In Conclusion....

Well, as Chris pointed out, we're back home now. The final value on the pedometer is 3,294 miles - 6 less than I calulated (I will have to recheck my calculations to find out where my calculations went awry). I'm sat at my English computer, with my standard English keyboard, with the letters stuck on in the right order. I've driven on the right side of the road (i.e. the left). Had some bacon butties. Done my washing and used my own shower, where the water flows round the plug hole the correct way. Almost ready to go back to work tomorrow... almost.

I thought I'd wrap it up by sharing with you a few things that we've learned about Johnny Foreigner while we've been away.


Foreign Drivers

French: Are just rude. Don't really like indicating. Won't move out of your way if you're in the fast lane and you're going faster then them. Typical.

Italians: Lovely people. Haven't quite mastered driving in cars yet instead of scooters. They don't really understand that you are meant to stay within the dotted white lines.

Germans: Are by far the best drivers. Courteous, considerate and forward thinking. They probably don't want to upset anyone else after, you know, the war (which we didn't mention).

Tram Drivers in Eastern European Cities: Are not scared of anything. They drive their trams in the street over there you know. Stay well clear. They will crush your car like a bug, you capitalist scum!

BMW Drivers: Are the same in every country. Tw*ts.


Foreign Driving Tips

Motorways: They expect you to pay to drive on their motorways. Dirty foreigners. It's expensive as well - I reckon I spent £100-£150 on motorway stickers and tolls. In Austria we had to buy a motorway sticker and still pay tolls! But they did have some cracking tunnels. Oh, and if you get a ticket, don't lose it, or you will get shouted at by johnny foreigner.

Road Signs: They're all in Foreign! A lot of them didn't make any sense at all. We sorta looked out for things that looked sorta like the pictures on triangle ones, ignored most of the speed ones and anything we couldn't understand. Which didn't really cause us too many problems ;-) Or we don't think it did, I'm just waiting for some international speeding fines!

Traffic Lights: There are lots of variations in lots of countries, including horizontal traffic lights, flashing greens, helpful ones with timers on and flashing yellow ones. Basically the rules that we used were green means go, red means stop and flashing yellow means go if it doesn't look like you're going to hit anything.

Border Controls: There seemed to be clearly defined borders between the countries, but no one cared about little old us! Most countries were happy if you waved some passports at them, some didn't even want that! The man in Hungary actually looked at the passwords in a half arsed way. The worst were the English coming back from France who proper looked at our faces and everything. No one even checked the car, although I suppose it was quite clear, especially on the way back, that it was full of smelly camping stuff. But I reckon we could well have stored a couple of Ethiopan immigrants under our luggage all the way around Europe and earned ourselves a couple of Ethiopian Durkas (approx 0.0000003p - enough for a beer in Hungary)

Petrol Stations: They call unleaded petrol lots of different things in europe. After a while, I decided that putting some of the one that was the colour closest to green in my car would work best (Simon, take someone that can see proper with you). The car still seems to be working, but we will see what its like when it goes for its next service ;-)

Inter Driver Communication: It is customary, when in Eastern European countries, to make constructive critisism about fellow motorists' driving techniques, to keep up morale. The prefered method is to beep the horn repeatedly, whilst shouting "DURKA DURKA DURKA", out the window. If an especially well performed manouvre is observed, they may follow up by waving their arms repeatedly or, the ultimate driving complement, extending the arm with a fist made, knuckles pointing downwards, and then extending the middle finger. I discovered that Chris was already conversant with these European motivational driving techniques, which were used liberally in order to ingratiate ourselves with our new found foreign friends and in return, several drivers commented back on his exceptional driving skills. I don't like to be big-headed, but I did notice that several drivers chose to comment on some of my more skillful manouvres.


Foreign Food

Breakfast: Johnny foreigner doesn't understand that a growing English gentlemen needs some salt cured pig flesh and chicken ovulations for breakfast. They tried to fob us off with rolls and cheese and funny looking ham. Luckily for us, McDonalds sell Sausage McMuffins in all countries, although they're not called that. However, trying to communicate that to the whole staff of a Hungarian McDonalds was, well, interesting. The international language of pointing and making hand gestures works well here.

