What is the purpose of your visit?

Travel I am on the train from Reading up to Liverpool. It is a beautiful sunny afternoon here in the UK; a real rarity and something that I am enjoying immensely. I have been working on a compliance spreadsheet for a large User Requirements Document that needs to be submitted on Monday. This has been slow going, and I’ve hit a bit of a mental barrier. As I’m sitting here in the sun, I starting thinking about everything I have been up to recently, and realised that in the long distant past I often spent these train trips writing emails to friends and updating my blog. My poor, poor neglected blog. Well I am just passing Wolverhampton, and I have about 10 minutes left before I need to change trains in Stafford, so I am going to make the most of it and see what I can get off my chest. Where do I start? Well let’s do the highlights:

• Last week I had a hectic three day business trip to the mighty USA. Flew out Saturday, flew back Tuesday night, got in to Manchester Wednesday morning, unfortunately by bags didn’t. I travelled through (even if it was just in transit), Chicago (hello Brendan!), St Louis, Baltimore, Washington D.C. and Boston. What a great trip. I thought I would be hassled more getting into the country, but they asked me why I was there, I said “I’m in IT” and they was all that was needed. Got fingerprinted, my photo taken, had my battered blue Australian passport stamped and within two minutes I was on my way.
• Nikkie is backpacking around Italy for a month with our friend (and ex-church avenue housemate) Viki. Let left and the beginning of the month, and I am flying out to Rome on the 24th of June for their birthdays (they were born on the same day!). I really miss not having her at home, but I’ve been travelling like mad so far this month and it doesn’t look like slowing down, so it has worked out in that respect. From the text messages and calls I’ve had with her it sounds like she is having an absolute ball. They stayed in the same campsite we did in Venice, got the train to Milan, Verona and Genoa, saw the last supper, went to Pisa, so the leaning tower and are now in Florence, and they have only been travelling for a week! I’ll get her to write up her adventure when she gets back and either post it to my blog or I’ll create one for her.
• Graeme and Tanya (see train to nowhere) did the typical thing my Aussie no hoper lay about friends do and crashed at my place for three weeks. They join an illustrious crew, including Ads, Jimmy the Hacker, Morgs, Cowan and Lisle. They didn’t quick reach Ads’ record for most time spent on the couch (or is that now Lisle’s record?) but I think overall they had a good wind down from the hectic couple of months they spent backpacking South East Asia. Unfortunately they arrived just as I was in the middle of finishing the last of my University assessment and exams, so I didn’t get the spend as much time with them as I would have liked, but they are now down in London in their one place looking for work, so I’m sure I will catch up again with them soon.
• I am doing really well at work. The IT department has expanded to 18 people. That includes the development team, internal support and the EPM consultant team (the last are directly billable which makes my departmental P&L look really healthy). The other senior management guys are always jokingly referring to the IT battalion. IT is now the second largest department after the operational project management team. Not bad considering it was just me this time two years ago. I am saving like mad and plan to pay off my student loan at the end of the year if I can. Or not if I can find something with a better return to invest in! I love what I am doing, and I learning great things and have more responsibility than I would have dreamed of having at my age.
• I am almost finished my Masters. As mentioned previously, I was stuck in the think of it a couple of weeks ago, however now all my coursework is submitted, all my exams over and done with, and all I have left is my dissertation. I have written about 10,000 words of it so far, mostly the literature review, but now I need to work on my case study, evaluation and analysis. The topic is extremely boring to almost everyone who isn’t in my line of work; it is focused on information assurance and security accreditation processes. Fascinating, I know! I need to submit by the end of August, with my viva schedule for early September. I’m on track to get a MSC with Distinction, but this dissertation with worth a third of the entire module marks so it is important it don’t stuff it up!

There are many, many other things I feel I really should update you all about, but my train is almost at the station and so this is where I leave you. Sorry to those of you who I haven’t sent emails or IMs to recently. I am a terribly slack friend I know and will try to do better (yes I know I always say that). Also sorry to those I missed when I was in Australia over Easter. Stu thanks for your email, we will catch up next time. I won’t be back home for a while now. Mum, Rodney, Ed and Jeremy are over for Christmas and we are hosting them, as well as Nikkie’s parents and little sister up in Liverpool, so that will be a good dose of family fun. Everyone take care of yourselves and keep in touch. M

Wedding Bells

Friends - General - Personal - Travel Before anyone gets too excited, no I am not getting married! My mother is though, to a fabulous bloke called Rodney, and I am flying back to Australia for the wedding. I fly in on the 25th of March, the Wedding is on the 31st of March, I am staying for Easter, and then flying back to the UK on the 11th of April. The 11th also happens to be my little brother Jeremy’s birthday, and thankfully my flight leaves late at night, so I will have time to celebrate it with him. I will email everyone in due course, as I know that as I so rarely update this blog now, that most of you guys out there will want to know that I am coming back and won’t find out from here. I am looking forward to coming back in March, it will be the first time I’ve been back close to summer for almost four years now. I am really looking forward to coming back. It is a short trip this time. My current visa is valid for the next five years, so I don’t need to faff about with anything to do with that. I have also got things in place at work so that I shouldn’t be bothered too much. I realise I haven’t let anyone know where I am living or really what I am doing at the moment here in the UK. It is a cold Saturday morning here right now, so I am going to take some time to go over it all. First some pictures! I am currently living in a beautiful old house that has been converted into flats. It is called: The Croft! I am currently driving a brand new (well new in September, with 56 plates) Black VW Golf GTI. It allows me to go far to fast for my own good, and I got my first ever speeding ticket in it in the first month of driving it. Here is a picture of me standing outside the Croft, on a wet, bleak Liverpool day, with My Golf! Here are some other random pictures that my friend Viki took when she Ben (ex-housemates) came to stay between Christmas and New Year. This is: My Bed, this is: My Coat Rack, this is My Desk, this is My Dinner Table, this is My Kitchen, and this is not my Guitar. Things have been absolutely manic around here like they have been for the past two years. I am really proud of where I’ve gotten to though. I’m head of department for thirteen people, I have generated turned things around and we are now a profit centre rather than a cost centre, I’ve created new business directly out of our work, and I’m also half way through doing my MSc, just a dissertation to go now! I send all you guys individual emails because I really do want to catch up properly and see how everyone is going. Take care!

Counting Down!

Friends - Fun - Travel Well I’m on the train down to Nottingham… again! Lately it seems like the only time I get to write entries is when I’m on the train. Train travel provides you with a kind of peaceful solitude that allows one time for reflection and contemplation. I’ve got a lot to reflect upon, and so much more to come that I need to contemplate. Three more sleeps to go before I am on my way home. It’s so exciting. I really can’t wait. I’ve finished work for the week. Got all my tasks done, and now I’m free! I’m going down to Nottingham to meet up with Nikkie, go out on the town, convince her to leave some shoes and handbags behind, and then we are going to pack up her car and drive up to Liverpool tomorrow. Things have gone so fast recently. Everything has come at once, and now I am rushed to finalise everything before I go away. I went to my cousins last night, had a few drinks and a nice dinner and talked about how jammy I am. I was also laden down with presents to bring back with me. Between all of Nikkie’s stuff and my cousin’s presents I barely have any room for anything of my own. I want to have lots of left over space too, because I plan on brining as much stuff as possible back over with me. I am coming home this trip, but I don’t know whether it is my home anymore. There is so little of me left there now, and there will be even less soon. I’ve started accumulating stuff, but it’s not in Brisbane, it’s in my flat in Liverpool. I’ve got furniture, plate sets and towel sets and bed linen. I’ve started painting the place, making it exactly how I (or rather we, as Nikkie has a big say in it) want it. It’s starting to feel like my very own place now; I’ve put my touch onto it. I’m becoming an adult, all grown up and responsible. I own bed linen! I mean come on! I’m earning a living, going on a business trip, organising my finances. It’s scary and yet exciting at the same time. Anyway enough rambling. This will probably be the last entry I post before I am over in Aus! Man I need to start getting organised. I haven’t even thought about packing yet!

Coming Home

Friends - Personal - Travel - Work I started this blog more than two years ago. Boy I’ve come a long, long way since then. So I’ve been really busy these last couple of weeks. That’s not unusual. A lot has been happening at work. That’s not unusual either. There are some big changes in the works though, which has led to something unusual. So, to cut to the chase, and to let those of you know whom I haven’t contacted already, I’m flying back to Australia on July the 12th. I’m coming home. Though I don’t really know whether it is my home anymore. I’m not coming back to stay, that’s for sure. I’ve got a three week trip booked, and it’s predominately a business trip, the emphasis behind it coming from work rather than my desire to come back for a visit. I had originally not planned on coming back for a visit until Christmas time, but things have been steamrolling ahead at work, and that’s necessitated my early return. To explain in more detail; I’ve been promoted! I’ve been given a great opportunity, a great new job focus, and when my boss offered it to me I jumped at it. I can’t quite do what is being asked of me yet, so I’ve got to do some training first. Guess what, the training I need to do can be done in Brisbane! And it’s a damn sight cheaper than doing it in London as well! So I’m flying home on the company dime, to do two weeks of intensive training on the company dime, all while earning the company dime as if I were working as usual, and at the end of it I fly back to the UK to a new, better, job earning even more of the company dime than before! As Nikkie says, I am a jammy bastard ^_^ Speaking of Nikkie, she is coming with me! She has one more week of placement and then she starts summer holidays. I’ve explained to her that I’ll be working most of the time when I’m back home, that for me this isn’t a holiday as such, it’s part of my job, but she wouldn’t be talked out of coming. Not that I wanted to talk her out of coming. I can’t wait to introduce her to my mum, and all my friends, and show her where I grew up. I’m so totally in love with this girl that I want her to know everything about me, to meet everyone that is important to me, to share in these experiences with me. She is so excited !! ^_^ Things are going really well for me here. I’m in a fantastic job, I have a great flat, I’m going out with the most beautiful girl. I’m fit and well and happy and loving it all. I don’t think my friend will recognise me when I get home. Partly because Nikkie has had me out running with her, and physically I am much trimmer and more toned than before, but also I think my personality is a great deal different to how it was two years ago. It’s hard to describe, but I think it has to do mostly with my outlook on life, or rather more importantly, my outlook on myself. Don’t worry, I wont get all philosophical here, I just think that some of my friend will be shocked at the change in me. I can’t even begin to describe how excited I am to be coming home. This time next week will be my last sleep in the UK before I leave. There is so much to do before then, so much to organise, to work out, to plan for. Right now I don’t care about any of that, I’m just too excited! !!!!!! Written while listening to Alex Lloyd - Coming Home

