Like The Bird

The Waiters Club

2010-03-30T22:08:00.005+11:00

After an AGDA student council meeting tonight, I caught up with my mum and sister in the city and I thought we'd check out The Waiters' Club in Meyers Place.

I'd read reviews and been meaning to get there for a while and now I've been, I'll be back again soon.
It's no nonsense, no fancy presentation, no micro-herbs, no hyper-designed interior, just formica tables, paper napkins and hearty, traditional Italian fare.

I had the roast veal, which was served in a perfectly seasoned rosemary gravy. Served with steamed carrots and broccoli, a potato and corn, it looked like something my grandma would serve up but tasted like something my grandma would serve up if she was from the north of Italy.

My mum and sister's meals were equally as palatable, with the veal saltimbocca being a winner in my books.

Finally, to top it all off, it's very affordable, has a fantastic atmosphere and is tucked away enough to avoid the throngs in the street.

Oh, the creme caramel is also pretty awesome. Hence me now feeling very sated and laying around slothfully.

On being a douche

2009-12-01T20:19:00.006+11:00

Sometimes It's fun to be a douche. I tried it tonight.
I've been receiving emails every now and then from a car dealership who must have the wrong email address for one of their customers...
They sent me an email today to let me know that I had nearly finished the financing of my 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan. (I don't own a 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan)
I decided to be a douche and write a reply. Just for jokes.
Here's how it played out:
------------------------------------------------------
To: Joshua Crowe
Abingdon, MD 21009-3063

Dear Joshua,

Congratulations! In only six months, the term of financing on your 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan from Schaefer and Strohminger will end. You may be interested in looking at a new vehicle and get an idea of the value of your present vehicle. We would like the opportunity to offer you our services once again.

Schaefer and Strohminger offers the highest trade for your current vehicle, and the best, no-hassle purchase experience. Please keep in mind that we represent many manufacturers, including Mazda, Jeep, Dodge, Honda, Hyundai, Pontiac, GMC Truck, Buick, Chrysler and Chevrolet. We also have 400 plus pre-owned cars, trucks, SUVs and vans of all makes and models from which to choose.

Please contact us at the dealership @ 410-893-0600 or email us with any questions or to set up an appointment. You can visit us on-line to view inventory and pricing.

We are excited about helping you with any of your automotive needs.

Sincerely,

Drew Bauer
Trainer

---------------------------------------------------------
from: Jeremy Crow
to: sales@sandsauto.com
date: Tue, Dec 1, 2009 at 8:08 PM
subject: Re: Hello from S&S

Hi Drew,
Thanks for the congratulations. I'm Jeremy Crow and I live in Melbourne, Australia. To my knowledge, I haven't financed a 2005 Dodge Grand Caravan from Schaefer and Strominger. Whilst I am intrigued to find out what the value of one of these would be, I'm afraid that due to me not owning one, I probably wouldn't be able to put its value to any use.
I'm sure if you contact Joshua Crowe via another means, he may well be willing to look at upgrading to a new vehicle from one of the many fine manufacturers you represent. You should recommend the Honda Odyssey. It looks like a similar vehicle to the Dodge Grand Caravan and is slightly more expensive, which I'm sure is appealing to you being a car dealer. It will run 25 miles per gallon, which is the same as the Dodge, so I think the thought of upgrading, without increasing his carbon footprint would be a definite pro for Joshua, especially in these ecologically aware times.
The only other thing to take into consideration would be the current economic climate, and the atrophy of wages associated with it. Perhaps you should still push the Honda Odyssey, however keep the 2010 Honda Mazda5 as a fallback option, as it is slightly more affordable.
I'm sure with the trade-in of his current vehicle, Joshua would find such an offer hard to resist.

In summation, I guess what I'm trying to say is I think Joshua Crow has given you an incorrect email address.

Best of luck with your endeavours and I hope that Joshua and yourself can maintain a healthy client-salesman relationship going forward.

Sincerely,

Jeremy Crow
----------------------------------------------

And that's my fill of being a douche for a while.

On Being Proactive

2009-08-28T16:12:00.006+10:00

No, I'm not talking about that acne blasting crap on the infomercial.
I came across A Brand For London which has been set up by Moving Brands.
Very cool idea... It's an excellent insight into the building of a brand and it rather cleverly gives Moving Brands a bit of authority, maybe even a degree of ownership over the redesign.
It's a pretty sharp way to get the inside track.

It's also a useful tool for anyone without an understanding of the design process to see the work that goes into creating a brand that represents an entire city, especially London.
It's much easier to elucidate the value of design to people, when they can see the work that's gone into it. This would avoid the public backlash that is generally associated any time a major, justifiably expensive branding exercise takes place (See: City Of Melbourne rebrand/London 2012 ID), which often stems from a lack of understanding of how a brand has been developed and the rationale behind it.

Anyway, I'm meant to be doing work related things, but was quite impressed by this.

Oh, by the wya... Frigging weekend, people!

Beyond coincidence

2009-08-25T21:21:00.006+10:00

With the AGDA For Love or Money event coming up next week, I've spent the last month or so doing a bit of a push to a bunch of online media people to see if we can get word of the event spread around. I even got to set up a blog for it, which is cool...

It's been pretty successful... Managed to score some posts on some cool blogs and sites, as well as a bunch of Twitter retweets and mentions, which is handy. Seems like the various social platforms work well for promoting these kinds of events...

Anyways, I'm sure that's boring for everyone.

The point is, frigging check this out:
It's a screenshot of part of an interview I did for The Vine
Note the last of my responses in the bottom of this picture.
Then look at the Bankwest ad on the right....

What are the chances? Seriously though, what are they?

What are the chances that 1) Some idiot makes a reference in an interview to a pet rock that grows grass for hair and 2) The website this interview sits on then randomly generates an ad which contains a pet rock that grows grass for hair whilst aforementioned idiot is viewing it?

Effing slim, I say.

And that, good people, is all it takes to blow my feeble mind.

Go to bed Jeremy

2009-08-19T23:35:00.004+10:00

Have been finding myself up late a lot recently...

Busy organising online things and other stuff for the AGDA student council's First Five Out event (Come check it out, 3rd September, it's going to be awesome), which is good fun.
Also sorting out some freelance stuff which is about to ramp up very shortly.
Plus, I've got neglected school stuff to get on with, sport to play, dinner to prepare... So on and so forth.
Can't say this is a complaint though. I'm at my best when I'm busy. Although I am very much looking forward to sleeping in on Saturday. Hells yes.

And here's some quick, Twitteresque reviews to give this post some kind of purpose:

District 9 - Brilliant. Avoids the stereotypes of the genres it treads and is thoughtful, open-ended and intelligent all at once. Plus it has a fighting robot, which I'm a sucker for.

Coraline 3d -Awesome. I heard Tim Burton designed the characters... It looks like it. With Neil Gaiman writing, the story is very clever too. And dark. Dark like a shadow's beard. Definitely worth checking out.

People who suddenly stop in the middle of the footpath for no apparent reason - Terrible. I hate you. No stars.

Panama Dining Room - Fantastic food, great service, relaxed but classy atmosphere and desserts that I'd walk the Arctic Tundra to get to. Oh and the arched windows look out over the city skyline, which is pretty ace.

Mountain Goat Brewery - Awesome warehouse setting, tasty pizzas, relaxed crowd and good beer. My pick of their beers last Friday was their stout which had been filtered through fresh hops flowers and coffee beans.

And with that, I'm calling it a night.

Nano-trending Episode 2: The Weirdening

2009-08-06T18:41:00.003+10:00

Ok, following on from the last post, I just had a run through the search history on my shiny Mac at home and my nano-trending results were even more bizarre. So odd and disjointed, in fact, that I think the government may have me listed on some kind of blacklist document managed by the Centre for the Identification of Undoubtedly Crazy People.

So, my searches in the last while have included the following:

binary star system
caring for aloe vera
covering iron whilst waxing snowboard
down syndrome tiger
explosions in the sky
fictional order of monks
giant vagina northcote
hedgehog map
iditarod
kid strangles dove
london graffiti attacks
midget tupac
office turn into inflatable people
wallabies crop circle
we were promised jetpacks

Ok, so I just write a couple of decent sized paragraphs attempting to justify the schizoid nature of my searches but decided that you've probably already made your assumptions. And yes, you were correct: All these searches took place on that crazy night we took loads of acid and ate heaps of shrooms, remember dude?
Totally.
Let's just say I'm inquisitive and never speak of this again.

Anyone else care to share what's nano-trending in their world at the moment?

Pro challenge: Write a (coherent) short story containing all these terms.

Footnote: Really want to do this on a public computer.

I call this one 'nano-trending'

2009-08-05T12:39:00.002+10:00

As is the fashion these days.. Everyone is into 'trending'...
Basically, those identifying 'trends' are people who gather data on what other people are talking, tweeting, blogging, singing, whinging or ranting about and then draw conclusions from these such as the following:

'This season's colour will be Fuschia'
'Tangello sales will rise by 48%'
'China. Democracy. Next financial year.'

So, i thought I'd do a little 'trending' on myself. I thought it may allow me to predict what I'll be up to in a couple of month's time.

Using the search bar in my browser, I entered each letter of the alphabet, which brought up my search terms since whenever the last time I cleared my cache was.

The results were startling. And perhaps slightly unnerving.

So, without further ado, here's what's trending in Jeremy's world at the moment:

Ayn Rand
Aint nothin gonna break my stride
Bags of Zing
Collective noun horses
Captain Planet shoes
dOGME 95
dead mum carrying father's baby
Frogskins
Flourish of trumpets
Ghengis Khan
Horatio Caine's blazer
Hand-rendered vignettes
Plastic made from seaweed
Rollercoaster kills child

I'm as confused as you are...
And that's just from my work computer. I'll try it out at home and see what else comes up.

In the meantime, I think it's fair to presume that tomorrow, Ace of Base will play a county fair where, after a flourish of trumpets, a rollercoaster kills a child when Genghis Khan's Frogskins are found to be made from seaweed.

Meanwhile, in another universe...

2009-07-17T22:37:00.005+10:00

Occasionally the GoogleAds server throws up a "contextual" ad that you just can't go past.
A while back, I found the BananaGuard, with its informative tagline "Protect your banana!" thanks to an ad in my Gmail sidebar.

Tonight, I was greeted with this little gem:
That's right. Improving your life is as simple as jumping to another dimension! Hooray!
"But how do I perform this jump?" I hear you ask.
With some kind of new technology? A time machine of some description? A psychotropic elixir?

No!

With a set of 6 informative and educational CDs! All for the low price of $197USD!!

After having a flick through the testimonial-laden site, I discovered that apparently, you can jump dimensions and pick up skills from OTHER-DIMENSION-YOU!

That's right, other-dimension-you is a photographer, painter, novelist, tennis champion, world leader, 19th century libertine or any other thing you could want. All you have to do is pop over that fold in space-time, be other-dimension-you for a while, then jump on back to this dimension and show off your newly acquired skills! It's that easy!
Women will kiss you in the street, people will throw wads of money at you, you'll ride a scooter!

Quantum Jumping's Jesus-figure is 81 year old Burt Goldman. He figured out how to perform this little quantum jump thing and according to him, you can even get yourself a BEACH HOUSE by travelling to other dimensions. It says so on his website!

Amazing stuff.

I was about to do some reading and fall asleep, but I just got word on the grapevine that other-dimension-me over in Dimension 9 (where I am a Capoeira instructor to the stars) is having a super awesome party. I'm not sure I'm dressed appropriately, but who cares when you can frigging quantum jump!

State Of Design Opening Night

2009-07-15T22:39:00.004+10:00

Went along with some AGDA peeps tonight to the State of Design opening preview.

Was really good... Some great stuff from the Design:Made:Trade exhibition preview with an interesting mix of conceptual stuff and crafty odds and ends.
My favourite was the kit studio from Arkit. Very smart and sleek and it's classified as a shed, so you don't have to get council approval top erect one... Super cool. There was also awesome cards and assorted tat from Able and Game and some wicked jewellery from one of the coolest collective nouns going around : A Skulk Of Foxes

Anyways, no photos allowed inside, but here's some pics I took around the place and on the walk home:

What rhymes with cloister?

2009-07-14T21:48:00.004+10:00

I've said it before; grammar is quite important.
I spent the weekend snowboarding up in the mountains. On Saturday evening whilst I lay sprawled on the armchair feeling particularly exhausted, an ad on the local TV station used the word "moister".
This was used to indicate that the thing being advertised was more moist, or contained more moisture than some other thing.

What a horrible use of English. It seems the people writing the copy for the ad were of the impression that grammar is the lady their grandpa married.

I don't know how this happens as you'd think there would be someone involved in producing this abomination of an ad that would flag the use of the word "moister" as being unacceptable.
Apparently not.

And so it was that Saturday was the day 'moister' became my new most abhorred word. If only I could remember what product it was used in relation to, I could advise everyone against buying it.

The End.

Sure, and I'm allergic to rants...

2009-07-07T22:22:00.007+10:00

Just to warn you, this could end up slightly rant-ish...
Stick with me though, if you can be bothered.

Not that long ago, stating you were a vegetarian was an accurate way of letting people know you enjoyed naked bushwalking, showered in alignment with the rising of the Pagan moon (which is rarely) and had dreadlocks by accident.
Now though, times have changed.
Have you ever had to fill out those forms when you're attending a function or whatever, detailing your dietary requirements? Me, I usually leave it blank as I'll eat almost anything, providing it's not made of vomit and insects.

Today at work today we got this:

I have severe allergies and need to have a meal with:
no milk
no wheat
no colourings
no artificial flavourings
no natural msg
no preservative
no seafood
low amine vegetables
low salicytate vegetables
low fructose
Absolutely no cherries
absolutely no strawberries
absolutely no blackcurrants
absolutely no raspberries
absolutely no blackberries
absolutely no kiwifruit

is it possible for you to cater for me?

Of course it's possible to cater for you! We have boundless amounts of water! Also, there's some dust gathering on a plate by the windowsill over there, so you can have all that dust too.
You're welcome.
This sounds like recipe for everything on the menu in purgatory.

Is this what we've now come to then?
Is this out of necessity, or is this a result of a society gone haywire?
If you're eating a tofu ragout with a legume salad, dressed in a reduced soy jus off a burlap plate with utensils made of recycled hemp shoes because you want to, or because it's healthier, or because it's more sustainable, then good on you. High fives all round.
However, if you're going to claim that you're doing it because you're allergic to everything else, then I call 'humbug!' and insist you take a good look at yourself.
What did people do ten years ago when they didn't realise they were allergic to everything? Oh that's right. They burped. They felt bloated. They farted. Because it is normal. Feeling a bit bloaty after eating ten pieces of toast is normal. It doesn't mean you have to now purge every time you walk down the cereal aisle in the supermarket. Getting greasy hands after eating chips isn't a medical condition, it's from the oil they were cooked in. It's normal.
What we're doing these days, is an excellent job of putting the hype back in hypochondria... Err... Hypeochondria?
Ten years ago, if you had allergies, you carried around an epinephrine shot because if you got stung by a bee you died. Allergies in the 90's were things that killed you or made your face melt or turned you into the elephant man. Ten years ago, you didn't create a veritable Noah's Ark of banned foods that are forever denied entrance to your gullet because they made you loosen the waist on your designer sweatpants a little bit once.

Sort. Your. Life. Out. People.

It's one thing to be lactose intolerant, or have Coeliac, and yes, I may go so far as to say, you may be one of the rare people to actually suffer from a bunch of allergies, but when you start listing every goddamn organic item under the sun as an allergen, it may be time for you to pop back into your hermetically sealed bubble and quietly leave.

Back to my incredibly witty hype-hypochondria pun; All of this is a result of hype. The same thing happened with ADHD. And with Swine Flu (Or H1N1 as the science people like to call it.)
The more people hear about the incidence of these things, the more prevalent they become. Why? Because of influence and hype.
The science people I mentioned earlier are still debating over whether the spike in ADHD diagnoses in the last decade is a result of more people becoming aware of the symptoms of an already prevalent condition, or whether it is because of the ease inherent with putting a problem in a box. Is it easier to discipline your kid or is it easier to buy in to the hype, have him/her diagnosed with ADHD and medicate?

Same goes with these supposed food allergies. It's the power of the herd (Although 'the herd' sounds like a bit of a wanky marketing term to use). It's the principle behind Digg. And The Hypemachine. It's a hashtag in Twitter. It's viral marketing (pardon the pun).
Something is recognised as being 'it', a few people of influence highlight it, a few more people take this is run with it and voila! Everyone's allergic to something and has to take a 15 tablet-a-day course of supplements to ensure they don't die from "high amine vegetables".

Anyways, I had a point in there somewhere and I think the point was this: Hype giveth and hype taketh away.

These exacerbated medical conditions are the negative result of hype. The facemasks on the train are a result of hype. The proliferation of sensationalist media is a result of hype.
But good things come from hype: Brands that people love. Start-ups with brilliant ideas. Your new favourite band.

All of these have hype and 'the herd' to thank/blame.

I guess what I'm saying is that if you find out your new favourite band has a rider that looks like that list at the start of this post, they're probably not going to be around to make a sophomore album.

NB: Yes, this is disjointed... I'm just hoping it sounds more inane-rant-ish, than insane-homeless-man-on-a-soapbox-ish.

Charcoal. Not just for digestion.

2009-07-01T22:22:00.004+10:00

Just when you think you're getting good at something, go check out But Does It Float and eat a fuck-tonne of humble pie. Seriously talented people.

A favourite:
Robert Longo working in charcoal

Also, this is some of the most stunning animation I've seen in ages... Simple drawings plus mega-skillful rendering...

Clockwork from David Prosser on Vimeo.

Makes me think I've got hells long way to go...

The ravages of time.

2009-06-30T20:22:00.004+10:00

At the moment, my loungeroom looks a lot like a super-budget workshop. Newspaper all over the floor, the smell of molten wax in the air and a bunch of foil I've been using as an 'iron condom' for our clothes iron so I can wax my snowboard without completely fucking our iron. Hooray.

Was just hit by the realisation that exactly this time last year, I'd landed in Naples, was eating the world's best pizza , checking out the little village that Charlotte's ancestors heralded from and visiting Pompeii.
Now I'm in a loungeroom/workshop in Collingwood, inventing the 'iron condom' and waiting for wax to dry... How's that for contrast?

Feeding the nostalgia.

2009-06-24T22:19:00.002+10:00

Ah, nostalgia. It's so fashionable these days.
I'm watching Big Trouble In Little China. Kurt Russell delivers dialogue like an underpaid pizzaboy and terrible Asian stereotypes abound.
It's amazing.
John Carpenter is some kind of genius.