Eating out dictionary: In the capital cities, most restaurants will have a menu in English, even if that staff can't speak it, but out of the city I'm afraid you're on your own. In general though, your best bet is to choose restaurants that have big pictures on the wall, so you can point at stuff and grunt like the dirty English animal you are. For the less adventurous (Laura), the word for Pizza in every language is Pizza. If you don't like pizza, it's probably best if you don't leave England, although we have developed a useful list of translations that you may try shouting at Johnny Foreigner until you get something that looks familiar (if you want a drink and pizza and chips):

• Diet Coke: Coke Light
• Lemonade: Sprite (lemonade will just confuse people)
• Water: Aqua/Water sans gas. They drink a lot of fizzy water over there. The bastardised French/English Water sans gas seems to work best.
  
• Chips: Pommes Frites. This doesn't always work. Steak potatoes is quite a good word to use, it can get you either chips, potato wedges, roasted potatoes, sauteed potatoes or boiled ones. Shouting steak potatoes in a moment of desperation will ensure you at least some sort of potato based accompaniment for your meal. Whatever you do, don't actually ask for chips. You will get crisps on your meal. Duh.
  
• Quarter Pounder: Those of you that haven't watched pulp fiction (Chris) will not know that this is in fact a McRoyal. I think John Travolta explained it best when he said: "...man, they got the metric system. They wouldn't know what the fuck a Quarter Pounder is."

Flemish Meat Stew: Avoid. Nuff said.

Service Charges: Those dirty foreigners sneak a compulsory tip on to your meal! Watch out for it and make sure you don't double tip. Don't forget, 10 english pounds is enough to buy you three wives in Hungary. And that, I'm sure we can all agree, will only you bring misery and despair.


Anyways, that's about all I have left in me. I'm going to have a nice sleep in my big bed, all alone. So for now I will bid you adieu, and that is that. The end.


Fin

Sneaky f*cking russian...

Seeing as though AK managed to nip on the 'net in France (God knows how!) to write about all the juicy bits in Innsbruck (the extremely tall waitress who made me look like a pigme walrus, the AWESOME authentic Austrian Yodeling / Clog Dancing / Horn blowing) and about my Escargot, and about the completely fucking STUPID Italian drivers (99% Italian Drivers are idiots. FACT.), I'll update you all on today.

Today we arrived home. That is all you need to know, and all I care about right now. I had an ace time, but coming home to some bacon butties at AK's mum's house, and entering my house for the first time in 3 weeks is possibly the best feeling I've had in my life (sorry ladies ;P). My housemate, bless his cotton socks, is making us a very nice smelling pasta bake and we're probably gonna chill out all night and catch up like a pair of girls :P

I have 170 odd emails to check, most of which will be spam from recruitment companies, and I need to get stuff ready to start my job tomorrow... so this is Spikeh, signing off. Au revoir!

Yodel-ay-he-hoo

Well, it's been a few days since we spoke last, let me keep you updated.

After Slovenia, we drove through Italy to Innsbruck in Austria. I'd calculated that it would be a 4 hour drive, but it ended up being 8 hours. And it was HOT. Bloody hot, again. We spent two hours in a traffic jam in Italy, that we thought must have been a really serious accident or something. Turns out it was a queue to get to the toll booth! We also discovered that of all the countries that we'd been in, the Italians knew how to drive the least. They really didn't seem to understand the concept of 'lanes' or pulling over to overtake someone. Added to the top of that, they have toll motorways in Italy. It was our first proper experience of them, and they are bloody expensive. I reckon I've spent at least £150 squids on motorway tolls and vignettes (like motorway taxes in some countries). Anyways, I went on an overzealous tidying spree in the car at one of the Italian service stations and lost the ticket that they give you to tell you where you get on. So we got to the Italian border, and they were going to charge us a 60 Euro fine for losing our ticket, but we sweet talked the lady at the booth (who was very impressed that I was called Tony ;-) and they just charged us the amount that was owed, but gave us some forms that they said we had to fill in 'if someone writes us from Italy' and we also created a massive queue of angry italians behind us ;-) Serves them right for being shit drivers!!!

