Grand Craic

Tour de Paddy Wagon

2008-10-30T22:10:00.031+10:00

As my need to study increases so does my yerning to complete this blog, for which, yes I am very behind (about 1.5 years) but hey.

So the next part of our trip pretty much starts an absolute crazy time in our travels. We decided that it was about high time we started exploring this island called Ireland. It would be the only real coach tour that we ever joined but my golly gosho it was awesome! Best tour ever, out of one. I must say the history in Ireland is by far the most interesting, mainly because it is still so present and the ongoing after effects actually spill into modern day.

It was called the Paddy Wagon tour, it started at some rediculous hour in the morning and all I can remember was being retardedly tired and wanting to sleep but had some irate irishman bus driver telling us just how stupid we were and how did we not know any of Ireland's history. He was actually pretty jarring and I thought this guy was a fucking dickwad, and made a mental note to put in my first complaint ever in my life, to this company. But anyway this guy "Charlie" eventually grew on us, and by then end we though he was awesome. Sang heaps of off tune irish traditional songs, told us about random stories, the guy knew everything there was to know. Including my favourite about a crazy irish priest who managed to petition an international airport to be built in his shire, didn't have the funding (or it ran out or something) but he went ahead anyway, had only half the runway done, then went back to the governemnt and said "what.. you going to waste all that money.. you may as well finish it. What's even better is that it's not even used at all! Ireland.. a land where nothing makes sense. So Charlie this fucker, we end up finding out that he actually was a multimillionaire, owns a house next to Bono.. and owns the company Paddy Wagon - so much for my complaint.

This pretty much symbolises the tour. Just awesome.

And my usual partner in crime incase you'd had all forgotten, pulling his typical "graz" face

First off was straight up to North Ireland to see the famous Protestant strong hold. It was just surreal seeing HUGE murials of balaclava clad men holding Ak's and being revered. Many of the fallen had their portraits. Overt messages of death to catholocism.

It's pretty rough in this neighbourhood. This little shit (he must do this all the time to get his kicks) saw us, ran to get some golf balls and started hitting them towards us from this mound. We were taken around in the famous 'black cab' tours, these gusy lived it and have so many stories to tell, pretty much the only people who wre allowed to cross between the 2 rivalling areas. It's great, you even see that the gutters are painted differently to let you know exactly which area you were in.

This hotel holds the famour mantle of being the most bombed hotal in Europe. Dublin stated was much more tolerant now.. but you could still feel it. My mate shiv (indian) went into a pub, and saw that the gaelic fotty was on - so sat down to watch it. After which a bikey, came up to him and noted that he was watching the game (ubeknownst to him, it was a protestant pub, and it was put on as bait.) ask was asked flat out what religion he was - since he was watching the game, to which shiv replied - he was muslim, to which the bikey asked, so if muslim was more like catholicism or protestant? Shiv quickly got the hint (after a bit of object that it was neither) that yes, muslim was indeed more like prostantism.

I didn't realise this but Belfast has a wall! That divides the religions, at night at a certain time the gates would shut and if you were on the wrong side, you would have a hell of a night getting back, if at all.

Nowadays the gates are left open and the wall is filled with messages of peace and hope. SO we added our names to the petition.

This is famour wall in support of those oppressed around the world (Ireland is very pro - palastine) To the very left you see Bobby Sands, who led the famous hunger strikes (he died after 66 days)

Had a few good nights out in Nth Ireland, went to a few eclectic clubs where I found this awesome sign in a room - filled with nobody, so we crashed it. At some point point, charlie took us to this pub, where we were warned, NEVER to talk about sport, politics, religion. Some halarious guys - with massive fuck off tats got talking to us (we were scared shitless), went to order from the bar, where I noticed the the guy was a bit funny lookin - asked charlie - said he would tell me later. Once back on the bus, he let us know that all the guys surrounding us were IRA members and the guy withthe funny face, was actually the owner and half of his face was blown off by his own car bomb that went off a bit early whilst trying to get to Maraget Thatcher! He later laced a bomb in her bath tub, but she changed last minute and he blew someone else up instead!! Amazing shit.

Ireland is said to be the land of a thousand shades of green (it should be with all that rain!) plus some sheep.

We hit Giants causeway, some legend about big people building a bridge to who knows where. Mainly because the rocks were really cool and had some funky hexagonal thing going. This is where Graz perfectly pulled out his Zeus pose.

Funky huh?

Graz doing a phantom of the opera pose at the giant organ

Me pulling an Asian Micheal Jackson. Windy?... yes

This rope bridge to some random little island, really novel only for the bridge, but apparently some poor sod used to have to live there for weather prediction or something, which isn't hard in Ireland considering it's going to rain, or it already is. If you fall from this rope bridge you get washed away into the sea.

Cute interracial couple on a remote Island in Ireland.

Getting air time

Next it was onto the town of Derry, which saw it's fair share of conflict. The guy in the picture was our tour guide, who had been arrested 72 times in one year, telling us stories of non-stop scuffles with the brit police, stealing their hats. This was the town where a young catholic hgirl with a loaf of bread was shot down by a sniper. This was where Bloody Sunday occured. And was pretty much the starting point of most of the "troubles".

Again fantastic murials were painted all over the city walls, most very new and are just an amazing sight to see. After a while you become very sympathetic to the IRA's plight and it's amazing to hear the stories that very made it out to the real world.

Here a massive statue was torn down, I can't remember the full details. Google it. There is graffiti everywhere with anti-brit slogans.

Case in Point.

The man in the picture is an absolute crack-up. He's a total drunkard that stumbles around, my tour guide once found him covered in a metre of snow, gone comletely blue, thought he was dead. Shook him a little, the guy woke up cursed the tour guide for waking him and stumbled off. Oh he also used to be the lead striker for the celtics, and was one of the highest paid soccer stars in his league.

Just another brick in the wall.

Real Irish ass'

This is some old fort that you can see three counties all at once, just a hole with rocks around really. Historically very significant, but I can't remember any of it, I was hung over. But good place to do a jump shot.

Best jump shot ever, if you look really hard Graz is jumping in the distance. One of those moments that we just had the same thought, not pre-planned. Just awesome

The beautiful Cliffs of Moher, it's a bit temperamental if you get to see them or not, as my parents found out.

I thought this would be a great photo of me levitating, but it just looks like a huge pole is up my arse

Being naughty at the cliffs of Moher (cliffs of insanity for the Princess Bride Lovers)

Me being stupid and re-inacting the little man in the picture

Where dumping (shitting, breaking up, garbage) incurrs a fine. But at least it's a round figure

Unlike this ridiculous fine.

The Irish Stone henge, just doesn't cut it.

This is where the tour went to Galway! Our Town, yes we owned it. This was in the living room (their clubs have this funny affinity for parts of houses - the front door, the living room) The guy to the left is Dave, the redneck - he'd hate me saying this - canadian who ride a horse called Jake, the one on the righ tis Colm, real good fella. Both these gusy were awesome value. This was where we joined up with another tour group adn changed drivers to this halarious swearing all the time dude, it's also where we met two canadian girls. Little did I know then how our lives would intertwine in the future. But we definitely had 'prettiest girl inthe room - or in this case bus- syndrome. They just turned out to be awesome chicks too.

Partying it up in our home town.

We got the usual Locals out again. ME Julie!

That's Charlie on the right... Dodgy dodgy guy, but totally shooter.

The most genious name for a coach company. I wonder if the word Dero came from Ireland, or brits term for describing the Irish.

Love this photo, Business is obviously good.

Jump!

This cube had me going for hours, it was a puzzle, the bus driver (we shanged by now) was shat off cos he couldn't do it. The whole bus couldn't either - well more couldn't be bothered. I was so proud. Definite shining moment.

This is where we went a little nuts. Somehow we got taken to this middle of nowhere town where the only famous thing was someone from the town went to the south pole. Dodgiest hostel ever. But had the most awesome fun. This is where we got to know the canadians better and won their hearts over. hehe

Nothing need be said

There was nothing to do, so it was karaoke night. There was another outragous tour group too.

Oh yeah, these are the 2 I'm talking about. The one on the left Nicole "Primo" and on the right Kara "K J May" This is them teaching us line dancing. Nicole pretended she didn't know the moves, whilst Kara was fully into it. She is very country, her favourite singer is Garth Brooks and Jon Bon Jovi.... seriously.

So after a few Car Bombs (Guiness and Baileys)

Ok a few a fair few more.

We belted out a total eclipse of the heart. Cos I fucking need you now tonight, I fucking need you now forever. We won over the whole hostel.

Another Favourite photo. Colm was classic through the whole trip. Made the boring bits heaps better, awesome one liners, but again I can't remember any of them (again I was hung over most of the time on the Bus)

Again another favourite Jump shot, this was right near where the chick from the Cranberries lives. In her 2 million dollar mansion with a recording studio and stuff.

Aparently the oldest structure in Ireland ? Europe? bee huts or something, since the Viking invaders - something from 7th /8th century

The Beach where cold play filmed Yellow. Also I think the beach where all these guns were supposed to come from the germans to help the IRA, but the Irish couldn't get there shit together to send a boat out to retreive the guns (water too shallow) So it was moored for days, eventually the britsh found it and sunk it. Morons. Graz pointing to the only yellow ting he could find.

We even went horse riding with them. My horse was halarious, towards the end when everyone went home, my old fogy of a horse decided he didn't want to go home but scratch his arse on a trailor, so I was stuck there for about 15 minutes whilst he rubbed his twenty year itch.

Kara in her element

Seriously? Jackpot (according to William)

Infiltrating the Badger Cave

Model Tree Hugger

At the Blarney Castle, in search of the famous stone

What you have to do to get the gift of the Gab. Yes get a crotch shot. We were also thinking about the hyege of kissing a stone that about 100 people kiss per day, you also get a touristic photo and an old guy holding you incase - seriously if I were to fall, I thin kthe guy's only use would be to cushion the fall.

Shooting the Irish flag.

They tasted terrible, but hey. To get into the Spirit. I later learnt that Ms Primo, being the good pharmacist was on TB meds and killing her liver...

And the posse forms, much to many's disgruntledness.

Somehow line dancing creeps into it all

WHen in Rome

The good old Aussie tradition of stealing things off the street, admittedly it is a huge cone, and really was just asking for it.

Another Fav photo.

If you can't see it says 2 hours. It's what 5 euros gets you, or a pint of Guiness.

So imagine what I could get for this? I have found my dream car.

Expressing joy at our final destination. The most important place in Ireland, of which without, the country pretty much falls to pieces.

In Sky Bar, there were heaps of people who didn't want their tokens, twas awesome. GUiness STRAIGHT from the VAT, how it was meant to be drunk . It is Oft said that the further away from the epicentre of Guiness the worst it gets. So this is pretty much ground zero, it's doesn't get any better

The end of our Irish tour? No way. We meet up again, way way in the future.

But we hung out with the girls again anyway, and took them to a soccer match. A huge one, Chelsea v Liverpool. We ended up in a Liverpool strong hold (YEAH!). Harry, harry coooool, harry harry cooooool!

I have to end with this one, it's this shooter chocolate bar called the 'Yorkie' which if you look closer states "not for girls" to which Kara defies.

