it's interesting watching people on the London Underground - it's like all normal rules of society are different... my typical day consists of me getting up very early and hopping on the tube early (6:30am) to go to the gym before work. everyone who can find a seat, sleeps... literally, half of the passengers are passed out on the early services. later in the day, people decide to not look at anything particular and manage to find empty spaces of air enthralling by staring intensely into the ether. london is strange like that, but for someone who loves to watch other people go about their lives (at least, when i'm not asleep with the rest of them at 6:30am), it's fascinating to watch, and observe the difference between the people in london, and the people in sydney - i still haven't spoken to a stranger in the street here - something which would often happen in sydney.
today we had a new arrival straight from melbourne via tokyo, and i decided to take it upon myself to introduce him to london pubs by taking him to our local with flash and laura (two of my flatmates) for a few pints of hoegaarden. lots of fun, and more comments to come later, after i've managed to grab some sleep after MISSING my alarm this morning and ending up at work late (#$(&@(&%!!!!)
what's your favourite beer/alcoholic beverage.. and what's your favourite non-alcoholic beverage - and more to the point - how do i make both!!

I said I would post again today, and - dammit - I'm going to keep up my end of the bargain. Today I joined a gym again - I used to be a member of Fitness First in Australia (.) and now I've joined up with them over here... I'm looking forward to getting back into the gym, so that I can start playing rugby (union) for my company's team and the social side attached.

Speaking of which - I'm buggered, and I have to be up early tomorrow to go to ... the gym! By the way - are you for/against gyms - and why?

It's been so long since I updated my journal - I've been very remiss!! I think I can now say that I'm settled in my new home - I've got a house, a job - and today, a bank account (yes, the rumour really is true - it's a bit of a bitch to get an account set up in the UK for we antipodeans).

SO - I think a quick summary is in order:

• I am living in London approximately here.
• I'm working for this company.
• Since I left Australia in November, I've been to Ireland, Spain, France, Switzerland and of course, England.
• I've got a new mobile number... email me if you want it!

So with the domestics out of the way, I need to ask for advice... if you could go anywhere in Europe, where would you go, and why? And further to that - is there anywhere you would never travel to in Europe (having been there before)?

I've noticed that in London there are HEAPS of markets, and I love it!! You can get some really great fresh food here which is cheaper and of a much higher quality than that found in the supermarkets - which incidentally tend to be pretty shitty. We have 3 supermarkets within about .. 300m of our flat, but two of them are completely useless. If you're at Somerfield after 6:30pm - their shelves are practically bare, and they don't restock until close. Marks & Spencer was good, but they recently took what was mostly a food store and made it mostly a clothes store.. which sucks - and that leaves us with Tesco... that company that seems to be the golden child of the English economy. I'm not entirely convinced, but it seems they are the lesser of 3 evils in our suburb.

On a more positive note, the Super 12 competition is about to start up again!! Carn' the Waratah's!!

Got to be at work in 7 hours, but I am going to post again tomorrow (not an idle promise!)

P.S. don't forget to leave comments!

bonjour!!
être éperdument amoureux de le français! I love France, it's people, and it's language. When I get back to London the first task is to find somewhere to live; the second is to find somewhere to study French. I have always wanted to learn a third language; perhaps my hesitation to do so was in part due to the fact that when I learnt Japanese I had to deal with 3 new alphabets, and a completely different way of structuring words and sentences.
In any case, today was not my last in France; what I do know is its the last day I will voluntarily spend in Geneva - this place is like a bad version of Canberra (oh joy!) - cold, nothing to do - but you can't even buy fireworks. Alas, only the Australians will get that one. Noo idea why the UN decided to set up here - its crappy. Probably comes down to me having super high expectations and the city not living up to 10% of them. Anyhow, we're off to Bern tomorrow - Switzerland's capital.

The thing that is really getting to us is how expensive everything is here. It's not that it's any more expensive than London for example - but rather that the exchange rate to Aussie dollars is $0.80 CHF to every AUD. A *small* McDonald's value meal is CHF 13.45 !!!!!! That's a $16 small big back meal people! Now - I know that the £6 you pay for the same meal in London works out to be about $16 as well - but jeez - I much prefer that lower number! Needless to say, we're a dumb species of animal, we humans - but for gods sake Swiss people - revalue your currency.. PLEASE. (!)

Phew - now that I've got that out of my system I can move on to other news. My cousin is getting married! I could totally see it coming, but wow it really hits you when it happens. She is the first of all of my cousins (and I think at last count I was over 35 - but I let tele-Tess sort that one out (my Dad's aunt)) to get married - or even engaged. Needless to say I am over the moon for them - he's a great bloke and they're a great couple - it also gives me an excuse to fly home in early 2006 for the wedding. Hopefully my mate John will have his wedding then too and I can hit 2 birds with 1 stone :) I think these two events are the beginning of a new era with my friends and family: gone is the wave of 21st birthday parties; here to stay are engagement parties, bucks nights and weddings/receptions. I suppose next stop after than is 30th birthday parties (but that's thinking waaaay too far ahead!).

