poor sad amplemann

Kate, you would probably remember the time i tried to make pretzels to bring to uni a few years back (they were so salty you couldnt eat them - think seinfeld episode). from that experience you would know that i am not a very good cook. strangely enough i thought i wanted to be a cook a few years back. i even took a tafe class in y11

well, tonight while watching rove i got some inspiration to make some chocolate biscuits.
when i was in germany i bought some cookie cutters in the shape of the ampelmen and i planned to use them tonight.

what is an ampelmann you ask?
in the old east part of germany the traffic lights have these cool little men on them. the governmen tried to get rid off them back in 1989 when the wall came down but they have gained a kind of cult status and there were protests. there is even a shop now that only sells ampelmann products, including ampelmann gummy bears.


thats cute isnt it.

so i tried to make some biscuits in these shapes. i used the recipe that i have used over and over to make cut out biscuits, but tonight something went horribly wrong.
the only thing i think i did differnnt was to use the electric mixer to mix all the ingredients together. this made the dough very sticky.

so it took me a really long time to get the cut out biscuits onto the tray and into the oven because they were so soft and sticky.
then i went back to watching rove

15 mins later i went to check on my creations. they had somehow expanded and looked more like michielen men than ampelmen! what a creul fate.

i had planned to take these biscuits to my cousins hair dressing shop tomorrow when i go to get my hair cut. She always has some biscuits for the customers to eat that my grandma makes for her so i thought it would be cute to have some ampelmen too, but i dont think these cookies are going anywhere. they would be too ashamed.

poor bloated ampelmen. i will take you to a place where you will be appreciated for what you are and not what you look like. you will find a good home in my stomache. noone will judge you there.

strange things people talk about

Kate mentioned on her site about the conversation she overheard at the supermarket about yuppie 20 somethings.

Right now i am sitting in the computer room at uni trying to kill the time between my two classes i have today (my timetable sucks - 2 hour break in the middle of the day on monday and then 6.5 hour break on tuesdays) 

Anyway, the 2 guys next to me, probably in early 20's, are spending their time discussing the vintages and qualities of expensive wine. The only thing i know about wine is if it is red or white!  I thought only people my dads age actually cared about what kind of wine they drank. Personally, i think the $5 stuff tastes just as good at the $30 stuff

But on the topic of alcohol, whilst in the Czech Republic i picked myself up a bottle of Absynthe. 70% alcohol content! Aparently you drink it with ice cold water drizzled over a slotted spoon with a sugar cube..... I think i might hold on to it till Kristy's cocktail party in a few weeks. I bought duty free vodka too and i think that will tide me over for a while

home again!

well i am home safe and sound. after over 25 hours in the plane i need a good sleep. but there is no rest for the wicked. tomorrow morning there is a rotary orientation day that i have to attend so i have no chance to sleep in at all!

ever since i got home at 5pm (flight arrived at 3pm, took over 1 hour to get through customs and baggage claim and then 1 hour home in the car) i have been pretty busy unpacking, showing all the photos to mum and dad, giving them their souviners etc, so i have not sat down for long. i gave my family this cool board game called carcassonne (thanks josh and emily for the recommendation, i found the rules in english on the web) and have played quite a few rounds with mum. i wll tell you more about it soon

i promise that when i get the chance i will put up all the good photos on this site and i will complete the missing information for the last weeks worth of posts. (even though some critics rather i post in the short way.... i guess writing this diary is just as much for me to rember exactly what i did on my trip and it was for you guys to keep up to date. so too bad i will continue to write it all up in long format!)

well now it is time for some hard earned rest

day 29 + 30

plane to australia!!!

day 28

shopping in berlin (in the rain of course)
beer garden with josh, emily, ulf, claudia, boris, anya for final goodbyes

day 27

leipzig with josh and emily
then back to berlin in the evening

day 26

sight seeing in prague
then train to leipzig in the evening

day 25

sightseeing in prague

day 24

to prague

day 23

day trip to cinderellas castle
''neushwanstein¨

day 22

sightseeing in regensburg
boat trip down the danube
 

Day 21

Day trip to Munich

Day 20

Regensburg

Day 19

Amsterdam

My two new American friends, Lyn and Emily, joined me on another trip out of Amsterdam. We hadnt really decided where we should go, so when we got to the train station we decided by which train arrived first. What we did know was we wanted to somewhere where we could taste Dutch cheese.

