Uni starts for the last time

This is my last semester of Uni so I've got a good reason to do it right. I've only had one class so far, and it's not that bad. I was very nervous about doing a professional elective that wasn't very math heavy, however the lecturer can speak fluent English and the course content seems kinda interesting so I think i'll be pretty happy with the course.

On a different note, I'm missing Europe already. My body has finished detoxing and now I'm feeling the withdrawals :(. In the later parts of Europe I had one policy - "go hard or go home". Which, now that I think about it, really simplified down to - "throw up everywhere and go home or go home".

The last day in London was spent with my brother and a Canadian we met in a pub near Waterloo. We discovered, to our amazement, that the London Subway station's district line looks exactly like a beer bottle. We took this as a sign that we had to go to each individual station, find the nearest pub and drink one beer each. A very tough task considering there are 28 stops. Half way through the Canadian put his rain jacket in my bag so he wouldn't have to worry about carrying it around. Sadly I blacked out at the 8th pub (I know, I know), but I've been told people fell down escalators and someone (not gonna say who) passed out in the bathroom with his head disgustingly close to the urinal. Eventually we made it back to a friends place safe and sound - somehow losing track of the Canadian along the way. I awoke the next day to find his rain jacket in my bag still. Rather than burden my friend by leaving it in his place, I decided to put it in my main luggage and head off to the airport. About 4 hours into the 25 hour flight a very frightening thought started spreading through my mind. What if the Canadian had drugs in his rain jacket pocket?! When we arrived in Sydney, my brothers bag came out first. I anticipated mine would come out soon afterwards considering we checked in at the same time. 10 minutes later the conveyor belt stopped. The thought of sniffer dogs running past the luggage and stopping suspiciously at my bag among hundreds was freaking me out. Buuuuuuuuuuut eventually the bag came out and I checked the pockets of the jacket before I went into the security check - false alarm. Phew.

Australia day 1

So I just arrived back in Aus after a 25 hour flight (including 4 hours stop over in China). Surprisingly I'm not exhausted at all. I actually enjoyed the flights. The flight from China to Australia involved my all time favorite classic meal; "fish noodle".

I arrived back in Pymble to greet my grandparents who had been staying at my parents house and looking after molly. It's good to meet up with them again.

I'm also looking forward to starting Uni tomorrow too. I think it'll be awesome to say hello to 17 middle again and start some classes. I definitely need to mentally engage myself after a month of beer sculling.

France day 4

My last hours in France were spent mostly touring a castle. We decided not to pay the additional euro for a professional tour. Instead marine was our guide. Sadly though the only thing marine knew about the castle was that it was undergoing renovations because the material the castle was made of partially consisted of sand which meant it was slowly falling apart. I guess that means I made an arguably equally impressive castle when I was a kid.

Afterwards marine Jasper and I went to an all you cab eat French restaurant for only 11€. Naturally i turned this into a competition to see who could eat more. Jasper won.... just. In between the water sculling and food binging I noticed that the food was a french version of pizza. I can't remember what its called but the literal translation is "flamed pie".

For a rematch I challenged Jasper to a chocolate eclare eating competition. We were both exploding from the inside so instead of seeing who could eat more, instead we tried to see who could eat 1 the fastest without hands. I won and earned the respect of Jasper and marine and gaining the inner disgust of the bakery owners.

I took the train to the Airport while deeply concerned that the Ryan air flight might be late. Jaspers Ryan air flight a few days ago arrived 2 hours late which made me think I might miss my bus from the stanstead airport. Spoiler alert: I was fine. The flight itself was interesting because i found myself sitting between two very well built and tall French black men. I practiced my black pigeon English skills as best I could during the 1 hour flight. It payed off because they fist bumped me after the flight. I really wanted to show them a little bit of white culture by introducing them my pacman handshake. I didn't in the end because I'm sure they probably have a good pacman handshake already.

France day 3

Again we woke up at 7:00am to go to an amusement park. The park was so far away that it was technically inside germany. It was really cool. Especially when Jasper almost threw up.

We came back pretty late and just in time for an early supper. Marines parents has prepared frogs legs. A French specialty. It actually does taste just like chicken.

