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:

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!

Train crash in Belgium

On Wednesday I was meant to go to Brussels for some work meetings.

These days, just about nobody flies to Brussels or Paris from London. It is so inconvenient to have to go through the bother of getting to the airport, checking in, waiting, flying, landing and getting from the foreign airport. It is so much easier to catch the train, which is more or less just as fast, if not faster when you take into account the time it takes to travel to airports. You start off in the city centre, jump on a train for two hours, and get off in the city centre - perfect!

But this Monday, something tragic happened. Some local commuter trains in Belgium had a head on collision. The trains, carrying 250–300 people, collided in snowy conditions during the morning rush hour. Some 20 people died and hundreds were injured.

Terrible stuff - you tend to feel pretty safe on the train.

The Eurostar train service running from London to Brussels was stopped for a number of days, as they investigated and cleared up the wreckage on the local tracks next to the international service. The effect on me was that my business trip to Brussels was postponed. But obviously the effect on the injured, deceased and their families was much, much greater. My thoughts go out to them.

Brussels

I recently had my first business trips into Europe, both to Brussels. Brussels one of the administrative centres of the European Union, and therefore has a lot of law firms practicing EU law (mainly to do with competitions investigations, ACCC-type actions as they would be known in Australia). Meetings with some of these law firms took me to Brussels.

The beauty of going to France or Belgium from London is that you get to catch the train. And when it comes to choosing between training and flying, rail wins almost every time. Trains, of course, are slower than planes, but when you factor in the time getting to the airport, checking in, waiting, boarding, taxiing, flying, landing and getting from the airport on the other end, the city-to-city connections trains provide are very attractive. The first and last time I caught the Eurostar train to the continent was back in late 2006, and since then the English side of the high speed train line has been upgraded (from slow to really fast). And instead of going from the seedy Waterloo International station, you now depart from the magnificent St Pancras International. London to Brussels is only 1 hour and 50 minutes!

Brussels is an interesting international city. All the signs are in French and Dutch, although French is the spoken language. Despite this, it seems almost everyone speaks English, and in the law firms there are people from all over Europe, who all seem to speak a selection of languages.

In terms of city sights, there are some really nice old squares and some typical Northern European buildings to look at, but out of the main tourist areas it is mainly office blocks and industry. If you are planning a holiday to Belgium for the first time, pick Bruges instead, but Brussels is certainly an interesting place to pass though. And a any trip to Belgium can be fruitful – with an ever-present selection of cherry beers, waffles and fine chocolates .

Wine tasting with Adolf, sailing with crazy Captain Ivo and much much more

Hi everyone!

I have been concentrating on travelling again recently. It all started with the August "Summer Bank Holiday" weekend in the UK. Having 3 days off work meant that I had to go and visit the continent otherwise it would be 3 days wasted by staying in England. Flights to everywhere were very expensive so I opened a backpackers magazine and booked the first interesting coach tour I saw. So very early on the Saturday morning I headed off on a bus to Germany. It was a boring bus ride but it was a perfect opportunity to catch up on sleep and even read up on German lingo in my phrasebook.

Upon arrival in the small town of Bad Salzig in the Rhein Valley (a picturesque German wine making region) in the evening, accompanied by a random selection of people on the tour, I drank some local wine, followed by drinking some more local wine, followed by eating, and then drinking some more local wine, more local wine and then some local beer. (The drinks were included in the tour price, the company was good, and the wine was OK - what else could I do?)

Later that night it was interesting using the German I learned earlier to talk to some non-English-speaking locals in a pub. Not surprisingly, I woke up the next morning with a bit of a headache, but that was soon forgotten about thanks to an early morning stroll around the small city of Boppard and a river cruise up the Rhein Valley, underneath the countless medieval castles, green forests and abundant fertile vineyards. We overlooked the beautiful green region from the famous Loriley cliff, and then walked around a local city and attended a wine tasting, presented by a winemaker called Adolf. I've attached some photos from this beautiful place! Back at the hotel the theme was again local wine.

On the bus ride home we stopped off in the beautiful Belgian city of Ghent. That was the third Belgian city I'd been to and the third one I loved, making Belgium grow in my heart as one of my favourite places.

