How much does a week-end in London really Cost???

 I went over to London to meet a friend who was over for a rather sad occasion and as I have known him and his family for a very long time, I really thought it necessary to go over and see him.

Since the cheap airlines came about during the Celtic tiger, you could find flights for ridiculous amounts of money like €20 Euro for a flight, but there is always a catch!  Since the death of the Celtic tiger, the prices have increased.

When I went over last year, my company paid - so it wasn't a question of what I did, the company pays for the flight, hotel and all travel and then gives you a budget of £50 per day for meals, so it's pretty easy to stay with in budget.

So I searched for the Cheapest flight to Heathrow, it was really the first time I was going to London on my own, so I wanted the simplest way without having to find my way around the Tubes or several trains.  I booked my air ticket with Aer Lingus the cheapest air ticket I could find:-

€125.97    -   Air Ticket : Return Dublin - London   
£208.00    -   2 nights, Hotel Accommodation - London (Very nice hotel across from Kensington Gardens)
£ 34.00    -    Heathrow Express Return ticket
£   5.00    -    Tube Ticket to Hotel Stop
£   9.00    -    All day Tube Ticket
£   5.00    -    Tube ticket to Paddington
£ 20.00    -    Meals and Coffee's on the Friday
£ 20.00    -    Meals and Coffee's on the Sat

So there is no such thing as a cheap week-end in London, all in all with the exchange rate and various incidentals it cost me about €500.00, yes I know I could have done it cheaper!  But really at my age I deserve to travel in style.

Thank goodness for friends buying me dinner and lunches while I was there else it would have turned out to be much more expensive.

By the way I am not complaining I just wanted to work out how much a my week-end would cost with my cheap flight!  :)                

London Calling

Woo Who, our Christmas party is finally being organised, yes we were supposed to go away the 2nd week-end in December but unfortunately the Support & Development departments had to work (which is half the company), so it was postponed to the last week-end in January.

January is our busiest month of the year and we are open from 8 to 6:30 each day for support as it is the start of the new tax year and all the budget changes have gone out.  This was my first week back and doing 8 to 5:30 shift so I am totally whacked.  Anyway good news is the company event away, we are leaving on the Friday evening, fly to London, party, party, party ... then Saturday "Dirty Dancing" the show at the West End, Saturday night dinner and party and then Sunday midday fly back to Dublin.

Should be pretty fun because all the fun people are going with, don't know how we are going to cope on the Monday but we will just take it as it comes.

Oh yes, I think the boss has organised our own capsule with Champagne on the London Eye, should go down a treat - hope we are getting some pounds to spend too.  My dear friend "M" will be home from SA and hopefully I might get to see her!

Can't wait, so now have 2 trips to look forward to in the first half of the year!

Oh yes and have to organise post Christmas lunch with all my ex Building Society mates, so many Christmas arrangements cancelled because of the snow, but with all this happening, I guess January won't be a long month after all, but may still be cold only minus 5 at the moment, so I am off to my nice warm bed with my nice warm electric blanket waiting for me.

Nightie Night!

London

London

Well we flew into London on Valentines Day, the flight was pretty smooth and quick and we had no hassles with our baggage – it was the first time we flew with only cabin luggage and nothing else. We arrived at Gatwick in no time at all and then took the Gatwick express into London which took about 40 minutes to Victoria station. Once we arrived at Victoria we decided just to Cab it to the hotel, instead of trying to find our way round the tubes at that stage.

I don’t know what I expected from the hotel, but we were pleasantly surprised, although the hotel was in the middle of Camden town it was actually a block away from the main street, so there was no noise from the revellers in Camden town. Once we unpacked and sorted ourselves out, we arranged to meet “M” who I had not seen for 12 years, she only lived about 4 stops away from Camden so it was perfect.

We took a slow walk from the hotel and then found an outdoor pub where we decided to have a seat and wait, Em was hungry so D went off to get her some chips. I went down to the lock to meet “M” who had not changed a bit, it was really so good catching up and we just chatted and chatted. We eventually decided to go up and get an early dinner.

