London Marathon

Last year, I had spent the Sunday of the London Marathon out along the course, cheering for a few friends who were running it... it was the first time I'd been a "serious spectator," trying to see specific people multiple times at different points on the course. Although it was a fun day out, I definitely had the race bug and kept thinking "if only I was out there running..."

The day after last year's race, registration for the 2010 lottery opened online. I figured I'd give it a try, see what happened, and if I didn't get in on the lottery, I'd try for a charity space, but either way, I'd be out there running the race in 2010. Surprisingly enough, a few months later, I got the email congratulating me for having been given a race number through the lottery!

After months of training with friends in the Serpies, long Saturday runs through town on my own, early morning runs from the office, and more pasta than you'd believe, race day was upon us!

I came into race day feeling much better than I'd expected -- this was the first I'd run a marathon in my home city as opposed to having to take a multi-hour drive or flight in the days leading up to it. The energy from the whole city getting ready for the race, as well as from having all your friends either running it or knowing that you were running it (and planning to be out along the course) just added to the excitement!

After cramming into a DLR train for the minute or so to cross the river into Greenwich, I piled out of the train with hundreds of other runners eating our last pre-race bananas, porridge, and energy bars as we walked up the hill in Greenwich Park. Filing into the blue start area, I ran into the first of many Serpies I'd see that day -- in all, more than 100 of us were running with the club, wearing the club's shirts.

After one last nervous queue for the toilets, I dropped off my bag of clothes, phones, and everything for the finish line. It promptly started raining. Now, I'd been hoping this would happen, as the forecasts had called for 68-74 degrees as a high, with bright sun. Although that would have been great for the spectators, that's drastically too warm for the race participants -- anything over 40-45 begins to slow us down as the heat saps our energy. So, at 50 degrees or so, the rain was a welcome start to the race! (granted, we were all hopping up and down in the starting corrals, shivering, but absolutely nobody had any reason to complain!)

A few minutes before the start, race officials removed the barriers separating each of the timed corrals from each other, leading to a mad rush toward the starting line. Now, I'd run Chicago twice, which had an equally large field of ~35k runners, and had started somewhere midpack where I could see a sea of thousands of runners in front of me. Partially based on my forecast finish time, and partly based on the start being split into three separate sections here in London, I was only 100 yards or so behind the start line by the time the gun went off!

Now, for a bit of a diversion: My target in the race was the same as it had been for my most recent prior marathon: a sub-3:10 finish (approx. 7:12/mile pace). I just recently got a GPS watch, and was using that to try to pace myself this time around, aiming for a constant 7:10 pace the whole way around the course.

In the first mile, despite being so close to the front of the field and having crossed the start line within the first minute after the gun, I had zero control over my pace -- the field was crowded enough that I had to just stay along with the flow of the group. Although I knew it was healthy to start out slow and warm up gradually, it made me a bit nervous to see that I was a full minute off of my target pace by the time we crossed the 1-mile mark -- I felt absolutely great and wanted to pick up the pace!

Over miles 2-5, the field thinned out a bit and I was able to pick up the pace gradually to get back toward the pacing that I originally intended. Although this was the one section of the course that I 'd never seen or run before, it was early enough in the day and the crowds were energetic enough that I felt able to settle into my stride relatively quickly.

From about mile 5, as we turned back in toward Greenwich, I tried to settle down into a constant pace and just enjoy a morning run out with tens of thousands of supporters cheering everyone along! At this point, whenever anyone I knew or anyone who recognized the Serpie shirt cheered me on, I'd glance over, wave, and usually say something back in response... the energy I'd pick up from seeing the supporters was absolutely worth it!

Granted, in this case, I had yet to see Gavin when he took the photo:

...and yes, I was carrying Gatorade with me. I still can't bring myself to drink Lucozade (the much more common sports drink here in the UK) during races, for some reason...

The first seriously emotional moment was just after mile 12, as we made the right turn from Shad Thames onto Tower Bridge Road, saw the bridge reaching out ahead of us, and went from a somewhat quiet residential area into a wall of supporters at least six people deep on both sides of the bridge!

Following on from there, we had a few-mile stretch on The Highway, through east London. Although not quite the most scenic or historic part of the course, there were groups of Serpie supporters every few hundred yards, cheering us on. By this point, I wasn't quite able to be as responsive to them -- in some cases, I'd glance toward them, in some, break a bit of a smile, but definitely wasn't considering myself conversational by now.

Just before the course veered off from the Highway, I was on the far right side of the course when I heard "Tim... TIM! TIM!!!" from the far side of the road. Looking over, I saw Chris and Jen... Jen holding a sign "THINK BOSTON" and Chris holding out a bottle of Gatorade. After a bit of a swerve directly across the course, I waved, smiled, grabbed the drink, and kept moving... as my legs were first starting to have the first twinges of exhaustion at this point, they'd had just about perfect timing!

Now, after that segment comes what most people consider the hardest part of the course -- it loops down Westferry Road, through the Isle of Dogs, then back up to Canary Wharf. The Isle of Dogs section is miles 16-18, with many fewer supporters, and in a part of town most people haven't ever seen before. Fortunately for me, it's where I live, so I felt right at home!


As we looped back in toward Canary Wharf, I felt the first twinges of a cramp in my right quad, but figured I'd do my best to just ignore it and hope it went away. Surely enough, with the crowds, bands, and everything else going through the Wharf, I was able to push that out of mind and it seemed to go away!

Leaving Canary Wharf was the quietest part of the whole course -- there was a loop around a roundabout before heading due west into and through town for the last 6 miles. This was the first time I noticed my perceived effort going up, while the pace started to slip a bit. Not good, but then again, I was still on track for a few minutes faster than the 3:10 target I'd set, so there was definitely time to work with there.

These last six miles started off much easier than I'd expected, but as I got to mile 24 or so, my body just began to run out of energy. I knew I was still within range for an on-target finish, but it was more and more tempting to break stride, slow down a bit, and just try to recover. Fortunately, with the crowds picking up and the scenery of Westminster shortly ahead, I was able to push through this, trying slowly to pass those in front of me, one at a time...

By the time I turned the corner from Buckingham Palace and could see the finish line, the clocks had just clicked over to 3:09:00. Now, I knew I had the better part of a minute more than what was on the clocks until my chip time hit 3:10, but tried to push those last 200 yards as much as possible:

Stopping the watch as I crossed the finish line, I saw 3:09:10 -- well within the target! It was only late that night, following an afternoon of champagne, a celebratory dinner, and many hours with the other finishers from the club, that I got home and saw that the actual finish time had been 3:08:59.

