where's the kitoris?

Day 4

2007-11-27T21:40:00.000Z

After the first day of real drinking we all woke up at an agreed 8 30 ish feeling pretty good... no really we all felt quite good, apparently it's good beer and doesn't give you hangovers like the regular stuff. We arrived at the grounds at little later say around 10 or so thinking that because they didn't serve beer until 12 on the first day we should be able to get some food in us before the drinking began again. Well after walking into the lowenbrau tent looking around a bit seeing that half the tables had reserved signs on them and more were being reserved as we stood there we claimed one of the tables as our own just in time. 2 minutes later a beer wench walked over to us and we slowly ordered the 1st steins of the day with all ideas of starting a little slower gone out the window... beer 2 hours earlier than on the first day!! 'ah well' everybody said 'drink up!'

Some of the reserved tables around us were for some random bands performing around the grounds throughout the day. They came in one group at a time had their food a beer then played us a couple of songs for good measure. Being inside a tent is a completely different experience than drinking outside. When your inside things are designed for entertainment with our tent band marching in to the crowds delight later in the day and taking up their place in the middle of the tent up on stage to keep everyone singing for the night especially.

Once the reserved seats had been left behind the Australian 'fanatics' took up position close by us and soon we were standing up on the tables where we spent most of the day...by the time night had fallen very few people in the tent were actually sitting.

The reason behind the trip to Germany was the fact that it was Campbells' 30th birthday and on this day he shone like a true aussie. By about 2pm I think it was he was completely smashed (probably still drunk from the day before not helping him any) and had fallen off the table once already, well the second time he fell off the table it really was quite funny....whilst falling from the table top he managed to slide onto his head on the way down to the bench and on the way down he held up his beer to prevent a spill but all he managed to do was turn it upside down and empty his stein all over himself - very funny - you can see the result of this in a picture a little further down. Oh yeah, we did check to see if he was ok!

During the day me and tristan decided to go and check out some of the rides so we plodded off and went on the one that takes you straight up then drops you down, not very scary but a really good view of the showgrounds from the top of the ride. The good stuff was performed by me and big stu later in the evening when we went on 'cyber space' and a roller coaster that was in the shape of the Olympic rings so you go around a couple of loops then straight then around some more loops then straight then around some more loops...much fun was to be had. Cyber space took the cake though, the fastest one with lots of upside down action with a lot of 'around around' action to. I did take a film of my ride and it looks pretty good and the sound effects are also very good and once again i didn't see anyone throw up, actually i didn't see anyone throw up on a ride or in a tent the whole time we were there.

Going on the rides and a bit of a wonder around made me decide i was going to try to find the way back to the hotel, too bad the rides were in a slightly different area to where we usually entered the grounds so when i walked out of an unfamiliar entrance i tried to find a familiar road but couldn't so i had to head back to the tent we had been in all day, go to the exact table we stood at then retrace my steps home....yes this was going to work!! I got back to the tent found the original table, none of our crew were there so i joined some of the other random drunks and sang along to 'hey jude' (sung by our great band) which went for a good 10 minutes or so with lots of naaaa naaaa naaaa na na na naaaa na na na naaaa heeeeeyyyy juuuuuudddddee. All good fun. Now I could find the way back to the hotel to join some of the others who had got back already and wait for those who hadn't. A great cheese and ham toastie finished off the day giving me the power to make it upstairs to bed, ah goodnight.

Cam in goal where he belongs!

When he fell of the table and decided to pour beer on himself...good idea.

Some music from the balcony, random things like this would be happening all the time

The general look of the inside of the tent, the band lives on the raised round bit in the middle

Yes it was daytime outside, perfect skies and the Hindenburg there to keep us safe!

I think i found the first ride of the day...over there <--- that way.

The way back after deciding that I needed to return to our table so I could find the way back to the hotel.

Day 3

2007-11-23T19:20:00.000Z

Here we are at day 3...well it should really be day 1 because it was the first day of Oktoberfest where the real partying began. So up in the morning by 8 most of us headed downstairs for a touch of breakfast, which i think was quite nice (meats, rolls, cereal, fruits, toast and a whole bunch of things to go with it) and took advantage of the situation by stuffing my face of course!
By 9am we were off to the festival grounds, a little confused as to what direction we were meant to be headed we pretty much went in 3 different directions before eventually choosing the original one it being the correct one. Once we got close to the grounds we followed the crowd and hit the jackpot, well our intended destination.
The area the beer tents are on is huge and all around are roller coasters, thrill rides and shops selling all sorts of bits and pieces. Somehow we kind of knew where the hoffbrau tent was (I think big Stu knew the general direction of the tent) and headed in the general direction of that way. Well by the time we got there and went inside there was absolutely no way we were going to get a table even though there was room for about 8000 people every position available was gone and it was only about 9 15 in the morning. We did the next best thing and managed to get a table outside, luckily the weather was perfect so it wasn't so bad... a bit hot even! Time 9 30 table acquired....beer serving time starts at 12noon!! On the first day you can't get any beer until 12 because there is a parade and traditionally the first barrel has to be tapped in a ceremony which marks the beginning of Oktoberfest.
Just before 12 over the speakers comes a voice announcing the approaching festivities some music is played, one song in particular that we will all know very well by the end of the trip sings about beer being ambrosia (the nectar of the gods). It hits 12 and something like fireworks get shot up into the sky every few seconds like gunshots to let it be known it's now beer time....well they can start serving now but you have to wait for the serving wenches to come to your table and take your order....10 steins please! Finally by 12 30 we were drinking, 3 hours after sitting down!!
Throughout the day we progressively got more drunk and hungry. Food was expensive to say the least but when Iain found a shop that sold pork knuckles we had to get one even at 25euros for 1, we decided to go halves, definitely worth it. As good as the beer was I'm not a beer drinker so the pork knuckle was a great thing for me, I could have a good drink then quickly eat some knuckle to fill my mouth with such a better flavour...i ate the knuckle over about 1 hour and it was the best food from the whole trip....except maybe the pizza shop just by the hotel but that wasn't at the festival so it doesn't count.
Spending the whole day drinking beer in the sun and dancing on tables (much more table dancing was done in the days to come) does get to you after a while and by around 7 or 8 or something like that we were pretty knackered and looking to head back to the hotel. The only problem was that Campbell had manged to get himself lost after a trip to the loo or something like that, so the remaining people put up a bit of a futile effort to try and find him before heading off. By the end of the day we had begun a tradition of everybody losing everybody else and managing to walk back to the hotel in 2's 3's or often by yourself. Like trying to walk stu back and him worrying about getting caught stealing a stein from the grounds so he decides to take a little detour and we don't see him again until the next morning at breakfast time, ah memories. It seems to be a Youngson tradition to walk off and get lost or just decide to go somewhere else....twits.

The Festival grounds with rides in the background and some of the great traditional costumes in the foreground...some of these outfits were really great and very....revealing. :)

Our home for the first day, the beer garden of the Hoffbrau tent. Blue skies!

Iain and myself posing with our pork knuckle

Iain, Luke, Cam, Stu and Me all in our hats which we bought to keep cool and to look good of course

Stu the first victim of the 'smashing stein syndrome'

No one was permanently harmed during the making of this picture!!

Day 2

2007-11-14T05:37:00.000Z

We checked out of the tent at 10am or so after a decent feed for breakfast and headed into the city to find our new accommodation and have a look around. The city has a lot of new buildings because the whole place was nearly destroyed during the second world war. The remaining old buildings are very nice especially in an area called marianplatz. Eventually we found our way around the city with some help from fruit and a map and a stop off for a quick drink in marianplatz. It was time to go to the hotel and wait for the others so we could check in. Just down the road from the hotel was a very nice pizza place where you could buy a whole variety of different slices...very good. The rest of the evening was spent doing some catching up in the downstairs bar and munching on more pizza. Stu and myself managed to catch up with a contiki group and go out into the party area of munich. The nightclub we were in was a little strange...in one room there was up to date dance music sounding pretty good and getting the crowd involved, then if you took a little walk down the hall it was went back in time to the 50's, 60's and 70's, apparently the Germans lve this style of music, it was a good time though.

So arriving back at the hotel at 8 in the morning it was time to get ready for our first day at the festival grounds and the tents of Oktoberfest!!

Stu taking a picture of a very large chuch from the top of some watery mushrooms

From the centre of Marianplatz

The left of the previous picure

Some of the contiki crew

Oktoberfest - Day 1

2007-11-13T07:53:00.000Z

Iain and myself flew out of edinburgh down to london to pick up stu then from there it was onto munich to find our accommodation, a place called 'the tent', we had arrived a day earlier than the rest of the group due to being able to get cheaper flights from where we were coming from.

After a quick walk around the city and a bite of food we caught a taxi and believe me it is very weird sitting in the normal drivers seat (right hand side) of the car and not actually driving the car because they drive on the wrong side of the road in Germany, going around corners is something else altogether!
A the tent we checked in and were given our sheets and blankets... 4 blankets each!! the tent we were in had 300 beds in it and was extremely cold, i would have hated to have been there during the winter. One of the other tents didn't have any beds and the people were given a fold out mattress and 7 blankets each!! Except for the cold it wasn't too difficult to get to sleep.

Inside the main sleeping quarters

Me with my bed number... yes... 351!

On the way out the next morning and off to the real accommodation in the city centre

Oktoberfest

2007-11-13T06:26:00.001Z

This is one i think i'll have to split up into some day by day action...so the story may come out over a few days in real life....

More Fringe Festival

2007-11-13T05:10:00.001Z

By this time Stu had been offered a job down in reading outside of london, so he travelled off down there to work. At the end of August he came back up to edinburgh to catch up and to see 'The puppetry of the penis' which had been showing at the festival.

The show itself was very 'interesting' and a little odd because you do have 2 completely naked guys on stage in front of you for about 50 minutes or so...weird. Some of the things they manged to do were pretty good, unfortunately i don't have any pictures of the show, i'm fairly sure that you weren't allowed to take pictures even if you wanted to! You can buy the book which shows you in step by step form how to do all of the puppetry work, I don't know who you would do them in front of???

Here's a few pictures from when stu was visiting and from around the same time.

Stu and Iain are yes special people, yes doctor that's why we have to look after them with the aid of straws!

Yes mum you do have your very own style of toffee and it's quite nice with it's sherbet centre.

Well a couple of the staff members came back one night in disguise so we all had to try on the spy attire

Foo Fighters

2007-11-13T03:05:00.000Z

After seeing the tattoo on Monday most of the same people went to see the foo fighters in their biggest outdoor concert on Tuesday night (21st August).
The concert was at Medowbank stadium and there really were thousands of people there just to see one group perform.

Once the Nine inch nails finished their set it was time for the main show as the sun had gone down a light rain began to fall the crowd were beginning to push their way towards the stage and the light show went into full swing. Me and chris (our local crazy canadian friend) began to make our way to the front of the crowd through the masses waiting for everyone to start jumping so it was possible to move forwards. Once up the front we heard 'my hero', 'monkey wrench' and a couple of other songs which was a lot of fun, but when your feet aren't touching the ground, you're holding a camera in one hand and your glasses in another (because they did fall off once and i very luckily managed to catch them before they got destroyed) it's quite difficult to stop yourself from falling down in the surging masses and getting squished, so i very slowly managed to get back to a safe distance and watch the show with the rest of the group. Chris did manage to get right to the fence up front (he had the bruise to prove it) and slap dave groll on the back when he walked past.

When i first got the ticket i knew that i did know some of the songs they sing but by the end i recognised all the songs except for one which was their new release so it made it possible to sing along the whole night and leave feeling good about the decision to go in the first place.

