Because it was raining this afternoon, Kate and I, like the logical, utterly sane people we are, have spent the last couple of hours recreating Star Trek with biscuits and photographing it. I can't work out if it's genius or insanity, but I've been eating a lot of wafers anyway (humans are wafers, Vulcans are Hobnobs - or the equivalent of them, since we can't get Hobnobs abroad - and Romulans are digestive biscuits). We haven't finished it, but we might do if our roommates go out tonight, after we've packed for Paris.

The number of days until I go home is now into single digits. Fucking madness! Quite exciting though. Even if the Anxiety Pains Of Rubbishness are edging back.

I re-read Angels & Demons last night as the first time I read it I was stoned and couldn't actually remember what happened in it. It doesn't seem as well-written reading it with a clear head, but it was good anyway and Vittoria is made of awesome and is not rubbish like Sidekick Lady, the film totally took away her fabulousness. And then I can finish Tender Is The Night tomorrow.

I really want to watch Camp Rock for some inane reason. I have it somewhere on DVD at home from when Asda were doing it for a fiver, but I don't know what I've done with my copy. *sigh* Oh, smily little Mitchie, how adorable you are.

Love to all.
xxx

Luxembourg has essentially not changed at all in the last nine/ten years, which is weird but fundamentally epic. It really is like wandering around in my childhood again. But it's weird, because there is all kinds of emotional shit all tangled up in it, as I've always fundamentally believed that if my dad hadn't left Luxembourg then he wouldn't have died when he did. But anyway, I am not getting caught up in that skein of thought, because no good can come of it.

And I really fucking love it here even if it is raining!

Bought jeans today... I haven't worn jeans for sixty-six days, so this is very exciting, especially as they were only €10.

xxx

I have no Torchwood spoilers at all. I haven't even seen the promotional pictures (yes, really). So, if you give me any Torchwood spoilers at all, I will end you.

Ahem.

I have twelve days left of my holiday and then I go home; where did it all go?! Still, it will be nice to not have to wait hours to get to a bathroom.

It poured with rain today and I got utterly soaked; which is maybe why I shouldn't buy cheap rain macs from Primark. I got so wet I had to put my money belt in Kate's rucksack, and my passport has gone a bit crinkly. Luckily my interrail pass hasn't disintegrated entirely! My shoes are wet through and I had wet feet all day! Kate has been very good about my whinging, I'm sure I've been a complete pain in the arse today. My rucksack was wet through too, but luckily my notepad hasn't dissolved, I would've been super pissed if it had.

I am bemused to find "We're A Storm In Somebody Else's Teacup" now brings up so many hits it's one of those 'google predict' things. I will now stop being egocentric.

I'm really tired but off to Luxembourg tomorrow, which I'm excited about although it was such a huge part of my childhood I'm also scared that ten years later it'll be crap now.

xxx

I was watching CSI dubbed into French while waiting to get on a computer, and trying to work out what season it was from Nick's hair. His head was shaved, which means it was after his Disco Nazi phase, but I'm not sure what season that makes it.

We had a lovely time at the comic museum and ended up spending about three hours in their reading room, reading Tintin books. I couldn't find the English translation of Tintin In The Congo and of course they've only just started publising it in the UK as a special collector's edition which comes shrinkwrapped, so I've never read it before. I ended up reading it in French and impressed myself with how much I understood, even if I do tend to get the words for "fear" and "skin" mixed up!

Bruges tomorrow, and if this heat doesn't let up soon I'm going to collapse. It's only a one hour train journey there, though, which is unreasonably short and Kate and I don't know what we will do with ourselves! Although I'm in all sorts of pains from carrying The Bag yesterday, so I am not looking forward to carrying it tomorrow!

xxx

In Brussels. Which is nice. I've only been here once, to visit my dad about ten years ago, and I don't remember a lot about it from then! It's like Amsterdam, where my dad lived until I was two... three? Something like that. Then he got whatever kind of hepatitis it is you recover from (I don't know how... I've never asked) and came back to England. So my only memory of Amsterdam from when I was a kid was getting a massive toy castle there. Although quite a few of my picture books are actually in Dutch, as I have learned; my dad used to translate them for me when he read them to me.