I tried to catch up on emails and Facebook in the 10 minutes I had after super and before the light show, but could t get far because the French keyboard was designed by an overly excited 4 year old.

Oh yeah, we went to the light show afterwards. It was really more of a water show since it featured mostly water fountains with the occasional light flash. Still it was pretty cool and it gave me a chance to talk to some more locals.

France day 1

I'm really glad Pablo isn't dead. If he was, then my Europe trip would be ruined since ID have to spend countless hours listening to some boring guy speak about pablo in Spanish.

I spent my last few hours in bern walking along the beautiful river. The river made me realize that one of the reasons that the places I've seen in Europe are so much more beautiful than Sydney is because of safety. There are very few safety nets, gates, signs located anywhere around the city. I couldn't help but feel that safety nets and signs would poison the ambience of the city if the Australian government somehow got their way in Switzerland. I even noticed that construction workers often work without safety helmets or safety lines. It was interesting to mentally compare that to the overly safety precautions companies I've worked for during my internships.

Lastly I also noticed a lot of young military personnel wandering around the city. I found that really weird in a country that is famous for being neutral. That reminds me; I learned that the German word for 'cheers' is 'Proust'. And I'm not sure, but I'd suspect the word for cheers in Swiss is 'truce'.
OK! Now for France! I met marine in the Strasbourg train station at about 1:00pm. We drove to her house and I met her parents. They're super French. They have accents which parallel only the strongest Hollywood stereotypes. We then drove to the heart of the city where I saw the huge cathedral. The structure of the buildings supposedly make the walkway to the cathedrals very windy. The legend behind it says that the devil rode his horse (which was the wind) all the way to the town, but when the devil tried to enter the cathedral he got scared and ran away without his horse. As a result the wind circles around the cathedral constantly waiting for the devil to return.

We bought a whole bunch of escargots (snails) too which we planned to eat for supper (suppieerr). Naturally I forced marine to take me to the nearest pub where we tried a local French beer called "meteor". It was good, but nothing compared to the German beer. As we were bike riding back I took a whiff of a bakery and uncontrollably detoured inside. Sadly they didn't have any chocolate eclair, but I settled for some baguette. Soooo good.

Afterwards we went to pick up Jasper from the airport. We knew Jasper was arriving in a kangaroo onesie so marine also decided to pick him up in a onesie too. I didn't want to feel left out so I found a filthy lion costume which managed to fit marine when she was 12.

After a bit of an awkward delay we picked up Jasper and spent the rest of the day hanging out in the pool eating crapes with a whole bunch if mixers. Apparently fish eggs and sour cream is very French. I learned by embarrassment that sour cream and nutella is not.

Oh yeah I pulled the super tourist card by walking around with my oversized Texas shirt and asking randoms in English to take photos of me. I also found French goon here. Its cheaper and tastes muuuch better. They call it "wine" though.

Switzerland day 3 continued

Alright so pablo told me he'd send me a text when he came back from his 13 hour journey. I really didn't give a shit that he didn't message me until I read the news that there was a train crash in the south of Paris heading to limoges last night. Not something you want to hear when one of the only things you remember about your friends journey is "I have to take a detour through Paris to go to Limoges then down to Spain."

I sent out a few texts to pablo and his Spanish friends to ask them to confirm his safety. No reply.

About one hour later pablo messages me telling me his phone was just on low battery. Phew.

In other news there's been a fire on a plane in Heathrow London? Is anywhere safe for me to travel? I've got to stop reading the news...

Switzerland day 3

Walking around Bern I noticed this amazing band playing in English on the streets near my hostel. Definitely my kind of music. The band is called worldfly and they are releasing their first album in most European countries in 1 month. After they finished singing they announced they were Australian! I donated a gold coin to them and had a chat to the lead singer. Apparently they won't be releasing their first album in Australia till November.

This morning i had my sights set on traveling to schilthorn via interlochen. Its 2970m high and u get to see the peaks of all the mountains around you. Its also where they filmed a james bond movie. Sadly it also costs a little over 100 Franks each way (a shit tonne of Aussie money) so I decided instead to go to Gurtenbahn via tram which is still within Bern and only costs 8 franks (a lot of Aussie money). I really wanted to go to a place called wankdorf (purely because its called wankdorf) but decided not to in the end.

