Keegan Coast To Coast

Vietnam Thoughts

2008-12-17T05:05:00.000-08:00

Vietnam is turing out to be a tough country to travel through.

Its not because of a lack of tourist infrasctructure, it is because there is TOO MUCH infrastructure.

Many Vietnamese have figured out that tourists are walking ATMs and are extremely aggressive with them - trying to get them into taxis, onto cyclos, and into their t-shirt shops. And when you do try and buy a bottle of water, you're charged double the price. I've gotten quite good at a "sucking on a lime" face and shaking my head until the price comes down to a reasonable level. Walking away also works quite well.

Most of the budget accomodation in a given city will be in one small district. This is good, on one hand, because you can easily check out 4 or 5 places, comparing prices. But its bad, because all the motos, drug dealers, pimps and other idiots trying to get you to give up a buck or two will swarm from the time you walk out your hotel door until you walk back in. It is far more aggressive here than in Thailand or Cambodia (Laotians are so laid back, they just leave you alone).

Driving in Vietnam is positively frightening. The most aggressive drivers are the bus drivers, pushing trucks, cars, and motorcycles out of the way with the loudest horsn I've ever heard in my life. I'm pretty much done with buses - can't handle the insistent honking.

Years ago, apparently Vietnamese intercity buses were horrifyingly bad. The buses were old things of Soviet design, overcharging was rampant, and break downs were assured. Out of this framework came the "open tour" bus, run by a tour company. Buy a through ticket from Saigon to Hanoi, and you could get on or off at any city the bus passed through, as long as you called the tour company in advance.

As with all good ideas in Southeast Asia, these buses are everywhere, and sold by everybody. And you can't get away from them. The public bus system is vastly improved. Indeed, from what I can see, the biggest hazard to riding on a bus is the quality of the driver, not the quality of equipment. I'm sure that there are just as many suicidal bus drivers with the Open Tour companies as on the regular buses.

Not wanting to be part of the herd on the Open Tour system, I spent 3 days contemplating how to leave Hoi An. Located about an hour from the large city of Danang, I was heading to Quy Nhon (from where I write this), about 5 hours south. I knew the train schedule, but it would be quite expensive, including a taxi fare from the train station at Quy Nhon to Quy Nhon proper (and it turned out, a bit of a walk). The Vietnamese trains are actually quite nice (nicer, I think, than Thailand's, but also slow, being a singled tracked system). I wanted to find out information about the public bus from Danang to Quy Nhon.

But no one would tell me. Every hotel, guesthouse, and cafe in Hoi An is sucked into the Open Tour system and they would only give me info about those departures. In order to find out about the schedule from Danang, I would have to spend $2 and an afternoon going down to the station and asking personally.

In the end, I took the train.

Tomorrow I'm leaving for Nha Trang, another beach town that would probably be quite nice if it wasn't for the overcast weather and rainfall (I am, once again, hiding in an internet shop due to rain). Again, I think I'll take the train, if only to avoid the constant honking of the bus horn. More expensive, but more peaceful.

I don't want to make it sound like Vietnam is all bad.

It isn't. Some people are quite nice, and honest, and the food is pretty darned good.

And I've done some neat things. I went to Halong Bay in the far northeast of the Vietnam, a few hours outside Hanoi (which was rather unpleasant).

Rather than do the "book a tour" option, which is like negociating a minefield in Hanoi with copycat travel agencies and shady operators at every turn, I chose to make my way to Halong City on the public bus, and then get a boat to Cat Ba Island, where I'd stay the night, at the dock.

Unfortunately, I slept in the morning I left, mostly due to an Irish girl across the hall flipping out about a rat in her room at 0230 (my room was rat free). To make a long story short, a one hour delay cost me $10, but in the end I got to Cat Ba Island.

What I really wanted to do was go kayaking in Halong Bay. I determined by checking out the options in Cat Ba town (where I had my best value accomodation of the trip - $7, with a balcony, and harbor views), to go with an operator at 8AM. Well, when I got there, the rest of the group had shown up early and left already, or something. It wasn't really quite clear.

Luckily for me, however, I had another option presented to me. I could go over to the harbor and rent a kayak for the day. The guy arranging this for me, said "just go - go kayak - all day - big harbor there." I said "no, I have to have a guide - this is the ocean - they'll find me in two weeks sailing into Hong Kong."

A few phone calls and a few minutes later, a guide shows up. After negociating a price ($20 for the day), we set off.

The guide instantly commented that I seemed to know how to kayak quite well. We were making good time, and he took me to some amazing sights, including a lagoon that was only accessible via a cave worn out of the limestone island. The guide commented that he rarely makes it out this far because most tourists just aren't good enough kayakers.

A bit later in the day we headed for an island, where I laid in the sun on a secluded beach for about 90 minutes before heading back to the harbor to return the kayaks. By the time we got back, I figured we did about 5 hours of actual kayaking. I was exhausted. My arms were tired, my back was sore, and I couldn't have paddled another hour.

At the dock, the guide asked me if I was tired. I said I was. He said that he was also, very tired.

A few more days, and then I fly home. I'm thinking two nights in Nha Trang, then one in Saigon before my flight. I had originally planned on taking the train direct from Nha Trang the day of departure, arriving about 2045 for an 0100 flight, but I'm thinking that is cutting it kind of close due to the poor on time performance of the railway. Apparently the Stalin "the trains run on time" brand of communism hasn't caught on here.

"Selling and Repair All Kinds of Air Condition"

2008-12-03T07:22:00.000-08:00

I just wrapped up about 2 weeks in Cambodia. I spent the majority of the time in Siem Reap, which is the town right next to the Angkor Wat complex. I wish I could say that I enjoyed Siem Reap and Angkor, but I didn't. I got sick with some kind of awful stomach thing that had me stuck in bed for 5 days, only getting up to walk down to the store to buy some more water, juice, and maybe stop for a bowl of chicken noodle soup.

Once I recovered, I left for Phnom Penh. Reading the literature on the city, and listening to other travelers, it gets mixed reviews. Its supposedly dangerous (apparently armed robberies happen on occasion - but it's a big city, isn't that expected?), it's congested, and its covered with trash.

All that is true (well, I never felt "unsafe"), but its also dynamic, alive, and full of Cambodians trying their best to make a living.

I loved it.

The traffic is outrageous. Everyone rides a motorbike, and traffic control is virtually non existant. There are a handful of signals at the busiest intersection in town, but everywhere else, its just like watching a choreographed show - the bikes are zooming in all directions but everyone yields to everyone else.

I met up with an older America I travelled with for a few days in Laos last month. He was in Phnom Penh waiting for his flight home. He rented a scooter, and we spent a day zipping around. It was thrilling, with all those bikes buzzing in every direction. Of course, it isn't without hazards. The day I spent on the back of the bike, I was whacked in the kidneys by the handlebars of another moving bike. The guy just smiled at me, I smiled back (not being hurt), and he zipped off. The next day I walked around and had a bike run smack into the back of my shoe.

These folks have been riding their bikes for years. Three or four full-sized adults on the back of a bike is not an uncommon sight. At one point, we passed a scooter that had a woman driving, and another woman sitting on the back, holding her baby in her lap, feeding the kid from a bottle as the bike weaved in and out of traffic.

The Cambodians have embraced capitalism. I spent nearly 6 hours my second day in PPenh walking around, exploring. Every street was a new commercial district. On one street, there would be a row of vendors selling whole roasted pigs hanging from hooks. The next street had a row of English language schools (I stopped listened to a Cambodian trying to teach his students English. I couldn't understand him). After that was a street where all the signs said "Selling All Kinds of Mattresses." After that were 35 tables set on the side walk "Selling All Kinds of Printing and Cards." Three blocks later I came across a strip of fabric stores. The next street was noting but Tailors, Tailleurs, Taylleurs, and Taylieurs.

I don't know if any of them are making any money, but they're trying.

The day I spent on the of my friend's bike, we found a shoe repair place. Fred had a pair of worn out river guide sandals, and wanted to get the peeling up sole repaired. We got directions at the market to the "shoe repair street" and found a stand with a man and (probably) his wife hard at work, repairing old shoes (probably skimmed from the town dump, or maybe just the piles of garbage in the gutters). Fred showed him the problem with the sandals, the guy said he could fix it for $2, and twenty minutes later, after the most thorough shoe repair job I've ever seen, the sandals were done. And the repairman had a huge smile on his face when Fred handed over the $2.

I shared a taxi (the only transport available) from the Thai-Cambodia border a few weeks ago with a young German couple. They were totally rediculous and misguided, and I won't cover all their stupidity here. One thing they brought up was that they couldn't enjoy their vacation in SE Asia because of the poverty. But they refused to eat at street vendors, etc. They just wallowed in their sorrow for those that are extremely poor. My position on the very visible poverty in some parts of SE Asia is that you either join an NGO and do some work with the poor, or get over it and just contribute the legitimate economy. Don't give to the beggars, but do seek out the shoe repair guy to get something fixed. That $2 for twenty minutes of labor that Fred gave the shoe repair guy probably went a long ways with his family.

Phnom Penh is a great example of a great, capitalist city. I loved wandering around and looking at all the shops, comparison shopping for sweets on the bakery street, and dodging motorbikes and piles of trash. But unbridled capitalism and development does have its problems. I stayed in a $4 guesthouse right on a big lake (at least as big as Lake Union) right in the city. There is a strip of dumpy guesthouses there (my room came complete with cockroaches - BIG ONES!), and a lot of ramshackle shacks built around the lake. Word on the street is that the gov't has teamed with a developer to pump out the lake, fill it in, and build high rises on the the reclaimed land.

That would be a huge loss. The lake is stunning, and all the cheapie guesthouse have a west facing sunset view across the lake. They'd be better off to buy the cheap guesthouses and put in some fancy hotels on the lake to take advantage of the view than to fill it in. I asked the guys at my roachhouse when the lake was going to be filled in and they responded "maybe tomorrow, maybe next year, whenever the gov't wants to." There's lots of money flowing into Phnom Penh, but filling in that lake is NOT a good thing.

I'm writing tonight from Saigon, which has even more motorbikes and traffic but less trash than Phnom Penh (the communists understand the importance of trash removal). On the 5th I'm going to break Keegan's #1 rule of overland travel - don't fly. It is over 1000 miles one way from Saigon to Hanoi, and the trains and buses are just too slow to go all that distance and then double back to catch my flight in 18 days in Saigon. I found a cheap flight to Hanoi, so I'll just work my way back to Saigon from there.

By the way, I've had nothing but Pho for a day and a half.

And it's great!

Expectations

2008-11-18T23:16:00.000-08:00

Its been a while since the last post because in Laos you have the following internet cafe choices:

1) Cheap and Slow
2) Overpriced and Slow
3) Cheap and Fast but dies after twenty minutes.

I left Thailand on November 5th, crossing the mighty Mekong river by motorized canoe to the riverside town of Houai Xai, Laos. The plan was to take the two day "slow boat" ride down the Mekong River to Luang Prabang, Laos.

This is a well beaten path. The road system in Laos is still so poor that even 13 years after opening to tourists and now being a very popular destination, spending 16 hours on the boat and one night in a small town is still preferable to the 12 hour bus ride.

I thought it sounded like a great time. The guidebooks and websites warn, the southbound trip in particular, can be very very crowded. The boats are cargo boats adapted to carrying people instead of rice, so the seats are simple wooden benches. Bring a pillow.

I had a great time for two days. The boats were very full (we had 2 boats the first day, and one, much larger boat, the second day). But it wasn't overloaded, just very full. I knew exactly what to expect from the trip - cattle car conditions with spectacular scenery. And it didn't bother me.

However, it seems like the increasing ease of southeast asia travel (cheap airfares, good transportation, fluent english speakers in every shop), has brought a lot of idiots along for the ride. Behind me the first day on the boat were two american girls from the SF Bay area. They were in their early twenties.

Not more than an hour into the ride they started complaining:
"What are we supposed to do, just look at the river for seven hours?"
"I don't think I'll ever do a slow boat ride again, this is so old fashioned."
"I knew the seats would be wooden benches, but I didn't think they'd be this uncomfortable."
Of course, they lost all credibility when one of them said:
"I went to San Antonio once and while the Alamo was really nice, the rest of the city, like, wow, there was blood running in the streets everywhere. You have to understand, that, like, in Texas, you know, every person carries a gun, so they just, shoot at each other, all the time, you know."

The next day I selected a seat far, far away from them.

On the second day, we were crammed tightly into one, much larger boat. The second boat from the first day broke down midtrip (we came across them drifting, and towed them to a small village), and was replaced by a passing rice freighter. Because the rice freighter was scheduled to haul some rice somewhere, he was not available to be the second boat to Luang Prabang. And since the original second boat was broken upstream, there was no unscheduled boat available to provide more capacity.

