Day 30

Today we were off to Rome. We got up early, packed up the rest of our stuff and then headed out to reception to check out and get a cab to the airport. Unfortunately, reception didn’t open until 8 so we were waiting for ten minutes. Once we had checked out, it was another 15 minute wait for the cab to arrive. The mozzies were out nice and early – I managed to get bitten while we were waiting.

We headed out to the airport at dangerous speeds but once again arrived in one piece. We headed into the airport for one of the worst airport experiences ever. I had thought that the Paris Orly airport was bad – Venice was worse. The check in itself was fine, much better than at Orly, but the security line went for miles. Miles and miles. 

Airport chaos

There were about 5 flights all leaving within the space of 2 hours so there were 500+ people all trying to get through security at the same time with only 4 security queues open. Chaos. And the queue was marked out terribly so people were pushing in, lines weren’t moving at all and people were getting upset and frustrated, especially people who had flights to get to and those with young children. I think it took us about an hour and a half to get through security so that by the time we got through all we had time to do was get to our gate.

As you could imagine, such a hold up at security caused delays on a number of the flights so our flight was late leaving the airport. We arrived in Rome half an hour after our scheduled arrival time. By the time we got our luggage and headed out through customs, I was pretty over it. 

I had arranged a shuttle bus to take us to our hotel. We waited for half an hour, I called the company and after 3 separate calls he informed me that the reason why there was no shuttle waiting for us was because we were supposed to have been on one half an hour ago. I was like, um, yeah, I know that. Our flight was delayed and aren’t you supposed to be monitoring that? Apparently not. Anyway, second transfer fail, again in Italy.

We ended up taking a taxi to our apartment. We had a bit of a dispute with our driver when we arrived. The Rome Council has a fixed price on official taxis to and from the city area to the airports so that people don’t get ripped off by dodgy drivers. We were informed by the taxi information office that this should be 40 Euro regardless of number of passengers, luggage, etc. 

When we arrived at the apartment, the taxi driver told us 50 Euro. We showed him the pamphlet saying is should be 40 Euro where he then justified the extra cost as luggage. We showed him the pamphlet saying that the transfer was inclusive of luggage. Anyway, in the end, we paid him the 50 Euro, got a receipt and his taxi number and were set to complain to somebody. Don’t get me wrong, we weren’t trying to rip him off for his fare but somebody was in the wrong. Either he was overcharging us or the Rome Council were knobs and needed to fix their brochure. We did find a tourist information person later who said that 50 Euro wasn’t unreasonable for four passengers and luggage. Still not sure how I feel about it though...

I had been told by the apartment owner to ring the bell for apartment number 4 when we arrived. So we did. And there was no answer. Um... ok. Where was the bit of paper with his number and the apartment address? Turns out we left it in the taxi. Ok, crap. How do we get in touch with the dude? Steve and I went off in search of an internet cafe so I could look up his number in my emails.

We found a little Laundromat/internet spot just around the corner with the most awesome guy (he was lovely). By the time we got back, he had arrived and Steve’s parents were already in with him. Turns out that he hadn’t expected us to get into Rome so quickly so had arrived 10 minutes or so after us. In the mean time, Steve’s mum had buzzed nearly everybody in the apartment block to let us in and find what his number was, which she got.

We finally got into the apartment and breathed a sigh of relief. Italy wasn’t going so well but we figured it would have to get better from this....right?

One of the things that Steve has done in each city is loaded up maps of the city we’re in and the public transport system onto his phone, which has proven to be fairly useful a number of times. Unfortunately we forgot to do this in Venice and the apartment had free internet but no WIFI but we figured out that Rome was a fairly big city so finding WIFI should be easy.

Wandering the streets of Rome

We headed out and had a sticky beak in the neighbourhood. The apartment was incredibly close to the Termini station which was awesome for public transport. Unfortunately finding somebody to explain it to us was a bit harder as rather than having tourist booths, they just have tourist information people that just kind of float around in random places. We luckily bumped into one who advised us to get a three day public transport pass for 11 Euro each.

We continued our walk around the neighbourhood before stopping by a nearby supermarket to stock up on food and drinks before heading back to the apartment. The weather was pretty good considering the weather forecast had been predicting rain and storms all weekend. It drizzled slightly for a bit but stopped fairly quickly.

Steve’s mum made a delicious dinner for us and then we made some plans about what we wanted to see the next day. I was doing shuttle runs back and forth between the Laundromat/internet spot as the washing machine in the apartment was broken.

Steve and I headed out later that evening to find some WIFI. We asked the guy at the internet spot and he said that there isn’t much public WIFI around in Rome and advised to try the Maccas close by. We went in and had a chat to the manager about it. Turns out that Maccas WIFI is locked only to Italian numbers so that was useless. We figured there must be somewhere in Rome with free WIFI so we figured we’d keep an eye out for it over the next day.

Day 29

We had decided last night that we would do a night cruise of Venice tonight so we didn’t plan on heading into Venice until late. Therefore, we completely wasted our morning – it was awesome! We didn’t get out of bed until 10:30 and just bummed around in our pjs reading and surfing the net. I know it sounds lame but it was just so nice to do nothing and not have to worry about dashing off to see something or do something for a change.

Steve’s parents got sick of us (they’d already been super productive in the morning and were bored) so we arranged to meet them near St Mark’s Square at 4 so that they could head into Venice. We went for a swim in the pool, which was chilly by the way, had some lunch, did some packing and then headed into Venice around 2:30.

