Not many people in this world have the kind of appreciation for animals that my family does. Not everyone can understand how a furry friend can be as much a part of the family as us humans. But for our family, they are. They are more than just a pet. They are a companion for life. And I don’t just refer to the time they share with us on this earth. They stay with us throughout our whole lives, never forgotten.

My sister’s baby from the start, my brother-in-law’s first companion of the non-human variety, mum and dad’s custody battle with my sister, my family’s first miniature-fox-terrier-turned-English-pointer, he was one of a kind.

After turning 67 (13 in human years) last week, our dear old friend Elmo died yesterday after a long illness. We loved him. He was part of our family. We will miss him so dearly.

We started out by catching the Eurostar to Paris and spent the day with Vi Anh and Catherine who had been there for a few days. We did our favourite-Paris-things-to-do and bought yummy eclairs and crepes. Then we found our overnight train to Venice. Note of warning to others wanting to do this - buy some dinner before hand as the food on board is crappy and runs out fast. We were pretty excited about the cool gadgets in the cabin of the train, but eventually we settled into some sleep. Of course, I was the only one who didn’t sleep very well. I felt a bit like the mother hen looking after her chickens! Or something…

Arrived in Venice (late) and set off to find some yummy Italian food. Oh did we find yummy food. Huge slices of pizza and a rolled up ball of cheese - with some bread hidden in there somewhere. Luckily Vi Anh saved the day with some lactose tablets so her and Kim could actually eat in Italy Venice was beautiful. Such a different place! While the girls were off shopping (a constant theme to this trip), Kim and I just got lost in the many streets next to the many canals. Visited St Marks Square via waterbus but unfortunately a strike the following day meant we couldn’t get to Murano. The heat was a bit of a shock for those of us currently living in London too!

After two days, we’d had enough of Venice - the place was full of tourists! So we hopped on our next overnight train to Rome. A few games of cards later and we settled down to a bit of a better night’s sleep (for me anyway). Arrived in Rome a bit sleep deprived and made our way to our gorgeous apartment right in the centre of Rome. A great find I must say and the owner/manager was so nice

We dumped our bags, had the best shower of our lives and set off for the Colosseum. Wow. Breathtaking. Remarkable. Huge! We decided to skip the queue with a tour guide (well worth it for €10). Inside was spectacular, though it was boiling hot! We were very glad we’d seen Gladiator too at that point!

As part of our entry to the Colosseum, we had entry and a guide to the Palatine Hill which overlooks the Roman Forum. Our guide was terrific and an Aussie We learnt all about the history of the Palatine Hill, the origin of the word Palace and of course the Roman Forum itself. I was just blown away by the amazing history of this place. It was mind blowing! I could go on, but then this post will be HUGE.

That night, we joined our Aussie friend for a night tour around Rome. We saw some beautiful churches (including the world’s smallest), the Trevi Fountain, the Pantheon (of which was another highlight for us - what a fantastic feat of engineering not to mention the sheer age of it!) and then onto Piazza Nouvre where there was a rally going on. Exhausted, we trekked home after another yummy dinner (though growing sick of pizza and pasta by this stage).

Next day we were up for a trip to Vatican City! How amazing this place was and we once again joined our Aussie friend who is such a history buff not to mention a huge fan of Michaelangelo. The museum’s, the sistine chapel, St Peter’s, St Peter’s dome from which is a pretty damn awesome view of Rome, Tombs of St Peter’s, some postcards home with Vatican City stamps and of course St Peter’s Square and sheesh - we’d conquered the Vatican! And as you might guess, we were pretty damn tired :S Nothing a gelati can’t fix though

Day 3 in Rome and the shops were to be hit! I guess that’s what happens when you travel with 18/20 year olds ey?! We made our way along the mile strip of shopping and eventually found ourselves at the Spanish steps which wasn’t all that spectacular really. Off again to our next destination and to see Catherine off back to Paris.

We caught a train down to Naples and then a suburban train to Sorrento. When we got there, low and behold, our accommodation had closed and the buzzer/phone thingy was going through to a message (in Italian of course). After asking some locals, I tried to call them on a mobile number. No answer. So we figured we should try and find somewhere else to sleep for the night! We stopped into one place and the guy said €150 for the night. We said thanks, but no thanks. Onto the public phones (after being rudely told by a local shop that no, I couldn’t use his phone even if I did pay him), to call some other hotels and beg for a bed or 3. With the cost of accommodation in this place up around €250 a night, at one point I was telling one of them that 3 of us didn’t mind sleeping in a king size bed together So what do you do in this situation? Go back to the cheapest one and beg! So we did and I negotiated him down to €120 for the night. We were just about to hand over the cash when I get a call from our original accommodation place who was apologising profusely and saying the key was left in the pot plant the whole time for us! Dammit! So we left the hotel we were begging at only to hear the guy say ‘if you come back, we have no beds’ very rudely. Next time we’ll check the pot plant.