I appear to be in overshare mode; I will stop now, since I'll probably be reminiscing a lot in Luxembourg.

I've read three books since Monday; Dead Famous, Angels & Demons (which I probably wouldn't have read so quickly if I hadn't been stoned and trying to come up with something I could do until I wasn't stoned any more), and A Thousand Splendid Suns. So I am trying to slow down a little as I've only got two books left to last me the next seventeen days. Although then I suppose I can start borrowing Kate's...

In an attempt not to read anything on the train from Amsterdam to here, I thought I would write something. And I thought I was going to be creepy wrong and perverted and write McCoy/Chekov. Imagine my surprise when I'm now five pages into a McCoy/Uhura, set pre-movie. She's just dumped a cocktail over him (though she'd prefer to dump it over Jim) and he's trying not to notice that she's pretty when she's angry. Huh. Funny how these things appear.

Doing the Tintin/comic strip museum tomorrow. Yay!

And tonight we have a veritable feast for dinner; bread, cheese, tinned pineapple and yogurt, and even chocolate if we want it. Yes, I am aware that my diet has utterly deteriorated, but you try living in hostels without kitchens!

Love to all.
xxx

Ate a space cake in one of the "coffeeshops" a few hours ago. I don't know to what extent it's actually affected me, although I have drawn a crayon picture of Spock and spent the last couple of hours feeling like most of the rest of my body doesn't actually belong to me, so maybe I'm not the best judge.

I've been reading Angels & Demons on my bed for the last couple of hours. Dan Brown totally becomes a better writer when you're high!

We did the Van Gogh museum this morning, which was ridiculously expensive but still cool, although they don't have nearly as much Van Gogh stuff as implied. Tomorrow I am off to the Rijksmuseum to see Nightwatch, which is my second favourite painting ever (after Flaming June) and I am not leaving the city without seeing it, and Kate is going to a museum on Dutch resistance to the Nazis. Then it's packing up time as we are off to Brussels on Friday (Tintin museum! Yays!)

Going to go away now, eat some pasta, and hopefully my mouth will stop feeling like it's made out of felt. I am such a lightweight...

I am so all kinds of tired right now.

I didn't sleep fabulously last night, but they did do (free!) pancakes for breakfast in the hostel so that was awesome.

We did Anne Frank's house this morning, and then we did our pedal-boat down the canal, which was amazing. Even if there was lots of shrieking as we nearly crashed into various other boats. Luckily Kate got the hang of steering really quickly, 'cause I was shite at it. Instead I read the map thing to work out where we were going, and pointed out the "interesting landmarks" that were listed there. Yay teamwork. Just picture two girls in their late teens, one in a big hat, one in big sunglasses, pedalling down the canal singing all the bits of songs they could remember from Muppet Treasure Island and occasionally going "you're going to hit that duck! Left! Leeeeft!" and you have our epic journey.

Although it took us about three hours to walk back from where we ended up to our hostel, so my feet are in lots of pain.

Currently reading the American copy of Angels & Demons we got from the hostel in Munich; I think it's dreadfully written but I'm kind of enjoying it anyway.

xxx

On the train from Frankfurt to here (Amsterdam) I read all of Dead Famous by Ben Elton, so now I have hardly any books left! But I've found a copy of A Thousand Splendid Suns in our new hostel (all the books in our last hostel book exchange were in Spanish *sigh*) so I will read that.

I PAID TWENTY FUCKING EUROS (EIGHTEEN TO TWENTY POUNDS, DEPENDING ON EXCHANGE RATE) ON LAUNDRY. THERE ARE NO WORDS FOR HOW ANGRY I AM!

