Bathalona

I took a train out of Barcelona today and went to the Dali museum - it was so great!!!!!!!!!! We spent 5 hours, that's right FIVE hours wandering around the museum - it was fantastic. Really weird though and a little disturbing.
Yesterday we just wandered around and found this fantastic market full of wonderful fruit (Sasha they had watermelon everywhere and so many fruit smoothies!!) yummmmm!
I am so paranoid about my bag getting stolen as EVERY ONE who knows I'm in Barcelona seems to want to tell me how dangerous it is and how everyone gets things nicked. Its ok nothing has been stolen and I'm very careful..... but I really don't need more people trying to freak me out...... thank you for your concern.....

I just realised that it's Spring for you at home in Australia so I hope that you are all enjoying your warm Spring day!!! I can't wait to see you all.... it is very exciting.
Ok I have to go and sleep now,
all the best, cush.

Hola from Barcelona

Hi all I am well and presently in Spain!! I spent the last two days in lovely Avignon in France which was great...... just hanging out, exploring castles and dancing on bridges......"Sur le pont d'Avignon".......

I miss and love you all.
love Acushla

Monaco, Monte Carlo and Antibes

Today I went to Antibes by bus. I got off in a completely different town by accident but just waited for the next bus and got on that. The buses here are so good. We went to Monaco the other day and it only cost us 1 Euro by bus. We got off at what we thought was Monaco but was in fact Monte Carlo and we couldn't remember where Monte Carlo was. I thought that it was part of Monaco but we weren't sure. (Just to let you know, if you were wondering, it is part of Monaco so we were in the right country after all!!). We walked around town then went to the Casino but couldn't get in. We took a look at the really expensive cars and then took a walk along the marina to check out all the really expensive boats. From there we hiked up to the castle on top of the hill and ate brie and crackers whilst looking at the Mediterranean Sea. It was all very nice. We managed to walk around all of Monaco in an afternoon and climbed soooooooo many stairs.
Back in Nice we walked around the old town and found a really cool spot where all the locals were meeting. We sat down and joined them for a cheap dinner (the least amount of money I have actually spent eating out in Europe - only 5 euros for two different dishes). Rob had an ice cream and I found some sweets and then we went off and sat on the beach for ages.

So back to Antibes. I wandered into the old town trying to steer myself towards the Picasso Museum and by chance stumbled across a fantastic market. I picked up some food, doing a bit of food testing whilst I was there, and then continued on my way. The old town of Antibes was gorgeous - lovely old buildings with small curving alleyways opening into beautiful courtyards. I found the Picasso Museum and spent an hour or so wandering and wondering through. It was great. Picasso did an enormous amount of work and had so many different phases in his life with the result that the work is totally unlike each other. It was really interesting. Richard would have loved it.
I then walked by the sea down to the beach, actual sand!!!!! Brilliant! So I went swimming and sat for most of the afternoon on the beach reading a book. At 4 o-clock it was time to jump back on the bus to meet up with Robert in Nice, make some dinner and end off a brilliant day.
I hope that you are all having brilliant days like I am.
All the best, I love you lots, Acushla.

NIce

Hi all,
I'm now in Nice, it is sooo warm here and the beaches are rocky not sandy.... it is weird.
I met up with Robert after a terrible overnight train ride to Lauterbrunen in Switzerland. Actually the train ride was ok it was just the lack of sleep caused by changing trains four times and you know how I get when I'm over-tired.
The next day I went hiking in the Swiss Alps while Rob was in anuther town. It was the best view and scenery I have seen during all of my trip - snow covered Alps, lush green fields..... amazing!!! Check out the Flickr account - I have put some photos up.
But hiking I got sooo burnt and now can't go out in the sun. Ok it's not that bad but it wasn't fun.
Hiking in the Alps was soooooo amazing! So so beautiful. I can't wait to go back. As you walk along you can hear cow bells and then when you turn a corner you find a couple of cows just hanging out munching on grass and making music with their cow bells. By the end of the day of walking I was very tired . I had managed to walk from 10am until 6pm mostly non stop. Because Rob was in another town that was up on the ridge and I was in the valley I walked to meet him and then we had to walk all the way down the valley with his big pack. It is such a strange place for people to live and how on earth did they get up there before they had cable cars??? Well I guess the same way we walked down... but what on earth would make you want to build your house all the way up on the side of a cliff??

Now I'm back in France. It is nice in Nice but the weather means that we have to take everything easy have long lunches in the shade and really not do a whole lot because it is so hot. Nice is ok but we hope to head out of the city tomorrow and maybe go to Antibes or Cannes for a day. We also want to go to Monaco for an afternoon just for a laugh. It is actually quite ridiculous how the wealthy live - in order to apply for a building grant in Monaco they have to pay a couple of grand and that's just a processing fee. They each have two boats because their big ones can't fit into the harbor so they have to be moored out in the sea while another 'smaller' boat brings them to shore. How silly.