By the time we had walked to the bus station (the shuttle bus didn’t run between 12 pm and 6 pm), caught the bus in, transferred to a water bus to take us to St Mark’s Square and then arrived at the meeting point, it was about 4. Steve’s parents arrived soon after us so we then headed down to St Mark’s Basilica where there may have been even more people than yesterday as a few cruise ships had arrived.

We decided to just grin and bear it so we lined up and the line ended up moving fairly quickly. Unfortunately when we got to the front we weren’t allowed to take our back packs in. Conveniently, there was a luggage service that St Mark’s offered around the corner – for a small fee of course. We decided to take it in turns wandering the basilica so that the two outside could babysit the packs.

St Mark's Basilica

St Mark’s was pretty cool. Lots of gold everywhere. There were signs all around saying no photography which heaps of people were just blatantly ignoring (not us though). The funniest one was an old dude with an SLR that had a MASSIVE lense. It was pretty hard not to miss but the attendants weren’t saying anything so he just kept on clicking away.

After the Basilica we thought we might check out the Doge’s Palace. The entrance fee was $13 per person so we thought we would give it a miss given that it was already after 5 and the place closed at 6 plus we, well, at least Steve and I, were starting to get a bit over old buildings. Very uncultured, I know.

Instead we walked down the waterfront until we reached a nice little area where we wandered around and explored the south east corner of Venice. We had dinner at a nice little restaurant, watched the sunset and then got on a water bus to Lido Island. We only had about half an hour to wander around before we had to get back on another water bus to take us back to the bus terminal

Sunset

Venice by night was lovely. As we had gotten on at the very first stop, we had prime seats outside at the front of the boat. The city was much nicer at night when you couldn’t see how run down some of the buildings had gotten and some buildings, restaurants and the bridges along the Grand Canal were lit up.

Grand Canal at night

We caught the shuttle bus back, got ready for bed and prepared for another day of travelling...

Day 28

We headed into Venice on the 9:30 am shuttle bus. Our driver was pretty crazy although not quite as crazy as the cabbie as he had a boxy van and was carrying twice as many people as the cab had. We arrived in Venice and he shooed us out of the car. We asked him if this was where he’d pick us up again later and he kind of grunted something that sounded like a yes.

Rialto bridge

We spent the next few hours wandering the streets of Venice, doing our best to get lost/find our way to the Rialto bridge. We didn’t do too badly in the end. After the Rialto bridge we made our way to St Mark’s Square. We stopped off for a drink at a lovely cafe in a little piazza before continuing our journey.

There were squillions of people in St Mark’s Square. Squillions. And it was hot. We decided that we didn’t want to wait in the heat to go into St Mark’s Basilica so we walked along the water front and found a shaded place to have lunch.

Venice waterfront from the water bus

We went to the information centre and found that the best way of transport around Venice was by the public transport system so we bought tickets that would last for 36 hours and then hopped on a water bus to Murano Island.

OH&S?

Murano Island was nice. We went to a glass making shopping and got to watch two guys make a vase and a horse out of the glass which was pretty cool. The room was stinking hot due to a massive furnace so the guys were just hanging out it shorts and T-shirts as they moulded the molten glass... We then had to walk through their show room to get out of course. I was terrified of breaking something.

We managed to get out unscathed (once we found the exit) and then grabbed a snack before adventuring on Murano. We wandered the streets and managed to get stuck at a few dead ends on our quest for another water bus stop before giving up and just coming back to the two we knew were there.

We caught what must have been the slowest ride ever back to Venice. We hadn’t realised how empty the water bus we caught to Murano was until we stopped at every single stop on the way back to pick up passengers heading into Venice. I think it took us an hour to get back in.

Peak hour in the Grand Canal

Once we arrived we noticed it was starting to get close to when the shuttle bus was booked to pick us up from the bus terminal so we caught a water bus up the Grand Canal. That was pretty cool although it got pretty squishy on board. The canal was very busy! I was surprised there weren’t any accidents with the number of boats and gondolas cruising around. Our bus driver/captain did have to reverse the engines a few times.

We landed safely and had about 15 minutes to kill so we just waited around where we had been dropped off this morning. We weren’t 100% sure if we were in the right place still, given the vagueness of the driver’s reply this morning but we weren’t sure where else to wait. Luckily some other people who had caught the bus in with us in the morning also showed up so we were somewhat reassured.

The shuttle arrived and took off back to the camping village. We insect repellented and then had a nice relaxing dinner at the restaurant after a long day of walking before going back and bumming out in the cabin for the rest of the night.

Day 27

The day started early with some last minute cleaning in the apartment before heading to the Metro to catch a train to Orly airport. When we arrived at the airport there was no check in counter for our flight yet and squillions of people checking in for other flights. We figured either way we would be waiting so we decided to wait in line. An hour later (worst check in ever), we finally checked into our flight. It was so depressing to have gotten to the airport on time, even slightly early, but by the time we had checked in we were just making the time limit.

We headed up through the airport security which also took a while and by the time we made it to the gate we only had about 10 minutes to spare before the official boarding time. I managed to get in one last Pain au Chocolat from Paris before we flew out to Venice.

When we arrived in Venice airport, there were buses waiting on the tarmac to take us to the terminal which was amusing as a number of people had rushed off to be the “first” off and then just had to sit on the bus and wait for others. I guess you could say that at least they had seats but it then meant that when we did arrive at the terminal, all the people standing near the door could get off first.

