Grunok's head

Buddha WIP

2009-08-08T14:29:00.002+12:00

Book!

2009-05-30T13:54:00.001+12:00

Please excuse the pre-shower hideousness - it's the book you're looking at. So cool!

Grunok's voice

2009-05-13T21:08:00.006+12:00

Transcrupt:

* CutiePie is tempted to record a speaking clip
Aatwork> do eet!
CutiePie> What would I say?
Aatwork> Read a poem?
CutiePie> ew no
CutiePie> I hates poetry
Aatwork> Then read a favourite passage from a book? :p
CutiePie> I could
CutiePie> OR
CutiePie> I could read from the bbc
CutiePie> or nz herald
CutiePie> Okay, let's see if that worked
CutiePie> And
CutiePie> If I can then figure out how to get it up on to the intarwubs
sk8rgrl> i'm off to sleep
sk8rgrl> we'll have a thing
sk8rgrl> where we all record ourselves
sk8rgrl> reading some ridiculous star wars quote
sk8rgrl> and put it up on the chimaera website
sk8rgrl> >:
CutiePie> Okay
CutiePie> Aa can stay 'wake with me and tell me how to get this up on teh intarwubs

Grunok - update

2009-04-17T21:13:00.002+12:00

The old . . .

. . . and the new

Now I just need to put him back in banner form. And maybe tweak just a little more. So you may see it in, oh, another 6 months' time? :D

T-shirt designs

2009-02-19T22:11:00.004+13:00

So this is what I've been doing. It's for my work, Adis - or rather for the social committee!

Triple Goodness

2009-01-05T17:22:00.003+13:00

I was talking to some people about this dessert I was making today, so have uploaded the promised photos here. The recipe is as follows:

140g dark chocolate
3/4 cup of cream (double cream for you foreigners!), beaten to soft peaks
300g mascarpone cheese (I only used 250g, because that's how much was in the packet)
5 tablespoons Bailey's of other Irish cream liqueur

Melt the chocolate.
You can either do this in a bain-marie (a bowl or pot sat over, but not touching, another pot of simmering water - like a steamer, but solid-bottomed) or in the microwave. Either way, be very careful not to burn the chocolate! I did mine in the microwave, for one minute on high. You could still see the shapes of the chocolate, but as soon as I stirred it they disappeared, and it was melted.
Set it aside until it is at room temperature.

Whisk the mascarpone cheese together with the Baileys. Fold the whipped cream through this mixture.
Folding is using a metal spoon to lift the ingredients from the bottom and gently place them on the top. The idea of this is to keep fluffy things, like beaten egg whites, or in this instance, whipped cream, from going un-fluffy. Add all the cream to the bowl at once, and fold like this until it is combined.

Ensure that the chocolate has cooled to room temperature.
If it hasn't, it will make the cream melt and go flat, which is bad.
Spoon the cream mixture into your serving glasses, alternating spoonfuls of cream with rough layers of the cooled chocolate.
When you are spooning, try to be careful of the sides of the glass - ideally you don't want stuff on it, as it spoils the effect. Two ways you can avoid this are by a) using smaller glasses and filling them to the top, or b), using a damp paper towel to clean off any 'oops'es after you are done. that's what I did here. Hey, nobody's perfect ^.^
Using the wrong end of a spoon, swirl the layers rougly together.
You use the wrong end of a spoon because it's skinny, so it swirls nicely instead of mixing. You could use the flat of a knife or a skewer or something if you wanted.
Chill for half an hour or more.
This makes the chocolate solidify into little chunks. Yuuum.

Decorate with chocolate shavings, mint leaves, berries, little chocolates or anything else you like. I tend to leave mine plain because I like the way they look.

Bon Appetit!

Credit to the Edmonds recipe book 'Food for Flatters' (flatters means young people who live with roommates). They came up with this recipe, I just tweaked it a little.

New art

2008-12-07T18:19:00.001+13:00

http://grunok.deviantart.com/art/Crazy-Woman-Pass-105636552

New stuff!

2008-02-18T11:40:00.003+13:00

New pictures up on deviantArt (link is in the right hand column). Kinda boring - just me playing with how to make patterns flow on fabric - but new nonetheless :)

Still no job news from anything, though there are still things in the works.

Moving homes

2008-02-11T21:04:00.000+13:00

Because it is a good place to post things which should never really see the light of day (pictures of my hair, rough sketches and in-between pics) I don't think I will abandon this blog completely, but I am now going to be posting my completed stuff at http://grunok.deviantart.com/ It is an art website where people give me feedback, and there is just so much art there! So much inspiration...

I currently have a gallery of just two things, but one of them hasn't been shown on here, and if you don't like that you can look at the things other people have done which I like. Some amazing things!

I will set a permanent link to my gallery in the links section.

The Gemmed Curtain, Silvermarshes

2008-02-04T16:33:00.000+13:00

My first attempt at something to go up on Santharia. This is a close up of an upper section of (because my comp can't handle images any bigger than this) the Gemmed Curtain, a cliff in the Silvermarshes in Santharia. Obviously it's not done :p

You know.. . I think it's done

2008-02-01T17:43:00.000+13:00

Troll composition

2008-01-27T14:19:00.000+13:00

This is going to have to be pretty much completely redone, but this is where we're at for elements. I'm also going to have a male younger troll coming up from the back too - just head and shoulders. Maybe two of them, depending on how my muse feels...

Very close now...

2008-01-27T13:36:00.000+13:00

The clothes are still only really blocked in, but those and a bit more work on the hair will see this pretty much finished!

Troll update

2008-01-23T18:36:00.000+13:00

Not done yet, but at least it has a bit of colour. This will eventually go in a version of the cave I posted way back when. I love my boyfriend, he buy me wacom.

Progress

2008-01-16T14:14:00.000+13:00

Still need to do more detail - hair, clothes, features etc - but we've got the background in, and the shape of the hair.

Two more Yargs

2008-01-14T12:02:00.000+13:00

Ok Pike, here are two more Yargs. I think they are both much better shaped, and look much more like what you wanted. As I mentioned, I am working in quite a different way with these two, so theoretically they should turn out looking quite cool, and much more realistic than the first one would have.

Basically, I am about to get time constrained, so I am putting these up for you to choose which one I develop in to Yarg, rather than something which looks like a gross pink smudgy blob. Shoulders can be changed, as can skin colours, and on both of them the detail will be much better (no black lines in these ones). Obviously one is more detailed than the other, but try to ignore that and decide which one's expression you like best.

Yarg III (click on image to enlarge)

Yarg II (click on image to enlarge)

Back to heads

2008-01-11T12:18:00.000+13:00

Well, obviously I am home. I was going to post a summation post to do with my travels, but there are so many other things to do since I got home.

So, this blog is going back to its original function: showing people pictures. This is a (so far unfinished) tentative picture of Yarg, a mischeivous pyromaniacal hobbit, for Pikel.

Wails and Other Surprises

2007-09-04T04:50:00.000+12:00

I spent a few days last week in Wales. Cardiff, to be precise. It was horrible. I think this is not entirely Cardiff's fault - it was more a case of whatever can go wrong, will go wrong. A horrible hostel, some horrible people, some creepy people and some downright unsanitary people unfortunately weighed more heavily in the balance than did the nice people I met and the cool Victorian-era faux-medieval castles I saw. I won't condemn the whole of Wales, but what I have seen of it left a nasty taste in my mouth - sorry Wales.

Since my almost indecently joyful return to London I have kind of hung around for a few days, but on Saturday I went to Brighton! It was great! I was rather surprised at this - I had decided that all continental beach towns were tawdry, over-inflated tourist traps with no more soul than a Simpson-Grierson lawyer. It turns out that if you can forget that these places are meant to have anything to do with what we Kiwis think of as a beach, they can actually be quite cool in their own way.

I am now in Paris, for the third time, and I have a cold! I don't seem to have much luck here - I've had bad weather or a cold both times (the weather is lovely this time, touch wood)! Still, it hasn't lost its charm and I am enjoying it, and am looking forward to seeing the catacombs and the (inside of) the Louvre this time.

After Paris I catch the eurostar back to London for my final weekend in London. I'm going out with Jamie on the Saturday, and possibly having drinks with all the people I've met in London on Friday or Sunday evening. I leave on Monday, in the evening thank god, so at least I don't have to rush. A week in Brisbane, and then... home!

Dreaming Spires

2007-08-26T21:43:00.000+12:00

The air in Cambridge is rarer than in other parts of the country. It seems to be thinned out by its being spread across generations of be-spired buildings and their inhabitants, whom one can imagine all still inhabit the place, just a step to the side...

Poetic pretensions aside, it was a great day out. Tony and I got on the bike nice and early... well, sort of early... and rode up in the brilliant sunshine. Lunch was had at a place which didn't serve chips with everything (they exist! Wow!), which had a great view of the road for watching people, and deciding which were tourists, who went to the University, and which of the old mad homeless men were tenured professors.

The King's College Chapel

After lunch we went to see King's College Chapel. This "Chapel" (read: private Cathedral) was pretty amazing, but doesn't stand out as the coolest one I've seen. The way out took us in to the grounds proper, where we wandered the paths - they actually have "keep off the grass" signs! - and watched punters pass on the river Cam.

The Grounds of King's College

People punting on the Backs, as seen from the King's College grounds

Avoiding touts, we made our way down the crowded streets to where the punts start. We got in to a boat with ten other people and proceeded to be poled up and down the river by a very dextrous young man, who regaled us with tales of the colleges, and the odd gem detailing reasons why Cambridge is better than "the Other Place".Our punt, with the Cambridge "Bridge of Sighs". It connects some of the student accomodation to the exam halls.

After our punt, we went to a pub called the Eagle for a quick cooling orange-and-lemonade before the long ride back to London. A sign near our seat proclaimed that the table next to ours is where DNA was discovered and officially announced. It said that the two professors who came up with the idea ate dinner there together six nights a week. Presumambly the other night their mothers cooked for them. And so ended my enlightening day in Cambridge.

EDIT: Also, I have just added some more photos to the posts from "Ogle Castle" and up. Enjoy!

Lake District

2007-08-21T20:22:00.000+12:00

It is the stuff of poetry - striding across windy moors, over purple heather and scrub, climbing scree slopes and finally coming out above a vast, moody lake, the view of which inspired Wordsworth, Keats, and... some other dudes.

Unfortunately, it all remained in the poetry. It rained, horribly, and the only views we got were of mist-shrouded valleys which Andy swore had lakes in them. We tried to get out to do some striding, but were blown directly back in to the car before we had even properly made it out of the car park. We huddled in the car to eat our picnic, then resigned ourselves to driving the lakes rather than walking them.

In the Battle of Peugot vs. Road, Road won.

Luckily, Cockermouth (the little town we were staying in) has almost as many pubs as people, and two breweries, so time spent indoors was by no means wasted. I have now been indoctrinated in the ways of the British warm flat beer, which they call ale. I kind of like it. It isn't the kind of thing you'd drink at home, of course, but in an old pub with blackened beams and a fireplace, while the wind howls outside and rain lashes against the window panes (and this is in summer!), you just can't drink cold beer - it is too cold!

I'm back in London now, and going to try to see as much as I can before I go to Cardiff for a bit of Welsh next week. Twenty-eight days until I'm home!

Again we confirm that forward planning is a good thing, and winging it brings its own 'rewards'

2007-08-16T23:02:00.000+12:00

Well, my last posts have all been a bit brief and uninformative, so I thought it was time I got something up telling you where in the world I am, and what I've been up to. Not much, to be honest. Hence the short posts.

I got back from my Cornwall trip with Tony and hung out with him for a couple of days. Then, to save some money (this is the only reason, honest. I'm not a geek.) I went to stay with my friend Jamie in Kilburn, and played Oblivion all day every day for a week. I knew that wouldn't make a very good blog post. "Today I killed seven goblins, twelve mudcrabs, three slaughterfish, four bandits, and was killed by a troll. I hadn't saved so I took out my frustrations on Jamie's toilet." Fascinating stuff.

On the Sunday I had to go out to get some more blue dye because almost all of the colour had gone - it was starting to look a bit of an ectoplasm-green kind of colour. I met Antona, Andy and Tony on the way there for lunch, and then (because I found that the hair place in Camden was closed, and I decided that I might as well see some sun) I went out to a festival with them afterward. That was pretty much all I did that week, apart from going out again the next day on a slightly more successful mission to get dye, hence the second pic of me with blue hair.

On Wednesday, after a full seven days of Oblivion (in which I got maybe a sixth through the main quest - waah!) I left for Northumberland. Newcastle was exactly like the place you would imagine Geordies to come from: loud, brash, full of grotty cheap bars and strip clubs, but friendlier than anywhere else in the whole world. I found Ogle Castle, as I sort-of described in the previous post, and then moved on.

A main road in Newcastle. This is the pretty part of the city.

I had heard from some friends I made on my Contiki trip - hi Val, hi Matt! - who are living in Glasgow, and I decided it would be cool to go out with them once more before I left. Newcastle is kind-of almost in the neighbourhood, so I told them I was coming up for the weekend and that they would have to entertain me. I did, and they did, and it was great! Drunken pictionary... always good!Val and Matt (his trousers are ripped, he doesn't have three legs) hanging out in their tenement.

Unfortunately, when I had booked my ticket to Newcastle I hadn't really planned it all that well... or, to be honest, at all! What I should have done was gone to Glasgow first, stayed there four days including the weekend, then to Newcastle, and from there to Cockermouth (yes, laugh, go on) where I am meeting Antona and Andy and Tony for a few days in the Lakes District. What I did was just book my ticket from London straight to Newcastle, so I then had to rush getting to my castle (which, because I was only there for one day, involved taxi-ing - £££! -rather than the one-a-day public transport). I then spent the weekend in Glasgow, which was highly enjoyable but which left me a week away from meeting Antona and co., but too close by to justify going back down to London...

The only good thing about Newcastle - easy access to Hadrian's Wall. It's just not five days' worth of fun.

As a stop-gap I decided to book myself in to a place sort of on the way, because there looked like there wasn't too much to do in Cockermouth. Carlisle looked like the biggest place which was in the right area, so I booked there. I am now in my... fourth? fifth day? I am so confused. Anyway, Carlisle is BOOORING! I am going a bit mad here. Luckily I only have today and tomorrow left, so I can probably fill those with something. There is a castle I haven't been in to yet which I plan to do after lunch, and a museum which should occupy me for the rest of tomorrow before Antona comes to rescue me from the ignominious fate of getting stuck in Carlisle for longer than I have to.

Ogle Castle

2007-08-10T22:20:00.000+12:00

The village of Ogle is about 20mins out of Newcastle. It is comprised of about twenty houses, and no shops - not even a pub! The Lady of the castle was out when I visited, so I only got to have a look at the front, but that was enough. It is a very pretty looking manor house, with ivy and a gravel driveway lined with trees. There are horses in nearby fields, as well as various other forms of livestock. The coat of arms on the iron gates is very familiar.

The Manor

The village of Whalton, where the church for the area (and the pub, which was my original goal) is located, is 1.5 miles (a long walk!) away down a single-track road. The church has all sorts of distingushed-seeming Ogles buried there; you can tell we were important because there are plaques to said ancestors right up the front, inside the church.

For Rob and Tony

2007-08-08T09:37:00.001+12:00

I ATE'NT DEAD

2007-07-31T21:23:00.000+12:00

Land's End, Cornwall, on day three.

I have just been out. Tony (Kali's brother, with whom I'm staying while in London) and I have been out touring the south west of England on his Bandit 650. That's a motorbike. A black one. We decided we'd take three days to get down to Cornwall and back, finding B&Bs on the way and generally just spending most of each day riding.

We learnt a few things on this trip. One of these is that finding a place to sleep - even on a very wet, very cold weekday - in a seaside town in southwest England during what they try to pass off as summer here, is pretty close to impossible, no matter what Angus says. Another is that a good way to round off city-riding-squared tyres is by nearly getting blown off the road by wind gusts. Another, although one kind of implicitly knows this, is that riding for long distances is always much pleasant when there is sun. So here is the story.