Swirzerland is really cool because they speak 3 main languages: English, French, and German. So in order to fit in ive invented a phrase which is a crude grouping of all the languages. Thanks but no thanks = merci nein danke you.

I climbed the "small hill" in gurtenbahn. It was a 3 hour climb and I had to take off my shirt half way to squeeze out the sweat. The Swiss really have a different definition for the word steep.

After a quick and much needed siesta I went to the nearest supermarket to supply myself for dinner. My budget was 1 frank which amounted to miniature box of cereal. On the way back I saw a chocolate store and browsed around. Fuck their chocolate is good.

I made friends with a bloke from Austria and 2 girls from Argentina at the hostel today as well. The guy told me that Austria is kind of like the Canada of north America. Apparently all Germans hate them because they've butchered the accent and have a lot of government paid initiatives. Fun fact: all universities in Austria are free.

Overall I can't comment too much on the Switzerland culture. There are so many accents and so many languages that the place gives me the impression that this capital doesn't have a definitive culture. Instead its an accumulation of other cultures from all around the world. I did find this one exotic type of food that was abandoned though. I can't pronounce it (and CBF spelling it) but its like a sausage that's been wrapped around in a spiral. It looks a bit like a dog shit, but tastes amazing.

Switzerland day 2

What a great day! The stereotype that Switzerland is not a party country is true, however it makes up for its lack of facilitating young drunkenness by supplying some excellent day activities.

We woke up in the hostel and managed to make a breakfast consisting almost entirely of deserted food left from previous backpackers. Muesli and egg for the win!

We headed to the beautiful river that boarders pretty much the entire city and walked along it for a while. We almost bumped directly into 3 bears along the way. That's right, Switzerland constructed a natural habitat for bears right along the main river in the middle of their capital city. After a lot of photos, videos and mindless cheering we decided to continue walking. We approached a 7m high bridge and got changed into our swimmers and put all of our belongings in a special waterproof bag. After generating a bit of a crowed both pablo and I jumped off the bridge and jumped into the water! You only realize how high 7m is when you're leaning off the bridge fence looking down, and when you hit the water and realize that the river bed is much shallower than you expected. We floated freely down the river for ages. its so wide, fast and relaxing floating freely through a capital city. To give you an indication of how cool it is to legally float down this river, just imagine if all the Sydney beaches came right up to the CBD and workers just decided to go for a dip after and before work. That's how awesome it feels.

Afterwards pablo and i made more shit food and went to see the Einstein museum. Fun fact: Einstein married his cousin. Yay incest.

Sadly time was up and pablo had to leave back to Madrid. Because he hadn't booked his transport in advance he's facing a 13 hour trip right through France via train and bus at the cost of 140€. Ouch.

Ive got all tomorrow to myself and I'm thinking of going to neuchatel in the west part of Switzerland. Wooh!

Oh yeah we also found giant chess pieces in the middle of the street and played two games. I won both :)

Switzerland day 1

Pablo and I made a fast and uncalculated decision to go to switzerland. We could not out stay our welcome with the ficher family so we looked for place to go down south. After hearing some valuable advice from my parents we decided to go to Bern and explore what Switzerland has to offer. I'm staying for 3 nights then going to Strasbourg and Pablo is staying for 2 nights then going home to Madrid.

We found a train that left fairly early in the morning so we had to make a somewhat abrupt fair well. Sadly we had no chance to say goodbye to Christina in person.

We arrived and booked into the first hostel we saw. Afterwards we toured the city. there is a giant river that passes through the capital which you are allowed to jump in to and go swimming! Its really cool because the river travels at least 14km/hr. No doubt we are doing that tomorrow morning.

The town is really pretty and friendly. Sadly though I can't find anything to do. All I see are beautiful residential areas and the occasional closed bar. The hostel is a tad of a disappointment too unfortunately. Its filled with middle aged couples and very closed Asian friend groups. I guess my standards are a bit high after staying at the flying pig in Amsterdam.