All in all, an incredible experience training and running with a group of close friends! Thank you all for your support throughout!

If you really want to see the route, time splits, etc, it should all be visible here:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/31805512

Now, on to register for Boston 2011!

India

It's been a while since I last updated this blog. I figured that, given my recent travels, it might be time to write a bit here.

Three weeks ago, John, Ian, and I flew to Delhi for a few days of exploration in northern India, a few days of relaxation, then a friend's wedding in Goa.

Northern India
Fortunately, we’d all gotten a decent amount of sleep on the 8-hour flight over to India, so we were able to take in a bit of the scenery and the experience during the drive. The road width, structure, and markings had absolutely no correlation with what actually happened on them. Although the roads varied between two and four lanes, that didn’t stop anyone from taking, well, anything with wheels in any direction they chose.

It wasn’t uncommon to see an auto-rickshaw, a few bikes, a donkey pulling an overloaded cart, a few trucks, and cars four- or five-abreast in the space where maybe two of them should have fit. Not only were large trucks passing right next to bikes, but occasionally someone would decide it wasn’t worth the effort of crossing several lanes to move with the flow of traffic, so they’d move against traffic. There were quite a few times we saw a tractor pulling an overloaded cart of bricks, straw, or other materials, blocking at least one lane, moving toward the flow of traffic. Let’s just say I’ve never heard a car horn used in as many different ways – it worked as a “watch out, I’m here” as well as “you’re in my way,” “what’re you doing?!?” and other messages.

I’m not quite sure how, but our driver was able to keep us moving through this chaos without coming into contact with another vehicle. More power to him!

On the drive, we saw drastically different parts of the country. Leaving Delhi, the road snaked between supports of what will soon be an elevated highway and a tram line, supposedly in time for the Commonwealth Games later this year. As we went a bit further, we saw areas with slums stretching from next to the road, far into the distance. Getting further yet from the city, we eventually saw wide open fields with brick kilns built scattered about the countryside, and with people laboring with brickmaking in the 105+ degree heat.

Agra
We got into Agra shortly before sunset, and had our first experience with hotels. We’d booked all our rooms for the trip through Taj Hotels website – we figured that if the resort where the wedding was being hosted was a Taj property, we wouldn’t be going wrong by booking the rest of the hotels through them.

The driver pulled up to the gate of the hotel, stopped, and popped the hood for the security team to inspect the whole car. After that, we were let close to the building to unload and check in. We then had to go through metal detectors ourselves and have all our luggage scanned with airport-style x-ray devices before being allowed into the lobby. This became standard operating procedure for every place we stayed the rest of the trip – I guess they’re rightfully a bit cautious after the attack on the Taj hotel in Mumbai last year.

As soon as we walked through the scanners into the lobby, we had our first exposure to another regularly occurring quirk – the power went out. You could hear the “clunk” of air conditioning suddenly stopping, and all the lights went out, but nobody flinched or said anything – life continued, staff checked us in with the still-functioning computers, and we began to learn that this was a regular occurrence that doesn’t actually impact much of anything.

By this point, we were all a bit exhausted, and just had a quick swim in the pool, dinner at the hotel, and crashed. This evening was also my first and worst experience with Delhi Belly – the well-known experience where your body doesn’t quite know how to accommodate the changes in climate, food, water, and everything else. It made for a bit of an interesting night, but I was at least mostly with it for the next day’s exploration…

The Taj Mahal
Tuesday morning, we checked out of the hotel and rode over to the Taj Mahal. Before we even got out of the van, a guy had made us as his mark and determined he was going to be our tour guide. We didn’t acknowledge him right away, but after the first few minutes and when he started giving us some helpful advice, we decided we’d at least start the bargaining and see what type of a charge he would have for taking us through the sites.

It ended up being a good choice to hire him – he got us around a few of the queues, pointed out a few good photo opportunities with no crowds, became our group photographer, and had some interesting random knowledge, too!

I have to admit, on first walking through the entrance and being able to see the building, it was incredible! I’d expected “okay, it’ll be a big building” – yes, it certainly was, but was also much more powerful than I’d expected it to be! We took a few hours to explore inside and outside the cathedral, before heading off to Fort Agra for a quick walk around and a few photos.

We then decided we’d head off to see Fatehpur Sikri, a lost city from millennia ago. It was a 40k drive out into the country, taking a solid hour to get there. Once we did, we were immediately attacked by a group of men offering to take us to the site and be our guides. Our driver cautioned us about this, but we figured it would be a better choice than walking multiple kilometers up the hill in 100+ degree heat.

This led us to my one and only experience in life on an autorickshaw. Think of it like a three-wheeled bike with a 5-hp lawnmower engine, carrying four tourists or 15+ locals. They took us up to a large temple, plaza, and building. Unlike the other tourist sites we’d seen, this had many more people begging, selling junk, and just lying around throughout the site. We were a bit surprised, but figured we might as well continue through the area.

Eventually the guide took us to a temple at the center of the site, and explained a tradition where we had to give something to the goddess who was there, making a wish. Conveniently, the “something” that we should be giving to the goddess was a shawl or other piece of fabric that one of the guys sitting nearby was selling at drastically inflated prices. After much haggling and being told repeatedly that it was for either “charity” or “a good cause,” we decided we didn’t particularly need to make any wishes, and excused ourselves.

We got them to drive us back down the hill to the van, when we realized that we may not have actually seen it all… There were many tour buses there, but we had seen enough tourists to fill maybe at most one bus. We showed a few photos to the driver, who said “yes, yes” implying that we’d been to the proper site, but that didn’t give us too much confidence. We began the drive back to Delhi, not knowing whether or not we’d actually seen the site we set out to see!

After looking a bit on Google Maps, we realized that yes, we were actually in Fatehpur Sikri, but we’d only seen a small part of the whole site. Alas… we should have taken the driver’s advice and not even bothered with the hour’s drive there, but it was an amusing experience regardless!

After another six-hour drive back into Delhi, we checked in at our hotel late Tuesday night and once again just had dinner and drinks there. After a western-style breakfast the next morning, we were off to the airport and to Goa.

Goa
It’s difficult to describe just how different Goa was from our first two days in the north of the country. Having left a large international airport in the landlocked dusty city of Delhi, we arrived to the tropical, coastal state of Goa and headed for a coastal resort.