We all fit. I didn't feel uncomfortable about the safety of the boat. There were lifejackets hanging on the seats, and the boat had plenty of freeboard. I figure the regular rice cargo weighs more than we did. And, as I've noted, the boat was much bigger than the one the first day.

Everyone back where I was sitting was having a good time. We were relaxing, enjoying the scenery, and many were starting their daily Beerlao intake a little early. There were some whirlpools and rapids, but I felt, considering the size of the boat, the captain handled them well.

But an Australian girl sitting near the front relayed the story of three British girls who were absolutely terrified the thing was going to sink and they were going to die. Apparently they sat shaking and crying for the first two hours of the trip (and complaining loudly about how the boatmen didn't care if they died), until the Aussie and an older British couple told them to buck up or get off at the next (population 50) village we came to. They were so nervous about traveling in a third world country on a third world boat, they let their fears ruin what was a wonderful trip.

It's all about expectations.

I'm out of Laos now, having seen the major sites and wishing I had another two weeks to explore the remote regions of that country. The poor are dirt poor, living the way they have for hundreds of years, in bamboo huts perched high in the mountains (though every once in a while you'll see a satellite dish bigger than most of the huts). The roads are awful (saw another fatality, this time bus vs. scooter), torn to shreds by the rainy season and never good given the mountainous geography they must cross. Transport is slow.

But the scenery is stunning, the boat rides (I also did an 8 hr boat ride up the Nam Ou river out of Luang Prabang to a small town where the kind of turkeys - heritage - that Americans pay hundreds of dollars for at Thanksgiven gobble-gobbled under bamboo huts) a touch of a disappearing past, and the people incredibly friendly. The culture is well preserved, and while tourism is firmly planted itself into their country, old traditions carry on, unchanged.

I'll try and get some photos up next week - we'll see how the internet connections are in Cambodia. I'm currently spending one night in Bangkok (I was going to pass through anyways - fastest way from Vientiene to Siem Reap, Cambodia is via Bangkok's Northern Bus Station) because my glasses snapped in half while kayaking in Laos two days ago. The eight year old backup pair are so scratched I feel like I'm looking through a cloud, and the prescription is not adequate. So I did a google, got an optician recommendation, and the glasses will be done in about 2 hours, at half the cost of having them made in the US.

The North

2008-11-03T06:38:00.000-08:00

I've spent the last two weeks in Northern Thailand. I spent nearly a week in Chiang Mai, wandering around, getting sick, recovering from getting sick, and watching Jamie Moyer fool the kids from Tampa Bay.

The great thing about Chiang Mai is that if you're tired of Thai food (I know, but it happens), there are plenty of quality options including a burger joint:

and a fake Arby's:

After leaving Chiang Mai, I headed off on the remote Mae Hong Son loop. Mae Hong Son province is located in the northwestern corner of Thailand, tight against the Burmese border. I made three stops on the loop - Mae Sariang, Mae Hong Son, and Pai.

Mae Sariang is a boring town with poor accomodation choices. Its on a muddy river, and has a few okay places to eat. I stayed one night.

Mae Hong Son is beautiful small town set in a valley with a great temple reflected on a tiny lake in the center of town. The lake is tiny, but provides a clearing to see the surrounding mountains.

Mae Hong Son has a handful of tourists passing through, mostly middle aged europeans to catch the plane from Chiang Mai (30 minutes) rather than take the grueling, 8 hour bus ride. The countryside is so twisty and hilly that only smaller buses can be used, but they're still unable to average a reasonable speed. The drivers are constantly grinding through the gears for the ups and downs. The buses are all equipped with vomit bags hanging from the ceiling. On each segment I rode, they were used by at least one person, and then tossed out the window. I started catching the buses first thing in the morning, and not eating anything before I rode. Still, the minibus ride to Pai (the twistiest stretch) was absolutely the worst. I was ill and could not get out of the van fast enough.

Many tourists do the Mae Hong Son loop by motorbike. But most of the bikes you can rent are these tiny 100cc mopeds that don't have the power to really do the loop. Two Germans I ran into said it took them 7 hrs from Chiang Mai to Pai, a trip that the bus does (slowly) in four. Additionally, the roads are dangerous. They are skinny with lots of ups and downs and turns. Thais don't, as a rule, stay on their side of the road. We stumbled across a bad accident on the way from Mae Hong Son to Pai where it appeared a Pepsi truck hit a woman (on a scooter?). She was very dead, and a few Thais were on the side of the road hacking down big leafy vegetation to cover her body.

Another westerner was spotted in Pai riding around on his scooter. He had a bandaged face, legs, knees, and shoulders. He'd obviously had a spill but was undetered from riding the bike.

Pai is a neat little town. It is packed with tourists, but for good reason. Its set in a gorgeous valley, is fully of artsy Thais. I never knew that Thai Hippies existed, but they do. They have long hair, beards, and play lots of Bob Marley music in the bars. Its a lot of fun. The streets are littered with beautiful right hand drive VW Buses, converted into espresso bars, pancake standings, and t shirt shops. Its really a surreal experience.

I just arrived back in Chiang Mai, where I'll be spending one night, then heading for Chaing Khong on the Thai-Laos border where I will do the standard two day slow boat down the Mekong to Luang Prabang.

Death Railway

2008-10-22T08:09:00.000-07:00

I wasn't going to write a blog post tonight - but I'm stuck in an internet shop and it started raining - HARD. I'm not going outside until it stops.

Last week I spent a few days in Kanchanaburi, which is northwest of Bangkok by about three hours. Its on the road to Burma, but you can't actually go any further into Burma than the border town at the end of the road. Basically, its just a big but beautiful dead end (a few hours past Kanchanaburi).

The road to Burma parallels the Thailand-Burma Railway built by POW labor during WWII. The Japanese wanted a supply route to Burma without having to sail all the way around the Malay penninsula. It is in Kanchanaburi that this railway crosses the river Kwai, on a bridge made famous by a historical-fiction book & movie.

I spent a day riding a local bus up from Kanchanaburi to what is known as "Hellfire Pass." It is a deep cutting, done entirely by human labor, through thick rock, to allow an easy grade for the railway. The railway doesn't run to the Burmese these days (and hasn't for about 60 years), but does proceed about 3 hours out of Kanchanaburi along the original pathway. Hellfire Pass is just beyond where the current railway ends.

The pass and the amount of labor that went into building it is outrageous (google it). Its deep, and the entire thing was cut by hand with some dynamite assistance. The Japanese burned through 100,000 laborers building the line (90,000 asians, 10,000 allies - mostly British, Australian, and Dutch). It operated for about 2 years, and then continued after the war under British control until about 1947.

After checking out the museum at the pass, I hopped the local bus back to Namtok, which is where the railway ends, just in time for the last train of the day. This line uses 50 year old passenger carriages, which are loud and uncomfortable, but don't have A/C so you can easily take pictures out the open windows. It takes almost 3 hours to ride back to Kanchanaburi (the bus takes 1.5 hrs), but the trip is scenic. Lush green mountains and hillsides create a backdrop to the sugar cane fields and palm trees.

Just as the train enters Kanchanaburi, it crosses the Bridge on the River Kwai. About half of the bridge is original - two mid-span sections are rebuilt after they were destroyed by allied bombing late in WWII. As we crossed the bridge, I kept my eyes peeled for William Holden and Alec Guiness, but didn't spot them.

Back in Kanchanaburi proper is a well maintained allied cemetary. The one I visited is one of three along the line (two in Kanchanaburi, and one in Burma) where allied POWs who died during the construction of the line were buried. Nearly 7000 soldiers were buried at this location. Most interesting is that about 1/3 of the graves were Dutch. I ran into a few Dutch travellers who had also visited the cemetary, and they were very suprised that so many dutch had died constructing the line. They noted that in Holland, most of their education about WWII focuses on Europe, leaving little to be said about the dutch soldiers captured in the Dutch East Indies.

Anyways - its still raining here in Chaing Mai, but I don't have anything else to write. Pictures to come soon.

"Hello Pad Thai Chicken"

2008-10-15T05:59:00.000-07:00

(I wanted this to be a multimedia post, with pictures, but left the memory card in my room. Next time....)

I arrived in Bangkok a little after midnight, the culmination of a 24 hour trans Pacific journey. I Flew from Seattle to San Francisco to Seoul to Bangkok. The detour in SFO was a giant waste of time, as the flight to Seoul goes up the west coast and out the Aleutians, but was necessary to get a good price on the ticket.

I hadn't booked a room in advance in Bangkok, despite the late arrival time. I jumped in the taxi queue at the airport, and told the driver Khao San Road. KSR is a famous traveler street in Bangkok, and while I had no intention of staying ON it, there was supposedly quite a bit of selection in quality accomodation a few blocks away. Just drop me off and I'll figure it out from there.

After a quick walk down KSR, dodging drunken Aussie, mangy dogs, and noodle cars, I cut over to a side alley. I recognized the street name from a guidebook or a website, and began to look for somewhere to sleep on this much quieter street.

I finally walked into a guesthouse, asked for a single and hit the jackpot. Despite its firetrap sixth floor walk up location, no A/C, no hot water, it was clean and comfortable, all for about $9 a night. Great. I came to really enjoy this room. It was quiet, looked out over a monastery, and was clean. The only problem with it was, with no A/C you had to leave the windows open at night, which meant the full volume of the roosters in the monastery came through at sunrise, 0600.

Bangkok is a mystifying city. I can't say I liked it that much. It's hot and humid. It's dirty, and unless you are standing right next to a food cart, it smells bad. But it has its charms. The crazy market streets where you fight yoru way past a family trying on pants on an 18" wide sidewalk. The food vendors ready to cook something fast, cheap and filling, and announce the order with "Hello..." The river ferry, with a row of monks on one side in their bright ropes, and the ticket collector walking down the aisle, shaking her tube of money.

After a few days in Bangkok I took off for Ko Pha Ngan, in the Gulf of Thailand. Of the three big islands accessible from Surat Thani, the mainland transport hub, I chose Ko Pha Ngan. I took a sleeper train from Bangkok to Surat Thani for the 12 hour ride. I had an upper berth, in an open sleeper train, the kind that was phased out in the USA just after Amtrak took over in the mid 1970s. Two seats faced each other on each side of the aisle - when it was time, the porter turned them into two bunks, separated from the aisle by a curtain. It wasn't a good night's sleep, overall. Unlike in the US and Europe, Thai train engineers have no concept of passenger comfort. They'll be trucking a long at full speed and have an "oh, there's the station, we need to stop there" epiphany, slam hard on the brakes, and make no attempt to feather them out. Sleep is hard with that kind of ride.

Ko Pha Ngan was great. I spent three days hanging out on a white sand beach, swimming in clear, warm water.

But it was time to move on. Did I want to head further south, down to the Andaman coast? I decided not to. Surat Thani was plenty far from Bangkok, and the further south I went, the further it was to backtrack. Plus, the devastation on that coast from a few years ago has driven up the prices of accomdation and transportation as business owners try and recoup their rebuilding costs. I decided to skip the Andaman coast for now, and see it on some future trip, where I will pass through the area on the way to/from Singapore.

It was back to Bangkok, again on a night train, and after a night in my old 80 sq ft room, I left for Kanchanaburi in northwest Thailand. Kanchanaburi is most famous as the major city along the "death railway" where the Japanese forced POWs to build a railroad from Thailand to Burma across a bridge over the river Kwai. I've got a few more days of exploring to do, then, I''ll head to the far north.

Off to Asia

2008-10-02T00:10:00.000-07:00

The blog has been reactivated for my upcoming trip to southeast Asia.

Over the next 80+ days I'll be traveling through Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and (maybe) Laos.
I'm trying a new approach this time - I'll post about once a week a written entry - and hopefully toss some pictures in from my flickr account.

Later -

Keegan.

Wrap Up

2006-12-26T21:54:00.000-08:00

So... I'm in Vermont, returning to Seattle on Wed the 27th.

I'll try and write a trip wrap up post on either the 27th or 28th.

Barcelona

2006-12-13T08:58:00.000-08:00

I'm in Barcelona.

How did I get here?

Well, I spent last weekend in Brussels. It is a moderately interesting city, but it was big enough and had enough of a pulse to reawaken the urge to see new places and continue traveling that had a disappeared for the last week or so. I even explored their extensive tram system, hoping off and checking out neat neighborhoods for a whole day - something I hadn't done in a while.

Brussels takes its pommes frites very seriously - I went into a long time french fry establishment and ordered a big basket of fries, with a side of mayonaise to dip them in, just like the locals. It was yummy.

I left Brussels on Monday, again on a high speed Thalys service, where I sat across from a family with two young boys. Apparently they werent lively enough on their own, so the parents decided to feed each one a candy bar, a box of potato chips, and some orange juice. By the end of the trip they were bouncing off the walls. Nice to know there are idiot parents in Europe as well.

