Takk fyrir, Eyjafjallajökull! or How I didn’t miss Dragojević’s concert

I could have been in Hong Kong yesterday.

My flights had been duly pre-booked. The hotel, centrally located, affordable, with free Wi-Fi AND excellent reviews was cherry-picked after a day's worth of market screening. Hiking and sailing tours in Hong Kong's stunning harbour, outlying islands and national parks had been arranged. Equipped with my Timeout guide, I could hardly wait to set off. One amazing long-haul getaway was finally approaching.

And then it all came to naught. After years of drowsy silence, Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano must have felt a little forgotten – and burst out angrily, spitting steam and ashes high into the atmosphere. The ashes penetrated the UK airspace within hours; the Air Traffic Control Service chickened out and imposed a blanket no-fly zone all over the country. All airports were gradually shut – including Heathrow. All flights were gradually cancelled – including my Virgin Atlantic epic journey to Hong Kong. Bye-bye, Hong Kong, I mourned, bracing for a dull working week in London instead.

Little did I know. Minutes after the flight cancellation was announced, a bright idea shone on my horizon. Oliver Dragojević – Croatia's equivalent of Frank Sinatra – was coming to London the week I was meant to be away, to perform at the Royal Albert Hall. Many of my ex-Yugoslavian colleagues were going, but I had opted out knowing I would be in Hong Kong. With the volcano saga, I obviously wouldn’t anymore – and the circumstances were lining up in my favour, too. Dozens of Oliver’s fans from Croatia were forced to stay behind due to the prevailing ash cloud, and the previously "sold out" event began showing comfortable ticket availability. I booked a seat with a joyous heart. Dragojević was near!

Wait a minute, I hear you say. By that time, two-thirds of the European airspace had been shut, UK remaining the main recipient of volcanic stuff flying all over the place. Not even the late Frank Sinatra – let alone his Croatian version – would have been able to make it through the dust. Wasn't the concert going to be scrapped, like most of the European flights?

You may be clever, but so was the maestro Dragojević. Seeing little hope for flights to resume, he packed his entire band on a coach and set off for the UK last Friday – reserving plenty of time to make it to the performance. Problem solved! On Monday, 19 April, Dragojević's dream to follow in the footsteps of his idols and perform at London's Royal Albert Hall came true.

And so did my own dream to see the Croatian maestro sing live. I need not have known all his songs – the performance was outstanding all the same. Having started with newer pieces, Dragojević continued, after a break, with his better known classics. "Što učinila si ti", "Bez tebe", "U ljubav vjere nemam", “Nedostaješ mi ti” – all followed in succession, instantly recognised by the doting audience. Initially banned from using flash photography or recording mini videos, the public eventually relaxed – and the staff seemed to have turned a blind eye on the restrictions alike. Royal Albert Hall got up and danced away. I will never forget the priceless sight of my colleagues all belting out, the best they could, into unison "Starim ja, a u ljubav vjere neeeeeeemam" and, eventually, nearly breaking into tears at the first sounds of the one and only, long-awaited, unrepeatable "Cesarica". The experience of a lifetime!

The only person I felt sorry for was the Serbian ambassador we accidentally spotted in the audience. Visibly constrained behaviourally (ambassadors cannot just get up and chant away in public like that), he sat there motionless, amid the dancing audience – his wife occasionally moving her hand left-right to the melody. Or perhaps neither of them really liked Oliver’s music all that much.

After managing to regain Dragojević for a brief comeback at the end of the concert, we finally lost him for the night. For one good night, too! Unreserved thanks to the maestro for making his way to London by coach. And – from my side only – unreserved thanks to the most generous volcano in Europe for changing my plans beyond recognition and helping me to see one of my favourite living composers perform live. I hope that, by next week, the flight connections in Europe will be back to normal – so that I could use my existing ticket to Iceland and pay homage to Eyjafjallajökull in person. Takk fyrir!

<<< More photos from the concert can be found on Flickr>>>

А журавлик снова в облаках

Иногда мне кажется, что я проснусь – и всё будет по-старому.

Что я не смогу без страха взглянуть на собственный телефон, ожидая увидеть как минимум десять пропущенных звонков после пяти минут отсутствия. Что я буду дрожать, открывая очередное, полное оскорблений, письмо. Что я снова должна буду мотивировать свои поступки, совершённые в далёком прошлом. Что я буду обязана просить разрешения провести один единственный час на выходных так, как мне нравится.

