Graduation Trip 2 Prague w/ Chris

Quit a long time ago, Christoph and me were graduated with almost all our family attending the ceremony. On the next day, it was just the two of us who departed by train to Prague. On the last chance we booked a cheap hotel and jumped on the train with 2 Six-Pack's. After the long trip with a broken train and a very hot Czech train we finally arrived in the Capitol of Czech Republic.

With our hotel we were really lucky, because due to overbooking we got moved to a different but better one - At the Three Storcks.

We did some sightseeing with a lot of warm-soup-with-beer-breaks because of very chilly weather. In the evenings we headed out for some more beers paired with good Czech food and after that some partying.



One evening in Prague: First you go to U Fleku for a traditional beer and food. Then you go to Blue Light Bar for a mood starting drink, where you can get a cocktail for 5€. After that you can head to Chapeau Rouge for another drink, where there are already dancing and people are in good mood. Don't go to the clubs where not much going on and it is expensive and people are unfriendly too! For the hangover I can recommend Café Savoy, where you find besides to coffee and cakes also other great food!



Of all the spectacular monuments and buildings I don't have to remember, because you can read it in guide better. Charles bridge is very great and the old city is also very great, because as almost the whole city everything is very clean!



Of course on a graduation trip we really don't care about watching old things! ;-)

cheers

Bali with Schnucki

Actually it should only be an insane 8 days trip! Why insane? Because you if you leave Oberwart at 2pm CET and you arrive on the next day at 3pm CET at your destination you are really insane to travel so far for this short time period. But still we thought to have a very intense time! A lot of surfing, relaxing, shopping and eating without sightseeing at all.

Now we did find a nice accommodation - Ramayana Resort & Spa - and the beach was also not far away. So a perfect fit for us!

Kuta beach where is the right place to learn Nadine surfing, is really the dirtiest beach we ever saw, but the waves where really constantly coming and really good! So we had fun for few days and few hours until it started to rain on Sunday evening, which first didn't matter because we were supposed to leave on Monday evening anyway! But then we got informed at the check-in that your flight was canceled because Denpasar didn't had the information that Vienna airport is operating again. It came 1h too late. So as all flights to Vienna from Doha where booked out the gave as next flight on Monday, 26th. Exactly one week later, which makes as a 2 weeks vacation, which is a perfect fit for such destination. ;-)

Now we booked a different hotel, which we almost decided to book for the first week, but then choose different. Dekuta Hotel is a brand new hotel, which is even closer to the beach and to the city, but without Balinese atmosphere and style .

2nd week started completely different, because when the first week was almost without rain, the second starting with 3 days of raining all day. Locals told us, that raining season got delayed by the global heating,which sounds rather confusing for me?!

On Thursday was the first day we could go to the beach again due to a sunny sky without any clouds. So we decided to visit again (after Sunday) the most beautiful beach in south Bali - Geger Beach.

Rest of the week was pretty much the same!

Pics will follow...

Great trip with enough time thx to vulcano!

London Recap

From 21st to 25th of January I did what was set already for almost 2 years! I visited Thomas in London, who works for almost 2 years there, and I never had the chance to make a visit. But this time everything worked out. So I took off Friday and Monday from work, which gave me almost 4 days in one of the most attractive cities on earth. Of course, you cannot feel such a huge place with all its history and cultural diversity in such a short time, but one thing is answered very fast. It will not be the last time!
I travelled with EasyJet to Gatwick Airport, where I had to take the train to the city. As it is quiet outside London, it takes you longer to get to the city centre but very convenient. Thomas had to work on Friday, so I checked out the city by myself. Due to the random rain, I focused on less walking around outside than inside. So I visited the National Museum, where are a lot of paintings from 1000 A.C. to the current century presented. In the evening, we had dinner at Gauco, an Argentinean steakhouse. Afterwards, we checked out a club, which was quiet difficult to do, because we haven’t reserved at any one, so we had to ask the doorkeepers. We ended up in Kitts for couple of beers.
Next day, we almost walked the whole day. From Notting Hill to London Eye and London Towerbridge, we saw everything. Quiet funny story: I knew from a friend, that another friend now works in London, but I forgot to write him on Facebook, as I don’t have any phone number of him. So I was quiet disappointed that I forgot to contact him about my visit, but okay. Next time then! I said to me. So we walked through the very very huge Hyde Park and for a sudden a guy was stopping from his running and said “hello, what’s going?!” And… you will not believe it, but it was him! So quiet interesting how small such a big city can be! So we fixed to go out together this evening. We had a lot of fun in a Mexican restaurant in Coventgarden.
Sunday, we took it easy with a longer sleep and a nice breakfast again in Coventgarden. Afterwards, we made the “you-have-to” visit of Harrod’s in Westminster and met another friend of my university time!
On Monday, when Tom was working again, I took a nice long sleep and bought some books at Stonewater’s. Arrived back home in Simmering around 10 p.m.
Thanks to Tom for providing accommodation and acting as a private guide through a terrific city! It will not be the last time to hear: “MIND THE GAP!!!”

