JET LAG: PART II Santorini. Finally, we find ourselves in the Greek islands. We've earned this. After 18 days of full-on activities & long coach rides throughout western Europe we are finally able to throw out the anchor for a few nights. Granted, we didn't really get any sleep last night after getting the red eye flight from London to Athens and then waiting around for 6 hours for our connecting flight (and having a sleep in the Athens Airport McCafe at abo...

LONDON CALLING We saw the White Cliffs of Dover for the first time as our ferry arrived in the UK. So that's what that old-timer song is all about. I took a couple of photos. We got on a bus (another bloody bus ride) and headed into the centre of London, but couldn't stay... we got straight into a cab after saying goodbye to our TopDeck friends and arrived at Heathrow Airport with time to spare! Special thanks to everyone who let us take the first available ta...

BELGIAN BEAUTY Our tour coach was passing through Belgium earlier today en route to the ferry ride to London and stopped in at Brugge for lunch. It's a shame we can't stay here, it's a very nice medieval town, famous for chocolate and beer. We checked out a few of the local shops, there's a lot of chocolate shops around here, and there are some very creative and funny chocolate products on offer. Unfortunately we didn't have time to sample the beers, we'll hav...

TEN AMSTERDAM-ISH OBSERVATIONS 10. RUBBISH - I don't know what it is about cities with canals... Just like Venice, Amsterdam suffers from a lack of bins and people to frequently empty said bins. As a result there's a lot of wrappers and empty bottles and cigarette butts in the street. 9. RANDOMNESS - The city is pretty random. There is a pattern to the development, but the buildings themselves are random, often very narrow, and at varying angles and leans. Mayb...

WHO NEEDS RULES ANYWAY? Amsterdam is a crazy place. Today we went on a bike-tour through the city, which was good fun. You've got to be on alert with all the different vehicles on the road - cars, trams, and about eleventy-billion bikes and motor scooters. That and they all drive on the opposite side of the road compared to Australia. It was an experience. We also checked out the Heineken brewery which was cool, and got a personalised bottle to take home with u...