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Wednesday, 4 August 2010 - 9 countries, 3500 kilometres, 16 days...

ROAD TRIP - YEEAAHHHH! Gotta love 'em, I sure do! A while ago I mentioned plans for a random tubing trip along the Danube River for a week in late-summer. Well because people are hopeless and all bailed on me after initially showing interest, that plan was aborted. Katie and I instead concocted this little beauty instead: a 3,500km road trip and camping trip taking in a total of nine countries over 16 days, primarily focused on Germany. A full-size version of the map on the left showing our route is here and approximate route itinerary here, but in a nutshell some of the goodies we'll be doing include: Sachsische Schweiz National Park A day through the Czech Republic A couple days in and around the Austrian Alps Neuschwanstein Castle (aka the Disneyland Castle) Liechtenstein - the sixth smallest country in the world A couple days in Germany's Black Forest Fully nude spas where clothing is strictly forbidden hahaha! Screwing a car around the Nürburgring Some much-needed chillaxing in Luxembourg Visiting the home of Belgium's greatest export, Leffe hehe Yada yada yada... Also along for the ride is Kristina, my mate from Texas (yeehaw!) who I met in the Greek Islands last September while I was there with my Mum and brother. Kristina flies into London in two weeks, and we're all flying into Hamburg the following Friday (the 20th), collecting a hire car and hitting the road - can't wait! :)

Thursday, 5 August 2010 - More random pubs

I've mentioned this before but over the last while Katie and I have been trying to get out of London once a week, pretty much just for the sake of getting out of London, but also to see some of the surrounding sights and have a good pub feed while we're at it. And today, it was this little beauty in the tiny village of Wisely, southwest of London just outside the M25. Wisely is home to a whole 204 people, involves hooning along a few of these little winding roads to reach it (good fun), and is cut in two by this river.

We arrived with a bit of time to kill before the pub kitchen closed and so headed along the river for a wander.		Along the way we passed through paddocks and fields...		Found Mr Ed...

Passed a few borderline mansions (some of which are guarded by cobras hehe)...				And watched for heavy plants crossing ;) As I've also mentioned before, I do love living in London, but I also love getting the hell out of it too. Two weeks until the road trip!

Saturday, 7 August 2010 - Great British Beer Festival!

The Great British Beer Festival is a yearly beer festival held in the massive Earls Court Exhibition Centre in west London. Many tens of thousands of drunkards attend over the five days of the festival, consuming hundreds of thousands of pints.				Drunkard.

And there's no shortage of the stuff. Around 450 British and 200 foreign beers, ciders, and ales are on sale.

A large group of us rocked up for the final day today and got stuck into the most random beers out.		One of the several I had was this honey beer with a seductive bee on the front, meticulously poured for me by Professor Booze here.

Some folk turned up in costume...		Some folk did push-ups to impress, well, nobody...		And some folk were just happy to be drunk :)

Sunday, 8 August 2010 - Never a dull moment when you live across from retards

Katie and I live across the road from a couple of flats whose tenants aren't a full bag of lollies. They've all featured on this website for various reasons in the past (not least of all for brandishing a gun on the front door step) and tonight they were at it again. Katie and I were watching a movie when we started hearing weird noises from outside our window as well as several loud bangs. I stuck my head out the window to see what the hell was going on, and soon realised it was coming from the retard flats across the street. One of the loonies had become irate and was smashing up the place hahaha! The neighbouring flat had heard the commotion too and were all standing around on their front door steps looking up in bemusement until the loony sent something flying through the window and showered them all with glass, then they went back inside hehe. So I wandered over (because I like to be where the action is) by which point one of the other loonies had retreated outside. "Oi mate, you want to tell me what's going on before I call the cops, again?" "Oh, Nicolas is just a bit upset." "Just a bit huh. Right.", at which point the cops came screaming down the road anyway - the neighbours had already called them, probably while picking glass out of their hair. Nicolas got dragged down the stairs in handcuffs and biffed in the back of the van, and incidentally he's the same dude my then-flatmate saw with the gun hehe. What a bad ass loony.

