Still no pictures...

My Stanford classes finished last week. Hopefully soon, I'll be able to add more pictures to the web. That is, before I completely forget what there were!

I’m not a Frenchie, I’m a Belgie (Thursday, September 20, 2007)

Most days, my blog entries are written 1 or 2 days after-the-fact. They’ve proven a great way to use time on the train. But this evening, I couldn’t resist the opportunity to blog “live” (although I won’t actually upload the material until later). I’m sitting at a café in Brussels Grand Place, having just eaten dinner (the photo is taken from where I am sitting). Brussels is an interesting place, although I really haven’t seen very much of the town. Lots of different languages are being spoken. The only thing that seems to be constant is the number of bags from the local chocolate stores. I estimate there are at least 20 stores selling chocolate (exclusively) within a 2 block radius of my current location. I assure you this is a conservative estimate. In earlier days, I might have been compelled to test many (if not all) of the offerings. But after 12 years since my last dessert, I figured I could keep the streak alive for one more day & pass on the chocolate.

As for my dinner, I would have opted for the local favorite food (mussels and fries) tonight, but my stomach was bothering me earlier, so I went for something simple (a ham omelet). And sadly, I’ve had no Belgian beer to wash down my food. The Belgians do make a very tasty sparkling water, though.

My day started at my canal-side hotel in Bruges. I have to admit that Bruges was somewhat more of a tourist trap than I expected. Don’t misunderstand me, it is still a very nice town and far from a “rip-off”. Yet the whole town seems devoted to the tourist. Nevertheless, I enjoyed wandering the town, taking an opportunity to climb 377 steps to the top of the city hall tour. It was a funny staircase, getting so tight at the top that I had to remove my backpack to get through.

(An aside: The lights just came on in the city hall in Grand Place. I’ve really enjoyed taking photos in Europe at night…tonight looks like no exception).

I also went to a church that has the first Michelangelo statue that left Italy. I’ve seen quite a lot of ornate, Gothic-style churches this trip. This church would be very impressive, had it not been for the many spectacular churches I’ve recently seen.

I also took a 30-minute canal boat trip. The canals of Bruges don’t really compare to say, Amsterdam or Venice. But they add charm to the town, and provide another perspective. The small (20 person) boat had people from France, Belgium, Germany, Japan, England, Canada and the US, a pretty diverse crowd. The tour guide/boat driver offered commentary in Dutch, German, French, and English.

Other than that, I just walked around and saw the town. It’s a nice place. If you are into beer, chocolate, or lace, it’s probably heaven. It’s also good if you like all thing Dutch, but don’t want to travel the extra hour or two to Holland.

I took a mid-afternoon train back to Brussels. Unfortunately, I missed the twice-hourly train by a matter of seconds (thanks in part to the construction at the Bruges train station). I got off at the Brussels Central station (as opposed to the main station called “Brussels-MIDI”). It too was under construction, and finding the luggage lockers was a far from trivial task. Eventually, I prevailed, stowing my luggage and then heading out to see the town. I had to switch languages once again, as Flemish is prevalent in Bruges, but French prevails in Brussels. Let’s see: I went from Hungarian to German (in Austria) (and briefly to Slovakian) to Czech back to German (in Germany) to French (in Luxembourg) to Flemish (in Bruges) back to French (in Brussels). Whew! Thankfully, English (with a little German mixed in) was able to carry me through.

I walked around a shopping district for awhile, at one point running into a large police presence and a loud mob. After getting a safe distance away, I asked a shop keeper what was going on (hoping it wasn’t a railway strike). His reply, “It’s about tonight’s football match.” I figured I must have run into the Irish or possibly Scottish team. Or perhaps it was a repeat from ten years ago in Vicenza, Italy, when the potential hooligans were from Naples? Nope. These loud fans that were being barricaded away from others by a large police presence were from…Vienna. I must admit that revelation came as something of a surprise.

I eventually wandered to the “Mannekin Pis” statue. Today, he was dressed in clothing from Chile (apparently, they are celebrating some sort of anniversary). There was a whole horde of people gawking at a 2 foot tall statue of a boy, well, relieving himself. I walked over to Grand Place (where I am now), a very impressive town square. It’s almost as though it was designed by Hollywood, with the different building lining the square. The restaurants and cafes (all terribly overpriced) were mostly full, on a day where it is approximately 55 degrees. The chocolate stores were doing a healthy business (perhaps that’s a contradiction in terms?). And there are lots of people to watch. People-watching isn’t really my preferred sport, but it is fun to do on occasion. And I can’t imagine a much better place to watch people than Brussels’ Grand Place.

