Moorestown, NJ
December 25-30, 2010
Christmas time, oh Christmas time... It’s Christmas Day and we’re off to NJ like all but one of the last 28 years... wish us luck! We’ll be back be on the 30th in time for Shannon and Joel’s New Year’s Eve wedding. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all. Here’s to another travel packed and adventure filled 2011!
God bless,
Katy
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Sunday, December 19, 2010
DISNEY WORLD!!!
Orlando, FL
December 12-19, 2010
I LOVE Disney World! This past week I was in Orlando with a friend of mine for the NFHS trade show that I attend for work each year. The work was fine. It was fun to see old friends from the show and to make some new ones, this means you Alex and Angie. The highlight had to be playing at Disney World with Jami. Disney is so organized, happy, festive and clean and during the first few weeks of December... not crowded. Man I just love the place. I hope to make returning every early December an annual occurrence.
Anyone want to go with me in 2011?
Katy
December 12-19, 2010
I LOVE Disney World! This past week I was in Orlando with a friend of mine for the NFHS trade show that I attend for work each year. The work was fine. It was fun to see old friends from the show and to make some new ones, this means you Alex and Angie. The highlight had to be playing at Disney World with Jami. Disney is so organized, happy, festive and clean and during the first few weeks of December... not crowded. Man I just love the place. I hope to make returning every early December an annual occurrence.
Anyone want to go with me in 2011?
Katy
Monday, December 6, 2010
A Vegas Miles Run
Las Vegas, NV
Decemeber 5-6, 2010
I’m on my way home from a quick 28-hour miles run to Vegas. I was going to end the year about 2800 miles short of maintaining my 1K status, so I decided to take this trip. I packed in a fair amount of fun for the limited amount of time. I did some window shopping, particularly in the Peter Lik galleries, some real shopping at Ross, yes I said Ross, and took in the Cirque du Soleil show Mystere. I stayed at the Bellagio, which for what it is worth, I didn’t think was as nice as the Venetian. The buffet, however, was pretty good and decently priced.
Katy
Decemeber 5-6, 2010
I’m on my way home from a quick 28-hour miles run to Vegas. I was going to end the year about 2800 miles short of maintaining my 1K status, so I decided to take this trip. I packed in a fair amount of fun for the limited amount of time. I did some window shopping, particularly in the Peter Lik galleries, some real shopping at Ross, yes I said Ross, and took in the Cirque du Soleil show Mystere. I stayed at the Bellagio, which for what it is worth, I didn’t think was as nice as the Venetian. The buffet, however, was pretty good and decently priced.
Katy
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
Friends and Football
Sacramento and San Francisco, CA
November 11-16, 2010
I went down to Sacrament and the Bay this last week to see my good friends the Smiths and to watch the Ducks take on the Bears. The game was waaaay closer than it should have been, which always seems to be the case at Cal. However, it was a victory and that’s all that matters because the Ducks are still in the National Championship hunt. It was also my first time visiting Elk Grove and seeing where my buddies now live. Additionally I got to meet the newest Smith for the first time. It’s pathetic it took me six months to meet him. Hopefully it won’t be six months before I see him (or the rest of the family) again!
Katy
November 11-16, 2010
I went down to Sacrament and the Bay this last week to see my good friends the Smiths and to watch the Ducks take on the Bears. The game was waaaay closer than it should have been, which always seems to be the case at Cal. However, it was a victory and that’s all that matters because the Ducks are still in the National Championship hunt. It was also my first time visiting Elk Grove and seeing where my buddies now live. Additionally I got to meet the newest Smith for the first time. It’s pathetic it took me six months to meet him. Hopefully it won’t be six months before I see him (or the rest of the family) again!
Katy
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Christmas Prep
Moorestown, NJ
October 26-30, 2010
This quick hit trip to Philly was to help Granny and Pop get ready for Christmas. It seems crazy to be working on Christmas in the end of October but it will be here before we know it! We came, we saw, we shopped, we wrapped... but didn’t get it all done. Oh well, it’s a good start... and it is only the day before Halloween ;~)
Until the Cal game,
Katy
October 26-30, 2010
This quick hit trip to Philly was to help Granny and Pop get ready for Christmas. It seems crazy to be working on Christmas in the end of October but it will be here before we know it! We came, we saw, we shopped, we wrapped... but didn’t get it all done. Oh well, it’s a good start... and it is only the day before Halloween ;~)
Until the Cal game,
Katy
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Work and Play in the Windy City
Chicago, IL
October 16-20, 2010
This week I was in Chicago with my parents at the annual ophthalmology meeting. I was in attendance to take a few classes to help them improve the way they are running their office and to get to know a few new associate candidates. The ophtha stuff was fine but the highlights were a great Italian meal, a Chicago Blackhawks game and very good shot of a hoop with what is formally known as the Sears Tower. I also got in SERIOUS
with my mother for not pointing out that Mark Valley ate dinner next to us until AFTER he had left the restaurant.... oops ;~)
Katy
October 16-20, 2010
This week I was in Chicago with my parents at the annual ophthalmology meeting. I was in attendance to take a few classes to help them improve the way they are running their office and to get to know a few new associate candidates. The ophtha stuff was fine but the highlights were a great Italian meal, a Chicago Blackhawks game and very good shot of a hoop with what is formally known as the Sears Tower. I also got in SERIOUS
with my mother for not pointing out that Mark Valley ate dinner next to us until AFTER he had left the restaurant.... oops ;~)
Katy
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
My First MLS Game
Seattle, WA
October 11 -13 2010
This week I went to Seattle to see Dr. D. and visit my friend Scott. The trip was quick but lots of fun. Scott and I went to a Sounders game, which was my first MLS game. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks Nate J. for hooking us up with great free seats!
Katy
October 11 -13 2010
This week I went to Seattle to see Dr. D. and visit my friend Scott. The trip was quick but lots of fun. Scott and I went to a Sounders game, which was my first MLS game. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thanks Nate J. for hooking us up with great free seats!
Katy
Sunday, September 12, 2010
Ducks in a Lightning Storm
Knoxville, TN
September 10 -12, 2010
I’ve been home all of three days and it’s time to roll again. I’m off to Knoxville, TN to watch the Ducks play the Volunteers.
-----
What a fabulous time! The people of Knoxville seem to be the nicest people in the world. Our Ducks struggled prior to a torrential rain storm that delayed the game over an hour. I’ve never been so wet in my life. Our seats were near the top of the stadium, a stadium that seats over 100,000 people mind you, and the process of exiting the seating area after the officials called for a break in the action prevented us from making it under cover before the rain storm. People use the expression of it raining buckets... I always thought that was an exaggeration being from the drizzly northwest... well now I know it actually exists... particularly in Neyland Stadium. Along with the rain we got to see some fabulously powerful lightning bolts as well. And I’m not just referring to the Ducks offense in the second half. More than once during the storm I could feel the static electricity in my hair. All in all I’m hard pressed to come up with a way this trip could have been more fun. We experienced an awesome storm, our Ducks won and the hotel even gave us free breakfast at 1:30am when we returned home from the game.
Thanks people of Knoxville. I had a fabulous time.
Katy
September 10 -12, 2010
I’ve been home all of three days and it’s time to roll again. I’m off to Knoxville, TN to watch the Ducks play the Volunteers.
-----
What a fabulous time! The people of Knoxville seem to be the nicest people in the world. Our Ducks struggled prior to a torrential rain storm that delayed the game over an hour. I’ve never been so wet in my life. Our seats were near the top of the stadium, a stadium that seats over 100,000 people mind you, and the process of exiting the seating area after the officials called for a break in the action prevented us from making it under cover before the rain storm. People use the expression of it raining buckets... I always thought that was an exaggeration being from the drizzly northwest... well now I know it actually exists... particularly in Neyland Stadium. Along with the rain we got to see some fabulously powerful lightning bolts as well. And I’m not just referring to the Ducks offense in the second half. More than once during the storm I could feel the static electricity in my hair. All in all I’m hard pressed to come up with a way this trip could have been more fun. We experienced an awesome storm, our Ducks won and the hotel even gave us free breakfast at 1:30am when we returned home from the game.
Thanks people of Knoxville. I had a fabulous time.
Katy
Monday, September 6, 2010
TNC Does the Shore: Part 5
LBI
August 27 - September 6, 2010
TNC takes on The Shore Part Five has commenced! Like last year we are taking the red eye to PHL. Unfortunately our flight out of Eugene is delayed. We were planning to kill some of our three hour layover in San Fran getting dinner but the delay led us to have dinner at the Wings Bar and Grill in the airport. During dinner a commercial for the US Open Tennis Tournament came on TV. Ryan suggested that we should go to match one of these years we are at the shore. Robin, however, thought that would be a bad idea since evidently the US Open is played in London ;~)
Upon arrival at SFO, we wanted dessert and more specifically soft serve ice cream. Unfortunately after cruising all over the place, including the international terminal, I confirmed there is no place to purchase soft serve in SFO. Eventually we settled for milkshakes at Rosie’s Diner.
Our flight to PHL was smooth and relatively quick. Per the usual I slept most of the time. I wanted to get a decent rest because my plan once we arrived in Philly was to have breakfast with the family and then drive to New York to attempt to shoot another hoop picture. I wasn’t super pleased in retrospect with the picture I took last time on Governor's Island. I wanted to try it again but unfortunately to accomplish this I had to go on the weekend because the Island is only open Fri, Sat and Sunday.
-----
Time got away from me on this trip because we were too busy having too much fun. I ended up getting a great shot on Governor’s Island. We played a lot of hotly contested Uno and Bocce on the beach. Our weather was fantastic and Joe and Han-Mei made a wonderful addition to our group. I’m looking forward to next year already!
Katy
August 27 - September 6, 2010
TNC takes on The Shore Part Five has commenced! Like last year we are taking the red eye to PHL. Unfortunately our flight out of Eugene is delayed. We were planning to kill some of our three hour layover in San Fran getting dinner but the delay led us to have dinner at the Wings Bar and Grill in the airport. During dinner a commercial for the US Open Tennis Tournament came on TV. Ryan suggested that we should go to match one of these years we are at the shore. Robin, however, thought that would be a bad idea since evidently the US Open is played in London ;~)
Upon arrival at SFO, we wanted dessert and more specifically soft serve ice cream. Unfortunately after cruising all over the place, including the international terminal, I confirmed there is no place to purchase soft serve in SFO. Eventually we settled for milkshakes at Rosie’s Diner.
Our flight to PHL was smooth and relatively quick. Per the usual I slept most of the time. I wanted to get a decent rest because my plan once we arrived in Philly was to have breakfast with the family and then drive to New York to attempt to shoot another hoop picture. I wasn’t super pleased in retrospect with the picture I took last time on Governor's Island. I wanted to try it again but unfortunately to accomplish this I had to go on the weekend because the Island is only open Fri, Sat and Sunday.
-----
Time got away from me on this trip because we were too busy having too much fun. I ended up getting a great shot on Governor’s Island. We played a lot of hotly contested Uno and Bocce on the beach. Our weather was fantastic and Joe and Han-Mei made a wonderful addition to our group. I’m looking forward to next year already!
Katy
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Nike Fail
NYC/Moorestown
August 10 -17, 2010
The beginning of this trip included a quick stop in NYC to try and secure a special hoop shot. Nike was supposed to set up a court in Times Square for the World Basketball Festival. They didn’t announce that a change in venue occured until the week before the event. Additionally, Nike changed the event from a free all-comers welcome outdoor game to a VIP ticket required event inside Rockefeller Center. In the end the NYC stop of this trip was basically a FAIL but mom and I still managed to find some fun in the city. We then spent the 14-17th in Moorestown hanging out with the family.
Katy
August 10 -17, 2010
The beginning of this trip included a quick stop in NYC to try and secure a special hoop shot. Nike was supposed to set up a court in Times Square for the World Basketball Festival. They didn’t announce that a change in venue occured until the week before the event. Additionally, Nike changed the event from a free all-comers welcome outdoor game to a VIP ticket required event inside Rockefeller Center. In the end the NYC stop of this trip was basically a FAIL but mom and I still managed to find some fun in the city. We then spent the 14-17th in Moorestown hanging out with the family.
Katy
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Shamu and School
San Diego
August 5 - 7, 2010
This week I went to San Diego with my sort of sister-in-law Jessie. Jess is my actual sister-in-law Joyce’s sister. Jess had an interview at a physical therapy school in San Marcos and wanted a travel buddy. As we all know, I’m always game for a trip, so I was happy to join her.
We left early in the AM on Thursday and arrived in SD shortly after 10am. Our first order of business was going to Sea World. I hadn’t been there since I was like 10 years old and Jess had never been. Sea World had grown considerably in the 18 years since I had been there. There were now a few roller-coaster rides and many more exhibits. My favorite things still hadn’t changed however. Watching the trained dolphin and Shamu shows were unreal. How you ever get that big of an animal to perform in such a way is beyond me. The shear athleticism of the animals is awesome too.
After five hours at Sea World we made our way North to Jess’ school to make sure we’d have no trouble finding it in the morning. Conveniently it was located very close to out hotel. For dinner we decided to do what people should do when in California and that’s have In-N-Out. It was delicious as always. Post dinner we went to the hotel and called it an evening.
Jess had to be to her interview early, so we got up, had breakfast and then I took her to campus. I then went back to the hotel, cleaned up and did some shopping at the Nordstrom Rack. Jess called at the conclusion of her interview, I picked her up, and then we did a little shopping. After that we met up with my cousins who live in Encinitas. We had a great time hanging out with the Phillips. First we went to the beach for a bit and then we had a great Mexican dinner. After dinner we hit the freeway and drove to our airport hotel. We had an early flight out, so we called it an early night. Overall Jess and I had a great 40 hours in San Diego...
Katy
Update: And now that she has been accepted to PT school, we’ll get to have many more. Congrats Jess!
August 5 - 7, 2010
This week I went to San Diego with my sort of sister-in-law Jessie. Jess is my actual sister-in-law Joyce’s sister. Jess had an interview at a physical therapy school in San Marcos and wanted a travel buddy. As we all know, I’m always game for a trip, so I was happy to join her.
We left early in the AM on Thursday and arrived in SD shortly after 10am. Our first order of business was going to Sea World. I hadn’t been there since I was like 10 years old and Jess had never been. Sea World had grown considerably in the 18 years since I had been there. There were now a few roller-coaster rides and many more exhibits. My favorite things still hadn’t changed however. Watching the trained dolphin and Shamu shows were unreal. How you ever get that big of an animal to perform in such a way is beyond me. The shear athleticism of the animals is awesome too.
After five hours at Sea World we made our way North to Jess’ school to make sure we’d have no trouble finding it in the morning. Conveniently it was located very close to out hotel. For dinner we decided to do what people should do when in California and that’s have In-N-Out. It was delicious as always. Post dinner we went to the hotel and called it an evening.
Jess had to be to her interview early, so we got up, had breakfast and then I took her to campus. I then went back to the hotel, cleaned up and did some shopping at the Nordstrom Rack. Jess called at the conclusion of her interview, I picked her up, and then we did a little shopping. After that we met up with my cousins who live in Encinitas. We had a great time hanging out with the Phillips. First we went to the beach for a bit and then we had a great Mexican dinner. After dinner we hit the freeway and drove to our airport hotel. We had an early flight out, so we called it an early night. Overall Jess and I had a great 40 hours in San Diego...
Katy
Update: And now that she has been accepted to PT school, we’ll get to have many more. Congrats Jess!
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Wedding Roadtrip
Eugene-Portland-Seattle-Portland-Eugene
July 29 - August 1, 2010
This weekend I road-tripped to Seattle for a friend’s wedding. As most, if not all of you know, I much prefer flying to driving. On this particular weekend tickets to Seattle were ridiculously priced, as were rental cars, so I decided to drive. In order to break up the trip I spent Thursday night in Portland at Amanda and Chris’ house. I had a bit too much fun shopping at the outlet stores in Woodburn, so I didn’t get to their place until a little before ten. Upon arrival we had a nice time chatting and going over wedding details.
Friday morning I was up and on my way to Seattle by 10am. I impressed myself with my early departure ;~) I did a little more outlet shopping in Southern Washington and then made it to Bainbridge Island by 3:30pm. Katie and Wayne’s wedding was set to start at 5pm, so I quickly showered and made my way to the wedding “on the point”.
What a beautiful spot! Wayne’s grandma has an incredible property overlooking the water and downtown Seattle. The wedding started a bit late because of traffic problems and delayed ferry’s but overall it was a great evening. I had a blast catching up with old friends, eating good food and dancing the night away.
Saturday morning I took the ferry into downtown Seattle to have lunch with a friend. We met at 12pm and before we knew it it was 3pm. After lunch I hit up both Nordstrom and the Nordstrom Rack. The anniversary sale was still going on at the regular Nordstrom, so unfortunately I did a little damage there. Thankfully Nordy’s has an incredible return policy, so when my judgement returns to tomorrow, I’ll be able to undo any mistakes I may or may not have made ;~)
After I finished shopping downtown I drove south to Tacoma to take in a Tacoma Rainers baseball game. The game itself was decently entertaining, while the food and the promotions were disappointing. After the game I was fairly awake so I decided to start my drive home. By the time I hit Portland my eyelids were getting heavy. I stopped at the La Quinta near PDX to sleep.
Sleeping in Portland also gave me the chance to catch up with my friend Jules on Sunday. She just recently got engaged to her beau Keith and I was excited to hear all the wedding details. I hadn’t seen her in person in a while and really enjoyed catching up. I also FINALLY got to meet Keith and her dog Drake, whom I’d been hearing about for at least a year. I’m already looking forward to their wedding next summer.
After lunch with Jules I made my way back down I-5 to Eugene in time for both dinner with the family and my soccer game. It was an action packed four-day weekend, that included way too many hours in the car... but it was worth it.
Until the next adventure,
Katy
July 29 - August 1, 2010
This weekend I road-tripped to Seattle for a friend’s wedding. As most, if not all of you know, I much prefer flying to driving. On this particular weekend tickets to Seattle were ridiculously priced, as were rental cars, so I decided to drive. In order to break up the trip I spent Thursday night in Portland at Amanda and Chris’ house. I had a bit too much fun shopping at the outlet stores in Woodburn, so I didn’t get to their place until a little before ten. Upon arrival we had a nice time chatting and going over wedding details.
Friday morning I was up and on my way to Seattle by 10am. I impressed myself with my early departure ;~) I did a little more outlet shopping in Southern Washington and then made it to Bainbridge Island by 3:30pm. Katie and Wayne’s wedding was set to start at 5pm, so I quickly showered and made my way to the wedding “on the point”.
What a beautiful spot! Wayne’s grandma has an incredible property overlooking the water and downtown Seattle. The wedding started a bit late because of traffic problems and delayed ferry’s but overall it was a great evening. I had a blast catching up with old friends, eating good food and dancing the night away.
