When life throws lemons at you ....

I have decided to to keep track of the various hiccups that occur along the way because I have planned a tight itinerary and I do expect issues over a four month period with flights,  buses and trains as well as hotels, museums etc.

So, to date there have been three hiccups -

• Having to cut short my planned eight hours stay in Paris on the 18th August as I need to be back in London for a pre-wedding shabbat meal at my cousin's house on the Friday evening, meaning having to rearrange an earlier Eurostar trip so that I arrive early enough to relax, shower, dress and get to the other side of London.
• Having to rearrange my two days in Oxford as I was planning to return on the Saturday afternoon but have been given a birthday present requiring me to be at the British Museum just before 8:30am on the Saturday morning, so I had to shift my trip and hotel booking back by 24 hours 
• I was waiting to be informed that one or more of my internal Europe flights has been cancelled. After all most airlines are cancelling flights left, right & centre........  Well I have not been disappointed........  Just received an email that my Easyjet flight from Milan to London has been cancelled. However, they have put me on another flight taking off 55 minutes later. I wonder how many more flights will disappear. Hopefully not too many.

And I now have only four days to go before I leave. Going to be fun😁

23rd July 

Planned bus strike for 27th July

• Back in London and I have been informed that the day I intend returning from Cambridge (27th July) there is a planned train strike. I had to go on line and try to find a coach bus back to London. Managed to get one of the last bus seats available. 

27th July

• With the bus due to leave at 3:15 I made sure I was there by about 2:30. Sat and talked to a young PhD student doing research on weaponising health in Syria during their on-going civil war. Two buses arrived, one going to Stansted airport and the other to Great Yarmouth. When full they left. My bus was running late, or so I thought. Another young student looked up the two recent buses and one, 5 minutes after leaving, had changed its signage now to Victoria station in London. So that was my bus and it was now gone. I checked for seats on later buses but they were all fully booke because of the train strike. Now I had no ride home to London, not did I have a place to stay overnight at a reasonable price. Finally found a Travel Lodge in the city centre. Not the cheapest but at least I have a roof over my head, a shower for the morning and room that could hold a family of four. Having organised my lodgings, I now haf to book a train in the morning. 

I had planned for contingencies along the way but was not expecting it so early in the trip. Annoyed at first, Yes certainly as were the four other people who also missed the bus but two hours later I can see the lighter side of it.

2nd August.

On my way to Bilbao, Spain.

Day started off well. Alarms woke me around 4:05. Showered etc and out by 4:35 as the taxi had been booked by the hotel for 4:45. 5am no taxi. Stood by bus stop just in case they started to run this early. At 5:05 a taxi screeches up and a stressed out sort of driver bundles me in. 

As we reach the end of the road he says that he will take me to an ATM. I told him I only pay by card. He pulled over, stoped and asked if I did not have cash? 

Long story short story, I bundled my self out and ordered an uber that arrived in 5 minutes, got me to the correct terminal in time, and ended up costing me half what I had expected. Some poor muggins will get caught by this guy.

11th August

Standing in the queue to show my ticket on my phone. Sounds simple, but not when your phone is overheating. This also happened yesterday given the 38 ° heat. I had to reboot twice before I could get my tickets up on the screen.

 10th September

Well, I have had a good run but one more hiccup hit me this morning as I was bording the bus for Munich.

The driver checked my ticket and then mumbled something at me. Long story, short story, my bus left yesterday morning! I have no idea what happened. Actually I do. I made a later change to a hotel date and I did not follow through with the transport Anyway, a rush to the local ticket office and AU$44 later I am back on schedule, on the bus, nearly at the outskirts of Prague. Win some, loose some.

7th October

** I pre-booked all my 20 plus hotels before I left and other than obnoxiously loud landlords or those who have considered guests as a pain, my hotel bookings have been alright. Until 5pm today.

** I had contacted my hotel in Antwerp to check about elevators as I have been having problems with negotiating narrow stairs in the Netherlands that twist & turn, and are often with no lighting at all. All of a sudden I was informed that the hotel booking I made and paid for, in full back at the end of May, has suddenly evaporated into thin air. There is no talk of the payment disappearing as I paid it via credit card to booking.com They have told me the funds will be refunded in full. For me that is a taken but the issue is I now have no-where to stay tomorrow night nor the following 2- 3 nights. Not a great position to be in when you are a stranger in a strange city, lack local knowledge, lack language, lack a bed with a roof overhead and a hot shower.

The main issue is that I have, all the way through this trip, booked accommodation that is within 500 metres on average to the main train stations as more often than not this allows me to easily walk around and to visit museums that are generally positioned close to the town centres. Booking back in May also allowed me to select accommodation that was reasonably priced at the time & within my perceived budget. Having been travelling for over 3 months now I am aware that prices have risen by over 50% since I originally paid. 

I need to leave my current hotel by 11am on the 8th so I trust that I will be able to get something sorted before I must catch a train to Antwerp by at least 12 mid-day. 

** Ok. With Mel now in Paris I used her as a sounding board and with some proding from her I have changed tack. Mel asked about a plan B which I did not really have as I have managed to get get to and stay at 18  hotels already without any issues. I suppose it does not take much for complacency to settle in quickly.. Her plan B prod made me consider other cities so I looked at the map and Ghent just stood out, having rung a very distant memory bell for some reasonand. So instead of going to Antwerp tomorrow I am now going to the university town of Ghent. Managed to find a self contained studio and Ghent is one of the oldest non Roman cities in Europe. Not the cheapest but I hope to squeeze booking dot com for some compensation for the balagun they seemed to have caused.

I suppose that when one travels on their own hiccups like this can be easier to fix than when travelling with others because discussions, emotions, and compromises all need to be taken into account, and depending on the group size and personality dynamics, there will always be some who feel that they have been pushed into something they never wanted to do. I am sure this will have been,, for me, to a good change of direction.

The location of Ghent