I'm Going on an Adventure (Alastair and Bini's Exchange Blog)

Woke up early at 4:30 am. Got our bags together and started the walk to the Lucerne train station. Got lunch at the train station which I think was two croissants. One almost each and one chocolate. At the almond for breakfast.  Made it on the train from Lucerne to Zurich fine and arrived at Zurich with plenty of time to spare.  Made it on the TGV Lyria to Paris and then enjoyed the view. I enjoyed the view, bini slept, I think.  Had lunch in the Paris Gare de Lyon station at costa. Where we had two panini's and a hot chocolate.  After this we went down the metro and made our way to our Ibis hotel we were staying in.  Bought metro tickets from a man at a desk as the ticket machine confused us.  Made it Ibis and checked in easily.  Room was great. Lovely view over the cemetery and a nice bathroom and shower.  Low around the room all afternoon telling each other we should do something but not having any motivati...

Had breakfast at hostel  Bini had bed bugs last night and got bitten really badly. Over 100 bites on her arms and legs.  Hostel was really good about it and moved her to a different plus washed all her clothes and put her bags in the freezer to kill any bed bugs. Also the hostel moved us into a dorm together which was great becasue we needed to get up super early the next morning.  Left hostel about 11 ish and went into to town.  Had lunch at last night’s curry place. Had one lamb carry to share between us today.  Truly didn’t' do much for the rest of the day. Went looking for souvenirs and also visited a nice church which all the other tourists seemed to be going to. Must have been a main site but I don't remember its name.  After buying all the souvenirs and presents we relaxed on the lake side again and looked up places to have fondue for dinner.  Sadly, all the fondue places were stupidly expensive, and we decid...

Another chill day.  Had breakfast at hostel. Was decent.  Bini had a few weired bites this morning. Weren't sure they were bed bugs yet.  Had a relaxing morning then went into the main town for lunch. I had a sausage ripe for lunch and bini got a sausage sandwich, I also got a hot chocolate which was great! Then we went to the glacier gardens. 13 years ago I remember there being a ball suspended on a jet of water. Sadly that wasn't there. Still we enjoyed the history, mirror maze, museum and the little tower at the top. Had a good sit and talk I'm gardens then went to relax on the edge of Lake Lucerne.  Wrote more blogs and reminisced about the best parts of our holiday.  Bini worked her food magic again and found us a amazing curry place which sold a meal for 10 euro. Curry was amazing!!! Bini's indian standards approved greatly. Went home and slept. 

Pretty chill day  Breakfast went as normal  Got up early and bought train tickets  Went to cable car station bought tickets to klina Matterhorn. Didn't have much  food yet on board.  Saw klina Matterhorn. Was cool. A great veiw from the top bini got great panoramic pictures. Went out to the snow feilds.  Watched a documentary on the animals of zermatt. Found out that we had seen a wolf on the marmot day. Bini thought it was at the time but I didn't  think they had them here.  Ran out of time and headed back.  Got on train from zermatt to visp  Changed in visp smoothly. (Wren we had bought our tickets the lady had given us a card showing all the platforms we needed to be on)  Got train from visp to Bern. Almost didn't get off at Bern ad bini was asleep and I was distracted writing blogs. Made it though my body was screaming at me to get off the train. Nice to have gut feelings.  Got on Tran from Bern to Lucerne.  Went smoot...

Woke up at 7. Got pastries from the bakery for breakfast and brought another baguette plus ham and cheese.  Walked to the cable car towards schwarzee and got on the cable car at 9. Got off at Furi accidentally but got back on and made it to schwarzee where the hornli hut walk started.  Had a banana and a pastry that we'd bought earlier and began our walk. First part of the walk. Was uneventful, had lots of break because bini was struggling and I wasn't feeling 100% yet. Saw some very friendly sheep at a not functioning chairlift station. They were super friendly and came up for scratches to everyone who came past.  Next part of the walk was a bit interesting. We walked along the metal walkway attached the the cliff which was fun. Freaked bini out a bit. A the end of this some of the veiw grates had fallen off so we had a very small path to walk around with cliff on our right and a scree slope on our left. That bit  was interesting. Ah well only went for a couple of m...

