Malta

My mum has been making photo slideshows lately, and made one from my photos of Malta. I went to Malta with a group of friends for the August Bank Holiday weekend in 2009. But I never got around to writing a post about it.  It was one of my favourite weekends, and Malta was definitely one of my favourite weekend breaks in Europe!



Malta is a in island smack bang in the middle of the Mediterranean. Culturally it is a fascinating mix of Italian, British and North African.  It is a dry island surrounded by beautiful blue waters.  We stayed in the town of Sliema, overlooking the magnificent capital of Valletta across the water.

A quick update and stories of Greece

So I have not posted an update in a long time! And I really should, as there has definitely been lots of travel going on.  I got back a few days ago from Germany for Oktoberfest, and earlier that week I was up in Edinburgh for work.

I will try to find some time to write some updates, but between getting proverbially raped at work, and all the fun of buying and fitting out a flat in London, things have been pretty busy!

I am pleased to say I have written about the trip to Greece back in June. But I have just read a blog entry from one girl who was on the tour boat with us. Her post is excellent and tells the story of the trip better than I could do. She should be a journalist. Oh hang on, she is! Here's Beth's account.

Newcastle and Birmingham

It is 10:20pm on a Wednesday night in late August.  I am on a train from Newcastle to Birmingham.

This morning I made the trek to Heathrow to fly up to Newcastle. I thought perhaps flying was a bit excessive. 

Yes, it is only a 45 minute flight, but when you factor in getting to Heathrow, getting through security, waiting to board, boarding, taxiing, cueing for takeoff, takeoff, landing, taxiing, disembarking and getting from the airport, it is probably not that much less than the three-and-a-half-hour train journey.

But my doubts were today put to rest. Flying is definitely the way to go. The trip to Heathrow, albeit long, was smooth. Checking in online made the process at the airport quite quick, and getting on the plane didn’t take that long at all. Once on the plane, I was served drinks and snacks, as well as free newspapers. To get the equivalent treatment on the train would have cost a hefty first class ticket. And an hour later, I was “oop-North” in Newcastle. But I didn’t really make up my mind that flying is the way to go until an hour-and-a-half into my train journey down to Birmingham tonight. This is when I realised, that despite being on the train for what felt like forever, I still had 2 hours to go. At least travelling to and from the airports provides changing scenery. Sitting in a single train seat, especially when it is dark outside and there’s no-one interesting to look at inside the carriage, makes for a dreadfully boring trip. Especially when you have forgotten your iPod earphones!

The day up in Newcastle was good. My meeting went well, and I had some spare time to look around either side of the meeting. Despite being miserable weather today in London, Newcastle was actually warm and gloriously sunny. Who would have though the North could have a better climate?

I have a meeting tomorrow morning in Birmingham, so I am staying there tonight. Only another half an hour to go on this train!

Barbados

The start of May was a busy time for me in terms of travel. On 24 April I arrived back in England after 2 weeks in America, seven days later I was having a long weekend away in England, and 2 days after that it was time to fly back over the Atlantic to Barbados. But who can complain about that?

My then girlfriend worked for a travel magazine, and managed to get us a great deal for a week’s holiday on the Carribean island. Our package included flights and all-inclusive accommodation in a beach resort in Holetown, all for about the value of the flights alone.

As soon as we touched down and left the plane, it felt like somewhere tropical. A constant 31 degrees greeted us to the airport that was more outdoors than indoors – even the check in counters were outside! Must be a great way to save on air conditioning.

Most of our days were spent like this:

• Get up after a small sleep in, and head to the buffet breakfast.
• Absolutely stuff yourself with a fantastic breakfast selection, including Bajan hot sauce on your eggs and delicious sausages, and maybe plantain pancakes for dessert.
• Head to the beach for the morning.
• By 11 am it is probably time to start drinking. Afterall, the poolside bar is serving free cocktails.
• Lunch by the pool provides a choice between the Bajan buffet, usually rice with something delicious like slow-baked chicken or flying fish.
• Back to the beach for the afternoon: swimming, snorkelling, relaxing and drinking rum punch.
• Watching the sun set over the Carribean.
• Dressing up for cocktails in the evening bar, followed by yet another delicious buffet dinner.
• A few more drinks and an early night.

The majority of the days went along those lines. The highlight was on the first day when we took a boat trip out to a spot where you can snorkel with the massive turtles. The turtles can be found around the same spot where they are used to being fed, and they are quite tame. Swimming with them meant just that, and these majestic creatures that just glide through the water even came close enough to be touched.

One morning I was excited to see a monkey run across the garden, as normally all you could see running around were the mongoose.  But of course we did not spend the whole time just around the resort. The biggest two days were where we hired a car and went exploring around the island.

We rented a Suzuki Jimny four-wheel-drive, and explored all around the island with the roof down. We went swimming at the wild surf beaches on the Atlantic coast, drove through lots of towns consisting mainly of corrugated iron shacks, got off the beaten track through the sugar cane country and spent some time relaxing on well manicured beaches of the south coast.

My favourite part was the wildlife park, outside of which you could hand feed green monkeys (that’s what they were called but they were more grey than green), whilst inside you could find everything from large tortoises to peacocks wandering around, and even the odd crocodile in the pond!

I found Barbados to be a really interesting place, but also a place of contrasts. One day I was walking down the beach in front of the luxurious and very expensive Sandy Lane resort, and the next day I was driving through a shanty town where it appears people don’t have enough funds or resources to build a solid house.

Yet people were hospitable, and it all felt very safe. Often if I was lost, a local would yell out to tell me which way to drive.  At times the locals were hard to understand, but you could always understand their unrivalled sense of hospitality.

Minneapolis, Chicago and New York

I am on an early morning train from London to Leeds. And I forgot my iPhone earphones! On the bright side, this presents an opportunity for me to catch up on my travel blog.

In April I went on a business trip to America.

My company’s head office in a suburb of Minneapolis. And I was due to visit for a week.

I decided to fly with American Airlines. They didn’t have direct flights, but I was up for a stopover in Chicago. I figured that AA, being one of the flagship members of the oneworld alliance, would be a comfortable, full service airline just like Qantas or British Airways.

