if it's not one damned thing

November 2011 – conversation with self back in Al Ain. Should we take the furniture, or should we sell it here? If we sell, we’ll have to put up with endless people traipsing through the house and bargaining with us. Horrible! But houses in Brunei are generally furnished. Yes, but the furniture is mostly crappy. At least we’ll have our own stuff if we take it. Okay, take it!

Removalist gives extortionate quote. We check that it includes disassembly and reassembly of our furniture & unpacking. It’s door to door with no extra expenses. Check. So nothing extra? Check.

February, 2012 - Because there is no house available when we arriv we put our things in storage. We wangle one month free storage. Nice.  Everything is looking good. J

April, 2012 - Temporary apartment becomes available and will tide us over until our house is ready. Nice apartment. Sensational views. Should we get our furniture out of storage or use the furniture in the apartment? Crappy furniture in apartment. Cost of storage and insurance is high. Cost of move from apartment to house is less than keeping it in storage. Okay, let’s get our furniture delivered.

Ring up the removalist to discuss date and procedures. Suddenly there’s a $500 charge for moving the shipping from the dock to the storage. Hmmm. First we’ve heard of it. We commit to move to apartment. Then there’s a charge for moving things to the 10^th floor of the apartment – the quote only includes to 1^st floor. Bloody fine print! So we’re out of pocket on that one. Need a handy man to reassemble furniture. Whoooaaaa Neddy!! No. No. No. We were assured in Al Ain that we didn’t need a handy man and that removalist guys would reassemble.

I try desperately not to either implode or explode. Worry that K may do either the former or the latter. Turns out he’s got murder on his mind! Agggghhhhh!

Ommmmmm! Ommmmm! Breathe. Breathe. Focus on the breath. Feel it going into the body. Feel it leaving the body. Focus on the next breath. In and out. In and out. The present moment is the only moment. Breathe.

Delivery is on Saturday. Good chance that our furniture will be in a zillion pieces and the guys will walk out. I like puzzles. I do. Really I do. But this is too much.

So, yes, we have accommodation. We can leave our less-than-palatial hotel, but the next few days will be challenging.

Funny thing. For years I read that moving house was up there with divorce or death in the family. I’ve never really got it. Moving has never seemed like much of a trauma to me. But, suddenly, here in Brunei, I GET IT!!

a change is gonna come - not sure when though

Three months ago we walked into an awful hotel in Bandar Seri Begawan. My employer had arranged it for us. At the time the desk clerk said, “Ah, yes. Welcome. You’re here long term, aren’t you?”
“Not bloody likely," I thought. Such was my state of naiveté about this country and the way things are done.

The day after I arrived I had to start work, so I was busy figuring that side of things out all the while believing the hotel was a temporary thing and unpleasant though it was, I could endure a few days. In the second and third week we were shown a range of houses. Most were wonderful; some new, others older, but beautifully appointed and huge with magnificent gardens. The catch was that none were available just now. We’d have to wait six months. I still had every confidence the solution was imminent.

Soon we were told that we could move to another hotel, we just needed to wait a few days for approval from finance. When I heard nothing, I enquired to find out that now it required government approval. This happened several times. We were also sent off to inspect alternative hotels, each of which was equally as appalling. These opportunities waxed and wained, but were impotent, none bore better accommodation. Then apartments became possibilities. We were going to move into Ong Sum Ping; a wonderful, newly refurbished building with luxurious appointments. This was dangled for a few weeks and each of my enquiries was met with a road  block somewhere up the hierarchy. It was finally laid to rest when it turned out that there was going to be a high level ASEAN conference in two months for which dignitaries would require accommodation for a few days. That ruled OSP out as a possibility for us.

Other apartments were mentioned, but again red tape got in the way. Then one started to look like a real goer.  The previous tenant moved out on April 1 and the place really only needed a lick of paint. On the 14^th we were assured it would be ready today,  April 21^st. We went today to pick up the key. But now it seems we can’t move in until the 30^th.  

So for three months we’ve been coaxed into enduring just a few more days. And again it’s a few more days. Obviously a good strategy because had I known this on day one, I would have done a u-turn and headed straight back to the airport!

Let me review my current hotel.

Suitable for backpackers. Our suite is 2-bedroom with a kitchen and lounge. We can’t complain about the size, but we can complain about everything else. The kitchen is a closet with no windows. The exhaust fan is covered in years of dust and oily, sticky slime. A wall cupboard is full of spider webs and greasy, grime. The stove is thick with caked on slime and grease. Luckily it has a lid, so we shut the lid three months ago and so it has remained. The tiled benchtops are grotty, and the cupboards are unusable. We haven’t cooked in three months – dining out for each meal. The fridge was a disgrace, but I scrubbed it clean at the outset, so we can at least store drinks.

On to the lounge. K sat on the couch and the frame gave way, so he fell through to the floor. I have avoided the lounge furniture ever since. There’s a small balcony off the lounge half of which is taken up with an enormous, grimy, excruciatingly loud aircon unit. So the balcony is unusable. The master bedroom came with one bedside table, no lamps and a bed that has a clearly visible crater in it! On day one I knew that it was a back’s worst nightmare, so we pushed together the two single beds in the next room and have been using them for three months. There is no mattress protector.  The sheets are placed directly onto the mattress, so one wonders how many people’s sweat has previously graced the mattress on humid Brunei nights – and whether it can bubble to the surface – yuk! The sheets themselves are adorned with cigarette burn holes and permanent stains. One time housekeeping  must have run out of sheets because after a hard day, I stripped off, drew back the covers ready to jump into bed only to find that there was only a bottom sheet, no top sheet!  Once a week we discover that our towels have been taken, but not replaced.

