18 Hours In Innsbruck || christie.e

To be honest I’m not actually sure how long we spent in Innsbruck but it was definitely less than 24 hours which was obviously not even nearly enough but we did get a bit of time to poke around the city centre which was okay.

Alex took us all over to the Swarovski shop and we got a bit of a talk and some discount cards and were then let loose to drool over the amazing jewellery that we would never be able to afford. The shop itself was absolutely lush. Crystals in the staircases, huge sculptures and a crystal chandelier that is really not practical but still something I would love in my own home.

Unfortunately Paige had to leave me at this point. As we were driving to Innsbruck Alex got a call from the hospital Paige visited in Lucerne to say they thought her arm may actually be broken so she had to be taken to the hospital again. I spent the rest of my afternoon trying to latch onto anyone else that would have me. I had probably the best coffee of my life with Steph and then ran into Adam and Erin and wandered around with them for a while.

While in Innsbruck we got to see the Gold Roof, we were told the story behind it but unfortunately I cannot remember it but it was quite pretty.  Innsbruck in general was really lovely to be honest and I would have loved to have spent more time there – maybe I’ll go back one day.

When we finally checked into our hotel we had dinner and just as I was headed up to bed Paige finally showed up again with her arm in a sling. Silly thing did in fact have a broken arm and rather than trying to move it and make it better like she had been for the last few days she should have been keeping in still so she was stuck with that sling for the next few weeks at least. We sat back down in the dining room by ourselves and caught up on the last few hours while I cut up her food into small bits for her. Knowing we had another early morning the next day we made our way up to the room and snuggled down into bed.

That’s all for now! X

Welcome to The Wotton Hatch || christie.e

I have been living in the UK for almost 9 months now and although I am trying very hard to keep up to date I have inevitably fallen way behind so I thought I may just have to start skipping ahead a little bit. I thought I should start posting all the little adventures Michael and I have had in between our big holidays just so I’m not still writing when I get home next year because at this rate I definitely would be.

What better place to start than our new – now pretty old – home. I use the word home very loosely here. When we moved Michael and I signed up with The London Pub company who procured us jobs at a little place called The Wotton Hatch. We’ve been here for going on 9 months and it still doesn’t feel like a ‘home’. Wotton is a tiny almost non – existent village in Surrey made up of our pub, a hotel and maybe 20 houses. The closest town is about 15 minutes by bus and by our standards it is still pretty small. It is an absolutely gorgeous area though and I have found that during summer there really is nothing better than sitting out in our garden with a drink or two watching the sunset over the hills. It genuinely is magical.

We live above the pub in the staff accommodation with the other staff who have had to move to work here – well not specifically here but I think you know what I mean. When I realised that I had to live in communal space I was a bit worried but since we’ve moved there has been a bit of a change up of staff and we’ve managed to get things cleaned up pretty well. Its not what we’re used to at home of course but for 33 pounds a week we manage.

This was the view from our window when we first arrived at the end of January. We were understandably excited at the event of having snow just outside our window being that neither us of has ever experienced that before being from Australia. You can also kind of see the road and on the other side the fields, just behind the roof are the hills. I have learnt that this area does summer much better than winter given that pretty much the only thing to do here is walk it’s kind of hard to do when it’s freezing outside and the ground is covered in snow.

Please excuse the mess but this is our room. We’ve since managed to make things a bit more homely just through our natural hoarding instincts. We were quite lucky with this room to be fair given it is one of the biggest and all the furniture was already in it so thankfully we havent really had to buy anything for it bar a couple bits and bobs. We did have to convince our boss to get a blind installed for us, I’m not sure how many of you know but the suns stays up basically all day in the summer here I mean it never really gets properly dark, so pulling our towels in front of the window never really worked that well for us and we would be up as soon as the sun came up. All is well now though, we have our blind and our sleeping patterns have drastically improved.

To be honest in the first few weeks of arriving here I hated the place wholeheartedly and was ready to jump on the next plane back to Australia but I am so thankful that we managed to stick it out because even though I kind of hate it at times I also really love it. I’ve met some exceptional people here and even though it is in the middle of nowhere it’s so close to everything due to England’s wonderful public transport system.

That’s really all there is to say about this place. I will try to keep up a bit better I promise.

