so different, yet the same

So rather than read a local newspaper like the Times, or something distinctly London based, I read the Age online. And this morning, an article made me realise that while it's so different, it's still all the same.

I quote for you:

Christmas Presents

So we had earlier decided that we weren't going to bother with christmas presents for each other - we've spent rather a lot of money this year. So apart from our christmas lunch, christmas was fairly uneventful.

Singularity Christmas

While it may be far from the first christmas we have spent together, this year was the first christmas we actually spent alone. Figuratively speaking. It doesn't mean we couldn't eat up a storm though.

Saturday Snow !

I'm dreaming of a white christmas...

Well, not dreaming so much, because it's looking like becoming a reality. I got up this morning at around 10am, it was snowing. It continued to snow for at least 3 hours. And not just a light shower.

Not so wintry

Today is our planned trip to Winter Wonderland. I was really looking forward to this - outdoor ice skating rink, skating around in the snow, little snowwy thinggies falling on our faces and stuff.
Unfortunately, all the snow has gone away. There's actually a nice, clear blue sky out there.

Rhiannon doesn't agree

(In fact, she thinks i'm kind of nuts) but this is possibly the coolest, Ever. We've been hearing for days about how it's going to snow. It was supposed to snow on Saturday, etc. It's now Tuesday.

And I'm disappointed, because by the time we woke up, there was already white outside, so we actually missed the first snow of the year. (Incidently, it's not even December yet.)

Oxford St Christmas lights

Today, coincidentally, coincided with the American Express VIP shopping day on Oxford St here in London. Basically, they closed the street to through traffic, and only allowed pedestrians.

We needed to buy a proper winter jacket for Rhiannon - her leather jacket is not only old and sullen, but also not really keeping her warm. So despite the cold weather, the threat of the first snow of the year, 1 blocked nose, 1 chest cold, 1 head cold combined with spacey, out of this world feeling, we ventured down to Oxford st, leaving our warm, comfy abode about 2:00pm.

Finally...

We have uploaded a selection of photos from our week in Paris, including EuroDisney, Versaille, and that big pointy steel thing.

You can find them all in a slideshow here
Along with our entire France trip here
The Summer Odyssey here

And of course, the whole shebang here

There is over 600 shots in the summer collection, so have some spare time :)

Weather's here, wish you were fine.

As you may recall, we left in February. At the tail end of yet another Melbourne heat wave. It was kinda cold when we got here, but we adjusted, then it became a lovely, warm, sunny summer, not just here, but also in Europe.

It's now November.

More Chip Flavours

So I see that recently, my post on Chip Flavours has been quite popular. (Yes, that's right, I'm a little man, sitting in a server room, looking at everything you do. I can also Read Your Email.)

So, I thought I'd write another post on chip flavours. This one refers to chicken flavoured chips, and is quite pleasing, while saddening at the same time. So let's crack on chaps. (See how I dropped some english-speak in there ?:P)

Chip flavours!

Our weekly food shop at Sainsburys was undertaken today. Since our relocation to Kilburn, we've found it necessary to go to the Sainsbury's at Finchly road, which is no big deal. There's another one down the bottom of Kilburn High Road, but it's a small minger of a store, we were actually disgusted by the state of when we were there the other week.

A French Dinner...

As Rhiannon was working it the city this week, we've been travelling in and home together. Except last night, I finished at 7. So she met me at work and we went out for a bit before heading home.

Ahhh unions

Last time, it didn't bother us so much - we weren't getting round so much. But today was the next in a series of strikes orchestrated by London Underground employees. If you're not aware, London Underground runs what is colloquially known as the Tube, moving more than 1 billion people a year. It's a vast network, with heaps of interconnecting lines, so you can almost _always_ find a way to get where you're going.

Anyway, this week, Rhiannon had to work in the city, meaning we can catch the Tube together, which is fun :) Until the union workers strike, throwing the entire transit system, and likely the city, into disarray

foxy!

So to celebrate the end of our first month as full time employees, we decided to go out to our favourite local bar, and dinner. Two doors down the road, we saw a fox. A real live fox. But don't we live in the middle of London?

More work!

It is with great interest that I can report on the status of Rhiannon's job hunt - she has been offered a role that she starts on Monday with a recruitment firm in Watford. It's exactly the sort of role she wants, and is very excited about it.

So yay, we can do some more travel next summer.

Paris by Dots

Too lazy to reform this, so have some dot points about our week in Paris. It's taken us a while to get this up, oh well. We'll add some more photos at some point too.

bah, it's just money.

Once we got back from Paris, we sat down, worked out how much money we had, and a budget. Last night, we set a definitive date when we would have to pack up and run home with our tails between our legs.

That date was defined as October 31st. It's about the only point where we can afford to get back, and still have (some) money to try and settle back in Melbourne.

Down and out in London...

is actually a biographical story by George Orwell. Things are looking up on the interview front for both of us, so it's just a matter of time now. In particular I'm getting much more interest than I was previously. So, we're not down and out yet.

Back on the hunt...

The fact of being back in London means two things. One, we have very little money left. Two, we need jobs. Rhiannon's applying for Admin and HR/Recruitment based roles, as a bit of a change, and will still be doing casual supply teaching in the mean time.
I'm back on the same old band wagon.

London.. Feels like Home...

I mentioned to Rhiannon as we stood on the train heading back to our stamping ground of Willesden Green, that it felt amazingly like being home. In fact, more so that I suspect going back to Melbourne, or Canberra, or Wagga, or Albury would just now. I'm not too sure why.

Anyway, it was a long day once we left our gorgeous apartment in Paris, and you'll see below that getting back to stable accommodation here was a bit of a cock-up.. in fact we're not even there yet.

Itchy and Scratchy Land - The happiest place on earth

Since I'm not a Simpson, I only got to go to EuroDisney. It's another of those things that you just "have to do". We'd pre-purchased tickets online for 47EUR each, to get access to two parks for one day. Saved us 20EUR each from buying on the day, and meant skipping the ticket line. It's unlikely you'd get time to see both parks though.

Moulin Rouge

It's one of "those" tourist attractions. You know, the place everyone knows about, and goes to see. We'd read heaps of reviews, some good, some bad, some idiotic (I mean really, complaining that it's not a place to take kids, surely you know that before?)

We reviewed a number of options, including the menus, and decided we'd be better getting dinner elsewhere and just seeing the 9pm show. And was it worth it ?

Family outing in Versaille

Ever been on one of "those" family driving trips ? surely, everyone has. Go left. No, go right. Sit down. Are we there yet. Change the radio station. Sit still. Open the window. CLose the window. Can we have Mcdonalds...

Well, today we went to Versaille. I'll write a bit more later, but for 30EUR for an hour using a 4 seater golf cart, it's much better than walking.