The tiled floors are mopped with a substance that leaves them sticky so my thongs ssluuurrrrrrppp, ssslluuurrrrppp across the floor. The aircon is very old and very noisy and turning it on involves breaking finger nails.

I haven’t told you about the worst feature though – a fine mix of cabbage, mould and garbage brewed to perfection and then let loose through the aircon system. It’s a putrid stench. Opening the windows does nothing to relieve it as more of the stench is simply pumped through the aircon. The first time we pointed it out to staff, they offered to mop the floors with dettol. Incredulous, we told them again that it was coming from the aircon. Eventually they traced it to a switch in the restaurant kitchen downstairs that needs to be permanently on. Now when we come home to unbelievable stench, we ring downstairs. They send someone up to sniff, we tell them there’s no need to sniff, it’s a problem with the aircon and a switch in their restaurant kitchen. They offer to mop, we tell them to go to the restaurant and sort it out. A couple of hours later the place is almost habitable again. This is a regular scenario.

Anyway, you can imagine my disappointment today when I thought the move was imminent only to see it thwarted once again. Ah well, it’ll only be a few more days! :)

I have an IC!

I got my IC yesterday. Hallelulah! Alhamdalillah! Terima kasih allah! It was a long road.

First of all I heard mention of ICs but didn’t know what they were and as I had 97 other things on the boil, I didn’t worry about it. Then when I had a spare 5 mins I asked someone what it was and why I needed it. Turns out a that an IC is an identity card (in most of the word ‘ID’ would have covered it) and I was told that you hardly ever need it. So I wasn’t in too much of a hurry.

When I followed up a couple of weeks later, I found that to get an IC, you have to go to a government building and queue up. The doors open at 8am and people were recommending going at 5:45 am to queue to be sure of being seen on the day. It sounded horrendous and as an IC didn’t seem to be that necessary, I procrastinated. Someone told me, that the Immigration Office had just started opening on Friday afternoon from 2 – 4 and not many people knew about it yet, so it should be easy to get in.

I turned up at 1pm on Friday afternoon and stood outside the building for an hour. I was 30^th in the queue. Then the doors opened, the queue disappeared and there was a mad panic to get to the front. I was in the middle of a crush of 100 or so very nice Pakistani and Indian gentleman. I think I was the only woman. We stood cheek by jowl. If someone at the front moved 6 inches forward, we all moved 6 inches forward like a curled up centipede. After 25 mins of intimate crush and after making perhaps 18 inches headway towards the inner sanctum, we were told ‘habis’ closed for the afternoon. We were all sent home.

So my only option seemed to be to queue at 5:45 am. I have to tell you, I’m not a morning person! So once again I procrastinated; particularly as no-one could tell me what the IC was used for.

Several weeks later, on a whim, I drove by the Immigration office on a Tuesday afternoon, and thought … I wonder. So I drove up, gathered my papers and headed in. Within an hour I’d been photographed, finger-printed, deprived of a small sum of money and sent on my way with instructions to come back in one month to pick up the card.

Yesterday was the day! It took me 20 mins to work out where in the building I needed to go to pick it up (damned Malay signage!), but I’m now the proud owner of a green IC. Turns out that it is an essential item. Without it I can’t get paid, can’t buy a car, can’t do much at all! So Hallelulah!

driver licence

To buy a car I need a few bits and bobs including a local driver licence. Okay, where to start? I ask around and find that I need to photocopy my passport, visas, identity card and Abu Dhabi licence, then take the copies and originals down to the Post Office. So I set off with all that I've been told - with the full expectation that they'll tell me that I also need a photocopy of X.

However, it's never the snag that I anticipate, it's always something else that gets me. Turns out that it's not the Post Office that I have to go to. I have to go to Land Transport in Gadong. Fair enough I say, where's that? Well, no-one at the PO can explain it to me. Never mind, I'll ask someone else. So after asking several people, I finally figure it out. Next day I head off there and am amazed that it's easy to get a park and there are no queues. I walk in wondering what will go wrong, take a ticket, sit down and am called up within a few minutes. I hand everything over to the woman at the counter who starts making cryptic gestures. Oh, not here? Next room? No, not next room? Next office? Next building? I give up the game of charades as I'm clearly not very good at it and ask at reception.

Turns out I have to go to Land Transport on Jalan Moura. Now that happens to be a very long road so I try to narrow it down. I drag out a map and after pawing over it for 25 minutes, the well-intentioned officer at the counter points to an intersection just before a round-a-bout and tells me it's on the left. So I set off there. It's a 20 minute drive away, but when I get there, there's not a Land Transport office within coo-eee. Next day I ask around at the hotel, but everyone is dumbfounded. They tell me either that I have to go the Post Office or that I have to go to Land Transport in Gadong. So I ask at work and get the same response until I finally find someone who has recently got a licence. She pinpoints it on the map for me. Hallelulah! Turns out it's not on Jalan Moura at all. It's on a different road on the left before a different round-a-bout! Next day I set off.

