Friday, June 23, 2006

We've been having a really nice time in Slovakia the last few days. Tuesday we did a bit of sightseeing, we went for a walk around the old town, it really is very nice, lots of little roads and alleys with loads of cafes and restaurants. We took some nice photos of all the old buildings, although we had no idea what they were as we didn't have a tour guide! In the evening we had a nail biting time watching the England v Sweden game, luckily we didn't lose as if we had England would have been playing Germany on Saturday (which is my brothers wedding day, and nobody would have been happy!) but as it turns out they play on Sunday, which is great news.
Yesterday I went with Martina to try on my bridesmaids dress, it was really lovely, mind you I wished I was skinnier, but you can't have everything! Then we went to try on her dress (I'm not giving away any info on that one - all I'll say is she looked stunning!!) When we got back Jason, Mum and I went to the castle which is really close to my brothers flat and had a look around there. Last night we met up with my brothers friends who had come over from England and went out for a meal.
Today Jason and I went for another walk around town and had a look at the river Danube. I am really struggling with the heat, it really is so hot here, there was a huge storm last night which has cleared the muggyness, but it still is boiling.
We are off to Martinas parents tonight, then the big day on Saturday! I have to go now as I'm melting!!

Friday, June 16, 2006

What a busy and brilliant fun week in Munich we've just had, we've been right in the heart of the world cup, we couldn't have picked a better time to go. We arrived in Slovakia yesterday evening and I'm feeling a bit sad at leaving Munich and my friends.
We had a late night on Wednesday after watching the Germany game. The streets were full of people partying, it went on till the early hours.
We were up quite early on Thursday, we had arranged to go up to Nuernberg which is where the England v Trinidad and Tobago game was being played. The atmosphere there was amazing, there were so many England fans travelling up from Munich, we had such a laugh. We went to the main square first which was heaving with people, they'd set up a beer garden there and everyone was drinking and singing away. It was such a hot day, absolutely boiling. We had a few beers there first, and then we got on a tram (which was crammed full and boiling hot) to the fan fest which is just by the stadium where they set up a huge screen so everyone could watch it. It was absolutely packed there, there were about 25,000 people (most of them England fans). The game wasn't the best, obviously until England scored twice at the end, that bucked everyone up!! After the match we got the bus back to the centre of town, it was heaving there, everyone was singing and dancing, we were having such good fun waving our flags at everyone when we went past them on the bus. We didn't stay in town long as we had to get the train back to Munich. It was a nightmare train journey, it went on for ever....when we got back to Munich most of the people that got off were England fans.
On Friday Jason and I took advantage of the weather and went to one of the outdoor swimming pools. It was very busy tho as all the kids were off school. In the evening Andy came back from Bremen (we were staying at his and Nicolas) so it was great to catch up with him again. We went to Tollwood which is an outdoor festival with lots of beer tents and food stalls, but typically for Tollwood no sooner had we arrived it started to rain, unluckily we were outside so had to shelter under the umbrellas. When it had calmed down we made a run for one of the tents and met up with all the other guys. After a few beers we went to Murphys for old times sake, and then to the Shamrock, we had such a laugh, Andy and Jason did a dance off, it was hilarious! It was a pretty late night so we were knackered the next day. Jason and I went to the Olympic park and then had some food at Tollwood. In the evening, we went to Ned Kellys for a few beers... it was really great as a lot of my old friends turned up to say hi.
On Sunday we went to the Fan fest at Olympic park in Munich for the Australia v Brazil game. We got there about 2pm and it was already full for the Croatia game. We eventually managed to get in and found somewhere to sit for the long day. It was a really hot day so none of us were drinking any beer, I was even sat under my umbrella to get some shade. I think there were about 20,000 fans there, all in yellow and green (for both teams), it was an amazing atmosphere, we had a fantastic day, what a great experience. We went for dinner after and saw all the Brazilians celebrating on the streets.
Yesterday we were just travelling to Vienna on the train. Chris picked us up and then we picked Mum up from the airport and went to Chris's flat, which is lovely (I daren't touch anything for fear of breaking it!). It is really hot and muggy here, I hope it cools down a bit, it's quite unbearable. We're off out this afternoon for a look around town, then it's time for another England game tonight.
Keep posted for some photos, I just haven't had a chance to do them yet. I've got some good'uns!!!

