On the road

London, Budapest, Vienna

2011-12-12T21:53:00.000-08:00

Three days in London, at the Zetter Townhouses which was nice but a bit on the pricey side at $415 a night. Great small downstairs bar area though. Note for next trip: eat at St Johns. Malev to Budapest for a weekend with cwr. Unfortunately a holiday weekend (All Saint's Day on Nov 1) so many bars and restaurants were closed but we managed what we could. Fantastic dinner at Onyx with 6 courses of updated Hungarian and wine parings. The bread is served with butter, cream cheese, and pork terrine, all of which were great with about 10 kinds of breads and cheese puffs. Just awesome. Perfect beef, foie gras three ways that were all like candy, more pork, and so on. Champagne breakfast with Hungarian sparkling at Villa Bagatele, which doubles as an interior design store, so a little over the top decoration-wise, but otherwise great. Excellent veal soup at Dunacorso and a nice lunch at Belvarosi Lugas Etterem including goose cracklings with hot hungarian peppers.

A 2:50 train ride to Vienna for about $30. Great deal. Nice train. Would probably pop for 1st class next time. Hit Plachutta for boiled beef and even more goose liver, this time bruleed with a few red currants on top. A very good night at a few local wine bar/tasting room/buffets on a street a little northeast of central Vienna: Heuriger Christ, very nice whites with excellent wild boar "salami", more at Karl Lentner including some fantastic pork with crispy skin, and finishing at Richard Lentner. A fairly rare day in that all three were open on the same day, since we were out on a holiday. Funky opening hours for all the Heuriger in Vienna, due to the tax breaks they get on serving their local wine. Cool to know that there are around 1000 acres of vineyards within the (large) city limits of Vienna. It was, however, difficult to find a decent red. Another great experience at the Vienna Town Hall (Rathaus) with dinner, a waltz exposition, and a welcome from the mayor of Vienna.

One good thing from the flight back (VIE-LHR-SFO) was the Posh Wrap veggie and feta wrap served warm on BMI. Best airline snack I've had in a while. Photos at aklink.tcb.net/pics/2011-eu.

Hong Kong

2011-09-13T02:43:00.000-07:00

Quick couple days in HK on the way back from Saigon. HK is very warm (around 30-33C), even when compared to Saigon. Good dumplings for lunch near our office in Peking Shui Jiao Wang at No. 118, Jeffe Road. Thanks to Google for the recommendation. HKD 39 ($4.88 at the 7.99 HKG to $1 at the time) for very good hot and sour soup with dumplings. Stayed at the W HK which has a gym and spa on the 73rd floor and pool/hot tub on the 76th having good views of the city and a little bit of the harbor. The rooms are nice, with all the W touches including computer-controlled blinds and lights. The sauna off the dressing room on the 73rd floor was a highlight. Would definitely stay here again, although the food options in the immediate area were very western and the hotel is on top of the Kowloon station and its very high end mall. Had a salad nicoise (healthy!) with a side of mac and cheese (not healthy but awesome after a week of noodles and dumplings) at the steakhouse and wine bar in Central Park. Good happy hour ($5 decent martinis) until 8:30 which was nice. Their bread was essentially little cheese puffs, which were also not healthy but very very good.

Attempted a hike on Lantau suggested by Time Out (overview link). It may not come across in the article but on a sunny (really beautiful around 32C/90F) day this hike is very very warm and humid. I was on the 11:00 ferry to Mui Wo, started hiking up at Noon, and had drank 2.5L of water by 13:15. I turned around about 25 min after the country park when the trail leaves South Lantau Road. I would love to do this in the future, but would start much earlier in the day (7:00?) to avoid some of the sun and probably take a bus (1/2/3 or a couple others from the ferry terminal) for the first 2.5 km. Starting at the park and doing the 2:00 (listed at 2:45, but I suspect most people will do it more quickly) from the country park to Pak Kung Au then the Lantau Peak hike. Had lunch at the Turkish restaurant by the Mui Wo ferry terminal. The minced lamb with a side of babaganoush hit the post-hike salt need.

Looking forward to checking bags with SQ in the train station below the hotel and getting back to SF.

HK and Saigon Pics at aklink.tcb.net/pics/2011-ap

A Few Days in Saigon

2011-09-13T02:03:00.000-07:00

Spent a few days in Saigon for a network conference. The weather was generally good, pretty warm (mid-80s F) and very humid. It rained at least once every day of my trip which helped clear pollution out of the air and generally make things more comfortable. Smaller things are easy and inexpensive. A Mobfone SIM card bought off the street for 70,000 dong ($3.50) offered unlimited 3G coverage that was better than AT&T in San Francisco and $0.15 text messages to US and global numbers. Calling Vietnam toll-free numbers was also completely free with the card. 50,000 dong topup cards are widely available.