Day one. Rode out of London. It's quite big really. It's not like Auckland where there is a motorway right through the middle of it, either - that's what the Underground is for. Unfortunately Tony's bike wouldn't have fit through the turnstiles even if we had taken off the luggage, so we had to ride. It took us the best part of the morning; we stopped for lunch and we hadn't even reached Richmond!

We finally made it to the M3 (SW motorway), and the heavens opened. Damn. We pulled in to a service stop to don our wet weather gear (we had, rather hopefully, left it off) and then got under way again. A few hours of riding along exposed motorway on one side of the wheels, and we were in Dorset. We chose a few likely looking roads to what looked like they might have been pretty beachside towns where we might have found B&Bs. Upon reaching said towns, we were nearly blown off the bike whilst looking at the beach, and the towns themselves didn't look that charming at all.

We continued on to Bournemouth where, after about half an hour's search leading to the surety that everywhere in the whole place was booked and we would have to dig a hole in the ground for shelter that night, we found an ugly-looking B&B-cum-hotel on a main road which was actually quite nice inside. The proprietor was "bike friendly", so he let us put it in the garage ("Priavate Property - No Entry - Beware Two Dobermanns") rather than leaving it in the public carpark out the front, so the seats were even dry in the morning!

Day two. As we came down to leave, one of the two Dobermann dogs made an appearance. I was feeling brave, so I gave it a pat. It was really cute actually, much like a labrador in behaviour. Then it decided that seeing as I was giving it attention it would go get one of its toys. It came back with a short bit of rope in its mouth - it wanted to play tug. Let's just say you never want to be playing tug with one of those over a limb. Even if it was attached, you'd lose.

We rode on along the coast for a while, and pulled in after a little while at a place called Bridport. It's a pretty little town, with some neat cliffs. We went to see them, but the wind was such that even walking up on to the beach was nearly too much! A true gale was blowing - I have a video of us leaning against it. The waves were amazing!

We decided to take some back roads to connect up to the main road southwest. My, were they ever back roads! Little dirt tracks with with high hedges so you couldn't see out of the lanes, and with no signposts to speak of. So we got a little lost. By this time, of course, it had started raining again. And it was lunch time - we were hungry! So it was with great pleasure that we stumbled across the Shave Cross Inn. In the middle of nowhere, surrounded by paddocks and lanes and hedges and with nothing in the way of civilisation anywhere I could see.

It was a fabulous old pub - all low ceilings (and I do mean low!), black irregularly placed beams, whitewashing and thatch on the outside. No rushes on the floor, but it totally could have had. It was quite busy - not difficult I guess as there were only two large tables in the room - it was very small - so we sat at the bar to eat. I had a ploughman's lunch, with more cheese that you would believe could fit on one dinner plate. It was good cheese though, and there were enough pickled onions to counter the cheesy mouth-stick so I made a good dent in it.

As we were eating, predictably, it started raining again. And not just raining; I mean Raining. It poured down! So we stayed for a coffee. It eased off after a while so we again got back on the bike. Luckily I had packed a fishing rod, so while Tony drove us ever so carefully through some now very flooded muddy lanes, I was able to focus on catching us something for dinner.

That night we stayed in a little place called Moretonhampstead. It is such a small village that it doesn't exactly require two names' worth of name; it is obviously compensating for its size. Or perhaps it's just indecisive. Dinner, due to my lack of fishing skill, was at a very nondescript pub, the owner of which was a large, burly woman with short hair and a nervous gaze. I assume that it was her who had decided on he decoration for the back of the women's toilet doors, as Tony assures me that his were very uninterestingly adorned.

Day three. We left nice and early on Friday morning, heading down through Truro where we had lunch and watched a Punch and Judy show (Itchy and Scratchy are less horrifying) to Land's End and back in a figure eight, so as to see everything and then start on the A39, a road we had heard was quite fun. Our first stop after lunch was St. Ives, a patricluarly popular beach town. It was quite amazing. So many people and shops... it was like Mission Bay crossed with the main street of New Plymouth crossed with Venice - the last mostly because of the fat pasty British tourists and their screaming children. If one could empty out all the people and the shops, then give it a decade or more alone so that the ecology could recover, I imagine it would be a truly beautiful place.

Land's End - the southernmost part of mainland England - was dressed up with the trappings of an amusement park, but the complex sat uncomfortably on the wild Cornish coast, looking as if the land was planning to shake the irritatingly gaudy buildings off the cliffs and in to the sea at the first opportunity. I would approve, especially as the shop didn't sell sherbert lemons.

Around the coast further and we arrived at Penzance, which we felt no need to stop at - we just drove down the promenade and onward to Falmouth, where the A39 began. We followed this road away from the coast and through some lovely green scenery - old glades as well as the inevitable agrarian scenes - and to our B&B for the night.

Day four. Back on the A39 after the best breakfast of the whole trip, and a nice long ride took us to to Lynmouth, a town built on some very steep hills indeed! Steeper than Korokoro in Wellington, although somehow safer feeling. We had a bagel and some tea there, then moved on toward Bath along some pretty fun roads. It was getting to time to sort out our night's accomodation by the time we got to Glastonbury, but they were hosting a crop circle convention *cough* so all their accomodation was booked out. We decided to strike out into unclassified back-roads to try to find some small town to stay in.

We drove for a while and it got later and later, and we hadn't passed a single B&B. It was six p.m. by the time we decided to stop at the Vobster Inn, and ask them if they knew anywhere which had accommodation. They did, and although the ones they had numbers for were all booked up, those had a few numbers of places, and eventually we found a place. We ate at the Vobster - fabulous rainbow trout! - and then limped off damply to Lime Kiln farm, which we (eventually) found.

Day five. Well, the expected three days of our journey had long passed us by and we were down to emergency measures with underwear. The discomfort was compounded by the fact that when the owner had said the room was "ensuite bath", he really meant it! No shower. Just a bathtub. Bizarre! Anyway, there was a lovely fruit salad at breakfast, as well as the usual greasies, so that made up for it. We drove in to Bath and had a bit of a look around (nice, but not as amazing as I have heard - the little villages were cooler), then drove on to Stonehenge. We didn't stop - what is the point really when they are right next to the road like that? I could se them perfectly well. I found it surprisingly impressive, actually.

We rode north across the Salisbury Plains where we saw a "tanks crossing" sign, and then went to look at the Avebury henge. I found it less impressive than Stonehenge - perhaps because the monoliths were so much more rough-hewn and so widely spaced that you didn't really get the sense of a unified structure. After that, it was back on the bike and on to the motorway for London.

So that was the end of that, you might think. Well, you're partly right. It was all plan (boring motorway) sailing until we got back into the city. The traffic around Oxford Circus was incredible! I wondered what was happening to cause the congestion; then I saw a guy waving an Iraqi flag out of the window of a car. And then I saw another one. The more I looked, the more people from that part of the world I saw in the cars. "What do you think has happened?", I asked Tony. We came up with all sorts of theories while we watched car after car filled with jubilant Iraqis. We finally decided that the most likely thing that had happened was that the new British Prime Minister had pulled the British troops out of Iraq.

We eventually made it through the traffic and got back to Tony's. Avidly we got on the net, looking for what was causing the traffic chaos in the city. War? A new Middle Eastern state? The death of Tony Blair? George Bush's head on a pike? As it turned out, it was none of these, nor even our more moderate pet theory. No, the Iraqis had just won the Pan-Asian Soccer Cup.

So we went for a pint. The End.

So, do you notice anything different about me?

2007-07-20T09:56:00.001+12:00

Comments encouraged; anyone who can summarise their comments in to a word which begins with 'c' gets extra points.

The bit before Portugal

2007-07-14T22:56:00.000+12:00

Well, I´m in Portugal. There is a beautiful beach, a beautiful pool, and lots of beautiful sun! But rather than describing a beautiful beach town to all of you who are stuck in winter (except to mention that there seems to be no such thing as takeaway food here! No fish and chips on the beach for me), I´ll skip that and tell you about how I got here.

We left London on Monday. I had a fun weekend that weekend - went out to a goth thing with Jamie and his cool girlfriend Soraya on Friday night, and on Saturday I had some drinks with Lisa, the Kiwi nurse I met on the Contiki trip. Tony and I woke up early on the Monday and caught the bus to Paris. We thought we would be taking the ferry across, but when we got to Calais the bus turned away from where the ferries are and drove into a tunnel. The tunnel then magically turned into a train. So confusing! And then, about an hour later, we were in France. Without leaving the bus!

We got off in the city and promptly realised that our hotel was not in the central city as hostelbookers.com had shown it as being, but rather out in the Lincoln Road, Henderson of Paris. It was terrible! But highly amusing. Well, it was once I´d found food. We´d kinda counted on getting food on the ferry, but of course that never materialised... It took us two hours to get to the suburban area our hotel was in from Paris, via about four different trains. At least between the two of us we speak enough French to get by.

Anyway, we stayed the night in this hideous hotel then got up early and went in to Paris proper. We got off at Gare Du Nord, and booked our tickets there. We hadn´t really decided what our train route was going to be, but after some back-and-forth with train-booking ladies and pamphlets and thinking, we decided to go to Bordeaux for a day and a night, then to Madrid for the same, then on to Portugal the next day. And two of the trains were TGVs!

Once we´d finished booking trains we went in and had a look around. Paris was as pretty as always, even though it was raining. Tony hadn´t seen the Louvre so we went and saw (the outside of) that, looking at all the neat stone famous dead dudes who line the eaves of the first floor. Then it was lunchtime.

I wanted crepes, so we went and found a little place not far from the Louvre which speciualised. It was full of French people, which is always a good omen, so we sat down contentedly to eat. Tony had a crepe savoyeuse, I think it was called. I wanted something appropriately cream-filled, so, given the lack of creamy mushroom-based formulations, I went for a crepe with potato, cream, mustard, white wine and... pig´s intestines. It'll be fine, I thought. It'll just taste like pork, and nothing that is cooked in cream, mustard and white wine can possibly taste bad.

Wrong.

It wasn´t awful... well, no, actually it was. It had that earthy, strong taste that only offal has. I ate half of it, telling myself that it was "just different", and that I should be open-minded about my food. Then my brain rebelled and told me that I was probably poisoning myself. So I stopped, admitting defeat and hoping that the waitress wouldn´t laugh at me. She didn´t, so I got an awesome dessert crepe to fill me up and, more importantly, to take away the flavour in my mouth!

Later that afternoon we caught our TGV to Bordeaux. Now for those of you who aren´t aware, TGV stands for "Train a Grande Vitesse": in English, "Train of Great Speed". Simple people, the French. The train reaches speeds of up to 300 km/h. I had learnt about them in French class at school, and ever since then I had thought they were cool. Ever since I had thought about actually going to France, I have had a secret ambition to go on one. And I got to go on two! Actually, it was a bit of an anticlimax - they were so smooth that I didn't notice I was going that fast, until I looked out the window and noticed something on the edge of my vision... it was power-lines, flicking past so quickly that I could hardly see them!

We arrived in Bordeaux to a much better hotel - just a chain place - and promptly went out exploring. It´s a pretty place - definitely somewhere I´d reccommend. Just avoid ordering the "Monaco" beer, eh Tony.

The next evening we caught the second TGV to connect with our overnight train to Spain. It was a three-tier, six berth carriage with officials bursting in every five minutes as you were just getting to sleep, but I slept fine. I´m good at sleeping through stuff though.

We piled off in Madrid and realised that we really had no idea where we were going to stay, or what we were going to do, or what the point of going to Madrid was anyway. I bought a guide book and, on its advice, we went into the central city to find an internet cafe to book a place to stay and our onward travel. We got a flight (a cop-out, I know, but cheaper than train-ing and I had definitely had enough of trains at that point!) to Porto booked, and then decided to use the guide book to find somewhere to stay. It recommended this fabulous little place above the Puerta del Sol (not Plaza del Sol or whatever I called it in my last post!), which is the centre point of the city. They just happened to have only one room left, which was a twin as we needed, and it was fabulous! Madrid was hot and dusty but much cooler (figuratively only!) than Barcelona. It just seemed a bit... classier, I guess. It's definitely worth seeing.

So a day there, then we flew to Porto in Portugal yesterday, then trained north to Vila Praia de Ancora, which is in the very north on the coast of Portugal above Viana do Costelo and below Caminha. It's a beautiful beach town with a beautiful beach, a beautiful pool, and lots of beautiful sun! Muahaha!

I´m in Spain!

2007-07-12T23:12:00.000+12:00

Well, I don´t know where to start with all the fun I´ve had recently, so I will just give you a quick update on today and save the stuff about France and London for another post.

I arrived in Spain (Madrid) this morning with Tony, and after some overnight-train-induced dithering, we decided to go into town. We´ve found this fabulous little hotel-type-place (a pension? I dunno) overlooking the Plasa do Sol, which is sooo central. It is hot, sunny, and awesome.

We´re off to Portugal tomorrow, staying in a beach town in a hotel with a pool. Wheeee!

Oh, the pain, the pain!

2007-07-05T03:23:00.000+12:00

Well, it doesn't actually hurt yet - I'm still numb. But fully lucid (apart from the adrenaline etc), thank god. I went to the dentist today.

The place I chose - Tony's dentist - was fully booked until the end of July, so the receptionist told me to come in and just sit around in the waiting room to see if a dentist comes free.

Now, this has been a long, slow process trying to get somewhere. First I had to get hold of the insurance company which was a mission, then I had to wait until I'd stayed my paid nights in Edinburgh, then find a dentist - did you know there are no good dentist-reviewing websites on the net? Once Tony had told me about his dentist, getting hold of them proved harder than I thought - there was this odd noise on the end of the line and Tony didn't know what it meant any more than I did. But I tried a few more times and eventually got through.

I was therefore, with all these little annoying obstacles in mind, pretty unsurpried when I turned up and was asked to go away and wait somewhere else for an hour because the surgery was closing for lunch.

I came back when they opened, and waited a while. It was a surprisingly short time before this nice, pretty young blonde Polish (so Tony tells me) lady came out to fetch me in to the surgery. She sat me down, had a look, and told me that the wisdom tooth that I was blaming was actually not the main problem. While it has the potential to become a problem in future (it is coming in sideways - "impacted", as they call it), the cause of the current issue is a wisdom tooth which has come through without any problems but is now biting down on my cheek and the tooth below, kinda mashing it a bit. "So we will remove the top one," she said.

"The top one?!" It took a little while for me to get that while the pain was mostly in my cheek and bottom gum, it was the fault of the top one. And then, even longer to come to terms with the fact that I was not going to have to be sedated, or have my jaw broken in to little bits, or any other of the plethora of frankly quite frightening (not to mention icky) things which need to be done to remove impacted wisdom teeth. Then just a bit more time to realise that after about a week of trying to get it sorted, it was all going to happen today. Right Now.

"So if you like, we can start numbing you up now. It will take about ten minutes, and then another five minutes to remove the tooth. Simple." After days of freaking out about having to have a long and painful operation, this sounded almost too good to be true. Eventually I got my head around it, and I am now one evil cheek-mashing tooth-o-wisdom the poorer, and one neat x-ray, some antibiotics and a report to the insurance company the richer. Problem solved!

And she said I was very brave.

Can I just say...

2007-07-01T04:34:00.000+12:00

I am thouroughly sick of men trying to pick me up while I am watching the MotoGP on TV (the motorbike races, for all those who don't know).

I go out of my way to find somewhere to watch this, and without fail, some dude comes up to me and starts talking to me! Sure, "who do you think will win?" is acceptable, as is "who's your favourite rider", etc etc, but I'm trying to watch my sport, people! Asking things like "so how long are you in Edinburgh for?", and "Yamaha, is that the green one?"... Seriously! If you don't know and are just trying to crack on to me, wait until the race is finished. At least then I can dignify your sleazy midday lines with a multi-syllabic response.

