mytbc

A wild itinerary appears!

One of, if not the, greatest parts of my new job is the time off. Our shift pattern is four nights on, four off, so if I finished work at 7AM on the Monday, I wouldn’t be due back in until 7PM on the Friday. That’s pretty sweet. As far as I can tell, that’s one hundred and eight hours between shifts every four days. The only problem is I feel like I’m wasting them with my current plan of sitting around, doing some shopping, and maybe seeing if my friends are free.

So, considering that, I’ve set myself a challenge I’ll probably never attempt. Using public transport, how far from Glasgow can I make it in those 108 hours, so that I am back in time for work? Now, yes, using planes I could probably make it to Australia and back, but that feels kinda cheaty, so I’m restricting myself to a plane back, and seeing how far I can get my bus, train and ferry before taking a plane home. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far. (All times are local)

Day 1

0700: Finish work. Head home to change, shower and pick up packed bags

1055: Leave Glasgow Central Station on-board a Cross Country train to Newcastle, arriving at 1334. Cost, ~£13. Spend a few hours in Newcastle before

1545: Catch DFDS bus to the port. Cost, £3.50

1700: Sail to Ijmuiden Ferry Terminal with DFDS. Cost, £130 per cabin, so £65pp if travelling with someone.

Day 2

0900: Arrive in Ijmuiden, Netherlands.

0930: Take DFDS coach to central Amsterdam, arriving 30-40 minutes later, at a cost of £6.50. Spend the day wandering around Amsterdam.

1901: Leave Amsterdam Central Station on-board a CityNightLine train to Copenhagen, at a cost of £88 for a bed in a double sleeper cabin, including breakfast.

Day 3

0959: Arrive in Copenhagen, Denmark. Spend the day in Copenhagen.

1837: Leave Copenhagen on an X2000 train to Stockholm, cost (if booked well in advance) £19.50, arriving at 23:39. Spend two nights in a hostel, so that you can spend Day 4 exploring Stockholm, Sweden

Day 5

0840: Catch SAS flight number 2541 to Edinburgh airport, from Stockholm-Arnada airport. A youth fare is available for £70.10, arriving at 0955

1030: Take Edinburgh airport bus to Waverley station, cost £3.50

1115: Catch a First Scotrail service to Glasgow Queen Street, cost £7.45, arriving at 1206, giving me just under seven hours to get ready for work again.

Now, obviously there’s lots of downtime in this itinerary, so it’s possible that I could go further, but this itinerary lets me visit several cities, rather than pass through them, at a total cost of travel of about £275, assuming I could find someone else to share with me on the ferry. I dunno, doesn’t seem like it’d be a bad way to pass the time.

Probably never do it though.

One of, if not the, greatest parts of my new job is the time off. Our shift pattern is four nights on, four off, so if I finished work at...

On the Up!

When I quit my job in December, I didn’t really have a long term plan. Short term, I knew I’d go the states for two and a half months, and the long term really depended on what happened during that trip. Turns out I got engaged, so that gives me a long term plan.

Of course, having a long term plan is useless without a way of working towards it, so that’s what Katie and I have been doing. Our K-1 Visa application form was submitted in April. It should take about five months before we hear anything back on that, hopefully that it’s approved and we move onto the next stage, more forms, a medical test and a consular interview. If it’s denied, um, I’ll get back to you.

However, there are other things we need to do to prepare for getting married. For instance, going to America for two and a half months turned out to be pretty expensive, so when I got back to the UK I was broke. So my first priority was finding a job. I won’t regale you with tales of Job Centre Plus incompetence or just general crappiness, but with very little help from them, I was able to find a job that I started last week. I’m not going to tell you the company name, as I got in trouble doing that before, when an automated google search revealed to my boss that I’d written a blog post mentioning my employer’s name. Whoops.

However, it’s a job I’ve worked before, in the same hotel I’ve worked in before. It’s a full time night shift job, 12 hour shifts, four nights on, four off. It’s not, you know, brilliant, but it pays the bills and doesn’t get too stressful. I’m good at it, and it gives me some pride being able to help people when I can. I’m lucky to have found it, and it feels good to know that I am working towards an end goal, to get married to Katie.

