Eighteen Days of Europe

Photos for this trip are here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/darrendriven/Europe2009

I just got back from nearly three weeks in Europe. Some things were very different, but overall I didn't get the culture shock that I had been expecting. I guess that I imagined an alien world, but for the most part it wasn't much different than a trip to Mexico. Funny money, funny signs and a sometimes little bit of Charades to communicate. My neighbor, Jennye, and I spent about a week each in Ireland, Germany and in the Dutch area of Belgium/Netherlands.

We stayed in hostels the entire time, some were small and quaint and others were large and busy. The best was the Hideout Hostel in Dingle, Ireland. It had been recently converted from a bed & breakfast and was small enough to actually meet everyone staying there. Staying in a room with many people presented some challenges, mainly sleeping through other peoples' snoring. The iPod took care of that, though. The other major issue, one I was less prepared for, was the shower situation. Ideally one would hope for a shower with hot water, good pressure and room to move, but in reality you were lucky to get two out of three, and more likely just to get one! One example was our first hostel, which had hot, high-pressure water, but a shower that was more like an upright coffin than a place to scrub yourself. There were a couple dozen shampoo bottles sitting on the floor (never any shelves in these showers) and a drain that couldn't keep up with the firehose of a showerhead. After just a minute in that shower you ended up with a spiraling funnel of tiny plastic bottles whirlpooling at your feet. Funny, but those suckers hurt!



Food was also a challenge. Ireland was probably the scariest because most of the time we were in Gaelic country and that just wasn't a language at which you could guess meanings. But the food there was fantastic! Germany was a little more familiar, but most of the time I had help from my cousin, Nick, and things went smoothly. In Hamburg (homm berg) we had hamburgers (homm bergers) and they were rays of sunshine. In Amsterdam we discovered the Dutch Pancake, basically a giant crepe. You can get pretty much anything in it, so I treated it like an omelette and I was never disappointed. Unfortunately, by this time in our journey I was trying to get some American food and it was a mistake. I couldn't wolf down a burger in this country, and a steak showed up fresh from a microwave. Stick to the specialty of your region and you will be much happier.





Traveling in Europe is interesting. We had Eurorail passes that allowed us to get on any high-speed train for as long as we wanted, but I preferred getting around on the bus because you would see the fronts of houses instead of the backs. Bicycle travel is above all others in the places that we visited. In Germany and Amsterdam the bike is pretty much at the top of the food chain. Pedestrians jump out of the way and cars patiently yield. In Amsterdam there were so many bikes, both parked and pedaled, that they were literally stacked on top of one another. This was better when they were parked, but more fun to watch when they were moving (its called a crash).






Our first week started in Dublin, then we spent a few days in Dingle, and ended up in Cork. Dublin was a blur, we walked a LOT and saw a lot of touristy stuff, the best was the Guinness Storehouse tour. Dingle is a small rural town with the best population-to-pub ratio of anywhere we went (1500 residents and 50 pubs). The original plan was to bike around the Dingle Peninsula, but rain and wind shut that down. We settled for a van tour of the peninsula, and ended up staying in the same Hostel all three nights, which gave us a chance to settle in and meet some of the other hostelers. Cork was a smallish city that we didn't have much of a chance to explore, but we were near the shopping district so I got to see that. Whoop-tee-doo.






The next week was Berlin and Hamburg. Berlin had a very cool vibe, probably having something to do with the young population and low cost of living. There are old masonry buildings still crumbling from war damage situated right next to modern glass-and-steel works of art. Our bicycle tour guide pointed us towards Kunsthaus Tacheles, basically McMenamins Edgefield on LSD. We spent a couple hours hanging out in that art commune drinking beers and exploring the decaying building. Hamburg was a three-hour train ride away, and finally I could relax with family. Nick, Jenna and little Mayzie were great hosts and we biked, walked and canoed our way around the city. They had only been living there briefly, so we made several discoveries together.






