Since leaving Turkey our tour has passed through the proverbial Iron Curtain and into some of Europe’s ex-communist countries. In the last week we have passed though the grey tenement mazes of Sofia, in Bulgaria and Bucharest in Romania and are currently on our way to Budapest in Hungary. Our experiences in this corner of the world have been eye opening and educational as we see a society optimistically picking up the pace where their previous ruling regimes had left them; behind the eight ball.

If I was to briefly describe Romania’s capitol, Bucharest, I would say it’s the city of avenues and cheap tenement housing. The communist government apparently where fans of affordable housing and so bleeding out in every direction from the centre square lies endless busy avenues lined with tall cheap apartments. Walking the streets of Bucharest certainly makes you feel tiny and insignificant as the streets stretch out far into the distance and the buildings rise high above. While the town centre’s architecture is quite regal and traditional looking, the further you get from the main square the distinctively more concrete shoebox looking things become.

During an informative tour we not only picked up on the history and context of Romania but we also saw the world’s second largest building (only losing out the number one spot to the Pentagon in Washington DC). They say pictures speak a thousand words, so without further ado, I’m not even going to try and convey it’s magnitude, and just show you the picture:

The place has over a thousand rooms and has 6 or something floors underground!

After Bucharest it was time to head to the picturesque state of Transylvania to chase the Count Dracula Myths. Along our journey we visited quaint old villages and castles that helped inspire Mr Stocker’s classic. Admittedly most of the tourist sites where not as exciting as one might imagine, these places where living off hype and tacky merchandise. Bran (Dracula’s) castle was disappointingly small and not quite the dark, cavernous labyrinth I was hoping for, it did however have a cool secret staircase behind the living room book cabinet, but that was it’s highlight for me.

Transylvania does however have a beautifully dark and somewhat fitting landscape to inspire a classic horror tale. Long winding dirt roads nestled amongst tall, craggy mountains, covered in tall dark pine trees excellently shrink you into your seat.

Our last night in Transylvania was celebrated by a vampire and punch party. Twenty bottles of vodka went into our punch bowl (bin bag) and provided the fuel for what was needless to say a rather wild night of partying. All those tacky items of merchandise we picked up where put to good use as we descended on the camp site dressed as vampires and ghouls. Now, if you don’t mind, I, like most of my bus mates, am going to get back to nursing this bloody hangover!

Two posts in one day!

Over my few days at Anzac cove and my long drives across the countryside, I was beginning to formulate an opinion of Turkey. Dirty tenement blocks and a few houses that where quite literally concrete cubes begun conjuring images of impoverishment and struggle, this opinion, however, was completely smashed into oblivion when I reached the gleaming jewel of Turkey: Istanbul.

For a country that has a 95% Islamic population, Istanbul is surprisingly chic and westernised. Tourist sites like the Epic blue mosque and the labyrinthine Grand Bazaar imply a sense of Ancient Persian class while the night life beats the heart of the 21st century. In the pubs not only can you drink big meter high towers of beer, but it’s quite common to have a puff on a Hookah, which is a big elaborate and ornate tool for tasting flavoured tobacco. The café owners are eager to feed you till you burst in as much comfort as possible and the ancient remains (kept in perfect condition) inflict an involuntary drop of the jaw.

One interesting site was the Cistern; an underground temple like room, for holding water, much like an ancient Byzantine well. Eventually for many reasons the Cistern was drained and turned into a tourist site. An underground well is nothing too bewildering, but what makes the Cistern bizarre is not only that it’s massive but it’s very well decorated, high columns, ornate trimmings, for a big water silo? Why would they do that? What is even more bizarre, and this has archaeologists completely stumped, is why there is not one, but two medusa head statues in the far corner, one upside down, one on it’s side. What a thing to find in a well.

Personally I’ve been very impressed with how much I have learned from Istanbul. When inside the Blue Mosque, our tour guide explained to us what being Muslim meant to the people of Turkey in this day and age. Upon doing so, our guide shattered most of the misconceptions that many Australians hurl like bullets. I think for many people, their biggest irk with the Muslims is they feel that the Muslims are stuck in their ways and want the world to change for them, clearly these people have never been to Istanbul.

