The Final Countdown

It wasn’t a completely comfortable sleep but due to the lack of anything to do we all slept relatively well and arrived in Rome in pretty good spirits. For some reason we could check into our room from 9am, so we headed over and got let in immediately, hooray! As soon as wifi was available I logged into my computer and started downloading all the WWE I’d missed (plus the rest of The Walking Dead) Prorities = Straight. 

Eventually we decided that we’d head over to the Coliseum via Spa, we should really learn that Europe favours fizzy water one of these days. At the ancient stadium the massive line was somewhat of a put off,  so we decided to get a tour around which also required us to go find a cash machine. I put my card in and typed my pin, clicked the amount required and the machine came up with “Card retained, please contact your bank.” which gave me a heart attack before proceeding to give me the money, card and receipt. Damn machine!

Anyway, we continued on to the Coliseum tour, where we learnt about how turning up speakers too loud creates distortion and hampers people’s ability to understand what you’re saying. For a reason I can’t recall it was around this time I decided to start speaking in a Scottish accent, and the others created my alter-ego Will who, it was decided, is much more enjoyable company than I am normally, ta guys.

A tour of Pallatine Hill was free for anybody that had made the trek around the Coliseum which we took up, and thus spent the next couple of hours going round with Greg in his Chelsea shirt. He managed to teach us a lot of things I will neither retain or further me as a person but it was all incredibly interesting, the Romans were some clever fellows.

It was then time to meet up with Nico, which is still very odd. He’d been in Rome a few days longer than us and had been shown round by one of the locals, so he took us round a few places he’d been shown. Luckily they were all free as well which satisfied Ed’s need for cost-cutting. The first stop was a view out over the city from atop some sort of free to enter building. We learnt about how organised pub crawls were illegal in Rome, as Nico’s group had found out after theirs last night, and being told to be quiet every time police went past and we all silently vowed to probably give it a miss, not wanting to end up in a Roman prison. Despite this when we arrived at the Trevi Fountain, via The (closed) Pantheon, we decided to stick our heads in, remembering our promise to ourselves to immerse ourselves in at least one fountain per city. This led to countless odd looks from those around us, as well as the Polizia whistling at us, and one allegedly (I didn’t see it) biting his thumb at us. I’m not sure what they expected from our crouched position but apparently it wasn’t submerging our faces.

All Ed had been going on about was steps he had no idea the name, luckily Nico was on hand to lend help thus our path headed toward the Spanish Steps. Ascending to the top we all watched the romantic sunset over Romulus’ creation whilst being bugged by people selling roses, it’s somewhat surprising these guys haven’t reached the UK yet (touch wood). From there we made our way home, via another fountain which I was dared to jump in. Being quite close to home I agreed, but kicking the water probably wasn’t the best idea as it splashed a couple sitting on the side (I apologise a lot).

We left Nico by the train station after an emotional goodbye to make his way back to where he was staying and we trudged back to ours.

The day where nobody set an alarm, which was awkward when we all realised we had about ten minutes to get out. Thankfully we went into packing mode, making it out in a record 18 minutes. Walking to Lidl to stock up on food and drink we then hopped on the now open S-Bahn to the main station where we dumped our bags for the day before heading across to the Allianz Arena to appease Ed and Josh’s need for football activities.

When there, and it became clear that the tour cost €10 it dropped down to just myself and El Dorado. The other two left to explore less exciting parts of München as we were guided around by the lovely Max, who I swear is Murray Macleod’s German cousin. Alas we didn’t get to play on the pitch, but it was interesting to see everything, and learn that even the German National Team didn’t get to use Bayern’s dressing room.

 Meeting the other two back in the city centre we headed over to the English Gardens where we encountered musical bins, which must be up there for some sort of award. Taking some time out to relax after a stressful few days of Jonny attempting to lose everything we decided it was best to head back to our train. So we got up and watched a group of German kids run off with some boys clothing; dick move, kids. On the way we passed a dog, we’d decided to shout ‘DED’ at every dog to warn Ed there were dogs approaching. The owner of this dog was English, and when I said I’d push Ed in the river to save him from the dog she took offence, thinking I was going to push in the dog. After trying to explain this wasn’t the case we continued our quest to arrive back at the Hauptbanhof.

I’d promised to nut everyone on the train if it didn’t have wifi, turns out the train didn’t even have plugs except for one inconveniently placed in the corridor. Ed and myself trekked the length of the train looking for our seat reservations to find if they had electricity, but alas no. So after attempting a quick charge of the laptop we made it about 20 minutes through an episode of The Walking Dead before it gave way. In the seats this may have made it an incredibly long journey, and I think everyone silently thanked our decision to upgrade to beds. Trying to use the plug to charge my phone I gave home a call before going back to the compartment to find that the guys had already mostly given in on entertainment and were heading to bed. I did the same.

We arose remarkably early for our group as we were off to Ruhpolding, a place Jonny had stayed on holiday, he promised amazing things. After listening to an American explain history on a train for about an hour we switched onto the smaller line to Ruhpolding where they had to phone to make sure our Interrail passes were okay, evidently they don’t get many tourists down that way except for the ski season, being encompassed by mountainous terrain.

We quickly headed for food and found a little pizza-slices-to-go place which were delicious and virtually the only thing to actually eat due to it being Sunday AND out of tourist season. We headed down to an activities area where there were numerous games available - jet golf, miniature golf, table tennis. We opted for the first option which is basically hitting a golf ball encased in Velcro at a target made of carpet. Not fully understanding the rules we ploughed  ahead and agreed our own, which were then changed when the game took four times as long as it should. Pre-rule change winner, Ed, came unstuck after the new guidelines to let me in to win the second half.

To break up the golf we rented some table tennis bats and has a mini-tournament. Anyone who knows me may know my enthusiasm toward the half-sport and so I was determined to win. Round 1 saw Jonny lose to Ed and I beat Josh to set up a magnificent final, which I went on to win 21-18. Victory!

Due to the crowd of people gathered around the mini-golf we made the decision to go swimming where we were promised an impressive wave machine. To be fair when we got there the place was pretty amazing, especially with the landscape. Ed even attempted a flip off the top diving board which he almost completed well, he still made a bit of a splat though. The kids after him showed him how to do it, despite being significantly his junior. 

On the way back to the golf via Jonny’s accommodation it started to rain, and quite hard, so the golf was abandoned and we headed home via Traunstein, which we walked around to attempt to find food, although Jonny learnt that he’d somehow lost his Cash Card too.

Back at the hotel the Internet wasn’t at top speed, possibly due to the sheer amount of people in the lobby but slowly they cleared out, allowing us to get some downloading done, and giving the woman watching the Millennium Trilogy on her Mac peace. With this in mind we headed up to the room where I headed into the shower. Halfway through however Josh came into the room with his camera, after having unlocked the door from the outside. Fearing I had no dignity left to lose I then opened the door to Ed in my nude state, everything’s hilarious when you’re in the nude.

