international deluxe

Late night at Amsterdam Airport, a hotel booking and a lot of piss

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Morris) — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 21:54:00 +0000

This is a pretty lol story from a recent trip to Holland, gather round kids.

Sitchy and I went to DEFQON.1 in Almere, a big hardstyle party put on by Q-Dance. There’s photos up of it up, it was unreal. We drunk a shit-ton at the festival and ended up leaving at about 9-10pm I reckon.

They’d setup platforms on either side of the train line right next to the beach where the festival site was, so we trundled on up the hill and got a train back towards Amsterdam.
Sitchy got off early but I fell (back) asleep and then suddenly woke up and this guy was like “hey buddy, if you are going to the airport you should get off here” – in this thick Dutch accent. So I wander off the train and had absolutely no idea where I was. I looked at a sign on the platform that said HOOFDDORP and I thought “I have absolutely no fucking idea where I am”, but walked to the other side of the platform and got the next train back the other way.

I stay awake long enough to get to the next station that says SCHIPOL and I think “yes, this is the airport, I’ve got a nice hotel room booked, let’s get off here, happy days”. I check that I still have my passport on me, yep, no worries lets go.
I get off, go up the escalators and up towards Departures. I’ve been in and out of Schipol enough times now to just go on autopilot and get my way to where I need to go.

I get up to the check-in area, and the place is completely fucking deserted. There is absolutely no airline staff around, no one staffing desks, and my BA flight the following day is nowhere near being on the Departure board. The self check-in machines aren’t working. I can’t check-in so no boarding pass. No boarding pass, no getting past immigration.

At this time I’m thinking “fuck, I don’t want to have to sleep on the terminal floor when I have a perfectly nice bed booked in a hotel past immigration”. The only trace of life I see anywhere in this vast landscape of steel and stale airport air is a lone immigration officer sitting at passport control.
I stumble up, passport and iPhone in hand and proceed to explain my situation. I say “I’vermhpghhgh got a hotel booked pastrmhahsannph….. SECURITY”, slurring the shit out of my words whilst waving my iPhone with the TripIt app open at the immigration officer.

I explained how I didn’t have my boarding pass for my onward flight yet, but that I had this hotel booking. Finally he agrees to stamp my passport and let me through, not before explaining that I would have to come back out in the morning, check into my flight and back in again. By this time I didn’t give a flying fuck as I had established that I was home clear, and bolted through and on to the Yotel and crashed in a plush mattress.

48 Hour Adventure

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Morris) — Mon, 07 Jun 2010 22:29:00 +0000

Hey guys, in case you weren't aware of my new travel blog project, go check out www.48houradventure.com and subscribe to the RSS feed.

Every time I return from a weekend trip I write up a guide on how to make the most of 48 hours in that city. I detail everything from where I stayed, how I got there and got around and what I checked out to help other people like me who want to take short weekend trips to Europe.

I also write about other topics relevant to this style of travel, like how to pick good (and cheap) hostels, when to book flights to get the best price and info on travel gear.

Lisbon – Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Morris) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 23:34:00 +0000

After dinner we went back to the hostel for a bit before the pub crawl started at 11pm. Christian (one half of the couple from Ringwood) and I played a bit more Wii and drank a few beers.

When 11pm rolled around, the fun began. :D I met a few more people coming along including 2 Portuguese girls, a couple (one who was British, the other American), 2 Spanish guys and a Brazilian guy who was in my room.

We followed Marco up to Bairro Alto and to a few bars, having a shot in each which was included in the €5 cost of the pub crawl.
We all got progressively more fucked, drinking copious amounts of beer in each bar and rocking out to traditional Portuguese music (one tonne radio anyone?) and making dickheads of ourselves.

We called it quits at about 5am I reckon, and myself, the two American girls (Berkley and Kristen) and Christian and his girlfriend walked back to the hostel.

Woke up at 11:45am the next day just in time to have a shower and check out. Handed my key back and then fell back asleep on the couch in the TV room. This was cool because I reckon most other hostels would be like “no gtfo” but these guys were cool about it.
2pm rolled around and I woke back up and saw blue sky out the window and decided I should make the most of it.

Had some food at a cafe up the road and then went up to the elevator to Bairro Alto where I took some awesome photos of Lisbon.

Saw the extensive network of trams and funicular railways they run through Lisbon, All the roads up in the high neighbourhood snaked around everywhere and pitched down into small valleys where the hills undulated, it was awesome.

Discovered a lookout that comprised of a terrace overlooking the river and a small cafe where lots of locals were hanging out. I stopped for a while and took in the view and enjoyed it.

I walked further up narrow streets checking out the houses and general layout and architecture of the city. It’s such an awesome place, everything is so tightly packed together and dense.
By this time it was about 4:30pm so I headed back to the hostel to get my gear and get a bus to the airport for my 6:50pm flight.

The common area/reception at Rossio Hostel. I can’t recommend this hostel highly enough. If you’re ever in Lisbon, definitely don’t stay anywhere else.

Had to wait about 15 minutes for a bus to the airport, and arrived at about 6pm. Checked in and passed through security pretty quickly. Arrived back at London Heathrow at about 9:30pm and endured a long queue of first time students at immigration. Overall and awesome weekend checking out a totally different side of Europe.

Lisbon – Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Morris) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 23:21:00 +0000

Woke up mega early on Saturday morning (4:30am) and got a bus to Westbourne Park tube station and on to Paddington to get the Heathrow Express train to the airport. From Central London it only takes 15 minutes which is awesome, but it is £32 return.

The flight to Lisbon was fairly uneventful, departing at 7:30am and arriving at about 10:30am. Lisbon is in the same time zone as London, so the longer flight is doable because there’s no time change compared to continental Europe. I checked out the directions from the hostel and grabbed a bus after changing my cash to Euros and picking up a Lisbon Card that got me cheap/free entry to places and free public transport. When I got on the bus I saw a guy steal a camera out of this woman’s purse and he got out and got away with it, pretty brazen. More about this guy later, quite a coincidence.

I thought the bus went all the way to Praca de Rossio where the hostel was but it stopped half way and I had to work out where the fuck I was meant to go from there. An old bloke showed me where the metro was so I was able to grab a train downtown and walk the rest of the way from Baixa-Chiado to Rossio.

Checked into the hostel and met Marco who was working at the time. He showed me my room and bed and was real laid back. The hostel was awesome, it was more like staying at a good mate’s place than a hostel. They had a huge big screen and projector, awesome plush couches, a Nintendo Wii, chess boards and 3 PCs for internet usage. The kitchen was well decked out as well and everything was really clean and tidy.

Dropped off my gear in the locker and headed straight out to explore. Made my way up one of the hills to the Castelo de Jorge and explored this 12th century monster. It was awesome being able to walk around inside and on top of the walls as well.

From there I made my way back down the hill to and stopped by the Lisbon Cathedral on the way to Praca de Comercio to get a tram to Belem.
Once I arrived in Belem I felt pretty sketchy because I fell asleep on the tram and was like =\ but then I got a coffee and found these puppies and the world was right again:

Pastéis de Belém. Portuguese tart filled with egg custard and topped with cinnamon and icing sugar. Man they were tasty.
After scoffing one of these I checked out the St Jeromes Monastery and Maritime Museum. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the architecture is incredible.

