One more week gone

Another week has gone and now I find myself in Glasgow staying with my brother Damien. He's got a little flat in Merchant City (just a suburb/area of Glasgow, very close to the city centre) and I do mean little, it's a 1 bedroom flat. With Paul and myself here along with Damien's family it makes 6 people, which puts us 4 adults sleeping in the lounge room and night. My mattress switches between a quilt and a roll out futon which all gets put away in the morning. It's very Japanese and I'm sure Damien gets a kick out of it as he's very much into Japanese culture.

There's heaps to say about what I've done so far here and while I normally don't like extra long posts on a blog, I think I'll break that rule here and put as much as I can remember along with some carefully selected pictures courtesy of my brothers camera which I'll sorely miss after we split up in the UK. It's most likely that we will split up as our jobs will probably pull us to different parts of the UK. I've had a couple of calls for jobs in the games market and I've done some searches on the online job sites as well. There's a fair few opportunities but most of what I've seen has been outside London or Glasgow. And there's little or no contract positions for games development (unless you want £5 an hour as a games tester) so that's a little dampener for me. I'm probably being really greedy or naive, but £30k doesn't sound like an awful lot to me. I think I could get maybe £35k-40k permanent here and maybe even more contract if I went to a standard C++ programming job or with an Investment bank doing God knows what. Anyway, it'll all have to be decided really soon, we'll be in Paris soon and when we get back it's down to business.

Since this is my first overseas trip I guess I get a little interested in really trivial things. Like my boarding passes for instance, I've kept them all along with the first train tickets we used to get to Paul's friends house in London. Paul didn't think that was weird, until I took a picture of them.

Not all that interesting now that I look at it, but there you go. Maybe I should get it framed as a constant reminder of my trip here. Then again, maybe not.

I think I was a little bewildered with what to do on our first day in London. I have a hard enough time deciding what to do at home let alone in a large city like London. Being our first time in London, Paul and I decided that the best start would be a full English Breakfast. I'm always willing to try culinary delights and I wasn't about to turn down a big fry up for breakfast. It was probably the best thing I would eat for the next few days. If there's one thing that would make me go back to Australia it would be the food. Not only is it rather expensive, but a lot of the food is rather bad. The Burger King's we went to (only two, we vowed never to go again after the second time) had terrible tasteless and dry burgers. I did get to try a Super Sized meal though. I think of it as a growing experience (take that any way you want to), I got to experience some of the feeling from the Super Size Me movie (which I still haven't seen yet but now I've got some personal insight thus making the viewing experience that much better). If I remember some of the things I heard about the movie he said at first it was great but as time went on it got harder and harder to keep eating the fast food. After one super sized meal I can definitely see what he means. Amongst all the bad burgers, pasta (Latina style from Sainsbury) and the most horrendous vegetables I've ever eaten I found the sandwiches to be the best. There are lot's of prepackaged sandwiches and wraps, even in supermarkets, and they are very edible. There are some other very nice places I've been to as well (Hamburger Union and Pret A Manger have been good) but everything has been expensive for what you get.

We've visited a lot of tourist attractions and I think the best thing would be to make a little gallery of pictures. The architecture here is fantastic and there are many awe inspiring buildings. The problem with that is that everything can start to look the same. Still, for people who live here it's great to think that just meeting up with some of your friends can take you down streets that have existed for many centuries. While waiting to meet with our cousin Mark, we sat in Covent Gardens amongst buskers. It was rather peaceful despite the crowds walking around. It gave me a little sense of really living in London.

After seeing the sites in London for a week or so, I headed up to Cardiff to stay with my cousin Phillip. We just stayed there for two days but it was very nice, a couple of walks around Cardiff, a couple of Castles (Cardiff Castell and Castell Coch ... I think Castell is Welsh for Castle, it's not a typo). Phillip and his fiancee were very hospitable, but I think I left my phone recharger there :(. The castles there were quite good, Castell Cardiff was the closest thing to a real operational castle I had seen. Both had been restored (by the same person in fact) but Castle Coch was restored in a more fairytale castle style, very nice but I've a little more interested in the medieval castle with battlements, murderholes and things like that. It seems most castles were converted into residences by the rich nobles of the times after they were no longer needed for war.

We left Wales on the 21^st September and drove up to Glasgow. A six or more hour drive with Paul went quite well really. I think it was only at the very end of the journey that we may have got a little tired and crabby but everything turned out fine. We've spent the last week with Damien and Annmarie and seeing Glasgow and Edinburgh. Of course we had to see Edinburgh Castle, and that was really fantastic. They've kept the castle in good repair, from what I've heard that's partly because Edinburgh was rather unscathed from the World Wars because it wasn't important enough. The Honours of Scotland are also kept in Edinburgh Castle (no photos allowed I'm afraid) which are basically the Crown Jewels of Scotland. They're not needed anymore because of the Union of Parliaments in 1707, but obviously they have a lot of historical significance. The rest of Edinburgh is very picturesque, nice buildings and parklands. I've bought several postcards from many of the places I've been to, but I'm yet to send any of them, I'll get to them soon.

On Wednesday the six of us will be flying to Gay Pari'. Damien and Annmarie have already been to Paris but it'll be the first time for Paul and myself. Hopefully we'll see the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and whatever else is good there. I've been told that escargot is nice, like oysters, but I don't really like oysters so we'll see how we go.

Leaving London

In a couple of hours I'll be heading off to Cardiff to meet up with my cousin Phillip. I bought what's called a FunFare, which is basically just an e-ticket, so I print out the ticket here and fingers crossed everything goes well.

