But I've never tried marmite anyway

Lazy day in Thessaloniki

2008-05-08T14:32:00.002Z

I've spent today in Thessaloniki doing very little. I guess that's relative though - I did go for a 5-mile run, but since then I haven't done anything. I considered going to a few of the museums but didn't really feel like it.
I was considering stopping off in Litohoro, which is near Mt. Olympus, but I've decided I'll skip it and just jump on the train straight down to Athens. I figure I should probably spend a bit of time there.

No Idea when I'm going to get some photos up. Might not be until I return. That could be a long time.

What do I want to say? I'm not sure. I'm still alive. Yeah. Haven't had any real problems yet - the hostel I was aiming for here in Thessaloniki has been closed done, but there are plenty of "cheap" hotels around. Walking is fun.

Currently trying to book a hostel in Athens. I don't have the luxury of my normal long-winded selection process, especially given the short notice. I should try and make use of couchsurfing more, but again that kind of requires a bit of planning in advance, which so far I haven't managed to do.

I'll have a wander around tonight; see if I can get into any trouble.

Leaving Egypt Soon

2008-05-04T15:30:00.002Z

Just a quick note as I've got no time left.
Egypt has been full-on. There has been very little time for rest (and not much for sleep either) since the tour started. Today was in Luxor, seeing a lot of temples. I'm all templed-out now, and we've still got Cairo tomorrow.
The heat was almost unbearable today, which didn't help the mood walking around the temples.

Tuesday morning it's back to Istanbul then probably over to Thessaloniki on Wednesday.

I'll try and be more descriptive next time.

Alan.

2007-07-08T16:31:00.000Z

Funnily enough, today was much like my last post - went running in the park, lay in the sun for a bit. However, this weekend has been the first weekend since the previous post that was actually sunny. It's been pretty much raining most days since then.

I've decided I've kind of got a new philosophy, not that I had an old philosophy, and I won't hold on to this one either, so perhaps I'll call it my 'thought for the day' instead : Life can't be that bad if one is able to spend an afternoon sitting in the sun in the park doing nothing, and worrying about nothing. As long as one is able to do that, one shouldn't really complain.

Yesterday was the Tour de France Prologue, in London. The Prologue was/is (as the name suggests) the initial racing that isn't really racing. The course was a 7.9 Kms time trial looping Hyde Park and St. James Park. The winning time was something about 9 minutes. Being a time trial, the riders went individually, staggered over 3-4 hours. I don't think time trials are the most exciting 'races' to watch, even though it means you've got riders coming around the same spot every minute, when normally they'd only go past once.
Today was the first proper stage - 200 Kms from London to Canterbury.

Lazy Sunday in the sun.

2007-06-03T22:36:00.000Z

I went for a run in Regents Park today [It was sunny this weekend, for the first time in a long time] and I discovered that it just so happened there was a "fair" going on today - 'Camden Green Fair' - supposed a fair to promote environmental issues, which I guess there were stalls on that, but a lot of the usual fair/market stuff as well - people selling whatever. Still, it is good that they would put the money into something like that I suppose.
I was saying 'bad things' about London just on Friday, but I guess it's kind of a nice feature of London that there is this fair that happened to be going on today in the park near where I live and I didn't even know about it until I stumbled across it.

May Day - Bank Holiday One

2007-05-07T22:09:00.000Z

Haven't done a whole lot recently. I did go to Germany again. Stefan had a Volleyball tournament, and they actually won! (Who would have thought it??)
This weekend was actually a long weekend - today (Monday) is/was a bank holiday. A free long weekend (rather than taking time off) and I didn't go anywhere. I sat at home and did bugger all. I was even working for some of the time - one of the other guys at work went away for the weekend (as I'm sure lots of them did) and so I got roped into checking on the server. What fun!
On the plus side, this will be the first time I've had a Monday off and I haven't arrived home from the airport after 2am. Quite strange, really.
I'm working on the pictures. They're up, I just haven't gotten around to organising them in a useful way.

No Hostel moments for me in Bratislava

2007-04-15T20:21:00.000Z

Shockingly, I managed to make it back from Bratislava alive, and completely in one piece, no missing eyes or added drill holes or anything.

It was a nice place, but a little quiet - due to it being Easter, there was No One around on Friday or Monday during the day. Saturday was quite a contrast.
I'm not sure what I can say about the place. Two days there was kind of enough to see all the 'good' things. On Sunday we took the train to Vienna (only 1 hour away) [oh, and I didn't even tell David M., even though he's living there], and wandered around there a bit. From what I saw, Vienna looks like a really nice place; I'll be going back there some time.

I thought it was interesting the definite difference between the two cities - Even though they are so close geographically, I felt that Vienna was "western" Europe while Bratislava was "eastern" Europe. You can just feel the difference in the culture, as well as the way the places look.

Ah..... I don't really have much else to say on the subject.

Bratislava

I don't actually remember what this building is. It is in the main square, I believe.;

Ah, Bratislava has a big Castle on top of the hill. This was taken at the top of the bridge observation deck over the Danube

The guys didn't like this particular drink much

The next drink was better

Vienna

2007-03-25T20:25:00.000Z

I'm still getting around to doing 'that thing' I was talking about last time. It'll probably take me a while because I'm not really doing much about it. i.e. So far I have done nothing....

I do have the next trip planned though - Easter: April 6th - 9th I'm going to Bratislava, Slovakia.
When I was planning coming to London and thinking about the countries I would go and visit while here, The Czech Republic and Slovakia were definitely not Number 2 and 3 on the list. In fact, I doubt I would have even listed them at all...
So why am I going to Bratislava? Well, I was with a guy I happened to meet here who I knew from NZ (I think I might have mentioned him before) on St. Patrick's day (Oh yeah, I didn't say anything about that. Later) and him and a bunch of guys are were planning to go to Bratislava. They asked me if I wanted to come too, and I thought 'Screw it, I haven't got any other plans', and now I'm going to Bratislava..

