US v Ghana in Nurnberg

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Europe tickets

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

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.