a merry white christmas

hey guys and gals,

hope you all had a fantastic christmas and have a good new years lined up. i am on my way to france to go skiing for a week which will be fun.

i had a good christmas in interlaken. christmas eve, the hostel put on a big all you can eat dinner so we all sat in the big dining room together and had lots of ham. the food at the funny farm is great, i pretty much ate all my meals there all week. then we sat around the fire and had a few hot choc and rums. a few aussies had turned up and were staying in my room, so i ended up playing a game of kings with them and ending up a bit pissy. in the morning we all woke up and said merry christmas and then there was a bottle of wine going around the room.

now, there was no actual snow in interlaken and it was all foggy, but i had told the paragliding dude that i wanted a proper white chrissy and he was taking a girl paragliding up in grindlewald. so he said, i'll take the van and give you all a lift up there, so we all piled into the van... me, the rest of the aussies and a couple of american boys and went up to the snow. grindlewald was good, all full of sunshine and snow and cheese. yes cheese, lots of fondue goodness.

so that was that and then when we got back to the hostel we did the usual eat the great food and hang around the fire and play pool. if i had more time i would have spent it in interlaken, it just had such a good atmosphere and i met some great people.

one of them i was a little bit nasty to. poor jonathon, i convinced him that he really should come to jungfraujoch with me (its the top of europe) , i just failed to mention that the return trip was 170 euro!!! boy, did he whinge like a little bitch about it the whole day. but it was really good, we wandered about in the snow and the view was awesome. we tried to build a snow man but the snow was too powdery, it was like trying to build a sandcastle with dry sand. and there was also the ice palace which is all these rooms made out of ice filled with ice carvings, so we were sliding about there for ages which was fun.

anyway, so i had to leave as there was a big todo on my list. Amsterdam. It was a cool place, the whole red light district just smells like pot. I think I got half stoned just sitting in the lounge of the hostel I was in (it was a bit of a hovel), but I did go to a coffee shop with a couple of guys i met to make sure. We also did a tour of the town, the red light district, the van gogh museum and anne franks house. All good stuff, but there is heaps to do there, I could have spent a few more days at least. I never even got to ride a bike or see a windmill! But again, not enough time. So today I am off to France. So have a happy new years and talk to you in 2007!

still alive and hanging for more

he he i still cant belive it - i jumped out of a helicopter it was so exciting. i`ve only been talking about going sky diving for about 10 years now, but finally it is done. and it was so great i hadn`t even hit the ground when i was thinking that i want to do it again. even just the helicopter ride was fantastic. it started off the day was a bit foggy so we had to go to grindelwald, another town up the valley. but that was even better because it had been snowing there so we got to land in the snow. the helicopter was great. we rode up along the side of the mountains and the mountains are just huge and covered in snow and go on forever, the view is just sensational. but i got to admit it was a bit odd sitting on and being strapped to some dude for the whole ride. however, when it came to getting out of the chopper that was the least of my concerns. i was getting pretty excited when the door opened and the other pair jumped out, i thought i was going to wee. but i didn`t... lucky for the dude strapped to me! then we scooted up to the door and was standing on the edge and just as i thought `oh fuck what am i doing` it was too late i felt a shove from behind and then we were rolling and i was looking back up at the chopper. oh mz god it was so exciting. the freefall was just awesome. and then after the parachute opened it was just relaxing and looking around at the fantastic scenery. so so fun. i want to go again and again! definately one of the most exciting things ive ever done. i think skz diving and the swimming with the whale sharks in exmouth are probably the two best things ever that ive done.

jumping off cliffs and falling out of planes

well interlaken has turned out to be pretty good. i'm a bit disappointed that i can't go canyoning or glacier climbing because it is the wrong time of year, but i did go paragliding yesterday which was fantastic and tomorrow i am going sky-diving out of a helicopter. just remember - jump out not up!

so the paragliding was so cool. me and this other aussie guz jonathan went with the 2 instructors peitch and hans. jonathon went with hans who yodelled for him on the way down! i went with peitch which was cool, we followed birds to find up draughts and after 10 minutes or so of gliding we were up higher than where we took off from! we took off from a mountain about 600 metres above the town. it was so cold up there, but you had these awesome views of the mountains in all directions and the town and lakes below. i was a bit scared i'd drop my camera, don't think the travel insurance people would be too keen on me claiming a second one in a month. i also got to have a steer of the glider and then we did heaps of really fast tight loops down, it felt like you were on a roller coaster and you could see the ground hurtling up towards you. so fun. so after that i am all keen for sky diving tomorrow. and out of a helicopter too, ive never been in a chopper before so that will be cool. i am getting pretty excited about it, but im sure i will have lots of nervous wees in the morning.

will write again tomorrow and tell you if i am still alive.

the bone church

hez guzs,

this kezboard sucky. it swaps the z's and the y's so it looks like i cant spell. ah well.

so in my latest adventures i have spent a week in the czech republic a couple of days in salzberg, austria and am now in interlaken, switzerland where i am going to stay for christmas.

salzberg is best known for being the place where the sound of music was made. so there are lots of tours around it and the hostel plays the movie once a day. surely anyone who sees that on a daily basis would go nuts. but i didnt do any of that stuff, i wandered up to the monastery and the castle and spent a lot of time at the christmas markets buying christmas tree decorations. why? i dont have a christmas tree or anything, but they were so pretty and with all the markets and snowz mountains and stuff i was feeling verz christmasy.

the czech republic was good. i spent a couple of days in prague where i did a citz tour, a ghost tour and a couple of museums. i went to the torture museum and the sex machine museum. the funniest thing was, that the devices in both museums looked pretty similiar. i took lots of photos and i want to play the 'sex of torture' game with you all. so when i get to a computer that i can plug my camera into ill put the photos up and you can guess which museum thez came from. also in the sex museum was a little cinema where thez wer plazing spanish porn from the 1920's. one of the funniest things i have ever seen. especiallz the bit where the guz goes honk honk on the girls boobs so then she pulls it out the top of her dress and he starts playing with it like hes trying to open a jam jar.

so after prague i went to kutna hora which is where the bone church is. from the outside it looks like a pretty well-kept old church. then you walk in and the place is decorated with 30,000 human skulls! it was so cool, they were all strung across the ceiling and there were skull candlesticks and a skull candleabra. when i was in there there was these american guys with long long hair and their black metal t-shirts. and thez were all like 'man, this is wicked. i've seen pictures of this place on so many album covers'. ah, they made me laugh.

so after kutna hora i went to go to czesky krumlov, but i missed mz connecting train and ended up stazing in jilhara. but that was ok, it was a cute town and had some nice hiking tracks that i did the next daz. the hotel i stazed in was funny too, it was like a cross between an art gallerz and a prison cell. there was a big wide hallwaz with all these massive paintings down one wall and the room doors down the other. and it was so echoy that when in zour room you would here the stomp stomp stomp of footsteps and then this big loud click clack of the lock and bang of the door.

so then i got to czeskz krumlov. it is the prettiest little town, like a smaller version of prague. and because it was out of season you felt like you practically had the place to yourself. and there were some really nice hiking trails around there too. (notice a pattern with all the hiking - just trying to get in a bit of practise before having to climb mt kili next month). so i spent 4 dazs there and got in some drinking in some of the cute little bars and ended up in one of the dodgiest clubs ive ever seen. but it was all good, i have more stories, but couldnt be bothered at the second. so will write again soon, and if i dont have a merry christmas and good new year and remember if you cant be good, be good at it!!

