Sunday, October 30, 2011
Test
Tuesday, October 25, 2011
My new office
First day in my new office and nothing works. I have a 30 year old docking station that can only be used as a paper weight so my laptop is useless. But at least I have a desktop computer that has been busy for the last 3 hours updating with bp updates cause it has not been turned on in the last decade. I guess that means that I can look up travel plans for my next destination on my netbook while I am bored. Or plan my sister's graduation party (they actually are going to give her a degree, scary hugh).
Friday, October 21, 2011
North pole
Not really sure why we all work here. It is cold nasty and miserable. We have to always be on the lookout for polar bears. At least we have beer oh wait nevermind no alcohol on the slope.
Friday, October 7, 2011
The Real Gotham
Welcome to Prague and enjoy the wonderful scenery that is Prague (The view is from our hotel window). When we showed up to Prague the weather was dark and dreary, all the buildings in Prague are dark and dreary, and there where dogs fighting for scraps everywhere. OK, so the dog thing is an exaggeration. And as a whole Prague is a very nice place, but at first glance you wonder what you are driving into and you ask yourself if all the rumors of Prague are true. But in the end you realize that Prague is a very nice place with wonderful people, good food, and a very diverse and interesting history.
Museums
This is the museum area in Berlin that we visited. As soon as I get back to Alaska I will put the pictures into photobucket as Anthony has been doing. They let us take pictures in the museum and I was able to get some good shots of the egyption artifacts in the museum. Apparently the collection is not as complete as it used to be because of those wonderful Russians after WWII.
Graffiti
Much of Berlin is covered in graffiti which really adds to the attraction of the city being a sort of hipster community and is also what you would imagine of eastern Berlin anyways. You know that whole communism thing they had going on.
Berlin wall
So this is all we saw of the Berlin wall. Most of it has been torn down but there are a few pieces of it left.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
10/5
We're in our little rental car again, heading from Berlin to Prague. In Berlin we stayed in a neighborhood called Prenzlauer Berg, formerly on the east side of the wall - an area of old, worn graffitti-covered buildings now known for its a young, trendy hipster population.
On our first night in Berlin, Sunday, we GPSed our way to the cheap little apartment a little late, at about 7pm, where the manager ran us through the basics of the place in a rush to get home. Afterward we walked toward the more populated neighborhood areas, passing through a park on our way. The park was pratically filled with twentysomethings drinking smoking and dancing. Around one busy drum circle we asked a local what the crowd was about. On Sundays, beside that park there is a large flea market and the park usually becomes a bit crowded, but it turns out that the following day was a public holiday recognizing the east/west reunification - everyone would be off work on Monday, and this was a park very near where the wall stood, so we'd arrived at an unusual time.
The local was an illustrator who joined us for drinks at a beer garten a few blocks away, swapped stories and gave us a good feel for the area (with- like we've been experiencing our whole trip- her almost prefect English) and closed the place down with us.
The next day we set out to explore Berlin and some of the sites in our guidebooks, but we quickly figured out that almost everything except restaurants was closed for the holiday - even the park was nearly empty so the whole day was pretty slow-going, and we had already decided to stay an extra (third) night in Berlin. We did wander to a few night sites - we'd read about Dr. Pong, which our book described as a former ping pong auditorium-turned bar. It turns out that "auditorium" ended up being more like "room barely big enough to hold a game of ping-pong" so we skipped out. We found ourselves by the same beer garten and met some students there while figuring out what to do next - they suggested a Cafe/Bar a few stops down the tram line literally called Cafe Bar, where we had our last drinks of the night.
All through our trip, we'd been hearing that when in Berlin, you have to visit the museums, so on our third day, Tuesday, we decided to pick up a little culture and headed to the museum isalnd of five closely placed museums on the other side of the city. We optimistically bought tickets that covered visiting all five museums, but after it took us 3-4 hours to finish the Neues museum alone, the other museums, uh... missed the honor of our presence. We also re-re-re-learned that day not to order German food.
