Getting up at 4am sucks

Anyone who knows me well will tell you I'm not a morning person. It is hard enough to get in to the office by 9am most mornings.

So when I tell you that I got up this week not once but twice at 4am you will understand that that is quite a struggle for me.

Last week I needed to go to a meeting in Stockholm for work but didn't have time to stay there the night before and needed to be back that night for a work function (at the top of Tower Bridge - can't be missed!)

So I got up at 4am to get the 6:30am flight from Gatwick to Stockholm, just in time for my 11am meeting. Then time for a quick beer (150 SEK for 2 beers! That's about GBP 15!) before hitting the 4:50pm flight back to London City airport in good time to get back to the party on top of London's most famous land mark (well maybe second after the Elizabeth Tower  of the Palace of Westminster best known as the Big Ben).

The second time was leaving Glastonbury yesterday morning, in order to avoid the crowds leaving the festival. It is strange getting up at 4am at a music festival, a time where a good proportion of people have not gone to bed yet.

The up-side, of living in the UK, however, is that 4am is about the time it gets light at this time of the year, and by 5am the sun is truly up.

2010 - a year of travel in review

It has been a bit of a slack year, blogwise!  I have to be honest, I have not done a good job at all of keeping this blog up-to-date this year. So as the year draws to an end, I thought I could get away with it all by summarising my year of travel in one single post! So here we go...

Let's start with a scary stat. 

I took 36 flights totalling to about 44,900 miles (about 72,250 km) in 2010. Some of this was for personal holiday travel, and some was for business (not business class though - I wish!)

IT ALL BEGAN IN...

Australia. I visited Australia for Christmas and New Years last year, to get away from the London cold and catch up with those at home. It was great! A trip down to Sorrento with one group of mates and another trip to Warrnambool with another group, ensured that I spent as much time as possible on the beach.

A CHILLY RETURN

Brr! The very next morning after landing, I found myself walking to work in the snow!

But really, you can't let winter stop you! So some friends and I ventured right into the cold. Up north. To Yorkshire. The highlight was staying in the seaside town of Whitby, and you can read all about the trip here.

THE WINTER WAY

Making the most of England despite the winter, my girlfriend and I went down South too, and visited New Forest and Portsmouth. But let's not get carried away with English travel. Europe is at our doorstep! A friend and I headed of to Austria for a few days. We had a good time wandering around Vienna, eating ketchup flavoured chocolate and generally being silly, as well as meeting up with some Austrian friends, and visiting them in the mountains where I lived when I was young. My friend headed back to London, and I stayed on to go skiing at Bad Gastein, near Salzburg.  Austria's a great place to spend a winter week!

Reichenau, Austria

SPRING INTO LIFE


It was a spring full of travel.

• A day road-trip to Belgium on a freezing day with some friends, visiting Antwerp and Gent.
• A visit to Zurich in Switzerland for work
• A trip to Portugal at Easter
• A business trip to America, which took me to Minnesota, Chicago and unexpectedly, New York
• A long weekend in the Peak District
• A break from the winter in tropical Barbados, which was definitely a highlight of the year
• A trip to Brussels just to have lunch with some clients

SUMMER IN EUROPE

This summer I spent a lot of time in England.  I attempted a beach trip to Blackpool, stopping off at Liverpool on the way, but being Northern England, it was cold!  I had a few other trips around the UK for work, including Durham, Newcastle and Birmingham.

The highlight of my summer, however, was my trip to Greece.  I went with a bunch of great friends to explore Athens and sail the Cyclades islands!

SPAIN

I finished summer off with a trip to Spain for the August bank holiday weekend, taking in Alicante, Valencia and Zaragoza.

Alicante

The idea came up by looking at what cheap RyanAir flights were available to warm places. I found one into Alicante, which is half way down the Spanish East coast, and one out of Zaragoza, in the North of Spain. This would be a great excuse to traverse the country by train!

But it didn't all go according to plan. When I landed in Alicante and came through passport control, the first thing I did was get changed into shorts. Which is when I realised I didn't have my wallet!  Surely I couldn't have lost my wallet again? (I had lost my wallet half way through the Greek sailing trip just months earlier!)

