Early morning airports

My sleepy 5am assessments of stuff from the departure lounge:

You can't get Argentinian pesos anywhere! Apart from Argentina it seems!

There is a certain type of long green felt coat that only Austrians wear.

This is the wrong 5am. I only like the 5am at the end of the night, not the beginning of the day.

I can't complain I'm going to Buenos Aires!

I'm going to stay with my friend Chloe. I haven't seen her for about 5 years. And I only just found her before Xmas on facebook. I think she works on films now. I don't really know. I guess ill find out soon enough.
I forgot to pack a comb. And my address book. And Boots isn't open at 5am.

I see weather warnings on the TV in the departure lounge here. I believe its 27degrees in BA. Hopefully the heat will clear my cough.

So I'm off to Frankfurt, and then to BA. I arrive in BA 21h00. What's new? Buneos Aires?

Talita
X

Free LTL!!

~ I'm on the move - this was sent from my GooseBerry® ~

The September/October plans

As i may have mentioned 2009 is the year of adventure. It said so in my London Paper year's horroscope. And as that is surely the bible of predictions. So i'm planning on travelling to Tibet. I've dreamt of going there for well over 10 years now. So if not now, then when?
Getting into Tibet isn't simple. You pretty much have to go with a tour operator, and you have to get 2 permits, one for Tibet, and one for travelling outside Lhasa. Which is the opposite to Heinrich Harrer who was trying to get to the forbidden city from the mountains and provinces outside of Lhasa on his flight from India (in Seven years in Tibet)
Anyway, I plan to be in Lhasa on October 9th 2009 - my birthday - and to turn 29 in the Himalayas.
I close my eyes at night and dream of seeing them, and of going there. I own about 30 books on Tibet and i need to finish reading them all before i go, but suffice to say i'm very excited.

However, my ambitious travel plans don't end there. Well, infact they kind of do, but only in that we're actually starting in Moscow. The current plan is to arrive in Moscow on 20th Sept, take the trans-siberian train on 23rd Sept 09 to Ulaanbataar, where we currently plan to meet Badmaa (merci Stephanie!) and then go off on horses into the wilds of Mongolia where we're gonna live with a family of nomads in a Yourte, before leaving Mongolia on the 4th October for Beijing, then leaving Beijing on 9th October for Lhasa, Tibet.

This is an extensive, expensive, ambitious plan.... and my good friend Birgit (of www.kerrang.com fame) and i intend to embark on this journey together. At first i thought i would have to do it alone, but then i found someone who also feels that its time to travel, and is up for this kind of adventure. Hopefully, Insh'allah, we shall do this. I realise we have a long way to go with planning and saving, and getting the time off work (surely i can get work Municipal Waste to nomads you know that market is just waiting to be tapped)
But its a dream i'm following. And why not. Why the fuck not eh?
Single, without kids, turning 29... it seems a good time for it? no?
So anyway, i need to save up (at last estimate) about £2500 by the beginning of September! Hahahaha
Also there's shit loads of planning to do.
BUT watch this space.

gong-da, I just thought i would clue you in on the plan.
ka-lee pay!


tu-jay-chay!

Preparations for BA!

I made a resolution that in 2009 - the year i turn 29 - i would get out on adventures and stay positive. The world is huge and full of such interesting stuff. Its easy to get bogged down with work and London, the music scene is kinda insular and blinkered sometimes and the truth is that there is a lot more to the world than heavy metal!!! Although every time i'm away from the rock scene i find myself impatient to jump back into the grit and the dirt sometimes you need to see the opposites in order to appreciate it truely.
Its also exciting to see what the music culture is like in different countries and different cities. In my job i'm always trying to understand what bands work in different countries and why. Why is there this demographic? why is there this interest in this certain type of music/style/politics in this particular place? Its like a puzzle where i try to put everything together and compare it with the metal scene in the UK, and generally not come to any particular conclusions - but it's fun for a while anyway!
So i'm 3 days away from my first trip out of Europe this year, where i'm going to visit my old friend Chloe in Buenos Aires. I've prepared by watching Evita. Travel insurance, check.
Unfortuately i'm on antibiotics, but that's not gonna stop the fun. I need to work out what to pack. And i've sorted out this blog so i should be able to post updates from my phone on my travels. Hopefully.
So hasta luego! South America here i come!

Attempt to post yummy Paris food from my mobile phone....

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Ugly 1

By Airport parkway, East midlands - pretty damn ugly. Apparently Ulaanbataar is the most ugly city on earth as under communist rule anything pretty was seen as frivolous. I wonder if its as ugly as these big chimneys?

~ I'm on the move - this was sent from my GooseBerry® ~

Evita

My preparation for going to Buenos Aires so far. Dvd of Evita with my best friend Louise ( www.terrorizer.com ) singing all the songs to me. I'm supposed to take a "little bit of star quality" to BA according to her. I don't know what she's on about as I have a cold so its more likely I'm going to take a little bit of quality snot there than look glamorous like Madonna did in that movie.
And anyway, I'm always a bit of a mess.
Hopefully temperatures of 27degrees (woohoo) will do me right! That's at least 20 degrees warmer than the UK at the moment, so it can't be bad.
I am expecting freckles.

~ I'm on the move - this was sent from my GooseBerry® ~

I leave for Buenos Aires in just over a week

My first "outside Europe" trip of the year. I bought a Rough Guide today so i can get an idea where i'm going. Argentina. It wasn't on my "to do" list this year. But it became possible, and now i'm going. And i don't have a clue what to pack or what temperature it will be or what i'm going to do there. I've been so busy at work i really haven't had time to think about it. I intend to get there and jump right in to discovering what Argentinian culture is and seeing my old friend Chloe.
Need to remember to check my travel insurance.
I looked up to see if i have to get injections, and it says that i don't HAVE to have any but sometimes people get the yellow fever vaccination.
I've decided not to bother as i'll mainly be in the city.
I'm going to have to get a whole load of jabs i should think later in the year for Mongolia/China/Tibet etc. Nice.