all things excellent are as difficult as they are rare... i think

so europe has unfortunately been left in haste, but i cannot complain especially considering that i've just landed in new york. it's easy to be sceptical about big cities, especially american ones that feature in bad movies (though ghostbusters was filmed here, and you can't forget cocktail so one really shouldn't generalise...). staying with john and kelly on the east side of manhattan, the central district - of empire state, central park and ex-two towers fame - will be explored today. seeing as i am rushing back to the airport tomorrow, and also taking into account that i don't have any luggage due to its inability to make it onto the connecting flight to new york from frankfurt, then i don't know how much of the city i will see on this trip. indeed johnny is a big lad and i doubt i'll be able to borrow much in the way of clothes from him so who knows what we can get upto tonight - bouncers may mistake me for a dirty bum but i'm used to it. will j...

as rightly noted by mr stephen hunyor - stella is so cheap in leuven that you could practically brush your teeth with it... brief cameo from mitch here in verbier (after a couple of potent gin and tonics): "i've had a few potent ones actually!" so it is obvious that i am not in leuven as i write this, so i do confess that this is a retrospective post but when you're on the run these things happen. unexpected and very sad circumstances back home have accelerated my departure date - a date that is flying toward me at breakneck speed and thus, in compensation, i have flown around the last few destinations at a similar pace. leuven was fantastic, a real pleasure to hang out with stephen most of all and the town itself is quite beautiful. some fantastic gothic architecture in a small student city who's shopfronts are 90% bars and 10% late night kebab shops. i train'd in on a cracker of a night last sunday just in time for the weekly free ja...

a little note in the last moments of my time in forback with my international travelling companions and local host who's mother insists on treating us like guests in a hotel. vien and i pulled some hospitality plate clearing out of the hat and she was a happy lady but still refused to relax! we took the car over the border (just a stones throw away) and went into the cute german town of saarbrucken where we attended yet another christmas fete and drank yet more mulled wine. the german variety was distinctly more alcoholic so we kept it to the one mug, which turned into a souvenier. have been spending money as if i owned a top hat and a large labour intensive factory in china at the moment - have purchased in luke cheng style 2 jackets some mittens a beanie and a woollen hoodie. you'd be proud luke, you'd be proud! ok we are off and i would prefer not to miss my plane...

at last i am able to break radio silence - a week of no reporting due primarily to alcohol induced inability to use a keyboard. currently writing on a 1998 french keyboard that requires one to press the shift button to use a fullstop (like a semicolon is more frequented?!), so this post won't be much more than a covert update currently under deep cover in a french household (that of joris the poitiers flatmate) in his home town of forbach: somewhere near metz and strasbourg. needless to say spent a week drinking with liam in poitiers; the cute town that i will most probably never see again but for some freak visit in the future. liam himself is only there for another 2 teary weeks and then will go home via the UK after a magnificent year (i am sure) perfecting his very fluent grasp on the language. not to mention claiming ownership of the "most drunk man in poitiers ever" title several times. one of which was on his birthday last saturday. aside to liam...

well sometimes london really does suck, especially when it takes 2.5 houirs to get to an airport - where 1 of those hours is spent getting accross london on a saturday morning when every other hung-over londoner is asleep and the streets are empty. in the end i really should have taken my own advice and taken a bus to liverpool st to pick up my train out to stansted airport. to fill those uninitiated in the cheap-airline deal, ryanair airports are usually in small random towns and, lucky for me, liam (and poitiers) happens to be one of those towns. it did all feel a litle too easy as i left claire and ben's house in fulham at 8am after succesfully waking up to my alarm and walked along the empty streets to the tube station. my flight didn't leave until 11am and on the way into london it only took me an hour and 45min from the airport: and that was peakhour. oh how wrong i was... the tube stopped and started and stuttered its way accross the underground and got me to liverp...

well one really can't complain about living "out of london" if it only takes 2-3 hours to get anywhere in the country (except for manchester, which takes 5). busses are the way to go, and quite frankly the tube is over-rated and over-priced when in london. all day bus passes are literal gold mines and i've seen the sights from the top of a red double-decker for £2.50... better deal than the official sightseeing bus by a long way so bournemouth is the temporary abode of another friend from what should now be known as 'the sarajevo bunch'. simeon is the last of those friends, aside from oli and hannah - who i couldn't get in touch with - that i managed to meet up with and did some very enjoyable last minute hanging out in his own town. technically bournemouth is not his home town , but for the duration of his degree (or indeed for however long he decides to continue his degree in fine-art/illustration) it is his home. and not a bad little home at that:...