After this I walked further up the river to the Belem Tower and back down to see the monument commemorating the Portuguese Discoveries in the 16th and 17th centuries.

I returned to the hostel after this, but not before picking up a few more Pasteis de Belem for Ed, Dave and Naila back in London. I also thwarted a pickpockter's attempt to pinch my map from my back pocket. There was a lot of people getting on the tram back into Lisbon and it was congested getting on. I felt a guy leaning on me from behind and felt a hand in my back pocket. I reached and grabbed it and this old guy behind me just threw his hands in the air in like a "don't shoot" kind of look. I just glared at him and thought "what can i do in this situation? I can't react really because this happens so frequently here" so I just moved to another part of the tram and sat down. I knew the old guy looked familiar, turns out it was the same guy that snatched the camera from the British woman's bag in the bus at the airport!

After getting back to the hostel, ran into a few new people. An Aussie couple that turned out to be from Ringwood and 2 American girls who had just arrived to start uni in Madrid. We had a few beers and played Golf on the Wii and then went out for dinner to an Italian restaurant after stopping by a bloke in a small stall selling Port from a hole in a wall.

Change of content direction

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Morris) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 17:22:00 +0000

After a few years of maintaining this blog as a hybrid of posts relating to my job and technology interests (unified communications), DJing I did in Melbourne for 3 years (hard trance and other associated dance music genres), the occasional travel post and general updates on what I’m up to day to day, I’ve decided to take this blog in a different direction content wise. I’ve renamed it to“international deluxe” and will now isolate 100% on the travel aspect, rather than trying to spread content too thin across multiple fields of interest.

By doing this, I avoid alienating subscribers with irrelevant posts; so the people interested in hearing about my travel stories don’t have to hear about technical IT stuff and vice versa. Plus more and more of my posts are about my weekends away in Europe, so I want to focus all my creative energy into that side and build some momentum there.

All future technical posts relating to unified communications, Microsoft Office Communications Server and Exchange Server will be posted by me on the Modality Systems blog at www.modalitysystems.com/blog.

You’ll probably still get the occasional mention of trance in this blog, because I still <3 that shit.

Brussels – Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Morris) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 15:51:00 +0000

Woke up Sunday morning feeling seedy once again after imbibing a copious amount of lethal Belgian beer.

I ventured outside to find that there had been a massive dumping of snow, and everything was covered in a good 6 to 12 inches.

As Brussels is the capital of the European Union, I thought it was only appropriate that I check this region of the city out whilst I was in town. I caught the metro out to Schuman and then got my bearings, snow belting down and all. The precinct was mostly deserted, being a Sunday, but it was cool nonetheless to check out the place where decisions that affect hundreds of millions of people are made.

I walked further east towards the Arc du Triumphe (I suppose it’s the Brussels version) and trawled through the snow in the park.

It was about 12:30pm and I’d arranged to meet up with the Aussie chick from last night Vanessa back in town for lunch. It was cold and snowing so I decided I’d had enough of the ‘burbs and got the metro back into the city (via a supermarket to get some water because I was majorly parched, and to wonder at all the beer you could buy).

When I arrived back in Brussels, it was belting down even harder than before. If you put your hand out it would fill with snow in little under 10 seconds.
We went back to the Paul I’d had breakfast at the day before and I got a slice of pizza and a slice of reaaaaaally decadent chocolate cake. This chick spoke fluent French so totally owned me in the ordering food department.

We finished lunch and went for a walk to a few chocolate shops near the Grand Place. We went out separate ways shortly after as she had an early flight and I wanted to check out the brewery museum.

The museum was pretty cool and the video they show you is quite informative, plus you get a free sample at the end. :D I chose the kriek this time (cherry beer) as I hadn’t had any in Brussels yet. My stomach was still a bit hit and miss so the beer didn’t go down as nicely as I’d hoped.

Following this, I ventured back to the hostel to pick up my luggage and prepare to go to Brussels Midi train station for the Eurostar back to London. After mentioning my train back to one of the guys I’d met, I heard a bloke who was on one of the computers pipe up saying “I don’t think you’ll be getting your train home tonight mate” and directed my attention to the Eurostar website.
Turns out all Eurostar services were suspended indefinitely in either direction across the English Channel, here’s where things got interesting.

I had to get home to go to work the next day, so I put into motion actions to mitigate the situation as best I could. I called my boss and informed him and then set to booking a seat on the next flight out of Brussels back to London. I couldn’t get a flight back that night so got the 07:00 on Monday morning, arriving at London Gatwick at 07:00 (GMT). The hostel I was staying in was full so I went across the road to the hotel and got a single room there and hit the sack. It was only 9:00pm but I was owned.

Woke up at 5am, checked out and got a cab to Brussels airport. The airport was much further from the city than I had expected and it ended up costing me €50. I arrived at the airport to see families and people all over the departures terminal, either asleep or waiting for more information or trying to get onto later flights after theirs had been cancelled. I looked up at the Departures board and every single flight was either delayed or cancelled. I trudged through the snow that was brown from vehicles and almost slipped over multiple times getting in. Luckily my flight was clear to go, so I quickly checked into the Brussels Airlines flight and made my way to the gate (which was an epic walk away).

I landed at Gatwick at about 7:30am and finally escaped the airport at about 8:30am after filtering through immigration with 230940932 Canadians and Americans that had just landed (it’s times like these when it’s a disadvantage having a non-EU passport – most other times it’s a godsend coming back into the UK).
Got a train back to West Hampstead which took almost 2 hours and arrived back home about 10:00am, almost 12 hours later than expected. I found out after arriving home that Gatwick airport closed 2 hours after I landed due to snow, so it made my epic escape from Brussels quite lucky in retrospect.

Brussels – Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Morris) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 16:10:00 +0000

Saturday morning I woke up feeling pretty scratchy. Woke up and had a coffee downstairs and ran into the girlfriend of one of the Aussie blokes I’d been drinking with the night before. They were off that day so we had a quick chat and went our separate ways.

I ventured out and got my £200 changed into Euros down the road, then went in search of breakfast. I got a nice baguette from a Paul and did my best to order it in French (and failed, ha).
I discovered that it was –13 out, so hastily purchased a pair of gloves from the Christmas market and made my way to the Grand Place and Manneken Pis.

Across the road from Manneken Pis, I saw a hip hop shop. It was basically just all streetwear inside, but it was cool to check out anyway (and I got to practice my "bonjour” and “merci, au revoir”.

After this, I decided I wanted to go and check out the Atomium. (From wikipedia) It was designed by André Waterkeyn, it is 102-metres tall, with nine steel spheres connected so that the whole forms the shape of a unit cell of an iron crystal magnified 165 billion times. It’s built on the site of the 1958 World’s Fair. On the way, I took a tram and the metro. Instead of the trams running above ground like they do in most cities, they run underground in Brussels.

This thing literally dominates the skyline, it is huge, and so shiny. There was snow everywhere so it added to the jaw dropping effect this massive structure has. There was a fair line to get in but it was worth it and it resulted in a fantastic view of Brussels.

After catching the metro back into Brussels, I followed the map the hostel gave me along one of the main roads to the north of the city. Because it was a weekend and the weather was pretty crazy, a lot of places were closed unfortunately, so I just wandered round taking everything in.
I returned to the hostel briefly to store the carry-on luggage I’d just bought (I needed one for the Contiki tour over NYE) and shortly after I bought my first bottle of Chimay in Belgium, from a supermarket across the road.