Ah St. Patrick's Day. I was in an Irish Bar, in London, surrounded by mostly New Zealanders and Australians, drinking Beer. Drinking a lot of beer. I arrived there around 4pm; most of them had been there since about 1pm, which was good because it meant they had this whole area to themselves. Unfortunately France won the 6 nations with that final try, which everyone in the bar was against except for this front row of about 6 frenchies (guys and girls) who all started cheering. Quite brave of them, really.... The rest of the night? Well, I'm sure we talked about lots of things, but I couldn't tell you any of it - apart from the talk of the trip.
Oh yeah, and I have a 'St Patrick's Day' hat - a blue one (not green...) with the yellow buckle thing.

2007-03-15T23:30:00.000Z

It's been quite a while since I last posted, but big changes are afoot...
I'll still thinking about it, but you're see something interesting in the next couple of weeks.

Besides that, in brief: Work is so much better now - I'm working in the city, and doing development (of sorts - Perl recently, but I don't actually mind perl, so that's ok) and if I really want I can be home in about 20 minutes. I've been walking to work this last week, and I'm going to buy and bike and cycle there - cycling will be much faster than taking the bus or the tube there.

I'm thinking I'll go to Rome next month some time. It's just a matter of booking all the things required - time off, flights, accommodation...

2007-02-11T21:36:00.000Z

About three weeks overdue; I finally got around to writing something about the Snowboarding in Czech Republic.
In the weeks leading up to the trip, I had been looking at the weather forecasts, hoping to hear there had been snow. There hadn't been any snow for weeks. As it turned out (as you can see below), it all worked out. It had finally snowed a day or two before we left, and continued to snow the whole time I was there.

I flew into Prague, took a bus from the airport to the Metro station, the Metro across the other side of town to Inter-city bus station, took a bus from there to a town called Liberec, where I finally met the other guys, then finally a train from there to where we were staying - Smzvorka. I had everything worked out, except in Liberec getting from the Bus station to the train station. I had tried looking it up but I had found no clues about where the two where in reference to each other. As it turned out, with a little bit of German, it was pretty straight forward - the train station was more or less over the road from the bus station. If they were on the other side of town, like in Prague, I might have had some problems...

The point of the trip - The snowboarding - [or was the point the drinking?] I only had two days on the slopes. Saturday was spent travelling, Sunday and Monday snowboarding, and then Monday we (eventually) headed into Prague. On Sunday there was a reasonable amount of snow, but it was a little icy. On Monday morning, despite the fact that it had been snowing all night, there was hardly any snow on the roads around where we were staying. Despite that, the slopes were actually reasonably nice, better than the previous day.

Czech Beer is reasonably good. Even better when it's $0.50 a bottle.

I'll post some photos of Prague some other time.

When I stepped off the plane, it became apparent that the concerns about the snowfall were probably not going to materialise. Prague was completely covered with snow, and not the superficial layer we had got in London a few days previous, but proper snowfall. Incidentially, this was the first time I had ever been in a real city properly covered in snow (Tahoe doesn't count)

I was a little surprised at the size of the icicles.

It snowed quite a lot while we were there.

I was attempting to demonstrate the depth of the snow by the side of the road, but you can't see the depth in the photo. The hole was made by my foot; the snow went past my knee.

My first ever, "real" snow-ah-person. The 'extra' additions aren't something I would normally do (of course), but it was a joke alluding to the previous evening. I did like making the snowballs, though.

Here are the guys at the little cafe place half-way down the run.

My Last night, out having dinner.

Some old photos of Trafalger Square and Big Ben

2007-02-03T17:44:00.000Z

Incidentially, this was one of the few days when I first arrived that there was actually direct sunshine.

Made it back to England, business as usual.

2007-02-03T16:57:00.000Z

First of all, I assumed that the fact I was making a post at 1:30am would be indication enough that there was something a little different going on, but as I have been asked by people I will make it a little more explicit.
I now have a proper place to live. I have been here for almost two weeks now (moved in Sunday 21st). The house is nice, in Camden Town, living with a guy, a girl and a three-legged cat.
So good news on that front.

Secondly, my senior manager informed me a couple of days ago that when the project I am currently working on finishes in two weeks, I'll be going back to work in the city on a project that involves a little development along with other things. Good news there too, but I'll wait for it to happen before on commit on how good it actually is.

Today I bought a new pair of running shoes. Cost me ₤85. At the current exchange rates, that converts to US$167, or NZ$245. My last pair of running shoes cost me US$50. I could a new pair of shoes every year for the next three years and still have money left for some new socks.

I mentioned that I was going to the Czech Republic to go snowboarding. That was last weekend; I'm back now. Before I say anything about the trip itself, there's something else I want to go into.

I don't think that I look like a terrorist. I don't think that someone would look at me and think "Hmmm, he looks like he is considering blowing something up (possibly himself)." Perhaps a drug deal, or a smuggler of some sort. I can accept that I might conceivably fit that profile somehow. Or maybe it's simply because I am a young, white, male, that I tend to walk with purpose and that I don't get flustered with the whole Airport experience, despite what I've gone through on previous trips.
Whatever it is, I seem to be targetted by airport security.
Going to Canada I was made to go through the 'special' device that blows jets of air on you and then does God knows what else (probably giving me a healthy dose of cancer-causing radiation).
Coming to London from SFO I got the special 'ZZZZ' marked on my boarding pass when I checked-in, and then had to go through the same air-blowing machine before everything I was carrying onto the plane was taken out of the bags and swabbed.
Arriving back from Prague I was pulled aside and taken into the side room for my bags to be searched. I think in this instance once the woman briefly asked about where I had come from, had begun her search through my bags and seen the ski-gear and other clothing quickly decided that I wasn't carrying anything incriminating and let me go.

I remember when I was in Australia, Ian (who was born in China, lived in NZ since 7 for those of you who don't know) was stopped and 3 out of the 4 times at the airport, while I cruised through. Unfortunately, that isn't what happens any more.

Ok, that's enough writing for today. I described the snowboarding another time.

In Bed, really should be going to sleep

2007-01-22T01:33:00.000Z

Presently, I am lying in bed. I have just finished making it.

