2012: A year of travel in review

I have not been posting to my travel blog much this year so seeing as it is now December, I thought I'd write a summary for 2012.

• My year started well with waking up on New Years Day in Paris. I had got there just for new years eve (with only about 2 hours to spare) after getting spending the night on a bus stuck on a closed, icy mountain road in the French Alps and having to be rescued by the rescue services (see separate blog post). I would visit Paris two more times in 2012, both in November, with a business trip and a trip to Disneyland Paris in the same week. 

• My business travel year also started well. I travelled to Pennsylvania for business meetings, and combined the trip with a weekend in Atlantic City. I managed to lose both my passports on this trip and only realised on my way to the airport to fly back to London. Luckily I managed to get them back!

• The Spring was packed full of travel! A boys' trip to Las Vegas for a mate's 30th, a long weekend in Tenerife, a business trip and weekend in Ireland, a surprisingly rainy weekend in Gibraltar, and Easter in Australia, where I went just for a week. I surprised my parents as I didn't tell them I was coming home. On my way back from Melbourne I stopped over in Doha to look around. 

• During the summer, my parents were over from Australia. With them, I travelled to Prague and Venice, and also did various sightseeing around the south of England. 

• However, my main trip this summer was to the Benicassim Festival, on the coast of Spain between Barcelona and Valencia  We stayed at a spa resort instead of roughing it camping, spending the nights at the festival and the afternoons recovering on the beach.

• Autumn was spent chasing the last of the summer sun. I saw my parents off to Dubai on their way back to Australia, and had a weekend in Ibiza with my girlfriend.

• Other business trip destinations this year included Brussels, Madrid, Munich, Oslo, Prague, Vienna and Zurich.

• My travel year will finish off with flying to Miami on Christmas Day to get some winter Florida sun!

Overall less flights this year than 2011 but about the same distance flown:

In Australia Again

I left work on Tuesday evening and headed to Heathrow for the airport. I was coming home to Melbourne.

The first part of my Qantas journey was smooth. I slept most of the way to Bangkok after a tiring week. After refuelling at Bangkok, the plane sat on the tarmac for over an hour waiting for a part to be replaced.  Once we landed in Sydney we were late enough for me to miss my connecting flight to Melbourne.  They put me on the next flight to Melbourne, but that, too, was delayed, due to a no-show passenger, followed by a plane with a medical emergency needing to land.

Once I finally landed in Melbourne on Thursday lunchtime, it turned out my suitcase hadn't. I left the airport anyway after my 27-hour flight and overall over-30-hour journey. I managed to keep myself awake until the suitcase finally arrived.

The last few days have been great, catching up with family and friends, and today heading out to the St Kilda Festival - a free music festival at the beachside inner-Melbourne area of St Kilda.

2010 - a year of travel in review

It has been a bit of a slack year, blogwise!  I have to be honest, I have not done a good job at all of keeping this blog up-to-date this year. So as the year draws to an end, I thought I could get away with it all by summarising my year of travel in one single post! So here we go...

Let's start with a scary stat. 

I took 36 flights totalling to about 44,900 miles (about 72,250 km) in 2010. Some of this was for personal holiday travel, and some was for business (not business class though - I wish!)

IT ALL BEGAN IN...

Australia. I visited Australia for Christmas and New Years last year, to get away from the London cold and catch up with those at home. It was great! A trip down to Sorrento with one group of mates and another trip to Warrnambool with another group, ensured that I spent as much time as possible on the beach.

A CHILLY RETURN

Brr! The very next morning after landing, I found myself walking to work in the snow!

But really, you can't let winter stop you! So some friends and I ventured right into the cold. Up north. To Yorkshire. The highlight was staying in the seaside town of Whitby, and you can read all about the trip here.

