The next two years

Ok, so I skipped the post about Finland... it was cold, very nice, but cold. I should be going back in March and get a chance to see a little more and post a little better about it.

The big news in case you haven't heard is we are staying in Germany another two years. I have been offered a job with another department which is going to give me a great amount of experience and the family decided it isn't all that bad here, so why not.

We will be moving to a new place, a house instead of an apartment. Officially it is the same size as this place, but the floor plan is much better. There isn't a lot of wasted space and the rooms are shaped a little better. There is also a basement for storage and the most important part, a yard to let the kids loose in.

We have also decided that I have done a great job taking public transit for two years and since I sold the motorcycle with the thought of returning to the US, it only makes sense that I should get a set of wheels, in this case a set of 4.

It was a really easy decision for me, since our first trip here I have fallen for the BMW 1-Series, not the sedan that they are now selling in the US, a better one. Fortunately the dealer had a 120i that they had been using as a demo, so it was a done deal really quick. Now the hard part is going to be figuring out how to get it imported to the US in two years!

Coming Soon...

Ok, it has been a while since the last posting, but I did say it would happen...

Anyway, to put out a teaser, in addition to the new posting regarding the trip to Berlin (below), I will be getting two more up in the next few days, one about Finland (it is absolutely freezing here) and about the next two years. Then, right around Christmas, I will get one up summarizing the Christmas Market extravaganza we will have next week.

Enjoy!

The Wall that once was...

For those of you that read my wife's blog, she covers the topic of the trip to Berlin a lot better and you might want to just go there for the Berlin update, I completely agree with all she says!

But if you are still here, Wow! what a trip. I really did not know what to expect. I had read that there were bits of the wall still around to see, which I really wanted to, but knowing how my colleagues in Western Germany react when you bring up the war, I did not know if it would be easy to find or if it was a "hidden" thing that you had to search out. I was very surprised to see how much Berlin has memorialized it. Although I know it was a horrible time and a lot of people lost their lives, it would be just as bad to not recognize the Holocaust or the existence of the wall and what it meant in the lives of the residents of Berlin. The city has done a great job of marking out where the wall was and in some areas including plaques which talk about the impact of the wall to the residents and the lives that were lost when people would try to get to the other side.

In addition to the wall, the city itself is just great. You have the Reichstag (basically the equivalent of the capital building) with it's neo-classical architecture and right across the river is the ultra modern central train station. Speaking of the train station, a visit to it is a must! There are 16 tracks, however unlike older train stations (like Köln) the tracks aren't lined up side by side, instead they are on 3 different levels, two of which are above ground level. One level goes North/South and the other two go East/West. Throughout the rest of the city you have structures from the post war - pre reunification era, one of which is the TV Tower which made me think of Sputnik, as well as others that have been built within the last few years.

The area around Potsdamer Platz was really cool. They had a Christmas market going on and a few Lego displays as well. In addition, there was a sledding hill set up in the middle of the Platz! Little man and I took a ride down the hill. I will try to get a video of it up in the next few days. It was great. The hill was rather steep and it went really fast and bumpy. After we got going I looked over at him and he looked like he was totally freaked out, then as soon as we got to the bottom and stopped he had a smile from ear to ear and yelled "THAT WAS SO FUN!!!" It was really cool.

Finally, there is so much history here and so much to be learned from the history, I can not wait to get back and learn more.

MOSCOW!!!

St. Basil's Cathedral


I am here! It is great to finally make it. I have been waiting for this trip for quite a while and am glad it has happened.

I arrived yesterday and entered with the Visa without any problems, which was nice, and had my luggage really quick and was off to the city. After checking into the hotel and settling in, I made my way into the downtown. By the time I got to the Red Square it was dark, but that made it really cool. St. Basil's Cathedral was lit against a black sky which just looked awesome. I unfortunately did not have my camera at the time, but will get back at night again to take some pictures.

Today I went out with a tour guide to really make the most of the trip. She took me on the Metro to the Chinatown section and then walked to Red Square from there. Again, seeing St. Basil's come into sight was breathtaking. Once in the square we talked a lot about the history of the buildings, the Kremlin Wall and Lenin's Mausoleum. Next it was a walk inside St. Basil's. This was good on two accounts - first the building is really amazing, each of the 9 domes is actually the top of a chapel, second, it was freezing cold (14°F/-9°C) and being out of the wind was very nice.

From there we walked along the square to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the eternal flame. We were just in time to see a changing of the guard. Those guards are very limber, goose stepping as high as they do for as long as they do!

Next up was the Armory Museum inside the Kremlin. Here there are several Faberge eggs Tsar Nicholas ordered for his wife, plus a ton of gold, silver and pottery the Russian Empire acquired through the years. On the first floor is an exhibit of coronation dresses, religious vestments and carriages. In all it wasn't overwhelming, but that is probably because a lot of the national treasures were sold under Soviet Rule. It is said the Queen of England has a more valuable collection of Russian Heritage than The Kremlin has.

From here it was a very cold walk to The Cathedral of Christ the Redemeer. This is an amazing looking building with a horrible history. In the early 1900s it was torn down to wipe out buildings built to honor some previous rulers. Then for a period of time in the late 1900's it was an Olympic sized swimming pool! Fortunately, by 1997 President Yeltsin had had the Cathedral rebuilt based upon photographs to look exactly the same. They did a great job!

Here are some pics - I am sure I missed a lot of things, but in 5 hours, I feel like a covered a lot. I may try to get back into Red Square on Thursday when Lenin's Mausoleum is open to the public, we will see though...


High Stepping!


Christ the Redemeer

Umm... Been a while

Yup, it has been a while since the last post. Sorry about that. After all the excitement of the around the world trip and then the motorcycle ride, it has been hard to come up with an event that tops them. Plus it has been really busy with work and two kiddos running around the house.

Anyway, since the last time I wrote I have been on a few trips. I went to Slovakia again last week. Just like last time, I could not get a direct flight, so it was into Vienna and then a car ride over. It is a nice ride though through villages and farmland. I didn't spend much time in Bratislava again so it is hard to really write much about it.

