Oh my gosh... I know it pretty much goes against all the principles of blogging, but waaaay too much going on this week for me to even think about clearing the backlog of overseas travel that I haven't written about.  And I know that's probably the most interesting bit of the whole trip!  But for the sake of completeness, I'm gonna have to just do it from NZ when I get back there... in three days.  Three days!  Jeez.

But yeah, got back from Europe a few days ago, went out for Indian in Brick Lane on Thursday night with Jarrod and Logan, yesterday went to Oxford with my mother's cousin in the pouring rain (ohhh, transport woe with the flooding...), last night was Harriet's birthday dinner and we had Mexican in Greenwich (Harriet, Jarrod and I went up and found the Prime Meridian, but the gate was locked so we couldn't actually get to it, but oh well, we visited where time starts... pretty much).  Today I'm going round to Jarrod's to hang out, then tonight is my farewell dinner party.  The boys are staying the night and I think we're having a BBQ brunch.  Monday is shopping day, and probably lunches, then Tuesday I'm on a plane for 26 hours... pray I manage to find a copy of Harry Potter.

Right.  Much to do.  See you all in three days (well, the NZ branch of  "all of you").  Argh!

Got up and packed, then crazily decided that it would be a good idea to walk the city walls in 35 degree heat at midday, when we were flying out at 4pm.  The view was great, but seriously, I have NEVER BEEN SO HOT IN MY WHOLE LIFE.  Seriously.  Sightseeing quickly gave way to dashing from shade to shade, and ploughing stoically on in the face of dawdling tourists who seemed immune to the insane heat.  



Made it right around just in time to head back up the hill to our apartment to catch our ride out to the airport.  One last 20-minute drive along the impressive Croatian coast, then it was into an airconditioned airport, onto an airconditioned plane, and a few hours later back to London… which, let’s face it, may as well be airconditioned itself.  

And no more Europe for Nadia until who-knows-when!

Was feeling decidedly dodgy today  so not overly keen to do anything, to be honest.  However, our time in Split is limited so we ventured to the beach… or rather, the “beach”.  Sadly I didn’t get any photos, as the beach in Split is fairly interesting – a concrete boardwalk with ladders down into what you could quite easily mistake for bath water.  Not the most idylic coastal experience! 

 Much of the rest of the day was spend relaxing in the airconditioned luxury of our room… and then going out for dinner, of course. 


The harbour in Split... not the beach.


The amphitheatre in the old town.

Sadly had a bare minimum of sleep courtesy of the crazy-loud disco located next to the hostel, so although Zadar in the morning seemed pretty, I was not  sad to leave it.  


Harriet (who had the luxury of earplugs and an eyemask)
outside our hostel in Zadar.

Had breakfast at a café (where I started to feel distinctly dodgy, health-wise) and headed off down to Split.  Which is, in my humble opinion, the least car-friendly city in the world.  Eventually managed to park our car and ventured out to have lunch in the extreme heat – Croatia is HOT.  Eventually found our little airconditioned apartment, right in the middle of the old tow n – I believe it used to be a part of the old castle/palace/some form of royal accomodation a million years ago)

Spent the rest of the day wandering Split and seeing the sights, eating gelato and generally being tourists. 


Me with our little car, finally in Split.

Caught the train this morning to Zagreb, Croatia.  When we arrived (and after being completely unable to locate the mystery McDonalds… I swear, it must have been a Platform 9 ¾ kind of situation, because there was NO way to get there…) we got the crazy idea into our heads that it would be funner to drive from Zagreb to Split.  So we did!  Hired a sporty black little Chevrolet beast (only 10 days old!) and headed off about 7pm (after a mostly-unsuccessful internet MISSION to find accomodation for the night).  Driving on the wrong side of the car and road is fun on the open road and stressful when trying to navigate out of a capital city!  Still, pretty proud of myself, and the brand new toll highway with the 130kmph speed limit was pretty sweet, too!  


Drivies on the wrong side of the road!

We decided that as it would be dark in the not-too-distant future it was proabaly best not to drive the whole way to Split (probably from about Auckland to… Rotorua?  Tauranga?  Taupo?  I really don’t know!) so checked into the YHA hostel in Zadar for the night.