But I soon found out that AA is quite poor in comparison, and doesn’t even serve free alcohol on transatlantic flights!

I landed in Chicago in the late afternoon, and had a couple of hours to kill before my regional flight to Minneapolis.  Once I got to Minneapolis, it was quite late. I was quite scared about having to get a rental car and drive it on the wrong (right) side of the road whilst jetlagged and tired, but it turned out OK.  Driving on the other side of the road is always tricky but the wide roads of America and the courteous Midwest drivers made it alright.

I spent the next few days in the Minneapolis suburbs, going to work during the day and enjoying the glorious spring sunshine in the afternoons. It was the hottest April they had had in a long time, and a perfect way to thaw out after a long London winter.

On the Friday afternoon I left the office and headed straight to the airport, and flew back to Chicago for the weekend. It was going to be a rushed weekend, arriving in Chicago late Friday night, and having to fly back to London early Sunday morning.

But as luck would have it, the Icelandic ash cloud descended over northern Europe that Friday, so my flight back to London on the Sunday morning was cancelled.

I had a few extra days to enjoy Chicago – thank you ash cloud! Chicago itself was a lot nicer than I had expected. I had been to the States a few times before, and had always wanted to go to Chicago but never made it there as it was a bit out of the way of my travels.

I stayed on the Magnificent Mile, where everything was clean and sparkling, with interesting high rise architecture all around. I enjoyed going to “the Loop” (downtown), where the raised “El” trains rattled above the streets, just like in the movies.

I did a lot of shopping in the various stores, and look forward to sporting my Chicago Cubs jumper this autumn.

By Tuesday, flights back to England had not yet resumed, and the first flight I was able to get booked on was the next Sunday.

But what to do in Chicago all this time?  Ought I go back to Minneapolis so I can at least do some work? My boss had a better idea. “Why don’t you go to New York and visit our office there?” Brilliant!

So on Tuesday I booked myself a flight to New York city.  And my work managed to find me a flight back to London a day early, on Saturday. The only flighty available was premium economy with British Airways, so I saved myself a cattle class, teetotaller route back across the Atlantic with AA.

There’s a reason why people all around the world wear “I love NY” T-Shirts. New York City has a great vibe about it, a really unique atmosphere. Though sadly being my third time to NY, the excitement had worn off a little bit. Nevertheless, I had a great time. I managed to catch up with a friend from uni who was doing an internship. My New York colleagues were really accommodating, and took me out to various lunches near our Times Square location, and I enjoyed perfect April weather for a few days before having to head back to rainy London.

My trip was twice as long as it was meant to be, and it didn’t cost me anything as being on a business trip meant all my food and accommodation was paid for. Thank you ash cloud!

Greece

I peaked too early! It is mid July and all my summer holidays are over and done with.  After Barbados in May and Greece in June, I have nothing else to look forward to, apart from enduring muggy London, watching the tourists have fun outside my work building, while I sit in the office.

But would I change my summer plan given the choice? No. I’ve had a wicked summer so far! And actually I am just loving London right now - plenty of time to get out and enjoy the sunshine.

A definite highlight of my summer has been my trip to the Greek Islands. It was me and seven friends. We all met in Athens on a Saturday morning to climb the Acropolis and do some general sightseeing. I liked Athens. It reminded me of Melbourne in many ways, and not just by the abundance of Greeks. I think the main thing was the choice of interesting cafes, bars and bakeries all over and late into the night.

And cafes were very useful, given my 2:30 am arrival at Athens airport the night before, culminating in checking in to my hostel at 4:30.

Athens - view from Acropolis

After a great day of sightseeing, and a big night of drinking, we eventually crawled into bed. But only for a few hours, as we had to be on the early ferry from the Port at 7am.

So we all started with a very hung over 5am start, and boarded “Highspeed 4” in Piraeus, bound for the island of Mykonos.  A few hours later we were there, and found our boat quickly, moored in the next dock.

The others of the 30-strong contingent had not yet arrived, so some of us made instant use of the closest beach and went for a hangover-relieving swim. Then the others started arriving, and we had some drinks on the boat before sailing off to Naxos.

The boat was comparable to the one I had sailing Croatia four years ago, but more spacious and slightly less engulfed with diesel fumes! The common area was much more spacious and the bar was well equipped. I was excited and thought this would be a fantastic trip!

But we did have some hurdles along the way. Our one -night-stop in Paros turned into 3 nights due to strong winds, our boat broke down and we lost running water and power for the best of two days. It was quite challenging at times (seasickness and lack of running water don’t mix well!) and we lost  a few destinations on our itinerary, but overall being with a great bunch of people, in a beautiful part of the world made it hard to feel down.

We spent our days on the islands quad-biking around, exploring many beaches, coves, hills, and some very forgotten-looking deserted tracks.

exploring islands by quad

When we got stuck a second day in Ios unexpectedly, we got lucky because it was the Swedish midsummer party. The boys and I enjoyed a long day at Far Out Beach Club watching the Swedish girls in their hundreds strip off into bikinis, throw each other into pool and generally frolic around drunkenly!

On the down side, we missed any amount of useful time in Santorni, arriving one evening and having to set sail back to Mykonos the next morning.

So what of the Cyclades? These islands are quite amazing. The natural landscapes are mainly brown, baron, and dry, but against the contrast of the bright blue seawater and dotted with chalk-white buildings all over, it actually makes for stunning scenery!

The towns mainly consist of narrow, cobbled, alleyways between softly rounded buildings showing off their bright white paint with blue doors and window shutters, and colourful flowers for extra contrast. All the time under a bright blue sky, everything glimmering in the bright sunlight.

a typical Paros street

If I had to retire and live somewhere in Europe – these Islands would probably be one of the first choices!

Daytrip to Durham

Last Thursday I had a meeting up in Durham.


Durham is way up North, almost in Newcastle, which is almost in Scotland.  It was an early meeting that would have involved getting a 6am train from London.  So a better idea was to go up the night before and stay in a hotel up there.


But the night before was the night of a work trip to Lords to watch some county-level Twenty-20 cricket. I wasn't about to miss that! So my colleague and I went to the cricket. An innings and 4 pints of lager later, it was time to head to Kings Cross for our train.


