We arrived at the airport early for our flight home to Melbourne. This was due mostly to my wanting us to get to the breakfast room at The Pancreas as soon as it opened (7:30 a.m.), so that I could actually get some eggs on my plate before they were all snapped up by the other Pancreans, and before the Odd Blond Canteen Woman refused to cook any more. So we arrived early, and it turned out we were the first in economy class to check in. We were told that economy had been overbooked, and our earlybirdness meant that we [View Full Entry]

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Our last day of European Adventures is drawing to a cruisy close. And I cannot tell you how nice it will be to pack tonight, knowing that it will be for the last time! So yesterday afternoon we went to the matinee (well, 3 p.m.) session of 'The Lion King' at the Lyceum Theatre. What an amazing production. It was the best stage production I've ever seen (not that I go to the theatre all that often, of course!) - I mean, the best in terms of set and stage design and overall production quality. It was so cleverly done, and [View Full Entry]

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We've now arrived back at 'The Pancreas', otherwise known as St Pancras Youth Hostel in London. We caught the Eurostar train from Paris this morning (quite the production, that was - more about that later). It's so funny here, sitting near reception and listening to the nice NZ dude dealing with people (a nicer dude than last time we were at The Pancreas). To get in the building, you have to buzz at the door. People don't know what to do when they buzz, so he's always yelling into the phone: 'Push the door! You have to push the door! No, [View Full Entry]

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It's really not what you think! It's just that 'Dirty Dancing' (the film) seems to be our Parisien soundtrack, given that Samaritaine and CK have been singing 'Dirty Dancing' songs since we arrived (after a dinner conversation re the film). For my part, I can only really watch, listen or roll my eyes (and sometimes all three at once), having only seen the film once (apparently sacreligious) and not being very familiar with the songs! This French keyboard is doing my head in. Please excuse crazy letters popping up willy-nilly - they're all in the 'wrong' place on the keyboard! I'm [View Full Entry]

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*Or: 'The red tap means hot, right?' Well, to be more precise, it's the Northern Irish Invasion. Lisbon has been taken over by the Northern Irish, who are here, from what we can gather, for a soccer match between Celtic FC and someone else (I guess a Portuguese side). I first noticed them last night when walking back through the city from Alfama. There were about six guys, all wearing stripey green and white jumpers, all very drunk and all very loud, wandering around with their arms around each others shoulders, singing Irish folk songs at the top of their lungs [View Full Entry]

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We arrived in Lisbon yesterday morning (again, no customs, so no stamp on the passport!). We're staying in a hotel here, which is a nice reprieve after the shocking WHE in Barcelona. It's like we're staying in someone's house - a very quaint and charming little hotel (and extremely cheap!) where Samyelena has been kind enough to let me have the double bed. No breakfast (unless we pay for a standard continental breakfast, which in our experience is a sweet bread roll and some honey), but that's no drama. After finding our way into the downtown area of the city (our [View Full Entry]

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We had a long travel day (two buses, a plane and another bus) in transit to Barcelona on 18 October, which included, on our ClickAir flight from Naples, the best plane landing I have ever experienced. The passengers even broke into a round of applause for the pilot! I don't know if this is a standard Italian/Spanish thing, or if everyone was just in agreement about the superiority of the landing. It didn't even feel as if we'd touched the ground! We didn't pass through customs at the airport, which was very odd. We were just herded straight to the baggage [View Full Entry]

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The Internet was way expensive in Amalfi, hence my silence. I'll be brief, due to lack of time ... Amalfi, overall, was great. It's a really beautiful place, though not on the same level as Austria. It would be a lovely place to hang out on your honeymoon or spend a romantic time. It was quite touisty, but in manageable numbers, and the tourists weren't manic like they have been other places (Venice, especially). Despite the touristy-ness, I still found it quite quaint and charming. Getting to Amalfi was an adventure. Two trains after leaving Rome, we ended up in Sorrento, [View Full Entry]

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(Do I look French? An Italian dude said bonjour to me this morning. Not bonjorno.) I neglected to add a very important detail to yesterday's blog. Remember how the gladiator clowns almost swindled us? Well, karma caught up with them (sort of, in a second-hand kind of way ... okay, not really). When we joined our Colosseum tour, before we went inside, our guide took us over to one of the gladiator clowns. Not one of the people Samcella and I had met earlier - this was another one (but just as old and non-gladiator-like!). Our guide started telling us that [View Full Entry]

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I'm on another of those weird symbol-on-key-does-not-match-what-it-types keyboards, only this one has half the keys blank because the letters have worn off from so much use! Too funny. This should be a quick one, because I'm pretty much up to date with the blogs and we didn't do a great deal today (having some downtime this afternoon). But there's a funny story to tell (as there always is). An almost-tragic tale of a near-miss with earning our Stupid Tourist Badge. I'm sure, once most of you are about three words into this story, you'll know what's coming. So excuse the predictability. [View Full Entry]

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