Boys in Barca

2008-03-01T21:10:00.018+10:00

Somewhere along the line, Toff (all sports are my passion) made a suggestion that we go to Spain to watch a Barcelona FC match. To which we replied why the fuck not. What Toff was not so great as was planning. So after completely no organisation, where it took us 2 weeks to try and buy tickets to the game, endlessly clicking on their super confusing website and finding no section that gave us 4 seats in a row and trying desperately to match up adjacent sections or even a cluster of 4, we ended up deciding to go and hoped that we got tickets. We were also unable to book a hostel for 5 nights in a row, so ended up hostel hopping. First thing after arriving was sleep (in our 20 bed dorm).

Our quality hostel

Flying in on Ryan air we were dispatched at some random airport, but on our yet again confusing walk to the hostel we found some famous work of art by Gaudi. I love walking in new cities.

Barcelona is probably my favourite city in Europe, I've been 3 times and still can't get enough. We decided to be really touristy and go Gaudi. It's is quite touristically overwhelming. There were these awesome open air busses that you could get on and off at you chosing and they took you to all the imporant places. Long lines though.

We also hit his park, where we did 1, 2 & 3 signs without even planning it.

Awesome view, also 2 people of questionable sexuality.

Because I'm so Holy

I love this building, it's occupied by some tourist hating commy. They have a new message every time I go there. You probably can't read it, but it says "if it's called tourist season, why can't we just shoot them?" Brilliant.

King Lyndon on his stone throne.

Again you probably can't see this well but Graz has the best I'm zuess pose going.

Just reinforcing that notion, Toff is put to death.

The roof is highly under utilised, but not gaudi, no he'd have none of that.

Turtle hugging, Gaudi's favourite past time.

Man made things impress me less and less, but the segrada is still awe inspiring, it's been built a lot more then when I was last here. I do wonder if they will finish it while I am still alive. The final spire is unbeleivable. I do like the gothic side much better.

The tall spire stairs actually do induce a sense of fear of heights, this hole goes all the way to the bottom (all 100 odd meters)

The boys posing for their Mr Universe shoot.

The bus runs at night, we were the only people on. Saw a cool mime. I think graz went a little bit nuts cos it was so cold.

A trip to spain wouldn't be complete without some tap-ass. Which we did more of later.

In order to fulfill the whole point of going to Barca, we had to hunt down some tickets to the game. We trecked around abit, getting pointed by various people in various directions to the official Barca FC store. And where did we end up getting the tickets? The tourist office. We had to go pick up the tickets from the stadium, so it was decided that we go the tour, and get a behind the scenes.

Us commentating on the game from the box. This is where we met BT (bitch tits) affectionately coined by my brother's Chan.

Us and the Champions League Trophy

Toff wet himself (second time so far overseas - first was after the awesome party)

We started gettting bored, so naturally started defiling everythign around us, full marks to my bro Hsien for facial expression & genius.

Graz gets a hand job and blows a load over Adrian Brodie

Awesome game night dinner, with a fairly hot waitress who we easily confused. Asked her out for drinks, she pleasantly declined. Mainly because I think she didn't understand us.

We made it, even got seats next to each other! The game was Barcelona FC vs Majorca. It was relatively a quite match, being nil all till the dying moments. They only sell 0% alcohol, which we unfortunately didn't know until a few drinks down the line and surprisingly sober.

With a capacity of 99,000 Camp Nouis the biggest stadium in Europe. It was dissappointly lacking in atmosphere, mexican waves, drums, horns. It did erupt with the goal with Barca winning 1-0.

Had some great dinners, I can't get enough of paella. Went back to the same restaraunt that trost and I went to, called the 7 docks or ships or something like that.. or was it 11? Just googled it, its 7 Portes. The surpise dish was the sea snails (as pictured above)

We were on mullet hunt, and this guy took the cake with his 'mullay despite balding look'

We frequented this indie bar a lot, very bad toilet. I really don't understand the idea of it (unisex, but no toilet seat) Chicks must hate it. And I had to go (the sea snails caught up) the boys went to bed and Graz and I were still itching, so we went to a strip club (alcohol had a lot to do with our decision) bad choice, still traumatised.

Toff had to leave a night early, and that's when the fun started. We finally met these 2 girls in the dorm that always came back at odd hours (they slept while we were up and vice versa). they turned out to be 2 cool french chickadees with a dutch in tow (who went on a mission to africa and volunteered 3 years to an orphanage. Lots of fun, I finally found the shot bar that I hazily remebered going to with trost so long ago.

This is the bar, with over 300 different shots that you can order from the wall, all 2 euro each, with names like the chupa chup (despite is benign name, this one is horrible, involves shotting something followed by unhaling pure ETOH), ferrari, diarrhoea, kamikaze we quickly got fucked up. Hsien got a hair cut

The great wall of shots

The dominos shot

We did a round of zoolander

The monica lewinski! where you get to suck beer from a big black cock and towards the end the pull it out and spray you with it! Just halarious!! Our girl Laura was up to it!

A picture of her, pre-cock

Caramelised oranges

Our french connection was also connected to some young drug dealer, it was someone's birthdya, so was all got stoned by some church. Graz did the longest piss of his life. We all giggled for about 30 minutes telling each other to shhh back in the dorm.

SOme ridiculously rich people... honestly how does someone have SO much money?

Big bubble blowers.

More doctors smoke camel.

Awesome bar, full of hot hot women.

Gutter trash

I love these markets, full of the most random eating things, heaps of fresh fruit, great pizza

After we said goodbye to the boys, it was off to Valencia. Land of oranges for Graz's birthday.

It was a beautiful union of green & gold, I think 3G had a surprise for my brother.

Graz was SO pround of the mega box of cigs he found

We stayed at some place called the purple lotus. I must say I really love valencia, it's 'Perth' of Spain. Small yet vibrant city, not touristy, yet not too alien, lots of hotties running around, close to the beach. AWESOME food, friendly. Couldn't ask for more.

Graz blatently ignoring the no smoking sign behind him.

The church housing the blood of christ (yeah right)

home of the only recognised 'hoy grail' tentatively at that

Best oranges going, look at them! They even grow on the streets. I've always thought that cities should grow fruit trees, solving the ever pressing issues of vitamin levels of the homeless.

The dazzling array of differing pig parts that can be bought, in all shapes and sizes!

You can even buy Loch Ness.

The main bull fighting rink, I never went to see one. I really didn't know if I wanted to...

We decided to set on this walk to the seaside for Graz's birthday dinner. It didn't look too far on the map, and there were a few interesting things on the way.... 4 hours later.... It was a pretty grand walk though, heaps of people exercising (much to look at)

Little avenues for rock climbing. Would never happen in australia due to all the hazards this may present, pathetic really.

Took some great jump shots!

The Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències, a most amazing modern architecture. And all perth could come up with was the bell tower.

We had an interesting walk to the seaside, this took 30 mins or so, I really had no idea where we were going, no foot path, dodging dodgy traffic (the spanish are really not know for safe driving) - Graz thought he would get killed.

Towards the end of our 'walk' we heard heaps of car horns go off, thought it was some preotest or rally, but found this semi-trailer which decided to break down in the middle of the intersection, blocking pretty much ALL traffick, was awesome. They called in the SWAT team to deal. Our 3 hour walk was worht it in the end, we stumbled upon a great surprise for 3G, the hub of the America's cup! There was a replica of every ship that had won.

For his birthday, we decided to go out for a great dinner, expensive wine the usual.

Decided to try lots of random food, the best was the razor clams (closest to me)

Then there was lobster paella.. thats right, an entire lobster!! Yeah baby!!

Then it was beers from a vending machine at the hostel. I think we only stayed one night. But packed a lot in! Will definitely come back some day I thought... and I did very quickly!

Galway Play

2007-12-28T18:32:00.000+10:00

Tired after a late ward call and very fucking early ward round, depressed as our research project looks like loosing it's legs, no maggie, total lack of sleep (and friends) I write this with regurgitator in the back (old friend).

Winter, Europe went into hibernation and as a result we did too, doing a lot of work, alot of nights and 2 segments where I worked 6 weeks in a row without break. Until this time we had friends but hadn't really 'craic'ed onto the scene yet, but a fateful party would change all that. In fact by this time, we were getting a bit depressed, after the fun of traveling we were greeted by 53 days straight of rain. So much that the banks overflowed causing disease that became known as the great galway crypto crisis (more later).

But first, before I forget, lets look at Galway itself. After our prague trip, it really started to come of age. The sun finally shone and I could actually take a photo of where we lived. Its a great vibrant, bohemic, university town. And when the sun is out, it's GLORIOUS!

This is our place, 13 Forster Pl. Nice little courtyard in front, which we never used. There was always a fat cat that I kept feeding. We never really did meet our neighbours properly (towards the end we found out that one of our friends Kym (another doc) lived there), but randomly one night drunk they decided to invite themselves over and 'overstay their welcome' but we agreed because one of them was hot, and we were drunk too. We hardly saw them again. Kate (graz's sis) came over once and locked herself out and got them to drive her to Shenton Park to get the keys off me (gosh!!). We were walking distance to the pubs, clubs & shopping centre. I loved our house and was very sad when we finally left it

This was our 'security gate' which was always open. We had a parking space, however had to pay to use it. We didn't know this, even the cable man wasn't allowed to park there. Eventually we got parking permits, lent one to Tammy who lent it to a random ('frikkin idiot!') whilst we were in Valencia, subsequently got fined and hence lost our permit. It was complicated, Graz was angry

The sun so rarely come out that when it does so does everybody else! Initally we thought the Irish gals were ugos, but when the sun came out, so did the uber hots. Speaking of girls (my femine side coming out) they CANNOT dress when they go out at night, sparkles, hot pants, mini skirts (when they really should not be wearing them) clashing everything in a bad way. So wrong that we were going to introduce a red card system.

Our favourite bar when the sun is out called 'Bazaar', enjoying our favourite irish drink. Always packed, when the sun is out, so basically 3-4 days per year.

The man on the right is a legend, I love him, But more on yobs later.

The lovely flowing corrib, wonderful to walk by on the way to work when it's not raining. Often see fly fisherman in it.

Shop street by day, yes they are original with their street names.

Shop street at night, packed with party people, pubs fill up and spill out onto the street, who needs clubs. On big nights it can take half an hour to get from one end to the other.

The 2 poor guys kept getting accosted by Graz & I (well mainly I) They are the famous oscar wildes, who never actually met. I was later to find out that these were copies and that the original was in Estonia.

Before I go on you must meet 2 men that would change the course of my life (seriously), they are my lucky charms. Everything started falling into place after I met these guys. Everyone, please meet Justin (yobby - don't ask) and Baz (Baz Lee Sanchez - what a name!). These guys basically stayed at our house before we even met them as Yobby was mates with Toff. For an absolute bargain they stayed at our place, loved Galway so much that they decided to rent a tiny room between them (which was located ontop of Lidl). They had grand plans of working for a bit, but decided to check that. They were the extra spark we needed, the never fail drinking buddies, the finder of ten beef patties for 1 euro (or OO-ro), the masters of the george foreman grill & inventer of 'vodka in a water bottle'. I met them after just arriving home from the prague trip, had to work the next next, was 'too' tired to go out.. but went anyway for a few which turned into lots which turned into a nasty next day at work.

Meet Yobby (left) Baz (right, sporting his own brand label)

Now on to easily the best party that I went to whilst in Ireland. We weren't even formally invited, we didn't even know the guys at that point. But this party was historical. By this stage we were pretty much getting invited to every single party that occured, between us, we had worked on so many teams that if there ever was anything that happened (at all), we were there.

