Gemma's trip round EUROPE!!!

Sunday, 18 November 2007

Location: London, UK

Well its been a while and alot of you I guess alot of you have given up reading this but if a few of you still do ill fill you in. Arrived in London 6 Weeks ago lived on my brothers couch for 3 weeks and have now moved into a house in Islington with Carol, Bunz (Gregs friend from Amsterdam) and Andrew. Andrew is going home on tues and miranda and luke are moving in and josh gets here on fri. Am currently working in a pub called Marquis of Westminister in Victoria but finish there in 2 weeks and am then leaving the cold london weather and am moving to Melbourne for 3 1/2 months with a guy i meet in Greece, Jamie. Then will be back over here in mid March to start travelling again. Am so excited bout the heat it is so cold here!! and during those 3 months im planning on coming home to visit everyone so hopefully u will all stil be there!! kinda tired now so just thought id give u a short update. would be good to hear from those i havent spoken to in ages, (u know who u r!!) miss you guys!!!!

Tuesday, 09 October 2007

Location: Athens, Greece

Completly missed out on Venice cause im such an idiot!!!! Because i got to venice a day late i only had one day there and on that day it happened to absolutly bucket it down everything flooded, buses and trains were cancelled and becuase we were staying outside Venice we couldnt get into town. Venice = average, only cause of me though im sure its really very lovely. Went to Greek Islands, Mykonos, Santorini, Paros and Ios and absolutly loved them all many many stories but people (especially my mother) would not be impressed so either not gona tell them or will censor them for you. (If u really wana know email me and i will decide if it would be appropriate to tell you) All the Islands are very quiet at this time of year but still heaps of fun, since there are only 1 - 3 bars on the island everyone left theres obviously goes to these bars so it still seems like its crowded (at night time anyway!) Ios would have to be my favourite it has beautiful weather and beaches and meet heaps of great people there. At the start of our Island tour Carol and i were opposite to everyone else so everytime everyone went out we would go to bed early then everytime we went out they went to bed. In Santorini it was a night where we were out and were drinking cheap cocktails way to fast we ended basically knowing everyone in the bar (there werent that many people in there) but managed to make friends with the bar owners wife her 2 sisters, son and nephew so ended up getting free Jager shots (not that we needed them) had to get the nephew to walk us home even though it was only 2 mins away.........story stops here for some, ive already told a select few but if u wana know just email! Didnt get much sleep in Ios a walk that usually would take 30 mins turned out taking me 2 hours as i got bored of walking, climbed a life saving tower and fell asleep, Its ok mum i had a tour guide with me they just happened to also fall asleep! Watched the game on Sat against France and 1/2 the bar were kiwis and I have never heard such a quiet bar in my life then i did when the game was over but that just ended up with a messy nite for all the kiwis as they drowned there sorrows along with the Aussies. Back in Athens now went and looked at all the ruins yesterday it was good but sorry rachy still not one of my fav places its just so dirty and smells. Back to london today and will be catching up with everyone once we get there that we have meet along the way cant wait will be fantastic and will hopefully have all photos updated to the end by the end of the week no promices but i will try!!!

Tuesday, 25 September 2007

Location: Munich, Germany

firstly bex this is for you............... so the plan of staying up till 8am worked but the whole point was to make it on the bus to get to Venice as i promised Carol i would be on the bus! all was going swell untill i was actually on the bus it was so hot i felt soooo sick. I got off the bus to get some fresh air and the tour guide took one look at me and said "are you sure you want to be doing this its 10 hours to Venice and ull feel like shit the whole way" so as the whole bus was watching me make them wait the driver had to empty half the bus to get my bag out i felt like the biggest dick i was so embarrassed buit i can only blame myself! so went back to the hostel and asked for my key back, he just laughed and gave it to me and i went up to the room and threw up for the next hour as Muz laughed and asked if i wanted him to hold my hair back. The rest of the day was shit untill Miranda and I decided at 4pm that the best thing for us was to head back into the Oktoberfest and start drinking again (d think id learn my lesson) stayed up till 2 that morning made so many friends that nite i hated going to bed!!
Overall Oktoberfest has been the greatest time of my life i have never had so much fun and meet sooo many people also didnt realise people could get so ferral!! but its the perfect place to do so!!! I did make it to Venice a day late and meet up with carol 100 euros poorer.
last day at oktoberfest we were in a tent called haufbrau they have an area in the middle of the tent called the pig pen. within this area there is a statue hanging from the ceiling. If you are to walk under this statue and are wear underwear, no matter who you are they WILL get ripped off you. bras and undies, and thrown up onto the statue, luckily carol and i were not victoms but seems alot of people didnt know about this. I also saw the most disgusting thing i have ever seen in my life dont really wana go into the full story, it involved an Aussie, a 1/4 filled stein, #2's and drinking. u get the picture nearly made me throw up!!! i shall leave you with that lovely story to think about. miss you all in athens now not so great but greek islands will be fantastic!!!!