We got in late on Wednesday afternoon, were greeted with coconut water, dropped everything in our rooms, and promptly headed for the pool. It looked out onto the beach, the ocean, cliffs to one side, and a beached ore carrier in the other direction. Quite a picturesque setting, even with the ship there!

We headed off into town for dinner that night, then crashed back at the hotel. Thursday was a quiet day with massages, a game of scrabble looking out over the beach, some more pool time, then dinner back out in town again, this time with a few more friends who’d come in over the course of the day.

The days Friday and Saturday were quite similar – relaxing by the pool, exploring the beach a bit, and just generally enjoying some down time.

Saturday night, we all changed into our kurtas for the first wedding reception. The reception was absolutely incredible – there was a dance floor, DJ, sofas, dinner tables, and a buffet all on a cliff overlooking the sunset in the ocean.

We got to see Kanika and Rob, the bride and groom, enter in their traditional Indian wear, then Kanika’s relatives performed a set of dances, gave several speeches, and finally we got to see Kanika and Rob dance before the dance floor opened up for the whole crowd! All in all, a great night!

Although we had a bit of a slow start the next morning, we went off to see several ceremonies through the day, before the big event of the evening. Rob, his family, and all the male guests met to get ready for the event – we ended up having turbans made for us, then had a bit of a procession across the grounds of the resort, representing the groom entering the bride’s hometown for the beginning of the ceremony. After an hour or more of dancing our way over to the wedding location, Rob entered and they had the full marriage ceremony that evening, followed by a dinner, photos, and a bit of quieter dancing than the previous night.
The next morning, most of the group headed back to London, New York, Mumbai, or wherever everyone calls home. Instead, I made my way back to Delhi, to work the week there.

Delhi
At work, half of my role has to do with technology development, so I’ve been leading a team of 20 or so developers based in India who do our actual programming and design work. Since I was already in the country, I figured it’d make sense to spend some time with them, to put names with faces and to get a better understanding of the work environment.

I gave a “here’s what our system does and here’s why we’re enhancing it” presentation to the full team on Tuesday morning, then met with smaller groups throughout the remainder of the week to work through specific functional requirements, address questions, make design decisions, and confirm where the relationship with this contract vendor is likely to head over the remainder of the year.

This was a definite change of pace from the prior week’s complete disconnection from the chaos of work, but absolutely valuable experience.

In all, an absolutely great trip! Now, I’m just trying to take it easy for the next week before running the marathon here in London next Sunday!

Air Travel Excitement

In early September, I booked my flights back to the States for Christmas. Using some credits from a previous flight, I was able to get a very reasonably priced flight from Heathrow to Harrisburg via Dulles, returning on the same route. All looked promising...

The afternoon before my scheduled departure, my dad sent me an email asking if I’d seen the weather forecast for the east coast, and asking if I could rebook my flight to avoid the snow. I looked online and saw that due to a forecast of 1-2’ of snow falling the day of my scheduled travel, United had waived all change fees for potentially impacted flights, encouraging passengers to pick other routes or to change travel to other dates. I called United to see whether I could reroute through Chicago or postpone travel by a day. The representative with whom I spoke said the first flight she could get me onto would be Christmas Day (a full six days after the originally scheduled flight) and to Chicago, rather than to DC. Needless to say, I decided to risk it with the existing reservation.

After getting home that evening, I looked online and found that there were no particularly cheap last minute alternatives, if my original flight would be cancelled. The least expensive option was a Continental flight a day later, via Hamburg to Newark. I purchased this ticket as a “just-in-case” option, knowing I could cancel it and get a full refund for the first 24 hours if the original flight was cancelled.

On Saturday, I got a text from United stating that my original flight was delayed from 4:45pm Saturday until 8am Sunday. I saw this as a good sign: the plane must be in London already, and it would be going back to the States eventually, with me on it, albeit delayed slightly. Given that, I cancelled the Continental ticket that I’d purchased online.

Shortly after cancelling the Continental ticket, I got another text from United: My flight to Dulles was cancelled. At this point, I couldn’t even get through the phone systems at United to be placed on hold – the voice response system broke before it got that far.

I ended up finding that the least expensive option that would maximize my time back in the States was to buy a completely new ticket to JFK on Aer Lingus. After confirming there were no other less expensive options than this, I decided to go for it and just entirely replace my original United ticket.

My dad was great and drove the three hours to meet me at JFK, rather than having me transferinto midtown and then to a train down to Harrisburg, probably taking at least two hours off of what my ground-based travel time would have been in the States!

On the way back to London, I took the train, which gave me a chance to meet a few friends for brunch in New York before the flight back to London.

So, all in all, I lost just one day at home because of the flight cancellation, but also got to see a few more friends while home, whom I wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

One bright spot out of all of this was the refund process from United: I called their US-based customer service line while waiting to board the Aer Lingus flight in Heathrow at about 4am ET / 9am LN. After only a few minutes on hold, I had my most productive call ever with a reservations agent:

Agent: Good morning, Mr. Renshaw.

Me: Morning. As you can see, I was booked on a flight LHR-IAD yesterday that was cancelled. I’ve booked alternative arrangements with another airline and would just like a refund. What do I need to…

Agent: Done.

Me: Done?

Agent: Yes, I just refunded your full ticket. It’ll hit the credit card you originally used, within a few weeks.

Me: Uh… okay, wow, thanks!

Christmas in the States

I spent the past two weeks back in the States with friends and family. During my first week back, I did all my Christmas shopping, visited with my grandparents, cooked chocolate chip cookies and raisin cookies with Dave (yum!), caught up on a few films I’d been meaning to see for a while, and celebrated Christmas with the full family.

During the second week, I did a bit more traveling:

Last Sunday afternoon, I drove down to Baltimore to watch some football with a group of friends from CMU. For the Steelers v. Ravens game, we headed out to Mothers, a rather popular Ravens bar. Let’s just say that I’m pretty sure we’re the only people in there who weren’t wearing purple Ravens jerseys. When the Steelers pulled ahead in the last minutes of the game, we decided it was probably a good idea to leave before anyone decided to take out the loss on us. Great venue for a game, though!

This past Monday, I drove Dave out to Pittsburgh. He just finished his first semester at Carnegie Mellon as a grad student and, wow, it’s a different experience than when I was there! I’m sure part of it is the different schools, part is based on investments the university made into new buildings, and part is because he’s a grad student, where I’d been an undergrad. He is sharing an office built for three, with only one other grad student. It’s in a new building, with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out onto campus. Not bad! After seeing that and going for an incredible bacon bleu burger at Tessaros, I got to see Dave’s apartment before heading off for the drive to the Poconos.