The crowd building before the show begins

The group takes to the stage

From a little futher back now, just before they go off stage for the first time

Like most of these kinds of events i do have some videos which gives a better idea of how things were but it's just pictures today.

All in all a great show, so if they come to your town make sure you go and check em out.

Edinburgh Military tattoo

2007-11-10T23:36:00.000Z

So now it's August and in Edinburgh that means it's Fringe Festival time!! the largest arts & comedy festival in the world! It goes on for the whole month of August and there are people EVERYWHERE! there are about 400 different venues ranging from free comedy shows to the professional productions like the military tattoo.

Luckily the hostel was selling tickets to the show so there we went. After waiting in one of the longest lines ever we found our seats and the show began. Just as you would expect there were a lot of pipers to open the show in the formal tradition and we heard the history of music in the defence forces but then things changed up a bit and we were shown different styles of music from guest military bands from around the world. eg west indies, usa, taiwan, russia, norway canada and the far east.

It wasn't only marching bands on show, others included some motorbike stunts, dancers, limbo, bands on horseback and of course the lone piper from high in the castle.

I'll put up some pictures now but if you (whoever you may be) ever come to Edinburgh in August make sure you get some tickets and go and see the show, it will be more than what you'll expect!!!

This is the line before the show down the royal mile, you can see the back of the stands right in the middle of the picture if you look really closely.

The pipers heading out at the beginning of the show

A group of riding kids from 6 years to 16 years of age doing their pyramid work

The top girls highschool of Taiwan showing of their stuff, they kept the best timing out of all the groups.

Some of the projection work onto the castle, here you can see the thistle scotlands national flower. This is also how they showed some of the history of the marching band.

Altogether i think that the show we went to was one of the best ones...perfect weather and nobody dropped any of their twirling equipment or fell off their motorbike...apparently that happened at some of the other shows but not at OURS!!!

Down to London

2007-11-10T23:25:00.000Z

Well it's time to travel back in time for me and think about what i did all those weeks ago... I did pop down to london for a short while to visit the old pub and have a bit of a party.

I stayed at the globetrotters in london (obviously not as good as ours in edinburgh) for the time i was there at cheap rates which was great for being in london and in the city.

The Telegraph (old work) is a lot busier now with it's name getting out there and the summer months in full swing, it's 1st birthday had just passed in july. Suprisingly there were still a lot of the old staff working there, so most of this trip was me catching up with people and not going to see or do exciting things, but i had fun anyways....even if i did get trapped in a mirror with Jay!!!

luckily i did escape from the mirror and made it back to Edinburgh! phew

--

2007-08-17T21:05:00.000Z

Well i've been a little busy of late but i do hope to add some more posts when stu brings back the laptop next week, so i'll be waiting for then!!

ps. its festival time and its great ;)

Britiania

2007-07-24T02:41:00.000Z

yay i've arrived in london again!! after 3 delays on the train it's time to party!!!

Visiting the 'old town'

2007-07-15T05:29:00.001Z

Hi guys!

Just a short note saying that if all goes to plan, and I'm fairly sure it will, I'll be visiting the old pub back in London from the 23rd to the 27th of July for a bit of a catchup and some London party life!! If so I'm sure to put some piccis up of this trip!

thanks for watching and now sleeeepppppppp!!! zzz

80's NIGHT!

2007-07-10T03:34:00.000Z

Going back in time now to the 6th of july and way back into the 80's it's time get funky!

Wahoo!!

So the night had quite a few things ready for the party, we had cheap shots for the night, a twister competition (the 'right hand blue etc...' game not the dancing twister), best dressed and an air guitar strum off... well we didn't get to do the air guitar but it wasn't really needed.

To make the image of the night a little easier to understand here's a crap load (lots) of pictures! yay!

Firstly some characters of the evening....

Boy George 'Martina'

Too bad for the blurry picture

This would be Andy, one of our friends from Liverpool just wearing some of his normal clothing...well not really, looking good tho.

Neil looking cool like the man

Canadian Mike and Employee Chris ready to impress the ladies

p.s. a big goodbye to Mike who left this morning on further travels, good luck!

This one can only be described as 'A whole lot of Jeff'!! Here he shakes his thing in a bit of an improvised dance-off

Again a big goodbye to Jeff who also left this morning to go home to the U.S.

The worlds best dressed bar team Rosie the 80's chick and Me the 80's petrol head, very nice.

Marysia who had got hold of Neils' hair at this stage of the night...can you tell it's a wig I don't know, it's tough call! ;p

Good luck with your travels in London and the rest of the world no doubt.

The twister competition begins under my watchful eye, which unfortunately has Iain's butt sticking in its direction.

Well done Chris who achieved victory during the final a little later

Some action on the dance floor with Stu and Amanda giving it a bit of 'cha cha slide'

Look at that synchronisation

Last but not least after hosting the best dressed comp here I am with the winner Kiss (Mieska) one of our staff members at our friendly hostel

Also, some of the stags set off some fireworks down by the firth, I was told that they were not too bad but it was too bad I was working at the time.

Happy birthday to me!

2007-07-10T03:22:00.000Z

24!

Thanks to everyone who made the 8th once again the best day of the year....all the singing drinking and everything else ;p you know who you are

Actual work

2007-07-10T03:10:00.000Z

Just to prove that it's not all play and no work here's my clock in and out sheet for the last week or so....look in the circle for an afternoon start and a late morning finish!!

they can be long weeks but they are fun days

Rocket Man

2007-07-09T04:52:00.000Z

Hey all, just thought i'd put up this link so everyone could see Eric at work flying the rocket pack. He's been here for about a week or so and now it's time for the team to move on to another location.

So here we are, rocket time!

Good luck with the flying Eric!!

http://www.gofastsports.com/zone/index.html

go to the bottom of the page and click on 'jet pack at monster jam' for a good video clip!

'Tis Scotland

2007-06-29T02:33:00.002Z

So we've just had the longest day of the year, up here it is a very long day and for those who know it's also Sarah's birthday so happy birthday Sarah!!!

Once more i will be putting up some pictures of the sunrise, cause i just can't help it... so here we go.

The sky at 11:05pm on June 21st the summer solstice

The view from my bedroom window a couple of weeks ago

In this one I can just say that i think the sky is nearly purple

Yesterdays' sunrise, note the crazy girl from Alaska in the water to the left...cold, contaminated and rocky. She came out with her legs bleeding a little from many a cut, that's what you get when you don't listen to the staff members!

Lastly me posing as if from the Lion King on pride rock looking towards the hostel.....I always thought the sun shines out of my bum! ;p

It's Tough being a bartender!!

2007-06-29T02:00:00.000Z

OK well the hours may be long and your weekend non-existant but all in all the job i have at the moment is the best job I've ever had (sorry to all the previous great places of employment :/) and maybe the best one i will ever have. The location the people the parties are just too much fun. So lets see what's been going on recently...

First of all we have had the GO FAST (energy drink) promotional team staying here the last couple of days. One of their promotions involves an American fella (Eric) flying around in a jet pack up and down the streets for 30 seconds or so. These promos are organised with the cities to get the product name out there. This is the same energy drink that we will (hopefully) be trying to break the Jager train world record with.

The stag parties have been as interesting as usual with people skinny dipping partying too much, wearing ridiculous costumes and playing tricks on each other....

Some twister action with the South Africans

One of the poor Stags (bachelor) getting tied to the tree and covered in gods knows what. 30 seconds later his father (no one else would do it) threw a bucket of water from the firth which i had half filled with ice all over him and it would have been very very cold out there. Slightly later he released his legs from the rope and proceeded to moon everyone then escaped any more torture.

Like i said, It's hard being a bartender. Here's Louise and Michelle from Ireland sneaking behind the bar for a quick picci. Hi girls if your looking, sorry i didn't have any pictures of all 3 of you. You managed some good drinking in your stay, well done!

Free promo night

2007-06-11T01:23:00.000Z

No, not free porno night!

jeez!

It's always good to have a free promo night and this one was no exception. One of the tour companies for whom we sell tours to the travellers sent a group of people from different hostels off on a boat trip to one of the islands in the Firth of Forth. All the food annnnd the alcohol was free :) not to mention the day tour and the guides (the trip we did is an actual tour you can buy as a customer). After meeting in town it was off on the bus to the Firth to find our boat.

This is where we hopped aboard by the Forth bridge (a mini replica of the golden gate bridge, you can see this bridge from a distance in my crammond island post earlier)

As you can see it's a bit cloudy at the moment, I think I've been living in the land of the never ending cloud/fog/mist for the last 2 weeks but it is warming up. Once aboard it was burgers and cocktails followed by free bar and making our way to Inchcolm island. On the island there is an old, old abbey which i don't know what they used to do there. There is still one fella living there keeping things in reasonable shape.

More importantly once we docked at the 'jetty' it was off to the speed boat for the first 12 people to go check out some more islands, seals and puffins. I don't need to mention that i was on the first trip in the fun boat and grabbed the prime front seats for the view. Now here is the where we got to...

Our vessel, note my seats on the front

Our friends the seals

The 'floating' Lighthouse

The other island of interest...whatsitsname. During the first world war it was built upon so that to approaching enemy ships it would look like a British battleship guarding the harbour and be scary...boo

And here are the Puffins! There are 5 in this picture, find them. They're really small but they've cool orange beaks and feet

2 puffins a little closer

So after getting back to Inchcolm island it was time to explore the abbey. With half human sized arches leading into mazes of pitch black rooms it was a little freaky but more fun with a group of drunken people. It took me about 10 minutes to find the secret passageway to the hidden stairs that lead to the roof but finally i got there and waved to the others who had already started to make their way back to the boat after it had blown it's horn once, one quick picture and a wave later it was back down the unlit stairwell and a short run to the jetty.

The Abbey 12th or 13th century we were told...and the Internet agrees, 12th century

The view from the top, note other people much closer to the boat

The way down the hidden pitch black stairway. Yes i was using the cameras' flash. No person who has had a 'few' drinks should be trying to make their way down the stairs whilst taking a photo and holding a drink, remember children it's not safe.

So after all that we went back into town partied some more got back to the hostel partied some more then woke up in the morn...afternoon.

I think that was my longest post yet.

World Record

2007-06-09T03:31:00.000Z

Update!
We may be going for a world record long jager train, we think it will be around 200 long, I don't know when but hopefully soon.
I'll make sure there is some good coverage if we do :)

Sun

2007-06-01T02:02:00.001Z

I know I may have put up some pictures of the sunset on the blog already but now i have to put up some more of the sun setting and rising right outside and inside the bar (work)

Sunrise on a Saturday morning just after finishing work

The same morning from the door entering the bar, the stragglers are still around

I think this is the same Saturday at sunset after a good days sleep. Quite a few guests were taking pictures of this one.

And this is what it looks like to be a Guinness glass just before the pouring begins, there's a perspective on life you probably haven't thought about before!

Cowboys & Indians !! Bang, phwack! Argh!.....Dead

2007-06-01T00:24:00.000Z

As you can probably already guess we had a cowboys and indians dress up party at the hostel last night.

The day started quite early for me with some costume shopping withfellow bartender Josh then a visit to my old work in town to have a bite of lunch and a couple of 2 for 1 cocktails. So with those under my belt and the costume ready to go it was back 'home' to prepare for the party.

Later in the evening most people had come down in their costumes and the drink specials began with the record breaking jager train being the highlight of that genre. The night also consisted of a pin the tail on the donkey competition, a bootscooting scoot-off and the best dressed award. So here are some pictures of the night to clear the images in your heads up a bit....

Firstly here we have our donkey which was drawn by Vlad one of the globetrotter staff

Now I'm a pirate because pirates are the cowboys of the sea and that's a good enough excuse for me. Instead of parrots you can see green dog on my left and red dog on my right, they gave me some wise counsel throughout the night. It's fake blood on my head by the way.

