'Straya

It's perhaps somewhat appropriate that I blog about my time back home after having been to the last show of Crowded House's reunion tour at The Royal Albert Hall last night and whilst listening to the dulcet tones of Tim Freedman and The Whitlams.
It's now been 2 weeks since I got back to London and in between running around to get paperwork together for my Highly Skilled Migrant Permit application and going out drinking every single night I have had a chance to ruminate on just how much fun I had and just what it is that's so special about our great Southern land and also about the things that are perhaps less cool.

I guess, for me (and I probably most of us), the best thing about going home for 6 weeks was the pure and simple act of catching up with people over beer, wine, hot chocolate (I don't do coffee), fruit juice, food, gelati etc. Deep down, I'm kind of a busybody and I like to know what people are up to. I did however find it slightly distressing that what most people were up to was Growing Up & Being Responsible. Almost everyone is starting to settle down, get married and buy houses. One of my mates is even having a baby in February. It's all a bit much for a not-so-recently single 26 year old who just wants to go out partying more nights than not. Having said that, I am extremely happy for all of my friends that are moving down that path and hoping to one day join them in their domesticated bliss, just not yet...

In between wine tours (god I love the Barossa and McLaren Vale), golf, Henley Beach, Holdfast Shores, Victor Harbour, all my favourite restaurants, I came to conclusion that many people have probably already come to. If the best thing about Australia is the people (and in my slightly biased view, I think it is), they are that way because of the environment around them. In the Nature vs Nurture debate, I'm going to come down on the side of Nurture - in that we are the way we are as a result of the environment around us. Ergo, the Australian people are laid back because we live in a generally spectacular physical environment with great weather and open spaces. We can put things off because we're fairly confident that the weather will be fine tomorrow and the day after and the day after and so on, hence the "She'll be right mate" mentality. More often than not it will be alright.
Don't you love simplistic views? ;?p

So, onto the not so cool stuff and really it's only not so cool because I'm at a stage of my life where I want to be partying more often than not, but having been back in London for 2 weeks, I've probably had almost as many BIG nights as the whole six weeks back in Oz, purely because people over here are much more up for partying on a school night. Probably not a bad thing if you are Growing Up & Being Responsible, but I'm not ready yet.

I've now got all my paperwork together and my HSMP application has been lodged so it's really just a matter of sitting around and waiting for it to hopefully be approved. Fortunately, I've moved into a really cool flat with some super cool people and it's the festive season so there's plenty to do.

Be good to one another,

PK

Possibly the longest thing I've ever written

Well howdy folks, I guess it’s now timely that I should be writing a new update on how my last few months have been given that I’ll probably be visiting as many of you as possible to discuss said events face-to-face in the next few weeks, but whatever…

So I find myself in the all to familiar situation of having to recall events that have long since passed, while relying on photos and a memory hazed by the copious amounts of alcohol that have passed my lips in the past few months. However, in this particular circumstance I am writing this update from somewhere over the Denmark Straight of Atlantic Ocean at 10,058m in the air, travelling at 929 kph and it’s a chilly -62 degrees centigrade outside. No, I haven’t developed the Supermanesque ability of flight; I am in fact onboard United Airlines Flight 931 to Los Angeles.

Before I go into my past few months, I feel it my civic duty to advise you all to stay the hell away from United Airlines. They charge $US5 for alcoholic beverages, there are no movies on demand and the plane is unsurprisingly full of stupid and fat Americans and crying babies. Also, I'm sitting next to a couple that look like they have just walked out of the American Gothic painting and put on clothes from the late 1960's...

Next time I fly home, I’m paying extra to take a Singapore/Malaysian/Qantas/anyone else airlines flight

Anywho, I think I left ya’ll after Paris, about to tackle Rotterdam and Edinburgh.
The only reason I went to Rotterdam was to watch Liverpool play in a pre-season friendly tournament against Feyenoord, and the game was certainly the highlight of the trip. Having had some experience of the Netherlands through my previous trip to Amsterdam, I must say that Rotterdam let it’s much more famous cousin down miserably. I had been pre-warned that Rotterdam was not exactly an exciting place to be and I must say Kaz & Caitlin were right. Even though there were a fair few travelling supporters for the tournament (FC Porto and Shenghua Sharks were playing as well), there was no buzz about the place and the whole town seemed kinda dead.
My mate Daz and I did manage to find a decent place to grab a meal though and it must be said that there were a few good sorts in the restaurant…
I can't believe I ate the whole thing

The Coopers hat on tour
The lads before the game

I'm guessing it's a cigar lounge...

