sunday in the 'dam

hallo,

it's sunday morning here and im writing this so that you sydneysiders have something to read with your coffee on monday. the 'dam is a very beautiful city, we've been here since tuesday which seems to have flown by in a haze of coffee, delicious cheese, world cup stuff and generally just trawling around the city through the cobblestone(y) streets and over the canals. we've done some museums and the red light district and spent most of yesterday lying in vondel park reading the papers and watching the dutchies, who are extremely relaxed and generally very warm people. they 'do' summer extremely well here - everyone's sitting outdoors and riding around on bikes and nobody much gives a shit about anything.

we've been staying in this really nice apartment for the week so (apart from the trawling) it's been nice to cook again and i've read a couple of books and have been sleeping soundly for the first time in ages. we're on the top floor and our bathtub is in the loft where we're sleeping, which overlooks the rijks museum. we are staying in a great part of town called the pipe (de pijp) which is named for its windy narrow streets which are easy to navigate. there's a pub on either corner of our block, two coffee shops across the way and the albert crupmarket at the end of the street which is crammed with fresh fruit and veges and fish and whatever else you could possibly need. i really like it here.

i am still trying to see what i can do about setting up house here for a few months and finding some work, but it's proving quite difficult, the dutchies have this strange circular paperwork trail going on which is a bit too banal to go into, suffice to say that it might take me a couple of months to be able to actually start working, which i cant really afford to do at this stage... well i can, but it might mean cutting out parts of the trip i really want to do also. so we shall see. i am still working on it and when i figure out what i'm doing i will let you know. sorry there's not been any emails for a while, as i said i am preoccupied with paperwork of another kind at the moment. but i love and miss you all very much and love hearing about what's going on at home.

im off to portugal on tuesday for a week or so, where i intend to catch some sun and have a think about what i'm doing next. im going with my friend michelle and two of her friends (one, sarah, who i met in macc) and we are staying at a tres swanky resort in the algarve, which mich's parents own. im looking forward to it. huey is heading back home, i think, and NJ as usual is in two minds about pretty much everything. i hope he never changes - he is extremely entertaining to watch.

i'll leave you with some pics - have given up on captions completely...

bye-bye now
xo

PS check back two posts for some pics of my new niece, Darcy.

location: amsterdam

hallo,

we're all alive and well and i'm sorry i haven't had a chance to reply to anyones emails lately. matty, i got the software, thanks (os X first disc didnt work tho), but no mind i will sort it.

beyond that, well, beyond really... we are having a great time here and just sorting out where everybody's going next. i think these three travellers are heading off onto other adventures very shortly. sorry to be cryptic, it's not meant to be but the lemonade here really is delicious.

alright, gotta get back, the boys have spaghetti on and will crack the poos if im late.

elise
xx

Darcy_PICS

darcy is my brand-new niece, and these are some photos of her. for my family i have taken some polaroids and i will send them home as soon as i see a post office. she is beautiful and totally healthy and fine. NJ won the sweepstake, though i am dubious about the judging of the results.

she is perfect and the first of my sisters to have a girl cousin for my three nephews.

x

it's a girl!

... and her name is darcy joela tunnicliffe (although im not 100% on the spelling as yet). im going up to see her tomorrow so stay tuned for the photos. my sister jodie and new niece darcy are both well, coming home tomorrow i think... darcy has dark hair and weighed 8.65pounds when she was born at 4.34am on the 16th. i think i may have won the sweepstake as i guessed a girl and 8.7pounds, got the date wrong though.

apart from that, all is well, had a good week up north in macc with michelle and steve. check out this bizarro blue lagoon i got taken to in the middle of a quarry...

yesterday was the worst day of my trip so far, various mishaps mainly due to me being tired and scatty. despite this, there were highlights: i got to see the foo fighters play hyde park with 85,000 people which was amazing, but i lost hugh though at the end and had tomatoes thrown at me on my hour trek out (there is no explanation for this, so dont ask). i also got to see NJ and have a few beers in the afternoon and then after the gig which was also the idea...

then i found james, who i am staying with in bounds green and he took sympathy on me and listened to my woes (you dont know the half of it, truly)... then my camera got stolen on a crammed night bus on the way home. i am gutted about this, even though i think my travel insurance will cover it. i just feel... robbed.

anyway, that's my whinge, im sure things will right themselves soon but i am feeling a bit off kilter at the moment and as unsure of what to do next as i have been in a long time. right now im going to see the aussie vs brazil match at brick lane so i gotta scoot.

bye xxo

PS i dont have a mobile charger on me at the moment either, so my contact is erratic at best. this includes you, londoners. sorry.

national express to manchester

I completely forgot about the Australia v Japan game today until NJ reminded me this morning while we were shopping in Leicester (Trace, he has his birthday stuff sorted. He's really happy.)

NJ left me at the bus stop close to two, when the bus left and the game started which – given I am in the right hemisphere to actually watch it in the day – is pretty bad timing on my behalf.

BUT... the bus had a forty-minute stop in Nottingham (that i didn't know about), so i went to the pub across the road which was showing the game on the big screen and pulled up a stool just in time for the second half. The bartender, Jay, informed me that we was robbed in the first half by a dubious call from the ref. Whatever. I like Japan, anyway.

Halfway through my first pint I started getting hassled by a local guy (by way of Jamaica), whose pick-up routine consisted of this:

Him: "Are you Aussie?"
Me: "Yeah."

Are you married?
No.

Do you want to be?
No.

Do you want to marry me, then?
No, thank you.

