Who ever read my last post and sent the Aussie couple around to rent the room and buy the TV at the same time, thanks. Infact they only came around to have a look at the room, but with my great upselling skills, by the time they had left they had taken the room and also decided to purchase the TV.
Now all I need is for them to come around on the weekend and give me the money and all will be good :-)

Don't suppose anyone wants to buy a TV or rent the room I am currently staying in?
I need to get rid of both with in a week..... Hurry up :-)

Loch Lomand

On Saturday Gwen and I where picked up by Chris and we headed out to Glasgow then Dombarton and then on to the Loch for a Booze Cruise.
It was a great day and the weather treated us so well, sunshine for most of the day and no rain, that's not to bad for western Scotland.
We stopped at a pub on one of the islands on the Loch and then off to another Island for some free shortbread.
We ended the day with a barbie back at Chris's place, and let me tell you, these Scottish need some lessons on how to cook a barbie. I eventual got hold of the tongs but nut until the damage had been done. Can you believe that they pre-cooked the meat in the oven.......

This weekend we are headed off to a boat booze cruise for one of my last weekends in Edinburgh.
We are leaving tomorrow morning after doing a few chores and returning Sunday morning.
There is still a chance the Neil might be coming back down to Edinburgh on Sunday, if so it'll be great to catch up with him, if not I'll see him in Perth when he lands.

Gwen fly's out on Monday and I am seeing her off at the airport.

iPod

This weekend I went out at got my self a 30gig iPod Video. I couldn't afford it my self but with the help of work, in the form of Ovations Vouchers that I got for doing a number of things it only ended up costing me £30 including the FM tuner and remote. Not to bad.

Germany - World Cup

I have never been a huge Soccer fan but it is hard not to get court up in it over here.
I am living in Scotland now and with the England / Scotland rivalry people here where never going to support the England Team.
The decision was made a while ago by the radio station here to support Trinidad and Tobago (TNT).
Last night they played England.
The final score was 2-0, in favor of England and we knew that the result was going to be like that before the game started. The amazing this was that it took England 83 minutes to score their first goal. TNT almost scored at half time but it knocked out. They almost scored again at the 92 minute mark, but it was ruled off side.

It was a great night at the 3 Sisters, and there is still hope, if England win 2 - 0 in their next game and if TNT win 2 - 0 then TNT will get through to the next round.

Since I last blogged, Australia beat Japan 3 - 1 in their first game of the world cup, that's huge. It was played at 2pm UK time and we only remembered at about 3.30pm that the game was on. I was at work so I logged onto the FIFA web page and brought up the realtime info on the game. It seemed that everytime the page refreshed we got another goal. It turns out that every one of our goals was scored after the 80th minute. That would have been amazing to see.

On Thursday I thought that I had the Paris fault closed, but then yesterday symptoms of the fault resurfaced and we are looking into that, what a kick in the teeth. At least I had a good weekend.

Gwen and I headed to Newcastle on Saturday where we caught up with Ant and Ian, the lads that we meet on busabout. We got a train to Newcastle in the morning and we met the boys around lunch time where they proceeded to show us around the town. It was good to have some local knowledge of the area, things like.... That's a good pub, that place sucks -you know all the important things.

The main reason that I wanted to go to Newcastle was for the beer. I have been drinking Newcastle Brown Ale for years back home so I wanted to try it in Newcastle. After the tour we went hunting for pub that sold the brown ale. It seems that it is a bit like Fosters back in Australia. We went into about 3 bars before we found any, and even then I was the only one drinking it. Gwen got a pint, but didn't like it so I helped her out with it (I'm a nice guy :-). We got a train home later on in the afternoon, all in all it was a great way to spend a day.

On Sunday we didn't to much. Walked around town (Edinburgh) a bit had a look in a few shops but not much else.

Diary

Just thought that I'd put a quick note in to say that I got my diary back. It turned up on the Busabout bus somewhere near Prague. Not to bad considering that I think I lost it in Paris.

Paris to Berlin......

Well it may be a cranking song but I am hating Paris at the moment.
At work it seems that we can't connect a VC call to Paris with out it dropping or sending corrupt data, so for the last 4 weeks I have been talking to telecommunications company's, placing test calls and trying to got the French to actually do something. It is still going on and that light at the end of the tunnel is still a long way off.
The good thing is that I know that it'll only be my problem for at most another 4 weeks, cause I have given my notice and it is exactly 4 weeks until I leave.... Whooooooo Hoooooo :-)

The Mean Machine

I watch Mean Machine on the weekend and it was great. I haven't seen that Adam Sandler movie about football with the guards, but I know that this one is better.

It wasn't a comedy and Vinnie Jones was perfect for that role. Come to think of it, he's good for any hard man role.

My Birthday / Highlands Trip

I had my birthday in the middle of our highlands trip, but I think that there was enough going on to warrant it's own Blogg entry. I got up in the morning to Gwen giving me presents (get you mind out of the gutter). I got a USA Lonely planet book and some nice aftershave as well as a IOU for a trip on the Harry Potter train, that will be great. I've been reading that book in the bookshops and I did plan on getting it before I headed off, but it's nice to have it so I can get some planning done. We headed off fairly early, at about 0810, but not before we had a Jager Bomb to get the day started. Neil and Mustard also got me a CD (MOS Annual 2006)I have been after for a while but unfortunately I didn't get a chance to listen to that before we headed off. That was all that was said about my birthday for a while, that is until we arrived at the Loch Ness where I was told by Marty (our tour guide) that as it's my birthday I have to go swimming in the Loch. After a bit of coaxing Neil and I went in for a swim, joint by another bloke from the tour Ben. It was cold, dam cold but I felt alive once I got out.

That in it's self is a great story, the water was so cold that I got pins an needles as soon as I got in and after I had been in there for about 30 seconds I was numb all over and a strange tingly feeling was creeping over me. It turned out that I could feel my feet so walking over the rocks back to shore was a bit of fun and I ended up paddling through the water until I was as close as possible before standing up. We stayed in Kyleakin for the night where went to the pub for dinner and Marty brought me over a scotch, then way the scotch drink it, straight. It was nice to start with with a honey flavor but then as you swallowed it I felt it warm up, then burn.......... :-)He also organized a song for me, the catch was that I had to sing it, so up on stage singing Down Under off my face only to be lead to the bar after that was over and fed more drinks :-)All in all it was a great night.