Still in Budapest and it’s Harriet’s birthday!  Did the standard sightseeing thing today, walked around for ages trying to find the way up the hill to the castle area… finally got there and collapsed in Café Miro for lunch (who knew Miro was Hungarian?  Not me…).  Impressive views from the top, and lots of Disney-castle-type architecture.  Much of our time up the hill was spent trying to track down drinks, and toilets we didn’t have to pay for.  


Disney castle!


The view towards Pest.

Later wandered down to the other end of the river and had Harriet’s birthday treat – a swim in the old (really old, like, 1200) Turkish Baths, and then a massage.  The place is impressive, in that people have been swimming in those same pools for hundreds of years… but also slightly like a maze.  Kind of scary trying to find your way around!  

Trekked to the station and organised tickets to Zagreb in Croatia, and accomodation for tonight, then off across the river to Pest for Harriet’s birthday dinner and… cocktails!

Still crap weather, sadly, so did the remainder of our bus tours (this time out to the palace and back… we were supposed to get off and look around and get back on the next bus, but had no time and it was toooo cold).  Headed out finally about 6pm as our train was delayed an hour.  Sleepy sleepy on the train. 

Arrived in Budapest later than anticipated and had the usual “it’s late and we’re in a strange city and it’s getting dark” stress.  


Over the travel thing on the bus to the hostel!

Arrived at our hostel right in the middle of their second birthday party, which was interesting.  Had a few drinks in the spirit of “well, we’re never going to get to sleep, anyway”, and ate some form of yummy Hungarian stew that one of the staff was cooking out on the campfire.  Went to bed about 2am, although sleep was minimal due to the party raging ‘til six! 


Silhouettes party it up in the hostel in Budapest.

Yummy breakfast involving too many ham and cheese croissants (stole more for lunch, mwah ha ha!), then into town for our own little Sound of Music tour!  Started at the Mirabellplatz where the whole "Do a Deer" extravaganza was filmed.  Very pretty.  Took stupid photos posing on fountains, as you do. 

Next bussed out to the estate where they filmed the gazebo scenes.  The whole place was once owned by an eccentric archbishop with the sense of humour of a five year old - built all sorts of sculptures and water-features for the express purpose of soaking his unsuspecting guests.  Highlight:  the table that squirts jets of water up your pants in the middle of dinner.  Unsurprisingly, our tour guide took great pleasure in "demonstrating" these to us, which I found less than amusing, being that I was carrying a camera and my passport!

After that delight, we tracked down the gazebo, tucked away in a corner of the estate.  Ate our stolen lunch and then did some more posing like idiots (always fun).  Looked around the old estate house (nice ceilings, not much else), ate icecream, wrote postcards and headed back into town.

Tried to find the Abbey in the afternoon but couldn't get up to it, settled for looking around the markets at the bottom of the hill, then walking halfway up to the fortress (too cheap to pay for the cable car and entrance fee) and had a look at the view.  Pretty tired and hot by this point, which was topped off by our bus not stopping to pick us up and having to walk back to the hostel - much stress!  Got back, packed up, did a quick turn-around back to the train station and guzzled some BK before jumping on our super-hot train to Vienna. 

Once in Vienna, finding the right bus to get to our hostel proved to be somewhat of a mission, but luckily friendly locals and bus drivers helped us out.  Fiiiinally arrived about 11pm after walking down a freaky forest road in the dark (the hostel is in the wops).  Sharing a room with some chatty Australians (there are always some chatty Australians!).

Headed to Austria today, seven hours on a train, woohoo!  Even got to spend 10 minutes in Germany when we changed trains... who's ever heard of a place called "Landshut"?  Anyway, not sad to get off the overcrowded train full of American tourists at the other end! 

Got ourselves sorted in our little guesthouse/hostel (another winner room) and wandered into town to see what we could see.  Eventually found somewhere to have dinner (fried sausage this time) and halfway through got accosted by a stag night populated by what HAD to be IT specialists... poor little nerdy Bavarians!  Anyway, they were lovely, making the poor groom-to-be play "Stairway to Heaven" on the recorder and other such nerdy things.  Wandered around town for a while after dinner, then back along the river and through the tunnel home. 

