Category: Trip

I’m excited to announce my European Tour, coming to a historic location near you this very summer!

The tour kicks off in late May with Ireland:
  
I’ll be going to visit my BFF Florence, and she’ll be so happy I’m sure she’ll buy me a potato! Expect blog jokes involving shamrocks, the colour green and pots of gold 😉

Somehow I’ll get from Ireland to London (the details are fuzzy!), since about a week later I’ll be catching the channel tunnel train to Paris:
  
Here I’ll be vacationing with Sue and her daughter. Sue’s there for a conference, and I expect when she half-jokingly suggested to me a few months ago I meet her there she never thought I’d agree!

She’ll be so happy, I’m sure she’ll buy me a croissant! Expect blog jokes involving frogs, freedom fries and cheese 🙂

Following France my tour will return to Albany for a month’s engagement at my work (booooring) before I hop the Atlantic once again for Deutschland:
 

 
This leg of the tour will be special, since I’ll be accompanied by KLS, BS, Jim and – most importantly – my Dad!

Two weeks of travel through the fatherland will undoubtedly be accompanied by blog jokes about sausages, horse meat and not mentioning the war 😉

It’s going to be a very busy and very exciting summer! I can hardly wait…

I’m about 20 hours into my ~25 hour return home, and it’s been an unusual series of events. In no particular order:

– The food on the Sydney -> LA flight was actually good! I had a (cold) chicken salad for dinner and an omelette for breakfast. For the first time I can ever remember, I ate most of the meals.
– I read ‘The Wizard Of Lemuria’ (a 1965 Lin Carter fantasy novel) and watched only one film (the execrable ‘The Maze Runner’) the remaining 15-odd hours of flight so far were spent daydreaming or listening to music.
– I sat next to a 20 year old cutie from Vegas who is in the process of emigrating to Oz. Half the flight she was fast asleep, and the other she endlessly told me stories of North Sydney parties and her own (no doubt financed by rich parents) extravagant travels.
– My carry-on bag was checked in LA and since I was jet lagged I forgot to remove anything I needed, including my belt and coat. Therefore in Detroit airport (where I am now) I am somewhat cold and somewhat pantsless!
– The guy next to me on the flight from LA to here spent half his time bidding on ultra-expensive vintage turntables on eBay (I saw him make a $7900 bid!) and the other half writing poetry about snorting cocaine (“drinking lines of light”). I’m not making this up!

As expected I’m in a fugue, barely knowing where I am or what time it is. I need to eat but am not hungry, and I need to sleep but am not tired. I’ll continue to pass the hours until my last flight walking around listening to Morrissey at insane volumes…

As I set out this morning I wasn’t sure exactly what my plans were. I had some idea that they may involve a museum or gallery or maybe a ferry.

I caught the bus to Circular Quay since I feel a trip here is incomplete without the bridge and Opera House. I was there somewhat early (before 9) and the crowds were thin.

I was tired. I had woken tired. Plus the heat was back, and after only a brief amount of walking I felt myself running out of steam. I headed over to the rocks and walked under the bridge toward Darling Harbour.

Turns out this was a fools errand, and rather than a waterfront shortcut I quickly found myself in a concrete maze with no breeze. The heat was overwhelming.

I eventually found my way to Darling Harbour, but when I arrived I was just too tired and skipped the maritime museum. I’d been walking for hours and headed back to Randwick for packing and a rest.

I ate so much today! This is unusual since I try my very best to eat little before the trip but I was just so hungry. The apple slice you see above rekindled my engines, and in the mid afternoon I visited a nearby mall (Eastgardens) to check it out and get some AC.

I never dispelled my exhaustion entirely though, and when Adam got back later in the day he found me asleep on his couch.

We played some magic (the squirrel deck is fun!) and watched Robocop (a nothing film). And so ended my last full day on this trip.