This week I went to Warsaw again for two nights. A lot of work so no sightseeing, but I did see something cool - my first SNOW of the winter. Yeah, snow on November 5! I can not remember the last time I saw snow that early in the year. It wasn't much, but it was still kind of cool.

Other than that, it nothing big. The big trip is coming in a week though. I leave on Nov. 18 to go to Moscow. I am really excited about this trip, although right now it looks like it will stay below freezing the entire trip, plus with the sun going down by 5:00, it will be really cold. I will have to see if the vodka really helps ;).

The Happiest Place on Earth

No, for the last few weeks of September and beginning of October it is not Disney, it is Munich, Germany and the great Oktoberfest! Again, taking advantage of my current situation, I hoped on a plane Thursday morning with a buddy from work to go check out what the big deal was, and it was great.

We arrived at the fairgrounds about 1:30 on Thursday afternoon and it was packed. We made our way through a few tents without finding a place to sit before settling for an outside table to get started. I had been offered tickets to join a vendor who had a table starting at 5:00 so we made our way there and enjoyed the atmosphere, the beer and the music inside. Knowing that we had more friends coming in on Friday and that we would want to put on a good show for them, we called it a night relatively early and went back to the hotel.

On Friday we struck out into the city center area. The buildings were just amazing. It was a really nice down town area, so much different than Cologne. It seemed bigger and cleaner.

After finding a place to get some good schnitzel, we made our way to the festivities again. We capitalized on our experience from the day before and found a table outside to start. At about 4 we went to a tent and met Caren, one of the waitresses, as soon as we walked in. She asked if we had a table, when we told her, "No." She told us to wait right there. Two minutes later she came back and led us to a table that was just big enough for all 10 of us.

This was completely different than the night before, since it wasn't a corporate thing, the people were much more relaxed and, um, lubricated. The band played a larger variety of music (I never would have guessed I would be singing John Denver songs in the middle of Munich!) and Caren made sure we were never too empty or hungry.



Unlike Thursday, we gave a much better showing on Friday and stayed until they turned the lights off on us. The really great thing was that with very, very few exceptions, no one got out of hand, the place was very clean, and when it was time to break it up for the night, it was just a bunch of happy drunks finding their way to where-ever they needed to be next, so unlike most events like this in the US.

Next year they will wonder what happened

It happened, I have hit the top of the ladder, the frequent flyer ladder that is.

I have officially earned 100,540 qualifying miles and that is not counting my flight to Singapore which hasn't been credited yet. About 30,000 of these miles aren't actually flight miles, but instead are bonus miles for flying in business (thank you DHL).

The kicker of this all is next year whatever job I go into, I will definitely not be traveling half as much and I will go from being Chairman's Club (good until March 2009) to, um, well, they don't have a name for that club, maybe I will make Silver again, but I doubt it. In any case, if I'm not traveling, does it really matter if I belong to an elite travel club? Membership does have it's privileges, but it does come at a cost...

A sad day

No, it isn't the rain, or the cold weather. I did something today which may shock some people, in a way it shocked me. I sold the Harley. (For my other motorcycling friends, don't worry, I didn't go entirely off the deep end and buy a BMW or anything like that.)

I say it shocked me in a way because this is something I have been talking about ever since moving here mainly due to the economics of it all. Harley's are inherently worth more and with the dollar doing as poorly as it has recently, it made the difference even more pronounced. But it was always talk. Actions are much harder to do.

I started this process on Saturday when I took it to the car wash to clean all the dirt and grime from the trip through the Alps off before going to the dealership to get a quote from them, which was pretty decent, I really wouldn't have sold it for too much more if I had done it myself and the whole language barrier with buyers would have been a real pain.

All the rest of the day and a lot of Sunday I thought about it and tried to figure out why it was a big deal to me and why I didn't just hand over the keys, but instead said, "Let me think about it and come back on Tuesday". Knowing dang well what the outcome was going to be.

Some theories I have come up with:

1. It is a part of my identity. Not as much as other parts, but when put together with all of the other parts, it is a very unique combination. Many of the people I work with know about my passion for motorcycles and frequently bring it up when I meet with them. Especially here, not many people ride Harley's let alone commute in a suit on them.

2. It was my first bike. After riding at the police department I knew I wanted one. It took a few years to be able to work it out and when I did I thought for sure it would be my only bike and with me for a very long time.

3. I worry about what the bike thinks. I know, crazy thought. But I read a book last year by Jeremy Clarkson, a personality on BBC's Top Gear. The book was titled "I know you got soul" and was about machines - mainly vehicles - and that although they were inanimate objects, they had a soul to them. The Concord was one of the great vehicles he highlighted and as he felt sorry for the plane when it was grounded he wondered if the plane thought "What have I done, why do they not want me to fly anymore."

So in the short term, I am not a biker by ownership, yet deep inside I will continue to love Harley's and will always look for the dealerships in the odd cities I end up in. I will also very likely walk away from those dealerships with a shot glass or t-shirt in hand. And one day, in the not so distant future, I will most likely ride out of one of those dealerships with a little more than a T-shirt...

German TV Sucks

As many of you know, we haven't watched much TV here because all we get is German Cable. We could have spent a decent amount of money to buy a satellite dish and then Sky TV from the UK, but when we thought about "writing the check" it just didn't seem to make sense to spend all of that money just to watch TV.

This means we are relegated to watching only two English speaking channels, BBC and CNN. We occasionally watch Eurosport and other channels that sometimes carry sports because you don't really need to understand the commentators to get the enjoyment out of the game. Then there is the occasional Bloopers show, again, you don't need to understand the host to laugh at a guy getting whacked by his kid with a wiffle ball bat.

Today it got worse. The World Championship for Road Racing is being hosted in Stuttgart, Germany today. It is only a 1 day race, but all of the big names come out for it to win the honor of being the World Champion and wear the rainbow jersey all next year. According to the TV listings, it was supposed to be on two channels, RTL and Eurosport. Well, RTL had the Formula 1 race from Japan on. The race must have been seriously delayed from rain. When it was supposed to end, it was just at lap 7 of 67. Cycling was pre-empted. So off to Eurosport. YES! They had the race - live!