I walked around Brussels a bit more exploring, enjoying my incredibly strong beer. I also sampled a genuine Belgian waffle and some fries which were awesome. I think they were the best chips I’ve ever had (bar Tim and Pings in Lyttleton Tce in Bendigo of course) and the mayonaise they put on them was tops.
I checked out a few beer shops and then stopped and had a beer in one of the bars around the Grand Place, enjoying the awesome light and sound show that’s projected onto the city hall.

I ventured back to the hostel and bought a few more provisions of beer for the evening and began enjoying them. It was here where I met a few more people (one French Canadian chick living in France, an Aussie chick living in France, a couple from Wisconsin, an Irish guy) and the evening kicked off and resulted in another trip to Delirium with the Italians and this time some more South Koreans and Japanese boys and girls.

Brussels - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Morris) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 12:27:00 +0000

Knocked off work a bit earlier Friday afternoon, doubled back home and got changed and packed some clothes and headed off. Instead of getting a plane into Europe this time, I was catching the Eurostar train from St Pancras International in London to Brussels. It was about 4pm and I thought my train from St Pancras left at 5:30pm so I hightailed it on the tube and printed my ticket and saw the massive queue to check in and thought "there is no way I am going to make this train". Looked at my ticket and the departure board, turns out my train didn't leave till 6:30, so I left the queue and got a coffee and wandered around the massive station.

Checked in at about 5:30pm and went through passport control. It's still weird having all the immigration/customs type stuff in a train station. The stamp in my passport was for France, even though I was going to Belgium, I think it's because the first country the train enters from the UK is France?

Waited around until boarding and had a pint of Guinness

The train was the longest train I have ever seen. It easier had 15 or 20 carriages, it was just amazingly long. It took me about 10 minutes to walk up the platform to the carriage my seat was in.

Got settled for the 2 hour trip and started reading my book. It's good how you don't have to turn off your phone/laptop at all because it's not a plane. I fell asleep shortly after leaving London and slept all the way through the Channel Tunnel until we popped out in France. The snow was pretty thick everywhere and the train's speed was reduced because of the poor weather conditions.

The train arrived at Brussels Midi station at about 9:45pm local time and I had no idea where I was. The currency exchange was closed so I couldn't change the £200 I had withdrawn at St Pancras into Euros. I had €15 on me from a previous trip but that was it, so I had to withdraw some cash there to tide me over till the next day. I couldn't get my bearings so I just got a cab to take me to the hostel.
I checked in and dumped my stuff and thought "right, time for a Belgian beer". Some guys in the common area were drinking and I asked them where they got their Leffe's from and they replied that there was a supermarket across the road. I darted over, got some beers and returned to the hostel.
I saw a guy sitting at one of the tables with a Bliss n Eso hoodie on where lots of noises was emanating and a drinking game with cards was being played and I said "nice hoodie mate" and he replied "you're definitely from Australia then". We started talking about Aussie hip hop and I met his girlfriend and a few other Aussies that were around the table including a cool redhead chick who was a music journalist.
Shortly after, the decision was made to head out to a bar with the 3 Italian guys and the guy from South Korea.

We rolled out of the hostel and headed for Delirium Bar, home to 2800+ beers from all over the world. We got a bit lost initially but found it eventually and the boozing began.

Basel and Mulhouse - Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Morris) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 16:02:00 +0000

So I woke up Sunday morning, luckily prior to check out (at 10am) and I felt quite terrible.
I lost my t-shirt somewhere, and managed to find some clothes somewhere on or around my bed to gather my bearings. I got my monkeys and parrots together and checked out and stored all my gear in the luggage store in the basement. I got a tram to a cafe called Hirscheneck, where the CS guys were having a brunch before kicking on to a spa for the afternoon. I met some of the people from the night prior and others were new. I had a good conversation with a French guy about Airbus, the Afghanistan war and rugby over coffee and meats, cheese and breads. Very cool way to spend the morning.

At about 12pm I bid adieu to the CS guys and after consulting one of the locals at brunch, headed back to the train station to see when the next train was to Mulhouse, across the border in France.

The ticket cost like 20 francs and allowed me free travel in Mulhouse on their trams - the main reason I was visiting. Last year Yarra Trams (the company that runs the trams in Melbourne) ordered new trams from Alstom in France, but they weren't going to be delivered for a few years and trams were required urgently. To alleviate this, 4 trams were sent from Mulhouse to Melbourne to take up the slack and work the route 96 line from East Brunswick to St Kilda. More info here. As a bit of a rail fan (here's where I put my gunzel hat on), I was stoked to be able to visit the city these trams came from.

I walked further into Mulhouse and just walked around exploring the place. It's amazing how you can travel just 20 minutes by train and everything changes. Language, currency, cars, etc. There were no more BMWs and Mercs, just lots of Renaults, Citroens and Peugeots, it's incredible.

I quickly rehashed what little French I knew from watching movies, TV shows (the Simpsons episode where Marge schools Homer on French before he asks her out) etc. The only way I remembered how to ask if someone spoke English, in French, was from the song Parlez Vous Francais by Art vs. Science. Thank you, Triple J.

I took one of the trams out to the north of Mulhouse because it was an easy way of seeing the rest of the town outside of the centre of it. I fell asleep briefly and then came back into the centre of town. I had lunch consisting of an egg, ham, tomato, cheese and lettuce baguette from a French bakery which was so tasty. I followed this up with my first ever croissant in France, which I was stoked about. At this time while I was eating my lunch on a park bench, two old ladies came and asked me in French if they could sit down on the bench as well. I managed to ask if they spoke English, which one of them did. She then proceeded to ask me where I was from and why I was in Mulhouse and for how long. It's interactions with local people that really put a smile on my face and are the reason I've flown half way around the world from my friends and family.

Next, I walked back towards the train station via the Christmas market in the middle of town. I got back to the train station at 4pm, making sure I left enough time to get to my flight at 7:30pm. Once I arrived at the train station I discovered that the next train back to Basel wasn't until almost 5pm, and the journey time was about 30 minutes, so I was going to be pushing it.

Once I got back to Basel I hightailed it back to the hostel, picked up my bags and doubled back to the train station to get the number 50 bus to the airport. I arrived with enough time to spare fortunately, and kicked around the EuroAirport for a while until my flight boarded. The EuroAirport is unique because it is one of the few airports in the world operated jointly by two countries. I bought some postcards for some friends back home and passed through security (which took forever because of these slow Kenyans in front of me with 23409 bags)/passport control (coming up on 3 pages full in my passport now, yay) and onto the gate for my flight back to LCY (London City Airport).

I fell asleep on the plane almost instantly but in time for the complimentary pretzel and chocolate. :D
When we touched down at LCY, it was the most aggressive deceleration I had ever experienced on landing. I suppose because the runway is so short at LCY, planes have to pull up real quick. I was literally thrown forward in my seat and the seatbelts held me in, it was that sudden.
Anyway, I got the replacement bus back to Canning Town tube station and arrived back in West Hampstead about 10pm to deliver the motherload of chocolate to Dave and Ed, who were much appreciative and provided reciprocal goods in form of fine Mexican tequila. Another top European weekend.

