I go You go Slavia

So I nearly didn’t write a blog cos I got pissed off earlier last week and had some shitty news then I thought it would consume the next blog and there would be an underlying tone of anger, except, I’ve decided to just get over it because there is a story here that needs to be told. Having been to Croatia numerous times already, and twice to Slovenia, I thought it was time to explore the wider Former Yugoslavia. On the 9^th October, after two days of re-set in Londres to basically wash ALL my clothes from South America and eat at Roxies. I landed in Dubrovnik, a place I’ve been numerous times before. My only goal of the trip was to eat Grilled Octopus every day.

I walked to the AirBnb Margarita (which I can highly recommend), even though I split my jeans unnecessarily jumping up a fence to get to my AirBnb and misconstrued the instructions, attending to every large tree in the vicinity before getting to the right one by simply using Google Maps, I was in high spirits, albeit a little scared my arse was hanging out whilst greeting my host with my Langchump covering the front of me to prevent flashing. . Lunchtime, I achieved my goal when I visited the number 1 TripAdvisor restaurant and accompanied my delicious tentacles with some local wine in my favourite kind of glass that fits your nose in it. I even ignored the fact I’d split my jeans (probably attributed to the additional blubber obtained from South America) and had a chocolate lava cake for dessert.

The weather was super so I walked to the beach and spent all day there and managed a snooze, as again I’d had a 4:30am Uber. After, I stupidly went and had dinner, Gnocchi and even dessert before I lumped my fat arse back for some rest before the bus to Montenegro.

The bus was quite funny. It arrived an hour late and the Croatian guy was this old C you Next Tuesday who yelled at as many people he could for not printing tickets, however it rather settled and after two hours I arrived in Kotor. I googled Thai massage, as my back was sore from first world travelling problems, such as plane and bus rides, and went and spent 4 times what my accommodation cost for the night. This set the trend for the holiday. Here, I stayed at Old Town Hostel and met some new friends at dinner, including an in denial of being Gay Aussie Guy, a young blue eyed couple from Tassie, a lovely young lady Maddie (also Aus) and a few French. Another Aussie guy called Farley was staying in my room, just the two of us, romantic as. My favourite joke when Farley introduced himself was to tell people he was named after the family dog. However he actually was named after his grandma.

We started the next perfect day together with eggs bene at a local restaurant called Astoria, where I saved his life from two wasp stings by tending to him with ice and antihistamine, before we trekked up the castle on the hill – up the local ‘free entry’ way. During this hike, we met an almost 79 year old lady from Russia powering up. It made me remember the strong ladies I’ve had and lucky to have in my life, picturing a determined Nonna and Granny. We also had a third wheel on our journey, an Indian guy, who was barely Indian as he didn’t really talk about cricket. He told us about a place up the mountain that sold fresh cheese so we were searching for the place when I spotted a baby brown snake and realised, the search was more perilous than I’d hoped with the overgrown grass surrounds. We found the  place and were greeted by an old drunk handing us Rakija and cheese and meat platter that was bought from a store, contrary to the homemade statement. I had enough of fake Indian and we set off leaving him in our wake, Farley trying to convince me to go to the steep trail right to the top to see the view ‘opened up’ to which I shut him down saying there was ‘no fucking way’ I was doing more than the bare minimum and we trot off to the castle. We took a few quick snaps and before heading down the usual tourist way which was thousands of steps. I really hated this, but I was grateful for my long legged stride as it seemed to work with pace. Worst part was I kept telling him how awful it was and asking if it would ever end. He kindly laughed before we set off to the bus to head to the beach, which was also my idea. During the bus ride we worked out that we grew up close, he in Lakes Entrance and me obvs in Traralgon, albeit a few years apart. I was super impressed when I found out he had studied Mechatronics, as per my fav first ever housemate Caz Tan (Birdsong).

Budva was beautiful. We spotted umbrellas perched on the edge of the old town and decided to go there for a feed. We arrived to this old dude, taking his time to serve us, realising it was pricey but not really caring, and ordered a bottle of prosecco. We had the place to ourselves and the man told us the kitchen was not yet open. We downed prosecco, olives and cheese and soon, the man returned to take our order. Farley ordered a burger and the man was like ‘only for Russians this shit’ and made him order beef steak, and I had the veal.  The food was incredible and the man was so good though our bill was only 40 or so each, and set off to the beach to chill, before heading back on the bus to join the hostel crew for the dinner boat cruise. Everyone was giving us shit about our couply date but we had such a great day, I don’t think either of us gave two shits. We headed out to the only bar and some random Aussie weirdo called Shaggy from some outback town gave me a massage.  The next day Farley left for Albania and I decided to stay another so I could take advantage of the weather on the booze cruise and get some rays, rather than join him on a hike. I left the following morning after I had a shitty morning with shitty news about people being shitty I then made my day shittier by arriving at the wrong airport for my flight to Belgrade and had to fork out 85 euro for a new flight – so after my short 45 minute 160 euro flight I arrived in Belgrade then caught the wrong bus and had to walk 2kms to Arkabarka the floating hostel. Fair to say I was a hot mess when I arrived. So sad and angry at life I was greeted by nice-ish Serbs and a yoga teacher and promptly booked the morning session to help calm the farm.  

I took myself out for a nice dinner then came back to the hostel to start to read the book I’d carted across South America and hadn’t started and try get an early night. Only problem with my double bed score, was that there was an elderly lady from Germany that snored the house down. Introduce me, world’s worst sleeper and the first of my restless nights. The next day I did the walking tour and heard the Serb side of history. Blamed for the war, the country economy plummeted, the dollar exponentially falling up to 16 % daily, the country was thrown in to despair. The local mafia became rich, whilst everyone else barely fed themselves. I was somewhat preoccupied during the tour as I hadn’t yet organised the car to Sarajevo the next day. There was no doubt Belgrade was awesome and there was an awesome floating nightlife that evening. I will definitely come back again one day and spend more time there. I launched myself across town that night in search to fulfil my craving for thai food. There were only two in the city so I walked 2.8 miles across highways and finally got my pad thai. Although it was almost darkness, and I didn’t feel too unsafe, I thought it best I do their equivalent of Uber home and had to double check when a very youthful tall good looking guy picked me up instead of the old dude in the pic I was expected. The number plates matched though so I got in and hot young man explained it was his dad’s heap of junk he was driving. Hot guy aka son of Namanja was a basketball coach. His mum and sister were architects and that’s all I could remember. He dropped me off and I cursing myself I didn’t get his details. 