SO we set out for Utrect. The lady at teh info counter said that this was a nice town with lots of young people because of eth university. It was verz nice. It also had canals like Amsterdam but they were set deeper into teh ground with space for Cafes beside them. We had brought some lunch with us (rolls from breakfast) and tried to eat them at one of the tables beside teh canals but we got told off, even though i had ordered a drink...

Later we walked around looking at teh shops and old buidlings. I found teh most gorgeous jewellery shop with exactly the necklace i have been looking for. It was a tad pricey, but i had to buy it. it is difficult to describe, but its shells set in resin all in a row.., i should take a photos and put it up, but i will show you when i get back.

at teh instruction of the jewellery shop assistant, we set off for Gouda (the cheese) which was a 30 min train ride away. the station didnt look very promising and we couldnt find teh toursit info counter and were about to give up when someone directed us to the town centre.
night train to Munich

Day 18

Amsterdam

due to the late night the night before, I didn't actually get out of my hostel till around 12pm. Not really sure what I wanted to do, I set out for the train station and picked up a tour brochure. I knew I didn't want to waste my money on a group tour seeing I had a valid train ticket for the day, I got some inspiration and headed to The Hague.

Near the Hague is a minature Dutch village called Marudam. I knew it would be kitsch but you need a little bit of that when you are on holiday in a foreign country. And I knew I didn't want to stay in Amsterdam for the day. So I chose the mini village.

It was actually very well made. And huge. It was a good way to see all of Holland without having to walk to far. But I was the only person who was not there with kids I think.

Also inside the village was a photography exhibition for some reason, and it was really good. Have some inspiration to take good photos now, but with my lack of artistic talent it wont go far.

after staying there for quite a few hours, had a snack of Dutch chips with Mayo for dinner and then headed back to my hostel for a nap. I hadn't really met the other girls in my room so we chatted until really late. We were hanging out for it to get dark so we could take some good night shots of the town and red light district, but it didnt get dark here till past 11.30pm! And it was raining!

we ventured out at around 12am but the rain made it pretty miserable and I didn't take any photos at all.

I made plans with two of the American girls in my room to go sightseeing together the next day so we all went home to sleep after that so we could wake up early.

Day 17

Most of today I spent on the train. The train finally pulled into Amsterdam at 1pm and I set off to try and find my hostel.

The Bulldog wasn't too hard to find. I bought a map on the way out of the station and after going the wrong way only once I found it next to a canal. I wasn't able to check in until 3pm so I left my bag there and set off in search of interesting sights.

of course it was still raining (as it has been everyday) but that didn't stop me walked all over the place. There wasn't that many places that I really wanted to go to but it was good to just walk around and get my bearings.

I took lots of photos of the canals and canal houses and then finally finished off at the Anne Frank House. The line was really long but I decided to wait. It cost 7 Euro to get in! It seems that museums here are really really expensive compared to Germany.
But it was worth it. It was really interesting, I even bought a copy of her book in Japanese so I have something to read on the train that will take a lot of time up.

I went back to the hotel and then chilled out for a while. There was no use going into any other coffee shops, the smell was all around you. It was actually starting to make me feel a little bit sick.

but I decided I couldn't stay in the hotel all night so I went out into the red light district in search of something to do. I found a pub that had lots of people and made some friends from Norway. Its funny that when you are in another country you seem to meet more people from a completely different country more than the native folk. Drank lots of Dutch beer and it was really late when I got back to my room.

Day 16

When we woke up and got in the car to go and find breakfast, we realized that the town we had chosen to stay in was actually only 10 mins out of Strasbourg, the town we were aiming for.

We parked the car what seemed a long way away and then walked in to find some breakfast. French style with a coisant. Very yummy.

next we walked around the town, looked at the old church etc. Strasbourg is located on an island between a big river so the ground is not very solid. The church was originally supposed to have two spires, but when they tried to build the second one they realized that it would cause the church to topple over and abandoned that idea.

next we moved the car to a free parking spot and went to visit the "little France" section of Strasbourg. It is really beautiful. Little canals and cute little houses. Like a postcard really. We took so many photos

when we had gotten sick of France, we decided to move on to Baden Baden in Germany. We took the scenic route and stopped for lunch in a traditional German pub. German food is way too big. I couldn't finish what I had ordered and neither could Suma. He had even asked for his to be half sized!