I saw my tour guide nude

I've moved on again and am now in Budapest, which is a very cool city. Belgrade was alright, but there was no-one around really and not a hell lot to do. Budapest is great though. Last night I went out with some people who were on my tour. We started the night with vokda shots and it all went on from there. I had a slight case of alcohol-induced kleptomania and came home with a ceramic ashtray, a jar of ketchup, a cd from a budapest dj who we hitched a ride with and some guys phone number on my arm. I also had 10 grand less in my wallet. Luckily, the exchange rate is 140 to 1 so it's actually only 70-80 dollars. But it sounds pretty cool to say, 'whoa, i blew 10 grand last night!' anyway, Budapest has been great, i did a walking tour, went to the house of terror museum, went to the christmas markets and have been to the thermal baths twice, but the best was the caving. we got to wear these sexy overalls and get all covered in clay and dust, sliding on our arses down the wet rocks and only your headlamp to guide you. and some of the places were so small you had to crawl through on your belly. one bit was called 'the sandwich of death'. and you had so slide on your belly for 10 metres between these big slabs of rock that were so close together that i had to take my helmet off because it would fit through when i was wearing it. and the tour group were great, there was about a dozen of us and everyone was always keen to take the hard road when the tour guide gave us a choice.





















There is a quote on the flyer that says 'I have just been reborn 5 times'. I sure know what Steve from Ontario, Canada was talking about, we had to squeeze through some pretty tight holes.

Anyway after the tour, we got changed and went to bar next door where one of the guys bought a big bottle of vokda for us to celebrate the fact we made it out alive. I suddenly realised i'd left my rechargeable batteries in my overalls, so went back to get them. I knocked on the door and wandered in and was all 'hey anyone about?' looking for the tour guide and then i opened this door and he was there NAKED, because he was about to hop in the shower when i walked in. I was all 'ohmy god' and back-pedalling as fast as i could, and he like followed me out and was just holding some clothes over his rude bits and was 'can i help you?'. so i said i forgot my batteries, but i'll come back. but he went back in and threw some pants on and then we started to go through all the overalls looking for mine, luckily they were the second pair we found as i couldn't wait to get out of there, i was so embarrassed. but i went back to the bar and told a couple of the others what happened and they all thought it was very amusing.

but anyway, tonight and tomorrow i am still in budapest and then i am off to prague. yay.

Bulgaria

hey guys,

i have finally got some photos up. some from turkey and bulgaria. so check them out

well i didn't quite get up the mountain in sophia. i took a tram out of town to where you get the bus then wait an hour and a half for a bus that is supposed to come every hour. then because it was about 2 degrees and i was freezing i was like 'screw this!' and headed back toward the tram stop. and of course half way back the bus went past. so i swore at it and then headed back to the hostel. after thawing out i wasn't grumpy anymore so i made friends with a canadian guy called john and we went for a look about town. we came back to the hostel where i made friends with a japanese dude and told him it would be a great idea if we played scrabble. funnily enough i won. i'm so clever.

the next day john and i headed up (or is it down?) to the rila monastery. it should be down because it's south, but it is in the mountains so it is up. i digress, rila is this georgeous little monatery with an outcrop of little old buildings to support the tourism it creates. it is in the middle of the mountains and you can actually stay at the monastery. so we did. we also got there early enough that we could go for a bit of a hike in the hills. we followed this ridge up and at the top we could see all the mountains out behind, all snow-topped and looked clean and bright in the afternoon sun. i got some top shots. it was also fun walking up there because it is the end of autumn so all the leaves are thick on the ground and there are no birds or anything so the only noise you hear is your feet through the leaves (oh and the heavy breathing, kelly is very unfit. - kilimanjaro here i come!) at the monastery though the night life leaves much to be desired. the restaurants closed at 5.30 and there is no tv, so it was cards and books til the late hour of 9. i'm sure all the monks had a little room somewhere where they were sitting around smoking cigars, sipping beers and playing ping-pong, but we couldn't find it.

so the next day we trekked back to sophia. at the hostel a few people were heading out so i invited myself along. we played a few drinking games at the hostel and then headed out. we were looking for a club we had heard of when this local chick told us 'no, come with me. i know the best club in sophia!' so we went. the club was ok. but the chick was messy. she was grabbing guys butts, skanky dancing with whoever was game enough to get on the dance floor and i was in a fantastic position to view the crutchless stockings when she decided to take a short-curt straight over the table.

but it was fun anyway, i had a bit of a jive on the dancefloor, practised my karate kid dance moves (wax off, wax on, paint the fence, paint the fence) and then we went for pizza.

so that was sophia, i didn't make it up to mt vitosha, but ah well. i am in belgrade now, i don't think it has a mountain, but i spent today wandering about the fortress, it is really cool, then i had plans of visiting a couple of museums, but accidently found myself in the main shopping district, so spent a few hours in the various bookstores flicking through all the books with the funny letters.

well, i hope everyone is fine and dandy in their various homes, keep in touch!!

hindi hindi gobble gobble

hey guys,

i am writing today from sophia in bulgaria. it's a cute little city about the same size as perth but at the bottom of a mountain. i am going up the mountain tomorrow. i left istanbul yesterday. the tour had finished a couple of days before but i spent an extra couple of days wandering the bazaars and all the little antique shops. i can't wait til next year when i'm a millionaire and i can come back to turkey and do a big road trip around the whole lot and then buy my antique mother of pearl binoculars and a 50,000 euro silk carpet that will probably look dumb in my house so it will live with mum and lots of handmade turkish pottery that is only like 300 euro for a plate or 500 euro for a handbag wine bottle.

what the hell is kelly on about you ask. what the hell is a handbag wine bottle. well my friends, kelly is not insane...yet. although talking about yourself in third person is usually a good sign of up and coming maddness. but what i call a handbag wine bottle is a ceramic wine bottle that has a circle bit that you put your arm through and then you wear it on your shoulder to pour drinks. a nice step up from the old hip flask i reckon. i probably didn't explain it to well. i will try to get a photo of one up.

anyway, turkey was great. it is a beautiful country. istanbul is a very modern city and all nice and clean and big step back towards normality after the chaos of cairo. our tour was fairly small, there were 10 of us and 2 of them, saffa's ruth and miles, i already knew because they were on my egypt tour. coincidence, i think not.
the others on the tour were the usual influx of aussies and kiwis and a couple from bahrain which was pretty cool.

so the 10 of us, our tour guide gokhan (damn i kept forgetting to wear my dragon ball z tee when he was around) and out bus driver zekki set off. we went to gallipoli which was good to see but bloody freezing, but i didn't let that stop me from running about getting photos of myself hiding in trenches.

um, i couldn't be bothered writing the whole lot and you are probably getting bored by now, so i'll just do the highlights. gallipoli i already mentioned, the blue mosque was pretty impressive and the basilica cistern i liked. ephesus was good, it's old ruins but a lot of them have been restored and look really good, my favourite part is the public toilets. a long slab of marble with a number of holes in it and water flowing underneath to get rid of everything. some quality photo opportunities there. Hieropolis the necropolis was pretty cool too along with the calcium pools which are these hot springs flowing into these big white calcium cliffs and you can wander about through the water bare footed.

cappadocia was the big favourite though. it looks just like something out of star wars (probably because it was in the first (episode iv) star wars. all these big massive cliff and ravines and there are buildings cut into the cliffs everywhere. it looks like a big human ant hill, especially from the hot air balloon. the hot air balloon was awesome.

anyway, again i am promising photos. but really turkey was great and i would love to go back or have stayed longer, but there are other places to get to. so i am in bulgaria for probably 5 days and then probably belgrade or budapest or somewhere like that. i did want to go to romania, but you need to have a visa before you leave for that, so poo on that plan.

