Detox? Nahh...I'll just take another liter of Paulaner please
This is really going to throw you all off guard. For the first time in several months, I’m not going to start a post by apologizing for not posting in so long. In fact – I’m quite impressed with the fact that I’ve actually found time to sit down and write a blog post without feeling incredibly guilty about the lack of activity on the site :-)…it’s a good feeling…yay positive reinforcement ;-). Anyone hear a bell?
The last time I wrote to you, we had just returned from Prague – and we were awaiting our good friends’ arrival from the US, which would then begin a three week long stretch of day trips, sightseeing, and a week on the continent.
DJ, Rena, and Kyle showed up at my office that Thursday afternoon, and after saying our hello’s, I promptly shoved them onto a bus with a map and keys to our flat. That’s the kind of hospitality that you can expect if you visit :).
Anyway – long story short, we had a great week in and around London. DJ worked one of the days that he was here, and they spent the rest of the week getting to know London (was the first time any of them had been to the UK, first time for Kyle and DJ in Europe). We did a lot of the usual walks and saw the sights in London, ate at a lot of our favorite places (mmm…Indian), spent lots of time at the Ship (the Pub by our offices), and even managed to squeeze in a day trip out to Leeds castle. We were pretty ambitious in our initial plans – but I think that we did pretty well with what we ended up doing in the end.
After they had two weeks in the UK, and our other friend Tiff showed up – we packed up our gear and headed off to Geneva for the start of a weeklong, three country backpacking trip. We’ll have pictures up to tell the whole story, but some quick notes:
All in all – it was a great few weeks, and we’re just finally settling back into our day to day lives again. There’s already talk of doing it all again at some point…2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy anyone ;-)?
Other than that, life’s been going fairly well. Work has been absolutely manic – and it didn’t necessarily help matters much that I was gone for a week during a really busy stretch (I had planned the trip well before I knew how busy it was going to be). That said – it’s been manic in a fairly good way…I’m having to stretch myself beyond my comfort zone a lot these days – which is always exciting and frightening at the same time.
Have a couple of big events coming up that should be a lot of fun – also will allow for some travel, which is always a mixed blessing. I’ll definitely be going to Barcelona in the first part of November – and *may* need to go to Rome and Prague that month as well depending on how things go down. Should be fun – but definitely won’t get much, if any, down time while there…unless I can stay for a weekend or something.
Penny’s work is also going well – but also quite busy. We both end up working fairly late – so unfortunately that doesn’t leave much time for us to hang out during week nights, so we definitely look forward to downtime on the weekends.
The flat did pretty well with three people staying in the living room for nearly two weeks – was impressed by that. We keep toying with the notion of moving in February when our lease is up – but have actually grown to like our little place (despite its many shortcomings). I think we’ll definitely have a look – we could most definitely do with an extra bedroom and some more storage space (especially for when we have visitors) – but the challenge is going to be to find a place with two bedrooms, in a location that suits us, with an outdoor area, for a price not much higher than what we’re paying now. We’ll keep you posted as to how we do.
Speaking of visitors - Penny’s friend Alex just arrived in town yesterday, should be going out to meet her this evening. Penny has a lot of old work friends from Australia that have moved over here and we see fairly often – but this the first of her close school friends to make the move (I swear, the entire population of Brisbane will be living here within the year :)). Alex will be staying with us for a week or two while she finds her feet - hope she likes our comfy Ikea hide-a-bed (although I think DJ & Rena got along ok).
After Alex, Felicity and Paul (Penny’s sister and brother-in-law) will be staying with us for a long weekend. They’ll just be coming off a European cruise – so hopefully they’ll be accustomed to the slightly cramped quarters ;-). We’re thinking that we might try to take them to see Diana Krall while they’re here, or to some other Jazz concert. Unfortunately, they’re just missing the London Jazz Festival by a few days (not that it matters really, as most of the shows we want to see – Brad Mehldau, Jamie Callum, Branford Marsalis – are sold out). We’re still going to try to catch a few of those shows if we can.
On the travel front, we’re quieting down a bit before Christmas (and to recover from the fairly active past few months). We’re heading up to Manchester later this month to catch the Australia v. New Zealand rugby league match with a bunch of friends – which should be a really good time. After that – we’re planning on heading out to Dublin for a long weekend. My good friend Kjersti from Seattle should be out for a couple of weeks then, so we’re hoping to make it a group affair (mmm…real Guinness).
We’re also trying to organize a group trip to go skiing in the Alps (most likely Chamonix) for Christmas and New Years’. Still pulling the details together for that one – so don’t have anything pinned down yet. Outside of those few trips – nothing’s planned yet, so we’re hoping to sit down in the next month or so and start sketching out our net six months’ worth of travels. We’ll make sure to post that online as soon as we have a general idea so that any of you who are thinking about coming over can have a look and see if there are any journeys that you’d like to join us on :-)!
Ok – gotta run, just found out that we’re meeting Alex in 30 minutes to grab some dinner :-). Hope all is well with everyone in Oz and the US!!! I’ll try to get some pics up on Ofoto from our trips in the next day. How is that working for everyone btw?
Ok – really going…hope you all had a great weekend!
The last time I wrote to you, we had just returned from Prague – and we were awaiting our good friends’ arrival from the US, which would then begin a three week long stretch of day trips, sightseeing, and a week on the continent.
DJ, Rena, and Kyle showed up at my office that Thursday afternoon, and after saying our hello’s, I promptly shoved them onto a bus with a map and keys to our flat. That’s the kind of hospitality that you can expect if you visit :).