I find it without much fuss, but there's nowhere to park. Never mind, I've learned by now that an illegal park is just as good as a legal park. So I park illegally, head into Land Transport, ask at reception where they give me a ticket for counter number one. Twenty minutes later my turn rolls around, I march in with my photocopies, hand them over and hey, presto, it's all done. I just need to come back in a couple of days to pick up my shiny new licence.

Another task ticked off my long list of things to do!

well, it's laugh or cry

I want to buy a car in Brunei. I thought it involved checking out the dealers, identifying the cheap / bottom of the range car that called out 'Me, me! Take me home!' and then sorting out whether to pay cash or go with a loan.

Well, that naive notion was stymied at the first opportunity. We headed off to the Toyota dealer to see how much they'd want for a Toyota VIOS, a popular small car here in BSB. They were quite happy to engage in conversation for 30 mins before telling us that the VIOS in the showroom was only an illusion. They didn't actually have any in stock. No, they didn't have Corollas or any other small cars in stock either. Nor any medium cars. It was all the fault of the floods in Thailand apparently because that's where most of the cars are sourced. But, all was well, because the wait was only expected to be 3 - 4 months.

The next thought was, well we had a Ford Focus in Al Ain and it served us well. Let's see what Ford has to say. "Yes, there are many colours. Yes, they are available now. You just put down a deposit. Delivery in three months maybe. Or you can take the Mondeo. We have one Mondeo in stock." There seemed to be at least a bit of equivocation on the meaning of the word 'now.' The story there was that there were so many cars in Brunei that there were restrictions on how many dealers are allowed to bring in. I have to say that 'no cars' is a pretty small number to be allowed to bring in!

Floods in Thailand? Restrictions on numbers?

At Diahatsu they have a few Terioses / Teri-ii / Teriosi, only in black or silver, but they are available now. Yes! Problem is, the warranty is rubbish. One year - and we have to pay parts - and labour depending on the issue. It also seems to be a rather 'chunky' car for a tiny 1.5 engine. So question mark on that one.

Other dealers had 7 million car-seeking customers' cars lined up out the front, we couldn't even get a park. So we set aside the 'which car to choose' issue to follow up finance issues. No joy there either. Amongst other problems, we need to get our local d/l first and a range of other certification.

So I'm imagining a pretty mauve car sitting out front in our parking lot. It's brandless, featureless and existenceless, but I like it.

:)

home is where the grunge is

Should I remind people of who I am? Let them know that I’m not worthy? The housing officer has been showing us houses over the last couple of days. I’ve been left sockless – they’ve been totally knocked off. We saw a palace today – six bedrooms, all with ensuite, magnificent entrance, separate maid’s quarters, beautifully landscaped gardens with water features (maintained by Singaporean owner), outside patios off huge lounge and dining, separate building with large covered sitting area downstairs and enormous rumpus room upstairs. The Canadian Ambassador lives next door and other notables are nearby. As K pointed out, all we have to do is say ‘Yes’ and it’s ours.

Okay, there is a downside to the palace - it won’t be available for several months and it’s a bit of a hike to uni at peak hour apparently. However, another tantalizing mansion is just 15 mins to uni and 10 to the city and to Gadong (large shopping / business area). We weren’t able to see inside, but it looks lovely on the outside, the area is gorgeous and a range of high (-er than me) flyers live opposite and on either side. It should be available in a couple of months.

My socks were firmly back on my feet as I drudged back into our grungy two bedroom hotel suite realizing that it will home for a while! Ah, well.

Mystery solved

I got to work and immediately solved a mystery that had been on the minds of staff for many months. My name has been emblazoned across my office door for over a semester. There had been an extended drum roll followed finally by speculation that I was a no-show . . . and suddenly there I was. New rumours began immediately. People in the corridors were heard speculating that you could no longer get a job at UBD unless you were tall. Perhaps so.

Rumours and mysteries aside, I can factually report lovely views from my office over greenery and out to the ocean.

Operation Brunei

As I look out my window I see the green of Bandar Seri Begawan all around me. The mad rush and comedic mishaps of the last two weeks seem as though they are from another life. Bottom line my cheque came through and is safely deposited in the bank (though it is in a UAE bank, so maybe I'm counting chickens) and I managed to say farewell to most of the nutters, crackpots and other varieties of dear friends I made in Al Ain. My goodbyes were said with great sadness. I enjoyed the Al Ain chapter of my life, and now it has passed.

Brunei was a long time coming. I've already learnt that nothing happens quickly here and I've learnt that things happen the way they happen, so it's best to just go with the flow. Never mind that after you've spent 40 mins in the queue to get through the first security check at Dubai Terminal One and a further 40 mins standing in the Royal Brunei queue only to be told "Karl's visa is not valid." We got nowhere pointing out that the Brunei embassy had arranged the visas and tickets. After much discussion a solution was found. We had to go out of the immigration area and buy an exit ticket from BSB. So we left, bought a ticket and argued and pleaded our way back through the immig queues carrying a ticket from BSB to Bangkok. In all the hooha we were suitably entertained for 3 hours and got to the gate at boarding.

