Underprepared Europe Trip

As the title suggests, its now only two days till we go to Europe (2nd overseas trip this year for me). Because I've been getting a new job, I havent had much of a chance to book stuff.

Of course, I have discovered that Europe doesn't have an off season any more. Particularly at Easter. So trying to book accommodation in Prague for the long weekend was rather, ahem, expensive. As was London on a Saturday night. As is Tokyo in the "cherry blossom weekend".

Been battling with GNER (train operating company) to book some tickets from London to Edinburgh. Chatting to my mate Dave -according to him the second class carriages smell like shit. Literally. I'll need to sell Nick on a First ticket then - which is going to be expensive in GBP. GNER insist that you need a UK postcode to book tickets - even though you can walk up with a barcode and print the ticket off. Stupid company!!!

It looks like we have timed this trip pretty well - in terms of the Aussie battler being strong. Of course we've gone nowehere against the Euro, but we are getting close to parity with the Yen, which will make Japan awesome. They had a liftout in the Sun-Herald on the weekend with a fullpage ad "Cheap Japan" which showed how most stuff was a lot cheaper in Japan than australia. Especially lift passes.

To show you what a nerd I am - here is our "great circle flight path".
CBR-SYD-NRT (stop) LHR (transit) LGW-PRG then overland (open jaw) to DBV-LGW then surface to EDI-LHR-SIN (stop) - BNE - CBR. 24163 flown miles. God I hate economy!



Politics
Interesting to see half the Howard ministry toeing the line that "the NSW election was not based on WorkChoices". Despite Pru Goward saying that Goulburn voters mentioned it a fair bit. Beginning to think that the Howard Government feels like the last few months of Labour leading up to March 06 - the electrorate are getting the baseball bats out. Interesting too that the ALP have started Queensland specific advertising - there are 17 seats held by the coalition in Qld (I think) and only 2 by labour. Lots of ground there - and Rudd and Wayne Swan are both Queenslanders. Depends though if seats in WA go to the coalition instead - without the Beazley "factor" a couple of seats might go.

Stupid Canberra
The National Capital Authority has decided that canberra needs more of the one size fits all idea of yuppie heaven - coffee shops by the lake. So we're going to rip down a perfectly functional freeway style interchange, whack in a couple more sets of lights, and then surround one of the very few 1920s heritage buildings with a darling harbour-esque development (incl 8 storey building). I find it interesting that people who are bitching about development always compare it to "Darling Harbour". Guess that pretty much sums up Darling Harbour (which is for most gay guys a cultural desert of straight people). The last thing Canberra needs is more tightly controlled urban environment. We have the biggest mall in "the free world" sucking the life out of the city centre - now we are going to do strip malls?

Work
3rd last day at the ANU, and I spent the day sanitising my mailboxes and sent items to hand over to my successor. Never realised I had so much shit in my mailboxes - but 3 years worth does mean a fair few messages. Finding it hard to get into doing much else. There's stuff I should be doing, but... i have mentally disengaged from the job and now thinking about the next one.

Shopping
I spent a cool $800 on work clothes for my new job. I bought several work shirts, pants, cufflinks (yum), a new belt and other odds and ends. But my fave is a black shirt and vest from saba. I took my stylist - Steven, and his partner Len (with Nick) and we wandered round the Canberra Centre. DJ's suit salesmen sucked so badly, we walked out fuming. I have this "issue" where my shoulders are too square, so none of the suits sit properly. Goddam its annoying! Apparently I am different to the other 90% of the population (in more ways than one eh eh). It was interesting as the DJ's guy said i stood very erect and had square shoulders - whereas my trainer (len) has been telling me I slouch and need to get my shoulders back!!! You dont want to say that kinda stuff in front of your personal trainer - so I got extra trapezius exercises this morning!!!

I've finally decided to do some random blogging about, well, you know, stuff. But before I get started, it would be rude to not introduce myself. Consider this set of dotpoints an introduction.

• Name: Ant (short for Anthony, or as my parents would say Anth)


• Age: 30


• Physical Characteristics: 189cm, 85ks, #2 crop hair (blondish), blue eyes


• Lives in: Braddon Canberra Australia


• Lives with: partner - Nick


• Identifies as: Gayboy

Life has been interesting the past three months. So far this year, I have been to China for three weeks, visited Chris and Samara in Adelaide, been to the Scissor Sisters concert, Mardi Gras, vomited wagyu beef ($130!!!) at my partner's brothers wedding, swum in the Pacific and Indian oceans in the space of a week, visited one of my oldest mates Chris over in Perth, applied for and got a new job in less than a month - a miracle for the public service, had my car keyed and am psyching up for a megatrip to Japan, Eastern Europe, the UK and Singapore.

