Where and When

I am not widely travelled,

There - I said it.  Much as I love every journey that I have made, I have actually been to very few places, and only 3 outside of the UK.  partly, this is due to my own issues: it took a lot of courage to close the door behind me for that first trip overseas (Paris, 2005. alone): but the whole, slightly crazy experience had me immediately hooked.
The other reason for my lack of cosmopolitanism (its a word.. !) was the attitude of the parents. The mother particularly did not hold with international holidays:  her attitude was one of 'why should we go overseas when there are plenty of lovely places here in the UK to visit.'  and besides, here, you know people speak your language: you recognise the food, and you can get a decent cup of tea when you want one...   so the family holidays I recall were usually spent in a static caravan on a pretty site in the West of Scotland. I loved them: revelled in the unaccustomed freedom of being let out in a morning, and only being called back for meals and bedtime. And I can't say that I felt deprived in any way:  we were not a wealthy family, so those holidays were hard-earned: paid for by creative adjustments to the weekly family budget, and as much overtime as they could squeeze out of their employers. Other times, there were daytrips to the coast (I remember many fish and chip lunches eaten packed into a car with The Goons playing on the radio, and rain hammering on the roof)  or being dragged around various churchyards so that the father could pursue his obsessive genealogy habit...  Durham.. Barnsley.. Stockport. All the beauty spots.

Later, if I got wanderlust, I would often just pick a place I'd not been to, or hadn't had the opportunity to explore on one of those graveyard safaris, get on a train and spend a day.. or a couple of days, wandering around in a blissful daze. Some places may well surprise new visitors:  Leeds, for instance, was lots of fun.. Durham has lots of little nooks and interesting back streets.. Leicester is a treasure trove of cultural variety (I have to drag myself out of the sari shops,  and close my eyes passing the bookshops!)

The trip to Paris, I made via the Eurostar. Maybe some time I'll talk about what happened after I arrived at Waterloo (what a fun, nutty night)  and I packed so much into the shortest 3 days ever..  I hit the Metro like a rocket, zipping all over the city to take in as much as I could....  I know I will be going back there some time, because there was just not nearly enough time to see, and explore, and experience..

Which brings me to the picture on this post.   Budapest: November 2007: an entire, blissful week.  and my first ever commercial flight:  2 hours with the most unpopular budget airline. It was cramped: overly warm, and loud: but I loved every second: pressing my nose to the window like an over-excited 5 year-old desperately trying to see through the cloud cover...   and once I was there, I left the hotel before 8 every morning, and was seldom back before 9 in the evening.  There is a fantastic Tram system that takes in BOTH cities. and a 4 day pass cost around £10 at the time: it could also be used on the metro and buses: so I made the absolute most of it, and hit every tourist site I could, as well as just hopping on and off in random streets and places so that I could look around. I found some amazing little green spaces: squares lined with trees and benches:  gorgeously ornate shop fronts still bearing bullet and shell scars from the 1956 uprising.. a huge shopping arcade, and at least six different supermarkets to try (I found it hysterically funny that Tesco had opened about 4 stores there not too long before my visit.. )  Not only that, but I found out that the main mobile phone provider there was the one I had my phone with... so I was able to top up, and make calls home.  I even found an internet cafe where i could get a bite to eat for less than a pound, and email pictures back home.. Budapest is a stunning, lively, beautiful place, even in the depths of a bitter winter (rain, hail sleet, snow, gales.. all in one day!)   I badly want to go back and see what it is like during the summer too: but that could be risky. I didn't want to leave at the end of my last visit:  the temptation to move there was so strong, that only the realisation that the one word of Magyar I managed to retain (tej=milk)  would hardly get me by... but languages can be learned: and there are some lovely apartments in the old city.....