Fleeting visit on a cheap flight courtesy of Aer Lingus to visit Squeezy in Dublin. This time I was accompanied by the lovely Dana Potato. The three of us succeeded in eating, sleeping and sitting our way through a chilly Ireland weekend. We did go out on the Saturday night and met up with one of Dana's friends and one of Cathy's friends. I'm sorry to say I didn't drink Guiness but I have discovered Bulmer's cider(Magner's in London). It had a nice if quite subdued night - we must be getting old. We were still quite late which made getting [View Full Entry]

---

---

I heard my lips uttering something I never thought possible: "I'm sad that it's the end of winter." Madness? Perhaps. But until now I had never experienced the mad rush of snowboarding. It's my new favourite thing to do and I wish I could send myself to a slope right now. Eight of us went to Poland to ski and snowboard. Zakopane is the main centre for snow sports in Poland and is about two hours south of Krakow and the mountains there mark the border with Slovakia. We were a bit of a rabble with very tenuous connections linking us [View Full Entry]

---

---

Same, same but different - heard this a lot in Asia and is so useful to describe so many things/situations/actions/words/feelings/etc when comparing two countries or cultrues. Though it makes me think of being in Asia, Vietnam in particular, it's pretty apt for describing a few things about life in London. On the surface England is pretty similar to Australia. I guess this similarity is only natural given the heritage of the majority of Australians, however there are a few cultural differences that are apparent, and even as the English way of life increasingly becomes the norm for me, somet [View Full Entry]

---

---

Jimi Hendrix really has nothing to do with my experience in the lovely, lovely Essaouira, but a lot of Essaouirians(?) kept telling me that he, along with tother celebs like the Beatles and Bob Marley, hung out and made music there back in the olden days so obviously it's a big deal to them. It has been a bit of a hub for those in the arts community, with Orson Welles shooting 'Othello' there and more recently Ridley Scott shooting 'Kingdom of Heaven.' Though I was relaxed everywhere in Morocco, Essaouira was a lot more chilled out than the other places [View Full Entry]

---

---

Oh dear, I've resorted to sensationalist and deliberately provocative headlines reminiscent of "The Sun". I've obviously been living in London too long! It's not a lie though; my trip to Imlil and Aremd did involve naked ladies. In fact I was one of them. But that comes later. Anyone travelling to Morocco to escape the winter blues of London had better steer clear of the High Atlas mountains in March. It was very cold. If the sun was out during the day it was really nice. But at night it was FREEZING. Just over the mountain from where we were staying [View Full Entry]

---

---

When I arrived in London I told myself that if I did nothing else I would travel to Iceland and Morocco, two places that are not the easiest to pop into from Melbourne. Mission accomplished. When I arrived back from Morocco I promised I would immediately write interesting and informative entries here about my trip. Mission not accomplished. It's been a while coming - although I had a wonderful, fabulous time, the post-holiday high has gone and I'm less motivated to write about my trip. This is a start. I went to Morocco with Intrepid Travel, a company I am more [View Full Entry]

---

---

Last weekend Craig, Aldo and I trained it up to Cardiff and met Cathy who flew in from Dublin. Saturday morning was spent visiting Cardiff Castle. I'm a sucker for a castle. In Australia buildings from the 70s get added to the historic building register so anything that predates laminex and brown bricks is cool in my books. There was a moat; need I say more? For some reason there often seems to be peacocks in the grounds of British historic buildings and that day we were treated to a full feather lifting, booty shaking mating display from one of the [View Full Entry]

---

---

After a year and a half away it was heaven to head back for a visit to sunny Australia. Most of the time was with the folks in Shepp and I didn't stray much further than from the couch to watch the cricket, to the back yard for a swim, to the kitchen to eat and then I started it all again. The weather was FAB and mum's cooking a big, big treat. I did go to Melbourne a couple of times to see some buds and check out what had changed since I'd been away. Back in London now - [View Full Entry]

---

---

It was actually pre-Christmas Christmas but I celebrated the festive season with Pippa and Laura at their Charlton abode where I was crashing for a bit. They were very lovely to cook me turkey in their vegetarian household as well as look after me while I was sick. Aren't they wonderful! Spent a few days then down at Pippa's family home in East Grinstead where we enjoyed the sun and chilled out before I embarked on the megaflight back to Australia. [View Full Entry]

---

---

I had hoped to have pages of beautiful photos from my trip to Atlanta, Washington and New York. Alas though, some bastard stole my bag and in that bag was my camera. And my passport. And lots of other good things.... but don't get me started. Bag theft aside it was a really good trip. The work thing I went over for was fun, the weather was good, met some great people. The museums that make up the Smithsonian Institute in Washington were a geek's paradise - so I was amused for days. And in New York I got to catch [View Full Entry]

---

---