2 Days Short of a Week (in Barcelona)

So back in February Beth & I had a much needed 5 day break in the Catalan capital, Barcelona. (As usual my blogging speed needs to improve, apologies for the 3 month delay)

An early flight meant us staying overnight near Gatwick (Best Western Skylane) and an pre-dawn start. However after checking in we had time to relax in the "No.1 Lounge" which thanks to my Barclays Travel Pack Plus was free for both of us.

Gatwick is certainly becoming a much nicer airport to fly from with the refurbishments that are happening. This being the first time I had flown from the South Terminal in over 12 years, I was pleasantly surprised with how open and free flowing it was. 

As always our flight with British Airways was a pleasant experience, however it was disappointing to discover that they had discontinued complimentary food and drink in Economy and slightly annoying that you could only pay by card or Avios points (I may have a rant about this in a later blog). However a prompt departure from Gatwick and a "favourable tailwind" meant us landing in Barcelona almost half an hour early leaving us plenty of time to explore some of the city before checking into our hotel.

After dropping our bags off at the left luggage at Sants station, we headed to Placa Catalunya for a walk down Barcelona's main tourist street, La Rambla, towards the sea and our next destination, the Maritime Museum.

The Museu Marítim de Barcelona is located next to the port of Barcelona and is housed in the former Medieval shipyards. The museum covers the history of the Spanish Navy from the 15th century to the present day and also housed an interesting exhibit on Trasmediterranea to celebrate the shipping company's centenary. 

One of the exhibits in Museu Marítim de Barcelona

The folllowing day we started off by doing a sightseeing bus tour. I always find these are a great way to see a city and find out lots of interesting facts. Plus, with a 24 or 48 hour hop on-hop off tickets and the fact the routes go near all the tourist hot spots, they're a great way to get around. We usually choose the 'City Sightseeing' one, and in Barcelona their ticket included 2 tour routes (there's a 3rd during the summer months)

We jumped off near Barcelona Cathedral (not Gaudi's Basilica) which is an incredibly impressive building and well worth a visit. This was followed by a visit to the Barcelona City History Museum which has a huge area of Roman ruins in the lower levels and is set out so that you can essentially walk around the Roman streets. If you are interested in history, it's certainly worth a visit!

Barcelona Cathedral

For lunch we visited Succulent, which had been recommended in one of the guide books. Unfortunately although the food was delicious, the prices were high, especially for the amount of food on the plate. Personally I'd only give our visit to Succulent 3*.

Friday once again started with the remainder of the bus tour which took us to the north-east of the city and our main destination for the day, Park Güell. This park consists of both a large area of open gardens, including some viewing areas with stunning views over the city, and the Gaudi designed 'Monumental zone'. This latter area includes incredible mosaics and some incredible looking buildings.

One of the mosaics in Park Güell

Our final full day in Barcelona was a busy one, starting at the bottom of La Rambla with a trip to the top of Colom Columbus. This 60m high monument to Christopher Columbus was built for the 1888 Universal Exhibition and grants wonderful views over the harbour. Following a walk round the harbour to Barcelonetta, we took the cable car across to Miramar on Mont Juic. 

Originally we had planned to take a trip to the top of Mont Juic, however due to the timing of our visit, the second cable car to the summit was undergoing it's annual maintenance. Choosing to avoid the replacement bus, we walked around the side of the hill, and were able to take an impromptu look around Barcelona's Olympic Stadium. 

 Barcelona's Olympic Stadium & Olympic Torch

We spent the the remainder of the afternoon exploring Pobel Espanyol. This mock village includes designs of architecture copied from the various regions of Spain and was built for 1929 International Exposition. We unfortunately only had about 2 hours to explore, however we could have easily spent twice that properly looking at all the buildings and discovering more about the various Spanish regions. Pobel Espanyol is certainly in a prominent place on the 'somewhere to visit again' list.

