Delano comes, a visit to Cork and Eurotrip time!!

It all started on the 17th June when Delano came over to visit me :) It had been 5 and a half months, so we had lots to catch up on and I had loads to show him and people to introduce him to etc.

He'd managed to catch all sorts of earlier trains and got to Stonehouse before expected, so by Murphy's law, I chose to take the back route to the station and missed him because he was walking along the main road. While waiting at the station, I got a phone call from Kate saying that he was already at the flat...sneaky boy had asked someone where to go and followed signs and had then seen James (one of the other gaps) who he knew from Rondebosch.

During the week, I just showed him basically what I do around school and he helped with some games sessions, post, photocopying etc (even some baby sitting). All the kids loved having someone new to latch onto and ask all sorts of questions to.

22 June- jolly good show at the polo, i do say old chap...

On his first weekend here, Chris (staff member who looks after the gaps) took us all to the polo which was really good!!! He fetched us from school in the mini bus, took us back to his house to fetch his kids and we walked from there through some fields(which looked similar to those in the gladiator) and a forest.



It was seriously windy, so when we got there, we made a picnic area behind the car which his wife had driven there with all the picnic stuff in it and enjoyed watching the polo which was literally right in front of us. It was a school competition so there were a couple of games that we watched. Afterwards, we got to trample in the lose pieces of grass which was fun. It was really nice of Chris to take us and we all had a great time.

26th June-Happy Birthday Delano! Your present is a trip to Cork...

We packed a little picnic and went up one of the hills overlooking the surrounding area where we enjoyed just relaxing for a bit before having to catch a train to the airport and flight over to Ireland. Delayed plains are always annoying, but we got there and because it was my 4th time over there this year already, I knew how to get us to Cath and Al's place.

Cath had made Delano a Leprechaun cake-it was sooo cute! (even though I thought it was a snowman at first-hehe) That night we all played sing star together which was great fun!! Cath and I definitely dominated Delano and Alan.

The next day was very chilled-went food shopping for camping with Alan and just walked around town while Cath was at work and then went clothes and tent shopping with Cath while Alan was at work that evening.

28th June-Off to the Dingle Peninsula

Along the way, we stopped over at Inch beach where we decided to do a Crazy Monkey and swim!! It was rather cold, but we still had fun splashing around, playing out the beach scene from the movie The Notebook then doing hand stands etc.

Our next stop was Fungie the dolphin where we had some lunch by the docks.

When we got to the campsite, we had a race to see who could put up their tent the fastest-Delano and I definitely won...hands down...even with the slight head start that Cath and Al got. It's their fault they wanted to have a fancy tent with a front porch thingy...

We took a walk down to the nearest beach where we played around with the hurleys and skimmed stones before bumping into this friendly Irishman who started chatting to us about the local game of Gaelic football that was on just down the road. He was telling us all about these 'tree tugs' and giving us his views on different sports etc. It took quite a while to realise that he was actually saying three thugs...

The football match was really interesting to watch-they can kick, carry, bounce or throw the ball while running and if they get past the keeper and score in the bottom goal, it's 3 points and if they kick or throw it over the crossbar, it's 1 point. It's basically like rugby and soccer combined.

Back on site, Alan whipped out his cute little portable braai and we got cracking with some champagne to celebrate Delano's b'day and finished off with some good old toasted marshmallows while watching the sunset before snuggling up for the cold night ahead.

29th June

After persuading Cath to get out of bed, we packed everything up and headed home. We took the coastal road so we could admire the view which was stunning. Stopped once at a little place to have some tea and cake things (Delano got a 'wee cupcake') and again at Ross castle to have our lunch. Both were really good.

Back at home, we went down to the pub to initiate Delano with a half pint of Murphy's. (Cork's version of Guinness) before getting an early night.

30th June

Already time to leave-time just flew, but we'd had a really good visit! Pity the trip home wasn't as good...firstly our plane was delayed because on it's previous flight, it had flown into some birds (don't ask) this meant that we would probably miss the train we'd booked...this could lead to a possible extra £50/60 to buy new tickets which is not exactly welcomed in my mind. Just to top it off...when we finally landed, we had to wait for a stupid bus to take us from the plane, about 100m to the airport.

