Zoe Zombie

Hello, from Prague.

// August 14th, 2008 // Comments Off // travel

We have been a bit busy in case yo ucan’t tell from the huge gap in between entries.
Our contiki tour started on the 9th. After getting off the plane in London, we moved through customs quickly (thank GOD, as opposed to last time when I thought I was going to celebrate 5 christmases in line) and were off to our hotel.

En route, we had stopped off at Helen’s place to get our stuff and drop off some more crap that we had acquired from our Wacken and Athenian adventures. Very nice that she let us drop her stuff there but I felt bad because I didn’t know how to flush her toilet properly and thought I somehow broke it. Seriously, it had nothing to do with feces.

On arriving to our Hotel which was the Royal National, we were running very close to being late to our contiki meeting. Tip of the day: Never ever miss your night before contiki tour meeting. You may think it’s really annoying but it will save you a lot of hassle in the long run.

After the meeting, we went and grabbed dinner at Gourmet Burger (GB, smart). At first, I couldn’t get over how generally expensive things were in comparison to the australian dollar. Today the aussie dollar is buying 48 pence so it’s not as bad as this time last year.

The hotel was extremely stuffy, and yet again there is no fan. It’s like hoteliers don’t realise that a lot of people coming to their hotel’s are not from the local area and therefore do like some sort of climate control things. We’re not Londoners who enjoy feeling the heat of Cairns every day of the year.

There is no airconditioner and the room is way too hot and stuffy. Normally, this is not a problem but when you are only given a quilt to sleep with and no top sheet it can get very uncomfortable very quickly. It doesn’t really equate to a good night’s sleep. Especially if your room faces the busy street where apparently so many crimes and heart attacks are occuring that sirens must wail loudly throughout the night.

There was even no fan in the toilet (again! Note: in europe, yo shit don’t stink!). This is one of the features we are beginning to find a lot of in this place.

Let me tell you. a lot of hotels do not have a fan in the bathroom which is a really bad idea – especially if you just do a huge stinking dump. How about a 13 hour flight with bad Asian food? What about if you’ve just got the runs? Yeah… maybe the idea of a fan is sounding a lot better to you now.

So after London, we drove to Amsterdam. it was a long drive that involved taking the ferry through the channel to Calais.

…. right now I am not into this so I will just do points.
1. I got queasy on the ferry. Yes.
2. Amsterday – went to a sex show, danced with a male stripper, awesome hotel and got stoned. Of course.
3. Berlin – Awesome day and night tour, great architecture. Lots of history. Just a wonderful place.

AMEN.

somewhere over paris…

// August 8th, 2008 // Comments Off // travel

I am currently on annoying flight #2178 from Athens to London. All I can say is, if you are fat you got no one to blame but yourself. If your leg is all squished up against someone else’s seat beacause you decided to eat your kids’ airplane meal as well as your own to further add to the tubbiness that is your fat and fucked up seld, then you can go and kiss my fucking ass. Don’t tell me to m ove my seat forward only after kicking it andpushing it continuously for 30 minutes without me even saying a word, and then expect me to do the noble thing and feel sorry for you because you are fat. I am not going to do it for your fat ass. And If I am flying to London from Greece and I don’t look Greek than chances are I DON’T SPEAK ANY FUCKING GREEK. Much, anyway.
P.S At this point I am being alerted to the fact that their may be a fat casualty in the toilet who is having a hard time getting out.

Traveling around athens for th epast few days has led me to believe certain things about their homeland.
1. There are more billaboards for cigarettes and alcohol condensed in such a small area that I have ever seen. It makes smoking and alcohol as vital as food and air.
2. People still feel it’s ok to smoke in your face. Apparently asthma has not been discovered in Athens yet.
3. You can smoke practically everywhere. That’s right. Even in your coffin.
4. They like to start hourses and then leave the skeletal structure long enough for it to be covered in grqfitti.
5. They automatically speak to  you in Greek unless you say “hello” and even then, they think you’re weird.
6. A main meal is big enough for 4 people. 4 THIN people. A fat fuck like the one behind me would eat that and her kid’s dinner.
7. Waiters don’t come back to ask if you would like something more to drink throughout your meal and take forever to get the bill.

There are some kids on this flight who need to be killed. Row 38 seats H&K. Obviously spoilt brats who talk to their parents like they are shit but they may as well deserve it for giving their kids everything they want all the time.

Here’s a general tip, as much as I like having people make my bed and give me fresh towels when I come back from a day of doing nothing – I hate to see my shit all tidied up. I do. It’s weird and I don’t know why I hatge it. I think it has stemmed from when my mother used to clean up my room and put everything in neat little piles just so she could see enough table top to clean it. But then of course, i couldn’t find anything and I used to get really pissed off.

Well now I kindg got a problem with people touching my shit in general. Because one day in HK, Roger and I decided to get some fruit to take a break from the crap we had been eating. Of course we had no knives or anything to cut the fruit with we bought a cheap $2 knife. We left it on a bench in the room. After coming back one day it was gone. The fucking bitch ass maid stole our knife! Oh well, it was only 2 bucks.