Some of the buildings in Pobel Espanyol

We finished the day with a visit to Barcelona's Arc de Triomf. This arch is another piece of Barcelona built for the 1888 Universal Exhibition and was the main access gate to the exhibition area. It now leads to Park Ciutadella which replaced the exhibition area. Our evening was spent at a lovely little tapas bar, Onafre, which we found near the Gothic quarter. Onafre had a marvellous selection of food and drink at very reasonable prices and had a lovely rustic atmosphere. I think Onafre has got to get 5* from us.

Arc de Triomf

Sunday was our last day in what is now possibly our favourite city and we thought we would finish it with what could be described as 'THE' reason to visit Barcelona, the Sagrada Familia. Gaudi's masterpiece, which has still not been completed nearly 100 years after his death stands prominently to the north of the city centre. Both of us were blown away with how light and open the inside of the building is, considering how 'dark' the outside can look. Unfortunately we were unable to go up the towers for safety reasons as there was a bit of breeze, however this just gives us another excuse to visit again.

Inside La Sagrada Familia

Our final meal was at a lovely restaurant in El Born called, Artisan, which had a great, well priced, set menu which left us both feeling extremely full. Unfortunately I can't find a website however it is on Tripadvisor here. I think a 5* rating is well deserved as we got more than we expected with the set menu for less than we had prepared to pay.

Bascillica da Santa Maria del Mar and the El Born Centre de Cultura i Memòria filled our final couple of hours in Barcelona, with the former being another magnificent Gothic church, with some amazing stained glass windows and the latter being an old market hall, containing exhibits on the history of Barcelona and the area of El Born along with some amazing ruins.

In summary, Barcelona has earnt a well deserved place in the top two of our favourite cities (it's pretty much a toss up between Barcelona and Athens) and is certainly somewhere everyone should visit if possible. If you do visit, make sure to give yourself enough time (we did 5 days/4 nights and were pushed to fit what we wanted to do in) and to visit slightly later in the year than we did to ensure everything is open. Also, if you do visit and have any further recommendations, please comment and we'll add them onto the 'to do' list.

34 Hours in Zurich

As you may know from Facebook, I recently spent 34 hours in the Swiss city of Zurich. I made this trip as my annual plane spotting 'pilgrimage'. However as it was cheaper to stay overnight than try to fly back the same evening, I decided to spend some time seeing the city itself aswell as the obligatory plane spotting. This is therefore a blog of two halves with the first half covering my exploration of the city and the second being about the spotting.

The first thing to say is that the public transport system in Zurich is expansive with 16 tram routes, plenty of buses and the S-bahn. Unfortunately the ticketing system is rather confusing as the Airport and City are in different zones and although supposedly there was a multi zone day ticket that could be purchased, I couldn't figure out the ticket machine so kept buying single tickets. However this ticketing hiccup aside, I had no problems with either the Tram or S-bahn.

City Exploring

So after a very early breakfast and a 35 minutes tram ride into the city from my hotel in the suburb of Opfikon, I got off the tram at the Bahnhofplatz and decided to walk up the banks of the Linmat to the northern shore of Lake Zurich.

(Side note: I stayed at the Ibis Budget hotel, 5 mins from the airport for anyone interested. Very basic but fine for one night by myself)

This walk took me up part of Bahnhofstrasse, Zurich's main high end shopping street. I crossed over the Linmat and continued up past the Rathaus and Grossmünster. Whilst walking up the east bank I was also able to see the towers of Fraumünster Kirche and St Peter Kirche (more on this Kirche later).

The Towers of St. Peter Kirche and Fraumünster Kirche

As I was passing the Rathaus it began to snow, which whilst making this beautiful city look even more picturesque, did seriously reduce visibility out over the lake. After trying to determine what I could see and warming up for a while with a coffee, I set off back towards the Hauptbahnhof with the intention of visiting the Swiss National Museum aswell as the Grossmünster.

Zurich Rathaus (Town Hall)

Unfortunately the Grossmünster didn't open until 10 am (and at 10 past 9 in heavy snow, I wasn't hanging around) and the National Museum wasn't open on Mondays (and I definitely wasn't hanging around for 24 hours).

