WHERE ARE THE DORADO'S?

Frankfurt Airport

2011-11-02T22:20:00.001-06:00

*****Last Post from Camping Trip! Go ahead scroll back and start at the beginning! It'll be fun!*****

It's a big world out there and given time and luck we hope to see a good chunk of it. Part of the joys of travel for us is the planning. Researching the history, reading about the customs, figuring out what to see, where to stay, what to eat. Then every day is like getting a new toy...is it really what you wanted, dreamed about and and expected? There is a satisfaction in forming opinions based on actual experience. There are always surprises. Some good, some sad, but all interesting and isn't that all you can hope for? May you live in interesting times.

Our "vacation" portion of our time away is over. What remains is the "transportation". We tried to hold on to the remaining bits by taking the Romantic Road to Frankfurt from Rothenburg. It's tiny roads with scenic towns. What we soon realize is that unless you are stopping to explore, shop or eat in these towns, one is like any other. After about an hour we abandon our drive and head for the autobahn. When it's moving, the autobahn is a thrill. Someday we'll have to rent a car worthy of Top Gear and enjoy the sport of driving. Today we have our Ford Wagon, petal to the metal, cruising at 90 MPH. We approach the Frankfurt airport, looking for the Sheraton Airport Hotel. We can see it, but we can't get to it. After 20 minutes we finally locate the right parking lot. It's a beautiful spacious hotel. The service is top notch. We had reserved a double, but they were out so we were upgraded to JR suite. No complaints there. Even though we were right at the airport, we could hear no planes flying overhead.

Alex is old enough now that we can leave him in a hotel room by himself, however there is still a little trepidation. I always think Madeleine McCann's family thought it was safe as well. We had to return the rental car and Alex just wanted to hang out and enjoy the speedy wifi. The rental car return was right next to the hotel, a very short walk we are told. We find it easily and pull into the directed spot....CRAP, we forgot to get gas. It will cost us 100euros to walk away, so reluctantly we ask for the location of the nearest gas station and pull away. We'll as we have learned in this airport, we can't find anything, We try to follow the directions and find we are back on the autobahn heading east. This isn't going to work. We also realize we haven't brought our GPS. No safety net here. We cleaned out the car, no maps either. We are going to have to do this on our wits. Ended up on the back side of the airport at a security gate. You never want to be at "checkpoint" in a foreign country. It turned out ok as he was helpful with directions as well. Eventually we found the gas, found the rental car return and walked back to the hotel.

Oh and what greeted us, a smell we couldn't identify. Remember that candy we got in Frankfurt, well it smelled like feet. It had to go. We ended up leaving it outside the door, like discarded room service. It took hours for the smell to leave our luggage.

Our choices for dinner were fairly limited, so we ended up at the hotel restaurant for what? more breaded and fried meat. We tried to hang on to those few moments of vacation, but eventually sleep takes over. The next AM we packed things up and headed on home. We called for the bell hop and to our joy he offered to take all our luggage to the airline check in counter! Yes, this was a hotel attached to the airport, but it wasn't a close haul. What was most impressive was to see this very tiny man hold up the overladen luggage trolley on the down escalator. We gave him a healthy tip and a round of applause.

There were a few tense moments while we waited to see if Frederick's upgrade from business to first class would come through (I know, first world problems), but soon we were all settled in our lay flat beds for the ride home. Safe and back in the USA.

Rothenburg - Last Gasp of Vacation

2010-08-29T23:48:00.006-05:00

Friday morning, we got up nice and early so we could have the RV returned by 8AM.

We had one last bottle of wine to give away. We gave it to our neighbor's next door. In turn they gave us a bag of gummi candy. How nice, we put it in the suitcase to bring back home. (Yeah, that's kind of a mundane detail for the 2nd paragraph, but it will make more sense when I write the next installment.)

All that is left is to fill up the camper water tanks and we'll be ready to go!

What happens next is another "European Vacation Movie" scene. As we turn out of the campground on to the main street; it's different than it was yesterday. Cars are parked all along one side of the street. With 2 lanes of opposing traffic and a solid row of parked cars, there is just no room for the RV to fit. We have turned on to and committed to this street and there is no way to turn back. We couldn't see how narrow it was until we made the turn. I look ahead and cars keep coming towards us. It's about 1/4 mile till we can turn off this street. I'm sure there were some Germans in their cars that morning dropping more Fbombs than Tony in Scarface.

When you are in impossible situations, it's amazing the guts you find. Frederick stayed put (having no where to go), I hopped out of the RV, walked down the street to the next intersection and stood in the middle of the road, stopping traffic, just like the cops do in front of my son's school. Really, I just stood there and prevented people from heading down the road. Frederick then made his way in the RV up the path I'd cleared. I ran and caught up with the camper and we were on our way. Oh another scene we've caused! It's funny now! On we go to return the camper.

I can tell you that this did not go smoothly. I'm still hoping for a positive resolution to my the whole debacle, so I'm going to refrain from detailing how that went. Suffice to say, they don't have much time before I use my tiny pulpit here to rationally explain the shenanigans. Something is rotten in the city of Offenbach!

With the RV returned, and Lola and Lolo safely off in a cab to the airport for the next leg of their vacation, Frederick, Alex and I were now looking forward to experiencing Europe in our downsized mode. We had our "little" station wagon, still packed tightly with our bags for 3 weeks, but we were free to maneuver any street without concern.

About 2 hours southwest of Frankfurt, down the "Romantic Road" is a walled medieval city named Rothenburg. The Romantic Road, isn't necessarily "romantic" in the Virginia is for Lovers way, it's the path the Romans used to spread their world view north. Along the road are many picturesque towns and villages. Some time in the early 20th century the German's decided a bit of marketing would bring travelers to their corner of the world. So they hyped up how "romantic" it was, printed some maps and lured the tourists. It worked.

On the trek down to Rothenburg, we decided to check out the Autobahn with our new found freedom. As we headed west, we were cruising along quite nicely. We were doing about 90 and cars were zipping past us. It's truly a treat for any driver. As fast as we were zipping along is as fast as we came to a halt. No where else but Germany did we experience the madness of the "come to a dead stop" traffic jam. What's the point of being able to drive 90MPH, if at some point you have to drive 2 MPH for 2 miles? The average really gets you. We were stuck in a traffic jam that delayed us for almost 2 hours. It took everything we had to be in zen and vacationlike.

My Navigation Tools

The traffic jam behind us, we sped south to Rothenburg. We had booked a hotel inside the city walls, right near the main square. The approach to Rothenburg from the autobahn was fairly standard, a mix of local houses, local shops and hotels. Then we approached the actual walled city center. Here the GPS and the directions diverged. I couldn't find the landmarks that the directions said would lead us to the right gate. We ended up circling the city, looking for some way to get in. We finally found a gate that looked like it might be big enough for our car to get through. We are now in the maze of cobblestone streets that is Rothenburg. We thanked God we weren't trying to do this in the RV. The GPS led us within 100 yards of our hotel, but it was down a pedestrian only street. Thwarted, I tossed the GPS and worked our way round using the city map. Ah the good ole days of navigation and the sheer joy of the moment when you say, "There it is, I found it!". Columbus has nothing on me.

We pulled up in front of the Romantik Hotel Markusturm. It's the number one hotel in Rothenburg on Trip Advisor for a reason. Instantly, someone was there to help lug all of our bags into the lobby and whisk our car away to private parking. What a joy, as parking is truly at premium inside this walled city. Of course, now we had to endure the obvious stares that come when you unload 4 hockey bags and 4 other bags and backpacks into the relatively small lobby. Yes, we are just staying for the night, we explain, but we've been here for 3 weeks. Yes, we are hording Texas Americans that can't travel without our "stuff". It makes us happy, doesn't hurt anyone else, so leave us be!

The Berger family has been running this hotel for years and let me tell you they couldn't have been nicer. They helped us get our bags up to our third floor room. Once we opened the door to our room we were gobsmacked. It was huge and beautiful! It had a balcony, a large sitting area, 2 huge wardrobes and a bathroom that blew away the Four Seasons and the Ritz back home. All this for $200 a night. For the location, size of the room, large even in US scale and the service, it's quite a steal.

After spending the last 3 weeks in our "tiny" camper, we danced around the hotel room with abandon. It was the most beautiful sight we had seen in weeks. Of course there is no air conditioning, as it's hardly needed in this part of the world and of course was needed today. The Berger's had already planned for that and had a stand fan in the room, circulating when we arrived. It was actually quite pleasant. We unpacked and reveled in our space for about an hour. Then it was time to take to the streets and experience the quaintness of this beautiful city.

If you ever go to Rothenburg, I can't recommend this hotel highly enough.

http://www.markusturm.de/?cid=43&language=en

Our Beautiful Room

Frederick on the Balcony

What a historical and beautiful city. Everything you'd want in a weekend get away. Founded in 1170 Rothenburg grew over 400 years to a town of 600, a free imperial city. It was wealthy due to textiles and it's location at the crossroads of east/west and north/south trade routes.

It still stands today because for 400 more years it was a very poor city. Sacked and sieged in the Thirty Years War, it lost all of it's wealth. Time stood still. Funny, like another city of the middle ages, Brugge, Belgium, it lives today as a tourist attraction because it was poor for so long. So, 400 years from now, will Detroit be a tourist attraction? If no money is invested to upgrade and change the landscape, at what point do you be come history?

Dinnertime and more schnitzel for Alex. The boy has survived on pizza, pasta and schnitzel. Did I tell you he carries his own ketchup bottle? He'd double the price of dinner if we had to pay for the all the ketchup packets he needs to finish schnitzel and frites. Just one packet of ketchup comes with your meal. You have to buy the rest.

After dinner, we walked around exploring the town and the shops. It was very hot and very humid. Rain was in the air.

What I did next I'm not proud of, but when you are desperate, you do desperate things. As we walked around, the heat really got to me. My hair was sticking to my face and neck. The heat seemed unbearable. I needed to put my hair up, but I could find no hair band in my pockets or purse. We didn't have time to go back to the hotel to pick one up and the shops that might carry such a thing were now all closed. Then my son pointed out there was a hair band on the ground. I looked down and there it was, a bit dirty and wet, but a hair band none the less. I thought of the man in the flood who curses God for not saving him...and God says I sent you a warning, a boat and helicopter, what more do you want? In my moment of need, God sent me a hair band. I picked it up...a nice dark brown fat one. I dusted it off on my pants, took a deep breath and put it in my hair. Ok, I threw up in my mouth a bit, but damn it I was less hot. A lifesaver. I kept it and now it's one of my most treasured souvenirs. (after I soaked it in hot soapy water over night)

It began to rain, but this only made our next adventure even more enjoyable. Tonight we met the man with the 2nd best job in the world. Our friends Jon and Tracy have the best job in the world. They travel the world on cruise ships giving historical talks to passengers about the ports they will be visiting next. If you want to know more about their fabulous life, read their blog here. Gee, I wonder where they got the name for the their blog?

http://wherearejandt.blogspot.com/

The 2nd best job goes to Hans Georg Baumgartner.

The Night Watchman of Rothenburg.

http://www.nightwatchman.de/index.php?&sprache=ENG

Every night 8PM (in English and 9:30 in German), Hans dresses up as the nightwatchman and gives a 1 hour walking tour on the history of Rothenburg. It's interesting and hysterical. The man has "it" whatever it is. This was one of the highlights of our whole tour. For $6 euros ($4 for students) you get your euros worth. There must have been 100 people following him around like the pied piper. Not bad wages for 1 hours work. 6 days a week...7 months a year..hum!

Here's a bit of his story from the webpage.

"In the years before the dawn of the 20th century, the night watchman was one of many citizens of Rothenburg responsible for the safety of the inhabitants of this walled, fortified city. Even though the citizens who slept soundly at night in their beds trusted him to keep the streets inside the high stone walls safe, his status was less than honorable. His pay was low and his job was a dishonorable one. Only the gravedigger and the executioner were lower. His job was dangerous, because he had to guard the city at night like a policeman.

The good citizens went to bed early. The people that he met on the streets were the drunks and the thieves. To protect himself and to show his authority he carried an intimidating weapon called a hellebarde.

The Night Watchman gathers his followers in the Market Square in the heart of historic Rothenburg ob der Tauber, with the Councilor's Tavern in the background.
The night watchman made his rounds from nine in the evening until three in the morning, relying on the town hall clock to tell him when to sing his "Hour Song," which reminded the people who slumbered safe in their houses that he was still alive and taking care of them.

The night watchman's horn, carried on a chain around his neck, warned the citizens of fire--the worst possible disaster that could strike a city in the days before fire hydrants. Keeping watch over the streets of the inner city, lighting the lanterns and announcing the hours in the still of the night were the duties of Rothenburg's night watchman. There were six of these men patrolling the city up to the year 1920. "

If you ever get to Rothenburg, don't miss this tour. We bought the DVD and have enjoyed the tour again after we were home. We learned that you can thank an American for saving Rothenburg. In WWII, Nazi generals hid out in Rothenburg. The US was about to demo the city, when one of the US undersecretaries of war remembered his Mom had a painting of Rothenburg in his house growing up. He asked that they offer the town the chance to surrender. The German in charge ignored Hitler's orders to fight till the end and surrendered, thus saving the town. Some of the town was damaged from the initial bombs. After the war the town basically did a press release asking for money..selling the right to have your name on their city wall. It worked and the town was rebuilt. After the tour we headed back to our hotel for another yummy German beer and some Internet time. Alas, the Internet was not working in our room. Normally hotel operators just shrug this off, like it's an unneeded extra service...sorry. Not Frau Berger, she was on the phone and had IT staff over to make repairs. It turned out to be weather related and unfixable on a Friday night, but the effort was appreciated. We could get signal in the lobby, so we sat at a booth, with 3 laptops, 2 beers and a sprite to catch up on the intraweb.

Later back in our room, we kicked back and watched some German TV. It was the local version of "Househunters". What made it so special is that the host was a forty something transvestite in a leather mini. Hysterical!

So nice to be in a bed! Tomorrow morning it's souvenir shopping. I look forward to waking up and lingering in the gorgeous bathroom. No tokens for the shower, no pressing buttons, just white marble, silver fixtures and powerful unlimited hot water. I swear I could hear the hallelujah chorus.

We took advantage of the comfort and slept in. Breakfast had past us by. Due to the late hour, we needed to check out and eat some lunch. The Berger's were nice enough to bring our car around, load the bags up and then stash the car in their private parking till we were ready to go. When it was time to leave they even gave us a ride in their personal car to the lot and showed us the right way out of the walled city. Perfect hosts.

We headed out and got Alex his tshirt. He gets one from every city. We multitask...vacation and school clothes shopping at the same time. I got my beer stein. I'd been wanted to get another one since the 2004 earthquake in Northridge, CA broke mine. I'd had it since the 5th grade. My childhood friend Nancy Hewitt, (where the heck are you Nancy? I've seemingly found just about about every person I knew growing up, but you elude me!) Her Mom was from Germany and she went there over the summer and brought me back a beer stein from Stuttgart, along with some chocolate candy with liquor in them, very progressive for 5th grade. Since that time I always wanted to go the Germany, and now I have my replacement stein. They also had beautiful coo coo clocks, but they are so expensive! In my grandmother's hallway was a coo coo clock. I would stare at the photos my great grandmothers as young women that hung on the wall and wait for the coo coo clock to chime. I always wanted that clock, but alas, it went missing in their move from Connecticut to Florida. Someday, I hope it turns up and makes it's way to me.

We had lunch at this great fresh pasta restaurant and drove back on the Romantic Road to Frankfurt. We have one last night at the Frankfurt Hotel Sheraton. That went quite smooth, until we got to the airport, it was quite the feat to locate the hotel.

Next up...our final night in Germany.

Here's some photos of the city.

See the gate you have to get your car through!

The Lost Day - Frankfurt

2010-08-20T01:15:00.002-05:00

Morning in Bacarach still finds us overrun by the gnat! We all manage to sleep in and before we know it, it's close to 11AM. It's Thursday morning and the camper is due back on Friday by noon. Our plan for today was to get to the Frankfurt campground, clean the camper and just take it from there.

Frederick checked the next campground and learned that reception was closed between 2 and 4PM. If we stayed here in Bacarach and waited for everyone to take showers we'd get to the Frankfurt camp around 2:30. That would really bite, as we weren't the most mobile group and there wasn't much to do in this part of town. We decided for forgo our showers and get on the road straight away. We could shower when we got to Frankfurt.

It was a beautiful ride down the Rhine as we eased our way back into modern society. Yes I made the drive in my PJs, ponytail and bare face. We crossed the river and headed to Frankfurt. Once off the freeway we dodged our way through the city streets to the campsite. It was your typical city campsite. It sort reminded me of a abandoned drive in movie theater. We found a spot near the showers and set up shop.

Today we had the task of cleaning the camper after 3 weeks of 5 people mulling about. It wasn't a total disaster, but we had read posts about what a stickler they were about it being spotless when you returned it. We had planned accordingly and bought cleaning supplies along the way. Slovakia makes great microfiber cloths (I brought them home ...quite the useful souvenir.) We wiped, cleaned and swept. Frederick and his Dad took the subway into town to pick up the rental car Frederick and I would use on the weekend. We spend the day trying to give away the food we couldn't finish. The wine, cheese and condiments went well as did the dishwashing soap and the laundry soap. We bought the Slovakian version of Febreeze, which came in handy as we freshened up lightly worn garments. But..good luck giving it away in Germany!!! No one would take it...we couldn't even get our camper neighbors to understand what it was. Hum! And trust me some of them could have used it.

We also learned more about the famous 50%+ recycling rates in Germany. (The US is around 11%). When it came time to empty the trash there was a wall with about 8 different holes to put your garbage. It was like a giant shape sorter for adults. There were 3 different bins for glass alone, depending on the color. There was a whole sheet of instructions that is given to you when you check in, just telling you how to dispose of your trash and listing the fines if you fail.

Frederick and his Dad came back with the rental car...a Ford wagon, a model we hadn't seen before. It was evident that we weren't all going to fit in the car with all our bags. We'd need another solution. We also were in need of some glue. The latch on one of the cubbies had come unscrewed and the hole was now stripped. We didn't want to get charged for the damage...even thought we could see that it had been repaired before. Not taking any chances. So this requires a trip to the store. And guess what? We can just hop in the car and go...... wooo hooo!

By this time it was getting late and we were up against the notorious 7PM store closing time. We stopped at the first store we saw...an Aldi. They just put a bunch of these discount groceries in the DFW area, but I hadn't been to one. I'm not sure I will now. It's really bare. We searched the whole store looking for a little white bottle of "Elmers" style glue. In a bin, adorned in a language we don't understand is a giant bottle of what looks like glue. It's white with an orange twist up top. It has to glue, except it's giant. We couldn't stop laughing. We spent 3 weeks lamenting how small everything was in European stores. Heck, we have 7-11's with larger sizes and more variety. Now here, the one thing tiny thing we need and it's Costco size. Hilarious! Check it out next to normal size glue!

It was only 3 Euros so we bought it. In fact I had to bring it home. We'll have enough glue for school projects for the remainder of Alex's High School years and perhaps for his future children as well.

We had a supper of all the leftovers we could manage and turned in for the night. Tomorrow the camping adventure ends! I must say for the first time ever, I have been on vacation long enough and I'm ready to go home. Imagine that? One last night to go in the medieval walled city of Rothenburg and then home sweet home!

Remagen and the Rhine River

2010-08-15T02:43:00.044-05:00

The Bridge at Remagen

This is back anchor of the bridge behind the tower.

This bridge was built during WWI to be a lifeline for German troops fighting on the Western Front. Originally it was rail bridge with a path for pedestrians. In WWII, it was planked over to allow for vehicles to traverse across the Rhine.

In March of 1945 the Germans were retreating. The US army was heading toward Berlin. The Rhine river serves as a practical western border with Belgium and other countries to the east. As the Americans advanced, all the bridges on the Rhine were blown up by the Germans. Imagine the Americans surprise when they made it to Remagen and found the bridge still standing! Not for lack of trying, the Germans had been trying for days to blow it up...it wouldn't go. So for 10 days we crossed the Rhine into Germany. Hitler was so furious that he executed 4 officers for their lack of success. On th 10th day the bridge finally gave way, killing 28 US soldiers in the fall. We crossed over quite a few units in those 10 days. The collapse didn't deter us as the army engineers built a pontoon floating bridge and we kept on coming.

The Western Towers, the remains
of the bridge at Remagen

Today all that stands are the 2 towers that anchored the bridges on land. Inside the western tower is the Remagen Peace Museum. Outside the tower is a seemingly endless bike path that runs down the Rhine. It's a very wide river, clear and peaceful. Not a hint of the history made 65 years ago. Inside is a very interesting little museum. History written by the losers, not something you often get to see. There were the typical war left overs we'd seen in other museums, guns, helmets, canteens, even an unexploded 3000lb bomb found nearby. What was interesting was the lamenting of civilians who lost their lives in the bombing of the town. The placard indicated that 65 citizens were killed as well as some "forced laborers from the east" (their quotations). Holy Euphemism Batman. I just spent time in Mauthausen and Terezin; you are not going to be able to sell me on "forced laborers from the east".

Forced Labors from the East?

At the top of the tower was a room dedicated to the US POW camp that was set up in Remagen. Every placard lamented the "horrible" conditions for the German soldiers.

"Camp was miserable, they lacked all necessities" They also lacked gas chambers.