Paris - The Lourve and Not the Arc Triomphe

After a good night's sleep, a run to the shopping centre for some brunch, and then croissants with ham and cheese (how parisian!) we figured out that due to the weather, we would go to the Lourve rather than Versaille today. Once we got there, we figured out it's much better to pay 32 EUR for a 2day all-museum pass, which would get us into Versaille (15.50) and the Lourve (9.00) and the Arc de Triomphe, and the Musee D'Orsay and we could skip lines (priceless.) We figured this would be good value for money, even if we only did the Lourve and Versaille.

Arrival ala Paree

Despite our earlier issues with the trains, we were able to get on a train this morning at 6:08am. Well, the train was supposed to leave at 6:08. It eventually showed up at 6:28am, and left at 6:38. Still, we got into Paris on time.

Magic Fountain of Montjuic

Keep your volumes down a little bit for this - there's lots of background noise, but we didn't want to swap the audio as this track belongs with it.



This fountain is located in Barcelona. Jump off the Metro at Placa Espanya, walk up the hill and observe. It runs after 9:00pm, and was first shown in 1876 or something like that.

Saved by the hair on his chinny chin chin.....

So we found out, by a fluke of luck this evening, at around 9:30, that many of the flights into Paris tomorrow will be cancelled due to industrial action. Turns out there is more than just flights cancelled, and there are only two TGVs running to Paris from Toulouse (our present location)

So thanks for the heads up to Rhiannon's parents, we're now rebooked on a train departing at 6:05am. We would have had no idea, and simply shown up at 9:30 for our regularly scheduled train, to find out the next one was at 4:00pm, and probably already fully rebooked.

Still, for the last few days of a 2 months stretch, we're doing pretty well if this is the only major thing that's gone wrong.

We're just hoping that getting to the airport at 4:00am will get Trevor and Judy rebooked onto a different flight.

Toulouse, weather and foosball

Had a nice sleep in. Think we really needed it. Had a look out the window to realise that it must have rained and that it was pretty grey looking. Wasn’t raining at the time, though, and we have been very lucky with the weather, so no complaining. Out we went...

The train in Spain falls mainly... in it's standards

Horrible Spanish train! We were in first class, which was full of seats like scratchy material lounges from the seventies. All brown and orange and yuck. Very slow train. We didn’t get reservations because we didn’t think they’d be necessary. They weren’t required on the last Spanish train we were on and we couldn’t book reservations when we first tried.

Barcelona is spectacular

A lot to pack in. 3 trips into and out of the city planned. All worked out. First we caught our free shuttle in to town (offered by the 5 star tower next door). Had a walk around the centre, down La Rambla (famous main street), into some of the smaller streets off the side into the old town.

Finally an apartment!

Had to get up early to catch four different trains. We were meant to have a long wait at Port Bou for our last train, but there was one about to leave for Barcelona and since it didn’t require a reservation we hopped on it and arrived in Barcelona an hour and a half earlier than we’d expected. Nice surprise. This was a very good Spanish train too, despite only being second class.

Found our Apartment suite. Absolutely stunning with gorgeous big black tiles throughout and nice furniture. Was great to have a kitchen again. Walked over to a close supermarket and had great fun picking out stuff we could cook. Very tired, so didn’t go out. Just had a nice night in cooking dinner, watching movies and drinking sparkling wine.

Lake Zurich

I just thought I'd post this for the fun of it, because it's such a gorgeous photo. Rhiannon took it, from the inside of a boat on Lake Zurich, against the glass, while the boat was moving. That aside, it's pretty stunning.
You can view more of our photos here or the one's I've added to the map here.

More posts coming

As I'm trying to put posts in appropriate date orders, but i'm writing out of order, you may miss some. So here's a list of some recently written posts.

Dachau
Brasov
Berlin Zoo
Switzerland
The Golden Pass

Alternately - you could check the "monthly" links - over there on the right. For instance:
August

TGV - a slight recant

Ok - we caught another TGV today (Marseille to Peripegnon) - and were pleasantly surprised to find it wasn't the same as the other day.

For a start, there was more room. There also seemed to be power at all the First class seats. Quite why the conductor on the last train told us no TGVs have them is beyond me.

So, yes, I recant some of my statements, notably the ones about space, and power. Actually, it wasn't overheated either, so I'll recant that too. I won't recant my comments on the stupidity of the platforms and organisation etc.

So sorry, TGV :)

Cannes (but no films)

Walked around. Through the old town area. Up to the castle and looked out over the city. Back down, grabbed some sandwiches for lunch and relaxed in a little park area near the water. Cannes is an absolutely stunning place along the waterfront.

Monaco

Station was made out of marble! Walked up the hill to old town. Saw the palais. Lookouts over ports. Wandered through small, charming streets. Through park like stuff (beautifully manicured) down to the main port. Awesome yachts.

Mini train and old, old city

There were a couple of self walking tours noted on our map. Did the first one through old town. Fascinating. Plaques along the way to read. Cute, little streets. Although, they don’t seem to clean them at all. We found the Italian ones a lot cleaner. There was one very old street (Rue Grand). Dated as around 600 BC (Marseille is France’s oldest city) with a very old cool looking building that had been literally turned to match the new layout of the street when it was changed. Hard to imagine a building being turned.

Washing machine's really do eat socks!

Headed out to a nearby laverie (Laundromat) to obviously get our washing done... and out of the way. All easily sorted out, except the machine seemed to have taken a big bite out of one of my new sock. There was a huge hole in it! At least it was just a sock. Went to a close American style diner for lunch. I ordered cheese fries, which turned out to be cheese wedges. Delicious! Andy got some chicken wings.

Caught our train to Marseille. We knew that Marseille was probably going to be a bit dirtier and less safe than other places we’ve been. There were dodgy seeming people in the main station and metro stations, but we had no problem and the metro tickets were cheap, so yay. Found our Etap easily. Nicer than the last Etap, this one even had a bath (although no plug... but we fixed this). Out we went for a walk. Up to a fort, with awesome looking stone and nice views over the port. Burgers for dinner, nice and rare-ish. Yum!

Parasailing!

Years ago (like 15!) I observed some one parasailing in Sydney, and have wanted to do it since. Well, I got my chance !

We're in Nice, on the French Riviera, and apart from the gorgeous water and pebbly beaches, they have lots of water sports, so we agreed I could do my parasailing :)



And then coming in to land:




It's not like an adrenaline sort of thing at all - you kind of float around above the water, just looking at everything. It's really quite slow and relaxing, except for the final part coming in to land. Definitely worth the opportunity !

what did surprise me was no need to sign a disclaimer or anything, just "here you go"

Giggle at the dog

We observed the following scene in Lyon.

TGV < ICE.

Dear France,

Your train system is atrocious and disgusting. You market your trains as being the best in Europe, and are the only network that absolutely requires additional fares for railpass holders. Your additional fares are not justified. I would rather travel on Regional trains.