We then arranged that M would pick us up on Sunday morning and take us on a tour of London. After Breakfast on Sunday M was waiting at the hotel, it was great being driven around London, through Regents Park, past Piccadilly over Tower bridge, past Trafalgar square and St. Paul’s, we passed all the places we had only ever walked past before. M then dropped us close to the hotel and we went for a coffee at Nero’s (the best coffee in London). M took her car back home and was going to meet us back in Camden as J & L were meeting us there too. L was as always dead on time and arrived round 1 ish.

We had a wonderful afternoon, just chatting and catching up, the drinks were cheap and they had a full on Sunday Roast, Em was quite content sitting in the pub for a change, but eventually we had to leave because children were not allowed in the pub after 6 or 7, so we all went back to our hotel which was just across the road and sat in the lounge drinking and chatting.

I think M & L left at about 10 ish and J stayed till about Midnight, it was really great catching up and I can’t wait to see them all again.

Monday we took it pretty easy and did very little sight seeing, took the tube to Piccadilly and then went to Hamley’s much to Em’s delight; from there we went to Trafalgar square and then took the tube to Baker Street to get some lunch. After lunch we walked around Regents Park and then took the tube back to the hotel. We then headed out to meet M as she had invited us for a special spaghetti dinner, (M’s famous spaghetti sauce which I hadn’t had for about 14 years) it was just as nice as I remember it.

Too soon it was time to say Goodbye and we headed back to the hotel. Tuesday morning was the big day we were going to meet Gwen at Gatwick and fly back to Dublin. After Breakfast we checked out of the hotel and headed out to Victoria station to get the train to Gatwick, we were hours early as Gwen was only arriving at 15:35 from Madeira. At Victoria we stopped for coffee, it was at that point that I just stopped feeling well, anyway we finally made it to Gatwick after the train was delayed due to a fatality on the track, the train was packed because the train had to take a detour and therefore had hundreds of people going on the detour to another station.

Dublin

We arrived at Gatwick and found a coffee shop right outside the international arrivals where we could sit and wait for Gwen to arrive. Within an hour she was there, we had not seen Gwen for 2 years, which was the last time we were in SA, it was so good to catch up. Luckily we had parked the car at the airport in the Short Term parking so it was easy just to get our bags, get in the car and be home in no time at all.

Wednesday was a lazy day, we got up early as Em was thrilled to have someone that she could sleep all night with and then wake them up to give her Breakfast so she could go downstairs and play. The weather turned out to be pretty miserable so we just went off to Dundrum for an “Eddie Rockets” lunch and some essential shopping and headed home.

On Thursday we decided to head down to Kildare Village retail outlet, D needed some new jeans and they have loads of designer shops, so Gwen could possibly find some presents, I was not feeling the greatest and the pains in my chest had worsened. So after doing a bit of shopping we headed home, D then took me off to the doctor.

Friday was a bit of a blur as I think I slept most of the day while D and Gwen and Em went off to Marlay Park. Lisa was coming round for Dinner so I had to get everything prepared.

Saturday I took Gwen to meet the SA girls at Wild & Green, can you believe there are about 10 of us now it was Lisa, Leany, Nat, Carla, Tracy, Kelly, Mandy, Me and then Gwen. (Hope I didn’t leave anyone out). We sat around for ages talking kak and then headed home; I still was not feeling so great.

All too soon Sunday arrived and it was time for Gwen to head back to Madeira, it was very sad saying goodbye and at that instant I suddenly became really home sick, not to the extent that I wanted to pack my bags and go back but just the fact that I missed everyone back home.

South Africa

It’s crazy how everyday of my life I think about the people back home, but I guess everyone has their own lives and life just goes on. At this stage I can’t wait for our trip back to SA as it will be 2 years and 4 months since the last time we stepped down on South African soil.

