Hello everyone. My names Vinny and I'm the bast person ever and Mike's travel chum. I'm so good they named me twice, hence if Mike ever types 'Neil' that's also me. Come to think of it, he also calls me "Ginger", "f*** You" and "Do You Ever Shut Up?" so I have more than two aliases. I thought it was about time for me to chip i with an observation or two from our soiree so far.

Mike is doing an incredibly fine job of the log to date, for which I thank him hugely. His technical skills and patience for, far outweigh mine. It's my way to get hot at the first technical wall I reach, press X in the top corner and want to throw something. So for that reason I'll keep this as short as possible.

Obviously Mike's talked about each place we've stayed already, but I'll just make a little comment on each place and round of with a few thank yous.

Amsterdam - smoke filled lunacy.
Copenhagen - an amazingly calm, comforting and beautiful capital city. Lovely women also.
Stockholm - shame we didn't have longer once we found the older parts and the great 360 views. Pricey. Lovely women also.
Frankfurt - Great highrise skyline of old and new. The most perfect hosts. And the BigVinny looked nothing like me. Lovely women also.
Berlin - Great fun, if quite random. But it's fair to say we only saw a certain percentage of it. Lovely women also.
Nuremberg - Beautiful walled city, liked it's style. Lovely women also. Uncomfortable sleeping in parks...
Zagreb - Not a bad word to say about Zagreb, but not a photo to how of it either. Lovely women also.
Dubrovnik - One of the most perfect holiday destinations I've ever been to. Folks, when considering your next vacation, this or whatever year, consider this an option. It's that good. Don't go package, sort it out yourself for huge savings. Lovely women also.
Mostar - The view of the destroyed and rebuilt Stari Most (old bridge) from the grounds of the 16th century Mosque is one of the nicest I've ever seen. And contrasted with shelled out buildings riddled with bullet holes. Lovely women also. If not a little young.

Anyway a few thank yous. Thank you to me. Thank you for Indonesia this time last year for giving me the Wanderlust back. Thank you to Nottingham's employers for letting me have a few jobs to pay for this shindig. Thank you to Germany for being such fantastic World Cup hosts, and a huge, huge hats off ta to the German police's perfectly judged and good-humoured (which was key) approach to dealing with the knuckle-dragging and mindlessly rude section of English fans whom are made up of about 20 of the hardcore, the rest being drunken sheep who would walk off a cliff at that point if the fat, bright red amoeba at the front told them to.

Thank you to the one-armed, drunk, tattooed cockney for, whilst on the busy buffet car filled with young families and commuters to Berlin, loudly doing the Dambusters in the corner and giving us the motivation to go to Eastern Europe early.

Thank you to Karim for giving me his favourite sunglasses, and thank you to Poly for talking him into it. Thank you for Wilko, Matt, Banksie and Baz for being absoloute legends.

The biggest thank you of all, and I'm sure I speak for Mike on this, when we say a really big thank you for everything to...... me and Mike.... no, no, our Mums and Dads. Thank you all.

Nearly done, just a few remarks on me and Mike. Firstly I'd like to stand on the accusation that my name doesn't appear enough in the blog. Mike refers to us as "we", and that's fine with me.

Which brings us to that strange and unavoidable happening when you're travelling with a mate. You start having conversations that before you never would. You become each others Mothers, maids, alarm clocks and stylists, and, of course, closer friends for it. Back home in Mike's pub you wouldn't have found us saying "Mike, what's that in your hair?" whilst I remove the offending item... Or, "Vinny, what's that you've been lying in?" whilst brushing off my back. Or, "Mike, come on it's time to wake up Mike, come on", and the inevitable 20 minutes later "Get the f*** out of bed Mike!" ............. Or, "Mike, if I've told you once I've told you a hundred times, take your hand off my thigh"..... One of these comments aren't true.

On the travel olympics, just to reassure our parents, we're not becoming super competitive on everything. Just the odd game of cards, chess and table tennis. Although, I did win the longest arm hair competition and Mike got the Gold Medal for his Body Pop in the Robotics Dance-Off.

Anyway, signing off. Just to let you know, none of it is real. None of it. We're sat in a flat above a shop in Dagenham, making it all up. Spending our days cutting and splicing other people's photos with our faces, talking about Jordan and playing Mario Kart on the Super Nintendo. None of it is real..... Or is it?

Or is it?