Just a quick one-

I'm jumping the train to Bari (a port town on the east Italian coast), where I will catch a ferry to Dubrovnik (Croatia)... I'm not going home without a fight!
I'll extract as much as I can from this trip and I dont want to waste my time in countries i've already been to... that being said my plane ticket is from Roma and it is no refundable so I do need to get back in November...
On a lighter note: me and Franz (a german friend I met yesterday) went out to get some towels from a nearby vendor to the hostel and when we came back Franz walked in on some people having sex in the dorm room... wait thats not the funny part! The guy in our dorm (who was doing the loving) quickly ran up and slammed the door in our faces. I wasn't sure what was going on so I went up to the door and opened it again and he quickly slammed it shut again. I then said "what the hell!" and the hostel owner walked up slowly and opened the door from which the man strolled out... me and Franz dropped off our stuff and went sightseeing during which time we speculated that the guy from our dorm was a pimp/drug dealer and the woman was his bitch... To cap off the story- when we came back some english guys had just arrived to stay in our dorm, the hostel owner said "your bed will be ready in ten minutes" and the woman who was lying on the bed left and the owner changed the sheets and brought the english guys into the room... "your beds are now ready"... true story (I dont have the imagination to think up something that stupid!)...

doc.

Haldo there,

Nothing much new here in the eternal city... still found my old gelatia not far from termini station... looking for work... hooray! its even less fun in a foreign country because you know you can only get the shit jobs! At least back home you have the promise of stumbling into a good job, not here... nope... I'm the illegal alien speaking a strange language! (hmmm, I hope no italians get offended)

So i've decided if I cant get a job in the next 3 days i'll be re-booking my ticket home... its just too expensive here... out of all the countries i've been to this time Italy is the most expensive! (damn euro they must be saying!)... so if anybody would like me to do anything radical (like dance naked in the fountain trevi... or spray paint on the side of the colosseum "Romans go home!") ask me in the next 3 days... I will be up for anything!

doc.

Hullo then,

so how's trix?

Yesterday was fun for me- I got up at 8am... perhaps a record for me... walked around Firenze, saw the line at the Uffutzi Galleria (it was about a mile long, I kid you not!), met up with my new italian friend: Mishu, and said goodbye to him (he was headed back home to Venezia)... met up with my old italian friend: Simone and had lunch at his place (good pasta!)... we tooled around with some music apps (cubase, etc...) and traded albums (my 1 solo album for 3 of his, I think I got a sweet deal there!)... Then it was off to La Spezia and the Cinqueterre.
I arrived at Levanto (a town I stayed in during my last trip) only to find that the hostel was fully booked with Italians (there should be a law against staying in hostels in your own country!)... so at about 9 in the evening I was stuck at La Spezia station with a train ticket for Roma leaving at 1:30am... now La Spezia isn't exactly a happening place... I searched for a good hour before I found a bar that was open!
So finally I caught the night train to Roma and went back to a hostel that I had stayed in 5 yrs ago and now I'm sitting in a laundromat... its 5 past 9 in the morning... I had about an hours sleep on the train... and I have to wait until 3pm to check into the hostel... at least I know where the good cafes are in Roma (one of the perks of travelling to the same place twice),

doc.

Another update (oooooooooh!):

Yesterday I bought several plane tickets with Ryanair... which basically means that my travel plans are now fairly set in concrete.

My first ticket is from rome to london on the 6th of november and then from london to marrakesh (morocco). I figure that seeing as how morocco is so cheap I could spend about a month and a bit there... so on the 13th of december I leave marrakesh for london and go straight from london to berlin where I stay until the end of the month when the folks arrive on their own jaunt through europe.
Sound like fun? I hope so... all I have to do now is find some work in rome for about a month... should be interesting :)

By the way people if my blog needs tweeking in anyway let me know... I do have some good stories so far (like the time stan introduced me to Bozkov rum) but it does become fairly laborious talking about everything so I have tended to paint some broad strokes with this blog... but by all means let me know if there is anything I should detail a bit more.

doc.

OH MY GOD its another post!!!!!

Anyway, how have you all been? (there is a correct answer to this question, it is- fine but missing you heaps david.)

I got in to Vienna last night, met a few people at the hostel (a yank, a kanuck and an aussie... ooh alliteration...), we hit the town (hard!) and checked out Flex, which is Vienna's popular alt music club on the danube... not really much to say about today... woke at twelve, I thought I would be smart last night when I was pissed and lock all my valuables in my pack and put the key in my shoe... It was quite entertaining when I thought I had been robbed! guess it teaches me for being smart when I'm drunk... it didn't even occur to me that I would blackout and forget what I had done last night... ahhh, good times!

Anywhos (new word there) i'll be off to find a post office and post some cards out, if you want to get one you have to drop me your address, and I promise to personalise each card for everyone... ciao!

doc.

Hi all,

Just a quick update on my trip thus far... I got off the plane after a bloody long trek from Australia (the 7hr stop-over in Saigon was a killer) in Praha airport. Having noticed only one other australian on the plane I approached him and asked him where he was from. His name was Stan, and he was an ex-pat living in Praha. As it turns out he spoke fluent Czech and he took me around Praha and the countryside introducing me to the traditional food and drink of the Czech culture. This was a good start for me because I had a bit of an insiders tour of the country, and I got to meet many locals, went rock climbing, etc...
That was the first 4 days of my trip, and it was thankfully funded by Stan himself... kudos to aussie comraderie there!

PART 2 of my trip will hopefully be forthcoming but as for now I must go book a train ticket to Wien (Vienna) for tomorrow, ciao!

doc.