Well,

Again, it's been a while since my last update, and ALOT has happened, I am now in Munich the land of beerhalls and Oktoberfest and in my final week of my european adventure.

Since Berlin, besides not experiencing a white christmas, and going on one of more wild pub crawls available on Christmas Eve. I have passed through 5 countries and stayed in 6 different places.

The Countries: Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Switzerland, France

The Places: Prague, Salzberg, Zurich, Limas (Near Lyon), Lausanne, Zurich again, and now in Munich.

Ralf and I suceeded in leaving Berlin on Boxing Day where we headed towards our most Eastern Destination in Europe, Prague. We were a little anxious to see what it was like as a city given some mixed reviews of the city. When we arrived we decided it was styled in a lot of places like Russia, and with its soviet / communist background this wasn't a big surprise. Arriving at the train station we each withdrew 800 krowns which felt kinda weird and inline with our training felt it necessary to hide 400 krowns with our passports, in retrospect this was kinda unnecessary since it was only 50 bucks australian, but when your holding 800 bucks its something you can't help doing I think.

After a moderately long and arduous journey we ended up finding our hostel, (it wasn't my fault that I only copied down some of the details to the hostel and not all of them ;) ) After our 4km walk throughout Prague with all our backpacks, the free welcome beer at the hostel was GREAT!

That evening after our experience in Berlin, we decided to take a pub crawl through Prague, an obvious choice after hearing about the importance of beer in Czech society. In retrospect however after getting a leader with no character (although one could argue that is character in itself) and a choice of pubs that weren't really pubs but a French cafe, a light restaurant and a small local bar with brawling drunks (that was the highlight) we could probably had a better time on our own.

The following day we took another tour from the same company, through the castle, the jewish quarter, the old city and a few otherplaces and learnt a bit about the history of the czech republic and how it had also (similar to parts of Germany) been communist until the 90's.

After our brief visit to Prague, we headed towards Austria, and the city of Salzberg, after a brief runin with a an angry Chip guy in a changeover in Munich we arrived to the hostel with time to spare. That evening we watched the Sound of Music with a couple of beers, since it was Salzberg that the story comes from and the real Von Trapp family as well. This enticed us to take the apparently famous Sound of Music tour showing all the sights of the movie, and offered a free Eidelweiss Cocktail at the end. In the afternoon we visted the Brau Welt (I think thats the spelling, meaning Brew World) the Steigel Brewery tour and beer expo. There we were impressed to discover that they had a bottle of XXXX from Milton, definately the highlight of the tour, followed closely by the warm Bretzels at the end with beers.

Again, this was a flying visit and the following day we trained through the mountains of Austria to arrive in Zurich at 7pm meeting up with William at 11pm. After some impeded communication we finally met up and headed to Sarahs house in France the next morning to celebrate New Years.

There were some difficulties getting beer on the way there, but finally managed to get some from the Casino near her house (turns out Casino is a supermarket chain in France).

The party at Sarahs was a tail unto itself, but whilst it wasn't the biggest party around it was definately unique and good fun was had by all! And for Ralf, William and I, as the clock struck 12, we celebrated with a good ole' can of fosters.

The following day we recovered by watching some classic Sci-Fi, Mars Attacks and then Stargate in French, and ordered in some high quality hangover food, Pizza.

-Well alot has certainly happened even since then, I went skiiing in the swiss alps and met up with the biggest gathering of Waterlooians since Waterloo. Then had a night in Zurich again with William and arrived in Munich today, but the complete update of that will have to wait a little...

Until then, ciao.

Hallo from Berlin the capital of the land of Beer,

Well since my last update I have been to quite a few places, I left Portugal where I had a great time and it was good catching up with Urs, headed towards Madrid where I spent a further night and saw the sights that I had missed on my previous visit, and had a pair of guys try and steal my camera bag after one of them tried to distract me by asking for directions. (Moral of the story boys and girls, dont help anyone asking for directions.) It happened in just a brief instant when i leant across to look at the blokes map and then lent back for my bag and it was already gone, I looked around to see not more than a metre away another bloke going through my bag, in no uncertain terms I told the bloke to piss off and his collegue who was trying to feign innocence.