I dropped my bag in luggage storage at the train station, and spent the whole day wandering around Paris. It was kind of a junk day - the air was cold and the clouds threatened rain. In the early evening I went up the Eiffel Tower. Great view from up there, though the rain had started to move in and the wind was howling which meant that only idiots were on the outside observation platform. Then it was time to go - I had to grab the night train to Barcelona.

For some reason, the station agent didnt book me on the direct Paris-Barcelona night train (though its a hotel train, so it probably would have been more expensive, and only slightly faster). Instead, I took the local night train, which only went to Port Bou, just across the France-Spain border. Of the three night trains Ive taken thus far, I slept the best on this one, though I still wouldnt call it a good nights sleep. At least the sun was coming up as we snaked along the coast line, making for a beautiful last 45 minutes or so of the journey.

In Port Bou I transfered to a Talgo for the final journey into Barcelona. This Talgo was just like the ones on the Amtrak Cascades... I sat down and knew exactly where the recline button for the seats was. The doors to my car wouldnt close, which meant that we had to listen to the chuffing of the tilting suspension. Of course, I knew how to close them. I walked over to them and hit the red button in the companionway, hoping that that button was the door close button just like on our cars and not the emergency brake. Luckily, the doors closed.

As for Barcelona, I love it. The sun is out (though its not particularly warm, but it is still warmer than Paris). Also, we are far enough south that sunset happens at almost 5pm, rather than the 3.45 I was getting used to further north. I dont feel like Im in Europe any more - I think the Spanish language, architecture, and lighthearted culture makes me feel like Im somewhere closer to home, Mexico. I really which I didnt have to come home so soon, I could spend a couple of weeks exploring this vast country. But alas, the return flight is coming up in a few days, and Ive got a bed booked in Paris starting on the 16th. It seems that this will be my only entry into Spain. I cant fathom how anyone could dislike Barcelona. I spent hours today walking on the waterfront, watching ferries come and go and freighters cruising by off in the distance. I walked around big marinas and listened to the clank of rigging against the masts of the thousands of sailboats in port. I watched brave souls in wetsuits out boogie boarding on the beach. And tonight, Im going to have tapas and sangria.

(By the way, there arent any apostrophes because I cant find them on this keyboard, not because Im my mind is going soft in some kind of post college regression.)

The French Train System ...

2006-12-09T11:01:00.000-08:00

The last week or so I wandered around some smaller German towns. Wurzburg, Freiburg, Konstanz, etc. They all would have been really nice, except I had already been to Heidelburg, which is hands down the best German town of that size. I think I experienced the post-Heidelburg let down.

After that, I wandered over to Interlaken Switzerland. It was really beautiful, and it was a marvelously clear day when I arrived. The Alps went up so high, the water in the river was a great milky blue color, and sun was phenomenal. I was thinking about wandering up to a small village in the Alps and spending the next night there. The only problem with Switzerland was the prices. I felt like I was getting robbed. They are absolutely unbelievable. I didn't even eat dinner when I was in Interlaken because I couldn't bring myself to pay those prices. The next morning I woke up, the clouds had rolled in, the mountains weren't visibile, and the forecast said it was going to stay that way for a few more days. Given the prices in Switzerland, I high tailed it out of there.

I hung out in Lyon France for a few nights, mostly because I was feeling kind of ill. Lyon was interesting enough, nice trolleybus system, and kind of a small town feel without being too small. I had a nice dinner out where I spent the night in a small cafe chatting with a slightly intoxicated middle aged French man who was friends with the owner of the place. He was an interesting fellow, thanking America for protecting the world against Muslim extremism ("I'll take 'things I didn't expect to hear in France for $200 please Alex"). And the wine was good. But it didn't hold a lot of attraction otherwise. Then I wandered down to Avignon, which is in Provence. Another nice enough town, but there weren't any other travelers around to go out and grab dinner with, and the town itself was pretty shut up for the winter. I felt the need for a big city - some where really big.

The problem in France, however, is that while the TGV train lines are rediculously fast - they don't go everywhere, and they only run in spokes out from Paris. If you are going from one part of France to another without going through Paris, be prepared for a long ride. This aspect of the French rail network is probably the most vexing. Where over the last 20 years or so, other countries, like Germany, have invested sufficiently to created a great spiderweb of quality expres trains all over the country, in France you basically have two options - TGV or Local. All of their investment has been in the TGV network, at the expense of the rest of the country. I wanted to go to Barcelona to get my big city fix. Barcelona from Avignon is not that far. The fastest option was on a 6.5hr connection where I would take a local train that made like 25 stops and then transfer to a Talgo at the Spanish border. Fine... whatever. I'll do it.

So I figure out my itinerary and wander down to the train station. No luck. No trains to Barcelona today. The rail workers in that province of France are on strike. No trains through there today. I was going to scream. The train strikes in the south of France have been going on for at least a week, but they seem to move around everyday. That day, everthing west of Marseille was shut down.

Not having any desire to go to Nice, I made the next choice. I hopped on the TGV for Paris, and dashed through the subway system to get across town to anothe train station to grab a Thalys service for Brussels. A distance, by the way, that is longer than Avignon-Barcelona, but took much less time. Now I'm in Brussels for a few days. I don't know what I'm going to do after this. But I'm flying out of Paris, and I already have five nights booked there and don't want to spend any more time. I don't want to do any more small cities or towns. I may try and take the night train from Paris to Barcelona in a few days, spend three nights, and then overnight it back to Paris. We'll see.

More Germany

2006-11-30T13:54:00.000-08:00

Germany is a vast country that changes over and over again the more you travel. From flat plains of the north, to the gently rolling hills of the midsection, and down into deep river gorges, the scenery is always different.

I was in Cologne last weekend. It was a midly interesting large city. The enormous Dom (Cathedral) there in Cologne is almost too big. I don't think it is possible to get all of it into one picture. At least the weather was nice when I was there. It was actually colder inside the Dom than outside.

In Cologne there are 20+ breweries. But they all brew Kolsch - the local beer. It is served in little 0.2L glasses. The good news about the small glass size is that it encourages bar hopping. Don't like this place, just move on down the road to the next bar. I went out with an Argentine guy and an American girl that were staying in my room in the hostel ... Cologne has a pretty neat nightlife scene. It is even good enough that 40 or so Irish guys all wearing T-shirts that said "Zulpicher Straße 2006" on them were wandering up and down the street for their stag party. Pretty rediculous.

After Cologne I wandered over towards the Germany - Luxembourg border to the town of Trier. Trier is the oldest town in Germany, having been founded by the Romans. There was cool old gate at the entrance to the old town, plus some assorted Roman ruins, like the underground maze of the old Roman Baths. I walked around those. It was pretty creepy. There were other people in there - and I could hear them - but I had no idea where they were and I knew of no way out.

Two nights in Trier and I wandered down to Heidelburg. Home to Germany's oldest University, I was very glad I stayed there in the off-season. The old town, which is where all the restaurants and bars and other sites are, only has one budget accomodation, a very small pension with five dorm beds and a few doubles. I secured a bed in a double (two beds) for €25 a night just by walking up without reservation. I could have stayed in the official youth hostel, but it was about €20 a night, and would have required me to buy a €5 bus day pass each day to get into town, because it was, as is typical of official hostels in Europe, located way out of town. The place I stayed at was much better, very simple, in a 250 year old building, half a block from the main square. Amazing.

I've managed to avoid German food almost entirely the last two weeks in Germany (except for the ubiquitous bratwürst stands). I didn't feel like any more large plates of meat and sauerkraut ... which is identical to the foods of Poland and Czech. Except at twice the price. But both nights in Heidelburg I went out and had traditional German meals ... first night a schnitzel deal drowned in bell peppers - the second night an enormous sausage on a bed of sauerkraut. I took a break from German food today... though I'll probably dive back in tomorrow.

Tonight I am in Würzburg, which I thought I would like as much as Trier and Heidelburg, but the main old town is heavily polluted by modern shopping mall type buildings. I think I'll only spend one night here, and then head back to the southeast of Germany ... to the Black Forest and Freiburg.

One of the neat things in Germany at this time of the year is the appearance of the Christmas Markets. Springing up all over the place with wooden booths stuffed with assorted Christmas decorations for your house, I've been scoping them out since the first ones opened almost a week ago in Cologne. In addition to all the knick-knacks and there are the food stands, selling great things like 1/2 meter long sausages and waffels drowned in whipped cream. I really am amazed that it is the Americans with the obesity epidemic. Cologne, which is known for its Christmas markets, has them in quantity, but I didn't really find them as atmospheric as those in Trier and Heidelburg. The one here in Würzburg really isn't that great. Plus, the Gluhwein is more expensive here than in Heidelburg.

In other news, Europe just got more expensive. The exchange rate getting worse made zahoo.com headlines today, and I'm not happy. I guess I was the smart economics major, I would have anticipated the exchange rate shift and should have stockpiled a bunch of euros and purchased at the old rate to hold me out until I leave Europe in.... three weeks.

Update

2006-11-29T13:48:00.000-08:00

I'm in Heidelburg, having come from Cologne. I'll try and update a full entry tomorrw... this place is about to close.

Berlin

2006-11-24T11:22:00.000-08:00

I apologize in advance for any switched letters. The german keyboard is very strange - and on this terminal I can't switch to an English layout. The z and y are switched (leading to a lot of me trying to go to zahoo.com) plus there is a whole pile of other letter around my right pinkie, like this thing: ß.

Anyways, I spent five nights in Berlin. It is a large, amazing and dynamic city. The parties start on Friday nights, and really continue through until Sunday morning. The transportation system stays open all night long on those nights. By 4 AM, it looks like a disaster, with vomit, broken beer bottles, and trash everywhere. We even saw one S-Bahn train that had a two car set in the middle with every window broken out.

I've found a terminal where I can set the keyboard to "American" and actually type, so the post continues.

Berlin's nightlife pulses late every night. While I went out most nights, I never really stayed up all that late (just until 4AM). If you can get to bed by 4, then you have a small chance of salvaging the next day. Any later, forget about it.

On one of my days in Berlin, I did an eight hour walking tour. Now to most people, this sounds rediculous. Walking around for eight hours. What kind of torture is that supposed to be? Well, turns out it was amazing. We walked and walked and walked and most all of the major sights in Berlin, and some minor sights as well (such as the high powered DZ Bank which was designed by Frank Gehry and looks like a typical office building on the outside, and a much more typical Gehry building on the inside). It was definately worth the time and effort.

After the walking tour, we had a couple of beers with our guide at the hostel bar, then myself and three of the other walkers went out to this wine bar just up the street. Here's how it worked: You placed €1 into a piggy bank on the bar. That got you a wine glass. There were four bottles of wine sitting on the bar - you'd then help yourself to whatever you wanted. At the table, the waitress came over and translated the 5 item menu to us. It was hand written. No prices were listed. I had one of the most fantastic meals I've had on the road so far - including some crepes for desert. I asked the other three travelers who have been to France if they've had any better crepes in France - the answer was yes, but its hard to get ones that good. After my meal and four glasses of wine, we all got done and left - but not before estimating the cost of our meal and tossing the cash in a carafe on the bar. How's that for a "cultural experience?"

Berlin has one of the largest populations of Turkish residents outside of Turkey. As such, there are Kebab stands about every five feet, most of which are open all night long. Greeks call these gyros, Israelis schawarma, turks kebabs. There was one across the street from my hostel that played nothing but Johnny Cash. Ordering a kebab from a man who barely speaks English while "Ring of Fire" blares away is another cultural experience.

Berlin opened its new train station - Berlin Hauptbahnhof - this spring. Its supposedly Europe's largest train station. I saw a Deutsche Bahn rep giving a guided tour to dudes in suits while I was there. It is enormous. The whole thing is linked by escalators, with floor after floor of shops. North - South trains arrive way way down on some subterranean level... East - West services are like six floors up. Better hope you have some time for your connection.

I finally had to leave Berlin. Though I loved it - five nights was enough and it was time to get moving. I'll definately return.

I went to Hamburg after Berlin, which was only moderately interesting. Supposedly there is some amazing nightlife, but I wasn't that impressed. The best part about Hamburg was the Caspar David Friedrich exibit at the big art museum there. The Hamburg Kunstalle has a big collection of the 19th century German Romantic painter's works, but many other ones are kept at places like the Hermitage and at other places in Germany. This exhibit brought all those works together in one place. And it was amazing. I only learned of the guy when I took that German history class. In between all the babbling about Structure, Agency, and Contingency along with discussion of Hybridized Amalgams of Corporatism, we actually did learn something, and Friedrich was one of the main topics. If you haven't seen any of his work, google him.

I'm now in Cologne, where the Christmas Markets are open and everywhere. I think I'll have a couple of glasses of Mulled Wine and order a waffle covered with shaved chocolate and whipped cream from one of the rather portly elderly German ladies.

