2012: A year of travel in review

I have not been posting to my travel blog much this year so seeing as it is now December, I thought I'd write a summary for 2012.

• My year started well with waking up on New Years Day in Paris. I had got there just for new years eve (with only about 2 hours to spare) after getting spending the night on a bus stuck on a closed, icy mountain road in the French Alps and having to be rescued by the rescue services (see separate blog post). I would visit Paris two more times in 2012, both in November, with a business trip and a trip to Disneyland Paris in the same week. 

• My business travel year also started well. I travelled to Pennsylvania for business meetings, and combined the trip with a weekend in Atlantic City. I managed to lose both my passports on this trip and only realised on my way to the airport to fly back to London. Luckily I managed to get them back!

• The Spring was packed full of travel! A boys' trip to Las Vegas for a mate's 30th, a long weekend in Tenerife, a business trip and weekend in Ireland, a surprisingly rainy weekend in Gibraltar, and Easter in Australia, where I went just for a week. I surprised my parents as I didn't tell them I was coming home. On my way back from Melbourne I stopped over in Doha to look around. 

• During the summer, my parents were over from Australia. With them, I travelled to Prague and Venice, and also did various sightseeing around the south of England. 

• However, my main trip this summer was to the Benicassim Festival, on the coast of Spain between Barcelona and Valencia  We stayed at a spa resort instead of roughing it camping, spending the nights at the festival and the afternoons recovering on the beach.

• Autumn was spent chasing the last of the summer sun. I saw my parents off to Dubai on their way back to Australia, and had a weekend in Ibiza with my girlfriend.

• Other business trip destinations this year included Brussels, Madrid, Munich, Oslo, Prague, Vienna and Zurich.

• My travel year will finish off with flying to Miami on Christmas Day to get some winter Florida sun!

Overall less flights this year than 2011 but about the same distance flown:

A crazy fortnight of travel: Belfast, Ibiza and Oslo

I have had a busy couple of weeks.

NORTHERN IRELAND

Last week I started the work week in Belfast. I went on the Sunday morning (after a big day at Royal Ascot and an even bigger night out in Putney) to do some sightseeing and stayed for the Monday and Tuesday for work meetings.  It was an interesting time to be there, with the worst violence in 10 years erupting during my stay. See my post on Belfast here.

I came home on Tuesday night and had a few nights at home. On Thursday night I packed my things again, and on Friday headed off to work. After work I joined some friends at the London Zoo for a late night opening, and headed down to Gatwick Airport for another trip away.  I was going to Ibiza, for a very short time, and it went a little something like this:

SPAIN

Friday

21:30 - Arrive at Gatwick and check in. Find out there's nothing to do at Gatwick at this time of the night, and nowhere to buy food, as everything is already closed!

22:30 - Flight takes off from London Gatwick

Saturday

01:30 - Flight lands on the Spanish island of Ibiza. I am all ready to catch a taxi to the other side of the island and withdraw plenty of Euros to cover it. Then I realise there is a bus that can get me there for about €4.

02:30 - I figure out what bus stop to get off at and find my way to the hotel, which is in the middle of nowhere, both thanks to Google Maps the GPS on my Blackberry.

03:00 - I am way too tired (and alone) to see the Ibiza night-life, and anyway I'm in the middle of nowhere, so I go to sleep.

11:00 - I wake up in Ibiza, refreshed. I wander around the San Antonio and realise I'm not far from some nice beaches, bars, restaurants and nightclubs. I walk all the way to the San Antonio city centre and eat breakfast on a rocky beach in a small hidden-away cove.    I enjoy wandering around San Antonio. The place has clear blue water, and is buzzing with life.  I'm a little put off by the vast majority of Brits, some very trashy, and the full English breakfasts advertised at every restaurant and bar.

21:00 - I'm waiting for my friends to arrive from London. I have dinner at a beach-side bar enjoying the sunset. I have some beers from some bars on the way back to the hotel.

Sunday

00:30 - My friends finally arrive at the hotel, having just flown in from London. We don't waste any time. We head out to various bars and club. Our first drink is, sensibly, a vodka and Red Bull. Each one is made in a pint glass, with about a triple shot of vodka and a full can of Red Bull. It costs €5.

06:00 - We've been to a few places and even played 2 rounds of drunk bumper cars. , We haven't made it to any of the megaclubs. We stumble out of a Scottish pub. It is broad daylight, we are drunk, and one of my friends can't stand. I decide to try to flag down a taxi.

