Bargain Airfares to Australia

Check out this for a bargain; £99 (AUS$240) one way from London to Sydney or Perth, £199 (AUS$480) return. Amazing. Admittedly you can only leave on 23rd or 30th Jan (to Sydney). Better get your skates on.

House Fire

This is what's left after a house fire in the area where I grew up in Sydney. The unfortunate owners were away on holiday at the time. Although this wasn't the result of bushfires, the end result is the same for some unlucky people every summer in Australia. I guess its our local weather peril; Moscow has deep freezes, America's south has hurricanes, we have bushfires.

Chicken Farmers Wife (not)

This gentleman fell head over heels for my friend whilst we were at Oktoberfest in Munich. You can see the longing gaze in his eyes (he's looking straight at my friend, who's on the very right). He showered her with compliments about her beautiful blue eyes and appealed to her materialistic side by promoting his chicken farm and bank balance (apparently €1 million). Unfortunately cupid's arrow missed my friend and his efforts were all in vain. How could a girl refuse...

The Royal Museum of Scotland

I recently undertook some temporary work conducting research surveys for various art galleries and museums around Edinburgh. I questioned people about their reasons for visiting and what they felt they got out of their visit to the place. The results were very interesting. In 2001 the British Government decided to make all main Galleries and Museums free of charge to the public. This has changed the frequency of visits and reasons for the visits for many people.
One venue in which I conducting surveys, the Royal Museum (and adjoining Museum of Scotland), has a magnificent main hall with goldfish ponds and a cafe (pictured). The effect of charging no admission fee has meant that this space has been made available for all to freely enjoy. There were people just meeting for coffee, mothers with children watching the fish, and people on their lunchbreak. So as well as the museum-goers visiting the exhibitions (mostly tourists) there were lots of local people using the museum as a place to spend time enjoyably. This is a fantastic benefit to the people of Edinburgh, particulary in a city that for three quarters of the year it is too cold to comfortably enjoy outdoor public places. Not to mention the cultural and educational benefits of making museums and art galleries more available to everyone.

Lost in Venice

While being lost in Venice we stumbled upon the studio of Livio De Marchi, an Italian artist who makes amazing things out of wood. Everything you see in the window is made of wood. Check out his website for pictures of some crazy stuff he's done, including the exact life-sized floating wooden replica of a Ferrari F50 that he gets around Venice in. Cool.

Here's to Trusty Travel Buddies

There are lots of different ways of traveling, by yourself, on tours, with friends or relatives, budget, not-so-budget, etc, and over the last year I've experimented with most of these.
Being somewhat of a solo pilot in life in general, I started off on my own. You have the ultimate freedom to go wherever you like, whenever you like. And I've gained a certain strength from having to rely solely on myself. But it can be lonely. When you are gazing out on some fantastic scenery, or witness some funny random event there is no one to share it with, or laugh about it.
Then at the other end of the scale is a tour. The major advantage of these is that you don't have to think about transport, accommodation etc, its all sorted for you. All you have to do is sit back and take pictures, and the social life is pretty good too (depending of course on what sort of tour you choose). But the major disadvantage as I see is you always feel like a conspicuous tourist, and I hate feeling like that. I like to try to blend in and see things from a local perspective, as much as possible, and thats hard when you're on a big bus with “So and So's Tours” written on the side.
And then there's traveling with friends, but the success of this depends a lot on the individual, how well you get on, and how closely your traveling agenda's mesh. The idea of being stuck with someone who chews my ear off constantly, wants to go and get pissed every night till 4am and is constantly losing the map is enough to make me want to stay home. Luckily, I've found a great travel buddy. We are pictured above at Oktoberfest (bet you couldn't have guessed that). Funnily enough we grew up in close proximity in Sydney, but met on the other side of the world. Our idea of “budget” varies a little, and she has a slightly obsessive tendency to want to walk everywhere, but other than that we travel very well together. Most importantly we can laugh together when things don't go according to plan, which happens a lot, and is part of the joy of traveling. So I'm making the toast in this picture, “To trusty travel buddies”.

Happy New Year

Yesterday I saw in the new year at Edinburgh's street party. It wasn't a bad new years as new years go, except for the getting crushed in the crowd part at the end. Apart from that it was a good end to a great year for me. I hope 2006 will be just as good. Happy new year everyone.