- Every other western country uses numerical identifiers for their platforms. Why must you use letters. It's as if you're being different for the point of being different.

- Every other western country has the same train, on the same platform, at the same time, for it's regular run. ICE1001 will always be on platform 4, at 8:30am for instance. Always. Guests can look at multiple small departures boards, or quickly glance at a big one. Having trains often departing on different platforms, and only updating your big screen at the last moment causes two major problems. 1) Every passenger for the entire train station stands in front of it, staring it at, causing problems passing through the station, or seeing the screen. 2) Every rushes at the last minute to the platform.

- Your "First Class" is backwards, and worse than 2nd class Romanian or 'RE' style trains. They are more cramped, more uncomfortable, and cause much more sore ass than any other train we've been on. The cabin is over heated, and what the hell is the deal with no powerpoints? We've been on second class RE trains that have powerpoints, yet you can't put them in first class ? Get Real. Do ANY business travelers regularly use the trains ?

- Please remember that non-French speaking people, as well as tourists, use your trains. If it's good enough for every other country to announce things in as many as 4 different languages, it wouldn't kill you. It is pure and simple ARROGANCE to not cater to German, Italian or even Dutch speaking travellers. And that's without even mentioning the language that's widely known and identified as being the international language.

- Two trains, two separate route numbers, one platform, one destination. What the fuck is this ? If your engines can't cope with longer trains, run more trains, more frequently, like everyone else. This bullshit of having TWO separate trains, going from Lyon to Nice, leaving the same platform, at the same time is stupid and utterly nonsensical.

- Reservation essential? This is just a hollow ploy for money. The carriage is not even half full (probably because your train system is so fucking useless it's not worth paying for first class.)

If I NEVER had to catch another TGV, I'd be a very, very happy little man. I don't care that the RE (sorry, TER, you have to be different again don't you) trains are slower, and stop more often. I'd prefer to be on them. At least they have power.

First day in Nice

Day to explore Nice.

Amazed by the colours of the water.

Walked up to citadel/ rocks/lookout/waterfall/ruins of old church/parts of old town, incl Place Garibaldi.

Nice Night

Arrived to Nice late. Was dark. Decided to have dinner in the hotel. Good food, especially the bread. Went out for a walk after this. Could see fireworks down near the beach, but didn't manage to get there before they finished unfortunately. There was a big promenade party! Awesome. Stages with bands singing different styles of music. We were lucky we didn't miss this. Very humid, hot night. I loved it. Wandered up and down the beach and promenade. Then somehow ran in to an old friend. What are the chances?!

Bern, Switzerland

Bern is a much much nicer city than Zurich. It’s quaint and feels small, which it’s not if you consider the regions we came in through. This time we changed things up a bit, and followed the suggested walking path on the map we got at the hotel.

Lyon

Caught the train to Lyon. Worked out how to store luggage for a 2-3 hours. Once we'd worked that out we went outside and then became confused as to how to get a tram in the city, so instead we walked. Not that far. Saw as much of Lyon as we could. Most of the main things. Saw the pretty Rhone river, which flows down from Geneva and the not so pretty other river.

Didn't go up the massive hill obviously, as not enough time. Walked through the shopping strip to a big square at the end. Grabbed some subway for lunch, as it was quick and we could eat on the go. Yum. Saw opera house and sculptures around this. Walked back to station (well, most of way... jumped a tram for the last bit), grabbed our stuff, a flan chocolat for Andy and then proceeded to wait around for them to decide where to put our train. Finally they chose a platform.

Then even more chaos, as they actually had 2 trains going to the same place. One didn't show up straight away (ours, of course) and one nervous looking conductor was standing there trying to answer everyone's questions about where they were meant to get on their part of the train, as it wasn't clear (and also cause half the train still hadn't arrived. When it did it was cramped and uncomfortable with no information. So much for TGV's being great. Speed is all they an do... and others do this just as well, if not better (railjet's)

The Golden Pass

The Golden Pass is a section of Swiss railway, that takes in some of the most beautiful countryside. It's pretty spectacular in summer, and I'd love to do it in winter. We initially did only the section from Luzerne to Interlaken, which is where all the following (partial stream-of-conciousness) came from. I'd highly recommend this train route to anyone.

To start with, a short 30 second glimpse along side Lake Brienz

Switzerland

I have to be honest. Your mountains, plains and valleys are stunningly gorgeous and an excellent reason to see the country, and travel on trains. It's a shame the cities and urban areas, for the most part, let you down.

Our first born....

Is what Switzerland requires to buy a serving of chips from a street stall. That, or 8 Swiss francs. For real ?

Switzerland is possibly also the only country in the western world, where you can see single military guys catching trams, with the public, with their weapons just slung across their back.

Anywhere else, it'd get stolen...

"Feeling Buildings"

We noticed a few of these while we were in Austria, and think they are a fantastic idea. It's basically a scale model of a building (this one is the Art museum in Graz), which a vision impaired person could run their hands and fingers over, thus "seeing" the building. It has brail all around the sides, which possibly describes the building ?

I think they should be used in lots of places.

Dachau, a trip through misery

While we were staying in Munich, one of our side trips was a day trip to the site of the former concentration camp, Dachau. It really is a day trip, and worth taking your time to explore and listen. It's not as brutal as some articles have suggested Auschwitz is, but still sobering. It's about the only day we've not had a camera with us, and I strongly recommend this. Concentration camps don't seem like the sort of place to take a camera. Especially not to take happy snaps of the gas chamber, like one idiot with a big grin was doing.

Train to Salzburg

On our way into Graz, we’d already noticed the huge mountains, found ourselves looking down at verdant, green valleys with little villages, surrounded by the towering mountains, lots of low lying cloud, which the ever-present rain kept breaking through.

Graz - Surfin the River...

Despite having a pretty shitty transit system, Graz has been much better to us than Vienna. Not in terms of weather, where it was pretty much the same, but it’s a nicer feeling city. Still seems very shopping focussed, but there’s lots of funky architecture to look at also.

More photos, location-tagging

As we've got stable, free internet access while in Graz, we've uploaded some more photos.

I've also started adding them to the Flickr Map, which you can see here.

Romanian Lightning Storm !

It is 3:10am, or 2:10am, take your pick dependant on the time zone. We’ve just passed through another station, and neither of us are really sleeping. But it’s ok we’re awake because over to the south it’s relatively flat and there is an absolutely astounding lightning storm. We’ve never seen anything like it.

Berlin Bubbles

While wandering Berlin's streets and parks, we noticed the following fellow creating gigantic big bubble balloons. Enjoy.

