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And we are off……

August 4, 2012 by Fran 2 Comments

The most commonly heard question over the last 4 months, “are you all ready then?” The commonly heard response, “not really.”

I always knew that what would be, would be and the rest would sort itself out. And after the longest raft of leaving parties/goodbyes/drinks in living memory, my liver was just about ready on departure day, even if my head quite wasn’t.

And here we are, at the end of my first day on Australian soil as a resident. Feels very surreal to say it like that, out loud, but I suppose that’s what I now am. Arriving here on my one way ticket (granted, a very comfortable business class one way ticket) it takes some getting used to the fact I’m here to stay.

So, you will see, if you are paying attention, that it is now Saturday and I left home on Wednesday. That’s because I had a great 2 nights in Singapore. I snoozed, dozed, nodded and maybe even slept a little on the way there, arriving in the Lion city early on Thursday.

I have been to Singapore a few times before and it’s a city I really enjoy due to it’s contrast of being a modern city that is a little rough around the edges.

You have all the bars, clubs and restaurants gleaming on Clarke Quay, yet on the neighbouring edges you have Chinatown and Little India, adding a little Asian authenticity and grubbiness. One example of the modernity of the city is the “Singapore Flyer”, the world’s largest observation wheel, dwarfing the London Eye by some 40 meters. I took my first visit on this, enjoying views as close as the Formula1 track that circles it’s base, to vistas as far as the outer edges of the island.

A highlight for me of any visit to Singapore is the cuisine, and particularly the high quality north and south Indian food. Down on Boat Quay there are a few favourites of mine, most recently enjoying a very simple dish of chicken fresh from the Tandoor oven, served just with a garlic naan.

Such pleasure in ripping chunks of naan bread off, wrapping around a piece of succulent, tender, Tandoori chicken and washing down with an ice cold Tiger beer. And all at prices that don’t break the bank.

Day 2 had me doing a sightseeing trip of the city, with the obligatory visit to Raffles hotel, named after Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of Singapore. First time visitors should go to the Long Bar and try the legendary Singapore Sling cocktail. I say first time visitors as it’s not a drink that you could afford to have on every visit to the Lion city.

The evening was wrapped up in a Balinese restaurant where I had Nasi Goreng, a dish I had quite forgotten how divine it is. I first sampled it whilst backpacking through Bali, it became a staple of my diet, not solely as a result of the taste, but the price suited my backpacker budget also.

With the stopover done, it was now time to pack the bags again and head off for one last plane journey, to Australia, the place I first visited in 1994 and kept returning to. There was something that just drew me back. Was it the alluring smell of the ubiquitous eucalyptus leaves? Was it the wet t-shirt competitions in Cairns? (come on, I was only 24). Or was it just a love of enjoying the great outdoors in an amazing climate?

And so, after a couple of years effort, permanent residency secured, it’s time to see if the country Down Under still has the same draw for me.

Till the next time.

My travel DNA

May 27, 2012 by Fran Leave a Comment

As I plan to embark on perhaps one of my biggest adventures, my thoughts turn to how I actually got here. I’m not sure when it happened. Or whether it was something that occurred suddenly. But, I definitely have a gene in me that is wired for travel. You could say that it is in my DNA. And has been for a very long time. Am I a “traveller” by definition? Is there even such a thing?

It wasn’t always like this. Up to the age of 23, I had only ever left the country twice on overseas holidays. And both for scarcely homesick inducing periods of 1 week each. Holidaying at Butlins through my childhood, I first ventured on a plane at 17 years of age for a week in Tunisia, followed by a week in Ibiza the year after.

So what happened to me? How did I develop into this itinerant nomad? Where did my peripatetic lifestyle come from? It could probably be traced back to a chance conversation in 1993 with my old mucker, Steve. “Fancy doing a bit of travelling?”, I asked. “Where to?” was Steve’s first response” After ruling out Europe, too close, we decided on Australia, on the basis that we had heard it was “warm there isn’t it?”.

And there we were, in the departure lounge of Manchester airport, Steve’s dad carrying his rucksack, and my mum worryingly checking out my fellow passengers. Astutely noticing that many of them were of a foreign appearance, I had to remind her that was because I was flying to Bangkok, the first step on a 12 month working holiday to Australia.