They had little food and didn't have adequate shelter. There was nothing to do all day. They showed pictures of lean soldiers with their shirts off, I guess expecting pity for their treatment. They looked a hell of a lot better than the walking skeletons and piles of corpses I saw in the concentration camp photos. I didn't see any gas chambers or mass murder in this camp. Please understand that Germany today is a far different country than the country that committed those atrocities. However if they were up before a parole board looking for someone had accepted responsibility for their crimes, they do themselves a huge disservice seeking pity for resort like conditions when compared to how the German's treated those millions of civilians it chose to imprison and murder. I walked out of the museum extremely angry.

Alex picked up few crumbling pieces of the the bridge towers to add to his collection artifacts. Fittingly this will go between the sands from Omaha beach and the wood from the USS Constitution.

All that was left for the day was to make the short 1 hour drive down the Rhine to our camp in Bacharach. We could take the long way around, head down the freeway, past the hills above the Rhine and come back up the ground level road that runs along the Rhine. Nope. Not Frederick...he was feeling quite confident in his driving skills. Lets shave an hour off the drive and take the "grey" (color of the smaller road on the map and GPS, we like yellow and blue) road straight into Bacharach. How can I describe this road? It 15 miles of narrowness...really just wide enough for 1 car. There were 3 small towns we had to negotiate through, but the best was saved for last.

This is a picture someone else took of
one of the easier switchbacks

Words cannot paint the picture of the vertical switchbacks that we traversed to get down to the river. I wish I took pictures or video of the drop down, but frankly I was too busying trying not to soil myself. I've found these pictures online hoping you can get a feel for the many hairpin turns we took in this motorhome, with no place to go but off the cliff. Again my husband was on top of it and got us down safely. When we finally parked, he began to discuss the brakes he was smelling on the way down. Too close for comfort.

See the River in the back. We came down these hills in the camper

Our campground was right here on the river.

Our Campground

Our campground was literally on a beach on the banks of the river. You can see a boat there on the Rhine.

We picked this town as it was one of the stops for the many Rhine day cruises that head up and down the river. The dock was just a 1/2 mile down the beach. It was around 3PM and we learned we could catch the boat down river, but it was the last one, so we didn't have a way to get back. I thought, didn't I just see a train go by? Can we take that back? Frederick went up to reception and they gave us all the info we needed to take the river cruise up to Koblenz and then take the train back to the campsite. The campsite was just across the street from the train station.

We have a plan. We walk down to the dock along the river. It's a beautiful scene. One you can see in any travel show on Germany. Except for 1 thing. The gnat. GNATS. EVERYWHERE. You couldn't open your mouth diving inside. There was a visible haze in the air. I couldn't wait for the boat to arrive! Alex grabbed some more frites while we waited.

Our river cruise ship, Goethe

The famous Loreley, a rock formation that caused

many shipwrecks before motored ship travel. This is the narrowest part of the river
and there are swift currents.It's a difficult turn in you are sailing.

Once on board, life got much better. Originally we bypassed the main dining room, seeking a good viewing platform on the top of the boat. It turned out to hot and uncomfortable inside and there was no room to stand. I decided to go check out the dining room downstairs at the bow of the boat, just inside the "king of the world" spot.

As I entered the room to ask for a menu, I spied him. A Filipino waiter, perhaps? If so, it would be the hookup. Gotta go for it. I grabbed the family and lured them downstairs with the promise of a menu with a wider variety. As Frederick's parents entered the dining room, I crossed my fingers. Yup, soon they were conversing in Taglog with the waiter. JACKPOT! True service was ours! He directed us to a table at the front of the room with a 180 degree view of the river from the bow. It was air conditioned, they brought me beer (very interesting Beck's Lime) and served me food. We watched the castles along the river as we made the 3 hour trip on the K-D Line Paddlewheel river cruiser. We saw all the castles we'd seen on Rick Steves and in "Above the Rhine".This bit of luxury at the end of our Spartan 3 weeks was so welcome.

The only "castle" in the middle of the Rhine,

basically a medieval toll booth. "Lords" would stretch chains across the river and demand
payment to complete your journey down the river.

Toward the end of the cruise, it started to rain. We asked about how long the walk was to the train station in Koblenz from the ship dock. Turns out it is about a 20+ minute walk. Normally we wouldn't blink, but we'd been walking everywhere, it was late and raining. No worries, our waiter called ahead and had a cab waiting for us when we got off the boat. Service! It's a good thing as it was pouring rain and as we drove through the streets of Koblenz we marveled at how long a walk it really would have been and not exactly a straight shot. We would have never made the train in time. Interestingly enough, this German train did not leave on time! It was about 10 minutes late. Shocking! So much for stereotypes! A half hour train ride later and a quick walk across the street and we were back at our campsite. Decent wifi and some nice dunkel beer and were were in for night of catching up on the blog and the cyberworld.

But Hagen had another plan for us.

I was returning from my typical visit to check out the shower scene. Ahead Frederick is chatting with someone I don't recognize. As I approach I hear him asking Frederick if we have brought our camper from America. He had noticed our TX sticker on the rear of the camper. We explained that we rented the camper, but thought it might be nice touch of home.

We had met our character of the trip. Hagen was about mid forties, typical blond German. He was a former Harley rider who traded in his bikes for a family and a camper. He began to proclaim us to be "rich Americans" because we brought our laptops and rented this giant camper. He quized us on where we had been and began to offer suggestions of where we should go next. He mentioned we should go to a town across the river, Rudesheim, that had the narrowest street, where you could touch both sides at once. All of this to be topped with more drinking during their wine festival.

He sat down at our table with his beer and asked us about what bands we liked. Alex came out of the camper to work on his German skills. Hagen said Alex was doing well for just one year of instruction. He approved of Alex's music choices, such as Metallica and indroduced Alex to a few new bands that he should listen to. He was impressed that Alex had Rammstein on his MP3 player. He then sat upon giving Alex some career advice, he said he'd be set for life if he could get a job with Swatch and told us in his drunken way about the benefits of working for this watch maker.

It was very interesting cultural exchange. Yes, we may have more stuff, but if you judge life solely by how happy you are, Hagen is having a pretty great life.

We are coming near the very end of our grand adventure. Tomorrow we travel to Frankfurt, to camp for 1 last night. We have to clean the camper from tip to toe.

A church on the Rhine

Van Gogh, Russian Tanks and the Lost Boy. More Netherlands: Otterlo and Eindhoven

2010-08-10T03:05:00.003-05:00

Kroller Muller Museum

As I said before our last trip to Amsterdam was done mainly for me to go to the Van Gogh Museum. We also paid homage to one of our other favorite historical figures, John Adams and stopped by the home he occupied when when he was the Ambassador from the US to Holland. This was in 05, long before people started to take notice of Adam's singular contributions to the founding of our country. Mozart, Van Gogh and Adams would be my dream dinner.

The beauty of Mozart's work is that I can experience it today, just about anywhere. The same with John Adams, as he left behind countless letters and documents which allow me first hand access to his thoughts. These touchstones are not limited by space, I can have the same experience regardless of where I am. It's only my Taurus earth sign nature that requires me to be near places they lived and died.

Art is different. I can access high resolution images of all of Vincent's paintings and I have large book of his complete works. They are poor substitutes. Nothing can prepare you for the beauty of a Van Gogh painting seen with your own eyes. Even a hundred years later, the magic of his genius leaps off the canvas when you are inches from the exact spot where he choose to deposit that specific drop of paint. It's a physical experience. I'm not one for bucket lists, but I do have a goal of seeing every Van Gogh in person, in my lifetime. Now that may not be possible as some are missing and some are in the hands of private collectors. Elizabeth Taylor has one hanging in her living room and I'm thinking she's not going to have me over anytime soon. Maybe, if I'm near the end of my quest and I figure out how to publicize my request.

Whenever I travel, I check the city and see if there is a Van Gogh that I haven't seen. The Dallas Museum of Art and the Kimball in Fort Worth have been very accommodating as they have had several Van Gogh solo or Impressionist centric exhibitions. Vincent comes to see me!

There are 3 main concentrations of Van Gogh's....Musee D'orsay in Paris and the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam. I've been to both. The next largest concentration is at the Kroller Muller Museum in Otterlo, Netherlands. It's a museum in the middle of a national park about 45 minutes east of Amsterdam. Without your own transportation, its a tricky one to visit. I was so close, I couldn't let this opportunity go by.

Helene Kroller Muller was the daughter of a German industrialist. An extremely wealthy woman, she and her husband ran her father's business. She was also a great art scholar and collector. She amassed hundreds of paintings in her lifetime, including over 20 Van Gogh's. She was one of the first to recognize his genius. During the depression of the 1930's, her company came into hard times and it was likely she would lose her collection. She made a deal with the Dutch government in 1935. She would donate her collection and her estate, if the state agreed to open a museum and park on the lands. Kroller Muller was the director of the museum till she died in 1939.

So, now the government has a beautiful national park and a first class art museum pretty much in the middle of nowhere....well as middle of nowhere as you can get in Europe. The Van Gogh's were there and I needed to see them.

Off we went to Otterlo. We paid our admission to the national park, which unfortunately included an additional 28 Euro's for bus parking! At least there was an easy spot to park the camper.

The museum was nicely laid out and not extremely crowded. I had I all the time I cared for to indulge my passion. All I can say, is if you haven't had the chance to see a Van Gogh in person, please find a way. Even if you are not an art lover, I can tell you that it will amaze you.

The museum also had it's share of modern art. You know the giant 8X8 canvas painted completely white, or a room with Christmas lights and sticks laid out on the floor in a permanent installation. It's so entertaining to take my extremely practical son to see modern art. His indignation at the fact that someone could possibly make money from such seemly simple creations is something to behold.

Eindhoven – The Netherlands

Our original plans had us heading down the Mosel river and into Rhine river country. Alex was still on a history high from his visit to Bastogne. He knew he was in the belly of he WWII beast and wanted more. We told him to peruse the WWII sites book and let us know if he found something else and we'd try to fit it in. He found the Wings of Freedom Museum http://www.wingsofliberation.nl/ just north of Eindhoven in Best.

Band of Brothers has made him also partial to the 101^st Airborne and this museum was on the site of their drop into Holland in 1944 for the Market Garden offensive. The museum was about an hour south of Otterlo. We picked out a campground nearby and headed that way.

When you first pull into the parking lot, you see what looks like a restaurant and banquet hall. Yup that's what it is...but walk through the restaurant and you find a huge museum. There are 8 buildings (6 are open) that tell the story of WWII from the Dutch perspective. Nice life size dioramas, lots of vehicles and weapons. More eye candy for Alex. The Dutch perspective was one I hadn't much contemplated. This was an occupied country. One day, there is a new Nazi sheriff in town. Your neighbors might decide it's best to bat for the other team. Odd dynamic. Handsome, Kind German soldier wants to court you....West Side Story? He's just a cog in the wheel? Then the Handsome German soldier and his buddies lose the war and your neighbors cut off your hair for sympathizing with the enemy. Do you continue to go to work everyday? How much does your life change? So many questions. Ponder this sometime.

I know the knock on Americans are that they are immersed in their own culture and only speak one language. Our experience is so different then those who live in Europe. I can imagine it's hard to grasp the distances. At the 10,000 ft level America is very similar. You don't live in close proximity to potential enemies or very diverse cultures. Believe me if they spoke a different language in Louisiana, I'd be able to speak it. (wait a minute....maybe that's a bad example). OK, if they spoke a different language in Oklahoma..on never mind! You get the point. I can't imagine a world where Arkansas takes up arms and invades Kansas. In Europe, historically speaking, it happens all the time. Here...just once and that was to keep us together.. not to invade.

We spent about 2 hours at this museum. They had a unique building dedicated to the Russian military. Weapons, uniforms and tanks you don't typically see. A great and unexpected find. Just the kind of thing you can do when your can make your own schedule.

By the time we were done with the museum, it was close to 3:30 PM and we were starving, we had forgotten to eat! Wait, didn't we have to walk through a restaurant to get to the museum....yes! Perfect. We sat outside and had a lovely meal. The menu was all in Dutch, but our server was so kind, she went through and described everything on the menu. Later when dinner was brought over, the other server chatted us up for a good 15 minutes. We learned all about the town and about their lives. The guy had worked for an American company and had been to Amarillo, TX. He liked it..OK whew. We had good laugh as they were a bit embarrassed by Amsterdam as well. Such a pleasant experience. Again all the Dutch we met were happy as clams. Dessert in our bellies it was time to check out our new campground. Our server was nice enough to ask us if we needed directions to our campsite. We said we were OK, we had our “SatNav”. It had been fairly good to us so far. Luckily he asked us about this, as he warned us that locally they are told to ignore the GPS, as the freeways are too new and not listed in most GPS'. He sure was right. We made it through with our maps, but the GPS thought we were "baja"ing through the tundra. If we didn't know what to expect, we would have surely been lost and confused when the GPS just lost it's way. Thank you!!!!

This campsite might have been the cream of the crop.

http://www.campingsoerendonk.nl/

We had a huge space, right near the showers. The campground had an indoor and and outdoor pool. It had awesome WIFI that we could used to our heart's content. It had tennis courts and all manner of recreation. A great restaurant and a snack shack. Frederick, Alex and I headed up to the outdoor pool to cool off. That we did. It was quite cold! Frederick couldn't hang so we decided to head to the indoor pool. It had a slide. A long snakey tube slide like a mini Wet n' Wild. The boys had a great time. (yes that's Frederick and Alex). Frederick's parents came up and Alex talked his Lolo into going down the slide with him..he wasn't so successful with this Lola. It was a really nice relaxing time.

Hours had gone by and we found we were getting hungry again. We decided to finish off the spaghetti.

It just cried out for bread. Frederick and I went up to the reception, intending to hit the little grocery for bread. Alas it was already closed. We wandered into the snack shack, hoping perhaps they had some sandwich rolls or something. To our amazement they freshly baked up 2 baguettes for us...wow yummy fresh hot bread. Later that night we went back and ordered 3 more loaves. While we were waiting the 6 or 7 minutes for the bread to finish, this little boy comes wandering into the snack stand. He walks up to the adult, shoulder high deli counter and offers up his tiny hand, palm up with few sweaty coins laying on top. The counter lady doesn't see him. We point him out to her. He's a tiny 2 or 3 year old boy. He seems too small to be out on his own. We look around and see his family outside on the patio. The he utters a few words in dutch and the lady smiles and exchanges his coins for different coins. The little boy then runs to the vending machine and smiles widely as he buys his new super ball! A few minutes later he's back for more. Very cute! Little kids are bit more independent and trusting here. We will learn more about this tomorrow morning.

This was the camp of little cute little boys. The next morning, I'm outside getting ready, curlers in my hair, when a little blonde haired boy comes running up to me, walking his bike, speaking to me in Dutch. He's about 5 or 6. OK, no chance he speaks English and he doesn't have enough experience to understand I don't understand him. He opens up his hand and gives me a piece of paper. It has a word on it and a #. Oh, he's lost. My mom instincts finally kick in! I assumed it was his last name and his camp site. This is a big camp site, so kudos to his parents for giving him a way to get home. I was in my robe, curlers and such and not in any condition to go walking around the camp. I didn't think he wanted to wait for me to get dressed, so Lolo (Lolo and Lola are Grandpa and Grandma in the Filipino language Tagalog) to the rescue. Armed with a camp map, the little boy and Lolo went off in search of his camp site. They were gone for quite a while. It turns out it wasn't a last name on the paper, it was a section name for the campground and the #'s repeat in different sections. They went to the closest site 174 to our section and that turned out to be wrong. They had to find the right section first. Lolo said the little boy kept talking to him the whole way and he talked back to him, neither one of them understanding a thing they said to each other. I guess we all expected that Lolo would have the chance to do this good deed and the boy's parents would be so happy someone returned their boy. Well this story ended abruptly. As soon as the boy recognized his campsite, he smiled and took off. Before Lolo knew it, the boy disappeared into his camper. Ah well, just glad we got him home safely. It was pretty early in the morning, his parents might not have even noticed the boy had left their site.

We wished we could have spent another night in this campground. It was really enjoyable, but there wasn't much else to do in Eindhoven. We were off to our next stop the site of the former bridge at Remagen and the Rhine river.

And Now a Word From Our Driver...Guest Post by Frederick

2010-08-02T22:40:00.003-05:00

Observations from the Cockpit

Some stats:
• Drove approximately 4000 km (a little less than 2500 miles or roundtrip from Dallas to LA)
• Visited eight countries
• Stayed in thirteen campsites over 18 days.
Here are the specs of our camper (Dethleffs I 7870-2)
• Length - 27.16'
• Width - 7.64'
• Height - 9.61'
• Weight - 11000 pounds
• Six speed manual transmission

Resources:
• Europe by Van and Motorhome by David Shore and Patty Campbell - Invaluable source for planning and knowing what to expect.
• ACSI Camp Site Guide for Europe DVD - Allowed us to lookup campsites while offline; a must have.
• Rick Steves' Germany - Mostly designed for people who are travelling by train but still very detailed information on the cities he covers. It came in especially useful in Rothenburg o.b.t.

Thoughts
• Long distance travel by camper is very comfortable. There's plenty of room to move around when moving. You can sit at the dining table and watch a movie or eat something or even take a nap on the bed. Unfortunately, the *driver* doesn't get to enjoy the same amenities. However, the driver (and copilot) have AC, which is a good thing since the front of the camper is a giant fishbowl of untinted glass.

• When driving, I still think in "miles"; I would convert kilometers to miles then figure out how long it was going to take to get to a waypoint. I really didn't have a good idea of how long it would take to go xxx km without converting to miles, which is pretty silly since the speedometer was in km/hr.

• Driving on the German Autobahn is truly awesome. The roads are so smooth that you don't even feel like you're going that fast. Long stretches had no speed limit at all. When there is traffic, it really stops. There was a lot more construction than I expected. The freeways in other countries weren't nearly as smooth, which encouraged you to keep to the posted 120 km/hr speed limit.

• German drivers, when passing, don't leave a lot of room (often less than 10 feet at 80+ mph) when changing back to the right lane in front of you. It's very unnerving at first but they're very good drivers and they're going much faster than you.

• At the eastern European border crossings, there are signs to slow down to 30 km/hr (about 20 mph), even though there weren't border controls, per se. The reason why is there there are very large, long trenches at the borders where the retractable gates were. If you hit them at much more than 25 mph, it's like hitting a reverse speed bump and is pretty jarring, even in something as massive as the camper. I really slowed down at the next ones.

• The daily care of the camper wasn't really too bad. The worst part was emptying the chemical toilet cartridge. It needed to be emptied every few days. Fortunately, it pops out and seals well and had an extendible handle that let you roll it on the ground like a really stinky, sloshy roll aboard. The dump sites all had hoses to rinse out the empty cartridge. (Not all nearby bathrooms had soap and hot water so I would usually empty the cartridge before my morning shower.)

• When filling the camper with diesel fuel, do NOT attempt to top off the tank. When the pump stops, the fuel tank is full. The diesel will still overflow a little. Fuel ranged from 1.08 to 1.40 euros per liter so you could dump a euro's worth of fuel without trying if you top off. (Full means full!!)

• Filling out forms in Slavic languages is not fun. Better to copy what someone before has written.

• It's good to have someone help when pulling into and out of campsites. There aren't a lot of "pull through" spots in Europe.

• When driving in non-English speaking countries, it really helps to have multiple sets of eyes to look for signs, even when using a GPS. Mickie is an excellent navigator, as long as the GPS thinks we were driving a bus. She did a great job of letting me know well in advance what was coming up.

• Even if you're using a GPS system, it's important for the navigator to do a "reality check" using a hard copy map so you don't get led to some tiny country road, even if it's a shorter driving distance.

• Grocery stores with big parking lots are your friend.

• Grey roads are NOT your friend. Red roads are. GPS not always right.

• When putting up your awning, make sure you deploy it at an angle so it doesn't fill with water.

• Filling the fresh water tank is a two person job when using a short hose and high water pressure.

• If you want any kind of additional services (like Internet access or shower tokens), it's important to arrive before the main reception office closes. The after hours reception basically consists of getting your contact information and getting some kind of deposit from you.

• When driving a camper this big, you feel like a rock star. Or at least, everybody stares at you when you drive through small villages (or in the Mala Strana in Prague). Also, Europeans took a double take when trying to figure out what country TX is.

• It's no wonder Europeans drink so much beer; you can get a .5 liter glass for 1.50 euros; a .33 liter bottle of Coke is 2 euros and a liter bottle of mineral water is 4 euros. I can easily nurse a glass of beer to last thru a meal.

• We never ran into another American in any of the thirteen camp sites we stayed in. We rarely ran into anyone who's primary language was English. The Dutch, however, are nuts about camping.

• There's nothing better than coming back to a camper that's had the AC running all day after spending the day wandering cities with no air conditioning.

• Passing in a five ton camper is very exciting, as are hairpin turns on mountain roads. It's hard to pass in 6th gear.

• Crocs make good shower shoes. They provide a nice, wide, high platform in a flooded shower.

• Four minutes of hot water lasts a lot longer than you'd think.

• You don't appreciate the toilet seat until you find a public toilet without one. YUCK!

• When the campsite lists a time during the day that the showers/bathrooms are closed for cleaning, they're not kidding. At one campsite, I was in the bathroom when I heard a woman screaming something in German in the shower area. Shortly after, I heard high pressure water being blasted and a man apologizing profusely about being in the shower.

• It's hard to give away the European version of Frebreeze. They don't understand what it is.