Photos

2006-11-19T09:18:00.000-08:00

I managed to stay at a place with macs the other day, so, my pictures from the first half of my trip are now uploaded on flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/photosbykeegan

They are organized into sets ... on the right side of the screen, at the bottom, click on 'more sets' to see all the sets.

Behind the Iron Curtain

2006-11-17T06:27:00.000-08:00

I have recently passed through Krakow, Prague, and Dresden and am currently in Berlin.

Krakow was an interesting place. It had one of the biggest shopping malls I'd ever seen, right next door to the main train station. The old town was well preserved and beautiful, just as expected. An additional treat was the fantastic bakeries - if I lived there I would be obese from all the sweets. While I was in Krakow I wandered over to Auschwitz which was mind blowing. The main camp contains the museum, which was about what you'd expect. I felt like vomiting when I walked into the room that was full of human hair the Nazis had shaved off the dead bodies and stockpiled to resell to make shirts from. I also went to the Birkenau part of the camp - which was enormous. It took me over an hour just to walk the perimiter of the camp. The setting was very stark, in a large flat field, with the sun setting on the bare trees, their leaves having blown away weeks earlier.

I took the overnight train from Krakow to Prague. I'd reserved a berth in a six bed couchette - but the couchette car was broken so I was reassigned to a three birth sleeper. Fine with me. I had the top bunk - supposedly better because its harder to rob you while you sleep up there. Only problem? The top bunk isn't long enough because the roof begins to curve inwards. I needed to be about three inches shorter to fit up there. It wasn't exactly a good nights sleep.

Prague is an interesting place. It is one of the best preserved cities I've come across, with block after block of beautiful old baroque buildings, with a maze of passageways and streets connecting them. That being said, I didn't like it as much as Budapest or Krakow. The old town is full of nothing but tourist t-shirt and knick knack shops. I felt like I was back in Juneau. At least in Budapest, the sights are spread out far enough from each other that there is plenty of "realness" to the city in between. Prague has been totally consumed by the tourist trade. But, hey, at least my hostel, the rediculously named Czech Inn, was as nice as a four star hotel.

Dresden was mildly interesting. Most of the interesting stuff was in the Neustadt "new town" because the Altstadt "old town" was so thoroughly destroyed in WWII. The East Germans turned most of the Altstadt into a big concrete square - which luckily has no been dotted with malls and other assorted shopping venues. The good news, at least, was that my hostel was in the Neustadt, which is where all the bars are. In Germany, at the grocery store, beer is cheaper than water. I spent last night in the smokiest bar on the face of the earth, listening to a jazz trio that was pretty darned good.

I'm in Berlin now, where if the reputation of this town is true, I'll be wandering back in about the time the sun comes up.

Krakow & Prague

2006-11-15T01:51:00.000-08:00

I've been through Poland, and now I'm in Prague (preparing to leave).

I'll write a longer entry later today or tomorrow (this keyboard is so small I keep making mistakes).

Vienna and Budapest

2006-11-08T05:47:00.000-08:00

I spent a week between those two cities - three nights in Vienna and four in Budapest. They are both wonderful.

In Vienna, I just wandered around. Mostly I enjoyed the fact that you can order a coffee and cake for about $6, have it delivered to your table by a waiter in a tuxedo, and sit there for the rest of the day. Fantastic.

I'm really curious why the Austrians don't have an obesity epidemic like America does. Everytime I ate out, the food was so rich and filling I couldn't believe it. Many of their dogs are overweight, though. Too many schnitzel scraps under the table.

Budapest was even better than Vienna. Even though Magyar is impossible to even decode (sorry, I just have no idea how that many consonants strung together makes a sound), the town is great to explore and the people are nice.

I spent a bit of time exploring the tram system there, where I rode a few of the old UV trams. Those are great because they growl and groan as they accelerate, they bounce all over the place, and the controller is located in the back of the car so that means that you can stand right next to it and listen to it go "clickity clickity clickity" as it runs through the points. Fantastic.

The only down side to Budapest was the cold. It was unbelievably cold there. I had to shell out a pretty penny for some more warm weather gear - and dressed like I used to dress in Wyoming, I was still cold, with four layers on.

One of the days I was in Budapest I stumbled upon a memorial march for the victims of the 1956 revolution. I was in town on the day that marked the end of the 2 week period of the revolution - when the Soviets rolled back in and took every thing back over. It was very interesting to walk in that march and watch all these Hungarians, young and old, silently walk while carrying candles.

Also in Budapest, I went to the baths. There are something like 6 or 7 different baths in Budapest, I went to the biggest one as it was open the latest. It was pretty neat to be sitting out in a very warm pool while it was very cold outside, with the rain falling on your face, watching old Hungarians sit around and play chess on tables that were in the pool.

I'm in Krakow Poland now. I think I'll be visiting Auschwitz tomorrow.

Italy

2006-10-30T12:27:00.000-08:00

So ... its been a while, huh?

Internet in Italy got really expensive once I went north of Florence, so anything I did online did not involve spending time writing.

Short recap of Italy:

*Rome - Are there any Italians in this town. So many tourists, all with the same map and a guidebook, walking around lost. There were at least 10,000 people in line in front of me for the Vatican Museums, and I was there before it opened. People complain about the Rome subway because it doesn't go to all the 'sights.' Doesn't bother me - I don't expect a subway to cater to tourists. I didn't like it because it was filthy (the cars looked like 1980s NYC Subway - covered in Graffiti) and it was painfully slow.

*Florence - Great place. Good food. Crowds were much smaller than in Rome. Went out and had dinner with my friend Will who I'd met in Split, Croatia and traveled with for like 11 days (split ways in Florence) and another girl from the campsite. Fantastic food, and the house wine was cheap and good. I also saw Micheangelo's David, which was big and impressive.

*Cinque Terre - Very scenic, but the paths between the five towns were closed due to landslides. Kinda defeates the purpose of coming, but it was still worth it for the scenery. They are a bit overly touristy now, but not over the top. The hostel had an old ad for Pan-Am from 1961 or so talking about how great Manarola is and how Pan-Am can take you there (almost...)

*Milan - Nice town with normal Italians doing their normal thing. Very refreshing. Train station was absolutely beautiful (google it). I spent much of my time in Milan in a time warp - riding 1927 Peter Witt streetcars all over town. I can't imagine the maintenance on the fleet of those, keeping the seats varnished, etc. My hostel was three blocks from a Grand Union.

*Verona - Mildly interesting but mildly boring.

*Venice - Neat, but over priced and packed with tourists. I did like that you could totally wander off the beaten path there, but still the food was 25% more than anywhere else in Italy, and the attractions were way overpriced. I spent one night and left the next one on the overnight train to Vienna.

Italian observations:
*No one, apparently, has told Italians that pigeons are filthy dirty animals. The main squares in both Milan and Venice had thousands and thousands of them and you could actually buy sacks of bird feed and feed them out of your hands. People would be covered with pigeons eating off of them. It was gross.

*Pizza is not cheap by the slice. It is very cheap, however, if you sit down and eat it.

*A pound of pasta (okay, okay, 500 grams) costs essentially $0.50 in US Dollars. For that much, I would never stop eating pasta.

*Italians don't understand customer service on transportation. They don't call out stops, but on the upside, they also don't check tickets, even, for the most part, on the mainline trains.

I left Italy on the overnight train to Vienna. 12 hr journey. I slept in a seat in a compartment. Compartment was only half full, so I pulled the seats out to make a bed. It would have been a decent night's sleep, except that when we left Vienna we had 6 cars on the train - 4 for Vienna, 2 for Prague. At some point, the Prague cars split (Villach, maybe) and we gained cars at least three other times - coming from Salzburg and Linz and Paris. Eventually, when we linked up with the Paris train, I was actually riding on the real deal - the last remnants of the "Orient Express." Look it up on Wikipedia - it still exists, and I rode it. I didn't really sleep that well for two reasons:
1) Every time we added or subtracted cars there was enough of a jolt to wake me up and
2) Italians don't check tickets. The conductor came once, punched them, and left us alone. Austrians are vigilant about that stuff. So, at 1:30 AM, a loud Austrian conductor, came in, turned on the lights, and checked our tickets, while yelling at me to get my shoes off the seats. We had our tickets checked two more times before 7AM, once by a conductor who woke us up by shining a flashlight in our faces and shouting at us in German (Fahrkarten, Bitte - I think).

Anyways - until next time...

Croatia

2006-10-20T06:41:00.000-07:00

I spent about a week total in Croatia. It was fabulous. There were quite a few Australians and Brits down there, but not many Americans. The weather was great, the water was beautiful, and the hostels were good.

Split was a very interesting town. The old palace of Roman Emperor Diocletian has been transformed over the years by a series of squaters into quite the labyrinth of streets. Its nice to be able to walk around so extensively and not run into any cars. Split's hostel was fantastic - a lot of great people there to hang out with.

I also journeyed over to the island of Hvar where I sat in the sun and swam in the clear blue waters of the Adriatic for an afternoon. That town is apprently a bustling resort in the summer months, but in October, it was very quiet. Quite nice.

The weather started to turn, however, so I took off for Italy on the overnight ferry. I rode the ferry Ancona, a mid 1960s beautiful old Scandinavian ferry boat. It was kind of a throw back to the old days of travel - with a sit down restaurant with white table cloths, a good bar, and a number of cabins to sleep in. Of course, deciding to save money, I opted for the reserved seat, but the boat was so empty I was able to snooze in one of the lounges on a nice, comfortable couch.

I'm now in Rome, trying not to get run over by Italians. I'll have more on this crazy city later.

Oh - I still can't get my photos online.

Football - Soccer to you

2006-10-13T10:59:00.000-07:00

I was in Zagreb, Croatia, the day of the big England - Croatia football match.

The previous day, I was very impressed by Zagreb. It is a city that a great, vibrant pulse to it, full of people that are full of energy. The sidewalks are lined with coffee bars (as in - they serve coffee and beer) with hundreds of people sitting out under the umbrellas all day long. This is a city where the guys roasting nuts on at little sidewalk stands are also using their stove to boil corn on a cob and selling it as street food. This is a city where after work, people lazily make their way to the tram, stopping and talking while munching on some gelato.

Anyways, the day of the match was really interesting. Half of the town was dressed in the red and white Croatia soccer jerseys. As the start of the match got closer, the party at the coffee bars in the city center was getting rowdier and rowdier. The riot police, who had maintained a background presence with their darth vader helmets throughout the day, where starting to become more visisble.

As I got off the tram in the main square about three hours before the game started, I saw a bunch of people rushing to one side of the square along with a line of police. A fight had broken out between some drunken Brits and some Croatian fans. That seems like a good idea to me - go to the opposing teams turf and then telling them you're going to kick their butts. The only folks the police grabbed were the Brits - the grabbed them from behind and shoved the nightstick hard up against their spine. One of them started to struggle so the officer shoved and twisted the stick harder up against his spine until the guy quit struggling. One person got away from the melee and blended back into the crowd. About five minutes later the police identified him and a whole wall of officer walked up from behind him until the closest one reached out, spun him around, and grabbed his arms to keep him from getting away. The last I saw of these folks was them yelling out the back of the police van "what do you mean you don't speak English? Fuck off!" I'm guessing he didn't get released in time to make it to the match.

As the trams pulled away from the main square, the ones heading to the stadium were full of fans. All you could see in the windows was a sea of red and white. Many of them had flags hanging out the windows - and all were loud and rowdy. Croatian songs were being sung by all the passengers. One tram pulled away from the stop rocking from side to side - not the normal rocking, but the kind of rocking that happens when the people inside are going nuts.

Then, all of a sudden, it was like the air was let out of a balloon. All of downtown Zagreb got eerily quiet. Everyone was either at the game, home watching the game, or sitting at a coffee bar with a big plasma set up on the street listening to the pregam commentary. Even the police took off the darth vader hats and were watching the game. So, when in Rome do like the Romans, right? I sat down, grabbed a beer, and watched the match, which Croatia won. Needless to say, there was much celebration downtown after the game, but no real skirmishes that I saw.

By the way, Zagreb's streetcar system is great. The cars are well maintained and the system runs well. Plus, many of the cars are old technology - either PCCs complete with foot pedals and the loud "pop" when the controller is released, or they have hand controls. Left hand is the controller (fun to watch the operator crank it almost a full circle to go from full speed ahead to full dynamics) with the right hand for the air brake system. It was also nice to see a system where the repeater gong is only used when they are about to hit something - not as a background noise everytime the car starts moving.

I'm in Split, Croatia, now. I'm enjoying the sun, and I'll write more about that in a few days.

