By the time I landed in London I felt even worse than I did in Singapore. I think I managed about 4-5 hours sleep on the plane doing that in one hour lots. Each time I woke up I wanted to ask the cabin stewards if they knew the stewardess who got it on with Ralph Fiennes in the toilet on a Qantas flight because obviously she was able to develop the skill to make herself comfortable in very confined spaces while I on the other hand would shift and fidget and still feel like I was being twisted into unnatural positions and still felt bloody awful.

Anyway I landed in London and whizzed through customs and got myself on the tube to go to Janelle and Chris' place (from here out to be called Belly and Chris) in Hammersmith. Belly met me at the tube station OK and we then went to her place where all I wanted to do was lay myself flat somewhere and try to talk to Belly in coherent sentences. Once Belly went off to work I thought I would do a few things then lay down and have a few hours sleep - well I woke up at 6.30pm with Belly coming through the front door. At a guess I don't think I even moved while I was asleep I was that exhausted. If I decide to go back to Australia in one trip and I forget about this experience I will have to get someone in the family to remind what a dumb idea that is.....

Once Belly got home we had to get ourselves ready to fly out to Germany the next day - we were being picked up by the cab at 4.30am since the airport we were leaving from was Stanstead and getting there by train may have taken too long. Flew into Germany with Ryan Air (one of the budget carriers over here) and landed in Baden-Baden (pronounced BAD-en). For those of you who are soccer fans this is the town the English soccer team stayed in during the world cup. Chris, who works in Germany, had rented a 6 speed manual BMW and promptly took us for a drive around the Black forest and a few other places - it was nice and picturesque and Chris also got to go fast on the autobahn which he enjoyed.....

Belly had booked us into a lovely five star spa hotel since Baden-Baden is known for its hot springs. Belly and I had a lovely time on Sunday swimming in the mineral spa pool and then sitting in Turkish steam bath then finally having a massage and facial. GAWD it was tough to take.

One thing that I saw while there was some rare car. Chris and Belly went nuts over it and me being the least likely person to be a car enthusiast was not overly impressed. It apparently goes over 400km, has 1000 horsepower and only 300 were ever made and i was so impressed that I still don't remember the name of the car. I did get pictures of it though so Chris can say he has definitely seen one. Chris was amazed that I was so unimpressed but cars have never been my thing.

Speaking of cars though I did get the opportunity to drive on the autobahn after we dropped Chris off at his place and we took the BMW back to the hotel. I managed to get to 200km/hr for all of 20 seconds and nearly wet myself doing it. I did average about 150-160km while on the autobahn though and I was still frequently overtaken - it was unnerving but you don't feel like you are going that fast either so its easy gain speed. My biggest problem was remembering which side of the road to drive on once I got off the autobahn. I made sure Belly reminded me each time we went to take a corner.

After a lovely weekend Belly and I flew back last night and I am now in the process of getting ready to fly out to Italy tomorrow. I was going to use today to load up songs onto my new memory cards in my phone but after much angst I just cant get the stupid thing to work so it looks like I will have to do without my music over the next few months and that is just WRONG. This new phone I bought is turning out to be more of a hindrance rather than a help but I suppose you live and learn. Anyway I better go and do a few more things then will start packing shortly.