G'day Crew, My current situation finds me working in Ashford, Kent. A town I had never heard of until a month ago. Ashford is only famous as it is the only other Eurostar (that fast train between England and Europe) stop besides London. I am actually closer to France than London so flicking through the radio pick up Pierre counting down the top 30. My job involves driving around to little English villages via winding, tree-covered country lanes to work in surgeries to treat the farmer, his wife or the owner of the local pub. This involved a car. A great rental deal meant I had a brand new Fiat Punto, quickly christened the Blue Turtle for its inability to reach 100 (that's km/h not miles per hour!) and for the sleek blue colour. Wednesday is 999 Night at the local nightclub where all the emergency services go out for a big night. I am particularly careful to not inure myself the next day as I have seen many of the A & E staff are downing numerous cheap pints and schnapps shots. Halloween was spent in Dover where a crew of fellow traveller had booked out the whole hostel so we could drink copious amounts of blood (ie red wine). I met a small group of clueless travellers (Kiwis and English) that provided me with one of the funniest stories since beginning my travels. They arrived 2am on friday night after leaving London at 9.30pm. This is normally a 2 hour drive ut a lot longer when you don't have a map. We went for a hike on Saturday and they lost us so half went to Cantebury for a day in their car. They returned that evening as they had lost their car in Cantebury. Cantebury isn't that big a town. The other half went to France for the day, particularly to buy Royale with Cheese hamburgers a la Pulp fiction. Being the considerate people they are they bought half a dozen back on the 2 hour ferry ride for their friends to enjoy. The next day they went about finding their car - one of the ones who went to France managed to find it. The Blue Turtle has been over-utilised to see the English countryside visiting the usual abundance of castles and cathedrals (Salisbury, Cantebury) The Blue Turtle has visited 4 countries after a road trip to Amsterdam where I caught up with a mate, Chris. Seeing all the varied sights Amsterdam has to offer... such as museums. Chris took me around to some real traditional Dutch villages where I climbed a windmill, visited a clog factory (unfortunately they weren't making them on this day so I couldn't get some custom made), traditional Dutch food (oil balls!!! whatever they were) and saw the Dutch Santa who is black (from the soot) Cheers Mark