Luckily the Internet was now at full speed allowing me to find a stream for Money in the Bank, huzzah for WWE! Even Josh watched for the majority. Going up to bed at 5am was probably helpful given the probably uncomfortable nature of the beds on the Munich-Rome train the next evening.

Luckily nobody shouted at us to check out as we awoke before having to get the train over to München and we actually managed to get out fairly successfully, even Josh managing to be up and ready for our fairly early train. Considering our last train journey had taken almost thrice as long as it should’ve done we were hoping that Austria wouldn’t cause us the same problems.

As soon as we got on the train - after the daily chocolate pancake - we were all amazed by the quality of transport. There was a play area for small children alongside tremendous leg room and beautiful seats, which stopped your head rolling off the sides much to Jonny’s delight. The locals must have thought we were an odd bunch marvelling at their trains. We set up the laptop in order to finish Star Wars Episode I and start our run through of The Walking Dead now we could actually all hear it with our recently purchased five-way splitter.

Eventually arriving in Munich we learnt that the S-Bahns were all shut over the weekend, which was a tad annoying as we were in town Saturday to Monday. We headed over to the ticket office to try and buy Jonny a new Interrail ticket and to book onto the night train to Rome. After finding out it was €26 more for a bed we opted for seats whilst Jonny queued for his pass. Everything was bought - although he now came from Eire rather than his native UK. We decided to walk to our hotel after eventually deciding on our directs using a number of factors (which included the direction of the sun due to our incredible ingenuity). We arrived to a very smiley lady who directed us to our room, she even managed a sense of humour despite being German. 

After a nap from Ed and a journey to the lounge to attempt to download more video for us to watch alongside research on our overnight train which saw the group reverse the decision and opt for beds instead. So we travelled back into the city to buy new reservations to allow us to actually sleep and then we went in search of the Haufbrahaus (sp?) although it appeared that Munich was in the middle of Gay Pride, which made navigating the centre interesting to say the least.

Eventually we made it to what is essentially a massive pub with not enough seating but everyone had told us to go see it so we gave it a go anyway, and eventually found somewhere to seat. Not being a massive drinker myself I can’t comment on the litre of alcohol that arrived but the food was amazing and worth every penny. I had a beautiful pork steak that I would quite happily eat for the rest of my life. Jonny had some suckling pig and the other two opted for half a chicken apiece. Again, Jonny eats chocolate ice cream terribly.

On the way home we passed by a massive fountain that we’d dared Ed to go in earlier. “Carpe Diem” I thought and handed my stuff to Josh. This led to Edward and Jonathan both deciding to take the adventure into the middle with me as Josh was sensible and walked around the edge with all our stuff. Admittedly this led to a very cold, and a very wet journey home where stuff was hung from every conceivable peg in order to dry out as quickly as possible but it was fun and we vowed to find a fountain in every city in order to repeat our feat.

For some reason the evening was spent filling up plastic bags found in the bathroom with soap and water and throwing them into the shower to watch them burst. Seriously the coolest kids.

Friday the 13th! At least we weren’t awakened by the screams of a cleaning lady - you’ve got to look for the little things. Eventually awake we decided to head over to the Schönbrunn Palace where the old royal family used to live. After being told you couldn’t take any photos, rendering my camera useless we continued into the royal home, picking up three English audio guides and one Serbian (because English is too mainstream for Joshua)

Afterwards we had a stroll around the gardens. They’re magnificent and seem to go on forever. After taking some panoramics of everything and Jonny warning Josh to be careful or Jeremy Paxman will rugby tackle him off the terrace we headed up to the top of the hill via some monuments which looked pretty interesting. On our walk up a squirrel started following Josh up and stopped directly in front of us, stood there for a few moments and then ran off again, possibly the cutest thing I’ve seen.

Atop the hill we were all pretty peckish, and thus decided to eat in the cafe that adorned it to Ed’s disappointment as it was bound to be fairly expensive (which it was). The €8 I paid for an ice cream/milkshake mix was overpriced, and when it came with extra sugar to mask the bitter taste I should’ve twigged it wouldn’t live up to the billing.

After an oddly tactical game of Get Down Mr President on the way down whe nobody actually got tackled, but everyone moved slowly as possible with fingers ready to be stuck into their ear if necessary we decided that we ought to split up, with Jonny and Josh going home, primarily to blog, and Ed and I going to the Old Town, which happened to be right next to the information point which Jonny visited.

We walked around for about half an hour, going up to a church and finally figuring out what Austrian road signs actually mean (we settled at the number at the front being the district). There was a church and some other such buildings. Buildings are cool…

It was then back to the hostel to join in with the documentation of the journey before Jonny and I decided to go out and get food, alas I’d already got into my pyjamas but this was no hindrance. After pulling on my Vans we strolled into the Austrian capital where I received many an odd look from virtually all we passed, including a car on the way back which slowed down to marvel at my incredible fashion sense. I was forced into trying Bratwürst (which was surprisingly good, even after tasting exactly the same as a Madejski hot dog)

We may have mostly wasted our time in Vienna for a few reasons, but overall it was a pretty enjoyable stay - and we were going back to Germany so everyone was in high spirits, praying that the trains would actually work this time.

“Check out! Check out!” yelled a woman as my eyes snapped open. Due to the fact they’d put us in the wrong room we had to check out of our room in the hotel and go over to the hostel. Half an hour later we still weren’t completely ready, so the woman came back to shout again. We were out in the end and made our way downstairs where we were told we could wait for a minute and our room in the hostel would be ready. We dumped all our large luggage down into the store but kept rucksacks just in case it wasn’t ready by the time we went out. Turns out it was, so we went over to check it out and dump some stuff. It’s effectively the same as our hostel room but without the shower cubicle - though there was one almost next door anyway, so not too much of an issue!

We went over to Westbanhof to get something to eat. Schnitz’l Land was open and so chocolate pancakes were on my menu at least. Seriously the best thing to ever grace my stomach. Tasted amazing. More places in Britain should serve chocolate pancakes, if anyone knows of anywhere at Waterloo give me a shout please.

Jonny had then been told he needed to find an information centre, so we hopped on the underground into the middle of Vienna where we ran into people selling tickets for a Mozart/Strauss concert for the evening, in full costume and all! We thought when in Vienna, so we bought tickets at a heavily discounted price of €24 each, bargain eh?

Onward to the information centre Jonny learnt that he probably wasn’t in the right place when they had almost zero idea what he was on about. He was directed back to the information point at Westbanhof, so all the way back out of town we went after having a look at a couple of buildings, probably best to try to do some sightseeing either way.