Stu at his crazy best getting shot with his own weapon by myself...I was seeking revenge for having an indian arrow through my head all night

Some of the staff looking good - left to right - Mark (mexican/chef), Miranda (cowgirl/receptionist), Amanda (sherrif/receptionist) and Neil (sherrif/zorro/cowboy/duty manager)

The highlight of the night!! 55 long jager train. Here you can see me preparing the shots and Iain getting all the glasses ready for the train. When completed all the glasses are half full of Go Fast (energy drink) and the shot glasses get balanced inbetween each half pint glass. When everything is in place the first shot glass in the line gets tapped into the first half pint glass and on the way down it hits the next shot glass which hits the next one and so on, so we get a domino effect all the way down the line of 55. I do have a video of this which you will all need to see. I had the pleasure of setting the first glass off on its' way which was quite fun :)

Once all the shots had fallen into the glasses everybody who had bought a ticket or 5 ran up to the bar and skulled all their drinks...these were the days.

Not an Early Morning Child

2007-05-24T23:10:00.000Z

Well I haven't put up any pictures of stu's straightened hair because i don't really have any good ones, it wasn't really that interesting and it went back to normal in about 1 day.

The new frizbee has arrived and I've finally been able to give it a test run over the last couple of days down the grassy slopes out the back of the hostel, but alas I'm not in the best throwing condition at the moment. I think I've done me back either by wrestling in the bar on Saturday night, wrestling and rolling down the grass or by throwing the frizbee itself...probably a combination of all 3 I'd say.

I saw the sunrise this morning at around a quarter to five and is was pretty pretty if i do say so myself. I would have taken a photo to show you but my camera was upstairs and inside the building and i was outside on the foreshore so poo to that.

I haven't really been taking any pictures lately which is a bit strange but i will try to get some more up here with things like the cowboys and Indians night at the hostel in the next couple of weeks or so. Some more news, stu will be moving back into the hostel on Sunday ready for summer after living in the city for a while.

Here's a few pictures from the achieves to keep things colourful for this post

This little cottage is down the river a bit

Here we are at the Caledonian Brewery Hop Room with a slippery floor

One of the specials we do at the bar, the "Jager Train"

New work

2007-05-12T22:37:00.000Z

hello all! I've just started work at the hostel behind the bar in Iains' old position. It's the weekend and things can be quite funny with the stag and hens night parties starting in the hostel then going to town then coming back from town around 3 am to drink some more. Right now i'm in the middle of a saturday night shift which starts at 4pm and will finish probably around 5 or 6 the next morning. Long hours but it can be entertaining, now i know how it feels like to be Iain and josh (the other bartender)!!

gotta go and call for mothers day now ( i just found out that it's mothersday in australia)

Cricket, Fashion and Sun

2007-04-30T15:29:00.000Z

It was a great world cup victory for us mighty Aussies! I spent both the semi and the final at the Walkabout, an 'aussie' bar in Edinburgh. For me the semi was more enjoyable because i had the whole day to relax and not have to be at work early the following day so things were flowing freely. The final was also entertaining, especially watching the whole of gillys' innings one of the greats of all time. The only problems was finding a seat, still being in work clothes & having to be up by 7 in the morning for more work...ah life is tough.

Now it's picture time, YAY!

Here you can see the we are close to victory in the semi against the saffas and even the 'mummies' are interested in the match!

After the semi we came back to the hostel and familier territory with a spot of fashion going on. The usual guys wearing girls things and Iain, well just being Iain.

Enjoy :)

Me on the catwalk demonstrating the way Amandas' hat can be worn by the fashion conscious!

(very nice! what a pose!!!)

Iain trying to look like a bit of an idiot and doing a great job!

8.5/10

Here we are looking down the foreshore into the sun with the tide out.

mmm very realxing indeed!!

ps. I have just written this at work before we go off to do some training while watching one of our customers who comes in from time to time trying to feed her fluffy toy giraffe some cake and give it a drink here and there, i think she's a little tapped...actually i'm fairly sure.

pps. Stu has had his hair straightened by someone for free, well i guess it was for free because i don't think he would have paid to have it straightened. Stay tuned for a picture! Stu i wonder what your mother would say ?? ;p

The Presets and General Stuff

2007-04-16T18:44:00.000Z

Hello people who are paying attention, it's been some time since i've said anything! Well in that time i've managed to lose my wallet in a foriegn land and get a job...sad i know, working now.
Things have definately taken a turn for the summer times with the clocks going forward and the sun coming out. Things in the city have completly changed, people are everywhere! The hostel is starting to buzz even during the week and be a little crazy on the weekends but alas i tend to be working on the weekends now :(

Here you can see part of the dutch group that popped over from Amsterdam for a few days, they had a big dance off and some catwalk action to keep us entertained for the night! Good Stuff!!! (you can see Iain in the background behind the bar giving his approval

This is a photo of some of the Prince's st gardens getting ready for the summer time, right in the middle of the city.

On Wednesday me and Stu and a few others managed to go and see the Presets who happen to be an Australian group, in one of the local clubs for free! and it was great fun. picture before things started to get busy

And now that it is getting towards summer all the green leaves are starting to come out and the sunsets and rises are becoming much more interesting...like this one a couple of days ago just from the outside of the hostel!!! aaah tis loverly

last but not least, today i had some cocktail training and got to drink a couple on the house then headed back to the hostel bar where i proceded to win the pool competition (that's £15) thankyou very much! It was the best comp so far because about 40 belgium girls where there to cheer their friends on with the mexican wave and all, great times! hopefully i'll be working in the bar at the hostel with Iain soon when one of the team leaves to go back home (sorry josh) and things will be even better, work hard and party hard :)

Until next time Byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Faithless!

2007-03-26T14:57:00.000Z

Ah yes...long have i waited to go to a big concert in the uk and now its come and gone too quickly! We...Me, Stu, Iain, Ilias, Tristan and Rosie took a couple of days out and travelled down to Newcastle to see Faithless live in front of about 10 000 people or so, and a great time had we did.

After the bus trip down we checked into one of the local hostels (when we finally found it, after walking through rain, snow and sleet in directions unknown) and started to prepare for the night. A spot of food and drink shopping later it was alcohol drinking and fruit eating time...finally a good fruit market in the uk :)

We arrived unfashionably early and had to sit for a while to pass the time until the show began, the only problem was that the night before the Metroradio Arena had an icehockey game on and even though the floor was completely covered over it was still bloody freezing on ya butt! bloody freezing.

Calvin Harris played for a short while before the main show, they have a kind of a Presets sound about them if you know what the preses sound like (aussie group). Their (Calvin Harris) claim to fame at the moment is the song about being born in the 80's....the 80's. These guys were entertaining and good enough to get the crowd going.

So finally the curtains were pulled away to reveal the awesome setup behind the stage, the crowd went spastic and the show began. Being the great performers, faithless played their most famous and well known song (insomnia) just after the intro and from that moment on the crowd was in their hands until the close. The only problem is that i can't really put up any pictures that can describe the night very well...you have to see the videos to appreciate how amazing the light show and the involvement of the crowd really was. Here's a couple of the night that may help.

Well this is a multiple flying blown up condom situation we have here

Nice TV screens, there were more to the sides but we were too close to fit them all in a photo

The party was really going at this time of the night

This sums up what the true image of Faithless is for the people who listen to the lyrics, it's more like poetry

The day after we did actually get some of the best snow i've seen since living here. Here you can see Stu and Iain in the sleet

Well that's about it except to say that we got a live recording of the gig which was available 10 minutes after the show finished, quite cool we thought :)

It's Getting Close

2007-03-09T11:22:00.000Z

Faithless in Newcastle is only 10 days away!!!!!!

Crammond Island

2007-02-21T15:13:00.000Z

Right by our hostel in Edinburgh there is the firth (ocean inlet) of forth, the tide in the firth goes in and out twice a day allowing you to cross to Crammond island. The island was used as some sort of military mini base back during the war times so it's covered in all these old army buildings from the good old days and it's generally an interesting place to check out, so i did.

Here is the way over to the island at low tide, you can see one of the buildings on the hill where i recreated some war scenes with sound effects and all.

Here's some lookout bunker thingoes keeping an eye over the firth

We made some interesting discoveries around the island including these fungi and............
A Dolphin that was on the beach, don't know how it died but i'll put up a nicer picture without any yucky bits. Its' flippers were gone and it was a bit pecked on the other side.

One last picture of the island looking out to the firth bridges, one of them is a scaled down replica of the golden gate bridge, you can see it if you look in the middle.

Quite an interesting place to go and see.

To top the day off we (4 of us from the hostel) went ten pin bowling and i don't need to tell you who won now do I?? :p

Todays' lesson is: if you do come to Edinburgh make sure you go over to Crammond island and take a look at the bits and pieces.

Day Trip - Loch Ness and Some Highlands

2007-02-18T15:03:00.000Z

It was a cold winters' night.....the cows were saying...'Moo', 'Moo' ....'Moo'!!! The ducks were quacking really loudly!!! VERY LOUDLY!!!!! a little too loud in fact and that was before we hopped on the bus for the adventure.

Now that I've set the scene i can tell the story, firstly the bus driver was about 30mins late cause the bus was having issues, well thats what we were told. Myself being a special passenger was picked up from the hostel before we picked everyone up from the companys designated pick up point in the city. All aboard and apologies from the driver we were off on this great trip of discovery.

Heading out of the city wasn't really that exciting and even our first stop wasn't thrilling because we hadn't yet reached the highlands but we could see yonder hill down the bonnie road. In the highlands we drove through Glencoe looking out the windows at the (slightly) snow capped mountains all around us, the landscape is really quite amazing and the change from the lowlands very sudden. In this area we were told of how the Campbell clan slaughtered the MacDonalds in their sleep after bumming off their resources for 10 long days, we drove through the valley (Glen) of where the MacDonalds once lived. Here's a little picture of 2 of the 3 sisters just down the road a little more. The 3rd sister is just to the left of these two but i was getting in the snow from the peak inbetween.

Like this one most of the larger mountains were slighty hidden in the clouds.

As we drove through the glens we were told a whole bunch of mythical stories by a guide who had self confessed verbal diorhhea but luckily for us he really knew what he was going on about. We got the whole Scottish hate story of Braveheart the movie and were told the real version as we went through the battlefields by Stirling Castle. The whole day we learnt interesting facts about how an english man invented the modern kilt we know today and why underwear wasnt worn (it wasnt invented yet) and just things which took apart the stereotypical view of the kilt wearing bagpiping red haired scotsman atop a mountain.

Ok, so down the road a bit we passed Ben Nevis the highest mountain in the UK and went onto Loch Ness. Unfortunatly there were no monsters afoot but some of the Australian girls on the trip were doing quite a good impression of something I didn't recognise that was scary! We passed the Mansion were they filmed Monarch of the Glen. Up the way a bit was a beach on one of the Lochs that had been left there by the glaciers of old, in the summer its meant to be really quite large and people actually go swimming there....a was a bit cold for us.

More importantly on the way back from the monster infested Loch we visited the Whisky Centre and sampled some of the produce, some tastier than others! This time when we passed Ben Nevis (we backtracked about 20 miles or so from loch ness) we stopped, streched our legs and got some snaps...

Thats Ben Nevis to the right going up into the clouds. At this stage up in the sky some jet streams had caused half of the scottish flag to appear in the sky. Also we saw some oldstyle jets and big bomber looking things flying through the valleys during the day presumably belonging to the airforce on some training exercise, still it would have been good to be in the cockpit checking out the views.

Heading back to Edinburgh a different way to the way came up we drove higher into the mountains and took a bit of a bushwalk checking out the forest and how they think it would have appeared all those years ago when there where still bears and wolves roaming the lands, thats true by the way.

mmm..... a RIVER!

