But plans change, and I haven't been living in the UK for almost 6 months now - having moved to Berlin in Germany at the very end of May with Sasha when her UK visa ran out. This has bought me overall an extra 6 months on this side of the world, but possibly longer depending on visa situations - but for now, I should only consider that I have an extra 6 months. It was a bit of a gamble moving to Berlin, but so far it has paid off largely although our lives here are by no means fully settled - still a bit of niggly bureaucracy to deal with and we still don't have long term accommodation. While the first 2.5 months were spent wondering if we would get permanent jobs in Berlin and be able to stay, we also didn't know that it is typical for the hiring process for most jobs to take 3 months in Germany - so in that respect, we were rather lucky. Regardless that first period was rather unsettled and although we had plenty of time on our hands, it was mostly ploughed into job and flat hunting rather than a lot of travelling which would have been the best use of that time (and the worst use of our remaining money). It was a balancing act - trying to conserve money to last as long as possible to stay in Berlin and maximise our chances of being able to secure jobs, but also make the most of our time in Berlin and Europe (which might run out for all we knew) and break the tedium of job & flat hunting.
Although hoping for the best, we had to be pragmatic - the last thing we wanted was to run out of all our money and have to go home without enjoying ourselves on the way home, so we had set aside an amount to use for airfares to go back home if it came to that and also set target "Go Home" dates. Our first short-term accommodation ended in mid-August, so if nothing looked likely by the end of July we decided we would make the call to leave in mid-August which also tied in with the trip to Edinburgh - we'd still go to Scotland, but instead of going back to Germany we'd start the trek home. When I got some temporary work at a school during the summer holidays, we worked out that would be enough funds from that to extend the "Go Home" date out into late September - long enough that we could definitely attend Oktoberfest again, so we made plans for that. Just before the end of July, Sasha got her job and with that we knew we could stay - and my job followed not too long after either. As it was, our funds had to stretch a little bit thin as our first paychecks from our permanent jobs and even my temporary job did not come through until the end of September. Bank funds were replenished, and then spent again - as we will visit NZ and Australia around Christmas time to visit family and friends before coming back to Berlin.
Having forgone the last 6 months of my UK visa, do I regret it? not at all, and not one bit. Don't get me wrong - I do miss being in London, and given the choice of a longer time in the UK that would have been preferable, we could have stayed in our UK jobs and UK flat, and earned money during that time we spent in-between jobs. But it wasn't an option, so here we are in Berlin. Aside from the initial uncertainty and being a bit poor for the time being, I am enjoying Berlin and I really liked the summertime and warmth that came with it. It is now Autumn and heading to Winter in a big way, its getting rather cold and is set to become even colder. The UK was cold and miserable during winter (mind you it was like that most of the year except for Summer!) but we are told to expect snow and minus temperatures from January. Which will be great after having come straight out of summer in NZ & Australia for a few weeks...
Bottom line - from hereon in, my time in the Northern Hemisphere is in bonus time. Which is just as well as there is still a lot of things to see and do which I have not yet gotten around to. And on that note, its time to do a review of what I have done and haven't done so far - like I did for the first 6 months (see here), for months 7-12 (see here) and months 13-18 (see here).
(Please note - the colours mentioned from here on do not display on mobile devices for some reason and I can't find a way around it.)