So here I am having lunch, doing some work on the computer, listening to the iPod and watching the race. After the 7th lap ended, the TV goes to commercial. Time to get up to get a drink. I come back to find Eurosport has changed their programming in the middle of the race to the Women's World Cup Final between Germany and Brazil! What happened to the race? I flipped through all 30 channels and found the soccer match on twice, F1 still going strong and some other auto race as well. But no cycling. Oi!

UPDATE: After RTL finished the F1 race, they did not go to Cycling, instead a dubbed version of the A-Team - Go Mr. T!

The Ride Details

Friday Evening

I departed from Bonn around 3:30 on Friday afternoon. My trip took me West towards Aachen and then through Liege, Belgium to the French border. The trip up to this point was rather bland. Nothing but highway and weekend traffic starting early. Plus, I have driven most of this route before, so it was nothing new. I was delayed by a few accidents, but that was about it.

Once I crossed into France, it was flat farm lands. The road was really nice, 2 - 3 lanes, and not a lot of traffic. What was really cool was that as you looked to the side, you would see villages off in the distance. Each one had a church steeple sticking up above it.

After a few stops for gas and to stretch, I arrived to the hotel just after 9:00. Now, I was trying to do this trip on a small budget (more on that not working later), so I found what looked like a half decent hotel for 40 Euros on the internet. I learned what budget is. The room was clean but there was no phone or soap or anything! It did have bunk beds though.

Saturday

I started Saturday relatively early. I wanted to get into Paris to take some pictures before it got too busy. I have been to Paris many times in the last 18 months, so the only purpose of the visit was to take some photos. The plan worked, I was able to get a photo in front of the Louvre, riding down the Champs Elysee, and in front of the Eiffel Tower. I was then out by 8 and on the road to Lyon.

The first 45 minutes out of Paris was mainly highway working through the city and suburbs. After that, it was mainly farms - wheat, corn and other plants for the next 1.5 hours. Then some of the real scenery started to pop up. The flat lands gave way to rolling hills and several Chateaus were visible right along the road. The really cool thing was that when something like that was visible, there was a huge brown road sign with the name and an arrow pointing in the direction you should look. After another hour, there were more rolling hills and the country side gave way to vineyards and cattle farms.

At about 1:00 I rolled into Dardilly, a suburb of Lyon and found the Harley Dealership. They had a group ride for their local Harley Owner's Group (H.O.G.) earlier and many of the bikes were still there. It was the largest group of Harley's I have seen since being here. The dealership itself was great. The inside was laid out and decorated just like a dealership in the States. In addition, the staff was wonderful. After buying a shirt, I pulled the bike around front to take a picture, they immediately ran out to take it for me and then went back in and brought out a locally branded lanyard as a gift for stopping. From there I went to a restaurant, B-52 Cafe. The name and outside looked like it would have American Diner type food. Looks can be deceiving. The menu was very French, but good.



From Lyon, I had about another 30 minutes on the highway before I got to the big payoff for the highway riding when the Alps came into view. I exited off of the highway in Grenoble and then worked my way to the bottom of Alpe D'Huez. Once I started the climb, it was about a 15 km ride with 180 degree switchbacks and 10 - 15% upgrade. It was amazing. Then at the top the navigation lead me over the other side. The ride down was even more amazing, the road was very narrow and there was not a sign of civilization around at all. For a moment I wondered if it was actually a road, but the view was great and, it was a road.



The side of Alpe D'Huez le Tour does not ride on!

Once down, I had a great ride along a nice winding road, until I got to a roadblock. Not an official one, but one caused by an oversized vehicle getting stuck in a tunnel. No officials were on scene yet, so who knew how long it would take. According to TomTom it was another 2.5 hours to Torino, so I decided to see if there was an option. The navi said 3 hours if I turned around and worked around another way, it seemed like a safe bet.

What ended up happening was going through another mountain pass, except the sun was going down and it was the middle of nowhere. The only light I had to see the narrow winding road was that of the bike. It was here I learned another benefit of the navi, it showed the layout of the road, so even though I could not see the sharp turns until I was on top of them, I saw them on the screen - really cool! Because of the technical ride, I stayed between 10 - 20 km/h for almost 15 km. It was actually rather exciting to be challenged like that and the time just flew by.

With all of the delays, I ended up arriving in Torino at about 10:00. I ended the night by going to a little restaurant and having a nice bowl of Linguine.

One last note on Saturday's ride, the French really put New Jersey to shame with Toll Roads. In total, I spent about 50 Euros on tolls. This included a 21.40 euro toll for going through the 12 km tunnel "Tunnel du Frejus". In the middle is where the sign was for crossing into Italy.

Sunday

After a long day on Saturday, I decided to skip some sightseeing and get a little extra rest. I headed out from the hotel (this one had a phone and shampoo) just before 10 and went into the historic district to take a few photos and mainly just ride around to see it. I was then on the road by 11 after gassing up.

It was only about an hour north of Torino when the Swiss Alps came into view. I would then spend most of the next 3 hours in them. The hardest part of this ride as well as the day before was not stopping every kilometer to take a photo. The scenery was breathtaking.

One of the great things about this ride was that the way into Switzerland was not a highway but good secondary roads that climbed about half way up the mountain before a tunnel (again, border crossing in the tunnel). This tunnel was awesome though, it was Tunnel du Grand St. Bernard. It was just as long as the other, but almost half the price.



Switzerland

Once exiting the tunnel the ground was very lush and the air was so fresh it was great. I worked my way down and found a place to have lunch. While here, I saw something I never expected to see, people wind surfing on a little lake in the middle of the Alps. For about another hour I worked my way out of the mountains. Along the way I passed a huge lake by Lausanne, Switzerland before heading north towards Basel. After this, there wasn't anything too exciting to see along the way. There were more farms and then city riding approaching Basel.

At about 4:00, I crossed into France again for about 10 km before crossing back into Germany for the final 400 km, arriving home at about 9:30.

Summary

After not doing a lot of riding since being here (work and back mainly), it was really great to get out on the road for so many kilometers. By the end of the day on Saturday, I was feeling more comfortable on the motorcycle than I think I have ever felt. Especially after tackling the mountain passes.

