To book, or not to book? That is the question.

If you have been reading along so far you would know that on this European adventure of mine I shall be not only going it alone, but going it unplanned. (you would also be an awesome person for reading along before I have even got there. It speaks volumes to my excitement that I have started blogging a month before the trip even begins). 

Anyway, unplanned.

I have spent the last several months sporadically researching European cities, the recommended daily budget for each place, the things to do, at least two hostels in each city in case one is booked out or turns out to be a feral death trap upon arrival.

 But must confess that I have also lied a little as I have had two nights booked for several months and last night I booked another eight.

The two nights I booked long ago were the arrival night and next night in Copenhagen. Aside from the spectacularly dramatic wanderings of the imagination (think kidnapping and zombie apocalypse), there are really not so very many things that would be as bad as trudging around, backpack laden after a 24 hour flight, lost in a non-English speaking and cobblestoned city. 

Side note. Cobblestones. 

If you have not been, then you probably would not know - as I did not my first time there - about the cobblestones in Britain and Europe. They are everywhere. Like everywhere. I, quite foolishly (in retrospect) took a lovely pair of boots with nice wooden block heels. A modest heel and good for trekking about the cities of Australia. However not so good for cobblestones. They roll of the little stone pavers like a mofo and are no party for the ankles. So this time around I have patiently bided my time and carefully selected boots with nice rubber soles for just this purpose. 

Back to the point though. I have booked two nights upon arrival in Copenhagen so that I know I will have a place to sleep that night and won't have to go parading about the city for hours on end trying to find a place. I've booked at the Danhostel (downtown hostel Copenhagen)

http://copenhagendowntown.com/en/

I'll let you know how it was once I've stayed there. 

The next part of my trip I have booked is a four night stay in the ever popular Carpe Noctem hostel in Budapest. This was on the recommendation of my cousin who stayed there last year. Apparently this place is off the chart crazy and hella fun. I was amazed to see this opinion completely backed up when I checked it out on that trust old friend tripadvisor. I have never seen reviews like it. Zero terrible or poor reviews, two average, six very good. And eighty nine excellent. Seriously! So, I didn't like my chances of a place this good not being booked out completely were I to swan up on the day. So I made a call to confine myself to a timetable in one part of my trip and booked four nights. There are several cities in a reasonably close area that I want to go to, Budapest among them and so I shall work my movements around this one booking. I think this should work pretty well. We will see I guess. 

http://www.carpenoctemhostel.com/

I have also, a while ago, booked my Eurostar crossing from Brussels to London (my flight home is out of London). I have specifically picked the date of this based on the Portobello Road markets in London. They are on a Saturday and thus I shall be arriving in London bright and early on a Saturday. Heading straight to Notting Hill, buying a wheelie bag and proceeding to buy the entire contents of the Portobello Road markets. On my previous trip to London I shopped up like a mad thing here and got some truly amazing items. The highlight of which was a vintage bowler hat and leather jacket (the best cut jacket I have ever worn) for a mere 50 quid for both. I only left last time because I sadly ran out of cash and couldn't find an ATM. This time I shall be better prepared. :)

                                 

     

I have also booked my four nights accommodation in London at the Astor quest in Bayswater, on a friends recommendation. Now I have had the hardest time picking out a good hostel in London. There are so many areas one could stay in it seemed impossible deciding on one, let alone one individual hostel there. So I asked a friend, checked the reviews, clicked away and just booked something. Fingers crossed it's good. 

http://www.astorhostels.co.uk/our-hostels/quest/

And the final thing I have booked so far, is my ticket in seat S12 to Les Miserables on West End. Sighs blissfully. I saw this show last time I was in London and have never since been able to find the words to adequately describe it. It is my favorite show and done spectacularly well on the West End. I spent pretty much the entire show in tears, be they tears of joy, grief or musical pleasure. So going again wasn't ever really a question, just a given. 

The other thing I might look into booking ahead of time is a ticket to the Harry Potter studios. But aside from that, that is everything I have booked so far. 