I am a girl, honest.

Edinburgh

2007-06-29T06:44:00.000+12:00

Well, Orkney was lovely, but I didn't see any puffins. I did however see three concerts! There was a music festival on while I was up there, and they were selling student tickets to some performances for £4! So I went to two of those in one day (one was a nouveau classical music performance, which was actually incredibly good, and the other was Bach, which was actually incredibly soporific), and caught a jazz/bluegrass performance at a pub afterward. Three concerts in one day!

On another night I went to a traditional(esque) story-telling evening, which was neat until they got us up to dance. Usually I'd be right in to it, but I wasn't really keen that night cos I was feeling a little homesick and didn't want to dance with this random guy, especially with no warning! I also saw some castles, and the MotoGP in a pub with no sound. I've planned that better this time - I am in a hostel with a TV room this weekend, so I will be able to catch it there.

I am in Edinburgh now, as you may have guessed from the title. It was quite amazing coming in - I felt like a country bumpkin! It had been a month since I'd been anywhere bigger than a small town so I was a bit awed by the size of this place!

Edinburgh is home to the ugliest human construction in the history of the world; the colossal Forth Rail Bridge. This was the sight which greeted me closest to the "Welcome to Edinburgh" sign. Happily, the central city is much more picturesque. Spiky things abound, from Cathedral spires to monuments to writers to random buildings - everything has a turret, and most things have some architectural feature seemingly designed to imperil the life of the recreational skydiver. Some of them are even serrated!

They do like their monuments here. They have one hill here with four of them on it. One of these, the somewhat famous "Edinburgh's Disgrace", also known as the National Monument (unifinished since the 1800s) is a facade of a Greco-Roman temple. Some pillars, and half a low wall. Hahahahahaha.

I went on a ghost tour one evening, with some people I met at the hostel. It was cool, and actually quite scary! I don't really believe in ghosts, but it got me going all the same. We visited one of the world's first concentration camps, called the Covenanter's prison, and entered a mausoleum which is supposed to be haunted by a poltergeist which is able to inflict actual physical wounds on people. One lady, who claimed to not be a credulous individual and seemed more fascinated than scared, came out with three bloody scratches on her finger. Nifty *shiver*.

Today, I finally got to see puffins! They were very far away though - so far that they had to be seen over a surveillance camera. So it wasn't really actually seeing them, I guess. I wanna seeeeee them! But I got to move the camera around to look at different ones and stuff, so it was cool.

I'm here until Monday, when I will be retreating to London as opposed to making my way leisurely down the country as I had planned to. One of my wisdom teeth is coming through, and being really nasty about it. It's given me pain bad enough to keep me taking neurofen all day for the last three days, and using bonjela too, so I figure I should do something about it. It sucks, cos I'm a bit scared of getting it done, but my insurance will cover it so I should just deal to it, I guess. I'm going to get it done in London so Tony can look after me and give me a towel to drool blood all over. Sound like fun Tony? ^^

Higher Lands: Our Heroine Goes Further North

2007-06-21T21:13:00.000+12:00

Okay, so after my rather drunken interlude in Inverness - where I also saw Loch Ness (no monster, though plenty of pics I can photoshop one into) and some of the Highlands (a couple of sword-wielding maniacs, but that's another story, which I can't tell without the pictures) - I finally moved on. I headed further north.

"Why on earth would you want to go further north?" you ask. *Shrug* Why not? I reply. I think the first reason I decided to go up more was because I fell in love with the scenery on the bus ride up, and decided I wanted to see more of it. Then I remembered about all the ancient Viking and Pict sites on the Orkney Islands, so I thought that would make a good end destination. And then I read that it is the right time of year to see puffins. That sealed it!

So I decided to go to Orkney by way of a little place called Helmsdale. I stopped there for no particluar reason - it has a memorial statue to the Clearances - the Scottish Diaspora - which I thought I'd like to see, and that was about it. The train pulled in, and I caught sight of the place from the station. It is this TINY little village with two dairies, five cafes, two pubs and a permanently locked set of public toilets.

The hostel there was little more than a hall with two rooms at one end - one for boys and one for girls. It had a very nice fire, but it doesn't let you stay inside during the day. We were kicked out at 10am, and then not let back in until 5pm! As you can imagine, when I arrived at 1pm and saw that the hostel didn't open for four hours, I was a little miffed. Especially given I was desperate for the loo! It was ok though - it wasn't raining, so I found the library which had a toilet, and then found a nice grassy sward upon which to sit and read my book for four hours. I wasn't able to do much else - like explore, for example - with my 25kg (or whatever it is now) backpack on!

The next day I spent half the morning on the internet, trying to book a hostel in Edinburgh (my next destination after Orkney) and then went for a walk. It looked like a nice gentle stroll on the map, and I thought it would be a pleasant way to spend the rest of the day. Heh. It said it would take two hours but I figured I'd stop to admire the view in a few places. So I set off up this hill, carrying three huge books and the rest of my bag (needed the books for finding a hotsel, and I couldn't drop them off cos the place was closed). It was a nice walk, and I saw some fantastic Highland scenery - heather, hills, glens, rivers... but I had no idea where I was on the map! So after two hours and some images of broken ankles and hypothermia, I decided to go back the way I had come, rather than trying to find the way any longer. Kept me busy though.

The next day - yesterday - I moved on, up to Orkney, where I arrived at 8pmish. I met a nice German couple on the way up, whom I hated because I miss Simon, and then found my hostel. It has free internet! But I have much more active things to do than sit here all day. I am off to the tourist office in a minute to find out if there is public transport to all these ancient sites I want to see. And puffins!

There Can Be Only One

2007-06-16T23:03:00.000+12:00

Okay, so it's not my best work, as titles go. I'm in the Highlands of Scotland, in the town-called-a-city called Inverness. Broadswords, kilts, drinking and fierce landscape. It's awesome!

In our last episode, our heroine (meeeeee!) had narrowly avoided death by lack of hygiene, or worse, and mounted a bus for Scotland. I headed south, as you do, then transferred in a random little place callled Preston to my bus for Inverness. As we headed north, everything got more awesome. Gah, my descriptive powers are really not up to scratch today. Oh well, you can laugh at me if nothing else. This hang over is pretty bad! Okay, so I'm going to skip the flowing narrative and just describe the cool bits.

We drove through Cairngorm (I know what a cairn is, and I know what gormlesness is... ?) National Park, and the hills were huge, bare expanses which crouched like a waiting thing along the side of the road. The weather had turned nasty and rain lashed the coach, winds buffeted us and the clouds hid the tops of the hills, shrouding everything in mysterious goloom. It was awesome.

I got to the hostel and there were three German girls already in the room. They were really cool, and within 5 minutes of meeting them they invited me to go to Loch Ness with them the next day. I did, and it was cool.

Then we went out to a pub, and met some Danish boys who were cool. I went out with them the next night.

The day after that - yesterday - I went on a "Canny Tour" which went all the way around the place... [brain... not... go good] it was really cool. Some more incredible scenery, these awe inspiring bare mountains.

Alright, I might leave it there and try to describe more later. Remind me to tell you about the lady from the Outer Hebrides. She was cool.

...And then it got worse.

2007-06-14T23:19:00.000+12:00

I had finished writing my blog the other day, and afterward I went back to my horrid room to hang out. I then noticed that the rubbish bin had not been emptied, and the cups for tea or coffee (there were some chipped old mugs) hadn't been cleaned. I was starting to feel more and more uncomfortable, when I went out to the loo (creaky bare boards, unsanitary) and came back to my room.

I put the key in, turned it, and pushed a bit. The same as when I came back earlier, that didn't work, so I pushed harder. It gave with a little snicking noise, which made me wonder. I closed and locked the door again, put the key away in my pocket, and pushed the door. Snick. The door opened.

What had hapened was that the hole in the wall I mentioned was down the side of the door, and this allowed the catch that the bolt went in to move, enough that the door could just be pushed open. I was about to sleep, a young woman by herself, in a room above a bar in a strange town, with no locks between myself and the street. For thirty-five pounds.

There was no other accommodation available in the whole town, so while I wasn't at all happy, I decided that I'd probably just have to stay there and hope I'd be safe. Then the music started. Loud, obnoxious, LOUD music. I cried.

I also texted Simon, who called me back and listened to me freaking out about not having a lock. As you can imagine, he wasn't very excited about the idea. He didn't say much, but he seemed a bit shocked. Talking to him calmed me down, so I decided I'd just have to chance it and try and find something further afield, even if it meant going back out to the place I'd stayed at the previous night - the one which cost a million pounds.

I went down and told the (rather bulshy) girl at the bar downstairs that the door didn't lock, and she said she'd send the manager up, who should be back in five minutes. I waited for half an hour, went back down, and was told that he would now be back in fifteen minutes. By this time it was getting late, and my chances of finding somewhere were getting slimmer.

Eventually he turned up, and had a look at the door. "Wait here a minute", he says, and rushes off downstairs. He came back with a handful of coasters, and proceeded to stuff them under the locking mechanism to try to pad it out! "Try that now", he said. I kind of looked at him, and he asked if it was alright, and I said "to be honest, I'd rather just have my money back and go and find somewhere else". So he gave me it back, and called me a taxi, and I went back to my old hotel of the previous night. Which was full.

Fortunately, the girl at the desk was really nice, so she called around and found somewhere for me. It was a £15 ride up the M6, and cost stupid amounts, but it was safe. I slept well, although by this time it was late, and got up feeling relatively composed for my bus ride north.

Reasons to Book Ahead; Or, There are No Hostels in Lancaster

2007-06-12T01:41:00.000+12:00

A certain episode with the Kingsgate in Rotorua once upon a time sort of prepared me for this (eh Dad). I had a bit of a pricey one last night. I caught the ferry back from the Isle of Man, but I couldn't find any hostels on the internet so I hadn't booked in advance. Turns out, this is because there are no hostels in the port of Heysham, the town of Morecambe, of the small city of Lancaster. Typical.

I caught a taxi (the only form of transport to be had at that time of night) to Lancaster (ta Angus, you were right - it's not far at all) because that was where the driver said was the only accomodation which would be open at that time of night. I checked in to my £51 hotel room, wich was really quite comfy. I slept a little poorly (price cringe maybe? Or the "I have no plan" stress?), and got up this morning to have a nice long shower and then walk in to Lancaster proper.

The walk took me nearly an hour! I was wearing my backpack, which by no stretch of the imagination weighs just 17kgs anymore, and carrying a package of some things to post which, it turns out, weighed 6.2kgs! And the weather was hot!

I sweated my way into town, found a post office, posted my stuff (what a weight lifted! Another price cringe though... everything is SO expensive here!) and then walked on to find out where I am catching my bus from tomorrow, and to find somewhere to stay nearby. I managed both, and then (at 1pm) went out to find some breakfast!

I found a local "greasy spoon", as they call them, got a fry-up with tea for £4 and read my book for a bit. My next task was to find a book shop to buy a Lonely Planet for Britain. I figure I'm going everywhere, and it's going to be easier to buy one guide book with all the extra details than to buy maps at each place, even if it is another million kgs to carry :p

So I did that, and found this internet cafe near by. I now have to find somewhere that sells phone cards and call the hostel I am booking in Inverness, to pay by credit card before I get there.

The place I am staying is called the Duke of Lancaster, and it's basically just a pub with some rooms upstairs. It's the cheapest place in the whole city (at £35!) and looks like it's worth about £3; shared bathroom and all. Walls with holes in, doors with hand-scrawled numbers... *Shudder* Oh well, I've stayed in worse in India. Actually, I don't think that's true, apart from the trains. Hah. Still, at least I have somewhere to leave my pack. Touch wood it's still there when I get back... Heh.

Well, my bus comes at 10am tomorrow, so I won't be there long. I'll spend the rest of the day today poring over my new guidebook planning stuff, get an early night tonight, and then get up early to wrestle with whatever it is that passes for the bathing facilities and find some breakfast before I move on. To Inverness!

Race reports and next steps

2007-06-11T00:31:00.000+12:00

The weather is much better now. And I'm leaving. And probably not coming back until dad wins lotto and brings me over in a couple of years' time. It turns out the government isn't as benign as all that: I got all dressed up to go to job agencies, and the second one I go in to asks me if I have a visa. I say no, and they say I need one. "I thought it was different here", I say. "Yes," says she, "you need a permit as well as a visa." Bugger.

The last races were excellent. I'm a bit confused as to what happened in the superstock - I thought Anstey won it, but I wrote that he won the... oh man, stupid 'super'ness. Anyway, he won one race, and it was the 600s, making four of those in a row. As to the others... meh. I wrote a report of the big one, the Senior TT, and sent it to dad, so you can all have a copy of that. It's even indented for you non-motorbike-people's skipping convenience.

Well, what an exciting race. Anstey took out his Superbike, the one that had had the problems in the first race. In an interview at the start line up, he sounded happy with the bike, saying that he just wanted to do two laps (you pit at the end of the second) and see how it went, and that "it sounded good on the dyno last night". When the interviewer came back with a comment about the dyno and the race track being two different things, Anstey came back with a typically optimistic Kiwi "she'll be right".

So, at 10.45, (actually on time!) the race got underway. McGuinness flew ahead early on, passing the two riders who left ahead of him before the first commentator point(!), Anstey not far behind, then Guy Martin, Hutchinson and Lougher etc. Not long later, Anstey is starting to flag. He slips down to fourth, then down to 11th at the Ramsey hairpin, where it is reported that he is looking over his left shoulder at something on the bike. At the end of lap one, he pulls in to the pits. When the trackside interviewer gets hold of him, he says that "the bike is moving all over the place- it's not handling properly". His race is over.

Not long later, we get the news that Daniel Jansen, from Pukekohe, is out (retired) after having totally rebuilt the bike in the wee small hours of this morning. I think I should go shake Paul Dobbs' hand - the only Kiwi to complete all the races he entered!

In the meantime, John McGuinness has stretched out his lead over Guy Martin to 21sec and gets an astonishing average lap speed of 129.853mph on the first lap! The second lap sees little change on the leader board with McGuinness leading Guy Martin from Ian Lougher and Ian Hutchinson, I'm not sure in what order. Conor Cummins puts on a brilliant show, battling with one of the Ians for 5th place!

Coming in to the pits at the end of the second lap, John McGuinness does what we've all been waiting for: his foot goes down in the stop box and the a great cheer goes up from the crowd as the commentator yells "He's done it! It has been done! John McGuinness has broken 130mph - 130.354mph!". Everyone claps and cheers as he comes flying out of the pits for lap three.

Guy Martin follows a while later, having taken a small but appreciable delay in the pits, as is now usual, and proceeds to do a blisteringly fast lap, closing the gap between him and McGuinness to 16s! McGuinness's pit board obviously reflects this as he pulls up his socks a bit and extends his lead again to 18s over the next lap.

The rest of the race passes in a blur of fairing and early chicken-counting, with the final result being McGuinness a triumphant 1st, Guy Martin a tenacious 2nd, and Ian Lougher a dependable but slightly chagrined third.

So a good race, but I was really disappointed about Anstey; I think we might have seen the 130 broken more than just the once if he'd been pushing the others along. I bet I'm not half as disappointed as Anstey though. Oh well, I'll just have to come back next year to watch it. Hah.

I depart by ferry for Heysham Port today, arriving at 11.15 (at least, that's the scheduled time!) and from there I hope to find a way to get to Lancaster, or some accomodation in Heysham, I'm, not really sure (eek). Then on the 12th, in two sleeps' time, I get a coach (as they call them here) to Inverness, where I will hopefully be able to stay for about a week, or more if it takes my fancy. I then plan to wander my way down through Scotland - not sure how long where at all - and then to my castle, then probably back to London, either direct or via some places.

