Author Archives: Will Gons

Starting our European Adventure in Brussels, Belgium

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FullSizeRender8As we passed under the English Channel on a train from England to Belgium, I started to read about the Eurail passes we previously purchased. Though our research about traveling in Europe, many different resources led to the same conclusion: a Eurail pass is the best way to get around. The pass allows us to ride almost any long distance train in Europe (excluding England, Scotland and Albania) for usually no additional cost. There are many different options for passes, but Sara and I chose a three month unlimited pass. The writer at Seat 61 has a great description of the different passes and was helpful with our decision making. The unlimited Eurail Global Pass was our best option because we’ll travel in Europe for three months and we don’t want to be limited in the number travel days. For us, the hardest part was coordinating receipt of the passes. We purchased them back in May and had them shipped to Sara’s parents who received the certified package. Then Sara’s mom brought the passes to us when we saw her in Africa. Continue reading →

A Countryside Escape to Hastings, England

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Breakfast at Regency Cafe in London

Despite how tired I was after having a fun weekend in Glasgow, it was very hard to sleep in the uncomfortable seats on the overnight Megabus. Tiredly arriving in London, our first goal was to find coffee and breakfast. My brother in law, Todd, is our personal London guide because he has several extended visits under his belt. He had emailed us a list of pubs and a breakfast place we couldn’t miss. Being 7:30am, we headed to the breakfast place, Regency Cafe, which was just a few blocks from the Victoria Station. Walking in felt like a throwback to the 1960s. It was a cute little neighborhood place where the set breakfast needed to be ordered just right at the counter (thankfully Todd gave us a heads up). Everything was delicious. The large portions in the typical English breakfast was the perfect thing to recover from a rough night of sleeping and a weekend of drinking.

After a filling breakfast and wandering around a few blocks looking for a Continue reading →

Cruising the Scottish Isles from Glasgow, Scotland

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Top deck view on the Waverley

After the easy airport transfers in Doha and Dubai, the bus from London Heathrow felt unnecessarily difficult and like it took an eternity. First, the busses didn’t accept payment onboard because they have a prepaid system using Oyster Cards. Then, we learned that the bus station does not sell the Oyster Cards. We had to go down to the tube station to find a kiosk and then guess how much money we needed to put on a card for the one bus ride. With all the confusion, we missed the first bus and waited an hour for the next one. I don’t understand why some cities make public transportation so difficult for visitors. We had a similar fiasco with Sydney’s busses but eventually the bus driver let us pay cash.

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Broke out of the hotel for a pub meal in Croydon

We were headed to the Hampton Inn in South Croydon. Sara had some hotel points which we used for a three night stay. As a bonus, the room included breakfast which was a full buffet with everything needed for a proper breakfast. We locked ourselves in the hotel room until we were more caught up on posts from Africa. This website can be quite a bit of work, especially when Continue reading →

Admiring the Tallest in the World, Dubai, UAE

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787 Dreamliner Large WindowLeaving Doha, we were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves on a brand new Boeing 787 Dreamliner. The inside was beautiful! There was a ton of overhead space and the walkways were not cramped. There were large windows that tinted for the sun rather than completely blocking the view with a plastic shade. The seats felt spacious and very comfortable. Too bad our flight to Dubai was only 45 minutes long! Once we arrived, we had another quick and easy transfer to our hotel.

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Dinner at Afghan Kabab House – mixed kebabs and chicken kadai

The heat was still present along with fasting for Ramadan. Our hotel, Landmark Plaza, was right across the street from a metro station so we only had to briefly brave the heat while crossing the street. We hid in our hotel room the rest of the afternoon while waiting for fasting Continue reading →