At Westbahnhof Information Point Jonny was directed to the Police Station who then directed him to go to the Government building which should be just out the station then a right turn. Obviously these instructions turned out to be almost completely useless and we decided to turn up a side street. We passed an official looking building and I shouted at Jonny to give it a go, even though Josh said everyone was holding Romanian passports. Forty minutes later and Jonny had a misspelt letter which indicated he’d managed to misplace his train pass.

After lugging our bags from the luggage storage to our room it was time for a couple of hours nap time to recoup before we headed out to our classical music extravaganza, but things are never quite that easy. Jonny had (somehow) managed to misplace his letter that he needed to show he’d attempted to file a police report on his misplaced Interrail Ticket. The boy is ridiculous. I suggested he may have left it down in the storage room and after a run over to the hotel (the buildings are a street apart) he’d manage to get his hands on everything he still had. 

Time to head out to the Mozart gig and after wandering around a bit, past an amazing string quartet and a man trying to sell me Bruce Springsteen tickets (we were finally in the same city as The Boss at the same time) we saw the guy who’d sold us our tickets for the Mozart gig and asked him directions. We made it to the right square where there was a poster for ‘Mozart and Strauss’ but as we went inside the grandeur of the building seemed out of place. Sure enough the lady in the entrance, with an undisguised smirk, directed us over the road to a green painted building. Immediately we all started doubting how good this performance would actually be. It definitely seemed to be organised like one of my old banditos concerts.

Anyhow, when they actually got down to it they were actually alright. Jonny’s one major criticism was the posture of the flautist. Ed, who proudly announced he knew around five of the songs, and Josh, who pointed out the cello player looked quite similar to my father but with hair, were perhaps less impressed.

It was the last night possible that we could see team MK, who had acquired an extra member in Beth. Once again their directions were shocking so Freya came to pick us up and drag us to an Irish Pub they’d been told about. After a few drinks it was time to get the subway home, as none of us felt like walking the unknown way home. There were hugs and kisses as we said our goodbyes to team MK before departing to Westbahnhof and sleep.

I think it’s best to say up front that July 11 was a day that made all of us fairly mCzech Republic. We were up early to get the girls out, and to get our clothes from the laundrette so we could pack them (although Ed was already packed). Heading to the station we met team MK there, they’d been in another park and, after some banter with a guy in an Aston Villa top, found our seats on the train.

It was all going fairly well, finished off RAW, and even Edward enjoyed it. However it was around then the train pulled to a standstill with the announcer declaring that we’d be there for around 60 minutes due to a technical fault with the trainline. Halfway through The Newsroom, however, we were told to leave the train and make our way to the front of the station to catch a bus.

When half way to the aforementioned road transport Jonny realised he’d not got his interrail ticket, and when he back to the train to look it had already departed. That was only the start of the problems of the day, though. We’d stopped around 12 and got off the train maybe half an hour later. Another amount of time later and team MK + Ed managed to get on a bus, leaving JJ and myself to fight for another bus. Queuing isn’t quite the same at a random Czech train station, it’s more a fight to the death. A couple of coaches came and went without us successfully managing to ascend onto the transportation. Eventually Jonny managed to wriggle on, and then (just about) Josh and I squeezed in. A few American girls told the driver to close the doors, apparently telling them maybe more people wanted to get on, and that this is why everyone hates Americans (said mainly to Josh) wasn’t the correct thing to say. Then being fairly lairy throughout the journey was funny for the three of us, and one Mr Preacher Man was loving it too, which obviously meant my continuing annoyance to the American girls.

Our bus dropped us at a secondary train station where, we assumed, there would be a train to Vienna. This was slightly misguided, there wasn’t clear English instructions so we relied on a woman to tell us which train she was getting on due to the ‘next train’ being a direct train to our destination. This wasn’t true of any train for the next three hours and eventually the woman we were relying on left too. Luckily the next train WAS the train to Vienna, but due to the sheer numbers of people on the station it was difficult for everyone to get on. I ended up being the last one on after the guys managed to make space but I was further down the corridor. Pushed further down when a couple tried to get past, so I ducked into a compartment doorway, before they decided it wasn’t viable - no way! I was stuck for a couple of hours praying for all my stuff to be safe - camera and document folder being outside my bags. It was all okay though, the train’s crowds thinned at Brno, where our guide from earlier was going too, allowing me to nab a seat. 

Our ordeal wasn’t over though, the rest were outside and told at another station that there was another train over to Vienna which was to be less crowded. So we got off the train on the non-platform side and scrambled through the doors of the one parked opposite. Just as I jumped up a trainman started shouting at everyone else to go around - whoops. On the platform we bumped into a father and son from Alabama, who we’d bumped into systematically over the day. They were off to work with refugees in Vienna. A lot better citizens than us! Either way on our new train we managed to get a compartment for the six of us where we watched Star Wars Episode I for an hour until we arrived in what we were hoping was Vienna, although there weren’t any signs suggesting the fact. Like Berlin and parts of Prague we arrived to a mass of cranes and building work, is Europe not finished? 

We decanted the train at Miedling Haubtstaße, as the train announcer declared it as the station for the city centre. Once off Ed asked directions from a kebab shop and decided that both our maps were too small and we actually needed to go to Westbanhof, which is where our train terminated. Raging. Jonny still needed to report his ticket as lost and so we found a police station whilst the rest of us waited. I used the time to talk to home for the first time in 11 days!

Finally we got on the underground toward our destination. After twelve abouts of travelling we got to our Austrian hostel, the Do Step Inn at almost precisely 10pm. That being apparently too late to check into our hostel room, which they appeared to have rented out so we got a room in the hotel; it was fairly disappointing but it was a place to rest our heads. Our bellies were under for almost the entire day, and the bar we were in didn’t serve food so we all explored Westbanhof’s local cuisine. Josh settled for Turkish, after having some banter with the employee about trying to pay with Czech Koruna - as normal I ended up footing the bill. (It was also at this time we noticed a shut Schnitz’l Land and their menu with chocolate pancakes which would become a mainstay in my diet for the next couple of days). Jonny had a Bratwurst hot dog (or meaty spicy hot dog as he’d like it to be known). I’m unaware as to what Edward devoured, but apparently it was expensive. Personally I had a McDonald’s, which I wouldn’t recommend due to sheer cost. €6,19 for my McChicken Deluxe plus an extra €2,19 (or something) for a(n amazing) chocolate Cornetto McFlurry. It was worth every cent.

It was time for a needed period of sleep.

Unsurprisingly it took a long time for us to awake on the 10th day of our journey. When finally everyone, minus Josh, had risen we decided to go to Tesco to stock up. This turned out to be a fairly bad idea when we returned home with what was later discovered to be acidic milk. I did try to tell Jonny that it had to be some type of milk but he insisted it wasn’t. That showed him.

Without milk for Nesquik we had another round of sandwiches before packing up dirty clothes and dropping them off in a laundrette just round the corner from where we were staying. 200 Czech Crowns to have nice smelling laundry was, we felt, worth it.