Belgium and Netherlands rounded up the last week. Brussels was not that much different from Portland, if you pretended that all of the French and Dutch was understandable. By this time I had seen dozens of thousand-year-old churches so they started getting a little dull, until we wandered past one at night just as an electronically-choreographed light show started. It was a little Disneyish, but still neat. Antwerp was another familiar-feeling little city on a large river, and it was good for some walking but we only hung out there for a few hours. Amsterdam was our grand finale, but by this point I was so tired (and hungover) that I didn't really make the most of it. I did buy some pot, and smoked a little, but basically just kept myself in a semi-drunken state until our last morning arrived.






Beers, there were a lot of them! I was determined to try lots of new beer along the way, so I avoided drinking the same beer twice (as much as possible anyway). In some places there just wasn't much choice, like in rural Ireland. Most bars there carry just a few standards, although they were nice creamy stouts so I was fine with that. Delirium Bar in Brussels holds the world record for most beers (over 2000!) but I ended up only having one there. My favorite beer of the whole trip was discovered in a tiny bar in Amsterdam. They proudly carried 300+ labels and I requested something dark and out-of-the-ordinary. The bartender sold me on an import that I had never heard of, and after downing most of the glass I was impressed. I asked for the bottle so that I could take a photo, and the beer ended up being a Stout brewed and imported from Denver Colorado! I paid over $10 for this beer, and it was almost from home. Too funny. And now, although no one will probably read through this, here is my nearly complete beer list: PHILADELPHIA PA: Railbender Ale - Erie PA , Yuengling Porter - Pottsville PS, Dogfish Head Raison D'Etre - Milton DE, Troegs Troegenator - Harrsburg PA, DUBLIN IRELAND: Smithwicks Irish Ale, Carlsberg, Guinness, DINGLE IRELAND: Murphy's, Bulmers Apple Cider, Harp, Beamish Irish Stout, Satzenbrau Pils, Bulmers Pear Cider, Carling, CORK IRELAND, Budejovicky Budvar - Czech Republic, Tiger Lager, Rebel Red, Blarney Blonde, Schofferhofer Hefeweizen, BERLIN GERMANY: Konig Ludwig Dunkel, Schultheiss Pilsner, Lausitzer Porter Schwarzes, Paulaner Weissbier, Jever Pilsner, HAMBURG GERMANY: Duckstein, Monchshof Kellerbier, Paulaner Salvator, Erdinger Dunkel, Franziskaner Weissbier, Holsten Edel, Dithmarscher Dunkel, Schofferhofer Dunkles Hefeweizen, Kostriker Schwarzbier, Astra, Lowenbrau Oktoberfest Bier, Desperados Tequila Cerveza, Dithmarscher Dunkel, Grimbergen Blonde, Maes Biere, BRUSSELS BELGIUM: Gordon Fine Platinum, Leffe Brune, Westmalle Trappist Dubbel, Grimbergen Dubbel, Chimay, Orval, Rodenbach, Kwak, Haacht Witbier, Kaiser, ANTWERP BELGIUM: St. Louis Gueuze Lambic, AMSTERDAM NETHERLANDS: De Koninck, Zatte, Hertog Jan, Natte, Jupiler, Super Bock, Grolsch Pilsener, Peroni Nastro Azzurro, Yeti Imperial Stout - Great Divide Brewing, Rasputin Russian Imperial Stout - Brouwerij De Molen, Oesterstout, La Trappe Trappist

I'm a car guy, so I notice cars. There was a lot of interesting stuff going on and my eye was always catching something a little funny...

There are LOTS of small cars in Europe, far more than in the states. In the top of this photo you can see a Smart and an old school mini parked near each other, and this was very common. I saw a million Minis, both old and new, and a billion Smarts. Also, there were some very tiny cars that were used almost like scooters. One had a tilt-up back hatch with a drive-in ramp and was for someone in a wheelchair, another was dressed up like the General Lee. You can see how a red one was being driven in the bike lane between pedestrians and cyclists. There were some small cars that I had never seen, like a little Audi subcompact, a Smart sports car and a tall Mercedes minivan.

