A few random photos form the last 6 months....

Wimbledon....... although we got rained out!

A long awaited update.....

Well, over the last few months, while I have been busy studying and travelling for work... I have managed to fit in a few fun things....so here is a taste of them.

Visiting Greg'n'Bec

After Greg's party, we went for a walk around one of the national parks at Buderim. Through the rain forrest where some of their wedding photos were taken and they also got stranded during a heavy downpour several weeks earlier.

Greg's 30th Birthday Party

The following weekend to my 30th, was of course, Greg's 30th Birthday bash. We all met up at his place for the traditional consuming of beverages and a BBQ.

30...... for the second time around

Well, I landed into Brisbane airport at 7am..... my flight was early so i ended up waiting on the footpath for mum,dad,Lisa and Nana to come and pick me up. I managed to get some sleep then during the day after my 24hour flight to get ready for my birthday party that night, starting at 7pm at the Glen Hotel.

Kylie, Fless, Lisa and I

The uni boys

The Collins gang

The family back together

Ben, Mel, Lauren, Kris and Amanda

Me, under the influence...trying to blow out the sparklers

The family

Tequila shots all round

Dad and I

The boys (Greg, me, Matt, Sam, Brad and Adam)

Then I got to turn 30 for the first time.....

Well, since I was going to be in Australia for my 30th, I decided to have a party in London (2nd June) also with all of my friends over here. We headed out to a nice pizza restraunt in Covent Garden for dinner'n'drinks before going to a club to drink and dance the night away....well at least until 2am.

Tom, Sarah, James and Bec

Britt and Daryl

Al and Juss

Laura and I

Brad, Al, Laura and Bern

Justine tucking in!!!

Me, Jen and Craig

Sarah, Tom and Daryl

My Bulgarian/Athens trip

Well, I was lucky enough to go to Bulgaria for work. While I did not take any photos here, it was kinda wierd. Its sort of like how I imagined southern russia during the communist era to look. Poorly maintained roads, large apartment blocks... its kinda hard to describe but it definateliy felt like a far eastern european city. ALso "tea bag" from Prison Break was on my flight, sitting two rows in front of me.

Once I finished my work in Bulgaria on the Friday, instead of heading back to London (being a long weekend) I decided to go to Athens and fly home on the Monday morning. I found a cheap and what turned out to be a nice hostel in Athens.



The engineer from work who lives in Athens gave me a lift to the metro and I ended up getting to the hostel quite late in the evening, so I had a quick shower and went for an hour or so walk just to check the place out.

So I was not alone all weekend, I signed up for a walking tour which left the hostel on Saturday morning. The tour guide was more of a walking companion..... they did not come into any of the tourist areas, but at least they took us to all the right places. Anyway, on the tour, I met two really nice people... Marie (from Quebec)and Don from Jakarta. So we all went out to dinner with some other people on Saturday night after the tour. Don left on the Sunday morning so Marie and I walked some more and then made our way down to a beach that Visilius (the Greek engineer from work) recommended. We did not get there until quite late in the afternoon, so it was cool, however still good to see....... no where near as nice as home!!!! Take a look at the pics.

Spanish F1 trip to Barcelona

Well, Chris (ex-housemate) and I travelled after work on Thursday to Barcelona to check out the city and go to the F1 on the weekend. While London had showed some promising weather for 2 weeks, the few days before we left was back in the low teens and rainy.

We got off the plane at 10:30 to 25 degrees.......mmmmm bring on the warm weather. So we found a place to stay on La Rumbla, which is the main street in the middle of the old section of the city which has lots of markets, clubs, cafes etc. Once we got somewhere to stay, we went out for a couple of drinks and a snack before heading to bed.


View from our room

Someone took my boat without asking!!!!
On the Friday, we did a bike tour of Barcelona which was a really good way to see the city. Also it was a lovely day, so it was a lot of fun. It consisted of a 4 hour guided ride throught the city, dodging some busses and cars on the road and seeing some really cool stuff. Met some fun people, had a few drinks on the beach which of course led to the other Chris wandering off in a crowd (while I had his wallet, passport and phone) so there was a few worrying hours, but it all worked out.






The next day, we headed to the track which was about 1/2 hour out of Barcelona. We sat in the sun for around 4-5 hours, got a good tan and watched a bit of the GP2, Porsche cup and then the F1 qualitying. Massa 1, Alonso 2, Raikkonen 3, Hamilton 4.










Saturday night we took it fairly easy, since we were sunburnt and worn out, so we went out for a nice BBQ Seafood dinner and a drink on the La Rumbla again.



Sunday morning, we thought we would try and beat the crowd to the track, which opened at 7:30. We got there at 8:30 and I think there must have already been about 80,000 there. Found a few square feet of dirt/grass and sat there from 9am - 3:30....a long day. Headed back into the city after the race, had some dinner and flew home.

ANZAC Day 2007 - Day 3

Well, after the much needed sleep, we spent most of the day walking around Istanbul prior to going to the airport late afternoon. Firstly, here is a picture of the Istanbul skyline from our hotel....

Hows the serenity?????

Then, after breakfast, a quick walk around what I can only assume is the tourist district. It was very clean and had the museums, the Blue Mosque and really nice resteraunts.

Off to the Grand Bazar, which is a massive covered market place. Lots of leather and hand mades goods, along with fake Prada/Shoes/perfume.

We then ran out of time and had to head to the airport, but there were also some cool ruins of walls which used to run all around the city.

ANZAC Day 2007 - Day 2

Well, after a freezing night with very little sleep, it was time for the dawn service to start at 5:30am. The service took about 1 hour which took place as the sun rose and illuminated the sea and surrounding area.

After the service, Laura and Justine caught the bus with their tour to Lone Pine, while Bern and I had to walk.....about 1 - 1.5km of up hill dirt track......we got there finally. We were very tired by this stage and had about an hour to wait for the next service to start....so I fell asleep and I was woken when they were starting.

After there service at Lone Pine, we managed to find our bus amongst the other 8000 people trying to do the same thing and wound up back in Istanbul around 8pm.