Fast forward to HK aurport a day later. We are flying to London. We go through security. They check Roger’s bag because what appears to be in there is a knife. Well that was a bit of a collar pulling situation. The maid had for some reason, put it in his back pack. Thankfully security joked about it, and Roger gave them the knife after they asked him if he would be needing it. No harm done but it could have been a lot worse.

25 mins to London. Cannot wait for customs.

The end of Athens, for now.

// August 7th, 2008 // Comments Off // travel

To mister journal thingy – Before I go on with the latest shit from Athens, I forgot to add that a strange thing happened the morning Roger and I were to leave Wacken and it was all over. I had decided to rest in our tent before making our 4am bus. A while after Roger had come back after seeing Kreator, two very drunk German guys came up to our tent and just started talking to us. As I was lying in the tent, I didn’t pay them much attention however one of them liked Roger a lot as he asked if he could sit on his lap which Roger blatantly refused.

One of the other guys started vividly describing a dream in which he was being raped and humbed by big fluffy rabbits. I soon realised that this sounded a lot more funny in a German accent than an Aussie accent. Justt like everything else. Why is that? Not too sure!

We spent yesterday doing a tour of the city and all (most) of the ancient Athenian sites. I was so excited to just know that the places I was walking through were the same places that Pericles, Thucydides or even Socrates once walked. The tour took us to the stadium where the first modern day Olympics were held We then had a drive around the city and looked at the olympian Zeus temple.

Of course the Acropolis is where I wanted to see. It was awesome to see the places were Socrates taught Plato, where the Athenians met to discuss political matters and where they went to the mmarkets and watched comedies or tragedies.

All the way up to the Parthenon on top of the Acropolis there were stupid Paki’s selling ship from umbrella’s to frozen water. It was kind of annoying.

One of the amazing things was that there were taxis going up near the Acropolis and horse and carriage rides.

After the Acropolis we went to the museum. it was interesting but after a while you do get sick of looking at all the ornaments and vases. But the earrings and bangles were very interesting.

Although next time I would not go on this tour. It was 78 Euro for a whole 3 hours. Rip off.

After the tour we walked around the city some more and I found a metal store which we thought was a god send to top of an average kind of day. We felt at home and bought some CD’s that seemed cheap. I bought a couple of Grave CD’s after falling in love with them at Wacken.

And now it’s on to London!

The Greek Adventures of Roger and Jess

// August 5th, 2008 // Comments Off // travel

SOme things i left out yesterday as I had been writing so much I wasn’t talking to Roger for the entire time. I think he felt lonely!

Wacken – lots of awesome metal market places offering alternative clothing and jewellry at very cheap prices. It was a place I could shop at forever. We continued to go back and everytime we did we found something different.

My feet we killing me all day so badly!! I had to keep sitting down.

Woops! Gotta go, be back soon…

__
What a funny day in a non humourous way ?(uh-oh!). Roger and I went for a walk around the Placka. Athens is quite average for shopping! Their GUESS shop was in this building that you had to go upstairs and then ring a doorbell. I was really put off by the incident and we backed away slowly with our hands raised.

When we found an internet cafe, we could see the top of the Parthenon. I have never been so taken aback in my life.

(Random Wacken though – Grave were so fucking awesome!)

The grandess of it – it sticks out like a sore thumb. I had studied the Parthenon and I know about it but it never compares once you actually see it! Tomorrow we are going for a day tour. It should be interesting.

In the late afternoon, we went to the beach across the road from our hotel (which is a nice place by the way!). It was the first time I truly missed home. The beaches in Voula are unlike the ones at home. The “sand” is made up of crushed rock and shell which makes for uncomfortable strolls to the water! Not something you really want to dig your toes into. And once you feel as though you may have reached some sort of freedom from your shell/rock hell, you are greeted by rocks in the sea bed. I kept thinking that something was coming to eat me because I couldn’t see the sand. To be honest, I don’t think there is a living thing in that water. I thought it would be crystal blue!

If Perth has anything going for it, it is the beaches.

One thing I am enjoying is the TV. Seriously, in Hamburg it was so hard to find anything in English. Only the movie channel and CNN was English so we constantly had it on the movie channel the whole time. But here most of the programmes are in English with Greek subtitles.

I have just watched an episode of Beverly Hills 90210 (the old school eps, not the new class or whatever the fuck it’s called) for the first time since 2001.

The food here is amazing. We went to Dream Grill in Woula yesterday and the meat was beautiful. Today we went to some place in the Plaka which was really nice but then we started getting sleepy after our meal and asked for the b ull. It didn’t come until 20+ minutes later. We were both pissed off and didn’t want to leave a tip. However I still gave 3 Euro which was really low. We were also annoyed that they did not ask if we wanted more to drink or if we wanted desert. Pathetic. So the top I left was less than 10%.

I realise that perhaps it is a part of their dining culture. But ours is better

P.S I should note that our bus driver on the A2 route was smoking. ODD. Even though taxi drivers smoke as well… odd. yes.