Also in St Johann is Bunny’s Pub, an Aussie bar run by a bloke called Paulie who is free with a laugh and generous at handing out shots if the party’s fading. He took one look at 6’8” Mark and said “Geez, do you reckon he’s too big to get drunk? Wonder if we can get him to fall over.” I heard that he succeeded by the end of the night. There are a few tales from that evening, but for the most part they come under the banner of “what happens on tour stays on tour”.

St Johann is a great place to sit and chill and Pete, Antoinette and I did exactly that on the next morning. Learning to repugn non-Italian coffee we sat and watched friendly Austrians go past and we wandered the streets some. Pete and I had a go at the concrete toboggan track. Wow man, there’s no way this thing would be legal in Australia – not because of the state of repair of the plant or equipment, but just the inherent lack of safety that comes with hurtling down a mountainside (so high up we had to take a ski lift – the track is as long as a full ski slope) with no protection more than your own instinct of self-preservation. And just to really give it a kick, your competitive side is brought into play by there being two tracks side by side. Oh and there are jumps. Yeah! Pete and I had two goes before our afternoon’s main activity: paragliding.

Paragliding was fantastic. We started at 1700m above sea level, climbed to 1900m and finally came to rest 30mins and a few acrobatic stunts later at 700m. It’s just amazingly cool to be able to recline (yes recline) while floating up and down a kilometre above the ground amongst the alps. We were lucky to have such a great day; sharing the sky with gliders is always a good sign. The tranquillity and escapism of it all is hard to portray; I imagine the experience is similar to being a cloud.

Another crazy night at Bunny’s; we’re all having a grand time. I cleaned up the table in a game of 8 ball, much to me team mate Jan’s delight and then Antoinette and I left for some quiet time – foot rubs and deep talks. We got close and by the end realised it was too close for a holiday fling which made us take a step back, and we soon parted for the evening.



The next we arrived in Prague. Prague is every bit as lovely as I’ve been told. The streets are clean, the heritage is rich, and the entire city is interesting during the day and alive all through the night. On the first night we went to the largest night club in middle Europe (a little dingy, but full of variety and people). The following morning Jan, Peter and I rose late, went in for some late breakfast, browsed the markets (which were wonderful; I would have bought just about anything they had on sale), watched the town clock come slightly to life at the coming of the hour (1pm), visited the sex machine museum (waste of money really), found 7 of the 12 gold plates on the Charles Bridge (to find all 12 gives super-natural power), experienced a true traditional Czech meal (have a guess what “bread dumplings” are), climbed the hill to the palace, climbed the high tower of the cathedral there, and then went looking for culture.

Singapore Airlines Flight SQ235
Singapore -> Brisbane, Australia

If you have hours to spend at an international airport, make sure it’s Changi. I’m at a bar listening to a jazz trio of piano/percussion, bass, tenor play “I shot the sheriff”. Where else?

Getting back to Venice. Venice was marvellously different again. Still very Italian, but the canals and gondolas and lack of traffic make for something new.

I remember our walking tour going past St Mark’s cathedral (another ridiculously ornate cathedral, but in a different style again to the others) and Pam telling us the story of how St Mark came to be buried there (a covert mission by this church’s leaders at the time). For some reason the story personified the concept of apostles and saints for me and made them seem so much more tangible. I’m not sure what this actually means for me, if anything, but it was an interesting experience.

We went to visit a lace making demonstration that I literally fell asleep during (from exhaustion more than boredom… sort of), then to over to watch a man blow a horse. That was clever. This guy grabs a large molten stick of glass from the furnace and using nothing more than tongs and gravity makes a freaking HORSE from it in less than three minutes. Very cool.

Feeling game I ordered a Veal Liver dish from a restaurant on the Grand Canal, just near the Rialto Bridge, and had the single worst value for money meal of the trip. I didn’t enjoy the pasta, nor the side of veges, couldn’t handle the veal or amazingly salty onions, and the “Fresh Fruit” dessert course was a small bowl of chopped strawberries (but at least that course didn’t come from a can).

Still feeling game, Peter and I decided to let the blonde Melbourne girls guide us to the West side of the city where the shuttle bus stopped (there’s no motor traffic in the whole of Venice). This time the risk payed off and we arrived at the right place ahead of time.

The accommodation in Venice was nice – I scored a double bed the first night. We could get together and have fun outside these bungalow thingies cos there was a table and chairs and cheap beers available from the supermarket. I think our group really started to chill and get more comfortable with each other in Venice.

Sitting here is great. I’m loving the reminiscing, the music is fine (just had the trio do Celine Dion, now Fugees, all quite lounge-y), and the aircraft are rolling inand out making me think about how many individual lives there are just in this one little scene, and how little they intersect or overlap, but still make up a part of the view from this stool.
I swear I’m on my first scotch.

Venice gave way to Austria. We stopped before reaching our final destination, to go white water rafting which is a great concept for an exciting sport but wasn’t implemented wonderfully in this instance mostly due to the lucidness of the course compared to how much they talked it up (the rafters, not the Top Deck crew). Still, now I’ve got an idea I’ll do it again in a trice.

We stayed in St Johann in Tyrol which is a top little place with not many tourists in the main part of the town, but also has more than enough to keep an adrenaline junkie occupied.

Sports Bar, Chani Airport
Singapore

Ah, Italian nights. It started with a dance back in Florence. Well it started with a few other dances before that, but it came to be that Antoinette and I were shaking it across the floor together. And then again the next song. And before too long I found I was no longer interested in dancing with anyone else.
Out on the large open area we wasted no time finding out exactly how much we have in common – very much on a personal level. Jibbering away with no feeling of or regard for time we were discovered by a search party looking for the cabin keys that we each had. After they were dealt with and dismissed we got down to seriously romantic business: dancing to our own music beneath a jewel-encrusted night sky. The whole area was ours save for the occasional security guard who would give us a wink and a nod and turn away to leave us.

The magic in the air that night was electrifying, but it didn’t end there. We hung out on the bus, in spas, bars and gondolas.
Which brings us to Venice.

Sports Bar, Changi Airport
Singapore

Rome held a lot of walking for us. Once again I was privileged to keep the company of Jan for the whole day. In the morning we opted to follow the walking tour Pam (our tour leader) ran, starting at the Colosseum & Roman Forum ruins, making our way over to the queue for the Vatican Museum which is on the other side of town from the Colosseum and finished over 1km (literally) from the entrance to the museum. The closing time was less than 90mins after our arriving there, hence our change of plan to see St Peter’s straight away.

After St Peter’s some of us wandered over to the square with three fountains (whatever its real name is) for a fantastic meal on a side street with the most efficient and resourceful matre’d of the whole tour. The food was so great I had no trouble downing two large courses. From there we went on to the Pantheon, a building as interesting in history as in appearance, but only lingered briefly, and there we split from the group.
Jan, Gareth and I decided to head all the way back over to the Colosseum where we joined a guided tour (taken by an Italian porn star who either really knew his stuff or was very convincing at making up stories) and nearly collapsed from exhaustion during it. After though, Jan and I felt a second wind in our sails and trekked back again to the Trebi fountain that we’d visited the day before. Legend tells that if you drink of the water you become a virgin again, though nobody I knew considered the risk of cholera worth the fabled promise. Nearby we enjoyed a coffee right on the edge of a side street that was away from most of the bustle but still had enough foot traffic to make sitting there interesting. The coffee (as is now the case for every other coffee I’ve ever tried) was not as good as in Florence, but still par for the high standard of Italy.
After that, over to the Spanish Steps, just to say we climbed them, and to take daggy photos.

Flight LH776
Frankfurt -> Singapore