You can check out our other videos here

Brasov, Romania

Once we eventually got to Brasov (only an hour late), and found our way to our hotel, we were very surprised to realise the actual size of the place. We were expecting a relatively small village, nothing particular big, but Brasov has turned out to be a city that was definitely bigger than Wagga, and maybe even Canberra size. This is really hammered home once you get up on top of the hill, to the “Hollywood” sign and look down at everything.

Border crossing, with Stamps !

Ok, so it’s Romania not Transylvania, but still. We’ve been on plenty of trains, and crossed multiple borders already, however not only is this our first very long trip (11 hours) but it’s also our first border crossing.

Washing in Budapest

Budapest was supposed to be a washing day, after Vienna failed to really have any reachable Laundromats. We found recent updates about two particular places in Pest, and on our first day, went for the 8 minute walk to find the first one, which seems to have only very very recently closed, in fact even the Telegraph was reporting, on a page last updated “8th August, 2010” that Irisz Szalon was still open. Guess they are idiots, although to be fair, I don’t expect much better from them. Either way, our washing had to then be put off till Monday, when the Liliom TextilSalon was open again.

Buda(Pest)

Budapest... a city divided into two by the Danube. Comprising of Buda on one side and Pest on the other, the two halves of the city are different in their feel and lifestyle. Pest, where we stayed, has more nightlife, shopping and restaurants, while Buda has the old castle area and the citadel, both high up above the city with fantastic views. Our feet are very sore.

Vienna - Town of Amusement park !

As you head into Vienna, one of the first things we noticed is that it seemed like a very, very large city. I haven’t looked at the figures and sizes, but it felt larger than Berlin, which is already larger than Paris. Still, for all that, I wasn’t a big fan of Vienna.

From Prague to Vienna

So the other day, we were catching a train from Frankfurt to Dresden. Now it turns out this is the same train that goes from Frankfurt via Dresden and Prague, to Vienna. So this is the 3rd time we’ve been on this train. Not necessarily the exact same train, but the same route – EC173. And when we got on a Frankfurt way back when, a Canadian backpacker got on at the last second, asking if this was going to Prague, and hoping to be on the right train, so we had a good chat for a while. Imagine my surprise when I went for a little walk just now, to find the same guy sitting further down in one of the other first class carriages. What are the chances?

Damn rain, but good food

For 99% of our trip, including both Ireland and the Isle of Man, we've had pretty stunning weather almost all of the time.

Unfortunately, it has turned on us today and is raining fairly heavily. Kinda puts a dampener on our explorations. We're expecting tomorrow to be clear, but who can tell...
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Whiling away the hours...

This afternoon, we arrived in Prague. This followed a roughly 2 hour journey from Dresden, through some of what was possible the most stunning scenery I've seen yet. More about that later.
The hotel (Kafka's place of employment!) had previously emailed us an offer for a dinner cruise for EUR47 per person, and despite breaking our budget somewhat, we figured what the hell, we may as well do this.

More Photos!

Having permanent, free, internet access in our room (Thank you Century Old City, Prague) means we can do some housekeeping, such as uploading a number of photos.

We'll have some more to come, but for now, check here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/47930781@N03/sets/72157624511540723/

Dresden - Town of Fountains

in Deutschland ist alles am Sonntag geschlossen. (In English - everything is closed in Germany on Sundays.) Well, not everything, but most things. And so we found ourselves in Dresden, with pretty much everything closed. Our hotel looked over Prager Straser, which seems to be a shopping strip. Our floor to ceiling windows gave us a wonderful view. Not content, we went for a walk.

Berlin Zoo

I’ve never been to a really big zoo before, at least to my recollection. I’ve been to Mogo several times, but I’m fairly sure that’s all. Since the guide in our room told us it was 11EUR per person for both the zoo and aquarium, and that Berlin’s zoo has the largest number of species in the world, we figured this could be a good day. It turned out to be 18EUR each, but we didn’t let that stop us.

Day 1 in Berlin

Berlin is probably the place I’ve been most interested in going so far. Took us almost 5 hours to get here by train (30 minutes+ in delays!) and when we did get here, the weather, and the general feel of the place, remains me a great deal of Melbourne. As we walked from the station to our hotel, and crossed the Spree, we found a plaque, telling us of a number of attempted border crossings at this particular bridge. It dawned on us that we would be staying in what was East Berlin, and at the same time, that this was a city that used to be divided, and it’s only really been what it is for the past 20 years or so. That hasn’t stopped it from becoming a vast, modern city.

One of the most striking things about Berlin is there’s no altstadt the way the other German cities have had so far. That is naturally because it was destroyed, both during the final days of the war, and then further during the separation era. The next thing we noticed is that it’s big. To compare to everywhere else we’ve been so far, it’s like Rome in terms of size. All the other cities haven’t seemed so big. This is probably to fit in all the buildings that are also big, impressive and powerful, the way the Roman buildings were big.

The other major thing you notice is the cobble-stoned line through out the city, that shows where the wall used to be. There’s not so much signs of socialist lifestyle any more – the big concrete block buildings and so on, but there’s definitely parts of the wall remaining, with information plaques telling you the stories and so on. It was while we were at Checkpoint Charlie that I remembered mum has been to Berlin, and that it would have looked nothing like it does now. That she couldn’t just walk around freely the way we have done. It’s one of those things that makes you realise we are pretty lucky to be living when we live, and where we live.

We had dinner at a little restaurant across the road from our hotel (after an abortive attempt at a cheaper one) a traditional german sort of dish of meatballs in a creamy mushroom sauce with fried potatoes for me, and a veal and mushroom creamy pasta for Rhiannon. Tomorrow, we’re going to the Zoo.

A note to hotels

Here's a note to hotels, in line with my rant regarding offering free wireless.

coffee and tea equipment, including kettles, is not something that should be excluded from a hotel. It especially shouldn't then be offered back to customers for a 5EUR a day fee. Get fucking real. For 5 EUR, I could buy at least 2 real coffees. It's just fucking tight.


I'm looking at you, Mercure Arthur Frommer. Loss of a quarter of the room space due to slanting roof, then you want to charge me for a fucking kettle?

Heidelberg

Heidelberg is Der Romantisch Stadt – The romantic town. We think this is because it seems rather Italian and Roman. Either way, it’s only about an hour from Frankfurt, so we thought it would be a good little day trip, rainy and cloudy weather aside.

Weiner Schnitzel, Hefeweizen, Apfelwein, and Chocolate Popcorn.

Yes, you heard correctly. Chocolate Popcorn marked our first afternoon in Frankfurt. Closely followed by good, hearty German food, and of course, beer.

Cologne and Bonn

As I sit on the train departing from Cologne for Frankfurt, I have an opportunity to review the past day or so. We got to Cologne fairly late in the evening, and tired as always, to find yet another hotel room without a kettle, so we went for a stroll, then ate our bacon/egg sandwiches we purchased back in Amsterdam.