These little piggies went to Amsterdam

Friends - Fun - Guest Entry - Personal - Travel - University This is Nikkie. Michael asked me to do a guest entry so here goes... The physiotherapy course is so hectic that this is the first time in a year that we have been privileged enough to have been given a week off while all the other students are busy celebrating the arrival of an 18 week summer holiday. I grabbed the opportunity to whisk Jade, my best friend and housemate, off to Amsterdam for a wild night out to celebrate her 21st birthday. Before our adventure could commence, we had to endure painstaking revision and an exam which took place on the Wednesday morning (1st June) at 8.45am. Jade and I were both very nervous for the practical exam as you never have enough time to think and appear a fool if you don’t have the answers at the drop of a hat. The exam consists of a case scenario, 15 minutes thinking time and then joining the examiners to discuss all the relevant anatomy and clinical reasoning to arrive at an appropriate diagnosis. Next, you discuss a management plan and have to demonstrate 2 treatment techniques on a model. Finally, after what seems like forever, you document everything done with the patient, including treatment dosage, gained consent, safety tests, advice given and when you would next like to see them. Jade and I were given the same scenario of a patient with tension headaches so we came out of the exam intrigued as to what treatment we had each given. Luckily, we both appeared to administer the same treatment for similar reasons, so with that out of the way we left to get ready for our trip! I drove, for the first time, up to Liverpool. We arrived, after a relatively stress free journey to the city but as we approached Michael’s flat, things became slightly more traumatic. At this point it is fairly relevant to mention that Michael has lived in Liverpool for 5 weeks but still appears to walk around with his eyes closed, hence the reason he (and Graeme) will be blamed for getting us lost! We ended up travelling around a roundabout 5 times until they could meet us there and take us the right way! So, we eventually arrived at the flat, piled our belongings up the 3 flights of stairs and headed out for some lunch in a typical English café. The boys left shortly to return to work and us girls took the opportunity for some light shopping before our lift to the airport. Jade and I are both fanatical about fashion and the idea of retro and vintage clothing delights us! As a result, spotting 4 charity shops to rummage through determined the activities of the following few hours. At around 5pm, the boys had finished work for the day and we hopped in the car, laden with plastic bags full of vintage 1940’s purses, tops, scarves and the odd few bits including a wooden elephant names Widnes! So much for the light shopping trip! Graeme and Michael dropped Jade and I off at Liverpool’s John Lennon airport and I managed to shop as soon as we got there, buying a fantastic golden yellow leather handbag. We boarded the plane at 7pm and by 11pm were sat in a bar in Amsterdam. An exam at 8.45am in a British university, and barring in Amsterdam by 11pm - I love Europe! Staying in a cheap hostel in the red light district ensured we were surrounded by lots of young people. We quickly re-applied some lip-gloss and changed our shoes to heels and headed out. Passing the local chippy, we were unable to resist the classic Dutch chips and mayo. I got back into the swing of the language and was soon chatting to the chip-shop man only having slight difficulty understanding the Amsterdam dialect, which is very different to that I am used to. Once our appetites had been satisfied, we followed the crowds past some very sexy and virtually naked women in doorways to a bar for a beer. Soon after our arrival we began chatting to the barman who, much to our disgust, told us we were not in a ‘green’ café, although smoking in there was permitted. We rushed off to find somewhere selling pre-rolled joints, as neither of us were in any fit state to start rolling ourselves. On the recommendation of the guy behind the counter, whom I now realise we should never have trusted, we bought 4 joints for the equivalent of about £10. Back in the previous bar we lit up and began to chat to a bunch of Aussie men. It amazed me how many Australians there were in Amsterdam, most travelling Europe after uni. Mindless chit chat revealed that these particular guys were all living in London as teachers although one had flown in from Sydney that afternoon. They were a laugh and bought us a couple of drinks so we decided to stick with them for a while. By about 1am, we had broken off and un-surprisingly only two guys remained. We visited a few more bars, smoked and drunk a bit more while playing cards in a chilled bar. The lads knew where our hostel was, as they were in the same one, so we began our walk home. We were halfway there when Jade was cornered by one of the lads and had to apologise that he must have got the wrong idea from her. Realising that he was not going to get anywhere with her that night, he swiftly left. The other guy, however, was more persistent and we had to team up to get rid of him, which we eventually did by hiding in our dorm! Although I had shared a dorm with mates on camping trips ( I was in the scouts) and on school trips, nothing quite prepared me for this. It was a dorm of 20 beds and great fun. We sat up a while chatting crap due to our stoned and drunken state when we over heard a couple arguing over a guy having been in a peep show instead of meeting up with his girl! I’m sure this would have still amused me sober but we were both having serious difficulty in resisting laughter and continued to listen to the bickering trying to work out whether the guy’s story was genuine or he had in-fact been in a sex show as his lady was stating! By about 3am we got ready for bed and fell into light, interrupted sleep. We awoke at 8am with the sun streaming into the room and the dorm already half empty. After showering and attempting to make ourselves look remotely human we wandered downstairs for a full English breakfast, and a mug of incredibly strong tea. Our persistent friend from the previous night pulled up a chair questioning us about where and when we were leaving Amsterdam. Making quick excuses and ensuring we were sufficiently dosed up with caffeine we walked in the direction of the main shopping street – Kalver straat. I had been to Amsterdam previously with relatives living nearby so was slightly more orientated than the average tourist and we found Kalver straat fairly quickly. We shopped, had some lunch in the Vroom and Dressmann restaurant, a definite must for a cheap detoxifying meal, and shopped some more. After a few more trips to the cash-point and laden with bags, we returned to the red light district for some major vintage shopping. I got a pair of ankle height grey slouch boots which I had been on the hunt for ages. All in all, we spent over £200 of our student overdrafts on clothes and accessories, all very worthwhile! After all, you spend what money you actually have, and then the bank decides to give you more! No, I don’t always have such a lax attitude to money but do find it very hard to resist a bargain! By 5pm we were exhausted and grabbed our bags from the station lockers and returned to Schipol airport for a ‘maccy D’s’ (Mcdonalds) and to catch our flight home. We landed back in Liverpool at 10pm and were greeted by the boys who drove us back to Michael’s flat. Shattered from our adventure we went to bed and slept soundly. The following morning, Michael strolled into work at 10am and Jade left to rush back to Manchester to grab fresh clothes for a night out with some old friends in Newcastle! I, on the other hand, pottered around the flat with my eyes half closed all day trying to recover from abusing my body so much. The next few days have consisted of more pottering and trying to get Michael’s hole of a flat slightly more liveable! I have cleaned, washed, tidied and sorted but this is the first and last time I will do, so he will have to become domesticated from now on! We did a very ‘grown-up’ shop of cleaning products yesterday evening which Michael clearly needed some guidance on - he was shocked to discover that bathroom and kitchen cleaner were different! My work here is definitely challenging! On Saturday night we visited Liverpool’s night life which I definitely felt was something else! I felt like I was in Ibiza, obviously without the gorgeous weather, it was very surreal. We sat in a square outside surrounded by bars and a very concentrated amount of gorgeous people. The women were all slim, verging on the border of too slim, had all been bronzed, either by a bottle or some hard work on a sun bed, and were made up with very expensive looking clothing. Graeme, Ben and Michael, un-surprisingly, were in awe of them all, [Editor’s Note: I was more in awe of my fantastic girlfriend of course!- Wigs], as was I, but my eye was placed more on enjoying the surrounding fashion statements. I must state though, the women were some of the best I have ever seen, obviously not including celebs, models etc, only with the downside of the Liverpudlian accent! The men were incredibly well groomed and also in expensive clothing. The music was brilliant, Michael said that it was much like the dance music ‘back home’. Being out with the lads I had to keep up with the pace of drinking which, with a reputation of a lightweight I did quite well, going drink for drink with them. Overall, Liverpool was a great night out, expensive but great. Our trek home left much to be desired. We caught the night bus home after waiting for a taxi for over an hr. On the walk home from the bus stop we got separated losing Ben, our other scouser housemate who had come home for the summer, and fell asleep with him not having returned to the flat. We woke with a startle the next morning realising Ben was still not home. I dressed hurriedly, on a bad hangover, to jog around and try and find him. Michael eventually got him on his mobile at the same time as I came across him asleep in the back of his car! Safe, but still very very pissed he came up to the flat to sleep off the alcohol. I went for a 20minute run along the beach and came back when Michael and I decided to return to bed till 3pm. Another crazy but fantastic night out. To think that a year ago, I was still in Newark Hall, had only known Michael 6 months, was a fresher and living a very dependant life shows how much things can change. Life is fantastic but it has been hard to get to this point; I considered dropping the physiotherapy course during the harder times, Michael moved 3 hrs away from Nottingham just when we finally got together, I moved house and Graeme’s changed university course. The summer is only a month away, I have one more outpatients placement to get through and then I will be back in Liverpool living and working here for 6 weeks. Third year will be here sooner than later and then I’ll be a qualified physiotherapist and will have to become even slightly responsible! On second thoughts, I’ll delay that as long as I can, go travelling, live a little before pinning myself to a 9-5 job. The end of university is so close, yet so far. I’m only two thirds through it and things have changed so much since arriving in September as a fresher. Change is good. Hard but good.

Site Survey Mark III

Travel - Work I seem to be writing a lot more of late. I credit my new notebook. I love my new baby. It's so slim and light. So I went out to Wolverhampton today. I'd never been there before, and really there isn't much there to make me want to visit again. I had to to yet another site survey, this time on a much larger scale. I spent most of the morning sitting talking to the CFO about the current operation. The CFO! I mean who the hell am I? Here I am discussing upgrade plans and future rollouts with him as if I actually know what the hell I'm talking about and that my say has any value at all in the discussion, and he is listening to me! And you know what, after the first ten minutes or so I no longer felt completely in over my head. It was a good feeling. Today was a good day. Now I'm sitting in Nikkie's bed typing this, while she is on her computer finishing up one of her essays. I should be finishing up the one I'm working on, but I thought it was about time to take a bit of a time out. Nikkie has Oasis playing on her computer. I love this band.

Working Hard For The Money

Friends - Fun - Travel - Work So as seems usual of late I have left it a good couple of weeks before writing a proper entry. Well I've been working hard, so nah nah nah! ^_^ On Tuesday last week I came up to Liverpool to do some work. I sat in on a very interesting meeting, learnt heaps of stuff, and in that one morning knew that I would enjoy my time at this job. Wednesday I took the day out to go shopping with Graeme, we were buying furniture for my new flat. Thursday John and I were off to London. We were doing some thermal imaging work for the Kings College Hospital, which would take all of Thursday and Friday. We stayed in a hotel just down from the hospital and went out for drinks and dinner on the company's expense account after a hard days work. The thermal camera was really cool; check out my self-portrait in the previous post. Friday night we helped pack up the house of one of the guys who is moving up to Liverpool for this big contract we are getting. Geoff is going to be the new IT Director, and after loading all his stuff into the van we went out for a few pints to recover. Saturday involved driving back up to Liverpool from London and unpacking the truck. Thankfully I convinced John that we should swing by Nottingham on the way up, so we did and picked up Nikkie and a bunch of my stuff. I hadn't seen Nikkie since the previous Monday, so it was very difficult to sit in the truck and keep my hands off her ^_^ So we helped move Geoff in on Saturday. He is living in the most fantastic place on the water here in Liverpool. His flat is on the top floor of the mansion that the captain of the Titanic once lived in. So very cool. My flat pales in comparison, but Nikkie thought it was great all the same, and we moved all my stuff in that day too. Saturday night we spent at my cousin’s catching up, drinking beer and wine and playing pictionary. My cousin and his wife are the undisputed king and queen of pictionary, they usually make it the whole way around the board before you even get out of the first quarter. However this night something must have been in the air because Nikkie and I actually mounted a serious challenge and one of the games came down to sudden death when we were both on the all-play square at the end of the board. Sunday we went to the Oxton Village fair, ate Cornish pasties and watched a Punch and Judy show. Then it was almost time for Nikkie to leave. She is still on placement at the Queens Medical Centre and so had to leave to go back to Nottingham to be ready for her 8.30 start Monday morning. I hated seeing her go. It was hard the previous week being away from her, but because I was so busy running up and down the country the time seemed to pass really quickly. Now she is gone however and I'm aching deep inside. It’s only Wednesday. I'm leaving Friday afternoon to go down to Nottingham for the weekend, but that is still two nights away! I've been keeping myself busy, not trying to be alone in my big flat at nights, but is has been hard. Went drinking with Geoff, Graeme and Paul the last couple of nights, so that has kept me occupied (and Nikkie amused when I ring he at midnight drunk out of my mind). Still I'll have to face my empty flat eventually, and all I can do is think about wanting to be down with Nikkie. Anyway I'll be down there this weekend, have Friday, Saturday and Sunday together. The boss said it doesn't matter if I don’t come in until mid-morning Monday, so I'll get the train up from Nottingham early in the morning. Things are good for me right now. Nikkie is fantastic, but that’s a given, I don’t think she knows how to not be fantastic and lovely and sexy and perfect. The job is interesting, the money is good, the social side of it up here in Liverpool is much better than I expected. All over everything has worked out far better than I had ever hoped to dream. The only down side is the Nikkie is in Nottingham and I am in Liverpool. But it is only another month and a half till her summer break, and then she is coming up here to live with me for the summer, get a job during the days but be with me when we both finish work. It’s going to be awesome, the sun, the sand (oh did I mention my flat is 5 minutes walk from the beach), money in my pocket and my beautiful girl by my side.

Here, There, Everywhere

Friends - Fun - Travel - Work So it’s been two weeks since I last wrote an entry. Here is a quick summary of what I’ve been up to. After my week at work up in Liverpool I got the train down to High Wycombe, about 30 minutes outside of London, where Nikkie’s parents live. Nikkie had gone down to stay with them while I was up in Liverpool working, and had decided to stay longer, so I went down there to stay with them. So I went down on the Friday afternoon and ended up staying till the following Thursday. It was a lot more fun that I expected. Nikkie’s parents are really nice and her little sister is as well. It felt very comfortable there, like I belonged and was accepted. We went into London on the Monday, went to the Portobello Road markets and the Covent Garden markets. Nikkie was very good and resisted buying shoes and handbags. It was a great day, the weather was beautiful, my girlfriend looked stunning, I couldn’t have been any happier. So the week went by incredibly quickly, I was having a load of fun, and then, suddenly, we were back up in Nottingham. Bruce and Ben and Viki were all back in the house. It was good to see them after so long. Easter holidays were drawing to a close and everyone had to get back to study. The next week Nikkie was on placement, and I had to do some work around the country. I needed to do some site surveys for a project we are working on, so on Wednesday I got the train down to London and did a survey out in Enfield, and then Wednesday night I crashed at Anna’s place. She made dinner and we sat around drinking wine in her apartment overlooking the Thames and discussing politics, sex and whether a bear could beat a giant squid in a fight. The next morning I got the train down to Southampton to do another site survey. Thankfully this one didn’t take as long (I was checking this site against the same criteria as the pervious one, so I knew what I was looking for and it went much quicker) and I ended up getting back to Nottingham at 6pm. Over those two days I had spent about 10 hours on trains going to different places, but it was interesting work, and it meant that I could stay in Nottingham for the week and not have to go back up to Liverpool, so that was a great bonus of course. Now its bank holiday weekend. I’ve got tomorrow off, but I do need to be up in Liverpool on Tuesday. I’ll probably be moving up there for good starting next weekend. It’s been a fantastic last couple of months. I managed to stay down here in Nottingham far longer than I first expected. Nikkie is now on placement so she is working every day at the hospital, so that means we can’t spend the days with each other anyway. That being the case my being away won’t be so bad. I won’t be able to see her every night, but we’ll manage. I seem to be saying this a lot recently, but I will write more regularly in the future. This last week I’ve been travelling around for half the time, and the week before I was at Nikkie’s parents. Sorry to everyone who has emailed me that I haven’t replied to yet. I will get to them all! Written while listening to Damien Rice - The Blower's Daughter.