Also, this Flickr set makes me want to sit in front of the stereo and put together a whole bunch of mixtapes. Awesome.

Rolling Wines

2009-06-24T21:48:00.004+10:00

My flatmate's girlfriend brought around a bottle of Rolling Shiraz for dinner.
I was struck by the awesome illustrated label which is quite atypical for a wine bottle, but is definitely eye-catching and works really well. Kind of reminds me of the illustration in some of the old books I read as a kid.
Coincidentally, the Shiraz is a brilliant vino as well. Yum.

More on the story behind their labels here

On the tram...

2009-06-23T18:05:00.004+10:00

I think I've entered a new circle of delirium.
With the entire weekend spent rendering print ads by hand for a colour analysis module, and little sleep had due to said module, things are getting a bit crazy.

Best part about today: Seeing a tiny child have a tantrum on the tram. In German. Hilarious.

Second best part: Hearing a kid ask his dad if he could "one day maybe have a snail? For in the yard?"
Aww....

Aside from that, my day was a pendulum, swinging from frustration to tedium.
Woo.

Lots of sleep for me tonight.

Photo Post 1

2009-06-18T18:06:00.005+10:00

Some shots from the last little while...

Starting again...

2009-06-17T18:56:00.006+10:00

Well hello there.
Time to make some updates.

It's been a while. This thing is mutating. Anyone would think it was some kind of virulent strain of influenza...
This has formerly been a rant receptacle, a time-waster and a travel blog, and is now going to be used as a veritable scrapbook of odds and ends I find, rubbish ideas, recipes, reviews, some photos and assorted tat and nonsense.
It's just the way I roll.

I'm back in Melbourne. Working 9-5 to get by, studying Design and Multimedia at nights, taking photos, cooking up a storm and spending 8 or so hours a day perfecting my sleeping technique.
So kick back, put the feet up and do whatever.
I'll be here, updating from time to time.

Over n out.

Jeremy

'Nam parts 4 through 6

2008-10-05T20:42:00.002+11:00

Continuing on the previous post:

Part 4: Hue

The trip from Hanoi to Hue was interesting.
Our overnight sleeper bus looked rather dissimilar to the photos we were shown when we booked our ticket. No problem though, that's to be expected.
We located some decent sized bedchair thingies and settled in for some sleep.
Sleep, however, was not on the agenda. Not for a while anyways. Being at the rear of the bus we spent a lot of time in mid air. Almost like we were on a space station. Except on space stations, you probably don't get to hear crazy Vietnamese folk-disco. Or some bad rap courtesy of 50 Dong or someone. Or old school Vietrance covers of Haddaway's "What is Love (Baby don't hurt me), which sounded more like this: "Wha is ruv? Beby don herr me, don herr me.. nomo."

Anyways, little sleep was had and we were awoken at 4am as the bus driver decided this was a reasonable time to start replaying the night before's music at several thousand decibels.

Ah, the joys of transport. Funny times.

Hue is a nice old town. Kind of quiet, but enough to do to keep you busy for a day or so. We drank more cheap beer, checked out the Imperial city which whilst interesting, was in a state of disrepair. It was pretty heavily bombed during the American war and there's bullet marks in some of the walls. Oh and a giant phoenix and dragon made by some collaboration between Vietnamese and Australian artists. They were shit. The 'phoenix' looked like a chicken.

We found some more cheap beers, ate some food and retreated to our hotel before heading off for Hoi An the next day.

Part 5: Hoi An and My Son

Heading further south, we docked bus at Hoi An. Finding ourselves a decent hotel, we headed down to the riverfront for dinner, shuffling past tailors and peddlers of all manner of junk beckoning us into their shops.
Dinner was tasty and our plates were cleared by Mr Trung (See part 6) before we headed a couple of doors down for super cheap ice cold beers. (This beer thing is turning into a habit, it would seem. I blame India for robbing of us alcohol for an entire month.)

The next day we hired ourselves a motorbike and, following a hand scrawled map from the motorbike rental guy, we motored off to the My Son ruins, about 50kms out of Hoi An.
The drive was nice, the weather was good and we successfully avoided dying, which was a real possibility considering that most people drive wherever there's space, rather than on a specific side of the road. Makes for interesting times.
The ruins were pretty cool. Not as breathtaking as I'd anticipated, but it was worth the trip.
That night, again, cheap beers, more food and a looming storm painting the sky a murky pink.

Part 6: Mr Trung

Mr Trung introduced himself to us in the restaurant we visited on Friday night. He took tours of his village which is a fishing and pottery town a few k's out of Hoi An. We decided to take a trip with him and it was well worth it. He showed us round the town, introduced us to some locals (including a house full of two year olds) and gave us a pretty good insight into the lifestyle of normal Vietnamese people. We also had a go at making our own pots at a pottery factory. Our 'pots' were saved from complete destruction by the guiding hands, a la 'Ghost' of the master
potter lady.
I'm pretty sure they just mushed up our creations after we left so the clay could be put to GOOD use.

We also went fishing. Bamboo pole and a couple of metres of line is enough to catch, well, a shitload of fish apparently. Granted they weren't so much fish as fish-shaped amoeba.
They were pretty tiny, but it was good fun.
Mr Trung then took us to his house where his wife made us a super tasty meal. We then biked back into town, checked out of our hotel and are now waiting for the overnight bus to Nha Trang.

Hoping for some good weather so we can get some beach time in.
Should probably burn some incense or something to appease the weather gods. Might just have some cheap beers and dinner instead.

Vietnam. Parts One through Three

2008-10-01T16:04:00.003+10:00

Part One- Hanoi
We landed around midnight in Hanoi after a nice flight with possibly the most amazing sunset I've ever seen. We were forced into an 'Airport Bus, yes yes! This one airport bus!'
It wasn't the airport bus and they refused to drop us at the hotel we wanted to stay at and instead dropped us in front of a hotel they get paud commission at. It was pouring rain and we were hungry an tired, so we ended up using the hotel as it was relatively cheap anyways.

The next day we did some sightseeing around Hanoi; lakes, temples yada yada yada. We also booked a trop to the Perfume Pagoda.

Part Two- Perfume Pagoda
An hour's bus ride from Hanoi, we arrived at a small river dock. It was raining heavily and my budget poncho was proving its budgetness by tearing to shreds and getting me all soaked in typhoon rains. Hooray.
At the dock, we were taken to a small tin boat, where 4 of us crouched on tiny wooden pews whilst a tiny, ancient Vietnamese woman rowed us up the river for about an hour and a half. My concerns at the time invovled her suffering cardiac arrest and our resulting sinking.
After a really peacuful and amazing, albeit soggy hour and a half, we arrived at a tin shack which was the port at the pagoda. We walked on makeshift board walks (ie. A plank of wood) across the muddy banks, past hawkers selling loads of junky shit and turtles and up towards the pagoda.
After eating lunch we caught an overpriced cable car to the pagoda, which was in a big cave. Was kind of cool, but not really all that exciting. Underwhelming is the correct word I think.
By the time we caught the boat back, the weather had cleared up and we were graced with sunshine and blue skies.
Arrived back at hotel and organised our trip to Ha Long Bay

Part Three- Ha Long Bay
Ha Long Bay is a big archipelago in Northern Vietnam, filled with limestone karsts and all kinds of caves and grottos and such. Most of which have been heavily touristified (New word!). We were on a big old junk that took us to check out a cave and a grotto which were realy quite impressive although the multicoloured neon lighting made them look more like karaoke-brothel-rave-caves rather than natural wonders.

We spent a night on the junk (That's not slang for getting drunk, we slept on the boat), then visited Cat Ba island the next day. It was nice- We trekked up a mountain, mistakenly taking the 'adventurous route' which was made all the more difficult by our choice of footwear: thongs. The short spells of rockclimbing and trudging through mud probably did't make it any easier either.
We made it to the top of the mountain though, which was great- Nice views over the island.

Spent a night on Cat Ba island, drank loads of cheap bia hoi (Draught beer) and were forced out of bed at 6.30 the next morning to 'get back before the typhoon comes'

We got some wind and rain, but nothing typhoonish.

Now we're back in Hanoi, heading off for Hue tomorrow.

More installments in this series to come...

Endia

2008-09-25T00:13:00.003+10:00

It's all gone.
We flew out of Delhi today. So that's the end of India. Endia.

After our days relaxing at Bharatpur and making various daytrips to Fatehpur Sikri, the Taj Mahal in Agra and to the nearby National Park, we headed to the train station to catch a local train to Delhi.
We were encircled at the platform by a bunch of locals who weren't in any way concerned with the boundaries of personal space. We did our best to be be boring and uninteresting but it didn't work that well. Mainly because no one has red hair in India. Also mainly because they don't see a lot of Western laydeez out that way, perhaps.

Anyway, we made it to Delhi, found ourselves a guest house and did some minor sightseeing. Delhi is pretty hectic (though not on the same scale as Mumbai), but it's really quite polluted and after two days there I've acquired a nice smoker's cough from all the muck in the air. We checked out the Red Fort whilst we were around which was cool, although I'm pretty much fort-ed out for the moment.

On our last night we did some souvenir shopping and I got fondled by a kid whose skin was peeling off everywhere? Leprosy, i don't know, but he tried to grab my sandwich and did grab my arm.

Come to think of it, on the last day in Delhi, we saw all manner of things. Whilst in a rickshaw at traffic lights a guy came up begging. He had elephantitis or something. Localised Elephantitis.
Elephantitis of the testicles to be specific.
Begging with one hand, he raised up his football sized scrotum (Not a word of a lie) for us to see. Charlotte was not particularly comfortable with this situation. I'm not sure why, it seemed perfectly reasonable to me.
We also saw a guy without a mandible. (Once you got him talking, you couldn't keep his mouth shut! Bad taste, sorry...)

Moving on...

Singapore.
We landed in Singapore this afternoon and coming from India, it almost feels like we're time travelling.
A far cry from the dusty, dirty streets of Delhi, littered with impromptu stalls and beggars, Singapore seems to be a really livable city and we were most relieved to be able to walk down the street without being harangued.
It's short-lived though, as tomorrow afternoon we fly out for Hanoi.

It's getting late, so I'm just going to head up to my rooftop bed, check out the view over the city and catch some sleep. Ah, it's tough sometimes...

PS: Wasabi Ice cream and Black Sesame Ice cream = Tasty

What the hell?

2008-09-20T21:15:00.003+10:00

What in the hell kind of country closes its most important monument on a FRIDAY?

We got up at 5am and made the 1.5 hour journey to Agra on Friday to see the Taj Mahal.

The fucking thing was closed.
The best we could get was seeing it from a distance from a rooftop restaurant before making the trip back to Bharatpur.

We went again today, this time leaving at 4.30am.
It was open. And definitely worth making the return trip for.

People say seeing the Taj is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Well now we've seen it twice. (At least that's how I made Friday's failure seem ok in my mind)

Ha, we win.

Fresh air, silent nghts and antelopes.

2008-09-18T21:55:00.007+10:00

We're in Bharatpur, not far from Agra.

It took a while to get here from Jaipur. The news-making rains that have flooded Bihar have sprinkl;ed a fair bit fo water around here too, indicated by the need for ouyr bus to drive through stretches of unsealed road with the axles submerged. (Have I mentioned axles a lot in the last few posts? What is it with axles?)
Anyways, somewhere along the way we also scored ourselves a flat tyre. So we had to pull into some little village to get that changed, using rudimentary apparatus and methods. So it was a little longer than scheduled but we got to Bharatpur in the end.
And then the driver realised he'd lost the key to the padlock which was locking our backpacks in the storage compatment of the bus.
Again with the rudimentary apparatus. (ie. A crowbar)
Then we were asked to pay for the lock.
No sir, I shall not pay for your stupidity.

It's quiet town, this Bharatpur. Which is a nice break from the cities we've been in. There's not much going on here except for the Keoladeo National Park. It's a big wetland area filled with shitloads of birds and various other animals.
Our guesthouse owner/nature-guide-ornithologist-man told us there's 8 metre pythons in there, except they're hibernating at the moment.
What a disappointment. I really fancied me some death by constriction/asphyxiation. Maybe next time.
So no, we didn't catch a glimpse of any ginormous snakes. We did see some birds though. Buckets of them. Figuratively.
Cranes, eagles, owls, ibis (ibii??), ducks, partridge, kingfisher and some weird ones I hadn't heard of before. Like Babblers. And a bunch that leave themselves wide open for all sorts of immature double entrendres. Which I demonstrated, much to Charlotte's diusmay.
We also saw a few antelope, a turtle, squirrels, insects and as per usual, a few monkeys.

Our guesthouse owner/nature-guide-ornithologist-man took us around for three hours, then we pedalled off on our own for a bit longer. Stopping to snack on the packed lunch the guesthouse had made for us.
(An aside: 'Vegetable Sandwich'in India, means 'wet bread with cabbage, tomato and onion' I wouldn't recommend it.)

Tonight, we're off to get some more tasty Indian food. Surprise! Then tomorrow we have an early start to try and get to the Taj Mahal for sunrise. Failing that, we'll go to Fatehpur Sikri to check out the ruins there.

Oh, and we didn't end up going to the 'European Party' in Jaipur. It sounded a bit dodgy and was more than likely going to be a commission scam, where we'd get taken to a textiles factory on the edge of town, plied with chai and then made to buy a nasty rug.

I can cook like nobody's Indian.

2008-09-17T00:17:00.002+10:00

Damn straight.
We went to a cooking class the other night. Now we have maaaaad Indian cooking skills. Some of you may even be privy to the unleashing of them upon our return home.
The cooking class was really cool- We were basically in this lovely couple's house. Whilst Rhika showed Charlotte a bunch of trinkets and whatnots, her Husband Amil and I headed down to the markets to pick up ingredients. After wading through rats, rotting food and assorted flotsam accumulated in the recent rain's puddles, we picked up some spinach, flour and yoghurt (probably not pasteurised judging by the dirty clay pot the vendor scraped it out of)and headed back to the house.
We cooked, ate, drank saffron lassis and bought some super tasty spices. Good times.

Now we're in Jaipur- The Pink City.
It's not all that.

It moves along at a frenetic pace and there's so many tourists pouring out of big ass air-conditioned buses and four wheel drives, that it's kind of disappointing. Also, all the locals know that these package tourists have money to burn, so they assume that we do also and are attempting to charge insane amounts for everything.
Not that much of a problem, it just makes the bargaining process take ten times as long. It may also stretch my patience a little, but that's how it goes.

Seeing as this place isn't as charming as we'd anticipated, we're leaving two days early to go check out a national park that's conveniently on the way to Agra, our next stop. We'll spend a day or two there, cruise around on some bikes for a while and enjoy being out of reach of touts and persistent rickshaw drivers.

Speaking of Rickshaw drivers, we took a tour with one yesterday and checked out the local sights, including the Lake Palace, which looks like someone has done a super job in Photoshop and placed a big yellow palace in the middle of a vivid blue lake. We even got some photos as a huge rainbow formed over it. That was pretty cool.

We also visited the 'Monkey Palace' which, surprisingly, was covered in monkeys. We waded through the primates until we reached the hilltop palace. We kept them at bay with peanuts, although one decided to use Charlotte's back as a springboard.
Initial consultation suggests she doesn't have rabies.
We did get rorted into being blessed by some lady for the stately sum om 65 rupees. I'm not one to argue with Hindi gods, so we begrudgingly paid our tithings and left, dyed string knotted on our wrists and (recycled) flower wreaths around our necks.

Then we were taken to see the mystic jeweller, who made astonishing summations about our families and current situations. It was incredible and I'm sure all the answers we provided to our rickshaw driver's seemingly innocent questions earlier in the day were in now way whatsoever passed on to this honourable jeweller character.

Tonight, our friendly rickshaw driver is taking us to dinner at his family's place (I think. Family may mean 'people who pay me commission for bringing gullible tourists to their establishment'), and then on to a party some European friends of his are having.

This conjured images of sharing fondue and saunas with some Nordic types, however it may be slightly different. I don't really know.

Will report on the details soon.

Horse pants, a fort and a bus.

2008-09-14T18:37:00.003+10:00

Well here we are in sunny Jodhpur.
It's really nice. A lot like most of India actually.
We caught the bus here from Udaipur, which was a bit of an experience.
It was kind of like a normal bus ride would be, except on a bus with rectangular wheels.
It was super-rough. Rough enough to have at least 6 or so people throwing up out the window. We wound through mountains, quarries and rural areas on sometimes a road, sometimes a dirt track, the bus periodically stopped by goats and cattle. Oh, and we also spent some time getting out of a bog hole and narrowly avoiding being stuck up to the axles in mud.

We covered 260km in 6.5 hours. That's an average speed of 40kph. In stifling heat, on a bus packed with people from all walks of Indian life. And a Swiss couple. They were nice.

Arriving in Jodhpur, we found ourselves a nice little guesthouse. After throwing our stuff down we walked outside and realised that there was a giant fort on a giant hill looming above us and blocking out the sun.
After venturing across town to buy our onward train ticket, we found a place that did tasty Thalis and had us some dinner, then we bought some Indian sweets (gross, tastes like powdered milk)and got a drink. We then partook in some 'kicking back' on the hotel roof and watching the fort glow pink in the light of the almost-full moon.
The fort is definitely impressive.
It's called the Meherengarh fort (Or something similarly spelt) and it's pretty awesome. It looks like He-Man should ride down from the top of it on his Battlecat.
We headed up there earlier today to check it out and it's one of the coolest places we've visited so far. Plus we had the best audioguide we've had in all our travels.

We're off to do a cooking class tonight, then we head on to Jaipur first thing tomorrow morning.

Also, not to fear, we're not in Delhi for another week, so pretty sure we'll have avoided the whole 'bomb' thing... Plus we're smart and safe and made of 95% titanium, so we should be fine.

Animal Farm

2008-09-11T01:26:00.003+10:00

No, not the Orwell novel, it's a place called Udaipur.
We've seen all the animals in the streets here:

Dogs: Check
Squirrels: Check
Monkeys: Check
Goats, donkeys, cows, sheep: Check
Bats, geckos, hawks, horses, cranes, pigs: Check

It's like a goddamn zoo, but only with all the shit animals.
Although I have to admit, it was pretty insane when the street we were walking down was the site of a spider monkey assault. Out of nowhere they came swinging in from rooftops, running across cabling and terrorising the street. Seeing as we didn't get our magical rabies forcefield injections before embarking for the subcontinent, we slowly snuck by and left the locals to deal with the chaos.

Jeremy and Charlotte: 1
Monkeys: 0

Udaipur is really cool though. Waaaay more laid back than anywhere else we've been in India. Cleaner streets (even with all the animals around) and it's set on a big-ass lake which our hotel overlooks. Can't complain.

