Week 2 & 3 - Bus Tour

About 2 weeks ago I set off on a Top Deck tour of Europe to get a taste of a few places that I wanted to explore later on. Here is how it went:

Stop 1 - Paris

After setting off a 6am, I arrived in France via ferry. After thinking that the traveling was done I was sadly mistaken as we jumped on a bus for 6 hours to get us to the city of love, Paris. There was an option to go on a 4 hour bus tour around Paris, I decided that it was too much time on 4 wheels and decided to catch up with dirty morro and his lovely instead.  My liver didnt appreciate that move. We went out for dinner and samples some of the local drop followed by cocktails and even a tipple of port. Memory gone. What I do remember was standing in the middle of a street not knowing where I was for over an hour. I decided to go to a hotel so they could call me a cab. I jumped in the cab, he went about 1.5 ben grahams down the road and I was home. Dickhead.
The next day was a free day and I used it to stay in bed and nurse a hangover. I thought the group was coming back and I would join them then, but they didnt and when I realised that dinner was under the Eiffel Tower I decided to make my own way there. Not knowing where i was going, I got off the tube stop and wondered around aimlessly until out of know where I saw the bus randomly driving along. I got my skates on and tried to chase it down, terminator style. Lost it after the 1st corner but the effort was good so much so I slipped arse up in the middle of the road with heavy traffic starring me in the face. not cool. In short I found them and all was good. Paris 1- DawG 0

Stop 2 - Bordeaux
Awesome, another 8 hours on a bus. Luckily I had the whole back seat to myself. Even decided to take up reading (1st book since yr 12) and tucked right into it too. Fez's man Dick Kuklinstki is the Ice Man!
We went to a winery there (Bordeaux produced the most amount of wine in the world - bit of general knowledge for you) so I was swirling the glass of red and dunking my nose in it like I was bozza with a hard on. It was pretty good shit so I bought a couple of bottles (1 didnt make it, I will explain).

Stop 3 - Carcassone
Another day another 8 hours in a bus. This was a pretty small place but it was very cool. It was a town that resided within castle walls. Got a postcard and then went. sweet.

Stop 4 - Barcelona via Andorra
Guess what I did today?
After about 5 hours going through the Pyrenees, we reached one of the smallest countries in Europe, Andorra. We spent a couple of hours there and it was basically a good place to buy cheap piss. Give us your best bottle of gold watch thanks.

That night we arrived in Barcelona and here we would stay for 2 nights, so we decided to tuck into the piss and got home at about 4am. The next day was all about relaxing on the beach/pool. That night a couple of us scored some tickets to see FC Barcelona play at Camp Nou. It was pretty awesome! My man messi slotted one in the back of the net and the crowd went sick but it was soon very quiet when Real Mallorca equalised and the score didnt change from there. Good to see Messi play, he is a class above.

Stop 5 - Nice` & Monaco
Back to France along the south where the weather was great. Chilled out on the pebble beach (no I didnt get burnt) and went for a walk through the old town where there are heaps of markets etc.
That night we got on the bus and went down the road to another country, Monaco. This is the play ground for the rich and famous although there were no sightings. Went into the famous monte carlo casino but was horrified to find that there were no $2 fish and chips. Short story, I got an arse licking by not sticking to the rules on black jack (gee I was stiff). It brought up some old memories from the crown club, not all good ones too.























Stop 6 - Mt Rigi, Switzerland

This was by far the most picturesque place of the tour. Our hotel was half way up Mt Rigi and the view was sweet. Snow caped mountains, sun was out and were were above the clouds. The gondola ride to the bottom was awesome as you traveled mid air through the clouds. I guess you needed to be there.  We had a Euro trash party on the first night, was pretty shit but I looked super sweet in my I love Nice` t-shirt with a gay scarf.

Stop 7 -  Florence via Pisa, Italy
I was very excited to go to Italy, not for the historic monuments, but the pizza and pasta, and did I tuck in!  Florence was pretty cool and an Italian dude took us on a walking tour of the city, I basically got a heap of photos of statues and buildings but there is no chance I will even remember what they were.