Utrecht and Anne Frank

We had originally planned to go to Muidersloot on one of our days, but it seemed a bit of a hassle to get there, and only see a castle. Hassle vs reward and all that. So instead, we went to Utrecht on a whim.

Amsterdam

After a late night and sleeping in, we decided to do a walking tour of Amsterdam, wandering around the canals, looking at the buildings, and general touristy stuff that people do.

Mini-Europe

For our last day in Belgium, we jumped on a tram, and headed out through the northern suburbs to Heysel, where the Expo centre, Atomium, The Waterpark, and MiniEurope is located. MiniEurope is kind of like Cockington Green in Canberra – everything is 1:25 scale, so it’s still kinda big in some situations.

Gent and more Brussels

So right now, we're sitting in a pub on Anspach in Brussels, drinking some cold beverages. Ok. Yes, It's an Irish pub. But they had free wifi. And we're drinking Belgian beer. (Yes, We.)

Brussels Light and Sound !

After our fulfilling day at Gent, we had a rest till about 10pm, wanting to wander round, see the city at night, and take some photos. We mumbled our way up to Grand Place, where it was about 10:55, and hundreds of people sitting and standing everywhere. We figured we’d just take some photos and then keep going.

In Bruge

Bruge has been referred to as the Venice of the north, due to it’s plethora of canals, and the buildings that are right on the edge of the water.
I don’t really agree. Sure, it’s got plenty of canals, and plenty of buildings right on the edge, but it’s not like Venice.

Day 1 in Brussels

After a smooth, quick ride on the Eurostar, through relatively flat, green farm lands of france and Belgium, we got to Brussels Midi, and jumped on a local train to De Brouckere. The local train was kind of like a tram, more than a train, but ran underground. Very clean.

St Pancras

So this morning was somewhat of a clusterfk. No trains on the jubilee line.

It's almost time...

We've been in our little apartment here for almost 5 months now. But the time has come. It's homelessness bound.

Yay for server migration.

So yesterday, I got another day of work with a managed services company. The emailed job description was 8 hours from 1p-9p, and involved working in a team of 4 to deconstruct a set of 10 racks at an IBM data centre

Expatting can be hard.

Sure - it seems like a fabulous idea. You're half way around the world. You claim your expenses to decrease your tax. You're experiencing all sorts of wonderful new things, life has changed, all of that.

But Expatting can be hard.

Changes

I've been a little bereft on posts recently. Mainly because I've been lazy about writing them, but they are all being backdated appropriately, so keep on checking.

I've been spending time on doing a little bit of web design, and I sat and passed an exam. I'm now a Microsoft Certified Information Technology Professional: Systems Administrator (MCITP:SA) to add to my mcsa certification, which means I've got something to show at least for the past few months. Considering I took the exam on the spur of the minute, having not done heaps of study for it, I'm quite pleased that I passed. It's been a while since I did the mcsa course.

travel insurance pays out finally!

So before we left, we arranged our travel insurance for a year with Down under insurance. It's essential, ya know? and we figured, if we only need it once, it's worth it, so we paid for the extra "no-excess" thinggy. Well, it came in handy. When we think about it, it was even relatively cheap.

Thank you Accor.

This is a little offtrack - I know we still have lots to post about our Cruisaversarymoon, but this needs a side track.

Thanks to Accor hotels, we've booked something like 40 of our 59 nights over the Summer, at an Average cost of $AUD74 per night.

Of wireless and hotels

Call me pedantic, but finding wireless at hotels in Italy is proving to be a bit of a challenge.
(Rant follows...)

What a week..

Ok - so we've been a bit barren on posts over the past 9 or 10 days. But we have good reason, you have to trust us.

Mykonos

Our cruise ship left Santorini at around 11:30, and we cruised through the night (with a 1am dinner at the all-night cafe) to arrive at Mykonos early the next morning.

Santorini...

What can be said of Santorini? Santorini is the typical image you see of Greece and the Mediterranean. Brilliant white houses, with bright blue roofs, perched on, and in, cliffs overlooking the ocean. Donkey rides up from the port. That's Santorini.

Corfu - Beach Break

Once we got back on board the boat at Split, we continued on our merry way to to Corfu, Greece. This was our next programmed port of call, and we had booked into a "Beach Break" shore excursion...

Split

The first stop on our cruise was the Croatian town of Split

Of Trains and Journeys....

I've always wanted to do one of those magical long train journeys, like the Indian Pacific, or the Trans-Siberian. The massive, long trips that go for days on end where you cross miles of countryside, or even countries at a time.
As a slight nod to this, we chose to do an overnight train from Rome to Venice. We're buying a Eurail Pass for our next trip, so I'm sure there will be more of these things.

Spring has sprung...

It's kind of cool. When we first got here, not only was it absolutely freezing, grey overcast and depressing, but the trees out the back were stunted, grey, brown, boring tree trunks with branches.

More Free London

Living in London is expensive. I'm sure I've discussed this before, by mentioning cheap/free things. Today, (or, Saturday as the case may be...) we decided to avail ourselves of some more of these free things. Nothing like getting out and about, and seeing the city you live in.

Don't get me wrong...

I recognise the rights of unions, or even non-union employees, to strike, if they feel they aren't getting a fair deal. That makes perfect sense to me. In particular right now, I'm talking about the BA strikes

May Fayre and whiling away the aftenoon...

London is an expensive city. One of the most expensive in the world. With limited funds, that can sometimes make it hard to do things. Yesterday though, we stumbled on something to go and observe at Covent Garden. May Fayre!

Voting differences...

So we're in the middle of an election campaign here. Actually, today is election day. Yes, it's Thursday. There's at least a few schools closed of that we know of, to act as polling places. Out for a jog this morning, I saw at least 2 others, along with a number of things that really pushed home to me the differences between elections here, and back home

Shore Excursions!

In less than 15 days, we'll be in Rome, the kick off to our honeymoon. To kick things off in style, we looked at the Shore Excursions and booked some today.

Harrods!

So, despite the hail, and lack of Jubilee Line trains, we decided on Monday that we wanted to go to Harrods. Let's face it - we've been here 3 months, it's about time we went.

Plus, who else has ever been to a store that has a code of conduct, and dress standards, for visitors!

It's only for a few weeks....

At least, that's one way of looking at it. You see, I've had a recruiter call to discuss a role with me. But it's a 24x7 rotating shift job.

It's been a while...

Since we were last in Australia, and to be fair, around other Australians. Sure, there's at least 2 others in our unit complex, but we don't socialise with them much. But we woke up the other morning to mysteriously find a copy of the new Underbelly episodes sitting on my desktop. No idea how that happened.

For LOLs...

Recipe book recalled and pulped due to typographic error.