A Model of the Grossmünster

Therefore, out of ideas, I headed into the Tourist Information Centre for some suggestions. They provided me with a map and a walking tour of the city (which I had coincidentally already done half on my walk to the lake), and so I headed off south again, however this time staying on the west bank of the Linmat.

The first stop was Lindenhof, an oasis of calm within the city, at one of the highest points within the immediate area, giving wonderful views over the Linmat and a beautiful open space, especially when covered in snow.

Lindenhof

After spending a while walking around the park, I headed out the other side and down the hill towards St Peter Kirche. After my earlier failed attempt to visit Grossmünster, I decided to have a look inside St Peter's. The kirche was decorated beautifully both outside and in, with the clock face (the largest in Europe) gleaming in the sunlight.

St. Peter Kirche

For the rest of the morning I continued to wander through the city, continuing to find suprising areas of peace of tranquillity dotted around, before heading back to the Hauptbahnhof and onwards to the airport.

Spotting

Spotting at Zurich was a painfree experience (which unfortunately cannot always be guaranteed). The airport has two official spotting areas on the roofs of piers B & E. Unfortunately the spot on the roof of pier E is closed during the winter, although this does give me an excuse to make a return trip at somepoint in the future.

Air Chine B747

Access to the area on top of pier B is from 'landside' although you do pass through a standalone security check point to gain access. This again proves that if there is the will, there can be decent spotting locations without compromising security.

USAF C-32

From the viewing area you can see all of the 'B' & 'D' gates and some of the 'A's'. The downside of this location is that some traffic may not be seen depending on the runways in use. The 5CHF charge for access is also the only time I've had to pay for a viewing area but compared to most things in Switzerland is seemed reasonable for the facilities provided.

Thai Airways B777

I was lucky enough to be visiting Zurich on the opening day of the World Economic Forum meaning some interesting visitors including an Air China 747 bringing in the Chinese President and 2 C-32s (Military 757s - think Air Force 2) amongst others.

Ethiopian B737

Viewing location        3*

Charge (5CHF)           3*
Variety of Traffic        4*
ZRH Overall Score     3*

Overall Zurich was well worth the visit for both the spotting and the city itself. I would certainly recommend the city for a weekend break and the airport is certainly on my 'Visit Again' list, although in the summer months next time.

Underground...Overground....(Wombling Free)

So today Beth (CowHeartGirl) and I went on a walk around central London. The main reason for this is as training for the 26 mile Trekathon mum and me are undertaking in September. This Trekathon will be in aid of the Children’s Society (here) and in memory of my brother Kieran, who was tragically taken from us just under two years ago. As many of you who know me will understand, I’m not one to go into my emotions in public, and this is one of the few times I have/will openly talk about this.

Kieran was swimming (not really the right word, as only waist deep), in the sea with my dad whilst they, mum and sister were on holiday on the French Atlantic coast. They were about to come back to shore, when Kieran was taken by a rip current, and despite the best efforts of the French coastguard, police and lifeguards, he was only found three days later.  I was at home, as Beth was undergoing heart surgery at the time, and all I remember is being torn in two, needing and wanting to support Beth and be by her side, whilst also having the natural urge to go to an airport and get on a plane.

We decided at the time of Kieran’s funeral that the Children’s Society was the right charity for donations to go to as it represented his values of Bravery, Ambition, Trust & Supportiveness. Kieran always wanted to help others and we felt at the time, as we do now, that this charity, which helps children, summed up his attitude towards life. Mum and I have decided to do the London Trekathon this September to raise money for this great charity. If you can, please donate here.

So essentially I realised that I needed to go from less than a mile a day to 26 miles in a day in the space of 3 months. My training started this week, with me getting off the Circle line a stop early on Tuesday and walking from Mansion House to Southwark rather than just my usual walk across Blackfriars Bridge. Wednesday saw me get off at Canon Street and then also walk from Southwark back to Liverpool Street in the evening to avoid the crowds caused by the Tube strike.  However I realised that the pace needed to be upped otherwise it’d take me until next year to get up to the required level.

