There always seems to be a story when I go to Italy on business, although this one is from the return train trip and actually happened in Germany. I pay the difference for 1st Class tickets to avoid the crush in 2nd and to get work done. On the train out of Munich, I’d settled into a window corner seat of a 5 seat compartment about 15 minutes before it departed. A middle aged guy opens the door, kinda grunts a greeting, plops an expensive medium sized bag in the middle of the isle making no effort to put it in the overhead rack and practically blocking my exit; then he placed a leather computer case in the seat next to me and across from his. Un-kept hair and sloppily dressed in corduroy jeans and a sport coat, he walked out, returned with a sandwich and after one bite laid it down (crumbs and all) in the seat next to him while putting his feet up on the opposite seat with his shoes on to nap. Mind you this was before we’d pulled and people were still looking for seats but the compartment was now effectively full; rarely does one see someone exude such a sense of the rich spoiled brat. He woke, ate some more of his sandwich without moving his feet and dropped even more crumbs on the seat next to him. At that point, I got up to stretch my legs and actually had to ask him to let me out. Later the conductress came by asking for tickets, he seemed offended at having to produce it, and annoyed that she asked him to take his shoes off the seat. And of course as soon as she left, the shoes went straight back up. A bit later, she walked by the compartment saw his feet up napping and I’ve got to say our eye contact was rich before she opened the door and ripped into him. As much as I hated to leave such a fine companion, I soon had to change trains and pulled my bag off the overhead rack to depart, somehow it came down right on his unfinished sandwich. Then as I passed him, my relatively heavy bag somehow hit him square in the left knee … oh, and then the right knee too. Such a shame the conductress couldn’t share that.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Saturday, July 9, 2011
The isle of Santorini
Stairs; lots of stairs will probably be what I’ll remember most of the Greek isle of Santorini, other than the fantastic views and narrow alleyways. Lisa booked the hotel direct rather than our normal travel agent package vacation and she did quite well with it. To set the stage, Santorini is the site of the largest volcanic eruption in recorded history … albeit at 1600 B.C. not quite as well recorded as we may be used to (the exact year is not certain). It had at one point been one huge island, but a prior eruption had collapsed it into a “caldera” with a ring of islands above the sea; the great Minoan eruption of 1600 B.C. blew off a fair amount of that and left it with the a ring of three small islands as an archipelago. Two of the islands have steep cliffs facing the center straight into the Aegean Sea. Only a couple hundred years ago, in the center of the caldera a sub-sea volcano erupted several times to form yet two more small islands; now dormant (but active?), it erupted last in 1950. A fascinating read with Wikipedia is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santorini, follow some of the links about the volcano or eruption.
Anyway, our hotel, actually an apartment with breakfast, was right in the middle of the principal town of Fira on the caldera’s cliff … like really, partially down the cliff, which is part of the beauty of the whole place. Did I mention stairs? Although our room was very low in the city, but still about around 500 feet up from the sea; so just to get to the entrance/reception required climbing five flights of stairs. To get to the main pedestrian drag at the top of the hill was easily twice that still.
Ships … if you ever want to see a group of cruise ships just get a place on the cliff in the old town of Fira; guaranteed you’ll see your share change out daily. There were the huge colossus of cruise ships, the really cool sailing cruise ships, the smaller normal cruise ships, and a plethora of yachts. With a smart phone and Google most could be detailed on the spot. Perhaps the most outrageous being the Mary Jean II, an Italian made 100 foot luxury charter boat … a crew of 15 will take up to 12 passengers for a meager weekly rate of €310,000 (at today’s rates around $443,000). So anyway, what did these ships do besides loudly dropping anchors outside our window early mornings? They disgorged thousands of tourists into town for day trips; the Costa Fortuna carries up to 2,270 passengers by itself and that day there were four other ships as well. It was always best to simply avoid downtown during the day; the cruise tourists always wanting to get back on board in time for dinner.
The buses were an adventure, not always a particularly pleasant adventure, but one couldn’t beat the price and we hit two beaches and a lovely ancient town of Pyrgos, near the highest part of the island which was pleasantly devoid of the tourists. I hiked several miles along the caldera one morning to the town of Oia with steep hills and even more breathtaking views but it was a hazy day and the pictures didn’t turn out well. Near the end of the week-long stay we took a boat ride to the volcano and then a sunset dinner cruise. I hiked up the volcano, the boat was evenly split between those who found it interesting (me included) and those who found it simply a bunch of black rocks and craters. The on-board dinner was less than memorable but the sunset was stunning with sailboats all around … call me a romantic :-).