The next few weeks were spent working and partying the last few weeks of Summer away in London, counting down to my 2 weeks of annual leave in the 2nd half of September.

So half way through September I flew out of London to the city of Ancona in Italy. The flight was full of Aussies and Kiwis all heading to sail Croatia (flying cheapo RyanAir to Ancona and catching a ferry across the Adriatic Sea seemed to be the most cost effective way of getting to Croatia.) Ancona wasn't particularly interesting as it was really just a port city, but the overnight ferry ride to Split in Croatia was quite luxurious and fun. Getting to Split was a bit of a disappointment because instead of finding warm Croatian weather, I was greeted with rain, rain and more rain.

I boarded the boat that I would spend a week sailing the Dalmatian Coast of Croatia in. It was the smallest and oldest boat in the fleet of about 17. I was a little bit shocked about the cramped conditions (and the fact we only had 1 toilet/shower for 19 passangers) but luckily I was the only one on the boat who got a room to myself, making it much more bearable. The first three days of sailing were quite bad on account of the weather. We hit some storms and really rough seas. One on occassion, our crazy captain took us head on into a storm the other (bigger and more stable) boats did not choose to brave. The main way of making time pass was balancing out on the deck trying not to vomit. Or fall overboard. Despite the bad weather the water was still warm, and we even managed to go for a swim when we found a tranquil bay.

We saw some beautiful coastal towns and when we got to the southernmost point of the tour, Dubrovnik, the sun finally came out. Immediately the whole place looked so much better – amazing how a bit of shining sun can really bring a place out. Walking around the old castle walls of Dubrovnik was great. It also proved to be a great place for a night out.

The rest of the tour was spent sailing from island to island during the day while we sunbathed on the roof and every now and then anchored in the beautiful clear water for a swim. I swam in some amazingly picturesque locations, each time in crystal clear water. In the evenings we would moor up in a port and explore the village or city we ended up in, explore the streets, eat the local cuisine in great outdoors restaurants among scenic old town ruins and party in the local bars and nightclubs (or on the roof of our boat with our sleazy alcoholic, yet lots of fun, chef). My favourite of these places was Hvar, an amazing, hilly, old town, surrounded by castle walls, overlooking a peaceful marina in a bay surrounded by green hills.

The sailing tour finished with a night back in Split. The highlight of the night was getting a local with a small zippy electronic baggage trolley to drive 16 of us (it felt more dangerous as it sounds) to a huge outdoor nightclub on a hill just out of town overlooking a beach. The next morning I wasn't quite ready to leave Split, so I hired an apartment with some people from the sailing tour and stayed an extra day. That day was spent walking around the local markets before going on a white water rafting trip in the hills about an hour inland from Split. The most dangerous part of the this, unfortunately, was being driven up in a car by a speeding, chain-smoking, non-seatbelt-wearing, Croatian soldier in his early 90's Audi that I WISHED had seatbelts in the back. Luckilly we did make it to the lovely clear river where we boarded some rafts and went down a beautiful forest valley. The rapids were fun but nothing too extreme. The highlight was when we came to a waterfall and stopped to get out of the raft and go through the waterfall. Behind the waterfall we found a small cave that we went into, but to get across had to swim through a small cave lake of 7ºC cold water and then climb up a rock face in the dark. It was fun!

The next day was my birthday. The 2 girls I was staying with took me out to an awesome birthday breakfast in a nice outside restaurant. I then said bye and caught a super modern German tilt-train from Split, winding through the mountain ranges to Croatia's capital, Zagreb.

