Eurasia

Watching Kevin McCloud's Grand Tour is giving me itchy feet. I've been in one place so long, and Australia can feel so restricting. I want to see Greece, I want to see Sarajevo, I want to see Rome, I want to swim off Croatian beaches, I want to dance all night in Berlin clubs, I want to wander down side streets in St Germain eating crepes in Paris. Try to find somewhere interesting to go for 3 days or so that can be easily accessed from Sydney, and you basically come up with....Melbourne.

Now, Melbourne is a great place. I possibly had more fun there than I've ever had anywhere else in my life, in terms of marauding and gallivanting and generally drinking too much and going to bed at 6am. It's attractive, clean, easy to navigate, friendly, varied, cultural, affordable and generally an all round good, interesting place to pass some time. But, both of us having spent some time there, it's no longer perhaps the most exciting destination. It's essentially Sydney, with trams.

You can get onto a plane in Sydney, fly for over 5 hours, get off the plane, and still be in the same country. I'm yearning for some variety. The kind of variety you get in Europe in such abundance. I know there are some beautiful places relatively nearby, but most are inaccessible or at least difficult to come by by public transport (Hawkesbury River, Hunter Valley and the Snowy Mountains to name just a few I seem to be coming up against a google-brick-wall of useful transport options).

I find the programs shown on Aus TV, in particular ABC which buys a lot of BBC imports, somewhat odd sometimes. A lot of the shows are very Euro-centric, or even British-centric, and I wonder how this really goes down with the average aussie viewer. One night, I found myself watching an episode of a Bristish property show, 'Escape to the Country', which was extolling the virtues of the common dream of moving to Cornwall. I highly doubt there are large numbers of aussies desperately interested in the trials and tribulations of buying an overpriced pokey seventies' stone-clad cottage with a view of a dismal grey drizzly coastline. I do wonder though, if some Australians ever share this feeling of being stuck in a big expanse of the cultural same old.

----

After a scorching hot day yesterday, we took a picnic down to Sydney Park and sat out on the hill until it got too dark to see. Last night was the warmest night for 13 years, with the temperature 'dropping' to an overnight low of 26 degrees. Today is all change, however, and there is a distinct wintery chill in the air, especially as it is now starting to get dark a little earlier. I have a stressful week this week, but I'm looking forward to a bit of relaxation at the weekend, perhaps a trip to the beach as there will not be many more opportunities now.

Last weekend we saw British Sea Power play at the Manning Bar and they were excellent. Afterwards we trundled to the townie (what is that pub's full name??) for gin and I met a man from Cheltenham who is seconding at the British High Commission in Canberra, which was interesting as I secretly would love to work for the British High Commission. I did also secretly want to work for the government but not if it means I have to get bitch-slapped by a raging Gordon Brown. *quiver*

----

I was going to end this post by querying whether I should watch QI or go to bed but I appear to now be watching QI so there we go.