Baden Baden is a spa town located in the Black Forest. We went to the big spa there which cost about $15 for 2 hours but it was worth it. Really relaxing. They had lots of different kinds of spas, hot, cold etc and saunas etc. Bit like an onsen in Japan.

it was still early and the rain had stopped so we quickly walked around the town but it was late enough for everything to be already closed. So it was on to the next place

I had been thinking about going to Heidelberg on another day so we decided that it was kind of on the way to where we were both going the next day and we set out for it.
even though it was now late, around 9pm, the castle was still open and we could go up and walk around the grounds there. If we had stayed later still it would have been illuminated but at 9pm it is still pretty light. The view from the castle ruins down onto the city was really cool. I will have to come back another day to explore it I think

by now it was pretty late but we didn't have anywhere to stay. We called a few places from the lonely planet and some numbers we found at the station, but no luck.
in the end we had to stay at an ibis hotel (business hotel) which was a bit more expensive than planned but there was no other choice. We actually got their last room!

my train to Amsterdam was leaving at 8am so I had to be up early, and it was still raining outside so we gave up on any ideas to go out on the town. We hadn't eaten dinner either, but we had bought a whole lot of fruit earlier in the day and ate that instead.

Day 15

Only in Europe can you visit 3countries in 1 day!

I took the train from Yara's town to a town on the German/Luxembourg border called Trier to meet up wit Suma, a friend from Japan who is out here on a business trip.
I got there around 12pm and of course it was raining

Suma was getting a hire car through work so we went and picked that up and ten went to and find some lunch

Trier is an ancient town. It has roman ruins from I don't know how long ago. It was amazing. We bought a ticket that let us into most of the interesting sights. The Porte Nigra, the amphitheatre, the roman baths etc. It was really amazing. I will put photos up eventually I promise

we then got back in the car and started on our journey through 3 countries. We drove along side the Mossel river (yes, after the wine) into Luxembourg and then continued down to the part of France called Alsace, or the Lorraine area (after the quiche). We passed through amazing scenery, fields, small villages. It was beautiful. Finally we found a small town with a restaurant and got some dinner

We still had no idea where we would stay for the night and passed through lots of towns until we found a great little hotel that only cost 50 Euro for the night for both of us. Lucky I think. I was getting a little worried about where we would stay.

it was about 10.30 by the time we arrived at the hotel so it was time for bed, and anyway there is not much happening in small French villages. I did go outside and take some photos of the illuminated church though. The country at night is great.

Day 14

yara's house

yara lives about 20 mins by car out of a city called Dusseldorf. Her village is pretty small but it has character
in the morning after breakfast we went to the market in the town square to buy food for dinner, bread, cheese etc. I wish we ad a market in croydon. Almost every village in Germany seems to have their own little market.

in Dusseldorf we stopped off at a sports shop I have decided that the souvenir I want from Germany is a bike top like the ones the Germans are wearing on tour de France at the moment. But no luck they were sold out of the bright pink ones that they are wearing this season.

after that we got in the car and drove to the television tower to get a view of the city. It makes it a lot easier to get your orientation when you have seen the city from above. I think this tower also had a revolving restaurant in it too - seems to be the things they do here.

after that we were lucky the rain had stopped and we wandered along the river banks toward the old part of the city where we met up with yara's mum for lunch. Then we went on a bit of a tour of the city by car (raining again) and then visited a nice park. It wasn't a really eventful day but it was nice to relax.

back at home I did some internetting while yara went off to volleyball training. And checked out the trains I would need to catch the next day

dinner was huge lots of different little things to try some German specialties like sausage and some more conventional things. I bought yaras family a bottle of Australian wine for a present.

after dinner I was so full. The weather had finally cleared up and it was beautiful weather. We sat out on the balcony and relaxed and then watched some tour de France on TV. I had to get the train at 8am so I didn't stay up too late.

Day 13

I woke up nice and early so I wouldn't miss my train. Actually so early that I was in time to catch the train 1 hour before the one I was planning to catch. This earlier train was running a bit late too so it helped.

breakfast was the same as the day before, buffet with bread, yogurt and hot chocolate. Strange combination but did the job.

