Lok Man in Germany

Another long weekend, another trip. A quick glance during the week revealed that there were cheap flights to Amsterdam, so after gathering a couple of friends, off we went. Tom, Renat and Vadik were in Amsterdam from Thursday 7th June to 10th June. As we discovered after we booked our flight, finding accomodation is extremely difficult. It seems that when someone wants to book a room on a Saturday in Amsterdam, the Sunday evening must also be paid for as well. We were prepared to overnight in the airport on Saturday night, but there is a twist. As we arrived in our hostel, we were informed that it was overbooked. We then trekked from the friendly and cultured neighbourhood of that hostel (near the concert hall and the Rijkmuseum) to the red light district, where we were told that an apartment awaits. During the day, the red light district is quite normal. We met the owner of the shop downstairs, got our keys, booked the room for Saturday night as well, and we were ready to see Amsterda...

A friend from German course, Sithira, moved to Dresden to work at the beginning of the year. It was a good chance on this long weekend to drive up there and visit him, see the beautiful city of Dresden, and not have to pay for accomodation. Actually Sithira had just moved to a nice, centrally located apartment in Neustadt, which made our stay a very convenient one. Very prominent in Dresden is the river Elbe, which divides the Neustadt and the Altstadt (new and old town). We spent a bit of time walking over to the Altstadt, checking out sights such as the recently rebuilt Frauenkirche (Lady's Church), which was destroyed during the war. The travel guides list the Frauenkirche, the Opera theatre and the Zwinger (a large palace / courtyard, now art galery) as the must see sights. They are all fantastic places to walk around and look at. While I took a tour of the opera theatre, I couldn't follow the German commentary. We travelled by car to Dresden on Thursday 17th May, which was...

The trip to London between 15th and 19th March was born out of the need to get rid of 3 days of holiday before the end of March. I had several Australian friends who live in London, so why not. I stayed with Hong and Marlene, in their basement apartment in the suburb of Wimbledon. Funnily enough the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Club is not actually located there, but the next suburb down. The museum said that they moved down there many years ago. Having never used or seen the tube / train system in London before, the train trip to Wimbledon was interesting, if rather long. I changed at Tottenham Hale, Vauxhall and then arrived at Wimbledon. As long as the trip was, I was just enjoying reading English ads, and eavesdropping on other English speakers. It seems to me that Wimbledon, near the station, is a middle class suburb, with its fair share of shops, pubs (where we watched some six-nations rugby), Starbucks and pastie shops. A stroll up the hill towards the tennis club gave a more local app...