Transportation

Woke up at 8 to say bye to Julia - my host for the past few days - and received calls from both Mum, Dad & Flis and Angela! yay!

After packing and dropping my bags back at Hauptbahnhof, I headed to Warschauer Strasse to visit the East Side Gallery, whcih was AWESOME! So much to see, and the Grafitti was really impressive. Some cool stencils too.

Unfortunately, that ended up being all I really did today, as I spent some time in the afternoon looking for the Stasi Museum (unsuccesfully, it looks like it no longer exists), and buying souvenirs. I did get to visit the Berlin Wall Memorial though, which was great, although somewhat more of the same.

And yet another dodgy exchange rate from Pounds to Czech Crowns... ah well, such is life.

However, today was destined to be good: I was meeting with Bec & Nicky from Sydney and we were all headed for Prague!!

I met Bec on the train and we had a great time catching up over a few beers in the restaurant car. We finally arrived in Prague 80mins late and proceeded to get hopelessly lost looking for the hostel! It was totally my fault, however I can't be totally to blame when there are two streets named 'Skolska' and 'Sokolska' within 2kms of each other.

So finally, at around 1am, both exhausted, we arrived at our hostel. It actually ended up being really close to the exit to the Metro, which made it all the more annoying!! So we knocked at the door and were greeted with a Czech couple who knew nothing of our reservation, names, or anything! Only after 10mins of exasperation on all our parts, and Bec asking for 'her Blonde friend' (to which they replied, 'Ah!! Blondino!!!') were we allowed in and found an equally exasperated Nicky.

The hostel (Centrum II) is VERY centrally located, but dodgy as. The shower curtain is, well, covered in a mix of brown and red substances that I don't even want to think about, and the beds squeak. The breakfast is OK, if very bland, but it's safe and the other guests are friendly. Nicky even scored (no pun intended) free accommodation in Naples through her new-found Italian friend Valentino.

We FINALLY got to sleep at 2am, exhausted and kinda over Prague.

PS: For photos of Berlin, click here.

Sooo tired, so I´ll keep this post brief.

I have just arrived in Paris, and spent the last 8 hours on various trains travelling south through the Netherlands and Belgium. The last 4 hours have been on a Thalys high-speed train in first class, however, so it hasn´t all been hard I´ve definitely been well-fed, what with all the sandwiches that DJ´s mum made for me and all the food on the Thalys.

Since arriving in Paris Chye and I went for a walk all around the area. Since he lives in such a central location, however, walking around ´the area´ encompasses Cathedrale de Notre Dame, the Pompidou Centre, Jardins du Luxemboug and the Pantheon. Not bad huh?!?

And to top it all off, Chye has offered me his bed whilst he sleeps on the floor! Thanks!!

Tris.

I'm really tired, so I'm going to keep this brief.

Today I travelled by bus and ferry from Glasgow to Kirkwall (on the Mainland of the Orkney Islands) to visit my grandparents!

I went by bus from Glasgow to Inverness (via Perth) - 3hrs+

Then had a 2hr stop over in Inverness, during which time I had lunch and took a City Sightseeing tour around the city. There really is nothing there aside from a fairly modern castle. In fact, the main industry of Inverness seems to be funerals. Rather morbid I know, but true! They spent most of the tour telling you about haggis and the kilt, not the sights of the city!!

(Postscript: I've been told that Inverness is the fastest growing city in Scotland. Hmm... it must have been VERY small beforehand!)

Then a 3hr bus trip north to John O'Groats - the most northerly point of the UK mainland.

Then a 45min ferry ride across the straits.

And finally at 7pm was picked up by my grandparents to be driven to their house (30mins away).

Phew.... long day, but very happy to be here! Just had an excellent meal and now I'm off to bed!

So here I am in Warrington!

It's taken a hell of a long time to get here - a flight from Singapore to Frankfurt (12hrs 40mins), a 5hr layover in Frankfurt airport (the most boring place on the planet!), a 90min flight from Frankfurt to Edinburgh, a 45min drive to Renfrew and finally a 3hr train to Warrington.

Phew!

The key points:

• European Maccas is EXPENSIVE! €5 for a McChicken and a Coke! Argh! I better get used to it

• The shorter flights are the best for meeting people on - I sat next two two Kiwis on their way to the World Canoe Polo Championships. Great people and I wish (I'm going to be shot for saying this) them the best of luck! Apparently the Aussie males and the NZ females will win. That seems fair.

• Relatives get along instantly if theyve met briefly before. It takes a bit longer if you've never met - but it does happen.

• Scotland can be 30 degrees! It just doesn't happen often.

• European train stations are old and generally huge. They also have great architecture. Warrington Bank Quay does not follow this general rule. Trains in the UK also randomly stop for no apparent reason. However, having spoken to Andrea who works for National Rail it now seems fairly reasonable. Trains can derail surprisingly easy seemingly.
  

And now I'm off to bed!