So here goes – a month in the life of Jas …
Ran away from work at 4:30pm hoping noone would notice me slip out (despite the backpack screaming ANOTHER early departure, who said Australians were hard-working...) Made it onto the Eurostar, got myself settled. Was joined by a young-ish French dude who I couldn’t understand – realised he was speaking French although subsequently still couldn’t understand him when he switched to English… spent the journey humouring his attempts at conversation and subsequently reading Harry Potter while he read over my shoulder… it was all a bit bizarre. Anyway I had a brilliant weekend catching up with BG (Belinda) who has lived in Paris for the past year (and I hadn’t seen for as long), and eating croissants & macaroons and drinking café crème’s & French vino. And talking at a million miles an hour (what else is new?) 
Considering it was my 3rd time in Paris I wasn’t desperate to see all the sights again – the main criteria was to eat lots of French food and pretend to be a local (who doesn’t speak French beyond ‘merci’), however Paris being the great walking city that it is, I think we saw in that weekend pretty much every single sight I’d ever seen previously. And walked off the croissants while we were at it.
Overall I had a fantastic two days catching up with BG and wandering around that gorgeous city feeling jealous that she lives there and I don’t. Saw the Publicis office (on the Champs-Elysees, literally about 50m from the Arc du Triomphe) and suddenly appreciated their ownership of Fallon (hello, transfer!!). Maybe. One day.
Went home completely shattered from the amount of walking we’d done but having had a brilliant (if not relaxing!) weekend away.
Aug 24th – 27th (long weekend)
VENICE
This was my surprise trip away that Pete had organised* for the long weekend.
* Note ‘organised’. No, I don’t have a sugar daddy who pays for 4 star hotels in Italy for random weekends away! I did pay for myself but Pete booked flights & accom, etc. without me knowing where we were going. He managed to not tell me (and I managed to not pester him enough to make him tell me) until we got to the airport on the Friday afternoon, which was quite an achievement. 
So very exciting stuff! Again, it was my 3rd time in Venice (!) but it’s one of those cities where you can wander aimlessly forever and a day, finding new gorgeous side streets and little canals around each corner and over each bridge. It’s beautiful.
So we pretty much just meandered… got lost, found our way and got lost again in a maze of canals. Ate lots of gelato & pizza / pasta and drank lots of coffee & Italian vino. Went on a gondola ride (it’s illegal not to) which was gorgeous as we got the evening light just before sunset… then followed that up with dinner at a cute trattoria where I befriended a waiter who appreciated my efforts in speaking Italian, and subsequently realised I spoke Serbian as well at which point we had a good little chat in yet another language that Pete did not understand. Slightly antisocial, looking back. As was running off in the middle of St Mark’s square 10 minutes later to greet a guy who had been on my Croatia tour... amazing how small the world is, really. 
Must say I thoroughly enjoyed the 4-star hotel situation… very nice. Breakfast was at the sister (5 star) hotel by the water, so you’re literally sitting a metre away from the tip of a gondola, bobbing with the current… feeling very posh, surrounded by wealthy retirees who clearly could afford to be there (whereas we were clearly just pretending). It was fun!
Flew home on Monday lunchtime after a brilliant weekend away.
Randomly ran into Adam (Wilko, who I used to work with at Athlete’s Foot ten thousand years ago – Jodes, remember him?) at Sainsbury’s that afternoon. From memory we had a chat, he gave me a dinner suggestion and we went our separate ways.
Aug 29th – Sept 2nd
LONDON
Crazy busy week full of STUFF.
James’ farewell (Roest - he’s now in Manchester), drinks & dinner with the ex-JWT boys (Joe, Hulsman, Pigani & Lucas), Fallon summer party (starting at midday, I officially joined in the fun at around 7pm when I finally finished WORKING), Chantel in town (for a day), Croatia boat crew reunion (clearly being back at work had taken its toll and we needed to reminisce), dinner party at mine (Pete cooked :) with Kirsty, Bel & Jez and Craig… etc. etc.
Sept 5th – 10th
LONDON
Crazy busy week full of STUFF (take 2) – BG was in town visiting so this week included dinner & drinks in town (x a few nights), drinks with another friend who was visiting briefly in Islington, shopping & lunch at Portobello Rd (Notting Hill), shopping & lunch & drinks at Camden market, Brick Lane curry, pub sessions watching various Rugby World Cup games, etc. etc.Sept 12th
LONDON (England vs. Russia football @ Wembley)
3 nil to En-ger-land. Woo hoo!!
Lots of fun. Surrounded by crazy English people, singing ‘England till I die’ (I lied), experiencing the new Wembley Arena for a packed-out sporting event (vs. Live Earth). Had a ball.