(Why men think a marriage proposal can ever make for good conversation, I'll never know.)

So he went away and I kept watching the game with Jay and then (let's call him) Jammy comes back and says, "My friends (he's sitting with three other drunk local heroes) want to know if you want to come and sit with us?" I said, "No thanks, I'm just watching the game and I've got to go and get back on a bus in a second" and then he says, "Well, you're very beautiful" and I said "Thanks, you too" and he goes away and I watch several more excruciatingly tense moments of football before Jammy comes back and says, "My friends want to know if you're a rich snob," and I said, "If i was a rich snob would I be catching the bus and drinking in here?" and he said, "No, i suppose not, love. Still, if yer change yer mind, I'll still marry yer."

Touching stuff. The worst part of all this is then I actually did have to go and get back on the bus so I missed the end of the game. I got NJ to text in the score, not hoping for much, so I was very surprised and happy when NJ called in the fact only TWO minutes later that Australia had scored two goals outta NOWHERE. Australia 2, Japan, 1. (It must be that Korean coach, James.) I asked NJ to let me know if Japan scored again 'cause the game hadn't quite finished but I never heard back from him, and then I got a message from Julius that said something weird but made me sure we had won. (i just looked at the herlad online and now know it was 3-0 - how the hell did that happen?)

Anyway, that's my game one story from the World Cup. We will probably be in London on Sunday for the next one against Brazil (although we are considering going to Germany). Hope you guys are enjoying the game, wherever this finds ya.

xx

PS I'm listening to Maximo Park in the spirit of heading north (we just passed Sheffield, which is where I think they are from) and the singer Paul still reminds me of you Danger Coolidge... not as tough though.

PPS No baby, yet.

carnaby street, the circuses

hallo,

still in london. yesterday hugh and i met up with dan again and went to this free music showcase thing in carnaby street, which was pretty good. all the musos were playing in the shop windows of shops we couldn't afford to shop in, so we engaged in some covert street drinking and pretty much just wandered around from oxford circus to picadilly circus. no circuses, though.

PICS:
1. i fancied that this guy was an old-skool talent-spotter from a record company, but on reflection, he was probably just an old groover getting his groove on. and how.
2. riddle me this - who am i?
3. dan and huey, on regent street outside the virgin megastore. monaco dan strikes again.
4. even the mcdonalds are fancy here. we bought cokes and sprite to drink with our vodka.
5. the underground's still crammed and sweaty

saturday night - nath's barbie...

... was terrific. am hungover today and heading out to camden so i'll leave you with the photos (they seem to be in reverse order) - for you, jubes. i got your text but was asleep by then, try and call you tonight as we're staying at nath's for a few days now.

has been a beautiful weekend - sunny and hot, we saw some hilarious sunbathing UK-style going on in hyde park yesterday, altogether too much white flesh.

has been a weekend of mind-blowing coincidences (had i a mind to blow), the biggest of which was walking down by the canal yesterday on the way home from the shops when i saw this guy sitting on a park bench with this massive stuffed tiger. i thought it was a real tiger which is why i took a second look - and then saw that the guy was Ed and sitting next to him, Sue Ostler. she lives in islington too, as indeed does the entire ex-pat community, it seems. very random as there's no way i would have been able to get in touch with her or vice versa if i hadnt seen her sitting there. she's doing really well and had just that day got another three-year extension on her visa, so she's staying.

happy mondays, fellas. miss you.

it's official: spas are dead

alright, the week in review. i have been kind of working again, writing some stories while i have had a chance with the stability of my second or third or fourth home with joey and si. no baby yet. my nephew kai had his 7th birthday yesterday and we had a great day: up at seven with presents, bacon sarnies in bed, then ten pin bowling, table hockey, short nap (me) dog walking with kai's new walkie talkies (they're kickarse and i want some), pizza hut for dinner... oh, the times we had. if you were seven, it would be exactly the way you'd want to spend your birthday. trust me.

so the week was really nice and relaxing. i went up to bosworth hall a few times, which is this tres swank hotel/country club joy and si belong to, where as a guest and for five pounds i got to spend some time using the facilities, which prompted the title of this particular entry... going back a month or two to adam and anna's wedding, jordy's lovely boy, hani, was telling us about this conversation he'd had during the week with anna's dad, who was telling him emphatically, spas - yes, as in spa baths - were finished, over, done with. it makes sense if you think about it, these days it's all about the hot tubs, jacuzzis, steam rooms...

so i was in the spa today after my swim (and before the steam room, my circuit of choice), thinking about starting a sub-blog titled swimming pools of the world - but deciding there's not really a market for it, but if you want some more info, email me - and i was reading the rules of the spa on the wall and RIGHT NEXT TO THE SIGN was a smaller, in-house sign, which read "Please shower before entering the jacuzzi". Now hani, stay with me, because im sure you're the only one still reading, but these guys - who clearly had a spa bath - were so shamed that they were trying to PRETEND their spa was a jacuzzi. it's official, spas are dead. case closed. (if anyone knows the difference between spas and jacuzzis, please email me)

anyway, that's peace out from me. im now in london with huey, and we've got some good stuff planned for the weekend. my ex-bandmate nath just called and we are going over to his place tomorrow night for a snag and a beer... and i am going to give him crap because i dont know how long he's been here, but he's got a bit of a lundin accent already, orright? "Just get yor map out, its nor far." he's is islington, which i think we are too but its still under debate.

mwahahahahahahahahahahaha.

night kids, enjoy your weekend. it's going to be HOT here in london this weekend, 22 degrees plus. stop, shut up and get out. no really, it's true.