My Life in Words

The last stop on my 4 week tour de Europe, was Venice, Italy. As my flight home is out of Nice, when trying to decide where to conclude my trip, I figured I would choose somewhere close/convenient to Nice. Venice is not far, just one country over and about a 1 hour flight, so I figured 'no problem, short flight back to Nice. Too easy.' Of course I didn't bother to actually check flights online, which is why I am now bored out of my mind 4 hours into an 8 hour train trip through Northern Italy. Turns out, there are only direct flights certain days of the week, and none of those days worked. All other options were 6 or 7 hours anyway, and 3 times as expensive as the train.....so here I am. That's not to say Venice wasn't worth the hassle. It absolutely was. I had 4 full days there, and it was excellent. Having been to Venice once before (with my family when I was 15) and knowing that it's not a big place, I was a little concerned about the ability to fil

Prague, Prague, Prague! In an attempt to be a more savvy backpacker than I have been previously, I decided to take the overnight train from Krakow, rather than fly. It was the same price as a flight, but as it was my accommodation for the night, I figured I'd give it a go. The train left Thursday night to arrive on Friday morning, which makes for a 9 and a half hour trip. The experience was ok, being quite similar to all the other night trains I've been on throughout the world. The bathroom on this one was probably cleaner than some of the others, but otherwise it was much the same. I was in a birth of 6, with two triple bunk beds, and thankfully I had the bottom bunk so I didn't have to make the climb up 3 levels, which for some reason I struggle with (I cannot gracefully ascend or descend a bunk bed - I'm incapable). The train was packed, as Thursday was a holiday (1 May) so there really wasn't much breathing room. But it was ok, as I pretty much went straigh

Hello everyone! Firstly, thank you to whoever is reading this. My page views jumped by 100 after last post, and that can't all be my parents. So I'm glad that people are reading. I spent one last day in London on Sunday. I was a bit lazy in the morning, but eventually made it out to checkout old spitafields market. It's local designer day on Sunday, so I spent some time wandering the stalls, but didn't buy anything as nothing really caught my eye. I then met up with one of my friends from elementary/high school who lives in London who I haven't seen in maybe 10 years. What started as "should we grab a drink or lunch or something?" turned into a pretty decent Sunday session. We found a really good pub in Shoreditch with a beer garden in the back and spent hours catching up and gossiping. We had 10 years of stuff to chat about, so it was a lot of fun. I then walked from Shoreditch to London bridge for dinner at one of Gordon Ramsey's restaurants (which

Ok. So where did I leave off last time. I think with Easter dinner on Sunday. The rest of my time in the south of France was a little less busy, which was nice. Monday we had a car so we drove up to a town called St Paul De Vence. It was quite a cute little town on a mountainside, looking down towards the water and Nice. We wandered around looking at the shops (art shops mostly) and walked along the town walls for a bit. Tuesday I took the train to Cannes and on Wednesday I went back to Nice. Since the weather was nice both days, I did a lot of water front promenade walking and reading in the sun. In Nice I hired rollerblades and skated the beach front walk - probably about 5 or 6km each way. That's the first time I've been on rollerblades in maybe 10 years, but it came back to me right away. Tuesday night, Liz and I went out in Monte-Carlo for an "authentic Monegasque experience." First we went to a cool cocktail bar called Buddha bar which was housed in what used

Hello Friends Post number 2 from Europe. I believe I left off last time having just arrived in Monterosso, Italy. Monterosso is town number 1 of the 5 cinque terre towns. Cinque Terre is on the west coast of Italy, between Genoa and Pisa. As the name indicates it's made up of 5 towns along the coast; Monterosso, Verrazano, Cornigila, Manarola and Riomaggiore. There is a train that runs between the 5, but the better way to see them is to hike. The main "blue" route is a hilly 11km from Monterosso to Riomaggiore. I spent the afternoon wandering around Monterosso and taking photos. I stopped for a glass of wine in the sun in the main square and started chatting to a friendly American couple about my age. I was asking them about the hike, as they had just done it and there was some confusion about which trails were open. The woman at the tour agency told me that the Blue trail was completely closed so if I was going to hike, I would need to do all the longer back trails.

Bonjour de France! Je suis en France avec mon ami, Liz, qui habit en Monaco. And that is enough French for today. My French really isn't great. I find reading and writing it comes back to me, but trying to string a sentence together on the spot when a French person is speaking to me is just embarrassing. Luckily, Liz's French is pretty good so that's been helpful. I'm also findi that Quebec French is really different from France french and that expressions I learnt in grade 10 French make all the French people laugh at me... Anyway, my flight was very long, but ok. I was on an A380 for the first time from Sydney to Dubai - it's huge. It felt like being in an apartment complex which is trying to become airborne. The most eventful part of the flight was when they turned the lights on 2 hours out of Dubai to feed us. The flight attendant comes on the PA and says, "ladies and gentlemen, while you've been asleep we've had a serious mechanical error. We'