Its Friday Aftenoon and Barcelona is looking great

Its Friday afternoon. It's the last day of work before Xmas and once again I am looking for cool stuff for our customers. I came across this website and blog on Barcelona.

It is a community site, for anyone interested in Barcelona, travelling to Barcelona, living in Barcelona…..or just wanting to join in the fun!

It's been set up by people who are currently living in Barcelona, often travel to Barcelona, or are actually from Barcelona!

What they all have in common is that they LOVE Barcelona!

So before you buy your Lonely Planet, Rough Guide or Lets Go get the lastest up to date info from the guys that actually live there

Merry Xmas to All
Pops

Driving a Piece of East German History

Ciao
Hey, I've finally got back to the office after two weeks away polishing up the old Italian. It went really well but a speed demon I am not.

The resort where I work is closed down over christmas and it seems that half of Italy's stray cats are hanging round our office scrounging food. It reminds me of the song Kitty Cat from the Presidents of the United Staes a few years ago. OUTSIDE!!!!

I found this really cool thing to do when you are in Berlin or Dresden and want to go back in time. Not quite a De Lorean but nevermind. Hire a Trabi!! Check it Out

Driving a Piece of East German History

Posted Dec 13th 2006 8:30PM by David Luna

Ever wonder what life was like on the east side of the Berlin Wall? Well, you can still experience a remnant of that bygone era behind the wheel of an East German icon: the Trabant. The Trabant's determined 25HP engine and non-existent electrical system make the car resemble a riding mower more than a modern automobile, but that's what makes driving one so exciting.

Tour company Trabi Safari maintains fleets of Trabants in Berlin and Dresden. Their tours marry sightseeing with a unique "do it yourself" experience as tourists drive themselves in authentic Trabants on the streets of Germany. Drivers receive a very short operations tutorial before the trip. (Instructions include: "This is the gas. Very important!" and "Don't touch this button.") After everyone is briefed, the Trabant convoy follows the tour guide whose voice is piped in over the car's (aftermarket) radio. The hour and a half journey is really about piloting East Germany's Ultimate Driving Machine, so the audio tour is fairly light on historical narration.

Tour prices range from 25 to 35 Euros per person and reservations are required. If German isn't your thing, you will need to request an English language tour guide.

What is it about Sunday Mornings

Well here we are again. It's Sunday morning and I am work again why Katy snoozes through a lazy Sunday morning lie in. I wasn't going to go to work. But as my PC at home for some reason doesn't want anything to do with blogging software and its such a nice morning. I thought that I might as well get organised for the week while sipping coffee over looking the chianti country side. Lifes not all that bad!

We have loads of stuff on at the present. We are just about to open our new hostel in Prague, so I am in the process of buiding a new website for that along with a major revamp of the Plus website
Both are due to go live before christmas. And I wonder what I am doing here on a Sunday again!

I was scanning through a few blogs last night and came across something that I had a chuckle about. Hostelworld is taking on Google!!!
If I had a Euro for everytime that I heard that Hostelworld was being bought,out taken over or getting out of hostel reservations I think that I may be rather rich! Me thinks that there may be quite a few people in the Irish IT indusry that have spent to much time kissing the Blarney stone. Mind you you never know- Ray needs a new Porsche soon.

For those in Florence over the next couple of weeks check out the Christmas Market- The Heidleberg markets in Piazza Santa Croce. The Hotdogs with Saurkraut are amazing!! Apparently there is also a Scottish market as well, so i will check those out next week.

Trying to Juggle Work, Travel and Study

Well its day three of My Italian language course and to be honest it seems to be going quite nicely. My vocab is increasing and pronuciation is getting better. Giovanni and Agostino are working to remove my kiwi accent so that i will be able to pronounce i and e without people missunderstanding what I am saying.

The only downside is the 6.00am start in the morning which means prising the old eyes open and stumbling into the shower without trying to kick the cat. A quick shower, brekky and off to the train station hopefully if I time it right its a 20min train ride and then a 20 min walk or 45 min train ride if i miss the train.

Then its a couple of espresso's and straight into the Study.
6 hrs later I emerge with Italian verbi and adjectivi slowly stroking their way across my eyeballs and ringing in my ears to catch the train again.
Then its off to work at mission control at Plus.

Last night while I was checking out travel blogs. I came across North Americas 1st Ice Hotel at The Travelnet. Its a cool article about the hostel in Quebec and how it was constructed etc. Not quite our market, but hey we can dream!!!

Travel Blogger I Promise

Well its high time that I actually posted something on Plus Stuff. Hands up. I admit I've been really slack and have not taken as much care and attention of the blog as I should have and it has ended up a tiny bit commercial.

On my honour I promise to do the right thing, to post every day and to keep the blog law. I guess you can't help your upbringing.

Todays been a bit of a weird type of day. I have been trying to tie up loose ends at Plus this morning as tommorow I am going back to school. After nearly 2 years of living and working in Italy I am taking myself off to Study Italian in Florence at The Michelangelo Insitute . The Course is 2 weeks of Intensive Italian. Basically lessons in the morning and conversation in the afternoon.

One of the reasons for my lack of Italian is because I work in the Travel industry and the international language of tourism is English ( sorry I should say inglese). Another reason is my pet hate; websites that automatically think that you speak Italian because you are using a computer that has an Italian IP Address. Please BA, Emirates and even Google, please let me select what language I want to view a site in, not waste time trying to find the appropriate one.

How time has flown though. Last night I was checking out some stuff on the web and came across a Blog from Bootsnall . I can't believe that it is nearly 8years since I first signed up as a member. They're still as crazy as ever but check them out as they have some great deals for travellers and backpackers.