Basel and Mulhouse - Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Morris) — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 15:19:00 +0000

Woke up about 9am-10am on the Saturday morning and did the needful to get ready for my first day in Basel. Went downstairs and checked in properly (got my passport back and paid for the two nights) and had breakfast. Got that sorted, got a city guide and map and walked into town.

I found that the street the hostel was on ran directly to the train station, so it was an easy stroll down to the main tram stops in front of the station to get into the guts of Basel.

First stop was Barfusserplatz, where I checked out the massive Christmas market. Here you can get all manner of different foods (bratwurst, this cool oblong shaped pizza, mulled wine, fondue, crepes, frites) and there is christmassy music playing everywhere. The stalls sell everything from hand made wool clothes and wooden toys to swords and daggers, Christmas decorations, ceramic crockery and artwork. Basically anything and everything was available here, it was huge.

Next up I walked further into Basel and checked out some of the shops and took some photos of the City Hall (Rathaus). I crossed over the River Rhine and had a coffee from Starbucks (urgh) and a bratwurst from a stall on the corner of the street.

Walked south back towards the river and bought some Swiss Lindt chocolate from a store, my first actual Swiss chocolate in Switzerland, I was proud. It was a bit of a struggle buying the chocolate because only one of the persons working in the shop spoken English, and it wasn't much. I got through it though and I'm now becoming more confident conversing with people in foreign countries (and making sure I can say "do you speak English" in the native language properly).

I crossed back over the river into the older part of town and continued exploring. I found this really awesome model train/plane shop up one of the streets as well. It had so much stuff, I was in there for ages looking at all the models of European trains and aircraft. I couldn't leave without buying something. :D

The guide I had mentioned that a city tour began at 2:30pm, so I went to the tourist office and bought a ticket for that and walked up to the starting point at Theaterplatz near the fountain.

The tour went for 2 hours and took me to lots of interesting parts of the city. The guide spoke about each stop in both German and English, so it took a while longer than I suppose it normally would.

One of the highlights was the massive cathedral up on the hill, which was built in 1066 (i think) but was destroyed in the 16th century by a massive earthquake that basically levelled Basel and was rebuilt in the 1700's.

The tour ended at a part of Basel that is kind of like the Hollywood walk of fame, where famous residents of Basel have been honoured with plaques in the pavement. One was for Roger Federer, who turns out is from Basel.

I bought an epic dumptruckload of chocolate after the tour, and then took it and the item I bought at the model shop back to the hostel over the other side of town. By this time, it was dark and I decided I wanted to check out the Christmas market again at night. I decided I wasn't going to have a full meal for dinner, instead I was going to eat a few different things from the market to sample the local fare. I had one of the oblong shaped pizzas I mentioned earlier first, and I almost ordered the wrong thing when I asked. What I thought was melted cheese was actually shavings of potato, kinda weird.

I also bought my first serve of mulled wine in Europe. Mulled wine is heated red or white wine (called Glühwein) and is served in a coffee type mug. It's awesome to walk around in the cold sipping warm wine, but it gets you owned pretty quickly I found.

Once the market closed at 9pm I walked to Barograph up around the corner to meet the Couchsurfing.org (CS) guys for their 3 countries party. I met lots of people including guys from Brazil, Germany, France, locals from Basel, a girl from the US and a guy from Madagascar (the guy that organised it). I'll definitely be getting to more CS events both here in London and overseas to meet more people.

I began drinking beer but after a few I ran out of cash (beers were 8 francs a pop!) so I got some more cash out from an ATM down the road. After having another 1-2 beers back at the bar, I went from not-so-owned to completely destroyed instantly. I knew it was time to bail, so I said goodbye to the organisers and that's the last I remember of Saturday. No idea how I got back to the hostel.

Basel and Mulhouse - Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Morris) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:42:00 +0000

Another weekend, another jaunt into Europe for a whirlwind 2 day visit of a city.
This time I chose to visit Basel in North Western Switzerland. Basel is right on the border of Germany, France and Switzerland and is commonly referred to as the "three countries city".

I chose Basel because when I was taking German classes in Year 8 at high school, the teacher mentioned of a city in Europe that was on the border of 3 countries. When I saw it listed on an airline website a few weeks back, I decided I'd book it in with Swiss Airlines to check out this uniquely positioned city.

I got the tube to Canning Town, then a replacement bus to London City Airport (the DLR - Docklands Light Railway was closed for engineering works). Checked in at the self-serve kiosks in the check in hall (which was really easy mind you, the Swiss Airlines machines recognised my Singapore Airlines Krisflyer frequent flyer card (because they're both part of Star Alliance) with no problems which I was pleasantly surprised about. I had a bit of time to kill so I got some dinner and then went through security. The security guard there was real thorough, I think he liked me. Made me take off my shoes and fully rubbed me down all over my limbs for weapons, etc and checked between my belt and jeans and the belt buckle itself, quite invasive and the most I've been scrutinised going through security since I've arrived in UK/Europe.

Waited around for ages till boarding. The flight inbound didn't arrive until like 10 minutes before our departure so it was a quick board and we were off. The plane was one I'd never seen before, an Avro RJ100 with 4 small turbine jet engines underslung from the wings that were mounted from the top of the fuselage.
The flight was about 1hr 30 min across the Basel. When I arrived and went through passport control, I saw that there are two entrances you can take. One into France and one into Switzerland. If you go into France, you have to go to Mulhouse. Into Switzerland, you go to Basel.

Exited airside, got my pounds converted into Swiss Francs and got a bus into Basel. When I arrived out the front of the train station, I did my best to get my bearings and walked to the hostel. When I got there, reception was closed and no one was around. I saw a sign that said "in emergency proceed to level 4 and knock door". Because there was no one around to check me in, I did this, and proceeded to piss off the hostel manager because I woke him up. He got some other minion up and she took my passport as security and gave me a room key.

I met two guys in my dorm room straight up. One guy from Nepal who was in Zurich on a scholarship and was doing exams in Basel, and a guy from Morocco. Loving the cultural diversity.

Hyde Park and the London Eye

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Morris) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 21:16:00 +0000

Prior to departing on Friday night for my trip to Basel, I finished my Exchange Server 2010 training course a bit early than anticipated so decided to check out a few places around London I hadn't visited yet.

I left Baker St and walked west up Oxford St towards Marble Arch, then south into Hyde Park. I saw squirrels in Hyde Park which was so awesome. We don't have them back home so it was a real novelty.

Winter Wonderland is running at Hyde Park Corner (like a bit Christmas carnival) until sometime after Christmas, so I had a look around there also. Very very christmassy, would be a cool place to take your family or your girlfriend.

From there I reached Knightsbridge and remembered that Harrods was on this street, so followed it west towards Chelsea. Man was this area packed! Once I got sight of Harrods, the foot traffic increased ten-fold. People everywhere doing Christmas shopping.
Harrods inside was quite posh, but it's mostly just another department store.

Following that, I got the tube across and down to Embankment, walked across the Jubille Bridge and finally had a ride on the London Eye. The queue was fairly long and you went through this 4D experience thing before you got on the wheel that was basically a 3D promotional film for holding events/meetings on the Eye itself, but with bubbles/wind/spray hitting you to create the "4th dimension" I suppose.

The whole ride went for about 30 minutes, and it provided an amazing view of London, 360 degrees around.

After I got off the London Eye, I hightailed it over to Waterloo tube station to go to London City Airport for my flight to Basel.

