Travel Stories and Advice

[Ruby]

So! Tonight in the comments the Minnions were hot on the topic of travel, and several people expressed interest in having a place on the forums to swap stories and advice. Well, here it is! Feel free to share cool stories, seek advice, or just talk about places you want to go! *coughNordiccountriescough*



I'll kick this off! When I was five, my family decided to move to Guatemala for three months. We stayed with a family in Antigua between February and April, and also sallied forth to Panama and a few other destinations.

One of the perks of traveling during the tourist-off season--I'm pretty sure I was the only little blond girl in all of Antigua. I had a remarkable amount of freedom to rome the city, because everyone knew who I belonged to, so it was almost impossible to get lost.

My parents placed me in the local grade school in an effort to get me to learn spanish. Unfortunately for them, my class was just starting to learn english and the teacher was THRILLED to have a fluent english speaking kid playing and talking with the other students. I pretty much survived the entire trip knowing only the words for "please", "thank you", "lunch", and smiling charmingly at adults.

[Fen Shen]

Ooh, travel stories and travel advice - what a good idea!

Thanks to my parents, I've been around in lots of places in Europe. Later, I was also in Thailand and in Sri Lanka. The latter was my most best holiday month ever - I was travelling on a pretty tight budget, but with a friend whose father comes from Sri Lanka so the people where incredibly welcoming. And the island is just so beautiful and diverse...

Since April is my last free month before I start to work "like an adult", I'm planning two short trips: by ferry to Göteborg and four days in Madrid.
Any recommendations on these cities? Things I shouldn't miss?

[Chizu]

Vienna! Tis such a beautiful City, they have one of the most gorgeous and rich libraries, the Gothic churches, the gardens...everything. It is also a very clean place..

You've been to Sri Lanka? Oh I am going there for 6 weeks next summer on a work placement, I am really excited.

[Sparky Dragon]

Ah, a travel thread! I've traveled across the continent of North America both length and width-wise (Alaska to Florida, through Canada)...I've been to the Czech Republic...and I've been to the Frankfurt airport. Also, I've lived in hotels for up to three months at a time. So, if you need American hotel recommendations, I'm your dragon.

But where I REALLY want to go is northern Europe.

[mithrysc]

But where I REALLY want to go is northern Europe.

^that. Maybe I'm just an obsessed fan, but even before SSSS Ireland and Iceland were both places I'd really love to travel too.

I've been to a lot of places around the United States (my family likes visiting National Parks), and it was even better when we went off-season. Downsides were that some places were closed, but hey, less people and less expensive. Top places include those with forests, mountains, or rocky shores and waves. (I like the ocean, but not beaches wherein you can't see the beach for the people.)

We went to Quebec City once, and that was sort of where my language learning inclination really started because I couldn't understand anything not in English, and there was so much that wasn't that I might know if I knew something other than English. I had a game of trying to figure out what things were from my knowledge of Latin/ English.

[Haiz]

hellooooooo travel thread
I've been kinda doing a travelogue thingie in the general thread because I'm currently on vacation in Wales, but it seems like maybe I should continue here? I'm gonna do it brace yourselves

WALES ADVENTURES
~*travelogue part 3*~

- we finally found out how Llanelli is pronounced. something like FHLENEHFLIUH, but i forgot it just as i wrote it down anyway. good job haiz

- first thing today was some cathedral. st. david's, i think. there were a lot of buildings and ruins so it's hard to show off with one photo, so here's one with me posing in a windowsill instead:


- then we were at some farmy place with a trail to the sea, and there were sheep. and LAMBS. TEENY TINY LAMBS. my brother took some photos of them, so we took photos of him doing that


- and lastly, we visited a town called Tenby which was pretty nice


SO YEAH

also, i've kinda been all over europe with a few exceptions? often because we travel between norway and czech, and a lot because my mom has a constant urge to leave norway. So if anyone wanna hear about anything I have quite a few stories ahahahah

I aaalsoooo have a lot of pics and stuff on my blog, with its own dedicated travel tag and everything. /shameless self promotion

[Ruby]

hellooooooo travel thread
I've been kinda doing a travelogue thingie in the general thread because I'm currently on vacation in Wales, but it seems like maybe I should continue here? I'm gonna do it brace yourselves

WALES ADVENTURES
~*travelogue part 3*~

- we finally found out how Llanelli is pronounced. something like FHLENEHFLIUH, but i forgot it just as i wrote it down anyway. good job haiz

...

also, i've kinda been all over europe with a few exceptions? often because we travel between norway and czech, and a lot because my mom has a constant urge to leave norway. So if anyone wanna hear about anything I have quite a few stories ahahahah

Oooh! That looks like so much fun! Wales is so colorful (and you are too! Nice pants hehe)

Wales has always been a Place I Want to Travel, almost as much as Welsh is a Language I Want to Hear Spoken. Seriously, the phonetic rules are awesome/ridiculous.