Anyway – long story short, we had a great week in and around London. DJ worked one of the days that he was here, and they spent the rest of the week getting to know London (was the first time any of them had been to the UK, first time for Kyle and DJ in Europe). We did a lot of the usual walks and saw the sights in London, ate at a lot of our favorite places (mmm…Indian), spent lots of time at the Ship (the Pub by our offices), and even managed to squeeze in a day trip out to Leeds castle. We were pretty ambitious in our initial plans – but I think that we did pretty well with what we ended up doing in the end.
After they had two weeks in the UK, and our other friend Tiff showed up – we packed up our gear and headed off to Geneva for the start of a weeklong, three country backpacking trip. We’ll have pictures up to tell the whole story, but some quick notes:
- The Swiss Alps (Gryon) – Quite possibly one of the more relaxing places I’ve been. We spent three days looking out our window at amazing mountains, riding the steepest train tracks I’ve been on, and hanging out at one of the best hostels I think I’ve been in. We even managed a trip to the local Spa, and a BBQ :).
- Oktoberfest (Munich) – For a beer lover such as myself, it doesn’t get much better than this. The beer and food (I am now addicted to Schnitzle and Knodle, Penny was pretty fond of the Strudel :) - we need to detox for a good month now) were absolutely excellent We also managed to rustle up some great company while we were there (met up with some of my colleagues from our Munich office, and a friend of ours from Seattle who knew people in Munich – always better when you can hang with some locals!). The only downside (and it was a big one) was that DJ & Rena fell ill after day one in Munich and couldn’t Oktoberfest with us for the second and third night :(. In hindsight, we should have gone to Oktoberfest first, and Gryon second.
- Salzburg, Austria – DJ, Rena, and Kyle had shipped off back to Seattle, but Penny, Tiff and I spent the better part of two days exploring Salzburg. We had all been there before, but it is just such a great city for sightseeing – and we fully exploited that fact. And no, we didn’t do the Sound of Music tour … but we did stay in a hostel that played it every morning at 11 am :).
All in all – it was a great few weeks, and we’re just finally settling back into our day to day lives again. There’s already talk of doing it all again at some point…2006 Winter Olympics in Torino, Italy anyone ;-)?
Other than that, life’s been going fairly well. Work has been absolutely manic – and it didn’t necessarily help matters much that I was gone for a week during a really busy stretch (I had planned the trip well before I knew how busy it was going to be). That said – it’s been manic in a fairly good way…I’m having to stretch myself beyond my comfort zone a lot these days – which is always exciting and frightening at the same time.
Have a couple of big events coming up that should be a lot of fun – also will allow for some travel, which is always a mixed blessing. I’ll definitely be going to Barcelona in the first part of November – and *may* need to go to Rome and Prague that month as well depending on how things go down. Should be fun – but definitely won’t get much, if any, down time while there…unless I can stay for a weekend or something.
Penny’s work is also going well – but also quite busy. We both end up working fairly late – so unfortunately that doesn’t leave much time for us to hang out during week nights, so we definitely look forward to downtime on the weekends.
The flat did pretty well with three people staying in the living room for nearly two weeks – was impressed by that. We keep toying with the notion of moving in February when our lease is up – but have actually grown to like our little place (despite its many shortcomings). I think we’ll definitely have a look – we could most definitely do with an extra bedroom and some more storage space (especially for when we have visitors) – but the challenge is going to be to find a place with two bedrooms, in a location that suits us, with an outdoor area, for a price not much higher than what we’re paying now. We’ll keep you posted as to how we do.
Speaking of visitors - Penny’s friend Alex just arrived in town yesterday, should be going out to meet her this evening. Penny has a lot of old work friends from Australia that have moved over here and we see fairly often – but this the first of her close school friends to make the move (I swear, the entire population of Brisbane will be living here within the year :)). Alex will be staying with us for a week or two while she finds her feet - hope she likes our comfy Ikea hide-a-bed (although I think DJ & Rena got along ok).
After Alex, Felicity and Paul (Penny’s sister and brother-in-law) will be staying with us for a long weekend. They’ll just be coming off a European cruise – so hopefully they’ll be accustomed to the slightly cramped quarters ;-). We’re thinking that we might try to take them to see Diana Krall while they’re here, or to some other Jazz concert. Unfortunately, they’re just missing the London Jazz Festival by a few days (not that it matters really, as most of the shows we want to see – Brad Mehldau, Jamie Callum, Branford Marsalis – are sold out). We’re still going to try to catch a few of those shows if we can.
On the travel front, we’re quieting down a bit before Christmas (and to recover from the fairly active past few months). We’re heading up to Manchester later this month to catch the Australia v. New Zealand rugby league match with a bunch of friends – which should be a really good time. After that – we’re planning on heading out to Dublin for a long weekend. My good friend Kjersti from Seattle should be out for a couple of weeks then, so we’re hoping to make it a group affair (mmm…real Guinness).
We’re also trying to organize a group trip to go skiing in the Alps (most likely Chamonix) for Christmas and New Years’. Still pulling the details together for that one – so don’t have anything pinned down yet. Outside of those few trips – nothing’s planned yet, so we’re hoping to sit down in the next month or so and start sketching out our net six months’ worth of travels. We’ll make sure to post that online as soon as we have a general idea so that any of you who are thinking about coming over can have a look and see if there are any journeys that you’d like to join us on :-)!
Ok – gotta run, just found out that we’re meeting Alex in 30 minutes to grab some dinner :-). Hope all is well with everyone in Oz and the US!!! I’ll try to get some pics up on Ofoto from our trips in the next day. How is that working for everyone btw?
Ok – really going…hope you all had a great weekend!
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10:21 PM
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