5 posts tagged “travel”

Wing of Tomorrow

Europe

I finally got my tickets to the Sonata Arctica concert in a week. Yay! I already saw them in November (they must like the UK) and it was probably the most thoroughly enjoyable concert I've ever been to. It probably helps that the songs are so easily "singable". The friend I went with was singing along after 20 minutes even though he'd never heard any of their songs before. This time I'm bringing three friends. They should start giving me a referral bonus or something, haha...

And on even more concert related stuff... I found out that my trip to Sweden in the summer happens to co-incide with a Europe-gig at a town festival in a city called Skellefteå, which is very close to where I am planning to go. Now, Europe probably aren't the trendiest choice of band to watch, but in music terms they were "my first love" in the 80s. I had all the posters on the wall, knew all the records by heart, watched the video recordings over and over, started pestering my poor mother to let me go to their concert a whole half year before they even came on tour to Vienna (in the end I was allowed to go - with my dad. My dad now claims that he really enjoyed it, though this is in contrast to his behaviour at the actual concert which he spent mostly poking fun at the rest of the audience and waving a pretend lighter. Classic "embarrassing dad" moments.) I even bought a Swedish book out of my eternal loyalty to the band when I was 15, and to this day I can still speak the language.

The funniest thing was that many many years later, as a grown up (as grown-up as I'm ever going to be anyway), with my Europe-enthusiasm long faded, I flew back to London from a trip to Stockholm, walked off the plane (faintly noting that one of the other passengers looked vaguely familiar), and... found myself standing next to Joey Tempest (Europe's singer and the sole object of my teenage affection during the 80s) at baggage claim. My grown-up reaction? I nearly had a heart attack, walked into the arrival hall (instead of attempting to say a few words to him like most people would have done in a similar situation) and shouted "guess who was on my plane" towards my waiting then-boyfriend with such a volume that half the arrival hall turned around to look at me. Not a very dignified story, but I still enjoy telling it whenever the conversation subject comes to teen idols. How many people can say that they randomly bumped (sort of) into theirs?

So, it has got to be done. I am obviously destined to stalk the band to near the Arctic Circle, just so I can sing "Ca-ha-har-rieee" on top of my voice in the midnight sun and jump along to "The Final Countdown". And I will be going to a festival in a foreign country, on my own. This should be interesting to say the least: either I will drink some beer and meet random people, or I will have an interesting, but character building, billy no mates experience! 

I'm a lot poorer now, because the travel company I booked my wilderness adventure this summer with confirmed that the tour was definitely going ahead - so I sent them the rest of the money. Which was a lot. Oh well, living on beans on toast isn't so bad either!

I'm really excited though! This trip falls into the category of "something I have always wanted to do but never plucked up the determination to actually go for it". Basically, I will fly to Stockholm and then have to find a way to venture the 900km north to the Arctic Circle. Apparently this isn't as easy as it sounds, as the faster trains (or trains at all, for that matter) stop about halfway from Stockholm to Sorsele, and then it's a choice of taking local buses that run once or twice a day, or a (great sounding) trip on a little wilderness railway route that takes regular stops to chase assorted wildlife off the tracks.

On arrival in the nature reserve in Lapland there will be a three day horse riding tour through the mountains (an all time dream of mine), a wildlife safari, canoeing and other activities. And the midnight sun! And then the same or a similar route down to Stockholm again, and back to England, at which point I will probably look and feel like a truck has run me over. All very exciting though.

So this also means that I now have exactly 12 weeks in which to get off my butt and get fit!! I doubt I will need arctic explorer levels of fitness, but getting fit is something I have been planning (and failing at) for... erm... years (I have lost count how often I have "started a gym routine on Monday"), and this trip will maybe give me an actual goalpost to work towards. Now, if my flatmate didn't keep bringing in those lovely bottles of red wine... 

I'm back from my second trip to Vienna this month. A very Austrian month indeed! This time it was a scheduled trip though - my yearly trip home for Easter - and I had been planning it for months (which still didn't help the extortionate travel prices but hey). I didn't stay in Vienna this time, I stayed in my parents' home in a small village in Lower Austria, near Mistelbach. The area is called the Weinviertel (wine quarter) and is thus characterised by vineyards, wine cellars and the fact that every village has a wine press as a "special landmark". Apart from my parents' village which has an old fire engine, possibly rebelling against the rest by putting up a different landmark!

Other than that the area is very wide and mostly consisting of fields and rolling hills, as can be seen here:

Clouds

Easter was a very freezing affair. Somehow winter came back and on the day I left to go back to England it snowed! I spent most of my time sorting through my old stuff, and found gems such as my teenage song lyrics and diaries (neither of which should ever see the light of day). My parents sorted through even older things, such as letters written by my grandparents in the second world war and its aftermath. It was a bit of an eye opener in terms of the hardships people had to live through at that time, the hunger they suffered and how much they lost during the war - and the barely contained hope that life will become more prosperous again.

