I was there this year. Both are very nice places to be.

I went to San Francisco on a business trip once, and didn’t enjoy it much. I think I felt grossly disappointed that my first trip to the States was just to see their version of the underground and the Moscone Center. I certainly didn’t get to see much else of the city, though I did see Alcatraz from a long way away, and the Golden Gate bridge was visible from my hotel room (which was in Berkley, so not very close). It is my aim, at some point, to go back as an unashamed tourist and see the bits which my other half’s brother keeps going on about. I fully intend to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge (if it’s possible, and not being attacked by giant sharks).

More short term, a trip to Brussels is not out of the question, and if I can extend the trip to the Hergé museum, so much the better. The great thing is that I can get on a train and pop off to the continent for less than a train fare to Birmingham. I can generally survive in French speaking places when I overcome my nerves in speaking the language to someone who is clearly more of an expert than I. The following things may happen when I do:

1 - The person to whom I am speaking starts speaking English. That defeats the purpose of the exercise, but there you go.

2 - The person to whom I am speaking starts slowing down and tries very patiently to help me understand what I need to know.

3 - I also find that English is a universal language, IF you start speaking it loudly. Foreignologists have proven that English is the natural language of the human race, and that other languages are caused by vapours and confusion. Speaking English at the right decibel level cuts through to the natural language centres of the brain, and restores the proper order. After a while, conversation flows as if you were talking to Milton or Tennyson.

I’ll agree with Linux_User - Russia is great. I did a trip there once - St Petersburg is great (it was Leningrad when I was there), and so is Moscow. The poverty was very obvious though - I have seen food queues for bread there. The trip took me down to central asia, and if you can stand the heat and the fact that you have no hope of being understood by the locals without resorting to hand gestures (or shouting - see point three above), it’s a great place to go. Well, was - I suspect that it’s a little more tense there than it was when I was there.






Point 3 is a reactionary joke provoked by comments earlier on in the thread. I suspect that Victorians believed this implicitly, and the Oxbridge Universities really did have Professors of Foreignology.

Prague is awesome. You should go as soon as you get the chance.

I am going to Portugal at the end of August.

I used to work with a girl from the Czech Republic and she said Prague was her favourite place in Czech. She said the only thing she didn't like about it was all the drunken stag dos!

I was going to seperate my response into two parts; 1. Places I will one day go on holiday to, and 2.Places that my love for architecture will eventually take me... but since both are so tied to one another, I thought I'd splice their lists together and arrange them alphabetically because trying to order them in any other way would be too difficult.

Ahmedabad (to see Louis Kahn's work)
Brasilia (to see Oscar Niemeyer's work)
Bruges
Cambodia (to see Angkor Wat & The Killing Fields)
Chandigrah (to see Le Corbusier's work)
Coney Island
Dubrovnik
Fort Worth, Texas (to see Louis Kahn's Kimbell Art Museum)
Granada (to see Alberto Campo Baeza's work)
Marrakech
Nazca Desert
New Mexico City (to see Luis Barragan's work)
Nuremberg (to see what remains of Speer's work)
Porto (to see Alvaro Siza's work)
Reykavik (& Iceland in general)
San Francisco
Sarajevo
The Sierra's in Autumn
Split
The Taiga
Tokyo's Imperial Palace (for the Cherry Blossom season)
Wroclaw

Wouldn't mind seeing New York and any of the good bits of Russia (don't think I'd like to stay in Russia for too long though), but my mates are often broke or can't see the appeal of those places... Generally speaking though, I've no real desire to travel

Also seen
Most of France
Yucatan Peninsular and relevant ruins
many Caribbean Islands.

Want to see.
New Zealand
Great Barrier Reef
Matchu Pitchuo
Polynesia
Grand Canyon

Really liked Bruges - went there twice with my ex, not much besides chocolate shops and beer museums but the architecture was pretty cool! Took a few boat trips on the canals, did a few beer museums....got hammered on Bruges Tripple and ate lots of chocolate. Good place to take your missus, but maybe a little dull on your own....unless you are armed with a few cameras and a tripod I guess...

Slightly in love with Tenerife at the moment...but I seem to fall for anywhere that isn't the UK!