My Life in Words

Croatia Day 6: Hvar So once again, in preparation of our next day departure, we had to be up very early in order to get our boat tickets for the next day. This time Emma got up early (hungover) to get them. Such a stupid system. Around noon we made our way to the harbour to try to figure out what to do with ourselves. After having lived the high life for a day on board a yacht, everything else seemed quite dull. We ended up getting a boat to a near by island called Palmizana. We were told that Palmizana had sandy beaches; a rarity in Croatia. Up to this point, all of the "beaches" consisted of rocks. A sandy beach was particularly appealing because of the sea urchins which live on rocks. At the rocky beaches, you had to be very careful, or have special water shoes, as stepping on an urchin would leave you unable to walk properly for a few days. So off to Palmizana it was. The island had a hotel and a number of restaurants. We followed the crowd to the beach but when

Croatia Day 1: Arrival/Split So as I mentioned in my last post, I had a really annoying trip to get to Croatia from Greece. I had to fly to Munich and then double back. In Munich, my one hour flight to Croatia was delayed an hour and a half (so annoying) so I didn't end up landing in Split until 9:30pm. After taking the bus into town, it was 10:30 on Friday night. Now in most cities, this wouldn't be a problem, however Split was different. The hostel that I booked was right in the centre of the old town, which doesn't have street names and does not allow cars (or taxis). On a quiet Sunday morning, it would have been hard to find, but on Friday night with drunk people everywhere it was tough. Add the fact that there was a huge concert going on (so street closures and thousands of extra drunk people) and it was a nightmare. I had directions, but because of the street closures I couldn't follow them. Carrying my huge backpack, I got told to turn back about 5 times

Turkey Day 6: Ephesus/Kusadasi This was our last full day in Turkey.  We had an early start to get to Ephesus, which is one of Turkey's most important archeological sights....it was definitely the most impressive we saw.   A good portion of the city is still in tack, including the theatre, the library, a number of streets and bath houses.  I think the most interesting for me was the public bathroom which was still standing.  The oldschool toilets were beside one another along a bench.  The whole thing was fairly well designed as the room included an open water pipe (in front of the bench toilets) which was used for cleaning ones bum off.  Apparently the latrines were social places; even if you had a toilet at home, you might have a membership to the public toilets as well....I guess so that you could 'shoot the shit' with your friends....literally. After Ephesus we did a stop at a leather factory and store.  Once again I was not enthused, but I ended up buying a fairly

Overall, Turkey was quite beautiful.  The ruins and archeological sites don't compare with Egypt, but the country itself was so much nicer.  I would definitely like to come back and spend more time in Istanbul.  I feel like I didn't get to see enough of the cities themselves.  We saw all of the sights, but I would have liked more time to really get a feel for the country; I feel that we were too rushed and a week just wasn't enough. Days 1 & 2: Istanbul As I mentioned in the last post, I was terribly sick the day I travelled to Istanbul.  I woke up my first morning there and discovered that I was still sick. I spent most of the morning fighting a losing battle.  I guess I was looking pretty pathetic because the hostel staff kept coming and checking on me and they let me check out a few hours late.  So around 1pm, when I had finally composed myself enough to move, I packed up and took a taxi over to the hotel where I was meeting my tour. The hotel was a bit odd....m

I left for the UK after work last Thursday.  I left straight from my client, who are based at the airport, so it should have only taken about 10 minutes to get to the correct terminal.  Of course, that was not the case.  After waiting half an hour for a cab, one finally showed up. About 100m out of the parking lot, a guy tries to flag the cab....and the cabbie stopped and let him in.  I protest, saying that I need to get to the airport and the guy says that's fine; they can drop me off first and then he can get dropped off.  That in itself was annoying but when the guy we picked up started talking, it was intolerable. He would not shut up and he seemed a bit off.  He then informed us that he had just come from having  a brain scan..... seemed to make sense. Anyway, the flight went very quickly.  I "slept" uneasily most of the trip.  Upon arrival I got a bus from heathrow to Bristol where Emma picked me up. Her house is very cute. Inside it's nice and modern, but o