So it begins

Jingle Bells

Published Date : December 27, 2003

I’m back in Scotland yet again.  I can’t seem to get away from this place.

The flight up on Tuesday was pretty uneventful.  It was with British Airways so there was a full meal service and complimentary bar on a one-hour flight.  Not bad at all.  The only downside was having to sit at the gate in Edinburgh for 20 minutes before they let us off the plane.  Apparently the plane’s auxilliary power wasn’t working so they couldn’t shut the engines off until a ground power cable was connected.  But they couldn’t let us off the plane while the engines were running.  Oh well, that’s what makes flying so interesting.

I’ve been staying at my brother’s place for the last week, enjoying almost having a room to myself.  Graeme came up for the holidays as well, so we’re sharing the living room.  It definitely beats the hostel though.  Christmas Day was good – we were all up pretty late on Christmas Eve so we just opened our presents at 3am when we all got home.  Technically that’s Christmas Day so we were alright �� I took Graeme on a bit of a tour of the city when we finally woke up, then it was an excellent leg of lamb courtesy of my brother for xmas dinner.

Yesterday was an adventure to say the least.  We all went to visit my cousin in Glasgow, and he plied us with every type of liquor you could imagine from the moment we walked in the door.  Trying to get back to Edinburgh was the adventurous part.  Tourist info in Edinburgh had assured me that there would be trains and buses coming back last night, but they lied.  So after going through all our options we resigned ourselves to the idea of sleeping in the bus station and catching the first bus home in the morning.  One of the fellas unlucky enough to be working heard our plight and gave us the number of a private hire cab company who took us back to Edinburgh for £55 – not bad for a one-hour drive.

Graeme and I are going to see about tracking down the gang from Olave House (most of them are crashing with Emma and her sister!) and probably head out on the town tonight.  Then it’s back to London tomorrow night and back to work first thing Monday morning.

Happy New Year!

Published Date : January 2, 2004

The stroke of midnight

Back in London once more.  Waaa! I really can’t wait to get out of this city now. Only 290 days to go!!

Well, the rest of the trip to Scotland was great.  We met up with the rest of the Olave House gang at the Walkabout before I caught my flight back to London.  Everybody thought I was crazy for not staying in Edinburgh for Hogmannay, but as it turned out the celebrations ended up being cancelled due to weather anyway.

So back in London, about 10 of us from the hostel went to see the fireworks at the London Eye.  They were really terrible.  I mean, really, really truly pathetic.  I have never seen such a poor attempt at fireworks in my life.  Our backyard displays at home were better!  The public was told ahead of time that the show was for the cameras and we were all encouraged to stay away, but we still thought it would be a little bit better than it was.  Despite the weak fireworks, it was still an excellent night out.

Fireworks at the Eye

The challenge was trying to get home, which ended up taking about 2 hours!  We were all separated in the crowd, but most of us managed to meet up again at Buckingham Palace.  Finding an open tube station was the biggest struggle.  They were all supposed to be open all night, but most of the major ones were shut down for crowd control.  We finally found an open station and made it back to the hostel at about 2:30am.

Other exciting news is the return of Cynthia, my classmate from college who is working in Malawi.  The year in Africa turned into 3 months, so she’s back in London and planning on staying for a while.  Her friend Andrea is over for the holidays as well, so there’s a Canadian contingent at the hostel for once!  It’s really great having people from home around, makes things a lot more fun!

269 days to go

Published Date : January 23, 2004

Not that I’m counting or anything though.

Just to keep things interesting, the big men at work decided that they wanted to eliminate all the contract positions in the company.  What a great way to start out the new year.  Actually, I think I may be spared from the “agency purge”.  My boss is arguing my case to try and get them to make me an exception, and from what I hear, my boss usually gets what he wants when he decides to make a stink about something.  I still have to keep my options open and start looking for another job though.  I’ve been trying to track down Mike, my headhunter, but he’s impossible to get a hold of.  I’ll just have to keep leaving messages until he finally gets back to me.

Cynthia and I decided to do something “cultured” and go and see Cirque du Soleil’s Dralion at Royal Albert Hall.  I’m not sure when we’re going to go yet, but it’ll be nice to do something other than watch movies at the hostel for a change.  Speaking of the hostel, we’re finally getting some newbies in.  We all definitely needed to see some new faces there, and luckily they all seem to be male.  Great odds for the very few single girls kicking around ;D

Other than that it’s just routine.  Work and save.  Save and work.

“When your life is so routine that your unconscious mind can get through the day without ever asking you for help, it’s time for a change.”

~John Sanders~

Australia Day (mis)Adventures

Published Date : January 30, 2004

Another week, and another month have bitten the dust.  Time seems to be moving a lot faster lately.  It’ll be time to hit the road before I know it.  My trip plans keep changing; they’ll probably be changing up until the day I book my flights and expedition, and then I’m sure they’ll change some more after that.  The big change is that I’m looking at flying into Darwin instead of Perth.  I looked at a map of Oz and saw that Perth really is in the middle of nowhere, so I’m going for Darwin instead.  That means that I now have a stopover in Singapore, so I’ll have to add on a couple of days there at least.

I don’t think I’ve really explained how this trip came about yet.  I was looking through TNT Magazine (the backpacker’s bible in London) and found an advertisement for a 4-5 month overland trip with Phoenix Expeditions.  The trip runs from Istanbul, Turkey to Cape Town, South Africa and only costs about £4000 including transport, accommodation and food!   Add to that, I’ve always wanted to complete my aborted trip to Australia.  Deciding to go big or go home, I figured why not take an amazing year-long trip from London to Australia?!  So now I’m looking for flights through AirTreks which is where the constantly changing itinerary comes in.  They suggest extra stops along your journey to make your flight costs more efficient.   It’s now all about seeing as much as possible on as little money as possible.  Planning is half the journey!

Aussie Day Shenanigans

Sunday was Australia Day in London, even though it wasn’t really Australia Day until Monday.  The logic being that it was Australia Day in Australia already so they might as well get started.  The big event for the non-Aussies was a fantastic BBQ in the backyard of the hostel courtesy of James.  That’s the first red meat I’ve had in months and I have to say it was darn good!  After the BBQ the Aussies all headed off to the Walkabout and Belushi’s out in Shepherd’s Bush.  Most of them were stopped by the police on their way home and had their names and addresses taken.  Frenchy (a French guy whose name nobody knows, so he just gets called Frenchy) was actually arrested for drunk and disorderly behaviour and thrown in the drunk tank for the night.  In the end I’m kinda glad I missed it.

The other “big” news in Britain is the snow.  Scotland and the north of England actually got several inches, but London and the South-East got barely a dusting and everything just ground to a halt.  A lot of trains stopped running, most because they froze to the tracks and they couldn’t get them out of the depots until the ice melted.  There was no salting or clearing of the roads in London.  A few of the main roads were done, but the sidewalks were just sheets of ice, so people were falling all over the place.

We’ve had another turnover of people at the hostel.  James has moved on to warmer and more tropical climates: Thailand then home to Australia.  Jess moved out again, Naomi is moving out this weekend, and a few more people have been kicked out.  A lot of newbies – mostly Aussies – have moved in over the last week as well, but most of them appear to be short-termers.   The ones that look like they’re going to be sticking around are: Kiet (Aussie), a couple of Aussie girls that nobody likes and a couple of Polish guys.

Work is still up in the air.  They’re in the process of trying to transfer me from agency to temporary contract with the company, but in the meantime I’m keeping my eyes open for other jobs.  Que sera sera…