It's (almost)... November!

Hey everyone! It's pretty much November now. You do know what that means right? Yes, i'm departing at the end of the month.

FINALLY.

Okay. Before I ramble on about stuff, I think I should clear up something first. Just thought i'd offer some explanation on why I haven't been posting here at all. I have been around and like you, keeping up-to-date with Chris's adventures. To be perfectly honest, there hasn't been much I could update you with. Not much is happening here in Sydney. For me, it's the same routine day-to-day, a mix between sleeping, uni, work, going out and studying. I've just been SUPER busy. Uni has literally been owning me this semester, pretty much the toughest semester i've ever had, and now with exams looming over my head, all I can think about is the Eurotrip. I don't think i'll be able to concentrate at all during exams and i'm still wondering how exactly Chris managed this (got any tips for me mate?). That being said, i've got the most SCREWED up exam timetable ever (basically, 4 exams in 4 days straight), but I can't complain, at least my exams end before I need to depart.

Now for some good news. I managed to reach my savings target some time ago and now should have enough money saved up to fund the trip. If it wasn't for the silly financial crisis that we're currently in, we'd technically have a lot more saved up. The exchange rate has dropped drastically over the past few months, which basically sucks. The timing of it is bad, especially since Europe is so damn expensive in the first place. We're going to have to budget even more than we initially planned. Relax guys, i'm not talking about starving and sleeping out on the streets with our sleeping bags (at least, I hope not).

My last work shift for the pots and pans place was on Sunday. That's right, as of this moment, I have no job and will be focusing on the exams ahead (or trying to, procrastination is sort-of getting in the way at the moment). Believe it or not, I worked there for over 2 years and can't believe how fast it's gone. 180 days ago, I was sitting here wondering how i'm ever going to be able to save for this trip, it feels great to know that you now have enough money and all that's left standing in your way now are the number of days until departure. Okay, so like I said, i've completed saving up and have quit work so that I can focus on studying. Sorry for all you people that were hoping for some discount on pots and pans (lol).

Some more news on the trip; I went to STA travel last week and purchased Eurail passes for both me and Chris. For those of you who forgot and for those who simply had no clue, a Eurail pass is an inter-rail pass which allows us to travel to 20 different countries in Europe for 15 days/uses within a 2 month period. It's basically a prepaid travel ticket and it's a cost-effective way of travelling through Europe. Works out a lot cheaper than buying each ticket individually, not to mention how convenient it is not to worry about planning and such. These tickets don't come cheap, but work out better overall. I picked them up today and they give you a whole rail map of Europe (it's huge) and also a timetable book which i'm sure will be handy. We were going to buy our passes separately, but STA travel has them a lot cheaper than buying them online, so we thought we'd save some money and i'll purchase the tickets from here. Ofcourse, we're "winging" the entire trip, so basically have little or no idea when and where we're going. As you know, we've got a tentative plan, but the Eurail pass offers us the flexibility we need. Chris will be booking our Eurostar tickets from London (that's to go from London to Paris, Eurail passes don't cover this). Only other thing left is the hostel booking in Paris, but that should be easy.

In terms of planning for the trip ahead, there's not much left for me to buy. I still need to get my full driving license. It's almost expired I think. I had planned to get it like what, 5 months ago. Haha, talk about laziness. Anyways, my exams finish on the 19th of November and I fly out on the 29th. I still have a 10 day period in which I can finish planning/packing which is PLENTY of time (I hope?). Oh, and i've made some changes to the blog. Our route through Europe map can now be accessible on the right-side of the page.

Again, i'd like to apologize for my lack of posts here, but i'll be updating more frequently now since my departure date looks a lot more realistic.

Stay tuned. Cheers.

Rishi