Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Day 6 Riding the Rails to Munich
Day 5, The round about way to Bavaria
Day 4, My first foray into France
This day started again with an enormous spread for breakfast, and more apfelkuchen. Then we jumped in the car to go to country number three, a day trip over to Colmar France. What should you know about Colmar.
1. It's Beautiful and well preserved, it is crawling with old Europe style.
2. The Gluhwein (Vin Chaud if you're a local) is terrible, it's sickeningly sweet.
3. They recover from that by being in capital of Alsace, and therefore have plenty of delicious wine to drink that has not been warmed and sweetened.
4. The food is delicious, we had this flat bread pizza kind of thing, that I would still go back to get tomorrow if I could.
5. It's the orignal home of Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi
6. I desperately want to go back, do drink wine and eat.
We had a blast in Colmar, and then returned once more to Auggen where we went out for a delicious traditional meal I had a wurst salat, which is basically an excuse to call a julienned bratwurst a salad. It is as you can imagine not very healthy. We then headed back to our comfortable room for a good solid night's sleep to get ready to get back on the road the next day.
1. It's Beautiful and well preserved, it is crawling with old Europe style.
2. The Gluhwein (Vin Chaud if you're a local) is terrible, it's sickeningly sweet.
3. They recover from that by being in capital of Alsace, and therefore have plenty of delicious wine to drink that has not been warmed and sweetened.
4. The food is delicious, we had this flat bread pizza kind of thing, that I would still go back to get tomorrow if I could.
5. It's the orignal home of Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi
6. I desperately want to go back, do drink wine and eat.
We had a blast in Colmar, and then returned once more to Auggen where we went out for a delicious traditional meal I had a wurst salat, which is basically an excuse to call a julienned bratwurst a salad. It is as you can imagine not very healthy. We then headed back to our comfortable room for a good solid night's sleep to get ready to get back on the road the next day.
Day 3 On to Frieburg
Basel Day 2
A Mid-winter Border Crossing Bananza
Saturday, February 26, 2011
A rare school night out on the town
This week I managed to get out on Wednesday night and catch a really great band you've probably not yet heard of, The Coronas. The operative word there is yet, because these guys are big in Ireland already and are likely to take the US by storm sooner rather than later. Plus it didn't hurt that we are friends of friends, so despite my skepticism going in we saw them put on a really great show. We Caught the San Francisco Leg of their current US tour where they played the venerable Slim's, a San Francisco classic for live shows. We also managed to find another SF staple, Crepes a Go Go, and then wandered our way across the street for one more at Bar Agricole, a place I'd be interested in going back to visit when it's nice in the city, since they have a nice outdoor area. We were the cool kids hanging out with the band, until I needed to catch the last train to the east bay and go to work in the morning.
The Rest of the Coronas' tour is here, when they're in your city, drop what you're doing and go see them.
18th - The High Dive, Seattle, WA
19th - Biltmore Cabaret, Vancouver B.C. Canada
22th - Blue Lamp, Sacramento, CA
23rd - Slim's, San Fransisco, CA
25th - Hotel Cafe, Los Angeles, CA
26th - The Casbah, San Diego, CA
4th - Blueberry Hill, St. Louis, MO
5th - 3rd & Lindsey, Nashville, TN
6th - Smith's Olde Bar, Atlanta, GA
8th - The Red Palace, Washington D.C.
10th - Brighton Music Hall, Allston, MA
11th - The Craic @ Mercury Lounge, New York, NY
12th - North Star Bar, Philadelphia, PA
15th - Beachland Ballroom & Tavern, Cleveland, OH
17th - Lincoln Hall, Chicago, IL
The Rest of the Coronas' tour is here, when they're in your city, drop what you're doing and go see them.
February
17th - Doug Fir Lounge, Portland, OR18th - The High Dive, Seattle, WA
19th - Biltmore Cabaret, Vancouver B.C. Canada
22th - Blue Lamp, Sacramento, CA
23rd - Slim's, San Fransisco, CA
25th - Hotel Cafe, Los Angeles, CA
26th - The Casbah, San Diego, CA
March
1st - Larimer Lounge, Denver, CO4th - Blueberry Hill, St. Louis, MO
5th - 3rd & Lindsey, Nashville, TN
6th - Smith's Olde Bar, Atlanta, GA
8th - The Red Palace, Washington D.C.
