Joining the Swiss army

After finishing Italy, we went to Zermatt, our first stop in Switzerland.

When in Switzerland, your first and foremost objective is to shop for Swiss Army knives. So that's what we spent most of our doing in Zermatt. Funnily enough, we bought all of the knives in Lucerne, our next stop, but more on that later in the post. 

Another thing to do in Zermatt is hike through the Swiss alps. We did that as well. It was tough, but the views were worth it.

After Zermatt, we went to Lurcerne, and bought lots of Swiss Army knives. We also did another walk along the Swiss alps. This one had lots of cows with bells. The walk also had this cool massage path, where you take your shoes off and then walk through water and different types of rocks and mud.

Switzerland is our last stop in Europe, and we are now heading to Hong Kong to catch up with some missionary friends.

Best paddle boat ever!

After Rome, we headed to cinque terre, which is basically where Italians go to have a swim at the beach. 

 We went kayaking there, and had lots of fun. It was really hard constantly paddle the little boat that had no motor. After we stopped for a break, we had an awesome time snorkelling and looking at the cool fish under the sea.

The next day we hired an incredible paddle boat that had a slide! We kept sliding down it an climbing back onto the boat. It was well worth the money. We also went on a really long walk along a lot of the cinque terre.

Most of our time in cinque terre was spent relaxing and chilling out so there isn't really much else to talk about.

Jumpin' Jack Black

Sorry, but I've actually had to do two posts at once, so if you haven't already please scroll down.

In short, Rome was pretty good.

On the first day we went to the colosseum and the Roman forum. The colosseum is massive! It's amazing how many of the stories about it are untrue. Christians were never burned there, and the gladiators would never ask the emperor whether to kill the other or not. The colosseum isn't even its proper name! It was originally called the Flavian theatre, because the guy who built it was called Flavian.

We also went to the Roman forum. That's the place where the ancient Romans did politics. It was very interesting learning about how the politicians kept the people happy by giving them free food, water and baths. If you have read the hunger games books, the city of Panem was based on the Roman Empire.

The next day was even better. On the way to the beautiful Catholic part of Rome, we saw something awesome! JACK BLACK WAS FILMING A MOVIE! It was called the Polka King, but as it is still in the production, there are no trailers or any details. After that special treat, we continued to Vatican City (the Catholic part of Rome). Michaelangelo (the painter, not the ninja turtle) painted most of the roof of the chapel there. His most famous painting is on the roof too.

Venice and Florence

Sorry it's been so long since my last post. Internet connections have not been very good.

A couple of days ago, we made our way to Venice by train and water bus. Venice was very beautiful and had lots of canals. Venice is famous for glass-blowing, so there were lots of cool glass blowing shops there. In lots of the shops there were glass balloons that were so lifelike it was like real balloons.

One of the days in Venice was spent doing an awesome gondola ride all over the city. On the other day we went up a big tower that had a view of all of Venice. We also went into a museum full of paintings, but they weren't very interesting. There was one sculpture of a guy with a way oversized club about to bash a snake, but the funny thing about it was that he was completely naked ('its cultural').

After Venice, we headed to Florence. We only stayed in Florence for one day, but we did lots in that short space of time, including the incredible statue of David. It was so detailed, and it looked like he was actually there. We also walked up a 82 metre tall tower with an awesome view of Florence, as well as a 92 metre tall church with an even better view of Florence. 

We then went to Rome, but I'll tell you about that in a couple of days.

Older than Australia

After leaving 'the dodgiest place on earth', we went to Heidelberg, Germany. Heidelberg is a small German town that is older than Australia (but if you've done history in school you'll know that's not hard). Heidelberg is a very relaxed town, and a lot of our time there was spent walking around the city and visiting all the shops and markets. On the second day there we visited an old castle that was built in the thirteenth century (that's also older than Australia). It was really big and had lots of rooms. It looked a bit wrecked and dad thought it might have been wrecked in combat in the 17nth century.

In my next post I'll tell you about our last stop in Germany, Munich.

Walt Disney Copyright Scandal

That's right, you heard me, Walt Disney has been convicted of copyright........ But nobody cares. I'm serious, we went to a castle in Germany called Neuschwanstien Castle ( for those small few who recognise that name, I'm sad to say I've read that book too, but you haven't, it's from the third book in a fairytale series that's written by an actor from Glee). Walt Disney copied it, and now every time you see a picture of the castle at DisneyLand, think, "that's neuschwanstien castle. I read about it on Nate's blog. Someone should sue Disney". 

The castle was built at some point during history by the King of Germany,  Ludwig (yes! My favourite character on Mario Kart!) Ludwig was obsessed with fairy tales and decided to build a fairy tale castle. Most historians say he's a bit loco. I agree. (I wasn't joking, there's a real character on Mario Kart called Ludwig and he's the BEST!) 

At the place where we went to Neuschwanstien, there is a lake that people were swimming in. IT WAS FREEZING. You may be thinking, it's your fault for swimming in there you idiot! But I have to admit, it was really refreshing having a swim in a hot day. 

Later that night, we were finished with Neuschwanstien, and having dinner. We realised that I was having my sixth pretzel that day!

The next day we explored Munich, and spent most of the day in a massive park that had Rapids. There were people surfing in the centre of the Rapids, and they did amazing tricks, while trying to keep their balance. There were also multiple rivers branching off from the Rapids, going all throughout the park. Many people were swimming in it, even though it was FREEZING! (Again) we decided to swim in it, and it was even colder than last time! Except this time, it was apparently more "cultural" because there were old guys walking around completely naked and swimming in the rivers. Thankfully, there were only a couple of them, but it was still a bit of a surprise. Today's lesson: "cultural" is not always a good thing.

We then left Germany, and headed to Venice, but I'm going to leave it on a cliff hanger to make it more dramatic.

Amsterdam: 'the dodgiest place on earth'

When we went to Belguim we didn't really do much because we were only staying there for one night, so I'm going to skip that and go straight to Amsterdam. If you had read the title ( which for your sake I hope you did because it's massive) you would think that Amsterdam is dodgy. It is. It's beautiful, I'll give it that, with all the bikes and the cute rows of houses as well as the canals, but the fact that some the houses could sink at any moment, and that marijuana is legal there kind ruins the image.

My first impression of Amsterdam wasn't very good either. We drive in in our new Mecedes Benz hire car,

when we suddenly found ourselves amidst a massive crowd. After reading signs, we realised that today was euro pride festival, which meant that the population doubled.

We did two main things in Amsterdam. A bike tour and the Van Gogh museum. Both of these I thoroughly enjoyed.

First was the Van Gogh museum, which houses most of Vincent's artworks. My favourite was sunflowers, as it was very messy, but at the same time vibrant and beautiful. There were also many other artworks, including multiple self portraits of Vincent. I was surprised with how many artworks he made: more than 500. This is even more amazing when you realise he was only an artist for about ten years.

We also did a bike tour of most of Amsterdam. It was chaotic. Even though bikes had priority over everything and their own lane, everyone was everywhere and people kept getting lost. It was funny because our tour guide was in dad's terms:'a pothead'. In between breaks he would be seen smoking marijuana. One of the highlights was a giant windmill that was used to make bread in the olden days. It had recently been converted to a bar that made nice Apple juice.o

We also went to Germany, but that's another story for another time.