JODY

On this page you'll be able to check in on Jody's adventures as she TAKES ON THE WORLD!

Hi all! Here's the latest installment! FOR EARLIER ADVENTURES SCROLL DOWN!

Hi there

So - the first trip of the season began on the 15th - my birthday!!
We got up and got the bus to the train station, where we got on the train to London. The train arrived at Paddington, and then it was on the tube, straight to St Pancras - the lovely new international station. Before long it was onto the Eurostar, and not long after that we were under the English Channel - on our way to Paris!!

So it didn't quite strike me as 'the city of romance', but it was really pretty nice. On the first evening we had to make sure we caught a glimpse of the Eiffel tower, so that I could make sure we were actually in Paris. It makes quite an impression on the skyline!

Dinner out was less of a success, as we inadvertantly ordered beef tartare. I was expecting some kind of rare steak meal, but actually (and I'm sure some of you will know this) the meal simply arrived as a mound of raw minced beef. Quite a challenge to eat I can tell you. However, the next morning started off better for us. Paris seems to have a large amount of very cute corner cafes. They all have little red and white tables and seats facing straight out onto the street (so the frenchies can see whats going on) rather than facing each other. Yum - coffee and croissants galore.

We visited a covered market near our hotel and got some local cheese, meat, and of course a baguette, and headed for an awesome picnic in the palace gardens surrounding the louvre. Then for a closer look at the Eiffel tower, which was really cool. Its quite ugly but charming in its industrially intricate way. Cool how you can see the workings of the cable-car-like lifts which take people up. We weren't able to go up the tower, as thunderstorms were lurking. So we enjoyed the view from below and moved on! Wandered along the Champs Elysees for a bit and marvelled at the amazing buildings. Also the inside out Pompidou centre with its lifts, escalators and stairs outside the main shell of the building. Paris also sated some of our bike fetish, as there were all kinds of funky city bikes getting around, and loads of fearless parisians tempting fate. Lots of beeping but didn't see one accident.

We went to see the Notre Dame, and its terrible gargoyles. An amazing building. Charlie told me all about flying buttresses, which it has a-plenty. In the grounds of the Notre Dame was the 'festival du pain' - which is not as sinister as it may originally sound. Turned out it was a festival of bread, and there were loads of old fullas dressed in traditional clothes cooking this amazing bread and showing off the art of breadmaking.

We visited the Paris cemetary (where Jim Morrison is buried) by accident, but it was really interesting. It was like its own little suburb, and family crypts were built on little 'cemetary streets'. Some of the crypts had east and west wings and clock towers! We wandered past the moulin rouge - where strangely hundreds of goths were queuing for some kind of concert (in the most unlikely of venues). Montmarte seems to be Paris' only hill, which we walked up. A couple of crepes with nutella kept us going. Sacre coure sits on top, with an amazing panoramic view of the enormous city (which we forgot to photograph).

Hope you're all good.

Love J

Brussels is kind of fading into the background a little which is a shame. I dont really know what to say about it now. It was really beautiful, I ate loads of chocolate (and father christmas brought me lots for christmas too) and mussles, and drank lots of lovely lovely beer.

The buildings are all very pretty. Tall and thin with funny little triangular roofs. We saw a little statue called mannekin pis. This is a tiny bronze statue of a little boy urinating. Lots of stories over where this little statue originates from, and who mannekin Pis actually is. It is quite a landmark in Brussels and there was always a crowd of people around. He is only about 10 inches high. The wierdest thing is though, that the statue has lots of little 'outfits' and is dressed up from day to day (with the fly down of course) in a new costume. Very strange! All the seafood restaurants have these amazing displays of seafood arranged on ice outside the doors to entice punters in. Many of these have a copy of mannekin pis standing proudly at the top of the mounds of mussels and prawns...

Managed to visit some really cool bars and pubs and enjoy some delicious beer. The christmas markets were pretty nice, but didn't find anything I couldn't live without. There is something nice about pottering around drinking mulled wine and eating waffles in the cold though. It really was lovely.

