Parkys Adventures

Fin?

2011-12-18T16:46:00.000-08:00

Snorkeling around the smaller islands of Koh Chang seemed like a perfect way to see the underwater scenery of the area. We paid our money and got on a boat. The wind picked up and the seas got choppy. After an hour and a half of vomit inducing, snail pace boat chugging, we finally reached our first destination. I threw myself into the water with little hesitancy and found small jellyfish encircling me.
'Strange?', I thought and kept on swimming around, hunting for the more colourful fish.
It wasn't until I had to swim through a huge swarm of jellyfish that I started to think that maybe I should be looking to head back in. But everyone else was having a great time, so my worries subsided.
Until it struck.
Kapow, a sting to my right flank, followed closely to one on the shoulder. It was at that stage I decided things definitely weren't that 'ducky'. I hauled myself on board, and just in time it seemed, as all the other snorkelers started instantly complaining about stings and such. Some came aboard with huge rashes, bigger than Ben Hur, some were. I briefly considered allowing Renee to urinate on me, but I would have rather died in terrible pain.
The stings weren't dangerous, or even severely harmful, just off-putting. It finalised our snorkeling adventure right there and then. Floating around to the other islands seemed to be just time filler as we grew more and more disappointed with our decision to come out in the first place.

The last few days have been spent relaxing on a beach, eating Tempura battered delicacies, and attempting to hunt for jobs on the internet. I had also forgot to mention - we visited the floating markets when we were in Bangkok. Took an hour to get there and was somewhat worth it to see what was so different about it all. Turns out, it is just like a regular market but you get around via boat. An interesting idea and a great way to buy some more extra crap that I dont need. Photos of that as well as Koh Chnag below:

With this final and relaxing stage of our 7 week long return to Australia, I fear and also sadly digress that this may be one of my final blog posts................

Alas, all good things must end and the show must go on. I have no doubt that I will continue travelling, however the frequency and longevity of such will not be anywhere near as extreme as what it has been over the last five years this blog has been running. As such, these posts will die down, perhaps not altogether, but less frequently for sure.
It has been a great period of life during my travels. I have been to 168 cities in 38 different countries (with hopefully many more to come).
I have seen the Colosseum of Rome, the schnapps factories of Austria, the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the Leaning Tower in Pisa, the Acropolis of Athens, the Pantheons of Italy and France and the Parthenon of Greece, the smile of the Mona Lisa, the clock tower at the Houses of Parliament, the fantastic green of the Northern Lights, the impressiveness of the Taj Mahal, the sunrise from the Ghats of Varanasi, the Skyscrapers of New York, the Guggenheim of Bilbao, the Coffee shops of Amsterdam, the ruins of Angkor Wat, the 1969 islands of Halong Bay (most of them), the beaches of Croatia, the bazaars of Morocco, the waterways of Venice, the mighty beerhalls of Oktoberfest, the monster in Loch Ness (I think), the cliffs of the Twelve Apostles, the Sagrada Familia of Barcelona, the poverty of Albania, the beauty of Lauterbrunnen, the fleeting glimpses of Montenegro and Liectenstein, the mean streets of South Central LA, the nice streets of Southfields UK, the Wall built by Hadrian and the Wall built by Berlin, the bars of Bruges, the amazing fireworks celebrations of New Years in Lisbon, the Dome in Florence, the villages of Laos, the Towers of Malaysia, the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, the Great Pyramids of Giza, the fish of the Red Sea, the border of Israel and the wonder of Petra, the bottom of a Guinness glass in Belfast, the ducks at Lake Bled, the Concentration camps of the Nazis and the Killing fields of the Khmer Rouge, the pirate ship of Sweden, the lakes of Luxembourg, the biodomes of the Eden Project, the inside of many pubs (lets not try counting them), the stadium of Cardiff, the Mountain of Matterhorn and the Mount of Maunganui, the temples of Thailand, the Cathedrals of England, the Casino of Monte Carlo, the back alley illegal beer markets of Jaipur, the Running of the Bulls, the Palace of Sintra, the Pilseners of Prague, and the islands of Greece.
I have seen these sights with many good friends and my thirst for travel has not dwindled, although my bank account has. To see the world is one thing but to experience it is something completely different, and I hope through these past blogs that consist of insights and highlights, praise and complaints, & ambitions and fears that it has been an experience you have shared also.

Lets not think of this as a final post though. I do have Australia to see, and I do have a few small / medium sized trips that I would love to get off my chest should a few extra dollars wriggle their way into my pockets. Do check in from time to time to see if any of those wishes have been answered, but until then.

Adios, Au Revoir, Vaarwel, Laters, Tam Biet, Ciao, and Pozdrav
And of course, Merry Christmas

P.S. I leave you with a parting shot taken from our balcony window only moments ago.

On An Island

2011-12-11T17:01:00.001-08:00

The trip around Indochina finished in a flurry. The Angkor Complex was incredible, as predicted. The number of temple locations and sights to see in the area is incredible so we limited ourselves to the best ones. On the first day (you need a three day pass to see it all really) we visited Ta Prohm, a temple most will find familiar with that majestically beautiful movie 'Tombraider'. It has been deliberately left overgrown and looked fantastic because of it. It annoys me how a visit to a ruin site or a wonder of the world is constantly marred by large scaffolding structures, necessary to 'protect' the future of the ruin whereas at the same time undermining the very idea of what it is - a ruin. This is why I thought Ta Prohm was the best temple we saw throughout the whole complex.

As for all the photos of the kids. It is like bloody 'Lord of the Flies' throughout Indochina.
"Where are your parents?" we ask and are met with blank expressions.

The next day we woke up extremely early, earlier than the roosters even (god how I hate roosters now) and made our leisurely way out to Angkor Wat to see the sunrise over it. We were left stunned by the amount of tourists and photographers there, most of them the rudest people I have ever met in my life.
I managed to find a small spot to stand, on the edge of the filthiest lake ever mind you, before I was briefly shunted out of the way by a wannabe photographer who promptly moved exactly straight in front of me, so close I could have nibbled the back of his neck, or headbutted him. Then he stood there as if nothing was happening. Found another spot and another guy came up
"Hey man, do you mind if I stand in your exact spot for 10 minutes"
"10 Minutes! What!"
"Oh never mind" he said in a gruff and lent his camera on my shoulder and started clicking away in my ear. My left hand, my killing hand, was getting shaky. It had been a while since he was needed and he was thirsty.
I restrained, got in my squat mode and dipped out to the edge of the lake below all the kafufle.
This brings me to my next point - Facebook and Digital Cameras are literally ruining the way we respect travel. Im as guilty of it as anyone, but this realisation didn't occur as strongly until I got smacked in the face by it at Angkor. The pain shot down my spine, through my leg, across the grass and up a nearby palm tree.
Thirty years ago, visiting a temple such as Angkor (built to align with the sunrise and sunset mind you) at sunrise would be a life affirming scenario. Travellers would chill on the banks, and gaze in silent wonder. Nowadays it is all about whether one can get 'the photo' to show off and say "I've been there". Once you are done fighting people to see the sunrise yourself in a moment of solitude, the event is over and you are left empty. Upon reflection, this has happened at most of the major sites I have visited.
"Wow, the Great Pyramids" I exclaim, in awe
Polish girls we were travelling with - "Can you get our photo?" "Great, seen it, now lets go sunbake"

But....... but.........but............aren't you amazed?

Here's some photos of the day:

We had a long day driving from Siem Reap to Bangkok for our final night of the tour. It was a great trip, one of the best, and I am glad to have shared it with a great bunch of people. Below is a quick photo of the group, less the tour guide and two of the group members.

A few nights staying on in Bangkok and we are now resting it up on the Thai island of Koh Chang. The sun is glorious, and although our visit started out a bit rough (will talk about it later - too soon now, too soon), we think it will be a perfect place to finish things up prior to the trip back to oz.

Cruisin' thru Cambodia

2011-12-03T02:21:00.001-08:00

We spent a total of 3 nights in Hoi An getting numerous amounts of tailored clothing made for us. The prices and quality were good so I went a little crazy. Too crazy one would think but it is all necessary. Not much else to do in Hoi An. It rained like a monsoon on some nights, with the river water completely flooding the road and shopfronts. One restaurant we visited showed a mark of 1.5m where the water had risen to just weeks prior.

We caught a plane from Danang airport into the hustle and bustle of Ho Chi Minh City (formally Saigon) and were met by more rain. It passed quickly and we all took a cyclo tour through the city. A cyclo is a type of tuk tuk driven by human legpower that uses the tourist as a front end battering ram. The chaos of the streets didn't help matters as we were whisked along the main roads. A great way to see the place though.
The group split up the next day and a few of us headed to the Cu Chi tunnels - a tunnel system set up by the Viet Cong during the Vietnam War that houses roughly 250 km of midget sized tunnels. It is an ingenious setup; if you cant beat the enemy through conventional tactics, attack them from all sides via underground passages. The booby traps that littered the area were enough to make you wish to never have been part of the war should it have been thrust upon you. They had a few left over weapons from the war as well, and a firing range to test them out on.
Renee was worried.
The noise was deafening.

Near the end of the tour we got the opportunity to crawl through the tunnels. As a tourist, an adventurous one at that, you simply cant go to the tunnels without going through them. Picture a small hole, accessed through a stepped well, which you effectively crawl into for a certain length of time. The tunnels changed direction, went up and down and were very dimly lit.
It was torture.
How the Viet Cong survived down in those tunnels for months at a time is beyond me. Apparently, the tunnels have been widened recently as well, to allow the tourists to get through them as some used to get stuck. Stuck in a wormhole in the middle of Vietnam is not the way I want to go. Unfortunately I was hyper ventilating too much to even think of getting photos but maybe do a quick search on the net to see what they are like. This picture below might also give you a fair idea of what they used to be like.

Madness.

A public bus took us from Vietnam, across the border and into Cambodia. We arrived in Phnom Penh and took another quick cyclo tour. It is a seemingly much more westernised city to what we have seen so far. We were taken to a former jail of the Khmer Rouge regime, which was grim to say the least. After that we were taken to the killing fields; the spot were they executed alot of Cambodians based on their intellect. 'Everyone is a CIA agent' Pol Pot seemed to think and he got rid of them. This was even more grim, more shocking than the concentration camps we visited in Europe, I felt.

The trip took a more pleasing turn when we headed out into the sticks (and I mean sticks) to stay at an authentic Cambodian homestay. The family were very nice, and the kids were good at kicking soccer balls, as they tied me up for a while playing a game of passes. The country lifestyle in Cambodia is relaxed and we slipped straight into the mood of it. Waking up at 4am, then 4:30am, then 5am due to the various animals wasn't that fun mind you. This was one of the most enjoyable times on the trip.
We visited ruins, ate country food, and harvested rice.

We have now just arrived in Siem Reap, preparing ourselves for Angkor Wat tomorrow. Just had a fish foot massage which was interesting but came with a free beer so I thought it sounded like a deal.

Selling my soul (with my cigarettes)

2011-11-25T16:46:00.001-08:00

Although neightbours, Vietnam is a far cry from the relaxed atmosphere found in Laos.
We flew into Hanoi and were greeted by 4 million motorcycles packing the tiny streets of the capital. The road system runs on an 'organised chaos' regime. People basically drive where and how they want to until someone gets a poke in the eye. Crossing the roads was comparable to, dare I day it, the streets of Delhi. Deadly. The group had to maintain a 'flying V' formation just to make it to the other side. I could throw in a nifty 'Why did the chicken....' joke right now but I cant think of one.

So, a quick inital night in Hanoi was spent eating copius amounts of spring rolls before we drove out to Halong City and boarded our vessel to take us out to Halong Bay. Halong Bay is a collection of 1969 small, steep islands rising out of the harbour of Halong. Simply stunning, but a tourist haven. My new camera decided to shit itself so all my photos look crap. I threw a king kong sized wobbly, including beating my chest and grunting. The boat took us through a huge cave network and stopped in a harbour where Steve and I, the adventurous ones, decided to take to kayak and explore the more out of reach places. We sauntered through a small cave opening and ended up in a deserted lake, bordered by mountains on all sides, possibly with monkeys in them. I let off a monkey laugh that echoed around the hills for 10 minutes.

A night in the harbour was spent putting up with generators, rattling windows and a Rotorua smell permeating our cabin before we headed back to Hanoi for a couple of nights. Went to the Ho Chi Minh memorial where they still have their fearless leaders body preserved in a glass cabinet. Pretty gross stuff.
We capped it off with a visit to the 'Hanoi Hilton', an infamous prison used in the war and prior. That was exceptionally grim.
An overnight train (interesting) to Hue followed. It was here where we did one of the most incredible activities so far; tour by motorcycle. The streets of Hue became our playground as we were whisked at high speed through back alleys, dirt roads, and footpaths to visit various places around the city. The city was one of the main affected places in the war and the bike ride was like a fleeting visit to every single scene in all the Nam war movies you can think of. We went out through places resembling the sniper buildings of 'Full Metal Jacket', the back alleys of 'Deerhunter' and rice fields of 'Apocalypse Now'. Intense. It was everything you expected Vietnam to be (based on the films) in a days worth of bike riding.

Right now, we have made the trip to Hoi An, and I have just paid too much for a tailored suit. Ha. Well, maybe not - I did go to the best quality shop. No point doing it by halves. We have a few days here before flying into Ho Chi Minh city and then onto Cambodia. Sin Lai

Thailand Photos Up

2011-11-22T10:08:00.001-08:00

Wow, Vietnam cracks down on facebook!
Anyway, as the two of you out there that actually read this thing (you know who you are!!!!:) xoxoxoxox) are fizzing to see some pics, I have added some Thailand photos to the 'Indochina Stage 1' post.

Of course, this is only a small selection and if you want to see all my Thailand photos just click on the link to the right. You may have to work your way through a few older ones at the start. Our trip started in Chinag Mai (about 40 pics in).

Laos photos will be uploaded soon. Just stay tuned and scroll down to that blog as I prob wont advertise them.

As always, any comments / love is mucho appreicado

Quickly.....

2011-11-19T03:44:00.001-08:00

.................. before I have to head out to dinner.

Luang Prabang was nice. The largest city in Laos, yet still quite small geographically wise. The urban sprawl was minimal.

We went out to visit a waterfall and I made a stupid mistake of wanting to climb to the top of it to see the view. Sweat was pouring off me by the time I made it up, and when I got up there, the view was blocked by all the large leafed trees. Ha. Saw a monk up there though, just randomly. I said to Steve

"Wow, whats a monk doing up here???"

He was like "I dunno, I think the same as us"

The monk reaches into his orange robes and pulls out a Sony 8mp digital camera, whistles us over and asks us to take his pic.

We travelled by bus through the mountains of Laos, which were stunning, and landed up in a small town called Vang Viene. 'What is this town famous for?', you may ask to yourself with your inquisitive mind. Well, basically, it is where you go to get drunk. A river runs through this town, and that river is lined with bars on each side. You are handed a large tube tyre and told to float between bars. Various water activities also adorn the rivers edge, such as water slides, giant acrobat swings and flying foxes.
It was amazing. High mountain tops with rocky outcrops shelter the river from strong winds, people are playing beer pong with Beerlao (the beer of choice), and the whole atmosphere speaks surprisingly little of Laotian culture.
We drank late. Too late. We left only an hour to leave the last bar and get back to town before dark.
It was not long enough.

Pretty quickly, the night came upon us and we found ourselves getting more and more lost. Here we were, in the middle of nowhere, in the pitch black, drunk and freaking out. I lost Renee. One minute she was there, then the next she was around half a kilometre down the river behind me. The rapids were picking up, and the water was getting cold...... Oh man, oh man.

Some Laotian boy hauled me out of the river and I spent ages calling Renees name. She was safe however, having bartered her way into a tuk tuk with her smile. It was freaky stuff but well worth the day.
So there is a warning:
LEAVE AT LEAST 2 HOURS (AROUND 4PM) TO HEAD OFF FROM THE LAST BAR!!!!:)

Right. Phew.

We have now travelled into the Capital of Laos and it is OK. Just did the most manic bike ride I have ever done in the rush hour of an Asian city. Who needs helmets, lights, or road rules?

Laos does.

Nam tomorrow.

Indochina Stage 1

2011-11-14T06:17:00.001-08:00

Allllloooooooooooo!!!!!

and welcome to the first of my Indochina blogs. Bangtidy.

I am amazed at what we have done so far in such short a time. Our flight over from London was fine. No tears there at all. We landed in Bangkok and hung around the airport for 5 hours before boarding our Air Asia flight to Chiang Mai.

Due to timing, we arrived in Chiang Mai a day prior to our Intrepid tour kicking off. To fill in time we made our way out into the wilderness and visited a tiger sanctuary. We decided to pay a little extra and get into the pen of the 1-2 month old tigers, although you could get in with the full grown adults if you so wished to have your face clawed off. These little guys were soooo .................... I'm not going to say cute.... just sooooo........ little.
Pebbles was way bigger than them.
Pebbles would have kicked their ass.

They were just learning to walk and open their eyes. We played with them for a good quarter of an hour before walking around the rest of the sanctuary. It all seemed fairly well kept and they were really well looked after so I was happy. Usually I don't like these sorts of places due to the treatment of the animals.

After that we drove out to the old town of Chiang Mai and ate Pad Thai while watching the scooters pass by.

Our tour started the day after and were taken straight to a Thai cooking class where I loaded up my soup with enough chili's to kill a small Asian army. We made a heap of dishes and knocked them all back effortlessly. Our group consists of Kiwis, Aussies, Canadians and Americans, 9 in total and ranging from 22-60 years old. A good size.

The following day we were taken out to an elephant conservation area and rode elephants through the Thai jungle. It was epic. They took us through deep rivers and over steep outcrops, all with the finesse of a cat. Not like Pebbles.

Afterwards we were taken to an elephant hospital and were shocked to see the elephants with limbs missing due to land mine explosions.

We visited a temple at dusk which overlooked the city of Chinag Mai. I started hitting my strides with the new camera.

Fortunately for us, at the time we were in Chiang Mai, a huge festival was in procession. Fireworks and fire lanterns filled the skies and we sat in an open beer garden and drank to the occasion. We ate a few silk worms, which tasted worse than shit, and lit a lantern of our own to send into the sky. Lovely.
The partying continued on through the night and trying to sleep was akin to being left in the middle of Afghanistan during war time. From what I gather. The fireworks were more like bombs.

We made a river crossing across the border into Laos the next day and nearly died from Salmonella poisoning whilst sampling their idea of a BBQ. No sizzlers there!

A boat awaited us on the harbour the next day which took us for two days down the mighty Mekong delta. I stood at the helm like Rambo, guarding the crew with my guile and hand gestures. Tight-fist-to-point means that 'Charlie is in the trees'. The trip down the river, in a longboat, was extremely pleasant and we visited really small tribal villages along the way where we could interact with the locals and talk with the small children. So different to Europe.

Right now, I am in Luang Prabang, a great little city. We are visiting a waterfall tomorrow which is also home to Asian black bears. This trip is like an Asian safari.
Stay tuned.

The End is Nigh

2011-11-02T02:11:00.000-07:00

So, we have five more days of London Living, and leaving has been tough. So many 'catch ups' and final goodbyes to get done, its a miracle we actually have had time to pack and organise our trip. The trip itself (flying Qantas to Bangkok - I know!) is seeming more and more realisable by the day following the news that has been happening as of late. Instead of Qantas, we are with BA (super) and instead of Bangkok, we are getting an Air Asia flight to Chang Mai (double super). Hopefully it should all work out in time.

Anyway, as this is my last official UK based blog, I have decided to summarise the last couple of years of living in a numeric value list. Here goes:

- We have spent a total of 19 months living in the UK. Minor to some, major to others. Wouldn't have traded in the whole experience for anything. Like most things, it takes a bit to get into but when you are set up the world, or at least Europe, is your oyster.
- I have spent roughly £2413 on my travel cards to get my into work each day. Not joking
- Having spent that money, I have also spent roughly 1110 hours nestled between some dudes armpit and reading the back of some other dudes newspaper whilst on my daily two hour commute to work. Also not joking
- In an office of roughly 20 staff, I have seen around 40 staff members come and go, and I have become the 3rd longest serving employee at the firm behind the two directors that started it. The power I now hold, about to be thwarted.
- Worked on a number of different projects, 2 of which are under construction, and a further 5 at planning stage. Projects ranging from £1,000,000 to £12,000,000 construction costs.
- Lived with 13 different flatmates (small for London) in the one flat.
- Visited roughly 748,229 different pubs around London, consuming 345,343,695,234 litres of beer. Give or take.
- Spent at least 1 day a week at the local 'Park Tavern' pub where we lived in an attic space for a month upon arrival.
- Spent £245.50 at Poundland (figure that one out)
- Spent £2019 on 2-4-1 cocktails at Slug and Lettuce
- Been to Camden (around an hour and 15 min) journey for lunch about 20 times.
- Made a heap of friends and acquaintances who I hope will always stay in touch. No specific numbers there but worthy of a mention.
- Travelled to 35 countries with more to come.
- The 1 best trip of my stay in London (ie: not including the places I had visited prior to living here) goes to ............. New York, with Oktoberfest coming a close second. The Spanish festival rounding out the top three.
- Still haven't seen the Tower of London, located at Tower Hill, EC3, London EC3N 4AB

So there we have it. I was racking my brain for more numbers I could throw facts at, but I am pretty sure the 345,343,695,234 litres of beer have affected my memory. I am actually looking forward to this trip around Asia just so I can dry out. When I sneeze, beer comes out.

We officially leave London on Monday and will arrive in Thailand on the Tuesday. From there we have a one month Intrepid tour around Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia before a few weeks spent chilling on a Thai Island - Ko Chang. Then its Christmas, and then its job hunting. If anyone out there knows of work going in Melbourne, I would love to know. Looking for employment around the start of 2012. I can email CV's and portfolios at the blink of an eye.

I finish up work here on the Friday (desperate for the cash) and have pretty much every waking moment booked in to see people off. If anyone is ever thinking of taking the step and living in London, or even travelling to some of the places I have seen (refer map at bottom of page or list in sidebar), drop us an email and I will see what I can do to help out. I can defintaley recommend the best place to live in London - Southfields. Holla!!!!!
Right, I had better make my way to this final site meeting and talk through some service stacks. See you on the other side - Thailand that is. I have my wetsuit primed.

Adios London. Thanks for all the fish.

Blair Grills

2011-10-12T11:16:00.000-07:00

Had a BBQ the other weekend. I kid you not. London went through what is known as an Indian Summer. Just great weather peaking at around the 30 degree mark. Yowza.
So, after watching the ruggers, we loaded up the BBQ with around 20 different animals and some corn, and got stuck in. What a great way to end what has, up till now, been a pretty dismal Summer.

The cold has hit now though and it came fast. Renee and I have been hurredly trying to sort out this return trip to Australia. On top of the 6 weeks we will be spending in four different countries, we have to also organise our own lives that will start up again in Australia. There is so much more we want to do here before we go and it seems like the end is coming way too fast.The bucket list we created a good three months ago lays on the table in our room, barely touched.

However, despite the end being well and truly in sight, we are filling up our days with alot of activity. Recently we did the Monopoly Pub Crawl through the streets of London. It got messy. I almost died.
The Monoploy pub crawl is a tried and tested tour of English Pubs, stopping at all the main stops on the English monopoly board. All up, there are 26 different pubs dotted through London. You are supposed to drink half pints and spend half an hour at each pub (ruthless efficiency). We got onto full pints and got through 10 pubs. Pathetic.
Great little trek through the city though. Just make sure you take a sober organiser.