There are a real lack of interesting tourist activities in Saigon. A few churches are preserved, the Hotel Des Postes had many tourists but is still essentially a functioning post office with a giant (50m?) communications tower sticking out of it. The Ben Trang Market was a real waste of time, as was wandering around the backpacker district (Pham Ngu Lao).

The tunnel complex at Cu Chi is a somewhat bizarre tourist trap celebrating the efforts of the locals to resit the French then Americans with a series of tunnels dug up to 30 meters into the ground. They used these to funnel supplies from the southern end of the Ho Chi Minh Trail into Saigon. The Americans relentlessly bombed this area from 1966 until the early 1970's. The location is about 70 km from central Saigon and took around 50 min in a minibus. The tour starts with a video celebrating two locals who were "excellent killer of American". There was an advance warning from our guide that the movie was very communistic and we could leave if it was too intense, but more than anything I found it sad that given a chance to show an informational, potentially hard-hitting review of the needs behind the tunnel complex, they have gone with a 1967-era video with poorly-staged footage. I think a real loss of opportunity given what may be the level of understanding other tourists at the site may have. After the video the walking tour moves to tunnel entrances, traps for the enemy soldiers (read: Americans), a walk through an example tunnel "expanded for tourists", and to the shooting range. Yup. You can shoot an AK, an M-16, or several other automatic rifles for about $5 per round with a 10 round minimium.

Not many rickshaws around, but their drivers are pretty aggressive in wanting you to give them a dollar for a ride somewhere. What you have plenty of are motorbikes. All day and all night with incessant honking. Crossing the street, particularly a main street or around a plaza, simply requires a step of faith into traffic such that that the mass of bikes, cars, and buses will avoid you. The bikes are pretty good at doing so, car less, and buses don't seem to stop for much at all. The walkability of Saigon is pretty low, at least without considerable stress and concern for safety. The cabs from the couple reputable companies (Mai Linh, Vinasun) are very inexpensive ($2 for a 10 min ride) and generally available.

The Park Hyatt Saigon is everything that a hotel should be. Great service, excellent rooms, beds, restaurants, bars, and a decent location. You do pay western prices with local beer at $6.70, breakfast at $25 (although fantastic and obviating the need for lunch) and rooms approaching $350 with vat and service. Happy to have had a conference rate for most of my stay.

Airport WiFi Report

2011-09-10T22:00:00.001-07:00

SFO: Free wif
HKG: Free wifi
SIN: Free wifi (with code from information desk)
SGN: No open wifi at all

Arriving in Saigon

2011-09-10T01:00:00.000-07:00

32 hours door-to-door from SF to the Park Hyatt Saigon. Not as bad as it might seem because at least 8 of those were sleep and 5 were a layover in Singapore. Managed to squeeze most of a fantasy football draft in at 6:00 during a 90 min stop in HKG on the way.

Singapore Airlines is pretty good. Decent drinks selection and the food ranged from pretty good (glutenous rice with shrimp, chicken, and chili HKG-SIN and indian for breakfast SFO-HKG) to very meh (chicken and rice for dinner SFO-HKG). Completely worth the $50 for an exit row seat SFO-HKG-SIN, although it is next to the four middle seats that have bassinets on the bulkhead and that means screaming babies on and off for 13 hours.

The Park Hyatt is everything that a hotel should be. Over-the-top service, fantastic beds, quiet, great food at the restaurants, free wifi with good connectivity, 42" flat screens, ESPN Vietnam.

2011-09-04T23:48:00.000-07:00

Sitting at SFO one hour before boarding. Appears that we'll get in to HKG about 13 hours from takeoff. Suppose this isn't too bad when I'm tacking 4 to SIN, a 6 hour layover, and 2 hrs to SGN on to the trip. Looking forward to some food.

Marbella

2009-04-27T21:23:00.000-07:00

Did a week in Marbella, Spain in March. SFO-LHR-AGP and return. The USD had climbed to $1.26 for €1 while we were there which was a nice break. Had $1.32 for £1 while in London which was my all-time best exchange rate for the UK.

Photos

Stayed at Marriott's Marbella Beach Resort which is a typical Marriott timeshare property. Nice place, a little bit east of Marbella. Marbella itself is two areas. The old town, which was quite nice and features some tight winding streets away from the water and a more typical seafront a bit closer in. Puerto Banus is a little west of the old town and has a lot of very nice yachts, even out of season, along with some fairly expensive restaurants, shops, and clubs geared to tourists.