That night – old lady informed me she had to get up at 3:30am and hoped she wouldn’t wake me. Hard to wake someone that can’t sleep through ear plugs because she was snoring so loud! But when her alarm went off I had just myself fallen in to a lucid dream and during I was telling her I hadn’t told her off for her loud snoring, so hurry the fuck up and get the hell out of the room, instead of piss farting around packing what only sounded like plastic bags! Finally she fucked off and I was then alarmed myself at 7am for shower and breaky before the 8am transfer. Only they now informed me, it wasn’t coming as there were technical issues and instead booked me on the 5pm. Somehow I managed to book another company for 11am, and I wasn’t 100% sure it had gone through when it was nearing 12 and they still hadn’t come, the lady at the hostel called and was assured it was coming at 12:20pm at the bus stop opposite. I decided to pull the plug and head back to the hostel at 12:45pm, just concurrent to me seeing a car flashing their headlights to pull over. Thankfully this was me and I was lumped In the back, where I could lay out the suitcases and watch a movie. One of the guys in the transfer was HOT, he was Bosnian – his name was Riad and his English was amazing. I had a snooze and was woken up to talk back radio. I asked him what they were talking about and he said recently there were elections. He said his country had three presidents – one Serb, one Croat and one Bosnian and they were all fuckwits. I told him we only had one fuck wit but it kept changing. Super smart, Riad was in Belgrade visiting mates, and had just completed uni in Sarajevo and studied Genetics – specialising in proteins in humans. Refraining from dodgy jokes, I instead grabbed some restaurant names to attend in his home town Mostar, stupidly also refraining from grabbing is details to hang out in Mostar as I was due to arrive Wednesday.

In Sarajevo I arrived super tired and went for dinner at the Singing Nettle for dinner. I didn’t love it and it was my second most expensive meal to date, so rather dejected I headed back and was again really happy to realise I was in a room with a Taiwanese snorer this time. I kept daydreaming jumping the 100m from my top bunk to grab ear plugs for awhile before I finally succumbed to reception and begged for some pluggers. My third straight night with a snoring female was getting me down. I decided as she was also staying the next night, I needed to get more drunk so joined forces with some others at the hostel- a rude Norweigan called Janis and a top knotted swede called Jeff. There was also a miscellaneous annoying Kiwi (and made me have a little hatred for my beloved kiwis) and a young American girl. But first that day, I started off with Eggs Bene and a walking tour of the city that began at 10am in front of the old cathedral with the most amazing Pope John Paul statue. Again, I thought of Nonna.

Sarajevo - what a stunning city. The mixture of religious harmony is absolutely breath taking. Much akin to Jerusalem. The old town and the new town, blue eyed Muslims, humans that look like me, speaking Bosnian. The walking tour was hosted by a nutcase guide called Enes. He was however awesome, explaining the wars. We saw where WW2 began, with the massacre of Franz Ferdinand (not the singer), and heard stories of courage, such as when Hitler sent his soldiers to get the Hagada book at the Jewish temple and a Muslim grabbed the book, told the soldier it had already been given to the Nazis and was instead taken to the Muslim Mosque and hidden with the Koran.

We were then told about 1992- 1995 - the city circled by Serbs and the massacres that took place. For such a recent history, I don’t believe we know enough about it and cannot even begin to understand how people of the one race get fuelled by hubris led propaganda machines that call themselves Politian’s and turn neighbours against each other. For one thing was certain, this was not a religious war. Not everyone wanted a Serbia or Croatia, many wanted a Yugoslavia. However, after the prosperity of Yugoslavia and the death of Tito, hatred was bred, and for some reason, Serbia decided to attack. The viciousness of the massacres that took place at Srebrenica under the UN watch is an atrocity. The murder of children, civilians, absolutely heart breaking. You could tell the prosperity of the people, for my by their watches, Longines, Omega’s alongside childrens teddy bears, bloodstained clothes, contained in the museum of Genocide, which we visited afterwards. The US were close to preventing one of the massacres by commencing bombing, but the French called it off (seriously, can the French just give up on politics already?!). Ironically when that bombing did commence, it ended the war, alongside the Croatian army- which I’ll get in to after.

Mostar

I decided to skip more doom and gloom re the tunnels which apparently was a massive fail on my part however I did and instead got drunk with the guys at the hostel – a Swede and Dutchy, downing Rakia and getting a kebab from a blue eyed white guy – a first for me, before attempting a sleep with the Taiwan snoring engine. This time, the sleep again failed me, and with the 5:45am wake up to catch the 7am scenic train to Mostar, I was scared I would miss the journey through sheer exhaustion leading to sleep on the train. The Northern hemisphere lads and I made it and I managed a movie (The Book Thief, great film and has my fav actor Geoffrey Rush in it) and stayed awake for the scenery. The windows were quite dirty, so there was no way you could take photos, though it really pissed me off that people spent their time trying to video or photo it on their phones, rather than look at the view with their eyes. I mean, their footage will be garbage, what you see through the phone is garbage, you’ll never watch it through, how about just use your eyes and enjoy it for you? So that’s what I did.

Maddy, the young Aussie girl in Kotor recommended hostel Majdas in Mostar. I had also arranged a 12-hour tour of Bosnia via email that started as soon as I arrived, so as soon as I got to the hostel, I promptly upgraded to a private and was given some amazing breakfast and shown to my room for an hour prior to the tour starting. I also bumped in to some mates I’d met in Kotor from Tassie that had committed to jumping the bridge – they did and managed to do so injury free. The tour was ran by Majda’s brother Bata, whose name should actually by Batty. He was absolutely nuts! But so glad that I did it. He told us about how after the Serbs came to Mostar and the Croatians then came in and saved them. They then knifed them in the back, and started doing what the Serbs did, massacring them, trying to take Bosnia. He was smuggled out by a Croatian Bosnian in a fake ambulance and sent to Sweden. It was mere fate a Croat from his school recognised him and saved him from a mass grave. Post war, he went to thank the man, but was told his fate was not so good. We were shown how Mostar is divided, strangely even despite the massacres and treatment, Croatia and Serbia still have a stake in the Bosnian parliament, and one half of Mostar is Croatian Bosnian, and is much more advanced than the Bosnian side. He thinks it is a message. I don’t think he is a stupid as his batty behaviour presents. The overarching similarity between Batty Bata and Enes is the same message - both agree – contrary to the world propaganda, this was not a religious war (they have lived harmoniously for over a thousand years, having 50% mixed marriage pre-war), this is not a civil war, this was bigger. War crimes were committed and post war, the politicians responsible including Milsovic, Martic, Babic, Karadzic, Mladic have all been prosecuted. A Bosnian Serb led the Bosnians at the time and saved Sarajevo. This for me had too many similarities with whatever is going on between Israel and Palestine. When you see Jerusalem and Sarajevo and how harmonious the old towns are – Jews, Christians and Muslims, you realise we are all swallowing the same pill, we are all spiders in the same misleading web. The fact that humans threw loaded truck tyres down the hill to the city valleys to murder, the rapes, the murder, the genocide and still, what I will say, is the Bosnians are the most friendly in this Yugonook. Yeah, they are bonkers, but their humour is incredible, their resilience is unsurpassed. 

