Jolly Olde :-)

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Before I continue, I want to say a few things. Firstly to all the people I have met along the way, you have had an amazing impact on my life and I want to remember you, and thus I have included your first names for my own sake, I apologise if you take that as some sort of invasion of privacy. If you are truly offended by that please let me know.
Secondly, I wanted to tell the story as close to truth as possible, so to all the people and companies involved, if I say anything that offends you I sincerely apologise but it's simply how I felt at the time and please know I have no grudges with anyone and you have all contributed to making this an amazing experience.

Ok, so London was not as mind bending as I expected. For me it was more the concept of where you actually were, the fact that you’re literally on the other side of the world that was the most mind blowing.
Otherwise, it wasn’t that drastically different than home, and to be honest, there wasn’t a great deal
of English in London. In saying that, other than Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus and the usual tourist spots, I didn’t see a great deal of London.

This perception, however, changed on my second night. As I didn’t have long in London, I figured I’d head out to the local watering hole for a few and see what happens. On the way there, I meet up with three POMs from Yorkshire, in London for a reunion that never happened. Anyway after pub crawling Wimbledon for a few hours it was into the city (with a bottle of port for the tube ride). It was a crazy night filled with way more Yager-bombs than I care to mention. The English are mad on Yager! They have Yager-bomb making machines! By the end of the night I had lost everyone and spent an hour wandering around central London looking for a cab ha ha but it was a great night, and I shared it with some awesome and genuine English guys and girl.
Thanks guys for a great London experience! Although the next morning I heard about the Tottenham riots that went on whilst I was in town … glad I wasn’t drunk on that side of town.
The other random English thing is that no one carries cash, every round they paid for was with a card, apparently that’s what people do. Although you see it in oz it’s not common. Hmm … weird.

I didn’t have long in London as I was booked into a Contiki tour to kick-off my journey. I know it’s a bit of a cop-out but I could not have just dived into traveling Europe with the skills (or lack thereof) that I had. So I booked into the Royal National Hotel the night before departure to make things easier, and it turned out that I
was rooming with a bloke from my tour, Adam. Loud, outgoing, but the kind of guy you want on your side when you jump into a crowd of new people.

The morning of departure was cold, and everyone had this bit of awkwardness about them, as we all waited, freezing, for the bus to show up. Adam (Adds) led the way with meeting and greeting people, but I knew my memory wasn’t going to back it up.

Onto the bus and we met Alex, out tour manager, who was way too full of energy for 6am on a Tuesday morning, and we we’re on the road.

We caught the ferry at Dover and it was off to the land of frogs legs, snails, and the Eiffel Tower. The ferry actually provided a good opportunity to mingle after being seated for the last couple of hours, and as our tour was predominately guys (28/14) it was a good opportunity for us boys to have a beer and spark a few yarns. Tom, who was soon to become a good mate of mine, fell in love-at-first-sight with a girl from another tour, known to everyone as ‘Hair & Makeup’ (this was because none of us could remember names by this stage, so it was easier to remember careers). He was smitten.

Off the boat and it was on to Paris.

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