Here are some of my pics from Edinburgh.....
http://www.flickr.com/photos/miles-away-from-home/sets/72157605456554293/
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Foreign Reserves
After the last trip, I was putting my UK pounds back into my foreign change wallet, when I decided it might be an idea to see how much I actually had lying around. So, here's what I've managed to pick up around my travels:
And this isn't including the currencies I have here that don't actually exist any more, which are pretty much just souvenirs now:
- 10 Macau Patacas (79c)
- 11 U.S. Dollars (€7.05)
- 50 Danish Kroners (€6.70)
- 80 Polish Zloty (€23.64)
- 85 British Pounds(€106.73)
- 100 S. African Rand (€8.18)
- 130 Singaporean Dollars (€61.04)
- 200 Czech Koruny (€8.12)
- 237 Chinese Yuan (€21.87)
- 680 Hong Kong Dollars (€55.86)
- 2,000 Japanese Yen (€12.11)
- 2,700 Hungarian Florints (€11.07)
- 116,000 Indonesian Rupiyah (€8.01)
And this isn't including the currencies I have here that don't actually exist any more, which are pretty much just souvenirs now:
- 35 Dutch Guilders (€15.88)
- 1,200 Belgian Francs (€29.75)
- 2,000 Spanish Pesetas (€12.02)
- 104,000 Italian Lira (€53.71)
Wednesday, June 04, 2008
Ya gotta love Michael O'Leary
Saw this in the paper this morning:
HARD-pressed funeral goers are Ryanair's most profitable customers, chief executive Michael O'Leary revealed unapologetically yesterday.
His comments came as Ryanair unveiled record annual profits of €481m and detailed plans to ground up to four Dublin planes this winter.
"The best yields (fares) are VFRs (visiting friends and relatives) going to funerals," Mr O'Leary announced. "They book late because they don't tend to have much notice, and they tend to be price insensitive because they have to travel."
.....
Mr O'Leary's comments came in response to a question from a London-based analyst, who congratulated Ryanair on its "balanced customer base".
"I'm not sure who told you we had a balanced customer base but they were bull-shitting you," the Mullingar man replied. "We don't care whether you're (travelling for) business, leisure, or visiting friends and relatives.
"All we want to know about our customer base is that they've booked and we have their credit card number."
Well, is nice to see a top exec in a company admit it: "we're only out for your money, we don't give a crap about you after that". makes a refreshing change from all that "we care about our customers" crap you get off other companies. Then again, you'd sort of expect this from O'Leary, he's not exactly shy in speaking his mind...... :-)
HARD-pressed funeral goers are Ryanair's most profitable customers, chief executive Michael O'Leary revealed unapologetically yesterday.
His comments came as Ryanair unveiled record annual profits of €481m and detailed plans to ground up to four Dublin planes this winter.
"The best yields (fares) are VFRs (visiting friends and relatives) going to funerals," Mr O'Leary announced. "They book late because they don't tend to have much notice, and they tend to be price insensitive because they have to travel."
.....
Mr O'Leary's comments came in response to a question from a London-based analyst, who congratulated Ryanair on its "balanced customer base".
"I'm not sure who told you we had a balanced customer base but they were bull-shitting you," the Mullingar man replied. "We don't care whether you're (travelling for) business, leisure, or visiting friends and relatives.
"All we want to know about our customer base is that they've booked and we have their credit card number."
Well, is nice to see a top exec in a company admit it: "we're only out for your money, we don't give a crap about you after that". makes a refreshing change from all that "we care about our customers" crap you get off other companies. Then again, you'd sort of expect this from O'Leary, he's not exactly shy in speaking his mind...... :-)
Monday, June 02, 2008
Edinburgh
Well, I've finally been to Scotland. With all my years of travelling, going to the other side of the world and (near) the bottom of the world and all, it's been sort of funny that I've never been to one of the countries that is closest to me. Well, now that particular gap has been filled, with a weekend in Edinburgh, courtesy of my g/f who booked it as my 30th b'day present (well, when I say "booked it", I mean I booked the flights she told me about on my credit card. She got the hotel tho :-P).
This trip was actually an unusual one for me in that the plane took off on time from Dublin Airport and we got into Edinburgh airport a bit ahead of time! I reckon the only reason we actually got into Edinburgh airport proper was that there's no other airport close enough nearby that Ruinair could call "Ryanair Edinburgh" with a straight face. So, no need to pay them the extra €10 each to take their bus into town, we could rely on public transport. Problem was, there were roadworks going on in the street that the Airport Express normally drops you off so the stop was in a different spot to where the maps said it was - and the girl in the airport tourist office told us it was in a diff spot from where it was! So, was a bit of confusion with finding the hotel, but we got there in the end anyway.
