what a cool country (hah, get it?)

Well well well, I've been here for five days now (I think, my maths has slipped in a big way since finished school), and I have to say it's a pretty awesome place! The weather's been kind to us since I got here - it hasn't rained, and most of the time it's actually been sunny - and I like how the sun is always lingering around the horizon. It's as if we're permanently stuck about an hour before sunset, which makes all the trees and buildings and that look even more pretty than normal.
There really is a different feel here than in Aus, everything's more intricate and delicate. The roads are narrow and windy, the architecture's more busy, that kind of thing. Though having said that, part of me does miss the simpler beauty of Australia, especially the midday sun. I don't think they have midday over here.
One bad thing I have to say though is that the people seem a lot less friendly over here. Yesterday morning I went for a walk around Ealing - which isn't a bad suburb or anything - but whenever I passed someone and said hello, you'd think I'd just told them to hand over their phone and wallet! Ah well, what can you do. Maybe it's the bad food that makes them miserable, or the horrible weather, though I haven't seen much of either this trip.
Anyway, last Friday evening I hopped on a tube down to Covent Gardens, which is easily one of the craziest transportation places I've seen. Seriously, that station makes some places in India look tame. Sure the trains get crowded in Sydney in that you don't have space to move, but over here they're so crowded people actually press into you from all sides! Then we got off the tube and moved like one big glacier down to these big lifts that took us up to ground level, which was far above us. I was tempted to take the stairs, but decided I like life too much to risk it. Well it's an experience I guess, I just keep my hands in my pockets to make sure nobody helps themselves to my stuff. The reason for this little trek was to meet my friend Gabe, who I went to school with. We had a grand old time chatting away over dinner, and although we ended up spending 44 pounds (I still can't find how to get the pounds symbol from this keyboard), it was definitely worth it. How is it that I've never tried a pecan pie before?
I went out on Saturday too, to my family friend Rikesh's birthday celebrations. It was a quite a nice club really. The food was good, and they even had a guy in the bathrooms to hand out paper towels to you (and in my case, compliment me on my 'sexy ass').
As for Sunday, we decided to make the trek to a Westfield shopping centre on the other side of London (turns out they have Westfield too, though theirs are nicer). I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that wasn't the best idea. It took us over an hour and a half to get there through all the traffic, then we sat down for lunch and by the time we were done we had to head back again. We got some nice sushi, sure, but then again there's a sushi place literally in walking distance from here. Oh well, we got to spend some quality time with my aunt and uncle who'd come down from Birmingham for the weekend, so that's all good!
Wow, so if you've been feeling neglected by me over the past couple of days, I hope that fat slab of text above makes you feel better! That's all for now, take care!

I'm here!

Well I've arrived! Not gonna lie, there were a fair few dramas.. if you check out my dad's post below you'll find out all about the visa, but on top of that, at the airport there was a last minute scramble to shift stuff between bags and the ATM decided to eat my bank card, but thankfully it regurgitated it back up after chewing for a couple of minutes. Anyway, it's all good!
The flight itself was fine, and I made two new friends in the people sitting next to me on the plane, and get this, one of them even offered to hook me up with a job working in Johnson and Johnson. How good is that! And so today's lesson to all of you: talk to people sitting next to you on planes, it's probably better than watching boring movies anyway.
I'm having a great time so far, even the weather's amazing (by which I mean it's actually sunny). Other than that I won't bore you anymore for now. Watch this space, I'm sure there'll be plenty of shenanigans to tell you all about.

Peace!

I'm off!

With 15 minutes left before we'd have to postpone the ticket... my visa's arrived! A big thank-you to my dad for putting up with all the Australia Post shenanigans and making it all happen. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a flight to catch! I'll see you on the other side.

Dammit!

A courier just arrived with a parcel, but it wasn't my visa. God clearly has a cruel sense of humour.

Any day now..

Hey everyone, as you might know I'm heading off to the UK for my gap year very soon, and I decided that it'd be a good way to tell you what's going on via a blog. I'm new to this all, so I hope you'll forgive me if I stuff up a bit :P

Well in terms of why I want to take this gap year, I figure I've just finished twelve years of school, and have about another twelve of studying medicine to look forward to, so I might as well take a year off in between to try and preserve my sanity. Another reason is that I have loads of awesome family and friends over there who I'd like to spend time with - you know who you are! I also want to enjoy this time when I have no solid commitments or responsibilities to do all those things you feel you want to, but never have time for. I'm going to work hard while I'm there (I have a goal to try to pay back my parents for the money I'll be needing, for my pride's sake if nothing else), and with any spare money I earn I can do all the fun stuff! So far I want to join a rock band, do the 'Three-Mountain Challenge' (climbing the tallest mountains in England, Scotland and Wales, all in twenty-four hours), and travel Europe for a couple of days at a time.
Jealous? Just think of what I'd be doing in between all these awesome things - sitting in my tiny room, freezing my ass off and eating baked beans from a can.

As it stands, I'm due to leave on Wednesday. But there's a problem. I don't have my visa. It's meant to arrive by courier today, but if it hasn't come by tomorrow I'm screwed. I've spotted a hi-vi clad postman cycling up and down my street looking confused... I hope he finds where he needs to go, and I hope it's me.

That's all for now, I'd better leave you and get back to packing all the warmest clothes I have. Peace!