In London

Firstly we have added some pics to the last post, so have a gander if you are interested.

Before we left Amsterdam we visited the Red Light District. We were both quite suprised that all bar about two chicks were butt ugly and very overweight...so yeah. But it was a lot of fun to see. We openly laughed at chicks who were standing in windows knocking on the glass trying to get our attention and come inside. All that can be said, is get an education girls! geeze. Funny, but very sad.

We got to London fine, and the weather has been quite pleasant since we have been here. In the last two days we have been to an ITG (Ize's dad's company) contractor get together (lots of free booze), an afternoon and night with some fun people (friends of Rod, Ize's dad) and met a little girl who attached herself to Ize's face and claimed he was SOO beautiful, should be named Daisy, and announced her love for him to the group...and today we spent with Rod, at the London Dungeons, a display/theater/amusement ride thingy which shows info about the tourture and what life was like when Jack The Ripper was around, the Plague, etc, all demonstrated by actors playing the characters. It was ok, very long, entertaining...but very long.

While we are here we have a whole list of things we want to do, including the London Eye, London Tower, Stonehenge, and Madam Tassauds (the famous wax museum).


Here are a few pics -

1. Streets of London..with Alanna and Rod to the left.


2. Skyline...with the London Eye (ferris wheel)


3. London Bridge is falling down, falling down...


4. Steps of St Pauls Cathedral - massive. This pic shows only half the height of the place.


5. Sideways gargoyle in the Dungeons. You have to rotate it yourself.

In Amsterdam

Afternoon folks!

We are in an internet cafe in Amsterdam's central square. The keyboard is really crappy and annoying! We slept in nice and late this morning. Our hostel is a bit of a caravan type place about 30mins ride from town. It's pretty good there, everyone is nice and chilled out. We got into the city about 1pm ish..and have wondered around most main areas. It's quite crowded everywhere, and there are heaps of shops-mainly clothes and shoes. Oh and of course there are quite a few coffeeshops. We have sampled the 'culture' in one of these coffee places already :)

There are also lots of sex shops and gay specialty shops, so they are quite liberal here. At the same time there seem to be a lot of business people and families, so the town isn't quite the smoke filled hole that many people perceive it just to be.

Well we don't have much else to report as we haven't really done much yet. There aren't many sights here, just heaps of (at least 10) museums, shops, and murky canals.

So until next time...bam.

Ok hi guys, we have some photos to add now.

1. Scraggles resting on our bed in our caravan - we stayed in a caravan park near a lake which was a train + bus ride from the city.

2. A building in 'The Diamond' in Amsterdam - the main square type place with seats and stuff, like King George Square in Brisvagas.

3. In the diamond also

4. Some culture...

5. The canals...just to prove kez was there...and about 20metres away some guy was throwing up like there was a hose in his throat. *shudder*

6. Us in a nice dark British pub in central Amsterdam, relaxing at last. Dark pubs with good cheapish booze have honestly saved us from going bonkers on our trips. Bless dark pubs.

7. More canals..there are lots of them. All a nice watered-down chocolate colour. Yummy

Our last day in Prague

We didn't make it out last night for several reasons. Firstly, Kez has come down with a bit of a sickness and she feels pretty crap, secondly Ize has blisters on his feet from all the walking we have been doing, and thirdly we did actually make the effort and go out last night but only got as far as the Tram stop because we didn't have enough change to buy tickets from the machine (you can't buy them onboard) and no where was open to change our $1000Kc notes..so..we were bit buggered there. Instead, we are making another effort tonight.

Today we went to Prague Castle. We walked down to the tram, and the shop was open to change the money for us (we finally got a bit sick of walking everywhere and broke). The castle was awesome. The outside was so detailed, with lots of pointy bits and a real gothic look and feel. The inside was even more impressive, with an insanely tall ceiling, and huge archways. The walls had these massive stained glass windows at leased 5m high. You could also go up an almost neverending spiral staircase to one of the top towers. The view was amazing as you were able to see a 360 degree view of the city.

We are now back in the same internet cafe, after Kez bought a cool amber charm on the way back from the castle. We are about to head back to the hostel for a break before we go out. Kez is under the impression she can kill her cold/flu with alcohol...its an anticeptic right??

We will be thinking of you all in Oz, NZ, and London as we chill out for our last night in Prague with a cold one/s in our hands.