It’s hard to explain, but there was just none of the vibrancy that I have experienced in many of the other European cities I have visited. We went for a wander to the bar district which reminded me of a really quiet version of home and I was vaguely surprised I didn’t see any tumbleweeds go rolling by.
From what I understand Rotterdam got relatively flattened during the war and I guess in their haste to rebuild it, they didn’t really bother building anything nice.

Edinburgh on the other hand had it all going on. To be fair, we went during the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, which is almost as big and good as the RADelaide Fringe Festival, so I guess that helped, but I can certainly see that even without the Fringe Edinburgh is a beautiful town. Really, a town that has a big castle looking down on it is always going to be cool.
We managed to squeeze in a whole lot of comedy shows, saw a Japanese break dancing crew and saw the Soweto Gospel Choir. It was freakin AMAZING! Next year, I’m going to book a few days off and do more than just a weekend and maybe book far enough in advance that I don’t end up staying in the worst hostel in the town…
Evening over Edinburgh

The castle overlooking the town


More cool stuff in Edinburgh

So Edinburgh ended my epic three trips in three weekends and after having done it once, I don’t think I’ll ever be doing that much travel in such a short time frame ever again.

Due to the extremely unhealthy state of my bank balance following my travels, I chose to spend most of September in and around London. Highlights included visiting Bournemouth beach (I actually managed to get sunburnt), Brighton beach to go Orbing, having Slats and Amber visit – we had an impromptu house party and having Zuzana and Luke visit – we went to the Notting Hill Carnival.
Everybody's going surfing

Rentable huts just by the beachfront
Notting Hill Carnival

Greg, Zuzana, Luke & me
Amber, Slats and me

Climb in, the water's fine
Me & Marie - drenched but happy!

If you’ve never been Orbing before, I highly recommend it. If you have no idea what Orbing is, it’s also known as Zorbing in Oz/NZ and is basically an activity in which you climb into a great big ball and get rolled down a hill. I did it 3x, once a dry run and twice on a wet run. The wet run is SOOOO much fun it should be illegal - it's basically as close to experiencing the inside of a washing machine as you can get

September was a month tinged with sadness as we farewelled one of our drinking team – Shaun, who had to go home due to visa issues, so we got rollickingly drunk for his whole last weekend.
Shaun's drinking injury

The last weekend of September signals that start of the confusingly labelled Oktoberfest, so a crack team of drinkers was assembled and we shot off to Munich for another weekend of cultural immersion.
We spent Friday immersing ourselves in the grand old tradition of the German beer hall – sinking many a stein in the Paulaner hall near Karlsplatz, but aware there was a long weekend of drinking ahead of us, we didn’t get too crazy and were tucked safely in bed in a random B&B in the middle of deep suburban Munich before midnight.
Saturday morning saw us wake up early to get to the opening of the festival and even though we were at the Wiesn (German for field) by 10am, we were unable to get into a tent and had to settle for a table on the outskirts of the Paulaner tent. In hindsight, that was actually kind of cool because the weather was magnificent, with the sun shining brightly and the temperature in the high 20’s. We were fortunate to snag a table on the edge of the beer wenches walkways and with some fairly generous tipping, we never had to wait all that long to get beers when we needed them. Perhaps the only thing disappointing about the day was the fact that our assigned beer wench was actually a Ginger haired dude. However, he was cool and brought us beer and pork knuckles, so we forgave his lack of breasts. I tell you what though, some of those girls are amazing, they may be only 5 foot 2 with arms smaller than Liam Golding’s but they can still carry 6 steins in each hand with a few more seemingly held up by their boobs, seriously – I saw a girl carrying 15 1L steins – as I said, AMAZING! Following a long afternoon of drinking (they don’t serve beers until midday on the opening day) we decided that the rollercoasters and other amusement rides required our attention – we even managed not to throw up.
Sunday saw me at a friend of a friend’s place drinking beer and doing shots of proper German Schnapps at 9am after a skimpy “breakfast” pretzel. Needless to say, more drinking was done, this time in the Hacker tent, with dancing on the tables to the dulcet tunes of a German Oompah band playing AC/DC’s TNT, DJ Otzi’s Oooooh baby, I wanna know if you’ll be my girl, the Angel’s Am I ever going to see your face again – no way, get fucked, fuck off, Living Next door to Alice – Alice, who the fuck is Alice? And some traditional German tunes, most of which I was somewhat reliably informed had to do with sex.
I even managed to learn some German – “Du bist sehr shön” which means “you are very beautiful” and some other phrases which are perhaps inappropriate to post, buy me a beer and I’ll tell you later ;?p
More amusement rides in the evening and in true Schutzenfest style, we went target shooting. I must say that I do find the German tradition of getting drunk and shooting guns somewhat worrying, but hey, who am I to judge?
Welcome to Oktoberfest
Just working the guns....

