Sam PF's Journal
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Below are the 11 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Sam PF" journal:
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10:51 pm
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Travel plans again
Something of a change of plan - it seems I will be wanted at work for the period just before the Ankara conference (which is 11-13 June) - it's the SIPRI Yearbook launch, so all hands on deck for that. So instead I will take holday after the conference, (not going to the other thing), visiting Istanbul then going to Bulgaria, and thence home to Stockholm. The weekend in London for the Bardcamp reunion will be just a weekend in London.
Judging by the air fares at the moment, that reduces the price differential somewhat, though not by much. Anyway, following the discussion on the last post, I am fairly sure I will take the train. Combining the Sofia-London and London-Stockholm journeys as recommended by The Man in Seat 61, I come up with the following itinerary:
Day 1: car to Svilengrad, then the 05:05 (guuuuuh) Balkan Express to Sofia, arriving 11.40. Then catch the sleeper from Sofia to Vienna at 12:40
Day 2: Arrive Vienna 08:57. Spend the day in Vienna. Then the 20:35 overnight train to Cologne.
Day 3: Arrive Cologne 08:42. Spend the day in Cologne. Then catch the 22:58 overnight from Cologne to Copenhagen.
Day 4: Arrive Copenhagen 09:59, then get the 12:31 to Stockholm, arriving 17:35.
Alternatively, I expect there are quicker ways of doing the Cologne to Stockholm journey. Ah, yes, I can get a train from Cologne 10:49 on day 3, arriving (via various changes) at Copenhagen 20:35, then there are any number of trains hopping across the bridge to Malmö, and then I can get the 23:08 from Malmö, arriving in Stockholm Day 4 at 07:47. (Which seems to be rather a lot cheaper than the fancy tilting train Seat 61 suggests from Copenhagen to Stockholm).
I could even go straight into work on day 4. So long as they're not expecting me to do anything involving the use of my brain.
Tags: travel
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12:10 am
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Travel plans
I am pondering a great journey. No, not Palestine this time, this one is a crazy composite journey in May/June of this year.
The fixed points of this journey are as follows:
On Saturday the 31st May is the Bardcamp reunion in London, so I will be flying Stockholm to London on the 30th.
The 11th-13th June is a conference in Ankara - the annual conference on Economics & Security, where I will be presenting a paper.
Between times, I will be visiting my mother in S. East Bulgaria, and hopefully spend a day or so in Istanbul.
To add to the crazy, almost immediately after the conference I may well be attending a SUPER-SEKRIT event in Paris. Which would mean flying back to Stockholm on the 14th, picking up some stuff and spending one or maybe two nights at home, before flying out to Paris.
Yeah, a lot of flying. Bad, bad stuff. I can pay some carbon offsets, but I know there's an awful lot of question marks about whether they really work. Probably better than not ofsetting, but still.
Anyway, so the only missing piece of this jigsaw is the London-Bulgaria stage. In that, as there's a fair bit of time between the 31st and the 10th, I am actually contemplating getting the train across Europe instead of flying for that leg.
( the details )
So, the pros and cons:
For the plane:
- Two extra days, to spend either at my mum's or in Istanbul
- £80 saved
For the train:
- One less flight, even if it is offset, and the accompanying smug glow of virtue even if I am getting four other flights within the space of three weeks.
- Reliving the glory days of my youth, Inter-railing across Europe
- Getting to see all teh awesome places and scenery inbetween, albeit mostly out the window.
- Like, showing that it can be done - it is still possible to travel long distances other than by plane in this world.
Hum. The train idea is rather appealing. But the plane seems more sensible, even accounting for the carbon. (Like, supposing carbon offsets are only 50% effective, I could offset double and still save.) It is annoying that planes are not only faster but cheaper than trains.
Well, one can hardly make an entry like this without putting in a poll:
Poll #1164882
Open to: All, results viewable to: AllHow should I travel from London to Sofia?