Let's hope it all works out and I won't be sleeping on park benches anywhere. :p

Lonely?

There is a question that many ask, and many more must be thinking when they learn of my intention of setting off into the cobble stoned wilderness of the continent. That question is, "Alone? Really? Won't you be scared, won't you be bored, won't you be lonely?" But the fact is I really truly don't expect to be. Plenty of people backpack it alone and come off no worse for wear. In fact the most I have spoken to... In fact I feel confident enough to say, all I have spoken to about it who have gone solo backpacking have absolutely loved it. While I would have loved the trip with my friend, as it was in its original conception, there is a real excitement I feel at the prospect of being totally alone. 

Firstly, I get to do whatever the hell I want. Whatever. If I want to spend 60 euro to do a chocolate tasting and making tour in Brussels, I can. If I want to go to miniature vunderland in Hamburg, I can. If I want to skip fill-in-the-blank-o-boring gallery or museum, I can. If I want to skip a meal, I can. If I want a splurg meal at the world's top restaurant in Copenhagen, I can (not that I could get a booking) and you should be getting the picture by now. But even more then that I can stay or change cities on a whim and not feel like I am inconveniencing a friend. I can stay or go to follow a pretty boy if I so choose. Or run from an ugly one. The point it, it is up to me. 

Secondly, no matter how solid a relationship, how great a set of friends you are. There will always be some cause for tension on a long trip. Absence makes the heart grow fonder after all. This is one of the reasons my mother and I make such good companions. Now I am not denying that we have ever had a spat while traveling. In fact we have. I remember a quite spatty spat over whether to stop for lunch or push on in the town of Wall, England. But because we are family and because we are so close we get over it, move on and forget. But between friends this is not so easily done. I have traveled with one friend, with a group and with a boyfriend. All have their unique little quirks. I'd say the group was the best, though would only work on a pre planned and pre booked trip. Imagine trying to decide where to go next and when with four people. Actually don't, it's too scary to imagine. So, by traveling alone I removed that certain tension of stepping lightly to avoid any social land mines for fear of ruining friendships. 

Thirdly. When I went to India with my (at the time) boyfriend he was working, attending a conference in the hotel. During the days I would get up at a leisurely, but not late hour and set off to explore the Indian streets. I loved it. Just wandering alone and taking it at my own pace with no tourist goal in mind. I strolled the markets, drank chai and had a particularly funny interaction with a man who I bought a coke off (coke because I was thirsty but it was the only sealed vessel I could find, wanting to follow the rule and avoid gastro), as I started to walk away with my bottle of coke, he chased me down the street. Through scerades and his few words of english i managed to understand the problem. Apparently I needed to return the bottle so it could be washed and refilled, so much for avoiding gastro risks. I was okay by the way. But the point is, I loved being alone. I am an only child and have a good capacity for self entertainment and busiement. (I think I just made up a word). But this is something I have heard from other solo backpackers, that you learn to treasure your time alone. 

                                    

         

India 2010

Which leads into my next point. (I think it is relevant that my iPad tried to autocorrect that to, 'my next pint', it knows.) Which is, I really doubt that I will be alone at all. I remember distinctly, my first cruise in Alaska where I knew there would be young people and dance floors abound but I was traveling with my mother, I distantly knew that if I wanted to not go to bed like a granny every night I would need to make some friends. This has never been something I was very good at. But I can remember on the second night of the cruise heading up to the nightclub and scanning the smattering of people out that night. I saw a pretty cool looking group of two girls and three guys and decided to balls up and go for it. I walked across the dance floor right up to one of the guys and announced, "hi, I'm Sarah, I'm traveling with my mum and have no other friends, can I pretend I'm friends with you." their response was fantastic. They accepted me immediately and marveled at the fact I was Australian as if it was some great achievement. The girls were from near Los Angeles and the boys were all cousins from Canada, Ontario mostly. And that was that and for the rest of the cruise we were all joined at the hip after about 10pm every night. Our group grew in numbers and we had a large cohort by the end and are all Facebook friends till this day. 