Saturday morning I took the ferry into downtown Seattle to have lunch with a friend. We met at 12pm and before we knew it it was 3pm. After lunch I hit up both Nordstrom and the Nordstrom Rack. The anniversary sale was still going on at the regular Nordstrom, so unfortunately I did a little damage there. Thankfully Nordy’s has an incredible return policy, so when my judgement returns to tomorrow, I’ll be able to undo any mistakes I may or may not have made ;~)
After I finished shopping downtown I drove south to Tacoma to take in a Tacoma Rainers baseball game. The game itself was decently entertaining, while the food and the promotions were disappointing. After the game I was fairly awake so I decided to start my drive home. By the time I hit Portland my eyelids were getting heavy. I stopped at the La Quinta near PDX to sleep.
Sleeping in Portland also gave me the chance to catch up with my friend Jules on Sunday. She just recently got engaged to her beau Keith and I was excited to hear all the wedding details. I hadn’t seen her in person in a while and really enjoyed catching up. I also FINALLY got to meet Keith and her dog Drake, whom I’d been hearing about for at least a year. I’m already looking forward to their wedding next summer.
After lunch with Jules I made my way back down I-5 to Eugene in time for both dinner with the family and my soccer game. It was an action packed four-day weekend, that included way too many hours in the car... but it was worth it.
Until the next adventure,
Katy
Friday, July 16, 2010
A Birthday Concert
Denver
July 14-16, 2010
I went to Denver for my birthday this year. One of my favorite bands, O.A.R., was playing at Red Rocks on my actual birthday, so I decided I had to go. Unfortunately this is the year of weddings for my buddy Amanda and therefore she was unable to attend. Regardless I did my best to have a good time. The concert was great as always but the highlight of the trip occurred after the show. I managed to knock something off my bucket list. What is the something you ask? I mounted the horse outside a P.F. Chang’s restaurant. I’m not sure why I’ve always wanted to do this... but I have. In case you don’t believe me, the pictorial evidence is below!
July 14-16, 2010
I went to Denver for my birthday this year. One of my favorite bands, O.A.R., was playing at Red Rocks on my actual birthday, so I decided I had to go. Unfortunately this is the year of weddings for my buddy Amanda and therefore she was unable to attend. Regardless I did my best to have a good time. The concert was great as always but the highlight of the trip occurred after the show. I managed to knock something off my bucket list. What is the something you ask? I mounted the horse outside a P.F. Chang’s restaurant. I’m not sure why I’ve always wanted to do this... but I have. In case you don’t believe me, the pictorial evidence is below!
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Surprise!
Boston
June 18 -23, 2010
This week I was in Boston with two of my best friends. Bailey and I decided it would be fun to surprise our friend llsa who was chosen as one of Boston Public Schools teachers of the year. Ilsa is the queen of the random surprise visit, so we decided it would be fun to turn the tables on her. It’s not all that surprising that I would randomly show up for the ceremony, however, it’s downright shocking for Bailey to appear. Ilsa has lived in Boston for nine years and this is the first time Bailey has gone to see her.
Friday morning I made my way to Spokane to pick up Bailey. We then flew through Denver to Boston. We got in around midnight, so we decided to stay in a hotel before surprising Ilsa in the morning.
Saturday morning Jesse (Ilsa’s boyfriend) picked us up at our hotel. Ilsa had a meeting at the Lulu Lemon store where she works, so we decided to surprise her with Jesse when he went to pick her up. Bailey and I peered through the store windows like total creepers. Many of the other women inside the store were looking at us going, “what is wrong with those girls?” Eventually Ilsa looked out the window. It was hilarious as her expression went from “look at the weirdo” to “that looks like Bailey” to “holy crap that is Bailey!” and then she started to cry ;~)
The weekend was great. We got to spend a lot of time with Ilsa’s friends. I had never met many of her Boston people, so I really enjoyed getting to spend some time with them. Ilsa’s family was also there. It was great to see them even though it took all of us traveling 3000 miles to do it.
Our only “touristy” activity on this trip was a trek along the Freedom Trail. Ilsa had to work on Monday morning so Mark, Mia, Bailey and I decided to stroll from Ilsa’s school through the streets of Boston to the trail. We took in the highlights and made quick work of the trail. I bet we saw 80% of the trail and walked 6+ miles in around four hours. We made extended stops in the Old South Meeting House, Paul Revere’s House and the Granary Burial Ground.
On Monday night we celebrated Ilsa’s wonderful accomplishment. There was an awards ceremony, a reception and then a bunch of us went out for drinks and appetizers. Again Bailey and I both really enjoyed spending time with Ilsa’s Boston friends and seeing Ilsa soak up some much deserved recognition.
Tuesday we got up and had breakfast at Ilsa’s apartment with all of her family that made the trip in for the ceremony. Before too long it was time for Bailey and me to head off to the airport. Bailey and I made it back to Spokane a little before midnight. We then went to a local hotel to sleep. In the early AM on Wednesday B started her drive back to Moscow and I got up to watch the US World Cup game (what a game!). I then went back to GEG one last time to catch my final flights home.
Until the next adventure,
Katy
June 18 -23, 2010
This week I was in Boston with two of my best friends. Bailey and I decided it would be fun to surprise our friend llsa who was chosen as one of Boston Public Schools teachers of the year. Ilsa is the queen of the random surprise visit, so we decided it would be fun to turn the tables on her. It’s not all that surprising that I would randomly show up for the ceremony, however, it’s downright shocking for Bailey to appear. Ilsa has lived in Boston for nine years and this is the first time Bailey has gone to see her.
Friday morning I made my way to Spokane to pick up Bailey. We then flew through Denver to Boston. We got in around midnight, so we decided to stay in a hotel before surprising Ilsa in the morning.
Saturday morning Jesse (Ilsa’s boyfriend) picked us up at our hotel. Ilsa had a meeting at the Lulu Lemon store where she works, so we decided to surprise her with Jesse when he went to pick her up. Bailey and I peered through the store windows like total creepers. Many of the other women inside the store were looking at us going, “what is wrong with those girls?” Eventually Ilsa looked out the window. It was hilarious as her expression went from “look at the weirdo” to “that looks like Bailey” to “holy crap that is Bailey!” and then she started to cry ;~)
The weekend was great. We got to spend a lot of time with Ilsa’s friends. I had never met many of her Boston people, so I really enjoyed getting to spend some time with them. Ilsa’s family was also there. It was great to see them even though it took all of us traveling 3000 miles to do it.
Our only “touristy” activity on this trip was a trek along the Freedom Trail. Ilsa had to work on Monday morning so Mark, Mia, Bailey and I decided to stroll from Ilsa’s school through the streets of Boston to the trail. We took in the highlights and made quick work of the trail. I bet we saw 80% of the trail and walked 6+ miles in around four hours. We made extended stops in the Old South Meeting House, Paul Revere’s House and the Granary Burial Ground.
On Monday night we celebrated Ilsa’s wonderful accomplishment. There was an awards ceremony, a reception and then a bunch of us went out for drinks and appetizers. Again Bailey and I both really enjoyed spending time with Ilsa’s Boston friends and seeing Ilsa soak up some much deserved recognition.
Tuesday we got up and had breakfast at Ilsa’s apartment with all of her family that made the trip in for the ceremony. Before too long it was time for Bailey and me to head off to the airport. Bailey and I made it back to Spokane a little before midnight. We then went to a local hotel to sleep. In the early AM on Wednesday B started her drive back to Moscow and I got up to watch the US World Cup game (what a game!). I then went back to GEG one last time to catch my final flights home.
Until the next adventure,
Katy
Monday, May 31, 2010
A Fast Weekend
The rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. Saturday we just hung around Granny and Pop’s house. Mom planted over 400 plants in their yard and I hand watered them. In other words, mom did 95% of the work. For dinner Judy came over and then we watched the Flyers game. Unfortunately the Flyers lost but it was entertaining nonetheless. On Sunday we drove Granny and Pop down to the shore for a day. Becky, Mike and the girls were all already there, so it was great to get to spend some time with them. Andy is getting big and hilarious. And Kayla is still a total doll. We left the shore around 9 pm. We went back to Moorestown, got our bags, and headed for our airport hotel. We slept in an airport hotel because we had to be at the airport by 4:30 am.
I remember nothing of our flight from PHL-SFO. It was funny though. When we were de-boarding the flight attended, who I’m guessing was a 40ish, straight, black guy, gave me a hug and told me I was his favorite passenger ever. I think it’s because I asked him for nothing ;~) By 12:45 pm we were on the ground in Eugene and on our way to Mucho for lunch.
Until the next trip,
Katy
I remember nothing of our flight from PHL-SFO. It was funny though. When we were de-boarding the flight attended, who I’m guessing was a 40ish, straight, black guy, gave me a hug and told me I was his favorite passenger ever. I think it’s because I asked him for nothing ;~) By 12:45 pm we were on the ground in Eugene and on our way to Mucho for lunch.
Until the next trip,
Katy
Friday, May 28, 2010
I-95
Waking up in DC was not what I had planned for today but it was my reality. Our first order of business was securing mom’s bag back at IAD. We did okay for us, especially after a late night and made it to the airport by 10:15 am. I had asked previously if there was any sense in calling in the morning to check on the status of the bag. The baggage agent told me no because the automated system was unlikely to get it right. Comforting.
Upon arrival in the baggage area I cruised for mom’s bag. I didn’t find it. I again went to the baggage agent. She looked it up and informed me that it was on the ground in Philadelphia. I couldn’t help but laugh. Mom gave the woman some tone. She didn’t seem excited about processing the delivery claim. In the nicest way possible I explained to her my day yesterday and that she was going to process the claim. Eventually she relented. What I found interesting about this is that she didn’t want to process the claim herself because IAD would have to “pay” for the “lost” bag. In reality IAD is the airport that screwed up our flights and the bags, so in my mind, they should have pay to for it.
We eventually got on the road to Granny and Pop’s. It took us around 4 hours to make the drive. There was a bit of memorial day traffic which extended the drive some but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been.
Shortly after making it to Moorestown I took a nap. Shocker, I know. We then went to dinner at Perkins with Granny, Pop, Ben and Judy. I love Perkins. As mentioned in previous posts it's a total old person's place but the food is good, cheap and has large portions. Ben, Judy, mom and I then wrapped up the day by bowling a few games. None of us played particularly well but we still had a very nice time. It’s now after 1 am and I’m beat.
Night,
Katy
Upon arrival in the baggage area I cruised for mom’s bag. I didn’t find it. I again went to the baggage agent. She looked it up and informed me that it was on the ground in Philadelphia. I couldn’t help but laugh. Mom gave the woman some tone. She didn’t seem excited about processing the delivery claim. In the nicest way possible I explained to her my day yesterday and that she was going to process the claim. Eventually she relented. What I found interesting about this is that she didn’t want to process the claim herself because IAD would have to “pay” for the “lost” bag. In reality IAD is the airport that screwed up our flights and the bags, so in my mind, they should have pay to for it.
We eventually got on the road to Granny and Pop’s. It took us around 4 hours to make the drive. There was a bit of memorial day traffic which extended the drive some but it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been.
Shortly after making it to Moorestown I took a nap. Shocker, I know. We then went to dinner at Perkins with Granny, Pop, Ben and Judy. I love Perkins. As mentioned in previous posts it's a total old person's place but the food is good, cheap and has large portions. Ben, Judy, mom and I then wrapped up the day by bowling a few games. None of us played particularly well but we still had a very nice time. It’s now after 1 am and I’m beat.
Night,
Katy
Thursday, May 27, 2010
A Million Miles and Screw Ups
Today is a big day. Flying somewhere over Idaho I will reach a million miles flown on United Airlines. I think my dad may be more excited about this than I am. However when I stop and think about it, it really is pretty cool and I am very blessed to have seen as much of the world as I have. That being said, a HUGE portion of my million miles have been accumulated going to see our family in the east. I figure there is no better way to hit a million than on, yet another, one of those trips.
Mom and my routing to see Granny and Pop and the rest of the family in New Jersey is EUG-PDX, PDX-IAD (Washington DC for you non-airport code folks), IAD-PHL (Philly). This is actually a pretty nice way to go. You have to leave Eugene at 6 am but the connection in Portland is super minimal and the equipment from PDX-IAD is a 757 which means an upgrade is highly likely (there are 24 first class seats). The flight from IAD-PHL is super short, like the EUG-PDX flight, so most of the travel is very comfortable.
Our flight from EUG-PDX was quick and easy like usual. I was really hungry when we landed so I decided to grab an egg salad sandwich on our way past the newsstand in Terminal E. For any of you who travel through PDX and like egg salad, I highly recommend that sandwich. We then proceeded to our gate where our flight was already boarding.
I fell asleep as soon as the plane took off. On my million mile flight I didn’t see any sky. I woke up when the wheels hit the ground upon landing. I suppose this was fitting, in the sense that I’m certain I have slept for at least 500,000 of the miles I’ve flown. I didn’t get a bottle of champagne like dad upon his million miles, but I didn’t ask for one either.
We had an hour or so layover in DC. We hit up the Red Carpet Room for some snacks and the restroom. We then made our way to the commuter terminal A. At IAD the easiest way to move around the terminals is to ride a funky little tram/truck/shuttle like thing. On our ride over I was telling mom how this flight to Philly never works out well for me. “Mechanical” problems have caused me to miss two flights to Europe, made me really, really, really late for Christmas Eve dinner coming home from Europe and a few other little domestic mix-ups for good measure.
We made it out to gate A3. Our flight boarded a few minutes late but the gate announcer still “promised an on-time departure”. As soon as he said that I should have considered it the statement of doom. Instead a few of us in the line just laughed.
We finally progressed out the doors onto the little commuter tarmac. At this point an angry man in a yellow vest wanted us to wait. We were like, okay this will take two seconds. Turns out we had to wait for a fueling truck to move so that they could put the oversized carry on cart out by the entrance to the plane. This wouldn’t have been a big deal but it was 90 degrees and kind of sticky in Washington on Thursday. Many of us were dressed in winter clothes from the cold destinations where we started our days. We ended up standing outside for a good ten minutes. Thinking about this now, that’s not THAT long but at the time it sure felt like forever.
Boarding the plane felt like entering Dante’s Enferno. It was like an oven in there. The engines obviously weren’t running and that 90 degree outside air was not circulating at all. I wish I had had a thermometer to measure the inside temperature. We sat with the cabin door open for an unusually long time. I wasn’t looking at my watch, YET, but I’m guessing it was in the neighborhood of another 10 minutes. The captain finally came on and said we had a “weight” problem. For an experienced travel, especially on little commuter jets, this is code for someone is getting kicked off the plane. Shortly thereafter the gate agent boarded the plane and asked for two volunteers to take a later flight. One guy was interested. He took his stuff and deplaned. I told mom we should consider the offer but then it was revealed the next available flight was tomorrow night at 10 pm. We are only in Philly for three days, so this didn’t make sense for us. The gate agent then “randomly” selected a passenger and told her she had to get off he plane. She was pissed and rightfully so. The strange thing about this weight issue was that the plane wasn’t even full to begin with. Normally if they kick someone off a flight it’s because there is bad weather, they need to take some extra fuel and the plane is packed to the brim. Not so in the case. Once the woman collected her belongings and deplaned, we were finally on our way to Philly.
Or so we thought... after taxing out towards the runway we sat, sat and sat some more. It was nice because we finally had some air moving so at least the profuse sweating had stopped. After sitting on the runway for 30 minutes the flight attendant announced that we were waiting for “something” (her word, not mine) and that the captain would come on when they knew more. In another ten minutes or so the captain announced that there were thunder and lightening storms moving into the Philadelphia area. We were also very close to not having enough fuel on board for the required amount in a storm AND we had a minor mechanical issue. He promised to get back with us in five minutes when he knew more. Five minutes later he announced that our mechanical issue had something to do with the wind sheer detection device. Often times this is a piece of equipment that one can fly without, however, flying into a thunderstorm is not one of those times. We then taxied back to the gate to deboard, so that mechanical could fix the problem.
By the time we reentered the terminal, IN IAD, we had been on the plane nearly two hours. The initial announcement suggested that it would take roughly 20 minutes for the problem to be fixed. At 7 pm the gate agents announced that the flight had been pushed back another 30 minutes. Mom and were starving, so we decided to go to Five Guys, a burger place right next to our gate. My cousin Ben has always maintained they have awesome burgers, so I was actually kind of excited to try them. The burger and fries were in fact very, very good. I’m not sure if this was a result of my being really hungry or that it was legitimately good. I imagine it was a combination of the two.
At 7:15 pm my phone and it was United calling to tell me the flight had been pushed back to 7:55 pm. We thus leisurely finished our food and then made our way back to the gate. For the next hour and thirty minutes they continued to push our flight back in 20 minute increments. Evidently the thunderstorm had finally arrived in Philly and now it was playing a roll in our flight (not) leaving as well. At 9:48 pm, five hours after starting this adventure in IAD, our flight was canceled.
I rushed over to the customer service line because I wanted to see if by chance there was anyway to catch a flight tonight. If not, I wanted to know how I would be compensated for my inconvenience. I was the third or so person in line. By the time I made it to the front of the line United had already called to tell me that I had been rebooked on flight tomorrow night at 9 pm. As established before mom and I weren’t thrilled with that plan since it would cost us one of our only three days with the family. We decided since DC is only 140 miles from Granny’s house that we should just drive. At the customer service counter I told the guy that’s what we were going to do. I was able to talk my way into $650 in travel credits and $30 in meal vouchers for my inconvenience. Finally, I needed him to pull our checked bags so that we could have them to take with us in the car. He said that would be no problem but it would likely take 45 minutes to an hour.
With that time I quickly shopped for the best rental car deal and went with mom to the only open food place to spend our $30. We got a few beverages, cereal, some yogurt and a rice crispy treat. Armed with our snacks we were off to the baggage claim.
There were a lot of bags sitting around the baggage carousel. Within a fairly short amount of time I located my bag. I was using a red roller duffel on this trip, so it was pretty easy to spot. Mom’s bag on the other hand could not be found. I went inside the United baggage office to speak with an agent. He looked at the tags and found her bag was in fact in DC it was just outside on the ramp. Unfortunately because of the lightening storm currently overhead, no bags were being moved on the ramp. The baggage delay was estimated to last 5 hours because it was a “slow moving storm”. This meant that mom’s bag was not going to be retrieved any time soon. I hadn’t been outside since deboarding our flight four hours ago, so I wanted to see if they were making it up. I took some solace in the fact that it was one heck of storm. It was pouring rain and the lightening bolts were pretty intense. That being said, I wasn’t thrilled about the prospect of driving unfamiliar roads in this downpour. Mom and I decided it would be best to spend the night in DC, pick up the bag in the morning, and then make our way to Granny’s.