well, keep in touch kids.

guess who is a wanker

that´s rıght. ıt´s kelly.

who else, in the second week of their 4 month trip, would spend half the day ın a police office gettıng a statement about their camera that they managed to misplace and then have to spend the next day putting a new one of their trusty credit card?

and no, as my lovely mother who always thinks the best of me asked, i was not drunk. just stupid.

anyway, all is not lost, the ever thoughtful rıkki-lee made a copy of all my photos when we were in luxor, so i´ve only lost the photos from dahab and should be able to get some photos from some of the other guys on the tour.

so yesterday i arrived in istanbul where i am starting a new tour. our tour group here ıs pretty small, there ıs only 10 of us and two of them were actually on my egypt tour whıch ıs a pretty cool coıncıdence. and as well as that there ıs a couple from bahraın (a place ın the mıddle east) whıch makes a nıce change from the usual ınflux of aussıes and kıwıs. our tour guide is good, not out-there like sherıf, but good anyway. his name is gokhan which makes me think of dragon ball z.

tomorrow we head off to gallıpolı which is the must do for every good aussie and kiwi when on tour. then we do a bit of a loop around to cappadoccıa whıch has all these underground cıtıes and stuff and then back up through ankara whıch ıs the capital of turkey (news to me, i thought ıt was ıstanbul) and then we end back ın ıstanbul.

wıll keep you posted and hopefully will get some photos up soon.

Sherif the tour guide.

So the tour was great, but the thing that really made it great was our tour guide Sherif. It was an absolute pisser. A fantastic mix of facts and stories, someone who is keen to share knowledge of their country and totally full of shit all at once! It you are planning to do Egypt, I definately recommend going with 'On the go' tours and then begging to go with Sherif.

He was really good at keeping the group keen and interested and involved. whenever we got to an attraction ie. temple, pyramid, flushing toilet. he would say 'laddies and gentlemens, this is the time you have been waiting for all your livesm get excited, it's ...' and we would all cheer. At the temples and stuff, other tour guides would carry something to lift up so people could find them. Sherif said he was big enough to see, being the ex-body builder and current belly-builder that he is, and if he wanted the group to gather he would just started yelling 'group b! group b'. one of the best things though was if he noticed someone not from the group trying to listen in, he would suddenly start talking about when the aliens came from the sky and taught the egyptians to build the pyramids until they left, it was so funny. one cracker was when we were with another group (group a) in Karnak Temple. sherif and hany kept telling us about how there was a bond movie and an indiana jones movie in Karnak temple. and sherif and hany are standing at different corners and pretending to be bond and indiana jones, slow-motion running towards each other and sherif is saying 'and he runs from here, and he runs from there, and they running and they running and the running' then when they get really close you're thinking it's going to be a bond-jone show-down, but he says 'but they don't meet, coz they in different movies!' i nearly wet myself, i think it may be one of those, you had to be there things.

anyway, off to turkey this evening, will keep you posted.

Egypt

My Egypt trip has been great... despite a major case of the trots and less than ideal toilet facilities, but we won't get into that too much, except to say that it is pretty bad when one of the better places you get to poop is in some poor guys banana field.

I flew into Cairo and am now spending a couple of days at the end of the tour here as well. Cairo is just so surreal. I think the roads pretty much give you a picture of what the whole city is like. Huge and filthy and the rich and the poor all thrown in together and trying to get about as quick as possible. A taxi ride in Cairo is similiar to rally driving, it's very exciting. In Cairo, you have a massive highway, 3 lanes each way, and you will have taxis and cars weaving in and out of lanes, no blinkers, you just toot your horn and go, and if you can't decided which lane to sit in, just sit in the middle until you decide.

But then you are not only weaving in and out of other cars and buses, there will also be scooters, bicycles, a couple of guys with donkeys and carts, mini-vans so full that people are hanging out of the doors, once i seen a herd of sheep. Then the pedestrians will take a look and think, this looks like a great place to cross! The first time i crossed a road here i was sure i was going to die, and I know I said the same thing about Rome, but this was way worse. A hundred times. But it was cool, I just place another person, a local, preferably a mother and child or someone with a disability between me and the oncoming traffic and bolt across the lanes when they do. Easy.

The tour itself was great. We visited the Pyramids and the Sphinx in Cairo, then we went to Aswan where we went to Abu Simbel, the Aswan High Dam which is the biggest man-made lake in the world, the Temple of Pilae and then spent 2 days floating down the Nile on a felucca. Abu Simbel was absolutely amazing. The statues are massive, and not only is the building of them just 'wow', but in the 70's the Egyptian government acutally moved them as they were going to be drowned with the building of the dam. The temple of Abu Simble was one of my favourite things, the statues reminded me of 'the oracles' in the never ending story, I kept thinking they were going to open their eyes and shoot me with lazers.

The felucca ride was great too. So relaxing and such a beautiful part of Egypt, especially in comparison to their filth-ridden cities. it was especially good as me and rikki weren't feeling so well. Rikki was so bad she had to get an injection to stop the nausea and take some anitbiotics. Me though, I too tough for that.

Next we went from Kom Ombo to Luxor. We had to get the police convoy for this. The police convoy is a bit of a money maker for the Egyptian government started after some tourist bus got shot-up or something. It's all part of what I like to call Egypt's 'Illusion of Security'. I mean, they have 60-70 buses in the convoy and half a dozen police cars scattered along the way. If someone wanted tourists, it's like take your pick. They also have quality metal detectors everywhere. They beep for almost every person and the guys on the door don't look twice at anyone. In one airport there were two sets of metal detectors, both going off randomly for different people. Or when we went to the Pyramids, our tour guide Sherif says 'please leave your bombs on the bus while you go through security'. We all get off the bus, go through the metal detectors, then get back on the bus, which has driven through with no-one looking twice at it! Funny.

We also went to the Valley of the Kings. It is sensational and changes your whole image of what every temple and tomb you've already seen would have looked like. You see all these carvings and you think, wow and imagine the stone walls and columns etc complete. Then in the Valley of the Kings you realise, 'oh shit', everything was actually painted and coloured and you're just 'wowed' all over again.

After all that I left Rikki :( in Luxor where she was heading back to Cairo and I went to Dahab with the rest of the crew. Dahab was great, diving that equals the Barrier Reef and we climbed Mt Sinai, which so far is the absolute highlight of my trip. We climbed it in the middle of the night so that we would get there for sunrise. It is 2100 and something metres, the 4th highest mountain in Africa. Mustafa, our guide, was pretty happy with us as we powered it up the mountain and did the whole climb in 1.5 hours (it usually take 2-3 hours). I ended up being in the first half dozen to the top, so i was pretty happy with that effort. So we scored ourselves a pretty good possie to watch the sunrise. The only problem was it was on a hill at the edge of the cliff and I went to sleep and when I woke up 20 minutes later, I had slid a metre down my matress. I was like 'oh crap, glad i didn't sleep much longer'. I have so say, the hikinh up the mountain by torchlight was well worth the effort, even the 760 steps at the end. It was one of the most spectacular sunrises I have ever seen. I'm sure the photos won't do it justice.

THE PLAN

Hey everyone,

As I may have mentioned before in my blog, various emails and repeatedly to anyone who I come into contact with, I am taking 4 months off before heading home. Finally I have started to organise myself, and it's about time as I am leaving TOMORROW. So here it is. THE PLAN

First leg is Egypt with the one and only Rikki-Lee where we tour around for 10 days soaking up the sun, visit the pyramids, float down the nile on a felucca and do the mandatory camel riding. After this it's bye bye Rikki as she is off to Africa and then home to Cairns. For me, I'm going to hang about in Egypt a bit more, head down to Dahab for a few days and do some diving.

