settling in

sorry about the lack of posts recently, it's been rather hectic since i arrived in paris!

shopping for homewares, groceries and a few items of clothing has been lots of fun. i've tried to explore a little bit more of paris each day i've been here - walking about 10km per day! it is such a beautiful place, i still can't believe i'm lucky enough to be living here for the next 4 months! 

orientation for university has begun, the information gets a tad overwhelming, but i've met some really lovely people. there's just so much to do - have to get my residency permit, bicycle pass, metro pass, new mobile number, bank account, meet my agency representative, and arrange to get my belongings delivered! plus i find anywhere to learn french at times that would suit me, so going to have to utilise audio lessons i think, oops! oh well, the joys of being here! once i'm sorted out i know i'm going to have an amazing time here. so excited for everything to come!

welcome to paris!

after a night spent at a really terrible hostel, i have finally checked into my apartment for the next 4 months! it's really nice and certainly big enough for one person to live in, just need to go on a big shop for essential supplies like chux, toilet paper, teabags, etc.

will post a proper update once i'm properly settled in and have had a better chance to explore paris. 

here i come paris!

well, after 8 weeks of europe i'm finally on the very last travel leg before i reach paris. it's been a tumultuous experience, filled with incredible places, people and shenanigans! 

the final stop on my journey was not really a touristy stop, i came here simply to hang out with issy. after a relaxing 4 days of movies and shopping - with the exception of 5am wake ups - i'm ready and raring to hit the ground running in the most romantic city in the world! (don't worry dad, that was completely unrelated to boys). thank you issy and titus for a really nice ending to my adventures.

this trip has most definitely been one of the most challenging experiences of my life. i spent 5 weeks in total travelling alone, a seriously daunting prospect when i set off. now i'm very happy that i braved it, as over this time i have constantly been thrust far beyond my comfort zone. never before would i have invited random people to eat dinner with me (let alone been comfortable eating at a restaurant solo), approached strangers for directions, navigated my way through cities without a map, and most of all, i would never have planned my trip as i went. my initial idea to follow croatia with italy and spain went out the window, and i'm glad it did! instead i have been to places in eastern europe i never would have gone alone and met some absolutely incredible people at each stop along the way. i'm so glad i've had such an incredible opportunity!

in the mother country to visit the queen

yesterday i flew from brussels to london to stay with issy for a few nights. she met me at heathrow and then we went home for a great evening catching up in her grandfather's very impressive house in kew gardens. 

today we took the tube into london proper to go shopping in oxford street. so surreal! red buses everywhere, black cabs, historic buildings and thousands of people! 

don't worry, i didn't even buy much! off to a house party tonight and then tomorrow i'm seeing sarah and david!

sorry for the delay in posts... i'm in belgium!

so after my wonderful travels through eastern europe, i have finally hit the west. the cheapest flight out of montenegro was to brussels, so here i am! 

after arriving at brussels charleroi airport i caught a shuttle bus into the city proper - hate it how they trap you into paying a fortune for airport transportation, in this case 17€ for an hour bus! the bus dropped us at the central station, from which i had a 25 minute walk to my hostel. the first kilometre or so i wandered through a giant fair, it was incredible, so many more rides and stalls than anything we have back home! immediately beyond the fair was a seedier patch of town, which i was incredibly uncomfortable walking through at 9pm with men jeering constantly at me. anyhow, thankfully made it to my hostel alive - and it was unlike anything i've stayed in before! the hostel has 700 beds!!! 

yesterday i booked myself onto an old people tour of ghent and bruges. the tour was conducted in 4 languages - english, spanish, german and french - suffice to say when the elderly gentleman beside me suggested ditching the group at each stop i eagerly agreed!

armed with alan's guidebook and its mapped routes of each city, we had a wonderful time exploring flanders. could most definitely have spent the whole day in bruges, or possibly more, but we packed our time and managed to see all the main sites in each city. just for you mum - had an amazing lunch, the most delicate scallops i've ever had with tomato salsa, serrano ham and mozzarella, accompanied by a bottle of french white wine - yum!!

last night there were two lovely new people staying in my dorm room, sam and her boyfriend chris from toronto. after chris stole my bed (totally the hostel's mistake, but caused a lot of confusion) we buddied up and went out to a famous beer chain, delirium. tried the best beer in the world, a cherry beer, a cactus beer and lots of others. we also went across the road to do shots of absinthe, so much fun!!

the whole evening sam and i were on the hunt for a signature pink elephant glass, which we finally found and smuggled out of the bar! a highly amusing way to end our night! 

this morning i once again met up with alan to explore brussels.

saw all of the main attractions including the underwhelming mannekin pis, the gorgeous town hall and went on a tour of the royal palace. one thing i'd forgotten about the elderly is their love for museums and art galleries - we spent the most tedious hour and a half admiring religious paintings from the 14th-17th centuries. kill me!!