I took the subway to the main station and waited till the delayed train came and jumped on. It is so easy with this German rail pass. All I have to do is fill in the date I will travel in a box on the ticket and then I can take any train I want. I am not sure if this included subways etc but I haven't had my ticket checked on them yet. And if it isn't right then I just play the dumb foreigner trick

the train arrived in Bremen 1 hour later and I headed to the old section of town to start my own tour. This place is exactly what I imaged a traditional German town to be like. Cobble stone roads, marketplaces, old style buildings, beautiful. I will put some pictures up soon.

checked out all the old buildings and streets. Paid my $1 to climb the church spire, another $1 to get into the cellar area where for some reason they have mummified corpses...

around lunch time I get a call from suma trying to sort out our plans for the next few day. Very complicated but I am glad I have my mobile working now so I can keep in touch with him.

this is how it is going to work now.
on Friday I will meet him in trier
we will spend the fridaythere and probably stay in that area
Saturday we will continue to perhaps Strasbourg and then at night I will take a night train back up to Amsterdam
stay in Amsterdam Sunday and Monday
go to either bamberg or Heidelberg on the Tuesday
arrive regensburg on Wednesday

but we will see. I have a feeling everything will change again, but I don't think I can change my hostel bookings in Amsterdam another time.

after that phone call I went o the becks brewery across the river. When I got there a tour had just started, but it was in German. The English tour would start until 1.30 but that would have been too late for me to catch my train to yara's house at 2.47

so I convinced the tour guide to let me join in. She spoke perfect English and didn't mind. The first stop of the tour was the bar. I like this idea. At the carlsurb factory in Copenhagen that was the last stop. Here I met up with a family, actually the teacher in charge of the group I had gate crashed, and his wife and daughter. The daughter was actually an ex-rotary exchange student to Australia so we got talking and they helped me to undertsnad what the tour was about.

the tour ended in the bar again where we got to taste test 2 more beers. I was worried that I might still miss my train so the family I met offered me a lift to the station. They wanted to escape anyway because the father felt funny drinking with his students.
we have exchanged emails so if they ever come to Australia I can repay the favor.

on the train again, I made it in time thanks to my new friends. In my carriage were an Australian couple who I chatted to for a while. They had gotten their bags stolen in Copenhagen only a few days before. No travel insurance. Silly people

I met yara at Essen station and then we traveled together back to her house.
the weather had been great all day but now it was raining quite hard so her mum picked us up from the station.

bother yara's parents can understand English, her mum more than her dad, but we got along well. yara has a younger sister who speaks just a little English

we went out to dinner at a German restaurant and I ate a traditional dish. It was so big I couldn't finish it. But even still afterwards we went to an icecream shop for dessert.

tomorrow we have big plans of sightseeing but it all depends on the weather
I have been able to do some of my washing here too so I hope that it will be sunny so it will dry before I leave on Friday morning.

Day 12

Hamburg

today I spent the whole day in Hamburg.
I promised the NZ guy that he could come sightseeing with me in the morning cause I had a guide book and he didn't. We decided to follow the walking tours set out in the lonely planet book and it worked out pretty well.

we started off by going to a big church where we could climb the tower and get a view of the town. Halfway up you could see the whole bell/clock mechanism and it was quite interesting

next we wandered around looking at all the old houses and buildings of the town.
even though the town was mainly destroyed in the war, a lot of it has been restored or saved and it quite amazing

there is one church however that was not saved, but now only the spire remains. They are keeping it that way as a remind of the horrors of war. Underneath it you can go down into the old cellars and they have set up an interesting display of pictures relating to the church and what it was like before and after.

later we walked down towards the port area. Hamburg has been a special port for Germany for many years and there are rows and rows of 7 storey brick warehouses backing onto the canals. We were able to go inside one of them which has been turned into a museum about the port area. It was quite good, and only cost $4 to get in

by now it was lunch time and we went back to the main shopping strip to get a feed. There was actually not much on offer so I ended up with fish and chips again. This one was actually much better than the one the night before, yet half the price.

in the arvo I decided to go off by myself and did a lot more wandering around the city sights. I then got on a train and headed to altona (no, not the town where Christine lives)

this area doesn't have much to see but it did have lots of nice shopping arcades and malls. I found a shop selling mobile phone sim cards for $20 with $15 credit so I got one but didn't have my mobile on me as I had left it back in the hostel. I was a bit worried it wouldn't work but the guy at the shop reassured me it would.