We went to the Kravice waterfalls, which were picturesque but too cold for me, I lapped up the sun, had a beer and read a book from the bank rather than deal with the numbing cold water to climb a waterfall which I am almost 100% sure I would hurt myself. We left there and headed to a village called Neretvanski which was an old village and went for tea and syrups at a local old ladys house. We overate there, before heading to our final stop a town about 12kms from Mostar called Blagaj where we agreed to head back should I stay another night in lieu of heading to Split for my flight a night early, and then back to the hostel. 

The next day we got up and was served an amazing breaky. After I joined forces with my new mate the American brother and sister due Liza and Nick, the Swede and the Dutchie (and some other American chick I didn’t really get to know), then we headed back to Blagaj by bus to do the hike up the mountain to the last Bosnian Kings castle. After we donned head scarf and a wrap dresses we were allowed to visit the Monastery which impressively sits adjacent to the cave, under the clifftop. The cave is a mystery in itself, a pilgrimage for many, the water source isn’t immediately known, however it has since been revealed to be deep and some 19kms wide. I had some water and made a wish. What a blessed place. I hope it knows peace in my lifetime and many more. I hope it returns to the former 50/50 marriage it was and Yugoslavia remembers Bosnia. Sadly, having seen Palestine and knowing our government locks up innocents abroad, I don’t think we ever will stop behaving badly, but I hope we do. I will come back and do succeed in my quest to eat Octopus every day... what an amazing place.

You told me it was Chile in South America, but I don't Bolivia

BOLIVIA

I must say, I really liked Bolivia from the outset. The vibe, the streets. The roads also seemed more complete than in Peru. We had team dinner with Bec’s ring in Norwegian flame Marius, who we are certain introduced himself as Maurice and put ourselves to bed for our again monotonously early wake up pre 6am to do the Death Road. 

BJs Cousin Eddie

So, I certainly didn’t tell Mum I was doing Death Road, but having spoken to my trusty old mate Girthy who informed me he had done it on no sleep, I decided to follow the beacon – Phoebs, and have a crack. Our group was 14 young somethings from all over, led by a loose as Kiwi called Tim. Our little cycling fam of speed demons Phoebs and Rhys, middle pack Mones + Bundy Rin bringing up the rear met some new buddies, including a small world reunion when I realised the guy I got the perfect selfie with Eddie was my Cousin Marc’s wife’s BJ’s cousin!

We took off for the first 20km test on our awesome mountain bikes and instantly I felt quite unsettled. I consciously tried to relax, as I felt myself gripping as the wind ripped in to me flogging it down the scenic pre-death road, road. The stress and concentration balanced out, and for some reason I momentarily forgot that I was legging it on rocks, on the world’s deadliest 30km road, 300m above the valley. We stopped along the way to be briefed on what was coming up – pot holes, water fall crossings and steep slopes and hairpins. We were told stories about the thousands of slaves who lost their lives building the road, hundreds of buses and cars that were lost along the way due to slipping off the edge and mentally for me there was so much concentration, that I forgot I was scared of heights.

Me on Death Road

Phoebs bloody killed it, and so did Rhys, setting the pace up front. I was happy to chill at the middle of the group without any heroes up my clack. Our stops were breath taking which made everything worth it. Only one minor injury when a large rock kicked up in the wheel and hit my shin. 

Finally, we made it to our final stop, an animal sanctuary at the bottom of the hill, but not before being told about the worlds saddest love story – when a man lost his whole family off the side of death road. He then spent the next 15 years guiding the traffic through the narrow one-way track, and as a thank-you had been gifted a home for his efforts. He was standing at the bottom of the town.

After dinner and beers at the sanctuary, we then jumped in the van to go back up Death Road. By this stage I decided more beers sounded better than being sober, and thankfully Phoebs bartered with the shop keeper to get 2 beers for the bargain price of 40 Bolivianos (basically all we had left) instead of 50 or getting just one to share! The next funny thing was the toilet stop on Death road. I was losing my shit laughing, as Phoebe managed to find some concrete cavernous ruins to pee in between, while I was perched behind the world’s smallest rock and tree.

Day 9 of our tour we had a day in La Paz. We did a City Tour in the morning where we went to the

Rhys and I in our Alpaca Jumpers

moon valley and I nearly shit myself on the Cable Car yellow just after I had said to Phoebs I think I was conquering my fear of heights! The cable car system is the Bolivian equivalent to the tube, it is super impressive, spanning 30 KMs and reaching a height of 12k ft. I hated being so high up, even though I had bragged to Phoebs in the AM that I felt I had conquered my fear of heights, between Macchu Piccu and the Death Road. The afternoon we came back to town and did some shopping. I bought a Llama and a couple of synthetically real Alpaca jumpers. We left for our flight to Uyuni at 7pm and arrived that evening to be reunited with Rhys who had in earlier in the day and by this evening his high-altitude constant illness had set in and he had short vision and a puffer fish face.

The next day we woke up to our driver telling us to have everything we needed in our day bag.  So of course, I left the fly swat I was going to use at the salt flats in my big bag so instead had to settle for Shrek, a wine bottle and a Pringles tin as apparatus for pics. We also used Rhys Akubra as a prop, but the new group dickhead Ashton Chivers (who has the same last name as Girthy yet lacks any form of personality and charisma I would probably stop talking to Chris if I thought this sociopath was related to him) fucked up the video by jumping off the high side of the hat brim.

That night was the first of our basic accommodation, which made me take away my initial assessment of Bolivia being the best and instead I decided, apart from La Paz it was a shit hole. Here I finally had a go at the rude Frenchie’s and informed them that we were on holidays too so there was no need to be a rude arsehole and ruin everyone else’s holiday. Fair to say like in the war he avoided confrontation for the rest of the trip, which suited me. We gained a couple of Germans in our 4-wheel drive back in Uyuni however, and one said on this day she was claustrophobic in the back, despite the rest of us being 5’9 and above, apparently the shortest chick in the Cruiser was claustrophobic, forcing Phoebs in to the back for the perilous 7-hour journey which was shit house. I sat in the middle and played bangers whilst kept getting told off by Beymar for trying to put my feet up and slamming the door.