Иногда мне становится очень страшно. Я стараюсь понять, почему я так долго мирилась с неоовразимой несвободой выбора без единого знака протеста. Почему я покорно проглатывала оскорбления и верила каждому обвинению. Почему я пыталась оборвать всякую связь с горячо любимыми людьми, годами принимающими меня такой, какая я есть – ради человека, которого я едва знала. Почему?

В такие мгновения я вспоминаю стихотворение «Журавлик» из кинофильма «Доживём до понедельника». Стихотворение о том, как глупые люди пытались заключить в неволю – превратить в «ручную глупую синицу» – сводолюбивую птицу журавля. И хотя это стихотворение было написано о другом – о том, насколько бессмысленно пытаться загнать в рамки такое всеобъятное понятие как счастье – я вижу отражение своих собственных переживаний в каждой строке. И мне становится легче.

х/ф «Доживем до Понедельника»
Журавлик
Сл.- Г.Полонский
Муз.- К.Молчанов

Это не вранье, не небылицы:
Видели другие, видел я,
Как в ручную глупую синицу
Превратить пытались журавля.

Чтоб ему не видеть синей дали
И не отрываться от земли,
Грубо журавля окольцевали
И в журнал отметку занесли.

Спрятали в шкафу, связали крылья
Белой птице счастья моего.
Чтоб она дышала теплой пылью
И не замечала ничего.

Но недаром птица в небе крепла –
Дураки остались в дураках.
Сломанная клетка, кучка пепла,
А журавлик снова в облаках.

Клетка сломана. Вокруг – облака.

My most popular Flickr photos

View my most popular 240 photos on Flickr according to whatever criteria they are using.

One of these days I will get organised to select the personal favourites which have been coming out, over the years, of my first Nikon D70s and my current darling Nikon D300. For now though, let's resort to Flickr's opinion.

Please excuse the heavy domination of the Balkans - especially not one but TWO portions of ćevapi on the FRONT page! My vieweres must be one bunch of nostalgic, hungry Balkan people. Enjoy!

Easter getaway in Bulgaria

Easter: Where to go?

Some of my friends spent last Easter in their home countries. Some extended the four-day weekend into a full-scale holiday. Those with children mostly stayed in London for some quality family time. Others were late to book anything and marinated in London out of necessity. Everybody made their own choice.

And I have spent my Easter in Bulgaria.

When I first told my Romanian colleague where I was going, her reaction went along the following sequence: (1) she assumed I was joking; (2) she asked if it was the result of an adjacent business trip; (3) she laughed a lot and (4) she declared I was insane.

Why Bulgaria? I have to admit the reasons were indeed rather lame. Back in October 2009, I methodically checked a few Easter flights out of London. Many interesting destinations were beginning to look overpriced – when I spotted one more or less affordable option. Sofia in Bulgaria could be reached for a bargain 100 pounds using the Wizzair-easyJet combination. That's not money at all, I said to myself as I duly booked the flights. All come to naught, I might even drop the tickets in case I change my mind later.

Which didn't happen – and, on Good Friday 2010, I found myself heading to Sofia to spend my Orthodox Easter in an Orthodox country for the very first time ever. I just love when the two Easters overlap! They should totally do so every year.

"Warm" welcome

The adventures began as soon as we had touched the ground in Sofia. The passport control lady let everyone else sprint by her but kept me waiting for at least five minutes before she asked, in a suspicious tone, if I had come to Bulgaria alone? What was the purpose of my trip? I bit my tongue not to cheek out with some naughty joke involving a named Russian female. Best to keep this kind of humour for truly sarcastic nations. Finally the zealous female refused to believe the passport was mine and asked for another ID. I could only smile as I produced a quasi-diplomatic work ID issued by one of Bulgaria's largest investors. Sweet dreams, passport lady.

It was 1:30am, and I caught a taxi in front of the airport terminal to take me to the hotel. Albeit barely speaking English, the driver was extremely chatty. I tried to explain where I was from, mixing up my Russian and Serbian to blend the vocabulary and pronunciation, respectively, into something Bulgaresque. The guy laughed away. "Разбираш сръбски, разбираш руски!" he said "Чиста македонка!" ("You understand Serbian, you understand Russian! Real Macedonian!"). For the second time that early morning I had to show my passport – this time to convince the cheerful driver of my utter lack of Balkan roots. In the heat of the discussion, my hotel emerged out of a whirlpool of dimly lit Sofian streets. I bid farewell to my newest friend and entered the hotel.

