After packing my pack, I strode purposefully out of the hostel and down the street to Edinburgh’s Haymarket station. Okay, so “strode purposefully” is probably an unfairly muscular-sounding description. But “staggered” wouldn’t be fair either. It was probably something between the two. Perhaps just “walked”. Anyway, I boarded the 09:44 train bound for Inverness, some ... [More]
Category: Europe 1998 ????????????????????
England, Scotland, Belgium and the Netherlands, September 1998
My mission for Thursday was to get from Inverness to Plockton and back in time for the 20:30 overnight sleeper train to London. Why Plockton? Two words: Hamish Macbeth. If these two words mean nothing to you, then perhaps the following thirty-nine words might help: Hamish Macbeth is a TV comedy/drama series starring Robert Carlyle ... [More]
The train from Inverness pulled into London just a few minutes late, depositing me at Euston Station. It was 8am, and the place was buzzing with commuters. I managed to manoeuvre myself and my backpack through the station without hitting too many people and found the Left Luggage counter, where, following the tradition, I left ... [More]
It was late by the time my Uncle Hew and I got up – somewhere around 10. At least, late by my usual standards. My boss wouldn’t be too impressed if I waltzed into work at 11am, but thankfully on this occasion I was many thousands of miles away from work, on holiday. After breakfast ... [More]
I’d arranged to meet Merlin at Oxford Circus tube station to do some shopping. Now, for those of you who’ve never been to Oxford Circus, it’s a very crowded place, day or night, seven days a week. Like many places in central London, a large proportion of the human race finds themselves there, arsehole to ... [More]
Monday: time for some continental drifting. I had planned a trip into Belgium and Holland. Originally I’d planned to go to France too, but during the first few slightly homesick and lonely days of the holiday I’d decided that spending a few days in a country where I didn’t speak the lingo, and where I ... [More]
Jeannie, Richard and I set off early (well, reasonably early – well, that is, reasonably early for us – well, that is, well before lunchtime) for Bruges. Bruges is a marvellously historic town, full of historic buildings, museums, churches and packed to the brim with character. We drove out of central Brussels, stopping for petrol ... [More]
After breakfast, I said my goodbyes to Jeannie, who tragically had to go to work that day. Then after I packed up all my stuff, Richard and I set out for Brussels’ Midi station (which had nothing to do with computer music, if you’re wondering) and bought my ticket to Amsterdam on the 12:28 service ... [More]
The day prematurely began at somewhere around 3am when my peaceful slumber was interrupted by a knocking noise. There I was, in a hostel in Amsterdam, in a dorm of about twenty other blokes, two floors up from street level, and someone was knocking on the window. My ears could hear what was happening. They ... [More]
It was time to say goodbye to Amsterdam – just as I was getting used to the streets – looking the right way before crossing the street; not falling into the canals; finding my way to the nearest tram stop… After having one last walk around I packed all my stuff together and caught the ... [More]
When I woke, only one of my four room mates was both awake and present – a bloke called Wayne, who turned out to be a New Zealander in England to do substitute teaching, and to generally have a good time experiencing and exploring the country while he was there. We ate breakfast in the ... [More]
Before breakfast I ventured out to find a phone box to phone home. The great thing about phoning home from a phone box in Britain is that if you’re short on cash, or you pay the home phone bill anyway and you want to save some money, you can be called back. The phone number ... [More]