Back in Sydney

After a long, long flight from London via LA, I'm finally back in Sydney. If you can, never fly BA. These poms are just ridiculous. Being just a kilo overweight, yes 1 single kilogram, some check-in customer service officer insisted that I pay 25 quid penalty fee! I coudn't believe it. Luckily the fee had to be paid at some other desk and there I managed to sweet talk my way out of it, but only after a very long wait. Poms and efficiency never quite go together.

Without any sleep whatsoever, what's there to do immediately after one's return but to shower, catch a train back to the city then play some blitz? So that's what I did yesterday. I missed playing OTB chess. During my trip, and especially after Dresden (where it was impossible not to catch the chess bug), I kept up my game by playing on ICC and Chesscube.com. Tried looking for nearby clubs, but no luck there. Parks, where I expected to see chess players, where of no help either. So there were quite a few early mornings and evenings, when it rained and little to do, but play.

We'll be at it again tonight - starting in the Town Hall then moving off to the Spanish Club for some blitz and beers. There are even a couple of new good players who've appeared on the scene since I left two months ago - one Pinoy bloke and some guy from Nepal or Sri Lanka (I can't quite exactly remember). I think the latter has a rating of over 2000 FIDE.

Now that I'm back, we'll obviously get back to regular blogging. It's been quiet around here but funnily enough, blog traffic seems to have kept up! To our regular readers, then, thanks for sticking around.