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Germany once more: Christmas shoppiiiiing!!!

2012-01-10T18:35:00.000+01:00

And there aren't many countries in Europe that are better to do that in than Germany. Which city? Pick and choose, any major city is a good choice. My choice was solely based on comfiness of flights, therefore Munich.

I gave myself close to two days there and very successfully chose a place to stay, by the central station (the train to the airport is one thing you don't want to late for), and as is the case with the other two German cities Ive been in, this was a shopping heaven, added to that all the nice Christmas decorations in the streets and on shopping centers, you got the mood to do the shopping too :).

The difference here is that this city has more to offer, remember that this is also the capital of Bavaria (which is interesting on its own), jokes aside, it's rich in culture, it's a city with more history to it than Frankfurt.

Sadly, as is the case of Frankfurt, I can't tell you much about this nice looking city. Not because of the lack of time, but because most of that time was spent inside various shops. I managed to get a couple of photos for you though :)

Germany once more: Oops! I missed my flight...

2012-01-10T18:05:00.000+01:00

Not that I was slacking or anything like that. Actually not my fault at all, my flight from Cairo landed late in Frankfurt to catch the next one to Bergen, the usual business, next flight in 6 hours.

Then the flowchart/autopilot start:
1- How much time I have? 5 hours.
2- How far is the city? 15 minutes by a frequent train.
3- 1&2 sound good, find the lockers.
4- Get on the train.
5- Ta da!

Now if you're expecting this to be anything close to Berlin, you're highly mistaken, this is nothing like it. This is a true business metropolis, a lot of fancy buildings, not much sightseeing, loads of shopping. It's a place where people live and work, i.e. earn their money and spend it :)

It's as neat as any other German city though, it's not a place you need loads of time to visit, it's pleasant to go around, and in my situation was a good way to spend those few hours I had at my hands before my next flight, walk about, get something to eat, a cup of coffee and head back to the airport.

Result: Happy me and one more tick on my map :)

I've been driving round Norway 6 days

2011-12-02T02:05:00.001+01:00

The last day of the journey, but probably one of the most impressive since I'm visiting two of Norway's most famous sights.

First Geiranger, Norway's most famous fjord, and that is really beautiful. If there's one thing Norway excels at, it's the beauty of its special nature. Geiranger is no exception, beautiful, very beautiful... and with calm waters... wow. It's got a lot of waterfalls and some farms on the side of the mountain that are almost impossible, no wonder the people didn't last there. Then it's a beautiful drive up into the mountains again, some more amazing waterfalls and greenery all over.

The next and last sight of the journey was Trollstigen (the ladder of the trolls), this is a road down the mountain side into a valley, zigzaging like crazy, crossing a waterfall like 2 times and ending up on a flat ground heading back to the real life, back to the E6 road, out of that fairytale journey we had.

Now it's just the journey through the Dovre area, and back to Trondheim, home, as nice as the journey was, it was really nice to be home again too. :)

Norway is a beautiful country.

I've been driving round Norway 5 days

2011-12-02T00:54:00.001+01:00

Now let me start by telling you that you won't hear much about Florø since there isn't much to say, it's just a small seaside town, cosy but that's about it. The fifth day was used to get from Florø to Ulsteinvik where my sister in law lives. Nothing much to say about Ulsteinvik either, it's just a small ship building town.

But that was not all, the way included a beautiful trip to the westernmost point on the Norwegian coast, and a real sandy beach, too bad it's always too cold to use it... Maybe I'm exaggerating a bit, you can probably enjoy a sunny day on the beach but go into the water at your own risk... hypothermia is almost certain.

Vestkapp which is the westernmost point of Norway and the whole of continental Europe was supposed to be special, sadly it was so cloudy on that day, that the whole mountain or cliff was covered and it was impossible to see anything at all... maybe next time. The beach at Ervik though was quite impressive, didn't know they have such places in Norway but apparently they do, and apparently Ervik is not the only one, it's definitely beautiful, sad it doesn't get warmer here to really enjoy it.

The rest of the road was just the usual West Norway terrain, mountains, ferries, tunnels...But there was one moment that scared me half to death and I probably never felt such adrenaline before, mountains...going into a tunnel then coming out into a turn on a small road over a cliff, the water was far below and another mountain across, breathtaking view! but at the same time AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!! :0

We also passed through some small cities in the middle of Norway, why did people come here in the first place? There's nothing around here, and it's far from everywhere! weird people.