Us drinking Turkish Apple Tea at a traditional Carpet shop:

Alyce at the Grand Bazaar:

Shiny lamps at the Bazaar:

Sorry about the blog drought, but I’m on tour now, a camping tour, so access to internet is not always at hand. I must say, however, creature comforts be damned I’m having a great time with the Top Deck crew. We traverse the many and varied landscapes of Europe in a big comfy bus, stopping at whatever campsites will take us in to set up our little tent shanty town before heading off to see the sites. There’s about 50 of us, all between the ages of 18 and 30 and everyone is sociable, friendly and a bit mad, specially after drinks! This touring business combines two of life’s greatest things, learning new things and making new friends.

After a few days in Greece, we crossed the border to Turkey for what was to some people the most important part of the trip; Anzac day at Gallipoli. I don’t really need to say much about Anzac day as I’m sure to most of you the enormity of it is quite clear, but actually being there for the official ceremony was quite a moving, almost spiritual event. I think the sheer scale of the event dawned on me when standing in the mammoth cue. It sort of felt like Big Day Out, meets airport customs. Thousands of Australian and New Zealand pilgrims travelling miles to sit at a beach in the cold, drawn there purely by a duty to pay their respects at the site where the  tragedy occurred.

After finally passing through the slew of bag checks and metal detectors, we picked a spot on the hill, whipped out the sleeping bags and bunked down for a long night. The vibe of the event was oddly reminiscent of Australia day, sans alcohol and thus no douche bags. This little patch of rocky cliff faced beach felt like a little stretch of Australia in the middle east. Aussie flags where draped across bodies, southern crosses where blazoned across faces and the sweet nasally twang of Aussie voices echoed through the cove. Everyone there had something in common, and strangers where sharing stories with strangers left right and centre.

Throughout the night we where treated with Army bands playing period pieces of the early 1900s and war documentaries where playing on the big screen. I somehow managed to get a few hours sleep in the freezing cold, but was quickly awoken at 4am for the start of the dawn service. After the dawn service we trotted down to Australia’s own service, while the Kiwis and Turks had their own respective memorials. Surprisingly one of my highlights of the few days came from a relatively simple gesture; a Turkish soldier, guarding a post, he couldn’t speak English but he smiled, waved at our group and shook my hand. With this simple gesture it made me realise that mankind is on the right track and can learn from the pasts mistakes.

Trenches in Gallipoli:

The cue to get in:

Looks remarkably like Australia day, am I right?

Hello, just a quick blog today to say we are in Athens! Currently we are sitting in a McDonalds making use of the free internet connection while we wait to meet up with our tour through Eastern Europe. We arrived at about 2am yesterday morning, got to our hostel had a little sleep then we hit the town to see Greece.

First off, I really must comment on how much I’ve missed warm weather, Greece greeted us with a lovely 25 degrees, clear sky day and after a month in the UK you get well sick of wearing jumpers, scarves and gloves.

In our free day before we meet with our tour bus, we hiked high and low through Athens and made sure to check out the multitude of breathtaking tourist must sees. We took a look through the remains of Ancient Greece and saw the Original Olympic Stadium, Temple of Olympian Zeus, Hadrian’s Arch, The Ancient Agora, Theatre of Dionysos and the epic Acropolis. Athens also hosts a number of more modern spectacles worth visiting including their epic Parliament and Zapion exhibition centre both decked out to resemble Ancient Greek buildings. Probably one of our highlights of Athens however was the stunning view from Acropolis where you can watch over modern Athens where the rows of building extend as far as the eye can see.

Alyce at the Acropolis:

Zapion Exhibition Hall:

Plaka; a quaint little district with restaurants and cafes overlooking ancient Greek remains.