With that, I think I’ll sign off. I plan to have one or two more entries, documenting my travel home and some general thoughts and impressions from the trip. It’s been a fun three weeks; challenging at times (especially with the illness that just won’t go away), but fun. I’ll save other thoughts for later, as now it’s time to get the check and head towards my airport hotel. This time, my flight is at a humane departure time (11:20am), and I don’t have to do much to prepare. This is a very different scenario than my departure, to be sure.

A post script: As I walked between Grand Place and the train station, I got to witness first-hand one of the truly Brussels traditions. A gentleman, probably about 50, dressed in a suit and tie, picked a fairly vacant and dark spot of a nearby square to relieve himself publicly. For a moment, it was like I was back in college. Ah, youth…or Brussels.

Pass the Duchy (Wednesday, September 19, 2007)

To the best of my recollection, I’ve never had a single day in my life where I visited two different countries (each for the first time). I’ve had a few days where I stopped in multiple countries, but never such that two countries were both new to me.

That is, until today. I started the day in Trier and caught a relatively early (for me, before 9am IS early) train to Luxembourg (about an hour away). The train ride from Trier was through the countryside, with fields of corn and hay, along with grazing land. Upon my arrival, I stuffed my luggage into a locker and set off to wander around the city. The main sights are about 10 minutes away from the train station. Luxembourg City doesn’t have any spectacular sights (or at least that I saw), but it is very nice. The main city is on a bit of a hill, surrounded by a very nice park (in what would be a very large moat). I walked around, took pictures and took advantage of the city’s free wireless internet service, then walked back to the train station. In total, I spent three hours touring the city. My only mistake was that I forgot to initially ask the tourist information person where I could get my passport stamped (they didn’t do it on the train). The unfortunate answer (which I found out too late) was it can only be done at the tourist office in the center city. As it was about 15 minutes until my train (the next train was in 1 hour) and I didn’t think it was worthwhile to walk back and forth for just a passport stamp, I moved on.

I got on the train headed for Brussels. Just like Luxembourg, I’d never previously been to Belgium. However, I had enjoyed a few Belgian Waffles (and even Belgian Beers) previously, but have never been a big fan of their sprouts. The train ride (about 3 hours) went mostly the countryside. One thought: Belgium is officially bilingual (French and Flemish). I wonder…doesn’t that put an awful strain on the animals? Imagine a poor cow, having to take time from his busy grazing schedule to be fluent in two languages! It just doesn’t seem right.

The weather was fairly nice and sunny when I left Luxembourg (albeit a bit chilly). As I got closer to Brussels, the sky was gray. I’m prepared for this, because the first thing my tour book said about Belgium is that the weather is predictably unpredictable. This means my raincoat and umbrella will be close at hand for the next couple of days.

As I was able to secure a place to stay in Bruges, my stay in Brussels today is limited to changing trains. The process of securing a hotel was complicated by the fact that my cell phone call got dropped a couple of times. Thankfully, the person at the hotel was very kind regarding this inconvenience.

Upon arrival at the main Brussels train station, I could have caught a train to Bruges in a matter of seconds (just across the platform). However, to get to Bruges, I had to know what the ultimate destination of the train was. As the most convenient and timely train was out, I was fortunate that another would come along 30 minutes later. I took the time to wander around the station; it is very large and has trains headed for seemingly everywhere. My train left Brussels at about 5pm, and was absolutely packed (including 1^st class, which was a first for me). However, the train cleared out considerably after the first stop (Ghent). The Bruges train station is under massive reconstruction, so much so that the steps from the platform made of plywood. To get to my hotel, I took one of the many buses headed for the “Markt” (the old marketplace), then walked about 4 blocks (cobblestones) to my hotel. It was situated right next to a canal & I had decided to spring the extra 5 Euros to secure a canal view. This part of Bruges could easily be transplanted into the Netherlands without skipping a beat. The canals, bicycles and Flemish language (very similar to Dutch) made me feel like I had returned to Holland. After resting awhile, I spent some time in the hotel lobby taking advantage of free wi-fi (arranging my final hotel as well as checking my seats for the flight home [good thing, as I now have a better chance of having an empty middle seat for my first leg, although the second leg looks pretty grim]), before heading out for a late dinner. There are a series of cafes that line the Markt, all seemingly aimed at the tourist trade. I opted for a Chinese meal a few steps off the Markt. The server probably spoke more languages than I do, but unfortunately we didn’t have one in common. The food was barely passable and the server was more interested in other matters than getting my check. Try as she might, she still wasn’t a serious challenger for the title, “Employee of the Month”. One funny thing: there was some sort of music playing while I was there, primarily a pan flute recording. I chuckled when I realized the song being played on the pan flute was Foreigner’s “I Want to Know What Love Is”. I had managed to stumble into a place with some serious elevator music.