Penguin Group (Australia) confirms the Pasta Bible ISBN 97801 43011071 has been pulped due to an error in the recipe for Spelt tagliatelle with sardines and prosciutto. The recipe incorrectly suggests adding salt and freshly ground black people – instead of freshly ground black pepper. The error occurred during the book’s editing process. A member of the public contacted Penguin to advise of the mistake, and 7,000 copies of the Pasta Bible were immediately quarantined in Penguin’s warehouse and pulped. A revised edition of the Pasta Bible will be available from late May 2010.

Would you like some freshly ground people with your pasta sir?

At least the weather is Sunny...

Because, as previously mentioned, I still haven't had much luck in finding a job.

What a Load of Blarney..

Today was Cork Day 1 (or 2, depending on how you look at it) and we had decided to go to the Blarney Castle. So we hopped on a bus, for the half hour or so trip from Cork, and headed on our merry way.

We actually had time to fit in a bit more today...

... before Jameson's we went to the National Museum.

I prefer Scotch...

... whisky :)

We went to the Old Jameson Distillery today. Figured I really should know how whiskey/whisky (they spell the Irish ones with an 'e') is made.

Dublin Day 1

So after the debacle with the Ferry from IOM to Dublin, we ended up needing to catch a flight. The price wasn't tooo bad really, and we intend to claim on our travel insurance. The flight itself though, was quite rough. Especially rough, when we were in a little ATR42 plane.

So we're now in Dublin anyway, which is good.

Quick test of Geotagging

We're currently in Dublin. This post is a quick test of Geotagging. I'm playing with some features, so I can add a map of alternately, where we are RIGHT NOW, and/or where we've been.

Isle Of Man Steam Train & Castle Rushen

As part of our trip to the Isle of Man, we caught the Steam Train from the capital Douglas, down to Castletown. The purpose of this trip was partly to see some of the scenery on the island, and visit Castle Rushen, but also just to ride on a steam train.. cause you see, we're just little kids at heart.

My new favourite place in the world

I adore the Sefton Hotel in Douglas, Isle of Man!

It's awesome! Amazing, massive hardwood floor and part carpeted floors; Big balcony overlooking a gorgeous atrium including a beautiful fountain (best part of this was sitting on our couch on the balcony listening to the fountain trickle); Nice, flat-screen tv; Huge bathroom including everything you could possibly think of... including 2 showers and a bidet (didn't use this); Steam room (first time I'd ever used one of these and I came to quite enjoy it, most places only seem to have saunas if anything... and the Sefton had one of those also... not such a fan of this, though... Also I must mention a gourgeous, fantastic, excellent, brilliant INDOOR POOL!!! Now it doesn't take much for me to love a pool, but this one was just beautiful with pillars, blue lights, a statue, all giving it a roman bath kind of feel. Oh, and there was also a jacuzzi, that was a nice end to our relaxy spa sessions. These are all included in the room price, but there's also extra spa stuff you pay to do... or have done to you :P I'm talking about massages, facials etc.

Oh, and a gym... didn't use this... :)

All this and we also got a great buffet breakfast each morning... somehow for the low price of 70 euros a night. Best deal we have ever found!

Best of all, though... the service. I firmly believe that it's the most important thing to consider when running a hotel, guesthouse, B & B or whatever. It can make or break a place, and the Sefton have impeccable service.

Wow! Sounds like I work for the place, doesn't it? But I swear I don't, I was just seriously very impressed and can't wait to go back!

Another day...

Not only was I unsuccessful in my attempt for the job, but it also turns out the ferries in both directions (to Dublin, and to Liverpool) are both canceled today...

The Sefton Hotel...

We've been on the Isle of Man for a few days now, and had a pretty good time. Rather than make massive, long War&Peace entries, I'm going to make several smaller posts, about various things.
In keeping with what I plan on some of the blog theme to be, these posts may be reviews on attractions, establishments, foods, drinks, or anything like that.

This particular one, is about the Sefton Hotel, Douglas, Isle of Man. We were very impressed.

Quick Picks...

Videos from our train trip down to Castletown, Isle of Man... See below the line.

Up to Liverpool...

So as part of our Isle of Man trip, we have caught a Virgin Train from London Euston to Liverpool. Unfortunately, our train ticket was very specific that it wasn't valid on any other service but Virgin Trains. More unfortunately for us, within 3 minutes of the journey starting, the train plunged into a tunnel. I am of the opinion that we should then have gotten off the train.
Tish boom... :P

The Irony...

never ceases. This week-end is, obviously, the Easter weekend. And we'd planned to go away, up to the Isle Of Man, and then over to Belfast, and then around Ireland. I'll tell you more about this in future posts, however we haven't really planned much beyond the IOM transport and accommodation, which is possibly a good thing....

The TV Man...

Came to the front door of our complex today, and rang the buzzer. Me being me, had to go down and see the guy....

As you may, or may not be aware, it's law in the UK that you pay for a TV licence. IE, if you own a tv, they assume you watch what they call "terrestrial" TV. It should be noted that you require a license no matter what tv you watch - sky, hd, cable, terrestrial, even live streaming Tv on a computer.

Doctors and nurses...

Once again, we're discovering how different things like GPs and the medical system are over here. I've already posted about the need for an NI number here. We received an NI number each - Rhiannon on Friday, and mine on Saturday (Yes, mail gets delivered on Saturday!) so in my absence of any work, and Rhiannon having a free day, we thought we'd go down to the local surgery, as we need some scripts re-issued for the UK chemists...

Booking Trains...

Those aware of our plans (in so far as we have them) will be aware that in late May, we're flying BA to Rome, staying a night in Rome, then getting an overnight train from Rome to Venice, to board our cruise. (Choose the 7 day, Greek Isles cruise). Then we're staying a couple of nights in Venice, hiring a car, and driving around Northern Italy for 8 days, before flying back again in early June. This trip is both our honeymoon, and our 3 year anniversary, so we're pretty excited.

Camden Market...

Today being Saturday, we decided we needed to do something..... see London and all of that. Rhiannon has been at work, pretty heavily limiting our time to do things during the week...

An NI number...

Is one of the essential things you need to work (legally) here in the UK. It's kind of a cross between our Medicare and Tax File numbers back at home, except, it's both.
NI stands for National Insurance...

To keep money...

One must have a bank account. Getting a bank account in the UK is notoriously difficult. There's also quite a number of differences, and gotchas, particularly with Australian bank cards, which I'll explain below.
You should also bear in mind the difficulties involved in communicating with banks when you're in a different time zone, and that you can't go into a branch to sort things out. Changing institutions is going to be very difficult, unless you're created a power of attorney (which we discussed, but did not do. Damnit.)

The thing about London is...

It's close to Europe. And so many dance music legends come from Europe - The netherlands to be precise.