I met Katherine at her family’s “camp” in the Poconos… let’s just say that it was a fully functional house, as were all of the other “camps” around the lake. We got to catch up with friends, do some hiking through the woods onsite, and meet others from the other nearby camps for New Years Eve. Great times!!

I’m now back in London, getting ready for reality to hit with the return to work tomorrow morning...

New Flat

I moved into my current flat in mid-November. My camera had met with a tragic end in Oslo, so at the time I didn’t have a functional digital camera. Now, thanks to a Christmas present from the parents, I do. A few shots of the building and the inside of the apartment follow:

The parking garage entrance and main building.


Chart House -- My building. I'm on this side of the building, second floor, far left of this photo.


My apartment building from the other side, looking east along the Thames.


Looking out from the living room.


The kitchen.

Rugby and running

A few weeks ago, Ian convinced me to meet him and a few of his friends for a Sunday afternoon game of touch rugby. I made a bit of a fool of myself the first time playing it, but would like to think I've improved a bit over the past few weeks, and have had fun in the process!

After a game yesterday, I was standing around talking with everyone, when someone asked me about running a 10-mile race today. My initial reaction: "sure, why not?" Knowing this group, though, I quickly followed that with "wait... what type of a race is it?"

Let's just say that it's a bit muddy. It's called the Turbo X Pure Filth Challenge. I've done a bit of trail running, but nothing quite like this before. The video here is from last year, but pretty accurate (it gets really fun from about 1:45 into it). It was the same course... 55 degrees or so and cloudy when we started, but we had complete downpours with hail in the middle of it, while running through mud and streams that came up over my waist, before getting to the finish line where the sun came out again!

I'm exhausted and have quite a bit of laundry to work through this evening, but definitely glad I made the trip out there this afternoon!

Updates -- Life, the universe, everything

It's been a while since I've posted -- life's been a bit busy here!

As mentioned in my last post, I've now left the employer with which I came to London and started a full-time role with the American investment bank that had been my client for the past year. Day-to-day, little has changed in my work duties. I'm on the same project, in the same role, with roughly the same responsibilities. I'm no longer involved in sales activities or other stuff beyond my immediate role, but that's okay for now!

I've done a bit of travel, despite my thoughts that I'd be staying local after a rather hectic summer --

Oslo
Back in September, Ben and Katherine had visited London. Katherine was going to be in Norway in early November over a weekend as part of a work trip from the States, so I ended up booking a flight to visit. Due to schedule changes, she arrived in Norway a few days later than originally expected. As I had a non-refundable ticket, I ended up still visiting Norway on my own. Lots of fun, but definitely a different dynamic being a solo traveler. I've posted a few photos of the Kon Tiki museum, the opera house and other sights here.

I have a Canon PowerShot camera that I'd gotten shortly before moving to London. It's worked well... decent photos (all the ones on Picasa...) from a small camera. Unfortunately, I'd been carrying it around in a pocket while walking through Oslo. At some point, it powered on in my pocket and the lens extended. It twisted about 20 degrees and now won't extend or retract the full way... the camera's dead. Time to go shopping when I return to the US over Christmas...

Dublin
The weekend after Oslo, I ended up visiting a former colleague for the weekend in Dublin. We stayed in town right near Temple Bar, went to the Guinness brewery, the old jail, Trinity college and all the other sites -- a great weekend and definitely more Guinness than I've had in a long long time!

On the way back from Dublin, I took a 6:40am Monday flight to London City airport. It's a 12-gate airport that's only 15 minutes from the office on public transit, so I figured if we landed on schedule at 8:10, I'd be in the office by 8:30-8:45. Much to my surprise, I woke up on the flight at 8:15 as we were in a holding pattern -- LCY was closed due to fog. We waited for a bit before diverting to South End airport, about 50 miles southeast of London. This is a small private airfield, but on this morning it had at least 25 BA and Air France regional jets lined up with miffed business travelers. At least there was a row of chartered buses lined up out front and they took us back to LCY, but I ended up getting into work on the second Monday of my new job at 11:30... not quite what I'd originally intended!

Apartment hunting
When I first found my flat in Islington, I was looking for something central-ish and easily commutable to London Bridge. As I've been working in Canary Wharf almost since I moved into that flat, and will now be for the indefinite future, I figured it was time to look at what else I could get in more of a renters market, closer to work. Following a friend's suggestion, I looked at www.spareroom.co.uk. I lined up six flats for viewing in and around Greenwich on a Sunday -- the first one near Deptford, then several in and around Greenwich, then two just north of Greenwich on the Isle of Dogs.

The first two near Deptford were in an area where I absolutely didn't want to live, after walking around a bit that afternoon -- a bit too grungy and not feeling like the safest place in the world. The next few were in much nicer areas, but I wasn't really excited about living with the potential flatmates that I met. I finally ended up looking at a place at Burrells Wharf, along the water, just across the foot tunnel from Greenwich. My now-flatmate co-owns the flat with a friend who just moved elsewhere in London. For about the same rent as before in Islington, we have nearly double the space, much nicer furnishings, two bathrooms rather than one, and a 10-minute commute to work via bus. So far, no complaints!

I moved in last weekend, and have more or less settled into the new place quickly. It's working out well so far! As my camera's dead, I don't have any photos, but we're on the second floor of the building on the right, on the back side of the building, facing a courtyard rather than the river.

London

Much has changed since I first came over to London for an 18-month experience. I've been able to do quite a bit of travel, explore Europe, meet some new friends, find a great client where I've been working, and substantially settle into life here.

Over the summer, I slowly realized that the stability of traveling only for fun rather than weekly for work was great for my sanity. It's allowed me to settle into a city and have a more consistent and sane life than when I'd been spending 100+ nights/year in hotels for work.

After much debate, I decided to stay here in London on a more-permanent basis, rather than returning to New York in January 2010. In making this decision, I've also resigned from my firm and accepted a job with the primary client I've worked with for the past year.

Assuming my application for a new work permit goes through on the expected timetable, my last day with my current employer is going to be 23 October, and I'll be continuing on my current project as a permanent London-based employee rather than as a consultant from 26 October.

