Mr Writer

I once said I'd keep this blog going forever... And I meant it. Sure there's a few gaps over the last few years, but I'm gonna make sure that all my overseas travel continues to make it here. On that:

Heathrow airport; 19.08, made it. Time to flight: 2hrs 22mins.
One big bag, one little bag full of my favourite things... and that excitement I always have from a long-haul trip. I'm not a airplane hater. I'm quite happy in this day and age losing myself in some (iPad) movies, books, average cuisine and tablet induced sleep... it could be way worse, right?

I'm strangely excited to be staying a night in Bangkok, where I'll literally be around the corner from the airport and near absolutely nothing in terms of everything BKK has to offer. Life has been chugging along at a rate of knots these last few weeks and months, and the idea of one evening with gym, pool & wifi is extremely appealing; I've never seen a 5 day iPhone forecast painted as 5 consecutive lightning bolts though!

But for now, I'll carry on sitting here, bags in hand, wondering what I might see and do after two 6hr flights to Dubai and then Bangkok, and then another 2hr45 from Bangkok to Manila.


The answer, well, not much in Bangkok, I'm shacked up just round the corner from the airport to make tomorrow as easy as possible as I head back there. Pad Thai and Singa for dinner, watching Newcastle play in Europe on Telly; what could be more Thai!?

Beacon

Amsterdam, Easter Weekend

Going into 2013, I realised I'd visited as many countries as I'd had years on Earth, so have since decided that my life's pleasure goal, is to keep that figure growing with my years.  So for country no.34, I decided to check off something relatively close to home, from Southend Airport to Amsterdam, it's a tiny 40minute flight...

An evening spent eating Portugese steak, drinking a bit of Amstel and Heineken was a good way to start. The next morning, sunlight gave some bearings before smashing the pavements for more coffees treats and sightseeing. Canals, Red Light District (an eye-opener that everyone should see once in life) and then of course, another evening finding the elusive Grolsch to complete the trio of Dutch beers. This may have descended into an organised bar crawl... the last text message sent was at about 3.15am... definitely too old for this sh**.

A final day spent in a coffee shop, only a coca-cola of course, and some thick atmosphere, then beers in the central square people watching and telling tales of the night before.

A Final note on the brilliance of Amsterdam airport, we got there a bit early, but managed to kill time with a decent quality burger, some casino exploits... I lost my final 15Euros in some style, roomy, airy, comfy seating - even a museum, this is THE one to get delayed in.

Lights Out, Words Gone...

Bratislava, Slovakia

Quite possibly the craziest stag do I've ever been on... During the Dry luge-ing, pub crawling, casino winning... I managed to lose chunks of flesh, and gain piles of cash... awesome weekend and a great city for this kinda thing.

Settle

Santorini, Greece (Greek Islands)

We Are Your Friends

Brno, Czech Rep

A quick weekend trip to the Czech Republic and Nick & Lucie's wedding... a beautiful part of the world, congrats to the happy couple and thanks for having me there as part of it!

Leeds

A number of times I've visited this fine city purely for football reasons, with those days long behind me (I still follow LUFC but don't put the time in to watching live games anymore), I got to take a proper look around this great Northern England city.

The Corn exchange below is a definite highlight, the architecture alone worth a look... and the meat pies served in the restaurant below are great too!

Barcelona!

Spain, Barcelona

My train sped along thru bland dessert looking country side, onto more typical Spanish rural countryside, I passed through Zaragoza - a place I'm only familiar with through watching European Football. It always makes me wonder if I'll visit a place like this, that I know nothing about other than it's football team.

Eventually I arrived in Barcelona. A city I've long wanted to visit, and for this pleasure, I had to pay absolutely nothing. However I would have to work here also.

The city was much cooler than Madrid, and somehow, my hotel much more luxurious. I checked in and went about going for a city walk. Wearing my trusty blue Haviana's I was stunned when about 1.2kms into my walk, one of them snapped. So bare-foot and ashamed in one of Europes style capitals... I found some cheap replacements and headed back to my room (I wasn't about to try and wear new thongs/flip flops in on a city walk). It was getting late, so I settled for a beer and burger before chilling out. All evening I checked out the architecture inbetween finding my way around some lovely bars.

The following day after work, I made hay, and got myself down to the beach, a true city beach whereby you could potentially go from office to sand in less than 5minutes walk.  Heaven!?

I took advantage of my companies evening meal allowance and took a seafood paella on the marina's edge. Always awkward eating by yourself in a very public place but I wouldn't have avoided that for the world.