Swiss Alps - Where the views are ok ish

So today we got to sleep in with brekky being at 8am which was just as well because last night was a big one with most of the crew hitting the sack at about 1.30am - 2. I was "Boring" and went to bed about midnight. But not before an obligatory round of Jagerbombs! King Dan caused a bit of a stir with one of the Poms staying at the campground and then managed to avoid a flogging for the night. Aaron went to sleep in his bed then woke up in Nicks (Nick woke up in Aarons). But the dinner put on by the top deck crew before all the drinking began was great! Sitting and enjoying a roast pork dinner in the shadow of the Swiss alps is something amazing.

Anyway cue todays adventures. After an amazing breakfast again prepared by the Top Deck crew we walked down the the train station where we embarked on our journey to Jungfrau station. This is set between Jungfrau and Monch peaks. Monch's neighbour is Eiger!

After walking around at "The top of Europe" for quite some time, looking at Swiss watches that are way too expensive for me (read - I didn't find one I liked), and checking out the Lindt shop I came back down to Lauterbrunnen where I am currently sitting and enjoying a beer until dinner in 3 hours time.

Photos:

Dinner
Jagerbombs
Top of Europe
Lindt Shop
Beer

Snails, String men, A night shoot, and Ross and Darryl's guided ish foot rour of Paris...

Right attempt number 2 as the first opone is stuck oin pending....

So. Our first night in Paris after a small journey from Calais ended up with dinner at The Blue Orange Restaurant. The food was amazing. Tried snails, French onion soup, and Chicken with Pom Frits. Snails were beautiful. The soup was great. And the main was brilliant.

From dinner we went on a night tour of Paris which included Montmarte and opportunities to take pictures of the Eiffel Tower at night. Montmarte was where we encountered the Stringmen. Now this is a scam that happens through Paris. Basically guys will come up to you and start chatting and then they will start making a friendship bracelet. Trick is they loop the start of it around the your little finger and by the end of it you have to pay to get yourself out.

Home and then bed for and early start the next morning. Woke up as Nick and Dan wanted to get some laundry done. What a debacle. After 15 mins getting the machine to work we went and found a patteserie which was amazing!

We started at the Eifffel tower. Pro tip. It gets really cold up there. Also, just pay the extra and go right to the top! from there started Ross and Darryl's Guidedish walking tour of Paris. We left the tower bound for arc de Triomphe. From there we walked down Champ de Elysees too the Louvre. We Didnt go in because the lines were huge and well I am not really an art person. Maybe next tiem. From there we were going to head back to Champ de Mars as we needed to be at the bike tour for 3pm. And then we saw the spires of Notre Dame and we had to go. So we did. Made really good time travelling past the famous lock bridge. Turned to go back to Champ de Mars and this is where it went wrong. We chose to take a shortcut. It would have worked but Parisian street signs are intresting. We took a wrong road even though we thought it was the right one. Ah well, missed the bike tour, instead ended up walking about 20-30 km seeing bits of Paris we are pretty sure noone else did.

Everyone met at 7 back at Champ de Mars for an amazing picnic dinner. We then got chnged and ready to go to the Caberet show. Show and half a bottle of wine. Amaing. So we did that and then caught the metro back to the Hotel. Which brings me to now where we are sitting on the bus for 7 hours going to the Swiss Alps. What an awesome past couple ofdays. Some of the people look a bit worse for wear today but hey.

Stay tuned for more shenanigans!

Pictures:

Snails

Eiffel tower

Laundromat

Arc de Triomphe

Caberet

The very first Where's Rangi?!?

Just as it says and especially for those playing at home, where's Rangi!?

For this one the answer is the building's name.

Flights, Ferry's, and Bus rides

So it has been an eventful past 2 days. Flew to Singapore then to London. Flights were great and the food was as good as airline food can be. The flight from Auckland to Singapore was worrying as in the same row as myself there was lady with a toddler in the middle section. Toddler was quiet the whole time. Great success! I also no understand the mysteries of tray tables and entertainment screens with front row and exit row seats!

