Only 4 days to go until I head off on the lengthy european adventure.

Been in London for 2 weeks now and after a spell of average weather, it has now improved and is going to be in the high 20's until I go.

Ive been to the British Museum, Tate Modern, National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Buck Palace, Kensington Palace, Westminster Abbey, Houses of Parliament, and alot of parks.

I caught up with some of the other friends and relatives in the second week.
The Cotswalds for 2 days (look it up), visiting Michael (my grandmother's cousin) and Barbara in Malmesbury.

Michael took me to Bristol for a day, which normally isn't very exciting or advisable, but they have the SS Great Britain (look it up again - you've already got google open from the other thing you were looking up)in dry dock there, which was why we braved the incredibly innavigable 'system' of roads and roadworks, supported by the absence of directions to important landmarks.

Then I saw Becky (Michael and Barbara's daughter) and Neil and their little baby Elliot, who live in Walton-on-Thames in Surrey, not too far from Balham.

Also spent an afternoon with family friend and expat aussie Richard in Kensington.

I've now managed to see most of the main sights in London, and hopefully i'll get those photos up before i leave for paris (see link on side).

I was thinking about going to Wimbledon today, but although its quite close, there was nobody that exciting playing today and I still would have had to queue for 4 hours before the first match just to get a ground pass.

Instead I went to Borough, Camden, and Portobello Markets, only buying fruit
because even some of the 'cheap' clothes etc. are a bit pricey (for a cheap backpacker) and I want to pack as light as possible for the continent.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to make it up to Scotland which i was hoping to.
I may still brave it when i get back if i have time before flying to Tokyo.

I've also now discovered how to change the comment system. You now don't have to sign up to Blogger to comment, just choose the option of 'other' and write your name.

How exciting...

I have now officially been in London a week, longer than I've spent in any city so far.

It is definitely the most expensive city also, but I've managed to avoid spending too much thanks to free meals and accomodation with the rellies in South London: Huzzah!

I have also fixed up the blog so now you can look at lovely pictures, and not so lovely but interesting links (well actually they may not be interesting to you personally, in fact they probably are of no interest to anybody except me, but they are there anyway and it took me bloody ages to figure out how to put them there, so don't be so ungrateful....)

ok, well then, you should notice the more travel photos link which surprisingly actually links to more travel photos which i'm in the process of uploading and explaining.

I'm thinking about going to Scotland soon, and then i'm off to europe on the 4th of July for quite a long time.

I'll be starting in Paris, then heading to Brussels, Amsterdam, where i'll be for the World Cup final, and then Berlin. After that, Vienna, Salzburg, Prague, Munich, Venice, Athens.

I've booked a greek island trip for a week starting on august 1st and i'm planning a one week moroccan trip in early-mid september. In between these dates, i'm going to move through Italy, Switzerland, Spain.

Should be hectic, expensive, and linguistically confusing, but does anybody really not want to swap places with me?


Avg Maximum Temperature for July August September

Paris 24 24 21
Rome 29 29 26
Athens 32 31 28
Madrid 32 32 28



I thought not.

After a brief interlude in NYC, and a briefer one in Frankfurt International Airport, I have made it to London and my relatives' house in Balham.

This means I'll hopefully be able to post some pictures now, so check back on the old posts to see the nice shiny new posts rejuvenated by some masterful photography.

The direction I crossed North America meant each city was generally better than the last and this inevitably culminated in NYC, the city that never sleeps, particularly on the corner of 103rd St and Amsterdam Ave, where I was attempting to.

NB. This was the location of Hostelling International NY, the largest hostel in the world - I wasn't actually trying to sleep on a street corner.

I had 3.5 days in NYC, which was simultaneously enough and not enough time.
The weather was perfect, 25-28 degrees each day, and I managed to see most of the touristy stuff, but to have seen Harlem, Brooklyn etc. in more detail and spent more time in museums, and gone through every neighbourhood more closely, rather than on the back of a double decker sightseeing bus (which is what I was forced to do with only 3 days), would have required a few weeks. This in turn would have required a few thousand dollars thanks to accomodation, food, transport and bloody tips!

I spent alot of time in Central Park relaxing in the sun or walking through it to Museum Mile. When you see the massive metropolis that is just Manhattan, the importance of a place like Central Park becomes very obvious.


Various group members were leaving at different times over those few days, but we spent a couple of nights together in the Lower East Side, and Chinatown and Little Italy.

I went up the Empire State building, on the Staten Island ferry, to the World Trade Center site, Wall St, the UN, as well as a night tour of Downtown Manhattan and Brooklyn.



