Dec 2006

Well here we are in Salisbury and as the title suggests it is friggin cold. Such a beautiful little town and so old.

We finally got here at about 8pm last night after a LLOOONNNGGG day of travelling. We left Amsterdam at about 8am and, unlike Paris, didn't take us long to navigate out of the city (apart from the cyclist Mikey nearly sent to an early grave)! Amsterdam is a very cool city and we would love to go back there another time. One thing we did forget to mention in the last blog was the quality of the buskers in Amsterdam! We saw one lady who must have been at least 90 years old playing the same two notes (badly at that) on an old recorder - quite sad actually. Then the next day we think we saw her father in the town centre playing the same two notes on a harmonica. The funny thing was he was sitting on a very expensive old people scooter; don't think he was making much money - but good on him sitting out in the cold being 130 years old (he had to have been that at least!!!)

Anyway back to the journey. We thought we would be smart and print off some directions to go back to Calais, but a word of advice for anyone that does that - do not take them at face value. For example it states to take a certain exit for a certain town, but when there are 3 different exits for the same town it can get rather confusing. As a result we got a little lost in Belgium and added a good hour on to our journey. As soon as we made it to Calais, in good French style, we got friggin lost again finding the Ferry Port. What should have been a straight through 10 minute drive must have taken us at least 40 minutes!! But now we are in the land of normal people and have not got lost once (but that was a fluke!!)

When we got into Dover we went straight to hire our car (but first a side point - at customs on both ends Mike must have had his drug baron face on because we kept getting stopped and asked questions!!!) Anyway, back to it, we were hiring our car and didn't even think to check if we had enough on the credit card for the deposit which they need to hold. Needless to say we didn't and frustration and running around ensued. We ended up having to ring Jean (Mike's mum - keep in mind it was about 2am in Australia at this time) to get the funds transferred. It was a test of our nerves and sanity after such a long day so far - and we hadn't even started the long drive to Salisbury!

Anyway we obviously made it on the road and decided to take the coastal road. It was such a sketchy drive because of the fog and the roads are all country lanes. The 200 mile drive took us about 5.5 hours to do. When we finally made it to Salisbury we had no idea where we needed to go, we had no map, it was dark and foggy so we couldn't see any road signs. We were taking wrong turn after wrong turn to try and get into town and after about 15 minutes of doing this, lo and behold we stumbled across the hotel! Such a fluke, and we were thankful as we could have been stuck in a continual motion of being lost!

The hotel (or B&B) is absolutely gorgeous. It is very much like Bungunyah Manor where we had the wedding, but so much older and nicer. Log fires everywhere, a cozy lounge to smoke and read in, the food is out of this world, but it isn't cheap. The dinner we had last night cost us around £50 ($130 Australian) but well worth it, thank god it is all on Bartercard, thats all we can say about that.

This morning, after a scrumptious breakfast, we went to the markets and bought gloves and beanies (not that they are making much of a difference). After we finish here we are off to Stonehenge so Mikey can do his ritual sacrifice! (I think i'll stay in the car!!!)

We are off to Glasgow tomorrow and looking forward to spending a couple of nights in a scottish castle!

We will be back on line in Glasgow hopefully, if not it will be when we get to Glossop in a few days. We are really looking forward to staying with family there and totally kicking back!

We look forward to your messages and if you have sent us one of those comments, we haven't figured out how to reply to it so please don't think that we don't love you!! When we get more time on the net we will figure it out.

Anyway we will sign off now. We love you all. Talk soon.

Have a great Xmas everyone!

Karen & Mikey

Hello all

Well here we are in Amsterdam! It is a most interesting place with a lot of strange happenings! But let me start from the beginning:

Yesterday morning we attempted to leave Paris for our long drive up to Holland - what is supposed to be a 10 minute drive took us 45 minutes because of that stupid traffic. Mike is now of the same opinion as myself....we won't be going back there in a hurry. The drive itself was very uneventful except for the fog...that bloody fog - we didn't get to see any of the country side as we passed through France, Belgium and going into Holland. It would have taken us 4 hours to drive it but we decided (in our stupid wisdom) to go via Brussels which is rather out of the way of the main highway, adding on a further 1 hour. Nevertheless we made it in one piece. We found our hotel very easily and the drivers here are normal and sane.

The hotel is actually very nice (apart from the 2 single beds - which aren't really conducive to a honeymoon!) and the breakfast is actually really nice and this time includes hot foods so Mikey is a happy camper.

