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Wireless festival in London!
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And I thought I’d seen it all…
Why did no one warn me Hong Kong was such an insane place?! Helen and I decided it’d be a great idea to split up at the airport; she’d take the luggage to the hotel by (inaccessible) coach and I’d walk there.
Yeah, bad idea.
After a full day in London and a fairly sleep-less 12 hour flight over here, each going our own separate ways in an utterly chaotic city was, in hindsight, an absurd thing to do. But nonetheless we have been reunited, safe and sound. In a hotel room without handrails or an accessible shower. But that’s hardly anything new ;)
I don’t think there’s been a single time on this trip I’ve been less out of my comfort zone than I was making the hour-long walk through downtown Kowloon to the hotel. It’s really opened my eyes to a whole new side of the world, and I’ll probably be a touch more forgiving towards the eastern migrants back home when I see them stumbling through the streets of downtown Auckland, map in hand. Seriously though, what a place. Madness.
Pictures soon, I’m sure.
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Another freakin’ puncture!
In London. Awesome.
ps. Les Mis was INCREDIBLE!
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Internet on a train?!
Would you believe I’m posting this at 300km/h en route to Brussels? Staggering. Anyway, apologies for the scant updates of late. I put it down to two things:
1) We’ve having way too much fun, and 2) The scoundrels in Amsterdam wanted to charge us 10euro a day to use the in-room broadband. Robbery! So we refused, and spent the money on dutch apple pie. Fair trade, I reckon.
We’re on our way to Brussels for a one-night stopover, and then back to London for a further 5 nights. The odd thing about this portion of the trip is that it’s beginning to dawn on us that there isn’t much time left before we head on our final flight home. Not getting too down about it or anything; on the contrary, I’ve been filled with bright ideas for the next 6 months and can’t wait to hit the ground running. But nonetheless, bar a few exciting events (namely the Wireless Festival and Les Mis), it’s almost hometime! Hopefully we can get wireless at the place we’re staying in Brussels, and post some pictures.
By the way, Amsterdam was out of this world. I mean that literally. Girls in the windows selling their wares 24/7. Weed everywhere. Canals. Football, orange flags, pie. Everywhere. Loved it but, wow. Strange. Until next time x
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We are still alive!
Just have no Internet. Happy and in Amsterdam :)
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Berlin! Wow.
What a day. Almost weren’t allowed to board our (final, thank god) easyJet flight because they tried to tell me my wheelchair was too heavy?! WHAT?! Anyway. More on that later. We are all settled in to our comfy abode on Rosenthaler Platz, and very very happy.
I must admit, there’s something hauntingly beautiful about Berlin. You can tell it’s got history, but not the kind we’ve spent the last week perusing among the rubble of Rome and Athens. Perhaps it’s because I’ve got a better grip of German history than I do of ancient times, I’m not sure, but I can tell I’m really going to lap every part of the next 7 nights up.
Whilst we were waiting at the Schönefeld station for the train into town (an empty, deserted old place), a crackling voice came over the loudspeaker and barked:
Achtung! …. <German language I didn’t understand>
…and it gave me the shivers! Not in a bad way, but just in a way that made everything I’ve read, learnt, watched on German history really hit home in some strange way.
It’s going to be interesting.
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Wow, the dogs here understand Greek!
– American tourist -
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We’re in Athens!!
I admit, there was a period of time yesterday where I wasn’t sure it was going to happen. We ended up catching a taxi (it cost us an absurd 120 euro, but it was the cheapest at such short notice, and apparently pickup of 5am adds a 20% surcharge), and the easyJet people at both ends of the flight were remarkably more helpful than our last journey.
Athens is easily the most surreal city we’ve visited so far. Making the journey from the Airport by bus, we were surrounded by not only language we didn’t understand, but characters, too! We’ve dubbed this one - Π - “the doorway”, and were most bemused by this one: ξ. Helen reckons the letters look like their English counterparts, but I… well, I’m not so sure.
Anyway, just thought I’d log on real quick and appease any worries you might’ve had over our wee predicament from yesterday. I really hope we don’t suffer a repeat puncture though, I’m not sure I could handle another saga like that. Neither could my credit card. Ouch.
PS - the picture above is the cute little welcome bowl we found in our Athens hotel room. A nice way to finish up quite a grueling 48 hours, really. Love to you all from Helen and I x
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I’m being fixed!!