From Dahab I return to Cairo and fly to Istanbul for a 10 day tour of turkey, including Gallipoli and Cappa..something (which looks pretty cool, despite the fact I can't remember what it is called.

From Istanbul the plan is to have no plan. I'm just gonna wing it for a bit and see where that gets me. For the week around new years I have booked a ski tour in France and just before that I am thinking going to Iceland. Then I will be back in London for a few days where I will get to catch up with those left behind in London and Nga who will be holidaying at the same time as me.

From jan 14 I am flying out to Nairobi and doing a week tour to climb Mt Kilimanjaro and then a 4 week tour of Kenya and Uganda which does all the safari stuff and goes to see the Mountain Gorillas and ends in Zanzibar where there are lots of dolphins and diving and all that beachy stuff I love.

So there it is, and I leave in approximately 12 hours. Yay.

I really wanted to tell you guys about my trip to Ireland last weekend and my work leaving drinks and stuff, but I don't have time now. So maybe tomorrow. I also wanted to put more pics up, but couldn't coz i sent my laptop home, so you'll have to wait til i take some more.

Anyway, will write again real soon. See ya

On Ya Bike

Hi guys, I have been ever so slack in writing, but it's not my fault, we have no internet at home and I've been busy at work trying to finish up as I only have a week left at work and 9 sleeps until Rikki and I go to Egypt.

So now I'll give you the low-down of our last trip. Rikki and I went to Krakow, Berlin, Basel and then finished up in Munich for Oktoberfest which was fantastic.

In Krakow Rikki and I did a bike tour and we enjoyed it so much that we were doing bike tours everywhere we went.

The first day Rikki and I got to Krakow we met an aussie guy, Luke, who was meeting his friend, George, in Krakow. We pretty much hung out with them the whole weekend. Funny guys. We went out to the Salt Mine which was pretty cool. 130 metres deep and theres about 200 kilometres of tunnels. And there are chapels and chandeliers and a big dwarf statues and 3-d carvings in the walls. So cool, and the rickety little elevator that took you back up was so fast and so scary. Rikki also ran into a couple who she met in Greece 3 months ago & they came out with us that night, then while we were out they ran into some Canadian chicks from their hostel, so we had a cool little group to hang out with for the night. We went to a cool little club which hwas on a list of bars and clubs that Magda had given me. Magda is a friend of mine in London who is from Poland.

Berlin is a big dirty city, a bit like London, I've never seen so much graffitit before. When we first came out of the tube, I was all 'oh crap rikki, i don't think we're in the best part of town' but it was good fun. But we’ve met some cool people on our bike tour, mostly aussies again. I went out with them but Rikki piked because she was tired, but it was a Sunday night so it was fairly quiet anyway. However, we still ended up out til 3am and saw a couple of cool dj’s playing in this club in this old decrepit building where the only person dancing was this 80yo guy with a beard that made him look like santa.

Berlin was also the first time I've had someone come home pissed and spewed everywhere. The dude from reception cleaned it up for the lazy fucker. Then the dirty bugger just threw up again & was not going to clean it up. But I sorted him. I yelled at him and then went and slapped him on the leg. Boy did he jump up quick then. So funny.

Basel is on the border of Switzerland, France and Germany. I really wanted to go to Black Forest. So we went to Freiburg, just across the border in Germany and hired bikes. We rode out of town along the river, so pretty and clean and nice buildings and stuff. And we also went in a cable car and hiked up to this cool lookout. So it was a good day and we did some fun stuff, but it was too far away to go to the waterfalls and the fairy tale castle and forest and lake constance. So I guess I’ll have to come back.

Rikki and I got to Munich, or as I like to call it Munchen, about 11.30 Thursday night, thinking we’ll just go to the hostel and have a good night sleep before we get into Oktoberfest. But it was not to be.
We were checking into the hostel and there were people everywhere and the bar at the hostel was packed and the music was pumping. Then the reception guy walks in and looks at me like ‘oh my god, it’s you’ and was pointing at me. I was like ‘what the fuck?’ Luckily I realised he was shit-stirring so I said, ‘Don’t you point at me like that, I don’t know you!’ and he laughed and said people fall for it all the time. Then he checked us in and gave us monopoly money for a free beer at the bar. So we decided to go just for one.

Five drinks later, it was 2.30 and Rikki and I snuck off to bed with our Munchen pints glasses as souveneirs. Not quite a stein, but a good effort in theft anyway.

So Friday we got up early and went to our other hostel along with a kiwi guy called Daniel, then we went on a walking tour. It was good, but there seemed to be a bit of product placement in it. The guy was pointing out certain souvenier stores and shops and restaurants which seemed out of place. But the best bit was definitely the big park with the rive through it where there was a fake surf break created in the river & guys surfing it. They were all lining up and surfing across the river. It was so cool. One of my favourite things I’ve seen.

So then we went and had some lunch and a beer in a pub. I think we ate a whole pig between the three of us. Boy, they love their pork in Germany. (Matt I took some food photos for you)

Then in the evening we found Tim the Tourman and a few others and we went to Oktoberfest. It was so cool. There were people everywhere, lots of families and stuff too. There were rides and stalls and head and heaps of people all dressed in the Germany costumes. The boys in the leather pants and the girls in the busty dresses. On the hill out the back were people passed out everywhere. So we wandered through a few beer halls looking for a seat. They are absolutely massive and decorated so grandly and there are bands playing in them and stuff. But you can only get a beer if you are sitting down. And we couldn’t find a seat. Finally we were out in one of the beer gardens. And we managed to squeeze a couple of us onto the end of a table full of Italians so we could order drinks. So we ordered beers for everyone and then moved back off the table so the Italians could fit back in.

Then a table of Germans seen us and let us squeeze in with them. One of them was called Ebil, so I was like ‘Ebil? Ebil like the debil or ebil like ebil kineable?’ Me Funny. Anyway, a stein later and we were singing songs and chatting away to everyone within 4 tables of us. There was lots of ‘hey baby’ and ‘seven nation army’ sung. Lots of Germans and Italians, they were all so friendly and fun and not bothered that we knew no German.

Later in the night we managed to get into a beer all, but I was on my 3rd stein by then so it was all a bit blurry and afterwards we went to the hostel to the bar there where me and Rikki were dancing up on the ledge. A while later I realised that Rikki had disappeared so I went looking for her. I thought she may have gone to bed so I went to check our room. Rikki wasn’t there, but I ad walked in on nude people. I was like ‘oh crap, sorry’, then I realised that there 3 of them! Luckily, I was drunk or it could have been embarrassing. So I was like, ‘hey have you seen rikki?’ and started to explain to them how I had lost my friend. So they hadn’t seen my friend, but decided that they would get up and come downstairs for drinks with me. So that was cool, we went downstairs and had drinks til 4.30 and when I went up to bed again, there was Rikki!!

Half an hour later, my alarm went off. It was grand final day and I wanted to watch it. So I went downstairs and found a few fellow footy fans and off we went to some irish pubwhere I had myself a bourbon or two for breakfast. I have to admit I did struggle to stay awake in the first half, but it was such an awesome game by the end I was wide awake, although extremely disappointed as I was going for the swanies. We got back to the hostel from the footy about 9.30 and all I could think was, sleep, sleep. But alas, everyone was up and on their way to Oktoberfest. And rikki was ‘cmon Kelly, you have to come with us now or you will never find us later!’ And I knew she was right, so I struggled onward and upward.

