Travel Blogs (264)

Real estate prices should be dropping sharply in the Gaza Strip by this time next week. The population density will probably also be a lot less which means you will have plenty of room at the beach to spread out your blanket if you don't mind the smell of not collected corpses.

The most beautiful place for diving is the Red Sea in Egypt. To see coral reefs with wonderful shapes and colors and rare wonderful fish
And rare marine creatures

Friends, has anyone traveled? Can you recommend it? I am very afraid that I may get seasick.

I noticed the local pharmacy had remove the plastic shields at the registers. None of the grocery store staff are wearing masks. A small percentage of the customers in several stores are making up.
Things appeared to be getting back to normal and now I see the office staff at two physician's office are masking up this month saying some of their patients have tested positive for COVID, or variant.

Working remote and only go to my office when needed keeps me away from the crowd. At least seven friends, coworkers and family have been hit. Some had COVID more than a year ago and describe this round as headaches, sore throat, fever, but all said little or no respiratory issues they experienced before. Some only self-quarantined 3 to 4 days or until they test negative.

I'm planning a trip to see my brother next month and since his kidney transplant, is under visitor restriction. I'll be staying in the guest bedroom at his house.
The flight to see him doesn't have any non-stop flights and the last time I have to use 2 different airlines. My preference is to book the same airline for the entire trip with the connecting flight in a smaller airport with less wait between flights.
I'll bring along some test kits and mask up while on the plane.

While doing research on the fate of the OceanGates's submersible Titan, movie director James Cameron (of Titanic movie fame) came into focus giving several interviews about the faults of the Titan, both in design and materials. Cameron has become famous for his deep sea research having many dives to the Titanic as well as explorations to the deepest part of the oceans... The Mariana Trench.

In the Western region of the Pacific Ocean there is a fault in the sea floor about 200 kilometers east of the Mariana Islands. In the 1800's ships dropped weighted ropes to determine it's depth and years later with sophisticated sonar it's deepest point was determined to be 10,984 meters or roughly 6.8 miles.

Cameron has been credited for 33 dives to the Titanic and In a submersible of his own design, visited Mariana Trench in March 2012 in exploration of the ocean floor to return with videos and still images.

Here's a short documentary of James and his submarine:

I am on my 2 week mandatory summer holiday/break from work, and I am already bored. So what better to do than to plan next years holiday? These past few days, I have been watching a YouTuber named Mr Jww, and his experiences in the Mille Miglia Storia, which is a global brand that combines the heritage of the world's most beautiful race with a fun, sophisticated, inclusive and contemporary lifestyle. It's essentially a 1000 mile rally with some of the most beautiful and rare cars in the world. Some take it as a road trip, while others take it VERY seriously.

Mr Jww is in the 1st bracket - he's just there to experience it and have fun while driving.

Anyway, as I was watching the videos, I made a decision - I am going to Italy on my next holiday. When is that? July 2024, is my aim. I will not go there alone. I asked a friend if she wanted to come, and she said yes. Now the planning begins.

First, we need to figure out where in Italy we are going to go. I have my eyes fixed on Rome, but Italy is a big country, so I will look around. The next step is to find a hotel. Because I am such a gentleman, I will ask her if she prefers one room together, or our own rooms. That's gonna be up to her.

In any case - one week in Italy next years is gonna be the best thing ever! I have so many things I want to do. Cooking classes, take pictures, relax and eat good food!

There is still a LONG time to go. The flight will be booked early next year, when we have picked a location. Until then, it's time for research.

Traveling to Oslo and looking for a local guide, prefer a female company. Does anyone advise?

This is part 2 of my absolute nightmare of a trip home from the US. In the last blog, I detailed the trip to Germany and the US, and the trip back to Germany.

Now it's time for the absolute biggest annoyance with air travel: Delays!

We were sitting in the aircraft, all buckled up, ready for takeoff, when a van with two people came up to the side of the aircraft. They wore helmets and vests. "Oh boy, this can't be good", was my thought. About ten minutes later, the captain came on the intercom and explained that we had to disembark, because the aircraft had a malfunction. However, we already had a new aircraft, and all we needed to do was find the new gate. We would then be off shortly.

However, when we reached the gate, we had to wait for an hour and a half to be allowed to board. By then, the boarding time said 7:40 am. The flight was originally scheduled for a 7:15 am takeoff, so we were already 35 minutes late. 7:40 am came and went - no boarding yet. A few of the passengers went to the desk to hear how much longer it would take. No answer. Only that they were working on it. By then, the time was 8 am

New boarding time was put on the monitor: 8:20 am. That made one of the passengers so irate, that he asked the staff member to cancel his ticket, which the staff member did. Very little information was given to us. It was a mix between "sorry for the delay" and "we have no information yet".

