The end is nigh

Morning campers,
Apologies for the lack of blogging recently, our trip has slowed down somewhat and the need for detailing our frantic escapades has faded, so here's an overview of what you've missed.
The first two nights in Amsterdam we spent outside the centre in a big hotel/hostel where there was indeed, as all the reviews said, a great breakfast. Our Saturday was spent wandering around the many cobbled streets and getting a feel for the place. We inulged all our touristic urges through shopping and taking photos before the heavy rain beat us back into the hostel. When it eased off we hit the Leidseplein with a friendly American in tow and went on an 'ultimate party' pub crawl, the details of which need not be stated here, suffice to say that the company motto is 'a night you won't remember, but will never forget.' Apparently the combination of Mayo and chips is frowned upon in the states, Ian's reaction to seeing me combine them could easily be likened to how children react at the end of bambi, leaving him both confused and upset.
Anyway, it was on this night we met Ally and Stacey, two Canadian girls who are significant not only for their stupidity but their ability to haunt us. The root of our annoyance comes from one thing really, their firm belief
that Rob was called 'Colin' (despite several corrections) and the shriek of 'Justin Bieber!' every time I walked past.

Anyway, the night went well on the whole and the next morning we checked out of hostel 1 and headed across town to a different hostel. Now Amsterdam is a city with dozens of hostels, they're everywhere. But it was in this hostel, after a 20 minute walk and a 5 flights of stairs that we were greeted in our room by an over enthusaistic'oh my god! Justin Bieber!' The next night was spent being forced to watch MTV all day, and wondering how two 18 year old humans had never seen spray deoderant before.
You won't be surprised to know that Rob and I spent only the minimum amount of time possible in that room
and as planned changes hostel again in the morning.

That night we went out again. Walked across town, went into a small bar, surely, surely we were safe. Alas my friends like the pair of miniature ridiculous albatrosses they were, they appeared. We left early.

Anyway! Moving on from the minor annoyances we have also spent a great deal of time wandering the city, and aside from the maze of cycle lanes and tram lines that make every journey out fraught with peril, Amsterdam is a beautiful city, suitable for anyone that wants a nice weekend away somewhere new and relaxed. Also fantastic if you like coffee, you're spoiled for choice with the array of shops offering a cup of the stuff, it's incredible.
Oh well, home time now, see you tonight.
Ollie x

From a yacht in Barcelona to cocktails in Paris...

After our Irish night out in Barcelona, we had a couple of really lazy days in the sun resulting in both of us taking on that sunburnt tourist look. Never a good thing. On our last day in Barca we were invited on to a yacht by an Australian girl we had met in Marseille. This turned out to be one of the best days of the trip. The boat was incredible, everyone (the crew and the girls grandad and friends) was really friendly and the weather was perfect. We spent most of the afternoon out on the sea, had an amazing buffet-style lunch, and then took cablecars up to the castle by the coast, which had fantastic views. All I can say is that I'm ridiculously grateful and so lucky to have had a day like that.

Leaving Barcelona was less glorious. We found out that the overnight train was around 50euros even with our interrail tickets, so we waited till the next train at 7am the following day. Unfortunately for us the station closed for 5 hours at around midnight, resulting in us wandering aimlessly around an area of Barca we didn't know. Nothing terribly eventful happened though, and we spent some time chatting to a random Spanish guy who seemed to want to start an artist's revolution in a small suburb in Barcelona. We eventually got to Paris and tracked down the flat of a different group of girls from Marseille who'd offered us somewhere to stay. Since then we've spent a day exploring Paris and seeing some of the main sights. The Louvre is beautiful and very interesting and I really wish I could've spent more time there. In the evening we went to a couple of bars with the girls and some of their friends and had a really good time.

Now we're off to our last country of this trip, on the last day of our interrail tickets: Amsterdam!
Rob x

Hey y'all,
As Rob mentioned we both embodied the angry lobster look in barca, I think as some kind of karma for laughing at the silly sunburnt tourists. It was great being back there after I visited last summer, and the yacht day was incredible. When you're parking your yacht next to Roman Abramovich's after having a gourmet buffet of the coast of Barcelona you know you've done allright for yourself. And therein lies the importance of being nice to strangers.