Venice airport

I had booked us into a camping village with self contained cabins that was 15 minutes away from Venice because Venice was very, very expensive. I had booked, or thought that I had booked, an airport transfer from Venice airport to the camping village but, alas, when we arrived it was not there. After 45 minutes of waiting and 3 phone calls to a very unhelpful operator, we got a cab which ended up being around the same price anyway! The cabbie was pretty cool, even if he did drive at insane speeds (I think he was up to 150 km/h in a 90 km/h stretch at one point...)

After all the hoo ha with transfers and stuff we arrived at the camping village mid afternoon. One of the downsides of the camping village was that there were mosquitoes. I somehow got bitten twice while we were checking in, which wasn’t so fun. 

Mosquito buffet

The cabin was nice though and had two separate bedrooms with their own ensuites. There was also a pool that looked fantastic, particularly as it was hot. Not hot hot but starting to get up into the mid to high twenties.

Awesome pool area

The camping village offered a shuttle service into Venice or you could catch the public bus in, which was about a 15 minute walk away. We dumped our luggage, insect repellented ourselves and then went for a walk around the neighbourhood to check things out and find the bus stop. The bus stop was just down the road from a gelati shop so we had some yummy gelati on our way back.

We bought a few items from the supermarket at the camping village and then had our first Italian meal at the restaurant- Italian pizzas are delicious! After dinner we chilled for the rest of the night and made vague plans for the next day.

Day 26

Express lane!

We had a sleep in today after our previous late night and then made our way to the Eiffel Tower. We took the metro. Dad managed to get his ticket to not validate on the way out (not the first time, and always tends to be him...). When we got there, there were armed military patrolling, lots of tourist, hawkers, and the largest line ever. It was huge! However, Sandra had bought tickets online earlier so we got to skip the line. Win! Although I’m sure the military had their own special entrance. I’d like to think it was a helicopter...

However, this wicked queue cutting only really got us as far as the second floor. At that point, we had to join everyone else to make it to the top. Fail. The line was so long that people weren’t sure if they were lining up behind the line or just groups of people looking at the view. But no, it was the line...

We finally made it to the top after maybe half an hour of waiting around. With the romantic view of Paris in the background (ignoring all the people around us), I asked Sandra to marry me. She said yes, so yay! After some congratulations from the folks we continued to enjoy the view of Paris. Mum spent a lot of time away from the edge.

We caught the elevator down to the second floor and had another walk around and then took the steps to the first floor. We stopped off at the restaurant on the first floor to get some lunch as it was close to 2. It was decently priced (for a restaurant on the Eiffel Tower) and had a nice view over the Trocadéro.

The view during lunch

The rest of this day was relatively relaxing. We left the Eiffel Tower and walked around the Champs de Mars and then over to Trocadéro before catching the Metro back to the apartment where we spent the rest of th afternoon chilling (and blogging...). Later, the folks went to the Artist’s Square at night. But like I said in China, I’m a bit over the art scene. The rest of the night was spent packing, getting ready for the travel to Venice the next day.

Day 25

Since the line for the Louvre was so long yesterday, we did it today instead. Sandra found a thing on the net that said to get the tickets and enter the Louvre from the subway station that was next to it. So we did. The line was far far shorter than the one we saw yesterday. Go Internet!

This museum was massive. Just massive. There was no way we could give it the full time it deserved. Plus, these things tire me out. Since we all agreed, we decided to hunt out the most famous stuff only. The Mona Lisa was a good example of this.

The whole architecture of the place was amazing. And the artwork on the ceilings made for good viewing.

We also came across this piece of famous artwork Portrait présumé de Gabrielle d'Estrées et de sa soeur la duchesse de Villars or otherwise known as Gabrielle d'Estrées and one of her sisters.

Now, I can't say as I don't have any sisters but I asked mum and Sandra and they both said that they definitely don't hang out with their sisters this way...

Once we were full of culture and history, we decided to balance it out by going to the Paris 2010 Manga and SciFi show (which ended today)! We found the address online the night before and found it wasn’t far from our apartment. Surprisingly, the folks weren’t interested in this, so Sandra and I went solo (like Han. Come on, get in the spirit!).

A train ride later told us that we were sadly mistaken about the address. Turns out this was the address of show next year. These are not the buildings you are looking for. Defeated, we went home to find out the real address (and get some Panadol. My head had started to hurt).

After getting some more accurate information, we set out again. This time, we hit the jackpot. Since we’d never been to something like this, we weren’t sure what to expect. But the atmosphere was pretty awesome. There were people in costume everywhere, video game stations, mass group “Dance Central”, karaoke, karate (although they weren’t displaying while we were there), quizzes, wrestling (WWE style), and loads of stores selling ninja swords, DVDs, and figurines. Awesome.

We went home and chatted with Jeff (Sandra’s brother) via MSN and then got ready for a night tour of Paris. Being the city of lights, this is something that had to be done.

The tour was good, except for one big fail. The commentary system (or the driver) kept stuffing up. Rarely did the monument line up with the dialog. Usually, the dialog would get interrupted or we would hear an interesting fact of something that wasn’t there. Other than this, the city at night was pretty good. The bus parked next to the Eiffel tower and waited for it to light up like a sparkly Christmas tree. Very cool.

Unfortunately because the tour didn’t start until ten we didn’t get home and in bed until around one which wasn’t too fun.