THE WINTER WAY

Making the most of England despite the winter, my girlfriend and I went down South too, and visited New Forest and Portsmouth. But let's not get carried away with English travel. Europe is at our doorstep! A friend and I headed of to Austria for a few days. We had a good time wandering around Vienna, eating ketchup flavoured chocolate and generally being silly, as well as meeting up with some Austrian friends, and visiting them in the mountains where I lived when I was young. My friend headed back to London, and I stayed on to go skiing at Bad Gastein, near Salzburg.  Austria's a great place to spend a winter week!

Reichenau, Austria

SPRING INTO LIFE


It was a spring full of travel.

• A day road-trip to Belgium on a freezing day with some friends, visiting Antwerp and Gent.
• A visit to Zurich in Switzerland for work
• A trip to Portugal at Easter
• A business trip to America, which took me to Minnesota, Chicago and unexpectedly, New York
• A long weekend in the Peak District
• A break from the winter in tropical Barbados, which was definitely a highlight of the year
• A trip to Brussels just to have lunch with some clients

SUMMER IN EUROPE

This summer I spent a lot of time in England.  I attempted a beach trip to Blackpool, stopping off at Liverpool on the way, but being Northern England, it was cold!  I had a few other trips around the UK for work, including Durham, Newcastle and Birmingham.

The highlight of my summer, however, was my trip to Greece.  I went with a bunch of great friends to explore Athens and sail the Cyclades islands!

SPAIN

I finished summer off with a trip to Spain for the August bank holiday weekend, taking in Alicante, Valencia and Zaragoza.

Alicante

The idea came up by looking at what cheap RyanAir flights were available to warm places. I found one into Alicante, which is half way down the Spanish East coast, and one out of Zaragoza, in the North of Spain. This would be a great excuse to traverse the country by train!

But it didn't all go according to plan. When I landed in Alicante and came through passport control, the first thing I did was get changed into shorts. Which is when I realised I didn't have my wallet!  Surely I couldn't have lost my wallet again? (I had lost my wallet half way through the Greek sailing trip just months earlier!)

I asked at the RyanAir desk and they asked someone to check the plane.  No sign of it. Maybe I dropped it in the airport?  I went to the airport Police station, which was in charge of lost property. They asked me to hang around for a few hours in case it showed up. So the first few hours of my holiday were sitting on the airport floor. And then on the phone to the banks, cancelling all my cards! 

But what would I do for money? When I lost my wallet in Greece, I simply borrowed some money from my friends. But I was in Spain alone! HSBC agreed to send me some emergency money through a Western Union Money Transfer. All I had to do is find a Western Union office and show them my reference number passport (which luckily I still had).

I had €3 in my pocket, and luckily the bus from the airport to the city was €2.40. Although I seriously considered walking, had it not been 35 degrees.  I made it to the city and found the Western Union office. The problem was it was now the early afternoon.... and therefore siesta! I had a few hours to kill before the shop re-opened so I went to the beach. Unfortunately I couldn't find any water taps, and €0.60 wasn't enough to buy a drinks, so after a few hours on the beach in the blistering sun, I was parched.  When I finally picked up the emergency cash, the drinks and ice cream I bought were the most delicious I'd ever tasted!

I explored Alicante a bit, which diddn't take long. It is a small city, surrounded by cliffs and a very touristy beach. It wasn't full of English tourists though, which was nice. That night I caught a train up to Valencia, which is Spain's third largest city. Amazing architecture kept me entertained, and the next day I went to a beach too.  The Valencia beach had a lot more locals than Alicante. On the second night I made my way to Zaragoza, which is a quiet city in North of Spain, inland. After some sightseeing there, I headed back to London, with a few Euros to spare.

Valencia by night

OKTOBERFEST

I decided to celebrate the end of my 20's and beginning of my 30's by going to Oktoberfest in Munich with a few friends.  Just like two years ago, we did a package with Alpenrider, staying in a chalet in beautiful Kirchberg in Tirol, Austria.  For two days in a row, they took us into the centre of Munich for the festivities, and then drove us safely back over the border to Austria to recover. I had a great time and it was a perfect start to the next decade of my life!

