From VIP to VUP, Ignorance WAS bliss

My idea of tea and crumpets didn't pan out exactly the way that I thought it would, let me explain. Crumpets, apparently, are a morning food, meaning you have to actually wake up during breakfast hours to expect to find them available at restaurants, which we failed to do. However, in our search for a good Sunday brunch, we found ourselves at The Wolseley, a very high class place that changes menus 4 times a day, for breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea, and dinner. With a 3 course meal, it was easily the most formal brunch I've ever partaken in, I even felt a bit underdressed (for brunch!). I did order tea and it came in a real silver pot with a strainer and everything, I almost didn't even know how to use it. We ordered a strange combination of foods, not including crumpets, but it was a very nice experience that lasted about 2 1/2 hours. For two foodies like me and Rob, it was a great use of time! The last day in the UK Michelle and I went to Southend on Sea, a nice little town on the coast (only about an hour from London). This town boasts the longest pier in the world, which actually has a train on it for those who don't feel like walking, but we didn't go on the pier because we didn't feel like paying. Instead we ate fish & chips (well I did) on the beach, and enjoyed our last sunset in Europe.

Rob and I changed our tickets to go back to the States a few days early, because we had accomplished a lot and had come to a good stopping point, for lack of better words. I had only gotten about an hour of sleep by the time we had to leave in the early morning for our flights, Michelle's flight was also that morning, so we said our goodbyes at the airport. Luckily we had again managed to get business class, this time the plane had JUST been upgraded, and we were literally the first flight with the new gear. Brand new lay flat seat, flat screen TV, my own aisle etc. it was the same as first class and I was even able to get a bit of much needed sleep in between episodes of Two and a Half Men. How am I ever going to go back to coach and hostels after this trip? The wind in Chicago was ridiculous, remember the tornados and news stories about the raging wind this last week? Well luckily but very very shakily we were able to land amidst that wind. Rob and I parted ways and that's when the bliss of being VIP disappeared and everything went back to being a normal peon traveler. My flight through Phoenix was cancelled because of the wind, but for some reason I was allowed to go through Dallas, had to "rush" to get to that flight after waiting in the only security line with working computers with a bunch of rookies who didn't know to take of shoes, belts, etc. COME ON PEOPLE. I watched sadly as the business classers went straight to the front, my turn was over. I made my flight, and luckily it made it up through the violent wind, although I'm sure there were some people on the plane that thought it was going to crash. I've never experienced that much windy turbulence. The only two people in my row both had to literally climb over me to get out and use the loo, the food-that-you-have-to-pay-for-cart slammed my elbow on the way down the aisle, and no way was I getting any sleep. My three hour layover in Dallas luckily went by smoothly, and I enjoyed my last meal on the company: Taco Bell and smoothie, I always seem to run for the border as soon as I get Stateside. Coincidence? Anyway 24 hours after we left our apartment in London, I FINALLY got to Reno and got to see Nate at the gate and I felt SO much better. That lasted until my suitcase didn't show up on the baggage claim. Nope, no more priority tag, which means my suitcase somehow got left in Texas. The airline offered me a toothbrush, thank you. Do you have underwear back there too? I had nothing. That was a LOOOOONG day.

As you may or may not be aware, United lost my bags last year on my way over to Europe, for FIVE DAYS. This time, oh so luckily, it only took 24 hours to be delivered to me. Now I'm enjoying my one week in the US before departing to Costa Rica on Wednesday, soaking up the fall, the World Series, seeing friends, and looking forward to laying on a beach. After traveling for a month on someone else's budget, taste in hotels, and expectance of priority, I only hope I can cope with returning to my normal way of travel. It's crazy how different it is from what I've just been through. I'm definitely lucky to have had this opportunity, I learned a lot. And I might just be done with hostel dorms...

One more thing, as I said, my goal sort of failed to have crumpets. But I had a backup plan, I went to the grocery store late the night before we left, and guess what I brought home...   :) Delicious!

First trip to the Motherland!

