2013-3102

Happy new year!
It's been a fantastic and what feels like a really quick 2012, but now it's onwards to the new year.. Pardon my lateness but it's only just sunk in!

While the gyms are packed and all the salads fly off the shelves for new years resolutions, I thought I'd shake things up abit and not make a resolution so I won't have anything to break :)

Meanwhile I told myself I'd have salad for dinner every day last week and it still hasn't happened! We were so stuffed with meat in hungary where we spent NYE. It's amazing how little salad it seems they eat. The food is well priced ( ie great value) and the people are so friendly. We stayed on the Pest side of Budapest and I really did enjoy it! Great sights, good food, but company was excellent too which might have swayed it slightly.

We stayed at the Intercontinental which is located so conveniently. Close to Christmas markets, the Palace, Chain Bridge, a metro station.. Just awesome!

New years eve we spent in a square with random fireworks and really good sausages from the stalls. Worst art was they played Gangnam style both at the end of the year and the first song of the new year! *groan*

the square round the corner from the hotel

Not too much on the holiday as there are so many things in Budapest we
covered! Though I did learn that the inventor of the rubik's cube is Hungarian.. With that act of wisdom, Happy new year!

awesome view from the hotel

Off to Battle!

A group of us went to Battle today, where the battle of Hastings occurred. A very significant battle in English history, but I shan't bore you with my long winded history storytelling skills!
(on a slightly geeky note, how cool is it that the station we got off at is called Battle?)

Train Ticket - London to Battle!
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At the Battle Station (hehe)
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We left pretty early (845 train from charing cross), but had to stand in the rain outside for a bit as the grounds weren't open yet. £3 pink and purple umbrellas later, we were on our way in to witness the coolest re-enactment I've ever seen. We had a good 4 hours before the actual battle but the most frustrating thing was the weather. Rain, sun, rain, sun, rain, rain, rain... Seriously, make up your mind! I was not clever and wore my toms which were only a week old. So silly considering I have perfectly good wellies that would have been perfect. The pictures really don't do any justice to the yuckness of the weather.. somehow all my pictures make it look like a great summer day. In actual fact they had to cancel the event the next day as the ground was too wet and dangerous, not to mention all the mud!

3pm came and the excitement levels were really high - people were getting antsy that they couldn't see and others were pushing to get to the front. Was a little frustrating but for a while (due the fact I wasn't born a tall Asian), I stood behind a cameraman and watched his screen for a bit of the battle. People left as it started raining again, and we managed to secure a good viewing spot just in time to see the king get killed. 

The battle was pretty cool. Hundreds of men dressed up with weapons recreating the clash of the two sides. I was surprised at the scale of the event, plus there were actual horses!

Top 3 things to bring if you decide to go
- Wellies!
- Waterproof picnic mat
- a camera! The place is beautiful.


Thanks Tate for the awesome weekend activity!

The Battle of Hastings - It was canceled the next day due to bad weather
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The Old Abbey
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The Battle warm up!
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My Croatian oopsie

I broke a shot glass that we bought while visiting Croatia (it was a lovely trip, swimming was super), and boy was JLO upset at me. He decided to place the 3 shot glasses on the book shelf below where the other shotties live, and while I was trying to fit my new cookbooks on the book shelf I heard a heart shattering crash of cheap ceramic.
Normally I wouldn't concern myself too much with €2 items but this was only one of three shot glasses JLO insisted on getting while in Croatia. Reading back that statement I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry at our € spend on cheap mass produced souvenirs.

So to sum up, he was upset it broke and I was upset he put the silly thing there and we still had shrapnel on the floor and a piece cut my foot; really there were no winners in this..
Except 'Andrews of Hamstead' which is where I bought the super glue to fix all our problems. Glue: £2.89; shot glass: €2.50. Ridiculous.

Oh and after all that, my cookbooks don't even fit on the damn shelf.

just call me dr fix it
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Anyway, a little bit on our trip to Croatia not too long ago (over the long weekend at the end of Aug). The 8 of us were keen to be sunned up, and the trip was lovingly organized by GC who managed to get us a boat to take us around. I don't mean just during the day, no, we actually stayed on the boat for 2 nights! Our skipper Mladen (pronounced Mh-La-Dun) was very experienced and took us around - he kind of looked like James bond in his bright yellow shorts. Too bad I didn't take a picture for fear of looking like a stalker.

Croatia was really lovely; sparkling waters and endless views
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Basically the boat had 3 bedrooms, each room slept 2 with an additional 2 beds in the living area. It was crammed, but cosy as well - I might have been grumbling about the room size originally as we got the biggest room and I was feeling guilty, I didn't want everyone else to feel bad that their rooms were smaller, so I went on a bit.. oops. I concluded that I was just too big for the rooms. But it was our own boat - very cool.