Day 24

Turns out that the Artist’s Square was also close to our apartment so since we had an artist amongst us, we just had to have a look. For me, it was alright. Just another square with lots of art. We lost Sandra for a little while too – she had decided to walk around the square without telling anybody (apparently she told me but I didn’t hear her). And we thought that was going to happen in China.

A little further past the Artist’s Square was the Sacre Coeur (famous church). This place was pretty cool. Out the front, it also had an awesome view of the city.

Outside the church we started to get a feel for the scams/begging that were common in France. Every city seemed to have a different flavour. You know they are, because you see them again and again at different tourist attractions. France had the following:

• The woman comes up to you with a head scarf, and says ‘Do you speak English’. Tourist says ‘yes’ (to hich I did). She shows you a note saying they just migrated from country X, and needs money <PUTS ON SAD FACE>.
• Dude comes up to you with string, and unless you are quick enough, starts tying it on your fingers. They never managed it with us, so we can’t say what eventuated from this one.

Keeping with the theme of famous churches, our next stop was the Notre Dame. We took the Paris Metro stop closest and headed further into the city. The line at Notre Dame wasn’t too bad and we got in relatively quick. This place was awesome. The most impressive one we’ve seen so far. The ones in London could have been better but since I didn’t want to take out another mortgage to look inside, I’ll never know. Maybe one day when I’m old I’ll be happy to pay 17 pounds to go into a church.

We then walked across the Seine and got some drinks at a french cafe. Expensive (it is Paris), but really nice atmosphere. We then walked along the waterfront to the Louvre. 

The line here was nuts, so we decided to do it tomorrow instead and just go for a small walk down the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. I made a new friend along the way although I don't think he appreciated my jokes.

The Champs Elysees is a busy street (as said by Art vs Science), as well as long. It took us a couple of hours to get down it. This did include a food break and the most expensive toilet stop so far (2 Euros each). Apparently the women’s toilets were awesome but I certainly didn’t see my 2 Euros worth.

The Arc de Triomphe was pretty cool. Massive monument in the middle of a massive roundabout. As recommended by all travel websites, we didn’t cross the roundabout via the road, as french drivers are crazy. Luckily there is an underpass but it took us a little while to find it as there were some street performers performing right in front of it which meant that there as a huge crowd in front of it so we couldn’t see it.

The Arc itself was awesome. They also had a ceremony on as well. This was both good and bad. Good because we got to see something new. Bad because it prevented us from standing at the front and underneath.

After such an epic walk it was home time. However, a subway accident made this more difficult. Finding out that it was a subway accident was a little harder. From our point of view, we all got on the train, heard a voice over the PA say something in French and then saw everyone who could speak French get off the train again while the rest of us looked at each other with question marks above our heads. When this happened again with the next train, we found an attendant who could speak English and got them to tell us what was going on. By the way, for all those with in iPhone, the MetrO app is useful for dealing with subways in other countries.

On our way home, we stopped by the supermarket to pick up some grub and also stopped off at the Moulin Rouge to see if they had any tickets available while we were there. It turned out that every tourist and his dog wants to see this show (even though it’s 80 Euro minimum each) and they were booked out for a month. Next time!

Day 23

Today was pack up day, getting ready for the big trip to Paris. Row met up with us at the apartment in the morning to say goodbye and to swap photos and stuff. After saying goodbye, we trained and bussed our way to Luton airport. This was a lengthy bus ride, which therefore meant many of us felt a bit average by the end.

The flight to Paris was uneventful. For a flight, that’s probably a good thing. When we landed, Sandra called the apartment people to organise them to meet us at the apartment. The lady said that she’d meet us there in one and a half hours. We thought, well, that’s a while, but ok, sure lady. We’ll wait out the front for her.

We had arranged a private car to take us to our apartment. We found the drivers easily, and they were friendly guys. Going down the highway, we came across heavy Paris traffic. Balls. The driver told us that on the weekends a number of Parisiens head out of town so traffic on Friday’s is hideous... There were many motorbikes cruising down the highways between the cars. The driver told us that it’s so common in Paris that they even have motorbike taxis from the airport for the businessman who needs to get to his meeting on time.

The traffic was pretty bad. The GPS said we had about 11 minutes of travel time to get to our apartment but it took us over an hour. In the end, this worked out well, as the apartment chick arrived 2 seconds after us. Hooray for good timing!

The apartment was nice. Small, but nice. It also had the best WiFi speed out of all the apartments so far. After we got our stuff sorted, we went for a walk around the block to have a look and find a supermarket. It turned out that our apartment was really close to the Moulin Rouge which had been completely unintentional. Finding the supermarket was harder than we thought, as it was a bit late. However, while dad went down to find some wine underneath another store, he found one.

It was a Friday night, so a lot of people were out. We had our dinner, and went to bed. Going to sleep was a little hard, as our apartment was on the ground floor next to the street. You could pretty much hear everything that went on outside.

Day 22

Today starts with the glory of Internet. The reception finally had a username and password for us to use. Yay! Although we could only abuse the net for so long as we had to make it to Buckingham palace in time for the changing of the guards.

We had arranged to meet Row for the changing of the guards at the corner of Hyde Park closest to the palace but sadly, due to booking stuff etc., we were running late. We had to get from our apartment to the palace through Hyde park so to make up time, we ran. It was pretty painful - we’re pretty unfit right now. Not doing any aerobic exercise will do that to you I guess. We ran for a while and then walked the rest.

Very interesting...

