EuroQuest: Day 11 - German Scout Camp/Cologne

Hi everyone! So it was our last day at the Scout Camp so after we cleaned up and packed our bags we were faced with the challenge of finding our way back to the train station. We decided it would be a great idea to walk through the woods to get back into town and it didn't take us long to realised we were lost after the path we were following disappeared. Jenny then took the lead and led us on 'Jennys Magical Mystery Hobbit Tour' which eventually got us back on the track and to the train station.

As we were waiting for the train to arrive the heavens opened for the first time on the trip and at first it was so nice because in most places it was around 30 degrees but then it got heavier and it turned into a mad scramble to find shelter. Our rain jackets were at the bottom of our bags because we didn't think we would need them so made makeshift shelters using our bag covers - well we are Girl Guides after all!

After several train journeys including as usual a sprint to the train after we realised we were waiting on the wrong platform we finally arrived in Cologne. There were so many shops in the station! There was a whole shop selling different things all made out of jelly sweets which looked amazing! I was very tempted to buy something but I didn't think it would still be in one piece by the time I got home! We then wandered into a clothes shop which had loads of really nice but cheap clothes and shoes! I got a dress and a top (which I'm still waiting for the weather to improve to wear) and Hayley found these shoes which were amazing and they were so cheap she had to get them!!

After our little shopping break we headed to a restaurant to get some food because we were so hungry after a day of travelling. The restaurant was primarily pork and had an amazing interior design. As the two veggies on the trip Evie and me decided that we would both order a macaroni cheese from the snacks menu and then share a portion of chips and some hash browns as we assumed being from the snack menu it would be small portions but oh how we were wrong! I don't think I've ever felt so full and neither of us could finish it all!

We then headed to the hostel and it was so nice! I was sharing a room with Frances, Evie and Hayley and as we got to the room we found the door literally wouldn't open. We were pushing against it with all our force but it would budge. Some guys in the room next to ours came out to see what all the noise was and apparently we were opening the door all wrong because you had to do something first with the key. Our room so so nice (once we finally got in!). We had a balcony and a proper walk in shower! This meant we could wash stuff and hang it over the balcony to properly dry rather than just hanging it over the bars on the bunk beds!

If you want to see more I filmed a bit of what we were doing so you can check that out here:
The video is a montage of several clips and pictures throughout the time we spent at the Scout Camp in the Harz Mountains and in Cologne as apposed to these blog posts which a split by day.

SCOUT CAMP VIDEO: COMING SOON

COLOGNE VIDEO: COMING SOON

EuroQuest: Day 10 - German Scout Camp

Hi everyone! So after a busy day of travelling we were allowed a wonderful lie in after our first night at the scout camp... well we had breakfast at 10 which is probably the latest time we've had to get up on the whole trip! After breakfast we set out on a walk into the nearest town which was a lot further away than we thought! On the way we noticed there was a lot of statues of witches and goblins which is apparently something to do with the myths and legends of the Harz mountains which I thought it was really cute!

We stopped into a shop on the way to the town to buy some lunch and it was so cheap! I picked up some deodorant and lemonade for only €1.50 (strange combination I know but I forgot to put the lid on my deodorant when we were travelling the day before so all my clothes smelt great but with none left I didn't!) To add to the 'Dragon Fruit' capri sun we had earlier on we found another amazingly strange one called 'Fairy Drink' which was really sweet!

After we finished eating our lunch and drinking our Fairy Drinks we headed through the town back up to the mountains to find the cable car that would take us up to the top of the mountains. It was obviously a popular thing to head up to the top of the mountains and then mountain bike down them because so many people in were taking their bikes up on the cars which had special hooks on the back to hang your bikes onto, although they were just hanging there so I would've been so scared that they would've just fallen off!

There wasn't really much at the top except routes to walk back down! We did stop in a little shop which was selling a lot of memorabilia related to these myths and more importantly they sold ice cream which we noticed by the giant magnum situated right outside!