I also found bureaucratic correspondence (insurance policies etc) from before the second world war, all signed with "Heil Hitler" instead of "Kind regards".  Looking at it you cannot help but be amazed at the insanity of that time. Did people realise the ridiculousness of greeting each other with "Hail *insert dictator's name*"? Were they too scared to do otherwise or did they simply go with the flow because times were tough and they didn't want to question authority? Very bizarre...

On my way back to England I took an afternoon out to visit Gent in Belgium. I didn't expect much because I had never been there before, but it was amazingly beautiful. I also have to give an extra mention to the wonderfulness that is cherry beer (and it doesn't cost £5 there like it does here).

Here are some pictures of the town:

Above are some buildings in the old medieval centre, and below a huge town square called Vrijdagmarkt (which confusingly becomes a bustling market on Sundays instead of Fridays like the name suggests). The square was really impressive, and it helped that the cloud formations were beautiful combined with the huge statue in the middle of the square (I was too busy taking pictures to remember to look up who the person on the statue is)

The rest of the time I walked through the streets and along the waterways with hundreds of bridges. I don't think the pictures pay tribute to how beautiful these waterways and the old buildings and bridges next to it are. Especially because the light was pretty low (although the clouds sometimes opened to let some sunshine through) - in a way the dark clouds and blue sky patches added to the atmosphere though.

It seems to be pretty cheap to go to Gent from London, as train connections from Brussels are included in the Eurostar ticket - I'll definitely be back in the summer to drink cherry beer by the waterside - or go to Bruges which must be stunning too. Until then I have at least three litres of random cherry and fruit beer bottles that I bought in a supermarket as a souvenir (and then carried home - ouch).

Last weekend I went to Vienna and Lower Austria (with half a day pause in Paris) so I thought I would do a little photo diary.

Above are a few pictures of Sacre Coeur and around. Since I only had about 6 hours in Paris, and two of those were taken up eating an enormous amount of cheese with my Parisian friend (a dish called Raclette which consists of cheese, more cheese and some potatoes and meat), I stayed in the Sacre Coeur and Montmartre areas. Really pretty!

The views from Sacre Coeur are really amazing. They must be even better when the weather isn't freezing, cloudy, rainy...!

A few pictures of Montmartre. Which consists mainly of artists selling their work, shops selling prints of artists, postcards and lots and lots of cafes!

I really like the Parisian Metro signs... wish we had something as stylish in London, you could pretend that the tube isn't a cattle herd type of sardine experience!

Strasbourg

After Paris, I went to Strasbourg to go by train to Vienna. When I got to Strasbourg it was late, cold and I realised I had 2 hours to go till my train! So I went around the town a little, found the only cafe (the only one I saw) and sat for an hour looking at the river and drinking hot lemon (I was stupid enough to sit outside :-)

Back in Vienna, me and my parents went to the zoo for an afternoon. It was extremely cold. I think the polar bears were the only ones really appreciating the weather! There is a panda baby at Vienna zoo, which is called Fu Long and famous for being the first panda born in captivity in... I don't know how many, but a lot of years. It is extremely cute, and you do have to queue up for a long time to get a glimpse! There were also twin polar bear babies who were adorable and jealously looked after by their mother.

Final few pictures are of Leobendorf and Korneuburg, two towns 20 kilometres north of Vienna, in an area called the "wine quarter". Korneuburg is a rather small, quiet provincial town next to the Danube, and Leobendorf is a wine growing village next to Korneuburg. I grew up there, spending most weekends and all of my summers in Leobendorf. I learned to drink wine there too!

I have many many train journeys to look forward tomorrow. OK just three. First from London to Paris at stupid o'clock in the morning, and then in the evening first from Paris to Strasbourg and then the night train from Strasbourg to Vienna. Maybe I am taking my dislike of flying a bit far?

That said it is so much more fun to do the train thing. No endless journeys to the airport, queues checking in, waiting around, sitting squashed in a seat for two hours followed by everything again in reverse. You just go to the city centre of your choice, get on a train and watch the countryside fly by, get out and you're where you want to be.

Plus, and that is the biggest perk for me, you get to arrange your trains to have an afternoon in places you wouldn't otherwise have had a chance to spend any time in. So tomorrow for me that is Paris - 6 1/2 hours of it in fact. I guess some people go there for a weekend and do the sightseeing thing. I do it in small chunks of random afternoons! Which admittedly takes a bit longer. But I'm hopeful to have seen most of the place by 2015.

I also get to see my friend Florence who I haven't seen for about a year. She's at work but we're going to meet up in Montmartre for lunch. So I am really looking forward to that. I have to say it does feel a bit strange to say the sentence "I'm in Paris Friday afternoon, fancy lunch?"