Tags: family, travel, work
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12:31 am
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Belated Happy New Year
Happy New Year to all! Back in Sweden now (since yesterday) after a week and a half in Scotland.
Christmas Day was at my sister's in Edinburgh, with her, husband Zander, Rachel and Vinnie; brother Angus, who also lives in Edinburgh was there, as was our mother over from Bulgaria. So actually managed something of a family Christmas despite our scatteredness. (I know the words 'family Christmas' can be ones to inspire horror, and there were times when Christmas Day would always have at least one massive row, but has not been so for some while now.) Watched Doctor Who of course.
Then Boxing Day Angus and I went up to stepdad Dave's near Brechin. Angus works as manager of a Bookmakers' branch in Edinburgh now, which means he works four twelve hour shifts per week in a rather complex pattern, but as luck would have it he had the 24th-26th off. The journey up was something of a disaster. He's recently started driving, and had a couple of months before acquired his first car, an old banger passed on for a hundred or so from Dave (Angus and Sarah's dad), when he got one passed on from his sister Brenda.
( the gory details )
So we got there in the end, only about 6 hours late, and had the second round of present exchange and so forth. Following day, Sarah and family came up to see Dave, and we all went to see his 85-year old sister Mary, who as chance would have it ended up having fourteen visitors in one day, including us, which was all a little bit much. Then Sarah drove Angus back to Edin, me following by bus the next day.
Spent the next few days in Edinburgh staying at Angus's and doing touristey things, various museums, and the obligatory climb up Arthur's Seat, and saw mum again at Sarah's before she flew back to Bulgaria. Decided this year to spend Hogmanay at Dave's though, as not done that in a while. I'd have maybe gone to the Street Party, but Angus never gets tickets for that, and it would feel funny being in Edinburgh but not spending New Year with the rest of the family there. So a fairly quiet NYE, but Dave, Keri and I stayed in, I drank (Dave could only have a small whisky as he's on Morphine, and Keri's gone teetotal), and we sang lots of Scottish songs.
Angus came up again on the second (are you following all this?) - we all met up in Dundee, where I got the bus back to Edinburgh, while Angus carried on to Dave's. And so home the next day. Back to work today. Rather nice to have one day at work and then it's already the weekend, but will be fully abck to the grindstone next week.
Tags: family, travel
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12:35 am
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The fuel pipe that stole Easter (or at least the Vigil)
Bugger.
Got back to Bristol this evening four hours late, thus missing the Easter Vigil service at St Mary on the Quay, where I was supposed to be singing. (Was able to inform people). I've been in Scotland the past week, at the Scottish Economic Society conference and visiting family - my mum's been over from Bulgaria staying with my sister in Edinburgh, where my brother also now lives. It was a bit of a dilemma this being Holy Week, whether to stay as she was in the country, or come back down to Bristol for the Triduum. The compromise I settled on was to remain in Scotland for the Thursday and Friday, and return today in time for the Vigil. (Went to Good Friday liturgy in Edinburgh Cathedral, which was very good, but was ill for Maundy Thursday.)
Depending on British trains not being more than two hours late? Really not a good plan.
Virgin excelled themselves today. The train stopped a little way before Alnmouth (not far south of the border), and they said that something was causing ballast to be thrown up from the track, so they needed to take a look see what it was. Didn't seem to bad. Then they took it to Alnmouth, then to somewhere just past Alnmouth to try to get better looks, and eventually found that some fuel pipe was dragging on the ground or something, and we later found out that it had actually ruptured the fuel tank, which is clearly a bad thing. (I think they glossed over that bit before so as to avoid unnecessary anxiety). In the end they decided they would have to 'detrain' us, so we waited till the next train arrived - same service two hours later, and then we all had to climb out the front of the train down a ladder, and up into the other train, which fortunately wasn't too crowded. By that time the new train was an hour and a half late, which edged up to two hours what with knock-on effects.
