Euro trip begins - 1 conti..

Day# 1 was fun. We bought the day pass in 7.5Eur and went around the town extensively. After trying Happy and Laughter truffle, we went to the Heineken  brewery for couple of hours laughing happily !
'I don't know how to behave because other people are not high' was the dialog worth remembering. The night ended at Red Light District, famous but seemingly artificial.


Day# 2 started at Ann Frank House. Good piece of history there. We then started exploring options to leave the place and head towards Brugge. We booked a Euroline bus ticket 30Eur pp for Ams-Brugge and Brussels-Ams. The bus has to start 7am in the morning, to be able to make it we have to wake up at 5.30am . Staying at Karo's place for the night didn't look like a good idea. We moved to another host, Chris. Chris stays about half an hour distance, married to Thai chic and had a beautiful 3yo daughter. We reached there and Chris had this massive collection of books and music CDs. After a bit of chit chat we decided to crash. Chris explained us how to reach the bus station etc.


Day# 3 we were at the bus station before I could open the eyes. I shared half 'Shiva' with the black dude at the station and slept in the super cozy Euroline coach. I remember updating my status for the free wifi in the bus and reaching Brugges then. Heavy snow shower was the prediction and so was the status when we reached there. Brugge was a little pretty town. We did the Bell tower, lunch, tunnels, coffee etc and headed to the train station for Brussels. Reaching Brussels we had our host came to pick us up from the train station. We had a rather (only) unpleasant experience with the Pak begger at the metro station.

Day# 4 started early morning again to see Brussels. We were carrying excellent guidelines from our host Guy and all he had to do was to follow them. Brussels has a bit of history left in it and that's what makes it more interesting.

Euro Trip Begins - 1

After much wait and anticipation, we finally set off for mainland Europe.
Trip# 1: Amsterdam, Brugge and Brussels.
Duration: 4 days (Thursday night to Tuesday morning)

We took an Easy Jet flight from Edinburgh, £70pp return trip. We started Thursday afternoon, drove till Edinburgh airport, parked Lucy at low cost car park (£22 total) and made it to Amsterdam on Thursday night.

We stayed at Karo's B&B, a contact forwarded by fellow couch surfer. Karo was nice, the place was OK. There was a Argentinean chic staying at his place already. Karo briefed us with enough information to visit and see places in Amsterdam.

We started right away, ended up in internet coffee shop, encountered 'Shiva' and lost in the town totally ! After revolving around the town at least couple of times and asking way to about a dozen people, we finally managed to make it to Karo's place at 3am, lost and defeated.

30 days

Couple of 30 days challenges that I am holding at the moment started from 11/11/12 onward :

- No youtube.

- read at least 10 pages/day of any book.

I have this Bin Laden book to complete at the moment and then Problem Solving 101 coming on the way.

Party Time, Walk to Remember.

Today we are hosting a party for her new job. Lot of people are coming, we will try to play games and have fun.

Last weekend we went for a walk, it was our first way. It was about 3miles along the coast. On a way we reached to a ruined castle. It was beautiful. We thought of giving it up in between but we carried on anyways and felt really good after we finished.

It was a good walk.

This is high time. I received my long awaited job offer from UK just last month. I have been waiting to apply for the visa now.

Last couple of weeks:
My manager asked me to travel to Egypt to help out on an offshore operation. Although I work for Europe and Sub Saharan Africa region and Egypt falls in MENA region and I can very well say no to this assignment, I displayed my good guy attitude and accepted it.
Now that operation in Egypt got cancelled and I had to spend stupid couple of weeks there doing nothing. Visa application got delayed.

Next couple of weeks:
My manager has asked me to travel to Norway to help out on another offshore operation. I am not sure when will that happen so I am sitting at home on standby mode. I can not apply for the visa as my passport will be retained at the embassy once I have applied. It'll take 3-4 weeks before I'll get my passport back. I am being very nice and very patience these days, which is not usual me.

I just hope it'll all work out fine. If it'll not, it'll be a BIG mess. I'll create it for them.

Scotland

We have moved to Scotland. She is joining her new job from Monday onward.

Not sure how this new step will work out in longer term but we are looking forward to it. Hoping things will be great and we will be able to make the most out of it.

If things work out well then we both will not have to look for another job for the rest of our lives. This could mean less opportunities but good life.

Day# 2

We started the day with the best breakfast in the world. We ate till everyone else was done and hotel staff started staring us. Those hash brownies and pancakes had something supernatural into them!
We had this plan to go for whale watching to Kaikaura. The place was 170kms from CHC. We had a car and a GPS, nothing can stop us. I reached the car and Hello! I am not able to start it. This is embarrassing. I went to call the chauffer and he started it at once. I asked him to let me try once and I couldn’t do that again. Even more embarrassing!! Later I figured out the use of breaks while starting the car.
We started for the whale watching center. This was probably the best way I had ever drove a car. Rail track follows all way long. Grass everywhere. Even the mountains are covered with grass. There are cow, sheep and deer farms along the way. The cows are so beautiful. The sky is clean and sun is bright. We are not feeling cold anymore. I felt like I have achieved my ultimate honeymoon driving destination. Soon the vast lands would finish and here come the much awaited ocean. Shades of blue in the water! Now one side was the water and other side was the mountain.


We reached Whale watching center wondering how someone can possibly track a whale down in the wide deep ocean. The group before us came back happy; they claimed to see couple of whales and few naughty dolphins. Impressive!
We started for the trip. I asked the guide for the best seat in the boat. I was determined to take that one. She said her seat is the best!
We saw Tiaki the whale with all his glory. He was 21m huge and really massive. There was a strange excitement in the air around him. There were two more boats other than ours. He doesn’t seem to care about any of these. He came on the surface to breathe and returned back in the blue ocean. Tiaki was on surface for about 10 minutes, giving everyone sufficient time to zoom in and zoom out.


We saw couple of groups of the dolphins too. They are naturally naughty animal. They were following the cruise, bouncing and jumping in their own way. It was certainly joyful to watch such a cheerful animal.
We then return back to the land satisfied. There was a train track right behind the whale watch station and the train timings were according to the trip schedules- or may be the other way round. We went to grab lunch. That was a handsome burger we had.
We drove back to the town and had the dinner at Two Fat Indians- they changed us $3 for the pickle!! Food was Okay.
We came back to the hotel, saw the pics we clicked that day and prepared ourselves for tomorrow’s big journey.