We left Barcelona in a slight state of shock at the brilliance of the time we had there, but the giddy 'i'm on a boat' chorus we sang out soon gave way to a much more restrained mood as we shared biscuits on a bench at 3am. But it's all part of the expeience, right?

Paris went quickly, but was fun never the less. We stayed with two English girls on a year abroad, staying right in the centre of Paris as part of their French degrees. The Louvre was incredibly impressive, and free as we're both under 26, I'm not sure we can adorn ourselves with the reputation of distinguished art critics yet though as our conversations mainly centred around the phrases: 'that's cool' or 'that's old'. The Louvre is fantastic though, with Egyptian artifacts, mock apartments of Louis XVI, the Venus de milo and mona lisa all being under one roof and free. We wandered upthe champs élysées and took the metro over to the Eiffel Tower. The tower in the centre of St Albans has a clock on it, but you know, I'm sure the eiffel is allright too, if you like that kind of thing.

Having been walking for a good few hours inside, while it was sunny, it was somewhat unfortunate that within an hour of us leaving the Louvre the heavens opened and we got soaked. The 2 for 1 cocktails and fairly cheap beer that night(yes,cheap drinks are out there to be had even in Paris) made up for the weather though. We even learnt some French, '20 metres that way' is French for 'half an hour somewhere in that general direction'.

Today we made it to Amsterdam relatively easily, with Paris leaving me assured of two things: that I wanted to return, and that a small dog in a bag is not an acceptable look, ever, even if you're french.
Hope you're all well and that arrangements for our welcome back party on Wednesday are going smoothly,
Ollie x

Call me Kinder Cupid

So I just got authorisation to write about this from the friend it involves. So here goes.

On finding out that I'm in Barcelona a friend of mine asked me to embark upon a quest of love on his behalf.
The short version of the backstory is that that she spent a year in England at uni with him, and then moved back to Spain. They stayed in touch and he travelled out to Spain to visit her. When he got a new girlfriend shortly after she flipped, despite them not being together anymore, stating that he hadn't been honest about his feelings for her.

So, as with every relationship where in inanimate objects gain romantic significance, by way of an apology i was charged with the task of delivering her a kinder bueno. Ok, ok Romeo he aint, but the romance was all in the gesture.

So. I walked about an hour across town and found her building, figured out her apartment by cheeky MI5 style use of the letterboxes downstairs and went to knock on her door.
If you ever think you've had an awkward conversation try explaining to a girl you've never met how you know who she is, where she lives, who you are, and why it's important that she got this chocolately gift. It was almost ´a brief encounter'. I mean I have been taking a lot of trains recently.

But it worked! Maybe it was my ingenious choice of the newer and less conventional choice of the white chocolate bueno as opposed to the standard milk chocolate one (a lot less appropriate for romantic gestures) or my broken spanish but she smiled and things between them should return to intenrational friendship post haste.

Epic win for long walks and light snacks.
That is all
Ollie
x

From Bonjour to Hola

Boom. So Ollie has set off to run some errands for a friend back home and I've decided to use the time to bore you all with my droll sentiments. Since leaving the beautiful lake Como we've travelled entirely across the coast of southern France, on trains quite literally 6 foot from the ocean. We stayed in Marseille in a hostel I'd found (a rare occurrence). This particular place had been open a mere 6 days when we arrived and we had literally no idea what to expect. It turned out to be pretty amazing. We met looooads of people, the place had a great atmosphere and the owner was a really nice guy. We spent a day exploring the city and a night exploring the effects of alcohol on an empty stomach. In conclusion, Marseille is lovely and hangovers are not. After leaving Marseille, we continued on our coastal train journey to Barcelona, somehow managing to find some middle aged american woman who decided to latch onto us and stay with us all the way to our hostel and it was only the following morning when we managed to finally escape this ridiculous human being, who at one point referred to her English teaching job in Egypt as a way of "helping to show that Americans arent all bad, so they dont come over and try and bomb us on one of their crazy jihad things". Right. So far we have spoent a day exploring Barcelona and last night went to an Irish bar that Ollie had been to before. After sitting by the bar for 10 minutes, we somehow attracted the attention of the incredibly drunk owner, who constantly insisted that I had a jew-nose and that Ollie must spend at least half an hour on his hair. Either way, we had a really funny night, with this drunken man giving us free drinks all night.
Rob x