It all started off with a harmless bbq... seriously what's wrong with this picture? Notice how cold everybody is? HOw small the BBQ? And the fact that we are on a tiny balcony what appears to be winter, but is infact their summer.

Then comes the glorious beer, the host knew the guy who made this beers, it's called the Galway Hooker (yes that right), but unfortunately named after a boat not a girls on a corner who does tricks. Tastes like a poor mans little creatures.. so awesome!!!

The boys gearing up for the night and me with my johnny depp shirt

Further proof that Baz is black, if you wear really dark shades, he blends in. Baz manages to provide clean water to poor galway, here is his promo shot for UNICEF, or is it world vision? Either way, best photo ever.

Me and my Reg, Eavan. I love this pic.

Life of the party. I had my eyes set in, apparently it was impossible to talk to me the whole night!

So after hooking up, we got locked on the balcony, so we ended up going into the neighbours house and watch half a movie with them

Despite Marcello looking the worst, it was Toff who suprised us all by being the dodgy one and pissing his own pants after waking up. Tam had the courtesy to take photos and show us all. Just brilliant.

Oh I forgot the bootle came too for the fun! Things all sort of rounded up at about 4am, I took the girl home (her home) and finally made it to bed at about 6:30am. I had to be in hospital at 8am... for a 56 hour shift!!! Oh my god was that aweful, I actually passed my pager to another guy by the name of gareth (not 3G) who, much to my gratitude, held it for 7 hours!!! ANd got paid to sleep.

Self explanatory.

The next part is dedicated to the great great night life that is Galway. It's a university town so really it's young people aplenty. The places we hit hard were the front door, the living room (they have some funny obsession with house parts) Bazaar, my favourite - the Roisin Dove (black rose), busker browns. And for the meat market, its Halo & CP's (Marcello's hunting ground). And countless other pubs.

Bin Art

No idea where this is

Boys in Halo

The boys took some girls home, it was a great night. Bottle thought that Galway was the best city ever

My man John Morris in front of the Front Door

3G insists that putting your little finger will stop a beer bottle from spilling over if smacked. Yeah.. I see it really works graz...

We were known for our great dinners! That's Sandpad in the middle

Bringing Cider back into fashion. We discovered just how good it was on a hot summers day!

Best fresh ocean caught salmon, sushied by me!

The is the shop we bought it from, recommended by Toff. Just before we left, Galway's biggest scandle came about, when they found a dead body in their freezer. It had been there for 5 years! Some druggy that went missing from Dublin. We stopped buying fish from them.

Continuing the tradition of random people we dont know staying at our house. These lovely girls Bec & Han, crashed at our place, we didn't even know them from before. There is a hilarious video of Hannah pumping our inflatable bed. Apprently she wanted to marry me after seeing my cooking.. I think Baz was annoyed.

Swanning it

This is us trying to practice our square dancing

Incase you doubted our culinary skills

The number of Julie's, Julia's, Juliette's that we met overseas was out of control. My last count was over ten. We became friends with them all. Here is Juliet & Julia at a birthday lunch at Galway's most critically acclaimed resteraunt. I can't remember the name.

Here is Julie (Fad's) in her own backyard, hand printed and participating in the longest sing song ever. It all starts with Beattie for a song then goes crazy from there. The Irish have some beautiful songs, kudos goes to Elaine Walsh for her moving tribute. We were still belting them out at 3 in the morning. Neighbours (which they sang a lot on our behalf) must have loved it.

3g with random shit in his mouth. Loved it. I also dropped Julie's camera at ths party and ended up waking in D's house all confused and having to break back into Julies house because Donna had to climb moutains.

We even made nice with the rich & famous. One of them is this lady, who was our renal registrar but also part time millionare. She has a huge construction company, built from scratch with her husband. She owns 2 helicopters and has a diamond ring the size of an eye ball. Here we have been invited to the christening of her child at Galways most famous bar. Which again I can't remember the name of.

At the internation beer house, after a long trip and getting nostalgic about Aussie beer. So we got a coopers each!

Funniest game of indian poker! Drunk again, some random thursday night.

World cup cricket. We were set to win, and we did. Note Graz's wierd obsession with sticking his finger in someone else's ear. Also the guy on the very left is a tool. Name of Brad, introduced himself as GOD wouldn't you love to titty fuck that chick (who was an ugo anyway). He couldn't understand why women didn't want to sleep with him. Came over with the intention of working in England for a few years... eventually went home after 1 month. What a toss.

After a looooooooong hiatus

2007-05-18T03:39:00.000+10:00

Ok ok , it has been a while. My excuse is that I have been ridiculously busy, traveling non-stop (no time for bloggin, but just enough for facebooking) going back to australia, then back to Europe, then back to Australia(long story that I will elaborate later... or never), to Perth, doing research & trying to buy a house all at the same time. But no excuses, lets go again. My memory will be somewhat impaired given that it was such a long time ago, so many things have happened & lots of drinking etc in between. I figure no one really reads this except for me as a kind of jounal. SO here goes....

After basically not doing anything in Munich but wake up with hangovers it is no surprise that the trip out started off with one, we were late & hadn't booked anything. I was going to stop in Pilsen, the home of pilsner!!!, but alas no time. It was straight to my favourite city of the time Prague to meet up with long lost buddy Trost & Lex (who I had never met before) but apparrently they are an item.

(this is the only proper photo I could find of them together where Trost isn't making some sort of face)

After a LONG walk (I had a proponderence to walk everywhere, which Graz must hate me for) we arrived at the pleasantly awesomely presented hostel Czech Inn, it was more like a hotel. It was straight out to get some pilsner into us, and of course it snowed like mad (like last time I was here and it was a record low.... enough for th eriver to freeze over for th efirst time in 40 years)

Children eating snow

The ugliest car around, it actually is a monster (as written on the screen)

Why can't my brothers spell (or maybe he's called Hong, and he is long)

We found our favourite statue, they had moved it, which made it very tricky. It's a tradition

Probably... PROBABLY!!!

I slapped him three times in the face with my glove and threw it on the ground, we subsequently dueled

Jeremy tackles yet another tradition, the Czech "pigs knee"

Couldn't leave without going to our favourite pub, serving the best pils.

We did a lot of touristy stuff with JT & AB, but they had to leave us... and we subsequently had the BEST night out ever. One that will be remmebered for the rest of my life. It all started with Graz going on a walking tour and actually getting friendly with the tour guide. Invited him to drinks, which means inviting me to drinks. At some wicked laid back local pub in the middle of no where, we started chatting to the guide and her boyfriend. Really cool people. I subsequently find out that he organises lots of parties in Prague and invited us along, we said why the fuck not! The party was located in an underground communist atomic bunker!!!! Apparently the whole underside of prague has a network of them, and it also has a fully functional hospital, maintained eeryday, but with NO patients. Anyway so off we went, but not before a dog decided to jump on our table and spill my beer everywhere!!

What a mess

The offending dog

Anyway so we took this tram to literally in the middle of nowhere on some hillside. The outside, pictured below was this graffiti clad cement entranceway. I thought for a second that we would be killed, I even smsed Jeremy a final goodybye and an approximate location incase no one hears of me again. But down we went, I think about 300m underground.. it was a long spiral staircase.

Typical entrance to an underground Communist Atomic Bunker

A long way down

Huge heavy steel doors, were we in James Bond film?

Ready for Atomic War

Once downstairs we were greeted by a live drum & Bass funk gig with apparently some expert/famous bongo drum player. Met lots of random people, did random things. Atmosphere was amazing. No good phots but here is something.

Long walk back up

But we did make it out alive

Our tour guide & her boyfriend. Amazing people, the dude is drummer for some prog experimental band. I did have some of his stuff, but have since lost it all. Went had pizza with him and his very stoned cousin near the big tower thing (which has huge babies climbing up it)

Nothing beats a fresh (not) hot dog after a big night out

The next night saw us going to possibly the best club I have ever been to in my life (again introduce by our tour guide friends). It's called cross and is basically owned by a sculptor who goes to junk heaps and bring back bits of metal to add to his club. Apparently ever time you go there it's different and inside is a huge rabbit warren of rooms. Like out of the matrix. Outside looked pretty dodgy though, again I though we might be killed.

Hot as bar wench inside Cross

Met these cool guys in our dorm, this guy used to body guy for a really important persons girlfriend (who was a stripped and was miss nude something) I can't even mention who it was for fear either of us get assassinated. Funny red mark on his head....

Graz & I went completely the wrong way to get home from the club. Trains had stopped, I thought I could walk, I was wrong, we almot fell through some massive holes in the ground (we're on a bridge) to our death.

That was enough of Prague for me and we left for Vienna on what was the MOST horrific journey of the trip. I think we caught 5 trains, 3 busses and god knows how much walking, fretting, raining and dodgy people, not understanding us, or we them and basically having no idea what was going on the whole time. It all started at some we hour in the morning, going to the train station, finding no trains. Getting the train to the bus station, waiting for hours and luckily Graz snooped around and bought a ticket. I decided to go visit czesky kromlov, bad idea, it was great.... all 30 minutes of it.

We got to kromlov, us and the whole bus of tourists, pretty much in the middle of no where, no directions to the city, raining, eventually found the town. Found out the the next and only train to vienna left in 40 minutes and the train station was ages away! So pretty much ran there and took a few happy (not so much) snaps. Waited at the station to buy tickets, but the ticket guy wasn't there, fearing our train had gone. Went to the toilet, said had to pay 5 kronar, paid some guy in a shack, who jumped like a kangaroo at hearing that I was from Australia, only to find out that the toilet was open anyway. Eventaully found someone to sell us tickets as our train was pulling up. Boarded.

Graz was happy to get on. With us was random commies with mother fucking big dogs, hoodlem kids staring at us (the freak shows - they should look at themselves) plus we didn't really know where to get off.

Eventually got off at some town famous for budweiser beer???? i'll have to check that one, can't even remember the town name. Where we found out that the train no longer runs but instead there is a bus to our next destination. However where is the bus station? the lady pointed in a direction. Found a brand spanking new bus station. So new, it wasn't in operation yet. After lots of trying, pointing and saying bus vienna 2000 times & putting to use my rudamentry mandarin, we found the bus stop, right outside the train station. The picture above is the train station, which felt so stereotypical communist. There were actually 2 busses of the same 'number' but apparently ours was the one with few people on it. Here graz had an extremely drunk guy yelling czech at him and putting him in a headlock, this bus was absolutely fanging it, we had no idea where it was taking us. Each stop we would gesture to get off, each time a man sitting near us told us to wait. Eventually we were the only people left except for this guy. Last stop, he gets off, tells us to come, then happens to also be the ticket collector for the train (more like a 2 carriage tram). Again eventually everbody got off except us, eventually reached the border and saw everybody running to another train. We ran too.. hopped on a pitch dark train (muc nicer though, so we knew we were going to austria) and waited for 30 minutes...

This is us on the train. I am a happy man at this point.

We get off in Vienna and somehow catch the right tram in the right direction & make our way to the hostel in the middle of the night.

After the crazyness of our last we week and pretty much not seeing Munich we decided to lay a little low in Vienna and absorb some culture. Wonderfully beautiful city. Highlights (non-cultural touristy) were watching a beat box concert & trying to eat a huge amount of meat in one sitting.

