European Summer...

First Stop, Wales






Talk about a change from New York, this Welsh town called Hay on Wye has the most bookshops I have ever seen. And they had a book festival on while we were there too. Very nice.


Stonehenge (From the road, we were too cheap to go in)

Crazy Contiki...
I forgot to take pictures in Amsterdam(I wonder why?) So the first pics are from Austria...


Mathausen concentration camp, freaky stuff




Vienna


Viennese Coffee


The SCHNAPPS museum in Vienna, though most purchases were ABSINTH!!


Some of the contiki crew at the Hapsburg's summer residence - Shonbrun palace


Venice!


Gondola driver in Venice


The canals are literally the streets - here is the entrance to this house


Birthday dinner in Rome


Rome


Colosseum


In the Italiam Forum - here they are digging down to Rome's past, already at the 3rd layer underground, now they are digging deeper. Apparently when they were sick of the city they would just fill it in and start over. amazing!


Vatican - St Peter's square


Have a look at the picture on the wall - the symbol of rome is 2 dudes sucking on the teets of a cow.


Was very hung over in Florence so no photos. Dunno what this is but it looks nice


Lucerne, Switzerland. Nice change after dirty italy - Switzerland is real clean. Went hiking in the Jungfrau, but unfortunately had misplaced my camera so no photos...


On the bus, me and Akiko from Japan


Christie and Dylan (ozzies!)


Kate and Jill from Pennsylvania


Nancy getting wrapped in toilet paper...


France

Mona lisa








Views of Paris from "La Tour Eiffel"


Versailles Palace


My friend Claire (right) who lives in Paris, and her two friends, at a picnic before the Fete de la Musique


Claire's family who kindly gave me a room for a week


Back to Versailles (really wanted to go rowing...)


A bunker on a beach in the North of France (left there since WWII)


French Beach


Now down to the South - this is on a boat in Sete, where I stayed with the family of Alex, who we hosted in our place a few years back


This is Sete from the hill






The family lives right on the beach, in a lovely house also next to the vineyards which they manage


From Sete to Lyon, this is Marie's family who I stayed with for a week - Marie I met in Vancouver


French countryside around Lyon

Germany
From Lyon to Hamburg for the law Summer School program - unfortunately I took NO photos at all in Hamburg, due only to laziness.... but we had a free weekend and I visited some family friends in Luneburg... here are some photos


Town of Luneburg, seen from the top of the water tower


The staircase coming down the water tower was lined with a photographic exhibition of Africa - really amazing!


Jan, the 14 year old kid who showed me round the town, had awesome english given he only learnt for 2 years!


Freaky stuff - here is a photo from when my Mum visited the same house in 1979!!


The family that hosted me - how cute is the little kid?


On a boat from the former west to east germany (the Elbe river)


We visited a watchtower and fence which used to divide west and east germany - and where the guards used to stand and shoot anyone who was trying to escape the East.


Here is Jan escaping from the West INTO the East. Wrong way, buddy.


A town in the former east germany - really run down! Turns out lots of people left and never came back after 1990


Not checkpoint charlie, but checkpoint Harry!


Well that's all my photos. I visited Bangkok on the way home too but was too preoccupied with shopping to take any snaps. Hope to catch up with everyone soon and hope you enjoyed the photos as much as I enjoyed the travelling. I had an amazing time, made some great friends and can't wait to get out of Sydney again!

Probably no point checking back here again as I don't like this blog site one bit. So....

BYE!