Madrid and the Freaking French

Well I arrived in Madrid this morning and went to book my next train ticket to Paris only to find out that the French are having a rail strike and so I can't get to Paris or anywhere else for that matter.

So here I am trying to find someway to book a trip from Spain to Germany so I can catch my next flight out to Singapore on the 24th Oct. It should be fun...there seem to be a number of cheap airlines around the place but which one is the best...

Lisbon

To Lisbon (Lisboa) I arrive…eventually. As things go the train that I was on we had to stop short to Lisbon because of a problem (probable somewhere along the rain tracks) and go from that onto buses for the last leg of the trip (oh what fun that was).

Even still what’s better is that I got of the said bus at the first train station stop instead of the second so I got my first taste of Lisbon’s metro system – which is pretty quick and efficient although not the most trains come along – but I guess I can’t expect that many trains that often in a city of a little under 600,000 people.

My day consisted of walking up a steep steep hill with my backpack on to a little guesthouse – which tired me out…then walking back down again to wander around the city get some lunch and then about 3 hours later head back to the guesthouse and fall asleep for about 5 hours. At the moment after writing this I will try and figure out what I am going to do tomorrow (although have pretty much decided just to find somewhere to get some breakfast and water and then walk over to the castle to start with. That may take me all day to wander over there wander around the castle and wander back again…but we will wait and see. In any case this post won’t happen until after that has happened anyway – actually it’s most likely only going to get posted once I get to Madrid probably.

13th Oct Paris - Lisbon

So I decided to head straight to Lisbon on an overnight train rather than run the gauntlet of possibly not having accommodation in Paris. I guess that’s the advantage of having an open plan on what I want to do and when…all I have to remember to do is be back in Frankfurt for my flight to Singapore on the 24^th Oct.

So I start again on a train trip this one taking me from France through Spain to Portugal. I’ll arrive into Lisbon at 11am having left Paris at 3.50pm the day previous…nothing overly exciting to report thus far though except that I get a train room all to my self for the night which is good.

To Lisbon I ride…

12th October Europe

Left the hostel to go to the airport once at the airport my flight had been delayed due to fog – typical London weather. Luckily however it was only delayed by about 30 mintues. Once in the air it was quite pleasant with a half full airplane. I had two seats next to me free which was nice – although a guy from across the isle change seats and sat in the empty isle seat on my side.

Once the plane landed in Frankfurt we were away from the actual terminal – which meant walking down the stairs onto the tarmac and catching a commuter bus over to the terminal. Quite an experience to do that in Germany.

Beyond that German immigration was easy to get through but getting a train ticket wasn’t as easy. Once on the train from Frankfurt to Kohl – I realised that my ticket that I was given was going to take me through Belgium (not a country included on my Europass). However the extra cost was on 20E so not too expensive a mistake.

However I am heading into Paris on the eve of the France vs. England semi-final rubgy match – and so accommodation maybe a little difficult to find – but we will wait and see what I can get. If I can only get tonights (Friday’s) accommodation and nothing on Saturday I will catch the try and get an overnight train to Madrid and do Paris on the way back up and to Frankfurt at the end of journey in Europe.

Just an added point, it pays bonuses being over 25 as my Europass is 1^st Class – so I get to travel in relative luxury compared to 2^nd Class.

And so begins my 13 day adventure in Western Europe…

Left the hostel to go to the airport once at the airport my flight had been delayed due to fog – typical London weather. Luckily however it was only delayed by about 30 mintues. Once in the air it was quite pleasant with a half full airplane. I had two seats next to me free which was nice – although a guy from across the isle change seats and sat in the empty isle seat on my side.

Once the plane landed in Frankfurt we were away from the actual terminal – which meant walking down the stairs onto the tarmac and catching a commuter bus over to the terminal. Quite an experience to do that in Germany.

Beyond that German immigration was easy to get through but getting a train ticket wasn’t as easy. Once on the train from Frankfurt to Kohl – I realised that my ticket that I was given was going to take me through Belgium (not a country included on my Europass). However the extra cost was on 20E so not too expensive a mistake.

However I am heading into Paris on the eve of the France vs. England semi-final rubgy match – and so accommodation maybe a little difficult to find – but we will wait and see what I can get. If I can only get tonights (Friday’s) accommodation and nothing on Saturday I will catch the try and get an overnight train to Madrid and do Paris on the way back up and to Frankfurt at the end of journey in Europe.

Just an added point, it pays bonuses being over 25 as my Europass is 1^st Class – so I get to travel in relative luxury compared to 2^nd Class.

And so begins my 13 day adventure in Western Europe…

London

The flight from Vancouver to London was very uneventful – I ended up watching 3 movies as I was unable to sleep (as usual) on the plane.

