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Friday, November 9. 2007I declare closed the investigation
Just received the letter below from Portugal, which Google Translate has helped me gather is to tell us that the inquiry into our car being broken into in Óbidos is now closed due to lack of evidence.
To add to the fun of reading the original Portuguese to type in to the translator, some of the words hadn't printed properly so I am left to make educated guesses about a language I know two words in. Announced themselves to V. Exa, as a Denunciante, which was delivered in the order of filing survey referenced above, resulted in a complaint lodged against DESCONHECIDOS, pursuant to art. 277 of Code of Criminal Procedure, with its reopening arise if new evidence which invalidem the pleas in that order-art. 279, paragraph 1, of the same diploma legality. Anyway, obrigado, Portuguese police! Or should that be "Due in low"? Monday, April 9. 2007Belated Bulgaria Blogging
Well, it's belated no more. OK, yes, it's still rather late.
Anyway, check out the Bulgaria category for the latest installment. Edit: Pictures now online also! Friday, April 6. 2007Greek Photos Online
Have done some more photo editing and have put some of the best Greek photos online here.
Thursday, March 8. 2007Europe 2006 Page Tidy-Up
I've just done a very long-overdue page tidy up on the Europe 2006 page. It's also linked over there on the left.
The previous version was last updated when we were in Paris, so it was a little inaccurate. There's now a link to the photos and links to each of the sections we have blogged about. My current goal is to have finished the blog entries no later than twelve months after they occurred. That means I'm right for another month or so but then have to get cracking to convert our notes into entries you might want to read. Up to and including Macedonia is currently completed. So much to do in life! Saturday, March 3. 2007Catchup Blogging
OK, News time. It's been a while.
I've uploaded some photos to my Flickr account which have titles showing a pictorial version of what we've been doing recently. There's some from Adelaide (1 2 3 4), some from our recent weekend back up to the Hunter Valley to celebrate our wedding anniversary (yep, it's been over a year now...) (1 2), and even an ugly product of our veggie patch. Margaret's house has been on the market for a while and is now sold, she's looking for a place to buy and has a few in mind. She may be moving in with us during the change-over period. So we've re-organised the house a bit. We've now got a separate (small) room devoted to music. It's good to have everything out and in the one place, and I've been inspired to do some recording, helped out with a computer audio interface I found cheap on eBay. Still trying to decide what software I want to use with it though. The junk that used to be in that room has now sort-of migrated to the spare room, but it could be consolidated to make room for Margaret should the need arise. Around the house, I've been cleaning out gutters and getting things organised in preparation for the arrival of our water tanks. The fact that it's been raining a lot recently has been annoying us, thinking of the wastage. It looks like we'd have to vote capital-L Liberal to get the government to do something about water recycling, so becoming as detached as possible from it all is appealing. Put some of the wine from our Hunter trip (came back with three cases!) under the house in a sort-of cellar arrangement. The conditions are good but it's hard to get to. Should be good for medium-long-term storage though. We headed off to the Whiskey Experience again a few days ago - a great fun evening which we figure is just to raise brand awareness. Not that many people around us were aware of things around themselves by the end of proceedings! One of Liz's birthday celebrations this year was a trip to the Löwenbräu Keller, something I haven't done for years and an evening we thoroughly enjoyed. The band there seems to do the same show every night, but it's very entertaining. Plus we get to drink great beer and practice our German. ... Which is good, because Sebastian Schnelle (whom we stayed with at least three times in Europe 2002-3 and caught up with again early last year) is back in the country to do his PhD in Brisbane. He and his girlfriend Jana flew into Sydney last week and we caught up a few times. She's still in learn-English mode, so we had a few conversations with me speaking German and her English, and my lack of skill there seemed to give her more confidence. Oh, and I buggered my knee badly about a month ago, which is the worst it's ever been. I've had plenty of days working from home and far less cycling. I have a specialist appointment next week, so hopefully I can get something done about it. Another Jersey Kerb gig happened last Friday - the first with Jono playing keyboards and me back on bass after Ed left for England. We played pretty well I thought, but the crowd was both thin and lacking energy. I think we have a job for our manager to get us sorted in a new venue or with some more aggressive advertising. Still great fun though. Surely that's enough topic-hopping for now. Congratulations if you made it this far!