There's a palace built on an island in the middle of said lake, another palace built on the lake's shore and a myriad of temples, shrines and memorials scattered through the labrynthine streets.

We even trekked out of the old town area yesterday to visit the royal cenotaphs. This place is filled with memorials to all the various maharajas that have expired over the years and boy, do the royals here know how to make a posthumous monument.
I think there was something like 250 cenotaphs and I would be happy to live in the majority of them. There were domes and pillars and steps and multi-levels and marble elephants. All kinds of nifty shit that costs a whole bunch.
Oh and there was more monkeys. And disease ridden dogs, that like me, though the cenotaphs were a pretty sweet place to live.

After hiking back into town along a road crawling with all manner of Health and Safety deathtraps disguised as vehicles (Anyone for carrying a 5 metre bamboo ladder on your scooter handlebars UPRIGHT???), we made it back into the (relative) safety of our little part of town, Hanuman Ghat.
Five minutes later, the sky darkened to a menacing black and the thunder and lightning commenced. Sitting on the terrace of our hotel, this made for awesome viewing, until the torrential rain started. We decided then it was time to head for cover.

-Cue food, drinks, chatting, sleeping. Fade to black.-

Today we thought we'd take a nice little stroll to some garden thing that some important guy made for a bunch of chicks he was into. The local guide suggested it was some fancy acreage with fountains and kiosks and various types of exotic flora.

Sounds like it is worth walking to, right?

Two hours of walking, three litres of sweat and four hundred 'no thanks' to rickshaw drivers later, we finally succumbed, hailed a rickshaw and asked him where in the hell we were.

Lost, apparently. Thanks shitty local guide map.

He drove us about a kilometre in a direction we didn't even know was possible and dropped us off at the front of the gardens.

They were pretty shite.

We walked around them for fifteen minutes, then commenced the walk home which was decidedly nicer than the gardens.

Once again, we did the food, drinks etc thing and now I'm waiting while the photos transfer off my camera... Shitty computer is hells slow. (three hours to move some photos, wtf??!)

Tomorrow we've got an early start as we're off on a day trip to Chittorgah to check out its super awesome fort . Apparently it's the best in all of India. Some guy that's into forts says so.

Despite its solid looks, it was overrun by invading armies pretty much whenever an invading army knocked on it's door. And being honorable Rajputs, the inhabitants almost always opted to sacrifice themselves rather than be humiliated by their foes.

So yeah, we're off to a massive (but really weak) fort where thousands of people set themselves on fire.
Romantic, no?

After that, we're back in Udaipur for a day, then it's on to Jodhpur- the land of tight, unflattering equestrian attire.

Hope you don't mind me saying, but I'm totally India.

2008-09-07T13:52:00.010+10:00

In-to-ya.. Geddit? Errr.. Anyways...

Howdy folks...
We made it to India! Upon landing around midnight, we set about sorting out a hotel through the tourist office which was no problems, then we got ourselves a taxi into town.

Before I continue, I'll try paint a picture of Mumbai International for you.
Imagine, I dunno, say, Tullamarine or Heathrow Airport.

Then replace the shiny new cabs at the taxi rank with 60's model boxes on wheels (Our box on wheels had a fancy carpeted roof. Hells yeah)

Then replace the orderly taxi rank area with a kind of shed thing constructed from wood, rope and occassional bits of corrugated iron.

Then replace automatic doors and air conditioning with gaping holes in the ground and blue canvas walkways leading through rubble to the car park.
Then replace the smooth freeways and train lines into the city with about 12 kilometres of slums and shanty towns.

Then replace any delays resulting from roadworks with delays resulting from being stuck behind a bull towing a trailer adorned with a shrine of Ganesha, surrounded by throngs of people dancing, banging drums, chanting and letting off fireworks.

That was our introduction to Mumbai International and to India. It was awesome. Way better than driving over Footscray on the CityLink or sliding through the darkness on the Piccadilly line.

Since then, it's been a complete assault on the senses.
The smell of incense, of faeces, of sweat, of animals, of spices, of monsoon rains.
The sight of a thousand colours of saris, of buses bursting with people, of millions of taxis and autorickshaws vying for poll position, of mothers and their babies sleeping on cardboard on the street, of every animal with every disease under the sun (Kind of like if Noah's Ark was a quarantine vessel).
The sound of 40,000 horns all blaring at one another, of touts yelling 'Hotel, hotel! Good price, Vally good price!', of coins clanking as another beggar appeals for rupees, of staccato drumming as another procession of people celebrating the Ganesha festival dance by.
The taste of fresh naan made before your eyes by a street vendor, of just-squeezed lime juice, of dosa, dahl and tikkas, of victory as we bargain the price of the world's bigest umbrella down to 200 rupees.

It's a pretty awesome place. Like nothing I've ever experienced.

We did all the Mumbai sightseeing stuff, plenty of awesome buildings, temples, mosques etc, especially a lot of stuff from the colonial days.
We went down to Chowpatty beach for an evening, took an intersting boat trip out to Elephanta island where there's temples carved into caves (and monkeys galore.) We were also asked to be an extra on the set of a Bollywood movie. We accepted and you can now catch me in the upcoming, big budget Bollywood film, Donostana.
I'm the waiter with the big red hair walking through some auction ceremony thing.

It was a long day, clocking in at around 14 hours although we got paid enough to pay for our room for the night. Was very funny to watch the precious stars complaining because 'the fans are blowing wrong' or because 'I said COLD coffee!!'
Wow. Sorry Mr Important nancy-boy Bollywood guy.

It's pretty cool to see how it all works behind the scenes. Although being dressed in black suit, black shirt and heavy waistcoat in 30 degree heat is not so great actually. Especially considering my costume was made of enough synthetic material to fund the running of a petrochecmical plant for a year. It was a pretty hot and sweaty deal but completely worthwhile.

After a day of wildlife watching at the beach (Crabs can jump! A whole foot!!! I did not know this!) we caught a cab to Mumbai Central Station. We had a bit of a wait there and a group of porters befriended us and set about asking if we were married, how many kids we had, why we didn'thave any kids, why we didn't go 1st class because then we'd have a cabin to ourselves, wink-wink.
Raju told me he has a wife and one kid, but that is all, now he only .... You know, for enjoyment. He then insisted I look at his mobile, upon which he'd kindly played some porn. Thanks Raju. Kind AND classy.

After an hour or two of waiting, we boarded the overnight train from Mumbai to Ahmedabad, arriving here in Ahmedabad this morning at 6.30am.
After declining the persistent offers of an army of touts, we checked our bags in and caught an autorickshaw into Ahmedabad city.
It's cleaner than Bombay, with more animals and less exposure to Westerners/people walking around looking completely lost with a Lonely Planet guide in hand.
Definitely not a well known tourist destination. By this I mean, we've been accosted at every corner and waved at, grabbed by children, been asked our names, been said 'Goot Morni!' to a hundred times and pointed at, which is totally entertaining and surreal. I kind of feel like the guy in the Mickey suit at Disneyland. Although no one has punched me in the nuts yet.
Charlotte has proved popular with the locals as well, even after having adopted some modest attire(ie. Covered in a shawl/sari thingy from neck to toe) and has left a kid awestruck after she let him take some random photos with her camera.
We've strolled around the streets here and the attention can get pretty full on, so we've retired to a nice little internet cafe for an hour or two. Plus, it's a bajillion degrees outside, so the AC in here is welcome respite.
We catch a train at 11pm tonight on to Udaipur where we kick back for four nights, do a couple of daytrips to nearby towns and hang out by the lake. Awesome.

Also, despite my best efforts, I think I got bitten by a mosquito this morning. Probably not, but maybe. Should be fine, but if I call any of you within the next 7 days, I'll probably be getting you to organise an airlift and some malaria treatment for me. You're cool with that though, right? K, thanks.
Hehe. Seriously though, I'll be fine. No need to worry about malaria when there's packs of rabid dogs roaming the streets.

(Hi Mum, it's fine, don't worry.)

Only 12 more hours to kill till we leave here bound for Udaipur, a bed and a shower.

Yet another enthralling episode from the creators of the previous posts.

2008-09-01T10:42:00.002+10:00

So, we went to Paris.
It was pretty awesome. All lit up in lights (How else??), Louvre, Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, Arc de triomphe etc etc etc....
Really worthwhile, even though the hotel we stayed in made us pay to use the shower. Dirty French bastards.

Then we went to Bordeaux, the world renowned wine growing region. Needless to say, we drank some wine. Bordeaux is super laid back, quiet and has some cool stuff going on.
After spending a few days dottering about Bordeaux, we ventured further south to Bayonne.

Bayonne, not so great. Nothing eventful to report. Except some guy sprayed us with his windscreen wiper jet thingy. Jerk.

From there we caught a mini train across the border to Spain, namely, San Sebastian.

Spain is definitely my favourite country so far.
It's where the awesomeness kicked in and we spent 2 weeks lying on beaches, sightseeing, eating the world's best food, drinking Sangria and basically doing sweet F.A.
San Sebastian = Awesome pinxtos, sangria, beaches
Barcelona = Wicked culture, cool galleries, beaches, amazing food
Valencia = Massive beach, Agua de Valencia (Tastiest booze ever), muchos relaxation.
Madrid = Really cool vibe, awesome food, planes that blow up on runways. OK, we avoided all that. Madrid was awesome.

So we left Madrid at 10am, in 30 degree heat and touched down in glorious England a couple of hours later in blustery cold winds and rain.

Hoo-effing-ray...

Now, we're on to conquer India, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Singapore.

Flying out in just over 24 hours.... Kinda nervous.
Should be cool though. They have elephants!

And then the rest...

2008-07-30T01:32:00.004+10:00

It's been two weeks since I wrote you last.
It's mainly because we've been criss crossing western Europe like crazy, but also mainly because everywhere has keyboards that have upside down g's and no full stops and a q where the a should be.
Seriously, who uses the letter q in their writing so frequently?
Yes, possibly the queen but no one else.

Anyways...

So Vienna was rad. It's a super cool place, alot like Melbourne. I'd suggest that anyone travelling round Europe spend a good amount of time in Vienna. From Vienna, we headed over to Salzburg, which was a definite change in pace. Nice and peaceful. Although peaceful can become hell annoying when you're waiting for your dinner that you was meant to start at 9 and it's now 10.30 and all you've got is a stomach so ravenous that it could digest a bowling ball and peaceful surroundings. But yes, Salzburg is nice. You wouldn't need more than a day there though. Not unless you were a big fan of being bored.

From Salzburg we caught another train up to Munich, which UI would have to say was kind of underwhelming. I had high hopes for Munich. It didn't exactly produce the goods. Nice city and all, and I'm sure if you had more time there, you could dig below the exterior and find a whole bunch of cool stuff, but we only had time to skim the surface. We did get time to head out to Dachau concentration camp though and it was definitely one of the more sobering things I've done. It's really bizarre to stand in a place where so many people were tormented or killed and the things that went on there were pretty grim to say the least. After that joyous start to the day we hopped on a train and chugged our way up to Berlin.
Berlin is rad.
I liked Berlin alot.
You can basically walk around and see all the important things and there's tonnes going on. We had a guide for a day in Amy, who took us around a cool market, showed us where all the hookers hang out wearing corsets over puffer jackets, tipped us off to an awesome dinner option and then took us for a drink.

After a few days in Berlin we headed across to Amsterdam and after some grief in trying to find our hostel, we finally got sorted out and went out to take a look around the city. It's a nicer looking canal city than venice, in my opinion, with loads of cool architecture. Although there is the prevailing smell of hippies in the air. Oh and weed. Heaps of weed.

WE checked out ther city, saw the sights and did the Anne Frank museum which again, was quite sobering(turns out the Nazis really weren't all that cool! Who would have thought???)
From Amsterdam, we headed down to Paris.

I can't be bothered typing anymore at the moment, so I'm gonna finish up here. Will continue some time over the next few days as I'm sure I'll get sick of sitting on the beach in San Sebastian.

Off to grab some tapas and sangria.

I'm sure you're all doing equally relaxing things, right?

Centimetre II

2008-07-15T20:32:00.005+10:00

That´s the name of a restaurant in Vienna where we ate last night. You can buy bread by the centimetre. You can also buy one metre of spaghetti. The plate is one metre in diametre. It feeds four people. The other thing they do is a wheelbarrow of food. Which is exactly what it sounds like. It feeds about 6 people.
We weren´t that hungry so instead we just bought the 2 metre sausage. And a plate of finger food which contained ewnough food to feed about 1000 fingers.

Yep, two metres of Viennese sausage. Granted, it was thin, but still, can anyone else claim to have eaten 12 feet or sausage?
Vienna is wicked.

OK, I´m off to not eat for a few days now.

Choo Choo

2008-07-15T19:47:00.004+10:00

Last you heard, I was in Korcula feeling hungover as hell. From there, we headed to Makarska which is an awesome town that sits on the coast with mountains looming up behind it. We cruised around the island for a while, went wakeboarding behind some diesel powered hunk of shit and then went out for dinner and then had a few cocktails in a seaside cave that has been turned into a bar. Would have been awesome if it wasn´t filled with 500 Croatian guys that probably consume enough steroids to turn Stephen Hawking into the Incredible Hulk.

After Makarska, we shipped off to Omis which is close to Split and one of the nicest looking places we stopped. We went rafting for a day, which was cool- a few patches of white water, but generally pretty cruisy. We also pulled up for some swim stops and had a jump off some rocks. Awesome scenery travelling through the canyons.

We then headed back to Split, had farewell drinks and then the next morning we wandered around Split a little before heading off to the bus station to catch our bus to Zagreb.
The four hour bus ride turned out to be 6 thanks to some nifty tunnel works on the freeway. Dang.
We made it in time for our overnight train from Zagreb to Venice though...

Here´s where I dish out the nuggets of gold.

Don´t catch overnight trains in Croatia. Unless you like living large with gypsys.
The train from Zagreb to Venice looked like it had failed safety testing during the cold war. It was seriously grim. The toilets looked as though they´d been dreamed up by Kafka and there was a distinct smell of urine to everything.

Needless to say, we didn´t sleep all that well and got off the train in Venice feeeling quite shit. And smelling like gypsys.

Venice was awesome though. Sucha cool little city made up of tight winding streets, canals, boats and all that stuff. It´s just like it is in the movies. Except cooler.

We left Venice at 8.30 that night on the overnight train to Vienna. After our last experience on overnight trains we were not feeling very confident that we wouldn´t be smelling like gypsys for a second consecutive day.

Hello Italian/Austrian trains! This was the opposite to our previous night´s abode. Clean, efiicient, friendly staff, comfy beds, free breakfast, coffee, sheets without unidentified stains!

So that was nice.

We arrived in Vienna at 8.30am, dropped our bags off at the hostel, then went for a walk around Vienna. It´s such a cool city. Cooler than Venice and waaaaay more affordable. People are super friendly which contradicts what I´d been told.
Also nobody has locked us in their basement and made us have sex with them. That is A Good Thing.

So much to look at, will be doing tonnes of photographing today.

Sick much?

2008-07-09T01:36:00.003+10:00

Feeling pretty seedy today. Very large night in Dubrovnik last night. A whole bottle of wine probably doesnt make for a sensible dinner. Also, one litre long island ice teas seem great at the time, but in the morning they will punch your face and scream at you till your eyes bleed.
The fact that we had rough seas this morning probably didn't help the situation either.

The last few days have been awesome. Croatia is really really beautiful. We've been to Mijet, Hvar, Dubrovnik and we're moored for the night in Korcula. Nothing better than spending your days sitting on the deck of a boat drinking, swimming and doing as little as humnanly possible.
Hvar was our first stop and was a really cool little island. Loads of rich boating types with massive pimped out boats filled with hookers. Presumably.
We climbed up to the fortress that overlooks the island, took a shitload of photos, had a picnic dinner on the rocks by the sea and then went to a couple of bars. Early night for us as we're super lame and were pretty zonked from the ferry trip the night before.

We spent the next day sailing to Mijet which is a really nice island with a national park. We walked into the national park, had a paddle in the salt water lakes there and visited a monastery built on an island in the middle of the lake. Pretty cool, although the police were called after o9ne of the guy's paddles broke and he was told he'd have to pay 50 euro for a new one or the police would be called.
So the police came, one of the girls translated for us and the outcome was 'pay the money or get locked up'.
Ripped off by dodgy canoe hirer. Damn.

Yesterday was spent in Dubrovnik. We walked around the city walls which look over the old town and out over the Adriatic. One of the coolest places ever. Will get photos on the go at some stage. Too hungover to invest thinking in that now though.

Not much planned for tonight. We've strolled around Korcula, I've sweated alcohol and stomached some soup. Probably head to a little restaurant for dinner, then we're off again tomorrow to some other island paradise.

Good times, great times.

Croatia is Ace-ia.

2008-07-05T17:21:00.003+10:00

Or something like that. Not that I can say yet, we only got here an hour ago.

We killed a few hours in Ancona yesterday before our ferry left at 9pm. Our main methods for achieving this were gelati, beer, sitting and an old Italian guy who spoke limited English, but enough to convey that he loves animals and likes to go and live in the mountains occassionally and eat berries and live like the animals. His gesturing made me worried as it seemed he may have really loved animals. He was really nice though and made the time pass quickly with stories of... umm.. actually, I don't really know what the stories were of as there was a rather large language barrier, although Charlotte did defuse a situation when I accidentally called the guy Russian.

We got off the overnight ferry from Ancona an hour or so ago. Is not so great actually. Being tight-ass backpacker sorts, we deigned it suitable to book the cheapest tickets which were 'Deck'.
And that's what they were.
After a poor sleep on the floor of the boat, we were awoken by a multi-lingual announcement that let everyone know we'd be in Split in half an hour. Or they may have been asking us to inflate our emergency life vests, I don't know. My abilities in speaking Croatian aren't exactly 'real-world'. Or even existent.

The view of Split harbour at 6.30 this morning was pretty awesome though. Almost worth the shitty sleep.

We've got a couple of hours to kill now before we have to board our next boat which takes us sailing over the next 8 days through the Croatian islands, down to Dubrovnik, then back up to Split. I anticipate it will be pretty awesome.

Whilst I waste time writing blog posts, Charlotte is doing constructive things like booking hostels for when we get back on solid ground with all the landlubbers. I should probably help.

Ok, off to help Charlotte with organise-y things.

Italy (Parts one through four)

2008-07-01T01:51:00.006+10:00

Italy is pretty ace. It's probably one of my favourite places. Especially considering this time I didn't have send Charlotte here on her own whilst I went home to collect my passport.
Flight was slightly delayed, and I may have nearly caused widespread panic when i fell into an emergency exit door and set off a massive alarm at Napoli airport but we made it into Naples around 10.30pm after a slight oversight on my behalf which saw us miss our bus stop and end up on the other side of Naples. No harm done though, as Italians have proved to be insanely helpful and the busdriver took us back to our stop. What a nice dude.

