originally written on Tue, 16 Apr 2002
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it's finally spring here! actually the weather has been gorgeous ever since the hols started on 22 march. just what you need when you have to do group or individual projects or study and the day is so gorgeous that the last you want to do is be stuck in the computer lab! the hols are for 5 weeks, strange i know considering MA students only have 4 weeks of hols. i need a longer break although at the same time i'm dying to finish the programme soonest possible.
i couldn't entertain the thought of spending 5 miserable weeks in my room/computer lab/nottingham and have made plans to travel as early as february. Alhamdulillah, managed to implement some of them. my friends i rented a car [a very small nissan micra, can u just imagine 5 people stuck in there? well, we are but budget travellers!] and drove to the south of england on saturday 6 april heading for portsmouth, stopping by oxford for lunch. oxford is a very3x windy city. spent a night in portsmouth then the next day we took a ferry to the isle of wight but left the car behind. it was very windy in both portsmouth and isle in wight. then we drove to bristol and reached bristol in late evening. spent a night there and the next day drove into wales as my friends hv never set foot in wales b4. we drove up to swansea [it's by the sea]. although swansea is by the sea, it was nowhere as windy as portsmouth or isle of wight. there were 2 japanese in the party, they were obviously not price sensitive. one wanted to drive to the national park to ride a pony. we decided to indulge them but fortunately or unfortunately, we reached the town Abergavenny only around 5 pm so no pony ride for them [phew!]. based on the advice they got from the tourist info centre, we then drove right into the heart of wales where the roads were all one lane. it was a brilliant drive nevertheless. we finally emerged at Hay-on-Wye, drove to hereford and reached worcester and had dinner there b4 heading back to notts and reaching notts just minutes before midnight on monday.
on wednesday i went to prague. went there alone cos i've despaired of ever finding anyone to go with me. it's a very beautiful city but i hardly saw the sun - it was perpetually cloudy or raining! there were beautiful crystal shops everywhere you turn. so beautiful but got pretty boring travelling alone. i note that the czech [both men and women] smoke a lot - prob due to their communist past? i'm very sensitive to cigarette smoke so it's one of those things i noticed immediately. they are also not very helpful in the sense that they see you struggling with the city map but no one bothered to stop to help. quite opposite the lazy australians really. they really love their meat - pork, beef etc - so it was quite difficult to find places that serve vegetarian food [i had to rely on the internet to find vegetarian places]. nevertheless, i'm assured that more and more vegetarian places are appearing in prague. i was mistaken a few times for a japanese [really2 weird] but it turned out that it was bcos they wanted change. if you are crazy abt bohemian crystals, this is the place to go. they also have wonderful porcelain tablewares but being a budget traveller, i just admired them from afar... and no, you don't need a visa to go to prague but i doubt there's a direct flight fr KL.
so now i'm back in nottingham. hv a meeting today and another tomorrow. sigh... but at least the sun is shining out there and it's a Beautiful Day just like U2 says it is...
~~~~
it's finally spring here! actually the weather has been gorgeous ever since the hols started on 22 march. just what you need when you have to do group or individual projects or study and the day is so gorgeous that the last you want to do is be stuck in the computer lab! the hols are for 5 weeks, strange i know considering MA students only have 4 weeks of hols. i need a longer break although at the same time i'm dying to finish the programme soonest possible.
i couldn't entertain the thought of spending 5 miserable weeks in my room/computer lab/nottingham and have made plans to travel as early as february. Alhamdulillah, managed to implement some of them. my friends i rented a car [a very small nissan micra, can u just imagine 5 people stuck in there? well, we are but budget travellers!] and drove to the south of england on saturday 6 april heading for portsmouth, stopping by oxford for lunch. oxford is a very3x windy city. spent a night in portsmouth then the next day we took a ferry to the isle of wight but left the car behind. it was very windy in both portsmouth and isle in wight. then we drove to bristol and reached bristol in late evening. spent a night there and the next day drove into wales as my friends hv never set foot in wales b4. we drove up to swansea [it's by the sea]. although swansea is by the sea, it was nowhere as windy as portsmouth or isle of wight. there were 2 japanese in the party, they were obviously not price sensitive. one wanted to drive to the national park to ride a pony. we decided to indulge them but fortunately or unfortunately, we reached the town Abergavenny only around 5 pm so no pony ride for them [phew!]. based on the advice they got from the tourist info centre, we then drove right into the heart of wales where the roads were all one lane. it was a brilliant drive nevertheless. we finally emerged at Hay-on-Wye, drove to hereford and reached worcester and had dinner there b4 heading back to notts and reaching notts just minutes before midnight on monday.
on wednesday i went to prague. went there alone cos i've despaired of ever finding anyone to go with me. it's a very beautiful city but i hardly saw the sun - it was perpetually cloudy or raining! there were beautiful crystal shops everywhere you turn. so beautiful but got pretty boring travelling alone. i note that the czech [both men and women] smoke a lot - prob due to their communist past? i'm very sensitive to cigarette smoke so it's one of those things i noticed immediately. they are also not very helpful in the sense that they see you struggling with the city map but no one bothered to stop to help. quite opposite the lazy australians really. they really love their meat - pork, beef etc - so it was quite difficult to find places that serve vegetarian food [i had to rely on the internet to find vegetarian places]. nevertheless, i'm assured that more and more vegetarian places are appearing in prague. i was mistaken a few times for a japanese [really2 weird] but it turned out that it was bcos they wanted change. if you are crazy abt bohemian crystals, this is the place to go. they also have wonderful porcelain tablewares but being a budget traveller, i just admired them from afar... and no, you don't need a visa to go to prague but i doubt there's a direct flight fr KL.
so now i'm back in nottingham. hv a meeting today and another tomorrow. sigh... but at least the sun is shining out there and it's a Beautiful Day just like U2 says it is...
