Not long now

Ho, ho, ho, holiday! Yes, the summer vacation has already begun and I'm making the most of it being very hot before we jet off into much colder climes.

It's not long before we set off for Europe. I'm starting to get excited, but there's also some fear of setting off on a very long plane journey - Brisbane/Taipei/Bangkok/Amsterdam. Of course we travel Cattle Class, so that makes it worse, but I'm fairly sure we'll have exit row seats on each leg. You can never guarantee these things, but I called into China Airlines office beside the one we Ambassadors use at Brisbane Airport, and they saw me and sort of assured me we would get the seats, but they don't know until the day of departure.

For those of you who, like me, know more about aircraft than that they just have jet engines, I can tell you that we go firstly on an A330 to Tapei, and change to a B747 to Amsterdam. The return is also a 747, but from Taipei to Sydney we have an A340 (I've never been on one of those before). Several of my friends reading this have suddenly glazed over - WAKE UP, back to news...

We've rented an apartment in Utrecht for a week - built in 1690. It looks wonderful, and it's right down where our favourite cafe is, beside the canal. We arrive in Utrecht on New Year's Eve and currently we hope to meet some friends at the Ledig Erf cafe for a wonderful first night back in Utrecht for five years.

The pictures below are of New Mexico in the USA and remind me of the first time I went there in the mid 80's. I've been back twice because of friends there and the fact that the South West is such a fantastic place to visit. The desert, mountains and a very special atmosphere all combine to make this a very extraordinary part of the country to investigate. I had a whole album emailed to me just today, so I thought I'd share a couple of typical views.

A couple of posts ago I mentioned the great difficulty I had in choosing a new phone and a plan to suit my needs. Well, my patience and research has paid off with an exceptionally good handset - the HTC Magic - from Vodafone, complete with a data download facility for exactly the same amount per month as my old phone. This SmartPhone is too clever so far, and I am taking small steps each day to master it, but it is wonderful. It has a 3.5 megapixel camera, GPS, Google maps, Android OS (which means it's not Mac or Windows based) and it is light, easy to use as a phone, and text messaging is via a very large QWERTY keyboard that is touch sensitive. The memory card in the phone is 8Gb - so lots of music and videos can be stored on it for long trips on planes (hint, hint) plus if we get lost or need phrases in French, Spanish etc, it has an Ap for these too. When I type messages I can turn the phone sideways and the keyboard is bigger. How cool is that? I love it!
I've been to several shows lately, the most recent being the Eurobeat show - a send up of the Eurovision Song Contest. It was a very funny, most entertaining evening. I organised a group of eight to go, but alas Rene chickened out saying things like, "I'm not sitting through crap like that!" etc etc............ he had surrendered more than enough dignity in attending the Sound of Music Singalong a week earlier, where he provided more than enough entertainment as we all watched him cringe with horror when we all raised our arms every time the word 'hills' was sung, and we booed the Nazis and hissed at the Baroness.

I've got a few dinners left this coming 10 days, an airport Christmas lunch - now at the City Novatel since the new Airport Novatel won't be ready for this Friday. I attend the AGM for our apartment complex on the Sunshine Coast tomorrow, and I have one evening shift left at the airport before I hang up my uniform until next February.

My friend Kay helped me select a white cotton shirt for the wedding, so now I have all my clothes sorted. It's always a challenge to travel light for me, but we will have to try really hard not to take anything unnecessary on this flight. At one stage (Weeze to Seville) we are flying Ryanair - the only direct choice available in winter - and they have a 15kg limit on luggage so I'll be leaving some gear at people's places and collecting it after our return. We fly Transavia back to Eindhoven from Malaga and they have a 20kg limit, so we'll more than manage.

Finally, I am about to start on the oiling of the deck. The timber requires a refresh of oil into the timber every year or so - it's exposed to the western sun a bit and everyday wear and tear - so in readiness yesterday I hammered every nail flush to the boards and this morning washed the deck throughly. Over the last three days I've sanded the handrails and given them three coats of varnish - really good varnish made in Norway. The front should look lovely and refreshed after I'm finished. It's lovely being able to get out and do these things with school closed now and my departure still a few days off. Last vacation I left for America the first day of my vacation and came straight back to work afterwards so felt exhausted most of the term.

There will be one more update before we go. Enjoy December!