I am talking with Tony and Jamie about going to Morocco, Sweden or Portugal with the former, and Ireland (for just a weekend! Hehe) with the latter once I finish Scotland, funds willing.

I hope everyone is well; give me e-mans or msns or comments or something, say hi! I'm off to Scotland!

GO! Mo'bike!

2007-06-06T02:58:00.000+12:00

I've been here for a week now. I arrived in the middle of the night, and it was Cold. Oh well, I thought, I'm sure it won't be this cold the whole time, and at least it's not raining. Heh.

On the first day, I did the first thing one does in foreign places and found out where I was in relation to the most important parts of the city. So I went for a walk and (eventually - my poor feet!) found the race circuit. Then I went and bought a map (should have done THAT earlier) and found my way to the centre of the city. Both of these things are about 5 or 10mins walk from the place I'm staying at. It's pretty brilliant.

The next day I went a little further afield, and found the grandstand. I bought myself a nice warm polar fleece jacket with TT written all over it, and got a free cap! I also bought myself a ticket to the grandstand for Saturday's race, the 1000cc Superbike class. These are bikes which can be changed from road bikes in any way you like, except you have to use the same frame as one you buy in the shop. This effectively limits the power at a certain amount, because if you get too much torque, it twists the frame! MotoGP bikes, the next step up, are built from scratch and don't necessarily have anything in common with one you buy in a shop. Like the Britten bike.

When I arrived at the home stay, Mrs Cartmell gave me all these leaflets about things to see and do on the Isle of Man, which, she told me, came with the homestay pack, from the Government*. Added to the pile I had picked up at the port, I now have quite a library. One of these pamphlets mentioned a wildflower garden at St Johns, where they also had a little arts and crafts place, and something called Tynwald Green. I thought the garden sounded nice so I jumped on a bus on Tuesday and went out there. Well, I found a garden. It looked like it hadn't been gardened for ages, and it was pretty poky and boring. Didn't have any wildflowers either. Turns out, this was because I had the wrong garden.

The craft centre was boring, unsurprisingly, and it was actually quite a walk down this pathway. That was a very nice walk though - like walking through a leafy tunnel. As I walked back up it, I noticed a little plaque stuck in the stone wall, half hidden under ferns and moss. I had a look, and it said that I was looking at a bronze-age tomb. I took a few steps back into the road (not a very hazardous thing to do in the Isle of Man, even when there are 40,000 extra people here!) and lo and behold, there was an upright slab of rock set in to the wall, which was topped with another slab... it really was an ancient tomb! Just hangin' out, looking like part of a wall. Choice.

The Tynwald Green is this grass lawn with a stepped mound at one end of it. It is used once a year for a meeting of all the Islanders to pass any new laws. It is the longest surviving open parliament in the world! That's pretty cool.

The next day I went on a steam train! It looked just like Thomas! But without the face, of course... I got off at a place called Castletown, where they have the most well preserved medieval (wait for it...) castle in the world. It was so cool - it was a real one. And then I took the steam train back. That was an awesome day.

I did a bit of walking around Douglas on Thursday, took a train up the mountain (they only have one. It didn't have snow but was Really Cold up there) and discovered the BEST ICECREAM FLAVOUR IN THE WORLD (it's called toffee crunch, and it's like a cross between maple walnut and hokey pokey: maple flavoured ice cream with bits of toffee in. Ohhhh *drool*) on Friday, and stayed in bed with a hangover on Saturday. You may think I missed a few steps there, and you'd be right.

Those steps are the practices. Every evening from 6pm till about 9ish when the light begins to go, they close the roads (the race circuit is on normal roads) and let the racers practice. I went out to each of them, trying out different spots for viewing. I met a few different people at some of them. On Friday I went down to the Quarterbridge, which is a section of the course where they turn a corner from one long straight-ish to another long straight-ish. I sat on a grass bank along with plenty of other spectators, waiting for the practice to start. It didn't. I could make out from the speakers that there was a delay for some reason or another, but I wasn't sure when it would start. Eventually I got bored waiting, and saw the pub across the way sitting there, looking all beguiling. So I went down and got a pint. While I was in the (rather large) queue/mob of bored punters trying to get beer, I asked this guy if he knew when the practice would start. He did, and we got talking, and he found out I was on my own, and asked if I wanted to join him and his friends. They had a good spot, so I did. Then there were rounds. Rounds of pints. I should have learnt by now. There is still a lot of beer in a pint. A whole pint of it.

I woke up on Saturday morning when my alarm went off, and dragged myself up to the freezing cold grandstand to watch the race - I had bought a ticket for it, so I had to be there. Needless to say, I wasn't feeling very well. The only breakfast I had had was in reverse, and there was no juice (my preferred hangover cure). So I sat there, and waited while the race was delayed and delayed (fog on the mountain road section of the course), with nothing to distract me from how terrible I felt. And then they cancelled it. The weather was closing in, so they moved it to Monday instead, and I could go back to bed! I did a fairly good job of concealing my glee, went back down to my homestay, and spent the rest of the day sleeping or reading. It was great.

On Sunday I went and saw a ruined castle. The weather was still awful, but it was still a cool ruin. Even the shockingly dry and boring audio-guide of the place wasn't enough to put me off it.

Monday it was the day of the superbike race. Again. I went back up to the grandstand, in much better humour this time, and the weather, which had been looking a bit iffy, eventually co-operated. Unfortunately, the Kiwi's machine didn't. Bruce Anstey, who wins a lot of things here, had a clutch problem with his superbike and had to resign from the race before he even made it to the first map-clock point (ask me to explain it if you're interested and don't know. I may have to use hand gestures).

McGuinness won (no surprise there) and another favourite of mine, Guy Martin, came second despite some appallingly slow pit stops. A local lad, just turned 21, called Conor Cummins was promoted from the 28th starter to the 10th due to some people being "non-starters" for whatever reason. This meant that he was going to be circulating with guys who were meant to be a lot faster than him. A gentleman next to me thought this was a recipie for disaster for Conor - he'd either lose heart and let everyone past or push too hard and come off - but I had read in the newspaper that he was supposed to be pretty quick, so I reserved judgement. He gained three full places and ended up 7th! Must have really annoyed some of the older guys! Hehe. Go Conor!

Today, Tuesday, was the second race. It was the 1000cc superstock class, which is different from the superbikes in that you can only make the bike go faster by adding things you can buy off the shelves. So basically these are pretty trick bikes, but ones that you or I (with a bit of financial persistence) could put together ourselves. Though not me - I'm not allowed.

At the first point where they have a commentator, in the first lap of four, Bruce Anstey (the Kiwi) was already leading by five seconds from the next fastest rider, John McGuinness. By the end of the lap he had set a new record for average lap speed, and then the lap after, he set another! (128.something mph) Neither of these were "flying" laps, either - the first was the start, and in the second he pitted. So it's pretty impressive. Unsurprisingly Anstey won the race, coming home with a tidy margin of time from McGuinness. Ian Hutchinson came third, and Guy Martin failed to finish. He will be furious at his pit crew: they were slow yesterday, and today they didn't put enough fuel in his bike for him to make it round to his pit stop! An ignominious end for the "White Knight". Conor Cummins on the other hand acquitted himself beautifully, managing to pull a 6th place.

Tomorrow is the supersport (such stupid appellations for the classes - they're all super! I'm thooper, thanks for asking! Gah. It means 600cc bikes.) and on Friday it's Senior TT day, where you can ride any of your "super" bikes, regardless of which "super" class they're in. I will be watching Anstey, Martin and Cummins in both races: McGuinness is very good, but meh, I don't want him to win. Go Kiwi!

*In an aside, the Government here seems to be quite benign. They do all sorts of nice things like making the Island a tax haven (whatever that involves), not requiring a WOF on your vehicle if it's registered here, having an open parliament, and letting me work even though I didn't get a work permit before entering the UK! So although I am leaving on Sunday, it may not be the last I see of the Isle of Man.

Now in Technicolour!

2007-05-30T04:53:00.000+12:00

Hi everyone. I have managed to get some pictures up, from the Egypt and Greece post until the end of Contili. Check 'em out! Click the images to see larger versions.

...But who needs nails, anyway?

2007-05-29T01:07:00.000+12:00

Well, I have made it to the Isle of Man! Just! In a series of close calls! I had to catch four different trains and one ferry, and I'm still stressed! Arrggh!

Hehe, not that stressed, but it was quite a day. I had between 45 minutes and eight minutes to get off one train, find the other and board it, so I was counting on the British Railways to come through for me, cause I couldn't afford to be late. Hence the stress.

It all started at 4.45am which didn't help. This was an especially strenuous wake-up call (just my phone alarm, although it turns out it has no alarm tone which is not irritating) because I hadn't really woken up at any time before 8.30 / 9am for the past two weeks. My excuse is that I was sleeping off the horrendously early mornings we endured during both of my tours (amounting to about a solid two months!). Failing that, my excuse is that Tony was doing it.

Anyway, I wake up at this ungodly hour, notice it is light (bizzarre, huh? I think they must only have dark from about 10pm till 4am. No wonder the farmers are so surly.), get dressed, try to put on my pack which seems to be 10kg heavier than it was when I last put it on (that, or I am 10kgs' worth of less fit), try again, finally get the damned thing on, and try to sneak downstairs while my footsteps resound like some mythical giant looking for food ("I smell the blud of an English-mun!") to wait for my taxi.

It is about 5.15 (still in the a.m.) when I make it in to the living room. I have time to remove my pack, wonder how on earth I'm going to get it on again, and write a note to Tony's lovely flatmates before the phone rings. I lunge for it, knowing it's my taxi and trying to not let it ring for too long - if my giant's feet didn't do it, I don't want an automated phone call to wake them. Downstairs, lock the door on the way out, look at the key in my hand... Hmm. Hopefully they found it - I did the only thing I really could do and posted it through the post-hole in their door.

The taxi was mind-blowingly expensive, but luckily they put it on my credit card so I can pretend it didn't happen. I got to the station in plenty of time, found my platform (who ever heard of a train station with platforms upstairs? Yeah, okay, but still...). I got on the train and looked around for somewhere to put my pack. Nowhere. A nice young man told me that it would be fine on the seat beside me as only mad people would catch a train at this hour of the morning. I heartily agreed, and we chatted for an hour or so until he arrived at his station, whereuopn I went and got some (neither fresh nor reasonably priced - stupid lying advertisements) breakfast.

It was all going quite well, I thought. We seemed to be going along at a reasonable rate of knots, so I decided I could have a little nap. About an hour later I was woken by the sound of some strange but rather lound and insistent beeping coming over the intercom. My heart sunk. "If it's anything like on the busses at home..." Sure enough, a few minutes later: "Ladies and gentlemen, this train is having some technical difficulties and will have to be resigned at the next station." Bugger. "Oh well," I thought, "Surely an exchange of trains can be accomplished with minimal fuss". Hahaha.

We swapped trains, after a lot of waiting around for some (undoubtedly important :p ) reason or other, and were underway again. We had one station left to go before I had a scheduled change for the first time, and I had only ten minutes before that next train left. I was clutching my seat and trying to reason with myself that jibbering aloud, or anything in a similar vein, would not make the train go any faster.

I got off the train with two minutes to spare and a slightly panicked look on my face. I ran (well, as much as running is possible when with every step you are wondering if the paving is going to crack under your massive weight, or if your joints will go first) to the conductor to ask him where I should get my next train. He smiled at me and said, "Yours is the next one to this platform". Oh, thank god. I wobbled happily over to a seat and waited for my first train to get on its way and my new train to arrive.

This one was fairly uneventful, except for the fact that the driver seemed to have an aversion to going at any sort of speed. I'm sure I wasn't the only one white-knuckled at the end of the trip. A nice, generous gap of 45 minutes had been eaten down to a mere five by the time I arrived.

Back on a platform somewhere in England, I looked at my ticket for the next train and noticed that my seat number was "OOC", or possibly "00C", given that I had previously been in seats called things like "42A". I wondered what kind of seat that was. I showed a conductor and he seemed to have no idea, telling me to just "find a seat anywhere". This proved to be easier said than done, so I ended up sitting disconsolately on the floor outside the toilet in a seatless non-compartment full of people whose fluorescent tabards proclaimed them to be 'Railway Police', and just outside the completely empty First Class comparment whose large, plush purple seats stared mockingly at me (oh yes, seats can stare). "Well, this is going to be a great two hours," I thought. When the man came throught to check our tickets, I decided to ask him where my seat was, pointing out that this was a ticket where I was meant to get a seat. He looked momentarily at a loss, then said to me, "Just go an sit through there for me, will ya loov?". He nodded toward the First Class compartment. W00t!

I knew that at the next station I only had eight minutes to find and board the correct train. I'd made it in less than that at the previous two stations, but I'd also been a lot later in arriving than that at those stations. I tried to rest and distract myself until we got there, which mostly worked. I still had five minutes when we arrived, so I was pretty happy. I found the train with two minutes to spare, found a seat, and grinned. This was my final train, and it was going to Heysham Port! I managed to stop short of jiggling in my seat and singing "I'm go-ing to the Isle of Maa-aan, I'm go-ing to the Isle of Maa-aan", but it was a close thing.

The only thing left to worry about was getting on the ferry. This wouldn't have usually worried me, because this train would get me to the port an hour before my check-in time. However, I didn't have a ticket. I had booked it - the previous October, acutally - but my travel agent (bless) hadn't managed to organise the booking until I had left the country. All I had was a confirmation email... and I'd forgotten to print it out. I had written down the reference number, but all of a sudden I wasn't sure it would be enough.

I was first off the train and first to the check-in desk at the port - possibly due to my having looked at a map on the internet before I left to find out where it was in relation to the train station. I find I tend to do a lot more homework when I'm travelling by myself - you get just that much more paranoid because you have no-one else to blame. I stomped heavily up to the check-in desk past signs asking you to present your ticket there, got out the page which my reference number was on, and smiled with all the confidence I could muster at the clerk. "Hi, I have a booking for the 2.15 sailing this afternoon. I have my reference number." I managed to look fairly confident, and not to add "but nothing else". I gave it, got a boarding pass, and nearly skipped over to the waiting room. I valued my ankles too much to actually have tried it with my pack on.

The boat left more or less on time (well, less really but I was in too bouyant a mood to care) and I arrived at the Isle of Man. A nice taxi lady took me up the hill to Mrs. Cartmell's house, whose name is Jeanette. I am her only homestayer, but Jeanette's four-year-old daughter and Tatiana, her au pair, make up the rest of the household. So far I have figured out how to get to the town centre and the racetrack without getting lost (mapmapmapgood), and I have walked the track from Quarterbridge Road, up Bray hill, through the Grandstand and up to where the Mountain Road finishes. Not that that will make sense to more than... um, dad, but still, this is a good thing. Learned cat agrees.

The races start on Saturday when I hope to be in the Grandstand, if I can get tickets. Until then I will be watching practices every evening at about 6pm. There are SO MANY cool motorbikes here. Squee.

So, I made it! It was a nail-biter, but who really needs nails, anyway?

Ticking boxes

2007-05-23T00:56:00.000+12:00

While in London there are a certain number of things One Must Do. This is my list so far. If I don't have a 'box' for something you're going to ask me if I've done, do comment and let me know.

Buckingham Palace and the Changing of the Guard
Tower of London - check.
Big Ben - check.
Houses of Parliament - umm, sort of. I wandered past them...
Westminster Abbey
The Tate Modern - check, though there are still more floors I'd like to do.
Tower Bridge and London Bridge - check - I've walked over both.
Windsor Castle
Hampton Court Palace and the Labyrinth
British Museum
Madame Tussaude's
Go to that toy store with five floors - check
London Eye
At least one of the inner city parks - check. Done a few now.
South Kensington museums
Go out in Soho - check. What strange bars you have. "All the better to drinkify you with".
Get rained upon - check.
The Tube - check. I'm pretty good at the Underground now.
Get your transport delayed by a suicide on the Tube - check.
Take a red double-decker bus - check
Take an above-ground train - check
Catch a black cab
Get lost - check, Mr. Pullar.
Get into a conversation about communism in a dodgy-looking pub - check.
Get mugged (might try to skip this one if possible)
Camden Markets
Slimelight
Go to the Leon Paul factory shop

I will keep you all posted on my progress, but I may have to delay a lot of them until I arrive back in London after doing the rest, especially those things which require weekends.

