That's All Folks

OK, that's it for now.

I'll be back as soon as possible. I promise.

It'll totally be worth it.

I could even do one of those "Next week on....Just Because I Can...."

You can look forward to...

• At least 2 celebrity spottings
• Maybe more
• Me making fun of NTB
• A post about Ice cream (who doesn't love ice cream?)
• Some less than ideal travel adventures
• The worst ever trip to Queensland travel diary
• The Tale of the Vegan and the Airport Bar
• Probing question number 742 - how well do you have to know someone before you can ask for a bed for the night?
• Queuing friends
• Advice to Virgins. Ummm - make that Advice to Virgin Airlines
• Back in the olden days musings

And that's even without counting on anything that happens in the next couple of days!

So tune in soon...same place, probably a similar sort of time.....

J.

The Last Supper

Is there anything more depressing than the last night on holidays when you realise it’s pretty well all over and you’re flying out the next morning?

You’ve pretty well scoped the place and gotten into the groove of the place. You know your way around, and have figured out the sort of places you want to hang out in your time there, and then suddenly it’s all as good as over.

We hit this point pretty much straight after our trivia disgrace. And then missing the courtesy bus back to our accommodation. It was pouring (who would believe it would be 14 degrees and raining, even in winter, in Byron Bay) and taxis were pretty much non-existent.

We decided to go get pizza and try to catch a movie.

Well, on the cusp of end-of-holiday depression, we stumbled upon the most amazing pizza. Bloody amazing!!

Is there anything that pizza can’t fix??

Not Competitive at all

Sunday in Byron Bay heralded the start of the foul weather that is currently continuing up North. So what is a couple to to with the last full day of their holidays in a relaxed seaside town?

Pub Trivia, of course!

NTB and I turned up and settled in, with our pencils sharpened. The two of us, with a couple of other mates were quite the trivia aficionados a couple of years back. We had a regular team and used to play every week and do pretty well.

It’s fair to say that with our background we went in pretty cocky. We may have even discussed what we would do about the prize if we won.

Of course, according to the rules of false pride coming before a fall, we may have not done as well as we had hoped.

OK, second last, since you asked.

Bugger.

Burger Etiquette

There are as many ways of eating a big fat burger as there are people. What’s your preferred technique?

I personally go for the “cut into quarters and eat from the outside, in” technique, whilst trying to drop as little as possible all down my front. What does everyone else think?

For the record, in case you were wondering, it was a tofu burger. And a Damn good one, at that!

Holiday Joys – Part 2

Has anyone else out there ever been in a float tank. It was one of those things that was there at the accommodation and you totally feel like you have to give a go.

I personally enjoyed the whole float tank experience. It was pretty strange. After we booked in, there was the whole question of float tank etiquette – what do you wear? Deo you turn up in your bathers? Shower beforehand? How do you know when you’re done? Is it going to be like a coffin? What if I freak out?

Just for reference, the answers are: Nothing. No. No, that’s part of the process before you get in. There’s instructions about the music being played in there so you know when to get out. No. You open the hatch or get out.

I really enjoyed the experience. There were a few initial things to figure out – like how to put in earplugs, and the correct positioning of the neck-cushion so you don’t get a sore neck, and what to do with your hands. But once I got the hang of it, I ended up so relaxed I actually fell asleep in there. It was also way larger than I expected, which helped with my main reservation about the whole experience.

The only weird bit was waking up after drifting into the land of nod and being a bit disoriented about where I was. After a few seconds, though, all was good and relaxing again.

After an hour in there, followed by an hours’ massage, followed by an hour sitting on the beach reading my book, I don’t think I could have possibly been more relaxed! I highly recommend the whole experience.

Holiday Joys – Part 1

Walking as far as you physically can in both directions along a beach, for hours and hours and hours. Is there anything more relaxing and refreshing and better for the soul?