In the last few weeks I had debated not going on the ride, knowing that it was going to be a lot of time in the saddle and would take up an entire weekend. I am so glad I decided not to skip it. It was really amazing and very, very relaxing. The only bad part of the ride was the second half of the day on Sunday. Once I crossed into Germany, for a moment it felt good to be heading home. Then I realized there wasn't much there waiting for me, but they will be home soon enough.



Something I never thought I would see in the Swiss Alps!

I'm Back

The one piece of art you will not find in the Louvre.


Some might say it is bad for a married man to spend a wonderful weekend traveling through Europe with the voice of another woman in his head, however, when that voice is Jane (with a UK accent) and all she does is whisper sweet directions in your ear, it is ok :)

Jane directed me through the weekend. I only made a few deviations from the original plan. I skipped Zurich mainly due to a lack of time. I found I was stopping to take pictures more often than planned which seriously extended my days.

This isn't going to be much of a post because I am thoroughly exhausted and need to shower and sleep before going to work tomorrow, but I wanted to get a few pics up to whet your appetites. I will write a more detailed post about my adventure tomorrow night as well as upload photos. I will upload all of them to Snapfish. I will put a few more on the blog tomorrow as well, but if you want to see all 80+ of them, send me an e-mail or leave a comment (I won't publish it if you don't want me to) and I will send you the link once they are uploaded.

Here is the trip by numbers:

Distance Traveled: 2425 KM (1506 Miles)
Gasoline: 134 L (35 gal)
Kamikaze bugs: Too many to count

The Weekend Plan

This November it will be 3 years since this photo was taken. At the time I dreamed of cross country rides or rides along Skyline Drive in Virginia. However with a family, there are other priorities which come before hopping on a Hog and disappearing for a few days. But alas, opportunity presents itself...

Since my family is in the US still and I am still (technically) a bachelor, I can go for a little motor tour. Now, never in my dreams would I have thought I would be doing the tour I am about to do though.

Here is the plan: We have become addicted to our navigation system and have already decided that we need one when we move back to the US. Luck would have it that TomTom released the second edition of their Motorcycle Navigation System. This second edition works with a car mount, unlike the first edition, so... we now have a Navi :) I spent some time this week getting it set up. The wonderful thing is that it came with a RAM mounting system for the handlebar of the motorcycle. It also came with wiring to hard wire it into the electrical system. The downside to this is that you connect the mounting bracket to the power, so if you hard wire it, it is permanent (or a lot of work to take the bracket off). Fortunately, my bike has a cigarette lighter. A quick trip to the local auto store and 15 minutes later we have a removable power cord.

So, tomorrow I am going to ride to Charles De Gaulle Airport, just outside of Paris. The Rugby World Cup is in France, so all of the hotels which are normally ungodly expensive in Paris are even more. But, the cheap ones at the airport are still cheap and a short 30 minute ride in. The purpose of this stop is to get some photos of the bike in front of some good landmarks.

After getting some early pics, it will be off to Lyon for lunch. From there I am going to make my way to Torino by way of Alpe d'Huez and spend the night in Italy. On Sunday it will be a nice ride back to Germany passing through the Swiss Alps, Basel, Mulhouse, and Strasbourg.

I may take the computer just so I can keep the iPod charged, but it might not fit on the bike. If it doesn't, you will have to wait until Sunday for photos.

The second half of the world

Ah! I know, I haven't posted in almost a month. It has been rather crazy since the last post. We picked up our daughter in Taipei and then traveled to the US with her. The days were a lot busier than expected and not much of anything got done that did not include feeding, chasing or cleaning a kid. If it wasn't one of those it was catching some rest.

Then, after the US, I completed my around the world trip and arrived in Frankfurt after a 5 hour delay in Philadelphia. I had about 4 hours to get home, unpack, repack and get back to Frankfurt for a 3 day meeting in Prague. I was then home for Saturday and most of Sunday and then back out again for 3 days in Paris, from where I just returned.

So, here are the stories you only get here...

After being in Taipei for a little less than a week, we learned we could leave 6 days early. Unfortunately all of the flights from Taipei to anywhere in the US were sold out until 4 days early. Even then, the flights that we could get had a 9 hour layover in Seattle before flying to Spokane. We thought about it a little bit and figured it was only a 5 hour drive with stops. So, when we checked in we convinced the ticket agent to only check our luggage to Seattle. She objected saying it would be a hassle to have to check it back in and get tickets again. I said, "I have two kids to take care of and 9 hours to kill. I am sure I can work it in. (he he he...)"

So we arrived in Seattle and hopped in a minivan. The first 2 hours of the ride were beautiful. The mountains and the lakes were just spectacular. The last 3 hours, flat baren, open and boring. It reminded me of driving across Indiana and Illinois on I-70.

Now, fast forward to this week. Most of you probably know I am a Jeckyll & Hyde when it comes to Paris. The tourism committee didn't decide to play off of the stereotype of the rude Parisien for no reason... For me, if I can avoid a lot of locals, I usually like it, but if I have to deal with a lot of them, well, my wife can fill you in on thosse phone calls.

The part I love is the food and the architecture. The buildings are just amazing! Well, this week I discovered a new way to see a lot of the city and quick. They have installed Velib', a network of a few thousand bicycles that you can rent really cheap and ride through the city. What you do is subscribe for a day 1 Euro($1.37) and then you take a bike from it's electronic lock with your pin code. Your ride it to another (or the same) station and put it in the electronic lock. The first half hour is free and then each half hour is another Euro.

So, at about 8:00 last night, a colleague and I picked up two bikes at Gare du Nord and then rode through the Opera, to the Louvre, along the Champs Elysee and then to the Eifell Tower to the 7th district. It was a great fall evening. A little cool, the smell of falling leaves, just nice. And some of the side streets that we rode through were just great. Buildings from when Napoleon was ruling.

Finally we locked them up and found a really good Japanese Resturant that had a great Sushi menu. I topped the night off with a taxi ride along the Sienne to get back to my hotel. The way the buildings were lit up and reflected off the river was great.

Around the world in 24 Days

The trip around the world has begun!