Ljubljana

2006-10-08T13:26:00.000-07:00

I'm now in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

The train ride over from Salzburg was great. We climbed high into the moutains and went through a couple of really long tunnels. At one point we emerged out of a tunnel high above a valley with a small settlement down on the floor of the valley below. The valley was guarded by an ancient castle that was closer to us in the train than the residents of the area. I did, however, run out of water in my bottle on the train, and, not willing to buy a bottle from the restaurant car (which disappeared anyways in Villach) I almost had a Seinfeld moment. I spotted on one of the platforms of a station we were stopped at a fountain with the symbol for drinking water. Noting that we had three minutes at the station, I almost did like Kramer chasing after a Gyro on the subway - I almost ran out the door, filled the bottle, and then hopped back on. Then I remembered the outcome for Kramer - he got left behind.

Entering Slovenia, we passed through another train tunnel. Immediately on the otherside the difference was obvious. The landscape was a little more well worn, a little bit rougher around the edges. Even after 15+ years since the fall of Communism in this land, the legacy lives on.

But the people seemed to be happy. There were lots of big waves at the train as we rolled by the apartments and condos. Families of 10 people or so were sitting out in their backyards, enjoying the sun, and probably getting ready to have a nice Sunday night dinner.

Ljubljana itself is much as the guidebook described - a vibrant old town that is surrounded by circles of communist concrete crap. Junky apartments and office buildings that are crumbling as you look at them begin very quickly outside of the old town. The walk from the train station to the old town was about 15 minutes long - all of it through the old communist junk.

Old town, however, is pretty neat. The buildings are old and beautiful, but still in just a bit of disrepair that reminds you of the not to distant past of this country. The rough around the edges feel to the old town is refreshing after the super clean and glitzy old town in Salzburg.

There is a small and quietly flowing river that cuts the old town in half. A number of bridges span the distance, connecting the buildings on both sides of the curving river. As the evening set in, the old town was glowing from the colors of the setting sun, then stayed illuminated by the light of hundreds of candles set out on the tables of the cafes that had exploded out onto the sidewalks. It was very nice.

Tomorrow, I think I'm taking off for either Bled or Ptuj, depending on how the accomodation and train schedules work out... then, its off to Croatia. It turns out that the day boat leaves from Dubrovnik to Bari, Italy, on Oct 27th, giving me a little more wiggle room in the schedule than I thought I had.

Munich and Salzburg

2006-10-07T06:50:00.000-07:00

I immediately confirmed a long time hunch on my way over to Europe - flying through an east coast city to Europe makes the flight time so long it might as well be torture. I endured some very long trips on Greyhound last summer, but at least on the hound, you can get up and get off the bus and walk around every few hours. I had a 4.5 hour layover in Philadelphia - not quite enough time to head into town and wander around, so I just endlessly explored the airport.

The man at immigration at the Munich Airport stamped my passport - which means I finally have a stamp in there. He also warned me that if I stay longer than 90 days, I will be prosecuted. 10-4 copy that.

Munich is a great city - lots of great walking to do and beer to drink. I did consume a liter of beer at the Hofbrauhaus, which is a giant tourist trap, but a lot of fun anyways. If I had had another night in Munich, I would have wandered off into a neighborhood in order to find a beer garden that is frequented by the locals. There are six major beer gardens in Munich - the Hofbrauhaus is the only one located downtown.

I wandered out to suburban Munich to the town of Dachau and scoped out the old concentration camp there. They never used the gas chambers they built there, but just seeing the furnaces they used to cremate the bodies of those they worked to death was chilling enough.

The scenery on the train ride between Munich and Salzburg was pretty great. Rolling green hills with cows grazing on them, traditional houses and barns intersperced here and there, with big jagged peaks in the background. Great ride.

So far, in both Munich and Salzburg, I have been surviving off of street food. My usable German consists of saying ein frankfurter bitte. I have also been ordering some kind of pastry every morning for breakfast - so far so good. This morning I had some kind of mystery pastry that was rolled up with some marmelade inside - it was good, but much too sweet.

Yesterday the weather in Salzburg was fabulous. It must have been close to 70 degrees (don't ask me what that is in celcius). Today, however, the rain has moved in, and, just like in Juneau, its about 55 degrees with showers.

I've been pretty darned impressed by the trolley bus system here in Salzburg. Its all articulated coaches, a mix of older high floor and low floor MAN trolleys (with the familiar dashboard that so many of our buses in Seattle used to have) and some newer Van Hool trolleys. All are very nice. None of the poles have ropes on them - not sure what that means if the poles come off - but that doesn't seem to happen at all because the overhead is in perfect condition and its all K&M, which means the coaches go flying through the special work. Forget about 5mph Seattle B.S. I just went and scoped out the trolleybus grand union - which is a very large and impressive intersection.

Some other observations:
*German can be a pretty frightening language when someone is screaming into a cell phone in the back of a cab with the window down.
*There are some absolutely beautiful Germans and Austrians - and then also some that look like they were members of the East German shot put team at the 1984 Olympics.
*Why aren't there any hot dog carts in Downtown Seattle?
*I haven't seen a single SUV.

After Salzburg, I'm off to Ljubljana, Slovenia. I hope that by next time I'll be able to get some photos off of my camera and onto the web - doesn't look like its going to happen at this place.

Keegan Coast to Coast Makes a Triumphant Return

2006-10-03T00:09:00.000-07:00

Alright folks, after a little more than a year, Keegan Coast to Coast returns.

I'm going to be traveling around Europe for 2.5 months, trying to grunt and point my way around a large continent. And I'll try and keep this as up to date as possible.

Keeping the blog alive

2006-02-04T15:45:00.000-08:00

Just want to make sure blogspot doesn't delete this thing.

I'm still at school.

I'm still working at the coffeehouse.

I'm still really really busy.

Coffeehouse

2005-10-04T01:48:00.000-07:00

Well- this Sunday Night went better than the last one.

Not only did I shave exactly one hour off of my closing time, and now have a system in place for getting the joint cleaned up in a reasonable amount of time, but my shots of espresso actually looked drinkable. Rather than being black black black like they were, there was actually some creme in them.

I just need more practice.

Student Radio Station

2005-09-29T00:31:00.000-07:00

Well - I went to the Newsreader "training" session today at the student radio station.

The news direction alluded to the fact that some people have expressed interest in doing exclusively news programing and that we should pitch news shows to her. I guess I'd have to figure out how to fill an hour block of "news" programming by myself. Luckily, I'll have a few weeks to think about it.

Sadly, from my perspective, there is such a demand for newsreader slots this fall that we are limited to one slot per week (thats one day a week reading the news). That means I get to do it about, oh, 8 times. I think I'll send the news director an email saying that if anyone has to flake out (to study for a test, write paper, whatever) that I will try and cover the shift if I'm not either A working or B in class. Actually, lately it seems that all I am ever doing is A or B.

Oh - and I think I've had enough of the confounding HW assignment for my Benefit/Cost Analysis course for the night. Its supposed to be simple, but I don't understand the notation that this particular textbook is using (and I don't have my Intermediate Micro text book with me in B'Ham to look the topic up - that book is on my list of things to bring up this weekend).

Bah.

Job

2005-09-26T21:35:00.000-07:00

Well, I got a job last thursday.

I work Sunday nights as a barista (can you believe it?) at the Student Union building's coffeehouse and then three days a week in the kitchen as a member of the food production staff. Its been pretty hard work so far.

In other news, the university replaced the couches in the library. They used to be just worn out enough that you couldn't sleep for more than 10 minutes. On the new ones, I just took a 2 hr cat nap. So much for studying.

Back at School

2005-09-21T18:34:00.000-07:00

Alas, the fun must end and another year of school (maybe the last?) must begin.

At least my roommates are pretty relaxed about everything. It'll work out, I hope.

I had one class today. Econometrics. Good lord. I'm going to have a cup of coffee to handle that class at 8.30AM.

Tomorrow I have the vast majority of my classes. Three two hour classes in a row. It'll be like being in High School again. And the Benefit Cost Analysis class now has 7 students enrolled, and hasn't been axed yet. So, I'm crossing my fingers that when I get there at 8AM tomorrow morning, there won't be a big sign on the door saying "course cancelled."

Wisconsin to Home

2005-09-19T20:01:00.000-07:00

After spending a night in Wisconsin (the grocery stores are packed with cheese), I caught a late afternoon coach for the route home to Seattle.

Once upon a time, there was a through coach between Seattle and Chicago on the I-90/I-94 northern route. No longer. Greyhound has really retreated from this area.

I took one coach from Eau Claire Wisconsin to Minneapolis, then transfered to another coach to Fargo. In Fargo, I transfered to a Rimrock Trailways coach to Billings Mt. The Rimrock coach was an old Greyhound MC-12 coach that Greyhound is leasing to Rimrock. It was a little rough around the edges.

There is now only one coach per day between Fargo and Billings. We were full all the way across North Dakota. We made a lot of stops that consisted of us pulling off the highway, pulling into a gas station, and then pulling back out, only slowing to see if there was any sign of life.

We also made some interesting rest stops. For example, we made a breakfast stop at like 5AM in Dickinson, ND, at a bowling alley. I went back to sleep.

The great thing about the time that this schedule runs is that North Dakota is traversed in the middle of the night. The moon was almost full, and as far as you could see, there was nothing. No shadows of hills, etc. It was kind of like being at sea with the horizon stretching endlessly beyond.

In Billings we transfered back to Greyhound. It was at Billings where I had a run in with some rude customer service agents that would not let me have access to my bag. Ugh. What a bunch of idiots.

The trip across Eastern Montana in the middle of the day was much more interesting then I had been led to believe it would be. Indeed, it was big sky country, but unlike ND, there was actually some topography changes to look at.

The bus was very busy across Montana, and I think we even left a dozen folks in Missoula because there was no room. Next bus - 12 hrs later. I think that if Greyhound is going to serve Montana, they either need to do it and do it right or just back out completely and let Rimrock Trailways or Powder River Coaches handle the state.

Then we went overnight back to Seattle and made an on time arrival at 6.25AM. Trip complete.

By the way, I calculated my milage for the trip and I believe I traveled over 10,000miles in 28 days.

Just because the trip is over doesn't mean the blog is done. I want to maintain this domain in case I do another trip like this (Europe, next time?), so this blog will morph into a more traditional blog looking at items in the news, tidbits on life, and, of course, transit system analysis. Stayed tuned.

Dayton To Wisconsin

2005-09-19T19:55:00.000-07:00

I left Dayton on a Northbound Greyhound coach that was bound for Detroit. In Lima, Ohio, I transfered to a Lakefront Lines connecting carrier coach that was bound for Chicago via rural Indiana and Ohio.

This was a brand new MCI J series coach with an automatically shifting manual transmission. Thats right, only two pedals and a regular transmission selector, but the bus would manually shift. You could actually hear the clutch engage, the engine rev down, and feel the bus clunk into the next gear. I think it had 7 gears.

For much of the trip I lamented the fact that doing most of my traveling at night, I missed out on seeing much scenery. Not true on this leg. We were traveling down some very rural two lane roads, on the way to this out of the way towns that we were stopping at. Once we got to Indiana, it was very scenic, with sterotypical American red barns, rolling hills, and corn fields. Our route took us through Indiana Amish country, where we passed an honest to god horse and buggy. It was dusk as we passed through this area, and many homes were illuminated only by candles.

Transfered buses in Chicago.

Greyhound has new operators uniforms to replace the timeless Greys they've been wearing for the last 50 years or so (save for a short period in the late 70s). Chicago was where they rolled them out, and this was the first time I came upon these uniforms.

They consist of black tuxedo pants with a gray stripe up the side, a blue shirt, and a black vest. To tell you the truth, you couldn't tell them apart from the Amish ment that were in the terminal dressed in black pants, blue shirts, and black vests.

We left Chicago late at night and slept all the way to Wisconsin.

Dayton Trolley Buses

2005-09-18T21:17:00.000-07:00

I got to Dayton and there were NO lockers. None. Just a big spot on the wall.

Yeah, like anyone's going to blow up a locker in Dayton.

Anyways, after walking the wrong way out of the bus terminal (I didn't have my bearings straight), I managed to get to the main bus hub at 3/Main in downtown Dayton.

I wrote down a suggested routing concept from a fellow electric trolleybus list member, and picked up the schedules for those routes.

Due to the way the buses were scheduled, I had to do the routing in reverse.

First I rode the 4 East out to Easthub. The driver was wearing an old style streetcar operator hat, along with a black sport coat. He looked like he just stepped off a streetcar in 1940. I saw no other operators atired this way. The 4East was a pretty interesting, and quiet route. I liked the air conditioned waiting room at Easthub. Drivers in Dayton seem to take curved segments pretty fast.

From Easthub, I rode a 3. The coach showed up two minutes before scheduled departure and actually departed 6 minutes behind schedule... Then he talked on the phone the whole way into town. We just got later and later. This route was much busier than the 4. I liked the pleasant neighborhood running just after leaving Easthub.