The hotel was meant to be a central yet cheap option – and it was definitely cheap. The receptionist was so eager to charge me for the entire stay at 2am, I didn't have the heart to refuse. I guess it couldn't have waited till morning. Finally the card machine showed some signs of life after 10 minutes, and I could go to sleep. It was my first night in Sofia.

“Where am I?”

That was my first thought upon awakening. Trams were squealing outside and the sun was doing its best to penetrate the room through little belts of light not covered by the curtains. The Sofia exploration was about to begin!

And, after about 30 minutes of waiting for my breakfast and being told the "coffee machine was broken, would you care for some tea instead", the adventure began for real.

I spent my first five hours in Sofia half-following, half-deviating from the Lonely Planet recommended walking route. The non-traditional Sofia highlights for me were: the Ladies Market selling anything you'd wish for, spare parts included (plenty of men there though, so must be a misnomer); the Latvian Consulate (next to St. Nedelya Church and recognised by little more than a Latvian flag outside); FloCafe (I thought they only had them in Greece!), meeting fellow Russians next to, predictably, the Russian Church and bumping into Greeks on every corner. The more traditional highlights were, as pictured below (view full Sofia Flickr photoset):

The Russian Church itself:

Aleksander Nevski Memorial Church:

Borisova Gradina park:

Vitosha pedestrian boulevard:

Vitosha set the scene for a funny incident. After I had taken the above shot, a policeman approached me. Concerned, he asked if he was in any of my pictures. It is apparently illegal to photograph police or military officials in Bulgaria. During my slideshow demonstration, he spotted himself in the bottom right corner of the picture above. “Изтрите” (“Delete”), the policeman said. I rioted. Not even the strongest zoom would make the much respected civil servant visible. The fact that he had some people walking in front of him made it even less possible. “Изтрите”, he insisted. “But the photo is nice!” I said, expecting to hear a string of solid arguments in response. Suddenly, he smiled, said “Добре” (“Okay”) and walked away. Huh!? I stood there for another minute in anticipation of, at the very least, immediate arrest and deportation back to the UK, but it looked like the gentleman had been flattered enough to let me off. Oh well, добре indeed!

Overall, Sofia slowly grew on me. My initial impression of a “Belgrade desperately trying to be Skopje” was eventually overturned. And when I saw a Starbucks coffee shop on the corner of Vasil Levski Boulevard, I truly proclaimed Sofia a self-standing, charming little capital in its own right! Not even has Belgrade got a Starbucks. Respect!

Lost on the mountain

My next stop was Vitosha Nature Park situated on and around Vitosha Mountain to the southwest of Sofia. After wandering purposelessly around where a bus was allegedly to depart for Vitosha as per Lonely Planet guide (none came), I hopped on Tram 5 instead. Within 20 minutes, I had reached the Knyazhevo district of Sofia and began my ascent – Vitosha is composed of a series of peaks of varying height with trails in-between. My great plan was to reach one of the park’s most popular spots, Zlatni Mostove. I was singing as I made my way up, jumping over spring-like water streams (not always very successfully) and duly greeting passers-by. It was going to be a highly triumphant experience.

I was singing up until I had realised I had been hiking uphill relentlessly for two hours straight. Having spent the entire day on my feet, I could no longer confirm they were actually there without a visual examination. The time was soon approaching 7pm. Several scenarios ran through my head, of which by far the least dramatic one involved being stuck on a mountain through Easter night, without a glimpse of light or company. I felt the air starting to cool down in anticipation of the night, too, and shivered.

It was clearly time to go back, but the idea of waddling through the same fresh water streams in close darkness didn't quite appeal. After glancing at a rough map, I continued walking along the paved road, hoping to spot a turn left which would zigzag me back into Knyazhevo.

Just after catching a truly spectacular sunset through a thick forest, I had finally found a dirt road leading left, and turned onto it. I walked on and on. It was getting quite dark; at one point I started running to speed up – but quickly gave up that idea after nearly rolling downhill. Slowly but surely, Anna, I kept saying to myself.

