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Ignorant American here. I need to research some one-way train rides (London to Amsterdam, then Amsterdam to Frankfurt) and I’m not sure what web sites Google recommends are legit ones and which aren’t. Where should I look?
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Jan 15, 2023 22:41
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Ok but should I just go to the train line web site and book from there?
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Jan 15, 2023 23:14
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Thanks, everyone.
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Jan 16, 2023 00:47
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For the second trip, is there a reason to buy from DB rather than NS? They seem to be showing the same trains and NS is about 10% cheaper. Edit: no it’s not. I was comparing two different things (but it wasn’t EUR and USD!) WithoutTheFezOn fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Jan 16, 2023 |
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Jan 16, 2023 02:44
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“In Greece” can mean a lot of things, and I haven’t been there yet, but isn’t there a “season” for most of the inter-island ferries? As in, almost no ferries from (made up times) mid-October through mid-May?
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Jan 18, 2023 16:05
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The white sneakers part I get, and have heard that mentioned for decades. But windbreakers are US-centric? What’s the European solution for waterproof light jacket then?
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Jan 30, 2023 15:15
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What do you guys think of the London zoo? We may have a day there with nothing scheduled.
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Mar 16, 2023 01:10
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Bollock Monkey posted:I also think there might be better stuff to do for a day in a major city than visiting the zoo. Personal preference, of course.
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Mar 17, 2023 13:53
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greazeball posted:Plus there will always be plenty of empty seats on the Eurostar since Brexit has slowed down passport checks so much. They're understaffed after COVID and now British travelers need their passports stamped as well so that means that 1/3 of the seats aren't being sold just to keep things on schedule Trains are like planes in that the customs check is done at the destination, right?
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Mar 21, 2023 19:25
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Ok, good to know. But who does the checks? Like if you’re going from London to Amsterdam, are they British or Dutch agents at St. Pancras?
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Mar 21, 2023 19:32
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Right, thanks. I keep forgetting about the Union/Region “just do it once” things.
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Mar 21, 2023 22:56
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Anyone have any suggestions for “you gotta eat here” in London? With the qualifiers of 1) we’re going to be dressed just a step above t-shirts and jeans and 2) less than, say, 75 gbp per person not including alcohol. Staying near the British Museum.
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Apr 12, 2023 23:49
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Thanks for the suggestions. From what I’ve seen (including the mentioned Eaters list) it certainly doesn’t look like we'll go hungry. Especially since Googling makes it look like Soho and Covent Garden have many dozens of restaurants. And I’m a sucker for open markets, so we'll definitely head down to Borough Market one day.
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Apr 13, 2023 13:47
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Thanks a bunch, keep ‘em coming. This is probably the seventh or eighth time I’ve heard Hawksmoor brought up by various people, so I’ll give that a hard look. Ethiopian, Nigerian, Turkish, Polish, Greek, Moroccan, yeah sure sign me up. We live in the US, to answer the question. The only regional food we probably wouldn’t go explicitly looking for is French, and maybe Italian. Steaks we could take or leave, basically a thing we already do at home. Tapas/meze is good, we’re big fans of several small dishes vs. a more traditional big filling entree, although there’s nothing wrong with that.
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Apr 13, 2023 15:33
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Thanks and just to be clear, upscale or trendy or whatever is not a priority for us, except maybe once if we feel like splurging. Good food is the goal.
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Apr 13, 2023 15:55
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Original Hawksmoor = Spitalfield, right? And yeah I think if we go it’ll be on Sunday.
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Apr 13, 2023 18:32
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Thanks for the London food tips, so far we did go to Tayyabs, and every bite of everything there was outstanding. And inexpensive. Went to Four Seasons in Chinatown. Have reservations for Hawksmoor Sunday Roast. Had some excellent Turkish food. Not even going to start with the bakeries. It's sensory overload, there are so many restaurants everywhere, and so far everything we've eaten has been great.
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Apr 21, 2023 22:01
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Also when an ATM asks if you’d like it to convert the pounds/euros you withdraw into your local currency, always decline. In London last month the ATM I used would gladly change the transaction to be in USD for the nominal service fee of … 12.89%. The only time I used an exchange the rates seemed close to market rates but changing pounds to euros had a 5 euro fee.
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May 19, 2023 21:40
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Absolutely nothing we found in downtown London required cash. If you have 2-3 weeks and want to completely forget about ATM fuckery, you could open a Charles Schwab Investor Checking account. No foreign fees, no ATM fees on their end, and at the end of the month they’ll reimburse you for any fees the ATMs charge you. No minimum balance. Doing so will open a Schwab brokerage account, too, but you don’t have to fund it.
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May 19, 2023 21:57
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AreWeDrunkYet posted:Charles Schwab debit cards return ATM fees, do they make up for it with higher conversion fees or is this a good deal? It looks like they charged us 2.5% over what Google says the exchange rate was for that day. I have no idea if that’s good or bad, because I don’t know if/how a retail consumer could get the publicly listed rate. E.g. Google says 100 euro would have been $111 on May 3, Schwab ended up taking out $113.50. Very similar ratio on other withdrawals.
