Does anyone know?

What this is?

Anyway, thinking it was the toilet I peed in it, then discovered we had a toilet.

Road rules!

We've now done almost 3000kms in Europe and it's fair to say that maybe, just maybe, we should have learnt the road rules before we came.
Now after only about 400 near misses we pretty much have it sussed.

1. You must always drive at least 25kms faster than the speed limit.
2. If you turn your hazard lights on you can go anywhere or stop and park anywhere, this includes roundabouts, pedestrian crossings and ramps.
3. If you are turning left you are stuffed coz everyone has the right away except you.
4. Red lights do not mean stop, they mean slow down and go if the orange light is also flashing.
5. Cars can go anywhere a person can go, this includes footpaths, pedestrian crossings and cycle lanes.
6. Bicycles should always be ridden on the footpaths, particualy where-ever there are lots of people.
7. A motor bike is just a motor bicycles and rule 6 applies.
8. The shortest way is never the quickest way and you should just use the Toll road.

Rule 8 has led to a mjor falling out in the ranks. Jeanie (our GPS) has fallen away poorly since we left Paris. She sends us up one way streets and randomly just loses where we are and starts giving false instructions like "turn left now" when there is nothing but the sea to the left.
She is now called Molly and we hate her!

Backwards

More technical issues!
Suddenly the mouse control on my mouse has gone backwards, if i move it left, it goes right and if i move it up, it goes down!

Does anyone know how to fix this coz it's driving me mad!!

Anyone for Pitxos?

Hola from San Sebastian on the northern coast of Spain.
After Rachel's many years of anticipation of being in Spain and with her learning plenty of the language it was pretty bloody funny to get here and see her forget almost everything and start talking to the locals in French.
This is Basque country and they don't particularly like the Castillian version(which we have learnt) being used anyway. In actual fact English is preferred.
Sobering thing was that last night when we were out on the town some English folk told us they had been out to some of the more remote villages and were met with hostility from the Basque separatists because they were speaking Spanish!

We went out on a Tapa crawl last night, although here they are called Pitxos (Pen-chos) and the crawl is called a "poteo-ir-de-pitxos" which is certainly a new experience. Basically all the bars have platters of all this finger food loaded up on the bar and you help yourself, as you would at a 21st at home. Then you order some drinks and go back and forward to the bar for more food as you like. Each piece of food is held together with a tooth pick and you keep these in your pocket.
At the end of the night you count the tooth picks and tell them how many you have and the number of drinks and they add it up and charge you. Then you go onto the next bar and so on and so on. The food is bloody awesome, lots of fish, crab and prawns which we have loved after all the meat and bread in Germany and France.

Then we went to a local dance bar and the first guys we see are bloody Kiwis!
After that we foolishly went on to the Casino where Rach lost her money on Black Jack and me at Poker. It was very interesting to play cards having no idea at all what anyone else at the table was saying!
While we like it here, it is bloody cold.
San Sebastian is where all of Spain comes in the middle of Summer, so now in Autumn there's no-one here and for the first time on this trip our off-season timing sucks!
We are staying here one more night, then heading across country and south, way south, to find some sunshine and to speak some proper Spanish!

Today

We arrived in Poitiers last night which is about 1/2 way between Paris and Spain.
We'll head down in the direction of Bordeaux today before starting the Spain leg of our journey tomorrow. First stop today will be the small town of Cognac, famous for guess what???

The weather is becoming an issue now with it getting to zero overnight and a high of 9C yesterday and today. We have had to buy woollen coats and jerseys!
Actually since Amsterdam the only man, other than myself, I have seen wearing shorts was also wearing jandles and a Waikato jersey!

Baden Baden

Time to catch up a bit from when we went missing in Germany.

After leaving Augsburg after lunch we intended to head to Strasbourg which is actually over the Rhine river in France. But the navigator for Germany (me) decided that we should instead stay on the Geram side of the river and head for Baden Baden, an old Roman thermal spa town.

This is one seriously cool place and it was a perfect place for us to practise our driving on cobbled lanes less than 2 metres wide.

This is our Hotel.

The only issue about our hotel was that we were right next door to the church which we had been warned were likely to ring their bells pretty often.

