18 February 2010

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.

Travel Loyalty Schemes

I travel quite a bit for pleasure, and now my job also requires me to travel a bit, which is a nice bonus. I like to travel. As if you hadn't guessed from this blog.

I figure when you are travelling a lot, and spending good money on it, if people are willing to give you free stuff in exchange, I am happy to accept it.

Loyalty schemes such as frequent flyer miles programs can be pretty good for that. A couple of years ago I got a flight from Melbourne to San Francisco (via Sydney). It cost me about AUD $200 for fees and taxes, which is good considering trans-Pacific flights can be pretty costly. It also cost me 48,000 Qantas frequent flyer points.

How did I earn those? It was a combination of:
  • some domestic Qantas flights over the years
  • an around the world flight with Qantas and British Airways
  • American Express credit card points transferred to Qantas points (no longer possible with American Express rewards unless you have a Qantas-specific Amex)
More recently, I was sent to Cape Town in South Africa for work, out of London. South African Airlines are not points partners with Qantas (Qantas and BA are part of the oneworld alliance whilst SAA are Star Alliance). So I signed up with one of South African's Star Alliance partners, BMI. The return flight to Cape Town earned me enough points for a return flight anywhere in Europe with BMI.

So, I think there is certainly value in these schemes. Accordingly, I have since signed up with a few. I have a frequent flyer account with each of the 3 major alliances in the sky and also one with Virgin Blue, who are points partners with some of the big airlines like Emirates, Malaysia and Virgin Atlantic. Mind you, I am still waiting for Virgin Blue to credit my points for my return flight to Australia with Malaysia Airlines.

I have also recently signed up with Hilton HHonors, who not only give you hotel points to earn free stays, but also frequent flyer points to your choice of program.

The problem with these schemes is that they are not very well organised, and sometimes you have to harass the companies to give you the points you are due.  Here's an example. I wrote this letter yesterday:


17 February 2009
  
The Manager
Hilton HHonors Customer Service
4 Cadogan Square
Cadogan Street
Glasgow
G2 7PH
  
Dear Sir / Madam

Hilton HHonors Concerns Regarding National Car Hire
Hilton HHonors number XXXXXXX
National Car reservation: XXXXXXX

I have stayed at Hilton properties a number of times and have always enjoyed my stay. I therefore recently decided to sign up with the Hilton HHonors program.

I had my first stay since signing up to the program last weekend. I stayed at the Hilton Portsmouth in the United Kingdom. As usual, it was a comfortable stay with good customer service. My points for the stay appeared on my Hilton HHonors account within a few days.

However, I have had a problem with my National Car hire bonus points.  I was using a National rental car during my visit.  I understood that I would receive Hilton HHonors bonus points as this is the information which in on the Hilton HHonors website:

National® Car Rental

Earn 250 HHonors bonus points with each car rental from National in conjunction with a stay at any Hilton Family hotel.

Present your National rental car agreement or keys upon check-in at the hotel to earn HHonors bonus points.

The National car rental website has a similar description:

Earn 250 Hilton HHonors® partners bonus points per rental on all qualifying paid rentals at participating National® locations.

Terms and Conditions
To receive your points, present your National Car Rental agreement or keys when you check-in at a participating Hilton®, Conrad®, Coral by Hilton, Doubletree®, Embassy Suites Hotels®, Hampton Inn®, Hampton Inn & Suites®, Hilton Garden Inn®, Hilton Grand Vacations Club®, Homewood Suites by Hilton® or Scandic hotel.

Points can be earned for rentals at participating National® locations around the world.
Tour, travel industry, and complimentary rentals and HHonors Car Rental Reward certificates do not qualify for earning HHonors points. Hilton HHonors Disclaimer Hilton HHonors membership, earning of Points & Miles®, and redemption of points are subject to HHonors Terms and Conditions.

Hilton HHonors Disclaimer
Hilton HHonors membership, earning of Points & Miles®, and redemption of points are subject to HHonors Terms and Conditions. ©2003 Hilton HHonors Worldwide.

Based on this information, I showed the hotel check in staff my car keys and rental agreement.  However, neither of the reception staff on duty were aware of this arrangement, therefore they did not credit me with the extra points.

Yesterday I tried filling in the missing points claim on the Hilton HHonors website, however, I received an error message stating that the service is temporarily unavailable and that I should call customer service. This was after I laboriously entered all of the information!

Today I telephoned the Hilton HHonors customer service telephone number to attempt to cliam my points. However, I was told that it was not possible to earn Hilton HHonors points on National car rentals. I said that I am looking at the Hilton HHonors website right now and that it says that I can. Your representative then checked her information and confirmed that I can in fact earn points. However, she said that her information states that I have to present my Hilton HHonors card at the car rental location.

