Well, finally I am back from the darkness that my lack of blogging had left. Firstly, in the event that you see a q in an odd place, that is because the french have chosen to be difficult and swap the q and the a key. And the m and the . Also I have to use shift to get the . as for some reason they use the ; more often!?! as well as a couple of other changes. Hence: the auick brozn dog ju;ps over the lqwy dog;

So anyway after being here in France for the last week I am starting to get used to it.

The photos below are in the following rough country/city order:
Romania
Hungary
Prague
Vienna
Berlin
Amsterdam
Had an amazing time on the trip and I met lots of fun people including a Colombian drug lord.
Well he was Colombian at least. And I bet that puts him within six degrees with at least the lower management of a cartel.
Favourite place: Istanbul followed by Vienna and Berlin. Amsterdam was pretty interesting too, most of what you have heard is true but (surprisingly?) it is mostly the tourists smoking pot and shopping for prostitutes. Anyway there is no possible way that I have the time to write or for you to read (except perhaps Toni or Jason which probably close to half the readership) all the fun, exciting and unfun and annoying things that happened. However I will be able to regale you with tales of the world outside New Zealand when I return on the 23 of December!!! I have paid a ridiculous price for tickets so hopefully the planes will no be grounded.

Here in France the weather is amazing and I can already speak much more French than a week ago, how ever I am still only at the level of a 5 year old, for example, yesterday when I told someone - je suis Nouvelle Zealande. I am New Zealand - big claim. Oh and thinking someone was telling me their sister was dead to which I gave my condolences, turns out that the sister was just upstairs and not in fact dead after all. Its all fun in mistranslation.