I am blogging from a free internet terminal in Singapore Changi Airport. The journey so far has been a trip, pun intended. I missed my connection in Singapore so now I have an extra flight. If you are following my trip, here it is:

Aug. 23 - Frankfurt - Singapore - Hong Kong - Taipei
Sept. 6 - Taipei - San Francisco - Seattle - Spokane
Sept. 10 - Spokane - Phoenix - Philadelphia - Frankfurt

More to come!

Blog Tracker

Ok, I admit, I am not the most reliable blogger. I keep the blog so that I can write about new exciting things going on over here in Germany or where ever in the world I may be, that way friends, family and anyone else can live vicariously through me. :) But this means that if I am staying in Bonn for an extended period of time, chances are, I do not update the blog at all.

In addition, I like reading some blogs, but I don't check them all every day, mainly because there are others like me that do not post every day (sometimes every week). If I haven't looked at it recently, I usually forget to look at it.

But, I found something that helps me and wanted to share it with you, to help you avoid looking at my blog and realizing, I didn't write anything recently. I use Blogarithm, you sign up, give it the URLs of the blogs you want to follow and it sends you an e-mail daily for any of your blogs that have been updated in the previous 24 hours. There are probably other similar services out there, and they may be better, I just settled on the first one I found that did what I wanted. The can be found at www.blogarithm.com

Single Again (updated)

So, for the first time in many years, I am (un)technically single again...

I drove my wife and son to Frankfurt Airport today to send them on their way for the beginning of what is just short of a three month trip. First they are going to her parent's house to drop off luggage and set the house up for the baby. Then I will meet them in Asia to pick our daughter up and return to the US with them. Then, if we want to continue to eat and have a place to live, I have to return to Europe to work while they wait for certificates and passports. Which leaves me on my own in Europe for most of the next three months.

To be fair, it works out, especially as it has enabled me to over schedule implementation projects for work. Normally, I wouldn't have scheduled so much because of the travel required, but since they aren't going to be here, might as well make sure the target objectives for this year are met and exceeded [finally bonus eligible this year:)]

Well, it was sad to see them off, but the bachelor life beckons... catch up on e-mail, go for bicycle ride, defrost the freezer... Oh yeah, the good ol' days.

UPDATE:

So, for the first meal, I figured nothing says "family is gone" like fries, chicken nuggets and a Kölsch Beer. Speaking of Kölsch, I am going to miss this stuff when we move back to the States... I used to like Sam Adams and Yuengling Lager. On recent trips to the US I have had both, but they just don't compare to the German Beer...

Wonderful Week!

Well, I did it - made it to Platinum. The flight to Miami put me over the top. Once I get the return miles added in, I will be 17,000 miles away from Chairman's Club - still can't wait to see what the color of that e-mail is...

This isn't what made last week wonderful though! It did start with travel related wonderfulness...

I flew to Miami and reserved a rental with National. They have the Emerald Club, which, if you are a member and reserve a mid-size car through your account means you can take advantage of the Emerald Aisle. You just walk up to any car in the Emerald Aisle, hop in and drive off - no counters! Plus, most sites have better than mid-size cars there. As I was on the shuttle bus I was scouting for the Aisle - spotted it and saw a PT Cruiser Convertible - BINGO! It was a really nice drive from Miami to Ft. Lauderdale with the top down!

Then, to end the work week, I booked a quick flight to Philly to see family. Good ol' US Airways came through for me. Once you are a silver member, you can get free upgrades to First Class on domestic flights if it is available. The higher your status, the earlier you can upgrade. The great part is if you book with your DM number, you don't have to do a thing! 3 days before the flight I received an e-mail telling me I was upgraded - Bingo #2!

In addition, on Friday we finally got the word that we can go pick up our daughter from the orphanage in Taiwan in a few weeks - #3.

Finally, the wonderful week ended by spending the weekend at my Mom's house and seeing all of the family in NJ that I could. Plus some friends who have a little boy I haven't met yet. Of course, for all of the wonderfulness of the trip, it was great to get home too!

Well, the "Where in the World" spot will be changing as things are finalized, Chairman's will get here very, very soon...

A great weekend

This is the first weekend since June that we have not traveled anywhere. Not to take anything away from London or Brussels, they were both great, for me, this might have been the best of the three weekends. The weather was wonderful, it rained only a little bit here and there, not enough to make you depressed. When it wasn't raining, it was mid 70's with a breeze. Add to this some good quality time around the house with the family and it doesn't get much better... but it did!

I was able to work in two bicycle rides, since I haven't ridden since I climbed to Petersberg on June 30th (thanks to travel and good ol' Mother Nature), I decided to go with shorter rides - 26KM yesterday and 36KM today. Overall, great rides. Saturday was my usual flat ride along the river, maintained close to my best average for the ride. Today's was my usual ride to the southwest with some rolling hills and a long ride along the river to end. This was the best ride, I beat my best average by 1 km/h, doesn't sound like much, but at this point, a pretty big gain for me.

Finally, a true sign of July, the Tour de France. Now cycling has not necessarily been in good light lately with all of the doping scandals. This has eased some of my excitement around the tour this year and there really hasn't been anything to get excited about until this weekend. Yesterday was a great time trial, which really sorted out who was there to play and who was there to win. Then today's stage was amazing! A mountain top finish with 6 of the top ten riders in a break away group leading up the final 16k climb. Best of all, Discovery Channel had 3 of their riders in the group. Disco then won the stage thanks to Alberto Contador and also moved into the "Top Team" spot. They are definitely making amends for a rather poor showing last year. This final week of the Tour should be exciting and culminates with another time trial on Saturday. I don't think we will really know who will win until then. If you get a chance to catch a mountain stage I highly recommend it. Especially since Versus (formerly OLN) shows only the highlights, so you can skip the boring parts.

Pre-Order Your Tour Shirts Now!

Well, I am catching up on the blog - three posts today and some major renovations to the "Where in the world is..." list.

Things are really starting to pick up on the travel front over here after a well deserved respite. I do not have all of the dates confirmed yet, but I have listed all of my trips through November. It is starting to look like a musical world tour. Should I get shirts printed? Will scalpers sell them in the airports as I walk through? What picture should be on the front? The most creative suggestions will be published on the comments!