Drinking Bavarian style, in Lederhosen

SWEDEN

Soon after coming back to London, I had a business trip for a few days in Sweden.  My colleague and I flew into Copenhagen in Denmark, and the next day caught the train across the Oresund bridge-tunnel to Malmo in Sweden. A small city with a beautiful town centre. We had some business meetings and ate some hamburgers, and caught the train up to Stockholm. For more business meetings. And more hamburgers. And hot dogs.

A Swedish hot dog with mashed potato, in a wrap of course

 Luckily on the Friday night some other colleagues of ours came over from London to join us for the weekend, and saved us from the junk food eating. Unfortunately this was replaced by copious amounts of drinking, which in Stockholm, isn't cheap.  It was a great weekend though, exploring various areas of Stockholm night-life.

KRAKOW AND THE HAGUE

Two of my friends from Australia are in Europe and they spent some of their time visiting family in Poland. What a perfect excuse to make my first visit to that country!  We decided to meet up for a weekend in Krakow.

So I consulted good old Ryanair and booked a cheap flight to Krakow on a Saturday morning. The problem was that the flight was at about 6am, out of Stansted airport - London's equivalent of Melbourne's Avalon. I had to get there by about 4:30, which meant that I had to catch the easyBus from Baker Street at 3:30, which in turn meant that I had to catch the night bus from my house to Baker Street at 2am.  So I had to get up at 1am - probably the earliest I have ever gotten up.  I did think of just pulling an all-nighter, but knew I would only have 1 night with my friends, so I wanted to have the energy and awakedness for that.

And that I did. I managed to do a lot of sightseeing with my first day in Krakow, and then had quite the night out that night, with my friends and some people from the hostel. I thought a 3am finish was a good effort for a 1am start the morning before!

Day 2 in Krakow was cut short by the fact that I needed to be at a conference that Sunday night, in the Hague, the Netherlands. So, after only about 30 hours in Krakow, I left my friends on a walking tour in the early afternoon, and started my marathon journey to the Hague: taxi to Krakow Airport, flight to Prague, another flight to Amsterdam, train to Rotterdam, another train to the Hague, taxi to the hotel! Phew! 

After a few days of fun at the conference I was happy to come back home to London!

WINTER

And that was pretty much it for the Autumn, because soon after that, winter hit!

I had a few more domestic trips around the UK for work, going to Edinburgh, Newcastle, Aberdeen, Bristol and Birmingham, but no more holidays, unfortunately. It was time to save my leave for the the trips coming up in the new year.

I welcomed the new year by the first of those, a ski trip over Christmas and New Years Eve to Chamonix in France - which was great fun.

Happy new year! What have you got planned for travel in 2011? I am off to Australia, Brazil, and Argentina.Can't wait!

Australian summer means beach

One of my favourite pass times during summer in Australia is sitting on a beach with my mates whilst drinking beer, going for a swim and watching the girls. When I went back to Australia for a few weeks over Christmas I got to do this quite a bit. It was great. It was paradise.

Here's a short video of some footage I captured at Portsea Surf Beach, about an hour down the coast from Melbourne:

New Years Eve in Australia and Return to England

My last posts were at the end of December from Melbourne, Australia.

I celebrated new years eve with three of my closest friends. The day was hot. Really hot. My parents went to the beach and it was going to be one of my last chances to spend the day with them, so I went to the beach too. After the beach I came home, had a quick shower and was picked up by one of my mates. We stopped by the bottle-o (Aussie for liquor store / off licence), picked up some beers, ice and a bottle of Jäger. We went to a friend's house and drank in the comfort of his air conditioning and then some more in his back yard as the heat eased off.  As it was time to head out, the cold front came through, the temperature dropped noticeably within seconds and it started pouring.

We were thinking of spending the evening in a lively inner beach-side part of the city but the rain kind of drowned that idea. We made it into the city where we were unable to get in anywhere and were getting wetter by the minute. The fireworks started exploding all around, and we sheltered under a bridge and watched them light up the rainy sky over the Yarra River.  We decided,  then, that we would seek shelter and booze in Crown Casino.