Qlimax 2009 - Arnhem, Netherlands (Part 3)

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Morris) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 18:33:00 +0000

We finally got inside the arena by about 11pm and managed to catch the end of DJ Isaac's set.
The night rolled on from there and I was totally and utterly blown away by the level of production going on. All the pyrotechnics, lasers and lighting were all choreographed to the music, it was so good.

We bought some drink tokens and bought a vodka and "lets go" (like Red Bull) and a Heineken each time and got on the drunkwagon. I started getting sleepy at 4am or so and fell asleep in the stands for a bit.
We left about 6am after eating some real tasty hamburgers and got a bus back to Arnhem CS and waited for the train back to Amsterdam. Fell asleep on the train back and by the time we got back to Amsterdam it was light.

I rocked back into the hostel and paid for another night so I could sleep past 10:30. Cost me like €18 which was worth it to catch up on sleep that I had little of in the past 24 hours. I was still woken up at 10:15 by a hostel worker storming through the rooms kicking people out . I was like "dude I've paid for another night, gtfo please" and slept partially through the cleaning crew mopping the floor in the room and generally making a lot of noise.

I woke up at 4pm-ish and checked out and caught a train to the airport. I checked in and went through passport control and the immigration officer was like "how long have you been in Holland for?" and I answered "aww 36 hours?" and he said "for a party?" and I said yes and he just kind of smirked and stamped my passport.

Had a beer in a bar and used the wireless for a bit, walked around some of the shops and got a gift for my Grandpa and then walked down to the gate. The security in Schipol airport is at the gate rather than straight after/before passport control like other airports, so you put your gear through an x-ray machine right at the gate lounge and are then confined to the lounge till your flight boards.

Flight took off at about 21:05 and I got back to London Heathrow about 22:30-23:00 after a half hour holding pattern over London due to congestion. Caught the Heathrow Connect train to Paddington and then a train replacement bus back to West Hampstead, ending an enormous, long and tiring but epic and fun weekend.

Qlimax 2009 - Arnhem, Netherlands (Part 2)

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Morris) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 18:12:00 +0000

Once I arrived in Amsterdam I made my way out into the street and followed the directions the hostel gave me. Got well lost and finally found the place. My bed was located in a building around the corner and one floor up, right next to a "girls-in-the-window" shop. I just dumped my shit and went out for a walk through Amsterdam.

I had some frites (fries) from Mannekin Pis and walked down Damrak towards the big square.

Eventually found the Red Light District which was really interesting. There is just shop after shop of porn stores, strip clubs and stores with 3-4 windows with girls sitting on stools in them with no signs on the front. I suppose you just rock up, pick out which girl you want, pay your cash and go to town.

It got to about 5pm so I ducked back to the hostel, got my Qlimax ticket and met Sitchy at Centraal Station to get a train to Arnhem. The train ride to Arnhem took about an hour or so and I fell asleep on the way because I'd been up since 05:30. The trains in Holland are massive.
We got off in Arnhem and scoped everything out. There was a van at the bottom of the hill from the station that was selling transfer bus tickets to the Gelredome but we bypassed this and decided to get them later, bad move.
The buses in Arnhem all run like trams, it's weird. The buses (trolleybuses) run from an overhead power grid and all have pantographs on the top. I'd heard about this kind of system and seem photos on Wikipedia, but never saw it in RL (real life), really cool.
We wandered around town for a bit and eventually had pizza for dinner in a small diner like place. They were only €5 or something, cheap meal. Following this we went and had some Hoegaardens in a bar up the road and ran into a bunch of guys from Plymouth, UK. They were pretty spun out that we were from Australia. We hung out with them for a while and caught the bus with them to the Gelredome and waited in the queue with them (which took us 2 hours to get through!).

Qlimax 2009 - Arnhem, Netherlands (Part 1)

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Morris) — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 03:38:00 +0000

Last weekend I went to what was the single biggest and best electronic dance music party I have ever been to.

I bought a ticket to Qlimax not long after moving in here in West Hampstead after tickets became available after being well sold out. Sitchy and I picked one up and it was on. I booked a BMI flight from London Heathrow to Amsterdam Schipol and it was all good to go. That was about a month ago now.

Saturday morning rolled around and I embarked on my epic journey to Amsterdam,
I was a bit hungover because I'd been out in Brixton drinking with Glen and Muggas till about 11pm, then continued drinking here with Ed, Naila and her mates from Germany that had flown in for the weekend. Final bed time, 2am. Wake up time? 5:30am, ouch.
So I'm all dusty and feeling pretty average. I pack my gear into my carry on bag and get the 328 bus down to Kilburn Park tube station and get a train to Paddington station. Bought a ticket for the Heathrow Express and got to Terminal 1 in about 15 minutes non stop, pretty quick for what would normally take 1+ hour on the Piccadilly line tube.

Found where I had to check in and went through security. The one thing I've noticed here (and I may have already mentioned this) is that there is no passport control outbound from the UK.
Drank some water and waited for my flight at 08:05. Fell asleep as soon as I got on the flight and barely remember take off. BMI is a nice airline though, kind of like Virgin Blue back home.
The flight was only about 45 minutes as it's barely 300 km to Amsterdam from London as the crow flies.
Landed in Amsterdam Schipol airport and got my bearings. It's a pretty big airport and I was just coming to terms with the fact that I was in Holland.

I followed the signs to trains and bought a ticket to Amsterdam Centraal station and walked downstairs to the platforms. The train ride into the city took about 20 minutes and I passed so many canals on the way there. So many suburb names are very vowel heavy, like "Sloterdijk" and Haarlem.

Graz, Austria - Day 3

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Morris) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:59:00 +0000

Got up about the same time again and had breakfast except something was certainly different this time, I was smashingly hungover. I ran into the Croatians in the foyer and they asked me where my shoes were to which I answered that I did not know. Got all my gear together and checked out. One of the guys from the night before gave me the address of where they were playing hockey but I couldn't find it on a map anywhere. I kicked off the modern walking tour of Graz.

I had a coffee (because I was still pretty urgh) in the Murinsel which is a huge structure built in the middle of the river consisting of an amphitheatre and a cafe. It was fairly cool sitting in this cafe while the water is rushing by no further than 1 metre away from you and at the same level as you're sitting.

I checked out a few more of the buildings through town and then proceeded up the Schlossberg again to check out this time during the day. I took the funicular railway to the top, which ascends the mountain at a 60 degree angle.

Unfortunately my camera died not long after I got to the top so here's where the photos end. It was cool looking out over Graz from all 4 sides and seeing how extensive the city is. I took the stairs back down via these terraces of gardens that hang off the side of the mountain. I found a pub/restaurant tucked away down a side street to have lunch at and ordered Styrian dumplings because I wanted to try something local. This was a bad move as the dumplings were pretty foul and I couldn't eat them. Even the waitress said she can only eat them like once a year because they're really a once in a while kind of meal.

After leaving the restaurant I got some roasted chestnuts (I think) in some rolled up newspaper and walked around a bit more to kill time before I got the bus back to the airport. I also got a chocolate croissant which was tasty as. Following this I used the free wifi in McDonalds while I waited for the bus at 4:30pm.