Backpacker Hostel Bonus

Hi to Clare and John. One thing I totally love about staying in backpacker hostels is that you can literally talk to anyone, and you make friends so easily. We made friends with the gorgeous Clare and John who we are looking forward to seeing again in Sydney this weekend. Yay facebook, also, as it totally makes these things a lot easier to organise!

Thanks also to the couple who taught us to play Texas Hold 'Em one night!

Classy Pub Essentials Part 2

1. The Meat Raffle
2. An Equal ratio of kids to grown-ups
   

More Fun and Games

OK, here is the second installment of holiday posts as promised.

Hang in there, I've just discovered that I' have somehow managed to double-book my weekend this weekend with one of my high-school friends, Alison, as well as my parents all coming to visit (I thought they were due the following weekend until a couple of hours ago).

It's possible I'll be running around trying to coordinate various plans with various people over the next couple of days, but will try to get on to give the odd update when I can.

In the mean time, enjoy the several posts on holiday adventures!

J.

Holiday whinge number umpteen

Ooh – the perils of trying to sleep in whilst on holiday. You’ve got to love the child having a temper tantrum directly outside your window at 7.30am on the first morning of your holiday!

Classy Venues

One thing every classy joint should have: the requirement for patrons to pay a deposit over the bar for use of a pool cue and the white ball.

Musings on Flying – Part 2

What sort of parent thinks that the appropriate toy to keep a young child amused on a flight is a plastic mobile phone toy that makes an array of beeping noises when each key is pressed; each more earsplittingly irritating than the last? And then allows them to play with it for the entire trip?

Musings on Flying – Part 1

I’ve never yet missed an airline flight. Amongst my siblings that’s something of a rarity and I’m touching wood as I type this.

I do, however, think it’s a huge hypocrisy by airlines, that if you are even a couple of minutes late checking in for a flight you can be refused admission onto the flight. On the other hand, airlines fell free to delay or even cancel flights or leave customers waiting in flight lounges indefinitely with impunity.

P.S. I actually wrote this one at the very start of my trip. You have no idea how ironic this post is but will do if you keep reading.

J.

Warning – Intensive Travel Adventures Posts Ahead!!

The Telstra debacle piece appears to have been cancelled due to lack of interest. Guess you’ll never know what you missed out on (well, unless I hit a case of writer’s block in the near future), but good news is at hand. I have recently returned from a sensational holiday and am brimming with inspiration.

Whilst on holidays I invested in a good sturdy notebook to capture all those fleeting thoughts, so you my loyal readers, strap yourself in for a rollercoaster ride!!

Enjoy!

Democracy

So, let's put it to a vote...

If anyone requests it, by the time I get back from holidays (Tuesday next week, thanks for asking) I'll post up the ongoing saga of my dramas with my internet provider.

I know this sounds kind of dull, but since it seems to be a conversation between me and a clueless automatic email response system, and I happen to be a bit of a smart-arse who intends to find out just how cheeky you can be to one of these things before someone steps in and actually reads one of your emails, I actually think it's kind of funny.

So what do you think?

J.

p.s. I'll think of you all whilst I'm relaxing in Byron Bay....;)

The best souvenir ever

I was at Old Parliament Hour last weekend. Mainly to go to the National Portrait Gallery, which was awesome (but that's another story), and after the all the viewing pleasure of the exhibition (which was great, by the way) there was the mandatory browse through the gift shop.

Whilst there, I think I saw the best souvenir ever. They had these amazing postcards. You could write on them and post them, like a normal postcard. But on the other side was a very special photo of OPH (Old Parliament House), and inset into the postcard were two plastic lenses.

The trick was, that if you folded on the dotted lines, once you received the postcard, the lenses and the very special picture, set up this fantastic 3-dimensional picture of OPH.

Sensational! I think they should do that for all the good tourist destinations!

Long Weekends

It was a very big, not to mention long, weekend.

I took Friday off to spend time with my friends Jon and Maddy who have been up visiting from Tassie.