Stop 8 - Rome, Italy
On the same day we travelled 4 hours to the most impressive city, Rome. Very cool historic sights on our 5 hour walking tour (I got lost again, dont put me on the amazing race). Pizza for dinner, fat bastard.

The next day I went on a tour of the Colosseum which was very impressive but that was the last thing I did on the tour. Oh and a bottle of red smashed in my bag just before heading home, awesome.


All in all it was a pretty good experience, although I dont think I could go any more that 2 weeks on that type of tour, too much bus time. I attempted to see how much facial hair I could grow but I ended up looking like my Aunties late chiwawa 'Whisky' who had eczema and had patchy hair. Actually it was probably worse than Spencer Pratts beard (if you were cool and watched the Hills Toffa, you would get that).
The people were pretty cool, they were mainly couples so it wasnt as loose as I thought it would. Oh and my roomie snored worse than me, so much so one night I couldnt move him so I slept in the bathroom.

Anyway, time to get a life, just had my first job interview with 20 random questions, ie: whats your favourite swear word? Whats the capital of Uruguay?  etc.
Also looking for a place to live but no luck as yet.

I will put some photos up when I get a chance (and my own computer).

Until then,
Grrrrrrr

Week 1 - Straight into it!

After a long 28 hour flight I made it to Munich, Germany at 7pm Friday night ready for 2 days of bodily carnage. Luckily I had booked a hotel and not a shitty hostel so I could get a good nights rest.
I was waiting for my partner in crime the one and only Jonathan 'Squizzy, Hank, T-bird' Taylor and not to mention his better half Ally.

I saw them get out of the cab knowing it was good to see some familiar faces, however the look on Ally's face did not seem too excited, the poor girl had left her handbag in the cab which contained her wallet, passport (with visa), phone, camera and 300 euro....pretty much everything you need to survive! Not a great start for her but we managed to get some sleep in anticipation of the next day.

Alarm(s) went off (squizzy made us all put the alarms on just incase they didnt work) and we were out of the hotel by 6:45am for our arrival at the opening of the 200th Oktoberfest. Lucky we did get up early as there was a line up of about 200 people at each tent ready to tuck into a lager. Clearly the tent we were lining up had a giant Australian magnet on it as every person seemed to have the same twang to their accent not to mention the wankers who thought it was cool to wear a fanatic's t-shirt... embarrassing! 

Anyway, not to let that ruin my day the doors finally opened at 8:30am and the mad stampede began to get a table, luckily squiz knew a few blokes who had a table and we were sorted.  Thinking, 'right lets tuck in' I was soon informed that beers were not served until midday and we had to wait for the mayor to come and give his blessing or some shit like that. After a long wait and a build up of anticipation the wenches were out and we were standing on our seats, stein in hand and singing foreign songs like drunken sailors.

Pretty much after that it was a blur, I remember getting home at 9pm, in bed nice and early and did it all again the next day. sweet.

After 2 solid days on the piss, I flew to the UK ready to sort my life out. Squiz and Ally have been kind enough to put me up whilst we organise a place and I get a job. Although, they must be sick of me sleeping in their room and waking them to my sweet harmonic sounds of snoring. Chin up.

Tube is very easy to get around, had that worked out within an hour and have been meeting with a few recruitment agencies as well as the bank to get an account. Luckily I had organised all of this prior to leaving or I would be in the shit.

On Saturday morning, we got up nice and early to watch the AFL grand final. Squiz made us set the alarms again and we raced off to a small pub that had about 15 of us in there so it was perfect. I swear if the pies had of lost squiz would have jumped off the London Eye, the man was a mess all game. He will have to do it again next week too.

Off tomorrow on my Topdeck tour where I first travel to Paris. I will be catching up with Dirty Morro otherwise known as Bozza and no doubt he will make me familiar with the local drop. From there we travel down south, through the wine country then onto Monaco, Bacelona (I have some pay back to do there), Swiss Alps and then finish off in Rome.

Until then,
Ruff.