Rowan's blog

UK trip

Ben & I had a wonderful time in the UK. Some pics are now up here.

Brits Abroad

"An estimated 5.5m British people live permanently abroad – almost one in 10 of the UK population. The emigration of British people has happened in cycles over 200 years. The trend is now rising again: some 2,000 British citizens moved permanently away from the UK every week in 2005.

This unique project aims to explain where people have gone. On the regional and country pages you will find data on what we know about that part of the world."

View the BBC News article here.

It seems I'm not alone. 1.3 million Brits now reside down under.

Tasmania

We went to Tas for 10 days over Easter. Pure fun.

• Rainbows. Three in one day in Hobart.

• Wind. Got blown around Salamanca Market to the sound of the buskers. Held on tight at Dove Lake. 

• Birds soared in the wind. Met the friendliest seagull in Oyster Bay. Others stayed on their rock.

• Rocks. Climbing. Pink rocks. Walked across a pink beach.

• Beaches. An hour and a half walk across the Hazards to reach Wineglass bay. Was so tired I had a sleep.

• Enchanted forests. Rode along bush tracks and a huge dam wall.

• Lakes and mountains a plenty. The start of the Overland Track. Marion’s lookout. Cold snow. 

• Hot spas, not one but two. With pink champagne.

• Tassie wine. Cheese. Fish. Oysters for lunch, fresh from the farm.

• Wild wallabies, kangaroos, devils. No Tassie Tigers though.

• Sunsets. Fabulous B&B at Freycinet: Sheoaks.

• Cradle Mountain Lodge. Port by the fire. Beat Ben at cards and (left handed) pool.

• Breakfasts to keep you going (bircher muesli, cooked breakfast, then THREE croissants). Nice view. 

See all the pics from Hobart, Freycinet & Cradle Mountain.

Devil of a place. We’ll be going back.

Cal's Great Wall of China Trek

Cal's off to trek around the Great Wall of China for charity this September. Sounds great. Wish I could go!!

She's aiming to raise GBP 1,500 for Plan UK, an international humanitarian development organisation which helps children realise their full potential.

If you'd like to read more, and / or help Cal achieve her target, click through to her sponsorship page.

Getting mobile

My dad (who doesn't yet have a TV) recently got a mobile phone. Getting a SMS message from him was a strange, but very nice surprise! Dad's getting adventurous in other ways too - he's just about to board a plane to start his journey to Aus. I'll be meeting him on Friday in Port Douglas for a week's holiday, I'm so excited!! He'll be spending time in Sydney too.

Meanwhile, my mum is making final preparations to sail around southern europe for six months. Mum's used to Skyping me (very advanced... ) however she's only now learning how to send a SMS. Important, since that'll be her only method of contacting me while aboard.

The world is developing, slowly but surely.

The question I can't help asking is, what's next? What will the world be like when our parents are using 3G? Will our kids have random cyber-love affairs with people in other countries via video call? How much of our lives will be online? What would happen if the wireless networks went down??!

Perhaps I'll ponder that question while lying in the pool, cocktail (and mobile) in hand, in Port Douglas.

Mick the Mzungu

Mick is doing aid work in a remote villiage in Africa. A little girl called Happiness is teaching him to speak Swahili. He said occasionally her mum gets angry & shouts at her; "Happiness"!

Mick wrote 'Mick the Mzungu' on his blog. I was bugged by the word 'Mzungu'... found definition (English - Swahili Dictionary):

- mzungu noun, pl wazungu, white person
- mzungu noun, pl mizungu, something remarkable
- mzungu noun, pl mizungu, baffling thing

What a great word! Western ways and red hair must be a real marvel to those villiagers. (Are you making them giggle yet Mr Mzungu?)

P.S. The sex of objects made me laugh :)

A win, a cruise and a trip to Melbourne!

What a weekend!

It started on Friday morning... I arrived at work to hear that the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals (San Fran) had validated a previous ruling: P2P software products Morpheus, Grokster and now Kazaa are legal. A big defeat for the major record labels and Hollywood studios. A fantastic win for us! Innovative David kicked Goliath's outdated arse again.

