This weekend things have been different. We are both heading to Europe, and paying a visit to Spa while we are there. I still have six weeks before I hop on the plane as Spa is the first thing I am doing but for Pamela it is the end of her holiday, and she is off to Paris tomorrow. This means we couldn’t have dinner after the British Grand Prix, but we worked around it and met up for lunch today instead.

It may have been the best idea ever because the food was amazing, and the venue was great too.  Because we’re nerdy enough to find Albert Park exciting even when the race is eight months away we headed to Mart 130, located at the Middle Park tram stop which is also the location of Gate 1 for the Grand Prix (as demonstrated by this picture I took over breakfast in February 2009).

It may have been 1.30 in the afternoon but Sunday is a perfect brunch day, and it’s probably my favourite meal in the world to eat out.

Pamela had a pot of tea with her food, which came with the worlds cutest milk bottle.

I went for the iced chocolate which was very, very rich and I felt a little sick after finishing it. Delicious though!

It took a lot of willpower not to order poached eggs because they’re my favourite brunch meal and I know from previous visits that Mart do them very, very well. They are also famous for their corn fritters which I have never tried but have spied others eating many times. Instead today I went for french toast made with organic brioche, with blueberry compote, vanilla mascarpone and sliced almonds. It was superb!

Pamela chose the scrambled eggs with bacon, tomatoes and goats cheese. It was tempting to pull the ‘hey look over there!’ trick and steal it out from under her.

Instead we decided the best way to cope with wanting one of everything on the menu is to turn this place into our local, and have more post-qualifying lunches instead of post-race dinners. Even though we both live on the other side of town it can still be our local, right?

So for all those who have F1 loving friends nearby, I definitely recommend a catch up every race weekend. It’s a great way to combine seeing your friends with talking about our favourite sport and eating delicious food. As Pamela is away for Germany and Hungary, we’ll both be at Spa then I’ll be at Monza and Singapore all I can say is…

Is it Japan yet? I’d quite like to try those fritters!

This is because chips (or crisps if you are so inclined) are my favourite unhealthy snack food in the world, and nothing excites me quite like finding a flavour I haven’t tried before. When I was a kid in New Zealand this was quite easy because in those days chips only seemed to come in five flavours – Ready Salted, Cheese and Onion, Salt and Vinegar, Chicken, and Green Onion. I didn’t like Green Onion or Chicken, and how boring were Ready Salted?

But with the snack market becoming a bigger each year, the choices are growing.

At some stage The Works was released by Eta as a new flavour.  It’s like a baked potato flavoured chip, seriously, the pack lists them as “Bacon, Sour Ceam, Chives and Cheddar Cheese” flavour. I didn’t realise how much I liked this until I moved to another country where they don’t exist.

Since I left the country, the chip flavours have been getting oddly patriotic. First from Bluebird came Cheesymite, a limited edition cheese and marmite flavoured chip. My flatmate here was sent a bag by her parents and she carefully rationed it out between all her Kiwi friends, which meant I only got to have two of them. But they were two of the most amazing chips I’d ever tried. I put a request through to my mother to stock her cupboards with them since they wouldn’t be on sale next time I was in the country (she promptly forgot. RIP Cheesymite, I barely knew ye.)

Following close behind was the Kiwi As range. When I went home in October we stopped at the supermarket and these two flavours were top of my list. First was Pie + Watties Sauce flavour.

The second was dip flavour.

Dip flavoured chips sounded a little bit cannibalistic to me, but I tried them anyway. I was a little disappointed by both. The Dip flavour tasted just like Sour Cream and Onion and the Pie and Sauce tasted a lot like the failed Tomato Sauce flavour from about 6 years ago, there was nothing pie tasting about it at all. But the key point was these flavours existed, and I tried them . I’m quite sure I have a fear of missing out with chips – what if I don’t try a flavour and it turns out to be the greatest of all time? I must try them all to ensure this doesn’t happen!