So we ended up running through the airport to the shuttle which took us to the train station, where we got on the next train that took us to where we wanted to be. (had to wait in the toilets for the 5min journey to avoid ticket checks because we were actually suppose to be on the earlier train-oh well) When we got to the next stop, we had 2minutes to find the right platform (which was typically on the other side of the station) and catch our right train. Finally made it back to Stonehouse, but the drama wasn't over yet...the silly train guy told us that where we were was fine to get off at Stonehouse (because it's a short platform, only 2 carriages open onto it), but when the train stopped and we looked out onto track and grass, we knew something wasn't right.

So off we went again, sprinting down the train practically pushing everyone out of the isle to get to those 2 stupid carriages that open (and yes, they were at the other end of the train) Let's just say that arriving back at Wycliffe was a real relief-it had been a long day!

3 July-Euro trip time :)

It was the moment I'd been waiting for all year!!! Time to say goodbye to everyone and head for Bristol airport. Luckily we double checked what time our train was because we were happily thinking it was an hour and a half later than it was-that would have been funny...

Had a bit of time after checking in so we raided the duty free perfume section-I came out smelling of Lacoste and Delano smelt of Dolce and Gabana, The One (it's goood!!) This soon became a ritual in every airport we went to :) We also played a game of air hockey which was fun.

Once again, luck was on our side and we were delayed by 30min, but we had a good flight anyway. The stupid guy at Amsterdam wouldn't give us a stamp, even after asking for one. I was so excited to get stamped everywhere. So we had arrived at our first stop, Schipol Airport, with no idea what to do or where to go but we found the bus stop and the nice driver kindly told us when to get off and pointed us in the right direction.

The Bostel is 10km outside central Amsterdam, but very cute!! Our cabin was called Berlin and was right near the reception and bathrooms. There was also a communal kitchen where we made our spaghetti bolognese before laying down our towels, for extra insulation and hygiene, and climbing into our sleeping bags.

4/5 July-Amsterdam Centre

The next 2 days were spent in Amsterdam itself-on the 1st day, we hired bikes from the bostel and cycled through the forest which was really fun :) Took a while to get used to the bikes because they had no gears and you had to back peddle if you wanted to break. It's quite funny though how bicycles seem to have right of way (sometimes even over cars) and there are loads of bicycle traffic lights and paths etc. It's a miracle we actually managed to not fall seeing as though there were trams, buses, cars, bikes, other bicycles and pedestrians all thinking they owned the road. On the 2nd day, we caught the bus in and just walked around for the day.

During the 2 days, we visited Sarpati Park, Vondel Park, a market, the I AMSTERDAM sign, the Anne Frank museum, the Sex museum, the Flower Market, a sex shop, the Sea Palace, the Skeepvaart museum, Liedsplein, the National Monument, loads of souvenir shops and yes, of course, the Red light District...

6 July

Erik, one of Delano's family friends, kindly fetched us from the campsite and drove us back to his house which is on the boarder of Holland and Germany in a little village called Milligen aan Rijn. On the way there, we saw our first proper dutch windmill and a mini-me in someone's garden.

Went over the boarder into Germany for supper (just because we could) to this cute little German restaurant with a very nice, funny German waiter. He spent the whole night bustling about with his pony tail, winding up the figurines that played German music.

There was no other choice but to order a Schnitzel...being in Germany and all...which was very good but thank goodness Erik was there with his German because Delano and I had no idea what was going on on that menu! Following that, the waiter gave us each a complimentary vanilla and rhubarb shnapps shot which wasn't the greatest, but wasn't too bad. He was so cute when we asked him for the bill because instead of bringing us a till slip, as expected, he asked if he could pull up a chair, wrote down what we'd had and tallied it up right in front of us, excusing his slow maths as it had been a long day.

7th July-Nijmegen

Erik took us into the nearest town called Nijmegen and gave us a grand, guided tour of the place telling us all sorts of interesting history. We took a walk through the market, visited the bicycle museum which was interesting (and well placed-being in Holland) and went to the oldest pub in the town called 'in blue hands' It got it's name from the old days when the workers would go in there after work and have blue hands from the day's work. He also told us the important history behind the bridge...which I can't remember... I never was one for history...