On arrival in BSB the immigration folk were rather pleasant, but they insisted that we hand over 40 Brunei dollars. Thinking that the embassy was taking care of us, we hadn't checked requirements and weren't told about the 40. Of course we didn't have the Brunei dollars, but even worse we didn't have sufficient dirhams to exchange at the money changer. Sigh! So Karl was escorted outside Immigration to an ATM where he withdrew some cash to pay for the visas. It's all fun and games really!

The next instalment of Operation Brunei was the shabby chic hotel we were taken to (after having kept the people meeting us waiting for an hour! Sorry about that guys!). Well, to be honest, the hotel lacks the second part of my description. Let's just say it is adequate and has nice views.

So that's my life up to the present moment.

Brunei

I've just sent my medical results to UBD. It looks like death isn't imminent, though one never really knows, does one? Endless days still stretch before us in Al Ain. Bandar seri Begawan is an eternity away.

writing woes

When I started researching this current paper I knew exactly where I was going and what my arguments were. Now that I've read a gazillion articles, I have absolutely no idea what I'm talking about. I've realized I know zilch, nichts, nothing. The only comfort is that I'm a cliche, this is exactly what is supposed to happen. Problem is that the due date for the paper is looming . . . And I'm clueless.

How do we adapt validity arguments in assessments in the light of multimodalities?

Sigh! I'll sleep on it. That'll work, no?

keeping records

I had no idea when I embarked on this doctoral path that it isn't about ideas at all. It's all about clerical work - finding materials, synthesising them and keeping records.

It's the latter that has had me busy for the last few days. Over the years you do a bunch of reading, write reports and essays and then pat yourself on the back for a job well done. But a doctorate is quantitatively different because it's a much longer term project. If you read something today, you may need the information in two years time, or four or five. When your memory has a lot in common with a sieve, how are you supposed to manage that? Solution ... I downloaded EndNote after a nudge from my supervisor. Of course I'm expecting that it will record the bibliographic information, find materials, synthesise them, pop out relevant material at the press of a button and do the dishes. One can only hope.

and so another chapter draws slowly to a close

Another year has come and gone since my last blog. Another Summer holiday has been had. This time it took us off to exotic Australia where we landed in Melbourne, visited family and friends of old and dined in wonderful restaurants before jumping in a hire car and heading north along the coast. First stop Gippsland where they had the coldest night on record. We continued up into NSW along sensational beaches where we caught up with a band friend Karl had known for 40 years, continued up past Sydney where we caught up with another friend Karl had known for even longer. Wonderful times and wonderful meals were had. It's so nice to meet face to face every few years! On to Cabarita Beach where we had lived for a few years - what a sensational part of the world. Why did we ever leave? The whole trip from Melb up the coast to the Gold Coast was gorgeous. Aus is such a beautiful country. We found ourselves having dinner on the GC at Chiang Mai Thai which was fun as we'd just spent a week in Chiang Mai. The CMT on the GC had fantastic, incredibly heavy elephant chairs ... well, each chair had an elephant's head and trunk carved into the top and back. Great meal. Spent a week in Brissie with the kids - fabulous. I wanted to scoop them up and take them on the rest of the trip with us, but alas and alack, that wasn't to be.

Next stop Bangkok which is always a love / hate affair for me, then onto HK where after a few days we jumped on a cruiseship heading to Taiwan and South China. We met some fabulously entertaining folks on board ... world champion snooker player Rocky and his HK girlfriend / school teacher and Dutchman John and his lovely HK wife, Helen. Good times were had, company was enjoyed. But, like all things, it came to an end.

So here we are back in Al Ain. We got home to scorching heat. It took several days for the apartment to cool down. I'm back at work - well, if you can call it that. There's absolutely nothing to do but be sociable, which I'm not very good at. So I did a little of that, a bit of net surfing and ended up printing out a few kakuro puzzles and doing those. Tomorrow I'm taking some reading along with me.

I've just jumped, plunged, dived, foolishly leapt into a doctorate. First paper is sitting with my supervisor in Brisbane as I write. So it's onto the next one. Who knows, one day I might even know something about this topic I'm supposed to be researching. I may never finish the doctorate, or I may be 117 when I do, but it doesn't really matter. It keeps the grey matter bubbling along and I guess that's what's important. It may keep me out of mischief for a bit.

My other news is that this next few months will give my blog some shape. I started the blog as I was starting my journey to Al Ain, the next few months will see me packing up my life in Al Ain and moving onto greener pastures. They'll literally be greener as I'm moving out of the desert and into the tropics to see what life on Borneo will bring.

June 17 - Week One

Last week we flew out Abu Dhabi into Amsterdam and then on to Paris. All went well except that our bags decided not to catch the same fights. When we were finally reunited with our luggage, we boarded a train to Montpellier and then dashed from one train to another to find ourselves in Carcassonne some hours earlier than anticipated. Unfortunately we couldn't get the key to our penthouse accommodation for several hours so we were forced to sit in a bar, enjoy a Limou bubbly and watch the passing parade - with our miscreant luggage at our side. Needless to say, we coped!

We've been steadily increasing our French from half a dozen words to a dozen and a half words over the last week! Slow going. We've visited the Medievale Cite - 'cite' being a bit of a false friend as it means 'citadel' or 'stronghold' rather than the more modern 'city.' To get there we had to walk across the oldest bridge in Europe and noted the height of three floods in the 1800s. Gosh the whole Bastide (area where our apartment is) would have been under several metres of water.

