(diaryland) December 03, 2009 - 9:35 a.m.

Turns out, I'm going to Greece for Christmas. I have to do it for work. This is kind of a bit crazy.

I've been to New Zealand a bunch of times and that's all, and they've got a pretty wack accent over there, but basically it is fully populated by my Dad's brothers and sisters, so it just feels like the next suburb out of Melbourne, but with a volcano and a glacier.

So, on this trip overseas, I have to go to Macedonia and hang around in a village that is nearly a ghost town and tell the builder there that he's made the porch coverings on my boss' house wrong or something, but he can only speak Greek and Russian and I can only speak English and German (though my abilities at German are debateable). The house next door which was about 300 years old fell down about three weeks ago because the builders made a bonfire in the backyard and it dried out the outside of the house and the inside of the house was all damp so it just all crumbled. But nobody cares. And also there is a lone monk who sits in the courtyard of the local monastery and drinks ouzo all the time. And bears come into your backyard and you have to shoo them away by poking broomsticks out the window at them. A truck with food comes every now and then for you to buy but they're not allowed to bring meat because it's against OH & S regulations. And it will be the middle of winter and we'll be staying in an unfinished house. SOUNDS AWESOME.