It was a nice city that I enjoyed walking around in the afternoon, but I had a Croatia/Slovenia/Austria Eurail pass to utilise, so I continued on by rail to Slovenia the next day. Catching the train through Slovenia was great. The countryside was probably the most picturesque I have seen, with a great mix of lakes, forests and small quant villages, each built around a single church old tower. I made it to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia and was going to look around a bit, until I realised that the next train to Vienna was a mere 15 min away so I jumped on that. It was actually a train to somewhere called Maribor, at which I was meant to change to a Vienna train. The problem was that about 45min after we were meant to hit Maribor the train was still in the middle of nowhere. I eventually asked a conductor I saw and she told me in 30% Slovenian, 30% English, 40% German (that I somehow managed to piece together) that I was in fact not on a Maribor train, that the train split in 2 way, way back and that I was in fact heading to somewhere completely different. She ushered me off the train at a small village somewhere and directed me to run onto a small, old, rickety, local train that was about to depart. I followed her instructions. The train ride was an interesting experience. The train stopped at lots of little villages and at other places which didn't even constitute villages. Some of the stations were literally nothing more than a patch of gravel in a field. The passengers were all local farm people, the conductor spoke no English and had evidently never seen a Eurail pass in his life. I wasn't really sure where I was, or even if I was still in Slovenia, and was a bit annoyed that I was only seeing this beautiful sunny day through a train window, but an hour or two later, I did manage to arrive in this Maribor place. I looked around the town for an hour, and was impressed. It was a nice little city. I spent about 2,000 Tolars in a local supermarket and jumped on the next train to Vienna.

The trains distance trains in Sloevnia and Austria were great. I only had a 2nd class ticket but 2nd class was way superior to 1st class in Britain. It was all comfortable big seats in 6-seater-cabins. A great way to travel Europe, assuming you manage to find your way onto the right train. I arrived in Vienna quite late, and the hostel I wanted to check into had no space. I managed to walk to a few hotels near the Südbahnhof train station, picked the cheapest (nay, least expensive) and just crashed – I was exhausted.

I spent the next day just walking around Vienna. The highlight of this was finding the Gorilla in the Prater amusement park. I had been there as a 6 year old with my parents (just after we managed to escape from then Communist Czechoslovakia), 20 years earlier almost to the day, at which time I had a photo with the Gorilla much to my terror at the time, because I was crying, scared of the big ape. So I got a photo with same Gorilla 20 years later. Maybe I'll go back again when I'm 46.

That evening I caught a train from Vienna's Westbahnhof station to the beautiful city of Salzburg. Again, I arrived late and just crashed in a nearby hotel. The next day was the last day of my trip. I spent the morning walking around the Salzburg streets, marvelling at the scenery, which was a mix of great architecture and beautiful gardens, placed against a background of big green hills (which, of course, are alive with the sound of music).

In the afternoon I joined up with a tour group to the ice caves, right up in the Alps. That was a most amazing experience. It involved a super-steep bus ride, followed by an even steeper cable car ride, then a steep walk but all this was rewarded with amazing views over the Alps and valleys below and an even more amazing ice cave. The tour of the cave, aided by old-style open flame torches for light, was an hour long, and any longer would have been painful as the cave temperature is litrally 0ºC. The cave is full of walls of ice and naturally formed ice sculptures. After the cave tour we rewarded ourselves with frankfurters and local beer as we sat, thawing out, and overlooking the Alpine scenery.

Upon return to Salzburg it was a trip to the airport with one of the people from the ice caves tour that was on the same flight as me. At the airport, a last attempt to sample some Austrian cuisine (goulash and beer) and then waiting for a flight which was an hour and a half delayed, resulting in me getting back to London after the trains from the airport had finished running. A coach ride and night bus ride later, I made it home. At 3 am. And went to work the next day. Since then, work has been keeping me busy. I have been seconded to a large French Pharmaceuticals company outside of London so I'm constantly tiring myself out commuting to Surrey, but it's all good fun. Last Friday was my firm's annual party, which was a no-expenses-spared extravaganza, which I'm still recovering from.

Since October ticked over, the previously surprisingly sunny weather has taken a dramatic turn for the cold. So London winter, here I come. My next main holiday is not till December so the next couple of months will be spent trying to save some of these valuable British Pounds to bring back home, instead of spending it all on travel and booze. Wish me luck!

See you in January!

Belgium rocks!

Hey everyone!

When I last wrote I had just come back to England from my trip to Munich via Amsterdam and Paris. Since then I have been back to work in London, making money for further travelling adventures. It has been very hot in Europe generally, and unusually warm in England in particular. The authorities in London have issued a level 3 heat warning. To put this into perspective, level 4 would be a "national emergency"!

On the last weekend of June/1st weekend of July I headed on a group tour (consisting the usual combination of a few North Americans and the rest being Aussies and South Africans) to Belgium. The purpose of this tour was to go to Belgium's Rock Werchter music festival. We arrived in the small Belgian city of Leuven mid Friday afternoon, checked into the Novotel across the road from the Stella Artois brewery, and enjoyed the beautiful town square bars in the sunshine, sipping on Stella and Kriek (cherry beer) for hours on end.