London

DISCLAIMER... I have been slow to update, if you would like to read about Brussels, scroll down to the next post...

So, it wasn't a "Foggy Day in London Town", but the second day was a rainy day! More on that later. We arrived at wonderful Heathrow around 9:00 local time. Heathrow is just horrible. Terminal 2 just seems like it is about to fall apart all on it's own! We eventually gathered luggage, checked into the hotel and hopped on the Tube into downtown.

We did a very touristy thing and ate at the original Hard Rock Cafe. We then walked through Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. We found the original Lost Boy Statue. This one is much easier to find as there are signs everywhere and it is in much better shape.



Next thing we did was walk down Oxford St. to Oxford Circus and then Regent St. to Picadilly Circus. While on Regent St., we stopped in Hamley's, a 7 story toy store. It was just amazing the number of people that were out and about. The whole city felt like a pack of sardines.

On Sunday we decided to take one of the open top tour buses for a hop on hop off tour of London. I have always felt the tour thing was a little cheesy and overpriced, which sometimes the commentary is and the prices are, however, with a 5 year old, it is one of the best ways to see all of the landmarks of a city in a very short period of time. It did rain every now and then, but that is what Starbuck's was invented for!

Overall, London was a neat town to see. I would like to go back and spend a little more time at some of the museum's, but with the aforementioned 5 year old, that is not much of an option. I wouldn't mind if the crowds decided to stay home though...

Brussels

Yes... I am very slowly catching up on this. Sorry about that, I had said I would catch up when I did Warsaw... Oops.

So, most of you have probably read London up above, that was the second weekend excursion we went on in just as many weeks. During the first weekend of July we decided to pack up and go to Brussels. We left Bonn at around 7:00, well closer to 8 as we decided to treat ourselves for a Starbucks for the ride. It is only a 2 hour drive to Brussels so we pulled into the hotel just as the sun went down.

Saturday we spent the day meandering through the city. We started at Autoworld, a museum about the history of the automobile. It was a little different in that it was basically a big open place, like an airplane hangar, but still very nice. They had hundreds of cars dating back from the late 1800's to today. And of course, they had a Harley Davidson! It was donated to the King of Belgium for his motorcade. Every King needs a Hog to keep him safe!



We then made our way into the main square. Just like every other town in Europe, the architecture is absolutely breathtaking. The main square was hands down the best. There was a wedding going on and they had stilt walkers outside. My favorite is a photo my wife captured of them resting against the wall. Bonus points if you spot the funniest bit of the photo!




One of the highlights of the day was finding the elusive Lost Boy Statue. This is located in Egmont Gardens, behind the Hilton Hotel. This statue is unique because it is one of only 7 in the world. There is a special attraction for us as a good friend brought our attention to the statue because one of the seven is in Camden, NJ. Why Camden, not a clue... What makes this statue elusive is that there is only one website on all of the web that even hints as to where it is. In a city full of statues, this is truly a lost one, not even residents of Brussels know about it!

Warsaw

So, a little bit behind on the blogging, but I will catch up these week. One quick note since I am so far behind, I actually had another trip which I did not preview here, quick weekend get away to Brussels - more to come.

Anyway, last Sunday (July 1) I went to Warsaw. I had been told by a colleague that if I had the chance to get there early to sight see I really should do it. I am glad I did. First, I was really impressed with the number of parks. There were huge parks right in the middle of the city. You couldn't hear the traffic or anything. I was also impressed with the number of people in the parks. It was a nice day which helped, but still, they were packed with people out walking just enjoying the day.

After meandering in Łazienki Park for a little bit, I stumbled upon a concert by a military band which was a nice surprise. Because of this, I decided not to hang out until the 4:30 Sunday Chopin concert (a weekly event, people were staking out their spots at 2:00!) and decided to start heading to the old town area. This included a walk past the Presidential Palace as well as several very nice churches.

After a little bit I ended up in Stare Miasto, the Old Town. Now, the city did not fare very well during WWII, however, the Polish did not let this ruin the city, they used old photos to rebuild as much of the Old Town as they could to look like pre-war Warsaw. When you are there and look around, this fact makes it even more amazing!

I am sure there is more to Warsaw than what my one day allowed for, however from a sightseeing perspective, it was definitely worth the early trip in to see the city!


Presidential Palace

Stare Maisto

Pod Love!

Living overseas and traveling a lot, my best travel companion is my iPod. It fits in a pocket, I don't have to buy an extra ticket, and it never complains about what I want to do or eat. Plus, it keeps me up to date on music and news (thanks to NPR podcasts).

Well, I have found a new "pod" to be in love with. I recently discovered Gorillapods. These things are great. I have traveled many places and have taken a lot of pictures, but there are none with me in them. The Gorillapod now makes that possible. If oyu aren't aware of what this is, it is a small little tripod, which fits in my favorite sightseeing attire, cargo shorts, and is super lightweight. The three legs are fully flexible. This is the feature that makes it awesome, you can wrap the tripod around a pole, or anything and mount your camera. All you need know is a timer and you too can star in your own travel photos! I used to take "Self portraits" by holding the camera in front of me and facing me. Now, I can get much more creative! :) iPod and Gorillapod ... don't leave home without it!

The Hills are alive...

So, a few months back, my neighbor decided it would be fun to take Paul for a ride up to Gasthaus Petersburg. Of course, he didn't tell me this until it was too late to redirect the route. I made it that time, but it wasn't easy, and with a profile like this, it shouldn't be!


So, I thought it would be good to train a little bit and then go back and attack it again! Well, Saturday, June 30th was the day. We left at 10:00 across the river to climb the hill. This time, it went much much better. It is amazing what a little bit of preperation will do.

Although, at the same time, that works against you. When we first moved here and I started riding, going up the hill to get back home was a challenge. Now, a two hour ride is an easy ride, which means to push it, I need to go out for a few more hours, not exactly family friendly. But, it is a good thing!

Well, that is all for this post. Next few will come quickly as I catch up on a few topics.

Gold is Good, Right?