After our few days in Edinburgh, we took the shortest plane ride ever (about 15 minutes) into Dublin, Ireland. It wasn’t long till we were through customs and airport politics and riding a bus into the heart of the city. My first impressions of Dublin where very surprising; Dublin appeared to be a very modern city with glass monoliths and funky 21st century architecture reaching for the sky. My audible expression of wonder caught the bus driver’s attention, he was quick to inform me that several years ago, Ireland was a booming economy, all the billionaires of Europe where coming across and building their empires here in the emerald isle. Now however, Ireland is in massive recession and it seems all the money has run out and so the multitude of half finished skyscrapers, cranes and scaffolding have become a somewhat permanent fixture of the Dublin skyline.
As we arrived in the heart of Dublin, things appeared distinctly more European, plenty of old buildings, statues and monuments spread throughout the streets. We quickly pulled up to our hostel as we where rather eager to hit streets and see what the place is all about. We spent most of the day wandering around and much to our disappointment, there isn’t really a lot to do in Dublin, it’s sort of like a much louder and busier Perth. After having dinner at a nice little bar/restaurant we also discovered that Dublin is Europe’s most expensive city as a pint of beer there costs about 7-8 Euros which is about $12-13 AUD. Ouch! Overall the most fun part of Dublin was getting back to hostel and sharing in some of the cheapest wine and cheapest lager we could find with a few friendly tourists. We hit it off quite well with two ladies from New Zealand and two guys from Germany, had a good night of sharing stories and drinks.

We couldn’t really come to Ireland without seeing some of the fabled countryside, so we had pre-booked a weekend away with Paddywagon bus tours. The bus tour’s website promised a fun and convenient way to see Ireland and thankfully after our somewhat lackluster introduction the country, Paddywagon delivered on its promise. We spent a fun filled weekend riding around the countryside with a  bus full of friendly folk and a bus driver who whole heartedly embraced the Irish stereotype of being a bloody comedian. Our bus driver and tour guide; Gabriel, was a champion, when he wasn’t cracking jokes, he was singing and when he wasn’t teaching you the words to his favourite drinking tunes he was filling you in on the remarkably concise history of Ireland.

You can really see why Ireland is called the emerald isle, it’s country side it just a glowing green as far as the eye can see, it’s simply beautiful. In addition to seeing mile after mile of spectacular landscape we crammed in quite a few activities. We saw an old castle or two. Got quite hammered in the quaint port town of Gallway. Kissed the Blarney stone, saw the Cliffs of Moher, visited the Guinness factory, took a horse and cart ride through a breathtaking national park and drank a bit too much at the Randy Leprechaun Pub. Very good times.

Despite the slow start, Ireland turned out to be a wonderful place to spend Easter, fantastic memories. The next item on our agenda is our big Eastern Europe trip! We leave for Greece on Saturday and from there will be riding through Turkey, Romania, Hungary, Czech Republic, Poland, Germany, Holland (Amsterdam!) and back to London in the space of a month. You might not hear from me in a while, but undoubtedly I’ll have a tonne to blog about when I get back.

In the meantime, pictures! For you enjoyment:

Me by the River Liffy in the centre of Dublin:

O’Connell St, Dublin, middle of the day:

Youth Hostel Crew in Dublin, Yay for cheap drinks!

Castle Ruins in the countryside:

Galway:

Alyce at the breathtaking cliffs of Mohir:

Bustin’ some moves at The Randy Leprechaun :

Getting down to some serious business at the Guiness Factory:

Standing next to an original artwork from one of John Gilroy’s famous Guiness adverts:

We’re back and boy, what a busy time has it been! First off, we spent a few days in Edinburgh (the Capital City of Scotland), then spent about a week in beautiful Ireland and then spent a few more days in Scotland. Rather than relay the proceedings in a chronological order, I’m going to simply post one blog about Edinburgh and then another one about Ireland to avoid too much confusion. On another note, this blog post is being brought to you by a brand new netbook laptop; it’s tiny, fits in a bloody handbag and only cost a few hundred pounds. Our old laptop is fixable, but the repair shop wants to charge us a killing for it and we could probably do it at Matt’s place for free when we get back to Australia.

