Mid-Year Report

Wow - it's almost June already! For us, 2008 has been absolutely flying by. Often literally - you can see from our "trip reports" that we've been getting around Europe quite a bit. Well, we're seizing the moment as this is the "last year of really cheap flights" according to an expert on TV - so it must be true...

So leisure-wise, we've been travelling both in the UK and abroad, plus getting to know "our town" a bit more, and catching up with friends both new (ANZAC tour buddies) and old (high school mates). Johnny's mum was in town for a couple of weeks earlier this month too - in fact there's quite a cavalcade of Aussies scheduled to pop in over the next few months - and the more the merrier, we say!

Work-wise, Bec has been enjoying her gig, although some of her favourite colleagues are now leaving for various reasons. And as for Johnny, well, let's just say he's getting very familiar with the UK job market. Yes, the extremely-tiny startup company he was working for (doing self-destructing mobile phone messages) finally ran out of money - so as of yesterday, John has been released from his contract and is back on the street, so to speak. New-contract-hunting begins on Monday. Oh well, it's never boring!

The second half of '08 has a few exciting things already planned but is relatively trip-free - at this stage anyway. Don't worry, Bec will soon fix that! We've also gone absolutely crazy on concert tickets for various bands - some old faves like Bon Jovi (well Bec's fave...) and Queen, plus some newies like The Feeling and The Fratellis, and there's at least one music festival in there as well. London is absolutely amazing for music, as you can probably surmise!

Stop Press: Wimbledon Centre Court tickets have just arrived! Complete shock, if we won them in the ballot we should have received them 3 months ago! GOOOOO London!

Paris in the Springtime

With a bank holiday at our disposal, what better way to spend 3 days than popping across to Paris... again!?!? Our friends Bron and Andy had rented an appartement in the XIIeme complete with spare sofa-bed, so no further excuse was really needed to Eurostar it to Frog-land.

As we've been to Paris before (understatement...) we didn't really have too many "touristy" things left to do (with the exception of Versailles, but more on that later) - so we could instead concentrate on enjoying the true Parisian lifestyle - eating, drinking, shopping, walking, and of course the favourite pastime, people-watching.

To kick off our first day, we hired some bikes and hit the road. They have introduced a public bicycle-hire system in Paris which lets you pick up a bike from any of hundreds of racks around town and drop it off wherever you like. Très cool. So we moseyed over towards the Jardin de Luxembourg, via the Notre Dame cathedral, stopping only occasionally to discreetly check our map. We didn't look like tourists at all - don't worry!



















Here we are in the Luxembourg Gardens, on one of the few "permitted" lawns - there are many others, but sitting there will result in a shouting-at by a uniformed Lawn Enforcement Officer.

Next day we trained it out through the countryside to Versailles, which was heaving with people - can't imagine what it must be like in "high" season - but was very impressive. The gardens were magnificent, filled with extravagant fountains, towering statues and evocative of a bygone age. God I'm crapping on - I'm just trying to justify the sepia-toned picture...



Inside the Hall of Mirrors was like Bron and Andy's apartment, and only slightly larger ;-)


On the way back from Versailles, we realised we were going to go right past the station for the Eiffel Tower. Of course, we didn't need to see it up close again, but as Andy had never checked it out, we had to go and keep him company. And take another 30 photos...


Big thanks to Bron and Andy for hosting us, and being excellent long-lazy-lunch companions!

A Load of Maltesers

If you're anything like us, what you know about Malta and the Maltese could be comfortably be written on the forehead of a small white dog. Hence over Easter we thought it would be fun to head to this little island in the middle of the Mediterranean to learn more, courtesy of those crazy leprechauns at RyanAir. Coming along with us for this particular adventure was Bec's old uni mate Kieran, who has been doing "The London Thing" for about 5 years now, and has visited Malta before, making him a very useful resource. We were all in search of a little sun, having endured a pretty cold UK winter.

The first Maltese surprise was that Malta was now using the Euro, and not the Lire. Turned out they switched on the first of January, and our year-old guidebook was now a little bit more useless. Bugger. The second surprise was the weather, which we'd hoped would be glorious mid-twenties sunshine, was really not much better than the mid-teens greyness we'd left behind in Blighty. Double Bugger.


