First of the month, just after pay day, so off to Wales with Ange (flatmate), Dan and Fran (her mates/cousin) to spend it. Hired a car for the weekend and took off Friday evening for the 3 1/2 hr drive to Cardiff, Wales arriving late in the night. Up early the next morning for a look around the city and werent disappointed in the sights. Had a look at the stadium and the Cardiff castle with its own stone circle and around the main shopping street. Weather was grey and miserable so didnt stay long and packed up the car and [View Full Entry]

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Off to Paris for a long weekend with Kate, Dale and Kates sister, Zoe. Landed at the airport to find that there was a transport strike on in town with only a select few of the metro lines running which caused mass queues and people so jammed in the trains that I really found it hard to breathe at times. We had a hotel booked in for the northern part of Paris at the Anver area - which turned out to be near the red light district. The place was fine and included free breakfast in bed of hot chocolate, croisants, [View Full Entry]

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First stop was Warsaw. Only stayed here for a couple of nights which was all that was really needed for this city. Loved the old town and castle and then the contrast heading down Royal Way to all the modern upmarket clothing shops which was shadowed by the old communist building of the Palace of Culture and Science. Learnt a fair bit about what happened to Poland during the war and then during the Warsaw Rising where many people were killed or shipped off to Sibera for trying to free to country from the Russia ruling. Headed down by train to [View Full Entry]

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Reached Bialystok (northern Poland) late at night and managed to somehow find my hostel in a creepy ghetto type part of town. The town itself was nothing at all special, just a unfriendly concrete town with a few shops and churches. Caught another bus in the morning to my destination: Bialowieza National Park - which is in the north east of Poland a few kilometres from the Belarus border. This was a really amazing town with the one main street containing a couple of shops, a cinerma, pizza joint and library. The town had only a few hundred people who lived [View Full Entry]

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Arrived early morning in Vilnius, the captial city of Lithuania and booked into the Old Town Hostel, just outside the city walls. To enter the town you must walk through the gate of dawn and past the St Theresas church where there was often mass crowds out in the street preying below it. Again the city had beautiful old buildings with plenty of character around. Spent the first couple of days exploring the city which included multiple churches from the Dominican church to St Paul and Peter Cathedral. Walked around the old Jewish ghettos and around the town hall, to the [View Full Entry]

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Tallinn is a medieval town situated at the top of Estonia and is similar in building appearence to Riga but with a lot of the shops, restruants and local clothing taking on a medieval theme. I stayed in old town at the Tallinn backpackers which was another social spot for heading out with loads of other travellers to hit the pubs at night. Our hostel had a underground pub which was once an old war bunker. This was quite a common sight in Tallinn and many cellers had now turned into restruants, shops and bars. It also had thick walls around [View Full Entry]

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A great country! Flew into Riga, the capital, on the 9th August and stayed for a few days in a awsome hostel, Fun Friendly Franks, based in the Old Town of Riga. It was a small city but the buildings were so amazing with paved streets and a great laid back feel about the place. The hostel was up 2 flights of well worn wooden stairs and it was a great place to meet other travellers. Every night the staff would round up anyone keen to head out for drinks, which usually seem to consist of me and 20 odd guys, [View Full Entry]

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Kate won free tickets to Berlin so began my second trip into Europe. Another sleep over in Standstead Airport for a nice 6am flight to Berlin. On arrival the weather was perfect! We had finally found the summer weather. We were put up in the Circus Hostel which was well run and pretty classy compard to many of the hostels I have been too. They also put on a big buffet breakfast consisting of waffles, fruit, museli, bread, ham and cheeses etc. All this was free due to Kates tickets she had won. Joined a free walking tour on the first [View Full Entry]

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Kate and I decided we would go and visit an old school mate in Netherlands. Stayed the night at Stanstand Airport in order to fly into Eindhoven bright and early. Horrible place to sleep! From the airport we caught a bus up to Amsterdam where we stayed in a horrible dank dungeon of a hostel for a few nights in the centre of the city. I really liked this town as it had a lot of atmosphere and so much to see and do. It was amazing the number of bikes around with huge bike parks instead of carparking sites. We [View Full Entry]

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During the summer I spent my initial time with Kate and Dale in their flat before finding a job a few minutes away as a live in nanny in Raynes Park, Wimbledon. Lovely family of 4, with Sam who was 12 and Sarah who was 15. Job was boring really just a nanny/home help/school pickups/cooking/shopping/cleaning etc. While not working I tried to see and do as much as possible around the city. Went to the London Zoo, various musuems, checked out the old pubs and buildings in the area. Saw the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace, Hampton Court, London [View Full Entry]

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