We were unable to celebrate pablos birthday yesterday so we are probably going to get drunk with the rum which Pablo bought me and see if there is a club here.

We still haven't met all of our roommates yet so there is a good chance that some of them will be keen to get drunk with us.

Germany day 3

Another beautiful day in Mannheim. Pablo and I borrowed bikes and headed south to neustradt and haardt. Each small town is suspended by miles of beautiful countryside which made the trip perfect. I realized that if my life came down to bike riding away at a fast pace, I would definitely die. Maybe my obese outer shell can be put down to constant traveling, lack of exercise, or eating 3 slices of German cake for breakfast each morning.

When returning we went for a swim in Thomas's pool and drank a few wonderful crystal (Kristal) beers which taste amazingly similar to hefeweizen.

For dinner we were invited to Cristina's house. We enjoyed more German beer including radler, which is a mix of any pilsner beer and soda water. Germans really love their soda water over here... while we were eating we were taught one really easy to make meal called curry sausages. They're simple pork sausages drenched in tomato sauce and curry powder. I'm definitely bringing that one back to Australia. I also leaned about a "napkin" which is a German piece of paper which you use to clean your face after eating. Germans are so efficient!

Over dinner we got talking once again about alcohol and in particular about unique Spanish and Australian drinks. Pablo taught them that sangria was a mix of red wine (60%), lemonade (20%), coniac (3%), rum (3%), gin (3%), and fruit (10%).
I taught them about an Australian specialty called kings cup which is a mix of red wine (30%), white wine (30%), beer (20%), coke & lemonade (15%) and backwash (5%).

Germany day 2

We woke up at the crack of dawn (9:00am) so that could get ready to travel to Heidelberg. Christina joined us which meant pablo was no longer designated map reader. We got to see the castle and the university. Its technically a university town but it doesn't feel like one. The students are very quiet and don't venture outside of the immediate campus, which is bizarre because the campus buildings blend really nicely with the rest of the town. There are also tourists everywhere (Americans especially). The place itself is very old fashioned - especially the roofs. It strangely matches the Italian architecture stereotype. Maybe that's because they both have a strong roman past? I don't know.

We stopped for lunch and had perhaps the greatest meal I've ever eaten. Saumagen with sauerkraut and potatoes. To top it off I enjoyed a full 0.5 litre of great quality hefeweizen. We enjoyed eating the fantastic meal outside listening to relaxing music in a beautiful sunny 30° day. This is exactly what I wanted out of Germany.

Yesterday I put a bit of polite pressure on Thomas to take us out to a wine festival. He caved and took us to one only 5km away from the village for dinner. The village wasn't too far so we decided to all bike ride there. We are located smack bam in the middle of acres and acres of grape plantations used for making wine, so the bike ride was really beautiful. The festival itself was a bit leas than a 'get wasted and dance on tables to German music' than I expected, bit it was pretty close. I enjoyed a very famous drink in Mannheim called "Weissherbst schorle" which is a full glass of 70% rose and 30% mineral water. The mineral actually brings out the flavor of the wine so I wouldn't recommend it as a mixer for goon.

Germany day 1

Surprisingly the German train from Amsterdam to Mannheim was delayed by a whole 10 minutes. This crushed the stereotype that all Germans are punctual and mechanically savvy.

Any who we arrived at the train station pretty much on time and met my dads good friend, Thomas. Thomas has an older brother who owns a car rental business so renting a car for 3 days and handing me the keys wasn't a problem. Wooh!

I was getting very excited at the idea of traveling around Germany in my own personal car when I noticed a gear stick protruding out of where there should have been a cup holder. This is where it gets interesting. Basically I can't drive a manual car and we have no way of getting to the house without abandoning it. Thomas decides that the best solution to this problem is to give me a quick 20 second theory lesson and a one minute practical. After a series of unsuccessful jagged starts and stops and accidental engine shut downs, Thomas sighs, looks at his watch and tells me I'm ready to drive 10km to his house.