      

Alaska 2010

The revelation that I could do this was mind blowing, and I think this is one of the reasons I love cruising still. Because it was that vessel (pardon the pun) that allowed me to make a huge emotional leap in terms of making friends. And this is something I can do quite well to this day. I mean I suck at it at home, particularly at taking acquaintances to friends, but when I travel, man I get brave. 

        

Europe 2011

                                 

      New Zealand 2011

The next best experience was in Edinburgh, Scotland at a pub drinking whisky and eating haggis with my mum and I overheard a particularly occa accent and so butted into their conversation. Two guys from Queensland and two scots. I ended up tagging along with them for the night, a German guy and another Aussie lady who had lived there previously joined us and we had a ridiculous beer fueled and adventurous night that hoped from amazing pub to amazing pub and ended in a kiss from a sexy German.  

       

       

       Scotland 2011

     

The interesting part is though that so many damn Aussies travel. So most of the people I will meet will probably be Aussies. In fact, I remember one might in Miami where I met some people who went to the same damn uni as me. At least they were doing law, unlike me. Who knows, I could run into my neighbor. 

        

Miami 2012

                                     

Pacific 2012

       

Pacific 2012

And so my message I do believe, is, you can totally do it. You will always meet amazing people overseas. Give it a go. :)

Forethought in forethought.

So here is a little tale of planning, booking and unforeseen circumstances. 

One day around the end of last year (2012) my best mate Chris and I were hanging out having dinner after work one fine evening and he, scrolling away on his iPhone, said, "damn flights to London and South America are cheap, I really think I might buy one." I don't quite remember what transpired after that but one thing led to another and then we were booking flights to London through webjet.com and were vaguely planning our backpacking trip. 

        

    

We decided on Europe over South America, being pretty widely advised that the latter is better to do on tours and having things sorted out a bit more before you go. But we wanted the free spirited party and beer, staying in hostels experience and all that jazz. And perhaps a part of my own incentive is that I would rather do South America latter when I have a little more time and liberty to go all out. So, Europe for a stunning $1800 in May/June it is.

 Or was. 

Shorty after this is was discovered that my mother would need a total knee replacement, on both knees! This surgery is equatable to a heart transplant in terms of recovery and pain levels. And so there was a problem as my travel plans would have me out of the country just dangerously inside the recovery time in which she would need quite a bit of care. And so with great pain it was decided that I would need to delay my plans, and would have to break the news to Chris and figure out if he would be okay to go it alone. Turns out he was understanding and actually ended up changing his plans and restricting himself to the UK alone (I've been there, he has not).

So, time to change my flights. The first option, travel insurance. Unfortunately, when I looked into it my mothers initial referral to a surgeon about her bad knees was given a mere two days before I booked my insurance. Now at the time she was intending on seeing a surgeon about having silicone injected into her knees and had no clue a total, double replacement was in order. But, rules be rules and when it came down to it travel insurance was not an option. 

I do want to cavette this with the statement that travel insurance is an amazing and absolutely vital thing to have. In all my travels I think there has only been about two trips without an incident of some kind, and many a time I have needed to make a claim. My first time in the US a bag containing my memory cards was pick pocketed, second time there our car was broken into and some things stolen in Seattle, third time my passport mysteriously disappeared and insurance covered flight to and from and accommodation in NYC.  My forth time in the US a camera sadly perished from being drunkenly buried in sand, and also on this trip I had to shell out $300 for some penicillin to treat an outbreak of tonsillitis. A stolen iPhone in Africa, and more and through some of these incidents insurance sorted it all out. So this is the very first time it has not come through, so I hold no resentment with them. I tend to get annual cover given how much I travel, and I use covermore, they are great I must say. 