Supper that night was on a boat that was on the water, but stayed anchored and had been changed into a restaurant. It served Portuguese food-namely espetadas which are apparently popular in Madeira. They're like massive kebabs that get placed in a holder in front of you, still on their stick and you take them off as you eat them. Another good meal.

8 July-Belgium waffles here we come

Early start when Erik dropped us at the train station because we'd planned to spend the day in Antwerp while he went to work. Missed the train we were supposed to get on because the guy giving us our ticket was obviously new on the job and didn't really have a clue what he was doing, but we got the next one and arrived safely (even having to make a change somewhere along the line).

Getting used to just arriving in a town and having to find our way round, so we just kinda headed towards what looked like a nice place to go and found some maps along the way telling us that 'u bien hier' We took it as 'you are here' and went from there. There were loads of diamond shops and random statues of people who thought they were very cool everywhere as well as waffle shops which we couldn't resist.

The heaven's opened on us as we were walking around, but we still managed to see a big hand, (????) Franklin DELANO Roosevelt Street, their version of Notre Dame, a park and get shouted at by the policemen...'Rooi man, rooi man' They obviously take very seriously their little red men telling them not to cross the road-oops, we thought checking left and right before running cross was good enough.

Took a walk down to the Chinese restaurant which Erik had said was 55seconds down the road from his house. Turned out it was actually about a 2min 30 walk, but he just blamed Delano for walking slowly :) Anyway, we had a really good meal of Indonesian and Chinese rice tables which we shared. The walk back could have possibly taken even longer, seeing as though we were basically rolling back...

9th July-Short lived Germany trip

After pumping up the tires, we took a leisurely ride into Germany to the closest, reasonably-sized village called Kleve. It was a rather interesting experience, I won't lie. We weren't sure if it was just us, being the happy, smiley people we are, but the whole village seemed to be under some kind of 'you will NOT smile or else...' curse. It was a bit freaky, so we were shortly on our bikes back to friendly Holland along the dyke, over looking the Rijn. Murphy's law says that whatever can go wrong, will, so during the 10km ride home with our sore bums (because the saddles were too high) and the baby seat, which was attached to my bike, rattling the whole way, it started raining on us.

Supper soon warmed us up though...Mexican was on the menu. Cocktails and Nachos went down really well while we were explaining to Erik how our day went. It was pretty hard to believe we were already a third of the way through our travels...

10th July-Milligen in 10minutes

It wasn't such a great day, so we took a walk around Milligen which literally took 10minutes at a very slow pace and including window shopping before settling down for the afternoon in front of the tv to watch the Tour de France. I tried a bit of Appelstroop which wasn't my favourite thing, but when in Holland. Having that attitude, a Pannekoekhuis was definitely a good idea for our final supper in the land of the clog. The pancakes were really good!! Pizza toppings (bacon, ham, cheese, pineapple or whatever) but on a pancake which gave it a bit of a twist.

11th July-Rome

Time to be off again-no time to get too comfortable. Erik kindly dropped us at Dusseldorf airport, taking us on the Autobahn along the way where we reached a max of 220km/h. It was pretty cool but didn't even feel like we were travelling at that speed!

Managed to find our B&B where we met the lady in charge, Barbara, who was so friendly. Even though she couldn't really speak English, boy did she try her hardest with her little Italian-English dictionary always in hand. She gave us a really useful map on which she kindly circled all the places of interest we should visit. Never mind that by the time she'd finished, our map looked like some kid's colouring in with circles everywhere. She also told us that breakfast would be at 8 past 30 in the morning...30 past 8 maybe?

Supper was interesting seeing as though we now had nothing to cook upon nor a microwave or anything. So we ended up using the hot water from the water tank to make 3minute noodles (for some reason,the noodles in Italy take a minute longer than those in SA) and had some yogurt for dessert. We knew we were in Rome when it was even too hot to sleep with a sheet over us...

12th-14th July-When in Rome

Breakfast was really good every morning, consisting of cereal, Melba toast, juices and little pastry things (like croissants and jam tarts) that became our snacks for the day.

In order to see everything, we basically ran around for the 3 days, snapping photo's everywhere we went. We saw so much, including loads of stunning churches! Rome was full of beautiful buildings surrounding you everywhere you looked, pity they weren't up kept very well and you could see most things were old and falling apart.