On the way back down on the cable car ski lift we decided to let everyone know that we were Girl Guides by singing boom chicka boom! It's basically a mimic song so it was decided that Evie and Tash who were in the middle of the 5 cars we filled up would lead and we would all shout back. We did get some very strange looks from all the people coming up!

When we got back to the Scout camp we ran up to the top of the scout camp to quickly meet up with some German scouts who were just about to leave. We managed to do some swaps including getting some of their left over food before they left!

If you want to see more I filmed a bit of what we were doing so you can check that out here:
The video is a montage of several clips and pictures throughout the time we spent at the Scout Camp in the Harz Mountains as apposed to these blog posts which a split by day.

SCOUT CAMP VIDEO: COMING SOON

EuroQuest: Day 9 - Prague/German Scout Camp

Hi everyone! So this was basically a full on day of travelling with 4 trains we had to catch with only minutes between  some of them! We had breakfast in the hostel and they had this adorable little pots of nutella and even though I don't like nutella (don't kill me!) I still picked one up to take home because they were so cool.

All credit for this photo to Sara!!!! 

We then embarked to catch our first train and I've never see a train so busy. The train was like the old fashioned Harry Potter style trains with individual little cabins to sit in and a long corridor connecting them all and that was where we had to sit! So we were mind our own business, singing songs and trying to do the infamous pony song sat down when some guys in one of the cabins started laughing at us and trying to join in. We'd got used to this but then he rudely opened the door from his cabin and put his burger king rubbish out in the corridor with us. Naturally, we all gave him the dirtiest look we could master up and he sheepishly opened the door again and took his rubbish back in!

Stuck in the corridor

We got off that train and onto the next one! The train was really fancy and it even had English speaking radio stations! We finally got to a really big station and went off to go get some food. Naturally we made a beeline for McDonalds and they had these really nice tasting fruit slushies in loads of different flavours. I love cirtus fruits so naturally I got the lemon one and it was so nice! On our way back to our bags we bumped into a group of German scouts who were on their way to or making their way back from a jamboree in Germany.

The German scouts we met

View from the train window

We still had two more trains to catch but because our previous trains had been late and then these ones were as well we ended up missing our connections so we had to get on different trains than had originally been planned.

In the corridor again

The pile of bags

 Finally we got to the last train station and we were greeted by the people who were in charge of the scout camp and they gave us a lift up to the camp as it was quite a way away from town up near the Harz mountains. The scout camp was a lot smaller than I had envisioned it as as far as we could see no one else was staying there! We did meet some Dutch scouts but they were a lot older than us but we did give them some of our Euro Quest badges.

Squished into the car on the way to the camp site

Tash's Niall displaying our EuroQuest badge rather nicely!

If you want to see more I filmed a bit of what we were doing so you can check that out here:
The video is a montage of several clips and pictures throughout the time we spent in Prague & the Scout Camp in the Harz Mountains as apposed to these blog posts which a split by day.
PRAGUE VIDEO: COMING SOON

SCOUT CAMP VIDEO: COMING SOON

EuroQuest: Day 8 - Vienna/Prague

Hi everyone! So we were packing up getting ready to leave Vienna and head onto Prague and as we were waiting outside of the hostel for everyone to get there we noticed a lovely young man doing his morning exercises by the stairs. He was incredibly strong doing handstand push up and pull ups on the bars with his legs in pike... all whilst not wearing a top! (I mean it was in the high 30's!) As our leaders came out they also noticed him and whilst the rest of us were happy watching from the distance, they had no trouble in walking up to the poor guy and asking for a photo! Safe to say we were laughing the whole way to the train station. I don't really remember much from the train ride because as per usual I fell asleep!