My favourite part was probably at the annual Times Square food festival thingy, where you could sample food from all the surrounding restaurants with tickets you could buy for $5 or $10. They had a special audience participation performance from the show 'Drumstruck' with 60-70 people playing djembes together(They are similar to bongos or congas).

Back in Canada again (It's amazing how easy it is to move back and forward between the two countries...)

This time in Niagara Falls where we just went on the Maid of the Mist boat ride.

We now have our sights set firmly on NYC!

Even after just 5 weeks, i've managed to go to 14 states in the USA and 3 provinces in Canada!

Last night after a longish drive from Chicago, we went to Cedar Point, Sandusky, Ohio
the 'best amusement park in the world'. We got there at 6.15, it rained for 2.5 hours (with the rides stopped) and so a few of us led by our adrenaline junkie tour leader george, who looks more like robert redford now than chris martin, went and did a silly thing.

In the 75 mins before it closed, we went on eight rides, sprinting between every one.
The first one was the highest and fastest in the world: 0-195kmh in 4 seconds and then straight up 90 degrees 130m into the sky and straight back down.

Needless to say, it was rather exciting, given the biggest ride i'd been on previously was probably the ancient rollar coaster at Luna Park in St Kilda!

The previous 2 nights i went to a few different blues clubs in Chicago which was fantastic!! We almost timed it perfectly because the annual blues festival started the day we left Chicago, but we still saw a young guy who was going to be playing with B.B. King the following night.

Only a few days to go until I leave for Europe!!
I'd be excited if I was more organised!

I have done a rough itinerary for the first month and i could end up in or near Germany by early july for the last week of the World Cup!!

Whether that actually eventuates is another issue, yet to be resolved.

The Harold Washington Library Center, Chicago has over 100 computers devoted to free internet access.

A welcome change from the $1 for 5 min slow access in hotel lobbies.

Having avoided a beating for wearing a terribly inappropriate cowboy hat (purchased for $9.88 (plus tax) at WalMart) to the Cody Nite Rodeo and then for the entire duration of a night out at the bar across the road from our campground (where other blokes were actually wearing them seriously like characters from Brokeback Mountain), i have somehow made it to Chicago.

We also spent a night at Devil's Tower in East Wyoming (see Close Encounters of the Third Kind for those playing along at home - The campground shows it every night)

Then we progressed past Mount Rushmore (where for some bizarre reason, i didn't have patriotic tears flowing down my cheeks, as some postcards suggested i should) to Badlands National Park, and then into Iowa before heading today through Wisconsin and into Illinois and Chicago.

Almost finished the American leg of the trip.
Incredibly, despite warnings to the contrary, i've managed to eat just as if not more healthily than at home since i got here.


Still, there's 7 days to go...

Back in the USA after the short Canadian sojourn.
Also back to the imperial system (how many inches in a fluid ounce?)

Banff was nice although the overcast weather somewhat lessened some of the
spectacular landscapes.

In fact a few of us went to The Da Vinci Code to escape the cold.

We only just got over the border for our next two nights in Glacier National Park, Montana. Hence my cunning plan to avoid the cold was thwarted once again, although the name of the park should have given it away.

Glacier was amazing, and four of us hiked up to one of the glaciers, across several snow covered paths, but were halted 2 miles before the end by even heavier snow. Plenty of good photo ops though.

The nights were just as cold as Canada but at least i've been making use of my warm gloves,jackets and sleeping bag.

Next up was a trip south into Wyoming via Idaho (just to say we went there)
and Yellowstone National Park.

The days were finally warmer as we left the Rockies to head inland, but the nights were still a little chilly.

We stayed inside the national park here and we had a fantastic day cruising around the park seeing the geysers and masses of burnt out forest from fires 15 years ago.

However, the best part was crossing the various animals off the list as we saw them in the wild.

There were bison everywhere as we quickly discovered and equally quickly lost interest in them. Several times herds of them slowly crossed the road in front of our van.

Also, after being constantly warned about bear danger and having to store all our toiletries and food in special bear proof boxes, we finally actually saw one.

In fact we were lucky enough to see a black bear with its two cubs fighting each other, as well as a grizzly and its two very cute cubs, and also a moose and most fortunately, a wolf, which ran across the road in front of our van. 5 seconds earlier or later and we would have missed it.

We finished the day off by watching 'Old Faithful' geyser erupt, spurting 30 metres into the air.

I'm now in Cody, Wyoming, the real Western town, home of the World Famous Cody Rodeo
which we'll be going to tonight. Thank god I bought my cowboy hat just
in time. I wouldn't want to look stupid....

There's only 11 days to go before i head over to London.
I can't believe these six weeks have gone so fast!