In other news, the Isle of Man's ferry compnay, the Steam Packet Company, have rather badly bollocksed their bookings. Luckily I read the website and found this out, because they had me booked for a ferry I could not have possibly caught as it departed before my train arrived at the port. Happily, they have now booked me for a ferry which it IS physically possible for me to catch, and it will take me five less hours to reach the Isle of Man. Yay.

Update 24/05/07: Went out in Soho! They have bars which are like... like cool things. And they have bars which play metal, and have garlic in their shots. Don't believe me? Let's ask Learned Cat.

There you have it folks. Last night was also Caturday. Do not click link, or it is can be caturday for you today.

London Town

2007-05-17T19:54:00.000+12:00

London is... hmm. Well, the overwhelming thing which London is at the moment, is damp. It's not raining constantly, but it has that cold (but not cold enough to have snow or anything cool like that), drizzly, constantly overcast-ness that makes me feel so at home! Honestly, why go to the northern hemisphere for summer? It's just like winter at home!

Anyway, I've obviously been here too long - I'm whinging like a pom. On the first day I was here I stayed with a girl from New Zealand called Lisa. She is a nurse and is living here. She took me to the supermarket, which, while it may not sound exciting to you, really was! Supermarkets here really are: you can get everything there. Including, it turns out, Vegemite!

On Sunday I was going to check in to a hostel when I got a text from Tony saying that I could stay at his, which is excellent. He has a lovely house, and his flatmates are really nice. That day we went for a little wander through the city. Well, it turned out to be a pretty big wander actually. We went to the Tate Modern Art Gallery, which was neat, and walked through Soho, Chinatown, and some other parts of the Monopoly board ("This is Leicester Square," says Tony. Oh, think I; That's a yellow one.) I saw the Houses of Parliament, Big Ben, and Tower Bridge from a distance, along with the London Eye which I plan to go on at some point, just because I am a tourist. Hmm, maybe I'll skip that one.

Yesterday I went out to Holland Park, a very pretty park in the West (flash) end. I had some really good soup for lunch there. I told the girl "I'm not sure if I should get the soup or the bolognaise". She must have misheard me, or else she is very decisive because she immediately turned around and served me some soup. "Okay, soup it is. Thanks." Either way, it was a good thing, becuase it was fabulous soup.

After the park, I went to visit a friend of mine who is living here, called Jamie. We hung out for a bit, then caught this random overground train to Camden, then walked for five minutes in the wrong direction, but eventually found a pub where we had some food, and drinks. It was also drinks for a friend of his' birthday, so I met her, and so many Kiwi goths, some of whom I remember from way back when, that I wondered if I was really in London at all! It was cool though.

I have organised my rail ticket to the port where I catch my ferry to the Isle of Man. It is one way, because I'm going up to Scotland afterward, and it cost me 65 pounds! Eeek. I'm not quite excited about going to the Isle of Man yet - it still seems quite far away. I'm not sure exactly what will happen after that, but my rough plan goes Inverness - Loch Ness - Edinburgh - Newcastle, from where I will hopefully find a way to get to Ogle Castle which, it turns out, is in the middle of exactly nowhere (look at the satellite images by clicking the "satellite" or "hybrid" buttons here on a google map search for Ogle Castle) - and then either back to London or around to the West Country (the south-west, that is) to Cornwall, Stonehenge, Bath, Devon etc, and maybe to one or both University towns. I'm not sure how long I will be anywhere, or where - it will depend on a nujmber of factors, the major one being "when I feel like it".

The other is money. My funds aren't lasting as well as I thought they would, so there is a possibility that I will be home earlier than I had planned... Still, not having money will force me to do some things that I might not have considered doing, had I had plenty. I sense adventures ahead! Hehe.

Contiki VI - Western Europe - the End!

2007-05-14T22:56:00.000+12:00

On the way to Munich from Vienna we stopped behind this picturesque little village called Mauthausen and visited the concentration camp there. Mauthausen was originally a slave camp, taking people from Austria and Germany to work in a quarry there, before it became a death camp like others. It was the last camp to be liberated by the allies.

We arrived at the quarry, now a picturesque lawn with a lake, surrounded with white cliffs, and took the stairs that the slaves had to take whilst carrying these huge chunks of rock. Some of us had a hard time making it to the top despite the fact that we were all relatively well-fed (Eastern Europe notwithstanding) and not carrying huge blocks of stone. It was a sobering climb.

After the steps we went to see the camp proper, although most of it was chicken-wired off due to some recent storm damage. We went in to a room and saw a video about what had happened there - it was quite horrific, but there was some hopeful sides: the residents of the village eventually became aware of what was happening there and so, when there was an escape attempt, some of them hid prisoners and helped them to safety. Go good Germans!

After the camp we drove on through some stunning scenery straight out of the Sound of Music, to see some more good Germans at a traditional Barvarian Beer Hall in Munich. I ate this huge pork knuckle (haha dad - I have photos) and drank a massive two litre stein of beer. It was great.

The stunning scenery

The Beeeeer

The next morning we had a few hours free to wander around Munich. The first job on the list was to get a haircut! I had been hating my hair since India, as my short hair was growing out into one of those mullets that you get when you grow your hair. Eew. I found a place and got a reasonable cut, although the way he styled it I thought made me look like a German! Hehe.

After that I had enough time to see the church with the "Devil's Footprint" in it, and buy some Erdbeeren - strawberries - from a stall (they were nowhere near as flavoursome as the ones at home: we are so lucky!) before going to watch the famous Glockenspiel in the town square. For those who don't know, this is a big old clock (and when I say old, I mean before New Zealand was discovered) which has this funky little clockwork dancing figure parade when it chimes at certain times. They do a little dance representing the medieval wedding it was built to commemorate, or that is what I am told it is about. The chimes are out of tune and out of time, and the figures are somewhat weathered, but it is pretty amazing for something that old!

Back on the bus, we headed back to a beautiful part of Austria which is called Austrian Tyrol (hi Andrea's sister!). There some people went white water rafting while I sat warm and dry in a cafe and waited for them, along with the others who were too poor or too smart to do it (hehe). We picked up the drowned rats a couple of hours later and went on to our accommodations. This was not a hotel as it had been for most of the way since Rome; we were back to Contiki campsite accommodation. This was good because there was a book-swap shelf there! I left my Neil Gaiman book which I bought in Florence there and took a nice, big, generic fantasy book which kept me occupied until Amsterdam, our final stop.

Before Amsterdam we did the Swiss Alps, and St Goar, which is back in Germany. The Alps were fantastic - the scenery reminds me of the south of the South Island. Huge, snow capped mountains towering over skinny, glacier-melt-blue lakes or flat glacier-carved meadows. Fabulous. Only difference is in the South Island there are no rumours of submarines in the lakes, and no overhanging cliffs which are rigged to explode! Mad Swiss. Pretty cool though.

We stopped on the way at Lichtenstein (small, had bicycles, not much else), Swarovski, where I bought nothing (the cheapest thing I liked was about $NZ600, though there was plenty more which was much pricier... *sigh*) and then at Lucerne (nice bridge, cool statue or two) where I did spend money - I bought a Swiss (Longines) watch.

The camp site was nice, nestled right near a waterfall. I didn't have time to investigate that though; most of us caught a cog railway train up a mountain called Jungfrau to a place called "the Top of Europe". The ride took about two hours, and required us to change trains once, but it didn't ever get boring. The scenery was stunning. Snow all over the place, especially high up, and cliffs and waterfalls and views over valleys... yeah, very cool.

The view from the campsite

Out the window of the cog train

We got to the top, and it was a) cold, and b) dizzyingly high up. Not from vertigo or anything; just from the lack of oxygen! I went to run up a set of stairs (I was feeling enthusiastic) and by the time I got to the top I was short of breath and dizzy. No, that does Not usually happen, thank you.

We took the lift to the top level of the building, and had some photos in front of a sign. It was like a viewing platform, but there were clouds over the mountain so we couldn't see much. I managed to drop my camera there so unfortunately I am relying on other people to send me their pics of the rest.

We wandered through caves carved of ice, with huge, fabulous ice sculptures (amusingly, there was one of some penguins and a guy was showing his family around and said "And look, here are some dolphins"! Hehe. He was from India, and I'm pretty sure they don't get penguins there, so fair enough I guess... still funny though ^^ ). We went outside, emerging into a sleet storm and I took two quick pics of one of the girls on her camera before rushing back in to the relative warmth of the building. We also went souvenir shopping - I bought, and then posted (they have post boxes everywhere now it seems!) a postcard which I sent to my Youthline peeps.

The next day we went to St Goar, stopping at the University town of Heidelburg for lunch. I was luckily able to find a couple of disposable cameras there, so I could click away at everything again. The drive was beautiful, along the river Rhine where there are castles all the way, which I am told used to serve as toll stations for the river. In St Goar we went and saw some traditional beer steins (yes, more enforced souvenir shopping - don't worry guys, I didn't get you one... evil dust collectors!) and then went to a wine tasting.

This tasting was much better than the one in Beaujolais - if you remember that one was "here, have a glass of wine. Now drink it. Okay, you've tasted wine". At this one we got little glasses of a few different varieties, and although there was no light to speak of to really look at the colour, it was a nice atmosphere and one of the five wines was actually quite good.

The next day we drove on to our final stop - Amsterdam! We went to Edam first, a suburb north of the city. It was a beautiful little place, all tulips and canals. We did a bike ride on these fabulous "granny bikes" - back-pedal brakes and everything - which I managed not to fall off. We took photos of a dyke and a windmill, and got heckled for doing so by one of the local kids. I told him that when he came to NZ and took a photo of the Sky Tower I hoped I'd be there to laugh at him, but he was walking away as I said it. Still, it made me feel better.

After the bikes we went to a "cheese and clogs" demonstration. The cheese was fabulous, so I bought a piece (cheese with ham - oh yeah. Not sure that it's better then the walnut cheese from Mercer though) and saw a guy make a clog from scratch which was pretty neat. Ten we piled, once again, back on to the coach and headed for Amsterdam.

Our hotel/hostel thing was cute, and not to far from the centre of the city where we headed after dinner. We all went for a walk through the red light district, and some of the people went to a sex show, but I was really not interested so I went out to a coffee house with some of the others and tried some of the local specialities. We then met up with the people who went to the show and went clubbing, which was fun. Home late, and slept late the next day.

The next day I ran a few errands, including buying something clean to wear out to the Final Dinner of the tour that night. We had, perhaps a little oddly, Chinese for dinner after going for a cruise along the river. It was raining heavily so we all got quite damp that night. After dinner I went out with some friends from the group and we sat in a bar reminiscing over the tour.

The next day we packed up in the rain and drove on for Calais. We left a few people behind in Amsterdam, one behind at the border (her visa had expired a year ago!) and then the rest of us parted in London. There were a few tears, but most people stayed that night at the hotel we arrived at so they went off to check in and I had to leave so I didn't get to say goodbye. I stayed my first night with Lisa, a Kiwi nurse whom I met on tour, and am now bludging off Tony, Kali's brother. I have seen a bit of London, but that will have to wait for next update!

Contiki V - Eastern Europe and the east of the West.

2007-05-13T02:55:00.000+12:00

As you might be able to tell from my last post, I was pretty tired after Gallipoli, so much of the last week and a bit has been a blur. From one Eastern Bloc country to another, staying only a night in each and seeing very little has left me dizzy! Luckily I have been keeping up with my travel journal notes so I can figure out what I have done in the last week for you.

The day of the Dawn Service at Gallipoli, we drove to Istanbul where we stayed the night, and then in the morning we did a city tour and went and looked at some carpets. I remember going to a place called the Spice Markets, which was cool. It was a big covered bazaar, much like I had imagined these things would look. There were some spices, but much more besides that. I had managed to lose this beautiful black pashmina I bought in India somewhere so when I found one which was exactly the same there, I bought it. It cost me heaps less than it did in India! I wish I could say that it was because my bargaining skills had improved, but he was offering it about five NZ dollars so I didn't have the heart to try to bargain him down!

The Haga Sophia and Istanbul

After the markets we went to see the Haga Sophia and the Blue Mosque, two mosques which sit right opposite each other. We got some good history on them, although I already knew that the Sophia was originally a church. Unfortunately I didn't have time to go and ask them to 'give it back' as Someone thought might be a good idea, as we were off to a carpet-selling attempt. I sat through that (it was cool, but these blatant attempts to get money off us annoy me), then I went and found some lunch. Everyone else went to see the Grand Bazaar, but I was exhausted so I went back to the hotel to do some washing and sleep. It was so nice to have clean clothes! I hadn't had a chance to wash since before Egypt, so you can imagine I was a little manky. After my nap and washing expdition, the others came back from town and we all got changed and went out to see a belly dancing show. That was great, although the belly dancers were better in Egypt. The male dancers were great though - knife throwing and all sorts of fun!

In Bulgaria we just basically stopped at the hotel (which was nice), slept, and then went again. I saw very little apart from fields, a nuclear power station, and lots of those communist flats.

Bucharest in Romania was great. There was this whole street which was basically a fountain... it's hard to describe but there was like a big fountain in the middle of the road, then down the length of it in the middle was a long pool with jets spraying into and above it in all directions. Very cool! They also had a building, at the end of the street, which is worth mentioning. It is apparently the second biggest building in the world, after the Pentagon. It was built under the communists and was made, like so many buildings in Europe, to rival Versailles. It is so huge that they still can't find uses for all the rooms, despite housing Parliament and a number of other government departments there. The logistics of heating and air conditioning the behemoth are such that it is still damp and cold in many rooms, too. Yay for communist dictators who have no-one to tell them that they are being ridiculous! I like follies. Except when it's my folly.

One end of the Street O' Fountains

In the same city, we stayed in a hotel that looked like it was a converted lunatic asylum, probably haunted, and if not then definitely a hollywood supernatural horror film set. So cool. Well, I liked it. Some of the other girls were a little less than impressed. Hehe.

The next day we stopped at the castle of Vlad Tepec, also known as Vlad the Impaler, Vlad Dracul, or "Dracula". Apart from the name and the bloodiness he has very little in common with the fictional vampire (see Erzebet Bathory for that stuff), but the castle was cool anyway.

I think this is a living room or something. I have many more impressive
pictures, but they are all in the wrong orientation...

From Romania we went to Budapest in Hungary, where we went for a cruise on the not-very-Blue Danube and saw the illuminated sights - lots of cool buildings. There was free wine, which was not disgusting, so the next day I was nursing my only hangover of the tour so far. I rather liked the city, and will have to go back and drink less!

Ooh, look at the prety liiights

And some more scenery, in the cold light of day. It was still pretty, even though I didn't feel so well...

My next stop was Vienna. We arrived in the evening and went out to see a concert of Mozart and Strauss music, which was great, despite my apprehensions of it being a bad orchestra. The women's dresses were awful (peach and poofy, like some 80s brisdesmaid nightmare), but they were very good at what they did.

The next day I got to meet a friend of mine whom I work on the Santharia project with, by the name of Christian, though we call him Art. We wandered around Vienna together and he showed me the sights. Thanks so much for the awesome day, Art! We went on this massive ferris-wheel thing (which I wasn't at all nervous about...) and into this massive Versailles-style palace called Schonbrunn Palace, and walked around the centre of town. There were some amazing builldings, but one of the highlights I will mention was the statue of the baby elephant which is outside the natural history musem. Soo cuute! We also ate heaps of traditional food: sausage, Sacher torte, Vienna coffee... it was a fabulous place and I had a great day out! After I left Art I went and had some... oh, I forget what it's called, but it is a traditional dessert - pancakes with plums and stuff. It was very good, so thanks for the tip, Art!