I asked at the RyanAir desk and they asked someone to check the plane.  No sign of it. Maybe I dropped it in the airport?  I went to the airport Police station, which was in charge of lost property. They asked me to hang around for a few hours in case it showed up. So the first few hours of my holiday were sitting on the airport floor. And then on the phone to the banks, cancelling all my cards! 

But what would I do for money? When I lost my wallet in Greece, I simply borrowed some money from my friends. But I was in Spain alone! HSBC agreed to send me some emergency money through a Western Union Money Transfer. All I had to do is find a Western Union office and show them my reference number passport (which luckily I still had).

I had €3 in my pocket, and luckily the bus from the airport to the city was €2.40. Although I seriously considered walking, had it not been 35 degrees.  I made it to the city and found the Western Union office. The problem was it was now the early afternoon.... and therefore siesta! I had a few hours to kill before the shop re-opened so I went to the beach. Unfortunately I couldn't find any water taps, and €0.60 wasn't enough to buy a drinks, so after a few hours on the beach in the blistering sun, I was parched.  When I finally picked up the emergency cash, the drinks and ice cream I bought were the most delicious I'd ever tasted!

I explored Alicante a bit, which diddn't take long. It is a small city, surrounded by cliffs and a very touristy beach. It wasn't full of English tourists though, which was nice. That night I caught a train up to Valencia, which is Spain's third largest city. Amazing architecture kept me entertained, and the next day I went to a beach too.  The Valencia beach had a lot more locals than Alicante. On the second night I made my way to Zaragoza, which is a quiet city in North of Spain, inland. After some sightseeing there, I headed back to London, with a few Euros to spare.

Valencia by night

OKTOBERFEST

I decided to celebrate the end of my 20's and beginning of my 30's by going to Oktoberfest in Munich with a few friends.  Just like two years ago, we did a package with Alpenrider, staying in a chalet in beautiful Kirchberg in Tirol, Austria.  For two days in a row, they took us into the centre of Munich for the festivities, and then drove us safely back over the border to Austria to recover. I had a great time and it was a perfect start to the next decade of my life!

Drinking Bavarian style, in Lederhosen

SWEDEN

Soon after coming back to London, I had a business trip for a few days in Sweden.  My colleague and I flew into Copenhagen in Denmark, and the next day caught the train across the Oresund bridge-tunnel to Malmo in Sweden. A small city with a beautiful town centre. We had some business meetings and ate some hamburgers, and caught the train up to Stockholm. For more business meetings. And more hamburgers. And hot dogs.

A Swedish hot dog with mashed potato, in a wrap of course

 Luckily on the Friday night some other colleagues of ours came over from London to join us for the weekend, and saved us from the junk food eating. Unfortunately this was replaced by copious amounts of drinking, which in Stockholm, isn't cheap.  It was a great weekend though, exploring various areas of Stockholm night-life.

KRAKOW AND THE HAGUE

Two of my friends from Australia are in Europe and they spent some of their time visiting family in Poland. What a perfect excuse to make my first visit to that country!  We decided to meet up for a weekend in Krakow.

So I consulted good old Ryanair and booked a cheap flight to Krakow on a Saturday morning. The problem was that the flight was at about 6am, out of Stansted airport - London's equivalent of Melbourne's Avalon. I had to get there by about 4:30, which meant that I had to catch the easyBus from Baker Street at 3:30, which in turn meant that I had to catch the night bus from my house to Baker Street at 2am.  So I had to get up at 1am - probably the earliest I have ever gotten up.  I did think of just pulling an all-nighter, but knew I would only have 1 night with my friends, so I wanted to have the energy and awakedness for that.

And that I did. I managed to do a lot of sightseeing with my first day in Krakow, and then had quite the night out that night, with my friends and some people from the hostel. I thought a 3am finish was a good effort for a 1am start the morning before!

Day 2 in Krakow was cut short by the fact that I needed to be at a conference that Sunday night, in the Hague, the Netherlands. So, after only about 30 hours in Krakow, I left my friends on a walking tour in the early afternoon, and started my marathon journey to the Hague: taxi to Krakow Airport, flight to Prague, another flight to Amsterdam, train to Rotterdam, another train to the Hague, taxi to the hotel! Phew! 