I walked back to the hostel (about 40 min walk) and tried it out and lo and behold, it didn't work. So I went back to the shop and it turns out I had forgotten to put the + symbol in correctly with the international phone numbers. Silly me.

but altona had a lot of nice places to eat so I stayed and had some Thai food. I had a few problems ordering because they called out your number in German when the food was ready but I didn't know what my number sounded like. Eventually I got my food and it was delicious, tom yum gai

wandering back to the hostel I considered going out to a pub to try and make friends, but I was going to catch the train to Bremen at 8am the next day and I thought it was time for bed.

Day 11

Today was my last day in Berlin for a while. I spent the morning trying to get in touch with Boris so I could meet him for lunch. He had been in Iceland for the last week so I hadn't been able to see him until today. I called his mobile many times but finally he called me back noticing the missed calls

after that I had to visit zoo station to get my eurail pass validated. I was told it was not worth reserving seats on the train as it was just a waste of money

Boris and I caught up in Friedrich strasse at 11am (seems to be where I meet everyone) and had a coffee in hackesher market and then lunch a little bit down the road. He says to say hi to all back in Melbourne!

I planned to catch the 4.30 train to Hamburg so I left him around 2pm and went back to the apartment to pick up my bags and say goodbye to Emily (josh had already left for uni in the morning)

the train was really good. Lots of leg space and not so many people, but I accidentally sat down in a smoking section and I was too lazy to move after I had unpacked everything. Lucky the trip was only around 2 hours.

my hostel was in the St Pauli area of Hamburg, renowned for its prostitutes but also large number of policemen....

it was a really good hostel but I had booked into a 6 bed room and when I arrived they told me that all the 6 bed rooms were fully booked and that I would have to pay another $5 per night to be upgraded to a 4 bed room. Not like on the airlines when they stuff up you get upgraded for free. I was a bit annoyed but they said I should have read the terms and conditions on the website, it apparently warned of this happening.

after checking in and settling in, I went for a wander through the St pauli area and the docks to find something for dinner. Most things were closed on a Monday night but I got some fish and chips in a small cafe facing the port.

Back in the hostel I sat in the bar reading my guide book and I met a guy from NZ/oz who was pretty much the only other native English speaker in the place. It was full of a school group of 15 y.o. German students so it was nice to talk to someone who could understand me.

about 11pm it was time to sleep. I have been trying to fit so much into each day I will probably collapse at the end of this holiday and need another holiday to get over it

mobile phone in germany

doing this on vey pricy hostel internet in hamburg so must be brief
new phone number is +49 1609 1875 179
sms me anytime

day 8 - 10

Copenhagen

our plane to copenhagen was leaving at 7am from eth opposite side of berlin. josh and emily's apartment is close to one airport (Tegal) but a pretty long way from the other (Shonefeld) which we needed to use for this flight.

so we had to wake up pretty early, around 4am. we took the train there and checked in. Easyjet, the airline we were flying with does not do designated seating so you have to line up. but they let you on eth plane in teh order that you checked in. 90 people had checked in before us, so we were worried about getting a seat together, but it all worked out in the end. the flight only lasted less than 1 hour.

we did so many things in copenhagen i think i will just list them instead of going into too much detail, or we will be here all day

day 8
arrive at copenhagen
walk through arcades
visit palace and churches
see nyhaven
see little mermaid
visit carlburg beer factory and drink beer
to hotel to check in
eat pizza for dinner and drink lots of beer

day 9
go to fredrickberg, thinking it was fredrickburg castle, but only finding a hill. strange danich language
take train to fredrickburg to see old castle
spend whole day at the castle
come back to city for dinner

day 10
go to tivoli (theme park) and go on heaps of rides
leave josh and emily to ride some more
visit christiania island to do some shopping
get a free bike to ride back to city centre
watch the street performers
meet up with josh and emily at station
train back to airport
plane back to berlin
arrive home at 12am

we had lots of fun, did way to much walking and got really wet everyday because all it did was rain the whole time we were there.
but it is a beautiful city and i would go back there again. josh and emily want to go back at christmas time they said.

Day 7

Until 2pm when I was meeting up with Anya, I didn't really have too many plans. So I decided to go for a walk. It turned out to be a pretty long walk too. I started at the apartment and then walked towards the station, but I overshot it by a street so I though why not walk to the next station? And then when I got to the next station I did the same.

