Everyone in Europe loves Obama!

Last day in Frankfurt.. I don't think I will be staying at that Courtyard again.. First - they charge for internet which is pretty common, especially in Europe.. Second - they don't a gold/platinum member lounge.. Third - Breakfast is not included and is VERY expensive.. Fourth - They make you pay for parking.. Fifth - The Bed is crazy hard.. Sixth - The checkout process sucks, they don't do the normal Marriott quick checkout.. seventh - Although they are only 10km away from work you have to take 4 major highways.. Not to mention the fact that the main Marriott is in Frankfurt center and has an underground station attached to it and EMC has an underground station about 2 blocks away.. Next time (and yes, there is a next time) that's the way to go.. Maybe I'll remember this by the time I book that trip.. :)

Crazy weekend ahead... Fly Frankfurt to London on British Air, fly from London to NJ on Virgin, go to Laire and try to stay awake.. I hope I can either borrow somebody's shaver or that I can plug mine in when I get to Laire, I have way too much of a beard to play Mr Jax..

Speaking of Laire.. Amber's car died, she is going to get a ride to NYC and John Molina is driving her to the event. Good news - I have someone to ride home with on Monday.. Bad news - I have to drive her to her school in NH, anybody want to go with me for that ride so you can keep me awake on the ride back?

I am sitting at the Frankfurt airport. This airport has two terminals.. Terminal 1 is the main terminal and has all kinds of awesome stores, bars and restaurants. Terminal 2 is the terminal I am in, we have McDonalds and a duty free store.. I just went into the gate area and there is a restaurant called Laxx. I'm sitting here trying to get wireless connection and the signal does not appear to be strong enough so.. I will try to post this once I get to London-town... I got to the airport real early, I drove a guy from class over with me and we went our seperate ways to check in and try to get earlier flights. Neither of us ended up getting earlier flights so we hung out together over in Terminal 1 for a few hours.. Good conversation and good beer.. Now a burger then a flight... Talk to you in London..

Now sitting in the London airport waiting for my flight to NJ... Amber called, her grandmother will not allow her to get a train to NY! So, Amber is not going to Laire, she is actually on her way to NH now to unpack for school... I guess Daimone will have to steal someone's weapons.. Maybe I can use the sword of the house of the sun...

I met a cool girl on the plane, she was born in Germany and lived in London for four years before moving back to Germany. She was on her way to London to her friends wedding.. We talked for awhile about how it was to live in London and how Obama was going to change the economy of the world.. It was a fun flight.. :)

---- Comic of the day
http://www.redmeat.com/redmeat/2008-07-08/index.html

---- Thought of the day
The most hopeless situations can sometimes workout if you never give up.. Like any good Mets fan will tell you.. "Ya Gotta Believe!"

Comfort Food - aka - Eating my beer - Part II

Jessie left this morning and of course today is the first day class got out early.. I got back to the hotel to find ILY written out in socks on my bed... CUTE!! Did my pushups and chatted online with my sis...

After that I went into the city and wondered around.. I ended up walking all over the main city.. I walked down one street and found some guy selling crack, the best part about it was that all the people around him were not only buying it but they were smoking it right on the street!! I gotta imagine that's illegal everywhere... Speaking of illegal, I walked past two different red light districts tonight and they have these places called Eros Clubs. Eros Clubs are legal whore houses, I didn't go in but I did get accosted by one of the girls hanging out a window... A good portion of the night was spent sitting in an alley on the phone helping my girlfriend out with some problems.. I love you, hang in there... I swear there's some pavement up ahead, there's got to be right??

After I got off the phone it took a few hours of walking around to be able to eat.. Thanks for letting me rant and vent sis.. Now, when most people want comfort food they go to McDonalds or get some Ice Cream, if there real fat they get both.. Think of it, a nice Big Mac with Vanilla Ice Cream in between the burgers and bun.. EWWWW!! OK, so what does an average American get for comfort food in Germany? I have no idea, you'll have to ask the average American.. I got Fish and Chips from the Irish Pub and you guessed it, a Guiness.. If you didn't guess a Guiness then you obviously didn't read "Eating my Beer"..

I'm doing a bit better after reading my email.. Lynz wrote me and said things are "not great but getting better".. I guess I'll have to hold onto that for now...