Finally Ulsteinvik, a pizza and a nice chat over a cup of tea, missed half of that though as I was so tired and partly drifting away, the guest room bed was a most welcome place to be, tomorrow we head back home to Trondheim, but not straight, there's still some sightseeing to do :)

I've been driving round Norway 4 days

2011-11-02T19:12:00.000+01:00

Too bad we woke up too late because that led us to get to Bergen to late for Urmita's train back to Asker. However we picked quite a pleasant pair of American hitchhikers on the way who left her a dollar :D

After getting a new train ticket, we decided to keep our friend company so we went to Fløibanen (one of the few places in Bergen where I haven't been), It's a cute funicular ride to one of Bergen's 7 mountains, it's not the highest (Ulriken is), but it's right above the city center granting a great view down on Bergen, especially if you're lucky enough to get a sunny day in this city, for all those who's been there it's a common knowledge that that rarely happens.

It's a popular trekking area too, close to the city, loads of paths up there, pretty scenic too, lakes on top of mountains and so on. The restaurant on top of Fløi is quite nice too, recommended.

The rest of the evening was pretty uneventful, leaving Urmita to her train journey, we just headed to our next overnight spot, the small town of Florø.

I've been driving round Norway 3 days or The Mighty Preikestolen

2011-10-12T21:25:00.000+02:00

Sunday: Bergen - Preikestolen

This was a totally out of the blue idea, a bit of a gamble given the amount of time vs. the amount of ferries to get there. But being us, we went anyway.
The trip itself was quite nice, beautiful scenery, pretty good weather and fancy new car ferries :)

We managed to get there without much trouble, parked and started my first proper hike ever! Preikestolen is located in Rogaland, the "fylke" or state Where Stavanger is, it's a flat plateau over a fjord at a height of 604m above sea level, with quite an ominous looking crack along the middle of it, just to add to the thrill...

The hike takes the average person with a moderate amount of fitness (like me) about 2 hours to get there and another 2 to get back. It's mostly OK if you take a couple of breathing stops along the way :).

The view from the top is worth every single minute of it though, it's just fantastic, but it's not for the faint hearted (or people with Vertigo issues like my man). It's pretty high! and it's not a roll down, it's a drop down, so it's pretty freaky, I didn't dare walk to close to the edge, but sitting down and shuffling along worked just as well :)

After getting down, it was time to find the hostel we booked for the night, after a bit of Googling and GPSing, we came to discover that we were actually parked right next to it ...ehem.
And here's something for you, hostels in Norway are pretty damn clean, they had a nice restaurant, and the view from our room! that was cool.

Too bad we woke up late next morning...

I've been driving round Norway 2 days

2011-09-02T00:53:00.000+02:00

Saturday: Voss - Bergen

Yup, we did river rafting and it was loads of fun. Quite scary though when I got caught in an underwater eddie after falling out on the last bit, I seriously thought I was dying. But apart from that real fun.

The fog didn't lift much from our hotel's awesome view, so sadly we didn't get to enjoy that in the morning before heading off to the rafting center. An interesting piece of info about Voss rafting center is that there wasn't a single Norwegian instructor, guys from New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, Canada and Zimbabwe! I guess the interested Norwegians are rafting somewhere in the countries above :)

The drive to Bergen after that (and the highly needed shower and underwear change) was event-less and easy, the reason I was in Bergen again after leaving it a week or so ago at crew change was a birthday party, my ex-operator on the Spirit moved to the manufacturing center in Bergen where he now lives and he had a small party with some friends and colleagues.

The party had an Indian theme (Hari is Indian :) ), so there was a lot of great Indian food, a guy in traditional Indian clothing (kurta etc...), a lesson on the rules of Cricket and an attempt of a Bollywood movies and dancing presentation, but (happily) the CD refused to work. I enjoyed my time though and had a good chat with pleasant people.

Hari was also nice enough to let us spend the night at his place, before heading south the day after...

I've been driving round Norway one day

2011-09-01T23:45:00.002+02:00

Friday: Asker - Voss

Erik's idea. And a good one as usual. Started on a Friday evening from Asker after working hours (someone was working, not me). The plan was to get to Voss by midnight to get some good sleep, but it rained so much over Norway the day before that quite a bit was flooded and some roads/tunnels were closed. Instead of a 5-6 hour ride, it ended up being close to 10 hours due to the retour/detour we had to take. (see map :s). The red line is what we were supposed to drive, the blue is what we ended up doing :(

It was def. good to get to that hotel room and drop. We got rooms at Stalheim hotel with a breathtaking view, too bad it was foggy and almost dark when we got there...

More in paradise! The Maldives! Iru Fushi...

2011-04-12T23:19:00.005+02:00

And if the last few days with my friends from the boat weren't enough, the day they left I dragged my husband over and we headed to yet another island, a 30-40 minute flight in a little sea-plane, but damn! This is what I call luxury, Iru Fushi is probably 2 or 3 times the size of Embudu, and taken over by non else but the mighty Hiltons. A bungalow over the water, with big glass windows and doors on the sea side, our own veranda and a ladder down to the water, our own recliners, our own jacuzzi, this was like a 2nd (or is it a 3rd?...) honeymoon. Absolutely awesome!