Over the past few years gourmet flavoured chips have become popular, which suits me fine. Eta Uppercuts Lamb and Mint and Garlic Aioli flavours were my favourites back home and Red Rock Deli’s Sea Salt and Rosemary is top of my list in Australia. So many flavours, so little time.

How does this relate to my trip? Well, me being me, I will be eating a lot of chips as I pass through various countries because the internet informs me that there are flavours I’ve never even seen let alone tried. Wikipedia tells me that the UK has Prawn Cocktail, Germany has Paprika and Spain has Ham. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t excited. I’m pleased I’ll be doing a lot of walking as I play tourist, otherwise I’d be coming home a lot heavier.

Have I mentioned I also have a fear of missing out when it comes to foreign KFC menu items? I know you’re supposed to try the local cuisine or else you are a Bad Tourist but my theory is if it’s not on the menu at home it is local. Uh oh……

A few days back I tweeted about how much I was enjoying the Lonely Planet feature on my phone, but it’s seriously so amazing I just have to go into more detail. I even went to the effort to find an app to take screenshots.

I hadn’t really used the GPS much on this phone, because the zoom was faulty and would wildly zoom in and out on your location without any user input. But I’ve now had the issue fixed, and I’ve started having a play. The super planner in me has had far too much fun with this. This is the first screen when you push the Maps button.

The “Weather” and “Events” functions are also fantastic, but they are not the jewel that Lonely Planet is. When you start it up, it recognises where you are and displays this screen

I feel like I know enough about Melbourne at the moment, so I searched for one of the cities I am visiting for some ideas.

If you scroll down from the city guide summary screen, it gives you a list of options to click on

All of these are handy categories, but I am most interested in things to see while I am there.

Considering I’m not in Paris at the moment, I’m not sure how it is calculating that I am 51m away from Pont Neuf, but I can verify that the distances it tells me for Melbourne sights are correct. This will be quite handy if I find myself bored in Paris (or any other city) and want something to see nearby!

I am also not sure quite how many sights are loaded into this thing, the most pages I have managed to make it through is six before I got bored, but I had only made it to about 3km away from my “location” so there must be hundreds of them.

If you select one, it brings up this page with more information, the closest public transport stop, and icons to call, email or visit the website of the attraction. If any of this information is unavailable, the button is greyed out.

If you select the final icon, it displays a little LP logo of the attraction on the map.

And if you select the icon, it gives you a list of options. At the moment I am a big fan of ‘Save Place’ but I get the feeling ‘Walk to’ will come in very, very handy when I’m on the other side of the world.

So now I’m not worried about not having somewhere to eat, or missing any major attractions, or not having a roof over my head anywhere in my travels because of this handly wee thing. I’ve already set up an ‘Accommodation’ folder in my Saved Places, I have every single hostel, hotel and camping ground saved on my map so I can find them easily. But best of all, all of these functions are totally free!

I never wrote about going to Pearl Jam but it was amazing. They have been my favourite band for over a decade and I have been a member of their fan club since I turned 18 and got a credit card. They allocate fan club tickets for the best locations by the stage so because this was a general admission concert I took the day off work and went down a couple of hours early. By this stage there was already hundreds of people there but once we were let inside I ended up about 4 rows from the front. I didn’t realise how amazing this was until I saw some pictures from friends who were so far back they couldn’t even make out the figures on stage.

I’m really, really not a fan of general admission areas because I’m so short but it was totally worth it.

I never got around to copying more than two photos off my memory card onto my computer. Two weeks later I went to Fleetwood Mac, had a great time, took heaps of photos, and then when I got home my memory card corrupted. All my photos from both concerts, gone.

