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Yes this has all the potential of one of those middle-aged self loathing questions - the kind bank managers grab for at dinner parties whilst they shuffle their feet and sweat profusely wishing they had partaken in the team-building exercise in the lake district, 13 years ago, where perhaps if they had have gone for it and kissed Maureen from accounts after that silly evening with all that wine, where everyone forgot the corporate ideal for a while, threw away the office politics and the whole rank thing - even blew away the stiff upper-lip of the British make up - with the sun setting so beautifully behind the peaks, as the breeze gently lapped at her hair, she flashed that smile - her breasts so pert and yet that smile so innocent - god how I loved her - right then everything was perfect - her eyes like deep pools to her soul, her perfume - so sweet yet subtle - she was perfection itself. But no, you bottled it you worthless piece of shit - couldn't do it could you! YOUR WORTHLESS! YOUR A WORTHLESS PIECE OF SHIT - A TOADYING PRAT ! A THOROUGHBREAD CORPORATE WHORE! WITH NO CONFIDENCE AROUND ANYONE UNLESS ITS DISCUSSING FOREX TRENDS, INTEREST RATES, DULL LIFELESS SHIT!!!!Oh God I should have kissed her - things would be so much different now - I wouldn't care about anything! - oh for the careless abandon of being free to have a conversation about anything, but no, I bottled it and she married Derek from Marketing now, and now here I am, rapidly approaching 40, overweight, balding and single, and still I can't look anyone in the eye and have a simple conversation about normal things? No instead its those predictable bland, non-offensive questions that everyone asks and expects, and smile politely whilst staring into their chardonay wishing the world would open up right there and then and just swallow them up, just let the stench of fire and brimstone suffocate and the heat melt the life out of them in pain so violent that the screams would make the people around physically sick, anything than have to stand next to this middle aged bore whose name they forgot and who would be the last person they would ever want to talk to, let alone strike up a relationship with, but oh those fucking tits!! Jesus christ those tits are making me so fucking hard!! Damn this is making me sweat more - got to think about something else - I bet she knows what I was thinking. Oh Shit! I think she saw me looking right at them! Oh god please no! She does! She saw me eyeing her breasts! Oh and I bet I am blushing now - don't look her in the eye - LOOK AT THE FLOOR - LOOK AT THE FLOOR. LOOK. AT. THE. FLOOR. NOT.HER.TITS. NOT.HER.TITS!!! SHIT! Quick - compose yourself - think of something to say - just say anything!!!
Ummm - going anywhere nice on holiday this year?
Dull? Perhaps, but I'm actually after a bit of advice - see if all goes to plan next month, I should be taking home a few quid, and I thought it might be nice to go away for a few days - except I haven't got a clue where to go.
I really want to go to Japan, India and Australia, but these are not really the places you just 'pop over' to for a few days - no these places I will do properly, hopefully next year. No this time around I am looking for just somewhere to spend a few days, most likely on my own, and somewhere I can take the camera and have a plethora of things to photograph.
The only things I would say is, I would prefer it to be slightly 'alternative', as in off the beaten track - somewhere not too touristy but at the same time i don't want to have to resort to sign language for the whole week, and I might like the occasional glass of shandy, but preferably not surrounded by hankie wearing bright red brits singing torremolenos all fucking night. Also not too far away, and also I would like it be a country I have not visited before - so discount most of the big European countries and the ones nearer the Netherlands. Sun is nice, but not obligatory.
So any gems you would recommend? Anywhere you've been that is a well kept secret that you may divulge for us lucky few?
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I think I might have already sung the praises of Marseille, but I'll do it again. A great city. A big proper dirty noisy city, right on the Mediterranean. Walk around and admire the crumbling splendour of France's second city and hub of their empire. Visit the Stade Olympique and watch the OM magic. Sit under palms and drink pastis. Cycle through the parks. Eat heaps of clams and shrimp or sizzling hunks or barbecued bull. Go east along the coast and you've got massive jaggy cliffs for climbing or walking. You can swim in the crystal clear sea. You can dive, fish or spear octopus. The place is brimming with excellent restaurants, bars and clubs. It has an extremely laidback and friendly vibe. And although your only in the south of France rather than the south of Spain you get a real sense of the proximity of North Africa. Allez Marseilles!
Louche
Carved TMO on her clit just to make you feel bad
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Eastern Europe. Of course Easten Europe, it's me, innit.
