Thursday afternoon Florian and Fabian arrived back from their travels around the S.Island. Looks like they had a lot of fun.

They fly off on Saturday morning back to Germany.. Florian to look for a job, and Fabian for another couple of weeks holiday in Greece. Well for some! It was fun going climbing with Florian in the Roxx on Friday – and to see some of the friends he’s made here.. I’ve got to get round to organising a leaving party.. hopefully a few bods will turn up … :) Probably have it coincide with when my friends Domhnall and Lorcan arrive.. one way to get over jetlag (getting .. merry… on mulled wine :)

Handed in all my bits and pieces of paper for residency today – Passport, birthcert, police record (none!), cv, references, job offer, previous contracts, medical & xray cert… and cash..

If all goes well (it’s all quiet at the moment) I should hopefully have residency within a couple of weeks.

So that’d be nice ;)

So at 00:03 we saw the new Star Wars… and I must say I really enjoyed it. Though I am going to go back and watch it again.. only this time in the front row in the middle.. only place to watch! :)

Rest of the week was quite lazy – a friend Rachel Buckland (here enjoying the warmth of the house.. no insulation or central heating.. fantastic)

arrived – Glynn Mick and I had met her back on the Kepler Track back in March. She was living in Auckland, and now on her way to Queenstown to work the ski season. So out to a party on Friday night – a kayakers party – where we watched crazy people doing crazy things on insane amounts of white water. (videos)

Saturday headed to the Antarctic Centre with Dave and Rachel

I actually wasn’t super impressed with it, though it was fun reading the rules of golf (just slightly modified)

The evening was really excellent though. The best of the Banff Film festival was being shown in town. It was utterly excellent – outdoor films from around the world – it’s not all just sick strong people doing insane things (though there is a lot of that).. there were some silly films – like the really amazing kayakers who went to Russia to scout out new rivers to paddle (they were invited) and the whole trip was basically just chilled out – going fishing and running grade 1 rapids.. it was funny.

My favourite film by FAR was the peoples choice one.. It was about this guy Jon Muir who walks solo across Australia. It was absolutely amazing, if you ever get the chance to see / rent the film Alone Across Australia do it. It’s hard to describe really the just sheer aloneness (not loneliness) that he goes through, the effort, the willpower.. The final quote was something like ‘After completing the crossing, Jon had lost 25Kg and was suffering from malnutrition.. 4 months later he was at the North Pole’… now that’s a Really Hard Man! That should be on unReality TV…

Sunday off up to Castle Hill… Was good to catch up with Steve again (this a pic of him on Phoenix – a V7 I think it is)

Y’know.. the modern world is quite mental. Generally in the mornings I’ve been playing backgammon (for about 45 mins) with my cousin Thomas in Peru. We chat (for free) using skype, and play games. It’s crazy. If anyone fancies a whipping at backgammon.. ;) then check out FIBS and lemme know.. Great game. Also – a new convert to skype – Tom Prior.. who kept on saying various things along the lines of “this is incredible” and “I can’t believe this is working”

What else.. ummm.. off to see the latest Star Wars Revenge of the Sith at midnight tonight. Think that’s ahead of most countries due to time difference! :) Either way looking forward to it.

I also took my medical for residency last Monday – went fine.. (as far as I know anyway).. get the results on Monday, and will hopefully give in all the paperwork on Tuesday to get residency.. Which doesn’t leave a huge amount of time to apply for the various visas (China, Vietnam etc. etc.) for Asia.

So this weekend was off on TWALK – a 24 hour rogaine (orienteering event). Lots of fun. Seeing as it was fully booked out – I went along to help cook (for 250 people). Once the first rush of competitors had come through

we (Fran, Neil and I) were free to head off on some of the legs and see if we could find the controls. It’s a kind of a treasure hunt – as the clues are crypic. For example – one clue was ‘A Girls Best Friend’… which is a diamond.. and the control was close to a diamond road sign.. However, seeing as the controls were small (1×3″) pieces of blue plastic (unreflective).. it was quite hard to find them at night.

But fun. I think I also managed to get a bigger two scoop ice-cream than John on the way through Amberly.

So admittedly it took until he’d gone back to Ireland and isn’t here to walk into the shop after me and say ‘Can I please have a 2 scoop ice-cream that’s bigger than his‘ But still..

So just went out and did 1/2 of leg 2 before we gave up (clues were way too hard to find).. and then headed out at 8am with Neil and Fran

.. And did 1/2 of leg 1. Lovely views out over the sea. When I got back to town – (and was reading my weekend Irish Times online) I saw that I’ve managed to get my first letter (of 4 or 5 sent) printed in the Irish Times (Reprinted below – thanks to my brother Matt for sending it over..) All do with a motorway being built very close to Newgrange – a very beautiful, relatively unspoilt and historic part of Ireland. A real shame.