3 Months

2007-01-18T17:31:00.000Z

This post was a highly exciting, incredibly thoughtful insight into the minds of Londoners, with a passing mention of the fact that the day on which I was writing (18/01) was three months since I arrived in London, however something was buggy with Blogger so all I got was an empty post.
I won't be writing it out again, especially since there is something *Even more * interesting to discuss. (Surely I must be joking)

More of the same

2007-01-14T15:21:00.000Z

I don't have anything really interesting to add at the moment. When I have the time, and the capacity, to write whenever I want I may start to talk about my general thoughts on things (Oh god no! Not another one of those...) rather than just 'what I've been doing', but if that does happen (likelihood questionable) it will be some time from now.

I'm going to the Czech Republic at the end of the month with some of Stefan's friends from Germany (although Stefan isn't going). I would have said "I'm going skiing in the Czech Republic at...", but from all accounts at the moment it seems unlikely that there is going to be any snow. Which will make the trip somewhat less exciting, however I'm sure we'll still have a good time.

I'm going to be working on the same project (or at least, another incarntation of it) until at least some time in mid-February. It was kind of predictable, since they need the people and I now have the experience doing it... Whatever.

Still looking for a flat. The problem with London is, all the good, nice places that are available (turns out they do exist) have at least 30 other people wanting them too...
I'll keep looking. I can stick it out until I find "the right place".

Back in London Again

2007-01-07T10:25:00.000Z

I'm back in London now, and have already been to work for a day.

My bag did finally show up that evening, the 27th of December. Hurray.... However, now I have to deal with BA and trying to get the money back for the things I had to buy while my bag was lost.
I found out that I wasn't the only person affected though - apparently there were Mountains of bags sitting around at Heathrow over Christmas. All those people without their clothes and their Christmas presents for that time. In the paper on about the 20th December they were discussing the Fog disruptions and how much it was expected to cost BA. I have a feeling that due to the way the whole thing has been handled it will cost BA a lot more than they estimated. Whatever. we'll see if they can redeem themselves.

Aside from all the flight and bag problems, Germany was really nice. We (on separate planes) flew into Hamburg on the 23rd, spent the night at Andreas' house then drove (got a ride) to Neubrandenburg to Stefan's mother's place. That was the 24th, which is really the main 'Christmas day' in Germany, so some of his family came around and we had lunch, opened presents and played games. It was a nice, cosy, Christmas.
I've already mentioned what happened on the 25th. I don't think I need to elaborate on that right now.
On the 27th [I think, I'm a little confused by the dates at the moment] we drove to Rostock (Stefan's University) at stayed in one of his friends' rooms while he was away. We were there from the 27th until early afternoon on the 31st, and there was drinking of some sort every day. In fact, that would probably be true for the whole time I was in Germany.
I believe that first night in Rostock we went to the "Student Cellar", which was a reasonable place but not particularly exciting.
Stefan was feeling "not well" (cold) at this point so he didn't want to go out to clubs because of the effect the smoke would have on him. Instead, in the evenings for the next two days he went home and I went out with his friends.

Saturday night (30th) was a 'quiet' night at home playing games because everyone was resting for the 31st. We played a german boardgame called 'Settler' .... which I ended up winning, and then a couple of rounds of poker, the second of which we each bet £1, which I also ended up winning (HA!)

31st was spent at a friend's house, group of about eight or nine of us. Drinking, eating, letting off fireworks at midnight and then more games (Definitely seems to be a German thing to play games, much more so than in NZ). Got home at about 5am.

1st of January was basically a recovery day. Stefan did some things at home, I sat and read mostly. I did finally manage to go for a run on the 1st. First real exercise I had done for a couple of weeks. I could feel all that beer and chocolate in my blood. In the evening (at about 7 or 8pm) we drove back to Rostock and spent most of the next day there.

That night (Tuesday 2nd) we drove to Hamburg to another friend's place. We left in the evening because we were supposed to pick up Richard from the airport in the morning, BUT HE DIDN'T show up. Damn Brazilians...

On the 3rd, my last night in Germany, we went out to the 'Reeperbahn', the red-light district in Hamburg, because the clubs are there, of course. Stefan warned me to be 'on-guard' for people trying to drag me into 'certain places', but we didn't really seem to have a problem with it. He did mention at the start of the night that we would go and stand and look at the girls in the window or something, but that didn't happen. Ah, it was kind of a quiet night, despite where we were, basically because everyone was still away with the holidays.

And.... that would make it the 4th, the day I left.

So what else did I do in Germany? Other than the drinking.
When would that be?
During the day, in the time between the clubs closing in the morning and opening again in the Evening.
Oh yes, right, I get you. Um..... We went to look at a few castles, went to a church or two, went to the lake, went... and looked at the town once or twice. I'm not entirely sure. My memory seems to be kind of hazy about the details.

This is getting rather long.
Ok, what am I doing now? Like I said, back to work. Lots of fun. Now that New Year's is over, I'm going to make a more dedicated attempt at finding a place to live. It will be good to find a proper place, but it's just so much easier not to.

I have to look at cheap flights that I can get in the weekends to places nearby. Unfortunately (as we all know) Friday and Sunday are the most expensive days to fly, and £150 just for the flights for 2-3 days seems like quite a bit of money to spend.

Uh... what was I saying again?

2006-12-26T12:55:00.000Z

Still no luggage. Three days now. No clothes. And because it's Christmas all the shops are shut so I couldn't even go and buy new ones if I wanted to. This is getting ridiculous.

That aside, I guess one would say that I am having a reasonable time here. We went out drinking last night (In Germany? Say it isn't so!) I think we got back home some time around 6am. I'm still feeling rather drunk actually, which is why I am writing in short sentences. I took my camera out last night and there are a few amusing pictures from last night to show. What will not be shown is the video Stefan took when we arrived at the club. In said video, I am clearly looking at the camera (at least when my eyes are open I am), so I can claim that I was "dancing for the camera", however if the video is representative of how I looked last night then it could explain the strange looks I was receiving and why people were avoiding me. (And no, it is not how I look generally when I go out and any discussion about my dancing will be duly deleted)

Hopefully I'll be able to put some photos up while I'm here so you will be about to see some of the things I've been talking about.