Oktoberfest

Last year, a few of us had looked into going to Oktoberfest shortly after we arrived in London, but it was ridiculously expensive to do it last-minute. Instead, in January this year, we booked a weekend trip that we took two weeks ago.

Friday night, the group of us sharing two hotel rooms were on the same 5:30 flight to Munich. We crammed into a cab, dropped everything off at the hotel, then went to the Hofbrauhaus. We found an open table in the beer hall, stood up on the benches and got right into the experience!

Despite a late Friday night, we were up at 7am Saturday for breakfast and into town by 9, to buy our outfits for the rest of the weekend! As you can see in the photos, we all ended up getting authentic outfits for the weekend!

We spent the afternoon outside at a Paulaner tent, where you can see the next set of photos. A few liters later and after an amazing half-chicken for dinner, we ended up moving over to the Hofbrauhaus tent -- the one with the green roof with all kinds of stuff hanging off of it -- and taking that in for the evening.

Let's just say that Sunday morning was a bit of a challenge to get up and about. Eventually, as I got a few glasses of water and some coffee into me, I felt better. Two hours later, we were back at it, with 20 of us sitting at two adjoining tables in the Hippodrom tent.

Now, the other tents that we'd seen had completely rowdy and out of control people everywhere, whereas this was a bit more sane -- table service, a full menu of amazing German food (you can see me with the wienerschnitzel in one of the photos) and the like.

I left midafternoon, as I had a flight back to London late Saturday evening. I went back to the hotel for a shower and to change out of the lederhosen before the flight, and then went to the airport a bit earlier than I normally would have. I figured I'd find a corner somewhere with a bottle of gatorade and a book, read a bit, and maybe get in a quick nap before the flight.

I cleared security at 6:45 or so and saw a sign directly in front of me at a gate: "BA 955, LHR, 1730 flight, delayed departure 1840." As the door was still open, I walked up to the gate agent and asked if he'd let me on it. He said yes, gave me a new boarding card, then closed the jetway door behind me. About 30 seconds after I sat down, the plane pushed back and was airborne. This absolutely shocked me and has to qualify as one of my very few "I had a good flying experience" stories... I got home more than two hours early!

All in all, a great weekend! My voice is slowly recovering from the experience, but just about back now!

Budapest

I’d gotten a text from Cecilia a few weeks ago asking “want to go to Budapest?” Needless to say, I was interested in hearing more, so I called. That night, Cecilia, Mike and Trine booked flights for the bank holiday weekend (this weekend) to Budapest. I did the same…

We left this past Friday morning, spent the afternoon exploring the town and a few of the key tourist sites, then found a restaurant recommended by one of my colleagues for dinner.

Saturday morning, Cecilia and I explored a market near our hotel, then met up with Trine and Mike at a bath house. Apparently Budapest is known for its thermal bath houses, so we figured we had to give it a try.

For the equivalent of about £10, we got day-long admission to a bath house. Now, there are some that are traditional with separate male and female facilities and an expectation of being, ahem, “natural.” This was (intentionally) not one of those. We relaxed through the different pools, each had a 30-minute massage for about another £10, swam a few laps, and eventually dragged ourselves out in late afternoon.

After a night out on Saturday, we spent Sunday touring the sites of Budapest. We went to the national gallery, toured a church overlooking the city, rented a four-person bike on a small island in the middle of the Danube and found the Parliament building on our explorations of the city.

The goulash, also, was amazing!

My photos from the weekend are posted here.

I’m now back in London and have a few weeks here before our trip to Oktoberfest in late September… I’ve definitely been trying to take advantage of the travel opportunities nearby here, but it’ll also be good to spend some time in one place for a change!

Northern Ireland

Two weeks ago, I spent Sunday night at Chris’s flat in Greenwich. We woke up at 4am, drove a rental car I had to Heathrow, returned it and hopped a 7am flight to Northern Ireland. There, we met up with John for a week of camping and boating.

John had taken his car across to Northern Ireland on the ferry several days earlier with our camping gear, so he met us with that and we headed off into the wilderness.

Our first two nights were at a campsite near a National Trust historical mansion 40 miles or so south of Belfast. We set up camp, did some hiking and explored the area a bit.

We started the trip eating well and continued throughout… our first night’s dinner consisted of chicken fajitas, rice, refried beans and all the fixings, prepared on a single burner camp stove. We subsequently successfully did eggs and bacon for breakfast with that stove, before moving our cooking to a boat.

On our third day, we drove across to the west of Northern Ireland to pick up a 22’ boat with a small diesel motor, to go exploring the locks and rivers throughout the area. We moored it near an Asda (Walmart’s UK brand) in the nearest town and picked up food for the remainder of the week.

It was a great time to just catch up with two friends without any computers, phones or other distractions, out on the open water. Each of the three nights we had the boat, we moored at public docks on the rivers, with no other people within sight anywhere.

One day, we moored at a four-star hotel for a quick 9-hole round of golf. It was a great time, but we had a bit of a challenge with the “quick” part of the round… I’d been on a golf course maybe twice in my life and to a driving range only a few more times. Chris had taken lessons at a driving range. John had never before driven a golf ball on the range, a course or otherwise. Between the three of us, we had respectable scores… had it been an 18-hole course.

To continue the food thread here, we prepared steaks, sausages and barbecue ribs on disposable charcoal grills. We had pancakes for breakfast, cooked in the galley. We had apple pie, cheeses, and plenty of tasty beverages to last us for the three nights on the water.

After a quick drive to the rope bridge up near Giants Causeway along the northern coast of Northern Ireland, we spent the last day in Belfast and returned back to the UK late on Sunday.

A few of my photos from the week are here.

Race the Train

A few months ago I’d been talking with a few people at the pub after a Wednesday night run with the running club, when Race the Train came up as a good idea for a weekend trip. This was the first I heard of it, but what I heard was interesting, so I ended up signing up along with Christie and a friend from the Serpies.

We committed to running the race before actually working through the logistics of lodging. Christie spent a decent amount of time researching B&Bs, hotels and other options within a reasonable drive of Tywyn, mid Wales, where the race is hosted. She found a few great places, but they were near larger towns, at least an hour drive from the race start.

This was about the time we realized “uh oh, there are some rural areas in Wales… this looks like it is a REALLY rural one.”

As a last-ditch effort to see if there were some secret lodging options that weren’t readily visible on the web, I sent a message to the Serpentine club email list asking for any suggestions. A runner responded saying he was planning to do the race as well, and that he has a vacation home in a town about 10 miles up the coast from Tywyn, where we could stay in the spare bedrooms for free!

