Nailed it.

Well if'n that wasn't the week from the lowest plane of Hell.

Moving at work under Jim's approach of, "I'm Sicilian, we don't make plans."

And coupled with the fact that we went along to the Euro Expo run by Flight Centre last week and in order to obtain their discount, we had to lock in and pay for flights by last Friday.

Well the money wasn't a problem, we knew that would happen, but the flight dates had to be sorted out for not only the two of us, but for 4 other people whose itinerary I hadn't finished working out.

Further complicated by the alteration of our initial destination from London/Berlin to Frankfurt/Vienna and I found myself with not a spare second to unwind.

But, hours of online detective work paid off and perhaps the 6th route I plotted has now become final.

I only ripped out 3 clumps of hair too, so that's pretty good going.

I had to give up Venice as getting there from Ljubljana may have required a parachute. The train goes there but first goes full north across the border into Austria before turning around and making about 20 stops for Italian and Slovenian Nannas to get on.
If it went direct it would be a 2 hour trip. It can take up to 8.5 hours.

Yet another fine example of good old fashioned Italian organisation.

Anyway, the point is, it would have allowed us only two nights and one day in Venice for almost two full days of travel to get in and out of the damned place.

I would have found it very frustrating to go to Venice and not have time to see the galleries and such properly.

So we diced Venice and have elected to spend one of the extra nights in London so that the boys can do an overnight trip to Amsterdam, plus the other night will be spent in Zagreb in a bid to make the journey from Berlin/Dresden to Celje somewhat easier.
Really looking forward to the passive smoking.

The final route will be:

Frankfurt/Vienna -5 nights - day trips to Budapest and Prague
Berlin -at Tone's 4 nights
Dresden - 1 night
Zagreb - 1 night
Celje/Vitanje - 3 nights (meet relatives/Dad's home town)
Ljubljana - 4 nights - day trips to Lake Bled, Piran, Predjama
Salzburg - 3 nights - day trip to Hitler's Eagle's Nest
Munich - 5 nights - day trips to Schloss Linderhof & Neuschwanstein/Oberammergau, Rothenburg/Harburg,Ingolstadt
London -5 nights - maybe a day trip to Bath
Hong Kong - incl Disneyland

And the best thing is that because I made a mistake , we will now be spending our 20th unniversary in London instead of on some God awful long haul flight.

We plan to do Beatles walk and cross Abbey Road again on that day. woot woot

Done and done.

Well we booked our airfares today.

My only request regarding airlines was NOT GARUDA, NOT BRITISH AIRWAYS, NOT QANTAS.

Because I truly believe that Qantas are trading on a very old and very outdated safety reputation.
I understand they now out source a great deal of their mechanical work and I think we can all see that it's really starting to show.

With all their little problems of late, I suspect they're hedging up for something rather spectacular.

I do hope I'm wrong.

Especially since we just booked return flights with them.

Strange, but I heard quite a few people saying they'd prefer not to fly Qantas at the travel expo today.
Even Vivien, my step-mother has decided to dodge Qantas when they travel to Europe.

Just a few short years ago, they were in the position of charging almost what they pleased...

The biggest queue by far today was around the Emirates stall.
Couldn't get near them, which is a pity, because I've heard nothing but good of them.

Anyway, Qantas!

Bloody Hell.

Apart from safety concerns, I would prefer anyone else (not British Airways - too many whingeing Poms) because the last thing I want to do on an international trip is talk to Aussies.

And here's why.

I have included translation for Gretchen's benefit.
Mostly, these are things I have actually heard.

"Yeah Love, give us some more free beers and that, I'm gunna get pissed and stuff on the plane, eh!" = I am so stupid, cultureless and boring that my farts are more interesting than my conversation.

"Errrrrrrrr, brown bread.And what's this green shit? Can I get more mayo?" = I eat like I'm at a 3 year old's birthday party and never try anything new. I'm an idiot.

"I'm not eating none of this wog shit!" = May I have a dish with a little less flavour please? I'm afraid my First Fleet ancestors have eaten nought but damper, beer and swill for 200 years and this has caused DNA damage and resultant brain shrinkage, yet an increased sperm count.

"I hope the pilot's not Asian." = I'm a cunt.

When I go away, I like to go away.
And I like the adventure and change of culture to start immediately.

I adored being the minority and immersing myself in another culture.
There's nothing like it.
You can just feel it doing you good.

So, on this flight, my MP3 player will be turned UP (to 11), and for the second leg, I will be swallowing enough Temaze to deaden the pain caused by the proximity of the damper sodden twits who will also be representing our magnificent country.