Sorrento is your typical resort town with far too many tourists. Though the coast was absolutely beautiful. The first day we went to Pompei - how amazing was that!? A whole city frozen in time! And the brothel is still standing with pictures advertising what the customers would get! Not to mention the place was run by the government - what the!? Absolutely brilliant place though - highly recommended.

Following day we took a bus down to Amalfi. And how beautiful was the scenery!? Only problem was that we all felt so sick by the time we got there from the winding roads and crazy bus driver that we didn’t really feel like sight seeing! But we hung around for a gelati and then went back to Sorrento for some more shopping. Shops open til 10.30pm - how cool is that?

The next day, our last day, we caught a ferry to Naples, got yelled at by a taxi driver because we didn’t want a ride with him, then made our way to the train station only to find all trains to Rome were delayed by about 2 hours. We made the best of it and played card games, much to the delight of some locals (strangely). Got back to Rome, then to the airport and finally arrived back home in London at 2am. And yes, unfortunately we had to work the next day.

An exhausting but thoroughly enjoyable trip! It was great to have Vi Anh and Catherine with us too - we’ve never known anyone to shop quite that much only to do it all over again 3 days in a row in London too! Impressive! Now… where to for the next trip?

One interesting fact you might not know about, Southend is home to the world’s largest pleasure pier - a whopping 2.158km in length. Ok, so not very interesting after all, but this place is fabulous! Think of those scary movies where the villain is lurking below the pier and the carnival rides in the background. I swear the directors of those films have been to Southend. We walked the plank… er… pier right to the end and got the funky train ride back.

They also have pretty impressive Rossi Ice Cream too… yummo. So anyway - don’t say we aren’t exploring Britain, we went to Southend-on-Sea!

We spent the Sunday with my family and thanks to our taxi driver, we spent Monday and Tuesday with Kim’s family. After a dentist appointment, a trip to Springvale to see the grandparents, a trip to Blackburn to see an Aunt and Uncle and visits locally to see other Aunts/Uncles and others, we were getting tired, but managed to squeeze in a suit fitting and some yummy dinners

Off to Ben’s house for the next few days and we picked up our wedding photo’s and video! Spent the next day with Ben, Ang, Chris and Josh and then caught up with some work friends in the city on Friday night!

Hamish and Vio’s wedding was fantastic on Saturday, even if the priests showed up nearly 2 hours late. Reception was great and although we were getting tired, we loved the time spent with the uni mates.

On our (sadly) last day, we went to say bye to Kim’s family, then dinner with my extended family. Said our goodbyes one-by-one which was very stressful! Chris, Ang and Josh were at the airport with us and we all checked in for our flights. Again, one-by-one goodbyes are not good and I bawled my eyes out each time! *sigh* back to London for now, but now I have my ‘fix’ of family to keep me going!

A much better flight with BA this time (maybe because we departed from Terminal 4, not 5), we arrived late and had a lazy morning in our flash hotel. We then took a walk down to Las Ramblas and saw all the birds being sold on the street. Cruel if you ask me - they were cooped up in tiny little cages We also saw absolutely beautiful fresh flowers for sale (like everywhere else in Europe, it seems, the colours are just so bold and amazing).

We then headed to Mercat de la Boqueria. A fantastic market full of fresh food, we soon found something to eat for lunch and then guzzled not 1, but 2 freshly squeezed juices - yummo. We then wandered down the remainder of Las Ramblas until we saw a couple doing the Tango - busker style. It was nice to sit down and watch for a while! We then walked down to the beach where we decided if we finish our walk or go back to the hotel for a nice massage and swim… the hotel won

We indulged in our massage and then got dressed for dinner. We went back to where we left off and found a Tapas place for dinner (when in Rome…), but we weren’t overly impressed with it. We then decided to go see the Agbar Tower, given it would be lit up well at night. It was quite impressive! By this stage, it was almost ‘last train’ time, so we headed back to the hotel.

Next day, we were up and ready to explore again at a reasonable hour. We headed for the Parc de Montjuic and we walked around it all day! We saw the Olympic stadium and then finally found our way to an 18th century fortress with the most spectacular views of Barcelona Harbour and the city itself. It was stunning and the weather perfectly matched the view.

