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!

The weekend has been pretty full and I have yet again missed to complete a few items on my to-do list … I wish the weekend had 3 days, so that I could catch up with all activities usually plan out to myself …

On Friday I’ve arrived to London slightly later than planned. I originally wanted to leave work at around 2pm, but that didn’t, and simply even couldn’t, happen! There’s too much to do these days as my stay in Leicester is slowly heading towards its end in a few weeks time!

I still managed to get to the cinema in time for a movie with Robert Redford & Tom Cruise – Lions for Lambs. It’s probably not a movie I’d fully recommend to others to see, but it’s watch-able. The film is trying to pass on a strong message, but does it in a fairly awkward way and as it touches upon International Politics, which I studied as major and at some point tries to oversimplify it for the sake of presenting us with a reflection of ourselves, I found this to be a bit of a put off.

I actually saw two more movies on Saturday. The first one was an incredibly long Into the Wild about a guy who got disillusioned with modern society and decided to run away from his everyday life in order to seek for ultimate freedom. This was allegedly based on a true story. The film took some 2.5 hours, presented series of beautiful shots from Alaska, as well as other nice nature shots of Arkansas & California. However, the whole idea seemed to be a bit too left-ish. There were a few interesting messages to consider, but at the end of the day, the main character seemed to be a spoiled kid from California, who cannot put up with day-to-day obligations and a few hardships. My last movie was a chick-flick Good Luck Chuck – I didn’t expect much and that’s about what I got, so no surprises there. The film has scored incredible 2% on www.rottentomatoes.com, which is the lowest I have seen so far this year for a movie, and I’ve seen a few misfits already ;o)) …

Anyway, I’ve managed to prepare all for a move to my new flat in Leicester (for 3-4 weeks), sorted all the admin, which had piled up in the last weeks while I’d been travelling a bit … And on Sunday morning left my London flat early in the morning heading to Kenilworth to see the local castle. It’s not located far from Leicester, so I’d plan to go straight to Leicester after I’ve completed my road-trip …

Kenilworth castle was quite nice. I didn’t go inside and didn’t even bother to check on the price. There was enough to see from outside and I wasn’t convinced that paying some £6 to see the bit inside would be easily justified. So I took a walk around the castle and took a series of pics. On my way back I’ve found an alternative route through the garden’s of local Abbey with a beautiful lake and lots of green.

My original itinerary was aiming for a straight trip to Stratford, but my GPS was showing that Warwick castle happened to be in an immediate vicinity of Kenilworth, so I decided for an alternative destination, which turned out to be a worthwhile decision!!!

Warwick castle is really great!!! Although the £17.95 price tag on the entrance ticket was quite a blow into my budget, I was definitely happy to conduct this trip. It took me about 2hrs to see the place and while at it, the staff provided the visitors with a Ghost Alive and Battle Dreams shows. The former was a 10mins jump & scare type of event where actors took us through this Ghost legend accompanied by sudden yells and jumps out of darkness … The latter was a story of a young warrior who died in the battle of roses and his pre-battle dreams, which turned out to be true. I later found out that the castle is administered by the Thussaud group, which explains the price of the ticket and the cheesy attractions, which where fun anyway, so I cannot complain too much after all, right? ;o)) … There are two more interesting buildings to see, which is a St. Mary’s cathedral with its tower where one can get a fab view of Warwick from – I didn’t bother spending money on this anymore. And then there’s this Lord Leycester hospital, which also looks nice from outside.

Once done at Warwick, I jumped into my Auris and drove straight to the birthplace of William Shakespeare – Stratford-upon-Avon. The town is soooo beautiful … it has such a strong character with all those small shops in the streets and nice smells luring the bypassers to enter … I took plenty pictures again, but didn’t visit any museums. This place is more about getting there and spending some time around to suck in its character and that’s exactly what I did ;o)) …

I have just returned from a week stay in the Bavarian capital – Munich.

I left London for Munich last week on Sunday and took a relatively early flight to get there early, settle down, get ready for the next day conference and maybe grab some typical German food on the way. A colleague and friend of mine – Rebecca – was also participating in the conference and came along. I met her right before we took off from London and we spent most of the time together down there in Munich until Thursday afternoon when we parted.

The hotel I stayed in between Sunday and Thursday was a 3-star. As I’ve gotten slightly spoiled lately with all the Marriott stays in Leicester, it somehow didn’t appeal as much as it would normally do. Well, the breakfast was good with all the German sausages and such ;o)) …

The first night we really tried hard to find something typically German to eat, meaning something that involved sauerkraut and sausages ;o)) … that’s how I described typical German dish to Rebecca, who luckily trusted everything I had to say, hehe … We eventually found something that looked like a German meal, but was in fact Bulgarian, which we only found out after we ordered. But anyway, was good enough and we didn’t complain.

I intended to do gym over the week, so that I could reduce the damage of a huge intake of calories coming out of the German food. I made a decent effort the first night, missed on the second night and only found the gym was closed until Thursday on the third night when I rocked the gym finally! Well, I can see the result now ;o)) …

The conference was dedicated to a Documentum content & document management system. I hadn’t been familiar with the solution, but was eager to find out about it and its new release, which arrived at the market a few months ago. And all I can say about it is that it’s a really nice package offering a very wide variety of solutions, so the overall feeling is very positive.