But the darn little road refused to be the correct one. It kept hugging the mountain gently, not giving up more than a fraction of a slope at a time. I could see the lights far below and heard the traffic zooming back and forth. My hands were cold as ice; tears were building up in the corners of my eyes – but I knew it was going to be fine. It always is in the end!

Finally I had hit some alleviated settlement, then a garden path downhill, then – finally! – a proper paved road down to the highway. I had landed a couple of kilometres west of my starting point and walked, in a life-saving fashion, for another 30 minutes alongside the roaring cars and trucks in utter darkness. Tram 5 emerged suddenly from around the corner, I ran towards the beeping doors, and collapsed into the seat. I had been saved.

Needless to say I had absolutely no strength for the Easter church service that night.

Plovdiv, here I come!

Христос Воскресе! The alarm went off at 7:30am the morning after – it was my second day in Bulgaria. The plan was to visit the country's second largest city of Plovdiv, famous for its Roman ruins and Parisian spirit. As I walked to the bus / train stations, I found Sofia utterly deserted early on an Easter Sunday. My prayers for some food (I had decided to give hotel breakfast a skip) were answered as I picked up a kind of a cheese pie from the only shop open along a 25-minute walk. Perhaps it was because the shop boasted a prime location bang next to a nightclub – still going strong, judging by the noise. Or music, as they’d probably call it.

The train station turned out to have been built in the best traditions of communism – except perhaps the "gun store" I had spotted inside with a corner of an eye. As I had been too carried away figuring out where to go, I had narrowly missed the Plovdiv train. The bus was an easy alternative. Or not as easy, given the sheer number of bus-operating companies populating the main building of Sofia's newly built, shining bus station. I finally found a "Vitosha Express" booth and loaded myself onto a Plovdiv bus.

Just before heading off, I became a witness to a classic "seat number incident". Some Bulgarian bus companies print a seat number on passengers’ tickets to create a kind of preferential seating order during peak times. Most passengers, however, including yours truly, were making themselves comfortable at random seats. It all came to an end when a Greek lady started exploding, in a mixture of Greek and Bulgarian, at some Bulgarian gentleman occupying her seat. The bus driver stopped and waited in the middle of the road for about ten minutes as the entire bus immersed in a heated debate about who should sit in whose seats, and should we even sit at all, and should seats even be numbered, etc. The result was as abrupt as the beginning. The Bulgarian character refused to let his Greek counterpart into her legitimate seat, she settled in another one – and we all travelled on happily to Plovdiv.

Plovdiv was beautiful. The sun was shining, not obstructed by a single cloud in the sky. Pretty little streets sprouted around the famous Roman ruins. The Bulgarian man by the entrance to the sight boasted fluency in my mother tongue and, hearing I was an ethnic Russian, refused to take any money for the entry ("Денег не беру!"). I guess it was a sort of an Easter gift to a fellow Orthodox.

I spent the day doing little more than zooming around town, resting on benches in the shade, climbing all the hills I could locate on my inner radar and taking photos. A day well spent! View full Plovdiv Flickr photoset.

Roman ruins:

Traditional Bulgarian Troyan pottery:

Plovdiv's Train Station:

Exhausted after another day of uninterrupted walking, I left for Sofia by train. Just before leaving, I discovered my much loved boza drink sold at a stall nearby. Made of wheat, it's peculiar to the region and either loved or hated by those who know it. I belong firmly in the first club, and grabbed my bottle like a hungry baby. The content wasn't as good as the draught version I had previously tried in Skopje – but, with both nostrils pressed together, not even the most devoted connoisseur could tell the difference.

Before going to sleep back in Sofia, I spent some time consuming local "fast food" delicacies and deciding on my next day's destination. As much as I had wanted to visit Veliko Tarnovo and Belogradchik, they were both too far for a day trip. Blagoevgrad? Many of my friends had studied there, but perhaps I wouldn't bother sitting through a 2-hour journey to see a large concrete square with an old fountain. The Rila Monastery involved some draconic public transport connections for a non-driver. Staying in Sofia would have been a repetition. Decisions, decisions!

The last day

The next morning saw me walking to the same old bus station. Or, in fact, a different bus station right next to the new one. Not sure whence the separation – my theory is that the old, about-to-fall-apart buses are only allowed in the former. The bus I was taking to – ta-da! – Koprivshtitsa perfectly fit that subtle definition.