So I want to give you some homework. I want three things - in equal portions:
1) News of home (as most of the people reading this are from Australia I'm expecting lots of Australian news - I've missed out on heaps - but no matter where you're from, give me news about whats happening at your 'home'!!)
2) The biggest controversy of the last month - and I'm talking about you, your friends or your family.
3) Your top 5 songs right at this moment.

With that information, I will be a happy man! I know lots of people read this but never leave comments - my family are big offenders - so please, leave a comment and I PROMISE I will reply to each one!

∞

Hi there!! I've just driven across from Glencolmcille, where we're staying - it really is an amazing hostel - the hostel is cut out of the cliff and we look out over the most spectacular view I've seen here yet - I'll have to get some of our photos up online.

For the last two nights we've been staying in Dunfanaghy - which is on the northern coast of Ireland - in an old railway carriage which has been converted into hostel accommodation. The place was so lovely, and we befriended the 18yo Swiss caretaker, helping her paint one of the living rooms at the hostel. Jakob went out yesterday and surfed at a beach which hasn't been documented as having been surfed before - I took photos with my 300mm lens huddled in the boot of our hire car because it was absolutely pissing with rain. I ended up twice as cold as he did - what I would've given for a wetsuit.

Invariably, we've been called crazy bastards by most people we come across - he surfing the northern/western Irish coastline (in winter) and I standing outside for a couple of hours taking pictures of it. But I have had the time of my life.
When we went to Malin Head, and stood at the northern most point of Ireland, we saw an abandoned WWII lookout post, with a family of goats nestled inside the guardhouse - when I went up to take some photos, the billy goat decided my lens was a gun and charged at me - before being coat-hangered by the plank of wood warning us that the guardhouse was abandoned :) What a Kodak moment - but I missed it with the camera because I was running my ass off to get back to the car in the torrential rain.

So with body intact and goat knocked out, we went back down the road and found a pub - which happened to be the northern-most pub in Ireland. We were served by Hugh, a real legend, who we had great chats with. He seemed very involved in the Loyalist vs Republican debate - giving us the best rundown yet of the history of the conflict. I sat in awe as he produced a 'plastic bullet' which a 12yo boy had brought in and given to him - he had three of them sitting above the top shelf liquor, right next to a plastic bullet. To put these things in perspective, they weighed about 500grams (think half a litre of milk), and were a perfect cylinder of hard plastic with blunt ends (not bullet shaped). It was probably about 8cm in diameter and 15cm in length. This thing was seriously solid. Now imagine it coming toward you at 950kmh. Yeah - that's what I said too. The rubber bullet was the same, but shaped like a bullet (although about the same dimensions as I described above. Just cut a piece of A4 paper in half and roll it up into an 8cm diameter cylinder and you'll start to get a picture of it. Glad I wasn't hit by any of them.

The thing that really caught me in the conversation we were having with Hugh was when he started talking about Northern Ireland (in a political sense). It went something like this: "You'll find that the people up there have much more animosity between each other than we do down here. Hang on - I thought - I'm standing about 200m from the northern tip of Ireland - and there's a whole stack of people "up there" ! Now, I understood what he meant of course - but the distinction between geographical location and political location became stark for me when he said this. I've got a nice map of Country Donegal where you can see the places I've been in the past 4 days. Malin Head is the one North of Culdaff, and I'm in Donegal Town right now.

Anyway, I'm back here tomorrow so I'll write more then!
Byee :)

Sorry for the huge delays in writing; I've been away from the net for ages since I left - I wrote this entry offline:

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I arrived in Dublin on the 10th care of Mr RyanAir and proceeded directly to 'The Celt' - a lovely (very small) pub around the corner from our hostel (Rainbow Hostel). It truly was a sublime experience. This tiny pub was full of locals enjoying a pint of stout, and not any old stout, but that iconic one most people call 'Guinness'.

I always thought people were taking the piss when they said 'The Guinness is always better in Ireland', but I was bloody wrong! The black stuff is truly everywhere here, and its good! I've even seen a dog drinking it.

So with an involuntary 'Gday mate' (I honestly can't help it), I asked for three pints of Guinness and took a seat. None of this waiting at the bar for a hastily poured schooner - no, we were able to enjoy a 5 minute conversation whilst being mesmerised by the cascading fluid in our half-filled pints.

And in an absolute blur, I have found myself here four days later - sitting in a cafe on the northern coast of Ireland, my favourite place in the world at this instant.

I really want to get my experience here down in words but I'm finding it very hard to work out where to start, so I'll state the obvious - the countryside here is just stunningly beautiful. I find myself veering off the road with my mouth agape at an endless series of postcard scenes. But the beauty is in contrast to the absurdity of the Peace Wall in Belfast, and quite obvious hatred between people living 50 metres away from one another.

