OVER AND OUT (for now)

hii guyys! so i think is going to be my last travel blog for my trip which is weird! sadly its going to probably be poorly written and shit because i havent slept since 5am sunday morning and its now 6.30 monday night (plus 10 hours for time difference ) so its safe to say i am officially rooted.

okay so friday we got up pretty late and had this traditional german breakfast which albert prepared especially.. german beer, huge pretzels, white sausage and sweet mustard. really nice actually.s at around talking and eating until about midday then michael and i headed for the snow. got this jhuge ass chairlift up and over the mountain with a gorgeous view of the alps on one side and all the houses and villages of bavaria on the other. it was friken cold as, i looked like a marshmellow man and kept falling over but we still had lot of fun. slipped over all these mountains and sat up at this high peak in the snow overlooking the mountains. so relaxing and beautiful. okay i have to hurry cause we have to board now,. but we went down the mountain later amnd i tried snowboarding which was funny. stuck to the baby slope with all the posh european kids who kicked my ass. but according to michael i didnt do too bad but i think he might have just been being nice. it was really fun though!! that night we had another nice dinner with albert and inge and sat around drinking talking and listening to music. the next morning we slept in then left iんthe afteroon. okay will continue this once im back in aus cause i have to leave! cyaaa down under bitches

okay so im back in queensland now whoo but will quickly finish off the last few travel days of my trip although it seems quite pointless now i know i will regret it later. so that afternoon we drove back to michaels parents place and had a nice dinner with them they were very lovely people too:). went to bed quite late and got up about 4 hours later to drive to frankfurt station to get the train. I had a really great time in germany and really loved my few unexpected days there. so anyway got on the frankfurt train and started actually getting weird feelings about it. I regularly use the 'white light' method over this trip when I have been travelling and I found it really hard to visualise the white light on this specific train (for those not aware of the light white method its basically this hippy visualisation method where u picture a white light surrounding yourself or the plane/car/person and it helps protect you/keep u safe etc) i find it comforting especially on dangerous tro-tro rides but yes there is likelyhood its a load of bullshit too:P but anyway about 15 mintues into the jounrey the train kept stopping intermittenatantly and eventually after sitting there for half an hour they were like sorry gusy we are heading back to frankfurt youll have to get another train. i was shitting myself at this stage because I had to be on a train at 3 int he afternoon and I wasnt sure whether id make it on time but anyway there was no fighting it and we went back to the station waited another 20 minutes then got on another train. met a nice dutch singer on the way there and the toverhead train dirver provided comical relief. when we were nearing amsterdam me and the singer lady checked out the timetable and realised i would be cutting it very thin to even get on my plane. so i ran up to the conducter and told him my probelm. then the next stop he directed me to get off the train and then me and this albanian guy (who also needed to catch a plane at 3) qwere raced through a station to a shuttle bus which they held for us so we could get to the airport on time! it was very good and I made it there with a bit of time to spare!! fuck it was an adventure though. anyway amsterdam- japan flight was probably the worst ive had. couldnt sleep at all but met a nice guy from kenya who now lives in australia and was catching the same connecting flight as me so we hung out at the airport and got lost and confused together which was good. had ten hours at the airport. went to a japense resteraunt there and ordered some weird food. i was going to ujust get maccas because i was by myself and not feeling that daring but i was like no vanessa dont be a comfort zone loser bitch. so i went o the resteraunt by myself and mastered the chopsticks like a pro which made me feel kool hahaha ahh...anyway slept on the couchesd with wyclef the kenyan and got the quantas flight down to sydney. sat n4ext to some kool uk people but absically slept the whole flight because I hadnt slept in like 48 hours or close to it and literally could not even see properly i was so tired. anyyywaayyyy back in australia now. had to pay 60 bucks to customs to get my drum gamma rayed or something weird so hopefully that goes okay but otherwise things went very smoothly..oh and one of the german beers i bought for my dad smashed in ym abckpack so now my entire bag smells of german beer..mmm hahah but yeah man im back in australia. i am so happy and motived for this year and really excited about what may come along. what an amazing trip ive had. i have learnt so much and am just so happy i did it. i was meant to go and am mkoving up and onwards. thanks for reading see you in melbourne in a week guys!!