Anyway that added some excitement to my stay and that evening (last Friday night I believe) I hoped on an overnight train to Paris. A 13 hour journey and I had paid extra for a sleeper carriage. In a very small space there was me and 3 other old spainish men who were dissappointed in my lack of Spainish skills, but all was well in the end, and arrived moderately refreshed 9am the next morning in Paris. I stayed that evening with Sarah. And had drinks with a few Frenchy friends of hers and Michael another canadian Exchange student. Apparently the highlight of the evening?(at least for the French)?was seeing Frances most famous singer\'s hand poking out of a car?waving to a crowd outside the pub we were in. The biggest disappointment for me was getting a REAL french hamburger where apparently its typical to have no bread... go figure

From Paris, I left the next day on a train to Frankfurt again (this trip hasn\'t been totally efficient) where I met the latest australian import Ralf. I took him back to Sven\'s house with the intention of having a train beer, which I felt was a very important experience, but failed to have a bottle opener on me. (This has since been rectified after my visit to the Heineken Brewery, many times over in fact)

We spent two nights in Frankfurt, were Ralf experienced his first Gluhwein and also Apfelwein, and his first Weinachts Markt.

We then headed towards Amsterdam, for two nights were we visited the Heineken Brewery (or at least what used to be, before it was moved) and took the expected stroll through the red light district. Ralf would argue that the snoorers were having a convention there but I had ear plugs so wouldn't be able to support such a claim... :)

And finally we reached where I am now in Berlin, the capital of Germany and also the home of the famous berlin wall. Yesterday I took a walking tour through the city, and covered a fair chunk visiting the famous Checkpoint Charlie, the Jewish Monument, the Reichstag and the Brandenburg gate among other things. My plans are to stay here until Boxing Day when I will head towards Prague for two nights then onto Salzburg most likely in Austria. Hopefully we will have the pleasure of a white christmas here in Berlin, however it's quite unlikely.

In the meantime, Merry Christmas All, and if I don't make it online Happy New Year!

Hello all, From Portugal, where the beer is cheap, Port is kept in cellars, great coffee is cheap and francesinha is eaten by all, if your arent sure what it is, look it up, but its basically a toasted sandwich with Ham, sausage and steak, covered in a gravy and cheese. so basically its REALLY healthy.

My time here is almost over and I have seen alot and experienced alot of portuguese culture first hand. I havent done a vast amount of the touristy things but I am trying to avoid them in most cases in order to A) save money, since there usually overpriced and B) because I prefer to make my own way around. No doubt I am missing some of the less significant attractions in each city I have visited but I seem to enjoy noticing the differences in cultures and day to day habits than seeing another church or statue.

One of the more notable differences to Australia would be: The metro line is not fenced, in fact the bridge over the Douro (the river through Portugal) is joint train and pedestrian with nothing
more than a yellow line keeping the areas apart. Small differences but still strangely significant to me. They seem to give people more credit for there own actions here which is strangely refreshing. Although Urs does tell me, that since they made this bridge Metro only
(It used to be a road bridge) an old man managed to drive across the bridge and past two further metro stations underground. Ok that spiel went on longer than necessary.

What else, um, I visited a Port Cellar today, and saw how they kept all the barrels and the differences in the barrels in order to determine the style of the port. The one I visited was the Sandeman cellar, which is one of the first ever 'Brands' Registered, and the term 'Brand' comes from the fact that they used a hot iron to 'Brand' the barrells of port that they made.

Last night I went to the Peolho bar which is in the Conservatory of Music where they had a bunch of Jazz players having a Jam session, combined with cheap drinks and lots of students from all over Europe, which was quite an experience.

Tomorow I take Ryanair back to Madrid where I will stay for another night in the same hostel as last time, and Friday night I will take a night train to Paris where i will meet up with Sarah and her housemate Anne again for another night. And on Sunday I will take a train to
Frankfurt where I will meet the latest Australian arrival to Europe Ralf who is probably in the early packing stages at the moment. I wish I had an oppurtunity to post some pictures easily, but it hasnt really been possible so you will have to make do with what is here.

Umbrigado for listening.

Well today I passed through 3 countries and have stopped in Brussels, Belgium. Just thought I would let you all know. Hope everyone is well!

Cya