We headed over to Prague’s Old Town, which we’d past through the night previous but it’s always nice to see things in a sober state. As we headed over we talked about our plan for tomorrow, as we we leaving for Vienna. Ed mentioned that he’d packed, and when it was pointed out to him that he’d just put all his clothes in for washing his reply was that “he just needed to put it bag in the bag”. So, about as far away from packed as it’s possible to be then! It was at this point that med was invented, as he again tried taking us the quick way to Old Town but seemed to take more time (again). Which is a clever way for saying you’re mad at Ed without having to use extra syllables. Since then med, mjonny, mjosh,  mmatt and pretty much meverything has come into existence - this is what happens when you only talk to three other people for ten days.

Old Town, or at least Old Town square is pretty impressive. It has the weird astronomical clock, three massive churches, a galley showcasing Dalí, everything you could want! We didn’t spend a lot of time there as the next stop was to try to find train tickets over to Vienna for us and team MK. We wandered the streets, not quite knowing where the station actually was. Going via Lidl and picked up some sustenance before venturing onward. We reached a different station to the one we set out to find but a station nevertheless. After buying tickets there happened to be an adjoining post office which I popped into so I could send postcards. Turns out our way to the station was severely flawed, the twists and turns we took could have actually have just been a straight line, we’ll know for next time.

Back to the hostels for (Jonny’s) nap time. He sleeps like a proper little diva. We met up with team MK to go to a bar so Jonny, again, could have something to eat. It was here Anna asked ‘who’s Edward?’ after getting a friend request from Ed on Facebook. Realising people’s full names is always difficult. A mass debate ensued on whether to meet up with Dave again or just go home and sleep. We ended up deciding to try to meet Dave in Old Town, although we’d have to wait there for an hour. When we arrived Freya went over to get an ice cream, instead of a fairly delightful food substance she instead brought back Jason, a psychology graduate from Massachusetts who enjoyed talking about his passion. A lot of what he said made sense, like children developing between 3 & 5, a lot of what he said was just absolute nonsense, like things to do with souls. There was even some things inbetween, if everyone believes your dead you become dead - because what do we have other than human communication? Ed didn’t like the validity of the results, and didn’t understand the need to give Jason money for his studies which (I suppose) is fair enough. Everyone was fairly mjason. There was a moment of (supposed) hilarity where Jason said that “nothing mattered”, “except the Higgs Boson” I added, because (inaccurate) physics jokes for the win.

Dave didn’t manage to show up in time so we ended up heading back to the apartment. This time team MK stayed due to their lack of a room booked for the night, which made a change. It was a hilarious day, and the evening followed suit. Prague itself might not have been the greatest place but it’ll certainly hold some memories.

Anna and Freya left to do what they wanted to do for the day which, from what I gather, is just sitting in a park all day. We decided that we should probably head over to the Tesco we found last night. Searching aisle after aisle for things to sustain our bodies within the Czech Republic. Josh’s Serbian came in use, finally, for interpreting what things actually were. We settled with some chicken, bread, ham, cheese alongside some Kopparberg (Which Josh was ecstatic and finally finding), soft drinks and sparkling (D’oh!) water. 

After making use of our bread, ham and cheese we began our tourism extravaganza of Prague. We were trying to go on a free tour of Prague, and we were told we’d be fetched when he got there, but apparently when we were eventually called for we got out the door too late, so Ed ran off after the yellow-clad tour guide but failed to catch him. We decided not to let this dampen our spirits and crossed over the river to get a tram/cable car thing (think Legoland) up to what appeared to be where some sort of castle was (although the ‘castle’ itself was a little bit further over there we were definitely encompassed by castle walls).

Just before  reaching the Castle there was a gateway with the Republic’s version of the Queen’s guard. However before going through we made a b-line in the opposite direction to grass, with Ed clueless we played our first round of ‘Get Down, Mr President’ that involves players standing still with their fingers in their ears, like a secret service agent, and the last one is the President, who needs to be saved from flying bullets by being rugby tackled to the ground. We then made our way over to the actual castle, which appears to just be a cathedral. I say ‘just’, according to one of the tour guides Ed overheard it houses the Czech crown jewels, the best in the world, whilst its home is apparently the most secure place in Europe. I’d like to know how that was actually proved.

We decided, by majority vote, to eat at a cafe just outside. It was pretty expensive but the food (well, ice cream) was amazing. Jonny eats ice cream sloppier than anyone else I’ve ever seen. We ended up with a chocolate cake we didn’t order due to the cherries it contained, and it was left anyway even after attempts to devour it. Ed managed to sneak away with a glass without any of us noticing, little thief. There was a Cornetto Soft machine which I managed to tempt myself away from, though I’ve been dying for one since.

On our way back down we again attempted to manoeuvre Ed onto grass, for someone so intelligent his awareness is in need of improvement, however this time the game took a horrible turn for the worse. Instead of rugby tackling the President, which would have seen him get a face full of gravel, I attempted to pull the President back by his t-shirt which caused the item of clothing to tear slightly and left the President with a nasty looking cut on his left forearm (which I’m still profusely apologising for, Mr President). The President then left the building.

As we tried to catch up, which is impossible when you take into account how fast The President actually walks, we decided to take a detour over Charles Bridge, which was quite impressive, but packed full of tourists. We passed Europe’s biggest night club on our way back to the hostel, where we proceeded to wait for The President’s return for an hour - after seeing his shirt draped over a chair as a warning we were all apprehensive for his arrival.

When Ed did actually arrive back everything appeared to be okay, he’d spent his time having a good sight see of the Old Town and he insisted he’d found a quicker way - which is important for later in today’s story. Plans were made for later in the day to go on the Pub Crawl with team MK and Dave, who’d got into Prague earlier in the day with his band mates. 

With this in mind we went over to Old Town to find team MK who always have the worst directions, so we ended up eating KFC so we didn’t (completely) have another Copenhagen and told them we’d meet them under the odd astronomical clock that seems to be the main attraction of the Old Town. Alas Dave got there at the exact time that everyone seemed to congregate around it, but as the crowd dispersed it wasn’t hard to see the Weasley’s lost son.

It became apparent that the Weasley’s group weren’t able to fund a pub crawl, so we found a bar named Harleys, although we almost walked past before Anna (from team MK) decided it was the best(/closest) place. When we got in it was completely deserted, and Green Day were the only thing playing. Eventually we started requesting songs (Bohemian Rhapsody ftw) for us all to sing along to. Ed’s Call Me Maybe went down surprisingly well alongside Metallica (and A-ha). As the bar started to fill, and the guys became steadily more drunk everything became more enjoyable. Dancing started atop tables marked ¡Girls Preferred! (fuck the system) and Jonny started trying to undress me, he also kissed my eye - it’s starting to get weird. We stayed the night as the DJ, an absolute legend, played hit after hit. It was then however that Harry - one of the Weasley’s crew - got kicked out for dancing on a non-dancing table. This marked the end of our night (although it was 3:15, so we’d had a good run). On our way home Freya, who was again staying with us after the subway had stopped, started singing Call Me Maybe at taxi drivers, one of whom seemed very angry. Ed took us the supposedly quicker way, which was probably a bad idea as he was fairly drunk, and we ended up going what I perceived as a much slower journey than our previous attempts, although this could be attributed to our walking speed.