The coming weekends will be taken up with just catching up with people prior to our departure. Work is great at the moment, and I am sad to be leaving it. A lot of stuff to tidy up there at the moment as well.

So, that will probably be that until we arrive in Thailand. Will update the blog every so often once there, but wont be including photos as I predict I simply wont have the time.

Actually, when I think about it, I will probably give London one last farewell blog before we go. It would be rude not to.

The Festival to end all Festivals

2011-09-19T11:50:00.000-07:00

And that is

OKTOBERFEST

(accentuated for increased impressiveness)

Oooo la la. What a festival it was. And we nearly didnt go thanks to some overnight inflation on airplane tickets. However, we paid our money and discovered it was all worth it.
So we flew into Munich just last Friday, got on a train and headed to the campground. Corey, Bec, James and a whole raft of others (around 15 in total I think) were already set up and smashing some beers in town, so we quickly dumped our stuff and got the nearest cab. Corey greeted us with a man hug and the little bit of information that he had just proposed to Bec. "Awwwwww" we said, in unison.Congratulations once again guys. Corey was either going to do it at this place or on a table whilst at the beerfest. Lucky for him he picked the first option. What a gentleman.

So we were all drinking the Friday night away at this place called ............. I cant remember what it was called.......... but it was mean. Heaps of outdoor seating (Im talking thousands) and really cheap steins totalling about €6 each. We made short work of a few of them before deciding we better have an early one (around 1am) as we were going to be smashing the beers big time the next day.

The girls got all dressed up in their costumes and I lost the plot over my stupid braces so I decided to go Au Naturale (dressed normally - not naked) and we headed to the main event. Saturday was the first day of the entire festival.

It
Is
Massive.

I cannot express that enough. It has its own rollercoasters, heaps of tents holding around 10,000 people each and various other stalls, ferris wheels and nude sunbathing areas (not kidding - its for the gays). We lined up at a tent for a few hours and finally got in. Then it was a mad dash (using fists) to find an empty table. Fortune favoured our crew and we hauled down two tables that were not going to be used by anyone else for at least half the day. People reserve them you see, for €80 a head. Ouch.

The party kicked off at midday to a whole lot of cheering, clapping and stamping feet.
The tent was awesome and our waitress (beer wench) was super nice too. Those girls can carry brews! One chick had 14 going at one stage. They were wrist braces and everything. Rumour has it they train for 3 months beforehand. Ded-i-cation.
The beer was like nectar from the gods. It literally jumped out of the glass and slid down my throat quicker than I could will it too. Delish, so pure. So pure. Things got heavy from that point on. A whole lot of drinking went down. Serious drinking. Shirts off drinking.

At 5pm we stumbled / rolled / crawled out of the tent trying to find another one. I got up close and personal to some bloke who thought it was a good idea to constantly jab me in the guts for no good reason. Everything went into a blur. We managed to get into another tent. I lost everyone. Ended up talking to locals about............. ummm............. god knows, and spent an hour trying to find the tube, which I didnt pay for.

BUT WHAT A DAY!!!
I woke up on Sunday with no hangover whatsoever. I praised the gods and heel clicked, as it was to be a day of travel back to London. Thats right - I went to germany for 44 hours.

The flight back flew by (excuse the pun) and I headed to the park tavern for some chips and lemonade upon arrival.

So thats that. If you ever get a chance, go to this thing. It was insanely good fun.
Bangtidy

The Countdown Begins

2011-09-10T03:41:00.000-07:00

And, as all things start, so they must finish. We are officially leaving the land of Mary Poppins, fish & chips, bad teeth and worse weather. ETA - 8 weeks now. Not to say we are really overjoyed with this decision. Visas, in all their glory, come with time restrictions and this is what is dictating our departure.
So, we have a lot of things to sort out and yes, one more small trip - that being the mighty Oktoberfest.

Since our trip to Morroco we decided to head over to Paris for a quick weekend to catch up the parents and also see that big tower for perhaps one last time (nothing s definite). Paris was great, as always. I do love that city. It was good that we had been there a few times before and could just spend the weekend relaxing and checking out a few things we hadnt thought to see yet. Like possibly the best cemetary I have ever seen. It housed the remains of quite a few names that have passed away over the years, including the likes of Jim Morrison and Oscar Wilde. We got baguettes and strolled the aisles.

Wine is dirt cheap in France. A few bottles of red tolling up a 5 euro bill. We grabbed a few and headed out to the eiffel tower for some refreshments, consumed within its shade. It was all very relaxing, apart from the janglers that try to sell flashing, scaled down versions of the tower standing a few feet away. Caught up with Poms and Bridget there and went out for dinner. Turns out every restaurant in the city was out of snails. We settled for steaks.

The follwing weekend was a long weekend (god bless bank holidays) so we headed out to Richmond Park; a massive stretch of land effectively still located in London that is adorned with herds of deer, foxes and other woodland creatures. It was a pretty cool area but it all got too much and we ended up at the pub, downing beers and eating chips with garlic mayo.

Last weekend was Renee's birthday so we went out for a fantastuc steak at this place:http://thehawksmoor.co.uk/. It was pretty hard out. The steak was just a peice of meat on a plate. No garnishings or anything. We decided to get the triple cooked fries as a side.
"Whats the triple cooked fries all about then? What are they? I asked inquistively.
"They are fries that have been cooked three times" the waitress replied
"Oh I see, the fries are cooked three times! I should have figured that out from the name"

Yesterday, the office was treated to a day out in Cambridge courtesy of our bosses. It was superb, starting with myself and Kieran (another kiwi) deciding to head down early to watch the world cup opening match (Go Dagg). We then went punting along the river cam, which winds it way through all the old and prestigous university grounds. Lunch was at a Jamie Oliver restaurant and then we ended up at a pub, which we didnt think would happen.

That about brings you all up to speed. Going to Arsenal vs Swansea now (perks of specifying doors through a compnay that has season tickets). On the way back to Australia we have sorted out a 6 week long trip through South East Asia. Actually, must get round to sorting out those visas....

Moroccan Nights

2011-08-08T02:07:00.001-07:00

Renee flew back to Australia recently for Kel & Clints wedding. As I waved her goodbye from the front door, my phone rang. James was calling.
"Gidday James, uncanny timing"
"Hey Blair, Corey and I were just wondering if we should make a dent in the keg we brought back from Luxembourg"
"I'll be there in 15 mins" I replied as I threw on clothes and headed to the bus stop. Believe me - 15 mins is fast for London.
It was only meant to be a few quite drinks of the keg, but it quickly turned hazy and all of a sudden I found myself waiting in line at Ministry of Sound. What the hell?
Groove Armada were playing but I wouldn't know.

Had a BBQ the weekend after and mourned Amy Winehouse by screaming the lyrics to 'Valerie' at 3 in the morning.

Renee returned from the wedding, all smiles, winks and head nods. She arrived on the same day as my parents, who have come over for a foray into Europe and beyond. Queue London tourist bullshit; Portobello markets (again), Camden markets (again), Buckingham Palace (again), but we did manage to get to the Lion King stage show which was ace. There was alot of drinking involved as well, and Mum kept up! So, good work Mum.

Anyway, as luck and timing would have it, the week my parents get here was also the week we had lined up a trip to Morocco. When your girlfriend is a nanny, you have to take holidays when you can. We had locked in a 5 day stay at a 5 star (apparently) hotel, because that's how we roll. No worries getting into Morocco, until we hit the cab rank and they started telling us that it costs NZ$40 to get to our hotel, which we could practically see from the airport. Some serious haggling later and I managed to get the price down a little bit.
Then he drove us to the hotel - sound effects as described.
Brooooom (engine starting), Eerrrrr (peeling out of carpark), Eeeekekkk (pulling up at hotel).
I started laughing, hysterically, not because I thought my getting ripped off was funny, this was the laughter of anguish.
"Very far" I said, "Very very far, ha ha". I was mimicking his use of words said to us only 4 minutes earlier, sarcastically or course. We gave him 200 dirrum and asked for change, which he didn't have so he pointed me to the reception and asked me to get change, to which I swiftly grabbed the money, thanked him and strolled into the hotel, with little to no intention of heading back out to see him.

And I didn't. (hands on hips, head looking up to sky in Superman gaze).

The hotel was far from a 5 star, but we had really expected that, considering it was Africa that we were travelling through. It wasn't bad though. Possibly the biggest hotel I have ever stayed at. It was huge. It had two pools, a multitude of restaurants and bars, gyms, shops, and the reception was larger than a sheep farm you would find in the back country of the Wairarapa Bush. Our room was huge too. Dirty, but huge.

It was fairly late when we arrived, yet we still went into the city centre of Marrakesh to check out the night markets, which was less pleasant than an STI exam. You couldn't move without being fondled by some snarly shopkeeper with shifty eyes. In the end, I just had to start Jackie Channing their ass.
Renee still managed to buy some shoes.

The next day, we were up at the crack of dawn, for no particular reason. We noticed that we could jump in a van and head up through the Atlas Mountains, so we did. It was a welcome shift from the busy streets of Marrakesh. We headed through Berber country and ended up high in the mountains, dining on Tagine and contemplating whether we should do a trek into the forest to see a waterfall.

The headlines for the next day nearly read;
"Small tour group gets lost in Atlas Mountains. All were dangerously unprepared."
Its a bit of dramatization, yet we did have a nervous time up there. The reasoning? Well, as we were hiking up we started to hear thunder.
"Its OK" we thought "thunder must be common in these thar hills"
Then it started to rain lightly
"Its OK" we though "light rain must be common in these thar hills"
Then, in a matter of second, it turned into a grade 5 torrential downpour. I'm talking monsoon rain. I'm talking all of Gods wrath and fury. I'm talking about a rain that would put Noah's Ark to shame. Where the hell did it come from? Who knows. Then our little trek guide, a kid of all 14 years old, decided it would be good idea to trek even higher into the mountains. We shrugged and agreed - I mean, who were we to argue, this kind of rain must be common.

It wasn't until we were deep in devil territory and we saw the look on his little face, that we knew we may be in a spot of trouble if we don't decide to head down straight away. The river we were climbing was swelling fast, and the rocks were getting perilously slippery. The rain was relentless. My camera was tucked under my one light t-shirt, craddled into my right arm as I was using my left to navigate the path....

We made it. Hows that for cutting out an intense part of story! You didn't want to sit through it, trust me.

As we reached the bottom, the skies cleared up and glorious sunshine pelted on us. Typical.

We had drinks with Nick and Sam later on, a couple we met that day, and discussed the excitement of the trek.

The next morning, we headed back to the souks (markets) for a spot of daytime shopping. It was much friendlier by day. There was some crazy things to be found in those markets. It is Africa, mind you. We saw falcons and tortoises, chameleons and lizards, vulture carcases and baby alligators, as well as the standard plethora of scarfs, shoes, rugs, spices, and ceramics. We got some pretty good deals on a few items, and some not so good deals on some other items (like my handpainted bowls - god dammit, I just want to smash them now)

The rest of Friday was spent just chilling in the sun. I was looking forward to giving my white ass a touch of Vitamin D. By 5 O'clock I discovered that there is a limit to how much vitamin D you want to give yourself. My skin was aching; red and raw. The sun cut through me like last nights curry.

The Saturday saw us whimper away from the sun (and a good thing too - it got to 49 degrees!!!) and head out to the seaside town of Essaouira. It was a cool town, with more vowels in the name than you can shake a stick at. We strolled the less touristy streets and were amazed at the state of the produce industry. We finished the day off at the beach, with Renee giving in to the henna craze. That night, we had farewell drinks with Nick and Sam, before returning to our room for one last time.

So that's that. Morocco was cool, but definitely check out places like Egypt and Jordan if you want to get your fill of African / Arabic life. It was just too expensive (due mainly to do with all the European and British tourists and their strong (ahem) currencies.
This coming weekend we are off to Paris, for some baguettes and croissants. One last time to see the parents as well.
Stay posted. Blog posted that is.

Hahahaha

Admin Stuff

2011-07-16T05:11:00.000-07:00

Hey guys.

Seeing as that last post was relatively easy to do. I will be going through all my old posts and adding photos and videos where I see fit. This should make for a much more enjoyable experience, and allow you to read through some of my stuff that you may not have got to read.

So. Enjoy.
Any comments are more than welcome

Bilbao: The Spanish Summer Festival Bumper Issue Extravanganza

2011-07-11T05:11:00.000-07:00

Tis the season of the festival, unlike "The Season of the Witch" - Nicholas Cage movie. Terrible! Not that I've seen it or anything. You can just tell. I dont know why people keep going to terrible movies - like Transformers. Its a huge pile of dung, why does it do so well at the box office?

.......Anyway......

Tis the season of the festival, and the amount of festivals offered in the Northern hemisphere are abundant. The quality of them; second to none. Glastonbury was on a few weeks back, and although I was unfortunate enough to miss out on a ticket, I did manage to secure tickets to another festival of slightly less quality. Only slightly.
Bilbao BBK festival - a 4day / 3night festival located at the Northern tip of Spain featuring artists to the likes of Coldplay, Kasabian, Kaiser Cheifs, Black Crowes, Amy Winehouse (although she was so drugged up she had to cancel), Jack Johnson, Chemical Brothers, Blondie, and 30 Seconds to Mars. Phew. Not a bad lineup I thought as I parted with roughly £100 for the tickets (not a bad price either).

Now, I must throw in a quick disclaimer - I did not take my beautiful Pentax 1stDS camera with me through fear of having it nicked. Despite locking a tent all it takes is a sharp knife, or in the case or our tent, a sharp fingernail to gain access. I decided against risking it, and as such the photos were taken on Renee's cheapo camera.

Attempting to get to Spain from London via Germany wasnt ideal but that was the limited run off flights on offer to get to this festival. We arrived in Bilbao very late on Wednesday night and attempted to find our prebooked hostel in the barren streets of Bilbao. It was a mission in itself. We ended up getting a taxi and he drove about 200m down the road before stopping at the hostel. Nice

We awoke early on Thursday, had a quick peek around the old city of Bilbao, and met up with Ryan and Christina, our flatties that had also decided to get amongst the action. The festival was located atop on overlooking hill, which isnt ideal for a campground, or gaining access to it. Upon arrival the whole thing seemed pretty disorganized. "Where do we set up our tents?" we asked some chick who couldn't speak English. We attempted Spanish to a massive fail. She just pointed around the place and we eventually understood that we can pitch our tents absolutely anywhere.
"Here looks good" we decided as the ground seemed relatively flat. Some people obviously weren't as experienced as us, as you noticed tents pitched against hills so steep they were literally fixing them in with climbing pegs.
"Chumps" I said quietly under my breath.

Corey and Bec (our traveling buddies through Belgium) came a little while later with a few other people - Daniel and Simone - and we went about completing the campsite setup. It was a pretty good setup in the end.

The Thursday night was offering a jittery Blondie first up. Who are Blondie, some of you may be asking? They had a string of hits in the late 70's / early 80's including: 'Tide is High', 'Heart of Glass', 'One Way or Another' etc etc. Debbie Harry belted out the hits as if they were from a record but her ancient dance moves left little impression on Corey, who was crying with laughter. Coldplay followed them with a sublime show. Really well done. It was amazing. They played all their hits plus a few new songs as well. They finished up around 2am (oh yeah - this is Spain - all the major acts didnt start till at least midnight) and we went to bed happy. The music didnt stop though and that didnt help with sleeping. The concerts each night didnt finish till 7am, which was tough.

Anyway, that didnt bother us, because 2 hrs sleep later and we were in Coreys van, motoring down route ....umm....... lets say 248, towards Pamplona for, you guessed it, the 'Running of the Bulls.'
We arrived late and Daniel was disappointed that he couldnt get into the running itself. I was hesitant. Have you seen the size of these bulls? They sharpen their horns as well. I could just imagine the headlines. We rushed into the stadium and watched the massacre that ensued. Our best video for your viewing pleasure below.

The rules:
- If you try and ride the bull, you get the shit kicked out of you.
- If you try and touch the bulls horns, you get the shit kicked out of you.
- If you try and taunt the bull, the bull kicks the shit out of you.

Basically, you're screwed.

It was amazing though. Cost all of 6 Euro to get in and watch an hours worth of glorious carnage. What other sporting event on earth is that good of a deal? None I tell ya. None.

We hooned back to Bilbao, getting stopped by the cops on the way who questioned 8 people in a van with no seatbelts. They let it slide.

We got back, and Renee and I checked out the Guggenheim museum - basically the building that put Bilbao on the map. It is a dramatic statement but one that hasnt been maintained properly. Bits of silver electrical tap looked like it was holding steel sections together, the skylight glass was unclean and the internal plasterboard lining was cracking due to the curves. Still, Im glad I've seen it.

The Friday night hosted Kasabian, and Kaiser Chiefs, among others. Kasabian were amazing. Absolutely incredible. Kaiser Chiefs sounded good too, but they were on super late and I was starting to get crook so I called it early.
The mojitos and beers didnt help either.

The Saturday had us on the road again, to the beachside city of San Sebastian. It was awesome - a few white pointers out there.....
Ahhh, what am I saying? Every second chick had their boobs out.
Corey later summarised;
"San Sebastian is the kind of place that I bet chicks go down to the beach during their lunch break just to get their tits out"
The truth has never been stated so elegantly.
We had authentic tapas at a restaurant in the old town and I went for a swim in the ocean, which was refreshing after being away from it for nearly 2 years. When I got home a day and a half later, I finally had a shower and found all this rancid seaweed in my jocks. Rough times.

We got back to the city late and discovered the line to get back up to the concert grounds was longer than the line we had at Wimbledon (refer previous blog post - not joking). Some hasty decision making saw us catch an unknown bus that only 100 people knew about. How do I know 100 people knew about it? They were all on the bus with us. It was tight! - one of the greatest understatements in history. The driver was an absolute champion. There got to a point where there were so many people on the bus that it would move and a few had to get out. Ha.

We made it back in time to see Jack Johnson - who was actually really good. Then watched a bit of the Black Crowes before deciding that staying up till 4am was just too much to see out the Chemical Brothers. It took 12 hours for us to get back home on the Sunday, which was not ideal once again.

All up, the trip was incredible; action packed and bottled into 4 days of extreme drinking, partying, driving, exploring, and mingling. We all got around 8 -10 hours sleep in total for the four days, and didnt really have showers at all. The only food we really ate either came in a chip packet, or was saturated in cooking oil from a nearby cafe. A detox is on the cards.

So there it is. I hope you enjoyed the new setout. If you guys did like all the photos and videos, then let me know and I will look to do more of it in the future.
Parents come in a couple of weeks, have a Morocco trip booked in three weeks time, and Paris Returns in 4 weeks. Phew - time for a much needed rest.

Summer, summer, summertime

2011-06-27T13:23:00.001-07:00

I was going to wait a couple more weeks before updating this, but have been so busy that wont be able to fit it all into the next posting, I fear.

So, where to begin. Well, we all thought summer was over but it has reared its happy head and started pounding the pavements with intense UV rays. Had to get the ol' sunblock out the other day. Absolutely unheard of!!!

What have I been doing with all this glorious weather, you may ask. Lean closer and I will tell you.......

Spending cash.

That's what I have been doing.

When I paid off my student loan a good few months ago now, I thought 'right, now I can do some proper saving; get a little nest egg; save for a house etc'. That pipe dream has been decimated with the prospects on offer to the UK dweller in summer.

A few Saturdays ago, a small crew of around 50 of us descended on the Ascot races like a swarm of locusts. After we were done eating the crops, we decided to hit the drinks and make a few bets in the hopes we would win BIG!!!.
The weather had other plans by showering us with hail for a solid hour. The little umbrella was dog tired at the end of it. Though the sun came out and everyone cheered.
The Queen came hooning by in her horse and carriage and we all waved at her. Shes a nice old lady.
Then for the horses. Everyone was in good spirits. Its at events like this when you realise how small the world is, when your mates know the mates of some of your other mates. Mate, it was crazy.
"Pom!" I shouted and beckoned. Over he strolls. "Gidday Jono." some random bloke sitting near me says. "ROB" shouts Jono, and off he goes to have a discussion with him, leaving me friendless and lonely. For a few seconds at least.

Anyway, I placed a few decisive bets. I won £5.20 on a race!!! "You little bewtay" I yelled, clutching my ticket so hard veins in my fist flared up.
Doesn't matter how much I lost. It was all in the name of fun. Maybe I lost £50.
By the end of the day, most people were right-offs. Especially the chicks. Most of them were unconscious. Ha.
So we all went back to Putney and I ended up in Camden (the other side of London) for the rest of the night. We were miles out. I decided to catch the standard 2 night buses to get home. On the second night bus, as I was passing in and out of consciousness, the bus started braking erratically. The driver started laying on the horn as well. Proper. People then started gasping, some chick screamed. Then I heard a few more screams following by an almighty thud.
"What the hell just happened?" I asked this wide-eyed bloke next to me.
"I think we just killed someone" he replied.
"What! Really!" I was amazed. Girls in the front seats were turning away, crying into their boyfriends arms.
'I gotta see this' I thought, rather shocked at my lack of human emotion. It must be all those horror movies.
I craned my neck so bad I think I strained a muscle. "Is it that bloke in the white T-shirt?" I ask the guy next to me once more. He just nodded, looking at me strangely.
"But he is getting up" I say "That cant be him". Now the guy next to me starts looking. "What the hell?" he says.
This dude that has just been smoked by the bus stands up, dusts himself off, and starts briskly walking away, just prior to getting into a full blown sprint. The driver and everyone around him were dumbfounded, as if they were looking at a zombie (they probably were). They all stood around looking at each other for, what seemed like in my mind altered state, an e-t-e-r-n-i-t-y.
"Come on" I pleaded, impatiently, "The guy is feeling better than I am".
After a half hour of mucking around, convinced that this dude would be OK, the driver finally started to crank the bus into gear and take me home. 'Good' I thought. I searched the papers the following few days for some kind of story but to no avail.
I spent the Sunday nursing a hangover, glad that that was all I had to handle. Wonder whatever happened to that guy. I am pretty sure he is a mutant.

Last weekend was huge. Quite possibly one of the biggest weekends I have ever had. Off. All. Time.
(Apart from Sevens Weekends - those things are huge)
It started with myself buying a few beers on the Friday night and deciding to drink them all. That was a bad idea. At 6:30 the next morning Renee karate kicked me out of bed.
"Hiyah" she says, hand also arcing in chopping motion.
"What the hell" I blubber, shocked, and hungover.
"We are going to go line up at Wimbledon" she exclaimed. "Come on"
"Owwwwwww mannnnnn" I cried out, like I used to as a teenager.

We got into the line at 7:30am, and already it filled the whole of Wimbledon Park. 'This was a serious line', I thought ' I better make a mental note of how big this line actually is, so I can compare queue sizes in the future'. Its a thing I do.
We got our queue card. 'Great', I thought ' we are only 8472 in the line'
Editor note: That is not exaggerated. That was actual place number in queue.
So we waited it out, chatting to a few people around us to wile the time away.

8
Hours
Passed

And we got in! Yay.

At the time of entry (3:30pm to be precise) the clouds opened wide and good ol' sunlight streamed in. We ate strawberries and cream (apparently its tradition) and watched a few of the matches played in the outer courts. Near the end of the day, we chilled on Henman Hill and watched the Djokovic / Baghdatis game before calling it a day. I was sunburnt but in high spirits because I paid £10 on a Wimbledon tennis ball. What a deal!

On the Sunday, we went out to............. hmmm should I say it.............. OK I will............. The Glee Stage show. Dont be haters. I don't care what anyone says about the show. It was awesome. It had all the original actors from the show in it and everything. Man, they are talented.