Sept 14th – 16th
CORNWALL
Girls road trip with Bel Noble, Kirsty & Michelle Diskin. Hilarious!
Arrived in Cornwall at 2am on Saturday morning after an 8ish hour drive – it took us an hour and a half to travel from Euston station (where we picked up the car) to near Heathrow airport… that’s EIGHT MILES. Psycho crazy London traffic. A lesson learnt.
Debated whether to stop somewhere halfway but decided to keep going – called the camping ground we’d booked at and arranged for them to leave a key out for us.
We finally managed to track down our caravan after driving around the campsite with our high beams on for about 10 mins (oops), and started unloading & getting all our gear together... all seemingly normal until…
- Bel heads towards the door to let us in. She fumbles with the lock, opens the door, gets as far as ‘it smells of –‘ and screams.
- Kirsty, who is right behind Bel, sees nothing but joins in the screaming and runs for her life, right at me.
- On cue, I scream at the top of my lungs, turn, and run towards Michelle. We all crash into the car in our haste to get away, as it’s in the way and clearly any delays with our escape could be fatal.
- Michelle stands behind the car looking a bit confused by the whole situation, and by our reactions to what she thinks was an aggressive attack by the beaver we’d just seen as we drove through the park with our high beams on.
After we’d officially woken the entire camping ground, our screams turned to uncontrollable laughter (unfortunately equally loud) as Bel got over her initial shock and told us the axe murderer we were running from was in fact a little old man in his jocks, standing at the door wondering why we were breaking into his caravan at 2am.
So following that little hic-cup (we’d been given the wrong key, all was eventually well and fortunately we didn’t have to sleep in the car), I can confirm that the remainder of the weekend was incident-free. After finding a gorgeous café by the water near our camping ground on Saturday morning and having THE best breakfast EVER, we drove down towards St Ives which is apparently
the most beautiful town in Cornwall. Stopped at a really cute pub in the middle of nowhere (literally) on the way, and lay on the grass relaxing and watching the cows... Then went on to St Ives which didn’t disappoint, and sampled the local award-winning Cornish pasties which were amazing. Drove back via a dinner stopover in Padstow (for the best fish & chips in England), and called it a night. On Sunday we began the long drive home after a pub breakfast (!), stopping along the way at a few more cute little places and of course sampling a traditional Devonshire tea in Devon… SO GOOD!!
Overall had a brilliant girls weekend away, although there was probably a bit too much car time involved (it’s quite far to go for a weekend) but hey. At least I can say I’ve been there, done that.
Got home Sunday evening, tired already and knowing there were two more weekends away to come before the next sleep-in opportunity…
Sept 19th
LONDON
Went to see the Merchant of Venice @ the Globe Theatre with Kim, Nuals & Bron… an open-air theatre just like in Shakespeare’s day where rich people sit around the perimeter and the poor stand in the middle. We paid £5 each so enough said - I had sore legs at the end of the night (and was dripping... London’s not the most open-air-friendly of cities) but really enjoyed the show.
Sept 21st – 23rd
WEST SUSSEX
Weekend away to meet the parent – went down to Worthing to stay with Pete’s dad and explore south-east England. Managed to do it in a semi-relaxing fashion which was great, much needed.
We hired a car and drove down on Friday night after work, had a quiet dinner with his dad and hit the road on Saturday. 
We drove down to town and walked along Worthing beach, which is actually quite nice. Just like Brighton beach (pier included) but without all the people & numerous cafés / stalls everywhere… equally pretty (and pebbley!) but just more quaint.
Then on to Lancing College which is where Pete went to secondary school – this place seriously looks like Hogwarts and is almost as posh as Eton… very impressive, beats Penno High any day! Really beautiful old buildings, a school chapel that’s apparently the largest in Europe and god knows how much land (including an outdoor amphitheatre)... And llamas?! 
Drove back via Brighton beach and marina (gorgeous), and following a traditional English fish & chips dinner with the fam (his dad & bro), we went 10 pin bowling! Even funnier than our choice of entertainment is the fact that I found out Pete actually had lessons when he was younger… :)
Sunday consisted of more sight-seeing / exploration around the nearby towns – Arundel, Littlehampton, Steyning + a few others I can’t remember the name of. It was really lovely – these towns are honestly as beautiful as Bath or Windsor, etc. but off the beaten track and so tourist-free (unless you count me). Really enjoyed seeing a part of England that I would never otherwise have seen. Another fantastic weekend away.
