Saturday, May 4, 2013

Moving on...

Chamonix was my last post... oops! Since then I've been to St Bathelemy, New York and California, and back to London. And I am deep in planning for my next adventure, to Italy again, via Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany (or so the plan goes anyway). In brief here are my thoughts on...

St Barthelemy- The colonial era isn't over after all. The French still own islands in the Caribbean, using the Euro and everything. It was, in essence, a playground for the rich and famous. Private jets, convertibles and yachts abound. Not really my cup of tea, but the wildlife was cool- giant hermit crab (really, the shell it was in was the size of a big coffee mug. That just ain't right for a hermit crab.) and turtles randomly coming to chill out in the garden, listening to the kids read. And no horrible biting, stinging, nasty things, although I wouldn't want to mess with the sea urchins!

New York- New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of... yep, it was pretty much everything it promised to be. Glitz, glamour and sky-scrapers. I quite liked it actually. It was pretty much exactly what I expected, we stayed on the 40th floor of a hotel overlooking Central Park and I got to walk down 5th Avenue, marvelling at how cities have these streets which are household names the world over, and yet are practically identical. 5th Avenue = Oxford St = Champs de Elysee = via Montenapoleone and so on. Still, it was fun to see. Would have liked a night to explore the night life and have some fun.

California- it must have the best climate in the whole world. Cool nights, sunny days, every day. Just lovely. Pity it's so... American. Drive to the shopping mall to buy milk... walk? On what, the road? Sigh. Lovely place, if it were just less American.

And now, to work. But not for much longer. The next few weeks will be my last in London, and they're gonna be busy, so I will be back on here maybe from Italy for all I know!