Sytone's Ramblings

“Hello All Once again it’s been a while since I last wrote and again I apologise for that. We have been fairly busy with this and that and I hope I remember to include all the exciting stuff we’ve been doing! I guess the most exciting thing we have done was our trip to the US. Jon was sent to Seattle to learn about some of the things he will be doing at work. He was put up in style at a very nice 5-star hotel right in the city, was given a hire car and ate 3 restaurant meals a day for 3 weeks! I decided that I couldn’t let him get away with going to America without me so I booked a flight (it’s fairly cheap from London) and took a few days off work to meet him for the weekend. The flight over went off without a hitch and I had a whole 3 seats to myself so I snoozed in comfort for some of the trip over. The plane actually landed ½ hour ahead of schedule. The flight path goes over Iceland and Alaska and it was light all the way, so you can see glaciers and icebergs all the way. I should have known then that everything was going too well. I got through immigration without a hitch, but was stopped at customs. The reason for this is that my hairbrush looked like a knife on the X-ray machine. They unpacked my bag on a table in front of everyone, right near a glass wall where people were waiting for friends and relatives to come out of the gates. After trying to put all my stuff back into my bag (it never fits as well the 2nd time) I was free and waited for Jon who came late because of a crash on the Freeway near the airport. At this stage too I met Jon’s boss who is an American guy who is an absolute laugh and also very nice. Jon had already been in the States for 2 weeks and had already begun to pick up a semblance of an accent! Oh no! We got back to the hotel room and I basically crashed straight away because I was so tired after the flight over. The next day (Saturday) we checked out the sights of Seattle. Seattle is a very nice city surrounded by water and water-based industry like fishing and shipping. Unlike London there are hundreds of skyscrapers which makes it feel like a real city. The other notable thing about Seattle is the love affair with Coffee. There is a Starbucks or Tully’s café on every corner and one in the middle of the street too. But they do make a good brew, so I guess that’s why it’s so popular. We went to the Pike Place market; a fish market. When you buy a fish they throw it from the front of the counter to the guy behind and make quite a show of it. Apparently their fish-throwing is world famous, but it didn’t particularly impress us. We then went to the aquarium, which isn’t as good even as the one in Sydney from the fish point-of-view, but they did have lots of seals and otters which were pretty entertaining. The problem with the aquarium is that there were way too many American mums with their kids, and the accent can get very annoying when slowed down for the benefit of the kids. We later met up with Jon’s boss who gave us a tour of the city. He is quite a photographer and took us to many of the city’s most photogenic spots. We went to the locks where boats can enter the harbour, the city lookout area, to a sculpture of a troll beneath a busy underpass (which was pretty cool, the sculpture included a real VW beetle, which the troll was crushing!) and a very nice seafood restaurant. (I have become quite a fan of salmon and they have very nice fish there). That night we had dinner in the hotel restaurant. It was very nice and the service was excellent. Actually the service in the US is brilliant. I don’t mind having to tip 15% if you are going to be served properly. You could ask for anything and nothing is a problem. The next day we went for a drive in Jon’s hire car (on the wrong side of the road!). We went up into the mountains near Seattle where it was actually snowing. It was a very beautiful sight with the snow on the pine trees and white all around. We also saw a very nice waterfall that was crashing down onto the rocks below. That’s another cool thing about Seattle, you can drive for 45 mins and be on the ski slopes. The next afternoon I was to leave Seattle at 6pm. Unfortunately a comedy of errors occurred and the plane was delayed for 9 hours. I sat around the airport until 3am before the plane finally left. Luckily it was fairly empty and I had 3 seats to myself again and slept for a few hours which was good. Jon arrived home the following weekend with a killer flu which had him off work for over a week. He obviously can’t handle the high life! He’s better now though. Since Jon’s been back we’ve been hitting the theatres. When Jon was sick I went with a friend to see an Andrew Lloyd Weber/Ben Elton musical called ‘A Beautiful Game’ and then when Jon was better we saw ‘Napoleon’. Last week we went to see the Cirque du Soleil which is a circus which focuses on acrobatics (absolutely amazing). This week it’s ‘The King and I’ and next week we’re getting really cultured and going to the Ballet ‘The Nutcracker’. Last weekend we hired a car and did a road trip up to the north of England. We went to see mum’s old house that she lived in when she was in England. We also went to visit mum’s uncle who lives in Liverpool. We only gave him ½ hours notice that we were turning up on his doorstep, and as he lives alone he was very embarrassed that he had nothing in the house to feed us. Although we were only going to stay for ½ hour we ended up staying for lunch (after a trip to the supermarket) and we had a lovely time. He is a real character. 3 hours later we finally got on our way again! We stayed overnight in a quaint (and somewhat bizarre) B & B in Blackpool which is a summer holiday beach town. But as it is the middle of winter is was almost a ghost town, with the most popular hangout for the locals the ‘amusement parlours’ which have bingo and card machines and other such delights. We blew about £3 on this and moved on to a local restaurant where we had a very nice meal which was very cheap compared to what you would pay in London. We also stopped at Birmingham on the way as well as a few other small towns. So that’s about all that I can think of that we have done since the last email. We have a few trips planned in the next few months, Dublin for St Patrick’s Day, Spain for Easter and last but not least back to Aus for Jen and Marty’s wedding. We will arrive on Monday 26 March and leave the following Monday night. We’ll be dividing the time between Sydney, Cowra and Newcastle, so hopefully we’ll be able to catch up with most of you at some stage. Looking forward to seeing everyone. Jane and Jon”

“We have been doing some exciting stuff, starting with a day trip to Stonehenge between Christmas and New Year. Stonehenge is pretty amazing, especially when we saw it blanketed in snow. We took a day trip out there, and as it turned out the company that we went with was pretty dodgy, the bus broke down 5 minutes before we arrived and continued to break down periodically throughout the day. Stonehenge is just in the middle of a big flat area which is surrounded by ancient burial grounds. The day we went the whole area was blanketed in snow and it was freezing! After about an hour we were ready to get back on the bus, but the AA (hopefully Automobile Association, not Alcoholics Anonymous) man that they had called had not yet arrived. We had a bit of a snow fight, but couldn’t bear the cold anymore so got back on the bus which had no heating anyway because they couldn’t turn it on. A few hours later we were on our way to the afternoon portion of our day trip which was to a town called Salisbury. Salisbury is a small historic town which unfortunately with only 2 hours to spare didn’t offer much to us. We could have checked out the cathedral there which has the tallest spire in England, but went to the local market instead. We got home thankfully, as the bus didn’t break down again. Jon went on the junket of a lifetime on 3 Jan to Microsoft’s head office in Seattle. He’s there for 3 weeks in a ritzy hotel with a hire car and whatever else he wants. I couldn’t let him have all the glory, so I decided to go over and join him this weekend. I’m flying over on Friday and staying until Monday night. Because of the time difference the flight over takes 9 hours but I arrive an hour after I get there and on the way back I get back 17 hours after I leave! I’m very excited! Anyway, happy new year and we’ll hear from you soon. BTW, we’re flying home for Jen and Marty’s wedding on the 26th March and we’ll be leaving on around the 3rd April. Hope to catch up with you all then.”