We stopped at random coloured lagoons, and saw random stacked stones which I didn’t really see any beauty in before arriving at our camp for the eve at Laguna Colorada. If I thought last night was bad, I was assured that the next night was worse. Forgetting there were Germans in the cruiser I compared the initial visual of camp to Auschwitz (insert emoji of me slapping head in shame!). That night the pub was like your dad’s mates shed, we spent the night sinking beers and pool shots with the drivers Beymar and the 4’0 tall Sharky on the slanted table, as well as some table tennis.

The final morning in Bolivia had us seeing yet another lagoon and stacked rock tree, plus a Volcano which bordered Chile, which by now I was very much looking forward to as I’d been told that the accommodation was really nice. We left the bumpy dirt roads and broken boom gated border crossing of Bolivia and entered what seemed like the Hunger Games equivalent of the Capital with asphalt roads and a luxurious drive in border crossing drive thru shed where the security played table tennis and bangers. This started the precedent, with all the music played throughout Chile far surpassing both Peru and Bolivia’s flutey music. 

CHILE

We arrived to the luxury of a 30 second warm shower in San Pedro de Atacama and had a posh team dinner and some Chilean Syrah before settling for the eve.

Finally, a sleep in the morning, followed by breaky and a wine tour. We didn’t have Ashton as he lonered himself sand boarding the dunes. Instead we were greeted by the world’s nicest smiliest man- a Haitian man called Noel (like the Christmas carol) and donned dresses and stepping out shirts and went on a pretty boring wine tour, followed by tasting. I realised at this point, I should always book ‘wine tasting’ and not ‘wine tours’ as I really don’t care how it gets to my local Majestic Wine carton for 10£ a bottle. The afternoon we were ill informed by Wilson, to just wear good shoes, and failed to tell us/ me that a short dress and g-banger was not appropriate for the cave crawling and climbing. We were the best dressed at the Chilean Moon Valley by a rolling mile. We bunkered in to the bus post sunset and were just about to take off back to town before realising that Ashton wasn’t there. We contemplated leaving him, but decided we should probably wait. He unapologetically boarded and we headed back to town, where we again disassociated with him and headed for team dinner which was average, before retiring.

A wake up the next day followed by another flight to Santiago. We landed at the airport to a reunion party with the Pommy guy from reading and old mate Ashton’s fling he had met sandboarding. I hadn’t seen Mr Personality Ashton Kutcher talking much until this time, so it was apt that upon arrival he left our group without saying bye.

We had lunch at Japanese and I disgusted Rhys by failing with chopsticks. He made such a big deal that I became shitty and declined his offer to teach me. I decided I would instead YouTube how to do it as a surprise preparation for our future wedding. That afternoon we headed off exploring. Only though by now I was over it so I decided to ditch and the group cable car / funicular ride and instead wait for them at a pub. It was here I met two dudes- English Mark and Venezuela Marcos who were having brewskies before hiking to the top in lieu of the cable car. I was again reminded my gaydar was off when Mark went all D&M and informed me that his wife and kid hadn’t been satisfied with moving to San Pedro and instead he was doing it alone, mind you- working one week on and one off didn’t sound too bad. He had met Marcos on a social man date website. Anyway, Mark had the day off tomorrow so we decided to hang out. Everyone was laughing by the time they reached me and I was already pissed! Of course, I had made friends. We had a boozy final night with take-away brewskies and hangs at Rhys’s before farewelling my holiday 10 and calling it a night.

The next morn I farewelled my PIC Phoebs back to Oz and consoled Patrick who was mourning the loss of Rhys by this stage, and quoting Derek to me to no avail. I have since watched a couple of episodes so can probably maintain some future conversation relating. I checked out of the rank poor businessman stale smoke hotel, and met Mark who had taken the world’s longest drive in and concurrent I noticed his WhatsApp pic had changed from his wife to his kid... interesting. I checked in to my luxurious hotel and checked out the pool deck before deciding to hit town and grab a bite. Somehow, we ended up at a Barber shop drinking espresso martini and again I was drunk. Not drunk enough to fall for his scorned love affair just drunk enough to piss him off when he realised he couldn’t have his cake and eat it to. We went back to the pool deck and had more cocktails- the

girls joined us to say farewell too and after dinner at one of the best Pizza restaurants in the world La Serrana he apparently had to charge his phone in my room for an hour until it got to 20% (eye roll emoji) and then it hit midnight and I was fucking tired and not impressed and told him Cinderella was kicking him out. Next morning, I woke up early for my flight to a message telling me he had got home safe and thanks for a great day, no surprises the wife was back in the WhatsApp profile pic. Delete.

Transfer to the airport to end the holiday. The Air France flight wasn’t that bad this time, new screens with more than 4 movies and more leg room. Two days recovery back in Londres before the former Yugoslavia tour. I’m most looking forward to drinking tap water and throwing the toilet paper in to the toilet. Adios friends hope you are still coherent after such long two part bloggage. Less than a month before I am back in Oz!

Going to Peru? Albaca ya bags!

LONDON

It was a whirlwind last few weeks' of work for me. Trying to pack up four and a half years of my life, handing over my job and heading to multiple drinks trying to get to say goodbye to everyone. My grown nails ended up being bitten to within a mm of the tip and the drinking was a maximum with all the goodbyes including Wheatley's the week before mine, where I went exceptionally hard and quite honestly starting to feel my age. However, I was immensely grateful I could work from home that Friday to attempt to sort my life/ teach myself to eat again.

I packed up everything I owned and pulled my bike apart, thanks to Bike Shop BF Adam for coming over early the next week and helping me sort it. I shipped my bike away on the weekend in to a crate for the Great Southern Land- without insurance to hoping I will still have a bike!

I had a date on Tuesday night at Roxie's which I’ve been averaging once a week since I decided I was leaving Londres. The date was hilarious as he kept on changing the subject. It got very stressful for me and it was at this time I realised , this is how people felt talking to me, and having me randomly bring up a new topic!

Last Day of work with my throwaway dress

I had a very poorly organised after work drinks Wednesday and by the time it was my last day, I was running on alcohol and limited sleep. Thursday, I had an awesome afternoon lunch at the NED so called IT to come and collect my phone and computer and spent the morning saying goodbye to everyone. The Ned was a relief but a stress in itself realising I was now unemployed. It wasn’t long before I bumped in to someone I knew- Aidan’s long head popping in. The copious amounts of alcohol worked as a stress relief at the couple of intervals when I realised that the transfer to Heathrow was picking me up 4:30am and concurrently I had to pack up my room and clean it and put my shit away for my departure. Argh the stress. Beautiful nails gone.