[Richard Weir]

Nice piccies! Those lambs are sooo cute, especially the one that looks like it's doing a cat impression!

The "LL" in Welsh is tough to pronounce. First off, it's unvoiced. It's produced by starting like an "L", but allowing air to escape past the sides of the tongue -- so instead of pulling your tongue back to make an "L" sound, you have to make your tongue narrower to allow space between it and your side teeth!

BBC Newsreaders have it rewritten as "HL" to make it easier to sound half-way right. So "Llanelli" is sort of pronounced "Hlanehluh".

Irish has a similar sound only it's much sharper, and is often transliterated as "CL".

[Haiz]

Oooh! That looks like so much fun! Wales is so colorful (and you are too! Nice pants hehe)

Wales has always been a Place I Want to Travel, almost as much as Welsh is a Language I Want to Hear Spoken. Seriously, the phonetic rules are awesome/ridiculous.

It is fun and colourful!! I love Walessss
(also thanks. it's kind of my trademark now, if i don't show up in colourful clothes people will think the apocalypse is nigh)

Nice piccies! Those lambs are sooo cute, especially the one that looks like it's doing a cat impression!

The "LL" in Welsh is tough to pronounce. First off, it's unvoiced. It's produced by starting like an "L", but allowing air to escape past the sides of the tongue -- so instead of pulling your tongue back to make an "L" sound, you have to make your tongue narrower to allow space between it and your side teeth!

BBC Newsreaders have it rewritten as "HL" to make it easier to sound half-way right. So "Llanelli" is sort of pronounced "Hlanehluh".

Irish has a similar sound only it's much sharper, and is often transliterated as "CL".

thanks! love the lambs

Yeah, I figured out how to make the LL sound, but a welsh lady pronounced Llanelli even more different than we thought, so now all I have is a fading memory of breathy sounds

I learnt some years ago that the irish gaelic version of my birth name, helen, is Éibhlin, pronounced Evelyn. It's pretty cool

[Laufey]

I was curious so I went to google translator to listen to how Llanelli is pronounced and it sounds a bit like the Icelandic double L, although softer. Icelandic one actually sounds almost like a TL - you start out by placing your tongue at the teeth but then blow air by the side of the tongue and the sound forms into an L. No one can entirely agree on which side of the tongue this should be, or should it even be both sides at the same time, of course (my opinion: left side). I remember someone once describing it as a hi-hat sound, which actually sounded hilariously accurate.

[Fenris]

The furthest and longest I've been abroad was two weeks in Cuba (mainly Havana and some time in a town and agricultural area outside of the city). Was a fun trip, although the heat (despite travelling in autumn) was intense, not to mention the humidity. Since it was not quite a holiday, the weekdays tended to include 6-10 hours of meetings and travelling between meetings, although in the weekends I spent time exploring the city and subjecting my skin to UV radiation on the beach. I generally don't like cities much, but parts of Havana are simply stunning, although I did prefer it when I went outside of it. Even got to have some discussions with cuban farmers about all kinds of things. I did pick up some spanish while there, although not much, since Norwegian did me no good, German just a bit more (met a few people who spoke some German) and few people spoke much English (in Havana though, many could speak a bit of English). Some highlights of the trip was getting a tattoo (still my best experience getting a tattoo, guy was pretty fluent in English due to working in Europe, and we listened to cuban hip-hop and discussed all kinds of things. Getting a free meal with the tattoo was nice as well.), going out drinking and dancing with Cubans, Cuban food in general (barring the touristy restaurants with some exceptions), playing chess against a guy who worked at the hotel who told stories of his time serving in the army in Ethiopea and so on.

Beyond that, I've mostly travelled to other Scandinavian countries (mainly Sweden to buy things like meat, tobacco and alcohol fairly often), although other Scandinavian countries are only barely 'foreign' anyway, and some short trips to London. Planning on going to Russia and possibly Germany in summer (and planning on studying in Germany from autumn on).

[Fen Shen]

...and planning on studying in Germany from autumn on.

Wow, great! Do you already know which city? 