In light of that decision I went back in the baggage office and asked them for a hotel voucher. This took forever (another 20 minutes or so) because of some glitch in the system. Eventually I received my voucher and we were finally on our way to the Hertz bus. The bus came as soon as we stepped outside. He took us straight to my name in lights and within 10 minutes we were off to the hotel. Too bad we were in DC and it was already past midnight!
United put us up in an incredibly nice hotel. It was called the Landsdown Resort and can be seen here. One perk to having a screwed up day was that I actually got to spend the night in a very comfortable bed. I love going to Granny’s but the bed in my room there is more like a hammock. I’m pretty sure it is still the original from 1960. Speaking of beds... I’m beat and I’m calling it a night.
Katy
Mom and my routing to see Granny and Pop and the rest of the family in New Jersey is EUG-PDX, PDX-IAD (Washington DC for you non-airport code folks), IAD-PHL (Philly). This is actually a pretty nice way to go. You have to leave Eugene at 6 am but the connection in Portland is super minimal and the equipment from PDX-IAD is a 757 which means an upgrade is highly likely (there are 24 first class seats). The flight from IAD-PHL is super short, like the EUG-PDX flight, so most of the travel is very comfortable.
Our flight from EUG-PDX was quick and easy like usual. I was really hungry when we landed so I decided to grab an egg salad sandwich on our way past the newsstand in Terminal E. For any of you who travel through PDX and like egg salad, I highly recommend that sandwich. We then proceeded to our gate where our flight was already boarding.
I fell asleep as soon as the plane took off. On my million mile flight I didn’t see any sky. I woke up when the wheels hit the ground upon landing. I suppose this was fitting, in the sense that I’m certain I have slept for at least 500,000 of the miles I’ve flown. I didn’t get a bottle of champagne like dad upon his million miles, but I didn’t ask for one either.
We had an hour or so layover in DC. We hit up the Red Carpet Room for some snacks and the restroom. We then made our way to the commuter terminal A. At IAD the easiest way to move around the terminals is to ride a funky little tram/truck/shuttle like thing. On our ride over I was telling mom how this flight to Philly never works out well for me. “Mechanical” problems have caused me to miss two flights to Europe, made me really, really, really late for Christmas Eve dinner coming home from Europe and a few other little domestic mix-ups for good measure.
We made it out to gate A3. Our flight boarded a few minutes late but the gate announcer still “promised an on-time departure”. As soon as he said that I should have considered it the statement of doom. Instead a few of us in the line just laughed.
We finally progressed out the doors onto the little commuter tarmac. At this point an angry man in a yellow vest wanted us to wait. We were like, okay this will take two seconds. Turns out we had to wait for a fueling truck to move so that they could put the oversized carry on cart out by the entrance to the plane. This wouldn’t have been a big deal but it was 90 degrees and kind of sticky in Washington on Thursday. Many of us were dressed in winter clothes from the cold destinations where we started our days. We ended up standing outside for a good ten minutes. Thinking about this now, that’s not THAT long but at the time it sure felt like forever.
Boarding the plane felt like entering Dante’s Enferno. It was like an oven in there. The engines obviously weren’t running and that 90 degree outside air was not circulating at all. I wish I had had a thermometer to measure the inside temperature. We sat with the cabin door open for an unusually long time. I wasn’t looking at my watch, YET, but I’m guessing it was in the neighborhood of another 10 minutes. The captain finally came on and said we had a “weight” problem. For an experienced travel, especially on little commuter jets, this is code for someone is getting kicked off the plane. Shortly thereafter the gate agent boarded the plane and asked for two volunteers to take a later flight. One guy was interested. He took his stuff and deplaned. I told mom we should consider the offer but then it was revealed the next available flight was tomorrow night at 10 pm. We are only in Philly for three days, so this didn’t make sense for us. The gate agent then “randomly” selected a passenger and told her she had to get off he plane. She was pissed and rightfully so. The strange thing about this weight issue was that the plane wasn’t even full to begin with. Normally if they kick someone off a flight it’s because there is bad weather, they need to take some extra fuel and the plane is packed to the brim. Not so in the case. Once the woman collected her belongings and deplaned, we were finally on our way to Philly.
Or so we thought... after taxing out towards the runway we sat, sat and sat some more. It was nice because we finally had some air moving so at least the profuse sweating had stopped. After sitting on the runway for 30 minutes the flight attendant announced that we were waiting for “something” (her word, not mine) and that the captain would come on when they knew more. In another ten minutes or so the captain announced that there were thunder and lightening storms moving into the Philadelphia area. We were also very close to not having enough fuel on board for the required amount in a storm AND we had a minor mechanical issue. He promised to get back with us in five minutes when he knew more. Five minutes later he announced that our mechanical issue had something to do with the wind sheer detection device. Often times this is a piece of equipment that one can fly without, however, flying into a thunderstorm is not one of those times. We then taxied back to the gate to deboard, so that mechanical could fix the problem.
By the time we reentered the terminal, IN IAD, we had been on the plane nearly two hours. The initial announcement suggested that it would take roughly 20 minutes for the problem to be fixed. At 7 pm the gate agents announced that the flight had been pushed back another 30 minutes. Mom and were starving, so we decided to go to Five Guys, a burger place right next to our gate. My cousin Ben has always maintained they have awesome burgers, so I was actually kind of excited to try them. The burger and fries were in fact very, very good. I’m not sure if this was a result of my being really hungry or that it was legitimately good. I imagine it was a combination of the two.
At 7:15 pm my phone and it was United calling to tell me the flight had been pushed back to 7:55 pm. We thus leisurely finished our food and then made our way back to the gate. For the next hour and thirty minutes they continued to push our flight back in 20 minute increments. Evidently the thunderstorm had finally arrived in Philly and now it was playing a roll in our flight (not) leaving as well. At 9:48 pm, five hours after starting this adventure in IAD, our flight was canceled.
I rushed over to the customer service line because I wanted to see if by chance there was anyway to catch a flight tonight. If not, I wanted to know how I would be compensated for my inconvenience. I was the third or so person in line. By the time I made it to the front of the line United had already called to tell me that I had been rebooked on flight tomorrow night at 9 pm. As established before mom and I weren’t thrilled with that plan since it would cost us one of our only three days with the family. We decided since DC is only 140 miles from Granny’s house that we should just drive. At the customer service counter I told the guy that’s what we were going to do. I was able to talk my way into $650 in travel credits and $30 in meal vouchers for my inconvenience. Finally, I needed him to pull our checked bags so that we could have them to take with us in the car. He said that would be no problem but it would likely take 45 minutes to an hour.
With that time I quickly shopped for the best rental car deal and went with mom to the only open food place to spend our $30. We got a few beverages, cereal, some yogurt and a rice crispy treat. Armed with our snacks we were off to the baggage claim.
There were a lot of bags sitting around the baggage carousel. Within a fairly short amount of time I located my bag. I was using a red roller duffel on this trip, so it was pretty easy to spot. Mom’s bag on the other hand could not be found. I went inside the United baggage office to speak with an agent. He looked at the tags and found her bag was in fact in DC it was just outside on the ramp. Unfortunately because of the lightening storm currently overhead, no bags were being moved on the ramp. The baggage delay was estimated to last 5 hours because it was a “slow moving storm”. This meant that mom’s bag was not going to be retrieved any time soon. I hadn’t been outside since deboarding our flight four hours ago, so I wanted to see if they were making it up. I took some solace in the fact that it was one heck of storm. It was pouring rain and the lightening bolts were pretty intense. That being said, I wasn’t thrilled about the prospect of driving unfamiliar roads in this downpour. Mom and I decided it would be best to spend the night in DC, pick up the bag in the morning, and then make our way to Granny’s.
In light of that decision I went back in the baggage office and asked them for a hotel voucher. This took forever (another 20 minutes or so) because of some glitch in the system. Eventually I received my voucher and we were finally on our way to the Hertz bus. The bus came as soon as we stepped outside. He took us straight to my name in lights and within 10 minutes we were off to the hotel. Too bad we were in DC and it was already past midnight!
United put us up in an incredibly nice hotel. It was called the Landsdown Resort and can be seen here. One perk to having a screwed up day was that I actually got to spend the night in a very comfortable bed. I love going to Granny’s but the bed in my room there is more like a hammock. I’m pretty sure it is still the original from 1960. Speaking of beds... I’m beat and I’m calling it a night.
Katy
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Driving Fast is Fun
This morning mom and I had our last breakfast of the trip. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this yet (sorry if I have) but I am shocked by how much Chocolate Europeans eat at breakfast. There were a bunch of chocolate cereals, chocolate danishes, and most importantly, Nutella, at every single buffet. I don’t know why I haven’t had much Nutella in my life until this trip. I mean... putting what is basically chocolate sauce with a hint of hazelnut on bread for breakfast? That’s brilliant! And only made better by adding jam too. There have been a few other things from the trip that I’ve failed to note as well.
I apologize for this blog not being nearly as entertaining or funny the one with dad from SE Asia. Mom doesn’t believe in free speech, at least not as it applies to her, me and my travel blog. Some of the best (funniest) stories were banned, so feel free to ask me about them the next time you see me. If mom’s not around I might tell you.
The most overused phrases of the trip were “Damn VAT Tax” and “I found a hoop in moat!”. The former is mom’s, the latter is mine. Mom is not a huge fan of unnecessary entitlement programs and the VAT tax that funds them throughout Europe. I am still pumped about finding a hoop in a moat. A week later I am still randomly announcing that fact.
Driving fast is addictive and fun. My typical autobahn speed was 160 km per hour or 100 mph. I didn’t break my speed driving record but I got close. Unfortunately I learned later that evidently there are some cameras on a lot of the Autobahn’s and occasionally they send people tickets in the mail. Hopefully I don’t have one or two of those coming my way in the near future.
I comment on this every time I go to Europe but I still don’t get the lack of ice throughout the country. It cracks me up when you do finally get ice and there are two cubes in the glass. We also didn’t find a single grocery store that gave out bags. It seemed like most people brought their own but in the event you needed or wanted to buy one, they were expensive (30-50 cents). The bottle deposit on soda bottles was also expensive. The one time I noticed it broken out it looked like it was .25 euros per plastic container.
Some of the places we went and stayed in during this trip were so far from US code, it was hilarious. The best example of this was the castle we stayed in. When the woman checked me in, she told me that my key would work to the front door as well as to my room. Mom had left something in the car so around 10 pm I went to get it for her. I went down the stairs to a totally dark eating area and kitchen. I managed to finally find a light switch that provided enough light to help me make my way to the front door. The front door was locked. It could only be opened with a key. I could barely see the key hole and it took me, literally, a few minutes to open the door. If I was running from a fire, I most certainly would have been dead.
I am currently writing on our flight from Frankfurt to SFO. We are upstairs on a 747. This is the first time I have flown in United’s new Business Class Suites. They are awesome. The seats can lie completely flat. The seats may not be perfect for a person much over 6’ 4” or a really wide-person but they are heaven for a person my size. I spent the first hour of the flight playing Tetris. I am now watching my second movie. Mom is even comfortable, which is really saying something. She actually has done so well on this trip that I forgot I was going to keep the mommy barf count. Believe it or not, she hasn’t thrown up once. She only has to make it 12 more hours and she will have made it the entire trip without barfing or needed a headache timeout. Well done mom.
I’m going to get back to my movies and games. I’ll send off this last post from the Red Carpet Club in SFO...
... We’re now in the club after a momentarily lost passport episode. Thankfully we had a plenty long layover and even with the delay still have an hour to kill. It’s nice to have FREE Internet and ice in my DP. Once I land in Eugene I will have no plane tickets booked. Anyone want to go somewhere?
Until the next adventure,
Katy
I apologize for this blog not being nearly as entertaining or funny the one with dad from SE Asia. Mom doesn’t believe in free speech, at least not as it applies to her, me and my travel blog. Some of the best (funniest) stories were banned, so feel free to ask me about them the next time you see me. If mom’s not around I might tell you.
The most overused phrases of the trip were “Damn VAT Tax” and “I found a hoop in moat!”. The former is mom’s, the latter is mine. Mom is not a huge fan of unnecessary entitlement programs and the VAT tax that funds them throughout Europe. I am still pumped about finding a hoop in a moat. A week later I am still randomly announcing that fact.
Driving fast is addictive and fun. My typical autobahn speed was 160 km per hour or 100 mph. I didn’t break my speed driving record but I got close. Unfortunately I learned later that evidently there are some cameras on a lot of the Autobahn’s and occasionally they send people tickets in the mail. Hopefully I don’t have one or two of those coming my way in the near future.
I comment on this every time I go to Europe but I still don’t get the lack of ice throughout the country. It cracks me up when you do finally get ice and there are two cubes in the glass. We also didn’t find a single grocery store that gave out bags. It seemed like most people brought their own but in the event you needed or wanted to buy one, they were expensive (30-50 cents). The bottle deposit on soda bottles was also expensive. The one time I noticed it broken out it looked like it was .25 euros per plastic container.
Some of the places we went and stayed in during this trip were so far from US code, it was hilarious. The best example of this was the castle we stayed in. When the woman checked me in, she told me that my key would work to the front door as well as to my room. Mom had left something in the car so around 10 pm I went to get it for her. I went down the stairs to a totally dark eating area and kitchen. I managed to finally find a light switch that provided enough light to help me make my way to the front door. The front door was locked. It could only be opened with a key. I could barely see the key hole and it took me, literally, a few minutes to open the door. If I was running from a fire, I most certainly would have been dead.
I am currently writing on our flight from Frankfurt to SFO. We are upstairs on a 747. This is the first time I have flown in United’s new Business Class Suites. They are awesome. The seats can lie completely flat. The seats may not be perfect for a person much over 6’ 4” or a really wide-person but they are heaven for a person my size. I spent the first hour of the flight playing Tetris. I am now watching my second movie. Mom is even comfortable, which is really saying something. She actually has done so well on this trip that I forgot I was going to keep the mommy barf count. Believe it or not, she hasn’t thrown up once. She only has to make it 12 more hours and she will have made it the entire trip without barfing or needed a headache timeout. Well done mom.
I’m going to get back to my movies and games. I’ll send off this last post from the Red Carpet Club in SFO...
... We’re now in the club after a momentarily lost passport episode. Thankfully we had a plenty long layover and even with the delay still have an hour to kill. It’s nice to have FREE Internet and ice in my DP. Once I land in Eugene I will have no plane tickets booked. Anyone want to go somewhere?
Until the next adventure,
Katy
Monday, May 3, 2010
Bye, Bye Cochem
This morning Udo met mom and me at the hotel at 9:58 am. He came with a nice surprise. His sister Inga had walked over with him. I’ve heard stories about Inga forever but this was the first time I had met her. She spoke decent English and anything we couldn’t understand Udo translated for us.
We all walked over to the local ferry terminal in Cochem. Kathy met us there. We then got on a boat and sailed down the Mosel to Beilstein. It was a little cold on the boat but we had fun. The Mosel is broken up by 14 locks. During our trip we had to sail through one of them. I had been in a ship lock one other time, when I sailed the Yangtze with Dad in China. On that trip we were the only boat in the lock. This time another huge freighter shared the lock with us. Watching the captain manipulate his boat behind ours was rather amazing. No joke he had six inches of space in between his boat and the lock walls.
Beilstein is a very small town. So small that both Kathy and my guide book didn’t even mention it. However Udo said it is actually a very popular place. The two main attractions are its castle, Burg Metternich, and its church. The church is really magnificently maintained and famous for its Black Madonna. The Madonna was brought to the church by the Spaniards some 500 years ago at which point it was converted from a Lutheran Church to a Catholic Church. The town itself is also super cute. It only had one main street that not surprisingly featured classic German architecture. Inga knew of a coffee shop with great cakes, so we decided to stop there before catching our boat back to Cochem at 1:30 pm.
The ride back was very pleasant. We had fun chatting and looking at all of the beautiful scenery. It was raining and cold, so we rode inside. Upon arriving back to town we wanted to do some shopping before hitting the road to Frankfurt. Mom bought a few dishes and some of what Kathy describes as the world’s best Nutmeg. I’m looking forward to testing that out on some cookies, mac n’ cheese and or French toast.
Udo’s other nephew Marcus wanted to meet us and test out his English, so Inga ran home to get him after school. Like both his brother and his mom, he was super nice. His English was pretty good too. We hung out in Hans and Fini’s apartment with everyone for an hour or so and then it was time to head up the highway.
I really, really enjoyed our time in Cochem. Udo’s whole family was a blast to be around. His town is beautiful. It’s small enough to explore on foot but big enough to entertain for a few days. And of course, it’s castle had a basketball hoop ;~)
Our drive to Frankfurt was uneventful, which is a good thing. We left a little after six and arrived around eight. I wanted to see what downtown looked like, so after we checked into our hotel near the airport we drive into downtown. We then found a little Italian place called Mi Famiglia to have dinner. It was one of the better meals we had on the trip. It’s now 11:30 pm back at our hotel. We are leaving for the airport around 11 am. I still need to reorganize my stuff for the flight home, so I’m calling it a night. I’ll write one final time for Euro 2010 tomorrow.
Katy
We all walked over to the local ferry terminal in Cochem. Kathy met us there. We then got on a boat and sailed down the Mosel to Beilstein. It was a little cold on the boat but we had fun. The Mosel is broken up by 14 locks. During our trip we had to sail through one of them. I had been in a ship lock one other time, when I sailed the Yangtze with Dad in China. On that trip we were the only boat in the lock. This time another huge freighter shared the lock with us. Watching the captain manipulate his boat behind ours was rather amazing. No joke he had six inches of space in between his boat and the lock walls.
Beilstein is a very small town. So small that both Kathy and my guide book didn’t even mention it. However Udo said it is actually a very popular place. The two main attractions are its castle, Burg Metternich, and its church. The church is really magnificently maintained and famous for its Black Madonna. The Madonna was brought to the church by the Spaniards some 500 years ago at which point it was converted from a Lutheran Church to a Catholic Church. The town itself is also super cute. It only had one main street that not surprisingly featured classic German architecture. Inga knew of a coffee shop with great cakes, so we decided to stop there before catching our boat back to Cochem at 1:30 pm.
The ride back was very pleasant. We had fun chatting and looking at all of the beautiful scenery. It was raining and cold, so we rode inside. Upon arriving back to town we wanted to do some shopping before hitting the road to Frankfurt. Mom bought a few dishes and some of what Kathy describes as the world’s best Nutmeg. I’m looking forward to testing that out on some cookies, mac n’ cheese and or French toast.
Udo’s other nephew Marcus wanted to meet us and test out his English, so Inga ran home to get him after school. Like both his brother and his mom, he was super nice. His English was pretty good too. We hung out in Hans and Fini’s apartment with everyone for an hour or so and then it was time to head up the highway.