Two Mondays ago we went to Edinburgh, and during our short stay we have fallen in love with the place. We still have many more places to see, but so far Edinburgh has earned the position of our favorite city in the world. The city is built upon a rugged landscape of steep hills and deep valleys. When vacating the main train station at the bottom of the central valley, you can only gaze in wonder at Georgian architecture that scales up the hillsides surrounding you. When you climb to the top of the royal mile, it’s simply mind blowing looking down upon the multi-tiered levels of the city climbing and crossing over each other. The streets are bustling, but not imposing like in London or Dublin. The 1700s Georgian Architecture lays an interesting backdrop for what is essentially a very hip 21^st Century city. The night life is great; a multitude of pubs of varying volume for your (surprisingly cheap) drinking needs as well as night clubs, comedy clubs, cinemas and theatres. During the day the town is alive with the sound of buskers playing bagpipes and tour guides taking the tourists on intriguing history lessons.

Some of our highlights of our time in Edinburgh include, seeing the UKs finest up and coming comedians at The Stand Comedy Club, taking a fascinating guided tour through the centre of the old town, past the castle, to the royal gardens via a multitude of towers and memorial statues. We also took a tour of the apparently haunted catacombs that run beneath the streets of Edinburgh; where the poorest of residents once had to live in and die in, completely shut off from the sun and the rest of the world, scary stuff.

Probably our biggest, most exciting piece of news, however, would be the fact that we have secured a house to live in and rent for the summer! One of our tour guides was an Australian lass, we had a chat with her and in passing mentioned that we needed a place to live for the summer and what would you know, she had a friend who is looking for a few roommates for a few more months. Perfect. A week later we met with her friend, saw the sharehouse, paid a bond and now we have house in Edinburgh! We are right next to the shopping centre and cinemas and only a ten minute walk from the castle in the centre of town. There are three other guys and one girl living there already so the rent is pretty low. We spent most of yesterday handing out resumes so hopefully we will be living and working in Edinburgh for the summer.

Well, there you have it, Edinburgh is awesome. Longest post yet, but I had a lot of stuff to say, so it’s all good. Next blog I will be walking you through our week in the Emerald Isle, where the grass really is greener, literally.

This is Edinburgh; when the sun comes out the buildings have this warm golden glow, unfortunately the weather was crap when we took this photo.

This is an Epic Cathedral on the Royal Mile (the walk up to the Castle)

This is just a shot from the bottom of the Royal Mile:

In Retrospect we didn’t actually take many photos in Edinburgh, probably too busy finding jobs and getting a house, but no fear, we have months in the middle of the year to make up for it.

See ya’

Disaster has striken us!

We spent a night watching DVDs and when we inserted the inocent enough looking Happy Feet disc into our computer something horrible began to happen. The computer slowed to a crawl, nothing was responding and after minutes of trying to let it catch up and fix what it was struggling with, we where forced into the old faithfull shut down and reboot routine. The shut down went off without a hitch, however we never imagined the reboot part would be so perilous. From that point on the computer refused to deliver us back to the desktop and we are stuck with a giant, expensive paperweight. The computer just can’t seem load all the way to the desktop.

I spent the next morning, reading troubleshooting guides and trying all the usual quick-fix solutions including safe mode, system restore et al, to no avail! Seeing as we are going to Ireland in a few days, it was essential we get ontop of this problem asap, so the computer is currently sitting at a repair shop, while we cross our fingers in optimism hoping for sunnier times. In addition to our laptop, the computer repair shop also has our only Australian to UK power adapter, meaning we can’t even charge up our phones and camera!

On brighter news: we go to Ireland on wednesday, that should be fun, but if our computer is well and truly busted, then blog updates may be fewer and further between. Hopefully everything will sort itself out soon.

Hi there, I ended up going back to that Aussie Pub for a pint, and here I am having a Fosters, how quaint.

With weeks spent in the bustling towns and cities of the UK we thought it might be nice to see some rural Scotland. I called an old school chum of my Dad’s who still lives in Blairgowrie, the town my dad grew up in. Jim gladly obliged to put Alyce and myself up for a few days and so we hopped our next train north.

