Thinking of Traveling Europe? Read on for Tips!

Theres probably a whole bunch of things I could suggest but here is what I can remember at this point in time!

When planning for Europe we thought we could get away with 20-30 euro a day (about $60 NZ) - this is not going to happen. I would say the minimum to budget would be 50 euro - on the odd day you will only spend 20 euro but then next you may spend 80-100 so 50 is a good balance to aim for.

Extra costs we didn't think about:

Washing machines and dryers - these can cost up to 7 euro a wash (yes, $14) and the dryer can cost the same so its a good idea to team up with someone and do a wash together. Your clothes will shrink and get destroyed on this trip (we'll blame it on the tumble dryers - not the amount of food and drink were consuming!) so don't take your best clothes!

Bottled water - this can vary from .30 euro to 4 euro a bottle, depending on where you are and when its hot - and it gets very hot - you are drinking up to 4 small bottles a day. You can save by getting the big bottles but then you are lugging it around.

Public toilets - Oh Europe and your public toilets!! I swear some countries don't even have them, Paris was the worst, I remember seeing one on the whole day of walking! You do have to pay for them in other countries but its a maximum of .50 euro so its not that bad.

Snacks at gas stations - if you do a bus tour you can stop at a gas station for toilet breaks / food stops up to 3 times a day and snacks all add up. Its a good idea to stock up on food at the supermarket when you can - just don't eat it all in one go!

Optionals - Beware the optionals on bus tours!! Most tour guides get a commission from you eating a restaurant that they recommend - the deal is they bring all of their bus tours to that particular restaurant then they get a percentage of each meal bought. We caught onto this pretty quickly and the food was not good at all. The most disappointing dupe of all was the 'amazing' 5 story night club in Prague - again we pay, tour guide gets a cut. Imagine a huge public toilet block, put a dance floor in the middle of it and disco smoke and thats the 5 story club in Prague. The best example of the optionals occurred in the Swiss Alps though. We stayed in a small town with not a lot to do (so we were told) and the options we were given were sky diving which was hundreds of dollars or a 2 hour train ride up a mountain to see snow and views of the mountains which was the equivalent of $170. We didn't want to pay that much so went for a wonder around town. What did we find? An 8 frank gondola ride ($11) which took us up a mountain where we went on a stunning hour and a half walk seeing the most spectacular views and had lunch at a village that was full of restaurants and cafes, then took the 8 frank gondola ride back down. Were we told of this? No. Why? Because the tour leader would have made no profit. Moral of this story is DO YOUR RESEARCH. Just because the tour guide recommends it it does not mean that that is the only option or that you'll be missing out on an amazing experience - cause chances are you'll find a better one just around the corner at a fraction of the price.

Transport on free days - every second day you will be off the bus so you have to find your own transport. You can get a tube day pass for around 6 euro a day or catch the bus which will be cheaper. If your exploring a smaller city its always best to walk cause you get to see more and save your cash.

Smoking - Having gotten used to the no smoking law in New Zealand restaurants and bars I forgot that this didn't apply to the rest of the world and everyone seems to smoke in Europe! So when you find a restaurant make sure you check it out first before you sit down to eat - theres nothing worse than eating your food when someone on the table next to you is blowing smoke your way!

What I found handy that I packed:

Micro towels - debatable - they are quite small so they don't cover much! And they didn't dry as quick as I thought they would but it was still probably faster than a normal towel.

Take mirror if your a woman - Imagine the following scenario - you have to up, showered, dressed, packed, have eaten breakfast and sitting on the bus by 7am. There are four girls in your room - and one bathroom (insert shock / horror face here) so I recommend that you take a small mirror so you can either do your make up on your bed or the bus.

Kathmandu toiletry bag - I love my toiletry bag! Its sizable enough to fit everything you need in it but small enough to pack away nicely - it also has a handle on the inside so that you can hang it up in the shower - genius!

Walking shoes - this is the most important in my opinion. You are doing so much walking when your traveling so its a necessity to invest in a good pair of walking shoes. I bough a pair of Nike Airs and it was the best thing I bought for the trip - I have literally worn them everyday for the last 3 months! Wait till you get to England though cause there cheaper here! Also try and get a good pair of sandalls cause we got really bad blisters from wearing ours around!

Flask - I didn't need my flask in the end. I thought that I would make a flask of coffee or tea in the morning and take it with me on the bus. Reality is the first toilet break isn't for 2-3 hours so drinking a flask of tea is not ideal unless you have a bladder of steal!

Food intolerance's - I was surprised by the amount of gluten free food I found in Europe and Top Deck provided gluten free lunches and dinners when they were providing a meal for us (you get about 6-8 Top Deck made dinner and lunches on the trip) and it was the best food - much nicer than most of the restaurants that we visited. The only struggle was breakfast so its good to have some rice cakes on hand if there is no yoghurt or fruit available. Top Deck will re-enburse you if you keep the receipt for foods that you buy to do with allergies so that was also a bonus. Apparently its harder if your lactose in tolerant but its advisable to call whoever you are traveling with before you leave incase you have to stock up before hand.