I did struggle through the first hour or so there, but once the first stein had gone down, I got a second wind and was all good for the rest of the day. Day 2 of Oktoberfest was much of the same, singing, drinking, making friends with anyone lucky ( or unlucky) enough to cross your path. It was so fun. The day went fairly quick and before I knew it it was time to head back to the hostel. Once again I had lost Rikki. So I went back to the hostel, drank some more, played some pool, stole some german guys hat and ended up dancing on the tables in the bar with all the other aussies from the tour. It was here, when I was dancing away on the tables when Rikki returned. We were so excited, I was ‘where were you?’ and she was ‘What are you doing up there?’ Even though it was quite obvious that I was ripping it up on the table, my fantastic dances move the admiration of all those in the bar. Although, I think some of the best moves I seen all night was Tim trying to break dance on the table. So I thought I’d have a go too, but my break dancing involved me laying on the table with my knees up and tim spinning me round by my ankles. So 4.30 again to bed and 7.30 to rise as Rikki and I had to catch our plane. By this stage, I was so tired, but miraculously not hung over, and had totally lost my voice. It didn’t come back for 3 days. A sure sign of a huge holiday.

Well now, my photos should be up in the next day or so, but you can also check out Tim the Tourman's photos or Rikki's photos.

Also I will blog again and tell you about how I'm going to be in the guiness world records book, my latest sojourn to the theatre and 'THE PLAN'

RIP Crocodile Hunter

Who can believe it. The crocodile hunter is gone. It's a tradgedy! Man, that guy was a bloddy fruit-loop, but a pretty clever one, whatever will happen to the crocodiles now? I bet they're crying real crocodile tears.

And Brocky too. I am still placing bets on who will make up the trifecta. My money is on the next great aussie icon to go being ray or bert with rove as the black horse.

So two more sleep before Rikki and I are off to germany. Fantastic. I've bought myself a new camera so I am all happy now. did i mention how my camera died in the arse halfway through my last hols? so no spain photos and not a lot of france ones either. but i have put up a few on the photo site and some photos of my b'day. so check them out http://www.flickr.com/photos/kellys_phab_fotos/

happy birthday to meeeeee

this week was back to work. but, not for too long as Rikki and I will be off to oktoberfest in 3 weeks. this week we went and had a drink and got our oktoberfest t-shirts off tim the tourman. we had one stein each and we were half hammered. i said 'rikki, we're gonna have to practise before we get to germany or we're gonna die!'.

so friday, as it was my b'day as, was some fairly decent practice. friday night, i organised drinks at the quays, which is the pub that sponsors my footy team. so a few people turned up and i had a large mixutre or shooters and strawpedos and decided to show everyone my head-banging and air guitar moves. damn, i had a sore neck in the morning, but miraculously, no hangover! successful birthday i think.

but it sounds like the girls in geelong had just as big a night to celebrate my b'day and caseys.

Happy Birthday Casey!!!!!!!!

They even invited me a long! Take a look.






Don't i look hot. With the stripy red stockings and being 3 ft tall, I kinda look like a tart astro-boy!

Last night I went to my first music. And I've only been in London a year! Anyway, after and hour and a half buggering about on stinky hot tubes and walking halfway across the city centre because some selfish cow threw herself on the train tracks and stopped the tubes running, i went with rikki and some of her friends to see The Producers. I'd never seen the movie so it was cool, didn't know what was going to happen. It was so funny and the singing and stuff was great. We were up in the balcony, but that was cool, i had the little binoculars so i could perve on the people in the stalls, and we could see everything because we were in the centre and not too far back. It was good fun, I am keen to go again, I want to see The Lion King and Monty Python's Spamalot. I'm sure it will be a classic.

Oh. Nearly forgot. I told work this week that I want to finish up and go travelling. So I am going to finish up at the end of october and then take off travelling for 4 months. I am so excited!

Anyway, hopefully will have some holiday and b'day snaps up soon.

See ya

La Tomatina

Now for part two - Valencia and Barcelona.

Valencia was great fun. The tour I went on was a fucking shambles, but everyone on the tour still managed to have an awesome time. The hostel was nice but the men who ran it were total tossers, they didn't even ask me my name when I checked in. Then when we got home at 3am after a night out in some little town watching some lady getting an award for what I was sure was mullet of the year, they stopped everyone and wouldn't let anyone in until they had matched them to their passport. So me and the guy in my room crawled past the window and snuck into our room. Then at 6am a heap of guys came into our room yelling and carrying on all pissed off because they too had booked and paid for their tour, but when they got back to the hostel there were no beds in the whole hostel. So they kicked up a fuss and the old dudes running the place took them into every room turning on lights and waking up everyone to show them there were no rooms. But by the time they got to our room it was time to get up and go to La Tomatina so it didn't matter that they didn't have beds!

So 6.30 everyone on the tour gets to the station. ... everyone except the tour guide, who slept in til 8.00 (I'm sure it had nothing to do with the fact I hd her drinking tequila ay 2am). Everyone was so pissed when she got there. Then because we had to catch the later train there was no room to sit, not even on the floor, it was so crowded. I actually fell asleep standing up! And then I was like 'crap, I hope no-one saw', but a few people did and were laying shit on me later.

Anyway, la tomatina was so cool. You just can't describe what a surreal event it is. I definately recommend it to everybody. It starts you walk down to the tomato throwing street which is in the centre of bunol which is in a valley, so you walk down these little cobblestoned alleys where there are bars on the street selling sangria and beer ( fantastic hangover cure!) and there is music and all the local have tables set up outside where they are sitting having brunch and watching everyone go past.
When you get to the little street all the walls are covered in plastic and there are about 30,000 crowded in just waiting. It all starts with a gunshot. Everyone starts cheering and singing songs. But no tomatoes. You can't throw tomatoes until someone has scaled the greasy pole and got the ham off the nail.

Watching the pole is like watching a footy match, everyone is cheering and booing. Guys are going up the pole and stepping on eachothers heads and stuff to get higher. However, the locals don't want any tourist or girls getting the ham, so if they go too high, they grab them by the feet and rip them down. It ends up taking about half an hour to get the ham, but after that, that is when the tomato throwing starts.

But it's not just tomatoes. La Tomatina is officially a 'no shirts' event so all the guys start ripping off each others shirts and sometimes getting into the girls as well. But it was pretty easy to stay out of the rough patches so I managed to keep my shirt on. As well as the shirts being thrown around there is a truck with half a dozen high pressure hoses spraying everyone and then a truck drives through the middle of street dumping tomatoes in piles. It is so fun, everyone crowding back to get out of the way of the truck and then going mental throwing whatever they can pick up at whoever gets in the way. But to soon it is all over, and despite being drenched from head to foot and covered in tomatoes, I hadn't had enough.

So I wandered back up to the station with a few aussie chicks from the tour. On the way back all the locals stand outside with garden hoses cleaning people off. So we sat in the sunshine drying off, having a beer and watching all the tomato drenched people go by.

After that we headed back to the hostel for a shower and a nap before dinner. Dinner was great, eveyone from the tour was so hyped and the food was awesome and the sangria even better. After the food we left the restaurant and went to a salsa bar where all the retirees go to salsa. So I was having a dance when some one comes in and says 'emma (the tour guide) is outside with the owner of the restaurant and the police'. The tour people hadn't paid for our meal and we owe the €700. We go outside and emma is in tears and being told they are about to arrest her if she doesn't pay up! I couldn't believe it! Never, ever do anything with Wanderer's World they are just fuckwits! Anyway, emma gave them €200 and rang her boss who said he's sort it in the morning. So she didn't get arrested and we didn't have to fork out for it, so we were all happy and went off to the pub for more sangrias. I don't know what time I got home, but I woke in the morning with vague recollections of sitting outside the pub drinking sangrias with an aussie and american guy from the tour and this welsh guy on his stag night dressed in a little flowery bikini and pink pompoms on his head. Also memories of it raining and stomping around in puddles and swimming in a fountain. It was all good fun.