If you care to, click here for a few of the over 100 pictures taken.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
The 11th Anniversary of my 39th Birthday
One of the things my German friends seem to do right is “round” birthdays. And for my 50th yesterday we threw a dinner party (for the 11th anniversary of my 39th Birthday) at a nice hotel restaurant nearby for around 35 friends, to include a handful Americans from work. I think it’s fair to say it was a rousing success.
The buffet was even better than anticipated; we’d picked the place because the food is great but didn’t anticipate the volume of fantastic appetizers (around twenty-five). By the time most of us returned for the main courses we were already stuffed but the roast venison and pork tenderloins were too good to pass up (I’m told the fish was excellent too).
For entertainment my basketball teammates sang (note we’re in a basketball, not singing club … it wasn’t something you’d want to record). Written and sung bilingual in an impenetrable Bavarian dialect and something approaching English it was quite a hoot. The Bavarian verses had the best laughs but I’ll throw a few of the English verses for your amusement:
Basketball practice
Is so hard to do
But practicing daily …
Is not enough for you
We’re lucky to meet him
In Practice twice a week
He scores many baskets
- spite of white mans disease
And closing with:
Now singing is enough
Its too hard to think (true, they were really off-key)
So Bruce come and join us
- and lets have a drink
This was followed by a separate roast which is not easily translated but was uproariously funny (I laughed till I cried). A few photos are available if you click here. We quit a 1 a.m. … not sure if it’s a shame ten years doesn’t pass more often or not. Cheers!
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
Heidelberg
Sometimes it’s the little things that make life so wonderful. I’m in Heidelberg on business; last night I routed through Stuttgart (by train) to have dinner with an old Army friend I’d not seen in 20 years; we’d been in a nine week course together way back when (thank you facebook, she is now a reserve colonel who happened to be in Stuttgart for a few weeks). It was great to catch up even if only briefly. So what happens between meetings here in Heidelberg today? Waiting for a cup of coffee I run into another of our classmates from that twenty year’s past “small group” of twelve. He’s now the head Chaplain for the Army in Europe and we’d not seen each other in probably ten years. I found it fun to note that his team seemed so amused at our past old guy musings. After a particularly successful day of meetings I returned to the hotel to find my key didn’t work but we’ll forgo the annoyance of the hotel expecting me to check-out a day early … if only because it’s out of consonance with the rest of the trip.
Heidelberg is an old and wonderful college town on the river Neckar; Mark Twain lost his heart in this romantic city, along with countless others. After a long stroll through the pedestrian old town I had a magnificent dinner in the company of John Grisham’s latest novel (thanks to my pal Gerhard, recently in England, who loaned me his copy) outdoors at a restaurant with a view of the old bridge (or more to the point a whole bunch of Japanese and American tourists). Beef tenderloin atop a mountain of roasted mushrooms and vegetables topped with Rucola and parmesan along with a wonderful local beer whose name I’ve already forgotten … the food was fantastic … and the lovely young waitress was nice enough to flirt with a middle aged guy.
Walked a mile and half back to the hotel along the river in the company of two coxed four rowing teams, several scores of college kids on bikes and quite a few runners, most of whom I’m happy to report I could probably more than keep up with (or perhaps the two beers at the restaurant were getting the better of my imagination). Got to view a great sunset to the over a yacht marina and made it bake to the hotel just as the storm clouds from the east started dumping rain. So here I’ll close, with a mini-bar beer within reach and ready to call it a night … tomorrow is an early train back to the grind-stone.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Basketball Update
Well sports fans, I know most of you are real disappointed that ESPN is paying so much attention to the SuperBowl that they haven’t reported the Upper Palatinate (Oberphalz) Senior Men’s Basketball league. So I’ll play the slightly biased sports reporter and give you the latest, this afternoon Sulzbach-Rosenberg smashed Schwandorf 60:53. Thankfully, it wasn’t as close as the end score shows; they hit three desperation 3-pointers in the last minute to pull as close as they did. We played better than normal with good passing and a solid defense forcing a lot of turnovers (I was happy with three steals). Schwandorf, with eleven (younger) players, waited far too late to rotate their guys and try running the seven of us into the ground while pushing a full court press. As it was, they fouled out three for their efforts and the men from Sulzbach were all about spent at the buzzer (me included).
