The journey not the arrival matters I believe that travel is the best education. I wanted to learn more about myself and the world so I embarked on a journey, with minimal plans, eager and ready to discover new places, new people and to be adventurous!

Enchanting Europe

AUSTRIA | Saturday, 20 July 2013 | Views [410] | Comments [1]

Wonderful Wales

One of the girls from the tour, Laura -who happens to be from Adelaide but we didn't know eachother and had only one mutual friend on Facebook (yes, we both could not believe it!) - mentioned that she was visiting a friend in Wales after the trip... Sounded cool to me and I didn't have any other plans, so off to Wales we went by bus, for a whole 5 pounds- bargain! We stayed with her friend, Becky and her parents - which I was initially worried about, as I didn't want to intrude too much - but they were so lovely and it was such a welcomed change to feel all homey after the tour. I was delighted to have weet-bix for breakfast in their beautiful garden every morning - another luxury after day in day out of bread, salami and cheese on the tour. We did the city tour and visited the local beaches - which were essentially mud for sand, and muddy water for the sea, and some even had sheep roaming around freely!! Almost everyone at the beach had a portable BBQ - seems to be the craze here! Becky's work friends had bought such a BBQ and meat to feed thousands, however they had absolutely no clue how to start the BBQ at all! So it was left to the Aussies to arrange the coal and lighting cubes, lighting fluid and let the coals turn light grey/ash (they didn't know about this) before cooking the meat... which we also ended up doing!! A delightful finish to the trip was meeting up with James' cousin, Sarah and lunching with her beautiful kids!

Loveable London

So I had this grand plan to surprise mum and dad on the night they arrived in London. I knew the address of their apartment and that they arrived at 1pm. My bus came in at 6pm and I decided to wing it. I had arranged to stay at a friend's place that night (after the rendez-vous) because I didn't want to pay the $50 for an extra bed in their room. Arriving in Notting Hill around 7pm I knocked on their door, hoping that they might have crashed after arriving and be heading for dinner soon, but that was a bit too good to be true. So I wandered around for a few hours, saw that actor who sings the hit Xmas song in 'love actually' in the supermarket, ate dinner in the park and returned to check again at about 9pm. Still not back. 10pm. 11pm. The guys on the front desk changed over and the one leaving wished me well and hoped my parents would arrive soon! The new guy - Mo- got the rundown on the situation and offered me a cup of tea, some water and a chat while I waited :) Finally, at about midnight, waiting in my secret spot upstairs, I hear mum come in and start asking Mo where she can buy a cup of coffee from. Typical! Haha I waited for him to explain that most cafes were already closed :) I made my move and surprised them once they were back in the room!!! Yay happy reunion! After chatting a bit, it was suddenly 130am, and I really didn't feel like going anywhere else to sleep. So mum and I worked our magic together and somehow Mo decided that since I waited for so many hours to surprise my parents, he'd do me a favour and give us the extra bed free of charge! Woo wooo!! The next evening we went for dinner to Jane Hill's house. Jane was mum's best friend when she lived in London, aged 7 to 10, and they found eachother via Facebook a few years back!! I had such a wonderful evening there as Jane got out all of the letters mum had written to her over the years. As they reminisced, I learnt about all these strange and naughty things mum did and thought as a kid that I never knew!! Finding the house that mum lived in just before she immigrated was quite emotional and we both cried when we found it, knocked on the door and the lady who now lives there let us in!!

We saw 2 musicals - 'merrily we roll along' and 'a chorus line' both awesome and both made me wish I was up there performing too!! Was great to have a beer with dad at the pub, dangle my feet in the Trafalgar Square fountain with mum, and generally hanging with them both, crashing their 30th wedding anniversary Europe trip :)

Lovely Leuven, Beautiful Belgium

Catch up with Jono, my very good circus friend from Adelaide... Lovely to see him again, taste the amazing Belgium fries which really were delicious, relax and do a bit of movie watching and being homey with his great housemates. Started getting a bit homesick here and ready to come home but made a decision to book flights to South America so couldn't jump on the next plane home like I wanted to :(