8:20 am came and went - still no boarding. I am usually a very calm and positive guy, but even I was reaching the point of having enough. Finally, at 8:45 am, a full hour and 5 minutes after the 7:40 am boarding time, we boarded the flight. 20 minutes later, we were ready for departure. Takeoff was at 9:18 am and we landed in Copenhagen at 10:18 am. Originally, we were scheduled for a 8:35 am landing, so we were almost 2 hours late. I found my suitcase, and went home.

That whole delay in Frankfurt single-handedly made me swear to never fly with Lufthansa again. Some good experiences cannot outweigh the bad. I know it's a low-cost airline, which I definitely experienced. My next flight will be with SAS. They have a direct flight to Dulles from Copenhagen, and I will definitely spend a bit more to get a better class. I am thinking Premium Economy, since I don't really have the money for business class. One more strike for Lufthansa was also when their app suddenly locked me out, with no way to change the password.

Pro: The food on the flight from Frankfurt to Dulles was good. Smooth flight as well. The flight from Dulles to Frankfurt was, despite a reboot of the in flight entertainment, pretty smooth as well. We hit some turbulence on the way, but it wasn't extreme.

Con: The "food" from Copenhagen to Frankfurt, the sandwich before landing in the US, the delay in Frankfurt and the app shutting me out

Three pros and four cons. It wasn't all negative, but I am still not going to recommend Lufthansa. If they had been more open and transparent about the delay in Frankfurt, I wouldn't have minded that. However, because they gave so little information, they go on the cons list.

Overall, I give the flight, as a whole a 5/10.

Back when I bought my trip to Washington D.C., I bought the tickets through Lufthansa in their Economy section. The flight was 3658 Danish kroner ($530.43), with a random seat allocation. I decided to spend 628 Danish kroner ($91.06), on picking my seats on all the flights, bringing the total cost of the trip to 4286 Danish kroner ($621.50).

Cheap, but it showed. The quality of the flight wasn't the best.

I will let you all know why I wouldn't pick Lufthansa again!

The trip was from Copenhagen to Frankfurt, and then onward to Washington D.C. A few days before departure, Lufthansa sent me an email where they told me, that they had gotten a different aircraft for my flight to Frankfurt, so I had gotten a new seat.

"alright, no harm done. At least I am going to go on my trip", and that first flight was quick. However - I seemed to be sitting between a company trip, because they all knew each other. They talked. And talked. And talked. Quite loud as well, and even when the safety demonstration was being performed. Very rude, I think.

The food on that flight - if you could call it that - was a bottle of water and a piece of chocolate. Granted, it was just an hour, but still. I was very hungry, and I had a two hour wait in Frankfurt - with no Euro on me, and my card isn't working outside Denmark.

Strike one.

We landed in Frankfurt ahead of time, which was fantastic! It was my first time in Frankfurt airport, so I had no idea what to expect. From the aircraft, we had to take a bus to the terminal, and from there, I had to find my gate for my next flight. Luckily, the gate was easy to find, so I sat down and relaxed until it was time to board.

An hour and a half later, we boarded. We were 350 people that needed to board - with just four people to handle that. It took a bit of time, but once we were situated in the aircraft - a rather old and tired Airbus A330 - we pushed back. The flight to the US was nothing to write home about. Pretty streamlined and pretty boring. The food was good, though. I got a chicken/mashed potato dish, which was excellent. Or maybe I was just hungry.

Just before landing I got very hungry. Luckily, they offered a snack, which I was very excited for. However - the bread was VERY dry - maybe because it had spent 8 hours in the fridge.. You don't put toast in the fridge..

Landing in Washington Dulles was good. We had some minor turbulence, but I wasn't worried. We touched down ahead of time, so it was off and through immigration. That flight was quite smooth, so maybe the Copenhagen to Frankfurt part was a one-off?

No.. The trip home was even worse. We pushed back from Dulles a few minutes behind schedule. That happens all the time, so as long as we landed on time in Frankfurt, I could make my flight home.

An hour into the flight, the captain came on the intercom, saying that some of the screens didn't show the entertainment, so they would kill the power and reboot. That didn't help, so they rebooted it again, which helped.

That was the only real memorable thing that happened on that flight, so fast-forward to landing in Frankfurt. I had an hour and a half to reach my gate and my connecting flight. I made the gate with 40 minutes to spare, so I sat down and relaxed. We boarded about 50 minutes later, and to my delight, I had a whole row to myself since the flight was only half full. That meant that boarding was completed well ahead of time, so we had about 20 minutes to relax, before we were taking off and pointing the nose to Denmark, and Copenhagen.

However - that was not to be for a while.. Read my next blog to find out why that was, and why I will not be flying Lufthansa again..