My inspiration came from a book a recently read by Mark Mason, called Walking the Lines: The London Underground, Overground. Mark had challenged himself to walk all of the London Underground lines, as the name suggests, overground. Well Mark had started off at a much higher level of physical fitness than myself and started with the Victoria line, but today Beth and I got on the train and headed into town to walk the ‘runt of the litter’ the Waterloo & City line.

This line was opened in 1898 enabling a connection from the London & South Western Railway (now Southwest Trains) terminal at Waterloo into the City of London. Operated from the outset by LSWR and its successors it was transferred to London Underground in 1994, with the trains remaining the in  the blue and white Network SouthEast livery until 2006.

So the plan today was to set off from Liverpool Street, walk to Bank and then continue following the rough geographical location of the line to Waterloo. This lead us down Old Broad Street and Threadneedle Street to Bank, where there is a monument to James Henry Greathead, the Chief Engineer of the City and South London Railway (now part of the Northern line) and the designer of the Travelling Shield, forerunner to today’s Tunnel Boring Machines.

We continued down Queen Victoria Street past Mansion House, the Millennium Bridge and Old Fish Street Hill (nothing of note, we just liked the name), and turned left at Blackfriars to cross the river. This route led us to the junction of Blackfriars Bridge Road and Stamford Street, at which there is a building designed to look as though it is upside down. Continuing down Stamford Street we passed the London Nautical School, established in 1915 as a consequence into the report into the loss of the Titanic. At the end of Stamford Street we reached the Waterloo Imax and Waterloo Station, the end of today’s ‘official’ walk.

We decided that as we were feeling okay, we’d carry on back towards Southwark station to grab a bite to eat and then take the route I had walked on Wednesday evening back to Liverpool Street. This route took us past Borough Market, across the ‘third’ London Bridge (the replacement for the one sold to American Robert McCulloch) and past the Monument (the point of which, if lain down pointing east, would reach the site where the Great Fire of London started in 1966.

Finally heading up Gracechurch Street and Bishopsgate, we arrived at Liverpool Street station for the second time today, having walked 5.31 miles at an average speed of 3.15mph (excluding the lunch break but including water breaks).

Although time won’t allow a walk next weekend, the aim is to walk from Kentish Town to Elephant & Castle and back to Liverpool Street the weekend after. This would cover the central section of Thameslink (not LU but an intermediate distance) and Tower Bridge on the way back.

"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried"

"It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried" Winston Churchill

Since Thursday, there has been a lot of discussion of politics and on the whole, I have kept out of it. I have decided to do this one post as a vent and share the link. If people want to read it then great, if not then they either won't have got this far or you can choose to leave now. I am going to TRY and keep my personal opinions out of this as much as possible and the majority of this post will be facts and the dispelling of myths. I will however tell you how I voted. I obviously don't have to but I feel to try and make this post as open as possible I should. I am expecting for this post to have and cause debate, however I would appreciate it if we can keep said debate good natured.

In both the General Election and the Broxbourne local elections I voted Conservative. In the general it was essentially because I felt that David Cameron would be a better leader than Ed Miliband,  and I was concerned about a potential coalition with the SNP. In the local elections it was simply this....No other party bothered to tell me that they exist or that they had a candidate.

Right that's my personal bit over.

Since the results became clear (and for a long time before) there has been a debate over the voting system in this country. It is obvious that First Past the Post only really works in a 2 Party system, and that one of the many proportional methods would be better. The BBC has an article about the different methods here. The article is from just after the 2010 election but it does show how each of the different systems work.

On the topic of proportional representation, I've seen a lot of 'if we'd have had PR the result would have been different'. Firstly it's worth pointing out that the same voting public (well about 2/3rds) that voted in this election voted against a form of proportional representation in 2011 by more that a 2:1 ratio.