So after a bit of a sleep in, ie sleeping until the old guy came in and yelled at us that it was time to leave, I went to the beach with a few guys from the tour. I love the beach. I have missed the beach. Valencia beaches aren't quite perth beaches, but they are sandy and swimable so it was good.

So onward from Valencia. A couple of the guys from the tour were heading to Barcelona for the weekend, so I decided to tag along with them. We ended up getting to Barcelona about 10.30 and had planned nothing. The hostels were full so we managed to check into a hotel. Then we went out for a quiet drink. In Spain you cannot have a quiet drink, but it's not your fault. They don't pour properly. They just fill up your glass to half way with the spirit and top up with mixer. Two drinks and your gone. So we ended up dancing till closing time. By this time Jonno had picked up as many chicks as possible and was with this nutty little spanish chick who was leading the way when we left the club. We followed her down a few little alleys where a door opened and a big burly bouncers herded us in and down the stairs. We were in an underground club! It was so funny, the music was down really low and the security were running around going 'shhh' to people. It was fun though I got chatting to a guy with a huge mullet - boy they love their mullets in spain - and a gay dancer who was telling me all the best places to go in 'barthelona'. Anyway, Jonno comes up swearing because the little spanish chick had bit his toungue. We turn around and sean is making out with her. Then the club shut and we left. This chick was crazy, after making out with jonno and sean and trying with aiden she then started chasing me! She was saying 'kylie, treize' and pointing at me and her an jonno. and i was 'oh god run away'. then she disappears with sean again and he appear yelling, 'i hate that dirty slapper she bit me!' and he had a big bite mark in his tongue. then he disappears with her again and comes back and is swearing again because she threw dirt in his mouth. so funny.

geez, i'm getting lazy again. the last couple of days in barca were much the say, drinking, seeing the sites and some beach. we saw some of the gaudi buildings, such random stuff. the front doens't seem to match the back and it has all this cazy shit going on. probably my favourite would be the big blue one, but i can't remember what it was called.

well, now it is back to work this week. but no rest for the wicked and as it is my b'day this weekend it is sure to be a big one. so will let you all know how it goes. i'm going to get a new camera this week, so hopefully i will have some photos. did i tell you that my camera died when i was in paris. i was so pissed, but it had been going for a while. so now i am going to get a good one. yay.

crazy days

howdy,

this week i am back at work, and disappointingly no-one has done my work for me while i was away. damn. but it's good to get back into it, and it's only three weeks before rikki and i are off to oktoberfest which will fantastic.

but right now i will tell you about the couple of crazy weeks i had on these holidays. i went to paris, marseille, then valencia for la tomatina and lastly barcelona for the weekend. i had so much happen, i just kept thinking this one crazy holiday, both good and bad crazy. anyway, i'll start with paris.

paris was great fun. i pretty much had new people to hang out with everyday which was cool. the first night i went out with this aussie chick and this odd gay asian guy from liverpool and we went to a gay club where none of the men were gay because it was 'ladies night'. so dana the aussie chick picked up at least 3 guys, the gay dude managed to find another gay dude and i met this lovely parisian boy who kindly took me home on the back of his scooter.

riding around the streets of paris at 4am holding onto some hot guy and i was thinking, 'i love paris, this city is great!'.

despite the all-nighter i was up bright and early for some sight-seeing. i ran into a guy who was also staying at the hostel and had no friends, so the two of us went together to stand in the queue for the eiffel tower for 2 hours. funny, i always thought the eiffel tower was black. but it's not. it's poo-brown colour. even though it is poo-brown colour it is a very impressive structure. it is just massive and there are no other real large buildings around it so it just looks so massive. and the view is pretty spectacular, paris is such a huge city, and so old, but much prettier than london.

so after the eiffel tower i went and saw the arc de triumphe which is pretty cool. that's the big archy thing in the middle of the huge round-about in all the movies. and then wandered down les champs elyesees (shit - i've spelt that wrong) which is basically a big street with lots of expensive shops. kinda pretty, but i'm not really a brand baby so i wasn't real fussed by it. it was better at night i think when all the lights were on and the clubs and pubs were open.

that night when i got back to the hostel, dana was keen to go out again. i was yeah ok, but i don't want to spend much and she was 'that's ok, we'll just go to these quality bars i've got on my list and we'll wait for rich men to come and buy us drinks'. i was a bit, but i don't want to hang out talking to dirty old men just for free drinks, but she was come on, so i said yeah. but i was right, it was all dirty old men and when some guys came and bought us drinks dana was happy as a pig in shit chatting to them, but i was getting bored, because as you all know i am the best dancer in the world and would rather be out in a club pulling some quality moves and impressing the audience.

crap, i just started writing out the rest of the story of what a fruit loop she was, but it's a bit boring to read, it's piss-funny when you tell though, you you'll just have to ask me. anyway, after going out with her a few more times and i'm not sure whether i was more shocked, thoroughly amused or horrified by her antics. on my last night in paris i came back to the hostel to find she had left a note on my door to meet her. i showed it to the guys i was hanging out with and they nearly wet their pants laughing, they were going 'oh my god, she's crazy'. so we didn't go meet her and go to her special bars on her list. we ended up at a little irish bar with a bad band and about 6 people. it was much more fun.

well, the other days in paris, i got some good site-seeing in. me and antonio (peruvian guy in my room in the hostel) went on a walking tour of montmatre which was cool. we saw a statue of a man stuck in a wall and this really awesome cemetery and we ended up at le sacre coeur and then walking through the markets where all the struggling artist ply their trade. i so wished i was rich so i could have bought some of the paintings, but i did get a water-colour done of yours truly which is pretty cool. then antonio and i went and had a big arse lunch including lots of red wine, snails and some fantastic ice-cream.

the next day i did some touring around the traps with antonio and 2 others guys from the hostel, tiago from brazil and martin from poland. we went to the louvre which was awesome, i took some photos of some cool paintings. my favourite was the one where this lady had just been walking along the street when a lion comes up and grabs her baby and her boob falls out. hilarious.

after the lourve antonio had to go so i was left with tiago and martin which was funny. i think my main problem was i was hungover, but for some reason i could not keep up with their conversation. english was the second language for both of them so you think i would be the one translating between them. but no. they could understand each other fine, but i couldn't understand either of them and if i spoke they would both just start giving eachother funny looks and laughing at me because neither of them could understand me!

then tiago was talking about going to 'invalides' and i was what is it? and he was telling me where they take the sick people. and i was 'a hospital, why they fuck do we want to go to the hospital?' they didn't explain to me that invalides is a massive mansion that was built by some king or something for wounded soldiers returning for war. they just told me that we were going there so they could leave me there. smart-arses.

but the next day martin left so it was just me and tiago. and i was hungover again. lucky i'm so fantastic at charades or i never would have been able to have a conversation with him. although i do have to admit, i think it was more my dumbness, his english wasn't so bad. at one stage he was asking me 'what do you call it when you are in bed but not sleeping?' and i'm like huh? and he's 'you know, when you horizontal, not vertical. like when sleeping, but not sleeping' and i'm thinking 'is he talking about sex?' and then he says 'like i am now' b/c we were laying on some benches in a park. so then he gave up. about five minutes later my brain goes 'der' and i ask 'did you meaning laying down? like if you're not standing up you can sit down or you lay down?' and he was yeah. i am dumb.

