The Frugal traveller will live on.

Catch Matt Gross at the Fringe Festival in Edinburgh here in the last of the Frugal Traveller's grand Europe tour.

Ironically, I am in Edinburgh too. And in the final week of the Fringe.

But I still cannot get over the fact that for the first time in weeks I have reliable wireless without paying TMobile roaming at 0.18 $ a minute, or dodgy pay-as-you-go terminals.

Not ironically, it also coincides with the first time I am staying in a somewhat decent accomodation in the British Isles that has costed me 54 $ a night and is not a dingy Victorian dungeon in the middle of bumblefuck Northern Wales.

Told you, the Frugal Traveller will live on.
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Update: Although very frugal, I partied amidst Liam Neeson's cousins, 2500 $ Bottle Service and spanking views of Manchester at the much talked about Cloud 23 at the Hilton in Manchester last night. Call it the Manchester bling! And apparently, it is booked till October 23.

Liverpool meets Providence for 10 Euros: The skies are open.

The new transatlantic open-skies agreement goes into effect in five days.

Michael O’ Leary, as the Chief Executive of Ryan Air, knows a thing or two about flying.

He says he might be spinning of an airline connecting Tier- II Towns transatlantic, so for a base fare of 10 Euros; you could fly between Providence and Liverpool, Baltimore and Birmingham.

Earlier, the United States had to negotiate with individual nations. The negotiations entailed that Airlines could only take off or land in their native countries, and each airlines had specific airports they could serve.

Simply meaning Lufthansa had Frankfurt, and Air France had Charles De Gaulle in Paris.

All that would hopefully be history with this new aviation policy. The Antifits believe more connectivity can only bring people closer and prices lower. Capitalism can sing a sweet tune, if we allow it too.

European Integration would not have been where it is right now, had there been no hoards of the English and the Germans off every available bit of sun, sea and the sand in Europe. And whenever people doubt the functionality of the union, it would be great to look at the Spanish tourists that throng all over Europe. The Spanish have had it good the last twenty odd years being in the Union, and it’s utterly sweet to see that get reflected in the numbers that travel, living a Europe and a reality different from the one their parents lived in.

Dresden is a city of 500, 000 that received 3,000,000 tourists who stayed overnight, and it’s not the biggest secret that a lot of the spanking new transformation of this East German city, something that contradicts the rest of the state of Saxony or the East for that matter, would have not been possible with federal budgeting.

Yes, It won’t be all that bad if Americans moved around a bit more. And that just isn’t a New Yokk yuppie talking.

Kentucky meets Cote d’Azure. Keep your fingers crossed.

It takes the Euro to be nostalgic about New York..

I am trans- Atlantic.

Even though sipping a Tall Caramel Macchiato in a Starbucks am Domkloster in Cologne doesn’t make it very pertinent that I have made the hop across the puddle.

What does make it very pertinent though is the 3. 70 € I paid for it.

Yes, it is easy to miss New York.

Bill Clinton in 1992 bid put it best when he said, “It’s about the economy, stupid.” And as much as Paul Krugman tells us that the economy is going down, whether President Bush’s stimulus plan works or not, the fact remains that the United States is the greatest economy in the planet.

And it is pretty blatant when a bottle of Mineral Water from the volcanoes of Auvergne, France Volvic costs less in New York than in Cologne.

But I would not be complaining. I have the greatest piece of Gothic architecture in the Kölner Dom outside my window. And even though the skies are grey and the weather every bit groggy it is what Europe always was and is going to be. Beautiful.

But another realization has struck me is that to understand things, you have to be there. As much as we celebrate the Euro, and yes, in a greater perspective European integration, we miss a little bit of perspective. And as I have been talking to a lot of people, in the airport and in the trains in the past few hours, one thing is explicit in its conformity.

The Euros isn't perfect, and it is bloody darn expensive.

Agreed, what would a barista at Starbucks know?

And either ways, the banks in Frankfurt would do fine. But why should a barista in Starbucks in Cologne pay up for economic growth in Bucharest.

But he does, whether he likes it or not. And that poses the greatest question on European integration. Who does it serve?

And yes, a decent flight could be run with a 757 Boeing. Continental just showed me that.