I ended up near a nice river where there was a walking path along one side. It lead all the way to the parliament building. Just near there they had set up a mini beach with deck chairs and sand and a big screen to watch the soccer on.

I could see where I wanted to go from there, but as I tried to pass beside the parliament building a guard stopped me and told me I couldn't pass because "the president of Germany is working today". So I had to go around. But the way he directed me to go was a dead end. I wasn't sure how I was supposed to get out without back tracking about 3 kms. But there was a hole in the fence and I saw someone else go through it, so I did too.

in the morning I had booked my youth hostel in Hamburg, but I had forgotten to get a YHA card when I was back in oz, so I decided to try and find somewhere that they were sold. I went to STA travel, cause I thought they might sell them there, but no luck. However they did find the address of the place I needed to go to. It was quite a long way away, and it was raining so I jumped on a train.

I had bought a block of chocolate (Ritter sport is the best cheap chocolate here) and some guy sat down next to me looking at my chocolate bar. I think he wanted some but I wasn't going to give it up. Then he tried to talk to me and of course I cant understand a word he says. They he tries in English, asks me where I am from. Doesn't ask for my chocolate though. When I said I was from oz, all he knew how to say was "kangaroo". A bit scary and when he had to get off at the same stop as me I was glad we took different exits.

I found the youth hostel and got my card and by then it was nearly time to meet up with Anya. It was a couple of kms away so I decided to walk, and of course it rained again. I didn't have an umbrella.

eventually I arrived at zoo, got myself a falafel for lunch. They are easy to order, but when he asked me what sauce I wanted I stared back dumbly. He guessed I had no idea and asked again in English. This country is great, everyone is so good at English.

met up with Anya at 2pm and we set out on an expedition to buy me a new pair of shoes. My shoes were not suitable for all this walking. We found lots of shops and looked at lots of shoes, but eventually we found exactly the pair I was looking for only 45 Euro, a bit cheaper because they were shop soiled. I was happy and I wore them for the rest of the day

next we jumped on a train to hackesher market to have a coffee, and then it started to rain wildly again. So we ad another drink or two. Finally the rain stopped and we could wander around the market. The area reminds me of daikanyama in Tokyo. Very groovy.

said goodbye to Anya around 6.30pm and went to meet josh, Emily and some of their friends at a German restaurant. Had a big snitzel and lots of beer and then came home early to be ready for the trip to Copenhagen in the morning.

Day 6

The sun comes up very early in Germany. Josh and Emily's apartment doesn't have very thick curtains in their lounge room so I am woken up at around 6am. But I didn't eventually get up till 8.30ish

today I walked to a different station than I have been using in the past, so I could get a cheaper "3 station ticket". I then walked to the German history museum from Friedrich strasse but it was closed! I haven't had much luck with museums yet have I. I think it was closed because they are filming something in there. Could it be the same as what they were filming at park sans souci. We thought it might be mission impossible 3. But no sign of tom cruise...

so I was in the museum district. There is actually a special island in the middle of the river in Berlin which is only museums. Amazingly called museum island. So I decided instead of scrapping my plans altogether I should visit another museum.

I chose to go to the pergamon museum. It is not about Germany, but ancient Greek and roman art. They have brought whole buildings that were dug up in the desert and transported them to Berlin. It was huge! You got an audio guide set for free so you didn't have to read any of the information, it was read out to you. Lazy but good. In Australian museums you would not be allowed to take photos, but here you can take photos anywhere. I had left my camera in the locked but I was able to go back out and get it again.

I stayed there till around 1pm because I was meeting up with josh and Emily for lunch near the checkpoint Charlie museum. It was about a 30 min walk and the weather was good.

we had lunch of felafals and then visited the Jewish museum. This is housed in a building with architecture not unlike fed square so I loved it. The bottom floor was divided into axis, and each axis was dedicated to a different area such as holocaust, exile, etc. Very moving. Upstairs was more about the history of the Jewish people in this area and how they have been treated over the ages. It was very detailed (no audio guide this time though) and we spent around 4 hours in there and still were not able to see everything. Josh and Emily say they will go back again soon. It only cost about $5 to get in.

so as you can imagine it was about 6pm by now, so we stopped off at the supermarket to grab some drinks to take to his friends house for dinner. They were Josh's friends from the uni he is going to, and also one of his teachers from Australia was there. We stayed till about 11pm and then caught the train home again.