Had a pretty good time in Budapest – but was wondering what on earth whenI first arrived! Somehow mistook what time the flight was and what time we were due to arrive. We arrived at the Budapest airport and got a bus to the metro station on the outskirts of the city where you can get a metro into town. The bus dropped us at the metro station, which looked something like an old school gym or something, with an escalator entering the building. We noticed the weird bumpy under-maintained roads, and the carpark around the metro station was all cracked with weeds growing through etc. Well, the inside of the metro station was like a scene from a movie. The building was kind of temporary feeling inside and it was full of people lying face down on the floor, and loitering around drinking and begging. There were these weird bars operating out of windows all along the station, and there were lots of people carrying cages (like the kind you might keep a mouse in) filled with rags. Never quite got to the bottom of that… You had to buy metro tickets from a coin machine, but of course, as this was our first transaction in Budapest, we had no coins, and only some quite large denomination notes (which seem even larger when 1000 Hungarian Forints = 3 British pounds). So we managed to buy enough snickers bars and bottles of water etc to generate enough coins to buy a ticket, which we then stamped and got on the next train to town. The metro station was like the scene out of Starwars in the bar with all the monsters and aliens. It was quite surreal.

Made it to our hostel pretty easily, which was really lovely. And to bed ready for the next day exploring.

Budapestwas very cold the next day. We walked along the Danube to the market hall where you can buy all sorts of Hungarian produce (pork andpaprika mainly) and some cheap eats. Our lunch turned out to be Longas (Langawsh) which is a kind of fried potato pancake things mothered in sour cream and cheese. We discovered that Hungarian food is pretty tasty, but not for the health conscious. We fitted in ok...

Later on we had a fantastic hot chocolate and went to the north east of the city for our first hot swim of the weekend at the Szechenyi Baths. Budapest is chokka block full of thermal baths and we made the mostof it. The first place was pretty cool and I’m quite sorry to not have a photo of it. We found Hungarian people quite unforgiving of foreign tourists and their fumbling with this tricky language. And no matter how hard you tried, its pretty difficult to pronounce the words let alone find them in the guidebook for, “can I please get into my locker (which were patrolled by matronly women) to get my camera out”. Especially after you’ve had to go back to get in once before to get money out in order to hire a towel, which you can only go to do after you’ve got into your togs. And don’t forget its about 3 degrees during all these difficult transactions and you’re running around in your togs… So – no photos. But the pools were amazing. My favourite part was outside, where the water was 38 degrees, and in the middle of this amazing building which encircled the pool complex. Beautiful fountains and statues. Also, we were in there as dusk fell so it was lovely to see all the steam rising and moon coming up. Also resident in the pool were these old guys who spent their time playing chess. Imagine the wrinkles!

We crapped out after this, and ended up buying bacon and eggs and cooking at the hostel rather than going out. Sunday was a more successful day.

We packed up and left the hostel as we had decided to take advantage of a web offer and stay in a nice hotel for a night. We made out way to the Gellert Baths and Hotel but of course stopping for lunch on the way. We ended up at a restaurant called Fatal (not our first choice obviously!) and after reading a little review of the restaurant at the hostel, decided to follow their advice and just order a meal between us. The goulash soup (you got to have a bit of goulash inHungary) was delicious, and the main was too – but the portionsize! The meal came out in what I can only describe as a wok, which was full of meat and veg and fried potatoes. It was damn tasty.

We then checked into the hotel and went straight to the baths. They were really amazing. Kind of palatial really. All beautiful tiles and just lovely. Lots of different pools and areas, and there was also a steam room and a plunge pool.

Later, drinking cocktails in the hotel bar, we asked the waiter where we could eat for dinner. He recommended a place up the hill with gypsy music and good food. We were promptly booked a taxi and whisked off up the hill. The restaurant was amazing and I was immediately worried. The ‘gypsy’ band were dressed in tuxedos and there was far too much glassware and cutlery on our table for two! However, after a lovely dinner the favourable exchange rate didn’t mean that we had to do the dishes before we left, but it was a bit extravagant!

The next day we had a huge breakfast and another dip in the lovely baths at the hotel. Then we took a tram to explore the old town of Buda on the western side of the river. It was very nice. The whole place though was under a white/grey cloud and there was no one around. It was very strange. Went to the fisherman’s bastion for a nice view of the city, and then wandered down the hill to collect our things from the hotel, eat (yes again) and head off for the airport. The metro station was nowhere near as scary the second time around!