So, we finally reach Innsbruck, all sweated up, and nowhere near the town centre (my mum had recommended we go see the house with the golden roof!), but had no time to do anything so just went down to the hotel down the road which had a restaurant attatched to it. We weren't expecting much from it, but we did get served by the tallest woman on the planet! After we had ordered our food, in the auditorium next to us (which was part of the hotel) a proper genuine Alpine shindig got together. No seriously. There was yodeling aplenty (hence the title of the blog post), some alpen hof, wood chopping, a bit of opera, pig tails and the piece de resistance, genuine men in leather pants slapping their thighs. It was the most cliched thing we have ever seen, which made it all the more amazing. However, i suspect the incredibly tall waitress had heard it once or twice before, as she looked like she was going to kill us.

Today was the really long drive again, from Innsbruck, Austria, through Switzerland and then into France. However, the weather has been nice and cool and overcast, and we have been thankful for it. We didn't encounter any traffic jams and it only took us 12 hours, which was slightly less than I was expecting it too. Once again, France has annoying toll roads and we got well stung for them, but i suppose the alternative was taking the car to a post office and posting it.

So we got back to original hostel that we stayed at our first night in France. We wandered off into town for a meal and chose 'Restaurant Le Welsh Pub'. Which we were telling Mum about on the phone with amusement, when this couple sat near us started pissing themselves. Only turns out that they were actually Welsh. They must have been employed to sit there to make the pub genuine under EU rules or something. We had a really nice meal, well mostly nice. Chris tried L'Escargot for the first time, which he really enjoyed, and I opted for the Flemish Meat Stew. I think it may have lost a little in the translation - it was a load of off cuts of cold ham and turkey in a big solid block of jelly like you get in pork pies. Slightly dissapointing (Craig will testify that I always choose the best things in restaurants). All in all it was a very nice meal and we got to try out some of our French (of which there wasn't much between us!) - but the meal cost 40 quid each - it was 7 Euros for a pint - and a European 500ml pint, not a proper English one! Theiving French bastards!!!

Anyways, we're just about to go to bed here now to get the Ferry back tomorrow morning. We should be back in Blackpool for 3 or 4 ish if there isn't any traffic and I'm sooooo loooking forward to coming into work on Wednesday and seeing what a mess they've made of everything without me there :-) Mum is getting Bacon and Egg butties ready for us for the grand homecoming.

Au Revoir, Auf Weidersehn, Ciao and Goodbye for now!

Ant

Gaz is a girl

Well... a few things to report from Slovenia (not Slovakia, like I originally wrote). We've had two relatively late nights out on the town, though there's not really much "town" to see... lots and lots of restaurants and quiet bars, but no partaaaaying going on anywhere.

Gay* managed to pull the fit barmaid last night and went out for a drink with her, but was snubbed for a goodnight kiss (haha). I'm sure he'll have much more to report on here than he did to us ;) I'll leave AK to tell the extension to this story about the English guys we overheard last night... ;)

I ate a horse steak, or more specifically a foal steak for lunch yesterday, which tasted like a well done beef steak, just a bit more tender. We also passed a place that sold "Horse Burgers". I'm not entirely sure if this is all ethical, but when in Rome... eat like the Slovenians =]

AK and I managed to get accosted by "Dave", a random Scottish dude who hadn't slept for 32 hours and hadn't seen his dad for 10 years. So they decided to come here to go for a 6 day bike ride over the alps. Stupid prats. I mean... if you hadn't seen your dad for that long, you'd go for a piss up with him, or catch up at home or something wouldn't you? Not kill yourself by riding uphill for 12 hours.

The rooms here are OK, albeit a bit small - especially when AK and I are in them together. I've nearly broken my back each morning / night getting in and out of the bunk beds, that I'm convinced are made for actual midgets. Being massive, it seems, has downsides too...

Today we leave for Innsbruck, Austria. I may just have got a country / place name / spelling correct for the first time since we set off... I just did a bit of wee.




* Sorry, I meant Gaz, the big girl.

slovenia chris s l o v e n i a

hey gays

arrived in s l o v e n i a and its well hot and we have just eaten our tea. Anthony had the gayest fruit coctail i have ever ever seen ( suppose you could call it a fruity fruit coctail). the weather is really nice and the woman behind the bar is really nice. The only thing ruining it is chris´s stinky poo poo attitude ( only joking it has been a pleasure to listen to his moaning). Still enjoying being on holiday but a little part of me now just wants a bacon butty. The hotel we are staying in is pretty nice ( a bit like the woman behind the bar) and the language here is beautiful ( NOT) i can only emphasise what chris said before when they sound like they want to kill you. I asked the really nice lady behind the bar ( oh she really is nice by the way) what the word for thank you was and i felt like taking cover.

cant wait to see my little niece when i get back i bet she will probably be out clubbing it though it has been that long since i saw her last. think i saw a really nice woman serving behind the bar before dont know if i mentioned it so i am going to try and communicatesky with her.

