Hi
Today I finished a week in Majorca with Siegfried and 4 of his friends. The entire week was spent in this order: Party all night, sleep all morning, beach what's left of the day. Fantastic. We did have one day where we hired a car and toured the island and another where we headed in Palma de Mallorca for some shopping and tourist activities but otherwise, party, sleep beach x 7 days.
My holiday travels now take me into Austria for a bit of hiking around the Alps, then it's off to Berlin for a couple of days, Hamburg for a couple of days then finally Stuttgart for a couple of days before heading home to arrive August 10th.
This therefore will be my last entry probably and so ends my adventures. Maybe i'll do one final instalment once i'm home but we'll see.
Until then!
Auf Wiedersehen
Dave
G'day
Well, I've now officially rolled off the project and have just spent the last 4 days with Mum. We left Stuttgart early Saturday morning and flew to Barcelona. There we got onto one of those hop on, hop off tourist buses and headed around Barca. Our first stop was Park Guell where we looked out over Barca. We then headed out in the direction of the site of the 1992 Olympic Games on Mont Juic.
We next took the funicular down to Las Ramblas and walked around there and through the Gothic Quarter back to our hotel for a regroup and to check in seeing as we were too early to check in earlier. After, we took the underground out to the Church of the Sacred Family. By this time it was getting late so we headed out for dinner.
The next morning we hired a Renault Meagane(despite asking for a VW Golf) and headed towards the Pyrenees and southern France. Our destination for today would be Toulouse. The drive through the Pyrenees was long and windy and slow in sections but the views were excellent. Somehow, we found the city centre in Toulouse, almost by accident and after smashing the car into the hotel car park wall, parked for the night and set out to look around Toulouse and get some dinner.
We got up the next day for a bit more looking around Toulouse before getting in the car and heading out in the general direction of Nimes. Along the way we stopped at a few smaller French villages along the canal regions including Castelnaudary and Carcassonne(which had a big walled city which we explored. More car troubles were to come when we got rear ended when I stopped at a red light. Thank god for plastic bumpers, you couldn't even tell we'd been hit. This time, I did manage to park the car at the hotel without more damage tho.
The next morning, we got up and looked around Nimes a little including a tour of the amphitheatre, which is a Colosseum type structure which was really good. We headed off next in the direction of Avignon but first stopped at an Aquifer just outside of Nimes. We passed through Avignon and headed for Marsailles. Let me give you the big hint, Marsailles is a hole, don't go there. We didn't even stop.
We then headed for Sete, a little seaside town just south of Montpellier. This was our destination for the night and dinner was had down by the canal that runs through the centre of town. Seafood of course.
Our final day, we drove back to Barca but only after we drove through another city, Bezier, which I was unable to navigate out of. After driving around for about 15 circles and 65 days, we finally found the way out of Bezier and headed to Barca. Our final car problem occurred on the way when a warning light on the dash came on and being a Spanish hire car, was in Spanish. I pulled over and called a colleague who spoke Spanish and informed me that it meant "Change Oil Quickly". A few more calls were made to Spanish 'help' lines, and dad and in the end, we went to the nearest Europecar who topped up the oil despite it not really needing it and drove on regardless.
We returned the car, got the guy to sign off saying there was no new damage and then casually walked away until we were out of eyesight then ran off thanking god we didn't have to pay extra for all our 'incidents'. That night we flew to Frankfurt but only for a base to fly from the next day.
Overnight at an airport hotel and then I flew off to Vienna to continue my holidays and Mum flew home to finish hers. We said our goodbyes and parted company.
I will endeavour to update this after Majorca but we'll see how we go.
Til then.
Stay safe, sorry about the epic post.
Dave
Hi
Apologies for the late entry. This weekend just been was officially my last weekend of travel for Project Rainbow as I'm finishing up work here on the 14th of July for good. Anyway, before I get sentimental I better tell you about it. Mum and I left Friday night for Lisbon, Portugal which was somewhat of a novelty given the Portugal team were coming to Stuttgart to battle it out in the World Cup for 3rd/4th place against Germany.
Our flight was quite long as we had to transit in Frankurt but we still got there and checked into the Meridien. Not much was done that night as we were tired and it was late so we crashed ready for an early start Saturday. Saturday morning we quickly realised that our hotel wasn't exactly central to the action but it wasn't that far either so we just strolled down the main road in the general direction of the centre of the "old town".
We found some Elevador de Santa Justa which took people sorta up one of the hills to the side of old town which also doubles as a good lookout. I think it was built in like 1901 or something but to be perfectly honest, I can't really remember. Anyway, after that, we headed down to the water where we caught a tram up the hill on the other side of old town to where the Castelo de Sao Jorge is. We wandered around there and took in the great views and general castle structure but there were really no rooms or anything as such to speak of to go in and look at.
