Foreign Perspectives

It’s been six years since I started off on what subsequently became a modern languages degree and from the original 25 of us there are only two left in the “race” at this point.

It’s not so much that people have failed but rather that they’ve reached the point where they have achieved their intended objectives and therefore dropped out of the running towards the degree. The first three years saw a surprising number of us making it to the finishing post of a Diploma in French which, of course, was enough for quite a lot of people. In fact, I was the only one who continued on with languages at that point although one of the original cast has subsequently started down the path of a Diploma in Spanish and another has continued on in step with me but towards a different a different degree.

So, some six years on, two of us will be starting the final course of our respective degrees next February and, hopefully, will both be graduating in Versailles in September 2009.

It seems like ages since I’ve knocked airport security…

I bought a bunch of electronic gadjets whilst I was over in Belfast so figured that the best plan was to put all of it in a single case on the basis that it was sure to require some additional searching. What I’d not allowed for was that they’d want to search the other case too, hence almost 30 minutes in airport security resulting in me nearly missing the plane.

I should have went earlier I hear you say. Ah, but they wouldn’t let me into the security area any earlier. I went through as soon as I was allowed to as I knew that they need to do some additional searching of the case.

It really is getting qute crazy these days. Everyone is carrying more and more electonic bits & bobs but the airport security people just don’t seem to have moved on in being able to deal with it nor in their training as to what they should really be looking for. Despite the lady and gentleman making a slow and methodical search, they still missed checking two items which they should have checked (and, no, they weren’t small items either).

How come they missed them? Well, both items would have turned up on the scanner but the guy running the scanner doesn’t do the searching and so things are missed when they shouldn’t be.

I’ve been going back and forth to Northern Ireland for quite a while now but in the past year it’s started to change quite dramatically.

For instance, the elve taking the money for the Santa photos was Polish and just about all the waiters/waitresses in the hotel were Polish. In fact, Polish workers are seen just about everywhere in Northern Ireland now.

The immigration to Northern Ireland is probably more striking than it is elsewhere in the UK in that there was virtually no immigration to Northern Ireland as recently as three or four years ago. So far, it’s not really changed much about the province but I’m sure that’ll change as the new immigrants settle into live there and start wondering about a few of the peculiar things that go on.

After promising people for ages that I was going to upgrade the maps on the listings sites, I’ve finally gotten around to making a proper start on it as you can see from the first edition of the new map of Europe that appeared on the site this afternoon.

That European map is long overdue as I’ve been adding a couple of countries each year as I’ve gone along which had made the original format less and less viable. I say that it’s the first edition because I’ll need to add a couple of countries further east than those on the map here and, of course, there’s the entries in China and Thailand.

So, in practice, that map is merely stage one of the sites going global with the maps but that’ll need a bit of restructuring of the database so it’ll be a “while” before all of the planned changes come online.

Still, a good start with the graphics pad I think. Next up is France which needs some tidying up and then Spain which needs a lot of tidying up.

If you’re travelling over the Christmas period and haven’t booked yet, then don’t hang around when you see a decent price as it’ll not be there for long.

Just about all the discount airlines operate load balancing software which means that as the plane fills up the prices rise automatically. Actually, it’s as the plane appears to be filling up that this happens so you shouldn’t constantly check the prices of a particular flight directly with the airline as this will have the effect of making the price rise.

Hotels aren’t so bad but the cheaper hotels and the cheaper rooms within a particular hotel tend to be booked first so the longer you leave it, the higher the price you’ll have to pay.

Buses usually don’t do this but those aimed at tourists tend to. For example, a route I priced recently has risen from the normal EUR 38 to EUR 134 this morning.

The one area where you’re usually OK is with trains but even if they don’t raise the prices (and many franchised lines will) they’ll fill up over the peak holiday seasons.