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Welcome to my travel log! You will find here a lot more than in the travel reports, stripped from political correctness. Enjoy! 
Dec 25, 2010 09:00 PM Lwów (UA) - Boxing Day - in the snow
It started snowing heavily the night before. Within a couple of hours, a few centimetres of white powder covered roofs, pavements, lanterns, monuments and trees. The temperature dropped dramaticaly by several degrees, well below freezing. By morning, the city was covered with snow completely. It looked as if it was snowing there for a number of days. A thought that my flight could be late ran through my mind.
Yet, I had until 2pm today to browse the city a little more, drink a little more of the mulled wine being sold from the booths of the Christmas Market, or sip teas in one of the medieval cellars. It was very cold and strong wind was a terrible chill factor. It was harder to wander about the town than the day before. Gloves were essential.
Sunday, and not necessarily the Boxing Day as this may actually falls later in Ukraine, meant that many churches opened their doors and songs sang at masses could be heard yards away. The singing was different from what I had been familiar before. But still rather sad, so contrary to the joyful Gospel and Baptist masses, which I like so much.
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Dec 24, 2010 09:00 PM Lwów (UA) - Christmas Day on foot
I grabbed two maps of the city today, and went on discovering. The main objective was to complete the browsing through the old part of the town and to reach the Shevchenko Gai to take a few shots of Ukraine's traditional wooden structures. In fact, the Gai, also known as the Museum of National Architecture, has quickly become my favourite spot in Lwów. The park was a wooded area, where snow and brown leaves were still covering the park's floor. The structures, many of which were churches, looked incredible. They were also still in use. It was fascinating to see that they were constructed without the use of foundations! The regular households also on display did not use foundations and the houses could be elevated on logs, maybe as a method to avoid flooding.
In the centre, I found the Panorama restaurant, on the top of the Opera Hotel, which offered great seafood and views of the historical centre of Lwów. They also had free wifi (although a bit patchy), which let me browse a little and check Christmas messages from my friends around the world.
Oddly, Fashion TV was being shown in many bars and restaurants. I figured this was to remind the guests that they should eat up not to end up looking like the size zero stick figures on the screens, which in most cases looked rathe revolting.
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Dec 23, 2010 09:00 PM Lwów (UA) - also known as Lemberg, L'viv and Lvov.
Lwów for centuries has been Poland's Royal city, until it was awarded to the Soviet Union at the end of the WWII. It is a UNESCO listed site with lovely old town, cobbled streets and crumbling trams. Weather forecast was not too bad for the city and I was hoping to see much of Lwów's old town renovated in time for the Euro 2012 football championships. For the city was awarded the World Cultural Heritage Site by UNESCO and as a Polish Royal City, together with Kraków and Warsaw, is a magnificent showcase of Polish urban planning and life.
My flight was 1.5 hours late! The airline was allegedly waiting for transatlantic transfer passengers. That was nice of them, makin sure people did not miss their Christmas connections.
Sun was setting in Lwów when I reached my hotel, the oldest hotel in the city - Hotel George. But there was enough time to browse the old town and find a venue for Christmas Eve dinner (Cazanova restaurant) and after supper drinks (Dublin Irish Pub).
The old town had a couple of Christmas Markets, one at the Square just by the massive Townhall and the other by the Opera House, where also a giant Christmas Tree stood. Festive mood was definitely around. Although people did not necessarily seem like in the mood. I think that their Christmas was going to be later so there were many people about as if this was just a regular start of the weekend.
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Dec 23, 2010 09:00 PM Merry and Jolly Good Christmas All!
To all my friends! And since I am now in the Polish Royal City of Lwów (currently within Ukrainian borders) let me do the Polish thing and wish you all excellent health, unconditional love, prosperity, happiness, joy, thrilling and breathtaking discoveries in the world, true friendships and everything else you'd wish yourselves.
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Dec 22, 2010 09:00 PM Warszawa (PL) - Decision making
Winter hit hard this Christmas time. Massive snowfall in northern Poland meant delayed and overcrowded trains, cancelled flights and impassable roads. There was no way I was going to reach coast for Christmas. There was also no way that I was going to stay in Warsaw. So, a quick clicks on the net and a return ticket to the Polish Royal City of Lwów was booked.
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Dec 21, 2010 09:00 PM In flight (GB-DE-PL)
LOT Polish Airlines have been so cheeky that they claimed my next flight out of London would be available on the 26th December. They obviously did not want to comply with the EU regulation by rerouting me to Warsaw on the very next available flights. And Lufthansa, for example, had many seats available via Düsseldorf or Munich or Frankfurt. I had to look them up myself and twist LOT's arm to book me on those. Seats were disappearing very fast, so the earliest possible was a route via Düsseldorf on the 22nd December. It is always wise to try large carriers as they seem to have more seats available than small airlines with 50 odd aircraft.