Spare tooth brush - Take a spare tooth brush cause when you drop yours on a nasty as hostel floor and the only option is to get one at the next supermarket for $10 you will wish that you had brought a spare!

Student I.D discounts - If you have one, take it. You can get into places like the Vatican City for up to half price so you save a fair bit!

Medications - Make sure you pack pain killers and hay fever tablets if you get hay fever. In NZ spring time is September so I didn't even think that Spring time in Europe was April / May and I actually had the worst hay fever of my life. Luckily I had thought ahead and got heaps from the doctor but it was really to last me months so I didn't have to go to a doctor in England for it but I ended up using most of it in the first month I was away. Also remember that not only do they speak a different language in Europe - everything is written in a different language. So if you take specific medications get in before you go so you can actually read the packet!

Hope these tips help :)

London - Take Two

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First of all a HUGE thanks to everyone who has been following my blog and keeping up to date with all my adventures! The last few weeks I've just been having downtime with the whanau in Chester and Sandbach and got to meet up with the rest of my Dads side that I hadn't seen in over 18 years as well as my Uncle and Auntie from Mums side so its been really cool just getting to know everyone again, your really re-building relationships when its been that long but it takes a second or a day max to get used to each other again, family bond is a funny thing, something you can't explain but its always there nonetheless. So yesterday I made my way back to London with all my gear in tow... its quite stressful really figuring out the tubes while your weighed down with everything you own! So while everyone else is in jackets and trousers (I have learnt not to say pants as this is underwear over here!) Im sweating like a mad man in a singlet and trakkies trying to carry my 20-something kg suitcase up and down steep flights of stairs in the railway station... I got on the wrong train, went up and down two flights of stairs that I didn't need to and broke the handle on my suitcase (the part you pull along, handy huh....) BUT I arrived at my destination in the end :) So now Im in Kilburn in London staying with friends until the 1st of August which is when I move into our new flat (well a terrace house, just like in Love Actually!) with Kristen and Nikki, my travel buddies and now soon to be roomies :) Were all so excited! Only catch now is the pressure is on to get a job. Its a tough one cause you have to make the decision to wait and get a job then have no where to live / find somewhere with randoms or get a place with your kiwi gals and then get the job after - which is what I opted for in the end. London is a HUGE place, its not like Auckland at all and I wouldn't feel safe hunting for flats alone, not to mention the cost of staying in hotels until you find somewhere - its extortionate. Its true what everyone says - you begin to appreciate things about your home country that you never really took notice of before, for example I didn't think that the reason we had SO much Asian food was because New Zealand is close to Asia (sounds blonde but you just assume that the whole world would have Asian food right??) London is definitely better on the food side but the rest of Europe barely had any Asian food available and I live off it! I also admire the sense of community that New Zealanders have - there is so much litter around in England especially at festivals and theme parks - I know there is litter in New Zealand as well but this is just above and beyond what I'm used to seeing. I know there are millions and millions more people here but still, its like when I travelled to the South Island I was just as respectful as I would be in Auckland if not more so cause its just a beautiful place - and its my country no matter where I am in it. But here its like people don't seem to appreciate the country as a whole, just the area they live in and its a bit of a shame to see really!
Anyway, tomorrow I'm meeting up with Kristen for dinner then were going to check out some bars! Saturday we'll just chill then were meeting up with our new friend from the Top Deck tour Laura who also lives in London (Laura and her brother were both on our European bus, Laura went to Howick College and her bro went to my old school Macleans College - small world huh!) Then Sunday is the Ben and Jerrys festival - the BEST ice cream ever! It's a music festival too so hopefully the weather holds up! Next week will really just be sourcing home insurance and internet / TV / job hunting etc etc so yeah thats the update! Hope all is well where ever your reading this! Peace!

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Our final destination of our European tour! The Netherlands is famous for many things - cheese and clogs are just a few to name and on the way to our hostel we stopped off at a local farm to see how these Dutch products are made so it was an interesting small tour and we got try some really good cheeses as well!

Amsterdam is definitely on my top 3 list of favourite places we had visited on our tour I don't even know where to begin with this extraordinary city! First of all the quirky houses were something out of a picture book, I never knew houses like that actually existed and people lived in them! Biking is one of the main ways of getting around in Amsterdam and we had never seen so many bikes in our lives - the city was literally packed with them - people who live in Amsterdam can own up to 3 bikes each. You really have to watch out for them - they have right of way over pedestrians and they will crash into you over stopping to let you walk by. They also had a really good tram system there but these were so silent Im surprised they don't have more deaths because of them!