Budapest was good. A funny quiet place I think, where the people are quite serious, and the food is wholesome and filling. An excellent place if all you want to do is wallow in warm water and relax

The first day was spent just wandering around and getting to know the city a little bit. Had lunch in a park and then went to the beach.
Was so beautiful and warm, just that perfect temperature where you are not too hot but not cold at all. Started getting into the swing of things by the evening.

Met some locals (Pinchy) and found this fantastic little bar serving chorizo sandwiches and bubbles.

It was packed full of people, locals and tourists alike (yes it was in the guidebook - but deservingly so) and lots of fun. Somehow, the guy who gave us our bottle of pink cava and sarnies remembered what we ordered half an hour later, and we were shocked to only be charged 6 euros for such a delicious snack.

Next day saw us at the Gaudi cathedral - Sagrada Familia. It truly is an amazing place. Well worth checking out. Photos dont really show what a tremendous building it is, inside and out. After visiting the cathedral, we wandered the streets, tracking down some more of Gaudi and his contemporaries buildings. Including Casa Batllo. (top of page) Very weird building. Some of the buildings Gaudi designed were so outrageous in their time that the owners were the laughing stock of Barcelona.

Dinner was an amazing feast of seafood. Another guidebook recommendation, we visited a restaurant where you enter something like a mini seafood market and purchase your seafood by weight. It is then prepared as you would like it, and you are assigned a number which is called out from the kitchen (good way to learn your spanish numbers when you're hungry). A mountain of seafood appears plate by plate depending on how it is cooked and then you have to return your plate when you're done. It was delicious.

Day three - and we visited Park Guell. This was some kind of residence and garden which Gaudi designed for some flash people. Its an amazing place where all the features seem to have more than one level of usefulness, lots of shady 'caves' and bridges and terraces.

Hard to explain, but a fantastic place for a picnic. Also the home of some strange looking 'gingerbread' buildings and the chameleon which is for many a representative mascot of the city.

Interspersed with all of this was a bit of metro riding, chocolate eating, coffee drinking, and a few more visits to the cava and sandwich bar...

Thoroughly enjoyed Barcelona and was very sad on day 4 to be coming back to Bristol.

However, the count down is now on for Budapest! I cant wait to kick back in some hot pools.

Hope you're all good.

Love J

Hi there

Haven't been up to much lately, but my recent trip to Edinburgh spurred me on to let you know what I've been up to since returning from the much awaited Croatia trip.

First call was a muddy welsh festival called the Workhouse Festival. It was really cool - but very very muddy. A few of us went up and camped for a couple of nights, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, despite the mud. The following weekend was Bid and Dave's glorious welsh wedding. Got to meet their beautiful son and hang out in the sun on the grass with a whole lot of kiwis. It was just like christmas!

Back in Bristol, July saw the Ashton Court festival which went bust this year as the rain on day 2 was the last straw for a struggling enterprise. It was once the largest free festival in Europe, but since then its become a lot more mainstream (it was weird on the day it wasn't raining - the place was covered in fairground rides etc) and started charging. Unfortunately it seems that it was my first and last Ashton Court Festival.

The same location holds a number of different festivals. A few weeks later it was the hot air balloon festival as Bristol is a main centre for hot air ballooning. Events conspired against me and the only hot air balloons I managed to see (due to sleeping in and then wind later on) was this one and a few of its friends floating over the house when I had breakfast. Such cool things!

This last weekend was my trip to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival for the second year running. Had a brilliant time and managed to pack 8 shows into 2 days. Bought a haggis home... Saw lots and lots of funny stuff going on. Joke of the festival (that I can remember) - "what do you call an Irishman lying in your back garden? Paddy O'Furniture"

Enthrawlled Edinburgh crowd!

Moving this weekend so hold back your letters and parcels until I find a place to live! Had one all lined up but it fell through. Luckily a friend from work has a spare room, so I'm staying there for a few weeks till I can find some digs.

Hope things are warming up in NZ now. And no more tornadoes?!?! I'm bummed out. We've had the wettest summer since records began or something ridiculous. And now the leaves have started dropping. Oh well. I'll just have to visit the Mediterranean!

PS: Gert Lush means real nice in Bristolian

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