Hola chicos.
So Marseilles. Where I couldn't help but say 'Marseilles,Marseilles,Marseilles, what's going on 'ere then?' It was gorgeous and we stayed in the best hostel we'd been in yet. It was basically a brand new mini penthouse with wooden floors, all white walls and a big sofa in front of the plasma. Oh you didn´t know? That's how we live life now.
Anyway, Marseilles was beautiful, but most of the interesting things happened in the hostel. The first night we met some Australian girls who happened to be lovely and not short of pocket money, one of them had a toy watch. If you don't know what that is, just know it costs more than my phone and ipod combined. Mum&dad I'm working on a proposal. Tomorrow we're catching up with them on their Yacht which is here in Barca. Who said flattery gets you no where?

The morning after we were talking to four english girls who live in Paris and invited us to stay with them when we go to save on accommodation costs. In the spirit of reverse inventing, it's like couch surfing, but without the internet.
So Marseilles was brilliant, Notre Dame, the sea, churches and things of that sort, and of course being france plenty of croissants and coffee. Our combined French improved a little..although always included the phrase 'you can not tell by my OUTRAGEOUS french accent?'

So we're back in Barcelona. Which is buzzy and brilliant as ever. Last night after seeing the Sagrada Famillia (still unfinished, I blame the siestas. The church will flip when they find out that Gaudi didn't include VAT in his original calculations), we went out into the night. In authentic spanish style we got tapas and champagne (champagne in the way that tesco's cava is champagne, we are only students afterall..almost) We then moved on to the Palace bar and as Rob said spent the eevning being bought drinks by the owner. Worth it despite the repetition of 'so..you're israeli' and 'seriously..seriously..how long on the fringe?' comments. A merry night indeed.

Hope all is well back home,
Ollie x

'i'm big in Japan'

As Rob has 'nothing much to say' and is busy planning the next leg of our journey the task of blogging has fallen to me, and I shall have at it with all the energy of a 14 year old at a Justin Bieber gig. Sorry Rob fans. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.

Today we got up, as most days, at 7. As much as I'd love to say that this was due to our eager youthful souls yearning to get back out there and experience Europe, it's more likely to do with the fact that breakfast is at 7:30. We ate and then set off on what turned out to be the longer leg of our day trip into Milan. Despite having walked from the station to the hostel just days ago, and them being on one long road, we managed to miss it. We then asked for directions and what should have been a 5 minute walk took nearer to half an hour. Not the ideal start to the day, but not to worry, adventure lies in the unexpected etc.

Once into Milan one such unexpected occurence ...occurred. It's at this point I should inform all of you that from now on you'll have to send any letters to our agents to pass onto us, as within the week we'll almost certainly be advertising robot dogs and camera lenses. Just 5 minutes from the station we were stopped by two ladies from a Japanese fashion magazine who wanted to photograph us and then, having obliged, asked us about where we shopped. (What a day to be in a Primark Cardigan.) This can almost certainly only go one way. Rob and I are preparing ourselves to decide between staring in Tokyo Drift 2 or doing 'the shows' next time we're back in Milan, darling.
To be honest that's more me. Or to be even more honest, entirely me. Rob was not pleased being photographed or asked about clothes, so we pushed on into the centre of Milan.