I stayed on the coach all the way out to Westhub. A large load and a couple of wheelchairs later, I noticed that I did not have time to ride the loop beyond Westhub and get back downtown in time to catch my coach. So I got off at Westhub and took an inbound 8.

The 8 was a real neat route, passing a small lake/pond and taking lots of turns. I liked it.

The Skodas seemed to be in pretty good shape, but they sounded totally different than San Franciscos. They also seemed to have somewhat sluggish acceleration, for a modern trolley bus.

I'm glad that I asked about which routes were safe to ride. I saw some unsavory gangsta gangsta characters waiting for buses for the do not ride routes.

Westward Bound

2005-09-18T21:00:00.000-07:00

I left late at night from the Port Authority in New York. New York was really great, but I was ready to start my trip home.

I rode the second section of a New York - St Louis express schedule. The driver was a sassy Latino woman with a thick New York Latin accent. She provided the best quote of the whole trip.

She was making the standard safety announcement at the beginning of the trip, which the drivers do, basically to see who is going to cause trouble (if you can't shut up long enough for the safety announcement, you're going to be a problem).

It went something like this:

"There is no smoking on this coach. If you smoke on this coach, I'll know, because I'm a smoker, and I'll be jonesin for a smoke. There is no drinking on this coach. There is no drug abuse on this coach. If you do any of the above three, you better do it with a buddy so you'll have someone to talk to when I leave you on the side of the road."

At this point, a guy sitting a few rows from the front exclaimed "Damn, she's buggin'"

The driver then continued the safety announcement with

"That's right. I AM buggin' And now a word about cell phones..."

I was kind of sad that I did Pennsylvania as an overnight trip, as I could tell by the turns and the braking and climbing that it was probably a pretty scenic stretch.

We pulled into Pittsburgh real early and had a bit of a layover. We left just after dawn.

The coach crossed just up stream on either the Monogahela or Allegheny Rivers and I could see the confluence of the two rivers - where they created the Ohio River (the Famed Three Rivers). It was really great to see it in the soft light of early morning.

I then proceeded to sleep most of the way to Dayton, except for when they kicked us off to service the coach in Columbus.

The Columbus terminal was HUGE. Greyhound needs to just pick it up with a plane and drop it down in one of their many locations with inadequate terminals (Seattle, Dallas, Atlanta, the list goes on and on).

I arrived Dayton at about Noon. More on that in the next post.

I'm Home

2005-09-16T11:40:00.000-07:00

Standby for updates from the last week tonight and during the day tomorrow when I have a bit more time.

I tried to post midweek but the server crashed...

New York Day 3

2005-09-11T17:51:00.000-07:00

New York got the best of me today. I'm exhausted.

Only time for a quick blog...

Here's what I did today:

*Walked the Brooklyn Bridge to Brooklyn.
*Tried to see the WTC Site but it was blocked off due to a late afternoon private ceremony.
*Went to B&H Photo Video and wished I knew what I needed as there was only 25 mins to closing and it was crazy in there.
*Walked around downtown.
*Found dinner in Chinatown.

I was going to go to the top of the Empire State Building but I'm too tired.

Tonight - I begin my westward journey.

New York, Days 1 & 2

2005-09-10T20:42:00.000-07:00

I arrived on time in New York and got to see Harlem and the Bronx from the bus, because apparently thats the route Peter Pan takes from Boston.

I left the Port Authority and went to the Hostel, where I checked in and ditched the big bag.

Since it was a Friday afternoon I decided I wanted to watch rush hour, so I went down to Penn Station. Holy Crap. You know those old movies, where everyone seems to be moving a little bit faster than they really should - well, thats what Penn Station looks like. I've never seen more suits and ladies in heels move so fast. I consider myself an excellent crowd walker, but I almost got trampled a number of times. Oh, and for the woman that calls the train departures and the platform numbers, I want your job.

After wandering around the Garment District for a little while, I hopped a train down to South Ferry (actually Bowling Green station and walked) to catch the Staten Island ferry at Sunset. It was really spectacular, with the Statue of Liberty against the setting sun. Sadly the boat pulled into Staten Island just as another left, leaving me with a 30 minute wait. The good news was that my return trip was on an older boat with excellent exterior access (American Legion).

I headed up to Soho and walked around and looked at all the trendy people. Then I went to Little Italy, and walked the main drag there, watching all the well heeled tourists eating big plates of pasta in really nice clothes (didn't anyone ever tell them not to go out for Italian in a suit?). With the touristy Italian food threating to break my budget, I walked over to Chinatown, found a clean and busy Singaporese food joint, went in, and ordered a giant plate of noodles for $4. And it was excellent.

On the way home I ran across the REDBIRD garbage train at 96th St Station, so I got off and checked it out. The crew was sitting inside one of the cars chatting, not doing much garbage hauling.

This morning I got up kinda late from the Hostel, with the first stop of mine being the bank. I walked all around the Upper West Side looking for a Bakery to get a muffin, but finding none, I settled on an H&H Bagel. Then I hopped in the subway to go to Penn Station, where I'd scoped out a bank that would be open on Saturday.

After making the withdrawl, I headed over to Brooklyn on the subway to see a museum that Naomi forgot to recommend to me - the New York Transit Museum. Located in an old abandoned Subway station, it was really great. The mezzanine was full of old transit stuff, from turnstyles, to the front 5 feet of an old GM Fishbowl. The platform level was packed with old subway cars that were very interesting to look at.

After that, I went up to the Met to see what time they closed, and seeing that closing was 8.45PM tonight, I left the huge crowds to explore the East Village and the Lower East Side (note to self - plan your day better so you don't have to run all over town).

Those neighborhoods were good for walking, but now it was time for dinner. I pulled out my list of recommended places to eat from Naomi, and found a place near Gramercy Park on Irving. The sandwhich was really great.

Then - back to the Met. I gave myself two hours to walk around (a little less as I stopped at a Dean & Deluca on Madison Av and had to put my eyes back in my head after the popped out at those prices). It wasn't nearly enough time. I only saw, maybe 65% of the first floor, and that was pretty rushed. I may go back tomorrow to see the rest. However, there weren't any crowds in the evening.

Next stop - Greenwitch Village. I took the subway down there (btw, subway system is very confusing this weekend, with whole lines canceled, other lines with limited stops, trains where you have to go uptown to transfer to back downtown, and I rode a 5 Express heading to Bronx on the 7th Avenue Line. Someone explain that...).

Lots of stuff happening that neighborhood. I stopped in for some Gelato at an overpriced Italian Bakery (The Pastries looked better at Mike's in Boston - and were less $$). The Gelato was darned good.

And now I'm at an internet cafe on Times Square where cop cars keep rolling by with sirens blaring. I don't know whats going on - maybe I should wrap this up and investigate.

-------

New York has been a lot of fun. It was a little overwhelming at first, but I think I'm getting the hang of it now. I'm getting a feel for the area, and learning how to more efficiently use the subway system (using Express trains). However, I still have a hard time getting my bearings when I pop up out of a subway station. I usually wait for a bus to roar by to read its destination sign to figure out which way is which.

Tomorrow is my last day here in New York. Thats good, because I think I have one more day of walking left in me. My shoes have basically walked their last mile, and my feet are killing me (I have new shoes at home, or I'd go to Macy's and buy a new pair tomorrow). After New York, its basically a straight run home to Seattle, with three hours reserved for riding a Trolley Bus Route in Dayton Ohio, and then a little more than a day with relatives in Wisconsin. I should be home by the end of the week.

Boston

2005-09-09T20:02:00.000-07:00

I took the vomit smelling overnight bus (I expected so much better from Vermont Transit) from Montreal to Boston and we got in early, about 6AM to Boston's South Station. Barely awake, I stumbled into the bathroom, changed my clothes, then headed over to the train side, where I grabbed a muffin and tried to wake up. Meanwhile, I did some people watching ... lots of suits running out of the station at 6.30AM to get to work.

I bought a "T" daypass and hopped on the new Silver Line at South Station. They were using their new Neoplan dual mode coaches. I rode a round trip on the Marine Park route, and then a round trip on the Logan Airport route. Neither route was terribly busy outside of the four stations on the Silver Line Bus Way, however, there were heavy loads in the tunnel. They were even using some new Neoplan straight 40ft trolley buses, looping between South Station and the Waterfront.

These dual modes are everything that the Breda coaches in Seattle should have been. From listening to them and feeling the acceleration, it seems they have some kind of hybrid drive setup where when the poles are up, the overhead powers the traction motor and the diesel is off. When the poles are down the diesel is running, but is producing power to help the traction motor along. At the mode change station outside I saw waves of heat coming off of the rooftop resistors of a coach in diesel mode braking to the mode change stop bar.

Having seen the new Silver Line, I got back on the Red Line and rode it downtown and walked the "Freedom Trail" of historical sites. It was a pretty good walk, but by 10.30AM it was getting hot so I cut it off at the Old North Church.

I then found my way back underground and onto a Green Line Train of Kinki-Sharyos and headed to the Red Line. I rode the Red Line (Did I mention that the Red Line is quieter than the Rubber Tired Metro in Montreal?) all the way to the end, to Ashmont, where I boarded a PCC to Mattapan. It was a good, quick ride. In the middle of the day, there were only three cars running. I got back on the same car to return to Ashmont, and then caught the Red Line back downtown, where I ate.

After eating, I got back on the Red Line to Harvard Square to check out the trolley coach operations there. The Harvard Sq bus terminal is so bizarre. The trolleys have left side doors to make boarding easy, but the diesels don't, so passengers have to walk around the front and back of the coach to get to the doors. Very strange.

I boarded a new Neoplan trolley on the 71 Watertown and rode all the way to the end. The coaches were fast, smooth, and quiet. With the A/C running, it was still quieter than one of our Gilligs with the Heating/Vent Fans on. All in all, it was a great coach.

I waited for the next 71 to return to Harvard Sq, but I got off at the Star Market and transfered to a 73 Waverly. This bus was operating with an old Flyer trolley. For a nearly 30 year old bus, it ran really nice. Smooth and quick operation all the way to the terminal. I saw one other Flyer on the 73 going the other way. I got off the coach, snuck a picture of it, and then waited for the next coach to return. I returned on a new Neoplan.

I was supposed to meet my cousin at 4.45PM so I could drop off my bag (I was staying in her dorm for the night), so I had to head back. I rode the Red Line, changed to a Kinki train on the Green, and made it on time.

It was great to see my cousin. She has a real nice dorm, with a good couch to sleep on. We left for dinner in the Italian Neighborhood (North Something or other). We found a place that served brick oven pizzas, and the two that we ordered were sooooo good. There were left overs for me to take today on the bus to New York.

After that, we went to a Bakery in that neighborhood that was open late. It was packed full of people getting late night cookies, etc. It was unbelievable for a bakery to be that busy that late at night. I had a canoli (sp?) and it was really really good.

In the evening we went back out to Harvard Sq, took a 73 to Aberdeen, transfered to a 72 Huron to return to Harvard, and then walked around the University there. It was kind of like an exclusive club you can only look at. They had gates around the University, some of which were shut at 10PM when we were there. But we did find our way into the compound, and walked by the library, which was probably full of students studying.

Then we went back to the dorm and went to sleep.

This next morning, we went and got coffee, then I grabbed another Kinki train to transfer to the Red Line to get to South Station. I actually made the 10.30AM Peter Pan Express to New York. I couldn't believe I made it.

I really liked Boston. I wish I could have spent more time there because it is such a vibrant, wonderful city. There are so many places to walk and so much history to see, I could only scratch the surface in one day. Like McArthur said, I will return (and it will probably take a few years, just like the General).

Montreal

2005-09-09T06:04:00.000-07:00

Montreal was an interesting city. Close in, near the main street (Sainte Catherines) everybody spoke English. And not just in the shops. Walking down the street, the people conversing in English easily outnumbered those speaking in French.

At that point, it seemed to me that the French heritage of Quebec was already gone and the only thing French were the street signs.

Then I went to a neighborhood.

Let's back up. I was in Montreal for one evening and the whole next day. The evening I did not get all that far from the hostel, because I didn't get in until rather late (the bus was late due to understaffing at the border...)

I had the opportunity to use the Montreal subway system to get around the city. It is so bizarre. The rubber tired subway was so strange. It seemed to be automated, so the operators weren't doing much. The trains were really long, and they stopped really fast. They came into the station at full speed and did not start braking until the first car was in the station. For those wondering, I would have to say that the rubber tired subway is LOUDER than a traditional subway - it certainly is louder than the Red Line here in Boston. Also - the ride is very weird. It is bouncy.

Back to the French language thing. I went out to a neighborhood about midday on the full day I was there. I didn't really know where I was going, so I took the subway out and decided to get off at a random station. It turns out I was in the Plateau neighborhood, which someone at the hostel had recommened to me the other night. This was a really great walking neighborhood.