It's much later now - I was writing the above at about 2pm, then Stefan rightly pointed out that I should do this later (like now) instead of during the limited daylight hours. So now it's 5:45. I'm feeling better, but still not very good. We went and looked at a castle that's nearby, then we went to a Tower next to the big lake here and watched the sun set while Stefan held me in his arms.

Ok, so the last part, holding me in his arms, obviously didn't happen. But we did watch the sun set and knowing Stefan I'm sure he was thinking that he wanted to do that.

He says that we're going out drinking again tonight. I don't know if I can handle that... I'll definitely be 'taking it easy'(as much as one can when drinking in Germany)

I made it to Germany, finally: my bags haven't

2006-12-23T17:34:00.000Z

Well shit, do I have an Airport story.
Useless, useless, useless.
I won't go into all the details at the moment, but basically:
1. I was at the airport in plenty of time, and my flight left about on time (I think), but I was not on it. I missed my flight due to being messed around by the BA staff and their lack of organisation and communication.
2. Was booked into the flight tomorrow morning after being told that was the only one available.
3. Went and spoke with someone else and was put on stand-by for the 2pm flight.
4. Was put on the 2pm flight (which left at about 3pm). Hurray! Almost....
5. Arrived in Hamburg, good, great, made it. Unfortunately my bags, along with about half the other people's on the flight, didn't make it.

So now I'm in Germany with nothing to wear and no toothbrush...
We are going to pick up Stefan at the airport now. Perhaps, hopefully, my bags will be on the flight with him.

To Germany tomorrow ... perhaps.

2006-12-22T20:50:00.000Z

I am due to fly to Germany early tomorrow morning, unfortunately it remains to be seen if and when I will actually make it off the ground.
For the past few days most of London and the South-Eastern surrounding area [where Heathrow is] has been covered by "dense fog". British Airways (which is the main user of Heathrow) have cancelled a large percentage of their flights during this time: ALL domestic flights and most flights to Paris and Brussels (Claiming EuroStar is a viable alternative), as well as quite a number of "short haul" services. They fly 4 flights to Hamburg a day; today my flight number (the first of the day) was cancelled along with the last flight, however the two in the middle did depart. 2/4 ain't so bad? Perhaps. Yesterday ONLY my flight number left, and all the others were cancelled, meaning that there were no flights from Heathrow to Hamburg by BA for about 30+ hours. The good news is that according to the BA website at the moment they are "intend to operate 95% of short haul services tomorrow" (except flights to All Paris and Brussels are cancelled and domestic will start after midday).

The "fun" part - They are saying "call and confirm the status of your flight before departing for the airport, and don't travel to the airport if your flight is cancelled". However, to get to the airport on time I have to leave at about 5am. The Customer Service webpage shows the lines open at 6am.

The Irony: London has probably the most airports of any city - there are Five in the surrounding areas. British Airways, the big, reliable, major British Airline operates primarily out of Heathrow (and unsurprisingly are the airports main user).
The other 4 airports only have minor disruptions, some no cancellations at all.
I chose BA because of the "convenience of Heathrow" (it's on the tube line) and because BA were a 'proper' airline. Had I chosen a different airline and/or a different airport, this whole fog situation might not have been any concern to me.

Finally, amusingly, Stefan is due to arrive into Heathrow at 2pm and leave on the 5pm flight to Hamburg. I didn't have time to ask him, but I suspect he is flying British Airways as well. I really hope I'm not still waiting at Heathrow when he gets there, however it's possible that somewhere between 0 to 2 of us make it to Hamburg tomorrow, which could mess up plans a little. [But again, going by their 95% claim, perhaps it will all be ok)

Other than the flight concerns? I was at work until 7pm today, making sure things were sorted during my time away. We went down to the pub around midday and about half the team went home from there. I seem to have a habit of suddenly finding all these things that need doing before I leave 20 minutes before I was planning on leaving. Or maybe my problem is the way I classify something as 'necessary'.

Nothing to see here. Move along.

2006-12-18T20:50:00.000Z

I'm considering deleting some of those comments in the previous posts. Certain things I was not intending on speak of via this medium.
Monday Gone (effectively); only 4 working days left and then I'm on a plane to Germany.
Two weeks off, no work. I haven't even been working for 2 months and already I'm so excited about some time off. That doesn't actually bode well for the future...

When I get back from Germany I'm going to be looking at getting a two-bed room thing - kind of like a College dorm I think. It's not what I really should be getting, but it will be much better than where I currently am. I'll get around to finding a proper place... eventually.

Got an E-mail from Jons this morning. I didn't even consider previously that I should be hitting him up for free accomodation as well. Thank you for bring that to my attention. Expect to hear from me some time in the near future.
On that note, anybody else who is around the European region (which can be as large as necessary; have passport; will travel) and is feeling like that need more Kiwi in their life, let me know. I'll see what I can do about helping you through that.

I have to go make dinner some time soon. I'm not particulary used to making dinner for one; not in recent years at least. So I've been doing the unthinkable - keeping leftovers and a day or two later (sometimes, other times they sit in the fridge and then go in the bin, as usual)

It appears I have run out of things to say. I am currently fighting the urge to ramble on about nothing just for the sack of it [and appear to be losing].

I'm going to go now.

Counting down the days until Christmas

2006-12-10T21:12:00.000Z

Not because I am particularly excited about Christmas. I'm not. I'm not a Scrooge; I enjoy Christmas, but for the second year in a row I'll be away from home, which I am fine with (after all I'm doing it by choice) but it's not going to be "Christmas" for me in the same sense. Not the Christmas that I am familiar with.
I am excited about Christmas because I get to go to Germany, I get time off from work, and, as ashamed as I am to admit it, I get to see Stefan. [Oh how that is going to come back and bit me on the arse later - don't get any ideas now]

Looking at another flat tomorrow (fingers crossed, but not expecting much).

I've said most of what I need to say about work already - Very unexciting. Far too easy and unchallenging. Waiting for the end of the project to see where I get put next.

Sorry to be brief, but I'm running out of [internet] time now.

Managed to go for a run again yesterday. Unfortunately I expect the weather will make my saturday morning (early afternoon) runs exceeding unpleasant in the near future.

Later.