Watched an Opera after waiting in a ridiculously long line.

Probably the biggest FUCK off Schnitzel I have ever attempted to eat. Pure meat 1 inch thick, I couldn't even finish half. We ordered salads, chips etc on top of this.. which the waited politely 'forgot' to bring out.

My first coffee in ages, at one of those suddenly everywhere Nescafe stores

Twice we came out to this cemetery, just for some dead musicians. Hardly famous even...

The Hundertwasserhaus, wicked wierd wacky.

I love knorx

Sculpting my guns. 1001...1002...

Pretty river Vien, we were going to take hydrofoils over to Brataslava, but they were'nt operating until... the next day!!Grrrr..

These little squirrels come up to you and take a chestnut off you, shake it about a bit (like in the movies) and go bury it somewhere.

They had small guards at the schonbrun palace

Off to Bratislava it was! Arrived, again was totally lost comig out of the train station and yes I decided to walk the whole way. Again another ridiculous journey. Eventually found our hostel, the guuy at the desk completely stoned and struggled to even get our keys. We were expecting cheap and really was NOT dissappointed. I can't beleive how well we lived for nothing, unfortunately there was not much to do here...

Their biggest attraction... an empty castle ( all redone on the inside and pretty much nothing but boring exhibits.)

We had to make our own fun

These random Statues were pretty funny, the whole place seemed to lack much substance (unfortunate side effect of communisms in outskirt countries I think)

THE most awesome meal we had of the tour! All for about 5 bucks! Great vino too!!

Schnitzel Efficiency

2007-05-11T23:47:00.000+10:00

City of salt, birthplace of Mozart, deep fried pork.... we really went into Salzburg with one question in mind... honestly, how do you solve a problem like Maria? Despite all my protests and complete lack of enthusiasm 3G (gay gay Gareth) dragged me along to a Sound of Music Tour. But before we get to that I must rave a little bit about just how good the schnitzel is here (general region), I am not normally a schnitzel fan, in fact I don't really even like pork much (maybe I should be Jewish... I mean one of my good friends [Cello] has already converted). But really I couldn't get enough of the schnit... until I met with Schnitzelmidt... but that's a WHOLE other story.

For some reason all there famous monuments were covered in plastic! This photo was actually very hard to take!

Graz, getting angry at little people (lets call them elves)

Monks, brewing up some great beverages at the Augustiner Braustubl. Seriously, what a life... lets get drunk everyday and sing songs! Too bad about the chastity thing though. They should have big bashes with thte local nunnery. Swing off chandeliers, that sort of stuff.

They like there little people here... I happen to be one.

At first I was very urgh... But then I thought we were here, lets make the most of it. So I tried to start singing the songs... which were BLARING the entire trip as you can imagine. But actually didn't know the words to most of it. Did you know most people in Salburg didn't even know that the Sound of Music movie existed, and most didn't see it till a few years ago when it was finally released in Austria in german format. And did you know that the home of Redbull is actually nearby! Ok here it is...

I've been cast for the follow-up movie.... what sound?.

The actual Gezebo from the movie, Graz was 16 going on 17.

Strolling along the same hill that Maria did....

This bull apparently saved the town once. They were beseiged by someone (probably Napolean the little shit) the whole town were starving. But to show the enemy they still had lots of food they painted their only remaining cow a different colour everyday and 'paraded' it to the enemy. Who subsequently withdrew, thinking the seige might last another year or something like that...

Castletop lemon tinged beer!

My favoured dog of the trip so far

Apparently I wasn't allowed in

We then decided to head to Berchtesgaden, holiday destination of the 3rd Reich and home of the Eagle Nest. It was a most wonderful serene town. We ended up staying in a 300 bed hostel... and we were the only people there. This was our view... just amazing

We only had to pay €12 for this view

Apparently my doggies can just 'do' it anywhere

We took ages trying to find this particular schnitzel house recommended by the lonely planet, and surprise surprise it was closed. We ended up stumbling into this pub, with only 7 people in it and they all knew each other. One of those we entered and the whole placed stopped kind of thing. Anyway there was a head of the fucking HUGE rabbit (pictured above) it was about the size of my head, but what's more is that it had horns!!!! Devil rabbit! I later founf out that the horns were a local joke.. very funny

This is at Konigssee, glorious. Must go there again.

Clam tranquil lakes below, magnamous mountains above... and a random church.

Blair witch style. It's the same tree!

Next it was off Munich, home of more beer and schnitzel. We stayed in the most happening hostel I've been in. We walked in and it happened to be a Jagermeister party, where we got an hour of free jager, given to us by test tubes and cyote ugly style (poured right into our mouth) We had a moose dancing infront of us, which we quickly pushed aside for the hot(ter) jager girls. Graz rooted a mormon in the shower. We basically lived at this bar, met all the staff including the owner, got free drinks and needless to say drank excessively. We hardly saw Munich... it was great. We also happened to spend St Patrick's day the (WTF you say). Yes I know it terrible considering we live in Ireland, but apparently it's schnit house in Ireland... and friends who were there actaully agreed. The party is elsewhere.

Our St Pat's day consisted of lots of drinking.. the Guiness was SO SO schnit. We watched 3 games of rugby. Ireland lost the 6 nations title in an absolutely heartbreaking and controversial circumstances.

Pat's Day piss heads.

This guy had leg warmers. I had to, had to, take a photo. He even had a rose...

Hofbrauhaus, with a wicked little band playing german chants.

Schloss Neuschwanstein, the basis for Disney Land and built by a gay crazy king.

Hanging with the staff

Ditto... from Namibia

A bar where table top dancing is ecouraged

Took me a while to get up to my room

Graz...in Graz!!

2007-05-11T01:07:00.000+10:00

After the weekend of liver battering that was kate's birthday, we headed to what I consider the most efficient, clean and law-abiding society in Europe. Even if there is no one around, people will NOT cross the street unless there is a green light! Our forst stop was Graz in Sth-East Austria, simply because it had Gareth's nickname. Again, I've always maintained that I'd had more fun in small towns. And Graz, was simply awseome.

Look at what Graz is pointing at. This is from the top of Castle Hill, where the bell tower has it's hands backwards

The streets are littered with random motifs, this of tin tin comics and a bunch of coins. Obviously I am too dumb to figure out what this actually means.

They have all these random rock climbing spots along the river, no harness required

The coolest cafe in the world, architectural master piece

This is it's inside, all flowing. Couches so comfortable... this is important to me.

Graz's Kunst house... just brilliant. Inside was the coolest minimalist exhibit, where is you screamed the whole place would 'breathe' and the lights pulse.

In case you want to know what his Kunthouse would look like

English Manor Weekend

2007-05-10T02:05:00.000+10:00

Kate (sister of Graz) decided to hire out a HUGE English Manor in South Hampden, which was fully catered, invited 30 odd people, for some birthday celebrations. And what better way to start our middle Europe trip. Arrived in London and pretty got smashed ASAP with Richard Bootle, Simon Philippides and Wyka. Woke up with a bad hang over, ate KFC and started a 4 hour car ride with random people who liked sticking their head out the window, much like a dog (Dan). Our first night consisted of burgers, coins, table tennis and poker.

The fridge pre-coins. This (and more) was gone in about an hour.

Nothing like a good old session of coins

He'd make a good wife

Hung-over for the 2nd day in a row, we all crawled out of bed, donned some camo-gear and decided to shoot the pain out of ourselves with paintball. It's the 1st time I did it, counterstrike for real. High lights includes my taking out almost an entire team by myself, stealing the missle from the enemy when I was the only one left and getting shot at by my own team mates. I still have a scar on my arm from it, they hurt - even drew blood.

The climax of the weekend was the birthday night - gangster themed. Everyone was dressed up uber sexy! Started off all class and then completely degenerated, which was great. I think no body went to sleep before 6am, some people left to catch their trains and we were still up.

Some classy cats

Graz, greek mafia. Lyndon, asian triad

Not quite sure how Shaft got invited, but he was good entertainment.

Tommy gun mo-down

Graz: the 'elegant' assasin. This guy looked at me funny...

So I hired a hard-arsed she-bitch to take him out. Tonight he sleeps with the fishes

Mafia boyz. Don't mess with us, cos there will be pretty much nothing we can do about it.

This man (Shaft) can swallow his own fist!!!!!

My best Peter Doherty impression

Parentally Guided

2007-05-10T01:18:00.000+10:00

My parents came over as part of there tour de Relatives, and basically to see what the hell I get up to on the otherside of the world (I didn't fancy telling them non-stop partying, drinking, traveling and sleep deprivation). So I showed them around Galway, Dublin, accompanied them to London and even forced my hand and took them to Porto!

Enjoying a pint of the 'black stuff' with dad.

Me ma post downing a pint! She looks so happy!

Ireland, living up to it's standards of shit house weather. These are the cliffs of Moher... which my parents didn't even get to see! This was the worst day of fog in Ireland so far!

Mum re-inacting the day's of her starvation, I think they were called the 60's.

Beautiful Porto

The rain followed us to Porto, and my Mum turned into the now famous plastic bag head

Mum loves the Markets, she wanted to buy everything and eat it

What has now become my favourite Porto place to eat (Guarany's), the steak is SUPERB!!!

Back to London, and my Uncle is cooking up a storm!

I love my grand dad, he's the coolest guy in the world.

The morning I left London to go back to Ireland the experienced a freak MASSIVE snow storm. Getting out of london was a nightmare, people even got so bored they built snowmen on the platforms (pictured above). The airport was out of control. My flight was cancelled. I somehow luckily spoke to this guy next to me (after a women feinted in the line and I helped her out... you know because I pretty much am morally obliged). And this guy managed to get the last 2 seats on the night flight and gave one to me! So I sat in the airport for a record 14 hours, read the entire black dahlia, but hey I got home.

GO Skis!!!!

2007-04-10T00:18:00.001+10:00

Agruably the best week in my trip so far. I've never been skiing before so I was very excited with Cath & Suz invited me on their little trip! With all these people I pretty much hadn't met before. On my first little trip by myself, I finished work at 6pm, grabbed John's ski stuff, got on the 1am bus to Dublin slept on the counter for 4 hours and boarded a flight to Geneva! Where we were picked up and chauffeured to our Chalet in Meribel. The chalet is completely catered for: cooking, cleaning, rides to/from ski slopes and big drunken nights out!

Meet the crew! It was even Lisa's birthday (one to my left) to the right is Gareth (Gaz), just when I thought I got away from them.

On the chair lift with our ski instructor, we had 4 hours and then just went for it. So many stacks and my knees were killing me. One of the crashes was so full on that I even broke my skis!

The 1st day there was hardly an snow, which was fine because I was still on the begginer slopes. Then it absolutely dumped over night 1m!! Gaz was so happy. This is our chalet post snow

This is Lisa and I in the happy pose.... this photo she accidentally framed and was going to give to her boyfriend thinking it was him! Luckily she discovered before it was too late! Hope Neil never finds this site... hehe!

Posing infront of mountains. This is VERY high up.

Having a coffee at the summit, just dandy. It goes cold in about 10 seconds. Little birds accompany the whole treat.

Mountain top glory.

Neil... What a push over!

It's So amazing being above the clouds.

Name writing in the snow

Australia Day on the slopes! I really wanted to get a flag and tie it to my back while I went down the slopes.