Suddenly, all the English speakers were gone. It was nothing but French walking down the street. There were neat looking cafes open to the street, small fruit stands, etc. I probably walked around that neighborhood for 90 minutes, identifying a crepes place to have dinner that night.

I had to cut my visit to that neighborhood short because I needed to scope out an internet cafe to register for classes for school. It was good I did, because I had to take the bus back in from Plateau because the subway broke down. They kept making announcements of resumption of service down in the subway, but I didn't know when it was, because the announcements were in French.

By the way, I registered for three snoozefest classes in the Econ dept. I won't even bore my readers with their titles.

Question: Why is the subway so stiffling hot in Montreal (and in Boston)?

In Montreal, I did the whole Montreal food experience. I had a croissant for breakfast, a Montreal smoked meat sandwhich (at the original place - now I know what a Montreal Meat sandwhich is), and a crepe for dinner.

Then I left on the overnight bus, which sadly smelled like vomit and has totally funked up the clothes I was wearing that night. They are now in plastic bag.

On To Philadelphia and Albany

2005-09-05T19:54:00.000-07:00

After a late wake up in Mark's Dorm (due to Mark's trademark Margaritas) I checked my email and found out that the rebuilt PCCII cars were indeed running in Philadelphia.

So I took a shower, and left on the Metro for the bus station.

We had a close to on time departure, but skipped a stop (2nd section) and made it to Philly by 4:30PM. I walked across the street to the Market East station and bought a day pass, then jumped the El and rode out to Girard. I waited and waited and waited for an eastbound car, but finally one came.

It was so great to ride. They are quiet, and smooth, and ride really nice. The rebuild company did a great job on them. Only complaint, they make that humming noise that the Tacoma Skoda cars make but it is much quieter so it isn't really really annoying.

I rode all the way to the East end, then boarded a following car and rode out to the west end. I met up with a couple of railfans on the following car, and we stuck together into the evening, getting dinner together at a Malaysian place in Philly's Downtown.

The operator of the west bound car was super nice and answered lots of questions. She was a Callowhill bus driver that switched to driving streetcars to drive something new, and this was her first day. She was doing pretty well, if not a bit slow. The car ran real nice, except for the malfunctioning retriever.

Girard Street has some pretty seedy moments. One of the hard things to determine for an out of towner is where the dividing line is for a neighborhood between where it is "run down" and where it is "rough."

From what I saw of Philly in my short visit there, it is a city with so much wasted potential. Trolley advocates always say that having a streetcar improves the neighborhood. Not so, especially on parts of rt 10, which has had streetcars for many many years. These neighborhoods were so rundown, with boarded up and abandoned row houses, of beautiful architecture, it was really depressing. There is so much potential to live basically right in the city, with a quick frequent trolley car service to downtown, and yet, the neighborhood is absolutely the pits.

I actually thought that there would be very little redeeming to do in Philly, but instead my short visit left me wanting more. Next time....

That evening, I was to leave Philly on the 11:30PM coach to New York to get to Albany to see my counsin Naomi. There was no line 45 minutes before departure, so I walked across the street to the mall.

When I came back 25 mins before departure, the line was all the way around the building. Sheesh. Where did these folks come from - they weren't waiting on the benches. Needless to say, I didn't get on the single section on that schedule. First bus I've missed due to lack of room. Seven of us missed the coach. Greyhound has two size buses, 47 and 55 passengers. This was a 47.... Lets see .... 47+7=54......

So I waited for the 1:50AM departure and sat around at the station in Philly. It was pretty quiet all night long. The 1:50AM was coming in from St Louis with two sections and a third was added in Philly. I rode the third. We had about a half load. Again, there was no line until 20 minutes before departure, when seemingly the whole city decended on the station. Sheesh.

I arrived NY at 4AM, and promptly went out to experience Times Square (just outside the Port Authority Terminal) in the middle of the night. There were cabbies hollering and cars honkin and buses rolling by and people coming out of movie theatres. It really is the city that never sleeps.

I went into the 24-hr Starbucks and paid the NY premium for a Hot Chocolate. I had more trouble understanding the New York accent on the barista than the southerners I'd just left behind. I looked to see if there were any 4AM show times at the theatres, but there weren't.

Light load on the coach to Albany. Late departure of 6am. However, when we came out of the Lincoln Tunnel across the rvr from NY, we made a little hairpin turn, and the sun was coming up behind the city. It was one of the most spectacular sights I've seen - sunrise over New York.

10 minute late arrival in Albany. I met up with Naomi and her boyfriend Mathieu. It was great to seem them both.

I accompanied Naomi to Vermont to her new college where she will be going to teacher school. Can you say hippie central. I might as well have been on the campus of Evergreen State in Olympia.

But - the trip to Vermont was good and very scenic.

What a great day.

Tomorrow - off to Montreal. We'll see how ugly the accent really is.

Washington DC

2005-09-03T17:03:00.000-07:00

I'm now in Washington, DC (the other Washington) staying with my friend Mark. I had a good day today, walked the entire distance of the Mall, and saw most of the monuments.

Backing up....

I finally left Austin Texas last Tuesday morning. I had to catch a 7AM bus to Dallas, and the driver was among the friendliest I've had so far. The transfer in Dallas was a mess. Dallas' bus terminal is tiny, and could not handle the mass of humanity being routed through that facility due to the closure of the Gulf Coast route. I got my baggage tag, and ran across the street to go the bank. I got back and hopped in line, pretty close to the end.

Two coaches loaded up in front of me, a 55 passenger D4500 and a refurb'd MC-12 (47pax). Both filled to full and left about 30 minutes late. I boarded section number 3, an older MC-12 with a real nice and experienced Memphis based driver. We had 14 passengers on board. When we arrived Texarkana, there was a mob scene, with the previous buses that had come through not having had room for those passengers. There were maybe 35-40 people waiting to board there. Just as we had most of them loaded on our bus, another coach showed up (section number 4), and some passengers transfered over, which made us later.

We arrived Memphis about 10PM. I grabbed my bag and walked the three blocks from the bus terminal to Beale Street. It was a lot smaller than I imagined, but there was plenty going on. First, though, I was hungry, so I went and ordered a plate of Memphis style ribs. They were really good.

Then, I thought, okay, I have two hours until my bus to Atlanta leaves, so I wanted to listen to some live music. None of the stuff playing in the clubs and bars appealed to me, but in the park was a blues group playing for tips. They were really good.

I boarded the bus for Atlanta and we made a mostly on time departure. We arrived Atlanta the next morning.

I spent two days in Atlanta with my uncle Jeff, seeing the highlights of the town, and taking in the usual tourist things like the Coca Cola Tour and the CNN Tour.

I left Atlanta on Thursday night for Savannah Georgia. Savannah is a really neat town with a great historic district. I wandered around for hours and hours and hours. It was hot, so every few blocks there would be a park just in the middle of the street, and so I'd stop and sit and drink some water underneat a big tree covered in Spanish Moss. It was really a great day.

I left Savannah last night on the speed run up to Washington DC. Leaving Savannah, I boarded the 3rd section, an old MC-12. At Fayetteville, a 4th section had to be added to the schedule. At Richmond VA where I had to transfer to a DC bound coach (the coach I was on was headed to NYC), the terminal was so packed (at 5AM) that I couldn't make my way through the crowds to the bathrooms. And it is a very very big terminal. There were so many extra sections that buses were having to circle the terminal for a gate to open up.

Tomorrow I'm going to leave DC about midday and get to Philadelphia to ride the first day of service on the 15-Girard line. Then I will leave Philly in the evening and head towards Albany NY, where my cousin lives (hopefully... I need to let her know I'm coming a day earlier than I thought).

I wanted to go to NYC before going to Albany, but I totally forgot that this is a long holiday weekend and the Hostel is totally booked up. So instead, I'm going to make NYC the last stop of mine in the Northeast.

Stuck

2005-08-29T18:06:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm stuck in Texas. Its hard to get an answer out of Greyhound as to what is running east and what isn't, but it looks like I'm here for at least one more night. I suspect it'll be better for me to catch a late night service from Austin to Dallas and then wait out the developments at that terminal rather than wait it out in Austin, because in order to make it to Atlanta at a reasonable hour Wed, I'd have to get 11.15AM E/B out of Dallas which would mean the 7AM out of Austin, which, as many of you who know me know, I'm not a morning person and would probably sleep through my alarm.

One of the biggest problems with the GLI employees is they are only trained on how to use the computer, and the computer is still routing folks through Mobile, etc. After that route has closed, they throw up their hands and say you'll have to wait it out. It would be nice if one, just one of them, would pull out a paper time table and reroute you in some better direction.

More news as it develops...

Southwest to TEXAS

2005-08-26T21:13:00.000-07:00

Some more notes on my visit to the Southwest.

The Greyhound route between Flagstaff and ABQ was on I-40, which follows route 66 pretty close through these parts. There were lots of historical route 66 signs up in these small towns that we stopped in.

ABQ's downtown main street is the former Route 66. It is pretty much intact with early century buildings - I could just imagine the Joad's rolling through in their jalopy.

Santa Fe - that was an interesting town. The whole place is done up in an adobe stucco architectural style. The only buildings that don't fit real well are some 1950s era city government buildings, go figure. You have to look real close at the buildings to tell whether or not they are new. There are some that appear to be quite old.

The transit system in Santa Fe runs a bunch of 35ft Blue Bird wanna be school buses. The Greyhound station was way out in the sticks and I wasted a good chunk of time trying to figure out which way was north and which bus to take to get into town. Once I figured it out, I'd wasted enough time that the hourly headway worked out for me and I got right into town.

I did a lot of walking through Santa Fe. The town is heavily tourist oriented. Add a couple of signs advertising Tanzanite and it could have been a port of call on an Alaska cruise. There were a lot of stores, however, selling rugs and other Southwestern Style art.

I had a really inexpensive dinner at this little bar right downtown (Santa Fe Cuisine). For less than $10, I had a southwestern salmon tortilla wrap, which was really good, and topped it off with a slice of chocolate mousse cake for desert, that they were basically giving away at its bargain price. I was going to skip the desert, but decided I didn't want to get hungry in the middle of the night and hope that there was something edible at the bus stop in Tucumcari, NM.

The leg of the trip from Santa Fe to Austin was scheduled as the tightest leg, time wise, for me to make my connections. I was starting to get real worried waiting in Santa Fe, as our TNM&O coach was 45 minutes late. I only had 20 to make the connection in ABQ. Lucky for me, the buses were still in ABQ, and were just loading when we arrived. All originating passengers were put on a second section with an MC-12, I had a seat to myself but only got a little sleep.

At 3:40AM, we pulled into Amarillo Texas. 3:40 just happened to be the time at which my southbound TNM&O coach to Dallas was supposed to leave. I walked into the terminal and found out it hadn't even arrived from Denver yet. About 4AM, that coach pulled in, offloaded, and took off to be cleaned. By 5AM, we had boarded, and by 5.10AM, we were on the road (On my first Shiest G4500, I might add).

More about Amarillo...

So I went to sleep on the bus in New Mexico, and everyone talked normally. I woke up and got off the bus in Amarillo, and all of a sudden, everyone was talkin' with a twang. I honestly had no idea where the buses were going that the depot agent was calling for because I couldn't understand him. There were also plenty of cowboy hats in the terminal, and unlike what John Kerry said about George Bush ("all hat and no cattle"), I think these folks had the hat and were going home to see the cattle. I also spotted at least one Mullet. If I spend any more time down in this part of the country on the hound, I'm going to start to pick up a little bit of spanish.

So the bus departed from Amarillo really late, but I wasn't too concerned as there are lots of schedules between Dallas and Austin. The route spent some time on US287 (I think), a two road old US route between Amarillo and Wichita Falls. I woke up a few times (once at sunrise, which was pretty neat), and decided that while I like two lane roads, this wasn't something that I should be awake for, because the whole place was FLAT. FLAT. FLAT. We were in the part of the Great Plains that extends to Texas, and I couldn't see a single foot of elevation gain from where I sat on the bus. So I went back to sleep and slept until Witchita Falls.

In Dallas, I missed my original intended schedule, but caught one that was departing an hour later. We left on time, and ran on time, with one stop in Waco. Austin is HOT HOT HOT. I can't believe two things... 1- People actually live in a place this hot, and 2- that the whole town is green. I saw more brown lawns in Seattle when I left than I've seen here in Austin.

I took the opportunity to walk around the University of Texas campus this evening and saw how enormous it was. It is move in weekend, and saw lots of freshman towing their parents around (or was it helicopter parents towing their children around) Note that University of Texas bicyclists are just as willing to run you over as University of Washington bicyclists. Yikes.

Tomorrow I'm going to spend more time exploring this city. I'm also going to try and get some BBQTexas Brisket before I leave the state. Tomorrow evening I'm leaving for New Orleans. That, however, is subject to change as I don't want to get caught somewhere with a hurricane bearing down. I think hanging out in the hurricane would be fun - but, Greyhound gets really jammed up evacuating folks, and I don't want to spend time in a cattle car of a bus going somewhere I don't even want to go so I may just revise my Southeast Itinerary to avoid the storm.