Monday, 24 September 2007

Location: munich, Germany

Oktobefest!!!!!(story has been deleted as carol was not impressed i put it up) Next night the bar was celebrating the opening of beer feast with 1200 jager shots (carol didnt drink this night) no one planned to drink much, noone but carol knows wat happened. opening day of beerfest sitting in the sun for 3 hours waiting for the keg to be broken 12pm hits and steins start flowing doesnt tak long for it to get roudy and two ppl cheers their steins together they break give carol a resonable slice in her up to which she just turns round and says "im going to pass out" as she falls backwards she did this another 2 times while josh carried her to first aid. 2nd day of oktoberfest will have to wait im running out of time. but bex my brilliant plan of staying up all night failed carols in venice im still in munich, ill explain later!!

Tuesday, 18 September 2007

Location: Hvar, Croatia

Sorry bout all the spelling mistakes im on holiday so i dont really care carol keeps pointing them out to me so i know there are lots of them

Tuesday, 18 September 2007

Location: split and Hvar, Croatia

well well what can i say other than so many tanned naked people!!! they are everywhere! spent one night in split in an apartment with carol and greg soo good to get out of a hostel! should really start with the bus trip from Vienna to Split it was overnight and shit. had about 2 hours sleep on the bus and arrived in split at 4:30am so slept on the bus station floor (well tried to anyway it was a very cold floor)gave up trying to sleep at about 6:30 but saw an amazing sunrise because of it. then lay around waiting for 11am so we could get into the apartment. meet up with Shaun, queeny matt callum and nicola and went on a lovely walk around split to a beach the water is sooooo clear!! next day caught a ferry to Hvar it is paradise and so good to see some sun!! finally have my tan back and carols not looking so pasty for once! been doing absolutly nothing really and i couldnt think of anything more perfect although we did hire a boat and went round the islands for the day, cute little thing it was had a canopy and everything. alsoo hired a canoe and spent the whole time fighting the current but managed to get around the island and to a nice little beach, saw many more naked people. have a veryy long trip from here to munich 2moro which starts at 6:30am and doesnt finish untill about 8am the following morning so should be very interesting. OKTOBERFEST HERE WE COME!!!!!!

Tuesday, 11 September 2007

Location: Vienna, Austria

and finnaly vienna where we are now!! sunday in vienna EVERYTHING is shut so spent the day walking round the city looking at all the old buildings and looking for the pope as we heard he was in town but we just missed him and yesterday we went on a wine tour about an hour out of vienna. visited 3 different wineries on bikes and had a bbq with so much pork! pork sausage with cheese in it wrapped in bacon what more could u ask for!!! today its been on and off with the rain and sunshine spent the day shopping and looking at more builds and statues and tomorrow we are off to croatia for a week trying to chase the sun so wish us luck!!! that brings me to now and if its raining again tomorrow il try get the photos up to date but im pretty useless at that too!! hope all is well back home!!

Tuesday, 11 September 2007

Location: Vienna, Austria

Chesky Krumlov --- the best small village ever!!!! tried re absinth for the first time, dont need to say anymore bout that. they have 2 bears wondering round at the entrance of the castle (behind barriers of corse). only spent 1 full day here but could have easily have spent more we hired a raft and got dropped off 7km out of chesky were the guide gave the 8 of us paddles and a bout puched us from the bank and said "have fun!" then got back in his car and drove off, spent the next 4 1/2 hours making our way done the river stopping off at pubs along the way, drinking, then gettin back into the boat and rafting to the next pub, so múch fun!! meet some austrians along the way that had built thier own bout out of 60 gallen drums some planks of wood they had a picnic table bbq a keg and a bottle of whisky and vodka upsidedown with tubes out of them to drink straight from them, we pulled up next to the and they shared it all with us nice guys didnt speak english but loads of fun!

Tuesday, 11 September 2007

Location: Vienna, Austria

prague hostel - the most amazing hostel i have seen to date with a bar, restaurant, free internet a sauna and pool and the cheapest place yet! second nite there went to a mechanical bar where everything is made out of parts from old trucks, cars, lawnmowers, motorbikes etc and all the bits moved in some way or another. went to Kutna Hora which is an hour train ride out of Prague which has a church where the inside is decorated with 40,000 human skeletons, there were chandaliers, shields all made out of differnt body bones need to see the pictures to fully understand it (which will hopefully be up soon!) rest of the time was just eating and drinking the weather was shit and soooo cold!!!!

