Bratislava

Just a quick update... I got to Bratislava (capital of Slovakia) last night, where I was met at the bus station by Sam, a good friend of mine who I worked with in Colombia who now lives here with his wife (she's Slovak, he's Swiss) ... Bratislava doesn't look like much when you drive through the outskirts, but the centre of town is really nice, it has some beautiful old buildings and a nice peaceful feel, which is refreshing after the amount of tourists that have flooded Prague... After I arrived last night my hosts took me out for a traditional Slovak meal, which was really good, and I tried the local specialty, a softdrink called Kofola, which is best described as fizzy liquid gingerbread, and was surpisingly good (but like I said to Sam and his wife Zuzka, that probably isn't much of compliment coming from a person who can eat Vegimite straight from the jar) ... This morning Sam's gonna be my tour guide around Bratislava (kinda strange, an Australian being shown around a Slovak city by a Swiss guy he met in Colombia), then after lunch we'll head to Vienna (Austria), which is just an hour up the Danube; from Vienna we'll get the overnight train to Zurich (Switzerland), then there'll be a bit of time to check out the city before I say goodbye to Sam and Zuzka and get a connecting train to Paris, where I'll met some friends and hopefully be able to see the last day of the Tour de France...

Prague

I've been in Prague for a few days now, but it's a good thing that I head to Slovakia tomorrow, cause I don't think my body could handle much more time here. The food is really good but very fatty and heavy, and Czech's seem to drink more beer than water (actually, I've been told that Czechs down 137 litres of beer per person per year, which is the most in the world). They have a good reason to drink so much though, cause Czech beer really is excellent, and it's also quite cheap compared to most things here. In terms of looks, Prague's a beautiful city, it kinda feels like you're walking around in the middle of a postcard or a storybook or something: there's heaps of old buildings and squares and courtyards, and a nice castle and some old bridges and a cathedral. The general feel of the city is quite relaxed compared to other places that I've been, and everthing's very clean, but there are some parts of town that are almost unbearable cause of the amount of tourists. Yesterday I went walking through the Old Town, and across a famous old bridge that leads up to the castle, but a couple of hours of crowds was enough for me, so I went and found a piece of forest that ran across one side of the river, where I then spent a couple of relaxing, tourist-free hours walking randomly along little forest paths. It's been nice to see one of the world's famous cities, and I've really enjoyed catching up with friends that live here (special thanks to Alenka for hosting me); my next stop is Bratislava, where I'm heading tomorrow afternoon, and from there I'll head west to France...

Wellington, NSW

The last couple of weeks have been pretty hectic, so even though I've been overseas for a few days now I still haven't had time to write an entry on what I was up to before I left. My last week in Australia was spent in Wellington, a small town in the Central West of NSW, where I was working on a project called Walama Muru. The idea of the project was to break down barriers between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians, and it involved students from UNSW working alongside staff from Nura Gili (the Indigenous programs centre at UNSW where I've been completing my final placement for my social work degree). A group of about 30 of us spent the week working at Nanima, which is an Aboriginal community 8km out of Wellington. We did some basic stuff around town like clearing a new fire break, planting some trees, preparing a foundation for a water tank, painting a fence, and fixing up a bus shelter. It all seems like pretty simple stuff, and it is, but the local council doesn't go out to the community to do it, and the CDEP (Community Development Employment Program) that used to do that sort of stuff got closed down a few years ago. It was a good week, and an important reminder that you don't have to travel to far-off parts of the world to observe high levels of poverty, disadvantage, oppression and exclusion.

Wellington then Europe

It's been a while since I've written anything on here, but that's because it's been a while since I've been anywhere apart from Sydney or the Central Coast... I've had a really interesting year and a half since I left Colombia: I've been finishing off my social work degree, which has included two really worthwhile 4 month placements, the first at a mental health unit in Campbelltown, and the second with Nura Gili, the Indigenous programs centre at the University of New South Wales. I also spent about 4 months doing refugee casework with Amnesty International, which was really challenging and taught me a lot, so things certainly haven't been boring, even though I've been in the same city for over a year. Tomorrow I'm going to travel again, and it's a good feeling. I'm going to Wellington (in New South Wales, not New Zealand), where I'll spend a week working on a community project as part of my final placement for my social work degree, then the very next day I'm heading to Europe for a bit of a break and to go to a wedding (a friend's, not my own) ... Anyway, instead of writing emails I'm just gonna make the odd blog posting, so anything interesting that I do that I think's family friendly enough to be put online will be recorded here...