Staying at this crazy ass party hostel in Florence - Firenze Inn. It costs $E20 a night and they give you:
- free breaky (which ive missed every morning)
- free dinner
- and most importantly free beer/wine... yep free.. just take as you please.

The place is really more of a frat house than a hostel.. there are no rules, no check-in or anything, just handover your cash and they give you your bed. Dont come here sleep... nor to shower.. yesterday we only had 1 toilet/shower between 60 people!

Went for a pub crawl last night.. got a little crazy with a few interesting pub games, I literally sucked at sucking... something I was a little proud off..lets just say the dude who won the game... has had a little previous practice on his knees if you catch my drift.. 'not that theres anything...'

Met up with some Contiki folk as well who asked if they could hang out with us as there whole tour group had already gone home.. some more interesting games occurred.

Got home around 4am.. ofcourse the night before Martin and myself had made a pledge to go to the Uffuzi Art Museum (pretty famous in Florence).. the thing about this museum is that the queues are 5 hours long. Thats right... unless you go damned early (like 6:30 am) and wait until it opens at like 8:15am you have to wait 5 hours..

So we made the call and got up at 6:30, crawled to the museo, and were pretty close to the front of the queue. Quite a painful hour until it opened though... and the queue got very long not too much later.

Ofcourse, we were quite drunk and out of it.. so I really dont remember all that much of what we saw inside.. oh well.

...when it's part of the Monaco Grand Prix circuit... Masis, this is all just for you buddy. The race is on the 18-22 May and im so temped to head back to France to catch it... Cannes film fest is also just before... biiigggg temptation. I should be big'n it up in Greece by then.. but damn.

Monte-carlo was pretty damned spectacular. Some serious money in this town.

Alright folks, lets give praise to top Belgian chick Jill who put me up for a couple of nights in Antwerp and showed me around. Jill, once again your pad was amazing.

Now Jill actually spent a year in Australia travelling around in a Holden Kingswood. And when I say travelling... I mean travelling ... like living in the Kingswood. Thats some crazy shit! She also plays the Dige and knows how to surf. Jill, forget this Belgian lark.. your an Aussie chick through and through!

She took me out to a club night called Blase which was pretty good fun. Her ex bf also came along.. the dude drives this done up old BMW.. check out the Zebra seat. Also went bike tour of Antwerp with Jill which was great. (Havent been on a bike in about 10 years!)

Kicking it in Antwerp.. tremendous city.

First night was in this prison (well it was actually a hostel) but they kicked you at from 10am to 3pm, served breakfast from 7:30am to 9:00am, you had to press a button in the shower to turn the water on ... and it was cold... there was no one staying there (except this 55yr old dude who must have been kicked out by his wife for snoring) and it was in the middle of no-where, next to a motor way and you had to catch a bus/tram from the city to get there..

k enough bitchn'.

Paid for two nights but after the first night I was outta there and looking for better digs. Found it.

The best hostel I have ever stayed in. Its above a bar in the old city. Instantly met a top aussie bloke dave and we've been kickin' it ever since. Raff (beared and on the left), the owner of the bar cooks food for us and gives us free beers and shots.. its the bollocks as Shahin would say. Mike, crazy crotch gripping dude from the Hague was a freaking classic .. all night hes shouting in the streets... 'Yar Yar... F*** her in the ass!' 'In the ass!' I dont think anyone knew why!@#

Also, become locals at one of the Irish pubs here. They've got a huge screen and there's been some top football on recently:
Man U v Norwich
Real Madrid v Barcelona (I think the best gave I have ever seen in my life)
Chelsea v Bayern
and tonight its Liverpool v Juventis (Come on youuuu Reds!!)

Apart from that, met Belgian girl Jill who offerred me free accomodation in her flat.. top chick.

Ohh yeah .. so Antwerp right... Ant or so meant 'hand' many hundreds of years ago.. and twerpin kinda meant throwing... i.e Hand Throwing. Really. Back in the day they used to chop off your hand and throw them if you didnt pay your taxes or if you came here illegally something like that..

They even have this awesome statue of a dude throwing a hand.

K, about 400 beers left to try..

Crazy city...

People are so damn friendly in the 'Low Countries' (Netherlands, Bel,Lux). Huge constrast to Spain. First night I was there, one of the lads in the hostel cooked up a top notch meal for us and he only wanted $1E for it. T'was a fusion of Japanese food and pasta... damned good.

For instance, after I arrived at Amsterdam Central Station I had to catch a tram to the Hostel. The tram driver saw me and my backpack and just let me on for free. I didnt know what he was on about at first and I had to go back and ask him again for a ticket- he just turned and said 'No no no its free only a few blocks' (turned out to be a 10 minute journey)

The hostel was tremendous. Spent a lot of time at its bar where all sorts of substances were being consumed. The smell of weed is everywhere in that city. Met some great people like Jen, the 56 yr old lady from Colorado who was basically high all the time; she has like 3 kids; lived in a mountain cabin for 3 yrs without water or elec and then married and was in her words trapped on her husbands ranch for 15 years. She finally divorced him so she could hear live music. She was umm interesting... Also met top Scottish lad Neil and Sophia and Kate New Yorkers living in London. Neil enjoyed dancing with Sophia.

Tremendous Van Gough Museo and Rembrants 'Night Watch' floored me as well.

Went to the Paradiso club like three times in 5 days. It was awesome.

Bicycles (and tourists) are everywhere. They even have their own multi-level car parks!

So my sis has finally had her first baby. A little boy that is currently referred to as 'The yet to be named Little One'. Awesome to see that he is already sporting a great hair-cut. Keep it up little man!

Baby 1
Baby 2
Baby 3

So, im about 6'1 / 2. I consider myself an 'alto' or 'tall' person. This myth was all smashed when I arrived in Amsterdam.

Wholly Shit!!

Chicks are like 6' and dudes are like towering over me at heights like 6'6, 6'8. Its absolutely insane. There are no short people here. What the hell have these people been eating?>??

With the UK boys (Woodsie and Shane) in town for the weekend we found ourselves awake on Sunday looking for a good way to pass last nights hangover off. Turns out Real Madrid were playing at home that weekend.. tremendous cure.

Scalped tickets to a Real Madrid v Malaga match at the Bernabeau (according to Shahin one of the most famous grounds).. $E50 and were in!

Saw the boys play - Becks, Zidane, Ronaldo, Roberto Carlos, Owen, Figo... wholly shit mutha fuXXer!!

Took some videos of the Beckham taking a free kick just in case he manged a screamer... but he didnt.. In the end Roberto Carlos put one past Mallaga in the Second half and Real won it 1 : Nill.

Atmosphere at the Boca Juniors game was better though... maybe it was the Diego factor.