Hello to everyone who can be bothered reading by the way hope the weather is nice in England (ha ha i know its not cos ma mum sed sooooo).

Peace out
shizzle ma nizzle
Catch all yall crazy cats later

Bye x x x x x x x xx x x x x x x x x x x x x x x xx x x x x x x x xx x xx x xx x
( x s are for the ladies only)

Waaaay too much heat

Just a quick post, I've managed to get on the net for free, so I'd better make it quick.

We've just arrived in Slovakia, AK's ordering me a beer and we're just about to eat.

Managed to get here in record time.

That was sarcasm, but there's no way of making that obvious on the 'net. It took us about 5 hours from Blaton because 90% of the motorways aren't built yet. Why couldn't we be here in 2 years time? :P Still... this place scares me - I'm not even going to atempt to learn "Thank you", "Yes" and "No" like I have in all the other countries. They all sound like they're going to murder me with every syllable. And believe me, there are a lot of syllables.

It's been VERY hot for the last few days. My forearms are well and truely tanned, but the rest of my body is as white as a sheet... too hot to sunbathe really, and we've not had time anyway.

New development on the job - I'm now starting on the 22nd August, which was my original start date. After all that stress I've got nothing to worry about... beaurocracy at its best :

Right. Food. And lots of it, damn you.

I like your face.

Lake Balaton

Hi guys,

Me again. I'm downstairs in the Hotel Rev at Lake Balaton. It's absolutely boiling here, around 36C, and we are all sweating our tits off!

Our excellently executed exit plan from the island on Wednesday worked a treat. We all took our big bags to the car on Tuesday so all we would need to carry on Wednesday morning was our tents and overnight bags. Laura woke us up at 7am, because she was soo looking forward to getting home and having some proper food (Laura doesn't eat foreign meat, foreign water onion or cheese)

We were in the car and ready to set off at about 9am, and then we had a hankering for sausage and egg McMuffins. Once we'd found a McDonalds drive thru and communicated our order to the staff (although I got chips with mine, chips for breakfast! The heathens!) we dropped Laura off at the airport and set off for Lake Balaton, which took us about an our and a half.

Even though it said that this was a hostel on the booking sheet, it turns out it's actually a hotel. I think Gary descibed it best when he said - 'it's a shit hotel, but the best hostel we've stayed in so far!'. Although it's clean, and I have a room to myself with a double bed in (which is nice after having to sleep with every tom, dick and harry in my tent for the last week!). The only problem is that they don't have laundry here. Which was a serious problem for us because, well, everythinng we own is stinky and damp. So they very kindly opened up their laundry room for us. When we asked where the dryer was the guy said 'I don't know how to say it, but we have drying machine'. Turns out, after a lot of searching, the drying machine was a clothes horse.

Anyways, we're ready to set off now to Loobleeana, so I'm going to say goodbye. Hopefully the next hostel will have a keyboard that hasn't had a few cans of coke poured in it.

Ciao. Jegshemesh.

Got a stink on

Proper bo.

4 days with no clean clothes and I'm starting to smell like a hideous orangutan with no respect for its chimp neighbors.

Today is the last day at the festival. And I'm a bit peeved because Chris Cornell has canceled because the PUSSY has a cold or something. He's "ill" anyway - it's better be TB, Typhoid or a REAL man cold, or I'll be having words with the fucker.

I can't remember if I said the last time I wrote something (and I can't be bothered to read back on it right now as my time is yet again, running out), but my job has now come through and I've got all the papers to sign etc. Which is good... something to look forward to when I get home anyway... that and a nice, clean, super king size bed + possibly the best shower I'll ever have.

I've been a bit homesick for the last few days - the weather got a bit depressing and Laura and Gary got washed out. Both of them said they were going to get a hostel, so I was gonna go with them for a good shower, but they were both all talk and it all got very confusing etc.