When I was at university my flatmate Laura and I spent quite a few evenings after a few drinks dancing around our flat listening to 90s pop music, in particular the Backstreet Boys, and we always said we would go see them if we ever got the chance. The two of us came to Melbourne in March 2008 and missed their Unbreakable tour by two weeks! Two years later and unfortunately she could not manage to come to Melbourne for the This Is Us tour, and I wasn’t going to miss out just because of that! My friend Kate agreed to come but then a few weeks out from the show it turned out she wans’t going to be here for it. It was quite a struggle to find someone else willing to come to a show for a band who haven’t been cool for at least 10 years! Kait came through at the last minute, and with a bottle of wine behind us we headed along to Rod Laver Arena for the show. There were a lot more people there than I was expecting, considering all the stories in the media a few days before of slow ticket sales.

You cannot deny that the Backstreet Boys are quite possibly the cheesiest band around today. The synchronised dance moves really aren’t as acceptable as they were in the 90s, especially now that even the youngest member of the group is in his 30s.  But as Kait said to me after the show, it might be cheesy but they are extremely entertaining, they know how to put on a good show, and they know how to excite a (mostly female) crowd. At a seated gig I’ve never seen a crowd stay on their feet for a whole show before.

Their set list is also carefully thought out in that it is almost a direct replica of their Chapter One greatest hits album with a couple of up-tempo songs off the newest album mixed in, meaning that the people in the crowd who didn’t realise the band never actually broke up could still sing along with most of what they heard. I must give a special mention to the man in the row in front of me who would have been at least 50, but he was singing along to all the songs off This Is Us so he was clearly a big fan! In a role-reversal of all the other couples there, it was his wife who looked bored.

Unfortunately my camera with the good zoom had no batteries so I didn’t manage to get decent photos with my little Cybershot.

See?

Instead of taking photos I recorded parts of each song for Laura and Kate to show them what they had missed out on!

One thing I did not know before I arrived was that the Backstreet Boys no longer use a touring band. Having just the boys and a DJ on stage made it feel very karaoke at the start until I got used to it, singing along with a backing track is very American Idol! They also have four dancers who make appearances during some songs which I thought was kind of unnecessary, they really didn’t add anything to the performance and were quite distracting in parts. My only other complaint would be that they didn’t perform anything from Unbreakable because there were some quite upbeat songs on that album that would have got the crowd going. The only thing they performed from Never Gone was Incomplete which got the crowd excited a lot more than I expected, considering it is from the “new era” of their music.

They finished the show with arguably their most popular song, I Want It That Way and then came back with Straight Through My Heart as the encore. I found this a peculiar choice as the latter is a very new song which most of the crowd appeared not to know, this meant the atmosphere in the arena went straight down after it reached a peak during the earlier song. Personally, I would have swapped the order of those two to ensure that most of the audience would be dancing and singing along to end the night. All in all, it was a very entertaining night, and if Howie is true to his word and they do come back next year, I will be sure to go along. I might even cough up the extra cash for better seats.

Here’s my clip of the biggest song of the night:

That is all.

This was our Christmas tree.

My mum does floral art as a hobby, this is her take on Christmas.

Christmas also needs some pretty flowers, I like Poinsettias because they have coloured leaves instead of flowers!

For Christmas I wanted a Finnish flag to take to Spa and Monza, this I got. My parents flag pole came in handy.

I also got the Roger Federer cap I wanted to wear to the Australian Open.

My brother got me a box of chocolate fish, which I didn’t ask for but they are very nice! They only sell them in NZ so it’s nice to have a supply in Australia now.

This was not a present but I did ask mum if she would pick some up for me. It’s one of the greatest beverages ever to be created by man. I would “200%” recommend hunting some down if you are ever in the country.

The roast was roasting nicely.

Every year there are nibbles out so everyone eats too much before lunch is even served.

One was fruit.

The other was not quite so healthy.

Our lunch table. I realised I have to buy some Christmassy place mats for next year because the pictures of houses really aren’t festive.

This is mint sauce, the picture is for Lukeh. You can be sure this is not going anywhere near my lunch!

Lunch!

I love gravy.

We’ve never had all the dessert on a trolley before, but it certainly made it easier to serve! Apparently it’s not a New Zealand Christmas without a pavlova, so we’ve got a huge one, but I hate the stuff.