Judge Sidney R. Thomas summed up the benefits of P2P wonderfully "The technology has numerous other uses (besides illegal ones), significantly reducing the distribution costs of public domain and permissively shared art and speech, as well as reducing the centralized control of that distribution."

He concluded his report by saying "We live in a quicksilver technological environment with courts ill-suited to fix the flow of Internet innovation. The introduction of new technology is always disruptive of old markets, and particularly to those copyright owners whose works are sold through well-established distribution mechanisms. Yet, history has shown that time and market forces often provide equilibrium in balancing interests, whether the new technology be a player piano, a copier, a tape recorder, a video recorder, a personal computer, a karaoke machine or an MP3 player."

There are heaps of articles if you want to read more: e.g. CNet News or BBC.

We coincidentally had a harbour cruise planned for Friday afternoon so we celebrated doubly! Check out the pics here.

I remained (just) sober enough to make my flight to Melbourne. Tammy & I stayed in her friend's executive apartment on Chapel Street (Australia's best known street for womens clothes shops ...yep, I came back with more bags & less $ :)

Then we went to the National Gallery & saw the finest collection of French Impressionist paintings ever to come to Australia. We took the audio tour via headset. The highlight was hearing Van Gogh's letter to his sister, in which he described the scene and how he longed to paint the stars as I absorbed the result, 'Starry night over the Rhone'.
They say Impressionists paint the sensation rather than reality. I found myself absorbed in the sensation of several paintings that I hadn't liked at all at first. Amazing. The added dimension of audio certainly added to the impression.

I also caught up with my long-lost friend Sue, her partner Terry & their two young kids. Sue, it was SO great to see you!!

$500 for UNICEF!

If you sponsored me or helped me fulfill a dare, THANK YOU! The dares added up to a lot of fun for me and $500 for UNICEF.

The most memorable ones had to be:
- Getting groups of five or more people to sing 'Tie me kangaroo down sport'. See video.
- Eating three deserts in one sitting (in the most picturesque restaurant on a cliff in Santorini) See pics: 'happy at start' and 'struggling' near end. (We did some chair swapping for exersize during my ordeal).
- Drinking a cold beer after arriving (very hot) at Russell's (almost impossible to find) favorite cafe in Athens.
- Pretending to do a body shot off a 'greek sailor'.

Thanks again to everyone who contributed.

Oh - and I've finally put my Greece pics live! Check them out here.

Welcomed home

Tammy & Paul picked me up from the airport and after a refreshing shower, took me to a great Korean restaurant in the city. Thanks guys, I felt very pampered :)

Shaun arrived home a bit pissed after celebrating our victorious win in the Rugby (well deserved payback for the world cup, methinks :) He's pretty funny after a few beers - Lauren & I were in stitches! In the morning Emma & Russ came over & we had a huge bbq breakfast on the balcony. The sun shone. The last 6 weeks have been amazing - the best trip of my life, but, well, it's also pretty nice to be home.

I arrived in the office this morning to find my work cube decorated "welcomingly" (an office tradition). See the entrance (evil to-do list) & the cube. After cleaning that up I tackled my 300+ emails... nice!

Greece with Michie

After being held up for hours at Gatwick (ticketing system broke down & check in area was gridlocked), I eventually made it to my connecting flight at Athens airport. I met Mich in the departure lounge for our flight to the Greek island of Santorini.

Greece is HOT. We're staying in Kumari beach at the moment but hop across to Fira on the other side of the island tomorrow to stay on the caldera edge (in a little white sugar-cube building cut into the rock face).

The most surprising thing about Greece is how many free drinks the waiters bring you - it's really strange. I had my first real hangover of the whole trip this morning after sex on the beach, several orgasms (the cocktails, the cocktails!), a couple of flame of love's, a flaming sambucha (not sure if that's spelled correctly) and some other mysterious, highly potent thing they brought over. Every serve of alcohol is a double - and, frankly, that much alcohol and hot sun really do not compliment each other. I forced myself to go running this morning then swam before collapsing on a sun lounger. Other than that I've been incapable of doing anything except sleeping and sitting in the shade & (failing to) read my book.

God, it's a hard life sometimes ;)

View my pics from Greece here.