More days with sun and fun and cocktails on the beach... and obviously romance ;) This time it was also quite a choice of places to eat, dinner in a different place every night, with excellent food, mostly excellent service and the most beautiful atmosphere, moon-light, candle-light... nice!
One thing I want to mention that has nothing to do with the magic above and in the previous post, they have a lot of bats here! Anyway, again, I'll let the pictures do the rest of the talking :)

Still in paradise! The Maldives! Embudu...

2011-04-12T21:37:00.008+02:00

After a short stay in Male, it was time to head for our holiday destination, for sun and fun and cocktails on the beach :D My favorite trio.

Embudu is located a few kilometers south of Male, half an hour by the boat that picked us up in Male. A tiny island overgrown with coconut palm trees, and all kinds of small trees, palms and mangroves on the beach. The bungalows where pretty nice too, a few meters from the beach, from that beautiful turquoise water surrounding all the Maldivian little islands, swings in the trees, open bar/cafe in the middle of the greenery and good food three times a day :D

It's been a while since I relaxed this much in one of my "after crew change" travels. For 3 days in a row, I did little more than swimming, snorkeling, reading and eating. Well, and getting a nice tan as a souvenir.

Most of the islands here have quite an interesting topography, they're really flat, slowly going into the water and going for quite a distance with a depth of max 2 meters, then abruptly "cliffing" down into depths, if you want to check that yourself, go to google earth and zoom in on an island then check where the waves break, it's not at the beach! But the amount of corals and fishes and all kinda sea life on those cliff sides are totally A-W-E-S-O-M-E! Don't miss it, just don't! But visit the diving center first and find out about the currents whens and wheres, they're really strong, and I mean STRONG, in some spots you can't even swim against them.

I'll stop talking now and hang some photos instead :) Enjoy...

I'm in paradise! The Maldives! Male...

2011-04-07T22:58:00.004+02:00

Once upon a time, when I was 12 years old or so, I saw pictures of the Maldives in a magazine, and since then it just became a dream that back then I thought I'll never bring to life, but... 15 years later, I actually did...

Landed in Male in the middle of the night, got through the quickest immigration ever and walked out. The guy who met us at the airport, a Maldivian (yes, they exist!) was slightly suspicious, sounded as if doped... hmmm, didn't look good. It's not until the next morning when we went around the capital island sightseeing and spoke to more people that we realized he wasn't, they all sound like that, the accent is hilarious. I liked the Maldivians though, they're pretty relaxed and friendly, easy to have around... quite chilled.

There's obviously a lot of other nationalities from nearby countries working there, Indians, Bangladeshis and loads of Sri-Lankans.

Now Male is a small island, seriously small, but it's still one of the biggest in the country, small streets, no asphalt, streets are paved with special bricks, a pleasant city with not really much to see, bustling with people, full of small restaurants and cafes all over, a beautiful shore line, the clearest turquoise colored waters you'll ever see and a range of relatively expensive but good hotels. A one day trip, and it was worth the time.

Goa...More than I expected

2011-02-07T22:34:00.010+01:00

Can't claim I've been around much of it. My stay in Goa was short, the main reason was that I needed to do some emergency "beach" shopping for my suddenly emerging vacation in the Maldives.

Crew change went smoothly enough and soon we were on our way to our hotel in Panaji, which was chosen due to the possibility of decent shopping in the area. Although I was putting hopes on Nike, Adidas and the like, the local shops were the ones providing what I wanted :) (with strikingly cheap prices!). Hope they survive the washing though :s

The plan for the evening was a shisha/drinks on the beach followed by a meal. So after asking the locals we headed to Baga beach, have to say that it was different to what I imagined, what locals call beach shacks is much bigger than I had in mind. They're proper size restaurants/cafes built on the beach with tables stretching almost to the water. We had shisha, drinks and some snacks, got cold on the breezy beach, started feeling sleepy and went back to our hotel and basically fell asleep the moment we hit the beds. But Baga beach was nice, a good place to spend a nice (preferably a warmer one than ours though) evening with friends.

The plan for the next morning was to sleep till late, get up at 10-11, repack and check out at midday, then go for lunch in a Goan restaurant and off to the airport to catch our flight to Bangalore. This turned into day-shifters sleeping forever & night-shifters (including me) waking up at about 6 and not managing to fall asleep again, giving up at 9 and going out for some local sightseeing/photo-taking in Panaji's La Fontana at 10. The place is amazing, houses and churches in Portuguese style all over, small Hindu temples in the midst of that, the whole thing is on a hill sandwiched between what looks like a bit of the sea and a river , the feeling it gave was as if you're not in India yet there, the architecture says no but the people and the atmosphere say yes, a charming place, and I think the photos are proof enough.