This may seem like gobeldigook as you read through it, but these are the names of the places we visited-Arco di Tito, Palationo, S.Pietro in Violi, Santa Maria Maggiore, Monumento a Vittorio Emmanuela, the Pantheon, Piazza Navona, area sacre, Campo de Fiori, the Sinogogue, S Maria in Cosmedin, Arco di Costantino, S Gregorio Magno, arco di Dolabella, Villa Celimontana, Castel Sant Angelo, S Giovanni dei Florentini, Palazzo di Glustizia, Ara Pacis, Mausoleo Augusto, Piazza del Popolo, the Spanish steps (very disapointed cus they were full of scafolding...), Fontana del Tritone, Santa Maria degli Angeli, Piazza della Repubblica, Teatro dell'opera, Giardini Piazza Vittorio, St Peter's Basilica, but the best had to, of course, be the Colosseum, Sistine Chapel and Trevi Fountain! Everything was amazing, but they definitely stuck out the most.






It was crazy how you'd walk past this amazing building or church and look down on the map to see what it was called, but it wouldn't even be on the map...where as, in Cape Town, it would probably be some sort of protected tourist attraction with an entrance fee en alles. What was really nice (in the high temps), was that there were thankfully water fountains dotted around which you could drink from or fill up your bottle from.

The Colloseum is massive-that basically sums it up. Infact, most of the places we saw couldn't fit into the camera screen. It was really cool being in the well known arena and putting ourselves back in gladiator time. Saw the inside by day and the outside by night-best decision!!




The Trevi fountain was beautiful-best seen at night when it's lit up and awesome but very crowded (kind of like the beaches on Boxing Day and New Year's Day in Cape Town). The way it was lit up reminded me of the Eifel Tower which is amazing during the day and spectacular at night. We could have sat there all night just listening to the water and taking photo's. We were so hooked that we went there during the day too, when we unfortunatly experienced 3 guys stealing money from the fountain. They had magnetic sticks which they would extend into the water and fish out the coins. Didn't seem like the police were too bothered though as they just stood there, which is quite sad.

The Vatican City is the Vatican City, but the Sistine Chapel is breath taking! Amazingly painted to fit the bible and beautiful to look at. Pity you can't take any photo's inside and a bit scary that by just taking a step into it, you're already destroying it by breathing.

We knew we had to try the Italian food, so we forced ourselves to get ice-cream, pasta and pizza. Not all at the same time on the same day, but they were all really good, especially the pizza.

But when in Rome, things aren't all Hunky Dory...we had a couple of hiccups during our stay-our biggest one being the retiring of my lovely, old camera. Luckily we hadn't entered the Colloseum yet, but were just warming up with the Palationo (which is basically an ancient village) when it seemed that the ink in my camera had run as all we could see on the screen were purple lines and fuzz. So a visit to the Tourist Info Centre was needed to find out where we could buy another camera and then a phonecall to Delano's dad to see what we should actually be looking for in a camera before buying a very nice one from some guys who didn't speak any English, but could understand what we wanted by the gestures we made...What a way to initiate a camera hey?..with the Colloseum.

The other was when we were out at the Trevi Fountain one night, just about to head home at about 10 30pm when we noticed that the Metro was closed...even though our day pass said it was valid until 12pm...what now? After walking the whole day and the day before, that was not really on the top of our list of options, being a couple of Metro stops away from home. Luckily the buses weren't too far and were still running. Next thing was that we had no idea which bus to take or in which direction they were running or anything. Some drunk guy so kindly came up to us and said 'let me gelp you' while breathing smoke on us. (Um, well, thanks but no thanks) After some misunderstandings, some girl told us to get onto the bus that had just pulled up and take it till it terminates...Spur of the moment had us jumping on this bus that was empty besides us (bit worrying) and heading in the complete wrong direction (according to our map as we followed it's route) But it terminated at another bus station where we managed to change onto the right one that took us to the Colloseum. From there it was just a 10min walk, but low and behold, God thought he'd open the Heavens and give us a shower on our way home-ever so thoughful.

And we won't even start on our silly Italian tour guide who took us around St Peter's Basilica telling us that everything was 'executed' by so and so in the 'baroque era' and that everything was 'in proportion' (while putting her mouth too close to the mic which made everything come out in a rather loud mumble) or mention our little train trip incident where we got dropped at Ciampino station instead of the airport at about 10pm, but we were lucky enough that the buses were still running to the airport...

