Brisvegas Adventurers

So the longest stay in any one place has so far been in Switzerland with 17 days spent here. That was a few more than was planned but my credit cards were damaged and Erika got a bit sick. This story is best told from the begining so here we go!

After a short flight from Prague to Geneva we jump on a train and head off to Brig to meet the Swiss friends I made so long ago. With an ice hockey game planned for the evening we are greeted at the train station by two grinning Swiss people!

The first ice hockey game was great, both Erika and I loved the sport and we managed to see another 4 games and our team entered the quater finals before we left. Erika picked up a team scarf on the last game and will hopefully carry the good luck winning streak with her while we continue our way around Europe.

So with the hockey done on to our next challenge! Skiing!! Sweet lordy lord that was some fun, the Swiss guys wanted to put me in the amatuer down hill race since all I could do was go straight and build up speed. After almost killing two of my instructors I began to pick up the basics with Erika already doing jumps by the time I could stop myself and turn right and left. By the third time we were comfortable with it but only on selected angles of decline.

Now having witnessed or enganging in two winter sports the next one was bob-sleding. Erika was to have no part in the fun but hurling down about a 1500m of snow is really quite fun. Now the bob-sleds I was using was not the typical metal bullet but a contraption that looks like a mini ski mobile without the engine and alot smaller! The first time wa a bit of a laugh with me almost hurling into a dog and destroying an igloo! But after that it was a lot of fun, leaning into the corners and flying off the track into 2m of snow is really fun. The best thing about it is that crashing does not hurt at all so when someone pulls at your steering ski's and sends you flying through the air it is very fun and very funny.

One of the more remarkable experiences was in a hot spring up in the mountains. After a 30 minute drive up a winding mountain pass we reach a little skiing village and the home of the Swiss hot spring. Now this place is amazing, you have something like 5 million litres of water flowing through this pool a day and it is a very refreshing 40 degrees - even when the snow is flalling right onto your face! After an impromtu attempt at a poolside snowman and doing some snow angels in a pair of shorts in -10 degree weather I jump back into the pool to warm up again. Throwing snowballs at the old people is something that is frowned apon, so dont do it! But hurling snow balls at each other is perfectly fine.

Carnival, or what the locals call 'Catch'. This is an excuse to stay intoxicated for almost 2 weeks if you follow it around to the nearby towns and villages. Imagine 15,000 people drinking and laughing in a tiny town center! Then add several large brass and drum bands roaming around belting out some really loud music, then on top of that have everyone dress up! Well I got really drunk along with the entire population of the town and caught a bus home in the early hours of the morning. It is a whole lot of fun and something we will never forget, mainly because we have photos!

One of the other great things about the Swiss people is the amount of alcohol and food they consume, it is incredible! Bottle of a wine with the entrè, two with the main, one with desert then some schnapps with the coffee! No wonder these people are neutral, they are too full and drunk to every lift a finger against anyone! Back to the food, after the ski mobile and the bob-sleding we all hop into an IGLOO!! and have some fondue (fondue is a big pot with melting cheese and wine). What an amazing place it was.

So with Switzerland wrapped up for another month when we go back there we are off to Italy!, but I will tell you about that later!

There are no photos this time but when we get to Ireland in 2 weeks I will proimise to put a lot up.

well hello everyone!!!!

i know it has been a ling time however access to the internet has been a little scarce since leaving paris....

So after paris, we headed to Amsterdam for 5 nights.... personally i loved amsterdam and not because of the special biscuits that you can get but it is genuinly a beautiful place.

Josh and i did 2 guided walking tours, the first of the city and learning about the history etc... and the miracle of Amsterdam (google it) very amusing story. It is fascinating there as nearly everyone and i mean everyone rides an old style push bike, most people have 3 bikes registered to their name too...
Something else that we thought hilarious was that in every fire truck contains a scuba diver!!!! due to the large array of canals running throughout and around the city, the rate of people having "a few too many" and falling into the canals is quite high.

The second tour was at night and of the red light district, very interesting to say the least. The working girls stand in windows and the men get to window shop!!!! and purchase if they like what they see.... Josh and i did quiet a bit of "prossie spotting" as you dont know exactly where these windows of opportiunity are located so we went searching for as many as we could!!!

We came across a few interesting people in Amsrerdam and all in all we had a great time...
Following our 5 days there, we headed to Berlin for 4 nights. Berlin is also an amazing place, however the main attraction here is the history. I particularly have a special interest in NAZI Germany, and we had the opportunity to see some of the historical sights that were in practice back in the war and some years after.

First we went to the Sachenhaussen concentration camp, here there is only 2 original buildings as the rest of it was rebuilt in 1962, however they have it there to remind the people of the deaths that occured and the mistreatings of thousands of innocent people there.
We stood in the gas chambers that were running in the camp and also saw the crematoriums that burned all of the people that were murdered. I could go on for ages about it, i will say that it did leave a certain space in my heart for all of those mistreated people and the torture they were put through and to actually go there was breathtaking....

