Travel Summary: 2022
It's been a while since I managed to pen something down. It's been a busy year, owing to the transition to London. One thing that has remained constant, or rather, has increased in volume perhaps, has been the number of occasions I've hopped on a flight and gone somewhere. Consequently, I thought I'd pen down a summary of all the places I wandered this year. Many of them are places I've already been to, whereas others were new experiences. Here's the comprehensive list
- March - Edinburgh/Glasgow, Scotland
- August - Izmir, Turkey
- September - Amsterdam, Netherlands
- October -
- Brussels, Bruges, Genk - Belgium
- Chelm, Poland
- Lisbon, Portugal
- December - Munich, Nuremberg & Dresden, Germany
The above excludes places that I go to quite often. Hence, I have excluded my trips to the Czech Republic and Hungary, and I won't be writing much about the Netherlands either, as it was primarily for work and I couldn't get much time to do anything else.
Edinburgh, Scotland
Scotland was quite a significant trip for me. It was a place I had never been to. Additionally, Edinburgh was the trip to celebrate my 30th Birthday, and I couldn't have picked a better place, and better company to spend it with.
I met one of my close friends from Corvinus university. We went to a football game, Hearts of Mithlodian vs Aberdeen, and just talked about sports and old times, our student lives in Budapest.
Izmir, Turkey
Another country that I visited for the first time. It was with another friend from my Corvinus University. Izmir is a very cosmopolitan and commercial town, with really pretty beach fronts within a 1-2 hour drive from it.
We spent our days taking day trips to various beach resorts outside the city and nights eating amazing food in the city.
Belgium
I'm not sure if it's a phenomenon that's commonly experienced but if you watch a movie at different stages of your life, it evokes different feelings from inside of you. Belgium turned out to be a travel destination of the same sort.
I traveled to Belgium 5 years ago. That was probably my first trip after graduating from university and I had just started an entry-level Financial Analyst in Budapest. Despite that, there was a significant difference in the general price levels in Belgium versus the salaries and price levels in Budapest, and I remember feeling that. Five years on, having spent 9 months in London, and having gotten used to the city's price levels, the view of the very same things was quite different.
Additionally, I spent an afternoon at the Autoworld Car Museum in Brussels. Once you're done with the standard touristy stuff in the country - the Fries, Waffles, Beers, and Comic books, it's an absolute must-do if you're into cars.
Another difference seemed to be the weather. This time around, we were blessed with much better weather than the last time, or maybe it's just that I'm used to London weather now and that has shifted my perspective. I guess we'll never know.
Lisbon, Portugal
While this was primarily a work trip, I did stay in Lisbon for the weekend after work was done and spent some time wandering about in the city. While there are various ways in which I can describe it, this is the description that I used to tell my girlfriend about it:
"Once upon a time, Prague and Barcelona fell in love and had a baby. The product of 2 extremely different cultures, the baby would live like Barcelona, but dress up like Prague, and while it had the personality of Barcelona, it would exhibit behavior like Prague. The baby came to be known as Lisbon."
I understand that many will find this statement extremely disagreeable (to put it mildly) and that's fine. Even from a historical sense, the chronological order of the rise in prominence of these towns is probably not in line. It's just a very high-level spiritual sense that I got from the city. Also, it's quite probable that she just knows how my brain works and she was instantly able to get what I was trying to say and it probably doesn't translate that well if you don't know how my brain works. Anyhow, I have decided to stick with it.
Comments
Post a Comment