It was after this mighty bushwalk that we drove higher still into the mountains. We were actually higher than some snow for a short while but alas this was not one of our stopping points so no snowball fights were had :(. The last image of the highlands we have is driving through a gloomy valley as the sun was starting to hide and the shadows were starting to rule, or as the guide told us, as the ancient people thought, the day spirits were going to sleep and the night spirits were coming out to play. It was an impressive looking place anyways.

Getting back onto the lowlands and the end of our trip, most people decided that it had been a long days travelling and it was time for a snooze.....me included.

Thanks to 'Highland Experience' and its guide Chris + trainee Marty for a great day out, the sights and the stories!! Everyone use this company!

Sleeping is Evil!

2007-02-15T12:22:00.000Z

Blag too much sleep...i've very successfully got my sleeping patterns all out of order, it's 12:30 at lunch time and i'm beyond ready to go to bed which i will do as soon as i get back to the hostel.

Some news, I booked a tour thats going to Loch Ness tomorrow and around the highlands a bit so that should be cool. There might not even be snow on the mountains up there anymore it'll be 10 degrees ah so warm!

P.S. not working yet...probably should be, maybe after my spot of travelling.

Burns and Australia Day

2007-01-30T14:20:00.000Z

In Scot jan the 25th is Robbie Burns day where everyone goes about quoting lines from his poems and generally checking out what he did back then in the day. Well at the hostel it was one of the staffs birthdays where the theme was 'mad hatter' so we had a bit of a dress up a drink and a table tennis competition all good fun. For Robbie Burns day we ate some haggis and Erin (the crazy canadian) read the 'ode to a haggis' poem before chopping it to bits!

Here you can see Miranda from Alice Springs winning the 'best hat' award

So after this day was over it became Australia day but in the hostel the most unaustralian thing happened.....the hostel people found out that their alcohol liscence had expired and someone had forgotten to renew it!!!!!! that meant the party planned at the hostel with bbq and all was called off. Terrible times, we had to go into town instead which would have been better if i didn't have a sore foot for some unknown reason, it's been sore for a while now more of a muscle thing i think, but dont worry its slowly getting better and soon will be in peak working condition. I can manage to play frizbee so everything is good.

Until next time...I have shopping to do!!

Up the seat

2007-01-30T14:04:00.000Z

Moving on from the last post when i climbed up the crags this time I got Stu to come along and we climbed up Arthurs' seat (the higher one). Really it's quite an easy climb when you follow the beaten track up and around the back of the summit which reaches 251m. After being sheltered on the climb up it tends to get a tad windy once you clear everything and get exposed and also a bit cold but no snow damn it, only ice. The descent could have been just as easy as the ascent but that would have been a little boring now wouldn't it ;) Stu and myself decided to make our own way down the more dangerous section of the mountain but it's ok we are still here as you can tell by this post.
I'll now put in a couple of pictures in which i will use Stu as the guinea pig, ah what fun.

The Ice Man

He'll be coming down the mountain when he comes

Well it was good fun, even if we had the worst climbing shoes of all time on.

C'mon the snow

2007-01-22T14:52:00.000Z

It has snowed a tiny bit, and at one stage there was some settled on the crags and arthurs seat....
Okay, well like the last post said i've woken up today before the afternoon. With perfect blue skies today (which you HAVE to take advantage of) I have managed to go for a bit of a climb up the Sailsbury Crags which overlook the city and you can actually see the snow on the highlands in the background of some pictures, this is getting me excited so i'll have to take a trip into the mountains again very soon, maybe hire a car with the boys if anyone will let us use our australian lisences.

So from here you can get a bit of a view over the city and into the mountains (which do have snow on them) accross the firth and also of Edinburgh castle on the left there.

The place where this photo was taken from isn't the highest point right by the city, that would be located in the opposite direction, is called 'Arthurs' Seat', and will be climbed in the next couple of days.

Now if we go back in time a bit to a week or so ago. Stu and I went for a road trip to Loch Lomond with a couple of locals from his ex work. Firstly we visited the oldest pub in Scotland for a few drinks and a spot of luch then drove onwards to the loch for our loverly boat trip into the wilderness....so we thought, to put it simply the pier was flooded and there was no way we were going on any sort of boat cruise.

It was a bit of a bummer. From here we made the executive decision to go to the pub then we decided to visit Stirling castle. This was all good and dandy but by the time we got to the castle it was only open for 3 more minutes so we managed to go to the loo and that was about it. All in all it was a 100% successful daytrip, it was great to get out into the country for a taste of the land, we just didn't get to see and do what had been planned.

Lastly, it'll be Australia Day soon so we will be partying and trying to get everyone to understand why we are doing so. Speak to you then.

Getting Organised!

2007-01-22T14:30:00.000Z

Well finally i've managed to get up before the clock has struck noon...and much later on many...many occasions. The cricket being on at some silly time in the morning doesn't really help with this problem, keep up the good work aussies. since i've last posted something on the blog we've been up to a bit, including......starting a regular poker night on tuesday evenings/early wednesday mornings, with stu taking out first honours and the old housemates (Me, Stu and Iain) finishing 1, 2 and 3, he wasn't so lucky in the second week.

Hello from the Perth Team!!!!!!! You have to watch out for that Iain character

Following the last poker night on tuesday there was an...hmmm i think you call it 'interesting' cocktail night at the hostel which involved a whole bunch of dresses and they werent on the ladies. Unfortunately i had planned to get a dress but didn't manage to get one for this party. Certain pictures are being withheld but i can put one up that isnt so bad on the eye.

From left to right we have - Iain, Ilias, Stu and Tristan

It was a good night, I can't say any more than that.

Bringing in the New Year

2007-01-08T19:10:00.000Z

Edinburgh, its a city known worldwide for it's new years eve street party and 4 day celebration, well that's all good and dandy if it didn't get CANCELLED!!!!! In lovely scottish style a rather windy storm happened to blow in and cause a bit of havoc across the entire country. Parties to the east were cancelled during the afternoon but in edinburgh we held on until the last minute then it was called off at 9 o'clock with big headlines across the tele!!

well you get the idea. Luckily thanks to Stu we had a house party to go to, so we welcomed in the new year indoors but managed to have great time anyway.
The city has been looking very nice with all the festive decorations all about the place and there are so many places you can go to get a view of everything. Walking up and down the streets you notice that there are a lot of pubs and clubs around, we've already managed to visit a good number over the last week or so. Because the city has been built on top of itself over the years and has interesting slopes all over the place some of the clubs go underground into the old style dungeons and caves, for example at one place you walk in the top, it goes 5 stories down, each level with it's own bar, then you can walk out from the bottom level onto another street. This was reallt handy when i figured out that my hostel was just around the corner from the bottom exit/entrance!! marvellous!

Here's a bit of the city for you, the castle would be to the left out of view, i'll put it in a picci sooner or later with it's blue light trees! A lot of the buildings are also lit up with just one colour, eg. one of the buildings just has blue light coming from all its windows, one has only red light etc... it is quite effective

gotta go now, i'll try get back with some more postings of things we're getting up to! It's poker night tomorrow night so there may be some funny pics of the boys in Edinburgh!

Leaving London

2006-12-29T18:48:00.000Z

The time has come to be moving on away from London and into the future. I've nearly finished packing all my gear, cleaning up and throwing away all the rest of the random bits and pieces so i can fit it all in.

Over the last week we've managed to have about 5 going away/christmas/new year parties which has given me the chance to say goodbye to everyone at the pub and those who used to work here in the summer time at the price of no sleep. So once more goodbye to all in London and thanks for the good times!

So moving on to Edinburgh its time to let the real celebrations begin! I don't know if there will be wireless internet where i'll be staying so new years eve posts may not appear very quickly but they'll get there. Gotta get on with the packing and cleaning now so happy new year to all....'ave a good one!!

Football Match

2006-12-24T15:05:00.000Z

So i went to a football game on friday night. after going around in circles trying to figure out where the tickets took us we finally got in to the ground. We were lucky enough to see the only goal of the match at our end of the field and it was scored by our team. This is the view we had of the other end of the pitch....

so its was kind of interesting.

and the night was partyed away into the late morning

Foggy goodness

2006-12-22T16:31:00.000Z

Ah sweet foggy goodness how are you? well you say, quite healthy indeed. Well bugger off we cant see anything!

Like i said, for about 5 days now its only been fog all day and all night, kinda weird. The water on the trees started to freeze today and turn into mini ice drops, then fall off when the wind blow so it nearly feels like it's raining/hailing very lightly.
Here's a look at the fog in the day and at night.

This is looking away from the pub across the oval in the middle of the day and there's no chance of seeing the trees on the other side.

Night time looking at the pub, quite pretty really.

Anyway christmas is coming and i hope all is well in the summer time back in oz for all of you, i need to go get ready now and go and see my first football game in good old -2 degree heat and hopefully we can see the players. goodnight all

oh yeah well done to Australia for winning the ashes back in 3 matches!! and at Perth!!!! Nice Stuff

The Festive Season

2006-12-08T19:27:00.000Z

Ahh its December again!! Only there is one difference this year...well a few really, its getting chilly and it could be snowing for chrissie!! I saw some pictures of the outside of the pub from a couple of years ago after it had been snowing and it looked like it had been picked out of a fairytale. For now we will just have to put up with hail and tornadoes....that's right tornados! on thursday a small tornado went through north London, lifted a few roofs and even destroyed a wall or two, 34 houses are uninhabitable the news just told me. All we got here at the pub was a nice hail storm and some blustery winds which tore take down a couple of branches.
In other news the new nintendo whatever its called came out today here in London.
And back to christmas....our decorations went up at the pub on the 1st so now i'll go and take a picture of our tree so you can see it instantly below.....like this!

its a bit blurry cause its night time and you have to see the lights

And now back to the cricket....Damian Martyn retired today/yesterday from all 1st class cricket leaving a gap in the Australian team for some up-and-comers. I also noticed today that Chris Matthews played in the Lilac Hill festival match taking 3 wickets in a good win for the chairmans' XI, moving up a bit from the good ol' Parkerville days. Now of course I have to add the details of that great second test we managed to win from a very unwinnable position so when I'm older I can check back on it, have a good old laugh and remember a great victory!!!

Australia won by 6 wickets

England : Dec. 6-551
Australia : 513
England : 129
Australia : 4-168

or check out
http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ausveng/engine/match/249223.html

Last but not least, well done to Carla and her schoolmates for putting on a great production of grease and thanks for inviting us to come along and then party the night away...Jay you have some issues!!

That'll do for today.
good night all

Some Entertainment

2006-11-24T22:35:00.000Z

And now I will provide you with this deep and meaningful picture of....um........this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(look closely between its legs for a packet of nuts to go with the beer and cigarette)

Ahh yes, the sweet and innocent balloon giraffe!! not so innocent now are we??? no I didnt think so.
This animal was created whilst watching the ashes last night and had deflated by the end of the night, presumably by drinking too much and passing out on something sharp....or maybe because its brain was full of air! oh yeah the jokemaster is back ;P

Ashes Time

2006-11-23T17:15:00.000Z

The Ashes have begun, and what a beginning! go the mighty aussies. I hope that everybody back in oz feels sorry for me having to watch the game at some stupid time in the morning like we did back at home last year, at least its the right time for you this year!!! I'm sure i'll watch some matches straight through the night but maybe not when work begins too early.

Now here's a random picture of my hand with some lolly halves on it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And here's an idea of all the leaves we need to sweep off the pavement every morning....this tree is guilty, guilty I tells ya!

Well that's all for today, time to catch some sleep so i can witness ponting and hussey both smack double centuries later on tonight.