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May 20, 2023 16:02
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Ok, right, but I was thinking of getting cash, not just paying for something.
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May 20, 2023 17:42
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Saladman posted:Yeah. The abbreviation ATM is "automated *teller* machine". Like bank teller, the people you go to and talk to at a bank counter. They can do everything an ATM can do plus more. .
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May 21, 2023 12:51
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Link your two cards to Apple Pay or the Google equivalent and try to quit worrying about it. I worried too much, too.
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May 26, 2023 00:47
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Chewbecca posted:Should say going to: London - As far as I can tell, paper “X day” cards were stopped early this year. You can use any tap to pay card at the turnstiles. Apple Pay works. Tap in, tap out, it’ll charge your card up to a maximum of 8.10 pounds per day (after that, rides are no extra charge). You can also buy a visitor's Oyster card, which is just a top-up-able tap to pay card, but I think you have to have the card mailed to you before your trip. Amsterdam — The easiest is to buy a GVB “X day” card from a GVB booth in either the airport or train station. Physical paper card that you use to tap in and tap off a vehicle. Doesn’t include outside-of-city transport. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t cover a train/tram/bus ride from the airport.
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May 26, 2023 23:20
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Your WhatsApp account is registered to one number, but you can use it on a phone with another number.
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May 27, 2023 01:32
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The people on the trams can only sell 1- and 2- day tickets. There is a large full service center in Centraal, though.
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May 27, 2023 12:58
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Also on the subject of public transport for tourists, if you don’t know about an app called Citymapper, you should get an app called Citymapper. It’s very good and helpful.
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May 27, 2023 13:25
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Chewbecca posted:Out of interest, how much are the sims at kiosks and how many gb do you get? E: like so. https://travel.orange.com/en/ WithoutTheFezOn fucked around with this message at 22:55 on May 28, 2023 |
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May 28, 2023 22:49
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Sure thing. You can buy those online, too. Warning, though, a lot of prepaid sim packages are time limited, like they only work for 14 days.
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May 28, 2023 23:28
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Top ups usually extend the time.
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May 28, 2023 23:39
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What do you plan on doing in London? The answer may be “zero cash”.Josh Lyman posted:I asked earlier about where to get cash. It was recommended that I would get the best exchange rate by using my debit card at a bank-attached ATM in Madrid and London, but Chase charges extra fees for using international ATMs, plus the fee from the ATM for using a non-bank card, plus the spread they'll charge, so it's probably cheaper and definitely simpler to just do the exchange at my local Chase branch. I did the same thing you’re doing, but a few months go. No one wants to spend unnecessary money. But I spent a considerable amount of time thinking about optimizing cash flow and in the end what I did saved us a whopping $41. For a three-week overseas trip for two. Wasn’t worth it in hindsight.
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Jun 14, 2023 22:25
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All I can say is what happened to us this spring. Every place I went to in London that you’d expect to see a tourist took credit cards. The Underground took tap-able credit cards. Every restaurant and pub we went to took credit cards. Every souvenir shop, even the little kiosks in the street, had at least a guy with a phone and Square reader. The one taxi we used took credit cards, and he could add a tip to the total. (Since you mentioned Chase, I almost exclusively used our Chase Visa).
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Jun 14, 2023 23:22
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If you’re not talking about food but just cheap attractions, you kind of have to mention that admission to the British Museum is free.
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Jul 22, 2023 19:13
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Hawksmoor is the opposite of cheap food, though. Sunday roast starts at 39 pounds per person. Alcoholic drinks are near 20 pounds each. Their sticky toffee pudding is one of the best desserts I’ve ever tasted though. Difficult to imagine something that’s swimming in toffee yet not sickeningly sweet.
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Jul 24, 2023 15:03
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Extremely easy. Might take a sign in/setup text or something, or if you buy the SIM card from a kiosk the person there can probably do it for you. Bring a small container to keep your current SIM card safe.
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Jul 27, 2023 18:30
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No you just pop it in, activate it, and all that’s changed is you have a new phone number, so phone calls and texts to your old number won’t work. Texts to your AppleID will still work.
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Jul 27, 2023 19:14
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Not necessarily a rec, but an Orange travel/holiday SIM will work in all those countries.
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Aug 2, 2023 18:47
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I’ve only been to London once, but I don’t think you’re going to find many “not touristy” things on the border of Soho/Covent Garden/Leicester Square. That being said, I found the Sir John Soane’s museum (I.e. his house) a few blocks away was unexpectedly bizarre and interesting.
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Aug 3, 2023 01:55
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Carbon dioxide posted:I'm planning a one week trip to the United States and I'm struggling to fit in everything I want to do. My current itinerary looks roughly like this:
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Aug 10, 2023 21:06
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| # ¿ May 7, 2024 23:30 |
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Chewbecca posted:Out of curiosity I looked up the Smart Traveller page for America and boy howdy are the entry requirements intense
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Aug 26, 2023 21:16
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In contrast, traveling into and around Schengen was very easy!: