I have been to the Isle of Wight before. And it’s quite astonishing how the eastern side of the island is different from the west.

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Quite unusually for UK (including the west of the island), the beaches here are sand as opposed pebbles. There were almost no waves to meantion of and on the horizon one could always spot an enourmous cargo or cruise ship.

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Walking alng the beach next to Shanklin you have the mandatory attributes of a modern british beach – numerous fast food places smelling of deep frying fat and brash neon gambling/game/entertainment halls. One good thing in going to a popular beach in february is that most of the loud and smelly places are closed. There is almost no one around and you can actually enjoy the surroundings.

I think Shanklin beach is quite special – there is almost a line, where civilizaton ends and the cost is left to it’s own devices.

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And then the going gets really interesting, because even though you still have the sand, rocks start appearing.

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You are surrounded by the cliff face on one side, the rising tide from the other and a beach that gets increasingly rocky – it was a brilliant dash back before you get trapped on one of the  taller rocks. And have to stay there until the tide goes back down again.

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The place is so desolated that at first you expect to see some stairs going back to the top of the cliff after the next bend. But after a while you do start believing that you have found a wild beach on this island. Please see my surprise, when I was going past a pile of scrap and recognised there was some order in it. Following it on I saw a set of stairs. No idea where they went, but there were so ingeniously made, that I recon someone could live there. Totally isolated if they wanted to, but not more that 30min walk from the nearest supermarket. Brilliant!

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After quite a lengthy walk to the north side of Sandown there is an amazing little beach that slowly shrinks as the shore goes from clay and mud to a white rock.

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When I finally climbed to the top of that clay cliff it was already past sundown, so not quite enough light to get good pictures. But even so I caught the moment when a whole gang of rabbits was going home to their little wholes from the nearest field.

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Rabbits are wonderful creatures to try and take a picture of in the dark. As as soon as they sense that you have spotted them, they freeze and hope that they blend in with the scenery enough for you to not notice where they are. At this point in time you set the camera for night mode, kill the flash and try to not make a sound as the camera takes a long exposure picture. Make the smallest movement and ether the little fellas are going to feel threatend and run away or your picture is going to blur like a drunken dream.

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I recon that this slide is caused by no one other than the rabbits! Their wholes go all the way to the edge and I think they might dig a bit too deep.

None the less how brilliant is it to see?

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Few words about Isle of Wight as far as people are concerned. The public transport is based solely on a network of busses going all around the island, where any sort of ticket is about 3 times the price of the London tube. The buses are mostly on time, but only run three times a day.

So most people have cars. And what cars are those… Honestly, I have been walking along a quiet country road of no significance and in around 30mins a Bentley, A retro US muscle car and a few high-end jeaps drove past me. This is in deep contrast to the neighbouring on the main land Southampton, where most cars are Fiestas.

In a word – astonishing!

From feb11-London

How was this particular performance? I am no music expert and therefore I enjoyed it profoundly. I think the organaziers have split the performance into nice digestible 8, 32 and 32 more minute chunks. And yes, they are that specific. Which meant that people like me who don’t listen to classical music every day didn’t lose focus midway.

And of course the best of all was the selection of the pieces:

1. Overture, Oberon by Weber
2. Symphony No3, Op 97, Rhenish by Shumann
3. Piano Concerto No5, in E flat Op 73, Emperor by Beethoven

Somehow they were all in tune with each other and felt very natural. A little bit of classical music is always nice, especially performed so wonderfully. There were a few niggles even I have noticed, but I shall keep quiet about those as they were vastly overshadowed by the times the performers got it right.

Philharmonic Orchestra programme

This time I made sure to go alone. Don’t know how everyone else, but when I am next to the sea in and no swimsuits are involved I keep thinking about the people I am with rather than actually about the sea. Which is a shame really, because it’s like a mirror, shining sunlight into your inner self.

And there was plenty of sunshine to go round this weekend. And not just sunshine. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. And we got quite strong and very persistent wind from the sea. Now everyone know what a sunny and windy day means on the beach! – massive waves and excellent visibility to enjoy them coming!

From Brighton 12feb11

And this time the beach exceed my best expectations. It was pretty warm despite being mid-February. And not too many people. Just enough to make you aware that you are not alone in this world and also feel safe and be able to relax.

