Tourist Sites

We left Florence in the day and caught a train to Venice, arriving there in the afternoon. Dinty decided that Italy was not for him and decided that after Venice he would leave and go through Paris back to Amsterdam then fly home. It took a while to sort his tickets out, what with Italian train stations being thouroughly crap but eventaully we left the station. We stayed in a plaec called Allergio Henry or something, which charged us 23€ each for a night in a crappy room, but it served our perposes as was in central venice so we avoided having to pay waterbus fares etc which we would haev needed to do from the campsit we were aiming for. Plus, only staying one night meant that we wanted as much time in the city as possible.

That evening we went out with a German couple who we introduced to our hotel and we wandered the streets on Venice, enthralled by its beauty and the amazing canals. due to a lack of food and open supermakets (by this time it was the evening) we found a place that was NOT cheap to eat, but relative to the rest of Venice twas a bargin. We consumed chicken and bread, potatoes and chocolate cake and was DELICIOUS. then we strolled further, buying a bottle of coke and drinking it with our whiskey on a bridge.

"But fair Edwin!" I head you cry, "Why the splashing out on lovely food and drink (question mark)" And I say this. On this day my brother and Matt did get their AS Level results. Between the two of them they achieved 7 As and a B, incluing full marks in about 5 modules...

(pause for the gasps and excitable chatter to die down)

that is why we splashed out dear friends, that is why.

The next day we bid a sad farewell to Dinty, who had experienced very bad luck for a while by that point and we entered day-time Venice. the city is magical and unique, we walked for hours, never tiring of its charm. We found a hat shop too and replaced Matt°s lost hat with a newer...cooler one... Yes friends, Cap°n Matt is now the proud owner of his very own Tricorn pirate hat! And he looks RAVISHING.

Victory was Matt°s and we celebrated by drinking tea by the river, which was a dream of mine come true and it was WONDERFUL. I couldn°t remember being quite so content. Ah yes... I remember it now with a smile, a skip and a tiny dance.

There are BJILLIONS of Venican masks scattered throughout Venice, most of them are the mass produced type. However, spending a little while and looking properly I found a few that make the REAL DEAL right before your eyes. It was a brilliant experience to see the craftsmen at work and to see the proper quality of a real mask.

That evening we caught a night train for Vienna and we were exicted a the prospect of not having incliable seats for once!

After a wonderful stay in Roma we caught a train to Florence, hainvg been informed by an Irishman called Rori that the famousish horserace Il Palio was due to take plaec in nearby town Siena on the next day. We arrived in Florence at about 22 HUNDRED HOURS and walked in a direction we assumed would be helpful.

5 mins later we bumped into some Dutch guys at a bus stop who asked if we were going camping. "We are now!" came my thankful reply and eventuall ya bus turned up and bunged us at a lovely campsite which had no room for our tents. Luckily they offered us their own tents for a mere 2€ extra because they were sorry that they were full. yay! That night we hit the bar and drank some of the booze we had loaded up on in Barcelona. It was VERY MERRY INDEED and we went to bed.

Next day Will, Matt and I left for Siena, Dinty choosing to stay in Florence and chill out. Our first train was cancellced, our second turned out to be a bus and the third eventaully for us there. I bought 300g of gross plastic cheese and a lump of bread before we left and having consumed the inner soul of the bread I refilled it with cheese - a dish I cunningly named Cheese-bread which Matt trasnlated roughly into German Keise-brot (I canàt spell that) which sounded amusingly like Schizer-brot, so that is what I called it. It rocked and I was hungry NO MORE.

We strolled through the beautiul town of Siena, revelling in the atmosphere that gripped the town. EVERY SINGLE PERSON was there for the race, wearing their region°s colours. Basically each region enters and horse and then all the horses (over a dozen of them) are riden in a MANIC race around the town centre in which the only things that get mashed up worse that the horses are the riders. Seriously people, it is MADNESS. the first start was a false one, the second start involed a horse bucking the hurling the rider over it°s head, causing a cheer to go up from the opther regions and ambulances to come screaming through the town. We watched the race on a screen (there were too many people) and then heading home. A lovely day all in all.

That night Will hit the hay, I drank tea and Matt ate pasta. We went to bed happy and ready to head out the next day.

GAR I have not written this in ages, I have not been able to find an affordable internet cafe in bjillions fo years! But now I sort of have, though I am in Barcelona at the moment I will recall the events of the last 3 or 4 days. Then I´ll put pics up asap because I know they´re the only interesting part about most blogs.