In Prague we went out for a little explore around and we bumped into some Belgium Girl Scouts! After that we went on the hunt for some food and Marianna (the lady who showed us around Slovakia) had told us to try Langos when we were in Slovakia but we never got the chance. Luckily a stall was selling it and we all got some! I got mine with just cheese and it tasted so good although it was extremely greasy and I imagine in contained well over my daily allowance for fat and probably calories but who cares - it was delicious, although very filling so sadly I didn't finish it.

We then had seats booked to see a Marionette puppet show as that is one of the things Prague is famous for and it was definitely an experience of a life time! Not being a huge fan of puppets, Vici, Tash and myself sat towards the back of the theatre. It started and it was all very strange! We could see the puppeteers hands which I'm pretty sure were supposed to be hidden and the female puppets all had the breast out on show! Every time we saw a hand or an arm suddenly come into view we found it very hard to suppress a giggle! It probably didn't help that we had no idea what was going on as obviously none of it was in English and we hadn't thought to search a synopsis before hand! It all ended rather abruptly with one of the puppeteers dropping her puppet by accident and then proceeding to make her way onto the small stage to retrieve it before saying something we couldn't understand and bowing!

After that we were very doubtful to what the next show we had booked to see would hold. This was a show being put on by the Black Light Theatre and it was safe to say this was one of the best shows I've seen! It was so cleverly done; they wore all black and the stage was pitch black so you couldn't see them at all when suddenly these luminous shapes appeared and they looked like the were floating. There was an underwater scene at one point and they were moving the fish in such a way that it really looked like they were swimming! If you ever get the chance you should defiantly go see a show!

After that eventful day we headed back to our hostel which again had a lovely balcony area but this second floor was much closer to the ceiling than the one Hungary I could barely stand up! We had plenty of beds though so I got a whole bunk bed to myself which came in handy as a make shift washing line!

If you want to see more I filmed a bit of what we were doing so you can check that out here:
The video is a montage of several clips and pictures throughout the time we spent in Vienna & Prague as apposed to these blog posts which a split by day.
VIENNA VIDEO: COMING SOON

PRAGUE VIDEO: COMING SOON

EuroQuest: Day 6 - Slovakia

Hi everyone! So this was sort of our first and last day in Slovakia! We had to get up really early, which on the one hand, was an opportunity to leave the creepy hostel, but on the other, was  at 5am! One of leaders has a girl in her unit whose Mum (Marianna) is from Slovakia, and they happened to be on holiday in Slovakia the same time we were staying there, so we went to visit them!

It was a long bus journey to their house as they lived in Smolenice, outside of the capital Bratislava where we were staying. When we got off the bus we were told we were going off on a little hike through the forest, but thankfully Mariannas husband was there to take our huge rucksacks off us and take them straight to their house! We walked a little bit up the road to find a space to eat the breakfast Marianna had brought with her for us. She had a mixture of breads and some jam to go with it, which was delicious! My favourite was this sweet bread which I think was kind of like brioche?

We then started to walk into the forest and up a hill to visit some caves. Sadly, we weren't allowed to take any photos of the caves but they were absolutely stunning! Some of them were huge and when we all went into the main cave he turned the lights off to give us a sense of what the people who first discovered the caves and it was ridiculously dark! When we came out, we climbed on the rock side of the hill to to the top where we could see the entrance where the first people climbed into the caves from! As well as that, we could see all over the forest and it was amazing!

We then headed back down and went on further into the forest to this sort of big old office thing? Anyway, it had a tower which we all went up and we could see all over the town as well as back into the forest. It was then a short walk to Mariannas house where she had cooked a BBQ for us and much to my delight, she had bought some tofu for myself and Evie! It was so nice to have actual vegetarian food again!

We then caught the bus back and I think everyone fell asleep because we had been up since 5am! We got off at the port where we were catching the hydrofoil to Vienna. It was so windy on the back of the hydrofoil and there was some reenactment of Titanic!

We got the the hostel and it was really nice! I was in the room of 6 and it was pretty packed because there were 2 bunk beds and each had a little pull out tray with another mattress in which basically took up the whole floor! As we got there pretty late and there were no restaurants near where we were staying we decided to get take away pizza!!!