“Hello! Well it’s been a while since we wrote you a note to let you know that we are all alive and doing really well. In fact everything has fallen into place in the last few weeks. Getting jobs took a little longer than we had expected. I started working about 3 weeks after we arrived, and Jon 4 weeks. I think that we had been mislead by the rumors that said anyone who had anything to do with computers would get a job in a few hours. This is no longer true, although the demand for IT people is very strong, organisations still take a long time to go through the motions, especially once an employment agency gets involved. We did end up with excellent jobs though, Jon is working for Bill Gates (Microsoft) and he has every single benefit under the sun. It would simply take me too long to list them all. He is working as a server engineer, and really enjoying it. The best news of all for Jon is that he is heading to America in early January on a 2 or 3 week junket! He thinks that he will be working in the head office in Redmond, California. Ahh. There’s nothing like Bill Gates’ hospitality! I on the other hand am working for a .com internet company. We are a provider of online sports news in 11 languages across the world. We even have an office in Melbourne! I am working in business development which is excellent because that was the direction I wanted to take with my career. I’m really enjoying it and I am hoping that the company will make a profit soon so I can exercise my share options (although the company is very well financed and isn’t about to go bust). The other problem about us taking so long to get jobs is that we were living on Aussie dollars which was pretty bad because the dollar was appalling against the pound until the last week or so. We only get paid monthly, so Jon’s pay today will be our first pounds! We can’t wait. Last Wednesday we moved into our very own London flat. It of course costs a fortune, and although it is very small very nice and has a nice courtyard out the back (complete with a BBQ and an outdoor table setting!). Our landlady is lovely, she washed all our curtains and went to Ikea to get some cushions for our lounge before we moved in. She even bought us dishwashing liquid etc before we moved in. We even have a double sofa bed so that gives you no excuses to come and stay. Our kitchen is even tinier than the one in our Ultimo flat, and even somehow fits a front loading washing machine/dryer. The bedroom is only big enough for the bed, and our bathroom is just an ensuite off our bedroom. The flat is in an old mansion house which is split into 6 flats! Some people on the street have an identical house which is still all the one house, so they must cost an absolute fortune. The flat is reasonably close to the city, and is in a good area which is safe at night and there is a shopping centre and Tesco supermarket nearby. We also have our fair share of pubs around the place as well. At the moment we have a friend from the hostel staying in our lounge room until she finds her own place. Before we moved into our place we were living for 6 weeks in a hostel! It certainly takes its toll, after all, 26 people and only 3 bathrooms is always a recipe for disaster. It was good though because we met a lot of people who we are now good friends with, the hostel was not for travelers but for people like us who had just arrived to look for work. It was always full of Australians, Kiwis and South Africans. The problem was that with people looking for jobs and flats etc, there was always something to celebrate, so we became regulars in the pub across the road. In fact that seems like a recurring theme. At my work there are 200 people, and I estimate that only 1/3 of them are English, !/3 Aussie, Kiwi and SA, and the remaining 1/3 are other Europeans (Italian, Dutch, French etc). I have very little chance of picking up an accent! Many people have been asking me how the weather is. I think since we’ve been here we may have had 3 or 4 days that it hasn’t rained. It rains a lot. But apart from the rain the weather has been reasonably warm, apparently this November was the warmest one for 20 years. It was about 10-12 degrees most days. The weather is getting colder in the last few days, although they say that the odds of a white Christmas are still pretty low at 7-2. (they actually take bets on this at the TAB equivalent). I think that we are more likely to have a grey than a white Christmas. Speaking of festivities, we have a big Christmas organised at our Kiwi friends’ place. We are having a big lunch and we are cooking most of it on the BBQ just to prove to the English that that’s the way we do it. There will be about 10 of us, so should be a good day. It is of course the season for Christmas parties, and both Jon and I had ours last weekend. Mine was on Friday night and it was rather a success, even if it did take me at least 2 hours to get home because there were no taxis about. I ended up catching a bus, and arrived home at 3.30 frozen solid. Jon’s was a rather grand affair, partners were invited, and it was black tie. They had something for everyone, including a comedy club, a casino where you could bet fake money, an ABBA cover band and a buffet dinner. There were probably about 1000 people there, and the venue was Sandown racecourse in Surrey. We were taken down there on a coach. It was a fairly good night although difficult to meet people because it was so big. London really is beautiful this time of year. The Christmas decorations in the streets are beautiful, there are lights on everything and the shop window displays are lavish, especially along Oxford street. We bought ourselves a real cut Christmas tree and some lights to get into the mood for Christmas. It takes up about 1/2 our lounge room, but what the heck . . .! Anyway, I hope this letter finds you all well and I hope that everyone has a wonderful Christmas. Take care and all the best and most of all keep in touch. From Jane and Jon”

“Hello all Here’s the report from London. Myth number 1: It’s easy to get a job in London Not true. I think that it would be easy to get a job if you were in administration or waitressing, but getting a professional job really takes some time. First you apply for the position. Then about a week later (if you’re lucky) the agency will ring you back and offer you a completely different job from the one you applied for that you are either too qualified for or not qualified for at all. They finally come up with an appropriate job, and send your resume to the company hiring the person. It sits around for a few days until they read it, and then they might get back to you for an interview, which for some reason or another will probably get cancelled. Jon’s CV has been sent to about 20 companies, none of which has actually resulted in an interview yet. In my case though, I’ve had no luck at all with agencies, the only two interviews that I’ve had are direct with companies, and nothing to do with agencies. Myth number 2: You can only afford to live in London if you live in a house with at least 6 other people. Unfortunately this