Thursday, June 15, 2006

oops, I haven't written for a while, it's been really busy!
We watched the match on Saturday, I was pleased that England won, although the game was a bit boring in the second half. After the football we went home quickly to have some food, and then Mum took us to Wimborne for the folk festival. We had a great night, we went to a few different pubs, they all had tents and bands in the gardens. We bumped into some people I know who work with Mum, we had a laugh with them.
Next day we went to visit Jasons friends for an hour and then I drove to Sarah's as I didn't get to see her at the football game, so we said our goodbyes. Then it was home to pack all my stuff. We managed to get most of it in a vacuum bag I bought and we weighed both our bags and they were the right weight for the flight which was lucky.
Monday we were up at 4.30 to catch our coach to the airport. I was really sad to leave England, it just wasn't long enough, but I was glad that I'd be seeing Mum again in a week, she really looked after us both really well, as per usual. We had a bit of a nightmare with our flights, for some reason there was a problem with our tickets and they couldn't check us in, so we had to go to the ticket desk, then we went back to the check in and Jasons ticket was ok, but mine wasn't, so we were hanging around for ages, they closed the check in and there was only 20 mins for our flight and I still wasn't checked in. By now I was panicking thinking Jason was going to go without me and that my brother would kill me for not being on the flight. Anyway, we eventually got it sorted and had to run all the way to the boarding gate.....what a nightmare...and we weren't sat together. Luckily my flying nervousnous isn't as bad as it used to be.
So, we arrived in Vienna at 1pm and we met my brother. It was so good to see Chris again. We drove the 4 hours to Munich and Chris dropped us off at Nicola and Andys to unpack our stuff. It's really great to be in Munich again, it feels like I've never been away! We went out in the evening to Tijuana cafe, just Jason, Chris and I, we had a really good time catching up and a few drinks! All the cafes on Leopold str have tvs for the football, so its absolutely packed everywhere. After Italy won their first game all the Italians (there are loads of them out here) were celebrating on the street, they closed the street down, which is quite normal here, except we thought it was a bit extreme for the first game...anyway, it was good fun to watch.
Yesterday Jason and I did lots of sight seeing. We caught the train to Karlsplatz and walked down the high street to Marienplatz. We stopped and looked in lots of churches, they really are lovely here, as they are catholics the churches are full of gold and are really beautiful. We were real tourists and took lots of pictures. Then we walked back through the Englischer garten, it's a really huge garden, I think one of the biggest in Europe. We walked by the nudist part too which was very amusing, full of old men standing up in all their glory!!
We met everyone at the beer garden, Pete came, and Lisa and Steve, Brian, Jason, me and Chris, we got there for the first match of France and Switzerland. They have huge screens at all the beer gardens too. We also watched the Brazil v Croatia match. It was so busy down there, but it was nice to watch it out in the sunshine. We all had a good catch up and a few beers, it was great. We were in Leopoldstr again and there were loads of Brazilians celebrating.
Today we went to the Nymphenburger Schloss (palace) which is very beautiful. Then we went to my old work so I could say hello to my old work friends, it was so nice to see them all again, they were really suprised to see me. Now we are going out to get a place for the German game, so I have to run.

Saturday, June 10, 2006

Yesterday was a good day, we managed to get to the beaches. First we went to Sandbanks, it's the 3rd most expensive place in the world to buy real estate, we had a look in the estate agent windows and 6.5 million was the top price we saw (a bit out of our price league!!) and that was only for a 4 bedroom house. We took a walk from Sandbanks to Shore Road and then back along the Marina, then I drove to Branksome Chine, another beach where I used to go years ago. They really are lovely beaches, very different to Sydney where there are lots of small beaches, down here they are long beaches all joined together, huge stretches of white sand. I did take lots of photos, but Mum's computer is so slow I haven't got the patience to download them onto my blog now! We sunbathed for a couple of hours, it was so hot, we even went in the sea to cool down (it was pretty freezing tho!!). And I managed to get a sunburnt face, I couldn't believe it, I've been in Australia for over a year and only managed to burn accidently once, but I come here and I've burnt my face twice already, it's not that I haven't been careful either, very strange. It's been the hottest couple of days this year, the heatwave is supposed to last till the weekend.
Today we were up early to catch the train to Bath to meet up with Jason's family. We had a lovely day there, the city is really nice and it was nice to meet his cousins and aunty. We went to see the Roman Baths too. Again I took some really nice photos which I will try and download soon. I came back this afternoon, Jason will come back tomorrow morning, it gave me a bit of time to spend with my Mum tonight .....mind you, we've been busy trying to sort out all my clothes that I want to take back. I've got so many clothes you wouldn't believe, I'd forgotten I had so many, it's been really hard deciding what to take with me. I had to buy one of those suction bags so that I can shrink all my clothes to make them smaller, what a nightmare! It's not fair that I can't take all my stuff back. Anyway, we've managed to sort that out, so off to bed soon. Looking forward to the England game tomorrow....come on England!!!