All conducted with remarkable British good humour and long-suffering of course. Not a word raised in anger that I observed. But by the time the new train finally rolled into Birmingham New Street, it was already just a few minutes before 8 o'clock, when the SMQ vigil was starting in Bristol. The train from Brum was a mere twenty minutes late, but that somehow proved the straw that broke the camel's back for me and left me thoroughly pissed off. Eventually got into Bristol at 10pm, about when the service would be finishing. All in all, took me 11 hours from Edinburgh, which is about how long a coach would have taken.
So yeah, missed the biggest celebration of the Christian calender. Let all my fellow music-group people down. Plus I've been nursing this cold, and hardly slept last night following a late night. Ah, I am tired, very very tired. Still, at least Doctor Who was good (OK, very silly, but still fun), so that has cheered me up somewhat.
In other news, Christ is Risen, Alleluia, Alleluia! Not feeling particuarly Eastery at the moment as you can perhaps discern. But there will be the Easter Sunday mass tomorrow, so hopefully that will revive my spirits.
Tags: family, religion, travel
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09:06 pm
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Ankara to Bulgaria, and back to Istanbul.
Well, I'm back. Got home at 1am Saturday night, after a 14-hour journey from Istanbul, doorstep to doorstep. Pretty exhausted, what with several similar magnitudes of journey in the past two weeks, but OK now.
( mostly concerning coach journeys, with an intervening spell of rural idyll )
Tags: family, travel
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10:53 pm
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On that ol' last minute train again
Phew! Well, just got my paper and presentation finished for the International Conference on Economics I'm going to in Ankara. I fly tomorrow morning, and am getting on a coach to Heathrow at 3.25am, in four and a half hours time. Been thinking about the paper for months, doing bits and pieces of research, getting the regression results done, thinking on the concepts for weeks between marking, module handbook preparation and procrastination, and then typically got the paper and presentation written in two days. The paper is rather rough, and will require a lot of work to get it into publishable form, but I think there's actually some pretty good stuff in there.
Changing my habits fundamentally on this sort of thing may be a lost cause, but at least maybe I could convince myself to stop worrying so much, and trusting myself a bit more to pull things out of the hat as I always do. Or maybe the worrying is the only way I actually get it done. Anyway, it's meant I've been viewing this whole Turkey trip with an aura of doom, and an almost nauseous feeling, for months.
Which is really not how it should be, 'cos it's going to be a mighty fun trip. I am flying out initially to Istanbul tomorrow, where I am staying with a friend, a former office-mate at Middlesex, and fellow-grad student of Paul's, then on to Ankara on Sunday. The conference is Monday-Wednesday, then I will go back to Istanbul and on to my mother's in Bulgaria, which is only about 100 miles away - hence the funny arrangements. It will be the first time I'll have seen her and the dog since they moved out in January, which will be nice. I'll stay there about 6 days, then I'll go back to Istanbul and stay there a couple of days and see the place a bit, which I am really looking forward to. Then home just in time for the start of term. Two weeks away in all. I went to a conference in Thessaloniki earlier this year, the annual Defence & Peace Economics one, so I am doing well on the overseas travel front. And I'm getting a trip to my mum's for only the price of the coach between Istanbul and Elhovo.
Ah well, I had probably better pack.
Tags: academia, family, travel
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12:37 am
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Farewell tae Bonie Dundee
Well, got home yesterday, very tired. I visited my brother in Edinburgh Monday night, we went to an informal Scottish folk session in the White Hart in the Grassmarket. Got the last train back, and it was delayed due to the conductor falling ill. Then I got up especially early Tuesday morning to take one last walk up the Law hill before getting my train, and take some photos. (See below). It's not that much of a hill, the Law, but it's a good bracing walk and it's near my mum's place, and it's a very good view, and somehow I hadn't got myself up it the rest of the week. So had to be done.