There was an advertised Berlin pub crawl for tourists like us at 8, which took a group of about 20-25 of us to five night spots- actually, each place was mainly empty before we arrived, but it was definitely some of the best time we had in Berlin meeting and hanging out with the travellers along for the ride with us.
On our first night in Berlin, Sunday, we GPSed our way to the cheap little apartment a little late, at about 7pm, where the manager ran us through the basics of the place in a rush to get home. Afterward we walked toward the more populated neighborhood areas, passing through a park on our way. The park was pratically filled with twentysomethings drinking smoking and dancing. Around one busy drum circle we asked a local what the crowd was about. On Sundays, beside that park there is a large flea market and the park usually becomes a bit crowded, but it turns out that the following day was a public holiday recognizing the east/west reunification - everyone would be off work on Monday, and this was a park very near where the wall stood, so we'd arrived at an unusual time.
The local was an illustrator who joined us for drinks at a beer garten a few blocks away, swapped stories and gave us a good feel for the area (with- like we've been experiencing our whole trip- her almost prefect English) and closed the place down with us.
The next day we set out to explore Berlin and some of the sites in our guidebooks, but we quickly figured out that almost everything except restaurants was closed for the holiday - even the park was nearly empty so the whole day was pretty slow-going, and we had already decided to stay an extra (third) night in Berlin. We did wander to a few night sites - we'd read about Dr. Pong, which our book described as a former ping pong auditorium-turned bar. It turns out that "auditorium" ended up being more like "room barely big enough to hold a game of ping-pong" so we skipped out. We found ourselves by the same beer garten and met some students there while figuring out what to do next - they suggested a Cafe/Bar a few stops down the tram line literally called Cafe Bar, where we had our last drinks of the night.
All through our trip, we'd been hearing that when in Berlin, you have to visit the museums, so on our third day, Tuesday, we decided to pick up a little culture and headed to the museum isalnd of five closely placed museums on the other side of the city. We optimistically bought tickets that covered visiting all five museums, but after it took us 3-4 hours to finish the Neues museum alone, the other museums, uh... missed the honor of our presence. We also re-re-re-learned that day not to order German food.
There was an advertised Berlin pub crawl for tourists like us at 8, which took a group of about 20-25 of us to five night spots- actually, each place was mainly empty before we arrived, but it was definitely some of the best time we had in Berlin meeting and hanging out with the travellers along for the ride with us.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
On a plane....
I made it to SeaTac, was delayed in customs (single male alone never works in your favor) then made it to my gate at D6 (which was actually pretty close to the international wing) but of course the departure gate had been changed to the furthest possible gate out at the N satilite (such is my luck with thhe air travel on this trip) . In a strange twist of luck, the flight was late to board and i made the flight (departing earlier than slated, even with the late boarding)
I will be landing at 4, and from there grabbing my little sweetheart and making a run for some food.
I only have my phone at this point as i left the minilaptop with the remaining party, who were as of 40 minutes ago (10:20pm) in Berlin Germany already.
Cheers
-squirrel
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Evasive questioning
Well, apparently my answers weren't in line with an innocent travelor, i didn't have an itinerary, and i traveled with 3 other people while on my stay and none of them were here with me, or leaving for around a week.
These were all the wrong answers, in addition to having not paid for my current stay in Amsterdam, every question i answered lead to more and much more pointed questions. Meh... I'm still alive, and people that have a beef with the body scanners are a Tad bit looney... we're all just animals... and look pretty much the same all in all.