• Two fans (one large stand up and one small table top) = one mirror cover

• It takes some getting used to not having a functional rearview mirror. Apparently, there's a requirement to have a mirror of some sort even if there's not a rear window. And the backup camera only works when backing up.

• Even when travelling by camper, "sea days" are nice every once in a while.

• It's a luxury (especially for the driver) to stay more than one night at a campsite. Driving 100+ miles every day takes its toll after a couple of weeks.

• One bottle of cheap German Riesiling = 1 bag of very stinky German Candy

• Don't forget the spin cycle, especially when there aren't clothes dryers.

Amsterdam

2010-08-01T16:49:00.008-05:00

Amsterdam is another place we went to briefly in 2005. We spent most of our time at the Van Gogh museum and didn't get to see much of the city. We put it on the agenda to get a better flavor for the city. As it turns out Frederick's parents were with us and we got to spend some time in the city with a local.

Frederick's Mom's first cousin lives in Amsterdam. They moved there in the 70's with their family to escape the Marcos era of in the Philippines. The Netherlands was a very hospitable country for them and they made a new life for themselves.

We intended to meet her fairly early in the AM, but as we were up so late the night before we didn't end up getting to Amsterdam till 1PM and after walking to the tram station and taking the 1 hour tram into town, we didn't make it to the main station on time. Instead we met Lola Yvonne and took a short walk around the city. We were all quite hungry and we went to the food court at the local “Macy's” type store to get a bite to eat. It was quite good, with lots of variety. I ended up succumbing to the calls of a giant cheeseburger. I had a nice chat with the chef while he cooked the burger. We talked about my Dutch ancestors who came to Nieuw Amsterdam in the 1600's. Gosh this burger was good. I hadn't had a burger in weeks. Once everyone had refueled, we spent a bit of time walking around the city and then took the train and a bus out to Amersfoort to spend some time with Lola Yvonne and her husband.

It took over an hour and half to get out there. The next day we drove that same route and it took about 20 minutes. How long on a bicycle? There are almost more bicycle's than people in this country.

We had a nice dinner, mostly traditional Philippine dishes. They were kind enough to make Spaghetti for Alex. The dutch are such nice people over all, at least in my experience. Everyone we met was very kind and they were all so happy. A recent poll indicated that The Netherlands is one of the happiest countries. They are willing to give the government more than half of their income and let them dole it back out to them. For example, I learned the government takes 8% of your paycheck in a deduction and then gives it back to you in May so you can go on vacation. Plus you get 4 weeks of paid vacation. Really? You want the government making money off your money for 11 months? Some people get a lot for free, but I have to believe someone is paying for all this. The Dutch government isn't just printing more $$ to pay for these benefits. I'll never be able to accept that is the way to do things, but I have to admit it appears to work for them. Everyone there seems to pitch in, but it seems like it would be too easy to scam the system and get quite a bit for doing nothing. They have a saying, “just be normal”. They also say, “Als je voor een dubbeltje geboren bent, word je nooit een kwartje.” Or in plain English “If you were born a dime, you’ll never become a quarter.” I could never live like that. What if you want to be a quarter? That seems soul crushing to me. I'll take my 40+ hour weeks and save up for 3 years for my once in a life time, 3 week vacation. I know I did it. I think is a difficult society for the entrepreneur or someone with ambition. They are happy with their lot, and feel like it's good enough. I have no safety net, but I feel I have achieved a lot more than I would have been able to in a society that babysits you from cradle to grave. Would I accept a lot less, to know I'll always have a minimum standard of living? Hard to say. I could write paragraphs about my conceptual differences, but this is travel blog, not political commentary.

We headed back to the campground and reveled in our great broadband connection. The next day we headed back into town (this time taking the bus in front of our campground to forgo the ½ hour walk to the tram station). We hopped on one of those canal tours and got to see the city from that level. Another continuously inhabited ancient city. History is everywhere. Once the tour was over we decided to walk about the city. The highlight was a stop at a cheese shop.

I'm actually kicking myself for not bringing home some of the cheese. They had this old cow cheese that was to die for...I just didn't feel like carrying it around with me. I did buy fleece wooden shoes style slippers, so tacky, I had to have them.

Amsterdam is a pretty liberal and crunchy city. I felt completely out of place. I thought of my Dutch ancestors feeling the same level of discomfort when they left 400 years ago. That puritan DNA still runs in my blood, I can't help it. It's the mecca for debauchery, disguised as normal. No one's getting hurt and they are all happy, so be it.

Here, I think this means me.

Next up, Kroller Muller Museum, the 2nd largest collections of Van Gogh's in the world.

Belgium - Liege & Brugges

2010-08-01T14:45:00.007-05:00

You travel to different corners of the world for different reasons. Sometimes its in search of history or beauty. Sometimes it's family or friends. Sometimes it's just for yummy food!

A few months back we caught an episode of Throwdown with Bobby Fly on The Food Network. Bobby challenged a NY food trucking making waffles. As we would learn not just any waffle, but Liege waffles. They are like a dessert pastry. Crunchy with caramelized sugar on the outside, doughy and dense on the inside. They looked amazing. We search in vain to find some place in Dallas that made them. (There is a place now, Fruitelicious in Carrollton). So, you think maybe we'd go to NYC...nah, we were already planning out trip to Europe, so why not put Liege on our map.

We were on our way to a campground that was on the grounds of a 16th century chateau, Domaine du Château de Dieupart. We decided we needed to locate a supermarket to pick up food for a few more dinners. The GPS said there was a Lidl Market about mile away from our campsite. Unfortunately, one wrong turn had us driving our camper up ridiculous narrow hill. We did find a place to turn around and prayed we would not meet any large vehicle on the way up. We survived and found the supermarket. So incredibly Spartan, but we found the things we needed. We headed back and found the campground, by the side of a brook...hidden behind what....a huge Supermarket! We didn't recognize the name and missed it on the way by. Ah well, we stopped there in the AM on the way out and picked up the few things we were missing. (I needed sewing things to fix a suitcase that broke and Alex was in desperate need of chocolate syrup for his ice cream). The campsite was lovely.

There was only internet at the bar inside the Chateau. We headed up there after dinner and overheard one of the most hysterical exchanges of the trip. A bunch of drunken Irish were outside indulging in the beauty of Belgian ale. One friend spend a good 20 minutes telling the other how he was now dead to him and F U. Literally hundreds of f bombs. Alex, Frederick and I could not stop laughing. Eventually the drunk guy made his way inside and proceeded to ask Frederick why we American's had not cleaned up the mess we made in the Gulf. We decided it was best not to tackle that subject and made our way back to our site. We cooked some dinner and feasted on the ice cream we bought at the supermarket. The next day we were in search on waffles and were on our way to Brugges. The owners of the campsite said we'd have to make our way into Liege to get the waffles. I guess we figured they'd just be hanging from trees. We drove to Liege center, but after several circles around, we determined, there was just no place to park our beast and no sign screamed, WAFFLES HERE!

Thwarted, we drove off to Brugges. Frederick, Alex and I went to Brugges on our first Europe trip in 2005. It was our first stop on the continent, our first exploration of a non English speaking country (well really everyone is Belgium speaks English, but it's not the primary language). Our first train navigation. We we so impressed with the medieval city.

2010

Same spot....2005

To see the city and be entertained, I recommend a Collin Farrell movie, In Brugges. Very, very funny in a very twisted way and a beautiful love letter to the city. We made a point to come here so Frederick's parents could see the city...and Frederick's Dad could see one of the places of his heritage. Yes, perhaps it's just a story, but there is a genealogical reference book on the history of the Fosters/Foresters family that traces their linage to the town of Brugges in the 900's. Anacher the Great had several successors, through to Baldwin the IV. He had a daughter, Matilda of Flanders who was kidnapped by William the Conqueror on his way to England and taken as his bride. Matilda's brother, Richard, came with her to England and fought beside Williams in the Battle of Hastings and crusades to Palestine. William took over England and gave lands on the Scotland border to Richard the “Forester” of Flanders to build Bamborough Castle. The Foresters lived there for many generations. One of the descendents decided to move to the new world. He settled in Ipswich, MA, in a house that still stands today. Frederick's Dad's great grandmother was a Forester, descended from this line. Frederick's great grandfather went to the Philippines in 1901, married and had 2 children. The oldest of these 2 children is Frederick's paternal grandmother.

We did not know this the first time we visited, but now 3 generations of Dorados would soon be standing in front of their ancestral home.

We stayed at another rowdy camp. This one had a “Hard Rock Casino” and all the other craziness of the last campground. I can't believe that can rip off the whole logo, guitar and all and no one seems to care.

We had to walk a mile plus to get to the bus stop to take us into the city of Brugges. Once there, the GPS directed us through the winding streets to the city center. It was acutually chilly, what a nice change. Alex has to have some chicken nuggets from Quick..the Belgian version of Mc Donalds. He ate there on our last trip 5 years ago and was no longer apprehensive about eating in Europe. Since then, we have pics of him in front of McDonald's and the like all over the world. Now, we bring our own ketchup, as you have pay for each pack on this side of the Atlantic.

We went in search of the Belgian delicacy Moulles and Frites. Mussels and French Fries. On the way, we smell it.....smells like yummy...smells like waffles! We found a little shop selling Liege waffles out the window of their store front. Yes, they are as good as promised. I now am on a quest to figure out how to make them at home. We found a small restaurant in 600 year old building. It looked good. We didn't have a reservation, but they told us if we could eat in less than 2 hours, we could have a table, as someone had reserved that table at 8:30PM. Piece of cake!

After dinner we strolled around the streets then made our way to the bus station for the bus back home. We got there just after the bus left, so we had to wait an hour till we could get the next bus. If we had a car, we'd be there in 10 minutes. I just can't love public transportation for this reason. You waste a lot of time! Once we got back to our stop, we still had the mile plus walk back to the camp. Exhausted, we attempted to do some laundry. It was 1 in the morning and the first load wasn't dry and the 2nd load wasn't in the dryer (2 washers, 1 dryer). We decided to bring them back and hang them overnight. No luck with this...as everything was just as wet in the AM. We would just have to dry them at the next spot.

Next up...Amsterdam.

Diekirch, Luxembourg - National Military Museum & Bastogne, Belgium - Bastogne Historical Museum

2010-08-01T12:48:00.015-05:00

After a night at the craziest campground in Europe.

This is an actual picture from their website. If this is how they advertise their campground restaurant you can imagine how full throttle this campground was...I only wish we could have spend a few more nights.

http://nommerlayen-ec.lu/upload/cms/image/luukvangerwen.jpg

The next morning we drove down to the the city of Diekirch. The town is home to the National Museum of Military History, reflecting Diekirch's pivotal role in the Battle of the Bulge, a major battle of World War II. It was here that the river Sauer was crossed on the night of January 18, 1945, by the US 5th Infantry division.

This stop wasn't always on the itinerary, but it got great reviews from a book we had been following closely. The 25 Essential World War II Sites: European Theater: The Ultimate Traveler's Guide to Battlefields, Monuments, and Museums. The beauty of the RV trip is that you can divert at just about anytime. There are so many campgrounds, that a quick consult to our DVD directory, followed by a phone call, gets you set in a new direction. We also wanted to see Patton's grave site at the American cemetery. My grandfather served under Patton and a good friend of my Mom's is a Patton devotee (even naming his dog Patton). It came highly recommended. Unfortunately, we'd have to choose between the cemetery and the Bastogne museum. We'd been to the American cemetery in Normandy, its a very humbling experience. Sixty years later is so hard to imagine the scope of the American sacrifice. 406,000 Americans lost their lives to WWII. The number is 58,000 for Vietnam and 5,500 for the current war on terror (Iraq and Afghanistan). All those lives in WWII happened over just a 4 year span. The fact my family wasn't touched by death in the war is a miracle, given the my uncles and grandfather all served.

We find our way to the tiny town of Diekirch, winding our way through tiny mountain roads. A few laps round the town center and we locate the museum. Then we keep our eyes pealed for bus parking. Near the river we find a lot that will accommodate us, but we'll have to walk a few miles to get back to the museum. No mind, it was a beautiful little town. Once we arrive at the museum we learn of the Luxembourg Card....for 20 Euros for a family (all 5 of us) we can have access to this museum as well as Bastogne. Deal. Outside the museum are a few planes and tanks that Alex proceeds to grill me on the names.

Of course I'm clueless and he's incorrigible. His teenage boy mind can't believe his Mom could not have a detailed grasp of WWII vehicle names. A the sport of making fun of your Mom. It's universal. Inside they ask us if we need an audio guide. Ha...no I don't think so, we brought or own. The kid is amazing. If it happened in WWII, was flown, driven or sailed in WWII, he knows about it.

It was Christmas morning for Alex Dorado.

This place looked like Alex's game room, covered with GIJoes, tanks and such, expept it was all life size. Inside this tiny museum were treasures he'd only seen in a books and videos. Literally, anything that was left over after the war was scooped up and put in this museum. Most museums have clear organized displays. This museum was organized, but it was crammed full like your grandmother's attic. One display box was nothing but medical supplies, another was nothing but food supplies. They had life size dioramas that displayed the weapons and uniforms in context. There was a large hall with 20+ vehicles, with uniformed dressed mannequins setting the mood. Alex spammed over 300 pictures in 2 hours. He's always Mr. Reserved, but he couldn't help smile here. It's not pretty, but it was detailed. Alex says this was his favorite stop.

After a few hours here, needed to press on to Bastogne, just up the road in Belgium, if we were going to get there in time to see the museum before it closed at 5PM. Unfortunately, this meant we'd have to skip the hunt for remaining foxholes. The book said a few were still in place, but the directions to find them left us skeptical, given we had to take the RV there.

The drive to Bastogne was relatively uneventful, we are getting good. The parking lot was large and parking was a breeze. NICE! As we make our way up to the museum, we see a small parade and see a reviewing stand near the monument across the way. We didn't know why, but just as we walked up to the entrance a band starts playing the Star Spangled Banner. We stopped, took off our hats and sang along. When you've been away from home for even just a few weeks, it's nice to hear. Especially when you are in a corner of Europe that still appreciates America. Outside the museum is a massive monument dedicated to America for liberating this area and winning the Battle of the Bulge. All the individual divisions are honored as well as every state.

Once inside, we learned a Belgian prince was visiting. I'm not sure what for, but we moved on. We only had an hour to see the museum. Turns out that was plenty. A beautifully curated museum, it told the story of the Bulge in words, pictures and objects. We were almost surrounded and down for the count. The German's asked for our surrender and our famous response was “Nuts”. Patton hauled butt from France and kept open the one clear lane to the area. We dug in, in horrible winter conditions and prevailed. This was the turning point in the war. Germans were pushed back from this point forward.

We lingered a few more minutes outside at the memorial and the smaller memorial to the 101st Airborne and then headed off to our next stop.

Liege, Belgium....in search of the elusive Liege Waffle!

Stuttgart

2010-07-26T19:14:00.004-05:00

Mario, Maria and Michael

Feast!

This was a odd stop on the trip. A very long day of travel with a 30 minute each way detour to deliver some Excedrin and Hot Sauce. There is a website for English speaking Expats in Germany called ToyTown. I spent quite a bit of time on it in preparation for the trip. I learned all about the Sunday closures, lack of credit cards, short shopping hours and where to find grocery stores and Wal-Mart type stores. On a whim I posted if anyone needed me to bring them something from Dallas. I know there are still things I can only get back in my old home area of New England, (diamond crystal salt, correct hot dog rolls,

etc..so I was sure there might be things people missed) One guy, Mario asked for some Excedrin Migraine, Imodium and a specific Tapatio sauce. I didn't expect someone to respond, but hey why not. Let's meet some locals. We made our way to Mario's house. We had to park the camper at local park as it wouldn't fit in Mario's driveway. He had to meet us and shuttle us up the hill in a couple of trips in his tiny car. There we met Mario, his wife Maria and their adorable 2 year old son Michael. We were expecting a quick hi perhaps a piece of cake. Nope, Maria had a spread to die for. Homemade bread, sausages, pasta, salad, cheesecake...the works. We were so grateful. Such a nice couple. Mario was born in Mexico City and moved to the US when he was 16. In Miami he met Maria, who was on vacation from Germany. She had moved Germany from Poland when she was a teenager. The met, fell in love and moved back to Germany. We learned all about the true life of an expat. The challenges of becoming fluent in German so you can get a job. Learning the quirks of your new country. Like having to sweep your sidewalk on a certain day. Having your neighbors monitor you trash to make sure you are recycling properly. They'll turn you in for a fine if they find an error. Everything is silent after 10PM. German's are very direct and don't hesitate to tell you what they think. Mario said they went to a local festival and got chewed by a random German woman because their sun didn't have a hat on . She was worried he's get burned. Michael was fine, he was blessed with melanin.

We stayed for 2 hours chatting and eating, it was such a nice stop. This meant we had to skip Stuttgart and hustle to the next site. This part of the trip wasn't nearly as scripted. Originally I had wanted to head over the French border to do some genealogy research on my great great grandfather from Alsace. However in the year preceding I could never pin down the right town. Without this info we had to skip it. We read about a small museum in Luxembourg that was supposed to be a treasure trove of WWII memorabilia. It's in a small city of Diekirch. We found a campground nearby and headed that way. We were traversing the Mosel river valley and fighting the pending darkness. Luckily sunset wasn't till after 9PM this far north. The hills and valleys were awe inspiring. Our WWII troops really had their hands full making their way through this terrain. The tiny road up many switchbacks and harrowing cliffs to the campsite was a white knuckle ride. We were all very quiet as I guided Frederick along with the GPS, pointing out every bend in the road before he hit it. Remember the camper is a 6 speed manual transmission. Uphill, downhill, around the corner. But our excellent driver never panicked and we made it safely. The campground at Diekirch was a hoot. We got there kind of late and reception was in a bar. There were loads of rowdy Dutch playing bingo and doing the chicken dance in Dutch. We opted for the restaurant for dinner. Our waiter from Poland was so engaging, it made up for the very poor bisteak we ate that night. This was a campground with an indoor pool and a whole resort. It was really overkill for the night. These people were there for the duration.

We were too late to get the wifi code, but they had a computer you could use with one of their money loaded keys. The only hitch...a German keyboard. Where the hell is the @. I had to google email, search for that symbol and copy and pasted it to log into a website with my email address. Some of the letters are in in the wrong place...if you are touch typist, you will be cursing soon.

Next stop Luxembourg National Military Museum and Bastogne History Museum

Oberamergau, Nieuwenstein Castle, Munich

2010-07-26T19:04:00.004-05:00

Niewswanstein Castle - Mad King Ludwig

Scenic Bavaria

Another Hansel and Gretel town..Oberammergau

Story of the Passion Play

From Salzburg we headed straight into the heart of Bavaria. We took the safe route from the northern freeway into a small town called Oberammergau. It looks like Hansel and Gretel lived in every house. The attraction here was the Passion Play the town performs every 10 years since the 1600's. It's one of those things you wouldn't know about unless you watch too much Rick Steves or Samantha Brown on the travel channel. Hundreds of years ago the town swore it would do a Passion Play every 10 years if the town was spared further deaths from the Plague. The story says that happened, so the play is on. 2010 is a play year. Our intention was to attend the play, until we learned it's 8 hours long and in German. So we visited the town, toured the theater and had some lunch. Luckily we found the bus parking. After taking the "big" roads up here in the Alps, we were pleased with our decision not to come up the southern mountain route from Innsbruck. The 2nd stop of the day is Nieuwenstein Castle. This is a story book castle from every one's child hood. It was build in the 1800's by the Bavarian King Ludwig. He basically drained the national treasury building castles all around. This one was never completed. He was removed from power and mysteriously was found dead in a local lake. Getting to the castle once you park your camper is a royal pain. It's nice mile walk uphill to the ticket center. From there you can take a smelly horse cart to the castle or take a bus about half way up the hill. We waited about 20 minutes in the heat for a bus and decided the hike to the castle wasn't worth it. We admired the castle from the stop and at scenic bridges a few hundred feet away. Cinderella would be happy here. From here we drove a decent distance to Munich. We made a stop at the local "Frys Electronics" to consider buying charger for Frederick's Dad's camera, since he forgot the charger, and a new camera for us. Yes, I killed 2 cameras on this trip. The first was from a spill on the Segway. The camera took pictures, but we couldn't get the view finder to work. The second was in Mauthausen. I fell in a hole with our other camera in hand. It was a grand spill. This time, this camera won't even turn on. I found a great camera, at a great price, but again they didn't take credit cards, so we decided to conserve our cash on hand. No sale for you Germany!

Eventually we were able to rig up a way to charge Frederick's Dad's 2nd camera with a universal battery charger I had brought with me. They let us use that one for the rest of the trip.

We arrived at the Munich campsite at 8PM. We intended to hit the local, famous main Biergarten, but the last bus returned at 9PM. No way we'd make it. We stayed at the campground and ate in their take away restaurant. I had a surprisingly yummy cheeseburger! One shower token here gave you a ton of hot water with great water pressure (hey, I've come to appreciate these things), however the campground required you bring our own toilet paper.

Germans seem to have an obsession with recycling and green. The only toilet paper we could find was very spartan, single ply brown paper towel material. Each German campsite had an elaborate system for recycling each color of glass, plastic, paper products, food waste and then everything else. We would learn just how far this obsession went on our next stop.

We spent the night and headed for Stuttgart the next morning, with our ultimate destination Diekirch, Luxembourg.