one’s true. We’ve been looking around for a flat, and they are either stupidly expensive (around $1000 per week) or they are still pretty expensive but are missing a few things such as the ceiling or the entire bathroom. So we’ve pretty much decided to share with a Kiwi couple we’ve met and maybe one other person. We are waiting to hear back on a brilliant place we saw which is really nice and actually affordable. It’s also pretty big and has all the mod cons you would take for granted in Sydney. Myth number 3: It’s cold and rainy in London You guessed it, this one is true too. It’s rained every day since we’ve been here and you wouldn’t dream of going outside without your jacket. And they tell us that winter’s only just begun . . . Anyway, despite the weather and the expensive real estate prices and the slow job agencies, we’re doing ok. I’m 90% sure I have a job at a sport internet site called www.sportal.co.uk. It’s pretty funny because I know nothing about sport, but I guess I’ll have to learn. The job’s a business development one which is exactly what I’ve always wanted to do, so I’m pretty stoked. Should sign on the dotted line next week I hope. Jon’s getting there too, the agencies seem to be getting further, but we still have to wait and see whether they can actually organise some interviews. There might be some opportunities at Sportal for him too. Anyway, hope everyone is well. Keep writing. If you have a desire to send something to us here’s our address for the time being: C/- 1st Contact 68 North End Road West Kensington LONDON W14 9EP Keep emailing and catch you later. Jane and Jon”

“Hello! Well, once again it’s been a long time since we wrote. Last time I wrote we were in Munich in Germany, and now we are in Germany again, in Berlin. But much has happened since then. >From Munich we caught the bus to Salzburg in Austria. Salzburg is where >the Sound of Music story happened and where the movie was filmed. Because it is Autumn the trees were beautiful and were turning all colours making the surrounding hills stunning. Unfortunately though I was hit with a lurgy (probably just a cold) but felt pretty drained so in the 2 days we were there we didn’t get to see that much. Although I did drag myself out of bed for a trip to the town’s palace and fort which we did a tour of and it was all pretty interesting. We saw the lush living chambers of the royal family that ruled the castle. The castle also had other necessities such as a dungeon and torture implements. In the museum there we got to see a REAL chastity belt, which didn’t look all that comfortable! We also saw the cemetary which was in the Sound of Music movie, but resisted the Sound of Music tour which is run by American tour guides. We went and found ourselves a little local pub where Jon experienced a real Austrian ghoulash and again some local beer. We also checked out some of the famous Vienna coffee which lives up to iots reputation. Next day we were back where our holiday began in Vienna. It was a bit like deja-vous too because we were even given the same room in the hostel as before. We found out that it’s actually the best room the the whole hostel because it’s the disabled room it’s heaps bigger than the others and it also is the only room to have a bath! We only stayed one night before we were back on the bus. The first day in our new destination we checked into our accommodation (which was a pretty good hostel), went to the pub for a few of the local brewskies, went out for Indian and stuffed ourselves, had some cocktails, went to an opera recital (how cultured!) and went back to the pub. We only spent $100 all day. How is this so? We were in a small town called Ceske Krumlov the Czech Republic! The Czech republic is great for a few main reasons. They have a terrible exchange rate which means that a pint of beer is only $1 and a 3 course restaurant meal is about $10. Bewdy! Also the Czech Republic is pretty cool because it has a different story from most other European countries. It was a Communist state until 1989 so the people and places have a different feel. Anyway we spent the first 2 days in this small town. It of course has a fort and castle, but this one is a bit different, because instead of building it with big colums and expensive marble, they just painted it on! You can’t notice from a distance, but up close you can see the trickery. We went on a tour again where they give you a little digital radio which has an explaination of anything of interest that you can play at your own speed. Local legends are rife and they all tell tales of terrible murders and hauntings. The second night we were unable to get the same hostel room because it was already booked, so we set out to find alternative accommodation. We found a little pension (B&B). The place was really small (it only had 3 rooms) but we got to experience the best place we’ve stayed so far. The woman who ran the place was really sweet and made a great breakfast for us in the morning. All this for $40 per night for the two of us! After 2 nights we caught the bus to the capital, Prague. We arrived at our hostel which we’d booked a double room which was about twice as expensive as the Pension in Cesky Krumlov. It, putting it mildly, was crap. At about 10pm we were ready for bed but a waterfall started in our cupboard, caused by some dodgy plumbing upstairs. It finally subsided about 2 hours later. This seems to be a common occurence, becuase the owner was not concerned about it in the least. So spurred on by our new-found fear of drowning, we checked out of that hostel and set out for a small town an hour out of Prague to see some macabre stuff that we’d heard about. On the way we saw a steam train which was pretty cool. When we got there we walked the 2km from the station of course with our packs on and of course the hostel that we had booked didn’t see to be open when we got there. (We later found out that a cab from the station only costs about $3). So we found another small hotel which was excellent (hey, we deserved it after the previous night!). We caught a cab (no more walking!) to the main attraction, a building called the Ossuarie (sp?) which displays the remains of 40,000 victims of the Plague and a war that was happening at the time. But the bones aren’t just stacked up in some dark room, they are stacked neatly in 4 piles in the corners about 5m square all the way up to the ceiling. But the highlight (sorry about the pun) is a chandalier which is made from bones. There are also a few other things like coats of arms, also made entirely from bones, and some skull candleabras. Pretty cool eh? (photos should be on the site eventually). The town, Kutna Hora, was foundered centuries ago and became rich from silver mines in the area. A few years ago they found some of the original 13th Century mines which they now do tours in for the tourists. After donning a miners hat and coat and collecting your lamp, they take you down to the damp mines. In some parts the mines were only 120cm high and 30cm wide! There are also other galleries off the main mine which go for hundreds of metres