Traveling in Europe

Observations from Malaysia

2010-11-07T10:47:00.000-08:00

Standing on a Beach in Malaysia

It occurs to me that I probably need to rename the blog, since I have gone far afield from Europe since I first started it. But for now, I will leave as is, but this blog also covers trips to Africa, Asia, New Zealand, and Central America.

In October 2010 I had to make a business trip to Malaysia. This would be my first time visiting there, and I would also set foot in two other countries for the first time: Japan and Singapore. I totaled up the number of countries that I have visited while on this trip: 31 countries and 47 U.S. states.

Day 1, October 23, 2010 – I was traveling with a South African colleague (Chris) who had just finished a visit to Hawaii and was on his way back to Malaysia where he lives. We had to get up at 4 a.m. because we had a 6 a.m. flight from Kona to Honolulu. There, we connected for a 7.5-hour flight to Tokyo. I had heard that the trip to Malaysia was pretty tough, and I found that to be the case. When I am traveling between the U.S. and Europe, I generally have one long leg – 8 hours or so – and then sometimes a short leg. That can get me to get about any place between the U.S. and Europe.

For this trip, I had a 45 minute drive to the airport, a 30 minute flight to Honolulu, a 7.5-hour flight to Tokyo, a 7-hour flight to Singapore, spent the night at a hotel in the airport, and then finished with a 2-hour flight to Kuching, Malaysia. The time zone difference between Malaysia and Hawaii is similar to that between Europe and the U.S. (6 hours versus 7 hours between Dallas and Amsterdam), but it takes so long to get to Singapore that you have the time zone difference in addition to a very long day.

I slept a little on the plane to Tokyo, but mostly worked. I conducted a 40-minute interview with the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy the previous week (that interview can be found here), and I spent most of the flight transcribing it. I worked on this for about 4 hours and got half of it transcribed. I took a break and watched “The Special Relationship” which detailed the intersecting careers of U.S. President Bill Clinton and U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Day 2, October 24, 2010 – We crossed the International Date Line on the trip, so about 4 hours into the flight Saturday became Sunday. Tokyo’s Narita airport wasn’t much to write home about. I landed and immediately checked the score of the OU-Missouri game. OU lost their first game of the season, likely taking them out of the national championship hunt. No matter, they are a very young team and aren’t national champion caliber yet anyway (despite their #1 BCS ranking at the time of their defeat).

The airport advertized “Free Wireless Internet.” What I always find is that “free” is never really free, so while I got connected to the router I was never able to open up a web page. I kept getting “You are not connected to the Internet.”

I found a spot in the airport to work, and spent another 3 hours finishing up the interview. By then I had a migraine and had to take an Immitrex. I also had caffeine for the first time in months. I had gotten completely off of it because it triggers migraines, but I was so tired that I decided I would just get back on the caffeine train for the duration of this trip. I will have to go back to caffeine rehab when I get home in a week.

When we got on the plane to Singapore, I popped a couple of sleeping pills. We weren’t supposed to land until midnight, and on the long flight I wanted to make sure I got plenty of sleep. I woke up a few times feeling pretty stiff, but overall I was fine until I was jolted awake. I thought the plane had just had a very hard landing, but it was severe turbulence. We were about a half hour away from landing, and then we hit another patch. I would describe it as the feeling of hitting the runway much too hard. I was buckled up, so it was mostly just a bit scary, but right after the turbulence a flight attendant came on and started requesting a doctor.

We later found that someone behind us had been standing up when we hit the turbulence, and he had hit his head and lacerated it. But apparently there were others, as there was an announcement that we should all stay seated after landing because paramedics were going to board the plane and tend to “the people who were injured.” The pilot came on and apologized for the unexpected turbulence, but said “This is Southeast Asia. Those kinds of things are going to happen.” I also later received an e-mail from United apologizing for the turbulence.

Day 3, October 25, 2010 – We arrived at the airport in Singapore about midnight. I checked my watch, and noted that it was officially Monday. So we left on Saturday morning, it was now Monday, and I still had a flight ahead to get to where I needed to be.

We were staying at a hotel inside the secure area of the airport. We were told our rooms wouldn’t be ready until about 1 a.m., so we walked through the airport to find a place to eat. My favorite airport anywhere is probably Schiphol in Amsterdam, but the one in Singapore could easily become my favorite. It doesn’t feel like an airport; it feels more like a mall. There were movie theaters, all sorts of shopping, a butterfly garden, fern garden, orchid garden, and many restaurants.

When I am in a new place, I like to see what kind of music they listen to. When I first went to Germany, I recall turning on the radio to hear German music, and Snoop Doggie Dog was playing. Here, in the airport, the first two songs I heard were Fast Car by Tracy Chapman and Centerfold by the J. Geils Band.

We found ourselves a Hard Rock Café and sat down for a bite. They had free Internet in there, and I tried to log onto Facebook. It didn’t recognize the location, so it tried to authenticate me. There were two choices: They could send a text to my old cell phone number (got to update that!) or I could identify specific friends. Since I have a lot of FB “friends” that I don’t really know, I thought that would be a bad option too. So I canceled the authentication, but apparently that set off alarms and now I can’t even log in on my phone. The same thing happened when I tried to play Warcraft (which I like to do from time to time). Every time I logged in from a new place, they thought it had been hacked and locked my account.

I bought myself a shirt at the Hard Rock. My favorite t-shirt is from the Hard Rock in Berlin. It is a silky black shirt that has Berlin on the front of it and a cool design on the back. My new Singapore shirt is in the same style; it just doesn’t have as cool a design on the back.

When I got to my room, it was freezing. They had the temperature set at 5 degrees C (41 degrees Fahrenheit). I turned it up to 20 and went to bed. But three times during the night I woke up freezing, and finally had to turn it off. The only nights I have ever been colder than that were nights when I camped out in sub-freezing temperatures. So one of my coldest ever nights was spent practically on the equator.

The room itself was unusual. It is a transit hotel, and the rooms were small but clean. But what was funny was that there were curtains and blinds in front of walls. So the place had the appearance of a regular hotel room with windows, but open the curtains or blinds and you were looking at wall. There were absolutely no windows in there.

I slept well and didn’t wake up until 8. Our flight out wasn’t until 2 in the afternoon, so we had some time to kill. My friend Chris asked if I wanted to try a local breakfast of noodles and shrimp, but I was starving and needed something more filling. I would get plenty of noodles and shrimp in the days ahead. Back to the Hard Rock where we had an American breakfast and listened to an AC/DC marathon.

After breakfast I tried to get wireless Internet on my computer. At first it said I had to have a registered Singapore telephone number, but then I finally seemingly got to a page where I could just buy access for 2 hours. But my two attempts to enter my credit card number were rejected, so I settled in to just write and catch up which is what I am doing now.

I finally went to a help desk where they gave me a user name and password after I provided my passport. Chris said this is because they monitor all Internet traffic and would want to be able to detain me in case it was warranted based on my Internet usage.

We finally boarded the plane for the short flight to Kuching, Malaysia. When we landed and stepped off the plane, I said “Ah, feels like I am in Houston.” That’s exactly what Kuching felt like: Hot and sticky humid. First impressions of the place were “Not Mumbai.” I had somewhat been expecting India, but there weren’t nearly the crowds, noise, and chaos I had experienced when I first landed in India.

I had to watch it when I stepped off a curb, as they drive on the left there (which I didn’t know). I also couldn’t get over the fact that it was actually Monday; this certainly felt like a Sunday to me. I had lost a day due to crossing the International Date Line, and I was finding it hard to adjust.

We were met at the airport by Chris’s wife and two daughters. I tried to pull out cash from an ATM with no luck, and then Chris took me to my hotel. There was a sign displaying that “There are no cases of H1N1 detected in the hotel yet.” That struck me as an odd thing for a hotel to note.

In my room, I had Internet access but it was about like dial-up. Very slow, and hard to work with. I decided to catch up on my writing for a while, but after a bit I started hearing a noise. I looked out and there was quite a downpour. Chris later said that they call that “drizzle” and that a real downpour meant near zero visibility.

Giant Cat Statue in Kuching, Malaysia

We joined up with another colleague (Glen) later and went out to a bar for a few drinks. I was introduced to all of their local friends in the bar. One of them was a young girl who worked there. I found that it was often very difficult for me to determine the ages of people there, so I asked Glen “How old is she? 12?” I was told that “No, she is 32.” I wanted to take a picture of her to show people back home because it seemed so unlikely. She was only about 4 feet tall and had the face of a child. But she also had a kid of about six years with her, who I was told was her son.

We were overlooking a very broad river (the Sarawak River) that reminded me of the Mississippi. The size of the river attested to the amount of rain that they receive there, which apparently amounts to a deluge every evening. I was told that they had found piranhas in the river recently.

We left the bar to have some local food. It was really good for the most part. But one of the dishes contained sea cucumber, which I found to be really bland and rubbery. No forks in sight, so I tried my hand with the chopsticks. Mostly I got down close to the food and used them to shovel food into my mouth. But overall, we had quite a good meal before returning to the hotel for the night.

Day 4, October 26, 2010 – I woke up at 5 a.m. and started reading over the energy headlines. I also saw that Indonesia, which was the neighboring country, had been hit by a tsunami caused by a earthquake. A number of people had died, and the tsunami was followed by a volcano that also resulted in fatalities. There was apparently no impact on Malaysia’s beaches though.

I also did a bit of writing before we headed off to breakfast. We met a colleague at a local café, which I was told was a meeting place for millionaires and gangsters. You wouldn’t know it by looking at it; it appeared to be just a bustling outdoor café full of locals.

Breakfast was unusual. We started with a few spring rolls stuffed with local vegetables. Then they fed me a spicy noodle dish with shrimp. I ate it with chopsticks, which I was becoming more accustomed to. But I still made a bit of a mess as I got the noodles to my mouth and then slurped them up. I also had a cup of coffee that was one of the best I have ever tasted. I had given up coffee about six months previously, so it had been a while. But this was really great coffee. We snapped a few pictures at breakfast, one of which I uploaded to Facebook.

Breakfast in Malaysia

Afterward, we went to the office to talk business for a while. When we got ready to break for lunch, we headed to an Indian restaurant. There was a buffet, and I had a variety of things. Later that afternoon, my stomach became very disagreeable, and I found out that one of the other people who ate with us had the same symptoms.

As we sat there eating lunch, I tried to think about what Malaysia reminded me of. In some ways, it reminded me of Panama. Some of the buildings looked very similar, and the climate felt the same. I had really expected India, but it wasn’t at all the assault on the senses that India was. While I found myself occasionally seeing something unusual, in India it was constant: “Was that a monkey walking that dog?” or “That motorbike has 7 people on it!”

We had some free time in the afternoon, so I was asked what I wanted to do. I said I preferred to get out of town. But first my host took me on a drive around Kuching. There were giant cat statues around town, and I was told that this is because that’s where the name Kuching derives from: cat.

One thing my colleagues told me when I was there is that I made things easy for them, because I would tell them exactly what I did and didn’t want to do. They said sometimes people are just polite and go along with anything. I said “No, I am pretty direct” and they said that’s the way they like it.

One thing I did notice when were driving around is that while the crowds are not as large, and there isn’t the constant honking, driving is still an adventure compared to the west. Numerous times we saw people simply park on the road, in a lane of traffic, and get out and walk away. Once we came upon a woman standing in the middle of the road texting, with cars flying around her on both sides.

A Street in Malaysia

At one point we stopped to take a walk down by the river. I noticed a white key card laying on the ground, and thought “Someone is going to miss that.” I would soon find out who.

Chris drove me out of town, and we first stopped by his apartment building. It was out of town, and in a beautiful setting. As we pulled up to the gate, he said “I have to have the guards let me in; I can’t find my access card.” I asked “Was it white with a crack at the top?” He said that it was, so I said “I know where it is.” We went back there later that evening and retrieved it; I was surprised that it was still there.

My host took me out to a virgin rain forest, which was really incredible. I peered into the edge of it, and it was so thick that I couldn’t imagine anyone walking into it. He told me that there were some trails in there, and he had climbed up the mountain previously. He said there was a lot of wildlife in there, including proboscis monkeys.

We were going out to eat in a bit, but we decided to get in a swim first back at his apartment. On the drive there I introduced him to a little ZZ Top and Rage Against the Machine. He recognized some of the ZZ Top songs, and Wake Up by Rage (from The Matrix soundtrack). Chris told me a funny story while we were driving around. We were talking about my company’s name, Merica. My title is CTO and Executive Vice President of Merica. His daughter picked up my business card and thought I was the Vice President of America. He said I was briefly a celebrity in his house.

After we had a swim, Chris, his wife, and I all went out to dinner. I mentioned to Chris that my stomach was churning from the food earlier in the day, and he said that his was doing the same. I would spend half my night with abdominal cramps as a result.

Dinner was really good; a buffet with lots of items on the menu. I had a lot of seafood and beef, but even in this really nice restaurant there were flies crawling around the food. So I pulled food off the bottom, and tried not to think about things crawling around.

Day 5, October 27, 2010 – After a restless night of stomach cramps, I got up at 5 for a flight to Bintulu. We were to meet up with a colleague and look over some infrastructure there.

After we arrived in Bintulu, we drove out to a little town in the bush. They pointed out to me the longhouses that people lived in. Those have a very long history. They are essentially a very long house with one entrance after another side by side by side; each housing a family.

We stopped for breakfast, and I was asked what I wanted. “Fruit?” No fruit. We were literally surrounded by fruit; I was staring at a big bunch of papaya growing 20 feet from where we were sitting, but there was no fruit on the menu. I thought about the contradiction. Another one I noted was that I was told the soil is very poor, and yet everything was incredibly lush and green.

So, after breakfast of coffee, noodles, and a fried egg (really good), we hit the road again. Before I got in the car, I stepped into the bathroom in the restaurant. It wasn’t really a restaurant, but I don’t know what else to call it. It was an open air facility that served food. There was one toilet for everyone, and when I went in I almost got sick. It was right next to the kitchen, and it smelled horrible. But what made me sick was that there wasn’t even a sink to wash your hands. Forget about the sign that says “Employees wash your hands before returning to work” – there was no washing the hands. So I started to think about the hands that had prepared my food, and my stomach started to churn. I went through so much hand sanitizer on the trip, which everyone thought was pretty funny.

We drove out and had a look at some oil palm plantations. They have oil palm growing almost everywhere we looked. It was my first time to see it up close. I crushed one of the seeds so I could see and smell the oil. Oil palm has been vilified in the west because of the implications in deforestation, and in fact my host pointed out a forest that had been cut down to plant some oil palm. But for some people there, it is a way out of poverty. So it’s a difficult situation. (I did an essay specifically on the palm oil situation here).

After we left the forest, we had a visit to the Bintulu port facility. They rolled out the red carpet. There was a sign near the entrance welcoming us, and they had a photographer taking pictures. They even had wrapped presents, fruit, and cheesecake prepared. It was a little intimidating, but we had a very nice visit and overview of the port there. The discussion again centered on palm oil; this is clearly a very big and growing business there.

I got to my hotel room in Bintulu that evening, and once again my Internet was unreliable. Constant disconnections, and very slow. Every other website was refused; I wonder if things are being censored. One of the things I am doing is working on an article on hemp as a renewable energy source. The problem is that marijuana advocates don’t always distinguish between hemp and marijuana, so it can look like I am for marijuana legalization if I am writing about making the use of hemp legal. When we were landing in Malaysia, they announced that people trafficking in drugs get the death penalty, so I wondered if they were tracking my hemp searches as suspicious.

We went out to eat at a local place; I had some beef pepper steak, some spicy fish, and some ostrich. One of the guys I was with asked when I was coming back to Malaysia, and I jokingly said “When you guys get faster Internet.”

Day 6, October 28, 2010 – Today’s big event would be a visit to Shell’s GTL plant in Bintulu. Colleagues know when I say "Bintulu" that's shorthand for Shell's Bintulu, Malaysia gas-to-liquids (GTL) facility. As someone involved in gasification, I was really looking forward to getting a look inside their facility, the largest in the world.

We met three Shell representatives for breakfast, including the site manager. We had breakfast (I had ordered an omelet, but it turned up with onions in it) and then made our way to the facility. We had a really good visit; I will be putting up a story on my blog. In fact, that was the reason for the visit; to write a story and bring the Bintulu story to my blog readers.

We spent the morning in the facility, talking to the manager (who was a Kiwi, and in the middle of a move to Houston) and then took a drive into the plant. I got plenty of information for a story, which I started writing up right away. I also found out that Shell had flown someone in from media relations just for my visit.

We had lunch and then I caught up on some e-mails before checking out of our hotel. Our flight was much later in the day, so we went to another hotel that had faster Internet. I was actually able to play a little Warcraft for the first time that week; most of the time I couldn’t stay connected. In fact, by 4:30 in the afternoon the Internet got really slow again, presumably from people coming home from work and logging on.

After a bit, the Shell Bintulu site manager that we had met with earlier in the day showed up and sat down to work. We would see him often for the rest of the day. He was headed to Switzerland, and we bumped into him in the hotel lobby, again in the airport check-in counter, while waiting for a flight (he had a different flight, but connecting to the same city), at the baggage claim in the next city (Kuching) and then the next morning in Starbucks at the airport when I was getting ready to fly to Singapore.

Anyway, after leaving the hotel, my colleague Glen and I took a taxi to the airport for the flight from Bintulu back to Kuching. The flight was delayed by weather, but we finally flew and I made it back to my hotel in Kuching for my last night in Malaysia at about 10 p.m.

Day 7, October 29, 2010 – I woke up early and got a bit of work done before heading out with Glen and Chris for a final breakfast. We discussed the nature of the work that we wanted to do, and brainstormed possible energy outcomes going forward. Ideally, we want to be positioned in the right place as oil supplies deplete, and my trip to Malaysia was to gain a better understanding of the options there.

At the airport, we had a coffee at Starbucks (believe it or not only the 2nd time I have ever had a coffee at Starbucks) and talked about plans. A few tables over sat the Shell manager once more (I joked that he was following us) and then a Muslim friend that they knew came up and started talking. He mentioned something about drinking, and said “They are very strict here.”

After he left, I asked what that was all about. He said that Muslims are subject to religious laws. Since drinking is against Islamic law, Muslims who drink in Malaysia are subject to arrest by the religious police. They can ask for your ID if they suspect you of drinking, and if it indicates that you are Muslim they can arrest you. He said there was a recent case in which a Muslim woman had been caught drinking a beer, and she had gotten 10 lashes with a cane.

I got on the plane, and once more two rows in front of me was the manager from Shell. We got to Singapore, and I have to say again that this is one amazing airport. They actually offered a free city tour from the airport, and you didn’t even have to go through immigration. The catch was that you had to have a boarding pass, and since I didn’t fly out until the next morning I didn’t have one. So I settled down to catch up on my writing. I had dinner at the Hard Rock, and did a bit of shopping. Lady Gaga was blaring as I walked through the airport.

It was really hard to find anything that had been made in Singapore. They had Swiss chocolates and plenty of goods made in America, wines from Australia, France, South Africa, and California – but very little that was uniquely from Singapore. So I headed back to the Hard Rock to pick up t-shirts for everyone.

I hadn’t turned on a TV during my entire trip, so I went back to my room to check out Singapore’s version of television. I turned on the TV, and Wheel of Fortune was on. I changed channels and found a show where a kid was dancing – very badly. The audience seemed to enjoy it, but it looked like a train wreck.

Day 9, October 30, 2010 – I boarded the plane to Tokyo, which is where I am writing these words from just now. There were some movies on that I hadn’t seen, so first I watched those. There had been such hype over the Twilight series (that’s all my wife and daughter talk about), and they had Eclipse, the 3rd in the series available. So I checked it out. I suppose it was OK, but not having seen the previous two there was a lot that I didn’t follow. I guess I will have to go back and watch them. Following that I watched the new version of Predators, which I didn’t think was all that good.

We flew into Tokyo in a tropical storm, and our flight out to Honolulu was delayed. So I kicked back in the lounge, ate sushi, drank wine, and caught up on episodes of South Park and The Daily Show. We finally took off a bit late, but I made it home without too much delay.

My stomach continued to grumble for several days after returning; probably a response to my diet changing back to normal. But overall it was a good trip. I am sure I will be going back at some point.

New Zealand

2010-03-31T20:24:00.000-07:00

New Zealand – March 2010

While I have traveled a lot around the northern hemisphere, until this trip I had never crossed the equator. I had nearly been to New Zealand on business a couple of times in the past, but things had never quite worked out.

On this trip, we visited Auckland, Wellington, Whangarei, Rotorua, Christchurch, and Taupo. We spent a lot of time out looking at forestry operations in the country, trying to gain a better understanding of what it would take to do a project there.

New Zealand reminded me of two places: Scotland, where I lived once before, and Hawaii, where I live now. Wellington specifically reminded me of Seattle; lots of water and tree-covered hills, with houses dotting the hills. But if I had to describe New Zealand in relation to one place, it would be Scotland with better weather. As in Scotland, the people are extremely nice, everyone is driving on the left, the breakfasts are the same, they have fish and chips everywhere and afternoon tea, and the newspapers are sensational (Mayor Urinates on Tree; Public is Outraged).

Airport security in New Zealand has not caught up to the rest of the world. On most flights, not only did I not have to show ID, but I didn’t have to go through a metal detector. On the one hand, this makes for very convenient travel around the country (security is tight on international flights), I was uneasy knowing that no screening had taking place. I remember when it was like that in the U.S….

Wellington is a really windy city. The first day we were there, the winds must have been tropical force strength, and people acted like that was pretty normal. We actually flew in that weather, and those were some of the roughest flights I have ever been on. Those little planes were tossed around so badly that I was sure we were going to crash. A man we met with later said “If you have the stomach for it, go to YouTube and look up Landings at Wellington Airport.”

We saw a rugby match while I was there, and ironically the only other place I have done that was in Scotland. For the match we attended in New Zealand, the local Wellington team played a South African team, but lost in overtime.

New Zealand is more international than I would have guessed. You see many different nationalities walking down the street. Our host, in fact, had emigrated there from India. When we were in restaurants, we would try to guess where different waiters/waitresses were from. Sometimes we just asked. I was sure one waiter was from Greece, but we didn’t ask. Another time, a waitress was from Thailand, and then we had a waitress from Indiana. (I didn’t ask what brought her to New Zealand; she probably has to answer that question several times a day).

The trip was business, so we didn’t do much sight-seeing other than what we saw as we traveled from one meeting to another. I hope to make it back down at some point, and have a little more time to enjoy the sights.

Hamburg ist Schön

2009-06-10T14:27:00.000-07:00

Hamburg - at least in late spring, is a lovely city. I had driven through some years ago, but had never spent any time in the city. I spent the last weekend in May there, and while I was on business, I did have some time to see some of the sights.

I took a train from Arnhem, Netherlands and the trip was about 5 hours each way. The weather was great, and the scenery across Germany was perfect. Lots of green farmland. It was a holiday weekend, and the train was packed - at first I had to sit on the floor in the bicycle compartment - but after a while a seat opened up and I read a book during the long trip.

I arrived in the early afternoon, and I took a cab to the hotel. I got to practice my German a bit (I had spoken for a bit with someone earlier when I ordered bratwurst for lunch) and it went generally OK. I had a bit of trouble checking in, though. I was speaking, and I thought the person checking me in asked if I had been there before. I shook my head "No", and she looked confused. What she was actually doing was welcoming me. As I tell people sometimes "Miss a verb here and a noun there, and pretty soon you don't know what the heck anyone is saying."

After checking in, I met up with my colleague Terry Kennon. We had a dinner engagement outside of the city, but we had some time so we took a stroll and had a look around. The architecture was quite impressive, but what really stood out is the amount of water in the city. There are lots of canals - I learned that there are more bridges than in Amsterdam and Venice put together - and also a couple of large artificial lakes.

We killed some time walking around, but when it was time for dinner we hopped in a cab. I gave the cab driver directions in German, and after a bit of back and forth he understood where we needed to go. We were headed outside of the city to an area called Nienstedten, overlooking the Elbe River. At one point I noticed that we were driving on the infamous Reeperbahn, although I didn't see any of the things the street is famous for.

We had a nice meal while watching the steady ship traffic on the Elbe. I got to practice my German a bit more, and we talked about energy, politics, peak oil, and the weather in Hamburg. Several of us had just come from the U.S. and were jet-lagged, so we finally called it an evening at about 10 p.m.

Several times in Europe I have run across pleasant surprises. The following day, Sunday the 31st, was such an occasion. Terry and I went out exploring again. I showed him how I use Google maps on my Blackberry for navigation. Without worrying about getting lost, we went exploring. We first walked along the artifical lakes (the Aussenalster and Binnenalster). The weather was great, and there were lots of people in and around the lakes. I was kicking myself for not having a camera.

There was a large area of green on the map, so we headed toward it. Turns out it it was a very large park, and right in the middle of it was the Hamburg Botanical Garden. It was really impressive. There were a number of rooms for tropical plants (very warm and humid), and one was full of thriving banana trees. I had never seen the blooms on banana trees before, but there were beautiful pink/purple blooms, along with tiny bananas on some of these trees. There was also an area for desert plants, and I have never seen so many cactuses in my life. There were all shapes and sizes, and they had some of the biggest aloe plants I had ever seen.

After enjoying that (free!) garden, we headed back toward the hotel. But we had another surprise. We thought we were going to walk along a traffic filled road all the way, but we spotted one of those car-free pedestrian areas that just happened to be a shortcut. Terry enjoyed that a lot and took some pictures. We were hungry, so we stopped at a little Italian place and had a meal outside. One funny thing was that most of the restaurants were preceded by "Hamburger." So I kept looking up and thinking I was looking at a hamburger joint.

After lunch, I walked back over to the central train station to catch my train back to Arnhem. One thing I have to remember in the future is that not all of those trains are air conditioned, and I spent a very hot Sunday afternoon coming back. I just about got dehydrated on the train. Next time I have to leave earlier in the day - or take plenty of water along with me.

Iceland and Greenland

2008-07-21T06:01:00.000-07:00

I flew back from Amsterdam to Dallas on Friday, July 18th. I have to say, summer brings out the worst in people. I never saw so much line-jumping as took place when I was waiting to clear passport control, security, and then getting on the plane. Line-jumpers in each case, and at passport control, people were actually bypassing the line altogether for the security check and going straight to passport control. Security was a bit lax. I waited in line for 15 minutes only to have someone walk right to front of the line. When I was waiting for the security check, an elderly Chinese couple was carried by cart to the line, where they promptly walked right up to the front. They did the same when we got on the plane; walked right to the front. Must be the tourist season, as I haven't seen it like this before.

Anyway, that's a digression. Every time I fly back and forth to Europe, I always sit on the north side of the plane. The reason for that is that I love to get a glimpse of Greenland if we fly close enough, and the weather was clear. On 7/18/08, I flew back from Amsterdam to Dallas, and not only was Greenland quite visible, but for the first time I could clearly see Iceland from the plane. Mark James, another person traveling on the same flight was taking some pictures, and I asked him if he could send me some copies (I had left my camera in Europe). Below are the pictures from the window of the plane, and they are impressive. The display said we were at 34,000 feet, but it seemed that we were much lower than that.

Vestmannaeyjabær off the Southern Coast of Iceland.

Credit for all Photos to Mark James

Icebergs off the Eastern Coast of Greenland

The Eastern Coast of Greenland

The Southern Coast of Iceland

I spotted that town off of Iceland from the air, and looked it up. It is Vestmannaeyjabær. You can see some pictures of it from the ground here: http://www.world-geographics.com/europe/iceland/south-1755/3412095-vestmannaeyjabr.html

India Part II

2008-03-20T02:03:00.001-07:00

Day 3, Sunday, March 16 - I woke up a few times during the night and smelled garbage coming in through the air conditioner vent. I guess this happened when the wind shifted and came in from Bombay. Twenty million people must create quite a garbage dump. I also woke up with my face itching, so I slapped it in case a mosquito was biting me. Sure enough, I woke up with a bloody – but hopefully malaria free – mosquito squashed to the side of my face.

We had a leisurely breakfast and talked about politics and energy. Breakfast, by the way, included some spicy things which I mostly avoided. One thing that was hard to get used to was that people were constantly jumping up and getting me food. Someone would ask if I had tried something, and when I said "No" they would jump up and get it for me.

We talked about their impressions of the West, and my impressions so far of India. I learned that most people in India view everyone in the West as being rich. I said that I suppose it is relative: They would be rich relative to them. It is the same as when I was a kid. Rich was anyone with more money than us.

The energy discussion revolved around jatropha and ethanol. Jatropha is very interesting, because the West has high hopes for the potential of jatropha to provide biofuel. The problem is - as was explained to me - that all of the fertile land is being used, and there are no roads or infrastructure to the marginal land. Everywhere we went, jatropha was like a myth: Everyone knew a little about it, but nobody had seen it or could tell us where to find it.

After lunch, Kapil and I took a walk down the road. Everywhere we went, there was trash beside the road. Waste management has got to be a challenge with that many people. As we were walking, we passed a number of those sacred Hindu cattle. They were really small, and I wanted to get a picture for perspective. Kapil got his camera out, and a cow came up to me expecting food. When she figured out I didn't have any, she hooked her horn under my Blackberry and flipped it into the road. Then she hit me in the arm with her horn. After considering a steer-wrestling move, I shooed her away. But there was a bull right behind her and he came in looking for food. I put out my arm to stop him from doing the same thing she had just done. Kapil snapped some pictures of this.

On the way back, Kapil pointed out some natural beehives that were just hanging off of buildings. There were numerous clusters just hanging in a semicircle formation. (I later retrieved my camera and took some pictures).

I was anxious to move on, but we found that all of the others were taking a siesta. That is common in India as in Mexico: During the heat of the day people take a nap. So Kapil and I spent some time outside discussing the future of our company, and about our personal expectations. Once Kapil left me, and the four-year-old son of one of Kapil's friends came out and started talking to me. I just kept smiling and nodding. He had a toy that he was showing me. I finally took a picture of him, and showed it to him. Then he really started cutting up.

We finally hit the road much later than planned. We were again cutting across rural India. I finally got accustomed to "the look." We were passing very close by people (and there were people everywhere) and I was on the side of the car closest to them. Someone would see me in the car, look away for a second, and then their head would snap back around to take a second, longer look. After a while, I started waving at people. Some even waved back.

The crowds were just something else. The population density of India is probably the highest of any country in the world. All night long, the crowds alongside the road were like crowds streaming out of a concert. I once caught myself asking "I wonder what happened" as I watched a huge crowd gathered in a town. Turns out nothing had happened; it was just a big crowd of people. I told Kapil that if I saw that in the U.S., it is almost certain that there has been an accident.

I saw some pretty interesting things as we drove along. I again saw four people on a motorcycle, and I told Kapil "I still haven't seen five." He pointed in front of us, and said "Look there. There's five." A second later: "No, six!" About 3 seconds later, both of us at the same time "Seven!" There were seven people piled on to a motorcycle. I snapped a picture as they drove by, but didn't get all of them.

We passed a building once that said "Fellowship Pentecostal Church." Another time, we passed a very run down building that announced "Computer Training Lessons." There were loads of barbershops in these little towns. They, like other shops, were just tiny buildings all joined together with no observable door. (I never did see any place for women to get their hair cut). I finally realized what this all reminded me of: The world's largest flea market. That's the only thing I can relate to that is similar in the West. And it struck me that this may be why all of the Indians I know seem to be such good businessmen: They grew up bargaining and doing business every day in these shops.

We finally got into our hotel late, after stopping of to meet the parents of one of Kapil's friends. It was my first time inside a house in India. Anyway, after checking into the hotel, I was anxious to get caught up on e-mails and writing. Neither my telephone nor Internet was working. It probably took them a couple of hours to get it fixed, but in the meantime I started working on this essay. I finally got to bed at 2 a.m.

Day 4, Monday, March 17 - Ah, St. Patricks Day. You wouldn't have guessed that. As soon as the sun started coming into the room, I got up. I checked the time; it was 2 a.m. Netherlands time. I had been trying to keep to Netherlands time since I have to fly back to the U.S. at the end of the week, but I am not doing a very good job of it.

I went down for breakfast, and against my better judgment had bacon. I had only had meat one other time since being in the country, so I decided to have just a tiny bit of bacon. Of course I was thinking about trichinosis as I was eating it. I also had a fruit called chikko. I had never heard of this fruit, but it was really delicious.

We had a business meeting in another town, so we were picked up. We again had a driver. I was told that it was very cheap to hire a car and driver, and after the chaos I observed on the road, I would never recommend that an American try to drive in India.

As we were driving, I finally saw an elephant standing in a town. Besides the elephant, there was again the overwhelming poverty everywhere you looked. I am not sure a Westerner can understand this without seeing it. We have poverty. We have homelessness. But we don't have anything like this. You can see it on the TV, but I think you tune it out. When you see mile after mile of it here, there is no tuning it out. At least not for me.

The crowds were as they had been everywhere else. I asked Kapil about the colorful garments of the women; whether they had any specific significance. He said no, that it just depended on their mood. But that is something that stands out: The women dress in very bright and vibrant colors. (I got my picture taken with a couple of them to show an example).

The horn honking continued. You apparently honk your horn as a warning to others. And horns are honked constantly. It has a different connotation in the West, where if someone was constantly honking at you they would probably get flipped off. Here, it is as normal as a turn signal (although turn signals were not at all normal).

Besides people, cows, and buffalo, there were also dogs everywhere. There were no breeds you would recognize; they all just looked like strays. Also, I noticed that for all of the motorcycles on the roads, almost nobody anywhere wore a helmet.

I noticed an apparent swastika on a truck on the highway. I knew that there was some Hindu symbol that looked like that, so I asked. Kapil pointed out to me that it is different than the swastika in that the lines point the opposite direction, and it predates the Nazi usage by a long, long time.

We finally got to our meeting at a fabrication shop. Again with the handshaking. I excused myself as quickly as possible to wash my hands. (As I already pointed out, this habit of mine is not limited to India; I always wash my hands as soon as I can after shaking hands). I was asked whether I wanted coffee, and I said "Yes, that would be nice." Apparently, they didn't have any coffee, because it was about an hour before it actually arrived. I presume they sent someone down the street for my coffee, which of course I wouldn't have had them do had I known.

We toured the fab shop, and I commented to Kapil that ConocoPhillips, for instance, wouldn't do business here unless a number of safety policies were implemented. There was hot work and metal work going on, but nobody was wearing safety goggles. There were kids milling about the shop. I saw frayed and bare electrical cords attached to welding machines. There was metal sticking out with sharp edges. You had to keep very alert to avoid getting hurt. And the noise was horrible. Of course, no earplugs in sight. I had to wonder about their injury statistics.

We finally concluded our meeting, and began a seven-hour drive to our next stop. As we were leaving, I noticed the familiar site of people lying in the shade outside hovels. I saw a woman picking (presumably) lice out of a young girl's hair. The youngest kids weren't wearing clothes at all. I thought about the gulf here between rich and poor. I bet that it is larger here than at any other place in the world. You have billionaires, and then millions living in horrible conditions.

Although I was really tired, I wasn't able to nap. I drifted off once for about 5 minutes, but then woke back up, afraid I would miss something. It struck me that I would be at the family farm in Oklahoma in only 5 days, as I had a return trip to the U.S. planned. That seemed a million miles away; it literally seemed like I was thinking about flying to a different planet.

As we drove, I quizzed Kapil about Indian society. He told me that life expectancy, even for educated people, lags the West. This surprised me, considering that he also told me that 70% or so of the country are vegetarians. He had told me that India is self-sufficient in food; I think this is only possible because of their diet. If they had a meat-heavy diet as we do in the West, I think the population density is too high to be self-sufficient. Then again, there are a lot of Hindu cattle wandering about.

I asked him some questions about the caste system, and he told me some of the history. We passed a migrant camp, and I posed the following question: "If a little girl is born in that camp, and she is the next Einstein, will she ever realize her destiny?" He said "Probably not, because there is no means. There isn't anything that would legally prevent her from it, but practically speaking it would be very hard."

I also noted that despite the poor conditions of many, the health of the people seemed to be quite good. I didn't see any blind or handicapped people. He said that's because the infrastructure isn't equipped to deal with them; that life for them is very hard. He said they exist, but are locked out of normal society.

