So we’re in Paris and today (Wednesday) we saw: the Eiffel Tower, Arch de Triomphe, the Champs-Élysées, and the Hôtel des Invalides. We might have seen a few more places, I’ll have to check my pictures. Speaking of which, I’ll have pictures up later in an update to this post. For now I need to get to bed; it’s nearly 1am here.
Well, we had a whole day in Frankfurt to ourselves and had a great time. We really got to see a lot of what downtown Frankfurt had to offer. What I’ve done is put up some of the single-photo images for now, with captions if you click on the image and go through the larger versions. I’ve just downloaded an HDR tool to take care of the other photos.
We all got up Tuesday afternoon (after the long night) and got lunch/breakfast. I got this awesome “real Chicago hotdog”. It was great. The flight from O’Hare to London was about seven hours. Subtract two hours for ascent and descent and you get roughly five hours to try and sleep. That really didn’t work, and it probably wouldn’t have been enough anyway. It was enough to be able to make it to our connecting flight to Frankfurt.
The adventure started at the rental car counter. While getting the car put together we overheard a girl next to us asking about getting a car one way to the Air Base at Ramstein. Since we were heading the same way we offered her a ride and she accepted. On the ride we found out she’s a new NATO contractor headed from Turkey to Afghanistan by way of Turkey. Go figure. We got her to the base and had a nice chat on the roughly hour long drive from Frankfurt to Ramstein. The hotel in Ramstein was amazing. The staff spoke better English than most of us and it had a very laid back B&B feel to it. We headed out and about Ramstein to find an ATM and have dinner at “Paradox”. They had pizza, I went for the curry schnitzel. It was great. Afterwards we headed back to the hotel to stay up a bit longer with our sponsor. She advised us to stay up until a normal local time to go to bed (say 10pm) to help reset our biological clocks. I have to say it worked like magic!
The next day of work on Thursday went really well. After that we headed out to “K-Town” (Kaiserslauten) to see what we could see. We had an American friend to show us around, she did a tremendous job. I’d say we got a good feel of the place. As evidence we managed to find the “soccer guys statue”. I didn’t manage to get a picture of it but I’ll see about getting a copy from the people who did. We ended up staying up very late and having a very good time getting to know the place.
Work on Friday went swimmingly. Afterwards we drove the rental car back down to Frankfurt and checked in at our hotel here near the airport. Afterwards we took the underground to downtown Frankfurt to see about getting some soccer tickets. By the time we got there all the places were closed. We’ll try getting some tomorrow before the game, hopefully it’ll work out.
We wandered around for a while looking for food and found a restaurant in downtown Frankfurt. I got the “Frankfurt Special Green Sauce” which was sauce and boiled eggs and potatoes. It was awesome. Check out the picture. The green sauce tasted kind of like guacamole, but using cucumbers instead of avocado. Or maybe pickles. Either way, it was great!
Either way I’ll be taking lots more pictures tomorrow; the camera is coming along for sure. I can’t believe I’ve got ten more days in Europe. Wow!
Monday we decided to walk down to the “Magnificent Mile” — which is really nice!
We wandered around for quite a while looking at the architecture, getting scared by the overhead trains, and generally having a good time. We stopped by a shop and all ended up buying some clothes, even though none of us intended to. Typical. I got an awesome jacket out of the deal that’ll be perfect for pick-pocket-Paris: all the pockets have zippers!
After all that walking we were pretty hungry and ended up going to the Weber Grill. Yes, Weber like the big round black grill. It was fantastic. One thing that had been popping up over and over is that, unlike San Diego, people in Chicago are a bit nicer. They seem a bit more sincere and a bit more concerned that everybody have a good time.
Once our loooong dinner was done, we headed to Howl at The Moon. The main attraction there are dueling pianos that play crowd requests. We sang, we drank, we howled (at one point) and had a good time.
Today we’ve got some work to do, and then a long flight to Frankfurt by way of London.
UPDATE: I finally pulled some of the pictures off of the camera. Check out this awesome graffiti we found just outside the hotel!
Hi all. I know I didn’t tell a lot of you about this trip. First of all, it’s mostly work related. Since I don’t like to talk any shop on my blog I’ve been a bit quiet.