and some have no oxygen and others are filled with arsonic-laden water. We also checked out the massive St Barbara’s catherdral (no doubt named after my wonderful mother-in-law!) and saw a plague column commemorating the end of the plague (all towns seem to have these) and an ancient well. Believe it or not we headed back to the same hotel that leaked because we were being picked up by the bus there early in the morning. We also changed to a dorm room because they are actually better than the double rooms. We went into the city of Prague and did the tour of the palace, walked up the bell tower (280 steps), saw the grave of “”Good King Wencelesses”". It was all very nice and the church was beautiful. We also went to a toy museum which was pretty cool. (Derek: there were lots of toy trains there! Photos will be up soon along with the ones of the steam train.) We were a bit disappointed that we didn’t get to stay longer in Prague, and would have stayed longer but our visas were only valid for 7 days. So, we got back on the bus and are now in Berlin. Berlin is really cool. Anything goes here, you could wear undies on your head and nobody would care. The city was voted the daggiest in Europe, which pretty much suits me! Berlin, of course also has an amazing history. We went on a walking tour which went for about 5 hours but was excellent and very informative. We’ve seen bits of the wall that are still standing, been to the Checkpoint Charlie museum, and will also check out a few more museums over the next few days. We spent the whole day at the zoo yesterday which was really amazing. One chimp decided that it was us that were on display and came up close to the glass to stare at us! We’re actually staying here longer than we had planned because we didn’t book the bus back to London in time and it was booked out. We’ve booked a flight from here on 31st which was only about $100! So next week, I guess we get a job. (Although I intend to procrastinate for as long as possible, but Jon can’t wait to get back in front of the computer!) So that’s about it. Hope everyone is doing well. Will catch up with you again from London. Jane and Jon”

“Guten morgan (lucky it’s morning because I have no idea how to say good afternoon in German!) We’re in Munich in Germany. We haven’t used the net for a while because we spent a week in Switzerland and it was very expensive there. It was about $24 an hour there, but here I’ve paid about $1.50 for 2 hours! A lot has happened since the last email, we’ve been to 3 different countries and are still having a ball. Last time I wrote we had just arrived in Nice in France. Nice turned out to be just like a Nice biscuit. It had some sugar coating, but underneath it was pretty standard. Nice has a pretty coastline with beaches covered in pebbles (which is not as bad as it sounds). We spent a bit of time at the beach, but it was a bit cool for a swim so we just watched all the other people. There are a lot of topless bathers at Nice beaches, but don’t get excited guys, because most of them are in their 60s! We found a bar for English-speaking tourists. It was called Wayne’s Bar and they have a pretty good band, so we had a good time. Beers were a rip-off though, at around $10 for a pint we only had a few. We’d heard that there are some pretty cool other bars in the part of town which is called the Old Town, so we decided to see if we could find this elusive part of town. After about a 5km walk and after asking some of the locals, we gave up (not before seeing some pretty cool things such as Nice’s huge war memorial which is carved out of a cliff, and after accidentally walking into a pretty full-on Gay bar beacuse I was busting to go to the toilet) and went home. On consulting our guide book in the morning, we discovered that Wayne’s bar IS in the old part of town, and most of the other bars are just around the corner! We went on a day trip to Monaco, which is a state run by the Prince of Monaco. It is, of course the home of the Monaco Grand Prix. One of the areas of Monaco is called Monte Carlo, which is also has an Arnott’s equivalent. The whole place is very lavish, we saw a car yard which sold nothing less than Mercedes and Porsche cars! The cars on the streets also reflect the sheer opulence of the place. We checked out the Palace, the church (Grace Kelly was apparently married to one of the Monaco Royals and is buried there) and we also went down to the harbour to drool over the boats that belong to the locals. We were a little underdressed and underfunded to head to the casino, so resorted to the Aquarium. The exhibits themselves were probably not even as good as the Sydney Aquarium, but the building was pretty impressive. It is farily old, but was purpose-built, and all the trimmings have a nautical or fish theme. The chandaliers have jellyfish as the glass light-fittings, the stair bannisters have fish on them, so it was pretty cool. Apparently if you want to become a resident of Monaco, you have to apply to the Prince himself and don’t forget to send your application with a cheque for $1 million. If he declines, he keeps the money anyway. Apparently Michael Jackson has donated $2 million to the royal coffers so far, and still isn’t allowed to move in! After 3 nights in Nice, we went for a night in France’s 2nd largest city, Lyon. After hearing that accommodation can be difficult to find in Lyon we rang and book a room with a bathroom at the Hotel around the corner from the bus drop-off point. When we arrived the lovely French owner of the Hotel told us that some ‘other’ Bullens had come and claimed our room (our name was on the top of the reservation list so they probably saw it and claimed our room), so the only one left was one with no bathroom. Little did we know that there wasn’t even hall showers, so we couldn’t even have a shower at all! The room was tiny and decorated with original 1900 furniture and wall paper which hadn’t ever been renovated. We did score a bidet (sp?) which was just in the corner of the room and a sink. There was no hot water though. We went out with some other people from the bus to a traditional French restaurant. For about $25 each we had a 3-course dinner with a very nice bottle of wine. Thank goodness we had a Canadian with us who could speak French, because when one of the other Aussies said “”I’ll go the choccie mousse thanks mate”" they had no hope of understanding. So apart from the tasty dinner, Lyon, for us at least rates worse than a Morning Coffee biscuit. The next day we departed for the long awaited Swiss part of our trip. Our high expectations of Switzerland were far exceeded. When we pulled up in the Village of Lauterbrunnen (near the town of Interlarken) which is smack bang in the valley between two mountains, we couldn’t believe how beautiful the place was. It is Green and the mountains are topped with snow and are covered in Green pine trees. Just behind the campsite we stayed in (in a 2 bedroom log cabin which we got to ourselves for the last 4 nights) there was a cliff that was probably 200m high, and a waterfall cascaded down it. At night the cliff is