And yes, we did eat in a delicious Goan restaurant and we did catch the flight, onboard which I'm writing this :). (written on 6jan2011)

Deutshcland. Tag 4

2011-02-07T21:56:00.006+01:00

Today was not planned, I ended up having an unplanned extra day in Berlin, therefore I didn't know what to do or where to go, I decided just to go and roam around. That resulting in me visiting Checkpoint Charlie museum (and getting bored after seeing half of it), walking around the streets there, going inside KaDeWe which is a nice shopping mall, if my feet didn't hurt that much and if my bag wasn't already full to the brim, I would've made use of that visit :).

That same pain in the feet led me to trace my steps back from there to Alexander Paltz, buy a Mac and head back to my hotel, I had to wake up early for my flight to Australia after all. (written on 28sep2009)

Deutshcland. Tag 3

2011-02-05T18:13:00.004+01:00

Although west Berlin is more prosperous and you can clearly see that, east Berlin has so much more to offer when it comes to sightseeing and attractions, thus the thirs day of my stay was there as well, went to the Museum island to see Nefertiti in the Egyptian museum, turned out it was closed, but still I went through the old museum and the old national gallery (I like art galleries :D), then went to a building that somehow resembled Notre Dame de Paris to find out it's not a church anymore but acts as Schinkel's museum, basically sculptures stand all over.

The highlight of the day was the Berlin cathedral (Berliner Dom), beautiful from the inside, not overdone as some, with a lot of paintings in the ceiling, I loved how the light falls from windows high in the ceiling onto the different parts of the interior giving it a lively still a bit Gothic feeling, you can also go all the way up to the dome and have a great view of Berlin, awesome!

Walked around (the closed) Nikolai-vertel church, took a look at the New Synagogue and the holocaust monument and decided to call it a day. (written on 27sep2009)

Bellissima Roma

2011-01-14T02:37:00.011+01:00

Now this trip was a bit unplanned for. At least not in this way. The original plan was to take a long holiday in Italy and drive around the country.

This turned out to be totally different. OK... So I went there for a U2 concert, as a birthday present for my husband, but who am I kidding? It was my own present to myself too :) And that's exactly what we did there the Friday we landed. Got some good sleep then headed to the Olympic stadium. The supporting artists (or rather the sound test) were Interpol, pretty disappointing from my point of view. But U2! That was Huge! Haven't had that much entertainment in ages. Great sound, great setting, great effects, great performance of my favorite great songs! In short, I LOVED IT!!!
Since we only had Saturday in Rome, but we were in Rome, so we had to do some sightseeing, the obvious choice was the Vatican city and the Colosseum. The B&B I booked was a walking distance from the Vatican, and that's where we headed first. The road leads you straight to St. Peter's and it's quite a view. Can't tell you about the interior, didn't go in there as the queue was humongous!

Decided to brave that queue for the Vatican museums though, and that was literally the longest queue I stood in in my life. It's one of those museums where you go to see a few piece in particular. This one housed the Michelangelo painting in the Sistine Chapel, on the roof, The Creation of Adam. Been there, done that. Tick :)
The Colosseum which was obviously the next destination was beautiful, that must have been a really big thing back when it was used for Gladiator shows. Sunset there is quite a site too, and you're guaranteed to get some really nice photos there. As great as I expected it to be.

We walked the way back from there, the way to the Piazza Venezia is an amazing mix between
the present and the future, modern living areas across the street from the ruins and remains of old Rome. And from Piazza Venezia to my hotel via backstreets, that's a beautiful walk, narrow cobble-stone streets leading to an array of small piazzas (squares) and on to more narrow streets. Another site that wasn't on the plan but got added during the walk was the Fontana di Trevi (Trevi fountain), which was to be our last stop before dinner at an awesome Jewish restaurant and going to bed.

The fountain looks really cool! Very crowded though. The fountain is occupying the full height of the building supporting it, with Roman sculptures reaching down to the pool of water that looks almost clean enough to drink.

There's def. much more to see and do in Rome, and it's a beautiful city, reminds me a bit of the centre of Cairo, similar architecture, similar degree of "crowdness", even people look similar to Egyptians :) And I'm definitely coming back here, I think I fell in love with Rome.

But for now just throw a coin in the fountain! Make a wish! And hope it comes true and make you this much happier :)

So it's Inverness

2010-08-27T17:17:00.013+02:00

At least that's where we were headed that day, but the journey in the morning continued around Skye. Next stop Dunvegan castle.

This castle belongs to the McLeod clan, probably a very nice one, but of course me being me, i arrive there during renovation, the castle was suffering from a serious humidity hitting its walls and was being mostly covered in scaffolding and white protective sheets. It's got pretty nice gardens though, that was nice to go around, got some good photos out there.