I made a few more observations about the traffic. Trucks and buses just meander back and forth across the lines. The roads seem to be shared equally by all modes of transportation, but you better pay attention as you are expected to get out of the way when someone honks. I also noticed that there were no tour buses at all. Maybe there are in the big cities, but where we were, I never saw one.

We spent most of the day making our way through Gir Forest National Park. There were signs indicating all kinds of wildlife. From Wikipedia:

The count of 2,375 distinct fauna species of Gir includes about 38 species of mammals, around 300 species of birds, 37 species of reptiles and more than 2,000 species of insects. The carnivores group mainly comprises Asiatic lions, Leopards, Jungle cat, Hyenas, Jackals, Mongoose, Civet cats, and Ratels. Desert cats and Rusty-spotted cats exist but are rarely seen.

There were no towns, and finally the people had thinned out, but Kapil told me that there were still tribes in the jungle. At one point we stopped high in the mountains and had a spectacular panoramic view. It was very hazy though. There were a couple of women there also enjoying the view, and Kapil asked them if I could take a picture with them to show some traditional Indian dress. They giggled, but agreed.

We eventually arrived back in another town. Just when I didn't think I could possibly be more isolated from Western culture, I saw a guy walking down the street wearing a Dallas Cowboys t-shirt. And right after that, a pig darted out in front of us, and we managed to graze him.

We finally arrived very late to our destination in Shirdi, which was home to a very famous Hindu holy man: Sai Baba of Shirdi. There is a Hindu temple - Saibaba Temple - there dedicated to him that hosts 10 million visitors a year. Kapil said we were probably the only ones in the hotel not on a religious pilgrimage, but he did plan to take me to the temple the next day.

Day 5, Tuesday, March 18 - I woke up trying to remember where I was as my Blackberry was going off. I jumped up and got ready (the power went off for a few minute while I was getting ready) and Kapil and I had a quick breakfast. We were supposed to be taken at 9 to a sugarcane factory that produces sugar, ethanol, and several other industrial chemicals from the ethanol (acetic acid, ethyl acetate, etc.) The guy we were meeting still hadn't shown up at 9:30, so we called. He said "10 more minutes." That's something I have noticed – 10 minutes is never really 10 minutes. Time is pretty casual here. Every day our schedule slipped. It always took longer to do something than we thought.

I am going to skip over most of the factory tour, and cover it in a separate post. Just some general observations. On the way to the plant, we saw migrant workers out harvesting sugarcane by hand. It seems to me that it wouldn't be very hard to mechanize that process. It looks like brutally hot work, but then the alternative for some may be starvation.

We started the day with the Office Superintendent of the facility. We had gotten into the habit of asking everyone we ran into about jatropha. Again, same response as all of the others: They knew of jatropha, but didn't know anyone who was growing it.

As we were waiting, someone brought in drinks for us. I had been looking to Kapil to advise me of what to eat or drink, but this was hot so I drank it. It had a really odd smell, and a very sweet taste. It also was very quick to form a skin on top. I drank it, and as soon as we were alone I asked "What did I just drink?" It was coffee with buffalo milk and locally produced sugar. The buffalo milk was responsible for the odd smell.

A few notes on our plant tour. Safety is not treated at the same level as in the West. We were walking around burning hot furnaces and distillation columns, and nobody was wearing any kind of protective equipment. Once we were standing underneath a platform where people were working about 40 feet above us. None of us had a hard hat on.

Following the tour, we were taken to a room that looked like it might host a city council. There were a lot of hushed tones, and I wasn't sure what was going on. Finally, in came a local political leader. He was treated with great deference. Kapil told me he was equivalent to a state senator, and that this was typical Indian hierarchical customs. He also said that some of these political guys were really nasty, but he said this guy seemed to be really nice. One odd thing is that he kept shaking his head "No" when he was agreeing. Kapil said this is normal Indian body language. I found it hard to get used to. The Indian people also seemed to have trouble with my name. Like many others, he referred to me as "Mr. Robert."

They had a welcoming ceremony for us, and I got treated to a flower necklace and a red dot of paint on my forehead. Pictures were taken, but I think I will keep those to myself. I felt very awkward during the whole thing; not quite sure what to do. This is another reason I am not a politician - I don't like ceremony too much.

Following the tour and lunch, we went to the temple. We got VIP treatment: We were taken to the front of an hours long line to pay respects to a Hindu god. I heard them call out "VIP" several times. I will keep the details private, but I did feel bad about jumping in front of all of those people. I got a number of curious stares, and a number of very cold stares. Imagine that you have been standing in line at the Vatican for three hours to see the Sistine Chapel, and in comes a foreigner who is whisked right to the front of the line.

I have a feeling we did run into one of those "nasty" politicians that Kapil was telling me about. A man came in with an entourage, and someone in my group was very deferential and stepped forward to shake his hand. The man literally rolled his eyes and acted like a pompous jerk.

We finally finished up, and began a very long drive across the mountains to our next destination. This time, we had no seat belts, and our driver was the most reckless one yet. Kapil kept telling him to take it easy, but he assured Kapil that he does this all the time. Kapil told him that it was possible that someone else might make a mistake. But the guy continued to drive recklessly. I kept visualizing the headline "...Killed in a Car Crash in India."

The trip was long, but largely uneventful. We came across a wind farm in a desolate location. That was the first wind farm we had seen. We stopped once at a road side vendor and had fresh coconut milk. They chop the coconut open, insert a straw, and you drink the milk. It is different than the coconut milk Westerners are used to. The coconuts we usually eat have had most of the liquid evaporate through the shell and leave behind what we consider the meat. But in fresh coconuts, that meat is dissolved in the liquid and you drink it. It is supposed to be really healthy. It was quite good.

We saw a lot of farmers carrying sugar cane behind cattle-driven wagons. Another time we came upon a sign that said "Weak Bridge Ahead." Now why do you want to go and say something like that? The drive was dusty, and I felt covered wtih grime. Once we got to the outskirts of our destination - Bombay - traffic slowed and it took us forever to work our way across the city. But we finally got to our hotel at about 10 p.m., and I started catching up on e-mails.

Day 6, Wednesday, March 19 - I had stayed up until 2 a.m. writing, and had intended to sleep late. Again, I was up with sun. I am going to drop from exhaustion soon. But tonight I fly home (to Amsterdam, anyway), so I can get a little rest on the flight.

Another morning, another meeting. Another person who doesn't know anything about jatropha. The man we were meeting with, who is involved in biofuels and the import/export business was very skeptical of the whole ethanol scene, saying that it is a political farce. He said that India has far too many people to count on ethanol as much of a solution, and that they could not do what Brazil had done. He also brought up the water usage issue; suggesting that it will take too much fresh water, and this is in short supply. Very interesting perspective from the tropics, where sugarcane is abundant.

When we left the meeting, we walked out onto the street. There was a family (mother, grandmother, and two small children) on the sidewalk, where they were apparently living. I reached in my pocket for money, but then remembered the warning that I had been given. Besides that, they weren't actually asking for money. I wasn't sure how they might respond. But it is tough for me to see children in that condition.

We were going to have a bit of free time to walk around down town, so we headed across town. At one point, a guy came up and tried selling us a book that is banned in India: The Polyester Prince. It is about the guy who started Reliance Energy. It was apparently not very flattering, and the Reliance lobby was strong enough to get the book banned. But we already had a copy in the car, so Kapil held it up and showed the guy.

We also observed something that I hadn't seen since I arrived: Violence. It seems odd that in a city of 20 million, I never saw anyone fighting. But we did see a car accident, and one guy trying to drag another out of the car.

We stopped for a few minutes at the beach. As soon as we got out, a little girl came up and started begging. Kapil said "Watch your wallet." I told him that I already had my hand on it. He said "Your skin color attracts them." Then another woman said something to Kapil, and he agreed. I asked what she said, and he told me "If you give, more will come." I snapped a couple of pictures of her; I thought that might scare her off. And it did at first, but she came right back.

From there, we went down town and saw the Gateway of India. We walked around a little, took a few pictures, and then it was souvenir time. I thoroughly hate shopping, but I figured I better pick up a few things. So we went in a government-operated shop, and I bought a few items. It was the most inefficient operation you ever saw. You took your goods to the counter, and someone wrote up a ticket. Then you took your ticket downstairs, and they stamped it and you took it to the pay window. After paying, you took it to a 4th counter where they "delivered" it to you. It was really something else. Kapil said it was basically just a government jobs program.

We walked around the outdoor shops, but I felt really insecure. I had my laptop with me, and I was afraid of someone picking my pocket in those crowds. I was constantly turning my head to make sure nobody was right behind me, but there was always someone right behind me.

After we finished walking around, we stopped in a café and had a drink. Kapil asked me if I was feeling adventurous. He asked me if I wanted to ride the train. We were going to have dinner at his parents' house, and he said we would save an hour going by train. "Besides", he said, "I want you to have the full Indian experience."

So we flagged down a cab to take us to the central train station. I was just in awe of how lively that city is. Imagine New York City, only bigger and with no traffic rules at all. I was looking at some things on the street to the right while we were stuck in traffic. After a bit, I looked out my window, and almost jumped out of me skin. There was a beggar right there in my face. She was reaching in and touching me. I don't like to be touched, so I rolled the window up.

When we got to the train station, Kapil said "Watch your bags." That's what I was afraid of. We hopped out and ran a gauntlet through some incredible crowds. My head felt like it was on a swivel – looking forward to keep up with him, and behind to make sure nobody was dipping hands into my bags.

There was a long line for train tickets, and Kapil walked right to the front. I asked about that, and he said "First Class ticket purchases go to the front of the line." He then told me that a 1st Class ticket was about 3 bucks, and a 2nd Class was about 20 cents. He said that at least with 1st Class, we would probably get a seat.

He was wrong. We packed into that car like cattle. People were jumping on and off when the train was still moving, and people were hanging out both doors while the train was running. I had people pressed up against me all around. It was crowded – not London Tube crowded, but India crowded: Bodies packed tightly, intense heat, and everyone sweating. It was standing room only, and it took us an hour to get to our destination. At one point, Kapil took my photo. Everyone on the train – all Indians – suddenly started staring at me as if something was horribly wrong.

After we hopped out, I got to experience an auto-rickshaw. I had seen them everywhere, but hadn't been in one. We hopped in one to take us the final distance to Kapils' parents. Those things are pretty good transportation options. They have very small (I think 150 cc) engines, and most (maybe all?) run on compressed natural gas. The fuel efficiency is enormous. They are really built for only 3 passengers or so, but I saw 8 packed in one once. (Later someone told me that he saw 13 packed into one).

We had a nice meal with Kapil's parents. This was only the 2nd Indian home I had been in, but this time we got to have a long visit. Kapil's father was 2 years old when they were banished from Pakistan. I have read about the journey; they were packed tightly into trains and banished. Kapil's father gave me a book to read called Vedic Culture. Kapil's mother made this crispy bread – almost like a crisp tortilla, that I had really grown fond of. Kapil said it is made from lentils, but you would swear it was pork rinds.

It's a good thing we took the train, because it wasn't long before it was time to head to the airport. Kapil drove me; it was the first time I had seen him drive in India. I have ridden with him in Holland, but the traffic in Bombay is just something else. In fact, as we were driving, the absurdity of the situation hit me, and I said "This is just the craziest thing I have ever seen. People don't drive within the lines; 3 cars will straddle 2 lanes of traffic, cars move over randomly without signaling or looking back – it's chaos." He agreed, "Yes, it is chaos." I said that I can't really describe this as traffic, because that implies just a lot of cars on the road. Here, you have that – but then you also have everyone just doing their own thing. I will say this, if I haven't already: Nothing I ever seen again on the road will surprise me. If I see a monkey driving a motorcycle, it won't even be one of the stranger things I saw.

We eventually arrived at the airport around 11 p.m., and I said my goodbyes, as Kapil is flying back a few days later. I thanked him for keeping me out of trouble while I was there. I never got sick, and always enjoyed what I ate. Plus, we got to do a little business on top of everything.

Day 7, Thursday, March 20 - Security at the airport was the most stringent I have ever seen. And the guy who frisked me seemed to be enjoying it a little too much. His hands lingered a bit and gave me the creeps. I popped out my laptop and tried to catch up a bit, but pretty soon we boarded the plane for our 1:40 a.m. flight back to Amsterdam.

I mostly tried to sleep on the way back, but a couple of interesting things happened. Again, someone occupied the bathroom for about half an hour. I said to myself "I bet it's an Indian man." Sure enough, it was. What the heck are they doing in there for so long?

The guy sitting next to me was British, but working in India. He told me some stories. In fact, we had some similar experiences. I told him that I kept seeing mutton on the menus, and finally noted that I hadn't seen any sheep in the country. I was told that mutton is goat (which I saw plenty of). He said "At least you found out before you ate it. I didn't find out until I commented that my mutton tasted strange." He also said that nothing he will ever seen again would surprise him after being in India. I told him that I felt the same way. We talked about the way that Indians never seem to have to stop for a restroom. I was in a car with several for 7-hour stretches on 2 different occasions, and they never had to stop. That was good, because I never saw many restrooms. I don't know how they manage.

But, despite getting almost no sleep, I have arrived back in the Netherlands. I am finishing this up on the train from Amsterdam to Arnhem. In just a little over 24 hours, I will be back, headed for my first trip to the U.S. since last June. I will be house-hunting in Dallas with my wife, who I haven't seen in 7 weeks, so I expect my writing to continue to be limited for a bit longer. I will try to knock out some things while traveling tomorrow.

India Part I

2008-03-13T05:07:00.001-07:00

Part I covers my first 2 days in India; Part II covers the other 5 days.

Some Local Color

Bombay Slums

Local Transportation

A Bombay Doorman

Updated: March 20 - Back in the Netherlands; I have updated and broken this up into 2 parts.

Updated: March 19 - It's going to need some editing and clean up, but I will do that later (and add some pictures).

Update: March 18 - I have been without Internet for 2 days, and just got to a hotel in Bombay. (I have been on the road for 20 hours in the past 4 days). It's 10 p.m., and I have 52 e-mails to answer. I will try to update this tonight, as I have been working on it offline.

Today I spent my entire morning in a sugarcane ethanol plant. I really went over those bagasse boilers. In fact, I am still covered with bagasse as the entire factory had bagasse dust in the air. I have also been in search of jatropha. I am finding that it is like Bigfoot: Everyone has heard about it, nobody has seen it. More later.

The following summarizes a business trip I took to India with my colleague (and native of India) Kapil Girotra. Fortunately, he could tell me what not to eat and drink, and he safely steered me through the intricacies of Indian culture.

Day 1, Friday, March 14, 2008 – The flight to India was pretty interesting, because we flew over a lot of countries that I have never flown over. We flew over Northern Iraq, and directly over Teheran in Iran. I got to watch a couple of movies that I hadn't seen: No Country for Old Men and American Gangster. It was a Northwest flight, and they have a new video on demand system. You can control when your movies stop and start, and you can rewind if you like.

While the movies were good, the restroom situation was something else. I got up to visit the restroom, and the first one I came to had masking tape across the door. OK, that one is out of order. I come to the next one, and there is a long line. The woman at the front of the line is an American, and she tells me she has been standing there for 15 minutes. There are two restrooms, and it is at least another 10 minutes before one door opens, and out steps an older Indian man. She looked at the line, and said "Bet you thought it would be a woman. So did I."

So, the line started moving faster, but nobody ever came out of the other restroom. After half an hour, someone said "They must be dead." I was actually starting to wonder if something was wrong. There were two or three people in more desperate need than me, so I let them hop to the front of the line. Finally, after about 10 more minutes – close to 40 minutes total, the other door finally opened and out stepped another Indian man. I asked someone if there was some kind of Indian religious custom that one would do in a restroom. I was told that there wasn't.

As lunch was being served, I started hearing "We are out of chicken, is vegetarian OK?" I didn't like the sound of that. But since I didn't have any choice – and was very hungry, I had the vegetarian meal. Interestingly enough, while I am not remotely a vegetarian, that marked 3 vegetarian meals in a row for me. (And it would be another 2 before I had about 2 ounces of chicken on a small pizza). But this food – paneer - was really good. I am starting to learn that about Indian vegetarian food. In India, it is really spicy and good. In the U.S., it is a difficult concept to accept. But if all vegetarian food was like Indian food, I wouldn't have any problem being a vegetarian.

As we entered Indian air space, I started looking for lights on the ground. It was dark, so I expected to see little village lights everywhere. I didn't see any. In fact, it was very dark over the northern part of India. I suppose that's because it is so mountainous there, and there isn't a high population density, or electricity isn't common. As we headed south over India, we came out over the Arabian Sea. There were a number of oil platforms there. I will have to check and see how much of oil production India has.

As we began to descend, the captain announced that they would be spraying us with insecticide as required by the Indian government. That was something new, but in a few minutes I started smelling it. For the longest, I couldn't see the lights of Bombay. It is a huge city – 20 million people – so I thought I would see lights for many miles away. But we were pretty close before the lights actually started to appear. As we landed, I noticed that it looked incredibly foggy. Kapil told me that this was smog.

Getting through the airport was an interesting experience. First off, there were a lot of mosquitoes in the airport. All kidding aside, India has malaria, and I know a guy who caught it there. So when I see a mosquito here, I take it more seriously than I do when seeing a mosquito in the U.S. After we got our luggage and were proceeding out, the guys working currency exchange and other airport services were calling out to us to solicit business. I had never had that happen in an airport. And once we made it outside, it was like a carnival. So many people, despite it being midnight. There was so much activity, it really felt like a carnival encircling a football stadium. That's exactly the feeling I had when I came out.

Kapil's wife met us, and they drove me over to my hotel. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was like any Western hotel. But before I went to bed, I stared out my window at the lights of Bombay. 20 million people. I wondered how many terrible things were taking place out there. How many would die tonight of hunger in this country?

Day 2, Saturday, March 15 - I got my answer as soon as I woke up. There was an unspeakable crime in Dehli the night before involving a nine-year-old boy. This is something that bothers me about large populations: In a very large population center, the likelihood that really horrible things are happening at any particular moment is high.

My Blackberry was ringing and woke me at 5:20 Netherlands time (I had the alarm set for 5:30). That was 10:00 a.m. Bombay time. India is offset by half an hour from other time zones instead of an even hour. I was told that the reason for that is that the country should really be in 2 time zones, but the government just decided to split the difference across the country.

Since it was 10:00, I had to jump up and get ready as I had a business meeting at 11. I took a quick glance at a newspaper article that said to avoid typhoid by avoiding soft ice creams. I will file that one away. I met Kapil and he had a cab waiting for us. I didn't have time to get breakfast, so I grabbed a donut and some fruit and we took off. I noticed as we were putting my bags in the trunk, that there was a propane tank in the trunk for fueling the cab.

We got stuck at a stop light, and just as I was biting into my donut, a girl of about eight came up and starting pecking on the window. I looked at Kapil, and asked "Does she want the donut, or money?" He said "both." I said "She can have my donut." He said "I know this is hard on you, but don't. The car will be covered up if you do." Someone else had warned me about this as well: They had handed some money to a beggar outside of a car window, and the car was immediately so covered up they couldn't move. The cab driver reached his hand out and shoved her away, but the situation bothered me.

As we drove, I saw some slums to the side of the road. I have never seen poverty like that before. In some cases, it looked like people had pitched tents on top of a garbage dump. I saw an old woman squatted down over a trash heap, looking for something useful (or food). Really terrible.

The traffic was very chaotic. There were auto-rickshaws, motorcycles, bikes, and pedestrians everywhere. Some of the vehicles were even going the wrong way down the street. (I saw a lot of this while I was there). The driver honked his horn about every 10 seconds for some reason. We turned in front of cars, we cut people off, and it seemed to me like we took a lot of risks. But there are apparently some rules lurking in what appears to be chaos, because I didn't see many accidents.

The engineering house we were trying to locate was well off the beaten path. We drove down a number of what looked like very narrow alleyways crowded with people. A number of times we had to ask someone for directions, and every time they were happy to help us. In a lot of big cities, you wouldn't have seen such a level of cooperation. But what I am finding here is that despite the crowded conditions, people are still very polite and helpful.

We finally found the engineering house, and it was tucked back in a location that didn't look like it belonged. It was next door to a DHL office. These offices seemed so out of place. Then, just as I was experiencing sensory overload from all of the sights and sounds, I noticed that outside the engineering house was a mimosa tree just like we used to have at home in Oklahoma.

We went in and shook hands with the guys in the office. I am pretty careful with germs, so I have worked out a system if I think I can't wash my hands regularly. I shake hands, open doors, etc. with my right hand only. I eat with my left hand, which I don't use for anything else.

The meeting went well, but I had a hard time concentrating. First off, again I couldn't help but notice the mosquitoes in the room. I have a hard enough time concentrating when there are mosquitoes indoors in the U.S., but they don't carry malaria. My mind also kept wandering back to what all I had seen on the drive over from the hotel. The contrasts were amazing. There was a cluster of very expensive hotels, and just a few blocks away was the worst poverty I have ever seen. We saw a guy pulling a hand cart and talking on a cell phone. Houses in the slums had satellite dishes on top of them. A number of times we walked down hallways of buildings that looked to be 100 years old and decrepit, and then stepped into one of the most modern offices you have ever seen.

At the engineering house, I started to get some curious stares that would become much more common as we traveled out of Bombay. I asked the general manager at the engineering house if they got many Americans in here. He said "No, I can't say that we do. Why do you ask?" I told him because of the curious way people were looking at me. They wouldn't do it too openly, but as he was showing us around, I noticed the looks. I once turned and looked behind me and saw almost the whole office looking at me.

Practically everyone asked me how I was handling the heat. I mean, it was hot and all, but Texas heat and humidity in the summer gets worse than what I was experiencing. What I grew up with in Oklahoma in the summer (without air conditioning) was worse. In fact, if I closed my eyes (and blocked out the smells and sounds), I could have easily been back in Oklahoma during the summer. But they told me that it gets hotter than this; it's still only March. But the heat didn't bother me; I rarely broke a sweat.

After the meeting, we were taken out back where there was a fabrication shop. It seemed like there were heaps of trash everywhere. Every time the wind changed, I could smell sewage and/or garbage. I got some really curious stares as we walked around back. There were some women sitting around doing something with rope, and then some men were pouring cement. But they all stopped and looked at me as if they had just seen Bigfoot.

Kapil and I went back to the hotel. His wife and mother-in-law were meeting us there for drinks. But we got there first, so we took a walk. It's amazing how quickly the scene changed when we walked away from that hotel. The poverty hits you in the face immediately. I asked Kapil what happens to someone in the slums who has a medical emergency. He said "If you have money, you survive. If not, you don't." I had this horrible vision in my mind of a mother trying to cope with a life-threatening illness from a child, and not being able to do anything about it.

One guy followed us up the street in his auto-rickshaw, wanting us to take a ride with him. But we kept walking. I saw something black in the road that was smashed flat. Kapil told me it was a rat. I saw a buffalo in the road, and a woman walking a monkey. Frequently I saw people urinating in public. (Kapil said that there really aren't a lot of public bathrooms here; I started limiting my liquid intake for that reason).

Cows were everywhere, and there were no fences. I asked Kapil if people frequently hit cows. He jokingly told me that the cows didn't have anything to worry about, because people go to hell for running over cows. I said that in the U.S., if someone hits a cow, the landowner will have a legal problem for not keeping the cows in the fence. But I only saw one dead cow while we were driving around.

We walked back to the hotel, and I met Kapil's mother-in-law. She was a very nice lady; kept telling me I had to come stay with her. I told her I would like that. We visited for a while as we waited for some more of Kapil's friends, who were going to take us north, out of Bombay and into a rural area.

We finally met up with the others, and we headed out of Bombay. It took us a long time to get out of the city, and the sights and sounds were almost too much to absorb. I kept looking out the window, muttering to myself "What the heck was that?" Or, "Did I just see four people on that motorcycle?"

We had a driver who was hired to take us to our destination. I sat up front and tried talking to him, but he didn't speak English. I kept seeing things that were just unbelievable in my experience, so I was constantly snapping pictures. Eventually, we started to get out into some rural areas. Kapil said that those villages in general were self-sufficient; they grow their own food and walk each day to the community well to get their water. I saw a number of women carrying wood, water, and food on their heads.

A lot of the area reminded me of pictures of Africa: Thatched huts and brush fences were very common. And the people – there were people everywhere. At any point in time, there was a constant stream of people walking on the road. A number of times I saw very young children running across 4 lanes of traffic. I wondered – do those parents love their kids so much less than me to risk their lives? Or are they so desperate that they have no choice? Or do they not appreciate the risk?

Traffic was chaotic. There are apparently no rules on the road. There is no such thing as a no passing zone. When the road went down to 2 lanes, we passed people on curves, we passed them on blind hills, we passed people who were in the process of passing someone else – we even passed when someone else was coming. The rule seemed to be – if you can see me, you should be able to get out of my way.

We got to the place we were staying – Khanvel Resort - and unloaded. Again, I was the only Westerner in sight, but I thought I finally saw another one pull up. He had light skin and white hair. Turned out he was an albino Indian. I figured that out when I heard him speaking Indian, and I asked Kapil. He said that the man had a pigment problem. But I would have never thought about the possibility had I not witnessed it. Turns out that there are Indians with much lighter skin than I have.

The mosquitoes were pretty bad, so they came along about dusk and sprayed DDT all over the place. It hung in the air for a long time. I wondered whether all of the food there has DDT residues. Or is it only in animal tissues that it builds up?

I went into my room, and there were many, many mosquitoes inside. But the walls were light-colored, and I committed a mosquito genocide that the mosquitoes will talk about for generations. There were bodies everywhere – all over the floor, on the wall, on the curtains. I killed at least 100 in my room alone. But I knew I couldn't kill them all. So I assumed that I would be bitten during the night. There were also spiders in the room. I realized that I didn't know the first thing about the spiders here. If I was bitten, would I die a slow and horrible death? No idea. So I killed them all just to be safe.

After the mass mosquito murder, we all went down for dinner. The talk turned to the man-eating leopards in the area. Hmm. Have to remember not to answer my door if I hear something outside. It also hit me that India has cobras, so I asked about that. After giving it some thought, it was decided that there were none in this area. I would have felt a lot better if the answer had been an immediate "No."

I went back to my room earlier than the rest to start writing. I turned on the TV out of curiosity, and saw the Friday night variety shows – Indian style. I found a lot of humor in them. So much singing and dancing, but I couldn't make sense out of any of it. Then, as I was searching through the channels, I ran across SpongeBob. Reminds me of the first time I turned on a radio in Germany to hear some German music. Snoop Doggy Dog was what I got.

The Trossachs and the Highlands

2007-09-22T09:38:00.000-07:00

Outside Spean Bridge, Scotland

This is an account of a trip that I took with my in-laws through central Scotland.

Day 1 - September 10, 2007: My two older kids have week-long school trips this week, so this seemed like a good time to take a mini-trip through Scotland. Accompanying me on the trip were my wife, her parents, and my 5-year old. We started the trip by heading out of Aberdeen down the Royal Deeside trail. Our first stop was at Crathie Church, which is where The Royal Family has attended since Queen Victoria's days when they are in residence at nearby Balmoral Castle.

Because my father-in-law has had several heart attacks, I inquired at the visitor's center about driving up the hill to the church. They informed me that this was fine if there was a physical reason for needing to do so. So we drove up and parked in the back. I played outside with my son while the others went in and checked out the church. After a few minutes, a tour bus pulled up, so we left. But we had to drive by the parade of tourists as they walked up the hill, and some of them glared, certainly wondering why we were able to drive to the church.

The Royal Family was in residence at Balmoral, so we weren't able to visit it. We did pull off to the side of the road (where a sign said "No Parking") and snapped a couple of distant pictures of the castle.

We headed on to Braemar, which is a place we had stayed when we visited Scotland in 2000. Braemar is a very neat, if touristy village where the Highland Games take place. We wandered around Braemar for a bit and had lunch there. From there we had intended to go to Rob Roy country, but while I studied the map over lunch, it looked like it would be a more efficient use of our time to go straight to Stirling and then work our way back through Rob Roy country. So, I got on the phone and started trying to book a room. No luck. I was told that the university students were coming back that week, and everything in town was booked. Still, I decided to risk it and push on to Stirling.

So, we turned south into some very rugged country split by a narrow road. I can remember taking this route once before, and although the scenery is spectacular, the drive is unnerving. For some reason, Scottish roads often have curbs appearing on the inside lane when you encounter a curve. In that case, if a big truck is coming, you are really squeezed in on both sides. Go to far to one side, and hit the curb; too far to the other, and hit the truck. And these roads are very narrow. I clenched the steering wheel tightly numerous times, bracing for impact as a truck or RV passed me.

On the way to Stirling, we passed through Dunblane, site of the school shooting that haunts me more than any other. Sixteen 5 and 6-year olds plus one teacher were gunned down in class. My son is 5, and I have tried to imagine a 5-year old having to cope with something like that. I have to admit that many nights as I tried to fall asleep, the memory of this shooting crept in and made it impossible for me to sleep. It is simply incomprehensible to me.

We pulled into Stirling, with me still trying to work out a plan for the rest of the afternoon. It was about 4, and I wanted to go to Stirling Castle, one of the best ones in Scotland, and then onto the Wallace Monument. We saw the Wallace Monument from a distance, but we decided to go explore the castle first.

Stirling Castle is very cool. It is set up on a hill overlooking Stirling, and is one of the most impressive castles in Scotland. My wife decided to go on the audio tour, my in-laws went on a guided tour, and I went on the 5-year old tour. What that meant was that I went and did whatever my son wanted to do. He has wanted to visit a castle for a long time, and this one had lots to explore. He dragged me all over the place, exploring every room. It was hard for me to really get an appreciation for the various rooms and gardens of the castle, but it was worth it.

On my mind the whole time was the fact that we still didn't have a place to stay for the night. I called a couple more places, but no luck. We could have gone to the tourist information place after the castle visit, and they could probably find something for us, but I thought our chances were better if we just went over and visited the Wallace Monument, and then pushed on to Callander, our next stop 15 miles away.

We all wandered around the castle - in 3 separate groups - for a little over an hour. We all met back up near the front and decided to run over to the Wallace Monument. When we arrived, the visitor's center had closed, so we snapped a few pictures in front of the Mel Gibson - err - William Wallace statue (looks just like Mel Gibson). Pretty soon, a bus pulled up, and the driver said he was taking one more trip to the top. He said he would take us up, but we had to walk back down. We all agreed, and he hauled us up the hill to the monument.

There is quite a view from the monument, and you can look out over where The Battle of Stirling Bridge was fought by William Wallace and his troops. We didn't get to go inside the monument, as it was closed, but the big attraction there anyway is climbing to the top. Given my father-in-law's heart condition, we weren't going to be doing that anyway. So we wandered around for a bit, walked back down the hill, and headed for Callendar, and hopefully a good bed and breakfast.

We recently bought a navigation system, so I typed in Callendar and off we went. The system is pretty reliable, although once it tried to send me down a one-way street, and another time down a bike path. This time it tried to send me through the middle of the college campus, but I went around it instead. Twenty minutes later, we were on the outskirts of Callendar, stopping at one B&B after another. We stopped at one place after another with no luck. I also got some very unfriendly looks; once when I pulled into a guy's driveway (the B&B was next door, and I thought it was their driveway), and once when I was pulling out of a blind driveway, and a guy walking a dog stepped in front of us. Callendar was seeming a bit less friendly than the last time we were here, and suddenly a lot more touristy to me.

We finally found a place that could accomodate all of us. It was called Abbotsford Lodge, and was run by a very friendly fellow. When he asked where we were from, I told him "Aberdeen. Can't you tell from our accents?" Anyway, he set us up, and also told us that a good Italian place had opened up down the road. That was good, because the guide book we were using said there weren't any good restaurants in Callendar. But we took his advice, and had a very nice meal at Ciro's. I can say that Callendar has at least one good restaurant.

Day 2 - September 11: Hmm. 9/11. I didn't realize that until I had been up for a while. I had thought about it when I was planning the trip, but it had slipped my mind after the busy day yesterday. I hope it's a quiet day.

After we had the traditional Scottish breakfast, we checked out and headed downtown. We needed to stop at the grocery store first and get supplies, because we probably wouldn't be near a restaurant at lunch time. As we were shopping, my cell phone started ringing. This is odd, because hardly anyone has the number. But my two older kids were on a week long trip, and I was concerned that something may have happened. The number said "Private", but because I was concerned about the kids, I answered. It was a headhunter, asking me if I would be willing to leave my company. The oil industry has a terrible manpower shortage in the North Sea, so these kinds of phone calls are very common. I explained that I was on an expat assignment with my employer, and that they sponsored my work visa. "Oh, that's not a problem", she told me. "This other employer can buy that visa." I had always wondered about that. Not sure if she had that correct, but that's interesting if true.

So, I got off the phone, and continued shopping. Five minutes later, the phone rings again. Headhunter again. She tells me that she has confirmed the visa situation. She wants my CV. I told her I would think about it. Back to shopping. This time, it goes 10 minutes before she called back and asked if I might be interested in this other company. I told her I was on vacation, and we could talk about it some other time. I turned my phone off.

So, we finished shopping, and then made our way to the Rob Roy Visitor's Centre. Couldn't find a parking place. This is another thing that drives me crazy when traveling around Europe - you can't ever find parking. (The first thing that drives me crazy is that you can't ever find bathrooms). We eventually did find a spot where you could park for 30 minutes, which meant we couldn't stay in there long. We all went inside, and they informed us that they had removed the most interesting exhibit. It was a display of Rob Roy sitting around a fire and talking about his troubles. Apparently there were some who disagreed with the politics of what he was saying; I had read that in a book. Maybe that's the reason they pulled the plug on the exhibit.

I wanted to keep an eye on the car, so I bought a pair of little plastic swords, and my son and I stayed outside and had sword fights while the others spent time in the visitor's center. People walking by got quite a kick out of our sword fight; a number of people stopped and took pictures or video of us. One guy walked by and said "Go for the shins."

While we were out there, I saw a couple of instances of one other thing that drives me a bit crazy. Circling the visitor's center was a very narrow road, with parking in the back. While we were out there sword-fighting, two cars driven by elderly men just stopped and parked in the road. They completely blocked the road, and started to go into a store. They almost made it into the store when a large truck tried to turn down the road that they were blocking. It couldn't turn in, so he just stopped, blocked traffic, and sat there. He was glaring at the men, and it finally hit them that they had completely blocked the road. They moved, but it wasn't 10 minutes before someone else came along and did the same thing.

A Scottish Highland

On the way out of town, we stopped at the Trossachs Woollen Mill to pick up some souvenirs. I spent most of the time outside, where they had Hamish - a Scottish Highland bull - on display. These are really unique looking animals. As my father-in-law said, they look like they have bangs. I took some pictures with my son while the others shopped, and when they all came out we were on our way.

At Loch Lubnaig

Our plan was to drive all the way to Rob Roy's gravesite, but we barely made it out of town before we came across a spectacular lake. The lake was Loch Lubnaig, and the scenery around it reminded me of something from Yellowstone National Park. We pulled off at a parking area, and walked around the lake some and took pictures. We saw a tiny mole - probably only about 2 inches long - sniffing around a rock. I tried to get down and take a picture, but it didn't turn out very well.

We finished there, and pushed on to Balquhidder, which is where Rob Roy is buried. The road down to his gravesite is very narrow and winding. I would hate to drive that every day. In fact, we almost saw a wreck on that road after we stopped. Someone stopped in the road, and someone else came flying around the corner. I thought there was going to be a fight, because the car that almost hit the second one stopped in the road for a long time. (They were lucky someone didn't come around the corner and hit them).

Anyway, we spent quite a bit of time at the church and cemetery. We took pictures of the grave marker and the remains of the old church. The "new" church, built in 1855, happened to be open. I don't recall that this was the case the last time. So, we opened the door and went inside and had a look around. It amazes me that people don't vandalize or steal things from the church. I think if this was a church in a remote area of the U.S., and it was always left unlocked, it would just be a matter of time before someone vandalized it.

We took some walks down a trail behind the church. The path leads to a waterfall in the woods, so we went down and took some pictures. There are some really old-looking ruins down that path, but no explanation of what they are. We probably spent an hour puttering around the area before heading for our next destination, which would take us through some spectacular scenery.