We found ourselves busy enough on this trip with Marbella and a couple days wandering up the beach that we didn't try any of the day trips that are available. People recommended a trip up the hills to Ronda or down to Estepona. Gibraltar didn't seem to get too many positive reviews. Seville and Granada seemed a bit too far for a day trip, but they definitely exist on my list of future places to visit.

Restaurants of note:

La taberna del Pinxto, Marbella location. Great tapas. Cold tapas you get for yourself from under the glass at the bar while waiters walk around with trays of hot tapas from the kitchen that you can pick from. Decent wine for €13 a bottle that they had as a special. Good mix of meat and seafood on both the hot an cold side. The meat (pork, chicken, beef) with orange spicy sauce was excellent as was most of the pork. Was under €25 per head including drinks and we stuffed ourselves both times we visited.

El Tanguito, Calle Buitrago 2, Old Town. Very good Argentine steak restaurant and bar. The flank steak was essentially a nice strip for €12. The provolone completo and a salad with radicchio were great starters. They found it a bit odd that we wanted to eat at the bar, but there was a soccer match going on and nobody was in the upstairs restaurant. They handled it well. For starters, they gave us a little bit of a house special veggie mix that was like a ratatouille of eggplant. Pretty good with their bread.

Zafferano, Calle Gloria 11, Old Town. Higher-end Italian. Was €75 per head including a bottle of Spanish white and one of Italian red. Good salads to start and an interesting, if a tad hard to eat "lasagna in a basket" thing that was very nice, light meat lasagna folded up like a greek philo pastry.

Gorky, Calle Pablo Casals 8, near the water. Pretty good tapas, but the real reason to come here is the hand-sliced jamon iberico de bellota, the ham from little black-footed pigs that live off acorns until they're cured for a while then served to you. Best pork on earth. The rolls and toasts were tasty and filling for very reasonable prices.

Cerveceria <something I can't remember>, corner of Pablo Casal and Maldonado. Nice to sit outside and have a Mahou, which isn't the greatest beer, but is ok in the sun. This place had the best brown bread along with a nice place of sliced manchego and some gambas pil-pil (sizzling shrimp in garlic olive oil).

Santa Ynez Wine Country

2007-08-06T17:04:00.000-07:00

Visited a few wineries in Santa Barbara County recently. Thought Rideau and Lafond were nice settings with very good wine. Thought Buttonwood was pretty weak wine. Tasting fees were $15, $5, and $7.50, respectively. Bought a bottle of Rusack pinot at a store since the tastings closed. Was good as well. Lafond was my favorite tasting as they specialize in deep reds such as Pinot and Syrah. Didn't like their SRH Pinot, but liked the clone 113. Liked both their Syrah and Syrah/Grenache blend. Liked the Rideau pinot, but $69 a bottle is a bit pricey for me.

Had lunch in Los Olivos at Panino. Sandwich #15 was salami, marinated sun-dried tomatoes, goat cheese, and one or two things I'm forgetting. Excellent. Had dinner at the Firestone Brewery. Was OK. Not bad, but not great. Good beer. Stayed at the Marriott in Buellton. Rooms were fine, but what was great was that the outdoor hot tub was really hot, like 103. I wish more hotels were like this.

Not a bad trip. Still a little rustic in Los Olivos and outside Buellton, with short drives to everywhere. Solvang is a strange little town that is essentially a Danish tourist trap that causes traffic to back up on weekends. Odd. I didn't eat at any of the higher-end restaurants, but would have liked to have tried some of the wine from estates with no tasting rooms, like Sea Smoke or Bonaccorsi.

Random Bits

2007-07-08T15:00:00.000-07:00

I'm lazy. Should have done this while I was on the trip, but here's about a week of random happenings:

Went to the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. Very cool town and very cool festival. Somewhat oddly, a number of bars in town had Bloody Mary specials. I wanted one from the place with horseradish-infused vodka but they had just run out. Might have to make a trip back for skiing. Since Telluride was totally sold out, I spent the night about an hour away in Ouray which was nice but a little tacky. Not too much going on there but it is totally surround by high mountains so there are great views.

There's not much between Ouray and Flagstaff. Silverton is a cool little town about an hour down the very winding road. Still has some (mostly?) dirt streets and a number of shops and restaurants/cafes/bars. Not much to write about with Durango or Cortez. The Four Corners site is pretty useless. It was just over 100 degrees and there were a number of tourists standing around deciding which state they want to stand in while having their picture taken. Probably could have skipped it, but hey, how many times am I going to be out there? (The answer after this this trip is probably never again)

Flagstaff is like a little mini version of Boulder. I think I could live there. It's in the hills so it's not as hot as the rest of AZ and there are pine trees instead of desert. Northern Arizona University is just south of downtown which gives it a nice college town atmosphere and keeps the bars and restaurants in business.