So, with my mum moving to Bulgaria in the Autumn, I shall no longer have cause to visit Dundee. Nae mair shall I clamber up the Lawside, and gaze over the braid majestic Tay and the far-off looming Sidlaws from it's lofty... well, moderately elevated heights. Nae mair shall I rove through Templeton Woods, breathing it's fresh pine air and feeling its soft peaty soil beneath my feet. (Which I haven't done since my mum and my stepdad both moved from that part of town a couple of years ago, but hey.) Nae mair shall I wander the City's bulging central streets trying to remember why the hell I thought going into the centre of Dundee would be an interesting thing to do. Nae mair shall I take a look round the McManus Galleries and think "Hmm, that's mildly interesting."
OK, let's face it, Dundee is nae that great. It has it's moments though. And it has been sort of a home from home these past twelve years since they moved there. Longer than anywhere else either I or my family have lived. I've always visited at least a couple of times a year for a week or so, and on a couple of occasions I've stayed longer, over summer, when I've been between things. Yep, a couple of times I have Signed On in Dundee.
( reminiscences )
So, spent the week reading and piano playing and dog-walking and jotted down some thoughts for another fic, and of course bought the new HP which I was pretty pleased with. I'd been going to go down to the shop at midnight, but I started reading an Economics book at 10 to 11, and then I fell asleep. (This is not my normal reaction to reading economics books I hasten to add, which would be a bit of a problem given that I am an economist. But I guess I hadn't been sleeping much.) So I got it the next morning, read on and off through the day and finished it four the next morning.
But there is little else of interest to report of my holiday, so I shall finish with some
( photos )
*ghostly voice*
Cauld winter was howling, o'er muir and o'er mountain
And wild was the surge o' the dark rolling sea
When I met about daybreak a bonnie young lassie
Wha' asked me the road, and the miles tae Dundee...
Current Music: The Road to Dundee
Tags: family, travel
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12:18 am
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Holiday and general update
So, managed to go a week and a half since I got back from my hols without updating. Ah well! Anyway, 't'was a lovely week up in a holiday cottage near the village of Kilchoan in the remote Ardnamurchan peninsula in the Western Highlands of Scotland, along with ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) mirabehn, mostly_a_cat, borusa, taimatsu and fluffymark, week before last. Just a few miles from the most westerly point on the British mainland. (Which is not, contrary to popular mythology, Land's End). A fun and relaxing week of gorgeous scenery, with ragged rocky Atlantic coastline, mountains, lochs and sea-lochs, islands, unspeakably beautiful bays, clean air, hill-walks, visits to ruined castles in sea lochs, distillery tours, beach cricket and sandcastles, rock-clambering, board games, folk-singing, and even the odd read-through, all in most agreeable company. :)
mostly_a_cat has posted many excellent photographs here, which are far better than anything I could produce, but I'll post a few of mine.
( photos )
ETA Yay! Thanks to everyone who reminded me about LJ Scrapbook! Working now! Bye bye Albumsnaps.com.
On the way back home on the Saturday, I met up with bob_bobbing in Glasgow, who I'd not seen in aaages. Then onto Edinburgh, where I stayed with my brother Angus till I went home on Monday. I finally managed to persuade him to come up Arthur's Seat, the marvellous eerie, brooding hill in the middle of the city. Which calls for a couple more photos:
( Arthur's Seat )
We also went to see Revenge of the Sith. It was flawed, but overall I thought an enjoyable and effective rounding-off of the story. For an excellent and thoughtful review, to which I don't have that much to add, see here. For a hysterically snarky (but affectionate) review see here. Nonetheless,
( A few thoughts of my own. Spoilery )
So, that was my holiday! Back a week and a half now. Teaching finished for the year, exams finished, marking almost finshed, research plods on. More later.
Tags: star wars, travel
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05:08 am
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Holiday!