From there we caught the Circumvesuviana line out to our hostel, met a couple of aussie girls that were in the same situation as us, showered, had a beer and some gelati.

Then we spent the day out of Naples in Castellademarre di Stablia, which is a pretty amazing little town with mountains leading down into the Bay of Naples. We strolled around there, ate some more gelati, ate some pizza and took tonnes of photos of the tiny backstreets. We also nearly died thanks to the hordes of scooters that crack around the place. Helmets optional. Unless you're ten years old, then you can just do monos around everywhere apparently. Tonnes of road safety going on over here.
We had dinner at a little local pizza place in Naples called Da Michele. Best pizza ever, accompanied by 1 euro Peroni. Awesome.

One thing about Italy- It's hot. Damn hot. Naples was nice. Rome was shit house. 35 degress and 100% humidity anyone?

After a kickass airconditioned train ride from Naples and a long chat to a lovely nonna, we arrived in Rome.
Stepping off the train was kind of like falling into lava, but without the relief of imminent death. We hauled our packs down to the hostel, were told it was undergoing renovations and then hauled our packs to the makeshift hostel. By makeshift hostel I mean, some fold out beds set up in an attic. Awesome. Not at all hot.

Accommodation aside, we spent the next day walking around Rome. 13 kms worth of walking around Rome. In thongs.
Did the Colloseum, Pantheon, Roman Forum, Gainicolo Hill, Trevi Fountain, some other places and about 15 piazzas.
We went out for dinner that night, but were only able to find restaurants that are set up to server the tourists. So we ate well, but it was nowehere near as good as Naples.

Yesterday we caught the train to Ancona, where we catch the ferry across to Split tonight.

More updates to follow soon. In like, 10 days or something when we get off our Croatia sailing tour thing. You won't be able to tell, but I'll be waaay more tanned when I next write.

Departing

2008-06-29T18:54:00.002+10:00

Yep, we're off today for Europe.
First stop, Italy. We fly out in a couple of hours.
After a few days there, we're heading off to Croatia to go sailing for 8 days. That will probably be terrible. I mean, blue skies, blue seas, blue..umm.. anyway, things will be colourful and ace.

Then we head up to Austria for a few days, into Germany for a week or so, then up to Netherlands, Brussels, France, Switzerland, and Spain.

Will be updating this whenever we get a chance to find some internet, so call back again for tales of faultless travels and smooth sailing.
Either that, or call back for stories of how I've forgotten my passport again....,

Let's hope it's not the last one.

That's me out. Will write again from another country.

Kilts and other things

2008-04-11T03:56:00.003+10:00

Hey hey bitches.
Well it's time again for some update-age.
Here's some things that have been going down here in the world of J-Crizzle, listed below in no particular order. Apart from numerical.

1) I spent a couple of days in Edinburgh...
For work related stuff. I managed to slot in some quality sightseeing whist I was there. Edinburgh is awesome. Everyone should go there. (Here's the Photos)
Here's some reasons why I love Edinburgh:

- I climbed the Scott Monument. Awesome panoramic views over the harbour, old town, mountains and castle. On my way back down I noticed the best graffiti ever.
"Peanut woz ere. 15-7-79"
This on the world's largest ever monument created in honour of a writer.
Fucking poetic. Nice one Peanut.

- I swear I've seen Christopher Lambert waiting for a bus at least 5 times. It's disconcerting to say the least. One guy even grabbed me and said "THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!... more minute until this bus arrives, I've been waiting for ages."
I'm lying again. But seriously, there's heaps of dudes that look like they're an Immortal from Highlander.

- Through a completely random series of occurrences, I just snapped myself a photo of the First Minister of Scotland (Which is their version of a Prime Minister) arm in arm with two guys who were protesting against the proposed changes to Scottish immigration law which will mean no more Curry chefs will be allowed to migrate from India. Or something to that effect. Anyways, I somehow found myself out the front of the Scottish Parliament, then I saw these guys with funny hats holding boards with all kinds of wicked slogans like "Save Curry!" The next thing I know I see them all huddled around someone and I think "CAPTAIN CURRY HAS COME TO SAVE THEM"
But no, it's the prime minister of fucking Scotland, wearing a little white curry chef's hat hugging all these Indian dudes. I took a photo because it's not every day you see the leader of a nation hugging a guy who's occupation involves giving people diarrhoea.

- I found a shop that sells Scottish souvenirs called 'Thistle do nicely'. Best regional-based store-name pun so far.

- I threw a pebble at a pigeon and hit it.

- There's a massive number of gingers over there. They have hair that's like, blazing red. Hair which makes me look like a brunette.
Finally I feel like I fit in. It's like I'm a monkey that was separated from my monkey crew when I was a monkey baby and made to walk around crashing cymbals together and wearing a fez and now I've finally been reunited with my kin. Although now I don't smell like my monkey brethren, so they all claw and bite my face and throw their stinky monkey shit at me. Umm.. yeah.

- I had a completely insane, muttering Scotsman walk past me, turn around and shout "YOUR HAT! I LIKE YOUR HAT! NICE HAT!!!"
Thanks McDude! I'd high-five you but I think you have a syringe stuck in your fingerless gloves. Now I think of it- The whole hat compliment didn't really make my day. It upset me. Receiving compliments about your fashion sense from a crazy homeless guy is like having Heath Ledger compliment you on your medication management.

So yes, Edinburgh = good.

2) I have an extra job now.
It involves me working in a call centre on weeknights and saturdays calling old people and convincing them to give me their bank details. This is basically how I spend my spare time anyways, so no big changes here.

3) The reason I have an extra job is...
Charlotte and I are saving up hardcore as on a whim we've decided to extend our travels. So just to make sure you're all thoroughly bored, here's how we're gonna roll.

30 June: Fly out to Italy, spend a few days checking out the sights, then ferry our pasta filled asses across to Croatia where we intend to go sailing around the islands for 8 days. Then we head up and go all through Europe, buy bad souvenirs, drink weird liquor that makes your kidneys cry and (this one doesn't apply to Charlotte) grow some facial hair because that's what you do when you're a backpacker, right?

Sometime later... Probably around the middle of August: Arrive back in the UK, kick it around UK, Scotland and Ireland for a bit and then...

2 September: Fly over to Mumbai with an airline that has the safety features of a wheelbarrow. Then make our way through India, via Goa, Agra and various other locations until the..

19 September: ...when we fly to Hong Kong. Then we work our way through China, into Vietnam and spend a cruisy 6-8 weeks working our way through Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore, where finally on the...

11 November: We go see our good friends at Jetstar who will fly us back to The Land of Melbournia, via the "internationally recognised, jewel of the southern hemisphere"; Darwin. (I made that up. Apparently Darwin's shit. We only stop there for an hour)

Then we come home to a ticker-tape parade where John So will shake our hands and say something like "Wacom ba to Mahbon!" and people will cheer and we'll be on Today Tonight because then it will be discovered we caught bird flu in Asia and John So is in hospital after having contracted it from my over-enthusiastic hand shaking.
Hooray.

What's everyone else doing?
Write comments or I'll go on a facebook rampage and sent you all 100,000 invitations to stupid shit like "Werewolf FunWall Pirate Wars" or some other lame-ass shit.

You've been warned.

A picture's worth a thousand words.

2008-03-12T05:41:00.007+11:00

I call bullshit on that.
What if it's a really big picture? Or a tiny little one like when japanese people scratch pictures onto a grain of rice? A thousand words? More like four words: "TOO MUCH SPARE TIME"

*Cough*

Ah, right... So here's some pictures. But seeing as I don't think they're necessarily worth a thousand words, I've added some of my own.

Sunny days in Czech Republic. And some guy with a cross. Religion is a popular pastime for everyone there. Except statues, they don't do a whole lot. Posers.

Charlotte partially obscuring a sunset. The alternative title for this was 'Sun? In England! Quick, grab the camera and take a damn photo!' Or it could be called 'The Water's Blue, You're Just Colourblind, You Dumbshit.'

The trumpeteer. He also plays saxaphone. He looks like Homeless Busker God.

Remnants of ads in the underground. One bit looks like it's part of an old ad for Giant Strangle Hands™.

The excitement of Liverpool St station. It's usually busier than this. Maybe everyone ran away because the building appears to be being held up by pick-up-sticks.

More statues in Czech Republic. Statues are like Jesus to them. Wait, the statues are Jesus? Oh, it's all starting to make sense now.

London. From Southbank at night. Through a foggy lens. Crap.

Everyone's favourite public holiday: Sit On An Orange Bench With A Stranger Near A Big Fuck-Off Spiky Green Bush Day.

More with the silhouettes and the contrails. At least there's no statues though. Bet you're relieved.

The whimsical land of The Carnies. PS: It's not Frankston. It's a fair. I even got through this night without being pickpocketed, acquiring a giant panda or winning a shitty prize. What is it with Carnie prizes though? Yes, I got some balls to go in some hoop or something, it was damn hard and all you're giving me is a shitty lunch box from some cartoon that hasn't been on tv since 1995? Fuck you and your Captain Planet lunch box.

A study in cement. LAX is a boring, boring place. Especially when all you want is a fucking sandwich and no one sells food unless you count the beggar who'll give you some gum for a tenner. Which i don't.

Most. Boring. Job. Ever. Since when do straps go above your chin? Is that even practical? I say no. I didn't tell him this though as he had a knife stuck on the end of a gun. That's the weapon combination I always choose to not mess with.

Because everyone associates lions with water. Tie your boat up to a lion holding a ring in its mouth! Poor lion, all green and trapped in a giant brick with nothing to eat except a big circle.

Canary Wharf. On weekdays, home to a specific group of wankers called 'analysts' or 'brokers'. On weekends, home to sweet fuck all, apart from this here bridge and some seagulls. THERE'S NOT EVEN ANY CANARIES. YOU LIE LONDON! YOU LIE!

Fireworks. Or a cut scene from a movie representing some kind of sexual occurrence.

In London this is called an 'adequate measure' when combating a boring street-scape. Blue chairs. Wow. Inspiring. "Hey honey, what you wanna do today? We should totally go down by the river and sit on a blue chair! How awesome would that be?... What do you mean 'No, you're a loser'? "

Don't be alarmed. It's just an installation I saw once. How alarming... No? Umm.. ... Err... They weren't real alarms- it was a collage, so i guess you could call them false alarms?
I don't know any more alarm jokes. Ooh, wait: The gallery was such a rip off, we had to pay alarm and a leg to get in.
That is all.

The little spikes stop the birds from shitting on it. Also, what's with the dude pulling shadow puppets down the bottom. He's all like "This one is a rabbit. Kind of. Damn, I need more fingers."

Best shop name ever. Although I don't think any of the lay-deez would take too kindly to the offer of a dance at the fishcotheque. But they have wicked bass! Gettit? Bass!
No Jeremy, shutup. You're lame.

The Italian Job

2008-03-06T06:16:00.002+11:00

(Or "Things I screwed up royally, but then fixed and they turned out to be pretty damn awesome.")

This little story begins with how I won the fuckwit of the year award.

You see, I'm the guy that plans to take his girlfriend away for a few days skiing/snowboarding in Italy. I'm also the guy that gets up at 5.30am this morning, makes sure he has all his gear packed before heading out to airport.
Then I'm the guy that puts his girlfriend on a plane by herself because he FORGOT TO TAKE HIS FUCKING PASSPORT.
That's right. I'm that stupid.
So angry....
We got to Gatwick Airport, Charlotte grabbed her passport out of her bag. I see her do this and my stomach leaps into my mouth.
"Got your passport?" She asked.
"FUCK!!" I'm panicking.
"You're kidding aren't you? You can't be serious?"
"No, not kidding. Fuck it."

Cue much swearing, mad rushing and trying to shift flights, but there's no time so put Charlotte on a plane and then proceed with much discussion with lady at Easyjet desk.
Apparently the only other flight to Milan today is full, so my only option is the flight tomorrow morning at 6.50am. But the only transfer I can get from the airport to the resort is at 3pm, meaning I don't arrive at the hotel until 5pm tomorrow afternoon.
We changed our flights so we can stay for an extra day and night, but fucking hell....
Nice way to sabotage a relationship/holiday.

So, after that little...err... mishap, I finally got on with the holiday.

Having had a day to dwell on my stupidity, I wrote myself a list of everything I needed to walk out the door with. Passport was written in capitals on top of the list. I ate some soup and went to bed.
(An aside: Later on I came up with the idea of having a velcro suit made, then sticking the corresponding velcro to all the important things I need to take whenever I'm travelling, ie: my passport. This would mean anytime I was had to go somewhere, I could just roll around in our room and everything I would need would be stuck to me. I could also have a suit made in the opposite velcro, and then put the corresponding velcro on all the items I need to say, go to work. If I rolled around our room, then I'd only pick up the items I needed for work, and my travel items, such as my passport wouldn't stick because everyone knows that the fluffy bits of velcro won't stick to each other. Man, am I a problem solver or what!?)

Ahem...

So I awoke with a start at 10 minute intervals from 2.00am through 3.20am, each time thinking I'd slept through my alarm and had missed my plane.
I rose at 3.30am. Got my stuff together and set off for the trusty night bus.
London at 4.00am is an entirely different creature. The air is crisp and there's a calm in the air. I felt energised as steam billowed out with each exhalation. I felt good finally being on my way.
In the back of my mind I worried I'd be caught out down 'Stab Alley', (the lovely little slum street near us) and mugged, however the closest thing to a threat was a wily fox that coolly snuck behind a fence as I approached.
I caught the bus at 4.07am. It was almost empty, warm and I felt really relaxed. Much nicer than my usual Friday morning commute. At Turnham Green a man boarded the bus wearing the fluorescent threads of a tube worker. Smiling, he greeted the 8 or so of us that were sat on the bottom deck of the bus and proceeded to hand out a Metro paper to everyone, accompanied by a cheery 'good morning!'
It was actually a really nice journey in as I had time to compose myself which I needed considering the past 24 hours' overload.
Getting to Victoria, I caught the 5.02 to Gatwick. Arrived at the airport at 5.47, checked in early and had a seat in the departure lounge and waited for boarding.
Had a chat to a nice Aussie guy from Adelaide called Andy and then caught a transfer bus to the plane which was waiting for us in what seemed to be a vacant field.
I was asleep before take-off. Which is weird because I particularly love the take-off part of a plane journey.
Waking up, I find I'm squished between an insurance broker named Emily and an unnamed man in a leather puffer jacket with the most porno moustache and hair I've ever seen.
Still tired, I put my rolled-up hoodie behind my neck and drift off again.

I rouse as we are passing over the alps and the view is amazing. I think I'm weirding the insurance broker out as she is in the window seat and I'm peering across her at the mountains which look like cream that's been whipped into firm peaks. I never realised the alps were so vast.
I expect I look like a small child, peering out the window and grinning foolishly. Insurance broker lady asks if airport is near Milan city centre and I explain how far from Milan it is in kilometres, minutes, how much the average cab fare is, how much a shuttle bus costs and how far away Milan's other two airports are. She looks bewildered and scared and I explain that I know this due to my frantic attempts to sort out the whole 'forgotten passport/trasferred flights' conundrum.
She finds this hilarious. I'm still not ready to laugh about it, so I nod and force a smile.

We touch down in Milan. Finally, I set my feet on solid ground in Italy. Relief.
On the horizon, I see the rocky, snow capped peaks of the Orobie Alps and all my tension, stress and anxiety dissolves.

A disinterested customs official punches my passport and I head through to the arrivals lounge where I know I have a 4.5 hour wait for my transfer to Presolana.
I buy an overpriced lunch panini, a water and some gum which is called Vigorsol. I chewed two pellets, read the label and then worried I'd end up with a four day erection. I swear I've had spam email with the words 'Discount Vigorsol' in the subject line.

I'm paranoid I'm going to miss my transfer, so I do all I can to stay awake. I decide to venture outside, however there's only carparks and no footpaths, so I return to the arrivals lounge to partake in some people watching.
I was of the impression that Milan was the fashion capital of the world. I think on an episode of America's Next Top Model that Charlotte was watching the other night, they described the style as 'Italian Sexuality'. I saw nothing that equated to anything even vaguely similar to this description.
Apparently if you're a man, you have to wear zip-up, roll neck knitwear, jeans with huge D&G embroidering all over them, a racing style leather jacket complete with Shell and Penzoil sew on badges, aviator sunglasses, nike runners (not stylish ones, but like cross trainers or something) and some unholy arrangement of facial hair.
If you're a woman, you must wear horribly cheap looking hooker boots, jeans with huge D&G embroidering all over them (perhaps they're unisex?), something that displays your adequate stomach protruding over said jeans and again, aviator sunglasses.
Oh, also you must be so orange that you'd outshine a bag of carrots.
The fashionistas and fasionmisters were all horribly unfashionable. there was no 'Italian Sexuality' unless sex in Italy is usually conducted in charity shop drop-off bins.
Watching these people, the time passed rather quickly.
Charlotte sends me a few messages lamenting the language barrier, the lack of ski lessons and the uphill walking in ski boots.
I make guilty apologies and vow to be there soon.
A ray of sunshine enters through the automatic doors as Carlo, my friendly transfer driver walks in carrying a piece of paper with my name on it.
I jump up and resist the urge to hug the man that will finally take me to my intended destination. (Hmm... I expect this may turn up some hits from people searching for homo-erotic literature)
As we travel through Milan and into Bergamo, I pull out my camera as the alps loom higher and higher above me.
I learn about the local textile industry, the river and the abundance of activities the resort offers. Seamless salesmanship from Carlo.
I arrive at the hotel at 5.40pm. For those of you who don't follow maths, that's 14 hours since I left home.
By this stage I am so excited, I rush out of the van, and attempt to check in at the reception desk. This proves difficult as the lovely man behind the desk doesn't have the greatest command of the English language.
Carlo brings me my camera which I left on the van. (Note to self: Need the velcro suit)
Hands are shaken, Carlo leaves and I head up to our room.
Charlotte arrives back at the hotel a short time later and I sit on the bed with her and laugh as relief washes over me and I'm so happy to finally be there.
Showered, clothed and feeling fresh we decide to descend the mountain for dinner.
We go to Pizza il Rustico for dinner and we eat the best pizzas I've had. Proffering a mashed-up Italio-English-mime-a-thon, we also manage to order a nice bottle of red and tasty dessert.
Full and content we walk back up the hill to our hotel, and fall into bed where I sleep like a narcoleptic on Ambien. Which is extremely well, in case my analogy reads stupidly.