Thursday, June 08, 2006

We had another busy day yesterday, I was up early to go and get my hair cut, then Jason and I went into Bournemouth. I had an appointment to get my colour done too, so Jason just had a look around Bournemouth while I was at the hairdressers. I managed to get a little bit of shopping done too, but I have to be careful with my money, so I had to hold back a bit unfortunately!
We met up with Sarah and Ady last night at one of our old local bars. It was really great to see them again. Sarah was a bit crafty, after we'd been there 10 minutes, the rest of the girls all came out from hiding to surprise me, and then came their husbands and boyfriends! It was so nice to catch up with them all, it was a great night. We had a bit of dinner and some drinks and a gossip. I've found out that a lot of my friends who I'd lost touch with had had babies and some were getting married. I also met my friend Hayley who I used to hang around with years ago, she said it was really bizarre as she'd just thought of me earlier that day, and then I go walking into the pub!! She tells me that one of my old best mates from school has had a baby too. It makes me sad that I've lost touch with so many people since school, I'm not sure quite how it happened, it's a real shame :-( Anyway, it was a nice night.
I'm going to take Jason to the beach today, we're still having lovely weather so we're going to make the most of it...besides I want to get a tan, eveyone keeps saying I'm not brown, but they're forgetting it's winter in Australia now!

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Yesterday we went into Poole and did a bit of shopping, the shopping centre actually seems a lot smaller than I remember, I guess I’m used to these big Australian shopping malls now! One thing we’ve noticed here is that everyone has gone absolutely football mad….the shops are full of England t-shirts, flags, towels, anything you can think of they have, and the amount of cars with the St Georges flags sticking from them is just mad, some cars even have 2 or 3 of them, it’s very amusing!
I was very good at the shops and I only bought a top (not for the want of trying tho!!). Jason bought quite a lot of stuff. I had to go to the dentists in the afternoon, I thought I was only going to have a check up and a scale and polish…I ended up having a bloomin filling…not happy! After that we drove home for some dinner, then Jason and I went to see Elaine and her family. I showed Jason my old schools on the way there, and our old house we used to live in with Dad, it was really weird seeing it again, I haven’t been past since we moved out nearly 20 years ago. It was lovely to see Elaine and everyone again, I saw Katie too, who is my step-niece I guess, she is nearly 3 and so cute. We got home about 10, it’s funny that it doesn’t get dark till that time here, coming from Australia where at the moment it gets dark at 5pm, it takes a bit to get used to, the days seem a lot longer.
This morning I was up at 6.30am, I wanted to get tickets for the Robbie concert in Sydney, I was very lucky and got 2 tickets…I even managed to persuade Jason to come, which I think is a miracle! So I was very happy about that!
The weather is still gorgeous here, we’ve been so lucky, it really does make such a difference when the sun is out. We had a nice drive today, we drove to Wareham first and stopped there for a bit and had a look around. Then it was off to see Corfe Castle which is an old medieval castle, there is so much history around this area. I’d forgotten how lovely the village was there, it was so pretty, there are lots of oldy worldy cottages there. We went into the model village too, it showed the castle before it was attacked. Next stop was Harmans Cross where we got on the old steam train to Swanage (we were being very touristy!) It does make a difference when you’re showing someone around tho, you really see things that you probably wouldn’t normally see or do. Swanage was really nice, we walked to the beach, it’s not quite Bondi as Jason said, but it was nice. We stayed there for a couple of hours, then headed back to catch the train. On the drive back home, I took Jason to Blue Pool, but we didn’t go in as it charged £4.50 and we only wanted to have a quick look (another thing Jason noticed, they charge tourists for absolutely everything here). So we drove to Kimmeridge next, the countryside really is beautiful around here, I’d forgotten how lovely it actually is, it really made me appreciate it a lot more. We drove through the country through Kimmeridge and had a look at the beach. Then it was time to start driving home so we’d miss the traffic.
We had such a lovely day, it was really nice to go to all these places again (all these places I’ve talked about I used to go to with my Mum, Dad and brother when we were small, so it brought back a lot of fond memories). I have to sign off now, as I’m feeling very sleepy again, it didn’t help getting up so early this morning! The jet-lag isn’t actually as bad as I thought, I’ve just been getting tired early evening, and I think driving today didn’t help either. Another busy day of hairdressers and meeting friends tomorrow, I've hardly seen my Mum, hopefully we'll get to spend some more time together at the end of the week.