I stupidly hadn’t checked my Expedia ticket so had to spend £50 for my bag which sucked as I’d much rather spent 100£ on a better airline than Air France which quite frankly – sucked. I boarded the plane and it was apparently a prison transfer flight of some skits Africans that did not want to be deported home. After a short delay to kick him off the plane and a short stop in Paris, and a 13-hr flight on a plane with the world’s worst leg room, I landed in Lima Peru, and was very shortly after greeted by Phoebs, who had travelled from Australia for our Adventure. I should mention that on the plane I sat next to a mind reading duo. I’m not sure if they could read my mind calling bullshit on their mind reading but I told him have fun in there for 13 hours before I knocked myself out with some Stilnox.

PERU

We basically landed, left the airport, spent an hour in an UBER to the hotel, had dinner and had to be up at 6am for our flight to Cusco the next morning. So, we didn’t really get to see a great deal of Lima at all.

After the short flight to Cusco we went past a hotel to pick up a couple of Lads – first glance I saw the tall Brunette with Blue eyes and I was like ‘wow’ then I saw his mate who was also good-looking but had zip off cargos and some questionable attire, then I went from thinking ‘this guy meets all my criteria’ to thinking, ‘these dudes are gay!’ Anyhow it turns out Rhys from Sydney and Bobbie from Boston are not a couple, however together with Phoebs and I we certainly became the awesome foursome.

That afternoon we took a tour of the Sacred Valley of the Incas and saw the Pisac ruins, perched on a hilltop with incredible views of the surrounding mountains. We also visited the fortress of Ollantaytambo with its enormous Inca terracing constructed on the side of a steep mountain. We stopped off on the way back to the hotel to split a Guinea Pig for a snack before dinner, which I bloody hated. Bobby became Bear Grilles and even ate the eyes out of the little man. Here we discussed our guide Wilson’s grandfather being 107. Ridiculous. We had team dinner where we shared a bottle of red and had a cocktail in preparation for our hike to Machu Picchu tomorrow here I showed I was all talking no action, retiring early to bed.

Day 3 – Macchu Piccu started with an early get up to take the train one stop (104km mark) in order to hike. I was wearing my trusty trainers and Bieber T-Shirt, Phoebs looked stylish in 2XU leggings, Bobby had all the gear and a knee brace because he had done his ACL 6 months earlier (positively sure that his OT would be over the moon he was trekking), and Rhys was wearing RM Williams work boots. There were so many weirdos on the train with all the gear, one guy opposite us was from Arizona and was saying he was an Athlete so had to eat a lot constantly. Eye rolls.

We set off with Me DJ-ing bangers along the way. Early on I struggled with my breathing but after a couple of stops I was feeling good. So much so that when Arizona man caught up to us at a stop, I legged it and said ‘come on group let’s go!’ setting off at a faster pace to gain some momentum away from him.  Instead of reaching the Sun Gate late afternoon, our group set a blistering pace reaching there at 2:30pm, being the first group to finish (yes, we beat the Athlete!) and stuffing our guide in the process. We sat from Sun Gate in awe and took it all in, before walking down and having a closer look. We had a further tour around the site, which I could have missed and caught the train straight back as I was feeling fragile and tired by this time, but I persevered and we hit town for dinner before boarding the last train at 7pm.

The train ride was hilarious, we started playing ‘Bullshit’ with cards and at one stage some angry Belgium man turned around and was like “this is a train not a pub” to Bobby. We lost our shit laughing but it meant our game lost its pizazz and we soon stopped. It made us all very happy that there were circa 6 kids sitting behind the angry man being absurdly loud for the remainder of the trip and we sat back with our beers, smiling. Karma.

We disembarked the train and boarded our van back to Cusco. We thought our adventure for the day was over, but boy were we wrong! First of all, the driver got pulled over by the police and had to bribe his way out of it, next old mate Drives decided to take a short cut back to Cusco – which can only be described as a track very much under construction, and yet to be on Google Maps. At one stage our spare tyre fell off, not being able to handle all the bumps and rocks on the road. 

The next day our group swelled to 7, with the addition of two Aussie girls and a British dude. We had a free day, but we maintained our perfect foursome and walked to the Jesus statue in Cusco – which I found harder than Macchu Piccu. I wasn’t feeling great this day, and after a quick wander through probably the shittest museum I’ve ever been to – the Inca Museum, we decided we were over walking e and shut up shop at a bar for the remainder of the day, drinking every Pisque Sour on the menu before having a team dinner and we hit the salsa club in Cusco town centre. Poor Rhys had to leave us with two for one Pina Coladas and return to the hotel as the toilet seat was missing from the salsa club.

Day 5 we had 8 hours on the world’s most luxurious bus, which I did not expect to find in Peru. I did not sleep, as my lucid dreams were keeping me solidly anxious. We stopped off at the local about 5 hours in and I asked Phoebs what she wanted. She was feeling rough, so said, maybe share a Powerade instead of Soft drink. I picked up two Coronas and said ‘Beers?’ and she said, ‘Yep’ so then we rapidly became the coolest people on the bus. Puno we were up again early to get to the markets and saw a local wedding, we were off again, this time picked up at our hotel by a Tuk Tuk for the hilarious cycle down to Lake Titicaca courtesy of our 80-year-old cycling guide to see the floating village.

This was rare, but I don’t think I really rated it, nor did I think it was worth the 3-hour boat rides there to the reed floating island Uros and back to see that and the other Island Taquile. I thought, seeing as we could see Bolivia, couldn’t we just keep going? But no, we were back to Puno again this time to party as it was Bobby’s last night. We had dinner at a restaurant where there were local flutists and dancers, it was very impressive and hilarious at the same time. I had Alpaca for dinner and it was delicious. We ventured to a bar where Phoebs cleaned up the pool table, while Rhys and I sucked. The bar was pretty cool cos we got to choose our own bangers and enjoy two for one cocktail at the mandatory happy hour that each bar has every night it appears in South America. Here Patrick came out of his Tortoise Shell and almost took Best on Ground off Phoebs, who dominated the dance floor and pool tables. We lugged ourselves back to the hotel at 1am and could not get in, which sucked. We finally woke our guard and managed a half 1 sleep before a 6am wake up for the bus ride to Copacabana. Here we said goodbye to Bobby, which was sad in itself, but he quite rightly so, could not be arsed trying to enter Bolivia with an American passport.