6 weeks on, what do I have to say about London?

2006-12-02T17:46:00.000Z

Um.... I'm not really sure. I still don't have a place to live, but on the other hand I haven't really been looking for the last few weeks. I haven't really had the time to worry about it, nor did I have the money. I got paid finally on Thursday, so now I finally have money to spend. However, I'm going to try and avoid spending as much as possible because a) I don't earn that much really and spending money here seems not an unwise thing to do b) the thought that £1 is basically NZ$3, or that £20 is NZ$60 makes me not want to buy anything here at all. Every pound I save here is worth 3 times as much in NZ. Every pound I spend is $3 I could have saved.
That said, I'm still going to enjoy myself when I can. I'm going to visit Stefan for Christmas, which I'm looking forward to, and I will take advantage of the cheap flights to a number of cities around Europe during the next year.

I was saying today that (at the moment at least) my lifestyle in San Jose was so much nicer than it is here. It definitely was a relaxed time. I might have to consider making my way back there at some point...

Went for a run today. In fact, I even managed to go for a run on Wednesday night. That was good, but I don't expect I'll be able to keep doing that, especially with Winter steadily approaching. It's quite frustrating not being able to do anything during the week. Really the only chance I have to exercise is in the weekends.

It's Saturday night but I don't really feeling like going out. I think that Andrew and I are just going to end up sitting around at the hostel, watching a movie, drinking, whatever. It might sound like I am depressed. I'm not depressed. I don't get depressed. I am simply feeling rather apathetic. But then again, I was reasonably apathetic to begin with so I don't really consider it much of a change.

Almost mid-week. Work Sucks; I know.

2006-11-21T20:51:00.000Z

Today was the second day of getting up in the morning to head off to Hook. If you don't know where Hook is, which I assume none of you do, it's right about here
Lots of fun, an hour and a half each way of the train. I don't yet have a laptop from work (manager is hopefully looking into it), so I'm probably going to start taking my own one on the train. I'm kind of reluctent to do so because of the obvious risk of damage, but if I spend my time on the train productively I can hopefully manage to be home by around 8pm...
I'm working there for two months, at the moment. At the end of this assignment I'll definitely be voicing my strong preference for a new role.

I will be putting photos up eventually - when I finally have internet at home, when I finally find a place, which will be after I finally get paid.... - it'll just be a while.

And because I've screwed around so long getting it organised, it now appears as though my £110 flight to Hamburg for Christmas is no longer available and I'm going to have to pay a fair amount more than that.

I went rock-climbing on Sunday with Andrew (indoors). [I'll have to give Andrew a proper introduction at some point.] I've always been good at climbing things, but after a few goes up the wall my arms decided they weren't doing any more. They are still sore. I'll probably go again this weekend; hopefully I'll perform better.

What do I have to say today?

2006-11-18T15:35:00.000Z

Well, the British government changed the Highly Skilled Migrant Programme (the visa I need to get if I am to stay in the country for longer) requirements, altering the details about how many points you need to qualify and for what the points are awarded. The new requirements are basically as follows:
Need a total of 75 points to qualify.
Education
* Bachelors degree gives 30 points
* Masters degree gives 35 points.
Previous year's earnings.
* Equivalent of £26k - £28k gives 25 points
* £29 - £32 gives 30 points.
Age
* Being 27 or under gives 20 points
* 28 - 29 gives 10 points.

So.... I still qualify easily enough, but it implies that I need to do it now rather than later.
I haven't entirely considered the implications of my current position, but I'm sorting it out.

In other news, in the room I was staying in previously (I have since moved) there was an incredibly hot 18-year old French girl. I have avoided saying anything about women here, but, it has to be said, this girl 'is something to write home about'. Of course, being 18, and being French, she kind of has the odds in her favour to start with. Anyway, that isn't actually the point of my story, just something I wanted to put out there.
She is 18, she has just finished High School and has now come to London to spend some time (a year perhaps) improving her English. She says that due to her father's job she went on a number of trips while she was growing up, including: USA, Canada, Mexico, Spain, Italy, Greece, etc. The fact that she is from France makes it pretty easy for her to go to money of those countries anyway, but I still think that she is definitely doing pretty well for herself.
So much so that it makes me feel bad for my lack of progress in that department.
When she goes back home (presumably to go to University), she will have already been to a reasonably percentage of the Western World, and should have pretty good English (although she spends so much time talking in French instead of English perhaps that won't develop as much as it should)
I am ... a number of years older than her, I'm come out of university and I feel like I'm trying to catch up on what she has already done. I appear to be failing in the 'world traveller' department.
Incidentially, when she told me she had just finished High School, it made me feel so old. High School seems a long, long time ago (in a land far, far away...).

And now that I'm planning on stay here for some time, when am I going to get around to doing these things I claim I want to do?
... When I'm old and married and travelling around with my wife on a cruise ship? Not the kind of travelling I am interested in.

Sunday afternoon, 'relaxing'.

2006-11-12T15:46:00.000Z

It's Sunday again, as it has a habit of being every 7 days or so.
I'm not doing a whole lot today, just kind of recuperating. I'm not hang over, just tired from work and kind of sick - a cold or something.
Went out and watched the game last night, of course. I went to one of the 'Walkabout' bars in downtown, which is kind of the hang out for Australians, New Zealanders and South Africans [ I went there last week for the cricket and rugby as well]. Although I've been trying to avoid 'going and finding my own' instead of living in London properly, when things like the rugby are on you kind of have to do it. It was interesting that the majority of the New Zealanders there who we spoke to were from Wellington. Oh yeah, I haven't explained the 'we' - when I walked into the bar last Sunday for the England game, as soon as I walked through the door this guy came up to me and went "ALAN!"... One of the guys I used to work with at DSE (Brendon) is living in London now. Even more amusing was the fact that Linda, a friend of my girlfriend in 5th form, who also on at least one occassion 'got cosy' with David [which I'm sure they're both appreciate my outing them here] was also there. I'm not entirely sure how Brendon and Linda knew each other but apparently they did previously.