I wore my boots one say and my feet swelled up like hell... I couldn't walk and we were at our mate Rick's apartment in Budapest. They got worse when I went to find a hostel with Gary, and we had to turn back cos he's a wuss and got scared ;P I ended up staying in the Marriot that night, for the pure reason that I couldn't walk back to the festival (and it was very close). The following night was spent in a Hostel about a million miles from anywhere
, under the impression that Gary would come with me, which he didn't. Grrr.

So, I wimped out for 2 nights, but was back in my tent last night. I saw Tool, a band which I've liked for a while, and they are officially the least conformist rock band I've ever seen. 4 of them on stage, no lighting on the front man (if you can call him that), each one of them had a screen behind them, and they didn't play a single song in 4/4. Good, but it seemed like they were trying too hard to be different from the standard rock outfit. The front man didn't say a word till before the very last song - and that was "Thank you, thank you. We hope to see you all again". They didn't do an encore, and didn't do much movement on stage. But shit... are they all talented bastards.

Right... Balaton, clean clothes and a shower tomorrow - until then, smell ya later :)

hot hot hot

yo blogsky fans

its the last day of the festival ( boooooo ) and the last night we have to camp ( wooooo hoooooo ). yesterday there wasnt really aything on band wise that we wanted to see so we spent the day in budapest so we could have a wash in a restaurant ( you know as you do ). when we were about to leave for the island tho the older folk in our party apart from ms sebÖk, said they were to tired to go for a drinksky cos the sun had been out for a whole three minutes and it just tok it out of them all. i therefore stayed in anthonys car to charge my phonesky up so i could phone some loved ones ( didnt take long ) and got the next boat where i was pleasently fortunate to meet some young ladies which is always nice. we chatted and i ended up staying out til 6 this morning drinking lots of beerskies and lots of coctails ( joking mum if your reading this). we even dabbled at a spot of rolerblading in one of the bars ( ouch!!!!) but it didnt hurt til this morning tho cos i was slightly numb last night.

tomorow we are heading to balaton, hopefully todays weather is going to stay with us for the next week so we can do a spot of sun bathing, as i hear thats all you can do, oh apart from watching out for wolves, that worries me a bit but hey there just dogs with nobody who loves them

adios amigos gonna post again in a couple of days

yagshamashhh, i like you

Rain, rain, go away....

Yes, it has been rather rainy these past few days. The first couple of days we were here it was unbelievably hot and humid, and then it started pissing it down. Unlike last time (I learned my lesson), I had a proper tent, but there are some among us who weren't so fortunate!

Anyways, just a quick blogski, we've been to see the Chemical Brotherski, Madnesszki, Razorlightski, The good bad the queeensky (miserable f*ckers) and lots of assorted other little bands, and a performance arts piece by some French Wierdos yesterday.

After worrying about finding somewhere secure to park the car while we were here, we decided to abandon it randomly in the town centre. We reckon if you can't read the signs, then they can't legally tow your car away. We shall see anyways.

We're halfway through the festival now, starting to get a little dirty and damp and bedraggled, but I'm enjoying it nontheless! Sebok (the moaning girl) went to sleep in the Mariott last night, and has gone to a hostel today, even though his tent is the nicest of all of ours! So me and Laura made good use of his double blow up bed last night (in a purely platonic way, of course ;-)

Anyways, that's it from me, we'll be in a nice clean hostel on Wednesday, so I will probably have a proper blog then.

i want my mummy

oh dear

i never realised how devestating a thunder storm was when last night i got back to my tentski and it was blown up by lightening and had floated down the danube. Actually it just leaked all last night and is now unhabitable if thats actually a word so im gonna go try and find a hostel today so i can rest my poor ribs.

getting chucked outsky now so gonna have to go

much love yall

PS when leaving a comment will u put your name or something cos i have no idea who just had a go at me for using the word norks!!! ( which anthony made up by the way not me ) ha ha ha

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Mingsky

Well, we're at sziget festival, and it poured down last night - Garry and Laura have been washed out of their tent, though AK, Bondy and I are all fine... not a drop of water in sight!