Trifle on the other hand is my absolute favourite.

After sitting around for a few hours, it is customary to walk off some of lunch. We walked along the beach.

There are some whale bones buried out there but all the digging meant the hole was full of water. The ones sticking out of the puddle are very long, very deep and very heavy.

Then we walked around the block. My parents live in a lovely peaceful neighbourhood 30 minutes out of the city. I’m glad they moved there after I left home, I’m definitely a city girl!

In the afternoon some family friends turned up and we sat on the deck for a few hours catching up. I got a little sunburnt, oops. Over the weekend I discovered I like sitting on the swing seat with a cup of tea and my Kindle.

Because it was still such a lovely night we decided to have dinner outside. The BBQ area is yet to see a BBQ though because there were so many leftovers from lunchtime. Cold meat and salad is the usual Christmas tea!

As you can tell from the lack of people in the photos, we’re a family who don’t like being in front of the lens. I had to be sneaky to take this one.

The next day another flag went up. It’s a very multicultural pole

Boxing day was only 12 degrees so it was a lot colder than the day before! The Diamond Princess was in town. I’d say it was really not the best weather to be cruising in.

The Port is just up the harbour, there is always interesting boats coming and going.

And that is all the pictures I took because for the next 2 days of my stay all I did was sit on the couch or the deck.

Next time I’ll have to remember to take my togs so I can go swimming, the water is very warm because the sand heats up when the tide is out, then the sand heats up the water when the tide comes back in. Genius.

I have been putting a lot of thought into the best luggage solution for me. Currently I own two wheely suitcases, a small carry-on size one that I normally use, and a giant one that I got to move 20kg of my life from New Zealand to Australia. Wheels are perfect when moving from airport to car to house. Not so much when there is much walking to be done, and they’re also not brilliant on anything other than the smoothest road surfaces. Cobbled streets? Forget about it.

This leaves me with one option: buy new luggage. This leaves me with two options: buy a backpack, or buy a holdall.

I pretty much vetoed a backpack straight away. I don’t want to be a backpacker. They always look so uncomfortable. Everyone I know who has done it has been away longer than a month, so even though it’s probably the most convenient way of carting my stuff around, I said no. Plus, those things are expensive!

So this left me with a holdall. Now I really do have to travel light because too heavy and I won’t be able to carry it. I finished work early today and set out on a luggage hunt. This is the one I decided on. Nothing says ‘buy me’ more than a 50% off Christmas sale. It holds 60L which is plenty, and it folds into a little storage bag. Of course the first thing I did when I got home was pull it out to play with it, so now I’ll probably never actually be able to get it back in. Red is also a colour that I’ll spot on a luggage carousel in amongst everyone else’s black luggage.

Because one can’t just buy one thing in a sale, I also got a sleeping bag liner because I’m staying in one camping ground, some cheap hotels and a couple of hostels and their sheets can be nasty. My final purchase for the day was a padlock. I have plenty of travel padlocks but they are all ones that use keys and over the years all the keys have been lost. Combination lock? Problem solved.

Since my last post I’ve also purchased my ticket to Monza. Look out for me at the first chicane!

Today I paid for my flights, so my itinerary is now confirmed. Now that I know my exact dates, I have the fun job of trying to fit all the places I want to go to in between the races…

Thing I don’t like: first flight leaves Melbourne at midnight. What a crazy time to fly.

Thing I do like: I get to go Singapore – London on an A380! Big plane!

Thing I love: As you can see I have also decided to stop over for four days in Singapore on my way home, as it just so happens to be the weekend of the Grand Prix there. My theory is if you’re going to two races, why not go to three? I had a fantastic time in Singapore in 2008, and watching it on TV this year just felt odd, so it will be very nice to go back.

I have emailed the place I stayed last time, Sleepy Sams, to see if they have any beds available. I am planning on avoiding hostels for this trip if I can, but because Singapore was an after thought I really hadn’t factored it into my budget so am doing it as cheap as possible. This extends to the cheapest grandstand too. I am definitely not a General Admission person. I am short, and I don’t like having to stay in one spot for 10+ hours just to get a good vantage point.

