May 2006

My holiday officially started when I arrived in Paris this morning. The flight was exceptionally early in the morning and partially because of that today ended early. By early I mean about 6.30pm. I had about 2 hours sleep last night with all the packing I had to do, coupled with the time I had to get up this morning.

Even though my first day in Paris ended up with me falling asleep in my hotel room earlier than I’d liked it wasn’t a wasted day. I arrived to check into my hotel a little too early, so my room wasn’t ready and wasn’t going to be ready until 1.30pm, and it was only 11am. With two hours to kill before I could get into my room, I left my bags at the hotel and went for a walk to familiarise myself with the surrounding area, and gather information for the rest of my stay here.

I found a few excellent little cafe’s and a quiet park to sit in and relax for a little while. It also gave me the chance to try to learn some French, which was an little issue I had managed to ignore. I had my camera with me so I managed to get a couple of shots I’m happy with and I’ll post them later.

After my initial exploring, I checked into the hotel, gathered a few of the maps I had acquired and decided to walk to the Arc de Triomphe. I’ve heard from everyone who’s been here, that the Metro service is great, I made the decision this morning with my initial exploring to see the city on foot instead of public transport.

There were a few wrong turnings and I got myself totally lost at one point but eventually I found my way to the Arc. The thing is huge. It looms over you and I think that if there wasn’t so much space around it it would be a very intimidating monument. The space around it is just right though as it lets the Arc fit into the surrounding area and it’s size doesn’t seem out of place. The statues and designs on the Arc are stunning and you can’t stop yourself standing there transfixed by it.

After I’d had a look at it from every angle I could think of I had another look at the map and decided to walk to the Trocadéro and the Eiffel Tower. The Trocadéro is another beautiful and imposing building, split into two separate halves with an area filled with tours, and food stalls. It is at the top of a hill overlooking the Seine and it should dominate it’s skyline. It unfortunately has a pretty neighbour that gets all the attention, and after today I understand why. When you walk between the two halves of the Trocadéro, you are greeted with by the Eiffel Tower in all it’s glory. It towers over everything around it and when viewed from the Trocadéro you have the perfect angle to see the gardens behind it framed between it’s giant legs. When I saw it I just stood there, dumbstruck by the scene. Photo’s and images on TV truly don’t do the Eiffel Tower justice. It’s remarkable.

I wandered over to it, completely in awe, grabbed an ice cream and just stood and stared at it for a little while. I was getting hungry so I walked around and found a cafe to grab something to eat and a beer, and only when I sat down did I realise how sore my feet and legs were. I had walked for hours.

Feeling refreshed after I had eaten I made the long walk back to the hotel. I had intended to relax for an hour and then go out and find a nearby cafe for a couple of beers and to watch the world go by. Unfortunately the walk and the early start to my day informed my body that it needed a nap. So before I knew it I had fallen asleep.

I’m glad I had the nap now, since I’m still a little tired but nowhere near as tired as I would have been if I’d stayed out. My time in Paris isn’t about partying and drinking to all hours, it’s about recharging my batteries and relaxing before I visit Lucy in Madrid and before the inevitable liver abuse that’s going to ensue in Cyprus at the wedding.

Tomorrow should be a full and rewarding day. I’m taking my camera with me and I’m going to get some shots of everything I saw today, plus I’m going to walk along the banks of the Seine and go to see the Notre Dame Cathedral.

The Louvre I leave till Monday.

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In two days I begin the first holiday I’ve had in two years.

I’ve had time off work obviously, but I haven’t left Scotland for anything other than work since my two weeks in Canada in 2004. I’m really burnt out from work, study, and everything else and this trip couldn’t come at a better time. On Saturday morning the trek to Cyprus, for the wedding previously mentioned, begins in Paris. The two week itinerary includes Paris, Madrid to visit friends, Rome, possibly Athens, before finally arriving in Ayia Nappa the day before the wedding.