I really, really enjoyed our time in Cochem. Udo’s whole family was a blast to be around. His town is beautiful. It’s small enough to explore on foot but big enough to entertain for a few days. And of course, it’s castle had a basketball hoop ;~)
Our drive to Frankfurt was uneventful, which is a good thing. We left a little after six and arrived around eight. I wanted to see what downtown looked like, so after we checked into our hotel near the airport we drive into downtown. We then found a little Italian place called Mi Famiglia to have dinner. It was one of the better meals we had on the trip. It’s now 11:30 pm back at our hotel. We are leaving for the airport around 11 am. I still need to reorganize my stuff for the flight home, so I’m calling it a night. I’ll write one final time for Euro 2010 tomorrow.
Katy
Sunday, May 2, 2010
U-Man's Hoop
Today was another great day in Germany. We started off the morning meeting Udo at the hotel at 8:45 am. Our first stop was what I affectionately call “Udo’s Castle”. It is actually called the “Cochem Castle Reichsburg”. It was fantastic. Udo wanted to be early to beat the crowds. We ended up touring the castle in a group of only seven people, of which we made up three. It was also great because the other four tour members spoke English, so our guide gave us the tour in English. It would figure that the first time we had the ability to have Udo translate for us, we didn’t need it. The castle tour was very informative. I also enjoyed the fact that we could take pictures on this particular tour. The only downside was that we didn’t get to see the room in which Udo was knighted.
In my office in Eugene I have hoop pictures on my walls. Udo often stops by to visit. During his last visit before our trip I was telling him that I wanted to get a hoop picture in his town with his castle. He told me that was impossible because it didn’t exist. I told him we would see. I win. The highlight of our castle exploration was that I spotted a hoop that I thought would have a great view of the castle. The only issue was that from a distance it looked like it was behind a locked fence.
After the castle we went over to the hoop. It was in fact located behind a locked fence. It looked a little high to climb but mom and Udo thought I could fit under it. I decided to try sliding under it. It worked. The view of the castle was great. The only downsides were that the lighting wasn’t great and the sky was a rather blah gray. Regardless I was happy to have found a hoop featuring U-Man’s castle.
From the castle we walked back to our hotel to get our car. We then picked up Kathy and Michael on our way to the Eltz Castle, which was roughly a 30 minute drive up the Mosel. The first part of the castle was completed in 1472. Despite many wars in the region, the Eltz Castle has survived intact, making it the oldest surviving castle in Germany. It has been privately owned by the Eltz family for 33 generations. We took a very informative tour here as well, although it was in German, so Kathy and Udo had to translate for us.
For lunch we stopped at a little German fast food place on the Mosel. It was sort of like a high class hot dog stand with really, really good sausages. That was the first German sausage I have had and I was not disappointed.
After lunch we took Michael back to town and then went to the top of another Cochem peak. Up to this point the day had been gray mixed with a little bit of rain. The sun finally decided to break through so we decided to ride the Cochemer Sesselbahn, which is like a chairlift, to the top of the hill. This was fun for a number of reasons. Udo hates heights and watching him ride up the hill was hilarious. The views from the hill were great. The hill was located on a different side of Cochem, so it offered a new view. It started to pour rain when we wanted to go back down the hill. We waited for a while under cover and then decided to brave it. There were a few covered seats on the lift and we waited for those and made it down safely and fairly dry.
We then walked into the downtown to look in a few shops. The weather started to turn again and I decided that I wanted to run back up the castle to see if I could capture a hoop picture with a better looking sky. I agreed to meet mom, Kathy and Udo at the Germania cafe for some afternoon cake when I returned. The hike back up the hill was well worth it. The sky was much brighter and more interesting for my picture. I also felt less guilty about eating cake when I returned. We had a nice time chatting and relaxing while eating our cake. We also saw a minor motorcycle crash. It made for quite a spectacle but thankfully no one was injured and their bikes were in decent enough shape that they were eventually able to ride away.
At 6 pm we went back to Hans and Finnie’s place to visit some more. Around 7:30 pm we left the apartment to go to dinner. We decided to eat at our hotel tonight. It is the only Mexican restaurant mom and I have seen thus far in Germany. The menu included both German and Mexican food. Udo, Michael and I had Mexican. Mom, Kathy, Hans and Finnie had German. I think everyone enjoyed their food. Udo thought his was a little on the sweet side but I frankly don’t know how that is possible.
It’s now 10:45 pm and I’m back in our hotel room. Udo will be here by 9:55 am to start off tomorrow’s activities, so I am going to call it a night here shortly. I can’t believe tomorrow is our last full day in Germany. This trip has gone incredibly fast, which must mean we’ve had a wonderful time.
Katy
In my office in Eugene I have hoop pictures on my walls. Udo often stops by to visit. During his last visit before our trip I was telling him that I wanted to get a hoop picture in his town with his castle. He told me that was impossible because it didn’t exist. I told him we would see. I win. The highlight of our castle exploration was that I spotted a hoop that I thought would have a great view of the castle. The only issue was that from a distance it looked like it was behind a locked fence.
After the castle we went over to the hoop. It was in fact located behind a locked fence. It looked a little high to climb but mom and Udo thought I could fit under it. I decided to try sliding under it. It worked. The view of the castle was great. The only downsides were that the lighting wasn’t great and the sky was a rather blah gray. Regardless I was happy to have found a hoop featuring U-Man’s castle.
From the castle we walked back to our hotel to get our car. We then picked up Kathy and Michael on our way to the Eltz Castle, which was roughly a 30 minute drive up the Mosel. The first part of the castle was completed in 1472. Despite many wars in the region, the Eltz Castle has survived intact, making it the oldest surviving castle in Germany. It has been privately owned by the Eltz family for 33 generations. We took a very informative tour here as well, although it was in German, so Kathy and Udo had to translate for us.
For lunch we stopped at a little German fast food place on the Mosel. It was sort of like a high class hot dog stand with really, really good sausages. That was the first German sausage I have had and I was not disappointed.
After lunch we took Michael back to town and then went to the top of another Cochem peak. Up to this point the day had been gray mixed with a little bit of rain. The sun finally decided to break through so we decided to ride the Cochemer Sesselbahn, which is like a chairlift, to the top of the hill. This was fun for a number of reasons. Udo hates heights and watching him ride up the hill was hilarious. The views from the hill were great. The hill was located on a different side of Cochem, so it offered a new view. It started to pour rain when we wanted to go back down the hill. We waited for a while under cover and then decided to brave it. There were a few covered seats on the lift and we waited for those and made it down safely and fairly dry.
We then walked into the downtown to look in a few shops. The weather started to turn again and I decided that I wanted to run back up the castle to see if I could capture a hoop picture with a better looking sky. I agreed to meet mom, Kathy and Udo at the Germania cafe for some afternoon cake when I returned. The hike back up the hill was well worth it. The sky was much brighter and more interesting for my picture. I also felt less guilty about eating cake when I returned. We had a nice time chatting and relaxing while eating our cake. We also saw a minor motorcycle crash. It made for quite a spectacle but thankfully no one was injured and their bikes were in decent enough shape that they were eventually able to ride away.
At 6 pm we went back to Hans and Finnie’s place to visit some more. Around 7:30 pm we left the apartment to go to dinner. We decided to eat at our hotel tonight. It is the only Mexican restaurant mom and I have seen thus far in Germany. The menu included both German and Mexican food. Udo, Michael and I had Mexican. Mom, Kathy, Hans and Finnie had German. I think everyone enjoyed their food. Udo thought his was a little on the sweet side but I frankly don’t know how that is possible.
It’s now 10:45 pm and I’m back in our hotel room. Udo will be here by 9:55 am to start off tomorrow’s activities, so I am going to call it a night here shortly. I can’t believe tomorrow is our last full day in Germany. This trip has gone incredibly fast, which must mean we’ve had a wonderful time.
Katy
Saturday, May 1, 2010
U-Man's Hometown
This morning mom and I explored some of Trier’s famous historical sites. The town’s sites are fairly close together, so in a three hour walking tour we hit all of the highlights. These included the Porta Negra, Hauptmarkt, Dom St. Peter, Liebfrauenkirche, Aula Palatina, the Kaiserthermen and the Amphitheater.
All of sites were interesting and worth seeing. The Porta Negra isn’t particularly attractive but it is amazing because it is so dang old. The Hauptmarkt is a beautiful marketplace that looks quintessentially European. The Dom St. Peter is the oldest Cathedral in Germany. Incorporating remains from a 4th-century church, it was built in stages from the early 11th century to the 14th century. The Imperial Baths (Kaiserthermen) had an intricate underground area which was fun to explore. Finally, our last stop was the Amphitheater and I think that may have been my favorite. It took me straight into the movie Gladiator. The ruins date from the 1st century AD. The facility was used for both gladiatorial fights and animal contests. It could seat approximately 20,000 people in its heyday.
By 2 pm mom and I were all packed up and on our way to Cochem. We initially thought we would drive up along the Mosel to enjoy the views. Our GPS had other ideas. It took us a totally random way with a mix of Mosel views, Autobahn roads and random back streets. Fortunately it led us to the right place. We made it to the hotel by 3:45 pm, fifteen minutes before we were supposed to meet Udo. Of course, he was already there.
Cochem is a charming city. After checking into our hotel and getting our stuff up to our room (thanks Udo), we set out to explore the town by foot. It was amazingly fun to finally get to see so many of the places I had heard so much about from Udo. I got to the see the site of his sledding crash, the field he set on fire, the house he grew up in, the church where he was an alter boy, his grandparents house, his school, etc. I’ve heard and thought about this city threw hundreds of hours of training and to finally get to see it, with the U-Man, really was a dream come true.
After our walking tour we went to Udo’s parent’s house. Hans and Finni have visited the US a few times, so I had met them previously. Seeing them again was great. We sat around and chatted as best we could in our terrible German and their pretty good English. In Udo and Kathy’s apartment, which is located above his parent’s, there are lots of old trophies and pictures from Udo’s throwing days. Seeing those was awesome. I’ll try to take a picture of some of them tomorrow, so those of you at home can see how huge of a guy Udo was 25 years ago.
At 6:30ish we went out to dinner with Kathy, Udo, Hans, Finnie and Udo’s nephew Michael. Michael is 20 and a National Junior German Champion Rower with hopes of making it to the 2016 Olympics. He is a very nice young man who speaks pretty darn good English. At the end of a great dinner, where I had awesome elk (I had never eaten elk before), Michael gave us a ride back to our hotel.
I’m now beat from another very, very fun day in Germany. Udo is meeting us at the hotel at 8:45 am (which means 8:30 am), so I need to call it a night. I’ll write tomorrow about our continued adventures in Cochem and along the Mosel.
Until then,
Katy
All of sites were interesting and worth seeing. The Porta Negra isn’t particularly attractive but it is amazing because it is so dang old. The Hauptmarkt is a beautiful marketplace that looks quintessentially European. The Dom St. Peter is the oldest Cathedral in Germany. Incorporating remains from a 4th-century church, it was built in stages from the early 11th century to the 14th century. The Imperial Baths (Kaiserthermen) had an intricate underground area which was fun to explore. Finally, our last stop was the Amphitheater and I think that may have been my favorite. It took me straight into the movie Gladiator. The ruins date from the 1st century AD. The facility was used for both gladiatorial fights and animal contests. It could seat approximately 20,000 people in its heyday.
By 2 pm mom and I were all packed up and on our way to Cochem. We initially thought we would drive up along the Mosel to enjoy the views. Our GPS had other ideas. It took us a totally random way with a mix of Mosel views, Autobahn roads and random back streets. Fortunately it led us to the right place. We made it to the hotel by 3:45 pm, fifteen minutes before we were supposed to meet Udo. Of course, he was already there.
Cochem is a charming city. After checking into our hotel and getting our stuff up to our room (thanks Udo), we set out to explore the town by foot. It was amazingly fun to finally get to see so many of the places I had heard so much about from Udo. I got to the see the site of his sledding crash, the field he set on fire, the house he grew up in, the church where he was an alter boy, his grandparents house, his school, etc. I’ve heard and thought about this city threw hundreds of hours of training and to finally get to see it, with the U-Man, really was a dream come true.
After our walking tour we went to Udo’s parent’s house. Hans and Finni have visited the US a few times, so I had met them previously. Seeing them again was great. We sat around and chatted as best we could in our terrible German and their pretty good English. In Udo and Kathy’s apartment, which is located above his parent’s, there are lots of old trophies and pictures from Udo’s throwing days. Seeing those was awesome. I’ll try to take a picture of some of them tomorrow, so those of you at home can see how huge of a guy Udo was 25 years ago.
At 6:30ish we went out to dinner with Kathy, Udo, Hans, Finnie and Udo’s nephew Michael. Michael is 20 and a National Junior German Champion Rower with hopes of making it to the 2016 Olympics. He is a very nice young man who speaks pretty darn good English. At the end of a great dinner, where I had awesome elk (I had never eaten elk before), Michael gave us a ride back to our hotel.
I’m now beat from another very, very fun day in Germany. Udo is meeting us at the hotel at 8:45 am (which means 8:30 am), so I need to call it a night. I’ll write tomorrow about our continued adventures in Cochem and along the Mosel.
Until then,
Katy
Friday, April 30, 2010
Another Pin
Another fun day is now in the books. Mom and I got up and downstairs to breakfast at 9:30 am. This was quite a feat since we spent the morning dancing around each other trying to get ready in our awesome but tiny castle room. When we descended our castle stairs we had a nice traditional German breakfast waiting for us in our window table. It included a ridiculous amount of bread, some cheese, cold-cuts and liverwurst. After breakfast I explored the castle a little more. It was bigger than I thought. There were four floors. Previously I had only been to the second floor because that’s where our room was located. It might have been cool to stay at the top but I think that the rooms got smaller as you went up. Additionally I would not have wanted to carry mom’s bag up any more than one flight of stairs. All of the decorations were very fitting. On the fourth floor there was a sword case that was probably my favorite decoration in the whole place.
When we were leaving St. Goar yesterday I spotted a hoop with a nice view of the Rhine. Unfortunately we were already on the ferry and had paid the toll. When I woke up this morning I decided I should have taken the picture. Mom was fine with stopping by it on the way to Luxembourg, since we had to cross the river with the car anyway, so we did. I quickly took the picture and we were off to get another country pin on my map.
I liked Luxembourg considerably more than Belgium. It seemed cleaner, the people were friendlier and it had many pretty green spaces. Mom and I started by exploring a bit of the downtown and poking our head in a few of the shops. We haven’t made any big purchases on this trip and that didn’t change today. Mom bought her dad one little thing and we bought a few food items. There was some type of carnival in one of the downtown squares with a bunch of food venders and kids games. One stand claimed to have “The World’s Best Waffles”. I wanted to congratulate them like Buddy the Elf on their success, but I figured they wouldn’t get it. Instead mom and I just bought a strawberry and cream waffle to share. It wasn’t cheap, it cost 5 Euros, but it was quite good. One thing we couldn’t figure out was the vendor’s mascot. It was a little boy, no joke, playing with himself. This vendor had two carts in separate locations and both had the same statue. The marketer in me can’t figure why one would pick that mascot, unless pedophiles are the target market for “the World’s Best Waffles.”
One of the main things I wanted to see in Luxembourg was General Patton’s resting place. I had read somewhere that it was located in Luxembourg but I couldn’t find an address in my guidebook. This meant that we had to find an Internet connection so I could look it up. I’m still shocked at how hard reasonably priced wireless internet has been to come by on this trip. It isn’t that hard to find but the prices are outrages. For instance, at a rest stop this morning they wanted 20 Euros for an hour’s worth of usage. I wasn’t willing to pay that. In retrospect I sort of wish I had. We eventually found the address but not until after we had played in the city. We didn’t make it to the cemetery until 5:15 pm and it had closed at 5 pm. I wanted to hop the wall but mom wouldn’t have it. (That’s another difference between traveling with mom and dad. He would have been all about me seeing it since I was there). You could tell, even just looking through the fenced off grounds, that it was a special place. More than 8,000 soldiers, some 5,500 from the US are buried in the Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial (near the site of the Battle of the Bulge). The grounds appear to be kept in immaculate condition, which is a fitting tribute to those of the Greatest Generation who sacrificed themselves so that others could live.
After “visiting” the cemetery we were off for Trier. Yet again we hit some serious traffic. It took us 45 minutes to go our last 4KM. We finally made it to our room around 7:30 pm. My first order of business was getting in touch with Udo because we are meeting up with him tomorrow. After getting our plans set mom and I went out to explore a little bit of Trier and to get some dinner.
One of the most famous landmarks in Trier is the Porta Nigra, or the Black Gate. The gate, built in the 2nd century is the oldest German defensive structure and the best preserved Roman city gate in the world, at least according to the Trier travel brochures. Our hotel is located directly across the street from the gate, so we decided to stroll over to see it before walking somewhere for dinner.
We are now back in the room and it is 10:40 pm. Our evening stroll allowed us to map out our plan for seeing Trier tomorrow. In the early afternoon we will drive along the Mosel to Cochem to meet up with Udo, Kathy, Hans and Finnie. I’m really looking forward to finally seeing the city I’ve heard so much about from Udo...
Katy
When we were leaving St. Goar yesterday I spotted a hoop with a nice view of the Rhine. Unfortunately we were already on the ferry and had paid the toll. When I woke up this morning I decided I should have taken the picture. Mom was fine with stopping by it on the way to Luxembourg, since we had to cross the river with the car anyway, so we did. I quickly took the picture and we were off to get another country pin on my map.
I liked Luxembourg considerably more than Belgium. It seemed cleaner, the people were friendlier and it had many pretty green spaces. Mom and I started by exploring a bit of the downtown and poking our head in a few of the shops. We haven’t made any big purchases on this trip and that didn’t change today. Mom bought her dad one little thing and we bought a few food items. There was some type of carnival in one of the downtown squares with a bunch of food venders and kids games. One stand claimed to have “The World’s Best Waffles”. I wanted to congratulate them like Buddy the Elf on their success, but I figured they wouldn’t get it. Instead mom and I just bought a strawberry and cream waffle to share. It wasn’t cheap, it cost 5 Euros, but it was quite good. One thing we couldn’t figure out was the vendor’s mascot. It was a little boy, no joke, playing with himself. This vendor had two carts in separate locations and both had the same statue. The marketer in me can’t figure why one would pick that mascot, unless pedophiles are the target market for “the World’s Best Waffles.”
One of the main things I wanted to see in Luxembourg was General Patton’s resting place. I had read somewhere that it was located in Luxembourg but I couldn’t find an address in my guidebook. This meant that we had to find an Internet connection so I could look it up. I’m still shocked at how hard reasonably priced wireless internet has been to come by on this trip. It isn’t that hard to find but the prices are outrages. For instance, at a rest stop this morning they wanted 20 Euros for an hour’s worth of usage. I wasn’t willing to pay that. In retrospect I sort of wish I had. We eventually found the address but not until after we had played in the city. We didn’t make it to the cemetery until 5:15 pm and it had closed at 5 pm. I wanted to hop the wall but mom wouldn’t have it. (That’s another difference between traveling with mom and dad. He would have been all about me seeing it since I was there). You could tell, even just looking through the fenced off grounds, that it was a special place. More than 8,000 soldiers, some 5,500 from the US are buried in the Luxembourg American Cemetery and Memorial (near the site of the Battle of the Bulge). The grounds appear to be kept in immaculate condition, which is a fitting tribute to those of the Greatest Generation who sacrificed themselves so that others could live.