The water here is so blue and clear. It was such fun to swim in the Mediterranean Sea!! The water is warm and lovely.

Well I had better go and make some really late dinner.
I love you all.
Love Acushla

Munchen

Well I'm back in Germany, this time in Munich. The weather is great so all you do in the afternoon is hang out in the beer gardens and drink beer by the litre until sunset.
I went to Dachau on Sunday.......words can't describe such an evil place.
But Munich is so full of history. The rise of the Nazi party, Hitler's treason, the bombing of World War II. I think it is amazing that so much of Munich was destroyed and yet they decided to rebuild it exactly the same as it was before the Second World War.
I have met lots of lovely people here and in Salzburg. Two American guys traveling with their mother and these three guys from England , Canada and Northern Ireland..... sounds like the beginning of a joke..... We are now going to spend the day lounging around in the sun and maybe go swimming!
Ok I love you all lots.
Acushla

Salzburg the land of tall mountains, a little man and a funny musical.

Yes thats right folks I'm in Salzburg! On my first day here I went on a tour up into the amazing Alps to visit an ice cave. The walk up the mountain was great. The sun was shining, the sky was blue, the view was spectacular! Absolutely gorgeous!!
We got a cable car halfway up the mountain then had to walk the rest of the way. Up and up we climbed past the Alpine region up until there were no trees growing only little shrubs eventually we reached the cave. We then had to get into warm weather gear which was really hard because we had just been walking in 30 degree heat and were so warm. But on went one, two, three jumpers and a beany and I'm very glad I did because when they opened the door to the cave out rushed a cold gust of wind. It nearly knocked us over. The ice caves were amazing full of stalactites and stalagmites that had met in the middle and formed these ice statues. I got to slide on the ice and nearly fell flat on my bum. :) I also got to go through a hand carved ice tunnel - there was a 20 meter wall of ice all around me!
It was a brilliant afternoon!!!!!!!!!

Yesterday it poured with rain..... the most miserable day! Cold, wet and windy. I went on a "Sound of Music" tour which was the biggest waste of time and money ever! So boring and you didn't really see anything exciting at all. We went out into the countryside but it was so foggy that you couldn't see any thing. 

Got to go,

love cush.

Vienna.... Take Two

The past three days I have wandered around by myself. On Monday I went to the 'Belvedere', a very rich persons house which is now a museum that exhibits some of Gustav Klimt's work. I really loved seeing his work and then wandering through the rest of the gallery - I haven't been to a museum in over a week!!!! How outrageous!  :)
I also went in to a church which had an elevator that took you up to a platform where you could have a really close look at the painting on the roof. I then walked outside and there was a man in a funny costume selling tickets to a Mozart concert so I bought myself one! It was sooo great! It was just amazing and I was very lucky because all the theaters are closed over the summer. But this performance was on. It was selected pieces of his work well most of the famous stuff so it was brilliant. The conductor got the audience to clap along to one of the tunes but we were so helpless (when I say "WE" I mean everyone else of course) that he pretended to be upset.... it was really funny. All the musicians were dressed in the clothes of Mozart's time and the concert hall itself was amazing. So lavishly decorated!
Tuesday:
I went to the Imperial Palace and wandered around then went to Empress Sisi's museum which was fantastic!!! She was such an interesting person. (I'll have to type quickly as I have only two minutes left!) 

Last night I toddled off to an old theater and saw "The Third Man" (that's right Jim.... you've got to love that good old zither). It was fantastic! I have never seen it before but I really enjoyed it. So today I just had to go to Prater Park and have a ride on the big ferris wheel it was great!

I spent the rest of my day in the Schonbrunn Palace and then at the zoo there in the grounds (I had forgotten how much I hate zoos.... the poor animals !) I also got to eat some chocolate cake (yes Dad the famous Viennese chocolate cake called Sachertorte).
I also spent some time drawing - it is really funny because when I draw all these people come up to have a 'look-see" at what I'm doing. They are all looking and going... "Oh, yes I see how she's capturing that light there"... as if I'm actually any good.  Now believe me most of my sketches are not that brilliant...... it's really truly funny.

Must go.....

Love to all, Acushla Van Gogh.

Vienna

I am now in Vienna or Wein as they call it. Yesterday I went on a bike tour at dusk which was good (but not enough information about beautiful Vienna). Yesterday during the day some of us went on a day trip to Bratislava in Slovakia. It was only one hour by train - thats from Belgrave to the City!!!!! But how crazy to be able to go from not only one country to another but from one capital to another!!! They had the Red Bull flying competition where these small planes have to fly in and around these inflatable poles really fast.... it's like a time trial. It was good fun to sit there and eat lunch and watch the planes. We also wandered around the castle and the old town.