If white Australian culture were a biscuit, it would be a Milk Arrowroot...extra plain. Unremarkable.
And it would stay in it's own packet, criticising the other chocolate coated, caramel, nutty biscuits for not being as plain as themselves, and for encroaching on their shelf of the pantry which they stole from all the other more interesting biscuits in the first place.

And if we fall from the sky during this flight, rest assured that bits of white bread and processed cheese will be washing up on foreign shores, wreaking havoc on flora and fauna alike.

Aussie Aussie Aussie!

Oi Oi Oi!

By the way, did you know that that chant was originally derived from a racist skinhead chant?
They don't eat brown bread either.

Head full of gravel.

Rolling over last night, I became aware that I was still actively planning our next Euro trip while sleeping.
I suspected as much, but now have concrete evidence, hence the gravel in my head.

Around about 3am, I was pitting the elegant virtue of Vienna against Leipzig and Trieste.
The battle wasn't all that pretty either.

Never mind.

Anyway, I thought that spitting it out might prevent Potsdam taking on Venice tonight, thus sparing my muddle from confusing the Earth's energy any further.

Three weeks of course has become five, and various magnificent cities have been auditioned, only to be cast aside due to reasons I can no longer pretend to guess at.
No Dubrovnik, no Oslo, no Northern Lights or fjords, no Split, no Heidelberg, no Amsterdam (boo), no Cologne.

OK, poor darling Hong Kong bought the farm this trip because it can be stinking hot October and I have to dodge hot weather.
Plus we're out of time.

We can easily duck across to Hong Kong for a week next year.
Also because I discovered that I can take sleeping pills and bomb myself for several hours during long haul flights, thus making the Asian stopover less necessary.
HellBoy informs me that after about three Temaze, I can sleep with my head on my knees.

hmmm

Paris disqualified itself by being self important, smelly and full of pretentious fuckwits on cheesey romantic weekends.
In fact, Paris can bite me on the fuzz.

Just yesterday, both London (my fault) and Venice (Jeff's fault) made it back into the mix.

By 9:36 this morning, I had to place an urgent phone call, almost waking HellBoy up, to tell him to start mentally preparing for Vienna yet again.

"OK. Good."

Any other response would have surprised me from him.

Should I call him tomorrow and tell him I'd like to collect space shells on Mars, he'd give me the green light without missing a beat.
He knows how much I like shells.

Well, in case I haven't told you, we decided that we'd bring our next Euro jaunt forward a year or so to coincide with Dad's trip.
Jeff's brother, wife and daughter have also decided to join us.

But not for the whole thing.
They are keen to go to Paris and EuroDisney and to Italy.
We are not.

Mickey Mouse + Paris = SIMONE HELL.

Plus, Italian culture is too dominated by Christianity to hold my attention.
Poor Jesus is almost as over exposed in Italy as Mozart is in Austria.
At least Mozart was real though.
And he has chocolates named after him rather than wars.

We all but sprinted through the Italian Renaissance section in the Louvre earlier this year.
I remember hearing HellBoy say,

"Oh fuck me, not this guy again," while looking at some crucifixion pic or other.

Anyway, Italy...I gotta tell ya, it's enough with the Jesus already.
Talk about monomania.
I'm trying to imagine my reaction to the Vatican City, better known as JesusDisney.
Quite probably the only place that would let Paris off the hook for being the cuntiest city.

We are having a total of three nights alone(!) after spending time with Tone and Line in Berlin and then are going to re-trace the Tischler and Planinc family footsteps with Dad and Viv through sleepy Slovenia.
After that we meet up with Greg, Giulia and Yasmin in Venice.

At this stage, the itinerary is:


Germany
Berlin/Potsdam(4 nights with Tone)
Leipzig (1 night)
Dresden (2 nights)

Slovenia (meet Dad)
Celje (1 night) = birth town
Vitanje (2 nights) = home town
Ljubljana (2 nights)
Bled (2 nights)

Italy (meet Greg and Gules and Yazzie)
Venice (2 nights)

Austria
Vienna (3 nights)
Salzburg (3 nights)

Germany
Munich (5 nights) incl trips to Rothenberg and Inglostadt

UK
London (4 nights) - return visit to Lizzie's underpants.

Yes.
I think I feel better with that stored somewhere.
It'll be interesting to see how much it changes before I make final bookings.

So, this time next year, we'll be in Celje.

Of course, my only real concern is that Souths will take this opportunity to make the finals and force a very ugly decision on me.
Those bastards.

Breakfast of champions.

I love breakfast.

I love Europe.

I love that you often have breakfast twice when you're there, and that if you plan you day right (or not at all), you can often manage a third.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm