At Journey's End
My trip to Greece was like most long trips: there was a lot to enjoy, but most of it was sitting on trains (or rather, lying, as I used sleepers and couchettes for large parts of it), feeling bored. The trip was a little unusual, in that I was travelling with a friend from Brussel for the first few days, then I set off on my own for the remainder. It was interesting to see the different characters of all the cities I passed through. Praha felt like a faded jewel; Ljubljana had the same vibe that Edinburgh has, clearly something to do with being the capital of a small country; Zagreb was the first really 'different' city that I reached. It took a little while to get used to it, but once I had, it grew on me. Sofia was one of the best cities which I visited. I didn't actually spend a lot of time exploring Sofia, instead I settled into the brilliant Hostel Mostel for a break from my holiday. There is only so much walking around cities looking at tourist sights that I can manage. After Sofia, I had one last comfortable sleeper train, before becoming acquainted with ΟΣΕ, the Greek state train operator. I say acquainted, really though, that didn't happen until my return journey. From Thessaloniki to Athens, I had to use a coach thanks to a railway strike. I did get to use rail-based public transport in Athens though, with the Metro to Pireus. A quick overnight ship down to Crete brought me to that little corner of England in Crete that is my grandparent's house. I'm not ashamed to say that the first thing I did when I arrived was to make a proper British cup of tea, and watch BBC World News.
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Rolling On...
I was in Dublin for the
first Inter-Isles Young Greens get-together, which
was great fun. We managed to achieve the perfect
balance between socialising and serious stuff.
Highlights included going on my first Pride march,
and developing a taste for Guinness. The next event
is in Edinburgh, later in the year, so I'm looking
forward to that.
While I was in Ireland, I
managed to squeeze in a trip over to Co. Galway to
visit family. Rural west of Ireland is quite a
contrast to Dublin, shown most clearly in the
difference between a pub in Cong with DJ Eamo (bored
looking man in the corner with a laptop plugged into
the speakers), and pretty much any pub we went to in
the capital.
Anyway, 'twas all fun, as, hopefully, the rest of
Europe will be.
Too Many Trains!
Anyway, I'm partly writing this to try out a new version of the software that runs my blog, and partly to fill in the gap before I put up my next post, which I'm thinking will be a "political" thing. Read More...
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