Got the bus back to the Flughafen and checked in. Passed through passport control and this time got a stamp, unlike when I left the UK and entered the EU 2 days earlier. Scoffed a ham, cheese, lettuce and tomato roll and jumped on the bus outside the gate where I was taken round the terminal to the waiting Ryanair 737.
The flight back was longer due to a strong headwind so I got in a bit later that expected to Stansted.

Graz, Austria - Day 2

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Morris) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:41:00 +0000

I woke up bright and early to take advantage of the free breakfast in the hotel. Btw I stayed here. It was pretty nice and the breakfast spread they put on was uber I had ham, cheese and egg rolls both mornings.

Left the hostel and walked into town to start the first walking tour of the Old Town. I started at the Landhaus courtyard which is this incredible Renaissance building where the Styrian regional parliament convenes.

From there I kept exploring all the amazing inner courtyards within each building, all very similar to the one above albeit of a less grander scale. I then walked to the Hauptplatz and checked out the Town Hall.

By this time it was almost 11:15am so I doubled back to the Armoury (Landeszeughaus) and got on the English speaking tour of the 4 levels of pikes, swords, muskets, rifles and suits of armour. They have over 30,000 pieces and it is the largest collection of arms and armour in the world. Unfortunately I couldn't take photos inside but it was amazing being right up near pieces over 400 years old, complete with battle scars.

I continued to follow the tour around the old town, checking out the amazing buildings and architecture.
I ended up at the glockenspiel and had a wiener schnitzel for lunch in the pub next door to it - coincidentally called the Glock-haus. Shortly after my food arrived, an Austrian guy in his 50s asked me if he could join me and I said "bitte" (please) and he sat down, ordered a beer and started reading his book on astronomy. He started talking to me in German and I replied with "nein sprechen Deutsch" so he was like "do you speak English then?" and we then started talking. He asked me where I was from and how I ended up in Graz and it ended up being a really cool conversation over what ended up being 5-6 beers. He told me a lot about Austria and central European history and I told him a bit about Australia and the geography of the country, very cool way to spend the afternoon. It's times like these that remind me why I wanted to start travelling.

The older guy paid for all the beer we drank which was awesome and I settled the amount for my food.
After this I continued the tour after it started getting dark. Mind you this was only like 4pm, it gets dark real early here now. I checked out the opera house and the Lichtschwert sculpture (sword of light).

I walked back down to Jakominiplatz and then Sporgasse and found another place Will had recommended; a bar called Stern. It was sort of in the basement of this place above and had a real cool vibe to it. I had a few beers and then went on my way into the park. I did a big loop of the park and then found where Will's old uni is. I then had dinner in the place opposite called Eckhaus consisting of a hot dog pizza and a few more Puntigamer.

When I got back to the hostel I could hear music coming from the top floor so I went to investigate.
Turns out it was 2 rooms of Croatian hockey players that had driven from Zagreb 150km or so south to Graz to play in some tournament that weekend. They were fairly surprised to meet an Australia and quizzed me on lots of stuff about Australia and asked me how much beer I could drink. They scoffed at the size of a pint and said that they normally drink beers of 1-2 litres each!

After lots of beers we all left the hostel to check out the club not far down the road. Something happened and we all didn't attempt to get in so we walked back to the hostel. By this time it was like 1am and all these blokes had to rest for their 10am game the next day. I went back to my room and that's where it all gets a bit patchy.

Graz, Austria - Day 1

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Morris) — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 23:00:00 +0000

Straight up, apologies in advance for the length of these posts. I did heaps and I wanted to make sure I captured everything.

During the weekend just gone I had my first trip to a country in the European continent. I ended up booking the trip to Graz after I saw cheap flights on sale on the Ryanair website and remembered how Will had gone to uni there a few years ago and said how it was a nice city. So £80 later and a £17 return bus trip to Stansted Airport (mind you this is by no means actually in London even though it's a London airport. It's at least 40 miles north and way off in the country) and I was off to Austria.

I arrived at Flughafen (airport) Graz at about 2pm after a 2 hour flight in clear skies. Just before we landed I spotted snow capped mountains and got some awesome photos.

The first thing I noticed was that absolutely nothing was in English anywhere, it was all in German. I gingerly asked the info desk where I could exchange my cash to Euros and was directed down the other end of the airport. I got €200 and went off the find the bus into town.

Will recommended that I catch a bus to the Hauptbahnhof as it was closest to the hostel but the only buses around were going to the Jakominiplatz, so I just jumped on one of those. I immediately noticed that they drive on the right in Austria (like the rest of Europe apparently) and was weirded out by getting on a bus the opposite way (door and driver on the other side). He asked me something in German and I just gave him a €5 note and got a ticket and sat down.
As I was sitting in the bus being taken into town I was basically observing everything around me and preparing myself for stepping into basically what was this totally foreign world. Every sign was in German, everyone around me was speaking German, I was really taken back by it all.

I arrived at the Jakominiplatz and tried to find a tram to the Hauptbahnhof. I missed one initially but got the one after. I had no idea how to buy a ticket so just jumped on. I got to the Hauptbahnhof and initially I thought it was a shopping centre but once I walked in I realised it was the main train station. I found a info kiosk thing that allows you to punch in an address and it displays it on a map. I punched in the address the hostel is on (Idlhofgasse iirc) and checked out on the map how to get there.
Located the hostel and went up to the reception chick. I was like "hello" and she was like "sie sprechen Deutsch?" and I'm like "nein" and she responds "aha ok then we're speaking English" and the check in process went on.
I dumped my stuff in the dorm room downstairs and left to explore the town. The receptionist gave me a map which was 294903x handy. I arrived back at the Jakominiplatz and saw a McDonalds. I thought this was the most English accessible place to get lunch so went in and got a Royal Hamburger (e.g. Royal with Cheese from Pulp Fiction) meal and ordered in real broken German. I think I have had Maccas in 4 different countries now.

I proceeded from Jakominiplatz down Herrengasse which appears to be the main street of the Old Town and somewhat resembles Bourke St in Melbourne. I found the tourist information office and got a really helpful brochure that listed 3 walking tours to do. I continued down Herrengasse and found the steps up the Schloßberg which is this huge dolomite mountain in the middle of Graz. I ascended these (260 steps!) and came out right next to the clocktower (uhrturm). I walked south over the top of the mountain to the belltower and then came back. I got back down to street level via the elevator that goes straight through the centre of the mountain.

Kept walking, past the Kunsthaus and found some random bar and ordered a Puntigamer beer. You can still smoke in bars in Austria and apparently you can just bring your dogs in as well. I got lost down some street after buying some stuff from a Eurospar (supermarket) but eventually found a road that led back to the hostel.
I had a few 0.5 litre tins of Gösser and headed back into town in search of the cool bar Will told me about called Sägewerk where you can get a pizza with 4 toppings of your choice on it and a beer for under €10.
Found it up behind Jakominiplatz somewhere and did the needful. It was a choice pizza. I had a few more beers there but couldn't stand the smokiness inside so headed back to the hostel.

Weekend trip to Ross-on-Wye Part 3

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Morris) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:29:00 +0000

Came back to the hotel and drank more in the staff block with Steve, Ruth and Roy. They have plans to road trip around the UK next year which I might get in on, would be pretty awesome. Ended up getting back to my hotel room at 6am. Woke up at 10am or something and checked out at 11am. Had breakfast in the restaurant with Judy and was served again by Ruth and this time Bianca (another Saffa workmate). I had eggs benedict (hi caz) which were sensational. They were on bagels which was interesting.
After this Judy, Mikey and myself went for a walk around town and visited a hotel on the other side of the town where a craft fair was being held. It cost £1 to enter. Probably the best £1 I've ever spent, how riveting this craft fair was.