What amazed me in all those castles is the size of the bedrooms and generally private rooms, these were tiny! All the clans just used to show off their lavish extravagant rooms where they received guests and stuff, and in the process took away all the space from a nice wide bedroom for themselves, i guess back then how people saw you was what mattered...I'm glad we care more about our own comfort these days :D

The drive from there to the bridge of Skye was uneventful, albeit full of Skye scenery, now the next stop was really cool! Eilean Dunan! A lot of movies have been shot here, and although the most recently rebuilt, it was by far the most impressive we've seen. It was built a few centuries back, can't remember the exact history but it's quite old :) Wings and towers have been added and removed throughout the years, until it got it's final shape in the 16th century. That though got totally destroyed until a McRae-Gilstrap bought the little island containing the castle in 1911 and started restoring it till he brought it to its original (16th century) shape in the 1930s.

So the exterior is awesome, very special, done in stone and looks like how you imagine a castle should, the interior on the other hand is very simple and practical, small rooms, modest furniture, etc...But still a very impressive castle, my favorite so far :)

After a nice lunch at the castle's restaurant, the journey was resumed passing the famous Loch Ness (no, didn't spot the monster) and heading to Inverness.

Inverness is pretty nice, a relatively small city, just guessing i would say the size of Bedford maybe, a river runs through the city and it's a very pleasant walk there around the city center, added to it the view of the Inverness castle (which contains a history museum) on top of a hill right in the heart of the city overlooking the river Ness. There's also a mini-Notre Dame de Paris cathedral in there that's worth a look :) St. John? Oh! St. Andrews!

It was cosy.

The morning after was the end of our journey. But just before heading back to Aberdeen, we decided to go back to Loch Ness, check their visitor centre and have a boat ride in it. Simple as that visitor centre was, i enjoyed it a lot, it describes the myths that surrounded that mysterious lake for ages and reveals some interesting facts about people faking them for publicity :) Followed by a beautiful boat ride. It's always different seeing the place from a boat, the different angle maybe...

Now back to Aberdeen, getting ready to jump from helicopters and survive in water.

So it's Isle of Skye

2010-08-14T03:49:00.014+02:00

There's a song by Aerosmith that has the line: Life's a journey, not a destination.
Well, this totally applies on (no, apart from my life) this 4 day trip we're doing. Ok, the Highlands are simply beautiful, really beautiful! And the road to Skye was really pleasant.

But it wasn't only a matter of getting to Skye, just enjoying the scenery was half the purpose of the trip, maybe 75% even, so that's what we did, aided by yesterday's taxi driver's advice and a mistake either by the GPS or the GPS user...can't say which for sure :p but we ended up driving along small inner roads, between fields, mountains, lakes and what not! Even ended up crossing a lock that was operating when we arrived, it was cool, i have to admit it's the first time i see one like this, a small bridge hinged at one end, that rotates from the "across the canal" position (Caledonian canal by the way) to the "parallel to the bank" position to let the boats pass, then back to let the cars pass.

Passing Braemar I remembered the driver mentioning the place, so we decided to turn into there, then on the way saw the sign for Blair castle on Atholl estates and headed over there instead. The castle (and estates) belong to the Dukes and Earls of Atholl as the name implies, what was nice about it is the little wood they had there, huge trees and silence, nice! Also the animals they kept around, they had deer, horses, peacocks and highland cows, plus gardens, etc. You don't know what a highland cow is? shaggy, red haired, big cows? Ok, you'll see it when i go back to bragging about the animals i photographed :p

After that we had continued the journey north to Mallaig to take the ferry to Skye, almost missed it, got there like 3 minutes before it went, and of course it was the last one of the day.

Isle of Skye has rough terrain, loads of rock, in all possible shapes and heights, and it wasn't a long drive to get to Portree where we were booked into a nice little inn called Marmalade inn, so small that in the morning they noticed that we didn't come down for breakfast and give us cereal bars for the road :)

Portree is like the capital of Skye, well, the main city, the drive from the ferry which pulls on at Armadale is along the east coast of the island, but what lies on the west coast is for the blog of day 3 :)

So it's Edinburgh once again

2010-08-14T03:08:00.008+02:00

First of all, i would like to thank Scotland for having such amazing intercity roads, it's been a pleasure to drive them :)

I've been in Edinburgh before, and somewhere in this blog, there is an entry about it, probably in 2007. This time i was living on the Royal Mile, that's pretty much the city center and where things are happening, it's a pretty lively place, this is the street going from the Scottish parliament all the way to Edinburgh castle, and it's full of shops, restaurants, hotels and cafes and even more full of tourists, but hey, nice place.

