It’s been a long day, and a long week. I’m tired and not in the mood to take a photo. And no, I’m not sneezing or coughing!

I still find my drive to take photos is far lessened with the 365 days project. If someone has the time and is interested, I’d like to go out on a photo walk or do something photography-related this weekend. Maybe I’ll go on my own, anyway.

While away, I asked Richard to take my car out once or twice to make it feel wanted.  The day before we came home, he took it out for a spin (curiously all the way to Camberwell), where it just (in his words) stopped.

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.

Taken at around 12am (Bangkok time) while waiting for our plane’s departure lounge to open.

Well, we landed safely a few minutes to eight last night. We bought our maximum 4.5 litres of alcohol and instead of using the ePassport checkin, we went through the normal way together — the ePassport line was short, but incredibly slow so we switched — which was lucky since we had to go through together to get the booze in.

After impatiently waiting for our bags we were faced with an incredibly long line for customs, but like about half of the other people there, we pushed in to make things go faster. Nothing was confiscated, though we thought a wooden hat purchased from a lady on a boat in Thailand may have been. Probably wise to have declared it, though.

We were greeted by what I can only call the “cheering paparazzi” as we strolled out of immigration; very embarrassing but it was fun anyway. I’m disappointed they didn’t have a badly drawn up card with our names misspelled somehow.

On the hazy trip home — we only had a few minutes sleep on the plane and had woken up at 4am Bangkok time — Justine began to freak out that she’d forgotten a Venetian mask that she had been carrying in a separate bag the entire time since Venice (about three weeks) to avoid crushing it. We stopped and thankfully it was quickly found.

We had a bit of a chat at Dad’s house and I showed a few photos and then I drove home where, upon pulling into the drive way, things went a bit strange. On seeing the exterior, and then the interior of the house, for some reason it didn’t feel like my house even though I knew perfectly well it was. Justine mentioned the same thing before I had a chance to say it so obviously I wasn’t alone. Quite a surreal thing walking around your own house, knowing the place intimately yet it not feeling like yours.

When I woke this morning (not that I slept much, a few hours maybe) the place still felt distant but a lot better than the night previous. Since we both couldn’t sleep we got up and unwrapped all our souvenirs; it felt very much like Christmas.

It’s three o’clock and I have just realised that I have not yet had lunch, or eaten anything except for two chocolates at all. Isn’t being a zombie from jet lag fun? There are a few photos I had put online at http://storage.bludger.org/images/trip/ but in my current state I don’t know if they look very good or not — I know the photos are fine but the processing might be a bit off, which is why they are there for now.

Day Forty-Three
London
19 September 2007 22:46

After eating a final croissant each for breakfast — mine was an apricot and Justine’s chocolate — we checked out of our Paris hotel and took a couple of Metro trains to Nord.

Justine managed to spend the last of our Euros on a small coffee each while we waited for the boarding call on the Eurostar back to the UK and London.

Three uneventful hours later we disembarked, again in London, and headed for the Underground and on to our hotel.

We checked into our hotel, only to find our room had a bed propped up against the wall.  They gave us another room, on the fourth floor — no elevator — and let us know they’d been spraying for pests.  Great.  Our room wasn’t any better; mouse droppings squished into the floor, fittings falling off, broken lights, floor coming up.

We went downstairs to the nearest Internet cafe and found a different hotel for the next few nights.  When we asked to cancel the next night the staff refused and after half an hour of arguing we checked out, disgusted, having to pay for two nights accommodation.

I tried to call our bank to dispute the ludicrous charges but the reverse call number wasn’t working.

Over the next four hours, we scoured downtown London for an available hotel and only found two we could afford.  We’re in a room with 5 beds (one double) and have spent a lot on it, but at least it’s not the first place.

Let’s home tomorrow’s place got our booking!

Day Eleven (later)
Munich
18 August 2007 23:49

Justine has been running on on sleep thus far, and I had only a few hours sleep on the awful train ride. We explored insofar as we went to our hotel; Justine and I both napped for an hour or two, puctuated by a church bell tolling every 15 minutes (once for 15, twice for 30, three times for 45). I got up and went to a local laundromat with three bags of clothes and washed them (my first time at a laundromat!); it is good to be able to avoid using a sink for once!

Once the clothes were washed and spun (almost) dry I returned to the hotel with the now four bags due to them still being wet — it seemed five times further than the four blocks.

Later, we got up and strolled into the “old city”. We checked out a church of some kind (bells tolling constantly there) and the Glockenspiel at Marienplatz.

We then wandered to the parkland (Munich has huge, sprawling inner city parks kilometres long) and saw people sunbaking on what is the closest thing to a beach in this landlocked city.

In another park, there were surfers riding a large, permanent wave just after the exit from a bridge. It was mesmerising watching them go back and fourth on the small river.

Out of the park we discovered that most shops were closed (it’s a Sunday), we did find a good, cheap, modern restaurant (”Bloom”) which we enjoyed.

Oh yes, I had two beers today, and have had a litre of beer. Got to love German beer. The 500mL beers aren’t even the large ones.

Day Eleven
Ulm Train Station
18 August 2007 05:38

Yesterday, we really struggled to find anything to do around Amsterdam. It seems that neither Justine or I are enthralled by the city and cutting down our stay from four nights to two nights was likely the best thing to do.

Amsterdam’s houses that are falling and leaning on one another are quaint, and the canals are pretty, but that is about where the excitement ends. A large cloud of pot seems to hang over the city and if you´re into getting high and prostitues spending longer there could be OK. I do like how everyone gets around on bikes though, not new ones mind, they all look old. No matter who you are — young, old, hippy, suit, you get around on a bike.

After trying to fill our day, we had ate dinner at a “smuller”, which is a pretty crappy takeaway joint.

We boarded our overnight train and after umpteen stops, the lights went out. We really should have sprung for a sleeper car, as this is an awful way to travel; people are snoring (one guy sounds like he is snorting custard), someone is constantly throwing up, the train is stopping and starting, people are getting on and off, it’s loud. Yuck.

I managed a couple of hours sleep but Justine got none. We’ve moved to the food car which is where we are now. The sun is rising through the fog and we have to pass through Zurich (more like a detour) before we get to Munich in a few hours.