Woke up and decided to walk from the hostel into the centre of Prague to see Prague Castle.  Sadly the weather deteriorated on the way and became utterably, undisputably FREEZING.  Still, on the walk we got a good view of some of the less glamourous, touristy areas of Prague, it kind of reminds me of Wellington in the 80s, somehow - kind of windy, lots of concrete, utilitarian.  'Course, it might just be the weather.  Saw a giant bottle of beer floating down the river!

Prague Castle, as you'd expect, was a complete contrast - totally gothic and castle-y.  Pretty impressive.  Harriet and I took waaaay too many photos and foolishly decided to walk up 297 stairs to the very top of the big cathedral to see the view.  Unlike the hoards of American tourists who undertook the journey with us, I only began to tire around stair 200 or so.  Quite proud of myself! 

After lunch tracked down the train station to book our tickets to Salzburg, had a run-in with the less-than-pleasant ticketing woman, welcome to the Czech Repulic, I guess!  Napped in the park in the sun for a while afterwards, then wandered back into the central city for dinner - goulash and dumplings, mmm, dumplings...

Headed back to the hostel later (tried to jump a tram because we couldn't work out where to buy tickets, then got spooked by an inspector who turned out to be helpful and friendly!).  Had a coolish spa in the evening, then bed. 

Yo yo, all.  Got back from Valencia last night (the less said about that little race issue, the better...) and had a brilliant time.  No time to update the details as I'm off to Prague tomorrow and it's 1am (went out to the movies with Jarrod and Logan instead of packing, whoops!) but there are a million photos up in the Valencia gallery, so check 'em out if you're interested and I'll do a behemoth catch-up when I get back in two weeks!  Hope you're all good!


I was so hopeful at the beginning of the week... sob!

I knew I should have done this earlier, now I can't remember!

So the first day Danielle and I got up heinously early and flew out to my first real continental European destination.  The first day was spent mostly getting sorted, checking out Port America's Cup and watching a race on a big screen on a hill on what we later figured out was the Swiss side of the village.  Sadly we lost.  We also got lost trying to find our way back to the (miraculously airconditioned) Metro, and wound up wandering aimlessly, dying of hunger and eventually eating pizza that tasted of Weetbix.  


Dani and I at Port America's Cup on the first day.  


Me signing the board in support of Team NZ. For all the good
it did them.  

The second day Harriet arrived!  There was more race-watching, and some sitting at the deck-chair bar post-race, having drinks and relaxing in the sun.  Dinner was our first tapas experience and ridiculously yummy - we wound up at a little hole-in-the-wall place where they spoke no English at all but made amazing food.  


Dani, me and Harriet.


Mmm, Tapas restaurant...

Here's where things start to get a bit blurry.  I believe it may have been this night that we decided to go meet up with Danielle's friend Oscar at the apartment he and some friends were renting for the week.  We met up with Katrina and Nikki and had an absolute mish trying to find the place, although the view was amazing when we got there.  After a few drinks we went down to the Port for some dancing in enemy territory - the Alinghi bar. 


And this, sadly, is the last photo of Danielle standing unaided.

Later on in the evening, due to a series of events involving a piggy-back race and some stairs, Harriet and I ended up escorting a greatly-pained Danielle to a scary Spanish hospital to have her now-broken foot put in a cast.  Great dramas, although great miming skills employed by Harriet and myself.  Anyway, got home at 6am.  Enough said. 

So from then on, the days all start to roll into one.  We got Danielle crutches: 



Followed by a wheelchair:  


Yes, I'm aware this is me, not Danielle.  It was comfy!

And just generally spent the next few days watching Team NZ lose races, hanging out at the deckchair bar listening to Natures Best off someone's iPod, eating tapas every night and sweltering pushing a wheelchair around in the Spanish summer heat!  We also took the wheelchair on a trip to the beach, and Danielle even took her cast for a swim, thanks to 60 metres of Gladwrap:



There was a hostel birthday party and some card playing with random Bavarians, desperate hunts for Amstel, croissants for breakfast and piggybacks down little Valencian streets in search of dinner.  But I can't remember what happened when.  So this will have to do!