Plans come together, I fall apart (almost)

Well, it is truly heady days at the moment. I fly out on the 9th of April, which, for those of us who are calender minded, is a bloody soon. I have sold;

* My 652litre fridge to a guy call Marco
* My Ikea wardrobe and chest of drawers to a woman call Carol

I have yet to sell;

* My beautiful bed
* My lovely futon couch (aka "The Viper Lounge" aka "The Painful Rubix Cube") [I have seen grown men cry trying to put it together, and grown men and women... well, lets just leave that to the imagination]

I have nearly finished;

* Packing (although it is at the "I have never seen a greater mess in my life" stage, rather than the "Thank heaven thats finished" stage)

* Work (actually, much to do here and if there is anything keeping me awake at night and really NOT enjoying the count down to leaving it is the remaining work and the death defying timeline to finish it in)

* Planning my trip

* Learning French and Italian (may not be true)

However, I am pleased to announce that within all of this I am maintaining about the level of sanity that could reasonably be expected, which is to say, I have nearly lost it on several occasions. And yet, and yet, it comes together anyhow. At some point soon I will be scrumpled into a little airplane seat hopefully in possession of the things that I need and hopefully not fleeing an absolute mess.

Bring it on, I say!

crashing

All of the world is crashing -
they say
bit do break off my porch
sometimes, when it rains

(and then one day,
the warm arms close in
like a country song on a warm night,
the small things after all
the dust has settled
make a mockery of thought
and will and action)

meanwhile, slow bricks
and pansies flowering
breath their
precious optimism

my little eyes, my few
steps, cannot
it seems, confirm
either way
whether or not
we are crashing -

it seems less likely
on sunny days.

the other other plan

I have that typical "about to go on holiday" symptom. There is a whole bunch of stuff that you HAVE to get done before going ... but you spend MOST of your time frigging around on the internet checking out travel locations, transport options and the pros and cons of Contiki (it is mainly cons, case that wasn't blindingly obvious to all concerned, the chief con being gonorrhea).

This is how it is shaping up.

Tangles' I'm not getting bloody gonorrhea 2006 Tour of Europe - version 1

• Approx 8-9^th April fly to France
• PICK UP RENTAL CAR IN FRANCE (this is a very important and late addition to the travel spectra of decisions)
• Drive south to San Sebasta in Spain.
• Keep going kinda heading around Spain in a roughly anit-clockwise fashion
• Drive through southern coast of France to Italy.
• Frig around in Italy trying to find PASTA (ancient artifacts maybe, pasta definitely)
• Head north again either via Switzerland or not depending on mood
• Drop car in France, Paris 10^th May
• Fly to Berlin
• Doof
• Go to Amsterdam around the (Katie insert date here) of May
• Go to London
• Either fly home in disgust and distaste, or take up permanent residency in London.

If anyone is going to be in Europe during that time and fancies a driving folly around the country-side of France and Spain, well … erm … Sucks to you?

No, I am all “ears”

Comments and suggestions welcome. I am a novice to this whole decision making thing, and it is still giving me giddy rushes like a school girl that has eaten too many sherbet bombs.

Watch your back, you're in Brisbane now...

Update: Oh good lord. I am overhearing the interview of "Mr New Housemate that will be taking over MY room". Heart rendering stuff, let me tell you. He seems a dip shit. The poor dear has no idea what he is walking into. Well, actually he does. He is walking into MY LOVELY BEAUTIFUL ROOM.

Oh dear. I think I am getting the "good lord what am I doing"s .... Oh well. Push on. Or, sourcing from Simpsons, I give you the following relevant quote!

Kang: (as President Clinton) Ladies and gentlemen, when I was a young boy I dreamed of being a baseball. But tonight I say we must move forward, not backward, upward, not forward, and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom!






Ok. I am now in Brisbane. Fucking early flight getting up at 4.30am, which didn't actually hurt that much until around 7am... It'll do that.

But - I have finished for the day and am strolling around sunny Brisbane trying very hard not to get mugged. My hotel is in West End. This is like Newtown with bits of Redfern scattered on every street corner. I haven't felt quite so uneasy in the middle of the day for many years (since the time when, fresh out of Melbourne Uni, I went flat hunting in the heart of Redfern... Hmmm).

The internet cafe that I am in has bong's everywhere. They are big hoochy looking things like the catapiller had in Alice in Wonderland. Maybe she just ended up in Brisy?

Also, the hotel has a pool and I don't have bathers. This is not fair or cool.

In summary, Brisbane would be alot more fun if it was about 1300km south and called Sydney.

(Do I sound sulky?? I think I am practicing for the obligatory bitch sessions once I hit sunny London!)

Home again, home again, jiggety jig

Update #2: Put some stats behind yr bitching.

Since there has been lots of talk of late about the relative expense of travel locations, I thought I would post these sites for you all.

Global Cost of Living Index

The Economist Big Mac Index

It surprises me how high Sydney is!


Update: frigging boys and their frigging cars

Back in Sydney again. Got in last night to very little fanfare except the warm welcome of my bed.

Not to harp, but here is an indication about the nature of my current housemates - they are bitching about having to pay the $30 to list the add for the room on flatmatefinders.com. Need I say more? Imagine living with people whose arse is that tight. I am surprised we need a vacum cleaner; I would have thought that housemates merely walking around the house would have sucked up most debris.