[Haiz]

I have returned from today's adventures, so here is my
WALES TRAVELOGUE part four!!!
today I've been cold, wet, miserable and covered in mud. it has also been the best day of the week so far!

first we went to some castle to see a falconry show, i managed to soak my shoes within the first ten minutes of going outside, and we had to wait about an hour for the show. in light drizzle and muddy terrain. The falconry show was pretty great, even if it was the beginning of the season, and the birds were a tad uncooperative due to also being cold and wet. It ended when the merlin falcon hid in one of the castle towers and didn't come down until after the show.
But I got to hold an owl!


we then went to a nearby town called Cardigan for some warmth and Traditional Welsh Broth. It was nice.

theeeeeeeeen we found a dolmen!! it was in the middle of nowhere, almost unmarked, but we found it!

the weather was also clearing up by then, so the sheep-filled landscape all around us was clad in beautiful light, and one of my fav hobbies is basically to frolick in green grass and run in circles around cool rock formations. So that's what I did.

Speaking of
we saw some really strange shapes in the distance
so we drove closer to inspect
and it was, in fact, huge heaps of rocks.

Now, I think I can call myself Moderately Adventurous. I had the strongest urge to run and climb on this heap of rocks. so that's what I did. I'm actually in this picture, but I'm right by the rocks, so you can't see me. Half my family stayed in the car and mom didn't bring her jacket, so it was just me, running against the wind to explore rocks. It was fantastic. I can't exactly tell you why I had so much fun running around in this weird windy landscape full of rocks, but 10/10 would do again. I saw more rock heaps from that one, but I restrained myself and returned to the cat-tankcar before too long.

so yeah, that was my day. birds and rocks

[Fenris]

Wow, great! Do you already know which city? 

Potsdam, preferably. Otherwise other alternatives are Hildesheim and Cologne.

[Gwenno]

Haha, I just love how this thread became a series of posts on Wales. We don't usually get a lot of attention when people outside the UK consider holidays, so gotta admit that all of this really warms my heart ^_^ (there was a point where I'd carry a map of Europe with me when travelling so that when people would inevitably go "Wales?", or the worse "isn't that a part of England" I'd be prepared to explain)

Glad you're having a good time there Haiz, and that you're dealing with the rain and muck in good spirits. It rains quite a lot in Wales but I've always liked the rain, and never really understood why it made some people act so soggy! Anyway, it looks like you've been having an amazing time there and I hope that the rest of your holiday is super-duper-mega-awesome as well

I was curious so I went to google translator to listen to how Llanelli is pronounced and it sounds a bit like the Icelandic double L, although softer. Icelandic one actually sounds almost like a TL - you start out by placing your tongue at the teeth but then blow air by the side of the tongue and the sound forms into an L. No one can entirely agree on which side of the tongue this should be, or should it even be both sides at the same time, of course (my opinion: left side). I remember someone once describing it as a hi-hat sound, which actually sounded hilariously accurate.

THIS!!! My brother speaks Welsh and has been learning Icelandic for a while, and he was really impressed with the similar phonetics of the languages. Between everyone in my immediate family we can communicate in maybe 15 languages at an okayish level (somehow we all ended up as huge language nerds ), and Icelandic is the only other place where we've heard the "ll" sound. Only it seems you guys have different sub variations of it which confused us for a bit :/

Anyway - interesting travel stories……

JAPAN! I'd decided when I was maybe six that I had to go to Japan, and so when I finished high school I got a job, earned some money and brought a ticket. Excellent plan, but two weeks before my departure date Fukushima kinda happened. Decided to go anyway after some serious thought, and convinced my family I would be far enough away that the radiation wasn't going to kill me. Looking back it was definitely a good decision.

I worked on a program called WOOF Japan, which let people (Japanese and foreigners) work as volunteers on organic farms and family owned establishments. You would stay with a host family and work in exchange for food and board. It was a really good system, and the people I ended up staying with were wonderfully kind and gave me a chance to enjoy Japan in a way that just wouldn't be possible as a regular run of the mill tourist. I chose very rural places for my placements in the hope that there wouldn't be much English spoken and it would force me to learn Japanese quicker it kiiiinda worked I guess, but it was very stressful not to be able to have a fluent conversation with anyone for such large periods of time (and the experience also taught me that children are BRUTAL language teachers!). Anyway, I'd recommend the program for anyone who has the time to do it ^_^

Nearing the end of my trip I did a bit of travelling and stayed at a youth hostel where an interesting thing happened. There was a Finnish girl there and it was the first time I'd had an English conversation for around two months so I was very talkative (We got thrown out of the common room after quoting over the lord of the rings for around half an hour having never met before), and seeing as we both obviously had excellent taste in movies we started swapping reading suggestions. Kalevala was top of her list and I read it soon as i got a chance. That was the first I'd really thought about Finland, but the thought of going there has been gathering momentum ever since that moment (and finding ARTD just sealed the deal completely).