I have to apologise for my terrible grammar and spelling in the last post - I was in a bit of a rush and didn't read over it after I wrote it. Took me about 10 seconds to realise that I'd spelt Czech wrong :(

I must admit, I'm looking forward to getting home, having a nice shower and sleeping in my own bed. I forgot how crap camping is, and how annoying mosquito bites are :(

I haven't got long on this thing, and I need to check my email as I received a text yesterday saying that my new job position has come through and I need to fill in some forms and send them back, so all I need to do is complete the security check and I'm in. So... I'll be starting a little later that I wasw originaly told, but at least I have a job :) Though 1 month without wages is a little hard... credit card to the rescue :(

I think we're going to try and find a hostel today - and there's no way I'm letting Gary and Laura tell me how good the daily showers are, when I'm sat minging in my tent every night :P

Lots of love

Sebők

freaky deaky dutch

helloski from bratislavaski

This is possibly the nicest place i have been so far on the trip. its very old styley and cheap there are also a couple of nuns wandering around. we have been arounthem but not us we have to be out byd the centre of bratislava today and i very nearly bought a were the f*** is bratislava t shirt which we thought was really funny as anthony said earlier.

We are actually in the hostel bar at the moment where we were earlier talking to two really nice aussie birds ( australian females) who are also going to sziget for the first time ( like me) and they have herd really good things about it like me. Unfortunately for them they have to get the train to budapest at 6 in the morning ( 5 gmt) which is slightly poo for them but unlike us we have to chech out ( cant really do the czech joke this time sorry) at 10 am or yes you guessed it anthony looses his 5 million slovakian dollar deposit ( 7 pence).

We are currently in conversation with three freaky deeky dutch geesers called flurdy, gurdy and dave who are really smashing blokeskies but they seem to be really nice guys part from the little racist remarks before the aussie birds left who we found are also going to sziget we found later on.

Any way flurdy and gurdy have gone to bedski now and dave is still talking to anthony and seebok so i am going to join them and have another martini and lemonade.

P.S Cheers for the comment bondski can't wait to see you tommorrow with norks.

Much love B Man

Goodbyeski or ska for now (bit confused)

Oh P.P.S Mum if your reading this we have all still got our passports and we are wearing plenty of suncream x x x

Peace out homeys

G meister general ( aka Gary aka boy racer (aparrantly)

x

Ringski Stingski

Hello all, we've made it to Bratislava ok, only a couple of hours of driving today. Although driving in a black car in this heat isn't the most brilliant of ideas, it must really hum by now.

Me and Gary spent last night in the hostel bar, once we realised the beer in there was 70p a pint - in the main square they were charging as much as 2.50 a pint! Attempted to use the table football table, but the electrics were beyond Sebok's capabilities to repair! So we got some matches from the bar and had a few games of heads up poker (of which I lost both ;-)

It's absolutely gorgeous here in Bratislava, sort of the same style as Prague, but a little more untouched and unspoilt. The hostel is the best one we've stayed in so far. Apart from the fact they originally thought they'd double booked us, and had a 'student houski' round the corner that they were going to put us in for a discount (student? I'm 26 goddamn it!). Anyways, they finally found us a room, which for the first time we are sharing with someone else. He's a cyclist who we reckon is Italian. But we haven't spoken to him yet. Because we're wimps. Oh, and I sat on my bed and it collapsed as well. That was quite embarrasing.

When we got here we went for a wander and had a 5-star meal at a restaurant in the main square of the old town, which was gorgeous. There was a church accross the road and mass was going on - the music coming out of it was wonderful! We also saw some t-shirts for sale in the square that said "Where the f*ck is Bratislava", which made us laugh! (It's here by the way) It was a gorgeous meal, but it's gone right through me, and the toilet paper over here is like a combination of corrugated cardboard and sand paper, which isn't really doing me any good. Hopefully it will have cleared up by the time we get to the festival tomorrow because there are just some things that you can't do in festival toilets ;-)

Anyways, gonna have a few drinkskis in the barski now! Speak soon.

Oh my god I can't believe it I've never been this far away from home

Well I have actually.