Anyhow, here’s the general outline:
Sun (4/29) → Tue morning: Work in Chicago
Tue 5/1 & Weds 5/2: Travel from Chicago to London, then straight on to Frankfurt, then driving to Ramstein
Thu & Fri: Work at Ramstein
Sat: Fun in Frankfurt
Sun: Back to London, then tube & trains to Lakenheath
Mon, and Tue morning: Work in Lakenheath
Tue evening: Travel back to London
Wed & Thu = Paris via Chunnel!
Fri → Sun: Fun in London!
Mon = Fly from London → Chicago → San Diego
So right now I’m in Ramstein Germany and I’ll post updates as I can.
The flight from San Diego to Chicago was uneventful, but still fun. This is my first time flying First Class and it was terrific; the seats are wonderful, the food is good, and the flight attendants seemed a little nicer.
About 80% through the boarding process, a fresh faced young man comes up and asks if I’ll switch seats with him so he can sit with his girlfriend. Having been in the spot myself, I help the fellow out and get bumped from an aisle seat, to the front window seat. Awesome! Being at the window I got to take a few pictures of some interesting clouds, and the Rockies (I think). I was on the wrong side of the plane for pictures of the Grand Canyon.
I’m not sure which part of the country we were over, somewhere in the middle, Kansasish, when it hit me. From an airplane it’s pretty clear why some parts are known as “Big Sky Country”. The clouds and everything look higher up because they really are! This was obvious from the plane and may not be from the ground. Leaving San Diego we hit the top of the marine layer in about 30 seconds, showing that it was relatively low. But flying where we were the weather was so different that clouds could form higher in the sky, and also be taller. It was tremendous to see from the air and hopefully I got a few keepers from the pictures I took.
You may be asking yourself, “Dude, who cares about clouds?” I’ll let you in on something. Growing up in San Diego changes your outlook on the weather. A lot of people like clear sunny days without a cloud in the sky. In San Diego this is the norm; a big blue empty sky. Honestly, this is pretty boring for me. Getting to see something actually up there, hundreds of times bigger and taller than anything we’ve ever made is just amazing.
The rest of the flight was nice, the food in First Class was awesome (spinach lasagna, crackers + brie, apple, and some cookies). Too bad it won’t last. We’re flying coach the rest of the way.
The descent into O’Hare was tremendous. The sun was hiding behind some clouds (at our elevation, anyway) showering the outskirts of the city with a fan of yellow bliss while keeping the sky a healthy orange. As we turned for the approach there was a great view showing how flat everything is, with the sky scrapers of Chicago proper sitting right next to the water. Unfortunately, since I was up in the front, I couldn’t have my camera out, not even sneaked. Major bummer. I couldn’t have my phone on either to take pictures since it doesn’t have an “airplane mode” like some other brands.
I’m sorry I don’t have any photos up yet, I haven’t quite had time to process them yet. In any event, I’ll do a recap photo post like I did with the New Mexico trip.
I didn’t post a lot of photos in the previous entries about the New Mexico trip so I’ll post them here. Click on the “Read More” link below to see all the pictures.
Yes, you’re looking at the map correctly. We effectively took the long way back home from Santa Fe. We got up early and headed out for Carlsbad. We intended to stay the night and take Friday to drive back to San Diego.
On the way to Carlsbad we stopped in Roswell because, well, how could you not? There was all kinds of cute alien stuff all over the city. All very cheesy, all in good fun. We stopped to get some frozen custard and alien artifacts for our family. Since the last tour in Carlsbad started at 2pm we didn’t dawdle very long and were back on our way.
Carlsbad cavern is simply amazing. None of the pictures do it justice. It’s impossible to comprehend just how huge everything is until you’ve experienced it. I’m a huge fan of the place, even though the photography was difficult. Once you get in to it a little bit you lose all natural light, and what light is thrown is (photographically speaking) very dim. Your eyes get used to it pretty quickly. The variety of formations is pretty impressive, and the walk down through the natural entrance is a treat. You can take an elevator down if you’ve got bad knees or just don’t feel up to it.