03:30am wake up call and a 04:00am taxi ride to Heathrow started my day today. The airport's Terminal 1 did not allow passengers in, and instead they put up large tents where people had to wait for their flights. A couple of BAA (Heathrow operator) staff kept calling flights about to open check-in and only allowed passengers on those flights. When I arrived, at about 04:45am, they called Lufthansa flight to Munich. So, I pretended to be on that flight and blagged my way in. They were not checkin the tickets or names and since I needed to go to the Lufthansa check in desks as well, no-one stopped me.
Breakfast at the Star Alliance lounge and on time departure to Düsseldorf above thick layer of cloud.
I much preferred Düsseldorf airport than Frankfurt or Munich, which perversely subject passengers to multiple screening and metal detectors even on the airside.
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Dec 20, 2010 09:00 PM Frozen Britain
It is not snowing that much in London today. Actually, it is raining a little, but Heathrow Airport still has been operating only one runway, meaning that over 60% of flights got cancelled again, and Terminal 1 (my terminal) was occupied with hundreds of thousands of travellers, who could not go anywhere. So, BAA, the airport operator, eventually closed the terminal. This meant that I was not going to travel to Poland today, either. Stuck, like many of the aircraft on Heathrow's frozen tarmac.
In the evening, the airport opened its second runway. Yet, many flights remain cancelled or severely delayed, and operations may not come back to normal for some time. My flight is early in the morning, so it better operate as scheduled...
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Dec 19, 2010 09:00 PM White Britain
So, all that hurry to arrive from West Africa, where life was so slow and easy and full of sun and beach and drumming and partying and fishing, in time for my trip to Poland was unnecessary. Britain froze completely. Worse, aircraft froze in their stands at Heathrow, so the airport was closed and flights were cancelled. Not all flights, but no aircraft could land since all stands were occupied. Cheeky LOT Polish Airlines claimed that although they cancelled my flight, it was all up to me to find an alternative route out of London for which there were still seats. And seats have been disappearing like fresh rolls at a corner bakery. Well, it was supposed to be their job, actually. First they said that they had nothing available until 25 December! But I quickly found a route with Lufthansa (in such circumstances larger airlines usually have seats and offer a variation of alternative routes) via Dusseldorf.
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Dec 18, 2010 09:00 PM The Gambia - Day 9
Leaving. This time for sure. The delay however meant that I was going to miss my connecting train to London. And in turn creating a greater risk that I was going to miss my flight to Warsaw this evening. Still in Banjul, I contemplated an option to fly from Manchester to London, if the schedules allowed and the flights were operating. Preferably to London City airport... Yet, I was not even sure whether weather affected my Warsaw flight as well.
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Dec 17, 2010 09:00 PM The Gambia. - Day 8 - the last day
Leaving. But before that - beach day. Since I have become so popular, I was never alone. My local mobile phone never stopped ringing. And for most of the time at the beach, there was someone to talk to. Originally, my flight to Manchester was scheduled to leave at 5pm. The plan was to linger at the beach until 3pm. Yet, at about 10am it became clear that due to heavy snow in the UK, airports closed and the aircraft bound for Banjul that was supposed to leave Manchester at 09:10 had at least 5 hours delay. And therefore rescheduled to depart Banjul at 10pm. That meant an entire day of sun. Then, at about 4pm, it transpired that there was going to be further delay. Perhaps additional 2 hours. So, The Gambia Experience organised a free buffet dinner. It was easy for them as they apparently owned the Kombo Beach Hotel, where I was staying. After the scoff, I went to the beach to spend the rest of my dalasis at the bar. I broke the rule and ordered two bottles of JulBrew. I invited the security guard, Modu, and a local lady masseuse, who rather expectedly joined my table. Out of a blue, or rather out of the dark, a jembe band appeared and started drumming and singing a little. Some locals came upon hearing the music and started dancing. It turned out to be an animated, however unplanned, evening. At 10pm new information arrived that the aircraft had not yet left England, but was due to depart to The Gambia within minutes and arrive in Banjul at about 04:15am. This extended the delay of my flight to at least 12 hours. The Gambia Experience representative suggested going to bed and ordering a wake-up call in time for the 03:30am airport transfer departure. So, I lingered at the beach a bit longer and chatted to the hotel staff.
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