My main point is this though. ..Yes, the result would have been different.  What I'll let you decide is whether 'different' would have been 'better' based on the below. A word of warning, I don't know the source of the below graphic apart from it was on a friend's Facebook and it's on imgur,  so I'm taking it with a pinch of salt.

GRAPHIC

This shows that the Conservatives wouldn't have a majority but would still be the largest party. By being the largest party and also being the incumbent, David Cameron would have the right to try and form a coalition first, according to cabinet office rules

The first party David Cameron would probably look at going into coalition with in this instance would be UKIP as they are also a conservative (little c) party. From my calculations this would give a total of 324 seats (242 CON + 82 UKIP). Although this wouldn't reach the theoretical majority of 326, it would reach the working majority of 324 (assuming 4 SF seats). If you add 4 DUP MPs to the figure it would create a coalition with 328 seats and a very slim majority of 2 seats.

If Ed Miliband had attempted to form a coalition based on these n0umbers then he'd probably start with the Lib Dems. This would give a total of 249 (198 LAB + 51 LIB). Next would be the SNP (despite what he promised during the election) and Greens bringing the total number of MPs to 304. Even if you throw in Plaid, TUSC, Alliance and 'others' then a Labour led coalition would still only have 315, 9 short of a working majority. There are 7 seats missing from the graphic which I am assuming 4 SF and 3 UUP.

Therefore under this scenario (obviously other forms of PR may have has different results) we would have ended up with a Conservative led coalition supported by UKIP and the DUP.

The second thing that keeps cropping up is THIS photo and allegations that this was on Friday/Saturday.  To clarify the photo was taken in 2004 prior to the Blair administration's reelection. To ensure a fair and balanced point, I must note that there has been a Champagne delivery to Downing Street over the past few days, but as The i points out "it’s Bollinger rather than Moet".

Another thing I keep seeing is "The Conservatives got a majority when 75% of the voting public didn't vote for them, what mandate do they have?". This is correct, however more of the population voted for them than anyone else, therefore they have more of a mandate than any other party. If we list the parties in order of percentage that DIDN'T vote for them we get this

Conservative - 74.99%
Labour - 79.38%
UKIP - 91.44%
Lib Dems - 94.67%
SNP - 96.79%
Green - 97.45%

The last election to have a party form a government after gaining MORE than 50% if the vote was in 1935 when the Conservative party won 53.5% of the vote. Even then turnout was only 71.1% so they got the vote of 11.76 million out of approximately 30.92 million registered voters. In other words 61.97% DIDN'T vote for them.

Unfortunately not everyone is, was or will ever be happy with whatever result a general election throws at us. We can't choose how other people vote, what we can choose is to respect everyone's right to vote, everyone's freedom to speech and everyone's right to a private life. So however you voted, remember that person who voted the other way is a person too, not an animal.

N.B. If you want to know where any of my numbers/stats came from then please just ask.

Stand on the Right! Please!

So once again I'm blogging whilst travelling on a train. I don't know why it's my blogging place, prehaps because there's nothing else to do for 2 hours. Anyway, as you know I tend to blog about's what's on my mind and unfortunately what's been on my mind are inconsiderate commuters! There are only 5 very simple rules to follow, which are very unlikely to delay you and possibly even get you there sooner!

1) Let people off the train first! You'd think this was obvious, but clearly not. If you don't let people off the train there isn't any chance of you getting on it (especially during rush hour). Therefore standing six wide infront of the doors trying to get on first is not helpful!

2) Walk on the left/stand on the right! If everyone drove on which ever side of the road they fancied it would cause aboslute chaos! So what happens if you walk on the right when most people are walking on the left....aboslute chaos! This applies to walking around stations and on escaltors. Follow the rules and everyone moves around much quicker!

3) Move down the platform! If you stop as soon as you enter the platform then about 5 people will be able to get onto the next train. Okay moving down the platform may mean you're not right next to the exit at your station but you might actually get on the first train as opposed to having to wait for four to come and go!