Slept I. This morning went down the bakery to get breakfast. Had a croissants of some kind.  The plan today was to do the five lakes walk and go up the gornegrat.  First stop today we went to the tourist office and got some information about what we wanted to do.  We also got some information in the half fare card and discovered that it  would be worth buying just for our time in zermatt.  Bought half fare card. Bought baguette, ham and cheese for lunch  Headed up the the start of the give lakes walk at 2:30, had lunch and headed off the the first lake.  Was a little windy today so you couldn't see the reflection of the he  Matterhorn in the lake. Spent a while here then walked the wrong way out of the lakes.  Once we'd work it out decided we do a loop back down to the main path. Loop took a while but we saw 2 marmots one which was huge and fat and one which had wiskers. They were both very cute.  The loop was interesting ad we walked al...

Woke up. I'm very sick today no surprise.  Had breakfast.  Headed off to station to get train at 11 to Brig. Train uneventful apart from the huge tunnel we went though between italy and Switzerland.  Changed train at brig to zermatt. Just missed the next train to zermatt so had to wait an hour. It was fine. Got some money out and played the piano that was there.  Got to zermatt and got into our appartment. Good apparment. Had a panic when I saw the printed invoice which said we hadn't paid any money and I we'd already paid $420 to booking.com.  Anyway went to the place to pay and argue. All was good just needed to pay the tourist tax. Went home and relaxed.  Bini searched trip advisor for a place to get great cheap food. Found a chicken place that was meant to be good. Chicken place was run by a scary lady that didn't seem to like bini (I was dead). Still managed to buy roast chicken and chips. Went back to appartment and consumed dinner. Didn't make tooooo...

Woke up sick.  Had breakfast at hostel. Very stingy breakfast there wasn't much available.  Decided that I didn't care i was sick.  I was meeting my friend Mateo today. For backstory I met Mateo in year 11 when he was in Australia on exchange.  Left hostel at 10. Met Mateo at 11 at the Duomo. Also we met mateos long time girlfriend Irene. First they took us to the duomo ticket office where we got tickets naturally while talking and catching up. Mateo is currently studying med in Milan and Irene is studying Physics. Like med in Australia Mateo has a 6 year degrees plus 5 years in a hospital training and working.  After getting tickets we had to buy Irene and bini scarves to cover up their exposed skin to get into the duomo. Irene was in a dress with bare shoulders and bini's shorts were too short.  Anyway got into the duomo. It's huge!!!!! I never realised just how big from the outside. But it's the second largest church in Europe after St Marks church in th...

Slept in till 9.  Had breakfast.  Stocked up on bananas and pastries. Got told off by the owner of the super market because our bags were too big (big packs).  Got on train from riomaggiori to la spezia. (This time instead of the central station we had to go to the mig... Something)  Anyway made the next train to parma. It was late... For a change  Arrived late to parma but luckily our train to Milano was late as well so we made it. Yay no waiting in station forever.  Arrived at Milano at about three (I think not sure). Then took the milan subway to the hostel. (Number 2 then number 1)  Walked last bit to hostel. In separate dorms tonight. Dumped bags, charged phones and then went searching for dinner.  Hostel isn't in a great area and struggled to find any dinner that wasn't insanely over priced and had bad reviews.  Ended up walk about half an hour to a more trendy part of town where we want to loverly Italian restaurant which was designed ...