K, Dinty and I packed up our stuff from the campsite and made our way to our hostel. It took quite a walk but we made it and paid for the first night we´d be staying there. Then we headed out with Denis, an American dude who we helped find the hostel. We went to the famous Bulldog, the first coffee shop and chilled out. After our time there we strolled through Amsterdam and spent a lovely few horus in Hill Street Blues, my personal favourite coffee shop in the city. Will and Matt called to say they´d missed their link train due to their initial train being late so we were left with a few hours to kill before they´d arrive about 21:30. Hence, what with it being happy hour I purchased a few snakebites and we kicked back and played cards.

There were some nice looking people on our left so I went to talk to them, making the excuse that my bro was arriving and I was wondering if they knew cool places to party that didn´t ID. They didn´t. So I left. I suck.

Eventually Will and Matt arrived in A´dam...

We rocked over to the central station to meet them. After shoving all their stuff in lockers we headed back in town and patrolled the red light district to ensure that no ugly hookers had infiltrated the otherwise stunning ranks of...merchandise. We met up with a bunch of Will and Matt´s friends and they went for Chinese. Twas cheap, but I was cheaper so I ordered a coke and laced it with JD from my hip flask. I then picked the remains of everybody else´s food. Safe.

The night wound on and we eventaully walked back to the hostel, it took proably over an hour but twas nice chilling with the lads.

The next day we had to get out of our room by 10 because we had to sign out and change rooms. At 11:30 I stumbled into reception to make my excuses and sign out for the lot of us. Eventually we made it out of the hostel and back to central station via the supermarket to stock up of shed loads of food. And by food I mean pancakes. 40 of them. And some oranges. We stopped by the phallic homomonument again, (we like that place) and ate some oranges whilst playing cards. I played some guitar, much to the amusement of a little boy who duely rocked out with me... Don´t read into that expression, it may have been Amsterdam but he was at max a quarter of the legal age.

When we got to the station we grabbed the boys´ backpacks and got a tram back to the hostel where we played drinking games with some RANCID wine. Matt claimed to not mind it though Will and I were nearly sick. Awful stuff. We then decided that we should be moving out since otherwise we´d miss happy hour at Hill Street Blues. However, since drinking in public is illegal in Amsterdam we needed a way to stay tipsy all the way to the coffee shops. Hence I invented what I call skank bread. Essentially I took our remaining wine and bread and poured the former over the latter, creating a soggy mess that we could legally consume outside. It didn´t go down too well with the lads, but we ate most of it anyway.

Back at Hill Street Blues we bought some snakebites and chilled out. Will decided that snakebite was horrible and so, feeling sorry for the poor girl I bought him a coke and lashed it full o´whiskey. Then we chilled BIG TIME with friends from home Fenton and Charle drinking snakebite and Earl Grey tea - a combination that I have since become slightly addicted to. The night went on and it was great, we played cards and drank, took pictures all stuff it was lovely.

At the bar I saw one of the girls who I had asked about "places that don´t ID" the day before. I greeted her (I held back my normal greeting of "Ho!" and seizing of the wrist in case she misunderstood and took offence) and we chatted a little. It transpired that she studying English at Leeds uni and had stayed in the same campus as me all year, 2 minutues down the road. Odd eh?

That night took us again the red light district and some other bulldog cafes including one full of people from Wacken festival where Will and Matt had come from. They were odd so we left.

We walked home again that night and crashed into bed, only waking half our other room mates. The next morning we decided that another 24€ night was out of our budget so we cancelled our final night and headed back into Amsterdam backpacks n all. It took a long time to walk to the station and we chilled at the homomunument to catch our breath. I checked my rail timetable and realised that the last possible train taht we could catch back to Paris if we were to get to Vire to see my parents as was the plan was leaving in 30 mins. Hence we got back on our feet and dashed to the station. The rest of the day went successfully, we caught all the trains that we needed and arrived back at the house 12 hours later.

Sadly however, Will dropped his phone on the train and when he leapt to retrieve it he fell out the train and was crushed to death. It was a sad end to an otherwise nice trip but we´ve promised not to let it put a damper on the overall feel of the travelling.

Hang on.

A tiny mistake.

It was in fact Will´s AVIATORS that feel out of the train and were lost forever.

Sorry about that.

Very careless of me.