X

Lucerne – Accidents, Alcohol and Adventures

The next morning we left the Rhine Valley nice and early and made our way to Switzerland. Thankfully the drive wasn’t too long so even though I was absolutely exhausted I didnt quite have time to get to sleep on the bus and I got to see all the beautiful scenery. When we did arrive in Lucerne it was about 2PM and we made our way over to Mt Rigi.
We got off the bus down the bottom, got given our tickets and jumped on the cable car to get up the mountain. It was probably the most terrifying cable car ride of my life, it was old and rickety and I genuinely felt like it would stop and just slide back down the side of the mountain at any moment.
When we got to the top Alex gave us about an hour of free time to wander around and explore, there were a few shops and a cafe up there but honestly the idea of being inside just seemed so insane when the view was so beautiful.

To be honest I probably could have just spent all day up there, it was easily the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. Unfortunately though when we were up there Paige had a little bit of a fall. It was a bit funny actually, Paige fell over and I started laughing so much that I fell over which made her laugh so she fell over again. The second fall did a bit of damage though so when we got to the hotel almost an hour later and she still couldnt move her arm Alex and I insisted on a trip to the hospital. Thankfully when she came back they had assured her it was fine and she just needed to stretch it or something, we later found out that was absolute rubbish and they were completely wrong but that wasnt until Austria.

The next morning we went on a small walking tour around the city. Alex took us to see the Lion monument and then over to the other side of town to a watch and swiss army knife shop. Afterwards Paige, Steve and I shopped around for a while, we had to talk Steve out of buying about 7 clocks and a whole bunch of other stuff. By that time we had to meet back up with the group again for our fondu lunch. Honestly this was probably the only extra meal that I wasnt impressed with. The cheese tasted funny, the bread was a bit stale and whatever we had afterrwards was just very ordinary. The browine we had for dessert though was wonderful.

After lunch a few of us went for a walk over to the old city wall which honestly wasnt particularly interesting but there were some alpaccas hanging around and the views over the city and the lake were very pretty. We then made our way back down into the main party of the city and went on a hunt for chocolate – because when in Switzerland. We found – and bought – more than enough chocolate to satisfy us and after a quick detour into some clothing shops we made our way back to the hotel. As we were feeling rather lazy Adam, Erin, Steve, Paige and I went just around the corner to some American style diner for dinner.

After dinner we made our way back to the hotel with the intention of only have a few quiet drinks down at the bar. We somehow ended up on the shots and I think we were basically doomed from there. Some very odd conversations were had that night but we made some very good new friends and it was probably one of my favourite nights on tour. On the way to bed Paige somehow got a hold of a beer and we woke up the next morning to find she had only taken like 2 sips before passing out with her shoes still on.

Thats all for now! X

Cheese, Clogs and Wine Tastings – Amsterdam and Rhine Valley

Leaving Amsterdam the next morning we detoured via a cheese and clogs factory just a short drive outside of the centre of town. There they showed us how they made their cheese and all the different flavours they made there which was quite cool. They also gave us a clog demonstration where they man genuinely made – and gave out – a clog that you could actually wear in the space of about five minutes. I wont lie, I was mighty impressed that he could work so quickly with such a large blade and not chop his hands off, so kudos to him. After the demonstration they gave us time to look/play with the clogs and try some cheese which was absolutely incredible.

After this we jumped back on the bus and began our long journey to the Rhine Valley. Alex surprised us by gifting us with stroopwaffles which are basically just two little waffle type biscuits with caramel in between them – absolutely incredible!

We arrived in the Rhine Valley at around 5pm and had a talk at a beer stein factory which was kind of interesting. The amount of different steins they had there was incredible.  Afterwards we went for a wander around down near the river and just poked our heads into a few shops or more up against a few shops as mostly everything was closed by this time.

