My Ramblings

Europe Trip with Anita

Oh My!

You have to spend 16 days with this American girl 24/7..........can you do it?

Easy! It was great fun actually and we didn't try to push each other off a cliff......although now I think about it ;-)

We started off in Ripley, Surrey. Home of the Ship public house and had a hard day partying with friends until Anita was completely smashed. Perfect for an early flight the next day.

Onward to Portugal; Lisbon, Sintra, and Lagos. Spain; Seville, Granada and Barcelona. Gibraltar, Morocco and back to London.

Plenty of fun stuff along the way, stories and pictures to come.
peter on 05.26.07 @ 01:39 PM GMT [link]

Fun in the snow

Well talk about a white Chritmas, I have just finished a short spell in Salzburg, Munich and Augsburg. Obviously the hofbrauhaus was fun and Salzburg was stunning, but the highlight of the trip was Augsburg. I stayed there with an old friend Hilde, whom I worked with in Thailand. She was a great host and took me around to sparkling Christmas markets and frosty hill walks. It made a terrific episode in the run up to my Christmas trip. Hopefully I will get all the pictures out soon once I get full access to the net.
All of you out there have a great holiday season and keep on having fun!
Peter
peter on 12.23.05 @ 03:49 PM GMT [link]

Granada - The tapas capital of Europe

My my what a month this has been!
Following Hurricane Wilma I partied hard in Philadelphia with Terry and others until my liver said "leave now buddy or I'm leaving you!".
So with the almost free price of £15 I decided to fly from London directly to Granada in Spain on my return.
After a pretty uneventful flight into London I endured the tiresome cross London transfer to Stansted Airport. This must be the most expensive transfer in the world mile for mile!
Stansted was busy as usual, Ryanair has a promotion on, but very efficient.
I have been reading many complaints about Ryan Air, I have flown many times with them and have always had a hassle free trip, however I was on my guard for bad service, rip offs and suchlike. I looked at their ontime status for the last few days and it was impressive for the number of flights they have.
Check in was easy and although the desks shut 45mins before the flight it is not unreasonable to expect passengers to get there in time. The hold baggage is 15kg, a little less than regular scheduled fights but they had a very liberal carry on policy. So if you really had to bring loads of bags well you paid for them (they make commission on that but why not as there is a specified limit!)
The plane was brand new and had its own retractable stairway, I was really impressed as the BA flight from Philly was delayed waiting for such a ramp!
Although I could find no up to date connecting bus timetable anywhere for Granada Airport to the town centre, sure enough once we arrived (30 minutes early!) teh bus was waiting to take us straight to Placa Nueva in the centre for only 3 Euros. Bargain!
The hostel is only 3 minutes or so from the bus stop so that made it very easy to get to.
The Oasis Hostel in Granada, certainly lives up to its name, a calm welcoming hostel in the fringe of the Albacin area. Check in was very friendly with the hostel facilities all well explained and a free drink at the bar!
The bar is a real focal point for the hostel and after a while there I was out on the town with many new friends!
I finally got my sleep last night and spent this morning wandering the streets getting a feel once again for the place.
The area around the hostel has an Arabesque feel to it with tea shops, cafes and small artisan stores. It is an exotic locale in a fabulous Andalucian City.
Welcome to Granada.
peter on 11.10.05 @ 01:34 PM GMT [link]

Terry Maloney's birthday party crew!

The gang at Terry's Party
peter on 10.11.05 @ 02:34 PM GMT [link]

Back in the Good ole USA

Well the madness has started again, this weekend saw my pal Terry's 40th Birthday and we celebrated with a great party. The usual suspects turned up and along with a bluegrass singer guitarist called Dave we really rocked the house.
Great people and a hot party made for a wild time, I think the neigbours may need to replace the windows after our group singing session!
This week will be pretty calm although the coming weekend in New York is already giving my liver the shakes. More later
peter on 10.11.05 @ 02:01 PM GMT [link]

Planes Trains and Automobiles

Just when you thought it was gonna be easy.......a simple phone call and the dogs are loose once more.
On wednesday afternoon a call came through and I had to make it back to Miami in a hurry to fix a broken network. So reversing my course I jumped back on a boat, two planes a night at the airport in Gatwick and a a hire car from Orlando to Miami and here I am back in the USA just in time for 4th July.
I must admit I had a different weekend planned but what the heck, if you gotta go you gotta go. So a bit of diving while I am here no doubt and hope to run into some of my stateside friends as well.
Turkey goes on the back burner so to speak (small joke there somewhere) and I hope to get back to Europe in three weeks.
No promises though, anything can happen, and it frequently does.
peter on 07.02.05 @ 10:38 PM GMT [link]

Bad Ass Bodrum

It's great when the preconceptions of a place turn out to be way off. It was that way with Bodrum in Turkey.

For many travellers, I guess, it still looks like a typical resort with many tourist shops and the constant attention from the merchants. But hold on a moment, there are worse places to be. The people are very friendly and not as pushy as many guide books have written about and the feel of the city is definately Turkish.

Sure there are British bars and the like but they are well hidden and authentic Turkish cooking is abundant. It is not cheap here, that said anyone coming from a richer country will be more than happy to get great service and a fantastic location to boot.