We then headed back down the hill to catch another tram out toward the Monastery. We grabbed lunch here then wandered to the Monument to Discoveries and again, climbed that to grab the view down the water front and back over to the Monastery. We decided not to go to the Monestary today and headed back to the hotel for some research about where to go when I finally finish. We headed out again for dinner where we went to a restaurant part owned by actor John Malkovich, Bico do Sapato. We had a really good meal and some nice champagne.
Sunday we slept in a little after drinking too much Champagne the night before before heading to the Monastery for a look around. We were a little disappointed we couldn't explore more with the public area essentially restricted to a courtyard. There were several exhibitions though that we looked around. Given our flight was at four, we didn't actually have much time for too much else so we headed back and wandered back up the main pedestrian street again taking in some last minute shopping.
Flights home were uneventful and so ends the last of my work travels. I will update once more before I leave Stuttgart as i'm not taking my laptop on the next leg of my travels.
Hope all is well, see you soon enough!
Dave
Hi
Well, firstly, mum arrived in Germany on tuesday night as she decided to join me in my travels so i'm now travelling with her on weekends. Her choice for this weekend was to visit Edinburgh in Scotland so off we went on Friday evening.
We arrived uneventfully after a flight via Amsterdam and found the Sheraton where we were staying after a bus ride to the airport. Friday night we just stayed in to conserve engergy for tomorrow. Saturday we got up, hired a car, a pug 206 and headed for St Andrews. About 60 odd miles of motorway and we arrived. The weather was kind to us and we walked around and saw all the sights, grabbed lunch and also visited the famous "old course".
After taking in what St Andrews had to offer, we headed off to Perth, Scotland of course, the "other Perth". We also stopped by a castle somewhere I can't recall off the top of my head for the moment but they wanted 10 quid to go in (like $25) and i've seen heaps of castles in my last 5 months so we kept going.
We drove back to Edinburgh and returned the car in time to watch the end of the England world cup game. Sorry chaps, your time has come. Also for Brazil which is a surprise, loosing to the French. Anyway, we ordered a bottle of wine in the room and started on that before heading out to dinner at Est Est Est which was very nice. We returned to the room a little under the weather to retire for the night.
Sunday was a little gloomer than saturday with some scattered showers but muggy. We headed straight for the royal mile and started at the Edinburgh castle end. We spent most of the morning touring around that looking at all the prison cells, the museums and general castle grounds. We then headed down the royal mile in the direction of Holyrood Caslte which is at the other end. Unfortunately, the queen was due to visit the next day so the castle was closed to the public and we couldn't go in.
We then decided we were running out of time and headed back via the Grssmarkets to the hotel after quickly grabbing a bit to eat for lunch. We then headed back to the airport for our flight back to Stuttgart which was typically uneventful.
Portugal next weekend so stay tuned.
Cheers!
Dave
G'day
This weekend I finally managed to head to Barcelona. For as long as I can remember now on this project, I've been trying to get to Barcelona but was hindered by expensive flights, until now. Myself, Raja from London office and Sarah from Jersey office flew out Friday night and then met Sarah's friend Laura in Barcelona who flew down from Edinburgh. We parted ways at the airport due to the girls having different accommodation (booked separately and only found out by co-incidence that we were both going).
Raja and I found our hotel, which was very nice and located right by Placa Catalunya which is really in central Barcelona. We then headed out to Royal Square where we had dinner and then wandered down La Ramblas street to the harbour and took in the night atmosphere. We were both tried (I'd been up celebrating the aussie victory the night before) so we headed to bed early that night.
Saturday we got up and headed for Parc Guell for a bit of a look around and out over the city. It's a very funky park designed by some famous guy who's name escapes me at this point and it quite weird in all fairness. We then headed back to the Gothic Quarter by underground and wandered around there and grabbed a quick bite. After lunch we continued around the Gothic Quarter some more before heading to the beach.
It was a nice day so the beach was packed. Fortunately, being spain, it was packed with many very very good looking ladies. Eye candy everywhere. It was also nice in the water. We chilled here for a while before heading back and getting ready for dinner which was also by the beach at a restaurant called Agua. After dinner we met up with the girls and went to a few local bars before heading back to the beach area again to a nightclub called Catwalk. I nearly choked over the 18 euro cover charge, but once inside, partied the night away. Quite literally. I got to bed shortly after 7am.
Sunday was a little slow but I somehow dragged myself out of bed at 10:30 and headed for the Church of the Sacred Family. Was a little disappointed as it was under some heavy construction both inside and out with scaffolding everywhere. Would certainly have been impressive short of that. I then went back to hotel and woke Raja up around 1pm and headed up to the site of the Olympic Games and saw several arenas, the torch and generally walked around that area. We then headed out to an English bar to watch the England match and were thoroughly disappointed, despite England winning. Bad game.