We were headed to Fort William, and this would take us through Glen Coe. Personally, I think the scenery through Glen Coe is the most spectacular in Scotland. The first time we drove through, we thought it looked like Montana. There are huge green mountains, waterfalls, heather on the hills, and deer wandering around. Some of the scenes from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban were filmed there. We stopped several times as we drove through and took a lot of pictures. Once we took some close-ups of some red deer stags with very impressive racks. Another time we snapped some pictures of a very impressive waterfall.

Once we passed through the valley, we stopped at the Glencoe Visitor Centre and looked at the exhibits. Apparently the area was formed as a result of a massive volcanic eruption. There was quite a lot to see at the visitor's center, including some panaromic outdoor views of the glen.

We left there and pushed on into Fort William. We drove to the visitor's center there to book a room for a night. They couldn't find anything suitable in Fort William, but located something that sounded pretty good in the next town, Spean Bridge.

We wandered around downtown Fort William for a while. It was really different than I remembered it from before. There is a pedestrian walkway down town with lots of businesses, but it seemed reallly run down. The last time I was there, it had seemed really charming. We went into a little fish and chips place and had a bite. They actually charged a pound more per meal if you ate it in the restaurant. I got the fish and chips, and my in-laws, thinking I knew that this would be good, had some as well. In fact, I almost always find the fish and chips in the UK to be pretty awful, but I keep getting it in the hope of finding some place that serves it at least as well as Long John Silver's in the U.S. It was bad, as it normally is. I told my in-laws that I could have warned them; that I was just gambling on it maybe being good.

After eating, we headed on down the road to our Bed and Breakfast at Spean Bridge, about 10 miles down the road. It ended up being out in the country in a very beautiful setting. The B&B was called Coinachan Guest House, and we were met at the door by a 15-year old American girl. She told us that her mother was Scottish, but that she had grown up in Virginia. She had been back in Scotland for several years, and she was just starting to pick up a bit of the accent (she was not happy to hear that). Her mother had run into town on an errand, but she arrived within the hour and introduced herself. She told me that she was an environmental consultant, and I told her that we might have a lot to talk about.

The guest house was directly across the street from the Commando Memorial, dedicated to commandos who trained in that area during WWII. There was also a great view of Ben Nevis, although it spent most of the time in the clouds. The hills all around were covered with heather, and all of this combined to make for a really neat setting. To top it all off, the owners had a very friendly Rough Collie (the same breed as Lassie) which they let us play with the entire time we were there. Needless to say, I highly recommend this B&B.

We spent a lot of time outside playing with Max, the collie. There was a ball that he liked to run and catch, and he would bring it back all covered with slobber. It wasn't long before I was covered with long hair and dog slobber. We walked up a hill right on the property, and threw the ball down the hill and let Max bring it back up. After about 4 runs down the hill, he brought the ball back, dropped it at my feet, and then peed on it! I wasn't sure if he had done this on purpose, so I picked the ball up (gingerly) and tossed it back down the hill. He looked up at me with a look like "I am not touching that", and that was all of our ball tossing.

The owner stayed up late visiting with the women, but I turned in early with my son as I had a long drive the next day. There were skylights in the room, and I left the shades on them open so I could see the stars (when the clouds weren't covering them up).

Day 3 - September 12: This was to be our last day on the road, and the main item on the agenda today was Loch Ness. We had a Scottish breakfast with a twist. Instead of having sausage with my scrambled eggs, I had smoked salmon. Delicious. We packed the car and said our goodbyes, but then modified our plans slightly. The owner had told us about a nearby walk through the forest that someone had decorated up in a fairy theme. She said that when she first heard about it, she thought it would be pretty corny. But she said after she went and saw it, it was well worth the trip.

We had a bit of a tough time finding it, but we finally found what we thought was the right location. We had been told that it was about 10 minutes into the woods, and that most people failed to walk far enough. We would know we were on the right path when we saw a partially submerged barge in the lake next to the trail. After about 5 minutes, we spotted the barge (which my son wanted to investigate) so we knew we were on the right path.

The walk itself was very cool. The forest was very dark in places, and lush green everywhere. As far as my son was concerned, we were just taking a walk in the forest. We walked for probably 15 minutes before we came across the first signs of it. It was at a very dark portion of the forest, and it looked like something right out of a fairy tale. The place was decorated up as a home for gnomes and fairies. My son was just bewildered (and excited). He must have asked "What's happening?" 50 times.

In the Fairy Forest

I was a bit concerned about the in-laws, who had stayed in the car. I told them we wouldn't be long, but this thing was further into the forest than we thought, and it was also a lot more substantial than we had realized. Someone had invested thousands of hours (and dollars) into decorating the pathway.

Finally, after about an hour we returned to the car. It had been well worth the loss of time, but we had a long drive in front of us and we needed to get on the road. So, we got in the car and headed toward Loch Ness.

We were only 20 miles away, and I thought we would be there in 20 minutes. But after only about 5 miles, we got behind a pair of trucks transporting some huge pieces of equipment that basically took up 2 lanes of traffic. It was also moving about 15 miles an hour, but had to frequently stop and clear the road ahead of them. The funny thing was that a BMW had passed me at very high speed just after we left Spean Bridge, but ended up right in front of me when we encountered the trucks.

We debated what they were hauling. It appeared to be some pieces of pipe that were around 10 feet in diameter. I thought it looked like parts of a vessel or distillation column. One thing for sure; there was no getting around them, and there was no place for them to pull over and let traffic around. It looked like we were just going to drive the next 15 miles at 15 miles an hour.

My son started to get car sick. That had been a theme during much of the trip. With the winding roads, and all of the stops and starts, several in the group spent part of the trip feeling car sick.

The trucks finally turned off toward a different destination, and traffic could flow freely again. But we had spent a full hour behind them, and had moved about 10 miles. After just a few more minutes, we started seeing Loch Ness over on the right. Loch Ness is a very long lake, and the road winds along right nest to it. We stopped at one point and took some pictures of Urquhart Castle, overlooking the lake. We pulled into Drumnadrochit at lunchtime, and stopped at the Drumnadrochit Hotel, which is also next to a visitor's center. My son and I played on the same plaster Nessie model that I had played on with my other two kids seven years earlier. There were 3 Chinese tourists there watching us, and one asked if he could take our picture as we played.

I was finally able to drag my son off of Nessie, and we went and had some lunch in the hotel. Following lunch, we pushed off for Inverness, which was on the way before returning to Aberdeen. We had a long, but pretty uneventful drive back to Aberdeen. We passed through a lot of mountainous country, but we were all pretty traveled out at that point. I think we were all glad to finally arrive back in Aberdeen.

A Loop Through Northeastern Scotland

2007-09-02T01:03:00.000-07:00

August 31, 2007 My in-laws are over from the U.S. for a visit, so we recently took a day trip through Northeastern Scotland. Our plan was to set out from Aberdeen about 8:00, work our way up the Royal Deeside Valley, turn north at Ballater, and then work our way through the mountains and the Whiskey and Castle Trails of the Grampian region. I particularly wanted to make it to the seaside village of Cullen, and then visit the Macduff Marine Aquarium before making our way back to Aberdeen.

Traveling in my tiny 1.2 liter Nissan Micra were my wife, her parents, and my 5-year old son. I can tell you that we won't do that again, as there were times that I didn't think it was going to get us all up a hill. That's more of a city car than something to be used in the hills.

We first made our way down Royal Deeside toward Ballater. We had first intended to stop at Crathes Castle, but we came through before it opened. My son really wanted to see a castle, so I told him we would see one a bit later. We made our first stop right before Ballater, beside the River Dee. A mother had put up a flyer there describing the drowning of her 7-year old daughter in 2006. She wrote that she had only taken her eye off of her for a second, and she was gone. I thought about just how quickly something devastating like that can happen. Then I squeezed my son's hand a little tighter.

We went on into the Ballater Tourist Information Centre, which was housed in the old railway station that Queen Victoria used when she came to Balmoral Castle. There was a display there at the information center with wax figures, and the preserved waiting room that Queen Victoria used when she was at the rail station.

After half an hour in Ballater, we left for the hills. We had a bit of a disagreement over the next destination. Some wanted to go to Balmoral, but we have a trip planned in 2 weeks that will take us right by there. So instead we headed north. The map indicated that we would be driving on a narrow road. Since all roads in Scotland are narrow, I figured that since it was noted on the map this must mean that trees would be brushing the car on both sides at all times. That wasn't far from the truth. We drove most of the rest of the morning on a one-lane road, with wide spots in the road every quarter to half mile for passing.

I had promised my son a castle, and Corgarff Castle was right on our way. The setting for the castle was incredibly remote and rugged, but that has to be the ugliest castle I have ever seen. It just looks like a house, albeit one that dates back to 1550.

Corgarff Castle

We had a quick look, but nobody was really that enthusiastic about going in and touring it. So, we made our way further north to whiskey country. We stopped in the middle of nowhere and had a quick bite from our packed lunches, and then drove past the Glenlivet Distillery. We debated taking a tour, but we were running a bit behind schedule (the two older kids were in school, so we needed to be home at a reasonable time) and there were more interesting things in front of us.

We did stop briefly beside the River Livet and took some pictures at the Glenlivet Packhorse Bridge. We really needed to find a restroom, but were having some difficulties. Don't Europeans have to use the restroom? That's one gripe about traveling around Europe with kids - always problematic to find a restroom.

Anyway, we saw a sign for a visitor's center in the little town of Aberlour. The visitor's center had the restroom we were looking for, but we also discovered a really neat wide open area, walking path, and playground on the River Spey right behind the visitor's center. I played with my son there for 20 minutes before we decided to make the final push toward Cullen and the coast.

When Cullen came into view, it was just as I remembered it. Cullen is such a cool little seaside village. Birthplace of the Scottish soup called Cullen Skink, it is a place that you can just wander around. We first "discovered" Cullen in 2000, when we lived in Germany and visited Scotland. The details of that visit are described here.

Cullen, Scotland

Even though it was cold and spitting rain, my son and I got out and played on the beach while my father-in-law walked up to the golf clubhouse and got some information about playing there. I wrote my son's name in the beach in 5-foot letters just like I did with the other two kids in the same spot 7 years earlier.

On the Beach in Cullen

After we had all the cold we could stand, we made our way to Cullen's renowned Ice Cream Shop and loaded up on candy and ice cream. My in-laws were impressed with Cullen, and said that they thought we should go there on a regular basis. After all, it is less than an hour and a half from Aberdeen. Speaking of which, I still wanted to go to the aquarium in Macduff, so we left Cullen behind. But we'll be back.

The Macduff Marine Aquarium is a neat aquarium for kids, and my son really enjoyed it. They have displays where you feel like you are surrounded by water with the fish swimming around you. There are octopuses, shrimp, lobsters, starfish, and all sorts of common fish varieties found in the North Sea. They also had a touch pool, and my son got to touch a number of starfish.

I think my son could have spent all day in there, but the rest of the group was getting antsy, so we dragged him out of there and made our way home. The trip home was uneventful, except for the wreck we came upon where a large truck was upside down beside the road. (We later read in the paper that the driver escaped with minor injuries).

Our next trip, in two weeks, will penetrate into Rob Roy and Braveheart country.

Weekend in London

2007-06-10T03:24:00.000-07:00

London is such an incredible city. When I lived in Germany, I really didn't have a lot of interest in visiting London. I wanted to go to more "exotic" locations like Turkey and Morocco. When I finally did end up in London for a couple of days, I was blown away. This wasn't the bland city that had been rooted in my mind for so many years. There was so much to do. The variety of attractions could keep one busy for a lifetime. (I had similar experiences in New York City and Washington D.C.; I never had a desire to visit, and once I did I couldn't wait to go back).

Walking down the street, the variety in London is amazing. The people on the streets span every area of the globe. I don't know that there is anywhere else in the world where you can walk down the street and see such an incredible variety of cultures. You can get authentic foods from anywhere. London has it all.

So, when my biofuels "hobby" presented an opportunity to spend the weekend in London, I jumped at the chance. Not only did I get a firsthand look at a potential revolutionary new technology, but I had some time to walk around London and see some sights. I don't care too much for big cities most of the time, but London is really addictive. History and impressive architecture everywhere. Bentleys and Ferraris parked out on the street. Wide open green spaces throughout the city. It is an assault on the senses.

At one point, we walked over to Buckingham Palace. I was about to get my picture taken in front of the palace, when my friend pointed. I looked over, and this was what I saw:

Jesse Jackson and Daughter (?) at Buckingham Palace

I almost asked if I could have a picture taken with him, but I figured he probably gets pestered all the time for such things. Besides, I am not exactly a fan.

So, when he walked off, I walked over and had my picture taken in the same spot:

Me at Buckingham Palace 2 Minutes Later

The funny thing about the Jackson sighting is that I would have never noticed had my friend not pointed it out. Whereas my wife has some sort of 6th sense in this area, I am obvlivious. Once, when she took a trip to New York with friends, she spotted Donald Trump on the street and Starr Jones in a Burger King (no joke). She called me on that trip and said "I am standing here with Hugh Jackman!" I said "Huge who?" I didn't know who he was until she said "Wolverine from the X-Men."

I did experience a surreal moment in my hotel lobby. I was reading the international version of Newsweek. The cover story was How to Restore America's Place in the World. Now, I am no fan of George Bush, but as I read that story I found myself becoming a bit annoyed at the airing of our dirty laundry. The article detailed all of America's shortcomings. And I was sitting there, surrounded by people from half a dozen countries, and I was thinking "They probably think all Americans are like the stereotypes." And about that time, half a dozen drunk Americans came up, loud, laughing, and making a scene. I looked around and everyone was staring at them. And I thought "These people will all leave London will their stereotypes about Americans reinforced."

Still, I can't wait to visit again.

Living in Scotland

2007-03-10T04:15:00.000-08:00

After a 6-year hiatus, I am back in Europe. During our previous 2-year assignment in Germany, we spent a lot of time traveling around Europe, as evidenced by this blog. There are many places in Europe that we loved, but my two favorites were Scotland and Norway. My wife and I often talked about living in one or the other. And while we weren’t actively looking to move back to Europe, in the fall of 2006 I received an inquiry about an internal transfer to Aberdeen, Scotland. We did not have to think about it for long, and on January 26th I flew from Montana to Scotland to start work. My family will join me here in June.

My New Village in Scotland

Having been here for over a month, my impressions from my first visit to Scotland have been reinforced. These really are the nicest people you could ever meet, and the scenery is beautiful. I probably have a door held open for me a dozen times a day, and everyone is always so cheerful and polite.

Driving here still makes me a little nervous. Driving on the left now feels natural to me, but there are some things I don't like. First, my drive to work is on a narrow, winding road. Most country roads here are that way, and sometimes you don't have much warning before a road will make a sudden curve. Second, when I leave for work it is dark, and very frequently raining. So, not only am I driving on the left and on a winding, narrow road, but it is dark and slippery. However, I could handle all of that OK if it weren't for something else. Despite the fact that that people are incredibly polite, many tend to drive very fast. I try to take my time on the narrow roads, but I almost always have someone who will come right up on my bumper. I have driven all the way to work before with someone about 10 feet off my bumper. I have also been passed going around one of those curves before. So, it didn't surprise me to hear that there is a high frequency of road fatalities here.

Aberdeen is an affluent city, and things tend to be expensive. When we moved to Germany, we found that food cost about the same as in the U.S. Here, almost all food items are double the price in the U.S. And as in any country, there are a lot of strange food items. There is haggis, pork faggots, black pudding, and various other food items that I won't be eating in my lifetime. But the Scots do one thing better than anyone: Sweets. I gave up sugar before I left the U.S., but I have regressed a bit since coming here. The volume and variety of sweets here is simply unbelievable. I work with another American, and he has commented on this to me as well. The first time I was in a supermarket, I encountered a long aisle that was all sweets. Then, a couple of aisles over, there was another aisle that was all sweets. So, I have partaken of a few of the sweets, and one of them, called a tart fancy, is simply the most delicious thing I have ever put in my mouth. My kids are going to love it, but we will need to stock up on toothpaste.

Of course gasoline is about $6.50 a gallon here. But, I am driving a very fuel efficient vehicle, so that doesn't impact me much. I am trying to substantially lower my fossil fuel usage here. They make it easy to recycle, and I am recycling everything I can. I still have not filled up an entire sack with garbage. I found a house not too far from work. I have a grocery store that isn't too far from home, and I walk down and get groceries a couple of times a week. Yesterday, after having been here for 6 weeks, I finally had to put gas in my car. I have also been tweaking the programmable thermostat, which also controls the hot water heater. I have gone too far a couple of times and ended up taking a cold shower in a cold house before going to work.

Getting money transferred without getting ripped off has been a challenge. I got my first bill from my Citibank Mastercard, and they hit me for a 3% foreign transaction fee on every purchase I have made here. I transferred some money from my bank in the U.S., and not only did I not get a good exchange rate, but the banks on both ends hit me for a total of $60. So today I applied for a Capital One No Hassle Cash Rewards Card. You get 1% cash back on purchases, and there are no foreign transaction fees. I just wish I had done that before moving over here.

Work is very interesting. I have a group of 12, and it is very diverse. I have 2 Iranian men, an Indian woman, a Malaysian man, 3 Scottish women, 4 Scottish men, and me in the group. We are working primarily on natural gas projects in the North Sea. I love to learn about diverse cultures, so I have spent a lot of time talking to people about their cultures. I have had lots of discussions with one of the Iranian men, and he is very concerned about war with the U.S. His family is still in Tehran, and it pains me to think about what he must be going through. Let's just hope that tensions calm down and the U.S. and Iran adopt a more friendly stance.

It is sunny today and not too cold, and I have learned to take advantage of those times. So, that's all for now, and I am off for a 5-mile walk.

Europe with the In-Laws Part I

2007-01-08T19:46:00.000-08:00

The following summarizes a trip that my wife and I took with the kids and my wife's parents. We had planned the trip for a while, but shortly before the start of the trip I learned that I would be taking a new position back in the U.S. We would have to cut the vacation short so that I could be back for training on April 16.

Day 1, Thursday, April 5, 2001 – We got off to an early start, and we left almost at the time I had planned to leave. Since it was a weekday, I expected very heavy traffic, but we only encountered one major traffic jam. While we were driving, my daughter figured out that nobody else in the vehicle understood her when she spoke to me in German. So, we talked off and on in our “secret” language the rest of the trip.

Our plan was to visit Rothenburg, and then drive on to Munich. We made it to Rothenburg before noon. I dropped everyone off a short distance from the medieval center, and I went and parked the van. I had to park it several blocks away, and I asked my wife to meet me right at the entrance to the old town. I parked the van, and jogged down to where I was to meet my wife. There was nobody there. I walked down the block, and then circled the block. I looked for them for about 15 minutes, before I decided that they might have walked on into the city. I started in that direction, and then saw them standing outside a grocery store.

We walked into the medieval center, and it was really well preserved. There was an old town wall that circled the city. We climbed to the top and walked halfway around the city on the wall. There were open crosses at regular intervals in the wall, where the defenders of the city could shoot at anyone trying to breech the walls. We had a fantastic view from the wall. We could see a really big church on the other side of the town, and everywhere we looked there were very colorful wood frame houses.

After a while, we climbed down from the wall and walked through the medieval streets. There were quaint little tourist shops everywhere, so we didn't make very good time. We stopped in a little Italian place and had some pizza and pasta for lunch. After lunch, we continued down toward the market square, stopping in lots of shops along the way. Once, my wife and my mother-in-law went into a shop, and my father-in-law and I took the kids into a candy store. Since it was almost Easter, they had loads of Easter candy. They also had an animated Easter bunny sitting in a rocking chair. This fascinated the kids. They were petting the bunny, and a woman working in the shop came over and gave them both some candy. We thanked her, and left the shop. My son asked if he could eat his candy, "so he wouldn't lose it."

We continued toward the square, stopping for ice cream along the way. We reached the square, which was surrounded by ancient buildings. The most prominent was the Gothic town hall, which had a 200 ft. tower. Parts of the town hall dated to the 1200's. The front part was completed in the 1578. There was a large fountain in the square, and I put the kids up on it and took some pictures. We were searching for the world famous "Christmas Village", but we could see no sign of it. Finally, I saw a German couple carrying a sack with the store name on it, so I asked them for directions. It was just half a block away, and we all walked over to it.

We went into the shop, and it was fantastic. It was just like Christmas year round in there. They had every possible Christmas decoration you could imagine. In addition, there was a large collection of cuckoo clocks. My son told me that he wanted to live in the shop. The shop was like an enormous maze spread out over multiple floors. We probably spent an hour in there before buying a few things and leaving.

We were starting to run a little short on time, so we started back toward the entrance to the city gates. On the way, we walked by St. Jacob's Church, which was built beginning in the 1300's. It was one of the most prominent buildings in the city, and very beautiful. But, we didn't have much time to explore it, so we continued toward the city gate.

Once we got there, it was still a long walk back to the van. So, I left everyone there, jogged back to the van, and drove back and picked everyone up. We decided then on a slight change of plans. We were going to head straight to Munich from there, but we decided to drive down the Romantic Road. This would add at least a couple of hours to our trip, but we decided that it would be worthwhile.

So, we left the autobahn and headed cross-country. We all enjoyed the countryside much more than what we had seen from the autobahn. My father-in-law commented on the tiny villages that we kept seeing. We would see a cluster of a few dozen houses, and then half a mile away would be a similar cluster. Pasture or farmland usually separated them. My father-in-law was curious as to how these little villages came to be, and how they sustained themselves.

The major attraction on the Romantic Road is the large number of walled cities. These cities have the medieval charm of Rothenburg, but fewer tourists. The first one we encountered was Dinkelsbühl. It looked a lot like Rothenburg, but was smaller. There were almost no tourists. A number of well-preserved towers surrounded the city walls. We drove through the city gates, and drove around the town before continuing on our way. We discussed spending the night in one of those little towns, but we were afraid it would put us too far behind schedule.

The next town we encountered was Nördlingen, which was larger than Dinkelsbühl. A circular wall surrounded it, and I read that the town is located at the center of a 30-mile wide meteor crater. We once again drove through the city gate, but this time we decided to get out and explore a little bit. My wife wasn't feeling well, so she stayed in the van with my son while the rest of us walked around a little. The town was very charming. There were colorful, half-timbered houses everywhere. These houses had probably existed in this fashion for hundreds of years. We walked down to an impressive Gothic church that supposedly stands at the very center of the meteor crater. We took some pictures, and then walked back to the van.

It was really starting to get late, so we decided not to stop at any other towns. However, outside Nördlingen there was a bridge under construction and we were forced to take another route. I couldn't see another route on my map that wasn't extremely out of the way, so we stopped at a gas station and I asked about alternative routes. The woman in the gas station greeted with a very friendly "Gruss Gott", which is the common greeting in southern Germany. She told us about an alternative route, which had appeared to be nothing more than a trail on the map. We ended up taking very small farm roads for about 20 miles until got around the construction.

A short time later, we got back on the autobahn, and continued toward Munich. We would occasionally catch a glimpse of the snow-covered Alps to our right. We planned to visit the concentration camp at Dachau the next morning, so we decided to get a hotel near there. We drove into Dachau, which is just slightly north of Munich. We found a hotel, and I went in to inquire about rates. The man behind the counter said that there was a convention in Munich, and all hotels were booked within 50 miles of Munich. I felt sick to my stomach. This could really be a problem, because we needed 2 rooms. I got on the cell phone and called several places in and around Munich. They were all booked up. I even called a hotel at a town 30 miles away, and they said they were all booked up.

It was about 6:30, so we dropped into a McDonald's to eat and develop a plan. Due to the fears from Mad Cow Disease, McDonald's had changed up their menu. I had calamari and shrimp while I considered our options. I knew the risk of not booking in advance, but I hate to give up the spontaneity of being able to just stop in a nice town and spend the night. During all our European travels, we had only encountered this situation once before. But I felt really bad that it happened while my father-in-law and my mother-in-law were traveling with us.

There appeared to be only one option – head out of Munich and stop at small towns to try and find a little guesthouse. We were only about 10 miles outside of Munich when I had to stop and get gas. I asked the man working there if he knew of any hotels. He told me that down the road, in a tiny little village, there were 2 guesthouses. I was certain that they would be booked up, but I decided to give it a try. It was almost 9:00, and I was really getting worried.

I went into the guesthouse, which was located over a restaurant. They had plenty of rooms available, including some with 3 beds. So, I took 2 rooms for 2 nights. I was ecstatic. It was definitely not on the normal tourist trail, which is why it had been overlooked by others searching for a room. There were a couple of disadvantages, though. They didn’t take credit cards, and I didn’t have enough cash. But, they told me that there was a bank down the street. Also, it was a little noisy being right over the restaurant. Another slight disadvantage was that since they obviously didn't get many tourists, we were stared at like we were Martians when we walked through the restaurant. My wife and I took a room with my son, and we let my daughter stay with my father-in-law and my mother-in-law. I sketched out a plan for the following day, and then we all went to bed.

Day 2, Friday, April 6, 2001 – We all ate breakfast together, which was pretty sparse by German standards. All they had was a few varieties of bread and some cold cuts. We discussed our plans for the day over breakfast. We would visit the concentration camp in the morning, and then go into Munich in the afternoon.

We took a short drive through the country to reach Dachau. It wasn't hard to find. Dachau was the first concentration camp in Germany, built in 1933. A reported 31,591 people died at Dachau between 1933 and the camp's liberation by the Americans in 1945. One of the prisoners, a pastor, wrote the following while imprisoned at Dachau:

When the Nazis arrested the Communists, I said nothing; after all, I was not a Communist.
When they locked up the Social Democrats, I said nothing; after all, I was not a Social Democrat.
When they arrested the trade unionists, I said nothing; after all, I was not a trade unionist.
When they arrested the Jews, I said nothing; after all, I was not a Jew.
When they arrested me, there was no longer anyone who could protest.

We parked in the visitor's parking area, and walked into the camp. The camp was surrounded by a trench, a wall, and frequent guard towers. There was a gate at the entrance that said "Arbeit Macht Frei", which means work makes you free. I guess this was supposed to inspire the prisoners to work hard. Our first stop was at the visitor's center. We spoke with a woman there, who advised us of the best sequence in which to tour the camp. We first went through the museum, which traced the rise of Hitler and Nazism, as well as the history of Dachau. There were numerous photos and propaganda posters. One of the photos was of Hitler addressing a group of industrialists in Düsseldorf. In addition to being a concentration camp, Dachau was the site of gruesome medical experiments by the Nazis. They had photos of a prisoner being frozen to death in ice water. There was another series of photos showing a high altitude experiment. The prisoner was placed in a room that gradually had all the air sucked out of it. I will never forget the expressions on his face as he was dying.

We left the museum and walked outside. There was a memorial; a metal sculpture that appeared to be twisted bodies, right outside the visitor's center. We looked at that and then walked over to the roll call area. It was surreal to think that we were standing in the exact spot that the prisoners stood every single morning. We went over to where they had recreated one of the barracks as it was during the war. The conditions that the prisoners endured were really primitive. They were crammed together in extremely tight quarters. Their bathroom facilities appeared to be original. The toilets, washbasins, etc. looked very old.

Behind the barracks there was a long, tree-lined path. The trees had been planted by the prisoners to liven the place up. To the left and right of the path, we could see row after row of foundations where other prisoner's barracks had stood. These barracks had been leveled after the camp was liberated. We continued to the outer edge of the camp, where we came across the crematorium. This was where they burned the bodies of those who died in the camp. There were actually meat hooks in there where they hung the bodies. There were a number of ovens in there, and they still had ash residue in them. It was a very disturbing site. Outside of the crematorium there was a nicely gardened area. We walked over to read a plaque, which said "Pistol Range for Execution."

At this point, it was almost 11:00. There was a documentary film in the visitor's center at 11:00 and 11:30. The film at 11 was in German, and the one at 11:30 was in English. We all wanted to see the film, but we weren't sure it would be appropriate for the kids. So, we decided that I would go watch it in German at 11, and if the film was OK for the kids then we would all watch it at 11:30. I left the crematorium and jogged back up to the visitor's center. The film was similar to the museum layout; it covered the history of Hitler, Nazism, and Dachau. About halfway through the film, I decided that it would be OK for the kids. But, the second half was really gruesome. There was lots of footage of emaciated people, and they showed several scenes of piled up bodies. One scene showed a wagon overflowing with bodies. So, after the film, I entertained the kids while the others watched the English version.

While the others watched the film, I asked one of the museum workers if he could give me directions to the train station. We planned to eat another bite at McDonald's, and then take the train into Munich. After the film, we drove over to McDonald’s to eat and discuss our afternoon plans. Just to make sure, I asked one of the McDonald’s workers how to get to the train station. She gave me directions, and after lunch we were off.

Despite having directions from two people, after a few blocks we apparently made a wrong turn. We were in the general vicinity of the train station, but we couldn’t find it. So, we saw some railroad tracks and followed them until we found a small station. We parked and I got out and checked the schedule. We had missed the train by 5 minutes, and the next one wouldn’t be there for an hour. I tried to figure out the pricing, and I bought a day ticket for all of us. It would give us unlimited rides in and around Munich.

After I got the tickets, we sat and waited. My son decided he needed to go the bathroom. We were next to a feed store, but that didn’t look like a good option to me. I wanted to find a public bathroom to take him to. So, my son and I wandered around for a couple of blocks looking for a bathroom. We never found one, and when we got back to the van my wife said she would just take him into the feed store. I didn’t think it was a good idea, because I did not expect her to get a warm reception. But, she said that there was a woman behind a desk who was extremely friendly, and she let them use the restroom.

At 2:00, we got on the train and rode into Munich. On the way in, my father-in-law observed a boy about 10 years old furiously writing in a notebook. My father-in-law tried to ask him what he was writing, but the boy didn’t respond. I told my father-in-law that he wasn’t old enough to have learned English yet. Also on the train there appeared to be a couple of pickpockets. I watched them as they checked out all the purses on board.

We had decided to book a bus tour of Munich since we were limited on time. When we arrived at the train station, we walked around until we found the bus stop. We booked a 2-hour bus tour that would take us past all of the significant sights. We boarded a double-decker bus, and went upstairs. Because it was still cool weather, the top was covered. The tour guide spoke very poor English. Sometimes, she would switch from English to German in mid-sentence. Once, when she did that my son said, “That’s not good English.” We drove past all of the major attractions, but her commentary was useless. I pulled out my guidebook and started reading on my own about the places we were passing.

Munich had lots of impressive churches. We saw the Frauenkirche (women’s church), which was topped by huge copper onion domes, and the Gothic St Peterskirche. We passed the Hofbräuhaus, where Hitler's Nazis first met in 1920. We passed lots of museums, as well as the extensive English Garden. But we were all so tired, that we were all falling asleep as we drove around.

At the end of the trip, we jumped on the subway and rode down to the town square. We wanted to catch the Glockenspiel at 5:00. We arrived at the square (Marienplatz) about 4:30, and started looking around. The Neues Rathaus (New Town Hall) sits on the square's northern border, and the bombed remains of the original town hall, the Altes Rathaus (built in 1474), sits at its eastern end. We were going to go up into the tower, but the door leading to the tower was locked. My mother-in-law met an American woman who was in Germany on a business trip, and they talked a little bit.

We walked around for a few minutes, and looked up to see a camera crew filming. I heard my wife say, “They must be filming a commercial”, and we all looked up just in time to see a topless woman walking across the square as the crew filmed her. We were standing beside the camera, and she walked straight for the camera. My father-in-law grabbed his camera and started taking pictures. He said that his buddies at the coffee shop wouldn’t believe him otherwise. So, I grabbed the video camera and shot a little bit myself. The woman appeared to be a model, and all she had on was a see through outfit, and something like a g-string. She repeated the scene for a second time before they packed it up. I don’t know what my father-in-law and my mother-in-law must have been thinking, but here they had only been in Europe for three days and we had already encountered a topless woman.

At 5:00, the Glockenspiel sprang into action. For several minutes, high above the square, we watched as the figures performed a medieval joust. It was funny to look around the square and see absolutely everyone looking skyward. I thought that would be a perfect opportunity for a pickpocket to make a move. We watched for about 5 minutes, and then walked on down to the Frauenkirche and stepped inside. It was impressive, but we were all really tired. We didn’t stay for long before hopping on the train to go back. We planned to ride down to the main station and then switch trains for the ride back to Dachau. However, I realized that the train we were on went all the way to Dachau, so we didn’t have to switch.

On the way back to Dachau, I studied the train schedule. It appeared that there were 2 stations at Dachau, and the train we were on was going to the wrong one. We got off the train several miles from our minivan. I checked a bus schedule, and there was a bus that ran between the stations. However, it was going to be a while before the next bus left, and it would take a while to get there. So, we piled into a couple of taxis for the ride back to the van.

We got back to the hotel, and decided to eat at the hotel restaurant. We all sat down, and I tried to translate the menu for everyone. The options did not look too appealing, but we all finally settled on something. There was fish on the menu, so I advised my wife to get that. I figured that it was a safe bet. Well, when she got it, it was cold, pickled, and covered with a mayonnaise sauce. She took one bite and couldn’t eat any more. I told her it couldn’t be that bad, so I took a bite. It caused me to shiver in disgust. I don’t know how anyone could eat something like that.

After we finished, my son and I played foosball on a table down the hall from the restaurant. We didn’t have a ball, so we played with wadded up paper. We did that for a few minutes before I took him upstairs and we put him to bed. I had to get back out, though, and walk down to the bank and get some cash.

The walk through the town was really nice. There was a really neat looking church in the town. I walked down past the church to the bank. After withdrawing money from the ATM, I walked the rest of the way through the town. It reminded me of a little farming community in the U.S. It was very quiet, and there was lots of farm equipment about. I could have spent a few days there relaxing. But, we had a tight schedule to keep, so I walked back to the hotel to map out plans for the next day.

Day 3, Saturday, April 7, 2001 – We had an ambitious schedule today. We were going to drive across southern Germany, into Austria, then Liechtenstein, and then end up in either Switzerland or Italy. I checked out, and made small talk with the owner. I had never seen the guy come close to smiling, but I found out later that my father-in-law had taken a picture of him and the girls that were working in there, and he smiled for the photo.

I wanted to take a winding shortcut on some country roads, so my wife drove while I navigated. We drove through farmland for a while before connecting again with the Autobahn. We then drove west across southern Bavaria with the Alps off to our left. It was rainy, though, and we didn’t get many good views of the mountains.

We got to Austria about 10 a.m. and immediately encountered a traffic jam. When we finally got to the wreck, it appeared that someone had wiped out in the rain. The car was really a mess. We drove a little deeper into Austria and then stopped at a gas station to fuel up. We were only cutting across a corner of Austria, so I suggested that we go ahead and buy souvenirs. The store was more than just a gas station, actually. They had a restaurant inside, and a good selection of souvenirs. We made a lot of jokes about buying our souvenirs in a gas station, but we didn’t have time to go into a town and shop.

We crossed the border into Liechtenstein right before lunch. I was shocked that they didn’t check our passports, because they appeared to be checking all the other cars. Right on the other side of the border was a souvenir shop, so we stopped there and my mother-in-law and my wife bought some souvenirs.

It was still rainy, but you could see some of the beauty of Liechtenstein. Although it is smaller than some counties in the U.S., the valleys are deep green, and there are high mountains to the left and right of the highway. Snow covered the mountains at the higher elevations. We pulled into the capital, Vaduz, at about lunchtime. We stopped and I withdrew some Swiss money, which is the official currency of Liechtenstein. We decided that we really didn’t have time to eat at a restaurant, so it was McDonald’s again for lunch.

After lunch, we backtracked to the town of Schaan, because my father-in-law had seen a photo opportunity there. We drove there, and my father-in-law took a picture of a church steeple with tall, rocky mountains behind it. We then left Liechtenstein and crossed the border into Switzerland. That made a total of 4 countries in about 4 hours. Since there is no toll system in Switzerland, the Swiss make you buy a sticker at the border that allows you to drive on the Swiss Autobahn. But, there was no checkpoint where we drove across, so we drove through Switzerland without having to buy the sticker.