Hannes

This year some has changed. Just a small detail but with big impact! It is my first Christmas break which isn’t a real break, because I do have to work from 28th till 30th. Okay, as it is holiday season, there was not much to do, but still I had to get up early. I took the chance to work on my final thesis, which is near completion. I hopefully will hand the whole thesis to my professor in the second week of January. Then it shouldn’t take that long, because he read already 70 pages of it and should easily review the missing 20 pages. Therefore, I am expecting to obtain my degree in February and the ceremony should take place in March 11th or 12th.
At the moment there is a more important event coming on – the New Year’s Eve! This year, I used the long weekend to make it a Christmas present to Nadine. It includes the trip to Sabine & Bernd, with whom we will celebrate in Milan. Moreover, we even will have the chance to watch Bernd’s game on January 3rd and have some time to show Nadine the city along with expensive boutiques, where she definitely will start dreaming. Therefore, I am lucky to still be a student – excuse-vice! :-D
So Happy New Year to all m friends & family!

Will be back on January 4th to make all the kissing and hugging!

TripIt for Travels - iPhone, Mac and PC

TripIt is a website, where you can manage and aggregate your travel activities and see your friends’ one. It is really consumer friendly by accepting booking confirmations, which you forward to a certain e-mail address. I started it yesterday, and could easily add past trips within few numbers. In this matter, my Gmail account was very helpful, because I never have deleted any mails since I joined Google-community.

There are more features:

1. You easily can create your own iCal “TripIt” and subscribe it with your iPhone, iCal or Google Calendar. Moreover, you can send it to your family to share your trips, that everybody knows your arrival and departure times respectively.


2. Add the app TripIt to your iPhone and sync all your web content to your mobile device.


3. You receive a nice statistic about your travel activities and records. You could compete with your friends, if you wish...


4. With another iPhone App “Flighttrack Pro” you even can get pushed notification if your flight is cancelled or has a delay.
   

To summarize it, you easily can add your flight details to your calendar, which makes it very convenient, because you don’t have to type any flight track numbers or times into your calendar.

And eveything for free!

Barcelona

It was my first visit to Barcelona and my first trip to Spain since I was 5 years old. So you can imagine how excited I was to spend some time in one of the most famous cities on earth!
After a 4 hour delay at the Vienna Airport, we arrived late in Barcelona and due to the trip back from Croatia the day before, we were really tired and went just for a quick bite close to the hotel. Our hotel was quite in a good position for our desired beach vacation and a city trip. We just had 200m to “la Rambla” and around 1 km to the beach. So it was perfect for sightseeing and relaxing.

City & Beach

Overall, we knew that the city is great and the historic buildings and parks are great, especially Parc Guell and la Sagrada Familia, but as you can imagine, in middle of summer the city was packed with tourists and so we skipped entering buildings. As Barca is a big city, there was no doubt, that the beach would be more crowded than the Croatian coves, but anyway, better a crowded beach as a boring public swimming center in Burgenland.

Food

Usually I always find the right places to get good, but cheap food, but this time we were not that lucky. First, we took some tapas at a restaurant on la Rambla, where we thought that the plates will costs just 2 instead of 5,-, what changed price for the small lunch snack by 20,-, and still starving! Further, a lot of recommended food places were closed because of renovation. Then we tried out a highly recommended restaurant, where we should eat the best Paella in town. It was not bad, but not worth the money we paid. The last night in Barca, Nadine had the desire for a big meat – really, it was Nadine’s idea – but got disappointed by an Entrecote with a lot of fat strips in it. But in the end, we found our greatest place at one of the beach bars, where we had our daily cocktails of the day.

Greatest Place

Was definitely the beach bar, where we had great food, music and drinks. Especially, when a waiter started to speak Austrian: “schleichti oida”. He was a Mexican, who had a girlfriend from Graz. Was quiet funny to hear such words in such bar.
On the way home, we had again a delay, which made up for the arrival delay, because we knew in advance that our plane will leave later to Bratislava instead of Vienna. So, we didn’t have any disadvantages of that change.