Oh, speaking of beer... German beer is not all it's cracked up to be... German wine however is banging...

Love and peace to everyone tonight... I wish you all wonderful dreams...

---- Comic of the day
http://xkcd.com/308/

---- Thought of the day
Sometimes your friends are your family... It's amazing how so many amazing people can all come into your life in such a short space of time.. The trick to realizing that is being open to knowing them once they show up.. If you close your eyes and heart to them you're only hurting yourself..

White wine please...

Tonight I went out to meet Jessie in the city, I got off the train and walked down some streets, it was fun walking. I passed a few cool stores and some crazy adult stores, the doors to the adult stores were open and you could see in them as you walked by. Gotta love how Europe does not have the sex hang ups that America has..

We ended up eating at a German restaurant (surprise) and I had the traditional sausage plate with mashed potatoes and Sauerkraut. Instead of beer I had a glass of riesling which was very good.

Back at the hotel about to have some chocolate and wine before bed..

Snoogins!

Beer at work is nice, but wine at lunch is better... <3

Last night I attempted Week 6 day 1 of the 100 Pushup challenge. My body was too tired and beat to complete day 1 of week 6. I decided I would do week 5 again to build up more strength for week 6. Week 5 was tough last week, maybe it will be better this week..

On my way to work today the car told me that there was traffic ahead so it had me get off the highway early and drive down a bunch of side roads, it was a nice trip down roads that were only wide enough for one car. When a car came the other way both of you had to drive onto the sidewalk or hit each other.. Gotta love European streets..

Can this office get any better?? Today at 4:30 they have happy hour, I am not kidding when I say this but... They have free beer at work? Wow!! I am torn, part of me wants to stay and have at a free beer at work because how many times in your life does that happen, but I also want to get out and enjoy the nice weather since class will probably get out early today.. I can't actually post this blog till I get back to the hotel so the answer to what I choose will probably be in the next few paragraphs.. :)

Here is an article I saw on CNN (http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmNubi5jb20vMjAwOC9DUklNRS8wOC8yNS9jb3VwbGUuY2hhcmdlZC5hcC9pbmRleC5odG1s).. Part of me wants to treat it as a joke, but I guess I know better... I guess you can laugh at it because she got caught, but holy crap!

Onto Vacation hours and what I need to use... Because I dropped so many of my vacations this year to help out with classes that needed to be run I am going to take next week as Vacation, that will still give me my December vacation and 4 more days I will have to use by the end of the year.

http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8veGtjZC5jb20vMjY3Lw== - words to live by?

So, my decision was made for me.. It's 4:45pm, my students are still working and I'm drinking a beer and eating a pretzel.. Yes, I took a picture!

I just came back to the hotel to drop some stuff off before heading into the city. I figured since I typed this at work today I would post it real quick while I'm able to access Myspace. I will probably post another update tonight..

---- Random email of the day
I found 3 sombreros last night under my car in the middle parking garage at 176. They are now at the main lobby security desk.

---- Thought of the day
It's amazing how the simplest things (like sitting on a log) can change so many people's lives.. I love the way the universe comes together sometimes..

Germans don’t do humor.. They do beer!

I really like this training facility. I had a banana and coffee for breakfast, salmon with rice and salad for lunch and an ice cream bar for mid day snack. All of it very good and all of it FREE!!

Booked my trip to Chicago today, AE Travel's website would not let me book Continental flights because United had flights as well and they are now really pushing United flights so I had to call on the phone to book everything. I fly out on Sunday afternoon and arrive home on Friday afternoon, the Thursday evening flight was closed to EMC from Continental, there are still seats available but not at whatever price EMC pays for them.. Other plus side of calling vs. online is that calling I was able to book a compact/economy car whereas if I had booked it online I would only been able to book a mid to full size car. So, think about this for a second.. When you book a car online EMC won't let me book a smaller/cheaper car... When you come up with a reason for that please let me know.

I found out today that my Quantas miles never got credited to my Continental one pass. I called Continental and they said I need my original boarding pass?! I am going to call Quantas and ask them if they can send me proof of me boarding the plane so that Continental can give me the credit. I also found out that I can mail Continental my Marriott reciepts and get miles based on 1 mile per $1 spent! I guess I'm going to get a bunch of miles all at once, apparently I can mail in receipts up to one year old!