So, Work... Well, I am getting this feeling that work is going to suck on a number of levels for the next two months. 1) From the 20th, I have to jump on the train to go somewhere one hour away (which is rather annoying after taking this job based in 'Central London'), and 2) My responsibilities are rapidly moving away from technical work and towards menial 'business' work. As a double kicker, this is what leads to 1) - if I was doing proper technical work (i.e. programming) I would be sitting in the office in London. Arse.

I'm still looking for somewhere to live, vaguely, but I've kind of accepted that I'm going to wait until I get paid in December to actually find/move into a place. I could transfer money over from the US, but I get the feeling that it might take that long to find an appropriate place anyway. Part of the problem being, I'm still not sure what 'appropriate' means. I think I'll end up going for the spending more money option because honestly, I'm not really willing to live somewhere that's beneath my standards.

I shifted hostels yesterday too (again). Hopefully I'll be staying where I am now until I move into a flat. We'll just have to wait and see about that.

Need a place to live; 1 month until I get paid.

2006-11-04T16:03:00.000Z

First weekend after my first days working in 3 months.
However I don't get paid until the end of the month, so somehow I have to sort out accommodation without any money in my bank account. I'll probably end up sending my self money from the US to here. Went shopping today and spent money on things I don't need. There are A LOT of shops down Oxford street.

Ah, that reminds me: They have a new version of Monopoly out. I realise after looking at it in a bookshop that they've changed all the properties and prices to more accurately reflect today (Airports instead of railways, £600k, £1.2 million pounds, £4 million etc) however the most marked change is that there are credit cards you stick in a machine instead of paper money. Now that assuredly is more realistic, but doesn't it kind of take away from half the fun of Monopoly?

It appears as though my current job is going to be dramatically different than my previous one. My title here is 'Consultant', the office is around the centre of London, and on Monday (for a few months unfortunately...) I'm going out to a customer site. A bit of a change from being out in the middle of nowhere not talking to any 'outsiders'. Oh yeah, and I'm going to have deadlines at some point, and presumably will be expected to work long days when things are due. Sounds like fun.

Starting work tomorrow. Finishing work .... ?

2006-11-01T17:44:00.000Z

I got the job that I interviewed for yesterday. I begin tomorrow.
And it's not intended to be a contract job, although it will be officially because of the visa. They want me to stay indefinitely. I don't know how I feel about that. I wasn't intending and sitting around here that long.

So getting the job I was a little unsure whenever I was happy about it or not. My goal ever since I got here was to get a job and work for some time, but why was I trying to do that? I should have done my travelling first, then come back and got the job. But anyone who saw my luggage would tell you I obviously wasn't intending on 'going backpacking', and it is Winter now anyway.
Apparently I really had no idea what I wanted to do. I still don't. I'll be staying here now for a while. I hope to be able to take off to various places for the weekend or whatever. I'll have to see how it pans out.

Still not completely happy with everything yet - I need to find a place to live. I don't particularly like where I am now, since there's not kitchen in which to cook dinner. The place I was at first (I moved last week because it was booked out) was much 'better', and I still go back there regularly because all my friends I've meet here so far stay there.

Interesting times. I don't know, whatever.
I'm going to see 'Spamalot' tonight. Should be good entertainment.

Oh yeah: You will all know how I'm never cold, always walking around in a T-shirt; Today it was bloody cold! Admittedly I was wearing my NZ shirt that is rather 'thin', but shit! It's only November. I'm not looking forward to what's ahead.

Still Alive..... Still Jobless

2006-10-29T14:53:00.001Z

We went out last night, as you do on a Saturday night. Funnily enough (for some at least), the bar was called 'The Sports Cafe'. The logo was even same.
Not so funny, I ended up going to hospital. Fortunately, I wasn't the one who was injured. I was down dancing with a couple of the guys and the rest were upstairs playing pool. Someone came and got me because Andrew (guy from Memphis, 'How y'all doing?') had "split his head open". From what I've been told he was sitting on the bar stool, I guess rocking on it, dancing to the music or something, and managed to go to far, fall over and hit his head on the corner of the pool table on the way down. He hadn't exactly 'split his head open' - he had a gash just above his eye, fairly deep, and him, the other Andrew (yes two, a little confusing sometimes) and one of the girls all had a fair amount of blood on them.

So there we were, sitting on the pavement outside, waiting for the ambulance to show up that the bouncer had called. Somewhere between half and hour and an hour we sat there. The cops came and went, determining they weren't needed. Eventually the ambulance was called again and we were told that 'it wasn't a priority'. Great.
So after sitting there for that long, we then had to somehow find a way to get him to the A&E - he definitely needed stitches. This proved much easier than we had anticipated, because as we were standing by the side of the road trying to figure out how we were going to do it, some guy driving past asked us what was going on and then gave us all a ride to the hospital, covered in blood and all. I still think that guy was unbelievably generous. We've got his business card so I guess Andrew will be buying him a very drinks some time in the future.

The rest of the night went predictably - sitting in the hospital waiting room for a few hours. Andrew obviously wasn't feeling too bad, despite appearing to be in a lot of pain - while lying on the hospital bed, needle going through his eyebrow, he starts trying to pick up the nurse. That part was rather amusing.

As for the jobs - still don't have one. I've turned down a couple of month-low temp things because I wanted to keep myself available for a proper position. I'm hoping I don't regret that. I have a "proper", "real" interview on Tuesday morning, complete with psychometric testing. At the moment, all my hopes are riding firmly on that. Riding bareback, over mountains perhaps, but riding on that all the same. All goes well and by the end of the week I'll be in a much different position than now, and can really start enjoying my time here.

Job Hunting

2006-10-24T11:42:00.000Z

Still looking for a job...
I have had a number of phone calls this morning, as well as some in the previous days as well, but so far that's as far as it has gone.
I'm a little confused, because two or three people have told me they will send me job descriptions but none have arrived. I don't quite know what to make of that.

Incidentally, I did a number of tests this morning as a pre-requisite for getting some temp work [to fill in the time, and earn money for the first time in 3 months, until I get a 'proper' job]. Apparently my typing speed is 55 words a minute, however I feel that I could do much better than that. I wasn't typing nearly as fast as I can, mainly because I kept making mistakes even at the lower speed. Personally, I blame the keyboard. It just didn't feel right. I'm not sure what it was. I'm sure on my laptop, or some other keyboard, I could get a better score.
Oh, and I got 96% (29/30) in the spelling test. I'm curious to know which word I got wrong.

