Well Cat and i just had our first modern belly dance lesson. Basically its belly dancing to modern latin american and middle eastern influenced music. OK so we don’t quite shake our hips in a seductive manner like Shakira – we’re just not co-ordinated enough yet! Its also quite awkward to do – God knows what we all look like jiggling away 🙂

I’m not looking forward to tomorrow – my legs are gonna ache! I find it a much more appealing form of excercise than the gym…

In July 2005 a group of eight of us, the motley crew above, went to Prague. Here I offer my take on what we did.

Day 1, Tuesday

At Gatwick airport the strangest thing happened, Ramiane bought a book. Now I had heard that she can read but I have never witnessed it. Arrived in Prague at about 9pm. God bless EasyJet with their cheapness.

Got to the hotel only to be confronted by the night porter, and he lived up to the guide books warning, he really didn’t want us there. Good old Gunter, how we would come to love him.

Went exploring to find sustenance, eventually found a pub. My my, it was so cheap. Sadly it was only the beer that was cheap, and not being a beer drinker it was spirits for me. The spirits were still cheap, just not by that much.

Day 2, Wednesday

Got up bright and early to have breakfast, well 9:15 at least. True to form they didn’t have any tea, well being English and all I had prepared for such an occurrence, I had my own.
We decided to go exploring as a group in to the town centre. So, after a short walk, we found the tube stop, surprise surprise their tube puts our beloved system to shame. The trains were clean and air conditioned. There were only three lines in all of Prague though.

We found the astronomical clock in the centre of town, very pretty. Whilst wondering around the town we came upon a sex museum, enough said. After going back to the hotel the eating really began in earnest. With a proper meal costing the equivalent of about a fiver we really couldn’t say no. I seem to remember seeing Ramaine with her book in her hands, hmm.

Day 3, Thursday

By now the tourist in all of us was trying to do its thing, so all of us, except Rob, mounted an expedition to Prague castle. Now it’s not just a castle, it’s an entire complex of buildings situated on top of a big hill. After almost all of us struggling up the side we eventually got to the top. To begin with we went to the museum of the area, found out many cool things.
Next was the cathedral. It was HUGE, it had a very tall tower which we decided would be a cool thing to climb, so up we went. It was a small stone spiral staircase, with people going up on the inside and down on the outside. After about a million steps I was starting to feel both knackered and incredibly dizzy. After us all getting to the top the first thing we did was to sit down and catch our breath, who says the young are lazy and unfit?! After much panting and sweating we were ready to admire the view, it was amazing, if you go to Prague and you don’t see this you are a fool. Now for the trip down, well on the way down we encountered a slight problem, two, lets say Americans, decided to climb the staircase when really they shouldn’t have. So asthma/panic attacks ensued. This slowed our decent to a nice leisurely pace and so I avoided the dizziness.

After wondering around the complex for a while we happened across a tram stop at the hill, dammit. Rather annoyingly whoever had the guidebook told us that “oh yeah, I remember it saying that now”. Having discovered the steak it had to be eaten every night. Mmm.

Day 4, Friday

Well by now, as is standard procedure for the English, we were starting to feel the effect of the local water. I’m not entirely sure what they put in it, whether it be fluoride or rat poison it eventually got to most of us.
Now Prague boasts the largest nightclub in all of Europe, well we couldn’t not go could we? So we donned our glad rags and headed out. The club is called the Karlovy Lazne and is next to the Charles bridge. The rumours are right too, the place is huge. It seems to be a series of clubs stacked on top of each other. I didn’t even make it to the top. It was however, unbearably hot inside. Five minutes was all you could last on the dance floor. Needless to say fun was had by all, especially Pete who perhaps had a little too much fun.

Day 5, Saturday

The girls, in that I include Pete, thought it would be a good idea to go shopping and take advantage of the cheapness. All was going well until Pete made the final transition from being male and started spending uncontrollably. After a quick scuffle his credit card was parted from him and the spending halted. While the insanity that is shopping went on Rob, Chris and myself went wondering. We spent most of the day sitting in the sun in the centre of a nearby market.

Day 6, Sunday

By this point we were all starting to feel the strain of actually leaving our places of sleep everyday. So a nice relaxing day of nothing was had. I’m pretty sure that I saw Ramaine with that book again, she must be using it to attract intellectual types.
Since so much merriment was had the first time in the club it was decided to revisit it. Once again looking dapper we hit the town.

Day 7, Monday

Prague has a very strong Jewish history, for hundreds of years they have inhabited a picturesque quarter of the town centre. It is here that they have six museums. Well worth the money I feel. One of the most disturbing things though was the list of names on the walls of one of the museums, on it lists the names of all the Jews killed in the war. There is also a cemetery to visit. It has graves of Rabbis dating back hundreds of years. Rather oddly though, it is very high up above street level. The reason for this is the every now and then when they run out of room they just cover the entire place with more soil and start the whole burying process over.

It was here that the travesty of the trip occurred, I dropped my glasses in the street and they broke.

Day 8, Tuesday

Prague is famed for some of its emotionally tortured writers, none more so than Kafka, with this in mind a trip to the Kafka museum was essential. You can really see why he’s so weird when you wonder around here.

