Going out with a bang…. Or not!

After a glorious trip around the Hungarian Parliament (the lords wing is coloured blue and the commons wing coloured red to represent the different ‘bloods’ of aristocracy and MPs!! Can similar be said for our UK parliament lords having red blood and commons having green blood?!) we jumped on the metro to jump on the train to jump on the plane. Final destination: Blackwell Adventure, near Birmingham. Despite a long walk from the minibus drop off to the finish line we still arrived too fast for the photographer to catch us (posh frocks and big bags – oh Milan and Paris will be copying our style) and had to go back and pretend to arrive again!

We were greeted by the news we were sleeping in a tent, as it started to rain! We dumped bags, prepared roll mats and sleeping bags and then wandered over to the main marquee for canapés and champers. It was good to find out about everyone else’s trips. We noticed one ankle in cast, an arm in a sling and a knee or ankle requiring crutches, and that made us appreciate the lack of injury on our trip – Lydia’s bruised foot, Harriet’s blister and Amy’s bruised bum faded in comparison! We also heard about cancelled flights, missed connections and astronomical costs – another thing we were grateful to have not experienced! There were of course elements of other people’s trips that we were jealous of, but of course are not going to mention those here – ours was clearly the best!!!! ;-)

The giving of awards was interspersed between courses of the dinner (and the free bar of chocolate in our goody bag). The categories we expected to win (particularly pre trip publicity) alas we didn’t. However we did win the “renewing your promise in a meaningful place” and “silliest hat” (this was the most important one by far I believe). Plus we did get a special mention for Chief Guides Award, but unfortunately our Mozartian snow globe bust ‘Alex’ had a twin brother brought by another team so didn’t quite top the polls. The renewing our promise was a surprise – their reasoning was that most groups had picked a place (e.g. Arctic Circle) and all renewed their promise, whereas we had interpreted it differently and were “girl led” (a key ethos of guiding of course), each of us choosing a different place most meaningful to us as individuals. Shows what brilliant guides we are following the principles to the T – we hadn’t even considered there was any other way than “girl led” individual locations! Feels strange to be recognised for doing normal! And of course the hat deserves a mention too. The creation of Rachel’s crown took place on seats 25A, B & C of Ryanairs Boeing 737-800 using a variety of train, metro and bus tickets, leftover shinny coins, and an awful lot of sellotape and staples.


Dinner eaten, awards presented, rain subsided to drizzle, and onto the grand epitome of the evening… or not. Girlguiding Midlands had prepared a grand firework display to end the celebrations. The company they had purchased said display from (who I won’t embarrass and name here) had kindly donated some extra fireworks for free. Unfortunately, the free fireworks were beautiful but short lived and the expensive ones didn’t work. Neither did the computer playing the music. But it’s ok, because guides can sing, and we’d certainly learnt a new selection of songs whilst away!

Absolutely exhausted and still on continental time zone we headed to our tent and enjoyed our free sleeping bags. The next morning was rather sombre, doing our final pack and heading off to the train station one last time. Voices coarse from all the shouting and singing last night, exhausted from 14 days worth of public transport, the final stages of travel were sadly upon us. Talks of reunions in Brussels (Katie’s destination for third year of uni) or Taiwan for Jamboree started to perk things up… watch this space for the next adventure!

Gem xx

Goodbye, farewell, auf wiedersehen .... oops wrong country!

Today we woke up to our last day on the continent, later on this afternoon we fly back into Birmingham for the closing ceremony and to say goodbye to one another and the Ultimate Centenary Stampede 100. Today is a very packed one and so I am writing this blog from the Hostel just before we leave to visit the Hungarian Parliament as later on we will have no more internet facilities.

Another early start this morning in order to cram in last minute packing, blogging and of course the delicious waffles the hostel provides, using the excuse 'we're on holiday, and so we can eat what we like' bodes well when lots of yummy food is in front of us.