From Brighton 12feb11

But before we dive into my sentiments of the sea, let’s say a few words about the town in the clouds. Brighton is probably one of the strangest places I have ever been. Only here you can find high-end restaurants next to chippies. Or Boutique designer shops right next to something dreadful like Next. So quite an awesome town.

From Brighton 12feb11

Even more jaw-dropping are some of the people that I have seen there. Some were hopeless romantics listening to the sound of waves running up the shore. Others were the for the sheer thrill of running from the white foamy cream-like waves. Needless to say my feet were really wet straight away and it didn’t matter if I got splashed even more

From Brighton 12feb11

There were other brave souls, who were trying to surf. Now I have never done it, but by the looks of things Brighton beach is not the perfect location for surfing. To compensate for lack of surfing waves most of them were wearing thick surfing suits and making some pleasant conversation. Those who did surf though were a lot of fun to watch!

From Brighton 12feb11

And most fascinating of all were the fisher men. Some were fishing from the marine wave barrier. Others had boats and were getting ready to sail out at sunset. Interestingly there were 2 japanease guys fishing and at least to my amateur look they were as competent as the locals.

From Brighton 12feb11

This was a brilliant trip I would adivse anyone in the proximity to try and make it here. Of course, weather permitting – even though it was sunny and I was well dressed the wind was more persistent than me, so I had to retreat to a safe distance after 5hrs excitment. Even my trusty waterproof jacket gave in and was wet throughout

As it often happens in England the weather had decided to be indecisive right from the morning: some clouds, some wind and some sun. Us, humans were left with our theories whether it would rain or it would shine. BBC Weather had no real idea on this matter as they have changed the forecast throughout the previous week from shiny sunlight to gloomy raining and back.

This Sunday we have planned to visit the Isle of Wight, in particular Alum Bay on its west coast. Not too ambitious – we wanted to enjoy ourselves, not record a new personal high score on the amount of places visited in a day.

Alum Bay is famous because it was involved into an experiment of Guglielmo Marconi. It just happened to be the place, from where he transmitted a first radio signal to an hotel some away 20 miles.

This of course had a huge impact on the world as well all use wireless communications all the time now. However alone it is not a good enough reason to get a ferry and get a 2 hour bus ride. If you were to read about the history of wireless networks and come across the experiment of Guglielmo Marconi you would inevitably see a photograph of Alum Bay – a tall steep cliff meeting the sea. For people like me that picture is a good enough reason to travel.

The island itself is very beautiful and green. As a matter of fact green is the dominating colour on the island, no wonder that buses and other objects on the road would go green where possible. And on the thick green carpet of grass one would often spot hares running wild and free. Although nice, hares are not as surprising as the selection of flowers on this island. Every pitch of grass however small would contain at least a few yellow narcissus (lent lily). They blossom just at this time, so all the numerous pathes of grass on the island would have a yellow highlight to them. Sometimes there would be more narcissi than grass itself.

But the hares, the pretty houses with curved rooftops, narcissi and other wonders of this island matter only before one sets eye on the Alum Bay and the sea. Once you step on the cliff or come down to the beach you enter a completely different world – time stops, sounds are different, light is different. Everything is not the same. You feel that the thoughts and troubles you had before you entered this world are completely irrelevant and you somehow forget about them really quickly. One thing you can see and comprehend is the sea, the wind and the sun. Luckily we did not have to comprehend the rain as well – it was nice and sunny during our visit to the foreign world of Alum Bay.

I don’t know how long we have stayed there, but the day just passed by without us noticing, I guess time really does run different there. But it is a small price to pay for the view of the freedom and power of the sea and the magnificence of the cliff.

Getting there

Valencia is on the middle of east coast of Spain. There are plenty of cheap airlines flying to Valencia from the UK. That is one of the reasons, why we chose the location. The choice was between Gerona (quite close to Barcelona) and Valencia. Most people would probably go for Gerona – Barcelona is a very beautiful large city with loads of places a tourist might visit. Personally I have not been there, but I have heard quite excited opinions about it from people I am willing to trust.

