Looking at the past

It occurred to me a while ago that with a trip to the UK coming up, there might be an opportunity to look up where some of my ancestors came from.  What I've proved so far is that:

• I'm definitely a Queenslander.  Everyone in my family's past was born in Queensland, or came direct to Queensland when they immigrated and married someone with the same sort of background!  And, very few of us ever seem to leave - I'm feeling like such a traitor living here in Canberra!
• I've got more German ancestry than I thought - on both sides of the family.  

My mum's family basically came from Ireland (her dad's family - the Strains) and Germany (her mum's - the Weckers).  There's a bit of confusion about the Strain family, there seems to have been some movement between Scotland and Ireland that I'm still trying to track down.  As it happens, we won't be getting to Ireland or Germany on our trip next year. We will be getting to Scotland but we'll have to see if I can track down any actual family history there rather than just vague confusion about whether they were there or not  :-)

My dad's family is a different story - both his mum and dad were born in London and the small amount I've found so far about their parents seems to be saying the same thing about them, although any further back on his mum's side will also take me to Germany.  The houses at all of the London addresses I can find have clearly been rebuilt over more than once since then - one of the streets doesn't even exist any more.  And to be blunt it seems fairly likely that if I found pictures of these places when my forbears lived there, they wouldn't exactly be the nice open streets and upmarket looking houses and units that Google Street View shows me today.  One of the streets for example rates a mention on website about Jack the Ripper, and at about the time the family was there.  I'll still go and look at some of them - as it happens they're mostly within walking distance of our London hotel - but the actual houses all seem to be long gone.

Once I started looking at my family history, we got interested in Paul's too.  So far we've only started looking at his dad's family a little.  Turns out they're all Queenslanders too, but originally were country people from the Peak District (a bit of a surprise since we thought they were from Wales!).  The two main towns we've come across so far are Hayfield and Glossop.  So, although it doesn't seem that there are many Brelsfords left there - they apparently all went to the USA or Australia long ago - we've decided to go to Manchester first and have a look at both places, and hopefully in the meantime we can track down some more information about the Brelsford past.

Two more countries added to the list!

Today we got an eMail from Princess Cruises, telling us that they've had to change the itinerary on the Panama Canal cruise that's the last leg of next year's big holiday.

Although we're still going to Panama, of course, including shore excursions around the Canal, we're now not stopping for the planned day at Fuerte Amador in Panama. This is a bit disappointing, because we'd have been able to go into Panama City from there, and from the small amount of research I had done so far, it looked like an interesting city to visit.

However, instead, we're going to go to two extra places - San Juan Del Sur in Nicaragua, and Cabo San Lucas in Mexico.  

In my youth, Nicaragua was a place that you would never dream of visiting, but now the travel websites say things like "Once viewed as a 'no go' holiday destination, Nicaragua has overcome civil unrest, dictatorship and natural disasters." - and even from a quick look it does seem that we should enjoy our short time there.

And of course, I've heard of Cabo San Lucas - it looks like a lovely 'last stop' on our very long holiday.

So, the count for this holiday is now 13 completely separate countries, some of which we visit more than once!  Just have to hope that the dollar stops its downward slide, or I'll be working until I'm 97 to pay for it  :-)

Hotels and other plans

Gradually getting the plans done. Travel insurance is now all ok, although in the end not with Travel Insurance Direct. All good though.

I've now started looking at hotels. There's no need to rush for some of them, but both Copenhagen and Fort Lauderdale have lots of cruises starting and finishing there and hotel prices don't tend to get cheaper as you get closer - not unless you want to risk not being able to get a decent room at all.

Fort Lauderdale looks like it will be ok - I've had a quick look today though and it seems I'll be able to have a reasonable choice of places well within the rough budget I've set.

Copenhagen is also kind of under control - we already know which hotel we're going to stay in, we just need to decide whether we're going to spend one night there or two, and then I can book it. A lovely lady on the cruise has organised for us to be able to access their group booking rate, which reduces it from 'wildly expensive' to 'a little less than wildly expensive'! However, I knew going in that Copenhagen translates into English as 'leave all your money here' so I'm not really surprised.

Not the case in the UK. I also knew that hotel rooms in London would be very expensive, but it seems I've underestimated just how how expensive. We're going to stay in Cambridge for the first few days after we get to the UK, then go to London the day before the coach tour starts. Since the tour starts fairly early from a meeting point at a hotel, it makes sense to stay at that hotel the night before - lots of people do, and the coach tour company will book it for us at a slight discount from the currently quoted price. However, the slight discount is still $356 for the night for the two of us - including breakfast but even so, wow!. And, although it's a nice hotel - it's the Thistle Marble Arch - and in a good location, it's certainly not top of the range. Ouch.

