First - if you are getting this email for the first time it's because I made the decision to subscribe you - feel free to unsubscribe yourself though! I am slowly adding people I think might be interested but I will not be offended if you simply unsubscribe... So anyway, Friday evening straight after work I headed to Victoria Coach station to catch the bus to Brussels. I had to check in about 45 minutes before the bus left and we started boarding about 15 minutes before the bus left. I was going with National Express/Eurolines and the bus on the way over was a Eurolines one. I have never in my life met ruder drivers. The bus was going all the way through to Germany so they were putting the bags under the coach in ... read more

I have back-dated this entry to when I went to Edinburgh. I decided to get the overnight bus from London on the Friday evening. I finished work at about 5:30 or so and headed to Covent Garden August night-markets for a drink and some food before heading back to work to shower and change and head to Victoria Coach Station. After the last incident I made sure that I was nice and early for the bus this time. It was absolutely packed - I got the last window seat pretty much right at the back of the bus and every aisle seat was also taken. Thankfully I actually managed to get a few hours sleep. We had three rest stops along the way and it was bitter cold outside in the middle of the night!! After ... read more

I spent the weekend in Barcelona. I still love the fact that I can just go overseas so easily at relatively last minute (only booked tickets a few weeks ago), relatively low cost and only for a few days. It is just something that you can't do from Australia!! Anyway I left work early on Friday and went straight to Gatwick. The EasyJet flight was running on time and I arrived into Barcelona airport at around 10pm. Managed to get the Aerobus and then the Metro to my hostel very easily. I was quite surprised as even though I have been to Barcelona before I don't actually remember much and I was on an organised bus tour so they got us into and out of the country. Arrived at the hostel at about 11pm and crash ... read more

A few weekends ago I went to Manchester. Quite a while ago I managed to book 'fun fairs' through National Express - cost me a grand total of GBP2. Yep, you read that right, 2. Equivalent of about AUD$5. Return. So I booked it. Figured I had nothing to lose. The bus to go up left London Victoria at about 10am. Funnily enough, it cost me more to get to Victoria than it did to get the entire way to Manchester but I guess that's TfL for you. Arrived at the coach station mega-early to make sure I didn't miss the bus. Bus was almost empty - only about 20-30 of us on it, so plenty of room to spread out. We arrived in Manchester slightly later than planned and after finding a book story and ... read more

An interesting fact about travelling between the UK and Ireland that I thought I would share (some people will find this more interesting than others). When I left Ireland my passport never got checked by Irish Customs at all. I used a self-service kiosk to get my boarding pass and because I only had hand luggage never even presented my passport to the airline. When I went through security I handed both my passport and my boarding pass over to the security dude but he only checked the boarding pass. When I boarded the plane they did look to make sure the names matched - between my boarding pass and my passport. But that was it. At the time I thought it was a little odd but figured UK Customs would look at it so it ... read more

Here is the link to some of the photos from my four days in Dublin. http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=33258&l=01bf6&id=822333781... read more

Well, I am here in Dublin at the moment. Arrived on Saturday afternoon later than planned as the flight was delayed. left from Gatwick Airport which was sort of interesting having never been there before. I was made to take off my shoes and my jacket. I still set off the metal detector which resulted in an on-the-spot frisk search!! All happened very quickly actually - like I posed a serious threat to security! Needless to say, I don't know why I set off the detector but after being frisked they let me continue on my way. By the time I got to my hostel (called the Brewery Hostel and was located conveniently close to the Guiness Brewery funnily enough) it was 5pm so I didn't have a whole lot of time to do or see ... read more

So all of my interviews with the recruitment consultants are now over. Spoken to four of them in total. All went pretty well I think. They think that they should be able to find me some contract work in the public sector/not for profit, so now I just have to wait and see. Unfortunately it appears that it might not be the best time to have come over looking - all of the local/central government agencies are waiting on budgets because it is nearly the end of their financial year, so many don't want to make decisions about recruitment, others are wanting to spend money. Just a matter of time. In other news, I've managed to line up temporary accommodation in greater London for the next week or two - possibly longer. With a family. Single ... read more

I arrived in London at 5:30am on Friday. Barely got looked at by Customs at Heathrow, except for two questions - how long was I planning on staying, and what the conditions of my visa were. I was expecting more after the grilling I got when I arrived for a holiday back in 2001!! Because of the time, I couldn't check into the hostel, so left my luggage at Heathrow and went into the city. Did some sightseeing, got my ATM card for my UK bank account and sorted out my UK sim, generally lazed about. Checked into hostel at 2pm and by the time I got my luggage sorted it was time to crash!! Hostel is OK - I am in a 6-bed dorm, three of the other girls were Australian (one from Mt Waverley!!), ... read more

I have had a busy few days in KL. The shopping (if I was allowed to do any!!) is pretty awesome, there is an entire shopping mall with just IT stuff!! The malls are massive, but high rather than big. Might have to detour through here on the way back as well... On Wednesday I visited the Petronas Twin Towers and walked on the skybridge, which is 41 stories up. Highest building in the world I think, total of 88 floors. Skybridge goes from one tower to the other and is a double decker. One story is for tourists, the other is for transiting between the buildings. Oh, and for the event of any fire!! After that I headed to KL tower for more views of KL. Then it was on to Batu Caves where I ... read more