We've partaken of the local dishes, visited vineyards, a honey farm, a cheese farm and the hippy village officially known as Lagrasse and unofficially known as 1968. We've wandered the cobble stone streets and snooped in all kinds of alleyways. After each tiring, but invigorating venture, we've come back home to be faced with three flights of very uneven steps - uneven no doubt through centuries of people walking up and down them. I wonder if I'm the least fit person ever to have taken the gruelling route to our rather nice penthouse.

Yesterday, with a pile of washing, we were confronted with a front loader dual washer/drier that had lots of unfathomable diagrams on it and several French words that left us shrugging. We found the manual that had loads of instructions - in French. So back upstairs - only one flight - to find a dictionary and then back downstairs to squat on the floor in front of the machine pondering and researching. Several hours later the machine ground to a halt with our washing, clean, but still quite wet. Ah well!

Food: Unsurprisingly the local bread is accolade-worthy. The restaurants and cafes have been a mix. Some of them ridiculously overpriced, some with absurdly bad service and some of them with okay food for an okay price. In all they've been rather disappointing though the local produce is excellent and preparing something at home is always rewarding. We've taken upon ourselves the onerous task of deciding which bubbly and which rosee are superior.

Well, I'm about to bury myself in a book I found in the apartment and have been enjoying - 'Salmon fishing in the the Yemen,' a great read so far. Oh, gosh, it's almost the cocktail hour - where's the Pastis?

Medievale Cite
Hard work in the penthouse

Medievale Cite

Europe's oldest bridge
Streets of Lagrasse
Medieval Cite
Lagrasse
St Jean de la Gineste (vineyard)
Drainpipe
Apartment pic
At the Fromage Ferme

Ain't I cute?
Fromage Ferme

ramsay street happenings

Ramsay Street has been full of excitement of late. It's all worthy soap-opera material.

Firstly there's the neighbour who beats her maid in the street. The other day the two of them were walking from the mosque store; maid in front and woman in local dress behind. The maid walks and cowers while the other woman walks and beats. It's a distressing sight.

Then there was the episode involving the teenager girl who lives with the woman (daughter? sister?). Woman is out. Car is parked on the street. Boy is at the wheel. Teenage girl gets out just as the woman arrives home by taxi. And it's on. Woman wails and screams as she beats the car and throws herself on the bonnet beating the window. Car speeds off. Woman falls to the ground screaming, gets up and begins beating the girl. They come inside the apartments, beating subsides for a few moments. Girl walks up stairs carrying her broken glasses and nursing her already bruised head. Apartment door closes and beating resumes.

The other excitement on Ramsay street is flooding after the recent rains when the street turned into a river as raging torrents of water swept past the buildings. People couldn't get to work because the water was too deep to drive through. White water rafting was an option. Hours later a Pakistani man was seen wading waist deep through the water manually attempting to unblock a drain. He was ultimately successful and within hours of his effort the water had mostly drained away. However, we were left with 6-inch deep mud and sludge. Next day the same man was out there with a shovel, shovelling away a lot of the mud. It took days to dry and now the street still looks like a dirt road. Huge dust storms are whipped up as 4-wheel drives from beyond tear up the street, honk their horns at the grocery, gather their goods and speed off again.

Dinner on the balcony now includes a healthy serving of dust!

star trek

We've been watching the original Star Trek series recently. It's a an interesting study in history. The story line is incredibly slow moving and all punches are telegraphed - no surprises. It is soooo slow, the sets are quite silly sometimes and the story lines are plain juvenile for the most part. It's hard to imagine that it was ever taken seriously in the first place - though I do remember being glued to the set each Thursday night as a kid waiting patiently for the next thrilling installment of the voyages of the Star Ship Enterprise.

The actors are interesting. From his first appearance Captain Kirk has that trademark twinkle in his eye and it's been interesting watching as the writer has been playing with the characters who will soon emerge as the key players. The gulf between Spock and McCoy is beginning to become apparent by about Episode 3. Uhura and Zulu are still fairly background. Spock is becoming more like the Mr Spock that we know and love today. Scotty seems to spend most of his time in the transporter room at the moment whereas later he'll be elsewhere. It all makes interesting watching - if a little tedious.

There's just the one fairly flat, juvenile storyline per episode. It's funny to compare it to something like Seinfeld (which came 30 years later) where there are three separate story lines interplaying every episode. The writing is world's apart.

The one thing that I keep looking for, but can't see at all is how Captain Kirk 40 years later becomes the Denny Crane of Boston Legal. The glint in his eye and his confidence carry through, but it still seems such a gulf. I watch him eagerly for signs of his later alter ego.

lousy doctor

Well, I'd make a lousy doctor. My diagnosis was all wrong. Coke was stopping my sleep. That bit was right and the problem has largely, but not entirely been conquered. Schmenopause had nothing to do with anything. I figured that out when my temp was 40 degrees ... it began to sound an awful lot like a fever. So I'd been dragging mysefl to work for days with a fever and exhaustion - what a hero.