Ahem. I had a good cry in the bathroom (in an I hate this holiday and I fucking want to go home way) and have stuffed myself with pancakes, so now I feel much more zen about blowing an entire day's budget on cleaning my fucking clothes. Ok. I feel slightly more zen and I should stop using italics now.

Wanna know something gross that will probably make you want to de-friend me? I've washed my socks for the first time since I got out here. I've been out here nine weeks. Gross much?

Anne Frank's house tomorrow, and then Kate and I are gonna try and rent a pedal-boat down the canal but if that's too expensive then we'll do the Van Gogh museum.

Oh, and when we managed to get our rucksacks down from the top luggage racks on the train (no mean feat, they're massive and each weigh at least 16 kg), Kate amused me a lot by doing that little Russian exclamation of joy that tiny!Chekov gives in ST. We are fixated.

Kate and I have got to stop repeatedly going to see Star Trek, although in our defence we did want to go and see Angels & Demons but it wasn't on until super late. And we also went to an art gallery today so we were also cultured!

We've now got to the point where we quietly cheer certain parts, so the rest of the cinema are probably not that keen on us. Oh well. And I epically love the music.

Tiny!Chekov also wins at life, it's just sad he's too young to pair with anyone in the movie without it being creepy. I may have to write him an AU where he meets up with Luke from SJA and they are made of awesome, but that would be slightly wrong too, I feel. Hmmm.

Robin Hood has all kinds of blatantly lost the plot. *sigh*

Off to Amsterdam tomorrow!

xxx

Afterthought: *has an icon* And I'm so going to end up writing Bones/Chekov at some point, aren't I? Right. *buggers off to do something actually practical, like eat or pack or update her travel blog or something*

In Frankfurt. They have a Strewwelpeter fountain here which has all kinds of made my day.

Kate and I went to see Star Trek again, and had a lovely time (again).

The laptop the hostel is letting me use the internet on has an honest-to-God English keyboard on it; the speechmarks, @ signs and even the £ sign are all in the right places. It is very exciting and I can't type on it at all.

I promise I will stop writing about the foreign and not foreign keyboards that I am using!

We're staying in the Red Light District here (which we knew about when we booked); it's basically two-thirds of a street and not in any way scary, although we like that on the corner there is this MASSIVE sex shop called Dr Muller. (Kate: "But doesn't he make yogurt?" Me: "Well, he needed to fund his Yogurt Empire somewhere." Kate: "...do you think he ever teamed up with Dr Oetker?").

Everywhere is playing Michael Jackson music and I saw a newspaper frontcover of him either dead or being loaded into the ambulance practically dead... it's weird being so far away from actual news! I haven't seen a television set in... several hostels.

Nearly finished Great Expectations, and still loving it! Then I just get to pick what I want to read on the train to Amsterdam on Monday; we've got hold of Angels & Demons from our last hostel, and so I will probably read that and laugh at it. I love free books!

I don't know what's going on in Robin Hood but my mother has just texted me with the word: Noooo! so I assume I will not like it.

Love to all.
xxxx

Farrah Fawcett AND Michael Jackson are dead???

I'm more upset about Farrah than I am about Michael. Michael I'm more... WTF? Seriously, still stunned. Kate found out from her Dachau tour group leader this morning and told me when she got back, and I spent about five minutes just going "oh, no way". Probably just as well he told her, as we saw newspaper headlines later but had no way of knowing what Michael Jackson is tag meant. It's just... very weird. Very weird.

I did two churches, climbed a tower, and did the massive Residenz palace and treasury while Kate did Dachau, so I feel very productive. I also managed to work out what platform her train back would come in on, which if you know me at all you will realise is very impressive.

Had German beer last night but wasn't that keen on it. Will have to get the hang of beer drinking.

Off to Frankfurt tomorrow...

xxx

We went on an excellent free walking tour of Munich today. And if you're interested, there's even a photo here.
I'm the one in the white cardigan with black stripes down the sleeves in the middle, and Kate is the girl on my left with the scarf.