That finished around 4pm so we hauled ass into the underground and glided through to Hyde Park where we had another concert booked to see. This was the final day of Hard Rock Calling; a 5 day relaxed festival within Hyde Park. On the Sunday they had a few bands playing to the likes of Train, Barenaked Ladies, Mike & the Mechanics, Adam Ant, Stevie Nicks, and Rod Stewart. Stewart headlined. He was awesome, though he didnt sing 'Rhythm of my Heart' and I was gutted.

So that about wraps it up. We have a Spanish festival in a weeks time. Bands like Coldplay, Amy Winehouse, Chemical Brothers, Blondie, Black Crowes, Jack Johnson, Kaiser Cheifs and Kasabian will be there. Will tell you all about it.....

Meeting Belgians and Luxembourgians, in a van

2011-06-01T01:24:00.000-07:00

Before I get into our latest road trip, a little catchup on things since the last post.

I had waited a long year for it, but it came around quickly enough......
What is this that I am referring to, you ask?
Roger Waters "The Wall" LIVE, thats what!
It was epicly epic in all epic ways possible.
Epic. The show was a sellout and 'remastered' as a copy of the original live show Pink Floyd performed some thirty years ago. They built a giant wall on stage, each brick with its own high definition projector beaming propaganda onto it. The things they can do with technology nowadays is mindblowing! Seriously. There were moments when it looked like the wall was collapsing in on itself in some kind of vortex type blackhole, only for us to realize that the wall was still there and it was the use of the projectors and some seriously powerful computers combining to do the job visually. An amazing concert, and well worth the wait. Roger can still rock out like the best of them. Voice was pitch perfect.

Checked out Brick Lane for a curry a few Fridays ago. Brick lane is the hagglers choice for Indian cuisine. We sorted out a curry, starters, naan bread, poppadoms, and 2 beers each for a tenner, all of which went down a treat. Mental note however: I am not ordering Vindaloo again. My toilet will thank me.

Renee and I celebrated our two year anniversary at a nice little Greek restaurant, famous for offering more food than any one man can eat. I was close to 'death by stomach failure', when my hosts informed me I had yet another main course to follow. I tried to groan a refusal, but I think they mistook my worried eyes and trembling lips as some sort of kiwi laughter and made the chef work quicker to get the food out.
We rolled home after. Lucky our house was downhill from the restaurant.

.................

When we realized we had yet another long weekend fast approaching, Renee and I took proactive steps to try and plan a quick getaway. You have to take advantage of these situations when they present themselves. The unfortunate thing was that everyone else had the same idea and trips abroad were becoming a scarce, or very expensive, experience. We were two seconds away from booking a pricey trip to Krakow, when fortune called, in the form of Corey. You see, Corey had just brought this new red campervan (akin to Postman Pats wheels) and he wanted to test the waters. A cheeky trip to Belgium would clear the pipes, and it was snap decision to change plans instantly.

With minimal planning, we drove an hour to Dover, jumped on a ferry for an hour, drove another hour into Belgium and decided to sleep in the van for the night. The team consisted of Corey, Bec, Ironmonger (also known as James), Renee and yours truly; a formidable unit.
The first nights sleep in the van was relatively tolerable, apart from the fact I had James' feet in my nostrils all night. We awoke early, fearful that some coppers will come tapping on our window and, after taking a quick leak, we rejoined the motorway and headed some 30 mins to our first stop, Ghent.

It was good.

Ordered pancakes there and I was foolish enough to ask for Bacon and Banana on mine..... I dont think they have bacon in Belgium. We strolled the streets, took some snaps and finished things up with a canal boat tour. Lovely.

We were locked in to stay a night in Bruges, so we headed that way and checked the place out. It was crammed with tourists which kind of made it lose that quaint vibe that was evident between all the flying bullets in the movie "In Bruges". We just holed up at a bar and slammed down pint after pint of Hoegarden and Leffe. Good stuff.

The next morning we traveled to Antwerp trying to buy diamonds. Its famous for them, you know. It was a really nice town also. Belgium has a lot of nice towns, we concluded. Spent a morning there accompanied by some Belgian waffles before heading to Luxembourg via a stop in Brussels. We spent all of half an hour in Brussels - traffic jam packed.

Luxembourg is a seperate country, and although it is right next to Belgium, the change of scenery was entirely evident. We stayed at a small place called Lultzhausen; small in the sense that it was literally only a hostel, a few houses and a church out there. It was amazing, situated right on a mirror lake, with large pine forests adorning the surrounding countryside. We had opportunity to go kayakking, mountain biking and basketball. I went up against James on the bball and got dealt. Like trying to face LeBron.

Our return back to the ferry in France was always going to be tight, but it wasnt until we had 40km to go and 45 mins to get on the boat that we realized we were going to struggle. Thinking ahead, we called and changed our reservation to the hour later. Thinking we had significant time on our hands, we stopped off in the shithole that is Calais and had a feed. Little did we realize that we were required to go through a hefty customs line to get permission back into the UK.
Our boat was leaving at 7:50pm
We were still standing in line at 7:46pm, having not even got our boarding tickets.

Shit.

The customs officer was trying to be difficult with us but realized the magnitude of the situation and stamped through our passports. We hauled ass into the big red van and accelerated like a formula one car to the ticket booth.
"Hurry, hurry, we only have a couple of minutes to get on the boat!!!!" we pleaded.
"Hmmm hmmmm hmmm, there are 5 of you?" the ticket dude said in an almost bored voice.

7:49pm - Got tickets.
7:49:20pm - Passed some old ditty trying to find car gate. We were traveling close to the speed of light at this stage
7:49:45pm - Find our gate.
7:50pm - Fly onto the boat Dukes of Hazzard style.

It was tight. Incredibly tight.
We all needed a beer to calm our nerves.

So thats that. A busy summer coming up. We have the Royal Ascot races in a few weeks, the Glee live stage show, Wimbledon (camping out for tickets), and then 5 days at an international festival in Spain, all within the next month.
Going to be poor and busy............

Getting Corny in Cornwall

2011-05-07T00:47:00.000-07:00

Been crazy times these last few weeks since my birthday. Went out to the countryside and shot up some of my mates with paintballs a few weekends ago. Great fun, but not when you have to start shelling out for extra paintballs. That's the hidden costs right there!!!

For the Easter weekend, Renee and I had a lazy one, pretty much having our flat all to ourselves. Went into the city on the Sunday to do some tourist stuff - Renee has a bucket list she wants to get through before we eventually depart. Got to the London dungeons, and saw the line was down the street, around the corner, through the Thames and up Spook Hill, so we decided to forego that idea. Everyone was here for some big wedding apparently.

Instead, we checked out a few lesser known places. Buckingham Palace. You heard of it? I certainly hadn't been there before, but I ticked that box. Got off at monument tube stop and discovered there was actually a monument outside it. It wasn't just a clever name. We hauled ourselves up the 311 stepped spiral staircase and took in the views of greater London. A recommended tourist attraction to do if you happen to be into climbing stairs.

Went to Thorpe Park on the Monday. It is a theme park overrun with Chavs. Has some great rides though, like the Saw rollercoaster (yes - based on the movies) and the Stealth. We dominated them all. It was funny seeing Renee as she got into the stealth. Here is a ride that flings for 210 ft in the air as you accelerate from 0 -85 mph (around 140kph) in 2.3 seconds. She was before me in the line and it was all smiles until that initial burst of speed has her eyes widen instantly and her head pinned to the back of the chair. Fantastic. They had a basketball shooting comp there and all these gumbi's were paying 4 quid to get in and shoot as many 3 pointers as they could in 45 seconds. These guys were all show; bouncing balls through the legs, practicing fadeaways, but when it actually came to shooting - God help them. I expressed my interest and paid 2 pound after talking the guy down in price and hit four 3 pointers, bagging a large NY Knicks teddy bear for Renee. He is called 'Mello.

I strutted out of the bball area and said 'and what?' to the stunned chavs. Ha ha

Check out the website for the themepark. The Saw coaster was prbably the best based on its 100 inverted degree drop. Oh yeah

Last weekend was another long weekend, thanks to the Royal wedding. We had already decided to head to Cornwall for that weekend, so I had to let the Royals know that I wasn't going to attend. Will took it like a man, but Kate was fairly cut up. Poor girl. I mean the world to her apparently.

So Cornwall was good. Hired a car and drove down with Pom and Bridget. Due to the wedding we were pretty much forced to stay in the rather touristy town of Newquay, which wasn't bad at all. They had sandy beaches, and lucky for us, I brought my frisbee. We had fish and chips on the beach and flung that plastic disc around for a few hours upon arrival. It was a 7 hour journey down there so pretty much took up our whole Friday.

On the Saturday, we drove out to the Eden Project - a huge series of biomes which house rainforest's and Mediterranean vegetation. Crazy scale and really well presented. The rainforest biome was incredibly humid and I last a gallon of sweat getting to the very top of the thing.
We drove around a few small villages after that. Alot of the villages are these quaint fishing types, so it was a great change.

The Sunday was crap weather but we still managed to get down to St Ives, and check that small village out. Afterwards we drove to the Southernmost tip of the UK - fittingly called Lands End. It was a tourist trap to say the least. The only way there is by car, and when you got there they had set up a one way route so you almost had no other choice but to pay 4 pound and drive on through to the carpark. Sneaky.

We stopped for lunch in Penzance before deciding the weather was too horrid and we headed back to Newquay for snakebites at the local Walkabout. A great weekend away and hard to get back to the office.

Happy Birthday to me

2011-04-02T02:59:00.000-07:00

Ahhhh, tis my birthday today, and like on all good birthdays, I can actually have a brief minute to myself.

Shit been busy.

Hmm, what has happened since the last post. Well, I paid off my student loan! Thats a start. So glad to get that rabid monkey off my back. What a mission it is to get rid of them too. Made me wonder what the purpose of it all was. Of course, without my university degree, I potentially would not have the same outlook on life as I do now, which may or may not be a good thing.

To celebrate this farewell to thy loan, Renee took me out to a Gordon Ramsey restaurant for a spot of dinner and cocktails. It took us 2 hours to get out there and 2 hours to get back but was really worth it. We both had crayfish for entrees, followed by traditional dishes made to perfected recipes. I had a macaroni cheese, of all things, and it was so good, I felt randy afterwards.
Randy was the waiter.

Its not easy, you know; literal humour.

A few weekends back we attended a VIP night at a new restaurant / pub opening hosted by my now good friend Kev. Kev was the trusty steed that put us up for a month on our first arrival to London, and since then our relationship has blossomed. I wink at him every now and then and he blushes.
It was a superb steak dinner, way better than the typical crap you get in the supermarket; that stuff they try to pass off as sirloin.

I attended the annual Oxford vs Cambridge boat race last weekend. It was 6 hours or pre drinking before 10 seconds of cheering as the boats went past. Than back to drinking. Oxford won. Good work boys. Tally ho.

Not really much planned coming up. May hire a car on the Royal wedding long weekend and trip down to Cornwall. Because, really, who wants to be around London when thats on........

Taking a bite out of the Big Apple

2011-03-01T05:04:00.000-08:00

"Wow. look at all the lights" we said in unison as the cab dropped us off at our hotel.
"This is nothing, you should see around the corner" the cabbie quipped, and then asked for a tip.

It was midnight in New York as we arrived, after extended delays at JFK, and it was essentially 6 o'clock in the morning to us as we were experiencing the time delay between UK and the US.
"I think I've got a second wind coming on" I stated, not referring to a gastric movement but more an energy terminology. Pom agreed. We all hauled ass down to the corner where this hint of something more was waiting patiently just around it.

It was a surreal moment as we stepped foot into Times Square and looked around. The lights, the people, the excitement all added together into this concentrated dosage of awesomeness. I instantly regretted leaving my camera in the hotel room.

We found a convenient bar nearby and bought drinks, balking at the $3 change we got back from a crisp $20 (per 2 drinks that is!). Thats what you pay for convenience. The NBA All Star weekend was on so we perched on the bar and watched that till our eyelids drooped.
The team was myself and Renee along with Pom and Bridget

For our first morning, we took a stroll through a huge park, located in the center of the city; right in the middle. I called it - 'The Park in the Center of the City' - an apt name.
I dont know what the locals call it.
The wind was freezing. I had to put a hood on over my beanie, with sunglasses on and my scarf over my mouth. People seemed threatened by my guise.
The park had a museum in it, an ice skating rink, a zoo, and a lake bigger than New Zealand.
Squirrels jumped out at you.
Apparently the racoons have rabies there.

We strolled, ran and played. I did a jump kick for a Renee photo shoot and split my jeans, in two separate locations at the same time, thus is my power. Renee would say that the crotch area was already worn through due to my constant bottom coughs, but I beg to differ. After the 'Park in the Center of the City' we attacked the Apple Store so Pom and I could make changes to our fantasy Cricket team (this became a regular occurrence) and we munched some lunch at a Macca's - which was a huge meal and .......... OK. Not great, just OK.
That arvo we went up the Rockefeller Centre to catch the Birdseye views of the city. Sweet view too. B-b-b-b-b-baller!

Sunday night it snowed and Renee was amazed. Everyone else seemed miserable.
On the Monday, amidst snow, we decided to head South through Manhattan. We hiked past the Flatiron building, past numerous shops all offering amazing sales, and down to Crif Dogs - a hotdog joint which served incredible hot dogs. We got a bacon wrapped hotdog with sour cream and avocado, and Tatter Tots. Pom put some in his pocket, and I said,
"Pom give me some tatter tots"
"No, get your own"
.... and I mashed his jeans pocket.

Haha. Just kidding.

We took the DODGY subway to Wall Street. I simply cannot emphasize that 'Dodgy' word enough - it was 'stare at your feet' stuff for the whole journey. Wall Street was aight and the nearby Ground Zero (location of those big towers that fell) was cool too. Nice to see what is going on for the memorial.

Tuesday was Guggenheim museum day. It is an incredible building. The artwork in it was great too - alot of Kandinsky, Picasso, Chagall etc. We had been recommended a burger bar to check out around that area, and we found it, hidden behind curtains in a Mariott Hotel. Random spot - it seemed to be one of those 'word of mouth' kind of places, and it seemed like a lot of people had been secretly blabbing
"The first rule of hidden burger bar is: you dont talk about hidden burger bar"
The burger was great.

Alot of shopping later and we retired to the hotel, sinking some beers in the process.

Wednesday, we were meant to get to the Statue of Liberty but the line just to get on the boat was 2 hours long. There was also the line to get tickets. We got tickets for early on the Thursday and skipped off to the Chelsea Highline.
The Chelsea highline is an old above ground and above road railway track that has been redeveloped into the pedestrian walkway, equipped with flowers, seating and artwork, all located about 10m in the air. It was a sweet little journey, even if it was a short one.

This dude in the streets of Times Square tried hawking comedy tickets to us, giving us this spiel about how awesome the night is.
So, we brought them.

Thursday morning - our tickets to the statue finally gained us access to the island and we piled onto an overcrowded boat along with the rest of Harlem, and checked the big lady out. Quite an impressive effort, I must say. We walked through the pedestal of it and jumped off around lunchtime so we could run over the Brooklyn bridge and into the heart of Brooklyn itself.
We didnt stay there too long.

The comedy night, that we had already brought tickets for came around, and we headed to the Upper East side to watch it. The comedy club was well known and had previously spawned the likes of Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock and Adam Sandler among a lot more others. It was a crack up. We had a special guest drop by - Judah Friedlander, who stars in hit TV series: 30 Rock. He was awesome
"Its raining outside guys" he said. Everyone moaned "Im sorry, its because I just karate kicked a cloud" he followed up
Brilliant.

On the Friday, it was pouring down and we were all dead on our feet. We got to MOMA and saw some Warhols, Van Goghs, Pollocks and more Picasso's and Monets. Shopping ensued not long after. Clothes were so cheap. I brought myself a few pairs of jeans, some dress pants, a jersey and a Calvin Klein overcoat (not to name drop).

We hit the town on the last night (for the fifth and final time) and got relatively tipsy. John Leguizamo was signing autographs and we pushed Renee towards him to get a photo
"Get a photo of the chick in red. THE CHICK IN RED!" Pom yelled.
"Damn, thats a big Australian" John said and went back to take the photo.

It was an incredible trip and definitely a place I would like to go back to. Not too much on the adventure horizon now, and this is mainly due to the impending summer and future plans for more adventures. Remember to check out all my photos by clicking on the United States tab to the right of the screen here. Some good shots in there, hidden away.
Stay tuned.

Waitangi Day

2011-02-06T03:26:00.000-08:00

Yes, I do feel the pain for not being in Wellington to celebrate the sevens, which has become a mainstay of Waitangi Day in New Zealand.
But I had the next best thing...

London rocked the casbah for Waitangi day. My little sis was over for the celebrations, having just finished a small trip through Europe, and we set about throwing together costumes in haste. Ideas were flung around the lounge room in a blur, focusing on what would create a great NZ day costume. Finally, after hours of turmoil, we settled on a quote from one of the finest NZ films ever made.

"Just cook the man some eggs" was scribbled on the back of a cheap white T-shirt with 2 fried eggs painted over the nipples at the front. Little sis had the reply to the quote on the back of hers, for good measure.
It was a rushed job but it came through in the end.

To nurse all the homesick kiwis on their national day, an informal pub crawl is organised that runs along the same path as the circle line of the London underground. Things kicked off in Notting Hill at 11am and we were met by a sea of kiwis doing beer funnels in the street.
"Great eggs" they yelled out.
The day just got messier. Some bloke was walking around with a 2m length of downpipe still attached to a rainwater head, using that as his own beer funnel. Toilets were of a scarcity. I really felt for the girls when I saw the lines they were in at the various McDonalds and KFC's scattered through the city. Guys could just skip into the toilets with ease.
Ahhhhhh, the life of a guy.

The pub crawl didn't exactly involve pubs. everyone just drank on the streets and stopped at various places. The main goal was to get to the Houses of Parliament by 4pm for a massive Haka. We made it just in time and witnessed masses of kiwis, getting rowdy and drinking beers. This dude I work with led the bloody thing, though he didn't know what he was doing.
He woke up a few hours later in a paddock in Surrey.
Haha. I am not kidding.

A huge rugby game ensued outside one of the Westminster Cathedral. Like the pub crawl, it wasn't really a rugby game - more a game of smashing people. Rugby balls and body parts were flying everywhere. Escaping the carnage, we stumbled on over to a local Antipodean bar and saw the line out of it was massive so decided the next best thing to do would be to jump on the tube and head out of the city, into the sticks, and attempt another bar.

It was here that I got absolutely smashed.
But, it was OK. everyone else was too.
We danced away to poor renditions of "Weather with you"

After having a close call with the bouncers, we all decided to head off home. a cab was hailed and all the girls I was with piled in. There was no room left for little ol' me, so, like a pure hero, I said to the driver "get them home safely", tapped the back of the car and I proudly strode off into the night.

"Where the hell am I" I instantly thought. I got worried.
Really worried.
"I bet people get stabbed out here"

"Blair, Blair" my sister came running up, obviously ditching the cab. "No, you cant leave. You're my brother, and we cant leave". It was very 1940's movie themed.

"Im not getting into a cab until I get a pie then"

So I got a pie and we headed home.

Sunday, I spewed in the shower, wishing life would just end as I pushed the mushed peas through the little plughole, and finally, after serious grunting, I plucked up a little energy to do some research for New York.
A week and a half away.......

Driftin' thru the Iberian Peninsula

2011-01-06T05:36:00.001-08:00

After watching "Into the Wild" for the first time (good movie) I sat back and contemplated the plot. Here was a true story of a young man, throwing caution into the wind and setting out to travel with no agenda. Although the film did glorify this ideal, I did fall victim to the enticing concept of 'driftin'.

Spoiler Alert...............

Yes, I know he died because of it.

Driftin', to me is about going traveling whilst being dangerously unprepared and with no formal agenda. Due to serious time constraints and money, I decided one of the best ways to experience a small taste of this type of traveling would be to trip around the Iberian Peninsula; Spain and Portugal.

So there I was, backpack in hand, a bit of cash in the bank and a plane ticket into Lisbon and one out of Madrid. Purists would say that it should have been left open ended, but gimme a break, I have work to get back to. This was just a trial run anyway.
My backpack, restricted by plane cabin requirements, consisted of 4 t-shirts, 4 pairs of undies, 4 pairs of socks, 1 hat, 1 pair of shorts, a bloody large camera, a toothbrush, and a stick of deodorant. For a 10 day trip, I would like to think that was on the verge of roughing it. I was wearing a pair of jeans, a jersey and an over-jacket as well.

Those jeans lasted the entire 10 days.

There was a slight green air around them by the end of it. It was so thick I actually had to kick through it to get my legs into the pants.

So, we flew into Lisbon, got on the first bus and made our way to a hostel. The hostel was conveniently located in Rapesville (editor note: not actual place) and had me strolling nervously through the streets with one hand over my jacksy. We got to a corner and Renee was making one hell of a racket, wheeling her suitcase over the endlessly cobbled streets. I looked ahead and saw a seedy looking fella with a singlet on and (no doubt) naughty thoughts on his mind. I stopped for a second and noticed a second head pair slowly from around a hidden street corner. The whites of his eyes stared straight into mine. I could read his thoughts... 'Your money, and your ass'

"OK......... our hostel is this way" I said out loud to Renee, knowing full well that our hostel was not in that direction at all.
We scurried off down another path.
"Can you pick your bloody suitcase up Renee?" I pleaded "The rapists know we are coming 10 minutes before we get there"
Suffice to say, with a keen eye and an internal compass you could set the sun to, we arrived at our hostel and locked ourselves in the room, fearing for our safety.

The next day had a brighter disposition; we checked out a few buildings, and made our way by train to a place called Sintra. Despite getting off the train quite literally on the wrong side of the tracks (as per previous paragraphs - just in different neighborhood) we found our second hostel and went out to explore the small town. Sintra became the glimmer of hope that rescued us from an initial worrying time. It is a great little town, centered around a really old palace, with narrow streets breaking off, each harboring small restaurants and eateries. We found a really nice small bar (it fit 8 people) and had a Chorizo sausage cooked from burning oil set alight directly on our table.

The next day was spent traveling to the coast to see a proper sandy beach before returning once again to walk the narrow streets. That afternoon we headed up into the mountains and explored a secondary palace, reminiscent of lollipop-land and ancient Moorish castle ruins that overlooked the town like a vigilant protector.

Heading back to Lisbon, we decided against staying in the place we crashed on the first night and instead we found another hostel and were warmly surprised. By far the best hostel I have ever stayed in. Awesome location, great beds, clean facilities and a really homely feel about it all.
We trekked the quaint streets of Lisbon for the next few days, and I was stoked to find a guy who spent his days carving up foreign currency. I bought a NZ 20 cent piece off him that had been meticulously sliced up to remove the negative space from the background.

New Years Eve was somewhat lonely, but the beers helped sort that out. There were no other tourists our age at the hostel and no one on the streets to hang out with, apart from all the dudes offering me "hashish and cocaine, whatever I want". I must have been approached about 10 times on a 1 km stretch of pedestrian path. I think the unkept stubble I had going on made me look dodge..... Or maybe it was my shifty eyes.
Anyway, after hanging about in the town square for bloody ages listening to some lame Portuguese band sing local translations of Go West's "In the Navy", the countdown to a new year come around.....

And what a welcome they gave it!

It was all done to some outstanding light choreography; arranged in time to the tunes of Michael Jackson and The Smashing Pumpkins (among others), blasting through loudspeakers at ear bleedingly loud decibels.

We celebrated the New Year with some 40,000 others

...............