Since I have two weeks the plan is to do as little flying as possible, and instead travel by land and sea, which I’m hoping will help me relax and just let the experience wash over me. There are a few instances where I unfortunately have to fly, for example from Cyprus to the UK, and Madrid to Rome, simply because I don’t have the time to travel any other way, which is a shame as flying can be a stressful time that I don’t really want to intrude on my travel experience.

All I really want to do in the next two weeks though, is relax and soak up the different cultures and watch the world go by. I’m hoping to do a lot of writing too, which in turn should benefit this website. I’ve noticed a lot of the posts on the site come at the end of a long day and the quality of the posts is somewhat lacking. My only defence is that it’s because I’m constantly too tired to care. Now that I’ve finished my first OU course, and I’m about to have a much needed break, I hope I can start to provide some decent content for a change.

I’m going to go out for a few beers with my friends tonight, and spend tomorrow worrying about all the stupid little details involved with travelling. I’ve no doubt I’ll forget something important.

Saturday can’t come soon enough

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I had my best finish in a MTT tonight. The monetary gain was minimal but I was very pleased with my game throughout the tournament. Out of 971 people I finished 30th when my KK was cracked by AJ, when an Ace hit the flop.

It was a $5 +$0.50 tournament and I received a whopping $14.57 back for my 3 hours of effort, and lest we forget the staggering 97.86 tournament points, but overall I am pleased with the way I played, making decent reads and laying down big hands when I had the feeling I was beat.

Hopefully my tournament game is going to improve and I’ll put in a decent showing in the Blogger Tournament this year.

**********

PokerStars Tournament #25060915, No Limit Hold’em

Buy-In: $5.00/$0.50

971 players

Total Prize Pool: $4855.00

Tournament started – 2006/05/24 – 15:10:00 (ET)

You earned 97.86 tournament leader points in this tournament.

For information about our tournament leader board, see our web site at

http://www.pokerstars.com/tlb_tournament_rankings.html

Congratulations!

Thank you for participating.



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Wow, I can’t believe it’s been a year since the last one already.

I have registered to play in the PokerStars World Blogger Championship of Online Poker!

This Online Poker Tournament is a No Limit Texas Holdem event exclusive to Bloggers.

Registration code: 7330476

Update: For some reason things went nuts with this post, with it overlapping the comments and trackback. I’ve done a little tinkering with the html so it should be fine now

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I finished my Open University Humanities course last night. I was really stressing out over the last essay, since it has to be completed in exam like conditions, and I suck at exams. It’s not as strict as having to have someone watch over you while you’re doing it, so you can do it anywhere, at any time. The only stipulation is you have two hours from the moment you read the questions.

I had filled out the student details form at some point last week with the intention of doing the essay then, and just getting it out of the way. The only problem was that when I picked up the question sheet I couldn’t open it; So it sat on my desk for about a week. I finally plucked up the courage to just go for it at about 8pm last night and managed to work my way through it in just under two hours. As I’ve said about pretty much every essay, I don’t think it’s very good, but at this point I’m just hoping for a pass.

So with it completed it has to be sent to the exam office, and they have to receive and acknowledge receipt before friday. I had planned on sending it by special delivery which guarantees it will get there tomorrow and it has to be signed for. Everything should be fine….that was until I arrived at the post office and discovered that it’s closed for the day. There was a slight case of hysteria, no more needs to be said about that. I walked back into the office and found out we’d had a delivery of post this morning, a slight glimmer of hope in the horizon. After I hassled the office junior a little she managed to contact the Royal Mail collection office and confirm we’re having a pickup from our office today, so it’s being sent from here. The panic is still bubbling under the surface and it probably will until Its been confirmed that they’ve received it, If they get it even a day late I fail the course.

The last thing I want to do is fail the course because I botched the posting of the last essay, especially after all the work and stress I’ve put into this course.

Breath

Relax

Think Happy Thoughts

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