Cue flight from Singapore to London. Had a bloke next to me who was friendly enough and a small Singaporean lady to the right of me. Yes middle seat. Not ideal but someone has to do it. With about 3 hours to go there was a bit of drama. A lady locked herself in the toilet and refused to come out while her male travelling companion, flight attendants, and a large queue of people wanting to use the bathroom waited outside.

Heathrow airport is again quite large. Bearing in mind the airport I have been to the most is Auckland. Having been to Bangkok airport I understand these things get quite large. But as large as it is, the queue for immigration was very long and took about an hour.

I then got to go on the tube! Man how cool is that thing. It was about time everyone was knocking off work so as soon as I could I grabbed a seat with all my baggage and chilled out. Managed to do a switch of lines and eeverything! I reccomend it as a way to get from Heathrow to the city centre.

Waiting at the tube station when I got of was none other than Mr Peter Rosser who moved to London earlier this year. Was good to catch up. Went to a pub that boasted 70+ whiskeys and made a pretty good pizza. On the way walked past the Tower of London and over tower bridge. Ended up catching a cab back to the hostel as I was feeling a bit spent. The rest of the London site seeing will have to wait until the 2nd July.

After getting back to the hostel I decided it was probably time to catch some zzzzzz. My room mates for the night turned up a bit later and intros were in order. Ross, Alex, Nick, and Dan. Bunch of good blokes and we are already getting on like a house on fire.

After a breakfast of breadrolls with Nutella we hopped on the bus bound for Dover where we would jump on the Ferry as foot passengers and then go forth to Calais. The cliffs at Dover are really something else. You have to see them to understand.

Arrived in Calais to find our tour bus and Gaz the bus driver were late because of traffic and driving through to Paris it is easy to see why. Parisian drivers may actually be worse than Auckland drivers when it rains.

Sitting here now in the hotel waiting to go out to dinner which may include snails. So that will certainly be different!

Photos:

Tray tables!

Wait at iimmigration

Underground

Me and Peter

Dover

Singapore Airport is huuuge

Well what elae xan I say really. This place is massive. the even have a butterfly garden now that is cool!

That T-Shirt...

So.

Marcus has been giving me a ride into work on and off for the better part of the year. Always made sense because I was on the way, kind of. So when I randomly booked a trip to Europe he was one of the first that found out.

Something changed in Marcus that day. Some really weird idea started brewing. Something that made him decide that I was going to be going on a tour of Europe to find myself a wife.

Now this joke has taken many turns and brought many a laugh every morning. From chats about what websites I've used to research into finding a wife, to discussions about his contacts that he has in Europe and how they could help!

All of this happened before I met and started dating Claire, who would probably not be overly chuffed if I came back with a wife but I guess we will wait and see in case this t-shirt works...

So, when Marcus said "Hey bro, stop by on the way home, I got you something" I had no idea of what he had got me. I got to his place and sat down in the lounge a chatted, then he gave me a little orange bag. The bag contained some Kiwi style chocolate (Pineapple Lumps, Choc Fish, L&P Whittakers, Burger Rings, and a mini bottle of L&P) and also this T-Shirt:

So well played Marcus - Bet ya didn't think I would take it though! It's in my carry on bag!

Also apparently I have an instagram

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand here it is:

My Instagram!

Will slap pictures on there in the millions, possibly billions as not to clog the blog!

Night before leaving, better pack!

So the itinerary advises to pack light in case you want to buy things. Makes sense really so I have tried to keep it on the light side.

Bags I have chosen for the adventure are:

1 x Deuter 55+10 Litre Pack - Chose this over a suitcase after much deliberation
1 x TravelOn Anti Theft Bag - Mate from work had one of these and they are mint, Chur Brynd and your Mum for helping me to get one!
1 x Planet Eclipse Gravel Backpack - These are great, man they can fit a lot of stuff. Cheers Steve at Paintball Direct for selling me one of these ages ago!
1 x Bodyglove Camera Bag

Electronics that are coming with me:

