The Snook and I went into our local Flight Centre today to price flights home for a 10-day visit in July. We walked out half an hour later planning a one-month round-the-world trip instead. As the Snook put it, if we’re going to be spending $2000 each anyway, why not go the extra $500 and make it a proper holiday? I was trying to be all grown-up and economical but then he mentioned the magic word… Italy. With visions of the Arno in my head, I rapidly agreed. Looks like the Snook-Howard World Tour will be leaving here in late June bound for Los Angeles, Chicago, London, Frankfurt, and Rome. Anybody got a floor we can crash on in one of those cities?

Highlights include a trip to the Guinness Brewery, a Viking tour in a World War II-era amphibious vehicle, a random celebrity encounter, and some Bad Asses. Or something.

I’m off to Dublin, kids. Play nice and I’ll show you my pictures when I get back…

Well, we finally managed to find some Dublin accommodation. It’s pricy… but the place looks really nice. I’m always torn between the student impulse to spend £14 for a cot in a room with 20 other people and the adult desire to have an en suite bath and full breakfast in the morning. What do you choose?

Good God. Never ever try to book a spur-of-the-moment trip to Dublin. I can’t find a hotel room anywhere. Unless a miracle happens, we’re gonna end up sharing a dorm room with eighteen scruffy backpackers.

So, yeah, last weekend Snookums and I went on a quick trip to Edinburgh, Scotland. As usual, I took lots of pictures for your perusal. Am I the poor man’s Michael Palin, or what?

Relive the entire adventure. I’m warning you though, set aside a bit of free time before you get started. I wasn’t kidding when I said I took a lot of pictures…

In eight hours I’m leaving sunny Australia for the neverending gloom of the U.K. As if that weren’t depressing enough, I tripped on a sidewalk running to catch a bus yesterday and wrenched my ankle, which is now the size of a grapefruit. I can barely walk. I’m talkin’ serious pain here. On the plus side, my sister would’ve loved it. (She finds pratfalls to be the height of comedy.) I mean, painful though it was, I can see the inherent physical humor in a person trying to simultaneously run, turn, and remove a bus ticket from a backpack, which leads to said person tripping on a crack, stumbling forward, skinning her knees and hands, and finally belly-flopping on the pavement right in front of her astonished boyfriend, a bus driver, and about 30 bus passengers of various nationalities. And let’s not forget the other catastrophes of this otherwise wonderful holiday: I fell on my ass in Snookums’s garage (resulting in an egg-sized bruise on my bum), I had a land leech attached to my right foot (which left a bump that began to itch like mad a week later), I was caught in the worst floods Australia has seen in fifty years, and I got fried to a crisp after spending a mere 20 minutes in the sun (resulting in peeling shoulders and my having to cover myself in SPF 30 every time I set foot out-of-doors). Like I said, it’s probably best that I leave the country before it kills me. The next time y’all hear from me, I’ll be home in the boring (but safe) U.K.

Um, yeah, so that rain I mentioned? It turned out to be the biggest flood in over fifty years. Snookums’s parents’ house is seriously located right in the middle of the swath of destruction, yet luckily they’re up on a high hill and most of the bridges near us were still passable. We couldn’t get back to Sydney til Tuesday though, when we lucked out and discovered a train that was still running. Now we’re back in civilization at Snookums’s sister’s house (hooray for cable modems!) and planning our tour of the city. Since the flood cut into my time in Sydney, we managed to call my office in London and convince them to let me stay an extra couple of days. I got Qantas to move my ticket, and Voila! I’m here til next Tuesday. Apologies to my patient visitors for the extended sabbatical, but I promise to have lots of interesting stuff to share when I get back. Later…