anyway, gotta go - will elaborate in France or Spain the next couple of days and upload some pics. See ya.

Just spent 30 minutes writing my next entry - and it logged me off before publishing... and the farken spacebar on this new PC doesn't work properly. No more time to write, but everything is pretty cool in Amsterdam - good vibe and safe so far. Will have to elaborate tomorrow and make phone calls as well.

 

Tracey, Phil... let Mum know I'll call tomorrow at a reasonable hour.

Consider this my first blog entry. I should know more about how this works, but never really understood why people would want to read what I write about anyway (or have the time to read other bloggers entries). So this is my attempt at keeping the people I know in the loop about the "Animal Kingdom's European Vacation".

 

Now, I don't want to be like Chevy Chase in National Lampoons and go round in circles at a roundabout (although I'm sure we'll do that just for fun - maybe in Paris)... I'll try and keep things short and balance what family and friends need to know and what parts of the trip they should know. As the Horse continually reinforces "What happens on the trip, stays on the trip..."

 

But it's MY blog and I'll indulge in whatever tales I wish to share - so long as you don't get bored with me crapping on. Feel free to comment and let me know what's going on back home... if you've gotten this far, then I'll consider you to be a part of my captive audience.