After breakfast, myself, Jennifer, Lizz and Rachel rushed out to the supermarket in order to grab lunch while some of the others blogged. We are about to head out to catch the Metro to Parliament, giving our feet a well deserved break. Our tour begins at 10 and lasts approximately 50 minutes and gives us an insight into the ways and history of the Hungarian Parliament, one of the prettiest buildings along the river and the whole of Budapest. After that will be a scramble in order to collect all our bags and head to the airport and we aim to get rid of all our spare change/notes at the airport on goodies :)

Thats all for now, Gemma calls :)

Amy x

We came, we saw, we didn't quite conquer!!!

Today we visited Pomaz; a small, pretty town only a 30 minute train journey from Budapest. Well it would have been if we hadn't missed our stop! We quickly realised our mistake and got off at the next station, walked across the train tracks to the other side and returned on the next train! All worked out fine as Gemma guided us up the hill towards the fruit picking farm (challenge 16). The weather was gorgeous and after some of us stopped for another round of ice cream we continued up the hill. However after nearly 2km and not having found the fruit picking farm entrance (could only see lines and lines of trees behind a fence) we turned around and headed for the train station. So you could say the morning was unproductive, however I now have a tan line (something I've wanted since the beginning of the trip) even though it is in the shape of a necker!

After enjoying our tortilla wraps for lunch we headed to the Szechenyi baths (via metro as our feet were a little bit tired!) which were really relaxing way to complete final challenge number 17. In my opinion the best part was pool hopping between different temperature pools. According to the guide book, the thermally heated water around Budapest reaches 75 centigrade at surface level. The water is then cooled down to different temperatures, the hottest being 40 centigrade! We all enjoyed challenging ourselves to go from the hottest pools into the 20 centigrade plunge pool, which was freezing! After much confusion with the man booking us in to have massages (he ultimately gave us eight massages for the price of seven and booked two massages to be with the same masseuse at the same time). I think that the experience was interesting for everyone, but we all came out feeling refreshed! I found it funny trying to explain to the masseuse via sign language why I had such tense shoulders from two weeks of carrying a large rucksack! After another quick dip outdoors we headed off to an Italian restaurant for our last evening meal abroad together! Jennifer wrote down a list of our funny quotes from the trip, which was a good way of reflecting over what we've done so far!

Lydia

Hands-on fun!

After stumbling into the hostel at the 11th hour the previous night, we awoke to our first full day in Budapest. Our first sightseeing stop was the Market Hall, a jumble of noisy food and souvenir stalls and erm chicken heads, which Jennifer was happy and disgusted to point out at the same time. I even got to grips with a little bit of haggling, but it's possible the lady agreed to the price I offered a little too quickly.

We bought our lunch from various stalls and then made our way via a few sights to the House of Future science museum, where the exhibition we wanted to visit turned out to be a giant empty warehouse. Luckily there was a hands-on exhibition right next to it called the Palace of Miracles, where we rushed in and had fun playing with all the toys. Annoyingly there were a lot of children in the way. Some of the translations were a bit interesting and made the 'science' part harder than usual. All in all though, challenge number 15 completed successfully, only two more to do tomorrow!

We finally wandered back to the hostel via the train station (to buy our final train tickets to the airport boo) and St Stephens Basilica (closed for a concert) to settled in for a relaxing film night, complete with pizza. Yum :)

As always, onwards and outwards!

Katie x

...thunder Thunder, THUNDERATION... we are the Girl Guide Association

At approximately 2am half of us woke up from the noise of a wonderful surprise from the sky… you can leave the UK but you can’t leave its weather behind… it was rain and thunder! I remember thinking ‘Yay, maybe the sky will run out of water during the night and we will have another sunny day.’ And I truly apologise because I think that I cursed it… because it rained and it rained… and it rained!

We had planned to take part in some fun spirited volunteering at a local nature reserve, Horesky Park (challenge number 14). In true guiding style the rain would not dampen our spirits and after preparing for the weather we left our hostel chanting the songs we had learnt from the Austrian Scouts. Team morale was high. However walking in what seems like a monsoon is hard work, especially when combined with a very steep hill… and when we arrived we were all wishing for a hand dryer to take the rain water out of our socks and shoes. We had arrived early in what seemed like a very derelict visitors area… but this was not a surprise because I found it hard to think of someone who would enjoy being out in the middle of a forest in the rain at 9am.