Cleared up my headache last night by going drinking in the hostel bar with people from our dorm, which was fun. I ended up playing Wii bowling with a German bloke who thought me and Kate were sisters, which amused me.

Tomorrow Kate is off to Dachau and I am off to do something less traumatic... and probably Starbucks at some point as well!

Oh, and we went in what is possibly the last surviving Woolworths ever, which was pretty damn epic.

Love to all.

xxx

I have a headache :(

But I am in Munich!

I was watching Torchwood on the six-hour train journey (I have A Day In The Death and Captain Jack Harkness, since they both have lots of Owen/Ianto and not lots of Gwen in them) and I am once again dreadfully upset and angry about what happened to Owen. Although I have noticed that the shirt Owen wears in A Day In The Death is basically the same one he wears in Combat, so clearly it is just his Burgundy Shirt Of Angsting. Although ADITD is super fun when you watch it basically believing O/I is canon, it really adds interesting depths to it.

Oh boys.

I have nothing else particularly coherent to say; it's pissing with rain here and we're tired so we're hiding in the hostel.

xxx

I owe comment replies all over the shop but I'm too tired to sort it today, I will send love to everyone another day.

We had an EPIC STORM last night; it was really beautiful, the sun was setting and there were rainbows and the sheets of rain turned gold. Kate and I got utterly soaked, running alongside the Berlin wall with bags of washing. I may write a pretentious poem about it. It rained on us today as well, walking from the Topography of Terror exhibition to Checkpoint Charlie, but it wasn't nearly as poetic and was much more soggy.

I had a series of increasingly nonsensical and angry Robin Hood dreams last night, followed by one where I was hanging out on an Austrian train (judging from the compartment) with Ed Westwick and Leighton Meester and I was wearing a tacky zebra-print dressing gown, and then there was one where I was hanging out with the Doctor and Martha, and one where I was in Clueless, and another one that seemed to have the sole purpose of mourning Woolworths, and an unbelievably cute one where Becker and Connor was dating and Becker couldn't work out what to get Connor for his birthday. My sleeping mind is deranged at times.

Did an open-air exhibition on the SS and the Gestapo today, on the site where the headquarters were before they got knocked down, and then the Checkpoint Charlie/Berlin Wall exhibition. And we once again have Kinder Eggs for dinner.

Love to all.
xxx

Afterthought: be_a_rebel wrote a sequel to my No Sense Of Direction series and it is awesome; dark, bitter Owen/Ianto at its best. Almost.

My mum texted me about last night's Robin Hood, I know no specific details, just what happened, and I am all shades of vastly unimpressed. Seriously. Vastly unimpressed.

I forgot to whine yesterday about the rest of my Prague insect bites; I have eight on my right foot, including one on the sole of my foot that makes walking not very much fun. The ones on my arm have finally stopped itching though, they just look like I have a horrible skin disease, but one on my ankle is oozing orange. *shudder*

Today has been a good day; since we are staying on a boat, we also get free boat trips down the Spree, so we did that this morning, and then decided to walk all the way to the Brandenburg gate, which didn't look like it would be far on the map but which was. We're staying just behind the longest stretch of the Berlin Wall left in the city, so we walked along the outdoor art gallery thing for a while (they have paintings right along it, done in 1990 and being redone now), and then all the way up to the Gate. Then we went to the Holocaust Memorial and the museum underneath it, which were... wow. And tomorrow we're going to an exhibition on the SS (if we can bloody find it, we searched for ages this afternoon with no luck), and then to the Checkpoint Charlie museum, so it's being a really cheerful trip!

I'm knackered but we are going out to a bar recommended in Kate's guidebook, and hopefully for noodles. Or at least we will be when our washing is done! Yay for clean underwear.

Love to all.

xxx

Have finally made it to Berlin where WE ARE STAYING ON A MASSIVE BOAT. Oh yeah.

Also Kate and I have just been to an actual German Lidl. Yes, we took photos. And bought Kinder Eggs even though they are slightly horrible.