lit up by spotlights. The only sounds in this village are the waterfalls and the bells which are around the necks of every cow, sheep and goat. We had a stream running just outside our cabin which was fresh water straight from the glacier. We finally got out our boots and woolies from our packs which made a lot of spare room in the packs. It was a balmy 5 degrees most days. We immediately decided to stay for 6 nights instead of 4. On our 1st day we bought the obligatory Swiss Army knives. Mine is pretty standard, but Jon’s is a cyber knife which has every computer tool under the sun as well as the normal knife stuff as well. We don’t really know how we coped with our Woolworths variety that we used until then. On the second day we went to the Trummelbach falls which are waterfalls which actually run through the mountain. They have built a lift which takes you into the mountain and you can walk around through the falls. Pretty impressive. The next day we hired Mountain bikes and rode down to Interlarken which is about 20km down the valley. It was an easy ride down through beautiful forest and quaint Swiss villages. We also rode around the lake for a while at Interlarken. But coming back was 20km of uphill, so we were pretty tired when we got back. We were going to catch the train but it would have cost us about $30 with our bikes. Swiss trains are very expensive. Speaking of trains, the next day we took a train trip to the highest railway in Europe, Jungfraujoch. Jungfrau is 4000m above sea level, and the trip is pretty much all uphill. The trains use cogs instead of flat tracks to get up the hill so they don’t slip back down. Some of the hills it climbs are on a 45 degree angle! The train goes pretty slow and the trip takes about 2 hours on the way up and it is pretty expensive at $140 per person! But the money is well worth it. From the lookout tower you can see all the way past the glacier at the top to the towns below, and apparently we were looking at other contries too. It was an awesome sight. Although it was a pretty nippy minus 8°C Jon and I braved the glacier and had a snow fight for a while before collapsing from laughter and exhaustion. You seem to get exhausted pretty easily up there, I thing it’s from the altitude. They also have some ice caves which are pretty cool. There are stacks of ice sculptures in there, and if you leave your hand on the ice for a few hours you migtht just be able to make a hand print. Although our attempt only lasted about a minute, the ice is so cold and dry that it doesn’t seem to melt at all. While we were up on the mountain we also witnessed an avalanche! It was across the other side of the valley from where we were. It sounded like an expolsion, and the snow seemed to go in slow motion down the mountain! It was really amazing. The next few days were pretty rainy and miserable so we bought ourselves a pack of Uno cards and a book each and pretty much sat back and took in the natural beauty of the place. We did manage to find the bar though, and we found that the done thing in Switzerland is to drink from 1L stein glasses. At only $7.50 each, they were pretty economical. Well, it was tough, but you know what they say, when in Rome do as the Romans do. The glasses are so heavy that if you lift them with one hand you get a bruise on the top of your hand! It’s a small price to pay I guess . . . On our last day some of the locals gave us some entertainment by base jumping (jumping from the cliff with just a parachute on!) from the Cliff behind the camp. It’s pretty scarey to watch, they fall an awful long way until the chute finally comes out. There is no equivalent biscuit to Lauterbrunnen. That’s why they make Lindt chocolates. We left very relaxed after 6 days and stayed a night in Lucerne at a great Hostel before getting back on the coach the next day for the trip to Munich. That’s where we are now. On the first night we headed to a massive beer hall that probably seats about 2000 people. You can only buy beer by the litre again, so once again we just had to put up with it! We bought a few rounds ourselves until we met an older Texan couple who seemed to own an oil mine or something because they were shouting the whole table. Who were we to let them down? Also on the table were another Aussie girl and a Canadian girl who we’ve spent a bit of time with (they also live in London), a guy from New York, a local, and a South African guy. This guy thought that he was pretty special, but he said he worked as an IT manager at a company in Munich, so we entertained his attitude. He told us that he could pay Jon the equivalent of 85,000 British Pounds, but this became a lot less attractive when the guy strted coming onto me when Jon was just across the table. I had a go at him, and then when I came back to the table after a toliet stop he had mysteriously disappeared! A very slimey guy. More about the Beer Hall itself though, they are all over the city, and they are frequented by locals dressed up in traditional gear who have their own storage hole in the hall for their personal Stein. The barmaids can carry about 10 full Steins at a time, and we saw one guy with 13! The atmosphere is amazing, the people are great, there is a local band playing traditional music which everyone ends up swaying to by the end of the night. Luckily though they close at 11pm because you really could stay all night. Yesterday though we had a change of page which sobered us in more ways than one. We headed out to the Dachau concentration camp which was in operation between 1933 and the end of WWII in 1945. Although the place was not a death camp like Auschwitz, in that time 30,000 people died, mainly from being worked or flogged to death or from diseases. They actually had a gas chamber installed at the camp, but it was never used because the two crematoriums couldn’t keep up with the number of bodies that were already piling up. It was vey emotional and keeps things in perspecive. We decided to change accommodation last night because the bus drop-off point was a long way out of town in a pretty dodgy caravan park. So we managed to book ourselves into a room in a castle! Yep, a real castle has been turned into a Hostel, and it’s pretty cool. We’re staying there again tonight after another night in the beer hall, and tomorrow we’re off to Salzburg, Sound of Music Country. Hope that you’re all well and wish you were here! Catch you next time. Jane and Jon”