Greetingsky from pragooey.Its nice I like it a lot although when we arrived everything around us seemed to go all grey and depressing i think it might be due to it being at 9 o'clock at night though.
After going through more countries in one day than i have ever been through in my whole life its probably an understatement to say i was slightly glad to arive in pragooey. sitting behind sebok in alittle ford fiesta for nearly 700 miles is a little uncomfortable but it was expected as i am the undesignated driver for the trip. I can't say that the service stations were very accomodating to us english pig dogs but suprisingly in germany they were very impressed at my German linguistics when paying for petrol and asking if i could use the couplon that i was given to pay for some ice lolies. I was my brothers hero for about 13 seconds ( I was soo proud).
After leavin that service station we went through germany past frankfurt and nurnberg and ended up in another service station about 100km from the czech border where we were greeted by a coach full of what seemed to be german tourists. 3 of which were suprisingly desperate for the toilet and as anthony and sebok went for a walk i was left eating a sandwich whilst these three fraulines squatted behind a bush barely 100metres away, something i will try and forget sooner rather than later ( just so you know these fraulines were easily in there mid 50's so you can see why i found it so humourous).
Tommorrow we have to czech out ( see what i did there) before 10 am or anthony loses his deposit . He has been whinging about it ever since we got here i think it works out at about 16 pence or something (Tart!).
Anyways goona love you and leave you for know hopefully i will post again tommorrow when we arrive in the holiday hotspot of bratislava.

Peace out homeys
Gary

Best Laid Plans....

Firstly, I must apologise for Chris' spelling of Czech. Which is poor to say the least.

It was quite strange in France. Normally, you just turn up, and people realise you are English idiots and talk to you in English. Not in France though, I had to dust off my French GCSE to order us beer and pizza all round. I even managed to get Gary one without mushrooms (sans Champignon!) which made me feel quite impressed with myself!

Driving on the wrong side of the road, whilst a scary thought, isn't that bad in reality (you get used to it quite quick - it helps being in your own car). However, navigating around a Czech city in the dark IS scary. I was navigating at that point and Sebok was driving, but it had gone dark and I could hardly read the map. Anyways, once we finally made it into the town cente (after a few wrong turns into some rather colourful areas!) we found out that the route Google Maps had sent us on was closed for roadworks and I had to divert us round the City. It doesn't help that they have buses and trams that are driving all over the roads trying to confuse you. And the roads are made of cobbles so you can't feel your spine. Sebok had a bit of an argument with a tram trying to overtake it, and lost miserably ;-) But finally, at about 10pm (after 13 hours of driving) we made it to the hostel, found a lovely little cocktail bar and had some drinkies and a good nights sleep!

We're 1,100 miles into the journey now, and we have today off to rest. Tomorrow we will be going to Bratislava in Slovakia, hopefully we will be able to post more then.

Cya

Chzec us out

Hi blog fans!

After trying to update this last night and failing due to the impending drinking session, I've finaly managed to sit down and get something on "paper".

We're curently in the Chzec equivellant of the 'Ritz', and have just woke up. It's 2:30pm and we're about to go outside in the European sun for the first time.

Let me appologise for the state of this keyboard first - I keep missing keys, keys are in the wrong place and the keyboard needs GBH for it to respond to my keypresses.

A few things happened on the way here - the first thing I remember was an explosion on the opposite side of the M6... a lorry's tyre exploded and shook the car... dust everywhere. A few hours later we found ourselves in a 3 hours traffic jam on the M1 - I think it was closed off at J10 because some lorry's and cars had smashed in to each other. When we finaly got there it wasn't even anything exciting to look at. I've never seen a motorway closed before - so there's the first episode of 'sod's law' for our trip.

The next thing was the M25 - already notorious for its long queues of traffic, worsened by the fact there was another crash on it an hour or so before we arrived. The traffic stations were having a great time. After passing the dartford crossing, it got a lot easier and I drove at about 100mph in order to reach our destination on time.

The ferry was fairly cool - and a lot faster than I thought it would be... we were in Bologne-sur-mer (I'll let AK correct the spelling mistakes and place names afterwards - corrected AK) in no time. We found the hostel with relative ease, AK was driving at this point and was physicaly shaking by the time we'd found it. I don't think the piss taking and shouting that was going on in the car helped him at all :)

Not much to report in the hostel - we went out for a pizza, were treated like common muck by the French waitress and promptly went home and went to bed, after a few beers.

The following day was driving - lots of driving. Through France, Germany, Netherlands and the Chzec Republic. Today we shall feast like kings as we're just about to go out in the lovely Prague sun for som food and drinks :)

I shall let AK and Garry fill you i on the detail's I've missed.

The day before tomorrow

I'm generally a very laid back guy - I don't stress unless there's a lot on my mind, but at the moment, I'm stressed.

