The day after Christmas was slightly different from the ones we generally organized in the past, which was to go to Prague to visit my grandma, who this year thought it was better if we came over on Dec 26 instead. In fact, I didn’t object to this as my foot was still bandaged from the last Saturday’s mini-operation and therefore didn’t mind giving it a bit of rest. So in order to use the time properly, I’ve again tuned in my guitars and fully learnt A Tout Le Monde from Megadeth including the two solos. Time well spent at least :oP …

The next day my father gave in and let me drive his car to my grandma’s in Prague. More out of necessity than comfort though. His issue was the fact I now regularly drive on the left in the UK, which must mean that I forgot how to drive on the right ;o)) … However, he also promised to let us have his car for our trip to Austria scheduled for Friday (2 days later) and then thought it was easier if I practiced in advance, hehe … SAFETY FIRST!!!

My grandma was happy to see us and loved my present for her, which was again a photoframe, but smaller than the one my mom got. Then we took her to an all-u-can-eat sushi bar in the center of Prague, which she probably liked too, although I wasn’t so sure ;o))) … she said she liked it though, hehe …

On Thursday I started feeling a bit dizzy, but thought that I was only dealing with a temporary tiredness. On Friday morning it felt a bit better. I drove to Prague to pick up my sister and Tomas and then spent most of the day driving down to Austria to where we booked our accommodation for the next few days. The plan was to celebrate the New Years Eve in a mountain resort altogether with our friends Pete & Denisa. Things unfortunately didn’t look that bright when we arrived there … I already had a beginning sore throat, which is always a bad sign – small sore throat in my case always leads to a big one ;o)) … my sister – the pharmacist – filled me up with various pills, prepared some teas for me to keep me goin’ … On Friday night things still looked ok-ish. We had a nice catch up chat with P&D. They’re getting married next year – same as my sister and Tomas, only one month later. I’m invited to attend both weddings, so some fun seems to lie ahead …

The night from Friday to Saturday didn’t go well at all. I couldn’t sleep and in the morning I knew my skiing was pretty much over before it has even started! I called my parents, agreed to meet them half way from our home, which is on the boarder with Austria, said my good bye to the folks and headed off driving back home with a fever fighting off tiredness all that time – the drive was approximately 250km at places going up and down the Alpine hills. Under any other circumstances I would have stopped every other minute to take a shot with my SLR, which that time laid useless in my bag, but not that day!

Today is Dec 31, the last day of 2007 and I’m lying in bed caughing. Well, this still doesn’t make the year look so bad. It was a year when I got finally promoted to a Consultant under very positive circumstances, a year when I’ve been to a fabulous holiday in Latin America, a year when I released myself from a disastrous relationship, found fabulous flatmates in London, met great new people, got myself on a nice project at work, bought a great car, and also a year when my sister successfully completed her very last exams, etc. … there were many positives this year and no matter how I spent the last days of it, it will be remembered as a GOOD YEAR!!!

I had planned a trip to Canterbury & Dover this weekend and in fact wanted to see a small village called Rye as well, which is another 40miles away from Dover, but due to the very short days, I was glad to see Dover in fact ;o)) …

Cantebury is famous for its magnificent catherdral, which one can see from far away … The center of the town is encompassed by town walls, which one can walk on … I have taken a few pictures of the center and walked one side of the walls, which can be accessed by public without paying. The other bit belongs to the property attached to the Cathedral and therefore a fairly high entrance fee must be paid to see walk on it … Although the cathedral looks great, I still didn’t feel like leaving some 6.50GBP for it. I have seen many cathedrals already and can go without it I guess ;o)) … Anyway, Cantebury was very interesting for its character – there were musicians in every street, so wherever I walked I could here someone playing a different style of music!