I took a few photos of the area at night and headed back to the hotel. One interesting thing about my room: It appears they installed a prefabricated bathroom into the room. The inside was a series of plastic panels that fit together a bit like Legos. It was very funny, yet functional. Unfortunately, it wasn’t really possible to take a photo that did justice to this sight.

The Tales of Trier (Tuesday, September 18, 2007)

If you think my title is a bad pun, I had thought to call this entry, “Moseying Down the Mosel” (but thought better of it).

I didn’t plan to do much sightseeing in Koln, but rather head towards the towns along the Mosel River. I left my hotel and did plan to take photos of the cathedral (which is conveniently located next door to the train station). The cathedral is massive, supposedly to leave one with a sense of awe. I got to the main train station and headed outside. Rain was falling and it was windy. The rain became more intense and the task of holding my umbrella and trying to take a photo was clearly more than I could handle. So I headed back inside to gather provisions for lunch (they have a very large array of restaurants and a good-sized market). I did have time for another attempt at photographing the cathedral and this time, the weather was more accommodating.

My initial destination was the small town of Cochem along the Mosel River. I changed trains in Koblenz, with our conductor announcing that we would not be able to make the connection (as we were running late and they could not delay that train). As it turns out, I did manage to make the connection (with a little fast walking). The trip from Koblenz to Cochem was mostly on the banks of the Mosel, making for a very scenic trip. Many of the hills had vineyards and there was an occasional cow or two, munching happily.

Cochem is a picture-postcard small town. Many tour groups come here, along with a fleet of boats that sail along the Mosel. I walked from the train station with my luggage (as I couldn’t find the lockers and as the one person selling tickets and answering questions had attracted an unusually long line) towards the center of town (about 10 minutes away). The center of town really was beautiful; as if it were designed solely for tourists. I took many photos along the way, and then headed back to the train station along the river walk. In total, I spent one hour visiting Cochem. I would have liked to have taken a boat trip or visited one of the remote castles in the area, but I just didn’t have enough time.

From Cochem, I made my way to Trier. Trier is “the oldest city in Germany”, sporting ancient Roman ruins. I had booked a hotel next to the train station (a somewhat worn, but nice enough place), so I checked in & dropped off my bags, then set off to see the sights of Trier. The main sights are a ten minute walk from the station, along a park-lined boulevard. I saw the ancient Roman gate (Porta Nigra), the Cathedral and ancient Roman Baths (along with yet another beautiful set of gardens). The baths were very interesting, as the Romans created a fairly elaborate system for transporting the water through the facility. It was a very large site and as I walked through the tunnels, I wondered if I would ever find my way back out of the catacombs/labyrinth.

After sightseeing, I headed back to the hotel for a well-needed nap. Afterwards, I headed to the café next door to catch up on my blog uploading (they had free wireless internet). I was probably the only person there not watching an important soccer match (in the inter-European “Champions League”). It was a bit chilly outside, but the fresh air certainly beat the prospect of going inside, where there was plenty of smoking occurring. This would be one factor that would make it difficult for me to live in Europe: Smoking! The good news is that the train, train stations (at least in theory) and many other places have banned smoking.

Of course, my sensitivity to smoke has only been heightened by my having this upper respiratory infection. Today, it has been a full two weeks with this version of the crud (with the first 2-3 days being the worst of it). I think I’ve done well to not have it cut substantially into my trip. However, my guess is that I’ll only get better once I make it home. In the past few days, my voice has been rather “froggy”, making it surprisingly hard to get German words out. I still find that I speak German well enough to ask the question, yet not understand the answer. But with a froggy voice, even the former is in doubt.

