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