Shit scared doesn't even begin to describe what I was feeling. Here I was driving on the opposite side of the road, in a country I'm not familiar with, in a car ive never seen, that's not an automatic. I'm pretty sure pablo was as scared of death as me, but he put on a very convincing poker face and ended IP assisting me every now and then by grabbing the wheel when I focused on changing gears. We probably got closest to death when the car stalled in the middle of a round about. Fortunately we made it without any major casualties and got to visit the entire ficher family.

Over some amazing food and great whether we talked about past adventures, how much I had grown, and what we planned to do in Germany. Overall we were treated exceptionally well.

Its pretty crazy to realize that all the emotions I wanted to experience while in Germany including; fear, excitement, joy etc were all experienced in the first hour of being in Germany.

Netherlands day 4

We slept till about 1:00pm to help us battle the hangover. After that we toured the city some more. I keep viewing pablo as an imported Spanish assistant because he always carries the map and finds out where to go.

We went to see the Anne frank museum at roughly 3, Anne frankly it was awesome. Fortunately there were no kids, reckless teenagers or obnoxious Americans touring the house.

In case you don't know, Anne frank was a very intelligent Jewish 13 year old girl who got caught by the Germans 1 month before the liberation in world war 2. She was then sent to Auschwitz where she died under the false belief that all of her family members were dead.

Reading small snippets of her diary on the walls in warehouse in which she used to hide in made me realize one thing - I've got powerful competition for the title of best diary creator.

Pablo and I met up with Des at 6 and we got to see her roommates. They're really cool. We first met them as they were sitting on the balcony spraying each other with water pistols. By the end we were joining in on a full fledged water fight. Awesome.

We then met up with some of des's american friends who were temporarily staying in Amsterdam. They were both from upstate new York. All 5 of us attempted to go out downtown but a combination of closed venues, forgotten id's and expensive entry fees resulted in us ending back at des's house drinking wine and eating salami. The night ended at 4am when pablo and I decided to go home via bicycle.

In general I really like the bike riding here. The flat landscape of the country makes it a really easy and practical alternative driving. 

Netherlands day 3

Pablo and I spent a large part of the morning dealing with public transport and checking into our new hostel. I booked the "downtown flying pig hostel" for Friday and Saturday. The place has a different feel to the beach hostel. This hostel has a less relaxed vibe and more of a party vibe. Its kinda like this hostel is one giant pub.
We rented bikes for 3 hours and ride all around Amsterdam. In particular we hit 3 main destinations in this order: The van Gogh museum, the Heineken factory, and Puccini's chocolate store. The Heineken factory exceeded expectations ten fold despite being one giant advertisement mainly because they gave out 2 free beers at the end of the tour and because they did a great job teaching you how to make beer. Puccini's was a bit of a disappointment only because it didn't live up to its reputation of having the best chocolate in the world. Still really good though.

In the late evening we made friends with 3 other people at our hostel. I can't remember their names but there was one Spanish (or Mexican) girl and 2 Kenyan guys. I'll just call the girl shakira and the guys usain bolt 1 and usain bolt 2. After a lot of pre drinking in the hostel and a few bars we decided to hit a club which had a venue called "kill all hipsters". It had a good vibe.

UB1, UB2, Shakira, pablo and I ordered a rum and coke each when we got inside. They gave us a plastic cup filled with ice and Bacardi white rum and a separate bottle of coca-cola. We ordered so many of them that they gave us two free shots half way through the night.

Netherlands day 2

Pablo and i took the 9:30am bus to Amsterdam. Its really cool. There are bikes everywhere. Every street corner, every coffee shop and every parking lot is covered with 1950s looking bikes. Needless to say, i almost got run over at least 3 times.

We met David Frew, Des, and a friend of theirs at a small little coffee shop (an actual coffee shop). Its so weird seeing David in not pymble.

After that we wandered throughout the city and even went past the red light district. It was only 12, but prostitutes were already getting started by posing in front of giant glass windows.

We eventually ended up going to a "go museum" which featured a lot of modern art. I'm not much of a fan for art (unless its made out of bottle caps), but I found it a pretty interesting experience.