Needless to say, we were quite excited by this option!

I managed to get out of work at about noon on Friday, went home to change, then we met at Kings Cross, picked up a car and pointed north up the M1. It was the better part of a six-hour drive, as it’s a 220 mile trip with very urban streets until you get outside the M25, then very rural narrow roads for the last 40 miles or so as you approach the Welsh coast. This was also my first time driving a stick shift right-hand-drive vehicle. The clutch took a bit of a beating as I got used to the feel of it and yes, the car might have stalled a few times (through no fault of my own, of course… whistle…) but overall it worked well!

We actually met Adrian, our host for the weekend, for the first time when we showed up at his place at 7pm or so on Friday. He was in the kitchen preparing a chicken, turkey and pasta dinner for the four of us… quite the reception and much more impressive than the “simple pasta dinner” he’d alluded to when we talked through the preceding week.

On race day, Christie did the 5-mile run, followed by Adrian, Desiree and me running the 14-mile route in the afternoon. It was overcast at race time, but had been raining rather heavily overnight. As the name of the race suggests, we runners were on cross-country style tracks as we raced a narrow-gauge train up and back down a hill.

The train finishes the course averaging about a 7’30” pace… something I could definitely do over that distance on flat surfaces, but which was well beyond my reach on the actual course. There were narrow sheep trails cut into the side of hills, with runners following each other in single file, and with footprints trailing off to the side where some of us had slipped in our attempts to navigate the mud.

There’s a great video of a prior year’s experience, from a spectator’s view, here.

Sunday, we drove up to Colwyn Castle along the northern coast of Wales, before driving back to London. Rather than returning to reality on Monday morning, though, I had another trip lined up: a week of camping and boating in Northern Ireland. I dropped off Christie and Desiree, unpacked my muddy stuff from the race, and threw my stuff for a week of camping into the car, drove to Chris’s flat in Greenwich and slept there before the beginning of the next trip.

My photos from the weekend are posted here.

Matt's Visit

Several weeks ago, a friend from CMU visited me as part of a ten-day trip through Europe. The first weekend, we toured London: On Saturday, we walked south across Tower Bridge, along the South Bank, then back over to St Pauls Cathedral and the West End. We came back up to Angel for dinner at the Narrow Boat along the canal, before crashing for the evening.

That Sunday, we met a few others for brunch in Angel, before heading off to the Shoreditch Music Festival and then onward to the Proms. Talk about two different experiences! The Shoreditch festival was a large outdoor venue with all the normal fried foods, expensive drinks and the like, occasional rain, a university-aged crowd and music that was a bit too edgy for all of us, I think. Afterward, Matt, Christie and I met John and Laura at the Royal Albert Hall, where Laura performed with the BBC National Orchestra in the evening’s Proms concert. We got last-minute, £5 tickets for standing immediately in front of the orchestra… definitely a different way of experiencing it, and a great time!

Matt was back for the following weekend and had suggested doing something outside of London to get a taste of “the rest of England.” On Friday that week, I saw someone on the DLR with a copy of The Times, featuring the 100 best walks in the UK. I found that article online and found one of the hikes in the Cotswolds, about 60 miles north from London.

I’d committed to meet Matt at Heathrow when he landed early Saturday afternoon, but needed to finalize a plan beforehand. At about noon Saturday, I picked up Rick Steves’ UK travel book and started calling down the list of B&Bs in the Cotswolds. The first five places I called said they were booked for the night. I was starting to think through other possible alternatives when one of the women I’d called ended up calling me back. She said she “just remembered” that they had space for the night, if we were interested.

Matt and I met at Heathrow, picked up a rental car and drove up into the Cotswolds. We showed up at the B&B in the late afternoon, then went back to the “Ducking of the Mayor” in a nearby town. We’d seen a huge banner sign over a pub on the way through the town earlier and wanted to see what we were missing! By the time we got there, we’d missed whatever the ceremony was… apparently it’s an annual festival where a mock mayor is selected from the village elders and dunked (yet it’s the “ducking” of the mayor… don’t ask) into the river that runs through town. We stayed for a bit as a band started the evening’s entertainment, then headed back to the town near our B&B for dinner and an early night.

Sunday, we did an 11-mile hike through the rolling countryside. We had a few challenges at first understanding that yes, it really is okay to walk over the steps near fences, to walk past sheep and other livestock in active fields, and to open gates as long as they weren’t actually padlocked.

The original Times article is here.
As we deviated slightly from the intended course, we mapped our our actual route on MayMyRun here after returning to my place that evening.

It was great to get away and see a bit more of England, outside of the cities… definitely a weekend we couldn’t have experienced as fully without a car and willingness to venture off the motorways!

Edinburgh

As a graduation gift, my brother Dave ended up visiting for two weeks. We spent the better part of a week together in London and he also did an 8-day trip through the UK to visit a friend at Oxford, see other parts of the country and meet me for a weekend in Edinburgh.

So, last weekend, I left work a bit early on Friday and headed to Luton for the flight up to Edinburgh. I need to do another post at some point about my first (and possibly last) experience with EasyJet, but that's another post for another day...

Dave and I found a pub with a singer / guitar player after I got into town on Friday night. It's the first I've heard a guy with a synthesized backing band, where he actually had talent! Any other time I've heard someone do that, he tried to hide behind the synthesized recording and more or less failed... but this guy was good!

Saturday, we explored town, toured the castle, did the whiskey tasting experience, and ventured up to the top of Holyrood Park. A few of Dave's photos are on http://picasaweb.google.com/trenshaw/... I never actually took my camera out with us.

Saturday night, we met up with three of my friends from London who had also traveled up to Edinburgh for the weekend. We did dinner together, then a ghost tour through town, and then found a few pubs. It seemed like every single pub had live music... and they were good!

We toured the National Gallery on Sunday morning and then did an underground tour of the old city in the afternoon, before heading off to an airport and back to reality. Definitely a great weekend and an amazing opportunity to catch up with Dave!

Now, this weekend, I'm back in London and have little planned, for the last time in a while. A friend from New York will be here the next two weekends, I'm doing a 14-mile race in Wales after that, then a week in Northern Ireland, then have two other friends from the States visiting for a weekend. The next free weekend at this point is in mid September, the weekend before going to Oktoberfest. Where's the time going?!?