“Bonjour I have to say that. We’re in France. After spending a few very rainy days in the Tuscany region of Italy we arrived in Nice, France, last night. Not surprisingly, it’s, um, nice. Anyway more about that later. This is what we’ve been up to since we left Venice. Caught the bus to Florence in Italy and arrived at around lunch time. The area is really nice, the countryside is green and lush and it is really very nice after the bare Greek landscapes. We stayed in a campsite in a cabin which was really cheap (especially compared to Hotels in Italy) and was only about a 20 minute bus ride to the city. We went into the city the afternoon we arrived, checked out the Duomo (a big church) and a few of the other sights. Michangelo’s David statue is also in Florence, but we only got to see the replica because the museum was closed when we went to have a look on Sunday. After a few hours of walking around the city we decided to catch the bus back to the campsite, which was a bit of an adventure because the bus driver decided to change the route number after we got on and the bus went in the opposite direction. After a long time we passed some very familiar sights, and we realised that we were heading back into the city. We stayed on the bus and met some Kiwis who had got on the same bus for the same reason. We got off in the city and caught another bus, which luckily stayed on the correct route and we got back to the campsite, but not before it started pouring. So out came the waterproof jackets from our day packs, wow, what a good investment! The next day we took a day trip to another Tuscan town, Siena. I don’t want to sound like I’m gushing, but this place is awesome. The town is pretty much how it was a few hundred years ago, and the best thing was that it has a church which is absolutely MASSIVE and every corner of it is decorated by works of art (many by Ninja Turtles, ie: Donatello etc). The ceiling is lined with busts of hundreds of people, all different, and all in perfect detail. The outside has the same thing. The floor has a huge mosaic in it, the walls are adorned with famous religious paintings, there are statues all over the place. We spent a good few hours in there and couldn’t have possibly seen everything. Apart from the fact that it was raining heavily outside and we didn’t want to go back out, this place coulod keep you entertained forever. We saw some other stuff in Siena, but it all seems pretty insignificant compared to that church. That night we went back to the campsite and cooked some spag bol in the campsite kitchen, which seems to have become a habit because that’s what we’ve had every night since! The following day it was still raining so we just hung around the campsite until it stopped at around lunch time. We stupidly thought that it wouldn’t rain again, and as a result we got wet for the 3rd day in a row! The church itself was closed, but we did get to climb the 414 stairs to the top of the bell tower. I can’t believe they make you pay to do that. The stairs are payment enough! Although it was raining and the viewing platform wasn’t under cover, the view from the top was pretty spectacular. We went back to the campsite and left on the bus to Nice the following morning. The bus went via Pisa, so we got to see the leaning tower which is on much more of a lean than we expected. We took some obligatory stupid touristy photos of us holding up the tower (they’ll be on the site soon). The road between Florence and Nice has something like 200 bridges and 200 tunnells. It’s not good if you’re afraid of heights, because some of the bridges are a few hundred metres above the ground. It’s pretty amazing. We haven’t really done much in Nice yet. We cooked our spag bol last night, and then went to the supermarket this morning for obligatory supplies of baguettes and croussaints (sp?). I was accosted by another bum this morning. Needless to say, French bums only speak French (not like the classy ones in Vienna)! Today we’ll check out Nice, tomorrow we’re off to Monaco to meet the Prince and get a stamp in our passports! Might hire a car and do the Grand Prix circuit! The following day we’re off to Lyon (also in France) and then we’re heading to Switzerland which we’re pretty excited about. We reckon that although we’ve been way under budget so far, Switzerland might just sort that out! Overall we’re having as great time. Thanks everyone for your emails and keep in touch! Jane and Jon”

“Hello from beautiful Santorini in the Greek Islands! Sorry I didn’t get to finish the last email. Chances are it will happen again! We have some photos uploaded to the site now. We haven’t seen most of them yet, so I have no idea what is there! Should be interesting. http://www.sytone.net By the way, we have decided to photograph all the McDonald’s shops that we see and have a Maccas gallery on the site. Don’t ask me why, but it seemed like a good idea at the time! Well, I was up to Venice. Venice is beautiful but very polluted. Some of the people who we met on our trip went on a Gondola ride and saw amongst other things dead floating rats in the water and also other bits that you might find floating around Bondi beach! So after we checked out of our expensive hotel we went to the train station and set about working out how to catch a train to where we had to meet our tour. After lining up at several information desks I finally worked out how to get the tickets so I decided to be very smart and ask for them in Italian. It all went well until she told me how much they were in Italian. I then forgot any sembalance of my newly-found Italian language skills and said “”What, how much?”" I left without even saying thankyou because my confidence had all disappeared. We got on the train bound for Mestre which is one station out of Venice. That all went well. When we got off the train we had another epic of finding the right bus and then finding out where to but the tickets. Just a tip: you can’t buy bus tickets at the ‘Tickets’ window, you have to get them at the cafeteria (how silly of me!) We waited for the number one bus to Fusina (which is basically the Penrith of Venice) where the rest of the tour group had stayed the night before in a camping place. After an hour at the bus stop and meeting another group of Australians from Leeton which is near Wagga who were headed the same way we got on the #1 bus which was packed with campers heading to Fusina. But the bus driver turfed us out when we got to the turn off because apparently this bus didn’t go all the way. We never did find out why. So us Aussies banded together and decided to walk. “”It can’t be far”" we said, but were not convinced when the street sign said that our little stroll is 6km. To make matters worse it was about 35 degrees, humid, we were carrying our packs (at least 15kg each) and we only had an hour to get there. We weren’t convinced that the next bus would be any quicker than the last, so given the options, walking was still our best bet. (WARNING: the next section may scare some parents!) After walking about 2km of the optimistic 6, we saw another couple who were on the bus go past in a local car. Hmm, not a bad option. Let’s hitch. Shortly afterwards some lovely young Italian boys with radio blaring picked us up without having to even raise our thumb. Luckily the road was quiet because they were driving at twice the speed limit in the middle of the road. We thankfully arrived at our destination unscathed with 25 mins to spare! A few minutes later the other 3 Aussies arrived in the back of a ute. Geez Aussies are a resourceful bunch! After meeting the tour guide and being told that we weren’t leaving for another hour, we sat and had a beer (what else was there to do). We then got onto an empty tour bus as we were the only ones