Almost 20 years later, my travel cravings remain hard to satiate. Long backpacking trips around South America and much of the rest of the world just leave me returning with an always-increasing travel bucket list. I meet people who have been to corners (metaphorically speaking) of the globe that just invite exploration. Lists of must see sights and cultures.

As I plan to make the move to start a new life down under, I muse whether this will be the start of the end of my constant global wanderings, or whether it will just be another start.

Forget the olympics, now the real countdown begins

April 18, 2012 by Fran Leave a Comment

Despite knowing for a long time this is what I was going to do, it was still surprisingly hard to press the “proceed” button. Having searched for, and found, exactly the flights I wanted, I just needed to enter my credit card details and it would all become real.

Then why did the butterflies immediately kick in? Why did a tsunami of indecisiveness wash over me? Maybe it is the reality that the clock now starts ticking. Each day that passes is one less that I will live in the UK. Knowing that I do really now have to start tying up the loose strings of my English life. Closing down bank accounts. Cancelling memberships. Packing up belongings. Saying those emotional goodbyes to family and good friends. Not really sure of when I will be seeing many of them again.

Or maybe it’s not that at all. Perhaps it is just the fact that I now realise, and it’s starting to sink in, that I will have to rescind the season ticket for my beloved Manchester United, the team that I first watched live in the late 1970s. In the days when football was football. The Theatre of Dreams was simply, Old Trafford. And the glory days of Best, Charlton and Law were nothing but a distant memory. Long gone, with me continually suffering through the 80s at the hands of the red half of Merseyside. That, of course, was until the day at Crossley Heath school in 1986 when I heard that big Ron Atkinson had been sacked and a dour Scotsman called Alex Ferguson was on his way south. The rest, as they say, is history.

So, I have my flights. On 1st August i will be leaving these shores and heading down under. And yes, it’s a very long flight, so i’ve pushed the boat out (on a plane?) and for the first time ever I booked business class seats (in keeping with ticking things off my life bucket list). Singapore Airlines will be taking me, via Munich, to Singapore, a city I’ve visited on a few occasions, always enjoying the great restaurants, and (exorbitantly) expensive nightlife. Little wonder that Nick Leeson had to resort to being a rogue trader to fund his flashy lifestyle and late nights in “Harry’s Bar”.

Three days later I will be headed to Perth. Glorious Perth. Gateway to beautiful Fremantle, and quite possibly some of the best fish and chips in the whole of Australia, from Cicerello’s by the marina. Afterwards, washed down by a delectable home brewed beer from the Little Creatures micro brewery. I will also take a side trip to Rotto, Rottnest Island, and visit the famous little quokas. It was the quokas that gave Rottnest it’s name, as the early Dutch explorers sailed past, thinking they could see large rats, hence coining the sobriquet, Ratnest Island.

After my week in Perth, and catching up with family, it will be time for another bucket list item. One of the world’s greatest rail journeys. One that many people think I’m mad for doing and look completely perplexed when I say I’m choosing to do. The epic Indian Pacific train journey from Perth to Sydney, taking 3 whole days, leaving just once a week, and rocking into Sydney every Wednesday morning. Can’t you just get a flight and do it in 5 hours, they ask? Well, even if you need to ask that question, we have a very different attitude to travelling.

There we have it. Plans made. Countdown starts. My days in blighty are, literally, numbered.

Will I become a “Pom in Paradise?” Watch this space.

Our Fran in Havana

April 9, 2012 by Fran Leave a Comment

Caveat emptor. Let the buyer beware indeed! Then again, shopping in Havana isn’t the same multi sensual experience it is as I’m walking around the Trafford Centre. It’s not even just as simple as going along to the, depleted, stores with your wallet. You need to make sure you have the correct currency for a tourist. That’s right, there are two currencies, one for locals and one for tourists.

Since Fidel Castro ruled out the US$ as a legal currency in Cuba in 2004, it was replaced with a “convertible peso”, CUC$. This is what we use. The locals meanwhile use the plain old peso.

So, armed with my CUC$ I headed to the nearest “supermarket” to buy some much needed sun cream. An easy task in most parts of the world. Not so in Havana. Where the big, 1950s style shops are emptier, of goods, than they are full. That said, I did find one bottle that looked suspiciously like sun cream, and it had a big red SPF4 on the front. Result. A high factor sun block to protect me as I wander around, exploring Habana Vieja.