Vienna is great fun. The night before last I was walking around a stumbled across the film festival they have here during the Summer. The problem with Vienna in the Summer is that none of the opera houses or concert halls are open... even the Dancing Spanish Horses are having a holiday so you can't go to anything which is a real shame (I'll just have to come back some time - I already have a list of places I have too see in Europe on my next trip !). Traveling is so exciting.... I get excited when I hear about where other people are going or where they are coming from. So during the Summer months they have this big film festival... it is all free... you just rock up at 9pm and they show films or operas or concerts projected on to this big screen in the town square. It was good fun. I saw some really old jazz musician... he was like 70 or something.... playing tunes like "I did it my way".

love cush

Cesky Krumlov

Well I have spent the last two days in the beautiful Cesky Krumlov , a little town outside of Prague. We had the most gorgeous weather on the first day so we hung out in the castle gardens and down by the river. Some went swimming. It was sooo lovely. We then went out for a lovely dinner and then roamed the streets eating ice cream and listening to jazz music that was drifting up from the banks of the river. In the evening we wandered up to the castle and saw Cesky by night thenwent back down to the the jazz club where the service was so bad it took 45 minutes to get the drinks and then they charged us 20kc per person for a jug of tap water. It was soo silly....
but we had the greatest night.
Cesky is just such a chilled out amazing place. The first afternoon saw half the people on the bus organizing to stay here an extra two nights rather then going on to Vienna.

Yesterday we got up really late and did some more wandering. Then we hired some rafts and got driven up the river and spent the rest of the day drifting downstream on a boat. It was meant to be a pub crawl where you stop off occasionally to jump out and get more beer. It was lots of fun. I fell out of the boat once but even though outside was cold the water wasn't too bad. (It's ok Oma I don't have a cold :) ). So anyway in an hour I'll be on my way to Vienna which should be lots of fun!!! I hope to go to a concert when I get there.
Lots of love to all
Acushla

Practically Perfect Prague

Prague is sooo beautiful! The old Baroque houses and churches. The lovely stepped terraced gardens. So nice . I had a great day today just wandering around for hours. I hope that your day was good as well.
acushla

Prague.....Czech it out.

Ok I know the title is pretty lame but they have it on souvenir t-shirts here.
Today after getting up quite late I went on a walking tour of Prague, the guide was really bad and not at all interesting which was a big shame.
After it finished I had a great time wandering around the gardens by the Palace - it is so gorgeous. There are all these terraces and beautiful root trees, there were some lovely figs! So I sat and read and wrote and drew in the gardens - which was great, I really loved it.
I am really sick of Australians or just the ones that are bad (well what I see as "bad") travelers. They are not "travelers" they're "tourists" and they're not very considerate. They're loud and they drink too much. I am thinking of changing nationalities and "becoming" English but then every one will hate me out of principal :)
It's not that bad....it's just that some of the people you meet all they try to do is get drunk in every town and they're just so damn loud.......
Just needed to get that off my chest.

I have met some lovely Aussies but they're not with me at the moment.
I think I will be in Paris for my birthday !!! How great!! I'll have to think of something really cool to do by myself!!

Sorry that this is a little bit of ramble but I am tired and don't know what to say......
.... I went on a pub crawl last night with some of the people from the hostel. It was fun but a little too much for me..... ummm nothing really too say so I'll sign off .... I love you all very much... and wish we could chat.
All the best,
cush

Dresden, bike riding and books.

Hi,
I have spent the last couple of days in Dresden, a nice city in Germany. The town is famous for being completely bombed during the Second World War, but despite that it has managed to still have some beautiful old buildings. I spent an afternoon wandering around the town. Yesterday me and four other Australians (it is a little annoying how many Australians are on Busabout it makes it a little frustrating). We rode along the river to a big lake to go swimming. It was really nice as yesterday was quite hot. But we had to hurry back as the storm clouds came in. We got caught in the storm but played Street Ball (you just kick the ball as hard as you can) in a tunnel..... it was fun.
We then rode around the city some more.
I am reading the diaries of Anne Frank at the moment which is really interesting. I love the way through all of it she is still just a teenager. She feels that everyone picks on her and she doesn't get along with her mother.
Books.... that reminds me of going to the book burning square in Berlin where all the books where burnt during the Second World War (as suggested by the name). There is a monument there which is just empty shelves for all the books that were burnt..... so many books missing.

I hope you are all well.

love cush.