We found our way there, stocked up on more alcohol, bought some greasy dinner and boarded our train.


The next 3 hours was spent drinking on the train.  Once we arrived "up north" at about midnight, we battled the rain and caught a cab to our hotel.


The hotel had already given away our rooms and offered us a drink to make up for it. By this time I had had certainly enough to drink, but surely I cannot say no to a free drink. After all, it was to make up for the inconvenience of losing a hotel room! "A whisky and coke, please," my colleague led.


An apt summary was this email I wrote while I was there:

My trip has been eventful. When we got here last night our hotel had given away our rooms. So they drove us to another hotel which wasn't anywhere near as nice. They did give us each a whisky and coke to make up for it though.

This morning our cab driver didn't know where he was going and we drove around looking for where our meeting was. Eventually I pulled out my iPhone and guided him with GPS.

But in the process I managed to drop my blackberry.  Realised just a bit before getting on a train back to London. I called the cab company and they said they'd drop it off back at the hotel but when I got there he hadn't come yet. Apparently it will be an hour till he does.

So Colleague and I are sitting at a cafe waiting, watching the world go by.

Yes, it was an eventful trip. Durham, overall, was a very picturesque little city. It was a great place to spend a few hours just sitting around!

World Cup 2010 in London

Back in 2006 when I was living in England the first time, I went on a trip of a lifetime to Munich for the Australia vs. Brazil World Cup football game.

Now it is 2010 and the World Cup is back, and I am in London once more. No trip to South Africa planned but I did manage to head out to the Australian stronghold of Shepherd's Bush last night to watch Australia try to take on Germany.

On the way there is saw lots of Aussies all kitted up and ready to support their team, as well as Germans. The great thing about London is there are samples from all nationalities around.

I watched the start of the game at "Shé Bu Walkie" which provided a magnificent atmosphere.  I watched the rest of the game at the Pavillion, where they had stadium seating set up in front of a massive screen.

Overall, London is going football crazy. Productivity at my work has dropped to a low, ITV and BBC streaming coverage is clogging up the bandwidth, and most conversations are based on how our predictions are going.  The English take their football seriously, and it's great to be a part of it!

Weekend up North – The ‘Pools

In England, at the end of each may, there is a long weekend for “Spring Bank Holiday”. If you think this is a stupid name for a public holiday, then there is also the “Late Summer Bank Holiday” at the end of August. Not that there is an “Early Summer Bank Holiday”.

But I digress. The point is that for the last few months I had been trying to figure out what to do for the “Spring Bank Holiday”. My girlfriend was going to Berlin with a friend, and I didn’t want to join them. I had already been to Berlin, and let’s face it, three’s a crowd. So I decided to go to Spain. But didn’t get around to organising that. So I decided to go to Pink\pop, a Dutch rock festival. But I didn’t get around to organising that. So I decided to go to Southwest England, and check out some of the country’s best beaches. But despite it being 30 degrees on the weekend before bank holiday weekend, the long weekend weather was forecast to be, as they say in England, rubbish! So on the Thursday I finally organised something. I decided to go up north to one of the regional centres I had never been to.

On Saturday morning I caught a train up to the city of Liverpool.

When I arrived, it was pouring. So I sought shelter in the shopping centre across the road from the station. I thought I had arrived in the ultimate Hicksville. To be fair, I did enjoy watching the teenage girls walking around in short skirts and knee high socks, but the environment left much to be desired. The shopping centre consisted predominantly of cheap shoe shops blaring out bad music. The food court didn’t have anything I wanted to eat. What have I done? How am I going to spend a weekend in this hole?

As it turns out, once the rain had mostly subsided and I ventured out past St John’s Shopping Centre, I was actually pleasantly surprised.  The Liverpool city centre is actually a clean, pleasant and architecturally pleasing place. There is a mix of old buildings and very new ones, trendy docklands, big new shopping centres and lively, bustling streets.

I enjoyed walking around Liverpool, and was glad I came. That night I had a few drinks at my hostel, watching the hen party have a few pre-going out drinks all dressed up in their burlesque gear, and chatted to an Argentinian backpacker who was stuck sleeping on a mattress on the floor in my dorm.

I decided that night to hit Mint Casino.  The casinos up north are great. They have roulette for a 50p minimum bet and blackjack for £2. Back home in Melbourne the cheapest games you can find at the casino are $2.50/$10 respectively.  I asked the roulette dealer whether he knew of anywhere that had a poker game going, and he directed me to Circus Casino further in the centre of town.

So I cashed in my chips and headed to Queens Square and into the Circus. It turned out Saturday night was the night with no poker games, but one of the staff gave me a tip of a casino in the suburbs that had a good poker tournament on that night.

So I jumped in a black cab, which drove me through a long tunnel and into some quiet, industrial Merseyside town. The driver didn’t even know where the casino was, but upon asking an old man on the street, we found it.  The poker game had already started when I got there but it wasn’t too late to buy in. So I paid my 33 quid and joined the game as the 28th player.

After re-buys and add-ons (none of which I could afford, I decided) the prize pool was £1350. Wow, I was in a real poker tournament.  And I ended up making it to the final table, to the last 10. I pusehed all-in with my short stack of 6,500, and unfortunately my pocket jacks ran into a pair of bullets and I was out. It was  a fun way to spend a night in Liverpool though. Too bad I couldn’t understand what half of the dudes at the tables were saying!

The next day I walked to the station, taking in the biggest Anglican cathedral in the world and the “famous” Albert Dock on the way, and caught a train up to Blackpool. The Northern Trains service was the shittiest train I had ever been on. But it made for an interesting train ride.

Blackpool was interesting. Blackpool is England’s most popular seaside tourist destination. Like other English beachside towns, it consists of nice coastline with water which is too cold to swim in, lined with tacky shops, bars and amusement centres. The difference is, though, that Blackpool actually pulls it off. This original beachside resort has some real character to it.

I did a lot of walking and took in the atmosphere. I had a go in the amusement arcade, tried out the local casiono there too, wandered along the beach (after the violent 2 metre waves crashing onto the streets had stopped) and just chilled out a bit, making the most of being out of London.