So, option two: cancel and rebook with a voucher from webjet. So requests for deferment were made and searches for new flights began. Now it was a given that the the stunning sale period would be over and I would have to shell out for more expensive flights as well as a transference fee, fine. 

Suddenly though, it was revealed that my flights would have to be booked for a date prior to November or the voucher would expire. Okay, so a quick scurry to survey the dates and some were found that fitted nicely between work, uni and prac teaching placement that still gave my mum an extra month of recovery with me there to cook, drive, shop and clean. So I forged ahead and put in my request for the new flight (singular now, what once paid for a return trip would now only cover a one way flight) and I booked my outbound flight on Qantas points. 

There is a side note here I want to take a moment to discuss. I have an American Express card which I try to use as much as possible, paying for petrol, groceries, coffee, shoes, clothes, lunch, anything at all that can be bought on a card gets paid for on my trusty old Amex card. I then pay the card off each month never paying interest. You have to be disciplined but it sure works. And as a result of this I have accumulated enough points to fly me to Copenhagen. Boo fucking yah!!! Free flight, I only bought things I needed and would have bought anyway and as result got a flight.

So, all was well and ready to go. But wait.....

Webjet fuckers came back saying, "the flight must be outbound from Australia" Fuuuuuuuu

So back to square one. And to cut a long story short, after finally getting them to admit that they simply jack up the prices and charge more for customers using a voucher ($900 more) then customers making a new booking. I guess they do this simple because they can, knowing they have voucher holders by the short and curlies. 

I ended up calculating that the total difference in price between using my voucher for a new flight with British Airways through webjet with many stops and completely booking a new flight with Qantas was a mere and measily $120. Pfft. So being completely fed up with webjet and not wanting to lose a 5000 Qantas point to change the point booked flight I already had, I decided to say "fuck it", take the small amount of money I could get back and book a new flight with Qantas directly through them. 

So, in summary, webjet is probably fine so long as you don't need to change anything. But they were utterly ridiculous to deal with. Making it impossible to get a manager on a phone, hanging up on me when they were sick of me I suspect and generally being dicks. 

And thus it is sorted I am flying there with Emirates (paid for on Qantas points) and flying home with Qantas (bought directly in cash through them). So it has cost me a little extra, but hey, the flights were stupidly cheap to begin and I have an extra month to work and save up a bit extra. 

But hallelujah I have flights booked and I am hitting up Europe in a month. :D

Boom de Yada. Life is awesome. 

 

Getting to know me.

Hey there world. This is Sarah, and I'm here to tell you a little about my life and my adventures around the world. Let's start off with a little about me. I'm from Canberra, Australia and love it here (despite its somewhat unfairly given reputation as being snoreville packed with boring middle class public servants, which I guess it is technically, but in truth it's a brilliant blend of city and country and has a bursting coffee and cafe culture emerging over the past few years).
 

 I am 23 years old, have a degree in philosophy and archaeology and am currently getting another in education. Philosophy was the thing I did for choice, something I love and was vastly interested in, so that is what I chose to study. This current degree is the one I am doing for a career, yes, I shall one day be a teacher.  I'm working as a teachers assistant now at a disability school which is a colorful and ever changing but always hectic job. But it absolutely needs to be said, that to me a job is not your life, I work to live. And to me living is travel.

Of course I love all the things that happen at home too. I love my family, my mum who raised me on her own most of all and who is my usual travel partner. As a single mother - only child combo she is more a best friend then a mother, and because I was never a willfull, moody or misbehaving child (or teenager) we have a fantastic relationship and make great travel companions. And my grandfather who I'm very close to and my cousins who are in the same town as me at the moment for uni. Yay. I love my dog (Cub, a Shiba Inu puppy) the little monster that he is. And I love my friends. While I don't have as many as some I sure have some gooduns. I have terrible terrible terrible luck with men, so am slightly convinced that just through sheer chance alone I shall meet my soulmate on this next trip I am embarking on. Fingers crossed that he will not be from some remote and distant part of the world. Anyways, whatever will be will be.