I think this is unsatisfactory as it is directly opposed to the information both on the Hilton HHonors and National websites – I took these instructions as reliable.  It is also impossible as you have not sent me a membership card.

Your representative then put me through to National customer service in the United States however, they were closed.

I trust you will credit me with the appropriate points and clear up the inconsistent information being represented by your staff and website. I have wasted a lot of time both waiting on the phone and talking to your customer service representatives, and filling in online forms that got me nowhere, for a mere 250 points.

Thank you for your assistance.

Yours sincerely

DK



I am hoping for a few extra points for all my troubles. How good would it be (though unlikely) if they gave me a free stay? I will let you know how it goes!

15 February 2010

Weekend in Portsmouth

This weekend I took my girlfriend away for Valentines Day. I decided that instead of buying her something I would fork out for a nice hotel somewhere, as we are both very keen travellers.

I ended up booking the Hilton at Portsmouth. I booked cheap train tickets from London and a rental car at the Portsmouth end. We ended up having a nice relaxing weekend, driving around New Forest in the car, relaxing in the comfy large hotel room, eating dinner by the Portsmouth Harbour, shopping and walking along the pebbly beach.


Portsmouth is a larger city than I had expected, and it was lucky that we had a car, as the hotel was on the outskirts and a good 15 minute drive to Southsea waterfront. I enjoyed the luxury of staying in a hotel and driving a car to and from our accommodation, compared to the usual walking and public transport travel I have been doing for the last couple of years.

10 February 2010

How do you say Vodka in Hungarian?

I wrote a while back about my visit to Budapest in Hungary to go to the Sziget Festival.

Here's a little video I made about something which at the time I thought was quite amusing:


My Business Trip to Birmingham Today

6:50am - Alarm, snooze.

Several times after 6:50am - Alarm, snooze, alarm, snooze, repeat. And then later, acknowledging time to finally get up, alarm, off.

7:55am - Alarm... Shit!! I fell asleep again! I am meant to be on the 8:23am train out of Euston!

I quickly stumble out of bed, blurry eyed, still half asleep, but realising the urgentness of this situation. I go straight to my en-suite bathroom and pee as I brush my teeth at the same time. I don't have time to do both separately. Lucky I had a shower last night!

I find a clean shirt in my cupboard. I choose one that doesn't require cuff-links. That would take too long. I put it on and only button up a couple of buttons. I see a suit hung over the railing of my stairs, I put it on. It is a cheap suit from Burton. I would prefer to wear a nicer suit on a day with business meetings, but I don't have the time to think about it.

I grab my lapop bag, and pull out some stuff I don't need. Like the container that has some remains from yesterday's lunch and the bottle of vodka I bought last night. I forget to take out the cans of dry ginger ale. I run downstairs and out of the door, forgetting to put on a coat.

I am run to the tube station. I am not fit enough to run all the way there, so I really only run bits of it. On the way there, I look out for cabs. It is already after 8am and I don't think I can get to Euston on time. But I don't see any cabs. And even if I did, in morning traffic it could well take longer than the tube.

I get to Bermondsey station, and hurry down the escalators. A Westbound train is about to arrive. Should I catch it to London Bridge and change to the Northern Line to Euston? Or should I go to Green Park and change to the Victoria line? The sign says the tube takes 12 minutes to Green Park and it is already 8:07. That means I would get to Green Park at 8:19 and would have no hope of getting my train to Birmingham. I must catch the Northern line.

I do just that and catch the tube one stop to London Bridge. I change to the Northern Line. I can't run, as the interconnecting tunnels between the Jubilee and Northern lines are too crowded.  I get to the platforms and hear a train. I make a last effort to run to the train, and manage to get on just as the doors are closing. It's unlikely, but maybe I have a chance to make it to Euston on time. After all, I have to. I have an Advance ticket for the 8:23, and it's non refundable!

Surprisingly, I manage to get a seat on the tube. It's not that full. That's strange,  as normally the Northern line is packed in the mornings. I sit down and decide to relax for a few minutes. Worrying can't help me now anyway.  I get my breath back, which is good, because I am on the verge of having an asthma attack. And I don't really suffer asthma. 

We pull into the station and I don't really pay attention to the announcement. "This is Borough. This is a Northern line train to Morden." Morden. That last bit catches my attention. Morden. Isn't that the SOUTH end of the line? Yep, I am an idiot. I got on the Southbound train, AWAY from Euston. By the time I realise this, the train has left Borough, and I am stuck on it for another few minutes. When we finally arrive at Elephant and Castle, I know I have no hope of getting to Euston on time.

8:40am - I finally arrive at Euston. I have definitely missed my train.  I think about going to the ticket counter and asking what I can do to get the next train. But then I look at the departures board. The next fast train to Birmingham is at 8:43. If I waste any time, I have no chance of making to to my 10am meeting on time. I run to platform 2 and get on the train.