We stood looking through the gates hopefully, when Gemma received a wonderful text… basically we had been told that it would be impossible for us to plant the trees we were meant to, in this weather. When they realised we were standing outside they let us in for coffee and tea as a thanks for our determination. The ethos of the park is very unique in Bratislava. The park aims to ignite a relationship between the local people and the environment; it is an area with a strong community vibe, where people either meet for yoga classes or group volunteering sessions. In some ways it is the equivalent to our local Nature Reserves, however they do not work at getting the local community involved in their upkeep and so people lack the respect towards the area that Horsky Park has.

Bratislava is not a big city, and seeing as the majority was ‘Under Construction’ we were in no rush to see more buildings and landmarks. So instead we opted for a relaxed afternoon and headed back to the hostel to play Uno. This was the first time I have played this game and quite enjoyed it… partly because I won. We cooked a delicious risotto with lots of vegetables in it, and then feeling refreshed from our new intake of vitamins we headed to Tesco. The sound of Tesco may not seem that exciting to you… but this shop was something quite unique. It was a Tesco department store… containing six whole floors.

After our shopping adventures we had to head to the coach station. The journey went very quickly as ‘My life in ruins’ was being played. We all thoroughly enjoyed the film, regardless of our constant squinting to read the subtitles, and the fact we could only get half the jokes due to them being lost in translation. We arrived in Budapest, and the rain had still not given us a break! Despite using the metro we had a long walk to the hostel, and we all arrived so exhausted that we fell asleep with hardly more than a word said between us.

Bratislava is a wonderfully atmospheric city to visit, and I definitely want to go back… just hopefully at a time when some monuments our not ‘Under Construction’.

Harriet 

....Under Construction

Well today has been a brilliant day! It has been so relaxed and chilled and the sun has been out! We all now have slight tans! Even me ( Sorry Ma, its only a little!)! We started with a lie-in which is exactly ‘what the doctor ordered’. We planned to leave the hostel by 10am so we thought we would get up at 8.30am as it takes us that long to get ready in the morning. In the end I think we were all awake by 7.30/8ish because Amy always sets her alarm early so she can snooze it! Also we were all so psyched (Yes, I did just say psyched) about the free breakfast that we’ve been waiting for since Salzberg. The breakfast turned out to be a little disappointing, as it was just fake cornflakes that tasted like Cheerios. As there were two random people asleep on the common room sofas we ended up eating standing up (plus Jennifer the American from the night before who had kept some of us awake all night was spread out across the dining room) but it was good fun. I can remember laughing at something with Amy, but I have no inkling of what it was now.

After brekkie we wandered down to the old town starting at St Michael’s tower which was the gate house I think?!? It had brilliant views of the city from the top. The old town square was also beautiful and in total contrast to the industrial Bratislava that we had seen on the bus and on our walk from the station to the hostel. After quite a while browsing the stalls we all sat down to have an ice cream, and they were AMAZING! Jen had an apple one that she absolutely adored and Gem had a mojito one. They were good. That is an understatement and a half, they were BRILLIANT.

After the brilliance of the ice creams though, things started to go down hill, through no fault of our lovely tour guide Harriet. Bratislava may be an up-and-coming city but has definitely not arrived yet. It seemed that every place we tried to visit – the castle, the cathedral, the primate palace (I have a feeling that’s not what its called but that’s what it sounded like when Harriet told me what it was), and a monastry – was under construction or closed for one reason or another. That didn’t ruin the day though so it was all alright. Bratislava is full of lots of statues poking out of the ground or round the corner of buildings, perfect timing as we needed to get about 30 more photos of Peggy for one of the 100 Challenges due to be submitted tomorrow. We had a lovely laze in the park, got brilliant views from the castle hill and had Mexican for lunch! I had paella and there was so much that I brought the rest of it home for dinner. At the Mexican we met some Italians and had a nice chat (again I love how having our guide scarves on makes people talk to us  ). We rounded the afternoon off with another ice cream stop (reached 92 scoops so far this trip, need to hit the big 100 you see!