When we arrived, we couldn’t find Row or my parents (who left at a decent time so that they didn’t have to rush) at all. So we found our place amongst the crowd, and waited for the ceremony to unfold.

All in all the changing of the guard was ok. We spent a fair bit of time trying to decide what all the differently dressed guards actually did. We couldn’t figure it out and still don’t know. Our view was blocked most of the time by this tall American guy who seemed to have made it to the front so that he could purposely block the view of all shorter people.

After the ceremony, we found Row and the folks in the dispersing crowd. Row brought a friend along too whom was currently in town to do some visa stuff. Turns out this was also the guy who helped me at the Hobart immigration office to get all the documents I needed to get my Dutch passport.

So now that we formed the gang, we made our way to the Westminster area. We wanted to find a place to sit down and have a drink. Now, you think this would be relatively easy in London, however, the first place we found said that we had to eat food from them as well so we left and the only other places that we came across were pubs and the like.

After a bit more walking, we finally found a coffee place and got take away drinks and then found a spot across the river with an awesome view of Big Ben and Parliament House to have lunch. We then made our way to the London Eye. Mum wussed out, and dad kept her company and Row’s friend was on a budget, so only Row, Sandra and I decided to go up. The line was humongous so we thought we’d give Stevo a call to see if he could purchase some tickets online for us while we were waiting. The booking system wouldn’t let Stevo book any tickets in the next hour so we decided to come back later so that Stevo could join us when he finished work.

Feeling that we needed to see more churches, we went to look at Westminster abbey. In true London tourist fashion, we had to pay lots to get in (again, worshipers are free). However, St. Margaret’s cathedral was next door and free! So we went in.

Row had a bank appointment so she had to disappear and the folks wanted to head over to the Tate modern gallery so the rest of us decided to check out the Science Museum. This was pretty cool, but after a few hours of wandering around we started to get pretty tired. It’s amazing how pooped you get walking around looking at stuff – plus the impromptu run in the morning. So Sandra and I went home for a napski.

Feeling slightly more refreshed, we made our way back to the London Eye to meet up with Stevo and Row. The booking had advised us to line up about 30 minutes beforehand to be safe. There was also a 4D experience before the ‘ride’, so we decided to get there 50 minutes early. The ‘flight’ (as they call it) was at 7, but there was hardly any line, so we got on at 6:30. The sights of London on the flight were awesome. 

As we came in to land, we saw my parents waiting for us (as we said we’d meet them at 6:30...). We then went to a boat pub for dinner.

We mentioned the cool robot arms in Trafalgar square to Stevo and Row, so we decided to look at them again after dinner. This time, they were setup and had guys there to tell us what they were all about. Turns out that they were part of an art festival, and what you can do is email in some text, and the robot arms would write the text in the air for you. Sounds a bit lame but there was a website where you could watch the robots live and then they slowed down the image so that you could see the individual letters that each robot wrote. The website was www.outrace.org, I don’t know if it’s still there but it was pretty cool.

We then decided to walk aimlessly through the streets of London following the GPS - General Positioning Stevo, thus dubbed due to his ability to generally know where we were going but having no idea how to get there. We ended up in Soho, where it was time to tube it home for sleepy time.

Day 21

We started off the day by heading into reception again in a vain attempt to see if the man with the internets had appeared but unfortunately no such luck. The dour reception from yesterday was there again and about as cheery as she had been yesterday... We decided to give up for a while and head into London central to do some sightseeing.

Our apartment was conveniently just around the corner from the subway so we wandered over, swiped our Oyster cards and were off! Or so we thought.... We wanted to catch the Circle line to Tower Hill and as we walked into the station, the right platform said "Tower Hill" so we walked down and settled in for the train. We watched the electronic board and our train wasn't coming yet so we sat and watched a few trains go by. After about 10 minutes we thought it was a bit strange that the train hadn't arrived yet so I went up to ask one of the subway people.

As I started walking up I noticed that a Circle line train had pulled in so I rushed back down to where Steve and the folks were calmly sitting. I asked them why they hadn't gotten on to the train (other than me not being there) and it turned out that the train hadn't been displayed on the electronic board. Sick of waiting, we got on the next Circle line train that arrived... Turns out that although it says it's the Circle line, it really isn't. The line took us up to Edgware Road - the last stop on the Circle line before you have to transfer onto another train. Great. Thanks London subway... We found out later that the Circle line had been having timing troubles (hence the no display) and that we had waited on the wrong platform - yes, it said Tower Hill but it was Tower Hill via Edgware. We used the left platform for later trips.

We finally arrived at Tower Hill after taking the scenic route (as scenic as the London underground can be) and wandered over to the Tower of London. We had thought about going in but the admission prices were a bit steep, especially coming from Edinburgh, so we gave it a miss. We walked along the waterfront towards London Bridge and went up. There was an exhibition on bridges and the history of London bridge in the walkways between the towers so we had a sticky beak at that as we went through.

It was about here when Stevo called me and got me into trouble with one of the London Bridge staff. Turns out that you're not allowed to use mobile phones in the bridge. I hadn't seen the sign on the way up but Steve conveniently told me where it was afterwards. After the towers of London Bridge, we went to the engine room to see how the bridge used to be opened. That was pretty cool.

We walked along the south bank towards the city. There were a couple of cool courtyards along the way with no shortage of pigeons. For a bit of culture, we came across Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. However, there was a show on so we couldn't go inside and had to make do with what we could see from outside. I gave Row a call and organised for us to meet her and Stevo at their new apartment. Steve's dad also made the shortest phone call in the world to Holland - apparently it's very expensive to call the Netherlands from Shakespeare's Globe.