Early opening morning

Inside the Paulaner tent

Outside the Paulaner tent

Our very own beer "wench"

Me & my pork knuckle

Me & some locals

Me & gingerbread - I'm lead to believe it says "Hello from Oktobefest 2007"

Is this the best beard ever?

Monday was slightly more sombre as we decided to go to Dachau concentration camp. Unfortunately, the museum was closed so we had to make do with the view from the outside, which was perhaps, less educational, but moving nonetheless.

Since Oktoberfest there was the AFL Grand Final, which we woke up at quarter past three in the morning for – and I guess I should give respect where it’s due – well played Geelong, the biggest win in Grand Final history is indeed an impressive effort and whilst not a Port supporter (GO THE CROWS!), I was disappointed in their performance. As a result, we largely ignored large portions of the game and focused our attentions of the steady supply of jugs of snakebites that we kept purchasing. Later that evening, I got to experience the institution that is Fabric nightclub and it certainly lived up to its hype.

Me & Melli at Fabric
Me, Huffy & jug of snakebite

The drinking team

Somewhere in between the drinking, I managed to figure out that I was getting very close to breaching my Working Holiday visa, which would have had unfortunate repercussions and so I have taken an extended leave without pay from work to travel back to Oz whilst my Highly Skilled Migrant Permit (apparently I am considered highly skilled in certain circles) is sorted out so that I can go back and work in the UK legally.

So that’s it, and bloody hell, it’s been a big few months, demonstrated by just how much crap I’ve just written. If you’ve managed to make it through to the end though, and can prove to me that you read all of that, I will buy you a beer, or even two if you’re lucky!

Looking forward to seeing you all real soon.

PK

Photos from Paris

Well I know you've all been hanging out for these snaps and the witty commentry that accompanies them, so I hope you're not too disappointed. Will blog my halfarsed observations on Rotterdam and Edinburgh soon, but cos I like you, here's a quick taste of what's coming up:

Rotterdam - it's kinda shit

Edinburgh - it shits on Rotterdam

Peace out,

PK


Apparently the French love baguettes so much they need to be randomly left on dashboards


Things not allowed at the top of the Arc de Triumphe - food, fat people, smoking, tripods, walkie talkies and dogs (if that's not a fat person, then you tell me what you think it's representing - ok it's either a fat person or a person in budgie smugglers - either way, I think it's hilarious)


Looking down the Champs Elysees - those poles are literally all the stops you from falling off


Champs Elysees - this time without the git ruining the view


The Eiffel Tower


Home of the Hunchback with Shauny


I may have fallen asleep on the boat cruise but I knew when to wake up!


Who says French art is rubbish?


We've all seen this shot before (but usually with better looking people)


View from the Lourve gardens down to Concorde


Apparently French gay men prefer blondes


Part of the shameless marketing parade before the riders came through


Apparently it can't be Australian unless there's a kangaroo involved


The leaders finally arrive


The pellaton streams through

Paris - not as bad as everyone says it is...

So I've just gotten back from a weekend in Paris, nominally to see the Tour de France, but really, well... because I can. Gotta love the Eurostar!
and I thought I'd take the novel approach of writing some thoughts about it whilst the trip is still fresh in my mind (my thoughts have a very short use by date), and I must say that having previously not really thought it was all it was cracked up to be. Now before you all drown me out with a chorus of "but Paris is the city of love!, it's the most beautiful city in the world" etc, etc, let me explain how I came by my previous misconception:
1) the weather when I went previously was shit. I mean really shit
2) as a result, pretty much all I saw of Paris was the Sacre Coeur, the Champs Elysees and Zara (a predominantly female clothing store) oh and lots of dog shit and rubbish on the streets
having been again with reasonably good weather I have now had the opportunity to climb the Arc de Triumphe, check out Notre Damne, Plaza de Concorde, the suburb of Saint Michel, the grounds of the Lourve and take the boat cruise past the other main sites (including that big tower) and I must say that I now agree with the majority of the human population that has had the pleasure of visiting Paris!
However, I do still have a few beefs with the beautiful city, namely:
- in 2 1/2 days all of the meals I ate (except lunch at a delightful Greek gyro house) were shit. Really shit. As shit as the weather was last time I was there.
- the customer service is terrible. Now, living in London, I'm used to poor service, but the places I visited really raised the bar on shit service levels
- the trains were as bad as those in the UK - stopping for no good reason and making things worse was the service announcements in French (to be fair my fault for not learning French)
- the beauty of the walkways by the Seine river and in fact a lot of the city of Paris being rudely interrupted by that most delightful odour - human urine. Now, we've all been caught short at one time or another and I'm as guilty as the next person of just a spot of public urination, but really, I've never smelt public spaces as bad as I have in some of the prettier parts of Paris
- continental breakfasts are generally good unless you're staying in a ridiculously cheap (and inconveniently located) 2 star hotel "near" the Carrefour Pleyel (not to be confused with Carrefour - the French version of Coles) metro station and their version of "ham" is suspiciously similar to "Spam" - complete with that nasty jelly like substance holding it all together
- getting into clubs is generally difficult enough - wrong shoes, wrong haircut, wrong shirt and all that jazz, we've all been there - even in Radelaide, but to be turned away from a club that was already mainly full of girls because there wasn't a girl in our group was a bit of a slap in the face
- for all of it's reputation as a city of high fashion, most of the Parisians we saw were not inappropriately dressed for a night out at the Village Tavern

