One last travel blog entry

Well I'm back home in Brisbane and have been for 2 months now. The weather is gorgeous, I'm looking a job and planning my 30th birthday party next month (eek!). I thought I should write more about my 1 month holiday before I returned to Australia (all the links to photos are in the previous blog entry). So here goes:

Greek Islands:

Mykanos and Santorini were my favourite. Santorini is the place where you take photos that come out like post cards - it's just absolutely stunning. All the white and blue cute little houses, hotels etc and the views were just amazing. Even the animals loved to just sit there and look out at the views. The cruise was really fun and getting to spend a day in Turkey again was fantastic - we did an excursion to Ephisus where all the ancient ruins are. The ampiatheatre there is so huge - U2 even did a concert there. My only disappointment and misconception with the Greek Islands is that the beaches are terrible, gravelly etc. Don't expect long white beaches. The water is beautiful though. On Rhodes island, I swam out to this platform 3 storeys high and jumped off twice - very exhilerating! I spent a day in Athens after the cruise with a hangover from hell courtesy of the toga party on our last night of the cruise. You really only need a day in Athens I think as a tourist. And then it was straight onto an overnight flight to Cairo..

Egypt:

Egypt - what an amazing and dirty disgusting, unhygenic place. There is rubbish everywhere in Cairo. Riverbanks are piled high with litter for as far as the eye can see. It's insanely busy. There are NO traffic rules - cars travel like they're in a car rally race or in a swarm of fish. Lane markings are ignored and cars merge into a chaotic honking mess. And then in the middle of all this chaos, you glance over this buslting city and smack bang - there are the pyramids in the middle of it all. I'd always thought the pyramids were far away from Cairo, but they're not. The pyramids are just HUGE, like mountains. One block went up to my shoulders. I crawled into one of the chambers under one of the pyramids. The sphyx is right next to them too - pretty cool.

So I went on a 15 day tour around Egypt. We headed on a "first class" Egyptian train overnight to Aswan, which I like to refer to as the "the arsehole of the earth". The trip to Aswan, if you fly takes 1 hour. If you take a train, it take 18 hours. Our tour company of course took the train because it's cheaper. The chairs were "comfortable" enough - they reclined at least, like on a plane. But the toilet. Oh the toilet. It wasn't a toilet. It was a metal "contraption", piled high with everyone's shit and toilet paper. It did not flush. Flies buzzed around it. And at 5am, when I woke up on the overnight train, my tummy felt like a kicked in football, and I found myself with simultaneous vomitting and dioreah for a few hours. FUN! That's another thing - you are going to get sick in Egypt at some point no matter how careful you are.

There's not much to do in Aswan - I ate a great pizza, bought some souvenirs, got continually harrassed to buy shit from market sellers and that was about it. I took it pretty easy coz my tummy was not feeliing great / was still recovering. I also did a felucca ride there too and we did a day trip to Abu Simbel - which was pretty awesome.

Next notable stop was Luxor. After the shitty train ride and being well umimpressed with Aswan, Luxor was what you picture and imagine Egypt to be. Our tour group had split up into groups by this point, so there was just 3 of us arriving in Luxor, a day before everyone else. We stayed in the most beautiful and luxurous hotel ever. The room was stunning. The bathroom was huge and had a bidet. You walked down to the pool, and onto a deck that overlooked the beautiful sparkling Nile with lush green hills and the dusty Valley of the Kings in the distance. The sunset behind picturesque palm trees. We sat on the deck drinking beers all afternoon looking over the Nile. I was happy :) Other highlights in Luxor - hot air ballooning (it'd been a lifelong dream to go hot air ballooning) and Valley of the Kings. The views when we went hot air ballooning were just stunning and it wasn't at all scary - it was just like going up and down in a lift in a hotel where you can look outside.

