With many streets this steep, you quickly understand why Barcelona has outdoor escalators.

Just up from where this is taken is a number of escalators built right into the street, exposed totally to the elements. They’re not sheltered from above, only on the sides by the buildings but since there are stairs on either sides of the escalators, they don’t provide much protection.

I like this shot because of the contrasting angles. I think it’d work reasonably well without the car but the odd, off-kilter angle helps it out to be slightly more surreal. Rotating the shot so the car is straight doesn’t look weird, it just looks wrong. The contrast and colours work well here too, I think. Particularly with the straight lines on the wall.

The hood of a vintage Ford at a bridal exhibition. Docklands, Melbourne.

Our photowalk yesterday started outside Telstra Dome (or Colonial Stadium, if you prefer); we happened across a bridal exhibition which didn’t interest any of us, but the interesting cars on display did.

As well as this car, there were stretch Cadillacs, fire engines and stretch Hummers, just to name a few. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen a hood ornament such as this — and on a Ford to boot.

I was surprised at how many very small cars there are in Europe. People will tell you there are a lot, and that the small ones are really small, but I was still surprised.

The smallest cars were in Italy, but I loved this little car in Munich, too. Note that it’s also parked on a pedestrian crossing.

This was definitely not the worst parking job we saw. In Italy, there are cars parked in motorcycle lanes (hey, they fit, so why not?) as well as on corners, on footpaths and generally where ever they will fit. It’s absolute madness but unlike here in Australia, Italians just don’t care as long as you’re not in their way.

My job requires me to travel from Melbourne to Geelong at least once a week (200km / 125 mile round trip).

Normally the traffic isn’t too bad, but today coming over the Westgate bridge the traffic was completely backed up.

I managed to entertain myself by trying out a few self portrait ideas. I know I’ve already done one in the car but this one’s different because it’s a reflection and I was using my mobile phone since I forgot my DSLR.

I’d planned on taking a shot from the bonnet of my car while stopped sometime this afternoon.

Instead, while driving to work, I decided to balance the camera on the dashboard, put it on timer and have at it. The shot turned out alright except I’m puzzled as to why there’s so much noise on it.

As this was the first news I was given upon our return from our trip I was understandably a bit anxious, given that the car was left out on a busy suburban street.  However it hadn’t been there long and the area is hardly the slums so I expected nothing would be wrong.

And it wasn’t.  We drove out to the car’s location yesterday and I quickly realised that the battery was the fault.  I tried jumpstarting from Justine’s car but that didn’t seem to work at all.  Since the car was pretty much stranded, and Justine’s car had no hope of towing it, I called the RACV to use my membership for the first time.

Except that even though I’m a member at the RACV, and have their highest rating insurance, I’m not covered for Roadside Assistance.  Both Justine and I were sure I was covered by it from the wording in a letter we received previously, but apparently that wasn’t the case.

I paid their exorbitant joining fee and we began to wait.  I mentioned to Richard that we only had one set of keys so couldn’t possibly drive both cars home, to which he replied, “Why not take the key off the chain?”.

Yep.  Still jetlagged.

The RACV guy arrived after only ten or fifteen minutes and after jumpstarting the car by connecting one cable to the body instead of the battery, cleaned the corrosion off which was the cause of the problem — I’ve experienced that before, but only realised after he’d done it.

Oh well.  Car’s OK, problem’s solved, and we now have an RACV Roadside Assistance membership… even though we thought we already did.