Now, to the Tour de France.
On a certain level, I'm glad that I can say that I've now seen the starting (in London) and closing stages of one of the most famous sporting events in the world, BUT - not actually being that big a fan of cycling in the first place, on balance, I would rather have been watching it on a big screen either at home or preferably with friends, beer, toilets and most importantly... couches! Rather than spend any time ripping on the experience (which I am glad I've had), I've compiled a few suggestions for those who want to see the Tour up close an personal...
- having seen the Tour come through the streets of Paris I would probably recommend watching it up on one of those hill climbs that they do, so you can get close enough to the riders to push them (over if you so choose) and there's likely to be a reasonably steady stream of them come through over a period of time, as opposed to the whole pelaton cruising past in 30 seconds (admittedly they did a few laps of the Paris street circuit)
- pick a good location - luckily my boss suggested the corner of the Champs Elysees and Plaza de Concorde and that actually worked out quite well for us
- get there early... but not too early. We got to our spot at about 1pm. If you get there too late then the crowd will be six deep and unless you're over 6 foot massive (I'm not) you probably won't see anything
- bring water and snacks - but don't drink too much! if you leave your location, some will steal it and even if you don't people will keep encroaching into your personal space until you just want to start lashing out and hurting someone. I don't have the largest bladder in the world and not being able to go to use the facilities for 4 1/2 hours is not fun
- bring something to sit on - standing in the same spot for 4 1/2 hours is also not fun
- bring some music, a book to read, or someone you can talk shit to for 4 1/2 hours. If you're lucky, there will be speakers set up near you, but those speakers, whilst playing a reasonable selection of music (including Midnight Oil and INXS) may change over to random French commentary at any given moment, which can be confusing
- oh and be prepared for a parade of truly commercial proportions, made amusing by the sheer fact that you won't know half of th products being advertised but tolerable due to the large numbers of pretty girls dancing on fast moving automobiles

So that's it. My weekend in Paris. Photos and a video clip (if I can figure out how to make it work) of the race to come. I can feel the anticipation already...

PK

Welcome and all that jazz

Well Hello there,

Thanks for taking a few minutes of your increasingly important and busy lives to drop by and see what I've been up to. Hopefully it's not too disappointing and unlike Hans Moleman (bonus points for knowing which episode that came from because if you don't know what show it's from you probably shouldn't be reading this blog) you won't be complaining that I took 5 minutes of your life and that you want it back, because unfortunately, I'm not David Tennant and I don't have a TARDIS (yes, after a year I have become a little bit British and am now hooked on Dr Who, Top Gear, Yorkshire Puddings and school night drinking...)


So to wrap up the past few months I'm starting with a little ditty that some of you may have received on e-mail, and if you didn't I can only apologise and assume that I don't have your e-mail (see how I made that your fault ;?P)...

without further ado here is "And that's all that's making news..."

Having just realised that I pretty much get round to
these every 3 months, I hereby welcome you to the 2nd
quarter of 2007 wrap up of all (or at least most)
that's happened to one of the many friends that you
invariably know on the other side of the world.

So what has happened since we last met like this?

I went to New York and spent a hideous amount of money
but did manage to get to see the New York Knicks
(basketball) at Madison Square Garden, New York
Yankees (baseball) at Yankee Stadium - where we
literally got snowed on - not cool, up to Ellis Island
to climb as far as you can up the Statue of Liberty as
it possible (only to the top of the pedestal -
although we did get a look up her skirt...), Times
Square, Ground Zero, the base of the Empire State
Building (the queue was just too farking long),
Central Park, a club where they filmed an episode of
Sex & the City and we also took in a Kaiser Chiefs
concert - that was probably one of the more surreal
experiences of the whole trip. Being surrounded in
quite a large club that was pretty much full of Poms
singing along to "Oh my god I can't believe it, I've
never been this far away from home". We even managed
to find an internet cafe that sold meat pies and
Coopers Pale Ale - awesome! But most importantly for a
tech nerd like me, I managed to buy myself a shiny
new, black MacBook that I probably didn't really need,
but did REALLY want... in fact I'm typing this e-mail
on it now!