Leaving Berlin for a dose of T+A (Monday, September 17, 2007)

I know the above title may cause concern that my blog has moved from “PG-13” to “R” or “NC-17” (or worse). Never fear...or at least no more than one should typically fear my blog.

I got to bed very, very late Sunday night, yet managed to get up fairly early on Monday. I have now entered the unplanned part of my itinerary; four days and nights with no solid plans or hotel reservations. The only constraint I have is to be in Brussels Friday morning for my flight home. Assuming I don’t receive a better offer.

I figured I’d be heading out from Berlin about midday. There were still many things I wanted to see, but precious little time. As it turned out, I had only about one hour to wander a bit. I took the subway to Potzdamer Platz and walked along one of the only remaining sections of the wall. That walk led me back to Checkpoint Charlie (now overrun with tourists). I walked from there over to the Jewish Museum. Lilan (and Rick Steves) gave this museum a very high recommendation. Unfortunately, I only had time to look at the very interesting outside of the building, before walking back to my hotel.

After checking out, I went back to the subway, this time with my entire collection of luggage. I headed for the HauptBahnhof, and was a bit concerned when one of the subway trains arrived extremely late. Timing was very important, if I was to enjoy T+A this afternoon. I made the train with about 5 minutes to spare. This train was an Inter City Express (ICE) train, which can travel at speeds of 140mph. After two hours, I had made it as far as Bielefeld. I had a very, very tight train connection here (4 minutes to switch platforms), but managed to make my 8 minute train ride to Herford, the home of all things T+A.

What is T+A, you might ask? I think by now, most of you have been subject to that story. My cousin Stirling, is in the very high-end audio business. His company represents T+A, a very well-respected high-end audio company in the US and Asia. T+A stands for “Theorie und Anwendung” (roughly translated, “Theory and Application”). His business associate Siggi Amph, is the Managing Director of T+A. I met Siggi a couple of times at the Consumer Electronic Show. As it turns out, I managed to catch Siggi at the office (he had just returned from the show in Milan and was about to head to Austria). Siggi picked me up at the Herford train station and drove me out to their facility. It’s an impressive operation that has expanded over the decades since Siggi founded the company. While the T+A brand is not a household word in the US, they have a very large following in Europe, due to their outstanding engineering and very attractive styling. Definitely not a brand you’ll see at BestBuy! Siggi’s employees were very friendly and knowledgeable. It was a very pleasant visit and I was glad to see where all this equipment is designed and manufactured.

After Siggi returned me to the Herford train station, I continued on my journey. I semi-randomly decided to aim towards Koln (what we call “Cologne”). It’s about two more hours on the train (another very fast ICE train). I spent the first ten minutes securing lodging for the evening, and spent the remaining time watching the German countryside whiz by, while I caught up on a day or two of blogging).

Koln has a very busy train station. They have one very slick innovation: Instead of having lockers for your baggage, they have an automated storage system, where you put your bags in & get a code (and they are automatically moved down to the basement on conveyor belts, then brought back when you return. I didn’t get to use it and admit I’d be a little skeptical about it working properly (thoughts of the conveyor belt nightmares that initially plagued the new Denver airport come to mind), but it is cool.

My hotel was 4 stops away on the subway. I’m staying tonight at a Hotel Ibis, an economy chain that’s primarily outside the US. It was a very Spartan, utilitarian room. The area around the hotel had some restaurants and shops, but no major sights. Then again, as I’ve been to Koln before (albeit 29 years ago), seeing the sights wasn’t a priority. I had a simple Asian dinner (at a cook-to-order Asian fast-food place) and called it a night.

Checkout Charlie (Sunday, September 16th, 2007)

Charlie and I stayed up late Saturday night, so Charlie’s 7am wake-up call was a bit painful. Charlie succeeded in making his goal of being out of the hotel by 8am and I promptly went back to sleep for another two hours. I’m sorry to see Charlie leave, but after two weeks together I was ready to do a bit of solo exploration.

Then again, solo exploration was on hold (at least for today). My dear friend Lilan (who moved from San Francisco to New York several years ago) is spending two months in Berlin and we are scheduled to spend the day together, which should be a treat on several fronts.

I called Lilan and we talked about where we could meet. But as I remembered she was having some trouble getting her computer to connect to the internet from her sublet apartment, I suggested that I just come by and see if I could sort it out.

