...just like starting over (la-la-la-la)

Aloha,

So... there have been quite a few interesting developments of late. I believe i last left you in budapest, a city which i really loved. we left the day before the riots started. apparently the hungarians found out that their government had been lying to them and took it to the streets. imagine.

budapest was absolutely beautiful in an old and crappy, former communist kind of way. i travelled there with this aussie guy called jesse, who i met in vienna and is 19, so i referred to him as kid until he started calling me mum, after which i didnt think it was funny anymore. we hired bikes on one of the days and rode up to the castle district on the buda side of town (budapest is divided into buda, and pest) having stayed in pest. another day we spent wandering around pest itself, and another we spent out at the baths, of which there are many. the ones we went to had two long massive rooms with about 12 different mineral spas in them of varying sizes and temperatures, and a whole bunch of steam rooms, even one with blocks of ice you could go and rub on yourself and them jump back into the heat again. then they had your regular pools and jacuzzis and a whirlpool, which was also very fun. i left three hours later feeling refreshed but very, very, very watery. and a bit dazed.

that night, after very nearly missing the bus we travelled to munich for oktoberfest, the biggest beeer drinking festival in the world with something like six million visitors over the two weeks it runs for. we arrived in munich at 6am right next to the allianz stadium (and not much else), this huge spherical dome that looked like a massive golfball (or perhaps it was a football-inspired look they were going for). the entire structure flashed from white neon, to red, to blue. i had just woken from only about two hours sleep and it was very trippy. we caught a train to central station and then found accomm no problem a few hours later, in a massive megabeast of a hostel that had the advantage of being 10 minutes walk away from the site. check in, sadly, was 3pm so we hit town and staggered around stinky and sleepy until they finally let us in, slept, and then at 6pm, we hit oktoberfest.

there are about seven massive beer tents at oktoberfest. the HB tent, we had been warned, would be full of drunk australians and kiwis, who were apparently the worst behaved every year. it sounded promising but we decided to go mix with some germanics beforehand and see if we could make some friends.

no problems there.

the beers are one litre each. the first night i bought two, but drank many more as the people you meet think it friendly to top up your drink with their while they're prost-ing (cheers-ing) you. it IS friendly, but oh, my. we started in the lowenbrau tent, which is my favourite beer, hung with some off-duty cops and then made our way to the augustina tent, which is brewed in munich and apparently the best beer at the festival (everyone tells you something different though). we preferred the lowenbrau, but the augustina was a happening tent. the trick is getting a table... you only get served from a table and you never have to wait long once you're there, but the halls, all of them, were absolutely crammed. and this was a tuesday. anyway, we didnt have too much trouble and again, made more friends. we ate massive novelty sized pretzels and cheese to wash down the beer. jesse did some snuff. i didnt.

i had reservations before going to oktoberfest that it would just be one boozy, blurry mess, and nothing that special. i dont know why. maybe i was afraid. maybe its because i cant drink that much beer. maybe it was the war. i dont know.

all i know is i was wrong, wrong, wrong. we met so many nice people, and i can honestly say i have not had such a good time drinking since i was in dublin last. everyone was standing on their tables singing, people were doing the tango, there was toasting, great bands... i really loved it. 'country road, take me home' was the most popular song and we must have heard it about eight times. robbie williams 'angel' was probably the second favourite, dont ask me why. (oh yes, that's right, you can really shout the chorus).

day 2 was much the same. we ended up in the HB tent last, and it was everything they said it would be: clothes flying in the air, vomit on the floor, etc. i wont lie. but it wasnt mine.

at 10.40pm on day 2, i caught an overnight train back to amsterdam, straight from oktoberfest. i drank until 4am in between carriages with a bunch of strangers from munich, LA, wisconsin (he was annoying), baghdad, the czech republic and some other guy who kept falling asleep. i arrived in amsterdam a little after 9am and called my flatmate, jane, who had sent me a text asking me to get in touch urgently.

i called her. our flat was broken into two days prior. my laptop was stolen. i hadnt backed anything up. i've lost the digital copies of everything i've ever written. my CV. my photos. my recorded interviews. my music. letters. emails. BACK UP YOUR COMPUTERS, now, people. it sucks.

anyway, that was last week. i cried for a few days and now i feel okay. there's something very cathartic about having to start all over again. and that's the line i'm currently running with. it's working.

im now in delft which is about an hour south of amsterdam (in between the hague and rotterdam) staying in a university dorm and working on an annual report for back home. its a strange contrast of days and nights, but i like it. they've got these massive computer servers with access to every piece of music, TV and film known to man and its good cause its been raining a bit. it smells autumny outside and its getting cold but still nice and fresh.

im here for another week and a half and then im back to england for ten days, then on to canadia. getting very excited about seeing nanny, matt and jacinta! sad to leave holland but it's time, i feel. my work here is almost done.