Today there also happens to be a football match between Slovakia and Serbia (Slovakia is currently winning 1-0) so there have been lots of policemen who are wearing power ranger style robot uniform standing about. We have also encountered quite a few – I can only assume slight tipsy – Serbian men who have shouted ‘Skouty’ at us and made the promise sign at us but they’ve got it slightly wrong and it looks more like a three fingered peace-cum-star-trek sign. But it’s all in good humour so its funny!

Anyway, hope you are all alright back home and not missing us too much!
Lots of love, we’ll see you in 5 days
Lizz xxxxx

P.S. Just made my dress for the finale party, it’s going to be epic but I reckon it’s going to firmly cement us as the rebel group of stampede.

Paint, pink(as) and orange(ways)….

There were two main tasks for our last day in Prague. We needed to visit a “place of worship different to your own” as one of our challenges. For this we went to the Pinkas Synagogue and the Old Cemetery. The Pinkas Synagogue used to be a working synagogue but has since been turned into a memorial for those in Czech Republic that suffered the fate of the holocaust. The names of each person was written on the wall. There were several pieces of artwork displaced, both some therapeutic work from children in concentration camps and some of local children trying to understand the experiences and feelings of their predecessors. Quite a sobering experience. The synagogue then lead to the Jewish old cemetery, which hasn’t been used since the 1700s. Imagine a plot of land twice the size of a typical suburban back garden and in this there were 12,000 grave stones and 100,000 bodies – layered five people deep in places. The gravestones varied from those carved ornately in Hebrew and those which were so old you couldn’t tell what had been carved on them before. For those who hadn’t touched history textbooks in a long long time it made the World War feel like far more than just a fight between England, America, France and Germany on a beach in Normandy as often portrayed. Cultures spread over geographical boundaries, beliefs can be common even when the language is different – but the most important thing is having the freedom to choose your belief.

Our next task was poignant in a different way, we aimed to leave our mark on the Lennon Wall which we had visited yesterday. The wall surrounds the garden of the Maltese embassy but the pavement has a 1 meter band alongside the wall which is considered Maltese soil. So during communist times this wall was an area where freedom of expression (highly themed by 1960s peace aspirations of the Beatles) could exist as was not on communist soil. Armed with three tester pots of finest Dulux and several Sharpie pens we set about filling the wall with trefoils and inspirational quotes from Baden-Powell. It was difficult finding a patch worth writing over, without removing some other inspirational quote about world peace or making the world a better place. The paint was quite hard to work with as we didn’t have time to let it dry so had several marble effects, which of course was the artistic style we were aiming for! Overall however, we were very impressed with our artistic endeavours. We wonder if other groups travelling through Prague will notice our finger prints? Guess we’ll find out at the finale party in five days.