Because of a hunch, sheer chance or some other reason (no one can remember now) we have chosen Valencia as our destination. I think we were lucky. The destination was decided long before we actually started buying the tickets and booking the hotels. Actually, it was really close for us to stay at home and compete in pretending that we enjoy the January Southampton weather for that weekend. That’s why we were lucky – we managed to get back to the thought of going to Valencia before it was too late. I am so glad we did – Valencia is one of the most beautiful cities I have ever seen throughout my travels.

We landed in Valencia on a nice Airbus from Gatwick supplied by EasyJet – despite being a low price airline, they have done a good job (didn’t really like budget airlines before this). During the 3 days that we have spent in the wonderful city of the sun we stayed at a wonderful hotel Nova Victoria. It claims to be a 4 star hotel, I am no expert, but it was nice, clean and quiet – those are all the things I need in a hotel.

Valencian transport

The page Valencia @ Wikipedia will tell you that the population of Valencia is just under a million people and that it is the capital of an autonomous region with the same name. For visitors this should say that there is a separate language in Valencia, different from Castilian (main Spanish dialect).

Despite its size Valencia has a well developed metro system with 4 lines underground and 2 more tram lines connecting directly with the underground. The nicest thing is that 2 metro lines go up to the airport, which makes getting to the city really easy and quick. Going around the city in a metro is not really convenient as they follow the main streams of passengers, who live in Valencia or its suburbs and want to get to the center. We ony took the metro to the airport and the beach.

My companions might disagree with me, but I find that if one wishes to visit the city center and have a look around the place in general it is quite enough to use ones own feet. Our hotel was right in the center of the city, so we could reach any point withing 30 minutes on foot. And trust me, if you are in Valencia, you don’t want to miss out anything that you might meet on your way. This city is perfect to wander around and admire – taking random turns always proves to reveal something new and magnificent.

Experience of the city

Valencia is not spoiled by constant attention from tourists. When we wandered around we found many places, where people spoke Spanish only. Which made us learn some of it and brought a smile to everyone around us while we were at it. They were not mean about it though – usually the people of Valencia were genuinely trying to help us express ourselves. And would smile at our attempts – guess it was funny. Mostly we could understand each other with some time spent on rearranging the cultural differences.

It is quite interesting to see what people can do given this little information about our wishes. Usually it was enough to express an approximate direction or area of what you would like (for example a paella – common dish in valencia) and they would not bother you about all the fine detail they would usually ask people – would just go away and do something sensible.

Although we have seen only the center of the city, I am quite positive that this is the most beautiful city I have ever seen. My companions probably had something to do with this impression – we had a hell of a good time, but even so – the city is magnificent.

The combination of old city’s streets and a modern city’s drive is incredible. Yes, there is a commercial center and all the high and ugly buildings are there as well, but they are well overpowered by the amount of old and beautiful architecture.

The largest impression, at least for me, was sun and 20C in January plus a magnificent idea of the city to create a park in a former riverbed. The green snake of trees, bushes, benches, flowers and fountains splits the city into 2. The parts are connected with bridges, both new and old, which makes it even more special.

This makes it incredible easy to go through the city just by following the riverbed – you are in the middle of town, yet you can walk to miles between tress (given that you go along the path of the river). Fountains in Valencia are a completely special story of their own.

The people of Valencia use the riverbed park as a place for jogging and cycling, so it is always full of people, even at night. Which is great and makes you feel safe there even at midnight – nights are really warm, so everyone wants to go outside and either jog or just walk, cycle or enjoy the moonlight. And this time everyone includes you.

This was my first visit to Spain and I doubt that all cities in the country are like that, but even if so, it is definitely worth visiting Valencia – no doubts about it.

Food

One of my companions was very persuasive about trying out several Spanish dishes:

Paella – a dish of rice and meat usually served at lunch time (about 3pm local time). Comes in a variety of ingredients and tastes. We had several attempts to get one – the most successful was in a place so far away from the tourist world, that we had serious trouble communicating, but we got a paella and some fish out of them, both superb.

Horchata – a white colour drink made from almond nuts, great in hot weather.

Churos - stripes of pastry deep fried and sprinkled with sugar. Usually served with thick version of hot chocolate. Really depends on the place, where you get them. But if it is the right one, they are delicious.

Bocadillo- sandwiches with the strangest of ingredients, we had a tortilla (omelet) one – delicious. The guy serving it looked so hot that the feminine side of our company could not stop talking about him for the rest of the vacation.