When I quit my job in December, I didn’t really have a long term plan. Short term, I knew I’d go the states for two and a half months, and...

To Munich and Beyond! Part Seven: Up in the Air!

A trip report documenting visiting Katie in early 2011

1. Purpose and Planning
2. Away We Go
3. British to Germany
4. Einer kalten Tag in München
5. Naturwissenschaft und Technik
6. Munich, Y U No Open?
7. Up in the Air!

Wake up in the morning, feeling like P Diddy. Grab my glasses, I’m out the door, I’m gonna hit this city. Well, something like that. My flight out of town was at about midday, meaning I wanted to be at the airport for about 10am. My brother was slightly hungover, but I was feeling fresh as a daisy, and pretty darned excited. In a few hours I’d once more be on a plane to my lady love. It was gonna be awesome.

Over breakfast, we wrote out the postcards we needed to send home so that we wouldn’t be disowned by the family. We got stamps from the hostel reception, and I posted them on my way to Tengelmann’s for some snacks for the flight, and some chocolates to bribe Katie’s family into liking me. It was a grey, drab, drizzley kind of morning, but even that could not lower my mood. It was a good day. I got back to the hostel, and we checked out.

When I’d been researching Munich before arriving, I’d noticed there were two methods for getting from the airport to the city centre, the S-Bahn, which is just under €10, or the Lufthansa Airport Bus, which is €10.50 one way. It is cheaper for a return ticket, but didn’t operate at the time our BA flight arrived. Still, I’d wondered why people would pay more for a bus than a train, when it takes about the same amount of time. Then, of course, I took the train, and it was pretty uncomfortable. I figured I’d spend the extra fiddy cent for the comfort of the airport bus.

The driver was slightly gruff, but nice enough. Money wasn’t asked for until the second stop, at Schwabing North, about halfway through the journey. When we got to the airport, he announced each terminal and what airlines flew from there. The first terminal we reached was “Terminal 2 – Lufthansa” and by the time we got to the last terminal he hadn’t mentioned US Airways yet. I asked him which terminal for US, and he basically facepalmed and said “Terminal 2″ Still, he drove me back to Terminal 2, and I thanked him, and headed off to try and find check-in.

I found the US Airways check-in desks hidden away in some corner, and started queueing up. Before getting into the actual queue, there were the usual security questions, did I pack my bags myself, etc, then a sticker on my checked bag and a corresponding one for my passport. Eventually I made it to the actual check-in desk. My agent, an older German lady, had some issues with my slightly complex itinerary.

Because I was flying four segments, she could not print me a luggage tag. She had to hand-write one, which she didn’t know how to do. So, she went off to find another agent to show her how to do it. Then, when she found that out, she didn’t know any of the airport codes other than Philadelphia’s. Luckily, I was able to help her out there, showing my slight nerdiness. However, once that was dealt with, I was checked in and able to head off to the gate. It probably took around 15-20 minutes to check me in, and that was entirely my own fault for choosing an idiotically complex routing.

I headed up for immigration control, which I got through fairly quickly. The only question asked was “Sprachen sie Deutsch?” to which I replied “Nein”, and I did “Danke schoen” him as I left, so despite not speaking German my entire interaction with German border control was held in German. At security, I had to take my SLR out of its bag, show that it turned on (good thing my battery wasn’t dead), and allow the agent to look through the viewfinder, I guess to confirm it’s not a bomb. Other than that, security was a breeze.

I didn’t see anything in the duty free shops worth buying, and I felt a pang of jealousy as I walked by the star alliance gold lounge. One day, I resolved, one day I’d be the one partying it up in there. Not today, though, so I headed off to my gate. One last interesting thing about Munich airport, the urinals have little flies painted in them, in an attempt to prevent gentlemen peeing on the floor. Gave me some amusement.

