CherryPopper

Over the weekend i headed up to the Gold Coast to visit my youngest sister who moved up there around the start of the year with her boyfriend. Ever since she has been nagging me to go up and visit her. I finally got sick of the nagging and gave in and booked the tickets.

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Well it all started off pretty easy... got to sleep in a little before heading off to work in my little red Alfa. I was heading up the West Gate bridge like i had done many times before and cruising up the right hand lane as i get onto the bridge when all of a sudden my hard throws some "engine failure" errors on me and starts stopping and stopping quickly, so fast i had no time to try and get into the left hand lane.

So i'm stuck in the right hand lane of the West Gate with cars flying up my ass and a car that wont start. i call the RACV and they put me onto the VicRoads people who look after the bridge. He finds me on the camera and he slows the speed limit on the bridge to 40 km/h just for me But still people are flying up my ass and slamming on the breaks. I was quite worried for a while as there were a few close calls with cars and trucks locking up breaks behind me. I was quite glad to see a Police car pull up behind me with their lights on as this at least made people realise that something was wrong and slowed down.

After 30 mins of crapping myself on the bridge the "push truck" that has the padded bumper bar on it came to get me off the bridge. He pushed me over the bridge and i coasted down the other side to the shell petrol station where i waited for the RACV tow truck to take my car to the Alfa service centre.

Once i got it on the truck and to the service centre i headed off to a meeting at Skilled Engineering where i proceeded to try very hard to stay awake. After that i headed back to the office via a cab and just as i got out of the cab and went to put my credit card away after paying for the cab i realised just as the cab was going round the corner that i had left my wallet in the cab since the cabby was in a rush to get me out so he could get another job. He didn't even fill out the receipt so i had no ID of who or even what cab company he was from.

I went in and called a few cab companies and left my details with lost property but i don't like my chances. While i didn't loose much $50 worth of cash and my licence its just a pain in the ass and added to what was already a shit day.

I then headed into the city to catch a train home only to miss it by 2 mins and had to wait a whole hour for the next train while i froze my butt off on the platform.

I just found out today that i'm going to be up for around $4000 worth of repairs after it threw a timing belt.

Should have stayed in bed.... Such a shit day

For the few that made the trek back to London we had our last dinner and drinks together that night at the hotels pub. It was good just to sit back and reminisce about the past 20 days and all the crazy things we had seen and done. Deano & John (our tour manager and bus driver) were also kicking back with us having a few beers since they had got a good tip off us they shouted us drinks the entire night. A few of the girls got a little emotional as the group slowly shrank as people either headed to bed or off to their next destinations.

It was sad to see the people you had only 20 days ago not known at all leave. In such a short time we had all become great friends, looked after each other to make sure we all got home ok each night, shared rooms, beds, even toothpaste as i lost mine early on We all lived in each others face for the past 20 days waking up and getting on the bus or walking round a new city, taking it all in. To finally have to say goodbye was harder for some than others, but we all felt a sense of sadness that it was now at an end.

John the bus driver wanted to keep going... even after the pub shut and kicked us out. He was trying to get us all to go to another pub but after 20 days of going hard almost everynight we had all had enough and said our final goodbye's and headed to bed.

Myself, Cam, Alison and Nat all caught up the next day for lunch before Cam and I headed to the airport, I was going to Manchester to visit my Nanna's sister and Cam was on his way home with a stop over in Hong Kong. We had a nice lunch in the park down from the hotel before we parted ways.

Cam and I caught the tube to Heathrow where i only just caught my flight, lucky it was delayed. After a short flight to Manchester i was saying hello to Uncle Roy and Auntie Lillian. They took me out for dinner at a local pub and not that i was wanting to start drinking again after 20 days straight of constant drinking i felt i had to be polite and suck a few back to keep him happy. We then headed back to their place for a few more beers and it gave me a chance to show off my photo's from my trip and catch up with them.

The next day i woke up to what can only be described as "the worlds best breakfast". Auntie Lillian had truly out done herself with a traditional English breakfast, eggs, baked beans, bacon, mushrooms, fried tomato, sausages and the piece de resistance... fried bread. YUMMY.

After that i was on the long flight home and it does drag on and on and on. Finally getting home in the weee hours of Sunday morning to a freezing 8 degrees. It was home and a shower. I tried to stay awake but feel asleep around lunch time for a few hours then got up for dinner as i had to try and get back to a normal sleeping pattern since i was back at work Monday

Overall i had the time of my life, I would recommend anyone thinking of going to just go book it. You will love it.

Well that's it... that's my European Inspiration and it truly was an Inspiration.

We got into Paris earlier than expected due to some great driving by John and this allowed us to see both the Louvre and the Eiffel Tower on Monday as the Louvre is closed on a Tuesday. It also meant we got the 2 most time consuming things out of the way the day before we would normally hit Paris, which gave us more time to see the sites.

First up was the Louvre which is just an enormous palace that's now a museum full of one of the worlds best art collections including the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. The palace originally had over 600 rooms but only 3 bathrooms when it was built, so you had to plan your trip, thankfully they have fixed this now. We only had 2 hours in the Louvre but it was more than long enough for a pleb like me. We got to see the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo and both were ok but still didn't come close to the awe of the statue of David in Florence, at least for me. There is so much art work in this place you could spend a month just looking at it all.

Next was the Eiffel Tower and if you love to line up this is the place to be. We did get through the first part quickly since we were a group but we did have to line up for the rest of the lifts (2 lifts to get to the top). But it was well worth the waiting as the views really were spectacular and you could see all of Paris spreading out to the horizon. The Eiffel Tower was a lot taller than i thought it would be too. Once we got our fill of pictures and awe inspiring views we headed down and jumped on the bus back to the hotel for dinner.