A week in Ireland, Day 1

2006-11-19T21:20:00.000Z

The first day, well the first day wasn't really the first day for those of us who were starting the trip from London. We had already caught the bus from London Victoria at some silly time in the morning on sunday and spent 12 hours travelling via road and sea to Dublin in order to begin our adventure.

So day 1, the journey from Dublin to Derry in the north. Once everyone who was staying at the paddywagon hostel overnight had been sorted into their separate tour buses we set off with a small drive around Dublin before leaving the city. We had a look at one of the worlds only completly square bridges where there was a camera continuously feeding images to a website so you could call someone overseas and they could actually watch you through a website while you spoke to them, too bad we didn't stop there though. The next stop was a national park which had a whole bunch of deer and a really big cross were the pope offered mass to over 1 and a half million people in 1979 so it was quite a big grassed area, would have been a sight to see.

Now moving out of the city we popped into an old style graveyard where there were some really old towers that monks used to live in and also doubled as a defensive position during war. Here's an example of some of the crosses that the monks used to worship around. On some of them you can see where the rock has been worn away as the monks walked around the cross reting their hands on the stone. Here you can see Eric our tour guide leaning on the cross, otherwise known as 'shrek'.

A church with a head was the next stop on the trip. An actual dude's head from a long time ago was sitting in a glass cabinet in a gold decorative thingo, well i'll just put a picture of it here for you. When you look closely you can see some hairs still attached to the head. There is a story behind this head of course and probably once a body under it but i forget it now, all i can remember is that the english killed this fella in London for something or other and someone smuggled the head back to Ireland and kept it hidden until it was safe to bring into the public.

nice set of teeth!!

Once we hit the city of Derry we found one of the local pubs, had some food took part in a piece of drinking and the group started to get to know each other in preparation for the week ahead.

Day 2

2006-11-16T23:49:00.000Z

Today we travel from Derry to Belfast. This was the most scenic of all the days of the tour....we started with a walking tour of historic Derry.
Our walking tour guide (not the regular guide) first took us to a grassed where i took this photo.

From here the guide took us to a walled of section were 600 people live who belive they are still british. In this area you can see british flags flying and even the curbs are painted blue white and red symbolising the union jack. Strange place.

Now we headed along the coast and to one of the seven natural wonders of the world, The Giants Causeway. Very briefly the story goes that a giant came from across the ocean by building this causeway and for some reason or another he had to destroy the causeway across the sea and so we are left with this very intriguing rock formation. The scientific view is something like there was a glacier that got blown up by a volcano and somehow left the rocks the way they are.

So here you go, a small piece of the Giants Causeway

I've made this picture a little larger so you can see the detail in the background as well as the foreground.

You cant really appreciate this place without actually going there because it is on such a large scale and has quite a few different attractions like large rocks formed in recognisable shapes the pipes in the wall, the chimney etc... one of the shapes is a camel might i add! To get around the whole thing you need around an hour and a half, you take the low road there and look back at the views on the high road back to the carpark.

Now we ventured to the Carrick-a-rede rope bridge that was built by the fishermen to get to their little island which must have been a good place for fishing, but i cant relly see the point because the island is only a very short ways further out in the ocean! Luckily we were allowed to cross the bridge because they shut it after we finished due to high winds.
It was quite a pretty place but you'll have to put up with a picci of me on the bridge (obviously it had been recontructed since the original)

Look 'no hands'.

From the island which is in the direction the photo was taken from we did see a dolphin on the right so i guess there may have been some decent fishing in the area and maybe the old guys actually new a thing or two.

After a big day visiting the the sights we arrived in Belfast a little late so we checked in and went off to one of the local resteraunts and had a feast and a couple of drinks followed by a relitively early night.

Day 3

2006-11-16T20:59:00.000Z

Today we travel west from Belfast to Galway. Because we arrived a little late into Belfast yesterday we postponed the 'Black Taxi tour' until this morning, so we were up early ready to take in a bit of history in the troubled city of Belfast.

The tour took us into the peace sector a kind of no mans land between the conflicting sides. Throughout this area there were murals painted all over the sides of the houses, we were told that they are starting to get painted over so we had better see them while they were still there. These murals ranged from pictures in memory of 'soldiers' who had died in the conflict to symbols of each sector to people holding machine guns which seemed to follow you wherever you would walk.

Our machine gun friend

The taxi drivers told us that some people, usual local youths, would still cause some trouble here(evidence in all the smashed glass) but in general things had settled down. We drove on to see one of the tallest wall still in belfast where we each wrote our little message of peace for others to read.........then write over with their own message i guess. some funny old messages included this one 'you think you've got problems!! the Americans steal our FISH!' written by a Canadian visitor.

This is my message for the world, to quote from monty pyhton.

Peace from the Albatross!!

From here we visited some more murals including one long wall covered in about 10 or so which had a mural of george bush sucking all the oil out of iraq with the bodies piling up and the cash flowing towards him with the help of a british hook. It was titled 'Americas greatest failure'

Moving out of Belfast we crossed the border again into southern Ireland and back to the Euro. The scenery was quite beautiful in this heartland of the country. We stopped off at a waterfall and had a bit of a gander at the local scenery before heading into the party town of Galway.

Galway is a great little town, there were plenty of places to visit at night as we found out staying out until around 3 on a weekday i think. The website does say that its the party capital of Ireland.

With the conflict behind us it was now time to explore the south of Ireland....

Day 4

2006-11-16T20:00:00.000Z

Here we go, today the journey fron Galway to the Randy Leprechaun in Annascaul (the companys' own pub/hostel) right by Dingle.
This days journeying was to take us from one type of landscape to a completly different one. The once green countryside was to change dramatically into a land of slate, rockwalls and fairy circles. during the famine times of ireland apparently the english monarchy gave them discounts on their taxes for every mile of stonewall they would build, so there are walls in this area which are of no purpose at all, for example we visited a row ofstone walls which went straight into the ocean, very weird indeed. From those walls we went to a to visit a fairy circle in a strange landscape which was split into squares for miles....like this.......

Moving on the land was turning green once again and we went to visit the cliffs of Moher. At the moment there is a huge construction project going on at the cliffs to build a new tourist centre under the ground in order to keep it invisible and encourage the natural landscape to rule the area, what i'm getting at is that some of the places were off limits, but we could access 80% of the area and it was still quite a good place to visit.

Me with a bottle of pepsi down my top looking like a malformed boob!

Hmm well you cant see the boob very well here at all

After the cliffs we jumped on a small ferry with our bus for a quick trip to the other side of the water...nothing to say here.

On the way to our destination we passed through a little town for and evening lunch in a rest/pub where some of father ted was filmed and you got to pour your own guiness. A couple of driving hours later we arrived at the Randy Leprechaun for a night of some kareoke, pool, food and a spot of drinking.

I'll leave you with this image of Randy for this days travelling!

How nice!

Day 5

2006-11-16T19:13:00.000Z

Ah day 5, Dingle to Killarney. It was goodbye to the Randy Leprechaun and onwards to the Dingle peninsulawhich plays host to the most western point of mainland in Europe.

Here's the group on the tip on the mainland with the sleeping giant in the background (the island) which is in the local folklore proving a point that there really was this giant man who came to the land.

After circumnavigating the Dingle peninsula we spent some time in Dingle town for lunch and a bit of an explore. Then it was onwards to Killarney where we would spend our last night in a bit of a party town! After checking in to the hostel we were off on a horse and cart ride through the national park, we visited the local castle, some of the scenery and local wildlife, but the most interesting thing were the cart drivers, you could barely understand a thing they said! people with horses are usually bad enough but irish people who have lived around horses all their lives take the cake, these guys were local locals. On the way back to the town there were quite a few oncoming horse and carts but our driver didn't once set a wheel off the path to let others past they had to go overland, our driver must have been the boss or something, he was quite old and did keep saying the same things over and over again laughing all the time!

Right of Way

So it was the last night, we ate our dinner in quite a nice pub/bar then moved on to a place where our tour guide Eric (shrek, rounded body and shaved head) told us we could get 3 drinks for 10 Euro. It was only meant to be a stop off pub but we ended up staying there the whole night because when the pub closed they had a club upstairs which looked quite new and was more orientated to us youngsters as opposed to the pub. The night partyed on and everyone had a great time ending the night with pizza on the hostel stairs which everyone thought was a great idea, and it was, nobody was sick as far as i know. ahh pizza power!

Here's one of me dressed up as one of the girls from the tour group but it's ok i wasnt really drinking that drink!!

.....An early morning lay ahead! oh dear

Day 6

2006-11-16T18:19:00.000Z

Well i've finally got around to sorting out and reducing down my pictures from ireland so now i can get posting. i'll start with this day, day 6 of the trip so that when you read the blog the posts will be in order from day 1 to day 6! ...except this message...

Ok so day 6, the last day, always starts with the aftermath of the last night, at this point i'd like to say that i wasn't that bad on the last night i was in quite good control. The worst thing i did probably for the whole trip was on the last morning after lack of sleep, this is how it goes... earlier the day before one of the guys bought some bacon and eggs so we could have a feast on the last morning. In the morning he cooked up all the bacon and said help yourself as long as you cook your own eggs, so we did. I got a plate ready took some bacon oiled up the pan to cook my eggs. At this point there was a funny smell in the air but i figured it was just one of the other guys filling up the sink ready to wash up. Well the eggs cooked and i sat down ready to eat, when i took my first bite of the egg i just sat there withmy face over my plate thinking it didnt taste quite right, but then i remembered that we did have a 'few' drinks the night before and thought it must just be my taste buds as everyone else was enjoying their eggy breakfast...so i swallowed the first piece of egg still thinking it must just be me. I had another piece and decided that there was something not right! well something was not right indeed, instead of the oil i thought i was using it was washing up liquid (it was yellow washing up liquid) which explained the weird smell earlier when we were cooking! So for the rest of the last day everytime i burped i had the pleasant taste of washing up liquid in my mouth!! mmm mmm

The offending liquid

The journey on the last day was from Killarney back to Dublin with the main attraction on the way being Blarney castle where you get to kiss the blarney stone by dangling backwards off the top of the castle, not as dangerous as it sounds. Blarney castle was one of the more majestic castles' that we visited and in quite good condition, the grounds were also very nice and so green. Here's a happy snap for you.

From the Blarney stone looking down

A little further down the road we visited a Norman castle and had a bit of a guided tour, nothing too exciting, so onwards we drove past the rock where the King used to get crowned, through fields where some of the Braveheart battle scenes were filmed, we passed a whole bunch of peat farms (bog places really) and then into Dublin.

From Dublin the group split up as everybody went off in different directions, those of us who had to go back to London had a quiet dinner and prepared to board the bus which would take us back to the big smoke after we caught the ferry across the ocean again. I was lucky enough to sleep practically the whole trip back which was great! When i got back to the pub i got down to a whole lot more sleeping ahh thats the life!!

Christmas Party

2006-11-10T22:04:00.000Z

hi guys,

well winter is in town now which causes nights out to get a little bit freezing and of course the enevitable cold, argh! damn boogers!
Anyways, on moday night just gone we had the company christmas party! wha hoo! being a pub company the party was held at one of their pubs and everything was free which as far as i'm concerned is great! When we arrived their was a champagne reception followed by shots been given out by some loverly young ladies, also available was the bar itself and a cocktail bar all ready for us!
Halfway through the night there were some awards handed out, we were nominated in a couple of sections but the telegraph was a little young yet. After the awards we were taken out of the pub and lead down to the Thames to start a river cruise. Food was provided along with more free drinks music and a piece of fake gambling. The boat took us under london bridge, past the london eye and also under tower bridge which is quite nice at night time as you can see.....