Special Edition - Camp Life

2010-07-26T08:25:00.005-05:00

Alex having PB & J in the camper

Texas on the move in Europe
Alex's normal traveling position

Campground Restaurant
Hanging the Laundry

Had to represent!
Let me share with you the typical day in the campground. We had 5 in our traveling party. Frederick and I were in the back in a permanent bed, Frederick's parents used the convertible dining booth bed in the center and Alex took the bunk the pulled down over the drivers and passengers seat. The camper had a bathroom with a sink and shower, a 3 burner gas stove, a kitchen sink, freezer and refrigerator. There were plenty cabinets and cubbies, that locked for travel, to stash all our stuff. We also brought our over the door shoe holder. This is a lifesaver in small spaces. You can stash all those little things that never seem to have a place, like brushes, lotion, jewelry etc. We learned this from our cruise cabin days. We also went to Wal-Mart the night before we left and purchased 3 small plastic caddies. They were about 12 inches long and 6 inches wide, open at the top with smaller holes on the side. Mini versions of the ones they use on Clean House when they load out all the junk the hoarders keep in their houses. These were great to carry our toiletries back and forth to the showers. European campsites have many amenities. We stayed at 15 or so different sites. They break down into a few categories, smaller run family camps and mega resort camps. The camps can be out in the country or they can be in the heart of the city. In Prague.Budapest, Vienna. Salzburg, Munich and Frankfurt, we were within the city limits. As we wandered out to Belgium, Luxembourg and Holland we were more in the wilderness. The smaller camps will have 3-5 shower stalls per gender, washing up sinks, dishwashing sinks and laundry washing sinks. Larger camps may have 30 showers per gender in each of 3-5 locations across the camp. They will also have a washer and dryer. We had fun figuring out how to use the washer and dryer as the instructions were not in English. Frederick had the bright idea to copy the settings of the user next door. Turns out that was the "Bill O'Reilly" setting...No Spin Zone. In most places everything from hot water in the showers to the laundry operates with tokens you purchase at reception...except when reception isn't open. So we had a load of very wet laundry that we tried unsuccessfully to dry and then hang. We couldn't buy more tokens, reception was closed. We ended up taking the wet laundry with us on the next site to be dried.

The camper has a shower, but it's small and you then have to empty and refill your water, so we decided not to use it. Every day Frederick's mother would be the first up and come back with the shower report. They all had their own quirks. Some tokens were 6 minutes of stop time hot water, some were 4 minutes of run time. Some had no tokens, but required you to keep pushing a button every seconds. Some gave you 4 free minutes, then you had to wait, dripping wet for 3 minutes for the shower to reset. Some had key sensors that had purchased time loaded on the actual key. Some had a nice changing area before the actual shower, some did not and forced you to look at naked Europeans as they exited the shower and changed. Some had separate rooms to sit down and do your hair and makeup. My terry robe and turbie hair towel was a huge asset. The boys just put their stinky clothes back on for the trip back to the camper. For some reason, Alex always seemed to miss the morning shower report (still sleeping) and managed to fail on shower operations and was punished with cold showers. A 14 year old boy is not happy after a failed shower!

Your shower shoes were your best friends. I have always hated crocs until this trip. Most locations had very clean facilities and did their best to make you comfortable. For the price, about 35 to 40 Euros a night for 5 people, one cannot complain. We would have only been able to stay week if we needed a hotel room each night, plus we never had to pack and unpack while in the camper. The beds were moderately comfortable, I've slept on worse.

The kitchen was serviceable. Frederick's parents were in London the week before and made a large batch of spaghetti sauce and adobo (it's a Filipino pork dish) and rice. Many nights we just heated these up and ate in. We also managed to cook sausages and onions, potatoes, grilled cheese, ramen noodles, scrambled eggs and French toast. We survived with no microwave or oven. Most campsites had freshly baked bread you could purchase right on site. The smaller campsites had strict rules about silence after 10PM. In Prague, we were asked to shut off our air conditioner at midnight as it's reassuring hum was breaking the silence.

Some of the larger campsites had communal kitchens, pools, and restaurants. The sites near the Netherlands had karaoke, bingo, gambling and entertainment. Others had large playground for the kids. There were entertainers that were on the campground circuit. I imagine this is what upstate New York was like in the early 20th century. The Catskills, the borscht belt.

Each morning we'd all get up, and one by one or two by two head to the showers. Then I precede to find the coolest (not hip, cold) location to get ready. Sometimes this was outside. I'd set up the table, chairs and powerstrip and do my hair and makeup. At night when we returned, we might cook, but mostly we took out the 4 laptops we brought and searched for the wifi. Wifi was so frustrating! Sometimes it worked if you were close enough to reception. On 2 occasions we moved our campsite location to be closer to wifi. Sometimes in worked outside, but not inside. Sometimes it worked on one computer but not the other. In Munich they had no wifi, but they had a hard wired connection for 1 Euro an hour in a room next to the front office. We brought along our small portable router and made our own hotspot. Alex and I were inside the space next to the office, with our laptops, trying to conceal the router. Frederick and his parents were outside trying to look inconspicuous as they pulled down their email over the pirate wifi. For those you used the free, unsecured, Go Stars network that night....you are welcome.

Other sites required you purchase wifi time and receive a code on a slip of paper. You had to do this at reception and reception was often closed when we arrived. Sometimes we'd log out and lose the paper. Basically just a pain! Most of the larger sites expected you to stay for a week or more. Some have people who keep their pitch all year round. So, missing one night of wifi, doesn't seem like a big deal if they think you are staying longer.

The pitches are very close together. This isn't like you get your plot of woods and your neighbor is unseen. Most times the next campsite was 20ft away from you. Like houses close together, you can maneuver the awning side of the camper so you have maximum privacy. It really wasn't a problem.

As I said some people stay for a month or more. They really go all out to deck out their space, especially in near Holland. They bring landscaping, flowers, paving stones, outdoor carpet, fences and real furniture from home. It's like they create a 2nd country home. We thought we brought creature comforts...we were amateurs.

We had to learn to dance in smaller spaces, say excuse me a lot, but we learned. We'd have our panic moments as we couldn't find this phone charger or that brush. With all the cubbies you'd forget where you put stuff. Sometimes we'd roll out in a hurry and things would get stuffed in odd spaces. Over time we developed a rhythm. All the powerstrips (4 of them and an extension cord...we had full electricity when we were parked at camp) eventually all went back into one Costco bag each night, the same with my blow dryer, hot rollers, curling iron and make up. Laptops found a regular home.

When we'd stop for a time, not a campsite, to see a site, Frederick would switch the refrigerator to gas power to keep things cold. We had an enormous storage area in the back. I'd say 5ft by 5ft by 8ft. All the extra water and drinks, stand fan, table and chairs would stow there along with our suitcases. Plenty of room!

Would I travel like this again? Absolutely! We'd get a smaller camper to save the hairaising driving on some of the tiny roads, but camping was not a problem. Take this from a creature loving Taurus. There's no way we would have seen as much or stayed for so long without an expensive tour or be forced to drag our luggage off each connecting train. It only rained a few nights and we stayed dry under the awning or inside.

It was a great way to travel.

Salzburg Day 3

2010-07-26T08:12:00.005-05:00

This is where the Gondola took us...all the way to the top
Gondola
Mozart House
Salzburg Cathedral

This was the day we were going to ascend the Alps to Innsbruck (former location of the Winter Olympics), camp in Innsbruck and take the back roads to Oberammergau and Mad King Ludwig's Nieuwenstein Castle. After some harrowing roads traversed already in the giant camper (28ft long) we felt it was best not to test our luck. Plus, the Alps here were perfectly beautiful and we were enjoying our campground. It was nice to stay put for a few days. This meant I missed my trip down a real Alpine Slide. Ah well. I can do that in the US.

Our third day was spent strolling the streets of Salzburg during a weekday when all the shops were open. Picture a giant Disney World Main Street. Every shop, down every street feels like that. We had 2 objectives, first visit the birthplace of Mozart. It's an interesting little museum with lots of Mozart artifacts. You can stand in the room where he was born. A few streets over is the apartment his family moved to when he was a boy. His father rented this apartment for 60+ years. How many rent increases is that? The jewel of this museum is Mozart's piano. This is where much magic happened, I wasn't allowed to take a photo of it, because of the Nazi in the room, but here is a pick from Google.

We didn't stay as long as I would have lingered had I not been melting. A few days earlier I lost my portable battery operated fan down the quarry in Mauthausen. Pissed as a I was, I couldn't lament long, given humans were tossed to their death from the same spot. It was just a fan. In the giftshop I was able to purchase a manual fan. So now I could spend the rest of my time looking like a throw back, save the petticoats. Surprising effective was the fan...for as long as your arm could keep it moving.

We walked through the Roman styled squares and made our way to the Cathedral. Such a huge church for what is now a relatively tiny town. We toured the museums inside and wandered up to the massive 5 station pipe organ. Mozart was the organist at this church for several years. As we peered down to the alter from the organ perch the loudspeakers began a mass in English. This was Monday afternoon in Austria and we heard a mass in English. Very, Very Odd.

It seemed like a sign that we should attend the mass. As we made our way downstairs, there was what appeared to be a Irish tour group situated on pews on either side of the alter. (Members of the group did the readings and it appears they brought their own priest to co officiate the mass..lovely accent the Irish). We sat in the first pew in the congregation. People milled about touring the cathedral and we proceeded to recite the Profession of Faith. When it came time to take communion we were hesitant. What if they only brought enough hosts for the tour group? Father motioned us forward and we completed the mass contract.

We had purchased the Salzburg Card as it gave us unlimited access to their train system and free entrance to all the museums. It also included a ride in a gondola up to the top of the highest local peek. Highest, they weren't kidding. Poor Alex was petrified of the height and is scared of large rooms suspended from cables ascending 6000+ ft at a steep angle. Hum...perhaps we are the crazy ones.

Once at the top of the peak, we had more indescribable views of the city of Salzburg. We had a nice lunch at the top and made our way down to the final stop. The fortress. As I mentioned before the fortress is fully intact and dominates over the city. You take a funicular up to the top. This little shuttle is hell. They cram 20 people into the little cab and leave you there while wait for more passengers. I was drenched by the time they let us out at the top.

Once I reached the top, I really could have cared less about the castle. One more castle in Europe. I just wanted to be cool. We walked around the grounds and called it a day.

We took the local bus to the main station. There we found a supermarket that was open. Inside we took our time, search for goodies to eat the following week. Alex was beside himself when we found Dr Pepper stocked on the shelves. He bought 3 12 oz bottles and savored them over the next few days like Willy Wonka and his final chocolate bar. As we wandered around the store (me in search of maple syrup for French toast) several employees came up to us and spoke to us in German. We didn't understand what they said and just nodded as we always did. Soon they became more persistent. Alex finally heard them and translated that the store was already closed. We looked at our watch and it was 7:15PM....turns out the store closes at 7PM. Yikes, sorry about that. We didn't intend to be rude. We hurried to the cash register. Just as we were checking out I located the maple syrup and tossed it in our basket. Success! It was only after checking out did we notice that the 8oz bottle of syrup was 8 Euros! It was grade A Maple Syrup imported from Canada. It was in the specialty foods section. Ah well, it sure tasted good the next morning!

German grocery stores are a bit different. The cashier sits down on high raised comfy chair with a back and moves each item across the scanner onto a tiny platform next to her. You better be quick to grab the item and put it in your self provided bags or you will anger Hilda. Again as I mentioned, forget credit cards.....cash!

Back at the campsite we ate in. It was really a money saver not to have to eat every meal out.

Salzburg Day 2

2010-07-26T07:43:00.006-05:00

Entrance to The Eagle's Nest
Famed Fireplace
Alex at the top
That's Band of Brother's on the Zune, paused at the part that was shot in this hall
View from the top, from the bus on the way up
View from the bus to the Eagle's Nest
Inside the tunnels/bunker
The French Army leaves its mark
The inn that is still run by the decendants who refused to sell to the Nazis
Snarky Waitress Here!

Our second day in Salzburg was spent touring the Obersalzburg and the Berchtesgaden. If you saw Band of Brothers, there was a whole episode dedicated to the 101st Airborne taking this area. This was Hitler's 2nd home...like Nixon's Western Whitehouse. Before becoming Chancellor of Germany he lived in this area. He liked it so much that he purchased the home he was renting. There is much to like, you are at the foot of the Alps, ready to ascend. We took a bus to the main station and had a lunch on an outdoor patio while we waited for our tour guide to arrive. Oh, did we have the snarkest waitress. We don't expect American service here and in most cases, we have been treated very well, but this girl was having a really bad day.

Frederick had booked a 1/2 day tour with a professional guide. This was one of those areas that where I wanted to understand and absorb the history. Simply beautiful scenery was not enough.

We proceeded to board a large comfy motorcoach for the trip up the mountain to our first destination Hitler's bunkers. Turns out they were mainly built to provide a secure location for the many workers of the local hotel and other homes on the Berchtesgaden. By the end of the war, there were no private homes left in this area. All the homes were purchased by the Nazi party. Those who wouldn't sell were sent to work camps. They sold. There is a small inn that is still in operation by the family of the original owner. The owner would not sell to Hitler and he was one of those sent to the work camps and then later sold his inn. After the war, since the family could prove they resisted Hitler, they were allowed to have they inn back, once they repaid the money they were given. The others were not so lucky.

The bunkers are a massive structure. Deep underground they are a constant temperature, I guess around 60 degrees, a welcome respite from the 90+ degree heat. At one time they were lavish. Everything you could want, save sunlight. They are fairly barren now, as after the war the local population was allowed to strip the bunkers of materials to repair their own war damaged homes.

From the bunkers, we board specially equipped busses. These have more powerful motors and stronger brakes, AND hopefully extremely skilled drivers. Alex and I were in the front seat and had a first hand few of the death that would await us if the bus veered off the tiny mountain ,one way, switchback laden, road to the top. The Eagle's Nest was build as a teahouse and a gift for Hitler's 50th birthday. He only visited the Eagle's Nest a few times. It's now a restaurant. The views from the very top of this mountain are spectacular. The Nazi's had abandoned the location when the French and Americans first took the Eagle's Nest. You can still see the massive fireplace, a gift from Mussolini, with it's chipped corners. Americans shot at the fireplace to dislodge pieces as souvenirs.

We sat outside and snacked on some ice cream. So ironic for Americans be eating sundaes in Hitler's lair. Take that Furer! Quite creepy to walk where he walked. Bastard. After spending time at Terezin and Mauthausen, I found myself full of rage. How could people be so stupid? (Hum, I guess this blog isn't the best place to rant about the dangers of charismatic leaders...as Emily says, nevermind) Oh and on a separate note, Hitler was Austrian....Beethoven was German, not the other way around.

Mauthausen

2010-07-24T14:57:00.005-05:00

Between Vienna and Salzburg we stopped at a concentration camp called Mauthausen. It had special meaning for me as my Grandfather was part of the 11th Armored division that liberated this camp at the end of WWII. He had pictures that he took when he was there. I only saw them once as a child and they were frightening.

It was peaceful, terrifying and sad all at the same time. It's almost unimaginable how humans can treat other humans. It was difficult not to cry when you are standing in a gas chamber. This camp was especially heinous as it was a forced labor camp. The prisoners were made to work in a quarry and carry 50 pound stones up hundreds of stairs out of the quary. If you stumbled, you were shot or pushed off the edge of a cliff to your death. If you made it up the stairs, they gave you the choice of getting shot, or pushing the prisoner next to you off the cliff. Grandpapa, I know you were away from your family, but your time away was not in vain. Spending time following the path of my Grandfather's division makes me so proud of the work those men and women did. We are a great country and we do intend to do good.

Check out the Wikipedia page for Mauthausen, the details are chilling.

Mauthausen

Salzburg

2010-07-23T16:06:00.006-05:00

Looks like Rome...nope it's Salzburg...read on!

The Hills are Alive with the Sound of Music.
Salzburg from the Hohensalzburg Castle
Hohensalzburg Castle

City of Salt

My kind of town. Since I was old enough to have memory, I have craved salt. Rock Salt, Sea Salt, Kosher Salt, Salt Lick, Table Salt, Diamond Crystal Salt and now my favorite crystal flake salt. I chalk it up to some kind of chemical imbalance. I’m never without it. You never know when you’ll need more salt.

It’s a good thing I didn’t live in the middle ages or earlier. Prior to the availability of ice and refrigeration, salt was a very valuable commodity. It was THE way to preserve food. The city of Salzburg owes its wealth to the salt mines nearby. It would be like craving gold today!

Salzburg has an impressive intact middle ages castle/fortress, which has never been attacked. It's a quaint city at the base of the Alps. It has an amazing cathedral and beautiful squares. The Prince/Archbishops who held the seat of power for many years were both sacred and secular rulers. One of them was enamored with Rome and designed much of the city and squares with fountains and such to match the eternal city. Its 16th and 17th century homes and buildings are well preserved. However, if two fortuitous events had not happened in its vicinity than its unlikely we tourists would put it on the map. The Sound of Music story begins here and much of the movie were shot here. Maria Von Trapp’s story draws many, many visitors to follow in her footsteps. I wonder how many are shocked to find out that Fraulein Maria looks more like a haggard laundress than Julie Andrews. Truly the scenery is spectacular. The movie does not do it justice. As a former Liesl one feels the need to see the famous gazebo. However, since an old woman, several years back, fell and broke something trying to skip around the inside, it has been shut down. No need to pay the $$ if I can't skip. I did get to see the hills that are alive with the sound of music and the lake.

The 2nd event and the reason for my visit is this is the birthplace of Mozart. On our 3rd day here I was able to tour the house he was born in and see the house he grew up in. I viewed his piano. So from death to birth I have made my pilgrimage to bear witness to his genius. Now, I can go home and have personal images every time I listen to Nachtmusik or Don Giovanni.

These days Salzburg treats Mozart like Orlando treats the mouse. He's a mascot. Every shop hawks its Mozart connection. I know he loves this! Mozart sings, Hey, Hey I wanna be rock star.

We arrived in Salzburg on Sunday and after moving our camper to the most advantageous location, we promptly hit the campground pool. It's hotter than hell here. And...no one has heard of air conditioning or ice...of course people die when it hits above 90.

I take that back, they have heard of ice when it comes to filling their pools. As hot as it was outside the pool was equally as cold. It was rather small and Europeans wear speedos and have no sense of personal space. As soon as we were cooled off, we made our exit. Everyone hit the showers and we headed off by bus in to the “old town” on the correct side of the river. Not much going on for a Sunday night. We searched for a place to eat. Alex was caught by a menu hawking spaghetti and we decided to have Italian for the night. Upstairs in another ancient building we went. Again..even at 7pm this place was brutally hot.

Luckily the food was good, because the rest of the dining experience was subpar. Americans are not used to nursing their 2.50 euro 8 ounce glass of water or soda through an entire meal. Free refills..haha! Ice haha! Food coming out at the same time? Ha ha

Credit card machine working and being able to pay the bill in 20 minutes after you give them your credit card....ha ha.

Again we were dripping hot and we took the bus back to the campground. The pool closed at 8PM. We arrived at the campsite at 7:55PM. I made my way to the camper, donned my bathing suit and hit the pool in 5 minutes flat. A quick ice bath and I was human again.

An hour or so fighting the ultra slow internet and we were ready to head in for the night.

Tomorrow.....Hitler's Eagle's Nest. Alex is in bed watching the Eagle's Nest, Band of Brothers episode and is getting psyched!

Vienna Day 2

2010-07-21T18:20:00.004-05:00

St Stephen's Cathedral

Reflection of the Cathedral in a the modern building next door

Schonbrunn Palace

I spent the evening working on reports for work. If I had more reliable internet access, I could work anywhere. Our first stop of the day was Schonbrunn Palace. This is the “summer home” of the Habsburgs. History is such an immense subject. What was 2 days in Western Civ course in high school took place over 600 years. Frankly Austria, let alone Hungary were just a small footnote. Hardly even real places. It was in this palace that a 5 year old prodigy Mozart gave a concert to the Empress Maria Teresa. This is the next step on my Mozart tour. We also took in an apple strudel baking show and Frederick’s Mom got to participate. We’ve seen palaces and castles of this size before, but this one, for all its opulence still looked like someone’s home. It was a refreshing change. After the palace tour we took the subway into town and walked around the main tourist area. Vienna is a large and vibrant city, new and old stand side by side. Growing up in the US when you think about the workings of a city in our earliest days, say 1790, you don’t picture a huge metropolis. European cities were as big and busy as NYC is today in the 1600’s and so much of the architecture survives. As we walked through the main square, Alex and I saw the same guy who sold us the tickets to the concert the night before. We wanted to keep telling all his new “victims” not to buy the tickets, until he gave us our money back…but we were thwarted by the rest of our traveling party. Something about not wanting to make scene or get arrested. Whatever! A stop at St. Stephen’s cathedral and a stop at Momma’s for Schnitzel (loving the Schnitzel) and we were ready to head back to the camp ground. It’s the middle of World Cup Mania and all the campers are huddled around TV’s watching the matches. Ultimately, as you know, Spain won, but the Netherlands and Germany advanced far…it would have been fun to be in the country that won it all, just to see the spectacle.