Drove from Flagstaff to Vegas so I could fly to San Jose for an interview. Had my mountain bike stolen off the rack on the back of my car while parked overnight at Tuscany. Probably should have had it locked up better. Returned from San Jose for a few fun nights at the Hard Rock.

From Vegas, I drove to Mammoth Lakes which is a ski resort town about two hours south of Reno. The drive took me on CA Route 168 which is a very twisty and hilly road that I can't really recommend. I did drive by a very small college I remember reading about in high school called Deep Springs College. Its location is pretty much the middle of nowhere. I suppose the closest airport is in Reno, but it has to be the least accessible college I've seen. Mammoth itself has some nice lakes and good scenery but nothing that made me want to run back there anytime soon.

Found an even more twisting and hilly road the next day in CA Route 108 going over Sonora Pass. Very scenic but not the easiest drive to do.

Colorado

2007-06-21T15:30:00.001-07:00

At some point I need to get a job and since I'd like to work in California, I decided it would be a good idea to move there instead of sitting around Ann Arbor or Cleveland. It also seemed like a good idea to kill two weeks in the process by driving across the country, from Cleveland to Palo Alto.

Drove 13.5 hours the first day, arriving in Lincoln, NE. Drove from there to Denver the next. There aren't any good pictures of this part of the trip because there isn't that much to look at. Spent a few uneventful nights in Denver with 1.5 to 2 hours of biking each morning. Altitude really makes a difference the first few days. Stayed at the new Hyatt at the Convention Center. Nice hotel for being so big. Found a few great specialty beers at the Falling Rock, including an Odells Double IPA. Excellent stuff.

Spent the next two nights camping on Lake Dillon. Nice campsites but very cold at 35 degrees during the night. There would be pictures of this part of the trip but my camera batteries died, possibly because they roasted in the car all day and almost froze at night.

Drove about 5 hours to Ridgeway, CO today to stay at the Chipeta Sun Lodge which is great so far. My room doesn't have a TV but does have a hot tub on its balcony. Seems like a fair trade to me. I'll have pictures up of this place when the clouds on the mountains roll through.

Winter Haven 2007

2007-03-28T15:39:00.000-07:00

Went to Winter Haven again. Only one night this time with one night in Tampa and one on a beach. The Best Western Admiral's Inn didn't have our reservation, so that took 30 min to resolve despite having a confirmation number. Awesome. We did find a decent beach in Indian Shores. Much nicer than St. Pete Beach or Clearwater. Very nice restaurant called the Salt Rock Grille there as well. They had Sierra Bigfoot in bottles, but it was a little too early in the afternoon for that. Should also mention that the Tigers Spring Training stadium had Bell's Two Hearted and Amber in bottles for $5. Good deal for a baseball game. Almost as good as the $4 16 oz. Sierra drafts at the Southwest Michigan Devil Rays game last year. They went out of business though and moved to Midland. Oh well.

"I almost got out of here," he joked. "But the Winter Haven curse got me again."

Fat Americans? What?

2006-08-30T12:50:00.000-07:00

Someone tries to eat a Counter burger with everything. Impressive. Makes the list for next Cali trip. Gonna have to decide between that and La Costena.

OK, calm down, all is well

2006-08-30T12:45:00.000-07:00

The A-Team is just taking a two week break for the Daniel Boone marathon in advance of the DVD release of that show. Who knew?

Coming at the end of Sept: A trip to SF to see the Browns @ Oakland.

TV Land replaces the A-Team

2006-08-28T11:13:00.000-07:00

TV-Land replaced the 2pm A-Team with Daniel Boone. Damn good thing the Summer is over. What the hell were they thinking? It's $40 per season for the A-Team DVD. Grr.

Slovenian salads

2006-07-08T20:39:00.000-07:00

Saw the NYT article from today on salads. I should have mentioned that the Slovenians have salads of fresh tomatoes, cucumber, onion and a little parmesan on top. Was excellent with a little pepper.

Trip pictures

2006-07-06T09:45:00.000-07:00

2006 World Cup Pics - .de .si .uk

Manchester -> Toledo

2006-06-30T08:05:00.000-07:00

Short flight to Manchester and a quick shuttle ride to the Marriott Manchester Airport. Was a nice hotel and I only paid $92 through Priceline. Took the shuttle back to the airport and paid 1.40 Pounds for an evening return. One tenth of what it costs to get to Heathrow from London. Bah. I think I remember swearing off returning to London at one point in the past and I started to remember why. Anyway, Manchester looked bleak, like Trainspotting bleak. I got off at Oxford Road station and wandered around the city and university area stopping in various bars along the way. I talked to a few people in these places who took a little while, then said "Wait, you're from the States?" One guy said "We don't get many tourists around here. Apparently the guide books say this isn't a safe city." I can see why, although even the guys with all the ink were cool. There really weren't any tourists, they had real ale (Old Peculiar, Old Speckeled Hen) for 2.50 Pounds ($4.60) as oppossed to the 3.20 for 1664 or Carlsberg in London (The Southwark Tavern did have Budvar and Staropremen for 2.95 which wasn't bad), and the pubs weren't packed because the students appeared to be mostly gone.

