Come away with me...

Kiaora!

The last time I heard that word I was being shouted at by a Greek woman trying to sell me various smoking and coffee drinking appliances in Athens. I was so impressed that a) she wasn't shouting “Australia!” and b) she knew a word from an indigenous, almost extinct language that I ended up buying some of her 'authentic' wares.

Funnily enough I haven't heard it once since being back in the land of the long white cloud.

It's been over a week since I touched down in Auckland after seven weeks backpacking around Europe and I'm already well and truly back to reality. The unused phone books and issues of Ponsonby news are still piling up outside our apartment elevator, the hand towel dispenser at work is still broken and the gym still sucks. Oh wait, KFC make pies now. That's different.

I don't know what I expected, that I'd come back with a whole new outlook on life or something. Am I eager to detox and change my life for the better somehow? Nup. Think I might just hang in nostalgia land for a bit. Enter le Blog; aka my excuse to say “Well, when I was in (insert exotic location here)” to my heart's content, without having to see people giving each other a look that asks “When will she stop banging on about it?”.

So if you're tired of the impending doom of Winter or the prospect of several months before a holiday, come away with me as I relive my trip via this blog. It could even be educational. You see often I found myself in situations that were less than ideal at the time but actually quite amusing in retrospect. Many of these issues could have been avoided if I'd known what I know now. Essentially, you get to laugh at my misfortune and maybe learn a thing or two about travelling through Europe on a budget, without a plan and little to no sense of direction.

Here's the very first thing I learnt: no matter how prepared you think you are, you WILL forget something. I discovered this at Auckland airport, precisely 15 minutes before I was due to board my plane to London.

Trying to do the right thing, I decided I should drink some water to hydrate myself for the flight. So there I was, waiting in line to pay too much for my teency bottle of water when it dawned on me that I had no idea what my credit card pin number was. With a sinking feeling I realised I'd only used it for online purchases and recently had to renew it (and the pin).

The line had disappeared by this point so I took a stab in the dark and failed. Not having any other cash on me I mumbled something and bolted, leaving the water at the counter. This was not good. Realising I should try to remember the pin before I left the country for seven weeks, I tried my luck at an ATM. Just for reference, do not try your luck at an ATM. It will get hungry and on the third try will eat your card and “retain it for security purposes”. Seeing those little words on the screen was not fun, not fun at all.

Thankfully this was my spare card so I didn't have to plot a way to fund my trip once in London (cause it's easy to get a job over there right?). The incident did make every other cash withdrawal on the trip an uncomfortable experience though. Every time the card was sucked into the machine I saw my sole source of funds disappearing into the mouth of another evil ATM.

I 'forgot' that you should steer clear of alcohol on long haul flights after that.

So what can you take from this? All I can say is don't sweat the list thing because there will always be something you leave off. That, and memorise the shit out of every pin, phone and policy number you have.

Here's one more tip. Don't go on an overseas trip when your hair is in the awkward 'growing out' phase. You'll be overwhelmed with the number of photos that remind you of the fact and it's not pleasant. Take this otherwise lovely shot of Primrose Hill, London....yup, I'm the one on the left.