No Pants

hello,

 

well, alot has happened in the last few days. first of, not long after i sent the last blog the Canadian, American and i decide to travel together for a bit. we try and work out a plan but that isn't as fun so we decide ballpark Switzerland. so after another big night we have one hour sleep and make it to the train to Zurich, one of the cities i wanted to see. unfortunately for me it was only a stop over so i had only about 20 minutes to look around, so off i go, running around taking pictures like a mad man and then back to the station and on to the train bound for Interlaken, with a stop over in Lezern, another city i really wanted to see. we get to Lezern, the most photographed town/city in Switzerland which is saying something as this is probably the most attractive country i have ever seen. i get a little bit longer to enjoy this place, a whole 38 minutes before we are back on the train.

 

now because of walking in the rain in Munich early in the morning, my pants got very wet, the pants i have been traveling in for three months, wearing them most of the time. i am wearing shorts at this point and decide before we get of at Interlaken that these pants are not in very good shape, still wet sitting in the bottom of my bag, so i leave them on the train. we arrive in Interlaken, the extreme sports capital of the world some time in the evening. a place where lonely planet recommends booking accommodation around a month in advance, most certainly not when you arrive at night. now this town is lovely, a very small town surrounded by absolutely massive mountains, known as the Swiss alps. it is also very cold here, for me at least, the Canadian was wearing shorts by choice; and i was regretting mine. after checking about 7 hotels and dorms we find Balmers Tent Village and they had a very cheap option, 15 Swiss franks for a bed in this dorm, with no door or any luxuries like that. we leave our stuff and head towards happy hour at one of two bars in town, both are run by hostels so it is mainly inhabited by young travelers such as our self's. we hang out with some American girls and party for a while. the next day marsh (Canadian) and Mike (American) decide they want to go canyoning, which is basically jumping of big rocks into small sections of water, freezing cold water. i decide hang gliding or paragliding would be a little warmer so i wait for the rain, wind and clouds to disappear so i can book one of the two, but unfortunatly it didn't. the boys said they had fun whitewater rafting (canyoning was considered too dangerous in these conditions so they had to change sports). apparently mike, big mike fell in and it took everyone on the boat to get this man mountain back in ha ha. that night we went back to the bar and met up with our friends and partied a bit more.

 

the boys had not been impressed with our accommodation the previous night so had booked a night at another place, which was 12 franks more expensive but much better as it had locks, doors, showers and all these other totally unnecessary stuff. i decided to stay at my cozy little pad another night. i just happened to be the only one with an alarm clock so it was my job to wake them up at 8am so we could head on out to the train. i had however left my luggage with my friends in their new accomodation so i wake up at 7:30am look out side, it is freezing, raining, no pouring and it is misty. i look on the floor not remembering what i had worn last night but hopping there is at least one item made with wool, alas.. my thongs, underwear, SHORTS and a traveling shirt (collared and extremely thin, mainly for traveling in say Delhi or something like that). i am a little disappointed to tell you all the truth. but i put it all on, brace my self and walk out the door....way. i am around 15-20 minutes away from my friends accommodation and another 20 minutes away from the train station. it was a very cold walk, and now as i am writing this from Nice in France i am coughing, only a small cold but it isn't helping anybody. anyhow i get to their hostel and wake them up, they take ages to get up but eventually they are ready, somehow i had left my jumper in some dorm room and it was lost, so i am pantless and jumperless, so i put on 9 tee-shirts, later mike would come to judge the temperature of a place by how many shirts i was wearing: "hmm no marsh i don't think we need a jumper, Jake is only wearing 4 shirts". we get to the station and make our way to Milan, Italy. traveling through Switzerland by train is the best way to do it. we had the most amazing views, picture it, half way up a mountain, looking out your window hundreds of metres down upon a small village with a stream running through it, the greenest grass you have ever seen, at the foot of another massive mountain with the sheerest faces and waterfalls, capped by snow at the top, all from the warmth and comfort of the train, it was amazing. in and out of tunnels, up and down mountains, over rivers it was cool. the train was about 5 hours to Milan, trains are much easier to handle the planes, so much better. we entertain our self's by making fun of Iggy Pop, mike is reading his autobiography as we travel. making fun of my no pants situation, and  listening to more and more and more stories of our Canadian friends adventures. it is now his birthday, he is 25, we partied last night and we planned to party again this night in our destination of nice. we stop of in Milan and it was wonderful for me as this was one of the places i wanted to go to, you all know how much i love Italy. unfortunately i had only an hour there and the time was taken up mostly by waiting to reserve our seats on the next train. i did however get to go out and take a few photo's. we get back on the train, and went along the coast of Italy and France, along the Mediterranean, it was lovely and it was wonderful for my pantless legs to be bathed in sunlight for the first time in a few days.