Europe got some pretty cool rides that we didn't. The red Civic is a four-door hatchback that looked straight out of the future. The VW Scirocco was recently re-released and it is a Europe-only car (apparently so that it doesn't compete against the VW GTI here in the US). The Toyota Urban Cruiser and Toyota IQ are both Scions (the Scion xD and the soon-to-be Scion iQ) and not very common. There were Italian Alfa Romeos all over the place.

Convertibles galore! Since I just sold my Lexus I have been on the lookout for a decent replacement, and it seems as though Peugeot makes plenty of little, sporty hardtop convertibles. I saw them everywhere, and above are three variations. I also saw a neat little MG convertible running around.

There weren't a lot of exotics in the places that I visited, but that made the contrast even greater. A couple of Audi R8s, an Alfa Romeo 8C, some Astons, some Maseratis and a couple of Bentleys dotted the streets. Not much else.




Taxis everywhere, but nothing like here in the states. In Ireland you could pretty much slap a taxi sign on the top of any car and it was official. In Germany all of the taxis were a light pastel yellow, off-white almost, and nearly all of the were Mercedes. There wasn't a lot of variation, but every once in a while you might see a really old one or a really new one. The new E-class Mercedes was just released in the US, but they were already shuttling tourists around in Berlin. Police cars were just little economy cars! Totally different perspective. The fire engines were also much smaller.




In Hamburg I saw an articulated bus, which isn't really that strange, until Nick pointed out that it was THREE sections. Amazing. The coach buses were very futuristic-looking and the semis looked straight out of Mad Max.




One thing missing from Europe is old cars, especially Germany. I guess that the registration process is so strict that any old cars are very expensive to maintain, but when you did see an old one it was special. There were some Citroen 2CVs, "Ugly Duckling" is its nickname, and some East German Trabants. In fact, you could rent Trabants in Berlin and go on a tour of the city, following a bunch of other rented Trabants. Cool! The coolest classic that I saw, though, was a 70's Caddy being driven through Amsterdam by an old guy in a white pimp suit. He was blaring country music at full volume and everyone was staring. Talk about out of place! The two last funny things I have to mention are the occasional roofed scooter and the funny looking trailer hitches that you would find on cars, even cars that you would never expect to have a hitch.

That is all, until next time...

D

Bathroom: Check

Well, the main floor bathroom is now finished. It took 18 days from demolition to completion... but most of these days were just a couple of hours of actual work time. Thanks to Tommy for helping me demo the room in a couple of hours, and thanks to Lowes for accepting my returns without any hassle! The first vanity, that I bought over a year earlier, was too large. The second vanity that I picked out was still a bit too large. The medicine cabinet that I had bought over a year earlier had hidden damage, but they swapped that out for me also.

In total, I would estimate that I put 35-40 hours into this room, and my receipts show about $2500 invested. Not too bad! The complete gallery is located here:
http://picasaweb.google.com/darrendriven/2541MainFloorSuite

Project Old House

It is shameful, I haven't posted updates on the house for nearly a year! During the summer progress slowed, but it didn't stop. The last time I posted about the house was when I had finished rebuilding the front, turning it from an ugly ducking into a beautiful swan. Here are the things that have changed since then...







The sides of the house now match the front. The east side of the house (driveway side) was completely stripped down to bare sheathing and a new vapor barrier and siding was installed. The west side of the house was just scraped and repainted. Both sides also got new high-efficiency windows with pretty new two-tone window trim.























What was originally a front bedroom became part of the new entry/dining room. The old lathe and plaster wall covering came down, new insulation and windows went in and the walls were recovered in drywall. The ceiling was treated to the same coffered look as above the living room and a liquor cabinet was recessed into the back wall. A neighbor was selling a pool table for a good price, so I opted for that instead a pricey dining room table that wouldn't get used. Mom got me a cool map for the wall, and Troy and Sierra are working on a large (8'x6') painting for the wall facing the street. That will be particularly cool because the painting will be visible through the glass french doors. The only things left to finish are the floors and baseboards, but that will wait until the back bedroom suite is finished.