First stop was Perth. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think the story goes, some colonist in early settlement era Australia was trying to earn favour with a politician in the UK so he named the Swan River Colony after that the politicians birth town which of course was Perth, Scotland. When we arrived in Perth, it was a Sunday and it was a bloody ghost town! We walked the cleared streets, peering into old buildings, to see them lined with modern furnishings, shrouded in a “we’re not home today” blanket of darkness. We passed through the town to its limits to find a lovely river side walk leading to a quiet park. We stopped at the park and watched the Sunday morning Soccer teams kick a few goals, while we had our lunch.

Next stop was Blairgowrie; we were welcomed in by Jim, my Dad’s childhood pal, we stayed at his place for dinner then an early night. Blairgowire is a small town a size that almost matches North Dundelup, the quiet town centre didn’t interest us much, we were much more interested in hiking the banks of the River Ericht. The river Ericht is a lovely scenic riverside hiking trail that walked us through patches of early spring forest, across rickety bridges, past old watermills and eventually to the top of a great hill. From the top of the hill we took in a breathtaking view of the Scottish country side with the snow capped mountains looming in the background.

It had been a nice few days, here are some pictures from Rural Scotland.

Perth, at the park looking down the River Tay:

Hiking in Blairgowrie:

The view from the Hilltop:

At the Balmoral Pub in Blairgowrie, a bunch of guys where playing traditional Scottish music:

Finally it’s time to add a second country to this tours logbook and so in the early hours of Thursday morning we hopped an economy priced bus north into Scotland. The trip was eight hours of rolling country side, passing time on books and iPods until we finally arrived in Edinburgh. Our stay in Edinburgh was brief as it was getting dark and starting to rain, so we quickly legged it to the train station and off to our first port of call: Stirling.

Stirling was the town of my birth and much of my upbringing as a wee’ lad, so I was quite excited to see how much had changed in a decade. Alyce and I were taken in by old family friends; the Hasties and will spending the next few days in their lovely house. An early bed time was in order as I was quite eager to get tripping down memory lane.

Stirling is of major importance to Scottish history as the castle was one of the most important strategic fortifications in the land. Many wars where fought in the area and many kings and queens made Stirling their preferred home from home. Stirling, being one of Scotland’s earliest major towns, is loaded with historical remains of the past centuries. When you look past the suburbs and shops that surround the place, in the centres there lies the old town. Stepping into old town, you’re almost transported hundreds of years into the past as you walk along cobbled streets amongst grand old buildings towards the impressive Stirling Castle at the top of the hill.

Coming straight from London, Stirling seemed to move at a more peaceful and relaxed pace. We spent most of Friday, in the town centre enduring the somewhat cold spring weather to explore this charming town.

Sorry about the long post, here are some pictures:

This picture is looking down on Stirling from the castle, Wallace Monument can be seen ontop of the Hill

Alyce in town enjoying some lunch:

Here’s me at Stirling Castle Gates, unfortunately we didn’t take any photos of the front of Stirling Castle so just google it:

Alyce and the Spring Blosom:

My old house!

Oh yeah… We found this Aussie pub, aparantly they sell lots of Fosters…

Sorry about the long post… See you soon!

After a week in the hustle and bustle of London, we decided to take a weekend down South to see Alyce’s cousin Kelly and her husband Matt. Kelly and Matt are also Aussie ex-pats who first came to Europe for a year long whirlwind tour and liked it so much they live here now.

Kelly and Matt live in a deceptively large country town called Brighton, it’s an hour or so south of London, past rolling green landscapes and old castles. The town itself looks like something from a story book; cobbled streets, quaint little houses with peaked roofs with little chimneys poking out. Despite its quaint country town image, the place is actually quite large. Its beachfront attractions and variety of pubs and clubs draw many a Londoner down for a big weekend out. Out on the streets, the town sports a strong bohemian vibe with its trendy cafes, niche shops, vegan culture and the title of Gay and Lesbian capitol of England.

Alyce and I hit the streets and took a few snaps, behold Brighton:

Hello Brighton

Brighton town

The shopping streets and laneways

Oh yeah, Brighton also has this random Middle – Eastern inspired Palace in the town centre. Yes this is ENGLAND not India.

This is the beachfront, the beach is made of pebbles, not sand.

PS: I have been fiddling around with my blog, and the images and I have condensed the pics considerably so they are smaller and shouldn’t take so long to load up.