When home I decided that I’d try and find a bar for WWE, surprisingly the amount of bars open is minimal past 4am and I ended up having a Big Mac instead. I returned home to everyone still awake in the kitchen (minus Ed who was comatosed in bed). They decided, for some reason, that it’d be a great idea to make shapes out of sugar, which subsequently ended up everywhere in the kitchen after Jonny blew it.

This was the signal for sleep for most of us, but JJ (Jonny and Josh) decided to sing Enter Shikari quite loudly. I somehow still managed to drift off.

The time had come to leave mostly beautiful Berlin and Josh actually managed to be up almost in time for us to checkout, although that didn’t stop the cleaner trying to come in at 10:01. I felt almost bad, our room was still pretty messy and yet everyone there had been so nice! With heavy hearts we said goodbye to Singer 109 and realised that we probably wouldn’t be staying in a hostel as nice again. The idea that we’d chosen the wrong route, and should’ve finished in Stockholm/Berlin was growing but we put it to the back of our minds.

Ed needed to find a Deutsche Bank which should be fairly easy in Germany, or so one would think! In the end it took a fifteen minute trek down friedrichstraße whilst Jonny and Josh waited with all our bags. We still managed to get to the Hauptbanhof over an hour early, perhaps we should’ve saved the shopping for then. It’s surprisingly difficult to find a good sandwich in Berlin. You also tend to get odd looks when you start singing ‘Take On Me’ in the middle of a shop.

On the train we ran into two girls from Milton Keynes (or ‘MK’ as they like to say) Anna and Freya, who we ditched to go sit in our seats - remember kids to always reserve if you actually feel like sitting down. On the way past the penultimate compartment of our Harry Potter style train I caught the glimpse of a face I hadn’t seen in years - Nico Walters! Absolutely mental to think that we were on the exact same train a compartment apart. Anyway, we took our seats next to a man very reminiscent of Santa (although I expected Mrs Claus to look different) the MK girls were still looking for somewhere to rest at this point. On the Harry Potter train they have odd seats you can fold down in the corridor which were unused so I offered my own seat to one of them and sat in the corridor, because I’m such a gentleman! We got talking - Santa, MK and our own pack - and everybody awwed when Santa eventually fell asleep. We realised that Anna and Freya were mimicking our trip for the next couple of stops and decided to all get the train together over to sunny Austria in three days time. Santa woke up and proclaimed we were now in the Czech Republic, and close to where he was getting off (although he did keep saying it was the next station). Eventually Josh helped him with his luggage and we were left alone to rave it up with our Europe playlist with classic tune after classic tune.

At last we were in Prague and after waiting for what felt like an eternity for Josh to withdraw money - later we learnt there were unused machines just down the escalator - we headed our separate way to the MKs but with plans to meet up later in the evening. Upon arriving at our hostel and learning that it was 1150CKr per person, more than Josh had budgeted for the entire day, we dumped our bags band meet our roomies - it was an odd hostel because it was split into apartments, which were then subdivided into a couple of rooms with communal wash, kitchen and relaxation facilities.

We met up with team MK to try to find somewhere to eat and eventually settled on an Italian/Pirate restaurant - there were reasons for the theme, but srsly. It was then out to find a bar that we could all drink in, Ed still being 17, which isn’t hard in Prague as nobody IDs even when they’re unsure of your age. We ended up in a rock/comic club and just after we arrived the Official Prague Pub Crawl came in, which seemed to have been taken over by Australians. The organiser of their tour to Europe came over to talk to us, and despite her accent she was from London. We discussed Australians’ poor use of the English language before a real life Australian came over to start insulting England, us, and The Queen. She also decided to show us how tough she was by trying to tackle me ‘Aussie Rules style’, which I’m sure everyone has videos of. Eventually she left, but only after we shouted at some of the other pub crawlers to take her with them.

By the time we left, after Ed broke a glass, it was too late for Anna and Freya to get back over to their hostel, so we smuggled them into our apartment. On the way we passed Tesco, and a Costa Coffee - it’s almost like home. There’s also a Subway with normal advertised hours that NEVER CLOSES. It’s insane.

So after the entertainment that was my birthday we didn’t manage to get up until around 12 but was up relatively quickly. It was fairly evident that Josh wasn’t quite fully awake when, attempting a shortcut, Josh jumped at a tree before exclaiming ‘I thought it had a jaguar in it’.

Our plan of things to do wasn’t quite complete, so we headed over to the Berlin Wall using the underground - skipping fares on the underground seems incredibly easy due to the fact that they don’t seem to use barriers in Europe - but unfortunately went the wrong way out of the station. Although this meant that we stumbled across Checkpoint Charlie, a crossing point between ye old East and West Berlin.

When we managed to get to the Wall it was almost exactly as expected. A concrete wall with varying amounts of graffiti. What was perhaps more interesting was the Topographie des Terrors exhibit about World War Two. I got kinda mad that they killed a 6 year old girl due to the fact she had epilepsy, I still can’t understand how it’s possible to justify. It was just after we took cover under the exhibit that the heavens truly began to open, a huge thunderclap seemed to roll in and echo off the surrounding buildings whilst flashes of lightening illuminated the grey skies of Berlin.

We decided it was probably time to head over to the Olympiastadion before the world ended. €5 to walk around wasn’t too bad! It was strangely disappointing, maybe the history the place was steeped in gave unrealistic expectations, especially after its revamp. It was, however, interesting to know about figures like Carl Diem, who held his position in office from the Weimar Government right through the Third Reich. It was also amazing to see people swimming in the ex-Olympic pool. We were all slightly jealous as we hadn’t had a chance to use our trunks yet and we were pretty sure we wouldn’t really get another opportunity. On the train home I started singing ‘Do You Really Like It?’ and a five year old girl opposite copied. “I’m loving it, loving it, loving it!”

We stopped off at the Hauptbahnhof to book our tickets over to Prague as well as searching for a connection for Ed to download photos from his camera - he only brought a 128mb memory, idiot. We also managed to bag a five-way splitter, so we can watch The Walking Dead on the train! Stoked. Also bought a couple of Ampelmännchen souvenirs, because that dude’s awesome.

