Rick Rambles – A blog

London 07-28-2010
Finally people speak English… and that accent :>  interesting hotel, not too small and has ac, a must.  I figure out where I am and start looking into a flight home.  First stop, food, fish and chips of course!!!  it was not wrapped in newspaper though.  A little disappointing.  It was good though.  And they had free wifi.  My phone stopped working, so I needed to find a phone store and try to replace my charger for my laptop…  success on the phone, not so good on the charger.  It said it was charging, but lied…  no laptop, very sad!
I loved the writing on the streets, “Look Right”!  They should just admit that they drive on the wrong side of the street!  There is actually one street in London where you have to drive on the right.  I forgot why…
Of course I have to do the hop-on hop-off bus…
Buckingham Palace, Big Ben (it’s actually the bell, not the clock tower), London Bridge, London eye, and all that.  There is a lot to see.  It was nice to be able to actually talk to people.
When we started the bus tour I was the only one on the top and there was a live guide.  I had a private tour for a while and then a bunch of people joined us.  It was rather amusing.  He kept welcoming people to Rick’s personal tour of London :>
I went to a place called “The Spice of Life” for some food.  How could I pass up the spice of life?!?!  I met a guy in there that was waiting for his blind date…  he met her on-line.  I did not wait around to see her, but he was looking forward to it…
The on and  off bus in London actually included a boat ride too…  that was cool.
I did go to the national museum.  It was one of those “no pictures allowed” ones…  so the pictures are not-so-good :>  Had to sneak them…

I got really lazy at the end and booked a hotel right next to Heathrow Airport.  It was very nice and I was ready to go home and did not want to mess with travel in the morning.  The train station was attached to the the airport so I was all set.
The hotel was really nice.  For some reason I always judge a room by the bathroom…  this one had a cool glassed in shower and a tub…
I hung out in the airport and the hotel and chatted with a bunch of people.  The food was good and I recognized it all.
Now, when you book a flight the day before, you don’t get a lot of choices…  when I went to book it I would hesitate and the flight would be gone…  I was getting a little antsy so I ended up getting a flight that went to Boston, to Philly, and then to New Haven…  ok, a round-about trip, but I made it.  I got a taxi from Tweed.  I had never flow into Tweed…  it worked.
Being home was nice…

Prague – Dresden – Frankfurt – Brussels 2010-07-27

Lots of trains.  The problem with these trains is that you can’t get there from here.  It took me several attempts to figure out how to head towards London.  That explains the stright-ish shot to Brussels.  I could have stopped in Amsterdam instead, but thought that a bad idea… me in Amsterdam all by myself, unsupervised…  even I know better than that!
I had several hours in Frankfurt so I figured that I would wander about and sit down and get some real food.  So while in Germany I ate at an Australian restaurant.  Why you ask…  it was there and I wanted some meat!  I have Australian beef and it was good!  There were a bunch of business people from the financial district eating there, so I figured that it was a good choice and I was correct.
Oh yeah, very important…  go the bathroom on the train if you can.  It cost $ to go in the station.  And there is a long line.
This was a tricky train.  Fortunately I had read about them.  The only way that you can determine what train that you want to be on is by the departure time.  The train number is often unknown, the track does not show up on the board until 10 minutes or so.  So I am to get on the train to Brussels and there are two trains leaving at the same time on the same track!  What up with that…  then I remembered.  Some trains actually split at a station with the front going to one destination and the back going somewhere else.  Make sure you are on the right half and don’t fall asleep…  the couple next to me, actually the women was very concerned about the train splitting thing and asked every person that went by.  We were in the correct car.  They had been traveling for several weeks and he was tired of sleeping in strange beds.  They were from the UK.  They were off to some friends house to stay for a couple more weeks…  they get lots of vacation time over there…


Prague 2010-07-25
Off to see the sights…
I saw the sights…  all the major highlights were hit.  I did not, however, go into the national museum.  Ya know, I really don’t care that much about the Czech Republic.  I did check out the castle (Guinness’s world’s largest castle) and saw all the hysterical sites.  I walked and walked again.  I did take the metro once to get started to go to the castle, but Prague’s metro is a little odd… for 26 koruna (just over $1) you can ride the metro up to 5 stops after where you got in or 30 minutes on a tram.  If you overstay your welcome, it will cost you 500Kc.  First of all this is odd that you can only go a certain number of stops and it is just a pain, BUT a whole group of people apparently did overstay their welcome and got busted for it… a little scary.   I also saw some tourists pull over for driving too fast… I behaved on all counts…
It rained…  I did not have an umbrella.  I thought of bringing one, but opted for my rain jacket that I did not take with me on my walk-about.  I bout an umbrella for 99 Kc ($4)  things are pretty cheap in Prague.
I went and toured the castle and, of course, had to climb the stairs in the south tower…  I just can’t help it.  If I see a way to go up, I have to take it.  375 steps or something like that…  child’s play compared to St. Pete’s…  the view was good and I got my bearing on my next destination…  the Charles bridge.  Very famous…  it was just spiffy…  the funny thing about it is that it is only a pedestrian bridge and it is home of many vendors and artists…  I stopped in a the Hard Rock Café to hear some English.  I went to the top of the Astrological clock tower and met a very nice woman and her bf from Brussels…  they were one of those couples that don’t actually walk together anymore…  I give them 4 more months…
This all let me to Charles square, the largest square in Europe don’t ya know…  then I decided to wander into Wenceslas Square.  at the top of the square is the National Museum.  They are having a classical concert there tonight.  If I were here with someone, I would certainly want to go, but alas no…
There is a market right down the street where I could gather supplies while I rest up for tonight’s outing…  I have not decided what do to do at this point.  It is a Sunday night…  I might just wander around and grab a nice dinner.  Since things are inexpensive it would be a great place to splurge a bit…
Some good news… my feets be much happier now.  They have finally reached equilibrium with the gel insoles and the letting of the blisters seems to have done the trick!
Some bad news… I have traveled so much that the wheels came off…  my luggage.  We are at the point where one wheel does not turn at all, it just drags… :<  I looked for a replacement bag but did not see anything comparable.  It looks like I will have to use it as a backpack instead of a wheeled piece of luggage…  the good news is that I think I only have 3 more stops to go…
Yes, three more stops…  those of you who though from the beginning that there is no way I could hit all the countries that I wanted to do in the beginning were so right…  northern Europe is out as is Ireland I think…  I currently plan to go from Prague to Frankfurt, to Brussels, to London and then probably fly out of there…  I will probably spend at least a couple of days in London…
One strange thing about this hotel…  they use very hot halogen lights in the bathrooms and the elevator.  Standing under the lights in the lift if very warm… hmmm.