Travel Blog – Hongkas and Ireland done.

We aren’t sure if it was because princess Mary had just poped out the first royal girl in 65 years, or if the planets had aligned or if it was the hot 25 degree day, but the Danes had cracked out the shorts and were living it up with smiles and XL sized ice creams.

Seriously, they were the happiest people we have seen so far. The weather was great and everyone was eating these GIANT ice creams, if we were half organised we would have got a decent photo. It was so nice we walked around for 10 1/2 hours, just checking out the sites (the castle, the Little Mermaid, hans Christian Anderson’s House). We eventually found a good ice cream joint and indulged, they were as good as they looked.

We didnt do much more before heading off for Berlin, but it was great to see so many people out on the streets soaking up the sun and having fun. It was so good that we almost forgot that when we turned up on the saturday arvo (and the place closes up sat and sun) there had been a problem with our booking and no-one thought to let us know. We had it soughted in a few hours but it wasnt the best after the night before in Amsterdam.

Berlin…..

So we made it to Amsterdamn and, thanks to the help of a friendly German man, made our way to the hostel. We had a whirlwind 3 days in Amsterdamn so this entry will be the same.

We stayed in an ok hostel in the Museum area, although, funilly enough, we didnt manage to see any museums. We did a bike tour the first day we were there. It was the tour guides first ever tour……in english. despite that we managed to see most of Amsterdam including the canals, some old buildings and the red light district (RLD). The whole place, including the rld, was reasonably clean and friendly so we decided that we should check out some of the history. Heeeellloo Heinekin Factory.

We paid a small fee and got to walk through the original Heiniken factory. It was well worth it as there were three fresh, straight from the brewery, ice cold beers, each waiting for us at the end. We were there kind of late and forced to down the drinks pretty quick so after that we were looking to kick on.

We got changed and headed out for some dinner at a pizza and pasta place (good for those pre-drink carbs), then headed to a some-times strip club that was playing the liverpool-someone game. The crowd was big and the drinks were cheap so we stayed there for quite a while. We were drinking 5 for the price of 4 beers until about 1am when our waitress was so drunk that we couldnt order drinks anymore. From there we headed out to a night club that had been recomended as the Wednesday place to go. It was pretty good, playing a varied selection of songs, the club itself was a great setup and we managed to stay till the place closed at 4:30 (the taxi driver had that gwen stefani and e-v-e song playing on the way home, score).

A cleaner had to wake us up at 10:15 the next morning to tell us check out was 10:00. Whoops, we crawled across the road to a park and slept all day, from there it was Hamburg for one night (just slept, not worth a proper mention) then on to visit Princess Mary in Copenhagen (Kopenhagen).

Interesting Amsterdam Facts:

- The bus station isnt close to anything.
- Heiniken is the cheap beer, even through a special ‘ice cold’ tap. niiice
- There are people asleep in the parks 24 hours a day. Mostly backpackers and students.
- Amsterdams that good, people like xzibit (rap guy, host of ‘pimp my ride’) will play a club that holds only a thousand or so people. I dont think he goes for the money.

Brussels, Better than youd think.

To be honest I expected Brussels to be nice, but boring. There is no real city centre to speak of and the whole place just stinks of being a good place to chill but on the whole uninteresting. Little did we know.

Apparently Brussels was huge in the early 90’s for Electro-ish music. So theres still alot of weird clubs and record stores (that only sell vinyl) kicking around. We were only around for one day so we didnt get to explore to much but, if anyones in the area, you could easily spend 3 or 4 days there.

As a sidenote, there are H&M stores eeeeeverywhere. I’m not sure if they are in Aus yet but in every city weve been to there is a couple of these H&M stores in one area.

There was a bit of a monster walk to get to the bus station but we made it and that was it, off to Amsterdam.

The last few entries have been pretty much, straight from the travel diary onto this page. This was because we left it for so long that we had to much to update. So we will try to clean them up soon, but more probably we will just start writing some smaller entries from here. Soooo, to catch up with where we are now you are all getting point form on what weve been doing.

Paris.

Location: Althought we have now mastered the lost art of catching trains to stations with the letters Æ and Ø in the name, we had a hard time finding this one (I cant even remember what it was called). It was a fair way from the city too, but once we got the trains right it wasnt too bad. It was like going to Sydney and staying in Ryde, if Ryde was spelt Chatau` Le R¤y’øµæ.