Next up is Salzburg for 3 days. We were going to head down to Innsbruck, but the roads are pretty twisty and we are losing a day in Salzburg because it’s Sunday. Everything in Germany is closed on Sunday except gas stations, restaurants and stores at the train stations. So, it just a useless day when you travel. Also during the week, the stores all close at 7PM…what a pain! And…hardly anyone takes credit cards. Even IKEA is cash only….yes I’ll have a NAASKSIK book case and a IHFAAAKD desk and here is my wad of CASH. Eughhh!!!!

We’ll make a quick stop at Mauthausen. This is a concentration camp my grandfather help liberate in 1945. I didn’t mention it before, but we also went to Terezin prior to heading to Budapest. This was another work camp run by the Nazi’s. Alex did a play called, I Never Saw Another Butterfly where he portrayed a 17 year old boy who actually was housed in Terezin and eventually died in Auschwitz. It’ was really moving for him to see the actual place where this person spent his final years.

Salzburg….what’s not to like….it’s the city of SALT!!!! It’s named for the Salt mines nearby that brought the city all it’s wealth. It’s also the city where Mozart was born and lived as a child when he was not traveling as a musical sideshow. Oddly, I find so many parallels between Mozart and Michael Jackson. Both were child prodigies exploited by their fathers, both never grew up and tried to recapture the childhoods they lost and both died early.

Vienna

2010-07-17T17:09:00.003-05:00

The drive from Budapest to Vienna was rather smooth and fairly short, perhaps 2 hours. We found Camping Wien (Vienna) and set up shop in spot directly across from the facilities. Again the internet was slow and sketchy, but it was available on Frederick's computer. Just enough to look at email, but not enough to upload pictures. What do I miss about home? FIOS!

We woke up early and took a bus to the subway station. I had one goal for Vienna, to seek the agreed on location of Mozart's grave. Contrary to popular opinion Mozart wasn't dumped in a pauper's grave, he was buried with others as was the custom of the day. He died at just 35 years old from “military fever”. What that is, no one is really sure. He was working on a requiem mass when he died. It ha been said that he feared working on it as he felt he might be writing it for his own death. I had the joy of watching the entire requiem mass performed at the Meyerson Symphony Hall in Dallas last year. You truly feel like you are hearing the voice of God when it is performed. What a way to honor a departed beloved than to have this requiem mass sung in their honor. About 20 years after Mozart's death, his widow could not remember exactly where he was buried. Mozart had become even more famous. I assume they decided he needed his own stone. The current marked location is a guess, but it can't be too far off as it isn't a huge cemetery. Many years later the memorial was moved to the Central cemetery to be with the actual graves of Bach, Beethoven, etc. I wanted to be at the actual site. The current site is marked with a headstone that was put together with broken pieces from other sites. It must not be visited very often as the directions to get to it are sketchy at best. We knew where the cemetery was located on a map, but getting there via subway and walking was tricky. We ended up asking the attendant the subway station, but she gave us the wrong stop. It was soooooo hot when we exited the station. In fact it has been hot since we left Frankfurt. 90 degrees plus. The path to the site was up hill and surrounded with trees, all of he older headstones, from the 1800’s were quite grown over. You can imagine the carriage carrying the coffin making its way up the path. Then out of nowhere a clearing appears to the right and there is Mozart’s grave. Step 1 of the journey is complete.

We make our way out of the cemetery and head for the city center to visit the apartment that Mozart lived in when he was in Vienna. Step 2 These are the apartments portrayed in Amadeus. Again, to be standing in the room where The Magic Flute was composed was quite the thrill for me.

We spend about an hour here and then headed back to the main square. We had intended to enter St. Stephen's cathedral, however we found that Frederick was being chatted up by one of the many concert hucksters in the square. When you go to Vienna, you really do want to hear live classical music. The ticket salesperson took credit cards and was offering us 2 free tickets for our party of 5 to see a Mozart and Stauss live concert. So we decided it was a good deal and headed over to the venue. Well...it was exactly has described, however it was all much smaller. It was a quartet, including piano, with one singer and 2 ballet dancers. The room was a small salon and quite crowded and hot. The people in front of us were from Montreal and were quite upset as they had paid full price, for what we all thought was a theater. A small vacation indulgence. The performers were quite good and we were able to say we heard Mozart in Vienna. The leader of the group kept continuing to take bows….it’s was quite funny. Each time the audience clapped, he brought the group back for an encore. I think they were clapping more because the concert was over, as it was quite warm in the room. This brought our first day in Vienna to an end. More tomorrow.

Prague Continued...then Budapest

2010-07-16T02:52:00.007-05:00

Budapest pics
Part of Castle Hill... more pics up on webshots...soon.

Anonymous Statute in Budapest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gesta_Hungarorum"

..odd

St. Stephen Magyar King

Parliament and the Danube

What is the infant Jesus of Prague?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant_Jesus_of_Prague

We walked back to the tramstation, headed back to the campsite and were ready for our first long day of travel. Our destination is Budapest. To get there we must travel southeast through the Czech Republic, a quick jaunt through Slovakia and then into Hungary. Each of these countries required some kind of toll vignette, so while crossing the borders is now easier due to the EU, we still had to stop and figure out how to pay our toll and get our sticker. Our plan was to stay in Slovakia for the night and then head on to Budapest. We got the bright idea that we would push on to the campground in Budapest. This made for a very long drive, about 6 hours. Just let me say the Czech roads are horrendous. The cement must not have a good foundation because every section was a different height. I'm sure it was also magnified by being in a huge motorhome and being required to ride in the truck lane. Czechland, please use my toll money to make improvements! Things improved once we got to Slovakia. We spent about 30 minutes driving through Slovakia. However we were able to stop at the 24hr Tesco Hypermarket. We were able to stock up on groceries and they took credit cards. As you will see.... Germany and Austria don't really take credit cards and every store (except gas stations and convenience stores at train stations) like grocery stores and such close at 8PM. This has been very difficult as we seem to pull into camp around 8PM every night. So our trip to the Tesco Hypermarket was quite welcome. This is the 2nd time we tried to purchase Nestle Quik, but each time Alex says it tastes different than home. We thought it might be the milk, but he says the plain milk is just fine. Note to self, along with Peanut Butter (which we brought, thank goodness) bring Quik. In the parking lot we stopped at the McDonalds to have SHRIMP...yup...and it was pretty good.

We pressed on and arrived at the campground around midnight. We grabbed the first open spot and moved closer to the facilities in the AM. We spent 2 nights here with unlimited hot water showers and decent wifi. We slept in and I worked on some reports for work. That afternoon we had a guide coming to pick us up and take us on a tour of the city. Barbara and her driver Aaron were there right at 2PM. We drove into the city into Hero's Square. It was here we learned the history of Hungary. The 7 tribes of the Magyars came from Siberia to settle on the Danube river. It was a Hungarian King, later to be canonized St. Stephen who converted the pagan tribes to Christianity. This is credited with keeping the city in tact. Many kings and rulers later the Hungarians found themselves on the losing side of WWI and WWII. The WWI loss caused Hungary to lose 5/6ths of their land to neighboring countries. From what Barbara the guide says they are still smarting from that loss. Many native Hungarians are minorities in other countries and are mistreated.

One of the great things about travel is learning that everyone has the same problems. Living in Texas I would never know that there is much bad blood between Slovakia and Hungary. Recently there were concerns of war breaking out over the Hungarian population living in Slovakia. Hungary just elected their version of Kennedy and they are all expecting Camelot. The new prime minister just granted citizenship to all ethnic Hungarians, no matter where they live. I guess the world will wait and see if things get better. Apparently after the Communists left, within a few years the people voted the Communists back into power. As a child of the cold war, I'm always fascinated to hear first hand stories of what life was like behind the iron curtain. How much we take for granted the ability to travel wherever and whenever we choose.

We went up to Castle Hill and had great views of the Hungarian Parliament building across the Danube River. It was a very beautiful sight. We were introduced to “Kurtoskalacs, chimney stove cake” a kind of inside out cinnamon roll. Cinnamon roll dough is wrapped around a 3 inch baking tube and then put on a spit. The spit rotates around a flame source until the pastry is cooked. Quite yummy! Our guide dropped us off a recommended spot for dinner. Turns out she was correct. She recommended some wine for dinner and dessert. It turned out to be quite a reasonable feast. A short subway ride back to the campground and we tucked in for the night. Next up Vienna.

Budapest, Vienna, Salzburg, Munich

2010-07-15T03:43:00.002-05:00

Yes, we have already hit all these spots. I have my notes, I just need to write the blogs. Today is a travel day to Bastongne so I will do my best to write it all out. We are having a wonderful time and the little and big hiccups are not getting us down. "It's not life threatening."

Here's the 2 cent tour.

Budapest, beautiful, interesting post communism, not much that is isn't rebuilt after being bombed off the map in WWII, not much is authentically old. Has a persecution complex.

Vienna, Mozart, music..really amazing to walk in his footsteps, visit his grave. It made my day. Busy, beautiful city.

Mauthhausen, concentration camp. Humbling to stand in a actual gas chamber. Thanks to my Grandpapa for being part of the liberation force for this camp. He done good.

Salzburg, nice campsite, quaint little town. More Mozart, birthplace and childhood home. Beautiful cathedral..on a Tuesday afternooon stumbled on an English language Mass...had to stay.

Trip up to Hitler's Eagle's Nest. Looks just like it did in Band of Brothers. Bastard had it very good for awhile.

Alps are simply stunning. No words to describe.

Munich....stopped at Oberammergau and Nieuwenstein Castle. Hopefully pics tonite.

Auf Wiedersehen!

Observations

2010-07-13T02:01:00.002-05:00

1. When staying at a campground, one is completely willing to interact anonymously with others in nothing but a terry robe and a hair towel if you are walking to and from the showers; however one is not willing to go to the office and purchase a laundry token in a terry robe and hair towel. Hum.....

2. This is our 3rd trip to Europe, but the first without benefit of a food boat (otherwise known as a cruise ship). We are on our own to feed ourselves for each meal. It seems very clear now why Americans are larger than their European counterparts. Portion sizes. Every meal is the size of an appetizer. Products in the grocery store look like the sizes you find at the convenience store.

Perhaps, I'll have to get over my former waitress phobia of splitting an entrée. Yes, servers do think you are cheap when you only order 1 entrée. It's pure math, 15%-20% of a smaller check means less income. Restaurants have tried smaller sizes, I'm just not sure how successful they have been.

Also it's just harder to be larger here. Getting anywhere is not easy. It all requires walking or walking to public transportation. Exercise just happens. We are a product of our own success. Cheap food, a myriad ways of entertainment that don't require movement, and easy ways to get around town. Being thin here is a product of lifestyle...they don't work at it. Americans have to work at it.

Timeless Prague

2010-07-12T03:02:00.005-05:00

Prague

This door is used in Amadeus. I'll try and grab a screen shot.
In Amadeus Mozart walks down this street.
Prague across the river.
The Estates Theater...Mozart conducted the premier of Don Giovanni here.

Once we find the Campsite in Prague the tourist part of our vacation begins. Our host, Peter at Dana Camping couldn't have been more accommodating. He had a large site set aside for us and made sure did not have to turn around to exit the campground. Just a short walk around the corner brings us to a tram stop that will take us into the heart of Prague. We have lined up a Segway Movie Tour for all of us. It takes us a bit to find the location of the start of the tour. When we do, we realize that it's exactly where we dead ended with the motorhome that afternoon. It seems impossible that we fit in that small space. Of course we hadn't remembered to bring our voucher, but technology comes to the rescue. We used remote access on the internet cafe computer to access our home computer and then email it to ourselves. From there we just had to log onto webmail and print it.

Across the street was pizza for Alex and paninis for the rest of us. Soon it was time to hop on the segways. Oh how I love a Segway! I wish we could afford to rent them for the whole trip!

Many movies have been filmed in Prague. Of course Amadeus (the only movie filmed there while Prague was under communist rule) but also Van Helsing, Borne Identity, The Prince and Me, Bad Company and the ridiculous EuroTrip. The funny thing about Eurotrip is that is the story of American teenagers visiting several cities in Europe, but the entire film was shot in Prague. Our guide Rene was from Brazil, but had been living in Prague for many years. A child of hippies, with his dreads, too hip jeans and motorcycle boots, he looked like a euro Bob Marley. The combination of a native Portuguese speaker, who has been speaking Czech and speaking now to us in English made for a very entertaining accent. Along with us on our tour was a mother and teenage daughter from Birmingham England. The Mom was at the counter asking Rene many questions before the start of our tour. Alex was quite certain he was witnessing a live Monty Python sketch. The Mom sounded just like Eric Idle in drag. We had a good laugh. They were very nice and we had a great time with them.

Rene brought along a small video player and showed us film scenes directly in front of the place where they were shot. In the photos you'll see the square that doubled as Copenhagen in The Prince and Me, the bench in “Berlin” where Matt Damon is sleeping in Borne Identity and several Amadeus locations. We took the Segways all the way up the hill to Prague Castle. We were quite thankful to have them as the trip up there is quite a hike uphill. Maneuvering the steep inclines on the segway took some skill, but we managed. I only fell once. It cost me the screen on one of my cameras (I think the cable is just loose inside) and a huge bruise on my leg, but otherwise the machine and I were one.

Prague is an extremely beautiful city. The old town has been left undisturbed by time. The segways are a great way to see the city as you can see more than what you could manage if you were walking and get to places you'd never see on a bus. We toured for about 2 hours and then stopped for a nice dinner. The guide negotiated the Czech dishes. Oh try our national dish.....it's &&^%%^&*)^, OK sure. It arrives....it's schnitzel. It was good, but it was schnitzel. Schnitzel is breaded and fried veal, ( or chicken or pork). It's very good. I think every culture has a version of this... in Japan its tonkatsu....it America is Chicken Mc Nuggets. I wonder if the foodies of America would hate it less if the served McSchnizel.

After dinner we made our way down the steep incline of the castle hill. It was now dark and city was even more beautiful after dark. Rene explained that the communists just abandoned the old city center during their dark rule. Prior to the liberation most of the old city center was left vacant. Now all the buildings are loving lived in and the area is a mecca for visitors. A walk back across the historic Charles Bridge and short trolly ride later we were back at the campground ready for a good night sleep. We were disappointed to find that the WIFI required a key and at midnight there was no one around to give it to us. Frederick tried all his hacking skills, but to no avail. So, if you ever stay at Haller Camping in Prague the WIFI key is 1111111111...eugh!!!! (we found this out the next AM). No internet...no TV...just go to sleep!

Next morning we woke up early and took advantage of the facilities. Unlimited hot water..no token. Everything was spotless. It's really nice not to have to use the shower in the camper. These campsites run from 20 to 40 Euros a night. They are such a value. Electricity, showers, laundry, restaurant, grocery. I really wish I had the vision when I was younger to just travel to Europe on the cheap. I was so concerned about working and getting a life, I missed some prime traveling opportunities. I didn't fly in a airplane till I was 19 and didn't cross the Mississippi River till I was 26. I'm making up for it now. When Alex is safely on his own, I'm certain we will sell our house and become vagabonds.

We take the tram back into the city for more sightseeing. I had my heart set on seeing the Estates Theater. This is a theater that has been in continuous operation for more than 250 years. It's the National Opera house for the Czech Republic. If you have seen Amadeus, you have scene the interior. Unfortunately, the inside is only open during performances. They do not give tours. I tried to sneak in the back door, but no luck. We walked back across the bridge to see the Infant of Prague church.....

Continued when I get a moment to finish.............

Prague

2010-07-08T19:05:00.012-05:00

This may be the city that inspired this entire trip. In 1984 I had a friend take me to see Amadeus. I have been in love with Mozart's music ever since. I have always related more to Salieri as a character, but you can't deny Mozart's talent. I've watched the movie countless times and saw the play on Broadway. A few years back was Mozart's 200th birthday. I read about he celebrations and such and wanted to be a part of it all. It wasn't possible at that time, but as soon as I could put the deal together we built this trip. The first half is walking in the shadow of Herr Mozart.

Most of the movie Amadeus was filmed in Prague, even though the setting is in Salzburg or Vienna. Prague is such a well preserved town that the director Milos Forman was confident he wouldn't need to make many changes to get an authentic look. This movie was filmed when Prague was still under the scourge of communism. If you ever have chance to watch the making of Amadeus on the directors cut of the DVD you'll learn of the challenges in making a movie behind the iron curtain.

So, we start in Prague. Mozart visited Prague 4 times in his life and was always well received. More so than even in his native Austria. He premiered his opera Don Giovanni at the Estates Theater. In the Movie, the main opera scenes are filmed in this theater. It stands as it did in the 18th century. Sadly I wasn't allowed to go inside as there are no tours. One has to have tickets to a performance to go inside. But I did get to see it in person and know that Mozart conducted his Don Giovanni from its pit.

Prague is a stunningly beautiful city. You can keep Paris. I was more impressed with Prague.

I'll have the webshots album up soon.

So, let me share with you our continuing camper adventures.

We leave our impromptu campsite outside of Frankfurt and begin what we know will be a longer drive to Prague. We expect about 4.5 hours. Everything packs up nicely and we make it out of the narrow campground streets. About 2/3's of the way there on a 2 lane divided highway we start to see trucks and cars towing camper trailers stopped in the right lane. We move to the left and cruise on by. Literally this goes on for miles. We are very puzzled. I took awhile for us to figure out that the trucks and towing cars cannot drive in the left lane, so whatever is causing this jam is going to keep them there in that position for quite a while. Just as we were discussing our good fortune our lane begins to stop. We can't see ahead of us, except to see people getting out of their cars and walking around. Never a good idea on a busy freeway. This delay was about an hour. It turns out there was an accident on a bridge ahead and the road had to go down to one lane. This was all it took to create a 10 mile backup. Poor Frederick was dealing in stop and go traffic in a standard vehicle. You don't appreciate how easy it is to drive an automatic until you have to control the transmission. After the long wait, we were on our way to Prague. A bit delayed yes, but we just had to be in town by 7PM for our tour. It's now about 2:30PM. We are about an hour and half away. As we cross the border in to the Czech Republic we have to stop at "Czech Stop" (that's for our friends who travel I35 to Austin...google it). We have to pick up an electronic tolltag due to the size of our vehicle. It records the actual mile you drive and bills your credit card accordingly. You think DMV forms are fun in English....try them in Czech!

We have survived our first border crossing. Horray! If our RV wasn't so large, we would have just crossed the border like you'd cross into any different state. However, the roads were a mess. The concrete that was not level, so every bump was magnified. Things look very different. I'm very intrigued by the pop art subculture of marketing and such. A drive across the US and Canada will show you that most all the adverts are the same. There is a tone and texture to our ads. The tone and texture of the ads and building signs in Czech were very foreign. It never ceases to amaze me how many different, totally unrecognizable words can be made with 26 letters a few other odd characters. The roads were oddly connected, the inclines were not to the code you are normally used to. Thanks to our handy GPS we were taking the turns like a pro....until we weren't. Somewhere about 4 miles from our campsite we took a wrong turn. "Recalculating" Ok, we'll just follow where it says and that will get us back on track. Oh contraire mon amis. Our GPS detoured us right through the Mala Strana. This is part of the old town, built for horses and people, not 27 ft RV's. Now we could not know this until it was too late. Frederick's Dad has some video that I need to post, but just let me tell you Frederick was a savior behind the wheel. Everyone stopped dead in their tracks to simultaneously mouth in whatever language the spoke, "what the hell is that RV think it's doing?" or "where are they going?". We were the Griswolds. We had to back up twice and go the wrong way on 2 one way streets to get out of dodge. Ok, we know where the campground is, but we have to cross the river to get to it. The GPS wants to send us through plague spreading tight quarters and that just won't work. Eventually we drive around larger streets and do the Columbus thing of going one way to get to another. We make it to the campsite and all is well. They have a big spot ready for us, no need to back out. The tram stop to get to downtown for our tour was just around the corner. A short ride and a short walk and a trip to tourist info gets us where we need to be. All is well, but it was a bit of a adventure. We know that we have to be careful about wrong turns, as you don't have as many options as you do in a car. After this we told the GPS we were a bus, so we are hoping it will now route accordingly.

This isn't one of my pictures, but it gives you a sense of the size of street we had to negotiate. There were also many more people when we were there.

Next up, Prague Movie Segway Tour!

PANIC!!!!

2010-07-08T03:21:00.008-05:00

Ok, I hesitate to write this as it only serves to highlight my stupidity, but in the interest in of full disclosure I must share the details.

The day started out perfectly. We ate packed up our things at the Sheraton Offenbach (yes, I used points...free room!) and headed over to McRent (McRent? why do I find that hysterical?) to pick up our camper. Great bunch of people over there. Normally you can't pick up your camper till 3pm, but it was ready at noon. We watched a 20 minute DVD on how to operate all the bells and switches. It's a monster! I'll have pics when I have a bit more time to get them into the blog. It's 27ft long. We also were pleasantly surprised to find that it had air conditioning in the cabin when you are stopped and on 240V power. Whoo Hoo! No one hates to be hot more than I and truthfully, I was a bit worried about the heat. Also, it has a AUX port. We had brought our ancient FM transmitter and an external speaker so our driver could sing along to full broadway musicals as we traveled the countryside. No need for those solutions. We just hooked up to the AUX port and the whole family can sing along. We can now measure our drives in musicals. For example, the trip from Prague to Budapest is 3 shows (Rent, Wicked and 1776).

For comfort you can't beat this motorhome. For maneuverability.....did I say it was comfortable? It's big and that makes for some harrowing maneuvers at times, but we've survived so far. Good stories to be shared at another time.

