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Maybe I'm not the geek I thought I was... or maybe it's not actually geeky... who knows? But it's fun!

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http://www.wikihow.com/Read-and-Write-in-1337
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leet

A crazy trip to Germany

When booking my flights from Ibiza to Paris I stumbled across some cheap flights I couldn't resist so I decided to book a flight to Frankfurt for a day!!! So I took Marco with me and we flew across the channel to the mainland. After realising it would take too long to get the bus into Frankfurt we decided to hire a car. The cheapest option was an Opel (Holden) - which we didn't want! So the second cheapest was to get a Daihatsu Copen hard top convertible... which was pretty cute really! For specs click here.

Since we had a car we could go wherever we wanted, and luckily Marco knew how to drive on the right side of the road! So we drove to the Rhine and followed the coast up to Koblenz and looked at the beautiful countryside along the way, there were many castles and a really cool bridge that is probably famous!

Lunch was much cheaper than in England which was a nice relief! We looked at a few shops then headed south towards Cocham where we stopped for a nice walk and a beer. The beer in that country was amazing!! I do love German wheat beer. For some reason all the beer went down so easily that day! Lucky I wasn't driving!

Being careful of time we headed back through Traben-Trabach almost getting lost and having to ask a local for directions to the airport!! For a full trip route see here. But it did take ages to get out of the airport when arriving back to Stansted, I realised why people don't generally go to a country for just one day!!! But I did have some good luck though and got my full visa back in my passport for no cost at all... yay!!

I LOVE ENGLAND!!!

The Bluetones

Last Friday I set off for a pleasant evening at Koko, a venue which never ceases to please me! You can see the performers pretty much wherever you are and don’ t feel too far away, and there are three bars. This time I was lucky enough to have two tickets to see indie quartet the Bluetones. After guests Welsh band Hot Puppies and the electro sounds of Eugene Machine we were blessed with the presence of Mark Morriss and co. Adams apparently had fallen off a ladder and opted to spending the evening playing guitar sitting down! He's below on the right.

The was a great mix of new and old songs to keep the die-hard fans pleased as well as lots of pumping songs for dancing and a little bit of that dangerous crowd surfing! But had an chilled night out as I spent the evening drinking in the stalls. We stayed for Club NME for a while and the music was great! Then there was a surprise band that came on and played about an hour into club NME, I still haven't found out who they were. Koko is awesome!

Photos are courtesy of Wayne :P

This is an awesome site... along my lines it's all about brilliant maps!

Adventure to Holland

Okay, what started out to be a lovely short easter break to Holland turned out to be a bit of a disaster in the end!!

Marco and I drove south to the Channel is hideous peak hour traffic stressed we wouldn't make the ferry in time but fortunately we actually caught the previous ferry! However this still meant we had a long way to go to Weert where my first stop was. We drove along the coast on the E40, then the E17 when I genuinly asked "what country are we in now??" it turned out we were in Belgium! We arrived in Weert at 3.30am.

The next beautiful sunny morning I headed north all the way across Holland to Groningen to visit Anja (an old colleague of mine in Melbourne). It was a four hour journey but my music made it very enjoyable indeed! When I arrived the German flower markets were just finishing up in Groningen and we had a bit of a walk around and I had my first Dutch Hoegaarden! And I learnt the most important phrase in Holland - Een Hoegaarden alstublieft!

The label is actually different to UK and Australian labels which I thought was interesting. After a lovely home cooked meal we went out that night and saw some bars and nightlife in Groningen and then to a renowned 'coffee shop' and bought some 'coffee'! I aslo discovered Wieckse Witte which I have labelled as the second best beer in the world so far, very refreshing!

Saturday was a bit more planned, we drove with a friend to Zandvoort to a hens day out as one her friends was getting married (they call it a partnership, there are two options!) and had a lovely day out on the beach drinking tea at Mango's Beach Bar (our receipt came in a gorgeous kids shoe!) and a bit of walking. However this was when disaster struck because on returning to the car we discovered it had been broken into and 3 of our bags had been stolen; worst of which was mine because it had my passport in it...! So it took me a little while to realise how devastating this was because after calling the Australian embassy I found out that I couldn't visit the emabssy until Tuesday when I was supposed to be at work! As the politie station in Zandvoort was closed and they were most unhelpful, we spent the next few hours at the Politie station in Haarlem with a very cute policeman who made remarks about being nervous with four women haha!! After it all ended it was 11.30 by then so we decided to hit the town and the rest of the night was quite fun considering.

Sunday the plan was to head back to Weert because we were flying back together so I visited him anyway and we went for some dinner at a Napoleon themed restaurant that was most interesting! It was an open grill and you helped yourself to food. After that we drive to Belgium illegally (as I had no passport!) and had some Belgium blonde beers that I hadn't tried before; Caney Blonde Grimbergen Blonde and Kovenwolf Witbier. So many blonde beers!!! :) I also had a Bier of Gist - Witte Trappist in Groningen which was nice too! That day Marco also bravely let me drive his car for a while on the right hand side of the road a - I was stoked!! It was a lot easier than I had expected. As a result I now have exciting plans to go driving in Europe in a peugeot before heading back home :)

Monday I headed back west to Wijsrijk to meet Anja and her family and then back to Haarlem for a relaxing day after much previous excitement and stress! And now it is Tuesday and I am sitting in the embassy waiting for my passport which I'm told is coming very soon as they had problems with my name because I changed it. Silly me, who would have thought I'd have problems 18 years later sitting the Dutch Australian embassy!! Anyway I'll book my flight now and hopefully be back in my lovely bed tonight with any luck as my passport still isn't in my hand yet!!

