Well the party is nearly over for this edition, with the flight on the big bird rapidly approaching. Zurich has been a pleasant surprise even if it did get off to a shakey start. Who would have thought that I would find the only taxi driver in Zurich who didn't want a fare, you see in Zurich it's a little bit too easy to get from the airport to your hotel. They have regular trains that run from the airport to the main train station and from there it's an easy trip on a tram or by taxi to the hotel. [View Full Entry]

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Yep fallen on my feet again, the hostel that I booked turned out to be a good one and the location is even better, now if only I came here when it was a little warmer. At least there is no snow so far although there was a little bit of sleet while up visiting the statues. After yesterday's late arrival and aimless wonder around town, today was comrade day. A visit to Momento Park where the remains of the Communist dictatorship are in the form of all the public statues that used to be around Budapest. The most fascinating part [View Full Entry]

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When you're away it's always interesting to see what from home makes the local news where you are. Last night while sitting around at the monkey replica watching the first bit of TV that I've seen for a few days there was a news story from Sydney, the Burmese democracy protest. There was also a news story on the little bit of neo-nazi civil unrest in Prague. But back to the monkey replica that I found to take in a bit of live music last night, the Jazz-Cafe, put a .sk on the end of that and you have their website. [View Full Entry]

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Another day, another country as they say in the classics and with Mel on her way back home to France today as well, it was an early morning excursion to Prague airport. Having managed to make the Sky Europe flight cut off by a matter of minutes it was off to Bratislava. You see Sky Europe is like Jetstar in that if you are not checked in 40 minutes before your flight then don't bother flying Sky Europe. The only remaining thought going through my mind was that I hope they weren't counting on my airfare for their maintenance budget, since [View Full Entry]

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As someone said it's the journey not the destination that matters so who would have thought that a trip to see a bit of culture would turn into more of a journey then a destination. The plan was to head across town on the tram to the theatre near the main train station and watch Romeo and Julliet. It's important to realise that like any major city Prague has more then one venue where you can watch such shows. After checking the ticket and looking up the map there were two options, the tram and a bit of a walk or [View Full Entry]

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What´s not to like about Prague, except for maybe a keyboard that has all the usual characters plus some with a couple of zour favourite ones swapped around to make things interesting. Before coming here everyone at home said that I would love the place, ok so Zena, Ricardo and the old guy who lives upstairs were all right, Prague is one of those places. The benefit of stazing (it's that letter switch around thing) here for just under a week means that you can relax and see all the sights at your leisure rather than rush around in a couple [View Full Entry]

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Having survived the rigours of packing up the site and spent a day trying to recover from the "I'm sure it's not bird flu" lurgy that has taken up temporary residence within me, it was time to head to Berlin for the whistle stop tour. Compared to previous trips this one is a little more organised, regular readers will know of my previous efforts where it's pretty much the norm to arrive in a foreign land with no accomodation, map, language skills or currency. This time I've got the currency, accom booked and a map for Berlin, plus courtesy of the [View Full Entry]

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The party is over, the show went off as it should of and all was well, so you have to be happy with that! naturally there were some observations that I'll share with you about it. 1. Turkish time, if tradesman back home worked to Turkish time you would get your house built for around $1 000 if they charged by their version of an hour. How come you ask, well when they say that something will arrive in an hour they really mean sometime between one hour and the end of the day, usually the later. 2. There is a [View Full Entry]

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As luck would have it I’m back in Istanbul, just six short months since the last visit. This time I’m staying up near Taksim Square which is one of the main meeting places in Istanbul.Over the course of a week I'm sure that every one of Istanbul’s 20 million people walk along it at some time. The place is a constant sea of people strolling from one end to the other people watching, window shopping or eating. The flight over was the usual 36 hours from door to door, after a while you just get into the groove of a long [View Full Entry]

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Hindsight is one of those wonderful things that you realise after an event. In this case it was in the lead up to the event that I should have realised some things about earlier. What am I babbleing about, driving into Paris and then onto the airport the next morning before flying home. Since the idea of getting out of bed early and sprinting the four or so hours from Nantes to CDG airport Paris in the trusty peugeot the morning of the flight home wasn't appealing I opted for plan 'B'. Drive there the day before, stay overnight in Paris [View Full Entry]

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