We headed south, and the weather continued to be bad. We eventually started climbing into the mountains as we turned toward the west. The rain turned to snow as we climbed up into the mountains, so we stopped at a little rest stop and my father-in-law and I got out. It was really pleasant, standing underneath some huge trees as the snow fell hard around us. But, it was really cold, so we didn’t stay out long.

We planned to drive through a mountain pass, and then I was planning on dipping down into Italy. As we continued to climb, the traffic started to thin out. I saw a sign that I did not completely understand, but it appeared to say something to the effect that the road ended in 15 kilometers. I didn’t say anything to the others, and I continued to drive. Well, 15 kilometers (and no traffic) later we came to a gate in the road that indicated the mountain pass was closed. On the other side of the gate, the road was covered with snow.

I wasn’t sure what we were going to do, but I knew that this development was going to throw us way off schedule. I looked at the map and could find no other way to our destination. We pulled over and I asked a couple of older men standing outside a garage. We pulled in, and I asked them how a person could get to the other side of the mountain pass. They told me to backtrack for a few miles, and there was a train that took people across.

So, we drove back and found the train station. I bought a ticket to take us to the other side. The guy at the counter told me that there was no way to drive into Italy from there, because that pass was closed as well. He also told me that we could have to take another train once we got to the other side of the pass.

We waited around for almost an hour, and then I drove the van up on the train. We all unloaded and went into a passenger car. The heat was turned up too high, so I found the handle to turn it back down. It didn’t work, though, so we suffered through a very warm ride. There was a young German guy sitting there, and we all talked to him. He worked for a hotel chain, and was on his way to inspect one of their hotels on the other side of the mountains. We climbed really high into the mountains. I had left my sunglasses in the van, and we climbed above the clouds and the sun was blinding coming off the snow. Looking outside the car, everything was white. Occasionally, we could see a rocky area where the snow had slid off, but mostly the entire world was blindingly white.

We found out from the guy on the train that there would be another train to take us on the rest of the way about 6 miles from where we would get off the train. The second train ran through the mountain. We thought about just stopping for the night at a town between the train lines. When we departed, I pulled into a little town and walked into a hotel restaurant to inquire about a room. Inside, there were about 6 people sitting at a table, and they just ignored me. I stood there for several minutes before one of them stood up and asked if they could help me. I told them we were looking for a room, and they told me that they had several available and quoted me a price. I thought the price was pretty high, considering little scenery was visible from the hotel. I checked my watch, and felt like we still had time to make the other train if we hurried. So, we left there and drove to the next train station. This time, we sat in our vehicle as the train carried us through the mountain.

On the other side of the mountain, we decided that we would stop at the first promising town and spend the night. It was already getting late, but it was still daylight. I wanted to have a room well before dark. We drove just a few miles, and came across a tiny little town that was not even listed on our map. The sign outside the town said Obergesteln. I found out later that the population was 200, and the elevation of the town was around 4,000 ft. The scenery was breathtaking, so we decided to pull off and check it out. All of the other cars that had driven off the train continued on down the road, but we pulled off and explored the town.

We could see a couple of hotels (which would more properly be described as lodges) some distance off the main highway. We drove down a tiny winding street to the hotels. I checked the first one, and there was a sign that said that it was closed until summer. The second one was open, but completely empty. I inquired about a room, and a woman working there told me that they had a couple of rooms that would sleep 3 people. The rate was also pretty low. She also told me that we were lucky that it wasn’t a week later, because they were about to close for the season. Ski season was over, and the tourists apparently were nonexistent until summer.

We unloaded our luggage and checked out our rooms. They were really nice. They had high, cathedral ceilings with large wooden beams bracing the ceiling. The place was very rustic, and really was more like a lodge than a hotel. To top it off, we were the only guests there. I looked out at the parking lot, and our van was the only vehicle there. We had a spectacular view out the window. There were snow-covered peaks all around us. I felt like we had really lucked out with this place.

We settled into our room (my wife, my son, and me) and then we all went downstairs to eat dinner. There was an older man sitting down alone at a table. We sat down several tables away from him and ordered. There was a little room off to the side where my daughter and my son played with Lego’s. I saw a deer outside, and went outside to capture it on video. It was about 8:00 by then, but it still wasn’t dark.

I walked outside and got some pretty good video of the deer. When I walked back in, my father-in-law and my mother-in-law were beside the other man’s table trying to talk to him. (My father-in-law later told me that he walked over because the guy kept grinning at him. I had noticed that, too). It was funny to watch the two of them try to talk. My father-in-law would ask him a question in English, and the man would respond, in a really prominent Swiss German. I listened to them talk for a couple of minutes, and it was comical. My father-in-law would say something like, “Do you live around here?” and then the guy would respond in German. Neither understood what the other was saying. So, I attempted to talk to the guy in German. It was really hard to understand him. I told him that my father-in-law was from Oklahoma, and the guy would say “California.” I kept correcting him, but he kept saying it. My father-in-law finally walked away and left me stranded with the guy. He was really drunk, and I finally decided that he was insane as well. He told me that I spoke very proper German, or hoch Deutsch. He told me that he lived in that little town, and always had. He said that his great grandfather had traveled to Texas in 1866, and that he had an uncle that lived in California. I finally tore myself away from him and went over and ate.

The meal was really good. I had escargots as an appetizer. The kids thought it was cool, but my father-in-law and my wife thought it was disgusting. We finished up and walked upstairs to our rooms. I thought about our schedule for a little while before I went to bed, and concluded that there was no way we would be able to drive into Italy the next day. It was really close, but on the other side of the mountain. We were too far behind schedule, and the nearest pass was far out of the way.

Day 4, Sunday, April 8, 2001 – We woke to a beautiful morning. As a joke, I opened the shutters and started singing “The Sound of Music”. Our van, still alone in the parking lot, was covered with a light layer of snow. When I carried the luggage down, the doors were frozen shut. We had a quick breakfast, and left early. We planned to drive across the rest of Switzerland, turn north into France, and end up in Paris.

The scenery was really great as we drove across Switzerland. We were in the heart of the Alps. We stopped occasionally to take some pictures. Once, we passed a sign for Bitsch, Switzerland. Naturally we had to stop and take a picture of that. We saw a couple of very small Swiss children crossing a road in a little country town, and my father-in-law took a picture of them. Later, we could see the Matterhorn in the distance to our left, so we pulled over in a little town and took a picture of that, too.

Eventually, we turned toward the north. We were headed toward France, but my wife and my mother-in-law wanted some souvenirs in Switzerland. However, all the stores in the little towns were closed because it was Sunday. We stopped once at a gas station, but they didn’t have any souvenirs. Everyone inside was speaking Italian, too. Certain regions of Switzerland speak Italian, others German, and others speak French. Eventually, we came up alongside Lake Geneva. We drove to Lausanne, and pulled off at a McDonald’s to eat lunch. They advertised Swiss beef, and several of us had a hamburger since Switzerland had never been implicated in Mad Cow Disease.

After we ate, we drove into Lausanne to try and find a souvenir shop. We drove around for quite a while downtown, but absolutely everything was closed. I knew that my wife was not going to be happy about it, but I was afraid that they just were not going to be able to get any souvenirs. We left Lausanne and headed toward the border with France. Luckily, there was a rest stop right before we got to the border. We pulled off and my mother-in-law and my wife were able to buy some souvenirs. It also had a spectacular viewpoint, so we took some pictures. When we were back in the van waiting for my wife, I heard the kids sitting in the back of the van playing. My son said to my daughter, “I’ve got to go to work, Baby, because that gives us money to buy toys and stuff.” I cracked up.

The surroundings got flatter and flatter as we neared France. When we crossed the border, the landscape had changed from mountains to hills. It was rainy again, and everyone was dozing off. We worked our way through the hills and finally reached the French autobahn. We were way behind schedule, but I knew that I would be able to make up time. The French highway system is very good, and police are rare. So, I drove really fast after we got on the Autobahn. I pushed the van pretty often up to 180 kph, which is about 110 miles per hour. My father-in-law kept asking me if I had checked the tires lately. He said “You know what’s going to happen if we have a blowout at this speed. There won’t be anything left of any of us.” I knew that he was only half joking, but if I drove normal speeds it would be after dark when we got into Paris.

My father-in-law started to feel sick, so we pulled off at a gas station about 2 hours from Paris. I felt better about our prospects for reaching Paris before dark at that point. We stayed at the gas station for a little while and had a little snack before continuing into Paris. About 30 miles outside of Paris the traffic started to back up, and when we were about 20 miles from the downtown area the traffic was stop and go. We had several maps that we were going to try to use to get us to our destination. My father-in-law navigated while I drove. But, the problem in Paris, as it is all over France, is that the roads are very poorly marked. It wasn’t long before we had no idea of where we were. We would occasionally see a street that was listed on the map, but we had to give up attempting to navigate with the map.

We spotted the Eiffel Tower, and we knew that the place we were staying was near that. We had booked 5 days in an apartment near the Arc de Triomphe. So, we headed that way, but the other drivers were crazy. Once, I was waiting for a light to turn green. I was in a lane that could either turn left or go straight ahead. The lane to the right of me was supposed to go straight ahead. But, when the light changed, the guy to the right of me came around me and turned left, almost causing us to hit him. This was only a prelude of things to come.

We drove directly in front of the Eiffel Tower, and found the Arc de Triomphe on the map. The Arc de Triomphe is a huge roundabout, with traffic several layers deep. I had seen it in person and on television, and it is a traffic nightmare. So, I wanted to avoid it, even though our apartment was only about 3 blocks away from it. We thought we found an alternate route, so we tried that out.

I could see the Arc down one street, but we continued on our alternate route. The traffic was incredibly heavy. There were no lines indicating which lane to drive in, so the traffic was really staggered out. There were cars weaving in and out, and once we saw a guy on roller blades riding behind a car while holding on to it. My father-in-law said that he had never seen anything like it. I just knew we were going to get hit, and we were getting lost. We could no longer find any familiar streets on the map. Finally, we decided to work our way back toward the Eiffel Tower and just drive around the Arc.

We made it to the Arc, and I drove around it. But, I stayed in the outside lane and never really entered the traffic. From there we found the place pretty easily. We keyed in the code at the door, and entered the building. We rode the elevator up to the apartment. The elevator was one of the ancient types with the cage that you have to shut before you operate it. The key was supposed to be under the mat, but it wasn’t there. We had been instructed that if there was a problem, we needed to go see the building supervisor. I rode the elevator down and rang her doorbell. She wasn’t there. We had our cell phone, so I decided to call the people that we had rented the place from. When got back on the elevator, a young guy stepped out and started saying something to me in French. I asked him (in French) if he spoke English. He shook his head “No”, and then we just shrugged at one another.

I made the call back to the apartment owners in Düsseldorf. At this point, the situation was becoming urgent, as several of us really needed a restroom. We had been driving for quite some time since the last stop. I reached the owner, but he said he wasn’t sure what to do and that his wife was traveling. (I had booked the place with her). He said that he would try to call the building supervisor and get a key to us. I rode back down and rang her bell again, and this time she was home. She didn’t speak any English, and she didn’t understand what I was asking for. I kept saying “Madame Riegger”, which was the name of the woman we had rented the place from. She would nod her head, and repeat “Madame Riegger”, but she obviously had no idea what I was talking about. She finally said, “Le Cley”, and that sounded enough like key that I nodded yes. Luckily, that did mean “The Key”, and not “Are you trying to rob me?” so I finally got the key from her.

We got into the apartment and unloaded our things. The apartment building was really old, but the inside of the apartment was nice. Some of the furniture was antique. We didn’t have much of a view, but for this price ($125 a night) at this location in Paris, it was unbeatable. We hadn’t had a chance to eat, though, so we walked down to try and find a grocery store. There was one across the street, but it was closed. There were no fast food places around, so we went back to the apartment and scrounged around and found some odds and ends that other guests had left. My wife had some disgusting noodles, and I just ate some chips. We rested and prepared to spend the next few days in Paris.

Europe with the In-Laws Part II

2007-01-08T17:54:00.000-08:00

This is the 2nd installment of the account of an extended European vacation with my kids, my wife, and her parents. At this stage of the trip, we are in Paris.

Day 5, Monday, April 9, 2001 – The first thing we had to do was take care of breakfast. We walked back over to the store and loaded up on groceries. We got breakfast and lunch supplies, as well as some ice cream. My father-in-law and my mother-in-law wanted us to pick up some coffee filters, but there were many different kinds. We decided not to risk it and just let them pick them up when they went to the store.

My wife and I were going to spend some time in Paris with the kids and let my father-in-law and my mother-in-law rest. We walked up to the subway stop at the Arc de Triomphe. We bought a book of subway tickets, a couple of 3 day passes for all of the Paris museums, and tickets to Disneyland Paris. Disneyland is right outside Paris, and we planned on visiting it the next day.

We checked in our Paris guide to see which attractions were open. The Louvre and the Orsay, the two famous art museums were closed on Mondays. We decided to hit these on Wednesday. Notre Dame Cathedral was open, so we decided to visit it first. We rode the subway over to a stop near the cathedral, and walked in the rain about 3 blocks. We had been building it up by telling the kids that Notre Dame is where the Hunchback of Notre Dame had lived. But, when they saw it, they weren’t impressed. I think they were expecting something out of the Disney cartoon. The building is very impressive, but I guess for the kids it looked just like all of the other buildings.

We went inside and looked around. It is a very impressive sight, but we have been in so many cathedrals (and I had been in Notre Dame once before) that we didn’t stay long. Our museum pass allowed us to climb up in the tower, which boasts a very good view of Paris (and the gargoyles). But, when we walked outside, there was a huge line of people waiting in the rain to climb the tower. We didn’t want to see it that badly, so we decided to go to our next stop.

We grabbed a bite to eat, and then go back on the subway. Our next stop was the Paris sewer tour, which is one of the most popular tourist attractions in Paris. The tour originated from the book Les Misérables, which took place partially in the Paris sewer system.

The sewer tour was pretty far off the beaten path. We had to change trains twice, and each time we had to walk quite a distance to get to our connecting train. My son got really tired, and I ended up carrying him on my back through the subway.

We bought our tickets and descended underneath Paris. We had to wait for some other Americans to show up before they would give a tour in English. We also had the option of walking through the sewer by ourselves, making use of English captions. We met an older American couple that had just finished the tour, and they said it would be worthwhile to wait for a guide.

Several other Americans arrived, and we started walking through the sewer system. The kids thought it was pretty cool, but several people (including my wife) were surprised that it smelled bad. I had to laugh at this, because it was the sewer, after all. One of the exhibits that I enjoyed the most was the history of the sewer system, which dated back to Roman times. At one point in the tour, we crossed a bridge over a river of flowing sewage. I stopped with the kids and watched for a few minutes, but I think my wife was pretty grossed out.

After the tour, we rode the subway back to the Arc de Triomphe. My father-in-law and my mother-in-law had only been to the store that day, and they were ready to explore a little. We ate a bite and then rode the subway over to the Eiffel Tower. We planned to ride the elevator up into the tower. But, when we got there, it was raining and there was a long line to get in. We took several pictures, and I let the kids play in the gravel underneath the tower. My father-in-law, my mother-in-law, and my wife went into a souvenir shop and looked around. The tower blocked most of the rain off of us, but I really wanted an umbrella. There were Arabs selling umbrellas all over the place, so I haggled with one of them. They started off at a ridiculously high price, but I ended up buying a couple for about three U.S. dollars each. My father-in-law had started haggling with one of them as well, and the guy just wouldn’t give up. We finally had to walk away from him.

We decided to come back in a couple of days to ride up the tower. On the way back to the subway station, my wife stopped in a little tourist place to look around. She wanted a replica of the Eiffel Tower, but I thought everything in that place was way overpriced. So, we passed on that and rode back over to the apartment. We had to rest up for Disney the next day.

Day 6, Tuesday, April 10, 2001 – My son really cracked me up when we woke up. We were sleeping together on a sleeper sofa, and he is always the first one awake. We had been playing a computer game called Starcraft before we left Germany. In this game, which is set in outer space, humans battle two alien races, the Zerg and the Protoss. My son hadn’t mentioned the game since we left home, but as soon as he woke up he said, “Dad, why are the Protoss so strong?” I told him that I didn’t know. Then, a few seconds later he asked “Are the Zerg the toughest?” I figured he must have had a dream about the game.

We got ready and hopped on the train that would take us to Disney. We weren’t sure that we were on the train that went all the way out there, so I asked an older man on the train if he spoke English. He smiled and told me he did, and that the train we were on stopped before it got to Disney. He told us to hop off at the next stop, wait one minute, and then the next train would take us the rest of the way. We thanked him, changed trains, and finished our ride.

It was raining when we entered the park. We took cover for a minute and planned our day. There was a Mulan show at 11:00, so we decided to attend it. It was at the back of the park, so we rode the train around to the other side. We passed several different sections of the park. One was made up to look like the old west, complete with scenery that looked like it came straight from the Grand Canyon.

It was a little early for the show, so we checked on one of the rides. We found out the kids weren’t old enough to ride that one, so we went inside to wait for the show. They had big screens set up where they were showing Disney cartoons, so the kids wanted to stay in and watch. I went and got us all something to eat, and we sat down and ate while we waited on the show to start. Before long the place was packed and the show started. I was afraid the kids wouldn’t pay attention, but it really fascinated them. It was a very impressive show.

After the show, we went to the Time Machine. We stood in a big room while we took a virtual tour through time and across the planet. It was really loud, and I don’t think the kids liked it much. It was still raining a little, so the park wasn’t extremely packed. We decided to try one of the most popular rides, Pirates of the Caribbean. On our way in, we saw a sign that said “30 Minute Wait from Here”. Since there was no line at that point, we assumed the wait would be short. We were still walking when a large group of Spanish people pushed their way passed us. They were very rude, and almost knocked the kids down. We finally got to the line, but we quickly found out we were still a long way from the front. More of the Spanish group came up and started trying to push their way past us. We all linked hands and wouldn’t let them pass. There was a British couple with children in front of us, and they were also upset with the people who kept trying to cut in line. Together, we held them back. Finally, after about 30 minutes, we got to the front. The ride was worth the wait. It was a boat ride, and took us on a trip through a Caribbean night. There were island scenes being acted out all around us, complete with a battle scene. The kids really liked it a lot. (They liked it so much that we came back later and rode it again).

The lines were getting longer as the day wore on. We checked out the Peter Pan ride, but the wait was up to an hour. We passed on that and went into the Alice in Wonderland maze. We were in there a long time, because we couldn’t find our way out. At 3:00, we watched the Disney parade. A lot of the characters from the parade marched by. The parade was delayed for a few minutes, though, because a rain shower moved through. We were pretty wet when the parade came through.

Next, we made our way over to the Buzz Lightyear Café. Buzz and Jesse, from Disney’s Toy Story, were to make appearances at 4:30, so we went in, got some pizza, and waited on them. We got their picture taken with Buzz, and then let them play in the play area. As we were sitting there, a German woman came up to me and started speaking German. She asked if we had seen her jacket, and I answered her in German and told her that we hadn’t. A few minutes later, Jesse came walking by. My son just froze in his tracks. He eventually got a hug from her, which we were able to capture on video.

After we left, we decided to go on the Star Wars ride. We waited in line for 45 minutes for a lame, 2 minute ride. From there, we attempted to walk back to the front part of the park. We were blocked by a show on Main Street. The crowds were thick, and it took us a long time to work our way through. We got to the front, and went through a haunted house. The kids enjoyed that one a lot. We looked into one other ride, but the line was too long. So we went into the shops, bought a few souvenirs, and headed back into Paris. Even though it was late, we let the kids eat some of the candy that we bought in the candy shop at Disney.

We had also bought a pair light sabers, and we decided to try them out when we got to the apartment. I battled with the kids for a long time before we got tired. It was really late when we finally got in bed.

Day 7, Wednesday, April 11, 2001– I got my fill of Paris today. It was really cold and rainy, as it had been on our entire trip. This was not my image of Paris in the spring. We decided to see the art museums. My wife and I left the kids with my father-in-law and my mother-in-law and rode over to the Louvre. On the ride over, a teenage girl got on the subway and started shoving people as she pushed her way through the car. She stepped on the feet of a well-dressed French woman, and the woman turned around and kicked her in the back!

Since we had passes, we didn’t have to wait in line at the Louvre. We decided to spend only a couple of hours in there, because we also wanted see the Orsay, which has lots of Van Goghs, Renoirs, Monets, etc. I actually like it better than the Louvre. We saw all the major attractions in the Louvre – the Winged Victory, the Venus de Milo, and the Mona Lisa. We had to wait in line for a long time before we got to the Mona Lisa. I had seen it before, and I hadn’t been that impressed the first time. I really don’t understand why it is the most famous painting in the world, but my wife said she was impressed with it.

We saw a few more of the better known paintings, but we really wanted to spend more time in the Orsay. So, we crossed the Seine River and walked toward the Orsay. There was a guy selling paintings, so we stopped to look. I was really freezing to death, because I was not dressed for the weather. It was really cold and windy. My wife bought a painting, and we also got a couple of miniature Eiffel Towers for the kids.

We walked on down to the Orsay, and saw a crowd of people gathered around. I walked up to the door, and it said that the employees were on strike and the museum was closed. I was so mad. It seems like the French go on strike more than any other nationality. They always seem to have some segment of their population that is on strike.

We decided to ride the subway back down to the Arc de Triomphe. Our passes allowed us to ascend the steps to the top. This would give us a fantastic view down the Champs-Élysées. While we were waiting for the subway, 2 older British couples walked up. One of them had three grandchildren with them. We heard the two men discussing the Scottish people. One of them said, “The bloody Scottish, they like to pretend that they are not even British." I laughed, because that’s exactly what the Scots had told us when we were in Scotland. One of the grandchildren heard us speaking English and started talking to us. Then one of the men came over and started talking to me. We talked about the French. He told me that they are always on strike and in his opinion some of the laziest people in Europe. We talked about how funny it was that they glorified Napoleon, who in my opinion was not much better than Hitler. He said, “Well, he got his at Waterloo. The British took care of him.” We discussed Disney, and he said they had been there two days ago. He said that Disney in the U.S. was better. We talked politics, and he said that the Americans are the only country that consistently stands with the British. He said Britain is more aligned with America than with the rest of Europe. We finally discussed the American plane that had made the emergency landing in China. He asked how I felt about it. (At that time, the Chinese were still holding the Americans captive). I told him that I thought the Chinese had caused the crash, and they certainly had some nerve to detain the crew. He agreed with me.

We continued to talk as we got on the subway. I noticed a guy sitting near the door. He was looking down, and looked to me like he was homeless. I saw another guy get on, then he got back off, back on, and then just as the train was about to depart he hopped back off. About 10 seconds later, one of the older women said, “That blokes pinched me purse.” Translation: The guy who had been on the train had picked her pocket. She said that it was all the money she had. Her granddaughter said, “Oh Nanny, what shall we do?” She asked what I thought, and I told her I would get back down there and look around for the wallet. They don’t want to get caught with any identification, so they usually just grab the cash and ditch the wallet. This had happened to my wife in Germany, and this is exactly what they had done. So, we wished them luck and they hopped off at the next stop.

We got to the Arc, and found out that it was also closed due to striking employees. I was really irritated. We walked back down to the apartment. My father-in-law wanted to go and see some things, so I went back out with him. We went over to Les Invalides, which is a very good war museum. As we were walking from the subway stop, we saw a limo with darkened windows drive by. It was followed by a few other cars and had police escorts front and rear. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell was visiting Paris that day, and the French Parliament building was close by. We wondered if he was in the limo, and we found out later that evening that he had been at the parliament building.

We went into the museum and looked around. We saw Napoleon’s tomb, which was pretty extravagant. It is really hard for me to believe how much the French revere him. We walked through the museum, and saw some really old cannons and some ancient armor from medieval times. We walked pretty quickly through the WWI exhibit, because we wanted to spend more time in the WWII exhibit. I thought it was really good, especially the D-Day footage. The last exhibit was a film covering the nuclear attack on Hiroshima. I stood there with a group of about 10 Japanese tourists and watched the film. I wondered what they were thinking.

After that, my father-in-law and I rode back over to the Arc. On the way, a young woman saw my father-in-law’s cap, which had the state of Oregon on it. She asked if he was from there. He told her no, that his son lived there. She said that she lived in Paris, but her parents lived in San Francisco.

We got back to the apartment, and decided to order pizza. My wife called the Pizza Hut, and the girl was extremely rude to her. They had some unusual types of pizza, so my wife spent some time trying to figure out what we wanted. She said the girl kept muttering under her breath, and my wife finally her that she thought she was very rude. I told my wife that she should never do that to people who are in charge of preparing your food. When we got the pizza, it wasn’t very good, and it was way overpriced. I was ready to get out of Paris.

Day 8, Thursday, April 12, 2001 – Today we would head to Normandy. I was really dreading the drive out of Paris. We got all of our things together, and I went to pull the van in front of the building. There was a parking place there, but by the time I got to the front of the apartment it was gone. I had to circle the block several times before another spot opened up.

We loaded up and headed to the Arc. I had to circle the Arc and come out the other side. I had been told that there are certain rules that applied when one drove around the Arc. When I got to the Arc, all rules went out the window. We were just trying to survive. It was pretty scary. Apparently we did something wrong, because a guy pulled up alongside us in a motorcycle and started glaring at us. My father-in-law looked over at the guy and started smiling, and this made the guy crack a smile. We continued in the general direction we wanted to go in, and we finally saw some signs pointing us toward Normandy. I made up my mind as we left Paris that I would never attempt to drive there again.

We drove for a couple of hours through the Norman countryside. The kids slept most of the way. My father-in-law asked again if I had checked the tires lately, because I was driving pretty fast. We got there about lunchtime, and had lunch at a McDonald’s in Bayeux. We let the kids play for a while before we headed to the American Military Cemetery.

The cemetery is set on a bluff overlooking Omaha Beach. As we walked in, we talked about the opening scene of “Saving Private Ryan”, which was filmed there. We first stopped at the visitor’s center, and read about the cemetery. There are three Medal of Honor winners buried there, including Teddy Roosevelt, Jr. We noted their location and walked into the cemetery. On the way in, a black family walked past on their way out of the cemetery. They were speaking French, and there were tears streaming down the father’s face.

We located each Medal of Honor winner, and took some video of each grave. The kids would point to random graves and ask about this person or that person. Each time, I told them the name, and where he was from. I tried to get them to imagine a little bit about each man. I explained to them that he might have had kids at home that never got to see him again. I told them that each one of those men had a mother who never got to see them again. I wanted them to think about how tragic it was.

We left the cemetery and drove to Point du Hoc, which was just a few minutes down the coast. I played with the kids in the bomb craters while my wife walked around with my father-in-law and my mother-in-law. Once, we saw some German kids playing in a bunker. They were playing war, and I heard them shouting “Sie kommen, Sie kommen” (they are coming, they are coming). We spent quite a bit of time walking around, but part of the memorial was closed off. Apparently there had been some instability near the edge of the cliff, and they had it blocked off from access.

We left there and headed back toward Omaha Beach. On the way, we stopped at a little private museum. There was a Higgins landing craft on display outside, and we stopped and looked at it. I climbed up where I could actually look down inside it. I flashed back to the opening scene of “Saving Private Ryan” and thought about the fact that this very boat in front of me had carried soldiers to the beach that day. There were also lots of other artifacts on display, many of them showing signs of heavy damage from the battle.

We left and continued toward the beach. We had made reservations at the hotel we had stayed at the year before. They spoke no English, so my wife had a friend call and make the reservations. The hotel, Hotel du Casino, stands directly over the beach. It looked ancient, but we figured that it had to have been built after the landing in 1944. We told the kids where we were going, and my daughter said, “Oh yeah, that’s the place with the pink toilet paper.” I didn’t remember that, but my wife confirmed that my daughter was right about that.

We got to the hotel and checked in. When I saw the woman at the front desk, I remembered her. This was the daughter of the owners, and she actually spoke a little English. She asked us if we would be eating dinner there, and we told her we would.

We unloaded our things in the room before going out to the beach. There was no elevator, so it took a while to get unloaded. We got one room with four beds and second room for my father-in-law and my mother-in-law. Both rooms looked right out onto the beach. My daughter was pleased to find out that they still had pink toilet paper. My wife stayed in to rest while I took the kids down to the beach. We were completely alone out there. We brought the light sabers with us, and my son was anxious to fight with them. I tried to talk to them about the historical significance of where we were, but he couldn’t get his mind off of a duel. So, we had a sword fight on the beach. I took turns fighting him and my daughter. I drew a big circle and stood in the middle of it. I told them that to win they had to force me out of the circle. My son walked over to my circle and started kicking it and messing the lines up. Then, he looked up at me and said, “Aren’t you ashamed that I messed your circle up?” I just died laughing.

Before going back inside, I tried to imagine the landing. The hills were still dotted with bunkers, and there was a really big gun directly outside the hotel. It was really hard to imagine the tragedy that unfolded on this peaceful beach. Looking across the wide stretch of sand between the water and the hills, I could see why so many men had lost their lives. They had to cross several hundred yards of sand while machine guns rained bullets on them. If they were lucky enough to avoid that, they also had to avoid the mines that were scattered all over the beach.

At dinner that evening, we took a dictionary so we could translate the menu. From the restaurant, we had a perfect view of the beach and the ocean. The waitress came up and started speaking French, but I asked her if she knew German or English. She said that she spoke German, so we started conversing in German. We spoke for several minutes before she asked where we were from. When she found out we were all Americans, she switched to English. She knew some English, she just felt more comfortable speaking German.

While we were translating the menu, the owner came out. He was 75 years old, and had actually been there on D-Day. He spoke not a word of English, but with the help of the waitress he talked to us a little. He told us that his family had owned this hotel for many years prior to D-Day. He said he was 15 when the Germans invaded, and they took the hotel from his grandfather. He was forced to move into town then. He said that on D-Day, the hotel was completely destroyed. He was 18 years old at that point, and he saw the invasion take place. He also kept trying to tell us something about Belgium. We gathered that he had gone to Belgium to work, but we couldn’t understand when. He would say “ship”, then what I finally figured out was “Belgium”, and then he kept making a cutting motion and saying “snip, snip.” We couldn’t understand his exact meaning. He told us that after the war, he rebuilt the hotel. He said that he stayed off the beach until 1946, because the mines weren’t all cleared out until then. He had tears in his eyes as he walked away. We were all in complete awe at the living piece of history we had just encountered.
It took us a while, but we finally translated the menu. My father-in-law was concerned about what he might get, so he ordered an omelet. I had red mullet, which was really good. Between courses they brought me a scoop of ice cream in cognac, which they had also done last year. It was hard to eat, but I was finally able to get it down. There were two American women sitting near us, and I could hear them talking about the same thing. They weren’t too crazy about it either. I finished all my courses, and had an excellent chocolate mousse for dessert. We finished up and went up to our rooms, where the kids watched French cartoons and played with their Game Boys before going to bed.

Day 9, Friday, April 13, 2001 – We wanted to stay longer, but we were going to have to leave today. I walked out on the beach with the kids before breakfast. It was freezing. I saw some golf balls lying in some pools of water, and fished one out. I figured it would be a good souvenir for my father-in-law. I walked around on the beach for a while, and then met the others for breakfast. I gave my father-in-law the golf ball, and told him that there was another one, but the water was too deep. I told him I would try to fish it out after breakfast.

During breakfast, the owner came back out. He started trying to tell us more stories, and then pulled out a photo album. We were all amazed. He had lots of pictures of the invasion that I had never seen. He also had close up pictures of Dwight Eisenhower, and he had a signed letter from Eisenhower thanking him for his hospitality when he later came back and stayed in the rebuilt hotel. They had pictures of their daughter, then only about 4 years old, standing with Mamie Eisenhower. This was the same “little girl” who had checked us into the hotel. He told us that he had met Eisenhower on more than one occasion, and that he had stayed right there in that hotel. We were just floored by the things he was telling us. If he advertised these things, he would keep that hotel sold out year round. But he seemed to me to be the kind of guy that wouldn’t want that kind of attention. He also had a 1920’s postcard of the hotel, which showed what it had looked like prior to the war. It was very similar to the rebuilt hotel. My father-in-law asked if he could take pictures, and the man said yes. So, my father-in-law took pictures of most of the man’s pictures. My father-in-law asked if we were going to be behind schedule, and I told him maybe, but it didn’t matter. These were the kinds of memories vacations were for. This experience was priceless.

After a while, we had to go ahead and get ready to leave. I walked back down to the beach to get the other golf ball, as well as some sand from the beach. The ball was in about 2 feet of cold, clear water, but it was about 3 feet from the edge. So, I had to walk into the water on my hands and get it out. The water was barely above freezing, so by the time I finally got it out I was shivering. I scooped up some sand and then we were on our way.

We were behind schedule, so I once again had to drive fast. Of course my father-in-law had to ask again about the tires. We wanted to visit Patton’s grave at the American Military Cemetery in Luxembourg. It closed at 5 p.m., and I thought there was a chance we would make it. We had to drive all the way across France to do it, and Paris was directly in our path. Confusion once again set in as we neared Paris. We were not sure about where we were. We tried to work our way around the city, and we finally saw a sign to Disneyland. That was good, because that meant we had worked our way to the opposite side of Paris. It was past lunchtime, so we actually took the exit at Disney and ate in Disney Village. There was a Rain Forest Café in there, so we decided to try it out. We ordered our food, and then my wife and I left the kids with my father-in-law and my mother-in-law and we stepped outside to buy some souvenirs at the Disney Store. We bought some t-shirts, a set of drinking glasses, and a few other things, and then got back to the café just as lunch was served. The kids really enjoyed the setting, and we all enjoyed being able to relax after rushing halfway across France.

After lunch we continued on our way. I was estimating that we would get to the cemetery right at 5, assuming we had no problems. As we neared the Luxembourg border, we began to see snow flurries. At first the others didn’t believe me, but then we saw a few more. Just a few miles from the border, we encountered a traffic jam. It was about 4:45, and I was afraid that this would cause us not to make it in time.

We pulled into the parking lot of the cemetery at 5:22. Everything was closed, so we were forced to just look through the fence. We could see the graves from where we were, but not up close. There was a German war cemetery a little further down the road, so we decided to check it out. It was open, so my father-in-law and I walked into it. It was pretty gloomy. There were also some children buried in there, but I wasn’t sure why. My father-in-law and I walked around a little while the others waited in the van.

When we got back to the van, we discussed what we should do. We were on the German border, so I suggested that we cross the border and stay at a Bed and Breakfast. However, we were only 2.5 hours from home and the others favored driving back home. It was not yet 6 p.m., and we would probably be home before it got dark. So, we set off.

My wife wanted some souvenirs, so we stopped off at a couple of places in Luxembourg City. She was looking for a couple of beer steins to complete our collection. We stopped at a number of places before reaching the border with Belgium, but we had no luck at all. We stopped at another place in Belgium, but couldn’t find anything there, either.

We drove through very beautiful country. The surroundings were very hilly with lots of trees on the hills. This was the area that the Battle of the Bulge had been fought in. We worked our way into Belgium, and it started to snow pretty hard. Once we passed a herd of deer standing in a meadow. My father-in-law commented on how neat and clean everything was. He said if this was in southeastern Oklahoma, then you would see lots of cars on blocks, junkyards, etc.

We pulled into St. Vith, which is famous for a massacre that took place during the Battle of the Bulge. A number of German soldiers had executed some American prisoners there. We located a memorial in the town, and pulled off to take pictures. As I started to drive off, everyone started yelling at me. I stopped, and realized that my father-in-law hadn’t gotten back in the van. He was running to the van, apparently afraid that I was about to leave him, freezing in Belgium.

The rest of the drive home was uneventful. We came home to a very cold house. We planned to spend the night at home, and then leave for a day trip to The Netherlands the next morning.

Day 10, Saturday, April 14, 2001 – It was the peak of tulip season in The Netherlands, so we were excited about experiencing some of the things that the country is famous for. We had originally planned to see Holland at the beginning of the trip, but I was advised that the middle of April is the best time.

