Hotels

[SwissJon]

I've had to spend a lot of time in hotels recently, it gets a bit boring to be honest, especially when the weather isn't good for photography (I always take my camera).

One thing I'v enoticed is that in MANY hotels, the only two English speaking channels available on TV are CNN and BBC World News, So I've had my fill of Libya. e-Coli and Tiger Woods' injuries. My problem is that they're VERY repetative.. It seems that it takes about 1/2 an hour to tell everyone what's going on in the world, then we get back to the first story..

It's driving me nuts.. Rain outside, miserable stern looking people on the TV telling us how serious the world is, sternly looking at the camera through their eyebrows.

I think it's time for hotels to realise that people on business trips aren't always interested in news and pornography.. I'd quite like some light entertainment. I guess though, I'm not really a TV watcher.. Thank god there's internet access.

**Rant over** Sorry, just needed to let that out.

[andyw]

That is why when I am travelling I always have my laptop and a couple of dvd's with me although most of the time there is too much to do to be sitting watching tv.

[BigFuzzy]

Originally Posted by SwissJon

I think it's time for hotels to realise that people on business trips aren't always interested in news and pornography.. I'd quite like some light entertainment.

Hmmm. I thought porn and news was light entertainment?

PS Books. Books on photography?

[SwissJon]

LoL.. Porn is boring.. The news is in no way entertaining..

I carry an iPad with a bunch of books on PDF, and a couple of movies, but I'd much rather the hotel put BBC1 on or something. Hey, maybe I could ask them to bring me some live entertainment to my room.. I'm in Paris, maybe a couple of Can-Can girls could squeeze in and "talk" to me oh well, flying to Venice in a few hours, maybe the Italians can do better.

[CurlyCorry]

You lead quite the life Jon, lol... flitting about between Venice and Paris and you are sitting there saying your BORED?!?!? For gawd sakes man.... look out your windows..... there's gotta be something there to see!!! YOUR IN PARIS!!!!!!!! and soon you'll be in VENICE!! LOL

[Izzy]

I use my laptop and netflix. I can watch at home and on the road. Well worth the $9.

[AnonymousKiwi1]

Originally Posted by CurlyCorry

You lead quite the life Jon, lol... flitting about between Venice and Paris and you are sitting there saying your BORED?!?!? For gawd sakes man.... look out your windows..... there's gotta be something there to see!!! YOUR IN PARIS!!!!!!!! and soon you'll be in VENICE!! LOL

+1000


Ah, the jet set. So easily bored....

[NicoleScraps]

Originally Posted by CurlyCorry

You lead quite the life Jon, lol... flitting about between Venice and Paris and you are sitting there saying your BORED?!?!? For gawd sakes man.... look out your windows..... there's gotta be something there to see!!! YOUR IN PARIS!!!!!!!! and soon you'll be in VENICE!! LOL

I gotta go with this!! You could always shop!!!

[kcoppock]

Originally Posted by SwissJon

My problem is that they're VERY repetative.. It seems that it takes about 1/2 an hour to tell everyone what's going on in the world, then we get back to the first story..

Hence why I've never paid for cable.

I totally agree with this sentiment; I'd rather just look up the news online, or watch Netflix, Hulu, or pretty much anything besides a TV news station.

[SwissJon]

Originally Posted by CurlyCorry

You lead quite the life Jon, lol... flitting about between Venice and Paris and you are sitting there saying your BORED?!?!? For gawd sakes man.... look out your windows..... there's gotta be something there to see!!! YOUR IN PARIS!!!!!!!! and soon you'll be in VENICE!! LOL

LoL.. I've spend a LOT of my life travelling.. I think I've got gypsy blood in me.. If I didn't travel I'd go loopy.. When I was in my 20's I spent a lot of time working in different countries.. Not all glamerous, some horrible hell holes to be honest.. Just because it's "abroad" doesn't mean it's lovely.. Anyway, Paris was boring because it was peeing with rain and I was too tired to think of anything interesting to do, I work 12 or 14 hour days in offices that all look pretty much the same the world over, I could quite easily have been in Milton Keynes.

I was lucky in Italy, I got one night in Padova, which is 20 mins outside Venice. When the plane landed, it was still raining, and continued like that until 5pm when it miraculously brightened up. So I took the train to Venice where I was very surprised by what I found.

The train station opens onto the Grand canal, and suddenly it his you, this place is exactly like the postcards, only more so, except for the romance (I guess my wife is probably pleased I didn't find romance in Venice without her!) Every 5 metres there's a Gondola. €33 gets you an hour. The grand canal goes through the middle of the city (Venice is several islands in the middle of a lake) and there's the famous arch shaped bridges over the big and many many small canals cutting through, with gondola's passing through, the oarsmen (They use an oar, not a pole) having to duck under the low bridges. I can see why Da Vinci fell in love with this city, but there were probably far fewer people trying to sell the Venetian equivalent of blackpool rock to the passing punters.. Mainly american and japanese, mainly with 5DMk11 and D3s. I peeked over the shoulders of some of them to see what their photos were like, and I can honestly say that there were a LOT of people with very expensive cameras and no idea how to compose a picture.. I mean one guy with a D700 was impressed by my D7000 because it had another 0 on it and he thought that meant it was better.. Well I lied and told him it was, I had 4 more megapixels than him and HD movies, I think if I'd have continued, I'd have got him to swap his camera for mine, except I've got a conscience. Anyhow, the marble on the main bridge was worn shiney by the many many elbows queuing up to take the shots.. Of course I dutifully queued for my turn, and then surprised everyone by sitting down and taking a picture through the balistrades to create foreground interest, and get something different.. Some others followed suit, so if I get the chance to go back, maybe that spot will be shiney from the many bums that have copied me.. After the sun went down, I took some time photographing some of the dimly lit canals where nobody was looking, some of them came out ok, and I'll post some on my Flickr when I get home.. So unusual was my activity of pointing my camera into the dark and taking 30" exposures, I gathered a crowd who ooohed when one picture finished processing and revealled what lay in the darkness.. Had I been single, I wouldn't have been by the end of the evening..

One thing I'm reasonably sure of, it's impossible to be original with your photos in Venice.. It's an interesting city, but it's been made chintzy by the tourism, and that has probably spoiled how it used to be, and now it's just one more tourist resort to go to. I would give it a day, just so you can tick it off your list of things to see, then move on.. There's some really stunning country side in that area, and I would say that you're much better off taking your time going off the beaten path in Northern Italy and seeing some of it.

Talking of "off the beaten path".. I was supposed to be taking a train back from Venice to my home in Switzerland tonight.. Only at Milan I was told that the train wasn't runnign because of a fire in a tunnel,a nd they put me on a different train, to Basel, as far from my home as I can possibly get in Switzerland.. which has added 11 hours onto an already 5 hour journey home because there's no trains connecting when I get to Basel.. I have internet access on and off, via 3G, so I'm stuck on a very long trek and instead of getting home at 9pm, I get home at 8am! Ho hum, the life of the jet-set eh? (I wouldn't swap my job though. I do like travelling, even so.)