Time-Wasting, Tickets and a Transvestite

Right, I've got my actual ticket now - this is a bit more like it! On Tuesday 4th March I'll be cruising out of shiny, spanking new St. Pancras station on the Eurostar, en route to Paris.

Most of my waking life is now spent perfecting the look of indifferent, urbane European nonchalance that I'm going to need for all the sitting around in street cafes that I'm planning to do. It's quite tricky to get right actually - I'm considering buying a beret and a stripy jumper to up the authenticity a little bit. I'll keep you posted.

I've managed to while away the time a little more efficiently over the last couple of weeks, through the simple tactic of getting absolutely hammered whilst on slightly random nights out. This has involved:

• Dressing up like a transvestite and wandering the streets of Bristol for a T-themed fancy dress party (surrounded by Thor, Tweedle-Dum, Tweedle-Dee, Tin Tin and a man-sized bottle of tequila)
• Narrowly avoiding a fight with an angry drug dealer in Brighton who thought I'd spilled my drink on him (thanks a lot Jonny), in an overcrowded student pub, whilst being serenaded by a pirate rock band
• Gatecrashing a friend's (frankly belated) staff Christmas party, on a Wednesday night, and somehow managing to drink until 3am at a random lock in, which resulted in me having to pull an unconvincing sicky on one of the few days left of my notice period. Whoops.

You may have noticed a common theme to these otherwise random events. They all involved drunkenness, and they all depleted my funds.

The funds I'm going to sorely need for my travels.

I might try experimenting with sobriety this weekend.

As well as the Eurostar ticket (which I managed to pick up for about £40!), I've also booked the hostel I'll be staying in for the first couple of nights. Looks trendy. Check it out here.

Counting down the days...

Well, here I am - sitting in a dreary office, in gloomy England, sneakily blogging when I should really be getting on with some work. In a way though, I'm hoping that will immediately set the tone for all that's going to follow...

My whole plan here, you see, is to get away from this dreary, stuffy office, and rain-swept, flooded Britain, and spend as long as I possibly can drifting around Europe. Whilst this will hopefully involve taking award-winning photos, writing celebrated blog entries, meeting fascinating, dynamic, sexy new people, swigging exotic drinks, devouring foreign delicacies and generally soaking up the culture in an impressively highbrow way, at the end of the day I'll mainly just be drifting around Europe, trying my hardest to avoid regular employment.

When I went to South America in 2006, I was surprised by just how much I enjoyed writing emails to friends and family back home. I got quite into the whole thing; dusting the cobwebs off the journalism degree and waxing lyrical about all the adventures I was having. Possibly too into it... 

The constant stream of cyber-waffle that gradually clogged up the inboxes of my nearest and dearest probably annoyed as many people as it entertained. Hopefully this blog will let anyone who's interested in my progress keep tabs as they please, ease the strain on bulging email accounts, and allow me to waffle away to my heart's content. 

My journey isn't going to start for a few weeks yet, but when it does I'll be sprucing up the blog with plenty of photos and videos (and better posts). For now though I'd better get back to work...