Ok guys! We leave for the airport in fifteen minutes, so this is it!

I'LL MISS YOU!

What am I going to do without you all?

I NEED MY SQUEE!BUDDIES That...sounds dirty.

All write lovely long reports on Doctor Who and NCIS so that I can read them. This is like detoxing! Gah! I'll be in an out of the net, but I'll try to catch up.

AU REVOIR!

You all know that I'm a bit daft. Ultimately harmless, but a little daft all the same.

Well, today? I realized that we're actually visiting Liechtenstein on our trip.

How's that? The day before I fly, I realize that I'm visiting a country I didn't think I was visiting.

The final episode of Life On Mars aired tonight. I'd seen it months ago, but it was lovely to watch on the big telly. Interestingly, they didn't play Tom Waits' I Hope That I Don't Fall in Love With You but rather the Sam/Annie theme during the scene in his apartment.

Also I was wondering if people could rec me some music? I've got a fair bit of credit left on my iTunes account, and I'd like to use it up before I leave so that I can have some new tunes.

AHHHHHH! We fly tomorrow night!

"No!" Iby's bank account shouted, "No! I won't do it anymore! I give and I give and I give. All you do is take and take and take. When was the last time that you did something nice for me? A bank account likes a gift every now and then; something to fill it up and make it feel like it's really worth something. You make me feel worthless."

...and with that, Iby's bank account went on strike.

Seriously. I exeeded my daily limit of one thousand dollars. That's never happened before.

In all fairness though, I did spent two thousand dollars on foreign currency. I have 450 Euro and 550 BP on cards. I'm going to get some more to carry as actual cash, especially British pound, because I'm there for a week and I'm sure that I'll want to shop. Does this sound enough?

I was in a hurry at the bank - horrendous queues, but naturally - I knew the teller. He was a bloke I used to know a long time ago. So that took even more time.

I almost bought a pair of sparkly silver, ridiculously high heels today, despite my monetary woes, but then I thought that dave7 might come at me with a saucepan.

Mum bought me a suitcase today. Both mum and Amy think it looks like the Doctor's suit; although I didn't really see it until they pointed it out. It's black, with light brown pinstrips and red trim. It's pretty groovy!

We're set!

We have all of our accommodation receipts, all of our plane tickets and all of our train tickets. In our hands.

Everything is PAID for!

The fact that I still don't have a suitcase isn't an issue, because I don't yet have any clothes to put in one anyway.

Yes, it may be girly of me, but I've decided that I have no clothes. So, this Thursday is Shopping Day!

This, however, ties into the fact that I have no foreign currency; again not really an issue as I have no currency of any kind.

All of this doesn't matter though!

WE HAVE TICKETS

WE LEAVE IN NINE DAYS! NINE! NINE! GAAAAAAAH!

Also, in a way that only my mum could; she's forgotten which pain patch is old and which pain patch is new; so she's walking around with two on her arms. That's morphine, people! One of them is old, so there's not much juice in it, but it was kind of funny!

*tries not to weep*

So, I did it. I calculated how much I've spent on this holiday.

Somewhere in the vicinity of $9,000 dollars. I finished paying it off today and so far I'm at $6,203. I still have two train tickets to purchase, and I should have about Australian $3,000 spending money.

Anybody who has converted from Australian to Euro, does that sound ok? I'm going for a month. Shall I starve?

Don't get me wrong. I undertook this holiday voluntarily and it's money well spent but...

well... $9,000

*weeps*

I also really hurt my back at work tonight. A lady made me pack her green canvas bags so that they were full to the brim with bottles. It was partly my fault, because I didn't put them on the bench to pack, but rather on the bag frame, which meant that I had to haul them up from the center of the earth to get them to her. It's really, really sore now and it wasn't great before that, on account of the fact that I sleep with all my muscles tensed as if I'm coiled to spring into the air. I've just about ground my teeth into dust.

I've been reading a lot of The West Wing and Josh/Donna stories and I've got to tell you, my loathing for fics that make Amy Gardner a beast really annoy me. Yes, she was far from my favourite character and yes I bitch about her, but she's not unfeeling. She's not the devil. She's working to help women. A lot of fics make her out to be this horrible character who laughs and dances when people die, who thinks that everybody without a law degree is stupid. Yes, she was a hiccup in the love that is Josh/Donna, yes she screwed some folks over, but so did every single character in the show at some point and likewise, she got screwed over too.

Well. I did it. This July, I shall be retuning to Monash Uni to complete a Bachelor of Global Arts with a major in International Studies.

Oi. To. The. Vey.

I am both relieved and terrified. To add to the terror is the fact that, by the time I return, I won't have written an essay for nearly two years. Fanfic, yes, but not as essay.

In amongst all this confusion, the one thing that I do know is that I will never take Philosophy ever again. Never, ever again. *shudders* Philosophy did nothing but inspire in me the desire to bang my head against a wall.

On another note, mum and I leave for Europe very, very soon. I studied our itinerary properly and I realized just how much of a blur this holiday is going to be.

::tour starts::
- 3 nights in Rome.
- 1 night in Florence.
- 2 nights in Venice.
- 1 night in Innsbruck.
- 2 nights in Lucerne.
- 2 nights in Paris.
::tour ends::
- 7 nights in London.
- 3 nights in Cardiff. Doctor Who, people!
- 3 nights in Edinburgh.
- 1 night in Glasgow.
- 2 nights in Singapore.

I'm determined not to let going back to uni get in the way of my love of travel. I'm hoping it will facilitate it. My course requires that I study overseas for a semester because it's a *global* arts course, but once it's all done, I'm going to continue on with all my previous plans, just with a degree under my belt.

WE'RE BOOKED!

NORMALLY I DON'T LIKE USING CAPITALS, BUT I'M JUST SO EXCITED! WE'RE BOOKED! WE HAVE TICKETS!

I'M ALSO BROKE...but that doesn't matter. As they say in Gilmore Girls:

"what's so horrifying about having to sleep on a park bench anyway?"

We're flying Emirates. We leave on the 4th of April, stop for fuel/whatnot in Dubai, then we reach Rome on the fifth. We have three nights in Rome before we start our tour. We're going to Florence, then Venice. Then we're off to Austria, from Austria to Switzerland, then on to France.

We're taking the ferry from France to England, at which point the tour ends. From there, we'll be in London for a week, before either going on to Wales and then Scotland, or going to Scotland directly. I want to go to Cardiff to see where they film Doctor Who. Is that pathetic?

We fly out of Glasgow on the 30th, and then we're stopping over in Singapore for two nights. I love Singapore to pieces, I know its public transport like the back of my hand so I'm delighted to be revisiting my old stomping grounds.

Sorry, I'm just so excited. Broke, terribly, terribly broke, but excited.

On a completely different note: I cannot stop watching Jane Eyre. The Toby Stephens and Ruth Wilson one from 2006. I've only had it four days and I've watched it in full six times. I am so in love with it. Has anybody else seen it?