Last night we decided to go on a guided tour of the red light district. Now that is not as seedy as it sounds - it was a very intersting tour on how prostitution is legalised and the history of it. We started the tour at the Prostitution Information Centre (only in Amsterdam would they have such a place). After going through the tour you really understand why it is legalised - it is extremely regulated and safe and Holland has the lowest std transmission rate in the sex industry anywhere in the world. Now the lesson is over down to the nitty gritty. Street walking and pimping is against the law so they have windows where girls will stand in their underwear under red lights. If someone wanted to use their services they open the door and the curtains are drawn - very civilised, until we saw the fattest chick on earth sitting in a window wearing white! Eewww!! Probably the most entertaining (if not extremely annoying) part of the tour was this American family from Texas and this fat guy from New York. Sorry to say but these people fit the typical stereotype of annoying yanks - everything is about them, and they asked the most stupidest questions known to man. The guy from New York was only on the tour (we think) to get free porn and did nothing but complain when he found out what it was actually all about. Thankfully these people wandered off about a quarter of the way through and we couldn't find them again, but unfortunately they took with them a south african couple and a really strange couple from Spain (where the guy could easily have been the chick's grandfather!) who actually shoplifted from the Prostitute Information Centre (so we found out later). The tour guide was so upset that she was going to get fired for losing them that this Australian couple on the tour organised a petition with the remaining few of us to help her out. All in all it was a very entertaining night.

After the tour we went to this cool bar getting absolutely hammered on cocktails - well actually mikey only got hammered on one so had to go home!!!!!

Today we went shopping - the centre of town is huge and in the three hours of shopping we didn't even cover a quarter of the shops! Hows this - we went to McDonalds for a quick lunch before shopping and needed to use the bathroom, but you have to pay for the privilege - approx 50cents. Thats right, you read correctly - they charge for the use of the Maccas toilets!!! Unbelievable!

We are having another quiet night tonight as we can't be bothered walking all that way to go to a bar which serves bourbon and coke for 9 euros ($18) each. Thats right folks it is 6 euros for the bourbon and 3 euros if you want coke with it! Absolutely ridiculous!! It was actually cheaper to buy cocktails. Plus we really can't afford it if we want to make the most of the UK over the next couple of weeks.

There are so many pot cafes here the whole place practically stinks of the stuff, but the government wanted to try these cafes out before thinking about legalising marijuana, a good idea as soft drug use here is really under control - actually not many people do it as it isn't forbidden fruit anymore (if that makes sense).

There are also more sex shops than souvenir shops by more than double and they are not covered windows so I am also getting a very good education while I am here!

Tomorrow we head back off to Calais to catch the ferry back to Dover. We are then hiring another car to go to Salisbury on the south west coast of England (near Stonehenge). It is now my turn to drive but that is fine considering I will be on the correct side of the car and road and the english drivers are totally different (aka totally better) than european drivers.

We will try and make contact again in Salisbury, but considering it is only a small place we don't know if they will have an internet cafe. But hopefully we will - we want to keep you all updated!

Take care and luv you all

Karen & Mikey

By the heading we don't mean that we haven't been romantic (we can do that anywhere) it means that this place is beyond anything we have experienced before (and only reiterates my absolute dislike for the city)

Where do we start? The drive in would be good. We got a nice little Ford Focus from Calais and drove the 3 hours down to Paris. Mike was so good getting the hang of driving on the other side of the car and road. The rules on the highway are great here, the trucks all stay in the slow lane - in fact everyone stays in the slow lane and only goes in the fast lane when they overtake - unlike Australia where any lane goes. However there is no speed limits which was quite sketchy when we had little cars speeding past us at the speed of light through really thick fog, so we couldn't see them coming up or going past for that matter!!! We thought we had the driving and navigation thing cracked....well we were wrong!!

As soon as we got to Paris it became a living nightmare. It took us another hour and a half once hitting the city to find our hotel. (thats because the map of Paris streets looks more like a children's crayon drawing; no reason or logic behind the design of the city) The Paris drivers are absolute madmen hell bent on killing their garden variety tourist. How we made it out alive is beyond me. There are no road lines and what you would consider a one lane road would turn into 7 lanes just because the Paris drivers decided to take up the whole road. They don't drive one behind the other like normal people do, it is every man for himself and if you aren't aggressive enough then you get pushed into lanes you don't want to go into - just like what happened to us for the first 45 minutes before Mikey decided to get just as aggressive!!! I am so proud of him, even though I must have inherited a few extra grey hairs - i have never screamed so much or closed my eyes. Forget indicating here, just go where you feel like it - that seems to be the only road rule. And that is just the start of it - you have the scooters who zip in and out of the cars and up the wrong way just to get ahead (actually the cars do that too), we have dubbed them the kamikaze bunch because they definitely must have a death wish!! And we haven't even touched on the cyclists! Watching them on the road is like watching a child balancing on a high wall...just can't look at it - you just know they are going to get killed! We are shocked we have not seen one accident, but we haven't left the city yet! I am sure there are so many more adjectives and examples we could use to describe the driving here, but we just don't have time!!

On to our adventures. We got into the hotel finally at about 8pm last night (after leaving London at 7am - very LONG day!!) We got to the hotel to find that the lift was broken and we had to lug 50kgs worth of luggage up to the 3rd floor. Now when we say 3rd floor, the stairs aren't like normal stairs - straight - they are spiral staircases consisiting of about 25-30 steps per level. Actually that seems to be the norm here and in London. We haven't seen a straight set of stairs since we left the States - and that is no joke!!