On Monday evening, Rebecca and I went on to discover downtown Munich at night. We managed to get to Marienplatz, which is the most interesting part of the city with its huge cathedral and a few other cathedrals and impressive buildings around. Further down the pathway we discovered a neat German restaurants with very nice prices and I have finally got my sauerkraut and assorted sausages. The food was great, but heavy.

Meanwhile the breakfast in the hotel, the orange juices and fat lunches in the conference center started taking their toll … I could then feel my daily routine was pretty way out of balance ;o)) …

Anyway, Tuesday evening I stayed in and did some work and on Wednesday the vendor took us all – the Accenture participants – out for a nice steak dinner and some dancing. It was a good time, I got to meet other Accenture people from Netherlands, Germany, France and Finland. On Thursday the conference was over and we said good bye. For me though, it was the beginning of a long-weekend holiday ;o)) …

I took a taxi right from the conference centre down to a Munich Courtyard Marriott, where I had booked a room for three people – myself, Tomas and Michal – for three nights using my Marriott membership points.  I could tell the standard changing from the previous hotel ;o)) … however, Marriott isn’t very cheap either, and so we never actually tasted the ‘certainly’ fabulous breakfast valued at meagre 19EUR!!!!

Michal and Tomas arrived a bit late on Thursday, which gave me some time to use the gym downstairs at least for an hour, while the guys relaxed after a long ride. Michal was still curing himself out of a little flu he caught earlier that week and so a little break was welcome. In the evening we followed Tomas’ culinary plan and headed straight into a Sushi bar, where one only pays 13EUR and can eat as much food as desired over the period of 1hr. The food travels around the restaurant on small plates and people grab them as they want, which I found to be a great concept!!! Anyway, the place was full when we arrived, and so we had to start outside, which was really fun, seeing all the locals passing by and three dudes with loads of small plates around eating like crazy.

Friday morning started my 1 day off holiday ;o)) … Tomas needed to do some business nearby Munich, so he left us straight after breakfast, while Michal and I headed for a sightseeing walking tour, which I planned myself. The Munich centre isn’t exactly huge, so one can move slowly around, take time to take pics of buildings and self and still crowd it all in within one day. So we saw the Ministry of Justice, Karlsplatz, Marienplatz with its cathedrals and downtown department houses and all those nice houses with flowers in the windows, while we still manage to check out a local Apple store and grab a couple café latte’s on the way!

Early in the afternoon we bought ourselves a tube ticket and headed for the Munich Olympic park with its huge tower overseeing the whole city. It wasn’t very expensive to get all the way up (some 4EUR) and gave us a great pleasure of seeing the football stadium where the Czech national team beat Germany 3:0 in the Euro ’08 qualifiers 2 days earlier ;o)) … we also saw the centre and oversaw the whole Olympic centre property. Very close to this is a BMW museum, which we all wanted to see, but unfortunately it was closed on that day and we could have only seen an extract of the original museum anyway due to some reconstruction work underway, so we skipped this :o((( … The evening meal was another culinary specialty planned by Tomas – a pork knee with sauerkraut and dumplings in the center of the city. And we got super full again … Because it was pretty cold then, we headed straight back to the hotel and made it an early night getting ready for a bit of travelling on Saturday morning.

Saturday morning I made the guys wake up early – they slept enough anyway due to early night the day before, we did a good and quick breakfast and Tomas drove us to a beautiful castle 120km far from Munich, which is also known as the ‘Cinderella castle’ or the Neuchschweinstein. The castle is really a beauty – a must see place!!! I will post pictures here very soon, so stay tuned. We had to walk up a 30min path, not really steep to see it. Tomas had been there before, so he left us for another castle in the vicinity, while Michal and I strolled forward. The tour was pretty short – some 20 mins, but definitely worth it and I recommend it to everyone. The views from the castle are sooo nice!!! You can observe lakes and forests from the castle rooms in far away distance.

It started snowing pretty badly later on in the afternoon and Tomas didn’t have his Subaru Impreza sports car equipped with winter tires, so we drove slowly back to Munich, where we still find time to check out this Munich castle at the outskirts, which name I successfully forgot already ;o)) … The super was awaiting, and so we went back to the restaurant, which Rebecca and I visited earlier that week and ordered ourselves some huge portions of pork, sauerkraut and dumplings. I could hardly breathe on the way out … really baaaddddd!!!!! Michal and I still needed to take a few night shots of the Munich centre, while Tomas headed back to bed and then we also called it a night.

On Sunday morning, our last day, or better said half-day, we woke up earlier again, bought some breakfast in a durum place nearby the hotel and Tomas drove us to this town Erling, where an inside water-world is situated. We spent some 2.5hrs inside and had a fab time riding water slides, relaxing in massaging pools, hot streams, etc. It was really cool and made me very tired. The guys then drove to the Erlings’ centre to find some food before they drove me to the airport. We bought some pretzels and white sausages with mustard in buns – this food is sooo similar to what I eat in the Czech Republic, unbelievable!!!

Anyway, my time in Munich was then over and I was ready to go. I fell asleep at the airport while waiting for my flight – that’s how tired I was. Now I’m finishing this article while still on the tube ;o))) … When I get home, I’ll just do some Leicester-packing, try to process my pics from Munich, upload them on the net and will hit the bed ASAP!!! I really need to get some sleep tonight. Tomorrow will be a busy day at work …