Foreign Perspectives

Travel accommodation listings sites are a peculiar beast and not handled very well by the search engines since it’s frequently the case that people are searching from one country for somewhere to stay in another one and that scenario just isn’t dealt with well by the algorithms.

How come? Well, basically they operate on the logical assumption that if you’re searching for something then it would make more sense for them to tell you about somewhere that you could find it locally. Clearly that’s a good thing if you’re looking for a plumber. It’s not nearly so good if you’re looking for somewhere for your next holiday.

The effect of this is that it’s rarely worthwhile for a European property to list on an American hosted listing service. That’s a bit of a shame as obviously there are Americans who go on vacation in Europe and vice versa.

Unfortunately, the only foolproof way around that is to mirror the sites on both sides of the Atlantic and we’ve been doing just that for that past few months. So far the effect has been largely to attract new rental properties in America but there’s a steady buildup of Americans using the sites hosted over there too.

So, having the first results of that little experiment behind me I’m now thinking of hosting a feeder site elsewhere. Australia seems the obvious choice although it will mean that I’ll need to set up Australia in the database. Oh well, another “to do” for the coming winter.

The actions that the American, British and European central banks have taken have all affected their respective exchange rates of course.

We’ve seen the pound move from a typical $1.50 to more like $2 these days and that’s obviously had quite a considerable effect on international trade between the two countries which has always been substantial. Although it’s clearly an advantage to tourists from the UK going to America clearly the move in the other direction has gone down substantially.

Within Europe the pound has gone from around 60p to the euro to more like 80p for a euro these days which, combined with the dramatic price increases in discount airline flights, has pretty much killed off British tourism in Europe this year.

But the impact on tourism is just one aspect (and a minor one at that) of the impact on the European economy. It might be great for the European tourists to have really cheap holidays this year but if the exchange rate continues at anything like the current level they’ll soon find themselves out of a job as their products are priced out of the range of export markets.

One thing that constantly confuses is that whenever we have a trip to Spain the diesel that we’ve bought there seems to last considerably longer than when the diesel that we ordinarily buy in France.

A LOT longer too. For example, we filled the car up Friday a week ago in Spain, have been running around quite a bit during the week and only needed to get some more last Friday. Ordinarily we’d have been expecting to top up at least once during the week.

Weird, huh?

Of the two courses that I’m seriously thinking of doing next year, both overlap the English course that I’m doing at the moment.

The problem isn’t so much that I’d be doing two courses at once for a long time but the reverse of that as the new courses start just one week before the current course ends. That means that, of course, I’d be starting the new course one week behind the course schedule.

Would it matter though? I actually started my current course two days ahead of schedule and find myself around 10 weeks ahead at the moment so it’s certainly possible to pick up speed. However, on other courses I’ve started anything up to a month ahead and finished up behind schedule.

In that Engineering the Future is a 30 point course and Exploring Psychology is a 60 point one it sounds like it would be easier to pick up lost time on the engineering one. However, I gather that it’s quite an addicting subject and I definitely want to be doing the psychology course fairly soon as I figure it would be handy for the kids.

The “do nothing” option is sounding quite appealing!

Although I never thought the day would come when I’d be talking of completing my modern languages degree, I find myself on the final course of that at the moment.

That means that after six years I am in the position of looking around for something to do that doesn’t fall under the heading of “modern languages”. Now, whilst I’d like to keep the studies ticking over, I’m not really looking for anything heavy duty at the moment although that really doesn’t narrow down the field of subjects a great deal.

Purely out of lazyness, I’m limiting my searches to the courses that the Open University put out but perhaps “limiting” isn’t quite the word to apply here as the range is pretty staggering (no, this isn’t a commercial for them!).

I’d also like the course to finish before the summer next year as, all being well, I’ll be off to the graduation in September. And, I’d like to do something “different” which basically rules out another language.

At the moment, I’m thinking of:

1. World Archaeology, which covers getting on for 12,000 years over the course of 18 weeks and sounds fascinating but quite hard work and starts in September which is before my current course ends, so provisionally I’ve ruled it out for this year;
2. Engineering the Future, which sounds like a truly fascinating course too. It starts in October and runs to June but there’s an associated residential. Definitely in the running;
3. Rundblick: beginners’ German, starts in November but runs to the following October which is quite long and, of course, is “just” another language which provisionally rules it out;
4. Using Mathematics is a course that I’ll need to do in due course but doesn’t really fire me up at the moment, so it’s provisionally ruled out for this year;
5. Geology, doesn’t start ’til February which means that it runs over the (hoped for) graduation ceremony so provisionally gets ruled out; and
6. Exploring Psychology, starts the week before my final exam but is workable (though I’d like a little break). Unlike the above courses this one is a full credit course ie there’s more work to be done. However, it’s one that’s been on my “to do” list for a while now.

So which, if any, will it be? At the moment, I’d say that the archaeology, engineering and psychology courses are the front runners. Or, of course, I could just take a break 🙂