So, as the title of my blog implies, I travel, a lot... In a previous blog I wrote about the size of my passport compared to the normal, standard issue one. Well now I have another battle scar of travel...

The only saving grace of traveling a lot is the frequent flyer/visitor clubs. And for those that travel a lot, getting to "premium" levels of membership has privileges, express check in, priority baggage handling, lounge access and even express security in some airports. My question is, if one attains a "premium" level, is that a good thing or a sign of something else?

Early in June when I flew to Mexico and back I hit my 50,000 mile mark on a Star Alliance airline. For those not familiar with these milestones, this is only counting from the beginning of the calendar year, yup in just over 5 months, I flew 50,000 miles. Since my frequent flyer club is Dividend Miles with US Airways, this makes me a Gold member. They even reminded me that I travel too much by sending me a html e-mail with the gold banner glaring at me.

Now, the really sad thing is this is just the end of June. I currently have over 58,000 miles (Mexico was worth 16,000 alone and they have only credited half the trip so far). Since summer is coming, I only have one trip officially booked which will get me another 2,000 miles. However, my home trip will be on a Star Alliance airline which will rack up 14,000 miles. I also have to make at least one additional trip to the US which will add another 14,000. In total, another 30,000 miles to get a grand total of 88,000 miles. I figure it will be about mid-August when US Airways sends me yet another reminder that I am away from home too much when I get the Platinum topped e-mail after 75,000 miles... If I make one additional trip to the US I will go over 100,000... I wonder what color will be at the top of the "Chairman's Club" e-mail...

The Longest Day of the year

Well, besides all the rain, this is a wonderful time of year here, mainly because of the long days! Yesterday the sunrise was officially 5:19 AM and sunset 9:49 PM. That being said, the sky has been staying light until at least 10:45. I couldn't tell you how early it is actually light, I do my best to avoid being up that early, and have been pretty success at it so far.

That is about it for now - enjoy the weekend!

"De Plane, de plane"

So, we took the afternoon to go to the 25th AWACS NATO E-3A Component Anniversary at the NATO Airbase in Geilenkirchen, Germany. What a wonderful day! We got to see airplanes from all over Europe and the US. Plus, they had a "Nation's Corner" where there was food available from all of the participating nations. Can you say American Style Cheeseburger! Plus they had Frito's imported from the US. The best 4 euros spent all day!

Of course, being Germany, the weather couldn't be perfect. It worked out well though, it started to rain just as we hit the food tents and while we were under the big tent, it became a torrential downpour. It lasted about 15 - 20 minutes or so and then it was bright and sunny again!

We took a ton of pictures, below are a few of the better ones. I will post the rest to a Yahoo Album if anyone is interested in seeing them, let me know!

USAF B-52 Stratofortress (USA!!!)

Alpha Jet A (Portugal)

SU-22 Fitter (Poland)

F-16 (Norway)

Prague Pics

As promised, after having a wonderful dinner of beef goulash in a bread bowl, I walked around and took some pictures - Enjoy!


Side street - Hâlkova


National Museum - Eastern end of Wenceslas Square


Wenceslas Square looking West


Yes, it is 8:50 PM and it is that light out...

Prague

Hello all from Prague!

I flew in early this morning for meetings and will be here for a few days. What is really cool is that it is summer and it dusk at 10:00 pm! I took the opportunity tonight to walk Wenceslas Square a little bit. It was too dark for pictures, but I will try to get out earlier tomorrow to take some pictures.

Prague is unique, the architecture is just amazing. I love walking slowly down the side streets and looking at the buildings. Each block seems to be it's own fortress. The fronts of the buildings are all connected like a protective wall from the second floor and above. But at the first floor, you will find little passageways which will lead to a little courtyard in the middle of the block. Very cool looking.

The nightlife seems never ending as well. At 10:00, Wenceslas Square was absoutely packed with people, 70% were of a younger generation, which, I must admit, I am not part of anymore... but there was a mixture of all generations out and about.

Well, that is it for now, I will get some pictures tomorrow and upload them.

México!

Ok, so it has been a while since I blogged - sorry about that. Not much has gone on actually. I haven't traveled (until this week), nothing exciting has happened in Bonn, and as my son says after I get home from a ride, "No fresh booboo's".

But, that all changed on Monday, the traveling, not the booboo's. I had meetings in México City this week. Fortunately, there is a direct non-stop from Frankfurt to México City, unfortunately it is 12.5 hours to get there. Thank goodness for personal entertainment systems on the airplane. I watched two movies, two TV shows and played a few games. I also worked a little bit...

I really liked México City, mainly for the food. Everything has a great flavor to it. A lot of really good spices and salsa on everything! The other thing I liked about the trip was my hotel was right in the airport and the offices I had meetings in were right in the airport as well. All I had to do was roll out of bed, walk to the office (deciding which of the 3 Starbuck's to stop at) and I was at work. Same thing at the end of the day - no Taxi's! Although the taxi's are cool. They are old VW Bugs, well, old body style since they still made them for México until 2 years ago, and are green with white tops! Very cool looking.

Finally, what trip to México wouldn't be complete without a margarita? Well, just in case you missed out on one while you were there, Lufthansa offers one as a welcome beverage in addition to the normal champagne, water or orange juice. Very nice start to the long return flight... Next week, Prague!

Driving and Music

It has been a while since the last blog entry...

So I did go for the bike ride on Sunday. It was a great ride. I went out with a new riding partner who is used to flats and not much climbing. Now I have heard he is a really strong rider on the flats, so I was a little worried about going for a ride as I do not consider myself a super strong rider. However, the hills leveled the playing field. All in all, it was a really good ride. The weather was good and the roads were dry. In the end it looks like we will ride some more in the future and he invited me to use one of his bikes in the States next time I am in town and want to go for a ride.

After spending the day with family, I had a quick business trip to Brussels, well, the meetings were at the airport, so I didn't really see Brussels at all.

Anyway, it is 235 km (141 miles) from Bonn, 225 of these are on the autobahn :). The company has a fleet of cars we can rent out for trips like this. I had a relatively new BMW 320 with a 6 speed :) I really enjoyed cruising on up the highway on this trip. Even though the car was a combi (stationwagon), it drove like a sports car. Plus the car even had a hook up for the iPod, so I got to listen to good old american music for the entire ride up and back!