It wasn’t until we were down in The Big Room that I realized I could have elevatored down with the tripod and taken some long exposures that would have come out really well. We intend to go back since they have guided tours that go off the normal walkway. That sounds like a blast. When we go back I’ll take the tripod and get some good shots inside .
After coming up the elevator to the surface we decided to just gun back home as fast as we could. We tend to do this. We did it in Cabo San Lucas and drove all the way from the tip to San Diego in one night. We did the same thing again this time. I believe we left around 4pm and didn’t arrive at home until around 4am. It was a long drive and we took shifts sleeping and driving.
Wednesday we decided to head out from Santa Fe and see Taos and Los Alamos.
Taos is a small artist community that’s got some touristy places to look at arts and crafts. It’s a pretty little town high in the mountains with some very nice shops. We stopped at a place that had some tremendous lavender ice cream. After poking around for a while we made the short drive out to the Taos Pueblo, the oldest inhabited structure in the US. Apparently a few natives still live there without plumbing or electricity. There’s a small fee to get in, and another fee if you want to take pictures. Obviously, we paid. There was a tour that would take you around and show you the place; we weren’t interested. Strolling around for a while gives a good sense of history, especially when it’s really quiet.
After driving for quite a bit we ended up in Los Alamos, birth place of the atomic bomb. We went to a museum or two and had lunch before heading back. Anybody who’s seen SciFi’s Eureka will appreciate the similarity. Since we couldn’t get in to the labs we couldn’t find much to do aside from look at a museum or two, so we bailed kind of early. On the way out of town we stopped at a restaurant decorated with shotgun shell Christmas lights.
We spent the rest of the day relaxing at the B&B in Santa Fe. We needed the rest so we could make the drive down to Carlsbad the next day and see the cavern.
Tuesday morning we got up early and decided to go to a few of the local attractions: the skyway tram and the bio park. Since we had to check out by noon we decided to scout out which place had safer parking since all our stuff would be in our car for one of the attractions. We headed out to the bio park and found the zoo portion right next to an elementary school. Check. Off to the tram we go. It’s on the outskirts of town so we got to see just how much sprawl there is in town. Quite a bit of sprawl.
In San Diego we have McMansions. Big houses built for people who were trying to get in on the housing boom and wanted to live some place big. Generally they were far larger than they should have been and pretty tacky. Well, Albuquerque has McPueblos. No joke. We saw quite a few as we headed up to the tram. On the way up the slope we were treated with the sun still rising over the mountains as clouds tried to get over the summits. It was lovely. Finally we made it to the base of the tram and found it … closed for repairs. Albuquerque: 2, Dave & Jess: 0.
We went back down the hill to see the bio park and aquarium. The zoo had just opened and there were a few school kids running around. We hurried in and tried to get to see some sleepy animals. It wasn’t difficult, they were rather sleepy. There were a pair of Sulfur Crested Cockatoos that were happy to see us. They would sing and talk and generally carry on. The zoo in San Diego is better, but this one was much more relaxed so that earned it some points.
There was supposed to be a little train to take us from the zoo to the aquarium. It never showed up. I though trains were always on time? We drove to the aquarium and found it… quaint. They had some little freshwater tanks, and some little salt water tanks, and one big shark tank with a few other critters. They also had a jelly tank that looked straight out of the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. There was also a garden that had a ton of school kids running around, so we didn’t stay very long. Albuquerque: 2, Dave & Jess: 1.
Over all this city seemed like it just wanted to get its work done and be left alone. Maybe I didn’t get a very good impression of it because we didn’t stay very long. Maybe it’s just not a very stay-and-explore kind of place and more of a stop-for-a-few-hours experience. Either way, we were on to Santa Fe!
About 30 minutes outside of Santa Fe Jess called around looking for a place to stay. We happened upon the Guadalupe Inn, which is tremendous. We were able to get a nice room (with jacuzzi tub!) just a few blocks from the main touristy part of Santa Fe.
After settling in briefly we headed out in search of lunch and came across Café Dominic just a few blocks away. The food was outstanding and smothered in green chilies. After a brief rest we headed to the plaza to see all the artist shops and general touristy stuff. This was generally nice and we had a good time walking around and getting to relax. The air was slightly chilled and standing in the sun for a second would take the edge off.
