Welcome. Thank you for joining us.

I've finally left Canberra and I'm 24 hours into my month-long break. I'm already feeling slightly greasy from eating nothing but yum cha, pizza and ice-cream.

But, I'm sure you're here to read about more exciting adventures than junk food in Sydney.

Dan and I are off to France, Italy, Germany and Switzerland... but not in that particular order.

Actually, I think it's more like France, Germany, Italy, Germany, France, Switzerland, France; but I could be wrong.

As I write, Dan is putting the finishing touches on our itinerary, and it's subject to change. We'll keep you posted.

As you can imagine, I've already discovered I've packed too much. (Who wants to traipse marketing textbooks half-way across the world?) But, at the other extreme, Dan has not started packing at all... with 16 hours, 14 minutes and 47 seconds until our plane is scheduled to fly out.

That's ok, I have faith that these types of dilemmas always sort themselves out. I think it's the fourth law of thermodynamics.

Internet facilities permitting, I am looking forward to reporting next from our stopover location: Abu Dhabi.