What a cliffhanger I left you on! What was Copenhagen like? Was it so good that I didn't leave? Did I get mugged and killed, pushed off an overnight train or something? Well, no, I just stopped posting for a while. But I'm back and to bring you up to speed:

Copenhagen rocks. The Danes are a gorgeous bunch of people; I must have walked into ten lamposts because I was so distracted by the stunning shielas around me. Cor. They did all look just that little bit too similar to be completely above board diversity-of-gene-pool-wise, but I've been to Tasmania and I'd pick Denmark any day.

Hamburg is pretty cool too. The first night I went out with a group of about 20 law students from Sydney who were doing some big law thing over there. While that was fun in some ways, it sometimes hit me that I was hanging around with 20 law students from Sydney. I kid you not, at one point in the conversation they actually started comparing which part of the North Shore they were from. Yikes. The second night I hooked up with one particuarly idiotic guy who happened to be from America. I had a scathing characterisation of him all prepared to post up here, including describing his voice as like a demented Muppet after a stroke, but, well, it hasn't made it up has it. But trust me, you hate him.

Back to Berlin which was even better than the last time I was there. It's fantastic for too many reasons to list here. Go there. Then I went quickly to Goettingen to catch up with an old uni friend Tony Gardner and approve of his new Italian fiance. Tony is playing with very big toys in Goettingen in some sort of spaceship re-entry design capacity. Now THAT is cool.

Then to London for a few weeks of relaxing and anything-but-sightseeing. After three months of being an indepent traveller it was truly surreal to catch up with friends that I had had for maybe eight years rather than eight hours, who not only already knew my name but already knew embarrassing stories about me. On the first day I bought a diary to not only keep track of who was leaving and entering the country when, but also to track their phone numbers. I filled a page on the first day. I don't think I'm going to be going lonely in London. I was grateful to still be sporting my travelling beard at that stage, just to throw them off the track a little bit. The beard is long gone now, though -- when I started looking like a rabbi I knew the time was up.

My final jaunt in the UK was to Edinburgh to catch some of the fringe festival and to, well, drink with some more friends from university and Melbourne. It was great and it would have been even better if I hadn't been spending pounds.

So where am I now? Turkey. I'm travelling for just five more weeks, I promise, and then I'm moving back to London to get a job and sell my soul for some cold hard cash. Promise. But until then, this baby will be more regularly updated with Turkish adventures. Stay tuned...