Maui

For years, my family had been talking about going to Hawaii after my brothers graduated from college. Sometimes it was a serious plan, sometimes it was half-joking. Either way, though, it was something we were thinking of doing for quite a while. Last summer, when air tickets were first made available for this June, I broke down and cashed in all of my airline miles and credit card points to get a round trip ticket: Friday morning, I was to fly Heathrow to LAX, where I could spend the evening of my brother's graduation in Pasadena with the family, before continuing on to Maui the next day. After a week in Maui, the tickets were for a flight to Newark, a stopover so I could get to a friend's wedding in Pennsylvania, and then back to London the day after the wedding. This seemed a bit crazy, but it was going to give me the opportunity to see the family, be in a friend's wedding and also celebrate the brothers' graduation.

Fast forward 11 months, and it was time for the trip to happen! After the 10-hour flight to LA, I had caught up on four movies, a few hours of sleep, and was ready for the day! We took Dave in his cap and gown and, for some reason, me with a wig, up to the Observatory overlooking the Hollywood sign for a few photos, before a graduation dinner back in Pasadena.

Saturday, I went to Maui via Honolulu, while Dave and our parents were on a different flight. Unfortunately, Jeff wasn't able to join us on this trip. His new job had just started and he was out partying it up (or so we think... he hasn't confirmed this for me yet) in Worchester, Mass.

Sunday was the first of two days Dave and I attempted surfing. Well, I'll give him credit for going surfing and me for attempting to do so. I was able to catch a few good waves, but not quite consistently. Clearly, this is a sign that I just need to spend more time working at this!!!

We took a two-day trip on the road to Hana. On the way, we stopped at waterfalls, beaches, banana bread shops and the like, before pulling in to a quiet spot along the beach where we had a place booked for the night. It was absolutely amazing to get out in the open air, away from everything, with real sunshine! On the second day of this trip, we hiked up to a waterfall through the rainforest, found some pools to swim in overlooking the ocean, and drove up to the top of the main volcano!

We spent a day snorkeling, an evening at a luau, an evening out at a piano bar and magic show, and even grilled out on the beach! It was great to spend some time with the family and to totally disconnect. Even though we had wireless internet access and cell phone access, I have to admit that I just shut down... I didn't look at voicemail and tried to avoid the computer for the full week. It was such a great feeling to not know what was going on in the wider world, not particularly care for a bit, and just be completely disconnected.

I left the evening before everyone else was planning to do so, to get back to Pennsylvania for a wedding. After the drive down to Pennsylvania, I got to catch up with the groom and a few other friends that night, catch a movie, go for some sushi and reminisce on old times. The following day was the wedding -- it'd been raining for a few days previously and was forecasted to do so that day as well, but it was PERFECTLY sunny and a great day for an outdoor wedding!

As I was leaving the wedding reception that evening, I received a callfrom my project lead in London, asking if I would be willing to work the week in New York rather than in London. Now, this meant that I had to buy work clothes for the week, but it was a great chance to catch up with a few friends and to meet the other half of my project team face-to-face for a few days rather than just as voices at the other end of a conference bridge...

I'm starting to think that 9-10 hour flights are actually easier on my body than are 6-7 hour flights. Both of the long legs on this trip (LHR to LAX and HNL to EWR) didn't tire me out at all, and I was able to arrive rested, but the short leg from Newark to London at the end of the trip just left me exhausted -- even though I slept two or three hours, that just wasn't nearly enough for one night. Then again, maybe it was just jet lag catching up with me for going +11 and then -11 time zones within 10 days...

All in all, this was a great trip! Yes, it was a bit exhausting and the week after I returned to London was a bit tough on the body, but it was absolutely worth it!

A few of the photos from California and Maui are here.

Warsaw

No, I haven't fallen off the edge of the earth. Yes, I do exist, even if it's been forever since I last posted here.

As my previous post mentioned, I did a last-minute trip to Warsaw over the bank holiday weekend at the end of May. A few of the photos are online here.

I arrived midafternoon on Saturday, ventured through the streets of the Old Town section and explored a bit. That evening was spent with a few others I met at the hostel, after they decided I needed to learn the virtues of the various different Polish vodkas. Let's just say that there is quite the selection available!

Sunday morning, I went to mass, which was quite the adventure given it was all in Polish! I then ventured through a market to find a kielbasa and some pieroghi for lunch, before heading into the city to tour the war memorials and the New Town area.

Monday, I watched the city come to life from the first story window of a coffeeshop, while reading a book, before heading off to the airport.

I'm glad I took the trip and visited Warsaw, but it's not on the list of places to which I must return. It's definitely a bit of a culture shock, as the city has never fully rebuilt following the bombings from World War II. Many of the parks in the city are located where portions of the city were just never rebuilt. Likewise, those areas that were rebuilt tend to have large concrete block buildings from the Soviet era.

Plans

Last week: "Yeah, sure, let's maybe try Ireland."
Tuesday: "Okay, no worries, I'll find something to do."
Friday 3:30pm: "Uh oh... I have a three-day weekend coming up with no travel booked. Where can I go, cheap?"
Friday 4:00pm: "Hrm... Krakow or Barcelona?"
Friday 4:30pm: "Ooh, I can get direct flights to Warsaw, cheap!"
Saturday 10am: I leave Heathrow for two nights in Warsaw. Should be fun!

Selcuk, Ephesus and Izmir

We had originally booked Thursday through Saturday nights in Izmir, the town from which we were flying home on Sunday. Alex, the guy who helped us reunite with our tour group in Eceabat, had recommended that instead of staying in Izmir and doing day trips from there, we instead stay at a place called Atilla's Getaway that was about 60k further south in Selcuk. After looking up the place online, we decided to change our reservations to spend Thursday and Friday nights there, then just Saturday night in Izmir.

On Friday, we walked up the mountains behind his place to the Virgin Mary House, where she spent her last days. From there, we walked down to Ephesus. The ruins of a 250,000 person city, millennia later, can be phenomenal to walk through! We spent some time on the common walkways and around the major reconstructed sites, but then walked off on some trails into less-crowded areas where it was much less well-trodden. Somehow, over the course of that afternoon, I took more than 200 photos. A selection of them are available at http://picasaweb.google.com/trenshaw/turkey.

In all, this was a phenomenal trip! I was able to disconnect from work and mostly from technology overall. Meandering for hours on end through ruins, losing myself in my thoughts while on a long bus trip, seeing ridiculously grandiose mosques next to abject poverty... no regrets whatsoever about taking the trip!