anyway, that was my adventures in gay pari. after that i caught a train to marseille which is officially the worst place of my holidays. it's actually a beautiful city and it was nice and warm and beachy. i went diving, christ it was so cold i was getting ice-cream headaches on the way down and couldn't feel my toes for an hour after we came up.

but the reason marseille was not my favourite place is because it was so sleazy. there just didn't seem to be a lot of chicks around, especially after dark. and the men would just stand in groups in the street and stare at you and even though they took up the whole pavement they wouldn't move for you. i walked two blocks to the internet cafe and had 3 old guys stop me in the street to ask me to come for a drink with them. then i went to friol, an island there, very pretty, about the size of rotto. so i was walking around and stop to look at this building and there is this old guy who is about 50 and he gets chatting to me, telling me about frioul and marseille and the churches and stuff. and he says 'i'm happy to have some to practise my english with, can i walk around the island with you.' so i was yeah ok, he was being a good tour-guide and telling me about the place. so off we go around the island. as it turns out, and i wasn't that surprised, he's a dirty old rummy. half way round the island and half way through his bottle of rum, he's forgotten how to speak english and keeps yelling at me in french. so i keep yelling at him 'i don't fucking understand. english! english!' and i am about to just go fuck it and walk off when he sits down and he's trying wave me over to him and his tongue is hanging out. and i think poor old bastard it's a hot day, so i ask 'do you want water?' he says 'no. you come' he waves me over, then he points at my crutch and says 'me lick you' and starts waving his tongue at me. i was like 'oh my god, i don't fucking believe this' and i was gone. like the road-runner there was nothing left but a cloud of dust. and all the while back to the boat i was getting flashbacks to the dodgy baggage handler when i was in rome. please tell me, does this shit happen to anyone else?

so that was marseille.

oh, i'm getting writers cramp. i will fill you in on valencia and barcelona in the next couple of days. it was a jam packed week full of sangria and tomatoes and a fucking shambles of a tour.

Bonjour, France

Hey everybody,

I am sitting in a cafe in Marseille where they have the stupid french keyboards with the letters in the wrong spot.
If I just type nor,qlly ,y zriting turns out like this. So it is tqking q long ti,e to zrite ,y e,qils qnd pîssing ,e off heqps.
I got to Marseille last night from Paris. I was going to stay in Paris for 3 days, but ended up staying longer as it was so fun and so much to see.
But before that, I decided that becquse I hadn;t seen q lot of southern england, I would go to dover and cqtch the ferry to france. I stayed 2 nights in dover, where I wandered about on the whitecliffs qnd went up to the dover castle and the old roman fortifications. Dover itself is a cute little town, very quiet. But they did have some live bands plqying on teh dock. It was called rock the dock and was a free festival, so all the locals were there - boy, there were some damn ugly people. (Em - remember when we saw 1927 play in the back of a truck in kalbarri? It was like that, but there were 2 trucks and the music was better)

Ah crap, I was going to write all about Paris, but I couldn;t be bothered. It is a beautiful sunny day, so I think today I will go find the beach.

Talk to you later

Oui, oui, c'est francais

Hey people,

I am finally having some holidays, which I've been totally hanging out for. However, I am totally disorganised and haven't organised a thing. Today is the first day of my holidays and the only thing I've booked is La Tomatina which is the last couple of days of my hols. But I can't wait, La Tomatina is like the biggest food fight in the world, it will be awesome. The original plan was egypt and spain, but now I am changing my mind and going to france and spain. But I will still get to do some diving, but in Spain so that will be cool.

Anyway, I will let you know where my total lack of plans get me in the next couple of days!!

mmm summer is here

hey everyone,
summer is here and it is great - except when it's 30 degrees and i have footy training or netball, then i nearly die. but i'm not complaining, i have been waiting for summer forever. but you should here all the pommes whining about the heat as soon as it hits 25.so all i have been doing in the last month is going to the park and playing football (we're in the grand final- yay) and netball and going to bbq's and watching lots of football (sorry, soccer). did you see that french dude head-butt the italian dude. funny, best part of the whole match.
the best thing i've done of late though is to go to wimbledon. rikki decided that she wanted to go to wimbledon on thursday, but to get tickets we had to line up overnight. being the ultra-organised people that we are we got there a 2.30 in the morning only to be 437th in line. but that was cool, the queue went all the way down the road and into the park, so we got to sleep in the park. but the grass was wet and we didn't have anything to keep us from getting wet. so we complained loudly and lots until the guy in front of us in the queue kindly gave us his spare picnic blanket which we slept on with 2 german dudes we met at the train station.
in the morning we moved with the queue for 3 hours and then we were in. we got our choice of tickets (we chose court 1 so we could see andre agassi, venus williams and leyton hewitt) and we had made friends with a couple of aussies guys, sean who had lent us his picnic blanket and matt a loner aussie we got chatting to. we had also made friends with a few other people, but they had all gone for centre court tickets.
so we saw agassi beat seppi which was good, but by the end my head was going up and down instead of side to side as i was falling asleep, but i wasn't the only one, matt fell asleep halfway through opening a starburst! so we went out to henman's hill and had a nap on the hill and then went back to watch venus williams. what an amazon she is! poor little lisa raymond didn't have a chance.
but the highlight of the day was definately watching leyton hewitt. he was playing against the korean guy lee, and it was an awesome match. it was really close and we were sitting amongst a few other aussies where we were gettinga bit rowdy and getting dirty looks from the ref. but we were also getting looks from leyton which was cool. we were getting him all riled up with what i like to refer to as 'constructive heckling'. we were pretty damn funny and soon had the whole crowd going. the end of the 4th set it was 2 each so they were about to go into the final set when they called it quits for the day because of the fading light! that was pretty disappointing.
so we had a great day and saw some cool matches, but the best thing about wimbledon is the atmosphere. it's so polite and nice. it's kind of weird as you kind of expect rowdy at sporting events, but here you have all the groundstaff and security dressed in boatman-style suits and wandering around chatting to people. they come up and ask if you're having a good day and say thanks for coming and offer to show you around and stuff, it's pretty cool. and while watching the match, everyone is quiet for the serves and even when the whole crowd was pulling for hewitt everyone was clapping and cheering for lee when he made good shots, it's really good fun.
so since then, i haven't been doing much. some drinking and i did get to catch up with ian (perth guy i used to work with) and rach (chick i used to live with in cottesloe) which was pretty cool. ian and i and some friends went out in soho and leicester square, as well as the mandatory trip to the walkabout, which was all good fun despite ian's disappointment at clubs in london shutting at 3am. but, you know, he didn't whinge about it all. i caught up with rach, and my hangover caught up with me, at the spitalfields market and then we went with some firends of rach's to this free music festival which was pretty cool.
anyway, that's me. next month is egypt!! yay yay yay. i can't wait.
so ta ta for now & keep in touch

Easter in Rome

Hey People,

I know I am the slacked person when it comes to emailing. But screw you all, I been busy.

I am getting happy at the moment spring is springing here in london. And how can I tell spring is springing? Is it the fact that the sun is still up when I leave work now, that the trees are green and there are big bright flowers in all the gardens. Is it that the weekends have been nice and sunny park weather? Or is it that I've gone from sneezing three times in a row to fifteen?

So what I have I been up to? Mostly working and making lots of plans for holidays. I am working for a company called chameleonnet (www.chameleonnet.co.uk) doing lots of cms kind of stuff, and it's all .NET no more java. Chameleon is a small company, but have heaps of work on and are planning to expand so we have to move buildings. We were supposed to move a couple of weeks ago but it all when wheels up and we didn’t move. Sound familiar fuj people? Then we had a new guy start and now I am stuck squished in between to people which is poo.