The airport was a mess the next day for my flight back. They have a nice space but people are everywhere and the layout sucks. They put two big planes to Chicago that depart 20 min apart at a shared boarding area. For an hour preceeding the flight, every 30 sec there were "DING DING!" and some boarding announcement. Very annoying as was the security before checkin. They had people asking questions about bag packing and other useless crap then had to pick a receipt for your trip out of a stack. Very lame when you have a full 767. Some combination of AA and the airport should make this better. AA kinda sucks for in-flight service and beer/wine were $5. I'll definitely stick with BA or Lufthansa or even United in the future if at all possible. O'Hare was its normal big crappy self and the flight back to Toledo was uneventful. After paying a $140 parking bill and an hour of driving, I was back in Ann Arbor. Yay. Now for Summer.

Wimbledon and London

2006-06-30T07:37:00.000-07:00

Stayed at the Southwark Rose for two nights then moved to the Hilton Paddington. Two fine hotels. Nothing terribly special about them. No breakfasts included. Had dinner Sunday night at the Slug and Lettuce in Southwark. Was a big plate of fried things that were prety good. Had much better food including tapas at Brindisa in Bourogh Market and Vinology across the street. Also had good food at my Mom's hotel, the Zetter. The Hilton had the largest rooms of the three hotels. Watched a number of the World Cup round of 16 games including the 0-0 snoozefest that Ukraine won over Switzerland on penalties when the Swiss failed to score. Awful like that UCLA/Memphis Elite Eight game last year. I did talk to a guy the next night during Spain/France who turned 3 pounds into 178 with a parlay betting on the Ukraine/Swiss game to be awful.

Went to Wimbledon with the tickets from the lottery on Monday morning. It was cloudy and after 35 min of watching Kim Clisters it started to rain. We had great seats in the first row behind her coaches' box so we stuck around for a few hours hoping play would resume, but it never did. Very disappointing. Wimbledon was impressive as far as the courts, but the merchandise was weak and for a place that gets a lot of rain, there weren't many areas to stay dry. Oh well. I'll try again sometime in the future. Did make it to the Tate Modern for a mix of good strange art and bad strange art. They did have Steiglitz's "Steerage" in the photo exhibit which was interesting to see in person.

Instead of taking the tube to Heathrow for about $12, I opted to have lunch and a pint and take the $26 Heathrow Express. Figured I had only paid $50 for my LHR-MAN ticket and it was kind worth it. Hoped to find less tourists in Manchester before heading back to the US.

Paris

2006-06-30T07:21:00.000-07:00

Catching up on blog entries.

Made it to Paris late Thursday and to the Hotel Metropolitan via RER and Metro. Tiny room with a huge king bed that was pretty close to a Westin Heavenly Bed as they claim. Met up with my Mom and one of her friends for a few days before heading to London on the 26th. Went to the http://www.musee-orangerie.fr and http://www.musee-orsay.fr. The Orangerie was impressive with the rooms of Monet's water lillies and the collection downstairs. The Orsay is huge and filled with school groups which detracted from the excellent and huge collection they have. I liked the Neo-Impressionism rooms. The paintings are made up of little dabs of paint that are impressive when viewed from close up.

Had some good food. There was a market Saturday morning on the Ave de Woodrow Wilson where I had some sort of Lebanese flatbread with tomato, herbs, and two kinds of cheese cooked on a convex metal grill. Had North African including a great Algerian wine at 404 and buffalo mozzarella followed by chicken paella then cheese with wine from Gascony at Le Kiosk (Place de Mexico) which had a great weekly menu featuring pyrenees specialties. Also had a few Belgian beers and some frites with dijon mayo at http://www.academie-biere.com.

On a rainy Sunday morning, cought the Eurostar for the three hour trip to London from Gare du Nord. Totally uneventful trip although I noticed that the tunnel pretty much puts everyone to sleep.

