On the Trans-Siberian Railway front, we are still waiting for the 45 day window to open for our tickets to be booked. That means that although we have our deposits in and we're on the list for the first class tickets we want, we may not yet get them, so we can't really book anything else firmly yet.
We've enlisted the help of Trainseurope to get us from London to Moscow and the guy seemed very helpful about it all, especially as I had lost the dates that we wanted to travel just as the call connected and he had to listen to me pad for a bit while I found them. This company seem clued up with Intourist, our Trans-Siberian guys, so I think they get the 45 day window thing and don't think they're going to book our tickets without calling me first. I don't know, it's going to be amazing, but booking trains ain't as easy as booking a flight! That is definitely one major difference I've noticed: booking a ticket for a regular working train you can only do 45 days before. Some flights can, apparently, now be booked TWO YEARS in advance!
I enquired about the much-talked about transit visa to allow us to pass through Belarus (arrest-free) and we are well on the case to getting all of our visas fixed up. One geniously designed bit of frugalness that I came up with was to make our own passport photos. It makes sense to me, given that we have a nice big white wall in our flat, a digital camera, tonnes of photo paper and photoshop. Oh, and the fact that all photo machines have been removed from The London Underground (meaning that our nearest tube-based photo machine is in Paris...), makes getting a 'proper' one taken very hard these days! I remember when they were in Boots, Sainsburys, Woolworths AND the Co-Op!!! In any case, I don't think the Belarusianados are going to notice the difference between a machine taken passport photo and my homemade jam. No offence, like!
Tuesday, 3 June 2008
On the NZ front...
Following a nice lapse since I last posted on this subject (in order to save up for it!) I have now booked my medical to claim a working holiday in New Zealand. The second part, the chest x-ray, is this Saturday morning at 10.15am in Mayday Hospital in Croydon, which, funnily enough, is where my Grandpa was born. Mum was impressed at my choice (I didn't tell her it was the cheapest choice). The first part, the BMI, blood test, blood pressure, nipples-out-for-the-nurse bit, is next Thursday in a nearby hospital in Thornton Heath, which sounds like a really fine, tasty, melt-in-your-mouth town. Until you go there. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to trust the needle to remain sterilised long enough to reach me from the packet round that way (but, once again, they were the cheapest option!).
Full, gross, in depth details of how the medical went will be posted here soon...
Full, gross, in depth details of how the medical went will be posted here soon...
It's now June!?
Wow! I have been busy! I carried on at work, despite my boss really annoying me the other day (well, at the start of May). He then asked me to go down for a needless meeting and I refused point blank. Next, he sent me a text message threatening to come and visit me at the site, which I ignored. He promptly forgot about the visit (which is a pain, really, because a visit from him was well needed and long overdue, but hey, the guy's an idiot!)
Following that little debacle, he arranged for his bumbling wally partner to come and visit. The one who really knows NOTHING about the project I work on. Looking like a mixture of Brains (from Thunderbirds) and Penfold (from Dangermouse - doesn't every company have one??) he rolled in looking very nervous indeed. Far from doing a crazy dance whilst clutching a bottle of mineral water, he peered nervously at the figures on my desk, which he knew nothing about, and asked questions that, quite frankly, the other boss would have scolded his little bottom for asking. This guy was a wreck.
Given the tragic accident outside our flat window the night before, I had had about two hours sleep and could not have cared less for the accuracy of my answers to his questions. Nor my manner in answering them (that, at least, turned out to be craftily good: answering a question with another question!), so the whole two hours turned out to be rather pointless.
This, of course, was confirmed when I more recently spoke to boss number 1 and he absolutely nothing that I had told boss number 99...
Following that little debacle, he arranged for his bumbling wally partner to come and visit. The one who really knows NOTHING about the project I work on. Looking like a mixture of Brains (from Thunderbirds) and Penfold (from Dangermouse - doesn't every company have one??) he rolled in looking very nervous indeed. Far from doing a crazy dance whilst clutching a bottle of mineral water, he peered nervously at the figures on my desk, which he knew nothing about, and asked questions that, quite frankly, the other boss would have scolded his little bottom for asking. This guy was a wreck.
Given the tragic accident outside our flat window the night before, I had had about two hours sleep and could not have cared less for the accuracy of my answers to his questions. Nor my manner in answering them (that, at least, turned out to be craftily good: answering a question with another question!), so the whole two hours turned out to be rather pointless.
This, of course, was confirmed when I more recently spoke to boss number 1 and he absolutely nothing that I had told boss number 99...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)