I think it's important, That in getting to know me, you know a little about my previous travels. The first time I traveled overseas (in living memory, I went to Vanuatu when I was three but only have two memories of that) was when I was 14 and was selected as a member of an Australian team for horse riding. We went over to Fort Worth, Texas, USA and spent a month in Fort Worth, Texas, USA. That's right a whole month in the one place. Now at the time it was total amazement to me. I was so excited by this life in another country and amazed in the prospect of understanding another place and culture, that I remained completely oblivious to the severity of the bullying I was subjected to by my team mates and the lack of care the chaperones provided. But hey. America was amazing. I got to eat the food, walk the walk, shop the shop, and really really immerse myself in the crazy Texan life. Oh. And I got to play with a baby raccoon that someone had for a pet. :D

My next trip was when I was 16 and I accompanied my mother and her disabled school students on a trip to New Zealand. Now this was amazing. We booked a bus and a (horribly incompetent) driver who only broke one bus and only nearly killed us all twice as we trekked around the south island for a week and a half. We climbed a glacier, walked in forests, met a Nazgul, visited sets from the Lord Of The Rings, rode horses, I swear I saw a fairy, swam in stinky hot springs and generally laughed hysterically at crazy in-jokes.

The next trip was when I was 18, after (actually instead of) my year 12 graduation (and formal) my mother and I headed of the the good ol' US of A. We did LA first including a road trip up to Big Sur, the flew into Texas and spent a week driving around Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Again, the place is mental. They are a truly different breed of people in that part of the world. Then San Diego where we stayed with a friends relatives and had a proper thanksgiving. From there we road tripped around the Navajo nation for another week and hit up Las Vegas (bat shit crazy that town is) and ended up in San Francisco. Flew up to Seattle caught a train to Chicago. Spent Christmas in Yellowstone and then flew on down to Washington DC. From there we drove around the New England area and ended up in NYC. Which was spectacular and spectacularly cold, I had never and have since never been so cold. My skin actually split and bled from the dry cold. But there is a reason most of the world is in love with NYC. After that we left for home, but not before thawing out for a while in Hawaii. Bliss. We saw more whales then we could count and saw dolphins riding the waves of breaching whales. Life changing.

                                

   

                         

The next trip was a week long simple hop to Vanuatu with a friend from high school and uni to scuba and to enjoy the beach. It was a great trip, the highlight of which was discovering the magical fucking art of scuba diving. The moment I tried it it was so clear that this was what I had been made for. A natural at balancing my buoyancy and totally confident (though sensible) my Piscean nature makes me a water baby and it's always been swimming under water that thrills me.

                                   

Next was the brief and only period of my life that I had a boyfriend, a short five months with a seven year older man, I was 19/20 he was 27. Anyway, he had a business trip to India for a conference and invited me along. India had never really been on my list, let alone my radar. However the moment I arrived, I was in love. With this beautiful, complex, delicious country. The class system was a tremendous shock and never something I will be able to get used to, but I could love the country despite it. To the point I could see myself living there. More the I could in most of the US even. My short week there was not enough, but enough for me to know for a fact that I will be back.

                                

After that, me freshly broken up, my mother fresh out of a court case as a witness (against a colleague) and another friend fresh after discovering a pretty bad medical issue (the walking wounded) all set off to Canada and Alaska. "The USA again!?!?" you might ask. But hey, it's a pretty great place. We hit up Japan on the way as a stop over 24 Hours. Amaze balls. And then a brief few days in Vancouver. Be still my aching hart, what a city! I wanted to move there. And hopped a cruise up the inside passage of Alaska. After a few days cruising I was hooked. It sounds lame, but take my word for it. It's brilliant. Then we road tripped around Alaska for two weeks, our friend Nathan headed home and my mum and I, flew up to Barrow above the Arctic Circle and saw wild polar bears and Inuet hunting and butchering seals. Then to Brooks Falls where you watch brown bears catching salmon on he water falls. We saw a full on bear fight, I shit you not. Lost our passports. Had to go to the consulate in NYC. Had the fear of god put into us (I cried in my interview, thinking I'd never be allowed to travel again), were issued emergency passports and made the most of NyC while we were there. Then in the way home we had a week in Tokyo and had a blast.

