Pete’s Rove Around The World

Well I know I completely ignore this blog now…. so what do you do when you have a blog that is close to death….. create a new one!

This is my sort of travel blog so I’ve always kept it at such. I’ve created a more generic blog that allows me to rant and review just about anything. With luck it should get me writing a bit more. So for a general day to day rant about life in London head over to London Rants and check out what should almost be a daily blog about London, UK, food and beverage, sailing and what ever takes my fancy!

Pete

Well there’s all sorted of news to report on for those of you who follow my blog still.

Firstly (and for those of you in West Aust most importantly) I’m heading home for a very brief ten days. I’ll be home from Sunday September the 30th until Wednesday October the 10th. There will be much beer drunk and I want to catch up with heaps of you…. watch here for more details as I attempt to get myself organised.

The reason I’m coming home, and the reason its such a short trip, is because I’m changing jobs. I’ve now been at ECash (Cryptologic Group of Companies) now for two and a half years and I’ve decided its now time to move on. Reasons are many and varied but I’m looking forward to a new challenge while still having a lot of new friends from 2 1/2 years of interesting times.

So that and the fact that I’ve been busy with lots of other stuff (travel, work, travel for work, brother visiting) is why I’ve been worse than usual keeping up with people. Speaking of keeping up I finally got sick of people asking if I’m on FaceBook. So now I am so when you send me Friends requests I will answer them

Well I was allowed out of the office to have a couple of days off and flew to Berlin on Wednesday morning to meet up with John and Shannon to spend five days (well almost, we left early this morning to return). Berlin is one of a number of European cities I’ve been wanting to visit because of all the history that surrounds it. It has a number of extremely beautiful old buildings, but then after a while you realise that a number of them were destroyed either by one of the wars, or various political regimes that have been there over the years, the Nazi or the Communist and have since been rebuilt or repaired. The city also has a number incredible new buildings of modern design and architecture. Overall the city has a friendly vibrant feel to it. Once again it is now the political centre of Germany and has a large student and art scene.

On the Thursday we went on a 8 hour walking tour of Berlin. It was excellent. We got all sorts of details of the city and people and places around, as well as some excellent places to eat too. Friday we just generally wandered around and went to a number of sites we’d seen briefly the previous day. Saturday we slept a little late, but went for a bunker and subway (as in trains) tour which was very interesting. We got to see the difference between a standard WWII bunker (which was in fact pretty useless) and a nuclear bunker. The later was built into one of the more modern (built 1970s) underground station and is still fully equiped (minus food) with all the equipment. Quite interesting design in itself. Over all Berlin was a lot of fun. A big five stars

So John and Shannon are now back in the UK, back in London tomorrow. Over the next couple of days we’ll be catching up with various people before they flight back to Australia on Thursday.

Well I arrived in Malaga, Spain on Friday night and met up with Ella. We had dinner and a few drinks (well I had the drinks) then had an evening wander around. We got up Saturday sorted out various things such as the card and then decided we’d have Lunch in Gibraltar. So we did! After a look around there we headed for Seville for Saturday night. A wander around Seville and dinner then a further wander on Sunday before heading towards Madrid via Cordoba. The stop at Cordoba was relatively quick as we didn’t have much time and couldn’t find all the things that people had raved about. We had to be in Madrid in a reasonable time Sunday night for a flight on Monday morning. As per the other nights we looked around Madrid and had dinner before heading for the airport to drop off the car and go to a airport hotel to be close for the flight.

Given that I have been wanting to go to Spain since I first started traveling a little over five years ago and I’ve only just made it for what must be one of my quickest and most manic trips ever I loved it. I want to go back already now that I have a taste. Next time won’t be as quick or cover so much area I think.

Other than that everything else has been extremely manic. Work, life, the universe and everything! My communication with people has been bad but with luck over the next week or two things should start to settle back down to somewhere near normality and I can begin to play catchup.