The place I stayed, the Mayfield Hotel, added an interesting element to my visit. It was a small bed and breakfast type place but advertising itself, amongst other places, on Hostelbookers (a site that I use regularly to book my hostels).  The proprietors like putting up backpackers, and prefer this to the stag do’s coming out of places like Liverpool.  Although it wasn’t a typical hostel atmosphere (it was much quieter and nicer) , the owners made a real effort to make their guests feel at home.  They even made sure to introduce guests to others. In fact, while I was out on the Sunday night the owner called me and asked me where I was. I thought perhaps something was wrong. But apparently Lucy, a Swiss girl who was staying solo, was in the hostel and bored, so he wanted to send her my way so we would each have someone to have some drinks with.   A somewhat strange role for a landlord to play, but I thought it really showed he cared for his guests’ experiences.

The next day I had had enough of this seaside attraction (partly because it was cold!) and I headed back to Liverpool (1.5 hours), and then back home to London (another 2 hours).

Business Trip to Paris

I am currently zooming through the sunny French countryside at some 300 km/h.

I was just in Paris for a business meeting. Just a day trip. Caught the Eurostar out of London’s beautiful St 

Pancras station this morning and in less than two hours my colleague and I were walking the streets of Paris.

It was a sunny 23-degree day. We arrived near the office where our meeting was, and had half an hour to spare. 

So we went into the nearest restaurant for some lunch. We sat outside and looked through the Mediterranean-style menu. We each ended up ordering essentially what was a kebab. For the bargain price of €20 each!  Yeah. In Paris €50 gets you two kebabs (though each with a mountain of hummus on the side but no salad) and to “Coke Lights”.

Walking around the streets of Paris you really do appreciate why it’s one of the world’s great cities. The architecture is amazing and the city has a real vibe about it. 

We had a good business meeting and then headed to a street-side café for some beers. We jumped on the metro back to Gare du Nord and jumped on a train back to London.

I love it when my work entails days like these.

Long Weekend in the Peak District

I am on a train right now, heading south through the Midlands of England. I have just spent the long weekend with my girlfriend in the Peak District.

We started early on Saturday morning, catching an 8:37am train from London Euston up to Stoke on Trent, where we rented a car and drove off into the Peak District National Park. We went for a bit of a hike in an area called Dovedale, which took us from one quiet village to an even quieter one, along a stream running at the bottom of some steep green hills.

Dovedale

It seems all of the many peaks in the area are lush, green, grassy hills separated by frequent grey rock walls, marking the various paddocks, the majority of which this time of the year are littered with sheep looking after their young lambs.  Horses, ponies, cows and ducks could be found in some of the other fields.

After a good amount of sightseeing all afternoon, we headed to Hartington, a village essentially in the middle of nowhere, to find our accommodation for the weekend. The Hartington Hall YHA is a youth hostel in an old converted and extended manor house.  The main building used to belong to a noble family, and some of the structure dates back to the 1300’s. It became a hostel in the 1930’s and was the first one with electricity and central heating, apparently.  It certainly didn’t seem like many of the youth hostels I’ve stayed in in the past.  It was a grand looking old building of dark grey stone, surrounded by manicured green lawns and gardens full of families playing ball games with their children on encouraging them to play with the farm animals which were outside the barn. The barn itself is where our room was, and couldn’t be much further from the barn that it used to be. Our room was a cosy double en-suite bedroom which was more like a hotel or b’n’b room than an YHA.

On Sunday we got up early again and drove to Alton Towers, England's biggest and most famous theme park. It is full of rollercoasters and other thrill rides and provided for a good old Gold-Coast-style day of fun, just without the sunshine.

I endured and survived:

• THI3TEEN (scary new ride where you unexpectedly drop and go backwards in the pitch dark)
• Air (flying around face-down, then backwards)
• Nemesis
• Duel
• Rita (0 to 100km/h in 2.5 seconds)
• Sonic Spinball
• Oblivion (ridiculously scary vertical drop)

This morning we checked out of our farmhouse home and drove through the green countryside to Bakewell, home of the Bakewell Tart.  A wander around the old town and a stop for breakfast in a busy café, and we were ready to drive on. Now that I am used to it, I really enjoy driving around England.  The roads are narrow and wind around lots of corners and up and down hills, usually surrounded by metre-tall brick walls on either side of the edge of the road, providing for some challenging but fun driving.  We drove around the southern Peak District, took in the scenery and headed back for Stoke, for our slow (but cheap) train back to the South.  We will have two days in London, before we head off to Barbados on Thursday.

Ten on a Tuesday

My friend Sue has a blog. One of her regular posts (every Tuesday) is answering ten questions posted on another blog called Roots & Rings. The questions often come from the readers of that blog, and this time it was Sue's turn to ask some questions.

Although I don't usually take part, I often do read Sue's answers and think about the questions myself. Seeing as this time Sue has asked the questions (some very good ones), and the theme is TRAVEL, I thought it would be appropriate to post my answers right here.

So here we go:

1.  What book, movie or song has made you want to travel to a particular place? 

Last year I read a book about a Lonely Planet travel writer writing the guide to Northern Brazil. It makes me want to go to Brazil!

2. Aside from your significant other, who would you want to take with you on a dream trip?

Some of the best and most memorable travel experiences are the ones I have done alone. The freedom of doing whatever you want to do, when you want, and the increased likelihood of meeting new poeple along the way, makes it an interesting way to go!

3. Where would said dream trip be to?

My dream trip is to spend a few months travelling around South America. I feel like I have done so much Europe and North America that I need to get out of my comfort zone again and try something new. I find the idea of South America both daunting and fascinating. Having a good amount of time there to see a bit of everything and also have time to lie on the beach would be fantastic.