Our first break...

is currently being planned for the Easter weekend - 2nd to 5th of April. Gives us a good 4 day weekend, and cause I have nothing to do right now, I get to plan it.

We have found....

A pub. As I mentioned earlier we've been doing the rounds of all the local pubs and drinking establishments in walking distance. So far we've been into, or at least observed and discounted, 6 including tonight.

Welcome...

A big welcome to our wide range of readers, clearly coming from all over the globe.

Feel free to leave comments and feedback at any time - you can do this by clicking on the 0 comments link at the bottom of each post. We are moderating, and it helps if you tell me who you are :)

Job hunting...

Ain't all it's cracked up to be. I'm hammering off heaps of applications, and I've had a couple of agents come back here and there seeming interested, but so far, not-so good. Rhiannon has already started working, so we're not totally bereft of money so far - in fact, we calculated before we left that even if I didn't work, if she got 5 days a week (which is looking pretty likely) then we'd have enough to survive without touching our savings. I'm getting bored though.

So much so, that I applied for a temp, part time IT support role on Gumtree yesterday. It was an.... interesting.... experience.

Our little flat...

So while Rhiannon is off at work, making money so we can eat and all that, i'm sitting at home being a little house wife husband in between hunting for jobs.

I got a little bored today, and decided to create a video of our little unit/apartment/flat/studio/whatever – so you can see what $AUD290 a week gets you in north west London.

Pubs...

I can't beleive we've gone this long, without writing about pubs, and/or beer....

anyway so where we live in Willesden Green, we've counted at least 5 bars or pubs near us. We've had a few drinks in two of them, decided two others are more like sports bar, and thus not worthy of our patronage (:P) and another seems to only open at about 5pm, so we think it's more a bar, and haven't been in there yet.

Ok, I admit it.

I'm kind of addicted to the supermarkets here. They just have so much cool shit, like the ready meals. Or, stuff like single-serve shepards pies for 90p, 3 for 2 pound, stuff like that.
The meat prices are pretty crap, which is basically in line with most of the meat quality, but oh well.

One thing that we haven't been able to find though: Chicken Salt. And, Pasta Salad! i don't know if creamy pasta salad even exists here !


Also, differences:
Chip packet colourings. Blue is plain, green is chicken, purple is salt and vinegar, right?
Oh no.... no.. blue is Cheese and Onion. Orangey-red is original (or, lightly salted). Green is Salt and Vinegar. I haven't really noticed a chicken, or bbq flavour yet. Prawn cocktail flavour is pink though. At least that colour makes sense.

The London Pass

Ok so, London is an expensive city. There's no doubting that. Here's a few prices for amusements and touristy things - per person. And remember to convert backwards, at a rate of about 1:1.6...

The differences between Metro and Tube...

Ok, so here's a bit of a rundown on the differences between Metro, or Metlink, back in Melbourne, and the Tube here. This post could equally be titled "Tube is better than metro because..."

The news came...

We got some uplifting and happy news last night - all went well, and all are well. I'm pleased and glad, but a bit upset we can't be there :(

The West End is AWESOME!!!

As we found out early in the week... the area around Picadilly Circus, Trafalgar square, etc is just amazing! The buildings all look like palaces. They are absolutely magnificent and they just seem to go on forever, one after another. There are really cool fountains and at night the whole area gets lit up... kinda like times square. Very cool.

We went back last night to go to the theatre. Saw 'Waiting for Godot', which was fantastic. Ian McKellen (you know... Gandalf, etc) and Roger Rees (he was the Sheriff in 'Men in Tights') were hilarious! So glad Andy found out this was on. And walking around the west again had me almost squealing "I love it here!" :D

Why so cheap...?

For some reason a lot of the stuff at the supermarket is cheaper here. Obviously even when you convert it into AUD. It's really odd! Best find was a pack of 16 ibuprofen tablets for 20 pence. That's less than 40 cents! WTF?!!! Makes me feel like we were being totally ripped off in Australia :P

At least it makes the expensive London rent and public transport easier to cope with :)

Some shots from Kuala Lumpur...

As already mentioned, we stopped over in Kuala Lumpur, and I figured it's about time to show you some of our photos from there.


Petronas Towers, from the KLCC park


Andy, stuffing his face with a Beefacon and Egg roll (you heard.. beefacon!)

The middle of the feeding session at the KLCC Aquaria

Rhiannon and a weepy tree at the KLCC gardens

Some more photos to come, or if you click on one of the photos above, it will take you to the flickr stream...

Geovisiting..

In a fit of... coffee...? I have added a page counter over there on the left - not only does it show visitors, but it also shows where they are coming from, and the larger the dots, the more visits from that particular location.

Not only will this be cool so we can see how many people actually read, but it'll also start to show where WE visit from.. so when those little red dots start appearing in the middle of Europe.. that's probably us :D

Home of Global Warming...

And what's with the superheating people ? I get that it's a little cold outside (and ok - I agree, it's the end of winter, but it's really not THAT bad) and so I get teh need to heat the inside of places.. but really.. Over the past 2 days, every single building i've been in, I've had to strip down to tshirt, and still been too hot.

So back off the heating a little bit, and stop creating your own global warming! :(

In case you're interested, I'm currently sitting in a Costa's coffee store - it's kind of like a starbucks (you better beleive they exist too) drinking coffee, while Rhiannon is meeting with the consultants at the teaching agency she is going to work through. We're not sure what we're going to do with the rest of the day, however we've already walked down Oxford St, and Westminster Abbey has been suggested... :)

Of cards and stores...

So before we left, we changed our account type with NAB from a basic type, to a Gold - basically, we pay 10$ a month, and get no atm fees or anything like that, and it's linked to the visa plus network, so it's all good to go, no problems, etc etc. At this point, I should mention, it was NOT a visa debit. We don't have a visa debit.
Combine this above, with our afore-mentioned VISA problem. So here we are, in London, with no credit card, and a Plus debit card.

So first time we were at the store, we tried to use the debit card, thinkin "well, this is how we always do it, it's a global network, should be fine"
nuh uh, no way, not no how. Our debit card does not work at stores, or anywhere except ATMs. this is no major deal, except we're used to living off cards, one way or another.


WE had to go into a bank here yesterday anyways, to create accounts, so we figured we'd ask about thiss... turns out every single card here, has a chip on it, similar to our visa card. So we now have a UK bank card, (but no PINs) with a chip on it. And they are going to issue us a visa debit card.
We spoke to NAB, they are also going to issue us a visa debit card, since it seems our current debit card is, more or less, fucking useless.

We have a 'flat' !

So... got to London yesterday. Trains were good. People were all very polite and helpful. We made our way to Willesden Green station without getting lost (yay us) and then stepped outside... OMFG London's 3 degrees is so not the same as Canberra's 3 degrees! Absolutely freezing!!! My guess is that it's something to do with the humidity making it feel colder. Anyway, we stopped at a cafe, had some breakfast and waited to be picked up by the accommodation people.

