On Tour,

Day 1, 2 Wednesday 25th, Thursday 26th September.  A marathon journey home it seemed after leaving Sydney late Wednesday evening then having to stop in Hong Kong for 5 hours before getting back on the plane for the 12 hour leg of the journey to Heathrow. a quick trip across good old London town on the tube to Euston station before the final leg on the train that was to take me up to The Heart of the Country.... Stoke On Trent. Met up with friends for the evening on Thursday chatting away before finally collapsing around midnight wrecked.

Day 3, Friday 27th September. No time to hang around with a 4.30am start to then get to Manchester airport for the 6.45am flight to Berlin. Had the chance to fly with Easy Jet for the first time and what a great experience that was, its basically a no frills airline and cracked up when they come down the plane trying to sell you $1 lottery tickets.
Only a 90 minute journey this one and then hung around the airport waiting for Enda to arrive in town. Once arrived we then made our way to the big Marathon Expo to collect our gear for race day. Absolutely massive with over 190 exhibitors although must say i wasn't that impressed with all the queuing that went on just to collect your race big ............whatever happened to German efficiency?
Met up with all the gang in town late in the arvo before heading out for a Pasta dinner in the evening. Great to catch up and everyone is getting really pumped for this one with Bartles especially keyed up and focused more then anyone. You can tell everyone is pretty serious with this one as come 8pm everyone bar J-Fen and myself were all heading back to retire for the night...soft lads.
So with just J-Fen in tow it was off to see the bright lights of Berlin for the evening, First stop in our search for beer was Potsdamer Platz that is a very unique centre with various tourist attractions. Armed with his trusty phone and maps J-Fen led us all over town and in taxis to find the 'Happening Places' to be, had to laugh when he then demanded to stop the taxi when he saw a gathering surrounding flashing lights that he thought was a decent bar only to find on approach it was Berlins answer to ' Harry's Cafe De Wheels' it was a bloody Pie Shop....oh Dear, back to the phone it was.
Eventually found a decent bar where we settled down for the night and watched some German Footy at the same time with the locals.  turned out to be a good old night in the end.
Tomorrow its out for a early 7am easy trot for about 5ks where we are supposedly heading down to the 'Brandeburg Gate' for a photo opportunity in our NEW HuRTS singlets.
I think the tour will start up proper tomorrow ......bring it on.