Tuesday, 11 September 2007

Location: Vienna, Austria

k, im goning to try catch up to the point were i am now and remember as much as i can. after amsterdam we went to berlin and went on a 'alternative tour' of berlin this would have to be the weirdest tour i have been on yet! the tour started at 10:30am and by 11 the guide was on his first jagermiester and redbull of the day followed by so many beers and by about 3 he was asking us to drink so he didnt look like an alcoholic, yet he seemed to be pulling all this alcohol out of thin air as he never went to a shop once. but the places he took us 2, i dont know really if words can explain it, they were abandoned warehouses covered in really awesome graffiti with one warehouse had a 'rave' in it it was sounded but druged and drunken people and he seemed to think he was welcome there and told us to stick together cause u never know how the alcoholics were going to react to us being there (yet he was the only alcoholic we saw). we saw the berlin wall wich was awesome all in all it was a great day and the tour guide (named aids) the weirdest person we saw all day! over the next 3 nights we spent it at the same bar with happy hour that went from 5pm - 9pm with cheap cocktails all three nights were great! also went to the aquadome and saw lots of fish as u tend to do in these types of places. last day in berlin went to the markets and set off for prague the next day!

Saturday, 01 September 2007

Location: Netherlands

Amsterdam - www.planetranger.com/carolynmcnabb, she wrote so much i could not possibly out do her!!!

Sunday, 26 August 2007

Location: Amsterdam, Netherlands

well long time i know but been so busy and i love it!!! so il try remember everthing that has happened since san sebastion. after san sebastion had a 13 hour bus ride to paris and just had a few quiet drinks at an irish pub cause andrew sam and katie were flying back to london the next day. on the friday went to Jim morrisons grave and then ate snails!!!! so good!!! and went on a bike tour of paris great fine saw alot of the sites. next day went to the lourve and got in for free we looked under 18 that day (bruges was a different story) and saw all the art work we thought to be important. Went to arc de triomph and found the most amazing pastry shop on the way ate so much we felt sick (the french no how to make pastry) that nite drank a bottle of 3 euro wine on the steps of the sacre coeur and said bye to 2 more friends nomes and janine. lots of goodbyes in two days :(. next day (sunday i think) went and watched a urban bike race down the steps of the sacre coeur it had been chuking it down to saw a few crashes the retreated back to the hotel got way to cold!!! then that nite we meet up with mal and ben!!! so good to see familiar faces!! its seems so long ago cant remember any of the funny stories to go with any of this. Tuesday went for a trip up the eiffel tower and weds got on the bus to bruges (small town in belgium, lots of beer) never in my life have i drunk so much beer in all my life and pretty much had a different type of beer every time we ordered ended up trying a chocolate beer (belgium make good chocolate and beer so adding the two together shoud be good right??) haha couldnt be more wrong cant really describe how gross it tasted, kinda nutella at the bottom of a glass mixed with beer mixed around then excess nutella removed! meet greg whos been with us eva since and is coming to (wow for the life of me can remember were im going next but i leave on weds) went on a canal ride it was a very relaxing time and found the greatest breakfast place it was the most healthy thing i have eaten this whole trip! everything organic and sooooo good!!!!! had to pay extra to get up a tower cause the lady didnt believe carol and i were under 27!!! arrived in amsterdam 2 days ago heading off to spend the day on a house boat today, went to the heinekin factory yesterday and have been doing all the normal things 21 year olds do in amsterdam (dont wana put more detail mum might get angry). still havnt found a photo place to put more photos up but am trying my best! hope all is well with everyone! BERLIN thats were im going next!!!!!!!

Friday, 17 August 2007

Location: san sebastion, Spain

went to san sebastion for the fireworks festival the best fireworks i have ever seen the photos i have just dont do it justice. on the second nite we were there some people came in and blew up a bus (bus driver only just made it out in time) then the were throwing cocktail bombs at the cops but there were still hundreds of people in the streets but as far as i know no1 got hurt so all is well! beaches are awesome gelatos even better ate so much i felt sick! arrived in Paris last night and going on a bike tour this evening (having the photo problem again so will find a computer that lets me upload asap. suppose i better inform you in on the bull fight i went to i have never been so disgusted in my life!! 24hours before the bull is brought into the arena it is tied up in a tiny room and is cut and feed tequilla and generally just tortured. when it comes out into the arena 6 matadors spend 10 minutes confusing the bull but jumping in and out from behind walls from different areas of the arena then a man comes out on a horse and spears the bull between the shoulders twice. after that 3 seperate matadors run at the bull and stab it with spears bout 50cm long and these stay in the bull for the rest of the fight. so basically the bull is exausted aith so much blood pouring out its back then the main matador comes out does some fancy crap then stabs the bull with a 1m sword straight into the back the bull collapses then he gets a dagger and repeatedly stabs the bull in the head and gives it a good old twirl around. it was at this point i cried and nearly threw up. hated it left after the first fight was not at all willing to see five more.
Au Revoir
ps trying so hard with the photos