                                

The next trip I delighted in, was a two month long epic trip around Britain, Ireland and Europe with my mum. We begun by road tripping the UK, I cried at Stonehenge and Culloden, wondered a Bath and York and fell absolutely in love with Edinburgh. Then we road tripped Ireland, flew to Zurich, Switzerland, trained to Venice. Then to Rome and cruised from there to Crete, Sicily, Athens (oh my heart, I loved this place) and Turkey and back to Rome. A quick hop to Paris, great but full of Parisians :p and finished it all off with a few days in London.

After much prodding and pretty unsubtle nagging we managed to convince my 87year old grandfather to come on a cruise. Out of Sydney Harbour, we zipped all the way around New Zealand and back to Sydney in 16 days. It was fantastic fun and I made some great friends. Now we have a system of bribery to make sure he keeps on living. Each year we cruise and book one for the next year while on board so we can make sure he doesn't go and die on us. :p good system.

       

After that I spent a month with three of my best girlfriends in the states again. We started out in Orlando Florida, for HARRY POTTER WORLD :D, then Miami for redunculous party nights, a week long cruise to Puerto Rico, Haiti and Saint Maarten, then to cray cray Vegas and topped it off in LA.

                                   

Four months after that my mum and I set off for Africa. We road tripped from
Cape Town to Johannesburg and did a bunch of safaris in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and Namibia. We saw some things I never I though I would. Spotted the Big 5. Saw a lion kill, hyenas, cheetahs eating a kill, rhinos, a leopard, a honey badger, a civet, rode elephants, road an ostrich and so much more. I have a blog about this trip, you should really check it out. :)

As promised, the next December, we hauled my grandfather off for another drink fueled cruse, this time to Vanuatu and New Caledonia. Again, a spectacular time was had by all.

                                         

So finally, phew that took longer than I intended, to the trip at hand and the purpose for this blog.

So to the trip. This year, in about a months time from now I shall be jumping on a plane and jet setting off to wonderful wonderful Copenhagen, laden with a giant backpack  and as few other possession as possible so as to save my back. I have a Eurail pass and my first two nights booked at a hostel, and a Eurostar ticket to get to London four days before I fly home from there. The rest is up to spontaneity and the fates. My plan is to hit Hamburg, Berlin, Prague, Budapest, maybe Bratislava, Vienna (and the Spanish riding school), Brussels and a day trip to Bruges where I dearly hope they are "filming midgets" ,possible Amsterdam and of course London. I'm interstellar in seeing some of the classic tourist hot spots, but honestly more in strolling the old towns and eating the local food and drinking the local beer. I expect I shall be doing a bit of that last. The beer that is. And of meeting new friends in the hostels. I will be going totally alone and leaving it all up to chance. There is something tremendously special about friends you meet overseas, even if you never see each other again there is always good ol' Facebook. :)

Anyway, I am stupidly excited, despite it being a whole month away and am in denial about all the real world responsibilities I have, such as finishing up uni. Thus this huge procrastination tonight of writing up all this crap. I do intend to blog my trip when I can, but I might even preface this with the odd planning and packing post.

What this blog should end up being is a bit of a journal so my friends and family can keep up with what I'm doing. A bit if a guide to wins and mistakes, a bit of a social/philosophical observation, a true tale of the ups and downs (though I do tend to take the downs as examples of hilarity and good story's to tell) but most of all this is for me, something for me to look back on in the many years to come and remember everything in vivid detail.

Anyway, if you are out there looking, I hope you get a sample of the fun I hope to have, living this story reading it as I go.

I should really think if a catchphrase. Talk soon.

Ps. Screw the typos, I don't care. :p