We've had a complete ball - we started with some shopping (although not quite the type of shopping you would imagine as Maddy is terrible at that sort) as Jon took a nap and the girls went off to buy me a new mattress for my bed. That's probably a whole nother story.

We had a night at the pub for dinner and drinks on Friday. We went to the art gallery and then to vegetarian Yum Cha and then the aquarium and then home for dinner and board games and even an old-fashioned sing-along with the guy with the guitar at the party until the wee small hours until told to shut it down by the neighbours (usually I'm the crabby neighbour!)

Then we made it to the Rocks markets and headed back to get Jon to the airport, then Maddy and I made some more shopping mischief with a trip to the Birkenstock Shop.

It's Wednesday and I'm still recovering, but what a fantastic weekend! Maddy & Jon are 2 of my favourite people and it was so good to spend some time with them. Cheers to old friends!

What Jacki did on Hiatus - part 1

I mentioned a weekend away in my last post. Yup, I headed down to the deep south of New South Wales, almost to Bateman's Bay - which is conveniently also close for my sister and cousin to get to from Canberra.

We headed down there on the recent Queen's birthday long weekend. On the down-side there was some pretty hairy weather on the drive down (Jacki: "Is it a problem if I can't actually see the road?" Passengers: "Just follow the car in front with the hazard lights flashing"). I'm a bit of a granny-driver and found it pretty stressful. On the up-side once we got far enough South, we managed to miss the worst of the weather that tore through and made a huge mess of parts of northern NSW.

So 8 of us had a great long weekend, eating and drinking and playing a lot of board games.

From memory we managed at least one game each of....

• Scrabble
• Speed Scrabble
• Scattergories
• Cluedo
• Pictionary
• Balderdash
• Uno
• Backgammon

We cooked up a storm and even managed a long hike along the beach. Good friends (and family) and good times.

These weekends are never long enough.

Back Again

Hi all,

I'm back again. Back in Sydney and back blogging. Thanks to everyone who's kept checking for updates over the last week, and a particular thank-you to all my friends who have been so supportive and thoughtful.

So I'll give you a brief run-down in this one post, and then I'm going to leave the topic and return you to you regular viewing.

Thanks loads to Sandy and Brian (my Aunt and Uncle - and also my godparents) who, as always, seemed not in the least put out by having their home invaded by herds of marauding family. thanks to my cousin Simon for giving me a bed and dealing with the late-night debriefs.

The funeral was lovely, It really was something that my Grandpa would have loved. The chapel was packed full of people who loved him, some of whom drove all the way from Cummins (the small country town where my grandparents spent most of their 60 years of married life) that morning and were driving back that evening. It's a 6.5 hour drive.

My cousin Simon also did a fantastic job of putting together a photographic insert for the order of service. The photos were amazing - really told the story of his life.

My grandfather was a farmer and a practical, salt-of-the-earth type. Instead of flowers, there was a sheaf of wheat on the coffin, and instead of handfuls of dirt, we sprinkled handfuls of grain. It was a really touching moment and something he would have had enjoyed.

My mum and her sister and brothers delivered a lovely eulogy - not too long but with all the important things included.

I can only hope that one day I go out as loved and well understood.

A Butterly Flaps its Wings in the Rainforest...

Yesterday a Jetstar flight attendant in Maroochydore took a sick day.

After many efforts on behalf of the airline, a replacement was unable to be found. due to legislation regarding the ratio of flight attendants to passengers, 25 people needed to be taken off the flight.

the process of asking for volunteers, finding none, and then deciding who was getting the boot, then getting them and their luggage off the plane took quite some time. As a result, the flight took off quite late, and was then late to arrive in Sydney.

The point of this whole story is that my sister and brother-in-law were on that flight, and although they made it to Sydney, it was far too late for them to get their connecting flight to Perth.

This was lucky for me as a got a surprise second helping of visitors last night.

Last thing I hear today at lunchtime, their flight had been delayed for about 5 hours...