ýay for snowy alps

sooo thought id write a new blog seeing as Im in a new country. the train was really beautiful and I slept pretty soundly. missed one of my trains talking to this random german guy about drumming but thankfully found another one going in the same direction and made it to frankfurt at the right time which was good. michael my friend who I met one time when he was travelling in australia picked me up from the station and we drove down south to his parents place. stopped along the way at this old school village and had a drink at this little medievil bar which was cute. its pretty damn cold here but i had a great feeling about germany as soon as I got here. really like it. so anyway drove to michaels parents village and met them they were bloody lovely people and leant me shitloads of really warm clothes and cooked me a lovely dinner and sent us on our way. they are a bit sick at the moment so we decided to stay further down south with michaels aunty and her boyfriend. took quite a while to get there because they live literally right on the austrian border at the foothills of the alps. there is fresh snow everywhere and it is AMAZING! the couple are blooddy loaded so the house is friken beautiful and I was just like flabbergasted and still am about where I am right now. got their quite late and ended up having a really nice hot bath listening to a cd of a melbourne band that michael had and reading a book. it was really nice and I slept well. the next morning Albert Michael and I had a nice breakfast and chat and we all went for a walk into the neary village which is hardcore bavarian traditionalist-ville and they still wear the old school outfits on sundays for church and live in these beautiful houses which are hundreds and hundreds of years old. it was like medievil times or something and pretty trippy. its so kool to see snow everywhere and I love it. the alps are amazing and I just felt like a little kid. michael and I drove up to the ski area but the line for the liftwas too long at that time so we just had some lunch (théy have a desert here called germknodel like germ kanoodle) which i thought was rather funny. all the people there were really nice there was a good vibe about the place and everone was having a good time. i had curried sausage with fries and apple strudel and we also had this stuff called mulled wine which they all drink at christmas its like heated up red wine with really nice fruit and cinammon spices- so good! anyway after tzhat we mucked around in the snow which was fun then drove through the mountains stopping along the way to take photos, explore and just soak in the scenary. it was beautiful. Came home this evening and had a lovely stir fry type dinner wit wine, whiskey chocolate and biscuits. had good conversation and a fun time. i really like both Inge and Albert and am so lucky they have welcomed me into their home like they have:) tommrow we are going to go up the lift to the top of the mountain to see the rest of the alps and i am going to give snowboarding a go..should be a laugh with my coordination. anyway its late as and I must be off to bed. GOODNIGHT

Foot Loose and Maggot Free

Whatss up! So I havent written in aggges so I will copy an email I sent to someone and fill in (and delete:P) little bits here and there.