US v Ghana in Nurnberg

2006-06-27T02:48:00.000-07:00

Took another lovely three train combo from Kitzbuhel to Nurnberg to see the US play Ghana. Met up with one of my brother's friends after a few rounds of "Where are your going to be when?" emails. He did manage to show up at the train station when my train arrived. Since I had already gone to the Czech game and I had to make a flight around 8:30, I sold my ticket for 50 Euro (+15 ticket scalping, -100 blackjack) and we went, had a few beers, and watched the game in the town square. Was pretty disappointing to watch the US lose and Ghana advance but whatever. We still have a long way to go in soccer. Should point out that the Rothbier from the Hausbraueri was very good despite what some others think. http://www.ratebeer.com/Beer/altstadthof-rothbier/35894/

We had checked luggage at the train station when we got in and when I went to get mine, it was in a room with a few thousand bags. I can't imagine how long the line was when people got back from the game. Made my flight to Paris on time and got a ham and swiss sandwich and a small bottle of red wine. On a 75 min flight. Once again, US airlines: You can do better. Also got a few pictures of the US team boarding their plane that I'll put up.

iPods take way too long to fully charge.

Ljubljana -> Kitzbuhel

2006-06-27T02:35:00.000-07:00

Took a train from Ljubljana to Schwarch in Austria then an hour train into the mountains and Kitzbuhel. The train was delayed an hour arriving into Slovenia and we ended up sitting around Villach for two hour waiting to get hooked up to the next train through. Spent the time talking college baskeball with the UConn grad in my train compartment. Stayed at the Hotel Zur Tenne which was awesome at 95 Euro/night. Nice buffet breakfast with meats, cheeses, breads, and eggs cooked to order or ham and eggs depending on the day. Met a few Brits and a guy from Boston the first night and hung out with them watching World Cup matches. Took the Hannenkammenbahn gondola up one morning and did a three hour (round-trip) hike topping out around 6500 feet along the tops of the mountains. Was very cool to see the higher mountains (up to 12k ft) covered with snow off in the distance. Kitzbuhel feels a lot like what Vail has aspired to be. It's pretty expensive for food and drinking but a fun town nonetheless. The Londoner, an infamous apres-ski bar is pretty dead in the Summer.

Nothing else too eventful in this part. Just a few nice days hiking in the mountains.

Kitzbuhel and Paris coming soon

2006-06-24T01:21:00.000-07:00

I can email OK using these French keyboards but typing in a blog entry is hurting my hands. I'll fill in more from London.

Slovenian Lakes: Bohinj and Bled -> Ljubljana

2006-06-17T06:15:00.000-07:00

Q: Why did you go to Slovenia anyway?

A: I have liked the few Eastern European cities I've been to in the past (Prague and Riga) and Ljubljana reportedly is a nice one as well. I tacked on a trip to the mountains because I bought Loney Planet's "Walking in the Alps" for Austria and the Slovenia parts sounded interesting as well.

(Oh goodie, Kelly Clarkson just came on in this cafe and the waitstaff turned it up. Please someone shoot me.)

Anyway, stayed at the end of Lake Bohinj at the Hotel Zlatorog. Was a slight step above "rustic". There weren't many people around which was nice compared to Dusseldorf. Hiked up to Slap Savica (a waterfall) then around the lake for a total of about 12 miles the first day. The only minus was that after an hour of uphill hiking, I found two tour buses arriving at the falls. Gah. The next day I took a bus for about an hour to Bled ($4.50) and hiked to Vintar Gorge, doing the 30 min walk along the gorge walkway then back. No real memorable food to talk of except for the Krema Rezina which is Bled's local cream cake which I had at the newly redone Hotel Lovec's terrace. About a half-inch of vanilla cream over an inch of custard with a light top and bottom. The picture will do it justice. They did have venison goulash at the hotel restaurant but I passed.

Attention Loney Planet: Two things. Your Bled->Vintnar route involes walking on a one lane road with little shoulder for 30 min on the way there, then along a road with a nice wide sidewalk for the 30 min back (after the hike out of the woods). Change the damn directions to avoid Podhom. Second, in Bohinj Bistreca, the bus to the lake picks up 50m down the road and across the street from the post office, not at it as the Bled/Ljubljana buses do. That only cost me an hour.

Friday involved a two hour bus to Ljubljana ($10) and checking in to the Hotel Domaine Grand Media which has 50" plasma screens with TV and internet. All run through an XP box. I confused IE about 5 min in but I think it eventually crashed and came back. I also got an ActiveX window around CNN last night. They have the right idea but it still needs refinement. This is a pretty small place (280k people) and the nightlife is more university than city. The bar with "beautiful people" was starting to clear out at 1am on Friday night and they were playing Whitesnake's "Here I go again on my own". Incidentally, I heard that on the bus yesterday when there were only a few people on it. It's just like Detroit. Went to try the Irish bar but I heard Freebird coming out the door and didn't see any people inside, so I went and found a cab. Ended up back at the hotel around 2am to find the casino was open (shocking), so I played a little blackjack (down 50 Euro. also shocking.) and went to bed.

