Jakey Jake

I met up with some canadians in cinqueterre and we headed towards nice. I was going to meet damo there the next day so i hung out wiht the canadians for the trip and we stayed in a hostel together, mik and j were really good guys and we had a good time together. When damo didnt arrive we decided to day trip it to monaco, it was definately a money city, with massive Yachts, expensive cars, hot young women with old men. It was a bit poxy though with a lot of old 70s style buildings etc. but i loved the yachts. ive decided that im going to own one!!!! (yeah yeah i hear you say…. well its a nice dream!!). That night it was raining, which it did most of the time i was in nice, so we started playing drinking games at mik and js hostel. We started with 5 people and in the end pretty much the entire 30 or so people in the hostel were playing, and we were all rather hammered!!!! Next day damo arrived and the canadians left, so damo and i wandered around nice having a good look around, it wasnt a very busy time of year although you could imagine that it would be much more fun in high season. The beach wasnt all that much, it had rather large grey stones instead of sand. The next day we went to monaco and we went into the casino. It was pretty much dead empty, perhaps only 30 people in there. I have to say it was a stunning casino, very lavishly decorated and you could imagine that it too would be awesome fun had there been more people around. We walked around the marina again and a lot of the yachts were having maintenance done on them. Seemed like there were a lot of Australians as crew memebers on the yachts although none of them let us on One guy had a remote control helicopter and he was trying to show off in front of the crew girls only he slammed it into a kayak and broke one of the rotors, although he didnt seem to care!!! We eneded up watching the movie wimbeldon, i have to say it was a pretty good movie and Kirsten Dunst is looking mighty fine. Same cant be said for me, im packing the kilos on, yep thats right im turning into a fatty!!!! hehehehe must have something to do with the 8+ meals i have a day!!! Anyway damo left the next day and i went to milan which was on the way to switzerland, the train left at 6.09 so in the meantime i went looking at the shops and playing on the internet. Funnily enough i thought the train left at 6.50 and when i went to catch it, it had already gone, so i ended up staying another night in nice.

heading down there today. Cinqueterre is a set of 5 towns located along the north west coast of italy. It is known for its stunning location, im sure youve seen photos of the 4th town. Its actually a national park, the people that live there have over time built numerous terrarces on the hills so they can grow their olive crops. Unfortunately the land is slowly being reclaimed by the mediterranian. Anyway there is a stunning walk that spans the length of the 5 towns. It took me about 3 hours to walk them, although i was doing it quickly as the weather wasnt so great. I have to say though that i really like the quiet pace after having been to so many major cities. Although after the walk i caught the train that i was told 5.13 to return to the first town, only it flew past all the stations and stopped at la spieza. arriving at la spieza at 5.30, the next train according to the timetable wasnt until 6.50. SO i asked at information to double check and he said to catch the 6.05 train, so i did that. Only it flew past riomaggio, and all the other stations, when it flew past monterosso, i started to get a bit worried. it stopped an hour later at 7.15 in god knows where. The train back was at 7.45 so i caught that, and about 30 mins into the journey it just stopped at this station for a good 45 minutes… hehehehehe then we finally took off again after a period of stress and finally got into my destination at 9.15 pm, 4 hours after i had left monterosso, for what should only have been a 15 minute journey… oh well!!!!!

Arrived in florence after a two hour delay on the train… The city is much smaller than i had imagined it, although it was certainly very beautiful. The birthplace of most of the famous renaisance artists, and clearly the birthplace of the renaisance art movement itselt. Much like rome there is a plethora of art and sculptures scattered around the city. It would definately make for a very entertaining and informative scavenger hunt (probably also very costly if everyone had to be flown over from australia). MMMmm so anyway, starting to get the hang of really travelling on your own, and i actually am finally starting to really enjoy my own company again. did all the touristy things, went and saw michaelangelos david (as in david and goliath) quite impressive as to the intricate detail of the body. waited for hours in the queue for the uffizi museum and wasnt all that impressed by the works insides, even with the likes of raphael, donatello, michaelangelo, leonardo da vinci etc. I have been taken by a painting called la premiere bacio (the first kiss) with two child angels and the boy is kissing the girl on the cheek but i have no idea where its being shown ahhh well. Its such a small world, i was staying in a hostel with a couple of girls and one of them was studying medicine at melbourne and she happens to be good friends with andrew weickhardt, an old friend of mine…. anyway!!!