4. If you were hosting guests or providing tips, what three things would you show visitors to your hometown?

Although I am living in London right now I will answer this for Melbourne. I wasn't born there and I'm not there now, but I did most of my growing up there and still consider it home. I think these would be some of my suggestions:

• I agree with Sue that an Australian Rules Football game at the MCG would be a must. If it is in the summer, a cricket game might suffice.
• Either the Eureka Tower or Rialto observation deck to see the sheer size and sprawl of the city, which is one of the world's biggest cities by area.
• Riding the city circle tram, which is an old tram around the CBD (downtown) area.
• Going to the beach. So many good ones to choose from, or an hour's drive to the open ocean.
• Having a coffee at one of the many great independent cafes.

5. If you had a long weekend ahead of you, where you head – beach, city or country/mountains?

Beach. I love the beach and miss it terribly living in London. I have done so many city breaks lately that country breaks really appeal, but nothing can beat going to a great beach when the weather is right.

6. Do you have a passport? If so, did you get it for a particular trip or just to have, in case?

I have two.

When I was about 17 I started planning by big trip to Europe and applied for an Australian passport.
Unfortunately, 5 years later the passport expired and I still hadn't used it. I got a new one and finally used it on 24 March 2006 at age 25 when I flew out of Melbourne on the first leg of my around the world ticket. 

I also have a Czech passport, which allows me (thanks to the European Union) to live and work in the UK as long as I want.

7. Are there any travel souvenirs you collect? If not, is there something else you collect?

When I remember, I try to collect beer coasters in pubs around the world. After a few beers, though, it is easy to forget. I got one here in New York (where I am right now) from the Outback Steakhouse, an Australian themed restaurant/bar.

My girlfriend has an awesome collection of patches from every country she has been to. One day, she plans on sewing them all onto a blanket. I think it is a fantastic idea and am very jealous of her collection!

8. If you could name a paint colour, what colour would it be and what would you call it?

Being a bloke, I do not accept colours with names like chartreuse, fuchsia, or salmon. These are not colours.  Colours should be explained with reference to real colour names like green, blue, red and orange, and if necessary prefixed with adjectives like dark or bright.
9. If you were heading away for a weekend citybreak solo, where would you go?

I would have probably been tempted to agree with Sue and say New York. However that's where I am right now, completely unexpectedly, due to being stranded in America due to the ash cloud (I fly back to London tonight).

I think I would like to go the Las Vegas. When I went there in 2006 it was before I started playing poker. I'd love to go back and spend some time on the poker tables. A weekend would be enough, I think.

10. Is there a song or a smell or something that you strongly associate with a particular holiday/place/time, such that it always takes you back? 

Smells and tastes can bring back memories in a really strong way.  Eating grapes on the beach brings me back to when I was five years old, sitting on the beach in Croatia with my parents just after we left Czechia. That's my earliest memory that smells and tastes bring me back to, but there are many others. For instance, and this is a bit strange, certain detergents I smell in some toilets always bring me back to America where they must commonly use one particular fragrance of detergent. When I smell it, I often think of a nightclub in LA that I went to when I first arrived in the States.

New York in Spring

I have unexpectedly found my way to New York. I will write more about my trip to America soon. I just wanted to post a few brief (for a change) notes now.

The first time I came to New York was in 2006. That was in March. It was freezing! There was no snow but it was still really cold. Spine-chilling wind!

The second time was in 2008, in May. That's two months later than March (albeit a different year) and it was hot. It was so wam and muggy in the city, that I escaped to the beach at Coney Island with some of the girls in my hotel.

Who would have thought a couple of months could make such a difference. Now, continuing my once every 2 year average, I am here in April. And the weather is just about perfect! A few rain showers and a bit of a breeze, but mainly sunny and the temaprature is ideal - T-shirt weather without being too hot.  They do say that this is the best time of year to come.

I could get used to following the seasons around.  I could live in Australia all summer, and as it gets to April and the temperatures in Melbourne start dropping, fly off to North America. Hit the slopes for the end of the ski season, and spend some time in New York. Then, continue around the world in the same direction,  to Europe, in time for the start of summer.  Enjoy London and the continent all summer long, until about September when it starts to cool down again. Stop by Oktoberfest if the liver is feeling good, and head back to Melbourne just in time for the Spring racing carnival, and the leadup to summer.

Now all I need is a job that lets me work from different parts of the world. Some sort of touring contractor or consultant maybe?

The Ceremony of the Keys

Every day on my way to work, I walk past the Tower of London.  Until tonight, I had never been through the gates.

Tonight some friends and I had tickets to the Ceremony of the Keys at the Tower of London. This tradition of locking up the tower gates has happened every night, without fail, for the last 700 years. Even in World War II as bombs were falling upon the tower, the Chief Yoeman Warder still managed to perform the ceremony, albeit 10 minutes late.

This YouTube video I found has a good description of the ceremony I just witnessed:



It was great to see such a fine, formal tradition, whilst standing in the dark and slightly spooky courtyards of the famous landmark.

sleazyJet and favourite clothes

Ryanair has a bad reputation for being cheap and nasty. Ryanair is Europe's leading low cost airline. They took the low cost model pioneered by SouthWest Airlines in the States during the 70's, and have cut every corner possible to bring you no-frills, cheap flights.

Just today in the news there was one example of how Ryanair are trying to slash costs by charging for toilets.

Sure, you lose any form of luxury whatsoever, and pay a premium for drinks and snacks on board, but I think it is fantastic having the choice to be able to fly places for cheap.

And of course budget airlines also bring down the airfares of the full service airlines.  British Airways can be cheaper at times than the budget airlines, and I remember when Virgin Blue first came to Australia. For the first time after that, Qantas fares were affordable.

Despite Ryanair's bad reputation. since my trip to Scotland for Easter 2009, I have been saying that I think easyJet is actually worse than Ryanair. easyJet's fares are not as rock-bottom as Ryanair and for some reason they have not been subjected to the same bad reputation oft the Irish airline. But I personally think service is worse on easyJet.  When I set off on this trip to Scotland, I checked in at the airport and headed to the departure gates. I followed the signs to the "departure lounge" which was actually a room with three queues, standing room only. That was no lounge! No chance for lounging when you are being herded like cattle.