I can actually upload some photos - there's an unsecured wireless connection I can access from my hostel room. I might get around to doing that later today. I actually had a day (Friday) where it was sunny for a couple of hours. Shocking!! - Although this was after it had rained in the morning.

On London, fortunately many of the museums are free, so I don't have to go around the whole thing in one go. I've been to the British Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, the Tate Modern, about half of the Natural History Museum, about half of the National Gallery (some Ralphael and Da Vinci pictures in there), briefly went into the Science museum - they've got a section on 'The History of the Computer'.

Yeap, a lot of museums. I have 'seen' all the big sites as well - I did the South Bank walk, starting at Westminister Bridge (I didn't see the Abbey though... ?).
This goes past Big Ben, Parliament (saw 10 Downing Street), London Eye, a bunch of other things I don't remember, Shakepeare's Globe, some markets, HMS Belfast, Tower Bridge and Tower of London. I didn't go into any of the places (other than the Tate Modern along the way) because they are all £10+ to enter. I'll consider going back and doing them once I have a job.

I'm a little bored of museums right now. I need to find something else to do instead. I went for a run through Hyde park on Sunday, in the rain. Funny how I didn't get around to running nearly as much as I should have while in San Jose where it doesn't rain at all for 5 months of the year, and instead go running while in London, where it seems to rain every day of the year.

Rather long rant about nothing in particular. I have to find somewhere else to live soon. I'm paid until Saturday morning, but then the hostel (so the girl says) is booked full. I could just go to another hostel but I probably should look at something a little more.

Oh and things are so expensive! Did I say that in the first post? Prices are kind of similar, until you double it to get dollars. That's why I really need to start earning pounds.

London Baby!!!

2006-10-19T14:41:00.000Z

That's right. I am now in London. I arrived yesterday. I now have to find a job...

Ok, so it's been well over a year since I wrote anything on here. Quite frankly I didn't care to tell you all about what I was doing. ;)
I might try and write more frequently here, but I think I'll take Duncan's suggestion and just do a 'yeap, still alive' type message, rather than trying to write about all the incredibly exciting things I have been doing.

On that note, I haven't actually gone to any 'tourist attractions' yet. Mostly because yesterday I couldn't be arsed doing any of that stuff, and today I've been taking my time getting there. And the fact that a number of them are £15 or more...

The flight sucked. No personal screen. Only the main screen at the front to look at. Fortunately my laptop provided a few hours of CivIV entertainment. The sudoku book was cheap, but all the puzzles I have done so far took under 5 minutes; so not particularly challenging.

So there's an update for you. Now I'm off to do something more interesting.

Independence Day

2005-08-19T07:01:00.000Z

Continuing the recapping, on Independence Day (July 4th, in case someone isn't paying attention) we went up to Sacramento (the California State capital) and went rafting again. This was a week after we had gone white-water rafting, but this was quite a different affair.

This time we were in a raft, roped together with about 5 or 6 other rafts, drinking beer and basically just floating down the river (as opposed to navigating it and paddling to stay on course). Oh, and there were about .... I have no idea of the number, a lot of other people around doing the same thing. Apparently it is something that they do every year up there; it is definitely a tradition I can appreciate. Another would be this thing involving beads. We experienced that tradition that day as well, although not nearly as much as we should have, I feel.

I could describe the day more, but I'm lazy and I don't remember much of it right now.

What probably made the day was the incident that occured on the way home. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention, Kyle and Stefan decided that we should rent a convertible for the trip (which is only 2 hours anyway...). It was a mustang, not red though. There are photos but I don't seem to have them at the moment. So the point was, on the way home there was an incident. Something that I've seen a few times in various movies before - the only one I can think of right now is 'Overnight Delivery', but in that movie it isn't proper - but had not experienced in in reality before. It was highly amusing, and made the journey home all the more enjoyable for all of us. I'll leave it up to your imagination.

Catch-up time

2005-08-19T06:30:00.000Z

Almost 2 months since I last wrote something. One would think that I must have been terribly busy to have taken so long to send an update...

Well, I have been busy, kind of. I'm not sure what exactly has kept me so occupied for 2 months, but I haven't really been sitting in front of the computer at home anytime recently.

Now that I finally have sat down to do this, I hope I have something interesting to say.
I've waited 2 months to talk about going white-water rafting.
The week after my last post - 25th,26th June (I don't remember if it was Saturday or Sunday, [Although reading my previous post I see that it was Sunday since I did the running on Saturday]), we went rafting.
I believe the name of the river was Merced, up right near Yosemite national park [which Kyle and I still haven't managed to go and visit]
The section of the river that we were on was supposedly a Grade 4 (it only goes up to 5 I think) but it wasn't as exciting as I had hoped for. A Grade 4 river meant that there were two or three 'Grade 4' rapids, and then the others (which were a few, but not a lot) were lower grades. For a grade 4 river we didn't feel that we were in that much danger of falling out - although Jons somehow did manage to fall out once, and whacked his side on a rock; he had a nice bruise for a while in the following days. I jumped out later in a much calmer section of the river and eventually we all jumped in the river and floated down on our backs through a 'safe' rapid. We were wearing lifejackets and wetsuits so it wasn't difficult to stay afloat.

We had a guide in our boat telling us when to paddle (and doing most of the steering from the back) and the six of us each had a paddle (which is the most important thing on the boat you must never let go of it ), although the concept of paddling was a little too difficult for Kyle. He seemed to enjoy mimicing paddling without actually putting most, if any, of the paddle in the water. This might have been because I was on his side of the boat and I kept commenting on the fact that he wasn't doing anything, or flicking water at him, but I think it is also because he is lazy.

We were out on the water for a few hours, with a stop for lunch in the middle, so it was definitely a full day trip - especially once you add in the 3 hour drive each way and the getting up at around 5am (or 6am, something like that).