10th - Brighton Music Hall, Allston, MA
11th - The Craic @ Mercury Lounge, New York, NY
12th - North Star Bar, Philadelphia, PA
15th - Beachland Ballroom & Tavern, Cleveland, OH
17th - Lincoln Hall, Chicago, IL
Monday, February 21, 2011
Whoa Double Post? Another Sad loss requires it
I know 2 posts in One day is insane production from me, but I am moved by the partial destruction of one of my favorite churches, the cathedral at Christchurch NZ . The Wiki moves fast, it already has an updated pic.The Story is here, Via The Daily What
A Cautionary Tale About Falling In Love With a Phone
On Friday, just when I was starting to lose all hope for humanity I found out about Tide for Toomer’s a site dedicated to rational thought and mutual disgust for the act that has the Toomer’s Oaks clinging to life. Then I went to lunch, and accidentally left my phone sitting on my desk once again shattering my faith in society. Sometime during lunch I thought about my phone, and decided it would probably be fine sitting there, no big deal. The trouble is it wasn’t there when I got back. I figured I probably just left it someplace I’d been that morning, so I checked the only three places I’d been; the cafeteria, the bathroom, and a co workers office. I then went to the mobile.me website to see where my phone was, good news, it was still on campus at work, and perhaps I’d left it someplace and someone picked it up. Unfortunately it then sped up and got on the freeway. I called my company’s security team and reported it stolen, and they seemed mostly uninterested; recommending I file a police report. While waiting for the officer to arrive I took one more look at where the phone was. It had stopped at a house. I snapped a screenshot and hoped for the best from the police. It doesn’t appear that they’ll be much either, as a phone gps location is a long way from a search warrant, so I basically have nothing except the approximate location of where my phone last pinged the network Friday afternoon. It wouldn’t be so bad if the cost of replacement were lower. But 6 months ago when I got the phone I signed a new contract. I can pay early to “upgrade” (getting back the same phone) but it means renewing a contract with a phone company I hate, and basically locking my self out of the next upgrade when my phone undoubtedly goes through its next iteration this year. Or I can pay the no contract price, which approaches what I paid for a BCS Championship game ticket. So for now, I have no phone at all. Not cool random co-worker. Not cool at all. Quoth the Great Philosopher Ceelo Green “I see you driving ‘round town with the phone I love and I’m like F**** you ooo ooo ooo oooo. I guess the phone in your pocket wasn’t enough”. Aint that some Shhhh indeed! Speaking of Ceelo Green; I was a fan way back in 1995 when I first heard the Goodie Mob’s Cell Therapy( I still have that CD somewhere I think). The Hip hop station near Auburn played it all the time. If you had told me then that 15 years later one of those guys would be at the Grammys wearing a peacock suit singing a song with Gwyneth Paltrow and some muppets, I would have been very interested in what substance you’d gotten your hands on. (Well, maybe I’d have started with who in the hell is Gwyneth Paltrow?) Back to the phone for a moment, How much cash would you leave on your desk at work? Lesson Learned.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Still playing catch up
I didn't get to tell you live about a little adventure I took because I was still working on all those Vietnam posts, but you should know about the little jaunt I took to Phoenix. My college roommate Dale and I had talked our respective significant others into letting us go to the national championship game if by some miracle Auburn managed to get in. We hashed out a plan so that as soon as the SEC championship game was in the bag Dale would get tickets. So while I was out at Rouge watching the game with a large boisterous crowd, dale was at home with 2 laptops, one for airfare, and one for tickets. We bought through stubhub.com which I was immediately a little skeptical of, but keep reading and you'll find out whether that skepticism was warranted. I flew into Phoenix in the early afternoon on Sunday about an hour before Dale got in, so I had some time to grab a beer at the
Bar. When Dale arrived we met at the rental car counter, a long bus ride away from the terminal, but the way is well signed. I couldn't believe the amount of orange and blue at the airport. I Sat next to a few ducks on the plane, and they turned out to be some of the nicest football fans I'd encountered in life. That turned out to be story of almost all the Oregon fans I encountered. The airport started to make it feel like a home game, and you couldn't go anywhere in the greater phoenix area without finding someone who would say War Eagle to you. We checked in to the Hilton Garden Inn North Phoenix, that turned out to be a nice little place to stay, surrounded by restaurants including a red robin, and an ihop. What else could you need? I'll skip ahead to the important stuff; on Monday we arrived at the stadium pretty early, because we weren't sure where we were going to park, and we wanted to to get some food close by, and we wanted to be sure we got our stubhub pickup done without incident. So we get there and immediately find out we can just pay to park in a lot right next to all the restaurants. That was easy, no problem. Next we march up to the Moe's, where we are told we can pick up our tickets. Dale shows ID and we're instantly handed tickets. Parking and ticket pick up take exactly 15 minutes. So we decide to try to find some food next and we spend almost two hours j
ust trying to get in the door at the Shane's Rib Shack. Filled up with food, we wanted to try to see the unofficial Tiger walk that would allegedly take place at gate 3. It didn't happen, and eventually we just tried to get in the gate. by this time you couldn't even get an AT&T signal, so checking twitter for an update on the tiger walk proved impossible. Each person got an upper body pat down and a bag check if necessary, which meant it took a long time to get into the gate. Someplace in the crush of humanity I even bumped into one of the other guys from the Northern California Auburn Alumni. When we got in, we go to get our ticket scanned only to get turned away at the door. The guy says he doesn't know why, but our tickets don't work. He gives us some Vague directions to the desk to get help and we start marching that way, kind of shell-shocked, but assuming someone there will just fix our problem and we'll go in. We come to a really long line that says it's the Auburn team will call booth, where I have dale stand, and i go look for the regular will call booth while he's waiting. That line was Really. Really Long. Eventually I find the regular will call both and find that the line is really short. The guy at the booth takes my ticket, and dissapers for a while, and when he comes back he sort of looks a little lost and has to find my ticket again, because he'd set it down. About this time he comes back and says I'm sorry sir yo
ur ticket was reported as stolen, we can't let you in and we're keeping that ticket. I didn't know whether to lay down on the ground and cry or to try to jump through the window. My worst fear had actually come true. Dale tried to call stub hub and spent about 10 minutes trying to get through their voice answering system. There was junk playing through outdoor speakers, so each time dale would try to give a voice command, it would get garbled by the stuff coming through the speakers. About the time we were resigning ourselves to go back to the hotel to watch the game so that we could actually see it, it finally dawned on me, let's go back out to the stub hub table at Moe's and see if we can plead our case. It's a pretty good sized hike back to the booth, but by the time we got there I was good and fired up. The guy takes a look at Dale's ticket that we're now fortunate we still have, and the looks on our faces and immediately goes about calming us down and ensuring us that we'll be taken care of. Of course the first thing I noticed that they had some rather imposing security packing heat, so there will be no scene created on this day. They check there computers and eventually give us tickets that were an upgrade from what we actually paid for. We were actually on the auburn side in a corner. A few rows closer than we were originally. The take home message, You should use stubhub.com because they stand by their guarantee. I promise to tell everyone I know about it. I don't have to tell you what happened at the game, but what I can tell you is that we had a perfect view of the big goal line stand, and the clinching field goal, as they both happened at our end. After the game we partied a little longer at west gate, and got back for early flights for both of us the next day. I still wake up some days and think guess what, we're still national champions. Since I'm posting this over a month late, it comes at the same time as the announcement that some jerk poisoned the old oaks in Toomer's corner. Those trees are estimated to be 130 years old, so they're part of a shared experience for all living Auburn Alumni. Apparently we had to come back down to earth sometime, it just came a lot sooner than anyone hoped. It just makes me sick to my stomach that someone thought it was ok, and called into the finebaum radio show to brag about it. Wow, this post today contains a double dose of shock and anger. Hopefully to happier things again soon.
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Sunday, February 13, 2011
So Long Korea
Our last day in Korea we were catching a mid day flight, so we checked out as late as they'd let us and had them hold our bags while we went down to the underground connector to another shinsegae. There was a mall and food court leading there which made for a fun little shopping adventure. We managed to find some food at the shinsegae after much pointing and gesturing had a delicious lunch at the counter of one of the hundreds of little food seriving places. We found some of our favorite japanese cigar cookies to drag home, and continued to marvel at the awesomeness of the place. After lunch we made it back for one final G&T at the hotel bar then grabbed a taxi to the airport. The bus schedule would have put us at the airport way too early or way too close for departure, so we decided to spring for a cab. We bought lots of food thinking we might be stuck in coach, but got upgraded to first at the last possible moment. We had as good a flight as you can expect home, and I came home to a text message from my boss asking me to come in. It's a good thing I'd dressed well because I had to go straight to the office from the airport. So there you have the whole tale of our adventure. As usual, all the pictures are here.
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Vietnam and Korea |
Friday, February 04, 2011
Korea Day 2 a Temple and the most amazing store ever
Thursday, February 03, 2011
Korea Day 1, Everything I know about Seoul I learned from M*A*S*H
Vietnam Day 11, A day to ourselves in Old Saigon
Our last day in Saigon was just a little bit of unplanned magic. We didn't have anything we needed to accomplish, so we decided to go check out the Vietnamese history museum. Here's a thing you really should know it's closed on Monday. But, if you show up at the front gate at certain times with money, you might find that a cruise ship has just dumped all its excursion passengers there. If that's the case, asking nicely will get you in the door, despite your not having looked at a calendar in the last 10 days. The museum covers early civilizations in Vietnam and has really cool stuff from the countries early history. Right next door is the zoo, and since it was less than $5/person, we decided to check it out. Cages with concrete floors are just not cool, but preservation and educating children is, so it's kind of a tough call on whether this was a good experience or not. We ended up having lunch (again) at the barbecue garden, since we'd had such
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