England: Leeds

This is where my trip kinda gets confusing. I visit England (actually I pretty much just visit Michelle), then I return to Malta, then I'm back to England, then off on travels again and then back to England. This is Leeds. Enjoy!

 Amsterdam! In the airport-I had a long stop over, just right for a few Henikens. The more observant of you (I'm looking at the Piestche, the Friend brothers and Goof here) may have noticed the sign in the background reads Casino...in the Airport. Genius!

Essentially I had a job interview in London, so I stayed in Leeds for a week with Michelle and decided that I did not want the job (so I just didn't go to the interview). I did not take many photos, but is was a good to see Michelle again. We did some touristy stuff like visit the Corn Exchange (jousting), visited an armoury and museum (jousting), drank warm British Ales (jousting), and ate at a world buffet (kinda like every cuisine ever to be in existence). All pretty fun stuff.

Warm British ales, with Michelle. As usual Baiky takes all the beer and the women.

Oh, and did I mention we saw the semi finals of the county jousting competition!

In a word: Awesome.

So, how does a jousting competition work? I'll break it down for you. People (yes, real people) put on a clothing made out of steel, jump on a horse with a long pointy pole and, then do their very best to impale the opposition. Admittedly, I did not know what to expect when I bought the ticket, but I did not expect it to be real.

In two words: really awesome.

It started with some 'squires' practicing their horsemanship skills by trying to impale innocent lettuces on the ground, and cut them on half on poles, and other fun stuff.

My camera was getting sleepy...So this squire has a sword and trying to cut a lettuce on a pole in twain. These guys are like knights in practice. Not surprisingly it takes a lot of to be allowed to be part of the main event.

Unfortunately, my photos of knights trying to kill each other did not come out, but that's okay - now you have to come over to see it for yourself.

In all honesty that's about all I did in Leeds. I was kinda tired after working at EF and sick of being a tourist. I actually left my camera at home on purpose most times we went out. I am sure I'll be back, given I only live a few hours from there now...

Greece - Corfu island

After I had arrived in Malta I had a few spare weeks before I started work. I decided that Malta was not quite exotic enough and so packed my meagre belongings and waltzed on over to Greece for two weeks. Specifically, I decided to stay on Corfu island. One of the Russian tour guides (you may remember Olga from Kazan) had told me she would be over there on a work vacation, and, as she is in the tourism business, I decided that she would probably know the best places to visit - so visit I did!

This is a town in Corfu, with the exception of the capital the entire Island was like this!

My plan was to no more than laze around on the beach drinking beer, which is pretty much what I did. In between bouldering around ocean-facing cliffs, walking up mountains and driving around the island (I hired a car) I visited the many pubs and cocktail bars around the Ipsos bay area.

Ipsos Bay - I stayed here for two weeks.

It is a lovely place and very cheap. I did not find the food anything special but it was decent enough. The weather and landscape is beautiful and the Mediterranean was as clear (and cold) as could be. Most importantly I found a cafe/bar owned, and frequented, by British Ex-pats. It was named Sally's Bar and not one second I spent there was wasted! I spent most of my evenings there with the bar tender, Rob (Groove), drinking his potently fabulous shots. I even convinced him to play the Eurovision final (much to the disgust of his customers). Most importantly, they held a weekly darts competition that was super fun. I also found a pub near my hotel that let me play for free against the staff.

A view from Mt Pantokratoras towards Abania - yup, you can see Albania from the east coast of Corfu.

In the second week Grimesy arrived (he was visiting his Gran in Germany). We hired a car and wandered the isalnd. Driving was a laugh - the streets are very narrow, locals drive too fast, and we had to drive on the right side of the road. Cool places we visited included the summits of the two highest mountains, the capitals city (and its castles), the Corfu brewery, and many beaches.

The roads were not only narrow, but also broken. This was not unusual and somewhat scary to walk on

Ipsos, were we stayed, is known as a lovers/honeymoon destination and the room Grimesy and I booked had two single beds - but pushed together. Each evening we would separate the beds, but the cleaning staff obviously had a different opinion of our relationship, so they would push them back together again!

From the summit of Mount Pantokratoras back towards Ipsos.

All in all it was a great trip - getting to see Olga and Grimesy as well as relaxing on the beach. I just wish I had more photos but unfortunately they were all on my stolen iPad. The photos here a courtesy of Grimesy.

Thanks Grimesy!