Itchy Feet

This is where my head is today... Starting to reflect on what a year it has been..



Pena Palace - Sintra - Portugal -- during the September/October European Adventure

Random Pics..

Cool Bar in Berlin...





Birthday Champagne in cute French hotel..br/>

Paris - Birthday

Just another day as I inch that much furthur into pretend adulthood! Reached Paris by train this morning and woke up a little older.. but there are worse ways to spend a birthday!

I'm walking my buffet breakfast off!

Berlin walk.... time for beer now...

so not weight watchers...

Well it’s starting to look like I will be joining Weight Watchers again when I get home!

Especially if I keep on having anything to do with the likes of these:



But I’m in Germany!! What’s a girl to do!

I can just feel my thighs expanding as I type...but time to sleep now...

Seriously NO MORE BREAD

I haven’t even reached Paris yet and my old belly seems to be revisiting me. Though I’m still fitting into the new size I got down to... I just need to stop-being-so- greedy-because-I’m-on-holiday! Otherwise it’ll be another year of WW for me!!!

On a superfast train now heading to Berlin from Hamburg. We’ve had trouble in some places booking the exact routes we’ve wanted but it’s all been an adventure!

I wasn’t a huge fan of Copenhagen.. We really wanted to stay in Malmo but it was completely booked out. Copenhagen has charm but it just didn’t do it for me.. Hamburg on the other hand - where we’ve just left from - was surprisingly interesting and a good non planned stopover..

I’m super fucking excited about going to Berlin for the next 3 days! It was hard to book a hotel there as well so we’ve had to expand the credit card and book a swanky design place. I know how hard will that be to take!! After last nights hotel in Hamburg which was severely dedicated to smokers and munchkins I’m looking forward to a bit of glitz and glamour!

How many WW points is: Bratwusrt? Curry Wurst? Good German Sausages??

Or maybe you shouldn’t tell me!

N@ked Girls and Saunas

Imagine the Google Searchers I'm going to get with that heading! ****infact I changed it BECAUSE of all the google searchers I was landing..

There's no porn here - sorry to disappoint.. but I did spend a lovely early evening in a Finnish Sauna and yes there were naked girls in the same sauna as me.. The Fins are onto a good thing! With Saunas that is :)

Afterwards I went to a place that sold vodka for an absurd price in minus 10 degrees C..

The Buffet Tour of Europe

We have been in buffet breakfast heaven in every place we've stayed. Considering the cost of food and our budget this has been a major bonus for us - especially as I've become quite swifty at nicking food from the buffets for lunch! (well we stole the breads - the cheese, ham and wine is courtsey of the great supermarket under our hotel) Everyone does that right??





We're loving Helsinki so much we're staying an extra day. It's such a cool place!

St Petersburg to Helsinki

St Petersburg is a crazy crazy town - I'll say it again.. but oh how I love it! No wonder they drink so much Vodka - something has to give solace in an asylum such as this. Sad to go but Helsinki awaits...

Back to Reality... literally..

My freelance contract is almost finished and the upcoming European trip is starting to blow out any kind of budget I imagined that would be reasonable.. here's crossing all my extremeties that a decent new job comes up for the end of the year.

So the weekend was spent in gorgeous Byron Bay. We drove down Friday lunch time after I manically ran around all morning doing chores and getting ready, picking up plane tickets and eurail passes and avoiding my dogs sad eyes as I abandoned her with friends for the w/end.

All WW tracking went out the window but I think I stayed on trackish.. Cocktails are core right?? Ok I know they're not but I'm not one to turn down a Cuban Sling!

Friday night we saw the Dan Caroll band and Dallas Crane at the Great Northern. The evening may have involved a streaker flashing dangly bits on stage much to the surprise of the band and onlookers. We had the best steak at the Beach Hotel despite one of our meals not getting delivered - which seemed to become a theme for the weekend.