Robes and Room Service

Friends - Fun - Travel I've got to be in Liverpool on Monday. My working permit has come through and I've got a few things I need to sort out up there. I'm staying the whole week, and wont be back down to Nottingham until this weekend. It's going to be horrible, I know it. I've been with Nikkie everyday for the past month, and I want to continue seeing her everyday. This girl has got to me bad and I don't know how I'm going to manage to survive a whole week apart. Anyway rewind, I haven't told of our Brussels adventures yet. So we went and stayed with my cousin in Milton Keynes for a couple of days, then drove down to Nikkie's parents place and stayed there on Wednesday night, before getting up early Thursday morning, getting the train into London Waterloo, and jumping on the Eurostar! I’d been on it once before, but it was Nikkie’s first time, and she was very excited. The trip went smoothly and we arrived in Brussels at two in the afternoon. We got the metro from the train station to Rogier Place, and on reaching ground level, we were confront by our hotel. The Brussels 5 Star Sheraton Towers Hotel. Wow, I was intimidated just looking at it. We got there, checked in, and went up to our room, #24 on the 15th floor. Again, wow. This place was very, very swanky and cool. Here is a picture of me taken in the mirror in our room and here is one of the view out our window, with a very lovely Nikkie eloquently brushing her teeth in there as well. Anyway after jumping up and down a little on our king size double bed we ventured up to the top floor to check out the pool. I’m going to keep saying wow here, because it really was spectacular. We went for a swim, and a sauna, and another swim, and by then were hungry so went out strolling the streets of Brussels, found a nice restraint and had a fantastic dinner. Afterwards we went to the O-Bar, which was in the hotel, and hideously expensive, but very hip, and it had table service, and was open to late, and we only had to get the lift back to our room, so it was perfect for us. We talked and drank the night away before retiring for the night. We slept in the next day, but made sure to get up just in time for our buffet breakfast Mmm the Belgians know how to do breakfast in style, there is nothing like offering all you can eat waffles at 10am. We then ventured forth to check out Brussels during the day. And oh what a day it was; beautiful, sunny weather, 18 degrees, clear skies, little wind. Perfect. I don’t think you could have asked for a better day. So we went walking, seeing what sights Brussels has to offer. The main square, the cathedral, the royal palace, the central park, the little man pissing. Great stuff all round. By three in the afternoon we had exhausted the sights of Brussels so decided to return to the hotel. Up to the pool again for some more swimming, and this time, because the weather was so nice, we went out on the terrace and sunbathed until 6.30! In April! That’s how fabulous the weather was. So after swimming and lazing about for a while we decided we were far too comfortable to leave the hotel for dinner, so we ordered dinner from the bar at the pool, which they promptly delivered and placed on little tables besides our deck chairs next to the pool. Room service poolside, positively indulgent. Not having the right money to pay for it we just charged it to the room, the beginning of a slippery slope. Dinner was great though, and before we knew it the pool was closing and it was 10pm. We had spent the entire afternoon and evening in our swimsuits. After that we went back to our rooms, got changed and headed down to the O-Bar for some more drinks. Again we talked into the night, and cocktails, beer and nuts (though resisting temptation to charge all of our drinks to the room). Later that night, after having a nice hot bath we decided to order room service; chocolaty desserts to finish off the evening, The guy who delivered our food gave me a slightly bemused look when I answered the door in my robe and slippers, though as I was signing the credit slip (to again charge it to the room) I figured that he must get lots of the calls at 3am in the morning. The next day we slept in again, longer this time as breakfast on Saturday continued through till late and we didn’t have to check out till 12. Later that afternoon we caught the Eurostar back to London. Ok so if you are finding it hard to imagine this place, think along the lines of the Park Hyatt Tokyo from Lost In Translation. There was a gym, a pool, you could walk around in your robe and slippers, the bar didn’t have a live band, but it was very cool all the same. We are both poor students, hell I’m not even a student anymore, officially I’m still unemployed! For those three days though we lived the highlife and loved every minute of it. Now that I’m back now I’m dreading checking my credit card bill though and seeing everything I charged to the room ^_^ While we were away the Pope died. We had originally planned on going to Rome to get my out of the country. I’m really glad we chose Brussels now. Now the whole point of this trip wasn’t just to have an indulgent romantic getaway, it was to get my passport stamped with a visitors visa, which I managed to do, after a thorough interrogation by the immigration man about my plans and how I was to support myself. I had to show him my bank card and explain how I would get hold of money and everything. It was pretty scary actually, taking about 10 minutes talking to him before he actually stamped my passport. I have the stamp now, so that means I can stay legally in the country for another 6 months (though now my working permit has been approved and I submit for a working visa which will be valid for four years!). So Saturday night we stayed at Nikkie’s parents place again, before driving back up to Nottingham the next day. Nikkie’s little sister was on holidays, so we took her and her friend up to Notts to show them around and take them out. I never imagined it would be so easy to get a 15 year old into a bar!! Anyway so a whole heap of other stuff has been going on, but I’ve not got to get ready to head up to Liverpool. Don’t expect another entry from me till next weekend! Also Happy Birthday to my brother Jeremy, who turns 21 tomorrow!

Beautiful Brussels

Friends - Fun - Personal - Travel My student visa expires tomorrow. If I stay in the country past tomorrow I'll be living here illegally. I had two options, either apply to the consulate for a further leave to remain on a visitors visa, which would cost me £150, or leave the country and come back in during April and get a six months visitors visa for free on re-entry. I opted for the second option. Later tonight Nikkie and I are heading down to her parents place in North London, and then tomorrow we are heading off on the Eurostar from London, down through the channel tunnel, and then across to Brussels. We are staying two nights at the Five Star Sheraton Brussels Hotel before getting the Eurostar back to London on Saturday. I'll be out of the country, have a fantastic time, and come back in getting my visa for the same amount it would have cost me to apply directly to the consulate. I found the deal on lastminute.com, it's fantastically priced for what we get, including Eurostar tickets and two nights 5* accommodation at one of the best hotels in Brussels with breakfast included. The hotel looks amazing, with large rooms, comfy looking beds (^_^) and a heated indoor pool up on the 30th floor with a view over the Brussels skyline. It's right in the heart of the city too, within walking distance of all the major attractions. Brussels is a beautiful city. I've only been there once before, and then only for a couple of hours as I was making my way down from Bruges to Paris, but what I saw made me want to go back and spend more time there. There will be lots of premium Belgium beers to drink, as well as copious amounts of quality Belgium chocolate to consume. I'm really looking forward to the trip, I'm sure we are going to have an amazing time; positively indulgent! Some people may think it's a little strange for Nikkie and I to go on a romantic holiday, particularly to a different country and staying in an expensive hotel, when we haven't even officially been going out for three weeks. It's a big step, a serious thing to do, and for many people it may seem like we are going along incredibly quickly. But we know better. In our minds we've been together for three months rather than three weeks, and we both liked each other long before that. We've been almost inseparable these last three months and have become closer than I would have thought possible. We've lived with each other, we know everything about each other, and we were best friends before we became involved. There isn't a single day since we've been officially going out that I haven't seen her, spent some time with her. It's been very intense, very passionate, and so I don't think you can judge us based upon the time we've been "officially" going out. We're going to enjoy this time away, have a fantastic break, have lots of fun, and then keep going on as strongly as we have so far. Anyway I've got to start packing and getting ready! My next entry wont be for a couple of days, but when I get back I'll let everyone know how it was. Written while listening to Vertical Horizon - Everything You Want (Cheesy, I know! ^_^)

The Hacker Comes To Town

Friends - Travel - University On Tuesday I had my Digital Business Communication exam. I probably studied less for this exam than any other exam in my entire university career except for Introduction to Chemical Engineering back in first year. I just couldn't work up the enthusiasm. Things kept on distracting me; I let them keep on distracting me. I am pretty sure I passed, but I know I didn't do well. Usually for me passing isn't the issue, what I am generally unsure of is how well I did. Yeah well this time, that's not the case. Oh well, one bright spark was that during my exam, Jimmy the Hacker flew into Nottingham East Midlands Airport from Rome... Yes just Jimmy the Hacker, not Ads in sight. I haven't really carried on my reporting about Ads other than mentioning that we met up with them in Paris and Amsterdam in December. Well he and Jimmy have travelled all around the place since then, and though Jimmy has to be back in Australia next week to start work, Ads hasn't organised anything specific to do now that he has finished Uni. So he got his plane ticket extended, and is currently off on his own doing some more travelling. I think it's a fantastic idea and wish him all the best. He said he will pop by Nottingham at some point in his travels, so I'm looking forward to that (I hope I'm still here by then). Anyway Jimmy the Hacker showed up, toting a big bottle of Absinthe from Prague. I had just come from my DBC exam, and I had some DBC coursework due the next day. It was supposed to be a 3000 work report, and at that point I had written about 500 words. So we sat around and talked for a while, not getting blind drunk and hallucinating, and then at about 10pm I started working on finishing my report. Boring I know, but even in my current state of apathy I couldn't hand in just 500 words for this coursework. Jimmy stayed another night and then headed off this morning. I don't think I was very good company, I've just buried in my books, or on my computer doing work all the time he has been here (well some of the time). He is off to London now for a couple of days before heading home, so I hope he has more fun there than he did here. All my housemates are of course studying as well, so there was really no one here to entertain him or show him around at all. Poor effort on my part I must admit. Anyway so now I am back to procrastinating, writing this entry instead of doing so much needed work. I've got a Japanese written exam at 9am on Saturday morning and then three more exams next week. Ah the life of a Uni student ^_^

London Calling

Friends - Fun - Travel So we finished up in Amsterdam. Four crazy days of fun. On Saturday we flew to London, lugged our bags through the underground, and ended up meeting up with mum again and crashing out in Paddington at the place of the son of a friend of a friend of mums. Or something like that. Slept. Woke up early Sunday morning. Went to The Church. Drank. Danced to crap music. Met a whole bunch of Aussies. Went home and slept. After recovering from that; Ed, Jeremy and I spent the next three days doing the full tourist trip of London. Sights seen include: Tower of London, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Abby, National Museum, etc. etc. etc. It was pretty full on, but great to do considering I have been living in the UK for almost a year but still hadn't done all the London touristy stuff. Ed and Jeremy loved it as well. On the Tuesday I ducked out of the Tower of London early to meet up with Sarah for lunch. It was good seeing her again and catching up on what she has been up to. I didn't meet up with anyone else while I was in London, we were so busy, but I glad I organised a little time out. So London is done, and we are now in Milton Keynes with my cousin Simone. We will be here for the next couple of days, over the Christmas period. I am really happy I'll be spending Christmas with my family. There is an uninterrupted line of Christmases for my bothers and mum and I. We have never been apart yet, and I didn't want to be the reason for this to stop. Next year I guess I'll just have to go back home for Christmas to keep the tradition alive. So Merry Christmas to everyone and if I don't get to write another entry before then, have a Happy New Year too!!

Amsterdam Again

Friends - Fun - Travel So I met up with my mum and brothers in Paris safe and sound. It was great to see them again. I also managed to catch up with Ads and Jimmy the Hacker! We are in Amsterdam now, all of us except for mum. It's a heap of fun, though the time here went so quickly. It's our last night already and tomorrow we are off flying to London. I am taking my brothers to The Church on Sunday though, so that should be fantastic. Anyway I am using the free internet in the Flying Pig Downtown hostel. The pot is thick in the air, this place is great. Peace out!

Family Reunited

Friends - Fun - Travel I haven't got long to talk. I am flying to Paris tomorrow where I'll meet up with my mother and brother's, whom I haven't seen since leaving Australia back in January this year. Then I am spending a couple of days with them, then going with my brothers to Amsterdam for a few days, then meeting back up with Mum is London for a few days, then spending Chirstmas in Milton Keynes with my cousin, then spending New Years in Liverpool with my other cousin, and then finally back here to Nottingham to do exams. So if I don't post for a while that's why. Now I am running stupidly late so I've got to go!

