OneAndOneIs2

I'm back in England.

I know, I was planning on it taking longer. But after the 13 hours to Budapest (after leaving an hour late), the two hour wait for the train to Prague (in which I had a rather good breakfast and a nice long walk), and the long and tedious journey on to Prague, where it was cold and wet... Well, I got there, and despite having a map and a compass, I had a hell of a time figuring out where I was and where I needed to go. After half an hour, I was thinking seriously about getting back on the train rather than tracking down a hostel.

A couple hours later, I was on the train. I was so underwhelmed by Prague that even after a solid day of being on the train already, I still rated another train journey above staying there. Maybe it was my mood, maybe it was the weather, whatever it was, I just didn't want to be there.

So I arrived in Berlin at Midnight, and the train to Amsterdam left 20 minutes later.

It was full. So I waited for the NEXT train, which was at 6:20, so I snoozed in the station when I wasn't being disturbed by friendly drunken Germans. By this time, I'd realised that I just wasn't in the mood for any more sightseeing, I wanted to get back to familiar territory.

So I reached Amsterdam after pretty near two solid days of train travel. I managed to find a place where I could get, if not a bed for the night, at least space on the floor. I went on the Red Light District tour while I was there, was pretty interesting...

Then I got the train to Brussels next morning, bought a huge stock of Roi d'Or chocolate - which is the stuff I was trying to track down before, gorgeous but apparently addictive - and hopped on the Eurostar to London.

Arrived home at sometimes after 8pm to the surprise of my parents, and luckily enough they hadn't thrown out the spare bed yet, so that's nice :o)

I have >900 photos to sort through, and I'm trying to organise going out to LA to visit my brother and sister-in-law before I 'officially' stop travelling, but at least for the moment I'm back in the UK. It's kind of a relief to be in the cold and wet weather after all this time being baked alive :o)