yep, my head covers the famous penis

anyhow, now off to buy some famous belgian chocolate to give issy's grandpa as a thanks for letting me stay - so excited, i'm going to london tomorrow to spend 4 nights with issy before i start uni in paris. cannot wait!!!

obese men can do handsprings!

as the title of this post would suggest, my source of amazement for the day was witnessing a man with an extremely large belly casually handspring off the dock into the ocean. a totally unexpected and surprisingly graceful event to end my trip to st. nicolo island.

spent a wonderful day sunbaking, swimming and people watching at this gorgeous island. arrived at 11am after being adopted by the ferrymen who insisted i didn't pay after tge failure of yesterday. so instead when i got to the island i paid an exorbitant price for a lounge (they were all 10€) but thankfully managed to snare one in the best spot on the island for the day! 

      my spot was the leftmost lounge

so of course had to stay until at least 4 to get my money's worth and my tan has definitely been revitalised as a result! so after a really nice and relaxing day i have no idea what's on for the night and don't really care!

just a little rain!

this afternoon's summer storm had a rather spectacular resurgence at 4pm. within 15 minutes the streets were ankle deep with water as the biggest raindrops i've ever seen bucketed down - it was awesome!!!

had a great time trying to get home with three guys from the uk, all of us struggling to keep our valuables dry over the 3km walk. so much fun sprinting between every tree and leaky umbrella! suffice to say, the tophill superclub is closed tonight as the open-air arena is flooded. fingers crossed it will be open tomorrow night for a sticky beak, but for now a quiet night is in order for me! 

the new monaco

budva is definitely my sort of place! beautiful beaches, lots of restaurants, great people watching, parties and plenty of shops! despite being incredibly touristy it has a really nice atmosphere and there is plenty to do.

yesterday as soon as i arrived i befriended an american girl, laura, who i then spent the day with. she definitely knew more about this place than me, so was more than happy for her to take the lead. so we caught a bus to trsteno beach, frequented predominantly by locals and boasting the best sand in the budva riviera. it was awesome and totally not what we expected!

the beach itself was only 100m long, so to accommodate more people massive pontoon platforms had been built on either side of the bay. the water was crystal clear, not a single person spoke english and music pumped all afternoon. managed to order fries and fruit salad for lunch... well fries and whipped cream with some fruit. still yum though! 

the big shock of the day came when one of the cocktail bars turned into a foam party - the amount of foam spilling into the water was insane!!

from the beach we came back to the hostel and went to a seafood place for dinner recommended by the guy on reception. was kinda average, but expected in such a touristy place when paying minimal prices. didn't go out last night as had a big day planned for today...

this morning laura and i were on our way to sveti stefan at 9am. an island resort frequented by the rich and famous, we were unable to cross to sveti stefan itself. instead we took photos and contented ourselves lying on the beach next to the exclusive hotel sun lounges. it was pretty gorgeous and i was so excited to have seen it! 

this afternoon we planned to go to st. nicola island, but unfortunately the weather was against us! we had just boarded our boat when a thunderstorm rolled in, so instead we made a round trip to the island huddled next to the captain and i'm going to go back tomorrow free of charge!

laura is leaving tonight, but have already promised some irish guys in my room to go to the famed tophill nightclub with them tonight... we'll see how it goes!!! 

dubrovnik's unkempt little sister

i don't know whether it was the nostalgia of passing through dubrovnik yesterday, but kotor in montenegro seems pretty similar.

it's gorgeous but really badly maintained, despite being a unesco world heritage site. the difference can probably be attributed to less tourist money coming in, but in a way the absence of dubrovnik's crushing crowds makes kotor the nicer of the two medieval towns. plus it's free to walk the towering walls here! had a really nice time exploring for the afternoon. on a side note - i've been really shocked by the number of abandoned and derelict buildings here, it was expected in bosnia but i thought montenegro had broken away from yugoslavia relatively easily. odd. 

was staying in such a cool hostel too, and everyone in my dorm was really lovely. it looked like something out of harry potter - complete with broomsticks! 

nonetheless onto budva today, the party destination of montenegro! 

travelling through bosnia

apologies for the lack of posts, the internet at my previous hostel was distinctly lacking. 

after an 8 hour stopover in zagreb and a seriously turbulent flight on a tiny aircraft, i arrived in sarajevo and was met by the hostel transfer. got in and had a catch up chat with ken and amer before bed.

the following day ken and i explored sarajevo while amer was with his family. first we went to the world war one museum, outside of which archduke franz ferdinand was assassinated - thereby beginning the war. it was quite fascinating to learn about, though i was quite proud to realise i knew most of the story. 

after wandering around the old town and seeing all the main tourist sites we caught a cab to the tunnel of hope. this 800m long tunnel was built during the sarajevo siege and was the only means of getting supplies into the 300,000 bosnians entrapped by serbian forces. 

