Watching: Still stuck into ER. Ran out of TvTorrents credit to do so. Michael Moore’s Sicko: can’t stand him on the best of days, and the Guantanamo Bay stunt was pathetic. But, it did make me feel glad not to be American.

Doing: Travel planning. A lot of it. Packing, too.

Listening To: If, five years ago, someone had told me that I would spend my commuting time bopping along to hip hop of all things, I would have slapped them. But, in truth, it’s the rock-n-roll choruses, clever producing, and politically minded lyrics that have put The Herd’s The King Is Dead and 2020, and Bliss n Eso’s The Sea is Rising on high rotation on the alternika iPod, rather than the rapping; just can’t stand international hip hop: it’s all too “card tricks, big cribs, and cars, bitch“. I also just love how John Howard got “his arse played by Mandarin”.

Countdown …

I’m not exactly counting down the hours, but I am very aware that my France experience ends this weekend. Friday or Saturday, I stay with the generous Caro and family, for whom I am eternally grateful. Monday, I take a bus to the UK to crash on Pam and Brad’s sofa; at 7am Tuesday, I’m on a flight to Istanbul.

From there, it’s two and a half months of cut price tourism; cookinmy own meals, staying in 10euro a night accommodation (and, I suspect I’ll be resorting to couch surfing again), and avoiding admission prices with an out of date student card. Money’s a lot thinner than I would’ve liked at this point: the Ruddy payment, if it comes through will be appreciated! Hopefully they still want teachers, cos I’m going to have one nice credit card bill to pay when I get home! Hallo rural South Australian public high schools: need an English teacher? Hey, I’d give SOSE or Psych a go as well? I’ll even teach middle schoolers, how about that? Please?

Luckily I’ve just booked – and paid for – my flight home, so Adelaide is in my sight early July. Caught up with the oldies on Skype today, and got to see – albeit pixellated and blurry – my psycho kitty Lily, for the first time since she went missing in July last year. And the very fat dogs. And Mum has very blonde hair!

My last day at Baggio was supposed to be today, but essentially was yesterday (I had two no-shows for my Wednesday evening classes – they’re voluntary classes, the weather was beautiful and it’s the last week of the semester, so I don’t blame them). Some of the kids were sad to see me go and wished me well, but the teachers (who eternally despaired at my total lack of commitment to, well, doing my job) were, I think, a little relieved! I sincerely hope I can get my working mojo back before I have to throw myself into the 70 hour weeks which await me as a DECs teacher. By the way – how did the striking go? Did we get the payrise? Ah, perhaps I am more French than I thought.

The plan so far:

1. Turkey. Guess where I’ll be, April 25th?* Along with, it seems, every other young Australian doing their ‘year in Europe’. Plus I’ll go to Istanbul, check out some old Roman stuff, and some fairy caves in Cappadocia.
2. Syria and Jordan. The last place on earth I ever thought I would go, until I was put onto Tucan Travel in a form. They do tours where they take care of the transport and accomodation in countries where independent travel is difficult. I first chose this trip back in September; I was tired of ‘ABC tourism’** Anyway, I was sucked in by a total nerdlinger reason: I’m going to go see the Temple of the Holy Grail!***
3. Egypt. Never thought I’d see the Pyramids. Thought Egypt was too sketchy to travel through independently. Turns out it’s a backpacker mecca; though my view of the Sphinx is now forever soured, thanks to Brad’s recent visit:
   

   Sorry Brad, I just had to steal this photo.

4. Romania. Yes, chasing Dracula, though Lucy back home always waxed lyrical about her homeland. Will probably spend a minimal amount of time in the capital Bucharest, and move straight onto Brasov, the castle homeland.
5. Hungary. Only because it’s on the way to Poland.
6. Slovakia. Same reason as Hungary.
7. Poland. So I’m a nutter; my favourite museum is an anti-Stasi museum in Berlin (Checkpoint Charlie Huis);  I spent hours in Anne Frank house; a big part of going to Japan was to going to Hiroshima; I’m going to Turkey to sit and watch the sunrise at the site of the bloodiest battle in Australian military history. So, I’m going to Poland purely to visit Auschwitz. I’ll see the pretty old town of Krakow as well, and there’s apparently a salt mine (!) that looks cool. But it’s all about going to Auschwitz. I’m a nutter. Plus, the Polish are very cool people. They like vodka. A lot.
8. Czech Republic. Well, it’s like a requirement, now, that if you do a ‘year in Europe’, you go to Prague. Amsterdam, Paris, Barcelona, Rome, Berlin and Prague. If I didn’t go to Prague I’d be insane. It’s awesome. Full stop.
9. Slovenia. I can just see every Australian back home going ‘where???’. Well, it’s the most Western European of the Eastern European countries: it’s next door to Italy; most people there speak passable English; and it has a famous hostel, in the capital Ljubljana, which is a converted prison. And I met five Slovenians in Barcelona who talked the place up. And Slovenians are cool people.
10. Spain. You might notice that Slovenia is all the way over t h e r e to the right, and Spain is all the way over h e r e to the left. Seeing the Alhambra has now become an obsession, after missing the Sevilla trip, so I’m heading down to Granada, Sevilla and Cordoba on the tail end of the trip. Mind, I have to fly to Stansted (!) and back down to Granada, to do so.
11. And then I go home.

Looking back on it, it seems a very short list considering the time spent planning I understand why people take tours now, this is exhausting – and I have an 8 hour work week. How the hell did I ever manage to plan trips when I was working/studying full time?!

One good thing with all this extra time: I managed to research all the cheapest transport links possible: the entire transport bill comes in around $500, made entirely of discount flights, specials on overnight trains and Eurolines promo bus specials. Now I realise my mistake for basing myself in France: I really should have gone to London for a year; I could’ve gone anywhere on my weekends for as little as $50 return with Ryanair, Easyjet or Wizzair. And I would’ve actually had a real job (and I might even have committed to working it).

So, goodbye for a few months; when I take my sabbaticals at the house of the wonderful and amazing Caro and family I will update my blog. Bye.

___________________________

* For the non-Australian readers, click here.

** ABC: ‘another bloody church’

*** I realise that is as bad as when I went to Paris and Rome to follow the steps of Robert Langdon. I am very ashamed.