This morning was one of the most sad and emotional days I've experienced in a long time. The day had come where we had to say goodbye to all our friends that we had meet on our tour. Three of the guys had to catch an early flight to Mykonos. They had said goodbye the night before, but we decided we would get up at meet them downstairs in the lobby at 6.30am to say our final goodbyes. We'd become really close to two of them so it was pretty hard to say goodbye. The girls that they had spent a lot of time with on tour also came down to see them off. I can only imagine how much harder it was for them. We gave them a big hug, said goodbye and watched them get into their taxi. Paul and I then went and finished our notes to Alex and Bec and put their tips in the envelops too. Contiki recommends that you tip both your driver and tour manager €2 a day. Bec was saying that most companies include the drivers and your managers tip, but Contiki doesn't because they want to make sure that they earn it. Bec also included small pieces of paper for us to write the messages on for them. At 7.30 we went downstairs to say goodbye to everyone who was going back to London. Bags had to be to the coach by 7.45am and then the coach was leaving at 8.00am. This was easily one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I don't think anyone really understands exactly how hard it is until you've been through the same situation. Or at least I know I didn't when my friends had previously told me about the last day of their tour. I guess it's just so hard because you've done everything together with these people every day for 29 days. You room together, you eat together, you go through the good times and the bad times together. You really do become like one big family. It's really sad when you come to realise that it will never be the same again and that you won't see some of these people again. There were lots of hugs, goodbyes and even a few tears. They all stood against the window, waved and we waved back until the coach was out of site. Then we walked back around the block to our hotel and saw the coach driving back down the road. We made a spur of a moment decision to make a human chain across the road to stop Alex. It was so sad all moving back and letting the coach go through. When we walked back up the stairs to our rooms we were all pretty quiet and I remember Tommy describing it as a real weird, empty feeling. I don't think there's any other way to describe it. There aren't really words to express what you feel. I'm really pleased I did it though. One of the best life experiences you could experience and worth every cent. Some of us have already been discussing a reunion in Australia at some point.

After we checked out of our hotel we got a taxi to the train station. Steve came with us so we didn't have a hard job trying to work out which train to get and where we needed to go. We spent 30-40 minutes on the train. Then Heidi and her husband picked us up from the train station. We had a further 20-30 minutes driving time until we reached their house in the country. They have a beautiful home and immaculate garden. There's a hen and a rooster that wander around the gardens. A ginger farm cat also often comes to visit. I think he lives next door. We were all shattered, but Paul's family were all looking forward to seeing him so we spent the afternoon meeting all his family. Danika had us over for dinner, which was nice. I've meet her before we she came to New Zealand in 2010. She's lovely and has a really good sense of humour. She has three kids - two daughters that are 16 and 21 and a son who is 18. When we arrived the BBQ table was all set up outside. There was lots of salad, fresh bread and a selection of raw meats. In the middle of the table sat a hot plate so you could cook your own pieces of meat. There were even little dishes that you could use to cook a small omelet or an egg. After dinner Danika showed us her photo book of NZ that her friend had made for her. There had obviously been a lot of time and effort put into it. I'm going to get my blog made into a book, but I still really want to put the time into making a scrapbook of our trip too. Before we were dropped off home we visited Daniella's apartment. Came back at about ten and went to bed.