I'm not sure if it is worth the $150, but it was enjoyable and I wouldn't mind doing it again.

another uneventful week

2005-06-20T07:38:00.000Z

Didn't do much at all this week, kind of like last week.
During the week I went out a few times for dinner - three in total I believe. Maybe I shouldn't be doing that so much, might save a bit more money, although there is not a hell of a lot more to do around here.
Kyle spent the weekend down in LA with a friend from NZ who was on his way to England (I don't know what his name is), so I took the opportunity to ... sleep a lot, and read. I've nearly finished the book I've been reading, big achievement for me - actually reading.
That's all I really have to say about the week. Next Saturday I'm running 400m in a corporate relay. Haven't done any proper sprinting in about 5 years (since high school), but I'm sure I'll be fine. And on Sunday apparently I'm going white water rafting, something else I really think that I should be doing in NZ rather than here, but it's something to do.

If Jared is lucky I might get around to posting the T-shirts for him this week; I wouldn't count on it though.

the week that was, whatever number this is

2005-06-13T05:25:00.000Z

Not a very exciting week this one. Sorry.
I'm going to work backwards because it is easier to remember that way.
I see that Wellington was about 10 degrees and raining today. I bet that sucks a bit. I can emphasize, really. Here today the roadside Clock/thermometer said that it was 89 degrees F (= 31.6 C). We went to the pool, played a bit of pool-basketball, read in the sun, etc. It was terrible.

Saturday was kind of the same. I went and played soccer for a couple of hours, which I do on Saturdays whenever I'm at home, and not in bed, and can be bothered [so about once a month then]. It was pretty hot yesterday too. California weather sucks.
We didn't actually go out drinking at all yesterday [wait, I didn't go out], but I claim that was a combination of the fact that we went out on Friday night and that Kyle was out with his Father.
Oh yeah, Kyle's Father got here yesterday. He brought us cheese and butter in a can (just the butter in the can, not the cheese). Someone has to come over to bring me some Sultanas.

So we went out on Friday to "that bar that we go to". We have learnt by now not to expect anything at any bars around here, so saying that it was disappointing might not necessarily be true, however it was definitely not one of the better nights there.

I have started working on my project that I was working on earlier. Can't say what it is, "Confidential" ;). I hadn't been working on it for a couple of weeks because I was doing something else. That's done now, I hope.

Uh.... don't have any trips planned at the moment. I must look into that.

Sky Diving

2005-06-12T03:33:00.000Z

And then last week, we went Sky Diving. We this time meant Stefan, Jons and I and 4 of the other interns.

It is interesting the reactions I get from the people I have told this to so far; sure it was fun, but it wasn't that big a deal. We got the gear on, got in the plane, went up, jumped out, dropped for a bit, then 'sailed' for a bit.
I could say more about it, but I have it on DVD, so I'll get it on the computer and find somewhere to put it.

DisneyLand/LA 26th May - 30th June

2005-06-11T21:19:00.000Z

As indicated in the title, two weeks ago we (Myself, Stefan, Kyle and Shyla) went to LA for the first time. It was a long weekend ("Memorial Day" on Monday 30th May) and we additionally took Thursday and Friday off from work; flying down there early on Thursday morning and coming back on Monday night meant we had the most of 5 days down there.

I told Kyle I was writing about LA and his response was: "It was good. That is all." He may be referring more to the '5 days off' rather than actually being in LA.

The first three days [and primarily the purpose of the trip] were spent in Disneyland.
We had a "three day park hopper ticket", which meant we could go to Disneyland and California Adventure Park for three days, and we could get "fastpass" tickets, allowing us to avoid (to a certain extent) the long lines for the rides.
The first day (Thursday) we spent entirely at Disneyland, and went on almost every ride there
in that time. We had arrived in LA at about 8am, and after the mucking around getting the rental car sorted had gone straight to Disneyland. We had got up gotten up at 4am, and didn't leave the park until after the parade, which I think was around 8pm or so by the time it was finished, so it wasn't surprising that we were all pretty tired that night.

Friday we started at Disneyland and went on the last of the rides we hadn't already been (including "It's a small world", but not "The Madhatter's Tea Party" - 'the tea cup' ride, which Shyla and I wanted to do but we never actually did in the end) before moving over to California Adventure park. This park is more for older children than Disneyland, and I think we all found the rides much better there.

We went on the big rollercoaster of course, but we didn't actually get around to going on the sun wheel thing.

We went on the "river run" ride ... a few times.

This was after the first time. After buying a dry shirt, we sat and watched the fireworks and then "Fantasmic", a fireworks/lightshow thing out on the water.

On Saturday we went back to California Adventure, went on the "Tower of Terror" and then went to an Aladdin musical, which was actually pretty good.

We decided we had to get a picture with 'someone'; I thought Sulley was pretty good. Stefan got a picture with Mr Incredible, and we also got photos with Mickey (of course), and a couple of princesses.

On Sunday we went to Hollywood, and Beverly Hills. It wasn't particularly exciting, and there isn't really that much to say about it. Hollywood didn't look that nice. Much of it looked kind of dirty, and of course there were quite few homeless people around.
We left Hollywood and went down to Santa Monica beach and Fremont beach. The beaches seemed very "American" to me, which I will state and then not explain at all. You can work it out.

Monday, we were aware of the fact that we had to leave that day, so we didn't want to do anything much. We spent a couple of hours at Newport beach, then went to some shopping centre. Not a terribly exciting finish to the trip, but we had to watch the time and I don't think any of us had much energy left really.

So... that was Disneyland.

The beginning (kind of)

2005-06-01T07:44:00.000Z

Depite my much professed dislike for the concept, I have decided this paradigm is the perfect medium for giving details about our adventures in the USA. So in the future, rather than the mass e-mail approach (which I managed about twice I believe), I will hopefully be making updates to here instead. I also have to figure out the best way of dealing with all the photos I already have, as well as the many more sure to follow. Any suggestions on this would be appreciated.

Naturally this first post is a little (!) dull. We did just get back for LA, so I should be writing about that, however I will be leaving that till later, hopefully accompanied by photos.

And as it is 12:40am in San Jose at the moment, I am going to bed.

[ and apparently the clock is a little slow...]