Speaking of the main floor bedroom suite, yesterday Tommy and I destroyed the bathroom in preparation for all new walls and fixtures. You can follow along with the progress daily (almost) in my Picasa gallery...
http://picasaweb.google.com/darrendriven/2541MainFloorSuite

Adventure Caribbean

The original plan was to hop on a ship computer every day to update this, but it didn't happen. So I'm gonna do the best I can to break through my drunken, foggy memory to remember the trip.

DAY ONE - THU NOV 20

Mica, Jodi and I flew to Miami today. We were supposed to be on the red-eye later tonight, but when Jodi checked Alaska's website this morning she saw that it had been canceled! Turned out that Alaska canceled flight two months earlier but hadn't bothered to let us know, so instead we had an 11:30 AM flight from Portland to Seattle, then a 1:30 PM flight from Seattle to Miami. Uh oh, as soon as we checked in at the Portland Airport we learned that the 11:30 flight had been canceled, too. There was a 10:30 flight that was leaving in just a few minutes, so we ran to the gate and made it just in time. Thanks, Alaska.

Our flight from Seattle left on time, for a change, and while we were seating I realized that Andy (Wes's dad) and Marge (his step-mom) were seated just two rows in front of us. Small world. Twenty minutes in the air and a passenger a few rows behind us starts having a seizure. The flight attendant starts screaming "turn the plane around!" In a few minutes the guy was back to normal and the flight continued to Miami. Right as we landed in Miami the guy had another seizure and everyone remained seated at the terminal as he was wheeled from the plane. Poor guy.

At the airport we found a shuttle that would take us to Fort Lauderdale and shared it with a 70+ year old couple from Victoria BC. The old woman was hilarious and very blunt. They were also going on a cruise, but on a different ship. They thought it was very important to find the cheapest motel possible and ended up at a dive that was only $49 a night. In their excitement they almost forgot their bags in the van and she exclaimed that she "would have to sleep in the nude and might get raped". We were cracking up. We ended up at a hotel just minutes from the terminal and walked to an Irish pub for dinner.

DAY TWO - FRI NOV 21

At noon we groggily made our way over to the sea port where the shocking contrast between industrial container traffic and floating hotels made your head spin. (It could have been the alcohol, though) Getting onto the ship was a little chaotic, as it holds 3000 passengers and the facility was not really large enough to handle everyone. When we finally made our way on and had a chance to explore it was pretty overwhelming. The Splendor is Carnival's newest and largest ship and throughout the trip were continuously discovering new places. Our first night we broke out one of our eight stashed bottles of liquor and started making drinks. In a happy, vodka-induced fog we roamed the ship until the wee hours of the morning.

DAY THREE - SAT NOV 22

Our room was on the inside of the sixth deck and had no windows. It also had no clock of any kind, so it was impossible to judge the time. We slept in late, recovering from our late-night-binge, and enjoyed our day at sea by laying around on one of the many sun decks. The Lido Deck pool had a giant TV screen that played movies every evening and night. The days leading up to our cruise seemed to drag on forever, so it was really nice to have nothing else to do except lounge around and relax.

It was formal night on the ship, so we dressed up and hit the Gold Pearl Restaurant for a full-course meal that was pretty fancy. We met some partners-in-crime at dinner, three cousins named Shante, Tamika and Alisha. Later that night we again broke into our hidden stash and grabbed a fifth of rum and roamed the outside of the ship. Seeing a pattern yet?

DAY FOUR - SUN NOV 23

Most of this day was spent at sea but in the evening we arrived in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We walked up through the old town, fighting a light breeze and rain, and happened across a giant old rock structure called Fort San Cristobal. The facility was celebrating a festival of lights, and a bored-looking security guard happily told us all about the history of the fort. He was better than a tour guide, as he was very knowledgeable and excited to tell us all that he could in the few minutes we were there.

From there we walked west along the northern coast of the island to a plaza in which there was live music and food vendors, then to the northwest tip of the island where we found Fort San Felipe del Morro, a sixteenth-century fort that was built to guard the entrance to San Juan Bay. Totally breathtaking. Next we walked back downhill toward the port looking for food and drink, then stumbled onto the only microbrewery on the island. Perfect for a beer snob like me! Since the only affordable beer on the ship is Budweiser, I was craving something dark. Not too bad. By the time we got back onto the ship it was about midnight and we had to wake up early the next morning, so we called it a night.