On Saturday we went to the festival. The day kicked off with Australia's own Wolfmother. It was amazing seeing a band that I saw as a mere supporting act at a pub gig in Melbourne only a couple of years ago, now rocking out the main stage at a huge European festival. They were cheered on by plenty of Australians in the crowd, waving around Aussie flags and blow up kangaroos in the mosh pit.

The rest of the day was spent in the heat (about 30C in the shade, had there actually been any shade to hide in) watching bands including Raconteurs, Arctic Monkeys, Placebo, Franz Ferdinand and Kaiser Chiefs [awesome band, huge here in the UK]; and enjoying some more Stellas and Krieks. It was a great day, the Europeans really do know how to put on good summer rock fests!

On Sunday we checked out of our hotel in Leuven and drove to the beautiful city of Bruges (Brugge). I had heard from one or two people that Belgium wasn't that interesting, and immediately after entering Bruges this reputation was quickly dispelled. The city is built around numerous canals and criss-crossed by clean, narrow, cobble-stone streets, surrounded by fantastic looking old buildings in great condition. The city has a really medieval feel to it, which is accentuated by minimal car traffic and frequent horse drawn carriages clopping through the alleyways. I visited quaint Belgian chocolatiers, stocking up on boutique chocolates (the chocolate, especially the dark variety, smelled so good in the shops that there was no resistance possible) and then a beer shop to stock up on a variety of fruity beers. We had lunch in the picturesque main square and then rested, away from the heat, under the shade of a green leafy tree before getting back on the coach and driving all the way back to London (...thanks to the aid of a Sea France channel crossing to help us get over those hard to drive bits).

The next week was spent battling with the daily routine of getting into an incredibly hot stuffy tube trains to get to work and back, breaking that routine here and there for some obligatory beer or cider stops after work.

On Saturday morning I headed to Victoria coach station to meet up with some friends (some Hungarian girls I met on my Easter trip to Scotland and their friends) and endure a long hot bus-ride to Bournemouth, on England's South Coast. Bournemouth actually reminded me a bit of the Victorian coast, with a general look and feel of Cowes, Sorrento or St Kilda in Melbourne. The beach was a great sandy beach, even by Aussie standards, although a bit on the dirty side. That evening we had a BBQ on the beach and hit the town for a bit of clubbing. We stayed in a traditional English hotel which came with a traditional English breakfast (with fried bread [yuck] and all). After the rain stopped on Sunday we went to the beach and sunbathed in the sunshine. I wasn't brave enough to get into the water though, as it was really cold!

It was so nice on the beach that I forfeited my pre-paid bus ride back to stay on the beach a bit longer, and scabbed a lift back to London with an Englishman and a Kiwi from the group. This turned out to be great, because we stopped off on the way in New Forest, which is literally the nicest part of England I have seen to date! It is a fantastic, huge national park spanning many, many miles with lush green forests and meadows. It was a beautiful warm evening, so we took a bush walk. Amazingly, the forest is full of free roaming horses and ponies, of which we came across many groups. They were really tame and let us come right up to them and pat them. It was awesome being able to come up to seemingly wild animals in the forest, which were in fact friendly, inquisitive animals. We drove off back to London as the sun set over the park, arriving home just in time to go to bed and rest up for another week of work in the big city.

On the topic of work, I have been offered a 6 month contract to continue work as a paralegal at CMS Cameron McKenna so I think I'll see that out and come home in January. I have a flight booked that will get me home just in time for Australia day. Bring on the BBQs! For those of you working at law firms back home, feel free to start putting in a good word for me.

Unfortunately the work contract also means I will not have the opportunity to do quite as much travelling around Europe as I have been doing, so I'm going to cut down the group emails from the regular intervals I've been sending them at just to when something exciting happens (like the week or two I'm planning on spending in Croatia in September). This way I won't annoy you with "I went to the office again today" style emails. Of course I would still love to hear from you all on a regular basis, so feel free to drop me a line whenever and I'll let you know what I've been up to!

Hope to hear from you soon!

Dan