I think my father-in-law and my mother-in-law were surprised that it only took us 40 minutes to get to the border. We crossed the border, and drove toward Kinderdijk. This is the location of a large concentration of windmills. We drove mostly cross-country to get there. Once, we did take a wrong turn that I only realized about 15 minutes later. So, we lost time backtracking. Regardless, we were in the vicinity of Kinderdijk only about 2 hours after we left home. We made another wrong turn, though, and had to stop and get directions. My father-in-law, my mother-in-law, and I walked into a store, and I just walked up to a woman who was shopping and asked her if she spoke English. She looked at me with a very surprised look, but she spoke perfect English. She told us how to get to the windmills.

We first stopped at a little souvenir shop at Kinderdijk. Almost everyone had to use the restroom, which required Dutch coins. Since we didn’t have any, we waited by the door until others were coming out and caught the door before it closed. We bought a few souvenirs in the shop (they accepted dollars and Marks, and the exchange rate was pretty good), and inquired about the location of a nearby wooden shoe factory. We had heard that they gave free demonstrations, but we were told that they were not open on Saturdays. So, we bought some wooden shoes from the shop, and then went outside to take pictures of the windmills.

We left there, and headed toward the Keukenhof, which is the heart of Holland’s flower industry. There is a huge exhibition there in the spring, and we wanted to visit it. On the way, it started to snow pretty hard. This weather was really terrible. I had always pictured a warm, sunny day for viewing Holland’s tulips. Instead, we got snow. It was the day before Easter, for crying out loud! We passed several colorful fields of flowers, and pulled off and took some pictures and video of the flowers in the snow.

We got to Keukenhof, but nobody was interested in getting out and going through the exhibit in the snow. I got out and went and got some information on the exhibits. I was told that there were some things indoors, but most of it was outdoors. When I took this information back to the others, they weren’t interested in looking at the flowers in the snow. So, we decided to work our way back toward Germany. On our way out of the parking lot, though, we encountered a parking barrier. Apparently, we were supposed to pay for parking, and then put our ticket in the meter to be let out. Since we didn’t see the exhibit, and we didn’t go inside, I didn’t have a ticket to pay the meter. So, I drove up behind the car in from of me, and quickly drove through right behind them. It was a piece of cake.

Due to the epidemic of foot and mouth disease, the border crossing back into Germany was closely monitored. We were stopped at the border and asked if we had any beef or dairy products. The guard was a member of the German military, and waved us through when I told him no. We stopped in the snowstorm on the German side of the border and ate at McDonald’s, before driving on home in the snow. It looked like we would have a white Easter (we did).

We did have a good covering of snow when we arrived. I had to fly to the U.S. early the next morning, and my father-in-law and my mother-in-law were traveling to Berlin. It had been an enjoyable, but rushed 10-day trip.

Weekend in Berlin

2007-01-07T17:32:00.000-08:00

The following summarizes a weekend trip that I took alone to Berlin.

Day 1, Saturday, March 31, 2001 – I had booked this trip on very late notice. When we found out that we were going to be relocating back to the U.S., my wife and I decided that I should try to make a quick trip to Berlin to see the sights. I had been too busy to go to the travel agent, so I had booked this ticket only 2 days previously. I planned to fly in early on a Saturday morning, and back home late Sunday evening. I had an ambitious plan, but I was going to do everything I could to pull it off.

I got to the airport about an hour early for my 7:30 flight. The flight was totally uneventful, and we were making our descent into Berlin at 8:15. One thing that I did notice was just how big Berlin is. It was really enormous; definitely the biggest German city that I had ever seen. The city just seemed to go on forever.

After landing, I bought a "Welcome Card" for Berlin. This gave me 3 days of free public transportation, plus discounts into all of the major attractions. I planned on either taking a guided bus tour or a walking tour of the city to get better acquainted. After studying both options in my guidebook, I decided to take a 4 hour walking tour - Discover Berlin from the tour company Berlin Walks. The meeting place was across the street from the zoo, so I rode a bus from the airport to the zoo.

I walked over at about 9:40 and found the tour leader standing around alone. We talked for a few minutes, and I asked her a few questions about the tour. By 10:00, there was a large group of Americans gathered around, and we embarked on the tour.

We first took the train over into the eastern section of Berlin. We got off the train, and gathered at the edge of the Spree River while our guide told us the history of Berlin. She said we would cover 700 years of Berlin’s history, starting in the medieval period. We walked along the edge of the river up to the Berlin cathedral. We walked through the museum district, and she pointed out a number of bullet holes from the 2nd World War. After walking through the museum district and seeing the Pergamon, we turned down one of Berlin's most famous streets, Unter den Linden. This street was very beautiful before Hitler came in and chopped down all the old Linden trees that lined the street. He then expanded the street so that his military parades would have more room to put on displays for the citizens. Hitler replanted the trees, but they are not yet near the size of the ones he cut down.

We walked into the Neue Wache (The New Guardhouse), which is a memorial to fallen soldiers. There was a sculpture of a mother holding her dead son and mourning. It was quite moving. We then passed Humbolt University, where Albert Einstein once taught. From there, we walked to The Bebelplatz, which was the scene of a book-burning by the Nazis. In 1933, they burned some 20,000 books in this square, including works by Heinrich Heine, who had written in 1821 "He who burns books, will burn people in the end." This phrase is engraved on the ground in the Bebelplatz as a reminder.

From there we headed to the Brandenburg Gate, which was formerly a city gate, but we first had to wait for a large anti-Nazi protest to pass by. From a distance, we could see the Brandenburg Gate, but we were looking at an illusion. They were doing renovations on it, and scaffolding that looked just like the gate normally looks was covering it. When we got close, we were able to look underneath and see the actual gate.

From there, our guide showed us the no-man's land between parallel portions of the Berlin Wall. This area was known as the "death strip", because it was mined and booby-trapped. (When I was there, this area was undergoing a tremendous construction boom; before the wall fell this strip of land was barren). Several East Germans were killed trying to escape into West Berlin, and freedom from Communist rule. The most famous case is probably that of Peter Fechter. He was shot by East German guards in the no man's land, and nobody came to his aid. He bled to death because both East and West were afraid to cross into the area to save him.

We saw portions of the wall that were still standing. Some of it will remain standing as a memorial (Berlin has a LOT of memorials). As we made our way to Checkpoint Charlie, our guide told us of many successful, and other unsuccessful escapes into West Berlin. Some of them were very creative. One guy measured the height of the barricade at Checkpoint Charlie, and just got a very small car and drove under the barrier (which the East Germans promptly lowered). Checkpoint Charlie was also the location of a famous tank standoff between the U.S. and the former Soviet Union in 1961. So much that I had read about in history books was right here in front of me.

Shortly after, the tour ended and I made my way to the Europa-Platz. I grabbed a quick bit to eat, and then went in to check out the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. In 1943, the church was essentially destroyed in a bombing raid, but the ruins have been left there as a memorial. There are certainly a lot of reminders of the horror of war in Berlin.

From there, I rode the subway out to Olympic Stadium, home of the 1936 Summer Olympics. This was the one where Jessie Owens won 4 gold medals. I really wanted to go inside the stadium, but there was a soccer match going on. It was halftime, and it cost 60 marks (about $30) to get in. So, I just walked around and looked at it from the outside.

My legs were getting really stiff, but I wanted to see the Reichstag. From the subway stop, I had a very long walk (at least 2 miles). When I got there, I wanted to go inside and up to the dome, but there was a huge line outside. So, I found a closer subway stop and rode into the former East Berlin, which is where I had booked my hotel. Prices in the East were much lower than in the West.

After dropping off my things (just a couple of things I had been hauling around in my backpack), I went out to check out the nearby Alexanderplatz. This is a big, open square, and it is near a very tall TV tower and Berlin landmark, the Fernsehturm.

Alexanderplatz was crowded with people, and there were a number of carnival rides going on. Pretty soon, I saw a group of people who looked like skinheads or gang members of some kind arguing. It wasn't long before punches started getting thrown, and it turned into quite a brawl. At one point one guy had another pinned and he just punched him repeatedly in the face. The guy on the ground had blood just pouring out of his nose. The sound of the punches was sickening. Pretty soon, the police pulled up, and everyone scattered. I had been video-taping some of this, but I eased out of there as well so the police wouldn't confiscate my video tape. I headed back to the hotel, where I fell exhausted into bed.

Day 2, Sunday, April 1, 2001 – I got up at 5:30, extremely stiff from the day before. I had big plans today, as long as my legs would hold up. My flight out was at 5:30 p.m., so I was going to cram in everything I possibly could. It was the first Sunday of the month, which meant that a number of museums were free. But I also wanted to spend time at the Berlin Zoo, as well as at Charlottenburg Castle. The museums opened at 10, the zoo at 9, and I figured that the castle gardens were always open. So, I decided to get there early.

I finished breakfast and got to the subway by about 7:30. It took almost 40 minutes to get to the closest subway stop to the castle. I was already upset that I hadn’t left earlier. Then, when I got off the subway station, I still had to walk about a mile before I got to the castle. I called my wife on the cell phone and talked to her while I was walking. There is a huge flea market in Berlin every weekend, and she wanted me to be sure that I went and looked at what they had for sale.

As I suspected, the castle gardens were open. Also, I could look into the windows of the castle and see the interior. It was very nice on the inside and outside. The castle was yellow, and a fence with gold trim, ringed the perimeter. I walked around the castle so that I could better explore the gardens. Unfortunately, most of the trees and flowers had not yet bloomed. They were all very close to blossoming, and probably would have been in full bloom 2 weeks later. There was a huge forested area behind the garden at the back of the castle, and in the distance I could see a lake with swans swimming on it. If I had not been so pressed for time, I would have walked down there and explored a little more.

By this time, it was already after 9, so the zoo was open. I had intended to be there right at 9, and I was currently about 2 miles away. Since I wanted to conserve my legs, I decided to wait for a bus at a nearby stop. I looked at the schedule, and it looked like I had just missed the bus. The next one wasn’t scheduled for another 20 minutes. So I sat down and waited while trying to plan the rest of my day. After about 15 minutes, a German woman walked by and said that the buses were not running. At first I didn’t understand her, but then it suddenly hit me. Today a marathon was being run, and bus service had stopped until late afternoon. Another woman walked by and told me that there was another bus stop across the road, and she thought it might still be running. There was someone there who worked for the transportation department, and he said that there was in fact one more bus that would come by. After that, there would be no more until the afternoon. So, at 9:30 I caught the bus, which had a stop right outside the zoo.

I bought a combination ticket to the zoo and the aquarium. I planned to spend 2 hours at the zoo, and then ride the train to the Pergamon. After 2 hours there, I would ride over to the flea market, spend a couple of hours there, and then ride the bus to the airport.

I walked into the zoo to find it almost deserted. It was about 10 a.m. on a Sunday morning, and people were just not out and about yet. But the weather was great, and I had the zoo to myself. I first walked into the elephant house, where I got to view 2 very large elephants up close. I was totally alone in there, so I talked to the elephants. They just ignored me. I worked my way a little further into the zoo, still encountering very few people. I found an outdoor exhibit of mandrills (a kind of baboon) and watched them for a while. It was almost like watching kids play. The grabbed each other’s tails, hung upside down from branches, and chased each other. There was a baby in there that must have been only days old. I looked at my watch, and knew that I was running behind schedule. I needed to move on, so I went to the monkey house.

When I entered, I noticed that the setup was really interesting. The apes were all enclosed in glass, but you could actually press your face right up against the glass. (They also had outdoor access). As soon as I walked in, I saw an enormous orangutan right up against the glass. He was eating seeds, and at first he ignored me. After a few minutes, he looked up and we made eye contact from less than 6 inches. He looked intently into my eyes, like he wanted to ask a question. He studied my eyes for a few minutes and then started eating again. I studied his hands and feet, and really looked him over thoroughly. I had never been so close to a great ape.

Reluctantly, I left him and worked my way to the next enclosure. There was one cage that was set up like a baby’s room. I didn’t see anything in there, but in the next cage there was a male and female mountain gorilla. The male was a big silverback, and he was less than a foot from me. He looked at me a couple of times, but mostly just continued eating. The female walked over and studied me for a few minutes, and then walked back over to her meal. This was so amazing. I was so close to these apes that I could study every detail.

Finally, I left the gorillas and moved to the next enclosure. There, I hit the jackpot. There were about 5 chimps in this enclosure. I videotaped them for a few minutes, but then I notice one near the glass. I walked over and looked at him. He looked into my eyes, but more intently than the orangutan had. He was more curious than the other apes had been. He made some faces at me, and I made some back at him. There were still very few people around, but those that were probably thought that I was crazy. I pulled change from my pocket and showed him. He tried to reach for it. My pulled out my keys and showed them to him. He studied them intently.

After 15 or 20 minutes, a number of people had gathered to watch our interaction. Then, I had an idea. I took the video camera, flipped out the video display, and turned it toward him. He could look into the camera and see himself on TV. Both of his eyebrows shot up when he saw this. He put a finger to his face, and saw it happen on the display. Then he put his finger to his lips, all the time intently watching the display. Next he opened his mouth and started touching his teeth. He opened his mouth really wide and looked inside. After that, he started sticking his tongue in and out of his mouth, and then flicked his tongue rapidly left and right. He was really enjoying himself, and I was capturing it all on video. We also had quite a crowd at that point, and they were really laughing at his antics.

Next, I turned the camera on myself and held the eyepiece up to the glass. He put his eye right down at the eyepiece and looked through it. Then he popped back up and looked at me, and then again looked at the eyepiece. He did that several times, as if he was trying to figure out how I could be inside and outside the camera at the same time.

By this point, I had spent almost an hour with him. My schedule was completely blown. But, while we were entertaining each other, I thought to myself, “Would you rather spend 2 hours in a world class museum, or spend a very private hour with a chimp?” That was a no-brainer. I have been to plenty of world class museums, but I had never been this close to great apes. I decided to blow off the museum and spend as much time as I wanted in the zoo.

I finally left my chimp friend and tried the video trick on an orangutan. He was at first interested, but quickly lost interest. When I put down the camera, he put a finger up to his eye. I did the same. Then, I switched eyes, and he followed suit. I have no idea what he was trying to communicate, but each time I put my finger to another eye he did the same. I finally put my finger to my lips, and he did that too. There was a crowd of people trying to see him, so I left and walked back to the gorillas. There was one close to the glass, and I did the video trick on her. She studied the display for a minute, and then put her arms up over her ears and looked away. When she looked back at the display and saw herself again, she ran away.

After spending quite a bit of time in the monkey house, I walked over to the aquarium. There, I saw fish that I had never seen before. They had many unusual animals, including several tanks of strange jellyfish. On the 2nd floor of the aquarium were reptiles and amphibians. They were all active and moving around, unlike what I have observed at zoos in Texas. The top floor contained more amphibians and a large exhibit of insects. In one glass enclosure, there were snails that were bigger than my fist. In another, there were thousands of stick insects. From a distance, it looked just like a pile of brush, but upon closer inspection it was actually many thousands of stick insects, many of them newly hatched.

I left the aquarium thoroughly impressed, but I had run out of video tape. I went to the predator exhibit. I could hear a roar from the outside. Inside, there was a very muscular male lion, pacing his cage and roaring loudly. That would be a chilling thing to hear out in the wild. What a roar he had! And once again, you could get very close to the animals. Then, I went to the tiger's cage, and he was also roaring. His roar sounded more like a very deep cat’s meow.

My legs were really aching at this point. I had to stop frequently to rest them. I walked out of the aquarium and headed to the panda bear display. They were lounging on their backs, eating what I think was bamboo. I had never seen a real panda before. I watched them for a while, then had a quick look at all of the other bear enclosures. Inside one, there were 2 different species of bear. There was an unusual looking group of black bears, and then a group that looked like American brown bears. And right there in the middle of all these bears was a black housecat. It was just walking around without a care in the world. I regretted not having more videotape.

It was almost 2 p.m. at that point, but I decided to go back to the monkey house. I hadn’t gotten enough on my first visit. I saw a crowd gathered up near the gorilla cage. I saw that they were standing in front of the baby’s room. And the baby was out playing. It was a baby gorilla, dressed in a little T-shirt and wearing a diaper. There was a handler in there with him playing. I watched him for a while. I once again wished that I had more videotape.

I left there completely satisfied with my zoo experience. The Berlin Zoo was without a doubt the best that I had ever seen. The animals were all moving around and active, and you could get really up close and personal with them. I was really glad that I had decided to spend a lot of time there.

I rode the subway down to the flea market. Actually, I got off one stop too soon and had to walk another half mile or so. My legs were killing me every step of the way, and now I was getting blisters on my feet. I couldn’t stand much more walking. By my calculations, I had walked about 20 miles in 2 days.

As soon as I reached the flea market, I called my wife on the cell phone. There were several things she wanted me to pick up, so I walked through as I described the things to her. They had just about everything imaginable there. I told my wife that I could probably find an elephant there if we wanted to buy one. She really regretted not being there, and she started telling me over the phone what she wanted. I spent quite a bit of time in there, looking over merchandise and haggling with the merchants. I finally bought a set of crystal wineglasses and an antique porcelain serving dish.

After finishing up there, I rode the subway back to the zoo station, and then caught the bus to the airport. I was extremely sore, but it had been worth it. I really could have used another day, though.

Ski Trip to Austria

2007-01-06T16:16:00.000-08:00

The following is a summary of a 7-day trip that I took with my wife and the kids to Austria. We stayed high in the Alps in Bad Gastein, and learned to ski on the trip. We rode a bus to Austria with a group of families from my daughter’s school. This was the only organized trip that we have taken since we have lived in Germany.

First of all, a little background on this trip. We don’t normally travel with anyone else. We had wanted to learn to ski for a long time, and we had looked at a number of destinations. In December, while my wife was with the kids in the U.S., and I was preparing to go to the U.S., I attempted to finalize a trip. I knew that there was a ski committee at my daughter’s school, so I thought that I would call one of the members to get a recommendation. I was told that there was a trip already organized for families with kids in the ISD (International School of Düsseldorf). All arrangements were already made if I was interested. Since this would save me a lot of time, I said that we were interested. I also felt like my wife and the kids would have more fun since we would be traveling with other Americans (and Brits). This was a partial miscalculation on my part.

Day 1, Saturday, February 24, 2001 – We were supposed to be on the bus at 6 a.m. I woke up at 5:00, got dressed, and then woke the kids up. I was really tired, because I had only arrived from a meeting in the U.S. at 3 p.m. the day before. When I took the first suitcase out to the car, I was surprised to discover that the ground was covered with snow. We loaded up and drove to the meeting place, my daughter’s school. Although we were supposed to leave at 6, we did not actually move out until 6:30. My son and I ended up in the back with all the kids, and my wife sat with my daughter near the middle of the bus. At the beginning of the trip, a kid of about 10 years got into a fight with his sister. His dad came back to break it up, and he talked terribly to his father. He said, “Keep your dirty hands off me! Get away from me! I’ll punch you. If she comes back here again, I’ll punch her!” The father was calm with him, but took him up to the front of the bus to sit with him.

In the bus, my son had his Gameboy to keep him occupied. My daughter had that as well as a friend, Anna, sitting by her. My wife and I had books. I was reading “Green Mars”, which is a technically detailed depiction of the future colonization of Mars. My wife was reading some historical fiction centered around event’s in Düsseldorf during World War II.

During the trip down, almost all of Germany was covered in snow. My son probably asked me “Are we there yet?”, 30 times during the drive. The Autobahn was extremely packed, and we did not make good time. I also could not remember loading one of our suitcases on board. It had all of our passports, as well as all of my clothes. I was really getting worried about this, but finally we stopped at a rest stop and I checked. It was there.

There was a VCR on board. I picked out the first movie, “Flight of the Navigator”. I heard some of the teenagers whine, but I knew it would keep my son’s attention. I looked during the movie and saw that all of the teenagers were also watching it. Once when I looked back, I saw one of the teenage boys mooning the cars behind us. One of the adults up front saw this and yelled at him to cut it out.

Thirteen hours later, we arrived in Bad Gastein, Austria. It is located in the central Alps. It was dark when we arrived, so I couldn’t tell what the surroundings looked like. We barely had time to get into the restaurant and eat before they closed. We waited a long time to be served, and the waiter was rude to us.

We got into our room at about 10 p.m. and got the kids settled in. Our room was really nice. It was a suite on the 5th floor, and had 4 beds.

Day 2, Sunday, February 25, 2001 – Today was one of the most stressful days of my life. My wife coughed all night long, so none of us got really good sleep. I was afraid she was coming down with bronchitis or pneumonia. She had been coughing for several days, and it didn’t seem to be getting any better. So, we decided that it would probably be best if she rested while the kids and I took ski lessons.

The kids and I went down and had a quick breakfast before we were off to the ski slopes. The first item on the agenda was to rent equipment. Our classes started at 10 a.m., and we were at the ski rental place at 8:30. I assumed we had plenty of time. But, the place was packed with people. It was like being in a standing room only concert. The kids were fighting and crying, and I was trying to keep them calm while we waited. But my stomach was churning.

We finally reached the area for ski boots. The kids tried on different boots until we found some that fit. They were not very comfortable, and were almost impossible to walk in. Ski boots are made of a solid piece of hard plastic with no flexibility. They are designed to prevent you from breaking an ankle if you fall, but the disadvantage is that they are very uncomfortable for normal walking.

After that ordeal, we still had to get our skis. My son and my daughter were just about at the limit of their patience. Fortunately, there was another American in line who offered to help. He offered to take my son outside until we were finished. I took him up on the offer, but as soon as they left I realized that my son didn’t have one of his shoes on. They came back inside about 10 minutes later and got his shoe. Having him deal with my son was a lifesaver.

We finally got our skis and checked out. I wasn’t sure how many days to rent for, so I went ahead and took the skis for the week (6 days). They told me that I could turn them in for a refund if we decided not to ski for the week. We had been in packed, cramped, hot quarters for an hour and a half. My stress level had been very high in the ski shop, but it was about to get a lot worse.

Ski school started at 10, and it was 10 when we got out of the ski shop. The plan for my son was that he would be in a ski kindergarten with 3 and 4 year olds. They would take frequent breaks and would mostly just play. There were to be at least 2 little girls in the class that he knew from his school in Germany. My daughter and I would be in the regular ski school. But, I didn’t have time to drop him off at the kindergarten. We all went to the regular ski school. I told them that he needed to be in the kindergarten, but that I didn’t have time to drop him off. They told me “No Problem”, and said they would take care of it. So, I had to give both kids money for lunch, and then I had to leave them with their ski instructors.

My group was meeting about 30 feet away, and I walked over and joined them. Other than me, my group was 100% British, with slightly more women than men. My ski instructor’s name was Miro, and he was from Croatia. I kept watching my son and my daughter, and I noticed that nobody was taking my son over to the kindergarten. It finally occurred to me that when they said they would take care of it, they meant that they would put him with the other kids in the regular ski school. I did not like the idea of that. So, I left my group and went and talked to my daughter. I told her that it looked like she and my son would be in class together, so I asked her to please watch out for him. The problem that I could see was that he looked to be the youngest in the class, and my daughter had several friends in her class. I was worried about my son being alone all day.

I went back to my group, and we were getting ready to move out. I had a very sick feeling over leaving the kids. I had basically left them with complete strangers. I was just about ready to give up the ski lessons and take them back to the hotel with me. I wasn’t so worried about my daughter, but I really felt like my son was not old enough to be in the class. As I left them behind, I turned and looked at my son. He had a really scared look on his face, like he thought I was abandoning him. That really made me sick in the pit of stomach. Walking away from them like that was one of the hardest things I have ever done.

Despite my distractions, ski school went on. We first learned to put on our skis and take them off. Then, we learned to walk a little bit and turn around. Walking around on skis is similar to walking on roller skates on an incline. It is very easy to start sliding. As we practiced walking in circles, I noticed a little girl, about 3 years old, crying. She was sitting in the snow all alone. I kept my eye on her, and after about 15 minutes I started to get worried. There did not seem to be an adult with her. She seemed to be completely alone, and I worried that she might be freezing. I flashed to my son and imagined him in that situation.

Some of the women in my group noticed me looking at the little girl, and asked me what was wrong. I told them that nobody seemed to be looking after her, and she had been crying for at least 15 minutes. This concerned the women, and some of them tried to talk to her. This made her cry even more. This went on for about 10 more minutes, and that was about all I could stand. I told my ski instructor, Miro, that this little girl needed help. It was freezing, and she was now lying down in the snow crying. At first, he said, “Oh, she is probably with this group over here.” I told him that I didn’t care who she was with, I wanted someone to take care of her. What made it worse for me was imagining that it could have been my son or my daughter crying and nobody was paying attention to them. I was insistent that he do something about it, so he brought the little girl to the attention of several ski instructors. It was finally discovered that she was with a ski school, and they had basically just abandoned her. This made me worry more than ever about my daughter and my son.

After the little girl had rejoined her group, we practiced skiing downhill. We were doing a maneuver called the snow plow (my daughter learned it as the “pizza”), where the front of the skis are close together and the back of the skis are far apart. This configuration helps to control the speed.

About 11 a.m. I finally spotted my son through a crowd of people. He was about 50-60 yards away, and he was standing with a group of children, none of whom I recognized. My son looked lost and scared, and he was crying. I immediately took off my skis, left my group, and went to him. He hugged me and said that he didn’t want to be in ski school. He had gotten split up from my daughter, and was in a group comprised mostly of Germans. His ski instructor was also German. She told me that my son wasn’t paying attention, and that he had walked away from the group several times. This really made me sick because there were several hundred people on the slope. I told my son that I wasn’t very far away, and I was watching him. But, since the slope was packed with people he never was able to see me. I finally told him that he wouldn’t have to do this after today, but that I really needed him to finish the day.

I rejoined my group, but kept an eye on my son. I really wasn’t paying attention to my instructor. I saw my son fall in the snow several times, and his instructor would just leave him lying there. Once, after he had been sitting in the snow for over 5 minutes, I went back over and helped him up. I did that again a couple more times, and each time he begged me not to leave him. It was really hard for me to walk away from him.

When we broke for lunch, I rushed over to my son and asked his instructor if I could take him to lunch instead of having him go with the group. So, we found a nice restaurant and had lunch together. When we sat down, my daughter and her group were sitting at the next table. My daughter’s ski instructor was from New Zealand. She told me that my daughter was doing really well, but that she always tried to ski too fast. My daughter was sitting between two boys (Isaac and Zachary) and she was flirting quite a bit. I tried to ignore them and focus on my son. It made me sick to my stomach to think about sending him back to school in the afternoon.

After lunch, I had to bribe him with cookies to get him to rejoin his group. I assured him that I would be close by, and I would be watching him. I rejoined my group, and we worked on speed control (using the “plow”) and turning. I didn’t fall very much, but sometimes I had a hard time stopping. Once I ran into someone else pretty hard.

I watched my son all afternoon, and went to help him several times after his instructor left him lying in the snow. She said she wanted him to learn to get up on his own, but that was very difficult. She again complained that he was not paying attention. I really wished he had gotten into my daughter’s group, because her instructor seemed to be a lot better with kids. I watched my son closely the rest of the afternoon, and he spent most of his time just playing. He was eating a lot of snow and throwing snowballs at the other kids in his class.

When I saw his class break for the day, I told my instructor that I needed to leave. He said “OK”, and told me we were to meet at 10 a.m. the next morning. I went and got my son, and he gave me a big hug. He told me he never wanted to go to ski school again. We went and picked my daughter up and then got a refund for the remaining 2 days of my son’s class. While we were there, they gave him a “medal” for completing one day of class. We then went and turned in his skis and boots and got a refund for the remaining 5 days.

Back at the hotel, my wife was still sick. We took off our ski gear, and changed into more comfortable clothes. For the first time, I opened up the shades and really looked at the view out our window. Stunning is probably an understatement. We had huge glass windows in our room, and they looked out onto a magnificent, snow-covered mountain range. It was really beautiful, and it was so close it felt like it was right in our faces. My wife went out with us for a short walk before dinner, but she was really coughing a lot. We had a dinner buffet, and then got the kids into bed by 8:30. Before bed, my daughter told me that she had a secret. I asked her if she could tell me, and she said “Isaac loves me, and I love Isaac.” I told her that I wouldn’t tell anyone. My muscles were very sore, so I soaked in a hot bath for about 30 minutes. I got into bed about 10 p.m., exhausted from the events of the day.

Day 3, Monday, February 26, 2001 – Once again, my wife coughed throughout the night. I woke up about 7 and went down to eat while my daughter was getting dressed. While we were waiting on the bus, an elderly Austrian man came up and started talking to me. Austrians speak German, but in a very different dialect. I found it very difficult to understand, but I understood the gist of what he was saying. There were men up on top of the hotels cleaning ice and snow from the rain gutters. They had no fall protection at all, and were walking (on ice!) along the edge of these tall buildings. The man was basically saying that they must be crazy to do such a dangerous job.

My daughter and I went and picked up our skis from a storage locker and bought a lift ticket that would allow us to ride all the ski lifts. We got on the slope at about 8:30, and we were the first ones out there. So, we practiced all of the things we had learned the day before. Once a kid walked right out in front of me while I was skiing down the hill. I swerved around him and then his mother, and I heard him say, “Wow Mom, did you see that!”

At 10, I dropped my daughter off and joined my group. I learned that we were going to combine some of the classes from the previous day. Those who hadn’t quite mastered the lessons of the previous day would go with one group, and the people who seemed to be getting the hang of it would go with Miro for more advanced lessons. We were supposed to ski down the hill, demonstrate a turn, and then stop. I executed my move without a problem and went into the advanced group. We lost several members from the previous day, and gained two members who had not been with us. There was another British woman, and then a really friendly guy from Denmark.

We practiced for a while, and then near lunchtime we rode the gondola lift up to the middle station, which was located at an elevation of about 6000 ft. On the way up, I asked Miro about avalanches. He said three days earlier, an entire German family – husband, wife, son, and daughter – had been killed by an avalanche near Innsbruck. They had been driving through a mountain pass, and the snow had crushed their car. This incident happened exactly two years to the day that 38 people were killed during two separate avalanches in Austria. Miro went on to say that every morning the authorities use loud noises to try to force any imminent avalanches to occur before there were people on the slopes. I still had a very uneasy feeling, though.

We got off at the middle station, and walked up a hill about 200 yards to a restaurant. I walked with Miro, and I was really out of breath trying to carry my skis up the hill. I wondered how everyone else was managing, and I turned to look. They were lagging far behind and yelling for Miro to stop for a rest. So, I wasn’t the only one having trouble in the thin air. In fact, other than Miro, I was actually having the least amount of trouble.

Miro and I talked a little about Croatia. He said that he has Croatian friends in the U.S. that play in the NBA. He also told me that he was in college, and taught ski lessons to put himself through school. He said in the summer, he usually taught tennis lessons.

We ate outside of the restaurant. It was extremely cold and snowing, but the inside was packed. That is definitely the coldest I have ever been while eating a meal. I had a bratwurst and fries, but everything was ice cold before I was half finished with the meal.

After lunch, we practiced on a much longer and steeper slope. Each time we skied down, we rode a lift back up. I say “rode”, but the lift was actually a series of handles attached to a moving cable. You grabbed onto the handle and were dragged uphill (literally skiing uphill). The lift lines were long, and there were a lot of snowboarders on the slope. They were terrible about cutting in line. What was even worse is that most of them were Americans, and I hate to see Americans acting like that whenever I am traveling. The Danish guy and I got pretty good at blocking them out, but they still got around us. Once, one of the high school students from my daughter’s school cut in front of about 20 people. Then she had the nerve to get mad at another high school student, also from my daughter’s school, who cut in front of her. She started yelling at him and telling him she would get him back. I thought she sure had a lot of nerve to get onto him for cutting in line. Another time a German boy, about 4 years old, walked past everyone and went to the front of the line. But, he kept having trouble catching the handle and was holding everyone up. So, not only did he cut in line, he caused everyone else to have to wait because he didn’t know how to use the lift. I wondered where his parents were.

We continued to practice making turns and stopping. I skied very well in the afternoon. At the end of the day, we skied down to the gondola station, which was several hundred yards down a much steeper slope than we had been skiing on. Miro started out and told us to follow. I was initially the fourth person behind Miro, but skied past the other two on the way down. I was really flying, and had to slow down to keep from passing Miro. When we got to the bottom, we turned and there was nobody else behind us. After a few seconds, a couple of the others came around a curve. They said that several others had fallen, and that there was a big pileup behind us. One of the woman laughed and said that I really flew by her. She said she could hear someone coming, and knew that it must have been me.

We rode the gondola down, and I picked my daughter up. She was very upset, and told me that someone in her class had been mean to her. I saw her instructor speaking to another woman, and she was telling her that her son had misbehaved and caused my daughter to cry. I spoke briefly to my daughter’s instructor, and asked if she would need a ski pass the next day. She said yes, but told me that they were not going up on the mountain. “Believe me”, she said, “you don’t want to take little kids up on that mountain.” I wondered about that, because I had heard other people say that the kids usually went up the mountain before the adults did.

We dropped off our skis at the locker and headed toward the bus stop. My daughter was really tired, and her feet hurt in her ski boots. I let her ride on my back on the way to the bus stop. We had to walk up and then down a flight of stairs, and then go another couple hundred yards. I was so tired and sore that I didn’t think I would make it. But, we got to the bus stop, got on the packed bus, and rode back to the hotel.

At the hotel, my son was really glad to see us. After getting out of my ski gear, I “fought” with him for about an hour. There was a children’s disco downstairs, so after my son and I were finished playing, I took them downstairs. My daughter wanted to stay, but my son didn’t. So, my son and I went out in the snow behind the hotel. There was a big park there, with large hills and trees. There were also icicles hanging everywhere. We took the sled out and had a lot of fun playing. We had snowball fights, we sledded down the hills, and we broke off giant icicles. Once, I stopped and just looked at the surrounding mountains. I thought about how incredibly lucky we were to be playing in the heart of the Austrian Alps.

Dinner that night was very slow. The kids were really restless as we waited on our food. Isaac’s family sat near us, and my wife and I watched with amusement as my daughter and Isaac made eyes at each other. This was to become a routine every evening. They smiled, cut their eyes, and raised their eyebrows up and down as they watched each other. It was quite a comedy.

For some reason, my daughter and my son were served an adult dessert. It wasn’t very sweet, and they didn’t like it much. All the other kids got ice cream. While we were eating dessert, there was an announcement that someone had bought a ski pass from the hotel front desk for about $250. They said they would be right back with the money, but never came back. We were told that if we didn’t all want a surcharge on our hotel bill, that somebody had better come forward and pay their bill. I was just incensed at that notion. The hotel had made a mistake, and they wanted us to pay for it. If it came down to that, I was absolutely not going to stand for it. Their mistake was not my problem. For all I knew someone had walked in off the street and ripped them off. There was no assurance that it was even someone staying at the hotel.

Back in our hotel room, I realized that I hadn’t been taking trip notes, so I started writing them down. I took another long, hot bath for my aching muscles, but we all got in bed relatively early.

Day 4, Tuesday, February 27, 2001 – The kids were both up before 7. I had really slept poorly, and I woke up stiff, sore, and tired. I wanted to go back to sleep. My daughter and I got ready and went back to the slope early so we could practice a little more. When I dropped her off, she didn’t want me to leave her, because she was afraid that someone would be mean to her again. But, I finally talked her into it, and then joined my group.

When I walked up, everyone greeted me by name. I felt bad, because other than the ski instructor, I didn’t know anyone’s name. Even if I did, I am always hesitant to call someone that I don’t know very well by name, because I am worried that I will call them by the wrong name. I heard one of the women say that she knew my name because Miro had spent most of the day yesterday saying, “Robert, slow down.” I laughed when I heard this, but decided to make a serious effort to learn everyone’s name.

We were going back to the middle station. On the way there, I saw the ski kindergarten that we had wanted to put my son into. Two of the kids were lying down sleeping in the snow, and the rest of them didn’t look like they were having too much fun. I was glad that we hadn’t put him in.

The crowd waiting for the lift was incredible. One of the British women (Janine) was a little claustrophobic and decided to come up later. While waiting in line, I talked for a while with Thomas, the Danish fellow. He was a typical Scandinavian - super friendly, perfectly fluent in English, and very talkative. After about 45 minutes we made our way onto the lift and up to the middle station.

