cooking & time travel

Today I had planned to take the 2 hour train to Bratislava to scope it out, but unfortunately the cold, wet weather disagreed with me. This forced me back to the flat to retrieve my ice breaker and loose valuable train catching time. So instead I found a warm cafe and read the Herald Tribute front to back. The cafe didn't have the latest copy of Cuntstunt, but if I find one, I'll flick through it at this snooty tourist cafe around the corner. I had some nice coffee (not too much this time), got a few digital prints made up and made up some postcards. If you would like one and I haven't already got your address, email me your street deets and I'll send you something nice.

Speaking of posting stuff, now that I have a place to call home for the following weeks, my sister is sending over an Australian aid package with Vegemite and frozen Farmers Union iced coffee. Hopefully it wont melt on the way. This isn't the only good news though. She is coming to Europe with her boyfriend (sounds so schoolyard), in December, and they are planning to do some touring around Frenchy and then spend Christmas in London. So I guess this little Aussie battler will be joining them in the UK for his first White Christmas. Alles Leiwand. And this also brings a bit of structure to my somewhat formless travels. I had a rough plan to go East after Austria and check out some of the more recent countries, but after that was at a loss with what to do with myself. Now I know what I'm basically doing in 6 months time, so all I have to do is fit in some of the Middle East and Central Asia in between now and Xmas. Then I should have a nicely recharged Schengen visa and get to see the other parts of Western Europe I've missed out on this time around.

I read somewhere that Bill Drummond of KLF fame drew a line through a map of England, travelled along said line, knocking on people's doors and offering to cook soup for them. I think this a really cool idea. I enjoy cooking and travelling, and have really loved the Couchsurfing/Hospitality Club experience because it has allowed me to enter someone's house and use their kitchen without having to explain it to a magistrate afterwards. So in the next few towns I'm in, I'm going to follow Bill's lead and draw my own line on a map and randomly knock on people's doors and ask them if they would like a home cooked meal prepared by me. Hopefully this rough trajectory I follow will keep me a few steps ahead of the loony police that my family will undoubtedly send, but you know I have to do this because that's what I do.

Tomorrow morning I go in and get my permanent bad hair day repaired at a fairly trendy hair cutters. Since Nicole moved to Melbourne and I went travelling, I've missed the skilled hands of a good hairdresser. My creeping forehead and strange shaped head needs to be cleverly disguised by a nice cut, so I'm hoping these guys can give me something that will at the least be better than the cut I got in Mongolia. In the afternoon, I'm off to somewhere near Amstetten to hang out with the girls at their folk's houses for the weekend. There I hope to try some tasty homemade dried fruit and sunflower bread. The country side I've seen in Austria so far has been really fab: a collection of patchwork plots of land, squeezing in half a dozen little plantations to feed the local villages.

As for Vienna, it is a really cool place. Austria in general is worth a look and a listen. Some of the music I've been hearing is awesome. While I type this, Mauf is performing an impressive live set on FM4. Lots of top notch electronic music is consumed in Austria and some really well researched '70s funk gets played at the local clubs. Haven't watched much telly, not that I'm missing it much. However, I recently fired up a couple of the later episodes of Spooks - series 4 and it does redeem itself, albeit if they are just ripping off old episodes for story ideas. Some really clever (but slightly overused), camera angles and editing choices though. I will steal be inspired by these tricks when I actually pull my finger out and make something with video.

Another raining day tomorrow. Between my hair appointment and country excursion, I might catch a foreign flick at the local international cinema. Something like Superman Returns or Poseidon Adventure should do the trick. Hey, It's all relative. Example: In Britain, VB is an imported beer, and therefore wankers drink it, mistaking the horse-piss flavoured beverage for an elixir that instills sophistication within their soul. I'm hoping to get the same effect from the latest Steven Segal movie.

And my new toy continues to amaze me with how well it works.