Travel Travel Travel...
But home is where the heart is...

I guess one of my biggest regrets in recent years is not having the time to travel as much as I used to...

The picture on the left is of the Edersee near Bad Wildungen. It was one of the damns bombed during the Dambusters raid during the Second World War.

GERMANY

The country in which I have spent most time, apart from England, is Germany. I studied German at university and spent two years living in the country in the early 1980s, having previously been on two school exchanges to the spa town of Bad Wildungen. Of course, at that time the country was divided into two and one of my most vivid memories is a visit to the East German border and asking my teacher why the German Democratic Republic had the word 'democratic' in its name when it patently wasn't a democracy. So I guess even at the age of 14 I was fairly politically motivated! When I left school I spent my gap year working in a spinal injuries hospital in Bad Wildungen. It really was a tremendous experience in many ways. It was the first time I had spent any long period away from home and I supose in retrospect it made me grow up. It also enabled me to speak fluent Germany by the time my degree started, which was a huge advantage. My gap year was spent in a small town called Besigheim, just north of Stuttgart. This wasn't quite as enjoyable. Although I had always intended to teach after university, this year put me off that idea completely. The people in the area were also a little insular and unfriendly. But it did enable me to get to know the Black Forest are and go to Switzerland - one of my favourtie places - quite a lot. Since the mid 1980s I have been back many times, particularly to visit friends in Bad Wildungen. Click on the pictures below...

>Picture 1 - Dirk Weber with Christa & Gerhard Niessner

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

What a country! I've been there about a dozen or more times since 1987 and abolsutely love the place. I have always felt totally at home there and would love to have worked in Washington for a while. DC is my favourite city in the world. The Centre Cafe at Union Station is a great place just to sit and watch the world go by. It heaves with politics and is just a beautiful place. Mt first visit in 1987 was to Ann Arbor, Michigan - about 40 miles from Detroit. Stuffed full of second hand book shops I was in my element. I revisited on many occasions to visit my friend Mark Milosch, who worked with me briefly in Parliament in 1986. Through him I got to know several other people who subsequently became very good friends - Michael Fuerst and Scott Mund being two, although I have sadly lost touch with Scott. I visited them in Denver, New York and Miami.

LEBANON

In 1991 I went to Beirut to speak at a conference on transport privatisation> Quite an amazing experience, particualrly as I was told I was the first British person to visit Beirut since the release of John McCarthy. I have to admit I was apprehensive about going but in retrospect I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Being guarded by the SAS and being guest of honour at a dinner at the British Embassy doesn't happen to a boy every day does it? My speech was carriedlive on TV throughout the Middle East. I also got a tour of the mountains around Beirut, which I shouldn't really have done, but I thought, hey, what's the worst that could happen?! I'm sure the same thing went through Terry Waite's mind! To see some pictures from the trip click below.

>Picture 1 - Outside the hotel with Lebanese soldiers