Once into the centre we quickly found the Duomo cathederal(Thanks for the suggestion Mrs Godfrey, and Hannah it's Duomo, not Elmo). While the walls lined with oil paintings and underground chamber holding holy relics were interesting, the spleandour of the cathederal lay in the building itself. If you haven't seen it, google it. It's magnificent in every sense of the word. Rob and I honoured the architechtural marvel in the only way we knew how, a string of spire jokes:
'How inspiring',
'Yep. These architehts aspire to great things'.
Perhaps some of the grandeur was lost on us afterall.

Unfortunately Milan will remain for us as the city of things we were close to but didn't actually see. Having kept a close eye on our finances we decided to try and keep costs down, this meant that seeing the last supper painting and Da Vinci's scientific instruments had to be skipped this time.

Never the less we enjoyed a day of brilliantly sunny weather, and wandered around the many shops, castle and park that Milan had to offer.
If you're thinking of going, do, just be prepared for lots of tourists and a minimum of €2.50 for coke.

Tonight we've decided that our next stop is Marseilles, followed by Barcelona, then on to Paris.

Hope all is well at home, and Rob and I promise to try and stay grounded and remember you little people as we ascend the heady heights of fame and stardom.
Ollie x

When in doubt, turn left.

So Rome was done, it's still there big, old and brilliant as ever. With the colloseum fading into the background we sped north towards Verona which turned out to be one of best places we've visited. The bridges crossing the river give you views that have you reaching for your camera every time you cross one, while the city centre somehow manages to maintain a vibrant cosmopolitan maze of streets dripping in Italian stereotypes, from the designer boutiques to the rows of coffee shops. Enough of talking like a travel guide.

Verona was a nice contrast from the captal cities we'd been sticking to, managing to be quieter without having any less to offer. It's worth visiting for the best and biggest kebabs you've ever seen alone. These are no british post pub grease filled pittas. They made the bread themselves, and had an almost subway-esque salad bar to go with the still unfortunately unappealing meat. It was a definite improvement on what they do at home.

Of course there's juliette's house with it's walls lined in love notes, a Roman arena, and beautiful plazas...but still. Cracking kebabs. Cultured travellers of the furthest lands, us two =].

From Verona we had planned to visit Milan, but on the advice of a friend, told to me before we left, we avoided the €30 a night hostels to discover a small town north of Milan by the name of Como. Best decision we've made so far. I realise raving about every city gives my amazement less impact but I would be doing our whole time here a disservice if I didn't say that this is simply the most beautiful, peaceful, amazing place we've been.

Como is essentially a small town on the edge of a big lake. The walk from our hostel to town leads us past grand Spanish villas whose grounds end metres from the lake front. The hills that make the valley are vibrant green and the long jetties stretching out lines of yachts makes the whole city a joy to walk around.
If you were ever going to be jealous of us, now is the time.

Staying true to one of the many traditions we've created between cities, in response to my asking 'so where do you want to go?' this morning, Rob pointed to the top of the highest hill he could see and said 'there', with that dreadful excitement in his eyes he usually only gets when he knows he's about to do something difficult, for no other reason than to say he's done it. So we did.

3 hours and an ocean of sweat later it was all worth it, the views were spectacular.

I'll leave Rob to fill in any other details,
Ollie x

My second visit to Verona has simply confirmed it as one of my favourite cities. There have been many amusing incidents that need to be mentioned; Ollie ordering a latte in two different places and being surprised when both brought him a glass of warm milk. The 24hour shops which simply consisted of vending machines. A vending machine which stocked popcorn, pregnancy tests, red bull and condoms. Everything you could ever need. A couple of other amazing moments include the realisation that breakfast included BOWLS of coffee or tea (no seriously, actual bowls) and me being shot down from a decisive "let's go" moment by Ollie pointing out that I wasn't wearing any shoes.

Furthermore, Sadé deserves a hug for recommending Como. It's beautiful and so much cheaper than Milan but still easily close enough for us to visit. To my fambly: it's like a small scale garda and just as lovely. We've also started to get some really nice weather and I'm just a little bit sunburnt.

Tomorrow we're off to visit Milan, which I'm really looking forward to. Also we have no definite plans for about a week before Paris and Amsterdam so if anyone wants to recommend some nice places in France, go for it.
Rob x

From Ljubljana to Rome by gondola

First things first, apologies for the lack of capers and high jinks from the two of us in the last couple of days. Seeing how much coverage the election is getting we decided to mimic current events and leave you all with no real sense of what's going on, with neither of us in charge, and waited for someone more important than us to invite us to form a blog. We've taken texts from Rob's Dad as such a mandate and have decided to fill you in on our news. Enough preamble.

Ljubljana was fantastic, a gorgeous city, and we spent the day walking around and up to the castle. It's a pretty small city so there wasn't masses to do but it made for a nice day. The nights sleep gave us plenty to talk about though, with a 'character' of an old guy bringing everyone glasses of water and just talking ...endlessly, for hours, out loud, to no one. That combined with the couple who wore matching black courdroy flares and bowler hats gave our room a diverse clientele.

Monday morning we hopped on a train to Venice, and despite the rain, the city was just as amazing as every postcard you've ever seen of the place. We got pizza and generally admired the city before the rain beat us into heading back to the campsite we were staying on (in a mini cabin type thing). Now all in the name of cultural exploration and broadening horizons we frequented the bar for a non alcoholic beverage. We were then led astray by a big tour group of Australians and Canadians who were on a whirlwind tour of our fair continent. Apparently not only do Rob and I sound Australian and/or American, but an English accent consists of shouting 'we're from Laandan'. Good good night though.

As Rob has never been to Rome before I'll let him talk about the short time we've had here. Hope everyone is well back hone
Ollie x

So. Rome. A city where if you photographed every ancient architectural wonder you'd stop every 10 paces. I can't sum up how incredible the city is. We saw the Vatican, the Colloseum, the Trevi fountain and several other less well known places. What struck me is that its also not ridiculously expensive, so if you haven't been and are looking for somewhere to travel to, visit Rome!

In other news I'd like to proudly mention that I'm somewhere in the region of 150quid under budget. Boom. Also me and Ollie have settled into good routines which largely involve him cooking and washing and me... eating and lying in bed. In other words, Ollie has effectively become my Mum.

Anyway, tomorrow we catch the 8:22 train on our way to Verona. Anyone want a postcard?
Rob x

Ljubly Jubbly

So I've got a little bit of time to bore you all before we're off out to explore Ljubljana (The capital of Slovenia for you uncultured kids). So: Zagreb. It's a small city but pleasant enough around the center. We split up to explore the city (Ollie was left to do the shopping and returned with bread, ice tea and pretzel sticks...) I ended up wandering past the main square and cathedral in the sun and walked for miles around various parks and residential areas. We've also decided to add Rome to our list of places to go. I can't reeeally think of other specific things that have happened; I'm having an awesome time, Ollie is never going to be allowed to do the shopping again EVER and I'm now off out to see Ljubljana, which looks incredible from what we've seen so far.
Rob x

They were just pretzels. Didn't mean to upset anyone. Anyway:
Zageb turned out to be a brilliant city, very small and pretty but also buzzing with endless winding streets of bars and cafes. Unfortunately on the second day the task of finding another hostel, as our first one was booked, turned out to be somewhat of a challenge. We wandered from hostel to hostel like a 21st century Mary and Joe, being turned away at every door. Eventually, very tired and hungry we found a place to stay a little way out of the city centre, and spent the rest of the day exploring the city.

Yesterday, after washing some clothes (See Mum&Dad, i'm almost a grown up), we headed to the train station only to find that the next train to Ljubljana wasn't for 5 hours. Fantastic. Having exhausted the sights and sounds of Zagreb and with very few kuna between us, we decided to just wait it out. Eventually we arrived into Zagreb last night about 9, after more biscuits and passport checks. Having been none too enthused about going to Slovenia in the first place I was thrilled to find a beautiful city, centred around a Venetian style winding river lined with bars and people and a stage set up in the main square where local bands were playing to comemorate some kind of historical anniversary.