DAY FIVE - MON NOV 24

For the first time on this cruise I was hating life. Our plan for the day was to go on a snorkeling excursion in St Thomas, Virgin Islands. We had to wake up at 6:30 AM to be ready, and with the three-hour time change it was like waking up at 3:30. Ouch. Once we were off the boat we finally saw that the weather had shaped up and the sun was out. An open-type shuttle drove us about 20 minutes around the island, which was predictably beautiful. A medium-sized catamaran with a crew of three sailed us even farther around the island and then out to sea where we anchored near Great St. James Island for some snorkeling. It wasn't the best snorkeling that I had every done, but it was exciting to finally get into some tropical water. While I was chasing a stingray, Mica and Jodi found an octopus that would puff up and change colors to match its surroundings. After a while we climbed back onto the boat and enjoyed rum punch all the way back to the dock. Once we were back on the ship all three of us fell asleep on some lounge chairs and pretty much frittered away the rest of our day. That night we watched a stand-up comedian do his thing in one of the ships smaller venues, and crashed out happy.

DAY SIX - TUE NOV 25

We decided to take it easy today in La Romana, the third-largest city in the Dominican Republic. I didn't know much about the DR and was a little disappointed to find that La Romana was basically a tourist town, and a fairly dirty one at that. Our exploration of the city was short and punctuated by a mediocre meal in a fine dining restaurant located just a few blocks from the dock. On the light side, the conversion rate was very favorable and there were plenty of places to poke around for shopping. It was here that I had my first Presidente beer, brewed in the DR. Not too bad, especially for $2 a bottle! With about an hour before the ship was to depart, we watched some of the local baseball teams practice at a fairly respectable field just outside of the dock.

At night we discovered that the Splendor had a karaoke bar on the fifth-deck aft. Michelle, the karaoke girl, was new to the ship and pretty much let us do anything we wanted to get the shy singers going. Somehow we managed to bring a crowd to the bar and by the time it closed at midnight everyone was singing loudly, clapping and dancing.

DAY SEVEN - WED NOV 26

Grand Turk Island was probably the most beautiful place we visited on our trip and the destination to which we would most likely return. The water was the lightest shade of aqua and the sand was the cleanest white I had ever seen. We didn't get much of a chance to explore the island, because we had decided to do another catamaran/snorkel excursion. The catamaran left from a dock right next to the ship and was far larger than the one that we had sailed on in St Thomas. It held 85 people and had a crew of five. We sailed about a quarter of the way around the west side of the island and anchored a few hundred feet from the beach. The most dramatic part of the dive was that the water was so clear that even though the reef was twenty-five feet below the surface you could see it so perfectly. Then, about 50 feet away from the boat, the reef dropped off and there was a sheer underwater cliff that went as far down as you could see. According to the captain it drops off to 5000 feet. Unbelievably awesome.

After finishing the snorkeling, we had a few hours to lay on the beach and play in the warm water. This was a true paradise and it was tough to see it go from the top of the ship later that day. It was another lazy night, since we had burned a lot of energy.



DAY EIGHT - THU NOV 27

This was another day at sea and it was nice to sleep in again. I think it was the laziest day yet, with nothing more going on than lounging around the pool, soaking up the rays and poring through a good book. Oh yeah, it was Thanksgiving!?! We got dressed up and went to the formal dinner to celebrate. After dinner we decided to pop our heads into the karaoke bar again and before we knew it midnight had arrived and we had rocked the joint yet again. Throughout the trip people would continuously approach us and tell us how much fun they had watching us perform. We pretty much had no memory of any of them. :)