After dinner we had our awards night. A few of us had the idea to give everyone an award based on what they had done on the tour. Some were quite good, i ended up with the "sex in the city award" since i apparently knew all the gossip but i'm just a good people watcher . Some of the other awards we gave out to people like Hero (a dickhead American no one liked), his award was "Person most likely to be pushed into on coming traffic", Random ended up with the "Team Blue lifetime achievement award" for his many, many Random efforts. We then went to the local pub for a few quite beers and a chat before we hit Paris the next day.

Paris is just a massive city and we tried to cover as much of it as possible on foot. First up was the Louvre courtyard to get those pics of the glass pyramid, then it was off to Notre Dame which was very gothic with lots of gargoyles and alike. The stained glass windows where enormous and very detailed. Next we headed into the city and by that time it was feeding time for us wiry travellers. We all got a picnic lunch and headed for one of the nearby parks which ended up being in front of the Luxembourg.

We had been told that the Frenchies didn't like people sitting on their grass but when we got to the park there were a number of people sitting in the shade on the grass so we thought great this must be an exception to the rule. After munching on a baguette and drinking some French wine for 45 mins in the shade we soon found ourselves being ushered off the grass by a guy with a whistle, at least we got to eat our lunch.

After lunch we headed to Napoleon's tomb to check out just how short this guy was. His tomb is just massive but they had his clothes and hat on display and he sure was a short fellow. Then we headed to the gardens beside the Eiffel Tower and onto the Arc de Triomphe to see just how crazy that 12 lane round about with no lane markings is. You just sit there and watch the madness and the accidents!!!

Then we strolled down the main shopping strip of Paris where only the top brands have shops. We cooled off in the Louis Vuitton store as it was nice and cool. We then came across the "most romantic bridge in Paris" so i got my picture taken with not one but 2 girls kissing me From there we headed back to the hotel to get ready for tonight.

Our last outing was to a Parisian cabaret show. We stopped off in front of the Moulin Rouge snapped a few pics then headed to our show down the street. Jo who won the wet t-shirt comp in Florence was wearing a very... umm... revealing top and as we walked past some locals she got a very French "oh lala". The show was good but the food was great. Yummy steak and man was i craving for red meat. The best part was the "free flowing" wine where myself and cam proceeded to drink 2 bottles each and were quite plastered walking out of the show. From there we joined the rest of the group for our last hurrah at the bar beside Moulin Rouge where most of the cabaret girls go for a drink afterwards and most of them are Australians (but very good looking ).

It was a great night to end what was the time of my life. I don't really remember getting home but it was late and i didn't get much sleep. Cam and I almost missed the bus back to London as we didn't get a wake up call as we normally did and i slept through my alarm, Cam was just useless. We ended up getting a phone call from Deano saying "Umm are you guys coming to London... if so get your asses down here now cause your 10 minutes late!!!". A quick slap of Cam on the ass and yelling at him to move as we are late, we are both still drunk but somehow manage to get all our stuff and down to the bus in a few minutes.

Most of the bus was still drunk from the night before and on the way to the airport we said goodbye to a lot of the yanks as they were heading off from Paris instead of London. It was kinda sad to be leaving everyone but i was looking forward to getting a decent nights sleep and remembering what its like not to be drunk.

We got to see the white cliffs of Dover for the last time as the last 15 or so people who were mainly Australian headed back to the hotel it all started in 20 days ago. We got into the hotel just after lunch and it was nice to get into a shower since i didn't get a chance in the morning.

But we still had that night to say our final fair wells.

Switzerland the land of Chocolate, watches and Nuclear Bomb shelters? Yes that's correct the Swiss are nuts, paranoid to the max. These guys have explosives on all the tunnels and bridges surrounding the boarder, all their airbases are under ground with the runways made to look like roads and the hangers all being underground or inside the mountains. They have underground cities with supplies to last a few years for a few 100,000 people, all their tunnels are curved so that if a rocket is fired into it the entire tunnel can't be destroyed, military service is compulsory and if you don't your thrown in jail for a month. To top it all off all the houses built since the 80's have had nuclear bomb shelters. All for a country that is neutral? Sure they have Chocolate but its not worth going to war over.

We were lucky in that Lucerne is normally a quite place but when were were in town there was the "Blue Balls Music Festival" on. It was a blues festival and the place was just one big party town, which suited us perfectly. Add in the fact that our hotel got changed to one that was a block from the festival and that equals all of us parting our pants off. But ouch were the beers expensive... around $10 Australian for a pint and the swiss beer is crap. Lucky for us they had some quality German beer

The next day we hit Mt Pilatus for a view of the spectacular swiss alps and Lucerne. It was also the first time we had felt temperatures under 30 degress since we were in the clouds. It was nice to not sweat again even if it was for only an hour or 2. One thing we also saw up there were mountain goats, these guys were nuts going out on ledges just to get grass when the entire valley below was full of grass.

We went up the mountain in a cable car and we went down via train and then back across to Lucerne by boat. It was a nice way to relax and take in the sites of Lucerne and Mt Pilatus. A few of us went shopping for watches (got my mummy a nice watch & myself a small pocket knife) and walked around the city. Its quite small Lucerne as you can walk round the city in around 30 mins so we covered the city's sites pretty quick so most of us headed back to the hotel for a nanna nap before hitting the town again for the festival.

Later that night we went out for dinner and a cultural show. This is when we really found out how nerdy the swiss are. They played these massive horns, a broom, bowls with rocks in them, a saw and had a flag throwing dance. All this was going on while we munched on some cheese fondu and other swiss goodies. Most of us snuck out early and headed to the blues festival and enjoyed some real music and entertainment. It was another good night and Lucerne put on a good show.

Next we were off to our last city