Santa Fe

2005-08-25T16:52:00.000-07:00

I'm in Santa Fe right now for the day. I leave shortly back to Albequerque to depart for Texas (destination, unknown, either Galveston or Austin).

I left San Diego yesterday on an MC-12 on schedule 7000 that runs between San Diego and Las Vegas. Got off in San Bernadino.

In San Bernadino, my coach showed up about 25 minutes early. This was a thru schedule from Los Angeles to St. Louis. It was an old MC-12 (2261). The driver boarded us, and I asked if he was the second section. Yes, the first section had to stop in Riverside but we got to skip it and that was why he was a head of schedule.

The bus was full and I had to share a seat.

In addition to the bus being full, it was hot. I mean HOT. The air conditioning was working as hard as it possibly could to keep up with the sweltering heat in the Palm Desert along I-10 (temperatures in excess of 100 degrees). It wasn't doing a very good job of it. I was totally ready die in that coach. The upside was, it must have had a recently rebuilt 6V92 engine, because that coach was a rocket, taking off over some hot and high passes.

We arrived Phoenix, the driver change point, 30 minutes ahead of schedule, while the first section was 30 minutes down.

Finally it was starting to cool off as we left Phoenix at 10.45PM (it was still in the 90s in Phoenix that late). We pulled in ontime to Albquerque (ABQ) this morning, where a Border Patrol agent checked everyone's IDs in search of illegals as we got off the coach.

I then boarded a Texas, New Mexico, and Oklahoma schedule to Santa Fe. It was a late model coach, with an honest to god manual transmission. I couldn't believe it. Oh, and the scenery was pretty impressive on the hour drive up here to Santa Fe.

Thats all for now...

San Francisco - Extended Post + San Diego

2005-08-23T19:01:00.000-07:00

The previous post was rather short as I was trying to type as fast as I could before my time ran out at an internet cafe. This time I'm sitting in the computer Lab at San Diego State University (Ride The Green Line) trying to look like a California student, dude.

In addition to riding the F-Line up and down Market and the Embarcadero over and over and over again, I also rode MUNI Metro lines J,K,L, and N (no, I didn't get to squeeze the M in). The L and K I am rather indifferent towards, but I really liked both the J and the N. The great discovery about the N was that it connected with the 6-Parnassus, so I could stand at the corner there at 9th and Judah and take pictures of both at the same time. Also - that neighborhood (the Sunset, I think) is a great neighborhood just to walk around.

One interesting thing I noticed was how smooth the Breda cars are accelerating in manual mode and how jerky they are in computer controlled mode down in the subway. It is as if the computer can't make up its mind. You would think the computer would be more precise, not less. Also interesting is that the buses all have a stop announcement system, but yet the Light Rail cars, which would be a logical starting point for that type of system, are with out it. Oh well, if I heard "Please Hold On" one more time, I think I'd shoot myself in the head.

The very first evening I was there I took the opportunity to ride the 1-California all the way to its terminal at about 7:30PM. That was one rockin and rolling trolley ride. The operator was so fast, that he even had to say "Hold On" on his own a couple of times because he was pulling away from the bus stop even before the computer could spit it out. This operator also must have been the one who invented the term "California Stop," seeing as how he was doing them at every single stop sign on the California line. (That is supposed to be humorous.)

What else did I see...

I got to experience the San Francisco fog. Good grief. On Monday it was mid 70s and sunny downtown and I was comfortable in shorts and a T-shirt. But everytime I took transit to the Western side of town, whether to photograph the 6-Parnassus or expore the Sunset or ride the Judah and walk the beach (great Beach, by the way. If any notices any sand on the floor of a Breda car that was from me emptying my shoe. Sorry - it was driving me nuts.) I felt like I needed to get out my winter wear. By Monday evening the fog had rolled into Market and really masked the oncoming F-Line cars. I didn't see one coming, so I figured I had a few minutes, so I went into the Apple store to check my email, and when I went back out the door, one rolled past. So much for that.

There are some operators on the F that are really, uhhh, characters. I had the opportunity to ride with this younger African-American man at least twice, maybe three times, over the three days I was there. Not only was he loud (its all about loud people), but he was not going to let idiots get away with being idiots. I've never seen an operator jump up out of their seat so fast as when he did to get a bum-type who entered through the back door off the coach. I also liked his use of the exterior speaker to get some cars to back up so the streetcar could clear them where the outbound F goes from median running to along side the sidewalk running on the Embarcadero. First it was "DO NOT BLOCK THE TRACKS DO NOT BLOCK THE TRACKS, then it was BACK THAT VAN UP BACK THAT VAN UP."

I took an evening outbound ride on the Powell Hyde cable car, when there was no one in line down at the Market Terminal. It was about 10PM. What a great ride. The lights of the Golden Gate Bridge in the Fog and the Lighthouse flashing on Alcatraz. All those sheep tourists standing in line all day long for a ride are missing the best part by riding during the day.

The 6-Parnassus is a really interesting line. It goes all over the place, through some incredibly scenic neighborhoods and ends at a terminal that probably has a great view when it is not fogged in. On Monday, Winter Wear was required at 16th and Quintara.

The remaining Flyers mostly seemed to be pretty good runners. A little rattly, but hey, they are rather old and have a ton of miles on them. Lots of them out there to ride though, and they still pulled the hills. I sat near the front to watch the speedo on one to see how quick we were going (on my way back out to 9/Judah to grab something for dinner) but the speedometer was dead.

The real amazing thing about the Flyers is that the operators put up with that drivers station for so long. That accelerator pedal is nearly straight up right, the drivers partition is right there so the seat doesn't go back very far, and the transfer cutter is freaking far away on the dashboard. Some drivers would need a shoehorn to get into that drivers area. Also, its obvious that they weren't designed for the new fareboxes - that aisle up front was very narrow and passengers were squeezing by. A relocation of the grab bars would have allowed the farebox to be tucked more in towards the dashboard area...

Oh - and a 6-Parnassus, N-Judah comparison. I was waiting at about 7.30PM for an inbound 6-Parnassus at 9/Judah, and when a Skoda showed up, I said screw it and walked over to catch a Judah car. The N showed up about a minute later. When I popped out of the subway down on Market, what was inbound, but the same Parnassus coach that I had let go by at 9/Judah.

San Francisco is an absolutely stunning city. I can't believe all the hills. I was getting so confused as to where I was and what valley I was in or what hill I was going over. I walked around the Haight-Ashbury district and the only remnance of hippy-dom that I saw was a woman standing waiting for the bus with her hand across her chest and her eyes closed looking like she was at peace with the bus coming whenever it comes. Or she could have just been off her medication.

I also took the opportunity to walk around the Marina District (note to sign programmers - the 43 Masonic should say "Marina" on the sign, not whatever obscure intersection the bus ends at - sheesh...). Nice Marina, great vantage point on the walkway there. I did see part of the Golden Gate Bridge on Sunday while walking along the walkway. The towers of the bridge were hidden by fog, but the deck was visible. BTW, it was Sunny and 75 degrees where I was standing by the Marina.

Did I mention I rode the 33-Stanyan in both directions to observe that U-turn. That is pretty cool. That route really hits all the tourist hot spots in town (Castro, Haight, Mission, etc). Also, as we were approaching Mission, this girl and her two from out of town friends were on board and heading to go get a burrito. Thinking a burrito sounded good, I got off with them and followed them to where she was taking them to get a burrito. Not wanting to look like a stalker, I explored some until they left, then went in and ordered my burrito.

I rode the 14-Mission out the length of the line to get a handle on that neighborhood. By the way, did I mention that bus is crazy busy? Doesn't help with the New Flyers waiting for the hook littered along the route (saw 2). It is very hard to describe Mission Street. Every block was something new. I got out in the Excelsior District (or are we calling it Upper Mission or Outer Mission or something like that now?) walked around there a bit - now instead of being heavily hispanic it was heavily Asian.

I stayed at the Hostelling International Downtown Hostel, located between Geary and OFarrell on Mason Streets. Very centrally located, though you did have to take a certain route to get to it at night or you'd be walking through a high risk border of the Tenderloin area.

Okay - for the Greyhound people reading this. I left Monday night on the 11PM Express schedule from San Francisco to Los Angeles. It was scheduled to stop in Oakland, San Jose, Coalinga Junction, Hollywood, and then LA. Well, there wasn't much of a crowd at the Transbay Termial, but there was a big one at Oakland, so GLI ran two sections. The first section got a "G", the second section got an MC-12. The Second Section picked up passengers bound for LA from both Oakland and SF - so I was on that one. After leaving Oakland, we went straight for LA, except for the required meal stop at Coalinga Juction, which I don't believe would even exist if it weren't for Greyhound. There were 6 coaches there at the Burger King at 2:30AM. We arrived LA an 80 minutes ahead of schedule because we were able to skip those two stops.

At LA I got right in line for a bus to San Diego and sadly had to ride with Crucero. I think I was in the terminal for 10 minutes, tops, at 6AM. And yes, it is too small, and it is in a skeezy neighborhood, and No, I didn't take Leos advice and stand on the street and get a bus to the Blue Line to ride it out to Long Beach, mainly because I didn't feel like going through Watts. Besides, LA is an awful, awful city and I absolutely see no redeeming qualities in it..

Crucero is Greyhound's spanish language bus company, and they have taken over many of the runs between LA-Tijuana. I've been on buses that were safer than this one IN Mexico. This guy was driving way too fast, following way too close, doing illegal manuevers like Que jumping, etc. Ugh. I couldn't wait to get off.

Anyways - here I am in San Diego. It was cold and overcast this morning, so I bought a day pass and rode the Tijuana trolley line. It goes RIGHT UP TO THE BORDER. Great service. I thought about crossing in to Mexico, but I was pretty tired and didn't feel like I had the energy to deal with that 'scene' at the time.

This afternoon the sun came out. I really like this town. It knows what it is and what it wants to be. So ... When in Rome, do the like the Romans. I took a bus out to the beach and watched the beautiful people sunning themselves, then walked out on this really long pier (think Santa Monica, complete with the mid pier cafe, except not as grungy) and watched a whole gaggle of people try to surf some pretty small waves (and yeah, they did surf those waves).

Okay - tomorrow, off to Santa Fe New Mexico, then on to Texas.

San Francisco Days 1, 2 & 3

2005-08-21T19:44:00.000-07:00

I left Seattle on the 6PM express to Portland. Equipment was DL3 6927. We left Seattle 40 minutes late but were only 15 down arriving Portland, even with the traffic. Bus was full.

In Portland a huge line was forming at the gate for schedule 1423, the bus I was to take to Sacramento. I was afraid that I should have boarded earlier in Seattle to get a reboard pass - but oh well... They did the reboards, then they let everyone on who was coming from Spokane, because that bus broke down en route.

Finally, when I got up to the front of the line, I saw they had two sections, both to Sacramento. I boarded the second section, MC12 3020. I had a seat to myself. We left 40 minutes late due to the operator getting called in late - PDX had a different operator prep and board the coach. However, we did not have to stop in Roseburg or Salem, so...

Trip was pretty good except that my driver for some reason decided it would be a good idea to turn on the dome lights every time we stopped, even at 3AM. Ugh. So much for getting some solid sleep.

At Redding, drivers switched.

Arrived Sacromento on time.

Left Sacromento way late because schedule 1347 had two sections, first couldn't handle most of the line, second was 90 minutes late. Many of my fellow passengers from the overnight bus were trying to make a connection in Oakland to bus through San Jose and down the coast and didn't make it.

San Francisco has been great. I think I could ride the F line every day, all day long.

I've been all over the place walking and taking various buses. Seen some pretty bizarre stuff. For instance, I had a burrito out on Mission this afternoon, and this bum-type walked into the place, saw a basket of tortilla chips sitting on a table that had been left behind with the trash (napkins, etc) piled on top, and so he cleared the junk off, took the chips, and walked out the door. Okay....

Its been interesting to observe the long lines at the cable car terminals and the big layovers those crews are taking. I rode the Powell-Hyde car (boarded at North Point, one stop up from the terminal). I squeezed onto the boards and rode all the way to the other end on a packed car at 11PM.

Did I mention that whatever that was that Mark Twain said about blah blah cold winter summer in San Francisco is entirely true? I went from sweating to death in Sacramento in the middle of the day to not having taken my fleece jacket off the entire time I've been in the City.

Okay - here's hoping to some Vintage cars out on the F tomorrow. Lots of Artic Diesels the last two days - if I wanted to ride one of those I would just go out on the Geary Line.

One more day in San Francisco (Monday), then off to San Diego on the overnight bus. Later.

Test

2005-08-19T00:34:00.000-07:00

Test post.