Dag!

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Cool things I found while in Holland... A semi-permanent survey marker -

These streets were parallel next to each other a few streets aways from the Australian embassy on my way to the photo shop... and the Dutch did name Australia New Holland!

While waiting for my passport I went for a walk and in the window of a games shop in Den Haag I found this... Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot... I really want a copy!!!

My inner geek

I love this photo... I've found my inner geek ('inner?' i hear you ask!!) Glasses courtesy of Ryan (below)...

Ryan and Mark...

GLASTO'S A GOER!

YAY!!!!! After 1 hour and 45 mins of browser refreshing and phone redialling I have a virtual ticket to the world renowned Glastonbury Festival for 2007! I had to go in to work to use the computers because as it's a Sunday and London sleeps on a sunday I couldn't get to any computer either in a library or an internet cafe! It will take place on June 22-24 near Pilton village which is somewhere between between Shepton Mallet and Glastonbury. So I'm sure you'll hear about it later on! :)

For the latest line up of who I will see go here.

A Sunday walk in Battersea

After finally finding Battersea High Street (which is not much of a high street!)...



Along the Thames, an old power station which I can't find the name of... ok I've found it... it's called the Lots Road Power Station

The nameless Battersea Rail Bridge

Into Clapham town for a coffee during the hail storm...

I found a locally brewed Porter in the health food shop :) yay!! I am yet to taste it.

Back home again...

Victoria, London

A iconic London photo of the office where I work at in Victoria...

And just down the road...

Lunar Eclipse March 3rd 2007

A couple of weeks ago on there was an ecclipse viewable from London. There was an unobstructed view of the moon for the entire ecclipse and, since many of you are on the other side of the world I took some photos for you...

Albert Bridge on the eve of the eclipse...

For photos that are better than mine see here.

Australia Day in Wimbledon

Hey everyone,

Two Australians, two New Zealanders and an Englishman walk in to a pub on Australia Day... oh wait hang on this isn't a joke!!!

Here is me at the Walkabout wearing a VB tub on my head. And, although none of you will believe me, I was not actually drunk at the time! We headed there after work last Friday for Australia Day, me being all patriotic about Australia, decided to sing along to Australian folk tunes, Jimmy Barnes and Waltzing Matilda!!! The bar was way too packed as there were many Aussies it was apparently the place to be...

English Mark, Can't Decide me and Aussie Leah...

And here's Aaron from New Zealand... hey, what was he doing there??? well here's me again with a beer in hand and a real hat this time. How aussie of me!

Snow at last!

Yea!!! It's snowing in England :)

Snow is so fluffy and it squiges like flour!!! So much snow it's crazy...

Still plodding along!

All is still well in London! I have been at my house for a couple of weeks now and i'm feeling at home. The job is going well and i'm getting to know the people a bit better. London night life is awsome as I've been trying to get out and about on the weekends. The biggest hurdle at the moment is trying to get my head around all the little intricate differences - they have a thing called 'chip and pin' over here which is their kind of new bank/credit card. Internet banking is still an undiscovered thing which is very strange. I need to find an easy and cheap was of transferring the money that I've earnt here to pay off my australian credit card... trying to battle with Paypal... fun times!
I went to a Westminster Evensong a couple of weeks ago - it was beautiful as i needed my music fix for the week! My artistic photo of westmister abbey...

English strangers can be friendly but only if you really push for it! It is my intention to change the whole London attitude.. so what was the population of london again???

Hello people! I just got back from my trip to the Gold Coast/Queensland.
I thought I'd like to give you a snapshot of my holiday...
I flew Jetstar... never again... Woke at 5am for a 7am flight, and was delayed 2 hours due to ice, so I was late picking up my hired peugeot -



Saturday I drove up to Lamington National Park through Mt Tamborine, a beautiful but windy route -

Sunday we went on a day cruise to South Stradbroke Island, and we were convinced to go parasailing. It was quite expensive but it's one of those things you kind of have to do once in your life. It was very exhilerating and scary at times but once you actually relaxed it was really peaceful -

The island itself was a bit dissapointing as it was mainly lunch and a bar - they had Beez Neez which was good! And Boag's St George. I was surprised as it was much more prevalent in Queensland than in Victoria.

There were many wallabies on the island -

Monday we travelled up to Australia Zoo, unaware that it was a long 2-3 hour drive to the north of Brisbane. And on top of that, we happened to book unawares that it was Bindi's Eighth Birthday!!! There were signs up everywhere saying Happy Birthday Bindi!!! and they had an extra special presentation at the show for here with lots of kiddy entertainment. She was very well spoken though for an 8 year old, I hear she has her own television show!

The zoo itself was quite good with lots of endangered tiger viewings which were really great to watch. They are really beautiful animals -

Sadly they're dangerously endangered so they're doing a lot to save them. But I had a great time and would like to visit again!

Hi everyone. Welcome to Teleri's Public Bar!