This morning we braved the traffic to drive out to Palace of Versailles. We are so proud of ourselves for not only navigating successfully but actually surviving the trip!! The Palace was awesome.....it was like stepping into one of the many books that i read. We got audio guides which were such a huge help and in some parts it really felt that you were there back in the day...but the asian tour groups really took away that feeling now and again! Mum, you would have been in absolute heaven - before we went into the Palace we went to this little cafe overlooking the Palace for breakfast and as we are eating an old Wham song came on - a true you and me experience: eating, listening to Wham, drinking coffee while overlooking the Palace of Versailles - you should have been there!!

We left Versailles to head back towards Paris as we really wanted to go the Louvre. Again we made it successfully and while we were patting ourselves on the back for another job well done we discovered that the Louvre closes on Tuesdays!! BUGGER!! So a lazy afternoon is on the cards - playing cards of course.

Tomorrow we drive up to Amsterdam and we are just about to get travel directions on the net once we finish this blog. We are very much looking forwards to getting out of this very dirty and cold city!

Keep in touch, we miss you all

Luv Mikey & Karen

PS. We haven't been able to share any photos because the internet places we find don't allow us to do that - but never fear we are always on the look out to be able to do it. If not you are all in for a treat: a night long looking through the photos and videos - after Mikey has edited out all his rude bits!!!!

Hello everyone! I am back in the land of the living - well, almost. I think i have had gastro or some sort of tummy bug or even food poisoning as for the last week my body has felt that it needed to get rid of something and it all came to a head yesterday with poor mike having to stop every hour while i try and throw up - not the most pleasant of experiences. Water and even cigarette smoke is making me heave!! He is actually freaking out that I am pregnant but I don't think so as I feel that i am on the road to recovery - I personally think it was American food which did it - terrible stuff!!!

Well as you know we are in London and have spent the last couple of days touring. Yesterday we went round the Tower of London, the Tower Bridge Tour and the HMAS Belfast Tour (which to be honest was really boring!! and not the best place to be when feeling rather ill - and get seasick normally anyway!!)

Today we went to the British Museum, we were there for about 3 hours and only covered one small part of it. We then we to Madame Tussauds which was very, very cool indeed! Then off to the Sherlock Holmes Museum which would have been good if not for the hundreds of french school kids, and you all know how much I love the french!!

It has amazed me that in every single British Exhibition/museum/tourist attraction the staff have not been able to speak English properly!!! Ah well, this is London.

We are off to Dover first thing in the morning to sail out to France, so a very early start indeed! It will be interesting driving on the wrong side of the road ourselves when it freaked us out so much other people driving in the States, Mike and I are currently fighting over who is not going to start the driving - I think I am winning, but that could change tomorrow.

It will be nice to be out of this hotel we are staying in. For the location we are paying quite a good price, but the room is about the size of our bedroom at home with a TV that is too old to have a remote (can you believe that??!!!), a portable shower unit in the actual room (that is blocked and if it is overflowed we have to pay a £100 fine!! So you can imagine how quick our showers have to be!) The toilet is a shared one for the floor, and with what ive had over the last day or so i feel sorry the other guests!!! And we have a bed that is like sleeping on concrete with pillows made out of stone. Our backs have never been so sore; we are literally walking around like old people who need canes. We have taken advantage of our free breakfast once and won't have it again - you get a choice of cornflakes and/or toast! Not even worth it - and the coffee is disgusting. Oh, thats right,in the room we are provided with coffee sachets, sugar sachets, a cup and a kettle but no milk! In fact the hotel doesn't even supply milk, so if you wanted to buy some at the shop down the road you will have to drink it quick because there is no fridge in the room! Well, that is the french for you I suppose!!! Sorry, i'll shut up about them now!

I think that is it for now....we will try and log in while we are in France or Amsterdam!

Take care of yourselves and we look forward to seeing you all in less than 3 weeks!

Luv Karen & Mikey

Hi all Mikey writing this one,

Well we are finally in UK... bit sad to see the end to the Vegas part of our trip, as you can all imagine I was having a blast.
On the way through the airport i finally found some WPT (World Poker Tour) gear. I spent the whole week looking for somewhere that sold the authetic stuff and found it fifty metres from the gate.

The trip over wasn't too bad for me (Thank God british customs are a little easier than US) but Kaz is having a bit of a poor time, she ate something i don't think agreed with her and had gastro on the plane, she's asleep in the room already, but has been promising me all day that she'll be right tommorrow.
We're staying in a dinky little hotel just outside the city centre and everything is kinda close, the management to the hotel are french (yay .... not) but i don't think we'll be spend much time there over the next few days anyways.

I can't get over how old everything is.... We rode the London Underground here and first thing i noticed is that there is a really musty smell to the air, kinda made me think of old tombs would love to exploring down there but Kaz won't let me i'm sure.
It's about the same temprature as Las Vegas about 12C so not too bad yet. Glad to be back somewhere where they drive on the left hand side of the road again (never freaked out so bad as USA drivers turning left wide through intersections, was worse than going on the tower of terror in the dark in the rain)

Our plan of attack is to go get our London passes (kinda like an all access pass to all touristy stuff) and hit Liecester Square and go to Tower of london and that kinda thing.

Well gotta go put more british pounds on my cash passport,
Keep those messages coming,

Love to you all,

Mikey & Kaz