First stop was immigration, where the Peruvian government decided that they wanted to search our bags, presumably for bags. They soon realised our bags were at the bottom of the bus and gave up, in this time, we walked across the border to Bolivia and re-boarded our bus to Copacabana. This place I rated. Instantly, I liked this side of Lake Titicaca better, the water was clearer, and it was like a little seaside village. We stopped off for some Empanada at the hippy Argentinean man with swimmingly blue eyes’ bakery and meandered waterside to a rooftop bar to enjoy a Corona, before we had to again board the bus to take what can only be described as the world’s worst punt boat to continue another couple hours to La Paz.

W O R L D C U P 2 0 1 8

P R A G U E

A retrospective blog is never ideal, but I left my laptop at home as I didn’t want to do work on this holiday. Not sure what to expect however listening to everyone’s opinions on Russia I decided to leave the Breitling at home too. Not sure where the opinions stem from however as I felt Russia was safe.

Sitting next to me on the flight was a man Fadl who was a consular official of Yemen. He was so nice, gave me his number should I have any issues in Prague. I didn’t. As soon as I landed and got to my hostel, it felt like I was in Bali. I was staying at a swish hostel with a pool, sauna and apparently every bogan Contiki and Busabout Aussie in town there.

I called an early-ish night after watching the games on TV and decided I’d do the walking tour the next morning. It was there waiting that I met a Kiwi guy Eddie and his mate Ali and the hotel socialiser (some American dude) who took us to a walking tour, which I had hoped it would be with my Aussie mate Matt that I met in Tel Aviv.  But the outrageous hostel socialiser had other ideas and took us to some other boring group. Enroute he was telling me how he was a Marine and I told him I also was obvs taking the piss. And then I said ‘where are your shit tattoos?’ and then he showed me ‘duh’ foot in mouth.

Anyway I managed to bring it back and after convening with Eddie and looking at the dull walking tour group and no potential hot things for Ed and Ali, we decided to bail and try to find my mates tour group instead of this one the dickhead marine socialiser had brought us to. So we took off with good intentions and joined the new walking tour. It was about the third destination that we realised Ali had disappeared and it was just Ed and I (and the tour group). Our tour was great, but we were starving, so half way through when we were given a break, we took off to find food. Our intention was to re-join but we got lost, and despite our intentions to re-join we ended up losing our tour group! So I decided as it was my second time in Prague, I had to see the castle this time so we set off for our self-guided castle tour. The next faux pas was skipping the queue and jumping in front of a Chinese tour group. It wasn’t until we were in the castle that we felt the wrath of our actions when a lady shook her head at us and goes  “that was not cool, NOT cool” ha-ha I laughed it off, I mean, how many times have I been pushed in front of by rude Chinese?  I think that’s karma. Whatever it is we had a massive day walking, and I was stuffed so had a nap at the hostel and chilled until the next footy match.  

 

I was sat outside of the bar when I got a message from Ed saying he was inside at the bar. He had managed to find two mates, Aidan the 20 year old that reminded me of Girthy (though due to his age and being unable to apply the half your age + 7 to this, I cannot confirm he is exactly like him, though he was from Canberra, had a Mo and a tattoo of Canberra on his back!!), and J the token loud American who I’m sure produced porn for a living. We sat separately hating on the rude Aussies (also the new short arse butt crack fashion when applied to 18 year old overweight girls is not nice to look at!) and watched the footy. We also committed to spending the whole next day together and got up the next day to find a breaky place. We didn’t entirely fail but we didn’t entirely succeed, i.e. we found a place that sold breakfast closest to what we Aussies were used to, but the breaky menu had finished, so we had to go somewhere else to eat, though the place we were had a massive paddle pool in the back and island chairs. So it was a natural progression (or regression) back to that place for Aperols upon completion of our breaky and beerskis were had until I was so drunk, we decided to go back to the hostel for a sauna and some travellers before my flight.

S A M A R A, R U S S I A

My flight to Samara was on the world’s oldest plane. It was made marginally better when I was upgraded to business, and then extremely much better when a tall hot top knotted Danish guy sat next to me – Bjorn, became the first person I fell in love with on this holiday. It was a miracle when we found out that we were on the same flight to Moscow after the Samara game and I was super excited when he and Anders (his mate who was the awkward third wheel wedged between us) told me they would message me and we could do dinner at a Top 100 restaurant in Moscow. I chose to ignore the fact that they met at some socialist camp and was a little bit crushed when I didn’t hear from them in Samara. 

It was a late 3:40am arrival and 38 degrees in Samara – so was super relieved that everything was super organised at the airport. Had money, a 5£ unlimited data mobile sim card and my driver there in no time. The most stressful part arriving to the hostel at half 4 and the lady photocopying every stamped page of my passport, which is nearly every page in my Aussie passport!!

Mathilde and her brother Kristoffer had arrived before and kindly made and left me the bottom bunk. The next day we took in the sights of Samara … which meant the local shopping centre McDonalds, before seeing some history (a WW2 memorial tanker with the dates 1941-1944 lol) and then we

headed to the game.

Walking in to the Stadium the atmosphere was incredible. I quickly met up with Whitey and his mates from Dubai and Oz, and randomly saw some of Sammy’s mates from London. We frantically searched for an Aussie Jersey for me to no avail as the whole country had sold out. I had so many beers before the game, I think we were all very cut by the time the game started, I actually heard rumours we drank the stadium out of beer.

The draw was the best result we hoped to get. I suppose I would have loved to win, but I appreciate how awesome the Dane’s are and was just grateful we didn’t make a fool of ourselves. (That obviously was to come in Sochi). After the game, we got the team bus to the fan zone and partied till the early hours this itself wasn't without drama when suddenly there was a mad rush to evacuate. I suspected the Canadian chick that was holding it in couldn't hold it in anymore, so when i actually realised the bus engine had blown up, I also cottoned on to scurry off in a hurry (this and the fact the driver came up with a pocket knife to the smokey engine and was like "I can fix this" sure you can buddy! We unsuccessfully tried to catch up with Pags, but caught up with Whitey and his mates, Dimi who looks like an Arab, long haired Jason, dorky Dave (who is mates with my mate Walshy!) and some other non-descript dudes drinking vodka shots till the early morning. The UBER back was painful, the chatty driver talking to Dave about what we thought of Samara. Dave, was so patient, "oh, it’s beautiful", we inside chuckled as our group WhatsApp earlier that day was something along the lines of “you guys are lucky you didn’t come here early, this place is a shit hole!

When we got back though the hostel lady had water for us (I had a cheeky vomit from the god awful food!) and stole 3 hours sleep before our rude airport awakening where I said bye to Mathilde and Kristoffer who headed back to Denmark and hello to the airport bean bags and the hot top knot Dane man.  

