In Australia Again

I left work on Tuesday evening and headed to Heathrow for the airport. I was coming home to Melbourne.

The first part of my Qantas journey was smooth. I slept most of the way to Bangkok after a tiring week. After refuelling at Bangkok, the plane sat on the tarmac for over an hour waiting for a part to be replaced.  Once we landed in Sydney we were late enough for me to miss my connecting flight to Melbourne.  They put me on the next flight to Melbourne, but that, too, was delayed, due to a no-show passenger, followed by a plane with a medical emergency needing to land.

Once I finally landed in Melbourne on Thursday lunchtime, it turned out my suitcase hadn't. I left the airport anyway after my 27-hour flight and overall over-30-hour journey. I managed to keep myself awake until the suitcase finally arrived.

The last few days have been great, catching up with family and friends, and today heading out to the St Kilda Festival - a free music festival at the beachside inner-Melbourne area of St Kilda.

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!

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!