8:43am - The train leaves, with me on it. I don't have a ticket for it. My ticket is for the one already 20 minutes up the West Coast Main Line. My hair is sticking up all over the place from the way I was lying on it in bed. My shirt is still mostly unbuttoned. I go into one of the bathrooms to wet my hair and fix it,  button up my shirt and put on the tie I remembered to grab at home and shove in my bag. As I am doing this, I am secretly hoping the ticket inspector has already passed.

Eventually I have to leave the bathroom. After all there are people probably waiting. There were, two of them. I wonder if the seat I had reserved for the 8:23 is available? It's not. In fact, no seat is. The train is full. I can only stand. It is going to be obvious I don't have a reservation for this train.

I stand by one of the exit doors, staring outside at the surprisingly snowy scenery, pondering how I am going to make the Powerpoint presentation standing up. Then the ticket man comes. He checks my ticket. Punches it. No problem. He checks my mandatory resevation. He starts to give it back when he spots the inconsistency. "This is for the 8:23!" He exclaims. 

"Uh. Yeah. I noticed that too when my seat wasn't available." He mumbles some comment about me standing up, says that this should mean a whole new ticket and then lets me off.  Off the hook that is, I am happy that I didn't get kicked off the train zooming up the West Coast Main Line at 120 miles per hour. I am also happy my employer's £52 for the one way ticket didn't go to waste. I am even happier I didn't have to pay for another ticket or a fine out of my own pocket. 

We get to Milton Keynes and a bunch of people get off. I email my 10am meeting participants, tell them I will be 15 minutes late and find a seat that has been vacated by someone going to Milton Keynes. I finish my PowerPoint presentation, and head to the cafe as I have finally settled down and now have an apatite. I pay £4.70 for an bad orange juice and a microwaved ham and cheese panini. I don't get a receipt because the machine is broken. No free breakfast for me.



10:08am - I make it to Birmingham New Street station and walk to my client's office. I almost freeze to death.  I regret forgetting my coat in London, especially considering it always seems to be a hell of a lot colder up North.

I make it to my meeting and one of the lawyers I am seeing with offers me a nice hot cup of tea. All is good. I have a good meeting.

11:50am - I leave my meeting having accomplished what I came to do. I walk to the next meeting, getting a little lost on the way.   As I walk down Colmore Row, it starts snowing. I start to feel even colder than I did before. Why am I only wearing this cheap suit? 

12:00pm - I have made it to the next law firm. I meet my colleague who has come up from London and we go to the meeting room to set up. The lovely Brummy receptionist offers us drinks and biscuits. I have a coffee this time. We present to a room of lawyers, and even though we talk for two hours, they seem interested. That's a good meeting!

About 2:00pm - My colleague and I leave the meeting and we are hungry. We walk to Broad Street, an area which according to the nice Brummy receptionist lady, has a lot of bars. We figure a pub lunch is deserved. We walk past the big Ferris Wheel and one of the first few bars we see is Walkabout, the chain of Aussie themed pubs. I suggest we go in there and my colleague accepts. I eat a chicken parma [typical Aussie pub meal] and have a Toohey's Extra Dry [Aussie beer].

3:45pm - We have eaten our lunch and have made it back to Birmingham New Street Station. We get on the 3:50pm train back to London and drink all the way back to the Capital. On the way home I notice quite a bit of snow on the ground and watch a beautiful sunset. It was a funny day, because it was mostly clear, but the clouds that did come along dumped some snow. Which doesn't happen all that often in England.

5:50pm - I exit Bermondsey Underground Station, back in my hood, surprised to see snow on the ground here in London too. I walk home, freezing, looking forward to getting into my house and writing a blog entry about my day.

08 February 2010

A London Weekend

Further to my post where I said I don't post much about London life, let me describe a London weekend for you. This is what I did this weekend.... a cold and wintery weekend.

  • Slept in on Saturday
  • Walked from my house to Borough Market with my girlfriend for breakfast/lunch
  • On the way back from Borough Market, stopped off in Shad Thames in a tea room for afternoon cream tea.
  • On Saturday night I went to London's only decent indoor shopping centre, Westfield London (trust Aussies to provide the one proper shopping centre)
  • Later on Saturday night had some drinks at my girlfriend's house in Surrey Quays.
  • On Sunday I hired a car from Street Car, which is a service which lets you use cars on a pay-as-you-go hourly rate basis, picking up from many spots around London. In London you don't really need a car full time so this is a great way to drive when you want to.
  • Some friends and I took the street car to Ikea in the outer South London suburb of Croydon to do some shopping.
All in all a relaxing weekend in town.  Next weekend I am going away for the weekend, and the week after, I am flying to Austria.

