It was prefect weather, nice and hot, we had a great time, you will be able to see photos of our holiday in Greece in my Photo Gallery pages.

We left on Thursday 12th June at 5.30pm and got to the apartment at midnight in Rhodes, we were lucky to get there from the airport because we booked a taxi transfer online with Holiday Taxis and there was no-one there holding a piece of paper up with my name! (Strangely my Mums name was there, but that had nothing to do with it!) I was thinking all sorts then, I thought I paid almost £60 for a transfer to the accommodation and back to the airport to a fake company! But then I saw a Holiday Taxis booth just outside the airport, so I went up to them and explained everything, they had no relocation of my booking! But I had a receipt that I had been sent by them printed out – showed them that and then they sorted out a taxi for us!

Accommodation

We booked the accommodation online, just like the flights and taxi transfer, so we didn’t know what to expect except the 5 reviews we read online that were made about 2 years ago! We stayed at Anika Studios and it turned out to be fine, it was about a 10 minute walk from the town and about a 12 minute walk from Faliraki Beach. It was just out of town so if you wanted to sleep at 4am you could without hearing all the music and stuff going on in the town. It had a great pool (as you can see on the website), being British the breakfast was a little weird, but still fine after a night out! – breakfast was:

• Coffee
• 2 pieces of toast or 2 big bread rolls
• A slice of cheese
• A slice of (ham or something?)
• A small piece of something that looked like toast, but orange and harder than toast
• Jam/Marmalade

They also had a good menu, for food and drinks at reasonable prices. You could order food and drinks and sit at the pool and eat or drink, which was nice too. (€2.50 for a pint, not bad!)

The downsides to accommodation in Greece are mosquitoes! Getting bitten about 5 times a night! We did get a plug in that squirts out stuff that mosquitoes don’t like, this worked but I would advise getting one of these on the first day not the 4th! Also its soooo hot! This could be our own fault though because we are skint students and didn’t go for the Air conditioning in our room, maybe we should of! I’m sure this is the same for most Faliraki, Rhodes, Greece accommodation not just Anika Studios – if I’m wrong leave me comment and tell me!

Daytime

Everyday was nearly the same – it would go like this, wake up with a hangover – go eat Breakfast, and then back to bed. Wake up put swimming shorts on, go down to the beach spend the day on the beach, going to a bar to get a drink every now and then. I would advise wearing flip flops to the beach as you cannot stand on the sand because its far too hot! It’s funny watching everyone sitting at their seats and then taking off their flip flops to walk to the sea, but its so hot they have to run as fast as they can into the wet sand to cool their feet down!

After spending the day on the beach we would walk back to the apartment sit by the pool (get in the pool) and have a drink or two. Then walk back into town in the evening when we got hungry and find somewhere to eat in the 100′s of places to eat! We went to TGI Classics a few times, it was nice, we did try a few Greek restaurants.

Then we would walk back to the accommodation to get ready for the night ahead…

Nightlife

When we got back to the accommodation I would get changed, usually a smart shirt/t-shirt and shorts, because it was still hot! And then play some drinking games with the drink that we had in our room that we brought.

After feeling good and tipsy we would wonder back into town, we tried to visit ALL the bars, but there are 100′s! As you walk down the street there a club/pub reps everywhere (just like Magaluf and other places…), offering you deals like 2 free shots (of your choice) each if we go in. So after going in 5 or so bars thats 5 drinks and 10 shots!! Perfect!

The pubs are only allowed to play load music until 12.00am, but I don’t think that they take Laws seriously in Faliraki, because we were still outside some pubs with drinks and loud music at 12.45am. One night we were sat outside a pub after 12.00am and then the police drove down the street and all the pubs would turn off there music… until they had driven past and then it would go back on! And then the police came down again about 10 minutes later and the same happened again!

The nightclubs in Faliraki don’t open until 12.30am and go on until about 6.30am and you can get into most of them for free because they have reps outside too! The clubs are good, most have more than one room playing different types of music, so theres something for everyone!

After we had enough or the clubs closed we then walk (or stumble) back to our accommodation to sleep and start the whole thing over again the next day!

I hope you found this post helpful, interesting or just entertaining! Let me know by leaving a comment below.

Click here to find out your IP Address

Keep this URL handy for future use: www.dave-white.co.uk/ip

Jo came to Lichfield on Friday after work, we got Pizza and then went out for a few drinks in Lichfield.

