Summer lovin' - Euro style

It is now over a year since I moved to Bangkok, and what an exciting, eventful and enjoyable year it has been. And while I have definitely missed some things about Australia during the year (live music, the variety of beer, the demise of John Howard, and of course friends and family) I have not regretted my decision to move to Thailand at all.

One of the things that I continue to really appreciate about being here is the holidays. I recently had 7 weeks of holiday to fill in, so here is a rundown of what I got up to.

LONDON

The school very generously paid for me to attend a 5-day course in London, and also paid for my return flight. The course was actually quite useful and I got to meet a lot of other counsellors from international schools all over the world. I got a limited chance to explore London a bit and for the first time I really enjoyed the place. The fact that the weather was perfect the whole time I was there may have been a factor, but the area I stayed (Islington) was also very pleasant, with several good pubs around.

Trafalgar Square

South Bank of the Thames

Parliament House - I actually went and watched a bit of parliamentary debate while I was here

CZECH REPUBLIC

As many of you may be aware, I love Prague. I still can’t say exactly why I like it so much, but even after my fourth visit to the place, it is still my favourite city in Europe. There is just something about it that really appeals to me. I had a really enjoyable 3 days in Prague where I mainly hang out with an Aussie guy named Adam who I met on the bus from the airport. I got to explore some new parts of the city and of course sampled plenty of the local food and drink. Czech beers are so good! I renewed my love affair with Velvet and also discovered a few other very tasty ales, including my new favourite: Master 18° - a jet black beer with really intense flavours. The other thing I got to do in Prague was see one of my favourite bands, Flogging Molly, play live. For me, it was a much-needed dose of quality live music after a year of cold turkey in Bangkok.

The main square in the Old Town of Prague

More Prague and more tourists

Charles Bridge in Prague

A happy man

On my previous three visits to Prague, I had never managed to bring myself to leave it and explore other parts of the Czech Republic, but I was determined to do so this time. I managed to visit six other places throughout the country:

• Karlstejn is a small little village just outside Prague with a fantastic castle overlooking it.
• Tabor is a nice little town south of Prague with some good museums.
• Cesky Krumlov is almost as good as Prague ... almost! It is a stunningly beautiful, tiny medieval town with a nice river running through it with a castle on a cliff overlooking it. So picture-perfect it’s almost surreal.
• Telc was another small village but unfortunately for me it suffered from being not as good as Cesky Krumlov.
• Brno is the second-biggest Czech city and is much more functional than Prague and therefore not as interesting, but still quite nice.
• Olomouc was another place I really liked – a small city (or big town) that had a great feel to it and didn’t suffer from tourist overload (the only downsides of Prague and Cesky Krumlov).

Karlstejn Castle

View from the top of the church in Tabor

Tabor

Cesky Krumlov - looking out from the castle

Rafting down the river from Cesky Krumlov

Cesky Krumlov at night

The main square of Telc

Renaissance houses in Telc

The main square of Olomouc

POLAND

I had never been Poland before, but had heard many good things about it. And it’s certainly an interesting place. I only had a week to spend there, so I spent 4 days in Krakow and 3 days in Warsaw. A lot of people compare Krakow with Prague and I can see why, as the old town in particular is beautiful and has heaps of tourists. And while I liked it, I couldn’t help get the feeling that the city is very superficial, in that there’s not a lot of depth to it. It looks beautiful from the outside, but there’s not much beneath the surface. I’m sure I’m being unfair to it, but that was my experience. I did day trips to Auschwitz and the Wieliczka salt mine, both of which were very interesting. I also had an interesting night in a bar when I met a guy named Sergei from Belarus, who was so amazed that I was from Australia, he insisted on buying me many shots of vodka until I had to say no more, and then stumbled out of the bar and had to buy a kebab (which I then spilt all over myself) to try to counteract some of the vodka.

Central Krakow

The main cathedral in Krakow Castle

An aerial view of part of Krakow's Old Town

Auschwitz

Wieliczka Salt Mine - everything here (including the chandelier) is carved out of salt!

