so today turned out pretty unproductive.

last night i spoke with dad online, and then just as i was about to head to sleep nic came online, so for her it was afternoon and me it was morning already, so i got to sleep late, so woke up late, and spent today uploading to flickr, researching jobs, reading about history, and checking out gadgets.

i have a plan set for tomorrow and places to visit. i’m not so comfortable about cheating the train company, but not paying, whether it’s a fear of getting caught, or morals, it doesn’t matter, but hey it’s spain and everybody seems to do it. i find it hard to take in, how open people are about stealing in this country.

so a photo: (anne in our hotel room in the Qbic hotel, within the Amsterdam World Trade Centre)

i saw indiana jones in copenhagen, thought it was pretty crap, but am now downloading hulk and batman. funny how i find this acceptable, but i grew up with this, as i guess do spanish people with their lifestyle!

good night

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this is mainly for dad, as i know you read this. but here are the photos from the day of granny’s funeral:

the montage:

and the photo of us looking smart:

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so leaving verbier, nic and i went to Chateau Chillon(may 1st), and then Vevey for lunch, was nice to see other parts of swissland. i took her to the airport and she was off back to england.

i stayed at Lillianne’s which was a nice place over the lake in Lutry. she has some very nice wine, with her name on the bottle!

then i set off on the friday morning for Florence, got a flat tyre before i left Switzerland, with all shops closed for the holiday weekend!

so it was the first time for me to stay in a hostel. called Bigallo al Spedale it was out of town, a village called Bagno a Ripoli in the olive groves on a hill over looking the city located in a 13th century hospice/pilgrimage place. the guy wrking on the desk seemed surprised that i didn’t want to go out partying, but i had just driven about 800km.

i went to sit outside and read my book, and a girl offered me wine, turns out she worked there as the night shift and had her school friends down for the weekend from Milan and Rome, so we drank wine, she cooked pasta, and we had a great night chatting.

so saturday i spent in florence. which is very pretty, wonderful architecture, and lots of scooters, and art(at least a 4 hour queue for the museum di Uffizi(Office Museum) which needs to be booked 3-4 months in advance to avoid the queues). but it is woo touristy, there is little escape from the hoards. i spent the morning walking around viewing the sights. then had a lunch, some lovely food. by the time that was done it was too hot to be in the sun. unfortunately i was changing lenses on my camera and one slipped and the fitting got bent, which is sad. so i went to Palazzo Putti, due to reading that it was the place to go for modern art. their idea of modern art being at least 500 years old! but at the back is the Bobolino gardens which was a nice place to walk around and relax after walking the city to extensively. what was great is that it was half price as i am under 26!

i wondered some more, and waited until the sun was setting to photograph the bridge with the sunset behind it, and got some great photos, but that will have to wait to be shown until i have time.

i ended up walking back to the hostel, being picked up by a nice old couple staying there, 2km from the hostel. there was a bit of a party going on, and many more people staying there that night, so bbq, and wine outside was great, along with chatting to other travellers.

in the morning an american girl (23) was fretting so much about her camera not working, i tried to help her find a disposable, but being sunday nowhere is open, and we ended up rushing everywhere for an hour before she gave up and i could get on my way to paris.

yet again i was lucked with the busiest traffic due to the end of the holiday weekend, and found the auto strada barely moving at times, but i did see the Mediterranean which made me feel like i need to go and be by the sea. it was the longest distance i have ever driven 1200km, and took 12 hours, with a stop in Chamonix for pizza.

it’s got to that time of year that i have to stop to clean the bugs off the wind screen more often than i stop for fuel.

oh and it’s practically impossible to park in central Paris, there are no spaces!

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so yesterday it snowed, and snowed, but now it’s sunny and gone.
we had our end of season work dinner, which was nice, it took the guys 45 minutes to agree on a wine for dinner! connoisseurs
so I’ve packed the car, and Nic and i will leave within an hour, so no more internet, Verbier, snow, and most of all home:

so good bye all this, and on to more adventures.

the plan is, today nic and i will visit Chateau Chillon and then i have to get her to teh airport by half eight. i’ll stay at Lilliane’s tonight,a nd tomorrow drive down to florence and spend two nights there.
then on Sunday/4th I will drive to Paris. I will have net access by then and can update later!

ciao ciao xx

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Yesterday i had my first proper day off in a while, not considering Austria, because that was action packed, so stayed in bed until lunch. cleaned my room, and vacuumed the house. Eva shaved my head, then i went shopping with Nic. this town is crap for shopping which is great as i bought one small item, and have no desire to do any more shopping!
i picked up the transfer, and contact from Toto (have to have post sent to his shop as post never seems to arrive to my place?!?!
Met Nic and her kids she babysits every night (Claudi 7, Dinar 10) and watched 3 local marching bands in town, as they paraded to big tent by Centre Sportif.
In the big tent there was more band action, followed by the ‘Big Fondue’. There were 2 pots for making fondue, 4 feet deep and 3 feet wide, I’ve never seen so much cheese in my life, never even in any of the fromageries that I have visited. So we ate, and this morning I have a big round belly.
Claudi took a liking to my camera, so when he was running this way and that with it I think Nic was having a heart attack worrying he may destroy it. So I didn’t get many photos, but it will be interesting to see what he photographed. You should have seen all the little girls pretending not to see the camera, while sortting their hair and making sure they were posing!

I checked flights back the England for Granny’s funeral which is on the 22nd of April. Seems that Swiss Air is the cheapest, followed by Air France, with Easyjet being on a par with British Airways, and all the while I thought Easyjet was cheap!
So I will return to England for a short while, which I have mixed feelings about, especially London. But at least I will get to see my family and friends briefly.

I have just been checking the website for planning road journies around Europe, so I think I’d like to drive to Barcelona and stay with Marta for a bit, then as it is too far to drive directly to Stockholm I will stop by Paris and hopefully see Agota. Then on to Stockholm to see Alice. Then back to Paris to hang with Anne, then on to England for a short while.
The difficult thing about this would be setting a date for each person, as I’m sure they wouldn’t be so happy with the idea if me just turning up. I really don’t want to set a time limit, so I have begun messaging these people, and then I will work it out.

It was a little sad saying goodbye to Lilliane at work, even though we only worked together for 5 weeks I enjoyed working and speaking with her. Even if she is over double my age we got on. She suggested that she will try and get me a job around Bordeaux. She spent a lot of her life running wine chateaus around there. And when she has sold her house in Lutry, near Lausanne she will return to Bordeaux to buy another chateau and I am welcome :). So she will try and find me a job in the wine industry or estate agent industry, which would be interesting. Great to experience different jobs!

So today is my last day of work. I expect there to be nooooo work to do, so will take my laptop, and get uploading pictures, and maybe watch some Britas Empire!

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