On Saturday we drove to Portsmouth and picked Debbie up on the way. When we got to the B&B we unpacked and met with Fay and Mike in the pub just accross the road. The B&B was great for the price, in a great location, it was called the Sailmakers Loft.

We then all went into town and looked around, then we went to Gunwharf and watched the 2nd half of England and Wales in the Rugby (England Lost!) then we went to eat at Frankie & Benny’s.

Then went back to the B&B and got ready to go out. We went out to a few bars in Guildhall Walk, and then went to Liquid and Envy. We got back to the B&B about 4am.

Cat made us lunch (Yummy cheese on toast – Thanks Cat!) we then looked around Liverpool for a few hours, went back to Cats and watched a film.

We then got ready to go out and met with her other friends. 17 of us went out and had a nice posh meal, about 9.30pm we all walked into Liverpool City Center.

We went to about 3 different pub/clubs. At the end of the night me and Fiona tried to get a taxi back to Cats (not realising she only lived about 2 mins walk away! you will be able to see the photos of the night on my Photo Gallery soon.

We got the train back to Lichfield in the morning.

But please note – this is a Windows security feature. You should only disable this if you are an administrator.

Open Control Panel, and in the search bar type “user account” and then click on the “Turn User Account Control (UAC) on or off” Click continue (this might the be last time you see this prompt!) Then uncheck the box and click OK. Then choose whether you want to restart now or later.

Done!

I received this email from eBay:

—————————————————————————————–

FIP NOTICE: eBay Registration Suspension – Contact information – [email address]

Dear Dave White (email address),

We regret to inform you that your eBay account has been suspended due to the violation of our site policy below:

False or missing contact information – Falsifying or omitting your name, address, and/or telephone number (including use of fax machines, pager numbers, modems or disconnected numbers).

Due to the suspension of this account, please be advised you are prohibited from using eBay in any way. This prohibition includes the registering of a new account.

Please note that any seller fees due to eBay will immediately become due and payable. eBay will charge any amounts you have not previously disputed to the billing method currently on file.

If you would like your account to be considered for reinstatement, please reply to this email. We will then contact you with a brief list of requirements that you will need to fulfill in order to be considered for reinstatement.

Regards,

SafeHarbor Department
eBay Inc

—————————————————————————————–

What?!

Why was this? I went back to my eBay account, logged in and had notices on the top of My eBay saying my account has been suspended, the only thing I could do on My eBay was check my messages, and I had two both saying my account had been suspended! I searched for the item I just put up, and couldn’t find it! I searched for the item number and it came up but said “no longer a registered user”

I could not think of anything at all that I’ve done to deserve this? I signed up for a Sellers Account, I agreed to all the terms, I agreed for the Sellers fee to be paid, put in my correct bank details.

On the emails they give you links to the help files to find out why this might be, and they give an email address to reply to, so I did, I looked at all the help files and I couldn’t find anything wrong, so I replied to the email asking why this has happened.

Three days later, nothing… No reply, still couldn’t think of why they did this to me?! I looked for a help phone number for eBay, but after a bit of research I found out there is no contact phone number for eBay, but there is a Live Help which is a Live Chat here’s the link: https://cschatlb-na.corp.ebay.com/chat.asp?profile=15 . So I got in the virtual queue to talk to an eBay representative. Got through and they sent me some links… The same links as the email gives you! Useless!

The next day I got an email saying my account was suspended because they wanted me to prove who I was. I have to send photocopies of my passport or driving licence, a utility bill with my name on or a bank statement, to an eBay office in Ireland. I thought maybe this was fake and someone is trying to steal my Identity but it seems they do have an office there and this has happened to other people, I didn’t want to send them in the post so faxed them over photocopies of my driving licence and a bank statement proving my address and name.

The same day I received an email saying thank you and your account has been reinstated. I checked My eBay and the messages where still on the top saying my account had been suspended, but I could check everything and do everything on My eBay.

So I went back to the Live Help (https://cschatlb-na.corp.ebay.com/chat.asp?profile=15) for eBay and spoke to someone different and explained the annoying problem, he told me to wait there, I did… He came back and said ok, I’ve removed that for you now. I also asked if my item can go back up for sale, but he couldn’t. Now I have to get Fiona to write that long description again!