Fast forward to lunchtime, sat in the café, inspecting my throbbing arms. They had come to resemble some of the sausages that suffered at one of my late dad’s (referring to his passing, not his tardiness) bbqs. The cream I had bought for the princely sum of approx. £1.20, was about as much use as a Starbucks loyalty card in a Cuban coffee shop.

I had more success in picking up some cheap sunglasses. Another packing failure. You might be wondering what I did pack, bearing in mind I was coming on a summer holiday, to gorgeous sunshine, with no sunglasses or sun cream. Live and learn is my motto.

So, off I went, to try and pick a pair up, armed with my new word of the day, gafas de sol – sunglasses. The first doorway with a cardboard stand holding sunglasses was presided over by a quite imposing looking lady. I pointed to the ones I wanted, so I’d resemble Mr Blonde from Reservoir Dogs, and asked, “Cuanto cuesta?”

Ten, she replied in Spanish. OK, time to bargain, and I countered with “cinco?”. Offering 5, I thought she would meet me half way. No. Ten, she growled back. I know which battles I’m destined to lose, and this was one of them. Undeterred, I went a couple of doorways down, met with a much more amenable stall holder, and bartered the exact same pair for 8CUC$. The best £5 I have spent for some time.

Let’s go to work.

And so it was, I wanted to go to Havana

March 22, 2012 by Fran Leave a Comment

Watching the Godfather and how the gangsters such as Meyer Lansky, friend of the then dictator Batista, had to flee their illegal casinos on New Years Eve 1958 as Fidel marched into town, announcing the revolution, I wanted to go to Havana.

Visiting Rosario in Argentina, the birthplace of Che Guevara, and in later years visiting his family home in Alta Gracia, near Cordoba, I wanted to go to Havana.

Reading the great novels of Hemingway, affectionately known in Cuba simply as “Ernesto”, and about how he frequented the bars, one of the most famous now being La Floridita, I wanted to go to Havana

Watching 13 Days, the film based on the tense times in the JFK administration during the Cuban missile crisis in October 1962, and the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, I wanted to go to Havana.

Watching footage over the years of the rather bizarrely dressed, often in a tracksuit, little man in a green cap and long beard, I wanted to go to Havana.

Reading Graham Greene, I determined that one day, I would be THAT man in Havana.

Maybe Alanis was right…

February 18, 2012 by Fran 2 Comments

From a distance, the fields look very green. Lush. As you slowly approach, the verdant green starts to fade, and when you are at the fence, it looks as though the grass isn’t green on either side. Typical.

Life has a way of changing on you when your back is turned. Your thoughts and attitudes change with the passing of the years, without you realising what profound effect they are having on your psyche. What looked a good idea a few years ago, looks less so now. The things you enjoyed become less appealing. When did this happen? It’s as though we slept through the changing of the guard. As we silently passed the dark hours, somebody came into the living room of our heads and rearranged the furniture. And when you wake up, it takes a while to notice. What is different?

That is how it happens. Silently. Stealthily. Before you know where you are, all the angst of youth seems a distant memory and you are happy with yourself. Happy in yourself. Just happy. Since reaching 40 I have never felt more comfortable with being me. Just like that. Without consciously thinking about it. Without making any changes. Without suffering a midlife crisis. I still don’t have a red Porsche, a Harley Davidson, a Rolex (yet) or a Playboy bunny girl as a live in lover, and yet, I’m happy.

I would even go as far as saying that I feel quite settled. Yeah, you heard that right. Settled. My friendships have reached a level of maturity whereby the friends I have are the friends I want to have. And they are great friendships. The times we have together leave me with lasting memories and a smile when I reminisce about them.

And yet, shortly, I’m leaving all this behind. Packing up the great home I have. Leaving the work I’m doing, after finally, after all these years, starting to work for myself as a freelance project manager. And leaving family and friends behind to lift and shift it all 11000 miles away, to the land down under.

Why? It’s not just for the Vegemite sandwiches and pints of Fosters. It’s because I’ve harboured this dream for a very, very long time. To live in Australia. The eight visits there haven’t diminished, or diluted this dream. I’m very excited to go and start a new challenge. I thrive on change and challenging the status quo. But, it has to be said, when I set out on this journey, over 2 years ago, I wasn’t in the same place, mentally. The metaphorical furniture was upturned, I wasn’t settled and did indeed suffer the odd pangs of angst. So, back then, the grass did in fact look so much greener.

Like I said, maybe Alanis was right, it is a little bit ironic, don’t you think?