The Church

Friends - Fun - Travel I went to The Church in London yesterday. I went to drink, to party, to have a great time. I am a sinner and I needed to be purified with alcohol. Here's the full story. Saturday morning, bright an early, about 3pm, Bruce and I finally dragged ourselves out of bed, shoved some clothes into our backpacks and headed off to the train station. We were on our way to London! After arriving at St Pancras we made our way to Bruce's sister's place (near Russell square) where we dumped our stuff, and had a quick meal of pizza. We had plans to meet up with Anna and Sarah that night. Slight tangent here, I don't think I've talked about Anna and Sarah before... Well while I was in Italy I met these two fantastic British girls Anna and Sarah. They were travelling the same sort of route I was, but more importantly they could party the same sort of way I was, so we ended up travelling together for more than two weeks. For those of you who have seen my trip photos, they are the two blonde girls that feature in a lot of my Italy pictures. Anyway they had just finished Uni and were enjoying their last free summer before they both took up trainee solicitor jobs in London. We had a great time together and promised to keep in touch when we were back in the UK. So back to the story… So we headed out to Covent Garden, to this really nice place called Henry’s to meet up with Anna and Sarah and some of their friends. The drinks were expensive, but the place was cool, and this was London after all. We traded stories, caught up with what we’ve all been up to these last couple of months, and generally had a really good time. Bruce and I knew that we were going to The Church the next day so we didn’t end up getting totally blind drunk. Just a little drunk. After Henry’s closed (at 11pm, again English drinking hours SUCK!) were wandered around, was going to go to the Garden Club, but the line was massive and it cost £12 entry. Again London prices, but yeah, Bruce and I said our goodbyes, stumbled back to his sister’s place (after a number of wrong turns) and talked to his sister for a couple of hours before crashing. At 10am the next morning we were up and about! Why this ungodly hour? Well we only have a little while before we needed to be at Church. The whole original reason for coming down to London was to meet up with my friend Bull and go to The Church. It was Bull’s second last day in the country, he had come up to see me earlier this month (see this entry) and I wanted to return the favour and see him off. He will be back in Australia by Christmas, his travelling days over for the moment. So he met us outside the tub station at Kentish Town and we made our way to the place of worship. The Church is an institution. It’s something that you simply have to do. It involves drinking, and more drinking. You worship alcohol in the best way possible. You can only buy drinks in multiples of three. So you drink, and then drink some more, then drink even more. There was music, and alcohol, and woman seemed to flash their boobies at a lot. The place is dark, there is sawdust on the floor, you think it’s night time, but it’s not. There were Aussies everywhere, as well as lots of Kiwis and South Africans. We were pissed by midday, and literally falling down by 4pm came round and it was time to leave. If you go to The Church you go to get drunk, there is really not much point otherwise. Fragma, you would have loved it. Once we left the Church we found a nice quiet bar near Kings Cross station called Scream. We had some more drinks, had some food and then got ready to go home. So we got back on the tube and completely randomly bumped into these other guys who we had seen at the Church, so we went off to a pub called Punch and Judy in Covent Garden with them, had even more drinks, and then did finally have to push off. We said goodbye to Bull, it was great seeing him again, and I’ll be really sad to see him go. So far I’ve only seen Bull, Jacqui and Morgs from back home and I hate it when they all have to leave again. So we eventually made our way back to Bruce’s sister’s place, grabbed out stuff, and singing Waltzing Matilda at the top of our voices, stumbled back to where our train was leaving from. We eventually got home (back in Nottingham) around midnight and I promptly fell straight asleep. What a weekend.

Memories Unwind

Friends - Travel Bon Voyage Ads! When I got out of bed yesterday (*cough* gogo ni-ji made desu *cough* ) I logged on (who am I kidding, I am permanently logged on), checked my email, and found a surprise waiting for me. Ads had sent me an email 30 minutes before heading off to the train station to begin his Great Eurotrip Extravaganza! TM. I had talked with him before about it, traded emails containing travel tips and suggested itineraries. I just didn't realise the time has flown by so fast and that departure time had arrived. He should be in Spain about now, with plans to meet up with Morgs. So I just want to say good luck Ads! Have a safe trip and lots of fun along the way. Don't be afraid to screw up, take things as they come, and simply enjoy yourself. I am sure you are going to have a fantastic time. I'm looking forward to meeting up with you in Paris in December and catching up on the year that was back home that I completely missed out on. I can't wait to see you again mate. Take care. Written while listening to Perfect by The Smashing Pumpkins.

Behind Again

Fun - Travel Ok obviously well I didn't write anything more in the morning. I am behind again. It's been a busy last week or so. Sometimes you just need to prioritise. Having now related my Irish Experience to all my friends multiple times, I don't really feel like writing about it all again here. Just quickly though, despite Australia losing the game, I have a fantastic time. I got very little sleep and drank an ungodly amount. I consumed more Guinness that weekend than the rest of my life combined, and it is true what they say, it does taste better in Ireland. We went out, saw live bands playing Midnight Oil covers, went to may different bars and clubs. Got dragged along with a couple of different hen night groups. All round it was a fantastic couple of days.

Green And Gold And Guinness

Friends - Fun - Games - Travel - University Ireland - 77 Australia - 41 We didn't even put up a good fight. I am back in the Nottingham now. Will write more in the morning.

International Rules Football

Fun - Games - Travel I am going to Ireland this weekend! I am going to Dublin to be more specific to see the Aussies play the Irish in a game of International Rules Football, which is a sort of mix between Australian Rules Football and Gaelic Football. Though of course that's really just the excuse to go, the main reason is of course the drinking and partying. Dublin is renowned as a party capital and we are certainly going to make the most of it. This is definitely a boys only weekend (or long weekend really, we don't fly back until late Monday night) and I am sure we'll get up to all sorts of trouble. I'm going with my cousin and a lot of his friends, and there will be a good mix of Australians and Irish in the group, with a few English stuck in the middle. Whatever the result of the match we are bound to have a fantastic time and I really can't wait. I've never been to Ireland before and I am looking forward to adding that to my list of places visited as well. I'll tell everyone all about it when I get back. Or maybe not, because as the saying goes, what happens on tour, stays on tour ^_^

Edinburgh Revisited

Friends - Fun - Travel I've moved into my new house! It's great! I will write more about it soon. First though I want to go back to Edinburgh, because if I don't do it now I never will. So, a couple of days after I got back into the UK, I got the train up to Edinburgh to meet up with Bruce and check out the tail end of the Fringe Festival. It's a long train trip up from Milton Keynes, about six hours in total, but I dozed on the train and the trip went rather quickly. Bruce met me at the train station and we walked down to his place, I dumped my backpack, and then we promptly went out for a beer. That set the tone for my stay in Edinburgh. Bruce showed me around the pubs and bars of the city and we got drunk... quite a lot. We also were being quite cultured at the same time. Surrounded by the Fringe it is hard not to, with performances of all types happening in all corners. We saw trapeze acts, an assortment of jugglers and acrobats, a number of theatre troops, singers, dancers and all sorts of other musicians, comedians, mimes, and the just plain bizarre... and this was all just down the Royal Mile. I stayed up in Edinburgh for about a week, and during that time managed to catch bunch of different shows; standup acts, dramatic performances, live music, and some that were a cross between them all. Some shows we had planned to go to, Bruce's parents had organised tickets, or we saw a performance in the street and decided go to the show afterwards. Another time I was sitting in a bar called "Under" something at about 1AM and this guy gave me a free ticket to see a two hour standup comedy set featuring four different comics. I was really pissed at this point, so everything seemed funny, but I think it would have been hilarious sober as well. Bruce couldn't direct us home that night (too drunk), so we ended up getting a taxi back to his place, cooking pizza in his oven and falling asleep on his floor. Good times. I met up with Morgs while in Edinburgh (I've talked about him here before). He was working as a driving for British Telecom, trying to save some money and enjoying Edinburgh and the festival at the same time. It was good to see him again and swap stories. When he first came to visit he was very much the seasoned traveller, while I was still a relative newcomer. After my summer trip though we had a lot more travelling stories to compare and advice to swap. He asked about everyone back home and I had to admit to him that I didn't really know much about what is happening with them. I updated him on Jimmy the Hacker (whom I only found out about via Ads) and gave him a brief overview, but couldn't do any more than that. We had a few drinks, caught up, and then he went home (he is living with four Polish guys in a 1 bedroom flat somewhere for £20 a week, or something like that). A few days later I went "home" too. Bruce was flying out to Dubai, the Festival was winding down, and after ten weeks of constantly being on the go, I just wanted to sleep. So I got the train back down to Milton Keynes (it took eight hours to get back!) and slumped asleep at my cousin's place. My cousin, her husband and her kids were all on holiday down in Cornwall, at the beach (what constitutes a beach in this country) so I had the house to myself. I made the most of it and spent almost three full days either in bed, or in front of the TV watching DVDs (my cousin had the most awesome DVD collection). It was bliss.

AmeCon to Edinburgh

Japan - Travel I went to AmeCon on the weekend. AmeCon is the UK's largest anime convention, with close to 1000 people attending. I am also heading up to Edinburgh tomorrow to catch the end of the Fringe Festival. I really should write more, but I haven't slept since Saturday night and so am very, very, very tired. I blame drunken cosplaying fangirls.

Off The Continent

Travel Well I am back in the UK. I am off Amecon this weekend to party it up and then up to Endinburgh next week to stay with Bruce and catch up with the end of the Fringe Festival. After that I am down to London to meet up with some of my friends and go to the birthday party of one of the girls I met travelling. Then I will probably head up to Liverpool to spend some time with my cousin, before going back down to Nottingham and moving into my new place, partying it up some more for a week, and then starting Uni again mid-September. And I thought coming back to the UK would mean I could relax!

Where Is My Mind?

Travel My trip is almost over. Well my continential European part of it is. I am both happy and sad about that. I am tired, exhusted actually. I have done so much and now I need a rest. But I know I will miss it, miss the adventure of it all. Still I am looking forward to some home cooked food! Thanks to everyone who responded via email or commenting here to my last entry. I don't really have much more to say, or rather I have endless things to say but neither the time nor energy. When I get back to the UK, with a good Internet connection I will write more. Written while listening to The Pixies - Where Is My Mind, playing out of the stereo in the Snuffel Sleep-In Hostel in Bruges, Belgium. It is strangly fitting.

Salzburg - Mozart Vs. The Sound of Music

Movies - Music - Travel I took a day trip out to Salzburg today. It is only a two hour train ride from Munich (yes I am still in Munich... leaving tomorrow) and I had a day to fill. It is a strange little town, which seems to vest so much of its tourist energy in two of its musical children, "Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart" and "The Sound of Music". It is quite disconcerting the manner in which recognition for the two seem to compete against each other in the town. Even though I was thoroughly indoctinated with the Sound of Music as a child (my mum loves it, but then, what mum doesn't), I tend to side with Mozart. Which side do you fall on?

Contacts

Friends - Personal - Travel I have met so many fantastic people on this trip. The back of my journal is now filled with names and email addresses and phone numbers and contacts from people living all around the world. My name graces quite a few people's address books too. It is a funny thing, we slide through each other's lives, we talk, drink, and become friends sometimes over the space of just an afternoon, and yet there are so many people I feel close to that I've met on this trip. People who I want to keep in touch with, people who I want to come stay with me if they are ever in the area, or whom I want to go visit at some point. My mum told me she still keeps in touch with a lady who lives in Boston with whom she travelled Africa with thirty years ago. Those are the sort of contacts I am making. Life long bonds, forged in the fires of the travelling spirit. Some people I am sure I will never see again, but other's I hope remain close forever.

Beer, Beer And More Beer!

Fun - Travel I am in Munich, where the beer flows like water. Last night, as I was sitting in the Hofbrauhaus, Munich's most famous beer hall, having only just arrived in Munich a couple of hours earlier, I was amazed at how vital beer has been to me throughout this entire trip. I have been travelling since the beginning of June, yet I can count on one hand the number of nights I have failed to have a beer. Beer is a fantastic social lubricant, and when you rock up into a new town, the first thing you do is go down to the hostel bar, or the bar next to the hostel, or the massive beer hall down the road, and drink up with your fellow travellers. I would hate to try and work out exactly how many litres of beer I have drunk this trip, or the amount of money I have spent buying it. It has been well worth it though. I am slowing down. I travelled at a hectic pace for the first month. Moving from city to city every couple of days. Now I just want to relax. I am spending four, five, even six nights in some places (I stayed a massive eight nights in Florence, but there were other reasons for that). It is good to take your time sometimes though. I need the rest.

Interlaken Extreme

Travel Today I will be leaving Interlaken, home of extreme sports in Switzerland. I love it here, it's so different to any of the other places I have been. It's time to move on though, and next time I check in it will be from Munich. There is cheap Internet there so I will talk more then. Later!

