Farewell to Newcastle.... next stop Europe

Well, its all happening now. I've resigned from work and finish there on the 14th. I move out of my house tomorrow and will be staying with my mate Ken for a few weeks, before I leave Newcastle on the 16th to go to London, and then head for Paris for the start of my Europe trip! Nita and I are meeting there and will be travelling mostly by train for 2 months.

The basic itinerary is: Paris, Holland, Krakow, Prague, Czesky Krumlov, Vienna, Budapest, Bucharest, Istanbul, Athens, the Greek Islands, Naples and Spain. Then I'll be back to London before flying home to the Gold Coast in mid September.

So it is all very exciting! I'm going to miss my friend and work mates here in Newcastle, but I'm ready to leave and return home to some decent weather. I don't think I could handle another English winter...

A few weeks ago I went on a science communication conference in Belgium. It was very interesting, and Belgium is lovely. I've put in a few pics from the trip.

England has gone football crazy. I must say I've got quite into it all, especially with Australia doing so well! Robbed I say, and all my English friends have been very supportive and totally agree. Out side my work they have set up a big screen for the England games, so I've attached a pic. Cars are driving around with England flags attached to them (some even with 6 attached!) and every bar and pub and shop has England flags flying. Its all very intense! They really love their football here, that's for sure.

I've had Kirstie staying for the past week, which has been lovely. We were at college together at Uni and we haven't seen each other in almost 4 years. She is in between 2 trips around Europe, and is really enjoying it.

On Monday night it was my housemate Marek's Birthday, so we had a bit of dinner here at home and I managed to cook up some polish food for everyone. He hadn't had any polish food since coming to the UK over a year ago, and he said it was better than polish food (a very nice complement). It was a bit of an expience cooking food I'd only heard about, but it all turned out well and was quite tasty. There is a pic attached on the night - Marek is in the Newcastle football shirt we gave him for his birthday. He's a real Geordie now!