Hi All,

Well we finally have this journal thing up and running so hopefully you will receive more regular updates from us! Photos will be uploaded soon too!

Wow, where to begin, it has been an amazing 3 weeks so far!

After leaving Perth on the 28th April, we arrived in KL. The humidity was high and we were instantly sweating! The first night we spent hours walking around trying to get to the twin towers, everywhere we walked they seemed to be back behind us. 2 massive shining towers, you would think they would be easy to get to! We caught the monorail around the city and went to the markets on the second day. Tenneille was out of action with a stomach bug for about 15 hours.

We awoke at around 9:30am on the 30th and went to the airport for our flight to London!!! Very excited we didn't sleep at all on the 14 hour flight! We know Air Asia is a budget airline but when the portable movie players ran out of batteries after only about 5 hours (and no backup batteries) we were left to play card games, decide what to eat off the interesting menu options and of course talk about our excitement! We arrived at Stansted airport at 11pm London time. By the time we caught the train into London Bridge and somehow found our way to the hostel by foot it was about 2:30am... By this stage we were already thinking of what we could ditch out of our backpacks because they were too heavy!

Our first hostel experience was at St Christophers Inn, London Bridge. After a few hours sleep, we got up to explore the sights. The tube tickets seemed expensive so we decided to walk to the city centre and checked out Trafalgar Square, Piccadily and eventually got to Oxford Street. It was like walking on a Monopoly board! The weather in London was absolutely freezing! We were definitely not prepared for it!

Sunday (2/5) was a relatively quiet day after a big night on the Saturday!

Monday (3/5) was a bank holiday in London so all of the shops were closed but we decided to do the free walking tour. Our tour guide Marcel was an eccentric, funny guy with a lot of historical knowledge! Very amusing! We started at Hyde Park and went to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guards, saw Big Ben, Parliament House,Trafalgar Square, Nelsons Monument, Downing Street, Pall Mall, West Minster Abbey and much more! It was sooooo cold!!! At one stage it started hailing and we thought it was going to snow but we survived!

Tuesday (4/5) a day for exploring the city shops!

Wednesday (5/5) we went to Brick Lane for dinner. It's a popular Indian strip, kind of like Lygon Street in Melbourne but with Indian food. We bargained 30% off the bill and free papadams! The food was amazing!!!

Thursday (6/5) the sun was finally shining! It was a lovely day to walk along the river Thames and take pictures of the Tower bridge! We also went and did the Tower of London which had a guided tour and some of the things to see in there were incredible!

There was so much to do in London, luckily we will be going back there at some stage. If we hadn't already booked our flight out of London for the 7th I'm sure we would have stayed longer and probably spent a lot more money!

We set our alarms for 3am on the Friday (7/5) morning and we had to catch the 3:30am train to the airport to get our flight at 6:10am to Paris. We almost missed the train to the airport after going to the wrong platform, running across from platform 6 to 16 in 2 minutes with our backpacks on was not easy. Here we were breathing sighs of relief that we got the train, we were now on our way to paris... Well almost! For some reason we had Gatwick airport in our heads so when we arrived there and couldn't find where to check in for flights to Paris we went up and asked a very amused airport staff member who advised us that we needed to be at Lutin airport! It was going to take 2 hours to get to Lutin airport which would have been too late and to change our flight to a later time that day was going to cost more than the flight itself so we sat in the airport and decided to look at other destinations.

Belgium was soon decided on and we booked our 8 hour bus ride to Brussels! The bus ride was quite nice. Driving through the outer parts of London, seeing all the fields and old houses. We crossed the French border, where the bus was carried on a train carriage through the channel tunnel. Once we were on the other side, driving through France was lovely. Very picturesque! We arrived in Brussels at about 6pm and it was the first time we noticed a little bit of a culture shock. Most people spoke French or Flemish. Without a hostel booked we walked towards the city centre and found 2GO4. They had 2 beds left, in the basement room which actually worked out really good, it was quiet and dark, perfect conditions for a good night sleep!

Saturday (8/5) we had a nice sleep in and then went out to explore the city. You could pretty much walk everywhere as the town was quite small. Out in the streets there were little vendors selling fresh seafood with a glass of champagne, it had a really nice vibe! We got our first great coffee of the trip (London coffee was really bad). That afternoon we walked to the Cantillon Brewery. It is the oldest traditional brewery still operating in Belgium. The beer is fermented in wooden barrels over 3 years! We did the tour and then of couse the tastings! The beer was called Gueze and it was very sour tasting but actually very nice!

Sunday (9/5) a bit of a shaky start due to a little too much tequila the night before! We went to the markets and then walked around from one end of the city to the other admiring the beautiful buildings. There was a small street festival on and we also went and saw the 'Pissing Boy Statue'. After tasting a local Belgium Waffle (Yumm) we caught the train to Bruges.