That's about all from that day except that i was in no condition to work my 12 hour shift the next day and we'll leave it at that.

A couple of things to note, I've booked my new years in edinburgh and will be staying in the hostel where iain works for 3 nights which includes tickets to the world famous edinburgh hogmanay party!! after those nights i'll be staying in a hostel right in the centre of edinburgh to check things out and see whats going to happen from there! (to be confirmed)

Plans for next year so far is the going to see faithless in march and to visit Poland in may

Hope everyone is well at home and away!!

Hello Stu

2006-11-04T22:02:00.000Z

Firstly a welcome to stu who arrived in London abou 10 or so days ago. Secondly I did go to ireland for a week and will try to get a post up shortly, but for now here's a couple of the things that have been going on...

A big goodbye to some of the staff who have moved on in the last couple of months - Monika who has gone back home to Poland to get back to the studies, Johhny the chef in charge and reigning poker champion, Jatin, he'll always be up for some frizbee, Jay, well he has left work but you wouldn't really think so with all of the visits, Mark, we may be in Amsterdam soon, Shannone, good luck with the 'fox', Ilias half greek half australian and everyone else who has passed through eg Tom and Ed of course

Anyways, I did manage to meet stu at the airport at some silly time in the morning after being sent all around terminals 1 2 3 & 4 by the staff trying to find the correct flight, and you just dont know how big these places are...well their hugemungus.

Last week we managed to go to the pub to see australia play new zealand but we left early due to new zealands dismal scoresheet. A day at the pub was followed up by an expidition to see monty python's SPAMALOT at the palace theatre. The show was great, following the storyline of search for the holy grail and also adding some new twists and bends. I did have some nice pictures and films of the performance until my camera was confiscated and they were deleted!! ah well maybe we shouldnt have spent the day having a few drinks!

Yes stu, you do have a ticket

The next day a group of 5 of us headed to Thorpe park to catch all the rides before the park was shut for winter later this week. The day started with everyone waiting for me cause i had slept in due to lack of sleep over the past 2 weeks i must say. well it was bloody freezing espicially when your on rides which fling you around at great speed. The newest ride at the park is called steAlth and it takes you from 0-80 mph (130 kph) in 2.3 seconds, it really is quite amazing. On some rides we actually managed to go on them twice in a row because their were so few people in the park, it was great!

The top of this is where you end up after the 130kph launch off the starting blocks, the drop from the top feels quite pleasant after the initial burst. We went on this about 4 times and by the last ride we were pulling faces at the camera which catches you at top acceleration.

much fun.

WOW!!!

2006-10-07T17:03:00.000Z

I actually have something really interesting to whack on the blog today!!! what i'm going to do is post 2 pictures and see if you can get it!!

OK THIS ONE IS EASY, ITS THE MEDIA AND FILM CREW IN OUR CARPARK OUTBACK.

THE TEAM BUS......

there's me running up a table playing soccer, well trying to. So that's right, the English football team came to say hi and head off to their match. not bad eh!

now you can all say that you know me or have known me at some point in your life

thankyou

and

goodnight

:) :) :)

oh yeah, I accidently left my bike locked up on the high street the other night and someone nicked it!! bastard, it was only one night

Busy times

2006-09-30T19:47:00.000Z

Hello home,
for most it think that it has been a busy couple of weeks or so and it is certainly the case here. I've changed my mind about 3 times on my holiday, it's no longer a trip to Egypt i'm now going to Ireland to do a round trip of the country for 6 days, even though i nearly went on a cruise around the med. sea for a week of luxury.
holiday link here (dunno if it will click and work)

http://www.paddywagontours.com/viewtour.php?id=5&&day=30&&month=09&&year=2006#

My glasses finally gave out the other week....well....the arm just broke off again and i lost it in a pub somewhere but its all ok i have my old pair and some new ones are on the way!!!

Recently the local walkabout had their heat of the beachbabes competition and i'll say that it was a great guys night out.

For the grand final - mighty mighty eagles - i tried to get tickets to some pubs that were showing it at 5 in the morning but i had left it too late and they were all sold out!! so i watched the game upstairs in our pub which gave me the chance to have a sleep afterwards which was great!

no pictures for this post limited time things to do

bye bye

1 point!!!!!!

Richmond Park

2006-09-18T19:19:00.000Z

Alrighty then, Richmond park looks like it could have been used for the filming of Jurassic Park with wide open spaces mixed with some thick vegetation and plenty of wildlife. The place is quite large, about 8km around the riding path which is quite handy wheni need to go for a decent ride after a night on the town.

More importanatly here's a picture of one of our horney friends who live in the park

You can get right up close to these fellas and i reckon you could pat them but i didnt want to get a horn in the head so just settled for the pictures. In the park i saw at least 100 deer in their little herdy things, daddy ones, mummy ones and baby ones.

Now its time to play SPOT THE SQUIRREL IN THE TREE!!!

..........ready???.....(yes)

there it is, not very hard really...harder in real life. Well i need to go now, thinking of a holiday to egypt to see some stuff which should be good.

au reviour, muchus muchus, camel-es

Extra Pictures

2006-09-09T16:35:00.000Z

Here's a few extra piccis from Kew gardens for everyone. Please check the post below this one for the first half of the story.....again

Around the place

2006-09-02T16:19:00.000Z

Hello people...and others

It's been a busy few weeks with a couple of birthday parties, a bit of monkey business and some functions starting to come along to the pub. Recently I took a squiz at Kensington palace and Kew gardens but mostly went and partied in london a bit so here's a look at some of the people i've been hanging around with at this pub...

ok, we had been out for a while before this picture was taken hence the cheesy looks! from left to right Illious(aussie/greek), Jatin(indian), Myself(alien) & Monica(polish).....we never did learn what the name of the club was!

Ah ..... now the memories come back!

Now onto kew gardens...it's the largest botanical garden in britain and it really was a lot larger than i thought it would be. There were all sorts of wild animals and plants from golden pheasants to kangaroos, artic plants to eucalyptus trees and a peacock or two. In short the place has a whole bunch of listed buildings including kew palace (right), thousands of species of plants either in greenhouses, set up in areas by their family or unique flower arrangements; a really interesting picture display next to an inside climbing area for the kids, some nice ponds & wildlife - all the above mentioned plus squirrels (of course). For all this you pay about 12 pounds, pay a little bit more and you can pot about with all the oldies (luckily they're not driving) on a train like thing which drives on the paths.

Here's a view of the Temperate house, one of the many greenhouses about the place

Stonehenge

2006-08-11T15:17:00.000Z

Stupid blogger wouldn't let me put more than 2 pictures in one post! so onwards and upwards...

From Bath the tour was off to stonehenge. The land around stonehenge is owned by the army, so you see street signs saying 'tank crossing' and military aircraft flying about all the time. On the way to the stones we got a bit of a history talk on a few theories and some stories but that's a lot of writing for me to do so here's a picture of the place in the flesh (yes it does look just like all the pictures in the books and on the tele)

The rocks are a decent size as well and were carved out so they could fit together like lego pieces, pretty clever really. What you don't normally see are the burial mounds of the people who built it, the Beaker people or something along those lines, not the druids as some people say. Stonehenge was around quite a long time before the druids even came into power, they probably used the stone circles after the beaker people died out or were conquered etc... There are actually 100's of stone circles all across britian and also in the north of France...but stonehenge is the best so poo to them.

ps. no aeroplanes were blown up at Heathrow we are all still alive

PLEASE NOW LOOK BELOW THIS POST FOR THE FIRST PART OF THE TRIP!!!

Day trip

2006-08-11T14:18:00.000Z

Hello holiday people! That's right I actually went on the holiday this time!

Ok first we visited the village of Lacock which hasn't changed in around 200 years, the newest building is the school which was built in 1824. Some of the Harry potter movie was filmed at the village abbey although its probably more famous for being the venue of the worlds 1st photograph.

After a 45 min stop at the village it was on to Bath where we spent most of our time. Bath is a very picturesque place and luckily we had a good day for it, we popped in on a couple of prime locations worth anything inbetween 2 and 5 million pounds to live in and then to the roman baths. The building isn't really that large but when you go inside it can be quite deceiving with its many chambers and mini worshipping spots. The water is nice and warm keeping a constant temperature of 46.5 degrees in some of the rooms, others are controlled to be cooler or more humid etc.

Here's a view of the main bath which is now open to the elements. I'm not sure if there was ever a roof over the area. The statues are in pretty good condition if they were always exposed.

With some free time to wonder around the city I grabbed some lunch and took a walk to the main garden which is located in front of the spire to the right a little in this picci

All in all Bath is a very nice place to be and well worth a look.

a smart camel once said 'i don't like frogs'

A 'man' and his bike

2006-08-08T19:07:00.000Z

The traffic in London is usually quite stupidly busy but when parts of major roads get shut off things just get ridiculous. People get delayed for anything up to 7 hours...Don't drive a car!

Today the A3 which is the largest road near the pub was blocked off at the roundabout called tibbits corner (these roundabouts are huge, they have heaps of walkways and riding paths running underneath them. the roundabout situation here really is silly, they're either just painted onto the road and no one takes any notice of them or they are as large as football fields and are major junctions). I usually ride under the roundabout and into Wimbledon common but today i had one direction of the A3 all to myself so i proceeded to use it whilst waving to and overtaking all the stranded cars on the other side of the highway. There's something about riding down a 4 lane (in both directions) highway doing the previously mentioned that gives you a great feeling inside with lots of smiles!!!

p.s. The holiday has been booked again and tomorrow morning is the time of truth

Flight paths 'through' the sun

Wimbledon common

update

2006-08-07T14:24:00.000Z

My glasses arm has now come off 2 more times after the original break, but i will persist with the superglue! more updates to follow (i hope not)

The Telegraph

2006-08-05T21:37:00.000Z

As you are all vigilant readers of this blogger-ogger you already know that i've moved to a new pub located in Putney called the Telegraph. We've now been open for just over two weeks and things have been quite hectic, staff numbers have doubled in that time and only now are we starting to get into the groove of things.
I moved in pretty much at the beginning of July and begun to clean things out and clean them again and again and one more time when we finally got the dust off everything and set up all the furniture and bar etc.

here's an early picci of how things were...nice and dusty

The bar now operational with Tim (orange slice in the mouth) & Shannone manning the pumps!

I've got a bike now so i've been exploring Wimbledon common on the lookout for Wombles but alas i haven't seen any yet!

But we have found some rather large dogs, including Charlie here with one of the local kids

So hello to all, and this week I will try to make my holiday on time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Interesting times

2006-08-03T14:32:00.000Z

Evening.

Well it's been an interesting last couple of days or so, after the breaking of my tooth last week I proceeded to break the arm off my glasses a couple of days ago and book a day trip to bath & Stonehenge.

None of the opticians on the high street said they could actually fix the arm/frame of my glasses by welding it back on etc.. and I did go and ask at least 5 different places included some shoe repair people and key cutters. So eventually I went to a hardware store got some superglue and glued the thing back on, you wouldn't notice they were even broken unless I showed you (stupid 'professionals').

On Tuesday it turned out to be one of the bar staffs birthday so we proceeded to party far to late into the morning especially when I had organised a holiday for the next day and had to in central London for the pickup at 7 30 in the morning. To cut a long story short I didn't make the pickup time so missed the holiday and so when I do finally organise another one I would have paid double so it had better be good! Next week sound like a good time to go. On the bright side my Aerobie Frisbee arrived from ebay on the same day so it wasn't all bad news.