Flight: US707 MUC-PHL
Date: 7th January 2011
Scheduled Departure: 1125
Scheduled Arrival:1525
Equipment:Airbus A330-200
Class:Economy
Seat:8H
Miles: 4131 flown, 5165 earned

Boarding was called not too long after I got to the gate, and my particular boarding zone called not long after that. So, I got on the plane and settled into my window seat in row 8. About 30 seconds later, the woman from the row behind asked if me and the lady I was sitting next to were willing to swap with her, something about her 4 year old son needing a window. I wasn’t listening too hard, and I’m generally nice enough to swap, and since I was swapping a window seat for a window seat I was ok. Until I settled into 9H, and looked to my right, where there was no window, just a blank space.

Bastarding toddler, stealing my window. Honestly, I wanted to punch that kid. I love having a window. And now I had to sit for ten hours without one. Bastard, bastard, bastard. I am too nice.

We were served a barely edible lunch shortly after take-off, and I watched an episode of The Simpsons on the AVOD. After that finished, I decided to put on “The Social Network”, but after about ten minutes I stopped getting sound. Despite rebooting the system at my seat 3 or 4 times, the sound never came back. So, thanks to being nice to the bastarding toddler who stole my seat, not only did I lose my window, but I lost my IFE. Bastard, bastard, bastard. To cap matters, he kept wriggling about and so my tray table kept shoogling (totally a word). Bastard.

Thankfully I had my Kindle and mp3 player, or the journey would have been dreadful. One of the best flights I ever took was on US Airways, from London to Philadelphia in a half-empty plane. This did not come close. Still, after a short ten hours it was over, and I landed in Philadelphia.

We pulled in at a gate immediately next to the lego liberty bell, from which it was just a short escalator ride or stair climb to immigration. Unlike last time, the hall was completely empty. I mean, literally nobody in there. It was amazing. I was behind maybe one person from the plane, when a border agent opened a new kiosk just for me. From exiting the doors of the plane to being in front of an agent took less than 60 seconds. Now, that is service.

I’d been worried about immigration for this trip. Last time I’d visited America, I’d had some issues that involved me getting locked in a room and grilled by an angry asian lady before being given leave to enter the states, and that had been for a trip lasting two weeks. This time I’d be entering for two and a half months, and wasn’t sure how they were going to take that.

Fairly well, as it turns out. The agent was more than satisfied with my answers, and in less than two or three minutes, I was fingerprinted, photographed and stamped into the USA. I shall leave it there for now, and discuss the rest of my journey next time.

A trip report documenting visiting Katie in early 2011 Purpose and Planning Away We Go British to Germany Einer kalten Tag in München Naturwissenschaft und Technik Munich, Y U No...

30 Day Song Challenge, Day Thirty

Continuing then, Day 30: Your favourite song at this time last year.

This song has been in my windows media player library for just over a year, and it’s a song I’ve loved since I first heard it, so I guess it qualifies as my favourite song at this time last year. Unfortunately, my life at this time last year was part of a gruelling eighteen months in which almost nothing changed, every day was the same shit, so I have nothing I can latch on to that will help me differentiate between when things happened, so I can’t say what songs I loved a year ago. This will have to do.

It’s pretty good though.

Well, there you go. Thirty Days, Thirty Songs, and hopefully I’ve revealed a little more about myself during the challenge. I’ve rather enjoyed it, and I hope you have too. For a list of all 30 days, click here.

Continuing then, Day 30: Your favourite song at this time last year. This song has been in my windows media player library for just over a year, and it’s a...

30 Day Song Challenge, Day Twenty Nine

Continuing then, Day 29: A song from your childhood.

There are only two artists I can vividly remember being part of my childhood, Meat Loaf, and Bon Jovi. My dad would play their CDs, and my sisters and I would rock out to classics such as this, Modern Girl or Bad Medicine. This is why no matter how terrible or cheesy Meat Loaf and Bon Jovi actually are, I can’t help but love them. The nostalgia these songs give me is incredibly powerful. When I hear Modern Girl, I immediately think back to the huge brown sofa we had in our living room when I was a child, and jumping up and down on it while this song plays.

Continuing then, Day 29: A song from your childhood. There are only two artists I can vividly remember being part of my childhood, Meat Loaf, and Bon Jovi. My dad...