Edinburgh welcomed us this time with amazing sunny and warm weather, and the day we spent there was used for doing what i didn't get the chance to do last time i was here, and the thing i promised to come back for: following the water down to Leath.

It's a pretty long walk, a bit longer than i expected, i think around 4 miles? i might be wrong but it was one proper walk. It starts by the Dean's bridge following a canal/river called "surprisingly" the Water of Leath all the way down to the actual Leath. If you ever read Glue by Irvine Welsh, that was all about that place. He might be from there...

These days Leath is considered a fancy part of Edinburgh, and there's a reason for it i understand, it stands by the sea, and is very cosy to be in, and having lunch in a little bar/cafe thingy by the sea was comforting for the mood as well as for the hunger from the long walk :)

Obviously the way back was in a taxi, with a very friendly driver who gave us tips about nice places to pass and nice road to take on our next journey, and i can't help smiling every time i hear the Scottish accent :) Sweet...

The rest of the day was spent climbing up to Arthur's chair, you probably get a great view of the city from there, but it was fogged over when we made it up and made the city look a bit gloomy, still it was a good exercise :) Tomorrow the journey continues heading north west and I am looking forward to that.

So it's Scotland once again

2010-08-14T02:56:00.007+02:00

And particularly Aberdeen, as usual courses bring me here, i have two this time, both in Aberdeen, but the cool part is: There are four free days in between. What do you think i'm doing during those days? That's right, traveling around. I'm actually going on a road trip around Scotland.

The first interesting day (or rather evening) was during a course, me and Erik drove north by the coast in search of the awesome cliffs Scotland has in that area. I was left pretty disappointed, they weren't what i expected them to be :( But i got some nice photos of various animals, but I'll brag about that later :)

The drive itself was pretty cool though, tiny roads, the sea, tiny fishing villages along the way and some (albeit non-impressive) cliffs almost all the way to Peterhead.

Peterhead itself is a small typical UK town, i heard the accent up there is pretty rough, but the McDonald's boy i ordered my meal from was totally intelligible :D But by then it was too late (the reason why it was a Mac rather than a nice Scottish restaurant) and we had to head back to Aberdeen, had to get up early the next day.

But after the course was finished the real fun began! I drove down to Edinburgh, first time driving a "mirror" car, well... one with the steering on the other side etc... but that's to be continued in my next entry :)

Deutschland. Tag 2

2010-04-23T10:29:00.010+02:00

The second day in Berlin took me to West Berlin, started the day walking from Potzdam Platz through Tiergarten to the presidential palace called Schloss Bellevue, from there to the victory column Siegelssaule, continued the walk till I got to a subway station, discovered on my way that Berlin has a branch of Hooters :) then rode my way to Charlottenburg palace and gardens.

It's beautiful and def. great efforts have been made to restore it after the war, this used to be the summer house of the first Prussian queen Sophie Charlotte, who was basically living there full time in the old palace, later on a new wing was added by her grandson (I think) as well as an orangerie making the place huge! The gardens are very nice as well, the first in Prussia to be designed in Baroque style. These gardens contained a tea house, which now acts as a porcelain museum, and a mausoleum for a number of the royal family members.

I thought this would be the "sight of the day" until I got to Keiser Wilhelm's Gedachtniskirche, a beautiful church (although pretty small) that's been bombarded in the 2nd world war, the ruins are still standing and a huge modern church is built around it, I love churches and this one was really nice with a pretty dramatic story to tell.

Finished my west Berlin itinerary and took the subway back to the east, specifically to the East side gallery which is really just the old Berlin wall left for artists to paint on it, seems as well that paintings remain for a period of time then new painters get the space, a looooooooong walk took me to alexander platz, where I sat down, took some photos of the TV tower, red city hall and fountain, then just got myself a Mac and went to relax my feet in my hotel room :) (Written on 26Sep09)

Deutschland. Tag 1

2010-04-23T10:26:00.008+02:00

First day was spent in Eastern Berlin (where my hotel is as well), had a long itinerary that I hardly covered half of, before my camera's battery died, my feet almost dies & my stomach's dinosaurs started their symphony.
Managed to do the Reichstag, which is the "parliament house" of Germany, nice view of Berlin from the top :) Then Berlin's most famous Branderburger Tor, the gate that was originallt part of the wall has become the symbol of Berlin (together with the bear :)). From there a walk down Unter Den Lined street and Friedrich strasse, where check point Charlie is located, a lot of reading on the walls, didn't read all but what I have read and the photos are enough to really make me feel how bad it was with two Germanies and separating walls.

Started feeling really tired and hungry there, but still walked around and got to Gendarmenmarkt, took a look at the concert house and the two almost identical cathedrals standing on both sides of it, the German Deutscher Dom to the left and the French Franzosischer Dom on the right, the three buildings looking pretty grand together, you can get inside the German cathedral which contains pretty much the full German history, but beware! Everything is only in German! Grab that free audio guide at the entrance. You can also enter the French cathedral which has a Ballustrade open from where you can get a great view of Berlin as well.