12 months until we leave for the UK and USA

Tomorrow is 23 August, and as well as being my baby sister's 50th birthday - hi Rose! - it marks the "12 months out from our next big holiday" milestone. If those 12 months go as quickly as the last few months have, we'll be in the UK before we know it :-)

12 months out means that we can buy travel insurance. We have pretty much decided on Travel Insurance Direct - not because it's cheaper but because people who have actually made claims against their TID travel insurance report that they get good service and no apparent rip-off. Their sister company Budget Direct were quite reasonable for our claim for the stolen Lancer too, although no-one could ever make Paul and I happy about anything to do with that nasty little experience.

Anyway, on to happier things. We've decided we'll probably leave Sydney on 23 August 2012, fly to Heathrow then hop a bus to Cambridge for a few days. We'd both like to see the Imperial War Museum Duxford which is just down the road. Plus, there are all sorts of other interesting things near and around Cambridge. And, we don't get to go anywhere near that neck of the woods on the actual coach tour.

Then, we'll get to London - maybe in a hire car or maybe just on the train - on 28 August. That puts us in London for the start of the tour which is early the next morning.

I'm also planning other things as we go along - there's still heaps of things to organise. Little stuff like hotels in a bunch of different places - Cambridge, London, Copenhagen, New York (or Washington, haven't decided yet) and Fort Lauderdale - as well as lots of other bits and pieces. And, some of the biggest bits are yet to come - the air fare to London and home from Los Angeles has me quaking in my boots. These airfares are the biggest single entries in my 'budget' document, and I'm still not convinced that I've set aside enough money for them - only time will tell :-)

Insight it is

We're definitely going for the Insight tour I mentioned in my last post. So, with deposits paid on all the big ticket items, it's pretty much pinned down now - except for a million little detail things of course. My holiday document is currently 55 pages long!

However, it's really starting to feel like it will happen now. Just gotta get through the next 387 days, most of which I'm starting to feel I'm going to spend at work - I haven't had a two day weekend since June, and it's not looking like it will get any better any time soon.

Still, it's really something to look forward to!

Another change of mind - there'll be more of these, I bet!

Looks like the aircraft museum in Hanover will definitely have to wait for us to return to Europe some other time. I did think about stopping off there on the way to London, but it's still all just too much travel. However, I did discover one of those fascinating reasons why people think airlines are ripping them off. I did a couple of flight comparisons with Qantas, and they offered to get us to and from Hanover (Hamburg actually) for about $2200 each. Cool, however, I don't want a return trip - and for the one way flight, the lowest they'd offer is $8026. Each. Amazing. Almost 4 times as much money to fly us half the distance.

If we manage to get together enough money for the 2015 Gallipoli cruise, we'll be finishing up in Rome, and Paul is already talking about seeing some of Europe while we're there, so that might be the way we'll go.

Cardiff though might be on the list after all. I realised today that there's an Insight Tours holiday somewhat similar to the Globus one, but including Cardiff. I had crossed this one off my list because it was over my 'top price' - not by much, but you have to set a limit somewhere and I had already upped it at least twice :-)

However, the Globus one requires us to stay in London or Copenhagen - or somewhere in between - for four days after holiday before we can join the cruise, while the Insight one has only a two day break. Once you add the extra accommodation etc onto the price (they're two of the most expensive places to stay in Europe apparently), the Insight one isn't quite so far out of range.

I'm in the middle of comparing the two in detail, but at the very least I'm going to ask the Travel Agent to check out the costs of the Insight one for us - they also have early booking discounts so it might end up in much the same price range as the Globus one anyway.

Have I bitten off more than I can chew here???

I just sat down to start looking at an idea we had to go from London to Copenhagen via Hanover. They have an aircraft museum which looks pretty cool, and with our vague thoughts of getting a train from London to Copenhagen, Hanover is actually on the way. And, in theory, I could practice using the ten words of German that have stayed in my brain since I did those beginner German language classes last year.

But, I started thinking about adding another country to the list and all of a sudden my brain said, nah, that's enough, you try to go somewhere else as well and I'm going on strike :-)

Maybe I could go back to the other new thought that came up today and see if I can add Cardiff to the list of places to go. Don't know why, but Cardiff just appeals to me.

Or maybe I'll just leave it for a few days and see if the stress levels go down :-)