Well I’m finally making it to Spain. I’ve only wanted to go since I first started traveling five years ago! I’m going for the Bank Holiday weekend over here. Not as long as I originally planned but it will be nice to get away for the weekend. I’m meeting up with Ella in Malaga and we’ll trip around before heading back to London from Madrid.

John and Shannon are also over at the moment. They arrived last Friday and stayed the weekend before heading out into the English countryside. We had catch up drinks on Sunday afternoon which a lot of people came to so that was a lot of fun. We’re all heading to Berlin in early September for five days or so and I’m looking forward to that a lot too.

So with all the people visiting and work being absolutely manic (I was is Cyprus for three weeks in late July and early August) I haven’t even had time to go sailing recently. I think the last time was in June for the round the island race.

With luck once September arrives work will settle down to a dull throb and I can start to settle a bit into a normal routine…. Mind what is a normal routine for me?

I’ve been too busy of late. Work is absolutely flat out and for a number of weekends I’ve been sailing and doing various other activities. Its been weeks (months even) since I’ve had a chill out weekend doing very little and just catching up on general life stuff.

Last weekend was extremely busy. I worked all the weekend and went to Doug and Kate’s engagement party Saturday night. Lots of fun! Was back in the office by 8am Sunday morning.

Well this weekend is it. In fact I took Monday off too so its a chill out long weekend. Friday night I caught up with a friend and went and saw some live music at The Luminaire. Saturday I called some people at home and splashed out finally on a decent stereo system, something I’ve been meaning on doing since I moved in late January. I bought a Denon D-F102DAB plus a pair of Q Acoustics 1020 speakers and a Denon iPod dock. The sound is absolutely superb. Having had the weekend to enjoy it I can’t believe how I’ve survived without a decent stereo for so long!

I’m in London for another week before heading to Cyprus next Monday for three weeks for work. I’m hoping that its not going to be as busy as it was the last time I was there and that I have the weekends to actually see some of the country.

John is also coming to visit from mid August to mid September which I’m very much looking forward to

Well last weekend I competed in the Round the Island Race for the second year running. Its the world’s largest yacht race and it was a lot of fun. Through out the day as far as the eye could see in all directions that there was water you could see sails. Appart from the fact that we nearly sunk the boat we went ok and finished mid field. The weather was reasonable for most of the day and it was rained for the last hour and a half or so of the race (unlike for this week where its basically rained all week - bring on the summer!!).

Any way click on the photo below to see the rest of the photos in my gallery.

One of David Farber’s hobbies is twisting common phrases. Some of my favorite Farberisms include:

• A hand in the bush is worth two anywhere else.
• Don’t just stand there like a sitting duck.
• He’s cornered on all sides.
• I could count it on the fingers of one thumb.
• I haven’t gotten the knack down yet.
• I read the sign, but it went in one ear and out the other.
• It’s burned to shreds.
• It’s more than the mind can boggle.
• It’s the old Paul Revere bit … one if by two and two if by one.
• Just remember that, and then forget it.
• Let’s shoot holes at it.
• My mind is a vacuum of information.
• No loaf is better than half a loaf at all.
• You’re blowing it all out of context.

Well I now have a Wireless Voice over IP Phone. Its registered with an Australian VoIP provider called FreshTel. If you have an account email me so we can exchange Freshtel numbers and speak for free. Otherwise shortly I will get a local Australian phone number and you then have no excuse to call!

In other news the Royal Escape extended weekend was absolutely sensational!!! I loved it. Speaking of which I would love to hear from my few readers… comment below, email, SMS, call

Well I’m escaping for a couple of days… on The Royal Escape from Brighton to Fecamp in France ( Google Maps link - Brighton is right near Hove). On Thursday James and Myself are sailing the boat from Gosport around to Brighton. On Friday we race to Fecamp and then we return the boat from Fecamp to Gosport by Monday. I must say I’m looking forward to some sailing and relaxing…. lets hope the weather holds out.