It's not every day you see a Zombie.

It was supposed to be a quiet weekend at a little Spanish seaside town. Turns out we rocked up in the middle of the annual zombie convention. Ahhh, Spain...how I keep turning up for these things, I'll never know...

No more backpack. A new life.

About to walk over the threshold of my new life.
No more backpack.
No more hostels.



Transformation, complete.



Now, I'm ON A BOAT!

The last supper.

My final meal as a backpacker...

Me and one million Spaniards.

Another random stumble. Turns out, that the weekend I flew into Barcelona was the final of the Red Bull Air Race.





Hectic planes flying dangerously close to the shore, doing ridiculous air stunts, trying to complete a course in the quickest time. Brilliant.

CON-tiki.

It became incredibly clear to me why I am NOT CONTIKI. The structured itinerary, the overwhelming amount of AUSTRALIANS and the unbelievable amount of drinking required is not suited my 26 year-old ways...

Didn't stop me from getting a drunk photo in front of the bus though...

Face the Wall.

To complete the history lesson, the Berlin Wall needed to be crossed off the list. After being introduced to the whole East vs. West Berlin story via the musical (of course) Hedwig and the Angry Inch, I was pretty keen on seeing this thing for myself.



What remains is a 1.2km stretch of the original wall, painted with political and heartfelt murals, reflecting the 28 years of its existence.

Internet Hitchiking.

My self-imposed budget of 20€ per inter-city trip has led me to a very useful German website which basically lets you pre-organise hitchiking.

So the leg between Berlin and Prague was all about the randomness of electronic car-sharing (once deciphering the German-only website).

"Milan" answered my plea. He spoke English, there were two other people he was going to transport it seemed all good. I asked him what his car looked like so I could spot it. "It looks like a Zebra" he said.

I promised to sms Lucy the numberplate of the car in case this all turned into an Ivan Milat situation. I met the other two people our guy was taking to Prague - a Spanish performance artist and a French Model.

The car pulled up.
Harmless.



Transported back to 1960, I was put on the back seat, which wasn't really a back seat at all - just a whole heap of cushions. With Bob Marley on the tape player and tie-dye car-seat covers, we cruised the four hours to Prague, no problem.

Milan even took us by this hectic bar once we got to Prague (made entirely out of old car parts), and bought us all a beer. He then offered his services and help to all of us and made sure we were delivered safely to our respective hostels.



The goodness of the world was shining through that day.

I've got a bone to pick with you.

What do you do when you run out of space in the cemetery? You grab the left-over bones and you construct internal church furniture! Of course! Those ingenious Czechs...





My favourite was the chandelier made of every bone in the human body. Delightful really.

Is it working?!

Lucy and I had one of the most hysterical moments together. After dodging the urine stains and week-old cheeseburgers that were in this Berlin street photo booth, we put in our 2 Euro and waited for something to happen...

We were convinced that we had just donated our money.
*FLASH*



Stunned, we thought to ourselves "is it working?!"
*FLASH*



Surprised and stunned, we still thought to ourselves "is it working?!"
*FLASH*



"Lucy" I said, "Do you think it's working?!"
*FLASH*



Blondes...

I used to be indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.

The Monk School Recital.

When one says casually and very randomly over breakfast in Prague "You know I have always wanted to study with the Shaolin Monks" and then we walk outside to be confronted with a poster that says "Shaolin Monks, TONIGHT", one tends to see these things as a sign. You know, one of those universal moments.

So we went. Completely impressed by the last minute cheap tickets.



On reflection, we can only assume that at the bottom of the poster (it was in Czech) were the words AMATEUR/TRIAL PRODUCTION...

In short, we felt like we were watching the school recital of the Shaolin Monks...Divine Intervention FAIL...

Genius.

These street artists have VISION.

The artist of this mural managed to stage a hoax art event, hiring security guards and cranes in the bid to make this very illegal piece of artwork seem as legit as possible. The cops thought it was legal, everyone faked that it was.

The GENIUS is in the execution.



Across the road is a car dealership. Every night, they turn on the flood lights to the dealership, with the shadows being cast all over the street.

At about 7pm, the shadow of the FLAGS from across the road perfectly line up on this building and into the hand of our dear astronaut.

Genius.

Look closely.

Just another street art mural brought to you by the talented freaks of Berlin. This optical illusion is a PAINTING. Just done, for FUN.

You just don't get this in Oz.

Stunning.

Berlin is the sh*t.

Berlin is Melbourne on STEROIDS in terms of the street art scene.





Every corner, every corridor, every spare square of brick is saturated with the most incredible and talented artwork of local artists. A phenomenal pit of inspiration for any creative.

The Kindness of Strangers.

Being welcomed into a warm home in Berlin with great company, fresh food for dinner and offered a mattress on the floor is just about as good as it gets. The people you meet on the road are from all walks of life, and some like Ricarda and Elke came with open hearts.



Just lovely.

The beauty of Communism.

Poland have got some serious identity issues going on. Every other town is like "Hey! here's a bit of Poland! Here's a bit of Germany! Why not throw in a bit of Russia?!" What's that Jason Mraz song? The beauty in ugly?



Only a block away is the lovely touristic quarters...ahh, the contrast...



My particular favourite was the "people pleaser" building (it was actually built this way) which has an eclectic mix of well, just about everything...

Anyone speak English?

What happens when you walk into a local milk bar in Poland and no one speaks English? You point at three different coloured things on the menu and hope for the best.



I still couldn't tell you what is was...

How far we've come.

So I met a rather delightful young Irish (or was he Scottish?) gentleman on a train to London after striking up a conversation about the "A Chorus Line" book I was reading (another story, another time...).

We played the "guess each others name after we have been talking for a while" game. He was a dead ringer for a Brian. Me, Roisin (Row-sheen).

Martin (Brian) has since pointed out that my trip has been rather Nazi themed and thought I should keep this contest in mind for future pursuits...

Blogging Withdrawals

People! It's been too long! Bear with me...lots to catch up on! In the meantime, here is a delightful pic of me and my gal pal Lucy in Berlin...