Saturday

After all the walking yesterday, I decide to take it easy. I go for a swim at the hotel pool on the roof at 6:30am, but only manage a few laps of the teeny pool before I start feeling cold. Was the only one up there, so scurried back in for a cup of tea, then downstairs for a fruity breakfast. Sunday shall be a Full English Breakfast!

Wandered outside and discovered that all banks, post offices etc are closed and that this Monday will be a bank holiday (Labor[sic] day). Also discovered that someone had built a street market outside the hotel! (which explains the noise this morning... I had thought it was some noisy ineffectual dustbin men.)

Stagger to the Sydney Harbour Bridge and investigate the "Archaeological" area underneath. Picked up a leaflet on climbing the bridge and then walked across the bridge to the north side.

Upon my return, I have a Subway (yum!) and hide from a clown.

It's a lovely city, and am having a good time, but as I had predicted, it's oh so lonely. Sydney seems to be a city of couples.

Still confuzzled by the time, so I return to the hotel for another siesta. Hooray! I discover BBC World Service on the radio and fall asleep. Here's my summary of jetlag so far:

• Wednesday: In the air/at airports etc. Not a clue what the time is/was.
• Thursday: There was a Thursday this week?
• Friday: Vaguely conscious. Can string sentences together, but need constant reminders of what I'm talking about (no change there then ;/ )
• Saturday: Meh!

Woke up at 8pm and had a lamb skewer thing at a local pub (with a Carlton beer to wash it down). Snoozy teim! :D

Friday

Still confuzzled, but awake enough to walk to the Botanical Gardens.

Expecting to see spiders & snakes at every turn, yet the only animals that I eventually see are the snoozy-yet-noisy bats who have come to roost in the trees after spending all night eating the flys that are drawn to the lit brilliant-white Opera House. The Botanical Gardens' leaflet says "Please walk on the grass and hug the trees". Sage advice.

Wandered to the edge of the Botanical gardens by the harbour and up past Mrs Macquarie's Chair. Continuing on, I saw five or six Australian Navy gunships/frigates (or whatever they call big grey ships with guns on).

Progressing further, I see signs that I'm getting near Kings Cross. Taking the advice from those who have been here before, I walked the other way & ended up somewhat lost in the Surrey Hills district. I discover and and confused by a Woolworths,

• a) because the sell groceries
• b) because I couldn't find the way in.

After five minutes of searching, I give up and continue my wanderings.

Further still, I arrived at the Central train/coach station and found both the Wakeup Hostel (looks good from the outside) and a great big market.

Stopped near the station for lunch (Chicken Sandwich) and overheard four railway staff moaning about their employers, the service, the passengers and other employees... 7000miles and nothing changes! :P

Walked back up Pitt St and accidentally discovered Wagamamas (in the Victoria Shopping Centre or similar). A mental note was made.

Arrived back at the hotel just in time to start my siesta. (still so confuzzled by the time change). Woke at 7pm and decided to test Wagamamas. Result: Good!

The Arival

The flights were grand. Here's a summary of events:

• Flying into Dubai, I saw a ship firing sand at a new palm island they are building. the ship was huge, yet compared to the size of the island, it was minuscule... It must have taken ages to get this far.
  
• On arrival at Dubai, we were bussed to the terminal. It was oh-so-hot... thankfully the bus was airconditioned!
• Flying to Bangkok, the lovely South African air hostesses did their best to flirt with me in the galley. Woo! :)
• Was told off by the Thai airport guard for taking one of the complimentary bag things from the plane but not declaring it as liquid. Eeep!
  

Arrived at Sydney airport at around 7/8am. Going through customs was fine, and I even located the queue for the working holiday visa stickers (Thanks Ian/Bex! :D). Quarantine was somewhat more panic stricken. Signs were everywhere saying that no could bring *any* food into the country. I realised I had... teabags* in my case. I told the airport official at the Xray machine my fears and she just laughed... thank goodness! (her colleague whispered loudly to her to ask if 'the paddywaggon was out back for me'... but at least I didn't have to pay the AU$60,000 fine :D

I was driven to the hotel in The Rocks and managed to get my room straight away. The room is good, but was generally confused by:

• the lights
• the safe
• the aircon

Fell out of the hotel and shopped for more biscuits, water and a simcard in one of the Pitt Street Malls. At roughly 12noon, the jetlag hit me right between the thingamys as I was standing in a bookshop. The only solution was food. And fast! Out the window went my plan to eat healthily as I took an emergency diversion to Hungry Jack's (Australia's version of Burgahking) and sat there filling myself with patty-based jetlag begone!

Wandered back to the hotel and had a snooze. Slept through the alarm and fell into the hotel restaurant (couldn't manage any further tonight!) where I promptly ordered a VB (Victoria Beer) and something predominantly lamby.

After dinner, I walked past Circular Quay to the Opera house - so big! There weren't that many people there, but the area reminded me of London's South Bank (if the South Bank was warmer and generally better looked after!)

I don't feel as if I've traveled very far and can't quite comprehend the differences - this is probably the jetlag... however I do appreciate the friendly atmosphere :)


* and maybe biscuits too!