Once in London I made my way to the Earl’s Court Hostel where I booked in bought a couple of items and then slept until about 4.30 Saturday morning…when I got up and made a list of all the things that I wanted to do and see.

I was lucky to get Friday (although I sleep through most of it) Saturday, Sunday and Monday being clear days…Tuesday rained all day long and relatively hard aswell…Wednesday rained in the morning and then was fine in the afternoon.

I have done all the touristy things like Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, The London Tower, Tower Bridge etc. I have also gone and seen 2 West End shows – We Will Rock You (the tribute to Queen) on Tuesday night, and Spamalot (the Monty Python show) tonight (Wednesday). Both shows were excellent however I wish I’d paid more for my ticket to We Will Rock You as I was stuck in the balcony in the second to last row – not too bad a view but a little out of it.

Tomorrow (Thursday) I will probably jump on a river Themes boat tour and possibly get off at Greenwich the zero time zone of the world.

Las Vegas & Seattle

Well I figure I'd better post something about Vegas up on here...

So I left for Vegas on Saturday the 22nd September without any accommodation for the Saturday night - I figured that I'd probably be up all night anyway so why bother with it and the expense. The flight to Vegas was eventful as while we were waiting to board the plane I was listen to someone else telling someone what to do, go see etc. There was a mum and daughter pair that we going down for the first time from Wales (in the UK for those who don't know where it is) - the daughter lives in Vancouver now...also the guy telling us what to do had a Betta Electrical (for the Aussies) T-shirt on which he'd got when he was down in Australia once.

So on the flight to Vegas when we were about 1hr out from our destination we hit some pretty bad turbulence which flung the plane from side to side - once really badly that my head actually hit the window...but it also dropped down aswell - although I have to say it is the first time on a flight that has hit turbulence that bad and the majority of people on the flight were laughing.

Once in Vegas I checked my bags at the Sahara hotel (where I was staying at) and made my way along the famous Las Vegas Strip...it was a sight to see and once I got to the main section where most of the casinos are located it was pretty busy and hectic - that is until about 3-4am when it really started to die off. I kept walking and visited most of the casino's along the Strip on the Saturday night...I was dead tired the next day and while waiting to check in sat at a slot machine and while playing slowly was falling asleep and was grateful once I had checked-in to finally get some sleep after beening up for about 27hrs straight.

Monday was pretty boring with not much to do - and is when I lost most of my money because of it - but in the evening I went to see a comedy show called the Second City Theatre in the Flamingo casino - it was pretty damn funny - I got a great laugh out of it.

On the Tuesday I took a tour to the Grand Canyon and it was certainly Grand - we went to the South Rim which is the widest section of the Canyon and it was we worth the trip - even with a bus that was on the verge of completely breaking down...but as a result of that I got to go on the famous Route 66 and stop in the town where the person who partitioned the US Government to recommission the road lives (and is now know at the home of the start of the historic Route 66) - it was definitely a place worth seeing and well worth the inconvenience of the bus basically breaking down and putting us about 1-1.5hr's behind schedule - which was fine as we rocked up to most of the stops just as the last lot of tour buses were leaving.

Wednesday was pretty quite as well though - I played in a poker tournament then went and played at a poker table after that to kill time before I had to catch to plane back home (I did ok at poker, not the greatest but decent enough to hold my own with some half decent players - no one famous thought).

Now onto today... I went with my friend James down to Seattle to post some of my stuff back to Australia (as I didn''t want to carry it through Europe - and it was cheaper to post it out of the US rather than Canada)...it was kinda eventful especially at the border crossing as they wanted to have a look inside the boxes but we got through ok in the end and made our way down to Seattle to post the boxes - it was fun and I got a couple of laughs and gave a couple of stories to the boarder crossing customs guys and the postal workers aswell.

We also went and visited a couple of bookstores down there that were suppost to have Jame's books in stock - the first place didn't even know who James was ... which in itself was quite funny, that and they were mixing him up with Jesse McCann who has written graphic novels (like the Dragon Ball Z books). The second place we went to were interested in James when he introduced himself and actually had one of his books in stock - so I took a photo for him with two of the ladies who worked there...he way even get some events down there which would be great for him. On the way back through the Border Customs they customs official could believe it when we said that we had just gone down to Seattle for a day visit and all we had bought was one measly Western Europe phasebook worth $11 and asked me a second time if I had bought anything else other than the book which I was holding in my hand...which I politely replied that it was all I had bought and that was it. Well we got through and had a good laugh out of it, and so ended a successful day of posting and touring some of Seattle - BTW while I have been to Seattle before James hadn't so in effect I was showing him around Seattle rather than the other way around.