Darryns Big Adventure

Back in Naas

2007-08-18T03:39:00.000+12:00

I'm back here in Naas for a couple of days staying with my step-sister again, but tomorrow morning I'm off on another bus trip for a week to see all the bits of Ireland I haven't seen already.
The Tattoo in Edinburgh was pretty amazing. I had heard that last year the Kiwi's put on a bit of a funny performance so I was keen to see what would happen this year. It turns out that we didn't get our own section this year, we just got included in the massed pipes and drums. It seems that the Russians were out to get all the laughs this time round with dancing bears, people doing handstands, and all kinds of other humorous stuff. Who'd have thought it... Russians with a sense of humour...
For the rest of the week I saw a couple more shows and did some more wandering through the city, but on the Saturday, I went to the Scotland vs. Ireland Rugby game at Murrayfield stadium. I didn't give the Scots much of a chance actually, but they pulled it out of the hat and beat the Irish. It looked like it was going to be a good night to go out on the town, so we did.
All 14 of us.
All Kiwi's.
Who'd have thought I'd go halfway round the world to get drunk with New Zealanders. It was a damned good night though.
Monday morning saw me getting up early to catch a tour up to the Isle of Skye. It's really quite beautiful up there. On the way up, we stopped off at Stirling and the Wallace Memorial. Our bus driver/guide kept us entertained with the real story of William Wallace and plenty of other tales of history and Highland Legends. On Skye we stayed at a hostel called Saucy Mary's. There's a bit of a story there about a Viking princess called Mary who used to flash all the sailors. It had a good little pub downstairs too, with plenty of different whiskeys that I had to have a sample of.
On the way back to Edinburgh we stopped off at Loch Ness for a bit of Nessie hunting. Unfortunately no-one saw anything.
So today's a washing/Internet day and tomorrow I'm off again. I'll let you all know how it turns out.
By the way, I've added a few photos to some of the older Posts. YAY!! I'll do some more when I get back here after my tour.

I'm confused...

2007-08-10T01:52:00.000+12:00

What exactly did I leave in Who's boot???

Fringe festival?

2007-08-09T01:06:00.000+12:00

Well I'm up here in Edinburgh at the moment, but first let me tell you about my last week or so...

I've never really been all that keen on visiting London, but seeing as I was there already I decided to do see some of the sights. I did all the usual touristy things; the tower of London, Tower bridge, Buckingham palace, Big Ben... the list goes on. But while I was there I did catch up with a couple of friends. There was a girl I met at last years barn-dance, Gemma. She was originally from Scotland but had shifted to London a while back. It turns out she works at Gilwell Park (which is the headquarters of Scouting) so she took me on a bit of a tour of the place. It was quite cool, especially as world jamboree was on at the time and they had tons of activities set up for all the kids. My friend Rachael lives a couple of hours out of London, but she came in on the train and spent a day showing me around. It was quite good to have someone to talk to after spending the last few days wandering around by myself. We went up the London eye together. It's quite a good view from up there, London as far as you can see in all directions. I also caught up with an old rover from New Zealand who had shifted over a few years back and had a nice home cooked meal. Thanks Kerryn.
So I basically spent my last day in London milling around killing time till I caught my 11:00 overnight bus trip up here to Edinburgh. Funny story there. Everyone was queued up waiting to get on the bus, but the driver only let on about 12 people before he told the rest of us to go back inside and then took off leaving more than half the passengers behind. I was a bit worried there for a while, the people at the bus station didn't really seem to know what was going on. In the end they found another bus for us, but I'm sure not everyone got on that one either.
I got into Edinburgh at about 7:30 the next morning to find Cathy there waiting for me, which was all good. So after not much sleep and the hike back to her place, she dragged me up a huge hill called Arthur's seat. It was worth it though, views all round of Edinburgh. Quite spectacular really. It turns out that I got here just in time for the Fringe festival, so on Sunday we went down to the main street and watched the parade they put on. Not even the rain could put a damper on the afternoon. It's been quite good here, with the festival on there have been loads of street performers wandering about. We went to one of the fringe shows last night called 'break out' A bunch of Japanese break dancers. It was definitely good for a laugh. Cathy managed to get us tickets to the Edinburgh Military Tattoo tonight so I'm really looking forward to that and over the next few days we'll be seeing a couple more fringe shows and going to the Scotland vs. Ireland rugby game. So lots to do here in Edinburgh.
I've booked a mini tour round the rest of Scotland for next week, but I've still got a couple of Weeks to fill in after that. Looks like today I'm going to be looking at how to fill them in.

catch ya.