I really hate time zones... I'm sitting here watching the students do labs and everyone (except Jessie) is asleep and she is out wandering Frankfurt so it's not like I can sit and chat with her...

Got a con-call at noon eastern time (6pm here)..

Con-call was exciting as always... After that I drove to a S-Bahn station and heading into the city to meet Jessie for dinner. We went to a medieval german restaurant and had steak and sausages, it was ok. They did have really good mead and on the way out we saw that the waitress was playing Catan with a guy!

After dinner we went to a heavy metal club called Speak Easy, there was only 3 people there (the bartender, a guy playing pinball and another guy who was really cool). We ended up spending a long ass-time there chatting with the bartender and the other guy. We heard lots of good music and had a few beers.

Just got back to the hotel, posting this blog and heading to bed...

On to tomorrow and new and exciting things.. :)

Just a quick hi to everyone back home.. I miss you all and will see you when I get back...

37. In a row?

This morning started out with getting gas, now you may not think that's a process but it is.. I could not find the stupid gas cover release for a while. I searched in the car and then in the book (which was all in german) before finally getting it.. Gas was 73 Euro!!

Got to the facility and was shocked by what they offer the students/instructor. Free coffee, free water, free soda, free breakfast, free lunch, free ice cream, free fruit, pool table, dart board, and a fusball table. The break room has couches you could lay down on! I could really get spoiled here...

Class has students from England, Scotland, France, Italy, and Germany. The books that we had this morning were the wrong ones but that was fixed quickly and we were on our way.

Class went well but long.. I ended up leaving around 5:30, went back to the hotel and did my pushup test. I only did 53 pushups which puts my into the 2nd rank for week 6, this is the first week I am not in the top rank.

After the pushups I went to met Jessie in the city for dinner, we had Italian and pizza which was very good. You go in and get a card, when you order food you swipe the card and when you leave you pay.

Oh, so I did laundry here - or rather had the hotel do it. They charged 50 Euros to do some underwear, a few shirts and a pair of jeans! Speaking of expensive I paid 74 Euros to fill up the car with gas!

Going to head to the pool to relax a bit before bed..

Talk to ya all on the morrow...

Generic Blog Title...

The only difference, on Sunday, between Ireland and Germany is that in Germany the coffee houses stay open. Me and Jessie went into Frankfurt center today to look around, do some shopping and do some tours.. Look around - check.. Tour - check.. Shopping - no so much...

We arrived in the city and ate at the train station, I had a BLT with cheese on a bagel and a Pretzel. Jessie had a tuna sandwich and a cheese danish. We went to the tour company and found the next tour to be in 2 hours. Killing 2 hours in a major city should be no problem right? Well, on any day but Sunday... The only thing open were pubs, restaurants and coffee houses.. We walked around some closed shops for a while before heading down to the river and walking along it for a while. We saw this really cool type of tree that grows pretty much straight before growing out (the only branches were way up), they had a line of them on either side of a walkway so it created a really awesome canopy. I think if you were stand under the canopy while it was raining you wouldn't get wet..

The tour was good, we saw a bunch of stuff and learned some neat things like the Euro was invented/started in Frankfurt, there is a big Euro symbol outside the building where it started. We also learned (realized) that none of the building in Frankfurt are older then World War II, the entire city was leveled by the Ally forces.. :( Even the "old/historical" buildings are recreations, some built as late as 1980!

We had some apple wine which I thought was really sweet and some Bockwurst which tasted like a bad stadium hot dog when the tour stopped in "Roman Square" which was the historical center of town.

As on each city tour I took a ton of pictures so I have something to bore you with when I get back..

Came back to the hotel via the train and a wooded path. For dinner we went to a traditional German restaurant and I had Hunter style Pork (Hunter's style = mushroom gravy) which was excellent. Jessie had Gypsy style pork (Gypsy style = spicy red sauce) which was also really good. Mine came with little potato puffs that I got to dip in the gravy - yum!

Heading to bed...

Oh, I forgot to tell you - Yesterday I saw an audiobook based on Settlers of Catan! I want to see if it's translated into English.

