Dan Makovec’s blog

A week of travel

(Apologies for spelling errors in advance) So far so good. It’s 2.18am, and I’m sitting in Dad’s house at his computer (my old one, which by the feel of the keyboard has taken a bit of a beating the past 2 years) reflecting on the week since I wrote last.

We got up nice and early for the Eurostar on Friday morning, and made it with plenty of time. The train was 10 minutes late leaving Waterloo, then broke down half way through the trip on the other side of the tunnel, finally getting us into Belgium over an hour late. The highly apologetic staff gave us vouchers for free single trips/half price returns, so we didn’t feel too bad about the trip getting off to a bit of a rough start.

I’ll say right off the bat that all the chatter about Brussels is right. It’s not the most exciting city in the world to visit. Right in the centre of town, preserved mainly for the compulsory tourist hordes who come to see the capital of Europe, is a fabulous square surrounded with some truly amazing gothic architecture. Apart from that there’s the Mannequin Pis (the original pissing boy statue-turned-fountain), European Parliament (an ultra-modern monolithic glass structure with about as much soul as a politician’s speech) and that’s about it. We covered most of the town on Friday, and finished off the rest with plenty of time to spare on Sunday.

Food and drink however is another matter entirely. The chocolate was sweet and milky, the beer infinitely better tasting and more approachable for non-beer drinkers such as myself, the waffles hot and fluffy, and the pomme frites (so-called “French Fries”, although they were actually invented in Belgium) perfectly cooked and topped with, would you believe, Mayonnaise in what was a surprisingly tasteful manner. The other local and less-known foods were equally as delicious, so Brian and I had a jolly good time getting acquainted with it all.

On the Saturday we took a day trip to Brugge (or Bruges, depending on whether you’re a Dutch or French speaking Belgian), which was a much smaller but infinitely more lovely town to the northwest of Brussels. It’s lush greenery, intricate system of fresh-water canals, ornate Gothic and Flemish architecture combined to make it one of the most beautiful European towns I’ve seen. Even the large number of tourists there didn’t detract from the appeal of the place (something very difficult to achieve in my books).

We spent the day wandering around, looking through the shops and churches (including one which has Michalangelo’s original Madonna and Child sculpture - so that’s another one I can tick off my list along with David (Florence) and Venus de Milo (Paris)). When we got tired of walking we hopped on a boat and got a tour of the city by boat, taking a huge number of photos.

After getting back on the last Eurostar on Sunday night, Monday was spent lounging around the house and climaxing with me managing to accidentally trash all of Brian’s and my MP3 collection - not just on the laptop, not just on my Ipod, but on his too. Don’t ask me how I did it, it’s a long story, but suffice to say it’s going to take a bit of time and a lot of CD ripping to get the collection anywhere near where it was before that unfortunate incident!!!

That night we went out to dinner at Balans in Earl’s Court - the same place we went for our first month anniversary - and got some pretty good service and amazing food.

Tuesday Brian went to work early, while I set about the business of restoring at least a few hundred MP3s to keep him happy for his daily work commute and doing some grocery shopping for him, finally packing my stuff for the plane at about 3pm. He got back about 5 and cooked up a storm (as usual - damn he’s a good cook! I’m going to need to hit the gym when I get back to compensate!!).

I left at about 7 and hopped on the tube, which thankfully runs all the way to Heathrow from our station. After an initial problem at checkin where the girl behind the counter turned to the wrong page in my passport, saw my US visa and entered me as an American, thereby screwing up their booking system in some catestrophic way requiring a reboot of the entire Singapore Airlines’ UK checkin network (don’t ask, I’m still figuring it out), security checkin was a breeze with a 10 minute procession past guards with magic wands, wandering hands and x-ray machines (thank God they weren’t these babies that they now use at US airports - not much left to the imagination there!).

The flight to Oz was the usual 24 hour twilight zone experience - non-stop whirring engines, hours spent trying to figure out not only how to control those little in-seat TV things, but how to adjust the contrast so the screen doesn’t look like something a Predator alien would watch, screaming kids, dodgey airline food and above all, lack of sleep.

Myk picked me up at the airport about 7am and after taking me to his place to meet Felicia, dropped me off in town at my request, oversided backpack and all, for my suit fitting. Adrian came down and kept me company at the bus stop while waiting for the next 550 up to Highbury, but by this time I was starting to see pretty colors and rambling incoherently. I made it to Dad’s by about lunch time, and apart from visiting my grandma for about half an hour, we just sat around chatting and having a drink before grabbing a bite at the local pub then me passing out at about 8.30.