The next day we did a walking tour of Berlin, we learnt about the separation of East and West Berlin and saw the remains of the famous Berlin wall. We saqw the site where Hitlers bunker was and about how he ended his own life..... Also a great, breathtaking history lesson had by both josh and I.
While in Berlin we had to decide where to go for a couple of days as we werent due in Switzerland until the 9th of Feb. We decided to go to Prague.

Arriving Prague, i must mention that we had the best hostel here! Although we were sharing with 10 other people, the room was like a hotel room, very clean and spacious. The bathroom was homely and each dorm had its own kitchen which was decked out with everything.
We chose Prague as my friend Belinda was due to move there from Oz, yes she packed up and left the place she knew as home and relocated to another country with a different language, currency and way of life (although her heritage is Czech - sorry Bel, had to mention it as i think u are awesome) so we though we could catch up with her after her arrival.
So venturing through the city looking for a pay phone that worked, we decided to locate an internet cafe and email Bel hoping that she was online. So we were walking up a street and who comes around the corner? BELINDA!!!!!!
So we spent the next couple of days together and learning about the culture here and wished Bel well and headed to Switzerland.......
to be continued .......

So as we have promised these are some of the photos we have taken on our journey so far, these will take you from Bath to Brussels and on to Paris!

We are going to Germany tomorrow so Erika will fill you in on what has been happening in a few days. I just added a video so make sure to go down to the bottom and have a look!

Here we have the Bath Abbey

The Manekin Pis

Bruges the plesant little town in Belgium

The Lake of Love and us

Us again, this time with the Effiel Tower above us

One of the many sculptures in the Lourve, Paris

Stairs, holy light shade Batman! We must have climbed 10's of thousands of stairs since first arriving in London up till now. They should have that as a tourist brochure - love stairs? COME TO EUROPE, we have shitloads.

So we are currently sitting in the common area of our hostel which is a 3 minute walk from the Moulin Rouge, fancy that hey! The street which it is on is pretty dodgy, full of strip joints and the like.

The street we are on is very nice though, full of little shops and a lovely little bakery which has the best Quiche I have ever eaten, there is also steamy hot bread sticks any time of the day which is very cool and tasty and cheap (which is very important). I made a €4 dinner tonight which everyone sitting around us was envious of in both terms of quality and price. The standard fare around us was canned food and fried eggs...

After Scotland we popped into a little town called Bath which was terriffic but bloody expensive, so after a few cruisy days and a comedy club evening we decided to get into cheap territory, ANYWHERE but the UK. A microwaved slice of Quiche and some cashews was all it took to go from Western England to the heart of Belgium - Brussels.

Sweet lordy lord it was cold there, we got about a reasonable amount on the first night as there were some South Korean guys sharing our room who were on a mission from their Government to see the entire city in one night. We left them after we visited the statue of a little boy taking a wizz, Manekin Pis to be exact. There are several legends aorund the origins of the kid but I think he was just a little shit taking a wee in the middle of the city and not some grand saviour!

We also popped into some other towns while in Belgium, Bruges and Gent which were both awesome places and the tour guide we went with was very cool and looked exactly like my uncle! Crazy stuff, so after having a cosy lunch in front of an open gas fire we finished off the tour and had a bit of a snooze on the way home on the bus.

So with some time to burn before Amsterdam we chose to head off to the only logical place when you have spare time, PARIS. Arriving in a country with a strange language was very daunting in Belgium but that was quickly forgotten here in Paris and we were cruising the metro with the best of them and eating some French sticks before you could say Yoplait (its French for yoghurt).

So after climbing to the top (with some slight assistance from a high speed lift) of the Eiffel tower in some seriously crazy winds and below zero temperatures, we rested. With the rest done and Erika calmed down sufficiently from the staggering height we pressed on to the bus straight back to the heated hostel. We had a nice little walk around the vicinity of the hostel looking for dinner, well it wasnt that nice but it was exciting all the same. Finally setteling on the finest piece of Quiche I have ever encountered and some bread sticks along with some water and ham on the floor of our room, it was great fun (being serious there too!).

Coming to a close today we went and visited the Lourve (pronounced luve) which was mind blowing. The place is so huge and is on such a grand scale, nothing I have seen in Australia comes close to being a single room of this place. Around 7 hours later we completed about 70% of the place but I blame the fact of me solving the Da Vinci code on not getting around to the other 30% of it. But I know the secret tunnels now so I can sneak back in if I need to.

Tomorrow we do other stuff but I will tell you about that later on. We have access to the net alot more that one would think so send us both an email every now and then! Look forward to our next post from either our last day in Paris or Amsterdam (if we remember what the internet is from there).