Our final night in Rome was spent in the airport as we had a very early flight. We found a nice looking, tucked away corner, perfect for climbing into our sleeping bags and getting a bit of sleep in. But why would things be that easy? That's just not right. So, at 12pm the cleaning guys come around, wake us up and say the simple word 'closed' The stupid airport was kicking everyone out so that they could close for 4 hours...yip, the were opening again at 4am. I must say, it was kind of funny walking outside and seeing lots of other people in the same situation. Everyone kind of smiling as you walk past cus the same has just happened to them.

15th July

Actually slept suprisingly well with my one arm wrapped up in the strap of my bag and my hand luggage as my pillow-best airport sleep so far this year. I would say that we checked in and lined up, but the Italians don't really line up...they prefer to clump (randomly joining the line from the side)...obviously no single files at school in Italy. The flight to Venice went really quickly and before we knew it, we'd been dropped on the side of the road by a bus, once again having no idea where to go or even if we'd got off at the right place.

But, backpacks ready, off we hoofed towards our 3 star hotel-Hotel Centrale. And trust me, it didn't let us forget that it was 3 stars-it was on the toilet roll, the soap, the shampoo, the room key, the sign outside, the doormat, everywhere. The reason we were staying at this place in Mestre (on the mainland next to Venice) was because our other accomodation had decided to close the week before, leading us to book in somewhere else. It was nice though-simple, but nice, and 3 stars didn't you know!?

16th July- Lost in Venice

Who needs an expensive buffet breakfast when you can eat cornflakes out of a cup using an ice-cream spoon instead? The joys of being a student traveller and saving at every opportunity :)

Started the day by popping into the Mestre market which was nothing amazing and stank like fish, before buying our bus tickets from a little newspaper stand and heading off to Venice city centre for a day in a maze.

There's not that much to do in venice besides get lost and enjoy doing it. The 3 main atractions are San Marco which is a big square and nicely decorated church, Academia which is an art musuem and the Realto bridge. Besides those things, Venice is great to wonder around, crossing bridges, seeing gondolas, eating ice-cream, seeing the grand canal, reaching the ocean, seeing other islands near by and just walking around without a plan.

17th July-On the road again

Off we were again, with a bit of time to kill between check out and catching our train, so like bergies who had just been kicked out onto the street with all our stuff, we found a sunny spot and relaxed for a bit.

The way to Ljubljana was unbelievable-gorgeous green mountains on either side of us with an occasional house and rivers.

Originally we headed off in the wrong direction when we arrived, but soon corrected ourselves and found the right road. Our hostel was really cool with such a nice, kind of modern room! Free internet, well located and finally a kitchen area, so we could cook supper :) So after a quick walk around town, returning to the Dragon Bridge where our hostel was, we made some supper, checked emails and went to sleep to recharge for another busy day of being a tourist.

18th July-Cocktails and a Horse burger

Woke up to the lovely sound of rain which sucked!!! But we still went out to the market where we met up with Kate and Lynne (2 other gappies) and Kate's 2 friends, Jette and Hannah. We spent the rest of the day with them just walking around a bit, catching up while having coffee and just enjoying being in the chilled atmosphere of Slovenia. The buildings are really nice there-quite tall, but you don't get that feeling of being closed in by them and they all looked so clean, unlike Rome.

Later that day, we went over to their place to make supper before getting some cocktails and going out. The cocktails were really good but unfortunaltly, we didn't have much success going out. The only place we found was very strange and filled with gothic and scary people. Didn't stay there for very long, but long enough for Delano to be interviewed by this Dutch travel lady who was going around with her film crew interviewing random people about their travels and time in Ljubljana. We then tried to find this other place we'd been recommended, but kept walking and finding nothing, so eventually gave up.

On the way home, we decided that because we were in Slovenia, we had to try the local food which was apparently a horse burger. So, Delano and I shared one and Jette and Hannah shared one because they were HUGE!! Kate, being a farm girl, wasn't so keen on the idea and having Hannah nay in her ear every time she was about to take a bite didn't exactly make it better. It didn't taste too bad-just a bit more juicy than a beef burger.