Posted by Alison Gould
in Cycling, Deutschland, Europe 2002-3, Europe 2006, Hardware, Jersey Kerb, Music, Real Life, Software, Sydney
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Monday, January 29. 2007Knee: Jerk
Those who've known me for a while probably are aware of the generally crappyness of my knees. On the weekend, after an intensive gardening session (yes, we're getting old...), I didn't quite step properly on a raised concrete section of our backyard and ended up with nasty sounds and much pain in my right knee.
I've pretty much learned in every day life what not to do to minimise the occurrances of this problem, resulting in this being the first time this has happened since Paris. I attempted to walk up to the shops yesterday but only made it about four houses before giving up, and as such yesterday and today I'm working from home. It's nice to have that option, but it doesn't take long to miss being out and about cycling. Friday, December 15. 2006Eight Months Late!
Yes, we are indeed eight months late in writing about our Eastern European adventures on our honeymoon earlier this year.
We found we wanted to enjoy the trip rather than write about it, and resorted to just jotting down notes for each day to be expanded later. But look! I've done one day - yep - count it one - with many more coming. Follow the progress of us around Europe here, or jump straight to Macedonia like this. Wednesday, September 27. 2006More EU members
I'm glad we made it to Bulgaria at least before they and Romania join the EU. We visited Czech before and after they joined and the difference was quite visible - more money, less culture as a quick summary.
On the plus side, perhaps the worst standard of roads we have ever driven on will now be drivable by people who own their own cars (ours was leased so it didn't worry us too much!) And yes I know there's not much Eastern Europe blog online yet - it's on the list of things to get done :( Monday, August 28. 2006It's a New Car!
OK, so I've used that title once or twice before, but this time we mean it.
We've never owned a new car before, but yesterday, after lots and lots of research, saving, and deliberating, we went out and plonked down a deposit on a shiny new Volkswagen Polo TDi, ticking plenty of option boxes. (Reviews: #1 #2 #3) This is a small-medium car, plenty big enough for us for a while, crazily economical (6-7 l/100km around the city or 4-5 on the open road), and it's capable of towing our soon-to-be-back-in-the-water boat. The last two items on that list above come courtesy of the fact that it is a diesel car. We've loved both Percy the Peugeot and more recently Schnee Three the Citroën, both of which have been diesel powered, and finally you can get good enough diesel in Australia to make buying one here a sensible move. The fact that you can run these cars on biodiesel is a great plus for the environment. We can even create our own fuel out of waste oil from local take-aways should we so choose! Otherwise, either our local servo carries B50 (meaning 50% biodiesel) or we can buy B100 (100% biodiesel) from The Biodiesel Station in Marrickville (possibly closed at the moment). As for towing, being a diesel means that this little car actually has more towing power (ie. torque) than a Subaru Forester, while using about half the fuel when you aren't towing - making it the perfect dual-purpose car for us. I should talk a little about the Prius here, as we have mentioned several times we were thinking about one of those. The big killer was that the manufacturers don't want you to tow with them at all. Perhaps as the technology gets a little more mature, we could have a biodiesel-powered hybrid which the manufacturers supported towing with. So it's still a little while until delivery, giving us time to save up the remaining cash, but it's done now - too late to change our minds! A quick last note here that yes, we do need a car living in suburban Sydney. I'd love to say that wasn't the case, but the buses are of little use, the trains pretty good from our station but don't go everywhere you want, and it's pretty hilly for cycling. Getting across suburbs to my grandparents' place or Liz's mum's place is not really possible with any of the above options (except cycling, which I have done on occasions, but isn't possible with lots of gear, a dog, gifts, instruments, etc.)