joining the group at point, and proceeded to backtrack our steps basically back to the same spot we had left 3 hrs earlier. Bugger! At this stage we met the rest of the group. Although they had been travelling together for a while they were happy to welcome us into their fold. They are a really nice bunch of people with an average age of about 28. We are the youngest people on the tour, which is good because it means that we haven’t got a whole stack of 18 year-old people who just want to party and couldn’t care less about looking at any of the sights. The group has 2 South Africans (both of whom have been working in London for a while), 4 Kiwis and 9 Aussies! Our tour guide, Flora, is Greek Australian and grew up in Melbourne. She’s fantastic and we’ve been having a lot of fun. She’s moving to London after this tour and has invited us to use her floor until we can find our own place. Anyway, from the Venice port we boarded the huge ship to Patras in Greece. We had an amazing view of Venice on our way out, there are some photos on the site. We were supposed to share a tiny cabin with another couple and their huge Samsonite suitcase, but they decided that the room wasn’t big enough for the 5 of us so upgraded and left us in the room by ourselves. Bewdy! The cruise took 2 days and 2 nights and was a lot of fun and very relaxing. We then caught a bus to Athens. I’ve gotta tell you. Athens is a dump. Our Hotel was near the local meat market which is out in the street in the boiling weather, and is completely un-refrigerated. At the end of the day whatever isn’t sold is lumped on the streets in the hope that the street cleaner will come and scoop it up! Hmm, yum. They scoop it up with big loaders and then put it in dumpsters which stay on the streets for a day or so until they’re empty. I guess the reason it stays there is because what else would the hoards of stray dogs and cats in the city eat? There were 2 good things about Athens. Our Hotel had a rooftop pool with a view to the Acropolis, and we had a nice time watching the sun go down from there. The only thing is that Athens is basically built in a ditch, and the pollution is amazing. The sun actually disappeared behind a cloud of smog before it went behind the mountain! The other good thing is the food. Greeks really know how to cook. We have taken quite a liking to Greek salad and yeeros. Oh, and there is one other good thing, there is lots of old stuff. The Acropolis is amazing. It is on the top of a hill and looks huge. It is truly an architectural masterpiece. We went to the Olympic Stadium which is the site of the 1st modern Olympic games (who said we left the Olympic city). >From the ground it looks quite small, but from the top it looks huge. >It is built entirely from marble. We also went to the temple of Zeuss and a few other spots. Oh, and the Athens Metro station has to be the cleanest in the world. It also doubles as a museum because they dug up some other old stuff when they were digging the underground. They have armed guards keeping the dog and cat population and other undesirables out. So we had pretty much seen all Athens has to offer when the bad news came that we had to spend another night there because the ferries were striking and we couldn’t get to Santorini. The drivers in Athens are mad. They don’t stop for red lights or pedestrians. We saw an old women knocked down in the street. Her head was lying in a pool of blood but she was still alive! The ferries were still striking the next day, so our tour guide organised for us to fly. We got to Santorini a day late, which meant that we either stayed for only 2 days or missed out on going to Ios (another island). We decided that the former option was better, so we opted to stay in Santorini. Santorini is exactly what you see in postcards. The blue and white buildings are perched on top of cliffs and the weather is hot and sunny. Our hotel, also a blue and white building was really nice, but in the middle of nowhere. It would take us ages to walk to the beach or catch a bus, so we needed transport! After consulting our insurance policy which wouldn’t cover us for motorbikes (scooters and mopeds included), a car was the best option. We opted for the jeep which was a small Suzuki with no top. When I say no top I mean it. Even if we wanted a roof they didn’t give us one! Lucky it never rains! Drivers in Santorini are mad. They overtake on blind corners (they just beep their horns to let people know they’re coming), they park anywhere they can, they drive fast. The law says that people who ride motorbikes etc have to have a helmet with them, but there’s no rule about wearing them! But I was brave and decided to try out the right side of the road, after all, when in Santorini, do what the Greeks do. We drove around most of the Island, following some of the other members of the group who braved the scooters. We took New Zealanders, Darren and Sarah (pron. Dirrin and Sirrah) stopping from time to time to look at the view from atop a cliff, or to go for a swim in a beautiful spot in crystal clear waters. Every beach has a different coloured sand, black, red, black round rocks, or just boulders. It is really varied. We even went wine tasting. Grapes are Santorini’s main crop. They are everywhere around the place, but they don’t string the vines up to posts, they just lie on the ground in the barren, dry soil. The Greeks on Santorini also know how to cook. Our first meal was breakfast at Momma’s. Momma is quite a character, and she is well known amongst the locals and also the tourists. Her catch cry is “”Momma loves yous babies”", and she yelled it out at least 3 times during our breakfast of omlettes and inch-thick pancakes. We’re off there for dinner tonight as well (breakfast was on Tuesday). Today we took the car back at 11am (btw, I got pretty good at Santorini driving) and went on a tour of Santorini’s volcano Island. It is at least 40 degrees today, and I’m getting pretty burnt and Jon has a heat rash all over is hands and feet). We walked down about 2000 steps to the port, all the way battling with donkeys (you can hire a donkey to ride up or down the stairs). The stais are made from marble rocks set in cement, which are shined and made slippery by the donkey poo and their hoofs as they go along. After a boat ride, we trekked up the inactive volcano, nearly died from heat exhaustion and pretty much all we saw was a few deep holes in the ground and a bit of Sulphur coming out of the ground. Afterwards the boat took us for a well-deserved swim in the hot springs (which are hot because of the Volcano). When we got back we decided that by far the best option was to fork out the 5 bucks for the cable car back up the cliff. Wow, what a view. We all were pretty burnt (we went with 2 people from the tour group) and were lectured by an obnoxious American who told us to go to the pharmacy to get some Aloe Vera for our burns. Little did she know that the two girls we were with are a doctor and a pharmacist. Geez some people are obnoxious! Well, now I’m up to date. I’m in the net cafe and writing this letter. We’re