Mark

Going there in August. Yay!

My plane will fly there in about 3 1/2 hours.

Roll on Rome!

I’m off to Turkey in June/July. Just booked the flights. Going with a bunch of mates, one of which has been here five times; he loves the place.

Yay-o!

Bring it on.

I don’t normally like the glorification of war, with heroism at the micro level overshadowed by farce and political meglomania at the macro level. However; the victoria cross room was very moving and it was hard to sneer at the individual acts of selflessness these people, and probably many more, did throughout the last few wars we’ve had. In some of the stories individuals knew they were going to die, but did it anyway to save the people around them. I’m not sure I could ever bring myself to do that – I hope I could – but I hope also that it is never called for.

I would recommend going, either for the collections of cool guns and tanks, or for the reminder that war is not to be considered anything but a last resort. They deliberitately tone it down so that children aren’t shown any of the horror. So it is a fun day for kids too.

Finally I’m going to Rome. I’ve made it to Venice, Sicily, Lipari… but never Rome. All my friends raved about it but for some reason I’ve never quite got there. I even studied a little Italian at one point before switching to Spanish (I don’t recommend doing this as it gets very confusing).

Will have to find somewhere to stay and some things to do. I’m sure Rome will easily fill a weekend many times over. Any particular things that I should see?

Going back here at the end of Feb. This will be about my fourth or fifth time just for madrid. This city is great. I hope I get a decent chance to use my newly enhanced Spanish. i work with a couple of madrileños and one of them teaches me once a week.
I am dying to try see how much better I may have got.

I would like to work here some day… if only the pay wasn’t so low compared to London.

Going to Lisbon to hang out for a long weekend down there. Pity it’s April as it won’t be hot enough to laze on the beaches. Should still be fun trying to speak Spanish to the people there as a lame attempt of hoping they’ll understand it because I can’t speak portuguese. It works in Brazil, they understand you. You just can’t understand the replies which are in portuguese!

Should be a good weekend.

I’ve been here a few times. Supposed to be the most romantic city on earth, however; I’ve twice bought surprise tickets to Paris for casual girlfriends at the time and twice (twice!) been dumped a few days before and the tickets not used. Wow. Probably not a comment on the city though, more a comment on me or my choice of relationships.

Paris is awesome. I like coming here on the Eurostar, staying in a small hotel near Champs Elysées, doing some shopping and having bubble baths. A bit girlie, but Paris is always a treat weekend.

I once had a friend from work there on a conference and said I’d meet him for dinner. caught the Eurostar after work, had dinner, got completely wasted until 5 in the morning. He went to the conference and I came back straight to work on the Eurostar. Sore head and well tired, but funny for a laugh. Didn’t see much of Paris that time.

It was great hiking through here. It is so hot and humid that sweat comes out your eyes!

my mate got caught by a leech. We came across a monitor lizard. Mosquitos feasted on us. The hiking is some of the most temperature challenging I’ve done. It is great. The views are phenomenal. I loved hearing the calling to prayer come faintly through the jungle in the afternoon.

At the park entrance:
A resident rat in our hut ate some of my soap (cheeky little monkey). It sounds rough, but there is also a lovely five star at the park too. So, this place can cater for everyone.

Came here, saw the rocks, but was disappointed to not see any aliens. The number of documentaries about here led me to believe they were crawling all over the place. Maybe it was an alien statutory holiday.

One funny story I heard about this place though:
A mate of mine was here and was behind two old ladies in the queue to visit the ‘henge. He overheard them talking about the motorway (A303 I think) that runs past Stonehenge quite nearby. One lady turned to the other and said “I can’t understand why they built this so close to the motorway” – cracks me up every time I think about it.