Reflecting on the evening, it was great to spend it with close friends. They are great guys and I missed them while I was away. But overall we ended up doing the same old thing in the same old places. During some of my visit I had doubts about why I am still in cold dark England when I could be living life on the beach in Australia. But I now realised that if I were to settle in back in Australia, live life there, not just a holiday, that the monotony would soon get to me and really, I'm not ready for that just yet. Adventures still await in the Northern Hemisphere.

So a few days later I was feeling fine about leaving the sun and the sea, and boarding a London-bound jet.

My flight departed in the middle of the night, and I had a good sleep on my way to Malaysia. We landed in KL while it was still dark, and I spent the morning in a lounge there. It was a five hour stopover and it was nice to be able to have a  shower and a free feed.  But then came the longer part of the flight, the 13 hours back to London. It did give me a chance to watch about 5 movies and some TV shows. Video on demand really does make flights go faster these days!

I landed in London and it was indeed cold. In fact I had just gotten there in time for the "big freeze". In the long passport control queue I picked up an Evening Standard and saw an article predicting snow and lots of it. Its prediction  was accurate. The next morning I woke up before dawn, looked outside my bedroom window and saw London covered with snow. It continued like this for about two weeks, until just a few days ago. What a contrast! A few days ago I had been on the beach covering up with sunscreen, and a couple of days later I was trekking to work through the snow.

They say variety is the spice of life. It is. And I like my life with a lot of flavour. Change - it makes life interesting. It makes life tasty.

Only a few days left in Australia

I have now been in Australia for some 3 weeks.

My most common activity would probably be going to the beach. I have had a decent run with the weather, and have spent the last few days in a small city on the Great Ocean Road called Warrnambool and even since coming back from Warrnambool yesterday have been at a Melbourne bay beach twice. It's just so easy to do in this country - feeling hot? Go to the beach!

Christmas was spent with family and it was nice catching up with everyone. It has been great chilling out in the sun and gettings some tan to take back to England with me.

Tomorrow is new years eve, but my friends and I haven't really planned anything. A hot day is expected, so it is likely it will all begin on a beach.

Happy new year!

Video of my flight from England to Australia

Further to my recent blog entry, I have made a video blog using some footage I took on my journey from London to Melbourne including getting up to take the tube to the airport, and flying with Malaysia Airlines.

A week in Australia

I have been home for just over a week now and it has been great.

Catching up with various friends, enjoying the sun, going to the beach and going out in Melbourne.  As always, the sun puts me in a good mood, and it has been sunny all except one really rainy day.

Some of the highlights of my visit so far:

• Going down the coastal town of Sorrento for a few days with some mates to enjoy days of lazing around on the surf beaches
• Walking around Melbourne and taking in all sights. After being gone for a while it really is easy to appreciate that it is a beautiful city.
• Catching up wth friends and family.  I had a small party at my parents new house to which I invited various friends to all catch up at once. It was a good night.

At first it really didn't feel like home - I have gotten so settled in in London. But as time passes I think yes - this is home - and its great. Having said that though, now that some of the excitement of being home is wearing off, I imagine that if I had to be back here permanently and had to find a job rather than having a holiday, I would soon get bored again.

London has long had a reputation for being expensive, but with recent economic conditions, exchange rates and general cost of living, I think Australia is definitely more expensive. Some things remain cheaper, like public transport and rent, but everyday costs such as food, drinks, clothes - it is all quite a bit more pricey than the UK.

A couple of weeks of Victoria left and then it's back to freezing London.

Half way to Australia: Kuala Lumpur

I am writing this sitting at Starbucks at Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia. On am en route from London to Melbourne.  My flight landed in KL at about 7am to a balmy 26 degrees outside. I am enjoying a Frappuccino for breakfast but I am stuck indoors.  The airport is modern and clean. I’m at the “Satellite Terminal” which is a large circular terminal some distance from the main one, connected by airport transit. In the middle of the round Satellite Terminal is a rain forest enclosure but it is closed for renovations. it’s a shame - I would have liked to have got some fresh air out there. It has been a while since I experienced over 25 temperatures….. Not since Malta.