Timing is looking good for England. Currently my list of visit locations is;

* London
* Prague (depending on the lucious KT)
* Berlin (after thinking that Germany during world cup would be the worst idea, I have had a surprise about turn to thinking it would be a great idea)
* Italy (In general. I want pasta)

-> open to other suggestions too. At this stage I haven't really booked anything, so it is all up in the air. But that will need to change soon!

anyway. I like sleep as much as the next person, so am off to bed.

Ring ring .. Hello? ... Err... Hi ... its London calling...

This post need to be brief-ish because I have to dash again soon, but I would like to make some points about today;

* I got a four year UK Ancestry Visa

* I drove to Canberra and back leaving at 5am in the morning after only 3 hours sleep

* I was missing some necessary documents and improvised admirably (proof of funds required a mid-queue dash to the nearest printing establishment for a lovely colour version of my online statement - this may seem like an easy thing, but it was no mean feat in the heat of the moment and the heat of Canberra)

* Getting the door people to take my photo (again, I was missing a passport photo and the lovely door people [aka "security] were very helpful)

* Drinking an obscene amount of Pepsi Max, Diet Coke and other caffeine-y type horror drinks

* Listening to Rage Against the Machine on my tape deck so loud that my hears started to feel like they were pressure popping

* Doing a little dance near Lake Burley Griffen out of self pride, relief and excitement

* Checking out the Fog Sculpture at the National Gallery (and doing a bit more gleeful dancing) and also my favorite abstractly sexy sculpture (had a weird thing with this one when I was about 20 cause I thought it was sexy as even though you can't really tell what it is ...) [photo of both below nabbed from google]


In summary , if a visa were a passport and asked for "distinguishing features" and they were to base it on my appearance today, I think that the descriptor would be "triumphant gleam to her eye".


Now, after getting all that out of my system, I will add that actually and already in hindsight it seems like it was a relatively simply thing and I don't truly know what I was so worried about, but I will say that life feels very different with one of these thingos in my hot little hand.

Now - I am off to airport to go to Melbourne. The whirlwind continues.

Not with a bang but a whimper*

There goes another weekend. Not a bad one, all up, but pretty quiet. Saturday my housemate and I went shopping in Paddington. I tried on many dresses. They all made my look like a blancmange. This, by the way, is much much worse than looking like a christmas pudding. It would have been rather depressing if it didn't make me laugh so much. Some were downright hilarious (if you are having trouble picturing this, understand that the latest fashion is "floaty and frilly" and I am becoming what is generally called "buxom" [if you are still having trouble, just bail now and trust me when I say that even the shopkeepers simply nodded sympathetically when I passed the dress back]).

After that I lost my car for about one hour. I had become a bit disorientated by all those frills, and Jen buggered off to go see a film and left me traipsing around the town getting a bit panicky. Eventually stumbled on the dear little beast and went over to Ian's do, where I spent a fair bit of time trying to track him down. But, it was all worth it in the end to see his glowing yellow form.

Sunday, that is today, has been quite a strange day. I went to bed at 10pm last night (missed out on Mardi Gras due to being "not in the mood" at the last minute). I then proceed to have a terrible nights sleep, finally waking at 5am when my male housemate came stumbling in with two likely looking young girls and commenced drinking wine in the living room. I, happily, joined them for a morning tipple before heading off to Newtown for some coffee and breaky.

Then market shopping, Balmain shopping and Bondi shopping with Jen. Inundated by yet more blancmange dresses, I am thinking I will call it quits for a bit on that front. Even a cinch belt will not save me in this land (this is a term that I only know from reading girly mags and is not an indication of proficiency in the "being a girl" stakes).

This week is a busy one for me, so being healthily tired on a Sunday evening is a good thing.

* This, as many may know, is from the TS Elliot poem The Hollow Men that I rediscovered recently.

I like to rephrase the last section as follows (edit in bold)**;

Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the procrastination

For Thine is the Kingdom

(etc..etc)

** Erm .. again, this might be one of those little gags that is a heck of alot funnier in ones head. Hmmm.

PS - I have recently discovered Annie Freud who is one of Britain's fine and upcoming young poets. Apparently she is also really good at performing her poems, and if I were in Britain I would very much like to see her. Some of you may be able to spot why I think she is tops.

Well here goes, albeit slowly

OK. Well.

I have just given four weeks notice to at least one of my housemates. After having a little tiff with the other housemate this arvo (he was wanting to bonk his bit on the side this afternoon, I was working from home, he considered my presence "rude").

But, it is not all about bonking. Due to the fact that;

(a) my contract work must be finished within the next 3-4 weeks

(b) any Melbourne move is between 3 months away (earliest) and never (latest)

(c) if I don't work out next move soon, birds will start nesting in my hair due to my inactivity.

== I am moving on.

I still need to work out when I can get my visa, but it is time to grasp the cogs that have been moving too slowly and start giving them a more robust twirl from my end.

Anyway. That is my evenings news. I consider it "good" news.

I will leave you with a thought;

Noone knows any better than you do, and certainly noone knows you any better than you do.

(this thought came to me with "I"s and "me"'s in the place of "you"s)

aww crap

Just ended up ... looking up my astrology thingo for my birthdate (please don't ask why or how). BUT - had to share because, apparently;

..." From your 27th year unusual developments in life."

What? FROM my 27th? You mean, it gets unusual from here on in?!?

Oh man. This should get interesting!


_____________
Update - New Business Idea

I would like to start a website to rival the likes of "whereis" ... called "wherethefuckis"

... or someone else can. I would just like it to exist right now.