New Years Day beckoned us to a small fishing village by way of train once again. It was called Cascais and it was a ahhh-some. We hired Segways and zoomed past awestruck oldies who could never figure out how we were getting them to move.

That night, we jumped aboard an international train and stayed there for 10 hours whilst it whisked us across the Spanish borders and onto Madrid.
Madrid was so much different to other Spanish cities I have visited. It had an almost American appeal to it; large buildings and pedestrian links everywhere. The shoppers were crazy. It was still technically Christmas for the Spanish at the time we got there (they celebrate up until the 6th of January when the arrival of the 3 kings signifies the end of the holiday season and the start of proper present giving).

The next few days were spent visiting a few sights, strolling the markets and washing my undies in the shower with me. On the final day we went out to the Madrid Zoo which was by far the best zoo I have ever been to, even though all the animals spoke Spanish.

A delayed plane flight back and a run in with a CHAV (council housed and violent) on the bus from the airport left us both exhausted and anxious to use a washing machine.

I think I will go into another driftin' trip a little more prepared next time

New York in 7 weeks...............................

Bring on Christmas

2010-12-19T08:54:00.000-08:00

Snow, snow, everywhere.
But not a drop to drink

Just don't eat the yellow snow.

As the title suggests 'Bring on Christmas' I say. Work has been crazy busy. I have been running around like a mad man trying to finalise drawings and specs for a building conversion I have been working on. Like I have literally been mad; talking to myself, winking uncontrollably with head jerks to coincide.
I worked 12 days in a row just last week and the week before that.
Epic.
Enough about work anyway.

You would have thought that the cold miserable weather would put a dampen on the Christmas attitude. It has done, in fact, quite the opposite. I have never seen such cheer. Everywhere is decked out with real Christmas trees, selling food and drink to hail the festive season. A few weekends ago we went out to Winter Wonderland, an area in Hyde Park that has been converted into a Christmas playground. It has been bloody well done. I didn't expect it.
Temporary stalls sell one off craftwares like jewellery and so forth. There are food stands everywhere, fun park rides, fair games, and of course a whole lot of bars selling mulled wine and hot ciders. We headed into the Jamie Oliver stall and made our own gingerbread men which we then decorated with as much chocolate buttons and icing as was structurally possible. Lucky I realised the bending moment of biscuit was invertly proportional to the quality of flour used in its production.
We ate them and felt crook so decided the best thing to do would be to go on a rollercoaster and a giant drop.
Renee nearly spewed.
I said "If you're gonna spew, spew in this" and offered her a small white lolly bag.

We finished off the night with dancing where I pimped my shirt and Cossack danced.

I've been to a few Christmas parties with work recently. Our clients for the project I was talking about earlier took us out and shouted us beers. They are all Irish so they said "As long as there is Guiness on tap, I don't care. Howty towty" That night was good.
I got smashed.
On Friday we had our own office Christmas party which got pretty loose. We were taken out to a French restaurant where I had a steak that I'm sure must have been cuddled and read books before it was sliced and diced. It was amazingly tender and literally melted in my mouth. That came with Foie Gras, which is a portion of liver from ducks that have been force fed corn until they bloat and die.
A fitting end.
Things then got messy, with someone mentioning that Sambuca would be great to have right now. Idiots. I tried to sing Karaoke and everyone stopped dancing and just stared at me.
That is the last time I try and sing George Michael

Once things wound down, I tried to walk to Trafalgar Sqaure to catch a night bus. It was during this walk that I found myself in a spot of bother. You see, there are few public toilets in London at the best of times.
Let alone at 4:30 in the morning.
I did what every self respecting man would do and wee'd against the side of a building.
I was close to my station and thought I could just walk there from my wee spot of relief. Until I saw that I was down a one way street and the only way to get back on track was to turn around and walk a km back. I could literally see the station through the gates of a park that had been locked up and posed the only obstacle in my path to victory.
I jumped the fence and swore as I noticed my phone had fallen out of my pocket and smashed everywhere. You have no idea how hard it is to find pieces of phone, in the dark, in the snow, amidst a foot thick of dead leaves. And I was pissed.
I managed.
Then I realised that the park I had jumped into was being patrolled, so I Mission Impossible styled it between trees to the fence on the other side. Upon getting there, unavoided, I noticed that this street that the fence bordered had much more foot traffic than the street I entered the park from.
Actually, that street had none which led me into doing all this in the first place.
After assessing my options, I jumped a fence adjacent and then found myself in the backyard of some inner city apartments.
'This is going from bad to worse' I thought.
I'll let you know, these weren't no ordinary fences either. They were the fences with spikes on top of the railings. Spikes that could easily have made me a eunuch.
I decided to call it a day and made for the fence near the station with the heavy foot traffic. I jumped it, springing like a pansy when pins and needles shot through my feet due to the impact, and finally sorted out my manbag and dusted off my jeans. Then I looked up.
Officer Billy was staring straight at me.
I put the horse blinkers on and hurriedly made my way to a street corner, just expecting a loud yell and a hand on my shoulder.
It didn't happen.
I started sprinting, got to my station, jumped into the bus, scaled the stairs and slid down into a seat on the upper level, counting myself lucky.

I then fell asleep and nearly missed my stop, waking up just at the right moment to get off the bus, startling the pissed teenager that had ended up sitting next to me.

.....................

Just recently, it has started cranking the snow. Saturday was spent staring out the window as mini snow storms wrecked havoc on the backyard. It was sensational. Our water pipes froze which stopped us from having hot water, but still, it was awesome.
We went down to Wimbledon Park and attempted to make a snowman. After half an hour of freezing snow packing I gave up and then noticed other people round the park had huge snowmen. I'm talking 2m in diameter. these things were about 10 ft tall. The English are pro's at this sort of thing.
I laughed, rolled a snowball and smashed my flatmate in the face with it.

Tou-che.

Finish up work on the 23rd, celebrate Christmas at our flat with a few other orphans and then head off to Portugal and Spain for 10 days on the 27th.
Lets hope I can get to the airport.

The Land of Fire & Ice

2010-11-18T05:39:00.000-08:00

The weather really hasn't been all that bad. Since my last post, it seems like that week with all the cold temperatures was a bit of a freak occurrence and things have certainly got more mild. We are in for the worst to come, so I'm told.

I caught up with Pom and Bridget to watch the AB's take on Aussie a few Saturdays ago, the game being played in Hong Kong
"Look out for Ryan and Jo" I shouted.
People stared.
"Just look out for that stupid southern comfort beanie of his" Pom suggested.
We didn't see them.
That game was on at 9am on a Saturday morning, which did mean an early wake up to get out to the pub. (I tell ya - big cities ain't all that great when a game is on). Over the ensuing hour and a half, we each managed to polish off around 5 beers and a shot, hitting up some Steinlager Pures in the process. They tasted like awesomeness.
"Lets have lunch at Westfield and do some shopping!!!!!!:)", Renee suggested.
The pizza lunch was a blur and we found ourselves hungover at around 2:30 in the afternoon before deciding to forego the shopping and hit the hay.

The next Saturday, we met Pom and Bridget at a different bar, this one located on the Thames River. We discussed travel destinations that would be awesome to hit up and instantly decided on a group trip to New York............. More on this breaking news story later.
The England vs AB's game was much better than the one previous. We won it, which helped. It was the biggest mission ever trying to break through the crowds at the bar to get a beer. Renee left at half time to get some drinks and came back with around 15 mins of game time remaining.
We headed on down to another bar after the game; a bar where Pom had spent a good portion of the year working. We maintained our drinking pace. An hour or so later, we stumbled out into the city. The lights on Fleet Street glowed warmly as we bade our farewells and headed off in our own directions into the London night.
Renee had jacked up drinks with a couple of her mates, so we met them in Putney for a pub dinner before heading to a cocktail bar. The night ended heavily at four o'clock and we made our way home using our legs, as Southfields was relatively close by. It was on this walk home where I broke my existing 'fox sighting' record by witnessing 5 of the furry creatures crossing our path. Some came close, about a couple of metres away. If I wanted, I could have jumped on the back of one and rode away into the night.
But I would probably break its spine.

All these nights out in London are fine, but the real reason I am here is for the adventure; to check out new and exciting places. Well, Iceland did not disappoint.

Lets just say- it certainly lives up to its name.
You hear those people saying that common phrase that 'Greenland is all Ice, whereas Iceland is all Green'. Well, I can tell you, they lie.

We arrived in the late hours of dusk (around 4:30pm) and as I peered out of the little plane window with rounded corners, a feeling of unprepared dread swept across me. I felt like Rocky arriving in Russia to fight Ivan Drago, as was depicted in Rocky IV. Only I wasn't in Russia.
And I'm not a boxer.
Perhaps not good use of analogy there. Hey, I failed 7th form English. Give me a break.
The sheen of fresh, and very slippery ice, coated the tarmac and the surrounding landscape resembled some kind of alien planet.
Ain't no 'green' in Iceland, I'll give you the tip.
Apart from the green of frozen lava, but we'll get to that.

The hotel was nice enough, located near the centre of Reykjavik, and providing an easy launchpad to check out the surrounding area. Through some clever deduction and extreme use of time management skills I had asked a local tour operator to take us out to see the Northern Lights a day earlier than expected.

The Northern Lights are never a guaranteed activity. In fact, you 'don't see them' a whole lot more than you 'do see them', if that makes sense. I was worried about the forecast for weather over the remaining nights so urged for a first night tour.
We got lucky.
Some of the strongest Northern Lights around were witnessed by yours truly. Even the tour guide was amazed at them. It was a truly amazing sight. A green wisp appeared over the horizon and drifted its way across the frozen sky of rural Iceland, taking around half an hour to fully encircle us. The arc of the circle (that surrounds the North pole) was clearly visible.
You need specific conditions to see these lights and we hit them all; clear skies, lack of artificial light, and the perfect time of year.

Through all the amazement of actually witnessing the lights, I felt urged to record this on film (SD card nowadays, but the phrase still works).
First photo - blackness.
Second photo - blackness

'Hmmm. I better change some settings' I thought to myself.
I fiddled with a few nobs and stated out loud what I was doing so some rookies nearby knew who they were dealing with. They looked at me with idolescent eyes. At least thats what I thought. I couldnt really seem them all too well, it was so dark.
"So, Im just going to turn this nob here" I exclaimed, "adjust the pitch of this setting, take this battery out and turn it this way and then divide this number shown here by the average amount of spanners found in a standard Sikram toolset. and, walah, we should have the perfect setup"

Third photo - slight hint of green wisp.......

I peered over to a group of Asian girls. "Oh my god", "Wow!", "Oh, that's so going to be my profile pic!!!!!!"
'What the hell' I thought, and then I saw what they were raving about. Their little camera was taking some of the most amazing photos I had ever seen. And they were taking it with a flash on and everything. I lost the plot, internally that is. How. The. Hell. Could. Their. Photos. Be. So. Good????

Fiftieth photo - finally some payoff. Through all this stress with trying to capture the miracle on film, I had failed to realise my purpose of being there. I took a step back.
Booya. What a sight they really are. My camera was left dangling at my neck as I spent a good 10 mins staring at them in awe.
My fingers started to tingle. I then felt the cold hit me all at once. My toes were numb, my cheeks ached and my lips were physically trembling. 'How cold was it?' I hear you ask with intrigue.

-7

Me no lie.

It was freezing. I had to jump into the bus, kick my shoes off and massage my feet for a good quarter of an hour before I started to feel anything in them.

I did manage to get a few photos of the lights, however the shots are too grainy for my liking, but you get the idea. I was just happy to see them.

I was also joyous about the fact that I witnessed the Northern Lights on the first night of our trip. It meant we didn't have to keep trekking out there every night. It resulted in the next day being a day of relaxation. We wandered around the city before making our way out to the Blue Lagoon, a natural thermal spa drawing water and minerals from deep in the earths crust. There was hardly anyone there and it was amazing. Total solitude. there were buckets everywhere stacked with white mud for you to rub on your face; mud that miraculously makes you appear younger and all that bullshit. I layered it on. As for the pools themselves, what a setup. Being Icelandic, preperation for the pools was very Scandinavian. I witnessed a lot of old mens willies as I myself had to get starkers and shower publicly (in the mens change rooms, but still...) before taking the plunge.
If you have seen Hostel 2- it is the spa that they relax in, just before getting dismembered.

Anyway, we stayed there for a good 6 hours and had some beers from the poolside bar. It started to rain and blow some serious gales so it was quite strange being warm as toast in my body but absolutely freezing from the neck up. Teeth chattered.

We had booked in a tour through the Icelandic countryside for the next day. It was a great tour and took us through the waterfalls, geysers, and geological extremities of the surrounding area around Reykjavik.

Being from NZ, this wasnt too far of a stretch from our geological sites, but the snow and surrounding landscape definately set things at a different pace. You will notice in some of the photos that the rocks are covered with a green tinge. That is frozen lava. Basically, the whole country is a rock of lava. There are few trees and next to nil wildlife.

That night was our final night in the land of fire and ice, so we decided to make it special. Heading to a Tapa's bar, we proceeded to order whale (minke to be precise), puffin (that black and white bird with the coloured beak), snail, and, to bring things back to earth for a bit we topped it off with meatballs and chorizo potato salad.
I can literally hear Greenpeace knocking at the door now.
No.
Wait.
That's just a courier.

Phew.

So, I know what the question on everybody's lips is...... The whale was surprisingly delicious; akin to an eye fillet steak, tender and cooked rare, with a hint of an earthy aftertaste. The puffin was cooked, yet was served cold and was probably the least favourite dish of mine. It was a chewy, slimy meat with not an appetising taste. The whole meal was great though and definitely filled the void. However it didn't fill the void of my guilt. Only made it larger.

After the meal, we headed out to an Ice bar, one of those bars made entirely of ice, for a quick beer. It was pretty disappointing. For one, we were the only ones there. Apparently Icelanders don't party too hard on a Tuesday night. The bar itself was basically a big chiller with blocks of ice strapped to the wall. And it leaked. It was enjoyable for the novelty factor but that was about it. The trip to iceland wound up on the wednesday with a flight back to Heathrow where I stood next to Heston Blumenthal, celeb chef, whilst trying to retrieve my bags. The highest temperature we experienced in Icleand was 2 degrees, with that -7 being the lowest.
I didnt take my beanie and scarf off the whole time I was there.

And now, here I am back at the office. The trip to Iceland was great and I am looking forward to Christmas / New Year when we are off to Portugal and Spain. Little sis is coming over in January and then, wait for it, we head off to the bright lights of New York. Flights are paid for and locked in, so that is all happening at the end of Feb. I won a lonely planet guide from a local travel mag here so I will be thumbing that with delight in anticipation for this trip.
It should be epic.

Roll on Winter

2010-10-23T10:53:00.000-07:00

Shit, its cold.

I mean, we are in for trouble. I can just feel it. The other morning when I woke up, got dressed to a Dire Straits number and eventually stepped out the door, I had no idea the snap that would hit me. It was like being smacked in the face. With a frozen chihuahua.
A balmy 0 degrees Celsius (that's 'zero').

Yes, there was frost.

Kew Gardens, about 15 km north of where I live recorded the lowest temperature for London that day getting down to -2.5 degrees Celsius.
........... And we are only in October!!!!

The weather seems to have affected the tubes already with serious problems attacking the underground. One line had to close down during service and people had to leave the train in the deep murky depths of the tunnel and walk for around 15mins to get to an exit. It is utterly ridiculous. I am not looking forward to the break downs that I have been told happen so regularly in the winter. It already takes me the good part of an hour to get to work!
The other day was chaos, as usual, and my train decided it didn't want to go to the station I needed to get to. I decided to hop on another line, thinking I was clever, and I turned the corner to find that there are also a heck of a lot of other 'clever' people in London. The place was packed. I spent half an hour wondering what train I should get on before I noticed that my original train was free again.
I jumped on it, amazed that I got a seat and it wasn't until a couple of stops down the way that I realised I was heading out to Heathrow airport, the exact opposite direction to work.
' Shit' I said, and I had to 'Terminator Run' it to get to another train. (You know the scene)

Bloody tubes.
It took an hour and a half that day to get to the glorious bright lights of work.

Oh, that's another thing. It is dark too. really dark. I leave for work in darkness. I come home in darkness. And its still daylight savings at the moment....!.....

Despite the cold and chaos, London life hasn't changed much. I'm still going to work, still inching closer and closer to the final payment on my student loan (might have a celebratory Guinness once that beast has been tamed), and still keeping an eye out for new travel destinations to head to. The opportunities really are endless. There is just too much to see in this world.

Last weekend, I went to a casino near Piccadilly Circus on the Friday after work. I didn't do too badly, up 60 pound at one stage, before inevitably losing it all on some stupid hands. How can that dealer consistently hit 21??? I night bused it home by myself at around 4am and had to wake up at 8am to head to a travel show. My head did not like that decision. Still, the travel show was fun. We caught up with Ryan and Jo there, and they broke the news to us that they are calling it a day with London and heading back to the land of the long white cloud. I was disappointed, but stoked that they figured out what they were doing. Here's hoping they find what they are looking for in Tauranga.

I have just now got back from a spot of shopping at Camden and Westfield. It was good stuff. Just being out there you can see that London is gearing up for winter events, which should subdue the miserable effect that the cold will bring on. We are looking to have a Halloween party (it is huge over here), followed by a Guy Fawkes Bonfire night located just down the road at Wimbledon Park. They do it proper here, with massive bonfires, fairground stalls, rides, and, of course, huge fireworks displays. It should be a little ripper.

Christmas time is seeing the introduction of heaps of temporary ice skating rinks, most of them located in some pretty picturesque spots; namely Hyde Park, the National History Museum, and directly under the London Eye. I am keen to get on the ice and see if I can snap both ankles at once this time. They also deck the city out with fairy lights and all that crap to add to the nostalgia. Snow is expected mere weeks from now and the whole city is meant to transform into a winter wonderland. So, I guess it cant be all that bad, can it?

Iceland is still all go in around three weeks from now. That is meant to be colder than here, so I might have to get some thermals for it.

Still, should be good.

Sveden Yar?

2010-10-04T03:18:00.001-07:00

Work was very hard to get back into after returning from a mere week away in Scotland. But I managed.

The following Saturday, Renee and I went out to the theatre to watch the story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.
And what a little beauty it was. The costumes, the performances. Sensational stuff. I can see why people take out second mortgages on homes to buy tickets to see these plays. The guy sounded exactly like Frankie Valli and all the songs they played were bang on.
So - there is a 'highly recommended' from yours truly.

We had a few drinks during the show and headed out to farewell Tara, a Contiki friend, who had unfortunately decided that another unbearable winter in the UK was not for her. It was a shame to see her go, so we all went out to a really cool blues / jazz bar and boogied on down. My dance moves consisted of a rotation of the left foot using my big toe as a pivot, hip swinging to coincide and a rocking motion of my arms, in finger clicking position.
"It was a teenage wedding and the old folks wished them well......"

The big finale of the night came when, on the night bus ride home (biggest pain in the ass ever, btw), I saw four foxes roaming the streets! I had seen two on the bus ride itself (outside the bus - not just chilling in a window seat) and then I said to Renee
"Whats the bet there is a fox down this sidestreet", as we walked on home from the bus stop.
"You little Anzac!!!" Sure enough, there was.
Then just as we were walking into the flat another burst out behind the garbage cans and ran across the street. That rounded out the Quad-fecta.

Last Friday, I took work off an hour early and made my way to Gatwick Airport for a weekend in Sweden that we had booked. It almost didn't happen mind you. With my trigger happy fingers I had mistakenly booked our return flight home a week later than what it should have been.
"Damn it" I said out loud in a less PC way, and I instantly started looking for an alternative one way flight back from Sweden to replace that initial one. The numbers rang true to me.
"180 POUNDS!!!! EACH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" I couldn't believe the price of it (or the amount of exclamation points it took to describe the situation).
This discovery had essentially made the flight not worth all the effort. However, my eagle eye was at work and I managed to find a return flight a few days later for fairly cheap so I grabbed it. All up the flights were around NZ$100 return. Which still isn't bad.

So, we were all set to meet up with my mate Richie in Sweden. The tubes were chaos and trying to find Renee posed a mission. We got to the airport in time to see our flight had been delayed.
This spelt problem, with a p-r-o-b-l-e-m. Richie was meeting us at the other end. With the delayed flight it meant he had to meet us at the central station at 2am, which he did hang around for.
What a trooper. We couldn't thank him enough. Lucky we had purchased some duty free alcohol to make amends. On the tube ride to his place, this guy asked where I was from, and in a proud voice I said "New Zealand". He then went off his (drugged up) rocker and started calling us racists.
"Be careful round here" he warned, "People don't like you guys because you are all racists, all you Australians are"
Richie puffed out his chest and stepped up to the plate "Yeah, but he said he was from NEW ZEALAND. Its a different country. Its like saying Sweden and Norway are the same country"
This didn't phase the guy.
"It doesn't matter" he said "Same thing. You're all racists"

"What the hell was that all about" I asked as the guy gingerly made his way off the train.
Richie shrugged.

The Saturday was spent hurriedly making our way around Stockholm in blur to see everything and still have a good time. Which, with our well travelled expertise, was easily done. First off, Richie sent us to a mysterious museum that was meant to be a little pearler.
"Whats in it man?" I quizzed.
"I don't want to ruin it for you"
"OK" I though and I balked at the price of entry.
'Better be one hell of a ............ thing' I thought with a puzzled yet intrigued look on my face.
We got up to the ticket counter and were about to pay when I got a tap on my shoulder and there was a couple with two free tickets to give us.
"Ohhhhh chur bro" I said in a heavy kiwi accent and they giggled.

To be fair to Richie, the museum was a little ripper. The mystery of it..... should I tell you ........ OK, I will. It was a 400 year old pirate ship they had recently drawn up from the murky depths of the ocean. And what a ship it was. The timber had been heavily water beaten and gave the entire ship a ghost like appearance. And it was HUGE. Around 80 metres long maybe, and just as high. The whole museum was about the life and death of this vessel. Check it out in my photos if you wish. It was hard to get proper photos without the use of a tripod so I tried to make some of the photos resemble the ghost ship that it is.

This set our spirits in good steed. We met Richie afterwards, in the centre of Stockholm, for a bite to eat and then he took us on a walking tour of the city. Stockholm is what is known as an archipelago, which is essentially a city built around a whole plethora of small islands.

We strolled from island to island, before we got the need for a drink and we decided to head up to a bar in one of the highest spots in the city for a quick beer. The only beer they serve in Stockholm is Carlsberg, and I tell you, it is shithouse. It was lucky the place had good views, I can tell you that much.

That night, we went to the supermarket and put together a whole antipasto platter of Swedish foods, one of the main delicacies being a shrimp coleslaw. Oh yes, they are heavily into their seafood over there. We made our way through the bottle of vodka and a bottle of Jagermeister that night and slept (coma'd) at around 2am.
Just joking Mum, I didn't coma.

The next day we were due to leave early afternoon so we had another stroll through the city and finished the trip off with a burger from the Swedish McDonalds, known as MAX. It was pretty good stuff.

Two things I noticed from Sweden, and I will impart my new found wisdom onto you; it is bloody expensive and it is bloody cold. We had great weather, but being in my usual state of dangerously unprepared (Bear Grylls - have I shamed thee???), I was shivering, even though I had a SINGLET on, under my top, of course. Im not a bogan.
If it weren't for Richie our trip would have been all the more expensive, so a big ups to him for putting us up. It is always good to go to a foreign land and know someone.

Iceland in 5 weeks. Till then.

The Scottish Highways

2010-09-13T05:24:00.000-07:00

As a celebration of my 50th (!!!!!!) blog post I am treating you all to an extra long, behind the scenes, VIP member, uncut, description of my latest travellings through Scotland.