 My flight with Malaysia Airlines has been OK. I had heard good things about the airline but I am a little disappointed. There is nothing wrong with the service per se, but I would expect more from a “5 star airline”. The fit out was ageing, the in-flight entertainment screens were small, they didn't give us any hot towels, the food is served with plastic cutlery (even South African Airways gives you steel) and I had to wait for over 5 minutes with my service light on before someone came and asked me what I wanted (a bottle of water).  Don’t get me wrong - I’m not complaining - there are worse situations to be in! But I thought I’d point out that Qantas service is superior. I don’t understand why people bag out Qantas.

Back at Heathrow I tried buying some cheap duty free alcohol to take back to Australia with me. I was delighted to see they had a 2-for-£15 deal which would have got me a 1L bottle of Gin and a 1L bottle of Bacardi. Both drinks my parents like and a pretty sweet deal. But the duty free guys said they wouldn’t sell it to me because apparently Australian customs hasn’t been letting in drinks from the UK!  I was worried that the bottle of Pimms I have in my checked baggage might not survive the baggage handlers but it may not survive Australian customs either!

Anyway, another hour to kill, another attempt to buy duty free liquor and then time to board for Melbourne.

POSTSCRIPT:

1. Between KL and Melbourne there was steel cuttlery.
2. The Malaysian breakfast was interesting. Rice with chicken curry and prawns.
3. Customs didn't have a problem with my liquor from KL but because I also had a bottle of Pimms in my suitcase, I had 3 litres in total. Because the customs limit is 2.25 litres, they wanted to charge me tax on all of the bottles of alcohol, not just the 1 litre I was over! Either that or forfeit them all!! Luckily I managed to get away with it in the end as their computer for calculating tax was broken!

I am going to Australia

I left Australia on 2 April 2008 and haven't been back since. Haven't seen my mates or my dad since then and it is almost 2 years.

This Friday morning I fly out to Australia for a visit of three and a half weeks.  I am really looking forward to it, especially as it is starting to get really cold here in London.

I have composed a shopping list of all the things I need to bring back from Australia for my friends. Requests range from Tim Tams to Band Aids.

I am getting really excited! It will be interesting going "home" for a "holiday".

How to cope with long-haul flights

I am getting ready to fly to Australia next week.

To get ready for the 24-hour-each-way-average-journey I have been thinking about the things I like to to do to cope with long-haul-flights.

I decided to vlog it in a video:



You might have to turn the sound right up, as unfortunately it comes through quite quiet.

Sydney to San Francisco

Last time I came to America I flew into LA and hated the place. Then I went up to San Francisco and loved it. So this time around I decided to make my North American entry point San Francisco. There are no direct flights from Melbourne so I had to fly via Sydney.

The night prior to my departure the Bureau of Meteorology released a warning about extreme winds and sure enough, when I woke up in the morning there was weather trouble. I immediately got mental images of my plane crash landing into Melbourne's western suburbs, but was also worried about flight delays, because if my flight up to Sydney was delayed, I'd miss my San Fran connection, and that flight only flies a few times a week.

Luckily, my flight was a morning flight, and at the time of departure, winds were only about 50-60km/h (not yet to 100km/h gale force as predicted for later). My flight was bumpy, but landed in sunny Sydney without a problem. Apparently Melbourne got worse in the afternoon so I was lucky. Sydney, on the other hand was beautiful. 29 degrees and clear blue sky. The views of the harbour from the plane were awesome, I almost wanted to stay in Sydney. But I was off to another great harbour city.

My flying was really quiet. No-one to chat to. From Sydney there was an unfriendly woman only interested in sleeping, and on the big flight I was stuck next to a middle aged Eastern European couple who only seemed to know a few words in English. And much to my disappointment, the American school girl coming home with her school group from their Spring break trip to Australia and New Zealand didn't seem very interested in chatting to me either.