Koprivshtitsa (Копривщица) is a small museum town lost in the mountains about 110 kilometres west of Sofia. That is where they say the April Uprising against the Turks began back in 1876. The town is known for its authentic Bulgarian architecture associated with the National Revival, as well as for its folk music festivals. Over 300 national monuments fill up the traditional Bulgarian village setting. In short, a promising day-trip!

Despite its vintage looks, the little bus could still run fast. For the absence of seat numbers, the famous incident had safely been avoided, too. I made sure to walk every tiny street in Koprivshtitsa during the three hours I had to spare (see full Flickr photoset for Koprivshtitsa). The place looked very cosy and – despite its modest 3,000 population – oversupplied with guesthouses. The tiled roofs and overall atmosphere reminded me greatly of Poroia villages in the Eastern part of Greek Macedonia. Next time it'll probably be a good idea to spend a night in a traditional Bulgarian style – for now though, it was time to return to Sofia.

A typical building in Koprivshtitsa:

I survived the shaky ride back to the capital, walked to the hotel to pick up my skinny bag – I am a self-declared 10-kg travelling professional – and caught Bus 84 for the airport. The final incident involved a young Roma man hopping on the same bus and stirring everyone around by randomly making high-pitched sounds and waving his hand in front of his nose as if he didn't like the smell. I'm not particularly familiar with Roma people – somehow we have missed them in Latvia, or not too much, actually – so I could only guess that the poor guy couldn't have received adequate attention being a child in a classic Roma family. After he had got up to leave, I could not help noticing the smell couldn't have been anything but his own.

During my outbound passport control, I was kept for another five-odd minutes answering random questions of varying degrees of inappropriateness. The officer looked through each and every one of my passport’s stamps. Four pages covered with various ex-Yugoslavian ones got him visibly worried; the Albanian ones sent his eyebrows flying right up – but the Russian visa finally convinced him to forgive all my sins. I was let through. Is it my Latvian passport, my Russian surname or the fact that I was flying to London? We may never find out.

Overall, it was a good trip, during which I had a chance to educate myself about another Balkan country. Somehow though I got tired of customer service a-la Soviet Union – and of bumping into painfully familiar surroundings. Here’s next year’s Easter plan: fly into the Greek island of Chios, explore it, cross over by boat to Turkish Çeşme, travel to Izmir (formerly known as Smyrni) and fly back to London. Stay tuned!

Bon voyage? Leaving Tel Aviv

One of my most dramatic travel experiences was the nearly failed departure from Tel Aviv airport on Easter Monday 2009.

I knew very well about the airport's draconic security measures and had duly planned to arrive there at least two hours in advance. Three is typically recommended, but I was foolishly hoping for a bit of luck. Utterly undisturbed by any sort of rush, I packed slowly and headed to the bus, which was due to arrive soon. Or was it? The skies started clouding up above me, as, about half an hour later, there was still no sign of the bus. The inner voice was telling me to take the taxi to the train station instead and go from there. There were exactly 20 minutes left until the next twice-hourly train.

I had exchanged all of my remaining shekels by then, keeping only the two fares' worth (bus and train) I needed to get to the airport. Taxi clearly wasn't part of my plans, so, as I hailed one, my immediate question to the driver was whether he accepted cards. It was only later that I understood the kind of idiotic query that was, as, unlike, say, in Scandinavia, no taxi in Tel Aviv would think of taking cards as payment. Contrary to my expectations, the driver nodded. Really? I waved my card in the air. He nodded again. Feeling lucky, I hopped on the taxi, and off we drove.

The traffic in Tel Aviv was absolutely impenetrable. It looked like I was going to miss the train, and I started panicking. Would the security officers at Tel Aviv show some understanding if I stormed in a mere hour ahead of my flight? It would probably fly anywhere else in the world, but not in Israel. I was hoping my train would perhaps be running late for me to make it. Yes! In front of us finally stood the train station.

I handed my card to the driver. He looked at it rather blandly, and rubbed his thumb against two of the closest fingers. Only cash? Impossible. Occasionally bursting into Russian, I tried to explain our initial agreement to settle the payment with a card. He shook his head. Unlike many of his fellow countrymen, he did not understand a word of Russian. Or English, as it was obviously the case.

