Hooray for fax machines...

Today I faxed off a booking for a hostel in Kiruna (to avoid the dodgy one), and within an hour they'd emailed me back. I never knew fax machines were so useful! I guess it's probably strange that I have no problem accepting that I can send an email to anywhere in seconds, but find it amusing to think of my letter coming out of a fax machine in Sweden. Go figure.

My ticket to Disneyland Paris arrived yesterday too!

Also, hooray for the Aussie Dollar - making my holiday cheaper! :)

Make that four...

Just organised international roaming too.

I'm really down to the boring stuff now.

• throw out everything in my unit I don't need
• pack up unit
• disconnect internet, land line, electricity
• clean unit (new)
  
• organise for unit carpets to be professionally cleaned (new)
  
• organise mail redirection (new)
  
• move stuff into storage
  
• pack
• confirm tickets

Another 3 things to cross off the list...

At lunch today I organised travel insurance, bought some (non pink) pyjamas (they were cunningly hidden behind a wall of pink pink pink), and picked up Pokemon Pearl for my DS. I've also changed my address on most of my bills.

I did receive a long list of things to do before vacating my apartment... including but not limited to cleaning the unit (apparently I'm supposed to take the windows out and clean those? Yeah, right), getting the carpets professionally cleaned, and mail redirection.

The list is getting full of rather boring things:

• throw out everything in my unit I don't need
• organise international roaming for phone
  
• pack up unit
• disconnect internet, land line, electricity
• clean unit (new)
  
• organise for unit carpets to be professionally cleaned (new)
  
• organise mail redirection (new)
  
• move stuff into storage
  
• pack
• confirm tickets

20 days to go...

Good luck comes in threes...

Blind luck saw me randomly call up Mountain Designs webpage last night, to find out that they had a 4 day sale on... so today I picked up some thermals (long sleeved shirt, merino singlet and pants), and a ski jacket for $290, instead of the $480 I would have paid if I didn't buy them on sale. Hooray!

Hostels are booked in Edinburgh, Paris, Stockholm, Berlin and Vienna. Hooray for Shaz and AngryPaul who have offered to let me stay at their new place in London! (Although that offer may be resciended now that I've called them Shaz and AngryPaul...) The only hostel I am yet to book is in Kiruna (they don't accept email). And I'm waiting on Ramp to email his grandparents to ask if I can stay with them in Amsterdam.

I looked up international roaming for my phone the other day with some trepidation - I'm on the 3 network and was expecting "we don't offer international" or exorbitant fees... but I was very pleasantly surprised to find that for some countries (UK, Sweden, Austria, Italy and Denmark), I won't have to pay for incoming calls and outgoing calls to Australia are charged as if I was in Australia (as long as I make sure I'm on the 3 network). The other rates don't look too bad, and it looks like it should only take a week to get international roaming put on. Hooray!

Something new for the list today is to buy some pyjamas. It is *impossible* to find non-ridiculous pyjamas for women. I gave up last time I went hunting and bought these ugly bright red ones with kittens on them proclaiming how naughty they are. Naughty kittens?! Seriously, you can't get ladies pyjamas without kittens, frogs, puppies or some other horribly cutesy thing on them - and they're all bright pink, purple, red or yellow. Anyway... if I'm sharing a dorm, I want non-ridiculous pyjamas damnit. Maybe this time I'll be lucky.

The list:

• travel insurance
• throw out everything in my unit I don't need
• organise international roaming for phone
  
• buy Pokemon Pearl and Harry Potter OOTP for DS
  
• buy non-ridiculous pyjamas (new)
  
• change address on bills
  
• pack up unit
• move stuff into storage
  
• pack
• confirm tickets

I should really organise travel insurance...

More annoyances...

The various UK rail sites that I looked at today on a mission to book "long-distance" (by their standards) train trips, looked like they should be able to deal with international billing addresses - they had a dropdown marked "Country". Unfortunately, even when you select "Australia" as the country, the websites try to validate the 4 number Australian postcode against UK postcodes of 6 letters/numbers, and you get a lovely "incorrectly formatted postcode" error message. So I couldn't buy my tickets on my credit card.

Some people shouldn't be allowed to program.

Amusingly enough, I could have booked the same tickets in Australian Dollars through a different, international-friendly website... for three times the cost. The price of software testing?

I hate liars...

I found a hostel in Kiruna (northern Sweden) to stay at, which looked quite good, so I emailed a reservation request. I got this back this morning:

Hi! Sorry, only a singleroom is aviable in this minute. Welcome another time.