Monday, June 05, 2006

We finally arrived in the UK at 1pm on Saturday. It was such a long journey, it took 34 hours door to door, we were shattered! Our first flight was ok, a bit bumpy to start off with, but not too bad, we did have a bit of bad luck with our fellow travellers, I had a Russian lady sat behind me who kept moaning at me to put my seat forward, cheeky bloody woman, at one point she actually tried to push my seat forward with all her might, I had to turn around to ask her to stop, when she didn't, Jason told her off and she stopped, it made matters worse that she couldn't speak English! That really wound me up, I could have punched her! also Jason was sat next to a gay guy who wouldn't stop asking Jason questions about the flight and he kept tapping his legs to his music, he looked like he was on drugs! so that flight, which was 8 hours was a bit crap. To top it off, for the following 11 hour flight we had the same plane and the same passengers. That woman again kept tapping me and asking me to move my seat, I mean, why should I, I paid the same as everyone else and I wanted to be comfy too, she had her seat back. Anyway, we didn't get much sleep as it was a really bumpy flight practically all the way through, I was so glad I had read my 'how to enjoy flying' book before we went, it really helped, I think if I hadn't read that I would have been going out of my mind with worry (it's the turbulance that I hate). I did have some problems with my legs as well, they were really aching the whole journey, and my knees were killing me, that didn't help with trying to sleep, I felt like an old woman!! That flight was such a long one, I really didn't fancy getting on another plane again, but of course, we had to when we landed in Vienna. Luckily it was only a 2 hour flight, which went really quickly, thank god. When we landed in London it was a beautiful day, the sky was cloudless and blue, we were pretty suprised. We caught our bus to Bournemouth where Mum picked us up. It was really nice to see her and get home again, it's been so long since I've been here.
Didn't get much done yesterday as we were so tired, I still felt like I was sitting on a plane....because of the turbulance my head still felt like I was going up and down, not very nice! We tried to stay awake as late as we could, but by 8pm we had to give in, we did manage to get 13 hours sleep though, which was great, but I still felt a bit groggy this morning.
As it was a lovely day today, Jason and I got on our bikes and rode into Poole, we went to Poole Park, Baiter Park and Poole Quay. We had some chips at the quay which were yummy (best chips in the world) we had a walk around, Jason couldn't believe how many pubs there were within such a small area, I guess I'm so used to it I never noticed before, but he was right, there are loads, and restuarants too. We had a drink in the lovely sunshine and then had a look around Poole Pottery, we rode back via Upton Country Park, which was nice. It's so good to be able to ride a bike again, I really enjoyed it, we can't do that in Sydney as it's too hilly.
Got back home about 4pm, I've really caught the sun, my face is a bit sunburnt. I've sorted out all my cds, I bought a case back with me so I could take them back, Jason was taking the mickey out of me, he thinks I've got bad taste in music (little does he know, it's his bad taste, haha!) My brother phoned too, I'm looking forward to seeing him in a week. That's about it really, it's now 10.30pm, and I'm really stuggling to write this and keep my eyes open so I'm going to sign off for now, I hope it makes sense!!

Thursday, June 01, 2006

Our holiday is nearly here, we're flying tomorrow afternoon. I'm so excited, but also really nervous about such a long flight, we have 3 flights altogether, so it's going to be a long, long journey. We have some crossword books and cards and there will hopefully be lots of films to watch. I'm a bit disappointed tho as we only have a 20kg baggage allowance, which doesn't give me a lot of scope for bringing things back from UK, oh well, I'll have to figure out something!
We had our visas put in our passports today, so I finally believe it's happened. I did have butterflies when we were at the office tho, I thought they were going to find something wrong and not give them to us!!