Sea in January

The beach in Valencia is a classical sandy Mediterranean beach with low waves and plenty of wind from land. Because it was January there were not many people there, so searching for food proved to be a problem. Took us some time to find a place serving food. It was a kebab place, so we were quite reluctant to go there first – a kebab is always a kebab, but we could not find anything better, so had to settle for that.

While we were searching for a place to eat we came across a school festival. Kids and their teachers were dressed up in costumes according to a theme special to each class going through the streets with music and dances.

The sea itself was really peaceful and somehow brought the sensation of the whole city together – peaceful and calm, yet understanding that time goes on. Sometimes rushing, sometimes slowing down, but never standing. I know that I will enjoy coming back to Valencia.

[ moved from http://andrejserafim.wordpress.com/2007/12/16/christmas-2007-part-2-flight/ ]

Yes, the airport was a nightmare as it usually comes with airports. And no one really likes airports. But flights… Those are completely different.

When we just took off, I noticed that the view was really clear – no clouds or fog or any other obstructions much too common in england. I was lucky enough to get a seat with a window – after all that waiting at the airport, I thought it was worth it. And that was the first time I have ever seen London from a plane at night. It was spectacular.

It all started with some mist near the horizon and there I saw red flames…

It was not a fire, but rather islands of lighted areas. But they were so far away that one could only image their shape and size it was like an ambient red light in the fog. As we got closer to those lit areas my mind started racing through images I have seen in movies or read in books anything from huge fires to something like Mordor – lands of fire and dark went through my mind first really fast and then slowing down.

Those images kept changing in my mind and as the plane went further, I realised that the list areas came closer and became burning islands in a sea of darkness. We came even closer and they changed to fire-red clouds over on the night sky. And then we came so close that one could see the separate street lights – such complexity and tiny detail, it was really surprising that the air was so clear that night. And then I saw snakes…

It was about 6pm Thursday, just the rush hour, which meant that there were cars on each and every road – from above all roads resembled snakes or whips lying on the ground, stretching from one patch of red light to another along their peculiar paths. Do you know that there were just a few straight roads, which I could see? Most of them were nicely curved, this emposed quite a mystic view on any spectator. Actually this was magnificent.

In my mind I have a special place for sights, which really impress me. Those are few in numbers, but I hope I will never forget them. This was one of those special images, that will be stuck there forever.

That is how Christmas holiday began in 2007, we’ll see, what it brings.

For me Christmas is all about the morning on the 25th of December, I have an image from my childhood that I wake up early in the morning, and there is sunlight outside (means I woke up really late) and I can see the world through the drawing of the frost on the window. Actually when I was a kid I remember I could not see anything because those patterns covered most of the window. And there should be a smell of a Christmas tree and snow outside and nice food in the fridge. Also there should be a special Christmas spirit around everything.

Well, at at least that’s the theory, it’s easiest to get all those components back home, that’s where they actually come from, so I usually go home for Christmas.

And of course no trip back home can be complete without some adventure on the way.

First of all, to get home from UK requires some preparation. Getting hold of a ticket to Lithuania during Christmas time sounds really a lot easier than it looks, but being an experienced traveler I had the ticket bought quite a while in advance, which is not ideal because then you have fixed dates for the journey, but at least you are not spending a fortune just to go home. Just as an example, my friend Martin from an adjacent course tried to find a ticket to Lithuania somewhere a month before the actual trip and he could not get anything ever approximate to his desired dates (he gave up on the price quite a while before that).

So the preparation is done. The plane tickets are bought, the train tickets to get to the airport are bought as well. And now all one needs is to actually start the journey.

That is not as easy as it stands of course. What time do you chose for example? I thought to avoid queues or possible train delays I would allow 3 hours before my flight. The flight was scheduled at 17.10, so I was planning to leave Southampton Central at 12.11. And this time I was not there alone. Everyone would always come to see me off back home, but in UK the start of any trip would be very … well, quiet and concentrated. This time my girlfriend came to see me off. And it was nice because I could feel that I am not alone in the world and that someone will be waiting for me to come back here. Of course it made the first hour of the journey physically unbearable – don’t really like partings.