We drive off the camper lot and down the street. Frederick proceeds to stall the engine at the first light. It's a standard and if you haven't done it in awhile, I guess you have to get your legs under you again. (Not that I would know, my coordination skills prohibit me from driving a stick). I have to say he has been an amazing driver. More testament to that later as well.

So, we drive over to the hotel and load our stuff. The hotel is up on a bit of an incline and has a very tight oval drive. We decided against bringing the beast up the drive and left it at the curb. No need to test our turning radius just yet. We loaded up our things on the luggage carts and rolled them down the 100ft to our camper. While we were getting the camper, Alex was back at the hotel doing whatever 14 year old boys do on the internet, using my big Dell Vostro computer. (We have our netbook and Frederick's computer, but mine is "awesome", so the boy says.) We loaded up the camper and proceeded to head over to the best equivalent that Germany has to Target to load up on supplies. I'll save the details for a post on the comparative strengths and weaknesses of shopping in Germany and Slovakia. We had a quick lunch at the cart outside (Picture carts in front of Home Depot) Our group had gyros, hot dogs and cheeseburgers. Quite yummy. Alex got to practice some German. The vendor spoke English but was happy to indulge Alex in his German. We picked up supplies and loaded up the camper. The plan was to head to Nurnberg for a shakedown of how to set up camp. Nurnberg is about 2 hours east.

About 1 hour into our journey, my thought is to grab my laptop and knock out some more work. Laptop....laptop......where is the laptop? Alex was using it at the hotel and I saw him pack it up. The rest is blurry. I hopped up and looked in the camper and didn't see it. I couldn't remember putting the laptop in the camper. Alex said he sat it on the bed and told me it was there. OH MY GOD. It might as well be Armageddon. We continue to drive and I call the hotel to see if they have it. They say no one has turned one in. We decide to head back to Offenbach. To do so we get off the autobahn and get our first taste of how big the camper is. The GPS wants to send us through an underpass that we can't negotiate. A few course corrections later and we are driving back to Frankfurt. I called the hotel back to ask for the manager. They tell me no one has checked into 419 but they will go up and check again. They want me to call back in 10 minutes. As you can imagine my stomach is in full acid attack. It's about 2 notches down from when we lost Alex for 5 minutes when he was 4 years old at the San Antonio riverwalk. I told Alex not to worry, and not feel bad, this was not his fault. It's my responsibility to know where my stuff is, not his. All scenarios are running through my mind. I have remote access on my netbook, but I don't have a full version of office and certainly not the tools to do the reports I need to do. When was the last time I backed up? Do I have to re run everything I ran before I left? Ah, I finished 3 reports on the plane..have to do those again. Can Frederick pull down a 2003 version of excel as 2007 will add much time to my work. Oh Sigh. Say nothing of the cost for me to replace it. (After just having to spent $2,800 to replace the air conditioner at the house the day before we left, that would have been a kick in the .....ahh painful).

I call back, no laptop....chambermaid is off her shift...can you call her?....she doesn't have a phone......"our chambermaids are very honest" "we've looked everywhere". That's the reality, it's gone. All this time we had been driving back to Frankfurt/Offenbach, but there is no need to continue. Nurnberg is too far away, so we decide to stop at the closest campsite to where we are. We have a DVD of all the Europe campsites so we pull up a map and pick a spot. It's pretty crowded and right by a lake. We get a sense of how big our motorhome is compared to the others when everyone stops and stares as we drive in. (This will now happen all the time, I just pretend we are rockstars) The caretaker is out on the lake so we must wait for him to return. This requires moving the motorhome several times to let others pass. Finally he returns and directs us to spot. Nice spot, we hook up the electricity...but this site has no WIFI! We picked all our sites to have WIFI. So, I can do nothing. I can't begin to work on the problem. I need access to do anything. This is how the world was 20 years ago. I'm not prepared to go back.

I decide to take a walk to check out the facilities and clear my head. It will be 24 hours before I can do anything. I think about drinking. That will get me through the night. I decide the hangover isn't worth it. I took stock of my blessings. My family is healthy, I have a great job I love, I love my house and my life in Dallas. I'm in Europe. This is just a problem to solve. A big one, but I can do it. St. Jude, help me out of this one. (I've been keeping him busy lately)

As I'm walking back to the campsite I see Frederick and Alex walking up the road. Their are faces trying to contain what looked to be smiles...yes smiles. Alex runs ahead to meet me....hey...guess what we found? Ah.....sweet sigh of pure relief. What a feeling. (Yes, Flashdance was running through my head and I did the maniac dance) The laptop was in 1 of the 30 closed cubbies in the motorhome. I've thought of this 100 times since and I can't recall putting it there. No one else did either. I must have, but I can't bring the picture to my mind.

So, we decide to skip Nurnberg altogether, get up early and head straight to Prague. It's a bit farther than we wanted to drive, but it works. We just need to be in town by 7PM for our Segway tour.

They say things happen for a reason. This happened to teach me a little lesson. I have no more currency to spend on worry this vacation. My patience has been infinitely expanded. I have been saved from the silicone gallows. The rest of this is going to be a breeze.

From my "Workstation in Budapest"

On the way to Germany

2010-07-04T20:19:00.025-05:00

Ground control to Major Tom. As I tucked myself in for the night in my American Airlines first class pod, I imagine that this is what space travel will be like in 50 years. (And yes I’m very pissed I won’t be around to see it.) I had personal space, access to entertainment and fairly decent food. I was reclining, much like you would in a dentist chair and summoning all of my powers to put my body into hibernation. I wasn’t totally successful, but for the few hours I managed, I dreamed I was on a flight to the Moon. Then I kicked it up a notch into fully flat mode and I dreamed I was in giant Copperfield magic trick where the coiffed magician had a giant hula hoop and he was passing it around the plane to prove he had levitated me as I lay on that bed in the sky. There is something unnerving and amazing to be lying down on your side, pillow under your head and comforter on your body and below your bed is nothing but 30,000 feet of atmosphere.

Yes, we are on our way to Frankfurt. Those 3 years of putting every damn penny spent on the credit card finally paid off. (Thank you Patrice for teaching me the ways of the mileage grab.) Frequent flyer travel in international first class is the holy grail of us mileage chasers. Our premier international first class experience was just the way to start off an adventure. As you see here, it even impressed my sonshine.

If you know Alex, you know it takes a lot to impress him, his highs are certainly never too high. It didn’t compare to his flight on that WWII era B-24 Liberator year or so ago, (John and Alec, he will be forever grateful to you for letting him have last spot on “Witchcraft”, still the highlight of his 14 years. ), but it was in the neighborhood.

So take this physical change of space and add an aural sensory shift. Using the provided Bose noise canceling headphones, one can access the “Sleep” audio channel. When I listened it was the sound of a mild rain. Another weird sensation 30K feet in the air. I found myself concentrating on listening for patterns in the rain sounds. “Oh didn’t they just play that combination of left ear tinkle, tinkle, tinkle, right ear, plop?” I guess my mind can’t be shut down by the recorded sounds of rain. I did manage to knock out a few reports for work, so all it is not lost. I watched the pilot to Royal Pains, (not bad) and several episodes of the BBC sitcom Miranda. (hilarious!)

After night of trying to force myself to sleep, all while watching my Alex and Frederick knock out zzzz like pros (this will become a pattern I fear), breakfast is served and then we land in Frankfurt. No complaints here, German efficiency had us out of the terminal, all bags in hand and off to our hotel in under an hour.

The Starwood gods smiled upon us and granted us a room, ready for check in at 9:00AM. Our weary band vegged at the hotel, unpacking the toys, napping and watching Kevin Costner listen that voice in the sky say “ease his pain, Leichtigkeit seine Schmerzen, ” in German. I think the best way to learn a new language is to watch a movie you know by heart in another language. Field of Dreams fits the bill. They didn’t even do a bad job dubbing James Earl Jones.

And yes, Field of Dreams makes me cry in German as well. I am forever thankful for a Dad who was always happy to have a catch with is daughter. I’ll bet when he bought his baseball glove in the early 60’s he couldn’t have imagined it would be his daughter’s prized possession.

We are staying in Offenbach for the day, as this is where we pick up the RV on Monday. Nice little town, decent pizza. From what I hear, Offenbach is like Oakland to Frankfurt’s San Francisco, with all the inferiority complexes that come with being the also ran to a great city. The subway station is just next door. After fumbling around with the subway ticket machine, a stranger came to our aide and hooked us up with the right tickets to the Frankfurt Main Train station. He was a bit curious as to why tourists would be going to the train station, as it’s “not a very nice area, red light district and all”. We were on our way to pick up Frederick’s parents who were coming in on the train from London via Brussels. While we waited at the train station Alex had his obligatory chicken nuggets in another foreign city and we have another picture for the Mc Donald's around the world collage.

Lola and Lolo were the last ones off their train, but right on time. We took a cab back to the hotel, grabbed some beer and pizza

(the first in country dunkel!)

and headed back to the room for some sleep. {Alex requests that I confess that he drank none of this beer}

Tomorrow we pick up the RV, stop at the German WalMart equivalent for supplies and drive to Nürnberg. We’ll update you then. As Heidi would say, Auf Wiedersehen!

2010 New Adventure

2010-06-23T08:10:00.007-05:00

Mickie, Frederick and Alex are soon to be on the road again. This time we are forgoing the sea for some overland adventure. It's an RV trip! (Can you tell we hate to unpack!)

Our epic trip starts and ends in Frankfurt. Along the way we will spend much time with Herr Mozart and relive the journey my grandfather and many others took in WWII.

Alex has a year of German under his belt, so we shall see how much he has retained.

Stay tuned...this should be a good one!

Oh, and the little boy is not so little anymore.

Dorothy, We’re Not in Kansas Anymore, PT II

2008-01-27T03:10:00.000-06:00

Off to Manila. My first 747. Somehow, for me, this has always been the holy grail of travel. When you sit out on the DFW tarmac for hours on end in your American Airlines Super 80, you see the “big” planes go by. A 747 meant I was going somewhere cool! By the time I was in a position to do any real travel, the 747 was replaced by the 777. The 777 is a beautiful airplane, wide body, high tech, spacious. But…it’s not the plane from AIRPLANE!! I want to be on the plane with the stairs!
So, it finally happened. As you make your way past the magical staircase, off to the back of the plane, it turns out the JAL 747 is pretty much like any other plane. Another illusion shattered.

We sat down in our middle row seats and breathed a sigh of relief. We managed to get a few hours sleep, get some food and navigate our way through our brief Tokyo experience. We were on the last leg to our destination! From here, we no longer would be on our own. Once we land and get past passport control and customs, we’d be in the nurturing bosom of people who knew what the heck they were doing!

Anyone who knows us, knows we are pretty independent. Our little 3 person family has traveled a bit and we have lived far from immediate family for many, many years. Ok, independent maybe too mild, we are kind of anti-social. For example, we moved to Dallas 12 years ago, and pretty much our best and only friends still live in LA. We like our little family, and honestly, we don’t ever tire of each other’s company. I think that’s good thing.

But, for this adventure, it was so nice to have family around. We were heading into new territory. Ok, at least I was. And Manila seemed like it would be very overwhelming for someone who had never been there and wasn’t raised in the culture.

Every Christmas we alternate between Frederick’s family in the SF Bay Area and my family in Orlando. (Yeah, I know, we hit the jackpot it terms of US locations for family visits, hey, you have to win at something!) This year was the Dorado year. But, the family wasn’t going to be in SF, they were all headed to Manila, Philippines. Frederick’s parents were born there and many of the giant extended family still lives there. Mainly this visit was meant to be a time to see Frederick’s 90+ year old grandmother. Truly one of the most amazing women I’ve ever met, but that is a story for another day. We had quite a brood flying half way around the world. Besides Frederick’s parents, there were his 3 siblings, their spouses, their children and spouses siblings and their children. We were 6 different families, 19 in total, 7 of which were kids who ranged from 14 to 3, who flew from the US to the Philippines for this trip.

Ok, so there is the background.

Five hours later we arrived in Manila. As we stepped off the plane we were hit with the humidity of the tropics. And this was the cool season. And then the chaos began. The luggage arrived with none in limbo, always a good omen. If I have my stuff, I know I’m prepared for just about anything. After quite a long line through passport control and a short panic as Frederick couldn’t connect to any family on his cell phone, we headed off to customs. Now here is where they scored points with me. Yes, we travel with stuff. We had 3 carry on rollaboards, 3 backpacks, and 4 large hockey bag size duffel bags and our trusty giant Hartmann hanging bag. (I justified it by knowing one bag was all beach and snorkel gear)Three people, 10 days, yeah, I know too much stuff. But I suffer from “what if I need it syndrome?” Nothing ruins my trip more then to want something and not be able to find it where we are. We are big packers. I always laugh out loud when I see the “travel light” packing lists on various websites. I think it would be funny to make my own “travel right” packing list. A chore for another day.

Ok, so back to the point scoring. Normally customs, gives us a mocking look as we traipse through with bags on carts that reach our heads. Not here! Thanks to the beauty of the “balik bayan”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balikbayan_box

concept, everyone in this airport is bringing their relative a kitchen sink and more. Customs is used to seeing max baggage allowance. Not even a second glance!! Ahhh joy!

Later I would learn that customs can be even more accommodating when you are bringing 2 fully cooked giant hams and other enough food to feed the brood for a few days into the country, as long as you have the appropriate currency tucked into your passport. The custom’s equivalent of a jedi mind trick, “These are not the droids you are looking for, he can go about his business.” I mean it made it on the plane, so what harm can it do in the country right?

This is where the madness begins. Outside the airport is a driveway and pickup area that is just off the main road. This is a downtown airport. I’ve seen houses with bigger circular driveways. Luckily we are found by Frederick’s Dad and brothers. I’m not hard to spot. Frederick, on the other hand, let’s just say I warned him about not losing me. I was fearful I’d never find him, he was in the motherland and blended in quite easily. Heck, I sometimes lose him in the Oakland airport.

To get from the terminal to the mass of vehicles waiting to pick up their passengers, you have to maneuver your baggage cart 100 feet down 30% angled ramp, with curve. I was just praying I didn’t lose my grip and mow down all the people in front of me and I was praying the house of bags we created on the cart wouldn’t fall off and roll away with it. We survived and shortly there after our “driver” with the van arrived and we headed off to our hotel, The Dusit Hotel Nikko.

I had been warned in advance that unless you are highly experienced, you don’t drive yourself in Manila. Apparently, the traffic is beyond comprehension. Well yes, traffic laws are optional; but it appears everyone knows the way the game is played. It appeals to my libertarian sensibilities, in a wild, wild west kind of way. But, I like to drive in NYC, so maybe I’m the wrong person to ask. The trip to the
Hotel was just about 10 miles, but with traffic, it was about 45 minutes. As a comparison when we went back at 6AM New Year’s Day the same trip took 15 minutes. We saw the ever present jeepneys (as of 2002 there were 55,596 Metro Manila) and the urban blight of the big city. This was as bad as I’ve ever seen. Poverty in warmer climates is so much more obvious. Shelter can be more flimsy. We saw lots of tin shacks, even in the city. Warm weather clothing more minimal and the sheer volume of people hanging out, outside instead of inside makes it seem all the worse. This is poverty. It just doesn’t compare to the most bleak projects in the US. Look at this data. More than 98% of the population in the US have a color television. It’s not like that here. Even the wealthy can’t be guaranteed electricity 24 hours a day.

2002
Item -% of US Households with
Refrigerator 99.20%
Dryer 77.10%
Stove 98.30%
Color TV 98.20%
Computer 59.30%
Auto, truck, van 85.70%
Dishwasher 58.10%
Microwave 93.20%
Garbage disposal 47.00%
VCR 86.90%
Freezer 30.80%
Washer 80.00%
Source: US Census

As of 1990, there were 11 Million Housing Units in the Philippines, however, 1,830,118 or nearly 17 percent of these households had no toilets.

These stats on the Philippines are staggering! Check these out....

http://www.txtmania.com/trivia/social.php

I tell you all of this just to contrast it to the world we were about to enter beyond the highly guarded doors of the Nikko Hotel Dusit and to always remind myself to appreciate my life, regardless of it's shortcomings.

We arrived at the Dusit Hotel and weren’t allowed up the drive until security checked our trunk (or in this case the back of the van) and looked on the underside of the car with a mirror on a pole. Bomb sniffing dogs walked though our luggage as the porters lugged it on their trolleys. We weren’t walking though the door until our backpacks and pocketbooks were checked and we were “wanded” for metals.

But once inside, we were royalty. Frederick’s Dad stays here quite often and all of Frederick’s family had already arrived and taken up residence in 1 suite and 4 other rooms on the 11th floor. We were room #5 and it seemed like everyone was on staff to pamper us. Soon we learned the Frederick’s Dad had been nicknamed “The Senator” as he’d been securing special service since the entire brood checked in. This is a Thai property and the staff in the lobby was dressed in traditional costume. Lots of bowing and such….it was like real life version the King and I. (I know that’s a different country, the feel was the same)

For the next 9 days we were going to experience what it is like to be in among the wealthiest in a country. We were going to be eating meals that in the US are reasonable, but were well beyond the affordability of the people cooking and serving them. Our own personal Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

Next entry, Christmas in Manila.

Pics from our One Night In Toyko

2008-01-13T12:36:00.000-06:00

Double click through to the Webshots website(Japan 07,link below photos) to see photos in full size, the slide show sometimes crops the photos oddly. Also, my other photos from the rest of the trip are all posted on Webshots in different albums, but I haven't had a chance to finish their blog entries.

Japan 07

When You're Big in Japan...............

2008-01-13T12:24:00.000-06:00

Big in Japan, Japan, Japan……

I tell you for the past 18 hours that song has been stuck in my head.
I AM big in Japan! Literally! Ah but more about that later.

"One night in Tokyo and the world’s your oyster…". We only had an hour and 45 minutes, so perhaps the world is now just a clam to us.

We took an American 777 from Dallas to Tokyo in Business Class, but not the Next Generation seats as had been hyped by American. We found the room and the comfort quite bearable. I have to concede that a 14 hour flight, sprinkled with a couple of Monty Python movies, sleep, food and drink is quite bearable. I was completely surprised that wasn’t going out of my mind. However, as I type this I am on our Japan Airlines flight for the 5 hour journey from Manila to Tokyo, on a 747 in coach, and I am nearly ready to kill someone. Moooooooo!

We left Dallas at 10AM and arrived in Japan at 2:30PM the next day. I managed to get about 5 hours of sleep on the flight, so we were able to go about the rest of the day without too much jet lag.

Our flight to Manila wasn’t until 9:20AM the next day, so we thought we’d take advantage of the evening and see a bit…and I mean a bit of Tokyo. We weren’t able to check our luggage all the way through to Manila due to the overnight layover. We cleared passport control, picked up our luggage and cleared customs in fairly decent time. We dropped off our big pieces at the “left luggage” service and headed out to the shuttle bus for our hotel in Narita. Right on time the bus came and we were on our way to the hotel. We stayed at the Holiday Inn right at the airport. The hotel was clean and comfortable and we found plenty of English speakers. After 20 minutes to clean up a bit we made our way back to the hotel shuttle bus, back to the airport and down to the train station to Tokyo.

You always think of Japan being a very advanced technological society. Now that may be true when you are talking about phones, computers and televisions, but the advancement doesn’t extend to paying for those items. We found that ATM machines only work during banking hours and many common items…like train tickets can only be paid for with cash. Thank goodness we suffered the beating of purchasing Yen before we left the States. (Wells Fargo has no clue how to make this easy; we had to find the 1 bank in the Dallas area that had someone on staff who was trained to sell foreign currency. When we did find that bank, it turns out we had to wait 2 days for the teller to pass his proficiency test. And…then we were his second customer! The transaction took about 30 minutes. Michael, can you work on this? LOL!)

I have found a place where customer service still exists. Every time we looked lost trying to purchase a train ticket, figure out which way the elevators were in the hotel or which line to get in to scan our checked bags, there was someone there who stepped up to help without being asked. It’s still someone’s job in Japan to help you!

At 7:00PM we managed to get our ticket to Tokyo, on the Keisei Skyliner Express to Nipori Station. The ride took about 50 minutes.

Different from the airport and the hotel, I had my first experience being completely different. I didn’t expect it to be a big deal, and it wasn’t, but I did get stared at. It was to be expected, as no matter what I did or wore, I am different. I’m a pale even by American standards. I was a giantess! Ah, it could have just been my Boston Red Sox World Series Championship hoodie they wanted to get a better look at! I heard that the Red Sox are the new “favorite” MLB team in Japan after we signed national hero, Matuzaka and Okijima last year. The World Series Championship bandwagon surely stretches across the Pacific. The odd thing is that it didn’t make me feel uncomfortable, I just smiled back.

Beyond the window of the train, I could have been on Metro North from New Haven to New York. Aside from the difference in the language on the signage, as we traveled through the night it looked like any other suburbia that melds into big city.

Once we got to our connection station, we needed to change to the local subway, JR Yamanote line to get to Shibuya Station.

Check out the pictures of the subway map and the subway ride.
I’m usually very good at deciphering maps of any kind, but this was a jungle. We were quite grateful for the assistance of customer service agent at the Napori station. Even though he didn’t speak our language, instantly he could see we needed help and negotiated the automatic ticket machine and directed us to the right platform. Soon we were on the 30 minute ride, having the typical Tokyo subway experience. Incredibly crowded, with people happily texting away on their cell phones. Check out my shot from inside the train, that’s taken from just above my eye level.

