Travelling for the sake of it?

I'm almost finished with a stint in Sofia, Bulgaria. I was originally going to hang around here for a week, but work got shortened by a day so back to Frankvegas (does that work?) tonight (Thursday). While it still had a dose of communism for a while, the economy is doing well (set to join the EU in 2007) unless they can't suss out their bogus inflation. McDonalds and KFC are here, but I doubt whether that's a reliable indicator of an economy or country's performance (even Peter Moore found said fast food chains littered throughout the poor countries he visited in Asia). One of the especially memorable moments there there was the walk to work on Wednesday morning. As my work buddies and I were passing a bank, there was an armoured car and several rough looking guys hanging around outside passing the day, talking about the weather. As we passed them they told us to move off the sidewalk and one of the guys at the back of the car had a gun he was caressing in his pants guarding the booty (money I'm talking about), looking very shifty and I'm sure with enough of a fright, he'd have blown his balls off.

I've left Bulgaria a day early since the guys I'm working with (fullas from Tel Aviv) have their weekend Friday -> Saturday; just like the Arabs. I'll catch up with Jaharmes in Strasvegas on Saturday.

Anyhow, I'm back to being single again today after a few months of a long distance relationship. Not sure what the big man in the sky is trying to tell me, but of all the girls I've subsequently talked to today during the rebound have been flight attendants. Some background yada yada for readers... the last girl on the scene - Alicia (who was ascribed to a couple of times in the blog) was also a flight attendant and working in Abu Dhabi, UAE. She was an Aussie though, not a local - I value my pecker too much to risk it getting chopped off by a disgruntled sand dude.

There comes a time in a man's life where he has to stay at home with the girlfriend on a Saturday, going shopping for cheap Ikea furniture then snuggling up with a cup of hot soup and an episode of Lost on TV while thousands of his fellow countrymen are out celebrating Waitangi day. Luckily that man's not me.

Armed with both kidneys functioning (I haven't noticed any scars from estranged lovers trying to extract one yet) and the determination of a bull on la Muerte de toros, I made my way to Paddington station to start the day with a liquid breakfast. As soon as I jumped out of the train at the station, there was no doubt that I had stumbled on the right place:



This was just a fraction of the continuous swarms of people wearing Kiwi rugby jerseys, sheep costumes and kiwi police outfits.

I met up with Craig and Si at the Stanhope arms and at this stage we were already a bit behind since you're supposed to start at 10am and proceed along the circle tube line anticlockwise drinking a pint at each stop. By 4pm you were supposed to be at Westminster to watch pasty white dudes do the haka. Clearly this was not to be missed, but miss it Craig and I did, and only by about 3 minutes. Never mind.

The group converged at a pub just around the road from Big Ben to chew the fat, then headed off to some suburb somewhere in London for one of the hottest butter chicken currys I've had in a long time. I was in heaven (and feeling quite a black man for that matter of being able to handle the curry). The beer scooter took me back to the hotel - good old scoooter and the next morning I was on a mission. A full english breakfast with a quick stop at Tescos to grab some marmite then lastly to the bookshop for some supplies...europe's missing some creature comforts.

I'd taken the plane out of Amsterdam on Friday evening since on Thursday night Tiga were playing up there. Pretty good stuff, although a 5am finish with work in a few hours' time was a big taxing. Got chatting with a German who was coming back from visiting the Netherlands then stopped off at Dusseldorf for a "quick" beer. Time wasn't on my side of course and I missed the last train back to Frankfurt. Whoops....Luckily my accomplice in crime had a couch for me to crash on, so all good there.

this week gonna boost off to amsterdam again and catch Vive la fete if I'm not in Bulgaria, then make my way back through Bremen and crash there the night, before coming back to Frankfurt on Sunday. That's the plan anyhow.