Belgrade: totally off the beaten track. Beautiful, brutal, arrogant yet simultaneously slightly embarrassed by you know, all that, er, war stuff. There's some brilliant photo taking opportunities as old East meets new West, concrete sits next of ancient structures, the Danube sweeps through it all looking pretty but like you can't really trust it. The natives speak English learned from American television, the booze is pretty good, everything's cheap and most of their restaurants serve dishes that consist almost exclusively of meat. Though for variation you can have meet with cheese in it. The old town is a beautiful mix of cobbles and markets and cafes and this time of year it will be pleasantly warm rather than abusively hot. You'll meet Germans but no Brits. I can guarantee you no Brits.
Sarajevo - much the same as the above in terms of touristing but with a sombre backdrop and a sense of edginess still. You can take coach trips to massace sites. If you want. The photo opportuinities are myriad, though you might find yourself treading the same cliches as others; but that said, I seem to remember you're pretty good at that sort of thing, so maybe not.
Vilnius - Lithuania's capital and not yet bespoiled by a gazillion stag nights. Desperate for the tourist dollar, loads of people will be happy to speak to you, drink with you, etc etc. I loved Vilnius for the sprawl of it; you could just walk the streets all day because you'd turn a corner from one thing to be faced with a whole other vista. And the KGB Museum is something you should see, though you might feel a little green afterwards. Basically, it's not really a museum. They've just opened the KGB building with nothing more than small, neatly typed information cards about what the rooms were used for, and the nature of the tortures, and the numbers and their crimes. Chilling.
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quote:Originally posted by Louche: Eastern Europe. Of course Easten Europe, it's me, innit.
Now this is kind of what I was thinking - I was looking at Dubrovnic, Montenegro and Split as possibles, But Vilnius is a new idea. I went last year to Riga, which was beautiful and I do like visiting places with recent historical change - the Iron curtain was this evil beast from my youth and its interesting to see how things were.
Louche
Carved TMO on her clit just to make you feel bad
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I've not been to Split,but Dubrovnic is fabulous. If you're going though, go shortly, in the summer it is absolutely overrun with tourists. No elbow room in the streets.
I didn't like Montenegro, but that was more because the sexism and misogyny which is an undercurrent is a lot of the countries which made up the former Yugoslavioa seemed much more entrenched there. So, probably not really an issue for you.
Do consider Belgrade, though. It is a fab, fab place.
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I've been seriously considering going to Croatia this year. I think one of the things that has sold me is taking a trip to the park in Plitvicka. This place looks beautiful apart from all the tourist twats there. So basically, I want to go to places of outstanding beauty but I don't want to see any other tourists.
For some reason Misc's thing cut off half the picture so uploaded elsewhere.
Louche
Carved TMO on her clit just to make you feel bad
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Plivice is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to. It smelled pretty good as well. And there were parts of it where you could just sit and watch the sunlight on the water and just really be glad you were there. It was that sort of place. Tranquil. Affirming.
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Lolol. Despite being a black spiral of bleak, fatalism and death, TMO is cracking me up this week. I'm putting 'Lol' as a hotkey thing on my new keyboard.
quote:Originally posted by Louche: I didn't like Montenegro, but that was more because the sexism and misogyny which is an undercurrent is a lot of the countries which made up the former Yugoslavioa seemed much more entrenched there. So, probably not really an issue for you.
I bet Jim Davidson does his summer season there then...
I must admit, I don't want to go anywhere, and I use the phrase very carefully, but 'backward' - as in pretty much what you experienced in Montenegro. It doesn't matter what your background is, there is still no excuse for crap like that in this day and age, and by visiting the place you are only lining their pockets. No ta.
You have given me a bit of an idea though - maybe get the train to Berlin, then head to Vilnius via Warsaw - from there head to Talinn for a bit, then on to St Petersburg, then Helsinki for a flight home - visit 5 countries I have never seen, get to see a bit more of them by train, and by staying just 1 or 2 days in each, I shouldn't get bored.
Louche
Carved TMO on her clit just to make you feel bad
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Yes. I rate potential holiday destinations on the number of mass murders the country has seen, then deduct this by the price of a bottle of the local wine and the one that comes out with the highest number is totally what I book.
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I said to Louise the other night that we should go on holiday or something so I think we're going away for a weekend in June. I'm just going to let her choose where to go though. It'll be a city break somewhere round europe.
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That's the good thing about being on holidays, though: you can have a beer whenever you like. And Europe is full of beer. Plus, you can never get drunk during the day on a holiday, no matter how you try. Which is great.