Had some weak sushi Friday although I suppose I can't be too unhappy since they did actually have sushi and some OK pasta. Had a good mozzellera and ham on cibatta bread for lunch. Might hunt down a mexican place I read about for dinner or just keep drinking whatever Modri Pinot (pinot noir) they're selling here for $3.50/glass and have a salad. One more day here, then to Kitzbuhel on Monday.

Random bits:

Germans know Eminem is from Detroit. They know that and cars about it.

Germans appear to love Dog the Bounty Hunter. He's on a few times a week.

In Slovenia they say Dober Dan for Hello. Every time I hear it I think of George Clooney's pomade in Oh Brother Where Art Thou? (Dapper Dan) and get a few of those songs in my head.

They apparently only have two beers in this country: Union Pils and Lasko Zlatorog. Not bad, but I'm going to try to find at least one more before I leave.

Dusseldorf, US v Czech, Travel to Slovenia

2006-06-17T05:31:00.000-07:00

Pictures coming whenever I find a computer with a USB port.

After the adventure getting to Dusseldorf, I went and watched the French Open with the five people in town not watching whatever blowout soccer game that was on. Proceeded from this to a few other bars trying different varieties of their Alt beers. Not one of them were particularly great. Oh well. Also tried their local (German?) speciality of Currywurst. Essentially a hot dog chopped up and smothered with ketchup mixed with curry powder. Served with mayo if desired (of course I got it with mayo too). Pretty gross.

Stayed at the hotel AtlDusseldorf which had a great location right in the AltStatdt surrounded by bars. The problem with that was (Duh Aaron) some of the bars were open until 5 AM. After three hours of sleep on the plane over 36 hours I slept pretty well.

Woke up the next morning sweating from the heat (felt like 90 at 10am) and went to Gelsenkirchen to watch the US v Czech match. Took a train that got crowded with soccer fans. Went to see all the US supporters at the bar near the station then hopped the packed tram to the other end of town to have lunch. Found a nice place with only a few Czech fans and had a great meal around 3:00 knowing that I probably wouldn't be eating till midnight. Had a big plate with pork schnitzel and two thin pork sausages served over roast potatoes, onions, peas, and mushrooms. Was awesome and only 6.5 Euro. Had a few Franzishkanner Weissbiers along with it then left for the game. Outside the stadium was hot, inside was roasting, and the only beer available was Budwiser. The US kind. I passed. The game was awful for the US. A 0-3 defeat that showed how far behind US soccer still may be. Had an uneventful trip back to Dusseldorf and some mediocre tapas for dinner.

Next day was a travel day. An ill conceived travel day, but trying to get to a specific lake in Slovenia required a little more planning effort than normal. Shocking that everything worked out.

8:45 Subway to the Dusseldorf Hbf

9:07 train to Cologne airport

11:30 flight to Klagenfurt (Austria)

13:00 bus to train station

14:42 Train to Villach (Austria)

15:55 Train to Jesenice (Slovenia)

16:53 Train to Bohinj Bistreca

17:30 Bus to Ukanc

Out of time again. More to come when the weather turns bad.

Ann Arbor to Dusseldorf

2006-06-14T05:02:00.000-07:00

So I was suppossed to get to Germany by driving to Toledo, flying American TOL-ORD-MAN then Lufthansa MAN-DUS. Since I wanted to have my bag checked all the way to DUS, I showed up 1.5 hours before the flight and after a flury of key clicking, the AA guy got me all sorted out. I then got to wait in a basically deserted airport (Flights now to six cities!) for a boring hour. Plane (RJ EM4) arrives on time from Chicago. Boarding starts. Right as I'm handing my boarding pass over, the radio cracks "We're going to have a slight delay" and I feel a nightmare starting. Sure enough, two hours later after some furious AAgent key clicking and "We don't have a seat on any plane to Europe from any airport. What the Hell is going on?" I'm on my way. To Detroit. In a town car.

Fast forward an hour. I've got a paper ticket from AA to fly Lufthansa DTW-FRA-DUS which is the ticket I would have bought in the first place if it wasn't $1000 more than the AA ticket. It says FIRST next to the DTW-FRA portion so maybe that will be a good thing. Arrive at DTW at 5:45 ( 6.5 hours after leaving Ann Arbor) for a 6:15 departure to find two German women with stern looks on their faces at the Lufthansa counter.

"Are you Klink?"

"Yes."

"I'm sorry, we have a problem."

"Crap."

