Sunday, December 31, 2006

A Year In Transit

For nobody's benefit other than my own, really, but for a while 2006 was the Year Of Indifferent Travel Food and DVT Paranoia. I went to the States so much in the first half of the year I was actually getting bored of it, which is a bit of an achievement given that until mid-2005 I'd only been on a couple of planes in my life. Vague ambition for 2007: head East more often.

Air

Trips abroad = 8
Of which
Press trips = 6

Cities Visited = Las Vegas (twice), Seattle (twice), Baltimore, New York, Los Angeles, Edinburgh, Paris, Kiev, London, Chernobyl, Pripyat
of which
Worst = Baltimore
Best = Pripyat

Baltimore was a bit of a dump and we all decided that it wasn't anywhere we'd want to go to again. Pripyat was, um, exactly the same, but it had the fine excuse that it was in a nuclear exclusion zone.

Worst Travel Experience =
Las Vegas - LAX - Heathrow

Best Travel Experience =
London - Seattle, I guess, although that's mostly because of the silver BA Executive Club card I CANNOT KEEP THIS YEAR OH IT BURNS.

Best Airline = British Airways
Airline I Am Never Using Again Even If The Only Alternative Is A Shipping Container = America West

Road

Cars Owned = 6
Accidents = 0 (-100% decrease year-on-year)
Cars Lost = 1
Top Speed = 135-ish
Total Expenditure = £740
Best Buy = 94L Fiat Cinquecento SX.
Worst Buy = 91H BMW 325iSE.
Most Fun = 91H BMW 325iSE

Rail

Best Train Company = Métro de Paris
Worst Train Company = First Great Western