06:20 - I haven't succeeded in getting a taxi. I realise there is a taxi rank, so we go and (attempt to) stand in the long queue.

06:21 - We are rescued by a "taxi driver" who offers to take us home for €25. He's not a real taxi driver. I look at my friend who is barely standing. I negotiate the price down to €20 and he takes us to the hotel.

11:30 - I wake up, shower, pack and check out of the hotel.

12:00 - I knock on my friends door and sleep on their couch for another 3 hours.

15:00 - One of my friends and I head down to a beach-side bar, eat lunch, and go to the beach.

18:00 - We return to the hotel to get our other friend, go swimming in the pool and get ready for dinner.

21:00 - We eat dinner at the same beachside bar I went to yesterday, enjoying the sunset.

22:00 - We have a few final drinks at some of the pubs and bars, as I'm about to head back to the airport, after about 48 hours in Ibiza. My friends are staying on for a few more days.

Monday

12:30 - I'm back at the hotel, and luckily the reception guy manages to get me a taxi despite it being a busy night with everyone heading out.

01:15 - I'm at the airport with plenty of time to get my 2:30 flight.  I'm too afraid to have a nap in case I miss my flight!

02:30 - My flight departs Ibiza and I am asleep before take-off

03:30 - My flight lands at Gatwick.  The next train back to the city is at 4:30. But that will get me to work too early to get into the office. So I decide to catch the 5am service. I try to find somewhere to have a nap in the arrivals terminal. All the seats are taken. People are sleeping on the floor but I don't feel like it. I eventually find some seats in the train station, but all the one without armrests are taken. I uncomfortably doze on 3 seats, sleeping around and atop of the armrests.

05:00 - I catch my train back to London. It is already really sunny and warm so I find it hard to sleep.

05:45 - I arrive in the city. I can't get into my work building. I go to McDonald's for breakfast.

06:15 - I manage to get into work, have a shower, and go to have a nap at my desk.

08:00 - One of my colleagues catches me sleeping at my desk. I decide to wake up and proceed with my work day.

By the time I finished finished on Monday night, at about 7pm due to a long meeting, I was feeling absolutely ruined. It was a hot day in London and all I wanted to do was get home. I walked to Cannon Street station but the trains weren't running. I want to the steaming hot Bank underground station, and caught a DLR home. By the time I got home, I just wanted to sleep. But I had to unpack from Ibiza and pack for Oslo. I was heading to Norway the next day for work!

NORWAY

I had Tuesday morning in the office, and at lunch time headed to Paddington station for the Heathrow Express. Storms were brewing in London at this time, and by the time I got to Paddington, there were no trains running, because lightning hit some power lines or signal boxes.  I caught a few tubes and ended up at Heathrow, luckily in good time.  I waited and waited for my flight to board, which ended up being delayed. I eventually made it to Oslo.  Landing at Oslo airport was amazing, watching the fjords on the approach in the "late afternoon" (9:30pm) sunshine!   The Flytoget express train from the airport to the city wasn't running, so I had to combine a train and replacement bus, and then walk, to get to my destination. What a journey it had been that day!

I got to my hotel at 11pm and it was still quite bright.  I had some dinner and went to bed.  I was nursing a cold I think I managed to get partly thanks to my lack of sleep on Sunday night.

On Wednesday I spent the day with a client and then walked around Oslo. It was a warm, sunny day, perfect for a sightseeing stroll around the city. Oslo is a picturesque capital. It is spacious and in true Scandinavian style, with neat buildings, plenty of parkland and views across the Oslo fjord.

The next morning I got up at 4:50am, in time to get the 5:45 replacement bus to the train station to get me to the airport. By 9:30 I was back at London Heathrow and at 10:30 back in my office.

CONCLUSION

It has been a tiring couple of weeks but overall I love my life. Most of the last 5 years have been spent living in London, travelling Europe and the rest of the world, whether it be for business or pleasure.  It is a great opportunity and I am thankful that my life has allowed me to do that.

Return to Belfast

I am in Belfast on a business trip. I have been to Northern Ireland before, back in 2006 when I did a week-long Paddywagon tour all over Ireland.  I found the whole thing very interesting, seeing ongoing evidence of The Troubles.

