• Mood: planning!

New Year Plans

First week at work went very well, all things considered, and my mentor and my boss seemed to like the short presentation that my co-starter and I gave about what we had learned this week. (On the downside, I seldom seem to have the time to respond to LJ comments any more.) Next big milestones: first shift, then first night shift, then first shift pattern. From there, it's all plain sailing until the first extended gap in the shift pattern, which will be between December 31st and January 13th. This will be tremendously happy because dezzikitty will be arriving in London on December 31st, though my night shift the night before ends two hours before she lands and so I won't be able to be there to meet her. Planning for how to spend our time together has already begun. We haven't decided yet how to spend New Year, but we'd love to spend it with friends, be it in London, Oxford, Cambridge or Birmingham, if this would fit in with your plans. We were thinking about going up to Edinburgh, but travel would be a nightmare.

In addition to that, we would welcome advice about places to stay in either the south of England or easily-accessible Europe between January 1st and January 5th. Our criteria are privacy^*, comfort, ease of transport and the presence of bacon, with value as a tie-breaker. Staying in London and day-tripping to see people and places is perhaps the best option, but also the most expensive; if there's somewhere cheaper, reasonably pleasant and within convenient reach of public transport, then so much the better. We're idly thinking about picking a low-cost flight to Spain; I would rather draw upon people's personal experiences of Barcelona (good places to stay, suitability for those with little/no Spanish) rather than researching sources I can trust less well. Alternatively, resources that you trust would help considerably, too; this is a trust issue rather than a too-lazy-to-do-my-own-research issue.

^* ...which means that any kind offers of rooms are likely to be declined gratefully, and I shall leave it at that. Isn't it funny how it's (almost) always the men who go "ugh, TMI! TMI! Wah!" and the ladies who are practical and positive about such matters? Not very helpful, much of the time, but funny.

It probably helps you if we can be a bit more specific about price range. In the past we've stayed in what was the London Euston Plaza, probably London's cheapest **** place. (One time it was excellent, the other time it was OK.) Large en suite room with a huge bed and a good bathroom for nominally a rate of £69 per night, but add tax and breakfast and we're talking £96 per night. That's still very good for zone 1 London, I guess, but I think we're looking for somewhere further out in the sticks and hope to make significant cost savings (say, £60-70 per night inc. tax and breakfast?) in order to offset the transport costs. So, yes; information on London bargains, surrounding town bargains and accessible, warm European bargains all requested, please.

Lastly, promoting other people's polls upon request: sophie10 has a Harry Potter poll about the Black family, alhewison has a survey about diversity and earthquake1906 has a poll about book buying. Please help all three out!