Ok, one comment

Don't get your hopes up, I am keeping shtum about the happenings in Amsterdam (suffice to say it was wild). All I'm going to rant about, lying in the top bunk of a hotel in Amsterdam at 2.47 am, is how amazing the last 24 days have been. Might get mushy.

I am now lucky enough to know 47 people I might otherwise never have met. Proof that there is no better bonding process than drunkenly screaming along to I Will Survive in a karaoke bar in Florence,  or playing  alphabet games in the coach while driving through Swiss countryside, or sweating over hot onion soup in 38 degree Parisian heat. Europe is impossible to keep to yourself;  every new place brims with things to share, every experience is intensified by 47 different recollections. It colours everything a little brighter.

What can I say: amazing places with amazing people and lots of good food.  
It's a hard life.

Amsterdam, the city of sex and drugs, on the last night of tour after a boring few days

No comment. 

Food in the Rhine Valley

Food is not supposed to look like this.  Grey miscellaneous meat with glue-gravy and weird noodle-potato things.  Who hurt you,  lady in dungarees serving us? Why must you make sad food and serve it to consequently-sad people? 

Why? 

Paragliding in Austrian Tyrol

It's ok,  I'm going to be fine,  these guys do this every day. Not an issue,  not a problem,  so I'm going to be hundreds of meters high supported by only a parachute glidey thing, so what?

Ok now this ski lift thing is getting pretty high right now. The instructers are pretty cheery but haven't really given me or Rachel any instructions.  All good, they'll tell us later I guess. Ok,  top of this giant mother of a mountain,  unpacking gear,  getting strapped into this harness thing. Instructions any day now... instructer straps himself in behind me,  says "run and don't stop till we're in the air" then pushes. 
OK NOW I'M RUNNING LITERALLY OFF A CLIFF WITH LITTLE CLUE WHY AND NOW MY FEET ARE MOVING IN MID AIR AND-

-and this is pretty damn beautiful.  This is actually incredible. Birds have it good.  The scenery is unbelievably perfect. We're gliding over snow capped mountains and icy flowing rivers and tiny little wood cottages and the air is fresh and cold and I'm just up. In the air.  And we're swinging over trees and lakes and starting to slowly sink and I never want to land because nothing is this beautiful and I have never ever felt freer than right now. 

A beer garden in Munich, Germany

I hate to be rude, but German culture is a  caricature of itself.  I thought that in my first trip to Germany,  all my previous stereotypical ideas of German culture would be banished.  Nope.  Or rather,  nein. Sitting in a German beer garden, drinking a stein (1 litre) of beer, eating pretzels, bratwurst and potatoes and listening to a big band whose music revolves extensively around the tuba, it pretty much doesn't get more German than this.   There are men in leiderhosen and women in dirndyls and they are not being ironic.  All around ring heavenly choruses of fat men shouting "prrrost!" (cheers). I just saw a child of about four clutching a stein to his chest. There are nudists (mainly balding men) stunning themselves in the 14 degree heat,  or strutting around being proudly German (more bratwurst than I needed to see). I feel like this has to be a movie set or themed party,  but no, it's just your average day in Munich.  It's actually pretty awesome. 

The biggest club in Vienna, Austria

Ok so I may have caught up on some much needed sleep today.  I may have slept until 12 and missed the walking and driving tour. I may have been too lazy to see historical buildings so instead ate and wandered around and then went to the biggest nightclub in Austria.  So if you wanted historical details or profound insights about Vienna ... This won't be it. 

The club was a weird experience.  Enormous,  yes. Two levels offer about 12 different rooms and dancehalls, each with a different style of music,  some with lasers, some with pools, some with stages to dance on and some where the DJs were down in the crowds.  The weirdest room, however,  was by far the room my friends and I spent the most time in.  This can only be described as the most Austrian place imaginable.  Where every other room had played English music,  here the music was all German, and very... lumberjack-ish. There were puppets wearing leiderhosen on the walls.  There were deer heads.  There were signs advertising schnitzel.  I expected at any moment that a yodeling competition would break out. 

The Austrians were surprisingly unfriendly.  As soon as they saw we were tourists,  they would mock us or push us, and some guys in our tour were even spat on.  Personally,  I think this is a bit rich for a group of people wearing giant underwear and braces, but what can you do.  They are clearly very protective of their sausages.

Over the canals in Venice, Italy

A magical place is Venice.  A bizarre little paradise of winding canals and gently sinking buildings,  everything is not quite straight in Venice.  Even through the buzz of tourists,  it seems quiet here without traffic noise - you can only navigate the city by foot or by boat.  Every bridge you cross brings another beautiful view of tiny alleyways spanning out in rippling waterways like veins.

In the morning, before the shops open and the tourists flock, the city is a near-silent maze and the buildings are still and quiet in their crumbling beauty. The population has lost 100 000 people in the last hundred years, so now the floating city relies on tourists paying exorbitant prices, which means that before the masses invade - and man do they invade - the whole place seems almost deserted.  At 10, like clockwork,  the thousands cram themselves into the tiny streets, photographing every doorway and cobblestone. Vendors pop up on every street selling masks and jewelery and glass and tourists throw their euros around (I know I did), but even when the streets are full and the alleys echo with the clicks of camera shutters,  Venice still feels like a dream,  a deserted city filled ever temporarily with adoring friends. 