We took the way-too-scary cable car down the mountain and then headed to the man-made beaches at Port Olympic. We waded through the water for a bit - mainly because I wanted to touch the Mediterranean. We sat down and admired the *cough* man made views. After realising I was seriously burnt already, we took off to find a place for dinner. Found a great seafood restaurant in Barceloneta and then rolled home

Next day, we checked out the Sagrada Familia, which was… ordinary (in our opinion!) and walked the streets, did some shopping, saw the Casa Batllo and headed back to London.

So it’s been a while since we (or let’s face it, I) have written a blog. So I’ll be a bit sneaky and back date it to something more relevant for the story

Flight home was great - almost an empty flight, so I got to lie down and get a great rest on the way home to Melbourne. Which was just as well, given I did get home and slept for 2 hours and up for a dress fitting for Beck’s wedding! Spent the day with Beck and got a great surprise (sorry Chris) when my sister showed up with Mum instead of Chris! Everyone was in on the surprise except me - not that I cared, it was awesome to see her!!

It wasn’t long until the wedding came around! Up rather early to get our hair and makeup done, things started moving quickly and before we knew it we were dressed to impressed. Beck looked stunning in her dress and her mum was just gorgeous rushing around in a mild panic!

The wedding was beautiful and we had photo’s taken at the church, Fitzroy gardens and the winery where they were married - before it poured down! We then had a break before the formalities, but they were soon after and we hit the dance floor.

The next day I spent some quality time with Mum and Dad before heading to Ben’s for a Monday of shopping (some serious stocking up of much needed Ozzie supplies) and breathing in the Melbourne atmosphere.

All over too quickly, I was back on a plane for a rather dull ride back to London…

My lovely in-laws are loving in every way, but when they were choosing our Christmas present I am not sure they had my best interests at heart. Opening the present, I felt that same feeling I had 6 years ago. The warm feeling of blood rushing away from my skull. The cold sweat beading off the top of my forehead. Feeling faint and needing to spew were the signs of love my in-laws showed me.

An obstacle course in the tree tops can’t be too bad, I kept telling myself, so off to Leeds Castle in Kent we go. The weather was cold with a few rain showers here and there, but nothing to stop us climbing the tree tops. After a few hours of waiting, we finally got a taste of what was to come. With only 2 safety cables and a LOOOONNNGG drop, I started to feel like I needed to piss every 5 minutes. After a few practice climbs the instructor said we were ready.
Ready is a word that can be misunderstood. I wasn’t ready to do any high tree tops - I was only ready to spoil one of the 2 pairs of jocks I brought with me.

Lucky for me there were a group of older women ahead of us that were taking their time, so it gave me some time to re-group. After waiting around we figured out why it was taking so long and it ended up that some of those women got up to the top and found themselves stricken with fear. They couldn’t go ahead with the Tarzan jump and had to turn back. Being a young male with lots of testosterone, I wasn’t going be put in the same category as old women. With a new goal in mind, I was ready. I will not and cannot be beaten by “senior citizens”. When it came to my turn, I climbed up the tree as fast as I could and when i got to the top, I did the one thing everyone who is scared of heights knows not to do. Looking down all proud and seeing how far everyone was down there, I realised that the only thing keeping me on this tree was 2 safety cables. First thought OH CRAP, second thought I will never call anyone a WUSS bag for not going ahead again. The next few thoughts… I can’t really say on this due to some readers being a bit young, but you can only imagine the creative words that came to my head.

At the end of each site is a zip line, which is basically a flying fox. You attach yourself on and whizz down the line and have to stop yourself when you reach the end. During our training the instructors tell us to start running before you hit the ground. This avoids falling flat on your butt in mud and bark. Phillipa seemed to always find herself facing the other direction whenever going down the zip line. Instead of using her feet to slow down, she was left to use her backside to slide through the mud.
One part of the course is called the Tarzan swing. This is a what some of the others called the leap of faith. You attach a cable to your harness and jump off the edge. On the other side there is an army net that you bounce off and once you stop bouncing off it, you have to climb to the top to get back up to the tree tops. Sounds easy until your standing on the edge looking down at how far up you are and realising that this is a stupid STUPID idea. After getting some courage and jumping off, the exciting rushing feeling stopped suddenly with a huge wedgie. The cries of pain as each male jumps off echos in my ears. Each guy checking his crown jewels and making sure he didn’t loose one of them while the belt strapped to keep you safe cuts off circulations to a vital organ. Watching each guy climb up the army net and finally feeling safe, they hold their crutch and the sympathy ohhh is heard from guys all around. I remember clearly screaming out to Phillipa: “if I can’t have children later I am blaming your sister and Mum”.

