travelling allrite

I began writing this lying in the top bunk of a train from Amsterdam to Prague. There was a bit of Australianess in our time in Ghent. Apart from the Australian Ice Cream shop (funny how most of our ice cream shop advertise other countries like New Zealand or Copenhagen), there was Julia Gillard and Bob Brown on the morning news, announcing the passing of the carbon tax. During lunch we heard a couple of Savage Garden tracks over the restaurant's sound system. Two young American females seated next to us were trying to pick the group, resorting to Wikipedia. "They perform?" they asked. I had to make a morning hunt for bakery breakfast food while Alex had a second sleep. It was cold and grey outside, but these are colours that suit Ghent's impressive but sometimes dour architecture. When we were all awake and ready we checked out of the hotel to explore the town. Our first destination, across pretty canals, was Het Gravensteen, the castle of the Counts. We paid...

As we descended into Kuala Lumpur, a tourist video on Malaysia was played for our benefit. It was awful. Cheesy lyrics, karaoke singing and claims to be everything. The slogan was "Malaysia, Truly Asia." I've got a better one. "Malaysia. It's yummy!" I've also got a slogan for Britain. "Britain: Under repair." It didn't help that we were slow to get out of the hotel. A queue at the ticket machines for the underground was to be expected. The fact that only one of four appeared to be fully operational and another which had issues was not. Not expected either was the woman at the head of the queue who went through the ticket purchase process at a snail's pace. Eventually another machine was repaired, but by then the damage was done. We squeezed on to the tube train with our luggage taking up too much space and made our way to Kings Cross station, from where we walked as quickly as we could to St Pancras. But it was too late. Check in...