A sphinx presides over the dusk outside Shonbrunn Palace in Vienna

Well, that's as much as I have time for today, but tune in next time for Germany and the West!

ANZAC Day, Gallıpolı, Turkey.

2007-04-27T01:17:00.000+12:00

It was a dark and freezıng nıght. The sound of thunder, whıch was really just the wınd ın a mıcrophone whıch they forgot to turn off, was ın our ears. Any attempt at sleep was obstructed by boomıng voıces from above (where the speakers were) exhortıng us to 'move up, there are more people comıng ın'. Any complaınts were stıfled wıth the admonıshment from the pulpıt that the ANZAC spırıt ıs all about endurıng hardshıp and makıng sacrıfıces for others. So we moved up, stayed awake, and froze.

Unimpressed at Anzac Cove

Before I go any further I wıll mentıon that no, ıt ıs not your eyes - my 'ı's really don't have any dots. Crazy Turkısh keyboard.

'But ıt was worth ıt, rıght?' you ask. Well, at the Dawn Servıce we had Wınston Peters talkıng about somethıng or other, and no fırıng of guns ın salute. We then struggled out of our sleepıng bags (more aptly named frostbıte protectors) ınto the freezıng Gallıpolı mornıng and hıked for half an hour or an hour up to Lone Pıne for the Australıan Servıce. Thıs was the best part of the day. Theır MC was some cartoonıst guy and, as we were early, he kept us entertaıned. He was very amusıng - I know thıs even though I fell asleep a few tımes whıle he was talkıng. The Australıans had organısed theır area so that there was enough room for everyone, so I could lıe down. I am now much better dısposed toward my trans-Tasman cousıns!

After the Aussıe servıce was over we had to really boot ıt to get to the Kıwı servıce on tıme. It was about the same dıstance as ıt had been from the Dawn Servıce to the Aussıe one, although thıs tıme we dıdn't have to clımb a hıll - thankfully, ıt was only a gentle rıse the whole way, as opposed to a clıff. We got there and there was nowhere to stand or sıt. Chunuk Baır, where the NZ memorıal ıs, ıs a tıny, rocky, monument encrusted hılltop so there wasn't anywhere near enough room. We peered over people's heads at the bıg screen they had up, whıch was ok. The Aussıes put on a much better servıce though.

After the Kıwı Servıce fınıshed, we trudged back to the coach. I had run out of water so the hour and a half-ısh walk was not very good for me - by thıs tıme the sun had come out, so I got burnt and a lıttle heat-struck. I was nauseous and headachy and exhausted by the tıme we got back to the coach, and I slept the whole 4.5 hours to Istanbul.

Was ıt worth ıt? Well, put ıt thıs way: I'd do ıt dıfferently next tıme. I'd waıt untıl the mornıng to arrıve, lıke some people dıd, or just waıt untıl I can get VIP seats. I dıdn't enjoy ıt; the servıces were dry and I was too exhausted to really lısten anyway. However, I am glad I can say I have been to Gallıpolı, and seen what our soldıers went through. My dıscomfort and lack of sleep wıll be forgotten ın a few days as I get back ınto sıghtseeıng. Theırs...

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Contiki III - Greece and Egypt

2007-04-24T05:48:00.000+12:00

Well, it seems like so long since Rome! What's that? It is, and I'm a slacker for not updating? Well, you try blogging when you're in Egypt, geting up before dawn and going to bed after 10pm! The pace was absolutely hectic, but it was awesome. Anyway, I'm geting ahead of myself again.

We drove from Rome to Greece, stopping in Pompeii for a little tour. It was cool, though not as fabulous as I had imagined. Probably because we had a tour guide who was all information and no free time. I think it really makes it when you get a chance to sit down and absorb the atmposphere, letting your imagination fill in the full picture of what it was like then. We drove past Naples, which I think is a good thing!

From there we caught the ferry to Corfu, an island off the Greek mainland, near the border with Albania (if that tells anyone anyhing!). I got some beautiful pictures of the sunrise over the coast from the ferry. We had a toga party one night we were there, which was fun until I got tired and went to bed early. I am so old! Hehe.

Corfu is a typification of Europe in one way. It has two forts on the island. One is called the new fort, and the other is called, imaginatively enough, the old fort.
The new fort was built in 1538. That is older than my country! Real new.
The old fort was was built in 2000BC.
What can you say?

The next day, still on Corfu, we did the infamous "George's Boat" cruise. I was great fun - I went parasailing! It was basically just a relaxing day on the water - apart from the parasailing, of course :p

We arrived in Athens, did a quick tour of the Acropolis (Parthenon, Charybdids etc. - cool but covered in scaffolding), then we were off to Egypt!

The Charybdids, on the Acropolis in Athens

I found Egypt to be much like a cleaner, friendlier, richer India. I enjoyed it immensely. Highlights were the sandstorm that blew in a window of the museum we were in ('What was that? Terrorists? A vandal? No, a sandsorm! Cool!'), going INSIDE the second pyramid (!), seeing the pyramids after the sandstorm stopped, having my butt touched by my 15 year old camel guide (ew!), getting an actual good deal in the markets in Aswan (you knew there had to be shopping!), flying in a rust-bucket aeroplane to see Abu Simbel (temple with colossi - pretty sweet), taking an early morning hot air balloon ride over the Valley of the Kings in Luxor (more dead dudes - also cool) and going out on a yacht / launch thingy for the day on the Red Sea off the resort town called Hurghada.

I'm in Egypt! At Abu Simbel

Something else worth mentioning is the armed escort we had to and from Hurghada. If you remember, they had some trouble with exploding people there recently-ish, so to reassure the tourists they make heavily armed police babysit busloads of us. If you ask me, five coaches of tourists with an escort with outmoded weapons and a fixed, publicly available time to leave makes a better target than one coach. Eh, luckily I'm pretty sanguine about these things *vacant happy smile*.

Early morning balloon ride over the Valley of the Kings (with the tombs and stuff). No head-turning required - thanks Gus!

We got back to Athens and I caught the last six laps of the MotoGP, which was a highlight of the week for me, if not for you! I'm now waving the Casey Stoner banner as well as the Valentino Rossi one. "Vale" will always be my favourite though. ^^

We are now in Kavala, and tomorrow we see Troy and then camp out (in the loosest sense of the word: no fire, no caming equipment or tents, no alcohol - just a sleeping bag and your toilet roll) to wait for the dawn service at Anzac Cove in Gallipoli. Awesome.

In other news, I am well; I finally got rid of that cold, at least for now, and no Delhi-belly in Egypt. The only problem is I am going stir-crazy! The scenery and culture and stuff is amazing, but I'm geting homesick for meaningful work which occupies my mind! I've been through so many books, but I really miss using my brain. I found a New Scientist at a magazine shop today (don't ask how much it cost - all English language reading materials are vastly expensive here) so hopefully that will keep my brain occupied for a while.

I hope everyone is well. Hugs to all, and do write or comment - keep me up to date!

Contiki II - Italy

2007-04-12T03:19:00.000+12:00

Well, the weather has finally cleared! I had to wash my shoes because they stunk so badly from getting repeatedly soaked in Paris, Barcelona and Nice. Oh well, at least it was exotic European soggyness.

Since my last post I have been to Aigues Mortes (a short stopover), Nice on the French Riviera, Monaco for an evening, Venice, Florence, Pisa, and today I am in Rome. Aigues Mortes was super cute, but touristy. Nice was nice (heh, sorry), though I had to find a dress for Monaco so the whole day was spent on errands rather than enjoying it, so it was less cool. Florence was unmemorable, Pisa had a tower and many street hawkers (lookee-lookee, good price) but nothing else of note.

Monaco was awesome. I would have liked to have spent a day there rather than just the evening watching people gamble, as fascinating as that was. When I get home, however, you can all touch the hand which has touched the hairpin of the Monaco racing circuit. How cool is that?

Venice was indescribable. I'll describe it anyway though, just for you ^^ It was a beautiful little Italian town with winding cobbled streets and window boxes with flowers and washing out the windows, but with no cars at all. Only pedestrians! I was quite surprised to see this. In addition to being all that you think of when you think of picturesque Italian villages, it also has canals - little winding streets made of water. SO cool. And the food! All of Italy wins on the food thing. Sorry Paris. Though Paris wins everything else.

Today... well, Rome is awesome. We arrived last night and did a bit of a walk around, some of it guided. The Trevi fountain is the coolest thing ever - I want one. I never knew it was so big! I really want one. The P....on... - um, the place with the columns which is not in Greece - is cool. I saw the Vatican, complete with listening to the pontiff pontificate and recieving the benedictions of Benedict. I also looked at the Sistine chapel, and ate gelato. I will miss Italy. But mostly for the food.

Oh, and the Pope sends his blessings. Apparently he blessed me, and through me all my friends and family. So if you want 'em, consider yourself blessed. Sweet, huh?

Contiki I

2007-04-03T23:25:00.000+12:00

I fell in love with England as soon as I caught my first sight of it. It was the middle of the day, with clear skies, so I could see Dover heading towards us over the curve of the earth. Flying into Heathrow, beautiful green patchwork quilts of land which reminded me so much of home gradually resolved into small, modern but still picturesque towns huddled around ancient looking churches. And then we flew over a castle. What can I say?!

I caught the tube in to London, managed to navigate that and the streets to find my way to the Royal National Hotel (a place with the most uniformly terrible service service I´ve ever encountered - I was only there for one night though so it was not a problem), texted Tony and realised I didn´t have Jamie´s mobile number, then checked in and had a shower. My roommate for that night arrived while I was in the shower which was a bit of a surprise...

After the shower I had the meeting where we met out tour leader and driver (both awesome people) and met the people we´d be on tour with. I met some people and went out to dinner with them, at a pub around the corner. Dinner was ten pounds, but I got my steak! Holy cow it was good. Hehehe. There was salad, too, and chips! With no spices on them! Oh man. It was awesome.

Anyway, after that we all went to bed to be rested for our 6am leaving time. I was pretty excited so I managed to stay awake until then, but it was four hours later than I was used to (because of the change from India) so I slept through my alarm in the morning! There was no problem, though - I just packed a little haphazardly and got downstairs in plently of time.

Met a few new people on the drive to Dover, but mostly listened to Michael (our tour leader) talk about all the basic stuff (no hot food on the coach, double-bag if you´re going to throw up, etcetera). The ferry across was cool, though I was sad to be leaving England so soon after arriving.

Calais, the French port across from Dover, is nothing really to look at. We drove on through and were in Paris for that night, doing a night tour of the illuminations before bed. Our intrepid driver, Kim, even managed to drive us on the uninsurable roundabout around the Arc de Triomphe not one but about three times (!) , and into the Louvre with about an inch of clearance for the coach on either side. Go Kim! Girlpower and all that.

I loved Paris! I was prepared to be unimpressed, but the Eiffel Tower was really very cool, as was the Arc and the two islands in the Seine. So was the Champs Elysees, so was the Rue St. Honore, and so was finding out that I still speak enough French to be able to get around. I am SO going back there. The Moulin Rouge was pretty average though. Meh.

After a three nights we moved on to the Beaujolais region, where we stayed in this fabulous old Chateau. We had a party night that night with another group that was staying there; the theme was ¨come as something starting with P¨. I bought some fluffy white fabric in Paris and went as a panda. It was cool.

Well, my time is running out, but I am now in Spain which is less cool, but still pretty sweet. The wine in Beuajolais was not to my taste (vinegar never is unless it´s on chips). We are off to see flamenco dancing tonight, but until then it´s museums, shops, and tapas! Whee!

Indian Impressions

2007-03-25T23:26:00.000+12:00

Well, India has been great. It is a country of so many conflicting things and stories that I hardly feel I have scratched the surface, despite having had a month here. Still, I have experienced so much since arriving.

One of the most amazing things I have seen here, the usually reported contrast between abject poverty and mind-blowing riches aside, has been the way people use motorbikes. No helmets, and a family of five can fit on a single 250cc Suzuki-type machine! The dad drives, two kids sit on the tank in front of him; mum rides pillion - side sadlle (side-sadlle!) because of her sari, whilst holding the youngest in her arms. Often along with the groceries. It's amazing. And not a helmet between them! Because of the traffic they rarely get about 20km/h, but still. I would never ride pillion without a helmet. Especially not when drunk in a strange town in India.

Anyway, another amazing thing has been shopping. Not just how much I can do of it (three saris, four salwar suits, three pairs of earrings, deoderant, other sundry items, and no pashminas), but how confronting an experience it is.
"Madam, madam! Please come, look at my shop."
"Yes? Please come."
"You are looking for pasmina shawl, silk scarf, bangle... beautiful punjabi suit, silk saree, please madam..."
"Sister, sister, yes"...
At first it made me not look anywhere, but I am used to it now. I think I will feel quite unloved in a western shops now! Especially if I try to tell them the price they are asking is ridiculous...

The people have been by turns both horrid and fabulous, the politics and culture has been fascinating, the beggars have been successfully ignored, and the food is better at home (it's true! Better for my western tastes, at least). I rather like India, and look forward to spending a bit of time in one place in it at some time in the future, to get a little deeper under it many layers of skin.

Last days

2007-03-24T19:15:00.000+12:00

Well, Jaisalmer was great! It is my favourite place in the entire tour - my favourite that I've seen in India, actually. I loved the walled town with its small windy streets - similar but cooler than the other places I've been to. It also helped that I had an excellent night out there, even if the morning after was a little less than excellent...

I had my palm read at the fort in Jodhpur, but didn't see much else of the place due to said self-imposed Delhi-belly. I am now in Udaipur, which is nice, but nothing amazing really. I would have like to go to Ajmer and Pushkar - apparently they are a lot of people's favourites, but my tour doesn't go there! Ah well, I'll just have to come back in August. If I think I could stomach the heat...

So in a few hours I am catching my final sleeper train back to Delhi, where my tour ends in a couple of days' time. Then I get about a day either side of my flight before I start my Contiki! I knew I was mad...

Backroads of Rajasthan

2007-03-19T22:30:00.000+12:00

Okay, so it's been ages since I've had enough time on the internet to do everything I've wanted to, so I'm way behind on keeping everyone up on the tour I'm on. I'll try and get something up to this effect now. Maybe we'll just stick to the highlights though...

On the 10th, the day on which the tour started, I met my room mate for the tour. She's pretty cool, so we went to the red fort in Delhi on their metro, which is always fun because the cleanliness inside dramatically contrasts with the dirt outside. Red fort was cool too, I think, though all of the forts have kindas melded into one now... Soomaanyfooorts... I've still taken pics of them all though :p

Day two we went to Agra and saw the red fort there (most of the forts are red, too!). We also saw the Taj Mahal, which is pretty cool. I have the requisite million photos, which I will make anyone foolish enough to ask sit through ^.^

Day three I saw some birds and stuff, day four we got trapped in our hotel in the middle of nowhere by a protests which got a bit nasty. Turns out Rajasthan (the state we were in) had some really bad, highly unseasonal hail and it wrote off all their crops. Our guide, an Indian from this state called (of all things) Paddy, said that they were demonstrating because they were worried they wouldn't get compensation for their lost earnings and be destitute. The farmers have it pretty bad here.

Anyway, the next day we went to Jaipur, which was the place I was in the next day for my birthday. That was fort number... well, I dunno. Soomaanyfoooorts...

The next day was, of course, Camel Day! It was fun, and much more comfortable than a horse. They have more padding, I think, though I may have got lucky - a number of the other girls say they are missing some skin... ouch! I was just strting to find it really uncomfortable at the end of the five hours. We stopped for lunch under a tree, had vegetarian curries cooked for us and then had a siesta in the sand. It was pretty sweet. We then finished our 5hrs after the nap, and got in to our desert camp - all set up for us, with tents and a table with tablecloth and lamps! - in time for the sunset. It was so cool.