So New York was cool, the fact that we were getting
US$2 to the pound certainly helped, but I was
certainly pleasantly suprised by how friendly the
average New Yorker is and just how willing they were
to go out of their way for you. Their customer service
was also immaculate, and whilst I'm sure that they
count on their tips, the same could be be said for a
lot of customer service positions here in the UK and
it must be said that customer service here is pretty
rubbish.

Let me see, what else has happened? For those of you
that don't know, I got dumped about six weeks ago, so
the dream is over and now I'm trying to learn to cook
for myself.

Since then I've been to Amsterdam for a weekend with
my housemate and some friends. Amsterdam is a
seriously cool place and even without the Red Light
District (not quite as shocking as I expected it to
be), the illicit (in other countries) drugs, space
cakes and "brownies" it'd still be a cool place. The
Heineken musuem was about the only touristy thing we
did (other than sample some of the cakes and
brownies). We'd been told that the Anne Frank museum
was a place to go, but again the queue was just too
farking long, so we bailed on that and found a coffee
house instead. The Dutch really love their bikes and
the bikes pretty much rule the roads which is kinda
cool but really dangerous cos they don't make as much
noise, thankfully we all got through the weekend
unscathed.

Utilising my newfound freedom I've made some fairly
serious travel plans for the next few months - Paris
at the end of July for the end of the Tour de France,
Edinburgh in August for the Fringe Festival, Munich
in September for the opening of Ocktoberfest and back
to Radelaide for 2 weeks at the start of November for
a wedding (I fly in on the morning of the wedding, I'm
going to need a LOT of RedBull methinks) and trying to
figure out where to go for Christmas, I'm currently
leaning to St Petersburg...

Not huge amounts worth reporting on the London front.
Work is going well (I'm pretty sure they're going to
sponsor me to stay over here), going out to lots of
random pubs and clubs. Cameron Dickson came to visit
from Oz before and after his Contiki tour and Caitlin
Hall came to visit last weekend on her way back home.
I'm spending ridiculous amounts of my spare time on
Facebook (www.facebook.com - it's kind of like MySpace
for people over 18 yrs old and aren't Emos) and I
understand (and can see by the numbers of you joining
up recently) that it's just starting to become a
monster in Oz too. Huffy even had an article published
in the Australian about it
http://theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,22058589-7582,00.html?from=public_rss
so get onboard, everyone else is! It's kind of cool
stumbling across people you haven't seen for almost 10
years. Oh, also I went to Wimbledon on Centre Court
for a day that did not rain one drop, the famous
Gloucester Cheese Rolling Festival (you know the one
they always show on Sports Tonight where fools chase a
block cheese down a ridiculously steep hill and
hilarity and carnage ensue?) and saw Muse play at the
new Wembley (which was awesome)

I've started compiling a list of all the places that I
want to go eat at when I'm back home (is that just a
bit sad?) and it's looking like I'm going to do a bus
tour to the Barossa on one of the Fridays that I'm
back, so if you're interested let me know (P.S Liam,
can you see what Ralfie's availability is like on
Friday 9th Nov?)

Wow, I think that's the most I've written in one
sitting since university, I guess there's nothing you
can't do when listening to some awesome music!
(Powderfinger, The Killers, Jack Johnson, Superjesus
and the Kaiser Chiefs, Reel Big Fish - too much
information? Probably... I do that sometimes)

Oh, and next weekend I'm having some birthday drinks.
We're going to play some lawn bowls in Hyde Park and
then head out somewhere after that.

So if you've made it this far I do have a bit of a
present for you... photos! I'm told they say a
thousand words, but with most of mine iI reckon
they're only worth a few hundred words at most.

Hope you're all well and hit me back with some news
from your end, cos god knows I've got nothing but time
on my hands now! Oh, and get onto Facebook....

PK

Random canal in the Dam




Base of Empire State Building

View from the Great Pond - Central Park

Duvet Club - better known as "Bed" from Sex & the City

Random New York Street

Not the Statue of Liberty

The Statue of Liberty

Rockerfeller Centre

Times Square at night

Yankee Stadium

Centre Court Wimbledon with Huffy