We continued walking along the south bank until we got to the Millennium Bridge (they must have rebuilt it after it was destroyed in Harry Potter....) and then crossed over towards London CBD. We made our way up to the subway station near St Paul's Cathedral, stopping by to admire the church from the outside as once again the entrance fees were a bit steep. Worshippers were free but we didn't think it would be appropriate... 

We caught the tube to Piccadilly Circus which put us right in... Piccadilly! Unfortunately we couldn't purchase it from the bank for $280 but on the upside we didn't have to pay $22 rent either. Although I think there were hotels on the street (eep!). From there we picked up a Chance card and advanced to Trafalgar Square. We got slightly lost on our way there (wrong direction initially) so we missed Go and didn't pick up our $200.

Cool robots

Trafalgar Square was cool. When we arrived they were setting up robot arms in the middle of the square - random but cool. We had no idea what was going on and there was nobody there to ask so we figured we'd find out later. We all went into the National Gallery where Steve and I ditched the folks and then did a good job of getting lost before gradually making our way out. We then headed down to the tube again for a ride down to Clapham North to visit Stevo and Row.

Hanging out with Stevo and Row

Stevo was still at work but Row had given us awesome directions to their new place. We didn't even get lost once! Although once we arrived my phone had a bit of a moment and we thought we wouldn't be able to call her but it all worked out ok. Their apartment was pretty cool. Slightly bare but that was understandable given that they had only moved in at 6 pm in the previous night, most of their furniture was still in boxes from IKEA and Stevo had bought a wardrobe instead of a bed.

We hung out and ate delicious cheese and drank wine with Row until Stevo came home around 6 where he joined us. They showed us their photos of Iceland which were very cool. Around an hour later we decided to go out and get some grub so we walked down to Clapham on a quest for Indian so that Steve could satisfy his vindaloo craving.

After walking the entire strip and not finding a beef vindaloo, we finally went back to the one Indian restaurant that we found that did chicken vindaloo. My dinner was delicious but unfortunately Steve's vindaloo turned out to be a bit disappointing which resulted in him eating half of mine...hrm... We finished up and Stevo and Row walked us to the closest station before heading off to the pub to meet one of Row's friends who was currently in the country.

It took us about 45 minutes to get back to the apartment so we were pretty sleepy by the time we crawled into bed. I miss Hobart's 15 minute drives, even the 30 minute one from Taroona.

Day 20

Today we left Edinburgh to go to London. As always, we got up early to go checkout, get our deposit back, and find our way to the airport. We decided not to take the steps of doom this time, having discovered a much more luggage friendly way of getting to the bus terminal. Unfortunately the wifi on the bus didn’t work so well this time so boo.

We arrived at the airport and checked into our flight and then settled in for the flight. We were slightly delayed departing and slightly delayed landing but the flight was only about twenty minutes late overall. Upon arriving in London, we had to get in contact with the private transport company to take us to the hotel. We gave them a call, and they said that they would get the driver to call us back. However, being the nice people we are, we thought that we would go to where all the other taxis are. 

This was a stupid idea in the end for two reasons. Firstly, to get to the taxis, you have to go under what I assume is the car park. Either way, it’s big, concrete, and prevents any phone signals from getting in. When we finally realised this and got to a place where we could get reception, we found out that he was meeting us back at the arrivals area...

MacGyver Sandra

The car took us to our apartment. Sandra and I went up to reception (about 200 m up the road from the apartment) to check in. There was a bit of a queue and only one receptionist so it took a little bit. The receptionist seemed to be having a bad day, and although she was civil, was not particularly nice.... The apartment here was not as nice as the one in Edinburgh, and was also more expensive. 

There was wifi, and a network cable (although we had to fix the network port - thank you mini tool kit/torch combo), but you needed a username and password to access the net. Ok, off to the not-so-nice receptionist again to ask about the internet and for an extra key. There was a queue again and still only one receptionist so we decided to come back later.

Dental win!

We settled into the apartment and then headed off to explore the area and find a supermarket to get some stuff for dinner and lunches for the next few days. Sandra found an Asian supermarket and got super excited about it. 

During our travels, mum had been complaining about a filling that had dropped out leaving behind a fairly chipped tooth that was causing her some pain. Luckily for us, there was a dentist right near our apartment and he had an availability in 45 minutes time. Score, how lucky is that! So mum went in and got that patched up while the rest of us went to the supermarket.

We figured it was also time to get our Oyster cards (public transport cards) sorted so that we could use the tube. Sandra went into the train station to buy them but that particular station didn't sell them and directed Sandra to a shop across the road. Sandra figured we’d put 10 pounds each on them, but the guy recommended 5 pounds would be enough for the time that we were there so we thought we would trust the local. 

We went back to the apartment and put the shopping away. We walked back up to reception again and there was still a queue so we decided we would come up again after dinner. Mum came back to the apartment but it was still too early for dinner so we headed out again. Our apartment was really close to Hyde Park so we thought we would go for an evening stroll in the park as it was still light outside. As soon as we walked through the gate it started drizzling. As much as we enjoy walking in the rain, we decided to investigate the other half of the main street and leave the walk in the park for better weather. 