For some godforsaken reason I started writing Demons fic on the train. Maybe because faith_less_one told me it's been cancelled?

I am really enjoying Great Expectations too, yay Dickens.

Have forgotten how to type on a German keyboard, so am relearning, having been typing on Czech ones. At least when I'm home (in exactly one month) the keys and symbols will stay where they're meant to!

Robin Hood summaries please lovelies.

Love to all.

xxxx

Did lots of walking today. It is our last day in Prague, we are off to Berlin tomorrow. Hopefully the journey will be less fraught than the one here!

We went and found the John Lennon wall and wrote our names on it, and then went to this totally epic English bookshop here, where they also have secondhand books, and traded in the copy of Thud! that we got in the Salzburg hostel, and got Dead Famous by Ben Elton, since we needed something we both wanted to read. And I also got a very battered copy of Tender Is The Night as I really enjoyed The Great Gatsby. And Kate got some Sherlock Holmes. And then we decided we should stop getting books since we're only out here another month!

We got very lost finding the Jewish quarter here but it was worth finding; especially as they have this amazingly moving exhibition of drawings done by children in this particular Czech ghetto before they got sent on to Auschwitz (Kate is going to do a concentration camp in Germany, but I'm not grown up enough to go with her). Most of them didn't survive, and because the teacher in the ghetto got the children to write their full names on the pictures and which hut thing they were in, they even have dates of death for most of them.

It's raining a lot today and we went for cake after all the Jewish museum stuff, and later on tonight we are going out to this restaurant/cocktail bar around the corner from our hostel which is full of pillows and beds, because it looks fun.

Oh, and entangled_now has just told me what Captain "Pretty" Becker's actual first name is, and I am filled with joy. And yet more resolve that I will finish my fluffy OOC Becker/Connor mini epic, regardless of stupid things like shows being axed.

xxx

I wish ITV would stop axing things I like. Like Foyle's War and Britannia High and now Primeval. And I bet Demons doesn't get another series, though if it does I shall be pissed as it was totally more shit than both Britannia High and Primeval. *sigh* I will overcome, even if it does mean someone must hire Ben Mansfield to be in something because I will not be without my Captain Pretty fix, dammit.

Ahem.

Prague is so lovely, it is completely like being in a fairytale all the time. We did the castle today, which is actually a huge complex of stuff, although we couldn't climb anything as it was all closed "due to technical difficulties" (which... WTF?!). It's very sunny here and I am smothered in insect bites, which is annoying, as I have to wear my watch on my left wrist and I keep thinking it's mysteriously vanished when I look at the tan line on my right wrist, but there's a huge bite there so I'd rather not aggravate it.

We found a nice cafe place where all their cake and strudel is half price between four and six, so I now feel quite sick, although I did have a nice cup of vanilla rooibos tea. I so wish I'd brought teabags with me, that is the one thing I regret! Oh, and possibly more reading material, but I did buy Great Expectations in an English language bookshop yesterday so I at least have something to read on the way to Berlin.

Hope everyone is well.

xxx

Afterthought: Oh, and apparently the BBC are now showing Torchwood series 3 ten days before I get back. Ten days.

I hate all channels ever.

It took SEVENTEEN HOURS to get from Zagreb to Prague!!!

It is pretty here though.

xx

Going to see Star Trek again in about an hour, because hooray. Extra yay for Karl Urban as Bones, because he is epic and also he told me and Kate that we were cute when we were thirteen. No, really he did.

It is bloody, bloody hot here today, but we did have delicious lunch in a restaurant for about five pounds each, I am so going to miss the cheapness of Croatia.

Yes, I have already started writing something that may turn out to have a slight Kirk/Spock slant.

Had a very odd dream last night in which Owen was a robot and Ianto was a vampire, and it all got a bit Twilight, and it was rubbish, and it totally means I should stop attempting to read Eclipse just because someone left it in the hostel common room thing, because all it does is make me angry.

Love to all.

xxx