This is taking a long time to write, because I don't quite know what I'm feeling here. I think I have started to process the fact that I'm on the opposite side of the world to home, but it still hasn't quite sunk in. I'm travelling with Jakob - one of my favourite people in the world - and Bec, a work friend of Jakob's. I really like Bec, she's a lovely girl with so much energy and good intention - a genuinely interesting person. Unfortunately, I feel as though she has a bit too much energy, and is a bit too loud, at least for me during this trip - and she also recognises that I am a good listener, which means I end up being her DIY therapist - and I've only known her for 4 days.

The issue seems to be maturity - I don't think she is comfortable with being quiet, or on her own. It is probably unfair to generalise like that about her - but Jakob and I are fairly similar and we genuinely enjoy silence - have very similar taste in music (Bec and I don't), and very similar expectations of what we want to get out of this trip. I just feel as though I am going to find Bec's company discomforting for the rest of the trip, and her presence has meant I haven't had time to just sit down and enjoy time on my own for the last 4 days. She has been making remarks about me taking too long to get ready or taking too much time at the Guinness factory, and there were real 'hurry the fuck up' vibes when we were seeing the Book of Kells - I feel like losing it and telling her that she can bugger off because this is my trip - Jakob and I were not planning on travelling with anyone else. Is it unfair to want to share my time with her? When I'm at home I move fast all the time - my last three months were ridiculously hectic. So when I travel, I like to stroll around at a leisurely pace, to read every piece of text about an exhibit, to stop on the side of the road to take pictures, and to go into a computer store if I need to buy a headset to call home with after my old one was broken. I don't like to be hassled about all of the above. I really don't like to be hassled about it by someone I have known for four days, and I like it even less when they have £150 to their name, and we still have 13 days left on the road.

With that said (and I really needed to make it so), everything else about the last four days has been an absolute joy.

ok ladies and gents... rach seems to have given up her Missy Higgins ticket - soooo... I feel like seeing how much people might want one - its for the 15th (this friday) at the metro (in Sydney)...
by the way its free to whoever i decide wants it most. :)

Last night was Lize's 21st (my ex-girlfriend, for those playing at home), and it was a bit of a surreal experience. I've got to say I had one of the best nights that I've had in ages; it really was an enjoyable affair (no pun intended). I never intended to lose touch with so many people from that stage in my life - but it was sooo good to catch up with them again - especially considering my impending departure.

Some highlights:

• Seeing Pip, Kath and Elo - haven't seen those girls in a year and a half. They're like the sisters I never had.


• Seeing Lucy (little luce!) - the closest thing i'll have to a child this side of 30.


• (yes, Lucy is a dog.)


• (how the hell did I become one of those people who talk about their dog as though its a person.)(i don't think i care)


• Catching up with all of Lize's extended family.


• Sarah, Suz, Kath, Amanda,... actually everyone there - I miss them all.


• I got away relatively lightly in the speeches. The Kombi van was brought up... but it could've been soooo much worse. Respect to Pip, Kath and Elo for that!!


• Catching up with SAM THE MAN (Lize's 10, soon to be 11yo. brother) - he's almost finished year 5!! What a dude!

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I just realised that when I opened up XJournal I had Fuck It (I Don't Want You Back) playing in iTunes (random shuffle on my music library) - the irony! Not intentional at all, and the sentiment not felt.

After the 21st I headed over to Tom's place with Nicki and when we got there Jonno had managed to get so trashed that he had passed out on the balcony - what an assy bastard! [you have to have heard the 12th man to understand that]

We didn't end up going out to manly because Tom was about as far gone as Jonno, so I just had a chat with Nicki and then hit the sack. Woke up this morning and the boys were legends and brought me back some hotcakes from Maccas... HOW TASTY ARE THEY! mmm. And orange juice too. So there I was, with Maccas, watching The Simpsons looking out over manly and Sydney Harbour - and once again I wondered - why the hell am I going to London, you silly bastard. I know I'll always end up back in Sydney, its just a matter of how long it is before I come back. I'm playing Songs About Jane by Maroon 5 right now and it deadset stunning weather outside - a bloody wonderful day.

So I'm going to get off this computer and go and enjoy it - oh I'm having a farewell thingy on the 30th Oct so keep it free.

Two quick questions:

• Are you a summer person or a winter person?


• Can I borrow your summer while I'm in London?

Two quick rhetorical questions:

• Why do those of the fairer sex look so damn hot in cocktail dresses? Wow. Nice work girls.


• Why don't you go and vote for Courtney tonight on Idol? I haven't voted yet in the comp, but I think he's GOT to win - the bloke has the best voice I've ever heard. He also gives a better rendition of Maroon 5's songs - and Maroon 5 are the bomb to start with. He may be a big bastard, but I don't give a s••t - that voice MUST win.

Whyyyyy am I still up??