Aussie Al

Okay, so whilst leaving Romania I found myself in the same cabin as two American guys and one Romanian. One of the American guys was really nice and relaxed, but the other one was quite irritating to be honest. Anyway it turned out that the annoying one was going to the same place as I was - Veliko Tarnavo - whilst everyone else was heading to Istanbul. Eventually the conductor moved the annoying guy out of our cabin to one which had a bit more room. The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful, and I spent most of the time chatting to the American guy and trying to communicate as best as possible with the Romanian guy and the rest of the time I spent finishing off Hard Times. Anyway the Romanian guy told me ... read more

When last I wrote I was heading to catch the night train to Bucharest unaware of the adventure I had in store for me. But first anyway I'll take you back to the beginning of the story which is back when I (vaguely) planned this portion of my trip and decided to travel to Romania. My guide book is amazingly positive about Romania and in particular Bucharest, the first line is "Forget Prague, forget Budapest: Bucharest is where explorers are heading. This is Eastern Europe's secret". However I was soon to learn that my guide book was the only book which was even remotely positive and not only that but the owner of my Belgrade hostel said to spend as little time as possible in Bucharest. I was also telling Rod where I was travelling for ... read more

Hello again, I've not been feeling 100% the last couple of days and my hostel had free internet so I decided to get on top of all my e-mails and blogs. I was paranoid the entire train journey from Budapest to Novi Sad that I was going to fall asleep and miss my stop, as Novi Sad was not the last station on the journey. My fear was not helped by the conspicuous absence of any station names on the trip. Finally I arrived at a station at about the right time for arrival and where I could just see a small sign with Novi Sad written on it so I cheerfully disembarked. My first impressions of Novi Sad and Serbia was very favourable, however I knew that this was going to be a far from ... read more

Hey everyone (or the few people who still bother reading this!)!! So anyway, on my flight over to Budapest I couldn't stay awake and really only remember the take off and landing. I arrived in Budapest at about 19:30 and jumped on a bus and train to get to my hostel which was on the Pest side of the river. I arrived at my hostel to the familiar sound of Aussie accents, and discovered that the entire hostel was full of Aussie travellers. I stayed and talked with some of them for a while and then the hostel guy put the film 'Dune' and I watched that. In the end I got an early night and slept quite well ... if only I'd known I might have appreciated it more... The next day I spent walking ... read more

Hey everyone, Sorry I know its been a while but its been pretty non-stop for the last few weeks, but I'm having a slow day today so I thought that I'd try to catch up a bit. The last time I wrote I had met up with Mum and Barbara for a day in London and then headed back to my place before leaving to finally go and see the Simpsons movie. I felt like because I had been so very obsessed with the Simpsons for so long I really had to go and see the movie, even though I knew it wouldn't be as good as it would've been if it had been made several years ago. It was better than the new episodes but still not a really great film. That week at work ... read more

LDN! So the blog has finally arrived! The build-up has been as long and exciting as for the recent Harry Potter book, but nobody dies in my story!! A long time ago, in a distant galaxy, I returned from Ireland. Arriving back at Barbara's I planned on a life spent on the couch - unfortunately it was not to be mine!! As I had to go into LDN on the 17th of July for vaccinations (everytime I went in for some reason they didn't give them to me - but this would be the third time lucky) I arranged to have a look at some properties when I went in. I also had to deal with the demon-lady from HR who kept messing up my references. I don't want to dwell on this part as I ... read more

Hi Everyone, I realised that I never thanked Barbara and Granny for the Oxegen festival ticket as it was their present to me for my birthday. After arriving back in Dublin covered in mud I headed to the hostel, had a shower and ate some food. I had a quiet night that night and just watched some TV at the hostel. The next day I got up and packed up all my stuff (leaving the tent and sleeping roll in the luggage room) and the headed off to the bus station to catch my bus to Galway. After arriving at the hostel and dropping my bags off I headed off to explore Galway. I don't normally go and see everything in my Lonely Planet Guide, but this time I decided to use it as a guide ... read more

Well hello all you happy readers!! As mentioned previously I am in Ireland. After I caught my flight to Dublin airport I jumped on the bus and travelled to the city centre. My hostel wasn't far from the bus stop and is a nice place called Paddy's Palace. I spent the rest of the first day exploring and then spent that night with the other people from the hostel watching TV and movies, including "Armaggedon". The next day was a similarly low-key affair as I spent most of that day looking around Dublin and shopping for the next few days. I decided to have a night out and as no-one at the hostel seemed interested in doing anything I headed off to the meeting place for one of the pub-crawls. Unfortunately no seemed to be ... read more

Well, technically its the largest greenfield music and performing arts festival in the world, but close enough!! Oh, and Dad I promise you will know some of the bands that played! I don't know how you did it, but congratulations Sophie on correctly guessing where I was going! I had to register for tickets and provide a photo which appeared on my ticket by Feb 28th. Then tickets went on sale on the 1st of April, at 9am and I sat at the computer with about 20 different windows open trying to get into the site, whilst mum tried on the phone. The official site had crashed 30 minutes before tickets went on sale. In the end tickets sold out in 1 hour and 45 minutes, and hundreds of thousands of people missed out. The ... read more