Well, I've sort of fallen off the LJ radar again the past couple of weeks. Not much news really. Well, I turned 36 a week or so ago; (I wasn't really marking it, so don't think you 'missed' it if you didn't notice it, but thanks for the birthday wishes from those who did!) finished teaching for the term, started marking. Fun, fun, fun. But now, I am going on a week's holiday in Ardnamurchan in the Western Highlands, with mirabehn, mostly_a_cat, borusa, taimatsu and fluffymark. I understand it is mirabehn's favourite place in the universe, so am muchly looking forward to this.
I'm flying up to Glasgow at 7.20, so decided it wasnt worth going to bed, and actually managed to get a certain amount done during the night, aside from packing. Including emailing the Vice Chancellor of Lancaster University to protest at their pursuing criminal charges against six students who peacefully protested at a "Corporate Venturing" Conference involving a variety of dodgy companies including arms makers BAE Systems. As an academic, I feel I have a particular responsibility to uphold academic freedom over something like this, and I would encourage others in academia in whatever capacity to email the VC.
Also finally went to see the Hitchiker movie last night. Can't say I was wildly impressed. The effects were good, and the acting was mostly quite good, and there was some neat new stuff in there, but really the main story was so sketchy and skeletal compared to the book/TV/Radio show, and I didn't really feel it added that much to my appreciation of the ouevre. Still, quite fun, and a strong hint at a sequel in the offing, so here's hoping.
Anyway, I'd better go get that bus to the airport soon, so bye for now!
Scottish folks, I will have a couple of days between leaving Ardnamurchan and going home to Bristol, the weekend of the 28th-29th May. Anyone wanna meet up? Won't be on email much... but text me on... er, number in next flocked entry.
Tags: politics, travel
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08:56 pm
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First Post of 2004...
So Happy New Year I guess!
Not really time to do a full update for the past 10 days with the 9 minutes reminaing to me here in the Easy Internet Cafe on Las Ramblas in Barcelona, but hey, might as well make a start some time!
It´s not that I haven´t had internet access this past ten days... but either I´ve been at my mum´s who´s on dial-up so I don´t like to hog the phone for too long, or visiting my stepdads, when we´re usually playing Trivial Pursuits or Jenga or Blob or a game called Knowing Me Knowing You that I got for Christmas or whatever, so I don´t like to be antisocial... or I´´ve been here in Barca where my sister´s internet connection is broken. So, tended to just check email, do a few brief replies, check news, etc. Apart from the masses of e-Christmas cards on Christmas eve. No paper cards this year! (Apart from immediate family and my one friend who doesn´t have email.)
Been quite a nice festive season, though Christmas dinner was chaotic as usual. Managed to do a fair bit of reading, including a book of essays about Tolkein by Anne Petty, and re-reading the Hobbit which I´d not read for donkey´s years, assumed I knew but actually realised I´d forgotten loads of, fair bit of pianoing, and got my essay-marking done. Still feel I´ve wasted a lot of time though. Depending on how you define waste. But I´ve got a lot to get done in January, and things are getting complicated, as I´ll relate later.
Still, Barcelona has been great. Came to visit my sister who lives out here for New Year. There was supposed to be a party or New Year´s Eve, and there was, except no-one who isn´t usually there came due to non-reminder of invitations. Just my sister, me, her daughter, her friends and housemates Chris and Moira and their daughter Amy, and Sarah´s new boyfriend John. Still, a good time was had by all. My brother Angus was supposed to come too, but he decided he couldn´t because of a cold, the wimp. He wasn´t sure, actually came on the train as far as Glasgow before bailing. Still, just in time to change his flights to a visit later in the year.
Barcelona is a marvellous city, of which I´ll relate later. Seen a fair bit, though not as much as I´d have liked, too much drinking and sleeping. Nonetheless, a good time.
Fly back tomorrow, get home Tuesday.
Time is short. More later.
Happy New Year to all!
Current Music: Some crap on the internet cafe radio
Tags: barcelona, christmas, family, travel
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03:16 am
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Trains, exhibitions, lectures and stuff
(Sigh). Thought I'd get this lecture done more quickly. It's stuff I know. But... diagrams are hard to draw in Word or Powerpoint. At least the way I try to draw them. It's the curves. Getting the right curvature is a bugger.