Lilan is currently staying in a very functional, somewhat oddly decorated sublet about 5 subway stops from my hotel. I looked over her computer situation and managed to figure things out in a couple of iterations (even with a DSL modem that only spoke “German”). Before long, I had her laptop connecting to the wireless network. My technological prowess will likely be reported (and perhaps exalted) in her very entertaining blog (she’s a writer & it can be found at http://grovergirl.typepad.com/berlinorbust/ ).

Having done my tech support duty, we set off to tour a few colorful neighborhoods of Berlin.

We started with the area around Frankfurter Alley (that springs from Karl-Marx Alley). This is an area where the DDR (East Germany) leveled rows of existing buildings to be able to create grand, wide boulevards. We walked to the Fredrichshain area and visited the Volkspark. Berlin apparently is the “Greenest City”, with the largest amount of area devoted to parks. From there we wandered over to the very popular Prenzlauer Berg neighborhood. This area sustained little damage in the World War II, but crumbled under the watch of the Communists. It has always been very artsy and now seems a bit like a laid-back, artsier version of the Rockridge area of Oakland. They create very interesting play structures in their corner parks; much less pre-fabricated than what we have in the US. All in all, we walked in these areas for about 3 hours. We decided to get a late lunch in the Mitte area (not too far from my hotel). It took a subway train plus a fair amount of walking, but we arrived at a very stylish Vietnamese Café. They had very few choices, but my dish (a chicken dish with coconut milk and spices over rice) was really good. I don’t remember previously eating Vietnamese at an outdoor restaurant; this café had outdoor tables.

After we ate lunch, we set off towards the Reichstag building. The German Parliament was located in Bonn before the wall came down, so when they moved it back to Berlin, they had to have a very special building. We took a series of subways to get to the Haupt Bahnhof (an impressive building in its own ight) and walked over to the Reichstag. While the building is free to enter, there’s a pretty long line (we only had to wait 30-40 minutes total) and very heavy-duty security (along the lines of the security I see at the Frankfurt Airport). The building was originally built in the 1890s, but heavily renovated since the wall fell. Now, the old exterior is an interesting counterpoint to the futuristic glass dome inside. We rode the elevator and walked up many ramps to get the most stellar views. We caught only the end of the process of the sun setting, but stayed up long enough to get some really great and colorful sunset photos.

Lilan accused me of “lucking out” with the weather. Yes and no. While I got to enjoy a beautiful day on Sunday (where I was wearing only a t-shirt all day…okay, so I was wearing pants too), I feel like I earned some good weather from all the days in Hungary and Austria with inclement weather. So there!

Now, I once again bid adieu to my friend. Lilan was off to a literary event and I went off to see more of Berlin at night. I took many, many photographs from the top of the Reichstag, then of the Reichstag from ground level. I walked to the Brandenburg Gate and took several more photos. Then I decided I would do some serious “Berlin at Night”, starting with Potzdamer Platz. It’s not the most authentic place, but I did get a good number of nice photos. From here, I took the subway back to the Zoological Garden and did another iteration of the previous day’s bus tour, hopping off the bus for 10 minutes to view the “Victory Column”. I ended getting off the bus and walking thoroughly around some of “Unter Den Linten” sights I saw on Saturday, getting more beautiful night photos. I ended up in a restaurant area not too far from my hotel for a late dinner. There were lots of restaurants, but they were essentially empty at this late hour. I had a lovely dinner, with the relative calm broken by a completely insane woman who brought her dog inside the restaurant. The staff was telling her to leave, she was screaming, and the dog was barking continuously and loudly. Other than that, Berlin seemed to be a very safe and pleasant city (at least the parts I visited).

When I returned home (after 14 hours away from the hotel), I realized that Berlin was the sort of place I really liked. I will likely come back here, long before I’ve seen all the other places “on my list”. Perhaps I’ll opt to rent an apartment here for a month-long vacation (peppered with side trips)? Too soon to tell when I’ll be back, but it will be a welcome return.

Employee of the Month (Saturday, September 15th, 2007)

We got off to a slow start on Saturday. We stayed up fairly late and after Charlie got 3 crummy nights of sleep in Prague; he really needed a good night of sleep. So we woke up at 11am, rested and ready to tackle Berlin. Our first task was to find the local subway station; not easy, as the most direct route there is through pedestrian thoroughfare (that we missed the first time). Our stop was Spittelmarkt, on the U-2 line. We negotiated getting Charlie an all-day ticket, and then travelled to another station (Alexanderplatz) to get me the “Berlin Welcome” 48 hour ticket.

