Surprise! I'm in Iceland! Not surprised? Yeah, ok I guess not much of a surprise... although it's my first time during winter, so this will be new. I flew WOW for the first time - it was clean, it was as comfortable as any other carriers (except be aware there are no TVs/movies so bring your own entertainment!). I like the quirks they offer - everything is purple and everything has little sayings on it. (Ex: my headrest said "Hi! I'm your seat!" ; the drink cart said: "They see me rolling...") I had no problems, but we sat on the tarmac FOREVER in MTL, so a lot of people around me were pretty freaked out about making connections. I'm going to wager they all made their connections, but that their bags did not. Literally the ... read more

It was a rainy day today, so museum time it was. I went to the "NS Documentation Centre" - basically the Nazi Museum for Cologne. It's housed in the former Gestapo building and prison which certainly adds to the authentic feel and creepiness of the place. It was a truly impressive museum though - right up there with the very best Nazi/WWII museums I've been to. You start in the basement which is where the prison was - they've preserved the etchings on the walls which I found really fascinating. I guess prisoners were allowed to write/scratch things, and so you're left with this beautiful mixture of poems and musings about liberty, hope, resistence, love. You're also left with harsh words against the Gestapo and the Nazis, against fear, against inhumanity. And there are also many ... read more

So, Frankfurt is literally a shit show on Sunday mornings around the train station... Literally human shit in the underpass and on the subway platform. 3 shits in the less than 10min walk to the subway platform. Wow, guys. I'm really in a rush to return here lol. Fun fact: Frankfurt is actually the first city in continental Europe that I stepped foot it, and boy am I glad that the first time I was here I didn't come anywhere near the train station lol. Would have put a bit of a damper on my introduction to travelling all those years ago... ahem. Anyway. Thankfully the Old Town was a poop-free zone. I headed off to see the cathedral and the area around there. I mentioned I'm at the point of my trip where I'm losing ... read more

Day 21 - Chiemsee My God did it rain today. It rained so much I gave in and actually wore my rain poncho. I immensely regret not bringing my rain coat this year... I always bring it when I'm travelling in the UK, not quite sure why I didn't think to bring it this time. Oh well. I went to to the very lovely Lake Chiemsee today - took the train to Prien am Chiemsee then hopped on a little baby train to get to the lake. It was full pouring already, but it's supposed to rain tomorrow too and it's my birthday day so I want to see pretty things - rain be damned. I walked around the main island, down to the castle/palace and back. The rain very much did not let up the ... read more

Rainy rainy day today..! They were calling for thunderstorms in the afternoon so I figured I should get my walking done in the morning when it's only spitting rain. I climbed up to the Slavin Memorial (oh God so many steps) and of course as I got near the top it started to rain a lot harder. Not a thunderstorm though, so still in action. The memorial is for those Soviet soldiers who died helping to liberate Bratislava from the Nazis. It's mostly tombstones of Soviet soldiers. I found the 4 statues in each corner quite interesting - at one end you have two statues with girls dancing/celebrating(?) with banners, at the other end you have 2 soldiers and a boy - one side the boy looks sad, on the other side the boy and one ... read more