I'm changing jobs - today is my final day at VoiteQ (where Anthony and I currently work). Up until yesterday I was worrying about my start date at the new place and my finances for the next few months... my new job is faffing about in sending my new contract out - then once I get that, I have to have a security check done before I can even commence employment (it's M.O.D work).

Yesterday I was told that it's unlikely that my start date will be the 22nd Aug, which is what the agency told me about a month ago (hence me handing my notice in). I'm away for three weeks, so even if I get my contract while I'm away, I can't get the security sorted out until I come back. Then I have to wait at LEAST a week for the security check.

So I'm stressed. 3 weeks without wages regardless (I've dealt with that), but potentially months afterwards too. Mortgage, loans and bills to pay and no money. Shit situation, and there's nothing I can do - I've been badgering the company for weeks to no avail. I had to hand my notice in at VoiteQ when I did, otherwise I would OWE them money for holidays taken.

Then there's my mortgage renewal that's just come up... so I can't take a payment holiday anyway. Gah.

Anyway - I've been pretty miserable for the last few weeks because of this, and seem to be taking it out on everyone at work. For that I appologise.

I'm going to try desperately to enjoy myself on the holiday and forget about all the troubles I'm having. I'm hoping that everything will be sorted out by the time I get back so I don't have to job hunt like mad to get another job.

On the road tomorrow - I'm hoping I come back with a bit of colour :)

Feeling it in my water now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh my god it's nearly here. What was promised to be a trip of a life time by my big bro Anthony (can i just say even though I apparently his little brother I am taller and can I also say that it is physically impossible to be a boy racer in a 1 litre Vauxhall Corsa).

All the final preperations have been taking place me and my brother added a high cost upgrade kit which makes the car weigh much less and allows much more storage space in the back (we took some seats out). Twas good.

Don't really have much more to say on this matter I am too overcome with excitement, but I will say one thing and that is:

Rock on Tommy

Peace out homes

T minus 8 days

Well, we're now at T-minus 8 days. Next Friday we will be on the road!

It has been a long and turbulent time getting to this point. Originally there were meant to be 4 of us, Me, Sebok, Bondy and Laura. But Laura and Bondy had to drop out (as mentioned previously). My little brother, Gary, stepped in to take a place, and we decided we would be ok with three people in the car - if not a little better because of the extra space!!

Sebok is now insured on the car, but Gary isn't, because my insurance company wouldn't insure him (he's a boy racer). So there will be two drivers. Also, my insurance company won't insure us to drive in Croatia, so when we travel from Budapest to Ljubjanja, we have to drive 'around' Croatia. Which should be interesting.

Anyways, the plan for the journey is follows:

• Fri 3rd Aug: Blackpool, Blighty - Boulogne-sur-mer, France
  
• Sat 4th Aug: Boulogne-sur-mer, France - Prague, Czech Republic
• Mon 6th Aug: Prague, Czech Republic - Bratislava, Slovakia
• Tue 7th Aug: Bratislava, Slovakia - Budapest - Hungary
• Tue 7th Aug - Wed 15th Aug: Sziget Festival!
• Wed 15th Aug: Budapest, Hungary - Balaton, Hungary
• Fri 17th Aug: Balaton, Hungary - Ljubjanja, Slovenia
• Sun 19th Aug: Ljubjanja, Slovenia - Innsbruck, Austria
• Mon 20th Aug: Innsbruck, Austria - Boulogne-sur-mer, France
  
• Tue 21th Aug: Boulogne-sur-mer, France - Blackpool, Blighty
  

This will be my second time to Sziget, Sebok's third time, and Gary's first time. We are meeting up with some friends there - Laura, Bondy (who will be on his own special journey) and Rick, so that week is going to be awesome!

Speak to you soon!

Those with Good Intentions...

A few months ago, we were all fired up and ready to embark on a journey through time, space and beyond.

Good things are supposed to come to those who wait. Well... fuck you Guiness, you're a bloody liar.

About 3 weeks ago Bondy was given some bad news (which incidentally was a blessing in disguise) and we were suddently a man down. Shortly after, Laura was given some GOOD news and we lost the road trip's bicycle ;) Down to two before we've even started!

Luckily both Bondy and Laura are still coming on the plane for Sziget festival itself, and AK's brother, Gary, has taken up a spare spot in the oh so luxurious Fiesta.

The Ferry, Hostels, Festival tickets and camping tickets are booked - only a few months to go now....