Headed home
I'm sitting in the Amsterdam airport waiting at the terminal (security is at each international gate rather than
At the main gate entrance)
I have, for the last two weeks been intermittently trying to locate some of my baggage that became seperated from my backpack upon arrival in Munich. I figured i would possibly be able to better locate it once at the airport again today, however, i was given the phone numbers to call the lost and found, but dirrected to use the various airport phones (my cell doesn't work outside of the united states). I have tried in vain to get someone to call the airports own lost and found for me but I'm always redirected to these green phones (i attempted to use one, but at 6.50 euros per minute, by the time i would have managed to get a human on the phone, even if they found the bbag, i would have paid for it twice over $150 bag :(
I didn't even get to use it *banging head*
Day 9-11
Yes, consolidated i know.
we arrived in Munich around 7pm if i recall correctly, and decided quite quickly that it would be much cheaper to rent a car for 2 weeks than take various trains all over Europe, so, that's what we did. By 9pm we were in our new rental car, a black 4 door piece of eurotrash (but it got the job done) by 11pm we had oriented ourselves well enough in the city to head northwardly.8 hours later we were in Amsterdam (it actually took until 10am to find the frikken hotel, and another 2 hours from then to check in, whilst everyone was essentially still awake from 6am the morning prior).
We managed to make it until around midnight on day 9 (roughly 42 hours without sleep) and a after a quick tour of downtown Amsterdam. Sleeping until 7am the following day. for whatever reason, we decided on a hotel that happens to be directly (and i mean completely in the path off) under the outbound runway for Amsterdam International Airport (what this means is, ever 5 minutes a a330 or 747 flys right over our hotel room), which has been lovely.
On day 10 we went for pancakes (which were touted as amazing, and was a true statement), which in turn was followed up with more touring, this time of lesser known parts of the Netherlands. We hit many strangely spelled locations (mainly having far too many duplicate letters in a row). afterwards we re-attempted downtown Amsterdam, this time with more sleep. I split from the group to see what all the less touristy places had to offer, and found another of cool bars and local hangouts (and some very nice locals). It ended up costing 52 euros to taxi back to the hotel (we're located in the middle of nowhere).
on day 11, we woke up in a relatively lax fashion, making it out minus Dustin around 10am, and back by 3pm. toured the city went for a jog (me personally) and re hit the old city center (a much nicer area than centraal station (i didn't add an extra a on accident). we turned in early today (around 11pm) so i could get packed and ready to head home.
I'm quite excited to be headed back to my refidgerator, I miss my daughter dearly, along with my Tiki, friends and family :). See you all soon :D
we arrived in Munich around 7pm if i recall correctly, and decided quite quickly that it would be much cheaper to rent a car for 2 weeks than take various trains all over Europe, so, that's what we did. By 9pm we were in our new rental car, a black 4 door piece of eurotrash (but it got the job done) by 11pm we had oriented ourselves well enough in the city to head northwardly.8 hours later we were in Amsterdam (it actually took until 10am to find the frikken hotel, and another 2 hours from then to check in, whilst everyone was essentially still awake from 6am the morning prior).
We managed to make it until around midnight on day 9 (roughly 42 hours without sleep) and a after a quick tour of downtown Amsterdam. Sleeping until 7am the following day. for whatever reason, we decided on a hotel that happens to be directly (and i mean completely in the path off) under the outbound runway for Amsterdam International Airport (what this means is, ever 5 minutes a a330 or 747 flys right over our hotel room), which has been lovely.
On day 10 we went for pancakes (which were touted as amazing, and was a true statement), which in turn was followed up with more touring, this time of lesser known parts of the Netherlands. We hit many strangely spelled locations (mainly having far too many duplicate letters in a row). afterwards we re-attempted downtown Amsterdam, this time with more sleep. I split from the group to see what all the less touristy places had to offer, and found another of cool bars and local hangouts (and some very nice locals). It ended up costing 52 euros to taxi back to the hotel (we're located in the middle of nowhere).
on day 11, we woke up in a relatively lax fashion, making it out minus Dustin around 10am, and back by 3pm. toured the city went for a jog (me personally) and re hit the old city center (a much nicer area than centraal station (i didn't add an extra a on accident). we turned in early today (around 11pm) so i could get packed and ready to head home.
I'm quite excited to be headed back to my refidgerator, I miss my daughter dearly, along with my Tiki, friends and family :). See you all soon :D
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