Monday, 9 August 2010 - The Great British summer

Every year. Every goddamn year, well except one - the summer right before I got here when Europe had a heat wave during which temperatures reached Brisbane standards and people died as a result. I had a look at the detailed ten-day forecast too: same old shit, different day. No wonder the loonies across the road are getting upset.

Friday, 13 August 2010 - Drinks, cigars, casinos, and fights

Panorama of Leicester Square, taken from the terrace of The Icon Bar cocktail lounge (below-left), which is part of The Casino at The Empire. One of my work mates is getting married next weekend, so a whole bunch of us rocked up here after work tonight for a few beers and whiskeys and cigars and so forth hehe - nice. Afterwards we went down into the casino (below-right) where many of us proceeded to lose a shit load money, though they didn't get a dime out of me. While buying some more drinks down there in the middle of the casino floor, a very short and very drunk European guy in a blue suit randomly approached us and slurred "Good morning" (at 11pm). He gave my mate Matt and I a limp handshake and told us he'd lost £2,000 so far - ouch! Matt said "Oh well at least you've still got your suit eh.", to which I added "Yeah you might be able to sell that, get a couple hundred for it, and come win your money back." Well that didn't go down well. He gave me the evils for a second and said "Are you taking the mick?!" "I'm not taking the mick mate, just trying to cheer you up a bit.", and I started walking off (while still getting the evils). Matt moved to follow me at which point this guy got in his way so that Matt couldn't pass. Nevertheless, Matt barged past him anyway, so this wee dude got up in Matt's face and said "Why did you push me?!", and Matt being considerably taller got back down in his face and replied "What are you going to do about it?" At that point I was expecting our new short friend here to make a move because he seemed drunk and agitated enough despite the circumstances, but instead he stormed off up the stairs and left without saying another word - weird! So yes, fun night :)

Friday, 20 August 2010 - Road trip, fuck yeah!
Germany, Czech Republic, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Belgium, France, The Netherlands - all in 16 days and 3,500kms! Map of the route here, and approximate itinerary here. Y'all have a good fortnight! :)

Thursday, 26 August 2010 - Four years, and counting...
Yup, four years ago this evening I first stepped foot in the UK (Edinburgh) with a fresh new five-year entry visa. Despite having those five years on offer, I had only intended to stay for around four of them before moving on. Recently though I decided to stick it out for the full five. The primary reason is there is still a lot of Europe and beyond that I'm yet to see: Scandinavia, Eastern Europe, Russia, Iceland, northern Africa, etc. But travel aside, from a career perspective it's in my best interest to stick around for a while longer. Be all that as it may, Canada is still very much the plan for when I do eventually leave. However, due to recently introduced changes to Canada's visa system, that plan is going to be harder to make happen than it would have been a couple years ago. Coming to Britain was easy thanks to my being eligible for the five-year ancestry visa, but in order to stay (legally) long term in Canada I need to get myself a work visa, and that involves finding work for a company that will sponsor me for that visa. I've been told that finding work with such a company in advance of getting there is difficult, but I have a workaround for that. New Zealanders can get a 12-month Canadian working holiday visa which entitles us to live and work in Canada for a year, so my best bet is to go for that which gives me those 12 months to find work for a company that will sponsor me for a proper work visa after the working holiday visa expires. But it gets better. The working holiday visa is fairly easy and straight forward to get, and if successful you're given a 12-month window in which to arrive in Canada and ‘activate' the 12-month working holiday visa. With that being the case, I can use that 12-month window to try and find appropriate work while I'm still in the UK, and leave as soon as I find something. Or, if I don't find anything by the time that window is nearly up, then I head over anyway and use the 12 months available to me on the working holiday visa to continue job hunting. Make sense? Only a certain number of working holiday visas are granted per year, and the cycle starts again in January so that is the best time for me to apply. That gives me nine months before my current British visa expires this time next year, though my understanding is that I can reapply for it so that's probably not a problem, plus it would give me a further five years in the UK which I could use as some sort of plan B if the whole Canada thing falls through. So that's my current situation and plan in a nutshell.

