395 - My First Trip to Europe XII

Update on mom: She’s doing a lot better in this new Rehab facility, and they’re getting her up to do some physical therapy now.. so it’s looking up!

Before we left Amsterdam, Rich and I had a meal at an Indonesian restaurant. Rich used to be in Indonesia long ago in the Peace Corps, so it brought back a lot of memories for him.

The picture at right is he and I having dinner. Notice all the different dishes? That’s supposedly a typical Indonesian dinner. It was delicious and kept us full on the ride back to Germany.

Sunday morning, we get in the car and started for Brussels. Little did we know it was the weekend of a big Euro Summit in downtown Brussels, and as we approached the center of town, much of the center was surrounded with big wooden X’s and concertina wire everywhere.

We made our way around the center, and found a Novotel Hotel. We were going to go in to see if they had any room, but Rich was worried that the car was too close to a corner and would be towed. As I got out of the car, I saw a young Gendarme (police officer) coming up the street, so I asked him if he spoke English (yes) and if we could leave the car there while we checked for a room as this was our first trip to Brussels. He said absolutely, and offered to stand there and wait while we checked.

Well, the hotel manager at the desk rudely told us there was no rooms available so we headed back out only to meet our new friend watching our car. When he asked about a room, we said no, that we’d have to do more searching. He said “come with me” and entered the hotel and TOLD the rude manager (remember him?) that if he didn’t have a room, he would FIND us a room as we were visitors to their country and he should be nicer to guests.

As our friend stood by the door, we waited as the manager made a few phone calls, then gave us the name of the Hotel Metropole. The manager then told us that would be 12 Belgian Francs (luckily we had changed money already) and we handed him the money.

As we left, our friend in blue asked “What was the money for?”, and we told him the manager charged us the 12 francs. At this point, I thought he was going to jump over the front desk and choke the manager, he was so incensed. He slammed his billy-club on the desk (I’m sure leaving a mark) and told him he will NOT charge us for something that cost him nothing! We got our money back, and outside, I asked if I could have my photo taken with him.

That’s him and I to the right. Behind and down the street is the Grand Place (more of that on Friday).

Oh, did I mention the Hotel Metropole (please see the webpage) is a 5+ Star hotel? It’s a good thing our bosses said money is no object, especially after seeing this hotel!!

More about Brussels on Friday…

To answer some questions:

Mark, thanks for the compliment!
Mike H, thanks bud! Call me sometime.
Peter, it truly is.. I hope some day you can visit if you haven’t been there before.
Merle, the tulips, canals and windmills were so beautiful.. I only wish I had better pictures.

Have a great Hump-Day all!

394 - My First Trip to Europe XI

First off, mom is out of the hospital and in a (different) rehab facility.

Rich picked me up bright and early Saturday morning and map in hand, we headed to Amsterdam, approximately 140 miles away!

The beauty of the drive was incredible, as the tulips were out in full bloom. Then we saw the windmills.. old silent sentinels seemingly protecting the hills and fields, though none of them were turning.

Arriving in downtown Amsterdam, I was driving and can remember my mouth hanging open for extended periods of time of the vast differences in the 3 countries I’ve visited so far. The first thing we did, is stop at a visitors center to find where we could get a room for the night. While standing there, I spotted in a window, a booklet named “The Beer Drinkers Guide to Brew Pubs in Amsterdam” which I just HAD to have! The bad news was, it was “Queens Day” in Amsterdam and there wasn’t a hotel room to find within 60 miles, so I bought the booklet and we found a place to park the car for the day and we set off exploring.

The canals were incredible, and were everywhere, with boats floating up and down them every few seconds. We bought a day long water taxi ticket, and took one around the city just to look around. We saw the house that Anne Frank lived in during World War II, and other places of interest as we floated around the city.

 

After exiting the boat, using my newly purchased book on brew pubs, we found the Cafe Hansel and Gretl (see picture at left) and stopped in for a beer. Two younger ladies owned and ran the pub, and the beer was delicious!

 

Walking around after our beer and conversation with the pub owners, we wandered into what I can only call the drug district.

If you ‘embiggen’ the picture at right, you’ll see the building with the black sign says it’s the “Hemp Museum”. The place on the left is the “Cannabis Connoisseurs Club”. Go figure. *LOL*

 

We took the requisite stroll down the red light district (no photographs allowed), chuckled at the concept but amazed at some facets of it, and made it back to the brewpubs. Our last stop was at a pub called the “In De Wildeman Beer Cafe”. Rich took my picture in front of the sign which I thought was pretty funny, and to the right is the beer menu. It was a wonderful, and very old place and we had a great time sampling some of the batch made brews from Holland.