I was telling a friend that I was watching “Wild at Heart” on Sunday night, it is a programme filmed by the BBC almost a weekly kind of soapy, the acting is not great and Deon Stewardson is a bit of a pain – but the only reason I watch it, is because it is filmed in SA near Hartebeespoort dam. In the episode on Sunday there was a terrible storm with thunder and lightning, and it made me remember things I had forgotten, how you can get soaked in a second when there is a thunder storm, the smell of the bush after the rain has subsided and all those beautiful memories and smells of living in Africa that you just don’t get anywhere else in the world. I have a feeling that we will go back, maybe not for the next 15 years or so, but eventually.

I guess Africa will just always be in our blood! And to those of you who experience life in Africa on a daily basis, appreciate what you have, because when you no longer have it, you really miss it! Its funny Em talks about going to live in Africa so often, so who knows we might all end up back their eventually, till then we will enjoy the time we have here.

M is coming over to visit us on the 13th of March it is going to be so good seeing her and showing her “our” Dublin.

To all of you who had the patience to read this long post – I thank you!!!

London - Leaving on a Jet plane

I wanted to post "London Calling" by The Clash here, but the embedding has been disabled on YouTube, I could not find another appropriate London song, so I found Leaving on a jet plane from Amageddon, not brilliant but until I can find something else here it is:

Travel Agents and stuff

Photos were taken from this amazing website: http://www.onlytahiti.com/NaturalAphrodisiac.html

So where do you start with trying to organise an around the world ticket, first port of call the net, go to google and put in “round the world tickets” and vwala up pops about a million web sites. So you try and eliminate the ones that don’t look that great and in between this you decide: How long do you have to travel, and where you would really like to go.

Then you do some more surfing and finally you see something that looks pretty much like what you want and you pick up the phone and phone the agent, now never do this in the “Silly season” because it just takes ages for them to get back to you.

Anyway I find this deal on the Utravel website: http://www.utravel.ie/148/index.html Price From: €1281Dublin/London - (via) London - Los Angeles - Papeete (Tahiti) - Auckland - Fiji - Brisbane (make your own way)Sydney - Perth - Johannesburg - (via) London – Dublin (Taxes Extra)

So I phone up the travel agent and wouldn’t you just know it, nothing is ever as it seems, she can get us that particular trip however if we leave on the 30th of June it is one price and if we leave on the 1st of July it is another, understandable.

They don’t get back to me till the 5th of January after I send an email to say if I have not heard from you or if you don’ want my business I CAN go elsewhere you know. I get an email back, but guess what, you got it, no trips for the 30th of June, only for the 26th of June – what to do, can’t take Em out of school, well actually we could but don’t want to. So gives me the price if we leave on the 1st of July and a rough itinerary, but leaves out Fiji – WHY?????

However, I compare my original itinerary with the one that the travel agent has given me and hers would work out cheaper, not as many stops, added to that, not as many upheavals from one place to another, enough time in each place to really explore! So let’s go with that, however how much is accommodation going to cost in Tahiti for 8 nights that is the real question, and what will it cost to explore the Islands like Bora Bora? So, first thing this morning email the travel agent to find out how much it will cost. And what about excursions: http://www.truetahitivacation.com/tahiti_activities_excursions/tahiti.htm

Second thing on my list today, I have booked for us to go to London in February as we are meeting up with Gwenie and she is flying back with us, but we have 3 nights in London first, the exchange rate between the pound and the euro has been wonderful if you are living in Ireland, at one stage when we went up to Belfast to buy our TV and go shopping the Pound was 98p to the Euro, however since then it has slowly recovered. In order to save some money (hopefully the pound does not weaken again), I decided that today I am going to change money for our week-end in London.

Oh wait, Em finishes school at 12:00 so will have to fetch her first then go to the bank. Back to the RTW trip and looking at the cost of accommodation in Tahiti, Papeete – there are hundreds of web sites out there but they just don’t give you what you want, so best thing to do is go to the old reliable: http://www.expedia.ie/ and search for hotels. Me has decided that since this is going to be a once in a life time trip and Tahiti will be the only “tropical” Island we will go too, we are not going to scrimp on accommodation here.Got to buy a new camera before we go.

Go to the bank this afternoon and wouldn't you know, 88p they charge me per pound plus a commission, oh well I guess everyone has to make their money somehow, although 88p is still very good!

Later.