off to see the sun set from a cliffside bar followed by dinner at Momma’s. Tomorrow we’re off back to Athens by ferry (assuming they’re running) and we have to spend another night there before embaring on 3 days of sailing around the islands. It’s tough . . . Go unemployment! Now here’s the personal messages: *Mum and Dad, thanks for taking care of the phone shenanigans and look after the cat! *Hello to Barbara and Derek *Tham, I met a girl on our trip from Leichhardt, she has the best job- she works for the department of defence. Her job is to look at units and buy them for Army staff to live in. She buys a few every week! Thanks for your long email too. Hope you’re enjoying the Olympics! Say hello to all the OzEmailers for me. *A big Hi to Malinda. Thanks for all your emails. *Nick, thanks for your email too. Hope you’re not missing us too much. Could you please forward this to Jen and Marty, they haven’t signed up yet. *Mim and Gus, congrats on the expected arrival. Don’t forget to name the baby after me. If you want to reply, please reply to our normal addresses. Jon’s is sytone@sytone.net and mine is jane_bullen@hotmail.com We’ve stopped the replies from going to everyone on the list. If you want to make comments there’s a place on the site. Keep in touch. Jane and Jon”

“Hello everyone, We thought it was about time that we wrote to you all. We’ve been so busy and having a lot of fun, and the only reason that we have enough time today is that we are stuck in Athens because the ferries are stiking and we can’t get to Santorini (we were supposed to leave last night). more about that later, here’s the adventure so far. If you see that anyone is missing from the email list, please forward this on. So I don’t have to search through our address book every time for everyone, could you please all sign up to our email list so we can just send it to one address. Instructions on how to do that are at the bottom of this email. Anyway, enough of the formalities, here’s what we’ve been up to. We flew out of Sydney a week ago on Monday night. The plane left pretty much on time despite nasty rumours that the airport would be packed because of the Olympics. Customs was a breeze and we did a bit of duty free shopping before we boarded. The plane went backwards to Melbourne (that’s what you get when you go on a cheap flight) and then onto Kuala Lumpar. We got off the plane in each place for an hour or so to stretch our legs, but by then we were pretty tired because it was about 4am Sydney time. The flight was really long, and even longer in the stretch when our lights, video monitors and radios shorted out and it was pitch dark so we couldn’t do anything. They fixed them eventually, so we watched a few movies and watched the flight cam which shows the view from under the plane. Pretty much every time we dozed off they came along with a meal and it seemed very strange to be eating lunch in the dark. Apart from the long flight time, the broken video etc and the stange eating times the rest of the flight was quite good. We arrived in Vienna at about 11.30 am (which was pretty much on time), collected our bags and walked straight out onto the street (customs seems non-existent in Austria). Had my 1st problem with the language barrier when I asked for 2 drinks at McDonald’s and only got one. Caught an airport bus to the area we were staying in, got off, got lost for about 1/2 hour which wasn’t fun carrying our backpacks in the 30 degree heat. Got to our hostel, which was pretty good. We went out immediately to avoid the trap of going straight to sleep and feeling the effects of jet lag the next day. Vienna is a beautiful city. It is very clean and the people are lovely. We blew our 1st day’s budget on a horse and carriage ride around the city where we saw all the beautiful old churches and palaces. Took stacks of photos which will eventually be on our website http://www.sytone.net Vienna has no highrise at all, so everything seems so neat and even. Stacks of people seem to have dogs, although I have no idea where they keep them as there are no backyards! We grasped German pretty well while we were in Vienna, although there is really no need because pretty much everyone speaks English. I even had a one-toothed bum in a wheelchair in the street ask me for money in German, and when I murmered something about not understanding in English, he quickly asked me if I had any Schillings for him. He also gave us some travel tips. Even the bums are nice in Vienna. We decided that we should have a traditional Austrain dinner that night, so where better to head that the schnitzel shop. We had no idea what we were ordering, and we ended up with a plate of 3 schnitzels each, one chicken, one veal and one pork! Hmm, nothing like meat i the afternoon . . . Actually the Austrians eat a lot of meat. You can buy a slab of meat in between two slabs of bread from vendors on the street. Meat sandwitches. The jet lag beat us at 6pm when we couldn’t stay awake any longer and we crashed out. Pretty tired the next day, but not too bad. We then got a train to Venice on which we met a really nice (surprise surprise) American couple who were a few years older than us. They had just finished law school and were having their one and only holiday before they embarked on the life of being LA Lawyers. They will probably never have another holiday again! We had a great chat with them for most of the 9 hr journey and pretty much set them straight on Australians and kangaroos on the street. From the train we could see beautiful mountains and also castles on the top of hills. It was really amazing. We also met and Italian guy who assured us that we would get good food in Italy. Got off the train in Venice at 11pm at night, and we stupidly thought that we would find a cheap place to stay without booking. We ended up paying around $200 Australian for a 2 star hotel whcih was ok, but not the Ritz, I can tell you. When we got off the train, although it was late at night it was still about 30 degrees and very muggy. The air in Venice is very thick and always smells like cigars. The place is beautiful and amazing, but at the same time is polluted and crumbling. Wouldn’t want to live there, but a great place to visit. After checking into the hotel we went out for dinner (at this time it was about 11.30 pm), but the place was still a buzz with people and I had my 1st real spag bol. In the morning we got up and went for a walk before we checked out of the hotel. We got completely lost which I think is the best way to do it because you see a lot more. We were truely amazed when we walked through a tiny alley into a massive square complete with a 100m church tower. We attempted to buy some fruit from a woman on the street who yelled at us for touching the fruit, which is apparently offensive in Italy. Bought some beautiful nectarines and apples before heading back to the hotel to check out. The story continues but I’m running out of time. We have to get back to the hotel to find out whether or not we’re going to Santorini today. The story will continue . . . Catch you all later. Jane and Jon”