Quotes for the day

After having had enough of pouring over job adverts and descriptions and repetitively filling out such luridly personal details as my name and phone number on online forms, I began to read the quotes written at the bottom of the pages on my diary. Among the more interesting...

"Patience, n. A minor form of despair, cunningly disguised a virtue"

And the more lame and ignorant (sadly from oft studied NZ writer Margaret Mahy)...

"Canadians are like Americans without Disneyland"

And the one that struck me best...

"Every time you spend your money, you are casting a vote for the kind of world
you want"

How true that is. here in the UK there is a real sea of change in the way people are living their lives. Take the town that yesterday convinced all its retailers to shun plastic bags and only provide paper (and therefore recyclable), or simply reusable bags. Imagine how much waste could be saved if that could be done everyone. A simple culture change to bring bags from home. There is also movement for buying locally produced goods, organics, bins for excess packaging (which is then reviewed & redesigned with product suppliers). You can offset your own carbon emissions so that you don't make any net pollution, or you buy energy that is only from renewable sources. It seems now is a time that this really is true - your purchasing choices will make a difference - if you support the good things then they will continue, because the public demands it and has created a market for it, but if not, they will surely disappear into the lost opportunities of history...

And finally one that seems truly apt for me at the moment...

"Hofstadters Law: It always takes longer than you expect, even when you
take into account Hofstadters Law"

It has been quite a while since the last post - sorry for the long delay! To quickly summarise recent events - went up the coast of Croatia and inland to Plitvice National Park. Hired a car and survived unscathed arond some crazy windy roads. Got a train to Italy, a couple of sunny days in Venice, then to Milan, then up into Switzerland eventually spending about four days with my Cousin, his wife and their two kids. Came back to London with mum, where by a stroke of luck we got free tickets to the ANZAC service in Westminster Church. It was remarkable sitting in there despite it being the most un-user-freindly church I have ever seen!! Mum's now gone to Singapore, on her way home, and I'm still looking for a job. Shouldn't be too long until I find one, but until then its a fulltime job just looking.

The future also holds Glastonbury Music Festival, the purchase of a BBQ this weekend, and a good massive cleanout of my room. On top of that there is Prince Harry going to Iraq (good on him, bloody brave - or stupid - thing to do!).

To my great dismay Bon Jovi are playing in London on the last night of the Glastonbury festival. most disapointing as Bon Jovi is one of the big bands I wanted to see over here. (It seems destiny I will not see Bon Jovi, U2, or Pearl Jam - also playing that week -, the 3 remaining big bands in my top 5 that I would like to see. (At least my brother got to see U2 AND Pearl Jam all in one week!)

NZ is out of the Cricket World cup, but luckily Louise has not given me too much grief over this. Perhaps it is because she knows Aussie aren't going to make it through the Rugby World Cup.

And so London is London... the weather has been rainy here despite predictions of nice weather. They say the tube is going to be hotter than last year. I'm not looking forward to it.

And I have some photos uploaded! Very quick of me I know - So far Sarajevo, Mostar and Dubrovnic. A very small proportion of the photos I took, but a start.

Dubrovnic

Today we spent a few hours roaming the Old City of Dubrovnic. To get there we had to walk down some 245 steps (fortunately we donćt have to go back up!) It is a very nice place - High walls surround the city and it is easily walkable. It helps that the sun was beaming down upon us and I have managed to survive the day in just a t-shirt and shorts, (though it is a little cold in the shade...).

We have a seen a few churches today, the best was the Dominican church, which had a few examples of ˝Reliquaries˝, basically gold or silver designs in the shape of a human body part that contained the remains of that body part!! For example the Arm of St Thomas. There were also skulls, legs, hands and other various parts.

I had some very nice grilled Calamari for lunch, and then we walked around a small part of the outside wall and I sat down and just absorbed the sun for a while.

I am still trying to decide if I like Dubrovnic - There isn´t a lot to do here, and the things there are to do are much the same as what I have seen before. Not to get me wrong, it is a lovely place, today at least I seem to have little desire to see the sights. Perhaps after Egypt, nothing will really compare!! I think I seek some adventure, and so I am looking forward to when we hire a car and can go wherever we want.

There is no cricket on for the next few days, that is a shame. Sounds like there is some controversy over India´s early exit now. At lease NZ is top of the pool with Australia.

Tomorrow afternoon we go to Korcula. It is an Island and supposed to be very nice. On Monday we catchup with Louise in Split and that is when we hire the car - I am looking forward to that.

I am trying to upload some photos of Sarajevo - it may or may not work, even if it does there will only be four photos, and not the best ones as I havent loaded any that need rotating.

Until next time!

Sarajevo & Mostar

Mum and I landed in Sarajevo at Midday on Monday, The Airport terminal was new and the views were spectacular as we flew down a number of valleys into the airport.


Our first experience was in getting some cash - to date we still don´t know what the currency was called, so we have resorted to calling it Bosnian ˝Bozos˝. At the airport we saw a few EUFOR personnel, happily on their way home after a successful mission. The Taxi into town was fast and furious, the kind of taxi ride you want when entering into a warzone. Fast enough to dodge bullets, mortars and even any traffic that might rudely get in your way.

Sarajevo city itself was very nice - As you walk around you see there are essentially two stories to be told. The first the most interesting - That of the war. Being in valley, Sarajevo was surrounded and bombed from the hills. We were staying across the river just 100m from the frontline, or the part that took the biggest hits. The buildings that are able to stand still do, the rest are now gone. Almost every building has bullet marks on it, some have been patched and others have not. Sniper Alley, where some 10,000 innocent civilians were killed trying to get from one end of the city to the next, was particularly bad. Much of the city centre (the second part of the story), has been rebuilt and is very nice, fitting of any European city. I would encourage anyone who can to go and see Sarajevo, it is by far a fascinating city, to see the kinds of things that were done to it just over a decade ago. The pictures will speak for themselves when I have a chance to post them and also research what actually went on.

Mostar is another Bosnian city that took a hammering. Again here walked along the frontline. There were almost collapsed buildings, some with sandbags still visible. I think they haven't been destroyed because they do not know if it is safe as the buildings may be booby trapped. There was also a bridge that was destroyed, and for a long time the Christians and Muslims were separated on each side of the river. Even when bridges were rebuilt there was little or no interaction between the two former enemies. Yet now they appear to live in harmony, at least they are working together for the tourist dollar in the prosperity of peace.

I don't know who was fighting who in these conflicts, it seems to be a complicated war - but either way it was a disgusting war - The west not interfering for a long time, and when they finally did the war was over in a few weeks or months.

I never imagined going to Bosnia, let alone with Mum, but there we were and what an amazing experience it was. We are now in Dubrovnic in Croatia. We have organised a car for Monday next week and are spending the weekend on the island of Korcula.

M&M's

Or Mary (or Mum!) and Michael as we are otherwise known!

Tomorrow morning we leave for Sarajevo, so chances are by the time you read this we will already be there. I have no expectations or prior knowledge except that it was once a city at the centre of a bitter civil war and the most recent European war in the late 1990's. I'm sure that in itself will be interesting to see the people, the culture and the (hopefully) regeneration of the city.

Its an early 4.30am wakeup call with a trip to Gatwick and then a 2 hour flight over early morning Europe. It has been sunny today, so hopefully we will see a lot of Europe. (I forgot to mention on the way home from Egypt we flew over Switzerland, and that was spectacular, though of course from that height it looks a little more flat!)

Anyhoo, must be off to bed so I am well refreshed for another three week sojourn!

Cheerio!

Mum in london!