Rich and I had dinner after that, and decided to head back to Germany, where we’d plan our next two day adventure.. and on the way back we decided to go to….

Brussels!

More later this week….

393 - My First Trip to Europe X

For those asking, Mom’s doing a bit better.. she’s hoping to get out of the hospital and back to a rehab place in a few days.

So, Bernd arrived and had a beer with me. When I told him the story about the bartender and my key, he laughed, explained to her that I didn’t have any marks yet and to make sure she puts my beers on my room tab. She smiled, smiled at me apologetically and we continued to chat.

I started to think, most people I’ve met already in Germany spoke very good English, why not this barmaid? Bernd explained that most German people were required to take 8 years of English in school, but some took other languages. He had asked her, and she had just began taking English classes.

We left to head to the hotel where all the other company employees were staying for a big dinner for about a dozen of us. We had a wonderful meal, and somewhere in the middle, one of the other employees (Rich) showed me that this hotel had a bowling alley. A one lane, bowling alley. Where you had to set up your own pins. Candlepins. *LOL*

After dinner, the waitress came around and asked me “Do you want Slivovitz? I asked Rich who was sitting next to me, and he said “Oh absolutely…” so I said yes without knowing what I said yes to.

Just about everyone had said yes, and in a few minutes the waitress delivered a tall, thin shot glass with a clear liquid in it. I decided to sip carefully, as you never know… and it was quite delicious as it’s a fermented plum brandy. All in all, it was a great dinner.

The next day, (Friday) I awoke, showered and changed and headed down to breakfast. I was kind of stunned to see breakfast as being: hard rolls, cheese and lunch meat. No eggs, no pancakes, no donuts. I asked Charles, and he said this was a typical German breakfast. I ended up with a hard roll and butter and vowed to fix this at some point.

We worked all day and Rich and I figured out that there was a long weekend coming up as May 1 was a holiday there, so we decided we were going to take a company car, and explore for the weekend. (more on that Monday)

For dinner, Rich and I took a company car and went to a place I saw not far from my hotel named “Colorado Steakhouse”, looking for a old fashioned home cooked steak. Entering the restaurant, I had to laugh as this was a far from any kind of a “Colorado Steakhouse” as you could imagine. It was actually a Romanian restaurant. It didn’t matter much as we were quite hungry. The waitress happened to be the wife of the owner, and she sat down to talk to us for a few. I asked her “Why the Colorado Steakhouse?”, and she explained that when her husband and she opened the restaurant, they were looking for a name, saw a map with Colorado on it and chose that name!
After dinner, she asked “Do you want Slivovitz?”. Feeling like a pro now, I said “Absolutely!”, but when she delivered it, it had a yellow tint to it. I asked her about it and she explained “we make our own Slivovitz here, and we add a bit of honey to it to make it more smooth”. It was incredible, and we thanked her, left a generous tip and left.

Saturday morning, Rich picked me up and we headed to…. Amsterdam!

Have a great weekend…!

392 - My First Trip to Europe IX

On Wednesday morning, Bernd and I said goodbye to Jean-Philippe and Hubert and headed out to Douai (not sure on the spelling) France to a very small office where it took me a couple of hours to do the upgrades I needed.

We drove on in the afternoon to Ubach-Palenberg, Germany, where we had a large engineering office (where Bernd worked). The German countryside was breathtakingly beautiful, with lots of flowers everywhere. I met up with a bunch of my co-workers at this office who had already been there doing other projects. We made plans for dinner that night.

Now, I have to say outright that I had a pre-conceived notion that the German people would dislike Americans, because of World War II (I know, it was a stupid assumption). Nothing could be further from the truth, the German people were the friendliest, kindest people I had ever met.

I hadn’t even checked into a hotel yet, so Bernd and I left a bit early to get me checked into the Hotel Weydenhof. Note the slight hill in front of the hotel.. it’ll play some significance later. *S*

I found it odd, that I was the only person from the US staying there, but the hotel everyone else was in was booked solid with no rooms available. The owner, Charles was very nice, and he spoke English very well.

I checked into a nice, albeit small room, freshened up and waited at the bar for Bernd to pick me up to go to dinner. As I sat at the bar, I noticed how old this place was, with dark, rich wood on the bar that belied it’s age. The barmaid was young, maybe 18 or so, very beautiful with blonde hair and blue eyes. She smiled as I said in my best German “ein bier bitte”, to which she now said something I didn’t understand. Darn, I’d used up almost all of my German in one shot and now was stumped. She spoke no English, but pointed to the taps and I figured out there was “pils” or “alt” (amber). I said to her (hoping I got this right) “ein alt bitte”, and she carefully poured my beer. Now, there’s an art form to pouring a beer in Germany. Each brand of beer has it’s own glass, and it’s poured to nearly full, allowed to rest a moment so the foam doesn’t overflow, then with a knife like tool she scrapes the foam off, and tops off the beer before delivering.