19th July

Seeing as though we'd seen nothing while walking around with the others, under Hannah's guidance, we decided to go around again ourselves and see all the various things. This included the cathedral of St.Nicholas which had really cool doors, the church of annunciation, ancient Roman ruines, the national gallery, a sky scraper (it's so cute how they have a sky scraper as one of their tourist attractions :) it wasn't even that high...) and a mummy which was pretty wierd. Kind of strange seeing a body wrapped up like that...

Delano and I thought we'd try going out again, but we were once again unsuccessful. I think in Ljubljana, the sociable thing to do is drink cocktails. We first went to this place that the guy at our hostel recommended-bad idea!! It was freaky-there were just skeletons everywhere...on the wall, the ceiling, in glass windows under your feet etc. So we went back to the place we were the night before and had a cocktail and ice-cream. After that we went to a place that was meant to be a club, but it looked seriously dead, so club duvet it was, with dj pillow.

20 July-Shut down time

THIS IS A WARNING TO ANYONE GOING TO LJUBLJANA...EVERYTHING, I REPEAT, EVERYTHING CLOSES ON A SUNDAY!!! Just so you know.

So instead, we went BTC which is similar to canal walk i suppose. It's a huge shopping centre with a cinema and water park. We did a bit of shopping in the biggest Spar we'd ever seen before heading back to our sleeping city. We didn't even have any electricity, so we played some backgammon, black jack and pick-up-sticks which was fun, until it was supper time and our area still had no elec..Desperate times calls for desperate measures, so we eventually decided to go over to the university res where Kate and them had stayed to use their kitchen facility. Luckily, because we'd been there the other night, we knew where to go and where everything was. We had a great meal of chicken wraps :) Then back at home, we made a fruit salad and enjoyed that with some custard.

21st July-Budapest, here we come

We had a carriage to ourselves on our early train which was pretty cool. It was like those carriages you see in Harry Potter with the shelves above your head, 3 seats facing 3 other seats, a slidey door and curtains. We did everything we could to try keep that carriage all to ourselves, for the 8hr long trip, by hanging up some of our clothes that still needed to dry, put our little bags on the open chairs, pretended to sleep and pulled the curtains as soon as we'd left the station.

It seemed to work and we had a peaceful journey until the ticket guy came around, checked our tickets obviously and then, not being able to speak much english, said 'bus, no train' and wrote 12h00 on the back of our ticket. That was the time we were meant to get off and catch a bus. The only slight problem was that it was already past 12 o'clock (unless we'd missed a time change) and we'd just had a stop. So we'd either missed that little change to a bus or something was funky with the time.


But everyone else on the train seemed to be on the same boat about changing to a bus (hehe-that's quite funny) so at the next stop, we all got off and that same ticket guy pointed in a direction we took it we were meant to go...We found some buses but only because everyone was following everyone else a bit like sheep. When we said Budapest to the bus driver, he nodded, so on we got. After an hour on a rather rickety bus, we got dropped off in this little town and ended up walking across the tracks to get to our train (we think) Low and behold, that same ticket guy was there again (was a bit like something from a movie) so we thought we must be right.

Along the way, there were loads of beautiful sunflower fields. We finally got to Budapest Deli-Pu station, where we met up with the crazy couple (Cath & Al) who just can't seem to get enough of me this year :)

We went straight to the hotel which was bright orange (being linked Easyjet) but very nice. Having just put our things down in our room, the fire alarm went off...this was actually quite funny cus we spent quite a bit of time wondering what to do and whether to react or not, so eventually, when it didn't stop, Alan ran downstairs to find out what was going on. Cath, Delano and I shortly followed, and as we tried to heave the door open (which had suddenly become a lot heavier), we got a gush of air instead. Once at reception, the receptionist came sprinting in, out of breath, saying that everything was luckily ok and that we'd just have to wait for the noise to stop.

Our first stop was Heroe's Square where there are huge statues of Hungarian Kings. We had fun playing around a bit and posing like some of the kings before going to Vajadhunyad Vara Castle. The one metro line is so cute!! It's all olden day and plays a cute little tune everytime it's about to stop, which we had fun cheering along to. Last stop was the edge of the Danube to take a look at the beautifully lit Chain Bridge and Royal Palace.

22nd, 23rd & 24th July-Hungry?

