... and this time I think they got it right (see my blog entry about last time).

I remember four years ago seeing Obama making a speech after being elected to the Senate and thinking "that guy's a pretty good speaker", with the media saying to keep an eye out for him as a promising man with potential.

It's quite remarkable that only four years later the same man has been elected President, even discounting the other more obvious and well discussed attributes.

After 8 years of Bush it's so great to see and hear someone that has some … Read more →

We've pretty much taken it easy in the past week since we have gotten back from our European trip.

On Saturday night, although we were still a bit lethargic, we went back to Church for the first time. Afterwards we went out for some very ordinary Indian food, which was surprising because the restaurant we went to is usually renowned for its quality.

Sunday saw me play indoor. I don't know what I was thinking, but I managed to play two and a half games: as a fill-in for a half, then our actual full game which we lost … Read more →

One of the downsides of having a non-anonymous blog is that you can't blog a lot of stuff because of it, and going overseas for a few weeks is probably one of them.

As you can probably tell, we have just gotten back from spending the better part of the last three weeks in Europe. It was almost torture not being able to blog about planning the trip before-hand, but I did manage to write a few offline blogs while we were over there.

Just to quickly sum up the reasons for and the planning of the trip: there was … Read more →

Part of our 2008 European Trip. See the explanation and summary entry.

Following the Arsenal game on Saturday, we spent the majority of Sunday doing the general London tourist thing. We got on one of the open-top red double-decker tour buses and generally saw the city.

That was probably our coldest day in London, and it threatened rain throughout the day. We had lunch at Picadilly Square and did a bit of shopping in Oxford Street. We also got off the bus and saw Buckingham Palace, but the Queen totally snubbed us.

To finish off the day we went … Read more →

Part of our 2008 European Trip. See the explanation and summary entry.

This one's going to a long one! We arrived in London latish on Thursday night at Gatwick Airport. We caught the express into the city and then a quick taxi to our hotel in King's Cross. This journey was the main reason for the side-trip: to see the Arsenal vs Everton game at Arsenal's Emirates Stadium.

That night I quickly fulfilled my English McDonald's mission (which was easy as there was one right down the road from the hotel), and we woke up the next day and … Read more →

Part of our 2008 European Trip. See the explanation and summary entry.

Blogging has gotten away from me in the past few days, but anywho. The wedding on Sunday all went fine, although it did end up torturously late. We waited around past 2am for the bride and groom to leave, but as it was apparent they weren't going anywhere anytime soon, we left for home at around 2:30.

That night also saw me complete the first leg of my international mission. I'm not sure if i've mentioned this before, but i have a mission when going overseas: it … Read more →

Part of our 2008 European Trip. See the explanation and summary entry.

In the past few days we returned to my family here in Cyprus, and today is the main reason why we came here in the first place. Today is the wedding day of my cousin, and the place here is abuzz with preparations, cleaning, and last minute organising.

It's been a relatively quiet past few days since we returned here; we've sort of just taken it easy. Yesterday we did go and inspect the family land, and also did a few other miscellaneous things.

The night before … Read more →

Part of our 2008 European Trip. See the explanation and summary entry.

We have spent the past few days on another part of Cyprus staying with Des' relatives.

It's funny, because in making the journey we have almost crossed the entire island, and it's barely a couple of hundred kilometres. We had this big map, which looked quite big geographically, but when you look at the legend, two finger widths equals 20km! The distance we drove would barely get us past the Tweed in driving south from Brisbane (although it did take a lot longer than that trip because … Read more →

Part of our 2008 European Trip. See the explanation and summary entry.

Yesterday here in Cyprus was a pretty quiet one. We pretty much went for a day-trip into the tourist area of Nicosia where there were many strange and exciting things to see. It was quite tiring walking around. Strangely enough I did see a graffiti-stencil of Sam (of Sam & Max fame, pictured) sprayed on a wall there; it was surreal and surprising finding that.

I did spot my first McDonald's though. I have this tradition in which I try to eat a Big Mac in … Read more →

Part of our 2008 European Trip. See the explanation and summary entry.

Well it all started Saturday afternoon as we took the first leg of our journey to Cyprus, and for me and Des, a little side trip to other miscellaneous parts of Europe.

I know i have been almost utterly silent about this trip prior to these posts, but one of the deficits of having a non-anonymous blog is that you shouldn't really give people advance knowledge that you are out of the country. The summary entry sums up well what we had planned before it all started.… Read more →