After that we went to a pub selling local beer only. Holy crap the beer here is great. So strong and flavorful. Goodbye V.B, I've got a new favorite beer. Its called "brouwerij'tij".

Lastly, to end the day we went into another coffee shop (no, not a proper coffee shop). I said the magic phrase "I would like one weed please", and we spent the last hour chilling out upstairs. I don't really like the effects of weed too much. Its kinda like instant jet lag in a cigarette.

Netherlands day 1

I arrived in the Amsterdam airport at 11:40am and I couldn't be more impressed. The people are friendly, helpful and fluent at English. I needed to ask information about how to get public transport to my hostel, but I was fearful because previous efforts to get help from locals usually resulted in me making embarrassing hand gestures and noises. I was pleased to hear the lady say "I know a little bit of English" at the counter. Clearly the only word she didn't understand was "little" because her English was 100% fluent. You know you're doing something wrong when someone who claims to know very little English has mastered a greater vocabulary than you.

Before I left the airport, I heard a bunch of eerie screams. Not the type of screams you would expect from a zombie outbreak though - they were high pitched bursts of teenage fan girl screams. That meant only one thing - Justin Bieber. I never got to meet the untalented, overrated teen heartthrob, but I did hear a lot of girls scream his name, and a lot of young adults muttering it.

I'm on a public bus at the moment heading to a place just outside of Amsterdam called Noordvijk which is only a few stops of a place called 'Harlem'. God I do not want to go clubbing there.

I've also noticed that everyone speaks just like the way Vikings speak in the computer game "age of empires". This gives me the very socially dangerous idea that I can have a conversation with someone just by saying the words "choppa" and "boulden" on repeat.

The rest of the day was spent roaming around the immediate area including the beach. Its really beautiful and clean. I'm sad to admit the first building I entered was a McDonalds so that I could steal some free wifi.

The hostel is awesome. Its filled with so many young people from different cultures. I was originally disappointed to discover that the first two people I met were from Australia, however the next 10 people were from: germany, Finland, Sweden, Italy and England. Germans were by far the coolest. I mentioned the war once but I think I got away with it!  Its so interesting to see young people from all over the world bond over their love for marijuana.

China day 2

We were meeting my cousin, Laura, and her boyfriend, Jake, today at 1:30pm in some fancy restaurant. But I really wasn't keen on doing nothing until they arrived so Tom and I decided to go tour the city some more and maybe go shopping. We went to some station which was located right next to temple heaven. The temple lived up yo its reputation. It was massive and had some amazing architecture which gawk at. The temple was made in the 1400s as a place to worship gods and you could see funny looking objects scattered around the occasional worship hut. Poorly translated English was written in tiny font which described the purpose of each sector or item. It turns out that the Chinese used to pour boiling water on animals as a sacrifice to the gods. Mmmmmmmm lobster.

We met Jake and Laura in some fancy restaurant that was inconveniently located no where near the street it was supposed to be on and without a visible street number. Our inability to say anything in Cantonese other than "hello" started to be an issue when we asked the waiter to give us an additional 5 minutes after he started showing us the specials. It turns out we accidentally ordered 5 whole ducks. Fortunately we cancelled the order in time.

After lunch we toured a different part of that neighborhood and passed a place that looks exactly like the china town in Sydney. Chinseption!!

We also went to see to another palace. I got to get a picture of me meeting a monk! It was awesome. We had so much in common.

I also purchased a cheap communist hat! I did it partially for protection against the sun, partially for shits and giggles, and partially to express my new found support for the disestablishment of democracy.