Partying with Scooby Doo!

We didn't have Aussie Day tattoos so we ended up sticking Fosters labels to our faces. It took us ages to get to this party at Le Tania, then back to Meribel...made all the worse by the endless cold. Partied mental after, it's so bad being on the slopes hung over.

Many- a big nights here (called Dick's tea bar)

Most amazing Ski shot!

The most amazing pool shot, jumped the table on the last shot and right onto this glass. Just as Mike said "I bet you that's going to hit....."

Great snow ball splatter shot!

My first snow man, I called him Adam. He even has leaves over his private bits!

The Toffee apple, best drink to down.

From a great night at a joint where a beatles melody band played, they even did MUSE! Me and Karolina, great great shot!

Neil and I, just being idiots.

A night out where you play for your drinks, guess the right cup and you get the whole round for free! I managed to know which cup was the one to chose. So pretty much got plastered for free.

Our chalet girls - in black, so so hot! Everyone was going for the one on the left (Tilly)

By the end, I was skiing red lines! What a celebration, I didn't even break a bone. Unlike gaz on his second trip, where he fractured his collar bone!

I even skied home drunk from mid-slopes, with my boots not properly strapped in!!! There is a pub half way between the slopes where people crowd surf and get pushed into the ceiling! I have footage, it's SO funny. I was extremely buggered by the end, walking, getting up was all painful. On the way home, I even saw a sing pointing to a town called.... Pussy!!! Imagine, saying to a girl 'would you like to come home with me, I live in Pussy.' Or the road sign 'you're in Pussy' Just great. I am addicted to skiing now. Will go whenever someone asks from now on. Loved it.

The Great Irish Depression and Gods of Rock

2007-04-04T01:39:00.000+10:00

The next few months were a bit of a non-event for me. In fact the endless raining, cold and work really started to get to me. Compounded by the fact that most of our new found friends left Galway city as they had been posted to rural hospitals. So coupled with my vitamin D deficiency from lack of sun and another horrible 6 weeks of work with NO day off.... I was going out of my head. I even worked christmas day, boxing day (they call it St Stephen's) and half of new years eve! All in Rheumatology, what a downer. Joint's! blah! Who needs them.

Graz and I with our little white optical christmas tree, I got a scarf, hip flask, cookies and alcohol!

Michelle invites us over for a christmas party! She is my uber uber rich, about to pop a baby out ex-renal reg come Consultant. She can drink (cos she's preggers), but she even hired a 'waitress' to pour our drinks!

Our sad pathetic christmas party at hospital, all sober as dobers (it would be very irresponsible of us) there is concerningly half a bottle of whiskey hidden in one of the cupboards. Still got paid a lot to do nothing (48hours straight)

Our new years outing, which was very very dissappointing. apparently, NYE is very much a non event in Ireland. Jack came up which was great!

One of my great meals that I cooked, here pictured is Baked Crispy Duck!! I also to steamed salmons, ginger/shallot chickens and wicked roasts!

Morphing the el cheapo G-tar

During my months of deep depression, I always managed to find a hobby. So I set about converting my boring €80 strat copy sunburst into something a bit more funky. I have never painted a guitar before, so this was all trial and error. I think it pissed Graz off a little as the house smelt like paint for a while. It took me ages to do!

Before: This is my boring original, as you might be able to see I've strapped my fuzz factory to it. Like Matt Bellamy used to do. It's sounds andplay pretty feckin good considering that it was only €80.

After: The end result, which I am very proud of!

This is me being a poser. I dont even have the lead plugged in...haha

This is my tribute to Rock god's, of which I really only know one. His name is Colin Newton (you though I had left you out didn't you!) and his band is the mighty Kerberus!! One look at his hair and you know he was meant to play the axe. I can't find a link to their sight, but I will post it soon! They have a few albums out already, and are about to take the world by storm. It is rumoured they may headline big day out next year! Pictured with him is his fiance! Jen.... everyone I know is getting married!

Italia - Dirty Cheating Bastards

2007-04-02T23:57:00.000+10:00

Still unforgiven for the penalty that robbed Australia of what should have been our world cup victory, we went to the country in an attempt to claim it back, or at least steal something back. Our first few days were spent seeing the ENORMOUS amount of site Roma had to offer. I wont bore you with it except for some pictures that conjure up funny memories.

The rediculous line to get into the Sistine Chapel, it goes for 3 streets!! The funniest thing though was when a tourist for some reason vomited all of last nights noodles onto the person in front. So disgusting, the guy infront took about 10 minutes before he realised that he had a massive patch of hurl on his back.

Hanging outside St Peter's Basilica, chillin out with some holy types. We even got to go above and underneath the basilica - where many popes, including the late John Paul II.

Outside were these monkeys... honestly how can they protect the Basilica when you can't even really take these guys seriously.

While we were meeting famous people, who happened to be inside the Basilica? The Wallabies!! We even wish rathbone good luck angainst the I-ties.

Best traffick light ever. Stop... get ready...get stoned.

We met this legend multiple times, tight leather shorts, roman style.... just great!

Fanatical day out

Sight seeing took a bit of a back seat as we joined the fanatics for the Wallabies vs Italia match.

Our group - some hotties too!

Our tour guide: aptly nicknamed useless.

This photo taken just after a chicky ditched him, poor guy

At the game, wallabies won, but played attrociously. Beer prices were extortion and warm.... grrr. You ordered and they threw the cans at you! To there credit they do have a good anthem, very fire up. As opposed to our pansy one.

The post game banter, arguably the best part of the day. A massive crowd of blue chanting at the aussies, they had heaps of awesome chants. Including the music man... what can I play? I can play the clitorii! We have video of it, funniest thing ever. We on the other hand we had nothing... we even resorted to pulling out the Home and away theme song! What a disgrace.

Post game line outs! Lots of fun! HEAVE!!!!

Post game partying! With big gay Al.

Graz scores.....hmmm

After the cultural exlposion that was Rome, we headed to Florence where we discovered that Michelangelo's David's right hand was really a bit disproportionately big. 2 out of 3 aint bad. Also ate a rabbit.

Best tagliatelle so far, right outside carousel

Precursor to the smart car, the dumb one... are they kidding?

The most expensive gelate ever, this was €15 and it wasn't even that good

Good friend of Dave Manner's... small world

Because Gareth and I were traveling together I thought we would have a romantic interlude in Verona and do as Romeo and Juliet do. I personally think that this is the best city in Italy, it has everything Italy needs to offer and is not so touristy.

Me getting jiggy with Juliet's breast

Gareth going nuts at Verona's own Coliseum, where Massive Attack, Bjork and Pearl Jam played.

I ate horse, best restraunt called Trattoria All'Isolo (i think)

Best waiters there too, asked for a wine, pointed out a cheapo that was better than al the expensive ones.. and it was SO good.

Venice, what can I say. Just another touristy junk pile, floating on shitty water. The hospital was cool though, located in a gothic 'church'. Bought a venice mask. Ate the worst italian meal (run by Asians... bloody asians) where we watched a Japanese guy really struggle with each bite of his meal. Also encountered a huge rat... to which a woman nearby screamed and ran the other direction on her little stillettos. Graz finally found a present for his little Irish girl, Sinead which he would later very much regret (a teddy bear... ergh, but he didn't listen). Went out to the 3 colours bars. And left Italy in a very dodgy airport.

Look at the shitty water. We unfortunatley didn't meet any girls to do gondola ride with.

Fat Fucks! What happens when you super size their rice. I really don't think they can fly.

Dream Week in Dublin

2007-03-04T23:22:00.000+10:00

I cannot express to all of my one readers how awesome this week turned out to be. Initially it meant to be just a stop-over week before we headed to Italy, but so many things had gone wrong in our trip, lady luck finally smiled.

The Irish love their poles (not just the eastern Euro's)

For our first night we stayed at some shitty hostel, where we met a french chef and some dweeby american who had done way too many drugs in his so far short life. Dublin was friggin cold. We met up with Toff and Tam (who BTW are now ENGAGED!), who subsequently informed us that international rules were on, but tickets had already sold out. DOH says we. Deciding 'what they hey' we decided to ask anyway. Fortunately for us, ticketmaster had just released a whole bath of new tickets, and the were probably the best seats in the house! So made a day of the International rules, in which we hammered Ireland so hard, they have subsequently decided to cancel next years match because they were too humiliated. That plus at one stage there were 5 fights on at the same time, one of which began before the first whistle.

Pre-game Fosters drinking sesh

Ol Croke Park, where the bloody English rolled in some tanks and blew away the keeper

The score Ireland 30... Australia 69!!! Yeah!

In a sea of Irish, we were the only happy ones.

Then, came my biggest night! The MUSE concert. If you know anything about me, you must know that I am semi-obsessed by these guys, followed them from a wee tiny band to the massive super-stars that they are now. Liked their old stuff better than there new stuff. Anyway headed to the Point Theatre on 3rd of November with Barbs, the alpha feMale. Originally in the seating area (which was shit) I bolted into the mosh. but they have this new 2 barrier thing, which sucks balls cos then you can get any closer. Surounded by teeny boppers jumping into my chin and a fucking tall idiot who didnt know how to control his elbows. Still great gig. Dom came out of a satellite and matt had all these fusckin wicked new Manson G-tars. Must make myself one, one day.

Matt with his M1D1, kaos pad included.

The Mirror Manson, fingerprints and all, not sure about the 'band aid'

After the first night we stayed with ToffTam, who live with some stoners that like to dutch oven. Toff took us ona little tour de Dublaine. This included some momuments, an old ha' penny bridge and the Jameson factoy.... new convert of the triple distilled and non smokey whiskey.

Our first Irish coffee, at the factory. SO good! Made the tour a lot more interesting too.

Toff's fave spot, which has a tribute to the potato faminers, which was a whole lot more than 40 hours. This is us feigning starvation, we look so pained. We didn't even have a potato!

A tribute to my new awesome sunnies.

And what would a trip to Dubbers be without a visit to the guiness factory? They have an awesome sky bar which overlooks the whole city and has Guiness direct from the brewery. Probably the nicest pint, mother's mik. Remember the epi-centre? It's so true.

GuinI!

At the Epicentre

Nothing like a brew and some Guiness & beef stew

Their famous campaigns, where if you drink Guiness, you can lift iron girders, or be a seal.

Another famous sighting, we had dinner with mates of ToffTam and guess who was sitting at the next table? Blair (from Big Brother and more recently neighbours), also tagging along was that blond guy that does big brother up late. Tam went and hugged him (Blair). Whatever... Later that night I had an interesting experience in one of the club toilets. Please refer to the Ode to Toilet post.

But that wasn't it for the concerts. We somehow discovered that Wolfmother was playing at the Olympic. Again however, tickets were all sold out. On the night, I just said fuck it, lets chance and just go, maybe we could scalp. To our luck we took the hair off some local's head and got 2 prime tickets for a little more than the base price. Wicked concert, these guys are really worth seeing.

Wolf mother, bringing the SG special back

But that wasn't it for Wolf mother. We even met them at the airport on the way to Italy, told them they played a great gig and was too embarrassed to get a photo. Wolfmother fly Ryan Air.