Morning, and I open the shutters to reveal a sun kissed mountain peak surrounded by thousands of pointy green pines.
We get our stuff sorted, head downstairs for breakfast of fresh mortadella, cheese, rolls, home made croissants and coffee.
We then dress and catch the ski-bus (which I thought Carlo was calling the 'caboose') up to the slopes.
It's sub zero temperatures, but there's not a cloud in the sky and the sun is warm on my face.
We hire Charlotte a snowboard and then trudge up the hill a little way where we go through the basics and then begin the potentially volatile process of me teaching her to snowboard.

What can I say. She's good.
When I was working at the ski resort in the US, I usually ran a lift on the beginners slope so had a good understanding of the steep learning curve involved in snowboarding. As such I had expectations that like most beginners, she'd spend the most of the day skidding on her butt, be completely disenfranchised with snowboarding by lunch time and possibly have called me all manner of bad words and left by 2pm.

After an hour and a half, Charlotte was getting up on her own and was doing really well...
I put it down to my superior instructional methods, although I'd be lying if I didn't say she did really really well. I was the proudest person on the mountain. Also, I had the sorest knees on the mountain from kneeling and explaining things on hard snow.

So we snowboarded, we rode a lift up the mountain (much to the dismay of Charlotte who upon boarding, remembered she really didn't like lifts at all, but still calmed herself down very bravely) and we sat in the sun and ate lunch.
I haven't had such a good day in a long, long time.

Sore, bruised and tired, we retired to the hotel where we rested a while before heading out for a stroll around the lovely village of Bratto. We went for ice cream, wandered past shops filled with cured meats, fresh made pasta, all manner of cheeses and then found a nice place to have a coffee. (Sure, it sounds like something out of some gay romantic foreign film, but I promise you I didn't have a jumper tied around my neck.)
We sipped on tasty lattes (Boy, does that sound wanky or what?) and watched in no particular order, a burly man pump endless euros into a slot machine, a waitress casually chat with her friend at a table, said burly man drink shots of grapper/ouzo and a midget come in with a friend to order something I didn't understand.
Not being one to racially stereotype, I suggested to Charlotte that the midget was the Mario you start out with in Super Mario Brothers before you punch that second brick and get the mushroom which makes him go bigger.
She shook her head and told me I was a horrible person.

We then sauntered back up hill, taking photos of the sunset all the way to our hotel where we readied ourselves for dinner.
Dinner was a three course extravaganza at the hotel restaurant, cooked by the lovely man who greeted me at the reception desk. Again we mangled pronunciations successfully and had ourselves a three course meal encompassing veal, venison, lasagne, gnocchi, amaretto, pear and chocolate torte and a bottle of chianti.
Thoroughly satisfied, we paid our outstandings, received a complimentary shot of local liquor and headed up to bed full, drunk and happily exhausted.
Waking to the alarm, we packed everything up and got ready to leave. I checked that I had everything. I then checked again, just in case. And I repeated this four more times.
Satisfied that we had everything we needed, we met Carlo at 7am and headed back to the airport.
We ate a horrific airport breakfast, then boarded our flight and sighed as we soared up and away from what could possibly go down as the best short holiday ever.
Like excited school kids, we took photos as we passed back over the alps and then watched quietly as small white coastal cliffs, and then the green patchwork of rural England slid past below us.
We waited for our bags at the 'Wheel of Fortune' baggage carousel. Charlotte's bag came almost instantly, however after half an hour and watching another flight's worth of luggage be spewed up and hauled away by it's owners, we decided my snowboard bag had possibly fell out of the plane somewhere over France and so headed to Lost Baggage.
The guy ahead of me was lamenting his smashed up cello, which had been labelled as 'Fragile'. Unfortunately this probably meant very little to a non-Enlgish-speaking baggage handler in Italy. they might as well have written "Smash this thing up please" on it.
The man behind the counter then explained to me that oversize baggage goes to Zone 10. This isn't made known to anyone at all, so frustrated at having waited for so long for no reason, we grab my snowboard bag and head off to catch a train home.
Train is filled with Chelsea supporters and we cram into the door way. After 40 or so minutes of idiotic, Stella fuelled football banter everyone disembarks at Victoria.
Charlotte and I are walking towards the gates when a shockwave runs through me.
"Oh Shit!"
'What is it now!?" She asks.
"My bag. Where's my backpack!?"
"Oh my god..." She shakes her head. (Again, need velcro suit. Need it now.)
So I rush back to the train, where there is no sign of my bag. I report it to lost property, the train cleaners and anyone else that doesn't walk away from me like I'm a crazy man foretelling the coming apocalypse. I tell them all it contains some books, clothes, my camera (SHIT!) and ironically, my travel insurance documentation.
We resolve to call Gatwick once we get home to see if they have my bag and hopefully avert a bomb scare caused by a suspicious Fitness First backpack sitting on Platform 2.
Walking down to the District Line, the hand-scrawled sign informs us that the District line only runs to Earl's Court and then the Piccadilly only runs to Hammersmith.
Sighing and already lamenting being back in Scuzz City, we catch the District line, change to the Piccadilly, then alight at Hammersmith and join the 200m queue for the replacement bus service.
Around an hour later I walk through the door at home, throw down my snowboard bag and lie on the couch while Charlotte picks up some ciders and falafel wraps for our lunch.
Whilst I'm stressed over the loss of my bag and all it contains, I'm glad to be home and am already recalling the relaxation and fun of the trip.
Charlotte brings in sustenance and we flop onto the couch where we spend the rest of the afternoon and evening.

It was nice to be home. But it's even nicer to be in Italy.
Eventually, I got a call back from Gatwick who had my bag and everything it contains! Hooray for honest people!

I hereby declare that there shall be no more stupidity on my behalf and that I'm not going to forget important things anymore.

I'll post the photos up on Facebook soon and flick y'all the link.

The moral of this story is: Don't travel with me. I'm an idiot.

Lazy bastard

2008-03-06T06:09:00.004+11:00

That's me.
Too lazy to post...
Well, not completely lazy- I mean, things have been happening. In fact, all manner of shit has been happening. Christmas for one. That happened.
2007 slunk away into the night like the wimpy bitch of a year it was...
2008 came along and brought along a truckload of goodies including a trip to Italy, (which is to be detailed in the next post) a new house (Whitechapel is awesome and West London is totally herpes) and a whole host of other interesting things.

I'm still kicking away at work... Same old same old.
I now have more time to myself though as I've cut down my total daily commute from around 2 and a half hours to about 40. Hell yeah.
No more leaving home when it's still dark.

Charlotte and I have got a fair bit planned for the coming year. Some more hard work for a couple of months, then we head off around the middle of the year for a couple of months (hopefully) of sightseeing through Europe.

Which will be way more ace than sitting in dreary London.

So,we'll now have more updates, more often. (Say that in a radio voice, you'll sound cool)

Check back for more betterness.

Czech yourself before you... yeah whatever.

2007-12-17T22:31:00.000+11:00

Well hello there people of the internet.
I'm back... Once again it's been a long time between posts, but I've been lacking motivation of late.
I have however recently returned from a week in the Czech Republic, the land of beer, Dvorak, Kafka and Tulips (Yes tulips were first grown in Czech Republic, the tour guide told us so. Take that Holland, you stupid land of clogs and windmills)

I'll write more soon, but at the moment i can't write for shit and am getting frustrated, so will post all the details once I've articulated the trip into a more entertaining story for you.

Back soon with something readable.

It's been a while

2007-11-12T04:03:00.000+11:00

Wow... 2 months since my last post...
I'm sorry I've been so slck. Work has been rather hectic for a while and I've been pretty burnt out...
So happenings since my last post:

- I've travelled all over the UK with work running events on 'The Lifecycle of a Design Consultancy'. Was very interesting and saw heaps of the countryside; Bristol, Manchester, Leicester, Newcastle and Edinburgh. Was also quite stressful as I haven't done any events type work before, so I was in the deep end a little...

- Charlotte and I went up to Northampton again, which was really good. Went to a beer festival and went on a bike ride through the countryside and ate heaps of tasty stuff.

- Booked to go to Hogmanay in Edinburgh for new year's eve.

- Booked to go to Czech Republic and Prague at the start of December. Have got 7 days there so really looking forward to the break from work and London.

- Joined up with a gym over here, so have been going 4 or 5 times a week trying to get fit again. I'm currently the heaviest I've ever been and i suspect it may have something to do with the combination of beer, cider, cold weather, inactivity and of course heavy English food.

Not a heap else going on. We've been quiet trying to save up for travels etc... Again, I'll finish with another promise that when things start happening I'll be posting more regularly.

Dear England

2007-09-06T22:24:00.001+10:00

Dear England,
We've been together for some time now, but I think there's something missing. I think you might be of the impression that I'm something I'm not and well, it's probably best for both of us if I'm just straigh to the point.
Some things I need you to know:

- I've never lived in Erinsborough, in fact, it doesn't even exist.

- Yes we pronounce our vowel sounds differently. It's not that funny.

- I can't do an Alf Stewart impersonation.

- Rolf Harris wasn't my high school teacher.

- I don't know the lady who got bitten by some spider, which then laid eggs which hatched from her head.

- There are sharks around the coast in Australia but we don't all get drunk and fight them.

- Kangaroos aren't that exciting.

- Surprisingly our standard of living is much better than it is in say, London.

- Australia is not comprised completely of desert and beaches.

- Not everyone lives in a corrugated iron shed.

- Wolf Creek is a fictional movie. 'Based on true events' doesn't mean shit. There's much nastier characters in England.

- Pubs in Australia are nothing like the Walkabout.

- INXS, Kylie, Jason Donovan and ACDC are not the only musicians from Australia.

Now onto you:

- Your streets smell like fart

- Your summer is what 90% of the world calls 'A cold winter'.

- Your concept of air conditioning has been labelled by some as 'Retardedly primitive'. By some, i mean me.

- Your fresh produce is misleadingly un-fresh.

- You have chain pubs. There was a better atmosphere in Auschwitz than there is in your local Wetherspoons.

- Generally your work ethic and service levels are appallingly low.

So, I guess what I'm trying to say, England, is don't assume I'm something i'm not. Also, pick up your act.

I hope we an work this out as I know you're not all that bad underneath.

Sincerely,

Jeremy

Dear Metronet/British Government.

2007-09-04T18:24:00.001+10:00

You suck.
The both of you. Assholes.
Metronet, who maintain the tube lines over here in joyous London have gone on strike. I think it's over a payrise not being as high as initially suggested, or something to that effect.
I'm not talking about a delay on one afternoon either- This is a 3 day strike running until Thursday.
Surely the government could have stepped in at some stage and negotiated some kind of middleground, but they've allowed it to blow up into this.
Eitherway, I don't care. My tube lines aren't running anymore. And this is potentially as fatal as when a colostomy bag's tube lines aren't running. Eww.
Come to think of it there's probably more effluent in your average train carriage in London, than there is in a colostomy bag.

Anyways, what was a bearable 40 minute commute to work has now become a 1.5hr trek including much walking and two diferent overland trains. Or in the case of Charlotte last night, a 3.5hr journey spread over 3 buses and much walking.
Also, you can only imagine what the crush on the buses/trains/roads is like now.
Usually, it's a full sardine-tin setup of people jammed in, but now everyone is so jammed in, it's more like a Preswswurst situation or some kind of rank dog-food like 'Marrow in aspic' You know, the one where when you tip it out of the can and it comes out can-shaped with all the ridges and stuff still imprinted in it. Yeah, well that's what happens when the doors open on the bus- A big gelatinous blob of humans falls out the door, disassembles into fifteen people and they all head off to work.

The plus side is I'm going through places I didn't know existed. Frognal, for example.
I wonder if it was called Tadpolenal when it was just a village? Sorry, I suck. My puns are suffering at the hands of this stupid transport situation. Or more you're suffering my puns at the hands of this stupid transport situation.

This is a fair representation of the sentiment of most people in London. Caution: contains swearing, including multiple instances of the C and F words, although they are used in a most appropriate fashion.

The definitive list of junk for today

2007-08-30T22:15:00.000+10:00

1. Old lady who left her dog 6 million pounds and left two of her grandchildren none, stating in her will that 'They would know why.' Bitter to the end. i want to steal her dog. And laugh at those two grandkids who probably told her that pot-pourri stinks or something trivial like that. Cop that! All they'll be able to afford is Pot-Poor-ie! Ha! Bam!

2. I have (somewhat) brown, short hair.

3. Spam makes me feel inadequate. Today i got one that said 'Join the Real Men's club' It was for penis pills. I remain an outsider of the 'Real Men's club'

4. Look at this guy:

Spam sometimes makes me feel extremely adequate.
Although that guy clearly is wearing a wedding ring... Puzzling. Imagine being married to the Spam guy. I bet he could 'Spice' up a relationship. Oh, z!ng.

5. Our new landlord reminds me of an high school art teacher. As in a little bit jilted and slightly high.

6. Balsamic sauce and soy sauce are stored in similar looking bottles. This is bad as adding balsamic to a stirfry really ruins the meal. I learnt this recently.

7. If you ignore people you don't like, they seldom go away. Unless they're trapped in quicksand. If you ignore them then, they'll definitely go away.

8. Vaccuum cleaners need to be emptied occasionally. The one at our new place blew up on the weekend. Upon closer inspection, the dust catcher had so much shit jammed in there, it looked like someone had rolled up a mattress and jammed it in. Likewise with the backup vaccuum... It too contained enough lint to fill a million fat men's bellybuttons.

9. Ikea in England is like AIDS in Africa. No matter where you go, there's some trace of Ikea in every house. We contributed to the epidemic recently (The Ikea one, not the AIDS one) by purchasing some of the more tasteful items they offer.

10. Being shat on by a bird is god's way of saying 'You look really nice, but I'm jealous.'

11. I should apologise for my terrible, terrible puns. Sorry

I have to go back to work now.

JC

Out of the shoebox and into.... the corpse?

2007-08-23T22:47:00.000+10:00

Finally.
We're getting the hell out of our goddam shobox/bedroom/current house.

A new house has been found, 2 bedrooms, big lounge, awesome location, nice landlady who seals the lease with wine... It's got it all.
Moving in with Pinner and Lisa, which will be good- Nice to finally have good company. And a lounge room.
Planning trips to ikea and various other homewares places to give the new place a bit of a personal touch. Meaning, pictures and lamps and stuff, not 'in the pants' personal touch. Eww.
This shitty box-room we've been existing in is about 3m x 4m. There's a bed and a wardobe and a set of drawers. It's been our lounge room, dining room, bedroom, laundry...
We've been like insects stuck in a tiny little glass box that some fat little kid keeps tapping with his stubby little sausage fingers.

Which reminds me:
Some guy in Berlin got bitten by his pet Black Widow spider named Bettina.
He died, then some thing in his pet enclosure blew up, allowing snakes, tarantulas, termites and all manner of scary-ass creatures to escape. Police discovered his body '7-14 days' later, being eaten by these scary-ass creatures. And a gecko named Helmut. Yes, Helmut.
What the hell?!
Crazy germans. Killed by a spider called Bettina, then eaten by a bunch of evil creatures and a gecko called Helmut.
I think Helmut was probably a nice gecko-kid, but wasn't breastfed, or didn't get hugged enough or something. Before his parents knew it, he was hangin' with the 6-leggers. Then those bad-ass 8 leggers. Then before they knew it, little Helmut is tearing large strips of his owner and taking them back to the tarantulas to feast on. (Again, paraphrased from trusty English rag 'The Sun')

Global warming, terrorism, nuclear arms... These are all minor threats compared to the very real possibility of insect/arachnid death squads escaping their confines and eating whoever happens to die in front of them.

You remember that little green gecko in the Bridgestone ads? The ones with Brocky in them?
Next thing you know: Dead Brocky.
Put two and two together and I say Helmut's been a busy little Gecko.

Food

2007-08-13T07:39:00.000+10:00

So this weekend, I ate an ostrich.
Not a whole one, but part of one. Part of one, or possibly parts of many that had then been squeezed through a mincer and made into a sausage.
Surprisingly tasty. Kind of like chicken, but a bit more gamey.
I was afforded the opportunity to partake in such fare at the Borough Market, which are these awesome little food markets near London Bridge.
Charlotte and I also did the week's fruit and veg shopping there and being the growing boy I am, I also had a Damascan Falafel which rated an 'awesome' on the taste-o-meter.
I also saw the weirdest method for making a toasted cheese sandwich, which basically involved taking half a wheel of cheese, heating the width of it and scraping the melted layer onto the bread, see below:

A good day out though. More pictures from the outing updated on my flickr page

A forgotten bit of news from a week or so ago. We went to a 'warehouse party', the old school style parties where no one gets told where it is until 7pm on the night, then everyone turns up to a disused warehouse (Or in our case, parking lot) and makes party-like.
We went and checked it out for about an hour, but due to grandparent-esque tiredness, we only stayed for about an hour and made our way home.

It's now a balmy Monday evening and had best be getting to bed. (Read: Charlotte wants her computer back.)

Farewell for now.

J

PS: Happy birthday Mum!

Night Out

2007-08-10T23:22:00.001+10:00

Last night went to the Slug and Lettuce in Fulham. It's a pub. A chain-pub.
Horrible place.
Imagine 900 decibels of the worst music you could imagine, including a dance remix of Bon Jovi, Ace Of Base and way more other junk. Full of pissed annoying Aussies too.
On the upside I saw a pair of midget twins that looked like oompa loompas. I wanted to knit them tiny suits and make them sing and dance. Charlotte said this would probably not be an appropriate thing to do. She's so wise.

Going to the Borough markets this weekend and starting to look for a new house as we're sick of our current shoebox.

Fear not, exciting things on the horizon. Which translates to less boredom for you, my weary readers.

As they say in England,

Bye.

Oh, also:

2007-07-31T07:51:00.000+10:00

I've uploaded more photos to Flickr, do drop by and check them out:

Super Awesome Radness!

And that my friends, is goodnight.

No, he doesn't understand...

2007-07-31T07:25:00.000+10:00

Some things that make me smile a bit inside are when you hear people try to explain things to children.
The 'thing' in this instance was a surrealist piece which basically was an old iron with a row of nails sticking through the bottom of it.

A mother is explaining to her (I'm guesing) 6 year old what surrealism is. She used the words 'silly' and 'not real' alot.
The kid looked confused. Mum was eager to explain away this confusion, which surprisingly only served to further befuddle the child.

Nice work lady. Most six year olds brain's melt when they try to assemble their new lego space ship and here you are giving your 'sweet little Charles' a lesson in 1920's surrealism. Way to ruin your child's life.

And that's why rich women who think they're art buffs because they joined an advanced long-stitching class shouldn't have children.