Miro set up an obstacle course for us to run through. We had to practice our turns. I had been thinking about how Miro had told us to turn, and I noticed that every time I turned, my shoulders were turned a certain way. So, I decided that instead of remembering which way to bend my knees, I would just twist my shoulders and the knees should follow. I told my group that I had a new theory for turning, and I was going to try it out. So, I started down, gained a little speed, and turned my shoulders. I was immediately out of control, and went off the path and into very deep snow. I had a hard time extracting myself from the snow, and when I finally got up, my group was laughing hard. They wanted me to try my theory out again.

As we practiced, I struggled more than I had the day before. I had fallen only once the previous day, but I fell about half a dozen times before lunch. Once when I was going down the slope, I saw a snowboarder fall. Miro ran over to her, and soon she was surrounded by people. She was right at the end of my run, so I skied over and asked Miro what was wrong. She had injured her knee, and he thought it was serious. They had called the stretcher. I looked down at the girl, and it was the girl from my daughter’s school who had been cutting in line the previous day.

Near lunchtime, we rode the gondola up to the top of the mountain. The restaurant inside was packed, so once again we ate outside. The view was clear, and the sun reflecting off the snow was very bright. But it was really cold. There were a lot of ravens outside the restaurant, and they were floating on updrafts traveling up the mountain. It was funny to see them suspended in the air without flapping their wings. They were just playing. But, the view was the best part about it. We were high up in the Alps, and we were surrounded by snow covered peaks. We could see a couple of villages way down at the bottom of the mountains. The view was just stunning, and belonged on a post card.

After lunch, we started down from the top of the mountain. Thomas was terrified. He told me that he had sky dived before, but he had not been this scared. He was afraid he was going to plunge off the mountain. We skied down a narrow trail. Thomas was in front of me, and he fell. I ran into him, but didn’t fall. Then, a woman behind me ran into me and she fell. But, I still stayed up. We got untangled and continued down the mountain. But the time we had descended about 100 yards, everyone had fallen except me (and of course Miro). I was really getting the hang of it, and I was keeping up with Miro. Finally, someone from another group fell right in front of me and I fell when I tried to avoid him.

After I got up, my son’s ski instructor skied past me, with a group of 4-6 year olds behind her. Janine saw them, and told me that 2 of her kids were in that group. She said, “She is not very maternal, is she?” I laughed and told her that is why my son was no longer in her class. I couldn’t believe that they were up on the mountain. I was really glad that my son wasn’t there with them. I remembered what my daughter’s ski instructor had said, and decided that the Germans and New Zealanders had a definite difference of opinion when it came to children skiing down the mountain.

Slowly but surely we made our way down. Once, we had to cross a black trail. Black is designated as difficult, and it was very steep. We had to slowly zigzag diagonally across the trail. At times, skiers would come flying down the mountain. Some of them looked they were moving at close to 100 miles an hour. If they had collided with someone, it would have probably meant broken bones at the least.

When we got to the middle station, Miro congratulated us and said we would practice here the rest of the afternoon. I asked him about skiing on down the mountain. He said that he had never taken a group down after only 3 days of lessons, because the rest of the descent was more difficult. I persisted, and a couple of the women chimed in, and he agreed. It looked to be just me and three other women, until one of them talked her husband (Andy) into coming. Thomas announced that he had had enough for the day, and wasn’t coming.

This portion of the trail was difficult. It was steeper than what we had been on before, and there were lots of patches of ice. I had only fallen once up to now, but we all started falling immediately on this 2nd descent. The women were giving me a hard time, saying “Robert, what have you gotten us into!” Once Andy lost control and shot off the trail into the trees. The snow was really deep there, and it took almost 15 minutes to get him back on the trail. Another time his wife fell and he ran into her, pushing her over 100 yards down the mountain. They finally stopped just a few feet from a short drop off at the edge of the trail. Due to all the falls, we were not making very good time.

I had some spectacular falls as well. Once, I turned too sharp and was pointed back up the mountain. I fell on my back with my skis in the air. I slid backwards down the slope for a long distance. I kept trying to dig my skis into the snow to slow myself down, but it was no use. Finally, the slope flattened a little and I stopped. Another time I hit a patch of ice and my skis went far apart. I basically did a split as my skis went out from under me and I fell.

Miro finally told me that my knees were out of position, and had me correct them. After that, I never fell again. One portion of the descent was a long, straight slope, and we skied straight down it. This was exhilarating. We really picked up some speed on this run.

I started to get worried about the time. I was supposed to pick up my daughter at 3:00, so Miro called down on his cell phone and told them that we would be late. We finally got to the bottom at 3:30. We all thanked Miro for taking us down from the middle station. We all agreed that we felt like we were missing something until we had done it. After that, everything clicked. We felt like we knew how to ski. Two of the women thanked me for asking Miro to take us on down. It had taken us almost 3 hours to ski all the way from the top. I asked Miro how long it usually took him, and he smiled and said, “About 5 minutes”. He also said, “By the way, you skied perfect at the end."

My daughter was waiting for me inside the tiny ski school building. All of her friends were already gone, and she looked sad because I was late. I told her that we had been up on the mountain, and that we called to tell her that I would be late. She said that nobody told her that, and she thought I forgot about her. She also told me that she didn’t get a medal, so I asked Miro (who had come into the building) if he could get one for her. He did, and I thanked him for everything and told him goodbye.

My daughter was again exhausted, so I let her ride on my back to the bus stop. My wife was feeling better, and she had had a good day with my son. Later that evening, I decided to play a little joke on my wife. I went into the bathroom and tied a hangman’s noose over the shower curtain rod. She came in when I was brushing my teeth, I acted like I just noticed it in the mirror. When she focused on what I was staring at, she looked like she had been shot. The color drained from her before I started to laugh. She laughed too, but told me that every horror movie she had ever seen had just flashed before her eyes. The setting had reminded me of “The Shining”, and that is what made me think of the prank.

Day 5, Wednesday, February 28, 2001 – Today was a really good day. It didn’t start out too promising, because I woke up extremely stiff and sore from all the hard falls I took the day before. My wife and my daughter had also coughed a lot during the night, so I woke up feeling like I hadn’t slept enough. My general plan for the day was to take my wife and the kids up to the top of the mountain and let them see the scenery.

Down at breakfast, I ran into Janine. She thanked me again for talking Miro into taking us down, because she said she felt like that had taught her a tremendous amount and had given her a lot of confidence. She told me that the lifts were closed for the day, due to high winds. I had noticed that there was a lot of blowing snow outside. So, I had to change plans.

I took the kids back up to the room, where my wife was still coughing a lot. She had run out of cough medicine, so I went to get her some more. I asked at the front desk where there was a pharmacy, and the guy said he thought there was one down the road. So, I set off in that direction. It was really cold and windy, but I enjoyed the walk. However, I walked and walked and never found a pharmacy. I did enjoy lots of great scenery. Once I stopped and watched a black squirrel playing in the snow. Another time, I ducked into a church to have a look at the architecture. Finally I asked a young woman out pushing a baby carriage if she knew where there was a pharmacy. She said that she was a tourist too, and didn’t know. At that point I was about a mile from the hotel, so I turned back.

When I got back to the hotel, I went into the grocery store across the street from the hotel. I asked them if they had medicine for a cough. They said no, but the pharmacy ACROSS THE STREET would. I couldn’t believe it. The pharmacy had been directly outside the hotel, less than 50 feet from the front door. But, when the guy pointed me down the street, I had overlooked it and walked past it. I wasn't upset though, because I had enjoyed a really spectacular walk.

I talked to the pharmacist briefly about my wife’s symptoms. I spoke German to them, but I had a really tough time understanding the responses. Every time I spoke German to an Austrian, I struggled to understand their replies. Miro had told me that he had the same troubles, because he said they are prone to cutting off their words. But, I made myself understood, and picked up some Vick’s cough syrup and some tablets that dissolved in water.

My wife took some medicine, and we all walked across the street to a little cafe for lunch. I ordered prosciutto funghi, which is a ham and mushroom pizza. When I ordered it, the waiter started laughing. He immediately apologized, and said “I am not laughing at you. You wouldn’t believe how people butcher the pronunciation of that. You actually pronounced it perfectly, which surprised me.” I wasn’t sure whether to believe him or not, because he really thought it was pretty humorous.

After lunch, my wife was sleepy from the medicine, so she took a nap. I took the kids over to the ski area. It was really snowing hard over there. I took the camera out to take some pictures but the battery was dead. That was too bad, because there was really a nice atmosphere that day. We took the sled with us, and we just sledded down the slope for about an hour. My daughter saw some friends riding on the “baby” lift, and went to ski with them. For the next hour, she skied and my son and I sledded. We would haul the sled up the hill, and then I would give him a push.

Once, I saw my son sledding toward a little boy about 10 years old who was lying down on the slope. I don’t know why he was lying there, but my son was headed straight for him. I got up and started down after my son, and saw his sled thud into the other boy’s face. My son turned and looked at me with a panicked look. I got to him and started asking the boy if he was OK. He didn’t speak English or German, and he was really crying hard. My son was really embarrassed, and he took it out by yelling at me. “It’s all your fault! You don’t love me anymore! You wish you didn’t have me!” The little boy, who I think was Dutch or Danish, kept crying until his mother came up. She spoke English, and I explained to her what had happened. She said it was OK, and he would be fine. I patted the boy on the shoulder and told him we were sorry.

My son didn’t recover from that quickly, but I finally got him distracted by digging holes in the snow. There was a huge bank of snow at the bottom of the run, and we dug a tunnel through there. While we were digging, one of the women from my group (whose name I never learned) came up and talked to me. She said she was so pleased that we had skied down from the middle station yesterday. She told me that she had just been kidding when she was giving me a hard time the day before. I told her that I knew that, and that most Americans have a good sense of humor. While I was talking to her, I realized from her accent that she was actually Scottish. I hadn’t picked up on that the day before.

A little while later another British woman from my group came up with her kids in tow. Janine offered to stay and watch her kids play with my son while I rode the lift up and skied down. She told me that it only took 15 minutes, so I decided to take her up on it. I showed her where my daughter was, and went up.

These slopes were steeper than the ones I had skied down the day before. I fell twice on my way down before I started to get the hang of it again. At the bottom she told me I could go back up, so I decided to do it once more. On the way down this time, I had a spectacular fall. I got too much speed going across the slope, and couldn’t turn. I hit the snow at the edge of the slope, and my skis stuck in the deep snow. I was probably traveling 20-30 miles an hour when my skis stuck, and they just ejected me. I went flying through the air, and landed on my head in deep snow. My head and shoulders were completely submerged in the snow. When I got my head out of the snow, I had snow packed behind my sunglasses, my ears were full of snow, and my hair was covered with snow. Somebody skiing down saw me and got tickled. I must have been quite a sight. I had left a head-sized hole in the snow. But, I picked myself up, dusted off, and continued down the slope. After that incident, I realized that my knees had not been in the proper position. Once I corrected that, I skied down the rest of the way without falling.

When I got to the bottom, my son was having a lot of fun playing with the kids. My daughter wanted to stop skiing and sled for a while. We stayed there until just about everyone was gone from the slopes. After we finished playing, we decided to go ahead and turn in our skis. We were not planning on going to the ski area the next day, and I did not plan to ski on Friday. So, we turned them in. We should have gotten a full refund for the unused days, but the guy said, “Well, I have to take a commission for the unused days." He said he was taking off 10%, but as far as I could tell he kept 30%. We had a hard time communicating, and my daughter and my son were running around the store. I finally decided to let it go, but I felt like we had been ripped off. We walked over to the bus stop to find that the regular bus had stopped running. We rode a different bus down, and stopped in a different location. We had to walk a pretty long way to get back to the hotel, where we found that my wife was still sick. She was wheezing a lot, and I was worried that she probably had bronchitis.

That evening at dinner, fish was the specialty. There were all kinds of cold fish appetizers, including smoked salmon. I just about filled up on that. I saw one of my daughter’s friends who told me that he really liked the “onion rings” he was eating. He told me that they tasted a little funny, though. I looked at them and told him they were actually calamari. I love calamari, so I went to the children’s buffet and loaded up. For my main course, I had lamb chops. That is only the second time I have ever had lamb, and I don’t guess I really like it that much. I like beef and chicken much more. But, I was so full of calamari and smoked salmon that the lamb didn’t really bother me that much. I went out to get the kids some ice cream from the children’s dessert bar, and saw a kid with dirty hands put his hand directly into the ice cream bowl. I watched another cough directly into the bowl, and I decided that the kids really didn’t need ice cream.

After dinner, I relaxed with the kids on their beds. I talked to my son about his birthday the next day. They always like to talk about science before bed, so I asked my son how many planets he could name. He named eight (he forgot Neptune). He also told me what a marsupial was, and told me that a platypus lives in Australia. My daughter took her turn and told me that Ben Franklin discovered electricity and Isaac Newton discovered gravity. I put them to bed very satisfied with the day we had spent together.

Day 6, Thursday, March 1, 2001 – My son turned five in the Austrian Alps today. He woke up before we did, and my wife said he was mumbling, “It’s my birthday, and they don’t even care. They are just going to sleep all day!” It was 7:10 at the time.

We didn’t have anything planned for the day. I told my son this was his day, and we would do whatever he wanted. My wife was still sick and coughing, so I took my son to a toy store across the street. He had seen a toy police kit the day before, and told me that he wanted it “more than anything else in the world.” So, I let him have it, since we had forgotten to bring his birthday gift on the trip with us. In the store, I found a really cool map of the Alps. It showed the locations of all the major cities, as well as the general topography of the Alps. I decided to buy it if I still had cash left over tomorrow.

We went back to the room, and he played police with my daughter. After a little while, we went out back and played police in the snow. The kids had a blast climbing and then sliding down the hill behind the hotel. Eventually, though, they both got snow into their boots and had to go back inside. I got their clothes off and warmed them up, and then they spent the rest of the afternoon watching German cartoons (Digimon, Catdog, etc.) and playing police. I read my book for a while. I opened up the windows in our room, and once again looked at our spectacular view.

We had an early dinner, and we got the kids settled down earlier than usual. My daughter had a very loose tooth that she couldn’t seem to get out, so she wanted me to tie a string on it. Ever since my daughter’s first loose tooth, we discovered that if she will tie a string onto the tooth before bed, it will fall out during the night. Of the previous 4 teeth, I had pulled 3 of them like this while she was asleep. The only one that I didn’t pull was because the string slipped off when I was trying to pull it. It fell out at school the next day and my daughter lost it. She thinks that they just magically fall out while she is asleep, but of course I just wait until she is in the deep first hour of sleep, and then just pop them out. I had a little more trouble with this one, and it bled some. I had to get a tissue to keep blood from getting on her pillow. But, my daughter lost her 5th tooth on my son’s 5th birthday.

Day 7, Friday, March 2, 2001 – My wife was coughing and wheezing all night. I wondered if she had pneumonia. We spent a very lazy morning, and then decided we would all go up to the ski area after lunch. My wife didn’t really feel up to it, but she didn’t want to miss out. I took the video camera, and took some video of the kids sledding. I didn’t get any video of my daughter skiing, because we had already turned in our skis.

After sledding for a while, we rode the gondola up to the top. There was an indoor play area at the top for kids, so we let them play for a while. There was also free Internet access, but the wait was really long. I decided I could do without. My wife was having a lot of trouble breathing in the thin, dry air. My daughter was also having trouble with one of her ears, so we didn’t stay at the top for very long. It was very cold and windy, anyway. So, after just an hour, we headed back down. On the way out, I ran into Thomas (the Danish guy). He said that they were getting ready to fly out, and he told me that he had really enjoyed our ski class together. We said our goodbyes, and then we rode the lift back down.

At the bottom, the kids sledded for a while before we went back to the hotel. At the hotel, I took the kids back up on the hill behind the hotel and we played for another hour. While we were doing this, my wife went and spent the last of our money on souvenirs. She also bought the map of the Alps for me.

At dinner that night, a box was passed to our table. It was for tips for the wait staff for the week. We didn’t have any money to put in the box since my wife had spent all of our money on souvenirs. I didn’t feel like it was necessary to tip anyway, because that is not the norm in Europe. Americans have imported that custom here, and do it when traveling, but the Europeans don’t. That is because wait staff in Europe are not underpaid like they are in the U.S. They make a normal wage, and it is not expected that it will be supplemented by tips. Rick Steves, the author of Europe Through the Back Door, has said that the only people who tip in Europe are Americans that don’t know any better.

After the box came around, there were more announcements on tipping. People wanted to know how they could tip the people that cleaned the room, how they could tip the chef, and how they could tip the people at the front desk. They wanted to know how they could show their appreciation for the ski instructors. It all sounded so sappy that it made me sick. Had these people never traveled in Europe before? The customs in the U.S. are not the same as the customs in Europe. I could see that some of the British people in our group were amused by all of this. Frankly I was a little embarrassed, because some of the things I heard from the Americans bordered on condescending. Some of them seemed to have the attitude that these poor peasants are barely scraping by while we are earning $250,000 a year. Let’s throw them some change so we can feel good about ourselves and help them better enjoy their meager existence. In my opinion, we had shown appreciation to our ski instructors by sincerely offering our thanks to them. I don’t feel like (and it is not the European way) to tip everyone who does a good job. That is an American invention, and in fact is the norm in America. But we were not in America.

There was an announcement made that it would be possible to check out after dinner. This would avoid a big crowd at the front desk the next morning. So, after dinner I went to check out. I got quite a shock. I had thought that I knew approximately what the exchange rate was for Austrian shillings to dollars. I had calculated that our hotel room was about $150 a night, which included breakfast and dinner every day. I thought this was pretty steep, but it was a very nice hotel. When I got the bill, they had printed the bill in shillings and in Euros. The value of a Euro is approximately $1, so I now knew exactly how much our room had cost. $225 a night, for 7 nights! Ouch! When we had gone to Austria with my mom and sister, 2 nights had cost about that much for 6 people. If we had booked this trip ourselves, I imagine we would have spent less than $100 a night, and still had a pretty decent place to stay.

When I got back to the room, my wife and I talked about the trip. She had not wanted to travel with a large group of Americans in the first place. Being around so many Americans meant that it was harder to interact with the locals. I like to talk to the people who live and work in an area, but there were Americans or Brits everywhere I went. Plus, there are some stereotypes associated with being American, so the local people were more reserved.

Another problem, according to my wife, was that many of these Americans were really wealthy. They didn’t think twice about throwing money around. Many of them were also very “snooty”, and obviously thought they were quite important. We noticed a lot of that all week long. One example was a woman berating a waiter because she didn’t get a table next to her friends. The snooty ones also usually had snooty, rude children that were no fun to be around. I don’t like my daughter and my son being exposed to kids like that. While most of the people (including children) on the trip were really nice, there were plenty who weren’t. This diminished the fun that we had on the trip. It certainly wasn’t worth $225 a night, and I was left wishing that I had just booked everything myself, and we had struck out on our own (like we normally do). I had done the trip the way I had because of simplicity, but that simplicity was very expensive. My wife said, “I told you so.” We had had better vacations where we spent less than half that amount. To date, one of the best places that we have ever stayed was a little cabin in Norway that cost $30 a night. There was also a beautiful farmhouse in southern France where we had spent $40 a night. I had learned a valuable lesson on this trip: Don’t assume that someone else’s idea of an ideal vacation is the same as my idea of an ideal vacation.

But, at least the kids had a really good time. They enjoyed the snow a lot, and my daughter had a lot of fun with her friends. She told me that it was her best ever vacation, and that was worth a lot to me. I enjoyed myself a lot too, it is just that I have had better vacations for much less money. My wife, on the other hand, was miserable for the entire week.

Day 8, Saturday, March 3, 2001 – I woke up to find that my wife was not in her bed. (We had a twin bed, and had separated them because she was coughing so badly). I had noticed about 4 a.m. that she wasn’t in bed, but I assumed she was in the bathroom. The kids woke me up at 7 and asked where she was. I told them I didn’t know, but to go check the bathroom. They came back in and told me that she was asleep in the tub. I jumped up to go look, and she was indeed asleep in the tub. But, the sight of her sleeping in the tub was more than I could take, so I got out the video camera and taped her for a couple of minutes. I then went and played with the kids for a while until she woke up. When she woke up, she said that sitting upright in the tub was the only way she could get relief from the coughing.

We were not scheduled to leave until 11, so we ate a late breakfast. Since I didn’t know when we would eat again, we stuffed ourselves at breakfast. We were in the bus at 11, but everyone was not accounted for until about 11:20. We left Bad Gastein, and headed home. During the drive, I continued on my book, and we watched a couple of movies that held my son’s attention. One was "Mission Impossible", and the other was "Mighty Joe Young." During one of the movies, my son saw a cow on screen. He asked in a loud voice, “Is this about mad cow disease?” But, once again, it was the Gameboys that really saved the day. My son probably spent 5-6 hours during the day playing games. Anyway, we made better time than on our return trip. We were getting pretty close to home by about 10 p.m., when my son started complaining of a stomach ache. He had eaten too many sweets during the day. I got him settled down and he fell asleep, but even in his sleep his stomach was twitching.

We finally got home about 11:30, to a freezing cold house. I was a little disappointed as I reflected on our trip, but we all had a pretty good time together.

Trip to Scotland

2007-01-04T19:27:00.000-08:00

During my daughter’s October break from school, we all took a one-week trip to Scotland. We flew into and out of Edinburgh. In Edinburgh, we rented a car and drove around the highlands. It rained at least a part of almost every day, but we had a great trip anyway.

High Above Fort William

Day 1, Saturday, October 7, 2000 – We woke up early and took the train into the airport. Our flight was to leave at 8:15, so we had to be at the airport about 7. We didn’t check in any luggage, so we wouldn’t have to wait once we landed in Edinburgh. The travel agent had booked us on what was supposed to be a direct flight, but I noticed in the airport that the board was showing our flight as Düsseldorf to Birmingham to Edinburgh. Once we were in the air, we found out that we did in fact have to stop in Birmingham and go through customs. On the plane, we were served a full breakfast. The kids received a coloring book and a little toy on the flight. During the descent into Birmingham, my son’s ears really started hurting him. Mine were giving me problems as well. At Birmingham, we were forced to take all of our luggage off the plane, deplane, go through customs, and get back on the plane. I thought this was pretty ridiculous, but I assumed it was because Edinburgh probably didn’t have direct international arrivals at their airport.

Once we left Birmingham, the flight on to Edinburgh only took 45 minutes. It was raining pretty hard in Edinburgh. We picked up the rental car, which had the steering wheel on the right hand side. Of course, I had to get used to driving on the left side of the road as well. This felt pretty awkward as we drove out of the airport.

Our plan was to drive about an hour outside Edinburgh to the Trossachs, which is the area in which Rob Roy lived his life. The kids fell asleep pretty quickly, because they had been up since about 6. The rain continued, and I was having some problems driving. Sitting on the right hand side, it was very hard to judge how close we were to the left edge of the road. There were hard curbs on all of the roads, and I was constantly banging into the curbs. Our friends, the Hewletts, had been to Scotland the year before and had told us that they had the same problem. In fact, they blew out a tire once when they hit a curb.

Due to the rain, it took us a little over an hour to get to Aberfoyle, our destination in the heart of the Trossachs. Unfortunately, it was so cloudy we couldn’t really see the scenery. We drove up to our Bed and Breakfast, on the outskirts of Aberfoyle, but there was nobody home. So, we drove to the tourist information center to kill some time. On the way into the center, I saw an older Scottish man walking on the street in full Scottish attire (including kilt). Inside the center, there was a play area for the kids. The entire play area was built inside a huge play bus. There were some oversized soft toys and an interactive video game (which was very corny). Several times, other kids would come in and play while their parents were in there. My daughter and my son would play with them. They were really having fun playing with other kids who spoke English. Every few minutes they would announce to me that they had made a new friend.

After an hour or so, we headed back up to our B&B, which was called Crannaig House. It was set partway up a mountain, and had forest all around. We checked in and then went downstairs to chat with the owner. We sat together in a living area and the kids played with toys. There was a fire going in the fireplace, and the atmosphere was very nice. Since it was raining outside, we talked to the owner for most of the afternoon. She told us about life in the area, and gave us a few recommendations on where to eat and what to see. We shared our impressions on the different nationalities of people. She was quick to point out that the British and Scottish are very different types. She eventually turned the conversation to WW II. Her father was a sailor, and had been killed in the war by a German submarine. It was very interesting to hear her discuss the effects of the war in that area. She talked about different towns being bombed, and families that were affected.

We hadn’t eaten lunch, so at about 5 p.m. we walked down to the town center (the rain had stopped) and ate at one of the restaurants. We were almost completely alone in there. The food was pretty bland (I had fish and chips), which is what I had experienced previously in London. By the time we finished eating, we were all really exhausted. We walked back up the hill to our B&B. By that time, some of the clouds had lifted and we could see lots of mountains in the distance. After my wife and the kids went upstairs, I stood around outside for a while and enjoyed the view. In the distance I could see Ben Lomond, which is the largest mountain in the area. After a while though, the long day started to take it’s toll on me and went inside. We all turned in by 9 p.m.

Day 2, Sunday, October 8, 2000 – My son was awake at 5:45 a.m. He was still operating on German time, which is one hour later. He came over to my bed and told me that he wasn’t tired, but it was still dark outside. He asked me why the night was long. He was suffering from minor jetlag. In December, when we are back in the U.S., I worry that he will wake up around 1 a.m. and feel like it is time to be up.

I took my son out of the bedroom, and took him into the bathroom with me while I took a shower. After that, we went downstairs before anyone else in the house got up. I let him play with the toys while I watched the news on TV. About 6:30, the owner came in and asked what we would like for breakfast. Breakfast was definitely an experience in Scotland. It usually consisted of eggs, sausage, ham (they called it bacon), toast, tomatoes, mushrooms, beans, etc. My son ate cereal and about 10 little sausages. After a while, my wife, my daughter, and the rest of the guests came down. The other guests consisted of 4 Scots and 2 British people. My son and I were still in the room, and we visited with the other guests. They asked lots of questions about our travels. My son told me that it was really nice that the other guests could speak a “little” English.

Today we were going to start off the day with a scenic drive through a mountain pass. We would end our drive in Callendar, where the Rob Roy Visitor Center was located. When we went outside, it looked like it had been raining all night, but it was tapering off. We left Aberfoyle and climbed into the mountains. The scenery really improved as we climbed. We were practically alone on the road. As we climbed, the colors of the leaves began to change from green at lower elevations to reds, oranges, yellows, and browns at the higher elevations. Also, not only were the leaves changing colors, but the ferns and heather, which were practically everywhere, were red and brown.

At one point, we came to a valley that had a very impressive view. We saw a castle of gray stone across a lake, and pulled off at the side of the road to take pictures. In front of us, was a field of horses, then the lake, and the castle at the other side. Behind us was another field that was full of sheep, and then a mountain behind the field. As we were taking some video, a young horse came over to the fence. The kids really enjoyed petting him. I decided to take a picture of everyone standing there with the horse. I took one picture, and was preparing to take another. My son was wearing a coat, and as he stood up against the fence the horse leaned over and took my son’s hood into his mouth. The only thing I could figure out was that maybe the horse thought it looked like a feed bag. The horse actually lifted my son off the ground. He was scared and yelling, and my wife was trying to get the horse to turn loose. I found the scene pretty comical, and I actually snapped a picture of him when the horse had the hood in his mouth. The horse finally turned loose, and we drove on down the road. In hindsight, I guess it was a dangerous situation, but at the time is seemed pretty funny.

We stopped a little later at a mountainside lake (or, as the Scots say, a Loch). There was a steamboat on the lake that was available for taking a cruise. There was a little shop there, and my wife bought a few things while the kids and I had some ice cream outside. It was very cold out there.

We left and continued into Callendar. Inside the Rob Roy center there was an exhibition on Rob Roy’s life (I wish I had seen the Rob Roy movie before we went!). In the first room, there was a nighttime campfire scene that showed Rob Roy talking to a friend about his life. The display was incredibly realistic. I think it scared the kids a little, because it was dark in there and just a little spooky. There were a number of other displays about various aspects of his life. I also watched a video while the kids played in a ball pit.

At Rob Roy's Grave

After being in there for an hour or so, we left and headed towards Stirling. Stirling is famous as the site of the major battle depicted in “Braveheart.” There are a number of attractions in Stirling related to the battle, as well as a very impressive castle. We planned to go first to the Wallace Monument, which is a memorial to William Wallace (Mel Gibson’s character in “Braveheart”). If we had time, we were going to visit the castle afterward.

After stopping for a quick lunch at McDonald’s, we made our way to the monument. The monument was on top of a huge hill. At the base of the hill was a visitor’s center, as well as a statue of Mel Gibson. We bought tickets for the monument and then rode a bus up to the top. On the way up the hill, we passed a man at the side of the road dressed in a kilt and playing bagpipes. When we got to the top, we started climbing the monument. The monument itself is 220 feet tall, and there are 246 steps leading to the top.

On the way up, there were 4 rooms at different levels to stop off in and rest. Some of these rooms contained artifacts from Wallace’s life, one of which was his sword. How he used that thing I have no idea, because it was about 6 feet long. We finally got to the top, and had a great view over Stirling. We could see the battlefield in front of us, with the River Forth in front of it. We also had a great view of the Stirling Castle from where we were, and there were mountains and green fields full of sheep in every direction. The clouds had mostly disappeared, but the wind was blowing and it was cold up there. We stayed up until we were just about frozen, and then descended.

When we got to the bottom, we got a certificate for the kids saying that they had climbed the monument. We went out and waited for the bus for about 20 minutes, but then we finally decided to go ahead and walk down. We stopped and watched the guy play bagpipes for a few minutes. He was raising money for cancer, and my son and I gave him a little bit. As we continued down the hill, my son tripped and immediately blamed me. He flew off the handle and started yelling and screaming. We had thought about touring the castle, but we could tell from my son’s fit that he was really tired. My daughter was tired too, so we decided to skip the castle. My wife bought some toffee and fudge at the visitor’s center (it was fabulous!) and then we drove back as the kids slept.

When we got back into Aberfoyle, we drove back to the tourist center so the kids could play in the bus. They had been begging to go all day long. As we were heading inside, I saw a woman in her 50’s with a double earring through her eyebrow. We let the kids play for a while, and then went to a restaurant next door and ate. Again, the food was less than impressive. I should mention one of the specialties of Scotland, called haggis. This is the heart, lungs, liver, etc. of a sheep, stuffed into the stomach and boiled. It is supposed to be a delicacy, but I resisted the temptation to have any.

Day 3, Monday, October 9, 2000 – I woke up at 5:15, and slipped to the bathroom and took a shower. My son woke up when I came back into the room, so we went downstairs to play. Once again, my son and I ate before the other guests came down. My wife and my daughter slept until 7:30. We visited with the guests again during breakfast. There had been an LPGA golf tournament in town, and most of the guests were there for it. It was the U.S. against the Europeans, with the Europeans winning a close match.

Our plan for the day was to drive Fort William, which is at the foot of Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Britain. We left the B&B about 9:30. It had cost 120 pounds for 2 nights, which is about $180. I thought that was a little too much for a B&B, but it was a really nice place. When we started off, there was a light rain coming down. About an hour into our drive, we took a detour and visited Rob Roy’s grave. The countryside around the area was beautiful. The mountains were really tall, and they were covered with colorful foliage. Rob Roy’s grave was outside a small country church. There were also graves of his family members. We were the only people there, and we took our time looking around. There was a nature walk behind the church that led into the woods and ended up at a waterfall. We spent almost an hour there before continuing on toward Fort William.

We passed through some really beautiful country as we got closer to Fort William. We drove through a valley called Glen Coe, and it was just stunning. The hills were all covered with red ferns and heather. I wanted to stop and explore, but the kids had just fallen asleep. I didn’t realize there was such natural beauty anywhere in Great Britain. This scenery was among the most impressive we had seen in all of Europe.

When we got into Fort William about 1 p.m., we spotted a McDonald’s. As we pulled in to eat, we saw a Celtic restaurant next door and we decided to try that out. The food was good, but it took us a really long time to get served. I wished later that we had just gone with our first instincts, because I hated to waste so much time sitting in a restaurant. After eating we went next door to a Safeway, and stocked up on a few items. They had Michael Crichton’s new book, Timeline, on sale. I bought it to read in the evenings and on the airplane ride back home.

Next, we had to find a room for the night. We drove downtown to the tourist information center and booked a room right outside town for the night. After we booked the room, we shopped a little bit. My wife bought shoes for the kids, and a woolen shawl for herself. We also picked up a family crest (McCarter) for my sister and brother-in-law. The area that we shopped in was along a pedestrian walkway. We found it very charming. It reminded us of the Christmas season. The weather was cold and the sky was overcast with an occasional raindrop. I could just imagine what the area looks like at Christmas.

About 5 p.m. it started raining and we drove out to our B&B, called Thistle Cottage. We visited with the owner for a while. She was a very pleasant older lady. We had a very nice view of the mountains right out the window. The kids had bunk beds in the room, but the top bunk had no guardrail. So, we dragged the mattress off into the floor for my daughter. It was still early, but it had started raining pretty hard. I started reading my book, and the others watched TV. There was a show on called “The Weakest Link”, and my daughter just loves it. It is similar to Jeopardy, but much more entertaining. After each round the candidates vote each other off until 2 (out of 8) remain. After watching TV for a while, they all went on to bed. However, I had gotten really interested in my book and stayed up reading until about 11 p.m.

Day 4, Tuesday, October 10, 2000 – The kids slept a little later this morning. I woke up early and took a shower, but the kids and my wife slept until about 7:30. My son woke up mad because he had fallen asleep next to me, but then I moved him over to the lower bunk. He remembered that he had started the night next to me and asked why I had moved him. He had also woken up during the night without his covers, and said (loudly), “Dad, my covers are gone. There is no sign of them anywhere.”

I walked into the breakfast room with the kids, where we had a great view of the mountains. To our surprise, during the night the mountains had become covered with snow at the higher elevations. We walked outside to have a better look. Our plans for the morning were to take a cable car up the mountain, and I was hoping we could get to the snow.

Breakfast was great – similar to our first B&B. We paid for the night (50 pounds) and drove up to where the cable car was. We got there about 9:15. We had been told that it opened at 9, but it actually opened up at 10. So, we walked around for a while and killed time until the ticket office finally opened up. We got our tickets just as a tour bus full of people pulled up.

We shared our car with one other person, and took a 10-minute ride up to the top. Actually, the car stopped well short of the top. Where the cable car stopped there was a restaurant and a ski shop. It was very cold up there, but the snow was at least 500 feet higher. We took several pictures, and then the kids and I went on a hike while my wife shopped. My son was dressed a little warmer than my daughter, so I let her wear my jacket over her coat. The sleeves were too long, so they covered her hands like gloves.

The walk was very nice. All of the vivid fall colors were all around us, and at slightly higher elevations snow covered the mountain. We walked along a path until we reached a scenic lookout point. We could see Fort William below us, and to our left we could see down a deep valley with high mountains on either side. There were also a couple of lakes in the distance. We messed around at the lookout for a few minutes before starting back. We encountered a lot of hills on the walk, and my daughter got tired. She had to ride on my back for a good part of the way back. This pleased my son immensely, because he is usually the one that needs to be carried. My daughter was really upset because she was tired and my son wasn’t. I asked him if he was tired too, and he said “No”, and started running up ahead. I kept telling him to stop, because I was afraid he would fall on the rocks. Well, of course he did fall, and he screamed bloody murder. He was screaming so loud that I was afraid that he broke something. I got to him as quickly as I could (with my daughter still on my back). I finally got him calmed down, and we walked back to the lift area.

As we approached, we saw my wife looking out the window of the restaurant. When we got there, she told us that she had gone looking for us. There were two different walks, and she thought that we would have taken the shorter one. So, she took the short one, and panicked when we weren’t at the end of it. She had to rush back to make sure that she was there when we returned. We decided to eat at the restaurant. A British man sat near us and talked to us about traveling. He was on an organized tour, and asked us questions about our travels. He told the kids how lucky they were that their parents had so much money that they could travel all over Europe. Little did he know that we were probably traveling for a fraction of the price he was spending for his organized tour.