we spent the early evening chilling at the hostel watching gladiator before heading out to dinner. feeling conspicuous due to ramadan, we didn't eat until after dark, and even then struggled to find a restaurant where people were consuming more than drinks and ice cream. anyway, was a nice night and we both had cevapi for dinner - a local minced meat dish served with pita and onions.

today i caught a bus to mostar, a smaller town in bosnia famed for a 30 metre high bridge off which bosnian boys traditionally jump to become men. suffice to say i didn't jump off the bridge, but it was a pretty place to stop and the scenery on the way was incredible!!

travelling to kotor in montenegro tomorrow. quite looking forward to a few days relaxing on a beach when i get to budva!

off to bosniaaaa

the jaeger train last night definitely lived up to expectations. 240 bombs all lined up ready to be knocked over like dominoes. so speccy!!

it was such a fun way to end my stay in budapest. going to miss all the incredible staff at carpe noctem, they made the last 4 nights unforgettable!!!

i'm off to sarajevo today. going to be a long day of travels, but i'm so excited to get there!

finally seeing budapest

after a rather late start this morning we accompanied some of the carpe staff to a farmers market at szimpla. 

it was really lovely, we wandered around the stalls and then sat drinking fresh lemonade and eating spaghetti bolognese. great final lunch in budapest!

took a solo gander through budapest to finally see all the sites. it's such a gorgeous city, full of beautiful buildings and narrow winding streets. had a wonderful time exploring before heading back to the hostel to give steph and daniel the caramel magnums they've been craving for weeks! 

now we're off to one of the sister hostels for the jaeger train! so excited to see it!! 

a bath party you say?!

well after 6 days of generally feeling pretty terrible, my body somehow decided that the migraines were over and it was time to party. just in time for cinetrip woooo!! 

so party i did. covered ourselves in glitter and decked out in matching carpe tops we set out for the biggest bath party of the year!

 the transformation of the baths for the sparty was incredible. neon lights, lazers, smoke machines, awesome music, alcohol and hot water. a mental and totally out of this world experience, so happy that i made it!!! 

had to have a cheeky maccas stop on the way home at 4am. perfect end to an awesome night! 

shout out to dancing dave - congrats on the job! :P

migraines suck

yesterday we went to the gellert baths and i lasted all of an hour before catching a cab back to the hostel. advil attempted to revive me, but unfortunately only lasted until 9.45 before heading home. was shattered i missed most of the ruin bars.

today once again feeling pretty terrible, really need to try and pull it together for the bath party tonight but not feeling confident. shattered this happened in budapest! 

česky krumlov

so annoying! just found this from last sunday....

yesterday i woke up at the crack of dawn to go to česky krumlov to do their infamous river pub crawl. 

after a 3 hour bus i arrived at my hostel, on to be told that the pub crawl likely wouldn't run as you need a minimum 6 people and it wasn't a busabout day to do it. so that plan went out the window! nevertheless, i'm glad i made the trip down there as česky krumlov was gorgeous and totally laid back.

went for a wander around the town and marvelled at the buildings and cobblestone streets. was quite shocked to realise much of the embellishment on the buildings was painted on - even on the castle! 

another shock to the system was the brown bear enclosures in the old moat of the castle. later on john and i drunkenly christened them paddington and humphrey. 

had a really lovely trip down there, hung out with some awesome people doing busabout. would definitely recommend going, but make sure the rafting is on that day, or you're in a group, because it is meant to be awesome fun!

a booze cruise? i think i'll do two!

my last night in prague was hawaiian night. my day of sleeping and a couple of red bulls rejuvenated me enough to stay out until 4am. 

to begin the evening, the wonderful madhouse staff put on a dinner of pork belly, pineapple salsa and potato salad, as well as tropical punch, for roughly $4 each! so yum! from the hostel we headed off to a bar for two-for-one drinks before boarding the boat for our booze cruise. it was ridiculously packed and boiling hot, but had so so much fun having dance-offs and going crazy. from the boat we went to a 4 storey club to dubstep in the basement. it was revolting! felt like you were showering in sweat, but pretending to be into the music and exaggeratedly dubstep dancing was awesome!

following that massive night, i had to get up at 6am to catch a bus to budapest. thankfully it was another student agencies bus - so i watched movies the entire way! i was totally unprepared for my arrival in budapest, so relied on the instructions of a lady in the train station. worked really well for me - i ended up at the wrong station, having to backtrack and eventually almost 2 hours later arrived at the hostel.

slept until steph and daniel arrived, then slept some more until they finished making dinner. so yum! then it was off to start booze cruise number 2! and included in the ticket price was a bottle of champagne - so dangerous!! tasted revolting but down it went. didn't stay up too late, but wow my head hurts this morning!

off to the thermal baths today to sweat all the toxins out of my body in preparation for another 3 big nights with these two awesome people!