So I’ve got a room in Budapest for 31 Dec and 1 Jan.
Berger leaves on the 1st, so it will just be me after that. Current plan is Zagreb on the 27th or so…Sarajevo and maybe one other city before Budapest…The best advice I got (from a Serbian-American friend):
“….dont step on any mines on your way to sarajevo….then get to budapest”.
Cheers Pete!!!
So Berger is coming to visit the day after x-mas…Originally we were just gonna spend 2 or 3 days in Florence (cuz it’s more exciting than Carrara)….This has now morphed into a 10 day all-Europe (30 countries) train pas….ummmm….as the subject says.
We’re still spending a day or two in Florence…then heading east. We can go as far as the Russia border. Originally Berger wanted Prague for New Years, but I think we’re both pretty flexible and are happy to just head wherever 😉
geez…I haven’t been this excited for anything in a while…
First stop probably Zagreb, Croatia…We have no plans after that. We’ve discussed Sarajevo, Prague, Budapest, Warsaw, Romania, Bulgaria… (I could name countries in Romania and Bulgaria, but you would just say….huh?!? Where’s that?)
So dad if you want something to worry about it’s not raw meat…it’s eastern europe 😉
Berger has to leave back to Frankfurt on the 1st, but I just today decided to take the rest of the next week off, so I’ll be alone for a few days. I’ve pondered going as far east as I can possibly get, or head south to Greece and take a ferry over to Italy…Either way this is gonna be great!!!!
LOTS of pics to be up after the first week in January…stay tuned!
I am alive!
No problems in England. I arrived at Luton on Thursday. Figured out the busses. Figured out my hotel. Figured out where the nearest pub was, and then eventually went to sleep.
Friday had to meet Matt at Heathrow and my feet were killing me so I wasn’t very motivated for sightseeing. Instead I just went to the airport about 7 hours early 🙂 With 5 terminals to choose from I just kind of wandered a bit, and people watched. Wasn’t as bad as it sounds.
We got the car and aside from the surreal panic that comes from a yank sitting in a right hand drive car in a left hand road country (every time a car comes the other way around a corner I wanted to shriek something like “it’s in our lane…we’re going to die”). Luckily I was able to internalize.
The place of the wedding reception was this very quaint little (big) country estate about an hour from London, so we had rooms out there.
It was my first visit outside of London and it was quite different as you would expect. The people were a little weird-ish…I’m not sure if I can describe it better than that, and I’m not sure the stories are worth telling. Just…weird-ish…
Anyways hung out with Rob and his wedding party on Friday night. Then went to the wedding on Saturday then went to the reception…was called a pimp, a playa, and a bunch of other things that made me giggle…Met a dude from Basingstoke (where my grandparents were from). He looked like Gary Busey. Had some laughs…good party, good people. Nice wedding. Great weekend!
So I was joined by Jeff, Matt and Berger this weekend. It was fantastic. Mostly I enjoyed the witty banter…most of which I can’t remember and even if I did I’m not sure I could print it here 🙂
Saturday we stuck close to home and hit a few places around here.
on Sunday we went to Cinque Terra and hung out on the beach for a few hours. Came back and had Mexican food, then went and closed the Irish and then went to the beach until about 5am…that was a great idea. Who came up with that? Since I slept on the floor the night before I was beat and am really surprised we lasted as long as we did 🙂
At the Beach from 3am we found some chairs and a floaty rubber thing that people had left behind. the guys all went swimming while I hung out. It was a great night!
the original plan was to leave my place by 9am to go see the tower in Pisa…ummmmm…Since we were up so late this plan didn’t quite happen. I took the guys to the train station here and got a text that they were going to take a cab to the tower. Get out for some quick pics and then cab it back to the airport…if I had known I would have joined 🙂
Had today off and I wisely took tomorrow off as well.
I’m booked for Oktoberfest this year. Which is to say I’ve got a flight, but no accommodations. I’m the best traveller ever!
This will be my first Oktoberfest tho. Should be a fun weekend! Hopefully Pete and I can find some Mexican food there. I’m sure Pete knows where to go…
Thanks Piero for acknowledging my incredible musical taste today. It’s amazing a man of your advanced years sometimes has a valid opinion 😉
I’m all booked for a weekend in the UK in October. I seem to have been pressured into renting and driving a car 😉
I can barely cross the street correctly in england (good thing they paint “Look right” at major intersections) and now Tomi wants me to drive a car over there…heh…yeah. Full insurance me thinks! Can’t wait for the first time I come to an intersection and end up in the wrong lane going the wrong direction. I’m going to prepare a will before we go…
Actually thinking about driving there makes me kind of nervous. I’ll probably need a drink or two to calm my jittery self before hitting the road.
What could possibly go wrong 😉
Check back in October for some hilarity….
Tomorrow I travel Hahn. I hate hahn. Probably more than it deserves. It’s built up some kind of mythical anti-status in my head. It’s probably not as bad as I think it oughta be, but…I still hate you Hahn…and I hate you most of all RyanAir.
I hate having to pay for “priority boarding” because you have no assigned seats. I hate your little league airports. I hate being offered scratch tickets. I hate your baggage policy. I hate the way the stewardesses never have change when I order some crappy food or drink. I hate that people who fly RyanAir clap upon landing. I hate your bus service. I hate your low prices. I hate that I keep flying with you. You Jerks!
I hate that you’ve taken away any magic that was ever involved with flying…
It’s sort of like if O’reilleys had 2€ cheeseburgers or something…there would never have been a vow if O’reilleys had 2€ cheeseburgers.
I think O’reilleys is the only thing that will be open this Friday…
I haven’t had a cheeseburger in months…I want a cheeseburger.
I really like the kebap place at Hahn. mmmm kebaps in germania….mmmmmm. Jerks! Shiny red ball…
Check back tomorrow when I update to tell you how much I hate RyanAir…I’ll probably do that whilst waiting for the flight and while I’m on the stupid bus.
So I cleared off my phone and have a few pics (hence the quality)…the office ones were not taken by me. My phone was hijacked and when I got it back unfortunately I found Massimo flipping me off in a very blurry manner.
Took a bunch of pics yesterday at the Forum, Coliseum etc…
Here’s the link. More will be added later.
Rome is a beautiful city. I’m sure I will make it back.
…and so I guess it’s 24 December. If any of my people in the States read this, please consider it a happy holiday wish! Enjoy!
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