Krakow's main square at night

Warsaw on the other hand I felt had a lot of depth to it and I actually enjoyed it a lot more. I feel it has a real buzz and energy about it that I felt was lacking in Krakow. There was also more of a sense of how the recent history (WW2 and the fall of communism) has affected the city and its people. I also got to hang out with a really cool guy named Miguel, who was in the process of taking a marathon train trip from his home in Lisbon, Portugal to Hong Kong, via Moscow and Mongolia, on the Trans-Siberian railway. A trip I would love to take sometime.

During the three weeks I was travelling around Czech Republic and Poland I was staying in hostels. I was initially not looking forward to that aspect of the trip as it’s been many years since I’ve had to stay in hostels (they don’t really exist in Asia since hotels are so cheap) and I was feeling like I’m a bit old to be staying in hostels these days. But for the most part I really enjoyed it. I met some really decent people and certainly part of what I enjoyed so much about my time there was the people I got to meet and hang out with.

Warsaw

The old town in Warsaw

Inside Warsaw Palace

SPAIN

Due to the emergence of so many cheap airlines, flying around in Europe is now very easy and cheap. And conveniently for me, Norwegian Air curiously fly from Warsaw to Alicante in Spain. I was there to visit Chris and Lubbertus, two friends of mine from Bangkok who had moved there to retire only a week prior to me arriving. But fortunately they were quite happy to let me stay with them despite that. They live in a tiny village called La Apparecida, which is at the foothills of some beautiful mountains about half an hour from the coast. I hadn’t been to that part of Spain before and it is really interesting, laid back and relaxed – everything still shuts down for siesta in the afternoon. I spent a day in Orihuela and a couple of days in Alicante while I was there. A very nice part of the world and I imagine a great place to retire. I also loved being able to speak some Spanish again.

La Aparecida

Alicante, with the old fortress on the hill in background

A view from the ruined fortress in Alicante

IRELAND

Ireland is another of those places in Europe that I really like because it’s so unapologetically unique. People still live in tiny villages and are happy to do that. They still drive tractors down the main roads. There are still towns located 8 kilometres apart that are distinctly different from each other. They still have pubs the size of an average living room where only 7 locals turn up each night. It’s still quite quaint in that way, which means that it hasn’t been developed much (outside of the big cities) and it is still therefore amazingly beautiful.

I visited two friends of mine, Carmel and Ollie, from my old Abu Dhabi days and it was great fun catching up with them. We drove around the country side, visited many a pub, ate many a potato and drank many a Guinness. It was great. Carmel lives in a town outside Cork and Ollie lives in a town outside Kilkenny so I was only down in the south of Ireland this time round.

Some Irish locals hanging out

One of the many beautiful scenes in Ireland

Myself, Carmel, Elaine and Ollie

LONDON

I flew back to London just for a couple of nights before leaving to fly back to Bangkok. I stayed with my friend Marianne and enjoyed the chance to slow down a bit and see a bit more of London.

BANGKOK

I was actually quite exhausted by the time I got back to Bangkok. The first thing I had to do when I got back move into a new apartment, as I had moved out of my previous apartment in Bangna. So that morning I picked up the key for my new apartment, then had to go and pick up my stuff from Bangna and bring it back. My new apartment is smaller than my last one, but the location is infinitely better. I am now living in a decent little one-bedroom apartment in a very quiet soi about 3 minutes walk from Silom Rd, which is a very lively, busy street with lots of, shall we say, character. It is choc-full of street-side food stalls, shops, bars, restaurants and cafes. And even though there are lots of foreigners who hang out there, it is still very Thai, which is what I really like about it. The other thing I’m really happy about is that I’m only 4 minutes walk from a Skytrain station, which means it’s really easy for me to get around to other parts of Bangkok.

The view from my new apartment

After getting back from Europe I spent about a week doing very little other than sleeping in, settling into my new apartment and catching up with a few people. It was very relaxing and enjoyable. After a week of that I managed to go down to Ko Samet for a few days with a friend of mine to chill out on the beach before having to go back to work.

And that pretty much is where I'm up to now. We have just finished the first full week of the new school year and so far all is going well. So, I think that might do for now. Cheers!