M O S C O W

Unfortunately unlike my Dane friends, I was not upgraded this time so we were separated and I’ve never heard from Bjorn since. When I boarded the plane however I was not too fussed as I thought the other plane was the world’s oldest, I was wrong, this Utair flight was most definitely the oldest almost shittest plane I’d been on (albeit Lao Air and a short flight to BVI from Miami.) I was glad to be so tired I slept through most of it and was greeted at the airport upon landing with two things – a text message from Bec’s German mate Benny telling me he was in Moscow, and my driver – Vlad

(he was very Russian, so this name I’m just guessing!)

Lots of traffic and heat was what I first noticed, the other thing I noticed was that the women were smoking hot, but the men were fugly. It was an hour in when Vlad got out to have a dart in the middle of the highway. Thankfully I was too tired to really care a great deal and again relieved to arrive at the hostel and able to check in early so I could have a kip before exploring. When I woke up I walked in to Moscow town and had a look around. It seemed like a really cool place, everywhere was buzzing and the Tunisians were chanting. For some reason Putin had closed the Red Square and the too many crowd was condensed in to a small area so it was also quite claustrophobic. I was so tired though so decided to head back for another snooze.

Upon waking I had a message from my old favourite temporary Kiwi housemate Timmy that they

were heading to the fan zone. So I decided to bite the bullet and catch public transport for the first time. Man I was happy I did so. The tube station was beautiful; the train was stunning and clean and even had phone coverage and a TV showing football!

I pretty much arrived when the boys wearily hungover decided to boot for dinner. But not before trying my luck to get an Aussie jersey as they had completely sold out of Samara and I didn’t fancy my chances of seeing any in Sochi. There were three Smalls left in the shop so £70 later we got the tube again, the wrong way though, so after the slight hitch, we headed back in to the Red Square. We finally found a place to eat and watch football, a Turkish place and had a hearty dins before we made plans for the walking tour the next AM and parted ways.

The next morning was a particularly hard one to awaken to even though I’d set my alarm for 9am. Every day so far i’d been up by 6am and not asleep before 2am so was literally living off adrenalin. I caught the tube back to town and met the again weary but good looking boys for the walking tour.

Moscow is stunning. I expected ugly communist buildings, but they have re-built many of the intricate decorative buildings destroyed during the communist era and the place was buzzing.

We booted the walking tour this time deliberately at half time as the boys had to get to the Belgium game and I wanted to go try the modern restaurant place near my hostel called ‘Little White’. It may be the best idea for a venue and definitely the most suitable for me ever in

Benny & I

existence. Their motto simply reads ‘Breakfast and Wine Bar’. Inside I had the best food and next to my loner table was a table full of hot Brazilians. WIN. One of them, Sandro used to live in Oz (for two months on the Gold Coast LOLS), gave me his number to catch up after the game. He was the second person I fell in love with on the trip (I say second as obvs didn’t have to fall in love with old housemate Timmy, as still held a strong torch after all those amazing smoothies he used to make me for breaky, our fun tube trips to work together and the fact he meets all my criteria except the blue eye one which I’ve become lenient on). I sort of even forgot that Brazilian women are mental because the men all treat them like shit and make them that way. I didn’t care. I went back to the hostel for some chill time and then back across the road for an early dinner met Benny boy there for a feed and some Aperols. We then made the world’s worst decision to head in to the Red Square to watch the Germany game. Again in the Red Square Mr Putin had called for the square to be closed off. Benny and I missed the first half before we found a bunker craft beer café televising it. It was really cool inside but temperature wise reflected a sauna. I felt like after the game and the stress of the late Germany 94 minute mark goal I’d sweated off a few KGs and I was most certainly drunk. Unfortunately the Portuguese and English barrier meant that Sandro clicked rather late that this night was my last one. He was in the Red Square when I was back in bed (circa 1am), waiting for my 4am wake up to get to my half 6am flight to Sochi. The UBER to Moscow airport was one of the most memorable and scary UBER trips of my life but I was sort of too tired to care. The guy was Uzbekistani Ali G type guy, quite rudely dressed but his car was quite neat. I sat in the (no word of a lie) shag pile carpeted and cushioned backseat. Probably one of the best decisions I’ve made in my

life. He drove on the highway like he was keeping the tyres warm of an F1 car- so the kms felt to go particularly slow. He then decided he wanted a cigarette, so wound down the window and had a dart. I wanted to sleep but had to stay awake to ensure I wouldn’t end up in Kazakhstan. I also was messaging my Aussie mates I was meeting in Sochi as V had jetlag and was awake at the ungodly hour and gave her a rolling commentary of what was happening. Then the guy asks me what time my flight is. I showed him. He looked and looked particularly like he thought we didn’t have much time. So nearing an hour to go until my flight you could notice my surprise when he gets off the freeway and enters a petrol station, leaving me in the car...

The next fun experience was the Moscow airport as it was the first time I noticed how rude some Russians could be. I suppose as it was the first time other than the ladies toilets where the hot Russian chick had shockingly failed to wash her hands and the hotel check out that I had actually interacted with Russians. Not one smile, but I didn’t really mind, I just wanted on the flight so I could sleep so the one hour delay was particularly unhelpful in this instance. That and the fact our flight was full of Peruvians. I sat next to one from Chicago. He told me they sung the song for the whole duration of his 8hr flight. Some had sold their houses to come to this world cup = absolutely, unbelievable.

S O C H I

My biggest regret leaving Moscow was not buying a Putin babushka. Never again did I see the one as beautiful as the one I had seen in Moscow. Sochi was described to me as the Russian med, and a place that Russians went to holiday. This time I didn’t have a transfer so used an Uber to get to the hotel in Adler. The lady on the desk was a particularly dropped pie faced sour bitch. She wouldn’t let me check in. So tired beyond words I went for a wander along the sea front and found an almost Parisian restaurant aptly named ‘La Parus’ to charge the phone battery. Ordered my fav holiday dish ‘eggs bene’ and took in the ambience until I could check in and enjoy the stifling hot weather poolside until my friends joined me. That is exactly what I did upon check in, and as the Swedes had not yet checked out, it was fair to say I thoroughly enjoyed the view. I chose the vacant pool deck chair that was next to the world’s hottest man who didn’t look dissimilar to Jamie Redknapp (now the world’s equal hottest man). When the sun went down and I was almost positive that V and Andrew’s flight had landed I head inside, again for a nap. I know you probably think I nap a lot but again 2am to 6am for 8 days running had def taken its toll. That and i was running low of antihistamines and was dying of hay fever.

