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May 18, 2006
My hovercraft is full of eels . . .
I apologize for the recent blogging silence – I’m leaving for Russia next Wednesday (!) and I’ve been trying to clear stuff off my plate.
I guess I am about as ready as I will ever be: Did I finish any of the books I bought about St. Petersburg to read? Nope. I got about half way through Kchessinka’s memoir, and will probably bring that and Solomon Volkov's book with me, as well as the guides. Tonight, I watched Russian Ark with a friend. I have also been using the Pimsleur Basic tapes. I studied Russian for a year in college, so it’s resurrection rather than new learning. I find the method effective – these work with purely spoken language and have no written component, but it forces one to converse. Still, as I walk down the street saying
Что бы Вы хотели? I keep thinking of the Monty Python Sketch with the Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook: “My hovercraft is full of eels.”
I found a walking tour to take the first day I am there; I will try to arrange something to Peterhof and the Hermitage as well. I recently spoke to Alexandra, she insisted that I go to the Yusupov Palace; she filmed a part of a documentary there. How could I refuse?
I redeemed 120,000 Goldpoints for the four nights at the Radisson, and amazingly that happened pretty much as I predicted. I’ll reconfirm reservations for everything including the Marriott and Radisson over the weekend, and see about airport transfers.
In the end, I used Priceline for my London hotels, in the Bloomsbury-Marble Arch zone rather than cheaper but more distant Kensington. I’m staying first at The Cumberland at Marble Arch, then the Hilton London Euston – opaque bidding in London especially is a grab bag. The Cumberland went for $102/night ($100 was not accepted) and the Hilton for $103. With taxes in both cases it’s about $125/night; a decent price in London for an acceptable hotel. In between those stays I go to Bristol to visit family with an afternoon in Cardiff to visit fellow knitters! Being cheap, I do that via bus for £1.
Now that I've finished scheming for this vacation I've exhausted my Asia Miles, Goldpoints and Marriott points. But I have not exhausted my scheming. Currently, I'm about to finish up accumulating enough TrueBlue points on jetBlue for a free flight. I earned half of them on the two trips to California; I figured I would apply for the jetBlue Amex so I could get the flight. I’m also collecting USAir miles via their co-branded Juniper card, as well as Starpoints and some Marriott points via a targeted double point offer.
So where do I want to go?
Here's the list:
Prague-Vienna-Budapest
Barcelona
Kyoto-Tokyo
Australia-New Zealand
to say nothing of return trips to Buenos Aires and Chicago as well as other repeat destinations (London, San Francisco, Paris, Toronto) .
Anybody feel like going?
Posted by Leigh Witchel at May 18, 2006 11:45 PM
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Comments
And now for something completely different ...
Add Antwerp/(Royal Ballet of Flanders http://www.koninklijkballetvanvlaanderen.be/Site/rbf.htm)
/Brugge/Brussels and I'm in.
I'm loading up on Marriott Rewards and Delta SkyMiles these days.
Then we could head over to Great Britain and stir up some trouble with the Hell's Grannies.
Posted by: Lisa at May 19, 2006 5:41 PM
Posted by: Lisa again at May 19, 2006 6:08 PM