Where does all the time go?

Somehow it's been over a month since my last update, and even worse what should have been updated was the details of my trip to Rome.

My bad.

I'm almost at the end of my assessment period for getting my teaching qualifications sorted out here, so I have a couple more weeks of hoops to jump through, and whole trees worth of paper to sort, then things should be back to normal.

Once all that is done, normal services will resume!

Buon Natale!

Buon Natale everybody! I hope you were visited by the fat man! I'm still away, so this isn't a proper update, but I had to post about one of the funniest things I think I've ever seen in my life, before I got home, procrastinated, and forgot it.

Being Christmas Day, and given that I'm in Rome, I thought I'd go to Vatican to see the Pope's blessing. The place was packed, but I finangled my way to a spot fairly close to the front. There was an Amazonian blonde German woman in front of me, which meant that I was doing the old duck-and-weave to see sometimes, but there was only one person in front of her, and then the space for the march past (more on that later) and finally the seating area, before the steps and the basilica itself.

Anyway, this is not what was so funny. I hung around St Peter's Square and Basilica well after Benny had finished reading his message to the masses and had gone off for the after party. There were nuns and priests absolutely everywhere, along with the other people who were either with their families and were watching their kids chase pigeons, or were like me and on their own doing a bit of touristy people watching. I was wandering around one end of the square, and I walked past a group of nuns eating fairy floss. For shiz. Honest to God (no pun intended), octogenarian Brides of Christ partaking in a little spun sugar. And loving every minute of it. Unfortunately, the batteries on my camera had just died, and there was no way they were going to understand my English (or limited Italian) for me to ask them to stop for a moment whilst I changed them over.

This is right up there with Sr Therese drinking beer and swearing. I don't know why I am not more religious, with these people as my role models!!!

Roman Holiday

Greetings mere mortals! It's 11pm on Christmas Eve, in good old Roma. And boy do I mean OLD. This is just a quick update to say Buon Natale to everybody, and in case I don't update again before it, Buon Anno Nuova!

Had a maaaaaaaassive first day in Rome, walked across the city and back it seems (only a slight exaggeration there). I'll of course give the full details and pics when I get home, as this is a free internet computer in my hotel and I won't/can't type properly (Italian keyboard) and can't upload the pics from my camera (computer restrictions).

Suffice to say, I'm shattered, I'm loving it, and I think I'm sunburnt. For serious. So worth it though.

Trip highlights so far:

• The Colosseum
• The Trevi Fountain (I was there for a full two hours)
• Piazza Navona
• Remembering the little Italian I learnt at school (Non parlo Italiano, scusi!)
• Having my hot waiter at dinner propose to me.

Given that I've only been here a day, the good things are set to continue! Tomorrrow is Christmas Day, and I'm off to see the Pope in all his Hitler Nazi Youth glory. If you think I'm kidding, google him.

In the meantime, buona notte, arrivederci, ciao!

It's "Australia" day!

In a strictly non-travel related post, I'm declaring today to be "Austraila" day! No, I'm not calendar-challenged; I know that it's not January 26. Instead, it's the day that I'm finally getting to go and see "Australia", which was filmed for two months in the town where I lived. It's the reason that I went to Leceister Square and souvenired the big signs.

Officially the movie doesn't come out here until Boxing Day, but there's a charity screening tonight and I've got a ticket. It's excitement plus here today! A couple of my year 7 kids are jealous, because they want to see it after me talking to them about it all, and they don't get to see it for another 8 days. I won't see them in class tomorrow because we finish early, but I'll surely be tracking them down to rub it in. That's the kind of mature, responsible teacher I am!

Lock the doors, call immigration - I'm coming home!

Alas, it won't be a permanent return to warmer shores, but I'm starting to feel like a bit of a toff. I'll be spending Christmas in Rome, and then I'm Summering in Australia - this is the life! Of course, that's a Northern Summer, which means it'll be Winter back in the Land Down Under, but I can almost guarantee that it'll be warmer there than it will here.

Now that I've finally gotten around to booking my flights, here's a few things I can genuinely look forward to without just dreaming about them:

• Proper fish and chips. I know the English claim this dish as their own, but really, no. Not a chance. I long for the days of nipping across to Beaches for a staffroom lunch, with crumbed and cooked to order reef fish - red emperor, coral trout, etc.
• Silverside with normal cabbage. Seriously - another supposed British dish that just isn't right.
• Prawns.
• Hog's Breath steak. I don't care what anyone says, Hog's Breath steak may not be the best steak in the world, but it beats the hell out of what you can get here.
• Mrs Bacon's roast lamb. It's tradition.
• Normal Cadbury's chocolate.
• Bundaberg ginger beer that I don't have to go to London to buy.
• Mangoes. Oh dear Lord, the mangoes!