We're now off out to explore the city as fully as we can, and hopefully find food too.Ollie x

Of Magnets And Mountains

Yo! So here we are again, sitting in a hostel in Zagreb. We spent all of yesterday wandering round Budapest. It's a really nice city but much much busier than Bratislava. We were out for hours and saw most of the city's major tourist attractions. The parliament building in particular is beautiful, as is the Heroes Square by the city park. We retired to hippyhostel for the night, with no idea of the ridiculously long train journey ahead of us. Took us roughly 8 hours zigzagging back and forth across Hungary and Croatia to reach Zagreb. We're in a nice hostel and we've been for a wander around and the city looks nice.
Rob x

As the days of our trip add up and we come to the end of our first week the lessons we're learning are racking up too. Things like, always wait for the first train, research before booking and 'keep refrigerated' is not open to interpretation ( brings whole new meaning to 'the philidelphia story').

Budapest was a brilliant town, big and busy but had some amazing buildings. We've had a long day of travelling today, including passport checks by hungrian police, Hungarian customs, then Croatian police, then Croatian customs, but were safely into our hostel ready for a full day of exploration tomorrow.
Hope all is well, and if I predict correctly all hail our new shiny faced leader.
Ollie x

'The girl with kaleidoscope eyes...'

Last night we went out and found a bar that did double shots for the equivalent of about 85p. That was cool. We also met our first english speaking roomies, a couple of American guys from Chicago. We got a relatively early night, being in bed around half 11/12ish, and they rocked up a bit later, compleeetely wasted.
"Maaan, I'm so shitfaced"
"I'm schnootfaced..."
"The rooom is spiiining.... liiike aa kaleidooooscooope"

So we got up early again and headed off for Budapest, having had a brilliant couple of days in Bratislava. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to see more of Europe, though I'd encourage you to stick to the center.

We got to Budapest with no trouble, and I led us confidently in the opposite direction of the hostel. Upon realising this shortly later I turned us around and found the hostel relatively easily with the now-furious Mr.Brown. Hostel is somewhat of a glorification; we're pretty much in some guys house, where he's filled a room with 8 beds. I quite like it, because the owner is American and its all very laid back and relaxed. Ollie is somewhat less impressed. Anyway. We've now eaten, and are going to get an earlyish night in anticipation of many hours of sightseeing tomorrow.
And now over to the more literate half of this blog...
Rob x

Seeing as Rob has already covered the important parts of our last 24 hours, I'll simply add detail.
Important factual details, that everyone should remember, like I booked the hostels with the sports bars, pretty receptionists and free internet access. I then let Rob book the next hostel.

This trip just got interesting.
After another of Rob's hilarious unplanned excursions into the charmingly dangerous residential areas of Eastern Europe we found our hostel. I say that, we actually found our hostel's name on a buzzer/bell.
'Hi we're here to check in?'
'oh..er..name?'
'It's under Cresswell'
'oh ..cool..first floor, door 7' *Gate buzzes open*
We went, as instructed, up a flight of stairs and along a balcony until we reached door number 7. It has since become clear to me that either Rob thinks research is overrated, wanted to expand our horizons, or felt that I was too uninformed on words like 'chakra' and 'marijuana'.
What's happened here, is two bearded Americans have bought a flat, filled it with beds, and charge 9 euros a night for the use of one. Which is fine, I whole heartedly encourage the enthusiasm of the independent entrepreneur. However, and excuse my waspish high horse judgement here, the flat we're in is adorned with orange curtains, lots of paintings of trees and elephants, astrology charts, a suitcase nailed to the wall, next to the african tribal carving, and a hookah pipe on the kitchen table.
There is also a noticeable array of beards, dreadlocks, and sandals. None of which I'm against, I'm thrilled to be experiencing new environments, and who doesn't like posters of Buddha over their bed? But at first glance it's at the least, out of my comfort zone. Anyway, Budapest is a big, busy, noisy city the delights of which we'll fully explore tomorrow.

So it's here that I leave you, very happy between the pile of sandals and the broken wireless, to enjoy more of the Beatles and Dylan songs spilling gently from the kitchen
Ollie x