Woke up. Bini had got sick over night. Probably due to us abusing our bodies swimming and then walking.... Still worth it  Had breakfast. I went down and got more milk.  Bini slept for the morning really wasn't well. thought it would be a good idea for her to recover.  Had foccacia for lunch. I bought that on my own so well.  Bini feeling a bit better so we decided to do a ferry trip from riomaggiori to monterosso and the train back. If she was up to it we would walk from vernazza to cornoglia.  Ferry was great. Got some lovely pictures of cinque Terre on the go pro.  At monterosso we bought our souvenirs and had a gelato. I think I had hazelnut and caramel and bini had hazelnut and raspberry. (Bini confirmes my memory).  Bini feeling better so decided to do walk. (Not a lot better but she's stubborn and wanted to do it... So did I... So we did it)  Walked closed at 6. Left monterosso at 5. Bought hiking pass which we supposedly needed to get into...

Left airbnb at 9:50 to make our 10:30 trian. Forgot to take rubbish out but I told they owner and they were fine with it.  Got on first train to pisa. Train left the station 15 minutes late and arrived 10 minutes that which meant we missed our connection to La spezia.  Waited and hour at the station and had left over pesto pasta for lunch which we ate with our hands due to that fact we had no fork.  Got next train to la spezia and got connection to riomaggiori.  At rio we walked up the main St to the office of our appartments owner to wait for him. Waited about 20 minutes then met him. He was a loverly and very very organised and efficient. Ran us through everything including walks and how long they should take.  The appartment was lovely and had fridge which was an unexpected bonus and we could eat breakfast at home :D. Had bit got of a rest till dinner.  Had probably the most unhealthy dinner a we have had this holiday of a large bucket of calamari. Took ...

Woke up at 9. Had cereal for breakfast. Left house at 11 and went for swim Found treadmill rock (a rock completely covered in moss which you can run on and slide down) Had great swim  Both super tired  Went home and slept  Had forccaxia for lunch  For dinner had pizza  Then did walk from cornoglia to manarola  Lots of uneven, steep stairs at start, was death. Lots of mosquitoes too.  After about an hour of going up stairs, finally reached a flat. Middle was lovely and flat with fantastic veiws.   Went through a persons front garden in the walk. (It was marked as a walking path and everything)  More Deathly stairs to end.  Chose the panoramic path which was more harder but prettier. Made us take longer to get back. Did last bit of walking in dark, headlamps very useful.  Went home and slept  Gonna dot point blogs from now on till I catch up. Sorry. 

Slept in till 10  Bini stayed at home Alastair got shopping. Few interesting characters at supermarket.  Made it to quiditch world cup at 2. Missed Australia vs USA game. Australia lost. Which means they are now out of the tornement. Makes no sense why that had to play them again. The seeding was horrible. Did washing at friends airbnb ad they had a washing machine. Also put it out for drying.  Then went back to watch UK get smashed by USA. Very satisfying. Did I mention I don't like the UK team...  Consilation matches cancelled as the organisation was horrible. Sadly this meant veitnam missed one of  their matches. Are well I think they came 15th out of 29 in the end which is amazing. Australia got eighth I think. Although not sure. Main pitch took ages to set up. Again awful organisation.  Watched 3rd 4th match which was turkey vs UK. Turkey played amazingly. Most beautiful quiditch we've ever seen. It was so cool!! They also beat UK  convincingly wh...

Woke up early 6:00. Had breakfast of the normal then headed off to our leeds quiditch teams airbnb to  meet them before going to the world cup.  Got to teams place at 8:30 when they said they were gone a leave. Unsurprisingly No one was ready. Ended up leaving at 9:15. Bini feeling much better today which is good.  Went to world cup. Followed team veitnam around as an old leeds player was their captain and we didn't want to support team UK because they are assholes.  Went back to friends house to have lunch and stole some pesto pasta from them.  Went back to the world cup to watch  Australia vs USA. Australia lost hut only just. It was a good game very close. Pretty funny at one point one of the Australians got tackled around the neck and all the Aussie fans (myself included) yelled "high" as on the footy rule. Naturally no one else there new what we where trying to say hahaha.  Left world cup late around 7:30 - 8 super hungry.  Had dinner at a pl...