VISITED COUNTRIES
- Australia (Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra)
- Austria (Vienna)
- Belgium (Brussels x2, Louvain-a-Neuvre, Leuven, Brugge, Roeselare, Zonnebeke, Passchendaele)
- Bosnia (Sarajevo, Mostar, Neum)
- Croatia (Zagreb, Dubrovnik x2, Podgora, Split x2, Plitvice Lakes, Stari Grad, Hvar)
- Czech Republic (Decin)
- France (Mulhouse, Strasboug, Saint Louis)
- Gibraltar (Gibraltar)
- Hungary (Budapest)
- Ireland (Dublin, Cork, Cobh, Blarney)
- Italy (Ancona, Milan)
- Latvia (Riga, Jurmala)
- Luxembourg (Luxembourg - well just the outskirts really)
- Montenegro (Budvar, Kotor)
- Norway (Narvik, Tromso, Stokmarknes, Svolvaer, Bronnoysund, Trondheim)
- Poland (Szczecin)
- Romania (Bucharest, Brasov)
- Spain (Islands of Corralejo and Lanzarote, Canary Islands, La Linea de la Concepcion, Algeciras, Ibiza, Seville x2, Madrid, Barcelona)
- Sweden (Stockholm x2, Gavle, Uppsala, Kiruna)
- Switzerland (Zurich x3, Romanshorn, Basel x2)
- United Arab Emirates (Abu Dhabi, Dubai)
There is a lesser amount of blue than there is of the other colours - not surprising considering after moving to Germany with no jobs and no income coming in, we had to watch our pennies. This period reflects a different phase - a mix of watching pennies and also a consolidation phase where with the idea we might not get to stay in Berlin, we did trips to countries or places we'd already visited that we wanted to go back to while we still could. Bearing both of those things in mind, despite the fact the number of new visited countries is down the fact that some have been able to be added to the mix at all seems slightly remarkable. Most of this is down to cheap train tickets, air fares or just being easy to pop to the neighbouring country from where we were - sometimes its just as cheap, if not cheaper to travel overseas than it is to travel within the same country that you live in. On the whole, despite it being 'less' I am happy with what we have done and I believe we have stuck to the aims - more on that later.
This list now becomes a bit more complicated by the fact I live in Germany, which previously was in this list just as the other countries are - and the UK was in a separate list. So in keeping with that, Germany has been moved to a separate list and the UK kept separate as it is a bit hard to integrate it.
In the last three posts, I'd listed some places I thought I would have been already. The countries that got added to the list last time, Czech Republic and Poland have been done - admittedly these two have been "easy wins" but they count and will be revisited later also. However the constants of Paris in France, Rome in Italy, The Netherlands and Denmark are still not ticked off. There are tentative plans for these however, some firmer than others. Do I have any to add to that list, that at 2 years in I thought I would have visited already? Yes - Portugal for sure. Doing all the ones mentioned on this list would probably occupy a large proportion of the next 6 months, let alone other visits to other places in countries already visited that need to be visited. Such will not be easy and will everything be visited? the chances are not looking great, but it is possible...
VISITED PLACES IN THE UK
- England (London xM, Brighton, Bletchley, Folkestone, Hythe, Dungeness, Birmingham x3, Kidderminster x2, Bridgnorth x2, New Arlesford, Alton, East Grinstead, Sheffield Park, Lincoln, Carlisle, York, Bath, Windsor, Salisbury, Luton xM, Gatwick xM, Stanstead xM, Liverpool x2, Ryde, Shanklin, Ventnor, Newport, Portsmouth, Loughborough, Ascot, Didcot, Oxford, Weston-Super-Mare, Dover, Southend, Brooklands, St Austell, Penzance, Lands End, St Ives, York, Scarborough, Pickering, Grosmont, Whitby, Cambridge, Henley-on-Thames, Southampton)
- Northern Ireland (Belfast x2, Bushmills, Giant's Causeway)
- Scotland (Inverness, Drumnadrochit, Fort William, Mallaig, Edinburgh x2)
- Wales (Swansea, Porthmadog, Portmeirion, Caernarfon, Blaenau Ffestiniog, Cardiff, Merthyr Tydfil, Pant, Torpantau)
Naturally, I don't live in the UK anymore so in the 18-24 month period its dried up a bit. Still, there's a little bit of blue although no new places. I doubt this list will change by much in the future, but it shall be included nonetheless.
Visited Places in Germany
- Germany (Dortmund, Hanover x2, Wernigerode x2, Friedrichshafen, Stuttgart, Speyer, Sinsheim, Nuremberg, Dresden x2, Freiburg im Bresigau, Cologne, Koblenz, Brohl, Linz am Rhein, Nordhausen, Munich x3, Berlin xM, Potsdam x3, Meiningen, Hamburg)
Its interesting to see how I did more of Germany in 18 months than I have having lived there for 6 months, but Germany was always the most visited country while I lived in the UK. Actually that's not quite true - I never visited Germany during the Green period, so I actually visited more of it in my first 12 months of living in the UK than I have having lived in Germany for 6! A lot of that though is thanks to my Big Germany trip I did in April 2015 and a few trips since. Whether or not the new period to come (24-30 months) will see a lot more or not remains to be seen!
