7 cities in 7 days
and I'm not even on holiday any more! Yes, I have returned from a fun-filled three weeks of travelling, sightseeing and visiting family and friends *sigh* It was lovely to see you, everyone that I managed to catch up with... I wish Australia was closer to England!
So, my last week has gone something like this:
Friday morning: Wave Lee off at Sydney airport for his flight to Santiago, trying not to worry too obsessively about Chilean drug crime, dangerous jungle animals and dodgy South American Airlines...
Friday afternoon: Arrive back in Melbourne for a last weekend of seeing people before going home.
Monday afternoon: Once I can't put off the fact that I'm leaving any longer, I just want everything to be over already and to be back home, but instead 30 hours of travel still lies ahead...
Monday night: 2 hours in Singapore airport, but I can't be bothered to shop, post to LJ or any of the things I usually do on this stop. Instead I buy 3 books with all the S$ I have left ($42.25, pretty much exactly!) and read The Curious Incident of the Dogetc while waiting to get on the plane.
Tuesday early morning: Arrive Frankfurt airport, where I have a 5-hour stop before the short hop back to Manchester. Usually I come through Heathrow and transfer straight to a domestic flight to Manchester with no wait. WTF, travel agent? I spend the 5 hours roller-shoeing around on the gloriously smooth airport floors, only scraping my knee once; reading Eragon and doing some much-needed catching up on work.
Tuesday afternoon: Yay! Back home at last. I have just time for a (cold, because I switched my boiler off while I was away) shower before heading in for my work meeting at 2pm. This seems cruel but is necessary, because (after CAOS rehearsal and noodles eaten at a point where I am so tired I no longer notice what food tastes like)...
7am Wednesday morning: I have to get the train to London for another work meeting, for which Tuesday's meeting was a sort of pre-meeting-meeting. All goes swimmingly, and I'd like to stay around in London because it is a fun place, but have to get back for CAOS rehearsal that evening.
Thursday morning: One of the advantages of jetlag is that it makes me wake up insanely early, hence allowing me to get to work in time to actually do some work, plus go to the gym and have lunch, before leaving at 3pm to get the train to Birmingham.
Thursday evening: Joshua Bell in concert with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields at Symphony Hall. Squee! I follow this up with a Balti curry (supposedly a Birmingham culinary feature) at a nearby restaurant; tasty, probably a bit better than the average Curry Mile offering (sorry Rusholme!), not quite as good as some I've had in Melbourne (but then I'm biased), and also FAR too huge for me to eat (the "small" naan was approximately a foot and a half long, and nearly as wide), so I have leftovers for lunch. As my hostel is in a somewhat dubious area of town (the block next to us has "DANGER! RAZOR WIRE" everywhere), I decide to take a taxi back to avoid having to walk through scary Brum back-streets late at night. This cunning plan is foiled by the fact that my taxi driver drops me off in entirely the wrong street, a fact which I am too unfamiliar with Birmingham geography to realise until he has driven away and I realise I have no idea where I am. Luckily some staying-calm and the pocket map I got at the hostel combine to get me safely back...
Today: A nice cup of tea, some toast with stripy chocolate spread (I don't usually eat breakfast, as you may know, but with sufficiently exciting food I can be tempted!), email and LJ and then I shall be off back to Manchester. CAOS concert tomorrow and then on Sunday I plan to spend the entire day lounging on the couch in my pyjamas...
Hehehe. Also: Overheard in Birmingham!
American woman: Dollars... do they even have dollars in New Zealand?
American man: Yeah, it's part of Australia innit?
So, my last week has gone something like this:
Friday morning: Wave Lee off at Sydney airport for his flight to Santiago, trying not to worry too obsessively about Chilean drug crime, dangerous jungle animals and dodgy South American Airlines...
Friday afternoon: Arrive back in Melbourne for a last weekend of seeing people before going home.
Monday afternoon: Once I can't put off the fact that I'm leaving any longer, I just want everything to be over already and to be back home, but instead 30 hours of travel still lies ahead...
Monday night: 2 hours in Singapore airport, but I can't be bothered to shop, post to LJ or any of the things I usually do on this stop. Instead I buy 3 books with all the S$ I have left ($42.25, pretty much exactly!) and read The Curious Incident of the Dogetc while waiting to get on the plane.
Tuesday early morning: Arrive Frankfurt airport, where I have a 5-hour stop before the short hop back to Manchester. Usually I come through Heathrow and transfer straight to a domestic flight to Manchester with no wait. WTF, travel agent? I spend the 5 hours roller-shoeing around on the gloriously smooth airport floors, only scraping my knee once; reading Eragon and doing some much-needed catching up on work.
Tuesday afternoon: Yay! Back home at last. I have just time for a (cold, because I switched my boiler off while I was away) shower before heading in for my work meeting at 2pm. This seems cruel but is necessary, because (after CAOS rehearsal and noodles eaten at a point where I am so tired I no longer notice what food tastes like)...
7am Wednesday morning: I have to get the train to London for another work meeting, for which Tuesday's meeting was a sort of pre-meeting-meeting. All goes swimmingly, and I'd like to stay around in London because it is a fun place, but have to get back for CAOS rehearsal that evening.
Thursday morning: One of the advantages of jetlag is that it makes me wake up insanely early, hence allowing me to get to work in time to actually do some work, plus go to the gym and have lunch, before leaving at 3pm to get the train to Birmingham.
Thursday evening: Joshua Bell in concert with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields at Symphony Hall. Squee! I follow this up with a Balti curry (supposedly a Birmingham culinary feature) at a nearby restaurant; tasty, probably a bit better than the average Curry Mile offering (sorry Rusholme!), not quite as good as some I've had in Melbourne (but then I'm biased), and also FAR too huge for me to eat (the "small" naan was approximately a foot and a half long, and nearly as wide), so I have leftovers for lunch. As my hostel is in a somewhat dubious area of town (the block next to us has "DANGER! RAZOR WIRE" everywhere), I decide to take a taxi back to avoid having to walk through scary Brum back-streets late at night. This cunning plan is foiled by the fact that my taxi driver drops me off in entirely the wrong street, a fact which I am too unfamiliar with Birmingham geography to realise until he has driven away and I realise I have no idea where I am. Luckily some staying-calm and the pocket map I got at the hostel combine to get me safely back...
Today: A nice cup of tea, some toast with stripy chocolate spread (I don't usually eat breakfast, as you may know, but with sufficiently exciting food I can be tempted!), email and LJ and then I shall be off back to Manchester. CAOS concert tomorrow and then on Sunday I plan to spend the entire day lounging on the couch in my pyjamas...
Hehehe. Also: Overheard in Birmingham!
American woman: Dollars... do they even have dollars in New Zealand?
American man: Yeah, it's part of Australia innit?