We finished lunch and then rode the cable car back down the mountain. We got back in our car and started toward the northwest, on our way toward Kyle of Lochalsh. We weren’t sure how much territory we would cover before stopping for the night. We drove through more beautiful valleys. The roads were pretty lonely; sometimes we would drive for half an hour and not see anyone else. We drove past tall mountains, sweeping valleys, lakes, and rivers. The country was really remote. Our friend Kelly Hewlett had described this drive as reminding her of Montana. I would agree with that description. This was really wild, rugged, and remote country.

The kids slept through most of the drive. We finally came upon the most photographed castle in Scotland, Eilean Donan Castle. We stopped to take a few photos. The kids woke up when we stopped, and we all went into the visitor’s center for a while. We continued on the way toward Kyle of Lochalsh, but we turned back inland before we got into the city. We didn’t actually intend to visit the city, but the road we wanted to take was near there.

I had only thought we were off the tourist path before. After turning inland there was literally no traffic at all. It was pretty rainy, and the road twisted and turned. The road was actually only one lane for very long stretches. Once we drove about 20 miles on a one-lane road. Every half mile or so, there would be a wide spot in the road to pass.

We eventually came to Achnasheen, the town that I thought we would spend the night in. It was still raining hard when we drove into town. It was literally a ghost town, but we did find a small craft shop that was open. My wife went inside to look around and ask whether a B&B was available. My wife had been in the store for about 10 minutes when a tour bus pulled up. The tourists flooded the little shop, and my wife came back outside. She said that she had planned to buy some things, but the tourists who came in were pretty rude. She said that she was talking to the owner, and they crowded around and were very pushy. So, she came back outside.

The owner had told her that there were no B&B’s in town, but there was one about 5 miles farther down the road. We stopped in at that B&B, which also had an attached restaurant. The guy working there was very friendly. There was something wrong with his vision, though. When he talked to me, he focused on a spot about 2 feet from me. I thought he was blind at first, but then I saw him write something down. He checked and said that he didn’t have a family room available, but there was one just a few miles farther down the road.

We stopped at the next B&B, and they did have a family room. The room was basically just a spare bedroom in their house. The B&B was called Mossford Cottage, and it looked out directly over Loch Luichart. The owners were Seamus and Sarah Doyle, but we only saw Seamus. My wife went in to the kitchen and asked him a question, and there was another man in there cooking. My wife thought that maybe Seamus was gay.

Seamus recommended that we eat back at the first B&B we stopped at. So, we drove back to the restaurant, first stopping at a woolen shop and buying a couple more items. The same guy waited on us that I had spoken with earlier. We were totally alone in the place. The food was really good, except for my daughter’s cheeseburger, which was disgusting. I had shrimp scampi and elderberry ale. The scampi was unlike scampi in the U.S. It was basically just chopped up shrimp cooked in batter. The restaurant, like our B&B, was right off the main road in the absolute middle of nowhere. There were no towns nearby. While we were eating, we saw 7 Red Deer out the window. I took the kids outside to have a closer look. The guy inside warned us to not get too close, because it was mating season and they are dangerous during that period. Some of them were making a call that sounded similar to a cow. We watched them for a few minutes, and then went back inside and finished eating.

On the way back to our B&B, my wife and I talked about how nice the Scots were. On our entire trip, the hospitality of the Scots was really outstanding. As we were discussing this, I saw a deer start to run across the road. I slammed on the brakes, but the deer had second thoughts and didn’t cross the road. If it had, I would have hit it.

When we got back, we decided to bathe the kids before bed. At that point, we found out that the water was brown. It looked basically like weak tea. I have no idea what the reason was, but it was the same coming from every faucet. When we took the kids out of the tub, I felt like they were cleaner before their bath.

Day 5, Wednesday, October 11, 2000 – I woke up and had a bath in the brown water. Not only was the water brown, but there was no shower, and the hot and cold water came out of different taps. This made it almost impossible to rinse off. Anyway, I survived the bath. We had another great breakfast. I really liked the breakfasts while we were there, but they weren’t very healthy. There was a pretty big dose of grease in every breakfast. In fact, the Scots have one of the highest rates of heart disease in the world. I can see why. Seamus and I talked about the stock market and about business in general as we ate. He had a really good knowledge of the market.

We visited with Seamus about our plans for the day. His wife, Sarah, also made an appearance. So, he wasn’t gay after all. They had an aquarium in the house that really fascinated the kids. They also had a corn snake in the house. They showed the kids and told them that the snake had come all the way from America. I told him that I also used to keep snakes in the house when I was younger. My son and my daughter were surprised to hear this, and asked why my mom let me do such a thing. In the same room with the snake, they had family pictures covering every wall. That is something I had noticed at all of the places we stayed at. There were always huge numbers of family photos plastered all over the walls.

We discussed our plans with Seamus before we left. We were about to drive to Loch Ness, so he told us the best way to go. The kids were very excited about hunting for the Loch Ness Monster. We paid 50 pounds for the room, and then headed out.

As we drove, I noticed the enormous numbers of sheep grazing everywhere. We didn’t see that many cattle, but the sheep were literally everywhere. That seems to be a pattern all over Europe, but I have never figured out why. I also noticed a bird that I had never seen before. It appeared to be a crow, with black wings and a black head, but a light gray body. I saw several of those as we drove.

The highway signs were not very clear, and many of the towns were not even on the map. We made two wrong turns, and took a very roundabout way to Loch Ness. The drive was very nice, though, and it put us even farther off the tourist path. We finally pulled into Drumnadrochit, near the edge of Loch Ness about 11 a.m. The town had a Loch Ness Visitor Center and numerous tourist shops. Initially, we passed through the town and drove directly to the lake. While there was a pretty interesting looking castle right by the water, the lake itself was not very interesting. The surrounding mountains were lower and less colorful than we had been seeing. The lake did have quite a few people out taking boat trips, though. But, I wasn’t about to waste our time doing that. I never saw the monster, but my daughter said she was pretty sure she saw something out there on the water. She wasn’t sure what it was, but she thought it had humps on its back. :-)

We went to a souvenir shop back in town for a while. My wife bought a few things inside, and I played outside with the kids. There was a huge replica of Nessie outside, and the kids played on it. But, my son got a little bit out of hand at one point, and I dragged him kicking and screaming back to the car. He threw his fit, as people walked by the car and stared. But, after he got that out of his system, he returned to his normal self.

We left and headed toward Inverness, toward the East Coast. We had told the kids we would find a McDonald’s for them, and Inverness was a pretty big city. On the way, we drove alongside the length of Loch Ness. We stopped again for a few more photos. Inverness was a short drive away, and we arrived about 12:30 and started our search. After having no luck, we stopped at a gas station and asked if there was one nearby. We found the location of one, but there was no parking anywhere near it.

We finally found a parking garage about 5 blocks away. On the walk from the garage, we walked past a cinema. Disney’s Dinosaur was scheduled to play at 1:55. It was now 1:30. The kids wanted to see the movie, so we decided to try to make it. The lines had been very long at McDonald’s, so we dropped into a pizza place. We had the buffet, which was awful, and ran back to the theater.

We got into the movie just as it was starting. The volume on the movie was incredibly loud. I needed a pair of earplugs. I hadn’t been seated for long when everyone announced that they wanted snacks. So, I went out and got snacks for everyone. The one part that I was looking forward to in the movie was seeing the special effects when the asteroid hit the earth. Unfortunately, that happened while I was out in the lobby. My wife said it was awesome, though. I will have to take her word for it.

My daughter wasn’t happy with the snack that I got for her, so I had to go back out in the lobby with her to pick out another. All together I missed a good 15 minutes of the movie. My son complained all the way through the movie. He couldn’t wait for it to be over. I didn’t understand what his problem was, but we found out later that the movie scared him a little.

After the movie, we continued on toward Aberdeen, which is on the East Coast. We drove right along the coast for about an hour. It was raining pretty hard, and everyone fell asleep. We passed a large number of whiskey distilleries, as well as a fair number of castles. We also passed a few bicyclists. I can’t imagine how crazy they must have been. The roads were very narrow, and there was no shoulder. Riding a bike in Scotland looked to me like a very dangerous proposition. I wanted to find a nice little coastal town to stop in for the night. We finally came into a little town called Cullen. I knew this is where I wanted to spend the night. It was a very small town, and it was clustered around a rocky beach. It looked like a postcard to me.

So, with everyone else still sleeping, I started driving down the narrow streets. I saw a sign at one house that said B&B. I stopped and talked to a woman, and she had two rooms available. There were twin beds upstairs and a queen-sized bed downstairs. The rooms were really nice. But, I didn’t really like the thought of us being split up, so she recommended another place down the street. I went and talked to this woman, who invited me in. She was an older woman, and her looks reminded me of my grandmother (except for a large blue mole on her face). She also had 2 rooms available, but the setup was even worse than the first rooms I looked at. She told me that because the town was so small, there wasn’t much to choose from. But, she got on the phone and called around to try and find something for us. She said that there was a hotel just around the corner that might have something. So, we drove down to check it out. She looked out as we were leaving and saw my wife and the kids. She said, “You really should have brought everyone inside with you.”

The situation at the hotel was not good. Once again, the rooms were split up. The walls were also thin, and directly outside was the main street through town. The owner told me that at about 4 a.m. we would start to hear the traffic outside. So, we went back and booked the rooms at the first place we had stopped at. My son and I took the upstairs room. As soon as we got unloaded, I took the kids out to the beach. There were a lot of rugged rocks sticking up out of the water, but the beach itself was mostly sand. I took a stick and wrote my son’s name in the sand. He got a big kick out of that.

There was no place in town to eat, so we went into a small grocery store and bought a few things. We went back to the hotel and snacked a little bit, and then my son and I retired to the upstairs bedroom. Outside the bedroom there was a bookshelf full of all different kinds of books. There were several science books for children, and I took them downstairs to my daughter. I got some illustrated books for my son to look at. We opened up the window so we could hear the waves crashing on the shore. Our room looked right out onto the beach, which was only about 50 feet away. We watched the waves come in for a long time. My son colored for a while, and then told me, “A few more pages, and I am finito.” I stayed awake reading my book for quite a while after he went to sleep.

Day 6, Thursday, October 12, 2000 – My son shook me awake at 6:30. The house was very quiet, so he climbed into bed with me and I read “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” to him. He kept saying, “Oh, Baby Bear is so cute.” After that, we looked out the window for a while longer. I must say that I really enjoyed that little town. Our room was fantastic, the view was incredible, and the atmosphere was really great. The only downside was that the woman who ran the place wasn’t as friendly as most of the others had been. She wasn’t unfriendly, she was just a little reserved.

We had another hearty breakfast, and then I took the kids out to the beach while my wife went to her room and wrote out postcards. It wasn’t raining, but it looked like it was about to start. It was cold and very windy. Despite that, the kids loved the beach. My son dug into the sand with a stick, and my daughter spent her time writing and drawing in the sand. I found a cluster of rocks right at the water’s edge, and there must have been a million clams and barnacles on and around the rocks. We all studied the clams, and then my son went back to digging. I helped my daughter with her writing. I wrote her name in 12-foot letters. An airplane probably could have seen it. We also drew enormous smiley faces and hearts. They didn’t want to leave, but it was starting to rain and we needed to move out.

I paid for our rooms (42 pounds all together, what a deal!) and we continued down the coast. I had read about an aquarium at a town just down the road. We decided to check it out. The drive to the town, Macduff, was right along the rocky coast. The view was really nice. We pulled into Macduff just before lunchtime. My wife wasn’t too interested, so I took the kids in. It was pretty neat. It featured marine animals native to that area. There was a tank with a couple of octopus, and another full of crabs. There was also a petting tank, where the kids got to touch and pick up starfish, hermit crabs, anemones, and sea urchins. The kids really enjoyed themselves in there, except at one point when we watched a film. “Boring”, my son said.

It was lunchtime, and we had been promising the kids McDonald’s for several days. We were told that the closest one was in Aberdeen, which was about an hour away. We wouldn’t get there until 1:30, but we decided to go ahead and wait until then for lunch. We turned away from the coast and proceeded cross-country to Aberdeen. At times, we would get behind a tractor and be unable to pass. There was lots of farm traffic along the road. The kids fell asleep, and just as we pulled into Aberdeen I saw the McDonald’s. We pulled in there and had a long, leisurely lunch. I don’t know how old you have to be to legally work in Scotland, but the guy that took our order couldn’t have been over 12 years old.

After we ate, we headed west. We were going to drive along a very scenic drive while working our back toward Edinburgh. Balmoral Castle, the Scottish home of the royal family, is along this drive. They picked the location for the scenic beauty of the area. Any time you see Prince Charles on TV wearing a kilt, he is at Balmoral.

The drive started out pretty dull. It was raining steadily. The area immediately west of Aberdeen was not that pretty. We entertained ourselves by singing nursery rhymes and saying tongue twisters. Pretty soon, we started to pass some castles and the scenery turned prettier. There were more hills in the area, and lots of trees. There were a lot more hardwoods in the area, and the colors of the leaves were really vivid.

We pulled over and stopped at a tourist information center in Crathie. We visited with the guy working there for a while. He told us that Balmoral Castle was only about half a mile away through the trees, but it was not open for visitors. He said that the queen had been there on Monday, and that Prince Charles and the Queen Mother were still there. The church that they attended while at Balmoral was directly across the street, and he suggested that it would be worth a visit. He also said that when we were leaving there was a spot along the road where we could catch a glimpse of the castle.

We went over to the church and went inside. It was still raining, and very cold. There was a woman inside tending the church and selling bookmarks with religious themes. My wife bought a few. We only stayed there for a few minutes before continuing. When we got to the spot in the road where the castle was supposed to be visible, we looked but couldn’t see it. So, we went back down the road and turned around and came back. This time, we spotted it in the distance. It was really pretty. I wish we could have gotten closer.

It was almost 5 p.m. when we pulled into Braemar, the next town down the road. We immediately went down to the tourist information center and booked a room for the night. Our room was in an old hunting lodge. The surroundings were magnificent. There were mountains all around, and Braemar itself was a very scenic little town. When we walked into the lodge, there were hunting clothes drying out in front of a fireplace. There were guys in hunting clothes standing around talking. I asked the woman at the front desk about this, and she said that it was deer season. The whole scene reminded me of being back home.

We had passed a little takeout joint down the road, and we went back there to eat. On the way out, the kids noticed a little dog that the owners had. A cow had kicked it when it was a pup, and its back was severely twisted out of shape. The kids really enjoyed petting that dog. Every chance they got while we were there, they wanted to pet the dog.

We drove back through the town to the takeout place. The inside was really small. There was one little table inside with 4 chairs, so we stayed inside and ate. We talked to the guy working there, as well as a bus driver who had come by to eat. These guys were both super-friendly. We talked a lot about travel. The bus driver had been to the U.S., and we talked a little bit about that. The guy behind the counter had bagpipe music playing on the stereo while we ate. It was cold, dark, and rainy outside, but we were all very cozy inside. The atmosphere, the music, and the conversation all combined to make it one of my most enjoyable meals in Scotland.

We went back to the lodge, and the kids once again had to pet the dog for a while. We went upstairs and played with the kids, then watched the Weakest Link again, and finally put the kids to bed. After they were asleep, I turned on the evening news. There had been a terrorist attack on a U.S. ship, 2 Israeli soldiers had been lynched and there was a scene of the Arabs tossing the body out the window, and the stock market was crashing. I wondered what was wrong with the world. Downstairs, the hunters were having a good time and being pretty loud. They stayed up pretty late. That, combined with the news, kept me awake until after midnight.

Day 7, Friday, October 13, 2000 – We got up and went down to breakfast at about 8. The kids again pet the dog for a long time before we went in to eat breakfast. I was very surprised to see that there were several hunters in there eating breakfast. I would have assumed that they would be out hunting by now. We ate another standard Scottish breakfast, and then went back upstairs. My wife wanted to shop in town for a while, so I watched cartoons with the kids for an hour while my wife shopped. At 10, the kids and I paid for the room (45 pounds) and met my wife downtown. First, we mailed off our postcards. We had to mail them inside a small grocery store, and I saw some newspapers showing some of the scenes from yesterday. There were Palestinians tossing an Israeli soldier’s body out the window, and another picture showing a young Palestinian holding up bloody hands to the crowd. We left the store and we all walked around a little bit exploring the town. There was a bridge in the center of town, and there was a waterfall upstream from it. The river was flowing swiftly over the rocks, and ran right through the town.

It was finally time to head toward Edinburgh. We drove west from Braemar, through more incredible scenery. We actually stopped a couple of times just to enjoy the view. As we started to descend from the highlands, the hills became lower and lower, but the road began to wind more. My wife started to get sick due to all the twists and turns. The sun was shining brightly, and it kept flashing intermittently through the branches above. That made it really hard to see.

Around lunchtime, we searched and searched for a place to eat. We drove around in Perth for half an hour looking for a restaurant. We finally found one, but every single parking place in the parking lot was occupied. So, we continued. We pulled over later in a little town and found nothing. We went into one place, and a woman working there told us that there was a Burger King about 5 miles down the road. We found it and had a leisurely lunch outside on a picnic table.

Before driving into Edinburgh, we drove across a long bridge. It reminded me of the Golden Gate Bridge, as well as a similar long bridge outside Lisbon, Portugal. We arrived in Edinburgh in the early afternoon. We were going to try to visit a museum that I had read about. It was called Our Dynamic Earth, and had a number of theme rooms for kids based on subjects such as volcanoes, the Antarctic, and dinosaurs. After driving around for a while, we finally located it.

I was really impressed with the museum. The kids loved it. We started out onboard a "time machine", which carried us back in time 15 billion years. We witnessed the big bang and the formation of galaxies and solar systems. We left the time machine and entered a room based on the primitive earth. The first room was based on volcanoes, and it was complete with huge video displays. There were sound effects and lots of items in each room based on that particular theme. It was sort of like a walk through an IMAX movie. One of the rooms was about glaciers, another was about undersea life, and a third was about the rain forests. Being inside the rain forest room felt like actually standing in a rain forest. In the Antarctic room, they actually had a miniature glacier in the center of the room. It was about 6 feet tall and 15 feet long, and was actually made out of ice. We finally ended up in the evolution room, which had all kinds of displays on prehistoric life.

After spending a couple of hours in the museum, we were ready to call it a day. We went downtown to book a room at tourist information. While I waited in line, my wife and the kids walked across the street to the Disney Store. A woman at tourist information called a couple of places for me before we found what we were looking for. We had been paying 40-50 pounds a night for the most part, but this one cost us 60. They actually wanted 70, but she got them to come down 10 pounds.

We ate at a McDonald’s just around the corner from the Disney Store. We left the center of town and headed toward the outskirts, where our B&B was located. We drove by it several times before we spotted it. From the outside, I was not impressed. We appeared to be in a low-income area of Edinburgh. There were signs posted outside warning of problems with theft. We didn’t see any Scottish people on the streets at all; everyone seemed to be immigrants. There were Asians, Africans, Arabs, and Indians. The owner of our B&B was an Indian. He showed us to our room, and it was a dump. The places that we had stayed at in the countryside, for much less money, were all nicer than this. Also, for the first time on the trip we were asked to pay for the room in advance.

There were bunk beds in the room, but the top bunk had no guardrail. So, once again I had to pull the mattress off and put it in the floor for my daughter. Before going to bed, we repacked everything for the trip home. We stayed up pretty late, and before we went to bed I peeked out the window to make sure the car was still there.

Day 8, Saturday, October 14, 2000 – We woke up about 7 and finished packing up. I looked out the window, and for the first time since being in Scotland, there was not a cloud in the sky. We went down and had breakfast, and it was the worst breakfast that we had on the entire trip. The breakfast was paltry, and the mushrooms were from a can. They were cold and disgusting. We finished breakfast and left to go and tour the Edinburgh Castle.

We found a parking garage and walked a quarter of a mile up a hill to the entrance. The castle was built on top of the stump of an old volcano. It had steep cliffs on one side, and would have been very difficult to attack. We paid and went inside, where we received some earphones and a CD player so we could receive a guided tour. The way the CD player worked is that each time we came to a new section of the castle, there was a number associated with it. We could enter the number into the CD player and hear a narrative over that particular section. This system worked very well, and really helped bring the history of the castle alive for us. My son was not very impressed, but my daughter really liked it. We toured the defenses, the palace, the underground vaults, and the military prison. American prisoners from the War of Independence had been held in the prison over 200 years ago. We all found the castle thoroughly fascinating. Also, since the castle was up very high on the volcanic rock, we had a very good view for miles. We could see all of Edinburgh in front of us, and farther away the bay and the ocean. From that elevation it was really obvious that Edinburgh is in a really beautiful location, surrounded by hills.

We finally decided that we were running out of time, so we reluctantly left. My daughter really didn’t want to go, which is the first time she had ever acted like this way in a castle. That CD player had really helped her understand the things we were seeing. My son on the other hand, complained most of the way through and couldn’t wait to get out of there. At one point we were around a crowd of people, and he yelled, “I hate castles!” Everyone around started laughing.

We spent more time in the castle than we had intended. We had to head out to the airport by about 1, and it was 12 when we left the castle. We walked part of the way down the Royal Mile. The Royal Mile is a stretch of road built on top of an ancient lava flow, and runs between the castle and the Palace of Holyrood. This palace is the current royal residence in Edinburgh. My wife shopped a little and spent most of our remaining pounds, before we finally walked back to the car and headed to the airport.

We didn’t really have any problems finding our way out to the airport. Just as we pulled into the airport, I remembered that I had forgotten to fill the rental car up with gas. So, we had to drive back down the road about 3 miles to fill up. We finally got into the airport with less than an hour before our plane was scheduled to takeoff. We had a quick bite at the Burger King and then rushed to our gate just 20 minutes before takeoff. At that point, we found out that our plane was delayed by an hour.

Our flight home was uneventful, except that once again we had to deplane in Birmingham with all of our luggage only to get back on the same plane again. This was really irritating, because this time we didn’t even have to go through customs. We got off the plane with our luggage, hauled it up a flight of stairs, ran through a maze inside the airport, and then got right back on the plane. What this was supposed to accomplish, I have no idea.

We made it home (to a very cold house) the rest of the way without incident. The trip was great, despite the rain. We could have really used an extra day in Fort William, on the coast, and in Edinburgh. I was actually surprised at how beautiful Scotland was. I hadn’t imagined that a part of Great Britain had such large mountains.

Weekend Trip to Prague

2007-01-03T20:01:00.000-08:00

Nové Město District in Prague

Day 1, Sunday, October 1, 2000 – We had originally planned on leaving on Friday night, but the trains were completely booked up. There was a national holiday in Germany on the following Tuesday, and many people (like me) took a vacation day on Monday in order to have a 4-day weekend. There was a night train going to Prague on Saturday evening, so my wife, my daughter, my son, and I boarded at about 11 p.m. in Düsseldorf. We had a sleeping car, which was very small. There were 3 bunks stacked up. We put the kids on the bottom, my wife took the middle, and I climbed to the top. Neither my wife nor I got much sleep during the night, because the train was constantly stopping, starting, and turning. I got up once to check on the kids, and they had lost their blanket. It was very cold on the train, so I covered them back up. They never woke up though, until I heard my son making noise at about 6 a.m.

We all woke up and snacked a little in our cabin. We were traveling through eastern Germany, and were approaching the border to the Czech Republic. The countryside outside was very hilly, and the leaves were changing colors up on the hills. The eastern German cities looked much older than most western German cities. We saw quite a few of those ugly, old, Soviet style apartment buildings. We passed through the historic city of Dresden, where a devastating incident from World War II took place. Churchill, in retaliation for the bombing of British cities, ordered the firebombing of Dresden and literally burned it to the ground. Many civilians, mostly women and children fleeing the Soviet advance, were killed in the attack. I told the kids a little bit about this as we passed through. We could see very old burn marks and soot in various places.

As we neared the border, the Czech border police boarded the train and checked all of our passports. This gave us an excuse to tell my son that the police were looking for people who were being too loud. They were very tired of being cooped up in the train, and were getting a little loud and restless. For the most part, they colored and played on the top bunk, but it became increasingly hard to keep them entertained.

The Czech countryside reminded me of South Carolina. There were lots of really big hills, rock cliffs, lakes, rivers etc. The cars that I saw on the roads were junkers for the most part. Many of the houses we passed had small vegetable gardens behind them. The area looked pretty poverty stricken for the most part. Most of the areas we passed through looked like they hadn’t changed in 50 years. After passing through the Czech countryside for a couple of hours, we finally pulled into Prague.

In the train station, I exchanged just enough money to buy subway tickets. We rode the subway out to our hotel, and found it without any problems. Our hotel was the Hilton, which was a 5 star hotel. It was a very nice hotel; one of the nicest that we had ever stayed in. The only reason we stayed in such a nice place is that we had been warned about the lesser quality hotels in Prague.

We went to our rooms just long enough to drop our things and rest for a few minutes. Then, we went downstairs and looked around the hotel a little bit. We found a place where we could book a city tour, so I talked to the girl behind the counter for a few minutes. I asked her first about the tours, and then asked if she knew where a KFC was located, because the kids wanted to eat there. She pointed one out on a map, so we left and jumped back on the subway.

We rode the subway down to Wenceslas Square. We had to ride several escalators to get out of the subways. The Prague subway system was really deep underground; deeper than in any city I have ever been in. That may date back to the era of communism, when a nuclear attack from the U.S. was feared. When we finally came up to street level, we immediately saw the KFC, as well as a McDonald’s and Dunkin Donuts. We wandered around the square a little bit and looked at a few things. The National Museum, an enormous building, was at one end of the square. In front of the museum, there was a giant statue of Saint Wenceslas (yes, Good King Wenceslas, from the Christmas song). In front of that there was a memorial dedicated to Jan Palach. On that spot, in 1969, he committed suicide by setting himself on fire. He did this to protest the occupation of the Czech Republic (Czechoslovakia at that time) by the Soviet Union. I bet that about 1 second after he set himself on fire, when the pain hit him, he realized that it wasn’t such a good idea. But, the following month another guy did the same thing for the same reason at the exact spot.

Kids at Memorial to Jan Palach

We finished walking around the square and headed over to KFC for lunch. It was packed with people. It was very hard to understand the menu. Fortunately, the person working there spoke a little English and I was able to order. The Czech language has many letters that I have never seen in any other language. The sound of the language does not sound like any other language that I have heard. As far as the Czech people go, I found them to be not overly friendly, but not exactly unfriendly either.

We left the square and rode the subway out to Prague Castle. The castle, which dates back to the ninth century, sits on top of a big hill overlooking Prague. On the way up the hill, we passed a number of street vendors selling things. The prices were really unbelievable. You could buy a hamburger for $0.15. We saw some specials on restaurant menus listing meals for $1.00. Trinkets and paintings were being sold for a fraction of what we had seen them sell for in other countries. Overall, Prague definitely had the cheapest prices of any country we have seen.

We got to the top and had a spectacular view of Prague. From there, you could truly appreciate just how beautiful the city is. I had heard many people say that Prague is the most beautiful city in Europe; others said it is the 2nd most beautiful after Paris. Either way, it definitely ranks up there pretty high.

We entered the castle between two guards who were standing watch. The guards were just like those at Buckingham Palace – they stood stiffly and didn’t flinch. My son asked if they were real. I told him to watch them for a little while and let me know. He finally saw one blink and figured out that they were real people.

We worked our way through the medieval streets inside the castle complex. The castle was really like a small town. It was more like Mont. St. Michel in France than a traditional castle. We went inside a cathedral within the complex and saw some of the most stunning stained glass windows I have ever seen. The colors were incredibly rich and diverse.

We let the kids play a little bit inside a large square within the complex. We spotted a woman taking pictures of the kids as they played. Eventually, we worked our way out the opposite end of the castle, where an unusual incident happened. When we walked out, there were two more guards standing watch. We turned to look at them. Once again, they looked like statues. There was one directly in front of us, about 10 feet away. As we all looked at him, he started to tilt forward. As we watched in horror, he fell in front of us and hit his forehead on the concrete. His rifle fell right at my feet. If it had discharged, it would have hit one of us in the foot. He looked like a tree falling down. He didn’t collapse; he just fell forward very stiffly. His body was convulsing on the way down. His head made a very sickening thud when it hit the ground. We were the closest people to him, but I didn’t really know how to help him. I couldn’t say anything to him in his language. The other guard next to him never flinched during the entire episode. He didn’t even turn his head to look at the guy on the ground. Fortunately, there was a nun close by who rushed up to help. She got some water and put it on his forehead, which was bleeding badly. He started to regain coherence and sat up as the nun continued to put water on his head. Then, some moron tourist went and stood in his box in order to get a picture. This caused the guy to try to jump up and throw her out of his box, but the nun turned and told the woman to get out.

All the time, we all just watched the scene unfold. I had my video camera out, and I recorded the guy just a little bit after he sat back up. My daughter and my son both asked me what happened. I told them both that I guessed that he had been overcome by the heat. The sun had been beating down and I am sure his uniform was hot. Of course, he may have been sick as well. I told my boss about this incident when we got back, and he told me that it happens pretty frequently. He said he saw the same thing happen in Monte Carlo.

We finally left the castle and worked our way down the hill. Halfway down, we stopped and bought some ice cream from a very nice older woman. She spoke Czech nonstop to me, but I just smiled and nodded. We ate the ice cream outside, and my son made such a mess. He had ice cream from ear to ear and up to his elbows. After he was finished, we found a pay toilet where I got him cleaned up. The price to get into the bathroom was less than a penny.

By then, we were close to the Charles Bridge. This bridge was built in the 1300’s, and is the most familiar landmark in Prague. There are bridge towers on either end, and there are statues lining the sides of the bridge. It is a pedestrian only bridge, and there were vendors set up everywhere. Most of them were selling watercolor paintings. We looked at several, and bought one for $17. The kids were really getting tired, so I let my son climb up on my back as we continued across the bridge (which is very long). By the time we got to the other side, my son was falling asleep on my back. So, we sat down at the foot of a big statue and I let him sleep in my lap while my wife went in a store and shopped. Several people took pictures of us while he was sleeping on me.

When my wife was finished, I put my son on my back again and let him sleep a little more. It was only about 5 p.m., but the kids were really exhausted. We walked to a nearby subway station and rode back to the hotel. While the kids got cleaned up, I walked about a block to a gas station and loaded up on supplies – drinks, snacks, etc. I had so much stuff I could hardly carry it all, but the total cost was less than $3.

After I returned, my wife and the kids wanted to get something to eat. I wasn’t hungry, so my wife went down to a restaurant on the ground level to order something to bring back to the room. Our hotel windows opened up to the interior of the hotel. There was a huge atrium, and we could see my wife walking across the lobby from our 5th floor window. As my wife was walking, the kids starting yelling, “Hey Mom!” at her. My wife paused and looked around and then looked up and saw us. The lobby was full of people, and I could almost see my wife’s face turn red from there. My son looked at me and said, “Mom is a real cutie.” While we were there, he repeated this phrase several times, as well as “Isn’t that a beauty, Dad?” and “Earth to Dad, Earth to Dad.” I don’t know where he is hearing these things.

After we ate, and got the kids to bed, we got to watch some American movies that we had never seen. I had never used pay per view in a hotel before, but I knew that if we didn’t see these movies now it would probably be another year before we had a chance. We chose “Sleepy Hollow” the first night, and watched “Erin Brockovich” on the second night. These movies were of course by no means new, but they were new for us.

Day 2, Monday, October 2, 2000 – We woke up around 8:00. This was the longest my son had slept in probably a year. While my daughter continued to sleep, my son and I went out and explored the hotel. We found a large indoor swimming pool that would have been nice if we had brought swim trunks. We wandered outside and found that it was raining pretty hard. We had planned to roam the streets today, but it looked like we might have to modify our plans.

My daughter finally woke up after sleeping for 13 hours. That is probably the longest she has slept since she was a baby. I guess the kids were really worn out from the day before. She got dressed, and we rode the subway back down to Dunkin Donuts. We ordered too many donuts, and the kids couldn’t finish them. We decided that since it was raining, that we would go into the National Museum for a while. On the first Monday of every month admission is free. Today was that day. But, when we came out of Dunkin Donuts it had stopped raining. We decided to roam the streets for a while and hit the museum if it started raining again.

We worked our way through the Jewish quarter. This area had a tragic history during WW II. Hitler had rounded up the Jewish population and shipped them off to the concentration camps. The only reason he didn’t destroy the area, was because he wanted to preserve it as an “Exotic Museum of an Extinct Race” (his words). We walked past a couple of synagogues, which were not at all like I expected. They looked basically like large houses, in stark contrast to the lavish mosques and cathedrals that I have seen. We didn’t have time to visit them, and we didn’t think the kids would stand for it anyway. We wanted to explore the area a little more in depth, but we were afraid we wouldn’t have time to do everything we wanted. So, we left there and worked our way back to the Charles Bridge.

There was a large park across the Charles Bridge in an area that we hadn’t visited the day before. We had seen the park from the castle the day before. We walked across the bridge, and watched the artists and vendors setting up their displays after the rain. We were looking for someone to draw portraits of the kids, but those guys weren’t set up yet. We had seen a man doing portraits the day before, so we decided to try again in the afternoon.

We found the park at the base of a large hill. There was a funicular railway there, and we rode to the top. It was very pretty at the top of the hill. It was full of trees, and the leaves were turning color and falling. Someone had raked up a big pile of leaves, and my son ran through them before I could stop him. There were a number of buildings at the top, including a one-fifth-scale replica of the Eiffel tower and a small castle. Inside the castle, there was a mirror maze. I took the kids inside while my wife waited outside and read a book.

The mirror maze was lots of fun. It was hard to tell the difference between a real hallway and a mirror. Both kids kept walking into mirrors. We worked our way through the maze several times. Once, the kids started going through a little fast, and a woman came in to get on to them a little. She spoke to me first in Czech, and then switched to German when a blank look registered on my face. She told me, in German, that 3 people had broken mirrors by going too fast through the maze. She asked me to have the kids slow down.

When the kids finally had their fill of the maze, we walked into another room that had a huge, very detailed battle scene painted on the wall. The battle occurred in the 1600’s, and took place between the Swedes and Czechs on the Charles Bridge. This room connected to another room that was full of “funhouse” mirrors. By that, I mean they were the types of mirrors that make you seem tall or short, fat or skinny. The kids got a huge kick out of this. I took lots of video in that room. Once, I picked my daughter up and her legs appeared to be 10 feet long. Another time, she looked to be about 1 foot tall. My son opened his mouth facing one mirror and it looked like it was 3 feet from top to bottom. I was able to get in a position once where it looked like I had a Don King hairdo – around 2 feet of hair.

We left the castle and walked around at the top of the hill for a while before riding the train back down. My son started telling me that he needed to go to the bathroom, but I put him off as long as I could. We were trying to work our way to the Mala Strana, one of the most ancient quarters of the city, so that we could have lunch there. We finally made it to a small cafe just as my son was about to burst.

We sat outdoors and had a nice meal at the cafe. We had a variety of meats – chicken, ham, and steak – for a total of about $15. I thought the food was really good, except the steak did not taste quite like beef. It had a gamy flavor that reminded me a little of strong deer meat.

We left the cafe and headed back to the Charles Bridge. On the way, my wife shopped a little. The kids and I ate an ice cream cone while my wife went in some crystal shops. Once we made it to the bridge, we immediately spotted a young guy set up to do portraits. We looked at his displays, and then I walked to the other end of the bridge to see if anyone else was doing them. There were two other guys there, and they were both at work on portraits. I thought their work was comparable to that of the young guy, so I went back and we asked him how much he would charge for the two kids. He told us an amount that was equivalent to about $40 for both kids, so we agreed to let him do the portraits.

My son went first. He acted like he was having his teeth pulled. He frowned and squirmed and made faces. I had to kneel down next to him and tell him stories. He kept asking me to check and see if the guy was finished. He told me that he was very mad at my wife for making him do this. He would not relax, and had an angry look on his face the entire time. While all of this was going on, lots of people stopped to watch the guy work. My wife talked to several of them, including a couple from California.

He finally finished with my son, and then my daughter sat down. She was much more patient, and I entertained my son while the guy drew my daughter’s portrait. I thought he did a fair job, but I didn’t think either one of the kids was an excellent likeness. I also noticed later that he didn’t draw eyelashes on either one of the kids, which I thought was a little unusual.

