Hello everyone, from Sydney, Australia! We've been here for 4 days and it's been amazing! Time to catch you all up on what we've been up to since we left Vancouver. Our flights here were excellent. Air New Zealand doesn't skimp on the leg room and the food was actually edible. Also the flight wasn't full, and we had an empty seat next to us... WIN! I managed to catch a little sleep (3 patchy hours) but TJ wasn't so lucky. We arrived at 830am local time in Sydney and immediately felt comfortable here. It's very much a tourism-based economy and tourists are treated well. We easily found an affordable shuttle to take us from the airport to our hostel, Wake Up Sydney. Thanks to pete/andrew/chelsea for the recommendation, it is excellent! We took a much-needed ... read more

Okay, so first we'll answer the obvious question: why are we in Berlin for 6 days after racing around the rest of the continent? Because we can! Seriously, our intent was to spend 4 nights here and then move onto Hamburg for another 2. However, there is some sort of conference being held in Hamburg and every hostel was fully booked more than a week in advance. Thus, we opted to spend the rest of our trip in beautiful Berlin, and luckily there has been more than enough to do here. On our first full day here, we joined up with the free walking tour for an overview of the city and its history. We went with the same tour group that took us around in Munich and Paris, and again it was excellent. Highlights included ... read more

Guten tag! We arrived in Munich about a month and a half too late to experience the infamous and legendary Oktoberfest, but we managed to have an amazing time regardless. We arrived from Salzburg after a pleasantly short train journey north. We stayed at the Euro Youth Hostel which was recommended to us by Chelsea and Peter (thanks guys!) It was fantastic! On our first day, we checked in and grabbed some food, and then joined up with the free walking tour offered by the same company as the one we went on in Paris. The tour took us around the heart of Munich and gave a good, accurate overview of the historical events that took place in the area. It was particularly interesting because TJ and Teija have both studied WWII history extensively, and the ... read more

Hello from Hungary! We have just spent 4 fabulous days in Budapest and are sad to be leaving. We arrived after a lonnnnnnnnng 10-hour train ride from Sighisoara, and after temporarily getting lost we arrived at our really nice hostel. After ditching our stuff in our room, we went out right away to explore. We walked around and saw the citadella and castle hill lit up at night, as well as the chain bridge and Independence bridge that connect Buda to Pest. The next morning we walked from Pest, where our hostel was, over to Buda and climbed to the top of the Citadella. At the top there are some sweet views and the remains of an old fortress that was particularly significant in WWII under the seige of Budapest. We went inside and visited the ... read more

After Slovenia, we headed south to Zagreb, the capital city of Croatia. In the three hour train ride, the temperature outside rose almost 10 degrees, so we arrived to a hot, sunny day. After checking into our hostel, we took a quick wander around the old town. Since we arrived late, it was already dark, but the big old church near our hostel was lit up and quite spectacular. We stopped at a little restaurant that served Italian food and ate outdoors. Zagreb has a real coffee shop culture, where at all times of the day and night people can be found sitting outdoors on the patios of little cafes, sipping coffee and beer and socializing. After dinner we found an empty couch and joined the locals. TJ sampled the local beers and Teija enjoyed some ... read more