I recently went to Austria (and I am yet to write a blog entry on that trip). I flew with easyJet both ways, and on the way home my easyJet experience wasn't great.  First, my booking confirmation told me check in opened an hour before it actually did, so I spent an hour sitting at the airport on the floor in front of the check in desks. Not very convenient but I can get over that. Then, after the flight, I lost a jacket either on the plane or in the terminal between the plane and baggage collection.  I am hopeless, I know. When I went to Turkey last year I left my phone on the plane on arrival in Istanbul. But British Airways were more than helpful in making sure I get it back.

How did easyJet compare? Did they get my jacket back to me?

No.

I had realised my jacket was missing in the baggage reclaim area. I went to the lost baggage counter and asked how I can get in touch with Gatwick airport lost property. They gave me a phone number to call, which is all I guess I could have hoped for. I rang the number a couple of times over the next few days but my jacket hadn't showed up.

Now, that's for property lost in the airport. But what about property lost on the plane? The easyJet website lists a phone contact numbers depending on the arrival airport. The one for Gatwick airport rings out an nobody answers it.  This is frustrating, as the website says they only keep found items for 2 days.

There is no general easyJet phone contact number. The only was they seem to allow you to get in touch is by filling in an online form.  So I filled in the form to get in touch. I told them how their phone number doesn't get answered and asked them whether they had found my jacket. This was on 2 March.

No response at all for a few weeks and then this on 17 March:

Dear Customer,

You have recently requested some assistance from our customer services team at easyJet.

As you are aware, there have been exceptional weather conditions throughout Europe for a number of weeks between December 2009 and February 2010. This has caused many customers to contact our customer services team and we have received over ten times the usual volume of emails. From our records, we have seen that we have not yet responded to your request and this is below our usual next day standard.

Responding to our customers as quickly as possible is a top priority for us, so we have already doubled the size of our customer services team to meet this demand. We're also looking at other ways we can speed-up replies.

To help us respond quickly, can we ask if you could avoid sending follow-up emails to check the status of your initial contact? Further emails increase the backlog that we need to deal with, slowing down replies overall. Please be assured that we will respond to your original email just as soon as we can.

We would like to thank you for your patience during this difficult time.

Yours sincerely

easyJet Customer Experience Team

Did you find this information useful?

No, I can't say I did find that particularly useful. And yes, it is below your allegedly usual next day standard.

Eventually I did receive a response. It came over a month later after my initial query, on 5 April.

Thank you for contacting us.

Our Cabin Crew have a standard procedure to follow and any items left onboard are handed over to the staff at the arrival airport’s Lost and Found office. Therefore the next best course of action is for you to contact the 'Lost and Found Department' at …….. airport on …………….and they would be able to assist you further. 

Thank you for taking the time to contact us; if you need any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact us and we will be more than happy to assist you further.

Yours sincerely, 

Mustafa Kemal Ergun

Customer Experience Champion

Thanks Mustafa. Some customer experperience champion you are. No apology for taking so long. You couldn't even be bothered filling in the dots with the word Gatwick. Real champion! 

(I also complained about the incorrect information regarding check in time, but to date have not heard back.)

I know this has been a bit of a rant, but I feel better for getting it off my chest. Thanks for listening. But why am I so upset about losing my jacket? Because it is my favourite piece of clothing, which is very convenient for travel. It is a zip up hoody but much warmer than most hoodies. It is furry and soft on the inside, very comfortable and I have traveled with it extensively. When I've been in hostels where I haven't trusted the pillow covers I've used it invertedly as a pillow cover. I have used it as a blanket. I have used it as my most dressy jumper to go out at night. It was an all purpose travel item. And it was from Toronto in Canada, so so far away.

Here are some photos from my Facebook as a tribute to my lost jumper, which I will never see again:

Continental Europe

Canada

England and Scotland

Exercises:

1. Do you agree that easyJet are actually worse than Ryanair?
2. Do you have an essential piece of clothing that you love to travel with?

Easter in and around Lisbon

Last year I went to Scotland for Easter. Whilst it was a surprisingly sunny Easter break, this year I was hoping for somewhere warmer.

My girlfriend and I decided we would spend Easter long weekend this year in Portugal. A few months ago we booked some British Airways flights to Lisbon, while they were still reasonably priced and booked a hotel.

I like to stay in hostels when I travel alone, but for trips with a lady friend, I like to stay somewhere which will provide a little bit more luxury. It was also my girlfriend’s birthday on Easter Monday so I thought a nice hotel was definitely the way to go.

We landed in the Portuguese capital late on Thursday night and jumped straight into a cab. €10 and a few minutes later (thanks to speedway driving of the taxi driver) we were at our hotel, where we settled in for the night, ready for some sunshine the next morning.

We were disappointed when we woke up to cloudy, rainy and somewhat chilly weather. That should not stop us, we thought, and we headed out exploring Lisbon. The rain held off and we enjoyed a few sunny hours while exploring the city. We didn’t have a plan, and generally wondered around. We hit a dodgy neighbourhood which we couldn’t wait to get out of, but then found a beautiful sunny park with a pond-side garden café to have a coffee in. And when you are paying 80 cents for a good coffee at in a scenic spot, you really can’t complain!  Dinner later was at Bairro Alto, the district of the city way up on the hill, with lots of narrow laneways full of bars, restaurants and bohemian fashion shops.

Bairro Alto

For day two, we decided to head out of the city. We caught a train out to the town of Sintra. We passed many blocks of flats which looked dirty and cramped. Most windows had clothes hanging from the windows and it gave quite a depressing impression of the part of the city where real people live. Eventually the apartment towers stopped, and Iberian villas replaced them… we were now in Sintra. A very picturesque town,  but its main attraction wasn’t in the town, but in the hills above it. We waited over an hour for a bus that’s meant to come every 15 minutes, and sat on the bus for another hour as it wound its way up the steep hills above Sintra, battling the Easter traffic. Apparently this wasn’t a good time for the journey.  On the bright seed, by crowding onto a bus we avoided the rain and by the time we got to the top, we were able to explore the Disney-esque castle in partial sunshine.

The castle, or more appropriately palace. Pena Palace, above Sintra.

And then the sunshine kept coming. By the time we finished walking around the multi-coloured castle, we were being drenched in glorious rays, cheering us up even more than the fairy tale castle did. 

