Adventures in Europe.

Norway can stay. While we've been travelling about we've been jokingly talking about bits of the world that we like and bits we think we could do without. Pretty much everywhere we've been can stay in our re-modelled world.

Norway was stunning. Tromsø was truly breathtaking. In the three nights that we were there we made friends with taxi drivers, Norweigan kids TV stars (and their film crew), went dog sledding, saw the Northern lights, went to the hospital, rode in a one-horse open sleigh (hey!), tobogganed at night, ate many random sausages and sat in what must be the only Irish pub that didn't serve Guiness.

The taxi drivers in Norway were wonderfully friendly. Our first taxi driver told us about the region as he took us to our hotel. Our second taxi driver asked us what had posessed us to come in the middle of Winter to the Arctic (in no uncertain terms) and our last taxi driver taught us some Norweigan on the way to the airport.

We were pretty lucky with the weather for our dogsledding. It snowed a fair bit initially but cleared up enough for us to catch the Northern Lights briefly. I say we were lucky because there were a couple of girls there on a Northern Light safari on the same night as we went sledding and they didn't get to see the Lights. The three of us felt a bit bad about being so heavy and making the poor twelve gorgeous huskies tow us around for 10km but we were advised that they were in training for a 1600km race. We still felt bad. After we thanked the dogs for hauling us about the hills we retired to a traditional-ish tent and had a rather rich reindeer soup. Gene maintains that his had a red nose. It was delicious, much like the chocolate cake at the end.

The horse sleigh ride was slow and fun and our host was friendly and informative. His wife told us folk tales of the relationship between the Vikings and the Northern Lights while we ate a home-cooked lamb stew. Dinner was followed with a fortified home-made wine with home-baked cinnamon cake. It was delicious. We passed the evening talking to the aforementioned film crew and TV personality as they had been filming an episode where the presenter overcomes his fear of horses. They were a great bunch and lots of fun. Then we were joined by a group of six Chinese government officials. My Chinese could do with some work... The Northern Lights were pretty faint that night but the company made up for it.

I should probably explain why we went to the hospital. Nick had what we termed Arctic Measles. The hospital was the only place we could get a doctor to see him so that's the first place we went in went Tromsø. Doctor said he'd be fine and it was just a reaction to a virus not chicken pox. We were happy about that.

After three days of freezing in the Artic we returned to Oslo overnight before flying back to Paris where we would split up for a few days.

Paris was a bit of an adventure considering I was there for less that three hours. When we landed at Charles De Gaulle we ended up in terminal 1 which doesn't have a train station there. On top of that it took us 20 minutes to exit the terminal and about as long to get to the station and buy tickets. By the time we got on the train I was meant to be checking into the Eurostar terminal to get my train to London. We made it to Gare du Nord 20 minutes before my train was meant to depart. I managed to sprint through the station and board the train 10 minutes before departure. Nothing like a run through a French train station to kick start a holiday!

Turns out that Gene & Nick had a similarly exciting day when our Eurail pass got pilfered out of Gene's pocket, they couldn't find the car hire place and it was a 15€ taxi ride from the station and it was snowing too hard for them to drive to St Flour where the cottage was so they had to stay in a hotel overnight. 25th January was a good day.

I arrived in London and headed to the tiny studio apartment that I'd rented for my stay. The apartment is in South Kensington near the Glouster Road station and while being slightly smaller than my bedroom at home was perfectly located for supplies and transport. The only down side was that 2 of the three lines that go to my station are closed for maintenance this weekend.

My first night was unexciting as I crashed out in bed at 8pm. My second day involved walking around the area and discovering that the lovely Italian place that according to Gene and Nick served the only decent coffee in England closed down. That evening I caught up with some of the gang from Doha for drinks and food in an Irish pub was a bit of a labarinth. After eating we walked to Trafalgar Square and then went to another pub before heading off home our separate ways.

Today being my last day I went to the Camden Markets. A goth, punk heaven in terms of clothing it was probably a good thing I hadn't gone there while I was on the hunt for a skirt earlier in the trip. There were a few amazing stalls there but just watching the people was great fun.

I took three trains to try and get to the National Theatre to pick up some things for Nick but it turns out the one day the bookshop is closed is Sunday. So I watched the London Eye for a bit before jumping on a train to head home. Tonight I'm catching up with Joe which I'm really looking forward to and then it's back home to finish packing so that I can make my train for France tomorrow to meet up with Gene and Nick again!

Turns out there's a new Tom Stoppard play on in the West End that I totally missed. I knew I should have dragged myself out on my first night instead of giving in to my fatigue!

Anyhow, it's been great seeing people and seeing more of London. I'm looking forward to a restful week and a half in St Flour now before we start the journey back home.

Another speed post

Apparently I like to post in a hurry at the moment... If my laptop had better battery life I would have more time... 33% left... I should get on with it.

We finally made it up to London yesterday and we spent the first couple of hours marvelling at how close everything was.

Our first stop after Waterloo was to walk to South Bank where we were immediately side-tracked by the National Theatre. Wow. I ended up in the bookshop within about 10 minutes of arriving and 20 minutes later exited the proud owner of Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett and Darkness Illuminated by Robert Butler about the staging of His Dark Materials at the Olivier Theatre through the production process. It sounds like an amazing show. I wish I'd gotten to see it. I must read the books now. They sound pretty amazing too.

After that we explored two exhibitions at the Tate Modern until our brains hurt and we needed some water and a quiet debrief about the art on display.