We found a cinema, and were hoping to go see “The last airbender’ but it appears that it’s no longer showing... Fail. I know it got bad reviews, but the cartoon of it was so awesome I have to see it! We also found quite a few more dentists up the street. So turns out it was more good odds than luck that we found a dentist for mum. Maybe this is just a part of London that has poor dental hygiene?

Our adventures had separated us from the folks so we headed back to the apartment. We thought we would stop by reception (for the third time) and there were finally two receptionists and only one other person in reception so hurrah! Turned out that the parents had been in there just before us (the girl that served us was quite young and described mum as my aunt or grandma - hilarious!) and had already picked up the second key. 

Hard at work...

We weren't so lucky with the internet unfortunately as it turned out that the company that sets up the internet wasn’t around, and we had to wait for them to come back the next day. We did make the effort to go to an Internet Cafe so that we could let our mates in London (Stevo and Row) know that we were there. 50p for 30 min. Not bad. 

Day 19

Being the true royalists we are, we started the morning off with a trip to see the Royal Yacht Britannia. For those who don’t know, this is a ship built for the English Royal family, and was decommissioned a few years ago so that people like us could desecrate it.

It was alright. It’s a boat. The funniest thing was getting told off for dancing like a spaz so that my shoes squeaked more.

Next, we made our way to the Nelson monument. At 1pm, they drop a giant ball on top of the monument to signal the ships that it’s 1pm. They did this before the cannon, and introduced the cannon because of those days when the weather prevented the ships from seeing the monument. So at 1, we saw the ball drop, and the cannon go off. I think it would be cooler if they used the cannon to knock the ball off.

Near this monument is a replica of the Parthenon in Greece. Well, actually, it’s unfinished. They ran out of money, and therefore dubbed it “Edinburgh’s Shame”. That was pretty cool.

The weather started to turn bad , which I hear is rare in Edinburgh. So we decided to do an indoor attraction. We went to the Camera Obscura. This is an optical illusion house, with the world’s first camera obscura on top. A camera obscura is basically a mirror reflecting the image of outside into a lens which displays in onto a white canvas inside a dark room. Mostly, this is kind of lame. But the cool part is that this was done in 1850. It was a tourist attraction then, so it is likely to be the longest running tourist attraction in Edinburgh.

Camera Obscura was pretty fun though. There was some really cool stuff like a heat camera and a mirror maze and there was this awesome tunnel thing:

The bridge is stationary and the whole tunnel rotates around so that as you walk across the bridge you feel off balance and actually have to cling to the rails for support. Weird but awesome!

We went out for dinner to celebrate our last night. We went to a traditional Scottish Thai restaurant. We think they forgot to charge our drinks to the table.

Day 18

We started off the morning slowly and then headed down to the tourist information centres. Edinburgh has a pretty good tour bus system, with double-decker busses (with open tops) so we took one of those. This gave us all kinds of info about the town, Sean Connery, and writers of famous literature.

We got off at the “Our Dynamic Earth”. It’s an interactive science place, so it sounded cool. Most of the exhibits are kind of cool, but it’s really aimed at kids. At least this place is new, so the exhibits haven’t had a chance to get dated. However, there was a totally awesome presentation about space at the end in a massive theatre (like a planetarium).  It was narrated by David Tennant, but in his natural accent (Scottish), so it was hard to pick it. There were cool comfy chairs that reclined so you could look up at the projection. The chairs were so comfy in fact that Sandra and mum fell asleep for a bit...

We then made our way to the Royal Palace. We got there in time to see a whole bunch of horses leave. Turns out there used to be a tradition (about 100 odd years ago) where they used to ride to all the borders of the city to ensure it was secure. As of last year, they’ve started up the tradition again.

The palace was alright. Apparently it’s still being used for palace duties. But the Queen wasn’t there, so that’s why they let stupid Aussies tour through although the Queen and other members of the Royal family are going to be there later this week because the Pope’s going to be in town!

We caught the bus back into the bus terminal and then found another supermarket to buy dinner before walking up some more steps to the apartment. After dinner, we did a ‘Ghosts and Gore’ tour. This was pretty cool. It was a guy in an old suit and a top hat taking us through the city. His partner would dress up and surprise everyone. Being Scottish, they were really funny. Totally worth it. Even more worth it when they surprised mum 3 times, and put Sandra in a thumb trap for being a witch.

Day 17

As expected, the sleep was average again. Didn’t need to worry about my sleeping towel this time, as we woke up TOO DAMN EARLY. My reli’s were up and about already. Must have something to do with having kids.

We left for the airport at around 7:15 and were met there by almost all of dad’s side of the family. It was a very touching moment for all, but sadly nearly made us late for our flight. But we got to the plane, and made it successfully to Edinburgh. Our pilot sounded like Lee (if that doesn’t make sense to you, then come to Wednesday night sports)! Hour and a half flight. Yes!

As expected, the EU passport holding members of our party (everyone but Sandra) went into the EU line, and Sandra had to go into the other line with her arrival card. Despite her line being 10 times smaller than ours, they only had one dude manning their desk, so we actually got through before her.

The bus into Edinburgh city was awesome for no other reason than it had free wifi! When we got into the city centre, we saw just how old and grand this city is. It looked spectacular.

After getting a nice healthy lunch (KFC) at the nearby food court, we went up to the apartment we were staying in. Although, to get there we had to go up the stairs of doom (with suitcases...)

Once we got up the top though it was ok – hooray for wheeled luggage! Unfortunately we had to go up a long spiral staircase to get to the apartment (again, with suit cases). Edinburgh loves their stairs.