After soccer we headed back to the hotel and prepared for the night. We'd booked a dinner and a show. The dinner was a buffet style with Spanish cuisine and the show as a traditional Flamenco event. The show was excellent with the exception of the stupid American lady next to me who insisted on calling out "ola" every bloody 3 minutes. After about 45mins, I eventually told her to shut up. After the show, we again met the girls for a recap of the previous nights events and a final drink to say bye to Laura who was going back to Edinburgh while the rest of us returned to Stuttgart.
Monday we all headed to airport and parted ways with Laura and once again, I find myself back in Stuttgart.
Hope everything is going well back home. Remember to e-mail me with news from Oz. Dying to hear what has been happening.
Ciao!
Dave
Hi All
Unless you live under a rock, you've probably realised that World Cup Soccer is on here in Germany. As I wrote in my Munich weekend update, I managed to scalp two tickets off some random aussies for the Australia v Croatia game. Well, today I went to said game.
UN-BE-LIEVABLE
What an atmosphere, what an experience, what a victory!! (well, it was a draw but enough to see us through to 2nd round). Although heavily outnumbered, the aussies were out in force and so too were the socceroos. Although we outplayed them and dominated most of the game, it was Croatia who scored first. We then equalised late in the 1st half to be 1-1 at halftime. Croatia again pulled away with a weak goal and it looked bad for us but a piece of Kewell magic and we tied. It was then an emotional rollercoaster as Croatia pushed heavily in the dying minutes but we held off, despite several bad calls by the referee who has subsequently been suspended.
When the final siren blew, the aussies erupted with the masses of croatians deadly silent. The aussie party continued well into the night and we joined the huddled masses in Schlossplatz, which is the main square here in Stuttgart and partied til well into the wee hours of the morning. Was truely a memorable event and one i'm not likely to forget.
Unfortunately, in our match against Italy on the 26th, we were robbed with a very bad call against us made with 8 seconds to go in the 2nd half. A penalty was rewarded and the winning goal scored. Robbed I tells ya. Anyway, good job Socceroos, your country is proud.
Hi
This weekend I headed to Munich by train to be there to soak up the atmosphere of the Aussie game scheduled for Sunday as well as to check out what all the fuss is about the beer halls of Munich.
I arrived Friday night and was a little disappointed to find that my hotel that was dubbed "in the city centre" was about a 20 min u-bahn ride out. Nevermind. Had a quiet friday in the hotel room doing some research about what to see and do, hit the bed early ready for a big saturday.
Got up Saturday and headed into town where I was temporarily lost due to a totally useless map provided by the hotel. After stumbling on the main pedestrian mall purely by accident, I proceded to wander around taking in the sights such as St Peters Curch, the old and new town halls, as well as the famous outdoor markets. This was made easier after a trip to the tourist info centre to obtain a better map.
The day continued with a trip to Munich's most famous beer hall, the Hofbrauhaus, which I would later stop to smaple their finest but more on that later. I continued on foot past the Bavarian Opera house, and down through Hofgarten towards the English gardens which are huge. I next took a u-bahn out to Allianz arena, where the world cup is being played but due to the World Cup, couldn't get within cooee of it. Nevermind. Then headed out to the Olympic Park which is the sight of the fan fest for world cup (place for those to go who don't have tickets) and also checked out the BMW museum which is in that direction.
On the train to Olympic Park, i ran into a group of aussies who I started chatting to and learnt that they are spare tickets to the Australia v Croatia game. I quickly offered to take them off their hands and needless to say, 500 euro later, i'm the proud owner of two world cup tickets for the game here in Stuttgart this Thursday. SO EXCITED!!
Anyway, didn't do much saturday night, watched more cup action then retired. My work colleague Sigi came up from Austria Sunday morning to meet me where we both prepared for the big game and headed into town. It was a madhouse with green and gold everywhere, not just australians, but also brazilians who also happen to wear the colours. Was amazing. We grabbed a traditional Bavarian lunch and then proceeded to the Hofbrauhaus, which is where the Australian Green and Gold Army were meeting before the game. What a madhouse. So much fun and the atmosphere was just indescribable.
After a "mass" we headed to Olympic Park which was simply overflowing with people. We managed to get a seat on the lawn and proceeded to watch Australia play very well but ultimately loose to Brazil, 2-0. This puts us into second for our group with a draw with Croatia sufficient to see us through to 2nd round. Fingers crossed. After that disappointment, we quietly headed back to the hotel to watch the 9pm game and get a sleep.
Monday morning we had to get up early to catch our train back to Stuttgart. Not much fun as i'm really not a morning person but you get that. Anyway, that's the end of this week.
Hope all is well back home.
Take it easy
GO AUSTRALIA!!
