Right now I’m sitting in an internet cafe in Rome trying to convert AUD to EURO which is surprisingly difficult. Well, when your maths level reels at anything more complicated than plus or multiply. It’s all good though as I’m transferring money to Tali so a few ‘convenient’ mistakes may occur.

The last two weeks have flown by and updating the blog has been really hard as there aren’t as many internet cafes in Europe, and Tali and I have been busy sight seeing and eating, excessively. In London we were lucky enough to have free accomodation from our friend and as a result London wasn’t too taxing on the funds. But landing in Rome was an absolute punch in the guts. The first night we stayed at a hotel we had pre booked on Hostel World and it was a dump. We paid 50 euros for a shoe box of a room without a toilet. The springs were poking up through the mattress and the pillow was as flat as a pancake. It was worse than most of the places I stayed at in Nepal/India where it cost me as little as $1.60 per night.

At 3am, aching all over and furious at my inability to sleep in this overpriced crap hole, I declared we were leaving first thing in the morning. I managed to drag Tali out of bed kicking and screaming (literally) at about 10.30 and we spent the next 3 hours trolling the streets conjuring up all kinds of foul words at each other as we searched for a new hotel. Both of us lack any sense of direction and blame the other when we get hopelessly lost. We finally found a awesome little hotel with a nice old Italian man and it has been all good since.

So I don’t know why I have spent two paragraphs explaining how expensive Rome is when I could be telling you all about the Colossseum, the Vatican, the Pantheon and heaps of other really old stuff. I’m sure you know all about them though - yes it’s all beautiful and we had an incredible time. I reckon art is pretty boring so much of it is wasted on me and 5 minutes in an art gallery looking at 16th century religious paintings makes me impossibly tired. 

In London we spent 30 minutes at the British museum and then we left. We got there one hour before it closed and worried we wouldn’t have enough time, but after seeing a few clay pots and figurines it all looks the same. We had been told to see the Magna Carta which is supposed to be a momentous piece of history so as we were browsing the isles we were both saying “we’ve got to see the Magna Carta” and both pretending we were interested. After a while I turned to Tali and said “do you even know what the Magna Carta is?” She burst out laughing and said no and I admitted I didn’t know either so we got the hell out of there (sorry Emma!). Neither of us are history buffs or art critics but we’ve had a lot of fun nonetheless.

 I have to admit though St. Peters gobsmacked me. Wow. It is the most impressive thing my eyes have ever seen and the amount of statues (statue bro) artworks, pillars, gold, other big things, surely must make it man’s greatest architectural achievement.

The highlight of Rome has been the food and wine and much of our time here has been spent devouring exorbitant amounts of it.  

London was awesome too and we did some sightseeing, caught up with a few friends and had a big night out at Fabric (a big London club). I don’t really know what else to say about it. I’m horrible at relaying past events.

I don’t think I’ll update the rest of India as I want to tell the stories from there first hand to all of you when I get back (sorry Mark!!!) plus I’m just lazy. My burst of enthusiam has burst. Like many things I do, I get excited at the start and then suddenly lose momentum. I’ll try and keep the blog updated every now and again but it’s getting harder and harder because I’m getting into the travelling groove.

Anyway, hope everyone is well at home and send me emails to my hotmail and I’ll write back!