For dinner we headed out and found ourselves at Tortilla Flats. We were starving and the food was tremendous. We were introduced to sopapillas; a food more addicting than heroin. We’ve since come back to the room and I’m about to jump into the jacuzzi. So far this vacation is rocking.
cialis blues Cialis In India cialis comments
lilly cialis! 50mg Viagra Retail Price Q cialis restrictvalue web tadalafil soft tabs usa 576.
cialis patient assistance program Buy Real Cialis Online cialis generic pharmacy online
cialis en ligne de pharmacie How Do I Get Cialis australia viagra cialis supply;
cialis alternative
what is better levitra viagra cialis
tadalafil prescribing information Viagra Pfizer taking cialis and viagra together
5 mg cialis Best Canadian Pharmacy cialis segmentation,
are enseignes sp cialis esLevitra Uk hiv drugs and interactions with cialis
cialis best price Legal Pharmacy Online "cialis without a perscription"
buy cialis online say wordpress Buy Viagra Online Without Prescription lowest price cialis
very cheap cialis Soft Viagra cialis accessory
cialis general information Buy Viagra Soft Tabs cialis and erections
cialis dependence
net cialis
cialis blues Cialis Online From Canada cialis comments
cheapest cialis price Best Canada Meds Q cialis restrictvalue web tadalafil soft tabs usa 576.
cialis patient assistance program Viagra 50 Mg cialis generic pharmacy online
buy cialis domain Canadian Non Prescription Viagra australia viagra cialis supply;
cialis alternative
Q cialis restrictvalue web tadalafil soft tabs usa 576.
cialis and viagra Cheap 25mg Viagra cialis generic pharmacy online
cialis en ligne de pharmacie Propecia 1mg australia viagra cialis supply;
cialis alternative Buy Cialis Once Daily what is better levitra viagra cialis
We all got up Tuesday afternoon (after the long night) and got lunch/breakfast. I got this awesome “real Chicago hotdog”. It was great. The flight from O’Hare to London was about seven hours. Subtract two hours for ascent and descent and you get roughly five hours to try and sleep. That really didn’t work, and it probably wouldn’t have been enough anyway. It was enough to be able to make it to our connecting flight to Frankfurt.
The next day of work on Thursday went really well. After that we headed out to “K-Town” (Kaiserslauten) to see what we could see. We had an American friend to show us around, she did a tremendous job. I’d say we got a good feel of the place. As evidence we managed to find the “soccer guys statue”. I didn’t manage to get a picture of it but I’ll see about getting a copy from the people who did. We ended up staying up very late and having a very good time getting to know the place.
We wandered around for a while looking for food and found a restaurant in downtown Frankfurt. I got the “Frankfurt Special Green Sauce” which was sauce and boiled eggs and potatoes. It was awesome. Check out the picture. The green sauce tasted kind of like guacamole, but using cucumbers instead of avocado. Or maybe pickles. Either way, it was great!
Monday we decided to walk down to the “Magnificent Mile” — which is really nice!
The flight from San Diego to Chicago was uneventful, but still fun. This is my first time flying First Class and it was terrific; the seats are wonderful, the food is good, and the flight attendants seemed a little nicer.
Yes, you’re looking at the map correctly. We effectively took the long way back home from Santa Fe. We got up early and headed out for Carlsbad. We intended to stay the night and take Friday to drive back to San Diego.
Wednesday we decided to head out from Santa Fe and see Taos and Los Alamos.
Tuesday morning we got up early and decided to go to a few of the local attractions: the skyway tram and the bio park. Since we had to check out by noon we decided to scout out which place had safer parking since all our stuff would be in our car for one of the attractions. We headed out to the bio park and found the zoo portion right next to an elementary school. Check. Off to the tram we go. It’s on the outskirts of town so we got to see just how much sprawl there is in town. Quite a bit of sprawl.
There was supposed to be a little train to take us from the zoo to the aquarium. It never showed up. I though trains were always on time? We drove to the aquarium and found it… quaint. They had some little freshwater tanks, and some little salt water tanks, and one big shark tank with a few other critters. They also had a jelly tank that looked straight out of the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. There was also a garden that had a ton of school kids running around, so we didn’t stay very long. Albuquerque: 2, Dave & Jess: 1.