Sunday, 5 September 2010 - Gotta love a good road trip, gotta cherish an awesome one
Well 3,500kms became 4,200kms, nine countries was reduced to seven, and of the three of us that started the trip only two of us saw it out to the end (yup, drama ahoy). I'm a little lost for words just now (which doesn't happen too often) - it was an absolutely amazing trip, I'm exhausted, and a mammoth earthquake hit Christchurch on Saturday morning (news link here and here) and I'm in the midst of trying to find out just how bad the situation is seeing as all I knew of it was what I got in a txt message from Mum while in the middle of nowhere in Germany. I've got about 800 photos from the trip to sort through, so hopefully all the details will be up within a couple weeks. In the meantime, it's back to reality.

Tuesday, 7 September 2010 - Christchurch earthquake

As I'm sure most everyone is aware by now, my home of Christchurch was hit by New Zealand's largest earthquake in decades at 4:35am last Saturday morning. The epicentre of the 40-second 7.1-magnitude quake was just outside of Christchurch at a depth of only a few kilometres, and this was the result.

Much of the city is a mess and will be in a state of repair for months if not years. A lot of houses and buildings are fucked beyond repair and will be demolished. The only consolation was that there were somehow no fatalities. Had it hit just a few hours earlier when the city centre would have been swarming with people that would've been a very different story. Aftershocks are still battering the area (one of which had a magnitude of 6.0) and yeah, I really wish I was there right now as it's very hard to see this and be stuck over here.

A few shots from around my neck of the woods. Many of the houses immediately surrounding my house were damaged - some beyond repair, but by some miracle mine suffered nothing to really speak of!

If I didn't know better I'd have assumed these were London's roads.

Wednesday, 8 September 2010 - Aftershocks
To give you all some idea of how hard Christchurch (well, Canterbury as a whole) is being hammered just now by continuing aftershocks: Christchurch Quake Map

Friday, 10 September 2010 - Turning 30

I'm still the best part of two years away from it, but my mate turns 30 in a week and his missus organised a surprise bash for him last night. Very fancy affair in central London with copious amounts of wine and nibbles brought out. Early on in the night the poor bastard above-middle brought out a tray with a dozen glasses filled with champagne for us, and next thing he somehow lost the whole lot all over the floor hahaha! Some of us helped with the mess, while the rest of us stood around trying to refrain from laughing (and in my case I took photos ;) Later in the night he knocked a couple bottles of red all over the table hehe - that man was either drunk himself or just having a shocker.

Karl - the man has no shame. His mother (in New Zealand) sent over a heap of scanned photos from his childhood which was compiled into a good embrassing slide show. Just brilliant.		I stumbled home about 2am, and I do mean stumbled ;)

Saturday, 11 September 2010 - Ricky Gervais

A mate and I went to see Ricky Gervais live tonight at the Hammersmith Apollo. For those who don't know who he is, think of The Office. As expected he was his usual racist, sexist, fattist self - top form ;) There was some dude on before him who was border-line good - his best line was "Have you ever seen someone so Chinese it looks like it hurts?" hahaha!

Sunday, 12 September 2010 - A week on...

A week on from Christchurch's 7.1-magnitude quake and the cleanup is apparently well and truly underway amid continuing aftershocks. Plenty of photos have been flying around over the week of huge ruptures in the Earth which would have been bloody amazing to witness (not least of all the the train tracks below bending before your eyes), and it's not hard to see why the damage was so horrific in places. I dare say the city will look a little different next time I'm home.

Monday, 13 September 2010 - And they're up!