Saturday morning started off lovely and fine and sunny, and then got hotter - almost too hot. Deciding that I wasn't going to end up looking like a tomato on this hol, I finally got sense and put on sunscreen before I started to crisp! We started the day by climbing the Walter Scott monument, all 270-odd steps of it, and then went on the bus tour. There's a fair difference all right between the old town and the new town, and who would have guessed that the lovely park we'd had lunch in had previously been a sewage-encrusted loch? The rest of the day was spent mostly wandering around the castle, before heading out for dinner to a Mexican restaurant several people had mentioned was really really good. They also said it's normally so busy that if you don't book you're not getting in, so we went more in hope than in expectation. We walked in the door, got a table straight away (the last table in the place), and spent the entire evening watching the manageress turn people away who hadn't a booking, saying the place was too full! ;-)
Later in the evening, we decided to do one of the ghost tours that Edinburgh was famous for, so we went on the Witchery tour. The tour was good, but it lacked a certain something. A ghost tour should really be done on a dark and preferably foggy night, but we unfortunately picked the wrong time of year: the tour was at 9:30pm, but it didn't get dark until about 11ish! The tour was very tongue in-cheek, and after the 2nd time the "jumper" jumped out on us we were on the look-out for him and it became a bit of a running joke. Was good fun tho. After that, we were pretty knackered after being up and about and walking around since about 10am, so we just went back to the hotel and to bed.
The next day was not quite as nice as the sat had been. In other words, it was pissing rain all day! Luckily, all the outdoorsy stuff had been done on sat so we spent the day doing the indoor stuff like the Camera Obscura, the Whiskey Museum or a tour of one of the old, now underground, tenement buildings. There were plans for doing one of the ghost tours as well, but it was a little bit too damp for wandering around town! Our flight back was on monday, but was an afternoon flight so there wasn't very much time to do anything, so the only thing that got done on mon was the obligatory present shopping for ppl back home!
All in all, a nice city, wud definitely go back. am thinking of trying to organize something for Hogmanay..... :-)
This trip was actually an unusual one for me in that the plane took off on time from Dublin Airport and we got into Edinburgh airport a bit ahead of time! I reckon the only reason we actually got into Edinburgh airport proper was that there's no other airport close enough nearby that Ruinair could call "Ryanair Edinburgh" with a straight face. So, no need to pay them the extra €10 each to take their bus into town, we could rely on public transport. Problem was, there were roadworks going on in the street that the Airport Express normally drops you off so the stop was in a different spot to where the maps said it was - and the girl in the airport tourist office told us it was in a diff spot from where it was! So, was a bit of confusion with finding the hotel, but we got there in the end anyway.
Saturday morning started off lovely and fine and sunny, and then got hotter - almost too hot. Deciding that I wasn't going to end up looking like a tomato on this hol, I finally got sense and put on sunscreen before I started to crisp! We started the day by climbing the Walter Scott monument, all 270-odd steps of it, and then went on the bus tour. There's a fair difference all right between the old town and the new town, and who would have guessed that the lovely park we'd had lunch in had previously been a sewage-encrusted loch? The rest of the day was spent mostly wandering around the castle, before heading out for dinner to a Mexican restaurant several people had mentioned was really really good. They also said it's normally so busy that if you don't book you're not getting in, so we went more in hope than in expectation. We walked in the door, got a table straight away (the last table in the place), and spent the entire evening watching the manageress turn people away who hadn't a booking, saying the place was too full! ;-)
Later in the evening, we decided to do one of the ghost tours that Edinburgh was famous for, so we went on the Witchery tour. The tour was good, but it lacked a certain something. A ghost tour should really be done on a dark and preferably foggy night, but we unfortunately picked the wrong time of year: the tour was at 9:30pm, but it didn't get dark until about 11ish! The tour was very tongue in-cheek, and after the 2nd time the "jumper" jumped out on us we were on the look-out for him and it became a bit of a running joke. Was good fun tho. After that, we were pretty knackered after being up and about and walking around since about 10am, so we just went back to the hotel and to bed.
The next day was not quite as nice as the sat had been. In other words, it was pissing rain all day! Luckily, all the outdoorsy stuff had been done on sat so we spent the day doing the indoor stuff like the Camera Obscura, the Whiskey Museum or a tour of one of the old, now underground, tenement buildings. There were plans for doing one of the ghost tours as well, but it was a little bit too damp for wandering around town! Our flight back was on monday, but was an afternoon flight so there wasn't very much time to do anything, so the only thing that got done on mon was the obligatory present shopping for ppl back home!
All in all, a nice city, wud definitely go back. am thinking of trying to organize something for Hogmanay..... :-)
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