I wrote this trip report as part of an email sent home to family and friends whilst overseas in Europe. The first part, QF9 to Singapore, I posted up to FT a few days back. There are a few other parts up on my blog.

While the majority of FT Trip Reports involve the flight alone, if the writing is good enough, the trip itself I also find interesting. I therefore decided to post up a few segments of my trip, in the 'unlikely event' that others may also think the same about mine; and, if you'd like more, I'll be happy to write more. As always, comments, suggestions, praises and criticisms are most appreciated!

I will post a few small photos to go along with this too. But if not, you will find some on my blog. HERE is a little film I made of my travels, which has been uploaded to Youtube.


Contents:
"Finnair & Yumyums" -- SIN-HEL-LHR and a week in Durham.
"Death and Paradise" -- NCL-WAW, Marriott Hotel, and Polish adventures.
"Pope Benny and the Dried-up Desert" -- FCO-MAD, and an experience of the international Catholic event, World Youth Day.
"Red Clouds & Gondolas" -- LIS-BCN, with travels in Barcelona and Italy.
"Flying Lufthansa" -- VCE-MUC-MLA in boring ol' economy.
"The Land of Kinnie" -- Explorations in Malta.
"More Fun with Lufthansa" -- MLA-FRA-TLS with LH with a delay
"A Taste of France" -- and some funny Frenchmen.
"Roger le Grenouille" -- A weekend in Paris.
"The North" -- 30 hours in Helsinki, Finland.


A Wee Little Introduction

As previously mentioned, and as some of you may already know, last year I deferred my studies for the second-half of the year and went to Europe for two months (as ya do!) This was the first time I had been overseas for 10 years, the last time being when my family moved to live in Durham, England, for 3 years. So, as you can imagine, I was pretty darn excited!

In the two months I was away I visited 8 countries - from Finland to Portugal to Malta - flew up in the air on 17 flights, trained around Italy and France on almost 15 trains, travelled with a group from my University on numerous buses, and enjoyed the views from 3 cable cars. Family and friends thought this rather crazy, especially when they found out I had 17 flights. My grandfather, upon reading my itinerary which I had written out for him and my parents, looked me in the eye and jokingly said with a grin, "And he came back to Australia, and never left the country again!"

Funny thing though, because within a month of returning home, sweet home, I had the travel bug again. And I love flying and travelling all the more so. And oh! it's true what they say, that travelling broadens one's mind.

A year beforehand, when thinking about and beginning to plan this overseas trip, I had originally thought of going first back to Durham, where I had once lived as a young boy, and then on to Madrid for that big international Catholic event known as World Youth Day, before finally finishing up with three weeks in the south of France with some friends of ours. Then I soon discovered that my University was doing a tour "In the Footsteps of Pope John-Paul II" for World Youth Day (WYD); starting off in Poland where he himself grew up, followed by a few days in Rome (the Catholic Mecca), and then on to Madrid for WYD, with a three-day post-WYD retreat in Fatima, Portugal, before flying back home.

With a price of almost AU$6000 for this pilgrimage alone, I wasn't sure that I could do both this and visit Durham and spend three weeks in France....

But then a path opened up - a long story - and I was to do both. However, I was not sure if my parents would be joining me in Durham. And, simply because of that great BBC classic comedy, Fawlty Towers, I was eager to pay Barcelona a visit. But I wanted some accompaniment....

To cut a long story short, a friend of mine wanted to travel around Italy, but had nobody to go with. So, I said I would go around Italy with him if only he came to Barcelona with me. Done deal! And that, my friends, was another addition to my trip.

Then it was, upon studying my itinerary, that I discovered I only had 40 minutes layover in HEL, Finland, between my two Finnair flights outta Europe. So I asked the travel agent what could be done, and after pages of email replies, 'twas to be that I would have 30 hours layover and fly home the following night instead. And that meant another hotel booking, and another day in another country. Finland sounded interesting.

Then I had a friend in Malta, who was eager to show me around, and after a little encouragement from other Maltese friends, I found flights for $400 all in, with Lufthansa, VCE-MUC-MLA-FRA-TLS (having left it somewhat late to book a cheaper fare). Another friend, I later discovered, was scheduled to be in Paris not one week after my arrival, so with a little adjusting of planned dates, we were set to meet up for the weekend before my flight back to the land of Oz.

All in all, it was a jigsaw, coming together piece by piece and gradually getting bigger. But with all these flights, and various other things, I was prepared for the worst. In fact, when I walked out of StaTravel after handing over $400 for travel insurance, I was actually secretly hoping something would go wrong, to make up for what seemed like a ridiculous sum of money for a mere few pieces of paper, headed with 'CoverMore Insurance'. I found that if I just so happened to be kidnapped, I could make $1000 for every 24 hours held hostage... or something like that. But then, as it turned out, nothing went wrong. 8 countries in 2 months was more or less smooth sailing (or rather, smooth flying). Except perhaps for the nation-wide Italian transport strike....