Next thing I remember is it being 1.30 in the afternoon and him banging on my door to get up, a rush into town to grab the suit, then out to Graz’s to get up to the church for the wedding rehearsal. We had a lovely dinner afterwards, then dropped into Myk’s and Felicia’s (henceforth known as Flea) where I caught up with Adrian, Bron, Vanessa and Greg for nibbles and bantering until about 1.30am. B&A kindly just dropped me back home.

I feel like a real sponge grabbing lifts everywhere off of people, but the practicalities of getting a car organized, and me being un-jetlagged enough to drive it safely mean that it’s the only real alternative at moment.

Tomorrow I’m off to Andrea’s to help here with a few last minute preparations, then over to what will be her and Graz’s place to help set up some furniture. Looks like a busy day coming up!

That time of year again

It’s hard to believe that this time last year, I was packing my bags for my trip to the French Alps. This year, there’s a strange sense of de ja vu. I’m heading home in a few hours, to pack for my 8.30 Eurostar under the sea to Brussels for 3 days. I’m not sure how “open” the city will be on Good Friday, but hopefully there’ll be something to do. If not, it’ll just be a good chance for Brian and me to relax.

We get back into London at about 10.30 Sunday night, then chill out on Monday (maybe we can be tourists in our own town for a day). Then Tuesday I pack again and at 10.30 enter a 30 hour twilight zone, hopefully arriving in one piece in Adelaide the next morning.

From the airport, it’s straight into town to get fitted out for my tux, then probably taking a bus up to Highbury to see the family and have a rest. I don’t know whether I’ll be in a state to do anything on Thursday night (probably not), but will hopefully be feeling a little more civilised by Friday evening, when rehearsals for the wedding are being held.

Saturday should be chilled, maybe catching up with some mates. Sunday is the big day for Graz and Andrea, with lots of ceremony and hopefully a not-too-embarassing speech on my part at the reception. I’ve got some ideas for it, and think I can wing it without having written it all down, although I’ll obviously be writing and rehearsing it while in transit and putting the finishing touches to it in the days before the event. I need to be home to complete it, as I need to dig around in my things for some important facts and figures. A well-researched speech will probably go down better than the usual drunken ramblings I’m accustomed to witnessing at big events Oh yeah, and I’ve decided not to touch alcohol on the Sunday until *after* I’ve delivered the address, just in case.

Then hopefully I’ll be doing some stuff with Dad Monday and Tuesday. No idea what I’m doing the rest of the week, until the weekend, when with luck we’ll be rounding up the troops and going camping somewhere for the Anzac day long weekend. The following Wednesday, I head back on a plane, arriving in Singapore overnight and finally touching down in London early Thursday evening.

A decent night’s sleep on Thursday, followed by an easy day on Friday, should by rights pave the way to another long weekend with Brian, this time in Wales, before returning to work May the 4th!

Past experience, both mine and others’, has shown that jet-lag is suffered the most travelling from west to east, i.e. from America to Europe, or Europe to Australia. So I’m expecting to be feeling pretty nasty next Thursday and Friday. By contrast, the trip in the other direction usually isn’t as painful. I’m getting a 1.5 hour timezone buffer because of the night I’m spending in Singapore, which should further cushion my return to London - so I’m expecting to be not so bad for the long weekend. I’ve also gone to the local health food store and picked up some vallerian to help me sleep on the plane. I just have to set myself a sleep schedule to aid in the transition process.

This is going to be an interesting month!

Now Paris joins the parade

While doing my regular news crawl, I came across
this story on Yahoo!’s french news site. Ironically, I used Google to translate it from French to English
In case the link goes down, it basically says that officials in Paris are looking into sanctioning gay marriage soon. I wonder when Oz will catch up?

August sorted, and hangovers

Brian seems chirpy this morning.

He was pretty quiet, then I told him I’d managed to book 2 tickets to see Madonna at Wembley Arena in August, and he brightened right up. I phoned him to give him the news while he was on his way to the tube, his exact response was “Oh my god, I think I’m going to fuck someone!”

I suggested that I’d appreciate being first in queue to become the recipient of any such offers should they be forthcoming. He readily agreed.

For my part, I’m hung over. Drinks with the guys from Yahoo at 5.30 last night (they have some visitors from the US over), then quickly scooting over to Barbican to our monthly drinks at ITG, where I hit the Strongbow (bad bad bad for hangovers), then Angela, one of the other contractors, introduced me to the concept of the turbo shandy. One pint: half beer, half Smirnoff Ice. Oh yeah, and the fact that drinks were free didn’t help either. This happens too much! Only in London can you repeatedly go out and get off your face without spending a dime.

Oh well, off to work I guess - thank god it’s Friday