After a few days of fun at the conference I was happy to come back home to London!

WINTER

And that was pretty much it for the Autumn, because soon after that, winter hit!

I had a few more domestic trips around the UK for work, going to Edinburgh, Newcastle, Aberdeen, Bristol and Birmingham, but no more holidays, unfortunately. It was time to save my leave for the the trips coming up in the new year.

I welcomed the new year by the first of those, a ski trip over Christmas and New Years Eve to Chamonix in France - which was great fun.

Happy new year! What have you got planned for travel in 2011? I am off to Australia, Brazil, and Argentina.Can't wait!

Scandinavia

FLIGHT TO HELSINKI

I had wanted to go to Scandinavia for a while. It was definitely on the “to do” list. But it was a fair bit down that list, until my friend Livia from Nova Scotia ended up on exchange in Finland. Knowing someone in Scandi presented an opportunity, and it shot way up the to-do list. I booked my flights at late notice and jetted off to Helsinki the day after I finished my job at Law Firm.

I booked a flight with Finnair (to make it a more Scandinavian experience) out of Heathrow Airport.

Now, London Heathrow is Europe’s busiest airport, probably one of the world’s most busiest. Yet it only has 2 runways. They are planning to extend, and I hope they do, despite the protests by the environmentalists. There’s only so much waiting on the tarmac to take off, behind dozens of planes (Finnair have screens in the plane which show you what’s going on ahead of the plane thanks to a camera on the nose) you can do before you get a bit fed up.

Once in the air, the trip was smooth, although I did have my first taste of Scandinavia’s rather conservative attitude towards alcohol. I was surprised, upon ordering a vodka and OJ on this certainly international flight, that I was asked for 5 Euros. It was 11:30 in the morning, I said the OJ will be fine, and enjoyed the strangely un-Finnish hot curry for lunch.

It was a cloudy morning and I didn’t see much out of the plane. About half way through, when I noticed a gap in the clouds, I looked through and was thrilled to see a massive long Bridge, clearly visible form high up. It was the Oresund bridge-tunnel, connecting Denmark with Sweden. As soon as we passed, the clouds reassembled, and we didn’t break through the clouds again until seconds before hitting the tarmac in Helsinki. The moment we broke through the clouds, I was amazed as to just how much white there was everywhere. The land was completely covered with lots of snow, only the runways at the airport were just barely cleared. We landed smoothly and taxied towards the terminal, as snow plows whizzed around us on the tarmac.

We disembarked using the stairs, and the moment I stepped outside, I knew I was somewhere much more arctic than I was used to. As the snow hit my face and the cold breeze chilled my skin, I ran in to the bus to the terminal.

HELSINKI

I caught the Finnair airport bus to the city and the moment I stepped off the bus, I had a bloke talking to me.

“Excuse me mate,” he said, “are you Australian?”

Turns out he was an Aussie too, and had been working at a farm in somewhere in Finland, doing something with horses. He seemed excited to see the Aussie flag, pointed me in the right direction, and recommended the local Aussie Bar. I went on to the station to meet Livia (who had visited London just a few weeks earlier) and we hiked through the snow to our hostel at the Olympic Stadium.
The next couple of days were spent wondering Helsinki, checking out the buildings and taking in the rather different atmosphere of everything being snow-covered. We caught a boat through the frozen harbour to the islands of Suomenlinna, where we wandered in the peaceful, quiet villages, enjoying the sights of the frozen sea all around.

We visited the Swiss embassy to take care of Livia’s passport business, and enjoyed frozen supermarket meals, the words on the packing of which we could not understand. We went out to a number of bars, from Aussie to Irish to metal bars. Not sure what a traditional Finnish bar is like... didn’t really see any. The bar crawl was largely inspired by an Aussie girl we met in our hostel who was trying to find a bar job. I thought she was really brave, having decided to move to Finland and make a living, without speaking a word of Finnish. Naturally I was happy to help out by coming along to a few pubs.

