u/bowlessy

Hi everyone, my partner and I are planning our first Europe trip from Melbourne. We’re trying to get a realistic idea of how much we should budget.

We’re tossing up between a 5 or 6 week trip at around August 2027, with roughly 3 weeks in Italy looking something like this:
- Rome 4 nights
- Amalfi Coast/Naples 3
- Florence 3
- Tuscany 3
- Cinque Terre 3
- Lake Como 2
- Dolomites 4
- Venice 2

Then 1 week in Malta.

Last it’ll either be 1 week in Greece or Austria (still undecided out of the two, gonna try and convince my partner to do Austria instead of Greece)

We’d be wanting to stay in clean, average 3 star hotels (no hostels) as we’re only really there to sleep. We don’t drink or party, and most of our days will be spent sightseeing, walking around and eating.

Is AUD $20,000 per person a sensible budget (this is including flights, accom, spending money etc) or could this trip realistically be done for quite a bit less without sacrificing too much comfort?

Thanks and any advice or suggestions are welcomed!

I’ve been watching a lot of survival content lately, and it got me thinking about the Amazon specifically.

If you were dropped somewhere in the Amazon rainforest, how long do you realistically think you’d survive?

- What’s the biggest thing that would kill most people first?
- Could someone with absolutely zero survival experience make it more than a day or two?
- If you were allowed to bring only a few essential items, what would they be?
- What’s the absolute minimum you’d need to have a decent chance?
- Has anyone here actually spent time in the Amazon or a similar jungle environment? What was it like?
- Are there any common myths people have about jungle survival?
- If you have survival training, what would be your first priorities in the first 24 hours?

I’d love to hear both realistic opinions and personal experiences. The Amazon seems like one of the few places where even experienced outdoors people could get into serious trouble very quickly, so I’m curious what everyone thinks.

I’m looking to replace my old Astro A40 wired headset. The headband cushion has worn out, the ear pads are pretty rough, and I’m honestly over dealing with wires. I’ve had them for way over 5 years now.
My budget is around AUD $200–350.

I’ll be using it on:
PS5 for mostly single-player games
PC for mainly FPS games, but I hardly play any atm.

I’m looking for one headset that does both well. I don’t care too much about the microphone itself, but I do care about:
Sound quality
Comfort for long gaming sessions
Good directional audio for FPS games
Reliable wireless connection
Good value for money

The main headsets I’m considering are:
HyperX Cloud Alpha Wireless
SteelSeries Arctis Nova 5 Wireless
PlayStation Pulse Elite
Sony INZONE Buds (I know they’re earbuds, but I’m still considering them)

Any others you’d recommend
If you’ve owned or compared any of these, which would you buy and why? Is there another headset around this price that you’d pick instead?
Thanks!

As the title suggests, where is the best Mac & cheese located?

Every place I try it’s either very bland or just cheats and uses American cheese.

I’d love to find a place that actually adds flavour or heck, is just very tasty!

Just been craving it so much recently!

I genuinely don’t understand this from my pov and would love someone to help shed some light on the topic.

Because for me, if a game comes out that I’ve been excited for or had my eyes on, I buy it and just play that until I’m finished with it. If I didn’t like it? I don’t play it ever again and so I wouldn’t really count that as my catalogue of games to play.

So how does your backlog happen?

Do you buy a game that you’ve been wanting to play, start playing it, get 20% through it and then go “okay what’s next, new game now”.
Or does life happen and you stop playing for a while because you have no time, and you forget that game even existed, so you buy another game.

Because to me, if life happens and you don’t have any time to play anymore, wouldn’t you just go back to the last game you played? Sure there might be other games out there that have come out since, but it’s not going to go anywhere? You can just buy it later when you finish the other game no?

EDIT: I forgot how much steam sales influence purchases. But would you say that’s a backlog or library?

Everything unlocked, all skills, all abilities, all perks etc.

What would you say is the most op/useful stance in the game?

Maybe I’m in the minority here, but none of the GTAVI “outrage” has really bothered me.

I’ve just purchased my preorder (had spare cash, saves me trying to scrounge some cash together down the track) and honestly I’m more excited than ever for the game.