We made our way out of Shibuya station and walked head on into the electronic billboard jungle, perhaps more beautiful than Times Square.

We exited at the Hachiko gate. The tale of the Akita dog, Hachiko is famous in Japan. In the 1930’s, every day the dog would leave the house of his owner on his way to work and then meet him at the train station. He did so for years, even after his owner’s death. He was adopted by the station as sort of a mascot. There is a statute of him outside of the station exit that is named for him. It’s a very popular and recognizable meeting place. For more info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hachik%C5%8D

We walked head on into the famous “scramble crossing” featured in the movie Lost in Translation. When traffic stops, people descend on the crossing from all directions, however, when the lights flash, the crossing is instantly cleared and traffic flows again. The Starbucks store overlooking the crossing is also one of the busiest in the world.

Shibuya is the fashion and nightlife capital of Tokyo. It is the home of the huge department store, Toyku as well as the shopping complex Shibuya 109. It’s all hip, trendy and fashionable. I did find it odd that 99% of the women I saw were wearing skirts. There wasn’t a jean or pant in site. In winter, it’s skirts of all lengths and width with boots.

We had less than an hour to stroll around, if we wanted to make our train back to Narita Airport. Late night trains are not the norm in Tokyo. If we missed 10:20PM train, we’d be risking having to take a cab from the station in the City of Narita, as that was the end of the line for later trains. With a flight at 9:20AM, taking time to shop and eat in Tokyo was not worth the risk. We’d have to settle for just saying we’d experienced a tiny slice of Tokyo.

Alas, when you have a 12 year old boy, you still have to find a way to feed him. He’s a pretty picky eater, and we found the local Mc Donald’s

but alas, they did not have Mc Nugget’s. His Dad had already told him the tale of how when he was a boy and ate a hamburger at a Tokyo Mc Donald’s it was flavored with soy sauce, so a burger was out of the question. We searched on and eventually found an “American Dog” at a convenience store. It was a corny dog actually. We had some ketchup we saved from the airport in Dallas. It wasn’t good but it filled the hole. We were amused by all of the unique food offerings in the convenience store. Check out the photos for a hilarious sample.

We did have an experience with local Red Sox fans. They stopped Alex and I on the street and wanted to show us that they had the same World Series shirt. (Of course, they weren’t wearing theirs, but I gotta be me!) The difference is that they had theirs signed earlier in the day by Okijima at a local sports store! We just missed him. We chatted a bit and they said they went to Boston last August to see the Sox play. They took our picture, but I regret not taking the time to take theirs. Sigh!

It’s was time to take the long journey back to Narita, retracing our steps from the subway, to the suburban train through to the airport. The local subway eventually emptied the further out we traveled. I did get a snapshot of the famous NY Yankee pitcher, “Hideki Mastsui” sleeping on the train. I had fun imagining this is what years of Yankee losses had done to him, drunk and sleeping in his Yankee jacket on a random Tokyo subway.

Once at the airport station, we encountered the highlight of Alex’s day. The return train was not an airport express, and it delivered us to a different station at the Narita airport. We had to walk 500 meters through an underground hallway to get to Terminal 2, where our hotel shuttle would pick us up. The tunnel was about 10 feet high and 6 feet wide, with a floor surface that was smooth as glass. The hallway was completely empty and went on a 20 degree angle to the midpoint and up a 20 degree angle to the end of the tunnel. So for 500 meters, Alex was in Heely heaven. We were walking quite quickly, as we didn’t want to miss the last hotel shuttle, but he did several laps back and forth on his Heely’s while he waited for us to catch up. Can’t compete with the wheels on his shoes! We caught the very last hotel shuttle at 11PM and settled back in our rooms for a few hours sleep. Our flight to Manila left at 9:20AM the next day.

The hotel room was just what we needed. It had a fridge, internet and was quite clean. The lack of box springs on the beds contributed to my feeling Gulliver experience as the beds were about 2 feet off the floor. The shower spray was just an inch from the top of my head. I’m only 5’ 7”!

The alarm went of at 4:30AM and we hustled to get ready, packed and downstairs for what was promised to be an “American Breakfast”. We give them points for trying and we did find a few things to eat. Alex ate what would become the first of 100 bowls of rice over the course of the next 10 days. Of course, the hotel shuttle was on time and we found ourselves at the Narita airport before 7AM. We had no trouble picking up our luggage from “Left Luggage” and made our way to the check in counters. That were,……get this, closed! It’s 7:15AM and the airport had not opened yet? Odd, very odd! Soon the red ribbon barriers were moved and we were escorted by petite, check in agents wearing their fashionable neck scarves. They seemed overwhelmed by the size and number of our luggage. For us, we were traveling light! At first, there was the panic that we had too many pieces for the coach flight to Manila, but soon they realized that we had come inbound from the US the day before and the problem disappeared. With baggage checked, and boarding passes in hand, we made our way to security. Again to find it was CLOSED! It didn’t open till 8AM. We wandered around a bit, until someone had the courage to start the queue. It’s funny, everyone is happy to sit around and wait, until someone decides they want to be first in line. Within 5 minutes there were 100 people in line. We were about 3rd in line.

Security was the same as the US, shoes off, liquids out…we were through very quickly and off to our gate.
Ahh, here were the Filipinos, waiting for their flight to Manila. Even if you didn’t see them, you could tell these were not Japanese, by the energy they gave off. Filipinos are very happy people. Gone were the insular headphones of the subway. These MP3 players had speakers and played for all to hear. There were groups of families heading home for the holidays with bags of food at their feet; Mom’s offering food to all. After an efficient boarding process, we were on our way to Manila.

Lame

2008-01-03T23:39:00.000-06:00

Not the trip, just me. ;-) Internet access (as well as electricity) in the Philippines was very unreliable and prevented me from updating my blog while we were away. Since I've returned, I've been trying to catch up on work and fight thru my jet lag haze. This weekend, I hope to be able to fall asleep before 4am and get you all the juicy details you crave, pix included.

... and tell you how to sneak PB&J thru Tokyo airport security.

P.S. - Just kidding, if you are the TSA

On the move again - Look out Philippines!

2007-12-08T11:24:00.000-06:00

It's been a busy fall, getting back into the school routines, back to hockey (big kid, little kid and Dallas Stars) and theater. Alex had a lead in his school production of School House Rock Live. As soon as I get it off the video camera, I'll get some video posted.

Oh and did I bury the lead?

Celebrating the 2007 World Championship Boston Red Sox. I never expected to say that once in my lifetime, let alone twice in 4 years! My brother and I made it up to Boston to the victory parade. He wasn't able to make our parade trip in 2004, so it was great to see him experience the euphoria of an entire city of likeminded crazies for the first time. I'm still looking for two tickets to Opening day 2008.....so if anyone has a hook up, you know where to find me. I promise they won't be wasted on a band waggoner! I'm hoping Alex and I can have a little Boston adventure this April.

Soon, we are on our way to the Philippines for the much hyped Dorado/Sese family reunion. This is going to be the longest flight times Alex and I have experienced, so we'll let you know how that works out. We have 17 hours in Tokyo on the way over. We'll also keep you posted on what we can cram of Japan into our lives in that short time.

Stay tuned!

Alex in Dear Edwina at the Labyrinth Theatre

2007-08-05T19:34:00.000-05:00

Our rugrat inherited his parent's performing bug. This summer he had the chance to perform in 2 shows, The Music Man and Dear Edwina. Dear Edwina is a musical based on a live advice column to Edwina Spoonapple. In this clip, Alex is Ziggy Montega, seeking advice on how to manage money. His Steel Drum band raised money to travel to a competition, but ended up spending it all on a Game Boy sale. Please forgive the YouTube compression.

Info on Blog

2007-07-12T20:55:00.000-05:00

A function of this blogging software is that the newest post is shown first. If you want to follow our trip from the beginning, you'll need to scroll down and start from the bottom up!
Enjoy, Mickie

Credits

2007-06-14T22:24:00.000-05:00

Here are links and info for the tours and port transportation we used:

Venice - Doge's Secret Itinerary (15 Euros each; tickets thru www.tickitaly.com)- they also sell tickets; 3-day Transit pass 30 Euros each

Dubrovnik - Took ship's shuttle to Old Town; walked City Walls (accepted Euros)

Santorini - Rented car for 40 Euros at Spiridakos Rent a Car

Athens - Cab to Metro station (15 euros) then train to Athens (3 Euros each for all day pass); Acropolis tickets 12 Euros each (gets you into many other museums)

Naples - www.seesorento.com with Marcello - 600 Euros for 8 plus 100 Euros for guide at Pompeii (entrance tickets to Pompeii 11 Euros each)

Rome - www.romecabs.com with Maurizio - 600 Euros for 8 plus 120 Euros for guide at Vatican (entrance tickets to museum 13 Euros each)

Florence - Cab to Pisa train station (with picture stop at Leaning Tower) for 75 Euros; train from Pisa to Florence 13 Euros for 2 adults, 1 child; train from Florence to Livorno 15.25 Euros for 2 adults, 1 child; 20 Euros cab from Livorno Centrale train station to ship

Villefranche - Bus to Monaco (1.30 Euros each one way); train from Monaco to Villefranche (2.40 Euros each one way)

By Request - Our Cruise Voyage Map

2007-06-14T21:40:00.000-05:00

From Gondoliers to Segways: Last Stop Paris

2007-06-09T22:00:00.001-05:00

Paris and Back to Reality

The underlying theme of any vacation that has you moving from place to place is transportation.

Cars, Taxis, Gondoliers, Vaporettos (pubic water busses), Tender Ships, Buses, Cruise Ships, Trains, Subways, Shuttle Vans, Eurostar, Big Planes, Smaller Planes and finally a Segway.

The only modes I think we missed were prop plane and broom.

Paris was a pleasant surprise. My fear of the French had driven me to attempt to research as much of the culture as time would permit. Alex and I took 20 hours of French language classes as well. Many thanks to our great French teacher, Benedicte!!!!

Here's the link to the Alliance Francaise du Nord du Texas who put us in touch with Benedicte:

http://www.rschooltoday.com/se3bin/clientschool.cgi?schoolname=school342

Either this research and study made the go trip smoother, or the reports of French terrorizing Americans is highly overrated. We found everyone we met to be extremely kind and more than willing to help. Perhaps the effort to communicate in French first made the difference. Most conversations would begin in French, but in most cases by the time we'd exchanged our 2nd set of sentences, the response back to us would be in English and we’d complete the conversation in English. At least their question wasn't in English, "what do you mean?", everyone appeared to understand me. I did find it especially gratifying when I could buy train tickets or breakfast all in French. Our trip in on the Eurostar was fairly uneventful. Given we left at night, and the darkness fell quickly, we might have missed the 20 minute trip through the chunnel if it wasn’t announced. The trip was fast and smooth. Security measures require much of the same check in procedures as on a plane (X-ray and metal detectors), but the process still seemed a bit more civilized then at the airport. This is the way to go from London to Paris. The beauty being that you go from the center of London to the center of Paris. We prearranged a taxi at Gard du Nord given that we were arriving close to midnight and we weren’t sure what to expect. We overpaid for the privilege and next time we’d just hit the taxi stand and save $50 Euros. A short trip to the Hilton welcomed us with an upgrade to a “relaxation” room. I few jets in the tub and a couple of bottles of salts and creams count as “relaxation”, but the room was nice.

The next morning we walked to the La Defense station right outside our hotel. The morning began with Alex making a discovery. Even tough there was a McDonald’s they had no hash browns…but he found a new love. Pain au Chocolat. Basically a chocolate croissant, but he was very gratified to find he liked a local food. He even brought 3 of them with him for the trip home. The metro system is as easy to use as advertised. There are many stops, so you are never far from where you’d like to go. Our first stop was the Musee D’Armee (Army Museum). Alex was in history heaven. The museum has a very large collection of weaponry dating from the 10th century forward. They had several rooms dedicated to WWII with lots of uniforms and artifacts on display. We took the tour of Napoleon’s tomb. This is a little guy with a big ego. His instructions for burial were executed several years after his death, but he got his way. His tomb is made of the same royal red marble of the Roman Emperors and family we saw at the Vatican and is placed in the room, so that you must lean over the railing and “bow” to him to see his tomb from the 2nd floor and look up to see it if you are the first floor. His tomb is in a beautiful church, originally the reserved only for personal mass of the French monarchy.

The next stop was the one I was most looking forward to on the trip. The Musee D’Orsay. Another opportunity to view in person the hand of Van Gogh. This visit did not disappoint. Several stunning examples of the mad genius at work; vibrant and beautiful as always. The museum itself wasn’t very crowded (based on the horror stories we had read about), but were happy to have our Paris Museum passes ahead of time and skip the very long line for tickets. A quick lunch at the museum café was just what we needed to recharge our batteries. Even this little cafe had fantasic food. After a stop back at the hotel to change, we made our way to the south leg of the Eiffel Tower to meet up with our Segway guide. After quite a long walk to their shop (next time we’ll ask to meet them at the shop directly) we took our short Segway class. They were a big scary at first, as it is a bit like balancing on a log, but within 5 minutes you are zooming around like you have been doing it all your life. We had a great 5 hour tour all around Paris with a stop at a café for the obligatory Croque Monsieur (basically a grilled ham and cheese, apparently a French delicacy, but yummy none the less). It was quite surreal to be doing Segway doughnuts in front of the Louvre, but we have the video to prove it. We ended the night watching the hourly twinkling of the lights on the Eiffel Tower. The monument is much more beautiful at night. The next morning we started the day with a visit to the Opera Garnier. My son was quite surprised to find inside the grand staircase from Phantom of the Opera. He walked up and down singing “What a way to run a business”. I love my kid! He had to go find the "Phantom's Box" and have his picture taken in front. The highlight of the visit was the view of the Chagall ceiling. Unexpected and beautiful against the neo-baroque architecture of the building.

The rest of the day was spent hitting the highlights, Notre Dame, a quick boat ride down the Seine and walk down the Avenue des Champs-Elysees. We made long walk to the Arc de Triomphe. We had planned to take the elevator to the top for the view, but we found after arriving that the monument was closed for a ceremony for Vietnam (or as they called it Indochina) War. We had hoped to stay for the ceremony but it was going to be too late for us to get back to catch our Eurostar train back to London.

Paris was very beautiful, but after several days of walking the city streets, it almost seemed too beautiful. The continuity of style created by Haussmann, under the direction of Napoleon III, creates one beautiful vista after another. It needs a bit of "character", a bump in the nose or a crooked grin. I think you must live in the city for a few weeks to really uncover the true gems.

The only city in the US that I can even compare it to would be Washington, DC. Given the time the founding fathers, especially Jefferson spent in Paris, you can see the influence when it came time to create our Captitol. Also, let's not forget the original architect of DC was Pierre L'Enfant, a frenchman.

We arrived into London quite late again, and had an enjoyable visit with our London driver to the spartan but servicible Travelodge outside of Gatwick.

Luckily we arrived early to the airport, as the baggage belts were all down at the check in counters. We were trapped in a sea of baggage and people as they brought luggage cages on trolleys to deal with the mounting piles of checked baggage. We actually ended up waiting on the ground in the plane an additional 2 hours while they made sure all the bags caught the plane. After the long flight home, we were quite happy to be home. Our house seemed mansion like after spending so much time in fairly cramped quarters. We ran out for Mexican Food and marveled at the wide open spaces and huge vehicles in our parking lots. Yup, everything is bigger in Texas. I’m sure Dallas would be just as interesting and foreign to the people we met in Europe.

Sitting back it’s hard to take in all we have seen. This cruise really gives you the highlights of the history of the western world. It was a perfect vacation; giving us both a great appreciation of the beauty of the rest of the world, while at the same time making us fully appreciative of the blessings of our home. God bless Texas!

That’s all for now!

Mickie, Frederick & Alex

Paris

Frederick and Alex on Segways in front of the Louvre

A Texas Alex in Paris...

Alex Paris

Monaco: Disneyland for the Rich and Famous

2007-06-09T20:49:00.000-05:00

Monaco,

Ok, I admit it, we went to Monaco just so we could say we’ve been to another country. We didn’t have any expectations for this port. We should have went to Nice, but we had to get that virtual stamp on our traveling passport. I’ll spare you the details but nothing went well on this stop. This city makes San Francisco seem like the Bonneville Salt Flats. It's one giant posh StairMaster. Here is where the transportation system is unreliable. The bus was 45 minutes late and full to the brim when it arrived. We decided to take the train back and instead of running every ½ hour they ran every 2 hours. We shopped in a mall that had Dolce and Gabbana sneakers for 3 year olds. The chandelier in the photos is from the mall. We saw an actual Maserati dealership, not every day you see a gaggle of Maserati’s in one place. This place looked like Disneyland for Paris Hilton or Donald Trump. We walked by the casino and the other obligatory stops and got out of dodge. The train was crowded; I climbed up on a ledge by the door to overcome my claustrophobia. When the train did stop, no one would move to let us off, we had to push our way off the train. I guess this is why we are called pushy American’s …..we have no choice unless we want to stay on the train forever. So not many pictures at this stop. The Disney Magic was in port with us, so I snapped a few pictures of this beautiful ship. We met a few of their passengers on the bus stop and they all had great things to say about this vessel. Interestingly, none of them had their kids with them, they all wanted to stay on board in the kids program.

Speaking of kids program’s, I can’t say enough about Celebrity kid’s program on the Millennium. Alex couldn’t wait to get back to the ship get back to the program. He said it was much better than Princess in terms of the actual space for the kid’s, the things to do at the space and the involvement of the counselors.

We had a day at sea and then it was off the ship at Barcelona. We had a big travel day head of us, flight from Barcelona to London, 1 ½ hour cab ride from Gatwick to Waterloo Station, 3 hours on the Eurostar through the Chunnel and then a cab to our hotel. I’ll catch you up on Paris next.

Monaco

Leaning Tower of Pizza and Olive Garden Inspiration

2007-06-09T20:31:00.000-05:00

Pisa and Florence

Ok, this is why you come to Italy, to see the leaning tower of Pizza………No No Pisa. Come on, you’ve all made that joke as a kid, admit it.

Today we decided to be risk takers. In spite of all the ship's warnings about the unreliable Italian trains, we took the risk and took the train to Florence. It’s an 1 hour 45 minute train ride from the port of Livorno, but weighing the $600 for the 3 of us for the ship's tour, we decide we’d spend the money we are saving on a flight to Monaco if we miss the ship. We’ve done every port on our own and saved huge piles of money. I say the ship's tours are for people with more money than brains and time to do the research. We were told that 85% percent of cruisers take the ships tours. That seems high, but I guess that’s ok by me if they are making oodles of money off them and not me. We caught a cab to Pisa, had him wait 5 minutes to get pictures and then had him take us to the train station. We got right aboard the train to Florence. Pretty countryside, it looks like Napa Valley. Once at the Florence train station we stopped at the obligatory Mc Donald’s to stuff Alex with enough chicken nuggets to sustain him through the day. This is the city of Michelangelo and Da Vinci. Their stamp is everywhere and of course that medieval Kennedy clan the Medici’s, they had a hand in the city as well. The Duomo or the cathedral they built amazing. The size and intricate multi colored marble work that covers the entire structure is not possible to grasp in photos. It is right in the heart of a crowded city, so getting any distance or perspective to take a decent photo is difficult. This is the city where Michelangelo’s David lives. The shopkeepers who cater to the tourist trade have a good time putting his nasty bits on anything, aprons, teeshirts and underwear. This is very embarrassing to an 11 year old. I offered to buy Alex the underwear at every corner, but he wouldn’t take me up on it.

The best part of the day was the trip to the Cathedral Santa Croce. Inside Bad Bad Leroy Brown is buried, no...... but they do have Galileo and Michelangelo entombed there. Some serious brain power there.

We walked our legs off in this city and made it back to the train station, just in time to catch the 2:30 train, on time and back to the ship without a hitch.

After spending 5 total days in very different parts of Italy, you walk away with an understanding of how even today, Italy is held together by only a political system. This isn’t something that was apparent to be prior to going there. As a country, Italy is younger than the United States (1871). Still today everyone who lives seems to truly identify themselves by the region they live in and not their country. I don’t think even Texans have this level of regional loyalty.

Florence

Alex strikes again.....

Alex Florence and Pisa

Roma: Heaven to Hell in 5 miles

2007-06-09T20:24:00.000-05:00

Vatican to the west and Coliseum to the east

After a good night sleep we shared another tour this time to Rome. It is not possible to see Rome in 7 hours, but we tried. Our guide allowed us to cut the mile long line to get into the Vatican and spend some time in St Peter’s. Am I supposed to feel guilty about cutting lines at Catholic HQ? I guess it’s true, the first shall be last and the last shall be first….as long as they have a good tour guide. (Whew, no lightning bolts, I always hoped God had a sense of humor as well.)

I was not prepared for the feel of awe and inspiration that overwhelmed me when we entered St. Peters. It is stunning. We definitely want to come back and explore the museum further. We had hoped to see the Sistine Chapel, but we were not sure it was going to happen. (no pics allowed there). Our guide also managed to get us a look inside as well. It’s hard to enjoy it as it is very crowded and the guards expect silence. Of course with 200 people packed in like sardines it doesn’t happen and every 5 minutes the guards clap and yell silence. It felt like kindergarten. Every painting at the Vatican is the live version of the ones in the old gilded bibles. All instantly recognizable. You can spend days in the Vatican Museum and still not see it all. Catholics do know how to put on a show.