We left with our portraits, and rode the subway back to Wenceslas Square. We bought a souvenir for my daughter, and then went back in and ate at KFC again. After we finished, we rode the subway further downtown than we had been before. We got out there and strolled around the central business district.

What we found in the business district literally made my wife sick. It was 6 p.m., and most of the businesses had closed. The items displayed in some of the windows were incredibly cheap. In one window, there were several antique cameos on display for about $30. In another, there was a set of crystal for not much more than that. But, these stores were closed, so my wife didn’t get to take advantage of the bargains.

We left the downtown area and rode the subway (which was standing room only) back to the hotel. The kids had been very good, so we all went back over to the gas station and let them pick out some toys. My son picked out a flying saucer and my daughter got a Barbie. We also bought water and snacks, and spent a grand total of $20. We left the gas station, went back to the hotel, and got the kids ready for bed. My wife and I watched “Erin Brockovich” while the kids slept. I thought the movie was good, but I get the impression that everyone thinks most chemical companies are like the portrayed one in the movie.

Day 3, Tuesday, October 3, 2000 – We woke up about 6:30 and started packing. The kids snacked on apples for breakfast. Our train was scheduled for a 9:18 departure, so we checked out of the hotel at about 8:20. At the checkout, the guy working there asked if I had a frequent flyer account that I would like to earn mileage on for our visit. I said yes, and he asked for the card. I told him I didn’t have it with me, but I knew the number. He said, “No, I must have the card. If I don’t, then you could just give me any number.” What this was supposed to mean, I have no idea, but he wouldn’t let me give him my number.

We rode the subway back down to the train station. Our journey today had 2 parts. The first part was a slow train from Prague to Berlin. In Berlin, we would switch to a bullet train for the trip on to Düsseldorf. We arrived at the Prague station about 40 minutes early, and I couldn’t understand the board well enough to figure out which track our train would be on. I finally figured out that it wasn’t posted yet. So, we just set our things out of the way and waited. I spent the last of the Czech money on M&M’s for the kids. (My wife had spent most of the remaining money the night before on crystal).

Finally, our train arrived and we entered our compartment. We had reserved 4 seats in a 6-seat compartment. There was a girl already in our compartment. She was an American, from California, backpacking her way through Europe. We shared travel stories with her. She was on her way to Berlin, and so she asked what to expect while she was in Germany. I asked her about Budapest, which is where she had been before Prague. She didn’t seem to be that enthusiastic about it. I had considered going sometime next year, but the more I learn about it, the more I think my time would be better spent elsewhere. She had also spent time in Scotland, so we asked her about her recommendations there.

The kids were pretty good on this portion of the trip. They were both trying to show off for the American girl, so they didn’t spend too much time fighting with each other. A Czech border patrol and a customs agent came back in and checked our passports before we left the Czech Republic. We later found out that we could have gotten the tax back on the purchases my wife made if we had gotten a stamp on our receipt from the customs agent. My wife had bought quite a bit of crystal, and the tax on it was about $25. Next time we will know.

When it was time for lunch, I took the kids down to the restaurant on the train. We sat down and ordered a couple of pizzas. While we waited (for about an hour) we passed through lots of countryside. By this time, we were back in Germany. We passed through Dresden again, and I quizzed the kids a little about what we had talked about earlier. A few minutes later, my son looked out the window and saw a big rubble pile. With Germans sitting all around us, my son asked me in a very loud voice, “Don’t you think Hitler caused all of this mess?” I wanted to crawl under the table, but it also made me laugh.

We ate our pizza (which was terrible) and went back to our compartment. There were several new people sitting in there. The American girl had been kicked out by someone with a child. Apparently, none of them had a reservation, but in a case like that, women with children can bump someone out of a compartment. While I was away, a woman came by and was checking tickets. We were told that our train was running 50 minutes late, and we might miss our connection in Berlin. (This was a Czech train; the German trains almost always run exactly on time). We were told to get off at an earlier Berlin stop in order to ensure that we made our connection. My wife had intended to eat lunch in Berlin, but we were not going to have time since our train was running late.

We approached Berlin from the south. This area was heavily forested with pine trees. I imagined the battles that had been fought in the area during the war. We first made a stop at the airport, and then stopped off at the east train station. We got off there and switched to our bullet train. I had been unable to book anything but a smoking car on the way back. We were hoping that the majority of the people in there were also nonsmokers who couldn’t get a seat in a smoking section. Although not many people got on at the east station, those who did started chain smoking as soon as they boarded. I didn’t understand why someone felt the need to light up the second they got on the train.

We made our way through Berlin, stopping at several train stations. Berlin was absolutely packed with people. Only later did it hit me that this was reunification day. It had been exactly 10 years ago on this date that East and West Germany were reunited. There were celebrations all over the country, but there were a huge number in Berlin.

At our last Berlin stop (the one at which we were originally supposed to change trains) a lot of people got on. The car was now packed, and everyone was smoking. My wife was already sick from having had no lunch, but now she was really feeling bad. So, we inhaled smoke for the next 4 hours. The train did travel very fast – about 150 mph at top speed. Heading east from Berlin, the area was heavily forested with hardwood trees. We passed through mostly farmland and countryside on the way back. Once, outside Hannover, I saw 2 deer running in a field. The kids kept themselves busy with their crayons. I studied the train route, and figured out that we could actually hop off one stop before Düsseldorf and get home almost an hour quicker. So, at Duisburg we got off and were able to breathe fresh air once again. We hopped on the subway, and were home in just a few minutes. Once we got home, we realized that my wife had left the watercolor in our hotel room. Fortunately, she was able to call and have it mailed to us a couple of days later.

Overall, the trip was nice, but too short. The kids even had a pretty good time. Prague is definitely the cheapest city that I have ever been in. We hope to make it back before we go back to the U.S. But, next time we will fly.

Austria, Italy, and Switzerland

2007-01-03T18:54:00.000-08:00

The following is a summary of a 6-day trip that I took with my Mom, my sister, my wife, and the kids to Austria, Italy, and Switzerland. During the trip, we drove 1500 miles.

Relaxing in Austria

Day 1, Saturday, June 17, 2000 – We left home at 8:11. I had thought about leaving very early, but we had decided against it. The traffic was horrible. Before we got to Cologne, we had a major traffic jam. We were basically stuck in a parking lot on the Autobahn. The stop and go traffic was starting to make the women carsick. We were at least half an hour getting through that jam, but about an hour later we hit another one and went through the same thing. Stop and go traffic for half an hour. I know that road construction is important, but I failed to see the need to reduce a three lane Autobahn down to one lane.

We stopped in southern Germany and had lunch at a Burger King. We let the kids play for a while in the outdoor playground. One family was letting their two-year old son play completely naked. My daughter and my son both ran up to tell me about it. I told them to just try and ignore it. I was really afraid he was going to pee on something, but they finally put his clothes back on him.

We continued south, going around Munich and then climbing into the Alps. We finally pulled into Salzburg, which is in Austria directly across the German border, at 5 p.m. The kids were miserable and ready to get out and run around. They have learned to hate these long drives, and guess I can understand that. For the rest of our time in Europe, I am going to try to minimize the amount of driving that we have to do.

We found our B&B, Haus Kernstock, pretty easily. There was a gate in front of the house, but no fence around the gate. There was a bell at the gate, but I wasn’t sure whether to ring the bell there or just step up to the front door and ring the doorbell. I chose to ring the bell at the gate, and an older woman yelled for me to come to the house. The owner was a very friendly, older Austrian woman. She spoke to me in German, and we discussed a couple of subjects before she showed us to our rooms. The views from our windows were really spectacular. We were surrounded by the Alps, and the entire countryside was very green.

After unloading the van, Mom and my sister called my attention to a puddle of water on the floor in their bathroom. It looked to me like the seal around the back of the toilet was leaking, so I went back down to tell the owner. This time, instead of ringing the bell at the gate, I just stepped around and walked to the front door. Since she had called me up to the door earlier, I thought that was what I was supposed to do. Wrong! The woman’s husband met me before I got to the door. He had an angry look on his face, and he was yelling at me in German. He was also drunk. He was saying, “What do you think you are doing? You don’t just walk up to someone’s door! What’s wrong with you? That’s not normal! That is just not normal!” I was slightly in shock. I couldn’t even come up with a good reply in German. The woman came out and asked what was wrong, and I told her about the toilet. She acted embarrassed over her husband’s actions. I think he thought I had just wandered in off the street. I don’t think he realized that I was staying there. He mumbled that he would come up and take a look at it.

When he came to the room, he started apologizing. He said that it was obvious that I thought I was supposed to ring the bell on the door, and that he had overreacted. He started trying to kid around with me. But, he didn’t want to fix the toilet. He thought the water came from the shower. I told him that nobody had taken a shower. Then, he suggested that it was condensation. He said he would wait until morning to look at it again, and he put a towel around the toilet. I told him what I thought it was, but he didn’t think so. He jokingly asked if I would be around to help him work on it the next morning.

After he left, Mom and I went to withdraw money and find a place to eat. Our B&B was near the airport, and we found a cash machine nearby. We didn’t have as much luck locating a place to eat. We started driving toward downtown Salzburg. There was never a good place to turn around, so we wound up driving all over Salzburg. It was really small for a major city. The crowds were really bad, though. We circled the city, and went back to the B&B. There was a Chinese restaurant not too far off, and we ended up eating there. The food was good, but the entire time we were eating, a little boy stood near our table and stared at us. He didn’t seem to be with anyone, so I assumed he had a parent working at the restaurant. When we finished, we went back to the B&B. My daughter and my son slept in the room with Mom and my sister, because their room was much larger.

Day 2, Sunday, June 18, 2000 – I woke up at 7:00. I had arranged for us to take two tours today. One was of the salt mines. The Salzburg area was a sea in prehistoric times, and there were lots of salt deposits there. The second tour that we would be taking was “The Sound of Music” tour. “The Sound of Music” movie had been set in Salzburg, and most of it was filmed there.

Breakfast at our B&B was toast with jelly. There was no orange juice either, so we drank tap water. A bus came by to pick us up at the B&B. We went to a place in central Salzburg, and then switched buses. We would tour the salt mines first. The salt mines were actually across the border in Germany, although we drove along a different route than we had taken the day before. The scenery was really beautiful. There were trees and mountains everywhere. All of the meadows were deep green. We passed Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest, which was his mountain hideaway during the war. After driving for half an hour or so, we came to the entrance to the salt mines, high in the mountains.

We first had to change into miner’s clothes. This was part of the overall experience, but was also to keep us from getting dirty. We all got on a train, and rode deep into the mountain. We took a couple of long, steep, wooden slides deeper underground. The kids really enjoyed it, and I thought it was pretty fun, too. We saw a number of exhibits related to the salt mining operation. Finally, we took a boat ride on an underground salt lake. On the opposite shore, a stream from the lake ran through a basin. Our tour guide told us we could stick our fingers in there and taste the saltiness of the lake. I was horrified to see person after person step up, stick their fingers in the water, and taste it. They might as well have gone around and stuck their fingers in each other’s mouths. One kid, about 10-years old, spit back into the water. Hardly anyone else saw him, but I did. Needless to say, I passed on the opportunity to taste the water.

After we finished the tour, we rode the train back out of the mountain and left the salt mine. We took the tour bus up high on the mountain, very close to where Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest was located. I say “was”, because it was bombed to oblivion during the war. We stopped in the area for a while to look around and shop at a few tourist shops and then took the bus into the town of Berchtesgaden. We stopped for a while and had a little time to eat lunch. We all grabbed a bratwurst and fries at a snack stand. We ate next to a cemetery, and after we ate, the kids wanted to go into the cemetery. For some reason, they love cemeteries. There is one near our house, and they love to go into it. While we were walking in the cemetery, a man heard the kids speaking English. He asked if I was on a tour, and I told him yes, but that I lived in Germany. He told me that he was from Tulsa, and that he was on a tour with a group from Oklahoma. I told him that I was also from Oklahoma. A woman nearby came over and introduced herself. She said that she was Linda Smith, and she was there with her husband Beauford, who was on the bus. She told me that they owned Ace Hardware in Shawnee, and would love to have us come visit them if we are in the area. By that time, their tour guide was calling to them to board the bus. We watched them get on, and in the front of the bus there was a big sign that said, “Tulsa, Oklahoma”. Several people on the bus waved at us, and we waved back.

My Son at the Biergarten

We drove back into Salzburg and switched buses for “The Sound of Music” tour. Most of the people on the bus were women. The tour guide was a man from Australia. It was a pretty warm day, and someone on the bus asked if the A/C could be turned up. He then went into a tirade about spoiled Americans, and how we were ruining the environment. While some of his remarks were true for many Americans, I think he should have kept his mouth shut. He offended a number of people on the tour.

We took the bus to various locations where the movie was shot. While on the bus, we listened to music from the movie and people sang. There was a group of young girls behind me with really good voices. Their mother apologized to me for how loud they were singing, but I told her that it didn’t bother me at all.

On the Sound of Music Tour

We stopped by the lake where the house was located in the movie. I noticed that the men on the tour would tend to congregate together and not really listen to the tour guide. I saw a girl there with a Texas A&M shirt on, and I asked her if she went to school there. She said that she had just graduated, and was there with a friend who had also just graduated from A&M. While the tour guide was talking about the house, My son spent his time throwing rocks into the water. I kept telling him to stop, but he wouldn’t. When we left the lake, he was really complaining. I think he felt like he was being tortured on this tour. My daughter was enjoying it, but my son really hated it. I asked him once if he was having fun, and he yelled, “NO!”

We drove out into the country on our way to visit the church from the wedding scene. The scenery was again spectacular. We were near a lake called Fuschlsee when we stopped at a summer toboggan run. My son and I rode one toboggan while my wife and my daughter rode another. We hooked onto a cable, sort of like a ski lift, which carried us backward up the mountain while we were seated on the toboggan. I saw several deer in the distance as we went up the mountain. The view while traveling up the mountain was fantastic. Then, at the top, we got off, placed our toboggan on the track and rode down the mountain. The man operating the track at the top told us to be sure and use our brakes, but my son and I went flying down the mountain. We were going to try to ride down without using the brakes, but we caught up to the person in front of us and had to slow down. We really had a blast, and intend to do this again soon.

When we finished the ride, we boarded the bus and drove down to the lake. There were little shops all around the lake. I ate ice cream with the kids on the boardwalk while the women shopped. There were sailboats all over the lake. The setting for the lake was one of the most spectacular I have ever seen. Mountains surrounded it on every side. After about 20 minutes, we went back to the bus to continue on toward the church. During the drive, we noticed my daughter picking at her eyebrows, and we saw that she had almost plucked out an entire eyebrow. My wife was furious with her, but I couldn’t help but laugh. She looked so funny. When we asked her why she did it, she said that she was plucking them and then blowing them into the air. “It was fun”, she said.

We went and visited the church, which was pretty interesting, and then drove back into town. I guess this tour would have meant a little more to me if I had actually seen the movie. I have started watching it a couple of times, but I have never finished it. On the way into town, we found out that the buses would not take us back to our hotels, so we would have to figure out a way back. We stopped near Mirabel Gardens, which are prominently featured in the movie. We walked around the gardens, and took a picture of the kids at the Pegasus fountain. We walked the length of the garden, and when we came out we found a taxi stand. There was not a taxi big enough to take all of us, so we split into two taxis and rode back to our B&B. We were all exhausted, but Mom and I got back out and drove down to McDonald’s to get food for everyone. After we finished eating, we all went on to bed. We would drive to Venice in the morning.

Day 3, Monday, June 19, 2000 – We woke up and had toast again for breakfast. When we checked out, the bill was 3,300 shillings. This was about $250, which is more than I remembered being quoted. But, I didn’t have her quote with me. Next time, I will always carry this information with me. A B&B for 4 adults and 2 children for 2 nights shouldn’t have been much over $150.

We left at 8:30, and started to cross the Alps. The scenery was just incredible. My sister took so many pictures out the window. We saw a lot of people on some of the steep hills cutting hay by hand. We saw a several tiny villages high up on mountainsides. I remember thinking that Austria was possibly more beautiful than Switzerland. We went through some very long tunnels, and the women started to get carsick due to the exhaust smell. Mom had some lemon scent that alleviated the feeling when placed under the nose. We stopped right at the Italian border to spend the rest of our Austrian money. Mom bought the kids a couple of things, and my sister bought a few souvenirs.

The kids were really tired of being cooped up in the van, and my son started to really act up. He had been staying up too late, and eating a lot of sweets, too. He threw a terrible fit on the Italian Autobahn, and I had to pull over and deal with him. He was totally out of control, and it took a little while to settle him down. We have really got to get the kids a Gameboy or something to entertain them on these trips.

After crossing into Italy, we began our search for an ATM. We stopped at several places that advertised currency exchange, but every one of them wanted a 4 or 5% commission. We reached the mainland near Venice much sooner than I expected, so I pulled off the highway into a small town to search for an ATM. Finally, in a remote location in a tiny town, we found one. I withdrew 300,000 Lira ($150) and Mom pulled out some money as well. We drove across the long bridge into Venice, and then parked at a large parking garage. We had to drive all the way to the roof on the 10th floor before we found a place to park. We had a great view of Venice from that height, though.

We gathered up our things, and then I bought a 24-hour pass for the water taxi. We rode the water taxi to the stop near our hotel. Although we had a map, I had a terrible time finding our hotel (The Hotel Bartolomeo). I told the others to stay put, and I went off in search of it by myself. I finally found it down a twisting, turning, dead end street, so I went back to get the others. We checked in, and went to our rooms. There was a limit of 3 people to a room. Mom, my sister, and my daughter were on the 3rd floor, and my wife, my son, and I were on the 5th floor. There was no elevator.

I think it is an understatement to say this place was a dump. There was mildew on the shower curtain and paint was coming off the walls. One of the wall sockets in our room was missing, and someone had stuffed toilet paper in there. Underneath the beds, the floor was filthy. The view out our window was of a decaying rooftop. The place had advertised that it had A/C, but the air that it blew out was lukewarm. On top of that, our room was full of mosquitoes. This was definitely the worst place that I have ever stayed at.

If I had encountered this situation in the U.S., then I would have complained and we would have left. But, Venice is a different story. Venice stays booked up almost year-round. When I began searching for a hotel room about 2 months prior to our visit, I couldn’t find one. I did find one 4 star hotel available for $500 a night for each room. I decided to pass on that, and went to a travel agent. The travel agent found this hotel for us. She told us that it would be fine. It was only a 2-star, which is normally O.K. in Europe. It cost a little over $500 for the two rooms for two nights, but I couldn’t find a better deal. So, I took it. I had to pay the money up front, two months in advance, with no chance of refund. This is how they do business in Venice. They do it because they can get away with it. Actually I could have gotten a partial refund up to about a week before our trip, but after that there was no refund. So, I knew that we were stuck with this place.

We left the hotel as soon as we could to go explore Venice. We started walking down the narrow, winding streets to work our way to St. Mark’s Square. On the way, we stopped at a pizzeria to eat. The prices on the menu outside were reasonable. We sat down to eat, and had a few pizzas. We also had four cans of coke. When the bill came, I couldn’t believe it. He had charged us $5 each for four cans of coke. They were almost as much as the pizza and pretty much doubled our bill. But, the owner had conveniently disappeared. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. The prices for the cokes were not on the menu, so it was our problem for not asking.

After eating, we continued toward the square. My sister and Mom were surprised at how dirty Venice was. Venice is dirty, and the canals are a little smelly and dirty looking, but Venice has charm. It is certainly one of the most interesting cities in Europe, and has something to offer that few others do. There are a couple of other European cities, Amsterdam and Brugges, Belgium, which have canals. But, there are not nearly as many as in Venice. Venice was basically built up out of the water, and there are no cars at all except for those parking right at the edge of the island. The streets are narrow, winding, and very confusing. It is very easy to get lost. And, there are hordes of tourists everywhere.

We stopped and ate ice cream before we got to the square. I don’t know why, but Italians make the best ice cream in Europe. It tastes just like homemade, and comes in a wide variety of flavors. They had lemon, kiwi, banana, white chocolate, peach, cherry, pineapple, coconut, and mixed berry, in addition to the more traditional flavors.

As we were walking into the square, I told Mom to prepare to be stunned. St. Mark’s basilica is a beautiful church, which supposedly holds the bones of Mark, from the Bible. There is also a very tall bell tower in the square, and of course thousands of pigeons. The square is the heart of Venice, and is of course therefore packed with tourists. But, it is one of the most beautiful squares in all of Europe. There are fantastic examples of architecture everywhere. My sister and Mom took some pictures, and we bought some food so the kids could feed the pigeons. I looked down once to see that my daughter had caught a pigeon and was holding it by the wings. After they were finished, we walked over to the water, watched the artists paint, and looked at their paintings.

By this time, it was getting a little late so we caught the water taxi back to the hotel. We decided we should buy bottled water, because we were not going to drink the water in our rooms. We got some water, and when I handed the man my money he started studying it. He told me that it was counterfeit. He tried to say that the colors were not right, and asked to see my other bills. I started to get suspicious that he was trying to get my money, so I kept a close eye on him. He found a bill that he would accept, and told me that I needed to go exchange the counterfeit bill at the bank. I could tell absolutely no difference in the bill, so I stepped into another shop and bought more water with it. I had no problems there. When we got back to our rooms, they were really hot and stuffy. We opened up the windows and fell asleep with them open.

Day 4, Tuesday, June 20, 2000 – Our plan for today was to take a water taxi out to the island of Murano, where almost all of the glass blowing for Venice takes place. They moved the operation out there to avoid a fire that might burn Venice to the ground. So, we had breakfast in the hotel. All we had to eat was bread and a little orange juice. We got to the water taxi about 9:00, and it was packed. We took the taxi for a little while, and then got off and switched to a smaller taxi for the trip out to the island. One of the stops before we got to Murano was at the cemetery. The Venice cemetery is an island in the middle of the water that contains the cemetery and a church. If we had a little more time, I would have wanted to get off there and look around, but we continued on.

When we got to Murano, it was almost completely deserted. It was like Venice, but with no tourists. All of the shops and canals were there, but the streets were empty. I entertained the kids for a while and the women shopped a little. The number of different things made of glass was just incredible. We actually got to watch a couple of people working the glass in some of the shops.

While we were walking around, my son had to go to the bathroom. One complaint that I have about Venice is that there are no bathrooms anywhere. The same held true for Murano. There was not a bathroom in sight. I finally took my son down a dead-end street and let him pee in a corner. When he was finished, I looked up to see a couple of guys working high up on a bell tower. They had been watching us, and they were laughing.

We continued to wander the streets. The women stepped into several stores, but I kept my daughter and my son outside. I was afraid they would break something. Once, we just stood on one of the bridges and watched the boats go by. Another time, we hid when my wife came out of a shop. That kept the kids entertained, so we continued to do that. Eventually, we found a restaurant and had a nice lunch outdoors.

After lunch, we caught the water taxi back into town. We got off at a small park in Venice that we had been to once before. There was a slide and some swings for the kids to play on. The park was packed with Gypsy kids. There were no adults with them, and they had sacks of something with them. I figured they were probably things stolen from tourists. There were a couple of shady characters sitting on a bench in the park. There was a man and woman who were really studying everyone that came in. They were looking closely at people’s bags. They both had cell phones, and would look around and make a phone call occasionally. They looked very suspicious.

Most of the Gypsies were girls, but there was one boy with them who was just dominating the slide. He wouldn’t let anyone else slide. Every time someone would try, he ran up the slide. Finally my wife went over and said something to him, and he left the slide. A few minutes later, a police whistle sounded and the Gypsies all grabbed their sacks and scattered.

After the kids played for a while, we left and caught the water taxi back to St. Mark’s. We took the long way around, and my son fell asleep in my lap. It took about 30 minutes to arrive, and my son was still asleep. I put him on by back to carry him off the boat. He was still asleep, but when the sun hit his face he woke up. He looked at me and said, “I’m back”. I asked where he had been, but he didn’t answer.

The first thing we did was get more ice cream. After we had finished eating it, I took the kids back to the square to feed the pigeons while my wife, Mom, and my sister shopped. While the kids were feeding the pigeons, several people came up and took pictures of them or videotaped them. I realized that I was pretty sunburned from the day before, so I tried to stay out of the sun as much as possible. The women finally came back, and my wife wanted to buy a painting. They all walked over to the paintings while I remained in the square with the kids. When they walked off, I saw a girl come up and start talking to them. They later told me that she was lost, and couldn’t find her hotel. I told them they should have sent her to me, because I had a map and could have probably helped her.

My wife bought a painting, and then we started walking back over to our hotel. The women had to stop in several shops along the way and shop. The kids (and me) were getting very bored, so I had to play games with them. While the women shopped, we explored streets that came to dead ends at canals. We also walked down into some residential areas. We would pretend that we were hiding from the women. While we were playing, I heard a British woman who was walking past say, “I just don’t know where all my money went today.” I told my wife that was what she, Mom, and my sister were probably saying to each other.

We stopped in a pizza place to grab a bite. This time, we didn’t pay $5 each for drinks. The bill was reasonable, and the food was good. After eating, we let the kids have a little more ice cream one last time, before walking back to the hotel and packing up.

Day 5, Wednesday, June 21, 2000 – We skipped breakfast and got an early start. We had a lot of luggage, and didn’t want to ride on a packed water taxi. Our 24-hour pass had expired, and there was nobody at the ticket counter. Since our tickets had never been checked before, I figured we were probably safe to ride without tickets. I was wrong. There were few people on the boat, and a guy came around checking tickets. I tried to talk to him, but he didn’t speak English. He called for another man, and I explained our situation. He tried to say that there had been someone at the ticket counter, but I told him that this was not true. I showed him our pass from the day before just so he would know that we had been paying for our rides. I asked him if we could buy tickets from him. There was a sign up that said there was a 26,000 Lira ($13) fine for riding without a ticket, and I was afraid he was going to nail us for $13 each. But, he sold me the tickets, and I was out only $12 total.

When we got out on the road, we made very good time. The countryside between Venice and Milan was not very interesting. There were some mountains in the distance, but it was mostly just farmland. There was also a thick haze in the air, which finally disappeared about an hour outside of Venice. Traffic was heavy around Milan, but we slowly worked our way through and turned north toward Switzerland. Once again, we stopped at a gas station at the border and spent our remaining Italian Lira.

We crossed into Switzerland and climbed back up into the Alps. We stopped high in the mountains near the Gotthard tunnel, exchanged money, ate lunch, and gassed up the van. There were a couple of different options for getting to Interlaken. One was on the Autobahn all the way, and the other was a high mountain pass, called Sustenpass. We decided to go with the mountain pass because it was much shorter than the Autobahn route and it looked to be more scenic.

We first passed through the very long Gotthard tunnel, which I think is about 10 or 12 miles long. After emerging from the tunnel, we turned off the main road and headed up high into the mountains. In retrospect, it was one of the best things we did on the trip. The scenery was just stunning. Every mile was like the pictures on a postcard. We stopped along the road and took lots of pictures. And this was just a drop in the bucket compared to the scenery we were about to encounter. We climbed higher and higher into the mountains. At one point, we pulled over and hiked about a mile to some snow. There was a raging creek flowing from under the melting snow. The mountains were towering all around us. In all of Europe, the only thing I had ever seen to compare to this was Norway. I told Mom to look at this scene and memorize it, because she might never see a view like that again. All around us were huge mountains, waterfalls, roaring streams, wildflowers, and snow at the higher elevations.

After we reached the snow, we played for a few minutes and headed back to the van. I noticed that we were all getting sunburns on top of our sunburns. My son was tired, so I had to carry him on my back. Fortunately, it was downhill almost all the way back. He had told me he was tired climbing up the hill, but I told him he couldn’t play in the snow if I had to carry him. So, he walked. We got back to the van, and continued higher into the mountains. The road was pretty narrow and winding, and there was almost a sheer drop off the edge of the road, so I had to pay close attention. I couldn’t focus on the scenery very well, but what I could see was incredible. We finally drove through the pass at a very high elevation. There was a huge amount of snow and a parking lot there, so we decided to get out and play. We all had a snowball fight.

I noticed that it was getting pretty late, so we loaded back up in the van and descended the mountain. We stopped at a little grocery store at the base of the mountain and ate ice cream outside. The mountains surrounding us were almost sheer rock, and they were towering over us. We finished the ice cream and continued toward Interlaken. We drove past Brienzersee, which is a very large, turquoise colored lake. All of the lakes and streams in the area were this color, due to the minerals in the water. The name Interlaken, means “between the lakes”, and Brienzersee is one of the lakes bordering Interlaken.

We found our hotel, Hotel Alphorn, pretty easily. It was right at the edge of town. By the time we arrived, my son was really acting up. I had gone to check in while the others prepared to unload the van, and when I came back to the van he was really throwing a fit. I just grabbed him out of the van and took him up to our room to settle him down, but it took a while.

Our rooms were very nice and clean. They were a welcome change from Venice. Mom and my sister had one room, and my wife and I shared a room with the kids. We actually had adjoining rooms, and the kids got to sleep in a room by themselves. The rooms had very nice hardwood floors, and we had a great view of the Swiss Alps out the window.

We left the hotel and wandered downtown to eat. We stopped in a number of shops and looked at Swiss watches, knives, and beer steins. Interlaken was a pretty neat little town, and it was full of Americans. I think more than half the people we saw on the streets were Americans. We stopped in McDonald’s to eat. After we ate, I let the kids play while the women shopped. Mom and my sister bought Swiss watches, and my wife bought a really nice-looking beer stein.

I took the kids back to the hotel while the women continued to shop. As always, my son got tired and had to be carried on my back. When we got to the hotel, there was an older Canadian couple sitting at a table outside the hotel. The woman looked at my son and asked, “Are you a lazy boy?” I told her no, that he had just walked a lot that day. I talked to them for a little while. They were from Edmonton, and were traveling by train around Switzerland. They made some recommendations to me regarding sights to see in Interlaken.

I took the kids back up to the room and let them play until the women got back. I spent this time trying to plot out our plans for the next day. I had planned to take an early morning train up to the Jungfrau, which is a spectacular mountain peak. There is a glacier up there, and you can actually tour an ice palace. But, the train was sold-out all day long except for 6:35 a.m. and nobody wanted to go that early. I almost decided to go alone, but I knew that it would take up at least half a day. Finally, I decided on a different plan, and then we all went to bed. We all slept very soundly on this night.

Day 6, Thursday, June 22, 2000 – My son woke up at 7 in a foul mood. The kids had stayed up until about 10 p.m., so they didn’t get enough sleep. The kids watched Teletubbies in French. The language in Switzerland is predominately German, but there are also areas that speak almost entirely French or Italian. The TV programs reflect this, as you will find all of these languages well represented.

We had bread and orange juice for breakfast, and then Mom and my sister went shopping. We were going to meet again at 1 p.m. to possibly go tour some caves. I was planning to go with my wife and the kids up to the top of a mountain that had a restaurant and playground. The mountain is called The Harder Kulm, and had been recommended several times.

We walked down to the train station, and then took the train from the Interlaken West train station over to the Interlaken East station. From there, we walked across a river to a cog railway station. We bought round trip tickets that included lunch at the mountaintop restaurant. We rode the train up a very steep track. The view was really spectacular. We could see Interlaken below, flanked by the two turquoise lakes. Directly across from us were several 12,000-foot mountains. At the top, we got off the train and continued another couple hundred yards to the top on foot.

We reached the restaurant and sat at a table outside. We had a pretty good view in every direction. We had Interlaken, the lakes, and the mountains in front of us, and behind us we had some very tall green hills which were intermittently dotted with houses. On a slope above the restaurant was a playground with a long, winding slide. The kids had lots of fun on this. We stayed up there a couple of hours, ate lunch, and let the kids play before we descended the mountain.

We arrived back at the train station at 1:00, but the next train back to the west train station was not until 1:32. Everyone was tired, so we paid $10 for a 10-minute cab ride back to the hotel. By this time it was 1:15, and we were supposed to meet Mom and my sister at 1. They were not at the hotel. I let my wife and the kids go to sleep in the hotel room while I went out and walked around. I met Mom and my sister coming back from town, and told them that everyone else was sleeping. We walked down to a nearby grocery store to look around and kill some time. After that, they went back to the hotel, but I continued to just walk around and kill time. My wife and the kids finally got up around 4. When they were getting ready, my son tripped on an electrical cord in the room and busted his lip. A fan came crashing down on top of him, too. I think it scared him worse than it hurt him.

We had two options at this point. We could either go tour some caves, or go up another mountain near our hotel. There was a small children’s park up there, and it had been recommended by the woman at the front desk of our hotel. So, we decided to go up the mountain, which was called the Heimwehfluh. We walked through a residential neighborhood to reach the mountain. The neighborhood was pristine. Almost every single yard had vegetable and flower gardens. From the outside, all of the houses were all very clean and well taken care of.

We got to the mountain, and had to take another train up. We paid $30 and took a train up at 4:30. When we reached the top, I saw a sign that said that the last train of the day would go back down the mountain at 5:30. I was really upset about that, because I had planned to stay at least 2 hours up there.

There were a lot of things to do at the top. There was another long winding slide, and a toboggan run. There was also a pretty nice playground with a merry-go-round and a giant version of what I would call a hamster’s exercise wheel. I had never seen one of these for adults, but my daughter and I got on it together and ran. She loved it. There were also bumper cars, and the kids rode these several times. My son was too young to ride the toboggan, so I decided to ride it and see if it would be O.K. for my daughter. It was very rough and jerky. I can’t believe they let six-year old kids ride that thing. I thought I was going to dislocate something by the time the ride finished.

By this time, we only had about 20 minutes left. I noticed a cable hidden in the trees with a seat attached to it via a pulley. The cable was about 50 yards long, and one end was quite a bit higher than the other end. I recognized this as a something the kids could get on and ride, because there is one at a playground near our house. Apparently, nobody else had noticed it, because it had not been played with the entire time we were up there. I walked over to it, and started letting the kids take turns riding. I guess it looked like a lot of fun (it was!) because within a few minutes there was a long line of kids waiting to play on it.

At this point, it was time for the 5:30 train to leave. We rode the train back down, and walked back to McDonald’s for dinner. After dinner, we walked along the river for a while before going back to our hotel and preparing for the trip home.

Day 7, Friday, June 23, 2000 – We left Interlaken at 7:57. Our plan was to drive to the Black Forest in Germany, buy cuckoo clocks and other souvenirs, and then head on home. We drove along the Thunnersee, which is the other beautiful lake next to Interlaken. The scenery after we left Interlaken was not as spectacular, because we started to descend from the Alps. We drove through Bern, and then stopped near the border at Basel and spent our remaining Swiss Francs.

I missed our turnoff into the Black Forest, which came up right after we crossed the border into Germany. So, we drove to Freiburg and drove in from there. It took us forever to clear Freiburg, and then when we were actually driving through the Black Forest on a small, winding road we encountered a traffic jam. The traffic was completely stopped. We sat there for over half an hour before we finally started moving and saw what had been blocking traffic. A semi had rounded a sharp corner and turned over. There was a sign at the corner warning of the danger, but he must not have slowed down enough. After that, we made pretty good time into Triberg, which is in the heart of the Black Forest.

We stopped and had Chinese food for lunch, and then started looking for clocks. We stopped first at the House of 1000 Clocks. They had everything you could imagine – cuckoo clocks, grandfather clocks, beer steins, and lots of carved wood items. We found one we liked, but decided to go to some other places to compare prices. We stopped off at one place that was in the Guinness Book of Records for having the world’s largest cuckoo clock. We watched it cuckoo, but it was a little disappointing.

We shopped some in downtown, and we all had ice cream. Triberg was a neat town. It was a little hilly, and the hills and trees of the Black Forest surrounded the town. The Black Forest itself was pretty, but as my sister said it just looked like the area around Broken Bow, Oklahoma. There was some sort of biker convention going on in Triberg, and the town was full of huge, 3-wheeled choppers. Once, when we were trying to park in a parking lot, they were blocking the entrance. They just sat there for about five minutes and made us wait while they took their time getting out of the way. Mom bought a clock in town, but we went back to the House of 1000 Clocks to get ours, as did my sister.

After that, we continued home. We left about 4:30, and it took us about 5 hours to get home. We were all worn out, but we had survived another memorable trip.