My token Russian Aussie friend V and her Hubby the 2M tall Andrew came in and I was well overdue for a feed so after our awesome reunion we headed to a place I’d Trip Advisored called Pizza Fisht for dins. It wasn’t amazing, because we were plonked in the kids’ corner but we were all celebrating our reunion, so after a few cocktails we left for an early-ish night.

Next morning we headed to Parus for breakie, and stopped enroute at the coffee shop I had also discovered earlier, for a roadie. Again Parus did not disappoint and we stayed there until we decided to UBER to Sochi and check it out. By now I was accustomed to the stinky UBER drivers (it was like being back in Oz with the Indian and Pakis), but at least he had half decent music taste and we got to listen to Roxette’s Joyride album the whole way which kept me happy as it reminds me of my sister. Andrew and I were getting V to ask if the Uber driver could take us to Georgia, noticing it was only 14kms from where we were staying. It was strange when he said that just across the border from Sochi was a different country and they had their own passports. Andrew and I were zooming in on google maps going ‘yeah it’s Georgia’ but this guy was adamant it was not Georgia. Having since completed some research, and mindful I would like to return to Russia, I will leave this with you:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abkhazia. 

Sochi was a cool place, and naturally wanting some respite from the sun again we found a wine bar for some tapas and Strawberry daiquiris. We caught a cab back to Adler and went to Parus for pre-game dinner. Enroute we saw (and heard) thousands of Peruvians outside a hotel singing their repetitive Peru fan song (equal parts as annoying as England’s ‘It’s Coming Home’). It gave me chills and we instantly felt the presence of the Peruvians which had waited as long as the Geelong football club premiership in 2007 to get to the world cup.

Walking in Parus we realised that all the staff from this morning were still there, in fact they were doing 15 hour days. So it was quite embarrassing when the CEO of football Australia’s David Gallops table guest was a complete arsehole to the staff having waited (as we did) for an hour to eat. Apparently he thought he was the only one that had to wait and was very vocal in doing so by slapping away the complementary bottle offered to him and storming off just as the food arrived. I believe David looked rightfully embarrassed by his guest but I especially was grateful they left hungry.

I left Parus with the intent of meeting Whiteys group and the elusive Pags at Vinograd to see Stafford Bros when I received a call from Pags a little bit pissed, telling me he had arrived and should asking me if we should go to Abkhazia on our way home! On our way back to the hotel however we doubled back passed the hotel and it was when we heard the chants again that we suddenly worried that the Peruvians were out the front of the Aussie hotel keeping them awake before the game. Andrew and i were ready for a fight but we were assured by three different groups that it was the Peru hotel and we carried on our way (BTW we were told it went on till 4am!) I was in an UBER enroute on my own at 11pm and my driver got pulled over by police. At first, I was fine I was sitting there hoping it would all hurry up so I could get to the concert. But too much was going on in my head and as I was sat there a good 20 minutes unsure what they were saying in Russian, everything went through my head, including that recent murder in Carlton. I decided, as I could still see my hotel that I would politely get out and go back and wait for Whitey to grab me enroute. When Whitey told me it was 100 Russian Yams out of his way and he was going straight there Dimi/ Arab knight in shiny armour offered to come get me, but I was well tired and called it once I was safely inside.  

We couldn’t book pre-game at Parus, the closest place to the ground so instead went to the second closest - Pizza Fisht for 15 or the WhatsApp group consisting of Whitey and his mates, Robbie Gore’s group and us lot. We arrived to a stressed staff member informing us there was a problem and a restaurant full of no necked Peruvians (V pointed this out and then I couldn’t unnotice it). I realised that they would leave to get to the game early (as Pags did) so we chilled and had cocktails while we waited for them to clear. They did, then the staff put 4 tables together for our group then I anxiously sat there with V and Andy stressing no one would show up for 30 mins until Dimi put his head through the door and Robbie and his mates come, soon there were 16 of us and we had taken over the whole restaurant. We got some travellers after a feed and headed for the game.

 

We didn’t leave near enough time to get right around the other side of the ground – God knows why they couldn’t just let us in at the gate closest and we had to walk around, but it was at this time that Robbie told me he was robbed in St Petersburg and they had skimmed his account clean. I was quite shocked by this as I had felt Russia to be really safe comparable to anywhere else I’ve been, I was sympathetic I think but I was also drunk and Sette was stressing we wouldn’t make it in time for the anthem, I was stressed I wouldn’t get a pre-game beer so we joined forces and sprinted in.

Not having enough time to get beer, I was grateful Andrew had sorted me out. I sat down near the no necked Peruvians who were everywhere and all we could hear was their song resonating, vibrating through the stadium.       

The game itself was quite hard; it was quite dejecting letting a goal through despite having a lot of the possession. The sound was piercing, I knew what had happened even though I was at the bar getting beerskies. I was quite angry at the blonde headed black man (who I didn’t know even existed until I saw Geelong debut our new player Narkle who IS my fav player already) who scored the goal as he was one of those players like Neymar that loved to roll around. Then I realised there were two blonde headed black guys and I got really confused and I was quite drunk and the only excitement for the game for me was when Timmy Cahill came on… then Peru scored again and their song by now was giving me the shits so as soon as the whistle chimed post game we legged it (at a slightly slower cripple pace due to Andrew’s bung knee) and headed to our meeting place Parus. 30 thousand Aperol Spritz’s later and a three course meal we settled the $45k Rouble bill and went our separate ways. I had a small vomit in the garden and walked home.

The next day came and we went and chilled at Vino Grad. Dimi cancelled our previously planned date from the night before and instead offered me a night out in Fulham for our first Premier League home game to which I was happy to take up. By now my body was starting to give way, so I ordered a soup despite the temperature being 100 degrees outside. We had dinner local and were re-iterated that my decision to leave the UBER the other night was a good one when we met two Peruvians who were taken out bush and robbed of their money by a taxi driver when their phones had gone dead in the celebrations the night before. My flight out the next morning was a stupid o clock 4am one to Sofia Bulgaria.   

Well in to page 6 of my longest Blog to date, I’m not going to even write about Bulgaria. Apart from the decent food (I had Indian and Spanish), the weather was crap and the country reminded me of Romania (probably because my borrowed umbrella was flogged at the store) a little boring and the world’s worst 4 star hotel. The business class flight home on the world’s worst business class airline British Airways, and me being drunk before the take-off (as we were tarmac bound for an hour in) becoming mates with the old guy next to me which I kissed goodbye at the baggage carousel – it was all very boring and non-descript! Russia 5/5 spuds, and probably up there with one of my favourite ever holidays!