Scenic South-West Germany

I arrived 2 hours later than scheduled in the German city of Ulm (middle of woop woop) after a 21 hour bus ride - interspersed with a ferry ride from UK to France. Although it essentially sucked, I have to say there is something a bit exciting about travelling in this adventurous, roughing-it kind of way. And I was grateful for the forced time to write in my diary, read my book (finished the bronze horseman, loved it), contemplate and reflect, often with gorgeous scenery out the window. I went to Germany to visit a Nicole, Polish friend from the Krakow language course. She mentioned that I was welcome to visit if I had spare time and I had liked her carefree attitude towards life and her patience with my Polish during the course, always encouraging me to just give it a go. From Ulm we headed to her home town of Bad Wurzach - in the middle of the middle of woop woop - this super sweet little town of less than 15 000 people, one church that everyone goes to, everything within walking distance, and the closest train/bus is 20 mins drive away!! I really loved my experience here especially because there was not one other tourist... I doubt many foreigners have ever heard of it, and I felt like I was getting a real and raw German experience. Best not forget to mention that Nikki was also living with her parents (during the summer break) who spoke not a WORD of English, except 'merry christamusu' and my Polish is actually really shit! So it was an interesting introduction whereby I had lost all my confidence even in basics like 'nice to meet you' and I struggled to make any form of small talk at all! After a few days and a bit of wine at the dinner table, I managed to talk in very broken Polish, let's call it a few words, assisted by lots of actions and Nikki translating when it was too hard ...and we all got on like a house on fire. Janina and Andrzej were so similar to my mum and dad and were so excited to have someone exotic - yes, Australia is exotic - to host, entertain and feed! And I felt so comfortable in their home!! Nikki and I also had a superb time together. Despite the 6 year age gap, we got on remarkably well - she's quite mature for her age, or again, perhaps I'm just immature?! We talked all day, every day about anything and everything!! We discussed the meaning of life, the possibility of life's pre-determined chapters, fate, destiny, decision making difficulties, marriage, kids, buying a house, the definition of family, mental illness, good and bad human attributes, how best to live one's life and much much more!!! I went to a German church service, visited their German friend's one-day old baby in the hospital, and supported her younger sister when she played the piano in the school music concert. During the day, Nikki and I went on bike rides - since that's about all there is for one to do in Bad Wurzach!!

We rode through gorgeous green paddocks, farms and fields with those stereotypical beautiful little wooden houses with red flowers in the windows. So simple, but so removed from civilisation - it made it more special for me! One day we packed lunch, rode 15km to the train station, caught a train with the bikes to a lovely town called Lindau surrounded by Lake Constance, then rode a further 10km, around the edge of the lake to the town Bregenz in Austria. I thought that was so cool - that I just rode across from Germany to Austria without even knowing it :)

Upon return, I was rewarded with a delicious home cooked German BBQ to distract me from my aching arse! On my last day, we caught a train to a beautiful city called Heidelberg (about an hour away from Frankfurt). Lovely coloured buildings, a castle, a beautiful red brick bridge with arches all the way across to a luscious green mountain side and narrow cobblestones streets with cafes and restaurants. A very gorgeous city!

And that leads us to the end of that sector, as I write, sitting on yet another overnight bus heading to Wrocław in Poland to meet family and reunite with mum and dad!

**traveler reflection**

I've been away for almost 4 months now and things are changing all the time for me. Both in terms of my mental state, my short term and long term plans and my overall outlook on life. I feel like I'm learning some of the greatest life lessons; about me and the world and just some of the thousands of different cultures out there. There's so much to know and so much to see. I definitely feel like I've chilled out a bit and worry less about small things, like missing trains or buses and bad weather (but I've actually been pretty lucky with that!) I am still pretty terrible at decision making, but hopefully I'm slowly improving and it's nice now to reflect back on a decent length of time away and moving around, and be more aware of the things I do and don't like. Every experience and every moment is providing me with something important - confidence, knowledge, comfort, acknowledgement of my values, joy, happiness, friendship and many more valuable lessons or emotions. It also makes me realise how lucky I am to have such wonderful, special and close relationships with friends and family back home. I hope I continue to savour each moment as much as I am at the moment.