I would like to finish this post by thanking the wonderful in-laws. I know they are reading this and I know some bits of this they think are really funny but I am sure many parts of my body still a bit sore from my leap of faith and aren’t finding it funny at all.

How we love to travel by train! So much more comfortable, time efficient and guess what - it was on time! You only have to get there 30 minutes before departure (not an hour and 30 minutes). Ok, so enough about how great the transit was…

We found our hotel easily enough (Last Minute to the rescue on this one), though the area we stumbled through (thanks to Google maps) was a little dodgy to say the least! We decided to spend the whole day Saturday in Bruges - and what a great decision! The town was gorgeous, with the canals throughout the city, the chocolatier’s on every corner (and then some more) and the beautiful old buildings. Oh and then the swans - they were so big and beautiful! Of course Kim had to get as close to one as possible for a photo - and promptly removed himself from it’s vicinity when it woke up (hehe).
We spent the day seeing the sights: Begijnhof, Onze Lieve Vrouwkerk (where Michaelangelo’s Madonna and Child is), Markt, Belfort, City Hall and the Heilig Bloedbasiliek (where a drop of Jesus’ blood is - don’t get Kim started on that one). We and finished up with a gondola ride then mussels and fries for dinner . To top off a great day, there was an outdoor Eagles tribute band playing so we spent a while there singing along! They sounded astonishingly genuine and for a minute we were wondering if we had stumbled across the real thing! Until they started speaking Dutch!

The next day, we discovered some of Brussels. We were not entirely impressed at first, but then we discovered the places to see and our opinion of the place changed dramatically! The Royal Palace and gardens, Grand Place, Manneken Pin (we couldn’t believe how small the manequin pis was!) and Galeries St Hubert. All very beautiful and bustling with thousands of tourists.

We of course had to experience the Belgium waffle and found a great combination of both banana’s and strawberries with caramel sauce. Mmmmmm. Hey - when in Rome!!!

The weekend did not start out so great - we got caught up in the Heathow T5 disaster, ended up getting to Vienna 3 hours late and staying at an airport hotel - thanks for that BA.

But we woke up fresh and spent the day discovering Vienna. Such a beautiful place! The people were probably not the friendliest we have come across to date (everyone seemed angry), but I guess that happens in a city where there are more tourists than locals. After going on a wild goose chase looking for none other than a simple map of the city, we were on our way . We started at St Stephen’s Cathedral (Stephansdom) and walked around the gorgeous streets to the Hasburg Palace. We spent some time wandering through here and taking some photos until we reached the Natural History Museum. From there, we found the Sigmund Freud Museum and spent some time in there. Interesting additions to his display cabinets we thought! But very Freud afterall.

After that, the late night caught up on us, so we headed for our hotel for a nana nap. Woke up and it was dark, so we decided to see the rest of the city in the dark (hey - it worked well in Berlin!). So we did! We did the ‘circle’ and followed the tram line around the old city. It was beautiful at night time - the photo’s turned out awesome too! Parliament and City Hall were gorgeous all lit up!

Next day, we got up early and hopped on a train to Linz. I let the family know we were coming and hey presto - we got off the train and they were waiting for us!! We had bought little Oli a Paddington Bear from London - we think he liked it . We met Fritz, Susi and Josefine and had a coffee. It was great to finally meet them!

Then we were off for a walk through Linz with Josefine and Fritz. Luckily Fritz speaks great English, so he was able to translate for us the whole time. As if we’d planned it, we ran into Fritz’s son, Christopher and his mum. So we walked with them for a while. We got to the city centre and a regimental parade was just starting (they must have heard we were in town). We saw the Danube and Plague Column, then we met up with Fritz’s sister and brother-in-law. Then we were off to Saxen where Fritz and Susi live where we met Susi’s parents and the kids.

Next day, after much confusion about daylight savings and the time, Fritz met us and Josefine for breakfast. We then caught a train to Donarch where we had a coffee and went for a lovely walk! But then Fritz realised we were most likely lost and asked Susi to come and pick us up! (Josefine is such a fit woman!)

So we went on a beautiful drive to another little town where we had lunch on the top of a hill. What a gorgeous view! And lunch wasn’t so bad either. Schnitzel the obvious choice for Kim and I, Josefine tucked in to a mammoth dish fit for a queen!

Back to Fritz’s house and we spent the afternoon in the sunshine watching Oli have fun in his playpen (that was described as being ‘good for dogs, cats and Olivers’). Then Susi very kindly took us to the airport and we said our goodbyes . It was a great weekend though and it was so beautiful in those little towns! Can’t wait to go back!