Opening up shop

After a number of people having asked me "Do you have a blog, you seem like somebody that would have one?", a number of my friends having 'myspaces' and now my dad starting up a blog, I actually didn't have any choice about starting this blog (it's a matter of pride!).

Why this site? Well, except for showing the people out there that I CAN actually have a blog....? I'm planning some trips in the next 18 months and the "lets-email-everybody-in-one-big-spam" is old hat, sooooo: here we go.

First up is a planned trip to Germany, Belgium and the UK. Maybe even fit in another country in there if I'm lucky (hopefully Sweden!). Will see. Also planning to go and do a year's studying in Stockholm in August 2007, which would then probably end up as the most important subject matter of this blog.

This site will thus be about capturing these trips, probably more for my own sake than for my friends - like we all know, nobody is actually really interested in your holiday snap shots. In any event, the boring stuff will initially be posted here, all from applying for visums, getting stuff sorted and then actually getting round to visit the places. The juicy (?!) stuff will hopefully come later on, so hang in there for the time being.

The first part of the battle for my first trip has been won already: my ticket has been reserved (and what a battle it was - tickets in Dec/Jan is terribly hard to come by this late in the game) albeit not yet bought for 23 Dec - 23 Jan and my "extra" leave from my job has been negotiated with my boss. I should, if all goes according to plan, have my ticket in hand by approx 24 Oct 2006 after which I will be starting the most tedious process of applying for a Shengen Visa (yes, us poor Africans still get discriminated against when it comes to access to Europe).

Other than that I don't think I have much more for opening words (and it is already past 1am), so I'll (abrubtly?!) end right here.

Till next time.