with the fellowship of five now broken.. the 3 remaining Malaysians strived to continue on their journey striving through eastern earth.. errr Europe... riding along the tracks.. following it all the way to Salzburg, the final leg of their journey, before their mission is complete, enabling them to return to London... but what a sight beholds them in Salzburg!!

upon arriving at the Salzburg train station, our heroes were given the task with finding the Strawberry Youth hostel.. yes the name sends shivers down your spine... the strawberry youth hostel.....

anywya, so armed with nothing but a map, as it always has been in eastern europe.. (that's how we explorer's got around.. a map and luck :p get one from the travel information counter at the train stations when you arrive, really useful things they are hehe)

we found our hostel which actually turned out to be quite a grand hostel, when compared to our other hostels.. i recall the one in Bratislava to be a student hostel actually... mel, des and i in one rom, xian ai and maggie in another.. our room was quite nice and cooling...

in Budapest, the room was quite warm and noisy... 8 beds in a room, all 5 of us together.. and as mentioned before we had a little adventure before finding it...

in Zagreb, the lying directions, which was in NO WAY 10 MINUTES WALK!! emphasised at least 3 times on my blog already i think haha.. well in Croatia, hostel lika was like a 3 storey house converted into a hostel?? and well the room was super hot.. and stuffy.. met a nice roomie, who actually was a black from america, and was working at the hostel, borrowed us his eastern Europe book.. what's it called.. travel a lone?? lonely traveller.. anyway.. useful things to have on you.. borrowed it to us and recommended splitvice lake to us..

in ljubljana... the hostel was ok, it was a 3-2 situation again as we had 2 rooms. this time our room was kinda warm.... and well des left the window to me. cause he claims he doesn't know how to open it, i bet you, he knows but he's just lazy.. he's a guy he can figure out how it works..
but it was ok.. i kind of flooded the hostel on the day we were leaving hahaha >:p

in Vienna.... oh my freaking god, the bloody hostel was on a bloody hill, took my breath away just trying to get there (hey you try it with 11kg on your back!!) the room... was ok, all 5 of us in it together again sharing with 2 other people. and suddenly... i don't know how this came about.. but ermm.. one of our innocent friend was getting a little pep talk on the birds and the bees.. and well it was the usual 3 roomies talking to each other, the other two went to shower i think or maybe they left for the airport already... when our friend suddenly asked, "how often do guys hit the air planes?? (translate to Cantonese)" hahaha and mind you, there was another guy in the room... haha i quickly changed the language from English to Malay as i suspected that she didn't know there was another guy in the room.. gosh, was a good thing for me to laugh at all the way to Salzburg.. i m so sorry girl, but it was really hilarious.. thinking about it now still makes me laugh so hard :p hehehe >:P

ok anyway enough with the hostels.. i was saying that strawberry hostel in Salzburg was like a 3 star hotel... it was once called Rosen hotel, which is German for rose hotel.. by the way Austria uses German.. unlike the other 4 countries which used their own language.. but i do know hvala is thanks.. (it's Croatian by the way) and it works in the other countries..(such as Slovenia) their language is similar haha...

so anyway nice hotel we were staying in, well for the price we were paying as well ==' and nice breakfast as well, which we packed secretly for lunch as well hehe... ok enough of the banter know to allow you to feast your eyes on the sight in Salzburg.. a really quaint and beautiful city... during this last leg of the journey my ankle started to hurt... ==' sigh old injury... well at least it lasted 10 days of abuse before starting to hurt... :p

ok- ok.. pictures... -->


nice view right? the salzburg castle is behind me :)

streets in Salzburg, small little town, love the signs for the shops.. so quaint.. :)

well, since the town was so small, we finished seeing it the day we arrived, so the next day we went out of Salzburg to the biggest ice cave in the world... or was it Europe?? well it was an interesting adventure for the 3 Malaysians.. :) who thoroughly enjoyed being in a cave with a temperatures of 0 celcius using what ever clothes they had to keep themselves from blending in with the ice... wonderful experience :)

above is des and i in the ice cave ;p the ice there was supposed to be a shape of a bear.. take a look at the picture links to see the full thing properly :p

the view from up there, in the mountains, near the cave entrance.. we had to hike a well, wouldn't call it short or long a moderate distance from where the coach dropped us.. and we walked up.. and yes des.. i know that i have no stamina... ==' the air up tehre was quit thin as well.. so imagine how high up we must have been :p

it was cold and to top it off it was drizzling,... we could see our breath condensing !! :p

nice view eh? haha guess how many layers i was wearing..?? hehe i was wearing a tube, my yellow long sleeved top, a cardigan, a t shirt, my readiing jacket and my wind breaker... :p hehe well nothing new right? you guys know that i m afraid of the cold haha
it was 0 degrees for crying out loud... colder than winter :p

welcome to the view ehhe

further down i could strip off some of the clothes.. nice castle behind :) forgot what it's called =='

walking around Salzburg we came to a flower garden...

with a view :)

in Salzburg castle, well we walked all the way up the hill and at the entrance we had to pay like 7 euros i think to enter.. so i was like.. since we took the trouble to hike all the way up, we might as well go in.. well mel was atas pagar, and des didn;t want to go.. but i don't know how we ended up going in.. guess those two scared i get angry?? haha.. am i that scary when i m pissed?? but i was ok if they didn't want to go in anyway.. but oh what the hell,we went in anyway la.. :) ehhe.. both of them are just being nice hehe.. and well my sister recommended the castle and so did other people....

inside the castle, that's a grand piano behind there :p
apparently sometimes they hold music concerts here :p


ah yes Salzburg is teh birthplace of Mozart :p and here we are a statue of our all time favourite composer... and musician... :)

so that was the end of our trip, we stayed in Salzburg for 3 days.. and on the 25th of July left for the airport to head back to London, where we arrived around 10 something in the night, so mel and des came back to Liverpool street with me to stay.. and the next day we went to Harrods... and Leceister square.. oh we also went to the MAS office at earl's court...

don't know how des uses the internet, but he said the nearest tube was South Kensington.. but when i looked it said earl's court.. unfortunately i had a case of amnesia in the morning and couldn't recall the station, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise, as des showed me the national history museum and Baden Powell house as we trudged along to the MAS office...

well more exercise is good for health anyway haha, and knowing where Baden Powell's house is, i returned, but that my friends.. is another story.. hehe

so there was the eastern Europe trip, for more pictures look for the links on the blog they are somewhere.. in one of the posts :p

-Oracl3-