The apartment was great though. Nice, modern, wifi, no church and a proper bed - what more do you need! So far, liking Edinburgh.

The apartment guy suggested doing Edinburgh castle while the weather was good, so that was our next destination. For those who don’t know Edinburgh, the stretch between the Edinburgh castle and the royal palace is called the Royal Mile. Our apartment is on the Royal Mile, near the castle side, so it was awesomely close (to lots of other things to!).

The castle was awesome. It was really old, and full of history. It looked cool too. They fire a cannon there at 1pm every day (except Sundays), as a way for boats to tell the time (this is for tradition, rather than being practical anymore).

The rest of the day was spent doing some food shopping, eating in, chilling out and going to bed. The Edinburgh comedy festival gala was rerunning on TV which was awesome. Nice way to wrap up the night, ready for another big day.

Day 16

Despite the sleeping conditions, we got to have a little bit of a sleep in. Since we were right under the uncovered window, I had to cover my face with a towel to continue my sleep in. This gave Sandra much mirth. When we went down to join the others, breakfast was ready for us. Breakfast was awesome – bread with cheese and rusks coated with chocolate sprinkles.

The day took us to Edam (continuing with our cheese theme). On the way, we had to cross the narrowest bridge ever. The side mirrors of the car had to be collapsed in order to fit.

In Edam, we met up with my cousin Erika. This is the only cousin I haven’t actually met. I now have a full set. We walked around Edam for a bit, tried out some more cheese, walked around some more, watched some people hanging outside a church at a wedding, you know, usual stuff.

After the cheese tasting delights of Edam, we went to Volendam. This was a harbour-style town that’s kind of cool to walk through. A number of shops offer the opportunity to get dressed up in old Dutch gear and take some photos but we decided against it.

My Aunt had packed some sandwiches so we hid out under a covered area to have some lunch. While we were hanging out we got to feed some ducks. Then it started raining - exciting. And we had left my rain coat in the car....  It was just lightly drizzling so we walked to the end of the strip where Dad shouted the crew to some raw herring with onion. Sandra had one again. Out of all the Dutch food she enjoys, it’s this.

We headed towards a shopping area because my cousin’s son wanted to go to a shop that was in the area. One the way we saw a toy shop so we went in to continue the hunt for Megatron, but as expected, no luck. We did however pick up my favourite Dutch licorice – yum! And Sandra got some stuff too.

The rain started to get heavier and we kept walking towards the shop. We got to dry out for a bit while they shopped before heading back to the car. We were pretty wet by the time we arrived in the car park. There were a number of clothes changes once we got home.

We repacked the bags that night, as we had to cater for the 1.5kg of Dutch liquorice (yeah baby!) and then spent the rest of the night hanging with the family. One of dad’s old mates came round and they pretty much talked the night away. We headed off to bed early-ish in preparation for the early morning tomorrow.

Day 15

Today, our plan was to go to Amsterdam, and then spend the night with dad's last sister. As a result, the morning was all about packing up, saying our teary goodbyes, and making our way to the train station to head our to Amsterdam.

We had to deal with the brilliant ticketing system again before lugging four suitcases onto the train and trying to find 4 seats facing together so we could put all our stuff together. It took a little while but we finally got there.

We got off the train at Amsterdam and had to find some luggage lockers for our stuff so that we could go and have a look around the city. Unfortunately, all the large lockers that would fit the parent's suitcases were taken. Damn tourists. Although while contemplating our next move, enough people came back to claim their luggage and leave empty lockers. I felt like a vulture circling, waiting for its prey to die.

Speaking of food, our next priority was to grab some grub. The pub that we picked had free WiFi so yay! Once our hunger was satisfied with greasy Dutch food goodness, it was time to have a look around the city.

For those who know, Amsterdam has an awesome canal system. So we went on a boat that went around them. They also had some awesome looking paddle boats that you could cruise around on but we didn't really have enough time for that.

The first canal stop was at the house of Anne Frank. It was pretty cool, thought provoking and all that. But it would have been cooler if I had actually read the book. After the house, we had a squiz at the Jordaan region. While waiting for the boat we some a bunch of drunk students dancing on some small boats. I eagerly watched, waiting for one to fall in. But alas it did not happen.

We stayed on the boat for the rest of the tour this time, learning some interesting facts about Amsterdam. My fav was that the canals were 3m deep. 1m water, 1m mud, and 1m bicycles....

We had dinner, and were served by the most unhelpful staff ever. I think they were too busy being 'busy', or were just too cool.

We went back to the station and collected our luggage and then set off north to Hoorn. It's near here that dad's sister lives. Upon arriving in Hoorn, we had a bit of a communication fail. The mobile wasn't connecting, so we couldn't tell dad's sister that we'd arrived. That's ok, we'll try a public phone booth. None of these seemed to work. You put your money in,  you dial the number, it takes your money for the thrill of pushing the numbers. We ended up asking a kind florist if we could use her phone, and she was nice enough to let us. So if you're ever in Hoorn train station, buy flowers there.

My cousin and her husband came to pick us up, and we finally got to our destination. We spent the rest of the night catching up with everyone. My cousin could speak English ok, so Sandra wasn't as bombarded by Dutch as she was at other family events.

Sleeping at my aunt's house was interesting. I really appreciate her putting us up, but sleep wasn't easy to come by when all 4 of us are in the same room, we had an air bed, there is a church that rings every hour 2 blocks down the road, and a grandfather clock downstairs also chimes. Relaxing.