The rest of the story is our semi-official senior’s league is once again not turning out as we’d hoped. The idea is a more relaxed schedule, no need for neutral refs, beers on the court afterwards … or slightly more emphasis on fun over hard competition. Just as last year, five clubs signed on and again all but two of us have failed to get enough guys together to get schedule games. We lost our first game to Weiden but they soon thereafter dropped from the league. So instead of 20 or 30 games in a season in the competitive normal leagues, we may only see 3 this year. Schwandorf will try for revenge on our home court on the 27 March … be there!
The rest of the story is our semi-official senior’s league is once again not turning out as we’d hoped. The idea is a more relaxed schedule, no need for neutral refs, beers on the court afterwards … or slightly more emphasis on fun over hard competition. Just as last year, five clubs signed on and again all but two of us have failed to get enough guys together to get schedule games. We lost our first game to Weiden but they soon thereafter dropped from the league. So instead of 20 or 30 games in a season in the competitive normal leagues, we may only see 3 this year. Schwandorf will try for revenge on our home court on the 27 March … be there!
Saturday, October 10, 2009
A Lovely Train Ride
Sometime you simply can’t let the stupid stuff get to you. I’m sitting in a train traversing Switzerland en route Kaiserslautern Germany from Italy, the second stop for the work week of travel. Magnificent doesn’t come close to describing the view of Swiss Alps with its scenic lakes and breathtaking mountains. Of course they look even better with a wonderful (and expensive) meal in the restaurant car resplendent with a half bottle of wine and an espresso afterward. Sometime travel doesn’t suck.
Of course, sometimes it does suck … and earlier in the day would have been one. From Vicenza the plan to Kaiserslautern called for ten and a half hours on four trains. Unfortunately, the train into Milan was seventeen minutes late and the connection to Zürich was missed. After a long wait at the ticket counter a less than brilliant ticket agent gave me an itinerary adding four hours to the trip (he was sticking to my exact itinerary rather than look at the best way to “K-town”). That he also insisted I shouldn’t worry about the “compulsory reservations” didn’t make me feel very … er … comfortable. I called Lisa and a few minutes later she had much better connections off the Internet which only added two hours. After standing through the line again and demanding to speak with the supervisor everything was as good as it was going to get and here I am en route Basel, Switzerland (vice Zürich) and points onward.
The Milan station is one of the biggest I’ve seen; built under Mussolini, grand isn’t an adequate word for the architecture; but pathetic isn’t an adequate word for the overall rating. Hungry, annoyed from the ticket agent and with over an hour to kill, I toured a huge facility under renovation seeing scores of shops ready to open, but all closed; and to my utter amazement, not a single café or restaurant offering seats and food.
OK, enough complaining, if you ever get a chance to take the Cisalpino train from Milan to Basel, do so!!
Now let me backup to earlier in the week to the stay in Vicenza Italy; as you may have noticed previously, Italy is one of my favorite countries despite some real shortcomings in the service department. The train down Sunday, via Munich, was long but uneventful; but when you get off the train and the world is just pleasantly different: fantastic architecture (Jefferson’s Monticello is modeled after a building here) is not always well maintained but still just cool; a beautiful young woman in a stunning sleeveless slit dress and spike heeled sandals riding a bike to work with a baby trailer on the main street (you just don’t see that in St. Louis); a businessman wearing purple slacks that don’t look wrong. And everywhere at night, people of all ages out and about walking the old city (an UNESCO World Heritage City) or enjoying a sidewalk café. Three nights with three great meals just make it that much better. And the mission behind the trip went fairly well too. I’d also decided on an early morning run yesterday through a cool looking ancient arched gate with a very long steep stone stairway up a hill thinking the view had to be gorgeous. It was gorgeous but the real hill was hidden from bottom view. At a pace hardly more than a fast walk (i.e. nearly dying) I reached the third stage in a long climb and started seeing American Soldiers from the 173rd Airborne Infantry Brigade doing physical training. They were running the same hill … with full rucksacks. They’re preparing for deployment to Afghanistan and seem physically ready to me. It always does my heart good to see young stud Infantrymen doing their thing. I ran a lot faster on the way down by the way.