Josh caved in and bought a Burger King, our first fast food food of our trip. I was just surprised it took so long, really. We went back to the hostel and downloaded The Phantom Menace to, hypothetically, watch later. However we all went down to the bar and ate some food instead, before grabbing Ligretto which involved me teaching them how to play. Unsurprisingly I won. CHAMPION. Jonny/Josh managed to even up Pool but we managed to keep up our Table Football supremacy, so I suppose we won overall!

It was early to bed for our journey to Prague later in the day, but at least we didn’t see anyone bleeding out on the pavement.

So the most important bit about July 6 was the fact that it was the day that I finally became an adult. Brand New were finally relatable, I could use eBay, all the positives were there. The fact that I was in Germany, a country with a drinking age of 16 meant that the obvious were somewhat taken away, but that was completely fine with me!

We’d set our sights on slightly touristy things for the morning, and as I awoke Ed and Jonny were already planning our route for the day. We seem to have stopped the three meal-a-day routine of at home and tend to only eat properly around dinner, so breakfast was skipped as we made our way toward Alexanderplatz and the concrete Fernsehturm Berlin - which is basically a massive TV tower that was built on the communist side of the wall, according to Jonny to rub in that they managed to get TV first - this may be complete rubbish but he does seem to have a ridiculous knowledge of German history so I’m taking it as true.

Anyway, it’s the tallest structure in Germany, and the fourth tallest freestanding structure in Europe. In fact, the tower is taller than the Eiffel Tower - although the viewing platform is lower than you’re allowed in Paris. Due to this I decided that my feet would remain in the Starbucks at the bottom - because when in Berlin drink Starbucks’ English Breakfast Tea. The view is allegedly amazing, and I’m slightly gutted that I didn’t go up, I’ll work up the courage one day!

As we passed through the square just behind, complete with Poseidon fountain, we were told to steer clear from the people with clipboards and “stay away from the gypsy scum” by one of the city sightseeing saleswomen. Which Jonny had said in a slightly more PC way just before, which helped hammer home the point.

As we walked down Berlin’s only street (according to Josh) we came across Berlin Cathedral. At only €4 entry we decided to have a look - well Ed got in free after a lot of searching for a passport. We decided that Christianity was at least good for the structures it created if nothing else. Heights aren’t my thing, so when the dome walk was suggested I had second thoughts but made my way about half way up before grabbing hold of the hand rail, brow slightly sweaty and eyes petrified. Eventually I made it up to the top with the encouragement of my three colleagues and a random tourist to look over a slightly lower panorama of Berlin than the one Josh, Jonny and Ed had managed to get a few minutes earlier. From the dome it seems like half of Berlin is still being built!

Afterwards we went to have a look at an empty room just below street level outside the library which signified the amount of books the Nazis burnt. We spotted the Cathedral of St Hedwig - no joke, it’s an actual thing - which was almost completely empty. It contained the body of a holocaust hero too, for whom we lit a candle (although we didn’t have the money to pay - whoops)

Then it was onwards to the Brandenburg Gate via the Haagen-Daz cafe where Josh preceeded to spend all my money, complaining that he spent £130 in Copenhagen, so I gave him his €5,90 tropical twist ice cream smoothy (thing) and looked toward the end of the street for the almighty Gate, which was quite impressive. Again, history lessons from Jonny, and musings about why the French embassy has loopholes to shoot through. The square was complete with the hotel Michael Jackson dangled a child out of. Now that’s history if ever I saw it. There are quite a lot of posters advertising the Cirque De Soleil Michael Jackson Immortal tour, which is ironic as Josh pointed out as he’s almost the very definition of mortal nowadays.

From the Gate it was onto the Reichstag - the German House of Parliament - which is impressive from the oustide, being inside a royal 1894 building, although topped with glass dome, which we could’ve gone round if we were okay with waiting the half an hour queue - not something that we were up for doing. So we headed toward the Berlin Victory Column, built to commemorate the Prussian victory in the Danish-Prussian War. Berlin seems to attract war.

It was finally getting time for everyone to be hungry so we headed over to the Hard Rock Cafe to eat. Due to my birth date I was forced up on to a chair at the end of our meal and everyone sang happy birthday, at least it was a good ice breaker as Melanie and Jenny, in town for the fashion week, started talking to us and we all decided to go out later. This required us to all go back to the hostel to dump our bags and get ready whilst they went to see the Blue Man Group. As we left the hostel and walked down the street we were asked for a cigarette, and when our answer was negative profanities were yelled in our direction, which made us all speed up just a little bit.

On the train we started counting in binary which sort of become a thing now. Good ol’ binary. Meeting back in Hard Rock Cafe where there was a DJ before everybody started to leave and he just started choosing songs from iTunes. Seriously, mixing I’ve Got a Feeling with Du Hast was some sort of stroke of genius. Jonny’s hardcore Moshpit drink turned out to be quite a feminine strawberry cocktail, whilst Josh & I chose some sort of Baccardi Raspberry drink. MANLY. We were told about a rock club in a different part of town, so we got on their overground and got off to an interesting sight.

There were ladies of the night on the street corners, and we immediately bumped into a group of German guys that talked to our German counterparts whilst we looked on with absolutely no idea what was being decided. Eventually we started walking down the street in search of (what we were told was) a bar. After a few hundred metres it was quite obvious that nobody quite knew what they were doing, and the ladies of the night were endless. The final straw was when a guy right next to us got kicked in the head and was flat out on the pavement, blood spewing from his head. We decided to call it quits and head back to the hostel. We’ve decided that somebody dies every time someone shouts angrily in German. Every. Single. Time. Sort of like whenever somebody mentions that they don’t believe in fairies, although I doubt you can wish them back to life by speaking in a cute Parisian accent.

The fact all the underground is still running at 2am, alongside the pastry shops in the stations being open is a little trippy for an Englishman who’s used to everything shutting significantly earlier. On our way back a guy started talking to Josh about his Enter Shikari t-shirt, although he was promptly surrounded by Polizei, judging by how high he seemed it was of little surprise.

All in all it was a good day, but maybe could have ended a little better!

It wasn’t a good morning. Not in the slightest. Josh seemed fairly chirpy but the fact that food was off the menu meant that I was hungry, and the walk from the hostel to Copenhagen Central just killed me. After loading onto the train to discover that we were in the hottest coach on the damn thing without so much as a wifi. Most of the beginning journey was spent trying to sleep off the night prior, before eventually our train docked onto a boat. We were on a train on a ferry. It was absolutely mental, although probably not the best thing.

Is the whole sailor hat thing in Daneland to do with the Eurovision entry, or is that just a thing? Answers on a postcard please.

After we got back onto the train somewhere in Germany we opened the laptop to try to watch The Walking Dead, but when that proved to be too quiet we switched to Bruce Willis (who’s hencher than even Jonny) trying to save aeroplanes from another German villain. RAW was again rejected. Shockingly all the trains into our changeover at Hamburg were running late and so what we thought was a 15 minute changeover became one minute when we were told it was late, but ended up being more like 5, hurrah!