The most other notable stop was Dahab. We stayed at a resort on the Red Sea. The tour had been pretty "hard going" - early starts, overnight train and bus trips, excursions - go go go, so it was just nice to stop and do NOTHING for a few days. There were optional activities to do there, but I skipped most of them and just relaxed. I did go snorkeling, but the funnest thing I did there was go quad biking. We reached up to 80kph on the open road, and well, just went nuts off road. It was like super mario kart, but a hundred times better - I had a ball. We went through valleys, desserty parts, beaches, you name it. Totally worth it.

Our bus ride back to Cairo, was again, another hideous overnight bus ride. My roommate for the trip Jen slept on my lap, and I slumpted on top of her. Bus rides in Egypt are scary, and not because you get escorted by police everywhere, or go through checkpoints with dudes with guns. The scariest part is the way they drive! The buses usually drive in a convoy together with police at the front and back, and the buses drive nose to tail at insane speeds, and no one enforces or wears seatbelts. If one of the buses had to stop suddenly, like if a camel ran on the road - which they do, you'd all be dead. Anyway, we arrived in Cairo at 6.30 in the morning at our hotel and we were DEAD. We were allowed to have 2 hours of sleep, before we went off and did some site seeing around Cairo.

Site seeing when you're dead tired or hungover is not fun. I went to the Egyptian Museum and saw Tutenkhamen's famous mask and was happy about that, but kept dreaming of my bed back at the hotel. We later had a look around the massive markets in Cairo -Khan el-Khalili. These are THE most insane markets I've ever been to. It was this maze of markets, laneways, crammed with people, donkeys, minivans - total chaos selling all sorts of crap. At one point, I didn't know if we were even going to find our way out of there. We eventually did, and found a taxi. By the way - all cars and trucks in Egypt look like they're from the 1960s - Egypt is where cars go to die and continue to somehow live for another 30 years. I'm not sure that I saw one modern car the entire time I was there. Anyway, we made it back to the hotel and the next day I flew back to London for 2 days and was horrified at the terrible cold rainy weather after spending 3 weeks away in perfect summery weather. I did laundry, packed all my winter clothes and I was off to Canada and New York.

Canada:

I flew from London to Toronto. If I thought London was cold, I was in for a rude shock when I got to Canada. Eek! My good friend Karen (she's Canadian), who I met on a contiki tour I did around Europe in 2004 picked me up from the airport. Karen had also come over to London in February in 2008 and stayed with me for 2 weeks and we went over to Paris etc. Anyway, we headed to her hometown of Peterborough, about 1.5 hours drive away. I loved Karen's flat and got to see all the places, clubs, restaurants and people Karen had been telling me about for so long. Had the best sushi in my entire life there too. While I was there, I caught a ridiculously early bus to Toronto and did a day trip to Niagara Falls. What an amazing place. The falls are spectacular - and you get get up SO close to the point of jumping over the barrier. Note, if you decide to jump the falls - it's a $10,000 fee if you survive. And the survival rate is pretty high (more people survive than die).

The falls are so powerful and loud and are this beautiful emerald green colour. The whole area is covered in mist from the falls. When I was there, it was Autumn, and all the trees had turned all sorts of reds and orange - I'd never seen a proper Autumn in this magnitude. And there were squirrels everywhere - but get this - squirrels in Canada are jet black in colour - weird! When I got back to Toronto, I also managed to catch up with one of my school friends, Cynthia who I hadn't seen in a very long time who happened to be living and working there. She showed me around the main streets of Toronto, had a coffee and then I headed back to Peterborough.

New York:

When I was deciding all these trips, the Canada and New York trip was pretty impromtu / spontaneous. I researched some airfares to Toronto and did a comparison from Australia. Brisbane -> Toronto return = $2000 AUD. London -> Toronto return cost 300 GBP = SOLD. When Karen and I were talking about what we should do while I'm there, we came up with the New York idea. We found a really cheap fare for about $150 USD return from Toronto to New York. Bargain! And by this stage of the game, I knew we'd probably be on a budget and accommodation in NY is sooo expensive, so we booked in at a hostel for about $30 a night. When we arrived at the hostel, the guy on reception handed us some metro cards that some other guests had used that was still valid - so we travelled around on the subway the whole time for free!