Sleepy Sams were fantastic in 2008, the main dorm rooms didn’t look ideal because they were huge, but I had a bed in a female-only dorm with 4 others. It was a separate room with a lockable door so it felt a bit more secure. I am also easily bought with food, and they gave us free breakfast in the morning. Some days I had toast, some days I had cereal, every day I had cold, cold water. Far too hot in Singapore for coffee!

After a quick shower in the morning I didn’t see much of the place because the great thing about a night race is you can stay out all day shopping or sightseeing and then go to the track in the late afternoon, meaning you really only go back to your accommodation to have another shower and sleep. I really don’t like the Singapore climate, it’s far too humid for me and it makes me feel gross, hence all the showering. If there wasn’t a race on, I’d never go there on holiday.

The other thing I have recently booked is a hotel in Milan for Thursday – Sunday of the Italian Grand Prix. The one I have chosen is Hotel del Sole because I got a fantastic deal on booking.com which saved me AU$200 total for the four nights over the standard rate. Unlike a lot of cheap, central hotels, this one actually has good reviews! It’s very simple, but once again I will be there to sleep, so it suits me fine. Plus, it’s not a hostel!

Accommodation for Spa is a little more tricky than Melbourne/Singapore/Monza because it’s not in the middle of/just out of a big city where there are plenty of hotels and the prices of the hotels that are around the area were scaring me slightly. Kathi has saved the day and has arranged a mobile home at Camping Spa d’Or. Generally I’m not a big fan of camping, but that’s because I don’t sleep on the ground. I also don’t sleep without walls and a ceiling (canvas does not count) so a mobile home with a proper bed for me is just perfect.

If Sleepy Sams come through with a bed for me that is accommodation for all three races sorted, which was my main priority. I still have ten months to sort myself places to stay in England, Germany, Switzerland, France, Spain and the rest of Italy. I’m tired just thinking about it.

The last thing I have got organised is a Cash Passport. I have heard a few bad things about them, in that Travelex are hard to get assistance from if you need it, but for me the pros outweigh the slim-to-none chance of actually needing their help.

I like that it’s just an ATM card I can slip in my wallet, so I don’t have to carry huge amounts of foreign cash on me. I like that they give you two cards so if you lose one, or it gets stolen, you’ve still got access to your money, (handy hint: don’t keep them both in the same place!) I really like that now I have it, I can top it up at any time. At the moment it only has 300 Euro on it because that was the minimum opening balance, but I have ten months to load more value onto it. For the way I like to organise things, incredibly early and with a minimum fuss, it’s perfect for me.

Although technically my journey begins in London, this map begins in Brussels. I plan to spend a couple of days in the UK before heading on the road trip to Spa. After the Grand Prix, and being left behind by the others and thus entering my ‘I am on my own and these people don’t speak English’ panic phase, I’d like to spend a day or so in Brussels before getting a night train to Berlin.

Then in order I will do Berlin – Munich – Zurich – Rome – Milan (as my base for the Italian Grand Prix at Monza) -Nice/Monaco – Barcelona – Valenica – Madrid – Paris – London.

At this stage I am looking to get a Eurail pass and do most of this by train, with night trains where possible. I like the idea of not having to sleep in one city then spend good daylight hours travelling to my next destination.

Nice and Monaco were not on my original plans but really, I can’t go all the way to Europe and not go to Monaco. It is a trip based around Formula One after all!

Of course because I am very new to this travelling thing, I am open to suggestions from anybody on ways I could tweak my plans better, recommendations on where planes would be better than trains, things that are must-do in any given city, or good places to stay.

I plan on bugging a travel agent until they are sick of the sight of me, but I am waiting for a confirmed 2010 F1 calendar before I do that, which should be out some time in October. Once the dates are locked in I want to start booking things but me being me, I’m planning now.

I can’t wait til I can write a to-do list.