Return of Imagery with Sweet Seville

2007-02-26T11:25:00.000+10:00

We left Portugal with bitter memories, a burning hatred for the scum that took our things and a sudden realisation of just how much apple had taken over our world with the invention of the Ipod. This all melted away when we crossed the border back into Spain, I dont know what past misgivings Portugal has had, but they definitely got the ugly gene, and it's instantly noticable. I've found in Europe that the further west, the more to detest. And the sun finally came out! So it was back to the tapas, sun and gorgi-arse women (OMG!!).

We ended up sharing a room with this dude we met in Largos in a fantastic and cheap hostel! First thing was to find a new camera! So finally I have a picture to show

This is us drinking some famous orange wine

I also found much wanted red shoes! I bought a pair of red suede Puma's reduced from €120 to 20!!!!! What a score, originally it was only reduced to 50, but the girl at foot locker fucked up the scan I think. We also managed to buy back nokia chargers for €8! Seville, what a beauty.

Walking along one night I think I saw the most ingenious ideas ever, it also almost made piss myself. Called the 'Lazy Beggars' they just lay out cardboard and you donate toward things, such as whiskey, food, cocaine or an ipod mini. They even have a business card and a website! And if you want a photo they hold up signs with photos : €10,000. So classic check em out.

http://www.lazybeggers.com

They have the most amazing wood carved organ in their cathedral

The streets were all dug up and I joking said it was like an archaeological dig.... and it was

Cello got bed bugs. Haha! He was so paranoid he threw away his shoes, sleeping bag and backpack.

Graz ordered a San Migeul and instead got a Samichlaus, brewed only once a year, these monks must have been moggot all the time. At 14% it is the strongest beer in the world.

Samichlaus - Strongest beer in the World

Amazing flamenco dancing and THE most incredible guitar playing I have ever seen

Crazy parking - how did he get in? And how the FUCK is he getting out. We witnessed multiple 'bumps' whilst parking. They are called bumper bars after all.

Big olives!

Just Grand

Meaty Madrid

Due to our inability to follow travel schedules, we didn't have much time in Madrid. Saw lots of huge cardboard cut out of bulls. We were staying, in an awesome place called Hostal Orly which happened to be situated in the red light district, that also happened to have a hard core porn channel (we love porn). We only really had one night there. Which was just enough for Smurf to die his hair, see a museum, buy an awesome pair of sunnies, order a plate of cold meat with nothing much else and sip some coffee. Oh we also commend Madrid on the air port, which took around 7 terminals but only €1 to get too.

Some bear humping a tree

Tauro! fucker!! Tauro!

Filth and Loathing in el Lagos

2007-02-19T00:46:00.000+10:00

I had to build up enough hate to write this section. By far the worst section of our travels, although we still had fun, was mainly marred by the greatest thievery incident since Brad Pitt and Clooney teamed. Cunningly executed, we have a feeling all were involved, the apartment owner, the cleaner, police, every resident in Lagos some even say the President.

It all began when we got off the bus, some old fucker came up to us and offered rooms for €10 per night. Being cheapo we took it, the placed seemed nice - needed 2 keys to get in, windows secure, clean except the smell of old cigarettes.

Everything seemed ok at first. Given how sun deprived we were from Ireland, we came to Lagos for the sun and beach, but got clouds and rain instead. Bloody everywhere I go!!! We did manage to bum on the beach for a little, enjoying just a little brief moment of sun. There also happened to be some medieval festival going on, with people every where in tacky knights/maidens costumes, heaps of stalls with wierd foods to eat. We even met one of 3G's old school mates, who happened to get robbed the other day through a B&E- how much warning did we need???

We decided to go on a bender one night, lots of tequila, lots of beer. Cello even showed off his new hot dog undies to the hot dog stand guys. Randy girls (all not portugese) everywhere. Great craic. Got home, passed out.

Woke up to the tapping on my door, to my suprise it was the old guy. He handed me 3G's passport book, in my hung over state I took it, said thanks, thinking 3G what an idiot for leaving his passport in the hallway! Knocked on his room to give him shit about it... thinking this was all very strange. He too was baffled, opened up the book and his Aussie passport was missing. Rushed back to my room - the fucking scum had taken everything that was mildy expensive, even the 8 euro cheapo sunnies I had just bought the day before. Here's the list

- Ipod (bought with Trost)

- Digital camera (present from friend, all photos lost)

- Pocket knife (present from Denise)

- Nail clipper (what the?)

- Phone charger ( Oh come on!! they're worth like 5 bucks!)

No sign of forced entry, who ever it was had the keys. Luckily, and i don't know how, but they missed my passport, $800 and a USB key in my backpack's side pocket! 3G got hit hardest, he even lost his reading glasses and new beloved vest!! He was so angry you should have seen it. We then spent the next few hours frustrated and hungover at the police station. Thankfully, Cello knew portugese. Needless to say we moved right out. It was pretty uneventful after that for me. Our moods were down, the lads went out again, but I stayed in bed cos I was still sick. Graz met another greek, tried but crashed. At least he did do a funnel out of Eddie Mabo's pants (picture to follow later). Woken by Marcello's loud banging on the door. We were supposed to leave the next day - no way that was going to happen. So we stayed another day in this shit hole. Fuck Lagos.

Capital Portugal

2007-02-18T10:04:00.000+10:00

I am a very visual person, I remember things by pictures and my lack of pictures makes me forget. Ah but now I have a myriad of memories, spawning off each other - they rush like a wave I cannot catch. I really dont feel like writing fluently about Lisboa, partly because I was sick, I didn't have the best time, hence this feels like a chore also, fittingly, Galway's recent gastro has caught up with me. I will have to go every point I write in this blog. So point form it is.

- stayed in a 8 person dorm where the toilets were so small your knee prevented the door closing. Maybe you're supposed to sit on it backwards - you know, "face" the toilet. In the middle of the night, whilst we were all sleeping, some wierdo girl came in ate something in the middle of the room, took 4 attempts to reach her top bed bunker (due to horizontal challenges of her own part) dance on her bed for a while. Jumped off and left. I thought I was the only witness to it, until the next day we discovered that everyone saw it too!

- met a US marine, who liked his Hickory smoked chicken. Serving in Iraq, currently on leave. Said he was in "interrogator"

- Pissed, absolutely pissed down rain

- Saw a man with the most hideous growth on his face, it is one of the few things that actually made me feel sick.

- Bought my wicked side laced shoes.

- Ate at a fantastic restaurant, the name of which alludes me

- Saw some shitty castle

- I was still ill

- Went out with the lads on the hostel pub crawl, but ended up joining some wierd night tour group full of non-english speaking people. Quickly broke away and ended up catching the last few minutes of some gig, in possibly the most opulent club. Minimal dance floor, but miniture "beds" everywhere, giant glowing balls etc. Still the ugliest girls....

- A car driving by and splashing cello!

Sintra

I actually have some thing to say about Sintra. Add an "A" and you have a wonderful crooner. For me this was a most breath taking little town in the mountains, with castles in the mountains. We only got to see a Moorish broken one, because we thught we could walk to it.... about 30 minutes into it, and only 1/4 of the way there up hill we decided that it might be a bad idea. But the others look spectacular even from a distance. Had an awesome pizza lunch, and wonderful toilets (as written in Ode). What more could I ask for? Ok, beautiful women.

Origin of Port - Oh

2007-02-17T23:46:00.000+10:00

I didn't really know what to expect of Portugal, the main reason for us being here was that Cello for a brazilian, not that he's clean shaven or a nut, but he does have portugese heritage. Much to my surprise there was a lot of asian influences (or maybe the chinese have portuguese influence) in the food. Their shops are lined with really yummy and cheap pastries, alot of which resemble asian deserts like egg tarts, coconut tarts and the like. And in keeping with usual theme of my travels so far, it rained. Yet to buy new shoes, my old sketchers were slippin around all over the place. It's never pleasant to walk around when dogs freely poo everywhere, even worse when the rain dissolves it and spreads it thinly across the pavement.

Food here is amazingly cheap and good! We came across Porto's amazing valley of the Douro River and had their famous Bacalhua in the Ribeira district. Unfortunately it was about now that we realised that something was awry. We went, out got really drunk on overpriced cheap wine and beer, tried our hardest to find something happening, but everyplace was empty, dying or dead. In the most packed club everyone was just too sober and sitting around. So dissappointing. Then it dawned... considering how close to Spain we were (which is full of absolutely gorgeous women) just how not so the Portugese girls were. We had been forewarned of this, and it carried. No wonder nobody goes out, either the beer goggles are ineffective or waking up one too many a time next to the wrong person has scared everybody off from partying.

Due to the heavy heavy rain, we stayed in a lot. But we did venture out again and heard strange chanting everywhere and suddenly noticed a lot of cloak clad people walking around. Originally thinking they were some awesome fashion trend to bring back the cloak, we all wanted one. Then we saw about 100 of them standing in a square chanting whilst kneeling down, and we thought maybe it's a cult, so we looked, but didn't join. We noticed after a while that there were more of these guys on the street then general public, so we got scared. Then we noticed they were all young, wearing shirts with slogans and came to the epiphone: it was Uni induction day!! But first we were hungry. So we ate dinner at this fancy silver service place that we chose at random called Guarany, but turned out to be one of the most famous restaurants in Porto. Ate possibly the BEST steak in the world, like how the Japanese do it, rapid seared on both sides, but still completely raw in the middle, it was AMAZING. To top it off we had green wine and port for desert! It was so so cheap.

After, we took a gamble and just followed these cloaked students around, passing by the occasional bunch of freshers kneeling and pledging to their seniors on the street, we finally came to a congregation of hundreds of them. What subsequently followed was a magical one-off experience, we were treated to musical performances from each University house. Their classical guitar and singing was absolutely enchanting and with the most wonderful setting. At the end of each performance they dont clap, the either shake their hats, or cough. Which worked out really well for me, since due to my newly acquired TB I was perpetually coughing.

Train Ride from Hell

2007-02-17T09:36:00.000+10:00

Damn this blogger this is hard to keep up with. Thanks to Siwok's kick up the bum I'll start writing again. Let me see, i'm only 6 months behind... pretty bad considering that I'll be gone pretty much only for a year. So, continuing on

Well, if I did'nt have TB before I am sure that I (along with my travel companions) have it now. If there is such thing as foreshadowing in life, this train ride would be it for our stint in Portugal. After leaving the beautiful San Sebastian we hopped on a shitty shitty train and initially were amazed that we got our own little cabin for the 14hr overnight train ride that lay ahead. However, quickly booted out by some irate travelers not realising that we had allocated seat, our new cabin shared with a slightly-wired polish tough man (leaving any eastern european country for Portugal to find work cannot be a good sign). Although refusing to open the window, make room or generally communicating, we got along. Then came some stop where all these vagrants boarded, all them who smoked in the corridor and getting absolutely smashed on fuck knows what. But we hit the absolute jackpot when a man who had the foulest smelling urinary tract infection coupled with stale cigarettes and a putrid cough entered our cabin. Note, that this cabin is the size of a toilet cubicle. Betweeen the germ infested vagabond, no open window and the air so thick with marlboro 22's it was an OCD's nightmare. The only bright thing was at a stop our polish man rolled a joint went outside to smoke it, didn't come back for a while, the train started and all I heard was the slowly dissipating sound sound of a man yelling "Oi!! Oi!! ooii!! fuck!!!fuck!!!" Funniest thing ever, ahhh curse my wicked heart. We no hear of polish man again.

Lesson learnt: Always pay the extra for 1st class cabins.