Our first excursion was to the ancient town of Mdina, which Tone Loc fans will be relieved to hear, was both funky and cold. Made entirely of sandstone from the local quarries, a town has been here for at least 6000 years. Wandering around the streets, it was easy to understand how this former capital got its nickname "The Silent City". We got back home thanks to one of the elaborately decorated and passionately well-maintained buses which grumble their way across the island:


When we got back the weather was still somewhat chilly - as an optimistic Kieran can be seen demonstrating here on the pool deck:


The next day we took an organised tour which would show us some more distant parts of the island. First stop was one of the many quarries which produce most of Malta's building materials (Malta has no natural wood supply, so houses are built with the bare minimum of expensive imported wood). There's only so long you can spend in a big hole in the ground before your attention starts to wander though, and we thought that this bunny was in a pretty brave position considering Rabbit Stew is Malta's national dish!


Next stop was the harbour town of Marsaxlokk - pronounced "Marsa - shlock". A mouthful to say, but a pleasure to visit. The harbour here is filled with the traditional brightly-coloured boats of the Maltese fishermen. Each one features a pair of painted eyes which ward off bad luck while at sea - this is an ancient tradition and failure to repaint the "eyes of Osiris" each year could have disastrous consequences! Hence we bought some magnetic ones to protect the contents of our fridge from evil. Judging by the smell of our last cleanout, it's not working...

Talking Turkey

Following on immediately from Portugal, we headed off to Istanbul in Turkey. We were booked in to join a tour of Turkey, culminating in a night at Anzac Cove, Gallipoli for the 2008 ANZAC Day ceremonies.

Over a couple of days many plane-loads of Aussies and Kiwis arrived in Istanbul. We could only spare a week off work so we'd chosen the shortest, 6-day, tour - along with about 80 others - but there were hundreds more doing longer versions. We all kicked off at the same time though, and celebrated the commencement of our tours with a Gala Dinner. In between the courses we were entertained by traditional Turkish group dancing as well as a (slightly past-it) belly dancer - but the highlight was definitely these awesome torso-headed dancers!



The next morning we headed out of town towards the Gallipoli peninsula, and realised just how stunning a country Turkey really is. We drove for many hours through lush green fields and swaying crops, before arriving at Anzac Cove. This was April 23, two days before ANZAC Day, so the place was relatively peaceful and very beautiful. A striking contrast to how it must have been 93 years ago.


















The next day we rested before the big night, and headed to a rural village where they hand-knot traditional rugs. We received an extremely entertaining and slick sales pitch, and duly parted with some Lire for a nice rug, which should be winging its way back to Melbourne as we write! No, it's not a flying rug sadly...







We got in to Anzac Cove at about 10pm, and the place was already "full" by any measure. Luckily, there was a really great co-operative spirit amongst everyone, and we all shifted up several times during the night to accomodate the seemingly-endless busloads of people arriving well into the small hours. Our little posse consisted of Dave and Kristy, from Sydney via the Lake District, as well as new-found friends Letitia and Jess. The authorities have wisely made Anzac Cove a no-alcohol zone, so it was pure sugar that kept us laughing and joking until about 3am when we finally all dropped off, piled on top of each other in a scene that apparently resembled a seal colony.


An hour and a half later the crowd started stirring, and at 5.30 the ceremony began. It was very powerful as the sun came up over the rocky outcrop the Anzacs called The Sphinx. Bec got a little 'motional as the Australian national anthem was sung but Johnny's upper lip stayed stiff throughout. After the main dawn service, we headed off up the dusty trail to Lone Pine, for the Australian service. At this point, the lack of sleep really became apparent and both of us had to fight to stay awake - as did most of the crowd, it must be said.





After a shambolic coach pick-up process that took several hours, we headed back to Istanbul, and on our final day we had a tour of this unique city that spans two continents. Highlights were the Blue Mosque and of course the Grand Bazaar, where you can literally get lost in the bargains! We also had our last kebabs for a while - it seemed every meal had been a kebab!