After “visiting” the cemetery we were off for Trier. Yet again we hit some serious traffic. It took us 45 minutes to go our last 4KM. We finally made it to our room around 7:30 pm. My first order of business was getting in touch with Udo because we are meeting up with him tomorrow. After getting our plans set mom and I went out to explore a little bit of Trier and to get some dinner.
One of the most famous landmarks in Trier is the Porta Nigra, or the Black Gate. The gate, built in the 2nd century is the oldest German defensive structure and the best preserved Roman city gate in the world, at least according to the Trier travel brochures. Our hotel is located directly across the street from the gate, so we decided to stroll over to see it before walking somewhere for dinner.
We are now back in the room and it is 10:40 pm. Our evening stroll allowed us to map out our plan for seeing Trier tomorrow. In the early afternoon we will drive along the Mosel to Cochem to meet up with Udo, Kathy, Hans and Finnie. I’m really looking forward to finally seeing the city I’ve heard so much about from Udo...
Katy
Thursday, April 29, 2010
I Want a Castle
Today I think the fairly frenetic pace mom and I have been keeping is going to catch up with us. As you all know my body likes more than 7 hours of sleep a night and that’s all it has been getting.
We are up early enough, it’s 10 am as I write this, and we’ve had breakfast. We were planning on taking a river cruise, however, I think that plan got scratched. We are going to take a cruise or two with Udo when we meet up in a few days, so we’ve decided to just take the car along the river to our few highlighted spots of the day. First up on the agenda is visiting Niederwalddenkmal, a statue of Germania. According to my guide book the statue is 34 feet high and was built to commemorate victory of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71, which resulted in German unification.
Niederwalddenkmal was pretty cool. A 34 foot high statue is really quite tall, especially when it is built high up on a hill. Today was a little hazy but the views over the Rhine and Bingen were still interesting.
Mom and I are now sitting at a little cafe for a late lunch in St. Goar. We slept on the east side of the Rhine, so in order to get to St. Goar we had to a take a cute little ferry from St. Goarhausen. The fairy runs all day back and forth across the river carrying tour buses, cars, bikers and pedestrians. We are sleeping on the east side of the river tonight, so we decided to ride over as pedestrians and just explore the town by foot. The town’s highlight was probably the (self proclaimed) world’s biggest beer stein shop. It’s now pushing 4 pm and our next stop is the castle in which we are staying tonight. It is called Castle Liebenstein and located in the town of Kamp-Bornhofen.
It’s crazy I am now writing to you from my bed, in a tower, in a castle. We’re not in Kansas anymore Toto. This specific room was again recommended to us by Jim. It is tower room 5 and couldn’t be cuter. It’s tiny and there is barely enough room for mom and my bags but awesome nonetheless. I wouldn’t want to sleep here every night (there is no Internet or TV) but one night is awesome. We have a window that opens with two window seats. The view is spectacular even on this hazy day. We also have goats on the hillside outside our window. I am still super tired and think I am going to take a nap...
... my nap was awesome. I slept from 5 pm to 7 pm. We then went down to dinner. The lady of the castle had “reserved” us the window table in the dining room. The dining room has all kinds of knights in armor and other medieval things. I could try to describe the place in words but it is really more something that has to be seen. Dinner was random and super good. I ordered a german sandwich. It consisted of breaded turkey, bananas and pineapples, served open face, with a hollandaise like sauce. It was amazingly good and only a dollar more than the dang Chicken Caesar salad at McDonalds in Switzerland.
After dinner mom and I explored outside the castle a little more, watched our favorite baby goat play with his momma, and took a few pictures. The differences between traveling with mom and dad are funny. I asked mom to go take a picture of me atop a tower. She couldn’t really see me standing behind the wall, so I decided to climb on top of it. She freaked out and was certain I was going to die. The picture she took ended up being totally zoomed in and chopped off my head. The picture was an epic failure. She claims she was too nervous to take a good one. This made me laugh hysterically. She would have died had she seen some of the stuff dad and I tromped around on at Angkor Wat. It’s now 10:35 pm and time for bed.
Until tomorrow,
Katy
We are up early enough, it’s 10 am as I write this, and we’ve had breakfast. We were planning on taking a river cruise, however, I think that plan got scratched. We are going to take a cruise or two with Udo when we meet up in a few days, so we’ve decided to just take the car along the river to our few highlighted spots of the day. First up on the agenda is visiting Niederwalddenkmal, a statue of Germania. According to my guide book the statue is 34 feet high and was built to commemorate victory of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71, which resulted in German unification.
Niederwalddenkmal was pretty cool. A 34 foot high statue is really quite tall, especially when it is built high up on a hill. Today was a little hazy but the views over the Rhine and Bingen were still interesting.
Mom and I are now sitting at a little cafe for a late lunch in St. Goar. We slept on the east side of the Rhine, so in order to get to St. Goar we had to a take a cute little ferry from St. Goarhausen. The fairy runs all day back and forth across the river carrying tour buses, cars, bikers and pedestrians. We are sleeping on the east side of the river tonight, so we decided to ride over as pedestrians and just explore the town by foot. The town’s highlight was probably the (self proclaimed) world’s biggest beer stein shop. It’s now pushing 4 pm and our next stop is the castle in which we are staying tonight. It is called Castle Liebenstein and located in the town of Kamp-Bornhofen.
It’s crazy I am now writing to you from my bed, in a tower, in a castle. We’re not in Kansas anymore Toto. This specific room was again recommended to us by Jim. It is tower room 5 and couldn’t be cuter. It’s tiny and there is barely enough room for mom and my bags but awesome nonetheless. I wouldn’t want to sleep here every night (there is no Internet or TV) but one night is awesome. We have a window that opens with two window seats. The view is spectacular even on this hazy day. We also have goats on the hillside outside our window. I am still super tired and think I am going to take a nap...
... my nap was awesome. I slept from 5 pm to 7 pm. We then went down to dinner. The lady of the castle had “reserved” us the window table in the dining room. The dining room has all kinds of knights in armor and other medieval things. I could try to describe the place in words but it is really more something that has to be seen. Dinner was random and super good. I ordered a german sandwich. It consisted of breaded turkey, bananas and pineapples, served open face, with a hollandaise like sauce. It was amazingly good and only a dollar more than the dang Chicken Caesar salad at McDonalds in Switzerland.
After dinner mom and I explored outside the castle a little more, watched our favorite baby goat play with his momma, and took a few pictures. The differences between traveling with mom and dad are funny. I asked mom to go take a picture of me atop a tower. She couldn’t really see me standing behind the wall, so I decided to climb on top of it. She freaked out and was certain I was going to die. The picture she took ended up being totally zoomed in and chopped off my head. The picture was an epic failure. She claims she was too nervous to take a good one. This made me laugh hysterically. She would have died had she seen some of the stuff dad and I tromped around on at Angkor Wat. It’s now 10:35 pm and time for bed.
Until tomorrow,
Katy
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Really... in a Moat?
It was the best of times and the worst of times. That sums up today. I guess I’ll start with the best because that’s chronologically how it happened. Mom and I were up and at them at nine in hopes of seeing a little more of Rothenburg before we needed to make our way to Heidelberg. I also, shockingly, wanted to try and find a hoop that featured the old wall.
Breakfast was in a super cute little eating room that we had all to ourselves two minutes into the meal. Many of the places we have been have been rather quiet. I’m not sure if this is a result of people canceling their trips because of the volcano or the fact that the worldwide economy sucks. Either way it has made for a very nice vacation for us.
As mentioned in yesterday’s post. I was excited by the fact that it was possible to march around on the wall. I wanted to do a little more of that, get a Schneeballen, and poke my head in a few of the cute little shops that weren’t open last night. We started by wandering the shops. I spotted a sign that looked like it led to a school. Schools often have basketball hoops, so I wanted to go there. We spotted a field where kids were playing and a teacher was leading a class. I swore in the distance I heard basketball bouncing. As we approached the sound it become clear that we were about to find the town’s old amphitheater. As we looked below I saw three kids dribbling and passing around a basketball. One took a shot. I followed the ball and watched it hit... the wall. They were playing basketball without a hoop. This was like the ultimate tease in hoop hunting. It would have been a remarkable picture to have a hoop in that amphitheater. Instead I just have a story of frustration. I also, however, had a bit of hope. It seemed to me that if one of the kids actually owned and was playing with a basketball, there was likely to be a hoop somewhere.
Mom and I continued to wander near the wall. We found a stairway leading up and decided to climb around on it for while. It was actually a convenient place to look for hoops because of the elevation. All of the windows on the wall are a little different. Some are little slits, some are like larger shaped key holes and others are more significantly sized rectangles. Every ten windows or so I would stop and try to take a look out one.
We had been hiking around the wall for 20 minutes or so when it happened. “It” can only be described as a miracle. I found a hoop in a moat. It’s entirely possible that this is my favorite hoop of all time. I have taken them all over the world, with some of the most famous monuments, yet there was something special about this shot and its 1000 year old wall. I can’t wait to show those of you that are interested.
Having found a better hoop picture than I ever hoped possible, I was ready to give up hiking on the wall. I think mom was over hiking it way before I, so we decided to head back to check out of the hotel, stop in a few remaining stores and buy a schneeballen.
Schneeballen are everywhere in Rothenburg. In fact, Rothenburg is the only place I have ever seen them and they are in every other store front. The front desk lady in our hotel described them as fried cookie dough with a sugar or icing coating. Mom and I didn’t find any that tasted like cookie dough but more like fried pie crust or puff pastry. They were decent but there are definitely other things I would prefer to eat for my calories, like the dessert at the BMW place. Filled with schneeballen and happiness from my hoop find, we were off to Heidelberg Castle.
We never made it to Heidelberg. As we attempted to merge onto an Autobahn we saw standstill traffic. People were literally standing outside of their cars on the highway. I have no idea what happened. We had seen a fair amount of construction traffic on this trip but nothing like this. As far as the eye could see in both directions cars were stopped. It was like a parking lot. Mom and I debated whether we should attempt to throw the car in reverse and back out the on-ramp. As we were discussing this another car pulled up behind me. At first he gave me a dirty look for being stopped sort of far back and slightly on the side of the road. Then he realized why I was there. He and his passenger then decided to start backing out. This was the perfect opportunity for me to do the same because if we got hit, he would clearly get hit first. A car came flying by us and gave us both an extremely dirty look. He then got passed the blind curve, saw the standstill traffic, and before we knew it was also backing out behind me. I knew driving in Germany was going to be fun but I never thought I would get to drive in reverse on an Autobahn.
After making it back to a moving highway I looked at the map on the GPS and tried to locate a route that avoided A6 for a while. I found one, but unfortunately it seems everyone else with GPS, a map, or that could understand German radio traffic reports did as well. Traffic was sloooooooooow going for a long time. In fact, we never found consistently fast moving traffic until 6:30 pm, after we had been driving for five hours. In all a trip that should have taken us three hours took nearly seven. Needless to say by the time mom and arrived in our final destination for the night, the town of Rüdesheim, we were ready to be out of the car.
Our hotel, called the Hotel Lamm was super cute. The exterior and common rooms were sort of old-school but our room itself was super clean and fairly modern. We actually had wireless which was awesome and gave us the opportunity to gchat with dad again. After getting all of our stuff settled we decided to walk around the town a little bit and get some dinner. The town was fairly dead. We strolled the whole thing in 20 minutes or so and decided that we would just eat back at our hotel. We had a very nice dinner in a restaurant that was, yet again, all to ourselves.
We are now back in the room and it is post midnight as a write this. I am really tired from all the time in the car and must get some shut eye. Tomorrow night we are staying in a castle. Literally. I don’t think it has the Internet, so I’ll do my best to post when I can.
Katy
Breakfast was in a super cute little eating room that we had all to ourselves two minutes into the meal. Many of the places we have been have been rather quiet. I’m not sure if this is a result of people canceling their trips because of the volcano or the fact that the worldwide economy sucks. Either way it has made for a very nice vacation for us.
As mentioned in yesterday’s post. I was excited by the fact that it was possible to march around on the wall. I wanted to do a little more of that, get a Schneeballen, and poke my head in a few of the cute little shops that weren’t open last night. We started by wandering the shops. I spotted a sign that looked like it led to a school. Schools often have basketball hoops, so I wanted to go there. We spotted a field where kids were playing and a teacher was leading a class. I swore in the distance I heard basketball bouncing. As we approached the sound it become clear that we were about to find the town’s old amphitheater. As we looked below I saw three kids dribbling and passing around a basketball. One took a shot. I followed the ball and watched it hit... the wall. They were playing basketball without a hoop. This was like the ultimate tease in hoop hunting. It would have been a remarkable picture to have a hoop in that amphitheater. Instead I just have a story of frustration. I also, however, had a bit of hope. It seemed to me that if one of the kids actually owned and was playing with a basketball, there was likely to be a hoop somewhere.
Mom and I continued to wander near the wall. We found a stairway leading up and decided to climb around on it for while. It was actually a convenient place to look for hoops because of the elevation. All of the windows on the wall are a little different. Some are little slits, some are like larger shaped key holes and others are more significantly sized rectangles. Every ten windows or so I would stop and try to take a look out one.
We had been hiking around the wall for 20 minutes or so when it happened. “It” can only be described as a miracle. I found a hoop in a moat. It’s entirely possible that this is my favorite hoop of all time. I have taken them all over the world, with some of the most famous monuments, yet there was something special about this shot and its 1000 year old wall. I can’t wait to show those of you that are interested.
Having found a better hoop picture than I ever hoped possible, I was ready to give up hiking on the wall. I think mom was over hiking it way before I, so we decided to head back to check out of the hotel, stop in a few remaining stores and buy a schneeballen.
Schneeballen are everywhere in Rothenburg. In fact, Rothenburg is the only place I have ever seen them and they are in every other store front. The front desk lady in our hotel described them as fried cookie dough with a sugar or icing coating. Mom and I didn’t find any that tasted like cookie dough but more like fried pie crust or puff pastry. They were decent but there are definitely other things I would prefer to eat for my calories, like the dessert at the BMW place. Filled with schneeballen and happiness from my hoop find, we were off to Heidelberg Castle.
We never made it to Heidelberg. As we attempted to merge onto an Autobahn we saw standstill traffic. People were literally standing outside of their cars on the highway. I have no idea what happened. We had seen a fair amount of construction traffic on this trip but nothing like this. As far as the eye could see in both directions cars were stopped. It was like a parking lot. Mom and I debated whether we should attempt to throw the car in reverse and back out the on-ramp. As we were discussing this another car pulled up behind me. At first he gave me a dirty look for being stopped sort of far back and slightly on the side of the road. Then he realized why I was there. He and his passenger then decided to start backing out. This was the perfect opportunity for me to do the same because if we got hit, he would clearly get hit first. A car came flying by us and gave us both an extremely dirty look. He then got passed the blind curve, saw the standstill traffic, and before we knew it was also backing out behind me. I knew driving in Germany was going to be fun but I never thought I would get to drive in reverse on an Autobahn.
After making it back to a moving highway I looked at the map on the GPS and tried to locate a route that avoided A6 for a while. I found one, but unfortunately it seems everyone else with GPS, a map, or that could understand German radio traffic reports did as well. Traffic was sloooooooooow going for a long time. In fact, we never found consistently fast moving traffic until 6:30 pm, after we had been driving for five hours. In all a trip that should have taken us three hours took nearly seven. Needless to say by the time mom and arrived in our final destination for the night, the town of Rüdesheim, we were ready to be out of the car.
Our hotel, called the Hotel Lamm was super cute. The exterior and common rooms were sort of old-school but our room itself was super clean and fairly modern. We actually had wireless which was awesome and gave us the opportunity to gchat with dad again. After getting all of our stuff settled we decided to walk around the town a little bit and get some dinner. The town was fairly dead. We strolled the whole thing in 20 minutes or so and decided that we would just eat back at our hotel. We had a very nice dinner in a restaurant that was, yet again, all to ourselves.
We are now back in the room and it is post midnight as a write this. I am really tired from all the time in the car and must get some shut eye. Tomorrow night we are staying in a castle. Literally. I don’t think it has the Internet, so I’ll do my best to post when I can.
Katy
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
200% Price Increase
Yet again mom and I managed to get going before ten. Those of you who know us should be proud. At breakfast mom had what she is currently describing as her food highlight thus far on the trip, the “perfect pretzel”. I’ll admit to it being quite good. Especially after I put Nutella and strawberry jam on it.
Our first stop this morning was Mainau Island. Jim had said that if we even had a mild interest in plants we should visit this place. Saying mom has a mild interest in plants is like saying I have a mild sweet tooth. Needless to say we went to the island and mom had a wonderful time. I enjoyed myself too. The plants were again very cool. However, my two favorite things were the butterfly house and a showoff of a peacock. I don’t know that I had ever seen a peacock spread his tail in person. It was amazing.
Europe is fun because all kinds of things are extremely close together, at least by American standards. On this trip we have been super close to both Austria and Switzerland. Seeing both places was out of the question because of our limited time but I wanted to spend at least in a few minutes in one, so that I could legitimately add another pin to my world map. It worked out this afternoon that we had time to swing by Schaffhausen, Switzerland.
Schaffhausen is a super cute town. It is very much what I picture when picturing quintessential Europe. There was a popular central waterway with all kinds of people congregating near the water’s edge, a main shopping street with bustling foot traffic and random historical things everywhere you look. In order to put a pin in my travel map for a country I have to both purchase something there and use a bathroom. In this case mom and I decided that we weren’t super hungry and didn’t want to spend a bunch of time or money on lunch, so we just popped into Mcdonalds. To my shock our meal was $25 US. I still for the life of me can’t figure out why it was so expensive. I’ve eaten ice cream cones and Coke Light at McDonalds all over the world and the prices are always +/- 15% of home. In this case it was more like +200%. Anyone know what the deal is with McD’s pricing in Switzerland? I seriously would like to know. Twenty miles north in Germany, the prices are normal. I really don’t understand it. And I spent the entire three hours of our drive from Schaffhausen to Rothenburg thinking about it.
Visiting Rothenburg was another stop recommended by Jim. This town is ridiculously cool. It is a medieval walled town dating back to the 1100s. All people from Eugene should be required to visit Rothenburg to get a true understanding of what “old” means. A fifty-year old building is not historic. Rothenburg and its nearly 1000 year old walls is historic.
Mom and I checked into out hotel and then wandered around the town to get a feel for it before the sun went down. I wasn’t aware prior to the trip that you can climb the wall and walk around on it but you can. The views from the wall, when you can find a hole bigger than that for a bow and arrow, are down right impressive. I watched the sunset from one of the west facing windows on the wall and then mom and I went to dinner in a cute family run little German restaurant.