What a mixed bag of transport! We are sat on our first coach. Lizz had managed to get us free tickets for orangeways (yay!) and we are extremely grateful to them for their kindness. Their website is a very nice website with all the details you could possibly need to travel with them. They say on their website they have established themselves to be the easyjet equivalent transport for coaches – cheap and efficient, and particularly orange themed. They suggest coach travel is more environmentally friendly than our friend Stavros and want more people to travel through Europe by road than pollute the skies. When we arrived at the coach station the ticket office lady was incredibly helpful and we trotted off to the coach to check in. The drivers wear a particularly nice peach uniform (continuing the orange theme). The man ticked our names off on the list and checked our passports (first time since London…. only five countries later!) and had a bit of a joke with him. We said to each other “boy, this is like luxury and not easyjet”! THEN we checked our big bags in the ‘hold’. Our ticket clearly said we must pay the bus driver 20CZK for our big bags so we had earlier eaten enough ice creams to allow us to only have enough coins for the 20CZK each and metro (such a hard life, I had to have three scoops, all for the team you see). The man said it costs 30CZK each and showed us his sheet of paper, which was different to our ticket. Those of you who know me will be aware of my knowledge of all Consumer Protection laws and which subsections apply in situations and often quote this. Alas, this was a problem here because a) the laws I know are English and not Czech and b) suddenly the man failed to understand English. Firstly I didn’t want to pay an extra 10CZK per person out of principle, but secondly we didn’t have this because we spent it all on ice cream as we didn’t want leftover coins! Luckily after lots of scrabbling around Jennifer and Katie found some spare coins enough to pay the man so our bags were taken. We went to get on the coach and suddenly Amy was stopped. Apparently her hang luggage bag was too big. Now I had checked their very friendly website before we left and noted all the baggage allowance sizes and knew our bags most certainly fit these restrictions. Suddenly the man had lost all use of spoken English again. Magic. We realised he wanted to check it into the hold because the second bag in the hold costs 140CZK. Cheeky monkey. After lots of protesting (holding up other passengers) he let us on. Luckily our protestations haven’t barred us from the free hot drinks and complementary single-use-headphones as people sit watching the Pink Panther. We did check the bus station as we left, as far as we could see they hadn’t thrown our bags back on the floor – fingers crossed they leave the coach with us!! Orangeways like easyjet? A little bit more luxurious but yes, there are most certainly some similar traits! As with beliefs above, certain trading ethos’ can cross all boundaries. There most certainly is no such thing as a free lunch, but there are very cheap lunches if you look hard! (thank you Lizz!)

Next update will be from Bratislava, our penultimate city booohoooo.

Gem xx

Soggy feet...

Well today we were meant to be getting up at 8am but managed to all be up at 7am somehow.

After a leisurely breakfast we chilled out for a bit before heading off to the scout shop. The scout shop was located quite a way from the hostel and took about 45 minutes to walk to - up a lot of steps to the giant metronome which replaced the giant Stalin statue from the 60s.

We had a great time in the Scout shop looking at all the Czech badges and uniform! Rachel bought a dress and between us we bought several badges.

We then went across to the castle to see the changing of the guards - except we didn't quite make it and ended up sitting and having our pizza lunch instead!

From there we headed across to the fake Eiffel tower! After a pause part way to shelter from the rain! At the Eiffel tower we had a short browse around and then headed across to the mirror maze - which was a bit too easy :(

We took the funicular down (another form of transport - tick!) then went across to the Lennon Wall - where we had a look at all the spectacular graffiti - it was quite interesting. I think we're going to head across tomorrow with the paint to add our own - we think we're allowed!

After this we went across Charles' bridge to go shopping we all picked up various souveniers including some "Czech me out" t-shirts for Lizz, Amy and Harriet.

Lizz, Lydia and I went shopping for dinner - Omelette is on the menu tonight.

Other than being rather soggy another great Stampede day :)

Jennifer x

Ahhhhh, Crash, Bang… Amy’s in a bin!

Technically we started the Prague day sitting on a metro, having finally arrived, riding towards our hostel. Everyone was very tired and looking forward to our long awaited sleep. However the real fun began when we awoke the next morning feeling refreshed… well at least ‘less tired’ and started getting ready for our very exciting day that Lizz had wonderfully planned. We were getting ready… to go… on SEGWAYS!!!!

The walk to the beginning of the Segway tour was beautiful. The morning sun sparkled off the gorgeous architecture, and the hustle and bustle of the city was beginning as other tourists began their adventures, giving us an insight into the few days ahead. When we arrived we were quickly fitted with helmets, which doubled my nerves, and shuffled outside to be made into Segwaying pros. I was second to test my skills; combined with a lot of shrieking and wobbling was the laughter of spectators, including one man who thought it would be hilarious to come and ‘BOO’ me making me grab the instructor… after a minute I was told to get back off because I was a hazard! However, in my defence it is a lot harder than it looks! Once everyone was zooming around the street I was allowed a second try, thankfully, and this time it was a lot better. I discovered that the trick was having confidence and trusting that what looked like some metal with wheels was actually cleverer than it looked. I even managed to ‘reverse park’ into our rainbow order for a photo… something I can’t even do in a car!