It's all over

2007-07-29T23:16:00.000+12:00

Yeah, that's it. my tour has officially ended.

Had a pretty hectic time in Amsterdamage, trying to get as much partying done in the last few days as possible. The first night we got in we did a bit of a walking tour around the place, dodging trams, cars, people and the many thousand bikes that all look the same. Most of us stayed in the city and hit up one of the nightclubs. We did our own biking tour of the city the next day. Some of the Koreans with us had a bit of trouble with that and it was quite funny seeing them crash into poles and parked cars. The rest of the day was all ours to do some more exploring until we had a canal cruise with all you could drink. I didn't quite mange 9 beers in 90 minutes like some of the others did, but I came close with 8. When we got off the barge, one of the girls thought she'd left something behind and decided to jump back on as the boat was taking off. Unfortunately she missed and ended up in the drink, but she came out laughing so it was all good. Back into town after that to a place called Pirates. Being a friday night it was fairly packed, but an awesome night. I didn't see any Te Puke Thunder Skip and Kane, but there was plenty of other stuff floating around.
The bus trip yesterday was a bit of a drag though. We stopped off at Brugge in Belgium for lunch and then on to Calais in France to catch our ferry back to England.
So there were a few tears shed last night as some of us left, and then a few more this morning as most of those that stayed the night at the Globie parted ways, but we've all got each others email addies so we're all going to stay in touch.
I have about a week in London now to see the sights and maybe catch up with a few people I know, and then I'm off to Edinburgh to visit my freind Cathy who just shifted there a couple of months ago. Who knows what I'll do after that though. Maybe I'll spend some more time seeing some of Scotland, we'll see.

2007-07-26T13:12:00.000+12:00

Yup yup, I'm in Berlin,
I've had a ball over the last few days. Auschwitz was a moving experience. It's hard to imagine the horrors that went on there, but when I saw the room full of hair that came from somr of the victims I was absolutely stunned...
Prague was absolutely amazing. I've added it to my list of places to go back to. There was so much cool stuff to see that I couldn't get it all done in the time we had, yup, I definitelywant to go back!!
It's funny but even though there wasn't any "must sees" to do in the city, no matter where you went there was always something cool to see. One of my favourites would have to be the statue of Jesus on the top of one of the cathedrals. He looks like he's rocking out! And when I can post photo's, I'll put one of him up.
We passed through Dresden on our way to Berlin, and even though the city was bombed to hell during the war, they've rebuilt it and it is an absolutely beautiful city.
Anyway, I've just come back from our our Berlin Pub Crawl (which was freaking cool) we even got given a David Hasselhoff t-shirt (don't hassle the Hoff). I did see a lot of Berlin today; the Reichstag, Hitlers bunker, a few old Nazi buildings and the Brandenburg gate. I even went to where the old checkpoint charlie used to be and saw the museum there.
Tomorrow we're off to Amsterdamage (as the crew on our bus call it) and I'm keen to see all that I can there.

I'm running out of time here, so I'll call it a day.
catch ya on the flipside
Darryn