Politics
It's the night of the NSW "election" tonight. My mate Richard abstained, which seemed to sum up the general feeling of the electorate. The attack ads have been truly amazing, including being on high rotation on Canberra FM radio stations (last time I checked, the ACT was a separate jurisdiction). My main worry is that it will count against Kevin Rudd to have 8 Labour state/territory governments, thats why I was hoping for a Lib win in NSW. And to be honest, they wouldnt do any worse than the labour party. I loved a quote in the SMH: "Most people would privatise their grandmothers to have Jeff Kennett do to NSW what he did to Victoria".

Also - hands up anyone who finds Antony Green sexy? He is the ultimate geek - always having the computer crash in the middle of the election count, and not trusting his computer projections. Plus he has the same name as me (well the Brit version of it).

Perth
I love Perth. Sure, its the "most isolated western city in the world" but with planes its not that far from the east coast or Singapore.

There is a special boy called Chris who has been in my life for 8 years as a friend - we met at ANU when we lived in the same residential college (on the pink corridor). He was pretty instrumental in coming out to myself and getting used to being proud to be a gay boy. I remember when I first met him (helping him set up his laptop) I was so nervous to come out to him - my heart was going about 160bpm. We became good friends, staying up way too late (and distracting me from final year engineering). Plus Chris had a stash of gayboy magazines that were fun to borrow (nothing seedy, just Blue). Chris helped me through a tough phase of my life and I hope I helped him out during a pretty tough phase of his life back at ANU. Even though we only lived in the same city for 6 months he is a close friend and I have watched his escapades in Perth, Sydney and London over the last few years. I went over for his 30th (plus any excuse for a flight) and had an awesome time.

It was my fourth visit to Perth - there is something comforting arriving in a place that feels like it should be "international" after 5 hours in a plane, and finding that everything works pretty much like it does east. I grabbed the hirecar and headed for Chris's place in Subi(aco). Whereis is awesome except when the Graham Farmer Freeway is closed for roadworks - meaning I spent an extra hour in Northbridge kerb-crawling. My little baby car (Toyota Corolla, vibrant red) was perfect tho - I so need an auto.

Having the hire car and tootling round Perth with Chris was a lot of fun. I got to meet some of his Perth friends, who seem uniformly nice and not nasty like some of the SYD boys, went to the beach, got trashed (2x), bought the cheapest fruit at the Subi markets, did some very designated driver winetasting, larded up on Margaret River Chocolate - in the Swan Valley(!), had james squire golden at the brisbane hotel, watched the sun set into the indian ocean (2x), perved on cute boys at the Court (x100) and dumb str8 boys - which Perth does exceptionally well; and had some of the finest sourdough bread in the King Street Caf. Whats not to like? Plus I know my way around now, know where to eat, party, sleep, shop, and beach.

Crazy Europe Trip
Booking a trip to Japan for the Plowman wedding (part 2) was a good idea. Maybe adding on 3 weeks in Eastern Europe "on the way home" wasnt such a good idea because I've been really slack getting my act together to do the bookings - so everything is pricey as all hell. But I've made a start on it. Surprisingly wotif came up with a decent looking place for Prague - except that the hotel's own website says they are "full". According to Wotif, they never overbook. We'll see about that!!!

In summary the trip is Japan for 4 nights, fly to london for one night, then to Prague, and make way overland to Dubrovnik (3 week period), back to London for a few nights, singapore then home.

Currently toying with the idea of going to Edinburgh as part of the london trip. Part of me wants to do a decent UK train trip, another part of me wants to check out Edinburgh castle, and its another "country" to cross off my list. I've been having fun with a combination of www.gner.co.uk, www.networkrail.co.uk and www.ba.com (for the return bit). As you probably guessed I should be a travel agent! So far the bit up to EDI is pricing at GBP25 for the train, and the flight back to LHR would be GBP40. Not too shabby. Now to convince the bf that its not crazy!

Points Whore
I've been hoarding my frequent flyer points - I now have 240,000 which is totally insane. After Europe I'll have 260,000. Should I upgrade my flights and suffer the wrath of Nick - who is on an award ticket and can't be upgraded? Tough call. Otherwise to hoard them and save for that Round the World with 5 stops in business class. Except with the new job at the Sports Commission I'm not sure I'll ever get to take them - I'll have all my leave paid out before I quit ANU including my long service - which means I'm 10 years away from long service.