From Pay Toilets to Lilly...

Aside from waking up too early today was a good day. As you know from yesterday's blog I had no clothes when I woke up today, we ended up looking through Jessie's clothes and I wore a pair of her pants and one of her shirts.. We stopped at a rest area on the highway and ate brunch, I had a steak with onions, cheese smashed potatoes and brocilli with cheese. German rest areas all have pay toilets, you pay .50 Euro to get in and you get a voucher for .50 Euro that you can spend at the rest area which is not to bad of an idea, actually spend money at the rest area so they can stay in business.

They sell all kinds of cool things at this rest area including art work and fucking Yankees hats! (I shit you not, I took pictures) There was actually a wall hanging that me and Jessie both liked, but it went for 350 Euro. I would love to show up one day with a crapload of bathroom vouchers and buy it.. I would just love to see the look on their face 'I want that artwork' 'ok, how you will be paying today' 'with this vouchers from your shitter'. That seems like something JD would come up with on Scrubs..

Back in the car and driving, and driving and driving.. We ended up in real bad traffic jam which sucks and you are retraining yourself to drive stick. After the traffic we stopped at another rest area and I had some Movenpick ice cream! If the rest of the day had been shit that alone would have made the day worth it!

We got to the concert at 2:30 and the doors opened at 3:00 so we ended making it even with the really bad traffic. The first band started at 4:00 so we looked at the vendors, they had some good medieval clothes and some CDs you can't get elsewhere. We bought some new Folk & Metal CDs (Faun, Saltatio Mortis and the Sandsacks). The stage was set up against a cliff face which made the acoustics sounds great, on top of the cliff there was a little cottage. The first band Rabenschrey was kinda crappy, but Jessie apparently liked them so we got one of their CDs.. The second band was Schelmish which was FUCKING great, at one point they had 5 (yes I said 5) bagpipes on stage all dueling. Bagpipes + Heavy Metal = AWESOME MUSIC!! I got 2 of thier CDs. The third band was Fiddler's Green, they were the only band that song in English, which is a Folk/Punk band. I really liked them and ended up buying one of their CDs. The fourth and final band was Subway to Sally which I was sort of dreading. Maybe because I was expecting them to be crappy I actually enjoyed them. Jessie said Eric Fish's voice was off today which may be why I liked it.. :D

Food... I had a flat bread pizza was out of the world, it had Quark Cheese, Creme Fraiche, onions and Ham. It only rained for a bit while we were there but it rained hard for that little bit..
Got back to the hotel and my luggage was here!! YAY!! Unpacked and drinking a beer while typing this up.. Off to bed for us, tomorrow's another big day..

No, I assure you I'm not forgetting something... Huh, something in the title that still doesn't make sense.. Oh, you're thinking of Lilly.. She was a girl we talked with at the concert, she was pretty cool and translated some of Eric was saying while he was talking to the crowd.

Beware of misleading titles.. :D

London ate my bag again?!

Finally got a bunch of sleep last night, well I guess thats a relative term.. :)

Today was travel day.. On the flight from Cork to London I met a 19 year girl who is going to study in New Zealand to be a Horse Dentist. She was very cool, we had a very good conversation. As Tyler Durdin would say she was a great single serving friend.

The flight left Cork late and therefore arrived in London an hour late. I got off the plane with 45 minutes to get on the next flight which was in a different terminal, if you've ever been to Heathrow you know it's a big ass-airport. I had to run (literally) all the way from Terminal 1 to Terminal 2. Made it to the plane just in time. The flight from London to Frankfurt was good, I listened to Storm Large (see yesterday's post) and read a book.

I got to Frankfurt for the real fun... My luggage is in London, apparently the people at Aer Lingus made a typo when booking my bag so it was not put on the plane. They have the bag and are sending it to me, I should have it tomorrow. Went to Avis and they only standard cars which is not the biggest deal since I can drive it but it takes some getting used to. The problem is that Jessie can't drive it..

Had McDonalds tonight (I guess I have to eat fast food on the first night in a new country) because I got here too late for anything to be open.

Tomorrow is German Heavy Metal!!! Oh, and maybe clothes shopping so I have something to wear?!