This leads me to my last good tidbit for the day, one of my favorite artists Toby Keith is releasing another album in June! Thank goodness for iTunes. It makes buying music so easy and the iPod makes travel so much better, especially on long flights like the one next month to Mexico (12 hours).

Sun at last!

Today was a great day. We dropped our son off at school and then went shopping for the babies room. We actually got a lot accomplished!

The best part of the day though was the fact that the sun came out! It was gorgeous. So, after getting back from many different stores, I finally was able to go out for another metric century (62 miles for those of you across the pond). Since I have made plans to ride another century on Sunday with someone whom I have never ridden with before (and happens to be a pretty high ranking executive in my company), I decided to take it somewhat easy and not to try to kill myself. I should try that more often! I finished the ride in 3 hours and 30 minutes, a whole 45 minutes less than last Saturdays ride. Of course, the lack of rain and the lack of blood probably helped this some.

Well, I think tomorrow will be an easy day instead of the 4 hours I had planned, need to save the legs some for Sunday!

More... Rain

Today I did not get to ride again because of the rain. This weather is just horrible. Once it rains one day, it seems like it rains forever. The only thing that made today better than others is that it was a holiday so I did not have to work today. Unfortunately, that also meant that not a thing was open in Germany today.

This gave us the perfect opportunity to go to Roermond, Netherlands to check out an outlet center there. Of course, about 5,000 other German's decided to do the same thing so a 1.5 hour drive, became 2.5 hours, but it was worth it. We got to walk around a nice shopping center with great stores. My wife made out really well with some new sneakers.

One of the coolest parts of the trip was as we were traveling up the A 61, we came upon a group of 8 Polizei Motor Officers. For a while, they were right in front of us, it felt like we had our own escort going!

You might be a traveler if...

Guess which one is mine...



For those of you who are not familiar with my travels of the past year, a little history.

I just got my first passport last January. I had traveled previously, mainly to Canada or one of the islands, but never needed a passport (all pre-9/11). So this was something exciting for me. I loved getting my first stamp on the relocation trip!

Well, I ended up traveling a little bit more than initially anticipated. Fortunately, a lot of the travels were to countries who were part of the Schengen Agreement which basically means I do not need to go through border/passport control when traveling between two countries who are part of the agreement, thus not getting stamped. However, I did make a few trips to countries that do have border control, Czech Republic, Ireland and UK.

Side note on Ireland and the U.K. They signed the Schengen Agreement, but do not participate in the open borders. I have also found, outside of the US, they can ask the most questions of anyone and make entry to the country feel a little bit like getting past the guards in "The Neverending Story". You have to solve the riddle before they let you in. In addition, Ireland uses a stamp that takes up an entire page of the passport.

Well, all of this travel, plus losing two whole pages to my German Resident Visa, put me in a little bit of a situation by the end of October. I counted the number of empty pages and realized that only a few more trips and I was going to be out of room. So, within 10 months of receiving my first ever passport, I had to have pages added to it. This did present a problem as I live in Germany, so getting the passport to the passport agency and back was not going to be a short process and it is rare that two weeks go by without me legitimately needing my passport.

Fortunately, on a business trip to the US I was able to get it to an agency to expedite it for me. When they received it, they decided that not only did I need to have a book of pages added to it, but I probably should have 2 books of pages added!

As you can see below, it adds a little bit of heft to ye old travel book. Some have looked at it and called it "dodgy", and it did cause a little bit of a stir the first time I was in Costa Rica, but after 5 people looked at it and examined the seams, they let me leave the country...



Two trips to Ireland - two whole pages gone...



Mexico and Ireland (left page) UK x4 and Czech Republic (right page)

Rain, Rain, Rain

Hello all! Sorry it has been a few days but it has been a little crazy here.

So, on Sunday, my neighbor and I joined up to go for a nice short ride. I promised my wife "No Railroad tracks". Well, about 13 km into the ride, that rule was broken, however my neighbor pointed out they were for a tram car and not a big train, so it doesn't count. What really didn't count was the fact that I kept the rubber on the road instead of the results of the last railroad crossing. We rode a new route to avoid all of the walkers and ended up riding a little bit longer than the hour I wanted to. 45.5 km later, we ended up home again. The rest of Sunday was rather unremarkable except for watching some of the Giro d'Italia.

Monday was an interesting day... a pretty normal day at work, came home and took a short 25.5 km ride. However, earlier in the day my son hurt himself at school and long story short, his pinky was not looking so good by 8 PM, so we loaded him up and off to the hospital for x-rays, yup, he is my boy! The first hospital didn't have anyone working that could take x-rays so off to hospital number 2. Fortunately, nothing broken, just a little tape to keep the pinky from doing too much.

The last two days were supposed to be short rides, however we are stuck in eternal rain here and with being out late on Monday I have decided to give my legs a little rest. I think they need it because the next 4 days are 4+ hours of riding each day!

No Pain, No Gain

So, the daily riding update. Today was to be a 4 hour ride, I decided instead of time, to go for distance, I wanted to do 100 km along the Rhein. So, I set out pretty early. Mother Nature decided she didn't have enough fun with me yesterday and decided to go from sunny to showers and back several times. This did not make it too much fun, but I was determined to make 100 km. At around 47 km, I came across a railroad track which wasn't exactly perpendicular to the road, I did my best to improve the angle, however, it quickly proved me wrong. My front tire hit the wet rail and quickly slid sideways and down into the gully of the rail, I quickly followed as well. Fortunately I only got roughed up, nothing serious. The bike only had some damage to the handlebar tape. Well, as I said, I was 47 km in and had to decide first if I could still ride, I could, second do I keep going forward to the 50 mark or turn around immediately. As I said, I was determined, so I kept going. There were a few rough parts, but in the end I am glad I did. I can now say I have done a 100 km ride here in Germany. Fortunately, tomorrow is a recovery day with just a 1 hour ride. I plan on staying along the river in Bonn for that one.



A few of the Battle Scars...