Interesting Times

Friends - Fun - Personal - Travel Wow. What a week I've had. I am in Florence, and have been for the last six days. I love it here, I love Italy in general, but tomorrow it is time to move on. I am getting an overnight train to Bern, then am going to spend the week in Interlaken (and will catch the Swiss National Day festival/parade/fireworks that take place on August 1st). But back to the week that was. Well it certainly has been eventful. Aside from the beautuful city itself, with the dominating Duomo and the wondeful Ponto Veccio, I've taken day trips to Pisa, wandered around under the Tuscan sun and drank far to much for my own good. In the last couple of days I have also been going to this club ("discoteque" here) called Space Electronic. Again, wow. I've got a whole lot of tales to tell, but some of them I really don't think belong on a public site like this. Lets just say that I am having an amazing time. I will probably not be commenting much in the next week or so. Internet access is expensive in Switzerland and I've got a lot to do. I plan to spend days in Bern, Geneva and Zurich while I am there. After that I am heading back up to Germany and will be spending some time in Munich. Access is cheap there so I'll report back in when I get there. I always want to live in interesting times. I miss my past, but I also can't believe how much I have been missing out on living in that past. To quote a previous entry of mine:

"I have communicated, interacted, drank, lost, kissed, fondled, jumped, watched, hid, hit, missed, wallowed, yelled, run, listened, played, bled, shuffled, kicked, washed, fucked, talked, driven, fallen, tickled, tripped, worried, screamed, nodded, waited, learnt, enjoyed, shrugged, slept, dealt, spewed, ate, laughed, thought, hugged, tasted, read, dreamt, wished and longed with a frequency and ferocity far outstripping anything before..."

Squared

Posted by Wigs at 02:36 PM | Comments (0)

Italia Continued

Travel Well I am still in Rome, but I am leaving tomorrow for Pompei (as a day trip) and then heading back up to Florence the day after. I will be in Italy for a little while yet I think. I love it here. I will probably head back up through Austria into Germany again after that, or across into southern France, I haven't decided yet. I like not having to decide. It is extremely liberating. I have many tales to tell, and I will set about relating them when I get back to some sort of "home base" again. I am having the time of my life and I don't want it to stop.

Italia

Travel I am currently in Rome after travelling down from Venice yesterday. It is hot. There is a Brisbane-like heat here that I realise I have missed. I haven't really done much here yet, we are staying at a campsite with a pool, so much lazing has been done. Tomorrow Bruce and Graeme fly home, Ben left a couple of days ago. Their leaving is both good and bad. I will miss them, but it will be good to get some time away from them too. Crap! Internet time running out. I am taking lots of photos! Will post when I get back home!

Time on Trains

Travel I left Prague last Friday, got the train to Vienna, then out to Budapest, spent 4 nights in Hungry and now I'm back in Vienna after getting a train here this morning. I like travelling on trains. I've spent so much time on them this trip that they sort of feel like home. I've got my train travel technique down pat now. Where to sit, entry and exit procedures, the whole works. It's complicated in its own little way but it works out for a comfortable trip. Anyway (like always) my Internet time is running out, so I've got to go. Bye!

Raining In Prague

Travel It's raining in Prague. I've been here two days and I love this city. I think perhaps it's even more beautiful in the rain. I'm sitting on a little downtown bohemian (literally) Internet cafe, listening to funky jazz music and trying to recall everything I've done over these last two weeks. It's hard. I've done so much. It's expensive here to use the Internet, so I wont talk much. I just wanted to let everyone know I'm still alive, and that I'm well and everything is going fine. It's around 50p for a pint of beer here, so things really couldn't be much better. Talk to everyone later.

Bleep

Travel As requested by LittleWing, here are my thoughts on Paris. I didn't really like it at all actually. We spent three days there and those were the worst (and most expensive) parts of the trip so far. We stayed in the Woodstock Hostel, which is on the right bank near the Arc de Triomphe. It's in a pretty good location, so we walked to most things, only getting the metro a couple of times. Overall we did all the big things, spent a day seeing the big tourist attractions. Spent a day off the beaten track seeing the less touristy things, and spent every night out drinking at some place or other. Overall I thought it was hideously overpriced (€7 for a beer in some places!) and not that exciting. I expected the cost, I didn't expect the lack of fun or wonder at the sites and sounds. The other guys have a worse opinion of it than I do. They've taken to referring to it as "Bleep" instead of mentioning Paris. I had fun there, but it just didn't compare to Amsterdam or Berlin. I think we spent enough time there to see everything we needed to see, but I'm glad we didn't spend any more time there.

Paris-Amsterdam-Berlin

Travel I am alive and I am in Berlin. I travelled to Paris Wednesday last week, to Amsterdam Friday afternoon, and then to Berlin yesterday night. I have so much to tell, but so little time to tell it. I fear that this trip I will make hardly any entries to Genesisdreams. I am just too busy, there is too much to do, I am having too much fun. That really shouldn't be something to complain about though ^-^

Eurostar

Travel I'm leaving on a jet plane! Ok well I'm not, instead I'm getting the Eurostar from London to Paris. Under the English channel I go, where I'll stop, nobody knows! Ok well I do, at Paris Nord train station. Bruce arrived last night, we are setting out this afternoon, and meeting Graeme and Ben tonight in Paris. We don't have a place to stay yet, we're not going to let that stop us! I will continue to report from the road as the trip progresses.

Memories Sugoi!

Friends - Fun - Travel While digging through some of my CDs looking for University work from last year I came across some photos I scanned in at Wulfen's place just before I left for the UK. There were from our Japan trip and they brought back memories galore. They were all taken the second or third night we were in Japan. Sugoi invited us all out to dinner with him and some of his friends. It was a massive night, and we drunk a stupid amount of beer. I scanned in the receipt we got from the restaurant but I can't find that picture, I don't know if I ever got it off Wulfen (if you are reading this mate, can you email it to me if you have it). We were quite drunk when these pictures were taken; the girls in particular were almost falling asleep (though they had only had about one drink each). Anyway so I decided to put the pictures up here. I realised that hadn't really talked about the Japan trip much at all here, despite telling everyone that kept asking me that it was "on its way". So anyway here is a little task of what we got up to in Japan. The following are pictures of myself with Namoi, Noriko and both Naomi and Noriko. And these are pictures of the gang minus Naomi and the gang minus Noriko. Enjoy ^_^ Written while listening to "Michael" by Franz Ferdinand (sorry Al, I like the song, but I don't think it's particularly fitting for me ^_^) Sorry I seem to be doing a lot of these picture heavy posts lately.

The Sun Is Out And Up And Down Again

Travel

I'm Back!

After a month of travelling, I'm back in my room, on campus, at University. Nottingham is still the same (not that I expected it to change). I met up with all my friends yesterday, swapped stories about our respective breaks, and generally caught up on what's been going on. We went out to the Works nightclub that night, which was packed, because it was the first Monday back. It was good to be away, but I had forgotten how much fun I have here, so it's good to be back too. I had a fantastic time this past month. It's strange to think that I spent the same amount of time travelling around Japan. The Japan trip seemed to speed past, this trip felt like one long endless sunrise. I will get around to writing an entry about my trip sometime soon. I saw so many things, met lots of great people and experienced wonders I never thought possible. Of course I said I would write a big description of the Japan trip up too (I kept a journal of what we did there, and I did it again this time around), and it's really only a matter of transcribing that and fleshing it out. Japan was 9 months ago though, and I still haven't gotten around to it. I will do my best though. I've been in a black hole information wise for this past month, I've talked to my mum a couple of times, but other than that I don't know anything about what everyone has been up to. I'm looking forward to catching up with everyone. Part of what was great about this trip is that I was doing it separately from everything "back home", I was doing it independently, and even though I did end up travelling with some other people at certain times, I was essentially doing it for myself. That being said, it's still great to talk to everyone again, I've missed them. The other thing I missed was my own music collection, and being able to listen to what I want when I want. Right now, it's Thirty-Three by The Smashing Pumpkins.

Vulture Street

Fun - Movies - Music - Travel - University Well I'm back from London again. I arrived home yesterday, but I haven't even unpacked yet. I've had this CSD (ok enough with the acronyms, it's Commercial and Industrial Systems Design) coursework due, and I originally thought it wasn't due until tomorrow. Oh well, it's done now, I just had to sacrifice some much needed sleep. It was basically just a project management assignment, and I did a whole subject on engineering project management last year, so all the PERT/GANNT analysis stuff was pretty easy. Once I submit it then I've only got one more piece of coursework due before the Easter break! Yay! (Oh yeah did I mention that I've got an entire month of holidays coming up! ^_^) Anyway back to the weekend. I caught the bus down to my cousin's place Friday night where we proceeded to get very drunk and play chess using backgammon pieces with letters written on them. We woke up the next morning around midday, so we scrubbed plans to get the train into London early and went out to see a movie instead. Simone wanted to see Mona Lisa Smile, a chick flick if ever I heard of one, while Toby had to go to a meeting (rather convenient on his part ^_^). The movie sucked. It was shockingly bad. A women’s Dead Poet’s Society this is not. Simone hated it as well. Julia Roberts was passable, Kirsten Dunst was cute in a 50’s sort of way, but everything else was horrible. After the dismal movie we met up with Toby and had some Italian at this restaurant called Z’something. The food was nice but the service was bad; we waited forever for everything. By the time we got out of there it was 5pm, so we raced off down the M1, and then onto the M25 (the London orbital) around to the western edge of London to Hammersmith. We all had tickets to see Powderfinger play at the Hammersmith Apollo (there are a whole lot of musical venues at Hammersmith, and the Apollo is but one)! For those who don’t know, Powderfinger are a Brisbane band who are probably the biggest rock band in Australia right now. They are not my favourite group, but I don’t mind their music. The strange thing is that even though they are from Brisbane, I’ve never seen them live before, and I had to come all the way to London to see them! Simone knows the drummer, well she used to know him back in Uni, he was in the year ahead of her at UQ. While she was doing engineering she lived with a bunch of guys who were in a percussion band, and the Powderfinger drummer was in it too. Anyway they rocked. The Apollo must have been a pretty small venue compared to what Powderfinger and used to back home, and I think they really took to it. We were right up the front in a really great spot and the atmosphere was intense. They were really pushing their new album Vulture Street, but also played a lot of their old classics. Overall the gig was great and I’m glad I got the chance to see them. Sunday we slept in again, before driving to Northampton to have lunch at this really great Indian restaurant. Simone and Toby know the owner, and the food was incredibly tasty. After that we went to see a preview of Starsky and Hutch, which was great. Then we did some more stuff, then it was Monday, then I went home. I’m really tired now so I’m going to go to bed. I haven’t slept since Sunday night and I didn’t sleep much then either.

It Had To Be You

Fun - Travel I went down to London for the first time ever on the weekend. I went with my cousin Simone and her husband Toby and they showed me how fantastic the city was. Simone had lived in London for many years previously so she knew all of the places to go, and still had the underground map imprinted in her brain (which is good because it's almost as complicated as the Tokyo rail system). I'm not going to describe what I did exactly, it wasn't that sort of day. I left my camera at home, we didn't concentrate on any one place for too long, and instead I just tried to soak up the atmosphere of this great city. Just some passing mentions though; we walked through Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus, Leicester Square, Covent Garden, across to St Paul's Cathedral, walked across the Millennium Bridge to Tate Modern, the largest modern art gallery in the world, (it had an exhibition called simply "The Weather" which was breathtaking). Didn't ride on the Eye (but probably will next weekend). Which brings us to the reason we were actually in London; we were going to see a production of When Harry Met Sally at the Royal Haymarket Theatre. It was staring Alyson Hannigan as Sally and Luke Perry's as Harry and boy can Willow fake an orgasm. We went to a Belgian beer bar and drank Belgian beer (not surprisingly) until we felt hungry enough to head over to this Belgian restaurant called Belgo's for dinner. It was packed, and we would have needed to wait for an hour in line, so instead we went to Soho. I like Soho. We had some great food, drank some more and came home. I feel I should write some more here, about the play, the performances, how cute Alyson looked (I've always had a bit of a crush on her), but I'm not going to. It was a fantastic day, I had a great time, and I'll leave it at that.

Harry: "A man can never be friends with a woman he finds attractive, he always wants to have sex with her."
Sally: "That's not true! I have a number of men friends and there is no sex involved."
Harry: "No, you don't"
Sally: "Yes, I do."
Harry: "No, you don't"
Sally: "You're saying I'm having sex with these men without my knowledge?"
Harry: "No, I'm saying they all want to have sex with you."
Sally: "Well, what if they don't want to have sex with you?"
Harry: "It doesn't matter because the sex part is already out there, so the friendship is ultimately doomed, and that is the end of the story."
Sally: "So a man can be friends with a woman he finds unattractive?"
Harry: "No, you pretty much want to nail them, too"

I haven't been updating much recently. Sorry about that guys. I've been otherwise occupied over the last couple of weeks. I don’t know when things will change, but I will do my best to post more often. I have a month’s holiday coming up in two weeks. I’ll be on the road for most of that time but I’ll do my best to keep updating.

