Finally... now how to carry it all...?

Something I learned today: All about the earth wire on a house and why you should always make sure it is secure. Part of my AGL re-train thing... not immediately relevant, but nonetheless potentially lifesaving!

So tonight when I arrived home from my French lesson guess what was waiting for me? Hooray! My British passport. Finally. Lucky I called yesterday to find out where it was at $2.60 per minute. And all the miserable pommy bloke on the other end of the line would tell me was that I would have it before August. He must have known it had been sent! Gah!

So anyway... here it is. Probably the most useful item I will possess this year!

And by the way, for someone who is trying to travel as lightly as possible I seem to be gathering a lot of items.

Other than the 2 passports, there is my international youth travel pass, my hostelling international membership, extra bank accounts that won't cost as much to access overseas (and therefore 2 more atm cards), various multiplying maps and travel guides, a new camera, tripod, money pouch, new runners, eye mask, ear plugs, microfibre towels so that I can dry both hair and body in yucky hostels, new ultra drying/warming/cooling socks (discount courtesy Athlete's Foot!), mini travel umbrella, and I even bought a mini weather station that attaches to your zipper cause it was $2 at Kathmandu and looked cool.

And the list goes on. I think I need to draw a line here because I actually have to carry all this around with me. Mmmm... there's motivation to stop with the gadgets!

Age knows comfort

What does travel do to the individual?

Last Friday night I went out for dinner with Julian, Wade and Matt and we started discussing travel and what it does or doesn't do to you as a person. This was an interesting topic because none of us have acually done that trip to the other side of the world that so many people do in their late teens or early 20's. We have all been so career focused. And funnily enough, we are all starting to now consider and even plan that much postponed trip.

So the question is: what does travel do to your personality - if anything? And what does it do to the way you perceive your world? Is travel as profound an experience as some would have you believe? Or is it simply something that one must experience in life?

And another thing: is travel relative? That is, to one person the trip of a lifetime could be say from Adelaide to The Gold Coast. Whereas to another, Sydney to Europe or the US would be a minimum distance to achieve that desired level of travel satisfaction.

We all had varying answers, but no-one was particularly passionate about one view or another. It ended up being more of a cyclone of ideas bouncing around the table. I suppose we will have to wait and see...!

Early Starts

Latest new food experience: A little italian bistro called Parlimento on North Terrace in Adelaide. Beautiful food with wines to match every selection and fantastic service. Its become an instant favourite.

This week I have been doing 7.30 am starts which means that I am walking through the parklands that surround Adelaide at sunrise. I wanted to share a couple of photos with you because it was truly beautiful. On Wednesday it was especially spectacular because there was a frost and the ground was covered in ice crystals. Amazing.

I'm now a British Citizen!!!

Current Mood: a mixture of relief, excitement, and a strange feeling of 'is this really happening??'

I've been frantically checking my credit card statements over the last week or so because I figured this was the first clue I would get as to whether my passport/citizenship application had been successful or not.

ie, a $15 charge would mean that they charged me the courier fees to get my documents back to me but had rejected my application, whereas a couple of hundred dollars means that they have issued my passport.

Well guess what? (Like I didn't already tell you in the title!) I found this on netbank when I got home tonight:

05/06/2006

BRITISH HIGH COMMISSIO CANBERRA AIR

$238.00

Yay!!!!!

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I'm adding something...

In order to convey my mood and experience of each post, I propose to complete one of the following bits of information prior to each entry:

Current mood
I'm listening to...
Colour of the day
Most random moment
Latest new food experience
Something I learned today


For example:

Current Mood - relief at having been spared my job today (when others were not so lucky)!

I'm listening to... the meaningless noise of Foxtel behind me as I write.

Colour of the day - yellow of the autumn leaves I walked through twice today.

Most random moment - being told my department at work is moving to Canberra. So I'll be moved to another position in the company.

Latest new food experience - the rocket and goats cheese lasagne I made for dinner.

Something I learned today - Mead is made from honey and comes from England. (... well I did learn this today!)