1 broken tooth
1 broken pair of glasses
1 missed holiday

what will next week hold in store??? not sure I want to ask!

ps. nice work Stu

Good day Bad day

2006-07-23T13:13:00.000Z

Bad news - Some people know that I've got some fake bits on both of my front teeth thanks to trying to go down a wet and wild tube slide backwards and slipping onto my head about 10 years ago. Whilst biting into a nectarine on friday one of them snapped off again (happens every couple of years) and cost 150 pounds to get replaced the next day!! even worse was the fact that I had to work looking like a chav (english talk for government housing people) on a nice and busy friday night...fantastic.

Good news - I got promoted on the same day without knowing it and now get a bit extra money so I'll make the dentist bill back a lot quicker.

St Pauls Cathedral

2006-07-20T15:53:00.001Z

If your in London one of the things you go and see is St Pauls Cathedral. The usual rules apply - no photos, no yelling and try not to step on too many of the graves. In the crypt you find the likes of Admiral Nelson, The Duke of Wellington and Sir Christopher Wren all stuck in the ground somewhere with plaques telling short stories of their achievements.
The best part of the cathedral is that you can climb all the way up to the golden gallery which is about 85 m (530 steps) up and grab a 360 degree view of London which in turn allows you to count how many cranes are around at that time...Lots.

On the way back down I took a couple of sneaky pictures so this is what the inside of the cathedral looks like from the whispering gallery (the first stop on the way up)

And another looking up at the roof from the ground floor

As a last note, I actually got into the cathedral for free when it usually costs 9 pounds because I was honest with the cashier and didn't try to sneak in with the big group which had prepaid and was flowing through the gates, so they let me in for free. Quite nice of them I thought.

p.s. I thought that York minster was better

Records

2006-07-20T15:38:00.000Z

Just so everyone at home doesn't think that it never gets hot over here, yesterday was the hottest day in July for the UK ever! that's 36 and a half degrees. Doesn't sound too bad but try 50+ degrees if you were catching the tube or taking a bus somewhere. A whole bunch of blag!

Day 5

2006-07-17T21:39:00.000Z

Last day of the trip now...

Everyone was feeling a little slow in the morning due to the previous nights entertainment, so what did we do first thing in the morning?? go for a walk around stratford to have a peep at the birthplace of shakey, walk for a bit more and see the place where he died (he didn't get very far!). Then down the road a bit more we saw his grave which is kept inside a church with a warning to anyone who moves his bones will 'ave a curse placed 'pon ye!

On the way back from the church we did happen to spot a squirrel digging in one of the graveyards...as you do.

Shakeys' Grave

Onwards >>>> now after our walk what we were all looking forward to, sleeping on the bus mmm. Well for some reason I didn't sleep that day at all but everyone else did and I have pictures to prove it, all in all it made the ride a little boring but we soon arrived in Oxford.

Oxford uni isn't like any of ours back at home, there isn't a big uni campus, it's just built throughout the whole town which is great because there are students everywhere (not hard on the eyes!) and everyone rides a bike around. The town was explained to the group by the worlds most crazy tour guide honestly this lady was insane but she knew her stuff. The uni has heaps of old traditions and plenty of history not to mention the town itself. To cut it short we saw a lot of old famous buildings and some of the places where Harry potter was filmed for all those fans out there.

Here's a picture of some of the buildings which make up one of the worlds most famous libraries(8 in total). They're all linked underground by storage and tunnels, only certain people are allowed down there. Due to some guy back in the day making a bargain with the king/queen of the time the Oxford library gets the first copy of EVERY single new book published in the UK so there apparently millions of pointless books under the ground!

Homeward bound! When we saw the smog on the horizon and then hit the M25 we knew we were back in London and reality for some, more holidays for others. It was time to say goodbye...

Thanks to Darren & Dave our guides and everyone on the trip hope to see you soon!

Day 4

2006-07-13T18:44:00.001Z

It's Day 4 which means we leave Liverpool and prepare for the last night of the tour!!

Nice and early in the morning the tour group headed down to the river mersey to catch the ferry across and placed me in charge of the tickets, lucky i'm just a very responsible guy and we all got over and out the other side in one piece!

Now we headed into wales with the first stop being Conwy which has a very old castle that hasn't been restored like a lot of the others and has kept a lot of its' character. This castle was one of the homes of Longshanks during his rule. (history lesson 1)
Another thing to note is that now in Wales all the signs are written in Welsh and in English underneath. I was told that the Welsh hung onto their culture a lot more because they were the most exploited of the peoples neighbouring the English.

From Conwy we headed into Snowdonia national park to have a look at Mt. Snowdon, the highest peak in england and wales (3560 ft.) but before we got there there was a stop off at the longest placename........place, which goes as follows:

Llanfairpwllgwngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch

and this means:

The church of Mary in the hollow of the white hazel near the fierce whirlpool and the church of tysilio by the red cave
.......and that's that!

Here's me acting like some sort of bird with Mt. Snowdon over MY left shoulder in the clouds and look i'm not even fat yet!!

Onwards we headed to a loverly little town and ate lunch by a rocky pool and small waterfall then drove onto Stratford-upon-Avon the hometown of Shakespeare but more importantly somewhere to watch Australia play Croatia in the world cup, grab a bite to eat & a drink or 2..... well it was the last night and all.

Interesting soccor match......lets just say that the umpire got sent back to England from Germany and will never cover another top class match and we still progressed to the next stage to play Italy (will cover later)

Blah blah blah we all partyed the night away and enjoyed ourselves thanks guys!

Here's some of us now! (from 90 degrees left...Kylie,Maya,Tony,Darren,Me,Cameron & Dave)

Day 3

2006-07-13T18:13:00.000Z

Hi guys, here we are finally with day 3 of the trip, things might start to be explained a little quicker now that i have some catching up to do and less time to do it in!

Ok...day 3 begins by saying goodbye to Edinburgh and Scotland. Just before crossing the border we stopped off at Gretna Green which is a historical romantic getaway were people could elope and get married. Cameron and Tracey were randomly selected from the crowd and quickly married by the hammer and anvil.

Back in England the next leg was driving through the Lake District. Very nice scenery with waterfalls, mountain views, plenty of lakes, interesting wildlife, some crazy roads and a chance to do some climbing.

Here's me and a couple of the girls from Coffs Harbour in front of one of the waterfalls.

(just told a joke, funny of course)

On the way out of the lake district we stopped off at the home of Beatrix Potter and went into the exhibition of Peter rabbit and all her other tales...this picture is for you mother dear!

I don't know which tale this is from but i'm fairly sure you will!

After our stopoff we headed to Liverpool, had a look at the Cavern Club the original playing venue of the beatles which is also the home of the mersey beat. We had a quick squizzy at the Liverpool football stadium, one of the UKs' most famous.

The night in Liverpool was spent wandering around down to the river and all over checking out the sights, not, surprisingly at the pubs and clubs.

Day 2

2006-06-28T15:41:00.000Z

Ok, so we woke up at some silly time in the morning and began the second day.

The journey today takes us from York to Edinburgh with plenty of stops and sleeping time on the bus available.

Firstly we stopped off at the university city of Durham only very briefly to stretch our legs and have a wee. The next stop was the angel of the north which is a huge statue of an angel made from 200 tonnes of weathered steel and has the wingspan of a jumbo jet. Quite big but not all that attractive

Back on the bus now for a quick nap before we drive through Newcastle and make a stop at Hadrians' Wall. The wall was built at around 122AD by the Romans to mark the most northern part of their empire and kept the Scottish (Celtic) people out, it once stretched the width of the country approx. 120km.

Moving on now it was goodbye England and hello Scotland! thanks to the big rock with England and Scotland written on opposite sides so we new where we were!

Lunch was taken at Jedbergh a border town which was once home to Mary Queen of Scots.

On to Edinburgh. On the drive into the capital we got a nice view of the castle and here's a picture from the door of where we were staying the night.

At this stage the Scottish weather had kicked in and it was bloody windy, the cans were getting blown up the hills. The scaffolding to the right was been put up in preparation for the festival of Edinburgh (one of the biggest festivals in the UK) and I guess it is the same area they use for the Edinburgh tattoo.

We did a full tour of the castle, saw the crown jewels, a whole bunch of cannons, some stain glass windows of William Wallace, the dungeons & other exhibitions. On the way back from the castle we visited the world famous Royal Mile which runs from the castle to somewhere, at this stage I'd like to say that Edinburgh has over 850 pubs the most in the UK per person by a very long way.

Back to the hostel we meet up with a guide who showed us over a lot of the city and filled us in on a lot of history(there's too much to write). Dinner was served up and like a good ancestral Scottish fella I ordered the haggis and thought it was quite nice.

After drinks and the usual shenanigans in a open mic night pub where our driver sang some songs (he has a record coming out soon) we headed back to the hostel for some well earned sleep. Now, it was always the plan to visit the graveyard which has the most documented ghost in the world residing in it after we left the pub. To cut a long story short I ended up visiting the graveyard by myself at 1 in the morning take a few pictures and proceed to call home (Dad and Daniel can verify this). The worst part about the graveyard was trying to find the entrance to the place because disappointingly I didn't see anything weird at all, I tried saying hello to them and all but alas no spirits.

With day 2 finished day 3 takes us through the Lake District (vry nice) and eventually to Liverpool.

Holidays!

2006-06-27T21:06:00.000Z

Hi all

Ok, well i was on holidays last week and did a quick tour of some of the uk. So here we go....
Day 1

So we've all got into the minibus and start our journey of discovery and lack of sleep.

Heading northward the first stop was Nottingham castle to see some statues of robinhood and pop into the oldest pub in england for a refreshing drink or two where it was rumoured that the troops would stop for a pint before heading of to the crusades with king Richard.

The pub is actually built into the limestone and has quite a few chambers inside the hill. The same limestone joins to Nottingham castle, you can imagine all the secret tunnels to and from the castle for the convenience of some nobles.

From Nottingham we headed straight for York.

After checking into our backpackers hostel we had the free run of the city to have a look about.
We managed to have a look at clifford tower, climb up the top and have a bit of a gander... gander......gander around kind of like a goose but not quite! Which brings me onto my next point...

GIANT DUCKS

That's right the ducks where huge! bigger than geese in fact (if they really were ducks and not geese). Honestly the baby ones were larger than our mummy and daddy ones, amazing.

York Minster was next on our list of sights. It's quite large and well i'll just put this picture in so you can see.

There you go, you just cant get far enough away to fit the whole thing in one picture. I did manage to get a film of the place while its' bells were playing a tune which i cant remember right now.... um..... like hark the herald angel sing but not quite!

When we got back to the hostel our tour guide Darren and his sidekick Dave took us for a walk around the city walls then into a local pub for a Viking feast.

Food out the way it was time for the Ghost Hunt of York! The ghost hunter fella really was quite good and funny too we learnt some of the towns history and even got to try and scare some people in an Italian restaurant.

Day 1 was nearly over so we followed our ghost hunter to the pub and stayed a little too late (the beginning of the trend). Here i have to point out that it was only the australians on tour who partied the night away that first night, good on us i say!

I'll follow up with day 2 when i next get my typing fingers on

Goodnight

Another Woods Edition

2006-06-06T12:48:00.000Z

Just so everyone doesn't think that I just saying that the woods around here are weird when they're not, have a look at this bright yellow slimy fungus which was more liquid than solid.

I also took a short film of me poking this stuff with my finger and once you see the film you'll realise how squishy this stuff really is...quite squishy indeed me-laddo!

Epsom

2006-06-03T22:53:00.000Z

A quick note - On the same day i saw bambi I also went to find epsom well, which is the place where epsom salt comes from...or i should say did come from, now there is a wishing well there.
When i finally did find the site it was closed, so poo!