Posted by Alison Gould
in Cycling, Environment, Europe 2002-3, Europe 2006
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Thursday, June 8. 2006Honeymoon Reflections (with pretty pic!)The first most common question we've been asked sicne returning was "where did you go?". Well, ask no more. Using the power of GPS and Google Earth, I present a map of where we went! Yellow lines are country borders, and our path is multi-coloured. We started in Paris, France, and travelled roughly anti-clockwise around Europe, ending up in London. The second most common question is "so what was your favourite/the best part/place?". That I cannot answer. Being places other tourists haven't made it to (or at least not by the coach-load) is always a good feeling, and chatting with friendly locals is pretty awesome too. That said, some highlights included:
Coming soon: the rest of the blog, more photos and you too can follow our holiday in Google Earth! Tuesday, May 23. 2006Photos!
It's been quite a while, but there are finally some new photos online! See them here.
Leaving Sebastian's parents' place today to head across Germany, before returning the car in Paris on Friday and flying to London for a week. After that - home. Sunday, May 21. 2006Wireless!
Uploaded some blog we have written so far. There is more that we have written as summaries that we need to expand before posting - perhaps we will get this done before we get home, but certainly not all as there's only about two weeks to go!
As before, you may need to click on "Next page" at the bottom of the screen to see it all. Might try uploading some pictures later too. Saturday, May 20. 2006Alles Gut
Yes, everything is good here, we're now in Germany, staying with friend Sebastian's parents in a little place called Kronach.
Seb was brought up here and we've just had a bit of a wander around in the rain, him showing us around the same way I did around Carss Park a year or so ago. Sorry for those who keep 'suggesting' that we update the blog a bit more often - we've got quite a bit more written but finding a place to connect the laptop and upload it is the eternal problem. Suffice for now to say we enjoyed Eastern Europe very much, each country with it's own interesting things to explore and language to fumble our way through. Thoroughly off the beaten track, just how we like it. Have to book some accommodation in London as our next challenge, and we're meeting up with Liz's uncle Peter for a night there too. Tuesday, May 2. 2006Adventurous Honeymooners
In Ljubliana, the capital of Slovenia at the moment, having just spent two days staying right next to Lake Bled, north of here.
Sun is finally out a bit after lots of days of rain and snow, which we managed to get ourselves bogged in a couple of times trying to get over mountain passes! Thank goodness for helpful, passing locals! Tomorrow we plan to duck back into Croatia to Zagreb, but then generally move north into Hungary, Slovakia and Poland before Germany to the west and then Paris-London-Sydney! See you all soon. Saturday, April 22. 2006Leaving Bulgaria
(written 9/4/2007)
We rose and went downstairs to a delicious breakfast of local specialties, all explained to us again - homemade blueberry jam, deep fried pancakes, cheeses, wow, what a change after some of the things we had made do with in recent times. After a bit more of a chat, we assured the friendly girl that we would look at the handcrafts that the town had to offer - she wanted us to help the town's economy, not just hers personally. So, after a difficult car extraction process helped by some of the locals who had appeared to park around us, leaving the minimal possible room, we drove around village, parking in the center for a look around. We wandered randomly through the friendly little back-streets, populated mostly by local craft-ware shops, but also interestingly with a high density of what appeared to be funeral notices pinned everywhere. Not many of the shops were open at this time, but we picked one and grabbed some nice little cooking and serving pots, similar to the ones we had eaten out of for the last few days. After this, and a few photos, we loaded the car and drove out to the main road again to continue our journey West. Heading along the "main road", we skirted around Sofia which we had decided not to go into, and then carried on North-West towards the Serbian border. There, we found massive truck queues of at least a kilometer, which after observing some locals we decided we didn't need to wait for. Before crossing, we tried to change our money but there was nowhere to do it, so we got in (faster) queue and headed across to Serbia and Montenegro.
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