Rome is full of history and full of archaeological ruins. Went crazy with the happy snaps again. Loving my new camera. Cant beleive im here walking around the sistene chapel, the ancient roman ruins, the vatican, the trevi fountain, the pantheon (etc etc). its pretty hard to comprehend all ths things that have occured around these seven hills. I did the old toss the coin over the shoulder into the trevi fountain. The first one is so youll return to rome, the second is so you will meet/fall in love with an italian girl/boy depending on youre gender (or should that be youre persuaision??) and the third is that you will marry them. Cant say im really hoping to meet an italian, theyre pretty fiesty and i dont think it would suit my personlality too well, but hey who knows??? Was reading the last dan brown novel, angels and demons (when i say last i mean the last one i needed to read) all set in rome, and decided to go and check out some of the locations in the book, all the churches are there, although not in exactly the right places (well one of them anyway) You know theres a book out now which says which parts are fact and fiction through the da vinci code!!! theres also tours that go to all the locations in the books and would you beleive it, these locations are now the most visited places in europe??? he can certainly write a decent and absorbing book, but c’mon!!! (and before you say hypocrite… its only cause i was there anyway ). So anyway ive been gone what 8 months now…. i have no idea whats happening back at where i used to call home…. occasionally ill look on news.com.au to check up on the goss, but seriously

Caught the bus 3 days straight again, going through vienna then to munich and on to Venice. I met up with lizzy again in Munich, she was all upset cause she had to leave her man behind again and she had no cash, but she had an unused busabout pass so i said come to venice and keep catching the bus back up to london and use the money youve spent. The next day we drove through some pretty spectacular scenery, the austrian alps were stunning, i must get to Switzerland and see their mountains and do a bit of baording. Anyway we made it to Venice, or at least the camping ground, which was pretty quiet, although it looked like it wouldve been a lot of fun during summer. Id heard stories of people staying at the camp ground for 3 days straight without ever making it to venice. CRAZY!!!!! Venice is the most STUNNING city i have ever seen by far. Nothing is like it, with its majestic old architecture surrounded by canals and waterways. I went snap happy with my new camera here. Lizzy and i did a gondola ride which was awesome, 40 minutes for 70 euros!!! what a job!!! I definately want to come back here with someone…. i have to say that not being able to share all these things with someone really special sucks…. ahh well.

We caught the night train from krakow with a bunch of people we met at the hostel. One guy wed met the night before who caught the train to Prague SMSed su saying he was gassed and all his stuff was stolen, so we hopped a sleeping car just to be on the safe side, little did we know that we would drink the train dry!! we pulled into prague pretty dehydrated and looking for accomodation. Philly and i found a place around the corner from the centre of town so we stayed there for a night, but the next day we had to part as i was going on busabout to get down to italy and phil was heading north to berlin…. DAMN COLD up there this time of year. so we had a bit of a big one… it was pretty fun, but to be honest im finding it tought keeping up with philly, hes a mean party machine with a worldwide reputation!!!!! seriously!!! we did have a great night though, although im sure the american woman who was staying in our dorm didnt think so.

Arrived at 5am, having slept almost 10 hours. Phil and i were bleary eyed but we managed to fight our way through the crowd of touts and found our way to nathans villa hostel. When we arrived we met up with about 8 blokes and we all decided that since we were up so early in the moening wed go to auschwitz. Bloody sad is all i can say. There were actually 3 camps that made up auschwitz, the first having been around long since the second world war began, it housed political prisoners since the mid 30s. There were 2 main walls with electrified barbed wire which enclosed the camp. The atrocities that took place there were horrible, its were the angel of death (cant remember his name) performed brutal mutilations of young children who were twins. Due to the ’success’ of the camp, and the distance from any of the allied countries which made it much less likely to be bombed, the nazis began to build auschwitz 2, 3km from teh original, designed to house 200,000 but built only for 100,000 this is where most of the jews were gassed. I have to say how haunting it was to be standing in the coumpund where 5-6000 people a day were gassed and incinerated. The tragedy that something like this ever occured is beyond anything you can imagine. It certainly reminded me of Pol Pots devestation in Cambodia, but on an even grander scale.