The evening was passed watching our first show on the West End, Chicago. We'd originally planned to see Spamalot or Wicked but they'd sold out. It was entertaining as expected and an easy way to ease ourselves into theatre again.

I love the greyness of England. I woke up this morning and spent the first 5 hours of my day on the window sill of the flat writing in my journal (almost finished it...) and sketching the upper part of the street with my fountain pen. It was very restful and a wonderful chance for me to just daydream and well, be.

We had lunch with Aunt Jackie at the Guildford Institute which was a quaint little tea room. I had the mushroom lasagne which was delicious. Gene's feeling somewhat under the weather after the big nights out of late and is still a bit feverish. So we've tucked him up in bed.

Tomorrow I'll be catching up with some friends in London which I'm really looking forward to. We might even fit in the British Museum with any luck...

19% battery left so I should go!

Hallas 2006, bring on 2007!

Last year was amazing. It was so fantastic that I can barely believe how well it went!

I'm not sure if I mentioned this at the start of 2006 and I'm not online so I can't go back and check but I started the year with two resolutions.
1. 2006 was going to be a better year (than the last 22)
2. Be able to juggle three balls comfortably

I can say that I well and truly achieved resolution one. Resolution two? Well, there's always 2007! I can vaguely juggle three balls... just not very long...

It was a rocky start to 2006 for me as I saw then New Year in through teary eyes but things only improved with each passing day. 2006 saw me travel to Japan & England, two places that I've dreamt of going since I was little. In fact I'm still in England as I type this. I was lucky enough to work on and watch four ceremonies in the space of eight months not to mention the incredible people I've met along the way.

My last day of 2006 was spent visiting Stonehenge with Gene & Nick. Gene's Aunt Jackie kindly drove us there despite the weather forecast for galeforce winds and allowed us to roam about the fields observing the rather ancient stones. My brain is still struggling to comprehend how old everything is over here. I took several photos but was distracted at one point by the rather stunning road that was just over the hill from Stonehenge. I was momentarily transported to my childhood weekends spent driving around regional Victoria hunting good roads for filming (preferably no powerlines). This was an awesome road. I mentioned this to Gene and he pointed out (rightly so) that he was more fascinated by the big rocks in front of us that had been there much longer than the road and that we'd just paid six pounds to see. Did I mention I was struggling with how old things are over here?

Actually, I think my brain is just struggling in general. I can't even remember what I posted last. I'm dying to write something and share how fantastic this trip is but I'm just lost for words. It's a little sad because everytime I manage to find Internet access I totally lose the ability to write anything. Typical!

Anyhow, after Stonehenge we had lunch in a pub and I started to send my first round of New Year well wishes via SMS to some of the folks in Australia. Not sure if all the messages made it though as I did get a couple of error messages but the thought was there! It was really great to hear back from so many people. Sending the messages made me miss home a bit. It made me realise how many people were back in Melbourne who I wouldn't see for quite some time.

After lunch we went back to Aunt Jackie's house where we were kindly allowed to use the Internet and laundry facilities. We all checked our emails and most importantly finances while making sure that we had some clean clothes for the New Year. Multi-tasking is a beautiful thing!

Once we were sorted out Tom drove us back to Guildford with Jamie and we had dinner at Dragon Phoenix. At long last we were able to enjoy the delights of char siew. We've only been searching all of France and most of Aldershot/Guildford for the last two weeks for this BBQ pork dish. It wasn't as good as Dad's cooking but it'll tie us over until mid-Feb! Along with our other Chinese restaurant staples (salt & pepper squid etc) we sampled some of the wine... Great Wall of Peking was less palatable than we thought it would have been but the slightly cheaper muscodet was an improvement.

I headed back to the flat after dinner because I didn't really feel up to a big night. I just want to knock off this stupid cold that I've carried here from Paris. Didn't think a long night of whiskey in a smokey pub was going to help things. Gene & Nick headed back with Jamie & Tom to a pub in Aldershot where they apparently saw the New Year in and made sure of it by celebrating until 8am.

My last couple of hours of 2006 were spent curled up in bed with my journal for some last minute musings before leafing through Fragile Things. The next thing I knew there were fireworks being let off and the cries of Aussie, Aussie, Aussie... OI OI OI resounding in the street below. Apparently we're not the only Australians in Guildford... It was a quiet night but just what I needed. The rest of the night was passed in bouts of sleep interjected with listening to my iPod.

I woke up today and had a relaxing morning of stretching, reading, a bit more knitting (I'm making Gene a scarf so he doesn't have to pay thirty pounds for a bought one) and then a trip to the shops to check out the sales. I achieved my mission of finding a skirt. It's amazing how four months in steel caps, high vis vests and hard hats can make you want to wear a skirt and knee high boots. Maybe that's just me.

At about 4pm I got a message from Nick saying that they'd made it home and were wondering where I was so I headed back armed with some wine, cheese and bread to see how they were faring. Nick was well if a little sleep deprived. Gene was a little... fragile. The rest of our night was passed over a game of Scrabble before the lads decided it was bed time.

Right now I'm archiving my files having just sorted through about five years of photos on my computer. My laptop is screaming for more memory at the moment so I'm rather appreciating the hard drive that Dad sent me.

Transfer's almost complete so I should finish here.

We're (finally) heading back up to London tomorrow. If all goes to plan we'll be seeing Wicked tomorrow night. There is talk of seeing the Tate Modern tomorrow so we'll see how that goes.

Plenty of photos to be uploaded when I get the chance of Paris and Stonehenge. Will try and ramble less in the next post... maybe that should be part of this year's resolutions list... I'll work on it.