The Railway Stuff
Excursions - 60009 London-Lincoln-London, UK - 46233 London-Carlisle-London (diesel hauled out of London and via Settle-Carlisle), UK - 35 1097 Dresden-Nossen-Dresden, Germany - Ra 846 Gavle-Uppsala, Sweden - 45407 Fort William-Mallaig-Fort William, UK - No.1 and L150 on London Underground, UK - 76079 Grosmont-Whitby, UK | Railways - Bluebell Railway, UK - Mid-Hants Railway, UK - Severn Valley Railway, UK x2 - Romney Hythe & Dymchurch Railway, UK - Harz Mountain Railways, Germany x2 - Weisseritztalbahn, Germany - Great Central Railway, UK - Didcot Railway Centre, UK - Kasbachtalbahn, Germany - Tyseley Locomotive Works, UK - Ffestiniog Railway, UK - Welsh Highland Railway, UK - Brecon Mountain Railway, UK - North Yorkshire Moors Railway, UK | Other trains of note that I have ridden - ICE High Speed Train, Germany xM - Eurostar x3, UK/France/Belgium - HST/IC125 xM, UK - IC225/Class 91, UK - Virgin Pendolino tilting train, UK xM - Javelin High Speed Train, UK - London Underground xM - Docklands Light Railway xM - Swedish X2000 HST - AVE High Speed Train, Spain | Railway-related Museums Visited: - National Railway Museum, York, UK x2 - DB Museum, Nuremberg, Germany - Cite du Train, Mulhouse, France - London Transport Museum, UK (and their Acton depot) - Science Museum, London xM - Thinktank Birmingham, UK - DB Museum Koblenz, Germany - Swedish Railway Museum, Gavle - Trainworld, Belgium - Deutches Technikmuseum, Berlin -Meiningen Railway Workshops, Germany |
Will this list grow in the next period? I doubt it. I doubt it will grow much from hereon in anyway, because most of the train stuff has already been done and the impetus has kind of gone. So don't expect great things...
THE TWO TRIPS PER MONTH AIM
November 2014 - Australia - Abu Dhabi - Liverpool - Brighton February 2015 - Bletchley Park - Mid-Hants Railway, Hampshire May 2015 - Stockholm, Sweden - Romney Hythe & Dymchurch Railway, Kent August 2015 - Euradventure - Croatia, Bosnia, Italy, Switzerland, Germany - Scotlandventures - Scotland and Northern Ireland November 2015 - Liverpool - Riga, Latvia February 2016 - Northern Ireland inc. Giants Causeway - Nordic Odyssey (Sweden & Norway) May 2016 - Southampton - SVR Diesel Gala, Kidderminster and Birmingham August 2016 - Fringe Festival, Edinburgh - Köpenik Forest day trip | December 2014 - Germany (Harz Mountains) - Train trip to Lincoln - York - Swansea March 2015 - Brussels, Belgium - Birmingham & SVR, Kidderminster June 2015 - Isle of Wight - Great Central Railway, Loughborough - Ascot Races - Basel, Switzerland for a week inc. France & Germany September 2015 - Dismaland, Weston-Super-Mare - Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany December 2015 - Budapest, Hungary inc. Austria - Snowdonia, Wales March 2016 - Brooklands - Cardiff and Cornwall June 2016 - Spanish Funfest, Ibiza, Seville, Madrid, Barcelona - Deutches Technikmuseum September 2016 - Meiningen Railway Workshops - Oktoberfest, Munich | January 2015 - Canary Islands - Train trip Settle Carlisle line April 2015 - Windsor, Bath & Stonehenge - Germany for a week, inc. France & Switzerland July 2015 - Didcot and Oxford - Cologne, Germany October 2015 - Berlin, Germany - PS Waverley cruise from London to Thames Forts - Tyseley Locomotive Works, Birmingham January 2016 - Destination Greenwich - Gibraltar April 2016 - Ireland - York & Yorkshire - Brugge & Brussels, Belgium - Henley-on-Thames (Tough Mudder) July 2016 - Potsdam x2 - Szczecin, Poland - Croatia, inc. Montenegro October 2016 - Bucharest & Brasov in Romania - Hamburg |
Summing Up
In all, the next 6 months shall prove interesting. How will it go?