This was what we did as spoilt children on the boat:

Day 1: Check in at Split (where we got picked up from the Split airport and driven to the boat), sailed to Brač island to swim off the boat, and then to Hvar island. We visited the old town of Hvar, where we bought one shot glass (of course) and slept at the Pakleni islands in front of Hvar, a place called Palmižana. The most amazing thing was that the waters we were on were so clear, even at night as you could see right down to the bottom. At this island, Mladen took us to this incredible restaurant for dinner where we had platters of lobster, prawn, fish, squid, fish soup, cray fish.. an ocean of seafood (and lots of other starters) magically appeared on our table. I'm hungry all over again just thinking about it. The bill was pricey at just under £50 each, but it was worth it - our first meal was a hit!

Day 2: We continued sailing from Hvar to Korčula island (cue broken shot glass), stopped for lunch at a small restaurant and did some swimming at the island of Šćedro. This island only has about 30 residential houses, and no commercial development is allowed so that no one can ruin the island. The restaurant here served meat and seafood, and the bill only came to £76 for 9 of us and we were stuffed. Good food at good prices - seems a theme here!

Day 3: Our last day on the boat! How time flies when you are on holiday. We sailed from Korčula to the small island called Badija for some last-chance swimming and then went to Pelješac Peninsula which was our check-out location, a place called Orebić. The journey was long - at least 3 hours, which we spent flopped over different parts of the boat sleeping and drowning ourselves in sunblock. At Orebić we bid farewell to Mladen and waited in the hot sun for our transfer to old town Dubrovnik (third shottie).

Day 4: We stayed within the old town and it's very touristy there - I guess you can tell as everything is catered for the English speaking tourists. Lovely cobblestone streets and windy paths with local's homes and accommodation seemingly built into the walls. Its an amazing town, and am glad we got a chance to take the cable car up to see the view. 

A couple of friends swimming off our boat; like your own very gigantic swimming pool
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Overall my experience of Croatia was fantastic - good food, good company, good weather. I would certainly head back and get another boat offering. Its nowhere near as expensive as Greece, and the different islands are not as touristy. The views and food in Greece were amazing as well, so if I had money to burn I'd go back to Greece; Croatia is a lovely cheaper alternative though!

Oktoberfest

Last weekend, we went to Munich for Oktoberfest. Now its not something I have wanted to do, like ever, but my friends (and esp JLO) were very excited about going. So much so that we even made a groupie-like t-shirt to showcase our lameness and awesomeness at the same time.

Stein of Hacker-Pschorr beer 2012
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This is the extent of the keen-bean friends I have: we left on Friday night and arrived in Munich at close to midnight, and flew back to London on Sunday night. We were in Munich for one weekend - literally!

Good thing we had a local friend who steered us in the right direction when it came to not having tickets for a tent! For those who have no idea what Oktoberfest is about, its basically a big carnival in one location with beer tents that people can sit around all day and drink in. The tricky bit is actually getting into the beer tents - there are massive structures which house 10K people (sure felt like it) and if you weren't one of the fortunate ones who managed to get a reserved table, you would have to queue up outside in the morning to get in. Cue us. 

We had to meet our mate at 745 at the main station, but on a positive note (though I don't really enjoy beer) I had a stein of beer in front of be at 9am. Too early to drink beer you say? I have to agree. The inside of the beer tent is pretty cool; heaps of tables and decoration never to be found in my house. We hung out in the Pschorr tent, singing and drowning our sleep deprived brains with steins of golden liquid and overpriced roasted chicken.

Pschorr Tent 2012
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Inside the Pschorr Tent 2012
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To be allowed to serve at Oktoberfest, the beer must be brewed in Munich and have a minimum of about 6% alcohol content. The breweries that can make Oktoberfest beer are
Augustiner-Brau, Hacker-Pschorr-Brau, Lowenbrau, Paulaner-Brau, Spatenbrau and Hofbrau-Munchen.

Augustiner-Brau Beer Tent 2012
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Decorated Gingerbread hearts sold over the festival which started as a wedding celebration
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Brief history of Oktoberfest: King Ludwig was marrying Princess Therese and there were festivities to celebrate the royal event. Citizens of Munich were all invited and had such a jolly time that they celebrated every year on the same field called Theresienwiese and from then on the festival has become the world's largest fair. Plenty of rides (seriously there were so many), entertainment, game stalls, food... there was something for everyone!

Rides and more at Oktoberfest 2012
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So after a very hectic Saturday, we did a walking tour of the city on Sunday and went with the Sandemans walking tour. I'd previously done one with them in Amsterdam and was impressed; this one didn't let me down either. Heard plenty of stories about the history of Munich, many related to (surprise surprise), beer!

Alcoholed and pork knuckled up, we returned home on Sunday night only to find the Heathrow Express closed! Kinda expected though right ;)