I’ve been doing a few fun things of late. I went and saw Xavier Rudd. He’s damn funny to watch. He’s playing about 4 different instruments, so arms and legs are flying everywhere and head is still attached to the didgeridoo so he looks like a thunderbird.

I also went to the Grand National which is kind of like the Perth or Geelong Cup but a lot crapper. It was cold and wet and most people didn’t dress up and the Liverpool locals all looked like they’d been belted with the ugly stick on the way in. But it was a good day out. The bus trip was about 4 hours each way, so 7.30am we get on the bus and the tour guide says ‘the bar is now open’. It was all good from there. When we finally got back to London we went to a pub with a few of the people on the bus and Rikki & I taught them how to drink strawpedoes.

The best thing I’ve done recently is over Easter when I went to Rome. It was fantastic, I got off the plane and it was warm and there were blue skies, I almost felt like I was home. So Rikki and I spent the 5 days over Easter wandering for site to site doing the touristy things, eating ice-cream by Fontana de Trevi and pizza and beer on the Spanish Steps.

Yes believe, I actually drank some beer. And quite enjoyed it too. I’ve decided that if I am going to make the most of Oktoberfest I should get in some practise now.

I’ve also discovered that Rome is also know as ‘the city of queues’ I have never spent so much time standing queues in my life. Which is kind of ironic seeming the Italians themselves don’t actually know how to queue. They just crowd at bus stops out into the middle of the road and then push and shove into the bus.
But we tourists will spend and hour queuing to get into the vatican and an hour queuing to stick our hand in the bocce della verita. However, Rikki and I are clever cats so after the first day or so of queuing we started getting up early and beating everyone there which was good.

Really Rome is a beautiful city and has a wonderful relaxed atmosphere (unless your trying to cross a road, the drivers don’t stop for no-one), and the only thing that really is amiss is all the beggars. They are everywhere. And it’s not like in London where every suburb has their couple drug-addict or alcoholic bums asking for 20p. In Rome they are everywhere and they are all amputees or women with babies and they all are either praying or have the ‘oh please I’m gonna cry’ pathetic face all worked out. I even had this little girl who was about 3 or 4 coming into a store and asking people for money, it was horrible. She kept going out and coming back in crying because her mother must have kept sending her back in.

And all this is going on while you’re wandering about to places like the Vatican and St Peter’s where the monumental displays of wealth are just jaw-dropping. (Check out my photos, there is a good one of Rikki with the jaw-dropping in action).

But Rome was not all sunshine and lazing away. We put in the hard yards doing our touristy duty with great zeal. Being keen as mustard we got up at 5am to go join a queue for two hours so we could get seats for the Easter Sunday service at St Peter’s. So we got to see Pope Benedict deliver his easter message from his window. It’s funny I thought that window was huge before he came out, but when he did you could hardly see him over the banister. The whole atmosphere of the service was not what I was expecting, there was a lot of cheering and excitement and everytime the pope spoke in a different language the people in the crowd who spoke that language would yell and cheer. Good fun, but it was all worth it just to get to see the swiss guard in action. They had a real cheery marching band and with those outfits it reminded me of when I went to see Alegria with Circ de Soleil. I'm pretty sure that Michaelangelo must have been taking the piss when he designed them, it's not exactly fade into the background kind of security gear.

So I had a great time in Rome and lots of lucky things kept happening to us. The day we were going to Fontana de Trevi we went to the Palatino and I found some coins in the grass when we sat down. ‘ohh lucky pennies,’ I said, ‘I’ll put these in the fountain’ and then I went to take a photo of some ruins and this big green lizard came out and was sunning himself. I got up really close and he didn’t run away and then another one came out. I said, ‘that’s a lucky sign’.

But all good things must come to an end, and karma always evens things up, so when I left Rome, obviously everything turned to crap.

I was half-way to the airport when I realised I had left my torch behind (sorry jed, I loved that thing). So I send Rikki telepathic messages for an hour hoping she would go back and get it for me. Then I got to the airport and my flight had been delayed for an hour. An hour later it was delayed two more hours. Which if I’d known 3 hours in the beginning I could have gone back and fetched my torch. So I finally get on the plane and am so tired I fall asleep. When I wake up I am starving hungry but have slept through when they were serving food.
When I get to the Charles Des Gaulle airport I have missed my connecting flight. So I go and sort out a new flight, but there is no more til the next day. So they sort me out with a hotel with dinner & breakfast included and then I go to fetch my bags. They tell me it will take half an hour or so to find them.

At this stage it is about 7pm, I’m starving hungry and tired because I’ve been up since 5.30. So I think, I’ll wait half an hour for my bag and then go and eat at the hotel and go to bed. Three hours later I am still waiting for my bags. Then this baggage guy comes up and in dodgy English is asking me about my bag and what does it look like? But his English was so bad he couldn’t understand me. But he kept asking questions and saying stuff. And he kept talking to me about the hotel. Finally, it dawned on me that he wasn’t here to find my bag he was just a dodgy baggage handler hitting on me. I was so tired and pissed off by then I thought I was going to cry. So I went into the real baggage people and said where are my bags. They didn’t know. So I said I don’t care, I’m going to the hotel. Will my bags be on my flight tomorrow? They didn’t know. So I gave up and left. By this time it was 10pm so I was like ‘great, the kitchen will be closed when I get to the hotel’.

But I was wrong. The restaurant was still open so I got food. Yay. It was crappy meatloaf, my mum’s meatloaf is 50 times better, but I ate it in about 10 seconds anyway. And then for desert they had jelly slice, which was yum, but I found a little freaky because I had had a dream about jelly slice just a couple of days before that. Wow – sometimes I really think I must be psychotic. And then I went to bed and it was a big nice bed and 45 time more comfortable than my one at home, so I was all happy again.

Luckily my baggage arrived back in London with me. The first thing I had to do when I got it was find my jeans because I was still in shorts from Rome and with was about 10 degrees in London.

Anyway, since I’ve got back I am all excited about holidaying again. This week I am moving house to somewhere a bit cheaper. I also have a heap of things in the pipeline. I bought my ticket for Download. It’s a 3-day heavy metal festival where I will get to see Tool & Sevendust (checkout the rest of the lineup http://www.downloadfestival.co.uk/lineup/index.asp). This weekend is a long weekend and I am going with some friends to Thorpe park which is like adventureworld or something like that. This month I am also going out to Stonehenge and the Brighton Big Day Out and I want to go see One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest at the theatre.

I am also planning a couple of bigger trips, one will involve diving in Egypt and maybe a detour to spain for la tomatina and the other trip will revolve around Oktoberfest.

I've also started playing netball, but it's not the same as playing with my old team in Perth. Over here they play outdoors (even in the middle of winter!!) which I find weird. I'm an indoor sports kind of girl. And I am also going to start playing gaelic football, it's chicks non-contact version which should be fun.

Make sure you check out my photos http://www.flickr.com/photos/kellys_phab_fotos/ and hopefully i will email again within the next month (or two)Well, keep in touch kids - most of you are just as slack as me.

Big Nerds Should Blog

The latest trend in the world of web seems to be blogging. And seeming I am a nerd by profession and often subject to peer pressure I've decided that I should be blogging too.

I also figured this would work better as even when I type I can't stop swearing and quite often when I send out my emails they get sent back!

So make sure you check out my blog regularly as well as my photos (http://www.flickr.com/photos/kellys_phab_fotos)