After spending a few dull days in the Netherlands (aside from my first trip to the North Sea!) I have finally made it to the UK for the first time! First impression was awesome- it's beautiful here and everyone speaks English with a fabulous accent! I haven't traveled much at all in foreign English-speaking countries, so it's still surprising to me that everyone speaks English. The first thing we did was get our rental car (naturally) and literally laughed (pretty hard- the guy had warned us it was small, we kinda just brushed him off) when we saw it in the parking lot. It's a Fiat 500, and if you don't know what that is, just think of a mini, but maybe a bit smaller? It's been upgraded by Abarth, so it carries that name and a turbo engine. It's bright red with white checker print on top, I wish I could pack it in my suitcase and bring it home! This is certainly the cutest car I've ever driven. I haven't driven at all these last couple weeks, so it is my turn, I'm now the chauffeur and this car is entirely the opposite of my lovely truck at home. It's fast, totally impractical, bright red, and not to mention the steering wheel is on the right. Shifting with my left hand has been alright, driving on the left side of the road has been fun! Since I'm not needed to translate here in the UK, I'm just driving Rob to his appointments. I've also been doing more research on companies in Spain and Italy, we have all of next week with no plans really, so if we can get a meeting in either of those countries, we will go, if not, I think we will go home a few days early.

In the meantime, we have been entertaining ourselves in a number of ways. Rob has an Aussie friend who is a die-hard Manchester United fan, and when he heard that we were in Manchester, he bought 3 tickets to the game that Saturday and hopped on a plane from New York- no kidding. So the three of us went to Old Trafford, the stadium of Man U, which has a reputation quite like Fenway or Wrigley Field, except way bigger, seating 76,000 people. It sells out every time and tickets are apparently really difficult to get, which might explain why we got VIP tickets! It included a 3 course meal before the game, and a chance to have a photo taken with the FA Cup, which is basically the championship of England. Pero (the Aussie) was out of his mind that day because going to Old Trafford for a Man U game was the number one thing on his bucket list. It was an exciting game, but I must say it still doesn't hold a candle excitement-wise to our city games in Costa Rica. It's too proper, darn the English. I've always thought that if you want to watch a clean (more or less) soccer game, watch an English Premier League game, because it seems the Brits just want to play, rather than whine and be dramatic (of course this is relative, they do it, but MUCH less than Latinos or Italians..). Well it turns out the fans are very similar, if they think they just saw a good play, they stand and clap and then quickly take their seats again. Even after goals they get rowdy and then they quickly sit down again, WHAT!? 

Anyway, our first full day in Manchester was actually spent driving around to meetings. We found ourselves eating lunch in a lovely little bistro in a really lovely little town in northern England called Whalley, and I kept noticing the word "Lancashire" on the menu referring to Lancashire cheese and what not, I didn't even realize we were in that area, but it just so happens that Lancashire is where my mother's side of the family is from! I tried calling my mom to no avail and ended up emailing my Granny to ask about the specific towns. I was right around the corner from Nelson, where she was born, and Burnley, where my great-grandmother was born, and believe it or not, she still keeps in touch with some sort-of relatives in Whalley! She gave me the phone number of these people and I called them and was able to set up a day to go for a visit. They are David and Brenda Hill, David is about my grandmother's age, they grew up together because their mothers were very close friends. So they are like cousins. So I guess David and Brenda would be my "3rd cousins never attached." How do you like that for a relation? :) I love it. I always wanted to still have family in England. So I went back to Whalley for a nice lunch and tea at their house and they took me for a drive to see these towns that I mentioned, they showed me Pendle Hill where the witches were executed (so I could have witches on both sides of my family? haha) and we went for tea and biscuits in a lovely park in Burnley. They were so sweet and such a crack up, I don't get to visit my grandparents as much as I would like, but this was what that felt like, visiting an extra set of grandparents, I loved it! So that was a special bonus day for me, getting to know the locals is the best part of traveling!

Although I really liked Manchester and the north of England, we couldn't stay for long, so we were off to Birmingham for a couple days. By the way, I drove to Birmingham by myself that night after visiting David and Brenda, it was a little strange to be driving a backwards car on my own through England, and having to navigate as well! It was quite a challenge, but I made it fine. Pero is 6'6" and we weren't sure if or how he would fit in the car, so the guys took the train. Birmingham was nothing special, one of the days Pero and I went to "Britain's Ultimate Castle." It was called Warwick Castle, and we didn't really know what we were getting into, we didn't know until we got there that it was like a theme park. So we went in, did the "Dungeon Experience" through dark narrow passageways where they try and scare you and show you how they used to torture and treat people. We saw a HUGE fireball get catapulted from the HUGE catapult, that was really cool. We at least have some good photos, I suppose that was the highlight of Birmingham. The next day we drove Rob to his meeting and then went bowling for an hour while we waited for him to finish. I'm basically done with work by now. I'm just hanging out because I can, and for the chance that we might still go to Spain, which I actually highly doubt. Somehow we were able to fit all three of us in that tiny car, with Rob pretty much under the luggage, and we drove to London, where we reluctantly had to say goodbye to Chile (I named the car). 