"We can't put you in first because AA won't pay for it"

"OK. Can I get on the flight anyway?"

"Oh sure, you're just in coach and we can't get you a boarding pass to DUS"

So thanks for freaking me out. After all this crap, I ended up in an exit row next to a guy heading to Beruit and had a nice flight. "Chicken or Pasta" for dinner. Free booze and wine (definite win over AA), hot towels a few times, and a turkey and cheese sandwich for breakfast (?). FRA-DUS was in business which meant pork medallions, saurkraut, brie, bread, mustard, and carrots. Was good. For a 30 min flight. Hello US airlines! Sort rail ride to my hotel and the drinking (I mean fun!) could begin.

I'm behind on this. It's too nice to sit inside though so it'll have to wait. Coming soon: Dusseldorf, US v Czech, getting to Slovenia, and hiking around Lake Bohinj.

photo test

2006-05-30T07:14:00.000-07:00

Cafe in Copenhagen
Had a pretty good $16 cheeseburger. Stupid lazy US dollar. This post is simply a test of how blogger handles photos. Hopefully I've put enough text here to see how the post will wrap around the picture.

I for one welcome our Cupertino-based overlords

2006-03-17T19:09:00.000-08:00

Started spending money on travel foo. First buy: 30G iPod.

Europe tickets

2006-03-16T17:27:00.000-08:00

Found an American Airlines ticket from Toledo to Manchester through Chicago for $621 in June. Tacking on a Lufthansa ticket from Manchester to Dusseldorf for $64 and 20k United miles. Not a great deal but beats the $270 they wanted for the flight.

Spoke with a jackass at the United Airlines International Award Reservations line named Jeffery. Told him I had put a reservation on hold earlier in the day on Lufthansa from Manchester to Dusseldorf. Before typing anything into the computer, he asked if I was flying through Chicago or Dulles to London. I said "Manchester, England". He said "there aren't any direct flights from there, you have to be flying through somewhere" and hung up on me. Good work United. I called back and a woman who wasn't a total idiot helped me.

Return from the swamp

2006-03-07T20:13:00.000-08:00

Made it back from Winter Haven in one piece. The Westin downtown was great as was staying at the hotel at the airport for morning flights. Had one unmemorable night at the Best Western Winter Haven. Nothing like a bunch of underage-looking kids partying in the hotel "lounge" until 2am Thursday night. Had lunch at Tanner's in Winter Haven which is fine, but apparently the only bar in town not located in a strip mall. Stopped at Gary's on the way back to Orlando. Good stuff. Oysters, buffalo shrimp, conch fritters, and little neck clams.

Spent two nights out in Orlando. Very clubby but a few normal bars thrown in. Watched a little rugby and soccer at the Irish bar. Spent a little time the next morning at the factory outlet. Nice Zegna stuff at half-off, but it's half-off of $250 for a shirt. About 90 min each way from downtown to the Indians stadium in Winter Haven. Had some mediocre sushi at Ichiban on S Orange in Orlando. Not that the fish was going to make anyone sick, rather it just didn't have much taste.

Time to start booking hotel and air for Germany. Got a flight from Stuttgart to Paris on HLX for $27.

Spring Training

2006-02-19T20:37:00.000-08:00

This will be the fourth straight year that my brother and I have made a short trip to central Florida to see a few Cleveland Indians spring training games. The problem is that I like baseball and the Indians but really don't like the town of Winter Haven or the city of Orlando.

Winter Haven is a sort of trashy town about an hour drive from Disney. There are a few hotels in town but they range from the Best Western and Days Inn to the Super 8. Once you're there, there's not a terrible amount to do other than go to the games and go drink at Beef O'Brady's or a place called Tanners. The only redeeming food is a place called Gary's Oyster Bar and Seafood House in Lake Alfred, the town to the north. Good oysters and other seafood plus mai tais served in styrofoam cups. Gary's kind of prickly but the two guys running the bar are fun. It's also important to show up a little early before the place fills up with seniors and their oxygen bottles.

We're trying something new this year and staying in downtown Orlando at the Westin Bohemian courtesy of Priceline giving us two nights for a total of $255 instead of the $317 per night that westin.com offered. Hopefully we'll be able to miss on some of the traffic and bad food that has plagued our previous stays around Disney. There are also a few bars down the street from the hotel which means we won't have to drive to go out at night.

post 0

2006-02-19T20:14:00.000-08:00

Starting this blog to cover this year's travels. Going to start with baseball spring training in scenic Winter Haven, Florida. Following up with two US World Cup fixtures in Germany during June and Court 1 for the first day of Wimbledon. Got the World Cup tickets from US Soccer's first-come, first-served process and the Wimbledon tix through their lottery process that started in December.