In the Harry Potter train compartment complete with what seemed like a fairly annoyed Granny and extra German to make up the numbers I bagged myself my first real food of the day, a single chocolate square. Good food. The two hours into Berlin passed pretty smoothly except for the fact the plugs died again meaning I failed to get all the way through RAW. At some point I’ll get there, trust me. Berlin welcomed us at about 6:30 but a further train awaited us to carry us out to our hostel.

Or hostel is SO NICE. From the outside it looks quite similar to Sleep In Heaven, almost looking like an old factory but inside it’s been done up really nicely, and reminds me more of a hotel than hostel. We showered in our clothes, which I’ve been reliable informed is covered under YOLO before we went down to the bar where we completely alcohol free where overly annoying German women didn’t understand why we were asking how many the nachos fed (they easily served all four of us rather than the one she’d said) and we got some proper food in us for the first time since Gamla Stan in Stockholm.

After a game of Pool (me and ed victorious) and table football (again, with the losers being Josh and Jonny) we headed up to our room to chillax and write our blogz. NOW IT’S MY BIRTHDAY, which we’ll be celebrating responsibly (and most probably sober). Off out into Berlin tomorrow to explore, it’s going to be an interesting day!

edit: I’ve been informed that the sailor hats are to do with graduation and not Eurovision :(

So the time had come to leave the beautiful Swedish capital city and take the train down to Copenhagen for the night. At 09:00 alarms blared before the slow waking of the group started to occur. Everyone was up and ready before Josh actually bothered moving. So the check out time of 10:00 came and went as we moved the Pepsi cans from our room to the recycling. An hour later Josh was up and we began our journey to Daneland with an air of reluctance after our incredible stay in Stockholm.

After managing to reach the station we debated what our tickets actually meant and which bits were our supposed seats. Turns out we were right at the end of the train, and that would’ve been fine if the charging points actually worked for the first two hours. Eventually we tucked into the sandwiches that’d been bought for a couple of days previous, after Josh worked some origami magic with cheese to make it fit the entire bread. The charging points were activated by the very nice train guard and so we proceeded to watch Bruce Willis climb elevator shafts to defeat a fairly young Alan Rickman. I voted for RAW but apparently it’s too lame. Boo.

To get into Copenhagen you cross over a massive bridge which was incredible to go over. The views across the water toward wind turbines were fairly stunning but alas I didn’t get a photo where all the turbines aligned, I blame josh for yelling at me too much. Weirdly whilst we were queuing for tickets for our trains to Berlin the next day I bumped into Will who was off to Roskilde. He’d tweeted me earlier in the day to say he was going to be in Copenhagen but I didn’t pick it up until much later, in fact the only reason I spotted him was his Xcerts’ attire. Weird as hell but the little we got to talk made him seem genuinely lovely!

After Stockholm it’s likely that most cities may be a bit of a disappointment, and that was certainly the case as we roamed through Copenhagen debating the reasons behind the lack of Chip and Pin and noting that the streets were definitely more littered than their Swedish counterpart. We put these thoughts behind us, however, as we realised we were only there overnight before moving onto Berlin in the morning.

Luckily the hostel, Sleep in Heaven, wasn’t as difficult to find as our home in Stockholm and we raced a couple of Irish guys to check in (we reached the door at the same time but we all managed to get through just before). After dumping all our bags in the slightly too small room we headed up to the bar for happy hour where we met our newest friend Nadine, a Canadian backpacking round Europe for a couple of months after university. It was here that the consumption of alcohol began before Nadine suggested a Copenhagen bar crawl, which sounded like a great idea at the time. After only eating a sandwich for the entire day it probably wasn’t in hindsight. On our way over we stopped in McDonald’s which had odd unisex toilets. (cool story, eh?)

Shots were had anywhere that would let us in (myself and Edward still technically too young to drink in the bars), including some odd slush puppy shots at the beginning of the night. Directions asked of anyone that would listen to a mythical bar crawl to do with the ‘seven deadly bars’. Perhaps invented by the random Swedish guys on bikes that approached us. Eventually we ended up in the Irish bar in Copenhagen where my memory falters a little and my next thoughts are of an area outside, with a statue that none of us can quite remember - even the picture Jonny took doesn’t actually show it. There was another Australian lady, a German guy on a bench and a few girls that we began talking to before we attempted to fit 5 people in a four person taxi, which the taxi driver was having none of. Eventually we started back toward the hostel as the sun was rising and managed to get in at 3am where we all promptly fell asleep. It was a good, good night.

Our last full day in Stockholm started with only 5 hours sleep after talking into the small hours. Various alarms awoke us from our respective slumbers before we headed into the kitchen for a breakfast of waffles caked in chocolate spread or sugar, depending on your preference. As we were about to leave we remembered our sandwiches for the day so Ed rushed to get the butter before realising that it was either way too far out of date to have been found on Lidl’s shelves yesterday or something totally different, and judging by the colour and the smell it may have been something completely different entirely.

Luckily to distract us Ed noticed that his shower gel had exploded in his rucksack. Now, I’d just like to point out that I’m of the opinion that this wouldn’t have happened in my wheely bag, due to the superior protection and design of My bag. I’m counting it as Rucksacks 1 Wheely Bag 2*. However after this setback we forgot about the sandwiches completely, so as we strolled past the All Star Sports Bar we debated whether to go back or to continue onward towards Gröna Lund. Common sense prevailed as we soldiered on toward our destination via the money exchange as we had a cumulative total of very little, and nowhere near enough for a day in the park.

We trekked around the harbour due to the ridiculous way that I was led (I did protest at the routing) but it turned out to be quite stunning to look across the water. We walked past the Vasamuseet to try to catch a glimpse of the 384 year old boat but alas the queue proved a stumbling block and we kept going until we reached our ultimate destination. The 95SEK to enter the park was beautifully cheap, although to have unlimited rides you needed to pay another 299SEK for a ride pass, something which the other three jumped at, whilst I past up the opportunity to terrify myself to death.

This however did mean sitting at the bottom of rides whilst everyone else enjoyed themselves, but that wasn’t too bad, especially when considering that Josh joined me at the bottom of “one of the tallest freefall towers in Scandinavia”, and not the tallest freefall tower in Europe as Ed and Jonny thought as they justified the 262ft climb to the top. I did however attempt the stereotypical wooden roller coaster, Twister, which looked like it’s been designed it on Roller Coaster Tycoon. In fact, the entire park had the air of a video game. Josh and I took time out of the busy schedule to buy a strawberry ripple ice cream, and our exclamations that they actually tasted of strawberry seemed to humour the woman selling them to us. It’s true though, it even looked like real strawberries had been made in the production of the ripple, not just processed junk.