2007-07-21T04:32:00.001+12:00

Hey all, I'm posting from Krakow in Poland at the moment...
After venice we all went to Vienna. That was quite cool. I spent the day waqndering around the city and checking out the sights. The Hapsburgs summer palace had some qute nice gardens so I had a quick wander around them on the first afternoon there. That night we all went to an amusement park and spent a couple of hours tryin out the different rides. I have to say that the rollercoaster that had us lying down like superman was my favourite. Next day was more wandering around the city looking at some stunning architecture. I just had to have an authentic Weiner schnitzell while I was there, so stopped off at a local eatery for lunch. Later that night a few of us went out to dinner and saw an orchestra that played some of the classical pieces that were written in Vienna, seeing as it's pretty much center for all classical music.
Budapest was next, and man it was hot. Apparently it was the hottest day in the last hundred years though, so it was a bit unusual. I watched the changing of the guard up in the castle district of old Buda whic was a bit of a laugh. It seemed more a show put on for tourists than anything else, but I haven't got anything to compare it to yet. I'll let you know how it compares to Buckingham plaaces ceremony once I've seen it. The have these old tunnels and caves under the castles so I went in and had a look. Highlight of the day actually. Not only was it quite interesting, but the temperature was cold enough to see steam when you breathed! Well that brings us to today. Was a drive day that took us through Slovakia and into Poland. It's pretty warm and muggy here too. Tomorrow I'll be doing a walking tour based on Schindlers list and the jewish history of Krakow. Should be quite interesting especially since the day after we head out to Auschwitz.
Once again I can't post any photo's but yeah, I'll do a post with heaps of them once I can. Probably when I get back to the U.K.

Catch you all later

2007-07-16T04:37:00.000+12:00

Right back again with a post from Venice. This sorta picks up where I left off last time. So if you haven't read that post, best you do it now...
After Paris we headed off to a little town in Switzerland called Lauterbrunnen. I had never heard of it before I came on this trip but it is such a beautiful place, I wanted to go back there before I had even left. It's in the middle of a valley no more than a few hundred metres across with sheer cliffs on either side. There's a huge waterfall coming down the cliff just behind town too. Amazing. Back into French Riviera next and Nice. I spent the day wandering around the markets and laxing out on the beach. It doesn't sound like much but just being there with all the great people on my tour was really cool. We had a trip into Monaco too while we were there and saw the Monte Carlo casino, I didn't do any gambling though, it's a bit expensive there.
We stopped of at Pisa on our travel day, I had to get a photo of me pushing the tower over. Florence was really quite nice. So many statues and they are all quite amazing. I didn't get to see the real Statue of David though, the queue's were far too long. But I did see the replica which is exactly where the original stood for years. There's also a funny story about a carving on the wall not far from there. Apparently Michelangelo was walking home one night and saw a particularly nasty mugging so he grabbed his hammer and chisel and carved the muggers face into the wall so he wouldn't forget what he looked like. The story goes that the guy got caught the next day. How's that for the worlds first wanted poster?
Another travel day and another quick stopover in a little place called Orvieto, there's a wicked cathedral there. And Rome next. Of course I had to see all the main sights; the coliseum; the pantheon; the Vatican city and Sistine chapel; the roman forum, the list goes on and on... Because we were in Rome for a couple of days, we got the chance to take a day trip down to Pompeii. I had always wanted to go there and I wasn't disappointed. So many amazing ruins. So now I am in Venice. We did stop off in Verona on the way down though to have a look at Juliet's balcony. I had a gondola ride this morning through the canals and Venice really is quite a nice place. Unfortunately I was a little hungover from our toga party last night, but it was my first hangover of the trip. It had to happen sometime.
I'm having a little trouble putting photo's on here at the moment, but I'll figure it out one day. And when I do I'll put a whole heap up here.
Well I guess I'll catch you all up again sometime later, I'll have to tell you some more stories when I get home and have the time.
Ciao

1st post from on the road!

2007-07-11T07:01:00.000+12:00

You will not beleive how much of a good time I am having. We've been on the road now for just on a week and I've seen and done so much more than I ever thought I would.
Our 1st stop was Paris, France and it was an awesome way to start the trip. After hearing horror stories about how long the queues were to get into all the main attractions I was quite surprised when it only took half an hour to get up the Eiffel tower and less than 5 minutes to get into the Louvre. I can now say thet I have seen the Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo up close and personal. It was also a good way to get to know the other people on the tour with me, mostly Australians with a few Koreans, me and one other Kiwi, and one lone Canadian. Having a picnic on the grass within a stones throw of the Eiffel towere was a perfect way to end the day. I should mention the crew on our bus too; they're all Aussies as well, but I'm not going to hold that against them. Bek, our tour leader, definitely knows her stuff about all our destinations. Our bus driver, Daz, always seems to get us to places on time regardless of traffic (which can be shocking in some of these cities). And I have absolutely no idea where Luke, our cook, finds the time to cook us up all the fantastic meals he has. All three or them are super friendly too, always keen to show us all the best places to head out at night.
I'm running out of time on the net here, so I'll have to call it a night. But i'll be back later to finish this off and tell you all about all the other great stuff I've done

