TRAVEL DIARY

A weblog regularly updated by Jodi Rose.

Monday, January 30, 2006

10:03 PM
Posted by jodi rose

ohmigod I am so happy to be back in bratislava. had a moment in edinburgh outside the art gallery when I was thinking: I wish I never left Slovakia. Not a sentence you hear everyday. This was after I had asked a random lady on the street: 'is there a cafe in the art gallery?' She just looked at me - which art gallery? Oh, the big main one of course - yes, there is. So I wandered in and availed myself of refreshment and the view, but again didn't look at any art. There is a time and place for that kind of thing :) Sorry if I'm repeating myself and already wrote about that - brain a little fried, and hand-eye spatial coordination totally skewed.
Anyway, got myself on the train sunday morning - hours too early, for some reason I had 10.30 in my head when I had actually sensibly booked the 12.30 one. As it was a first class ticket enjoyed the free tea and pastries to edinburgh, and then about 15 quid worth of tea, coffee, water, oj and biscuits on the way to London. It's amazing what a great buffer money can be against the world sometimes. The view from the train was wonderful, all green rolling hills and sparkling coastline. Passed through Newcastle (?) home of the Gateshead Millennium and many other beautiful bridges - it was spectacular, the river seemed quite deep in a ravine from the train anyway, and all the bridges within a few hundred metres of each other. Definitely have to go back and record there. Going back to glasgow too, it's got under my skin. Like a splinter, some bleeding but ultimately satisfying. Had a fun night in london with philippa and co, met at the marleybone tup then went back and watched dancing on ice at hers, while peter sav did surprise chef and whipped up a great pasta with vege sausage, tuna, blue cheese and tomatoes.
This morning rocked up to the Australian High Commission at ten to nine, found a young man and his dad at the door, they had been there since 6am. The kid had his bag stolen from their hire car in cardiff, with everything in it - clothes, ipod, money, wallet etc - he was quite upset, but the dad was joking that it took care of his excess luggage.
Met back at the counter at 1.30 for an agonising half hour wait not knowing if we would both make our planes, but the wonderful staff came through and we had our new identities by 2. So here I am, a clean slate, a new woman - no trace of that other jodi rose.
It would be an interesting art project to track if anyone does try and create a false identity from my stolen documents, and what exactly they do with it.
But now, time to visit the hotel kiev to change my last 20 pounds into crowns (lucky I left my address book and diary with 60 quid in it on philippa's table last week!) and find a pizza.