They rang continuously for 15 minutes at 6.45pm (just after we checked in and we wondered if we would get any sleep.

Then they didn't ring again until 7am, then they didn't stop until 7.30am.

No-one sleeps past 7am in Baden Baden!

The Romans came here to recuperate after a tough battle and we needed to do the same after Munich. Basically no-one spoke English or was interested in rugby, so we just bunkered down and took in all the history and healing qualities of the "slightly radioactive" spa water which has pools today which are actually on the old Roman ruins.

Think Hamner, only 2000 years older!

I can confirm one thing, the Germans love their nudity. The public area downstairs was normally only half full while the "Roman gardens" area where everyone, and I mean everyone" gets their kit off was packed.

Unfortunately I couldn't take the camera in there so you will have to imagine me wandering around naked......

So-Cal in Flames

Cassie my friend I hope all of your family are safe and well amid the flames in your home town. Our thoughts are with the peeps of So-Cal.

xxx Kev and Rach xxxx

Read the full story here

Amsterdam PART 2

Heineken Brewery - Well there was a cool tour! Up and down stairs and just when you think you can walk no further ahhhh....beer!



Actually there were three free beers within the tour and a few cool (and not so cool) interactive rides!

If you were smart like the backpackers you would follow the asian tourists around coz most of them don't use their tokens as they don't drink, so if you were clever you could sit there all day and get pissed!




Here is Kev having his quota.......

Here is a link to a video we made inside a fermenting tank at the Brewery.






All in all Amsterdam people are pretty cool as long as you know these important things:


There is always a place that will relax you...........




You can always find plenty of beer to quench your thirst.....






And always be careful when walking..........


I guess the taxi is on the NVT huh??

Shane bloody Edmond

There's a guy I have known for over 30 years called Shane Edmond. He lived a few hundred metres down the road from me in Tinwald, went to the same primary school and married a girl I knew called Belinda Reid. Shane is a very successful guy and heads, I think, one of the biggest stock broking organisations in NZ
Shane and I have never really been mates, he's 2 years older than me, but in the last 5 or so years we just keep bumping into each other in the strangest places. If there is any one person in the world who will turn up in the most unexpected place at any given time for me, it's Shane.
I have told heaps of stories about Shane and I bumping into each other in some very strange places.. We get on well and I suspect that one day we will do something together.
Today I asked Rachel to take a picture of me wearing my SA scarf and just as she clicks Shane is walking down the footpath in Paris, sees me and sticks out his hand.

You can tell by my expression what I'm saying to him.

The final

Well at least the Poms disn't win!
Yesterday to the amazement of many (myself included) I bought a South African scarf and have worn it since.
2 reasons; firstly I simply couldn't handle England having 2 world cups when we have one
and secondly after the quarter final losss to France I had 3 Poms poke me in the chest and ask me what it felt like to be a loser.
We have met many people in the last few days (Poms, SA's, French etc) that have all said NZ are the best and have asked us what happened.
Our answer has been stock standard, that is we don't know but it doesn't matter coz we ain't in the final.
This has won us plenty of friends!
We will report on Paris more fully soon but the last couple of days has been about catching up with friends. Yesterday we spent all with Simon and Steph who came over here for the rugby AFTER the AB's got home! They have had a great time and although they went to bed at 11pm Rach and I stayed in their hotel house bar until 4.30am drinking Johhny Waker green label with Jake White's best man and learnt a lot about the upcoming challenges to SA rugby with the TEN minimum black player per team quota next year.
Then before the game we met up with Thorney for a beer or 5 on the Champs des Elyees only 200 metres from the Arc de Triomphe and experienced something only Thorney can provide.
The guy is a friggen superstar!
People just walk up and start taking photos, it is actually quite bizarre to see how people react to him. He is taking us to a cemetery tomorrow that contains , amongst others, Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, Chopin and Oscar Wilde. Should be interesting!

Deaker.

The definition of a non-friend!
http://www.stuff.co.nz/4245664a1823.html
Do not believe all you read, kiwi's in Europe (at least the ones we have met) are much more understanding than you are led to believe.