Andy's Travel Blog: 2008

Saturday 20 September 2008

Vancouver, Whistler and British Colombia

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We went on a holiday to visit our two friends from college who had moved to Vancouver. Quite a nice city. It near every kind of outdoors activity you could imagine. I loved it. Myself an Nici did a whole load of hiking that week. We also visited Whistler where the next Winter Olympics will be held. Normally when you think of Whistler you think of Skiing, but we were there at the wrong end of the calendar, just before the winter. Lehman Brothers went bankrupt that week, which was a bit weird and I thought I was jobless! Although being on holidays was probably the best at the time :-)

From Holiday in Vancouver 12-21.10.2008

I took a picture of these (Mapel??) Trees - Look how red they got in Autumn - I assume this is something you get in a country with real seasons :-)

From Holiday in Vancouver 12-21.10.2008

Monday 1 September 2008

Shortly before Lehman Brothers Changed to Barclays

You won't see this again ...

From New-York-August-2008

Wednesday 20 August 2008

USA National Debt

I took this only a few weeks before the collapse of Lehman Brother's, AIG, the American auto industry, etc. They never anticipated having to put another "1" on the end of this. When I came back again in November they had had to paste that one at the end ...

From New-York-August-2008

Back in New York

I never grow tired of this city. I was sent over with work about three weeks before the collapse of Lehman Brothers and made the most of it. They've upgraded all the screens in Times Square to HD now as well.

From New-York-August-2008

Here's the roof of Grand Central station. It's of the constellations, but in reverse because it's "how god would see them".

From New-York-August-2008

And a pretty spectacular view from the "Top of the Rock" (Rockefeller Center) ...

From New-York-August-2008

And on the weekend, curtosy of my generous cousins, we took a trip up state to Westpoint military academy. Here's a nice view of the Hudson Valley:

From New-York-August-2008

Friday 15 August 2008

Like that Famous Painting

There was a chair in a room in that house we stayed in the south of France and it looked just like that famous Van Gogh painting:

From france-and-spain-august-2008

Yeah, I know it's the mirror image, but you get the idea.

South of France

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Jim, using his abyss of valuable contacts, sourced a gem of a house in the center of a postcard village in the south of France - St. Pierre des Champs. It was heaven - no mobile reception, no buses, no television, no internet. A mile up the hill we had a amazing views of the countryside, a mile in the other direction we were by a natural river pool and a mile in a different direction we were in the neighboring village. I even drank coffee there it was so nice. Other groups of a similar age were also on holiday in the village and they brought us to a fête in the neighbouring town. Pretty cool. We had rented a car also and took day trips to Toulouse and Barcelona. Pretty much the ideal holiday really - can't wait to do something similar again.

From france-and-spain-august-2008

Sunday 10 August 2008

Ben Nevis

We couldn't have picked a worse day to climb Ben Nevis. Wet, windy and generally miserable. The top was fogged over, but, as I was told, this is nothing unusual even for a good day in Scotland. The mountain was 1300ish meters high. Quite a lot of people were training for the mountain race the next week ... lunatics ... I couldn't imagine running up the thing ... at least not in this state of fitness :-)

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From ben-nevis-9-8-2008

Sunday 20 July 2008

Tower Bridge

A nice bridge ... one of those images you think of when you think of London. It's actually ensured as a boat!

From tower-bridge-and-the-tower-of-london-july-2008

Sunday 22 June 2008

Hyperbolic Crochet

At first glance you see a coral reef ... at second glance you realise the whole thing is cleverly crafted from crochet. Denise, Nici's sister contributed to this exhibit at the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank in London. ... After a third and more prolonged glance you realise that its not even a reef, but in actual fact a visual representation of Hyperbolic Mathematics!

Abbey Road

Hopping out a St. John's Wood tube station we paid a visit to the Abbey Road Music Studios - Famously where the Beatles recorded their album and crossed the Zebra crossing ... and admittedly I'm not their ultimate groupy, but I couldn't resist the temptation to recreate the scene.

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Thursday 19 June 2008

Will Smith in Leicester Square

Look who I bumped into in Leicester square ...

Glaty Mor and Galty Beag

Myself, Rob and John climbed Galty Mor and Galty Beag. Very, very nice and I hadn't really heard of it before Rob suggested it. Quite a taxing climb at the start but once off the lower ground we were flying it. Really, really nice views along the way - much nicer than the like of Carauntoohil, although the mountains themselves were less moonscapy. Here's the route we took:

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Monday 26 May 2008

Oasis

Like a mirage in the desert we spotted an ice-cream van parked in the middle of nowhere on the way home ... we just had to stop!!!

From Snowdon-10-5-...

Climbing Snowdon - May 2008

A gang of us head up Snowdon, Wales highest mountain, in the second week in May. We choose the less travelled Rhyd Ddhu route, staying at a campsite right at the base of the mountain. The other routes up are extremely touristy and there is even a railway all the way to the top, which is pretty nuts. When you do reach the peak it's packed with people and even though the view is quite nice, you do feel quite eager to get off the peak and return to a quieter path.

From Snowdon-10-5-...

We choose a pretty mental route on the way down which frightened the s*** out of me, but no harm, we made it down and were rewarded by stunning views of the lake and valley.