It was at this point I realized… I had no German Marks (money). Embarassed, and trying to think quickly I held up my room key and dangled it hoping she could put it on my room tab. Well, this MUST have been the wrong thing to do, as she blushed beet red and chuckled to herself. I realized what she must have thought and in trying to do damage control, said “no no no” before someone else at the bar who spoke English came over and helped me out.

Did I mention the bowling alley in the hotel?

More on Friday…. !

391 - My First Trip to Europe VIII

Well, Mom’s still in the hospital.. no idea when she’s getting out.

Back to the story:

One picture I forgot to post, was before we got to the pub, I looked back up the street and saw this:

More on the arch later, but it was extremely cool to see it up close and personal.

After leaving the Irish pub, we walked down the Champs Elysee and I was amazed at shop after shop after shop of high-end stores (Hermes, Louis Vuitton.. etc) and we reached the restaurant I listed below.

We settled in to a nice table overlooking the Champs Elysee, and it was then that I realized, the Maitre’ D handed me a menu, in French! Now, I knew I couldn’t bluff my way through the ordering process, and I think they told the Maitre’ D in French that they were giving me a good ole fashioned ribbing. After a few moments, the waiter comes around and asks me something in French, (which I assume is “would you like a drink before dinner"), to which I replied “Martini Blanc sil vous plait”, and it was at that point, everyone burst out laughing. Seems he was asking me something completely different and I threw my hands in the air, laughing saying “I give up”… and at that point, the Maitre’ D came around the corner with a menu in English for me.

Oh, the guys DID make me order the bottle of wine before dinner, and I seem to have done pretty well! 

That’s me, Jean-Philippe, Bernd and Hubert sitting there toasting my first real Parisian meal in a nice restaurant.

Dinner was everything I expected, and more. The food was delicious, the company was outstanding, and the evening ended all too soon.

Hubert gave me and Bernd a ride back to our hotel as Jean-Philippe took mass transit home.

More soon…!

390 - My First Trip to Europe VII

I’m sorry for the delay, my mom got taken to the hospital early Monday morning.

Before I continue, let me post some pictures that I found of some of this trip:

 

To the right, a picture I took along the Champs Elysee! (click on any pic to ‘embiggen’)

 

 

 

 

To the left, is me and Hubert Roth (I wore glasses back then before my LASIK surgery) at Chesterfields Pub (name of the pub was on the back of my photo!).

 

 

 

To the right, is Hubert Roth, Bernd Meyer, and Jean-Philippe Mahe, on the Champs Elysee.

I can’t say enough, just how wonderful these three people are, and were to me on my stay in Paris. Hubert and I stay in touch quite often now, as he still works for the same company, but Bernd and Jean-Philippe both moved to new jobs.

Sorry this post is short, but I’m short on time tonight.

Coming Friday, dinner at the restaurant (and pictures)!

389 - My First Trip to Europe VI

Around 6:30pm (they start work late and end late in Europe it seems), Jean-Philippe asks me if I’m ready for dinner. I’m pretty excited about it and Hubert comes over and says he’ll pick us up at the hotel and we make plans to meet Jean-Philippe at a bar before dinner for a few drinks.

Bernd and I head back to the hotel to change and freshen up, then I meet him at the hotel bar as we’re both a bit early. I got there first and asked in my best French “Un beer sil vous plait”, then, change my mind quickly and say “Martini Blanc”, to try the drink Bernd drinks, and it was very tasty! Basically, it’s white, sweet vermouth over ice with lime.

We jump in Hubert’s car, and head on out into Paris (pictures coming Monday I hope). We end up at a real nice Irish pub (would I expect anything else so far?) and have a few drinks and lucky for me, everyone’s speaking English for me. I talk to the 3 young owners, a guy from Italy, a guy from Germany and a girl from Amsterdam.

After about an hour or so, we leave the bar to walk to our restaurant. Less than a block away we take a left and we’re right on the “Avenue des Champs Elysees”.

(the picture at right isn’t mine, but to show how beautiful this street is! Click on it to ‘embiggen’)

Immediately, I’m struck at how wide the sidewalks are, and I’m wide eyed like a kid on Christmas morning. I notice then, there are car dealers in the buildings here! There are no “lots” like in the US, but if they want to show you a car, they make a phone call, and a car shows up at the curb a short time later.

I notice, that on one end of the street is the Arc de Triomphe, and the other is an enormous Ferris wheel!  I’m full of questions and they can’t answer quick enough as I walk down this famous street. Soon enough though, we get to the restaurant, which, in my fuzzy memory of 12 years ago, seems to be this hotel. 