I was booking one bed in a dorm room, and the single rooms are twice the price. I thought it looked a bit fishy - booking one bed in a tiny town a month and a half in advance - so I googled the place for reviews, and saw this review:

This hostel is by far the best hostel I've stayed in throughout Europe. The only thing I would caution you concerns making reservations. The man who works at the reception isn't the friendliest, but if he tells you that the rooms are filling up fast, don't believe him. We brought an extra friend, and although we were given a four-bed room, he only let the three of us stay in there. I think he wanted to make an extra 300 kronor that he charged my friend for a single room. Also, the place is rarely booked, so don't let him pressure you into making a reservation ASAP.

I know I shouldn't let it, but stuff like this really gets to me. There's no need to lie about it - all that's doing is making me book another hostel. They might be telling the truth, I know, but it doesn't look like it. I hate liars.

Yet another tick...

I managed the packing another box bit and the taking boxes down to the garage bit, but only one chapter of study :( I did however manage the additional task of throwing two boxes of stuff and half a shelf of books into the charity bin. I have no idea how I managed to own so much stuff!

This morning I have booked hostels for London (in Pimlico) and Paris (in Bastille).

Tick...

I just faxed off notice on my unit... it all feels very real now :S

List as of now:

• travel insurance
• throw out everything in my unit I don't need
• organise international roaming for phone (new)
• book hostels in London, Paris, Berlin (new)
  
• buy thermals
• buy Pokemon Pearl or Diamond
  
• change address on bills (new)
  
• pack up unit
• move stuff into storage
  
• pack
• confirm tickets

Every time I tick something off, the list just gets longer...

Day of Doing Stuff...

I just booked my ticket to Disneyland Paris! My current timetable has me in Paris from Wednesday night until Monday morning - I'd prefer to avoid crowds and queues as much as possible, so I figured Thursday was a good alternative to the weekend crowd or the take-Friday-off-to-avoid-the-weekend-crowds crowd. Hopefully it works :P

Now it is definitely time to do some work :P

More bookings...

On Saturday, I booked and paid for train tickets - some sort of pass that allows me 15 days of travel in 2 months on trains, a trip on the Eurostar from London to Paris, and a pass that lets me travel into and out of Prague on trains. $1100, ouch - but not bad for the amount of travel I guess.

Meeting up with Moravias in Vienna, and he's apparently booking a place there for 2 nights, so that's one hostel booked. I wasn't really planning on booking many places because I wanted to be pretty flexible... but it looks like I might have to. I guess places like London where I know exactly when I'll be there are fine. Must look for London hostel.

Things to do today: give notice on unit. Important things to do very soon: book travel insurance.
The worst thing is that I have a 50% exam in a week so I should really be studying...

By tonight I aim to have summarised the first two chapters for my exam, to have packed another box, and to take the packed boxes down to the garage. Baby steps...

So much to do!

And my plan was to lose weight in Europe...

No, really.

But I have just been alerted to the existence of Sachertorte, a culinary specialty of Austria.

I wonder how much Weight Watchers costs...

The most important thing...

I almost forgot an item on my list!

• Buy Pokemon Diamond or Pearl for Nintendo DS for amusement

The Mundanities of Travel

Yesterday I arranged health insurance. Hooray! I also thought of more things to add my list of things to do. Boo :(

The list now stands at:

• buy ticket for Disneyland Paris (new)
• travel insurance
• train pass
• YHA card (new)
  
• throw out everything in my unit I don't need
• give notice on unit (new)
• buy thermals
  
• pack up unit
• move stuff into storage (new)
  
• pack
• confirm tickets

I imagine this blog will be fairly boring until I actually leave. No one wants to read pages of me saying "yay I'm going to Europe and you're not!". So I'll concentrate on all the boring stuff that I have to do.

I am starting up my postcard list too, so if you want a postcard, let me know :) I enjoy writing postcards :P I also take special requests for postcards from particular places.

Organisation

There's an awful lot of stuff to organise when you're going overseas for 2 months.

Done

• arrange storage for stuff
• arrange storage for car (yay Jess)
  
• thrown out everything in my garage I didn't need
• started packing up unit
  

Todo

• travel insurance
• train pass
• health insurance
  
• throw out everything in my unit I don't need
• buy thermals
  
• pack up unit
• pack
• confirm tickets

So much to do, so little time... under five weeks to go...

ascian's travels: an introduction

On the 16th of September I leave the sunny shores of Sydney for an eight week siesta in Europe. I'm hoping to record my travels and the random preparations for them here, in case people don't have enough distractions in their daily lives already.

The map to the left shows the path I'm currently planning to take. It's not set in stone, and nothing's booked yet with the exception of a flight from Stockholm to Berlin (long way to travel otherwise)... and that trip north from Stockholm, which I'm really excited about. It's a flight to a town called Kiruna, which is the northernmost town in Sweden, and as you can see, north of the Arctic Circle - obviously the idea is to see the Northern Lights (and some reindeer!). I'll be there for two nights, hopefully it is clear enough on at least one of them.