I only managed to catch a few hours sleep on the 14 hours flight so I was pretty tired when I landed. And due to the time difference, it was only about 10 am the same day I departed, so I had a long way to go until nighttime. I kept myself awake by going shopping and walking the steep streets, and at nightfall sinking some cheap beers with hostel randoms.

Last time I was in San Fran I wanted to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. I walked up to it one afternoon but by the time I got there it was late and cold. So this time I dedicated a day to it. I rented a bike at touristy Fishermen's Wharf, and rode along the bay, up and over the bridge, and down to an affluent town across the bay, and caught a ferry back. As with everything in San Francisco (including just walking the streets), it provided for stunning views. When I first started walking around the city on this trip, I thought that it is not as cool as I remembered it. Perhaps last time I only loved San Fran so much thanks to the contrast with LA. But then when walking the streets, I couldn't help myself exhaling audible “wow”s on many street corners, I realised again why the city is so special. The number 1 place for urban views. It had won me back.

My second and last night in SF was spent on a hostel-organised pub crawl. It was pretty fun, as you might expect. I also had a few too many drinks, as you might expect. This morning I was meant to get up at 9ish to make the 10 am checkout time but awoke from my slumber at about 11. Oops. Ah, must be the jet lag! ;)

Luckily I had enough foresight when booking my trip to make my flight departing SF at 2:30 in the afternoon. So as I write this I am at SF airport, waiting for my flight to Seattle, which, as it happens to be is more than 3 hours delayed anyway. What better way to spend a hangover than 5 hours in an airport terminal. If only there was a McDonald's here to make my stomach feel better....

G'day from the land of the Drive Thru Bottle-o

When I last wrote I was just gearing up for Christmas, with a little shopping trip to France. The week that followed involved more Christmas festivities and paying particular attention to the media's reports about the trouble at Heathrow Airport.

First of all apparently many people were missing flights because the extra airport security needed after the August London terrorism scare couldn't cope with the masses all escaping London for the holidays.
Then to make matters worse, you may have heard that London was engulfed in some major fog. It really was quite bad. Think of the worst fog you have ever seen early in the morning or very late at night, and apply it for four days non-stop. That's what it was like. Hundreds and hundreds of flights from Heathrow were cancelled, and I was worried because on Saturday 23rd December (the busiest Heathrow day - oh no), I was to fly to Prague.

On the night of the 22nd I had a lovely English Christmas dinner followed by pressies with my house mates and friends and retired to bed early (around midnight) because the next morning was a 4am start to get to the airport the recommended 2 hours early for my flight to Prague. Luckily the fog had lightened up a bit, and the crowds were really full on (I had to wheel my suitcase over people's feet to get through) but it was manageable. In the end my flight had a 90min delay not because of weather conditions or crowds, but because some idiot parked a truck in front of the departure gate where we were meant to get on a bus to take us to the plane on the tarmac, and took over an hour to move it. Nevertheless I arrived in equally foggy Prague safe and sound.

I was greeted by my Czech aunt and cousin and taken to their village outside of Prague. There I relaxed, enjoyed a traditional Czech Christmas (minus the carp fish for dinner, having schnitzels instead), including pressies on Christmas Eve and just generally chilled out in the countryside, including a nice forest bike ride in around freezing temperatures.

On Christmas Day my aunt and cuz took me to Plzen (Pilsen), the original city where Pilsner beer came from and where lager as we know it was initially invented. I was sure to have some Pils at a traditional 17th Century beer hall, complimented of course with some beef gulas.

By the 27th I was well and truly over village life (although going to the well in the village square with buckets to get water and collecting firewood did have a certain 1800's charm about it) so I ventured into Prague itself. I spent the next few days in Prague walking around, taking in the winter atmosphere (and a lot of sausages
served on cardboard with mustard and rye bread), feeling like a bit of a dag walking around with thermals under my jeans and a ski jacket. I felt like less of a dag when mid afternoon on the 28th the heavens opened and covered the city with a few inches of snow. It was wonderful walking around the city and home through the suburbs on fresh powder. Everything looks so nice blanketed in white. Great, although I I returned to feeling like a dag falling on my arse after slipping on ice.