What we Did: We caught the usual things in Paris, the Louve…etc. But the three best things were the Arc de Triumph, the Eiffel tower at night and the Bike tour we did. Bree and I spent an hour at the top of the Arc, in peak hour, watching the traffic go round the round about. It was INSANE. Ill search youtube later cause there has to be some good stack videos. ¨

Watching the Eiffel tower light up was one of the highlights we have seen so far (no pun intended). After the Arc we grabbed a couple of Heinekens and sat in the park till the lights came on. The park wasnt that full so it was good to kick back and chill for a couple of hours. On the hour every hour the Tower goes insane with flashing lights.

We also went on a bike tour around Paris. It went for a few hours and we got to see all the sights. there were no major stacks except for one kid (approx. 30yo) trying to do a wheelie and falling off the back. It was good enough that we think we will do one in Berlin aswell.

From here it was to Brussels and Amsterdam.

P.s. We didnt have snails or frogs legs, but we did have 20 Crossiants.

London: We did a Big Red Bus Tour as soon as we arrived and saw all of the sights. It was amazing to see all of the sights that everyone talks about Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Kenginston Palace, Tower of London, Harrods etc, etc, etc. The squirels are crazy here and are everywhere!

Cambridge: We headed out to Cambridge to spend some time with my (Bree’s cousin and his wife and daughter). Cambridge was beautiful. Everyone rides bikes here so thats what we did for most of the week. We also had a BBQ in the park with a disposal bbq from Tescos. (A little different to Oz). Went punting on the river cam, it was heaps of fun and it was packed due to the stunning weather!!! Fletcher was good at punting (I would say to the pratice he has had) Matt did well almost fell and had his toes eyed off by a massive swan a couple of times.

Back to London: Went to an art museum and saw Van Goughs paintings (by luck as it was a special exhibition). Went to the theatre at night and saw Wicked. It was like a prequel to the wizard of Oz. The sets and costumes were fantastic!
Spent a day in Greenwich went to the Maritime Museum & The Royal Observatory.

Welcome to sunny Ireland!(Not) It is really, really cold here.

After being up for 26 hours we spent most of our time in Dublin catching up on sleep. Headed to Cork to see Ang our 55 minute plane trip turned into a 4.5 hour bus ride when we were 3 minutes late for our flight.
Met Ang and went straight to the Pub, which pretty much set the tone for our 2.5 weeks in Ireland. I think we went to every pub in Kinsale or maybe just the same ones often. There was 26 pubs for 3000 people.
Hired a car and did a bit of a road trip around the south of Ireland. When we actually got going a day later than anticipated and were back a day before we were supposed to its amazing that we actually saw anything. We managed to see the ring of Kerry which was really pretty and the countryside of Ireland.
Matt celebrated his 24th Birthday and we were able to watch the Swans play and loose!!! Went to an African drumming session which was fun but hard work on the hands!
Had a great time in Ireland with Ang and all of her friends.

Well what a week in Hong Kong! It was lots of fun. I will give you a quick run down of the week. Checked out some shops, markets, where there were plenty of fake handbags and wallets locked in big steel containers down small alley ways. Went to a couple of Monestries and saw some Monks and Temples. We felt really out of place (but we wanted to see some culture and try and get away from all of the expats) there were no tourists so we looked like giants compared to the locals.
Five days into our RTW trip we are watching Rugby with Austrailans. It was Tabitha’s friends boyfriends team, it was the Grand Final but the team we were going for lost. Still went out for a big night. Except fot Matt as he was still recovering from eating some dodgy beef noodle soup.

Matt: So, it was finally time to leave. The day kind of crept up on us, what with all the going away parties, going away lunches , weddings and 21st’s.

Despite me not starting to pack until midnight the night before we left, Bree and I both made it to the airport with a few hours to spare so there wasn’t too much stress.
Bree: There was a small incident when my bro took all of my documents to photocopy on the way to the airport. I received a phone call from Jarred saying that my licence had fallen down between the dash and the windscreen and he couldn’t get it out. So you could imagine the stress levels after that. We meet at the airport and I tried to see it i could get it out. I could feel it but couldn’t get it. Jarred looked in the nearby ottos and found a straw and we chewed some chewing gum and attached it to the straw and we were able to get my licence. You could imagine how happy we all were!
After some breakfast and lots of waiting around it was finally time to go. We went through customs no probs. I was chosen for one of those bomb tests after going through security – my first one how exciting! We finally got on the plane and we were delayed for a little while on the runway. Flight was pretty good we had lots food, good movies and TV to watch. The flight was packed.

Thanks to our fams for coming out to the airport and to Jas and Dan, we didnt expect any of our friends to be there cause they all had to work, so it was a good surprise.

Travel Stats.
Money : OK
Weather: A little cold
Shower: TINY
Bed: Awesome, considering
Pictures of Madonna: Everywhere
Place: Hong kong
People: Hongkanees