Ciao

A weeks worth of news

2007-07-01T03:19:00.000+12:00

Right, here goes... I spent a couple of days going into Dublin city doing the Tourist thing. The first thing I did was to go and see the book of Kells. It's quite impressive the amount of time and effort that went into it.

I just had to go and tour the Guinness storehouse while I was there, so spent most of that afternoon doing that. They give you a free Pint at the end of it which I struggled my way through. And the Jameson experience was quite good too, even if they no longer distill the whiskey there. You get a free sample of that as well.

Of course I also did some non-alcoholic things too. I had a wander around looking at some of the older buildings like Christ Church Cathedral and St. Patrick's Cathedral.

The trip down to Youghal was quite a nice drive, I think the Irish countryside is much like home. We stopped off at the rock of Cashel, a bunch of old ruins on top of a big rocky outcrop. My stepsister Denise had a bit of trouble finding the rock when she was here a few years back. I think I might have found the actual rock, but I'm not 100% sure...

Youghal itself is quite a nice sleepy little town. It was an old walled city and one of the gates still stradles the main road. It's noot far from where the Titanic set out on its first and final voyage, and the fact is well advertised with posters and newspaper articles hanging on the walls of many of the local pubs. Most of the week was taken up with relaxing, a few pints at some of the local watering holes, and day trips out to see what we could see.

Of course, being so close to Blarney castle, a trip to see it was a must. And yes, I did kiss the Blarney stone. Whether or not it bestowed it's gift of elequence on me or not remains to be seen...

I even paddled my feet in the Atlantic ocean, although it was far too cold to put the rest of me in.

So that's basicly my last week in a nutshell. I only have a couple more days here in Naas before I head off to London for the start of my tour, so I'm quite looking forward to that. Although the terrorism that's been going on over ther in the last couple of days is quite scary. Here's hoping it's all blown over by the time I get there...

A message from Naas.

2007-06-21T00:14:00.000+12:00

Well I've made it. Im halfway across the world visiting my stepsister in Ireland, and it's great to be here!
The flight over went well. Flying over the Philppines at night was pretty amazing... Watching four or five different thunderstorms out the plane window would have to be one of the best light shows I've ever seen.

First stop was Hong Kong, and man was it hot and muggy. It's given me a whole new appreciation for Air conditioning.

We flew in late on sunday night so it was straight to the hotel for the night, but the next day was a trip up to see the BIG buddha, and it is pretty big. Here's a photo for you Lynda, I've got more to show you when I get home. Climbing up all those stairs in the heat wasn't easy (again with the heat), but definitely worth it. Later that night we went out and found a little local place for dinner. It was quite funny being the only Europeans in there.

Day two in Hong Kong saw us taking a tram ride up to the top of Victoria peak on Hong Kong Island. The view from the top was spectacular. We flew out at midnight that night, and have basically spent from then till now travelling. The security at Heathrow was pretty hectic, and seemed a bit over the top at times. I can't quite see the logic of people being told they have to pack two bags into one and then have to pull it out again 10 steps later because the second bag was a laptop bag, and laptops have to be x-rayed seperately.

So for the next few days I'll just be chilling out here in Naas (pronounced Nace) before going down to a little place in Cork called Youghal (sounds kinda like you'll) for a week. I'll probly have some more to say then. Catch ya

16 Days!!!

2007-06-01T18:42:00.001+12:00

Ok, so there's only 16 days till I fly out for the start of my trip. I'm even starting to get a little excited about it. I think I have things pretty much sorted, but I'm doing my best to make sure I won't forget anything. I know I will though.

This is just a test really, to see if I have this thing sorted. Here's hoping it works.