A short 1-hr ride out in the morning ended the camel safari, and we went to transfer to our new hotel. We were all very excited about the prospect of a hot shower and some form of toilet apart from a patch of sand, so you can imagine how excited we were when Paddy (the guide) said we'd been upgraded! We stayed in a Palace! It was so cool - from one type of traditiional Indian life to quite another. It was called the Lallgarh Palace if anyone wants to google it.

Last night we caught an 8 hour bus to Jaisalmer (no toilet stops so no drinking anything that whole day in preparation!) and I am now in an internet cafe in "the golden city" which is a gold-yellow sandstone walled city in which people still live! It is the first inhabited fort we've been to, so it's pretty sweet. It's my favourite place so far.

Well, you are more or less up to date, and I am tired of writing so I'll leave it there. Eight more days until I can eat steak!

Okay, let's try that again...

2007-03-19T22:12:00.000+12:00

Man, that was so annoying. I spent like half an hour writing that birthday post, and it didn't go up! It said it had published successfully, too >.< Oh well, I will try to write the abridged version.

It seems I mis-calculated: I wasn't on the camel on my birthday. I was in Jaipur, and that evening was an overnight train to Bikaner where the camels live. It was a good day though, despite the lack of wine etc. I was woken up by txts at 4am, 5am and 6am from dad, Col and Kali respectively (I think that was the order - I was asleep), then a call from dad at 6.30. When I finally got it through my sleeping head that I could probably talk to people despite the cost seeing as it was my birthday, it was great, if a bit tear-inducing.

I then took a couple of my cohorts and went to see the Hawa Mahal ("Palace of the Winds") and the rest of the City Palace, and had some (fairly sloppy) mendhi (henna-hand-decoration-paint-thing) done. It was a cool expreience though.

After that, a lot of us had decided to go to Pizza Hut (!) in town for my birthday. It was so nice to eat western food again, which actually tasted like it does at home! Hehe. While I have enjoyed the Indian food, the novelty was beginning to wear off after eaing it twice a day for so long now.

After lunch we went shopping and I bought some earrings, which are forever to be known as my birthday earrings, according to one of the girls. We then made our way back to the hotel because a palmist was supposed to be there and I thought it sounded like fun. By the time we arrived, however, some people had had theirs done and said he sucked, especially for the price, so we decided against it. I am now on a mission to find a proper Toothless Crone to do it. Hopefully there is one who speaks English...

Thanks for all your comments everyone, it was nice to get birthday wishes from you all. Will try to look in on Santharia soon Art, though I'd like to catch everyone up on the tour so far so I will try to write that first. Internet here is few and far between so I'm trying to use it when I find it. Hope everyone is well and having fun - I am!

My Birthday!

2007-03-16T00:30:00.000+13:00

Final Sight Seen

2007-03-08T01:25:00.000+13:00

Today is my last day in Kolkata. It's kind of sad, but also quite exciting because that means my tour of Rajasthan starts in a couple of days! I have to check out at midday tomorrow, but my transfer doesn't come until 3.30pm for my train at (theoretically) 4.55pm so I shall be sitting in the garden bar drinking water or tea or Pepsi (they don't seem to have Coke as much in India) for a few hours. It's not really a problem though - that's probably pretty much what I would have been doing anyway!

Today I finished my sighteseeing of West Bengal (the state Kolkata is in, and is the capital of) with a visit to the Raj relic called the Victoria Memorial. It's basically a museum of British rule, although it has a display of modern art on at the moment, and is in a fairly similar style to our museum in the Domain. Perhaps it is not surprising then, given my proprietary-ness of said building, that I have decided that it will do nicely as a bach for me in India. Once I rename it and fix up the plumbing (I had my first experience of Indian-style bathrooms there today, and had to pay a rupee for the dubious pleasure) I think it will do quite nicely.

One day in Kolkata

2007-03-07T01:19:00.000+13:00

So yesterday I spent the day on a little tiki-tour of the city: me, a driver, and a tour guide to take me cool places. It was organised by the man who provided my transfers to and from the railway station.

It got off to something of a bumpy start: I had organised it for Friday but when the car turned up, there was no guide! Apparently there was not one available, so I told them where they could put that, and that I'd do the tour on Monday if they could guarantee me a guide. On a side note, it has been quite shocking how badly people have tried to rip me off here. I guess they all think I'm rich or something. I suppose, compared to them, I am.

Anyway, the driver and guide picked me up at 9.30 on Monday. We went first to the Temple of Kali called the Kali Ghat. I saw where they sacrifice the goats every day; apparently they use the flesh to feed the poor which I thought was very nice. I also got a little glimpse 0f the Goddess, but we didn't go in... I'm not really sure why. *Shrug* On the way out we saw what looked like a dead tree, which my guide informed me was actually a cactus, to which people tie little blocks of what look like stone with red thread to wish for a child. As we left, the guide slipped a seemingly random guy some money. When I asked what that was about he said it was to ensure we didn't get hassled! Touristy destinations, eh?

After that we had some of the worst chai I've ever had in a stall outside before he took me to see Nirmal Hriday next door: Mother Theresa's Home for the Destitute and Dying. It was quite embarrassing really; he took me in and kind of left me to have a look around while he went outside to have a smoke. So here I am, all clean and touristy, standing around in a place where people are either very sick or very working. I left pretty quickly.

Next we drove to the flower market, which is apparently a must-see. It stank of crushed rotting greenery, but if I had wanted to buy strings and strings of marigolds or a neat little crown made entirely out of flowers, that would have been the place! It was also very crowded and I think I got "accidentally" brushed up against a number of times. People always seem to complain about this but it didn't really bother me, apart from the principle of the thing. There's nothing I find very shocking about having a hand brush your leg as you walk through a crowded area, but I know that the men were doing it with sleazy intent so I guess I felt like I ought to be at least a little annoyed. I didn't spend much energy on it though.

We then went to see the Old Howrah Bridge, a massive construction of steel cables which spans the huge wide branch of the Ganges which flows through Calcutta (called the Hooghly River when they don't just call it the Ganges) from the city Calcutta to the city/district called Howrah, which incidentally is where you find the station my train departs from and arrives to. There are two bridges across the river, the Old and the New. You can't always see the one from the other because of the atrocious amounts of smog here, but later on we went to see the ghats on the riverside at a point between the two and you could see both from there. The Old bridge is fairly similar to the new bridge except that the Old has lanes where massive streams of people can and do walk across it (and it looked like quite a walk! It's a long way across, perhaps twice or three times the straight length of our Harbour bridge), and the New bridge is formed of symmetrical wires holding it up, whereas the Old one looks very much as if it had been cobbled together.

The next two stops were the highlight of the tour. The Kumar Tolly is an area where artisans craft the idols for festivals and, one assumes, temples. They are made of straw tied into the required shape then covered in clay a few times, then painted and decorated. We saw them in all phases of creation and I was very impressed with how a few bits of string and some mud can turn a lump of hay into a goddess!

After this was the stunning Jain temple, a confection of marble and mirrors and mosaics. It's difficult to describe, so you should all go look it up - I think there's only one in Kolkata. I wish I could get some of the photos I've taken up here, but I think that's a bit of an ask for the speeds of the computers here! As we left the guide encouraged me to give a small donation to a priest for a little red-and-yellow wool bracelet. It was for protection, he said, although it was immediately after this that I noticed feeling sick (see previous post) so perhaps it is not so good! I am still wearing it though, just to prove to myself how not-superstitious I am ^.^

They took me back to the hotel for lunch and then at 2 o'clock we headed out again. This time we went to the Old Park Street Cemetery first, which was rather neat. Massive monoliths from the 17- and 1800s, memorialising British men and children from the East India Company are crowded in to a small section of land which is amazingly quiet for this city. The light had a lovely green quality to it from all the ancient towering trees, which was echoed in the green of the moss on the ground, although not on the graves: these were scrupulously maintained.

After seeing the riverside and bridges and a quick stop at a souvenir shop where I bought three postcards and they tried to sell me yet another pashmina (I haven't bought one but it seems to be what all the touts think western women want so I swear if I hear that word again...!) we made our last stop at St Paul's Anglican Cathedral. They had some beautiful stained glass there, and the guide told me (a number of times - perhaps I wasn't suitably impressed) that it was where Princess Diana visited when she came to Calcutta. I was, however, impressed when the guide told me that one of the priests or whatever-you-call-'em said that when he saw me he thought Diana had come back to visit! Hehe, I am easily flattered. Apparently she wore a very similar salwar suit with her dupatta (scarf) over her head the way I was wearing mine, when she visited.

So quite a good little day's outing really, though exhausting. I feel now that I can say I have "done" Kolkata, apart from my one outstanding sight which is the Victoria Memorial. Maybe tomorrow.

Betting: End! No more bets!

2007-03-07T01:09:00.000+13:00

I have succumbed! Delhi-belly has finally got me.

I was on a tour of the city (to be described in a later post) during the day, and at about midday I began to get a sore neck. Then I started to cough, then to feel hot, then a little dizzy... I went out for dinner and had a fabulous Chicken Tikka at a place called Jojo's (which is so far not implicated), and when I got back I had to go straight to bed. I woke up a couple of hours later burning up but freezing cold. I managed to get back to sleep for a bit before... well, I shall omit the details but suffice to say I started taking my rehydration salts. They're not too bad actually - Simon says they taste awful but the ones I have just taste like a slightly salty orange cordial, which was a nice change from the straight bottled water I've been drinking almost exclusively (apart from the ever-present tea here) for seven-plus days straight.

I felt much better by the morning, and even managed to get to the market down the road after lunch to pick up the saris I bought a few days earlier. I shan't elaborate on those though; I think my shopping will have to have a post of its own!

The Fairlawn

2007-03-07T00:50:00.000+13:00

When I first arrived at the Fairlawn Hotel I was a bit shocked. It looked a lot less cute than on the website, and my room was somewhat nasty - the shower is over the bath, which is on blocks, and there is no shower curtain! The air conditioning duct runs through the bathroom too, which is something of an eyesore. There was no soap provided in the room, no flannels and the paper in the loo (a nasty, public-toilet styled room) is as cheap as it comes. The bedroom itself is a masterpiece of floral history, with matching blue rose-covered beadspread, drawer-covers, and curtains over the entryways to the convenience in lieu of doors. All this, after the rather palatial marble-and-wood surrounds at the Bajaj Indian Homestay in Delhi, seemed simply too crude to bear. I considered asking to be transferred to another room but was quickly dissuaded from that course by a lady who stays there frequently - apparently it is wiser not to do anything to upset the owner, the tempestuous Mrs. Violet Smith.

I've been at the Fairlawn for five or six days now. The floral patterns have grown on me, I'm getting to know the staff, the guests are nice to talk to and the lights outside (which masquerade as tacky plastic fruit hanging from the doorways and eaves by day) look so beautiful at night that I am quite comfortable here now, despite the food, which is *looks around hoping that the redoubtable Mrs. Smith never sees this* lacklustre, to be kind. Although the best parts of the hotel - like the lounge and that fabulous carved bannister - are upstairs (where my room is not - it's off the dining room), that only makes me think "if I come back to Calcutta, I'll have to ask them to book me in to an upstairs room"... Once you have stayed here, I doubt you could really think of staying anywhere else.

Indian Rail, first class style.

2007-03-04T19:58:00.000+13:00

Well, I have a bit of time to write up something now. I'm in the internet cafe across from my hotel and it's 15 minutes until lunch is served. I seem to have been given all-inclusive accommodation, so I am eating all the meals they try to feed me at the moment.

So, the rail journey. I boarded at Delhi two and a half hours late, because the train before mine was running late. The guy who was doing the transfer from my hotel helped me board, which was brilliant because otherwise I would never have found my berth! Apparently you have to find your name on a board of passenger lists to find out which seat you are in, rather than having it printed on your ticket. Hurdle number two (after the train being delayed 2 1/2 hours) was that we couldn't find my name on the lists! I managed to remain pretty calm about the whole thing - I guess I was so far out of my depth I just couldn't stir myself to worry about anything! When the train finally pulled in we had to run to the front to find the right conductor (one for each carriage) to tell me where my seat was. As I sat down in my carriage I looked out the window and saw a board which said something like "upper class passenger lists". I figure that was why we didn't find my mane on the board we'd been looking at - because I was in first class (I'd decided to pay more and keep my luggage :p )!

So I got all settled in. The compartment had a long bench-type seat on either side, the back part of which folded down to convert into a bed. As I waited, a man came in and sat down. He was obviously very important because he read about three newspapers in the time I was in there, and kept taking cellphone calls during which he had to shout down the phone in Hindi to be heard, repeating what he said at increased volume each time. It was really quite comical and I had a very hard time not cracking up into fits of hysterics! Poor man, just trying to make a phone call and some stupid foreigner finds you funny!

Anyway, the ticket inspector came in after about an hour and offered me to move to the next door compartment which was a single room. I was relieved because, as funny as I found him, I
didn't fancy sleeping in the same room as the man. So I moved, and they brought me dinner: a cheese sandwich, what I thought was a sausage roll nut was actually some herby curry paste stuff wrapped in pastry; a really nice strawberry drink, some sweets and some cashew nuts. Oh, and the ever-present tea.

A little while later they came in and asked me what I wanted for dinner. "Wait, what? What was that I just ate then?"
"That was snacks, madam."
Snacks! Perhaps unsurprisingly I wasn't hungry at that time, so I said I didn't want anything and asked for the bedding they supply, and went to sleep after being sternly admonished by the guy who brought the bedding to lock the door. I got up at 11pm to do what needed to be done (they have western-style loos in 1st class, thankfully), and they offered me dinner again. Never being one to turn down a free meal, I got roast chicken with veges, potato wedges and some of these excellent fish cutlets which were dome in a spicy shell. I hope they have those again when I go back to Delhi in a few days.

After that I slept quite well, to be woken at about 6am by the sunlight through my curtains. I tried to sleep longer but I had to give up at 7am when the Hindi music they were playing when I got on the train started up again. Not long after there was an announcement that the train was now 5hrs late, sorry for any inconvenience! Still, I was in no real hurry. Breakfast came (with as many different courses and as much food as dinner), followed by lunch. Soon after that we stopped at a station where some little beggar kids came up to the window and begged for food. I don't know how they thought I was going to give it to then - my window had no opening as the carriage was air-conditioned! I locked my door in case they came inside, which turned out to be fortunate. As we pulled out of the station I heard this thump, thump noise from my door. I pulled the curtain back and saw this guy I'd never seen before trying to wrench the door off its hinges! I was a bit freaked out, and although, I reasoned, he might just have got the wrong compartment number, I kept my door locked the rest of the way there just in case.

I arrived without any further excitement at the Fairlawn and have, more or less, been there ever since. I shall update further later but for now I am late for lunch, which is not really done, so I shall have to run. Hope everyone is well; as always do let me know, by email or by commenting below.

Kolkata and Indian Rail

2007-03-02T01:00:00.000+13:00

Just a quick one today guys; I'm not sure if I will have time to post tomorrow so I thought I'd whip up something now.

I have arrived in Kolkata (aka Calcutta) in a safe, if not timely manner. My train was five hours late! Kolkata is - at first glance, anyway - different from Delhi in that it has fewer people, marginally less pollution, more nuns and is rather a lot hotter!

Actually, my discourse on the rail system may have to wait: I think I'm due back at the hotel for dinner. Hope everyone is well; leave me comments, or email me! Will post more later...

It's past my bedtime but it's only 4pm....

2007-02-27T23:34:00.000+13:00

Well, here I am! I've been in India for about 12 hours now; I landed at 1.30ish, disembarked at 2ish due to another plane hogging our gate, and got into bed after my transfer at about 4am Delhi time. I've had three hours' sleep since then, and been shopping already! But I'm getting ahead of myself...

