Europe recap

We are safe and sound back in the good old U.S. of A. I have to comment about how well the traveling part of the trip went. I love vacationing in far-off destinations but I hate the physical act of traveling. I hate lugging luggage. I dislike plane travel (that must be a control thing) and I wasn’t especially fond of the public transportation (but was, frankly, glad not to be driving in Amsterdam or Paris). Once I’m where I’m going I’m fine, it’s the getting to and from that irks me. Can’t wait for transporter technology to be developed so I can just beam to my chosen place.

Here are a few more pictures from the trip, pictures that didn’t really fit in with previous posts (plus after running around all day, it was a stretch to stay awake long enough to post the entries I did; I’m not a spring chicken anymore). Our canal tour of Amsterdam was quite a long tour and there were so many things to take pictures of, but this one is noteworthy for the fact that you can see arch after arch after arch looking down the canal (I believe the guide said 8 in all) and the teeny-tiny delivery truck on one of the bridges is pretty darn cool.

As we were waiting for the Thalys train to Paris, we sat on this really cool red bench in the station that has all sorts of quotes about travel. I guess if we’d known and taken the train from Schipol instead of trekking into Amsterdam Central again, we never would have seen the bench.

Here’s what the view was like from the high speed train.

Everywhere we went people were very nice and polite. I loved Amsterdam and the people living there and there was quite an international assortment of guests at our hotel (it was a popular place for airline crews on their ‘you-will-get-some-sleep’ layovers. The Internet in the room (wired) was expensive but if you went to the lobby you could have the wireless for free so that’s where I ended most of my days in Amsterdam and at that time of night the guests coming out to smoke are pretty darn tipsy from happy hour. One night there was a drunk Englishman and a drunk Norwegian giving me tips on France. The Englishman kept repeating himself and the Norwegian was completely unintelligible. But they were harmless. When I saw this sign, I thought maybe it was a special place for the Russian flight crew that was staying at our hotel.

But it turns out it means health club. The fitness center was right next to it. Zorg gets me to thinking of the girls from Kazakhstan. I was out having a smoke one night and these two dark beauties and a guy were waiting for the hotel shuttle into Amsterdam. They were in town for two days and ready to hit the clubs. Of course they spoke better English than I do. I always ask the foreign smokers to translate the warnings on their cigarette packs. The ones we have here in the US are so wimpy. Other country’s warnings detail the slow, painful death that results from smoking. They told me the ones in Bangkok even have pictures of lungs and deformed babies. We traded cigarettes. I ended up with the remainder of a pack of Kiss Superslims Energy. I don’t know what’s in them that makes them call it energy, but my bet is it’s not legal in the U.S. There were supposed to be four of them going to the clubs but one of them wimped out and went to sleep. They invited me along and as appealing as it sounded, I declined on account of the fact that I might have succumbed to all the vices of Amsterdam.

As you can see from this next picture, I really will take a picture of anything. Another of the things I liked about Europe (at least the parts of Europe I went to) were the public restroom stalls. These babies had floor to ceiling walls and total privacy. Why don’t we have that here? Oh, because we can't even get the toilets to flush here...

Everywhere I looked there was ornate detail on everything. The buildings…

…the statues…

…even the light posts are works of art.

I know we are a young country, but why don’t we do structures like this? Everywhere a feast for the eyes.

On my 270 photo day, there was a lot to go through when the day was through. I didn’t know how well my pictures of the high up statues were going to turn out. This one had a little bonus when I looked at it full sized. Don’t ask me to identify the kind of bird, but it’s a one in a million shot, oui?

They are very environmentally conscious over there. To get the electricity and air conditioning to work in the hotel you have to put your room key in a slot by the door otherwise you get nothing beyond the 30 second courtesy light that comes on when you open the door. This can create problems if one of you keeps heading down to the lobby for a smoke because the one that stays behind gets left in the dark. We learned quickly that we’d need a second key. They’re big on recycling and make it easy with bins all over the place. Trash cans too. No, the car in the picture below is not being recycled…yet.

The cars for the most part are much smaller than here but I’m not sure if that’s an environment thing or a we-have-the-smallest-streets-you’ve-ever-seen thing. There were a lot of Smartcars and they even have a program where you time-share a Smartcar with other people. It makes sense. Many people live in walking distance of where they work and the public transport is usually faster than driving on the streets. If all you need a car for is the occasional large purchase, why not share a car with others?

I loved touring Paris by open-topped double-decker bus but it did have its hazards.

I liked the cobbled streets and would like to get the moss between the stones thing going on the cobbled paths in my garden. The local upscale produce market has these plants called step-ables for sale. I think I will get some and see if I can’t recreate a little Europe in my own backyard.

The food was divine. We did a lot of eating but for the most part the calories we consumed were canceled out by the calories we burned walking. We only had one meal that wasn’t WOW and even that had a wow factor in that it was topped with a thick layer of melted cheese. We really like the fried egg sandwiches and even made some at home for dinner when we got back. We went to one restaurant that turned out to be a mistake. Funny, everyone kept telling us that the French were rude, especially to Americans. Maybe it’s because we mostly went to tourist sites, which depend on your dollars, but the only rude people we found in Paris were the two Italians that were on staff at Pompei Pizza. We’d been eating off and on all day so we weren’t looking for anything heavy. We thought the pizza place around the corner from our hotel at Rue de l’Arcade & Rue de Castellane would be perfect.

We’d figured to split a pizza and have drinks before calling it a night. Well apparently you don’t split a pizza at Pompei Pizza, everyone is required to order an entrée and they were extremely rude about it. So we left and went to Triadou Haussmann at Boulevard Haussmann & Rue de Rome where we each ended up ordering something and I had the best omelet I’ve had in a long time. All in all it was a great vacation and I’d highly recommend both cities to anyone, but Amsterdam was my favorite. But skip the pizza in Paris.

And Amber, re the building you were asking about (across from the giant marshmallow peeps bunnies). I don’t know if it’s anything special in the architecture/historic category, but it is the GAP store at Rue Auber & Rue Tronchet.