Bambi

2006-06-02T18:51:00.000Z

I went back to Ashtead common for another ride on wednesday and ran into bambi. I tried to get a good picture but as i dumped the bike and started to get closer a middle aged lady going for a jog ran past me towards bambi, proceeded to frighten it off then turned around and said 'did you see the deer?'. Whilst trying not to say 'no shite, was there a deer there, your joking right?' I replyed with a very polite 'yes i did thankyou' ........... Stupid dumb twit.
Well Bambi frolicked off just like in the movies up and down like a spring and i continued on my merry way.

Look closely at the middle of the picture

Things should start to get a bit more exciting in a couple of weeks, I'm taking time off and going for a tour to scotland wales and all around, should be good fun! I'll try to keep things updated but I may have to wait until i get back to post anything on the net.

Hope everyone is having fun in Oz!

Monday

2006-05-29T15:21:00.000Z

Morning All,
I'm still alive here in the northern part of the world. watching a bit of Alladin and the king of thieves inbetween shifts at the moment.

Had a big weekend last weekend and had a bit of 'food poisoning' for a few days..good to have a bit of a spew though, its been awhile!

SPEW!!!

Well not really spew but a bit more of a healthy alternative for eating purposes

Back to work now

(Alladins' father!!! I never would have guessed)

mmm...warm

2006-05-04T19:21:00.000Z

Today it reached 25 degrees and i ate dinner outside at 8 o'clock in the sunshine.

Shorts and t-shirt weather

Amazing

Summer is coming

2006-05-01T21:32:00.000Z

Summer is on its merry way to London...dont believe me well check it out!!http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/5day.shtml?world=0008

I went out into the woods today (hadnt been out there for a while) and everything has started to grow and develop colour, even the lambs are coming out.

Supposedly there are only two weeks left until we move into the brand new pub to get things organised for the opening at the end of may. The opening date has been put back a few times due to the builders as you would expect...bloody builders!

Monopoly Dash ...

2006-04-26T19:48:00.000Z

This section of the monopoly dash includes Euston st station and Leicester square. examples 1 and 2.

It was a good night out on the town. Sandy came back from Europe that day so we went to a 'few' pubs, and for a wednesday there were so many people about, then again there are always millions of people wandering around every night of the week.

The days are getting longer now, its still light at about a quarter past eight. By the time june 22nd comes around it should still be light at 10 at night. I'm finding it difficult now to guess the time at night when the sun is still shining at such unkangaroo like times.

And now some red buses!! yay! (they come from everywhere, like the mutant platypus people)

GOODNIGHT!!

The Mighty Boosh!!

2006-04-21T21:31:00.000Z

Hello all, and most of all big sister for this post.
I had a couple of days off this week and while in london decided to go see the mighty boosh live. It really was the funniest show i've ever seen for buying tickets the day before, actually it probably is the funniest i've seen anyway. Bought the dvds of series 1 & 2 but they didnt have any of the live show for sale which would have been better.
Here's a picture of carling academy in Brixton, (if you look closely you can see the mighty boosh in red letters) nice venue on the inside but in a real dodgy area (I think one of the grocery stores had cheap wives out the back etc...).

ps. if you be a good sister you may get something in the mail, but i can tell if you've been bad or good so be good for goodness sake oh....

Howard has the moves, he's coming at ya like a flannel!!

Happy Easter All

2006-04-16T18:22:00.000Z

Happy new year, Merry Christmas, Happy Birthday (Father dear, for tomorrow) etc...
Being easter weekend it's been quite busy at the pub, just easter monday to go now.
More importantly...last night we said goodbye to Georgia ,which co-incided with some live music for a bit of a farewell. She is headed off to a whole bunch of countries on her winding journey home back to Adelaide, so hi George wherever you may be, have a kick-bottom trip!!

Nick, Georgia, Maria & Hugh

Rain+dirt=mud

2006-04-09T12:57:00.000Z

Riding around the woods is quite entertaining but you have to avoid all the mud and large puddles if you want to come back dry. The other day i decided to go for a splash and fly straight through the mud which is far more fun especially when you go sliding sideways down slopes trying to avoid trees and roots.

The Result.

The bottom of the pants and my shoes were much worse

'cheese gromit' - funny pose, the camera went off before i expected it to

Hampton Court Palace

2006-03-31T21:47:00.000Z

This palace was the home to Henry the 8th when he was at his womanising best, apparently there was a tunnel which led to the local pub where he could pickout his women. This place is a lot more interesting on the outside than inside with its' huge gardens and the worlds most famous maze. Yes i did go through it (took a short film) and only retraced my steps once...i think. The aim was to get into the middle so it's pretty obvious how to get there if you think about it for a second.

Entry on the left of the middle

The day i visited the palace it was bloody freezing! I think it was the coldest i have ever been when not in a freezer. Brrrrrrrr. The wind chill off the water was something to behold....hold yr bits so they dont freeze off. ;p

Just to prove it.

In a lot of these places your not actually allowed to take photo's for money & security reasons so this is one you shouldn't be seeing bwa ha ha.

Your looking at the roof and a couple of walls

ps. for mum, there are a few acres of bulbs planted in the gardens so you may like to visit one day.

pps. go down to the next post for the last picci

I think i'm pretty much up to the present now so i'll try to keep up as time goes by.

Hampton Court cont.

2006-03-31T21:42:00.000Z

They really did have some well layed out gardens which i'm sure would look better in the summertime, so i might go back in a few months to see how things should really look.

This was William III Private garden (The privvy garden)

Awwww

2006-03-29T20:54:00.000Z

Awww

Awwwwwwwww

The Woods

2006-03-28T13:02:00.000Z

Just thought I'd do a short post on the woods around here. They do actually look just like the ones in all those Robin Hood and classic adventure movies except over here i am tending to find a lot of chairs around the place.
Example 1

Example 2

Most of the trees have lost their leaves due to the winter season but its nearly time for the buds to start springing to life about now, so will look forward to watch the change.
While riding along you have to watch out for the really muddy bits you might just sink into if you accidently rode through them, so here's one of my favourite pictures from the forest.

I think it would have sunk futher if it wasn't for the lower bodywork!

Tower of London

2006-03-24T17:09:00.000Z

Hello all!

Ok, so, the name 'tower of london' is really a bit misleading because it's a whole bunch of separate towers and the large tower in the middle of the square shaped grounds is called 'white tower'. White tower is actually white because its limestone and has been whitewashed over the centuries, originally it was some other colour (probably grey) but changed to white some long time ago back when.

Here's White tower.

Some of the Exhibition in White tower.

One of the other towers has the crown jewels in it, so yes i got to see it and a whole bunch of other gold diamond and ruby encrusted things like the crown of India!!Nice.
Lots of torture and beheadings of royalty (done indoors to stop rioting from supporters) where carried out in various towers all over the grounds. Anyways when i finally headed back to 'home' a thunderstorm passed over and lightning hit a power box at one of the train stations and it took me 3 hours to get back!

Going to see the Lion King musical now so goodnight all.

Ticket says in the orchestra stalls right up the front

People I know

2006-03-24T01:03:00.000Z

You know, i've been around the world a few times and been in a lot of movies myself, so when famous people bump into me while i'm working i'll sometimes take a bit of time out and have a chat, for their sake.
No really...today Rod Stewart came into our pub and had dinner in the restaurant, dont know if he recognised me though. Generous fella, out of the bill he left a 20 pound tip, dont believe he came in??? well look at the ticket. Thurs 23rd March, Goodnight.

Trafalgar Square

2006-03-18T18:10:00.000Z

During the first weekend i also went past Trafalgar Square on my monopoly board dash. General Nelson has a relly big tall pillar there with him up top wearing a cool hat! The demonstration going on was 'UNITED Against Islamaphobia!'. Checked that out for a bit then headed off into the national art gallery which had a lot of paintings of Jesus and also naked people and random royalty but it was still interesting.

London Bridge

2006-03-18T17:40:00.000Z

Now i'll let you guess which one is actually 'London Bridge'...that's right it's the boring looking one!! The nice Bridge is Tower Bridge which leads into the Tower of London. On this day i went to the Tower and to get there i wanted to go across London Bridge so i went where i thought it would be according to the map...upon getting to the otherside of the Thames i was confused as to where London Bridge was, then i read a sign that said i had just walked over it!! It really is kinda crappy looking especially when you've got Tower bridge in the distance to look at.

Bill Bailey

2006-03-18T17:26:00.000Z

Just some news for those bill bailey fans back at home...his stand up show 'half man half troll' or something like that was on the tv last night. vry funny, i recorded about half an hour or a bit more on my camera so that's something else we can all watch later as well. but for now you can wait in suspense while i check if my fingers didnt freeze off my hands yesterday!! bloody freezing

Sleet & Snow

2006-03-16T20:31:00.000Z

During my 1st 2 weeks at claygate we had sleet(Bottom picture) and snow(Top picture). When it started to sleet it looked like rain and because i was lost roaming the streets at the time i thought 'oh shit' but it was all good because when it finally stopped i was completly dry which was handy. The sleet itself is just like a very soft version of hail and doesnt hurt unless it hits you in the face which is frozen in the cold so a bit of stinging is neccessary.
When this light snow started to fall i was lucky to be passing by an oval so i could get a good view of what it was all about(i took a short video too which we australian folk can watch at a later date). The locals told me it wasnt really much of a snow fall but it left a little layer of snow on the tables outside overnight so it was to me

Woods

2006-03-16T20:16:00.000Z

If you go for a walk around here you quickly end up in the woods. At the moment nearly all the trees dont have any leaves because its winter...well the start of spring really but you wouldnt know it. There are a whole bunch of bridal paths actually used by horses leading through the forest(s), but i think the squirrels rule the area, you see them running or hopping or whatever they do all around the place. The picture shown is of a leaf from one of those prickly vines which are everywhere, brambles or something, anyway a lot of leaves have white patterns on em and this one nicely resembled Australia (even has Tasmania as a hole!!) so there you go.
ps - picture taken near the tree which was used for climbing by yours truly to view a bird nest

Claygate

2006-03-13T22:29:00.000Z

ok then, the tv show was quite funny (read previous post) but it was a bit more setup than spicks and specks.
Here's a car from just down the road, it's quite a rich area. lots of porches lotus's, bmws and masarati's etc...
i've been around the woods and even up a few trees, good climing in these here parts yeehaw!!
This next picture is what i found up the top of the local hill, decent little place, its all been redone tho, like most of the old buildings. Ruxley Towers

Pub

2006-03-13T21:02:00.000Z

Hello people, this is the pub i'm working at at the moment. here's a picture cause a show with the guy out of black books with the set up of spicks and specs just came on so i have to watch it!!!! Bill that's his name!

The London Eye

2006-03-11T00:02:00.000Z

Ok so, the eye is really quite massive and if you watch the 3rd austin powers movie you can see it with parliament house in the backgroud for a few seconds!! well i watched it the other day and said 'wow i've been there'!!! cool

The trip around is actually run by british airways and they say 'on your flight today you will be going up 137 metres into the sky blah blah blah'you get really good views from the very top parliament house looks cool with bigben when they switch on the lights (went up just before sundown). the whole trip takes 30 minutes so you've got a lot of time to check everthing out.
here's a couple of piccis for ya!

Hello All!

2006-03-10T23:49:00.000Z

Ok people, rikki set this up for me so guess i better use it! well i'm nearly one month into my stay already and have been around a bit and seen some weird things.
here's a little list of some of the stuff i've done so far, um

on the first weekend - london eye, trafalgar square, national art gallery, half the monopoly board, quite a few pubs, ministry of sound and eventually got to the pub

- i've been exploring around the area i'm in quite a bit, richville
- london bridge, tower of london, monument, bigben etc...
- all the way up until the cricket at the 'walkabout' aussie pub in wimbledon today to watch the cricket

now i guess i'll try to do a bit on all these thingoes

testing

2006-03-05T07:41:00.000Z

testing