We are now back in our old, but awesome hotel room. We have a balcony that overlooks some small vineyards and a portion of the wall. The view is really quite nice. I would sit outside and enjoy the nearly full moon if it were just a little bit warmer. Instead I think I am going to call it a night.
Katy
Our first stop this morning was Mainau Island. Jim had said that if we even had a mild interest in plants we should visit this place. Saying mom has a mild interest in plants is like saying I have a mild sweet tooth. Needless to say we went to the island and mom had a wonderful time. I enjoyed myself too. The plants were again very cool. However, my two favorite things were the butterfly house and a showoff of a peacock. I don’t know that I had ever seen a peacock spread his tail in person. It was amazing.
Europe is fun because all kinds of things are extremely close together, at least by American standards. On this trip we have been super close to both Austria and Switzerland. Seeing both places was out of the question because of our limited time but I wanted to spend at least in a few minutes in one, so that I could legitimately add another pin to my world map. It worked out this afternoon that we had time to swing by Schaffhausen, Switzerland.
Schaffhausen is a super cute town. It is very much what I picture when picturing quintessential Europe. There was a popular central waterway with all kinds of people congregating near the water’s edge, a main shopping street with bustling foot traffic and random historical things everywhere you look. In order to put a pin in my travel map for a country I have to both purchase something there and use a bathroom. In this case mom and I decided that we weren’t super hungry and didn’t want to spend a bunch of time or money on lunch, so we just popped into Mcdonalds. To my shock our meal was $25 US. I still for the life of me can’t figure out why it was so expensive. I’ve eaten ice cream cones and Coke Light at McDonalds all over the world and the prices are always +/- 15% of home. In this case it was more like +200%. Anyone know what the deal is with McD’s pricing in Switzerland? I seriously would like to know. Twenty miles north in Germany, the prices are normal. I really don’t understand it. And I spent the entire three hours of our drive from Schaffhausen to Rothenburg thinking about it.
Visiting Rothenburg was another stop recommended by Jim. This town is ridiculously cool. It is a medieval walled town dating back to the 1100s. All people from Eugene should be required to visit Rothenburg to get a true understanding of what “old” means. A fifty-year old building is not historic. Rothenburg and its nearly 1000 year old walls is historic.
Mom and I checked into out hotel and then wandered around the town to get a feel for it before the sun went down. I wasn’t aware prior to the trip that you can climb the wall and walk around on it but you can. The views from the wall, when you can find a hole bigger than that for a bow and arrow, are down right impressive. I watched the sunset from one of the west facing windows on the wall and then mom and I went to dinner in a cute family run little German restaurant.
We are now back in our old, but awesome hotel room. We have a balcony that overlooks some small vineyards and a portion of the wall. The view is really quite nice. I would sit outside and enjoy the nearly full moon if it were just a little bit warmer. Instead I think I am going to call it a night.
Katy
Monday, April 26, 2010
A Birthday Castle
Happy 57th birthday mom! You’re back to being within 10 years of dad, well done! I apologize for making you get up so early on your birthday but we have places to go and things to see ;~) First up on today’s list is the Neuschwanztien Castle. I am very excited about this visit. Neuschwanztien is supposedly the castle Walt Disney modeled the castle at Disneyland after. It’s an hourish drive from Munich, so I must get on my way...
... Neuschwanztien is really cool. It is located a ways up a hill, so to get there mom and decided to take a horse and buggy. Our horses were named Olga and Peter. They worked fairly well as a team, although on occasion our driver wanted them to go faster. It was sort of funny. All she had to do was make it so they saw the whip in her hand and their pace would significantly quicken.
The views from around the castle are insane. I didn’t realize that there would be a million and one trails you can hike around on the “grounds” of the castle but there are. (It puts Pisgah to same Jami.) These aren’t traditional castle grounds with moats, and manicured lawns but rather more like hiking trails around the base of what I think are the German Alps. Much of our path on this portion of our trip was planned by our friend Jim. He had a great list of highlight places we needed to see in Bavaria. He said his favorite place at Neuschwanstein was the “bridge”. He was right. The view from there is nothing short of spectacular. The views were ever changing on this day because of the different cloud formations. I could have stayed on the bridge for a very long time but we had to get going in order to make our alloted tour time of the castle.
The castle tour was sort of pathetic by typical standards. It was a walking tour with a guide that lasted 35 minutes. He didn’t offer all that much information about the place but getting to see the inside of the castle was still worth it. One fun fact I learned from a random tour guide on the walk back down the hill was that Michael Jackson evidently tried to buy the Castle at some point for $30 million but the powers that be, obviously, told him no.
We ate mom’s birthday lunch/dinner at a nice traditional German place at the base of the castle. It was fun to be able to celebrate directly below one of the most famous castles in the world. After eating we set out on a bit of a hoop hunting adventure. I wanted to see if I could capture a hoop with the castle and/or one that captured the essence of Hohenschwangau. I think was decently successful on both fronts.
Our last thing to accomplish today was to drive to the town of Konstanz. It was roughly a two hour drive from Hohenschwangau and not without adventure. About 50KM from Konstanz we drove under a bunch of power lines. At the same moment all of the electronics in our car shorted. The radio, the GPS, and the dashboard all went momentarily dark. It was nuts. The dash quickly returned but the the GPS and radio appeared to be fried. I had a general idea of where were we going but I had no idea how to find the hotel. Eventually we decided to pull over and see if stopping and restarting the car would help. It did, for 15 minutes or so. We then stopped and restarted again. This not only didn’t reset the system but now the dash lights and radio wouldn’t go off when the key was removed and the car was locked. We decided to drive a while longer and see if the car would cure itself. It appeared that it did. The third time we stopped the GPS started working again and safely led us to our hotel.
Tonight we are staying in the Apartment Hotel Konstanz. It is like a little apartment and a gynormous by European standards. It even has like 12 foot ceilings. The people at the front desk were super friendly and got us quickly settled. For the first time on this trip I actually have wireless in the room which is great. We just finished video Gchatting with dad. Kudos to him for getting it to work with limited tech support. We are tired after a fun birthday day, so I’m calling it a night.
Katy
... Neuschwanztien is really cool. It is located a ways up a hill, so to get there mom and decided to take a horse and buggy. Our horses were named Olga and Peter. They worked fairly well as a team, although on occasion our driver wanted them to go faster. It was sort of funny. All she had to do was make it so they saw the whip in her hand and their pace would significantly quicken.
The views from around the castle are insane. I didn’t realize that there would be a million and one trails you can hike around on the “grounds” of the castle but there are. (It puts Pisgah to same Jami.) These aren’t traditional castle grounds with moats, and manicured lawns but rather more like hiking trails around the base of what I think are the German Alps. Much of our path on this portion of our trip was planned by our friend Jim. He had a great list of highlight places we needed to see in Bavaria. He said his favorite place at Neuschwanstein was the “bridge”. He was right. The view from there is nothing short of spectacular. The views were ever changing on this day because of the different cloud formations. I could have stayed on the bridge for a very long time but we had to get going in order to make our alloted tour time of the castle.
The castle tour was sort of pathetic by typical standards. It was a walking tour with a guide that lasted 35 minutes. He didn’t offer all that much information about the place but getting to see the inside of the castle was still worth it. One fun fact I learned from a random tour guide on the walk back down the hill was that Michael Jackson evidently tried to buy the Castle at some point for $30 million but the powers that be, obviously, told him no.
We ate mom’s birthday lunch/dinner at a nice traditional German place at the base of the castle. It was fun to be able to celebrate directly below one of the most famous castles in the world. After eating we set out on a bit of a hoop hunting adventure. I wanted to see if I could capture a hoop with the castle and/or one that captured the essence of Hohenschwangau. I think was decently successful on both fronts.
Our last thing to accomplish today was to drive to the town of Konstanz. It was roughly a two hour drive from Hohenschwangau and not without adventure. About 50KM from Konstanz we drove under a bunch of power lines. At the same moment all of the electronics in our car shorted. The radio, the GPS, and the dashboard all went momentarily dark. It was nuts. The dash quickly returned but the the GPS and radio appeared to be fried. I had a general idea of where were we going but I had no idea how to find the hotel. Eventually we decided to pull over and see if stopping and restarting the car would help. It did, for 15 minutes or so. We then stopped and restarted again. This not only didn’t reset the system but now the dash lights and radio wouldn’t go off when the key was removed and the car was locked. We decided to drive a while longer and see if the car would cure itself. It appeared that it did. The third time we stopped the GPS started working again and safely led us to our hotel.
Tonight we are staying in the Apartment Hotel Konstanz. It is like a little apartment and a gynormous by European standards. It even has like 12 foot ceilings. The people at the front desk were super friendly and got us quickly settled. For the first time on this trip I actually have wireless in the room which is great. We just finished video Gchatting with dad. Kudos to him for getting it to work with limited tech support. We are tired after a fun birthday day, so I’m calling it a night.
Katy
Sunday, April 25, 2010
BMW and Beer
This morning we were up decently early to go to the airport. Having not landed in Brussels we had no idea how long it would take to return the car, check in and get to the gate. We decided to leave the hotel 2:30 hours before our flight (8:30 am) which ended up working quite nicely. Returning the car was a breeze, which was a welcomed relief after our AMS experience with Hertz. The Lufthansa check-in wasn’t super fast took a few minutes but was fine. I also learned something interesting. Lufthansa doesn’t care how many bags a person checks, it only cares about the total weight of checked items. Each passenger is allowed 20KG. To be difficult I specifically asked the lady if I could check ten bags each weighing 2KG if I wanted and she said yes.
After completing our check in we went spent a few minutes in the Star Alliance’s Gold Lounge before heading to the gate. I was stoked to see that they had a self service soda fountain and glasses that were bigger than 6 ounces. Needless to say I consumed a lot of Coke Light in the ensuing 30 minutes. When we arrived at our gate I read the information on the reader board. It said, “Lufthansa strictly adheres to a one carry-on baggage limit.” This set a lightbulb off in my mind. We were missing a bag. We left our Lulu Lemon shopping bag at either the car return or the Lufthansa counter. We only had 20 minutes until our plane left and there was no way I had time to run back and try to find it. The bag contained all of our acquired yummies and two electrical cords. Mom had used my portable plug adapter to charge her camera battery in the car. I threw those cords in the top of the Lulu bag at the hotel and sadly they are now gone :~( I hate wasting money and that’s about $200 down the drain. I’m also devastated (that is not too strong of a word) by the fact that I think I lost all of the mini-boxes of chocolate sprinkles I had lifted from breakfast. Evidently people in Belgium put chocolate sprinkles on bread for breakfast. I thought this was the coolest things ever, and had taken a few boxes for the road. Unfortunately I think they are now being blown up by the bomb squad in the Brussels airport.
We are now on the flight to Munich. I had a terrible thought. My drug bag (insulin, all my pump supplies, and my pills) is not in my backpack. I am not certain that I put them in my checked bag, which means they too might be in the lost Lulu bag. If that’s the case, I’m screwed. And I’m still really bummed about the sprinkles. I am also entertained by the fact that woman, yes woman, across the aisle from me is reading Playboy. I’m sure it’s for the articles.
Few... my drugs are in my checked bag. Crisis almost averted. I was holding out hope that my sprinkles would be in my checked bag too. I really thought I had put them in something other than the Lulu bag. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to settle for not dying. Now off to get the car at Hertz.
On the way to the rental car area in the Munich airport you have to go outside into a large courtyard like area. In this courtyard today there was, no joke, a polo exhibition being played. It’s pretty cool that the first live polo, of the non-Marco variety, I’ve ever witnessed came at the Munich airport.
Hooray for the Munich airport Hertz. My name was actually in lights today! Within ten minutes of spotting my name we had a car, keys and were ready to roll. That even included the time it took me to figure out how to reset the language of our GPS system from German to English.
My first goal for Munich was to locate a hoop near the Olympic Stadium complex. I knew the area surrounding the venues from 72 Games had been turned into a park and I figured I could probably find a hoop. It turns out I was right. It was super cool. The best picture, however, was probably not of the Olympic Stadium or corresponding radio tower, but rather one of the BMW World buildings. Speaking of BMW world...
... after wandering around the park a bit I decided I wanted to see a little of BMW World. Not surprisingly seeing all the cars made me want a new convertible, so I bought one. I kid, I kid. I didn’t buy a car, at least not one I can drive. Only a mini-model of the one I currently have. I also bought and ate possibly the best dessert I’ve ever had. It was truly an amazing marscapone/whipped cream/mouse like base, with a layer of raspberries and then topped with meringue. Just thinking about it makes my mouth water.
Next we hopped on the U3 and head for downtown. Munich really is a clean and beautiful city. The buildings are totally picturesque. Since today was a Sunday, almost all of the stores were closed but even just peeking in the windows was enjoyable. Before too long both mom and I were hungry, so we set off for the Hofbrahaus for dinner.
The Hofbrahaus is quite a place. First off, it is HUGE... like really, really big. I think it is supposed to be the largest beer house in world and frankly, I can’t imagine one bigger. The beer was quite good. I know you are all thinking, “How does Katy know?” Well I actually had one, or at least part of one. The only size available was 1L and I didn’t want to be THAT adventurous. Mom even had a few sips and I think she liked it as well. The most amazing part of the beer in the Hofbrahaus was our particular waitress’ ability to serve it. I really wish I had a picture of this. There was a large group of kids sitting at the table next to us. When the waitress brought their beer she was holding all 12 glasses, in her hands (no tray), at once. I fancy myself as being a pretty strong lady and I felt compelled to drink my single glass with two hands. The fact that she could carry and control twelve is just insane.
Post dinner mom and I were both full and wanted to move a little bit to burn off some of the 10,000 calories we had just consumed. We strolled around downtown Munich for a while before hopping the U3 train back to the hotel. It’s now 11:30 pm and another great day is in the books. We are driving quite a bit in the next few days but I’ll do my best to write and post as often as possible.
Katy
After completing our check in we went spent a few minutes in the Star Alliance’s Gold Lounge before heading to the gate. I was stoked to see that they had a self service soda fountain and glasses that were bigger than 6 ounces. Needless to say I consumed a lot of Coke Light in the ensuing 30 minutes. When we arrived at our gate I read the information on the reader board. It said, “Lufthansa strictly adheres to a one carry-on baggage limit.” This set a lightbulb off in my mind. We were missing a bag. We left our Lulu Lemon shopping bag at either the car return or the Lufthansa counter. We only had 20 minutes until our plane left and there was no way I had time to run back and try to find it. The bag contained all of our acquired yummies and two electrical cords. Mom had used my portable plug adapter to charge her camera battery in the car. I threw those cords in the top of the Lulu bag at the hotel and sadly they are now gone :~( I hate wasting money and that’s about $200 down the drain. I’m also devastated (that is not too strong of a word) by the fact that I think I lost all of the mini-boxes of chocolate sprinkles I had lifted from breakfast. Evidently people in Belgium put chocolate sprinkles on bread for breakfast. I thought this was the coolest things ever, and had taken a few boxes for the road. Unfortunately I think they are now being blown up by the bomb squad in the Brussels airport.
We are now on the flight to Munich. I had a terrible thought. My drug bag (insulin, all my pump supplies, and my pills) is not in my backpack. I am not certain that I put them in my checked bag, which means they too might be in the lost Lulu bag. If that’s the case, I’m screwed. And I’m still really bummed about the sprinkles. I am also entertained by the fact that woman, yes woman, across the aisle from me is reading Playboy. I’m sure it’s for the articles.
Few... my drugs are in my checked bag. Crisis almost averted. I was holding out hope that my sprinkles would be in my checked bag too. I really thought I had put them in something other than the Lulu bag. Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to settle for not dying. Now off to get the car at Hertz.
On the way to the rental car area in the Munich airport you have to go outside into a large courtyard like area. In this courtyard today there was, no joke, a polo exhibition being played. It’s pretty cool that the first live polo, of the non-Marco variety, I’ve ever witnessed came at the Munich airport.
Hooray for the Munich airport Hertz. My name was actually in lights today! Within ten minutes of spotting my name we had a car, keys and were ready to roll. That even included the time it took me to figure out how to reset the language of our GPS system from German to English.
My first goal for Munich was to locate a hoop near the Olympic Stadium complex. I knew the area surrounding the venues from 72 Games had been turned into a park and I figured I could probably find a hoop. It turns out I was right. It was super cool. The best picture, however, was probably not of the Olympic Stadium or corresponding radio tower, but rather one of the BMW World buildings. Speaking of BMW world...
... after wandering around the park a bit I decided I wanted to see a little of BMW World. Not surprisingly seeing all the cars made me want a new convertible, so I bought one. I kid, I kid. I didn’t buy a car, at least not one I can drive. Only a mini-model of the one I currently have. I also bought and ate possibly the best dessert I’ve ever had. It was truly an amazing marscapone/whipped cream/mouse like base, with a layer of raspberries and then topped with meringue. Just thinking about it makes my mouth water.
Next we hopped on the U3 and head for downtown. Munich really is a clean and beautiful city. The buildings are totally picturesque. Since today was a Sunday, almost all of the stores were closed but even just peeking in the windows was enjoyable. Before too long both mom and I were hungry, so we set off for the Hofbrahaus for dinner.
The Hofbrahaus is quite a place. First off, it is HUGE... like really, really big. I think it is supposed to be the largest beer house in world and frankly, I can’t imagine one bigger. The beer was quite good. I know you are all thinking, “How does Katy know?” Well I actually had one, or at least part of one. The only size available was 1L and I didn’t want to be THAT adventurous. Mom even had a few sips and I think she liked it as well. The most amazing part of the beer in the Hofbrahaus was our particular waitress’ ability to serve it. I really wish I had a picture of this. There was a large group of kids sitting at the table next to us. When the waitress brought their beer she was holding all 12 glasses, in her hands (no tray), at once. I fancy myself as being a pretty strong lady and I felt compelled to drink my single glass with two hands. The fact that she could carry and control twelve is just insane.
Post dinner mom and I were both full and wanted to move a little bit to burn off some of the 10,000 calories we had just consumed. We strolled around downtown Munich for a while before hopping the U3 train back to the hotel. It’s now 11:30 pm and another great day is in the books. We are driving quite a bit in the next few days but I’ll do my best to write and post as often as possible.
Katy
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Multiple Uses for a Hairdryer
Since we lost a day to United’s mechanical problems we decided to try and get going at a reasonable hour this morning even though we were both pretty dang tired. As we were preparing to head down to breakfast we lost power in our room. All of the lights and electronics went off randomly. I had to admit this wasn’t all bad because it meant I wouldn’t have to wait for mom to do anything with a blow drier or curling iron.