By the 29th December I was a bit bored with Czechia and decided on impulse to jump on a train to Dresden, Germany, for a day trip. The 2.5 hour train ride was beautiful. The whole train link between Prague and Dresden runs along the bank of the Elbe River, the valley looking quite magical covered in snow.

Dresden itself was a really nice city. It was close to flattened by the allies in WW2 but you wouldn't guess it by looking at it. It was rebuilt to a crisp clean city yet retaining what looked like to me as old style-architecture that you see in cities like Prague as well as massive contemporary shopping centres that the Czechs seemed to be visiting in swarms.

Upon returning to Prague that night I met up with some friends of my mum who she used to hang out with when she was 18. They still lived in the same neighbourhood and they took me to a pub in the area which my
mum and her friends used to hang out in. It's a really good feeling travelling across to the other side of the world to see what the folks used to do for a good time (ie. drink beer - more than happy to follow those footsteps).

For New Years weekend my friend Nicolle came over from London and we partied in the city. Midnight was spent on the amazing Charles Bridge (amongst the horde of mostly Italians) watching fire works shoot out from just about every surrounding neighbourhood.

New Years Day was a lovely day, and I tried to suppress my hangover by going for a walk in Petrin, a big hilly park right by the city. But by 5pm I was in bed trying to forget about my hung over existence. The
next day I left that existence behind, catching a train to Vienna. The 4-hour fast Pendolino Tilt train ride was quite luxurious. The luxury continued as I got picked up in Vienna by a friend who took me by car to the village that I lived in as a refugee when I was 6 years old after my parents and I escaped the Communist Czech Republic. I stayed in the Guest House run by the family that put us up when we stayed there originally, so it was a nice trip down memory lane. I got to do some alpine sightseeing in the snow, and even went skiing for a day.

Then I returned to Prague and then London. I worked my last week in London and went for a weekend ski trip in Italy. The European snow season was really poor so there wasn't that much good skiing to be done, but in Italy it is enough of an adrenalin rush just getting into a car, so our taxi ride from the airport made up for the poor snow in the thrill stakes.

Upon returning to London for the last time it was all about packing and going away parties before finally arriving back in Melbourne on the 25th January, to some beautiful weather, great food and welcoming friends and family.

Thanks to everyone who I met along the trip for making it fun and successful and for those at home for staying in touch.

MELBOURNE TO LAX

Hi everyone.

Here in Los Angeles, or Hollywood to be exact.

First, a summary of the flight:

Carrier: Qantas
Length: 14 hrs +
Service: great
Food: delicious
Comfort Level: high
Ratio of passengers to seats: roughly 1 to 3
Sleep: unfortunately despite the comfort levels, still pretty much none
Highlights: Flying over LA. As we approached I could see that haze hanging over the city. It's true - there really is a lot of smog here. The city is HUGE and the freeways are... well.... big.

The weather here reminds me of the Gold Coast in the middle of winter: really nice when its sunny but cold when its not. Except its not quite as sunny.

I checked in at my 6-per-dorm hostel today. Looks like there's only 3 of us staying there though, and I've only met one. I think he's on the run from something. When I asked him where's he from, he said "The States" and upon me trying to make further conversation he stopped me saying "look - I've got a lot on my mind - I don't really want to talk."

OK !! That will be a pleasant stay.

LA is an interesting place. You think there are a lot of weirdos on Swanston Street? Try walking down Hollywood Boulevard!

Why is it that the locals here look so intimidating? The tourists are certainly the most friendly faces. I'm really looking forward to seeing some familiar faces in the coming weeks.

Well I better get back to it, whatever that may be.

Don't worry, I promise I won't send one of these every day.