From Cantebury I drove to Dover. There’s a castle in Dover famous for its underground tunnels and a nice view of the White cliffs. I was very unfortunate as they had to close the castle shortly before I arrived due to the strong wind (90mph). So I went on and did a 2hr hike alongside the white cliffs. The weather had deteriorated meanwhile and I got soaked (again), but it was worth it …

On Friday afternoon – Nov 23 – I left work to head off straight onto a weekend trip to Wales altogether with my two Argentinian friends – Carolina & Ornela. Carolina is a friend of mine from the project where I now work and Ornela is her sister who came to visit her from Italy and who pretty much arranged all the plans for us because as Carolina says: “… she’s so good at it, it’s better to leave it all to her” :oD …

It takes about 3 hours to drive from Leicester to a Welsh town called Conwy. We first only wanted to see its magnificent castle at night with all the lights on, but then liked it so much that we decided to spend our first night there rather than in Caernarfon where we decided to spend our next night.

Having two Latinas in the car, a few things have been set right on the way to Conwy – first, the spoken languages would be a mixture of Spanish & English (as opposed to being easy on me and speaking only English ;o)) and the music we would listen to would be also Latin – I had a CD in the car with a selection of some Latin hits from all around the Latin world and the girls found out, so my rock music just didn’t seem to be happening that weekend right at that point … specifically, I need to add, we got stuck on one song especially – one from Olga Tanon called Hielo y fuego

First night we spent at Conwy. We tried to check in a few hotels, but found them rather too expensive or unavailable. Finally, we did find a small B&B in the center of historic part of Conwy within the medieval town walls – my room provided a view at the marina right a few yards from the town walls – that was really great!!! I loved that view …

Saturday morning was rainy. We did manage to see Conwy, but didn’t wait for the castle to open and only did a walk around the place to jump in the car and head straight for a small town famous for its beach called Llandudno. It’s a really beautiful laid back place. We strolled around the town for a bit, saw the pier and took many pics. Then I decided that I needed my watch to get fixed and being lazy, we also made a decision to drive from where we park right into the center … Of course there were no parking places, so after a few mins I saw one spot where I left the park. The fix of my watch band, which was simply a matter of sticking in a new pin was allegedly going to take half hour, so the girls and I grabbed a coffee. When we got back, my windshield wiper has been already holding an envelope with a parking ticket … ups … so this cost me 30 quid …

Anyway, I didn’t want to spoil the moment, so tried to accept the situation as it was and we headed off for the Beaumaris Castle, which is located on a small island where we crossed a beautiful bridge and drove along the coast, which was also beautiful. The rain was accompanying us most of the time unfortunately …

The Beaumaris Castle is very nice and it’s relatively inexpensive to get in (only 3.5GBP) ;o)) … There was an interesting exhibition dedicated to Edward I. and his trail of setting up castles around the Welsh coast.

From Beaumaris we drove straight to Caernarfon where we planned to spend I night. Unfortunately again we had a little problem with the accommodation, but this time we gave up and drove outside of the town to find ourselves a motel …

The next day the weather situation radically improved. It stopped raining and although it was still a bit windy and chilly, at least we could see a bit of sun. First on our plan was the Caernarfon castle, which we totally underestimated. We would have needed way more time – maybe a day to see the whole thing. There is a huge museum of Welsh history, which is interesting, as well as Edward I.’s story, etc. Plus the castle is huuugggeeee ….

After Caernarfon we planned to go and see another castle called Hardich. This castle is located straight in Snowdonia, so the drive there was amazing. We actually had to stop twice to take time and take pics of all the green hills and beautiful scenery. Hardich itself sits on a rock high up the hill and provides a great opportunity for some good shots!

It was getting a bit late when we were leaving Hardich, but still we had one last place to see – the Portmeiron village, which is a tiny holiday place with Italian-style architecture where people come to spend their weekends. We got there shortly before closure, but still spent some nice time walking around and took some night shots. And at Portmeiron our Welsh trip was pretty much over – I only spent this exciting drive back to Leicester – at least its first 60 or so miles in Snowdonia were special … the roads are super narrow and sometimes one has to hope there will be no traffic in the other direction!