Sept 26th
LONDON (Fulham vs. Bolton @ The Cottage)
Went to Craven Cottage (Fulham’s home ground, fortunately a 5 min walk from mine) to watch this Carling Cup match, which we unfortunately lost. It was 1-1 after 90 mins but went into extra time and we ended up losing 2-1 which is a shame. On the plus side (for the JWT-ers) - I randomly ran into BJ!! Quite fitting that it was at a Fulham match, really, given he’s such a fan. Didn’t even know he was in town visiting.
Really enjoyed the game, but froze to death (which is the beginning of a whole other story which I’ll save for next time…)
Sept 28th – 30th
PARIS / BORDEAUX – RUGBY WORLD CUP
My third weekend away in a row – and the last for a while!! I’m seriously all travelled out.
Met Joe (Ryan) at Waterloo and hopped on the Eurostar for the journey into France… still love that you can fall asleep and wake up an hour or two later in another country. Very, very cool.
BG met us at the station and after dumping our stuff off at hers (stopping frequently on the way back from the train to ‘oooh’s and ‘aaaaaah’s from Ryan who had never been to Paris before, and was frantically taking photos) we wandered up to a cute Italian restaurant for a plate (each) of the world’s biggest pasta dishes. Walked across the Champs-Elysees en route and had to stop and risk our lives in the middle of the road (as always) to take the obligatory amount of photos… Saturday AM – following a croissant & café crème breakfast with BG, Ryan and I hopped on the train to Bordeaux. My friend Mark who lives there (and who we were crashing with) met us at the other end, and after we dropped our stuff off at his place he took us on a token speedy-Gonzales tour of the town, before the game. It’s actually quite pretty – the centre isn’t that big at all, but very nice, cool old buildings and a lovely river-side area. Sped through it all (taking many a pretty pic along the way) and subsequently made our way towards the stadium for the Rugby World Cup. 
Very excited (at the time... not so looking back. Damn Johnny)! We were decked out in our green and gold and joined the swarm of Australians making their way towards the game. Met up with Andrew & co. near the stadium and went to find our seats, buying on the way the biggest hot dog I’ve ever attempted to eat (and failed).
The game was lots of fun – at one point about 10 Mexican waves were circulating the stadium at once… great atmosphere. Great to see the team live in action, great to see a few tries…and fortunately we won! SO glad I went. As it turns out I wouldn’t have had another chance.
That night turned out to be quite huge – I think we can truly say we experienced the best of Bordeaux’s nightlife, meeting a few more of Mark & Andrew’s friends, and meeting a bunch of random Canadians as well who turned out to be a lot of fun. One wore a Borat cossie. Enough said!Trained it back to Paris on Sunday morning (I think Ryan and I may have grunted ‘good morning, croissant?’ at each other before falling back to sleep en route).
Felt quite sorry for 
ourselves until BG, being the wonderful, thoughtful person she is, took us to a brilliant Parisian equivalent of a pub for lunch, upon our arrival. SO GOOD. Revitalised, we did another speedy-Gonzalez tour of Paris for Ryan (while sampling every French delicacy we could find along the way) before heading back to BG’s later that night, exhausted, to grab our stuff and hop on the Eurostar back home.
Really, really fun weekend away. Loved hanging out with a random group of my friends who generally didn't know each other (with the exception of Ryan & BG) but all knew me…and we all know I love anything that’s all about me.. :)
And that’s it for the highlights (!).
I’m shattered. And broke. Have been doing WAY too much recently so have banned myself from any travel for the month of October (plans for November are underway). AND I’ve joined a gym (for the first time in my LIFE so please appreciate the hugeness of the situation) which keeps me out of mischief and at least I now spend money on getting fit, instead of getting fat (mmmm… nutella crepes & macaroons!!)
Pete is currently away for a month – in Australia of all places! (I banished him following the poms RWC victory on saturday…) He’s currently in Sydney for a few weeks - I gave him a 5 x A4 page list of where to go and what to do so chances are he’s coming to a Cargo Bar near you!
Meanwhile I’ve booked my flights for next year (arrive 19th Jan, fly back 2nd Feb) so will organise a few nights out during those two weeks closer to the time. I’d love to catch up with all of you (Sydney-siders) in amongst my best-Auntie-in-the-world / i-need-to-get-a-tan-before-i-go-back-to-london duties.
Ok might leave it there… after my final gloat - Fallon are flying us to Salzburg (Austria) for our work Christmas party!! I love my life. Bring on December.
Miss you all heaps! I saw the Vegemite Tales on Wednesday night (a play about Aussies in London) and got a bit emotional. Kim and I sat in the second row and were within spitting distance of Blair (hot BB / Neighbours Blair – now there’s a claim to fame) who I can confirm also sweated profusely the entire time.
Hope all’s well, let me know what you’re all up to and I’ll see you in Jan.
x
Jas
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