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And you really show your knowledge and understanding of foreign cultures - like my Mum did in the South of France. Sitting in a bar, my sister asked what she would like to drink, and my Mother asked for a White Wine. Upon being asked what particular region of France she would like her wine from, she then said "Haven't you got any German wine?"
Last time my sister took her on holiday, and My Dad split from her a couple of years later...
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I'm going to LA for a wedding in early June, which sounds enormously wanky, and probably is. It's a hippy-fied do though, on a grassy bank, so I hope there'll be sufficient drink, and not just a choice between organic wheatgrass juice and home-grown beetroot nectar, with petals floating in. If I can't be pregnant, I want to drink as much as possible to make up for it. R has to do a speech, and he's soiling himself already.
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Louche
Carved TMO on her clit just to make you feel bad
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I did a speech at OJ's civilpartnership. I agreed to do it dead cheerfully like. Then when it actually got to writing it, practicising it and saying it I kind of came over all nervous. But it was fine! Then I broke my foot.
Be careful to warn R about the potential breakage related to speech giving. Just in case.
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Fucking hell Vikram. That's bad luck. If only someone would come up with some sort of plan whereby you spend your time doing something for someone else and they give you some sort of funding that enables you to go to people's weddings and stuff like that.
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Holiday's - I haven't one in years - I've travelled with work, and been married in LA, but really annoyingly got called away from the wedding three days later with a job
Anyway - I owe Mrs The Ball x1 honeymoon - September, Italy, fly into the North and drive or travel by train down the west coast to Florence area, inland to Tuscan region, and then down to Rome - Rome, my favourite continental city.
Then christmas with the In-laws.
-------------------- If Chuck Norris is late, time better slow the fuck down Posts: 2740
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Eastern Europe here too. Yes, there are the very obvious ones - Prague, Budapest, Krakow - but like some others on here have said Vilnius is definitely a place to see. Tallinn is also beautiful, although I did go there before the British stag weekends made their presence felt. I am doing some genealogy research in Latvia later this year and as well as Riga I will be taking in the country's third largest city, the port of Liepaja - which was known as Libau when my great-great-grandfather was born there. I am looking forward to seeing Latvia again.
Some lesser-known areas are also well worth a look - I found Eastern Poland to be wonderful, especially the North East and the Białowieża. If you are wanting to get away from the beaten track and further away from the seething holiday masses, I can recommend no better place. Take your mosquito repellent though, they can get pretty bad - a local described them as being akin to Russians, which I naturally found funny. Try and dip into Belarus if you can while the going is good (or should I say not so good) - the place is probably one of the few places behind the former Iron Curtain that hasn't changed much. I never made it to Minsk, but many areas of Grodno and Brest certainly provide an excellent taste of what it would have been like in the former Soviet Union.
Of course, there are many hidden gems in what was once the German 'Democratic' Republic - Quedlinburg, Eisenach, Wittenberg, Dresden and one that is pretty unknown to the point where it only gets a passing mention in most guidebooks, Pirna. Only a short journey out of Dresden, it is well worth a visit. Berlin is always a go-to; we went there in January and are planning another visit later this year.
All of these places beat Costa del Shite hands down. Hell, even a shithole like Subotica or Novi Sad beats the Costa del Shite.
Outside of Europe the best place ever has to be Lüderitz in Namibia and the surrounding country. All you need is a 4x4, a compass, a rifle and three days food supply. Fantastic.
I did look at touring europe for 3 weeks by interail, taking in lots of places I had not been to - Paris, Geneva, Ljubljana, Zagreb, Sarajevo, Budapest,Krakow - it all looked very possible, but then I realised I would be mostly travelling and wouldn't be very rested. So I got to thinking about something else, and after a bit of research, I think I have just organised a bit of a trip of a lifetime.
In september, I fly to Tokyo via London - stop in Japan for a week, check out Kyoto, visit some friends. Then a flight down to Sydney to stay with some other friends for a few days, then a flight to Bali to chill on the beach for some proper RnR, then back to Amsterdam via Singapore (stopover) and London. 3 weeks, 3 continents. And I think I have just found the flight for just under a grand English! I heart Qantas!
I'll keep a copy of this thread as all the more 'local' places I'll visit on my little weekends away - all being nearby they should be something to look forward to.
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As long as you promise to never, ever refer to your adventures at any time in the future then I hope you have a great holiday Waynster. Posts: 8467
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