Well somehow it only took a week, but 800 photos got sorted and reduced to about 400, and they're all here covering our 16-day German road trip. Enjoy :)

Tuesday, 14 September 2010 - To Paris, again, but this time maybe for a long time...
A while back, the company I work for landed a large client based in Paris - Société Générale. I expressed interest about working over there for a stint by nagging the right people, and that nagging has paid off! I don't have all the details as yet, but currently the plan is to put my ass on the Eurostar through to Paris first thing tomorrow morning, and stay down there every week until further notice. Obviously I can come back to London on the weekends, but to be honest I'm still in two minds about what to do with my flat here - if this Paris gig is to be a long-term thing (and it's looking that way) then there is little point in my wasting money paying rent every month to hold on to it and instead I'll quite happily just spend my weekends in Paris, but that's a bridge I'll cross further down the line when I'm settled and have a better idea of what's going on. In the interim, my understanding is I'll have my own serviced apartment in central Paris just next to the Louvre, and I need to start working on my French. Anyway, watch this space, and the new Paris section I've just put up to follow my shenanigans over there!

Saturday, 18 September 2010 - Pope who?

I'm back in London for the weekend, and it was its usual mad-house today, though more so than usual because the Pope is making a visit through the city. I'm not a religious man (to put it mildly) so I didn't hang about for it.

Instead I did a big 80km burn on the bike through the outskirts of northeast London, where they believe in the spray can hehe!		Hahaha good job!

I have no idea where this was - out past London somewhere. Nice spot though, but this time next week I should be in an even nicer one...		This is somewhere on Lake Como, Italy's third largest lake and one of the deepest in Europe. It sits right up against the Swiss border in the north of Italy about an hour's drive north of Milan, and is a pretty popular spot with the celebrities apparently; Madonna, George Clooney, Sylvester Stallone, David Beckham and so on all have or had homes on the lake. I'm meeting up with Kristina there on Friday night, couple nights on the lake, then another night down in the Cinque Terre - a rugged portion of coast on the Italian Riviera which is apparently stunning! So yes I can't wait, but in the meantime I'm back to Paris tomorrow.

Monday - Friday, 20 - 24 September 2010
(Working in Paris)

Friday, 24 September 2010 - To Italy, hooray!
After my first full work-week in Paris, I feel in need of a long weekend, so that's what I'm doing hehe. I'm flying out from Paris tonight to meet up with Kristina (and her mother, long story for later) in Lake Como in the north of Italy. Couple nights there, then a night on the Cinque Terre and a bit of hiking along there while we're at it - good shit! Then it's back to Paris on Tuesday - more good shit!

Monday, 27 September 2010 - And back to Paris, hooray!

That right there is Lake Como looking north from above Bellagio. Spot the Swiss Alps in the distance there! This was our stop for the first couple nights, before heading down to the Cinque Terre for another - sweet as! I've got an excessive number of photos to sort through as always, so stories and whatnot will by up hopefully by this weekend. In the meantime, it's another week in Paris :)

Thursday, 30 September 2010 - Lake Como and the Cinque Terre
It's all here, enjoy :)

Saturday, 2 October 2010 - Mess!

Back in dirty old London for the weekend, and the main task: packing up my room! For the time being since I'm now based in Paris until at least the end of the year, I've sublet my room to Davydd (if anyone remember's him - my mate from Brisbane and my original flatmate in this place). He and his other half just moved back to London after living in Malta for 15 months and needed a place to crash, so good timing for everyone! Everything in these photos is all his shit that he had shipped over from Malta hahaha! So I needed to pack my junk up to make way for his junk, which incidentally is spread between about a dozen boxes. Mine compressed down into just three hehe.

Monday - Friday, 4 - 8 October 2010
(Working in Paris)

Saturday, 9 October 2010 - From A to B

From clear blue skies and warmth in Paris...		...to overcast crap and cold in London! I'm back in London for probably the last weekend for a while to pick up a few more things. This is Oxford Street by the way - chaos at the best of times but especially so on the weekend.		Hahaha Macca's continues to broaden its horizons!

Oxford Circus...		Piccadilly Circus. Chaos!

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