Palace views

We made our way down the hills back to town on foot, enjoying the lush spring-green forests around us, with scattered and breathtaking vistas.

Forest on below the Palace

Day three would be another city day. This time we headed to the other side of the city, rode the trams up and down the steep alleyways and enjoyed the now cloudless blue sky by having drinks at terrace bars overlooking the city and the river.  Then we caught a train to the suburb of Belém. This is the Greenwich of Lisbon. Where explorers who charted the new world commenced their journeys.  People like Vasco de Gama, who I remember learning about in year nine history. Belém is a maritime town on the banks of the river, near where it flows into the Atlantic Ocean. Historical fortresses and monuments line the river, among flash hotels and green parks. The main attraction, however, is the bakery that serves the original version of the national snack – a variety of custard tarts, served with icing sugar and cinnamon. We bought one each and they were delicious!

Belém

Day four was departure day, but we had long enough after checking out of our hotel, to take another day trip out of the city. This time we headed further along the coast, past Belém, to the seaside town of Cascais. Here, we enjoyed sandy beaches and seaside dining. My meal was grilled sardines, a Portuguese staple, washed down with fruity white sangria.

One of the beaches in Cascais

Then, we headed straight from the beach to the airport. It was hard to leave the beach in the middle of on a 26 degree day, but it was a great way to finish an Easter long weekend on a high!

Skiing in Gastein

I went to Austria last week and spent a few days in and around Vienna and then went over to the Salzburg region for some skiing. I am yet to write a proper post about the trip, but in the meantime, here is a review for the place I stayed at in the mountains:

I first heard about the Euro Youth Hotel in The Times article on The world's 10 best ski hostels (published way back on 17 December 2008). I was looking for a place in Europe to go skiing solo and therefore wanted to stay in a hostel where I would get to meet some people. This place was an excellent choice!  

I stayed in a 14 bed dorm. So obviously I wasn't expecting too much luxury. The dorms were clean, large and with comfortable wooden bunk beds The people were friendly. Private rooms are also available. There was a TV/lounge room, a restaurant, a pub and a basement bar, so plenty of common areas to hang out and meet new friends. Beers were €2.90 for a pint and there was a nightly happy hour offering cheap shots.  

Inclusive breakfast was available for both for the dorm guests as well as the hotel guests. Probably the best hostel breakfast I have had anywhere in the world.  

Best of all, though, was the location. The hostel is across the road from the train station and the ski centre from where the gondola goes to the top of the mountain. There is also a EuroSpar supermarket right next door, and plenty of bakeries, bars and other useful businesses nearby, including ski hire. The hostel gives a good ski hire deal. Gastein is a good ski area with long and challenging runs, and a multi day lift ticket gives you access to the whole Ski Adame region.

I hope to write a full post soon. See you then!

Where is DK?

I was just looking at some analysis of the traffic to this blog, and it turns out that one of the most common search queries on Google which leads to this site is "where is dk". At first I thought, wow, isn't that nice, people are asking Google where I am.

Then it occured to me. They are not looking for me. They are looking for Denmark. Or more specifically, they are wondering what country code DK is.

Well, people, here is your answer. It is Denmark. A Scandinavian country just north of Germany and west of Sweden. Now you know!

Want to know more? I wrote a blog post on my travels in Denmark and Scandinavia last year.

Turkey on ANZAC Day

Intro: I started writing this blog post not long after coming back from Turkey but kept putting off finishing it. Now, some 10 months later, I have finally got around to finishing it. The trip happened in April 2009.

I am Australian.

I am not a descendent of an Australian soldier. In fact, I don’t have any Aussie ancestors at all. I wasn’t even born in Australia and I wasn’t brought up by Australian parents. I am Czech. But for the fact that I am also Australian, I am extremely grateful. My parents literally risked their freedom to escape from the then oppressive and corrupt Czechoslovak regime to come to Australia and start from scratch; to build a better life for all three of us.

I appreciate that Australia took me in and made me one of theirs. In return, I choose to embrace the Australian culture, heritage and lifestyle. I strive to understand what it means to be Australian and experience this to its full potential. This is something I realised a couple of years ago, and at that point I decided I would someday take the pilgrimage that is the ANZAC Day visit to Gallipoli.

Sue, my Aussie friend also living in London, Vanessa, my New Zealander girlfriend and I flew out of London Heathrow to Istanbul on a Saturday morning. Four hours later, we were at Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport.

We managed to get an airport transfer (long story, too long even for me to write about!) and headed into the city to our old town hotel.  The drive to the city fascinated me. This was definitely the most exotic place I had been so far. The most-different place. Just watching the people go about their ways outside kept me engrossed. Watching families have barbeques on the foreshore of the Bosphorus strait.  The women wore long clothes and headscarves.  The men wore trousers, suit jackets and leather shoes.  They cooked some meat on some coal fired barbeques.  The children played on play equipment on a small foreshore, with six lanes of busy traffic zooming past on one side, and a waterway filled with many large metal boats on the other. In some ways, it was like a barbecue on the banks of the Yarra River in Melbourne. But yet it looked and seemed totally different.

We disposed of our heavy backpacks in our hotel rooms and immediately went exploring. We were thirsty (thanks to some enthusiastic complimentary drinking on our BA flight over) and wanted some water. You don’t drink Turkish tap water.  Everyone drinks bottled water.  So I went to the nearest small street-side shop, grabbed two 500ml bottles of water out of the fridge and handed the shopkeeper some money. I gave him my smallest note: ten Turkish Lira*. I did it this way because I didn’t know whether the Turks understood any English, and my Turkish isn’t great. He handed me four Lira change. I thought three Lira bottle was a bit steep but didn’t say anything. Later I found everyone selling water bottles for half a Lira each. I had been ripped off big time! Turkey Lesson Number 1: Negotiate all prices BEFORE handing over cash.

We walked down to the waterside, enjoyed some corn on the cob from a seller on the street, and watched the sun set over some mosques. We walked through some small markets, and warded off dozens of restaurant workers trying to entice us to go into their restaurant.  Our restaurant of choice was just outside our hotel. We ate at a table out on the narrow pedestrian allleyway.  After a three course meal for the three of us for about sixty Lira (less than thirty pounds) including beer, we retired to the colourful cushions on the terrace for some apple tea and fruity tobacco, smoked out of the Arabic style Shisha pipe.