On Monday the last day of the year 2007 me and this funny welsh guy richard went shopping to a market to get some clothes. i have had nothing to wear here and have been wearing the same clothes the whole time and freezing and smelling my ass off. ! i really needed pants and boots but the whole excercise turned into this big "lets find vanessa an awesome outfit for new years" which was a friken ordeal. ended up getting a kool outfit but no pants which was stupid. anyway that took like bloody 4 or 5 hours and we hadnt eaten all day and were pretty delerious by the time it was all over. came back to the hostel at about 5.;30 and i tried on my clothes and guess what ? the guy had given me the wrong size boots and they were way too small!. it was quite ironic and funny too though (but mostly just friken annoying) because we had spent such a long time trying to find this sweet outfit and then I had to bloody wear it with socks and thongs. it was like the universe was throwing it back in my face like "vanessa your not kool stop trying!" haha which i did see the amusing side of. . anyway new years had arrived so there was no time for worrying about small boots and terrible fashion statements and I ended up getting quite drunk at the hostel with the people who were there. It was an alright night but I really just wanted a good friend there rather than a bunch of rnadoms who I only half knew and half knew me., definitely saw the downside of travelling alone that night. it was like i feel really comfortable talking with whoever here and learning about them but ive realised how important really good friends are and I am so much more appreciative of the people I truly care about now..not that I wasnt before but even more. Met a funky lady named Michelle who I had actually noticed at the market earlier that day. when i had seen her I said to richard "dont you just love those people who just dress so out there and look great" then that night she walked into the hostel and I recognised her so decided i had to meet her personally!. she was really kool 40 year old art teacher, very tall with two dredlock buns on the side of her head, adorned in crazy jewllery and clothes but just a really down to earth woman and I liked her a lot. anyway at about 10.30pm I decided I didnt want to hang around the hostel all night so me, michelle and a mexican guy edwardo decided to go out and check out one of the squares so off we went to a square near the hostel called Leidsplein (or more fondly known as led zeppelin) it was pretty crap actually and we were wandering in and out of shity places which were too full and just not really landing anywhere. we were out for like half an hour and fireworks and crackers were going off everywhere already (this place is like a warzone on new years and they started going off at like 1pm in the afternoon!) but then we just admitted defeat and decided to go back to the hostel. midnight was spent out the front of the hostel with a big group of people fireworks going off everywhere and champagne bottles being shaken up./ it was a fun environment but I was just sort of sad deep down and felt quite homesick or "people sick" and proceeded to try and cover that up by getting very drunk and stoned and passing out at probably about 1.30am next to someone elses vommit. now that i have written all this down I realise that it was a bloody terrible new years :P but you sort of have to take it with a grain of salt. its like one night of your life which only you can decide how much significance you let it have and if u put it into the big picture it doesnt mean shit so its all good! hooked up with this intense eyes psychic belgium guy in the toilet of our dorm too which was at first quite exciting then a bit of a let down...interesting dude though. so yea the next day I woke up in all my clothes and went for a wander around town with this new zealand chick rebecca. shes a real character and we got along really well. decided to get some space cookies becausae shes a massive fan and Id never had any so we bought these big ass brownies and some sundaes from mcdonalds and went back to the hostel for consumption. my foot had really started paining me again so after my brownie I decided to take my shoe off and check it out. it was this friken , swollen massive white boil with a black dot on it! ahhh feral. So i went upstairs with some hot salty water and started to bathe it. these brazillian chicks saw it and reminded me of those flys which lay their eggs in open wounds and I realised my friend from ghana who had that happen to her described her boil as looking exactly the same! Ah i was a tad off my face at this stage so I was like shit man I have maggots in my foot! My friend from ghana had gotten her boyfriend to pop hers when she found it and these little egg sacks had popped out! so I decided Id do that to get them the hell out of there. The brazillian chicks were like "no no you can pop it the wrong way and the eggs will implode in your foot you better go to the hospital!" So I stumbled down the stairs informed rebecca that I had maggots in my foot and we ventured into the night heading for the emergency room. It was a pretty funny few hours consisting of choral singers, terribly written medical forms and bum tasting lollypops but we had a funny time and turns out I didnt have maggots!! the doctors thought it was that aswell but when they popped it there was nothing there so I was left with a very sore foot, a sore brain but no new species living under my skin. hooray! due to the pain i could not walk for shit on the way back though and looked like a disabled crab trying to manoerve my leg so walking wouldnt hurt so much. we were laughing so much and I received many strange looks from passers by who obviously thought I was off my rocker staggering along the road. finally got home though and "celebrated" the fáct that I was maggot free. I was still extremely sore however and after our little celebration still had to make it up two very very steep flights of stairs to get to bed. trying to coordinate these movements so it didnt hurt at the time seemed like the most difficult thing ever. I was literally clinging off the side of the railing trying to pull myself up the stairs land it felt like i was climbing a verysteep cliff face with no body control whatsoever. rebecca and I were giggling our asses off about how ridiculous I looked but we finally made it up there and we were very proud. we visited to richards room to see if we could borrow his phone to use for an alarm clock the next morning so I wouldnt miss my train and the weirdo would not give it to us! it was clear (and he admitted it) that he was embaressed about its contents and we suspected he had some serious disturbing fetishes and pretty whack stuff saved on there which no matter how much of a tightass he looked like it couldnt of been any worse than us finding his horse porn. dirty welsh barstard haha
anyway the next morning i had breakfast bid farewell to amsterdam and jumped on a train to germany.