Cool.

Well, as work drew to a close on the Friday, I started habitually spinning my pen around my fingers and staring at the clock on the computer willing it to tick faster, the whole ordeal akin to a Britney Spears video. Oh baby, baby.......
The whistle went off, "Ya ba daba doo" I screamed and I slid down a dinosaurs back and onto the tube. It was Renee's birthday so we went out for drinks at a few bars along the river Thames, central city styles. It was actually a really nice setting, with all the fairy lights etc in the trees and the hustle and bustle of people walking by. I got Renee tickets to 'Jersey Boys' a stage show centered around the story of Frankie Vallie and the Four Seasons for her birthday.
And that's all I got her.
No stupid vouchers this time.

We hit the drinking fairly hard and caught the last train home so we could wake up early and prep for our big trip.

Kel, Clint (Renee's visiting friends), Renee and I decided to hire a car from Heathrow airport to allow for an easy getaway from the city, and the feds.
Just joking about the feds.
But seriously.
The lady at the counter handed us the keys to a car I had never heard of and pointed us in the general direction of where it was parked. Well, I had never seen a more ugly car. The Vauxhall Zafira, what a machine. It was a station wagon because they obviously thought we would be sleeping in it, the height of it would rival the Petronas Towers and the sleek lines of the body seemed to echo disaster.
"We cant have this" I exclaimed in a rather authoritative, yet casual manner. How does that work, you ask. Beats me.
"Lets get it changed"
The dude came out with the keys and we argued with him, saying that we wouldn't be able to park the car in any regulation parking spaces, instead we would have to find a local airport and rent a hangar for the night. He grumbled something and went back into the building. We mosied on over to a brand new Peugeot 308, a sexy looking beast with rims, 5.1 surround sound and a steering wheel. Our man came out saying he had no keys for that car and instead we would have to make do with a new Mercedes.
"We can do that" we said and piled into the Merc with remarkable efficiency.
"I shouldnt be doing this" I thought I heard him mutter.
"What?" I said.
"Nothing" he replied rather quickly and scurried off. I stared him off with slit eyes.

Now don't get me wrong, this Merc wasn't the SLK supercar you all might think we got given. Oh no. Far from it actually. It was still a four door but a hatchback model with slow pickup and weak bumpers. Still, it was miles better than the Zafira, so I led the charge by pulling a quick doughie and peeling out of the car park with people behind me shaking pitchforks and lighting makeshift torches.

We got onto the 4 lane motorway alright and then found out we were going the wrong way. 'Pullin' a 'U'ey' was out of the question so we drove for a couple of miles before eventually finding a turnoff. I drove most of the way from London to Birmingham, then we swapped drivers all the way up until reaching Glasgow for the night. It was an epic 8 hour drive but necessary to complete in one day to save us mucking around and missing out on things for the rest of the trip. It was a great drive actually, as it was basically motorway the whole way.
"Whats the speed limit round here?" I asked, and Clint shrugged his shoulders.
"Just go as fast as everyone else"
"Dude, I'm doing 100 mph!"
We were screaming along at 160 kph (easy conversion between imperial and metric) and it still seemed as if cars were passing us. I pegged it back to 90mph and cruised most of the way at that speed. We were constantly doing sums in our head to find out how fast we were going in kph until we realised the dashboard had a digital odometer telling us the whole time.

We stayed in the "accommodation of the trip" in Glasgow; cheap and private and clean. It was a wee beauty. We caught a taxi ride into town and had pizza along the main strip. Glasgow wasn't much to look at. The guy at the hostel said that the only thing to do in Glasgow was to eat and drink, so we did both. The next morning we parked up in the centre of the city and had a quick look around, buying a cheap rugby ball while we were at it.
Verdict - Glasgow = average

We peeled back onto the motorway and hooned past Lake Lomond to our destination for the day; the quaint little town of Inverary. Editors Note: 'Peeled' means embarked, and 'hooned' refers to casually cruising in a motor vehicle.

Due to poor planning, we had only booked one night of accommodation prior to the trip, that being that first night in Glasgow. We arrived in Inverary and hunted out a place to stay where we could also park the silver beast. The local student hostel took us in with open arms and a bear hug. The town was quaint, set alongside the coast of one of Scotland's inlets, and we had a feed at the only pub before heading to a nearby corner store and buying some chocolate and Irn Bru.
Thats right - IRN BRU
Pronounced "Iron Brew", this drink is the number one beverage in the whole of Scotland, outselling Coke/Pepsi thus making Scotland the only country in the world to accomplish that feat.
It tasted shit house.
I mixed it with Vodka, and would have preferred the vodka served straight, or even with Mountain Dew. It tasted like a mix between Fanta and Creaming Soda.

The next morning we hopped in the car again (Oh don't get me wrong - we basically hopped in the car every day for a quick 4 hour drive). We drove around the isles of south west Scotland, stopping in Crinan for a quick sightsee. It boasts a manmade loch that would rival most European countries for sheer size. It was fairly cool and we had a quick slice of lemon (ummmmm) ..... slice before moving on.

Through the nice town of Oban, where we stopped to get the supermarket lunchtime meal deal, and then off to Fort William.
Or so we thought.
"Are we going the right way Renee" I pondered.
"I dunno" was the reply.
I found this incredibly hard to believe, as she was the one holding the map. The environment seemed to be speaking more of mountains and valleys instead of the coastal road I had imagined.
Through map analysis, we discovered we had veered of course by a good 100 km that had taken us from the coastal road to the centre of the highlands. It was a welcome detour actually as we passed through some great scenery and stopped off at a mountain range known as 'the 3 sisters' for a quick photo.
We got back to Fort William after an hour and a half trip, which should have taken 25 mins. To be fair, I was looking at the signs in Oban and they did seem to say that there was a portion of that coastal road closed down, so it was probably inevitable.

You would think we would have stopped in Fort William for the night, but we pressed on and drove on over to the Isle of Skye. I had been thinking the whole way driving through Scotland that the landscape reminded me of 2 things; New Zealand and Final Fantasy 8. This was confirmed when we entered Skye. It was stunning, and worth pushing our road time to get there. We were looking to get to the very top of the isle that day but our plans were thwarted by time and the supposed lack of accommodation in the small town of Uig. Instead, we decided to pull up short in an awesome little town called Portree. After parking up and checking out the area we noticed a large number of tourists making regular stops in various hotels and b&b's.
"Oh shit" I am sure we all thought when we discovered that the town was basically booked out for the night. Some places had one bed left but not 4.
"Damn" I thought and flicked through the handy Lonely Planet book that had wedged itself in between a chocolate bar wrapper and the used drink bottle located at my feet. A place in that book seemed to ring out, loud and clear: "Try Mrs Milne", it said "There is no signage or anything but she is a b&b and she will put you up"
"OK guys" I said and directed Clint through a small suburb to her house. It seemed the most random thing but it worked out. We ended up staying at her place for the night and she was fully equipped to take us all in and cook us a feed in the morning. The town really was a little beauty - something mum would like, and after a spot of dinner, we bought tubs of ice cream and drank the night away watching 'Last of the Mohican's' on the 14" TV provided.

Ms Milne informed us of a great wee detour to start our day the next morning, so we took her advice and drove on a road that was comparable to a 4WD dirt track. It was a ripper of a drive though. We pulled up at the tip of the Isle and took photos of the landscape. Further down the track we saw another turn off and we were treated to a huge waterfall that disappeared over the cliffs and into the pounding surf below. We were practically alone out there and it was a welcome change from the busy tourist bullshit that is normally so commonplace nowadays.

That day was a big day of driving and we sped past Loch Ness with blatant disregard for monster hunters. We stopped off in a small town and went into a tourist hotspot to experience a 5-star Loch Ness monster attraction. It was crap. It basically said at the end of it all that most images and so forth that you see of the monster are all made up anyway. Still, we went to the waters edge and looked into the loch to try and catch a glimpse of something whilst we ate a soggy croissant that was a few days old.

We drove on up to Inverness that night (different from Inverary)and stayed in a youth Hostel again. Didn't really have much of a look around apart from the inside of a Pizza Express restaurant, where we bought dinner.

"I'll have a scotch on the rocks, please. Any scotch will do, as long as it's not a blend, of course. single malt, Glen Livet, Glen Galley, perhaps, any glen."

The next day Clint and I decided to throw caution into the wind and allow the girls to drive and navigate us through the highlands to Edinburgh.
We did three separate U-Turns.
That drive was really nice. We went made our way through the Scotch county of Scotland where all the 'Glens' are distilled and through the highest point in Scotland, being the mountain of Ben Nevis. It was champagne driving.
We attempted to get into a castle along the way but found out Prince William was entertaining good ol' Kate Middelton in the estate so we had to move along.

We arrived in Edinburgh late, and quickly made our way from the guest house into the city. It is awesome. What a city. It shat all over Glasgow. We ate near the castle and caught a late bus home.

The next morning, we left our things in the guest house and hooned (ref editor note earlier) off to Stirling to see their castle and the William Wallace Monument. I hit a wall regarding paying for entrance into monuments, so I packed a sad and stayed by the car while Kel and Clint went up to check it out. It is absolutely ridiculous the amount of money they charge to see places that should technically be free.

After Stirling, it was still fairly early (around lunchtime) so I made an executive decision (starring Kurt Russell and Steven Seagal) and drove us all to St Andrews; the birthplace of Golf. It was a little ripper of a town. I jumped the fence onto the golf course and pretended to swing away with an invisible club.
I yelled 'Four' and people ducked.

I can see why it is a pricey course, absolutely immaculate.

On the Friday we stayed in Edinburgh and spent a day visiting the castle, the Scotch whisky experience, and about a million shops so the girls could find some crappy souvenir. It was a great city and not even the rain downpour deterred us.

For the final day, we drove back across the English border and checked out the Angel of the North statue in Newcastle, then along the road that runs parallel to Hadrians Wall; an old Roman wall that used to separate the two countries. We holed up in Manchester for the night and decided to hit the casino for one final blow out. Clint and I stormed the Black Jack tables and both came away with around £75 each. While we were playing, some English dude came over and threw around £50 on one of Clints hands, Clint won, and the guy did it again, walking off with around £200 from 2 minutes work. Lucky bugger.

We drove back to Heathrow early on as we were all fairly buggered by the (supposed) holiday and keen to chill for a bit. All up we drove a little under 3100km. That is nearly the full length of New Zealand, TWICE!

Epic.

Just booked a cheap flight to Sweden for a cheeky weekend to catch up with my mate Richie. He is keen as to put us up for a couple of nights so it is just a weekend thing. The flights were 5 pound each way!

You know it.

Crazy Nights

2010-08-31T13:25:00.000-07:00

OK. Well, first things first.

I am semi lucky to still have a job as it seems that this recession is still going with the architecture profession. Only recently, the powers that be have let 3 staff members go. Wow oh wow, I thought as they confirmed that it wouldn't be me they were getting rid of. Phew.

It definitely is nervous times though.

Especially since I have booked in all these holidays, and it would completely suck if I had to find a new job and convince new employers to let me go on holiday straight away.
Never mind.

Renee and I have both booked in a 4 day all included stay in Iceland. It was a ripper deal and we were considering it for about a couple of days before some wise advice from Yifan convinced us to do it.
"Just do it" he said
I think he got it from an advertising campaign or something.
So yeah, we are flying into Reykjavik on the 14th November and staying at a 4 star resort till the 17th. We get a trip to the blue lagoon included too, which should be awesome. Wait for it.... here's a link to give you an idea of what the blue lagoon is.

Shot-ski, goal-ski. How tech is that!!!!

To celebrate our booking, we caught up with Tara (a friend from Contiki last year) at her central city pub and went on a party night in Camden town. Met up with Yifan and his girlfriend Shan there and we drank the night away. Renee and I then strolled from Camden to Trafalgar Square to catch a night bus home that night and we got home in the late hours of the morning.
What was Camden like? you ask.
Meh, it was OK.
I was expecting cool lounge bars but instead it was all teeny bopper crap. The final bar of the night had a movie theme song night and played all the songs of the movies such as 'Time of my life' by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes, and John Parrs chart topping hit 'Man in Motion'. Ripper.
Really, the only good thing was the free popcorn they handed out at the end of the night. I was soooo hungry that I ate it like cookie monster had switched snack foods. There was rapid movements of my hand from popcorn bag to mouth, resulting in more popcorn being strewn over the pavement and getting lost in my collar than ending my in my belly.
Good though. Salty.

Just last weekend, Renee and I had the flat to ourselves as it was a long weekend and all the flatmates decided to ship out to different parts of Europe. We didn't go anywhere because we have Scotland in a few days time. So anyway, we were pretty lonely and turned to fish and chips on the Friday night followed up with a few bottles of wine. That next day, at the supermarket, we decided to buy a big bottle of vodka instead of wine so that it would last longer.
At 10pm, wen we had finished that bottle, we decided no more drinking for the weekend.

So Pom shows up on the Sunday and its off to the bar.

We had a few beers before shit got rowdy, and Pom pulled out Absinthe shots. Double shots actually. Then we had a brilliant idea to go all the way to Camden again and keep the night alive. It was a better time in Camden than the first time, but we were shagged and headed home early.
That Monday, our day off, we went to the Notting Hill Carnival, which is apparently the second largest carnival in the world, slotting in just behind Rio de Janerio and apparently bigger than New Orleans Mardi Gras.
Apparently.

It was busy, that's for sure; about a million people. But it was too spread out. It was like you were walking empty streets between small hot spots of activity where people were all pissed and eating Jerk Chicken, the dish of choice for the carnival. There was a parade and stuff with people wanting to dry hump more than dance, so we got out of there, and fast.
It must have been the largest gathering of scum of the earth.

Too honest?

Hmpf.

Anyways, this was just a short update. Will have a big one next time after Scotland.

Ciao

Booking Holidays

2010-08-16T05:07:00.000-07:00

Ahhh, still haven't been anywhere exciting since my last blog but plans have been made.

Renee's Friends came over from oz and they are currently on a contiki trip through Europe. Once they have that finished we are off through Scotland for 9 days in a rental car. I was fortunate enough to grab 5 seconds of my bosses time and he drew out a fantastic map through the Scottish countryside and pointed out the must see places. He even got down to the finer detail of what restaurants we should eat at and who we should ask to serve us. These Scots are a proud folk.

So that is exciting. We are leaving on 4th September for that mission. I am semi worried due to the fact that you can only really hire manual cars here and all the Aussies only know automatic. I hope it means I wont get lumped with all the driving. We may have to pay extra for an auto if we can get one.

Renee and I have also booked in our flights to Portugal and Spain for the Christmas / New Year period. We are flying into Lisbon on the 27th Dec and flying out of Madrid on the 4th Jan. We will probably spend new years in Portugal and only spend a few days in Spain, though I am keen to get a train or bus up to Bilbao to see Gehry's Guggenheim museum. Our flights were £70 return at that time of year so we were pretty stoked

Right now, we are considering a short visit to Iceland in November. Yes, I know it will be freezing but I can man it up. Don't know about Renee though. Mu haha
We can get return flights and 4 star hotel, transfers and entrance to the blue lagoon (siiiickkk natural spa with snow all around it and so forth) for £290 so we are definatley considering that.

I sound like a travel promoter

The reason why I haven't booked Iceland already is because I don't know how much longer I may have at my job here. Everyone is on edge and the office is super tense because the directors are going mental at anyone. We all know we are being underpaid and I have been considering looking around elsewhere. Its not really a fun environment at the moment. Now they have scheduled staff reviews for.... tomorrow, and we are all kind of stressing as to whether we will have a job at the end of it or not. I don't really want to look for other jobs but I don't want to stay in an office like this for too long. It is miserable at the moment.

Onto brighter subjects..........

Darren and Nicky stopped by for a brief visit recently. We had a few beers at a pub local to my work and then a quick bit of dinner. It was good to see them. They are now making their own way through Europe right now.

Ryan and Jo got back from their European trip and Ryan stopped by for a night of wine drinking and to pick up some of their stuff. He had tried to ring me about a million times but my phone was left behind at my flat so he had to wait around drinking beers at the local pub until my return. Poor guy. I really felt for him.
The reason for my absence was because I had spent the whole day shopping with Renee and carrying all her bags. Stupidly, for our one year anniversary (which was a while ago now), I had made her a set of redeemable vouchers that she could use at her leisure. One of them was a 'shopping assistant for a day, carrying all bags, and giving honest opinions on clothing'. What an idiot I am. That voucher alone was worth an anniversary present, but instead I gave her 8 different ones. Yes, 8! At the time I thought I was clever because I was essentially giving her a present without spending money.
Now I am paying for it.
In blood.

And manliness.

So yeah, I was a fur ball of shopping bags when Ryan arrived. That girl can shop!

Right now, Ryan and Jo are making their way through Scotland and Ireland and I think they have just booked Egypt also so props to them. I suggested they come to Portugal for Christmas if they are still here. That would be sweeeeeet.

Last weekend, I caught up with Yifan, his girlfriend Shan and Tara, our friend from Contiki in town. It was a relaxed night and Yifan sounded highly excited about Iceland.

Looking into the near future, we have Jason Derulo playing a gig near us for £20 which is fairly cheap so I think Renee is keen to see that. She may be riding solo, riding solo, riding solo, solo. (Literal humour for those in the know- clever huh)

So there it is, the last four weeks of my life in a short summary. Enjoy.

Updating stuff

2010-07-23T12:53:00.000-07:00

I would like to say that I have travelled to far and exotic countries, experienced fun and exciting things and met interesting and dangerous people, but, alas, I haven't. There is not much to report really.

I guess, an interesting point is the update of this tired old blog, which I discussed in my previous post. The photo slide show that shows the picture (to the right) is a collection of my favourite photos from my travels. Below that, I have listed the countries I have visited and clicking on those links will take you to any photo I have taken whilst in that country. Pretty exciting. It basically means that when I comment on a country / event in the future, I should have some photos linked within that specific country that it was taken in. I will organise it so that the most recent photos will appear at the front of the series.
Check them out when you get the chance.

Phew, glad that admin is out of the way.

Anyways, what has happened since the last post......

Been chilling most weekends. The constant travelling to and from work is really taking its toll and I am finding myself more and more exhausted by weekends. So.... I better man it up.

We are all booked in for travelling through Scotland for 9 days at the start of September. Renee has a few mates coming over and we are looking at hiring a car and burning some wubber on the woads. With a rental car. One of my bosses has offered to draw out the ultimate in Scotland travel routes so we can hit all the main spots.
"You'll need 8 days" he said
"I got 9" I retorted and snapped my fingers with hip hop flare.

His puzzled expression made me stop from pulling out more break dance moves.

So, anyway, that is all booked in. Lately, Renee and I have been thinking "Man, what are we going to do over Christmas????" Obviously we want to travel to New York / Vegas in Feb / March and we want to save us much moolah for that as we can. So we were looking at local places to jaunt off to.
"What about climbing Kilimanjaro for New Years Eve?"I suggested, then i looked at prices on the Internet and literally shat my pants. NZ$3000 just for climbing the thing!!! Then there is everything else on top of that - small expenses like flights and accommodation. Once I had cleaned my pants, I then double dared myself to look at the Antarctica tours. I slipped into a 3 day coma.

Soooo, we have decided on Portugal.. You know it!!! Just a backpack on our backs and a few bucks in our pocket is what we are thinking. Well that's what I am thinking. I am sure that Renee's makeup bag is bigger than my backpack.
"I will just go without any makeup products" she insists, and I laugh whole heartedly, in almost a mocking tone.

Whoa, she just read that. I'm just joking folks. It will be an exciting wee trip. We are looking to do it from the 27th Dec till around the 2nd Jan. Flights are fairly cheap if we book them now so it should be great.

Last weekend,we had a flatmates leaving party. We had a BBQ, and then got down to some rounds of "Circle of Death". We got smashed and this guy called Miles just wouldn't leave. I laughed at the situation and then walked off.

Renee and I have been sleeping in the lounge lately as our room had sprung a leak from the nearby bathroom and it was determined that our walls had 'cancer'. So, this Polish guy has been filling them up. It wasn't until last night that we actually got back into the room and had a proper nights sleep.

Oh man. I really wish that I had more to update. But, I don't. work is getting bloody crap. The bosses seem to be angry almost all the time and no-one knows why. The also seem to be hiring more people but not wanting to raise our pay rates to what is acceptable. I am thinking of leaving, maybe. Might start looking soon. No point spending a limited time here at a job that wont support me, financially and creatively. My boss did lend me his new Leica digital SLR camera to have a play with and it nearly melted in my hands. Sooooo good. Need to update the good ol' Pentax at some stage I feel.

I will update this thing in a couple of weeks time. Maybe when something has happened. Till then

Out with the Old.....

2010-07-08T05:13:00.000-07:00

Well,

If you are as eager to get to this website to find out what I have been up to as my Mum is, you would notice that I have updated that old, pathetic layout for a new, more streamlined version.

Choice huh.

Check out this photo do-hickey right here ---------------------------------------------->
(Note: arrow will be of no use, once next blog is posted)

Go on, click on it.

........

Not bad huh?

I will be uploading more photos to my flickr account periodically (once a month if I decide Im too cheap to afford Flickr Pro).

By the way. If you hover over it you will see a rnage of photos show up at the bottom. By clicking the small expand button to the left of the photos, you will see them in glorious full screen view. Nice

There is also a search bar at the bottom, just in case you want to relive past travel stories with me.

And you will notice a travel map at the bottom too which lists cities and countries travelled to.

Nice.

By the way. If anyone is on gmail, this blog comes through like a email message through the Buzz tab - it basically means you know when I have updated the thing, instead of having to check it at periodic intervals.

Cool - let me know what you think

Lower England

2010-07-06T05:14:00.000-07:00

Well. Getting paid monthly sure does suck.

There is two weeks after pay day that are glorious.

Then there are two weeks before pay day that result in every minute of the day in this expensive country being a complete struggle.

Still, my student repayment bonus came through so I did a Guido fist pump in the air.

"You little beauty" I said in a 12th man, Maxie Walker voice.

So, we had two separate visits from Renee's family occur over the last 3 weeks, and I can tell you, I am over being a tour guide. It was good at the start, but when you are showing people a market you have been to only a few days earlier, it got old pretty quick.

Anyway, went and checked out Portobello Markets which is based in Notting Hill. Its the markets that Hugh Grant walks through during the movie. No biggie. Its full of food and antiques, amongst other things, so it took Luke (Renee's bro) and I approximately 12 minutes before we started looking for a pub. I found one and Luke checked his watch to make sure it was after midday so we didnt become classed as alcoholics.

It was 12:04.

The girls took their sweet time, loading up on clothes and crap until they resembled Julia Roberts having just finished her shopping spree in Pretty Woman.

We showed them Camden also and went to the London Eye to top off the touristy shit.

Then Renee's parent came and it was the same schedule all over again. By the time we got to Portobello markets again, I was in a grumpy mood and had to wait at the bar again for the girls to shop. Its almost like an adult playcentre, this bar. "Lets just lose the boys so we can shop" the girls must say to each other in a secret dialect involving winks and head movements.

Ryan and Jo showed up not long after and I went and had drinks with them. They only had a short stay in London before heading off on their trip through Europe, but it was good to see them enjoying the sights and London lifestyle (namely drinking). I tried my best to convince them to stay on, as they have visas. Good stuff. Hope their trip goes well.