More on Monday…. have a wonderful weekend all!

388 - My First Trip to Europe V

First of all, thank you for the warm wishes for my mom. She’s out of the hospital and in a rehabilitation facility now for hopefully no more than 2 weeks.

Lets see.. where’d I leave off? Oh yeah, first day in France, going to dinner with Bernd and Jean-Phillippe and we turn the corner and enter the restaurant. A Chinese restaurant. I’m beyond dazed and confused as I ask both of my companions “My first night in Paris, and you take me to a Chinese Restaurant?”. They both get a laugh out of it and Bernd explains that they thought something quick might be in order seeing as I’ve been up for around 38 hours now. They promise the next day, I’d get the full French Dinner.

I acquiesce, and sit to have a wonderful Chinese meal. Oh, ever seen a Chinese menu in French? *ROTFL* They were right however and after dinner, I feel the hours catch up with me and we head back to the hotel after saying good night to Jean-Philippe. I find two things interesting as I examine my room more. One, no screen in the windows, and two, no sheets and blankets, just one duvet. Setting my alarm, I reconsider my first day in Europe, and chuckle to myself as my head hits the pillow. In moments, I’m in blissful sleep.

The next day, we work from around 8am till noon where we then walk from the office to a place that makes sandwiches I’m told. I’m thinking to myself, fresh meat served on a baguette with some cheese… now THIS is Paris!

And the store we walk into, is a Greek restaurant. Now I’m in a full-on laugh as Bernd and Jean-Phillippe laugh along. I have a Gyro, and a Coke and all is well. We head back to work and I marvel at the houses in the area. I forget for a moment that Paris is so old a city, that the houses and most buildings will be very old. I work away again waiting for our dinner that night… a real Parisian dinner!

That’s all for now.. enjoy your Hump-Day!

387 – No Blog Post Friday

My mom’s having a serious operation on Friday, and Monday is a holiday, so I’m not sure when the next post will be for now.

Sorry for leaving you all hanging with my European Vacation story.. but it’ll be worth it!

Dave

386 - My First Trip to Europe IV

Literally, a lot of crazy things were going through my mind. Was I stuck in a sea of people who didn’t speak any English? You bet I was worried.

It took around 30 minutes for Bernd to find me, and when he did I was trying my best to have a smile on my face while he explained in very good English (with a German accent) how traffic this morning was much worse than normal due to construction. We get in his rented Ford Mondeo Station Wagon (think Ford Taurus), loaded my bags and off we went to our Paris office named “CEMEC”. As we’re on the highway, stuck in traffic, I notice his gas gauge is not only on E, but the red light is on! All that’s going through my mind now is that my first memory of Paris will be me, pushing this car through Paris on my first day there.

He mentions we’ll make it fine as there’s a petrol station right near CEMEC. When we stop, he puts in 15.6 gallons of fuel (I converted from liters), in a 16 gallon tank!

As we drove to my hotel (a Novotel), I was amazed at just how refreshed I felt after sleeping only a few hours on the plane. I think the excitement of being in Europe/Paris was overwhelming. We saw the new soccer stadium (Football to them), drove over the Seine river, and marveled how it wound it’s way through Paris. At the hotel, I checked in, dropped my bags off, and we headed out to the office to get to work. All this, and it was around 10am.

I met quite a few people there including my counterpart in IT there Jean-Phillippe, and an engineer named Hubert (pronounced hyoo-bear). I went about doing my Y2K work and in the afternoon, Bernd asked me 2 or 3 times if I wanted to take a break as I had been up over 30 hours (not counting the nap on the plane). It was around 5pm when Bernd finally said lets break for the day, and go out for dinner. We go back to the hotel to freshen up with the plan to meet Jean-Phillippe at the restaurant. I was excited for my first meal in a nice French restaurant.

At the hotel, Bernd says he’s heading to his room and we’ll meet at the bar downstairs in about 40 minutes.

I get there a bit early, then practice my French by saying “Un beer sil vous plait”, and as the guy’s pouring… I realize I don’t have any Francs on me to pay yet (this is pre-Euro). Luckily, Bernd shows up a moment later and pays as he chuckles. I mention to him I need to get some Francs and we make plans to get some tomorrow. He orders something called a “Martini Blanc”, and I wonder what it is.

We walk a few blocks, my eyes wide at the sights and sounds of Paris. I’m picturing a French Bistro, maybe a little place on the Seine.. and as Bernd mentions “We’re here, there’s Jean-Phillippe” and I see the restaurant, my eyes bug out and mouth hangs open in confusion.

Continued Friday

Have a wonderful Hump-Day!