We did have a much needed stop in a nice little place called Coimbra, where thankfully, we got to change trains. Sweet little place, where we found it really really difficult to find a shoe shop. I don think they're used tourists, it's funny when you go somewhere and ppl all look when you go a cafe. But I suppose it's not everyday you see a brazilian, asian and greek hanging out. Uni on a mountain. And seriously, if you need shoes... or better yet want to open a sock store, remember Coimbra. Too bad I have no photos, so here are random picks.

The Saint that is Sebatian

2007-01-14T04:33:00.000+10:00

This poor man who I keep seeing in almost every art gallery eternally immortlised by depictions of being tied to a tree and pierced by arrows. He always looks so unhappy. This is a most beautiful town, I walked of the station and instantly wanted to live here tranquil bay and beach. We found our hostel many thanks to Marcelo's spanish, which was located in an ancient bull fighting court. The owner of our roost was classic. A fat, grimy man that greeted us smashed off his face, with some stain on his shirt, who still lived with his mother and smelt of 4 day old sweat and nicotine. We named him the Dirty Sanchez.

First on order was tapas and kalimotxo. Where we staying in a place surrounded by 200 bars, it was beautiful. We ate and drank, then ate more and drank even more. I've decided one day that I'm going to open a tapas joint at home, or at least have a tapas party with my non existant Brisbane friends. We found an awesome place for paella and found the elusive cheese stuffed spanish olives that made me first fall in love with Spain.

Again, it rained.

Then it was a big night out. I decided that it was tequila night, there was a strip of bars where I think we may have been the only non-locals and by the 5 bar I cant remember anything. Hazy recollections include. Buying a can of pistachios. €1 shooters that we bought almost every body we met. Some cool underground club that I cant remember how we got there, or where is was. meeting a random bunch of girls that took us a beach club. Where Cello decided to pour a drink on a man who bumped him, that ended up being a bouncer. We spent the night avoiding security, who were very angry. Then before going home, we had ourselves a little bull fight in our personal arena, caught on camera but lost forever.

We spent the next day passed out on the benches of the beach, we actually slept for an hour, it was a funny sight, and I had the greatest photo of the tour.

San Sebastion was where I bought my cool brown jacket that had a lining that Graz thought would make the best vest so gave me €50 for it. And honestly it did. He wore it everywhere. They were like one, the best love story you'd ever see. Soon to be tragically torn apart. But we did not know what lay in store in the evil that is Portugal.

Trippin' to Sunnier Places

2006-12-30T01:33:00.000+10:00

First up I must apologise for the lack of photos in the next sequence, due to an incident in Largos all photos were lost. I shall embelish on this later. Anyway on the wee little hours of the morn on the 16th of October we decided to embark on our first trekk. Cello as usual was 10 minutes late and was carrying the smallest torn backpack with about 100 things hanging off it, including the roll up mattress which he wanted to dump but then, me being the unable to throw anything away kinda person that I am decided to carry it for the entire trip. Unfortunately Galway's airport is so tiny that not much leaves from here, so we had to board a bus to Shannon, a town existing purely for the airport. And yes as usual, it was raining cat & dogs, so much so I was concerned that our budget ryan air flight might not be able to safely take off. Carcassone, in the south of France was our destination. Our land was somewhat funny, because the runway was too short our plane actaully had the brakes on before landing.... probably the most wobbly landing ever. Finally we saw some sun, glorious sun! We were greeted by someone doing a wheelie in a scooter across traffic, trekked through this fantastic medieval city and ended up staying in a Hostel that was located in a castle that had a moat. Ate some crepes ( Say : I Love crepes!!!!) We met a guy called Habi who just got a job and the engineer for a wind farm! He had no one to celebrate with so we took him out for a drink. Had the most awesome dinner in a stable, drank nice wine and ate duck a l'orange, had a great photo, but anyway...

So we boarded a train, and as, I was destined to find, now that transport is now cheap and widely available to pretty much anybody, there is always always a psycho onboard. And this time it was a middle aged lady, who on the odd day like to board a random train to a random destination whilst spreading her beloved putrid chest infection and singing nonsense to herself. On the trip we saw the amazing Lourdes where a 14y.o peasant girl had 18 visions of the virgin mary (secondary to them mushroom she just ate) and hence this town of 15,000 gets 5 million visitors of the Sanctuaires Notre Dame de Lourdes. It is a most amazing site. We also found an extraordinary amount of hot girls getting off at Bayonne (mental note to go there next time). Changing trains is always an interesting experience, especially when the transit time was 5 minutes and we had no idea of the platform and Rodriguez behind the counter took us our tickets, gave us a refund and pointed in a general western direction. I thought FUCK, we're stuck here tonight. We had NO idea what he was saying, boarded a random train which closed just as we hopped on, I don't know how we did it, but it was the right one, and instantly everyone on board was speaking spanish.... i'm sorry, i'm sorry.... i don't speak spanish.

Toiling the Hospitals

2006-12-28T05:40:00.000+10:00

We were fairly lucky when it came to working, initially scared that there would be no work we pretty much accepted everything that came our way. Resulting in my working everyday for 6 weeks straight without any break. Initiation into the Galwegian ED was traumatic. Having to give 1st doses of all IV drugs, nursing walking chest pains in that had been waiting for 40 minutes, then not giving any oxygen until seen by a doc and acute abdomens getting panadol for pain relief. We were then posted to Merlin Park a awesome little off shoot in the middle of a forest where on ward rounds we can look out and see bunnies hop by! We were pretty much adopted by the renal unit and replaces a girl by the name of Maeve - Ireland's No 1. female mountain biker who broke her ankle whilst getting off the bike. In Merlin the air is clean, you get to sleep most on-calls and the units are so far apart that they used to have a bus to pick everyone up to go to arrests!

Here are our dorms where we spend some of our massive 56hr shifts.

It is a strange place, with many many weird inhabitant especially Unit 5/6 a source of endless gags. We had the patient who tried to smother the patient next to her with a pillow. We had the great escape where a 87yo lady in th emiddle of the night built stair up to the window, threw pillows out to soften the blow on her osteoporotic bones an dplanned to commando roll when she landed ( luckily caught by us as she was sitting on the sill and about to jump). Then there is the man who prefers to sleep on the ground. And the 2 long term patients that are electric wheel chair bound and race each other around the ground rain, wind or shine. We soon got involved in the Kidney crowd, both consultants were awesome, cool, well-dressed and knowledgable dudes.

Post Indian Shout By Dr Lappin

We even got invited to the Kidney Ball: To good diuresis

We even got to meet the villiage people:

Got to hang with Peter Doherty and MaryMullins

Us putting fake hair onto my consultant...he actaully is held behind his back by a nurse, who later spilt 2 baby guiness on him then went home with Graz.

I was next sent to rheumatology. Gee I love joints and steroids.

El Leal : Disclaimer - the following is all true

2006-12-20T05:15:00.000+10:00

(Hey Cello... I apologise in advance if I offend you in this....)

Enter Leal (from left field). Making the 3rd manber of our party, indeed this man bought a bit of party. He is the cauky version of me, or am I the asian version of him? Anyway we are the Dynamic med video duo (and voss... but she's not here :) Known for his Brazilian good looks, womanising ways, drunken escapades, a penchant for olives, pop-corn and economics. He is an endless source of entertainment. Going by many names - marcello, lealdinho, cock, vector and I call him cello, but on this trip we have decided to label him Liability Leal or El Leal for short. Don't get me wrong, he is an intellegent life form - just ask him about the evolution of ideas. But long have we known him to be the single man-whore who would sleep with anyone whilst wearing a cow bell, and can miraculously be connected as a spit brother to almost anyone, at least by 6 degrees of seperation anyway. So imagine our surprise when we find that he is a changed man, no he's not gay, but he is settled of heart and all the better for it. He is a good man himself and a loyal, dear friend, may I now introduce the soon to become mega star through his pivotal role in MacBeth... please welcome the soon to be vegeterian Jew: Ross, also known as 1st murderer

(he's the one in the foreground, incase anyone was confused)

Ode to Toilets

2006-12-12T07:52:00.000+10:00

It never ceases to amaze me how toilets around the world are designed so differently. I bring this up at this time because in our little hostel of Rotterdam, filled with little rooms there was a little toilet. Where some genius put the water hole bit right at the front of the bowl and a nice flat platform only 10cm away from your R-nus, for which when you poo you can feel the steam... and the smell. Idiots.

There is the opposite. Amazingly constructed for your defecating pleasure are the toilets located by us in the high alps of Sintra (Portugal) and Touloise (France) where at the touch of a but button the toilet seat revolves with a new layer of plastic on it for you peace of mind for the most hygenic trip you could possibly get in a public toilet. Also on the wall a button where instant freshness is released into the atmosphere to ensure next in line does not have to suffer the dreaded Cosby B-O.

And what the hell happened to toilet seats!!! Often amongst Spain and Italy were cafes with NO toilet seats. It just seems wrong, not as wrong as the hole in the ground found throughout China though. Why o' why does my cuntry of origin always seem to be a source of embarrassment.

The coolest toilets were a close tie between Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Amsterdam where I got to urinate into a pair of large luscious red lips and Rotterdam where the toilet was literally a work of Kunst (art). I felt bad as I let stream of post kidney filtered fluid over this work of Kunst, but hey its really only fulfilling its own destiny.

By far the most interesting toilet experience was in some Dublin club where standing there was a very manic african man that was really too-happy for someone who works in a toilet (although while I was there for the 10 or so minutes he had made about 5 euros... making that about 30 euros an hour which is almost double my pay). But he was standing there asking everyone about how the pussy was upstairs and that the girls here were very very loose. To cap it off as I was leaving he reminded me that if I was to get a fuck tonight, to remember to put on a condom. I guess if it's not on it's not on. I gave him 10 cents.

Landing in the Eire

2006-12-04T08:46:00.000+10:00

I'm a bit at buzz right now because I have just taken my 1st salmbutamol dose (after self diagnosing asthma) and feel all shakey... mmm beta agonist driven fun. At last we come to the main destination, Ireland, an island off an island off the main land of Europe. After a brief hiatus in sunny London, I boarded a little twin prop through the company Air Aeran, not to be confused with air Ryan which tried to take over it, and the only resaon it flew there was that the owner of Air Aeran is from Galway. Yep Galway is small, but it's a fun university town. All the students go home on Friday and you see everybody walking around with suitcases. Anyway, after getting off the run way I found out that the immigration system was down and that I had one month to present to the authorities. A sign of things to come in Ireland, where nothing really makes sense, alot of things are broke and for some reason they have never heard of the latest Irish invention (cement life jackets, wooden barbeques).

Ireland, known for its little men with congenital hypothyroidism holding a pot of gold (which on closer inspection is usually piss) at the end of a rainbow (I have yet to see a rainbow), four leaf clovers (again I haven't actually seen any clovers, let alone one's with 4 leaves) and the potatoe famine (you wouldn't guess it looking around).

Dont you love the clover leaf in the head

Also, in case you didn't know, it's famous for its Guiness, and guys, it is SO SO SO good here, I never was much of a fan, but now totally converted. Seriously, the further away Guiness is from the factory the worse it tastes.... which pretty much leeches Australia's as being shit (especially since it needs to be transported for 4 days from the east coast to get to Perth!!!). Guiness even tastes different from pub to pub and there is an inspector to check that it is being poured properly... what a great job. We later learnt that how good the Guiness was is propartional to the length of the hose and how clean it is....so girls - go get cleaning. Still we got right into it and it was not long before we craic-ed open our 1st Guiness and our house lost it's G-plates.