Last weekend I took the Friday off (ripper) and headed off in a hire car with Renee's family. It was pretty sweet, they shouted everything, and when I offered to pay they said "No. no". So I was like 'OK'. We headed to Brighton first. Brighton is fairly cool. Its known as a seaside town but the beach is made of stones instead of sand and there are no waves to speak of. Ever.
We had Fish and Chips on the beach, the fish being a whale fillet, or at least that's how big it was. The chips were shite - not up to my stringent standards.

We walked out on the pier and got stuck into the amusement park which is located at the end of it. After the dodgems, I decided to go on the log flume and the dickheads operating the thing, made me wait at the top of the giant drop until another log turned up alongside, thus completely saturating me from head to toe. I was not impressed and the operators seemed oblivious to the fact that they had unleashed the Perfect Storm on my ass. I was about to call out to Des and Troy to combine their powers, but decided against it.

It is a family park after all.

After Brighton, we headed to Salisbury where we stayed the night. Salisbury was really nice. Small and quaint. The cathedral was baller (Taylor word - I think it means cool). We tried to get inside it but they were holding a small mass for only 1500 invited guests. We had dinner at Wagamama and walked the tiny streets.

After Salisbury we made our way to Stonehenge. The place has been tourist-icised and it cost big bucks to get into it. I went in by myself and took heaps of photos. I think it was fairly cool, I have been told it is disappointing but I didnt think so. I have been to Belfast mind you.

We hooned off to Bath, stopping at Longleat park along the way. Longleat has one of those drive through Safari things, so we drove on through and saw Giraffes, Lions and Rhinos up close and from the comfort of our rent-a-car seats. I wound the window down a little to get a photo of the tigers and everyone freaked.

Bath was cool. Really cool. It used to be part of the Roman Empire and you can still see an Ancient Italian influence in the streets and buildings. We walked through the Roman Baths (ridiculously overpriced) and drove around the circular roundabouts bordered with terrace style houses (hard to explain). It was around here that I discovered how hard it is to give directions whilst driving through England. Every street is either one way or no entry and no street seems to have any precedence. We were driving down this tiny alley and found out it was the main road.

We stayed the night in Bath and drove out to Bristol, which was a shit hole, so we got back in the car and drove on through to Wales. We were keen to have lunch in Newport and followed all the signs to the city centre. Then all the signs started saying we were heading out of the city and back to England. What???!!! We didnt even get to stop.

We visited a small town called Arundel on the way home which is a little less known than Stonehenge but still has some Mysterious stones everywhere. There were a few tourists there that were in the know. I knew about it because of my Lonely Planet guide book (highly recommended).

After a whirlwind trip through Lower England we came back to London and had drinks in a bar overlooking Trafalgar Square and most of central London. Views were outstanding.

Renee's parents left this morning to head back to Oz. It doesn't rest up for me though. I have drinks tonight with some of my old old flatmates from final year uni days that I haven't seen in years.
The next few weekends should be quiet enough. Darren and Nicky arrive near the end of the month for a fleeting visit. Right now, I am trying to plan where to go for the next bank holiday weekend in August. It will only be a one city stop, so it is out of:

Kiev, Ukraine
Krakow, Poland
Budapest, Hungary

Any suggestions / alternatives out there?

(See how I phrased that as a question, thus provoking a response)

Oxford and Ireland

2010-06-17T04:37:00.001-07:00

Well, it certainly has been a while since I have updated this.

Sorry to keep you waiting. I bet you are all wondering what zany and craaaaazy adventures I have been up to of late. OK, here goes.

Three weeks ago it was a bank holiday weekend. You gotta love the bankers round here (Even if they do take 3 months to make a simple eftpos card work. Actually while I'm at it - that banking here actually does suck really bad. It takes a few days for a simple eftpos transaction to show up in your accounts. At which stage I have quickly checked my balances online, get stupidly stoked thinking I have more money than I really do and go on spending sprees, only to find I am in hard core overdraft in a few days time when the bank decides to get round to updating my accounts).

That gripe gone, I do like there holidays. They have one - we all have one. Everyone wins!!!!! Apart from employers, they don't win.

So, for that long weekend, Pedro (flatties boyfriend) said that he was travelling to Oxford to sort out a house of his and offered us a ride and a place to crash. "YOU KNOW IT" we said and travelled out to the town famous for its sprawling university. In fact it is more like the university is famous for its town. The university basically is the town as each campus is scattered across the landscape with a few shops in between. After a spot of Burger King (I know) we tried to get into universities to see their prestigious campuses and immaculate lawns. Most were closed but we did break into one by jimmying open a back window with the pinch bar I brought along.

Whoa - only kidding.

After strolling the streets, we came across a university that hired boats out to the public, so we grabbed one. It was a pedal boat and worked the calves, glutes, and upper thighs in one easy motion. Some people hired those boats that have to be pushed along with a stick. Idiots. We burnt passed them, splashing water on their faces and laughing whole heartedly.

It was a nice wee boat ride through the surrounding rivers of Oxford and we pedalled for an hour.

After that we had a spot of dinner and tucked into some booze.

The next day Pedro took us out to Blenheim Palace for the day. He showed us a back entrance so we didn't have to pay the ridiculously overpriced £18 entry fee. The place was huge, the gardens alone were bigger than New Zealand (slight exaggeration). There were lakes and secret gardens and a hedge maze, and mini put and a butterfly enclosure. It was pretty awesome. So we spent the day there, milling around and causing trouble.

We finished the day off and drove back home, keen for work the next day.

The weekend after Oxford was a nothing weekend. Tried to save money. Did meet up with my long time mate Richie who currently resides in Sweden. My strolled through Camden markets and planned my own trip to Sweden in September.

Last weekend, Renee and I flew to Ireland for the two days. I booked the flights to leave London at around midday and lucky I did as when you take off waiting time, and transport time to get out to the airport we had to leave the house by 7am. We flew into Belfast and checked out the town. I was expecting the buildings to still be smoking and troops of soldiers in riot gear patrolling the city limits. Not the case however. In honesty, it was quite a boring city. We had a money scare and found out we only had £14 between us for the whole weekends food and drink. I made sure I got a Guinness from the tap and the rest we spent on noodles and meal deals.

That night, whilst staring out the window in the dorm, we noticed an old man get basically booted out of a bar before he could even step foot in there. "Piss off" they said "We don't want you round these parts".
Then this even older guy held him back on the ground and reiterated "Yeah, piss off". Renee was like "Oh my god, that poor man" and I explained that he was probably a catholic or something trying to walk into a protestant bar. So it is still fairly bad round here. That night, at around 4 in the morning I was awoken with
"No one stands on my friends fookin' head and gets away with it", said by some batty lady who must have been mental as she kept yelling it out about 100 times at the top of her lungs. Then this guy tried to bottle a girl nearby. The Irish get crazy when they are drunk!

On the Sunday we said "see ya later" to Belfast and drove out into the country to go see the Giants Causeway, a collection of very cool rock formations arranged so they look like hexagonal and octagonal steps everywhere. Its hard to describe. We crossed an ancient rope bridge and our driver, who was VERY Irish kept making jokes about it.

"300 years ago, when the rope bridge was built, you see, they had one handrail on it, as you well know. Nowadays however, they have NO handrails".

He paused for a few seconds and then finished his stories with a
"No, I'm only joking, eh"

Imagine this in a leprechaun voice and you can see why I nearly had to be admitted to hospital to have my split sides stitched back up. Hilarious.

We flew back into London and got home a little after midnight. No more weekend trips I decided as I was wasted for work, and I came in especially early to get stuff finished.

So now we have Renee's brother and his girlfriend staying with us for the weekend and then Renee's Mum and stepdad arrive for a few weeks so it is busy busy with them for a while. I am thinking that July is going to be quiet on the travel front and will probably be taken up with getting this apartment building out.

A few concerts coming up may be interesting including

Roxy Music
Paul McCartney
Blink 182
Pearl Jam and Ben Harper
Kings of Leon and Florence and the Machine together
Roger Waters THE WALL - which I have already purchased tickets for, sweet

Cool. Talk soon in a couple of weeks

Wales

2010-05-25T10:02:00.000-07:00

Before I start with my wee adventure in the weekend, I will cap off last week.

On the Tuesday, went to the pub with a few workmates for ONE pint. That one pint turned into a few more than desired and I ended up stumbling onto the tube and feeling dizzy, wondering why it seemed to take a much quicker time than what it normally did. I couldn't help it - one of my bosses turned up and started forking out for drinks and telling these ridiculous stories about the office. It is crazy the things that have happened here.

Got me kinda worried.

Anyway, the next day, it was fair to say that I wasnt in the healthiest of head spaces. It was OK though because most others in the office were like that also. By Friday, with a lack of sleep, and a pounding head from too much computer screen action, I was fairly spent. Nevertheless, I always find a way to dig myself in deeper and I discovered that the weekend I had decided to go to Wales was the exact same weekend that the London Council had decided to complete uproot its entire underground network.
So, to get to Paddington station to catch the 7:30am train to Wales, we had to wake up at around 5am to catch all these alternative underground routes that will get us to a destination that should have taken 15 mins.

I am getting fairly over this underground. Its the whole 'over-the-under' situation.

Anyway, we got to Wales on time and felt like we had already been up for half a day. What was to happen? you wonder. Well, someone was found dead on the tracks. So that inevitably meant that all trains were shutdown until the police could investigate the situation. So, after all our mucking around, we could have slept in longer anyway. Its that Murphy's Law thing.

We finally got on our train and relaxed into a table seat, playing cards, as we were hurtled through the English countryside at break neck speed. They really have ramped up train efficiency over here. We stepped off the train in Cardiff at around lunchtime. Now, I realise that Cardiff is the capital of Wales but what I didnt realise is how tiny it is for a capital city. We walked the whole town in little under half an hour. Strolling out to the harbour, we decided to forego a bus tour and opt for a water tour. "Forget the bus" I said to Renee "Water is where it is at!" and I jumped on board having paid my £4 in excitement.

This was possibly the most boring boat ride I have ever been on. Instead of a tour boat it was more like a ferry with some guy rambling on about plants. "As you can see to your right, those bushes over there is what the harbour had by its water edge before they decided to clear it". Some people took photos. Of a bush.

I almost cried.

We headed back to the city after a spot of eating and found Cardiff Castle, which we paid over £10 to get in. It was fairly cool, I guess. I took heaps of photos and then bought a small Welsh dragon in the gift shop, as well as a tiny pencil sharpener fashioned into a working catapult. I cannot describe how cool it is, and for £2 I thought 'why not'.

Renee and I then headed to a local bar and sat down for some ciders. The sun was scorching and the ice evaporated quickly. It was then that I noticed something very strange. Everyone was walking around fulfilling at least 1 of the following descriptions; wifebeater singlet, tattoos, hot pants and/or, no top on at all (unfortunately it was only the guys). It would seem if you didnt adhear to these strict codes then you obviously weren't Welsh, ala myself. I stuck out like a sore thumb, what with my jeans, t-shirt, ink free skin, and sunburnt nose.

So, we got back on the train, had an interchange at a station in Bristol, had a smart ass kid try to tell me that my seat on the train was actually his before I started to position myself in boxing stance and he quickly moved. Idiot.
Got back home around midnight and fell into bed.

The next day wqas an absolute scorcher so the flatties and I headed to Wimbledon park for some beers, tennis ball petanque and dark glass observing. The place was packed, I would love to see it when tennis is actually played there.

So that weekend was great. I have Oxford this weekend (available funds permitting) and we have just booked tickets to Ireland in a few weekends time. They were £3 each way.

Nice

Whats new???

2010-05-17T10:01:00.000-07:00

I have had a few comments recently asking why I havent put up a post in a while. Gee wizz, its only been a couple of weeks!!!.

Anyway, truth is, nothing much has happened. I would like to say that I flew to Kenya but, sadly, that hasnt happened. So, I will fill you in from where we left off.

OK. Seeing as it is summer and I still have to rug up in my oversized ski jacket to make the commute to work, I have been trying frantically to find an awesome coat to rock out in. I have looked everywhere. And nothing. I actually found a really nice one but found that it was too tight across my broad shoulders. I could have hulk smashed something, I was so angry. I did feel like the hulk in that jacket anyway; one tense of the arms and the thing would have torn at the seams.

So, my jacket hunt has taken me to Oxford St on two occasions, and Kingston Town a weekend ago before I gave up and decided to wait till winter, when they apparently come out of hibernation. Kingston Town was nice, I think UB40 wrote a song about it. Really big shopping town and it was a nice river winding through it so we grabbed a lunch on the rivers edge.

Last weekend, I decided to head to the Battersea powerstation and get some photos of the building made famous by Pink Floyd for their 'Animals' album cover. It is an awesome building but pretty derelict. After that we attempted heading to some food markets but found to our dismay that they were all closed up on Sundays. 'Damn it' I said aloud and decided to stroll along the Thames and visit the Tate Modern. We then went to Camden town for the third time since we have been here. Camden is so much fun. I ate a Churro, which is heaven in a donut. Renee got chocolate covered stawberries, with three types of chocolate, hold the nuts.

I recently purchased a monthly travel card (for £116 per month!!!!!! It hurts). It means I dont have to muck around with individual tickets and I can travel basically anywhere in main London, whenever I want for a whole month. Its good. Having it means that I am keen to go out and check the London hotspots every weekend. Coming soon: the Abbey Road pedestrian crossing from the Beatles cover. Maybe Notting Hill some other time

This coming Saturday, Renee and I are travelling to Wales. Why? you ask. Why not? Its £30 for a return train ticket to Cardiff, which is pretty good value. The travel time is 2, 3/4 hours each way so it will be a long day. The weekend after that, one of our flatties boyfriends, Pedro (his real name is Peter but he prefers Pedro because Peter is a pussy name, and he looks Spainish) is going to take us to his hometown of Oxford. Would be good to check out the university campus and hit the pubs up. Maybe challenge a few college students to a boat race of beer.
Its hard you know - literal humour.

So, The next post will be in 2 weeks time. Can you all handle the wait??? Im not so sure.

Just be strong.

Would actually be good to know who is reading this. Drop me an email to let me know what you are up to if you are. Would be keen as English mustard to have some chats

A month in......

2010-05-01T02:25:00.000-07:00

So. It has been a month since we arrived in the UK. We have managed to do all the settling in stuff so it is smooth sailing from here which is good.

Work is going well. I have just been given an entire 40 unit apartment building to work through with one other guy. Yes, just he and I. I have to get the drawings out by the end of July so that will be a mission. Should be fun though and if I do well with it I should enevitably be looking at a promotion. I think they have given me the project to test the waters so to say, so I will be pulling some long and busy hours to get my head around it all.

Last weekend was a massive one. caught up with a few old universtity friends and we partied at a bar directly beneath the swiss re tower (the Gherkin building - Im sure you know of it). That was fun. The next day we went out in Soho and had a massive one, starting at around 4 or 5 to celebrate a friend of ours birthday. That Sunday was the actual celebrations so we all hopped on a river ferry and travelled to Greenwich to do some bar hopping. The ferry was really cool and the guy on the boat knew heaps of facts about all the buildings on the water, especially the pubs. He had done some in depth research into those pubs apparently.

It was fair to say that by the time I got to work on Monday, I was fairly haggled. The computer screen was blurry and eminating a soul destroying white glow. It was at 5:30 that my boss offered me a ride home, as he lives over the road from me. I gratefully accepted and skipped out of work half an hour early and knowing that I would miss my one hour ride home on the tube in favour of a much brisker 25 min car ride.

We drove past heaps of places in London I didnt even realise were famous. Like the fact that about 300m from my work is a massive building that marks the spot that William Wallace was killed. And that the gateway I walk under every day to work is around 800 years old. I also noticed that when I get to the next street across from my work, St Pauls Cathedral looms over me with its grandoise brilliance.

We pulled into my bosses driveway and I was like "Wow, thanks for the ride. That was awesome". and he was like "well, are you going to come in for a drink". So, nervously, I accepted.

That night was the biggest of all the 3 nights preceeding it. I got smashed with him and his wife. Renee came along later and we all went out for Indian, which I have discovered is considerably more spicy than back in NZ. I had the spice hiccups straight away and I checked my tongue in the mirror and it was blood red.

I found out that I am actually working in a bloody good office. My boss was one of the 40 under 40; a term describing the top 40 architects in the world under the age of 40. His practice that he had before this one had 200 people working under him. Now he has 17 but they have just received a massive contract and looking to double that staff number in the next month.

It was good to hear what he had to say about architecture, though I didnt remember it. I walked into work the next day purposefully early and asked him how he was feeling. He replied "Fine" rather nonchalantly, which basically meant that he wasnt hungover at all, so I quickly replied "yeah Im fine too" and painfully sat myself down at the computer screen.

Just watched the Black caps win against Sri Lanka in the world cup last night. Good stuff. Hope they do well this tournament. Was supposed to be going to Salisbury and Stonehenge etc this weekend but the weather is crap so we have decided to wait and will go shopping on Oxford St instead. Maybe watch Ironman 2. What am I saying 'Maybe'. Definately.

I need to buy some more undies too.

Settled in

2010-04-18T11:12:00.001-07:00

OK. Moved into the new flat yesterday. Had a bit of a BBQ / Drinking session to kick things off which turned into a massive booze up. There was only a few of us but we polughed through enough alcohol to make people looking through our rubbish bins think that a rugby team had been there.

The flat is nice and the flatmates are nice. Went shopping to get sheets and the likes and fully unpacked everything so it is good to not live out of the suitcase anymore. You get over that stuff pretty quickly.

The other weekend Renee and I checked out Camden and went through the markets. Crazy place with heaps of small alleyways leading off to vintage clothing shops and so forth. You can get anything there. It is a bit more alternative than the rest of London so there are heaps of mohawks, peircings, fishenets and tatts.

Cool place though.

There is a bank holiday coming up in 2 weeks time so we are planning to do a day trip that will encompass visiting Salisbury, Bath and Stonehenge. Should be fun for a day, although I hear Stonehenge aint all its cracked up to be.

Chatting with Tara (a girl we went on Contiki with other here) and we have decided to plan a holiday for the new years break that will see us in Times Square for the big night and then to Vegas as an afterparty. Flights to the states, in particular Vegas with a stopover in New York are around the 200-300 pound mark (return) so that is crazy cheap considering I should be able to save around 200 pound per week on my salary.

Work is going well. Found out my boss lives over the road from me. London is a fairly small town after all.

Oh yeah, by the way. If you dont have it already, my UK number is 07 896 043 539 or if you want to get in contact from overseas (say NZ) then it is +44 7 896 043 539. Cool. We have internet all set up here so I can begin to do some skype dates soon.

All good. Will be checking in shortly after our visit to Salisbury and stuff so check back in 2 weeks or so.

P.S. Man. They closed all the airports over her and air travel is a state of anarchy. Lucky I aint travelling anywhere shortly but my mate Yifan is stuck in New York and cant get back. Poor bugger. Hope it sorts itself out soon cos I wanna fly to Portugal and Turkey. Holla

Back to the slog

2010-04-07T05:34:00.000-07:00

So, within 10 days in London, Renee and I both have jobs and we have sorted out a place to live, not to mention bank accounts, tax numbers and cellphones. It has been hectic!

I managed to haul down a job in a central city architecture studio. It is around 20 people large and they specialize in a lot of large residential works and so forth. They all seem pretty friendly. My pay is still shit - I am getting over this whole architecture deal very fast, but I should be able to start saving in a wee bit. The other stink thing about the office is that they use computer programs that I have no idea about. I am trying to learn them now and semi struggling. They use macs also which is a bit different. Its all about hot keys.

I am just recovering from an untimely cold which I was not too stoked on getting. I had to start work and try to listen to what people where saying with a swimming head and a dripping nose.

It takes me around an hour to get to work each day. I hear this is the norm. Seeing I travel in the peak times it means I get up close and very personal with complete strangers on the underground.

We just locked down a flat in a suburb called Southfields (which, funnily enough, is also the area of the bar I am staying in temporarily for the moment). It is a nice place located right next to Wimbledon which should be fun come the summer. The flat is actually a house with 6 people living in 4 bedrooms. It was one of the nicest (and reasonably priced) places we could find. I tell ya, the majority of places out there are shitholes. I would know - I've visited nearly 20 of them in the last few days. So, this place has a backyard and a seperate living room to kitchen. It comes fully furnished so no need to buy beds etc (thats the norm).
We are right next to the entrance to the tube station which would make it way better when it starts snowing and crap in winter. It is absolutely freezing here at the moment and its meant to be coming into summer. When Mum used to visit us in Wellington and say "Oh, its so cold", and I would be like "What!! This is actually alright weather!!", it is way different here. I rug up to the point of looking more like a large beach ball than a human form and I still shiver. I think Mum would freeze like the T1000 did when he had liquid nitrogen sprayed on him.

Anyway, thats about it. Went to Soho last Saturday night and had cocktails all day. They were 2 for 1 which made them about £2.5 each. Not bad at all (thats Lond Island Ice Teas included). It was kinda for my birthday so that was cool.

Oh yeah - Renee got a part time nanny job. Its only Monday and Friday work but at least it will bring in around £100 a week for her until she finds something more full time.

Ok, thats about it

Australia, Malaysia and all

2010-03-29T02:09:00.000-07:00

We arrived at Sydney airport and I was greeted with a hug by Nathan (there may have been a butt-grab also). He was good enough to come to the airport and escort us into town which was super mean. The room in the Novotel overlooked Darling Harbour and was simply superb. That first night sent us heading to the casino to spend up some cash. I had purchased a few bottles of booze going through duty free so that eased the night into proceedings. Before we went to the casino however, we took a short stroll around Darling Harbour itself and found ourselves in a bar buying cheap $10 cocktails. The toffee apple was the best by far.

Nathan won up large at the casino on that first night and we celebrated with more drinks. We left the night a few dollars up over when we started.

The next day we drove out to Bondi and checked out the ..... surf. There was a surfing comp on at the time and Kelly Slater was there. Didnt watch him surf as we had more pressing matters at hand. We drove back the long way (around the coast) to get into Sydney central again. From there we took a water taxi from Darling Harbour to the Opera House and spent our time strolling the harbour. We got back to the hotel just as it was about to piss down and set into some more drinks. Like idiots we decided to head back to the casino and things went slightly pear shaped so we decided to get the hell outta there before we lost heaps. The next day was spent just chilling out. Went to the nautical museum to go through the submarine and destroyer located in Darling Harbour (and now I have just realsied that I still owe Nath $20 for the entrance fee - shit, sorry man. Will sort it out somehow in the future)

We flew into Melbourne in the afternoon and had dinner at a funky restaurant called Groove Train. The next few days were spent relaxing in Apollo Bay and attacking internet sites looking for UK work. We drove to Melbourne again for the weekend and played some serious Wii at Renee's bro's (Luke) place (Wii Resort = Gold). Luke and I played a round of golf the next day which went pretty dismally I must say. We then drowned our sorrows with beers and more Wii. That night Renee was catching up with all her girl mates and I was dragged into it. I was the only guy amongst 5 girls. Who knew that much chocolate could be consumed in one night.

Met up with Renee's Dad for the first time the next day and we all went to the Bavarian Beer Gardens before finishing off the night with dinner in Fed Square. The beer gardens were a huge open ground with heaps of tables and live bands (like a mini Blues, Brews and BBQ's - so Im told).

A few days later we jumped on a plane and headed to Malaysia. City = Kuala Lumpur. First time for me in this city so it was fairly exciting. Due to the relative youth of the city, it was lacking in historical structures that could knock your socks off. The Petronas Towers were nice though and we went up and walked along the central connection bridge. Shops in Malaysia are all located in malls. Try to find a shop in the street and you cant, then you see a huge building and that is where they all are. I figure it is to provide a cooler air conditioned space to do the shopping in because the temperature was around the 37 degree mark with about 1000% humidity. The second day we did a few tours, one through the city to see all the landmarks and the other at night to a dinner and a show finished off with the Chinese markets. The dinner was buffet style and awesome and the dancing sucked. The chinese markets were just like any other asian country - cheap ripoffs of clothes and shoes etc. I brought a polo shirt and discovered that Renee and I had only a few bucks to get us through the next day.

