Tom K

I'm heading to Bratislava today from Vienna. Since I last wrote, here are some cool things I've done: Visited Cesky Krumlov - a small medieval town with a castle (with live bears) that is one of the few places not bombed during WWII. Visited the golden hall in Vienna for a symphony of Mozart and Haydn's music using period accurate instruments Drank in one of the oldest continuously operating beer-halls in Europe in Prague. Ate currywurst, trdelnick and lots of roast meat. Met people from Germa...

I haven't posted recently so here's three recent stories: I went to a bagel shop in Dresden called Bagels Dresden. The shop had great reviews and many of them mentioned the owner as one of the reasons they loved the shop. I met the owner when I walked in and he made me a very good bagel. While I was eating he told me the tragic tale of how he came to operate the shop. All his life he had wanted to be an economist for the government. He was most of the way through school and had an internship wi...

Checked out of my Utrecht hostel in the morning. Walked down to the big church nearby. Its nice on the inside but way more impressive on the outside. They have a great apple pie. Washed my clothes at the laundromat and talked to mum for a bit. Took the train back to Amsterdam. Checked into my new hostel and went to get dinner. I found a highly rated traditional dutch restaurant online. As soon as I got seated it got insanely busy. Tons of people walking in and everyone getting turned away - inc...

Woke up and got breakfast with an Australian dude from the hostel. He's been traveling for like 8 years straight now. He was able to give me some good tips about turkey especially because he's spent a lot of time there and love it. Here are my notes: No Ankara Istanbul fly to ismir Cesme Bodrum Fethiye Oludinez Kabak Kas Antalya Kayseri Kappadokia Trabzon Pegasus flights Flixbus Kiwi for flights After breakfast, I walked along Noordwijk beach and through a park that had part of ...

Heading to Leiden and Noordwijk beach today. Wandered Leiden for a bit before heading to my hostel. Its a cute city. Much quieter than Amsterdam. Big shopping street. Lots of students, bikes, and canals. Walked up to a big viking fort with a good view over the city. The bus to the hostel was about 30 minutes. Picked up some supplies from a grocery store - including a block of cheese. The hostel is right by the beach. Beautiful location. Definitely seemed a lot quieter than it would be during t...

Woke up at 6am this morning for my flight to Amsterdam Packed quickly and quietly and trecked 10 minutes to the bus stop for the airport shuttle. On the bus went online to check into my flight. I had meant to do it yesterday but was too tired. The website told me checking closes 2 hours before departure. No where had anything about in person checking so I just had to hope they had it at the airport. They did. Security at the Edinburgh airport is ridiculously strict. I passed my bag through and...

Tonight I'll be sleeping in the bod. In the morning we met a farmer and pet his Shetland ponnies. He had an old sheepdog named fly. Went out to saint Ninnian's Isle. Its an piece of land attached to the mainland by a sandy spit. Very beautiful. The wind on the spit created a mist of sand low over the ground. Some people were swimming but it looked very cold. There's an ancient church on it and sheep and rabbit holes everywhere. The rabbit holes loom like smurf houses. On the way back, we found...

Saw the bod of Nesbister for the first time today. Its a beautiful stone cabin my grandparents fixed up 40 years ago. They still own it. It was being rented out for camping for a while but stopped during covid. We had to walk through a muddy field and along a beach to get there, dodging sheep droppings most of the way. Getting down there, I realized it was much more public than I had expected. I'd been seeing pictures of it for years but I didn't realize it was in the middle of a bay and surrou...

Shetland! Finally! Arrived early in the morning. Mum picked me up at the ferry terminal. So great to see her. We stopped at tesco to pick up some grub and drove back to the small cabin she'd rented with her partner, Kevin. Rested there for a bit and had sausage rolls for breakfast. Later in the morning we drove to Esherness to see the cliffs. It's unbelievably gorgeous. I'll post some pictures on my Instagram later since I don't think I can upload images here - may switch platforms because of ...

Travel day. Woke up at 7am. Said goodbye to a couple people from the hostel and walked down to the bus station. Bus didn't feel too long this time. Airport security was easy and I was boarding my flight in no time. Touching down in Aberdeen, there was a brief informal passport check and I was through. 4£ for a bus downtown. Aberdeen is beautiful. A sign in the airport claimed it was the 24th "must visit" city according to the New York Times. I didn't get to stick around for long. Got some food i...