Getting there; just getting started

As I sit here in the Emirates' business lounge at Heathrow Terminal 3, I ponder with fond memories the joy of going through security, passport checks and other such fun. Sipping my complimentary Innocent Smoothie (I may go back for the all-you-can-drink liqour & nibbles table later), I feel no sadness that my flight is delayed by thirty minutes... it will give me a bit more time to soak in the relaxed nature of this somewhat schnazzy lounge, as well as allowing me to eat a few more complimentary shish-kebabs.

Yes. I am gloating. But I'm allowed to for now, as in about an hour's time I shall be stuck in a series of aluminium tubes for many many hours. My mild fear of flying, combined with the article I read in Private Eye about the dangers of poorly maintained aircraft engines (leading to toxic fumes in the cabin) fill me with trepidation :/

To be honest, all the above is bravardo (ok, I do like the free food!), as the enormity of this trip is terrifying! Away for a while, on the other side of the world :/ - Under my cool, calm, collected (not-to-forget suave) exterior, I'm at panic stations! I think I need a cup of tea :)

Update: Thanks to everyone on Webmessenger tonight who stopped me from panicking quite as much as I otherwise would have done! :)

All the best,


Greg

The Party

Canon - Canon DIGITAL IXUS 65 - 2007-09-22 19-42-16.jpg
Originally uploaded by Pablo Mulvi

Here are but a few of the party-goers from Saturday! :) Check out Greg, Paul and Rashpal's photo pages.

Windows Movie Maker 4tw!

Hi,

Here's a video to say goodbye. Unfortunately, Java decided that she wanted to play in the garden half way through the video-shoot (I was aiming for a rather trendy multi-camera effect with only one camera*)... but there are definitely no continuity errors! :)

* Misleading the public? I've learnt well! :P

Meow / "It does mean changing the bulb"

Just over a day to go before I fly out. Java saw us pulling the case from the loft - and was not happy at the sight. We think that she'd realised something was going on about two weeks ago when she started changing her night routine to sleep on parent's bed instead of my own. It's so sad that I can't explain to the poor little girl why I'm off. :( I'm sure she'll be fine... she'll be too busy keeping parents out of trouble :)

Dad and I replaced the old florescent lighting in the kitchen with new holders and bulbs. They look rather good (given that they are just florescent fittings and not of the trendy ilk). Other than that, we remained at panic stations for most of Sunday. Today will probably be the same :0

The Famous List (Report #1)

Now that I have left the Beeb, seeing famous people becomes exciting! Today I passed by Germaine Greer whilst crossing South Africa Road in West London (admitedly right in front of the BBC White City Building :P).

I also saw someone who was practically Robert Llewellyn (of Red Dwarf/Scrapheap Challenge fame)... but wasn't. This chap has confused me in the past by walking around looking like said R.L. so I have learnt not to fall for his web of deceit!

And now it's time to sleep.

Goodbye Woodlands / Yesterday's Eeep

Fairwell
Met up with Gemma & Andrew today for lunch and was lucky enough to gain entry into Woodlands for a final Curry Thursday. T'was a grand lunch :)
Hair has been chopped (Hairdresser: "Blimey! Your hair's so coarse & thick!" :/ ) and some curfuffles have been remedied. Bumped into Andrew N-S in the coffeeshoppe and said goodbye to him too.

Arg!
Sod's law was upheld yesterday. A girl I rather liked (who just began working in Starbucks (Ux)) started to flirt with me with less than a week before I fly off! Arrrg*! :(


*obviously, as happens every time when it comes to such things, me being me, I was far too dumb/shy to make the first move when we first started politely chatting a few weeks back :/

Boxes, boxes and bills

Slowly boxing things up for the loft, mild panic continues as I keep reminding myself just what I've got myself into.

Went to Ian & Bex's house for tea, DVDs, cards and other such games and asked lots of awkward questions about Australia. Hope I know just what I need to do! :0 Tried out the Beeb's new ERadio service on DCable (VirginMedia): Very good, but I discovered a teeny palette issue that is only noticable when the brightness is turned up to 11. Emailed Farah, who probably now hates me! :P

Bills etc being transferred, adjusted etc. Took car to Honda for its first service - the cheeky blighters at Honda charged me ten squids for the "Free Courtesy Car" grrr. Other than that, all ok. Was given a black manual Jazz as the courtesy car which caused much confuzzlement, as my Jazz is an auto. No stalling thank goodness! :D

Dave popped by to return the fold-up bed that was borrowed. Pushed my "Essential Linux Administration" book onto him (I reckon he's gonna need it in his new job! :) ) then inflicted a game of cards ("sh*thead") on him.

My phone is now PAYG. Orange have really gone downhill... their computers weren't working when I called their offshore callcentre. They've even changed their automated voice girl from a rather schexy posh woman to someone ("Ruth") who sounds dizzy and ineffectual. See my rant on The Register's comments section: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/18/orange_voice/comments/

Promise to try to be a bit more coherent from now on in this blog. This prolly won't be made of complete and correct sentences until I've settled down a bit whilst out there.

Lots of love,


Greg

Days away

Afternoon all,

Post First this is yes. Mild panic as I attempt to get everything in order. Mild panic as I think I've lost my chequebook. Mild panic as I attempt to reassure the girl on the phone that I will still be a UK Citizen whilst away and that no, she shouldn't shut down my account. Then there was tea, so it all calmed down somewhat :) Now it is pub time.