It's been great being in London, and the past couple of days I've been in Sutton, Surrey which is on the outskirts of London but still technically part of the Capital city. I guess Sutton is a little more suburban than where we were staying before in Clapham. It seems noticeably more laid back than in Clapham and strangely enough I felt a little better closer to the city, which is odd for me. At first I would have thought that I'd like a quieter, slower place but maybe I'm wrong. I'm still excited to see what Glasgow has to offer then I can make a good decision about where I'll stay for the next half year.

It's gradually getting colder here, which is great because I was verging on being too hot most of the time. Now I'll get to see if my clothes are warm enough or if I have to buy some more

I know I said I'd get some pictures up soon, but they're on Paul's laptop at the moment and I didn't want to fiddle around with the USB modem here, so I'll put them up the next chance I get. I went to Hever Castle the other day, in the county of Kent. It's a nice little place, and I do mean little. Not exactly a towering castle, Anne Bolyen lived there for some time before marrying Henry VIII and getting beheaded. Her life story is quite prominent there and they have lots of displays. More on that later though.

A Backlog Already?

OK, so I'm already behind in my blogging. It seems that being a road warrior (as I'm lead to believe is the popular term) is rather hard without your own laptop or other portable device. Instead, I'm using my brother's laptop on his friends internet connection, so I sort of have to wait my turn. That and I've been a bit lazy in terms of internet things. I did want to get something like a laptop or even a PDA (those Sony CLIÉ look pretty cool or the PalmOne Treo smartphone) but I thought I should wait until I got to the UK before buying anything so expensive, just in case I didn't have enough money to see me through. Once I'm set up and got a job I'll be able to get my fix and buy some gadgets.

Speaking of getting setup, I've got myself a Virgin Mobile SIM card here, have updated my Resumé and submitted it to a few online recruitment sites. Speak of the devil, just this minute I got a phone call from an agency that will try to set me up for a job in Surrey. That was only an hour after putting my profile on those sites. I'll take that as a good sign for getting a job, but I've still got a little bit of travelling to do.

I've got a lot of things to write about, where I've been, what I've seen. I've even got some photo's courtesy of my brothers digital camera. I'll have some time when Paul goes off to the Rally of Great Britian to upload that stuff and say a few words. Paul has graciously left his laptop in my care, and I'll be staying with a friend of my Mum's who seems to have an internet connection. I know this because one of my first tasks once I'm there will be trying to figure out why she cannot send large email attachments. It seems my technical support reputation preceeds me (no idea how that happened Mum?) but I don't mind since I'll be getting some nice accomodation for a few days. Then this weekend I'll meet up again with Paul in Cardiff, we'll see a bit of Wales, hire a car and go up to Glasgow.

So much to do, so much time. This holiday's been pretty good so far. If anyone back in Australia wants my mobile number (to SMS me I'd suggest, ICQ can SMS for free) then send me an email and I'll send it back. I don't want to put it here, I'm scared of phisers. And don't forget, anyone can leave comments on my posts, it's an easy way to tell me something as I read this stuff a fair bit. Bye for now.

One Night Stand

Well we finally made it to Narita (just outside Tokyo) after our 9 hour flight from Sydney. Since the only place I`ve really known is Adelaide, I`m used to reasonably small things, nothing too big. Well Sydney was a bit daunting especially considering the rather tight time schedule from the domestic flight to connect to the international one. With the Airport panic behind us it was time to enjoy the flight. Even though Paul and I were in Economy, there were a lot of empty seats and we managed to score 4 seats between the two of us. This is definitely a great bonus as I`m sure anyone who`s flown a packed economy flight would attest to.

This being the first international flight I`ve taken, the second trip I`ve taken by plane in my working memory and the fact that I couldn`t sleep last night meant that the flight really took it out of me. I`m very thankful for the overnight stay I`m having at Narita but I am a bit disappointed that I don`t have time to see the town of Narita it detail, even at a glance. We leave the hotel at 10am to get the flight and the busses to see Narita don`t really work around that schedule. I still don`t feel like I`ve really left Adelaide yet, but I`m sure that`ll change when we land at Heathrow. I`m not really looking forward to a 12 hour flight, but I think I`ll be relieved when I get there.

Next stop. London!

Bon Voyage, Charlie Brown (and Don't Come Back!)

Well, this is it. Time to go to sleep and wake up in a few hours to board a plane to a very exciting chapter of my life. I'm as prepared as I ever will be, even though a few members of my immediate family wish I was more prepared I think I'm ready.

I won't waste much time chatting here, it's much more important to get some sleep but I will bid a fond farewell to all the friends I'm leaving behind for a while. Thanks people for making it hard to leave this place (even for a little while) and I'll keep in touch as much as I can. See you all next year :)

End of an Era

Well today was the last day of work for me. Thanks to everyone for the send off, the prezzies and the warm and fuzzy speeches. I'm a sucker for warm and fuzzy speeches, but who isn't really? I did really enjoy working with everyone at BAE Systems, especially the people in my group, but it was time to move on while I could.

I had a bit of a get together tonight for a bit of a send off and I'm not long back. I thought I should put something in my blog now before things get really hectic. I've only got 3 days before I go half way across the world. Kinda scary when I think about it.

More geek proof

This is a cool mouse. I was big on the idea of an optical mouse when I first heard about it oh so many years ago, mainly because I'm too lazy to clean the mouse ball regularly. So a low maintinence mouse is right up my alley. I've wanted to get a cordless mouse for a while now but never wanted to fork over the mulla to get one.

Now this new mouse looks like the one to get, cordless AND has geek factor with the new tracking technology ... but the red glow thing was kinda cool too, maybe I'll have to mod my mouse too.