Spent endless hours on two different days to find out a range of things that weren't the problem, but never did get an inkling of what was the problem. The doctors at the local hospital here make lousy doctors too!!!!! Only remaining symptom - headaches.

of coke, lack of exercise and womenopause

The problem
Several factors have conspired of late to bring me to a situation where I had a thumping headache and broken sleep for 3 days followed by a mild headache and sleep deprivation (2 hrs a night) for 3 or 4 days. Once awake there was no way that I could get back to the land of nod. My joints ached/ache too. To compound things I've just been doing some experiential learning about night sweats. Come evening water just oozes from every pore in my body and I need someone walking behind me with a mop to ensure that the floor surfaces are safe for others to walk on. If you invite me to your place in the evening, throw canvas sheeting on the furniture or park me on the verandah! I've never sweated in my life. Even intense exercise barely raises a drop. So it's completely new to me. The big splash is followed by shaking and feeling intensely cold. Switching between the two goes on from late evening until the morning and is accompanied by an elevated temperature. All of this has enveloped me just in the last week.

How did this all happen?
Well I have to confess that some of this at least is self-inflicted. I was a reformed coke addict for a couple of years (the fizzy kind). Two years ago, after drinking two and a half litres a day and not sleeping, I went through a week of withdrawal headaches and gave the stuff up. Then a few months ago I had a coke and I was postively buzzing - a personality transformation. That was pretty good. So over the months it's built up again to a couple of cans - though the buzz has gone by the wayside! Again I'm not sleeping and again it has increased my anxiety. At the same time for the last couple of weeks I haven't been doing daily stretches which I know that I need to do for my back and I haven't been going to the gym or pool. And of course the third factor is my gender and age.

What to do?
1. give up coke (done as of yesterday! and currently suffering the consequent headache)
2. start stretching again (done as of a few days ago!)
(Result: slept from 12 - 8 last night. Woke up a few times, but got back to sleep again ... sleep ... it feels so good!)
3. dive into the pool again (that's hard to do when feeling achy breaky and headachy, but ... maybe tomorrow).

Caffeine and stress are triggers for symptoms of womenopause - so hopefully I'll be back sleeping regularly soon and ideally the big splash will pack up and leave too!

the long trek home

Thursday 29th July
The only thing that went right today was that we managed to get up in time to get our 7:30 taxi to Fumicioini airport. It was all downhill after that.
The taxi dropped us off wrong terminal and after finding our way to the right terminal and a long wait, Air France, with whom we booked told us that we’d been queued up in the wrong place because though we’d booked with them, it was actually Alitalia who was going to be flying us to Paris for a connection through to Dubai. This wasn’t mentioned on any of our documentation. So after another substantial period of queuing and with the clock fast running down we finally got ourselves checked-in and through customs with moments to spare.
We raced to the gate, jumped onto the bus and breathed a sigh of relief. Soon we were on the plane, bags stowed, books and glasses organised ... all ready for the two hour flight to Charles de Gaulle. Time passed with nerry a word from staff nor movement from the plane. Word came that we had to disembark because of a safety issue. So after being herded back on buses and back to the airport, and standing around for 45 minutes not sure what was going on, we were lead back to the gate we had originally left from where we again waited. It soon became apparent that we were going to miss our connecting flight to Dubai.
Back on another plane that rattled and creaked like no plane we’d ever been on before, babies screaming and a teenager with lots of ‘tude sitting next to me, we finally got into Charles de Gaulle airport several hours late. After queuing for almost an hour we met a very pleasant man who kindly organised another flight for us ... leaving just before midnight; 11 hours after we were supposed to leave. As compensation Air France gave us a voucher for a free sandwich and drink! Were they kidding? After expressing disappointment at their offer and after a bit of argy-bargy I wangled access to the Air France lounge where we felt somewhat better after an OJ, a Bombay and tonic and a snack. Spending ten hours there was a bit over the top, but ... you get that. However, our revised expectations to be home by midday the next day were soon thwarted when once again we were sitting on the runway for 30 mins, 40 mins ... wondering what was going on. It became clear when a medical team boarded the plane that one of the passengers had suddenly taken ill. After an hour and a half the gentleman was taken off the plane to get the required medical care and the plane was soon in the air without further mishap.
This is the guilty plane sitting at Rome airport just before we boarded the first time.

Tuesday 27th July - Naples
Life-threatening, but cool.
Oppressive 40 degree heat, the taxi windows are wound down, we’re stopped in dense, noisy traffic and there’s no a/c. The driver decides this is a good time to light up a cigarette making it even harder to breathe in the thick, still air. His phone rings. He takes the call. The traffic moves, he accelerates still smoking and still talking on his hand-held phone. As the traffic speeds up, he changes gears without missing a beat in his phone conversation. He begins weaving in and out of the traffic, picking the gaps to the millimetre while still distracted by gears, the cigarette and his phone. The bright side is that with the taxi now moving, there is some air flow and thus some relief from the cloying heat. And ... who said men can’t multi task?
We had a pizza and some Pinot Grigio in an upstairs labyrinth on the main shopping strip in Napoli. It was magic!

Scene taken from the big square

When enough is enough

Much of what we saw in Napoli looked like this

And this

Though there are some lovely monuments and buildings, there's a sad and ugly side

Monday 27th July

Naples today and the penultimate day of our trip. The ship has become a home; a refuge from the world outside. Would I cruise again? Yes. Would I do it for 20 days? Probably not. The lustre begins to wear off around 12 – 14 days. Yesterday saw us in Sicily’s capital, Palermo. We did the sightseeing bus thing – pity they didn’t have much enroute in the way of sights that were worth seeing.