The inner marina is the main focus of the town although the streets radiate out from the dockside with plenty of scope for exploring. Tree covered passages shelter the shop browser from the heat in the older section near the port and there are plenty of watering holes and restaurants with a great selection of fish available.

For a bit of fun you can hop onto a boat, day or night, and have a drink or a meal and the hassle factor is minimised with a smile and constant movement onwards. Linger a little too much and you will get the arm twisting patter of the shop owner, but those with experience can easily shrug this off and continue happily on. After all everyone wants to make a buck right?

I am staying in a small youth hostel, the Bodrum Backpackers. It is very clean and cheap, only 15YTL about £6, with plenty of hot water, only 5 beds in the room and en suite bathrooms with great facilities. The street is noisy all night but that is Bodrum, a couple of extra beers and you don't notice that either.

All in all I am very happy with the place, if I get to work in the next few days I will probably hang out here a while but if not I will be of down the coast to Kas.

Happy Hour is calling gotta run...................
peter on 06.28.05 @ 10:10 AM GMT [link]

lesidhe or Alıcıa
peter on 06.28.05 @ 10:09 AM GMT [link]

Bodrum Castle

Bodrum Castle
peter on 06.28.05 @ 10:04 AM GMT [link]

Talkın Turkey

The English summer seemed to be over already! After a blissful 10 days of sunshine and alcoholic madness with my friends in Ripley and more than a few hangovers (thanks Chris and Lisanne!) I decided that it was time to get back to the serious business of travelling.

Once again my favourite cheap airline, XL, delivered the bargain price of £46 to Kos in the Greek Islands. The downside, and there nearly always is one, was the scheduled departure at 11.20pm that actually turned out to be 01.20 am. But what the heck, I wasn't going anywhere, the plane was full of semi dressed females out for a couple of weeks of sun, sand and something else, so I just sat back and admired the view.

Now as a planning exercise this actually went pretty well.

The plane touched down around 6.15 am and the backage arrrived about an hour after that, it was 100m to the only plane arriving, but the bags DID get there so.......
A quick haggle outside the airport got me a flash mercedes ride to the marina in Kos town, the guy did look a bit taken aback when after just arriving I was trying to leave, still he got me there.

The Ferry to Bodrum was set to leave at 9.00am so I got my ticket and waited alone outside the Port Office. This was going to be a nice quiet boat ride.

Don't be silly! Within 15 minutes about 300 people arrived on coaches with one aim in mind, to be first through the doors and on to the boat. Led by a very strident German rep lady they were herded into groups and it started to look like a planned attack!

I thought of Dunkirk and led my retreat onto the boat cunningly tripping over the advancing octogenarian hun hordes. I seemed to be the only non package traveller and fought my way to the back of the boat to get away from the tide of advancing marauders.

The boat finally left 45 minutes late and after an uneventfull ride arrived in Bodrum, Turkey. We all charged off the boat in the direction off passport control, I was pretty keen to see my passport as It had been prised from my hands by an official whilst getting on the boat.

Eventually, after one door was smashed open (ok not too dramatic but an old lady did fall through the glass door, I was nowhere near her, honest) the crowds forced their way to the overwhelmed immigration staff. My passport was there, phew! I pointed it out and a cheerful official flipped though it, smiled and handed it back to me saying visa! and pointed to the back of the line and a small visa office. Bear in mind I was the only one with luggage, the others were day invaders or similar, and none of them seemed to need a visa. The office was closed but the duty free salesman doubled as the visa man so I was deprived of 15 Euros and a visa stamp duly placed in my passport.

The throng was in full force still so I used my charm and asked him to go and get his mate at the desk to stamp it, success! A minuite later I was out of there and fleeing down the dockside in seach of my hostel and a shower.

The Bodrum Backpackers is billed as the only true one in town so I headed there. Only a short stroll through the streets and it was there, a clean white building and a cute kiwi manager. She soon took care of me and I was able to dump my pack and take a shower.

The city on first glance seems very nice, not overwhelmingly touristy like Protaras in Cyprus and very Turkish! I took a little walk around the marina before succumbing to lack of sleep....siesta time.

It cost me a toatal of 60 Euros from leaving the airport to arrival in Turkey. That included the taxi, the boat ticket, all the port taxes and a three month visa. Not too bad and having arrived at 6.15 am I was in the hotel about 10.45am so a result if you ask me.

I am off to sleep and will attack the next happy hour I see with vengance.

See y'all later.


peter on 06.28.05 @ 10:01 AM GMT [link]

fun in napa

Click for a picture of me in my favourite position
peter on 06.15.05 @ 06:45 PM GMT [link]

Dancing and Diving in Agia Napa

Now this is a crazy place, you have to see it to believe it. Agia Napa itself is not too bad, at least it has some nice girls, beaches and pubs. BUT Protaras, my god a hellhole of miserable karaoke bars, Elvis, Tom Jones and Robbie Williams impersonators and half of yorkshire!
If you want Britain in the sunshine then this is it.
Well it was not all bad, I met some great people at work and did a shed load of diving (best was the 24 dives on the Zenobia) I am now back in the UK for a week and then off again......don't know where yet but the caribbean is calling!!!
New posts on the gallery shortly with the final night pics in Cyprus!
peter on 06.15.05 @ 06:44 PM GMT [link]