Wedding Venus

We've spent a good amount of time already looking for a wedding venue. More than 12 months in advance, and virtually every place we've looked at was already booked. Or completely out of our price range.

But we got lucky. We had a look at Snug Harbour at Dockside, and it's got all three things we looked for:

1. great location - good for photos and atmosphere
2. good prices - not going to send us broke
3. available - woohoo!

So for those who need to know, we've booked Friday 9 April 2010.

And here's a couple of photos too:

The gardens where we will most likely have our ceremony.


Shailee by the gardens.

And imagine a bridal table there.

Looking in, towards the reception area.

Looking from reception area out to the river.

Entry... we'll walk through there some day.

Shailee waiting on the dance floor for everyone to get up and have a dance.

Some nice boats. Mmmmmm boats.

Shailee by the Story Bridge.

Best and Worst: Airlines

BEST (longhaul): Air New Zealand
They've won heaps of awards, and rightly so. Great airline.

WORST (longhaul): Air Canada
Rattly bucket'o'bolts with wings.... scary... no comfort, no tv screens. Come on Canada, sort it out!!!

BEST (budget): TUI fly
A cheap flight from Munich to Cairo on a discount airline was much more comfortable than Air Canada. Super cheap, excellent service, very comfortable. Service I expect from a major expensive airline.

WORST (budget): Ezyjet
Should be called Squeezyjet. My legs don't fit between the seats. The flights are always delayed, usually by hours, causing great inconvenience.

Best and Worst: Long Distance Trains

BEST: tie between Eurostar Italia AV (Italy) and Thalys (France)
Big black leather recliner couches, and speeds well over 200km/h. Milan to Rome in 4 hours. Rome to Venice in 4 hours.

The french Thalys train is also fantastic - serving a glass of wine at 300km/h impresses me greatly. Just not quite as luxurious as the Italian one. Better service from the staff makes up for the Italian comfort.

WORST: Egypt
That train from Cairo to Aswan is rotten. But it's pretty much a third world country, so it's about what you expect.

Another notably bad train was an overnighter we took from Venice to Budapest. 13 hours stopping every half hour, 4 passport checks, a ridiculous Italian conductor was missed his life calling as a villain in an opera and the most uncomfortable seats. That's what we get for taking seats and not the sleeper. But the reservation fee for the sleeper alone was more expensive than a hotel room, which defeated the purpose of taking an overnight train.

Best and Worst: Public Transport

BEST: Munich
Busses, trams, subway, trains. All on time. All frequent. All clean. Awesome.

Berlin also gets a worthy mention - with awesome mobile phone coverage through the entire underground network.

WORST: Brisbane
I have to say that after travelling around the world, I have not experienced anywhere with a public transport system as bad as home. Sad but true.

London also gets a special mention for having such a frequent service (good) but it's hot, stinky and always breaking down (bad). What the hell is a signal failure anyway?

Best and Worst: Banking

BEST: London
Free banking that actually costs you nothing. I registered to receive online statements, and the bank sent me £5 to thank me for the postage and paper that they saved.

WORST: Canada
The bank fees are exorbitantly high, and so is the fees for using an ATM. Just crazy.... they already have your money... they just wanna keep it.... greedy buggers.

Canada's on a losing streak here!

Best and Worst: Mobile Phone Deals

BEST: London
Easily. So many good plans, cheap phones, excellent customer service.

The end of the line though is trying to activate roaming.... T-Mobile did want to charge me £250 to activate international roaming given my lack of a credit rating in the UK.

WORST: Canada
Having to pay to receive calls is absolutely stupid. And so is not being able to receive a text message unless you have credit on your phone. And so is not being able to recharge credit from a non-Canadian bank card. Retarded.

Best and Worst: Cheese

This is the first in my series of "Best and Worst" from the last year's travelling and living abroad.

BEST: Croatia
Believe it or not, I think the nicest cheese I had was some Gouda from a supermarket in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Just beats the nice stuff we had in France, although to be fair I'm not sure that we sampled enough of fromage to taste the best they had to offer.

WORST: Canada
Not only bad, but also so expensive. Never before have I felt like I paid so much money for something so bad. Bright orange coloured stuff they call "cheddar" that has the taste and texture of children's playdough hands down beats the pants off that dehydrated white crusty stuff in Egypt that doesn't even look like cheese.