So that next day we went to the largest mall in Malaysia, and this thing was huge - all 13 storeys of it. Yes, you read right - 13 storeys!!! We went straight for the indoor themepark complete with rollercoaster that puts Rainbows End to shame. After nearly throwing up on some ride we decided to go for a quick game of bowling. We were on lane 29 of about 80.

That night we shared a cup of 2 min noodles as that was all we could afford.

The flight to London was fine, and I met up with my mate Kevin who has put us up in a room above his pub and he even cooked us a roast dinner last night. Solid stuff. So, right now, I am about to head into the city and start sorting my life out. I wont be updating this blog as much as I used to but stay tuned as I may make updates around every 3 weeks or so.

Lets put mums mind at ease

2009-07-07T08:35:00.001-07:00

OK. From Prague I went back to London and stayed there a week. Went to Legoland which was more for kids but was still pretty awesome.
Spent the other days catching up withsome contiki people and also saw Brad in London so went out on a night with him. Mental Note: Dont miss the tube again. Had to catch night busses which isnt fun when you are drunk. Ha
Right now I am in Abu Dhabi. Got a seemingly dodgy flight on a crowd called Etihad Airways but they are awesome.
Will be in Melbourne in a days time looking for work.

Thats all for now folks

A breath of fresh air

2009-06-29T05:59:00.000-07:00

Well, Berlin is awesome. Really cool.

Customs and the airport were sweet as. We decided to go through customs as we thought that we had some semi dodgy stuff that we had nabbed in egypt but they were like 'sweet as yo''.

Went and saw Daniel Libeskinds Jewish Museum - a building which I have been keen to see for a while now and it was cool. Think I got vertigo within it though. There are no right angles to be found anywhere in the building. Anywhere. I am even talking about where the floor meets and wall and the wall meets the ceiling. The building itself was more of the attraction rather than the exhibits it displayed within it (stuff from the holocaust - jewish notebooks and photos etc). Yesterday we got up early and headed to the Reichstag which was updated about 10 years ago by Lord Norman Foster and that was amazing also. We stopped by the Holocaust memorial by Peter Eisenmann - a series of 2711 concrete columns protruding from an undulating ground. Really eirie memorial. Made you feel lost and disorientated. There were poeple crying in it even. All seemed to be a bit too much for them.

Right now I am in Prague in the czech rep. We travelled here by train (first class of course - the first class ticket was on special and was cheaper than second class, sweet). Prague seems awesome also. Going to go see the dancing building by Frank Gehry - another building that I am really looking forward to seeing.

Look these places up on Google or wikipedia maybe if you want an idea of what they are.

To some sad news. Yes, I am distraught that Michael Jackson died. I maintained all through his life that he was awesopme even though heaps of people put him done and made fun of him. He was so influential and one of my most played artists on my iTunes. I was in Egypt when I found out via BBC and sat there still for a bit. Nearly cried but I was tougher than that. Played a whole list of tribute songs to him and have been playing them ever since. Not cool at all. If I was around London I was going to check out his concert but now I guess I will never have the opportunity to do so.

Saw Transformers 2 the other day also and I tell you - if you want to waste time and money, go see it. What a disaster with the story and acting. I would have rather lost my passport than watched that.

I am kidding about losing that passport. Dont want to jinx myself.

Going back to London tomorrow for a week or so. Looking to head to places like Bath and Manchester and Legoland. Yes you read right - Legoland. Oh yeah.

Anways I better go check out the czech republic

Travel Mishap

2009-06-25T00:05:00.000-07:00

HOLY CRAP

and you have no idea how much frustration and stress was just thrown into that 'Holy Crap'.

We went to go to Israel but got denied because, wait for it,

Renee had a page somehow missing out of her passport. They treated us like criminals, literally. They emptied my bags completely, went through all my things, asked all these questions like "are we carrying weapons of any kind etc?". Then after a few hours of interrorgation they said we will be sent back to Egypt and not allowed into Israel.

So at 2 in the morning we were sent back over the border, and we had to grab a taxi for a 3 hour drive back to Dahab, where we were staying.

Ok. This was all easy compared to what followed.

At Dahab we decided to head back to Cairo early so we could get this passport sorted as we were leaving to Berlin in 2 days.

It turns out that for an emergency passport it takes at least 48 hours to process, not to mention a copy of your birth certificate needing to be officially signed and sent via fax and new passport photos to be taken which also need to be verified by (in this case) an Australian citizen who has known Renee for 6 months or more. We also needed to head to some shithole government building to get a new visa where all they do is tell you to sit and wait AND THAT IS IT! We waited for hours only to be sent back to the embassy because we didnt have the right documents.

We have had to change our flights to Berlin, stay longer at the hotel where we are (which, by the way, means it takes us 1 hour of driving just to get into central Cairo where all this stuff has to occur), and muck around for 4 days trying to get this sorted.

Every taxi driver we get wants to charge us as much as he possibly can because he sees us as white foreigners with lots of money and if we pay what we know is the proper amount they ask for more and try to beat you up. We have had to go to 2 different photo labs and get 24 passport photos taken becuase apparently 23 of them werent good enough and go back and forth between A to B to C to D but finally we have the stupid thing. You have no idea the stress that has happened to us in these last 4 days. Add to that these bloody taxi drivers, the insane choatic transport issue around here, the constant tooting of horns and the stifling heat and you really get pushed to your breaking point. No one knows english fully enough to be able to converse with us on a proper level and tell us exactly what is going on.

And all this for a stupid page ripped out of a passport. We have figured out that it has happened when we handed a passport into a hotel reception for them to do their standard photocopying and the page got ripped out on the photocopier as it was the very page next to the photo ID. If I could grab the guy that did it by his melon head there is no telling what I would do.

So let this be a lesson to everyone that I have had to endure on behalf of you. LOOK AFTER YOUR FRIGGEN PASSPORTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dont let anyone handle them inappropriately. NOT ANYONE - IT IS YOUR PASSPORT AND YOUR PROPERTY AND YOU ARE LITERALLY STUFFED IF ANYTHING HAPPENS TO IT. If you have to get an ID copied, give them your drivers licence or something because all of this simply isnt worth it.

It has cost us about $1000 (between us) to sort this whole thing out not to mention the money I may have to give to a psychiatrist to help me get over it all. It was good also that we didnt have to cancel all our flights and hostels as that would have been significatnyl more money lost - more like $3000

................................................

So apart from that everything once we get to Berlin should be sorted. We have 2 days in Berlin, then get a train to Prague and spend a day there before heading back to UK. We originally had 3 days at each place but due to this whole thing means we have shorter stays

I just want to leave this country now. It was good up until this debarcle.

And no, I am not talking out of proportion here. If only words could describe properly the series of events we had to go through.

Mt Sinai & Jordan

2009-06-16T02:32:00.000-07:00

Ok. I totally forgot to tell you in that last blog.

Its probably a week ago now we decided to head up to Mt Sinai - a really religous mountian where Moses apparently had those commandments engraved into the stones. So after a full day of snorkelling we got approxiamately 1 hour sleep before heading into a van at 10:30 pm to head to Mt Sinai. At 1am (yes thats AM!!!!) we started hiking. The reason why you start so early is becasue it takes abour 4 hours to get to the top and you get to see the sunrise. Also its much cooler walking at night than during the day. Anyway, the hike was about 12km straight up. We climbed about 2500m into the air and then had to climb a further 750 steps to reach the summit. It was a mission. Combine this with the fact that we had to take our backpacks with warm clothes and everything else up there also and we were well and truly stuffed. At the top of this mountain there was a small monastery that was pretty incredible considering all the effort we went to to get up this mountain. Saw the sunrise and decided to head back down but we could go a seperate way from the wy we came up (which was apparently the easy way).
So down 3000 steps we went. These arent just normal steps either mind you. When you consider that we had to get down 2500m in 3000 steps then it makes a bit more sense. My ankle was stuffed by the end of it and it was so hot by that stage. So hot.
Then went to St Catherines monastery which is at the base of the mountain where apparently the burning bush that talks to Moses was housed within. I saw this bush but it didnt talk to me. Not even a whisper. Musnt be holy enough. Got back to the hotel at midday after a good 28 hours awake with not muh food and a whole lot of exercise
So that was my trip to Mt Sinai.

2 Days ago we travelled to Jordan which was pretty sweet. We got taken to the city of Petra which holds the treasury of Petra - the second wonder of the world behind the great wall.

It was a 46 degree day and we walked for 2 hours through a large natural canyon to reach the treasury but when we got there it was pretty amazing. Type it in on Google and have a look at it. The whole thing has been carved into a stone cliff face and is huge. Absolutely huge. There is a whole city there and it was only rediscovered in 1822 or something because before that it had been completely covered by the sea (Red I think).

Awesome. Looking to do Israel on Thursday but it is pretty dodgy there at the moment so might have to check the forecast before we head off.

Change of Plans

2009-06-12T04:03:00.000-07:00

Well.

Dahab has proven to be so cool that we have decided to stay here for an extra couple of weeks or so.

The snorkelling / diving is amazing. There is a place here called the Blue Hole and you can go swimming with all these tropical fishes around some awesome coral. Everyone is so easy going here that they just give you snorkels and flippers and stuff to use. Cheap enough to. Much like the prices in Bangkok.

So we have already booked some trips into Jordan and Israel. Why not huh?

Now, some travellers tips that I have figured out up till now.

- Washing your clothes is so expensive it just isnt funny. You are looking at aroun $15 - $20 for a single load. What the heck

- Internet is also another big money grabber. For Europe it costs around $8 for an hour of internet. You have to be really efficient when logging onto the net.

- Plastic bags are a life saver. For washing, dirty stuff, alcohol bottles etc.

- It pays to be nice to people all the time. Especially in places like Egypt here where they all talk about you behind your back and everyone knows every goings on in the town.

- Take a lot of Electrolites when travelling to places like this.

- Weigh up all travel options before jumping into things. The way we are doing it now we are basically not showing up to our return flight back to Amsterdam. It might seem stupid to just not turn up to a flight but we cant cancel it and it would work out cheaper for us to stay here than in Europe. It would have cost us 100 Euro to get from Amsterdam to Berlin by train with us having to sleep in an airport or somewhere for 8 hours in between. With this extended stay it has cost us 200 euro to fly directly into Berlin from Cairo with around 250 Euro saved on accomodation.

and we get our own room here and stuff and none of this bullshit dorm room crap.

Good times

Dahab = Awesome

2009-06-07T08:49:00.000-07:00

Ok. We came back to Cairo via a 12 hour overnight train, dropped those stupid polish chicks off and then left today at 6 in the morning for a 9 hour bus ride to the small seaside resort of Dahab.

First Impressions are that it is like a hidden paradise. Really super casual and relaxing. We got picked up from the bus by a guy in a ute and got told to throw everything in the back and jump in with it. Pretty casual alright.

Had a dinner propped up on the beach with some egyptian pillows that was so cheap and so awesome. Cats everywhere. Little ones. I am talking the size that can fit in one hand. And they all clambour all over you when they see food so the staff at the restaurants give you a spray bottle of water to squirt them in the eys with. Haha. I feel bad doing it but you have to.

Got two bottles of Vodka to get us through the next few days for a total of 36 egyptian pounds. Not bad considering that one pound is about 3.5 NZ dollars. Do the math.

.................

....................................

................................................................

.........................................................................................

Thats about $5 for a whole bottle of Vodka.

Going snorkelling through the coral tomorrow which should be awesome. They also have dive courses here which is pretty cool so I might check that out too.

Gotta go. Drinking to be done. Yola Yola (that means - 'Lets go")

Where the heck am I now?

2009-06-04T09:15:00.000-07:00

I am in Luxor.

We travalled here via a 5 star cruise from Aswan. Going to different temples everyday and it is getting to the stage where you just cant be bother seeing another decorated column. You know what I mean.

Anyway, the temples are pretty sick. Some taking up to 200 years to build.

I dont know if anyone remembers a program on TV called 'The Fast Show'. One where they did a skit pretending to be news reporters in a middle eastern country and they all said 'Hefefefefef Pefefefefef, and now to the weather' and the weather lady chick would always say 'Scorchio' and put sun symbols on every city loaction and one time she said 'Cumlio Nimbus' and the reporters were like 'CUMLIO NIMBUS!!!!!' and they went to a live feed and everyone was pointing up at a cloud in absolute awe.

Yeah, its like that here. A moderate 42 degrees celcius no less right now and it is 7:20 PM. Ridiculous.

The pool water is like it has come from a boiling jug. So so hot.

I can fart now though. We have figured out that if you have a shot of whisky every time you feel a bit crook, the alcohol kills all the stomach germs. No shit. Look into it.

Another post in such short a time. If only people read it. Haha

2009-06-02T05:54:00.000-07:00

So this morning I had to wake up at 2am to catch a 3 hour bus trip to a temple way the hell out near the Serbian border. The polish chicks didnt want to come because 2 was just too early for them.

So you can imagine the bus. About 12 seats in it, little to no leg room and a driver who had about 50 different ring tones on his phone adn I got to listen to them all. Haha. It was a bit of an adventure.

We got to the temple called Abu Simble at around 7am and spent about 2 hours there. Pretty sick temple. Statues about 20 metres high on each side as you walk through the doors. Another three hours back and I am now aboard a cruise ship getting ready for two days of 'cruisin' down the Nile.

Guts have been getting a bit dodgy lately. Nothing too serious and I am looking out for what I am eating but you still get the old gripe every now and then. I am too afraid to fart sometimes.

Egypt

2009-06-01T08:47:00.000-07:00

Talk about a culture shock!!!

After a stressful few hours before I left realsing that my travel insurance had run out and it was compulsory for myself to have it for Egypt I managed to get a Southern Cross Working overseas plan.
Dont use FLIGHT CENTRE, people. They are useless and take at least 2 months to do anything. I stil havent got my refund back from the start of my trip.

Anyway, Rotterdam and Maastricht were beautiful. Really nice to see a bit more of the Netherlands than the somewhat seedy underbelly of Amsterdam.

When we arrived in Egypt we were picked up by some dodgy looking guy claiming to be from the tour. We then jumped into a non descript car complete with dangly things hanging from the windows and AM/FM radio. An hour of stressing that he was going to take us to an out of the way place and ask for all our money, finally got us to our hotel.

The tour we are on is much different from the likes of Contiki but that is fine. It is just 2 other Polish girls on the tour and they sure know how to complain. One of them said from the start - 'Is there going to be Mosquitos here, because I am allergic to mosquitos'. Honestly, sometmes you have to wonder whether people travel for fun and adventure or just to show pictures of the places they have seen.

'We want a freshly squeezed Orange juice - can you take us to a shop?'

I think they have to realise that we are in AFRICA!!!!

Anyway, Egypt reminds me a lot of India in many respects. It is slightly more cleaner and slightly less choatic but it nevertheless still has all the same ingrediants as India.

We visited all the Pyramids yesterday and were literally swamped by hagglers. Everywhere. You get pretty good at saying NO. The sphyinx was a bit of a disappointment. Really tiny and pretty badly damaged.

The great pyramids were sick though. Last night we travelled by overnight train to Aswan - about 900 kms north of Cairo. Pretty dirty train and stuff but it was OK to spend a night on it.

Tomorrow we are going to Luxor. Ancient ruins everywhere. I guess they can get a bit overwhelming.

Out of Amsterdam!!!

2009-05-26T09:31:00.000-07:00

Well after over a week in Amsterdam I am finally out of it. Phew.

That place is expensive.

Right now I am in Rotterdam and this place is cool. Really cool. Just went to some markets before and got some super cheap food and soap and stuff. Because I am on a BUDGET now. Really have to watch my spending.

Tomorrow I am looking to head to the Hague which is the government capital of the Netherlands before heading to Maastricht on Thursday.

Egypt is coming up on Saturday. So excited about that. Hopefully it all goes smooth. I have been told to not piss into the water for too long because tiny insects will shoot up my dick hole and wreck havoc on my knob.

Dont really want to go to hospital for that. Once to the hospital is more than enough.

Other than the insects I think egypt will be sweet. It will certainly be cheaper (Heres Hoping).

After that, looking to do Prague, Switzerland, Berlin, Budapest and then more of France, Spain etc before finishing off in Portugal and heading back to England. Still unsure about the whole living in the UK thing. Every time I think about it, it seems to be what I dont really want to do but who knows.

Will probably update this next in Egypt. Bring it on I say

Amsterdam

2009-05-21T08:53:00.001-07:00

Well.

Amsterdam is an eyeopener for sure.

We have managed to hang in here for a few days now. There are 4 of us staying in a 2 bedroom dorm without the hostel staff finding out. A lot of keycard changing and so forth.

Staying here for a bit longer and then looking to do a bit more of the netherlands before heading to this egypt trip. Managed to convince the guy that I can pay him when I get there which should be good.

Not much else to report other than I am looking to get as much travelling out of the way now as I am unsure about what I am going to do with my future (work etc). Might end up coming back to NZ earlier than expected as I really am not too keen to set up shop in London hearing these stories about this credit crisis. I think that if I can get all my travelling done then I will be happy enough. So might be back in NZ or Aussie pretty soon...........

Amsterdam

2009-05-19T05:48:00.000-07:00

Well. Amsterdam is where the Contiki tour is finishing for me.

I am staying on here until the 30th of May until I head to Egypt. No more security blanket.

Getting kinda nervous as to booking this egypt trip. For some reason we cant use any of our credit cards to send the payment through and time is running out so hopefully we wont be stranded in egypt with no wheres to go.

Anyway. Amsterdam is insane. Tailored for the tourists everywhere. We got taken down the red light district last night and that was definately an eye opener. Cant take photos of it though so that sucked. Right now I am alone in some weird internet cafe under the ground down a dodgy back alley. Haha.

Pretty crazy how open everything is to everyone. You can just stroll the streets and be shown sex shows and everything all on the side of the road.

Tonight is the last night with the tour group. It will be sad I guess but in some respects, you do get a bit fed up with some certain individuals.

Looking to go see Wolverine soon as that movie looks sick

Switzerland

2009-05-17T08:38:00.000-07:00

Swizerland was probably the most amazing place of the trip so far. Absolutley stunning. We were staying in a small village called Lauterbrunnen that was surrounded by 200m high cliffs with waterfalls falling down all around.

As an excursion we went up to the top of the alps to a place known as the highest point in Europe (for that fact). Wow. So cool. Got in a massive snowball fight and played with the huskies. Stuffed my ankle again whilst going downhill on a sled but it should be alright.

That last post about all the cities I have been to was pretty good I thought. Keeps track of where Ive been.

Anyways, I am in the process of trying to sort out flights / trips for this egypt thing. Check out what I am looking at if youre keen

www.expatexplore.com/egyptexperience/index.html

Should be a cool trip. Looking to do that starting on May 30th.

Gotta go now anyways. Back in Germany for a short while before heading to amsterdam tomorrow

2009-05-15T11:33:00.001-07:00

Create your own travel map or travel blog

Travel Info at TripAdvisor

Speka Ze Deutch?

2009-05-14T07:33:00.000-07:00

Germany now!!

Austria was pretty amazing. A lot of the landscape etc looked a hell of a lot like NZ and it was in Austria where we got into the more sporty side of things. Because of my ankle (which is healing good by the way, thanks for asking) I only had to miss out on the paragliding which I was kinda thankful for as it cost around $250 and apparently wasnt worht that sort of cash. Went for a 25km bike ride through all the ski field areas (not filed with snow of course) and had a BBQ lunch which was awesome.

Got pretty shitfaced 2 nights back and spewed everywhere. Craig got it on camera which was just lovely. Funny though. I think the next day poor nathan was more hung over than me because I got rid of most of my alcohol.

Just before, I went white water rafting through the Austrian rivers. I was at the front of the boat which means I get all the water / fun. It was awesome. It took about an hour and a half and was a grade 3 river which i basically a semi-beginner river. Still hit some huge rapids.

Right now though, I am in Munich. Just chilling out for a bit before we head to a Beer Hall tonight for some stein drinking. I think the boys all want to have a skulling comp so we shall see how that goes.

Other than that - not much else to report. I have a pretty good idea of what places I would like to travel to after this so I will have to go about putting some sort of list together and sorting that out.

Croatia

2009-05-09T12:09:00.000-07:00

Croatia is amazing
Definatley a place I want to come back and visit.

Afetr I sent the lost post, we went for a tour around the old city side of Dubrovonik and it was literally a camera stop every 5 steps. Really cool. We then all jumped on some boats and went island hopping.

This is where I have some bad news.

I pulled a back flip off some wall and landing comfortably on some soft sand. Everyone was like wow and they all said do it again, do it again, we want to get it on camera.

I said - if i get hurt from this I will not be happy. As I landed I went toes first and my heels snapped back into the sand. It hurt for a bit but I walked it off after screaming a rather loud profanity. It was all good until the next day when I had a look at the thing in the morning and noticed it was all black and swollen to twice the size. As you can expect - i was not happy.

I had to go to a Croatian hospital and have a whole bunch of xrays done which took ages - into the early hours of the next morning and cost me $150 for it all. The verdict is that I have basically got a serious sprain and bruised my tendon - which isnt really as bad as it sounds but is still rather uncomfortable when walking. Basically I now take twice as long to get anywhere as anyone else and I truly am NOT HAPPY with my stupid self. I have made a mental note not to do anything stupid ever again.

So bad news I guess but hopefully I will be walking round on it properly in a few days. I know Mum is reading this now going oh no, oh no but dont worry mum. Happy mothers day by the way.

I am in Slovenia now after spending a bit of time in zadar (another Croatian city). Going to Austria tomorrow as I have found out.

Some good news is that I may be going to egypt sooner than expected as they have a good deal going on at the moment which is 15 days with everything included (travel, accomodation etc) and they take you down the Nile and spending 5 days in a resort for roughly $1000 so not a bad deal at all.

Will no doubt be hearing from mum or dad soon but hope everyone else is taking care

Country skipping

2009-05-07T01:20:00.000-07:00

Well.

We are pretty tired now. We have done about 30 hours of travelling over the past 3 days and it is making everyone just that little bit cranky.

its all good now though.

so from the greek islands we travelled on a super fast ferry to get back to the mainland. one that almost everyone spewed on. one person spewed when the boat was still docked. haha. chumps.

i didnt spew

we stayed a further night in greece before heading to albania. now with myself already having gone to india, things were not that bad for me but a few people were quite shocked at how poor the country was. rubbish everywhere. Sheep getting killed on the side of the road etc. A far cry from the beautiful Mykonos.

We stayed a night in Albania (one were I got my own room which was sweet). and then headed to Montenegro. When we were in Albania Craig, Nathan and I went to a wine store and Craig ended up getting the store owners number so he and nathan went out to ALBANIA AT NIGHT (!!!!) to try to meet her and her sister. haha. classic. they still have their kidneys so thats alright.

Montenegro is stunning and i wish we had spent longer there. Now we are in Croatia which is just as stunning. Went out to the clubs last night and now I am heading to the old town of Dubrovinik which is amazing.

going on a boat cruise around the islands soon which comes with more alcohol on board. haha.

anyway gotta go. heading to ..................... vienna next. i think. the days are becoming a blur.

The Greek Islands

2009-05-02T04:21:00.001-07:00

So from Rome we have now travelled via an overnight ferry into Greece.