By 9:40 am we were out of the hotel and on our way to Atomium. Atomium is a structure that was built in 1958 for the World Fair held in Brussels. Now it is considered one of the most popular tourist sites in Brussels and according to its website the “symbol of Europe’s Capital.” I primarily wanted to go there to try and get a picture with a hoop in front of it. I managed to find two hoops, one of which also happened to have a girl trying, emphasis on trying, to throw the javelin behind it. This court was inside an old school European park filled with random track and field event areas, including a jav runway, long jump pit, pole vault pit, shot put rings and a discus cage. It also happened to be located on “Javelot Straat” which was awesome.
Getting a picture with Atomium was number one on my to-do list for Brussels. After completing this task mom and I headed for Ghent. Our purpose for going to Ghent was to visit the Ghent Flower Show, which is a GIANT flower expo held once every five years. Needless to say I wasn’t super excited about this but I knew mom would love it, so I decided to take one for the team.
Five and half hours after entering the expo hall we finally left. The exhibited was actually really cool. Three hours probably would have been perfect for me but the additional two and half weren’t too painful, aside from the fact that I was pretty hungry. Food prices in Europe are traditionally ridiculous and the Ghent Expo center was no exception. A meal in the restaurant cost 40 Euros a head for a tiny plate of something scary looking. I had noticed on the way in that there was an Ikea not far from the parking lot. I suggested we get a plate of Swedish Meatballs from its cafeteria for dinner. Up to this point, our meatballs, salads and sodas, all for only 11 Euros, was by far the best meal of the trip.
After dinner we went back to downtown Brussels to see a few more of the sites. All of the buildings and museums were closed because of the time but it was still fun to get a bit of a feeling for the city. If I’m being honest, I really didn’t care for Brussels that much. It felt like a dirty city, with a ton of young people standing around smoking their lives away. I didn’t find the service people particularly friendly or charming either. Which reminds me of one other funny thing.
Almost all of the bathrooms we have encountered require an entrance fee. I’m not sure if the money goes directly to the person who watches over the bathroom and keeps it “clean” or what. However, it clearly does NOT go to sanitation training. Mom and I went to a restroom at the Ghent Expo. The entrance fee was .40 Euros per person. I was out of Euro change, so I gave the woman at the table a 5 Euro bill. She gave me two, two Euro coins and two 10 cent coins for my change. She then proceeded to grab a rag off of her table and enter the restrooms with us. She waited for a woman to exit a stall. She then entered the stall wiped down the seat with the rag and motioned for the next women in line to enter. Another woman left a different stall, she went in wiped down the seat with the same rag, and motioned for the next woman in line to enter. She then went to the sink and wiped down some excess water with the SAME rag with which she had just cleaned two toilet seats. Next she returned to her table in the hallway, set down the rag next to her cash drawer and proceeded to make change for the next customer. At this point I legitimately considered throwing away the 4.2 Euros she had given me for change for fear of contracting the CVS or some other disease. Thinking about it now still causes me a bit of gag reflex.
On our way back to the hotel mom decided she was a bit hungry. We had leftover pizza from the previous night and I thought we should eat it since we would be flying to Munich the next morning and couldn’t really take it with us. Mom agreed reluctantly because she’s not a fan of cold pizza and our room didn’t have a microwave. After a bit of pause in the conversation mom said, “I know what I’ll do. I’ll use my hairdryer on the pizza.” I was like, “What?” She said, “Yes. I’ll just hold my hairdryer over it. It will warm up the cheese.” I thought this was hilarious. And low and behold, as soon as we returned to the room, she took the pizza out of the refrigerator, took it into the bathroom and started hairdrying it. Evidently the hairdryer on the wall wasn’t “hot” enough, so she took out the adapter, took out her hairdryer and begin “heating” the pizza again. It was amazing. It really did work quite well and I have a hilarious picture to commemorate the experience.
It’s now 10:30ish and I’m exhausted. Day four of Euro 2010 is in the books. Tomorrow morning we are off to the airport to fly to Munich. I’ll try and post again tomorrow evening.
Katy
By 9:40 am we were out of the hotel and on our way to Atomium. Atomium is a structure that was built in 1958 for the World Fair held in Brussels. Now it is considered one of the most popular tourist sites in Brussels and according to its website the “symbol of Europe’s Capital.” I primarily wanted to go there to try and get a picture with a hoop in front of it. I managed to find two hoops, one of which also happened to have a girl trying, emphasis on trying, to throw the javelin behind it. This court was inside an old school European park filled with random track and field event areas, including a jav runway, long jump pit, pole vault pit, shot put rings and a discus cage. It also happened to be located on “Javelot Straat” which was awesome.
Getting a picture with Atomium was number one on my to-do list for Brussels. After completing this task mom and I headed for Ghent. Our purpose for going to Ghent was to visit the Ghent Flower Show, which is a GIANT flower expo held once every five years. Needless to say I wasn’t super excited about this but I knew mom would love it, so I decided to take one for the team.
Five and half hours after entering the expo hall we finally left. The exhibited was actually really cool. Three hours probably would have been perfect for me but the additional two and half weren’t too painful, aside from the fact that I was pretty hungry. Food prices in Europe are traditionally ridiculous and the Ghent Expo center was no exception. A meal in the restaurant cost 40 Euros a head for a tiny plate of something scary looking. I had noticed on the way in that there was an Ikea not far from the parking lot. I suggested we get a plate of Swedish Meatballs from its cafeteria for dinner. Up to this point, our meatballs, salads and sodas, all for only 11 Euros, was by far the best meal of the trip.
After dinner we went back to downtown Brussels to see a few more of the sites. All of the buildings and museums were closed because of the time but it was still fun to get a bit of a feeling for the city. If I’m being honest, I really didn’t care for Brussels that much. It felt like a dirty city, with a ton of young people standing around smoking their lives away. I didn’t find the service people particularly friendly or charming either. Which reminds me of one other funny thing.
Almost all of the bathrooms we have encountered require an entrance fee. I’m not sure if the money goes directly to the person who watches over the bathroom and keeps it “clean” or what. However, it clearly does NOT go to sanitation training. Mom and I went to a restroom at the Ghent Expo. The entrance fee was .40 Euros per person. I was out of Euro change, so I gave the woman at the table a 5 Euro bill. She gave me two, two Euro coins and two 10 cent coins for my change. She then proceeded to grab a rag off of her table and enter the restrooms with us. She waited for a woman to exit a stall. She then entered the stall wiped down the seat with the rag and motioned for the next women in line to enter. Another woman left a different stall, she went in wiped down the seat with the same rag, and motioned for the next woman in line to enter. She then went to the sink and wiped down some excess water with the SAME rag with which she had just cleaned two toilet seats. Next she returned to her table in the hallway, set down the rag next to her cash drawer and proceeded to make change for the next customer. At this point I legitimately considered throwing away the 4.2 Euros she had given me for change for fear of contracting the CVS or some other disease. Thinking about it now still causes me a bit of gag reflex.
On our way back to the hotel mom decided she was a bit hungry. We had leftover pizza from the previous night and I thought we should eat it since we would be flying to Munich the next morning and couldn’t really take it with us. Mom agreed reluctantly because she’s not a fan of cold pizza and our room didn’t have a microwave. After a bit of pause in the conversation mom said, “I know what I’ll do. I’ll use my hairdryer on the pizza.” I was like, “What?” She said, “Yes. I’ll just hold my hairdryer over it. It will warm up the cheese.” I thought this was hilarious. And low and behold, as soon as we returned to the room, she took the pizza out of the refrigerator, took it into the bathroom and started hairdrying it. Evidently the hairdryer on the wall wasn’t “hot” enough, so she took out the adapter, took out her hairdryer and begin “heating” the pizza again. It was amazing. It really did work quite well and I have a hilarious picture to commemorate the experience.
It’s now 10:30ish and I’m exhausted. Day four of Euro 2010 is in the books. Tomorrow morning we are off to the airport to fly to Munich. I’ll try and post again tomorrow evening.
Katy
Friday, April 23, 2010
We Finally Made It
It turns out I was too excited to sleep anymore on our flight. We exited the plane around 8:30 am and made our way through the airport. We spent two minutes looking for an airline lounge to grab a bite of food and wash up a bit for our day. The lounge we found was not the right one, so we decided to just make our way to customs. The customs guy was the most chill customs agent I have ever met. He asked me how long I was going to be in Europe and then proceeded to ask me if I was going to go out and party for Queens Day in Amsterdam. He said it was a great time and I should definitely do it. Only in Amsterdam does the customs agent suggest partying to arriving tourists.
Our next stop was the baggage claim. The baggage from a our flight took a long time to get rolling but thankfully when it did, our bags arrived! Next we went to locate the Hertz counter. We found it and there was quite a long line. There was a sign for Number One Club Gold members that said they could proceed outside to the car kiosk. That’s me, so I decided to give it a try. We went to the parking garage, found the kiosk and unfortunately that had a long line too. I decided to just wait this time. Twenty minutes later a guy finally started helping me. After pulling up my reservation he asked, “Have you already checked in?” I said, “No you are the first Hertz agent to help me.” He looked confused, banged around on the keyboard again, and declared I would have to go back inside to be helped. His name tag said he was the manager and he was dressed in a suit. I wasn’t sure what the non-managers inside would be able to do that he couldn’t outside but I didn’t have much of a choice. Then one of the other guys said he could help me, so he took over for “Marco” and started banging away on the computer. I confirmed with this guy that my car needed to be an automatic and that it had to have GPS. He then said he could do that but I would have to get a large body Mercedes that would cost me a 1,000 more Euros for the two days I would have the car. I laughed, said, “Uhm no thanks, you can look here at my PREPAID reservation. You are on the hook for sending me away with an automatic vehicle.” He looked at the sheet, was like, “Ok. You’ll have to go inside.” Now 45 minutes into this Hertz adventure I headed back inside to another long line. I eventually made it to the front of the line where a nice woman was waiting. Marco was now working the position next to her, so I said, “Marco sent me back inside, I don’t really know why other than I evidently couldn’t be helped outside.” They then started conversing in Dutch. She then went through a stack of contracts from earlier in the day and pulled one out. She showed it to Marco and said “but her first name is Kathryn, not Deborah.” From what I gather both Marco and the other guy who tried to help me outside thought I had already checked a car out because a woman named Deborah Polanwsky (no joke it had the ‘w’) had already rented one this morning. The woman, the only one with a brain, then located my correct reservation in the system and had me on my way within 4 minutes. She warned me that my car was “very big” and hoped that would be okay. I was excited to see what this actually meant when I got outside. My “Espace”, no joke, that’s the name of the car was like a hybrid SUV and minivan. It didn’t have a key but rather a card that was inserted before pressing an on and off button. It also had no place to put any luggage. We had to fold down seats and load our stuff on top of them. This wasn’t ideal because our car would be parked with exposed luggage but at this point, there was NO WAY I was going back inside. Two hours after landing at Schipol mom and I were finally on our way to Keukenhof.
Keukenhof is a ginormous flower garden located just outside of Amsterdam in a town called Lisse. It is definitely the type of place that is best seen as opposed to described. It is also the type of place primarily inhabited by people with gray hair. Clearly this was an activity chosen by mom. I did, however, enjoy seeing it. Some fun facts about Keukenhof:
The name Keukenhof originated in the 15th century, when the land belonged to Countess Jacoba of Bavaria.
The park is situated on 32 hectares.
Each year 7 million bulbs are planted, among which are 600 varieties of tulips.
The bulbs are provided by some 90 “Purveyors of the Royal Household”.
Some 7,500 kg of annual grass seed are is sown each year.
In total, 15 kilometers of foot paths run through the park.
There are 280 benches, 15 fountains, and 32 bridges in the park. (I counted, no I didn’t, I read it in a book.)
After spending four hours at Keukenhof we were off to our next destination. I wanted to stop and see the North Sea coast line, so we set off for Katwijk. It was only 20ish miles away, so it didn’t take long to get there. Katwijk felt like a much more developed, with older architecture, Oregon coast to me. Actually that’s not really true. What felt similar was that it smelled like ocean, and it was breezy and cold. It was however, beautiful and I got to touch the North Sea which is silly but made me happy.
It’s now approaching 4:30 pm and we still have a bit of a drive ahead of us tonight. We are sleeping in Brussels which is supposed to be a two and half or three hour drive from here. Traffic makes me think it will be longer... I’ll let you know.
Traffic around Rotterdam was terrible. It took us forever to get through an “incident ahead” as our GPS kept telling us. Once we got passed Rotterdam things picked up and we proceeded to Antwerp for dinner. One thing that surprised me on the way was that going from country to country, or at least the Netherlands to Belgium is just like driving from state to state in States. There was no border crossing, customs or anything. Just a sign that said “Welcome to Belgium”.
In Antwerp we ate in what seemed to be a Friday night hot spot. I think we were in a bit of the suburbs near a movie complex and some other entertainment, like billiards, etc. The restaurant we ate in seemed sort of trendy and showed the “Fashion Network” on a real. The majority of the footage talked about how it was the founder of the “F TV’s” birthday. There was a rolling ticker talking about how the staffers at the network wanted to wish Michel Adam a happy birthday. I have a sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t the staffs’ idea. The images of this “fashion icon” made him seem like a total, uhm... you know the word.
The drive from Antwerp to Brussels was surprisingly quick, only 40 minutes or so. Our Courtyard by Marriott was easy to find. It’s 10 pm now and I can barely keep my eyes open. Mom had the luxury of naps while I was driving... obviously I did not.... to that end... it is now time for bed.
I’ll write again soon!
Katy
Our next stop was the baggage claim. The baggage from a our flight took a long time to get rolling but thankfully when it did, our bags arrived! Next we went to locate the Hertz counter. We found it and there was quite a long line. There was a sign for Number One Club Gold members that said they could proceed outside to the car kiosk. That’s me, so I decided to give it a try. We went to the parking garage, found the kiosk and unfortunately that had a long line too. I decided to just wait this time. Twenty minutes later a guy finally started helping me. After pulling up my reservation he asked, “Have you already checked in?” I said, “No you are the first Hertz agent to help me.” He looked confused, banged around on the keyboard again, and declared I would have to go back inside to be helped. His name tag said he was the manager and he was dressed in a suit. I wasn’t sure what the non-managers inside would be able to do that he couldn’t outside but I didn’t have much of a choice. Then one of the other guys said he could help me, so he took over for “Marco” and started banging away on the computer. I confirmed with this guy that my car needed to be an automatic and that it had to have GPS. He then said he could do that but I would have to get a large body Mercedes that would cost me a 1,000 more Euros for the two days I would have the car. I laughed, said, “Uhm no thanks, you can look here at my PREPAID reservation. You are on the hook for sending me away with an automatic vehicle.” He looked at the sheet, was like, “Ok. You’ll have to go inside.” Now 45 minutes into this Hertz adventure I headed back inside to another long line. I eventually made it to the front of the line where a nice woman was waiting. Marco was now working the position next to her, so I said, “Marco sent me back inside, I don’t really know why other than I evidently couldn’t be helped outside.” They then started conversing in Dutch. She then went through a stack of contracts from earlier in the day and pulled one out. She showed it to Marco and said “but her first name is Kathryn, not Deborah.” From what I gather both Marco and the other guy who tried to help me outside thought I had already checked a car out because a woman named Deborah Polanwsky (no joke it had the ‘w’) had already rented one this morning. The woman, the only one with a brain, then located my correct reservation in the system and had me on my way within 4 minutes. She warned me that my car was “very big” and hoped that would be okay. I was excited to see what this actually meant when I got outside. My “Espace”, no joke, that’s the name of the car was like a hybrid SUV and minivan. It didn’t have a key but rather a card that was inserted before pressing an on and off button. It also had no place to put any luggage. We had to fold down seats and load our stuff on top of them. This wasn’t ideal because our car would be parked with exposed luggage but at this point, there was NO WAY I was going back inside. Two hours after landing at Schipol mom and I were finally on our way to Keukenhof.
Keukenhof is a ginormous flower garden located just outside of Amsterdam in a town called Lisse. It is definitely the type of place that is best seen as opposed to described. It is also the type of place primarily inhabited by people with gray hair. Clearly this was an activity chosen by mom. I did, however, enjoy seeing it. Some fun facts about Keukenhof:
The name Keukenhof originated in the 15th century, when the land belonged to Countess Jacoba of Bavaria.
The park is situated on 32 hectares.
Each year 7 million bulbs are planted, among which are 600 varieties of tulips.
The bulbs are provided by some 90 “Purveyors of the Royal Household”.
Some 7,500 kg of annual grass seed are is sown each year.
In total, 15 kilometers of foot paths run through the park.
There are 280 benches, 15 fountains, and 32 bridges in the park. (I counted, no I didn’t, I read it in a book.)
After spending four hours at Keukenhof we were off to our next destination. I wanted to stop and see the North Sea coast line, so we set off for Katwijk. It was only 20ish miles away, so it didn’t take long to get there. Katwijk felt like a much more developed, with older architecture, Oregon coast to me. Actually that’s not really true. What felt similar was that it smelled like ocean, and it was breezy and cold. It was however, beautiful and I got to touch the North Sea which is silly but made me happy.
It’s now approaching 4:30 pm and we still have a bit of a drive ahead of us tonight. We are sleeping in Brussels which is supposed to be a two and half or three hour drive from here. Traffic makes me think it will be longer... I’ll let you know.
Traffic around Rotterdam was terrible. It took us forever to get through an “incident ahead” as our GPS kept telling us. Once we got passed Rotterdam things picked up and we proceeded to Antwerp for dinner. One thing that surprised me on the way was that going from country to country, or at least the Netherlands to Belgium is just like driving from state to state in States. There was no border crossing, customs or anything. Just a sign that said “Welcome to Belgium”.
In Antwerp we ate in what seemed to be a Friday night hot spot. I think we were in a bit of the suburbs near a movie complex and some other entertainment, like billiards, etc. The restaurant we ate in seemed sort of trendy and showed the “Fashion Network” on a real. The majority of the footage talked about how it was the founder of the “F TV’s” birthday. There was a rolling ticker talking about how the staffers at the network wanted to wish Michel Adam a happy birthday. I have a sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t the staffs’ idea. The images of this “fashion icon” made him seem like a total, uhm... you know the word.
The drive from Antwerp to Brussels was surprisingly quick, only 40 minutes or so. Our Courtyard by Marriott was easy to find. It’s 10 pm now and I can barely keep my eyes open. Mom had the luxury of naps while I was driving... obviously I did not.... to that end... it is now time for bed.
I’ll write again soon!
Katy
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Let's Try This Again
It’s now 3:15 am Eastern Standard time and I can’t really sleep. I have been dealing with Hertz issues ever since we miss connected yesterday. As most of you probably know the majority of cars in European fleets are manuals. I can’t really drive a manual. If someone was dying, I could probably get them to hospital based on the few lessons I’ve had from Briana and Ilsa but I certainly wouldn’t want to have to navigate tiny European roads in one. Therefore I wanted Hertz to confirm that it would not be a problem if I picked up my car a day later than planned. It doesn’t seem like this should be a difficult question but evidently it was. It took me four phone calls, spread over ten hours to in fact confirm that I would have no problems. Finally, at 3:30 am, I got this confirmation. I’m going to sleep now and it’s going to feel amazing...