Gallopoli and Troy

On the Tuesday of our trip, we met the tour group outside at 7am. We had a 20-person bus with only six of us on it... it was great to be able to breathe, have plenty of space and meet a few others doing similar travels!

We went first to ANZAC beach. Now, I'd heard of ANZAC Day and the battles that took place in Gallopoli during the Great War, from having lived in Sydney during ANZAC Day several years ago. This was a nation-defining moment for Australia and for New Zealand, yet we do not hear much of it in the States. Chris and I got quite the history lesson from one of the Aussie guys on the trip... he was infinitely more knowledgable of the events than was our tour guide.


That night, the tour guide dropped us at our hotel in Eceabat, a small town across the water from Canakkale. She told us that another tour bus would pick us up outside at 7:30am the next day. Knowing that, we checked in, looked around town, and promptly decided to take the ferry across to Canakkale to have dinner over there where there looked to be a bit more activity.

We sat on the second level of the ferry, looking out over the bow toward the approaching city. While we were sitting there, a group of kids about 12 years old came over and sat next to us. They started talking amongst themselves in Turkish, laughing a bit, pointing at us, giggling and just generally seemed amused by two tall English speaking guys. After a few minutes of this, the group pushed one kid forward who stuttered nervously, "Where are you from?" in English. Chris and I both responded. He clearly understood, but the others started laughing at him and whispering other questions they wanted him to ask us. He ended up translating between the group and us for a while, until we got close to the shore and the group had to go back to get on their bus to continue its trip.


The next morning, Chris and I went downstairs for breakfast in the hotel lobby. We were two of four people staying in the entire place... the other two were a mother and daughter from Australia who were also in the breakfast area. We talked a bit then, before checking out. The hotel owner walked them over to the ferry right after we went outside to wait for the bus to pick us up. Like throughout the rest of the trip, there were stray cats and dogs just about everywhere. This is a shot from where we were standing on the street corner. Unfortunately, I didn't get a shot with the roosters who were also in the street.


At 7:45 or so, when we still hadn't seen the bus, we decided it'd be a good idea to try to get ourselves across to Canakkale on the 8am ferry. I wrote a note and was about to leave it with the hotel proprietor in case the tour group showed up. As I turned to go back into the hotel, though, the ferry left. Apparently that one is at 7:45 instead of 8, so locals can get to work in town by 8am. Oops. We tried calling the tour company office in Istanbul, to no response. I then emailed them with our situation and our mobile numbers, and then we sat down at a coffeeshop nearby, figuring we'd get on the 9am ferry if we didn't get a response or see them before that.

Now, throughout this, the hotel proprietor wasn't particularly useful, as he had very limited English fluency and we had absolutely no ability to speak Turkish. One of his friends walked over and found us at the coffeeshop a few minutes after we sat down. We chatted for a bit, then he told us that we'd been supposed to be on the ferry and that the tour guide had been calling the hotel asking where we were. Um, oops! It would have been great if we'd actually been told that...

This guy went back into the hotel, called the tour guide, then drove us down to a faster ferry that left at the same time as the 9am we'd been waiting for. By the time we got across the water, the tour group had been waiting there for more than an hour for us. Oops...

Later that day, we went up to Troy to see the ruins, then walked around town in Canakkale. We had (another) phenomenal kebab for lunch. Now, kebab (kebap, sometimes) in London is usually from a dense conical thing that you might guess was meat several years and processing steps ago. It's one of those things that sounds like a good idea only at 3am while waiting for a night bus home. In all of Turkey, though, you could actually tell what the meat was, and it tasted amazing!

Istanbul

As I mentioned in my previous post, Chris and I booked a trip through Turkey during the first full week of May. Prior to leaving for this trip, we had booked only our flights and lodging, with little planning for what we'd actually be doing on the trip. I bought a tour book in Heathrow on the way out of town on Saturday morning, knowing Chris also had the Lonely Planet Turkey book. Between those books, we figured we'd have everything we needed to make the trip happen.

The H1N1 flu scare began about a week before we left for this trip. As of when we began our travels, there had been several confirmed cases in Western Europe, including the UK, but none in Turkey. All of the ground crew at IST had masks. Granted, as you can see in the photo, not many of them were using these masks particularly carefully.


Shortly after taking this photo, I got a text message from Chris. I'd booked us into a two-single bed ensuite room at a hostel in Sultanahmet, but they didn't have a room available. He was at a hostel down the street, where he'd been able to find us a place for the night. As we found out later, the hostel's reservations system was, um, lacking. I'd initially made a reservation online for four nights. However, when I realized we only wanted to be there for three nights, I tried to modify the reservation. The only way I could do so online was to cancel the existing one and create a new one. I'd done this several weeks before the trip and thought nothing of it. Apparently their reservation system was keyed off of arrival date and last name, not a unique reservation, so they ended up cancelling both of my reservations for arrival (the three-night and the four-night ones). Oops.

We ended up spending that first night in a 30-person dorm at the other hostel... not quite what we'd expected or hoped for, but I at least got a few hours of sleep. The following two nights in a two-bed, two-person room were MUCH better, though!

During our three days we spent in Istanbul, we walked all through the touristy areas, saw the Blue Mosque, Ayasofya and the other normally crowded tourist destinations.

Ayasofya Cami

Blue Mosque

The night before I left London, a friend here had told me "I know some guys who were in Istanbul earlier this spring. They said you absolutely HAVE to go to the Roman Sewers... they're unbelievable!" As I'd done little substantial research of the sites to see in Istanbul, I took the pointer and figured I'd look them up online at the airport or when we got to Istanbul. Needless to say, I couldn't find anything about them, anywhere. However, on our second day there, we did go into the Roman Cisterns. These were absolutely huge underground structures used to store drinking water for the city millennia ago. Slightly different term than originally expected, but definitely a good recommendation!


On our last full day there, we started thinking about logistics for getting ourselves to Canakkale, our next destination. According to Lonely Planet, the best bet was to just go to the bus station outside of Istanbul and find one of the bus companies that has multiple trips per hour. Before doing this, we decided to stop by a travel agency next to our hostel and see what they recommended. After a few minutes of discussion, we signed up for a two-day trip that included the bus to Canakkale, tours of ANZAC beach and other sites in Gallopoli, then also a tour of Troy.

These photos and a few others I'd taken on the trip are posted to http://picasaweb.google.com/trenshaw/turkey/. If you want full-res copies of any of these or want to see the full set of 600 or so photos from the trip, email me!