Initially staying in the smallest hostel room I have ever been in, I had one day to find us a house before I started work. And miraculously I did, and we currently live in the most well-wicked cookie, three story, brand spanking newly refurbished, centrally located and with a fire place!! townhouse. I luv it. Check it out...

I have an ensuite... my 1st ever one

Work started straight away and we instantly integrated. It's a little crazy over here and the system is all screwed up. I actually did a 56 hour straight shift once!!! I was cactus by the end. Nurses and doctors have a great divide here and we still wear lab coats.... however the Australian rebellion begins. I was blessed with good consultants and my teams were awsome, through which we met many irish. Including an uber rich reg (she owns a helicopter). We soon found many friends to go party with, and hence the drinking began. And the tequila started too.... oh my unfortunate twisted love for fermented cactus.

Lazy Hazy Dams

2006-11-29T09:26:00.000+10:00

After the frustration that was Belgium an executive decision was made that we need to go Chill Winston in Holland. To say the walk from Rotterdam Station to our little shitty hotel owned by the dodgy man Tabouli was a bit of a hike would be an understatement. It didn't help that our first turn was in the wrong direction. Wrong directions were indeed the theme of the day and I will never again trust Gareth with them. After we left our belongings in the shoe box, we decided to have a little look around. Graz pointed south, and indeed everything did go South. We really should have got the hint when we kept seeing empty plastic bags everywhere with hash symbols on them and multiple rusta fellas sitting outside eyeing us off with big knowing grins. It didnt help that we had a little black back pack with us. Half an hour into the ghetto it was decided that if we go further we would probably die, if not at least be mugged. So we went back and decided to go North, and much to our surprise Rotterdam is not the shit hole I expected it to be on first impressions. And we sat down for a much needed beverage.

On one of our walks we discovered this walk of fame thing where they get all these imprints from famous people, look i have Carlos Santana's hands!!!!

It very much bemused us that everywhere we went there were signs pointing us towards Kunst (which means Art, and yes I agree with the Dutch). The place has some fantastic clubs/bars and the shopping was well wicked. But by far the highlight was what I consider the best Kunst gallery I've been to ever, Boijmans van Beuningen. Big call, but containing the works of Dali, Bruelgel and Man Ray, it had the best selection and just the right amount and mix of material for my short but occasionally expansive attention span. I love surrealism.

(I know this is not actually in the gallery, but I like it, it's the 1st Dali I experienced)

The most beautiful gardens and a most wonderful toilet - please go to toilet post for more. It was made all the better when we went back to our shoe box and found that there was late night hard core porn on our room's TV. Dodgy, dodgy Tabouli.

Check out their cool Cube houses

I shall own one of these one day.

Amsterdam was gret with much expectation and anticipation as out minds ruminated on the deborturous and hedonistic times that were to come. Unlimited hashish, a hostel located right in the middle of the red light district, great food, gorgy-arse women and fantastic culture; we couldn't really ask for more. So we did as the locals do, drink beer, got stoned, watched a live sex show (very disappointing), ate a lot, gawked at women in windows (including a beyonce look-alike) and partied away. I love knorx.

Look at the paintings on our hostel walls!

What went wrong (I also love alliterating) our hostel was a sausage sizzle and most of the time it was rain, rain, rain. We swam through the largest down pour I have EVER been in to the van gough museum, which, as usual, was packed and the rain, as usual, stopped just as we got there. Then there was the museum which was relocated to the other side of the city. Also the night that we went to the other side of town to a dead clubbing area then went home to find the best club was actually next door to us. And it was not until this city that I noticed just how bad a) the American accent was (like an ice pick in my brain) and b) how off-puting the ocka Aussie accent is especially on a girl (my sexism coming through). Anyway it was amusing to see us at a cafe, both trying to roll a joint when we hadn't done so for about 3 years. Very embarassing, but still we had the fattest mother fucker ever by the end, which would have made even cheech and chong a little jealous, although the woman I bowled over at home wasn't too impressed.

At least we slept alot:

Graz always wanted to know where it was:

Luxurius Belgium

2006-11-22T19:05:00.000+10:00

So it was onto the Eurostar for the crossing of the channel, first destination : Brussels. Famed for its beer, chocolate and hailed as a boring city, it didn't disappoint. Luckily it was the first city so really things could only get better right? Well Brussels decided to rain on our parade. Because not only was it raining heavily with winds rivaling that of our little city of Perth (3rd windiest in the world according to Tooheys' bottle caps) but it also happened to be a bank holiday... I hate Belgium. Everything was closed, it was pissing down, I was falling over all the time because I had gripless shoes and we had two pathetic but endearing umbrella's named cheeky and flirty. They didn't last long, but did re-affirmed our hetrosexuality.

Meet Flirty:

Still we did get to see its beautiful square and a urinating statue. Interesting meal of the city would have been the fillet americans which turns out to be completely raw beef mince with capers/garlic/herbs etc. in it! We happily enjoyed this meal while a dog under the next table looked longingly at it.

The best night out by far involved alcohol. Started off at the beer circus, where we finally understood what monks get up to when they are not discovering mendelian genetics or growing beans... brewing alcohol - lots of it! We even got a monk to pour for us.

Then we decided to go to this random resteraunt in the middle of no where. We have no idea how we got there, the food and service was fantastic and we met our twins! After, it took us 2 hours to get home when it really should of taken us 30 minutes, met some real characters, and managed to direct a lost tourist to a place we did not know.

I love looking at photos after a great night out.

Bruges was next on the map and after a somewhat hung-over train journey we arrived and finally saw some sun! Glorious! Unfortunately we, like Crowded House says, take the weather with us. After a short siesta we were woken by sloshing out side our room. We discovered that within the space of an hour it went from happy shiney to torrential rain and flash flooding... with water entering our building. I hate Belgium.

Still after that it cleared up and got to look around this tourist over-ridden city, ate $2 pasta, their famous chips, got shooshed whilst whispering in a church, saw REAL chocolate boobies (I love knorx!!!!!) and even met Napoleon Dynamite (look a like)! GOSH!!... you IDIOT!!! Belgium is ruining my Life! Then we left.

Lyndon in London

2006-10-15T01:53:00.000+10:00

Arriving in the city for which my parents named me after... or was the city named after me.... anyway I can't help but feel a loving affection for it. As a child I've always dreamt of living in Europe, hanging out with my english uncs. They own a restraunt on Shaftsbury Ave called the Mayflower. At one point it was the most popular chinese resteraunt in London, something like 2-3 hour waiting times, and people waited. A few of you have had the pleasure of eating there, and anybody who wants just let me know, and I promise you wont have to wait 2 hours for me to turn up. Beautiful food, I guarantee.

At this point it is pertinent that you should meet my travel bitch. May I present to you the ever so stylish, light saber weilding, oestrogen over loaded, sister lovin', big spending, greek god who's idea of a long relationsship is anything over 3 months. Please meet Gregorious Grigoriou, or better known as: Graz the Cunning Listener.

With only a brief hiatus, we decided morph into backpacker mode and head off. With the idea of having a mind blowing experience before we started working proffesionally again, we decided to head to Belgium and Holland. With the promise of chocolate, beer, cafe and scantily clad women hanging out in glass cages, we really couldn't say no. So we didn't.

Little Miss Shop-over

2006-10-14T22:40:00.000+10:00

Blowing in to Hong Kong usually result in my luggage gaining about 36kg of weight, mainly in the form of clothing and interestingly useless items that those crazy Honkies dream up of. But since my bags were already brimmed, not even doggy porn made it on the list. The main reason was to visit family anywy, which I did. I also managed to fit in a trip to Macao where they offer lots of free nibblies on the street. Unfortunately, my uncle no longer owns his horse, which I was very fond of because it had the fantastic name of Team Happy, so the races were out. Oh I did take advantage of HK's tax free setting and bought a Bad Monkey.

The Lead Up

2006-10-14T20:09:00.000+10:00

How did Lyndon end up half way across the other world in the land of Ire? To answer this profound and introspective question I guess we have to look a little retrospectively.

About 4 months ago it was decided that my life had come to some point of overwhelming stagnation and that it was time to leave the beautiful, always perfect weather of Perth. To celebrate this, a small, exclusive, invite-only gathering was held at my always transient residence of Subi. Here many a blood alcohol level did rise. Gin was flavour of the month and hence started the slow degeneration of co-ordinated neuronal synapsing. Soon lil' Sars was taking random crotch shots and drunky funky Sars deciding to drive (against medical advice) straight into a booze bus but somehow pulled off a miraculous 0.00.... She was so proud.

On arrival to Bris-vegas, I was met with what can only be descibed as a situation crisis, invloving pretty much everything dear to me. A project, appealing to the venture capitalistic hemisphere of my brain, did emerge. From the firey re-union of Lyndon and Trosticles did emerge an immaculate conception in the form of Frucao. Joke : What do a lawyer and doctor do after they finish their tedious uni degrees? Answer: They give it all up to sell ice cream at the povo flea markets. Yep that's right, I became an ice-creamereer. Well it's not really ice cream. After much struggling to explain to our customers exactly what it was we were selling, we decided that Frucao was a non-carcinogenic, very healthy, refreshing medium between ice cream and sorbet. Kind of like snow, but creamy. For all our hard work, our first day of trading yeilded a net profit of $90, which worked out to be about $1 an hour for each of us. Anyway, it was fun. You actually become quite poopular as an ice creamerer, and honestly don't I look good as one?

Other things done

1. Gave thanks to the beer dieties with one Australia's leading men's shoe designers.

See the shoes at http://www.veinwear.com

2. Befriended a russian

3. Attended group therapy

4. Became a yokel

Finally before we depart from Brisbane, I should probably introduce you to one of my new infatuations. I picked her up at a store in Perth and introduced her to my parents. She was considered a rarity in our world, one in three hundred. For what really could only be described in song, our relationship was intense as it was short lived and eventually I had to disconnect. I left her locked up in a little black box, the pieces of which will be picked up another day. A picture, so you may see her in all her glory.

As I was sardining what I considered to myself as bare essential clothing into the biggest rolling suitacase available, I couldn't help but think just how homeless I was. That's not to say that I'm a vagrant, but in the last 18 months I've moved 7 times, involving just as many houses, 3 cities and 2 countries. My earthly pssesions, friends and family scattered everywhere. For some stupid reason, I keep up-rooting myself and starting again. Stupid, stupid me.

The Lead In...

2006-10-14T06:57:00.000+10:00

Welcome!! To my spanking new, here by popular demand blog spot. Following in the foot steps of the famous PABLO member Will I Am, I will endovour to fill you in on various aspects of my doings from the other side of the world. I hope that you find what I spew forth from my random mind mildly funny, moderately interesting and highly arousing (intellectually). So, as I sit here on my new highly uncomfortable fire retardant couch, listening to semi-depressive anger filled muse-ic, sipping cheap (but surprising good) chillian vino and left by all to my own devices, not only did I come to the epiphone that I was drinking by myself on a friday night but also that it was time to get this blog underway. To all those that actually go further than look at the pretty pictures and actually read what my random mind spews forth onto this blog I thank you and I am honoured that you have taken the time to do so. Cookie?