Blogs Posts for 2009 which I Still Need to Write

I am not very good at keeping this blog up to date. There are still a number of trips I took last year which I haven't written about:
  • Turkey (now written)
  • Barcelona
  • Prague
  • Isle of Wight
  • Malta
There were a few more that I did manage to catch up on over the last few months but as you can see a lot still remain. Maybe by posting this post, I will be inspired to catch up and just write a few short sentences about each one.

Edit 18 February 2010: I am now striking these through as I write them

A London Evening Bus Ride

I have been posting about my travels a bit but what about everyday life in London? I used to write about that a lot when I first got here but what's going on now?

Well, here's an example of what's going on. I took this video sitting at the front upstairs on a bus on my way home after work one night a few weeks ago. It was during the cold snap when there was a bit of snow around.

To get home from work, sometimes I walk, but mostly just walk across the River Thames over Tower Bridge, and then catch a bus from Tower Bridge Road, through the North part of Bermondsey, to my house in Rotherhithe. Here is the bus ride in its full, unedited glory.

Australian summer means beach

One of my favourite pass times during summer in Australia is sitting on a beach with my mates whilst drinking beer, going for a swim and watching the girls. When I went back to Australia for a few weeks over Christmas I got to do this quite a bit. It was great. It was paradise.

Here's a short video of some footage I captured at Portsea Surf Beach, about an hour down the coast from Melbourne:

02 February 2010

The Changing World of Travel

A friend and I are going to Austria in a few weeks time, and we will be starting our trip off in Vienna. She mentioned a movie called Before Sunrise to me. I had never heard of it but apparently it was a film set in Vienna. So last night I went to her house and watched it, so that I would have a frame of reference for any such references she may make to the film whilst we're there.

I liked it, and even though it was a complete chick flick, with excessive dialogue (and a distinct lack of car chases and firearms), it reminded me of the romance of travel generally, which is something close to my heart.  But I digress. The point I am trying to get to is that we noticed the characters - with their early-to-mid-1990's style - carrying around bags, and I thought these days they would surely be wheeling around suitcases.

Suitcases... like this maybe?


When I think back to when I was a kid, in the early 90's and certainly the 80's, no-one really had suitcases like that.

People carried bags and suitcases like this:

...which had wheels if you were lucky, and even if they did, the frames were probably still quite unballanced and hard to wheel around. 

The funny thing is that the suitcases we have now haven't been around for long at all. Which made me think, so much has changed with the way we travel.

Here are some things I regularly do when planning and carrying out a holiday, that my parents could not have done in the early 90's:

  • I look around for cheap flights online, using sites such as Kayak to compare prices. If I am not sure what airlines fly to an airport, I use Wikipedia to look up the airport. It will tell me which airlines fly there and where from. When I am happy with a flight, I book it. Directly. Without a travel agent.
  • I book a hostel days before leaving, and I know it will be a clean, friendly and fun place, because I have read the reviews from fellow backpackers.
  • I fly for relatively cheap, because of deregulation of the airline market. Competition has made for affordable fares, as have budget airlines.
  • To figure out how I am going to get from the airport at an affordable price by looking up all of the transport options on Wikitravel. Whilst there, I also have a look at what the suggested things are to do in that city. It is like having a Lonely Planet guidebook for every city. Except more up to date.
  • Once I get there, I email mum on my Blackberry to tell her I have arrived safely.
  • I don't want to waste money on bad exchange rates at foreign exchange offices, so I just put my debit card into any ATM and withdraw through the Maestro or Visa networks. If I am travelling in Europe, I only need Euros for most of the Western part of the continent. 
  • As I travel from country to country, I needn't worry about showing my passport. Most of these European countries are Schengen countries. And anyway, an EU passport gets me anywhere.
  • I get snap happy and take about 500 photos in just a few days, and don't use a single roll of film. I choose the best photos out of that set. There are some really good ones. There would have to be seeing as I've taken so bloody many! After making some slight adjustments,  I upload them to Facebook for my friends and family to see and comment on instantly, rather than boring them with albums when I get home.

Those were just a few things off the top of my head. Please feel free to comment below and share your thoughts - what can you do in your travels today that you couldn't in 1990? Even more interestingly, what can you do today that you couldn't in 2000?

01 February 2010

Interesting Times Ahead

I have been booking flights like crazy over the last few days!

This is a copy of an email I wrote to my friends this afternoon:


From: DK
Sent: 01 February 2010 13:43
To: (friends)
Subject: Exciting times



Interesting times ahead!

BA bookings in the next few months:


 easyJet bookings in the next few months:

(end of email)

What this means, I think, is that my work to accomplish my Travel Goals for 2010 is well in progress.