Budapest is a very big city, in fact its actually got two parts to it. Buda and Pest, hence its name… if you dont beleive me do a quick google. Dont know much about the history, in fact i dont really care anymore… Phil and i caught the 6 hour train from salzberg and for some stupid reason we were in a hurry to get off the train, unfortunately i was in such a rush i didnt check all my stuff, and my camera was stolen…. DAMN IT. Then we got ripped off at the money exchange because all the banks were closed, and to top it off the hostel we were booked into was miles away and inhabited by strange ugly old hippies…. so much for the good tip hey??? so we got out of there on some load of BS and headed down to the marco polo in the city. Put all our stuff away and ventured down to the hostel bar. Everyone down there was dressed like goths and listening to ramschtein, some weird punk band who like to sing about death and murder…. Top place to be when youre looking for a party!!!! Needless to say we were out of there faster than phil can hook up with a tart (beleive me its quick). Next we were venturing around the streets in search of something to do, we came across a group of little kids who looked like they were off to a birthday party, then we walked past a bunch of girls and started to have a chat, they asked us to a bar called alkatraz. The rest of the night is rather sketchy but i do remember there being lots of good music and dancing and loads of HOT girls. We spent the next day relaxing at the thermal baths in the garden
INFORMATION ABOUT BUDAPEST

SOUND OF MUSIC….. i felt like i was in the movie with my gran. It was sooooo kewl being there. I couldnt stop singing all the songs from the movie… loved it. We stayed at a place called the Yoho, it was another of europes famous hostels (of which there are 15, and ive stayed in 8 so far) So anyway i paid for 1 month of Busabout and so far ive used about 14days but it doesnt seem like im going to get much value as im going the opposite direction with phil, out into eastern europe. oh well…. Salzberg is awesome though, its very very scenic with loads of churches and a beautiful green river flowing through the middle. Its also the birthplace of Mozart

So here i am at Oktoberfest, the biggest beer party in the world… and i can tell you its a serious party. But i just cant seem to get myself into the party mood these days. I met up with Chrissy G at the Euro youth hostel. Hes been living in a small town outside Salzberg called Mundsee, working in a restraunt/hostel and learning austrian/german. We went straight down to Oktoberfest for a few beers and to check out what all the fuss is about. It was pretty damn wild, there are 12 main tents that are huge….. and most of them were very very full (of drunk people) Chris and i did our fair share of partying before the rollercoasters called us. Rollercoasters when youre drunk are very very fun. anyway after the grounds closed we went back to the hostel and i piked after having spent the last 7 days or so on the cus i was knackered. Chris managed to go out with some guys we met up with on the street. The next day we spent the afternoon at Oktoberfest again, somehow we managed to be drunk again… im not quite sure how. chris managed to piss his dad right off by being 2 and a half hours late to meet him to go to Mondsee. It took about 2 hours to get there and when we arrived we decided to go out again… i dont think we got home unjtil 4am but we had a really good time. The locals were great and we played mini golf pool, puting bar stools and ash trays on the pool table, just to spice things up a bit. Hung out in mondsee, staying at Chris’ work which was a hotel/restraunt. We mucked around mondsee for those few days, geting up to mischief. I think i broke the local hamburger eating record…. drank a lot of beer and jeigermeister… Chris’ surrogate family were great and they were very nice for putting me up and feeding me (as well as getting me boozed). I left Chris on the saturday in time to get down to the last 2 days of Oktoberfest. I checked into the wombat and managed to talk my way into getting free accomodation when it was their busiest time so once i was checked in i checked out the local bar, but everyone was already wasted so i had an early night. Tomorrow was to be the big one… the last day of oktoberfest. I met up with some people at breakfast and we got down to the hofbrauhaus tent at 9am to ensure we got a seat. We started drinking Steins at 9.30 when the bar opened (thats 1 litre of beer)… and from there on in the day got messier and messier. At about 12 Damo, Silks and Stokes arrived. We met Phil at about 3…. I was smashed by 5 and went home for a nap, getting back by 7 to see everyone falling off the tables and generally having a bloody good time. SO i got back on the steins only to be seriously drunk again by 8… i tried climbing up onto the main music stage but managed to get pulled off and almost pummeled by the bouncers except that phil knew them and talked them out of it. Then things went crazy as everyone started to leave, we tried sneaking out the steins, whcih we managed to get out of hofbrau but there was secuirty on the outskirts of oktoberfest taking them off those who were trying to steal them. Well we had our taken off us, which i wasnt happy about, so i let the bouncers know what i thought of them… probably not the best idea knowing the psycology of bouncers, but under the influence of alcohol i felt invincible… hehehehe. so what does someone who had their stolen stein taken off them??? try stealing it back of course….. BRILLIANT IDEA….. so having more than enough courage to go around, i bolted at the chance when i saw them put the glasses down, swooping in and bolting off, clearly forgetting that im more like a lead legged fatso than a ben johnson on steroids, so it didnt take them long to catch up with me.. One of them trying to break my arm with his baton. But it was so much fun at the time. Anyway the cops came and ended it all and we headed off to the pub to go and do some more drinking. Brilliant day all in all, i shall definately be going back to Oktoberfest in future… oh and if you go the half chickens are the BEST…. i think i ate about 10 chickens in the time i was there.