Once we had all finished dinner Alex took us to a wine cellar where we got to do a bit of tasting. The owner gave us 4 different kinds of wine – all white luckily – and told us a little bit about where they came from, how they were made and what they tasted like. They were all really lovely. Paige and I both ended up buying bottles of eiswein which is made from frozen grapes and is quite hard to make because the grapes have to be frozen for a certain amount of time otherwise they cant be used. It was absolutely delicious though, really sweet and tasted a lot like honey.  After the wine tasting we all made our way back to the bar at the hotel where we stayed until about midnight. Our group went through possibly 6 or 7  boxes of 30 shots that night, unfortunately we didnt break the record but everyone was sufficiently hung over the next morning.
When we did make it to bed I was pleasantly surprised – being the only hotel in town it wasnt exactly nice so I wasnt really expecting much but they had easily the comfiest pillow I have ever had the pleasure of sleeping on and I had solid hour of internal debate as to whether I wanted to try and stuff it in my bag or not. I didnt but it was a very tough decision.

Thats all for now! X

Amsterdam Adventures || christie.e

Of course the next day was another early one, up at 5:30 to get re-packed, dressed and down to meet our new Contiki group for 6:30. We jumped on the bus and prepared ourselves for another long day of travelling. It had been one of those typical English mornings – cold, rainy and all around just unpleasant – but when we made it to the Port of Dover it cleared up just enough for us and we actually got to see the White Cliffs of tDover on the way across. Granted they werent anything particularly spectacular but it was nice to actually be able to make them out this time.
The rest of the day continued pretty similarly to the previous one, a few food stops before we finally arrived in Amsterdam at around 5:30pm. We got about an hour to shower and change before we went up for dinner and afterwards headed out to have a look around the centre of Amsterdam. Our tour leader Alex gave us a quick little tour se we could get our bearings and then gave us some free time to have a look around. In our travels we found ourselves in the infamous red light district which was not quite what I had thought it would be. Which makes it sound a bit like I had been imagining it, which I had not but you know what I mean. It was just rather confronting all the girls standing there in their underwear just trying to coax you into sleeping with them, they were all quite unfortunate looking as well just to be honest.
Later on we met up with the rest of the group to go to a sex show – because when it Amsterdam, right? Thankfully our ticket had included two free drinks because I found myself needing them pretty much straight after sitting down. In saying the girls in the red light district were confronting this tops them by about 50. It was just people having all sorts of weird sex and doing creepy sex tricks on a stage. They even had audience participation parts and much to my amusement Paige got pulled up into one of these. Thankfully it wasnt anything too awful she just had to undress a hulking black guy as he danced and thrusted at her but it definitely made my night.
After this a bunch of the people from our group went out, though we opted to head back to the hotel and get a bit of sleep.

The next morning we got up nice and early to make the bus into town. On the way in Alex gave us some maps and pointed some of the things we were most likely to want to go and see. Paige and I decided that The Anne Frank House would be first on our list so we jumped off the bus and into the line with a couple of other people from our group. Even though it was early we still had to stand in line for about an hour and it was absolutely freezing, thankfully it was sunny so it was kind of bearable.

Once we finally got inside it was absolutely incredible. I had never actually read the book she wrote but obviously everyone has heard about their story regardless, it was just amazing to see the space they were talking about and it give you a much more real feel for their experience. We spent about an hour and a half there I think, at the end I did actually get my hands on a copy of the book which I am currently about a quarter of the way through. Definitely a must see when in Amsterdam.
After that we wandered around a bit looking for some food and stumbled upon a pancake place. Granted it was no longer breakfast but what does that matter
 pancakes are amazing any time of the day.

After pancakes we just wandered around they city for a bit taking everything in, all the weird little quirks – my favourite being the parking buildings they had for bikes which makes sense obviously because everyone rides bikes but it was still quite funny. Another was the everything cannabis shops they had and I really do mean everything, cookies, energy drinks just everything it was ridiculous. Eventually we made our way back to the hotel for a little nap, a shower and some sneaky drinks before dinner. Dinner was at a cute little restaurant in  lovely seaside village (Volendam? maybe) and the food was really lovely. I found with most of the meals that were included or optional they were really really excellent and so worth the money. Once everyone had finished dinner we headed back into the city for our canal cruise which was really lovely as well, all the canals were lit up with sweet little fairy lights and the whole thing felt just a little bit magical. I believe they also had something going on at the time which is why they had big light displays all through the canals.
After our cruise we once again had the option of going out with some of the group or heading back to the hotel, being the sensible people that we are Paige and I made our way back to the hotel and go our stuff all packed up and ready to go for when we left in the morning.
Thats all for now! X