At that point, I exploded. Instead of gate-crashing the train station, I was still stuck in that taxi resolving a payment formality. There were no ATMs around, so I couldn't withdraw any cash even if I wanted to. I got out of the car and, to great amusement for other taxi drivers around (and shock for mine), gave the driver one remarkable speech. A speech about how irresponsible it was of taxi drivers to promise their passengers one thing and renege on that promise. Then I turned around and rolled swiftly down to the platforms, leaving the furious driver arguing with his colleagues over something in Hebrew.

I was running like hell – but the train was gone. The next one was scheduled to arrive in 30 minutes. Every minute seemed at least an hour long. I was seriously late to the airport, but was hoping for the better. The clocks went over the scheduled time, but there was still no sign of the train though; it was eight minutes delayed. I was nearly crying, when, as if to add to my misery, my taxi driver suddenly emerged on the platform. Not exactly the person I most wanted to see at that particular moment. He showered me with selected Hebrew, which I found beautifully textural with all its sounding consonants – but failed to understand in the least. Thankfully, an Israeli lady on the platform kindly agreed to mediate, listened to my story, gently relayed it to the driver and absolutely saved the day. He had left my life forever – and my train was finally approaching.


We had reached the airport. It was on-the-dot one hour till take-off. It took me a while to find the departures hall, where a brief look at the electronic board confirmed that I was in the right terminal. I rushed to the security and begged to be let through immediately. My paranoia was met with utter coldness. Why am I so late? Didn't I know one was to arrive at Tel Aviv airport no later than three hours before their flight? Carefully omitting the driver and the non-payment for the taxi, I outlined my little train incident. The verdict was clear – I was going to miss my flight. There was no way the security staff could perform all the checks in such a short time. But I begged again and again. I needed to go to work back in London, for Heaven’s sake. The officers looked at each other. We'll try, they said.

And so they did.

What followed next has been my ultimate model of airport efficiency ever since. About five people attacked my luggage from different ends. They went through everything. My laptop was opened and repeatedly scanned. My various electric chargers were detangled, unrolled, scanned and rolled back into beautiful little bundles. My food was unpacked and let through a scanner piece by piece. My beautiful Nikon had its lens temporarily taken off for inspection. Everything was functioning like clockwork.

In the meantime, the check-in procedure for myself was launched at the nearby bmi desk, where my passport and confirmation email were delivered in person by a member of the mentioned high-efficiency team. I was taken through a body scanner device located in a special little room elsewhere. I did my best to co-operate, not to argue with what I was being asked to do and not to show signs of anxiety. God only knows how difficult that was.

Even under the circumstances, the Israelis were not at all deprived of humour. One of the officers asked if I had any seating preferences. Everyone around laughed. It turned out that the only un-occupied seats left on the entire plane were middle ones next to the emergency exit. Needless to say that, at that stage, I had no strong seating preferences whatsoever.

Finally it was all over. Good girl, one of the officers said. See that gentleman right behind you? He's on the same flight, but he won't make it.

Tel Aviv probably boasts the most beautiful airport building I have ever seen – and I have seen a few – but I had little time to enjoy it as I sprinted towards my gate. The boarding had already started. I collapsed into my middle seat in front of the "EXIT" sign. It was one hell of an afternoon, but – thanks to the efficiency of the Tel Aviv airport's security staff – the finale was a happy one.

Holiday addict

Hello. My name is anjči and I am an addict.

Give me a holiday. Holiday planning. Holiday booking. Holiday rescheduling. Holiday photography. Holiday everything – I am obsessed with my holiday. Holiday!

Everybody likes holidays though, I hear you say. What's wrong with looking forward to having a few days free?
Looking forward would be only half of the problem though. The truth is that, when it comes to holiday, I am starting to notice a number of worrying symptoms in myself. Which worry me increasingly more every day. As goes below.

Firstly, I book holidays ages in advance. Last-minute planning is something I never understood. How can people do that? The thought of an unplanned near-term holiday makes me feel almost uncomfortable. Having to decide last-minute to end up "wherever" is depressing in the core.