Alexanderplatz is a major landmark, with a couple of large department stores and quite a few different subway and bus lines. It’s next door to the large TV tower/observation platform. Once again, we relied on Rick’s advice and started walking from here toward the Brandenburg Gate. Within a couple of minutes, we came upon a large crowd at the park. It turns out there was a major peace protest being held. It’s difficult to accurately estimate how many police vehicles and personnel we saw in the next 30 minutes, but 100-200 vehicles (including many that appeared to be “paddy wagons?” and 500 officers is probably a good guess. We decided it might be good to get away from this throng, so we moved on (even though we were about ready for lunch). We walked by a good number of sights on “Unter den Linden” Street, including the Berlin Cathedral, the Palace of the Republic (currently under reconstruction), and the Opera House.

The Brandenburg Gate is a very impressive structure. It was especially well-guarded today (seemingly related to the protests). After Charlie and I each took virtually every possible photo of the gate (and probably some photos that just aren’t possible), we walked over to the Jewish Holocaust Memorial. It consists of something like 2700 graffiti-resistant markers. About this time, the police shut down the local streets to car traffic to allow the protesters (who were marching, probably to the Reichstag building) to pass. Again, I’m not sure how many protesters there were, but I would guess at least 10,000. By this time, we were starving and didn’t want to be too close to the protesters. So we headed towards Potzdamer Platz (referred to as the Times Square of Berlin). We thought about trying one of the many eateries in the enormous Sony Center, but opted instead for a “diner” a block away. Not exactly the epitomy of diner greatness; Charlie said his burger was the worst he had in quite awhile.

After surviving lunch, we headed on the subway to the west to the Zoological Gardens stop. This is where we picked up a double-decker public bus that makes a scenic run from the west to east side of town. We rode the bus for about 40 minutes, seeing the sights (including the main park, the Reichstag building and the other “Unter den Linden” sights we had previously strolled by. Back at Alexanderplatz, I enjoyed a moment of international friendship, as the fruit stand vendor gave me the single banana I selected for free. I also enjoyed a wurst from a totally self-contained vendor; he had his grill in front of him and strapped to him. We went back to the hotel for a few minutes of rest before heading back out.

This time, we headed to the TV tower, hoping to see a great sunset from 200 meters above the city. The line for the elevator moved slowly (perhaps we weren’t the only people with this brilliant idea). We made it to the top in time to see the tail end of the sunset; not spectacular, but enjoyable. This view really underscores how large Berlin is, as the city seems to stretch as far as the eye can see in every direction. It really was a nice view, but probably doesn’t rival the Eiffel Tower.

We then set off towards “Checkpoint Charlie”. By the time we arrived, the area was virtually deserted. We didn’t go through the museum, but got plenty of photos of the area. As it was now time for a late dinner, we found a place that looked good a block south of Checkpoint Charlie. They had a diverse menu, which was quite reasonably priced. We ordered our food from our waiter, only to have a woman bring us a pair of pizzas (that actually belonged to the table next to us). Our waiter brought out our soup, then left for the evening, leaving what appeared to be the owner and his wife. After we finished our soups, the women brought us our food. Mine didn’t look quite right, but I was hungry. After a couple of bites, I determined this wasn’t what I ordered (and the same for Charlie). The owner came by & we mentioned this. He apologized and said the mistake was because the other waiter didn’t speak English. He pressured us into eating what we had. As it tasted good, I figured it would be okay. About 3 minutes later, he came out with what appeared to be the food we ordered and promptly took it to another table. I watched the interaction and saw the other people would have no part of our food. The owner came back to our table with the food and exchanged these dishes for what we had been eating. Then he loudly cursed out his wife (who when not working, was sitting transfixed by the local shopping channel).

The food was very good. So much so, that Charlie even ordered dessert. We had some trouble getting the check, as when we asked the wife for the bill, she just shrugged (looking very annoyed) and kept watching her shopping channel. As you might imagine, the bill wasn’t quite right, but was close enough to not merit further discussion.

We returned to the hotel and crowned the wife from this evening’s restaurant the coveted title of “Employee of the Month” for her customer service efforts far above the level of incompetence and nonchalance expected from such employees. (I never said we were “nice”…with any luck, the woman from Friday night’s taxi experience will enjoy this level of service at her earliest convenience)