Another valuable lesson from Jeremy.™

(Yes, I found the trademark symbol shortcut. I apologise now for its blatant overuse in future posts.)

News from Jeremy

2007-07-28T00:35:00.000+10:00

Not much unfortunately.
Finally been paid. Monthly pay is the root of all evil. Closely followed by carrots which many still believe are THE roots of evil. Bad vegetable joke there, sorry.
I've just finished up at a judging session for our Design Effectiveness Awards. Very interesting and enlightening experience. Met the CEO of Cobra Beer, the Nokia brand manager and Adidas' marketing director, or something.
Anyways, lots of important people with interesting views on design and other things. Meanwhile, Jeremy is off to the side with the mother of all colds, politely interrupting the proceedings with sneezes and coughs. Way to make an impression, loser.
Anyways, enough self depreciation.
Sitting in an internet cafe near Charlotte's work, waiting for her to finish ( I got an early mark- w00t!)
So, over the last couple of weeks, things that have happened include:

1) Pinner, Lisa and Aleisha have all found houses in the local area- Pinner and Lisa live a 5 minute walk from Cahrlotte and I, so have been catching up with them a bit.
Also went to Camden market with them on Saturday. Went to the Hawley Arms, which those of you well versed in the language of rock would know is a haunt of the White Stripes, Amy Winehouse (Who I hate)and other such luminaries. Probably. Exciting times...ish.

2) I was involved in my first event last week up in the glorious town of Leicester. Leicester is kind of like Shepparton. Enough said.
The event was good though. The guy who spoke branded the BBC and came second in the pitch for the London 2012 Olympics job, which has caused some major issues over here.
So was very interesting to gain some insight into such current matters.

3) I don't know why I write lists cos I can never think of any more than 2 points.

4) Ok, another point. (Phew) Might have picked up some weekend work trimming trees. Thanks to Cam Rae for providing me with years (ish) of experience. I think in England, if you have 4 teeth, can recite your name on command and don't soil yourself every time someone says 'hello', you're overqualified. For anything.

5)-Yes, I'm remembering more things now- Saw The Simpsons movie on Wednesday night. It was awesome. Especially Spider pig.

6) Just so you all know. In the supermarket, you can buy Polish foods. Unfortunately the name of this is emblazoned across the front. For some reason, instead of anglicising the names into something vaguely edible-sounding they've opted for Klopsy, Pulpety and Flaki. Seriously. And that's the story of why Polish Chef's get beaten up.
Is that not the most disgusting sounding food you've ever heard of. Pulpety. Klopsy. It sounds like biological field notes for animal refuse.

7) Which reminds me, bought tickets to go and see Bill Bailey at Wembley Stadium. Can't wait. But will have to as it's in November. I'm excited though.

Not much else to report on... Oh, half the country's under water. And people are being warned of Cholera and stuff. But that's out in the country bits, not London. But still, pretty bad from a supposed world-leader.

Also, I want to go to see Transformers but Charlotte won't come. Apparently it's not the sort of film that girls are into. How can girls not be impressed by a movie about giant transforming robots that are fighting over earth?
Weird.

Anyways, once I'm less ill and more into getting out and doing stuff, I shall write more rubbish for you.

Sincerely,

me.

DEFCON 2, apparently.

2007-07-05T06:42:00.000+10:00

Well, it would seem things here in London have been rather tense. What with all the car bombs, burning cars... Actually come to think of it, maybe this isn't a religious or political thing that's going on here. Perhaps there's another group out there. A heartless evil group of fundamentalist car haters. Being typically egocentric humans, we presume that someone is attacking us, however I posit that there's some people who have deep rooted disdain for automobiles. And maybe nails, they seem to be trying to blow up a lot of nails. If I was a builder, I'd be locking my shed and issuing a press statement declaring that the shed and general back yard area has been moved up to 'Orange Status'. Whatever that means. I think when they declare 'Orange Status', a fleet of snoopy old ladies with push basket thingys go out and start reporting meaningless things as illegal activity... perhaps prompting raids by, oh, I don't know.. Immigration?
Anyways, I can find this as funny as I like, the truth of the matter is it's pretty close to home. About 20 mins after I left Hammersmith tube station to go to work yesterday, a 'suspicious package' was reported at Hammersmith Station, then isolated, then exploded by the trusty bomb squad.
Turns out, the package had nothing in it. Except puppies. Man, was it messy. OK, so it wasn't full of puppies, but it does show how alert everyone is at the moment.
Mind you, life seems to go on as per usual. I do feel pretty safe and it's that packed on the tube when I catch it, I doubt anyone would be able to move enough to get their hand in their pocket to trigger any kind of device; I can't even get my iPod out of my jeans.
I guess, all I can say is fear not, I shall survive.
Also, Charlotte and I both have full-time work and as such will now be able to do more touristy things, like go to the Tower of London, which we did on Sunday.
Tower of London was awesome. It's so alien to stand in a building, or look at a fortress wall that has been there for 900 years.
All Australia had 900 years ago was bark canoes and some woomeras. Which is culturally rich in it's own right, but nowhere near as interesting (in my opinion) as murder, witch-hunts, deceit, wars and giant diamonds.
Oh yeah and Adam Hills was really funny the other weekend too. I'd recommend going to see him, or at least watching Spicks and Specks. And some trivia: He has a prosthetic leg. Not for fun, but for walking and possibly kicking purposes! Wow. I'm like the Guinness Book of Rubbish.
Charlotte says to mention I am getting a hair cut this weekend as i am beginning to alienate people as they can't see my face for my hair.
So yes, soon I will be more streamlined and less microphone-y.

PS: Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes/presents. You rock. Like a chair that rocks.

Things you thought you'd never hear.

2007-06-24T01:14:00.001+10:00

Thye office I work in is quite small... There's 6 people, open plan stylez. Yup, stylez.
For a small office we have a lot of weird shit happen. You know when sometimes you say or hear things and think 'I don't think I'll ever hear that again in my life.'?
Well I had at least three o0f those moments this week.

1) 'I've told them about this before; bill it to the Russians.'

2) 'Yes, the Koreans are coming in for a meeting tomorrow.'

3) 'So she said, sure, we'll look after the Chinese ambassador's daughter for a few days.'

Anyone would think I worked in the National Office of Communist Empathisers.
But no, this is at the Design Business Association...
It turns out too, that it was Good Korea, not Bad Korea that came in for the meeting. They were so nice that they actually brought gifts including a nifty cap with the Korean Design Association logo emblazoned on the front and the words 'Korean Power' embroidered on the side. Awesome. Makes me feel all fervent and nationalistic. Or something.
I also got taken off my contract with the DBA this week and offered a permanent position as Events Coordinator, which is awesome. I get to travel all over England and Scotland organising events and other such things for designers... Should be interesting, especially considering my complete lack of events management experience, but they seem confident I'll pick it up ok.
If I'm unemployed in a week, you'll know I've failed.
Meh, I'm rambling...
Charlotte and I are going to see (or have planned to at this point anyway)Adam Hills tonight. He's the guy off Spicks and Specks. Should be funny I think.
Haven't done much else- Fulfilled my life's dream of sitting at the front of the top level of a double decker bus last weekend. Saw the sights and took a heap of photos which I'll upload to my flickr page when I get a chance.
More exciting posts to come in the near future. (fingers crossed)

Krishnas And Other Things

2007-06-06T22:40:00.001+10:00

I'm writing again.
Hello.
Have been busy with work, organising an Internation Design Awards thingy among a million billion other things.
Still not a great deal going on.
Went out for dinner/cheap cocktails on Friday night. Do not eat Mexican-English fusion food/drinks. Rubbish. But it may have made us a little tipsy. As did the cider by the thames, which was quite nice and serene.
Saturday, Charlotte's friend Bec came and stayed with us. Some more drinks. Went to the Walkabout (yes, I wasn't to keen on this idea, but was meeting people there) in the city to meet up with Sean, Dean and Matty from the snow. Was good to catch up for a few beers.
On the way out of the Walkabout, got caught in a passing joy of Hare Krishnas. I have made 'joy' the official collective noun for a group of Krishnas.
They sang (repetetively) and danced (jumped and waved) and we walked behind them. Strangely I felt no urge to shave my head and wear a toga and judging by this group of Kirshnas, a life filled with joy doesn't smell very nice.

We then went to Masala zone and had some awesome Indian. Yum.

Sunday, lay around in the local park in which we discovered there is a paddling pool. Which is awesome news, since I'm not yet adjusted to the warm weather again. Then we caught up with another friend, Nick and had more cider in the beer garden at the local. Then went out for Thai.
Good, lazy weekend.

In other news, on the way to work this morning some guy in a suit was sitting on the ground surrounded by police and paramedics. He looked really confused and kept saying 'I fell down the stairs? Did I really?'
I found that funny for some reason. He was definitely perplexed as to why all these important people were suddenly helping him..

Anyways, sorry this is such a boring post... Charlotte and I are looking at setting some dates to start travelling. We're thinking maybe Greek Islands or Spain or Ireland.
I'm sure you're all dying from the suspense (pffft), so I'll let you know as soon as we have a trip planned.

I have to go and call Pay Pal now to talk to them about fixing payment gateways on our website. Much fun.

Heading North

2007-05-25T22:55:00.001+10:00

Friday.
Lunch break at work.
It's hot. (by English standards)
Charlotte and I are heading up to Northampton for the weekend to visit her Aunty and Uncle.
I'm looking forward to getting out of London for a while and seeing some of the English countryside. Will be taking plenty of photos and the like.
Apparently there's quite a bit of history around the area- battlegrounds from the War of the Roses, medieval underground tunnel systems, ruins from the iron age and other such things that could be made into a crap book by Dan Brown. I won't be making a book, but maybe will look at things and nod appreciateively.
Must be getting back to work.
Also, bank holiday Monday- Long Weekend!

And a good morning to you sir!

2007-05-18T22:40:00.000+10:00

I awoke this morning, usual time... Begrudgingly slid out of bed and shuffled into the bathroom.
I was enjoying the invigorating properties of hot running water when there was a knock on the bathroom door. I'd been in the shower for 5 mins at the max.
I yelled out with the old 'Yeaap, what?'
No answer. I shrugged and thought one of my flatmates was being a bit rude, but it didn't bother me.
Knock knock.
'Yes, what??' (Slightly more aggravated this time)
Still nothing. I was annoyed by the lack of consideration displayed by my flatmates. Whilst pondering the possible need for immediate access to the bathroom ('upset stomach', plaque eradication, morning number ones) there was another knock.
That was the final straw. I jumped out, threw my towel around me and opened the door.
Boy, was I going to give some evil words and/or looks to the impatient person on the other side.
Instead of an impatient flatmate, I was greeted by around 10 people clad in police uniform, bulletproof vests, walkie talkies and utility belts.
Um... hello.
I thought of all the reasons that my house could be filled by such people. Do I live in a crack den? No. Have I been storing weapons grade plutonium? Don't think so. Maybe it's because we've been neglecting our basil plant and they've come to take it into foster care. Possibly.

A man whose badge identified him as belonging to UK Immigration very sternly and quickly questioned me: 'What room are you in? What's your name? Where are you from?
Meanwhile, I'm dripping wet looking around at the SWAT team that has suddenly materialised in our hallway and trying not to laugh.
'I'm in the front room. My name's Jeremy. I'm from Australia.'
He then peered into the bathroom, probably to see if I was harbouring any illegal immigrants. Once he realised our bathroom is essentially a shoebox filled with porcelain and tiles and that I wasn't trying to help Pablo out a window, he relaxed a bit.
In a perfect twist of fate, to back up my story I was wearing my Australian flag bath towel. (A little too convenient, I bet they thought.) Luckily I'd decided not to wear my 'Unauthorised Border Crossing Convention 07' commemorative towel.
Anyways, I got hustled into our room... They ran around through our house for a while, checked my passport and best of all, I thought, jovially said 'Well you check out, we'll have to arrest someone else.' Awesome.

They then left as quick as they came, leaving us a receipt of their search warrant and an overwhelming feeling of complete bewilderment. And possibly some hidden surveillance devices. Paranoia!!!

This has made my year. I couldn't think of a better way to start my Friday.

Footnote: In case UK Immigration is tapping our wireless, I don't know anyone called Pablo, i'm just using racial stereotypes, no one by that name lives here. Ok, thanks.

Proper Work

2007-05-15T01:33:00.000+10:00

Finally I've progressed from retro work to normal work.
Have spent Friday and today at a IT Recruitment agency answering phones, which has been a piece of cake- nice, easy work.
Start my three month Programmes Coordinator contract tomorrow with the DBA which is a really cool little company that hooks designers up with businesses and gives them a heap of resources and assistance with the business side of design projects.
Really looking forward to it as the place, people and position seem really cool.
More on that to come once I get into it...

In other news, things that have gone on over the last week or so:
- Saw Spiderman 3 on the weekend
- Had dinner at Wagamamas and Gourmet Burger Kitchen
- Charlotte and I made home-made pasties, apple crumble, roast vegetables, haloumi and salami on ciabatta, lasagne and other extremely awesome things i can't remember.
- I got ambushed by some missionaries who knocked on my door. They asked me what i thought about the growing social divide between rich and poor. I was perplexed as to why some strangers would want my opinions on such matters. I thought maybe they could just sense my wisdom as they walked past the house, but that seemed unlikely. Our walls are pretty thick.
I told them what I thought anyways and they asked me how the problem could be fixed, so I went into a bit of a rant about governments forming a united front and acting compassionately and ethically and blah blah blah. The woman looked at me and nodded vacantly. Then she pulled out a bible and asked if she could red some appropriate passages to me. I then told her of my love of S&M, my penchant for not resting on Sundays and my constant blashpemy. She smiled and left and i smiled and went back to reading my book on the Dark Arts.
Nah, not really... but it sounds more exciting doesn't it?

Retro Work

2007-05-09T00:12:00.000+10:00

So, I've been at this 'emergency' temp job for a few days now and FAR OUT am I over it.
Only two days to go....
It's an electrical engineering company comprised of 4 older guys. They don't use computers.
Unfortunately, the rest of the world does and so my job is as follows:
When an email arrives, I print one copy of the email and any attachments and put it on the desk of whoever it is addressed to. (They only have one email address for the entire company) I then print another copy and file it in a folder called 'Email In'
I then get handed back a piece of paper with instructions on composing a repsonse to this email. I do up a draft of the email, print it out, show it to whoever I'm writing it on behalf of, they approve it or make changes and then I send the email. Then i print a copy of the sent email and put it in the 'Email Out' folder.
WTF!? This is demeaning and frustrating and totally unnecessary. If you can come up with an entire wiring sysytem for a new hotel, I'm sure you can work out how to use a computer.
Seriously, why bother having a computer at all if you're going to print out every single thing at least three times. I'm printing out enough paper each day here to drive at least two species into extinction through deforestation. I have blood on my hands.
Also, having never used computers, my boss's concept of changing the entire layout of a complex spreadhseet involves asking me to just 're-jig' things. Re-jig. I wonder if anyone ever asks him to 're-jig' his work after it's sealed into the walls of a new hotel.
Luckily I start a three month contract next week in a bigger, better office of the future where they have futuristic things like computers, emails, automobiles and bagels.

Wow, I'm good at whingeing!

On the upside, had a very nice long weekend- went to Camden Markets, bought some new Vans, went to a friend's house, ate lots of nice food, drank lots of cider, watched some good movies and relaxed.
Hooray for weekends.

Now I'm off to print this post off and file it under 'Company Time- Wasted'

I will have a sufficient reliable income within a week too and as such will be able to afford to do way more interesting things, so I can promise that this blog will get more exciting soon. In the meantime, why don't you cry about it.

New(ish) look blog now with more Crazy Guy stories

2007-05-04T00:03:00.000+10:00

I decided to pretty this page up a bit. A little bit more colour for the showing. The photo at the top is from out the front of our old house in Vermont. Neat!

Also, I forgot about the crazy guy I encountered on the tube the other day.

Quietly, I was sat down listening to my ipod on the tube, coming back from an interview when this guy gets on the train. He sits down in the row of seats opposite me. The guy looks like and African Prince. Not as in an heir to Nigerian throne, but like an African version of The Artist Fomerly Known As Prince. Weird, I know!
Anyways, I keep to myself and listen away to some Rise Against.
Then, fatal error, i glance up for a second and see that this guy is ranting and raving about some shite and then the unthinkable happens.
Eye contact.
So he points his finger at me and starts shouting some more. I pop out a headphone and give him the 'Sorry, what?' look and he continues on with this:
'I am black and you will not change that!! No one can make me stop talking!
You will not call me a black bastard again! You call me that again, I WILL DEFEAT YOU!!'

Interesting way to break the ice.
I did wonder what he would defeat me at though. Using my exceptional analytical skills, I chose not to challenge him in high-jump or a 200m sprint. Or a karaoke-off as he really did look like Prince.
I probably could have beaten him at frisbee but I wan't certain.
I decided not to call him a black bastard and instead gave him the "I'm totally cool with that, crazy dude!" look and put my headphone back in.
He got off at the next station still shouting declarations of random nonsense.
I watched him crash through people whilst gesturing wildly and felt quite good about my sanity.

Work and What-not

2007-05-03T22:13:00.000+10:00

I've been doing some work finally.
Not much mind you, but nonetheless I have spent some days doing the thing where I do tasks in exchange for money. No, not those sort of tasks.
I did a couple of days with a marketing company. I spent one day with them standing on a stall at a careers expo at Greenwich University telling grad students about some book and stuff that we had or whatever. It wasn't all that exciting but they were nice people.
I was then offered work there for 4 more weeks, which i would have accepted however I had some interviews scheduled for early this week, so I had to do those.
One was for a Recruitment Coordinator position. Which seemed interesting however I haven't really recruited people for anything except participation in a few beers at the pub/park, so my experience was sorely lacking. Also I didn't really 'click' with the recruiter that well... He wore make-up and was very fruity and poncey and it seemed as though when he walked around the office soufflēs would fall out of his pants and poodles would appear from his pockets. He was one very camp dude.
Then went for an interview as a Sales Administrator, which seemed to go fine, however the feedback I got was that the interviewer thought I maybe gave them them 'right' answers that they wanted to hear... Umm.. No. I just answered the questions. Correctly apparently, but I wouldn't want to employ anyone who answered things correctly. Bah. Also, when i left the next candidate was waiting and I definitely didn't have the anatomical proportions that she had, nor was I showing them off as she was. That's what I put it down to.
Anyways, I then called the other place back about the four weeks of work but they told me that they had re-filled that already (meanwhile I'd knocked back other work becasue of this) and that they didn't have anything else.
So I went from having four weeks of work and two good job prospects to having no prospects and no work. I couldn't have worse luck if I punched a whole village of gypsies.
I got a call this morning from one agency to do some 'emergency work' which, while I formulated the idea of me driving fire-trucks for the day, turned out to be reception work at some tiny place in Clapham. No one calls, the bosses don't use computers so I have to write them notes on a form of pressed wood pulp with some archaic ink filled device and it's very very quiet.

