I have to confess that I have been a little slack in keeping my blog up to date over the last few days though rest assured good habits are about to return! So where were we? Ok so yes I was planning on visiting Tate Modern with my brother and then in the evening going dancing with my friend Mai in Brick Lane. Its Thursday and Paul and I head off to Tate Modern to see the Futurism Exhibition . Filippo Marinetti launched the Futurism movement when the Futurists Manifesto was published on the front page of Le Figaro in 1909. [View Full Entry]

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Tuesday was a warm London day and Paul and I visited Camden Town, the spiritual home of Coldplay, the famous Camden Town Markets and sadly the seedier side of London. Yes the place is eclectic and no doubt you can buy things in the markets here that you probably won’t get anywhere else in London however stepping onto Camden High Street from the tube station was quite an experience. I sensed a number of suspicious characters hanging around the tube station as we made our way up Camden High Street. The market stalls on the High Street are dominated by cheap [View Full Entry]

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Woke up to a warm and sunny Monday morning with the sound of seagulls outside my window. The English seagull is much larger than the Australian variety and whilst the noise they make is quite different to the Australian bird, it is no less annoying. First stop today was Canary Wharf in search of a coffee (as the hotel coffee isnt great) and whilst it is a short boat ride away, I weirdly chose to catch the C10 bus to Canada Water, followed by the tube to Canary Wharf. All up about a half hour journey. Tomorrow (Wednesday) I intend to [View Full Entry]

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Dear reader, I arrived in London today (actually it was yesterday but I really couldn't be bothered blogging) having survived the 25 hour ordeal of the Sydney to London flight. The service onboard Virgin Atlantic was very good, the entertainment system worked reasonably well and the food was, well, typical airline food - about one step ahead of hospital food. I only wish that I had about half metre of extra leg-room but I refuse to handover another $5000 for that! London on arrival was mild and sunny and as I couldn't check-in to my hotel until 3pm I spent most [View Full Entry]

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Amazingly I am sitting on my couch, in my flat in Dee Why, watching my television and drinking a cup of tea from one of my own cups. It is raining outside, the sounds of traffic in the street are very familiar and the accents very normal. It feels like I have woken up from a normal night of sleep - Oh I did have a great dream last night though- quite weird and wonderful; I flew to Europe on this airline called Etihad and what was more of a nightmare than a dream the entertainment system didn’t work, I then [View Full Entry]

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Sitting in the departure lounge at Barcelona airport I carefully and patiently unravelled the skin of my clementine. I have become quite the master of the single peel/combined twirl pirouette technique - Fruit in one hand, thumb making it’s away around it anti-clockwise as the turning fruit spins in my hand in a clockwise direction. If clementine peeling was a sport, I would be high up in its rankings! It had just been announced that the flight to London would be delayed for 90 minutes; this gave me an additional hour to sit and twiddle my thumbs (or peel and eat [View Full Entry]

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I needed to drop in a few more photos of my trip around Catalonia on Wednesday and so here is but a small selection [View Full Entry]

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It’s 11.30pm in Barcelona and today sadly is my last day in Barcelona and my last day in Spain. At lunchtime tomorrow I fly out from here to London for the last four days of my holiday. Today has been a lengthy one. It started very early (just after 730am) when I went searching for a coffee in nearby Gran Via. It was then on to the Bus Turistic for the trip to the Torres Vineyards, Montserrat and Sitgues. First stop was the famous Torres Winery (Bodegas Torres), where we discovered how the famous Torres wine is made. We continued onto [View Full Entry]

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Once I had sorted out my washing, I headed to Plaza Cataluyna and jumped on the bus turistic for a tour around Barcelona. The Barcelona tourist bus (like so many of its type in other cities) is a great way to see the sights and gain some knowledge of the history of the place. I took the southern route this morning which snaked its way around the southern part of the city up to Montjuic, down via la Barceloneta and to Ribera which is where you can find the Picasso Museum - a museum that I just love. The first part [View Full Entry]

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I started today at the crack of dawn, determined to get to the lavandaría to get my clothes washed. It had been a few days and although my clothes weren’t beginning to smell, I was down to my second string apparel. The brochure for Wash n Dry stated that they were open from 7.00 am so I charged down to beat the rush (I still didn’t think that there would be many there at 7.30am when I left Hostal Goya.) On arrival the place was completely shut up. 7am- 11pm 365 days a year the brochure claimed, it was near 745am [View Full Entry]

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