In the Coloseum in Rome, Italy

Sure,  it's big.  Designed to contain 50 000 bloodthirsty Romans,  it's pretty hefty. The arena itself is  brilliantly preserved,  and you can see the underground network of tunnels that men and beasts would be led through towards their imminent deaths.  You can even see the numerals on top of the gates to divide the spectators by class - that's how perfectly it's withstood 2000 years.  But it's not either of these things that make the Coloseum so breathtaking.  It's the feeling you get standing inside, a feeling of immense smallness when faced with such a monument,  a gladiator of all buildings,  the enemy of the pretty twirls of parisian decorations or quaint streets of Florence. 

Everything about it reeks of power and strength,  everything straight and purposeful. I've never felt a building to be so masculine.  You can feel the drips of blood and sweat on your skin, and in your ears a growing roar from the carnal crowds. Looking at the ruins - where the building seems to evaporate at the edges - it's surprisingly easy to let your imagination fill in the gaps.  Before long,  you're faced with the full grandeur of the place as it once was,  and squinting your eyes into the overhead sunlight you can make out the dragging footprints of those who fought here before: the dooming and the doomed.  

In front of The Birth Of Venus in Florence, Italy

It's a big painting,  surrounded by thick glass and tourists.  It's not in a very fancy room compared to some of the other Renaissance art works in this gallery,  and as a small army of Asian tour groups push past me, it feels like I'm the only one looking at it. 

It makes me think of beauty. There's perfection in glowing cherubs and angelic skin,  but I love the little human parts, the expressions that are so relatable that you can't help but understand the painting rather than stand outside it. The Florentine streets are like that too: full of beautiful architecture and cobbled alleyways,  but a little human,  a little crumbling, a little sadly romantic. It's the stuff of Romeo and Juliette. It gets into your bones.

The beach in Nice, France

It's inky black outside and a bunch of us are floating aimlessly in the sea.  After hobbling over the vicious pebbles, we finally made it to the water and eventually the conversation sank to silence and we floated and contemplated where we were. That night,  we ate pizza in a small-town theme park and then brought our beers and towels down to the beach. After the bustle of Barcelona and the longest bus ride of the trip that day, the water is heaven, lifting us up and closing our eyes to the hot black summer sky. You can't see where the sea meets the sky, only clusters of lights along the coast that blink and twinkle like picturesque paparazzi. Peace,  quiet and another beautiful place. 

A nightclub in Barcelona

The name of the club is Opium.  We got in free because our tour manager has some important friends,  and so walked - or staggered - straight past the endless queue of party goers without paying a cent.  The building is enormous and a dance floor stretches out as far as the eye can see, a heaving mess of people gyrating to bass that pumps out of enormous speakers and sends vibrations into the palms of your hands and the soles of your shoes.  There are dancers dressed in spangling silver leotards,  shaking their hips on stages around the DJ booth, and occasionally through the crowd cut some circus-looking creatures: people in masks and sequins, on stilts and with painted smiles.  Confetti rains from the ceiling when the bass drops, and smoke machines sporadically shroud the club goers' torsos in silvery mist. Around the dance floor are small areas roped off for more private conversations to take place on lounges in leather and suede.  The bar is exorbitantly priced,  although Spain's free pour rule means that drinks are often 70 or 80 percent alcohol. This is known as the best club in Barcelona. 

Outside,  the patrons expand onto tables and benches and then onto the beach itself,  shmoozing beside the gentle hiss of the waves.  The club is full of tourists like us but also local Spanish men,  with their white shirts undone to three buttons,  and women, wearing tight and colorful dresses. As you make your way through the crowd,  a thousand black eyes blink at you with their promises of seduction,  twinkling brighter than the stars outside and luring you into the traps of Opium at three, four and five o'clock in the morning, on the blessed and saturated streets of Barcelona. 

A cafe on the banks of the Seine, Paris

Sitting here with Holly after a day of wandering down the champs elysee,  shopping and dreaming and generally being awed by the in-your-face beauty of the city, it's hard to believe that just 24 hours ago we were in London.  And just 3 years ago we were muddled teenagers hoping for European adventures. 

The waitress is stroppy, the food delicious, the architecture flamboyant,  the weather scorching. We got hopelessly lost trying to find the notre dam, and burst into hysterical laughter when we realised we had been waking on the wrong side of the river.  It's difficult to be frustrated with Paris though, the winding streets that zig zag around passionately-imagined churches, with their towering apartments and Chantilly lace balconies,  are too endearing to be anything but charming.  The people are fast moving and talking, and stylish in every movement and turn off phrase.  They are a beautiful bunch,  dressed in expensive suits and dresses and walking with a deep,  Parisian pride.  The macarons are delicious.

London's West End/Paris

Contiki is here!  And here to stay!  (For a while). And I am in Paris!  Woo!

I saw Matilda in the West End of London with Holly and her family and it was completely amazing!  Mrs Trunchball was a man.  There was confetti. It was written by Tim Minchin. There were singing children who flew directly above our heads on swings (we were in the front row.  Thought process: ok, this is how I die,  crushed by a small chorus).

And now Paris!  The contiki people are lovely,  those that I've met anyway. We just arrived,  and are about to have a welcome dinner at a Turkish restaurant (?). Tomorrow will be huge. I'll tell you all about it...