Majestic London

I'm actually running a day behind my original schedule due to timing issues with the two tours recently, so London has been cut short! My original purpose of the European whirlwind tour was to find the places I should spend time at, and I've done so with the likes of Florrence, Munich, Rome, etc. London also goes on that list. At least a week will be allocated for here, depending on budget, even more. 

Which brings me to my next point - cost. Wow, things are generally speaking very expensive. As an example, transport inner zone (eg not leaving central London) will cost you up to £7 a day. That's about NZ $15, and on another £5.80 (NZ $13) for transport to and from central London to the suburbs, and we are talking real money each day.

I've found that for decimal based currency (where they have cents), it's easier and the prices seen "right" when you ignore the exchange rate. This is seems like it might a good indicator of approximate salary, 2 times your NZ salary in London. That probably/definitely only applies with the big cities, I'm not sure but I imagine the cost of living in a small village is slightly lower :-D

First full day in London I went shirt shopping and have brought a very nice double cuff shirt from a Jerym St establishment. Fortunately I was able to find something not in the traditional white or blue colours that are something of a uniform around here. Though they've introduced Lavender for the more outrageous man (gasp!). My shirt is an interesting, almost silver appearance, comes from a bolder outfit with the unlikely moniker of "Pink".

Day 1 of London also brought along a visit to the London Science museum for their exhibition on Space. The cosmonaut special exhibit was interesting and it was nice to see the size of the Vostok capsule in real life. 

I also found a Cray supercomputer, something that should bring back memories for anyone in my generation or older.

Darmstadt

Darmstadt is just outside of Frankfurt, Germany, and is where ESOC is located. The town has labeled itself a technology city, with good reason, along with ESOC we saw many other well known, and lesser known, tech companies.

The town itself is beautiful though, in what I've almost come to expect from Germany there are beautiful cobblestone roads and squares in the centre. It's a mix of old and new that is done right. And the pub we went to for dinner was just delicious.

ESOC

So if CERN was like every other physics campus (but massively scaled up and with particle accelerators), then ESOC was like how I imagine space agencies should be. Very shiny and modern. Lots of glass, lots of new, lots of security.

Our host signed us in, and despite the very wet weather we had an awesome tour, getting to see many aspects of the place including the main control centre.

Each mission has its own small control centre once it's underway, but the main control centre is used for launch (and I think maybe significant phases such as landing). 

We were finally lucky enough to shop at their gift shop. Luckily, because the shop is not open to the public. I'm sporting a new ESA jacket and polo, as well as some other odds and ends. Too much an opportunity not to take up, can't find this online.

CERN

Date: 3rd Feb

Yesterday we went to CERN with our gracious host. Regrettably he injured his knee recently and stairs were not his forte, that combined with the LHC being shutdown for maintenance meant I wasn't able to actually get to the LHC tunnel, but I did get to see an actual, though smaller, particle accelerator. 

CERN reminds me, unsurprisingly, of a very upscaled version of every University physics campus I've been to. It's a cool place with lots of really interesting work going on, but anyone expecting a shiny futurist campus is definitely in the wrong place - try Apple HQ. 

Once again, confirming my previously mentioned hypothesis, we had Italian, this time for dinner and it was very good. At least before then we had a very French cheese and bread light meal at a bar.

Rest Day

Date: 1st Feb

Today was very much a rest day, and a real rest day at that. Nothing specific planned, nothing to pack for tomorrow, no big journeys the next day, just rest. It's also the start of the slower pace of the rest of my trip. From now on I spend at least two full days in each stop, and for a few stops, I spend 4 or more whole days. It's almost a holiday!

But today was spent in Ferney-Voltaire, a small French town that borders Switzerland. Being in France, it's a lot cheaper to do, well, anything. Switzerland is so damn expensive. A basic small burger at a pub is NZD$30. A pint of bitter is NZD$12. I'm not even going to calculate how much a glass of Lagavulin would have cost, I didn't buy it as I'm fairly sure my bank would ring up the next day demanding payment or they'd go under.

A late lunch was at an Italian restaurant, I know it sounds terrible to do so, and I should have been at a French cafe, but the cafes were either closed or had more beer than food.

I've found in my travels here that the best food for a region is found outside that region. Best French food, Italy. Best Italian, definitely France, best bangers-and-mash, Switzerland. I haven't had haggis, but I bet the best version would be in Netherlands or Germany or something.

Tomorrow we head to CERN.

European Rail

As far as I can work out, when it comes to short trips, rail is definitely it. It's fast and cheap. However, once you reach two hours on the train, air travel wins.

I've just spent over 6 hours on two trains, at a stupidly expensive cost, for a trip that would have cost €70 if I'd booked it 2 days before flying, and would have taken, all things considered, checkin, security, travel to airport, etc, maybe 4 hours, 1 to the airport, 1 to checkin, 1 to fly, and 1 to get luggage.

However, I can now say I've been on the Eurostar (definitely not worth the expense), and the TGV - again, nothing special. Perhaps if it wasn't winter, there might be nice things to see.

Way too much money spent on this leg. Way way way too much.

Eurostar and TGV to Geneva

Date: 31st Jan

So I'm going to post the earlier days posts about the other cities, but for now it's easier just to write about what's current, until I get some real downtime.

Caught the Eurostar today, well, almost caught it yesterday. I'd accidentally booked it for tomorrow instead, so when I turned up, I realised my mistake. £188 later and I'm on the Eurostar as I write this. 

If it wasn't for some geeky desire to use the Eurostar, I really would have been much better off on a flight. Yesterday when looking, flights were around €80 from London (Gatwick) to Geneva - Eurostar is sooo much more expensive, and given you need to arrive 90mins before departure and go through security, one questions the advantages. The possible exception is luggage. You can take as many bags as you can wheel/carry - and some people did! One little lady had to have people assist her lifting her bags, 3 of them, on to the train. I have no idea how she wheeled them along - I assume like some kind of road train (trailers all hooked together)

In the tunnel itself, it's unsurprisingly black. There's nothing to allow you to judge speed, though as I write this we've just emerged from the tunnel. The train certainly doesn't win any speed awards on the surface, at least not thus far.

Shortly I'll be arriving in Paris, and itll be a relaxing (ha) traversal across Paris to the TGV. I have however, given I've spent a lot more money than I expected, upgraded myself for £30 to first class on the TGV. 😄 Hopefully I'll get a refund (minus change fee) from my original booking