1 x Fujifilm S8200 Camera - A recent purchase so some playing will be needed!
2 x 32GB SDHC SD Cards
1 x Samsung Galaxy Tab3 Lite - I need to blog from something! Also has a 32GB Micro SD Card and should make Hearthstone easier if I get really bored...
1 x Samsung Galaxy S3 - Please don't text me while I am away, the charges are insane
1 x Standard plug + 4 USB Wall Charger
1 x NZ to Europe adaptor
2 x USB to Micro USB cables
1 x USB to Mini USB cable (Camera)
1 x Valore 18000 mAh powerbank
1 x Covermore SIM card (I am probably going to use the Vodafone one but will have this in case)
1 x Torch

Toiletries etc:

Nurofen
Imodium - Good call Nick!
Hay-fever Tablets
Sunscreen
Plasters
Nail Clippers - Because stuff walking round with a rogue toenail!
Deoderant
Shampoo - Thanks Mum!
Soap
Insect Spray
Toothbrush / Toothpaste
1 x Towel - Starting with 1, seeing how we get on
1 x Pillowcase

Clothes:

6 x Socks
7 x Boxers
2 x Shorts
1 x Boardshorts
2 x Pants
1 x Hoodie
1 x Light Hoodie
1 x Warm Jacket
4 x Tshirts (Plus another one that needs it's own blog entry - bloody Marcus!)
1 x All Blacks Jersey
1 x Dress Shirt
1 x Pair of shoes
1 x Dress shoes
1 x Jandals
1 x Cap
1 x Beanie
1 x Tui Bucket Hat (Rude not to)

Picture is below, bearing in mind I will be wearing some of the above on the plane and will have a complete change of clothes in my carry-on plus the towel and 1 of the shampoos I should be good. And yes I have credit cards, wallet (Brand new shiny Shihad one!), Passport, and Travel documents. Bit weird thinking this time next week I will be Avignon! Now to just get it all to fit...

Meet Rangi!

A few people have asked who I am going on this trip with and while I have answered noone, I wasn't being entirely truthful.

A plan was hatched a while back and I decided that myself and Rangi were going to go on the trip together. Of course at the time Rangi didn't have a name and it was put to my Facebook friends to find a name for my travelling companion.

There were some stellar suggestions. Paul, Bob, Kevin, Frank, Yellow Penis Banana Face, and even Jaffa but I sort the opinion of the old and wise Marcus. Marcus suggested Rangi (And also Whetu, but we decided he was just showing he could count to 7) and the name has stuck.

Rangi has a full name, but for legal reasons we can't reveal that. Instead we are going to play a game - Where's Rangi! Rangi has decided that during the trip he is going to hide in photos just to see who can find him first. We will start off with an easy one!

Rangi!

First post!

I guess we will start with a bit about how I ended up going on this trip in the first place.

Well. I was speaking to Mycah one night about the upcoming Foo Fighters concert and told her how I couldn't get tickets. She suggested looking overseas. Started looking in Aus, nothing. Looked a bit further away, nothing. Looked in Europe, realised that there was a whole bunch of music festivals going on that looked sweet. Thought about it a bit then decided maybe I didn't need to go for just music!

Looked around on the net a bit and saw the usual trips to London, the UK, Contiki tours, Cruises, and the found this one with Top Deck. Thought it sounded pretty cool, covered a lot, gave you a taste, could always go back for more if you needed to!

The next day decided to pay a visit to Flight Centre on Shortland Street to suss out prices on flights etc. Got chatting to Yvonne there about dates and flights as ya do. Turns out the dates that I wanted to go on the trip, the trip only had 2 spots on it. Snap decision, let's do it. Yvonne gets in touch with Topdeck, sorts it all out, sorts out where the pick up is and then we start looking at flights. Cheapest flights were with Air China, decided I wanted to fly Air New Zealand instead as I always have great experiences flying with them. Last day to pay for the flights that I wanted was that day...

Having gone into Flight Centre just to look at prices of flights, I left having booked a 36 day tour of Europe. Let's see how it pans out!

Trip Details:

Leave New Zealand 11.50pm on Tuesday 26th May

Tour leaves London 7am on 28th May

Travel to 18 different countries

Arrive back in New Zealand 5.25am Sunday July 5th