Things haven't changed much. Just last night, in East Belfast, there was rioting caused by the Ultser Volunteer Force (paramilitary protestant loyalists) attacking Cathlic homes in the area. Two people were shot.  At lunch time I went for a walk around South Belfast.  Only a few minutes from the office I was passing murals on the walls of residential buildings, paying homage to UVF "battalions" and loyalist heroes of the past, while British union flags line the streets.  Had I been a few suburbs over, I am sure I would have seen the republican equivalent, with references to the IRA.

They say the peace process has calmed things, and I believe it has, though there is still tension in the city. I read this morning that there are more walls going up between Catholic and protestant neighbourhoods than there are coming down.

The city centre, on the other hand, is newly developed, clean and peaceful.  I stayed at the Hilton which is right next to a modern waterfront concert hall. I went shopping in an impressive, contemporary shopping centre under a huge glass bowl at Victoria square.

I wonder about life in Belfast. I understand pay to be quite low here, but the cost of living seems comparable to London. I am sure property prices are much lower, though day-to-day costs are the same as the rest of the UK. Life must be reasonably tough for people trying to make a living here. But hey, could be worse. They could be paying six Euros for a pint like their neighbours in Dublin are!

London Life and Irish Insights

Hi everyone.

Life in London has been good. It is an interesting place, with always heaps going on. Most of my London time has been spent working and organizing places to live. I have been learning to make do with what I have. For example I discovered that hair wax makes a good shoe polish.

Mel arrived in London which gave me a good excuse to take some time off work and head over to Ireland with her for a one-week-trip.

We flew from London Heathrow to Dublin on a Sunday afternoon after a 4am visit to a London hospital emergency room earlier that day to get Mel some medicine as she was not feeling very well. That was quite an adventure.

Dublin is a largely tourist oriented city, but our first night there was largely uneventful. In our backpackers hostel Mel rested and I did laundry. But the fun started bright and early the next day when we met our Irish tour leader and jumped on the Paddywagon and headed off to Northern Ireland.

In Northern Ireland we visited the cities of Belfast and Derry. Northern Ireland is of course the part of Ireland still controlled by the UK, where until recently there has been much violence between the Irish nationalists and the British loyalists (also referred to as the Catholics and Protestants respectively). I never realised quite how segregated the communities were in these places, with actual walls and gates separating the cities in half. The police cars look like armoured personnel carriers and the police stations look like maximum security prisons, except instead of keeping prisoners in, they are designed to keep the IRA out. I learned a lot about human nature in those couple of days and some of it was quite sad. Despite all this, the locals were very friendly and we had fun visiting the local pubs.

We left the troubles of Northern Ireland behind as we headed South back into the Republic, where we saw amazing beaches that even we as Australians would be proud of: sandy beaches that unlike Aussie beaches were abounded by rolling vibrant grassy hills of fields separated by rock walls.

We bathed in seaweed baths, explored various castles and ruins, strolled down the streets of numerous pleasant towns and looked at magnificent gardens, including from a horse-pulled carriage. And of course visited many a pub to sample some Irish whiskey and Irish beers; and not just Guinness. At the risk of sounding a bit girly, I did prefer the Baby Guiness (a shot of Tia Maria topped with Baileys) to a real Guiness.

When Mel and I returned to Dublin on a busy Saturday night at the conclusion of our tour, we struggled to find accommodation for less than €100 for the night. In the end we booked nice a suburban hotel for a discounted price on good old wotif.com (I have put that website to very good use over the past few weeks).

We headed to Dublin Airport the next day, said goodbye to each other and headed our own ways. I back to London, and Mel off to Paris.

I moved in with a colleague's boyfriend for a week in the inner Eastern suburbs of London but on the Saturday just gone I finally moved into my own flat, sharing with Rachel and Stevo. No more sleeping in a different bed every few nights - very exciting! I finally got to unpack my huge suitcase and don't plan on using it again until later this year.

London is looking great. Everything is very green and there are flowers everywhere. The weather has improved and I have worn T-shirts without jumpers a couple of times now.

To everyone back in Australia, I hope you are surviving autumn. I hear it's been cold.

I'll write again next time I have some developments. At the moment I am contemplating a long-weekend trip to Amsterdam at the end of the month and a trip to Munich for a World Cup soccer game (Australia vs. Brazil) in mid June. So hopefully both of these trips will eventuate, as well as a visit to a European rock festival. Wish me good luck and sufficient funds in organising these little side-trips.