 

we arrive in Nice last night at around 8pm. it is raining, again no hostel booked and most hotels had a fully booked sign out the front, we finaly find a hotel and it is 30£ each for a hotel room with three beds, we are exited to be living in such luxury. it is still marsh's birthday so we dump our stuff and head towards the old town, the party town. we find this bar and it is happy hour all night, we play pool and drink tequila beer. we meet a very mixed group of people, a gorgeous long island bikini model, a bald Indian/black/white Brooklyn kid, a fiery English girl, a English guy and some others who i cant even visualise now. we play pool and hang out with them. we want to go to this club so we run but we get there at 2:02am so we just missed the window of free entry so we go back to the pub. my friend marsh is annoyed because i am chatting and drinking with the long island girl away from the rest of the group so he takes mike who is tired and they leave, with the map, directions and name of the hotel. i ask if anyone wants to come back and party in our hotel, no one seemed really exited about the idea, they wanted to go to some other club. but the long island girl was annoyed that her friend who she had come all this way from long island NY to see had not spoken to her all night, which was totally ridiculous and it seemed like she was just making up reasons to be pissed of at him, he is angry and wants her to come back and stay at his place where all her stuff is, she doesn't want to go, she throws his keys away in front of him, she grabs my arm and starts walking. the plan was to go back to our hotel and have a beer and i said she could crash at our place. so we start walking, we keep walking, it is around 3:30am in nice, which is actually fairly dangerous i hear. i don't have a map, i am a little drunk and we are lost it is pretty cold and she isn't wearing a great deal so i give her my shirt leaving me with a singlet, very cold. we walk around for just under 3 hours trying to find my hotel, it was the most frustrating 3 hours i can remember, she is walking in stilettos which i cant imagine been much fun. i feel terrible, men are supposed to be good with directions and i usualy am, just not this night. we walk and eventually see her friends? walking out of this club, she and the guy start yelling at each other some more and he pressures her to come home with him and the guys friends are telling me to get away from the situation in not a very friendly way, but she had told me some stuff about him on our walk and she didn't really want to be around him. but when it is 3 guys and 2 girls pressuring her to go back with them i knew we had lost this battle, she was upset that she had to go back with them and i was pissed of that i still couldn't find my hotel. so i am walking and i see the fiery English girl and the bald Brooklyn kid; she yells at me to come over to where she is. she starts yelling at me about how much of a prick i was for taking the long island girl on some massive night walking tour of nice which was a valid point and i was about to try and explain the situation when some dodgy guy comes up to them and offers the girl some umm.... it rhymes with stash, or mash. she starts talking french and makes a deal with the guy, and stupidly pulls out about 400euro and is about to take one of the bills out of the stack when the dodgy guy grabs the full 400euro and starts running, me and the bald kid start sprinting after him and we are chasing him through little side streets and up and down stairs for about 10 minutes before he looses us in the city he obviously knows very well. the bald kid asks me to look after the now fuming fiery English girl while he go's in search of someone who obviously doesn't want to be found in his own city, kind of pointless at that stage. so i sit there and put up with this girl jumping all over the place swearing at the city, swearing at random passers by and swearing at me, she is threatening this guy who could probably hear her from where ever he was hiding, laughing. the sky is getting lighter and i am so tired, annoyed, drunk and some other adjectives. so i tell her good luck and i leave as she is on the phone calling down all her 'BoYz' as i have seen so many times girls doing in Melbourne. 'I'm going to get Marco, James, tony and they are going to come down here and get him' etc... i walk for another hour before i find my hotel, i kicked my self when i saw it as me and the long island girl had actually walked right past it but it was before we were lost so i wasn't paying much attention. i get to my room and hit the bed. now it is 5pm the next day and it is a lovely day in Nice. i am going to get some food and find a place to wash my clothes. tomorrow i think we are of to Marseilles before heading on to Barcelona which will be amazing fun.

 

jeez i have been writing for a while, so i will stop now.

 

love Jake.