Saturday was a 7km hike up to the lighthouse and around the bay... working of the previous evening. Then lots of lazing around and back to the Beach Hotel for beers and snacks before going back to the hotel for .... um more beers and snacks. Then to get ready for dinner at the Balcony Bar. Yep all we did was eat and drink. Isn't that what a weekend away is about?? I love the atmosphere in this restaurant and the wine list is great. However the paella was drenched in crushed garlic - the kind you can tell comes out of a jar. Such a shame considering everything else was great. We all had a serious case of food envy every time a waiter passed with meals for another table..



Back on track this week. I think I'm going to cancel WW Online as I think I can do it myself now that I have pretty much absorbed all the info I possibly could about the Core Plan (ie: I've written copious amounts of lists and collected loads of recipes). I'll still be following the plan but I'm using the online tracking system less and less these days and it just seems a waste of money. We all know I need to be saving more of that!

European Adventure Update #1

An easy way to spend all your savings and make you wish you weren't a freelancer in the film world and had a steady job such as.. oh I don't know.. a bloody rich anything.. is to book a trip to Russia and Scandinavia on your way to a wedding in France. Now I remember why I skipped some countries on my 20something-backpack Europe-then-move-to-Scotland typical Aussie Uk working visa trip back in the 90's.. because there was no way I could afford some places then and I'll be selling my soul on some project (even more then I have this year) when I return to pay this adventure off.. But it'll be worth it. Right?

We've chosen the Petro Palace in St Petersburg because of its location really. In Helsinki it will probably be Hotel Vaakuna because it's so close to the station and we have reliable word of mouth..

I'm loving the look of the Island Hotel in Copenhagen but we may also do a hostel there. Considering we still need to have cashola to eat and there's rent to pay at home. I CAN NOT wait to get to Berlin - I get more excited daily..

I'm open to suggestions... we're trying to steer clear of major chains and gentrified/americanised lodgings.

Recommendations being sort for....

Interesting, cool hotels that wont cost me my last remaining life savings in the following cities as part of my upcoming European Adventure (general stay in each place 2-3 nights):

Berlin
Stockholm
Helsinki
Copenhagen
Lisbon
London (near Royal Albert Hall)
Madrid

Please leave suggestions in comments!

weekend and a change of WW plans

So the weekend turned out to be quite an impromptu wine and good food festival with fab friends.. Friday night saw us crowded into our favourite chinese restaurant in Chinatown for a birthday celebration. The food was great, healthy and plentiful but I was completely under control.. the same may not be said for that extra glass of wine or 2 - but hey you still gotta live on WW and enjoy life..

Saturday - we finalised the ticketing of the European Adventure and added Eurorail passes. We opted for the 10 days in 2 months pass to give us enough flexibility in what little time we really have.. Russian visa's are next - which means we have to choose a hotel there this week.

Saturday night was another birthday celebration with the same friends(different birthday) from the night before. This time it was a Sri Lankan feast which one of my friends does so brilliantly that whenever one is organised everything is dropped and we hightail it to his place loaded with the willingness to help in one hand and goodies to add to the feast in the other. Good times.

There was lots of this:



Followed by this:



Home by midnight - it was a little chilly - so I ended up like this:



I swear my dog has a crush on me.

It's weigh in tomorrow - I've decided I am changing plans for a week from Core to Points. I haven't tracked in a long time and while I love Core for that reason it's kind of like doing a system check to see how on track I am. I'm still having small loses so I think if I do a stocktake of my points intake I can get a decent idea of what I may be doing wrong and of course what I'm doing right..

Leaving on a jet plane or air bus...

The European Adventure is 80% booked.. just some final checks of the travel agents quote and we will be committing to an awesome journey! Starting in St Petersburg - winging our way through Scandinavia onto Prague then Paris then Bordeaux then London to Portugal and Madrid before a dreaded 30hr flight home to Oz... Here's a diagram (click to enlarge):