TAMPERE

Livia and I headed North of Helsinki on a train, and the density of civilization soon thinned out. On the train we saw snow, frozen lakes, trees and more snow.

Upon arrival in Tampere, a small city a few hours North of Helsinki, we were greeted by Livia’s English and Dutch friends who had come to hang out with us in the town for the day. We explored the city, but soon the freezing cold was too much for us and we headed to the train station.

I was impressed by the consistency of the snow; I had never seen snow like it. All the snow I had experienced in the past melted or at least became muddy slush when it was trampled over or driven over lots. Here, it was so cold that the snow stayed powdery, even on the roads. It just turned a strange shade of light sandy brown.

JYVASKYLA

We caught a train further up north, to Livia and her friends’ temporary home of Jyvaskyla.

It was a pretty small city and all of the international students seemed to live in one of 2 student villages composing of a series of high rise buildings. The apartments were tiny but more than adequate. Livia and her network of exchange students made me feel right at home, and invited me to all their social gatherings, including a reggae party at the uni the first night. The next few nights were spent partying with the international mix twenty year olds and spending the days hiking through the snow to the uni or to the town’s sights.

Ice skating seemed to be a big part of life here. Probably, because there is not much else to do when everything is covered with snow and ice. The huge lake in the middle of the town is one giant ice skating rink, I think 3 kilometers in distance around. But smaller icerinks are everywhere, including right in the student village. I borrowed some skates from a Dutchman and gave it a go as well... third attempt this winter but still no good!

TURKU

After 3 nights enjoying the student lifestyle, it was time to move on. I boarded a train to Turku and four hours (and a lot of snowy scenery) later I was on the Southwest coast of Finland.
Upon disembarking from my train, I had a few hours to kill before I had to be in the port. I could catch a bus from the station to port, but that would leave me just sitting there. So instead, I strapped the backpack in, and went on a long walk through the city centre, along the frozen, snow covered, river and eventually to the port. It was a nice evening for a walk, after all, it was about +0.8C.

VIKING BOAT RIDE

The ship was a large ferry and the crossing was overnight. The actual ride was very smooth and it was barely noticeable that we were at sea. So no sea sickness! I had my own cabin and after dinner and some duty-free shopping, I soon retired to my cabin to rest, exhausted.

I had expectations of it being a bit of a party boat, but it was mainly just families and middle-aged couples, who weren’t doing much partying at all. I imagine a Saturday night in the summer might be quite different. It was probably a good thing I got an early night, because at 6am the crew woke me up by banging on the door, as it was almost docking time!

STOCKHOLM

I disembarked just as the sun was coming up. We were at a port somewhere in the city, and there were buses waiting to take passengers into the city centre. I didn’t have any Swedish Kronor and couldn’t be bothered negotiating a solution so I just decided to walk. My backpack was starting to get heavy (thanks to a recent addition of a one litre bottle of Finlandia vodka from the boat) but what the hell. So I walked and walked and, after getting lost and getting directions, I eventually found my way to City Backpackers.

It was one of the best hostels I have ever stayed in. The main reception shares its space with the cafe, which serves strong coffee and delicious sandwiches. Beyond the cafe reception area is a courtyard which I imagine would be great in summer. The rooms were nothing special but the common areas were plentiful and very social. And the location was perfect, right in the city, near shopping, eating and public transport.

I spent my few days wandering the city and the old town, going from island to island (Stockholm is apparently a third parkland, a third water and a third developed) and riding the tunnelbana.

VIKING SAUNA

I didn’t think I would be capable of getting into the water of a frozen lake through a hole in the ice. It was an interesting challenge, and if the Finns can do it, so can I, I decided. I was a bit scared but descended the ladder into the water, and it was surprisingly bearable. For a few seconds anyway. I wasn’t as brave as the German blokes who went in butt naked - they weren’t even worried about shrinkage!

This was in the middle of a forest near t he outskirts of Stockholm. One of the hostel staff took us to this forest on some local buses, guided us through a 20 minute walk through the woods, to find a beautiful frozen lake with an old wood-fired sauna hut on the banks.