Going for dinner tomorrow night with Charlotte's aunty and uncle which should be good and I found a heap of free exhibitions which seem really cool, so that might be something to do over the weekend. Haven't had a chance to take too many more photos, but I'll be updating my Flickr page with more photos and info and stuff soon.

So here I am, bored but being paid. I think I might be working hard by English standards.

Photos on Flickr

2007-04-26T01:12:00.000+10:00

In addition to my list from yesterday, I've been doing some other things.

Last night Charlotte cooked an awesome stir-fry and we had melted Tesco cookies with ice-cream for dessert, then we watched some Futurama.

Today, organised another interview for tomorrow... These people may already have some work lined up for me, which is a bit exciting.

In the meantime, I've signed up to Flickr so i can upload some of my better photos. Y'all can check out more of my photos at the following link:
Jeremy's Flickr Page
(I've also added it as a link in the sidebar on the right for future reference. Boy am I helpful. Also, I'm in the process of updating the titles and tags, so all the images aren't just called IMG 19219.jpg, which looks crap. Just so you know.)

In other news I believe there is a mob of ~~soccer~~ football fans outside this internet cafe somewhere... I hope their team isn't playing against a crack team of redheads or I might be lynched.

An afterthought, maybe tonight we should have melted ANZAC biscuits for dessert. I wonder if they sell them here...hmmm. I'll let you know.
Hold your breath, embrace the suspense....

Things I have been doing lately

2007-04-24T23:39:00.000+10:00

Going to interviews at temping agencies. Seems promising, so hopefully should have some work coming through very shortly
Opening a bank account
Having my haircut
Going to see the Cabaret Mechanical Theatre, which is an exhibition of awesome little mechanical things... Will upload pictures which explain better.
Eating yum dinners cooked by Charlotte and myself
Enjoying pints in the beer garden of the pub across the road
Discovering that the best dessert in the world is Tesco choc chip biscuits, heated in the microwave till soft then covered in vanilla ice cream.
Watching Futurama DVDs
Watching The Departed, Red Road and some other DVD's... Oh yeah, Pan's Labyrinth
Listening to Alexisonfire
Making mental lists of things I want to buy when I have more money.
Sitting in this intenet cafe making a list of things I've been doing.

Soon I'll have mazillions of pounds and will be updating with tales of much excitement. Very soon.

More random pictures

2007-04-18T06:24:00.000+10:00

Macs are awesome for imaging and photos and stuff. Charlotte's lil MacBook is rocking out with iPhoto which I have spent many an hour on...
Such a handy little application.
Anyways, some pictures... Things look so much better after a little 'touch-up'

The London Eye from below.

Big Ben and Little Charlotte

Yes, terrible isn't it. Dog mess.

The view from our balcony in one of the hostels we were staying at in Earl's Court. Long exposure shots are fun.

A little alleyway of Gloucester Road in Earls Court.

I've got heaps more photos, but will upload more at a later date. It takes too long on the stolen innanets here in the park...

If you're bored though, please do yourself a favour and check out this blog:

Brad's Blog
I love the 'Next Blog' button at the top of blogger pages.
Today I decided to see what the next blog was and was delighted to discover Truetent. Which is a blog by Brad, who is an English (Engrish) major in Korea.. (I think)
Please make visit to Brad to have view of many story on website

Finally!!

2007-04-12T22:48:00.000+10:00

This post comes to you from England.
Sunny England in fact. Nice.

Been lots going on since I last posted. The most significant of which is me now being in a different country. Yes, the one with big red buses and big clocks and all that.
England is nice. I was expecting grey skies and the smell of apathy in the air, but it's been warm and pleasant and i'm loving it.

Flew in on the 1st... Got to see my Charlotte (w00t!!) who had a hostel in Earls Court booked for us, so spent a couple of nights there, then, realising we had to get more accommodation as the hostel was booked out we did a mad internet scramble and found another hostel in nearby Bayswater, so packed up and moved all our stuff there. Spent a couple of nights there, then it too was booked out, so found another hostel back in Earls Court and then moved all our stuff back there. Gah! Was pretty crazy times. In between all the moving stuff around we got to do some nice stuff though, spend a day in Kensington Gardens, visit the Victoria and Albert Museum (yeah, the free one) and stroll around south-west London looking at English things like pubs, which I don't think are found anywhere else in the world.
After 4 more nights in the last hostel and much stress, we finally found a place to live in Hammersmith. When I say place, I mean a room in a share-house. Which is nice, although the bathroom smells like wet. So good though, to not have to move all our shit around anymore. I'm very happy about that. Other benefits include close proximity to tube station, heaps of shops, restaurants, the Thames, parks and a nice little pub with a beer garden a mere one minute walk from our house. ahh... beer garden... Not that we have the money to spare to indulge in things like drinks and food at the moment...
Charlotte has quite a bit of work scheduled which is awesome and I am endeavouring to attain some, pending a haricut and suit purchase. Can't wait to start earning the pound and then saving some of it and spending a little.

Currently on our list of things to purchase:
-Pillows (I'm sleeping on a rolled up hoodie)
-Food (I'm hungry)
-Suit and haricut (I'm sure I can find some place which offers those as a package deal)
-A pet bumblebee and an extendable bumblebee lead. Seriously, if for nothing else, come to England to see a bumblebe. They look ridiculous. (I don't actually think I could buy a pet bumblebee, but maybe I just haven't been looking in the right places.)

Hmm...

We haven't really done any tourist type stuff yet, but once we're more fiscally empowered, I think we'll venture out and do some more exciting stuff.
In the meantime, I'm looking at ads for crap jobs with wanky titles; Senior Customer Service Advisor (read: call centre vegetable). I'm also lying in the park, stealing someone innanets and soaking up some English sunshine. Maybe I can get a job writing ads for recruitment companies:
Requirements: Ability to carry on about some absolute rubbish.

Position Filled!

Anyways, will put up some photos and stuff soon.

Scones and Tea from the Motherland,

JC

Of Greetings and Goodbyes

2007-03-31T12:55:00.000+10:00

Yes, I stole the title from an AFI song...
11pm... Last night here at Mt Snow.
Had people over last night for a bbq and some drinks, said goodbyes... Was a bit tough.
Finished packing today, went for dinner up at the restaurant at the mountain with the guys from my house, then had a couple of the guys from next door pop round to say goodbye as well.
So I think I'm nearly done with saying my goodbyes... Definitely made some good friends that I'll be catching up with in England and during travels.
Onto greetings and on Sunday I get greeted at the airport by the gorgeous Charlotte. I'm so rapt and can't wait to see her. I may even have trouble sleeping over the next 2 nights as I'm so excited!
Well I guess this brings me to the end of the American chapter of my travels.
Next Chapter: England and the joyful process of finding somewhere to live and work.

Will update in a few days with pictures of double decker buses, phone boxes, big clocks and other assorted cheese...

Alright, I'm going to triple-check my stuff to make sure I haven't forgotten to pack anything, then off to bed to will the next two days to hurry up and pass.

JC

The Mythical Spider-Fence

2007-03-29T12:35:00.000+10:00

Before I forget...
Was out the other night having a few drinks for my going away and somehow the topic of camping came up. One of the English girls asked "How the hell can you go camping when there's so many spiders and bugs around?"
"We put up a spider-fence." I replied
"A spider fence?" She responded, somewhat puzzled.
"Yeah, it's a mesh fence about 20cm tall and you surround your camp site with it and that way the spiders can't climb in over the fence."
"Oh, cool." She said.
Then Nikki, one of the Aussies piped up "Wow, we never had spider-fences when we went camping." Unfortunately for her, she'd bought the spider-fence story as well...
"Yeah, you only really need them if you're in proper bush..."
"Oh ok."
And with that, a myth was born.
Now go tell everyone you know and see how many gullible foreigners we can have believing that we use tiny mesh fences to keep spiders out of our tents. Does someone have wikipedia submission rights? Put up a plausible spider-fence article for me.

Pica-tures

2007-03-29T10:54:00.000+10:00

As promised in last post, pictures from the last few weeks:

Here, this is what we call 'getting a lift to work'.

Before colour telephones everyone talked in black and white.

I think this sign means "Use a pregnancy test to unlock your potential children."

The boys on the Killington trip. I need a hair-cut.

The rental car... I think this was moments before we realised the stupid thing was out of fuel and then participated in around an hour-long session of 'The Waiting game', which mainly involved sitting and waiting.

During one of our many archaeological digs, we found this well preserved specimen. This discovery has aided our understanding of how the 'Lifties' of the past may have existed in such harsh conditions.

Organising shite...

On the left: Broken board
On the right: New, new unbroken board.
You can see the light reflecting off the crack on the old board going across the top from left to right up to the logo...

Anyways, it's late and I'm tired. Spent the entire day not being at work. Instead stayed home and finalised and reconfirmed my flight and worked on accommodation and job-type stuff...

4 days till England and Charlotte! w00t!

Visas, snow, rain, boards, repeat.

2007-03-24T11:47:00.000+11:00

Things that have happened since last post...

1) I got my visa application that I sent back to Australia rejected.

I then had a massive freak out about it... Panicked alot... Maybe got a little wall-punchy. Then did some more looking into things and found out I could apply here in the US. So went through the whole application bullshit again, express posting my passport and documents all around the place.. Finally got my passport back today with a nice shiny UK Visa in it! W00t!! Finally.... So now I get to England and see Charlotte on April 1st as scheduled. Charlotte's been in London a couple of days now and I think has fallen in love with the place. Can't wait to see her... Only nine more sleeps! Am currently going through all my flight info, baggage limits etc and making sure that's all in order before I fly out. Can't wait to start travelling properly and see new stuff.

2) Went on a little 2 day boarding trip to Killington with some of the Aussie boys and a couple of the poms that are here.

Was awesome fun... Such a different type of mountain to Mount Snow; way bigger, way better organised and just more of a feeling that you were in a proper ski resort. Killington is to Mount Snow as a Rolls Royce is to a Datsun.
Had a couple of dramas which may or may not have resulted in a speeding fine and a broken down (read: ran out of fuel) hire van. Was well worth the troubles though as we got some good boarding in. Although I did snap my new snowboard... Which leads to point 3

3) So I snapped my new board.

From this I have come up with two possible causes:
Cause 1- I'm way too awesomely hardcore for any piece of fibreglass/wood/composite and even my presence may cause such devices to explode, seemingly without cause.
Cause 2- I just had some bad luck with boards and hopefully I'm now done with these board-breaking shenanigans.
Cause 1 wins hands down... pfft
I took the board back to the shop today and showed them the damage. Jesse, who runs the shop had a look at it and said "Yeah, they'll warranty that, but you can't not have a board for the rest of the season." So rather than make me wait around for all the warranty paperwork nonsense, he just gave me a new board. It's identical to the snapped one, just not snapped. Obviously. So now I have a nice new board again.

4) Snow/Rain/Snow/Rain etc

It's rained, it's snowed... We've had over a foot of powder, then we've been down to rocks and ice, then a heap more rain, then some more snow. Now the weather's getting really spring-y and the snow's melting so I'd expect there'll be very little left after this weekend. I'm fine with this though as I'll be leaving in just over a week.

5) The 2006/2007 IBNITI

This was the International Biggest Name In Tweed Invitational...
A huge competition which was comprised of 13 events including ski/snowboard racing, lifeguard sprints, a 500m run, pool, darts, pinball, air hockey, a 'wing off', nearest the pin, a drinking competition and some other things I can't remember right now.
This was conducted over a couple of days. I won nearest the pin (Thanks to Morgs for all the golfing practice). I also won pinball.
I think I might be a nerd. (Seriously though, MULTIBALL!!!)
I finished fourth overall (I missed an event. This being the obvious and sole reason I was not the champion. hehe)
Pip won it overall and other (dis)honourable mentions include:
- Tomas, a Slovakian native who ate 49 Chicken wings (I ate 31 and I'm never eating chicken wings again.) in the wing-off and also won the drinking competition. He either can eat alot, or really hates chooks.
- B. Short for Boronislav i think, or something similar, who won the snowboard/ski race... And then told us he was a member of the Czech Republic Alpine Ski Team. Talk about taking candy from babies.
- Jon, the American BMW rep who won the 500m run despite falling face first in the ice-mud-bitumen.
- Can't think of much else.. but was a good way to fill in some time.
I may also have vomited a little after the drinking comp. Ewww..

So from here, the plans are, head to Boston on the 31st of this month, then fly out the following morning. Get to London that evening, meet Charlotte (Awesome!) and then see where we're up to with flat finding etc. Then have to organise a job interview, a NI number, a bank account, a phone/sim card and possibly find a quaint English pub for a few warm pints or something similarly cliched. How the hell do you do the e's with the little accent thingy, like for cafe, cliche... Bah, I dunno...anyways...
Really looking forward to seeing England. Also been looking through the ol' Lonely Planet guide and checking out places to go in Europe... So much on the list so far. Hopefully will get to see most of them.

Also, to keep your appetite for random things satiated feel free to peruse the following:

If this guy is not simultaneously the most ridiculous and most awesome human to ever walk the earth, then I don't know who is. Seriously... Who the hell gets to dress up that much? Actors you say? Yes. Blues-harpists? No! Hell no!
He looks like a pirate barbarian bodybuilder archer bandit that fell into the extras wardrobe for Beyond Thunderdome
Seriously, go to his page, click on the slide show or image gallery or whatever it's called and check this guy out.
He wins my Most Consistently Absurd Facial Hair Award.
And gets inducted into my hall of fame, for what seems to be decades of dedication to retarded moustaches.

Anyways, I've got some more photos and stuff to upload soon, so drop by again in a little bit.

Also, Sammy left Mount Snow a little while back and it hasn't been the same without him. Sammy has the best collection of caps in the world and is one cool dude. Happy now Sammy? :)

Also...

2007-03-04T12:53:00.000+11:00

Just so you all know, I stayed home tonight and updated my blog and missed possibly the biggest event of the season at the Snow Barn nightclub:

Changes in Latitudes: The Nation's Best Jimmy Buffet Cover Band...

For those who are interested, you can find out more about the seminal works of Jimmy Buffet here

I hope you all enjoy my updates, seeing as you've deprived me of so much joy...

hehehe

Some snow-related antics...

2007-03-04T12:15:00.000+11:00

Had an awesome day out snowboarding on Thursday.
Started to ride in the park with some of the instructors who were off duty, so learnt a heap as well.
Learnt or learned?? I dunno... Anyways...
Was riding With Pip, Jello and Martin... Learnt to hit some of the big kickers, so was getting some pretty big air which was scary, but awesome fun once I got it (semi) under control.
Also started to hit some bigger boxes so hopefully can work my way up to some decent rail tricks before the season's out.
I took my camera out for one run and got some shots of the guys trying some stuff.
They introduced me to 'The Wally' which basically involves one person lying down and making a ramp with their board, then having someone else use them as a jump, photos of which are below:

Martin about to jump off Jello

Pip jumping off Jello.

Also got heaps more snow today. It was absolutely bucketing down. I was (luckily) stationed inside a lift shack for the day, so found it amusing watching the guests looking cold all covered in snow, just like this guy:

People hate it when you go overboard with the talcum powder...

In other news, we got bored the other day, so dug a hole (insert The Castle jokes here) in the snow near our lift to kill some time... It was about the size of a bathtub and completely harmless...
Some ass called in to the head of Mountain Operations and claimed we were "Screwing about and not doing our job properly." which we most definitely were as we were way overstaffed...
Anyways, in an alarming display of Managerial pedantics we got a call telling us to cease and desist and also to fill the hole back in...
So apparently someone revived Hitler and put him in charge of lift operations. Tomorrow is Aryan Sunday where we all dye our hair blonde and have a crack at some genocide...
I may be lying a little.

Anyways, more snow falling now so hopefully will be getting some good boarding in over the next week.

Finally have everything sent off and organised for England, so just waiting for my visa to be approved and sent back to me... Charlotte and I are maybe a little stressed, but it should all be ok, fingers crossed!
Four weeks till I get to see my Charlotte!! Awesome!!

More updates to come, stay tuned.

2007-02-28T09:57:00.000+11:00

RARRRGHHGHGAGAHGHH!!!!!
GIMME ALL YOUR MONEY!!!
Or whatever....

Happy Birthday!

2007-02-27T09:23:00.000+11:00

Happy Birthday to Charlotte!!
She's awesome and amazing and now she's 22 as well.
I love her stacks and stacks and hope she has an awesome day.
You should all hope the same!

JC

Yes, It's Been A While.

2007-02-25T10:03:00.000+11:00

Wow... Long time between posts hey.
Much has transpired since I last updated.
For ease of reading I shall break the post down as follows:

Section 1: Boston
Section 2: Snow
Section 3: Randomness

Section 1: Boston

So some time ago, maybe 2 weeks now I journeyed over to Boston.

THE PLAN: 5 Aussies and a Kiwi all had a couple of days off, so were to leave Mt Snow on Wednesday after work, hire a van in nearby Brattleboro, drive on to Boston, stay a couple of nights, then come back Friday arvo.

THE ACTUALITY: Myself and the three other Aussies borrowed a BMW from the Mountain (as they have some test drive promotion thingy and we've made nice with the organisers) and drove to Brattleboro. Dropped 2 Aussies off at the car hire place and then Myself and Nikki drove the BMW back to Mt Snow. Jamie and Rach were to pick up the van, then meet us back at our place where the others would have gathered so as we could continue on to Boston. Nikki and I get back... waiting..... waiting.... waiting... Phone call.
"Hey, it's Rach... We had an accident."
So it turns out they didn't have enough ID on them or some shit and couldn't hire a van and instead were only afforded a tiny Suzuki shitbox... Whilst driving back, they hit some black ice, lost it and went backwards into a telephone pole.... GOAL!!!!!!! Couldn't help but laugh. Oh yeah, everyone was ok and all that.
So... that was that done with...
We decided to scratch that night and see what we could work out the next day.
Anyways, long story short... Ended up being 4 Aussies taking a BMW to Boston to stay one night...
We got lost going into Boston but managed to find the Cambridge Marriot (Thanks to a favour from Jamie's boss) we were staying at.. 5 stars! Sweet!
Went and bought tickets to a Bruins game... So excited to be getting to see an ice hockey match!
We then went for a walk around town and had a look at the city. Checked out the Holocaust Memorial they have there which is really interesting and quite moving.

