Tagged with: traveljournal

Day 5

I woke up at one o’clock. PM. I didn’t know that yet, but I did notice that everyone else has disappeared so I leaned over for my phone to check the time. I did a double take and had to check again to make sure I really had slept though the whole morning.For a moment I panicked and thought that the others had probably got up and gone out at 8 or some equally reasonable hour, leaving me to slumber through the whole day, but then I found that the bathroom was occupied so at least one of them was still there. It turned out to be Chris.
Day 4

Our second-class couchette could not have been more impressive given the class we were travelling. The carriage was brand new, with aircon that worked, sockets to plug in phones, pleasant staff, and even a questionnaire in German asking us to comment on the quality of the service, rating each part on a scale of 1 to 5.Berlin-Zoo station turned out to be rather disappointing, considering our train had come all the way from Holland and chosen this particular place to stop. No tourist information kiosks were obvious, but there was a guy waiting outside who delivered his pitch. We decided to go there – it was reasonably cheap, included breakfast, and the room was nice.
Day 3

We woke up at about 0940, and just made the checkout time. At the station our bags went into lockers. Probably the most complicated, over-engineered lockers I’ve ever seen, since in order to store an item you needed to find an empty one, stow your luggage (ok so far), close the door, wait for it to automatically lock, insert money in a nearby touchscreen terminal, and take a printed ticket which was dispensed.The problem was not so much the complexity of the system as the springyness of the doors. If they weren’t locked, they sprung open, which obviously helps people considerably when they are on the finding an empty locker stage, but becomes an issue when trying to close them, because you actually needed to HOLD the door closed while the motorised locking mechanism engaged the bolts. All over the room loud clangs could be heard where frustrated people slammed the doors with ever increasing force, only for them to spring open again immediately, because the locking mechanism hadn’t had a chance to close the lock.
Day 2

We woke at 0730, not sure why, but as sure as night follows day John was first in the shower. He’d first begun to exhibit this behaviour when I travelled Australia with him in 2000. It begins with everyone agreeing on what time we’ll wake up the next morning, and then sure enough John’s gotten up half and hour beforehand to get the shower. I don’t want to sound like I’m being pedantic about this – my complaint is about the lack of hot water that seems to result from John’s showering process.Anyway, breakfast was included at this hostel so we grabbed our entitlement of corn flakes, one slice of bread and one plastic cup of squash, and set off for the European Parliament.
Day 1

The Plan: to take a rail holiday in Europe, going where we want, changing plans on a whim. The players: John, Chris, and Sunil, all old friends from school. Sunil is after the cool climates and rugged landscapes of Scandinavia, while John would rather have the sun and the sand of the Med. Chris likes the coasts, and I prefer the cities. So I go into this with a sense of trepidation.At 09:30, Chris and Sunil arrived at my house. At ten dad drove us to our local train station for a short journey to London’s Waterloo, where we met John and checked in for our Eurostar service to Brussels.
Day 3

location:Ramwort – Acle
trip:sailing02
day:3
Day 2

location:Thurne Dyke – Ramworth
trip:sailing02
day:2
Day 1

location:Ludham (Hunter’s Yard) – Thurne Dyke
trip:sailing02
day:1
Day 24

I had an hour to kill before boarding, and another before takeoff, so I wandered along the concourse looking for somewhere to get a final Thai massage before leaving. I found somewhere, but the prices were six times what you’d pay in town, plus there was a queue. I found an internet area and had to buy prepaid credit in blocks of 100 baht, so I wasn’t exactly rushed. I spent an hour online, chatting to friends back home (where it was still early evening), checking my email and reading the news. Thinking about Palm and her upcoming trip to the states, I checked into the climate in Utah – wow, cold.
Day 23

I woke at about 5:30, and showered before i realised what the time was. I went back to bed again until a wake up call rang my phone at 8:30. I phoned Palm, to remaind her to bring her uni report on the River of the Kings show, which I was really interested to see. Fortunately by the time they showed up in the lobby Palm had found a baby to play with, which always seemed to make her smile. Wee had brought along her boyfriend, Bernard, who was pretty hard to miss at 6ft 8in. I’d guess Wee was about 5ft, if that, so it made so quite a contrast.