So after a great leaving party (many thanks to all those who could make it!) i spent the next couple of days franticly boxing all my stuff and storing the whole lot at nath's house (special thanks to nath's mum ;) Not much can be said about a 30ish hour flight to the UK, except that i somehow scored a free upgrade to business class the whole way. Oh and don't bother with that Uzbekistan tropical fruit farm you were raising captial for, it is so damn arid over that whole stretch north west of China, we flew via Hong Kong and had great views the whole way.
Straight up to Edinburgh to catch the last 5 days of the Fringe Festival and very lucky to stay with a mate. Chiefly because she was a fun and gracious host, but also because the city swells to
double its size with a million people squashed in to a relatively tiny CBD. You haven't got a chance if you've not booked a looong way ahead (start being nice to me now in anticipation of next year's festival eh?). With over 2000 shows it's a bit intimidating to try and apply any logic to one's choices so mostly we just chose based on the title and convenience. At this time i knew a grand total of 3 people in edinburgh but we still managed a fair whack of shows, not a bad effort considering there were about 100 extra bars open in an already drink soaked city. Saw all sorts of stuff, ranging from surreal skit comedy to black drama and poetry readings. The only show that might tour is Feuzabruta, an Argentinian mix of circus, drama, rave and odd/amazing imagery that i can highly recommend.It all wound up on the 27th and I was on a plane to Munich for a few days to visit an old friend.
Bavaria was my first time in a properly foreign european culture and a chance to practice near forgotten german lessons. Lots of traditional bavarian food (you *must* try weisswurst if you ever have a chance, magic), lots of bavarian beer, lots of walking and some munich clubbing (you haven't lived until you've sung "i want to know what love is" with 2000 german clubbers stuffed in a little room). The photo is of the guys (and sometimes girls) who surf the Isar River that runs right through the centre of town. The flow is regulated by an upstream power station so there is a great standing wave for the brave (it is plenty cold).On the Sat another mate and his girlfriend drove down from Nuremburg and the four of us headed over the border to Zurich for a night of fondue (over rated... lockie says "fon-don't"),
geschnetzeltes (yum) and culture/dancing combined. Once a year they open the main museum/gallery up to the public until 4am while running a huge electro dance club downstairs, when you tire of checking out that Rembrandt you go have a G&T and a boogie, lovely. The next day we said tchuss to Michael who had to be back in Munich and Ben, Jane and I went on to Grindelwald, a relatively small town part way up the Swiss Alps in the Oberland Region. We camped here for 3 nights at the foot of the Eiger, a massive moutain whose north face towers over town. While here we walked each day; day 1 up 
to First lookout then around to Buchalpsee (a blue glacial lake) then down to the cow herding villiage of Bussalp before catching deathtrap scooters down the rest of the way in the rain on the road with minimal brakes. Day 2 up to Kleine Scheidegg, normally a ski village but also the launching point for walks up to the foot of the Eiger glacier which we did in the snow. Then on the last day I caught the train up to Jungfraujoch, the highest railway station in europe and connected to a tall viewing platform called the Sphinx.
The lift there takes you to the highest easily accesible spot in all Europe (a glorious 3571m, beaten only by some very technical climbs) and for a brief moment i stood up on the railing making me very likely the tallest person for a few seconds at least.Growing tired of tents we headed back to Zurich as Ben had work so I stayed there relaxing for two nights with Thibaut and his scratchy cat, then on a train to Geneva. An odd thing to board in a swiss-german speaking city and jump out 2hrs later in a swiss-french speaking one, all in the same country. I had the feeling Geneva was a nice place but with only one arvo and an early flight back to Edinburgh the next day I didn't get to see that much.
The day i got back I moved into a big beautiful flat in the city centre next to some big open parkland called The Meadows. i'm living with a french PHD student and it is all going swimmingly as the previous tennant (and owner) saw fit to leave us with all manner of interesting additional furnishings including a proper coffee machine, hacked xbox and a nice sounding djembe. We've got a reasonable size box room that could double as a guest room and I walk to uni each day and the pubs/bars each night. Have now had the first 4 days of lectures but I shouldn't talk it up too much as there are only 14 contact hours and I have mondays off entirely (for study mind you). I couldn't ask for a better bunch of class mates and we seem to have most everywhere covered in a geographic sense (Mexico, US, Cyprus, Ireland, England, Wales, Italy, Scotland, Spain, Poland, China, Greece and one friendly Aussie). That works really nicely as it means that nearly everyone is new to Edinburgh so we've been heading out every chance we get (so far that means pretty much every night).
Up coming gigs from Xavier Rudd and Mr Scruff and have joined the hillwalking club to see the countryside. Playing frisbee with the uni and interfaculty football plus keen to join in some more Céilidhs as the first one we tried was great fun. Somewhere in amongst all that I'll have to do some assignments I suppose, but even that doesn't feel like to much of a chore yet as the lectures and topics are really interesting thus far and the overall masters seems like it will actually be useful at the end.
Hope you're all keeping well back home and miss seeing you all. Even missing the Melbourne weather a bit and i never thought I'd say that! Be sure to write back to my email with some of your own news and if you're really keen then check out the photos below. They're set to slideshow so they're quick to flick through.
Mar sin leibh
Lockie
Edinburgh pictures
Munich pictures
Swiss pictures
just click the 'i' in the middle of the first photo and it will display the names of the photos with some information. you can go forwards or backwards by clicking the big arrows either side of the picture.
