Melbourne

Well I arrived back to a rainy Melbourne night last night. I really need to develop a sleeping pattern of some sort, hopefully one mirroring the timezone I'm actually in. Its strange to be back, yet still leading the lifestyle of travelling - sleeping on couches and not yet fitting back into the life i left. Things will settle down once i start working again, but i guess I'll still be sleeping on couches since there is no point finding something more permanent when I'm going back to NZ in a month or so with undefinite plans for a next destination.

KL

I haven't seen much of KL so far, as i didn't manage to sleep much on the plane. So I have a pretty odd sleeping pattern here, i just got up for the day and its 3pm. I'm a little scared of what this means for trying to catch my flight in 19 hours tomorrow morning. Since i've already saw a lot of markets yesterday and giant buildings aren't hugely of interest to me, i think the plan is to ride the roller coaster in the giant mall next to the hostel and do some shopping - if there is anything that will make me want to sleep at a regular time it's shopping!

To,m Goes south

Well my plane leaves in 5 hours for KL. I'm not sure there is really too much else to say. I slept last night on a balcony of an 11th story apartment and awoke this morning to see the sun rising over Paris. It really is a beautiful city, its just a shame its so crowded with tourists even in the off season.

Dortmund

Its really starting to dawn on me that I'm heading back soon. Its also starting to get really cold here in Germany. My thoughts of only bringing summer clothes since i was coming to Europe in July seem so niave now. But I´ve kitted myself out in gloves and a scarf for only €1.50 at "the €1 shop" (well of course the name was actually in german). In preperation for clearing customs on my return, I´ve already shaved for the first time in almost 3 months. It took me 30 minutes and 3 razors, but I got there in the end and it turns out there was skin hiding under there all along.

In the next few days ill have to head to paris so i can catch my flight back on the 31st.

Berlin

Well Ive been in Berlin since Wednesday, and I have to say I like it. Its been one of the few places thats really stood out as a place i could see myself living. If I end up starting the new year unemployed, as is looking to be a real option, then Berlin will definitly join my list of acceptable job locations. Though my lack of knowing german could be an issue there, but im proud to say i can atleast count to 9 now (10 still escapes me.

Today i did a tour of the old berlin bunkers, including an old WW2 bunker and a modernish train station (1973 if i recall correctly) that was built to double as a nuclear fallout shelter. Its been interesting to be somewhere with such recent war history after the rest of europe where the interesting history stopped after WW2, while hear in Berlin its run right up till the 90s.

Tomorrow i think its time to start heading west again, i have to be in Paris by the end of the month, and i still want to make it to quite a few more destinations before i leave at the end of the month. I think the plan is to go visit another camino friend in Essen, but I as were both highly disorganised, we havent arranged anything yet!

Prague

Well I'm in Prague for the day, before continuing onto Berlin tomorrow. Though if I like it here, there is always the possibility of one less Berlin day and one more Prague day. That's the beauty in not booking anything in advance. Normally the
downside is that you end up paying through the nose for it. But coming
to Prague, I bought the ticket from Munich 15mins before the train and it was only 34Euro. However the journey required changing trains no less than 5 times, and some of the trains seemed more like glorified buses
from the 60's that were confined to only running on rails. Despite not
having a change time longer than 10minutes, I managed to make all my
connections, though there was a close call when I tried to get out at a
provincial station with the same name as the main station. I eventually
even managed to wonder the suspiciously quiet streets of Prague till I found the hostel without getting mugged!

Munich

I´m staying with some wonderful friends I met on the Camino in their apartment in Munich or München as the locals seem to call it. I also managed a day trip to Heidelberg and a quick stop in Stuttgart for lunch while i changed trains.

Tomorrow we´re planning to go for a walk in the alps, the day after that, I think I have to leave to explore more places. The goal is to get to Berlin on Tuesday via Prague and either Nuremberg or Dresden.

Also I spent some time playing with flickr. I accidentally missed some photos so it´s now 30 camino photos, and I´ve also placed them all on the map, so there is a map view now here. Some of the ones especially of fields I jsut had to guess, but most are accurate.