I decided, to write more about travels. Not, because I am doing so much, only because for the time being I am occupied with my travels. This being the end of the easter holidays in Germany, a lot of people may have returned or not traveled at all.
Personally, I prefer to travel by train. Others travel by car or bike or on foot or plane or ship even. Though travels by ship have become rather seldom. Though I recently thought that a tour on the Rhine for a week or so might be nice.
Or - with time and money, that is - to the United States. Means I'd have to wait until my retirement.
I'd never have the time and it would take time to horde the money.
But my travels in the nearer future will be by train and either to the United Kingdom or inside Germany. The latter, because I don't really know a lot about Germany. Especially the eastern part of it. My mother has friends in the east, from evacuation during the war. They took her and her family in very kindly and the contact held. But I have only ever seen that part and Berlin. That's not a lot.
So, this year it will be the U.K., next year it will be eastern Germany. I'll find something there, no doubt. And it should be a very nice train-tour as well. I am not bound to holiday times, so I can travel out of season rather cheaper. That is not unimportant, since I don't see, why I should always travel expensively.
My upcoming travels are getting more attention as well. Not quite four months until I start and I am really looking forward to it. It will be great. The last time, that I took a ferry to the U.K., I was 18 and we went from Calais to Dover. This year it will be from Rotterdam to Hull and from there either with a bus or a train, I tend to get sick on long bus-trips, so I would prefer a train, but we will see.
On my trip from Yorkshire to London it will be definitely a train. There seems to be one, that goes from Bradford to Kings Cross/St. Pancras and this seems to be the one I have read about ages ago.
It is - or so it seems - a train dedicated to a painter, so very artistical themed. Or I just take another one. I am not generally artistically minded.
In Yorkshire itself I want to take a steam-train, can't remember to ever have traveled in one, so that should be exiting. I will also go into Harrogate, as I have only just found out, that that is, where my favourite tea is sold. Apart from being at least twice mentioned by Georgette Heyer in her Romances.
So there.
I am not a very interesting travel writer. I like to be there in time, board the train with enough to drink and eat and then have my peace. By that I mean, not being talked to, unless it is the ticket-collector.
And of course read and listen to my I-Pod, look out of the window, enjoy being on the road.
Then while I travel, I like to plan in enough time in between trains or ferry or bus or whatever. I don't want to run from transport to transport. It looks ridiculous and it isn't any fun at all. Plus: it takes away the enjoyment beside the breath. And to run with luggage.....
Anyway, arriving at my destination, it's time to refresh inside and out and look about me in my room. Get unpacked, try out the bed and the TV and radio. Just be. If it is still light, I might like to go out to grab some food and look about me a little. But all slowly and relaxed. And then have an early night, so I can start early the next day. Ah, lovely.
And that's it for now. I will end with a clip, that is not owned by me and may not have anything to do with travel... :-) Or not. Because I can't get there. So it is just a picture I found online, but don't own either...
This is traveling a canal by boat in Yorkshire. A nice idea as well, but it can't be done alone, unless one is accomplished with boats. I am not. But it looks nice.
As I might have mentioned before I plan a trip to Yorkshire this year.
So, why Yorkshire? First, it is in Great Britain, second, I have never been that far up north of England. And Third, I read in a book called "Icons of England" about a very nice train track that goes from London to York with wonderful sights. Three good reasons, so I started planning.
Whenever I travel - and I do not do it very often - I start to map it out. How to get there, what to do there, what books to buy there, what to eat there. I do take planes, but I don't really like planes. So I decided to skip planes and find alternative ways of travelling.
I might have mentioned a book called: the idle traveller and that is about slow travelling. That idea appealed to me, as I found our world is getting to fast. Maybe I am just getting slower, though I am not yet pensioners age, so maybe not. At any rate, I decided to slow down the few travels I intend to do. Therefore taking the train was the first idea. Taking the Eurostar that would mean. So travelling to Brussels and from there to London. OR, travelling to Calais and then take the ferry to Dover and the train from there.
In the end I decided to take the train to Rotterdam, then the ferry to Hull and from there take the National Express, which seems to be a bus, to Gargrave, where my B&B is. So, the "to" is cleared.