Walked back into town, I split off from Mikey and Judy to go see if the train shop was open which it unfortunately wasn't. I checked the times for my bus back to Gloucester and went back to the hotel. I also went and visited the cathedral next to the hotel and an area of land created by the developer of Ross, John Kryle called The Propsect in 1700. It was basically a public park type setup, with a cenotaph in the middle and park chairs etc. Part of the wall around the perimeter was being rebuilt but work had stopped because Roman ruins had been discovered and an archaeological dig had to take place.

Knocked around a bit at the pub, had a pint of Guiness and talked to Ruth a bit. Ended up misreading the bus timetable and missing the bus back to Gloucester. Luckily Judy was heading back to Liverpool so she gave me a lift to the train station.

Got my train with apple and bottle of water in hand (Paula I am going to launch your 2nd message in a bottle into the Thames this week hopefully) and fell asleep shortly after. Arrived back in London about 6pm and caught a train to Kilburn Park tube station. There weren't any buses for ages so I just walked all the way back up to West Hampstead.

Next week, Austria!

Weekend trip to Ross-on-Wye Part 2

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Morris) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 02:22:00 +0000

Found the pub they work up on the hill and met Ruth for lunch. It was so rad to see her after 6 months, really good to see a familiar face. Following this, we went down to a local pub to watch the rugby union match, Australia vs. England. It was here that I began tucking away multiple pints of Guiness and I believe I have converted in some capacity. It's a weird beer, being all creamy and such.

Went back to the hotel and met one of Ruth and Steve's mates from work (Mikey) and his sister (Judy - both South Africans). Had a few pints with them and then decided to have a kip for a bit in the room I had booked. All the rooms in this hotel were named after characters in Charles Dickens' books because he stayed in that hotel (it was built in 1837 and is heritage listed) sometime during his life and drew inspiration from the local areas for a few of his books. Mine was called Mr. something, I can't remember exactly.

Woke up a bit later and had dinner in the restaurant and Ruth served me which was kind of weird/cool.
Following that I met back up with Mikey and Judy and talked about misc items of conversations and drank more. Once 10pm rolled around, everyone knocked off work and I met the rest of the guys Steve and Ruth work with. Most were Saffas but one or two were Slovakian or some other nationality I think. We had a few cans of Carling on the front porch of the hotel and then all made our way to Charlie's Bar down the road.

Steve and I had a good catch up on the way down there and when we got to the bar, we had to empty out all our pockets and were scanned with a metal detector, which I found weird for a small town pub.
Once we were in there, many pints flowed and we generally smashed it up and I sang many 80s rock ballads at poor pitch.
At 2am when Charlie's closed, we all went down to the fish and chip/pizza/kebab shop and got late night drunken eats. Ruth bought us all some chips and they were awesome. She bought some for Steve but he didn't know and bought a pizza. Roy (another of Ruth and Steve's workmates) ate his chips sat down in the middle of the road. I went back inside and got garlic sauce on our chips which rendered them inedible for Ruth but she powered on anyway, what a gastronomic trooper (she can't eat wheat, gluton, fructose, anything tasty).

Weekend trip to Ross-on-Wye Part 1

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Morris) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:38:00 +0000

During the weekend just gone, I ventured out of London for the first time and went and visited Steve and Ruth in Ross-on-Wye, some 17 miles west of Gloucester, near the Welsh border. I knew Steve and Ruth from back home where we all met as DJs a few years back. Steve and Ruth got married in April this year and travelled through Eastern Europe for 3 months before settling in Ross to work in a pub there.

I caught the train from Paddington station at about 10am Saturday morning and the train ride to Gloucester was about 2 hours.

The train stations here are huge, and there are like 4-5 major stations (off the top of my head, Paddington, Victoria, Euston, Waterloo, Blackfriars etc) that have 15-20 platforms each and are mostly all 100+ years old and serve trains going all over the UK.

I also found the Paddington Bear store. This is apparently the only retail store in the world where you can buy stuff. I liked Paddington Bear heaps as a kid and my Grandma introduced me to it, so I got her a plush Paddington Bear to send home to her.

So I digress, onto the rest of the trip. As we got out past Swindon, I noticed more and more old blokes positioned on hills next to the track taking photos of the train. I instantly knew what these old chaps were up to, gunzelling they were (the pasttime of observing rail transport - train geek basically). I texted Oz about this and he lol'd. I just couldn't believe how many people were out and looking at the train I was on. It was like it some special event or something.

I arrived in Gloucester and found the bus station down the road, not far from the train station. It took about 45 minutes to get to Ross, deviating through all these little villages on the way, like the typical English ones with green hedges on the side of the road and with roads one lane wide.

Upon arriving in Ross, I called Ruth to find out where to go. This place was so small and villagey, it was really cool.

The British Museum and Shepherds Bush

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Morris) — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 13:34:00 +0000

Weekend just gone I actually got out of the house and visited something significant in London.

I decided the British Museum would be the first cab off the rank so got out of the house by 10am and headed into Bloomsbury.

Because the Jubilee tube line is closed on weekends, I had to take this roundabout way of getting there rather than going straight down to Green Park or similar and walking maybe 5 minutes. It resulted in catching a bus south down Finchley Road to the tube station there, where I thought I could catch the Metropolitan line into Central London. Turns out that that line was closed in addition to the Jubilee line, so I got a train replacement bus into Baker Street. From here I caught a bus down Marylebone Road and down Regent St, getting off at Oxford Street and walking down Oxford St to Bloomsbury where the British Museum was.

Basically, this place is absolutely mindblowing. It is such an enormous museum which basically houses the history of everything from all over the world. Egyptian artifacts, the Rosetta Stone, the Parthenon Marbles, everything. There are displays from every corner of the world; Asia, Africa, all through Europe, North, Central and South America, I was totally blown away.

I arrived at about 11am and didn't leave until 3pm. By the end I was so wrecked from walking around all the various rooms, up and down staircases and looking at things like clocks, swords, vases, skulls, and everything else under the sun that I was just passing by some stuff because you could be there for days looking at every case.

After leaving the British Museum I was walked down to Soho to find a mask/costume to wear to Trish's halloween party that night. The costume place Sitchy went to in Shaftesbury Ave had a queue stretching out the door and down the street so I canned that idea and bought a Darth Vader mask from a smaller halloween shop down the road. I also bought a new pair of shoes from a small sneaker place down an alley way that wasn't much bigger than a garden shed and absolutely packed with people.

Walked down to Trafalgar Square and got some awesome photos of the National Gallery and headed back to West Hampstead on a bus from Cockspur St. Quickly got changed and got a bus down to Westbourne Park and the tube to Shepherd's Bush Market to meet Sitchy. We bought some beers for the party and had a feed of chicken and chips from a local place there and then headed to the party. It was awesome to see Trish after months and all her mates were pretty cool. It was good to speak to other Aussies, Kiwis and Saffas (South Africans) in the same situation I'm in (getting used to life in London) and I got some cool travel advice from a few blokes there. We smashed many cans and then all migrated to the Walkabout in Shepherd's Bush Common.