China day 1

<p dir=ltr>I'm heading to China! Its going to be a great trip. Living up to my reputation I only finished booking my flights, busses, trains and accommodation literally a few hours before I got on the plane. Fortunately everything is organized (or organised to be organised). My plan is china - England - Netherlands - Germany - France - England. It should be great fun.</p>
<p dir=ltr>I guess every good story starts off with a feeling of regret. The suitcase I packed is needlessly large. Not just by my standards but by Ryan air standards. I guess my dream of being able to frolic peacefully between hostels with a camping bag full of clothes and essentials is dead. I know its not the biggest deal, but it does say a lot about my decision making abilities when I'm short on time.
<p dir=ltr>But it doesn't have to be this way. I try to turn every international adventure into a way to improve myself, and this trip is going to be no different. Starting from this Chinese airlines flight and extending all the way to my final days in England I'm going to make this trip about independence and exploration.</p>
<p dir=ltr>Alright, dinner was just served on the Chinese airline and I could not be more disappointed. Before I got to exercise my new found independence by asking the waitress to give me the meal of my choice (out of a menu of two options), she informed me that the 'western meal' was all out. I now had to chose between the Chinese meal or the Chinese meal. After bravely choosing the Chinese meal I figured to myself that at least I might be able to explore some fine cuisine. Nope. The Chinese meal was beef and rice. Either the meal was surprisingly western or I've been living on an unsurprisingly Asian diet all my life.</p>
<p dir=ltr>OK so we've landed in china and its nothing short of a sensory overload. We left the airport with our baggage heading for the taxi area when both tom and I were approached by an overly enthusiastic Chinese 'taxi driver'. We got about halfway up the airport walkway when I decides to stop being distracted by the NBA small talk and ask him whether the taxi had a meter on it. He said it didn't and told us that the 'taxi' was a fixed price of &#165;580 to drop us off at the city center. After saying "fuck no" in the politest way possible, he immediately dropped his price to &#165;300. Tom and I decided to ditch him anyway and go for another taxi. After arriving at out destination for &#165;100, tom and I decided to check into our hotel. Not good. We arrived at 8:30am and check in was at 2:00pm - a 5.5 hour wait. </p>
<p dir=ltr>1st hour: <br>
We toured the immediate area by walking around. Its so polluted!! Its nothing like what I was expecting. I expected souring skyscrapers and giant blade runner type advertisements promoting coca-cola. Instead the city area is very spread out and poverty is everywhere. It reminds me a lot of Jakarta bit with fewer (FEWER) people.<br>
Food. We found a dumpling place bear the hostel and decided to walk in. Its much harder to communicate than I expected - no one knows English, not even a little. We tried to pay for the 4 dumplings we had by using hand gestures.&#160; The shop keeper was so confused that he offered to give us &#165;40 for eating there. I just dropped &#165;20 into his hands and left.<br>
We then went back to the hostel to rest in the public lounge area. Tom collapsed in a corner by a fish tank and I started writing this blog.</p>
<p dir=ltr>2nd 3rd 4th and 5th hour:<br>
We couldn't just wait around the hostel air we decided to find a way to the city. An earlier attempt to go to the city centre resulted in tom asking the first white person he saw "do you know where the city center is"?. Unfortunately not every white person speaks fluent English apparently. After a very awkward 30 second conversation of pigeon English with a German family we pretended to understand what they were saying and left. I did learn something though - the hand gesture for "city center" looks amazingly similar to the hand feature for sex.</p>
<p dir=ltr>Anywho, we eventually made it to a place called tian'anmen east via the subway. Wow, just wow. When we arrived at the famous landmark we saw giant TV screens showing communist propaganda - space missions and army marches everywhere. Shortly afterwards we found ourselves bumping into beautiful landmarks - almost literally because the pollution makes the visibility so bad. We almost walked into this beautiful hemispherical shaped theatre when we met two locals; tom and jack (yeah I'm pretty sure they chose those names for our benefit). They were aged about 30 and 40 and both spoke (to our relief) great English. We sussed them out pretty quickly and realized that they were both homeopathy doctors with very deep pockets. We got talking about all the must-do's in Beijing and apparently some once in a year festival was occurring this week only. It was a tea festival at a place called tea city (or was it T.C.T? I can't tell). They invited us to a tea house where we tried a range of amazing teas while talking about China and our German heritage (toms idea). They taught us the way you're meant to hold tea, drink tea and... wait for it... pray with tea. Apparently the first serving of tea should always be wasted in honour of the gods. I didn't let the fact that 1) certain types of teas had supposedly job promoting powers or that 2) the fact that tom and jack had chosen professions that are the cause of a lot of 21ar century outrage bother me. Instead I tried to learn more about the Chinese culture, superstitions and hospitality.