The next day we explored this newly discovered land some more. From the palace gardens to the shops on the main drag; from secret tea garden amongst the tulip flower beds on the cliff-top overlooking the harbour to the old mosques, from the more restaurants in the alleyways to the grand bazaar markets!

That night was the start of our tour with Travel Talk. We met the rest of the group and the tour guide in our hotel for the welcome speech, though I suspect we all found it a bit hard to concentrate after the beer we had just drunk on the cushions at the bar outside, and the duty free booze from Heathrow we got into back in the hotel room.  As it turns out, our tuning out on what the guide was saying would continue all tour, despite our soberness. Our tour guide didn’t have the best English. He was fluent, but he made mistakes, and inserted either the phrases “say it” or “you know so” at into his sentences at an interval of every few words.  I guess it was his way of getting his thoughts together, and fair enough, he wasn’t a native English speaker. Unfortunately, he also wasn’t very captivating, kept jumping from point to point, and didn’t show any interest in his audience whatsoever. He wasn’t the best guide. That, combined with various admin mistakes made by our organisers along the way, would make us all think twice before recommending Travel Talk Tours in Turkey.

Having said that, we mainly had a good time. There were hiccups on the along the way.  For example, our so-called “welcome party” dinner  resulted in me waking at 4am with some violent stomach pain and the need to frequent the toilet.  The next day I wasn’t the same, having to pop my first ever Imodium and feeling rather cramped as I tried enjoying the sights of the city. Turkey Lesson number 2: Your body WILL reject Turkish cuisine. 

The tour covered various historic and prehistoric points in Istanbul, before we headed out South.

We went to Gallipoli a few days ahead of Anzac day for the opportunity to have a look at the sites of the fighting before all of the Anzac day crowds arrive.  It was quite interesting walking on the small beach that 74 years later would be full of allied troops invading the Turkish coast. It was all much smaller than I had expected, and made you realise that our soldiers there were never too far from the enemy and the rain of their high velocity machine gun bullets from the cliffs above.

The next few days was spent travelling all over the Western part of Turkey. We saw some amazing natural and historic sites. My favourite was Pamukkale, an amazing white hot spring terrace.

Visiting various ancient Roman cities was also great, but the whole trip felt like a bit of a rush. We spent hours and hours on buses in between locations which were far and wide apart. We started each day early in the morning and finished late at night. We stayed in some nice hotels but had no time to relax.

On the day before ANZAC Day, we got up extra early and raced towards Gallipoli. We covered hundreds of miles and stopped off along the way for a rush visit to the site of ancient Troy.  We hurried  through it, because we wanted to be at Gallipoli reasonably early. There is only a limited amount of space to camp on the grass, and we desperately wanted to be amongst those camped there. The alternative would be to spend all night on the seats of a grandstand.

We made it to Gallipoli in the early afternoon, and it was a beautiful sunny day on the beach. We went through the stringent security checks to get on the site. They searched for dangerous items and alcohol – no grog allowed! Then we managed to get some of the last spots on the grass.

We put out our sleeping bags and took our spots.   It was a friendly atmosphere and we had a nice time with other friends that were there for the service, as the afternoon turned into the evening, and the evening into the night.

Turkey Lesson Number 3: It gets bloody cold at night!

As it got into the early hours of the morning, the temperature dropped severely. I was wearing a normal set of clothes, a jumper, ski jacket, blanket and a sleeping bag, but was still freezing. Luckily we were on the grass so we managed to get pretty low and out of the breeze. I even got some sleep. But the cold really got me thinking. We were spending an evening there in late April. That’s when the soldiers landed, back during World War 1. But the ANZACs fought the Turks for months on end. They endured a hot summer but then they were there until November. November in Europe is very cold, the start of some serious winter weather. It snowed in Gallipoli. Any cold that I was feeling that one night, would have been way surpassed by what the soldiers had to go through!

As dawn approached, we saw the light come up over the hills behind the beach, slowly. The services started. We learned all about the WW1, and the tough campaigns including this one. It was amazing, being in the very spot that it all happened. It really made me appreciate how lucky we are to be living in a time of relative peace.

The dawn service was emotional and sobering.

As the sun came up, the temperature began to rise again. By mid morning it was hot. We made our way up the hill for the next service.  ANZAC day was over my the early afternoon, and we headed off back to Istanbul and eventually back to London.

Our tour wasn’t the best organised – I talked to many others who seemed to have a much better tour. But the experience overall was very worthwhile. The Gallipoli service got some bad press in recent years, and certain people claim you shouldn’t go. I couldn’t disagree more. Every Australian should go.   Hearing the stories about the Turks and ANZACs, who were deadly enemies, cooperating to make their time there just a little bit more bearable, was amazing. And the spirit of cooperation continues to this day. When you say you are from Australia, the locals seem genuinely happy to see you there, even if it is just an appreciation for being there to spend some money and adding to their economy. It’s the least we could do for them.

* One Turkish Lira was worth about 43 English pence or 90 Australian cents.

Train crash in Belgium

On Wednesday I was meant to go to Brussels for some work meetings.

These days, just about nobody flies to Brussels or Paris from London. It is so inconvenient to have to go through the bother of getting to the airport, checking in, waiting, flying, landing and getting from the foreign airport. It is so much easier to catch the train, which is more or less just as fast, if not faster when you take into account the time it takes to travel to airports. You start off in the city centre, jump on a train for two hours, and get off in the city centre - perfect!

But this Monday, something tragic happened. Some local commuter trains in Belgium had a head on collision. The trains, carrying 250–300 people, collided in snowy conditions during the morning rush hour. Some 20 people died and hundreds were injured.

Terrible stuff - you tend to feel pretty safe on the train.

The Eurostar train service running from London to Brussels was stopped for a number of days, as they investigated and cleared up the wreckage on the local tracks next to the international service. The effect on me was that my business trip to Brussels was postponed. But obviously the effect on the injured, deceased and their families was much, much greater. My thoughts go out to them.