Anyway.
Quiet Saturday, but went to London on Sunday, to meet up with mirabehn, spindlemere, fluffymark, gnimmel and purplepiano, to see the Lord of the Rings exhibition at the Science Museum, as has already been related by mirabehn. Like everyone else, I found it quite fantastic.
I was particularly impressed by all the digital tricks - I knew about the Gollum thing, but also things like the "Autonomous Agents" they used in battle scenes - each digital soldier/orc etc. was programmed to act autonomously, reacting to what was going on around it, fighting opponents, etc. They even found some of the Agents ran away, even though this wasn't directly in their programming!
Also the chain mail. How they eschewed the usual knitted garments with silver paint, in favour of real rings of some material or other all hand-cut and linked together. They used 12,500,000 rings in all.
But generally - just seeing all these weapons and armour and rings and mythology and settings and pictures and characters and orcs and hobbits and Aragorns and Frodos and Gandalfs etc. etc. - it created in me a sense of childlike excitement. A veritable eeeeeness of things. And good to see it with friends. :-)
Also aimed to do Christmas shopping while I was in London. This was somewhat stymied by a) my getting up late and b) the trains. All the signals were down between Twyford and Maidenhead, so I had to change at Reading and get the slow train to Waterloo, stopping at every two-up two-down commuter semi. I got to Waterloo at 2.15, due to meet the others at 3.30 at the Museum.
But I had time to wander across the Hungerford Footbridge - something which somehow always manages to cheer me up - and up to Covent Garden, where I bought a fiddle-black sycamore wood alarm clock for my mum, and an orangutan-like cuddly marionnette for my 4.5 year old niece Rachel. Then I got some posters for my brother Angus at the exhibition shop, and some more for myself. Angus is rather keen on Arwen, but unfortunately they didn't have a big Arwen poster, though there was a smaller thing.
Arwen is very nice. But I think personally I go more for Eowyn.
So, all in all, a good day, and very good to meet up with the others.
Then, the return journey. Hah!
I thought the trains would be back to normal by then. Hah! Again I say, Hah!
It seems someone put a drill through a main cable in the morning, and shut down all the signals in the Twyford area. Still not sorted out. There was a train due to leave Paddington for Plymouth, stopping at Reading where I could change, but it had to wait on the driver and train manager arriving on the delayed incoming train. Left about 9.38pm (arrived Paddington 8.45, after grabbing some dinner.) Took 1 hour 20 to reach Reading. Then had to wait ages at Reading. Apparently the delay was not just trains having to take longer through the disturbed area, but the signallers having to agree new schedules or something.
The information on offer was utterly abysmal. They were giving no idea of when trains could be expected, or even why they had no information. They had had 12 hours or more to sort things out, but they hadn't provided alternative road travel or anything. I accept the signal thing is beyond their control. But that sort of thing is not exactly uncommon. They ought to have better crisis management systems. I've been in similarly awful delays where they treated us far, far better. (Different company). First Group are rubbish. Ome of the buses they run in Bristol are pretty dire too. Fortunately I cycle most of the time.
But - I know it's a cliche, but it really is true, adversity seems to bring out the best in the long-suffering British traveller. People shared information, helped each other out, talked to each other - and not just "Isn't it awful?". The disruption disrupted us out of our normal self-contained, materially-satisfied shells. So, passed the time at Reading and on the train (when it finally arrived) in good company. Maybe there should be horrendous train delays more often.
Actually, nah. *g*
Anyway, arrived at Bristol TM at about 1.45am. And that was supposed to be me getting back onto a sane schedule.
(Sigh).
Ah well. Got my lecture done. Think it's a reasonably good one. Better get to bed.
Current Mood:  peaceful
Current Music: Radio 5 "Up all night". I like the chatter.
Tags: academia, lord of the rings, social life, travel
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