Up there my camera died, and I decided to call it a day, now just dinner, tea, and general relaxation :) (written on 25sep2009)

Deutschland. Tag 0

2010-04-23T09:39:00.004+02:00

Out on the road again, more new places, new faces, etc... This time it's Berlin, never thought I'll actually visit Germany. Was never on my list really. What's so interesting about Germany? Nothing much.

Now I'm spending 3 days there, and until this moment i have no clue what i want to see but where the wall separating east and west Berlin once stood. Internet just left me more confused, it's just s***-loads to see over there, I guess I'll trust the professionals and go with the 3 day tour plan I found on visitberlin.de.

So far I'm sitting onboard a Lauda Air plane taking me from Sharm el Sheikh to Vienna, first leg on my way, and can't stop wondering about the Egyptian fly i just shooed away that is going to Austria right now, without a visa! You think it'll follow me to Berlin? :D

See you when i get there. (written on 24Sep09)

I've been to China!!!...to BeiJing

2010-04-07T01:23:00.009+02:00

YEAAAHH!!! I'm in BeiJing!
was how i felt although i arrived very late, had like 2 hours of sleep only and couldn't keep the hotel room till the evening to have a shower before i leave :(

The start was not very encouraging, taking into account the lack of a proper map, and the limited english of the average chinese.

Stop1 was the Summer palace, which we reached after a detour thanks to the guy that took us to the wrong place, but we got there eventually and as a lot of Imperial things in China the place was huge, we probably didn't cover half of it, it was very nice though, it's these palaces and pagodas built around and on a lake, some small islands connected with bridges etc... It was really sweet, romantic even, all in lush green, and colorful architecture. Had to cut the visit though if we had any plans to get to the next destination.

Since stop2 was the Great wall at MuTianYu. That was a good 40 minute drive out of the city, and it IS amazing, the moment it comes into view, your heart skips a beat, on the top of a green beautiful mountain, this section is really special, it's also one of the most preserved ones, with the further advantages of less people on it and no hand rails and stuff, looks more ancient and has more space for photographs that way :) (without strangers in your background). You go up and down on a cable car, but there's a more fun down option, a little kart down a half tube, don't remember what they called it but it was loads of fun! :D

A warning though, this thing is very tiring, steps up and down all over the walls, nobody followed the architectural rules for staircase building there, it's very steep and the way back up is not easy...But still, this was the highlight of my trip to China, I've seen the Great wall, one more addition to my 7 wonders of the world list :) (one of them).

Back into the city stop3 was TianAnMan square and the forbidden city. I have to say that BeiJing seriously exceeded my expectations, although China is considered a 3rd world country, it's heading straight to the top, the city is clean, organized, well connected, easy to get around and really beautiful and welcoming. Now the Forbidden city used to be where the Emperor stayed, it has different main buildings or halls, each has a specific purpose at a specific time, the place is again very big, with a lot of rooms around those main halls, and the main palace. The chinese did a great job preserving and restoring the place, it looks like new. But to my opinion, that's exactly what takes away from the glory of the place, i didn't feel the history, it was like something built yesterday.

Stop4 was for food, extremely tired and pretty hungry, we had to stop for a good meal, it was about time, after which i headed to the Temple of Heaven but i reached too late and didn't make it into it, took a couple of photos from the outside, walked in the gardens but that was it.

And that was also the end of my day in BeiJing, i managed to get a shower after all in the hotel's gym :) Then all fresh and happy headed for the airport to fly home...sweet home :)

I've been to China!!!...to Xi'An

2010-04-06T11:45:00.013+02:00

This should have been posted about 5 months ago, but me and constant blogging don't come together as you've probably noticed by now :) But here's what i wrote on the spot, there...at the time :)

"Phew!!! That was close!! Just made it to Haikou airport where my journey in China starts. After an “interesting” crew change day with a change in plans followed by a lot of changes in the schedule of the new plan, we finally got off the boat in SanYa, the only problem was … It was too late! Too late for me to catch the bus that’ll take me to Haikou because if I did, I would have never caught the plane.

But thanks to a great shore representative and a great agent, and thanks to the drivers I got, I was driven in a car to Haikou airport and arrived there quite ahead of what I was expecting, and here I am sitting by the gate writing this waiting for my plane to Xian to start boarding. I’m so looking forward to see those warriors …

*********************************************

Landed in Xian with no clue how to get to my hotel, but that turned out to be a very easy thing, took 2 walks down the street to find the building but all was good, and the hotel turned out to be nice as well.