As a REALLY fun bonus, my friend Michelle (from Costa Rica, Ohio, Florida, Turkey, etc..) came to visit in London! She arrived our first morning and has been sightseeing with us, Pero left to go back to NY, and since Rob has had meetings it's been really good timing. We have seen most of the sights by now, and Michelle and I actually went out salsa dancing at a Latin Dance festival last night, I really want to get back into it. Plus I discovered Zouk, a different (new to me) style of dance, FUN! It was out by the airport and the tube stopped running at midnight, so we ended up taking a double decker bus (that was the good part:) back to London at 3am, oh the joys of travel. Anyway we have just a couple more days to enjoy London, I have two goals- to have "tea and crumpets" and fish & chips from "a real Chippy," and then I think it's back to the States, which will be nice, I'll have an entire week before taking off to Costa Rica on Nov 3rd…  :)

PS more photos are coming, they will be posted to the same album --->

Bonjour Belgium! Aufwiedersehen, Deutschland...

Here is my disclaimer: I am here on a work trip, but the work we are doing is not fun and exciting. As a result of that I do not have any photos of work, okay actually there IS one picture of a parking lot at the show- enough said. Robert told me before we came on this trip that he is a work hard play hard type of guy. That being said, I have posted pictures from the trip thus far, see the link in the right column labeled "Europe on Business" and just believe me when I say that we really are working in between doing all the fun things you see in the pictures and read about in the blog. There, got that off my chest.

After Dusseldorf, which actually was just where the show was (we stayed in a small town called Ratingen which turned out to be a really lovely little German town), we headed to Köln, or Cologne, for the weekend. It felt good to be a tourist again (it's been a year, too long!), I even went inside the Cathedral, though I sort of think they all look the same and they all make me feel funny because I'm not Catholic. Anyway we toured the H&M's-- err uh, the city, and met a friend of Robert's for dinner at a traditional Kölsch brewpub for some meat and brews. Cologne has a very unique culture and serves its beers in very small glasses in these old brewpubs that if they were any larger would really resemble Oktoberfest. I recommend the experience! Cologne definitely has a good vibe. It also has the "most visited museum in Europe" the Lindt Chocolate Museum! So of course we had to go to that, learn all about how chocolate is made, and then consume some ourselves, yum! I might have to say though that the highlight of our stay in Cologne was our last dinner, at an Italian restaurant, where the staff only spoke German and Italian! It felt SO good to open my mouth and have words just come spilling out, and such pretty words that don't hurt my throat to pronounce! And of course the food and wine was good, and the tiramisu was excellent!

The REAL fun of the weekend, however, started when we got to Oktoberfest!!!! We couldn't possibly be in Germany while the fest was going on and not go, so we took a special trip down to Munich just for one day. I was surprised to see no lines at the tents at midday on the last Sunday, but very happy about it! We ate platefuls of food in Paulaner tent, and then went to Hofbrau tent (the best one) to meet new friends and drink more beer, both of which we succeeded in. We met awesome people from Switzerland and hung out with them in the tent until 9pm or so before venturing outside to go on the roller coaster, the drop ride, the zipper, and the beanbag slides! Oktoberfest really is a different experience every time, this was my third year in a row (I still can't believe that) and seriously I love it.

After Munich Robert had some appointments he didn't need me for, so I skipped up to Berlin for a couple days to visit my German sister Lydia who just had a baby in April. So I met my little nephew Joni (Jonathan) and Lydia's boyfriend Jens for the first time, they are all doing so well! It was such a bonus to be able to see her again so soon (after last year's Europe trip). I have been to Berlin a few times, which made it easy to just spend time with them instead of wanting to go sightseeing, although I did have a few hours one of the days so I went on my favorite walking tour again, SO GOOD every time! I was lucky enough to get to go to a concert with them too- The Cat Empire! They are an Aussie band, and thanks to Nate I love those guys. It was strange to suddenly feel like I was traveling on my own again, and after those couple days I was ready to go "back to work" so I met back up with Robert in Frankfurt.

We left Germany this morning and are now in Brussels, Belgium, where they speak French! I had struggled with French before I came here, German was much more fun to learn, but after a week and a half in Germany I was finally starting to understand a lot more German, and now here we are in Belgium, and I understand a LOT more French. It's relieving in a way, and I sort of saw that coming. We had a meeting today, actually it was at the American Embassy, I've never been in one before.. but tomorrow is Saturday so it's back to being tourists! We will stay in Brussels until Monday when we leave for the Netherlands, until then we plan to do some sightseeing (go to Brugge) and eat a lot of French cuisine, yum!

The sun is setting over Brussels outside my hotel window, and it's time to go to dinner, au revoir!
J