Of course, sometimes it does suck … and earlier in the day would have been one. From Vicenza the plan to Kaiserslautern called for ten and a half hours on four trains. Unfortunately, the train into Milan was seventeen minutes late and the connection to Zürich was missed. After a long wait at the ticket counter a less than brilliant ticket agent gave me an itinerary adding four hours to the trip (he was sticking to my exact itinerary rather than look at the best way to “K-town”). That he also insisted I shouldn’t worry about the “compulsory reservations” didn’t make me feel very … er … comfortable. I called Lisa and a few minutes later she had much better connections off the Internet which only added two hours. After standing through the line again and demanding to speak with the supervisor everything was as good as it was going to get and here I am en route Basel, Switzerland (vice Zürich) and points onward.
The Milan station is one of the biggest I’ve seen; built under Mussolini, grand isn’t an adequate word for the architecture; but pathetic isn’t an adequate word for the overall rating. Hungry, annoyed from the ticket agent and with over an hour to kill, I toured a huge facility under renovation seeing scores of shops ready to open, but all closed; and to my utter amazement, not a single café or restaurant offering seats and food.
OK, enough complaining, if you ever get a chance to take the Cisalpino train from Milan to Basel, do so!!
Now let me backup to earlier in the week to the stay in Vicenza Italy; as you may have noticed previously, Italy is one of my favorite countries despite some real shortcomings in the service department. The train down Sunday, via Munich, was long but uneventful; but when you get off the train and the world is just pleasantly different: fantastic architecture (Jefferson’s Monticello is modeled after a building here) is not always well maintained but still just cool; a beautiful young woman in a stunning sleeveless slit dress and spike heeled sandals riding a bike to work with a baby trailer on the main street (you just don’t see that in St. Louis); a businessman wearing purple slacks that don’t look wrong. And everywhere at night, people of all ages out and about walking the old city (an UNESCO World Heritage City) or enjoying a sidewalk café. Three nights with three great meals just make it that much better. And the mission behind the trip went fairly well too. I’d also decided on an early morning run yesterday through a cool looking ancient arched gate with a very long steep stone stairway up a hill thinking the view had to be gorgeous. It was gorgeous but the real hill was hidden from bottom view. At a pace hardly more than a fast walk (i.e. nearly dying) I reached the third stage in a long climb and started seeing American Soldiers from the 173rd Airborne Infantry Brigade doing physical training. They were running the same hill … with full rucksacks. They’re preparing for deployment to Afghanistan and seem physically ready to me. It always does my heart good to see young stud Infantrymen doing their thing. I ran a lot faster on the way down by the way.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Turkish Riviera
Sun, sand, beach volleyball, a great resort hotel and plenty of the local schnapps “raki” … a wonderful mix for six days in Alanya, Turkey! Lisa and I have been in Turkey several times but this was my first to this particular region and I was favorably impressed. You can see some of the photos clicking here. Early excitement included the bus (large van) transfer from the airport … I was OK with our race driver since we made it before dinner closed down at the hotel; Lisa was just a wee bit concerned with the use of speed limits signs, stop lights, stop signs and lane marking as mere decoration. It should have taken two and a half hours, he pulled it off in an hour and three quarters. Since the driver spoke neither English nor German there probably wasn’t much we could have done about it anyway :-).
We enjoyed a tour of the city, with its fantastic ancient fort/castle; complete with a pleasant boat trip around the peninsula. Released to the market for an hour the guide designated the restaurant TexMex as our rendezvous. It was fascinating to us due to the sombreros on the wall … and huge water pipes on many tables; the nachos weren’t half bad either. We went back downtown to the harbor one evening and found it very pleasant as well.
The Maritim Hotel Club Alantur was great and we had spacious room with large balcony with a view of the Mediterranean and the city’s peninsula in the distance. With over 500 meters of beachfront it was hardly crowded and it boasted a lovely botanical garden with fountains and grassy shade for those that didn’t want sand. The outdoor restaurant was more than adequate as were the beach bars. Our only complaints were the steel planks that passed as mattresses and sparing allowance of air conditioning. Oh, and the entertainment team … wasn’t. We linked up early with an Austrian couple and had many a fine conversation. For my part, beach volleyball was a blast twice a day and there was a long (at least 5 kilometers, I never made it to the end) promenade perfect for morning runs.
Not a huge report since it was a short trip but uneventful isn’t bad for a vacation regardless of length. I was back at work 14 hours after getting home … oh well.
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