From the Vatican we made our way over to the Pantheon. Originally rebuilt in its current form in 125AD, it was remodeled in the 2nd century. This building was significant because it was the first Roman temple to be open to the common people. You aren’t prepared for the size of the columns or how well preserved it is. Even though all of the marble façade was seized by the Pope to front churches, the beauty of the structure still exists. It was saved as it was converted to a Catholic Church in the 7th century and still serves in that capacity today. It is the best example of a Roman Temple in existence today.

We all hopped back in to the van and took a ride over to the Trevi Fountain. It’s pretty and it’s famous and the history behind bringing water to the city with ancient technology is interesting, but it merits about 10 minutes of your time. This is what we gave it and then moved on to more important things………..LUNCH!

We went to traditional lunch spot for Roman office workers. It was Saturday so the restaurant was just happy to have customers. I must say again, Italians know how to do lunch. I’m getting used to this wine with every meal deal. There really is something different in the flavors. It could just be an expectation but everything tastes exceptionally flavorful, even if it is very basic.

We had a few hours left before we had to leave to make the hour drive back to the ship; (don’t want to be left behind!). Our driver took us to the Coliseum. There was a national ceremony earlier in the day, so we were happy it was open. Again with the brick, I never expected the coliseum to be made of brick. It’s an impressive structure considering when it was built. I’ve been to a lot of stadiums in my life and you can easily see the layout in this one and imagine the crowd flowing through the public spaces. It’s still hard to imagine a society with so little concern for human life, but who knows where we’ll be in another 300 years. Perhaps they started with Reality TV as well.

Rome

Italy in 3 days

2007-06-04T12:10:00.000-05:00

Whew!!!! Sorry to have been away so long. We have been going for 3 days straight, 6AM to Midnight each day. No, not complaining, just explaining!

Naples, the Amalfi Coast, Pompeii, Rome, Pisa and Florence in 3 days. We are a pretty tired bunch, but the history we have experience cannot be measured.

Three really amazing days. We shared a driver with 5 other people who took us on a tour down the Amalfi coast. Every town had a name of someone I knew or an Italian restaurant I have been to, Constiglione, Positano, Sorrento…etc…… It was like the Waterbury, Connecticut Italian Festival on steroids. (This is where I grew up)
Southern Italy, Naples and the surrounding area is the Italy we all are familiar with. This is the area of pizza, spaghetti and meatballs and the mafia. There is good reason for it. 40 Million Southern Italians have immigrated to the US in the past 100 years. A good 20% must have moved to Connecticut. Our driver said everyone who lives there has someone in their family who as moved to the US. His family is in Jersey, but surprise. It’s crazy and crowded but fun. The views along the road that traverses the coast were stunning. A mix homes taken over for tourism and homes of locals who have not yet sold out. We had lunch atop the hill in Ravello overlooking the ocean. The food was out of this world; mozzarella, antipasto and pasta like I’ve never tasted. The Italians know how to do lunch. It was a meal that we will always remember.

Just a quick insight our guide shared with us. He spent much of the day lamenting how chaotic the government is, and how they have done little to take advantage of the opportunities presented to them. Everyone here lives day to day, with no care for tomorrow. We went through a toll booth and he asked us to watch the meter. First it said 1,90 Euros, the driver paid and it quickly went to 1,50 Euros. The deal is that larger van’s must pay the higher price, but it is at the discretion of the collector to register the charge. The collector collects the 1,90 then rings it up as 1,50 and pockets the difference. All day, every day. Everyone knows it happens and it is just accepted. This was just one of the many examples he shared of the culture. So many things make so much more sense now.

We made our way to Pompeii in the afternoon. It was quite hot. Fascinating, but I had hoped to see more of actual life. Most spots were just empty shells as everything had been moved to the museum. I think next time we will go to Herculaneum as it is said to be more well preserved. Alex loved it and was allowed to bring back some pumice stones from Mt Vesuvius. What was surprising was how much brick was used. Even many of the columns were made from brick and then covered with bakeries. A stop at the bakers shop and at some of the wealthy homes made the trip worthwhile. Our driver said there are cities under all the area towns, but no one wants to find them as the no longer have access to that land, it becomes an archeological site.

It’s time to get ready for dinner. I’ll catch you up on the rest of the trip later on. I’ve got the Rome and Florence photos ready so I’ll post them as well and get you the details later.

Amalfi Coast

Pompeii

Here are Alex's shots from the day....

Alex Amalfi and Pompeii

What’s So Sardonic About the Sardonic Gulf?

2007-05-31T16:32:00.000-05:00

Ok it’s really Saronic….not sardonic…..that would be different now wouldn’t it?

We spent the day in Athens, Greece, which is in the Saronic Gulf.

This is where it all began, a couple of hundred years to dream up world changing sacred and intellectual ideas. Some ideas have flourished thousands of years later and others are now relegated to myth and legend. The same society that created the foundation for democracy also believed that their protector was a woman god (ok, not a bad start) who was born from her father’s head (that’s where you lost me).

It makes you wonder what ideas we hold today will be mocked thousands of years from now.

Athens has what every great city needs, location, location, location. But it looks like someone just dropped incredibly ugly concrete buildings everywhere. It stuns from the blue water of the harbor in spite of itself. Very populated and very very loud. Did I say very loud? Good! But loud in a nice way, not a Bronx kid of way, more in a bunch of college kids on spring break kind of way. These are happy people having a good time.

Walking though the streets I was transported right back to the Greek pizza restaurant I used to work at as a teenager. Hellas, Hellas I heard everywhere I turned.

When I first viewed the Acropolis with my own eyes, all I could think of was,
this is the place that I used to color on the placemat of so many of my dinners as a kid. The entire day was the adventure I dreamt about while I waited for my pizza and looked at the pictures of the places the restaurant owners were so proud of. The Greeks had a good corner on casual dining in the area of Connecticut that I grew up in. I couldn’t find an Athenian Diner though, no Spartan’s Pizza, no Pizza Castle, but of course we did find the Athenian McDonald’s. This thrilled my Alexander the Great to end.

Speaking of my Alexander, he took to the city right away and so did everyone who asked him his name. He looked at the Parthenon and proclaimed it his own, as if he were the conquering Macedonian hero himself. We risked the wrath of the acropolis museum curators to get a picture of the 2 Alexander’s the Great in the same shot. (One is a bust done several thousand years ago and the other live, I kinda think they look a bit alike).(I guess you are not supposed to “pose” with the antiquities, who knew?)

It was also an unexpected thrill to see the Dionysus Theatre. This is where theater was born, hosting opening nights for Sophocles and Euripides. Alex was thrilled to peer down a wide shaft behind the stage area and see tunnels. He exclaimed, “Hey Mom, look! It’s an ancient backstage!” They probably had to be quiet back there, back then too.

There was a group of older teenagers sitting in the seats, taking turns, standing up and reciting monologues to each other. So idealistic!

Alex was also amused by the ancient public toilets, that’s right in the 11 year old boy’s wheelhouse of funny.

We were also amused by the wit of the Emperor of the occupying Romans, Hadrian. This beautiful arch stood for hundreds of years with the inscription, “This is Athens the ancient city of Theseus.” If he had spray paint, I think he would have blacked it out, but instead he had inscribed on the other side, “This is the city of Hadrian and not of Theseus.” To the victor go the spoils.

Were also amazed at what appeared to be ancient piles of rubble. We learned from our guides that much of it was actual unused building materials, due to flaws or things they just discarded. How do you think the environmental lobby would look upon landfills that survive 3000 years? I don’t think my plastic grocery bag is really going to make it that long.

It’s a sea day tomorrow and off to Pompeii. Till then, Hellas!

Athens

Here's a link to Alex's photos from Athens and Santorini. This is what the view is like when you are less than 5 feet tall.

Alex Athens & Santorini

Blue, blue my love is blue........

2007-05-31T05:12:00.000-05:00

I don’t think I ever appreciated the real inspiration for the 128 count box of Crayola Crayons before. I mean how many different colors of blue can there be? Since we sailed into the Aegean I stopped counting! I’ve always been a purple person, and lately more lime green, but these happy blues have left their mark. This ocean is a blue I never imagined.

I know this batch of photos from Santorini has many redundancies. I couldn’t help myself. This is how an artist must feel when she’s found her muse. The camera just kept finding something more beautiful in each new picture. Today I felt as if I was living in a Thomas McKnight painting.

http://www.thomasmcknight.com/poster.htm

I pray heaven looks like this.

Santorini Island is actually the top of a volcano. The eruption 3,500 years ago is said to be the world’s largest explosion. It killed the entire Minoan civilization on Crete over 75 miles away. What exists now is the sea flowing into the caldera, where our ship was docked. Picture Mt St Helen’s underwater, with just the top sticking above the water. The towns sit perched about 300 feet above the water, directly up sheer cliffs on the west side. To reach the towns, you can walk to the top, or ride the cable car or ride the donkeys. Be sure to check the scale on the picture of the switchbacks heading up the mountain. The best take on this is from the comedian Ron White in “You can’t fix stupid.” Look for it on HBO.

Ron White: So we make it to Santorini, and Santorini is on the rim of an ancient volcano. And for 2000 years, folks, the only way to get to the top of the rim on the port side of the island was to take a donkey 800 feet up these switchbacks, takes forever. Until 5 years ago, somebody installed a tram that does the same thing in 18 seconds. And I was shocked to see the donkey guy still in business because he had the worst sales pitch I had ever heard in my life. He says, "You can take the donkey to the top of the rim, or you can take the tram. It is the same price." That would be my biggest secret if I were you, buddy. I'd be lying to people as soon as they got off the ship. "The donkey is $3.50. The tram is about 2800 Euro."

We rented a little car and drove all over the island. We had breakfast at Mamma’s House. Mamma is famous for her yummy American style breakfasts. She’s a Greek who used to be a nanny in American when she was younger. She loves American’s and is just an overall character. An experience.

After spending the afternoon ogling the beauty of Oia on the far north end of the island (where most of the great pictures are from) we drove down the backside of the mountain and spent some time on the black sand beaches. The sand was incredibly soft and to top it off there were free pumice stones just for the taking! (Hey gotta save some money on this trip!).

Just enjoy these pictures. I know some of them are beautiful, but trust me, they do not even do this place justice. I’m already trying to figure out how I can get back there.

Santorini

Video from Murano Tour

2007-05-30T09:25:00.000-05:00

We've managed to find a free, albeit slow WIFI connection in the port of Athens. I'm trying now to put up some of the video we shot. Here is a quick minute or two from our glass blowing demonstration in Murano.

There is more to Croatia than Dr. Luka Kovac on ER

2007-05-28T06:56:00.000-05:00

Yes, I will admit that prior to yesterday the only thing I knew of Croatia was Goran Visnjic from ER was from Croatia. And there was that war we tried to ignore in the early 90's. But after today, I have a new curiosity about the country. I guess that is the whole purpose of travel, to expand your world.

Backtracking a bit, last night was the sail away from Venice. It's about an hour and a half of beautiful Venice vistas.

The history of Venice was interesting, especially the convoluted government they established. They had layer upon layer of checks and balances. Lots of intrigue and mistrust. A cautionary tale for us…. 1400 years of existence, 1100 years as an independent rich and free republic and just shut down when Napoleon came to town at the end of the 18th century (actually May 12, 1787). They voted the last Doge out of office and handed the keys to the French. The Austrians took over for a bit and then in 1866 Austria handed Venice to the newly formed republic of Italy. It took a few hundred years for all the glory that was the Venetian Republic to fall apart. They didn't recognize that 2 important events, the fall of Constantinople to the Turks and the Turks subsequent blocking of their trade routes as well as da Gama opening up the east via the west would sap them of their power in a very short time. As we walked through the Doge's Place and the massive Grande Council's chambers, I could not help but think of tourists a thousand years from now trudging through the US Capitol building's House of Representative chambers and learning the history of what was America. We did hear the interesting story of Casanova, how he was imprisoned at the Doge’s Palace and his own detailed description of his escape. I’ll have to pick up his memoirs to get a real slice of 1st person history.

Earlier in the day we caught a Vaporetto to Murano. Back in the 11th century, for safety reasons the Venetians banished their glass makers to the neighboring island of Murano. Venice has a long history of glass making. In fact, if a tradesmen was caught sharing the secrets of glassmaking with an outsider, it was an offense that was punishable by a long stay in the jails inside the Doge’s palace. We took a tour of one of the furnaces and we were able to watch a glass master whip together a vase and a small horse in about 10 minutes.

Last night was a first formal night. We pulled out the tuxes and evening dress, but we really weren't in the "formal night" mood just yet. We were still dragging from the scorching Venetian days and travel. We have 2 more formal nights left so; we'll be sure and do the whole picture thing later in the cruise. We had a real treat for dinner. Our tablemates for the cruise are a 30ish couple from London, Jon and Tracy. Jon is actually the guest port lecturer on board with an academic background in history. He's been on Celebrity for the last 8 weeks through all of their Europe itineraries. We spent 3 hours at dinner and they just flew by. Even Alex and he swapped stories about WWII. I am so incredibly jealous of his job. He gets paid to live on the ship in a regular cabin (not a crew cabin) and his only responsiblities are to give 3 lectures on the sea days. I spent some time asking him how he came upon this job. He created a sample lecture and presentation on several ports of call, then he auditioned for an agent that books talent for cruise lines, spent a few years doing it on local British lines and then moved over to Celebrity. He doesn't have any special training, just a history degree and what he has taught himself. This seems pretty much like a dream job for me. I've got 6 years before Alex goes off to college.........hum..............!!!!!

This morning we arrived in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Croatia is a newly formed and thriving democracy, one of the remnants of Yugoslavia. The weather was beautiful, a refreshing change from the 95+ of Venice. Dubrovnik was an independent medieval commune and eventually became a free republic. It reached its golden age around the 15th and 16th century. During that time they built a walled city which is still inhabited today. Dubrovnik is one of the few remaining examples of a medieval walled city. It's a total time warp, until you step inside a restaurant or a shop (which is modern). We spent the first 2 hours climbing to the top of the wall and walking the wall that encircles the city. Alex was in heaven exploring the fortifications, towers, hot pitch spouts and cannons. The views of the red tiled roofs from the top of the walls were stunning. The actual landscape reminds me of the California coast. As we sailed away this afternoon, I was looking back at the coast and you if you changed the buildings, made the water a bit more polluted, you could be staring at the Malibu hills. I hope the pictures do it justice.

You can hardly believe the just 16 years ago this city was being shelled by the Serbs from the land, air and the sea. The city was under siege for almost 2 years without water or electricity. Hard to imagine this was just 1991. We picked up DVD of actual footage from the war. Now on the DVD screen was mortar rounds landing and exploding on the same streets we had just walked on 2 hours earlier were. The same waters I am sailing through now, just off the coast, were filled with warships. I've never been this close to war before. 16 years isn't yesterday I know, but think about it, unless you have actually served in wartime, any battlefields you have been near were probably at least 40-50 years in the past and most likely 100 or more years in the past. It made the Normandy beaches seem like ancient history.

The have done an amazing job getting the city back to its original state. You can see the contrast from the wall, of the newly replaced roof tiles and the old roof tiles. Some of the damage is still evident in shell scars on the buildings, but this is a town that is rising.

Everyone was amazingly nice, the food was fantastic and their were hundreds of interesting shops, nooks and crannies to explore. This is a time and place I will learn more about when I return home.

Well it's time to get ready for dinner. Alex is having dinner with his new buddies in the Kid's program. Look like it's parent's night out. We have a sea day tomorrow and then on to Santorini.

Till then...I leave you with pictures from the Venice sail away and Dubrovnik.....go ahead Google Croatia and learn more about this slice of frozen history........... Love to all, Mickie

PS: Hey if you are reading this let me know...drop a quick comment!

Alex’s Venice Sail Away

Alex Dubrovnik

Venice Sail Away and Murano

Dubrovnik

Internet Connection at Last!

2007-05-25T17:33:00.000-05:00

We are on the ship. I never thought I'd be so happy to watch CNN in my life. We travel 1/2 way around the world and have to fall asleep to Walker Texas Ranger in Italian.

I will miss the Italian infomercials! I hate to judge a whole country on their infomercials, but whew....pretty darn gullible! LOL

We're melting ! It's so hot! It's about 15 degrees hotter than we expected. Cooking in the 90's+. And you know how I love the heat! We'll hope for cooler weather as the cruise continues. It was supposed to be just 75 to 85 degrees.
I'm breathing now. All the luggage made it from Dallas to London to Venice and to our cabin. No need to try and find clothes. Good thing, as there isn't much to be found here. It's definitely a different world. All the clothes shopping is of the Rodeo Drive variety. Lot's of tiny specialty stores...they have not been Targetafied..try to find a supermarket, you have to shop at 10 different stores just to put a meal on the table. Also, nothing is open from 2 to 7PM. It appears to work for them.
Ok...let's catch you up.........
We waited at Gatwick after arrival for 4 hours. We ventured out of the BA club in search of some lunch. Let me just say the Gatwick is in desperate need of some kind of fast food. We waited too long to go eat and assuming that we could get it done in a hour...ehhh not so much. Just sit down restaurants or pre-made sandwiches. Alex was a trooper and said he'd wait till we got to Venice.
Short 2 1/2 hour flight to Venice was easy and stunning. We flew directly over Switzerland and the Swiss Alps. We tried to capture it through the plane window but we couldn't do it justice. We just had to sing, "the hills are alive with the sound of music...........

Everything couldn't have been easier!
We landed in Venice, a quick passport stamp, no questions and then watched each bag drop off 1 by 1. Our hotel shuttle was waiting and Alex and I went off to the hotel with a few bags. Dad had to stay behind with the remaining bags and catch a cab. (no we can't travel light! )
At the the hotel, we just tried to stay awake...it was 5:30PM and we were pretty hungry, but we had to wait till 7pm for things to open. After a nice dinner at the hotel we crashed at 9:30PM.
The next morning we were up bright and early, 5AM (hey in Italy I'm a morning person!) Gotta love the time change. We were out the door by 8 and off to Venice. I've got 2 sets of pictures from this section. One section is Alex's and the other is the set that I took. Enjoy.
We'll get photos of the ship and tomorrow's sail away. We leave for Croatia tomorrow.

Having a Ball, Wish You Were Here! Mickie

Alex’s Venice Pictures

Med Cruise 07 Start and Venice

We've made it to Venice!

2007-05-23T12:48:00.000-05:00

We are here accompanied by all of our bags! Happy Happy! Joy Joy! We don't have internet access, except in the lobby of the hotel. We'll catch you up on everything when we get on the ship Friday afternoon.
TaTa for now, Mickie

And damn this italian keyboard!

Breakfast with the Queen

2007-05-23T03:21:00.000-05:00

Ok, we aren't actually eating with the Queen, but I'm guessing that we are eating breakfast closer to her than anyone who is reading this blog. Departure from DFW went off without a hitch. Due to the blessings of frequent flyer miles we were able to fly over to London in business class. The 9 hours goes by quickly when you can spend 2 of it eating dinner, then catch a movie, then recline the seat flat for 5 hours of decent plane sleep. We arrived in London at 7AM local time....which is like 1AM in Dallas. We were surprised to find out that we had to go back through security, even though we are just changing planes. We had to negotiate the "not as polite as they sound with their cheeky wee monkey accents" BAA (the British TSA) bag nazis. One bag per person.(nope that purse..that's a bag, no personal item here)....so now we have to cram everything into our one rollaboard each. Ahhh but here is the catch, that one bag has to fit in a sizer! lol!!! Quick strategy has Frederick distracting the Nazi by testing his bag in the sizer....(it just fits, with a bit of wiggling), whilst I slip on by behind him. Whew....now just to get through the XRay Nazi. No loading up your tubs beforehand here. You walk up with your goodies and set up your tubs right at the entrance. Ah chit chat and a big smile....made it through here as well.

So we have 5 hours to wait till our flight to Venice. I keep sending out positive energy to the tarmac.....luggage make your way to the Venice plane!

One of the best perks of flying in Business Class is access to the BA lounge. At Gatwick it's quite spacious and comforting. As I type Alex is curled up in his Red Sox windbreaker, on a leather couch, half dozing off and half watching a WWII Battleground on his PSP. Frederick is out like a light on the chair next to me and I just got through catching up on the Red Sox post game show I TIVO'd while we were in the air. God bless the team who invented the Slingbox! Slingbox rules! Oh and yes Sox beat Spankees 7-3 ! Manny jacks a 3 run homer off of Mussina in the first and they never looked back. It's a another great day in Red Sox Nation.

I'll try and get some pics up as soon as I take some. All three of us having slept on a plane are not fit for visual blog consumption. Say your blessings that you are just reading this and not seeing us (or smelling us) right now.

Next Stop............Venice!

Love to all, Mickie

Alex at the Pop Concert

2007-05-13T16:19:00.000-05:00

Our little guy put on his 60's duds and did his best Davy Jones tribute at the his school's Pop Concert. Enjoy!

Before We Go Forward, A Quick View of the Past

2007-05-13T15:56:00.000-05:00

As we scurry around to gather things to pack, finish up our loose ends at school and work, we thought we'd take a moment to look at our last Dorado European Vacation. Here's the link to shots from the last cruise we took in 2005. On Princess' Grand Princess we traveled from London to Southhampton, England to Brugge, Oslo, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Hamburg/Berlin and Normandy.

London & Bruge, Belgium

Norway, Denmark,Germany,Netherlands, France

Europe Cruise, More Pictures II