Then our tour began, slowly at first, but everyone’s confidence grew exponentially and with it increased our speed and enjoyment. Our tour guide was a Czech called Marc, who I am sure never used both hands to grip onto the machine, unlike me where just the thought of taking a hand off scared me. He showed us lots of sights including the Old Town, where the famous Astronomical Clock stands, the Jewish Quarter, which holds the oldest synagogue in Europe having survived many Jewish pogroms, and the Castle where the changing of the guards was taking place. It was a great way to get a feel for the city’s atmosphere, and getting an idea of where the sights lay in relation to each other. During our travels our group comedian, Amy, thought she would add to our bank of laughs by taking a tumble. Having hit the corner of a burnt down bin she was sent flying and has a big purple bruise as a medal… however next time Amy please fall somewhere that doesn’t smell so awful!


We had all worked up quite a hunger by the time we finished, and made our way back to the Old Town Hall rushing to get there before the next hour so that we could watch the much anticipated dance to welcome the new hour on the Astronomical Clock. Lizz gave us some very informative information about the statues and clock face; I found it most interesting that the actual purpose of the clock is not to tell time but instead to imitate the orbits of the sun and moon about the Earth. I watched this whilst enjoying my lunch… a bit like watching a film whilst eating popcorn. We then had a thoroughly guilt free desert… massive ice creams, guilt free as it was all in the name of our self-made challenge to eat a hundred scoops of ice cream in total during the two weeks. We will succeed at this because I have already volunteered to make the number up to a hundred IF we are under by the end of the holiday (which I secretly hope we are).

That wasn’t the only challenge we did… our second was quite the opposite, and not in a throwing up way. The highest Scout badge in the Czech Republic is one called the Three Feathers in which the participant must spend one entire day not talking to anyone, another not eating anything, and the third in solitude. Rest assured though… none of us have forgotten how to talk or are feeling faint with hunger as we did all three parts in the same one hour. We went to the gorgeous Franciscan Gardens to find our own quite bench to reflect, I was so thoughtful that I couldn’t keep my eyes open and the next thing I knew I was being shouted at to wake up by some very scary Czech police… who didn’t speak English! It was a wonderful opportunity to escape from the frantic few days where we haven’t stopped, sometimes not even stopping for sleep; a chance to get lost in your own thoughts.

Czech Republic is surprisingly a very hot country, and by this point everyone was desperate to freshen up and change back at the hostel. So before dinner we all changed into something a little more sophisticated than the rainbow coloured T-shirts we were wearing, even though they are lovely. We then made our way to a restaurant that Lizz had found, walking down many steps we found ourselves in what looked like a cave, the dramatic lighting adding to the atmosphere. We filled up quickly with their delicious large portions, and yet our sweet tummy’s still had room for dessert, further evidence that the ice creams that we had eaten were guilt free.

It was a fantastic day that set the scene for our future adventures in Prague… for which I can NOT wait!!!

Harriet :-)

The Sound of Salzburg (aka 8 Guides caterwauling)

After our first full night’s sleep for a long long time, we rose early in anticipation of a “morning of music”, accompanied by ridiculously early church bells. At 9am, a bright red minibus arrived outside our hostel ready to whisk us away, and our Tour Guide Pedro (real name David) greeted us. We set off to see film locations around Salzburg with Pedro’s voice telling us random facts about the “Sound of Music” and Julie Andrews’ voice blaring out of the speakers. For example, did you know Gretl almost drowned falling into the lake outside the Von Trapp House? It was lovely being chauffeured everywhere and clear blue skies gave fantastic views over the Lake District near Salzburg. We had a quick ice cream pit stop next to a gorgeous clear bright blue sparkling lake, and then arrived at Mondsee, where the wedding scene from the film was shot in the cathedral. Our challenge for Austria was to recreate a scene from the film, so we pretended to be cuckoos on the steps and skipped around a fountain. Finally it was time to head back to Salzburg to pick up our bags and begin the long train journey to Prague, singing happily (crazily) all the way there.

It was a fantastic morning, but then I am a Sound of Music fanatic.

Onwards and Outwards!

Katie xx