Next day my tour began at 8 in the morning, and I saw them! The warriors! Cool! Can’t stop thinking how much work that must have been and can’t stop thanking God I wasn’t Chinese living in the Qin dynasty (or the Ming dynasty for that matter, who wants to build a great wall?!) They’re very impressive, all different faces, and there’s loads of them! The site consists of 3 pits, basically building erected on top of the excavation sites. Pit 1 contains the infantry soldiers, pit 2 has the cavalry and archers, and pit 3 contains the headquarters, you can notice the difference in clothes, armoring, and even age as the rank of the person grows. The rest of the museum is a hall containing two bronze chariots with decorations and details of gold and silver, these were made in half real size (unlike the warriors who are in real life size), the 2 are different, it is believed that the first was protecting the second, it’s a standing chariot with loads if built-in weapons, the most impressive of them is the umbrella (yes, you got that right!), it has 2 locking mechanisms, if you open one, you can tilt it around to protect yourself from the sun but if you open both, you can take it out and use it as a spear!"

At this point something stopped me writing about the rest of the day, i can't remember what it was, but the rest follows nevertheless...

The visit included a lot of walking and lasting till noon was therefore followed by lunch, although the restaurant was a bit europeanized to suit the tourists, the food wasn't bad at all, i actually enjoyed it. On the way back into the city we passed by a jade stone factory and i bought myself some very nice silver/jade jewelery and a great looking dragon! Was very happy with it, one of my top 10 souvenirs of all times, and i also got to drink chinese tea in the factory, i love chinese tea :)

Next stop (of course) was the Big wild goose pagoda, and as the name suggests, there is actually a small wild goose pagoda... Not as impressive anyway. It's the biggest and most famous pagoda in the city, built in 6 stories with windows on each side, so you could face north, south, east or west from any floor, nice view of the city from there. The story of the place i can't remember but it was a nice visit nonetheless. One thing i learned though, every city in China has a Bell tower and a Drum tower, normally closely located (this pagoda had them too), you may already know this. But! What they're used for is the news, they were actually built to indicate time, one of them is used to announce midday, the other midnight. Which is sad given the fact this was so long ago, people probably went early to bed anyway since there was no electricity and hardly anything to do. On the other hand, you never know, maybe Chinese liked partying till late...
The next stop is my favorite, the Great mosque, the reason being how different it looks from a normal worldwide used design of a mosque. This one (as many other in China) is actually built in the architectural style of the Ming dynasty (which most of us simply refer to as Chinese, the curved up edges of the roof, etc...), and apart from the mosque itself, it's got rooms for workers there, probably some classes among those, gardens, and it looks very serene and calming, you feel it's a worship place. The only place that looks typical is the prayer hall itself, saying so, I was really impressed by the wood work on the walls, it was like WOW! They have 30 tall boards of wood around the walls, each is carrying one part of the Quran's 30, beautifully carved in that wood, awesome!

The muslim quarter where the mosque lays is not very impressive though, tight streets, street markets, crowded...well...And the mosque was only for men, so i couldn't even pray there.

My day at Xi'An was drawing to an end, i was taken to the airport to catch my flight to Beijing (which was delayed like for 5 hours or so!), i enjoyed it and haven't regretted a bit that i decided to come here after everyone else pulled out, it was well worth it.

Amman, memories and feelings

2010-01-30T17:29:00.006+01:00

As has been the case lately, this was another necessity. Passport renewal.

This happenned last December, it was getting cold (proved by my upset stomach later on the day of my arrival) but still sun was warmly and brightly shining (which explains why i didn't put my jacket on). In short, a beautiful day!

I managed to convince my aunt who lives in the capital that she doesn't need to pick me up as i've rented a car at the airport and started my drive into the city center looking for the passport office so i don't have to waste time next day doing that.

Now Amman is a city with quite a topology, a lot of hills and ups and downs...I was driving peacefully in the old streets (in the north-east direction) going up...up...up, until suddenly down started, AND THAT WAS ONE HELL OF A SIGHT!!! Steeply going down was the street i'm on, and ahead of me a view of all Amman suddenly opened that took by breath away. That city is beautiful, it really is. And the more i drove through its streets looking around me, the more i realized that.

I don't remember the last time i actually had the time and mood to look around me, I'm not from Amman but a small city in the north of Jordan called Irbid, so i drove to Amman from the other side normally and always on an errand or a visit or shopping etc...But now that i had pretty much the whole day with nothing to do, i took it all in, i should have done that earlier, i should have looked and realized what a beautiful capital my country actually has,i should have taken it in and enjoyed every moment there, i should have recommended it to people going there rather than going indefferent about it when they asked. But now i know, and now i want to go back again, i want to befriend that city and see it more often.

Amman...I love you.

P.S. This photo is not taken by me, i found it on the internet, had to show you something :)