On the way to Gamla Stan to attempt to buy our first souvenirs of the trip we split into two as Josh joined myself in a covert surveillance operation on our two companions. I must say that if MI5 ever need more operatives I think we’ve got a good case to be considered. After Jonny found himself a Viking horn for the bargain price of 179SEK and we finally got our 24 cans of Pepsi (20 of which are already finished) alongside tonight’s dinner we went to prepare our stereotypical but below-Ikea-standard meatballs. Oh the joy when we realised they were microwaveable. Jonny created a surprisingly edible cheesy mash from left over chips and Ed cooked the leftover spicy sausages from yesterday’s meal for a relative feast enjoyed by all. Also managed to download The Walking Dead, last night’s RAW and The Newsroom episode two which will help move along tomorrow’s train journey nicely.

The time since dinner has been spent surfing the Internet, updating the various forms we’re using to document our journey, and using Spotify. Damn Internet making us all antisocial. Anyway, as stated we’re off to Copenhagen in the morning and maybe tonight should be spent sleeping, but somehow it seems unlikely. Slayer will have to do.

On a related note any recommendations for our Europe playlist are welcome.

Time to pack!

*Hotly disputed

The plan was to wake up at 8:30, and we did. The alarm went off and Jonny got out of bed but everyone else had other ideas so we all went back to sleep and didn’t end up getting out of the room until 14:00 when we proceeded to go down to Lidl to find food after spending pretty much our entire Swedish budget yesterday eating muscles. Luckily our entire shopping for the next couple of days came to about the same price as the aforementioned muscles and for which I am eternally grateful to Lidl.

After walking back to the hostel we decided that it was probably best to eat something due to us all being fairly hungry so we started on our 2kg worth of chips and spicy sausages, however we’d forgotten to buy oil so Josh and Jonny went off to buy it via getting more Kronor out. Now, cooking with an insulator is never a great idea so when josh attempted to use it (whatever it was) as a frying pan it didn’t work as well as planned. After sourcing a saucepan to use instead, and HALF A BOTTLE OF OIL LATER we eventually had mostly edible chips and some pretty damn tasty sausages. Next time I think we might stick to something more pan friendly.

We tucked into a tub of Ben & Jerry’s that Jonny had purchased. This provided a few problems as three of the hostel’s toughest plastic spoons came away from the battlefield with mortal wounds. “The thing is, why you didn’t stop after the second?” We were also reprimanded for not draining the water from the sink. I’m not sure we’re going to be welcome back here, which is a shame because this wonderful ex-hospital is a lovely place to rest our heads.

We’d quite obviously missed the deadline for the theme park due to the fact we finished eating around 17:00, so we headed to the national park just past the university. On the way we walked through the Royal Institute of Technology which is an amazingly beautiful building, especially for somewhere to learn. It’s also free of mosquitos WHICH THE FOREST MOST DEFINITELY WAS NOT. So many bugs trying to gnaw away at flesh. After a bit of debate it was decided we’d do the 3,0km trail, definitely something to do if you have proper footwear, and not vans.

A trip to the hostel via Lidl was fruitful, with bottles of Sweden’s finest coca-cola and cheese balls. Today’s definitely not been as active as it’s predecessor but somehow it’s been just as good, probably because of various conversations that probably aren’t suitable for this particular blog. We’ve all bummed around and updated various social networks before planning to play Pass The Pigs later. Gröna Lund will definitely happen tomorrow. Tomorrow’s also our last day in Sweden before we move to Copenhagen overnight on our way to Berlin, but that’s for another day.

Managed to get up at 2:30 for my very kind father to drive us over to Stanstead. Bon Iver in the small hours is even more beautiful than normal. SAW SARAH AT STANSTEAD WHICH WAS WEIRD before patronising Ryanair man directed us into the correct queue. It was here that roller suitcase vs camping rucksacks began as my three compatriots were forced to abandon their bags onto the oversized or fragile conveyor belt, which was odd as their luggage fulfilled neither of these ailments.

Ryanair, for those of you who don’t know, is tacky. On an airline this isn’t always an enjoyable feeling to have when everything is made from yellow plastic, and constant announcements about the newest product to hit the plane’s duty free trolley seem to rank just as highly as the flight’s safety rating. Although the air stewardesses were interesting with face-neck women and the one responsible for our personal safety appearing to be several seconds behind the rest.

Once on Swedish turf the decision to bus-train or coach into Stockholm was a difficult one, and one not easily made. Eventually the 125SEK, 80 minute coach won and the journey was spent asleep on all four of our parts. A trip into the train station when we arrived saw us become incredibly stereotypical British tourists, bumbling around trying to figure out how to purchase tickets to Copenhagen for Tuesday.

Our second decision of the day was to figure out whether lunch or hostel came first, the hostel eventually winning out when it was learnt that the Sports Bar we had our eye on didn’t open for another 27 minutes. This, however, turned out to be a poor plan due to our lack of knowledge and planning of Stockholm’s streets turning it into an hour trek, this saw the rucksackers actively looking for stairs in order to take my wheels out of the equation. We also encountered our first random act of generosity when given a bus ticket for the open top bus by a friendly older woman. Eventually we stumbled onto our place of residence for the next few days, with the help of one man and his dog, before finding out that we technically couldn’t check in for another two and a half hours. Luckily everybody in Sweden is super nice and seeing as our room was ready we were unleashed into 2 Crafoord Place to dump our bags.

After a small break to recuperate and take in the FREE WIFI on offer we set off to explore old Stockholm, Gamla Stan and to find some chocolatiers cafe for food. It was a good decision due to the delicious White Chocolate Cheesecake, Spinach Soup and rather too sickly Hot White Chocolate, managing to bag a free sandwich (it was left off the bill) in the process. We had a fairly long walk afterward in an attempt to find the Vasa but realised we couldn’t read the map and ended on the wrong island.

Naps ensued after a stroll back to the hostel before setting off to attempt to find somewhere to view the European Championship Final 2012. The Sports Bar outside was unfortunately strict on age, so we headed over to one of Stockholm’s squares where there was a massive gathering for television. After that filled up before we managed to get in we roamed the streets aimlessly before stumbling upon a Belgian bar with a table for two and a helpful Australian. Remember, if you ask for a kilogram of chips you’ll probably receive the kilogram of muscles on the menu. Another mistake with the bill meant that one round was free, which is always nice when everybody’s already running out of money.

Those of legal age to enjoy an alcoholic beverage in our current country did so, which made everything slightly more funny, and a lot more about Warcraft before realising that dark Stockholm looks different to daylight Stockholm. We got back with thoughts that Sweden is already collectively our favourite country (ever). Plans for tomorrow to go to the theme park is probably not one of my favourites but we’ll just have to see.

NIGHT NIGHT xxx

HELLO STOCKHOLM.