The fight was smooth and my seat-mate forthe first leg was nice, despite the fact that we didn't have a language in common. I flew AKL-Hong Kong and she was transferring to Taipei. She brought me snacks, and showed me how to use the remote control thingamywhatsit.

I remember thinking as we flew closer to Hong Kong that I had forgotten how beautiful twilight in the air is. There was this band around the horizon like a rainbow, shading red-orange-yellow-green-violet-and then into the deep blue of nighttime, fading up to black. No clouds, just a scattering of stars, the brightest of which sat just above the wing looking like a hole poked into the blanket of night with daytime shining through.

Anyway, Hong Kong airport was cool. Its tent-like scalloped roof is neat, as was the art, the travelators and cleanliness, and the amazing-bizarre topiaried mandarin trees just growing in displays around the place. The mandarins were perfectly placed, I wondered if they were real! I didn't dare pick one and see, I figured there'd be some sort of fine...

The plane from Hong Kong to Delhi was much nicer than the one from Auckland. I had a whole window-row of seats to myself, too; much better than trying to clamber or acrobat over nice sleeping Taipei lady.

My first sight of India was a cluster of lights in the darkness on the ground. I think the town was called Decca. We flew over it, flew near Agra, and flew over Patna on our way to Delhi. We landed on time and, after few problems my luggage and I were safely delivered. My first thought upon exiting the terminal was "the air smells different here". It kind of smells like your fingers when you've been chopping garlic and onions. That, mixed with spices, effluent, and the occasional whiff of incense. Glamorous and choking.

I found my transfer people, who found my hotel for me*, and I was installed in my room by about 3.30am. Cue waterworks. Heh. There had been a bit of crying before I left, but this was the "Oh shit, what am I DOING!?" kind of crying. I got over it in a relatively short space of time though, and worked out what it was I wanted to accomplish today. With goals in mind I felt a lot better and eventually managed to fall asleep. I woke at seven, having decided to set my alarm for eight and maybe not even get up then...

It turned out it was as well I didn't sleep in. As it happened, I met an English lady called Cassie at breakfast, and we decided to go shopping together. It made life so much easier to have two of us trying to work out where we were and how we were getting from one place to another, rather than just one!

Well, I think that's me. I might go to bed early actually, I'm starting to feel dizzy from tiredness... Must... stay... awake... till at least 7.... urgh.

Tomorrow at about this time I board an overnight train to Kolkata (Calcutta) where I stay for about a week. Bring it on!

____
*At this point I should mention that I found it highly amusing to be stuck in a traffic jam on the roads on the way to my hotel. At 3am! In the morning!! And before you politicians go on about Auckland roads, this is different. This was a traffic jam of trucks (still referred to as the English "lorries", although some were actual trucks. Anyway...). It turns out, lorries etcetera aren't allowed on the main roads between 9 and 5. I think it's a goood idea. It was quite something, hoewever, to be in one of the only cars amongst a jam of crumbling, rusting trucks, many sans doors; one even sans half the cab! They all seemed to be well loved though, even though they looked like they blonged on the scrap heap! They were all painted with designs and words. Words along the lines of "Use Horn Please" (not that they had to ask - I think driving here is a sport to see who can honk the most!) and "Keep Distance" and, perhaps most bizarrely, on many rear bumpers and mudflaps: "STOP!"

What's the Hindi for...?

2007-02-26T09:47:00.000+13:00

Well, I'm off! See you all on the 18th of September, or thereafter. Keep an eye on this for updates. Is there a pool running yet on how long before I get a case of Delhi-belly? I know there's one on how long before I get robbed... :D

Ninja - WIN!

2007-02-12T07:27:00.000+13:00

Purely because they were all still sober at the end of the night (I blame the face masks) I think we have to declare that the ninjas won. There were more of them than I ever expected, although I should probably have known that, given the nature of ninjas.

Honourable mentions must go to Pirate Steven for his "albino parrot", Pirate Heidi for wearing that many stripes, and to ninja Dad for wearing a full-body ninja-turtle outfit on what I swear was a thirty-degree day! (look out all you pople in India, I might melt on you...)

Thanks so much to everyone who came; it was an excellent night! Today I'm off to collect my documents from my travel agent, and then it is two weeks to go...!

One Month!

2007-01-26T08:06:00.000+13:00

Today it's one month to the day until I leave. I'm not really excited or scared or anything yet - I'm still too mired in the details.

I'm off work until I leave, so... *potter*.

I haven't got my travel documents yet, but I do have most of my other stuff all organised. Injections either all done or all underway, pack bought, shorts bought, accomodation mostly confirmed... although I am still waiting to hear about my Indian Visa - they've had my passport for a while now... I knew I should have got a better passport photo! Haha.

I'm still in discussions with IRD (i.e. I've sent them a letter about things they've got wrong and they haven't replied... we're on a limited time-scale here people!). I have yet to call vodafone about what I do with my phone so they don't bill me while I'm away, and there are always other things to do.

Drinking is one of them, yay! Lots of little 'last drinks' with different groups, which is cool, then my big leaving party. And making time to do cool stuff with my Simon, like horseriding. Yay.

Eeek! One month to go.

Vaccinations, check... ow!

2007-01-10T18:33:00.000+13:00

I went and got my vaccinations yesterday. While you may not find this terribly exciting, I found it amusing to spend an hour in a nurse's office getting jabbed with little bits of polio, diptheria, tetanus, five flavours of meningitis, hepatitis A and my personal favourite, typhoid fever.

And on the 22nd I add rabies to my collection. Now when you call me rabid, it will be just a little more true.

A treat for anyone who has been checking...

2006-12-11T21:54:00.000+13:00

There's not too much to report on the travel front. I've a few things underway, like the purchase of a backpack and getting my vaccinations sorted, but otherwise it's pretty much all as organised as it can be until I get my travel documents from the tour operators in January or February.

Still, there is one more big-ish thing I have yet to organise: my leaving party! It will be on Saturday the 10th of February, probably at my house, and it will be a Pirates versus Ninjas theme! It will be favourites.

To help those who aren't yet secure in their pirate or ninja identity, I made a quiz for you to take. Thus, anyone who doesn't know whether they are a ninja or a pirate, doesn't know the meme, or just plain doesn't get it should click here. Everyone else should too, just for shits and giggles.

^.^

On the day I turn 26...

2006-11-06T07:45:00.000+13:00

...I will be in the desert, on a camel. Where the star is on the map.

For those who haven't yet figured it out, this is a map of my itinerary in India:
Delhi - Kolkata, Kolkata - Delhi, Gecko's tour around Rajasthan.
For more info, see my first (proper, trip-related) post.

Click the picture for a larger version.

This is what my day will look like on the 15th of March, 2007:

"We arrive into Bikaner by train early this morning and transfer to our hotel. There we can buy some breakfast before driving to Himmatasar - the starting point for our camel ride. We ride for around 2 hours to our lunch point and then on to the main Dunes of Raisar to witness a beautiful sunset. We then continue to our overnight camp where small tents will be provided or you can simply sleep under a star filled sky."

Sounds pretty sweet, although I have a feeling I'll be missing people. Do you think the camels will be extra-nice to me because it's my birthday?

Yeah, me neither.

There's a hole in my bank account.

2006-10-30T15:39:00.000+13:00

Well, it's done! No backing out now. I paid for my travel today - I used a bank cheque in the end, because it turns out internet banking has a limit of $1000 on one-off payments. Bah, quoth I. Still, it's sorted now. It's all tying up loose ends and preparing for the day from here on in! Not to mention enjoying the summer.

As part of the paying thing, I have finalised my dates (although there is no charge for me to change the return dates in case I get bored and want to come home (not likely!) or run out of money (...yeeeah, quite a bit more likely... hehe)). I will be leaving on Monday the 26th of February at 2ish and arriving back on Monday the 17th of September at 3pmish. That's two Mondays off work for anyone who cares to use me as an excuse. ^.^ And I will be back just in time to see Turandot. What an amazing coincidence. I will be back in the southern hemisphere on the 12th of September when I'll be in Brisbane, visiting the expat branch of mum's side of the family - thanks for the offer, guys! There are, of course, lots of other dates to do with my journey, but I will post them closer to the time with things like which countries I will be in on which day with my Contiki and such.

Loose-ends-wise:

Before exams I will have to drop my passport in to Jain to get my visa for India, and ring Mrs. Cartmell (my Isle of Man homestay lady) to tell her my ferry dates, and then I can relax (haha) until after exams.

Then, after exams (if that magical time truly exists) I start thinking about talking to doctors about courses of vaccinations, and doing anything else I have't thought of yet, like emailing or MSNing individual overseas friends to see if they will be amenable to having a visitor (this means you Alida, Tony, Jamie, etc, etc...). Ooh, and I get to go backpack-shopping!

It's real

2006-10-26T13:32:00.000+13:00

Today is the 24th of October. This time in four months, I will be walking through a gate to a plane to Delhi.

Four months.

Rhymes with TT

2006-10-24T13:26:00.000+13:00

Today I found out for certain something I had thought but wasn't sure of: there are no tickets to the Isle of Man TT. You go there, stand on the side of the road, and watch it. How cool is that?!

You can buy tickets to sit in the grandstand in Douglas if you want, but you can't book those - you just buy them on the day. Given I'll be staying so close to the grandstand (5 mins walk, I think she said) I will have a good chance to get there early enough to buy tickets, should I so desire. Awesome.

Reasons not to post while stressed and sleepy

2006-10-23T11:06:00.000+13:00

1. Because posts come out looking like the last one. Heh.

So. I have in my hot little email account a missive from Jain, my travel agent. It tells me all about my plans, and how much money she would like to have for it. So far it looks good, apart from only having 128 days travel insurance when I'll be away for between 180 and 240 days, and not having any - sorry, not having no - booking for the ferry to the Isle of Man. Otherwise, my plans look like this:

26 Feb 07, 1420hrs Auckland Intl - Hong Kong Intl. Non-stop, 11hrs 25mins. Urgh. Then, after an hour and a half rattling around Hong Kong Airport, I go from Hong Kong Intl – Delhi (Indira Gandhi Intl) Non-stop, 6hrs 20mins.

In Delihi I stay two nights at the “Bajaj Indian Homestay”, which is not a homestay. I don’t know anything about this place yet except what is on the website; it just turned up in this email. It looks rather nice, and they will apparently feed me an ‘American Breakfast’ daily which should be good while I try to be not too adventuresome with food choices while I settle in, in deference to my belly…

On the 28th of February (Indian time) I catch the train from Delhi to Kolkata (Calcutta). On the advice of pretty much everything I’ve ever read about Indian train stuff, I’m going for the 1st class, air conditioned carriage which sets me back $200ish but decreases my risk of being woken by people trying to get to know me or my money better. It leaves at 5pm and arrives the next day at 10ish.

I then spend 9 nights at the... quirky... Fairlawn Hotel in Kolkata. They feed me American breakfast foods too. I hope this doesn’t mean those strange cereals I hear about… Oh, wait, they don’t eat those for breakfast anyway. Have a look at this page, and scroll down to read a review/description of the place (right hand column).

On the 8th of March I get the train back to Delhi, arriving at 10am-ish. From there I have one night’s pre-tour accomodation at the “Hotel Singh Palace” before embarking on my “Backroads of Rajasthan” tour with a company called Geckos for 17 nights. Check it out, I get to go camel-riding!

Then I’m back at the Bajaj for one night before flying British Airways from Delhi (Indira Gandhi Intl) at 0805 for 9-and-a-half hours to arrive in London, at Heathrow where I have a night at Contiki’s pre-tour accomodation (the Royal National Hotel) to get used to the time-zone change before spending the 28th of March until the 12th of May on my “Ultimate European” Contiki tour where I see all of Europe, right out to the Occidental and back, including a bit of Egypt.

Insert the Isle of Man TT here, and some aimless wandering which has yet to be decided (this means me visiting you, Alida, and possibly anyone else who is somewhere around the UK or the continent).

Coming home I go back through Hong Kong and (so far) Melbourne for Phillip Island (another motorbike race, duh). The date of my return is not set yet, because Jain can’t yet book that far in advance and I don’t know when the bike race is on. I will talk to her about keeping the home-time date open, I think. But, no matter what, I will be back for October the 1st, if not before, to get organised for 2008's study. If the Aussie GP is after the 1st I will do that in a seperate trip.

All this for a mere many-thousand dollars. Which leads me to one issue... how do you give someone that much money? My eftpos card won't let me make transactions that size... If anyone knows, leave me a comment, otherwise I will have to go to the bank and ask them. Feel free to comment anyway; let me know what you think of my plans, my tours, my fashion sense, my odour... whatever really.

^.^

Whistle while you work

2006-10-16T23:30:00.001+13:00

So. I should probably start this. I'm kind of intending this to be my travel blog while I'm away gallivanting across the wide world.

...

So, started.

Dad, Col and Col's g/f Deanna

2006-06-12T13:25:00.000+12:00

Short Hair Take II

2006-05-30T21:22:00.000+12:00

It has been demanded, so here they are. Pictures where you can actually see my new haircut. Well, more or less. :p

Once more, with glasses

2006-03-22T08:28:00.000+12:00

Grunok's short-haired head

2006-03-21T14:06:00.000+12:00

The quality of these pictures is somewhat lacking, but I think you get the idea... hehe. It will be practical in many ways, I think. And it looks kinda cute, if I do say so myself!

Female Troll sketch

2006-02-25T21:16:00.000+13:00

Llamas!

2006-02-08T11:54:00.000+13:00

Fiance sent me a link to a llama trekking site in Britain. I found this link on it. Go there. Love llamas.

An Elderly GHEREGHUT of Santharia

2006-02-05T13:28:00.000+13:00

Slow cavernous evolution

2006-02-03T23:37:00.000+13:00

Cave troll background sketch

2006-02-03T19:42:00.000+13:00

Updated Troll

2006-01-28T22:47:00.000+13:00

A few more bits done. I still have some things to go, but mostly just tidying up, I think. And some large alterations, but that'll be a different pic.

Preliminary Elderly Cave Troll

2006-01-28T13:35:00.000+13:00

Here's Vesk take one. No fine detail yet (except teeth). More shadows etc to come also.

Which pic to pick?

2006-01-23T18:02:00.000+13:00

Art wanted a different pic than the one I provided for the teampage - he said it was too fuzzy. Which should I provide?

Thaedras picture

2006-01-06T12:57:00.000+13:00

Here is the final version of one of the other sketches shown below. I am very proud of it. Just goes to show what 12 hours' painting can get you.

Roughs for Pikel

2006-01-04T00:23:00.000+13:00

Rough coloured versions for Thaedras' avatar

Why Lipstick is Good

2005-11-13T17:11:00.000+13:00

This is me with Lipstick. Not just lipstick, but Lipstick.

With me are my future FG-in-law and my future sister-in-law-in-law... yeah. We are at my engagement party. Fiance is hiding. :D

That Dress

2005-11-13T17:02:00.000+13:00

This is me in the dress that I made. From scratch. Without a pattern. I am very clever.

With me is my eventual father-in-law, Tony. He looks a lot like my fiance. Except older :p We are in Fiji (hence the tan) at my eventual brother-in-law's wedding.

Lyeael'k in progress

2005-10-26T18:07:00.000+13:00

This is Lyeael'k - and no, I didn't name him! He isn't done yet - he needs better shading, his hair to be drawn in over the current base coat, stubble, and probably a few other things - oh yeah, like clothes! But so far I'm pretty proud of him.

Guoranala's head

2005-10-24T15:14:00.000+13:00

This is everyone's favourite ugly Iferhem, pretty much as he looks now, staring down at Darien. I wanted to make his neck a little thinner, but as noone was ever going to see it, I decided not to bother. Heh.

Grunok's Head

2005-10-19T13:50:00.000+13:00

This is my head.

I have a shiny new haircut.

The world is a good place.

*Realises*

Not that you can see my haircut well at all in this picture. Too bad, you will have to be content with seeing my head.