Rerouting to... Morocco! (And that's final)

Well, it turns out we're not going to Barcelona with Olav and Mona this year, we'll take a rain check on that, and so, we started to do some thinking. Should we go back to the St. Petersburg plan? (We'd like to see it during summer, since we froze our butts off last time when we went there in February!) Or should we visit Italy? Or...? Or...?

Astrid came up with a very good idea, namely Morocco! We're going to make this trip on a tight schedule and a tight budget (of course, we don't really use a budget, because we're light years beyond budgeting). So here's the deal:

• Fly as cheap and fast and early as possible (OK, not too early) to Malaga, Spain.
  
• Go to Algerica by bus or train - it's about an hour from Malaga.
  
• Take the ferry to Tangier, Morocco.
  

But first, maybe a visit to Gibraltar? We could stay at Emile Hostel, 30 minutes walk from the border and 100m from Casemates square, the heart of the town.

Up next: Barcelona!

Yahoo! (As in yahoo! and not search engine!) We're going to Barcelona, the capital of Catalonia, Spain! This time, we'll be traveling together with Olav and Mona, and we've decided to make it a low budget trip. So, what are we going to do? Let's start planning...

Catalonia
Wiki Catalonia

Barcelona
Wiki Barcelona

La Sagrada Familia, a magnificent cathedral which has been in construction since since 1882
www.sagradafamilia.cat

Montserrat, a Benedictine monastery built on a worn and torn limestone mountain, provides a view to the Pyrenees, Barcelona, and even Mallorca on a clear day
http://www.climb-europe.com/spain/RockClimbingMontserrat.htm

In vino veritas...
Torres
Cordorniu located in Sant Sadurni D’Noia (Penedes)
Caves Colomer
Freixenet cava bodega (near Sant Sadurni, there are more wineries in Sant Sadurni)

Train schedule
This is the official Renfe train company home page - which is crap, unfortunately
www.renfe.es
Better google it... Here's an example
Vilafranca del Penedès by train

Snow in Oslo

You'd have thought we'd be used to snow, but we're always taken by surprise when, over a few hours, everything outside is covered in a thick layer of white powder. It's a month since we left Oslo for Thailand now, and we've been back for two weeks. The warm air and dry streets feels like a distant memory. Here I am in a crowded, no, packed tram wagon which is inching it's way to the city center. Cars are stuck in big piles of snow along the road, their owners trying to free them without a shovel... Just like last year :-)

Oslo b(e)lows

Just when we thought Istanbul was cold with its snowfall, and had gotten used to wearing jackets in Alanya, we discovered that it was 15 C below in Oslo! I shivered my way to and from work and have (almost) decided to buy one of those daylight lamps which might save me from the darkness that eats most of the day... All is well, though. It was nice to be home in a warm apartment, spending Sunday mostly in the couch, and no crisis were waiting at work.

Turkey was a bit sleepy, by the way. Few tourists, although the planes where packed. We did have a fun new years eve, with champagne and raki, and some good rounds of Red Alert 3! We also had time to read some books and enjoyed a fantastic sea view from Olav's apartment.

Sour airplane crew, sweet restaurant owners in Istanbul

Just a short update, since I'm nearly passing out in need of sleep... Turkish Airlines was OK - they had alright seats (except the turquoise color) with individual media centers and had a good choice of food and drinks. However, the crew was rather unpleasant, which pulls down my rating.

We made it to the hotel on time (11 pm), but Olav had gone to bed early with the flu, so we chilled in the jazz bar of the hotel for a little while and went to bed. I had trouble sleeping long, so I got up, out, and about to catch the sunrise. A nice taxi driver drove me out along the Bosporous Straight, and let me off somewhere near the bridge north of Bosporous Bridge, where a restaurant owner and his companion wondered what I was doing walking aimlessly around in the rain. They invited me inside even though they didn't open until 8 (almost 1.5 hours later), and we had a chat over three cups of tea and breakfast. Four policemen popped by as well, and when I was leaving, they refused to let me pay. I took the dolmus/bus back to Taksim Square and the hotel.

Olav, Astrid, and I had lunch before window shopping at a mall, and then we paid a visit to one of the seven wonders of the world; Hagia Sophia. It was really amazing. Read about the 1500 year-old cathedral/mosque in Wikipedia...

At the end of the day, we went back to the hotel and played Red Alert 3 until midnight :-)

next stop Istanbul

our last night in Bangkok was a good one. We had a simple dinner at Beer Palace (which offers a whooping 4 kinds of beer!), a visit to a karaoke bar which charged us double price for our own drinks as well as those they themselves offered to the tout and the dj/midi operator. Since we didn't even take advantage of their services (which consisted of lining up pretty girls in long skirts for incoming farang so they could pick one) and were the only ones making entertainment, we had a minor argument with the boss, paid half price, and got out. We had our night cap at a great place near the Silom night-market, where we turned down near 100 pussy ping-pong touts throughout the night. Is the demand that high? Our bed at the hip and minimalist HQ hostel at Silom soi 3 slept great, and the room was functional except there was no room for our stuff. Friendly staff, corn flakes included. $40 a night.

We head for Turkey this afternoon, so we've got a few hours available. Looking forward to meet Olav there tonight, and take on Istanbul. We're gonna need a lot of coffee!

three strikes, you're out (of battery)

our lucky day...? Um, no. We did have some initial luck in catching the ferry, but I was caught pants down (figure of speech) speeding. Third ticket in Thailand! The officer even gave me a discount. We stopped in Pattaya for a late lunch and continued to Bangkok on the new motorway. It's normally a 2 hour drive max, but we got creative at the end. Add an hour and a half :-) When we finally reached the Silom quarter, where we'd decided to stay, guess what... THE DANG CAR IS FLAT OUT OF BATTERY! So, thanks to HQ hostel's wifi, I'm now able to kill some time while waiting for the mechanic.