The highlight of Amsterdam for me was being able to visit the home of Ann Frank. I had read her diary twice before when I was at school and never did I ever imagine that one day I would actually have the opportunity to visit where she had to live in hiding for over two years during the war. They have turned the building into a museum of 3 levels filled with extracts from her diary across the walls, photos of Ann Frank and her family, documentaries play on screens as you walk through and you see the book shelf that hid the staircase from the Nazis - and get to walk up the stairs. It was an incredible experience but also a very sad one as well.

We wandered around for the rest of the avo, had a nice lunch and tried to go shopping but it was worse than a boxing day sale in New Zealand in terms of the amount of people shopping - and it was just a Sunday there! That night we went out to the red light district which was such a cool area filled with quirky pubs and heaps of restaurants and of course alley after alley filled with window after window of working girls... again I have never seen anything like it and I don't think you would anywhere else! We went to a proper cafe there so that was cool to check out - we are definitely planning on returning to Amsterdam for a weekend getaway so we can fully enjoy it without being exhausted from a month of travel! Then it was back to the hostel to pack as we were heading back to London the following day where our tour would soon come to an end....

Berlin, Germany!

Berlin! We love you! What a great city, it is full of history and everywhere you go you seem to learn something about what happened in Germany during the war. We visited the Berlin wall which was cool to see and interesting to learn about the history of it. Berlin had the best restaurants we'd been to on the tour and the best part was there was heaps of Asian food! Asian food is near impossible to come across in Europe (we were quick to discover this) so it was such an exciting find - I went nearly 6 weeks without sushi and I had been hoping I would come across it at some point - and the sushi we had for lunch was so delicious! We explored the city, saw some old German cars that have become icons within Germany now and visited the Holocaust Memorial which was created with 2711 slabs of concrete, each different to the next and they made it specifically with a prime number. The idea behind this is that you hear about numbers of people that passed away in bulk - e.g 10 million people died - and it makes it harder to comprehend just how many people actually died. 2711 is a number that individualizes the victims even though its not the official death toll.

That afternoon we wanted to hit the shops so we headed to the train station - to our amazement the train station was in the middle of a shopping complex! I have never seen anything like it! So we had a look around there then caught the train to another area in Berlin that was known for the good shopping. Berlin is full of design and graffiti art works and we saw an awesome sculpture in the middle of a mall that was made out of old car scraps! We then headed back to our hostel and had a beautiful Vietnamese dinner across the road, very convenient! After dinner we went for walk and came across a Ladi 6 poster!! It was so cool seeing a poster of a New Zealand artist in Berlin of all places! We wanted to stay longer in this exciting city but we had to head to our next destination the following day....

Prague, Czech Republic

Today we headed to Prague but on the way we stopped at a former concentration camp at Mathausen. I won't talk about this part too much but I will say that it is worth going even if its just to pay your respects and I did learn quite a lot that I didn't know about the concentration camps. My heart goes out to everyone that suffered such an horrific ordeal - its unspeakable what happened there.

We arrived in Prague a few hours later and went out for the night to explore the city and have a few drinks. The next night we had dinner at a very cool restaurant that had swing tables! I wouldn't go back to Prague, we thought it was over-rated and its far to touristy for my liking but it was good to stop by for a day all the same!

Tyrol Region, Austria

I have loved the Sound of Music since I was a child so it was exciting heading to the country where it was filmed! We were in quite a small town so there wasn't much to do apart from sky diving / canyoning / paragliding so I decided to do paragliding which was SO much fun I absolutely loved it and can't wait till I have the chance to do it again! Theres no fast falling like when your sky diving its just gliding through the air and its the best way to see the views! That night we had a European themed dress up party so the girls and I decided to go as European football stars! We had a group photo which turned out great then headed out for a delicious dinner at a traditional mountainside restaurant - pretty cool experience!

Ljubjana, Slovenia

We left Pag and headed for Slovenia where we headed to the quaint capital, Ljubjana, an ancient city full of restaurants and markets. We had Mexican for dinner which obviously is really untraditional but we wanted Mexican so... after a delicious dinner and cocktails we wandered the charming streets and found a gorgeous dessert bar with really fancy chocolate desserts it was heaven! We ended up going to a graduate fashion show as one of the guys on our bus got asked to fill in for a male model that had pulled out so that was good fun! We only stayed here for one night and were up early the next day to make our way to Austria - Sound of Music anyone?

Pag Island - Croatia

After weeks of staying in a city for one day at a time (one day on the bus one day off) we finally had two glorious days and three nights - in the same place! Pag Island was just beautiful! We had a massive lye in on the first day before heading down to the beach - no sand round these parts just really comfortable pebbles... we hit up the 24 hour party beach and had the biggest cocktails I have ever seen!!! This was the first place we got to properly relax and feel like we were on holiday - I have learnt that there is a big difference between being on holiday and traveling! One of the clubs had dance platforms in trees which was pretty cool, not the best idea if you've had a few too many though! Pag Island is definitely on the list of places to go back to, the summer season was just starting really so it would be cool to go back when its in full swing!