... That sleep was awesome. I was exhausted. It’s now almost 1 pm and mom and I are going to go to the shopping mall within walking distance of our hotel to acquire a few items in case we don’t see our bags for a while...
... Our shopping run was successful. We both got a few clothes to get us through. Mom also bought a pair of shoes (she only had uncomfortable dress shoes, I flew in running shoes) and a small arsenal worth of hair supplies. With our shopping completed we hustled back to the hotel to make the 3:30 pm shuttle to the airport.
Our bags were obviously already checked but we didn’t have boarding passes. I had reserved seats and everything but I needed to get our tickets printed. I approached the counter and explained our previous days misadventures to the check-in lady. Her first response to me was, “you don’t have a business class seat.” In my head I was thinking, “Does she really me want to go Ape $#&^ on her?” She went off and this long explanation of system wide upgrades not allowing for reserved business class seating, blah, blah, blah and I was getting close to losing it. Finally I just said, “So what are you really telling me? Where are our seats.” She eventually decided that she could give us the seats which I was already told three times the previous night I had reserved. I’m not sure what the woman’s deal was but she did have one piece of good news for me that I didn’t have to fight with her over, our bags had been scanned in to DC this morning and should most definitely be on our fight to AMS with us.
We boarded our flight right on time, only to have the captain yet again tell us there would be a delay. Fortunately this time it was weather. There was a storm passing through the Eastern seaboard and air traffic control put an hour delay on our departure. Mom and I looked at each other and laughed noting this was going to be the fourth hour thus far on this trip where we were sitting looking at a jet way.
The flight attendants on our flight were super nice and helpful. The group of fellow business class passengers was also noteworthy because it was an atypical mix. Often times business class passengers very much keep to themselves and do their own thing. Not so on this flight. There were a bunch of middle aged to older women who were all going to see the tulips in Holland. There were a couple business guys that were having fun trying to pick up the old women and one of the flight attendants. There were also two other women who didn’t know each other before boarding but shared a paper from four rows apart.
The afore mentioned business guys are now slightly out of control in what is the approximate middle of the flight. I just spoke with the flight attendant and she said that she had to cut off one of the guys after 10 shots of Jack Daniels. She said at first she thought, “He’s kind of cute. He’s my future husband.” (Blog Note: I thought he was cute too. He looked a bit like Brett Favre.) But now she is thinking, “He’s my future EX husband.”
... No joke, this same guy just laid down on the ground in the aisle... now he is doing military style push ups that he is calling “burpies”... I can honestly say in all the traveling I have done this is the first time I’ve ever seen someone lay down in the aisle or do burpies adjacent to the galley...
We are supposed to land at AMS at 8:15 am according to the map in front of me. It is currently 6:40 am. We have a busy day in front of us, so I need to try and grab another hour of sleep. I’ll write more tomorrow!
Katy
... That sleep was awesome. I was exhausted. It’s now almost 1 pm and mom and I are going to go to the shopping mall within walking distance of our hotel to acquire a few items in case we don’t see our bags for a while...
... Our shopping run was successful. We both got a few clothes to get us through. Mom also bought a pair of shoes (she only had uncomfortable dress shoes, I flew in running shoes) and a small arsenal worth of hair supplies. With our shopping completed we hustled back to the hotel to make the 3:30 pm shuttle to the airport.
Our bags were obviously already checked but we didn’t have boarding passes. I had reserved seats and everything but I needed to get our tickets printed. I approached the counter and explained our previous days misadventures to the check-in lady. Her first response to me was, “you don’t have a business class seat.” In my head I was thinking, “Does she really me want to go Ape $#&^ on her?” She went off and this long explanation of system wide upgrades not allowing for reserved business class seating, blah, blah, blah and I was getting close to losing it. Finally I just said, “So what are you really telling me? Where are our seats.” She eventually decided that she could give us the seats which I was already told three times the previous night I had reserved. I’m not sure what the woman’s deal was but she did have one piece of good news for me that I didn’t have to fight with her over, our bags had been scanned in to DC this morning and should most definitely be on our fight to AMS with us.
We boarded our flight right on time, only to have the captain yet again tell us there would be a delay. Fortunately this time it was weather. There was a storm passing through the Eastern seaboard and air traffic control put an hour delay on our departure. Mom and I looked at each other and laughed noting this was going to be the fourth hour thus far on this trip where we were sitting looking at a jet way.
The flight attendants on our flight were super nice and helpful. The group of fellow business class passengers was also noteworthy because it was an atypical mix. Often times business class passengers very much keep to themselves and do their own thing. Not so on this flight. There were a bunch of middle aged to older women who were all going to see the tulips in Holland. There were a couple business guys that were having fun trying to pick up the old women and one of the flight attendants. There were also two other women who didn’t know each other before boarding but shared a paper from four rows apart.
The afore mentioned business guys are now slightly out of control in what is the approximate middle of the flight. I just spoke with the flight attendant and she said that she had to cut off one of the guys after 10 shots of Jack Daniels. She said at first she thought, “He’s kind of cute. He’s my future husband.” (Blog Note: I thought he was cute too. He looked a bit like Brett Favre.) But now she is thinking, “He’s my future EX husband.”
... No joke, this same guy just laid down on the ground in the aisle... now he is doing military style push ups that he is calling “burpies”... I can honestly say in all the traveling I have done this is the first time I’ve ever seen someone lay down in the aisle or do burpies adjacent to the galley...
We are supposed to land at AMS at 8:15 am according to the map in front of me. It is currently 6:40 am. We have a busy day in front of us, so I need to try and grab another hour of sleep. I’ll write more tomorrow!
Katy
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
I Swear I Have Been Here Before
As with many a Polansky international journey, this one too is starting at Wal-mart. Last night I asked dad for our international converter. He yet again couldn’t find it. As loyal blog readers will remember the Asian adventure of 2008 began at Wal-mart with the $9000 foot rest. As soon as we pulled into the parking lot on Delta Oaks I swore I was having déjà-vu back to that morning in ’08. Dad was having a mini-freak out that there were no cars in the parking lot and that the store must be closed. The same open 24 hour sign was prominently placed by the front door, just like two years ago. And just like two years ago, dad still didn’t believe it. We entered the store and dad hurriedly shuffled toward the aspirin he wanted to buy. I went to the back for the converter. As I returned to the front of the store, he spotted me near the checkout and started running toward me. I know Wal-mart is a big store and he probably missed me, since I was gone SO long, but still, the running was uncalled for. It did make me laugh, however, since I knew there was no way we would make it out of the store without him having run at least once. A nice woman quickly checked us out and another ancient nice lady, Lillian, wished us a good morning at the door. We were off to the airport.
On the way to the airport I called the United 1K desk to confirm that our flight was in fact still going. The agent said it was and that United was actually flying all of its long haul flights to Europe for the first time in a week. I was pumped, I told the guy thanks for confirming that barring a mechanical problem or an additional volcanic eruption we’d be in Amsterdam by morning!
Evidently all of Spring Blvd decided to go somewhere this morning. We spent a good part of the time before our flight talking to Lori and then Mark and Mary showed up too. Mark and Mary happened to be on our flight to Denver and sat in the row in front of us. We talked to them for a bit and then I fell asleep. We walked from our arrival gate to the Red Carpet Room with Mark and Mary. We were telling them about our plans and how we were going to road trip around. Mark asked if I was looking forward to driving on the Autobahn. I told him I was. He then asked if I was disappointed I wouldn’t be able to drive dad’s Taurus on the Autobahn... hahahahaha... score one for Dr. Jewell! I’m frankly impressed that Mark even knows that’s what dad drives and the fact that he commented on it is just extra funny.
In the Red Carpet Room in Denver mom and I started accumulating our free emergency survival food. We nearly filled an entire quart bag of yogurt covered raisins. At one point I went for a cup on the opposite side of the lounge, while unbeknownst to me mom was getting a cup on the near side. Meeting back at the seats with two giant cups of raisins made us both laugh a bit.
We left the club to head for our flight from Denver to Chicago. We boarded on time and got settled in our seats. I was pretty dang tired at this point and proceeded to fall asleep. After I while I thought I heard the captain come on and say something about a delay. I was too tired to concentrate on what he was saying, so I just ignored him. Later I thought I heard the captain again, so I thought I should open my eyes and see what figure out what was going on. When I opened my eyes and looked out the window we were still on the ground. That’s never a good sign when you’ve already been asleep long enough for drooling to commence. It turns out that when I woke up we had been sitting at the gate for roughly an hour. The captain come on and explained that we had an oil leak in the engine and mechanic needed to take a look at it. Thirty minutes later he came back on and announced that the problem could be fixed but the oil would have to be completely drained and changed. This was going to take another hour. In all we sat on the runway for two and a half hours before taking off. We had a two and half hour layover in Chicago. We had a chance at making our flight, but it wasn’t a great one.
We pulled up to our gate in Chicago at 6:02 pm. Our flight to AMS was scheduled to depart at 6:05 pm. We ran to the gate, which was conveniently only three gates down. Unfortunately our plane was long gone.
During the repeated delays while we sat in Denver I made a back up plan with the 1K desk. If we missed our flight, which we did, the earliest we could get to Amsterdam would be the following day on a flight from Washington DC. United wanted to put us up in Chicago for the night but I wanted to get to DC to avoid the possibility of having a mechanical hiccup again the next day. There was a 9:55 pm flight out of ORD to IAD and we decided to take it.
We landed at IAD at roughly 12:30 pm. We went to the baggage claim hoping that the arrangements we made in Chicago to get our bags to IAD would work. Turns out they didn’t. After speaking with a very nice United customer service lady she determined that our bags never left Chicago. This sent mom off the handle a little bit. Mom is not a fan of traveling without her stuff and the potential of getting to Europe without bags raised her personal stress level to orange.
I was hoping that the bags had just been tagged with the original rerouting United wanted to put us on, meaning the they would go to DC in the morning and then take our flight to AMS with us in the evening. Only time will tell. For now we are staying in a very nice Courtyard by Marriott. I had hoped to spend the first night of this trip at a Courtyard by Marriott. The only problem is the hotel I had originally booked was in Brussels, Belgium not an Off Airport Property, Virginia!
Here’s to hoping tomorrow will be a more successful travel day,
Katy
On the way to the airport I called the United 1K desk to confirm that our flight was in fact still going. The agent said it was and that United was actually flying all of its long haul flights to Europe for the first time in a week. I was pumped, I told the guy thanks for confirming that barring a mechanical problem or an additional volcanic eruption we’d be in Amsterdam by morning!
Evidently all of Spring Blvd decided to go somewhere this morning. We spent a good part of the time before our flight talking to Lori and then Mark and Mary showed up too. Mark and Mary happened to be on our flight to Denver and sat in the row in front of us. We talked to them for a bit and then I fell asleep. We walked from our arrival gate to the Red Carpet Room with Mark and Mary. We were telling them about our plans and how we were going to road trip around. Mark asked if I was looking forward to driving on the Autobahn. I told him I was. He then asked if I was disappointed I wouldn’t be able to drive dad’s Taurus on the Autobahn... hahahahaha... score one for Dr. Jewell! I’m frankly impressed that Mark even knows that’s what dad drives and the fact that he commented on it is just extra funny.
In the Red Carpet Room in Denver mom and I started accumulating our free emergency survival food. We nearly filled an entire quart bag of yogurt covered raisins. At one point I went for a cup on the opposite side of the lounge, while unbeknownst to me mom was getting a cup on the near side. Meeting back at the seats with two giant cups of raisins made us both laugh a bit.
We left the club to head for our flight from Denver to Chicago. We boarded on time and got settled in our seats. I was pretty dang tired at this point and proceeded to fall asleep. After I while I thought I heard the captain come on and say something about a delay. I was too tired to concentrate on what he was saying, so I just ignored him. Later I thought I heard the captain again, so I thought I should open my eyes and see what figure out what was going on. When I opened my eyes and looked out the window we were still on the ground. That’s never a good sign when you’ve already been asleep long enough for drooling to commence. It turns out that when I woke up we had been sitting at the gate for roughly an hour. The captain come on and explained that we had an oil leak in the engine and mechanic needed to take a look at it. Thirty minutes later he came back on and announced that the problem could be fixed but the oil would have to be completely drained and changed. This was going to take another hour. In all we sat on the runway for two and a half hours before taking off. We had a two and half hour layover in Chicago. We had a chance at making our flight, but it wasn’t a great one.
We pulled up to our gate in Chicago at 6:02 pm. Our flight to AMS was scheduled to depart at 6:05 pm. We ran to the gate, which was conveniently only three gates down. Unfortunately our plane was long gone.
During the repeated delays while we sat in Denver I made a back up plan with the 1K desk. If we missed our flight, which we did, the earliest we could get to Amsterdam would be the following day on a flight from Washington DC. United wanted to put us up in Chicago for the night but I wanted to get to DC to avoid the possibility of having a mechanical hiccup again the next day. There was a 9:55 pm flight out of ORD to IAD and we decided to take it.
We landed at IAD at roughly 12:30 pm. We went to the baggage claim hoping that the arrangements we made in Chicago to get our bags to IAD would work. Turns out they didn’t. After speaking with a very nice United customer service lady she determined that our bags never left Chicago. This sent mom off the handle a little bit. Mom is not a fan of traveling without her stuff and the potential of getting to Europe without bags raised her personal stress level to orange.
I was hoping that the bags had just been tagged with the original rerouting United wanted to put us on, meaning the they would go to DC in the morning and then take our flight to AMS with us in the evening. Only time will tell. For now we are staying in a very nice Courtyard by Marriott. I had hoped to spend the first night of this trip at a Courtyard by Marriott. The only problem is the hotel I had originally booked was in Brussels, Belgium not an Off Airport Property, Virginia!
Here’s to hoping tomorrow will be a more successful travel day,
Katy
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
Euro 2010
Tomorrow the Europe 2010 adventure begins. Unlike most of my big international trips, Dr P. we will not be joining me. Instead Momma P. is my travel companion. I haven’t decided if we will have Momma P. fun fact but we will have a Momma P. barf count. Mom often gets travel sick and this is trip will have a fair amount of driving along with, obviously, an international flight. When we went to NYC in January she spent the first night barfing in the room, so I expect to have at least one such incident on this trip. We’ll see if we do. This all assumes that we will be able to go at all. The dang Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajokull, has been wreaking having on European air travel. As of now United says our flights are going, but I won’t believe it until we are on board.
Keep your fingers crossed,
Katy
Keep your fingers crossed,
Katy
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
Home to Work?
I had an early departure out of Logan this morning, 6 am to SFO. Ilsa is a great friend because she was nice enough to get up and take me. A little road-rage ensued because of construction detours but I still arrived at the airport with plenty of time to spare.
I didn’t see much sky from BOS-SFO and I saw no sky from SFO-EUG. I’ve got to keep this short because I have to run to the office for a 3 pm meeting. Yup, you read that right, I just wrote that I have to go to the office. There is a first time for everything ;~) Euro 2010 commences on April 21 and that’s when I’ll be back in the blogosphere...
Until then,
Katy
I didn’t see much sky from BOS-SFO and I saw no sky from SFO-EUG. I’ve got to keep this short because I have to run to the office for a 3 pm meeting. Yup, you read that right, I just wrote that I have to go to the office. There is a first time for everything ;~) Euro 2010 commences on April 21 and that’s when I’ll be back in the blogosphere...
Until then,
Katy
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
Fenway Park: Yankees vs Red Sox
Today I have only one thing on the agenda, Fenway Park. I am going to take a tour in the morning and go to the Yankees Red Sox game at night. I’ll get back to the blog after my day of baseball...
... What fun! I got to see a great game tonight which was won by the Yankees in the ninth inning. If you’ve never been to a Yankees Red Sox game, you should really try to go before you die. It doesn’t matter too much if you go in Yankee Stadium or Fenway Park (I’ve now done both). You just need to go. Listening to the fans of the two teams go at it is worth nine innings of entertainment even if you don’t like baseball.
I’m glad I chose to tour the park before the game. I learned some fun Red Sox history I didn’t know and I got to see the sight lines from everywhere in the house, including the top of the Green Monster.
It was a long day and I’ve got to go to the airport soon, so I’m going to keep this short. I’ll be back in the Eug tomorrow if any of you local folk need me.
See you soon,
Katy
... What fun! I got to see a great game tonight which was won by the Yankees in the ninth inning. If you’ve never been to a Yankees Red Sox game, you should really try to go before you die. It doesn’t matter too much if you go in Yankee Stadium or Fenway Park (I’ve now done both). You just need to go. Listening to the fans of the two teams go at it is worth nine innings of entertainment even if you don’t like baseball.
I’m glad I chose to tour the park before the game. I learned some fun Red Sox history I didn’t know and I got to see the sight lines from everywhere in the house, including the top of the Green Monster.
It was a long day and I’ve got to go to the airport soon, so I’m going to keep this short. I’ll be back in the Eug tomorrow if any of you local folk need me.
See you soon,
Katy
Monday, April 5, 2010
Teaching the Youth
Each time I visit Ilsa I like to go to at least one of her classes. It’s fun to see her in her element. I attended both a freshman and junior English class. I personally can’t imagine teaching these kids all day. I remember my high school days being so different. I’m not sure if that’s because they were or if my memory is failing. Ilsa would probably tell me it is a combo of both.
After class Ilsa had to go to a meeting for her Lulu Lemon job at the Prudential Center. We walked there from school. While she was in the meeting I had lunch at Paradise Bakery and did some work.
Later in the evening Ilsa and I stopped by two of her friends’ apartment. I’ve met Hannah and Allison previously and always enjoy their company. What started out with the intention of being a 10 minute drop in turned into an hour, which was totally fine by me. For dinner Ilsa and I went to Henry’s Bar. It was a blast. We played trivia, watched the first half of the NCAA championship game and had a good dinner. We went back to Ilsa’s to watch the second half of the game. Ilsa fell asleep before the final buzzer, which was crazy since it was one of the best championship games ever. Speaking of sleep...
Goodnight!
Katy
After class Ilsa had to go to a meeting for her Lulu Lemon job at the Prudential Center. We walked there from school. While she was in the meeting I had lunch at Paradise Bakery and did some work.
Later in the evening Ilsa and I stopped by two of her friends’ apartment. I’ve met Hannah and Allison previously and always enjoy their company. What started out with the intention of being a 10 minute drop in turned into an hour, which was totally fine by me. For dinner Ilsa and I went to Henry’s Bar. It was a blast. We played trivia, watched the first half of the NCAA championship game and had a good dinner. We went back to Ilsa’s to watch the second half of the game. Ilsa fell asleep before the final buzzer, which was crazy since it was one of the best championship games ever. Speaking of sleep...
Goodnight!
Katy
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