Slept in until noon. Got up and had an orange I'd been saving from the Dublin hostel a few days ago. Decided today was the day for the ulster Scots museum. Walked down there with a British girl and we got burger king along the way because she'd never had it. I think I got ripped off again as I'd ordered chicken fries and there were literally six sticks the size of a French fry each. I also got charged for a bottle when I'd asked for a cup of water so it ended up the same price as her full meal...

Woke up early because I'd agreed to go to the giant's causeway with a couple others in the morning. I was too tired still though so ended up skipping that. Instead, I went downtown and met up with a German and and Aussie. We went through the city hall museum which was not very engaging. Mostly text on walls. Searched my surname in a petition database to see if anyone with my name had signed some old petition (I do not remember what it was about). There were over 3500 with my surname and around 3...

Woke up around 9am for breakfast at the hostel. Homemade soda bread and scones, cereal, and lots of OJ. Headed down the main street again. There was an older guy with a guitar singing sundown by Gordon Lightfoot. A few people stopped. After he'd finished we realised everyone who'd stopped was Canadian. I did a quick run through of the galway museum. It was not super impressive. A lot of text on walls really. I wasn't feeling 100% so that may have been a factor too. Went and chilled in a park ...

Woke up early aand packed. Had a quick breakfast at the hostel and trekked 2mins to the bus station. It was pouring rain at this point which was a welcome change from the scorching heat of the rest of the trip. Bought tickets to the Dublin airport at the station and slept on the bus. Dublin airport was chaos and very wet. Finally made it to Belfast another three hours. Checked in at the hostel and had a shower. The light kept turning off in the shower because it was on a sensor and the water...

Woke up at 7am with very few hours of sleep. I'd met an american last night who was driving up to Galway with his dad and offered to give me a ride. Messaged him on Instagram but it got stuck as a message request which means he probably wouldn't see it in time. Packed my things again and headed down to breakfast (included with this hostel). Chatted with a Slovenian dude who was happy they'd just beaten the Canadian team in basketball. [File: 481801e0-0a70-4663-9580-bcb8ab70ca7c] The setup leav...

Started off by waking up at 5:30am. Still jet lagging a bit. Packed everything down into the one backpack and moved hostels. I'd booked the other one separately because I had originally only planned to stay in Dublin for two days. After dropping my bag off at the new hostel I went down to the spire (it is exactly what it sounds like) for a walking tour. The tour took us through a lot of the important landmarks and history of Dublin. Statues, churches, castles etc. Boiling hot the whole time. Met...

Bit of a museum day today. Woke up pretty early. Started at the art gallery. Surprisingly enjoyable. I especially liked the modern art. The 16/17 century stuff all looked really similar which was a little less interesting but still cool to see. Hit the archaeology museum after that. Most of it was just halls of trinkets they dug up. Beautiful building. One of the exhibits was about the "bog bodies". Essentially, it's a bunch of human remains in glass boxes. They're of people who died in around ...

Long day today. Got in a little early at 10am. Didnt sleep much on the flight so pretty knackered. Got to skip the long non-UK/EU immigration line thanks to my British passport. Bought a three day tourist bus pass and bussed to my hostel. Had some time to kill before check in so dumped my bag in the overflowing storage room and walked down to temple bar. It's a mad house down there and not very Irish. Since I've arrived I've noticed there's a surprising lack of Irish people. Lots of Americans ...

Travel day #1! Woke up at 7am to say bye to bro. Did some final checks and my best to reverse my bedroom's packing apocalypse. C&C - the homies - drove me up to the airport. Very cool of them. Got through security pretty easily. Waited about an hour for my boarding call. Right as boarding started I had a last minute call with my boss RE social media work. I'll be doing part-time while I'm away. I'll do fewer posts than normal but they don't have anyone else to do it so it's okay. WiFi drop...

Itinerary: September 5 - Victoria-Calgary-Dublin September 9 - Dublin-Galway September 11 - Galway-Belfast September 14 - Belfast-Shetland September 19 - Shetland-Aberdeen September 23 - Aberdeen-Edinburgh September 23-29 - Edinburgh + Glasgow + Kerr stuff September 29 - Edinburgh-Manchester/Liverpool October 2 - Manchester-London October 4 - London-Brussels (Belgium) October 8 - Brussels-Amsterdam October 13 - Amsterdam-Berlin October 18 - Berlin-Prague October 23 - Prague-Vienna October 28 -...