Friday, November 28, 2008

Uncle Tom and Sugarduck are cold and loving it!!



The picture you all see is the Inner Harbor area of Oslo. Of course it is also a picture from Spring time. Now it's winter, the high is about 30 and it gets dark at 3 pm. It's cold but wonderful at the same time. We arrived yesterday after an early morning flight of 630 am. That means we were up at 2 and at the airport by 4 am. It was a long day so our first order of business was to take a short nap after we checked in at the airport. We woke up in time to walk into the downtown area and went to a Julemarked seen below:



After walking around and sampling the cheese and reindeer soup (yup cancel Christmas everyone, Rudolph and his cohorts dead) Sugarduck and I went to find a place to have dinner. We found a restaurant called Biff Restaurant and went in to have a bite to eat. Although we did not have reservations, they were able to seat us. Your Uncle Tom decided that one reindeer was not enough so he ordered the Reindeer Medallions in a gravy. Sugarduck ordered some lamb in a mint gravy. Both meals were amazing and we finished dinner by sharing some walnut ice cream in a blackberry sauce. The meal ended up costing 700.00 Kroner which roughly translates into 90 dollars. Not too bad considering we thought each person's plate was going to be 70. After dinner, we went home, slept and are now getting ready for day number two.....Day at the Museum (No Ben Stiller in this one though....)

Monday, January 21, 2008

Uncle Tom and Sugarduck are back from the really really Old World



Yasas my happy readers!!!

Yasas is hello in Greek. Yes, your Uncle Tom and his Sugarduck have just returned from a trip to Athens Greece. We took the above picture at the Temple of Zeus. The link is to an Athens guide site taken is a few years old. When we were there, the field was grassy and some of the columns have collapsed. This is the 4th trip outside of the UK that we have taken, and it really was one of the best. The winters here are cold and dreary and to be able to get away to another country where the weather was a comfortable 56 degrees was wonderful. For this trip, we used EasyJet airlines (another no frills but economic airline). We set out with our carryon luggage (you have to pay more if you check bags), and left Friday afternoon. Upon landing we found the Athens Metro Station. Having been recently renovated the rail system was inexpensive, amazingly clean and the easiest rail system that I have used to date. It cost us 10 Euro for the both of us to ride from the airport to the closest stop next to our hotel, the whole ride lasted about 50 minutes!!! We departed the train and made our way to our lodging.... Hotel Candia Okay so we knew going in that our hotel was a budget hotel and that we shouldn't expect too much, just a bed, a bathroom and a hot breakfast every morning. Well, after checking in and making our way to our door, we and by we I mean Sugarduck were pleasantly surprised to see that we actually had 2 beds in our room!!!

I know that the photo may be a bit out of focus, but you are seeing right, it's 1953 in our room. I just hope that Sugarduck remembers to serve me my martini, make my tv dinner and watches "Leave it to Beaver" with me! Okay, in order for this to be an informative travel blog and not some goofy ramblings by the village idiot, let me be honest. The room may have had two beds and the shower may have been just the shower head handle (it wasn't mounted on the wall), having a balcony and being on the sixth floor gave us an amazing view of the city and mountains in the distance:

Whenever Sugarduck and I travel, we rely heavily on The Lonely Planet guidebooks. We have found them to be the most informative and helpful out there. Most of the restaurants on this trip were recommended in there. Have a happy read my 4 readers, Uncle Tom thanks you for stopping by.