Reclining bunny

Another speccy sunset (with another crooked horizon!)

Dinner on the ship - last day. This was called a vegetable stack - though I'm not sure why.

Gardens of our hotel in Rome on the last night

different strokes

Saturday 25th July - Tunisia

We had the shore excursion from hell today. La Goulette in Tunisia. The temperature was 40 degrees; the sun was out and the heat was oppressive. We were on the bus off the bus on the bus off the bus on the bus off the bus to look at the piddling ruins of Carthage. The first couple of stops had little of interest and certainly didn’t warrant standing under the hot July sun and clambering on and off buses. The third site held more interest, but again would have been better in January where a traveller’s thoughts are on something other than finding the next bit of shade with some standing room. From the underwhelming and oppressively hot ruins we headed off to a cemetery with the graves of 4000 American soldiers ... okay ... I can’t even begin to get interested in that! Then we were on the bus for about 20 mins before hopping off and being lead en masse 1km uphill in the beating sun. We landed in the middle of an open air street bazaar with crowds, a narrow shopping strip with goods spilling out, hawkers, pickpockets and two shops selling cold drinks with crowds jostling for a bit of precious shade while they waited to actually get in to buy a drink. Our guide turned around to us and said, ‘This is Sidi Bou Said. You have free time. I’ll meet you in an hour and we’ll walk back to the bus together.’ We’d been dumped in a hell hole!
Just over four and a half hours after we’d set off we arrived back at the ship where some of our fellow travellers bumped into some of their shipmates. I overheard snippets of their conversation and was stunned to hear them report on the fabulous day we’d had visiting Carthage and Sidi Bou Said. Were they really on the same trip as me?
The most interesting part of the day was learning that ‘Carthage’ means ‘New City’ ... which it was back in 800 BC. It predated Rome by about 80 years. Another interesting snippet, which I plan to verify once I can use the net more freely again is that the roots of some our script today can be traced to the Phoenicians who inhabited Carthage. If you turn a capital ‘A’ upside down, you have the head of a bull with its two horns. Turn a ‘B’ on its side and you have a drawing of two houses and if you look at the ‘M’ you are looking at two waves indicating the sea or ‘mer.’
View from restaurant in Sidi Bou Said, Tunisia.

Carthage, Tunisia

It looks like a mosque, but it has a street number. Can mosques have street numbers? It's a very pretty building.

Streetscape, La Goulette, Tunisia

Building worker with no safety harness - there are so many of them around seemingly risking their lives daily.

Friday 24th July - At sea
At sea day today and time to catch up on some reading and some pondering. What is the point of blogging? Do we blog for ourselves or for our audience? Is it a problem having inept writers like yours truly putting virtual pen to virtual paper to spew forth random thoughts? Does this enhance the writer’s life? Does it enhance anyone else’s? Does it create a sense of community in some way? Does it mitigate or diminish good writing in any way? Does it leave a record which, in the future will have the writer cringing at what they were prepared to publish? Why do we do it? Should we do it?
It’s sooo frustrating not having easy access to the net to be able to google a couple of my questions above to see what others have said on this topic. What did sci-fi writers like Bradbury have to say about it? Does Theroux have any comments? What of philosophers? What do the baa-humbuggers have to say on the topic?
At $25 per hour, my use of the net has been quite limited during the cruise – email and MSN to keep in touch with the kids and friends, a few bank transactions (eek! Have I spent that much??!) and a quick look at the Aus newspapers and that’s it. The net speed is quite slow too, which is a deterrent to googling.

Thursday 23rd July - Majorca, Spain
The whirlwind tour continued today in Majorca. It’s so hard when visiting so many beautiful cities and towns to appreciate the uniqueness of each. Majorca paled next to some of our other stops. We learnt about the devastating decline in the farming industry after European Union and the change of emphasis to tourism. Those farmers who weren’t completely driven out of business by the EU agreements, have turned their hand to growing almonds, an industry which only survives at the largess of the government and then only because the almond blossoms in spring are a drawcard for tourists.
Fresh in our minds was the idea of Majorca as a safe haven for Australian fugitive multi-millionaire, Christopher Skase. We were on the lookout for his mansion which we had seen so many times in Aussie newspapers.
We had a look at a boutique winery today which was interesting partly because it uses the work of local artists to annually design new labels. The walls, hung with a variety of the originals works, made it a winery cum gallery.

Wine tasting in Majorca

A farmer from Renmark, Australia - in his 80's and still going strong. Nice bloke!

Wine label artwork.

Majorca countryside.

Kennels that the best dressed dogs are using these days.

Manor house of a bygone era.

Majorca from the ship.

Wednesday 22nd July - Barcelona
In Barcelona our plan was to ride the hop on hop off bus to get our bearings and stop by a few places of interest. That didn’t happen. Everyone in Barcelona was waiting for the hop on hop off bus. We stood in a queue for a bit under the beating sun, but the length only diminished by between 0 and 10 people each time a bus came by as the buses were chockablock. We gave up and wandered around the port area instead finding somewhere for tapas and a calming glass of pinot grigio. Feeling somewhat better after that, we ambled up the Ramblas and then grabbed a taxi to show us the sights. The driver, a Pakistani man with good English, took us up Montjuic Hill and filled us in on the history of a lot of the sites. The 1992 Olympic stadium was interesting for its nod to classic style.

