First Time Flying Aegean Airlines

After a short one hour flight from Istanbul, we arrived in Athens, Greece this evening.   At the moment, there are no budget airlines flying to Athens, so we took a flight with Aegean, a regular carrier.  Although it was a bit more expensive (€180 for two one-way tickets to Athens), I have to say it was nice not to fly with a budget airline for a change!

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No Really, I’m From Canada!!!

I’m taking a break from writing about what we’ve been doing/seeing/eating today to write about a topic which has been bugging me as of late – the question of “where are you from?”  We are asked this all the time – when we go eat, when we buy something at a store, when we meet other people at the hotel/hostel/B&B – and when we reply Canada, we frequently get the response “No, originally where are you from?”  This has been bugging me because I’m really truly originally from Canada – just because I’m Chinese doesn’t mean I can’t be from Canada!!!

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Overnight To Istanbul

When we got back to Stuttgart after the Sindelfingen Plant tour yesterday, we did some shopping on Königstrasse, Stuttgart’s main shopping street, but by 2:30 we were bored.  We headed to the airport, thinking we could hang out and use their Wi-Fi until our flight at 10:25 pm, but the Wi-Fi at the airport was broken!  Once again, I’m not a fan of airports or flying…

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The Porsche Museum

Part of the reason we are flying to Istanbul via Stuttgart (other than the fact that it saves us money) is because Paul actually wanted to go to Stuttgart because it’s where the automobile was invented and Mercedes-Benz, Maybach, and Porsche are all still produced in Stuttgart or nearby towns, and each has a museum you can visit.  Since we woke up late, we decided to just go to the Porsche museum today, and save the larger Mercedes-Benz Museum for tomorrow, when we will force ourselves to get up on time…

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Why I Hate Flying

Today marks the beginning of what I call “the home stretch” – our last five weeks in Europe before going home for Christmas!  We are heading to Turkey & Greece to finish off, but first we must fly to Stuttgart, Germany to spend three nights in the “cradle of the automobile.”  I’ll never understand the way flights are priced, but it was much cheaper to fly from Budapest to Stuttgart then Stuttgart to Istanbul than to fly from Budapest to Istanbul directly, which is retarded because Istanbul is southeast from Budapest and Stuttgart is west so we’re basically going backwards then forwards!

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Budapest Day 1: The Holocaust Memorial Center

Our three hour train ride to Budapest from Bratislava yesterday got us to our hotel (another Ibis) just in time for Paul to start working so we didn’t do much apart from check out the area we’re in and buy stuff at the grocery store to make sandwiches for dinner so we wouldn’t have to eat fast food, which is the only type of food near the hotel.  Today we began our sightseeing at the Holocaust Memorial Center, which was sad but very informative…

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Bratislava In One Day

While planning this leg of the trip, we weren’t sure if we should bother going to Bratislava, capital of the Slovak Republic.  Most people don’t have much to say about it, other than the fact that it’s really cheap.  If you remember the movie Euro Trip (which totally doesn’t depict Europe correctly at all but was humorous nonetheless), Bratislava is the run down, dump city where they ended up with only $1.83 while trying to hitchhike to Berlin, but managed to live like kings thanks to the conversion rate.  Since it’s only an hour by train from Vienna, we decided to come spend 2 nights and see for ourselves what it’s really like…

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Rick Steves’ Vienna

While going to ask a question at the hostel’s reception last night, I noticed a huge pile of guidebooks available for guests to borrow, so I picked up Rick Steves’ Vienna and planned today according to his itinerary and recommendations.  We had recently used his book Rick Steves’ 2009 Italy throughout our 4 weeks in Italy since the friends we were travelling with had brought it along, and it felt familiar and comfortable to follow his book again today.  Having a route to follow and a list of places that are “must-sees” just makes sightseeing so much easier!

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Old Farm, Moreton-In-Marsh

When planning the UK segment of our trip, we used Rick Steves’ website to compile a list of places to visit based on his recommended itinerary.  Visiting a town in the Cotswolds, a range of hills in west-central England, was fairly high on his priority list, so we decided to spend two nights in Moreton-In-Marsh, the only town in the Cotswolds which has a train station. I’m happy to report that, although it’s small, Moreton-In-Marsh may turn out to be one of my favorite places in England… (more…)

Bath In A Nutshell

In an effort to catch up on my blog articles, I’m condensing the remaining three of our four days in Bath into one blog entry because, frankly, our time in Bath wasn’t all that interesting!  It’s a nice little town and, after our first day of crappy food, we managed to find a few decent places to eat, but two days here would have been enough, and four days was total overkill.  Bath might be a good spot to holiday if I lived nearby and needed a relaxing getaway, but as a backpacker, it’s just overpriced without much to see or do… (more…)