A place to lay my head

22:45 CET We pop out for a swift one at Morrison’s Music Pub. I really mustn’t leave the research to others. I did quite enjoy it in the end though. If the Karaoke bar had had “Anarchy in the UK”, I’d have been up there.

budapest

20:15 CET I have finally arrived in the Hotel Bristol in Budapest. Nice people, free public Wifi. English speakers had best watch out. Remind me, why do I have to spend £5 an hour to connect to the internet when staying in British and US hotels. Obviously not in San Francisco.

19:15 CET And finally, Budapest, but I have not got any HUFs, but I do have Euros, which I hadn’t realised most people will take, not the best exchange rates but you never do when your buying retail. I speak to the exchange in baggage reclaim and fortunately they make a mistake and only book a small transaction because I had used a credit card; once I get out into the arrivals lounge there is an ATM. Marvelous. I booked myself a seat on the Airport Shuttle Bus while in baggage reclaim, which you can pay in Euros and avoids the need to navigate in Budapest. The public transport options are far cheaper, but need experience and the Taxi’s are not cheap.

16:00 CET Zurich Airport, I arrive and need to depart from the same terminal building, excellent. Priority Pass get me into the Swiss Business Lounge, which was nice very quiet and I got an hour’s free Wifi. (There was no cheese).

13:00 So off to Budapest, making the most of my city living style I have decided to fly via London City Airport, LCY. This means I have to switch flights at Zurich, since I am flying Swiss and there are no direct flights to Budapest from LCY. (Is that a distance/size thing at LCY, or isn’t there the demand? Both Swiss and Lufthansa offer you changes. Do BA actually still use City?) Anyway the AMEX exchange there doesn’t offer HUFs, bad news! The journey to LCY took 45 minutes, also not good, but LCY’s awesome compactness and efficiency means I made the flight on time. I love City Airport. …

Around and about in London

Back at work after our first weekend in our newly rented flat in London. We took a turn about Docklands, visiting the London Ice Sculpture festival, and on Sunday, we went out to the London Boat Show, which is at the ExCel Centre on Victoria Dock.

sunseekers

While I had to look at some of the boats, and couldn’t avoid looking over a somewhat excessive Sunseeker, I also visited a couple of training exhibitions and several of the holiday companies, which has given me some ideas as to what I might do this summer. Sail Ionian is offering passage from Gibralter to Greece via Sardinia, which might be fun, depending on the personality of the skipper and rest of the crew, although it takes a while and I may not have the leave. Sailing Holidays might be another way to do the Ionian or even the Saronic Gulf on the east coast of the Peloponese and both Nisos Yachts, another greek charter company & Moonfleet Sailing, a training company had stands. We also looked over a couple of J boats, although I can’t imagine buying any of them. …

Xmas Markets

I am staying in London this year for my Birthday holiday. I was very tempted by the Guardian’s Xmas markets and winter glacier trip, particularly Prague & Berlin but we decided to stay in London. I am throwing the paper advert away today. So this year, I expect to visit the British Museum and see_Avatar. I’ll have to make up on the WinterFests by having lunch at the Canary Wharf barbecues.

Perhaps we’ll do Prague & Berlin next year, the Guardian promised a train trip to Brussels, then onto Prague for three nights, and home via Berlin. It’d be good to do it, perhaps next year. …

Spain again

It’s always the way. I have been planning a holiday trip to Valencia, and flying directly there, without using Easyjet is not easy. I don’t want to use EasyJet because watching “Airline” has put me off for life. I don’t want to use Ryan Air because their UK airports are too far from where I live. They’re both owned and run by greedy entreprenuers with a zero customer service ethic. And beyond all these principled factors, I have never found a £10 ticket offer. Unsurprisingly, they’re not that much more inexpensive.

I looked at traveling via Alicante or Barcelona. Again, not easy synching with trains etc, almost worked out how to do it via Alicante, but the flights out were at appalling times. So I had just booked a return trip to Barcelona when I had the Fly Be site pointed out to me. Doh! I had checked that there were no flights to Valencia from Southampton and Bournmouth, but forgot to go around again when I changed my plans. …

Barcelona

I travelled to Barcelona with Mrs L. and on my return went up to London and travelled by Tube to deliver a presentation to Kable’s “Open Source in the Public Sector”, which reminded me of the weekend in Barcelona, both the prices and experience were better in Spain, although I didn’t travel on the Metro during a rush hour. As I landed, the day before, I received a message that Oracle had bid for Sun Microsystems, I also reflect on the helpful people at Heathrow. This post includes a slide show of my Barcelona pictures. …