Flower of Scotland

Friends - Fun - Travel I made the trip up to Edinburgh on the weekend. That makes it five times in a row that I haven't spent a full weekend at 'home'. My new friend and next-door neighbour Bruce is from Edinburgh and he invited me to go up with him to watch the England vs. Scotland match of the Six Nations Rugby Championship which was to be played at Murrayfield stadium. The name Bruce is a lot like Fosters' Larger, both are supposed to be stereotypically Australian and yet, just as nobody in Australia actually drunks Fosters', nobody I knew (until now) was actually called Bruce. Despite being Scottish, Bruce is a great guy (Scotland lost the game, so I'm still in the 'pay Bruce out about Scotland' mindset). Bruce, Graeme, Ben and I got a train up to Edinburgh Friday afternoon. Graeme and Ben are two scousers who also live in Newark Hall (I'll get around to talking about all my new friends properly sometime soon).It was an easy five hour trip, during which we managed to watch almost a whole season of Friends on Bruce's notebook. The trip was also made easier when Graeme convinced some friends of his who were getting off at Newcastle to get the friend of theirs who was picking them up to bring a carton of beer with him. So when we rolled into Newcastle a quick exchange was made and as we pulled off we were a rolling in the beer. Ten minutes later we finally got a bottle opener and the drinking began. Suddenly we were in Edinburgh, and it was freezing, and I had to pay to use the toilet at the train station. 20p! Bruce said that when I go to London I'd see that it was pretty standard. We were staying at Bruce's house for the weekend, which was about a fifteen minute walk from the station. This place was huge, even for Australian standards. It had four floors and seven bathrooms! It was also completely empty. Bruce's parents were in Dubai (that's where his dad is currently working) and his brothers both live elsewhere. I don't think anyone realised before how minted (British slang there) Bruce's family is. Anyway the fridges were stocked, lots of beer and Irn-Bru (the Scottish soft drink that apparently outsells both coke and pepsi) and we all had beds to sleep in. You couldn't have asked for a better base camp. Bruce and Graeme went out for some deep friend food and returned to fish, chips and haggis. I didn't have any haggis, the normal stuff puts me off, deep fried... no thanks. We stayed up drinking and watching TV late into the night before deciding to get some sleep. The game didn't start until 5:30 the next night so we didn't have to be up particularly early. Cut to 1pm the next day. Bacon cooking, eggs cooking, a good fry-up breakfast. After we ate our fill we went down to this pub called The Standing Order, where we promptly ordered some pints of beer. This pub was packed, people lined four deep back from the bar, and it took about 20 minutes to get served, so when we did we bought three drinks each. On of Bruce's friends showed up, and as we were talking we suddenly heard bagpipes playing. Out of nowhere this troop of Scottish Bagpipers marched into the bar and started playing all the tradition bagpipe songs. Soon everyone was singing along. It was fantastic! I really wish I had brought my camera along because it was a sight to behold. I was ecstatic; bagpipes, kilts, Scottish accents and good beer, it doesn't really get much better. We had a few more pints (well more than a few) as well as some food, and suddenly it was 4pm. The game started in an hour and half and we were well on our way to being very very pissed. We decided that was enough for the pub. Edinburgh before an England vs Scotland rugby game is similar to Kyoto before a Gion festival. In Japan it's rare in normal circumstances to see people wearing Kimonos, however on the eve of the big Gion parade you see them everywhere. Likewise in Scotland it's rare in normal circumstances to see men wearing kilts, however on the eve of a big international rugby game you see them everywhere. The rugy brings out the patriotic Scotsman, in particular a battle against the English brings out the patriotic Scotsman, and on Saturday night, in the freezing cold, before a big game, the tartan abounds. Bruce didn't wear his, which is a good move, because we would have surely lifted it up for the world to see if he had. Murrayfield stadium, with the Scottish flag, the bagpipers, the atmosphere, the spectacle. Scotland lost, 35 to 13. At Bruce's place again, drinking the rest of the beer in his fridge. Ran out of that, so we moved onto the Scotch (this is Scotland after all). Eventually we worked up the energy to go out, so we walked up to the castle (a long and cold walk) and then down to this pub called The Three Sisters. We had way to much to drink here, but we did meet up with Bruce's brother, who is a policeman, and who had his jacket stolen at the pub. Lots of jokes were made. The pub closed up shop at 1am, so we moved onto this club called Faith that was just down the road. This place cost a whopping £7 to get in (that's almost $20!!!) but by that point we were all extremely inebriated, so we didn't really mind. The club was pretty cool, great music, real dance music, not like the Cheese they play in Nottingham, and the drinks were expensive. More drinking ensued. The club closed at 3am and so we began the long walk home. Arrived home. Went to Sleep. Good night. Next morning I get up while everyone else is still asleep and I go and have a look around the city. I go to all the famous places, the important places, take lots of pictures, get caught up in the history of it all. I'm tired now, so I'm not going to go into all the details but let’s just say it's a beautiful city, I loved being there, blah blah blah. Ok cool, so we did more stuff and later we went home. Sorry about being abrupt. Normally I leave these sorts of things if I haven't got time to finish them and then resume writing later on. But right now, I'm so close to the end, and I'm so late already for this thing I'm supposed to be at. So there it is. I've been humming the Scottish national anthem recently; I actually know the words now as well! Flower of Scotland O Flower of Scotland, When will we see your like again That fought and died for Your wee bit hill and glen. And stood against him, Proud Edward's army, And sent him homeward Tae think again. The hills are bare now, And autumn leaves lie thick and still O'er land that is lost now, Which those so dearly held That stood against him, Proud Edward's army And sent him homeward Tae think again. Those days are past now And in the past they must remain But we can still rise now And be the nation again! That stood against him Proud Edward's army And sent him homeward Tae think again. O Flower of Scotland, When will we see your like again That fought and died for Your wee bit hill and glen. And stood against him, Proud Edward's army, And sent him homeward Tae think again.

Oxford

Travel I went to Oxford yesterday with a bunch of guys from NESS (the Nottingham Exchange Student Society). After a nice scenic two hours bus ride south we were unleashed on this famed University town. It was a mess to start with; everyone got off the bus, and the guys in charge weren't really in charge, so people just milled about a lot, we eventually got moving, trying to find a pub that would be our meeting point at the end of the day. On our way though we lost about half the people (yay!). We finally found a pub, dicked around for a while, and then after too more discussing alternatives that I could stand, I grabbed the other Aussie guys and a few of the Brits and we went off by ourselves. Walking through the city was a very interesting experience. There were old buildings everywhere and wherever you looked something had a piece of history attached to it. Oxford is very much a university town, and there were students everywhere. There were also tourists everywhere. It was easy to tell the difference between the two because the students would walk right by a famous landmark, while the tourists would flock round it taking pictures (speaking of pictures I took over 200!!). I admit I was a tourist, and looked like a tourist too (thumbing through my Lonely Planet guide) but that's ok, I think everyone in the town is accustomed to it. So one of the first places we visited was Christ Church, the University's largest college. It has a number of recent claims to fame (which I wasn't particularly interested in) and some older ones (which I was). Starting with the recent ones, a number of scenes for the Harry Potter films were shot at Christ Church, the staircase in particular was featured, and the 500 year old dining hall was replicated at one and a half times the size in a studio. I wasn't really interested in that though, I was intent on seeing the inspiration for Lewis Carroll's, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Lewis Carroll was the pen name of Charles Dogson, who was a mathematics tutor at Christ Church from 1855 to 1898. During his time there he made friends with the daughter of Dean, whose name was Alice. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass grew out of the stories Carroll made up to entertain Alice and many of the characters in the book were inspired by Christ Church people and objects. In particular, one of the stained glass windows in the dining hall shows portraits of Alice and a number of creatures from the book (though I couldn't get a picture that looked alright using my camera). The dining hall also contains a fireplace bracketed by two brass "firedogs", which guard the fire and have long necks, supposedly the inspiration for Alice growing a long neck in the story. Also the White Rabbit was based upon Alice's father (the Dean) who left dinner every night down a narrow spiral stair behind the raised "High Table" at the front of the dining hall, and thus the rabbit in the hole in the story. The whole place was fantastic and I imagine it must be really strange to study there. When we first arrived we couldn't get a look at the dining hall because all the students were in there eating lunch! Here is a picture of some of the students who were wandering around from Nottingham. As Christ Church was one of the big attractions, a whole lot of people did eventually end up there first. After checking out Christ Church we walked over to Corpus Christi College, only to find that they were closed to visitors. This didn't actually stop us of course, because if we put away out maps and guide books we could pass fairly easily for university students (which of course we were, just from a different University). So in we strode, confident in our place there, and past the porters we got, into the depths of the college. It was beautiful. We walked through quadrangles of some of the greenest grass I've ever seen, over old stone bridges and across quaint cobblestone paths. We bumped into a few other students, but they just nodded to us and we went on our way. This college was huge, surrounded by a big stone wall. We walked around for ages inside; opening all the doors we could, going up stairs, checking out everything we could get into it. After a while though we started trying to find a way out, this was when it would have become plain to anyone watching us that we didn't belong. We were lost. We tried doors, walked down dead ends, got stuck in small rooms that went no where. We eventually found a gate which we could exit through, but we had to wait for a legitimate student to come along and open it for us so we could get out. After that, even though we still ignored "This college is closed" signs, we made sure that we could at least find our way back the way we came. So after that (according to the pictures of my camera, the order they are taken in is such a good way to recording what you did in a day and when you did it) we went to Magdelen College (pronounced 'mawd-len' here for some reason) which is where Oscar Wilde studied. This is the rich kids college, it even has it's own deer park. It's got some gargoyles that were supposed to be the inspiration for the stone statues in CS Lewis' Narnia. Here is a picture of the central quad and the bunch of guys I was knocking around with for most of the day. We then made our way to the Magdelen great tower, which is just under 500 years old and about 50 meters high. We tried to find a way up, but all the doors were locked. We went and asked the porters and they said the only way to get up there was to find a student willing to accompany us (insurance reasons apparently, all the students need to sign something before they can go up). Being midday Saturday though we couldn't find anyone willing to take us. We even tried knocking on a few doors to no avail. Oh well. We went to a pub for lunch. I can't remember it's name, or anything interesting about it, and I don't have any pictures either, so it must not have been very important. We then wandered around some more; saw a whole lot of other landmarks (which I am just too tired right now to write about, but I do have pictures of) before finding our way to The Bear, the oldest pub in Oxford. It was crap so we went elsewhere. We saw a library and a museum, and another museum, and too many other colleges to count, and then it started to rain slightly so we decided to go for a drink. We then made our way to the Turf Tavern which, according to the Lonely Planet, is "a perennial student favourite". It's tucked away down this little side alley off one of the main streets in the city centre. There are no elaborate signs to tell you the way, just the words Turf written in black on the alley wall. The place had was great, it had brazier's out the back and you could buy marshmallow’s to roast (though they were £2 a bag!) It was also home to some famous events, featuring notable figures such as Bill Clinton and Bob Hawke. He drank a few pints there until it got too cold to sit outside (even in front of the fires) so we decided to make our way to the pre-organised meet up point of O'Neil's pub. Everyone who came on the trip was supposed to meet there first before we made our way back to the bus. We arrived at O'Neil's, had some dinner, drank some more beer, and then all of a sudden it was time to go catch our bus. Somehow everyone arrived on time, so the bus left on time, and we started our trip home. Nick, one of the NESS reps who I had been hanging out with for most of the day had a bottle of pre-mixed vodka with him, so that tided us over until we go back to Nottingham. The bus stopped right outside the Ark, which is the student union bar, but there was a big line of people outside waiting to get in. Originally we were going to relax for a couple of hours there (it was only 10pm at that point) but nobody really wanted to stand in line for an hour. All of a sudden the fire alarm went off, the back door opened, and everyone started pouring out. We all tried to get inside the back door afterwards (and thus avoid the lines), but in the end a couple of us gave up and walked back to Jubilee campus. On the way back we bumped into Bruce and Graeme who were walking home from the sport centre after playing some squash, so we kicked a football to each other for the rest of the way home, then went to the hall bar to warm up. After a few drinks I hit the sack, thoroughly exhausted from a very long but very enjoyable day.