A 301 Redirect is the best Search Engine Friendly way to redirect pages or whole websites to another URL. 301 Redirects aren’t hard to do at all, and best of all they will keep your Search Engine pagerank. If you to change file names or move pages, this is the safest option.

What’s the “301″ all about?!

The code “301″ tells the Search Engines and the Browser the page or site has “moved permanently”.

How do I create a 301 Redirect?

301 Redirect using .htaccess

1. Create a file called “.htaccess” in the root directory of your website (where your index page is).
2. Open the .htaccess file using what ever text editor you use, I use Notepad.
3. Add line into the .htaccess file and upload it to your server again:

Redirect 301 /old.html http://www.dave-white.co.uk/new.html

This would redirect http://www.dave-white.co.uk/old.html to http://www.dave-white.co.uk/new.html. Do not put the http://www.dave-white.co.uk in the first part of the redirect.

I will write more about this another time, so check back soon.

Check to see if your Redirect is Search Engine Friendly

Use this tool to check you have implemented your 301 Redirect correctly.

We looked around London for a bit, then went to watch the Rugby World Cup 2007 (England in the final!) in Leicester Square, but they weren’t showing it there! Everywhere we went was packed! In the end we went to Planet Hollywood, we waited in the bar watching the Rugby becuase there was a 1 hour 45 minute wait, perfect!

England Lost! Bummer.

After that we got some drinks, went back to Mikes to get ready to go out. Having a few drinks Welshy decides to have a nap on the sofa, and Mike started to feel sick. Mike didnt want to go out and Welshy didnt want to wake up, so me Fiona and Buller went out.

We went out about 1am so the undergound was shut. We had to get the bus, you have to love the London bus service, the bus driver knows people get on, and he also knows no one pays! We didnt really know where we were going but Mike told us a station to get off, we thought we were there so we got off. We were wrong! We asked someone where Fabric was, and they pointed us to the way.

It turns out it was Fabrics Birthday night, so we qued for about 2 hours! Luckily there was a shop outside the club selling alcohol, they even opened bottles for you! The club was open until about 7am.

We eventually got in after nearly not getting in (Buller), it was bigger and better than I thought it was going to be. We had a good time, would of been better with the other two aswell!

We eventually left about 6.30am, we tried to get a taxi – I think we jumped the que? On the taxi journy back I think we were a little tipsy and I thought we was near Birmingham Broad Street!

Didnt feel good on the way to Lichfield on Sunday!

We went to London 20/10/2007 it was fun.

Me, Fiona, Mum, Terry, Vicky and my little nephew Tyler all went to The West Midland Safari Park – about 30 mins from Birmingham.

The park is good, we drove through the animal bit and saw Elephants, Girrafs, Zebras, Lions, Tigers, Wolfs, Camels and animals I dont know the name of! But there were no Monkeys! Photos of the day will be up on the Gallery of my site soon.

The rides were a little disappointing though, I am a thrill seeker, and these rides are not really thrilling – the website makes them look A LOT better.

We looked around the park in the rain, there is a bit where you can go in and see bats flying around your head! A bat flew straight into Vickys forehead – Crazy! We sat in the pouring rain watching the sealion show.

After that we went into Birmingham for some shopping and something to eat, we went to Bella Italia and Fiona had a fly on her steak! Don’t go there.

We went to Tescos on the way home for some Bubbly, then played on the Wii for a bit

Thank you guys!

On the Saturday Fionas friends came down, Fiona went to pick them up from the station and met us at the pub, we were watching England win the football! Some old drunk guy was mummbling at me and I didnt know if he was just chatting or wanting a fight?!

Birmingham here we come!

We all had a few (too many) drinks at home, Pizza and Chinese delivered. Watched half of the Rugby, got ready and went to the local to watch the rest. We won that too of course! We then got the train to Birmingham, shared a few bottles of wine and cans on the way!

Once in Birmingham (this is where my mind goes fuzzy!) we went around the bars in the Arcadian (www.thearcadian.co.uk), after that we headed to Ociana (www.oceanaclubs.com) and we stayed there, until we were forced to leave!

Taxi back cost £90!! I think we could of got it cheaper, but there was 9 of us in one taxi-van thingy. Who slept where? I will leave that to your imagination… :p

PS. While in Lichfield Dave and Conan added two words to the dictionary, Wasson and Proper Job! Well done boyz.