Resume

It was a great trip with Schnucki and the right place to end summer 2009!

On The Boat - Croatia from a different perspective

Last week, from Tuesday till Monday, Nadine's father and me were on the Croatian island Rab, where he has an motorboat for more than 20 years. It was my first time to have a chance to see it and getting the feeling to be free of crowded beaches and noise. As nobody else had time to join him, I didn't rethink twice and accepted the offer!

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we prepared the boat after a long time out of the water for its first "sea-mission" in 2009. The rest of the week we used the time to relax, drink a little bit, meet old friends of Gerald and of course have some great seafood. As Gerald spends a lot of his spare time, he knows a lot of good places for dinner.

Making a trip on a boat is really a special thing, because you are almost free as camping, but camping is already regulated to specific areas, where you have to stay. With a boat you can throw the anchor almost everywhere as long you are safe! Moreover you have access to bays where just few people have access to it.

It was really a big experience for me and I hope to get another chance soon!

Von On the Boat

Graduation Party Part II

As I mentioned in my latest post, Nadine and I were invited to the graduation party of Philipp, nephew of Sissy. On the way to downtown Graz we made a stop at Shopping Center Seiersberg to satisfy the shopping fever of Nadine. :-D Afterwards, we checked in the "Das Weitzer" which is a nice old hotel close to the city center of Graz. We intended to have dinner at Aiola, but the kitchen was closed due to restructuring, reopening April 15^th. So we had no time to search for a long time, because of a starving Hannes, we couldn't waste time! ;-) I had a wonderful steak at the "Herzerl Stubn" and Nadine a special kind of "Schnitzel" with pumpkin seeds. Then we headed to M1-Bar where the party took place. We meet a lot of Philipp's friends and his family. We really enjoyed the night and had a lot of fun! On the way home we had to make a stop for a big hot dog. Actually we had to get two, because the first one was a little bit cold and not Nadine refused this one – she is a really big fan of Hotdogs!!! – so we made a stop at the next hotdog stand to grab another one, but this time the temperature wasn't the problem rather the sausage, which was a Bratwurst. So Nadine was disappointed again, but she was too hungry to refuse it! On the next day, we had an awesome brunch at the Aiola Schlossberg with a wonderful view over Graz and with sunny 15°C.

Unfortunately such weekends always end to fast! So we had to go back to SoBu for studying and some more coffee…

Nadine & Hannes

Hamburg – Pick Up My Car

Sunday, my mother and I took the night train to Hamburg and next morning we had a transfer to Bremerhaven. There I had to deal with the plates and the insurance for the car. Due to good preparation in advance it took only few minutes to get a 5-day-pass. With plates and insurance we headed to the freighting company, where I picked up my car. Unfortunately, it has one scratch, which hopefully can be polished. It was amazing how many cars every week get imported. This week around 20 ships arrived. In summer it was 180. Unbelievable how many took advantage of the good exchange rate. After the process we stopped in the city centre of Bremerhaven to have a "Frigatellen-Brötchen", which is comparable with a burger. It is really delicious! With a full belly we could start our journey back to Hamburg.

We arrived at our Hotel around 6 o clocks in the evening – we stayed at the Marriott in the middle of the city – Thanks to Alex! After quick shower and relaxing, we started to look for a dinning place. After endless walking, I asked for a restaurant and we were lucky. We were recommended a great place with typical local food. I had "Labskaus" and my mum had some fish with mustard. After some drinks at the hotel bar, we fell in our beds for a long nice sleep.

On the next day, we started our hardcore sightseeing-tour with a harbor-tour by boot and afterwards a tour with a bus. This compared with a lot of walking in between made us hungry and tired – the question is when I am not hungry?! ;-) We really enjoyed the city, because the sun was shining but it was chilly. I don't want to mention all the details about the city, because I think it is more about the atmosphere, which makes it so impressive. Of course I have to mention the "Reeperbahn" as one of the most famous party miles on earth, but as it was Tuesday and freezing it was not much going on there. The clean and shiny streets, fleets and bridges make Hamburg one of my favorite cities. On Wednesday we visited the museum for local history, which showed us the development of the city. Our last point on the sightseeing list was a Russian submarine.

At 8 pm, I had to drive my car to the train to get it transported in the rear of it. My mum and I had it comfortable in the front in a nice bed. Yes, you are right. One moment I was thinking of staying in my car, but with freezing temperature it was an easy decision. :-D

Hamburg