The "What to do there" I decided to leave open. There are a lot of things to do, like travelling on a steam train, visit the Yorkshire Dales, take the Herriot-Country in, visit Bradford, where J.B. Priestley is from, maybe even see the Bronte-Museum, though I am not a Bronte-fan.
Then go to Harrogate and York and Cleckheaton. A lot to do for three days, but these are just the options.
Why Cleckheaton you ask? Because of a book by Dame Agatha, called "Passenger to Frankfurt". Not only did that remind me of "The Prisoner of Zenda", it had a great-aunt in it, called "Mathilda Cleckheaton" and I loved that character. So when I found the name on the map of Yorkshire I thought, that would be a nice idea. Giggleswick sounds like an interesting place. If you just take the name alone.
At any rate: I will go to York, on the last day, because I want to take the train I wrote about. I don't think the sights will be any less nice, if you travel from York to London.
Now Yorkshire I will have for four days and then I travel on to??? Yes, you guessed it, to London. I decided to have my birthday there this year. So I will take three nights there and I will have them in a four star hotel near Waterloo station. I looked at a lot of four star and five star hotels and finally decided on this, because I liked the look of it, so there it is. And there are songs about Waterloo..
Just to keep the musical theme on track. I had written this text very much earlier, but - as so often - had some technical problems. At any rate, I got there finally and so let's go on about travel.
What I like about holidays is being on the go, once I arrive, I do not always seem to know what to do with myself. This is completely unrelated to wether I travel alone or with others. Personally, I prefer travelling alone, as I can then just do or not do, as I please. Take this arrival problem: what would I like to do? Have a shower and put the kettle on. Then unpack or not, watch the TV-Program of the country I am in, just BE. Maybe just sit on the bed, fiddle with the stuff in the room, look around and once I did that - providing it is not late at night - going for a stroll, getting my bearings.
All this can be done with another person of course, but then you have to discuss who takes the shower first, who next, whether the TV will be switched on (which can become a problem, if you don*t agree in that point), whether you go out or not and if you do, where you go and what you do.
Even with the most compatible person you have to at least grunt your ideas and then find out, if that is agreeable or not and if the latter, what the other person would prefer. YES! I know, all this is not really a problem, you just talk it out and act accordingly, I never said, it is not possible. I am just trying to convey, that I prefer to just do or don't as I please, without discussing it.
Also I have the - for others - annoying habit of going somewhere and on the way there deciding to do something entirely else. So I do that. One can't do that to others. I wouldn't like it, if the shoe was on the other foot. So I can only do that alone.
Before traveling you have to find the hotel and the mode of travel, as I described and that can be trouble as well. The company might not like the hotel you fell in love with or would prefer to fly, as that is faster and would take less time off the holiday or would not like to fly or take the train, but take a very cheap bus, with no conveniences but the low price. No luxury, only the cheapest acomodation for a longer stay or to have more money for museums.
Once there he/she/it might prefer to take long walks, see all churches or museums or spend the whole holiday on the beach roasting or swimming and not seeing anything else at all. At the same time not willing to do that alone, but expecting the company to stay on the beach as well.
OR, if a tour is o.k., than not on ones own, but in a guided tour, in German of course, why bother to take the english tour in England (I prefer England or Great Britain for travel).
You see, I have given this some thought and come to a conclusion: I myself am not an easy travel-companion. I like my experiences just so. And I like to change my plans a lot, not do something I wanted, but doing something else instead or nothing but having tea at a nice place, spend time in a library or bookshop or a fun museum or any other fun place. Just sit and read somewhere, just traveling around in a bus, or sit in my hotel-room and read. That's not easy for others and so, to prevent trouble for both sides, I started traveling by myself and am very happy about it.
A funny thing, I always experience, once I tell my holiday plans is: Who do you travel with. And my answer evolved into: With myself... Which causes the question: All alone? And I say, of course...