Any meals that were eaten in the hotel, were in Cath and Al's room-this was because Delano and I had managed to get the smallest room in the hotel!!

We'd decided to visit a little Hungarian town just outside Budapest which was an easy train drive away. To get to the train, Cath and I decided to run up the broken escelator instead of taking the working one. This was a baaaaaad idea!! It didn't take us long before realising that there was a reason we were the only ones going up the broken one, let alone running up it. It turned out to be 195 steps up and those weren't your average steps-they were high or something. Let's just say, having walked a couple along the way, we arrived at the top very out of breath and in desperate need of a pastry...at least we'd beaten Delano and Alan up though :)

While in Szentendre, we visited the Artmill, glass museum, marzipan museum and Serbian Orthodox church. In the main square, Cath and I got our caricatures done which turned out to be pretty funny. Apparently big foreheads and teeth run in the family...and I have a long nose.

Back in Budapest, we visited Magrid Island where there was such a cool musical fountain. There were speakers next to it and as soon as a song would play, the water would spray up according to the excitement and loudness of the song. We agreed that hiring a 4 peddlar bicycle thing would be pretty fun, which it most definatly was! We each took turns in being in charge of the brakes and steering. Delano and I then had some fun jumping around.

We also saw Parliament which is HUGE, the Bauhaus, St Steven's Basilica, the Great Market which looks like an old train station where Alan found a restaurant called Fakanel which thought was hilarious, Matthias' church which was under construction, Fisherman's Bastion where there were beautiful views of the city, the Szechenyi Thermal Baths, the Cave church and we tried to get to the Citadel on Gellért Hill, but we just couldn't find the right bus anywhere.

On one of the nights, we met up with a hungarian women, Noemi, for supper. Cath and Al had met her on their way here and made friends. She took us to this awesome restaurant called Sir Lancelot where everything was medievil-they had long wooden benches to eat at, chalices and tankards to drink from, silver platters to eat off, waitors and waitresses dressed to suit the theme, a belly dancer as entertainment, knights in shining armour as decoration and food to feed kings. We started off with soup that came in a round loaf of bread, followed by a platter to share which consisted of potatoes, meat, fish, fruit, bread and veggies. We all rolled out of there...but it had been an amazing experience and good evening visiting Heroe's Square oncemore before heading to bed.

The night of the 24th was spent in Ferihegy Airport by all of us. It wasn't too bad at all because it has nice, comfy chairs with no armrests :)

25th July-Back to England

Early the next morning we said goodbye to Cath and Al and checked in. The flight went really well (we think...ended up sleeping the whole way) Had the worst queue for passport control ever!! Had to wait 45minutes just so they could look at our passports and nod.

Got a bus to Victoria station, before walking to one of mom's friends to drop off our bags for the day.

The rest of the day was spent walking around London, seeing Big Ben, London Eye, the Horse Guards, Buckingham Palace, Parliament, Westminster Abbey and Downing Street. It's wierd that no matter how many times you see all those places, they're still cool to visit. There's something about London that I really like. Probably wouldn't be able to stay there, but visiting it is always great.

After collecting our bags again and making our way back to Victoria station, we met up with JP (one of Delano's friends) and caught a train to St Mary Cray where we'd stay the next 2 nights with him.

Didn't have much time with him though before heading off into London again to go watch Plush at the Carling Academy. For those of you who are unfortunate enough to not know who Plush is...shame...anyway, it is an awesome South African band who are up and coming so remember the name. Being my first time seeing them live, I didn't know what to expect, but man were they good-Even though they only had half their band there (the main singer and drummer)...the other 2 were rejected at the airport. Went past platform 9 3/4 and Picadilly Circus before heading back to a very welcome bed.

26th July-Sadness sets in

Had a very chilled day, waking up late, enjoying a much needed shower, filling up on an awesome cooked breakfast, walking down to the local shops and finally watching a movie while packing for the last time.

27th July-Leaving on a jet plane.

An early start once again with a train into London and out to Gatwick airport. Couldn't believe how quickly the past 6 weeks had gone-it was crazy!! But it had been amazing and I wouldn't have changed a thing (except it being longer of course) Delano got on his plane, I got on my train and we were seperated once again for another half a year taking with us the most magical memories we'd just shared together.