Brighton

Towards the end of winter, our first day trip from London was to Brighton. It is a coastal city just south of London. The temperature was still pretty cold at that time despite the sunshine.

We brought our packed lunch and had a short picnic on the beach. The coast is consists of peebles and not fine sand, which in a way good because our clothes won't get so dirty. We spent some time in the brighton pier, which is a theme park on top of the sea. Towards the evening, the weather got really cold. A visit here during the summer would definitely be much better.

Snowy London

I don't really know if I was lucky or not. There was snow in London in February, which fortunately was beautiful to watch and does not happen often ( as in every 10 years or so).

The downside was that it happened right on my first day to work. I was not sure about the dress code and so I was wearing suit. The thin leather shoes rather felt cold on the feet.

To make things worse, the public transport did not work. I went for the tube and wait 40 mins for train only to be told that the tube station was closed due to the harsh weather. Outside, the bus was not operating at all. Even taxi was difficult to stop. After another 40 mins, when my sole almost froze, I managed to share a cab with another guy and arrived at the office an hour late.

The scenery outside my office was beautiful. It was good that we have glass walls that I could see across the square covered in snow.

Delphi

The final chapter of my trips last summer was Delphi in Greece. It is around 2 hours bus ride from Athens. The town is located on a mountain overlooking a wide valley. The view from the top was amazing. Some of the restaurants there are built on the edge of a cliff so that people can enjoy the view downhill.

Delphi was the site of the Oracle in ancient Greece. I like Greek mythologies because it has many fantasy creatures and also because of its storyline. However, visiting the place is a different story as the mythology is often better than the reality.

The main place to visit in Delphi was an archeological site located on the mountain. Despite the ruins appearance, the site still gave some trace of its majestic past. Well, at least it is still good to enjoy because of the scenery, plus since we were EU students at that time, we got free entry to the sites.

Cape of Poseidon

Just an hour drive from Athens, there is this cape of Poseidon. We were lucky that the weather was pretty good when we arrived there. The temple overlooking the sea is now in ruins but at least it still shows the trace of the shape.

One thing I like about capes is that it has a wide horizon view of the sea. It brings tranquility and relaxing feel to look at the infinity. It also helps that the sea and sky is clear blue and not gloomy.

Athens

The final part of our last summer trip was a trip to Greece (it's almost a year now from the trip itself, indeed how lazy I am . . ). Athens looks more similar to Indonesia rather than the other parts of Europe, no piazza or medieval buildings, lots of cars on the streets. The exception was the existence of some ancient archaeological sites in the city. These sites, however, are much less glorious than it was in the past.

In the valley there was the temple of Zeus, only some massive pillars are left now. The main site was in a small hill housing Parthenon. Restoration works are in progress but I still feel somewhat pity that these once majestic buildings are becoming ruins now.

Below the Parthenon hill, there is the Mars hill or Areopagus where Paul presented the Gospel to the Athenians. It is not exactly the best place to sit and discuss anything as the hill is not flat. Perhaps the ancient people were just stronger than us.

Mini Switzerland

At the end of our swiss trip, we went to see a miniature park with some of the famous landmark and landscape of Switzerland in a smaller scale. It is hosted in a small town called Melide.

While the theme park was more aimed for kids/families, with small trains for children running around the park, it was pretty enjoyable. In particular, we could identify the landmarks that we visited before and also get to know the landmarks in other areas of Switzerland that we missed.

ICF Easter Retreat 2009

Recently, I attended an Easter retreat for the Indonesian Christian Community in the UK. It's refreshing spiritually, with plenty of good food as well. I had a good time meeting other Indonesian and, of course, to stop speaking English for a while . .