4) Don't run for a train! Firstly for safety! There are way too many incidents of people running into closed doors etc. Secondly the next train (on the underground atleast) is probably within 90 seconds! Waiting for 90 seconds isn't going to delay you much and it might save your face (and dignity!)

5) Mind the doors! The 'beeps' are NOT a starting gun! Once again safety is an issue here, getting body parts trapped in doors can result in a trip to hospital (with 4 hours waits at A&E, it's quicker to wait for the next train). Also you forcing yourself through the doors delays everyone else on that train, and every train behind you.

Okay, rant over! I promise it's not hard to follow these and by doing so you might well get home sooner! Also remember you may well be stuck on the train delayed in a tunnel because someone at the station ahead has held the doors!

"Shift work dulls your brain"

Okay so if the quote above is correct, it explains a lot! I've been doing shift work since I turned 18 and late finishes since I was 16. As I am currently sitting on the lovely Greater Anglia train (please not high levels of sarcasm - but that's a different story) on my commute in to work, I thought that I'd give you my thoughts on shift work.

So it's 5.45 in the morning and i've already been up for nearly 2 hours (oh the joys that alarm clock brings!). I've got to say that on the whole I don't mind NOT doing 9-5, in fact there are quite a few benefits....

Firstly is that with shift times of 6-2, 2-10 and 10-6, I am never commuting during rush hour (actually we'll go with 'peak time' because at best I think rush hour lasts for 3 hours these days). This means I can always get a seat and (especially important when in uniform) I am less likely to get glares from unhappy commuters.

Secondly, 2/3rds of the time I am able to have a lie in! I have never been a morning person, so I've got to admit that the earlies are a bit horrible, however not having to be up until 11 when I'm on lates is bliss!

Finally is that my rest days are not necessarily weekends. Okay this can be a bit of a double edged sword, especially with us doing SK events some weekends, however it can be extremely beneficial. It allows me to sort things out like going to the bank or phoning the council. Simple tasks admittedly, but I'm sure that you'll agree, a pain to do when you work 9-5.

So there's my opinion on shifts and i'll write a post in a couple of days regarding what i've been up to (I know it's been ages...sorry!)

Oh and if anyone is interested the title quote comes from the following BBC article.
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/health-29879521

From Planes to Trains

So today I am travelling up to Warwickshire for a Muster with the Sealed Knot. Beth drove up last night but due to work I am travelling by train. For the first time I am traveling on Chiltern Railways one of the UKs less well know services and I've got to say I'm impressed.

Chiltern's London terminus is the lovely Victorian station of Marylebone. This station (partly through previous neglect) is still very much it's original self with the modern updates of electronic departure screens etc. Compared to my usual rail surroundings of Euston (a horrible 60s building) Marylebone is quaint, quiet and a fairly nice place to be at 7.30 on a Saturday morning.

I am writing this whilst sitting on the train using the unlimited free wifi (usually a cost is involved in standard class) with my phone plugged in and charging. Another great plus is that the seats on this train are comparable to first class seats on other operators.

And the best point? This journey is costing me a grand total of £6! And i'm getting to see some of the lovely Chiltern countryside. A similar journey on Virgin Trains/London Midland would cost me 2-3 times as much if bought in advance and I'd get to see the joys of Watford, Milton Keynes and the M1.

However, despite the plus sides of the journey there have been a few negatives... Firstly is the fact the golden rule of public transport has been broken...Don't sit near people if you don't have to! Despite a fairly empty train, a couple has come and sat on the seats opposite my table seat and have proceeded to kick me (accidently I'm sure) frequently whilst I have had my leg room stolen!

Also once again the rules of the 'quiet' carriage have been broken. I'm sorry how hard is it not to talk on your phone, have a loud conversation or listen to loud music for an hour and a half.

However overall this journey is an improvement on my usual rail travel so I really shouldn't complain and I'm going to try and use Chiltern if I'm ever going up to Birmingham.