But at least I was on my way now. I like traveling by trains, especially if they are as empty as this one was. That means that you can chose your seat and change it if you fancy another one more. You can get up and walk if your legs are sore (I am 1.88 meters long, so it is an issue in coaches). Another lucky feature of this train – it was a direct to Gatwick Airport, which meant that you did not have to fight with the crowds at Clapham Junction to get to a connecting train, which leaves in some 7 minutes. And I was finally at the airport. Yay, means half of the job was well done!

Already at the airport, I was trying to find the zone, where to check-in my luggage. Usually it is quite straightforward – you look at the board with flight times, find your flight and go to the zone shown there. But … how should I put this … there was no flight at 17.10. I thought, maybe it was a mistake, they could not have canceled my flight without any notice whatsoever, could they? Trying to stay calm I went to the information desk, there a nice gentleman said that the flight is still there and the zone is D, he could not understand why it is not on the board, but just said to go and check-in… well, apparently he had some good psychology training because I really started to believe it was just some silly mistake of someone’s and they will soon fix it. But if I go through the security, I will not be able to check it anyway, so let’s just drop the entire matter. Or at least that is what I thought.

The guy also said that the check-in will open 2 hours before the flight departure. Which made sense when I came to an empty desk. So I decided to make a lap around the airport to push some time, because apparently I had plenty. The lap appeared to be quite short, so 10 minutes later I was at the same desk and it was still unmanned. Well I find it quite silly to stand it the middle of a vast empty space all by myself, so I found a nice corner with a comfortable rail I could lean on and started waiting.

2 guys came to the same desk and by a few words I overheard they were Lithuanians as well. They found the vast space intimidating as well and went off for the welcoming lap. Another 2 guys – the same thing. And then a girl in a red skirt came along. She was Lithuanian as well and apparently did not find the vastness of the empty hall intimidating, so she just stood there. Knowing that check-in is really fast I was not worried that there will be a huge queue there, even if there was, it was not a problem anyway. Therefore I was reluctant to leave my quite comfortable position. The first guys came back from the lap 10 few minutes later and now there was someone waiting, but it was just one person, – nah, not good yet and went for another short walk. The 2nd pair of the guys was less intimidated by the space the first time round and they joined the girl, when they came back from their lap. Soon the 1st pair came back as well. Now it was 3 people. That was good. I have waited for another girl to join and only then went to the queue. Now it was a small crowd and I was somewhat comfortable there – as comfortable as one can feel waiting at a check-in queue. The fact of the queue had no effect whatsoever on the 2 hour before departure fact. The desk opened with the precision of an expensive watch. Which meant that even I stood in the queue for 40 minutes. Just during 5 of those long and boring minutes the desk was actually operational.

To surprise the queue for the security check was almost non-existent. When I was flying last time it took about 40 minutes to pass it and there it was really boring. But now all process took less than 15 minutes and I was a happy man after it.

But as soon as I entered the secure area, I had something waiting for me. There was one and a half hours left before my flight would have left, so there was no real point in checking the gate information on the screens, but I still did – always do. The same thing happened again – there was no such thing as 17.10 flight, neither to Vilnius, nor to anywhere else. This time I was a bit worried – the check-in went fine, so I should still make it for the flight, but why was it not on the screen? So I went to find an information desk again. There a somewhat bored lady who was solving sudoku printed using size 20 font could not really understand what I was after – yes there is a flight with this number, it leaves at 18.15 (not 17.10), it was meant to leave at 5pm … ? – blank look. I gave up, just asked when it was going to make it to Vilnius and went away. I sent a message home ahead of me saying that I will be late for 1 hour and could they please check the timetable there as well. The timetable there said 18.15 as well, so it seemed like an organised conspiracy. All I could hope for it to be a well organised conspiracy and that the flight would reach home.

After lunch at McDonalds I had the pleasure of a few long hours of waiting before my flight actually left ground at 18.30. During the waiting I started to write a very long email to my girlfriend, Dayah, describing the whole process of getting to this point. I don’t know how she managed to read it, because I had way too much spare time and it became far too long for any email.

When I got on the plane I actually forgot all my worries and all that exhaustive waiting after I saw… well, that’s next time.

Part 2: Christmas 2007 Part 2 – flight