Cheers

Here are some pics from today:

1. Walking to the Castle - you can see Charles Bridge and the Castle off to the left.

2. Prague Castle

3. Inside the Castle....tall....it actually looks cloudy up there

4. Ize dwarfed in comparison to the ceiling, and he is wearing a cool star wars T-Shirt.

5. View from the top tower - Prague in all her glory. Charles Bridge is below.

6. Fearsome Castle gate guard

7. One of many big cool windows inside.

In Prague

 

Afternoon All!

Prague is the best place we have been yet. Everyone is friendly and speak just enough english to help us out. Nothing opens before 10am or shuts before 7pm. It gets dark about 9pm-ish. Drinks are cheap as anything, like 1-2 aussie dollars for a half a litre of beer. Get that into ya! Plus happy hour is 2 for 1 at most places. Every third shop is a Bar, and every supermarket, corner store, most fast food outlets, and even laudromats serve booze. Our hostel is great too. We have a private room with 3 beds...even though we booked a room with a double bed. Breakfast is free and served until 1pm..consisiting of toast, bread rolls, cheese, meat spread, cerial, boiled eggs, juice and coffee/tea. Of course being free, we stuff ourselves so much that we don't need lunch until 3pm. The city is very relaxed, happy and clean. Its also very quiet when you manage to get away from the tourist crowds, with little traffic and few people.

The day we got here we hardly did anything, just went down stairs and sampled the bar. Yesterday we did a fair bit of tripping around. We wanderered around Stare Mesto (Old Town), had lunch at an awesome restaurant/bar (where we ate traditional Prague-ish food - pig meat and meat filled english-style dumplings), and walked over the cool Charles Bridge (apparently one of the best things to see here). There seems to be two main sorts of shops here - cheap souvenir shops, and amber shops. Away from Old Town seems to be normal 'mall' type shops where the locals hang out..but in Old Town there seems to be throngs of tourists buying crappy things, and no locals at all. It's a bit strange.

We are yet to see Prague Castle and the Charles Bridge at night (which is meant to be great) so we are doing that tomorrow. Tonight we are going to do a bit of a pub crawl and see what the night life here is like. We reckon Dan would love it here because the live music scene is thriving. Our hostel pub has a live band most nights, and even today during the day there was a band in Old Town Square pumping out beats for the shoppers.

Today we wandered down to the suburbs and had a poke around some op-shops, and then caught the Tram into the city where we had lunch at a great pizza place (the pizza chef is out in the open and you can watch him spin the dough and make it all from scratch). We have just been window shopping all day, and we are about to head back to the hostel for a rest before our night out tonight.

Here are some pics so far:

1. Us a bit pickled after our first visit to our hostel bar for much needed drinks after Rome.

2. Some cool Prague thing at the entrace to Old Town Square

3. Old Town Square (a corner of it anyway)

4. Part of Old Town (dotted with tourist-y shops)

5. A rather snazzy church we stumbled on by accident today

6. Ye old Absinth shop...yes we plan to try and poison ourselves before we leave this booze wonderland. Will let you know how that pans out for us...

7. Our lunch today...no we didn't eat them all, but we made a fair effort.

8. Better view of Old Town Square. Note the statues on all the building tops..(big brother is watching you)

9. View from Charles Bridge

10. One of many statues on Charles Bridge

In Rome

Hello All!

We are actually in Prague now, but will fill you in on Rome first.

Simply....we are not fans. And will never go back.

The sights were good, all the ruins and Vatican City were both amazing and stunning. However the people were beyond rude and most of them just wanted to rip us off. Most people could speak english but pretended not to. No one smiled, we saw no happy couples, no children, no places to eat that weren't italian cuisine....basically it seems they are suffering from the same God complex as the Romans and do not believe that any other culture has anything to offer them, and hense are inferior. The city itself was filthy, and in general disrepair. Everything was covered in graffiti, pavements had big holes in them..buildings were blackened with dirt and pollution. We both bought new white walking shoes to use for overseas...3 days in Hong Kong, they were still sparkling white. One day in Rome, they are filthy. So thats a bit of an indication. We paid $12 for Pringles. wft. We arn't going to say how much we were screwed for a cab...lets just say our rings still hurt.

So to you italians...up your face!

Here are some pics:

1. Ize in the entrance to the Sistine Chapel (where Michaelangelo did all his famous paintings)

2. Through the Vatican Museums

3. Road to the Sistine Chapel

4. A violent painting (most of them were)

5. That big courtyard thingy in Vatican City...its name escapes us

6. Same place...but with Ize!

7. And again, with Kez

8. Entrance to Vatican City Musuem

9.The Colosseum (a lot more run down than we thought)

10. Those bloody Romans!

11. Inside the Colosseum

12. Inside different view

13. Roman Forums

14. Streets of Rome