Giant glass towers etched with numbers for each of the 6 million jews that were killed. (Yes the photo is off-axis, my bad)

We then did a little bit of shopping, checked out the CBD, then went to a pub, had some dinner and continued on to the game.

Apparently the Bruins aren't too flash at the moment, but we weren't too concerned.
The game was awesome, Bruins got beaten by South Carolina 5-2 or something, but ice hockey is awesome to watch live.. Got some cool shots of the game too...

The view from our seats.

Action! Action! Action!

There was a massive fight too. 2 guys stood toe to toe trading blows for about 2 minutes straight... The crowds get right into it too, so was pretty fun.
Walked out of the stadium at the end of the game, saw this guy, got it on video, but it's waaaay too big to post on here.
Then went to a nearby bar, had a few drinks and headed back to the motel and got some sleep. Got this photo before I went to bed...

Next day, went out to the Harvard area and had a bit of a look around... Got some breakfast at a stereotypical American diner and made our way back home.
So that was Boston in a day. Well worth it... Plus I bought some cool clothes too.

Part 2: Snow

So around Valentines Day we got a massive dump of snow. Like 3 feet in a couple of days... I've never seen that much snow in my life... It was awesome. Was wicked boarding... So much powder everywhere and everything was completely covered in snow... Couldn't even walk into our house without wading through waist deep snow...
Look at the whiteness:

A house on the way into town

Our pathway...

So the snow brought more guests and the guests brought more work and the work brought more money and the money bought me a deposit on a new snowboard! It's wicked... Got it really cheap... So nice to ride...
As a result, been enjoying my boarding heaps... Can't wait to have a couple of days off again sometime soon so I can get some solid riding in.

Section 3: Randomness
Some other things:
- Ben and Jerry's ice cream is the awesome.
- I went to an all you can eat Polish buffet last night.... So good.
- Our internet connection suddenly became secure... When I say 'our' I mean someone near us. We're now using another 'borrowed' connection which is crappy and a pain in the ass..
- Visa is all done and sent off!! W00t!!!!!!
- I totally made a fool of this pompous old lady yesterday... She had like, 20 people laughing at her. I'm so proud of myself for publicly humiliating an old woman, that may seem bad, but she was a right cow.
- We made a wicked jump in our backyard, so now we can have some fun once we get home from the mountain

Some random photos:

Sunrise again.... This time with a snow-groomer driving through the exposure.

The view from the top of Lift 14.

Anyways, not a great deal on the agenda for the coming weeks... Hopefully just get a fair bit of boarding in. Counting down the days till I fly out to the UK and get to see Charlotte... So excited!
Will update again soon...

That weird person you sometimes see standing out the front of their house...

2007-02-04T10:23:00.000+11:00

You go outside because you're bored and there's nothing to do... You're also hungry which is why you have a box of cereal in your hand which you're eating right out of said box. You haven't been shopping in a while so there's not much to eat in your designated cupboard. It's a full moon outside, which mainly is why you went outside; to look at the night being all pretty and shit.
You're staring at the sky, putting a handful of dry cereal in your mouth when a four wheel drive goes past. It's going really slowly because there's a speed-bump out the front of your house. Plus it's a bit icy on the roads. You see little people, possibly kids looking at you through the back window of the car.
You wonder if they're asking their parents what the strange man is doing. Your feet are cold and you remember you don't have any socks on, just shoes because you were only going to be outside for a tiny while to look at the moon and maybe see if there was any good photo opportunities. You also think how absurd this must look and have a little laugh to yourself.... Just as the four wheel drive comes back past the other way, kids staring at you again. Now you're outside in the cold, eating cereal out of a box, wearing shoes with no socks and you're staring at the moon and laughing to yourself.
You wonder what the kids are asking their parents now. You also wonder if the parents are remembering what you look like in case they think they may need to give a description to police when there's a break in in your local area tonight.
You decide to go inside because your feet are cold... And because a patrol car might come past soon.
You also need to put your pants back on...

OK, so the last sentence isn't true, but the rest is...

Same old, same old here... Been working and boarding heaps... Started landing some 360's so pretty chuffed with that. Also tried skiing the other day which was fun. May be heading to Boston next week to see an ice hockey match which should be cool.
Will let you know how it all goes.
JC

Snow

2007-01-20T11:27:00.000+11:00

So it's finally snowing with some kind of purpose!
There's a few inches of snow covering everything, so it's finally looking like winter has arrived here. Mind you, the temperatures reflect this with a couple of days last week being -26 degrees and -15 degrees.

Still just killing time... They've dropped our hours back now so we work 3 days and then have 4 days off, which is crazy and makes budgeting even harder. Ah well, it'll work out, I'm sure.

Also been putting up with some f-ing lazy people, whose names i won't mention. They seem to think we have a kitchen fairy that cleans up all their shit. Well the kitchen fairy is well pissed off and I'm ready to start cleaning saucepans with scalps. Whoa, rage!!!
Ahem....

Might try and do something productive with my time off in the next week or so and go for a bit of a look around the area. Would love to head up to Montreal at some stage, but we'll see how the budget goes. At least if I can get out and about I can provide you with more interesting updates rather than this drivel. And also avoid the cabin fever which I'm developing, as made apparent by my 'Kitchen Fairy' rant .

Also, this week's must buy: Crunk hits 3 - 18 Certified Crunk Hits!! Hip Hop y'all!

This is on TV. Who the hell certifies crunk?? The National Crunk Institute ? The Crunkstitue? Actually, what the hell is crunk?? Is their a head Crunksman?? Stupid Americans and their stupid genres.
I'm out for now.
JC

Getting Colder

2007-01-18T09:27:00.000+11:00

Last couple of days have been really cold...
Not sure exactly how cold, but cold enough to make your ears feel like you could break them off and chill a cup of coffee with them.
I'm also lucky enough to have recruited myself a nice cold, so had the day off work today. Was meant to leave this afternoon to go to Killington, a nearby mountain for a couple of days but can't be bothered and would rather get over this cold... Whinge whinge whinge...
I hope the cold weather hangs around for a bit longer though as it'll hopefully bring more snow and thus more work... Only been working 3 and a half days a week for the last couple of weeks which sucks... So budget has been very tight. Can't wait to be earning real money again. I haven't worked for this little money since I was about 16....
In other news, started getting my UK visa organised, ( So you won't have to stress Charlotte :P)
Here's a couple of photos from the last week or so:

No one I know, but above one of the lifts I work on there's a big kicker, so it's a good spot to get some 'action shots'.

Some wood. Black and white wood.

Hopefully should be able to give you guys some more exciting news/photos in the coming days...

Some random pics

2007-01-18T07:44:00.000+11:00

Here's a few random shots that I've had on my camera...
Nothing special, just some stuff that looks ok...

"Hiking" - An update.

2007-01-10T13:27:00.000+11:00

What do you do when you're working/living in a ski resort and you have a day off? You participate in your winter sport of choice.
What do you do at Mount Snow when you have a day off?? You don't snowboard, because it's 15 degrees celsius and the recent rain has washed away all the snow.

So we went for a hike to Hamilton Falls, just off Route 100 near the sleepy little hamlet of Jamaica. (For real)

When I say hike, I mean drive for 40 minutes, then walk for 10....
Awesome waterfall though... Took heaps of photos... A selection of which are below:

This is me on a rock. You can't tell from this angle, but this outcrop is about 20 metres above the ground. Luckily I'm too tough to care. You can also see that I'm wearing shorts. Stupid weather for the middle of winter in a supposedly 'alpine region'.

The 'Legends of the Fall'. No, that's gay. It's just us... Clockwise, from back left: Pip, Dave, Jay-Cee, Lee, Bissell, myself and Ash.

Bissell standing at the bottom of the waterfall, this is only the bottom third of it or so...

Me sitting on the rock from the first photo. I'm all about the safety. Note the debris on my right shoe.... That's a result of a prank which involved me being told the only way across the river was to walk through it. Upon doing this, I was informed that there was a bridge 10 metres round the corner, which everyone subsequently crossed. Funny stuff. Pip's a bastard...

Well a few of the guys from our house have gone on a trip to Sunday River, apparently there's more snow there. I'm just hanging out at home, hoping that the weather will stay decent till Thursday at least so I can go riding on my days off... Hopefully should be able to get some good shots of us riding too which will be good...

Will keep you posted.

J

Oh Dear...

2007-01-06T08:29:00.000+11:00

Finally had some decent days off... The last three days have been the best riding. Had so much fun. It's been a little slushy and wet, but been learning a lot and trying heaps of new stuff...
Getting some nice air over some nice big rollers and landing some little 180's here and there... So it's been fun..
But then...
Yesterday there was a little ridge in the top laminate on my board. Seemed like nothing major, then today while riding, I noticed the ridge had become more of a crease... Then it became a crack and now the nose of my board tends to flop around a bit. So it's broken. I'm so shattered. The board is so so nice to ride and I love it. Now after 7 days riding it's decided to die.
Have to get in touch with T-Fresh to see what the go is with manufacturers warranty but I'm guessing I'll need to post it back home and supply a receipt from the place of purchase (which may be hard as I'm not sure Tommy has a cash register in his loungeroom.)
So I'm pretty upset, but at least I've had a heap of fun on it so far. Hopefully I can work something out. Also if anyone has Tommy's email could you forward it to me pretty please.
It's meant to pour rain here for the next three days and tomorrow is meant to be 18 degrees celsius... So needless to say there'll be no snow at all by Monday...

Might have to buy a mountain bike instead...

Goings On

2006-12-31T13:12:00.000+11:00

I've been very slack in updating but this post should bring things up to now.

Mind you, it's gonna be long and contain numerous photos so I apologise now.

Things here have been pretty good... Still shit all snow, but they're still making a heap so there's a few runs open... Haven't had a chance to go boarding for about a week... It's the busy period and things are hectic...

Had a good Christmas... About 30 friends from the Timber Creek locale at a big Christmas dinner... It was a dress up dinner too, so I donned some sweet tweed, some bowling shoes I purchased for the grandiose sum of $1, a pair of nasty looking slacks and a tie with tiny tennis players on it... Ugly as hell..
Was good fun though and I enjoyed myself until I was awoken by my alarm clock at 6 the next morning ( I had to work).
So somewhere between Secret Santa, turkey, ham and a few quiet drinks I'd ended up passed out, fully dressed, face down on my bed.
Yep, I'm all class...

Been working long days, sitting in the spa, drinking, eating and being generally pretty chilled...
Working with some cool people, so the days go a little quicker. Seeing tiny children have massive skiing accidents also helps my day pass quicker... It's like ten pin bowling on the kiddies slope except with blood...

Anyways enough boredom, here's some visual stimuli:

The view from the top of lift 28 which is on the kids slope and is generally where I spend most of my days. Working. Not hanging around in a creepy old man kind of way. Note the imaginatively named "Clock Tower". All the snow in this shot is man made... Out of paste, toothpicks and aluminum foil. Or water, I'm not sure.

The complex life of a liftie...
Red = Stop
Blue = Start
Black = Reset
Green = Fast
Orange = Slow
I often wonder what happened to the monkeys that used to do this job... hehe- Arctic Monkeys!! They probably went to eat bananas. Or sing songs about looking good on dancefloors.

Me in my lift shack. I am wearing a name tag and have a tassel on my beanie. Cool as hell.
Also tired as shit...

Christmas up close.

Umm what?? Things must get pretty err... interesting.. on school buses over here. Naughty kids. They probably vomit sometimes too.
These are on the MOOvers, which are the free buses and only form of transport around here... They're painted like giant cows as you can see below. You don't get off the bus, you get sucked out it's udder into a giant vat with all the other passengers. And then pasteurised and homogenised.

A MOOver. Weird idea if you ask me. The orange posts you can see are a fence to keep the MOOvers in their herds... No one likes a wild MOOver.

Me busy at the top of the "Magic Carpet" Which is just a conveyor belt that carries kids up the slope. Nothing magic about it... I sometimes throw snow on it and tell them it's Magic Powder Fuel . They believe me. The gullible little bastards.

Sunrise on the Mountain. The only good thing about being up this early.

Me building my first ever snowman. Not all it's cracked up to be. Plus I only had shitty supplies (ie. Some pebbles and dead grass), so he's a bit of a down syndrome snow man... He died soon after this photo was taken. Which was good cos he was pretty unfortunate looking.

Hopefully things should quieten down here soon, so I'll be able to get some shots of us boarding and stuff.

Gotta go get some sleep now as I have to work another big day tomorrow and I'm already tired and sick of little shits on skis... Tomorrow may be the day an unlucky child discovers how hard snow can be when you get thrown off a lift halfway up.

It's new years eve back in Aus, so happy new years all and I'll be in touch again soon, providing my fingers don't fall off due to frostbite.

J

Several Bad Puns Later

2006-12-23T12:39:00.000+11:00

OK, So It's been a while since I last posted.. A couple of weeks even...
Been busy with work and stuff...
Shite all snow around here... Icy, raining and the next week is meant to be the busiest of the season... There's probably only about 10% of the mountain open... So there's going to be thousands and thousands of people concentrated on about 18 runs....
The mountain will look like a colony of ants trying to all simultaneously climb a sugar cube.
In multi-coloured one piece ski suits.
Been having fun though, had a few days of good boarding, got to have a few runs through one of the parks, so it's all going quite well.
We're having a dress up christmas which should be fun... Probably about 20 or so of our 'local' crew to be in attendance.

In other news, I went to the local op shop today. I bought a par of pants.
Pants with a 64 inch waist.... It looks like they could be used to insulate a milk tanker...
They're crazy. People can be fat.
I challenge anyone else to honestly say they've bought themselves a pair of green 64 inch waist pants.

Taken heaps of photos, so I'll upload them once our internet is back up ( I'm at the local 'country club' which we get membership too because we live in the same little village)
IN other communication based news, our phone doesn't work which is so retarded- Merry Christmas Jeremy, you're now isolated from the outside world.
Thanks Santa.

Anyways, must be off... Will post more soon. And more often...
Merry Christmas to you all. Or 'Happy Holidays' as they say over here... Wankers. :)

JC

Before I forget..

2006-12-07T10:21:00.000+11:00

Photos from the going away party.
Kudos must go the the almighty Gav who whilst not bringing his foosball table, did bring some visual entertainment.
I present for your viewing pleasure, Swan Lake as interpreted by Mr Gavin OBrien and Nathan Carter and presented in the medium of fire:

And the crescendo!Awesome stuff.
Cheers Gav!

Getting There...

2006-12-06T15:14:00.000+11:00

So we arrived in Mt Snow a few days ago.
Nice place, although it is somewhat inaccurately named, I thought when I arrived.
Apparently this is the latest start to the season they've ever had. (Insert global warming rant here)
We got here around midnight on the Saturday after a 3-4 hr bus ride...
We then got dropped at our houses and have spent the last couple of days doing orientation stuff and sorting out administrative type things.

Anyway... boring boring boring...

So we got here and there was no snow. Except for a tiny bit of man made stuff... So I decided each night I'd take a picture and see the progress. So, from the last three nights, you can see we've had a heap of snowfall starting to occur.

4/12/06:

5/12/06:

6/12/06:

This is the view from our balcony. Which is also our beer fridge.
-10 degrees C makes for cold cans of beer.

I'll add more of these as the days pass.

Our house is pretty sweet... But it's kinda dormy- I have to share a room with Trento and we are going to have 8 people living in 4 bedrooms by next week.
Currently have a Brazillian girl and her boyfriend and one of his mates, as well as Trento, Pip and I... 2 more to come apparently...There's a bit of a language barrier with the guys, but it's probably our fault.
I mean, asking someone " Oi do youse want anyfin for dinner n shit? We're cookin up some sketti if youse wanna", would confuse even the most scholarly South American.

Had first day of training for Lift Ops today... quite interesting/cold... Should be good to see how long it takes us to get organised..

Apparently have a 7.30am start tomorrow, so I better go cos this is starting to drag on...

Will update again soon.

Enjoy the warm weather for me!

The trip so far... In pictures.

2006-12-02T05:07:00.000+11:00

As you may have guessed, this is the view from the plane. Or it may be what an ant would see if it was taped to a boomerang.
Note the clouds. Yes... cloudy.

Sunset above the weather.

The stock standard photo of Los Angeles International Airport landmark.... It's actually a restaurant called 'Encounters' so it's pretty insignificant... I guess by photographing it I'm just perpetuating the stereotype that it's something important

Another wingtip picture. This time it's of the desert just out of California.
Riveting stuff. Looks much cooler from the plane.

And finally, this is Boston College. I can't get over how much college here is completely like the movies... Everyone in their BOSTON COLLEGE sweaters. (Yes, sweaters) and the whole setting is so movie-like it's bizarre...
Here we can see Trento and Pip, simultaneously in different seasons, with Pip sporting summer threads and Trenton going for the Siberia chic look. It's actually really humid here today, so it's been quite good.

Just back at the apartment now, waiting for Trento's phantom baggage to get couriered here.

Gonna have me's a nap before heading out later this afternoon to see the Boston CBD.

It's begun...

2006-12-02T03:00:00.000+11:00

So...
I'm overseas.
Flew out of good 'ol Melbourne on Thursday the 30th... Mum, Dad, Alex and Charlotte saw me off... Said goodbyes... Which was horribly, horribly hard...
And then we did the flying thing. In a plane.
Was a loooong flight, especially considering the United flight we were on didn't have much in the way of entertainment... the 'radio' channels repeated after 2 hrs, which is extremely repetitive on a 13hr flight...
Stopped in LA, which was really warm.... And people didn't understand what we were saying which was funny-
"No, we are trying to find somewhere to get something to eat."
"What's that sir"
"Fuck it, don't worry."
"Have a nice day sir."
So we finally found our connecting flight and then waited around for about 3 hrs.... Which was fun. In the way pushing a pen in your eye is fun.
Arrived in Boston at midnight. Trento's bag didn't. He's angry.... Useless airline....
We then got a crash course in Boston PT, with us rushing around frantically to get the last bus and train
("So we catch the T-line to the blue line, then we go inbound to the green line, then catch the T along the B line." Umm... ok.)
We made it to our destination, got some quality Pizza from Fast Eddie's who we realised worked even faster if you tip him an extra dollar or two.
Which reminds me, paper money is gay... 50's look like 1's... Who has notes for 1 dollar anyway? Global Superpowers apparently.
Also, cars come at you from the right, not the left. This was learnt with the assistance of a kind horn-beeping American.
Slept at a friend of a friend of Trento's, had a big cook up of bacon and eggs this morning. Going to check out Boston College today and have a look round the city... Will post some photos shortly.
Anyways, have stuff to do so will update again soon.
Have to remember to call thongs flip flops too..... Pip got a very strange look from a customs official when asking "Can i put my thongs back on now?"