Fish food....

I've got about 3 or 4 entries to make covering the past 36-48hours, but I don't have a lot of energy to write them (well) now.

However, suffice to say.. fish eating your feet is a remarkable treat.. albeit odd and ticklish to start with. We do have some videos and photos, which I'll put up later. Possibly back at KLIA where they allegedly have free wireless internet !

(These are not my feet...)

Malaysian Airlines.. first cut.

Ok so we flew over here using Malaysian Airlines - Melbourne to Kuala Lumpur, then KL to London Heathrow.

Overall - our first experience using Malaysian is, easy quick check-in, open about 4 hours beforehand. Left on time.
Food quality was ok... .flight attendants left something to be desired... overall we probably find that based on this leg, Air Tahiti, when we went to LA, was a better effort.

Got some sleep on this leg, but not a great deal.. and then we landed in Malaysia at about 5:30am, the airport was deserted...

(this post has been backdated)

Fraud Ahoy!

So on Friday, we went out for lunch to the Sherlock Holmes with mum , Mike and Belle, and tried to pay using the trusty visa card... no go.
We were off to the bank after that anyway, so I asked them about the card, and apparently they detected fraudulent attempts that don't fit with our normal pattern.. a couple of miniscule transactions with Netflix (definitely not us !!)

Anyway - they have blocked our card, so now every time we want to use it (about 4 or 5 times now) we have to ring them, to get it unblocked, then ring them again to reblock it.
It's frigging annoying. The only other option however, is to get a new card sent out - that would have totally fxxkd our ability to pay for our accommodation.. so we're sitting on it a few days and trying not to use it.

It's fucked. I'm glad they detected it and took the action they did, just, why couldn't it have happened before now !
And for the record.... we have no idea how this could have happened - we're very careful with where we use our card, and receipts and things like that. I know there's a big fraud going on with Mcdonalds card machines being swapped out, but we haven't used it at mcdonalds, and I never pull cash out at an atm, so that only leaves online.. but those transactions are few and far between.....


(this post has been backdated)

Last Day... sniff.

So - this is my last day at work. Coincidentally, it's also the end of any guaranteed internet until, well, I'm not sure when exactly.
Apparently the place we're staying (http://www.accommodationlondon.net) has free WiFi...

And if sunday goes to plan, I might have a chance to jump online quickly at Mike's place before we head off to the airport.

Here's a timeline for the next couple of days:
Today: actually.. not a lot.
Friday: ., See real estate agent. Post office. Bank. Medicare. Lunch in the city with Mum. use the last of our food
Saturday: packing madly the last of our kitchen stuff.
Sunday: Truck at 8:00am. Cleaners at 11:00am. visit mike and bel and take them chinese for dinner, and left over food.. then the airport, to catch our flight that leaves at 00:45.

Then we get to Malaysia at about 5:30am local time, and have a few things planned including the Aquarium, Imbi plaza, Petronas Towers, Times Square with the amusement park, petaling street, etc.
We fly out of malasyia at almost midnight again, then get into London at about 6:00am on the Tuesday morning, local time (it'll be almost Wednesday here by then!)

my little mind is whirling away.....

per person per nigh t?

Oh come on, I mean really, how can a hotel justify this? We're currently looking at booking two nights in Venice at the Hotel Orion through a travel agent, and directly. Through the travel agent, they are offering us per person, per night.
I just don't get how anyone can justify this for a hotel room. It costs the same for 2 of us to stay there as it does 1. I can understand a single supplement, that's all cool and fine.

But really, per person per night? In a dorm, yea, I understand. But this is a hotel, people.

when we look at booking directly, we get the one flat fee...

Counting down....

Only a few short days to go now ! less than 2 weeks to go. And less than 7 days at work, cause this one is half way over.

Some of our plans..

So, in terms of vacations, and Europe trips, rather than the day-to-day generality of living life in a foreign city, we don't have a lot planned.

First up, we're going on a cruise down the Greek Isles in May. Then we're doing a week self-drive tour in Northern Italy.

Apart from that, it's up in there air. What you see here is our whiteboard of ideas, and stuff.

...Packing

One of the many un-joys of preparing to go overseas for a long period is the need to put large amounts of belongings in storage. Or sell them, but that's a different story.

anyway, that's what we've done today. Pack. And I hate packing. Both of us hate packing. However, we've got a good 2 cubic metres of boxes so far. And we've done clsoe to as much as we can, the things we haven't packed yet, we need over the next 4 weeks.

(And, I should note, this time, 4 weeks from now, we'll be sitting at the airport.)

Got Moneys!

We were in the City the other day, and figured since we have the chance, we bought some Malaysian Ringgit, and some British Pounds.

We've got about 400myr, which we figure should be enough for a day and only cost us about $100aud.


We also bought 100 pounds, which would have cost around 200 or so AUD, but it just means we wouldn't have to be gouged at Heathrow.

oohh jobs !

I've started sending my CV out to relevant jobs (mainly on Reed.co.uk) in an effort to hopefully get my name starting to come up when they search databases.

Surprisingly, I've had an email back from an agency today, providing a position description for a service desk role. I don't have a CRB (criminal record check) though, and you can't just apply for it yourself like you can here. So I had to say thanks but not thanks. (I also kinda want a level 2/3 job rather than a 1 or 1/2)
The payrate wasn't too bad.

I also had my first SkypeIn call last night, and from my end it worked out ok.. not sure how well mum could hear me though...

forex rates

so i've just been bludging around again, and realised that the AUD vs the GBP right now is pretty good - in fact it's in almost the best shape it's ever been, for us to be buying GBP.

Hopefully for the 12-18 months we're away, it will decrease again. I doubt it'll get back to the 2.5:1 it was, but still.

currently, 1 AUD will buy 0.578 GBP.
and 1GBP will buy 1.729 AUD

This link shows the historical data over the past 180 days:
http://www.exchange-rates.org/history/GBP/AUD/G/180

and this one shows for the past 10 years:
http://www.exfin.com/historical-forex-aud

only 6 weeks to go !

So it's only another 6 weeks until we get on a plane.. and it's starting to dawn on me just how much we have to do.

For those who have just started reading (ie, everyone), here's the cliff notes:

My partner and I are heading off to London for 12 months or so. I'm all decked out with a Right of Abode, and R has a Youth Mobility Visa (Tier 5) so we've got up to 2 years all up.
Why are we going ? Well, because we can. We're planning on living the high life in London, working through contracting companies, and going on trips to Europe, whenever the hell we feel like it. Initially we have a cruise planned from Venice, down along the Greek Isles, and back to Venice. It just so happens to co-incide nicely with our 3 year anniversary... we also haven't had our honey moon yet..

So that's where we're up to.....