The second quarter (days 5-8) - The world has ended, my camera's broke ...

Plagued with a runny nose and cold-like symptoms, day five was a struggle, but I managed to see a fair bit of Lucerne, located at the bottom of the Swiss Alps. Largely left to our own devices, I travelled around the lovely city with a young South Australian bloke, Shirls, who works for Port Adelaide Football Club and loves every type of sport. Before the Europe trip, he spent a week in New York and saw games of baseball, basketball, football and hockey in the Big Apple, so you can imagine what we talked about.

Swissco was on later that night and most people wore a fancy hat. I was a smart alec and wore a towel over my head. Unfortunately, I have very little photographic evidence as the flash on my camera broke on the journey from Germany to Switzerland. Understandably, like my flash (presumably) I was shattered. Hence the lack of many night shots. But to quote my sister, K-Beezer, if you get served lemons, you make lemonade and you need to build a bridge and get over it.

One of the highlights of my European trip was the scenery and on day six I woke up super early and took some beauties of the sunrise over the Swiss Alps. They are for my eyes only, but you can see this one here of me and the mountains in the background. From there, it was off to Liechtenstein, where there's not much to do in an hour, other than to get your passport stamped (they charge you for it) and to send some postcards back home. Then we went to Innsbruck, Austria, home of the building with the golden roof. Everyone was pretty tired from partying, including JB, who felt every bit of 27 years and 10 months over these 16 days. The grey hairs don't lie, as you will see in the next picture! Some of the young tykes gave me the endearing and hopefully respectful moniker, Coach.

This photo was taken in a gondola on the canals of Venice, which in my opinion is one of the most beautiful and romantic places to be in the world. We had a great time (albeit we only spent a day there - no way near long enough) and saw some historic and religious monuments, although I lucked out on getting an "authentic" Louis Vuitton handbag from one of the many dodgy street vendors. I don't think they would mind me calling them dodgy. The guy on the far right, Ag, had an interesting tour to say the least. His long list of indiscretions included having a Chris Mew on the infamous bus ride from Germany to Switzerland, which incurred him a €50 fine. He was also known to fall asleep in various nightclubs (I managed to take his wallet when he did). I shared a bottle of red wine with young Ag - who is older than me - on the gondola.

Bright and early on day eight, we made our way to Rome. We did a walking tour of the grand city and had our photos taken by the Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps but the main sights (Vatican City and the Colloseum) would have to wait until the next day. Some of the Aussie lads with no shame seemingly couldn't hold on and decided to get almost naked like their Roman counterparts, posing for photos outside the Colloseum. It was then we realised we were exactly halfway through the trip. But there would be more sights and plenty more shenanigans.