The Accomodation Conundrum

The Guesthouse:

The guesthouse was a great little place. Actually more like a mini-mansion. Stayed there for three days with Fee and Alex and had a great time! Then, I was given the keys to my apartment and told to move within the hour.


The Apartment:

The apartment was amazing. Absolutely huge, brand new, with the most amazing furniture. I had a super-king sized bed!! All my friends from the Games were also living in building so there were lots of dinners and parties. I had my birthday dinner at the apartment where I cooked (with the HUGE help of Alex and my lovely neighbours Cath and Kim) for about 40 people. We also had a roof party, but that went a little wrong when the roof was subsequently locked and the security guard who was on duty got fired and deported back to Nepal.



Then, after being there for two weeks, we got the knock at the door telling us that the building was going to fall down and we needed to take our valuables and go to the hotel up the road.

The Hotel:

The hotel was 4 1/2 star and absolutely awesome. While it wasn't great going back to living out of a suitcase, Alex and I managed to scam the honeymoon suite and with 3 free meals a day, my own robe and slippers, couldn't complain at all! The best thing was that the only way to get our clothes washed was to "risk our lives" and head back into the condenmed apartment building for some "extreme washing".



The New Apartment:

Unfortunately, all good things must come to an end and after a week, we were moved into our brand new apartments. The new apartment is exactly the same as the old one which is a good and bad thing. Good as we have the same great furnture. Bad, as the big crack in the hallway reminded us, because it was therefore built by the same people who built our last structurally unsafe building. Alex moved in for a couple of nights to the new apartment but has now moved into her villa with her boyfriend. We had a dinner for her to say goodbye. Halfway through the fire alarm started ringing and we had to evacuate. All part of the fun.




I am now living with Mary, which is great. We have also just worked out that we can both cook so it may turn out to be even better than when we have lived together previously.

Doha, Qatar

Welcome to Doha, Qatar....

After spending six weeks in Europe waiting for my employment contract to come through. I finally arrived in this little sandpit. I am working for the Doha Asian Games Organising Committee in Workforce Accreditation however, my actual role will be very similar to the one I had in Melbourne at the Commonwealth Games.

Berlin and Tallinn

After my cruise, turned out I needed to fill in more time so decided to go back to Berlin. Berlin is one of my favourite cities due to the fact that the whole place is a living museum to both WW2 and the Cold War. It was also great to see Berlin a week or so out from the World Cup (which has subsequently taken over my life) with all the preparations and excitement building.

With still more time to fill in, I headed up to Tallinn, Estonia. When I was in Europe last time, it was a place that I really really wanted to go to but being a little out of the way, never got the opportunity. It really didn't disappoint me. The old town is now a heritage site meaning it is pretty much a picture perfect medieval town; similar to Prague in both its history and architecture (and prices!!).

Big Orange Boat

As I had not a lot else to do whilst waiting for news about my job in the sandpit, I decided to splash out and go on a cruise through the South of France and the Italian Riviera. I managed to convince Karl to come with me and then got him out of the pub just in time to catch our flight to Nice to start our cruise. The cruise went from Monoca to Genoa to Portofino to San Remo and then back to Nice.

Highlights:

Portofino, portofino, portofino
Getting a tan (over the top of my fake tan)
Walking the Monoco Grand Prix track

Lowlights:

Paying $AUS20 for a bottle of beer in Portofino
San Remo "beach"
Our bright orange ship with bright orange rooms, including a bright orange shower - That's EasyCruise!

London

So, I know that it is quite awhile now since I was there but thought I would start from the start of my latest adventure.... London. I was in London for about 6 weeks all up. My lovely friend the Package looked after me for most of my time there, especially with carrying my bags for me....

Also spent some time with my friends Dean and Paula. Hopefully, I have been able to work out how to attach photos and you can see some of them below.

Tekko-Jess

Intergeek to the max! So instead of sending countless emails, I am going to try this webpage thing. Not sure how I will go, has taken me over an hour to work out how to put this on the page....