View from Montjuic.

I couldn't stop thinking about Red Dwarf when I saw this.

the full monte

Monday 20th
Monaco today. We were here exactly a year ago. Last time we viewed Monte Carlo from above whereas this time we’re in the port looking up. After a leisurely breakfast, we’re about to venture out. We did the Martini at the casino thing last time (well, you have to do that, don’t you?) so we might skip it this time. I’d like to buy some new clothes, just a few shirts and some jeans, but I suspect that Monaco is not the place to do this! Ah well. Day after tomorrow we’ll be in Barcelona. Maybe a bit of clothes shopping will be on the cards there (I hate clothes shopping! Just bring me out clothes that I’m going to like and that will fit and let’s be done with it!). Well we’re off to once more enjoy the views of Monaco.

We decided to do a tour all over Monte Carlo and Monaco. That of course is not hard to do as Monaco is the second smallest country in the world, after the Vatican, with an area of just 1 sq kilometre. It has a population of around 40,000, no unemployment, the highest standard of living in the world and has the highest population density on the planet. The harbours are beautiful and can be seen from almost any vantage point in the city.

I’m losing track of the days. Tomorrow, I believe, is Wednesday and it will find us in Barcelona.

Note to self. Tilt camera down to right in future to correct crooked horizon!

Somewhere not too far up those mountains Monaco ends and France begins.

There must be a high demand for defibrillators.

Damn that bus and damn my lack of software prowess for cutting

Oops. There's that crooked horizontal again

Casino seen from the ship

Deceased butterfly on the balcony railing outside our stateroom

Sunday 19th
Today saw us in Livorno Italy. We wandered around ... and finally found ... somewhere to dine. Being Sunday most of the place was closed. We just wanted a Pinot Grigio and pizza ... we found it in an al fresco Ristorante and dined with pigeons.

Saturday 18th
Return to Rome. We stayed on the floating hotel.
I hate being involved in disputes and yet that is where I so often find myself. The common factor in the disputes is me ... so that leads me to think that the problems are of my doing ... but ... but .. no!
I had a complaint on-ship and the manager I raised the issue with handled it extremely poorly, leaving me, and probably her also, feeling pretty awful. So I escalated my complaint which now was both the original complaint and another about the manager’s handling of the situation. The escalation of the complaint left me feeling a lot better in that now at least my original complaint was being listened to and acted upon. I got what I felt I had been entitled to and the wording of relevant documents on terms and conditions has now been changed to reflect my original suggestions. I’m feeling a lot better about the whole thing, but I wonder how much of my current feeling is the knowledge that I’ve been vindicated ... and how much is simply that the dispute handling mechanism the second time around was much better.

Friday 17th July
Messina, Sicily today. The big highlight was the clock tower which puts on a 15 minute performance at midday. The lion raws (did I really spell 'roars' like that?), the rooster flaps and crows, people and angels move around; all to the tune of Ave Maria. The most remarkable thing about it is that someone designed it and someone invested in it and it got made ... and hundreds of tourists just like us turn up every day to go ‘wow!.’ I mean ... really ... why?

We lunched today with a couple from Nevada who we’ve spent a bit of time with on the cruise. Ks comment later was “And I thought that we were the Gurus of Grump.” We met the couple on the first or second day of the cruise and Mr Nevada has steadily become more disenchanted. K and I had commented to each other this morning that most of the coffee on board is that ‘weak American stuff.' Mr Nevada’s rant at lunch today was about the Espresso rubbish they serve in all these Italian ports. Apparently they need to learn to make good American coffee in Italy. Poor guy, he ordered a ‘filtered coffee’ and told us how much he was looking forward to it. I had my doubts that the waiter understood. K and I got the espresso and cappuccino we’d ordered, Mrs Nevada got her Coke Light, but Mr Nevada got a bowl of coffee flavoured ice-cream instead of his Americano! Sigh! The world is conspiring against him.

Clock tower with rooster that crows and lion that roars at midday.

Obligatory well dressed horse - cart ride.

Back to the ship

Thursday 16th
Today finds us at sea between Greece and Italy. Yesterday we visited Athens. I’m sad to report that I didn’t like it at all. It seemed to have all the worst aspects of some inner suburban areas to the west of Melbourne. Walls everywhere were bedecked with graffiti. We were twice ripped off by taxi drivers. We weren’t ready for the sleight of hand trick where the 25 euro we handed the driver suddenly became 15 euro. It was only an hour later that we realised that must have given him the 25 we thought we had – he had a neat magic trick that turned the 20 into a 10. The second driver tried the same stunt with a 50, but we were awake up to it the second time and stood our ground! That kind of thing leaves a bitter taste. Despite my gammy foot, we took the walk up to the Parthenon with 15 million other people on a hot July day. It wasn’t worth it, though I didn’t mind donating the 12 euro entrance fee that I assume is going to restoration works. We were both glad to be back on our floating hotel.

The Acropolis

At sea between Greece and Italy

Attarturk greets the dawn in Ephesus, Turkey

Ephesus from the Lido Deck

Monkey greets us when we get back to the ship

Diet coke makes a good icepack