Hello all!!!
Well at the moment we are in Bath (England) our last few days were spent in Edinburgh, Scotland. What a beautiful place to say the least, i must say that i was mesmerised with the fact that you have this normal city with shops and offices etc... and then there is this CASTLE looking over you!!!!!

The first thing that we did as tourists was a tour of the castle, we also hired audio equipment that tells you about different areas around the castle and gives you more of a history of what went on in the 1500's (Joshs idea - thanks babe).... As Josh and i are both very interested in history we found this to be very worthwhile.

On our last day in Edinburgh, we were to go up to the highlands to Inverness and see the Loch Ness... however the weather being moderately wet, one of the roads to Inverness was closed due to SNOW!!!!!!
Yes i had my first sighting/experience with snow.... While Josh and I were waiting for the bus at length, we met this lovely lady, Anne who was also travelling up to see her daughter. When the bus was cancelled, Josh and i decided to stay another night in Edinburgh (this not worrying us as it is such a magnificant place) Anne offered her spare room to us, both Josh and i had wet, freezing cold feet so we acceted without hesitation.
When we got to where Anne lived the snow fall was moderate, I was ultimately in awe of what i was experiencing, undescribable is what i will say. Having purchasing a camera in Edinburgh also, i managed to take photos of my first ever experience in snow! (I will post them next time as my camera is in our room)

Now in Bath, we have a bit to do here so look forward to our next post!

Bye for now, miss and love you all!!!!
Erika

So we arrived safely after a very long flight and a little over an hours sleep. It turns out that our plane stopped over and Singapore as well as Dubai for some unkown reason, as it was never on our schedule.

We are both well and really enjoying it over here, we did plenty today with a tour of The Globe Theatre and walking up the 532 stairs to the top of St. Puals Cathedral for a stunning view of the entire city scape. Both were very interesting and did nothing to sate our thirst for seeing the rest of the city. We passed through Piccadilly Circus (round-about) not long ago and I am writing this in the Apple store which is pretty cool indeed. Thanks to Andrejs for the Mac tutorials otherwise I would have been lost using this crazy system!

There is a photo attached of both Erika and I standing in front of the London Tower bridge. There are plently more pictures to come and I will make sure to keep you all posted as we venture up to Edinburgh tomorrow morning.

The London Cllub - Tenneriffe Brisbane

Well the night started fairly quietly with alot of our friends attending - besides the hosts, Andrejs, Jess, Leon, Kev, Bella, Sarah, Marcus, Luke, Jemma, Jason, Tiff, Nancy, Grant, Shan and Tony all came to see us at some point in the night.
The food was appetising and the beverages were never ending!

After our time at the London Club, we decided to take the celebration to another venue - the fringe bar. With some of the attendees going home a select few of us kept on with the party - oh and the drinking.

All in all a good night was had with Josh driving home (only drinking a few beers) and Erika a little more intoxicated and adamant about not getting out of the car at home and spending the early hours of the morning passed out in the passengers seat - waking up to the blaring sun in her eyes...... However i feel that i will never forget that moment as the sun in europe is probably very scarce right now.

Saturday (recovery) was spent with Josh and I deciding that we will be spending the next few months in minus degree weather and that we would love to see the beach one last time! We booked a night at the Novotel in twin waters and unwound in the salt water, soaking up the suns rays and kayaking through the resorts lagoon!

I would like to say that i had the greatest time this weekend (my last in Oz for some time) and a big thank you to all that helped share it with us!!!!

love you all

Erika XXooxooOO

We have decided to do a travel guide and a general outline has been made, we have even booked accommodation in some locations! We did this to ensure that the Eurail pass we were going to get was sufficient and to give dates to friends we are visiting.

Everything else is ticking along well with the final items being bought and the final goodbye's being handed out to friends and family. We will be putting up the first photos in the next few days of the farewell party and of us testing out our travel gear in the recent trip to Sydney we took to say goodbye to Erika's friends and family.

The map below is a rough guide of our travel plans. It does not really do too well with the finer points of the journey but that should change once we are more specific with each country rather than just posting a broad scope of the entire trip.

Well it is not only 5 days until Xmas but 23 days until Josh and i head over to Europe!!!! (and who is counting?)

Today is a milestone for me however, as i am finishing up at the Terrace, where i have been employed all of this year and started my career...
I am feeling a little sad, however ,i have constant butterflies in my stomach thinking of the experiences ahead..!
I will miss everyone at the Terrace and will be sure to stay in touch on our adventures and expeditions on the other side fo the world.

2 more days left of work this week however and Josh is officailly 'unemployed', this seems a little scary however i know that he is very excited to leave also.
With a few days in January to tie us over in the money department, i will officially be finished full time employment this Friday also!!!

( i feel like everything that i am doing these days in counting...)

Thankyou All at the Terrace for allowing me to have the best year at work and for teaching me soo many things that i will take with me wherever i go....
Cheers
Erika (P)