But New York - what a fabulous place. So much to see and do. Top of the Rock, the Rockafella Centre, Empire State Building, Central Park, Staten Island Ferry, Statue of Liberty, 5th Avenue, Comedy Clubs, Broadway, Soho, the Brooklyn Bridge, Wall Street, the Stock Exchange, Times Square. Times Square shits on London's Piccadilly Circus. And then of course there's the site of the World Trade Centre. What a moving experience. It's one huge construction site now with baracades all around it. They're building a new building on the site called the Freedom Tower. We went to the visitor's centre. The walls inside were covered with missing signs families had made and photos of all the people who died. I wanted to cry. I wanted to get a good look into the site itself. My best tip is to go into the Hilton and go to their cocktail bar a few floors up, and you can see straight in. And it's also a good opportunity to rest your feet and have a drink - I had a cosmopolitan. We only had one celebrity spotting while we were in New York - Robin Williams. What can I say - I wish we had more time in New York - there's just so much to see and do - I LOVED IT.

By the time we got back to Toronto - it was minus 2 degrees. I've never been anywhere MINUS anything. And then it started to snow. Karen had to scrape the snow off her car. I'd never felt so cold. Then it dawned on me - do planes take off in the snow? And yes, apparently they do. Big snow ploughs clear the snow from the runway and big trucks with long arm hoses blast off all the ice and snow from off the plane (was quite interesting to watch). Another long flight later, I was back in London and had 1 week to pack up my life and my flat in London, and head back to Australia.

London:

When I got back to London, all the tiredness, jetlag and sniffles compounded in this massive headcold and I spent most of my time indoors, taking vitamins, eating lots of garlic to kill the cold (which worked eventually), and packing boxes and boxes of stuff to be shipped home. When I packed my suitcase, it was ready to EXPLODE. It ended up being overweight by 8 kilos and cost me 69 pounds as a result (and the check-in lady was generous with me too considering how overweight my bag was). By this point, I'm pretty much used to and over flying and couldn't give a rat's arse if I ever saw another airport in quite a while. I'd said my goodbyes and my best friends Emma and Liz gave me a beautiful photo of the three of us, the night before - I miss our chats, dinners, drinks and outings around London. We said our goodbyes inside Oxford Circus tube station, and I disappeared down the long escalators headed for the Victoria Line. It was a bit like the movies.

The last time I left my flat while the taxi was waiting outside, was kinda sad. I'd loved living in London, especially in Clapham Junction - such a great area - it had everything I loved and needed - shops, bars, restaurants and trains, all within 5 minutes walking distance. I closed the door to my flat and my life there and left London for the last time. My cab drove past things I'd see for the last time. It was a sad and happy moment. When we lifted off, I didn't even get to see central London from the plane - we immediately disappeared into thick cloud, and I was gone. I was on my way home :)

So what's it like being back? The weather is great, the food is great, sleeping in and sleeping in my own bed is great, driving a car is great. Catching up with everyone has been great. Yes, I'm starting to get a bit bored, but hopefully I'll get a job soon..

My last comment about my whole experience overseas... I was gone for nearly 2 years. It's the best decision I've ever made in my life and I had an insane amount of fun. It's almost like I've been living someone elses life for the last 2 years - it feels like a dream. Flitting off to Europe whenever you want - cheap airfares make it so easy to travel from London. I'd encourage everyone to do it - and do it while you're still young (and before you settle down, buy a house etc - there's plenty of time for that stuff later). Get out and see the world - you'll see some amazing places and meet amazing people. Anything is possible if you put your mind to it.

Signing off and hope you've all enjoyed reading my travel blog - Amanda :)