I get why some people are annoyed about the Ultimate Edition content, the no disc physical version, and the price increase, but for me personally none of those things are deal breakers. A lot of the Ultimate Edition stuff seems to just be cosmetic or bonus content anyway, which deluxe/ultimate editions have been about, so that’s standard? No?

As for the physical edition, I haven’t bought a disc in years. Digital is just more convenient for how I play. No swapping discs, no worrying about damage, and my entire library is available instantly. Especially considering I have over 50 PlayStation games and over 200 steam games, I don’t want to have to be physically storing them.

I completely understand why collectors and physical media fans are disappointed, but it doesn’t affect my enjoyment of the game at all.

The fact that GTA VI is finally almost here after all these years is what I’m focused on.

End of the day, if the game delivers the quality Rockstar is known for, I’ll get hundreds (probably thousands) of hours out of it. That’s what matters most to me.
Anyone else genuinely excited and not losing sleep over all this stuff?

So I’ll try to make it as brief as possible.

Before we started talking to each other, she was seeing this other guy who she met at the gym for a few weeks, they were having sex, going on dates, going to the gym together etc.

Then I came into the picture and it was right when she decided to end things with him.

Fast forward to today (this was 5 months ago), she still sees him at the gym and every now and then, he’ll approach her, kiss her on the cheek and make small talk “how was your weekend, what’s new with you” and she says she constantly tries to avoid him and not make eye contact with him for my sake but he still comes up to her and does this, not every time, but every now and then.

She says this isn’t crossing a boundary of hers, she said he’s just being mature and doesn’t want things to be awkward between them.

I see things differently, I told her it crosses a boundary of mine, as I don’t think anyone should be kissing another person on the cheek of someone you’ve had sexual relations with, if it was just a guy friend, idc, but someone you’ve had sexual relations I find distasteful. And i’ve told her this and she said she’d tell him no next time. Why do you need to keep tabs with someone you’ve had sex with? I told her why do you need to keep things civil in respect of his feelings? What about mine?

It happened again today, a month later after we had that discussion and she said it happened so fast she didn’t have time to say anything to him about it and I said it’s crossing a boundary of mine, I want it stop, this isn’t on, you could’ve stated after it happened or at the end of the conversation that you’d like it not to happen again. But she refuses and says it’s not crossing her boundary and maybe I need to work on my insecurities as she has unfollowed guys on instagram who send her flirty stuff and the guy at the gym isn’t being flirty, he’s just not wanting things to be awkward apparently.

Thoughts and opinions welcomed.

Does anyone know if they’ve ever made a custom mode or challenge mode where you have free range in your road/turret building, and not just reliant on RNG cards.

I think it would be a fun custom mode, just make your ideal road and tower placement and see well how you go etc

I’ve played Fable 2 and 3 when I was young, didn’t fully grasp the story I’d say and just enjoyed the gameplay.

So my memory is a bit washed with the whole lore and story.

What’s the hype around Jack of Blades and why is everyone losing their minds?

For those of you that don’t know what Freelancer is, it’s a mode in Hitman where you choose missions from a world map, complete contracts to earn money and gradually upgrade and customise your safehouse. Along the way, you build up a gun wall filled with collected weapons and gear, but failure can cost you some of that equipment.

I thought it would be such a cool idea if they implanted this into Q Lab.

You pick your mission, then pick your gadgets, weapons and outfit. Once you load in, you have a variety of ways to complete the mission and some might be to eliminate a target or it could be to infiltrate a base, hack their security system and then escape.

Then when you complete the mission, you’ll earn points to upgrade different cosmetic items in Q Lab or even in your own apartment, as well as certain challenges giving you different outfits.

I’ve just passed the first real mission and I already feel like I’m playing through one of the Bond movies.

The cinematics are unbelievable. The music, dialogue, NPC interactions, even just the maps themselves, everything feels so polished and immersive that it’s hard to stop playing.

The stealth feels so good with all the gadgets and then out of nowhere you’re throwing people through tables in some of the most satisfying hand to hand combat I’ve played in ages.

There’s a ton of variety in ways to complete missions, so you’ve got good replayibility up yourself sleeve as well as the Tac Sim

This game somehow makes you feel like a professional spy and an unstoppable action hero at the same time. A mix of bond and mission impossible.

If you’re on the fence about this, GET IT!

It genuinely feels like they finally made the Bond game everyone’s wanted for years. I hope they continue this franchise for years to come!