It was tonight that we finished off the rest of the vodka and broke out the last bottle of rum we had smuggled on-board. With about half of the bottle still full and barely poking out of my hip pocket, we were just outside of the karaoke bar when a security guard walked up behind me, snatched the bottle and my wrist and demanded my full name and room number. As my options blinked through my inebriated brain I decided that my best bet was to just disappear, so I scrambled down the nearby staircase and into another bar on the floor below. I sat down at a small table with a couple of Russian guys from New York, explained that I needed them to be my cover for my daring escape, and proceeded to chat with them for about ten minutes. They were cracking up, I must have been pretty drunk. Later, I wandered back up to the area where I had been caught and another security guard started following me around. A few minutes later he asked me if my name was Darren, and I denied it, claiming my name was Steve. Steven. Farnsworth. He looked at me funny, then walked away. Hehe, I am such a smooth criminal. What I DIDN'T know is that after I had run away Mica had chosen MY name as his own cover and I think we really had confused security.



DAY NINE - FRI NOV 28

Today was our last destination, in Nassau, Bahamas. I was a little apprehensive about going through the security checkpoint to get off of the ship, thinking that my ID card was going to set off some buzzers and red lights, but nothing happened and we all left the ship peacefully. Whew. Nassau was a bustling, touristy city with plenty of fantastic old landmarks to walk to. We started by walking up to Fort Fincastle, then down the Queen's Staircase which was chiseled from solid limestone as an escape tunnel three hundred years ago. From there we headed to a Pirate Museum in downtown Nassau that had an exceptional interactive tour that blew us all away. Then after a late lunch at a little local joint we headed back to the ship and started our nightly drinking and wandering.



DAY TEN - SAT NOV 29

The ship docked back in Fort Lauderdale at about 8AM and Jodi and Mica headed out for a tour of the Everglades while I made my groggy way to the Fort Lauderdale airport. It turned out that there was a taxi strike, so as 3000 people fought to exit the ship they found themselves standing in a large parking lot with pretty much everyone else from the ship. Those who had secured travel plans early were greeted by buses, everyone else just scratched their heads. Luckily, I had found one of the few taxis that broke the strike line and I hopped in and was at the airport around 9 AM. My flight didn't leave until 6:15 PM, and I just didn't have the energy to try to explore Fort Lauderdale, so I camped out in the terminal and alternated between napping and reading. Mica and Jodi joined me around noon and we just vegged together. From there we flew to Houston TX, then got back to Portland at midnight. Another adventure complete.

Damn cell phone drivers...

California and Washington both recently passed laws prohibiting drivers from talking on their handsets while on the road. While I'm impatiently waiting for Oregon to follow suit, I am once again reminded of how important it is for us motorcyclists (and bicyclists and pedestrians) to avoid these multi-ton weapons that are piloted by oblivious conversationalists.

Just a few minutes ago I was riding my motorcycle back from Vancouver, where I was running some errands. On SR500 I was riding in the left lane, matching the speed of the congested traffic, when all of a sudden the truck to my right started changing into my lane. I beeped and moved over onto the shoulder to avoid getting squished. The truck, more than halfway into my lane, moved back over into his own lane and I made eye contact with the driver. I'm sure you already guessed, but he was on his cell phone.

I yelled at him to get off his damn cell phone and threw one hand up in the air at him. My tinted face shield was down, so he couldn't hear me or see my face, but I'm sure he got the message. In fact, he got it so well that he decided he was going to come back over into my lane anyway just to teach me a lesson. Shame on ME for being in his lane when he needs to get over! I didn't budge out of the lane, but I slowed way down and so did he. In a few seconds he is yelling some kind of obscenities at me and I let him go in front of me.

He immediately pulled into the left turn lane at the next signal, and I followed him, then stopped behind him at the red light. I didn't need to turn there, I was just curious to see where he was going -- thinking about calling the cops. He got out of his truck and started walking back to me, practically pulling up his sleeves like he is going to fight. I didn't need that, so I pulled back out into traffic, thought a moment about kicking the passenger side of his truck, then decided it would be a bad idea. I was out of there.

So if anyone in Vancouver spots a white Lincoln MK LT four-door truck with wide tires, a diamond-plate utility box in the bed and no license plates, please flip him off for me!