Hrm, I've noticed that the entire list revolves around food. It's a given that I'm looking forward to seeing the family, as I will have been away for two years by the time I get there. Same goes for Samuel, the mischief-making chocolate lab who sleeps on my treadmill. I'm looking forward to more than one day (or more like one hour) of sunshine. I'm looking forward to going barefoot!

Sigh. 7 months and 2 days, but who's counting?

Santa came to my house!

It's a little more than a week away, but tonight Santa paid an early visit to my house. And no, I've not been drinking spiked egg nog.

Every year here the Rotary Club in the town where I live hook Santa's sleigh up to the back of a 4WD, and drive him around the streets to say g'day to the kidlets and to raise money for the good work that they do. I'd completely forgotten about this from last year, so while I was sitting here tonight procrastinating (I should have a PhD in that by now), I heard the fat man himself engaging in a bit of karaoke as he travelled around.

I took off down the stairs to see him, and nearly face planted along the way. Note to self - last year's lesson about ski socks and polished pine stairs not mixing clearly didn't stick! Regardless, I got downstairs relatively safely, donated my money to the Rotary 'angel', and stood with giddy excitement with the neighbour's kids, waiting to see the jolly old man. He didn't disappoint (nor did he truly believe I'd been good all year - Santa has clued up a bit in recent years!). The photos are dodgy, but seeing as I had to throw myself back up the stairs to fetch the camera before going back down (and I'd left the door open, so if I fell going down I was going to roll into the street), I think they're reasonable. Besides, the guy in the 4WD wasn't taking chances; he put his foot down as I was trying to take them!

Now that I've got the commercial side of Christmas out of the way, it's time to organise my trip to see the Pope and make Sr Therese proud of me!

"Australia" the movie - premiere!

Last year, before I left Bowen, the stars of the Australian film industry were in town for a couple of months, filming the Baz Luhrmann-directed "Australia". Last Wednesday night was the London premiere of the movie.

I know that it's been out for weeks now back home, but it doesn't come out here until Boxing Day *sigh*. There's a charity screening next week that I'm trying to get tickets to, but in the meantime, we had a lot of fun rushing into the city after work and checking out the red carpet at the premiere.

We were slightly delayed in arriving at Leceister Square, thanks once again to the outstanding success that is National Rail East Anglia. I'd really like to commend them on their ability to ruin any and all of our plans, no matter how last minute we may have organised ourselves. Anywho, Tamara and I met at our usual spot at Liverpool Street, and jumped on the tube. We raced around Leceister Square to get to the premiere side of it, and started to force our way through the crowd. Being as vertically challenged as I am, I saw a good portion of Nicole and Hugh wandering around through the screen of other peoples' cameras. Praise technology - if this was in the time before digital cameras, I would have seen nothing!

We managed to eventually squeeze our way through to the front of the crowd, or near enough, after a little while. With that magic gift I have of finding the perfect spot at the right moment, we found ourselves right where the cars were pulling up and the stars were getting out. We'd missed the arrival of Nicole, Hugh and Baz, but we were there for Twiggy and Konnie Huq. Having forgotten the date of the premiere, I wasn't prepared for it and didn't have my camera, but luckily Tamara did. She was all set to take a photo of the next car to pull up, but I don't think she managed to get the photo. We were too stunned - it was Elton John! We were seriously like 3 or 4 feet away from him, and more than a little shell shocked. I'm still waiting for Tamara to upload her photos, so I don't know if she got one at all (he did move away quite quickly).

We hung around until the end of it, hoping to see a few of the other stars up close and personal, but it didn't happen. It was so cold, no wonder they went inside! We'd said when we first arrived that it would be great if we could get one of the big signs on the fences keeping the plebs back. Well, we managed that (thanks to my sheer brute strength, unlike the pansy men standing around wishing for pliers), and then figured we could probably go for one each. That started a trend - one each became one for each of us and one for Millsy for her media classroom, and then one each for three of our Aussie friends who couldn't make it. That was 6 all up. Then we scored two more, so that Tamara and I had one for home and one for our classroom each. By then the security guards were helping us out, so we walked away with ten all up!

They're massive, and even carrying 5 each, they were damn heavy! We had to walk them around to Leceister Square tube station, down the stairs, through the gates and down again before getting onto the train. Then we had to change tube lines at Holborn, which involved walking down stairs and around a corner. Let me just say, those suckers caught the wind and it was like we were kite surfing! We then had to get back to Liverpool St, before we took them up the stairs to McDonalds for dinner. We then of course had to take them back down for our trains home! The next morning the kids were laughing at me because I could barely lift my arm to write on the board. It hurt like hell, but was so worth it! They've actually got pictures on Bowen on them, and of course the large picture of Hugh Jackman doesn't hurt...

You can see on the left of the photo an A4 page on the wall. That gives you some idea of how big the signs are - that and the fact that you can't even see the chair that it's on!