After Kafka Becca and I wondered around and found the torture museum. Ow! I think we both agreed the most painful relic there was a frame on which you were hung upside down with your legs spread, from here the executioners take a saw to you and work their way down until you are split in two.

This being the last night it was thought necessary to go drinking in the centre of town, so off we went. We drank cocktails in a few bars around the main square.

Day 9, Wednesday

And so to the last day of our trip. With money to burn, well the exchange rate will eat it otherwise, we head out to the Charles Bridge to get some souvenirs. After some money spending we happened across the Kafka museum again, outside is a rather interesting statue, with which we had much fun. Then back to the hotel to get the taxi back to the airport. Only a couple of hours delay at the airport. Shock horror! Ramaine finished her book!

All the pictures here and many more are in the Prague section of the photo album.

In August 2002 we went to Greece for two weeks and did a bit of island hopping, here’s what happened…..

Becca and Tanya had spent six weeks on a field trip on the small Greek island of Samos, poor them. When there horrible workload was over Andy, Sarah and me went to meet them, we landed in Athens and took the bus to the port. After about ten hours in a McDonalds we finally got a boat to Santorini to meet them.

Santorini

Santorini is a small volcanic Greek island. It was originally a very large volcano which blew its top a long while ago; this has left a crescent shaped island with a small volcano poking out of the middle. Since there were three geologists amongst us it was thought entirely necessary to go to the volcano, after much climbing and nose holding (sulphur), we reached the top. The boat journey took us past a small remote church where the sea water was warmed by the volcano. Everyone jumped in and swam to it, everyone but me, since, alas, I cannot swim. Oh well, someone had to take a picture or two.

There was one small museum on the island, Akrotiri, it boasted a small town which they had dug up. Becca and Sarah seemed to know all about it, I think they had read up before hand.

It is on this island that Becca and I got engaged. She had been planning it for a while so she had a ring made up ready to pop the question, I of course beat her to it and asked for her hand before she had the chance. I was, predictably, a little unprepared and had no ring, so we took the opportunity to go ring shopping in Thera. We found the perfect ring for Becca, it was very sparkly and the perfect fit, unlike mine which I wore around my ankle until we could get it resized.

It was here that Andy and Tanya decided to part company with us and they headed off to Samos.

Crete

Crete is the largest of the Greek islands, and it’s very very hot. It’s also where the Minoans set up shop some 5000 years ago. It’s home of the ancient town of Knossos, it was one of the first places to have multiple storied houses, and the palace is so complex that the town was considered a labyrinth. Toss in the fact that the Minoans worshipped the bull and you get the story of the minator!

Crete has a plethora of cafes and restaurants in its main square, every time we went to eat here the owners would tempt us in with freebies, sadly it was usually ouzo.

One thing that was very nice was all the ice cream shops around, I think we had ice cream breaks every few hours every day.

On the coast of the island is a Venetian fort, the place looked really imposing, and seige proof too.

Milos

Instead of going all the way from Crete to the mainland we figured we would stop off on a random island on the way, so we picked this one. Island hopping being so popular and all we thought we would sort out a hotel when we made land fall, BIG mistake. We arrived in the afternoon and immediately began to ring around for hotels, after trying everyone in the phone book we came to the realisation we were screwed, so it was a night spent in the port for us. Being slightly apprehensive about our luggage we shackled it together and gave Sarah an espresso, this ensured any potential thief would be scared off!

The next morning we ate in a restaurant overlooking the port, while phoning the hotels again we happened across another traveller looking for a room to stay in. We chatted for a while until we found a hotel, and as we headed off to it she started to follow us, she wanted us to join her on a camp site but we wanted to go to the hotel. When we got to the hotel we eventually got the manager to get rid of her. It was here I lost my sunglasses, dammit.

Now Milos apparently has a very nice beach, it was a bit far from the port town where we were staying so we got a taxi. The beach was, as promised, very nice, the sea was a nice clear blue, and you could see the bottom of it. It was when we left the beech that we ran in to trouble; we didn’t book a taxi to pick us up as we were told we really didn’t need to. Yet when we tried to get one we could not, and so began the long walk back to the port. Not too much of an issue I suppose, unless you have to catch a ferry soon, and so the walk became slightly more hurried. By the time it was getting dark we were knackered and suffering from a high degree of chaffage, then all of a sudden hallelujah, we managed to flag down a taxi! Got back in time to catch our ferry. And so we vowed never to go back to Milos.

Athens

When we got to Athens we met up with Andy and Tanya. One of the first ports of call was the Acropolis. It was very cool, this was one of the places that the girls hadn’t swatted up on so we thought we would get a guide to show us around. The guide had an id badge on with his photo when he became a guide, the funny thing was in his photo he was about 20 yet he was now about 80! After looking at many great things we decided to leave, just as we did the Heavens opened and a huge storm began, I guess the gods didn’t like us being there.

Needless to say, much fun was had by all, maybe we will go back again one day.

All the pictures here and many more are in the Greece section of the photo album.