Immediatly we knew Bruges was an amazing place! It is like walking around a medievel town in a fairytale! We stayed at st Christophers Inn.

Monday (10/5) we hired bikes and rode to the city centre. Just walking around the city was absolutely stunning! We climbed the 366 stepd to the top of the Belfry for a panoramic view of the city and then went on a canal boat ride. You could take a photo of everywhere you looked but photos and words cannot describe what this place is like!! We went into the cathedral adn although we are not particularly religious people this place was magic! Walking around, admiring the amazing artwork sent chills through our bodies! Also in the cathedral is the only Michaelangelo work outside of Italy, the Madonna statue.

Tuesday (11/5) we took the train from Bruges to Antwerp. Antwerp was to be our first ever couchsurfing experience - and we didn't really know what to expect out of it...and probably didn't arrive in the best frame of mind for socialising after a rather large night out in Brugge...social retardedness aside, we arrived at Villa Sigrid to be welcomed by the ever hospitable and welcoming inhabitants - Anton & Inge, Nils, Wannes and Wout. It was a home away from home, just like Jimballs - big share house with loads of people coming in and out and such a good vibe to the place! To put it into perspective we came intending to stay just 2 nights, but stayed for 5 and had some amazingly wicked times with our hosts. Our first night in Antwerpen was quiet - Inge made dinner and we all ate and drank a few bottles of wine, shared stories and laughs before calling it a night fairly early.

Wednesday (12/5) was Nils last day of unemployment and he decided to take us out and show us some of his favourite cafes and hang outs. Which led us to ZeeZicht - a cafe/pub/bar with a laidback atmosphere and funky clientele. Armed with a list of "must try" Belgian Beer and Trappist's, we set down to tick off as many from the list as possible (which is quite a feat considering these beers alcohol percentage range from 6-12%!!). We then moved onto a reggae bar and met up with Inge and Tinne before heading to the markt for a free festival (put on by Amnesty International). But it was bloody cold - bloody cold!!! Fairly quiet night, even considering we stopped off at another bar before heading home.

Thursday (13/5) we caught up on zzzz's...slept very, very, very late and just bummed about for most of it. Planned on heading out for a big night but after going to ZeeZicht for one, we ate some very fatty, fried food found ourselves meandering back to the house and veging out.

Friday (14/5) we finally got ourselves out and about to do some sightseeing! Caught a tram into the city centre and walked about window shopping for a bit. Headed to the Kathedral (where they house a lot of Reubens work) and had a looksee - which was also stunning, but didn't bring the chills like the Church in Bruges did. On our way towards the river and Castle we found St Pieters church - which was a really old building that is now in ruins - very cool! And there was also an unmarked grave laid and memorial for the Unknown Refugee - that definitely did bring chills. We finally made it to the river and found the Castle - snap happy with the camera and there are loads of photos! There's also this passenger tunnel that goes underneath the river to the other side - madness!!! After all that walking, we were a bit parched and made out way to an Irish pub to quench our thirst. With a newfound appreciation for beer we both started on a Leffe brown - yum! before heading back to Villa Sigrid and cooking for our wonderful hosts. Ate late, but lined our stomachs well before heading out to dance the night away to some wicked beats, with an awesome group of people at Cafe d'Anvers, in the red light district. very cool!

Saturday (15/5) didn't see alot action...after a big night rocking it out we were both a little exhausted and sorted and finalised our plans for the next leg of world domination - Amsterdam!

Sunday (16/5) caught the train from Antwerpen to Amsterdam. A quick 2 hour train journey found us in Sin City ... whoa. Craziness abounds!!! After finally locating our hostel (due to some extremely crappy directions and looking for a street that does not seem to exist!!) we decided to check out our latest destination. Located in the heart of the red light district, we walked out of the hostel to find a barrage of ladies in windows (24/7), peep shows, live sex shows, coffeshops and more! Although nobody ever told mentioned the rubbish! It just lines the canals and street verges, and whilst a little confronting at first, we did get used to it. Didn't do much, just tried to adjust to our new surroundings...

Monday (17/05) Unfortunately we got stuck in our hostel room (yes stuck!!) until almost 3pm so not a lot to report from day 1 scenic wise. Although it was still a day well spent, as we went for a coffee armed with our lonely planet guide and decided to look at where to next...

And after such a laidback cruisy day, we decided to head out on the pub crawl - run by a couple of aussie lads (of course it was!). Free vodka shots for the first half an hour. Enough said.

Tuesday (18/05) and now we are up to date. Today has been semi-productive...not a lot of sight seeing or cultural gratification, however as of today we have booked ourselves a seat on a bus departing Amsterdam on Friday bound for Berlin and after a further 5 days in Berlin we head to .... Stockholm! Yeeeah, Sweden here we come! And tomorrow we plan on doing a walking tour, hope the weather holds out - we could do with some sunshine and warmth!

Ciao for now!

Tenylie xxx