If you want to see more I filmed a bit of what we were doing so you can check that out below. The video is a montage of several clips and pictures throughout the time we spent in Slovakia as apposed to these blog posts which a split by day.

SLOVAKIA VIDEO: COMING SOON!

I hope you enjoyed reading this and feel free to leave any comments!

EuroQuest: Day 5 - Budapest/Slovakia

Hi everyone! This was our last day in Budapest and so we decided to head to one of the places Budapest is quite famous for - the spa! We went to the Gellert Spa which was in a really fancy hotel which looking as we did in Guiding uniform and shorts we didn't really fit in!

None of us actually had any spa treatments, so we just used the pools which were separate to the spa. There was a main pool in which every hour they turned on the wave machine; a hot pool which has heated to 36°C and it literally felt like a bath, and a freezing cold tub next to the sauna. I decided to wear my new swimsuit I had bought a couple of weeks prior to my trip from Primark and it was a really nice nautical style one which could be worn with or without straps. However, I fell into a little bit of predicament when one strap unattached its self I couldn't get it back on so I decided to just wear it strapless. Big mistake! Firstly, without any straps to hold it up, it looked very unflattering as I think it was designed for someone with a smaller chest than mine. Secondly, when the wave turned on I was left with the struggle of holding it up in order to retain my dignity. It was also the first (and last) day that I got sunburnt, but thankfully it was only a little bit on my shoulders and nose!

We then headed to the train station to catch a train to Slovakia! By now it was about midday and 41° and we were traipsing through Budapest with our giant rucksacks on, literally sweating buckets! Our train was so late arriving that several of us decided that the platform floor seemed a good place to have a little nap! We actually got seats on this train but it was so hot outside the air conditioning wouldn't work! The man in the serving food and drinks was going mad with the heat which brightened up the journey a little bit!

The strange thing about the train was they didn't announce the stops so suddenly we found ourselves rushing to get everything packed away as ours was the next stop! The station we got off at didn't seem like a main station should - it sort of looked like the station in my town! But we were assured that it was Bratislava's main train station. The temperature when we finally got there was still ridiculously hot!

We got to the hostel, which was basically some student halls for a university nearby and I think this was the scariest place we stayed in! As we were waiting in the lobby there was a giant wasp flying around on a mission to kill, but thankfully a man who was also waiting managed to swat it with a tray (not that I condone the killing of insects but I see it was self defense because it looked like it was ready to kill us!)

We then went up to our rooms and found out that it was 1 bathroom per 2 rooms, but we had all been split up so we were essentially sharing a bathroom with people we didn't know... but then it got worse! I was sharing a room with Frances and thankfully no one seemed to be in the room next to us and we had a lock on the bathroom door unlike some of the others, but I then lifted the duvet from my bed to find the mattress and sheet were blood stained - which is just what I wanted! Safe to say, I slept on top of the duvet. Jenny and Emii met there neighbour, only to be told he kept a basket of girls back at home (which later turned out to mean he had a lot of sisters)! Tash and Evies neighbour brought back a girl in the night and well... the walls were pretty thin so I don't think they got much sleep!

Once we had put our stuff in our rooms, we headed over to the 24 hour McDonalds as it was the closest food place near to us, but they didn't have any of the vegetarian options such as a veggie burger/wrap/sandwich which we have over here. I ended up ordering a salad, which wasn't too bad! (Although I didn't use the strange blue cheese dressing that they gave me with it!)

If you want to see more I filmed a bit of what we were doing so you can check that out below. The video is a montage of several clips and pictures throughout the time we spent in Budapest and Slovakia as apposed to these blog posts which a split by day.

BUDAPEST VIDEO: COMING SOON!

SLOVAKIA VIDEO: COMING SOON!

I hope you enjoyed reading this and feel free to leave any comments!