Some travelling anyone???

As a true Nomad I’m recently slightly fed up with sitting in one place. Doesn’t matter I’m going to India next month. I’m already thinking where I will go NEXT!
To help with the process I created a list of countries I have never been to and I want to see soon (OK, relatively soon!):

So here they are (not necessarily in this order):
- Mexico – am dreaming of going there for quite some time now! I want to see those ancient places, taste great food and meet fantastic people (not to mention improving my Spanish!)
- Dominican Republic – I’ve seen photos of my friend who lived there and I fell in love! One of the places you cannot miss!
- Cuba – another country which plays with my imaginations for a long time now! Seems like the place has really unique atmosphere. I want to try it!!!
- Argentina – OK, I’m not hiding I want to see Buenos Aires. But also the Pampas and Patagonia with Tierra del Fuego. OK, Patagonia also means Chile, so let’s put it on the list as well – I love descriptions of this country in Isabel Allende books…
- Ecuador – to see Galapagos and famous turtles!
- Tanzania – Kilimanjaro… Do I have to add anything else?
- South Africa – again have heard so many stories and seen so many pictures… Want to see Jo’burg, Cape Town, Durban and others!
- Hungary – my best friend’s homeland! Can imagine that living so close by I have never been there! Gitti, I still remember you promised to be my personal tour guide!!!
- Greece – my parents keep telling me I had been there, but how I’m supposed to remember that if that was 4 months before I was born??? I want to see the country MYSELF :-D
- Israel – I want to see Bethlehem! And the Dead Sea!!!
- Jordan – if I’m already by the Dead Sea, why not checking on finely sculptured buildings of Petra???
- Nepal – another country suggested by my friend. He said it is totally magnificent place and I believe him completely!
- Vietnam - I don't remember when it first came to me that this is a place I want to see: wanted to go there this year but ended up in Cambodia. Anyways Vietnam is still on my list!
- China – China is a fascinating place and I want to explore it more! So far seen Hong Kong and Macau, fell in love with those places so now it’s time for real China!
- Fiji – still remember stories of little curly haired girl who had stop over in Fiji. We even planned MC holidays there, but somehow it never happened (wonder why???;-)
- United States – to be frank the country doesn’t excite me at all! But there are three cities I simply MUST see: New York, San Francisco and New Orleans (OK, I will wait some time with visiting this last one!)

OK, I can bet that five minutes after posting this I will come up with at least five other I-so-have-to-see countries, but at least this is some start!
And I’ll be damned but one day I’ll complete this list!

And where would YOU like to go my friend? Any places on your mind???

Lord Mayor's Show

Gog & Magog
Originally uploaded by marynaj.

It's one of London's finest days during a year - Lord Mayor's Show. Another one event proving British love their tradition and also love having fun.

Happy cheap flying?

Budget airlines are one of the best innovations of recent times – no argue about that!
There is only one catch: they are great as long nothing goes wrong!

So far I perceive myself very lucky with travelling! Despite some delays and nearly missed planes (will never forget the terror I felt at the HK airport when I got lost and plane almost departed without me!) I always got where I wanted and after all I travel quite a lot. Actually to be frank I’m anxiously waiting for a moment when my luggage will not show up on the conveyor belt at the airport (the idea of my bag going AWOL hunts me for quite some time now! With my extensive travelling patterns there’s no way I can miss that experience!)

My mum on the other hand is a different story. Seems like in terms of air travelling she’s really jinxed! The classic was couple years ago when she learnt at the airport in Germany that the airline, which was supposed to take her to her dreamt holidays on Madeira, had gone bankrupt! The other interesting thing worth mentioning is that my mum could be an expert in world’s most uninteresting airports: either because of delays or unfortunate schedule, she is always stranded for hours on most boring airports ever!
Yesterday was another example of her bad luck: she was due to fly to London to visit me and my brother and nasty fog in Krakow changed those plans.
But like in other cases there was a solution to our problem: we managed to book reasonably priced flight for today so in the end my poor mum will manage to spend a weekend with us in London.

So yes, budget flying is a fantastic thing as long as everything goes OK! Quite a shocker today was when after insane looking for customer service numbers at the Ryanair website, learning that none number for UK is working and calling Ireland in the end, the person from this biggest budget airline in Europe told me that the website had not been updated with new numbers!!!

Cheap flying is an awesome thing, no doubt about that. Only sometimes it can turn also very, very frustrating…

P.S. The problem with service doesn’t only apply to budget airlines: BA customers are still flying hungry on European flights due to ongoing (for almost three months now!) problems with their catering company!