We had a bit of a turn around with our schedule because of the greek holidays and ended up spending a few hours in Athens (which was more than enough) and then heading to Mykonons ( a greek island ) for an extra night which was very welcome.

It is so relaxing here. We have spent our days chilling by the pool and getting a tan which happens much more easily ( and less painfully ) than the tan you get in NZ. Aparently Mykonos is known as the 'gay' island so me and a few boys dressed up super gay last night hoping to get some free drinks but it just didnt happen. Damn it.

Oh yeah, back to Athens. We saw the Acropolis and Partheon and all that other stuff which was cool but it was mainly covered in scaffolding so that let it down a bit.

Right now I am about to head to a place in Mykonos called 'Paradise Beach" which is meant to be the main party place on the island so looking forward to it. I think I am building up a resilience for alcohol.

Oh yeah again. Went a did a bit more of Rome and that place is sick. Fully sick. We are all getting pretty close on this Contiki group. A few relationships forming and what not. A few arguementsa happening also. Those bloody aussies - all they can do is complain. "My pizza doesnt have enough salami", "my feet hurt", blah blah blah. Luckily I am somewhat tolerant, however I am so close to punching one in the face. These things happen in close confines though.

Alright. I better go and hit some more alcohol. I guess.
Will look to post photos on facebook tomorrow if the internet is still working.

Oh yeah I forgot about one of the old posts. I forgot to mention that Nathan won 160 euro at the monte carlo casino. Good on him. High rolla.

Talk soon

2 posts ion 2 days!!!

2009-04-27T10:21:00.001-07:00

Wow. How about that.

So I am in Rome now and it is unbelievabubble. Checked out all the main attractions today and will be doing the Vatican tomorrow.

We head off to Greece in a few days and to the greek islands for a sort of holiday within a holiday which will be nice. Had a huge night last night that got pretty messy and I have some great photos but havent had the time to upload any yet so stay tuned for that.

Me and a few boys didnt want to pay 30 euro for a big dinner so we went out by ourselves and strolled around florence at night. Awesome. I am bleeding money here though. Gone through $1500 already and dont have much to show for it. The conversion rate sucks. Brought a stein of beer the other day which worked out to roughly $30!!!

Anyway I had better get this post off before my internet time runs o

Italia

2009-04-26T07:03:00.000-07:00

Sorry. It has been a while since I have had a chance to update this.

I dont have much time on this either so I have to keep this short.

From Barcelona we went back through Southern France to the Antibes area. Nice was absolutely beautiful. We travelled to Monaco to it the casinos that night and had a blast. We then headed through to Italy where we stayed 2 nights in Venice which was just as magnificent. Travelled down through Pisa to Florence just yesterday but have had some hiccups here. A couple of the cabins got broken into and a lot of the girls things got stolen including cameras, cash, laptops and passports. Tears flooded the area. We got through alright in our cabin but it was a wake up call. Add to that some shocking rain today and it has left a dampen on our florence visit.

Havent had a day yet when we havent been drinking. It pretty full on. We are living off 4 hours sleep a night and are hungover every morning. Its fun but tiring.

Shitttt. Time is running out. Ummm, we are heading to Rome next and then off to Greece I think after that. I designed the contiki tshirt which was pretty sweet and everyone really enjoys it

Gotta go. Talk soon

Es Spainio

2009-04-20T08:52:00.000-07:00

Well Hello Again
It has been a short while since I have been able to attack the ol' internet. Truth is - I am having the time of my life.....

The night before Contiki, Nathan and I decided to enter a quiz competetition with a few peps from the hostel. Long story, short. We won the bloody thing. Which meant. 4 jugs of beer and cocktails for us to finish off in a few hours.
We got to bed at about 3 and woke up at 5 to head to the Contiki crew. We were pretty wasted.

The other travellers on the trip are great fun. Really good fun actually. There are precisely 5 Candaians, 5 New Zealanders, and 28 Aussies!!!. We are slightly outnumbered so we dont pull off hakas or nothin'. Honest guv'

We hit sweet Pari' first off, which I had already gone to so i automatically became the guy on tour to follow. I got some props from eating the first snail also. 3 nights in Pairs became 2 long nights in the contiki chateau in the awesome beaugolouis wine region which was mind blowing. We took picnic baskets up to 'the top of the world' and munched out. We had a massive party which the theme was 'P' so you had to dress up as something beginning with P. I went as a porn star by borrowing a stokcing from one of the girls and filling it with my gyn shorts. You can imagine what i did with it i guess. Haha

Now we are in Barcelona where I can finally hit the net. Saw a whole lot of Gaudi today which was mindblowing to say the least. Riduclous, I have had some props from beinbg an architect and everyone is asking me about different buildings with an amazed look on their faces. Its friggin' sweet.

Met a really cool guy called Craig and we are going to do a bit more of amsterdam after this. Nathan is absolutley loving it. I can see it on his face.

Ok. till next time. Check out my faccebook page in a wee bit for some pics.

Blair

The Transient Life Begins

2009-04-12T09:32:00.001-07:00

Wow, it has been a while since I have added to this.

The trip started off on a bad note by the airport wanting me to pay $150 for a fee that I had already paid for which was a bit shit but apparently I can get it back from my travel agent so all good.

I should have really done my math on my flight times. It turned out that I spent 37 hours in total on travel time which was exhausting to say the least. Met up with a guy called Mike on the flight who was good to waste the hours away with. Stopped for 10 hours in Brunei which was possibly the most boring time of my life. I ended up playing hacky sac by myself and talking to the cleaner about how it was kind of like soccer. Had a short stop over in Dubai also, which allowed me to see all the large buildings that are going up over there. The 800m high tower that is nearly completed is insanely huge. Insanely!!

Arrived in London, got through customs on the visa extremely easily and met up with Nathan quite easily also. We have spent most of today checking out all the sights and trying to stay awake till bed time to avoid a bad jet lag. Went on the London eye again (which I really didnt need to do) and saw St Pauls, the Tate Modern, the British museum, Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey. The usual.

Heaps of Tourists around because of the easter hoilday. Going to keep this initial blog pretty short as I dont really have to much to say and just wanted to kick it all off. Till next time.

The last blog of the trip

2007-02-22T03:01:00.000-08:00

Well. Tomorrow we head back to NZ.

It has been a great trip and we have seen some amazing things. Looks like our carry on bags are going to be massively overweight just so we can get everything back home.

Today in Bangkok, we went to go see the Grand Palace but it was closed as today is one of the only days in the year that it is only for Thai people. We met this thai person and got talking and he told us all these other places we should go see - some were only open to the public today so it is quite rare that we can actually see them. This guy even sorted out a tuk tuk driver for us and haggled him down to us paying nothing at all for the ride. The guy dropped us off at each stop and waited around for us to come out and everything. I asked him why he would do this for free and he stated that if we go to the export market (a precious stones market and shop - which we wanted to do anyway) he gets a petrol voucher so he was really happy.

It was so hot today. Around 40 degrees. When we flew in a few days back the pilot said it was around 35 degrees and we thought that was hot. Add the humidity into things and it is ridiculous. So today we nearly sweated ourselves to death. So hot.

Thats about all. I will be back in NZ at around 9:30 on saturday morning.

oh and by the way

2007-02-20T20:01:00.000-08:00

Go the Blackcaps

What an insane series. I amangaed to watch the second agme and I thought " This cant get any better".

Looks like they proved me wrong

Bring on the world cup (and virtual cricket for that matter - anyone heard anything abou that yet?)

One night in Bangkok and the worlds your oyster...

2007-02-20T19:41:00.000-08:00

Well. We left London a day ago and it was pretty sad. Such a nice place and nice people we were staying with.

The flight to Bangkok was fine. I basically went unconcious because of my cold that I had and slept through most of the flight. Booya.

In bangkok now. I love this place. Took the cab driver over 2 hours to drive us from the airport to our hotel (new airport too - really nice architecture) and we paid him the equivilant of $8 each. Insane. I gave him a $4 tip because I thought why the hell not and the guy got so happy and was shaking my hand and stuff.

Already brought 6 CD's. So sweet.

If anyone wantsa me to get them any cds or anything then send me an email real quick because I will only be checking them one more time before I head home. You can basically get anything you want. I think that goes for DVD's as well. Oh yeah and they have random compilations likle the best of Snow Patrol, and the best of James Blunt (hasn't he only had 1 album?).

We have got no room left in our bags for purchases so we are throwing out some of our old clothes.

About to hit the mall district, get on the piss tonight and head to the floating markets tomorrow and as well as the grand palace.

New photos up on Ringo!!!!

St Valentines

2007-02-16T01:00:00.000-08:00

After all that stuff we did on Valentines day we thought we may as well treat ourselves to a really nice dinner. As we also thought we were quite stupid to miss out on proper spainish cuisine when we were there, we thought we wont do it with France.
So we ate some snails. They aren't bad at all, thoguh ours were heavily coated in garlic.

After that we went to the Eiffel Tower around 9pm and travelled up it. It is massive. Like really massive. And when you are in an elevator with glass walls and it just keeps taking you up, it does get a bit like a theme park ride. Sarah was shitting herself.

The view was amazing and they had little distance flags placed around the perimeter showing you what direction and how far away major cities of the world were. We were pretty impressed to find Wellington was the furhterest away out of all of them at nearly 19000 kms.

On the thursday we went to the arc de triomphe which is basically a massive roundabout. There is about 6 lanes of traffic constantly going around it and no road markings. Just as sarah was saying "I cannot believe they dont have accidents" we saw a guy on a moterbike get slammed by a car. He went soaring through the air and did a pretty mean flip. Hope he is alright.

Also went back to the Eiffel Tower to get some daytime photos and visited the Pantheon.

Its funny about Europe. They got the same shit over here that we got back home except over here its just a little different.

Example

- You can get beer basically anywhere. Most vending machines just in the street have beer in them and no real age control thing to stop underage kids buying it.

- Cops are everywhere and they have every form of transport. I am not kidding but yesterday we saw a pack of cops in police issued roller blades. There is also at least one cop on every street corner and thy just stand around really

- A big macs a big mac but they call it Le Big Mac

2007-02-14T07:13:00.000-08:00

On sunday Sarah and I made our way out to see Canterbury Catherdal as Tim wa going in those directions anyway. The place was huge and is apparently the most spectacular church in all of Britain. It was pretty cool and had been added onto over the years so it had all different styles happening all through it.

Monday was a big day. We got an all day travel pass and went all over trying to nip the things that I have to do for this scholarship in the bud. Went to the natural History Museum first though which was pretty cool to see dinosaur skeletons and such. Didnt see a T-rex however. It alluded me.

Went out to Greenwich area and saw the Millenium Dome and the Millenium Village and West Silvertown (they weren't that exciting from a tourist perspective but I got what I needed from it for my lecture.

Yesterday we jumped aboard the Eurostar ( a bullet train) and headed to France via the english channel. On the english side the train chugged along at about 100 kms per hour but once they got through the tunnel into France (where there is no speed limit for trains really) he wound the thing up and we must have been going about 300 kms an hour easy. Pretty sweet.

Arrived into Paris at around 5pm and went and had a walk through the streets. I think I like Paris even more than I do London. Saw the Grand Opera House - a building that actually combines the styles of romanticism and classicism (two styles thought opposite at the time).

Today we grabbed some train tickets and headed to see the Lourve. For some reason they were letting everyone in for free so we were stoked not to pay (and we had to get out of the rain). Ching ching. Saw the Mona Lisa which really is all it is cracked up to be. It was pretty cool. Also saw the Venus de Milo and had a walk through the whole place. Had no idea it was actually as large as it is. It would be a good 700m - to a kilometer to walk from one end of the building to the other.

Also just went and saw the Pompidou Centre and Notre Dame Cathedral which was also pretty cool. Say a guy paint the Che Guevara head blindholded and from behind the page. It was pretty sweet so I snapped some photos.

Not much happening now. The weather is really packing up so we are going to head back to the hostel. Just got notcie that I have to move out of my flat which pains me so I will be hitting the flat websites and newspapers when I get home - unless any of you know of a room?

More photos on Web

2007-02-10T11:19:00.000-08:00

Just uploaded some more pics:

http://www.ringo.com/profile/blairparkinson.html

Oh yeah - and we went to Piccadilly Circus. It was pretty cool but not sure what the big deal is all about

Back in London

2007-02-10T10:44:00.000-08:00

We travelled back to London on Thursday and were lucky to get out as they were clsoing airports all over because it was snowing everywhere. Tim and Mel (the people we were staying with) were going to be out for the night so Sarah and I grabbed a hostel in the centre of London hoping to hit the streets that night to check out the nightlife. We got a fair way out of the door before we realised that being numb from head to toe probably wasn't the best mood to be in to party down.

The hostel itself was expensive and pretty shit. The room was the size of our linen cupboard back home.

That friday we went and checked out the National Gallery which was all pretty awesome. They had alot of paintings from da vinci, michelangelo, rembrandt, picasso and van gogh. We lost time there and realised that we had been wandering around for a good four hours. My favourtie artist on exhibition was probably Monet. His paintings looked like squiggles up close but when you stood a good 6m away you could see an amazing amount of detail. I literally have no idea how he painted them. He must have used a 6m painting brush or something.

Today we went to the biggest mall in Europe which was quite true to its title. It was insanly large. The carpark alone was about twice that of Bayfair. There was a pretty sweet lego store and I was tempted to purchase a pretty large lego batmobile but my consience steered me away from it.

Just got back from another pub (the amount of pubs and beers I have had over here in the few short days is pretty crazy). They had a beer which was infused or something so that it had a raw cherry or strawberry flavour and didnt taste too bad. The bad thing was that it cost about $15.

Going to Canterbury tomorrow to check it out whilst Tim and Mel play some touch and then back off into central london on Monday before Paris on Tuesday

Visuals

2007-02-07T07:51:00.000-08:00

Ahhh. It took a little while (probably because the files are so big) but I have now uploaded some photos for you all to see on the net. Go to :

http://www.ringo.com/profile/blairparkinson.html

Should give you an idea of how it is all going and what I have seen.

A couple of days back I checked out Santiago calatravas work in Valencia. You can see some photos of it actually. My profile photo has some of his buildings in the background.

Apart fromthe shear size of the buildings, it would probably have to be the most beautiful architecture I have been within. It is so so sleek and stylish. And everything is mosaiced. Yes, that big white building - all of that is mosaics. Everything white is mosaics really.

I would recommend to anyone to come and see this place. It truly is a great sight.

On the other hand, Sarah and I have been getting some sore bellies recently and we are not really sure what it is all from. First off, the food which we brought fromthe supermarket (fresh pasta and some salami) tastes like ass. It is so salty i nearly hurled. We have had McDonalds for lunch for tyhe past three days because there are alot of them here, they are easy to order at (language barrier and everything) and we know what we are getting.

Went shopping today....Pretty boring but Sarah seemed to like all the clothes shops. She also looked at shoe shops and they was one stage where there was 4 different shoe shops all next to each other. I thought someone up high really had it in for me.

Not much else to report

Spain

2007-02-05T12:36:00.000-08:00

On saturday Tim and Mel took us out to see Windsor Castle. It was massive. The queen really does know how to spoil herself. The building itself inside the castle walls was impressive and housed some pretty amazing things - Da Vinci, Michelangelo and Raphael drawings among a few things. Apparently the Windsor family have some 600 works by Da Vinci. We then spent a ridiculous amount of money buying Cornish Pasties and Sausage Rolls and called it a day.

The Sunday was pretty relax and Tim and I played some pretty full on touch rugby before we visited a pub that he use to work at which is some 400 years old. Henry the 8th used to drink there back in the day.

Today, Sarah and I travelled to Valencia in Spain and were hit with a bit of a culture shock. I suppose we were just ignorant to the fact that not really anyone at all speaks english - not even a little bit. And all the computers are in english. In fact, it took we a while to figure out how to log on to this one. It also took 25 minutes for me to copy photos to a CD. I would be screwed if I was trying to do this in China - at least you can kind of make out words in Spainish.

We have just got back from a night time walk over here that was insanly cool. The buildings and churches that make up most of the plazas are massive. Some 10 - 13 stories tall, and they dont really have those floors in between, just open height space. We are off to look at the works of Santiago Calatrava tomorrow and were recomended by our waiter at the restaurant we werejust at to hire a bike to get there which we may as well do.

Off to bed now though. That touch game has left me buggered

England so far

2007-02-02T12:04:00.000-08:00

Tunbridge Wells (where I am staying) is the kind of place my mum would love. Quaint little boutique shops that sell all that antiquey looking stuff. Sarah and I had a big walk around it on Thursday. It is such a lazy town. Checked out an old church in the centre of it that was built in the 1600's. Squirrels and foxes are everywhere around here which is pretty fun trying to lull them into a good range for photographs.

We went and had a few beers and a dinner out a couple of nights back which was good fun. The pub is definately the heart of the community over here. You go there every night just to have a few drinks and a laugh. And there is about 1 pub to every 3 other shops so they are evrywhere. English beer is pretty crap however.

I have refused to have a warm one yet.

Today was a monster day. We travelled into the heart of London and went crazy. e saw the Tate Modern which is all contemporary art - Salvador Dali, Jackson Pollack and the likes. Pretty amazing stuff when you see them for real. Especially the dali ones. There was also an exhibit (well at least we think it was an exhibit) which was a 5 storey water slide thing except without the water. An enclosed slide thing. Tim (the guy we are sgtaying with and myself) went on it and you got some serious speed. Sarah held our bags.

After that we went to St Pauls cathedral which is ridiculously large. Had a perve inside and couldn't be bothered with the cover charge so gapped. Walked a bit down the road and saw the Swiss Re Tower by Norman Foster nicknamed the gherkin. It doesnt look anything special really but it is still quite a significant building. However just next door to it was an amazing building. Lloyds of London by Richard Rogers is crazy cool. All the elevators and air ventilation pipes have been pushed to the exterior and accentuated. The lifts are all glass boxes so you can see all the internal workings of them and they shoot up the side of the building which even shows the counteweights used for them and stuff. The building was great. All aluminium clad and pretty fricken massive. He would have to be one of my favorite architects out. I just really like his style. Give it a search on Google to check it out.

Went to a market place which was basically a booze market. All the suits were drinking already at about 12 in the afternoon. You dont even need to stay within the limits of a bar. You just buy the beer and go wander around the place.

Saw the Tower of London and London Bridge before travelling on another train to see Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament which were really really impressive. The size of it is understated somewhat in photographs and other stuff. The place is huge.

We got lost looking for the Channel 4 headquarters (another building designed by Richard Rogers) and when we found it I got told off for taking photos of it so I told the guy to get stuffed and stood back two steps so that I was on the footpath. What could he do about it?

To cap it all off and as it was getting a bit dark we brought some tickets for the London Eye. A massive ferris wheel thing which rotates slowly and rises each pod that it holds some 135m into the air. It was very very cool and worth the $45 I had to pay for the thing.

As for now we are just about to eat a curry and get on the booze. Going to visit Leeds Castle and Windsor Castle tomorrow which are meant to be the two best castles in England. Going to Spain on Monday to see the work of Santiago Calatrava. It may just change my opinion of my favourite architect.

What a relief

2007-01-31T09:52:00.000-08:00

Well.

London is a breath of fresh air (in a vacational sense). I've only be here one day and already I am digging the place. The flight from LA was fine and we slpet for 18hours straight as soon as we got back.

However I cannot believe the price of things. I am buying bottles of water nand paying £1.50 mfor them and it is only until you do some converting that you figure that it is a $4.50 bottle of water. Train rides are expensive as well with an all day pass costing you about $30 to even $50.

The place where we are staying is in a really nice little town called Tunbridge Wells and we are staying with a friend of Sarahs. Great people and we are about to hit some ye olde english pubs in a bit. For a year pass on the trains (which they have - you dont use cars in London) it cost him $7500. I am so glad that I can just walk to work in NZ.

We are to go into the centre of London tomorrow and check out the houses of parliament etc. I am also going to check out the channel 4 headquarters and london eye etc as they are quite the fancy design.

I hear Jacob Oram is the master blaster now. Watched the game against England which was some extreme hitting so I am pissed that I missed his century against Oz.

Far Out

2007-01-29T11:10:00.000-08:00

So now British airways are not striking. Meaning that I now have to miss out on the Getty Centre and Universal Studios all beacuse of their stupid reliability.

Cant be bothered. What a stuff up.

Kind of sick of LA anyways. Hasn't lived up to expectations.

2007-01-27T10:01:00.000-08:00

HA. It is bound to happen.

When would British Airways want to strike. Just when we are flying with them. What a crock. Our flight to London was cancelled and it took a good hour and a half on the phone to finally get our flights changed from Thursday the 1st of February to this coming Monday the 29th of February. It honestly took a good 5 mins for them to understand our booking refernece number because they thought we couldnt pronounce the letter 'z' properly.

Apart from that everything is fine and dandy. Gehry studios was amazing. The place is huge and I snuck a few photos to look back on. (They didnt actually allow it but I think I got some good ones of the entire place). I will talk alot about it in the lecture so I think I will save most of that info till then.

Got stranded in South Central for an hour which was an eyebrow raiser.

Visited Santa Monica and Malibu beach and the likes. Saw a mini putt which I got amped up for but then realised it was probably the most average one I have ever seen. Worse than Snappers at the mount or that shitty one at Rainbows End.

Because of the change in flights I probably wont get a chance to visit any mini putss considering the nearest one is about a 3 hour bus ride away. Already done a few of them and they are not fun. Especially when you are sitting near homeless people who have just found enough money for a fare and have just pissed themselves.

Visited Burger King ( my first true fast food joint here so far) and I have concluded that America fast food is not actually that much tastier than New Zealand ones as I was led to believe. The cheese is a bit tastier and the king size (which I got) was monster. I am talking a drink larger than 1 ltr which was bigger than the burger and fries put together. And it was cheap. Probably about $7 NZ for the largest combo.

I also am missing out on the Getty Centre which is a bit of a shame but I figure I would rather be in London with a (pretty much) gauranteed trip home than stranded in LA.

Intial Stages

2007-01-23T15:18:00.000-08:00

Well.

I think I am pretty much over LA.

Not to say that it is that bad but I just feel like the rest of the world is given a different impression of what this city is really like. It is all big 4 wheel drives, low height slum dwellings and expensive food stores. I am, as of yet, to find a supermarket or some place to get a lot of food in one go. The hostel is nice enough.

Its funny. I actually felt much more safer walking the streets of India than I do L.A. Go figure.

Anyways. A couple of days back we headed to hollywood ave and checked out all the stars on the footpath. WOW, what a big deal. That was the best time I have had in my life...... (I dunno if sarcasm translates easy on a computer screen). We then got conned into taking a tour of the stars houses and such which was looking at a whole lot of covered up gates really. It was alright I suppose. Got to travel it in a limo and checked out all the hot spots which meant we didnt have to do it later. Rodeo Drive was over the top oppulant but had some nice design ideas for upper class stores. It was nearly a waste of time until the driver asked if any of us knew of Antoni Gaudi and if we wanted to see one of the houses he designed. I was flawless in pulling out my camera and pushing past the aussies travelling with us to grab some photos of that.

Ahhh good times.

Just got back from checking out the Walt Disney Concert Hall, which did live up to expectations. Craftmanship got a bit iffey around the corners but overall it is a pretty amazing building. Went for a walk through it all and grabbed some nice shots. Alos saw a random building which was the LA Transport Authority building which looked pretty tops. Going to go to Gehry studios tomorrow and hit them up with some questions.

Not much else to report. Spending more money than expected... Which I suppose is to be expected

testing 1..2

2007-01-04T16:42:00.001-08:00

Just a test