World In Crisis... The Tastes Of Eureka & Decisions To Be Made.

Well, it would seems as if the whole world has gone wrong!! You don’t really keep in touch with the real world that much in Tour, although I will occasionally read The Age on line but that only provides a brief snapshot of what’s going on. The first we’ve become aware of this global economic crisis is that Turkey has cancelled. We’re supposed to be heading there after Athens for a week but it’s been on the cards for a little while now that it may not be going ahead and it’s now official.

Another way for us to measure the crisis is how much our per diems have dropped! When you’re on tour you get paid a daily allowance that covers food, drink and incidentals – it’s basically compensation for taking you away from your home. I get mine cash in hand each week but converted into the local currency. We’re yet to tour to a country where the exchange rate works in my favour but getting it in my hand each week is better than having it deposited into my account and then getting a far worse exchange rate and be slugged with ATM fees every time I need money. As it happens, our per diems do fluctuate every week but generally by only a couple of Euro/Pound/US $ here and there... This week it was about 45-50 Euro short...!! I looked over at Toni quizzically and raised an eyebrow to which she said, “The dollars gone to shit!” And it had. We’d lost about 9c to the Euro, 7 pence to the Pound and around 16c to the Greenback...!! Definitely not good when you’re spending the next month or so in the States!! Ideally – and it never happens – you want as close to ‘one for one’ whilst overseas and then for the Aus dollar to crash when you return...! Never happens like that & I can guarantee that when we do return, it will have made up alot of ground!

On a lighter note, we have found a franchise that needs to make it’s way to Aus shores. It is a sandwich style shop called Eureka. They are kind of like Subway but far better. They sell premade sandwiches or you can build your own and the selection of fillings they have by far out ranks any Subway. They also sell savoury pastries – spinach & cheese, cheese pies & other weird but tasty concoctions. On top of this they also do pretty decent coffee and other assortments of beverages. And, and they’re open 24hrs..!! Nice! Myself & Wish have been talking quite seriously about starting one up and have talked about where the first one would be etc. I think Dan & Jacq would just ride our coat tails...!!

Even though Eureka is much hyped - this is the only existing image... Perplexed why Jaq doesn't seemed too thrilled...?!?!

We’ve also managed to pack the theatre out every night! 2,500 odd punters each show! That’s pretty damn decent in my books and maybe the sign of a return visit...?

With Turkey now out of the plan, we’ve got 8 days to kill before we hit the States & Canada – which will also be Dan’s swansong. He’s decided it’s time to hang up his Tango Hat, which is fair enough, it’s been about 2.5yrs for him. He wants to head to Rome for the 8 days but I’m angling towards the Czech Republic. I think Rome would be an overload of ‘old’ stuff given the amount of tourist time we’ve had here in Greece. Also, the Czech Rep is up there on my list of places that I want to explore – and there are direct flights from Athens. That’s another weird point of the world – there are hardly any direct flights to anywhere from Athens!! I would have thought it would have been a fairly major hub but no...! Strange!! That also makes Czech a little cheaper in regards to flights and they’re still operating on the Korun (basically pronounced ‘crown’) which has a better conversion rate to the dollar...!!

I know where I’m heading and it will be interesting to see who follows...