We spent hours hanging out in the sauna, jumping into the lake, and chilling out in the sunshine on the banks, enjoying the beautiful scenery of the sparkling icy lake in the woods. After enduring the freezing water, it felt like nothing could make me cold. I even walked happily bare foot on the snow on the lake It does help knowing you have a hot sauna to warm up in!

JUMBOHOSTEL

I left City Backpackers and caught a commuter train and bus out to the airport (I was to cheap to pay for the airport coach or train), where I checked in for a night in the very unique JumboHostel. I was a bit annoyed about leaving my newly found friends and heading out to the airport where there was nothing to do but I had promised myself that if I was ever in Stockholm I would stay in this Boeing 747 which has been converted into a hostel.

It was actually probably the most luxurious hostel I had ever stayed in. I booked a 3 person dorm but got a 2 person room to myself. The sheets were made, there was a towel waiting for me and there was a flat screen TV on the wall. You don’t get that in hostel dorms every day!

Overall though the place (despite being sparkling clean and new) was dead! It didn’t really have any charm once you got over the novelty of being in a plane, and there wasn’t really anyone around or anything to do. Would be perfect for a first night after flying in late, though.

INTERNATIONAL TRAIN

I checked out of the Jumbo and headed back into the city. I boarded an X2000 train and spent the next 5 hours watching the scenery go from white to green as I headed to Denmark.

The final part of the journey was going over the Oresund Bridge, which I had seen from the plane days earlier. You couldn’t see much but it was certainly an interesting way to cross an international border; crossing a strait half way by massive bridge and half way by tunnel, with a man-made island in the middle.

COPENHAGEN

I thought it would be warmer in Copenhagen as I was significantly further south than Stockholm. But as I emerged from the station I was hit by piercing cold wind and drizzle. I was happy to get to my surprisingly high rise hostel. It was a massive building with some 14 floors and many rooms on each one. It was no typical backpackers; with families, conference attendees and big groups of Germans amongst the typical backpacker riff raff.

As it turned out, I ended up in a room with 2 other Melburnians. One was working in a classy hotel in London and full of stories of celebrity guests, and the other was a guitar playing making a living in Copenhagen busking. So although Being with Melburnians posed to be uninteresting, it was actually quite the opposite.

My days were spent sightseeing, and I even took in a museum (due to bad weather of course). My nights were spent drinking though somehow I managed to end up in an Irish pub both nights. It doesn’t matter where you go in the world, you always seem to pulled in by those Irish.

Overall, Copenhagen seemed the most relaxed of the Scandinavian cities I had seen, and had a really good vibe about it. It wasn’t as pretty as I had thought. Don’t get me wrong, there are some really amazing sites, but you do have to look for them amongst a surprisingly industrial city.

RETURN TO LONDON

Copenhagen airport is a quick train ride from the city. The airport was undoubtedly the nicest airport terminal I have ever been in. Once through security, you are greeted by a huge terminal area with boutique stores, dim mood lighting, quiet relaxation zones, and even a teenage lounge. Not a bad airport to have to wait for your plane.

My BA flight back to London was great. Despite the rain I had endured in Copenhagen earlier that day, it was a completely clear night, and as we flew over Denmark, Germany and Belgium I had a clear view and stared out of the window at all the lights of the various cities passing underneath.
Once we crossed the English Channel, the lights became more compacted and brighter, showing the dense population of Great Britain.

Unfortunately, once over the Thames estuary, we started circling. And did so for about the next twenty minutes, as we waited for our turn to Land at Heathrow.
Environmentalists object to the building of a third runway at Heathrow, but I wonder if they’ve considered the pollution caused by the repeated circling of planes waiting to land?

Eventually we broke the cycle, and approached London to land. As I was getting ready to watch the light-up sights from the sky... cloud cover! Typical London!

NEW LIFE

The day after getting back I started my new job in a great company. Not working in a law firm makes for a more relaxed life, and I’ve finally got a job that is both interesting and really utilises the things I am good at. It allows me to use my legal education and experience with some of my more techy skills, and best of all, involves a bit of travel. I am finishing writing this blog instalment on a train from Newcastle in the North of England, as I had back to London on a sunny day, enjoying the sights of the green fields, and the trees finally starting to go green after a long, cold winter.