Baggage

Travel So I had gotten through immigration, now I just have to collect my bags. Note the plural. I checked in two bags at Brisbane. Only one came out at Manchester. I waited around for half an hour for my first bag to come out, and then stood around for much longer than that waiting for the second. People started to drift away, until I was left with a handful of other people. The baggage guys came out from the back and said ”That’s it. No more.”. So after another half an hour waiting in line to see the lost baggage people I discovered my other bag was in Perth. Terrific. I filled out some forms, gave them the address of where I was staying, and then finally, more than twenty-six hours after I left Australia, I was free, and in the UK. My cousin John was there to meet me. He’d been waiting for two and a half hours, but he seemed happy to see me. I was just glad he hadn’t left and gone home already. It was about 2pm Thursday afternoon local time by the time we were in his car, driving through the English countryside towards Liverpool. It was overcast, there were funny road signs, and I was bloody freezing, but overall it seemed a lot like home. I hadn’t seen John since he came over for Pa’s funeral in September last year, so we had a lot of catching up to do. It was a nice drive, but I had a bit of trouble not falling asleep. John lent me his mobile and I rang home, but I only got the answering machine. It would be late Thursday night back home, but everyone was out! Mum was probably celebrating my leaving ^_^ I dozed on and off for the next half an hour, until we arrived in Oxton village, on the outskirts of Liverpool. John lives in a two story townhouse, right next door to a pub (but it is an “old person’s pub” according to John) and across the road from a Chinese restaurant (which sells chips!). Jackie (John’s wife) was waiting for us (we were two hours late after all), and she made me a large cup of coffee while I got settled. After putting away my bags (minus one) they took me into Liverpool for the afternoon to get a drink and see some sights. The idea was to keep me active and doing stuff so that I wouldn’t fall asleep and suffer from serious jetlag when I awoke at 3am the next morning. We drove through a two mile tunnel under the River Mersey from Birkenhead to Liverpool, and then we were out into the city itself. It was cold, and my Aussie jacket wasn’t helping me much, so we went into this little café on the waterfront and I got introduced to English beer… Yes well after that I started ordering Foster’s (of course it is brewed in Edinburgh, but it’s still about as close to an Aussie beer as you can get). After spending the afternoon in Liverpool we drove back to Oxton Village and then walked to this little Jazz restaurant just down the road from John’s place. John and Jackie are regulars there, and so even though they were holding a function later in the night, we managed to get a table at the back, and sat down to some terrific food. I had this extremely thick blue cheese soup as an appetiser which completely wiped away any memory of airplane food. I followed that up by having a large lamb roast, but I couldn’t finish it all in the end. By this point I was drinking double espressos to keep me awake. While we were there this TV crew had shown up to interview some female politician that was supposed to speak at this function later in the night. I had no idea who she was but John and Jackie said she was the former health minister or something like that. Anyway I for a while we were totally oblivious to them being there, and at one point one of them started talking really loud, and so I of course raised my voice. Now those who know me know that I have a very loud and very distinctive voice. It’s quite common for someone to hear me coming far before they see me. Anyway Jackie told me afterwards that the TV guy was actually interviewing this politician live, and that I was drowning her out in the background. Woops. I wasn’t the only one who stuffed up there though. In the middle of the interview the politicians mobile phone rang. She let it ring out at the time, but afterwards we overheard he saying that it was her friend ringing her to say ”You’re on TV!. Stupid. So after a great dinner we went back to John’s place and sat down to watch some British TV. It’s much like TV back home, expect with different accents. I was practically falling down at this point, but I stayed awake a little longer and gave mum another call. I actually got onto her this time, and reassured her that I was ok, I had arrived safely and all was right with the world. Then I promptly fell asleep. My first day in England had come to an end. I’ll continue the rest of the story soon. It’s been two weeks now since I left home. It feels like forever. I’ve been listening to Star Guitar by The Chemical Brothers a lot recently. Looking at the countryside fly by during my train trip back from Liverpool reminded me of the film clip (I love having broadband in my room! Oh I haven’t explained about that yet fully. More details to come!).

SNOW!

Travel I’m here! Prepare yourself for a long entry people because I’ve got a story to tell. Last Wednesday saw my departure from the land I called home for twenty-one years. Fragma drive me in style to the airport, and after checking in, I sat down to have a drink before I needed to go through security and immigration. Calvin and Apollo showed up, as well as Mum and my two brothers. We sat around and talked, took some photos, and then it was time for me to good. My other friends were supposed to show up as well, but I stupidly didn’t wait long enough for them, so I only got to see them from a distance after going through security. Thanks guys for coming, and I’m sorry I didn’t get a chance to give you a proper goodbye. I really appreciate the fact that you all came down to see me off, it was about the best parting gift that you guys could give me. The first leg of my flight was from Brisbane to Singapore (and you guys would have already seen my short entry below from Changi airport). It was fairly uneventful. I wasn’t tired, so I watched movies and played the multiplayer trivia computer game they had, which was a lot of fun, particularly because it told you the seat number of everyone else who was playing, so I would check out the competition while going to the bathroom. After a forty-five minute stopover in Singapore I was on my way to Dubai. I slept on and off for this leg, but I also spent a fair bit of time walking up and down the plane. My back ached, I’m too tall for the seats, and my shoulders are too wide as well, so they stuck out into the aisle and got bumped whenever someone walked past. I was uncomfortable, but bared with it and eventually we made it to the United Arab Emirates. I found my connection easily in Dubai, I just followed the English accents. Most of the people from my flight weren’t continuing on to Manchester, so I wandered around by myself for a bit before following my ears to the departure gate. There were babies crying on this flight, and people coughing, but somehow I managed to get more sleep this leg than the previous two combined. I was pretty stuffed by that point, so I needed the rest. The flight went smoothly and all of a sudden we were descending into Manchester. The captain announced that it was a cool seven degrees on the ground with slight rain. Fantastic. I put my coat on, got off the plane, and proceeded onto immigration. I was proceeded in less than five minutes, the only question I was asked was “What are you studying?”, my passport was stamped, and I was on my way…. Or so I thought. I had to go pick up my baggage next and that is a story and a half to tell. I’ve got to run off to a lecture now, so I’ll continue the story a little later. It SNOWED last night! Oh and I think I've still got this thing set on local Brisbane time. It's 10:48AM here right now.

Singapore!

Travel Well I'm at Changi Airport in Singapore. I've got about 5 minutes before I've got to go to my gate and get back onto my plane. I just wanted to let everyone know I've gotten this far safely. Cya everyone!

Moving, Just Keep Moving...

Friends - Games - Japan - Personal - Travel It's been a busy last couple of days.

• Firday, Fragma and I did some running around, I did some banking, paid my accommodation for the first semester, bought some stuff I needed from the shops, did last minute chores.
• Friday night, Wulfen, Ads, Ruro, Skett, Nash and I went over to Fragma's to watch some Initial D.
• Saturday, I spent boxing up the rest of my stuff. It's almost all boxed away by this point.
• Saturday night, (from left to right) Scuzzy, Ads, Nash, Apollo, Wulfen, Dublex, Jimbo, Ruro and Fragma took me out to dinner.
• Sunday morning, Fragma and I went to see Littlewing off at the airport. She is going on a tour around Europe for three weeks and so I had to say a final goodbye to her earlier than everyone else.
• Sunday lunch, relatives and close friends of the family came over. We drank some beer, watched the cricket, and I was given more advice than I knew what to do with.
• Sunday night, Fragma and I went over to Nash's to see his new PS2 steering wheel setup, then we went to Wulfen's to pick up a copy of X-COM Aftermath, and then went back to my place to play it for about five hours.
• Monday, I started the long process of burning cds of all the important stuff on my computer and I went through all my clothes and got rid of four big garbage bags full of stuff I would never wear again.
• Monday night, Calvin came over (for the last time, our Monday night routine has come to an end), and then (multitasking again) we went to Ads's place to drop of some stuff, then to Wulfen's to drop off some more stuff (I've been giving away a lot of stuff I can't keep) and then to Chermside to play some DDR, Dance Freaks and Initial D for the last time.

And now I'm here writing this. I was going to go to bed, but I wanted to get this all out now while I have the time. It's been a really good last couple of days. I spent a great deal of time with my friends and family, and it emphasised just how much they all mean to me. There are a lot of thankyou's that need to be said, but I'll leave them for tomorrow night (^_^). I really should get some sleep now. I've got a lot of stuff to do tomorrow, there are still so many things left to organise, and I haven't even thought about starting to pack my backpack! Written while listening to Moving by Supergrass.

Room Key

Personal - Travel I didn't do very much today. It was so hot that I spent most of my time in the pool. I'm now all shrivelled up like a prune, but at least I stayed cool. My bedroom is so bare. I've taken down all my posters, my wallscrolls, everything. All my ornaments are packed away, most of my books are gone, and there are hardly any traces of me left. I once thought that my bedroom was too childish, that I had held on to all of these things from my teenage years, and that I hadn't really evolved very much from that time. In fact if you took a picture of my room 5 years ago, it would look (apart from being in a different house) very similar to what it looked like a couple of weeks ago. It's like I have a "room signature" of sorts, which represents a compressed, summarised version of me. You could tell a lot about me by looking at the things in my room. Obvious things such as what books I like, the music I listen to, my hobbies, what clothes I wear, and more subtle things such as the way I organise my things, where I put important photos, and if I make my bed (that one can tell you a lot about my personality :P). I don't really spend much time in my bedroom; sleeping, reading, and that's about it. I don't "hang out" there, I don't study there (my bedroom desk is usually completely covered in junk), and I don't spend time with my friends there (they normally graffiti my stuff ^_^). Yet it's full (or was full) of all of these things from my childhood and teenage years. Well not anymore. Most of that stuff is gone now, or boxed away. My room at Nottingham will be rather sparse (and very small compared to my current bedroom) but that will give me a chance to start afresh, to collect a whole heap of new stuff, and develop a new room signature for the new me. And it’s almost time to go. I've been listening to The Scientist by Coldplay a lot recently (thanks Brendan for reminding me of it). At this exact time, two weeks from now, my plane will be taking off on it's way to the UK.

One Month To Go!

Friends - Personal - Travel - University On January 21st, 2004, at 8:30 PM I'll fly out from Brisbane International Airport, on my way to the UK. Ostensibly I'm going becuase I'm enrolled in University over there and I need to finish off my Business degree. Of course I could have just as easily stayed here to finish off my degree (in fact that would have been the easier option by far, the amount of paperwork I've been doing recently is crazy!). So why am I really going? ... Yes that's a very good question. ... To be completely honest I don't really know. I think I've had lots of reasons over the past two years or so I've been planning this. I can't remember what first triggered the idea, but ever since I got the urge to leave, I've never really looked back. Things came up from time to time that provide some reason to stay, and these reasons seem to by multiplying of late. I'm resolute though, deep down I know I've always been, that nothing short of my Mum dying would stop me going. But I still don't know why I want to go. There is the desire for change, and that's a big one for me, but that alone isn't it. I want to broaden my horizons, become well travelled and worldly, that's not it either. I want to be educated at a truly world-class university, but study is well down on my list of priorities for next year. I want to meet new people and at the same time part of me wants to escape from the people I already know. I'm going to miss terribly everyone I leave behind, but overall I think it will be good for me. As sappy as it sounds... I think I go to grow. Maybe that's a cop-out answer. In fact I'm pretty sure it is, however it's the only think I can come up with right now. Next time I'm totally in tune with my feelings and emotions I'll write an entry explaining them in full. Expect it sometime around 8282 AD. So I don't know why I'm going, but I don't really care right night. It was a long process and it's almost over. Well the leaving part is almost over, the living on exchange part has almost begun, and this next month is going to kill me with anticipation. I hope that in a years time, when I've got some perspective, and my exchange is almost over, I can look back, read over this, and laugh to myself about how in the dark I was. I hope I'll understand it then, and I doubly hope that the manner in which I gain that understanding over the next year is most enjoyable ^_^ This entry was written while listening to Art of Noise - Dreaming in Colour over and over again.

EUSIPCO-2004

Travel - University 12th European Signal Processing Conference September 7-10, 2004 Vienna, Austria

"The 2004 European Signal Processing Conference (EUSIPCO-2004) is the twelfth biennial conference promoted by EURASIP, the European Association for Signal, Speech, and Image Processing (www.eurasip.org), and organized by the Institute of Communications and Radio-Frequency Engineering at Vienna University of Technology (www.nt.tuwien.ac.at) and the ftw. Telecommunications Research Center Vienna (www.ftw.at). EUSIPCO-2004 aims to cover all aspects of signal processing theory and applications. Sessions will include invited presentations with review character in addition to presentations of new research results. An extensive technical exhibition will also be organized."

I'm currently in the process of writing a conference paper based upon my thesis work for submission to the 2004 EUSIPCO conference. If it's accepted, my thesis supervisor said that he could probably arrange with UQ to fund my registration, travel and accomodation expenses to go to Vienna in September and present the paper. Awesome! I haven't talked about the the final results achieved by my thesis project here yet, and I'm not going to do it now, but I will get to it soon. If this paper is accepted, then it will be published in the proceedings of the conference, and maybe in some academic journals later on. It's exciting to think that other people will read my work and possibly quote it, and build upon it. But enough about that, I've got to write the damn thing first!