I do things differently. My holidays are all pre-booked months in advance. Absolutely months. My spring 2008 adventure in Jordan was booked in September 2007. My upcoming Easter getaway to Bulgaria was crystallised on an insignificant October day back in 2009. As of January 2010, I had eight trips booked until June alone, excluding business travel. As of now, I have completed four of those and have booked more to land at eleven pending by 2011. Over the last two days, I have finalised the itineraries for my Mexican and Vietnamese holidays covering two weeks in October and December, respectively. I have even booked hotels and domestic flights and started booking excursions and trains. This is simply scary.

Secondly, I book compulsively. Yes, months in advance BUT compulsively. Sometimes, unaware of what's awaiting me, I sip my tea quietly in front of the monitor in the evening – when a great new travel destination suddenly descends upon me – like a tropical thunderstorm on a calm day.

Instantly, the whole world turns upside down. I check flights on Opodo. I re-check them on each individual airline’s website. I look up average weather conditions for specific months on BBC. Hotels' reviews are retrieved from Tripadvisor, and their availability – from Booking.com. Domestic transport connections are not always the easiest to find, but I nail them down one by one till my flag is flying proudly on their entire territory. If there is a railway network in the country, I get all excited – I absolutely have to try it. 1,700 km from Hanoi to Saigon? Peanuts. I'll have it, please. I love travelling by rail. What about travel safety? No-one gives better advice than the UK Foreign & Commonwealth Office. The itinerary gradually begins to gain a sort of a shape. Finally, an affordable flight option emerges out of the blue, amid the dozen overpriced ones. The temptation becomes irresistible. I sit there, looking at the fare and imagining it inflating out of proportion a minute later. I have to have it. "Book".

In fact, I love my bookings so much that I would dissolve in the air before delegating them to anyone. Sometimes friends offer help with reservations – after having visited the destination themselves or simply as a welcoming gesture. Nothing could be more unwelcome from my side. On one hand, it is the pleasure of planning time off while maintaining the control over the destination, accommodation, timetable and activities. On the other hand, it is about not being dependent on anyone and being solely accountable to myself in case of an emergency. The idea of letting somebody down with my holiday choices – or being let down by theirs – is close to unbearable. Perhaps that is why I have been travelling alone ever since I can remember.

Finally, I cannot settle for a quiet holiday in a single location. I absolutely have to have it all! My first attempt of a relaxing holiday was two weeks in Singapore three years ago. After examining the map, I realised Kuala Lumpur could easily fit in as well. Then, naturally, it turned out that the island of Penang was not far from Kuala Lumpur, either – although in the opposite direction. The culmination came when, to the sound of trumpet music, I discovered a RAILWAY link between Singapore and Penang via Kuala Lumpur. Which was in fact stretching all the way to Bangkok. For mere 1,946 km. I don't think I need to tell anyone what the outcome was. Yes, the holiday was incredible – except for the fact that I had to take a few days off sick from work upon my return to London. Besides being deeply sunburnt in places and exhausted beyond recognition, I could barely walk anymore. One would think I had learnt my lesson…

Penang, Malaysia - exhaustingly worth it

…alas. Last year I chose former Yugoslavia for a holiday. The initial idea was to spend a few days at a friend's summer house near Zadar, Croatia. But, finding the Dalmatian coast incredibly alluring, I made the first change to my trip. I was now going to travel from Zadar down to Dubrovnik with a couple of stops on the way; nothing dramatic. Then a Montenegrin friend popped out, offering a day-trip to the Bay of Kotor, and I duly scheduled a trip across the border. In the course of things, a classic map examination revealed the proximity to Dubrovnik of Mostar in Bosnia & Herzegovina. Where Mostar fits, Sarajevo will, I sang as I continued to expand my route.

But how would I get from Sarajevo back to Zadar to catch my flight? Travelling back the same route seemed like the best option – until I noticed that serpentine little black line on the map. Shivers same streaming down my spine. Railway! Sarajevo to Zagreb, “only” nine hours in one go. The result was my famous “Balkan Odyssey” (Part I and Part II): two weeks of zooming around three countries, with 11 stopovers and 1,700 km of ground travel covered. Need I say more?

Through Bosnia by rail - not for the faint-hearted

My 2010 holiday season will officially kick off in a couple of weeks with an exciting trip to Hong Kong. It will be followed by equally exciting getaways to Iceland, New York, DC, Balkans, Mexico and Vietnam – as well as countless short-haul European adventures along the way. Frankly, I think I am sorted for this year.

Hold on though… how warm was Vancouver in September again?