Sitchy and I started on vodka and red bulls and southern comfort and limes immediately and I dumped my coat in the cloak room. Shortly after this, I ran into a chick I knew from back home that I knew had moved to the UK to live with her boyfriend. I was under the impression she was living some 500 or more miles north in Newcastle, but I ran into her in the Walkabout, in London, what are the odds!

Got fairly destroyed and basically vanished at some hour of the morning and got a minicab back home to NW6. Made a mess of the lounge room and retired.

Initial things I have noticed about England

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Morris) — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 09:24:00 +0000

Since arriving I have noticed that most things here are not dissimilar to things in Australia, however there are a few things that differ that are worth mentioning.

There are convenience stores that are mostly pharmacies called Boots that sell pretty much everything under the sun.
There are lots of Fiats around.
The Honda Accord Euro is just called the Accord, and you can get one in a station wagon.
People eat packets of chips with their lunch here without fail, and they call them crisps instead of chips.
Stores like Waitrose, Marks and Spencer and Tesco (all large supermarket chains) sell a huge range of sandwiches and they are really good quality. You can pick up a sandwich, a piece of fruit and a drink for about £3.
Porsches and BMWs are fairly commonplace everywhere.
People have right of way at pedestrian crossings. You can just walk out onto the road and traffic has to stop for you.
CBS (the American TV network) run all the billboard and subway advertising.
When pedestrian crossings go green, they make these noise similar to when the alarm goes off on those anti-theft barriers outside a store in a shopping centre.

That's about all for now, I know they're be more quirky stuff I notice.

Other than that, England is pretty cool. A brief run down of what I've been up to the last few weekends:

Ed, myself and another bloke had a few jars at La Brocca one Friday night and then ended up having Brazilian for dinner in Kilburn. I'd never had brazilian food so it was awesome. I also had this massively strong brazilian drink which smashed me.
Last weekend I went to Serann's going away party, met a whole bunch of guys, got real drunk on Kronenbourg and then ended up back at her place with everyone. Next day I went and saw Liverpool vs Manchester United with a bloke from Northern Island named Paddy that I'd met 4 hours earlier.

Work is good, there's heaps of good stuff on the horizon here at Modality Systems and I'm excited to get involved in some beefy projects.

I've also booked trips to Austria, The Netherlands and Switzerland in November/December, should be tops.

London - Day 3

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Morris) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 23:27:00 +0000

Ed called me back in the morning and asked if I could come around that evening to meet the other guys, which I agreed to.

Grabbed a few hours sleep at Serann's then caught the tube + bus to West Hampstead. The Jubilee line is closed on weekends for engineering works, so alternative travel means had to be sought.
Met up with Ed and met the other two flatmates, Dave and Naila (pronounced Nigh-la). Got along really well with them and the deal was sealed. I caught an Overground train to Camden Road and then a bus but got lost and ended up in Trafalgar Square in the city. I knew Trafalgar Square was on the Piccadilly line though, so I got off there and caught the tube back to Manor House.

I arrived back at Serann's and was totally owned by lack of sleep so I crashed on the couch for an hour or so. Woke back up at 9pm-ish, collected my stuff and bailed. Hailed a black taxi out the front and when it came near the license plate said fresh and it had dice in the mirror. Fare ended up being £28 pounds across London from Manor House to West Hampstead.
When I got in I dumped my stuff and had some dhal and rice that Naila cooked and a beer and met Naila's friends that were around that night.
I called it a night pretty early because I was running on the smell of an oily rag, but I was happy that within 3 days of landing in London, I had secured a place to live in a nice area with good connections out to work in St Albans and within a good distance of Central London.

London - Day 2

noreply@blogger.com (Justin Morris) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 22:39:00 +0000

Woke up a bit later this day and got ready to head out to West Hampstead to check out the first place I found on Gumtree.
Caught the tube into Green Park and then out to West Hampstead on the Jubilee line. The first thing I noticed about West Hampstead was it had a real English village feel to it, with a High Street (the main drag of each suburb) full of cool bars, restaurants and cafes. I jumped on a bus, got lost and eventually google maps'd it to where the house was.

Long story short, the guy I met, Ed and I got on really well and I was happy with the room. It was a bit small but I don't need anything major, all I have is my 20 kg of luggage and a backpack. Ed said I'd get a call back that afternoon or the following day after he'd spoken to the other two guys that lived there.

After this I caught the tube back into the city and got off at Baker St and changed to go to Kings Cross to meet up with Simon and Jacqui. I used to work with Simon at Invizage and we coincidentally share the same surname. We met up and found a pub above Kings Cross station and had a few pints and some lunch. Simon and Jacqui are on a round-the-world trip and were telling me how they were next off to Scotland, followed by Paris and then New York.

By this stage I was a bit in the club (tipsy) and decided to go out to St Albans to pick up my laptop and SIM card from work as this would aid me in finding somewhere to live.
I navigated the epic train station that is Kings Cross and St Pancras and worked out that the train (National Rail - First Capital Connect) I needed to catch to St Albans (on the northern outskirts of London) departed from St Pancras. I tabbed it down there, bought a return ticket and went down to the platform.

I arrived in St Albans 30ish minutes later and tried to work out which way the centre of town was from the train station. It then started raining so the hoodie on my jacket was deployed. I found the street that the office was on but wandered around and around for ages trying to find the place. The number I needed wasn't marked anywhere. The wifi detection came up on my iPhone and a network came up with an SSID of ModalitySystems, so I knew I was really really close. I aasked 3 different shopowners and eventually the real estate agents on the corner knew who Modality Systems was and referred me around the corner to a door with a bell. I got my new laptop (same model as the one I had at TD, just with an SSD and 8 GB of RAM (oh yes)) and SIM card and was a happy camper. As the laptop didn't have a bag, John (one of the Directors) offered to give me a lift back into London where he would get a spare bag from his place for me.

We drove back into London (my first time in a car in the UK) and I met John's wife and his daughter and I got a UC Voice Ignite bag to house my laptop temporarily until I bought a bag especially for it. Jumped on the tube at the nearest station and headed back to Manor House to meet Serann. We were heading to Ministry of Sound that night because the 2009 Trance Awards (featuring Markus Schulz, Sean Tyas, Simon Patterson and Menno De Jong) were being hosted there and Serann had VIP tickets for us.

We met Sean Tyas at his hotel room in Bermondsey (south London, just past London Bridge) and proceeded to hit the cans. It was here that the strangest thing ever happened. I knew my old mate Mark from TD was going to be there that night and we arranged to catch up in the VIP bar but then when Serann and I walked into the hotel restaurant, there was Mark! Turns out he works with a bloke who is mates with Sean Tyas' manager, Simon Eve. Small bloody world.

We headed to the club at about 11pm and I was delayed getting in so didn't get a VIP wristband on entry. Serann pulled some strings and I ended up scoring a AAA pass, so backstage I went. :D We commenced drinking (very expensive, £4.50!) beers and the evening rolled on.
Ended up meeting all the headliners and it was reeeeally cool being able to stand behind the decks at Ministry of Sound in London. I had a chat to Menno De Jong about Trance Energy Melbourne and mention Jed and Jolz, I don't remember if he knew what I was talking about. Sean remembered Mike Hafner though.
The night kicked on and I didn't get back to Serann's until an unspeakable hour.