Doing things all alone is for most people a horrible thought. Being alone somewhere, doing things alone. And this does not concern danger at all. Now: I do not go, where I know it to be dangerous or not wise for a woman to travel alone. And I don't go out late at night. I don't like it here, why should I bother in my holidays? Any other danger might meet me at home as well as abroad. So, that's no problem. And at home I like to be by myself as well, usually one has 6 days out of seven filled mostly with people. I think that too much. So I looked forward to four days of peace and only really got 2. One I let go for some shopping, but I didn't really have to chat to anyone or be with anyone. The other was taken from me by my family who can not share my enjoyment in being alone and since they think I can't be happy, they cajole me into meetings. It makes them happy and I am expected to be happy as well. I am not.
And on this happy note, let me say good bye. I shall write more about travels. Be afraid. Be very afraid, as Johnny English once said.
Which reminds me, that I liked Rowan Atkinson best as the Black Adder. VERY WITTY!!
If we could have the occasional week of Sundays? I say "occasional", because if you have to many good days, you won't enjoy them. Believe you me, if you don't know it already..
To translate a wise word of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe:"Nothing is harder to put up with, than a row of good days."
That's perhaps why our work-weeks are so short as well as our holidays. So we enjoy them more.
So let's enjoy to the full what we've got.
And to my thinking, it should be, what WE like. Not what people say we are supposed to like.
Like going out every weekend. If you like it, then do it. It is YOUR weekend. But if you don't and just do it, because people say: You are young, every young person goes out every Weekend, then think again. WHY would you have to go out, if you don't want to. Maybe there is a book you wish to finish or a sock to need, a DVD to watch again or just a stupid old video-game to play.
It is your life and your decision. Just as you have the right to decide to go out every day of the week if you wish and can handle it or are willing to handle the consequences. But it stays in your responsibilty.
Whatever, I have been reading - and still am - a book by Dan Kieran, called: The idle traveller and it is great fun. It also made me think over my traveling plans to Great Britain this year. I will not take the plane, I will take the ferry from Rotterdam to Hull and from there the bus (National Express) to Gargrave. This way, I see a lot more and have more of the traveling.
Back from London I will take the Eurostar and and Express from Brussels. So, heaps of travelling fun ahead.
Reading the book, I found references to Paul Theroux. So I looked him up on the internet and his sons Louis and Marcel as well and found an ad about Ferry-Traveling. I will also find books by Paul Theroux to read. I also downloaded a book by Stefan Zweig (his last one), of whom I had never read anything, but I knew he wrote "Die Schachnovelle".
Anyway, the book I downloaded is called: The world of yesterday. He was born in 1881 in Vienna as a not practicing Jew in a good family. The jewish part never bothered him, until Hitler came on and forced him to live is home country. Mr. Zweig knew a lot of famous people personally, like Rilke and Rodin or von Hoffmannsthal. Well, famous in the germanspeaking world mostly. It is a very interesting book and I haven't even reached 1912 yet. Get it as an audiobook. It might be tedious to read... :-) My audiobook is read by a man from Vienna. So one has the illusion to have it read by Stefan Zweig.
Well, I started with a quote from a Musical, that made Julie Andrews famous and going from there, the clip I don't own this week is from a show she did with Carol Burnett. And Carol Burnett did the same song with another lady that I admire, Maggie Smith. So I will put up both clips, not owning either, just so you have some comparison... :-)
Well, I won't put up the Maggie Smith version, because I can't there is a technical glitch here, as there is so often. So you just have to look that one up by yourself.
By the way, I do admire Carol Burnett as well, I just do not know as much about her, since she was not so famous here in Germany, that even I got to know her talent. The first time, I ever saw her was as Miss Hannigan in Annie. So you can see, that was very late in her career and from all I can gather, it was a widespread career!
So, there was no slight intended by me.
This week Doris Day had her 90th Birthday and from all I can find out, she had it for the third time in a row. She isn't really given a chance to say anything about it, but it seems weird to me. I always read, that she was born in 1922 and not 1924. Ah well, the twenty years between 90 and 95 are the best years of a woman for sure. And I am not punning on Miss Day here!
She is a lovely and talented lady who did what I proposed in the beginning of this post. She ended her career and started doing, what she likes most: working with and for animals. Mostly dogs I think, but I don't think, that she would just stand by to let any other animal be maltreated.
