Returned from my wanderings...

Yep, I'm officially back again. Got back to Melbourne this morning, after stopping off at Sydney, after stopping off at Seoul, after catching a plane in Paris, after getting on a train three hours earlier in Avignon. Yeah, it was a very long 28 hours... Haven't slept yet. But jetlag hasn't hit me like a brick to the head quite yet, so let's try for an update anyway...


So, Europe. Erm, where to start? I'm not actually sure. Here's a brief outline of the movements anyway: flew to Seoul (yeah yeah, I know that isn't in Europe) and spent a night there, then flew to Paris. Bummed around there for a few days, doing touristy things, and then high tailed it to Munich, staying a while in Brussels along the way. After Munich headed down through Austria (COLD!!! -8 degrees, people! To a poor little Aussie cold-wuss like yours truly, that's cruel and unusual torment) into Italy. Hung around in Venice (well, in Mestre, the town next to Venice - staying in Venice itself costs an arm and a leg, not to mention it was flooding at the time) and Florence, and then drove along the coast (passing through Monaco on the way) back into France. Then we stayed at a friend's place in a little town in Provence for a bit under a week, and then it was back to Paris/Seoul/Sydney/home! Whew - no wonder I'm tired.


I ate what felt like my bodyweight in cheese, gave my liver a right pounding with all of the lovely European wine and beer, tracked down all of the most morbid historical sights I could find, got hideously sick in Venice (we're talking virtually bedridden for two days - I haven't been so ill in over ten years), ran gleefully after flamingos in the swamps of the Camargue, used the most confusing toilets ever, went on some truly epic supermarket adventures, and generally had an awesome time.


If I tried to write all about what I did, I'd be here all bloody night, so I won't. And if I tried to post all of my pictures, everyone's computers would crash, so I won't do that either. So here are some of the better photos:

Because everyone loves a German beer hall... Here's the brother, showing off his manly, beer wrangling strength (hey, those things hold a litre apiece - they're heavy!)

Here's Venice, now with 10% extra flooding. I was so annoyed to get sick at this point of the trip, because Venice was basically the thing I was looking forward to the most - I've wanted to go for years, because I've studied a lot of the history and just generally dig the place.

Some of the Roman ruins in Arles. They had a fantastic amphitheatre in Orange as well, but I'm particularly enamoured with how blue the sky was on this particular day. To be frank, the weather was rotten for most of the trip, but while we were in Provence it treated us wonderfully (aside from the first few days of having our arses frozen off by the Mistral).

I took heaps more - that's just a few at random. Suffice to say, I had an awesome time.

And yes, there was knitting. I only got one pair of socks finished the entire month I was away (can we say pathetic?), but I'm quite enamoured with them. Noro goodness...

And they match! For some bizarre reason, it turns out that when you knit a women's size 11 sock with this yarn on this size needle, you end up magically back at the start of the colour repeat when you finish. Total fluke. Weird. Anyway, I love them quite a lot. It means I can reprise my look of head to toe black with brightly coloured socks from a few years back - it'll brighten up the law school at least, even if everyone does think that I'm a right idiot...

First real post... hurrah!

Wow. It is very, very, windy outside right now. No rain yet, though I suspect it'll come soon enough...

Anyway, knitting stuff:

Nearly, nearly finished my jaunty red Cropped Cardigan with Leaf Ties (http://knitty.com/ISSUEspring07/PATTleaf.html). Just have to sew the seams and finish doing the i-cord around the neckline (nearly done with the latter). I debated a little with myself about how slavishly to follow the directions, and then decided to go with the cooking approach. The first time that I cook a recipe, I follow it absolutely to the letter. It's only the times that follow that I modify it, warp it, defile it and do all those other things. So, the instructions for this pattern were adhered to quite devotedly. Figured it was best since there were a few firsts for me in this one. I did take a photo of this one (for Ravelry type purposes), but it turned out suckfully because photography is not one of my strong points ("what is this flash you speak of???..."), so I won't bother with it here.

Also, I'm slogging away at my ugly cabled jumper. I love it already, even though it isn't finished yet. I just want to start applying the euphemisms that people always apply to ugly things (ie. it's a jumper that has a lot of character, etc). I was turbo-proud of how the cable turned out. I couldn't stop showing it to poor Chris, even though it's complete and utter brilliance was totally lost on him. Behold, cable of festy-coloured beauty:

Well, that's the first time I've ever posted a photo on a blog. So if you can see the shiny (figuratively speaking) cable, do a little dance of victory for me. I know it's not a big deal, but my technological incompetance really doesn't stop at cameras. In fact, it pretty much extends to anything that either requires batteries or needs to be plugged into the wall. Except for my glue-gun. I can work that.

Sigh. I should probably be either reading cases or fiddling with wedding invitations...