A 65-litre life

Travel My trusty backpack. It served me well on my travels. I certainly wouldn't have wanted anything bigger.

Thirty days

Travel The following is a brief rundown of where we were for each of the the thirty days that comprised our trip to Japan. I will expand on this, with descriptions and pictures and rants and stories and other fun things, but for the moment this is it. Enjoy ^^ 01 - Saturday 28th June - Gold Coast to Cairns to Osaka to Kyoto 02 - Sunday 29th June - Kyoto to Obama 03 - Monday 30th June - Obama 04 - Tuesday 1st July - Obama 05 - Wednesday 2nd July - Obama 06 - Thursday 3rd July - Obama (Nash left for Kobe) 07 - Friday 4th July - Obama to Tokyo 08 - Saturday 5th July - Tokyo 09 - Sunday 6th July - Tokyo 10 - Monday 7th July - Tokyo (Star Festival) 11 - Tuesday 8th July - Tokyo 12 - Wednesday 9th July - Tokyo 13 - Thursday 10th July - Tokyo to Mt Fugi 14 - Friday 11th July - Mt Fugi to Kyoto 15 - Saturday 12th July - Kyoto 16 - Sunday 13th July - Kyoto to Nara 17 - Monday 14th July - Nara 18 - Tuesday 15th July - Nara to Kyoto 19 - Wednesday 16th July - Kyoto 20 - Thursday 17th July - Kyoto (Gion Festival) 21 - Friday 18th July - Kyoto to Hiroshima 22 - Saturday 18th July - Hiroshima 23 - Sunday 20th July - Hiroshima to Tokyo 24 - Monday 21st July - Tokyo 25 - Tuesday 22nd July - Tokyo to Obama 26 - Wednesday 23rd July - Obama 27 - Thursday 24th July - Obama 28 - Friday 25th July - Obama 29 - Saturday 26th July - Obama to Osaka 30 - Sunday 27th July - Osaka to Cairns to Gold Coast

Australia is boring

Personal - Travel - University I've got the post trip blues. This coming semester of University is going to be one of the most tedious, and yet most difficult, of my student career. I have a thesis to finish (*cough* start *cough*) writing, but the rest of my courses are essentially no-brainers. That in itself is bad enough, but I'm just coming off the cusp of one of the best months of my life, and six months from now I'll be setting off again for what (I hope) will be one of the best years of my life. I'm looking at it as a six month sojourn, a time between times, when I will muddle through what has to be done, but will always be thinking of what comes next. I want to be back in Japan. In other less angsty news, the pillow fairy came while I was away and brought me nice new big pillows for my bed. They are great. After living with crappy rice filled death-log head rests for a month, I've had a great couple of nights sleep. Just thought people might be interested ^_^ Anyway I'll have my trip report up sometime soon (just thinking about going over all those memories again makes me depressed, wanting to be back there). I've almost finished taking care of everything I missed during the last month (paid off my credit card this afternoon) so in a couple of days it will be business as usual. Until then, be patient!! ^^

Home at last

Friends - Personal - Travel Well I made it. After a month on the road (on train as it were) I am now back on Australian soil. We flew out of Kansai airport Sunday night, and finally arrived at the Gold Coast around seven Monday morning. I've been talking pretty much non-stop ever since. My older brother was home when I got back, so I spent about two hours telling him tales and answering his questions. Then mum called home from work, and I spent another half an hour talking to her. Then I took a two-hour break and watched the last two episodes of 24 that my brother taped for me. Then mum came home from work early and I spent about three hours talking to her. Then LittleWing rang and we tried organising something for the night (I didn't have net access, Ads taking his modem back after about three years). Then I had dinner and talked to mum some more. Then LittleWing rang back and told me our dinner plans had fallen through, so I spent about three hours talking to her. Then I promptly fell asleep. So many stories to tell. I am definitely going to write up a full account of my journeys as soon as possible. I've really enjoyed talking to everyone since getting back about it, but there is just so much to tell and I am already beginning to forget things. I'm at Uni now, catching up on things, but later in the week I'll try to get something up, even if it is just a rough sketch outline of where we went and when. Anyway I'm still really tired. So I'm going to go home and make a start of reading all the mail I received while I was away.

Back in Tokyo

Travel Ok well I'm back in Tokyo after having spent a couple of days in Hiroshima. I'll talk about that in depth later on when I get the chance. There is less than a week now before we have to go back home. I don't want to go home. Haven't got time to write much now. Just wanted to let everyone know that I'm still alive.

Got Item!!

Travel Well I can actually access GenesisDreams now. I don't know what the problem was before, but everything seems to be working alright now. I am still in Kyoto and will be for the next couple of days. The Gion Festival is on this week, and we are going to check out all the floats tonight. They block off a whole lot of the main streets and everyone just swamps them. Tomorrow morning we are meeting up with our friend Jared and his friend Andrew for the main Gion Parade. It's supposed to be totally insane. Anyway I've got to run, will try to update more in the last few days we have left. We are past the halfway mark now and are heading for the home stretch.

Missing??

Metaposts - Travel Ok for some reason I can't actually access GenesisDreams from where I am at the moment (which is J-Hoppers in Kyoto for those who are interested). I'll update more when I get the chance, just wanted to check in, let everyone know I'm alive and well. Anyway some of Adante's pictures have been uploaded and you can check them out here: http://gallery.rocketfish.net/ under Trips. Those are all Ads' photos and they cover the first couple of days in Tokyo. I'm not even going to begin to try and explain them now. We have started burning CDs of our photos now becuase we are taking so many. They will all be up sometime in the future. Anyway I've got to run, I hope this appears, even if I can't see it myself.

Tired in Japan.

Travel Firstly thanks to everyone who left feedback or who emailed me privately. I really appreciate all of your comments. Unfortunately I haven't got the time (ie the yen) to respond them them individually, so I'm just saying a great big thank you here and now. I've been keeping a paper diary, where I record the crazy events of each day. This will eventually become the main source for my big, involved, 'JAPAN TRIP' page. I also bought myself a really cheap digital camera (for 22800 yen). It's one of the tiny Sony Cyber-shot U cameras. I'm pretty happy with it, very quick and dirty, but that's a good thing considering most of this trip is quick and dirty. In the two days since I got it I have completely filled up my memory stick and I can't upload from these computers. Expect plenty of photos though, becuase I'm going to buy a new 256 meg stick which should last me quite a while. Anyway I've only got 5 minutes left; just enough time to tell you about my plans for Wednesday. I'm going to visit the Studio Ghibli Museum and Gainax Studios! Both of them just happen to be within 5 minutes walk of Mitaka Station, which is on the Chou line. Our Youth Hostel is at Iidabashi station, also on the Chou line, in fact only about 10 minutes from Mitaka! So yes Wednesday is going to be very cool. Have pre-bought tickets to the Ghibli Museum (you need to) so everything is organised there... Woops time to go. Catch everyone later.

Big in Japan!

Travel Yes... I am big in Japan. Well, at least, I am in Japan. I finally got around to jumping on the net (obviously). I have been here almost a week and have been so increadibly flat out it isn't funny. When I get back I'll do up a proper 'JAPAN TRIP' page, with pictures and full descriptions and the like, but for now let's just say that it's very fucking cool. Or hot, as the case may be. The humidity here reminds me of Summer back home, except that it's Winter back home now and I had gotten used to the cold just as I left. Anyway I'm sitting here in a little webcafe in the middle of Tokyo. I had meant to do an update as soon as I arrived, but yes... busy, busy, busy. I managed to shoot off one quick email to my Mum from the Obama city hall (long story) but that's about all the net access I've had since I arrived. All my friends are good, we are holding up well. Dumped all the Australian stuff we bought for Jarod off, so our packs are much lighter now. Rode the Shinkansen today to get into Tokyo, crossed about half of Japan in about three hours. Then spent half an hour wandering around the immense train station trying to find our way to where we are staying. We are all checked in now, but our friend Nash (who left Obama a day before us to meet up with a friend of his) hasn't arrived yet. He will show up sometime though. I apologise if this sounds a little disjointed. It's almost 9pm, I haven't had any dinner yet, and I've only got half an hour left to use this computer. So while I'm typing this I am also emailing friends back home, checking my University results (aced that InfoSystems subject), and doing all the little chores that build up in a week when you are away. Anyway I had better sign off. Expect some more stuff from me soon.

One sleep to go!

Friends - Travel - University I had to get up before sunrise yesterday in order to get into Uni on time for my last exam. It was cold and it was wet and I was miserable. The test was easy though and it brought to a close my seventh University semester, so I'm happy. I spent the rest of the day walking around the city buying Australian "stuff", mostly for our friend Sugoi, so he can give it all away as presents. Today I started packing. I was going to start earlier, but well it didn't happen. Thankfully I am not missing anything too important. The flights confirmed, Sugoi rang us last night, everything is taken care off. Just a few last minute things to worry about now. I was going to write a whole lot more here, but my list of last few things to do today is actually quite long. Next time I write I'll probably be in Japan!

Lantastic

Friends - Travel - University - Work I contemplated blogging from work today. I had come up from the rec room after being soundly beaten at pool (boo) and I didn't really feel like getting stuck right back into documentation, so I pondered whether the IT guys would consider blogging as "work related internet usage". For some reason I doubted it. I just surfed pages on backpacking instead. I've got to work again tomorrow, and the next day and the day after that, but if it means I can eat tasty things in Japan then I'll gladly put up with it! My test went well yesterday. No surprise questions, nothing I absolutely couldn't answer, all is good in the world of relational database systems. Only one more really small (30%) exam left (for Business Research Methods) and I'll be free! Free for this semester at least, free to forget about my thesis for a while and go party in Japan. I haven't been to any of the lectures for this test since week 3 (it is a business subject after all) but if I do some study on the weekend I should be right. My 40% assignment mark should have been released today, but it's not up on the website yet. Not that I really expected anything better from the Uni. Meanwhile half my friends are at a LAN, and have been for the past three days. It's so very annoying becuase they are sitting on IRC and I'm sitting on IRC, and I'm trying to study, and they are playing games, or doing other "fun" things as the case may be. As I type it seems that Bull is about to head over to the LAN as well. Oh and Chris ate a yogo in 30 seconds, I think Wulfen's comment "the fatty" sums it up best. I probably shouldn't blog and read IRC at the same time, everything gets crossed over. We still haven't got anyplace booked to stay in Japan (other than Obama, where we are all staying with our friend Sugoi, and paying by means of walking the landlady's dog). Hopefully we get that all worked out soon, otherwise it's a capsule hotel for us! The closer we get, the more disorganised we seem.

Toot! Toot!

Travel In about two hours, two weeks from now, we will be stepping off the airplane at Kansai airport Osaka. The anticipation is steadily building, I really wish I didn't have Uni tests over the next two weeks; it would make the wait so much more pleasant. We went and organised our Japan Rail passes today. Twenty-one days of unlimited travel on any JR train, including the Shinkansen (bullet trains). I'm getting progressively closer to poverty and I haven't even left yet! But that's cool, I'm sure it will be worth it. Plus after my test on Monday I'm going to try and fit in seven days of work before we leave. I've missed a lot of work over the past couple of weeks, and I've still got all this documentation I need to do on the project I'm working on. Thankfully my supervisor said it's cool to work extra days even though my contract states that I'm only supposed to do two days a week. Documentation's boring, but the money is great, so I'm not complaining. Anyway we now have a rough plan sketched out for the trip, and over the next couple of days we should hopefully get some more details down. Hopefully the others can take care of most of that, because there is still so much study I need to do for Monday's test. Benkyo! Benkyo! Benkyo!

And then there were five.

Friends - Travel Well Wulfen is now officially coming to Japan! The travel agent thought he was a terrorist, and wouldn't give him the details of our trip, but after a couple of quick phone calls all the privacy issues were cleared and he managed to get on the same flights as us. He even managed to get his package for $130 less than we did! Ah well I'm just glad he is coming. We are going to all get together tomorrow to actually organise some things for the trip because at the moment we haven't got much planned besides "Arrive in Japan" .... "Leave Japan". In the meantime though I need to get some serious study done. Benkyo! Benkyo! Benkyo!

Motivations

General - Metaposts - Travel In 15 days I leave for Japan to spend four weeks backpacking around with my friends, squandering all my money on sake, and generally trying to forget that I am half way through writing an engineering honours thesis that I don't know will ever be finished. In six months I am heading to England, to the University of Nottingham, to finish my fifth and final year of tertiary study as an exchange student. Eventually this blog will become one of the most important links I will have to all the family and friends I will leave over here. At the moment though I'm simply aiming on getting used to posting entries often, I've never kept a journal before, so my first few posts will likely be quite erratic. Hopefully I'll get the hang of it, so when I do go away you guys can keep up to date with what's going on, any maybe not miss me quite so much (that's you especially mum).